128: The Neuroscience Backed Path To Fulfillment w/ Cortney McDermott

Most high achievers won't admit this out loud — but they've felt it. You hit the goal. You got the title. You built the life. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, something still felt off.

That's not failure. That's what Cortney McDermott calls being miserably successful. And it's more common at the top than anyone is talking about.

Cortney is an award-winning author, TEDx speaker, and executive coach whose work has been featured in Inc., NBC, the Huffington Post, and Success Magazine. She's spoken on human potential at Oxford Business School, Mindvalley, and Necker Island. And she's a former C-suite executive who blew up everything she built — and rebuilt it from the inside out.

In this episode, Sean and Cortney go deep on why chasing external success will never get you where you actually want to go, what it means to shift from push energy to pull energy, and why the most powerful thing you can do as a leader is learn to think — really think — on purpose.

What you'll learn:

The difference between push energy and pull energy — and why the highest performers you admire aren't grinding harder, they're operating from a completely different source. Why your identity might be the very thing blocking your next level, and how letting the ego drive is quietly costing you. The real distinction between contentment and complacency — and why you don't have to choose between peace and ambition. Why 95% of people will never learn to actually direct their thoughts — and what it costs them in leadership, relationships, and results. How to stop focusing on what you don't want and start directing your energy toward what's actually possible.

Quotable: "It moves from push to pull energy. There's no making it happen anymore. There is a revealing — an opening to potentials." — Cortney McDermott

Connect with Cortney and explore her work at cortneymcdermott.com. If this episode hit home, share it with a leader in your life who's been chasing the next thing a little too hard.

 
 00:51 — Meet Cortney McDermott
 01:51 — What Is "Miserably Successful"?
 02:56 — Why So Many High Achievers Feel This Way
 03:58 — The Paradox: Still Striving, But From a Different Place
 06:28 — Sean's Story: Green Beret to Texting for Tuna Money
 08:20 — The Warning Signs You're on the Wrong Path
 08:55 — Identity, Ego & The Character You're Playing
 12:22 — Letting Go of Control & Learning to Trust
 13:04 — The Science of Trust: 99.9% of Life Runs Without You
 16:40 — Contentment vs. Complacency
 18:04 — Growth Mindset, Love vs. Fear
 21:13 — Going Deeper: What's Really Driving You?
 23:11 — Why 95% of People Never Truly Think
 28:32 — Learning to Think Is the Only Use of Free Will
 30:00 — Why We Avoid Our Own Thoughts
 30:37 — The 4 Ways of Getting Ice Cream (Brainwave Frequencies Explained)
 34:10 — End of Part One 

Connect with Cortney McDermott: 

🌐 Website 💼 LinkedIn 📸 Instagram

No Limit Leadership is the go-to podcast for growth-minded executives, middle managers, and team leaders who want more than surface-level leadership advice. Hosted by executive coach and former Special Forces commander Sean Patton, this show dives deep into modern leadership, self-leadership, and the real-world strategies that build high-performing teams. Whether you're focused on leadership development, building a coaching culture, improving leadership communication, or strengthening team accountability, each episode equips you with actionable insights to unlock leadership potential across your organization. From designing onboarding systems that retain talent to asking better questions that drive clarity and impact, No Limit Leadership helps you lead yourself first so you can lead others better. If you're ready to create a culture of ownership, resilience, and results, this leadership podcast is for you.

Transcript

Sean Patton (00:00)
You've achieved everything you were supposed to. And something still feels off. That's not a personal failure. That's the trap of force-driven success. And today's guest has spent her career helping high performers break out of it. Today I'm joined by Courtney McDermott, award-winning author, TEDx speaker, and executive coach who has presented at Oxford Business School, Mind Valley, and Nectar Island. She's a former C-suite executive who now helps leaders stop chasing success from fear.

and start leading from alignment. Courtney doesn't just talk about this. She's lived it, blew it up, and rebuilt it from the inside out. You're going to want to take notes on this one. Let's get into it.

