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Unmasking Success: Cortney McDermott's Authentic Journey! · Create The Best Me

• 0:01
  Carmen Hecox: Hello there fearless midlife trailblazers.
• 0:04
  Carmen Hecox: Welcome to Create The Best Me.
• 0:06
  Carmen Hecox: If you are new here, I'm so glad you made it here.
• 0:09
  Carmen Hecox: If you're a returning listener, welcome back to the one and only place where we encourage and empower women in midlife to pursue their dreams and live life to the fullest.
• 0:21
  Carmen Hecox: I'm Carmen Hecox, your host and personal development coach.
• 0:25
  Carmen Hecox: Today we have a truly special guest with us.
• 0:29
  Carmen Hecox: She is a bestselling author, a TEDx speaker, and a mind and body expert with a wealth of knowledge from London School of Economics.
• 0:40
  Carmen Hecox: Her insights and expertise have grace platforms like Inc., Woman's Health, Success, and even Fox News.
• 0:50
  Carmen Hecox: From her executive role at Vanity Fair Corporations, to her vice presidency at Sustainability Partners, Inc., and now as an entrepreneur collaborating with giants like Google, Nike, and Virgin Unite.
• 1:07
  Carmen Hecox: She has been a beacon of inspiration for many.
• 1:11
  Carmen Hecox: Fluent in four languages, splitting her time between the beautiful landscape of Italy and the bustling life of the U.S.
• 1:22
  Carmen Hecox: She's here to share her wisdom on being authentic and introducing us to her new book including"Change Starts Within You" and her latest amazing release,"Give Yourself Permission." Ladies and some gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the incredible Cortney McDermott.
• 1:46
  Carmen Hecox: Cortney McDermott, welcome to Create The Best Me.
• 1:50
  Carmen Hecox: I am beyond thrilled to have you on the show.
• 1:54
  Cortney McDermott: Thank you, Carmen.
• 1:55
  Cortney McDermott: I'm super excited to be here.
• 1:57
  Carmen Hecox: So tell us a little bit about, who's Cortney?
• 2:04
  Cortney McDermott: I often get this question, who's Cortney?
• 2:05
  Cortney McDermott: And it's such a big question because it has so many possible answers and I almost always joke that I've lived so many lifetimes in this lifetime and So I've had a lot of different and varied experiences and I think people come into my work from those different entry points.
• 2:23
  Cortney McDermott: I was an executive in a corporate 500, I've been an entrepreneur for for years.
• 2:30
  Cortney McDermott: I yeah, you know I've worn a lot of different hats throughout my career.
• 2:33
  Cortney McDermott: I'm mostly right now speaking and writing and I'm really fortunate because I get to be on stages from Necker Island to Bogota, Colombia and everywhere in between.
• 2:45
  Cortney McDermott: So it's not just in between, but also on the other side.
• 2:47
  Cortney McDermott: So right now it's really my form, that I call Cortney is focused on the speaking and the writing and just put out the second book and just really excited about where it's been going.
• 2:59
  Carmen Hecox: Tell me, way back when you went to college, what did you envision your life being like?
• 3:07
  Cortney McDermott: Not anything like what it is, I'll tell you that much.
• 3:11
  Cortney McDermott: Oh gosh, when I went to college, I was actually quite young when I started college and I was really young when I finished as well and then I went to do my postgraduate work in London.
• 3:22
  Cortney McDermott: So at that time in my life, I was 20 when I moved to London for that.
• 3:27
  Cortney McDermott: I envisioned a completely different life for myself.
• 3:29
  Cortney McDermott: I thought I would be a lawyer.
• 3:31
  Cortney McDermott: I thought I would maybe get into politics, but all of that was what had been scripted for me, and it was definitely not what I was really interested in.
• 3:39
  Cortney McDermott: And anyway, in the meantime, while I was studying over in London, I met my soon to then be husband.
• 3:47
  Cortney McDermott: We were married for close to 18 years and then I, yeah then my whole life changed because then I moved to Italy with him.
• 3:55
  Cortney McDermott: First I moved to France.
• 3:56
  Cortney McDermott: I lived in Toulouse and then I moved to Italy and so I've, yeah, I've been living in Europe and different countries in Europe over the last twenty four years, I guess it's been, I lose count, but more or less.
• 4:11
  Cortney McDermott: Yeah.
• 4:12
  Carmen Hecox: Tell us about your journey to working for a top fortune 500 corporate job.
• 4:18
  Cortney McDermott: Oh, that is a funny one.
• 4:20
  Cortney McDermott: So when I first went looking for corporate positions, I was open to anything, I wanted an really anything.
• 4:28
  Cortney McDermott: And I remember going to one of my first interviews and telling the woman who was interviewing me, and I told her in Italian because this was in Italy, I said I'll wash your toilets.
• 4:40
  Cortney McDermott: And I still remember how she looked back at me and she said, we already have someone for that position, but with a very serious face.
• 4:46
  Cortney McDermott: And so she turned me down.
• 4:49
  Cortney McDermott: But then later on, word spread about me and in the little corporate circles that were around, they weren't so little, but comparatively speaking, maybe in word spread about my work.
• 4:59
  Cortney McDermott: And then she ended up actually asking me to come back and and work for her and I ended up saying no, but thank you.
• 5:06
  Cortney McDermott: And so that's, so I started.
• 5:08
  Cortney McDermott: At a very, like I said, entry level position within, I think it was about four years.
• 5:14
  Cortney McDermott: I had become part of the executive management team and then, yeah, and then I was living that life for a while.
• 5:20
  Cortney McDermott: I write a little bit about that in my first book.
• 5:22
  Cortney McDermott: And then transitioned into the life I'm leading now.
• 5:26
  Cortney McDermott: Yeah.
• 5:28
  Carmen Hecox: So you're this big corporate executive.
