Vision Battlesword [00:00:00]:
Hey, Courtney.

Courtney Johnson [00:00:00]:
Hello, Vision.

Vision Battlesword [00:00:03]:
How are you feeling today?

Courtney Johnson [00:00:04]:
I'm feeling great. Feeling very energized. I always feel very energized after having conversations like these. So I know I'm going to leave feeling energized as well.

Vision Battlesword [00:00:14]:
Wonderful. Yeah. I always enjoy these conversations as well, and I feel really, I don't know, uplifted. Who are you, Courtney Johnson.

Courtney Johnson [00:00:26]:
That is a great question. You're starting with a very heavy hitter. I think that can go a lot of different ways. But if we were just talking about right now what I'm doing, what I'm working on, what I'm excited about, well, I would say who I am is the things that I'm very excited about, and the things that I'm very excited about is storytelling and helping other people tell their stories. It is the thing that, like, lights me on fire. I love it.

Vision Battlesword [00:00:55]:
Well, what a coincidence. That's what we came here to talk about today. Well, I am Vision Battlesword. I'm founder of Sacred Light, the creator of Intentional Autonomous Relating, and the host of Sacred Conversations, which is what we're here doing.

Courtney Johnson [00:01:10]:
That's such a good. What is it called when you're auditioning for something? A slate. That's such a good slate. Oh, yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:01:17]:
Well, I actually created that after we had our podcast recording back at the beginning of the year, which was my first actual, legitimate podcast. Being on your show was, like, the first, like, true, proper, you know, properly recorded podcast that I'd ever done. And you asked me the question, you know, hey, what's your bio? What's your elevator pitch? And I didn't have anything prepared, and I realized I just like something succinct that sort of points people in the direction of the things that I do that are meaningful to me. But I also like to ask that other question of who are you? That's kind of my standard introductory question. Just because I really like the responses that I get, it shifts people a little bit out of the predefined patterns of how they talk about themselves.

Courtney Johnson [00:02:07]:
It's definitely a jarring question in a good way, but I can give my slate that might be more helpful to people as well. My name is Courtney, and I am a content creator. I am a consultant for businesses, specifically in sales and marketing. I'm a writer. I write a ghost write for others, and, yeah, I'm a human.

Vision Battlesword [00:02:29]:
Nice. So you came here today with the idea to talk about stories.

Courtney Johnson [00:02:35]:
Yes.

Vision Battlesword [00:02:36]:
Does that still feel alive for you?

Courtney Johnson [00:02:37]:
Yes.

Vision Battlesword [00:02:38]:
Okay, well, what are stories?

Courtney Johnson [00:02:42]:
Ooh, good. You're hitting the questions hard.

Vision Battlesword [00:02:45]:
This is what I do.

Courtney Johnson [00:02:47]:
I've never asked that question to myself, even though my entire work and life has been centered around storytelling, specifically writing. I think there's probably a lot of definitions for what are stories, but I think of them as a persuasive tool. Stories have been told for millennia to help influence behavior change. When you're telling somebody a story, you can influence the behavior change of them and then the butterfly effect of everybody around them, of course. But it can be used for good, it can be used for bad. It's just a tool.

Vision Battlesword [00:03:20]:
Yeah. I think of stories as a technology for transporting information across space and time.

Courtney Johnson [00:03:29]:
I love that. I'm going to borrow that definition from now on.

Vision Battlesword [00:03:34]:
Sure. I mean, that's one of many, as you said, one of many definitions. I just think it's so interesting to ask ourselves that question, what are stories? Because they're so integral to our experience, especially as social creatures and to our society, to our civilization, to our history as a species. What do you think about them?

Courtney Johnson [00:03:59]:
Yeah, I don't know who this quote is attributed to, but humans are monkeys who tell stories, right? And that really is the differentiator of us versus every other species.