Sean Patton (00:51)
Welcome to the no limit leadership podcast. I am your host Sean Patton. And today I'm joined by Courtney McDermott. She's an award winning author, speaker, and executive coach whose work bridges self development and business strategy. She has been featured in Inc women's health, NBC, the Huffington post, mind, body green, and success.

and has spoken on human potential at TEDx, Mindvalley, Oxford Business School, and Necker Island. She's a former C-suite executive that now helps high performers shift from force-driven success to aligned internally sourced leadership. Courtney, thanks for being on today.

Cortney McDermott (01:20)
Hey, Sean, I'm glad to be here, thanks.

Sean Patton (01:22)
we got connected through, Dr. Anna Marie, who was on the podcast and her and I had, a really fun time. And she was like, all right, that was awesome. You got to talk to my friend Courtney and we connected and here we are. So I'm excited that we made it work.

Cortney McDermott (01:35)
Yeah, she's fantastic. I love Anna Marie. Yeah.

Sean Patton (01:38)
Well, that's awesome. Well, you know, one of the phrases that I've heard you use, that I thought was very interesting that I want to jump into is the phrase miserably successful. What does that look like? And what are you talking about? When you said someone is miserably successful.

Cortney McDermott (01:51)
Yeah, so when I wrote my first book, Change Starts Within You, it was about getting to that place that everyone says, once you get there, you'll be a success and you'll feel great. And I kept getting there. I kept getting to those places. And I had all the titles and the accolades. And I was jet setting all over the world. And I was a mother. I was a wife. I was a marathon runner. I had the Jimmy shoes. But I joked that I was miserably successful. And it wasn't only in jest.

it was this idea that success kind of perennially lies behind some corner. And as soon as you get this next thing, you'll be OK. And what I kept realizing over and over again is that that just wasn't the case and that chasing externalities were never going to lead to my happiness. so that, like I said, inspired the first book and the TEDx talk. And then from there kind of dove deeper and deeper into the reinvention process and basically like what happens when you blow up the Phoenix, you know.

and what can you be on the other side and what potentials await. So yeah, that's where Miserably Successful came from.

Sean Patton (02:56)
It seems to be, you know, from, obviously you wrote a book and then you speak on it and, and, and your people sort of rallied around that. Why do you think that that feeling of misery miserably successful seems to be such a common experience?

Cortney McDermott (03:09)
Well, once again, because we're chasing something outside of us that's only found within. So, and it's the ultimate sort of paradox and joke, if you will. It's just this idea that...

that yeah, that your happiness, your fulfillment, your peace lie outside of you. And coming home is a little bit like Dorothy when she realizes she had the way all along, right? And you can click your ruby slippers inside yourself and realize actually peace exists right here, right now, regardless of whatever's happening outside. And when you start to awaken to that, then the things that you are chasing, they actually kind of come to you and you don't even care that much

anymore whether they do or they don't. And so it's a beautiful, I think it's a beautiful kind of searching, searching, searching until you come back to where you started.

Sean Patton (03:58)
What's so interesting there, I think this is, I think that we're talking about what on its surface can almost seem like a paradox because it's actually something I've been thinking about a lot and very recently around this.

know, if everything was our happiness or film is all within side of us, right? We're not chasing any external yet you as an example, okay, you do that, but you still have this drive to go do rightly. You're still giving keynotes and you're still traveling and you're still like, and so from externally, someone looks at you like, it looks like you're still striving. Like it doesn't

Cortney McDermott (04:29)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (04:29)
look like there's a difference. So can you explain to someone who's trying to make sense of this? Like what that difference is?

Cortney McDermott (04:35)
Sean, this is such a fantastic question. Thank you. I've given, think, 300 interviews. I've never had this question and it's really on the mark.

So the difference is that your action, the action that you take comes from an inspired or an internally driven place. And those actions, they feel almost as if they're acting you. So it's like...

It's like all of sudden it moves from push to pull energy. So before when you were quote unquote making it happen, that's gone. There's no making it happen. There is a revealing or an opening to potentials. There's an awakening that happens inside of you and that then guides all of your behaviors and your actions. Does that make sense?

Sean Patton (05:58)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. And this...

