Unlock Confidence Lead with Intuition | Ep 5

About the GuestCortney McDermott (spelled without a U) is an award-winning author, speaker, and celebrity coach whose work in self-development and business strategy has been featured in Inc., Women’s Health, NBC, The Huffington Post, Mind Body Green, and Success. Her talks on human potential have been delivered at TEDx, Mind Valley, Oxford Saïd Business School, and Richard Branson’s private island. She holds a master’s in science from the London School of Economics and blends academic rigor with real-world experience to help individuals and organizations reach their highest potential. She is the author of Change Starts Within You (2017) and Give Yourself Permission, with a third book forthcoming. Find her at Courtinc.com or as Court Inc. on YouTube.Episode SummaryIn this intellectually charged and deeply practical conversation, Jen Aks sits down with award-winning author and celebrity coach Cortney McDermott for a tour de force exploration of inner intelligence — what it is, why it is undeniably real, and how to finally access it. Cortney shares her own cold shower moments: weeping in the car after dropping her daughter at school, sipping espresso on a corporate jet to Brussels and feeling completely hollow, and ultimately leaving an 18-year marriage and a Vanity Fair Corporation executive role to follow something she could only call intelligence. She unpacks the neuroscience of brainwave frequencies, the 50,000–70,000 thought impulses we have daily, why the heart has its own neurocircuitry, and why the single most powerful thing any of us can do right now is lie down. This episode will make you smarter about your body, braver about your instincts, and calmer about your life.What You’ll Learn• How Cortney went from Vanity Fair Corporation executive to author and coach — and what the cold shower moments looked like that preceded it• The difference between trying to be somebody vs. that inner recognition that you already are something — and how to tell them apart• The story of creating a brand-new position at the North Face from an entry-level assistant role — just by following what she felt in her cells• What bliscipline means and why getting devoted to inner intelligence requires a specific kind of discipline• Why there are 50,000–70,000 thought impulses per day — and why ‘just think differently’ is the most arduous work anyone can undertake• What voluntary vs. involuntary means in the context of the body, the mind, and the universe — and why doubting yourself is as absurd as doubting the earth’s rotation• The four main brainwave frequencies and what it actually means to move from beta into alpha — in your body, not just in theory• Why lying down is not lazy — it’s the single most important leadership practice according to science• The vagus nerve, the safety signal, and why horizontal is healing• Why every organ in your body is a mind — including your heart, whose electromagnetic field is hundreds of times more powerful than your brain• The gazelle, the tiger, and the lost art of shaking — how animals release trauma that humans have been taught to suppress• Why yawning and laughing are two of the greatest neuroscience secrets we were conditioned to hide• What true vulnerability actually is — and why it has nothing to do with sharing secretsKey Concepts Introduced• Inner Intelligence / The II — Cortney’s term for the universal consciousness guiding all life; interchangeable with God, spirit, or creator• Bliscipline — a term borrowed from Joseph Campbell; the dedicated devotion required to tune into and follow inner intelligence• High Beta vs. Alpha Brainwave States — the difference between first-gear spinning and the creative, safe, solution-oriented state your body enters when horizontal• The Relaxation Principle — Cortney’s