Vision Battlesword [00:04:12]:
I've also heard someone, again, that I can't remember, which is that the human being is the animal that laughs. That's a quintessential kind of philosophical question of like, well, what is it exactly that differentiates the human species from all other species? Or is there actually anything specifically that does that? But certainly stories is a popular answer, and that makes sense to me.

Courtney Johnson [00:04:41]:
Yeah, I think that in our world, we put a lot of weight on, like, the science and the math and the things that have a concrete outcome. But storytelling storytellers is not as lauded in our society as I think it should be, because that is what holds all of the power. If all of our technology went away tomorrow, we would still be telling stories. We would still be creating, like, rebuilding society with stories. And stories are the things that make something true. Like, everything is fake until we agree on a story about it, and then it becomes true. So you can utilize stories in whatever goal you want to accomplish, whatever dream you have. You can use stories to help influence other people's perception of you, your idea, and influence their decision making, and come closer to whatever your dream or your outcome you're working towards is.

Vision Battlesword [00:05:34]:
Wow, that's a really interesting frame to put on that. What I think I heard you just say is that what is true is a story that we agree on.

Courtney Johnson [00:05:45]:
Yes.

Vision Battlesword [00:05:45]:
When we agree on a story, then, that is synonymous with truth? In the effective sense, yes. That's fascinating. I once had a debate, a friendly debate. I was part of this kind of club, if you will, that did debates monthly here in Austin. And I once had a debate with a friend of mine about the idea of what is the most successful technology for propagating memes through the world. In other words, memes in the sense. Not memes necessarily in the sense of, like, cat photos on the Internet, but or, you know, like, captions. Photos with a caption, but memes in the sense of sticky ideas, ideas that propagate through the minds of a population, like a virus.

Vision Battlesword [00:06:37]:
And my opponent was arguing that games are historically the most successful, most popular, most integral to the human species of, like, how we replicate viral information is through playing games. And I was arguing that stories are the most effective technology, the most fundamental, integral technology to the human species. And I've often thought of that, especially recently. For some reason, it's been coming up for me. Maybe it's because I've been noticing stories and how they sweep across the world through the news and through the Internet and through media today, like, over the past few years, how stories kind of take on a life of their own. And then I started thinking about how this is really before we had technology, before we even had writing, this is how we would pass information from generation to generation, is by packaging it in the form of a story. Like, oral tradition.

Courtney Johnson [00:07:43]:
Yeah. I mean, it's where history is written in our stories. History is written by the victors, because who's the one telling the story? It's the victors. There's biases in these stories. But back to your debate on games or stories. Which one is more powerful? I don't think games can exist without stories. How do you get a collective to agree on the rules of something? The only way to do that is through a story. So how would that exist?

Vision Battlesword [00:08:09]:
That would have been such a killer argument. I didn't even think of that. Like, yeah, tell me the rules of your game without using a story.

Courtney Johnson [00:08:16]:
Right. We can't go play a game of pickup basketball without agreeing what a hoop is.

Vision Battlesword [00:08:21]:
Right.

Courtney Johnson [00:08:22]:
The game wouldn't exist.

Vision Battlesword [00:08:24]:
Huh. Wow. I mean, you're really kind of, like, going deep here on, is there anything that we can even know without wrapping a story around it? Is that how we inherently package knowledge?

Courtney Johnson [00:08:39]:
I don't know, because there's the knowledge that's intellectual, and then there's a knowledge that's like the gnosis of knowing, and I don't necessarily think that the gnosis is necessarily stories, although we extract them and try to communicate them to other people through stories. But they are very different because there is a difference in you meet someone and you're talking about a topic, and it's pretty clear in how they're talking about it, if they really know it, or if they've just been told the story and they're repeating that story of that thing. And that's how we get, like, the perverted senses of religion and all of this, very much like, not, they don't have, they don't all, not everybody, that is, these religious figures have gnosis of the stories, or they wouldn't be perverting the stories.