Cortney McDermott (05:58)
So it's like internally and intrinsically

motivated versus externally motivated. So you're not seeking success. You're not doing something with the intention of, well, this get me to be seen or be liked or be whatever. You're already feeling that you see you like you connect with yourself and the actions then arise very spontaneously of themselves. And you will feel a marked difference in the two.

Yeah.

Sean Patton (06:28)
no, feel like you're, there's been a reason I want to show this conversation because I feel like what you're describing is, has been my journey maybe over and just recently, maybe the last like two years, honestly. but I feel like it's a journey that has taken me 10 years. I

was successful before that for me in the military, right. And, and every position I had, was highest, highest ranked promoted above peers all the way up until, you know, got two commands of green beret teams left and, and then started my first company. I made a couple first early decisions, financially, just because I didn't know any better that I couldn't overcome know how, how hard I worked.

And, and ran myself into the ground, you know, like to the hospital, the panic attacks, like, you know, I told people all the time, spent nearly two years of my young adult life in combat and not a single panic attack. And I had two, my first three years as an entrepreneur. but through the work you're talking about, and I just want to give you that perspective. I'm going come back to, know, breaking this down a bit more.

When I look back and over years of looking back of that and working with coaches and getting into consciousness and getting all these other things and meditating on it, was like, what I realized was really happening there was that my identity was so tied to being seen a certain way, being seen as a winner. Right. I went from like, you know,

Captain America, Kent West Point grad, Green Beret super now a business owner. my gosh. my gosh. To then texting my girlfriend now wife at the time girlfriend like, can you then know me 20 bucks so I can buy canned tuna for dinner? Like the fall, the fall and this identity and this question of like what I was so scared of was having been seen as a failure.

Cortney McDermott (08:02)
Absolutely.

Sean Patton (08:03)
And that was,

it was so, all of that striving, what I realized was actually rooted in fear.

Cortney McDermott (08:08)
Mm hmm. 100%. Yes. Beautiful story and I'm glad you brought this back. Yeah.

Sean Patton (08:12)
And so that's what I'm hearing from you as a bit of a shift. Yeah. A bit of a shift

on like, where is this actually coming from? And so

Cortney McDermott (08:19)
Mm.

Sean Patton (08:20)
what does that, you know, cause what I'm hoping is that through your story and this conversation is someone can sort of create some identification with what we're talking about and then decide to make a shift before.

hitting the bottom and having to kind come unglued. And so if someone's identifying, like, kind of feel like that striver, like I'm always thinking ahead or actually before we get right, actually, what are the indicators? Like, how does someone know the leading indicators that maybe they're on that path, but they just haven't hit it yet.

Cortney McDermott (08:47)
Well, let's let's circle back for just a moment also to identity, right? And this is sort of where we get tripped up. And I think

Sean Patton (08:55)
Okay.

Cortney McDermott (08:55)
if you if you just answer kind of the surface level of that question that you just asked us, how do you know? It's kind of a it's sort of a gnarly.

Again, it's that push energy and you'll, everyone feels it. I've seen that people tend to feel it in different places in their body, but it's like a, it's almost like a holding pattern or a stuckness or a general sense of sort of something's off. And we don't, we normally don't pay attention to that. We sort of override it in the sake of you gotta keep going and you have to persist and persistence is great. But where we're missing the mark,

And I love that way of phrasing actually to sin means to miss the mark. So where we're missing the mark, where we're getting it wrong is really the order of things. And I talk about this a lot because once I started to understand that the identity structure that I had created, right? So the ego is great.

Like people bash the ego all the time, but I always say, love my ego. I love the ego. The ego is what puts me in a Fortune 50, forget 500, Fortune 50 room and has me present in the way that I do. That's the ego. It's the lowercase I. It's the identity you've created.

And what's interesting about that is we all kind of create these identities for ourselves. And I talk about a lot about this in my work because once you start to realize that you're not that you get to play that part, you know, I was in South Carolina this past week and I was walking down the street and there was some something written on the street of like actors are the only honest ones amongst us or something like they're they're at least admitting that they're playing a character. And I thought about that.

because it was so beautiful, such a beautiful representation of how I feel about characters and all of that. Like the character in and of itself is fun. It's the part you get to play, but there's a deeper truth within you. And when you hit in and connect with that deeper truth and you let that lead the way. And I want to give this a very, very concrete example of what I'm talking about in terms of if someone's there and they're asking, well, what does that look like in practice?