• 5:30
  Carmen Hecox: You are living the dream because everybody, or at least most women, it's so difficult for us to achieve what you achieved and you are there.
• 5:41
  Carmen Hecox: You're in the seat where all the, decisions are being made and you're in that corporate jet and you're flying to these amazing places.
• 5:50
  Carmen Hecox: What does it feel like deep down inside you?
• 5:52
  Carmen Hecox: What does Cortney feel like?
• 5:54
  Carmen Hecox: Even though she's checked all those boxes, she is a powerhouse.
• 5:59
  Cortney McDermott: I talk about this a lot in my first book because at that point in my life, I had collected all the gold stars and I had done all the things that society says you should do to live successfully and to be successful, both personally and professionally, I felt like I had, to your point, checked all the boxes and what I call miserably successful and I think a lot of people get there.
• 6:24
  Cortney McDermott: They keep chasing externalities.
• 6:27
  Cortney McDermott: We're taught that as long as we have this thing or as soon as we have this thing, and it could be the title, the relationship, the house.
• 6:34
  Cortney McDermott: Whatever it is, the Jimmy Choo heels, once we have that thing, then we're going to be happy.
• 6:39
  Cortney McDermott: And what I kept discovering across the board categorically, which is that it's every corner, that success was just supposed to be around.
• 6:50
  Cortney McDermott: It was an illusion, it was a disillusionment.
• 6:53
  Cortney McDermott: And so I started to catch on and I think after a bit you start to catch on to this lie, really?
• 6:59
  Cortney McDermott: And I had multiple, what I call cold shower moments.
• 7:04
  Cortney McDermott: Where I was just discovering that I was absolutely miserable and that I didn't know even how that life got scripted or who scripted it and why I was running out that script.
• 7:14
  Cortney McDermott: So, that was what started me on my own track to finding my way to.
• 7:21
  Cortney McDermott: And it's funny because lots of times I'll give presentations around the world and I'll show a picture of me.
• 7:28
  Cortney McDermott: I usually don't use slides anymore, but I'll show a picture of me from 10 years ago.
• 7:32
  Cortney McDermott: And almost the entire audience can't even believe that it's the same human because I've just changed so much.
• 7:38
  Cortney McDermott: But most of the time what I hear back is, wow, you look so much younger, you look so much, with so much more vitality.
• 7:44
  Cortney McDermott: And and I often say I've had no work done.
• 7:47
  Cortney McDermott: This is just consciousness.
• 7:48
  Cortney McDermott: This is when your consciousness evolves, your form changes as a consequence.
• 7:53
  Cortney McDermott: And yeah, that's how I felt and that's how I feel now.
• 7:57
  Carmen Hecox: And the book that your first book was"Change Starts Within You." Do you feel that perhaps what you realized at that point when you're this top executive, this person that everybody, every woman wants to be.
• 8:13
  Carmen Hecox: Do you feel that maybe you came to the realization that you weren't being authentic to who your heart wanted you to be?
• 8:22
  Cortney McDermott: That's a really, that's a really good question.
• 8:25
  Cortney McDermott: I don't think I had the awareness at that point to know that I wasn't being authentic.
• 8:31
  Cortney McDermott: But I did keep receiving these signals, these internal signals that were saying,"This isn't it,""Something's off." And a good way to describe that would be authenticity or really when we allow ourselves to bask in our true nature instead of putting on a show all the time, right?
• 8:51
  Cortney McDermott: I did, I think I was acutely aware and I've become more and more so of the masks we wear, right?
• 9:01
  Cortney McDermott: And then at that point, I was wearing the mask as a way of being accepted, as a way of being acknowledged, as a way of whatever it was, whatever sort of motivations, external motivations were driving that.
• 9:16
  Cortney McDermott: And then making the transition to what I now understand about this mask which is the character that we all go around playing, is that it's just a character.
• 9:25
  Cortney McDermott: And I'm very aware that I, it's just a character that I get to play, and I enjoy playing the character, and the character changes, and it gets to go different places and do different things, and I'm not, I don't, I know now that I'm not the character, I just get to play that character the formless gets to play through that form, and so at that time, I was, I think, I, so heavily entrenched in the persona.
• 9:48
  Cortney McDermott: It's funny we use the word person right to talk about ourselves We say I'm this kind of person or I'm that kind of person and persona person comes from mask.
• 9:59
  Cortney McDermott: It's meaning it would they were the masks that they wore in ancient Greek theater And I think that's such a perfect reminder that we're not these characters we're all walking around as.
• 10:11
  Cortney McDermott: That those are simply a way of experiencing what it is that we get to experience in this dimension without losing our connection to that source energy that is pumping our hearts.
• 10:25
  Cortney McDermott: And sending electrical impulses down to our legs to have us take one step in front of another and all that jazzy stuff.
• 10:31
  Carmen Hecox: But I think that as a woman and a mom and a wife, we become experts at wearing masks because we have to play different roles.
• 10:43
  Carmen Hecox: Is that something that you experienced as well?
• 10:46
  Cortney McDermott: Oh, absolutely.
• 10:47
  Cortney McDermott: And I think the sort of higher up you go in this game that we're all playing, The more intricate the mask becomes, and the harder it becomes to take the mask off, to dare to take the mask off.
• 11:01
  Cortney McDermott: And one of the things that I'll often say, cause I talk about the character also as like this costume we're all walking around with, right?
• 11:08
  Cortney McDermott: And if I take my costume off, I'm going to make other people very uncomfortable.
• 11:14
  Cortney McDermott: And I have made other people very uncomfortable just by taking it off, and revealing these other potentials.
• 11:22
  Cortney McDermott: And I've had at this point, such truly remarkable experiences in doing that, that I'm no longer interested in keeping the mask for the sake of making everyone else feel comfortable.
• 11:35
  Cortney McDermott: Because we wear the masks.