Vision Battlesword [00:09:26]:
Wow. Okay, this has gone real deep real quick. Like, this is so exciting. So what I'm picking up in what you're putting down here is there's at least more than one different skill set, maybe two or maybe three, and what you just said. But there's the ability to, let's say, memorize, recall, and replicate a story. But then there's also the skillset of being able to construct a new story out of existing facts, data, information, experience, knowledge, whatever that stuff is, that source material. Let's say that a story can be created out of. But then if we think of now, going back to the word I used earlier, which is memes, just real quick, I'm going to put a pin in what I was saying.

Vision Battlesword [00:10:12]:
Do you know the origin of the word meme?

Courtney Johnson [00:10:15]:
I know the definition in the context of the information bits, but I don't know the origin of the story.

Vision Battlesword [00:10:21]:
Yeah. So it comes from a book written by Richard Dawkins in the seventies called the selfish gene. So Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist, as I understand it, and was doing work in the field of biological evolution through genetics, through DNA, but was comparing the storage of information in the DNA molecule to other information that can be encapsulated in other ways. And he created this word meme to be like the informational or mental equivalent of a gene that encodes information and is self replicating in the same way that a gene is self replicating. So that concept kind of took on a life of its own, not ironically. And, you know, that word now has kind of come to represent just any self propagating idea. So, I mean, people even refer to, like, an entire organized religion as a super meme. Or it can go all the way down to the simplest tiny little mental program that seems to become viral in the sense that it almost seems to want to perpetuate itself.

Vision Battlesword [00:11:42]:
So, coming back to the idea of memes, when you talk about stories getting perverted, is that the word you said? Yeah, or mutating. In a way. That makes me think of the analogy of memes to genes in how genes replicate themselves. But sometimes that replication is imperfect. And then now, reflecting back to stories, the story kind of shifts and mutates a little bit, generation by generation over time, until it might mean something totally different than whatever was the original intent.

Courtney Johnson [00:12:18]:
Right. That is true. And in thinking of the. Our stories, the only thing, like, I'm. I'm. I believe that there's stories that we can learn, and there's things we can learn with our brain. Then there's the gnosis, which is, like, in our DNA. But you're right, there's things that are warped maybe, in our DNA.

Courtney Johnson [00:12:37]:
Maybe it's these generational stories and these fears and these things that we feel that are very true but can be changed. But how do you change those? You can only change those through stories. You can only change those through creating a story about the meme and about the DNA and understanding this generational, like, trauma or messaging or whatever, and going deep. So, although I do think there's two different things, there's the gnosis and the intelligence. You do have to use the intelligence to change the gnosis if you want to change that.

Vision Battlesword [00:13:05]:
Yeah.

Courtney Johnson [00:13:06]:
So maybe they rely on each other.

Vision Battlesword [00:13:08]:
Yeah. Well, you just reflected back to me my own self awareness that even what I was just telling you about this explanation of memes and genes and Richard Dawkins and all this stuff. I'm telling you a story, right. That I heard or read somewhere, which that's interesting in its own. Right. There's something else about stories that's just occurring to me just now, which is they're not just purely informational, I think, or at least in the way that we use them as humans and why they're so potent as conveyors of information, which is that they tend to include emotional content.

Courtney Johnson [00:13:44]:
Yeah, they're. I mean, majority emotional. Something I find extremely interesting is we only have, like, 18 stories or something. Really? Yeah. There's, like, the hero's journey story, there's the rags to riches story, there's the. I don't know, all these stories. Every single. The archetypes, right.

Courtney Johnson [00:14:01]:
Every single movie. Every story. There's. Well, I don't know. Maybe it's less than 18, but there's, like, ten. Right. And there's not really much outside of that. If you create a story outside of that, humans won't respond to it.

Courtney Johnson [00:14:11]:
Like, I've spent my whole career in marketing, and marketing is storytelling like taking these, taking this raw information, crafting a story around it, and giving it to the public? If you're not following the story archetypes, nobody will care. It's crazy how it just doesn't work if you try to make up your own. It's like humans only attach to these certain story templates.

Vision Battlesword [00:14:33]:
Have you seen that yourself in your own experience?

