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Joey: Redding is a beautiful place. We have national parks in three different directions, two world-class lakes. This is a sportsman's paradise, but it's also full of wonderful people.
We have business leaders, community leaders, faith-based leaders, all of them working towards a singular goal, and that's to make this a great place to live. I wanted to showcase these people, give their perception of the place that they call home. This is All Redding.
I have a lot of things I want to talk about. Okay. Because, of course, you're publishing a book, and that was a big one, and that's what my notes are about, because I read the book, and I was blown away.
It's awesome.
Courtney: And blown away you read the whole book.
Joey: It's a really good book.
Courtney: Thank you.
Joey: So, and I thought about that. I already told you this. I thought about, how do you say, like, I'm surprised and shocked without it sounding condescending?
Like, I didn't know you could write a good book. It's like, that's not what I mean. You know what I mean?
Courtney: I mean, I feel the same way. I didn't know I could write a good book.
Joey: Oh, it's a great book. I'm with you. It's a great book, and I love the topic.
I love where you went with it, but I also want to talk about, like, there's a lot of things when I think of Courtney McElveen, there's a lot of things that go through my head.
Courtney: Yes.
Joey: One that I think will be like, why is that? When you, I remember you came back from China. You were in China for a while.
Yes. And you said something that has stuck with me all these years. So when were you in China?
Courtney: 2000 to 2001.
Joey: So that's how long this has stuck with me.
Courtney: Okay.
Joey: But you said then that you were, and I'm paraphrasing, and you correct it, that you were on the street, and you had a beer in your hand, and you thought, something happened, and you thought about what freedom really was, because you thought about how, like, in America, I couldn't do that. And this, can you elaborate? Do you remember that?
Courtney: Do you remember telling me that? I 100% remember that.
Joey: Can you elaborate, please?
Courtney: Yeah. And I'm stepping back into the feelings of that moment, because it was so eye-opening. And it's funny that it's about a beer, you know?
Joey: Yeah, because that's not really what it's about.
Courtney: No, it's not. And I haven't really formulated thoughts on it any deeper than that observation. But yeah, it was just that.
And so here's the deal, though. I need to give a caveat. Please.
I was living in Macau, China. So at the time, Hong Kong and Macau were what was known as self-administered regions, SAR. So they had their own form of government, but they had been handed back to China by the Brits, and then Portugal.
So they had their own sort of government. So there was this kind of hybrid thing going on. So both those places, you felt like you were in a little bit of Europe, but the overarching governance was communist.
And so the split, this dichotomy was I had students. I was teaching English over there, doing mission work. And that was our mission work, because we were teaching in an English center, building a church.
And so my students, many of them had come down from the mainland, and their hands were tied. They were owned by whatever companies, it was a little clandestine, sent them down there. And I mean, they lived in a guarded place, and they would come take English, because they needed to learn the language.
And then they would actually have to be home at a certain time, there was this curfew. So I'm teaching people like this, while also teaching these amazing wives of these pilots from Brazil, because again, Portugal. So they were students learning English.
And then I just had some presidents, wives of the casinos there in Macau, because it's like the Vegas of China. So there was all these different populations going on. And it did feel on the day to day, it was wild and free, you can kind of do what you wanted.
People turned a blind eye. But you kind of knew this overarching governance pressure was also upon you. And as an American, you don't know what landmines, figuratively speaking, you're going to be stepping on.
So luckily, we had some close friends that would, you know, tell us about the nuances, but I kind of felt, you know, like safe, because I was an American. And, you know, they kind of they, to some degree, think that's pretty awesome, especially with an English accent, right? Not a, like an American English accent, not a British accent, they elevate that for whatever reason.
So I don't know, it was just felt a little easier over there. Over here, you know, the rules, you know, the laws, and you had to live by them, right?
Joey: Yeah, it just it resonated with me. And I can't remember where I was in the mindset wise in the early 2000s. You know, because I'm, it's, I'm almost 54.
Now, I can't remember what I had for lunch last week, let alone, like, remember where you were philosophically. But I just remember you coming back and telling that story, and how it resonated with me how I felt like in America, we were losing freedoms. And it didn't feel as free anymore that we were, I look back on it now.
And it's like this. We've gone through this incredible period of regulation. And I feel like it's stifled a lot of what made America great.
Courtney: Yeah.
Joey: And it's all done. You know, this is where if I was a better historian, I would have all these famous quotes from Jefferson and Hamilton and Franklin, you know, I mean, because they had all these little one liners about like, you know, if you will give up security for freedom, you'll have you know, and I'm thinking Hamilton lyrics right now, all of as you say that. Now I'm thinking of Hamilton lyrics.
I just King George, the guy that played King George was just spittle coming out of his mouth as he's just screaming this, my gosh, you know, that's the detective in Mindhunter.
Courtney: I think it's the same guy, the one that was on Disney movie.
Joey: You mean, no, no, the like the actual show.
Courtney: Oh yeah.
Joey: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Courtney: Yeah. Hamilton.
Joey: I'm thinking of the guy that started the FBI serial killer part with the first two series. And I was shocked. I was like, why does that guy look familiar?
Anyway, I digress. Let's get back to, let's get back to freedoms. But I just think about how much regulation has put on us as a country and how it's impacted production.
I don't know what Macau and Hong Kong's like now. I know what you're talking about. I was in Hong Kong way before.
Yeah. Way before they handed it off. But just that, that concept of like the power of freedom, the power of feeling free, even if you're not.
Courtney: Okay. I'm also remembering a very important note. So I moved back to the States after living in China, which felt like a totally different planet because we don't get Eastern civilization classes here.
Right. Unless you choose to study them in university, you don't get them. And so you go there and it's like, you are learning 7,000 new things a day, whether it's from the taste of the food or hearing something new or part of the language or seeing something or a new walking path, whatever it is, it's the philosophy, the culture, the whole approach, the Confucius, all of it.
Anyway, so I was in that environment that I really loved. I loved it. I was just in tune with the rhythm of China from the way they approached food to their health, to seeing the people outside my flat window in the gardens doing like Tai Chi and movement every morning, just being one with nature.
It was like, this is beautiful. This, this makes sense to me, right? Like movement and food is medicine and good health.
And that's just pervasive in the culture anyway. So I'm in this loving it. And I moved back a week before September 11th happened.
So I think that had a profound effect on me to kind of being like, wow, I felt safer in China. Like what's going on. None of us knew what was going on.
The world flipped upside down. The world shut down. I remember coming back, trying to like apply for jobs.
And I was just going, I was back home, living in Redding, applying for jobs, going into all these restaurants. No one would, they're like, we're not hiring right now. Like we're barely even open for business.
The stock market had closed, you know, my dad's financial advisor and he wasn't at work for a couple of days. And it's like, wow, this is insane. This feels funny.
Joey: Yeah. It's it's a, to go back, it's almost 24 years.
Courtney: Yeah.
Joey: And it seems like yesterday, but at the same time, it does seem like a quarter of a century ago. It's just a weird thing. It's kind of like your kids.
Once you have kids, you can't remember not having them, but you can kind of remember being not a parent, but it's a weird kind of the way your mind plays tricks on you. So you'd gone to China. This was post-college, right?
Courtney: Yep. The year after I graduated college.
Joey: So you went over there, missionary work, teach English, you come back and then how long you're here and then you ended up joining the army. Yeah. So how long was that?
Courtney: Yeah. So I was home basically about four months and then I joined in February and it was really interesting how that happened. Okay.