• 11:36
  Cortney McDermott: We don the masks and the costumes as if, basically as a way to help us feel safe.
• 11:41
  Cortney McDermott: Because we don't feel safe.
• 11:43
  Cortney McDermott: And most people walk around feeling very unsafe.
• 11:45
  Cortney McDermott: And that's why they, put this mask on.
• 11:46
  Cortney McDermott: If everything goes according to whatever their paradigm of the situation they're in ideally, supposedly looks like for them, then it's okay.
• 11:55
  Cortney McDermott: And the minute it doesn't, then they're thrown off.
• 11:58
  Cortney McDermott: And then there's this whole spiral.
• 12:00
  Cortney McDermott: And I talk about this a lot especially in my second book, how to keep yourself out of those spirals.
• 12:05
  Cortney McDermott: But what's interesting is that if we will just have the presence to get with it.
• 12:13
  Cortney McDermott: Get with just notice oh wow, I was projecting myself in a certain way.
• 12:17
  Cortney McDermott: Just notice it.
• 12:19
  Cortney McDermott: We start to slowly shed that.
• 12:21
  Cortney McDermott: And it, it does feel a little scary at first because it challenges a lot of the constructs that we have both in our minds and in our society.
• 12:29
  Cortney McDermott: So definitely, especially for women, this is a, this is no small feat at all.
• 12:36
  Carmen Hecox: Tell me about the steps that you took to begin to feel authentic, begin to own being authentic or explore your authenticity.
• 12:47
  Cortney McDermott: I think one of the biggest things that I did is I started to get back in my body.
• 12:53
  Cortney McDermott: So as women, especially when we're running all these things and we're and we're mothering and we're doing all these things, we can get very detached from our physicality.
• 13:04
  Cortney McDermott: Our, the awareness of our physiology, the awareness of our needs the intelligence that lives in this very complex organism that we call a body.
• 13:12
  Cortney McDermott: And so one of the very first things that I actually stumbled across was a practice called Qoya.
• 13:19
  Cortney McDermott: And when I did it that it was in particular one practice It was called shaking.
• 13:25
  Cortney McDermott: And the woman Rochelle who was the founder of this when she was teaching it She was suggesting that we shake one hand.
• 13:31
  Cortney McDermott: And whoever's listening you might want to do it just you know you shake one hand vigorously for the time that it takes for me to tell the story and you'll see what I'm talking about.
• 13:39
  Cortney McDermott: And so she suggested we shake this hand and we keep the other one stagnant And while she told us this story of a gazelle being chased through the wetlands by a tiger, but the gazelle gets away.
• 13:51
  Cortney McDermott: However, the gazelle does not go to therapy for the next 10 years about this time that a tiger chased her through the wetlands.
• 13:57
  Cortney McDermott: What the gazelle does is she shakes.
• 14:00
  Cortney McDermott: through every part of her body, releasing the tension, releasing the fear, and she goes back to being a gazelle.
• 14:06
  Cortney McDermott: When I heard that story, and when I started to shake through my body, at that time I actually couldn't shake certain parts of my body.
• 14:13
  Cortney McDermott: I couldn't shake my legs very quickly.
• 14:16
  Cortney McDermott: It was like they were, there was a lot of stuck energy in there.
• 14:19
  Cortney McDermott: I couldn't shake through I just didn't have that freedom of, a physicality.
• 14:24
  Cortney McDermott: And after I started doing this for a while, I started to notice that things were shifting.
• 14:28
  Cortney McDermott: Now then of course after that I started to study the science behind it not through that tradition but, through scientific journals and things.
• 14:35
  Cortney McDermott: And understanding what was happening that these neuropeptides are actually stuck in the different organs of my body.
• 14:41
  Cortney McDermott: You know again lots of times we think something is up here it's in our mind when in reality, it's stuck stagnant energy in our bodies.
• 14:48
  Cortney McDermott: And I think that was one of the huge keys for me.
• 14:51
  Cortney McDermott: In fact, I know that was one of the huge keys for me to releasing a lot of the tension that I had been holding.
• 14:58
  Cortney McDermott: Another huge key for me was relaxing.
• 15:02
  Cortney McDermott: And that's really hard to do when you're wound up because we don't even know we're so wound up.
• 15:07
  Cortney McDermott: I was on another interview recently and we were joking, the host and I, about in the past when someone would tell us to relax and we would say, I'm relaxed, obviously I'm relaxed, right?
• 15:16
  Cortney McDermott: But we're not relaxed, right?
• 15:18
  Cortney McDermott: And that's okay.
• 15:19
  Cortney McDermott: And sometimes it's really hard to relax around things like we don't want to, everything in our system wants to do the opposite.
• 15:25
  Cortney McDermott: But the more we learn to really just relax.
• 15:28
  Cortney McDermott: Just relax.
• 15:29
  Cortney McDermott: It's very simple.
• 15:30
  Cortney McDermott: And it's, it, sometimes we discount simplicity, but as Da Vinci said, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
• 15:37
  Cortney McDermott: If you get this and you really get it and you really use it throughout your day, all the time, over and over, you will have massive shifts.
• 15:44
  Cortney McDermott: And what I mean by that, literally relax your body, relax your shoulders, relax your breathing.
• 15:49
  Cortney McDermott: Say, yeah, it's somehow my mind is doing this whole story around this, winding this whole narrative, but I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna relax.
• 15:56
  Cortney McDermott: And one of the quickest ways to do that, there are a couple quick ways that I love.
• 16:00
  Cortney McDermott: One is yawning, which is considered the best kept secret of neuroscience.
• 16:04
  Cortney McDermott: It's ridiculous that we're taught not to yawn because it has so many benefits.
• 16:08
  Cortney McDermott: I could go on and on about the benefits of yawning.