Courtney Johnson [00:14:35]:
Absolutely.

Vision Battlesword [00:14:35]:
Wow. Well, but how do you know if you're creating a story that's outside of one of the archetypes?

Courtney Johnson [00:14:42]:
Because you start to see the patterns, like, as a writer, you start to see the patterns that come through and how you're structuring something. And if you play around with the structure, maybe I'm gonna bring the end to the beginning. Maybe I'm going to switch this around. I measure my writing in data because my content is all on the Internet. It's all publicly available. So I can see for me and my clients the data of how people are responding. What's the outliers like, what's the top performing, what doesn't perform, and the consistency on the blogs, the social media posts and messages, the videos that don't perform well, as they don't follow one of those story structures.

Vision Battlesword [00:15:17]:
Oh, that's fascinating. So you don't want to get too creative, really.

Courtney Johnson [00:15:22]:
Like, I think the creativity comes in the medium. It comes in the extra, like, spices you're adding into it, but. Exactly. You don't necessarily want to get too creative. And I think that's where people struggle in writing in general or persuasive writing is. You do have to, I mean, I'm sure you know this, like, as a debater, you do have to come back to these frameworks that are, that work now, of course, I think. I think the variable that comes in is the emotion. Like you're saying they have emotion on top of these stories.

Courtney Johnson [00:15:55]:
You can get very variable with emotions because humans have infinite amount of emotions and emotions that, like, we can't even label. So, like, that's the medium. And the emotions is really where you can be malleable with those, like, story archetypes.

Vision Battlesword [00:16:08]:
Hmm. Do you think it's possible to create a new archetype?

Courtney Johnson [00:16:14]:
I think so, definitely. I would be curious to know what that is.

Vision Battlesword [00:16:19]:
Yeah. Well, so as you're talking about these archetypes and how you have actually seen in your own experience, and this is kind common knowledge in the marketing industry and things of that nature that if you deviate too far from the type of pattern that the human brain emotional system is designed to kind of receive or like the interface that we're expecting to receive information. And if you deviate too far from that, then it may resonate for some people. But it's just not. It's not going to be as widely accepted. I'm thinking of some stories that I've heard before about, like how new types of art are created. Let's say, modern art or postmodern absurdism, deconstructionism. I can't remember the name of it.

Vision Battlesword [00:17:11]:
But musically, the symphony called the rite of spring, which includes a lot of dissonance and just not. It was just completely foreign to the expectations of the way classical music was composed. And initially, very, very not well received. Like, it actually, according to the story, again, I have no verification of the story that I've heard that there's a story that the first time this symphony was performed, that the audience actually went into a rage because it's just like. And I believe that music can affect people that way. It certainly, I've had that kind of experience. But then over time, there's a shift where the tastes, the preferences, the expectations of the mainstream of society can actually change, can grow accustomed to a completely new type of stimulation, like a different form of art, where the first time anyone ever sees, let's say, a Jackson Pollock painting, it may look chaotic and random. It may never not look like that to some people.

Vision Battlesword [00:18:15]:
But then there can become a whole domain of expression in that realm that people can resonate with, can even understand, can see the differences and the subtle nuances between two different versions of and so forth. Where before that, you might have said there's no archetype for splattering paint on a canvas. That's just not. That's not within any kind of framework of painting. And that's never going to be accepted. But then one, two generations later, got a whole wing of the gallery, the whole wing of the museum for that. So I don't know, what do you think about that as it pertains to stories?

Courtney Johnson [00:18:51]:
I find that really fascinating, because I do like some of my favorite stories about art are things like that. Like the birth of modern art, where it's almost self selecting for the most open minded and craziest people at that art gallery that saw nothing but beautiful renaissance paintings. And then a red square. The people that were fascinated by the Red Square are the like it was. The artist is self selecting for those people to gather around him or hip hop in the eighties, seventies? I don't know much about hip hop, but I do know that when hip hop was created, it was a completely new form of music that was self selecting for people that those dj's and artists wanted to be around. And so I do think that when it comes to storytelling, maybe the person that is creating more optimistic stories or creates a new archetype, there will be resistance. But that artist, that writer is also self selecting for the open minded people that want to evolve, that are like coming with them on this path, and then everybody else will come.