I remember distinctly the first times that I was presenting on stage where I said, use me. I was talking to that intelligence, that inner intelligence that's coursing through all of us, the ones we're alluding to with different names and different ways. And I was saying, take over. Like, I want to take this stage with all of the preparation and experience and acumen that I bring in service to this greater intelligence.

And what happened to me that day that I took that stage was a complete flip of paradigms. Because before that, like you said, I was in this performance mode. Like I had to perform. I had to be the best. I had to talk in a certain way. My speech had to be structured in certain, and those were fine. It was okay, but it was never really hitting. And it wasn't until that moment that I said, use me, and I gave the character, I put the character in the backseat.

I said, yes, character, I love you, you're phenomenal, but you're going in the backseat and this inner intelligence is gonna guide us on this stage today. I actually, it took four hours for them to get me off that stage because they didn't want me to leave that stage. Like Q &A extended to four hours and I didn't even feel it. I didn't feel it in any part of me of working or efforting. I just felt really pulled and really guided and everything that I had prepared up until then,

went on these tracks of service for that inner intelligence. Does that make sense?

Sean Patton (12:22)
Mm hmm. So

Cortney McDermott (12:23)
Yeah, yeah.

Sean Patton (12:24)
yes, this was a an intention. Yeah. A I'm hearing there is there's like a trust and a loosening of, of grip of like need need to be in control that

Cortney McDermott (12:33)
Hmm.

Sean Patton (12:34)
is sort of a necessary component of this. in Novus Global, the firm I'm a part of, a lot of times we talk about these four survival needs and one of them being need to feel in control. Like we make these decisions because we get scared if we don't feel like we're in control. And what I'm hearing from you is that there's a need or requirement to let go and trust if we are to move out of this sort of fear.

based identity drive ego.

Cortney McDermott (13:04)
Yes, and if you think about it, it's pretty funny that we feel like we can't trust. And of course trust sits at the foundation of our survival. So I will often say that 99.9999, I don't even know how long that number goes on, percent of what is occurring both within and outside of you, you have to trust in order for your survival.

We are that 99.9999 whatever percent we are incomplete in total trust or faith that it's going to keep doing its thing. So I'll give you an example. You have trillions of biochemical reactions occurring in your body every second, right? Every single one of them is coordinated to every other one. Now you don't stop in the middle of your day and say, oh my God, are all of those chemical reactions doing what they need to do in order for me to keep operating the way I'm operating?

You don't stop and really consider or work out a five-year plan for the electrical impulses that are shooting down from your brain into your body saying, take a step, take another step. You're trusting in that process. In the same way, you don't go to bed at night and wonder, or I mean, at least I hope.

you don't wondering if like, is the sun gonna come up, right? And it's not even the sun coming up. It's like, is the earth gonna continue to rotate on its axis? And am I gonna see the sun again? You know, is it going to burst into whatever happens with stars, you know, and I'm not gonna experience it again tomorrow. You don't go to bed questioning those things, right?

we take this infinitesimal part that's left over this 0.0000 again, I don't know how long that goes on 1 % that's left over and we say, not this. I can't trust this. I've got to control this. If I don't control this, then everything's going to run amok. And that's where we get in a lot of trouble. It's like Shakespeare saying therein lies the crux, right? You've taken this tiny bit and you said for me to feel safe, all of this has to go in this way.

And actually that's what I think, and Anthony DiMello does a great job of this in his work. He talks about the Buddha and when he's talking about the Four Noble Truths and he says, really, he's not talking about desire. He's talking about your attachment to the desire. In other words, like I said, if it doesn't go this way, then I can't be okay. And that's the trap. That's the ultimate trap. And when you actually start to rest, you...