• 16:11
  Cortney McDermott: And even if you yawn together with someone you're releasing oxytocin as I'm sure, you've heard.
• 16:16
  Cortney McDermott: Cause it's been popularized in the literature over the last few years.
• 16:20
  Cortney McDermott: That's the feel good hormone.
• 16:21
  Cortney McDermott: That's the cuddle hormone, it's been called.
• 16:23
  Cortney McDermott: It's what kind of bonds us to other people.
• 16:26
  Cortney McDermott: So yawning is a very powerful way to just relax.
• 16:29
  Cortney McDermott: Because what happens is your nervous system gets an immediate signal because basically when you yawn, you're sending a signal to your vagus nerve that you're okay, that you're safe.
• 16:37
  Cortney McDermott: But yawning is also energizing.
• 16:39
  Cortney McDermott: So this is why animals yawn before they go into an attack, for example.
• 16:43
  Cortney McDermott: Yawning has, like I said, numerous benefits, but it's one way to just say, oh, I'm going to relax, okay, trigger the yawn response.
• 16:50
  Cortney McDermott: Another way that I personally really like but it might sound morbid to some people, but it's just consider your mortality, right?
• 16:59
  Cortney McDermott: I don't know, I was talking to someone earlier today and she spent 10 minutes talking about this woman who did this thing who, you know, and she's a very bright woman.
• 17:07
  Cortney McDermott: I was like, wow, she's really bright.
• 17:08
  Cortney McDermott: But she spent 10 minutes talking about this, this whole saga.
• 17:13
  Cortney McDermott: And I said to her, I said, if you knew that you were going to die tomorrow, would you have spent any time today talking about that experience with this woman?
• 17:23
  Cortney McDermott: And her immediate response was no, I wouldn't have spent a second doing that.
• 17:28
  Cortney McDermott: And I said to her well, what would you have spent your time doing?
• 17:31
  Cortney McDermott: And that's when things get really interesting and again helps us to relax.
• 17:34
  Cortney McDermott: So yeah, those are a few things.
• 17:37
  Carmen Hecox: Great I think if, you asked me, if I knew that my time was up tomorrow, I think that a lot of us might spend more time and this sounds bad, but I think a lot of us might spend more time worrying about what we can do to make that not happen.
• 17:53
  Carmen Hecox: As opposed to accepting it and saying, oh my time's up tomorrow.
• 17:57
  Cortney McDermott: That is an excellent point, Carmen.
• 17:59
  Cortney McDermott: Because when I first started doing exercises like this, which was probably about, I want to say it really truly sat down and did this exercise.
• 18:08
  Cortney McDermott: I think it was probably about eight years ago, maybe now.
• 18:12
  Cortney McDermott: And there were so many things that I said I would do that I hadn't done.
• 18:18
  Cortney McDermott: And I wrote out this whole long list and I actually started doing those things.
• 18:24
  Cortney McDermott: I actually, one of those things on there was that, yeah, I have four brothers and sisters.
• 18:27
  Cortney McDermott: There are five of us.
• 18:28
  Cortney McDermott: We were born in under seven years, and one of the things on the list was I'm gonna call all my brothers and sisters and I'm gonna tell them everything I love about them and what make them so magical.
• 18:38
  Cortney McDermott: And I did that over the course of the next couple of days.
• 18:40
  Cortney McDermott: I did a lot of things.
• 18:42
  Cortney McDermott: And then you get to this point, if you really live your life with that kind of awareness, you get to this point that you say, I would do precisely what I'm doing right now, whatever it is.
• 18:52
  Cortney McDermott: And that's also part of the relaxing.
• 18:54
  Cortney McDermott: Because most of the time you'll notice people aren't where they are.
• 18:59
  Cortney McDermott: They're not where their feet are.
• 19:00
  Cortney McDermott: I don't remember who said that, but I I've heard that before.
• 19:03
  Cortney McDermott: That we're not where our feet are.
• 19:06
  Cortney McDermott: And there's this incessant, idea that we have to be somewhere else.
• 19:11
  Cortney McDermott: But the more you actually, and I use the word practice very lightly because it's a being, it's a, it's an expression, it's an awareness.
• 19:19
  Cortney McDermott: The more you become aware that everything is really fantastic in a way.
• 19:25
  Cortney McDermott: And you just allow yourself to marvel at it and relax around it.
• 19:29
  Cortney McDermott: And be aware that this form is going to dissolve.
• 19:33
  Cortney McDermott: Or we should say your form the form of your consciousness the form your consciousness takes or the formlessness it takes is going to change.
• 19:41
  Cortney McDermott: That's inevitable, right?
• 19:43
  Cortney McDermott: I once heard someone joking that no one gets through life alive.
• 19:46
  Cortney McDermott: And that's the thing the more you're aware of it, I think the more then you are precisely and perfectly happy wherever you are.
• 19:53
  Carmen Hecox: Do you think it's because many of us are chasing what we think we should be doing and putting the things that are really important to our heart and our soul.
• 20:04
  Carmen Hecox: On, like an on pause, I'll get to this later, but I need to chase this because this is the moment to chase this.
• 20:13
  Carmen Hecox: so our priorities are off balance.
• 20:16
  Cortney McDermott: Yeah, I think that's a that's an accurate assessment and we're just not listening.
• 20:23
  Cortney McDermott: No, we're not listening to the truth in us.
• 20:27
  Cortney McDermott: So we override it all the time, and we do.
• 20:31
  Cortney McDermott: We do that for the sake of expediency.
• 20:33
  Cortney McDermott: We do that for the sake of acknowledgement.
• 20:36
  Cortney McDermott: We do that for the sake of acclaim.
• 20:38
  Cortney McDermott: We do that for all sorts of things and all of those things again, the thing is at a certain point, you realize it's not working.
• 20:47
  Cortney McDermott: The chasing is not working.