Vision Battlesword [00:19:48]:
Yeah, I see what you're saying, and that's really interesting to me. It could be both. Maybe it could be the case that there's certain ways that we are built and wired biologically, or even consciously from our memetic evolution that are not immediately mutable, that require that kind of long term evolutionary process of little adjustments before a new thing can emerge or come into being. And then maybe there's also other things that are just simply based around preferences, like what you're talking about. But where do you think those archetypes, if there's, let's just say it's ten, where do you think that those ten story archetypes come from? Do you think they're inside us somehow? Or do you think they're something that we learn or are imprinted with?

Courtney Johnson [00:20:39]:
Yeah, I've been wondering that question my whole life as a writer. And like, it is the question of writers, why these stories? Why are we writing these stories over and over? I don't know. I wish, I don't even have any clue that could point to, oh, maybe it could be this. No, like my. I feel like my life is an exploration of those stories and writing those stories over and over and why I'm even doing that.

Vision Battlesword [00:21:03]:
Well, what comes to mind right now as far as why those stories?

Courtney Johnson [00:21:07]:
Samsara? Maybe we're just on the loop of living those same stories over and over.

Vision Battlesword [00:21:12]:
Is that your experience? Have you lived the hero's journey and the rags to riches?

Courtney Johnson [00:21:16]:
Absolutely. I mean, every story in micro moments and in larger moments, right. Your whole life is a story. But also there's a story of when you tried out for the basketball team in 7th grade and worked really hard and got it and felt great, and that was this magical moment and. Right, and that's maybe a more micro moment. Or maybe the micro moment for you is getting, you know, waking up and going to yoga class in the morning. Cause that's been challenging to you, whatever it may be there's those micro moments, these mega moments that is our whole lifetimes, and then the moments that we're creating together with the stories as a culture and our history as a whole.

Vision Battlesword [00:21:51]:
Is there one particular archetype that you most resonate with as the story of your life?

Courtney Johnson [00:21:56]:
I don't know. I need a second to think about it. But is there one that you most resonate with?

Vision Battlesword [00:22:03]:
I don't know what they all are. I'd be curious.

Courtney Johnson [00:22:06]:
I mean, it all comes down to a hero's journey in some way.

Vision Battlesword [00:22:09]:
I do tend to agree with that. Yeah, that does resonate for me. I certainly. I mean, it's very directly and explicitly resonated for me. At different points in my life. I've intentionally viewed whatever process or part of a process it is that I'm going through at a time as mapping it to the hero's journey. Like, where am I in this story? What would be the next logical step for me? You know, maybe now it's my time to seek a mentor or spiritual assistance. Supernatural.

Vision Battlesword [00:22:42]:
Excuse me, super supernatural assistance. Maybe it's my time to go ahead and face my fears and go into the innermost cave and just see just how dark this can really get. Yeah, that resonates for me.

Courtney Johnson [00:22:55]:
It's really wild. As I get older, I feel like those. Yeah, the stories you hear as a child of going and, you know, the warrior goes into battle and whatever, and then you get to be an adult and you're like, aw, shit. The battle is in myself. I am the battle. The big bad monster is going into yourself.

Vision Battlesword [00:23:19]:
Are there any stories that you look at in the world that concern you? Because you said at the very opening, I asked you, what are stories? And you said, well, it's a tool, and we can use it for good, we can use it for bad, can use it in all different ways. It's neutral, it's indiscriminate. Are there any ways that you are concerned about how we use stories today?