So I should back up and say, I just feel like life is one big adventure with God. And if you have an opportunity on your heart and you say yes, and just step into it, it's, it's fun. Like it's going to be fun.
Hold on tight, buckle up and enjoy the ride because you're just fully trusting what's going on. And so the army thing was definitely one of those things. So a little seed, here's the genesis of it.
A little seed had been planted when I was living in Macau. My girlfriend who was teaching over there with me, we had gone to Thailand for like a spring break and there was a, there was a Marine boat that actually was doing like a shore leave there, but there was an army linguist on that boat. And we were just sitting at a bar having a beer and we struck up conversation and I found out about his position and I'm thinking, I didn't know there was an intellectual side of the military.
This is strange. And he was enlisted. I'm like, huh, how strange.
And had a great conversation. I liked what he had to say. He was an Arabic linguist.
Anyway, fast forward, that was it. A seed was planted, fast forward. And I am sitting at some restaurant or something.
I think it was here in Redding and I don't know what I'm going to be doing. I came home from China. I just knew I needed to be back in America.
I was like, I don't think I'm going to go to grad school. I don't know what I'm going to do. I just need a break.
So I'm sitting somewhere and I look up and there's a brochure for an army linguist. And I'm like, what is this? So I pick it up and I read through and I'm like, okay, that's cool.
Let it sit. So I get kind of squirrelly and I'm like, Hey, I'm just going to move down to San Francisco and I'll teach some fitness classes in sub. I've saved some money.
I was hostessing as Sierra Gibbs, making a little money teaching fitness classes at world gym that used to be here. And I just moved to San Francisco on a whim and I was having fun, living the city life, no huge responsibilities and just a really compelling moment. I was out walking the neighborhood.
I was living in Dubose triangle at the time. And I, it just this overwhelming sense, like, I'm just going to go join the army and take the test to be a linguist. Let me just go see if I pass the test and what that test is like.
And if I pass that test, then that door is open and God's saying, yep, that's the way. So I go down to the recruiting station in San Francisco of all places where they're, you know, they're not super military friendly, but I'm like, I'm just going to March right in here. And, you know, the recruiter is taking me to some fancy wine and dine restaurant.
He tells me, Hey, if you were someone else would have taken you McDonald's or something, but you seem like you'd like this fancy restaurant. I'm like, okay, dude, thanks for telling me all your secrets. Anyways, that's how they work that by the way, he's no doubt.
Joey: Oddly enough, they took me to McDonald's. That's it's like, I'm not spending any money on you, but that was the Marine recruiter. So they're a little different.
They have a smaller budget.
Courtney: So I, so I, well, you know, this isn't one of the air force, Joey, this was the army. So I took the test and what a wild test it was. I didn't even, I walked out of that room and I'm like, what the heck did I just take?
Because it's, it's not, it's not a typical multiple choice, anything like that. They're basically testing you to see if you can decode. And so it's pictures, it's images, it's patterns.
So it's kind of like anyone would take it and be like, I don't know if I pass, no one knows. Cause you just don't know the science behind it anyway. So I pass with flying colors and they are like, you would be in a top tier language because you scored fairly high, which is Arabic, Chinese, Korean.
Then it goes down to Russian as a tier three and then Spanish, six months in school. Whereas Arabic, the top tier Chinese, Korean, those are about a year and a half. And so I'm like Chinese, did someone say Chinese?
So I'm really in this like Asia track. And so the guy's like, yeah, you could come on in and do Chinese. And it's going to take you a few months though, to get on over to bootcamp.
And I'm like, yeah, I don't want to wait. Korean's cool too. Like, I don't know anything about Korean, but it's in the Asian culture.
Let's go. So he's like, all right, you're going to be out of here in like three weeks. I'm like, all right, cool.
That was it. Signed it. Then I told my parents.
I didn't consult anybody. How dumb was that? I don't advise that, but that's what I did.
And it felt right. Yeah. My dad was, my mom was silent.
My dad was, he paused and then he was very encouraging.
Joey: Well, he's Air Force.
Courtney: Good for you.
Joey: He's former military.
Courtney: Yeah. And that was his advice. He's like, tell me you went, tell me you went officer.
I'm like, nope. Tell me you went Air Force. Nope.
So I enlisted in the army and it was nothing that anyone could have expected, but.
Joey: Yeah. But it, it led you to a relationship.
Courtney: Yeah.
Joey: So, I mean, kind of, you know what I mean? If you go the other route.
Courtney: The OE doesn't work. The officer enlisted relationship can't work.
Joey: Yeah. And so that's, I mean, this is where the segue is. This is where you met Adam, right?
And so he, how did you guys meet? You were at, you got stationed in, were you in Monterey? Yeah.
Okay. Yeah.
Courtney: Institute in Monterey. And he was an Arabic linguist in the Air Force enlisted. I was Korean army and we were almost done with our time there actually been there about a year.
And funny enough, a man named Rashid Riles, he was having a baby shower and he's, he's the dude, right. And his wife's pregnant. So he had a Jack and Jill baby shower and I had been at bootcamp with him and we were friends and he was in class with Adam.
So we both ended up at this Jack and Jill baby shower together. That's when we met.
Joey: Isn't that cute? That's your meet cute, right?
Courtney: It's our meet cute. Hollywood.
Joey: And you guys, you've been married how long?
Courtney: 21 years.
Joey: And you have two kids, two beautiful kids.
Courtney: Yeah.
Joey: Yeah. And they, I mean, your mom, you also, I mean, you have a pretty awesome story. I thought about when I was thinking about you, I thought about myself.
Courtney: As you should have known each other long enough.
Joey: Everything comes back to Joey. It's everything. All, all paths lead back to me.
Courtney: Funny how that happens.
Joey: Well, what I learned was all psychopaths are narcissists, but not all narcissists are psychopaths. Anyway, but what I meant was that you have a very, you have a very winding road.
Courtney: Yeah.
Joey: And I have a very winding road. And so I thought about, so you know, you're, you get out of the army, Becky and I came and visited you guys in Texas. Yes.
Where were you? We're in San Antonio?
Courtney: We're in San Antonio.
Joey: You're in San Antonio.
Courtney: Hannah was like a year.
Joey: Yeah. And you had a little, uh, men, a men pin.
Courtney: Yes. Pataka.
Joey: Pataka. Incredible energy. That dog had incredible energy.
Like he was high on coke all the time. Yeah. Incredible.
Anyway, but, uh, and then you guys moved back here. Yeah. And you've been here, you've been back how long now?
Since oh six. And you were always really in the fitness and yoga. And I want to talk about yoga.
I want to, I want to come back to yoga, but you were always in the fitness. And then one day, what you, your dad came to you or you came to your dad, like what happened? Cause you started working with your father.
Courtney: Yes. So yes, we, I'm going to mention something really funny. So a couple months ago, you and I bumped into each other at a shop in town.
You had just come back from a fishing trip. You were telling me the story about the ship captain that was asking you if you wanted to actually like gut the fish and do all the work with the fish. And you basically just held your hands up to him.
And you said, do these hands look like they would spend time getting these fish? These hands are like five versions of myself, uh, past my time in the Marine Corps. And I, that same stuck in my mind.
Cause I'm like five versions ago, myself, it's like, you're still you, but you've just had, right. You're still you, but I'm like, am I going to go do ropes courses? Marine's still in there.
Joey: He's in there, but he's, he's in the, he's in like this. I got third row seating in this car and he's in the third row now. He used to be in the driver's seat and he's, and then moved over and then went back.
And now he's all the way back. I can't even hear him. I just turn up the radio when he talks.