• 20:49
  Cortney McDermott: And when you realize that, it's almost like game's over.
• 20:54
  Cortney McDermott: And you got to a place where you can, I don't even want to say play a new game, because you're not playing the game anymore.
• 21:00
  Cortney McDermott: You're really just, as some of the great spiritual traditions have taught, you're just aware that you're aware, and that's it.
• 21:06
  Cortney McDermott: And I do believe that we live in a society that is still entrenched in that idea that, you have to be someone in order to be someone, you have to do these things and you have to own these things or whatever that looks like.
• 21:24
  Cortney McDermott: And I do believe that is shifting now.
• 21:27
  Cortney McDermott: I feel more and more people that I talk to are becoming aware that that doesn't work.
• 21:33
  Cortney McDermott: That they're not satisfied, that they got the things and they did the things, but it's never enough.
• 21:38
  Cortney McDermott: Just like I was saying with that first book in realizing, okay if this isn't it, what is it?
• 21:45
  Cortney McDermott: And it is that deep listening.
• 21:47
  Cortney McDermott: It's that connection with that part of you that does know it's the awareness that allows you to be intrinsically motivated rather than externally motivated by flashy things and titles and all that.
• 22:00
  Carmen Hecox: Do you think that women, that it's more complicated for women, especially as they're entering midlife because we have so many things that are in our head?
• 22:09
  Carmen Hecox: Do you think it's more difficult for us to become aware of who we want to be and live a more authentic life?
• 22:18
  Cortney McDermott: I definitely see that very often that women struggle more to give themselves permission.
• 22:27
  Cortney McDermott: That is actually why I wrote this second book, Give Yourself Permission.
• 22:31
  Cortney McDermott: Because I see lots of times with men that they give themselves that permission and society gives them that permission.
• 22:39
  Cortney McDermott: Because a woman, a mother, a wife, a colleague, a female colleague, is supposed to show up in certain ways according to the scripts and the narratives that we have and that the major part of us live by.
• 22:56
  Cortney McDermott: But, or the majority of us, I think I just, maggiore parte, I just translated directly I do that sometimes, the majority of us live by.
• 23:04
  Cortney McDermott: And that right there is something that we want to free ourselves from.
• 23:10
  Cortney McDermott: And my belief more and more, my contention is that our job is to free ourselves.
• 23:19
  Cortney McDermott: Especially if we have children, especially if we have children.
• 23:22
  Cortney McDermott: To free ourselves from that narrative, to allow ourselves to fully express the magnitude and the majesty of this one expression.
• 23:34
  Cortney McDermott: I'm saying one expression, but it has multiple expressions, obviously, but this, what this form came to, to express.
• 23:42
  Cortney McDermott: And when we do that, when we give ourselves permission to do that, which is definitely, as I've said, and as I've seen, it tends to be much more difficult for women, for sure.
• 23:51
  Cortney McDermott: But when we do it it's extraordinary what is on the other side.
• 23:56
  Carmen Hecox: Do you think it's more difficult for women because we've worked so hard to even get noticed and we fear that giving ourselves permission to do what our heart is telling us to do may be criticized by society or by the women that we think that we are role models to.
• 24:19
  Cortney McDermott: Yeah, it's, there's so many reasons, but at the root of all those reasons is fear.
• 24:27
  Cortney McDermott: And it's a fear of, will I be accepted?
• 24:32
  Cortney McDermott: Will I be loved?
• 24:33
  Cortney McDermott: If I start taking this mask off.
• 24:35
  Cortney McDermott: If I don't do this thing that society says I need to do to be quote unquote beautiful or quote unquote, whatever it is, because there's so many of them.
• 24:45
  Cortney McDermott: And we have to really untangle ourselves from that.
• 24:48
  Cortney McDermott: Like I have a lot of hair, and I have to sometimes put a lot of conditioner and really go through there because it can get really, it can get really tangled up.
• 24:56
  Cortney McDermott: And that's what this is like.
• 24:58
  Cortney McDermott: It's like you sometimes you have to go through strand by strand and say, whoa this needs some untangling.
• 25:04
  Cortney McDermott: I need to allow myself, and this again, here we come back to that relaxing thing.
• 25:08
  Cortney McDermott: And it's the easiest thing in the sense that it's very simple.
• 25:12
  Cortney McDermott: Sorry, I should say it's simple, but it's not easy when we, cause we're so hyper trained in the other direction.
• 25:18
  Cortney McDermott: So it takes a little bit of time, but again, once we really dedicate ourselves to that kind of freedom then, what happens is, even though, to your point we've felt all these pressures from society, our children, our mates, our friends, whatever it is what starts to happen is in that liberation of ourselves, we are liberating countless others.
• 25:42
  Cortney McDermott: We're giving them permission to go around without whatever it is that, that we thought we needed to be liked, to be perceived in a certain way.
• 25:52
  Cortney McDermott: And it is scary, it's scary I've been through lots of times where I've been so afraid of taking that next step into my freedom.
• 26:00
  Cortney McDermott: Because I thought well, you know what will it look like.
• 26:04
  Cortney McDermott: And what will they think.
• 26:04
  Cortney McDermott: And the crazy thing was every time I gave it up I got it.
• 26:09
  Cortney McDermott: That's wild to me! Every time I gave up how I wanted to be perceived, because I had thought it had to go this way, and I gave it up for the sake of my freedom, every single time I've done that, on the other side I have met with the most extraordinary results in the sense that I couldn't have gotten there had I've been trying to.
• 26:32
  Cortney McDermott: I couldn't have gotten to those states.
• 26:34
  Cortney McDermott: I couldn't have gotten to the, even the perception, the collective perception, which blows me away sometimes because it's now I really don't care about that.
• 26:41
  Cortney McDermott: And now that I truly don't care about it, it is coming.