I'm talking actually not just figuratively, but literally into the fact that not only can you trust, but you must trust if you want to live a life that feels pulled rather than pushed, the way we're talking about, then you start to open up to so many more potentials that were unavailable before. You literally couldn't see them because you were blocking through this tension of so-called control. The reality is,

We don't control anything, right? So literally the, I'll tell you though, there is one thing that I have found that we can control, but it's the hardest thing in the world to control. And it is probably the only thing that we should use our free will to try to control. And that is the thought, that is thinking. And very few people actually do think. And if you want, we can talk about that. And.

It's one of the things that actually if you took control back for that one thing, which again is the only thing that as far as I can tell that you can use your free will on because you can't control what other people are going to do. You can't control what the environment's going to do. I can't control the fact that the sun isn't shining right now. Even though I'm in sunny California at the moment, I can't control those things, right?

But the one thing I can is actually learning to think. And it's the one thing that most people will never ever undergo because it's the most arduous thing in the world to undergo. So like I said, we can talk more about that, but yeah, that's my two cents on it.

Sean Patton (16:40)
I want to get to that and I want to stay on, just for a second, this, I, draw that we have these achievers strivers. Like we want to achieve. the, the next thing, we get in the next thing, we're going to be happy and or fulfilled, right? Like the striving and, the push in my own head, right. When I was doing some work with a coach on time, when,

She was very much going down the, you you're got to, you have to be enough. You have to be okay with just you, nothing else, just loving you the way you are right now. And I'm like, what I can't wrap, what I can't get to is

If I sit here while the world burns and on things go and all my family's destroyed or like whatever happens, like there's people I can help and I sit here, but I'm like, well, I'm good. Like I'm not okay living that way. Like to me, like I have such a hard time living into that. And so, and, recently I actually, the CEO of, of our firm, Novus global was on stage with Arthur Brooks and, and Annali Stanley. And he brought up two words that I think are sort of getting that hard.

of this and so I'm wondering what your take is and and if this is a side quest that doesn't make sense in your paradigm like that's fine you can tell me that too but he brought up you know the difference between contentment and complacency

And that sort of struck the chord for me there about like, maybe I was creating sort of a false paradigm I saw these, these, these two ways of being as mutually exclusive and maybe they aren't. And so what's your take on it?

Cortney McDermott (18:04)
Yeah, so there's so much wrapped up in there. First, growth. Let's look at the

Sean Patton (18:08)
Yeah

Cortney McDermott (18:08)
growth mindset thing, okay? Because there are at least three different things that I would say, let's go there. The growth mindset is beautiful. It's a natural evolutionary impulse that's coursing through you that's saying there's more. I can be more, I can do more, I can have more. This in and of itself is not the issue. This in and of itself is the way you're designed.

So first we have to understand that. Like growth is beautiful. It's a fabulous part of, in fact, I had a boss once, up on his, behind his desk, he had a big sign, said, if you don't grow, you die, right? So if we, it's a little bit like in the Bible, without a vision, the people perish. Having a vision is beautiful. Having a vision to help others is beautiful. At the same time, what we must recognize is the only way to help someone is to truly be the thing you're talking about.

And this is again, where a lot of people miss the mark is they say, I'm going to go, I'm going to help a bunch of people and I'm going to figure, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to do this thing. But in, their, their representation, like representation or representation of the thing is, is, is missing, is lacking. It's like Tolstoy saying every, everyone thinks of changing the world. No one thinks of changing himself. So the growth doesn't happen again from something outside of you. doesn't happen because you went and did this thing. It happens because you are the thing.

So when you step into the truth of I am peace, then everywhere you go, you bring peace. When you step into the truth, I am enthusiasm, everywhere you go, you bring enthusiasm. Enthusiasm in theos, comes from in God, in spirit. Are you operating from spirit or are you operating from fear and lack? If you're operating from fear and lack, you will be in a place of complacency. If you're operating from spirit, you will be, generally speaking, in a place of contentment, of like,

I am this and I wish to bring and share and extend this as much as I can. Who it touches is up to them. Who comes to the party, that's up to them. But I'm throwing the party. And that doesn't mean I don't care and it doesn't mean that the things going around don't matter. They absolutely do matter. But the point is,

How can you actually affect them? And you can't affect them unless you change on that very fundamental level, unless you shift your consciousness and your awareness to direct it toward what you want instead of what you don't. Now, a lot of people that are out there advocating for different things, they're directing their attention to what they don't want. They're directing their attention to more violence. They're directing their attention to more diversion. They're directing their attention to things that don't serve the greater purpose. When instead you direct your attention to peace,

when you direct it to love, when you direct it to kindness, those are what emanate from you. And those frequencies are, it's like Tesla, right? The great inventor saying that if you want to understand the nature of reality, study frequency and vibration. You are a set of frequency and vibration. How are you emanating? What are you emanating? What are you choosing? And again, that comes back to your own conscious choice of how you're directing your will, how you're directing your thought. Does that make sense?