Courtney: He's still long for the ride.
Joey: Yeah. He's still long for every now and then he comes out.
Courtney: Yeah. So anyway, so this is one of the versions of me. So in 2009, I had a fitness company and was doing mobile personal training and teaching fitness classes.
And I had a fitness studio at my house and was doing small group training and some corporate wellness around the area. And just all in being self-employed after the military. It's all you want.
You know, you don't want to be, you're not institutionalized anymore. So you want the freedom of being self-employed. I love, loved it.
It's, I had taught fitness classes since I was 15 years old. And so I was just doing what I love. Anyway, my dad calls me out of a clear blue sky in 2009.
And my son was born May of 08. So, you know, he, he was still a baby and still nursing at the time. And so this was the financial crisis.
Joey: Yeah.
Courtney: My dad was with a firm that firm ceased to exist any longer, like many of the firms at the time. Yeah. So two of his three assistants were moving with him and his partner to a new firm that they were starting in Redding.
And he's like, would you like to come join me? And then he said, you know, I, I, I always thought you'd be good at this. You've told me that you're interested in the past.
And he said, one day you'll be better at it than I am. I think it was like what he had full confidence. And he said, are you interested?
That was the question. Are you interested? And I'm like, yeah.
And he was like, see you Monday that it was a very short call. And so I'm like, I don't know what I just signed up for, but talk to Adam about it. And I showed up Monday and my dad tried to get me integrated into the industry.
Right. Cause it was so different than what I had ever done before business. Yes.
I know business, but finance is not business. It's, it's, it's a whole different animal. And so he tried to get me as like support staff to fully understand the inner workings and operations and things like that.
And after like two weeks, I was like, this isn't for me. I'm not interested in continuing with this at all. I'd like to do what you do and see how, how that rolls.
He's like, really, you want to be all in? Yeah. I want to be all in.
So went back to school, got my MBA using my GI bill. Um, I had already been in school for six months cause I thought I was going to go into being a teacher and a principal. So I had just finished six months of my master's in teaching towards, towards that career pursuit anyway.
So I just switched it and I knocked out my MBA in 18 months. And then while I was also getting all my licensing to become a financial advisor and insurance licensing and all the state licensing and things like that. So it was like, yeah, a good year and a half of nothing but studying.
And I was still teaching some fitness classes just to keep rolling with that. Cause that was my baby and I wasn't ready to shut that business down yet, but I was winding it down. And the way I was able to do all that was because my son took three hour naps every day.
Joey: Oh, nice.
Courtney: That's how I was able to do it.
Joey: Oh, very nice.
Courtney: Yeah.
Joey: Yeah. That's unusual.
Courtney: I don't think I would have been able to do otherwise because I, you can fit it in other times in your day, but have a, an uninterrupted three hour timeframe was like amazing.
Joey: You know, there's a, there's some rule. It's a, it's one of those, I mean, it's not Pareto's the 2080, but it's the one that the, uh, the project will expand based on the time given for the project. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Courtney: I know exactly what you're talking about. And I don't know what that is called, but I know exactly what you're talking about. Cause Elon Musk did that.
He's the example, right? He's the recent example. And it was some, some story where he had his engineers on this plane and they were solving for something and they thought it was going to take a year or 18 months.
And he was like, I don't think so. And then he, didn't he turn the plane around? And then he said, get this done in one, in one day, 24 hours.
And don't quote me on the details, but it's something like that. And they knocked out the solution to the problem in 24 hours.
Joey: That sounds right. I don't know the specifics on that, but that sounds like an Elon thing anyway, just because, you know what I mean?
Courtney: They execute, they know how to activate.
Joey: Yeah. Um, but this idea that, you know, you'll, you'll find a way. Sure.
Do you know what I mean? That's the, to me, the underlying point is you'll find a way with given the constraints. Yeah.
And given the constraints, you know, I remember, um, I went through, uh, some Clemmer training, some local friends got us into it. And one of the things that came out of that was, uh, mechanisms plus intentions, you know, equals outcome. And they basically get it to where the equation is really just intentions and they kind of show you how the mechanism doesn't matter.
You know what I mean? They say things like, you know, somebody says, I want to be a millionaire and they go, okay, cool. Name a way that you can be a millionaire.
Well, you can name hundreds of ways, right? So they go and they do this over and over to try to get the point. Do you understand?
It's all about setting intentions, which you talk about in your book too, which, um, I'm going to, you know what, we're going to segue into the book.
Courtney: Okay.
Joey: Cause I'm sorry if I hijacked the story of, of how you got into financial planning, but we know you went to work for your dad said, I loved it.
Courtney: I'm not going to stay in the mail room years later. Here I am.
Joey: Nobody puts baby in the corner. And next thing you know, you're on stage, right?
Courtney: Yeah. Okay.
Joey: So we got that. So, uh, I have some questions because I, I, I read the book and I, a bunch of things hit me and I, there's a few things here that I kind of know the answer, but it's your book. So like we talked about, I want you to promote it.
But one of the things was like how to align your intentions with God's will, you know what I mean? God's plan for you. Because I think that's a, I think that's a big struggle.
Can you kind of talk about that? Like how to do that, how to see, cause the, the key word that I put there was cause I put next to it, God's timing and then patience, which I struggle with. My personality struggles with patience.
Courtney: Oh, I mean, most of us do. Yeah. I think two things on that.
First of all, we all have very strong intentions. I mean, look at even babies, friends you talk to you doing this podcast, like we just talked about where there's a will, there's a way, but oftentimes I would say most of the time we are putting our projects first. There are projects, whatever it is you want to do.
I want to build property investments. I want to change careers. I want to go to school, whatever it is.
They are babies. And I think the key there is giving it to God to be his, is that his project for you in your life? So that, and who's going to step back to ask that, right?
Like is, is God putting this on my life? Is this a purpose that I'll walk into and enjoy? Will it be blessed?
Will I fail? There's all these fears, all these questions. So it opens up this whole can of worms that people kind of don't want to confront or think about.
Cause it's like, huh? But the second thought is that the more we know God, we, and we do that by hearing his voice, which I know sounds weird. Like I'm going to, you know, go to some sort of loony bin or something.
This audible voice of God, right? The more we hear his voice, whether it's a gentle whisper, whether it's a nudge, whether it's something you hear from a friend or a stranger that just puts a little thought in your mind that you pause on and think on and reflect on or ruminate on, whatever it is, when you know God's voice by being in his words, by knowing who Jesus is mainly like, what did he come here to do? And I know it might sound a little disconnected from anything we have going on, but it's not, it's not.
And I know in the book, I talk about the breath a lot. Like it starts with the breath, it ends with the breath. And when we think about our existence, I'm about to go really philosophical.
So in Genesis, the term, the Hebrew term is ruach, R-U-A-C-H, ruach. And the spirit, ruach is spirit. The spirit of God is hovering over the waters, right?
And then ruach is used again, breathing life into man. And that spirit, that ruach is coming from God. And then it's the spirit of God.
So he's animating us, breathing life into us. And we are divinely connected to him through that breath. We just don't pay attention to these things.
We don't pay attention to our breath. I mean, literally, we don't take a deep inhale and exhale throughout our day. We don't have to be consciously aware of it, yet we're somehow staying alive by breathing.
It's just happening. It's up to us. For me, when I study God's word, I know him more and he rewires my brain to pay attention to his movement in my life, each and every moment of the day when I'm paying attention to it and my relationships with people, my conversations with people in the direction I'm supposed to go in life, choices I'm supposed to be making.