• 26:45
  Cortney McDermott: And I think that's the mystery and the, also that the myth that we have to buy our way out of or, just get our way out of in whatever form.
• 26:53
  Cortney McDermott: And I say buy our way out because sometimes, freedom is costly and it can be alienating and people might not get you at first until, as I said, until they do.
• 27:04
  Cortney McDermott: Yeah.
• 27:04
  Carmen Hecox: Yeah, well it's almost like this was the road you were supposed to follow.
• 27:08
  Carmen Hecox: And whether it happened by accident or it happened on purpose, it was the road.
• 27:15
  Carmen Hecox: There is no way of escaping it.
• 27:18
  Cortney McDermott: Yes, and if you think about it in that idea of a road.
• 27:22
  Cortney McDermott: It's okay, so you went all this way and now the question is, do you continue to go to where that road is meant to lead you?
• 27:33
  Cortney McDermott: Because the donning of the masks, et cetera, all these things, they're meant to lead you to your liberation.
• 27:39
  Cortney McDermott: Do you go, do you persist past that point or do you stay right there or do you turn back?
• 27:46
  Cortney McDermott: And that's the place that you get, that you've got to continually decide I'm going to keep moving forward.
• 27:52
  Cortney McDermott: I'm going to grow into more of me.
• 27:54
  Cortney McDermott: And it is, it's an adventurous place.
• 27:56
  Cortney McDermott: And adventure always holds mystery and magic and fear.
• 28:00
  Cortney McDermott: But then when you get past it, you're like, whoa, this is, look at all these landscapes, look at all these new landscapes that get to play around in.
• 28:07
  Cortney McDermott: It's really exciting stuff.
• 28:09
  Carmen Hecox: You've written your first book and now you have your second book called Give Yourself Permission.
• 28:15
  Carmen Hecox: Do you feel that these books come from your learning as you learn to become authentic, the authentic Cortney?
• 28:25
  Cortney McDermott: Again, I'm not sure that I would describe it as authenticity, especially because I feel like that word gets thrown around a lot.
• 28:36
  Cortney McDermott: I hear it a lot in corporate speak, especially this idea of, being authentic and all this.
• 28:40
  Cortney McDermott: And I feel while it's a beautiful word, sometimes it gets a bit convoluted.
• 28:45
  Cortney McDermott: For me personally, what I've discovered is I live in a kind of deep listening for the most part now.
• 28:52
  Cortney McDermott: So I'm really listening to that, what I call that four source energy or God or the part of me that knows, and it doesn't even know that it knows.
• 29:04
  Cortney McDermott: It's just, it's this it's this kind of zero point field.
• 29:08
  Cortney McDermott: There's so many different ways that I might try to describe it, but as I have gotten more familiar with it, I bask in it more and that's this knowingness.
• 29:18
  Cortney McDermott: I don't know that it's about this form, because when I think about, when I think about the person the form the persona that I'm going around with I present myself in this way, et cetera.
• 29:29
  Cortney McDermott: But I know, as I was saying earlier, that's not the full truth of that's in service to this force that I'm talking about.
• 29:39
  Cortney McDermott: And the more I have really relaxed into that awareness, the more I would say my life has been pretty miraculous.
• 29:47
  Cortney McDermott: And that doesn't mean that I don't have my struggles and it doesn't mean that I don't have difficult patches.
• 29:52
  Cortney McDermott: And it doesn't mean I don't cry just like everybody else and rail sometimes with myself, like everybody else.
• 29:57
  Cortney McDermott: But what it means is that more and more I can enjoy all of it because I'm aware that I'm watching it and that this force is working through this form.
• 30:12
  Cortney McDermott: The formless is working through this form and expressing through this form.
• 30:15
  Cortney McDermott: And that I would say is the major discovery that I've made over the last years and increasingly more it's compounding at present in ways that are, yeah, that kind of blow me away sometimes.
• 30:27
  Cortney McDermott: Um-hum
• 30:28
  Carmen Hecox: How would you, if someone has never read any of your books, should they jump to Give Yourself Permission first?
• 30:37
  Carmen Hecox: Or should they start off with change starts within you?
• 30:40
  Cortney McDermott: Maybe one of the titles calls to you.
• 30:42
  Cortney McDermott: Maybe one of the titles is more appealing.
• 30:45
  Cortney McDermott: I know the first one was this very sort of simple approach at that point in my life from, I knew that I wanted to start freeing myself.
• 30:53
  Cortney McDermott: That I was living this false existence that wasn't very satisfying for me.
• 30:57
  Cortney McDermott: And it basically tracks in very simple, you could read the whole thing probably in an hour and, I don't know, a little over an hour maybe.
• 31:06
  Cortney McDermott: And it tracks that.
• 31:06
  Cortney McDermott: And I think that's really useful for someone, especially if they if they feel like, okay, I need, I just need some things that are going to spark me out of maybe some of these states that I'm in that aren't feeling so great.
• 31:20
  Cortney McDermott: I think that is a really nice starting point for that.
• 31:24
  Cortney McDermott: The second book Give Yourself Permission, which is also a fairly quick read.
• 31:28
  Cortney McDermott: I mean you could read it within a few hours but that one goes much deeper into the science.
• 31:34
  Cortney McDermott: So for years now, I've been studying the science to try to understand also and deconstruct how I've had some of the experiences that I've had.
• 31:42
  Cortney McDermott: Because some of them are, even I would struggle to believe them in past versions of me.
• 31:48
  Cortney McDermott: I would struggle to believe that it was possible.
• 31:49
  Cortney McDermott: Yet, many people have seen these changes in me and they've seen them in themselves after working with me.
• 31:56
  Cortney McDermott: So now I'm at a point where I'm comfortable enough to share, not just from the perspective of a lot of the teachings that have been around for millennia, but from the perspective of how much science has caught up over the last hundred years or so.