Sean Patton (20:58)
Yeah, and if you're cool with it, I want to go even deeper. Is that cool? All right, let's do it. Let's do it. I love it. All right, perfect.

Cortney McDermott (21:01)
I'm all about it, my friend. I'm as deep as they come, man. I was born this way. I was born in an existential crisis.

I was born in, you know, already thinking about this stuff. Okay, go on. Let the game go on.

Sean Patton (21:13)
All right, beautiful. Cool. So I want to call it one thing and then then maybe take us on a little deeper. So what I hear there, which actually is a bit of a new, obviously new framing, but it's a new, thought you just gave me I say that like basically

two things that can drive us as human beings. And I believe it's like either love or fear, like at the core of whatever you're, whatever you're being driven by, like to me, it either goes to one or the other lover fear. And when I love it, you just pointed out what came to me was that when we're in the fear state, what we're actually looking at is what we don't want. And, know, it's just like what they say when you drive the car, like when you first learned to drive a car, it's like, don't look at the car. You don't want to hit driving the other way. Cause you're going to turn into the car because that's what you're focused on, you know? And so.

When you're in that, when you are being driven by fear, your focus is on what you don't want to, then makes that thing happen more likely to happen. And when you're in a love state and you're on what's possible, what's vision, you're more likely to make, to have to realize that. And so yeah, the connection between that, those two of love and fear versus what are you actually thinking about at the time was a bit of a new, that really clicked for me based on what you just said. So thank you for that.

Cortney McDermott (22:13)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (22:17)
and then.

If the deeper part I want to call out, which would be.

one issue to go more like spiritual even like religious on this, okay, would be the difference between like dualistic and non-dualistic religions. And this is an area where I see where I run into interesting conversations with people with certain religious backgrounds. Because

what I heard you say there was like, this consciousness, the spirit, the frequency.

is really about focusing inward and getting aligned with like what you're connected to. And I, and I sense that you were alluding or had said something about like the divinity there that is all inside of us, which to me occurs as a non-dualistic way to look at spirituality and consciousness.

Courtney, one of the things that you did mention before we side quested there a second was how one of the things that we can control that is powerful and that what I'm interested in is you said, most people won't or don't go into is controlling our thoughts and what we're thinking. Why is that true?

Cortney McDermott (23:11)
Hmm

Well, I think it was this guy McFarland. He was a superintendent, I believe, at some school in the Midwest And he said, 2 % of people think, 3 % think they think, and 95 % would rather die than think. we have this, it's really funny. It's a secret, kind of. It shouldn't be a secret because it's throughout all the success literature.

This remains virtually a secret is that you can learn to think and that maybe you're not really actively thinking right now. So let's go into it. One, because a lot of times people say, think, but for most of us, that's the equivalent of saying, I beat my heart. So.

If you look at thought, right, it appears from what they've discovered in neuroscience that we're having somewhere between 50 to 70,000 thought impulses, which are electrical impulses a day. And for most of the most of most people, those 50 to 70,000 thought impulses are the same ones every day. Okay, so the way I like to think about it is these thoughts are literally calcifying you into a character.

And even if you take the way they're affecting your behaviors, I remember years ago seeing this study that if you superimposed a person's daily routine, if you took cameras and you shot their routine, videography of their routine every day, you would see the same day kind of superimposed. You would see the person going through the same behaviors every single day, waking up at the same time.

turning off their alarm clock, going in the kitchen, fetching a cup of coffee, whatever that looks like, right? And again, it's like the thoughts start to form behaviors and the behaviors are forming the results. Now, the way you know that you're not actively thinking is that you see a lot of results in your life that you don't like.