He has never broken that connection with us through the breath. Never. We have chosen to disconnect.
And we do that daily. We do that daily, some to more degrees than others. But it is up to us on a daily basis to reconnect and be aware of God's presence.
And I think in that presence, then we know the direction. We know what will align with his way, what will bring harmony in our relationships to people around us, achieve his purposes here on earth that are definitely better than the purposes I have in my own heart, in my own projects. Sometimes he blesses the project.
You don't know. It's like this book. This book is a great example.
Okay, so yes, my degree is in English literature. And yes, I love reading. I like writing.
But this book, when it was a notion on my mind and heart, and it like burrows its way into you and you can't shake it, and then you just keep having these thoughts about it. And it's like, I can't even function or sleep unless I thoroughly think through these topics. Let me put an outline to this.
Let me see if I could write something more than just an essay or a journal about this. The more I started doing that, it's like, okay, now what gone? It's like, just write.
That's all I kept hearing. Just write. And then I'm like, okay, now I've like six chapters.
Okay, cool. And it's not linear when you're writing a book. It's jumbled.
And I'm like writing chapter 12. Will I scrap it later? Maybe.
But the commitment was, hey, I got to get this out. This is actually really good stuff, connecting our physical body with our divine connection to God and our purpose here on earth. Let's see how this plays out.
This is fun. I feel God's presence when I'm writing it. Maybe others will feel it and know it when they read it.
And all I kept hearing was just write. And even when I was like, well, let's get to the publishing part. Let's speed this up.
And it was like, I could just imagine God rolling his eyes at me. Seriously, like, okay, do the publishing thing. If you need to get that out of your system, try that out.
See how it goes. No publishers took it. It was like, just keep writing.
See this thing through the end. I'll make a way. I'll make a way.
Just keep writing. So anyway, sometimes it's just stepping into things. I do have a Bible story that I'm thinking of, but I've talked a long time.
So I'm going to take a break.
Joey: Oh, no, it's awesome. A bunch of things are going through my mind. Number one is the publishing.
The publishing thing is you're like, you talk about your type A personality where everything is like this goal oriented. Everything is a trophy. Everything has a finish line, a blue ribbon.
But that drives him. That's the whole, I mean, that's who wins. That's who hoists trophies.
Those are the people that hoist. You don't accidentally win the Super Bowl. You don't accidentally get first place in a race, right?
This isn't a Mr. Bean episode. This is life, right? So that's how it's driven.
So I even have, that's like my top thing was type A because also about the whole idea of self-criticism. And I'm thinking about when you were talking about God's influence on you, which would, you know, the Holy Spirit, I wouldn't say battling, but having a healthy debate with your soul. So it's you inside.
It's the type A personality. It's the fear because the publishing is probably being driven by this fear of getting published. Like you're not focused on writing the book.
You're focused on how the book will be accepted and versus like, that's not the point. If the book is only written for you, maybe that alone is the point. Yeah.
And that, that balance.
Courtney: My journals from a year ago, two years ago, because I spent three and a half years writing this book are so stupid on this topic. And I have learned a lot from reading those journals because I think the personal drama that no one knows about except me until now that I'm just telling you, but I'm in a room by myself writing or writing in my journal. And I'm just like, maybe this is for nothing.
Why am I doing all this? Will this ever come to an end? Will I ever have this finished?
Maybe it's just a project I'll be doing forever and ever. And it's like, where is this coming from? All this personal drama.
And it's like, I, yet, yet I still have this sense that it was going to get into people's hands. And then I put strange constraints on myself. Like, Oh, I really have this strong sense that I'll be writing three books over six years, one every two years.
So I come up on my two year mark and book's not done. So then what happens? You freak out.
You're like, well, what about that strong sense I had? What about that? Right.
And then you start questioning everything. What about all these other decisions I make? Right.
So yeah, I learned that once again, it's like, stay in the present with God, be obedient to what he's calling you to do that day and leave the future to him.
Joey: Yeah. That's it's all these things are easy to say and incredibly hard. And it's the human condition.
And if you look at the Bible, we go, we go to a church here in town and the pastor does a great job of breaking some of this stuff down and jumping back and forth between the new Testament and the old Testament and kind of just showing like, this has always been man's struggle from day one. This is like nothing. Oh, but we have cell phones now and electric cars, like, but the human condition is still the human condition.
It hasn't really changed this doubt this, uh, you know, the other big thing is I like, what was the word that you said was breath was the God. Okay. So our pastor, something I've never had done before.
He'll open up these, the Greek version of something or the Hebrew version of something and takes these words. I'm gonna get somewhere with a word that I struggled with for a long time. And then when I went to one of his sermons that broke it down for me, but how they'll take the English version and go, let me, let me show you what this was originally in Greek.
So this is what St. Paul really wrote. And it's like, oh, well, that's not really that word. That's kind of real.
It's a synonym, but it's not. And there's some meaning lost in that translation. So the word that I would struggle with is love.
Okay. So I struggled with love thy neighbor and all this stuff. I'm like, cause I, I hate my neighbor.
Not really. If you live anywhere near me, I don't mean you. I meant figurative neighbor, but you know, you get mad, you see this stuff and you're just like, oh, you get so angry.
One day our pastor gave a sermon on love and the various degrees of love and how this is, we're using this one word and we're talking about the love that you should have for God. Then the love you should have for your spouse, the love you should have for your children. So, and he got all the way down to detached cordiality.
And he said, so let's give an example. You and a family member, you've got some history and they have done you wrong. And your family says, Hey, we're going to have a family meeting.
And you say, well, if he comes, she comes, I'm not going. And he's like, that's not it. You can go there.
Don't get in a fist fight with them. Don't, don't give them the evil eye. Have this level of detached cordiality because I was struggling with God.
How can you really expect me to love this person and the way I'm supposed to love you? And it's like, well, because you're not, you're supposed to have this, this, this respect of life that, you know, that's not how you're supposed to LA. I respect you.
You know, no, you're supposed to, it's different. So that was a perfect example of just by getting somebody breaking down translation, go, let me show you what they're saying in Greek. Let me show you what they're saying in Hebrew.
Courtney: Yeah.
Joey: And then you like, ah, the cultural context. Yes.
Courtney: It's so illuminating.
Joey: And English is, honestly, I know it's the dominant language now, but it's really a lacking language. We really, I mean, love is just one of the biggest examples of a word that just, I love the new bacon cheeseburger.
Courtney: It doesn't have to be lazy. We're lazy. It is not late.
It is a blend of different languages. If we really wanted to spend time on the context of each of those languages, it would actually be one of the most dimensional languages to ever exist. We don't take the time to look at etymology of all these words like that.
You took the time. And I mean, you just talked about it for five minutes, one word, right? We could do that with the English language.
It fascinates me. Actually, the Bible fascinates me as a book. And yes, I'm a huge, huge book nerd.
And by that, I mean, like a library, for example, to me, that is the treasure of society. It's like, it's a building and under one roof are literally the organized thoughts of like any person who's ever lived anywhere around the world and has decided to put order to their thought under one roof. It's like, it's overwhelming to me because thoughts are real things, right?
And it's like, how much time can you spend reflecting on different philosophies and thoughts and cultures and people? And it's tremendous to me. So this is the treasure I think libraries are and books are.
So funny enough, the Bible is the most translated book of all time, top selling book of all time, least read book, least read book.
Joey: It's a big one. It's a big one. And if you've made the mistake of getting the King James version, it can be brutal.
That can be tough, man, to try to power through some of the Old Testament and therefore art thou henceforth hitherto. You're like, this is like reading a lot of legal documentation. You're like...