• 32:09
  Cortney McDermott: And so that book I think is a really beautiful combination for who wants to dig deeper.
• 32:14
  Cortney McDermott: But regardless, I feel like any book that you come to with the intention of becoming more of this true self that we're talking about.
• 32:23
  Cortney McDermott: If you visit it and you revisit it and you revisit it and you revisit it, eventually it will become your own.
• 32:29
  Cortney McDermott: So my biggest counsel for anyone is whether it's this book or the first book or someone else's book that you've come across where they were talking, they said something that was really resonant with you go there because it's actually your own consciousness calling you to remember what you know, but you just forgot you knew.
• 32:48
  Carmen Hecox: Self awareness.
• 32:50
  Carmen Hecox: What kind of legacy would you like to leave behind?
• 32:55
  Cortney McDermott: Ooh, that's a tough one.
• 32:57
  Cortney McDermott: There's that beautiful poem that I think it was Emerson, that if even one life has breathed easier because I have lived, that is to have succeeded, and that's the, I think the last line of the poem.
• 33:10
  Cortney McDermott: I think the legacy that I want to leave and that I have left so far and that I am leaving is to remind others, to remind them of that light, of that force energy coursing through them how it wants to.
• 33:23
  Cortney McDermott: How it wants to light them up.
• 33:24
  Cortney McDermott: How they can live in joy and everyone from my daughter to everyone else I meet.
• 33:31
  Cortney McDermott: My intention is remember your potential, remember your power, live in it, grow into it the most you can.
• 33:38
  Cortney McDermott: This is, this is your shot.
• 33:39
  Cortney McDermott: And you get it every day and that's the beautiful thing too.
• 33:42
  Cortney McDermott: It's okay, yesterday didn't go so great.
• 33:44
  Cortney McDermott: Today can be different, and it's, that, that is your opportunity.
• 33:49
  Cortney McDermott: And it's a really beautiful, glorious one to wake up to every day.
• 33:53
  Cortney McDermott: So yeah.
• 33:54
  Carmen Hecox: Yes, it is.
• 33:55
  Carmen Hecox: What are you working on right now?
• 33:57
  Carmen Hecox: Do you have any future projects you're working on that we're going to see in the future?
• 34:03
  Cortney McDermott: Yeah, I will actually right now I'm thinking about getting a retreat center here in Italy.
• 34:08
  Cortney McDermott: So that's a possible thing that might happen.
• 34:10
  Cortney McDermott: Because a lot of people want to do 1 on 1 work with me, and I hardly do any 1 on 1 work.
• 34:15
  Cortney McDermott: So that it could be an interesting collaborative project with some other folks who are interested.
• 34:20
  Cortney McDermott: So that might be happening.
• 34:21
  Cortney McDermott: Ah, I, strangely enough, even though I said after my first book that I was never going to write a second book, now after my second book, I'm thinking, oh, gosh, I'm going to be writing a lot more books so I see that in the pipeline.
• 34:33
  Cortney McDermott: And definitely a lot more stage speaking.
• 34:35
  Cortney McDermott: So up until now.
• 34:36
  Cortney McDermott: I've been on many stages, but I have had more private engagements for top corporations and universities and things.
• 34:45
  Cortney McDermott: And now over the last year I've had the opportunity to start to extend that a lot into also the entrepreneurial community.
• 34:53
  Cortney McDermott: And so I'm excited to do more of that, more of the stage work, cause that's my favorite.
• 34:57
  Cortney McDermott: My favorite is to talk to a huge crowd of people.
• 35:00
  Cortney McDermott: That's my favorite thing to do.
• 35:01
  Carmen Hecox: And I will say, you are amazing on the stage.
• 35:05
  Cortney McDermott: Oh,
• 35:05
  Carmen Hecox: I've seen several of your TED Talk videos and there's so much energy that comes out of you.
• 35:11
  Carmen Hecox: I can tell that what you're saying truly is from the heart.
• 35:17
  Cortney McDermott: thank you.
• 35:17
  Cortney McDermott: I feel that with you too.
• 35:18
  Cortney McDermott: You have, I was telling you before the call, it's a mutual admiration society.
• 35:22
  Cortney McDermott: You're doing a lot of really great work.
• 35:24
  Cortney McDermott: And it's, yeah, it's, I do, we do feel that, right?
• 35:27
  Cortney McDermott: We feel that when someone's in their truth, we feel it.
• 35:30
  Cortney McDermott: And even if they're getting close to their truth, we can feel that their intention, we can feel the intention behind it.
• 35:37
  Cortney McDermott: And that's huge.
• 35:38
  Cortney McDermott: And I think that's a great reminder for all of us that, when we're living in that intention, Maybe it's not the physical manifestation of that hasn't caught up entirely, but it will, it will.
• 35:48
  Cortney McDermott: So it's it's exciting.
• 35:51
  Carmen Hecox: So if you do the retreats in Italy, cause I do know I've listened to a couple of your interviews, would that be in English, Italian, Spanish?
• 36:00
  Carmen Hecox: What language would that be?
• 36:04
  Cortney McDermott: I prefer teaching in English.
• 36:07
  Cortney McDermott: I do sometimes do some some teachings in other languages if it happens.
• 36:11
  Cortney McDermott: I've been on, interviews and things in other languages, but my preferred language to teach in is my mother tongue.
• 36:19
  Cortney McDermott: Who knows?
• 36:19
  Cortney McDermott: I I also love live translation.
• 36:21
  Cortney McDermott: I was giving a huge talk recently, and I had a really marvelous live translator.
• 36:27
  Cortney McDermott: She was a neuroscientist and so she just like really got it and we had a conversation before and she asked me a question that when as soon as she asked me the question about some of my content, I was like, she's golden.
• 36:38
  Cortney McDermott: And it was such a remarkable experience.