Courtney Johnson [00:23:42]:
Yeah, there's not a particular story that concerns me, but what concerns me is humans not understanding the power of storytelling and the power that they have to tell their own stories. Much of my career has been going into a business, learning about the owner's passion. Maybe they started this, I don't know, sushi store or something. And they're really passionate, and it's. And that's their dream. And for them, they don't see it as a story. They see it as, this is my sushi store, but I see it as, oh, my gosh like, this family came to America, and then they moved to Austin, and they had this huge passion, and they went through all these obstacles, and they really, like, are sharing the food that they learn that's passed on from generations. And all these recipes of these relationships with the fishermen, that's the story that I want to tell.

Courtney Johnson [00:24:30]:
Like, that's what's going. When they realize or get someone like me to help them tell their story, things fall together more because they can't see that. Like, oftentimes, we're not conscious to our own story, and we're not conscious to the power it has. That's why I think a tool like social media, the Internet, technology, is so powerful because our mediums aren't just controlled by the same three news networks anymore. Anybody has a phone and access to the Internet. Not everyone, but most people in the world have access to the Internet, access to social media or blogs or websites, and can tell their own story and can, like, bring them to their dream and can accelerate their life. But people don't know the stories that they have. And I think a big part of it has been just the memes that ideas, but also memes around, like, influencers, bad, you know, kind of surface level, whatever.

Courtney Johnson [00:25:24]:
When really every single person is an influencer. Every single person influences something, but also every single person has the ability to share their story in whatever medium that may be. And maybe that medium is not something that's digital, and that's fine, but the leverage that comes from digital, that sushi shop shop. That sushi restaurant owner can live his dreams if he understands, one, the power that he has in understanding his story and telling the story, and two, can apply the leverage of digital to make every single person in Austin know about his sushi shop.

Vision Battlesword [00:25:57]:
Yeah, you're right. Yeah. It's just such a fascinating time that we live where there's a radical democratization, decentralization, and individual empowerment with this technology that we've created that's so unlike anything like what it's been before in terms of each individual on this planet having an equally large microphone, essentially.

Courtney Johnson [00:26:24]:
Yes, exactly.

Vision Battlesword [00:26:26]:
To literally broadcast, to speak, and to be heard. Now, censorship notwithstanding, different conversation, not what we're talking about right now, but imagining it in that way. We've somehow created this communication system that really allows point to point, individual to individual, one to many, any size container, any size group that you want to speak and to listen, to be heard, and to share our stories with each other. And there's something so hopeful about that, I think. And at the same time. With great power comes great responsibility. It's almost like the discovery of the atom or any other wild amplifier of whatever. Whatever you want to put into it.

Vision Battlesword [00:27:14]:
You said something, though, about influencers that made me think about another conversation I had a little while ago on the topic of leadership. And in that conversation, one of the things that came up was realizing that we each are, all of us are leaders. And that this distinction that we have been kind of taught and given, at least in previous generations or in previous paradigms, that it's like, oh, well, there's the leaders, and then there's the rest of us. And there's this idea that there's this minority of people who either have a skill set or have been anointed or granted the authority or whatever to lead all of the rest of us. And we completely deconstructed that paradigm and realized, like, well, we're each individually, we are each leaders, at least at a minimum of ourself. And then who else are we leading in our life and just breaking down this whole paradigm of an us versus them, where there's the leaders and the other people? And I'm now thinking about that exact same thing for the word influencers. On the one hand, there's influencers that are put on a pedestal, and then on the other hand, there's a rejection or a backlash to that and calling those people superficial or not adding value or whatever those judgments may be. But then how about the recognition of the influence that we each have individually and the power of this technology for us to truly influence each other in a conscious and an intentional way toward the creation of whatever kind of big, bright, beautiful world that we'd like to have.

Vision Battlesword [00:28:53]:
Does that make sense?

Courtney Johnson [00:28:55]:
Absolutely. Yeah. It's like everybody can be a storyteller. There are not these. Well, there still are gatekeepers, of course. And you write censorship. It's a whole different conversation. But, like, truly, now is the first time in all of human history anybody can share their story.