Courtney: It's not for the kindergarteners.
Joey: It cannot be easy. It can be not easy.
Courtney: No, especially if you're just like, it's on your heart to maybe study the Bible or read some stories in the Bible about different characters you're interested in at this stage in your life, when you're 40 and you're like, I kind of wrote this off when I was a kid and the case for God is closed for whatever reason, but now you're somewhat interested. Don't pick up that version of the book. Don't pick up the King James.
Pick up something like the New Living Translation or something that's going to be really palatable because normally we're a bit critical, right? And it's hard to be like open hearted and open handed if you are feeling a little reluctant to open up that book, which obviously by the decrease in reading the Bible is showing us that that's the case. People are having a hard time with it for whatever reason, many reasons.
Joey: I think you were kind of referencing what you put in the book you called church hurt.
Courtney: Oh yeah. You were talking about that.
Joey: And I think what you were just saying is like...
Courtney: Yeah.
Joey: You want to kind of go into that a little bit?
Courtney: Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of people can relate to it. I have very close friends who can, and the church has shifted so much.
But when we were growing up, it was very intellectual, pretty rules-based. If you asked questions, hard to get an answer that you could relate to as a kid. So I had a great upbringing with it, but I know many people didn't.
So I had a very different experience, I think, than other people because I was soaking up the intellectual part of it. And even as a kid, like the philosophical part of it, I was like, I love this. But many people didn't.
And so if they were hurt by a leader or if they didn't get a question answered, or maybe behaviors at the time when they were teenagers and they made bad choices and the church came down on them instead of using that as an opportunity for them to learn, grow, be taught through it and make better choices, it was just like, sinner, right? And that leaves a scar. And so there's a lot of people walking around with those scars that have not healed, and they can be wiped away.
Those scars can be eliminated. And if people decided to actually open up the word and surround themselves with other people who could teach them well, that would be a great start. That might even be a little bit more intellectual.
A great start would just be turning inward in prayer and just having a conversation with God. It's really that simple. I think we complicate it.
It's just talking with God. It's a relationship. And I know people say that a lot, but they don't think it through.
And it's like, when you meet somebody for the first time, you don't just jump in and start telling them like, hey, I was a Marine and here were some of the things I learned. Here were my biggest challenges.
Joey: Oh, I always start conversations like that.
Courtney: You just don't do that, right? You can with God. You can with God.
He's open to that. He wants that. He's dying for that, literally died for that.
But we don't feel comfortable enough to do that for whatever reason. So it's like, just start. Maybe it's, hey, I'm Courtney.
Start with a basic introduction. Here's what I'm worried about. Here's what I'm feeling.
Here's what I'm scared about. Here's what I'm angry about towards you, right? Whatever it is, talk to God about it and then see what he says.
He actually does, God speaks, whether it's through nature. I mean, he screams sometimes, especially when people are in pain. I mean, that's when a lot of people turn to him when they're in pain and facing tragedy.
Usually when people are living the good life, that's not when they're thinking about God coming in, right?
Joey: No. And it's just part of being a human. It's always been that way.
I would also say, try to find an organization and try to find a church. I really love my church, but I don't know why I feel like I shouldn't be promoting the church I go to. I feel like it's too unalready.
I already kind of give an insight is so in wanting to just showcase people, right? So there's an underlining theme to this that I've had from day one. And it was like, I wanted to help produce a positive informational source.
I felt like, I can't remember the one we did the first episode, I think maybe 2017 or something like that. I felt like overwhelmingly, and it's even worse now, online was negative energy. And it was a carryover from news, which what's the famous quote in news?
Courtney: If it bleeds, it leads.
Joey: Exactly, right? And then I think that the internet became this like super turbo, twin turbo charged version of that times a thousand. And so I was like, positivity, people like positivity.
They stopped to look at the pictures of puppies and kittens too. So it's not all just, and then I was like, okay, and a big thing that you talk about in your book is community and the power of community. And I wanted to, and I remember that the first time I started to get negative feedback on All Redding, I got some nice little hate.
It's totally fake. It's the faceless Facebook. Like it was a bot?
No, what it is, there's just a group of human beings that are in a really bad place in life. And they just, you see it, you see it now, you see trolls, right? It's trolls.
Courtney: It's just, it reveals the human condition. It's like right there on display.
Joey: Yeah. But they, they complained enough that my personal Facebook account got locked for nine months and I had to file a letter of lawsuit to Meta to get my account back in the midnight, the night before we were supposed to go to court. Meta didn't say anything.
They just gave me my account back and they never, we never discussed again, but yeah, it was, it was enough people complained and it was, I noticed that it was the first episodes where we started talking about God that immediately there was an attack.
Courtney: I'm so sorry that happened.
Joey: It's fine. I shifted to my business and my business quadrupled.
Courtney: So it was like, well, did you think, did you feel like fighting back or were you like, well, this might be it for All Redding. I was trying to do something positive and be a strong voice.
Joey: Well, they, I mean, it was kind of it because they locked me out. So there was, you know, and there was, there's a bunch of lessons learned there. It was at the height of not being able to say anything.
Courtney: Yeah.
Joey: It was what we've just come out of. Sure. It was the height of, I don't know how else to put it.
Courtney: It was the censorship and the shutting down. Yeah.
Joey: I was, I was in China, but I wasn't on Macau. Do you know what I mean? I was like, I was, I was coming down from the mountain with the other people and I had to be in bed by eight, like, you know, type thing.
And it was just, it was, uh, became incredibly disenfranchised with, uh, America and our government and some of the people, and I'm not going to name any names, but several people in our community, I was completely disenfranchised when I saw them jump on that man where like, yeah, we've got to stop people.
Courtney: So you were mentioning that the work was a detached cordiality that your pastor had preached. I like that term a lot because there are in relationships, it's, it's, there are all kinds of relationships, right? But there are some people who have harmed you and hurt you and they can be at arm's length kind of people.
You're not really friends. You're not really acquaintances. It's maybe a little less than that, but you're still going to see them around town because you're in community together.
And so the challenges then, you know, I've often thought about this. Do I actually reach out to that person and take them to coffee and, and have some time talking this through or is that not worth it? Is it not worth it?
Is it just enough to see them cross paths, give them a smile, say hello in your own heart, feel really no emotions towards them because you've, you're past it all. Maybe they still feel things towards you, but you can't control that. And you just kind of move on in life.
And so that I feel like happens, I mean, it happens to all of us, but especially here, cause it's, it's a pretty close knit community.
Joey: It is a small community for the number of people that live here. It's much smaller. So I just, I got off rails a little bit, but that idea of like that, it all happened when that, when we started talking about God and the episodes, and then, I don't know, just came to a piece with it.
And you know, all Redding has taken, it was put on the back burner, but it was wonderful because you and I connected and I was like, Oh, this is going to be the catalyst to start doing more. I want, I want to do more. I was like, don't, don't, don't let the bad guys win.
That's they got what they wanted. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Well, well, I don't want to confront them, but this, but things also in all fairness, um, Elon changed a lot, you know, like when I, when I filed the lawsuit against meta, there's a company whose business model is purely filing lawsuits for people against meta. Like when I did a search, there's a whole business that I've had multiple people reach out to me and go, can you give me their link? And I'm like, yeah.
So, I mean, it's, it was that common, but I think we're in a new, I feel like we're in a new era where freedom of speech is coming back and that's super important. And so it gave me, I don't know if I'm, I don't want to use the word coward.
Courtney: Say it isn't.