The way to know that you might be in that 3 % is that some of the results you see don't really feel that great and they feel kind of gnarly and you're like, I don't like those, but I like these other ones. So part of the time you're actually actively thinking or actively directing the thought. The way to know you're in the 2 % is I talk about the four ways of getting ice cream is like the fourth way the ice cream just appears, right? The thought impulse.

occurs to you that you'd like ice cream and the ice cream comes. We can talk about that later if you want because that's brainwave frequencies and all of that. I love to geek out on stuff like that. But the point that I'm making is simply this. Most of us are not guiding the thought process. In other words, we're not consciously deciding from all of those impulses which ones we're going to entertain. In fact, for most of us, because of the negativity bias that we have, and that's a psychological term that we cling to the things that we don't like,

most of us are sort of running on repeat thoughts that actually are again forming behavioral patterns and results that we don't like in our life. Now again it kind of remains a secret if you look at the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill most people that's one of the most sold books I think maybe the most sold book after the Bible. The interesting thing about that book is that most people will pick it up and they will read it and they will never be able to to extract

the what what Napoleon Hill is talking about and that is because they're missing the two words inherent in that title. If you don't get these two words you kind of miss the boat on on thinking and growing rich and those two words are learn to learn to think.

Learn to direct your thought toward that which you want. Now you you talked about something really beautiful earlier. You said if you're learning how to drive and you're looking in the opposite lane at the car coming on or something like that. They have you you're looking at the thing you don't want right. And they have a saying for this by the way in virtually every sport like for instance race car driving they say never look at the wall. In downhill skiing they say don't look at the trees.

basically don't put your attention where you don't want to expand or fire up or give oxygen to the thing, right? And so you can start to actually deprive certain thoughts of that oxygen by actively directing your thought. Now this is probably the hardest work in the world and most people will never undergo it, but the riches that Hill talks about, they're not just financial, they're in every part of your life when you learn how to actually direct your thoughts.

And again, most people will shy away from this. the reason, one of the biggest reasons is that it is, why it's so hard is that we are being pummeled by information all the time. And they're all hitting these sensory,

outputs and inputs that we have, right? And so they're very compelling. You know, if I see an accident, I'm gonna probably wanna look at the accident, right? If I see some politician doing something crazy, I'm gonna kinda wanna look at it because it's just so fascinating, right? But again, all of that's a play on form. And if you start to become more inner directed and connect to this inner intelligence that we've talked about.

you can start to affect the thought process. And when you do that, the vibrational quality or frequency that you're emitting completely changes. And hence, what you start to see in your environment as well. Einstein, he said, the field is the sole governing agency of the particle. And I used to take that to mean that he was talking about your environment, right? The environment literally shaping the molecule, which is true. And in 95 % of the cases, that's what's happening.

But you can take that back and you can cultivate an inner field that also shapes the molecule. And you can physically change as a result. I mean, I've had massive physical transformations in my life and my clients' lives and things that like I will sometimes in presentations show a picture of me from 10 years ago and the vast majority of the audience doesn't recognize me at all. And I've never had any work done. know, it's literally just consciousness and the directing of consciousness. So yeah, learning to think is probably the only really wise way to use your free will.

Sean Patton (28:32)
I love that. Learning to think is one of the only, what do you say, the best way to use your free will, what would you say?

Cortney McDermott (28:36)
It's likely

the best and only way you should be using your free will. because you can't really, you don't use your free will to change other

people.

Cortney McDermott (29:50)
so yeah, so it's, it appears to me that thinking is really the only correct use of learning how to think is the only correct use of our free will. So yeah.

Sean Patton (30:00)
You know, it's, it's funny because so often, I'll hear it and from others and maybe it's in, it's usually in jest, but kind of maybe not as, you know, when it's like, it's too quiet in the car or somewhere. And they're like, what am I going to sit here and listen to my own thoughts? no, thank you. like actively avoiding, we're just so used to distraction and things being put. It's like, sit with my own thoughts. that sounds like the worst thing ever. but

as you're stating like that is sort of the key or the path to this new way of being and, and defining fulfillment inside of yourself. Now you mentioned the four ways of getting ice cream and how that, that analogy plays to frequency. And so I'd love to hear that analogy.