Courtney Johnson [00:29:10]:
And even 20 years ago, if you wanted to share your art or share your message or share your music or maybe share your message of iar, you would have to have a, you know, book publisher. You would have to have a PR person. You would have to know someone on the morning shows to get on the morning shows and talk about it. You would have to pay someone for a radio spot. Right. That's immense access and money privilege that is not needed. Now, anybody can lecture without a degree. You can publish a book without having a publicist.

Courtney Johnson [00:29:42]:
You can create a video without knowing cinematography. Right. Anybody can do any of these things, which is. But you're right, it does have a shadow side to it, of course. However, I think the shadow side we're coming from, where all of our media comes from, the same conglomerates, is much, much worse than what it is now because. Because it is decentralized. I do think that the negative messages or messages that are not helpful are almost, like, voted out. They're not going to be the people that are in, people are wanting to be inspired by.

Courtney Johnson [00:30:15]:
Right, but you're right, too, because I feel like everybody's influencer, everyone is a leader. We think, unless I'm going to have this platform with a million podcasts, whatever, I can't do my podcast. But you're a great example of. I have this community of 200 people and I want to share it with them. That is being a leader and an influencer and sharing your stories without having this idea of having to be this influencer.

Vision Battlesword [00:30:41]:
Well, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it seems to me we all want to have influence, of course. I mean, we all want to influence the direction of our lives. We want to influence our environment. We want to influence the relationships that, you know, that we have and people around us. And I think we also want to receive influence in positive directions, you know? So, yeah, I just. I would love to. We're not.

Vision Battlesword [00:31:03]:
That's not necessarily specifically the concept that we're talking about, but I think it's really interesting to deconstruct that in the context of storytelling and in the context of today's media landscape. Just this whole concept of influencer and. Really. Sorry, I want to reflect it back to the democratization piece that you were just talking about and that shadow side, because to be clear from my perspective, the shadow side is the centralized storytelling. What do I want to call it? The storytelling industrial complex or something like that.

Courtney Johnson [00:31:38]:
You know what I mean? That's the name for it.

Vision Battlesword [00:31:40]:
Propaganda. Thank you. Let's just name it. And that's the shadow side. I think that in the environment of completely free and open communication, that's the ultimate check and balance on information. Let's put it all out there and let's see what people really think about it. And, yeah, in a free and open environment, there's going to be ideas that get legs and spread for a little while and maybe even like. And it's been like this, you know, all throughout history, at least of all of the history that I'm aware of, that there's always going to be niche communities that have their own stories and have their own beliefs and have whatever information that they want to attach to or even create for themselves.

Vision Battlesword [00:32:29]:
That's always going to be true. That's always going to be the case. And that's part of, I think, just being free as a people, as a. As a species. But the vast majority, we're going to work out the truth for ourselves. We're actually really good at that. And we converge on that actually very quickly. In the absence of gatekeepers, in the absence of restrictions, of the flow of information, or, you know, some idea of a dominant story being imposed upon us, we actually are pretty good at working things out.

Vision Battlesword [00:32:58]:
And I'm a lot less afraid that, than I am of some kind of storytelling industrial complex that is going to have an outsized voice of thousands or millions of times more powerful than the rest of us.

Courtney Johnson [00:33:15]:
Absolutely. I agree. I think this also leads to a responsibility that we have now. I guess we've always had, but now maybe we could think about it differently of we have access to so many stories now that we can read the stories of billions of people, rather than just a gatekeeper or a conglomerate or a propaganda or whatever it may be. We have access to billions of stories. We need to be very conscious in our own minds and hearts of what stories do we want to take in, what do we want our gatekeepers to be? Because maybe you do set up gatekeepers. Maybe not gatekeepers, but boundaries. I don't really want to be consuming these stories.

Courtney Johnson [00:33:54]:
I want to consume these stories. This makes me feel really good. And that is a responsibility that I don't think we're necessarily taught, maybe we didn't necessarily know, would be such a responsibility that all of us hold right now. But that is important, too. Like, not the stories we're telling, but the stories we're consuming.