Joey: So I was like, uh, kind of a wimp Joey, but, but also I think, uh, strategy at the time there was no winning that fight. There was no like, okay, well I'm, I'm calling Mark Zuckerberg right now. Like there was no winning.
And so you had to kind of take a back seat.
Courtney: And it's shifting priorities. I mean, you have a lot of hats to wears, you know, dad, husband, businesses, entrepreneur, all the things you're doing. So it's kind of forgot that one.
So you got to make choices.
Joey: It doesn't take up as much of my time as it used to about 30 years ago. I can tell you that phone's not ringing as much. I don't know if you guys lost my number, but I'm still in the business.
Courtney: This is when you do blue steel flash it at the camera. Yeah, no, sometimes you, I experienced that kind of thing where you, you sometimes have to walk away from a goal and that's part of the type a thing. That's a little bit hard.
I did that with, I talk about in the book, the certified financial planner, CFP designation. It was so important to me. It was not needed because I'd already been in the business well over 10 years, had established client.
I didn't need it.
Joey: I just wanted it. But it was a trophy.
Courtney: I wanted more letters behind my name because you know, the, you know, eight that I have isn't enough. So I took the course and I loved the course because I love school. There's another nerdy thing I'm disclosing.
I do. I love school. So I took the course.
It was a year long, love, love, loved it. And you, then after you pass the course and you get your certificate, you have to study to take the board exams. And that's about three months.
And so I was just kind of like done after I took the course and Adam came to me and was like my husband. And he was like, Hey, just so you know, you've been missing out on a lot of family memories that we're building. And I missed out on 4th of July.
I mean, there were a few that I missed because it just consumes you. You got to get this thing done. And so I'm like, well, okay.
Noted. But I didn't start this thing to not finish it. So let me just see it through.
So anyway, I'm like reluctantly studying. I'm not having any fun with it. I'm inside.
I'm done, but I'll still do the work until it's followed through. In the end, I failed the exam and I totally fell apart. Like I didn't know what to do with myself.
So for a few days, I'm, you know, whining and coming up angry and I'm calling friends and, and it just, it was really embarrassing actually, because I fell apart so hard from that. Anyway. So my friends were just kind of like, you know, this isn't really that important in the grand scheme of things.
And around that time, a girlfriend had recommended the book. It's the seven spiritual laws of yoga. I was like, cool.
I like philosophy. Let's check it out. So it's Deepak Chopra and it's coauthored by someone whose name is not coming up.
Excuse me. So in it is a few different laws, seven laws. So one of them is the law of detachment.
These words, when I read them, were like a balm to my soul. You know, when that happens, you find something you're like, that's exactly what I needed to hear at exactly the right time.
Joey: Usually people say I had an epiphany. That's, you know what I mean? That's that, what that kind of means, right?
You're like, Whoa, wait.
Courtney: Yeah. It was, it was soothing when I read it. So it was basically the, this idea that you, you hold the intention, you hold this intention, but you have this attitude of thy will be done.
So you're enjoying not controlling the outcome. You are actually enjoying the mystery and the exhilaration of the process unfolding. And it was like, imagine that.
And it was just this awakening to me. Like I can still have goals, intentions, but I don't have to hang onto the outcomes. And that control is really what hit me.
I was like, yeah, I'm trying to control things. I'm trying. And then you start, you start reflecting on it and I'm journaling on it.
I'm praying into it. Like, God, let me chisel this messiness up. Like this is revealing so much in me that I need to sort through and not have inside me anymore.
And so, I mean, I really thought I was going to lose my edge in my career. If I didn't like hang on to this, those ways and those that I had just defaulted to for so many years. And I was afraid of like letting people down and not living up to these expectations.
And so I just, I prayed into it and I just laid it all at God's feet. And I started putting, putting it into practice when opportunities like that came up. And then, I mean, it was really easy in 2021, the big one.
So after 2020, I got shingles in my eye, which was the whole reason I started this book. It just changed my life because I was forced to stop. And so I got off all my boards.
I got off all my committees. I was a Rotarian. I got out of the club.
I'd been teaching fitness classes for 28 years. I stopped teaching fitness classes. I literally was like, okay, I can be a wife.
I can be a mom and I can be a financial advisor to my clients. And that's all I have capacity for right now. So I took my life down to just those basic things that I knew I could do.
And it just created so much margin and space in myself and my mind and my overall spirit. And then, you know, then you have this creativity within you flowing that you actually can like let, your eyes can be open to it and you can acknowledge it and actually act on it and be like, hey, I like to whatever it is. I like to paint.
I like to read. I like to write. I love to take long walks and just think, right?
So that's what I did. I was like, what do I like to do? Oh yeah, I love doing those things.
Let's start doing more of those. They give me rest. They, they make me feel restful inside.
So let me implement those every day.
Joey: That's two, two terms come to mind while we were talking is back to the basics. And then I always love that term. Like don't major in the minors.
Courtney: You know what I mean?
Joey: We get caught up with that. Your, your workload becomes so big and you start putting all your energy into these ancillary things. And the majors are your relationship with your husband, with God, with your children.
And then, you know, your primary source of income, how the family gets fed and everything outside of that is the, that's what you mean by don't major in the minors. You're putting all your energy in the minors. And we have a limited amount of resources.
We have a limit, you know, we have a finite amount of time and energy and we have to be really careful. I try to tell my kids all the time, I told them that there's, there's a few superpowers. And one of the superpowers is the ability to assess.
There's two buckets, things you can control, things you can't control. Your ability to assess where everything lies and then putting your focus. That's the first superpower.
The second superpower is putting all your energy into the one that you can control and taking the other bucket and giving it solely to God. It's, and I give him the, the metaphor of a pitcher of water and you have two cups and one is you get to drink from and the other, it just gets thrown in the trash. And so every drop that you put in here, you've taken out, you know, try to get that.
It's easy to say to kids, especially when you're taller and bigger than them. And they think that you're, you know what I mean? They think that you're the right hand of God.
Um, but then you're like, I'm really talking when I'm up there, stand in front of him talking to myself. I'm like, you know, remember Joey.
Courtney: I tell my kids all the time. I'm like, you guys are teaching me way more than I'll ever teach you.
Joey: Very good.
Courtney: Yeah.
Joey: Back to, cause I want to talk about, you've brought up yoga several times and yoga, I think has a stigma. It can have a stigma with Christians because when I think of yoga, I think of there's, I primarily think of the breathing, the stretching, the movement of your body, you know, trying to move your body. Sure.
And, um, you're big into how the mind, the body and the soul are connected and how they impact each other and how important it is to have a game plan and execute for all three of them.
Courtney: Yeah.
Joey: But I think a lot of people think of, uh, not a lot of people, but I think when I've heard criticism of it from the church, it's because they're thinking of the, the spiritual side of yoga, which is connected to Hinduism. And so can you kind of address that? Cause and how you approach that.
Courtney: Yeah. I mean, I didn't struggle with it at all because I literally knew that yoga made me a better me. It helps me train away from a lot of the things I don't like about myself.
You know, that just being human, like possessiveness and the anxiety that creeps up and it calms my mind, calms my body. I think it's efficient as a workout from a physical standpoint, helps emotional wellbeing, mental wellbeing. So that, that is my stance and all that to say, because I do have a faith, I would get challenged by people thankfully.
And their challenges have merit. I think that has merit. And it takes me back to that.
Um, I don't know what book it's from, but it's Paul writing. He says that everything is when you have a faith and you are a believer, everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. So it is not one of those blanket statements like yoga is for everybody.