• 36:40
  Cortney McDermott: It was the first time that I had given a talk that size with such a large crowd in live translation and it was really cool.
• 36:47
  Cortney McDermott: So maybe some more of those too.
• 36:50
  Cortney McDermott: Yeah.
• 36:52
  Cortney McDermott: great
• 36:52
  Carmen Hecox: Where can people learn more about you, Cortney?
• 36:56
  Cortney McDermott: My website is, so my, Cortney is without a U, so if you look for Cortney with a U, you're going to find somebody else.
• 37:05
  Cortney McDermott: But if you look for Cortney, with just the O, and I often will shorten it to Cort, C O R T.
• 37:14
  Cortney McDermott: So the short URL for.
• 37:16
  Cortney McDermott: My website is cortinc.com, but it is also CortneyMcDermott.com.
• 37:22
  Cortney McDermott: And then any handles definitely active on Instagram.
• 37:26
  Cortney McDermott: I like Instagram.
• 37:27
  Cortney McDermott: I love when people connect with me there, share their stories about the book.
• 37:31
  Cortney McDermott: I always check in and read those cause I really love hearing about people's experiences with these books.
• 37:37
  Cortney McDermott: Some of the things have been really astounding.
• 37:39
  Cortney McDermott: The second book's been out for, I think it's about two months now and it has, I want to say just the Amazon reviews, so I'm not counting like good reads and all of that.
• 37:49
  Cortney McDermott: It's had, I think over a hundred five star reviews with some really amazing stories and like pictures.
• 37:55
  Cortney McDermott: And those are the reviews, the written reviews.
• 37:57
  Cortney McDermott: So there's many more of people who didn't leave comments, but we've had, we've had something like a little over close to a hundred comments already in just a couple months and the ways people have experienced some transformations with this book.
• 38:09
  Cortney McDermott: So.
• 38:09
  Cortney McDermott: I love I do, I try to read as many of those on Amazon as I can.
• 38:13
  Cortney McDermott: I check them out on Instagram.
• 38:14
  Cortney McDermott: I'm also on LinkedIn.
• 38:16
  Cortney McDermott: So yeah, I, and and I know we're in other places too.
• 38:19
  Cortney McDermott: I'm maybe just less active, but I have a YouTube channel.
• 38:22
  Cortney McDermott: But I it's just less active because there's only so many bases you can cover.
• 38:25
  Cortney McDermott: And I'm not hugely active there, but I do, my, my team sends me messages if I get direct things about the book because I always want to hear about that.
• 38:33
  Cortney McDermott: So when people do leave comments, my team will say go in and check, such and such left a comment about the book or the podcast and I'll always go in and look and respond if I can respond personally.
• 38:44
  Cortney McDermott: So yeah, I'm in those places.
• 38:45
  Carmen Hecox: And what's the name of your podcast?
• 38:47
  Cortney McDermott: Oh, no, I don't have a podcast.
• 38:48
  Cortney McDermott: No.
• 38:49
  Cortney McDermott: I'm just on a lot of podcasts.
• 38:50
  Cortney McDermott: So we share the links, when I, when they come out, whoever is doing the podcast, we share the link in my, I don't know what it's called, but the profile area, they share the link there.
• 39:01
  Cortney McDermott: And so you can always find the latest podcasts that I've been on there.
• 39:04
  Cortney McDermott: This one, I'm sure will be up there soon, hopefully, or whenever you publish it and let us know.
• 39:09
  Cortney McDermott: So yeah, there's always a lot of fresh content in that form.
• 39:12
  Cortney McDermott: I love podcasts actually.
• 39:14
  Cortney McDermott: So it's one of my favorite ways to talk with people.
• 39:16
  Cortney McDermott: And but yeah, you can find all that on those channels.
• 39:20
  Carmen Hecox: Thank you so much.
• 39:21
  Carmen Hecox: This has been a dream come true and a privilege to have on the show.
• 39:25
  Cortney McDermott: Thank you.
• 39:26
  Cortney McDermott: It's been a privilege to be with you too.
• 39:27
  Cortney McDermott: I'm super excited to, to share more together.
• 39:30
  Cortney McDermott: Thanks.
• 39:32
  Cortney McDermott: What an enlightening conversation with Cortney today.
• 39:36
  Cortney McDermott: Her candid insights into the paradox of being miserably successful and the transformative journey to self awareness are truly inspiring.
• 39:46
  Cortney McDermott: It's fascinating to hear how, by connecting with her true self, not only did she find inner peace, but many have remarked on her seemingly ageless appearance.
• 39:59
  Cortney McDermott: Cortney's emphasis on tapping into our inner power source and truly understanding what it means to relax is a wake up call for many of us.
• 40:09
  Cortney McDermott: The practice of Qoya and the profound story behind it offers a fresh perspective on a genuine relaxation and self awareness.
• 40:18
  Cortney McDermott: Her new book,"Give Yourself Permission," is a beacon for women everywhere.
• 40:23
  Cortney McDermott: It's not just about shedding the mask society expects us to wear, but truly embracing and celebrating our authentic self.
• 40:33
  Cortney McDermott: Now! For more of Cortney and a transcript of today's episode, head on over to createthebestme.com/ep042.
• 40:45
  Cortney McDermott: If today's conversation resonated with you, I encourage you to subscribe to stay in the loop and don't forget to join us next week As we'll explore the enriching topic of fulfillment.
• 40:57
  Cortney McDermott: It's a subject close to my heart and I can't wait to dive into it with you.
• 41:02
  Cortney McDermott: Until then, keep dreaming big, take care of yourself, and remember you are beautiful, strong, and capable of creating the best version of yourself.
• 41:13
  Cortney McDermott: Thank you for watching.
• 41:14
  Cortney McDermott: Catch you next week.
• 41:16
  Cortney McDermott: Bye for now.