Cortney McDermott (30:37)
Yeah, so

I share this in depth in the second book, but essentially it's like there's four ways of getting ice cream. And this is you can liken this to your brainwave frequencies. The first way is the thought impulse occurs for ice cream, because remember, we don't well, I didn't say this before, but neuroscience, it knows all this that, you know, the scientists have said, we have these 50 to 70,000 thoughts every day. But the funny thing is we don't know the origin of thought. So there's not a part of your brain that I can point to.

like the prefrontal cortex and say thought originates there. for most of us, again, you're just having these hits. And that's why, yeah, most people don't want to be with those hits. And you're choosing which ones to kind of latch onto. But here's the thing. And the first way of getting ice cream is I have the hit, right? So the thought impulse occurs for ice cream. Sometimes this could just be I saw it in a movie and I want some ice cream. And this first way is, OK, the thought impulse happened. I'm going to go out. It's the middle of the night. It's 3 AM. And I'm going to, you know,

chase around and look for some ice cream and maybe I find a freezer burn variety at 7-Eleven and I eat it and I feel really sick and like I did the thing though, right? So this is how most people try to get where they're going is they're operating. It's like the best way I ever heard it described is a four year race car that you're in first gear, right? And this can be likened to beta in the brain, especially high beta. And a lot of people, especially when they're freaking out and they're worried about something, they're in high beta. So you don't have access to creativity.

you do tend to be more competitive in nature and all the things that kind of block you off. Second way of getting ice cream, thought impulse occurs for ice cream and I say, hey Sean, I call you up and I say, could you grab me a bucket of ice cream? Now you and I are in different states so you're probably gonna be like, no court, but if we were in the same place you'd say court, I'd love to grab you some ice cream, where can I get it? And what kind would you like? And I'm like, this is amazing, here I've enlisted someone else's help. This is akin to alpha.

You can very easily move into alpha, by the way, and I talk about this again in the book, like how in instance, moments, you can do it. And just to say it quickly, because someone's going to be like, well, what is a way? One way, for example, is yawning. If you yawn for 30 seconds, you're going to start to move into alpha. And you're also going to release another whole set of neurochemicals that are really powerful. This is all part of our original equipment, which, by the way, we have forgotten how to use and actually been duped into thinking we shouldn't use. Another conversation for another day.

So that's beta and that's the second way. The third way is I think of ice cream and you show up at my door and you're like, hey court, I just got this ice cream. I'm not feeling it. It's exactly the kind that I wanted in my imagination because I wanted whatever that bear ice cream is and it's chocolate chip and I'm like, yeah, my God, I'll take it. That's amazing and that's when we call all our friends, right? We've all had this experience. I was just thinking of this person and then they called me. That is akin to this third way of getting ice cream and it's like being in theta.

Most of us are only experiencing theta right before falling asleep or as we're falling asleep and as we're waking up. And that's quite unfortunate because you can experience theta eyes wide open. And that's when your brain is releasing catecholamines, which are vital for learning and memory. is creating all sorts of beautiful, again, like a kind of beautiful chemical cocktail in your bloodstream. Fourth way of getting ice cream is you think of the ice cream and the ice cream just appears, seemingly out of nowhere.

And this is like, my gosh, I was looking for that thing and it just appeared. It appeared where I was looking before and I couldn't find it. Why? Because you're in delta. Now these are not the only brainwave frequencies that you can experience, but they're the ones I like to talk about because everyone has access and most of the time you're getting it right before you wake and right before you go to sleep. And this is why that's prime real estate for really programming your mind. But anyhow, this fourth way of getting ice cream basically.

is you think it in and appears. again, Delta is where you're releasing human growth hormone. It's where you're basically rejuvenating. You are real time using. So those are the four ways.

Sean Patton (34:10)
This episode with Courtney McDermott was going so well we didn't want to stop. So this is the end of part one. Stay tuned in a few weeks for part two with Courtney McDormant as we dive into the four types of ice cream and your brain waves.