I don't know if it's for everybody. I don't know if it's for you. I know that whatever activity anybody is doing, whatever practice anyone's doing, God wants your heart.
That's all he wants. So if you are, I mean, whatever relationship you're in, this could be taken really far, right? God wants your heart.
So if whoever you are spending time with, if whatever activity you're doing is drawing you closer to God, you are feeling more connected to his ways. You are more becoming more like him. You are walking the talk of Jesus and following him as an apprentice, then keep doing that.
That's the way for you, but I'm not going to hear God's voice for other people. So if someone say does come from a Hindi background, okay. And because yoga has its roots in Hinduism and Hinduism believes in many gods, right?
All gods are okay. Jews is okay too, but all those other ones are okay too. That is very contrary to scripture.
In fact, the first commandment is you shall have no other gods. And it's not because he's coming down, like do this or you're going to jail, right? It's not the law as we think of it.
It's the law or the Torah. It actually translates to this is the direction to go. And there's also a pointing connotation, which means there's like a teacher pointing you to go in that direction.
So there's a person and a way that's the law, right? Technically speaking, if that first commandment is like, Hey, I'm showing you that I'm the way I'm what you need to put first. Great.
I'm the only God you should have. Everything else is going to be a counterfeit. So if a Hindu Hindu person that is struggling with their spirituality and they're exploring Christianity and they are learning more about the word and they're seeing that, Hey, you know what?
He is the light. He is. Jesus is the way I want to be more connected with him.
Yet when they go practice yoga, they're getting drawn into whatever the other God to that particular person is. I don't know what it would be, whatever it is. Maybe it's wealth.
Maybe it's alcohol. Maybe it's drugs. Maybe it's, you know, something else they're relying on that is taking the place of number one in their life, then that is not the way for that person.
I mentioned in my book, we have a friend who was teaching yoga and she had lived a life of pretty much just debauchery down in Los Angeles and was in the occult and doing these things. And when she was teaching yoga, it was drawing her back to the way she felt when she was living that way.
Joey: Anything could do that. Somebody can watch a TV show and that pulls them. This is where things really can get heavy.
That's a technical word. Deep. We like it deep.
Deep. Is this idea of these layers and how these things are built upon these layers. So when someone tries to, it's like when you try to explain putting God first and they immediately jump to like, they think enslavement, I think, or legalism.
Courtney: Of course. What's funny is the Christian faith is the exact opposite of that.
Joey: It's freedom.
Courtney: It's freedom, but it's so hard to teach that until you start living it. And then you're like, Oh, it's layers.
Joey: And that's why I say on the initial surface, some of these things people say, if you're not a Christian, and even I was, you know, a Christian and I didn't understand the word properly. Even I, I mean, it's just you, you're like, what these words and the realities. No, there's, there's freedom in this.
There's grace in this, there's forgiveness in this, and there's power in this. I want to talk a little bit. You addressed the whole yoga thing.
Cause I think a lot of people struggle with that. A lot of people because it's like, I've often like my buddy doesn't matter. He's doing this little business and he does jujitsu and some other stuff.
And we were talking about business and I said, man, just offering a stretching, just a class for men, my age, do you know how many men are over 50 that they're having a hard time moving that we just need to stretch. You don't have to, you want to call it yoga, call it yoga.
Courtney: You don't want to call it yoga. You want mobility.
Joey: Yeah. We're just going to get in here. We're going to, let's get the mat out.
Let's get the bands. Let's practice in our breathing. Just that.
And so when I think of yoga, that's what I think.
Courtney: But I knew that a lot of people, and like you said, and it was a gateway for her, but her, I mean, to, to kind of like finalize my thought in that, I think whether it's someone approaching yoga and is fearful of it because they're protecting or guarding their faith, which is great. That's what we're told to do. Or someone who is opposite of that.
Someone who has shut down the idea of church, of the Bible, of Jesus, the case is closed. Whatever it is, don't do, don't not do something because of what you're hearing from other people. Talk to God and see what he says.
If it's a yes, then go explore. And if it continues to be a yes, then keep going. If you get a sense that this is not the way, take a couple steps back, go into prayer and, and, and sort it out with him, go to him first and then rally your people around you.
But don't let the biases of even maybe like 30 year old Joey, like you're a totally different version of 30 year old Joey now. Right? So we're going to think different thoughts.
Now we've had different experiences. Now we question why we are or aren't doing things. We're questioning why we are with or not with these people or these friends or question all that stuff and think it through, but don't put things into a box because of fear.
Never let fear drive you or because you think you've exhausted your thought on that particular issue. You can always learn more.
Joey: It's so easy to let fear, fear has been my fuel source the vast majority of my life. I've always been very envious of people that live life with that, like running from one thing to there's just certain people that have this energy of exuberance where they're just like running from thing to thing and you, it's like, they're not running from anything. They're just running towards like, you know what I mean?
And I've always known my fuel source was fear and it manifests itself in a lot of different ways, but it can be a wonderful driving source. Uh, you know, it's the fight or flight it's, but it's an exhaustive source and it, it really, it has a very negative influence in the long run. It's very, very bad.
And so I've always been very envious of people that I like, why were they born with just this? But you know what? Some people are seven feet tall and some people are five too.
So I mean, they're wired that way. Yeah. They're just wired that way.
In the book, you talk about it. I'm trying to remember the term you used, but this idea of forgiveness and grace for yourself and how that conflicted with your type a personality and like, well, because the type a everything's about the trophy.
Courtney: Yeah.
Joey: So anything short of the trophy is what, how did you screw this up? You also talk about Eastern Western philosophy and I, uh, the study of Kaizen, which there's a bunch of elements of Kaizen. One of them, the big one that usually people know is continuous improvement, but also that when people mess up in the Western culture, uh, we would say like, if Johnny messed up at work, like Johnny, I can't believe you messed up.
You know, we're coming down to Johnny. And in, in this Eastern philosophy that Toyota made really famous, they'd be like, Oh, Johnny just pointed out a flaw in our system. Thank you, Johnny.
Let's change the system. They're very into systems and less about blame. And to me, there's a couple of really subtle things in there.
Number one is you're never in a place of perfection. So you should never expect perfection. You should always expect something to go wrong because you're, you're always going to pursue perfection, but you're never going to get there.
And that's, it's easy to say, but that's tough because that's one of the triggers for when something bad goes happens instead of you being mad that you weren't there. You're like, okay, well, here we go. This is going to be one of our steps where we get even closer to perfection.
And then it just, it switches positive energy versus negative energy, negative energies. I can't believe you did that. I can't believe you made the mistake versus positive energy is like, okay, you've pointed out a flaw in the system.
Great. Now how Elon Musk turned the plane around. We've got to figure this out right now.
Courtney: Yeah.
Joey: Um, and to me that goes in alignment with this idea of grace and which is, I think when we talk about, you were talking about the church and my initial introduction to the church was Pentecost to my grandmother.
Courtney: Okay.
Joey: So now that was a very grace filled, sure. Dancing, speaking in tongues, healing, uh, maybe a little scary for some people, lots of jazz hands. Uh, and then my wife's introduction to church was the traditional Baptist, which is a little more hellfire and brimstone, a little bit more center center.
Um, and so we have, we go, the church we go to now is somewhere I keep trying to pastors, forgive me. I know he will, uh, that he told us what it is, but it's somewhere in the middle of where they're like, they still preach out of the Bible. They still talk about the loss, but it's a very grace filled message.
Courtney: Yeah.
Joey: And talking about that in your book about how important that is.
Courtney: Yeah. I mean, I, I was raised Lutheran and that focuses on the law and the gospel in a very intellectual way. And so Martin Luther, it, the, the, basically you can't have one without the other.
It's the yin and the yang, right? The, the, the gospel is the fulfillment of the law. Jesus is the fulfillment of the law.
So it comes to benchmarks. Once we understand and get to know who Jesus is through the Bible, right? And in John, it's like, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God.
And we know that Jesus was there at creation. It's just wild, right? Like Jesus is there the whole time, but like here he shows up in the new Testament as this baby he's embodied.
I'm obsessed with the idea of embodiment in the Bible. That's why I even wrote this book. It's like this God came and be like our human form.
That's insane. And then, you know, came from Mary, this woman, and then there's this baptism with like water. And then there's, you know, communion now it's like Christianity is super weird, right?
It's like, oh, we're eating your body and drinking your blood. That's normal. Like Christianity is weird when you look at it as a faith, but it's so the law and the gospel, it's like the, the benchmark is the law all fall short of the glory of God.
He expects for connection with him because he is divine, glorious, and perfect. He expects us to connect with him. And we have to be perfect too.
But the way the world sees perfection and the way the kingdom sees perfection, it's a dichotomy, right? Polarized opposites. So the perfection comes through Jesus and he attributes us to us.
There's that word propitiation. Whatever he went through, it's attributed to us. We are not expected to be perfect because Jesus knows how we're made and he knows our sinful nature.
It'll just never happen. So this is what I also love about the Christian faith is, and I just think it's the best. I feel like it's the most embracing of our human condition and its fallen state.
And I mean that in the way that grace comes in. That's the good news. Grace comes in.
It just exists everywhere, right? That we live in God's grace every moment as a law. Like it's like gravity, like we live in his grace and we just don't acknowledge it.
And the fact that when you go to church collectively, there's this expectation of personal recollection and confession. So we're all showing up whatever day of week it is with your church, whoever it is. Like after this, I'm going to my prayer group.
There's like a ladies Bible study prayer group in town. We're all professional business women. Anyone watching probably knows every single one of us.
And we come together every other week and we pray over Bible verse. We talk about it. We see what the spirit reveals, talk, you know, and then we pray and head out.
But it's like, that's a church for me. So I don't mean church in this narrow sense of like showing up on Sundays, but whoever you can confess to, you can be real with, you can be like, you've messed up. I've messed up.
We've all messed up. But we come together every day, whether we're showing up to ourselves, to God, we show up to our spouses, we show up to our kids, we show up to our Bible group, we show up to our fellow church members on Sunday, and we know that we're forgiven, right? We know that we're forgiven.
We know we've messed up. We have fallen short of that benchmark that exists that we should have met, but we didn't. And there's no way we can.
God came down that mountain and He sees us and He's like, I just want to be with you guys. I'll give you, I'll give you everything I have, all my power, all my love, and I'll bring you up to be with me. So we can have eternity right now and presence in Him now by just turning our hearts to Him.
Joey: That was awesome. That was very well said.
Courtney: Great. Thank you. I'm glad.
What did I just say? I was kidding.
Joey: I was thinking about how important it is for the path of redemption. That's something else that our society kind of got rid of for a few years, and I feel like it's back on the table again, is this idea of redemption, of people making mistakes. I don't know where the line is when we talk about humans.
When you talk about God, it's different. There's absolute grace. There's nobody low enough that God can't pull them up.
But with humans, it's a little bit different. We do have laws, you know what I mean? And forgiveness and justice do live and need to live hand in hand.
So it's a very... Some of these concepts are... That's where I struggle with the God's actions versus our actions.
You know what I mean?
Courtney: So it kind of reminds me of in college, I read Thomas Aquinas, and he goes into the philosophy of the four laws. So he has the eternal law, the human law, the natural law... No, natural law, human law, and divine law.
And so eternal law just exists... I think that's what you're getting at. It's just the eternal law existing all around us because God created it.
So we're just living in it, right? Whether we acknowledge it or not, it's here. And then I'm going to skip natural law because it's not fresh in my mind right now, but the human law, that is what's man-made.
That's like the governance so that bad apples get put away in jail, right? And then all of us, in all of these laws, there is that hierarchy. It's kind of like one follows the other.
And I'm not explaining it very well because it's not fresh in my mind, but all of them follow each other. And it's kind of like, if there's a breakdown in any one of them, you're not living up to the laws that exist in our world, and therefore there is disharmony. So that intent of sort of like, you know, goodwill, peace towards men, right?
Like that's our ideal, but none of us live up to it. We all want to, we all want to, but we don't really live up to it. So I guess that might be a book that might be interesting to you as Aquinas' laws, just it might bring some perspective if that's on your mind.
I know that has been on my mind too, just because I've been thinking a lot about like fairness and justice and how it's felt so meaningless. And now it's like feeling kind of vindicating and nice to see some like bad people put away.
Joey: I'm waiting.
Courtney: Because we weren't seeing that for a while anyway, but that's, that's normal. Like anyone knows you do, you do something bad. There's, there's a consequence, right?
You have the freedom, you have the freedom to do whatever you want, live the way you want. But if you abuse any of those laws that are in our natural state of living here on earth, there's going to be consequences. There's a cost to any decision you make.
So anyway, when is your book?
Joey: When is it getting published? Thank you. Cause it's not live yet.
Courtney: It's not, it is going to be released July or August and I'll have a link on my Facebook page.
Joey: We'll add it to this. If you share it with us.
Courtney: Great.
Joey: I imagine it'll be on Amazon. Everything's on Amazon.
Courtney: It'll be on Amazon. I'll have an audio book and you could do a book tour. I haven't thought that far ahead.
Joey: What? Let me see your objectives list. We need to add to that thing.
Courtney: Trying to practice what I preach here.
Joey: One of the things I loved about the book was that you have, it's incredibly abstract, but you also give the 12 practices. Like you give flat out here, do this. I thought it was a wonderful bridge between, okay, this is, this is why all this matters.
And oh, by the way, you know, drink water and stretch. You know what I mean? It's like, Hey, this will be a lot of, by the way, save money and invest wisely.
You know what I mean? Like I love it because it was both.
Courtney: Yes.
Joey: You know what I mean? So that's going to come out in July, August. We'll get a July or August.
And you are a financial advisor here in town. We didn't get to talk about that too much, but you just, you and you have a partner. How's that work?
Courtney: So Ann Marie Terrell is my partner. We started our own firm, Wealthwise Partners last April. And we were with a previous firm.
I was there 15 years, which was my dad's firm. And he had retired after he mentored me for five years. So she and I had partnered up and she had originally come from Ferndale, a firm there and came in 2014.
So we partnered up and decided to start our own venture and we're building, we have a team of five and we're having so much fun with it.
Joey: Where's your office?
Courtney: We're on West street, downtown on West street across from the DA's office.
Joey: Okay. But I was going to say by all the lawyers and judges and everything like that.
Courtney: Yeah. In fact, we took over an old lawyer's house.
Joey: Very good.
Courtney: Yeah.
Joey: Well, I super appreciate you coming on board. I would suggest anybody, the book you and I were talking, I think before camera about like, you were like, I wonder if this book's, you know, going to resonate with women or men. It resonated with me.
Courtney: I'm so happy to hear that.
Joey: But I, but knowing that you're a female author, I also, you know, I could say like, oh yeah, I could see where women would, but no, it's the, the lessons in it are universal. And so thank you so much for coming on.
Courtney: I appreciate you. Appreciate it. Thanks, Joey.