Vision Battlesword [00:34:10]:
That's a really great point. Yeah. Cause that maybe that it really is the shadow side of the decentralized democratic alternative is, okay, now, the new problem is too much information. The new problem is overwhelm. The new problem is like, oh, great, there's 8 billion people on this planet all trying to share their story with me. You know, I can't possibly consume all that. I can't possibly decide where to place my attention or even how to know exactly what's fact from fiction in all of that. And maybe that is where the role of a quote unquote influencer, which I don't like that word, but maybe there's a curator.

Courtney Johnson [00:34:49]:
Curator, like a trusted curator.

Vision Battlesword [00:34:51]:
I love that. I love that. Yeah, there's a role for people who contextually, not necessarily universally, but like, yeah. In this particular community, in this particular context, within this particular domain, are there to help people by filtering, aggregating, analyzing.

Courtney Johnson [00:35:13]:
You're a great example of that content curator because you're bringing in people that you're interested in, you think your group will be interested in. You're putting boundaries around it. We're talking for this amount of time about this topic. You're rephrasing and mirroring back to me in a way that's making sense to the audience. Maybe if a conversation goes super awry, you're not going to include it. Maybe you want to talk to someone twice. Right? You're being a really awesome content curator, and I think there is such an important leadership position and opportunity for content curators. If you're the type of person that's like, I'm not a storyteller.

Courtney Johnson [00:35:47]:
I don't really like creating art, writing, making videos. That's not your thing. But you love to gather. You love to gather other people's stories. You like to put them together like, you vision. That is a powerful, amazing, incredible leadership position to be in that again, anyone can assert themselves in that position and people will enjoy your curation or they will not. It's like going to a clothing boutique. It's a small selection because they've curated the things from their style eye that they think that you will like.

Vision Battlesword [00:36:19]:
I love that. And thank you, by the way. I love that phrase, content curator. I don't know that I've heard that before. Have you heard that? Is that a phrase that's going around?

Courtney Johnson [00:36:30]:
Content curator is a phrase that is. I don't know who created that, but it's been around for a while. Not very much talked about, but I talk about it a lot because there's so many people that come to me, like, for my services and they're like, but I don't want to write. I don't want to be on a podcast. I don't want to create. You don't have to. You literally do not have to. You can just bring in the things that you like.

Courtney Johnson [00:36:51]:
I'm not sure if you're familiar with Tim Ferriss. He lives in Austin. Yeah, great example. He doesn't create content. He just curates a workout every a link to a YouTube workout. He likes a link to a podcast. He likes the book he's reading and something else. And that is his.

Courtney Johnson [00:37:05]:
That is what he's built a business on, this five bullet Friday newsletter, which is just five things he links to five things he likes. That is all because he has a great eye or brain or whatever for curation and getting rid of the fluff.

Vision Battlesword [00:37:19]:
But that really adds a lot of value because if you get to know Tim Ferriss and you decide, okay, yeah, we're aligned. Like, Tim's values are pretty much like my values. Tim's preferences are pretty much like my preferences. Great. And then who has time? Well, Tim obviously, but like some people, but a lot of people, myself included, it's hard to find time to like, go and do research. I feel like we've had this conversation before at some point, but it's hard to find time to go and do research on like, okay, yeah, well, what's this thing that I, what's this thing that I want? Like, what's the good workout for me? Like, what's all these different things that adds a lot of value when you can subscribe to another person's curation, another person's, um, helpful tips, helpful advice.

Courtney Johnson [00:38:03]:
It's like curating an art gallery.

Vision Battlesword [00:38:05]:
Yeah.

Courtney Johnson [00:38:05]:
And that's of all the stories.

Vision Battlesword [00:38:06]:
That's why I love the words so much, because there's other words that, you know, aggregator just doesn't have the same ring to it. You know, there's like different, but a curator, it's like, yeah, you're imagining like collection in a museum and it also, but it has the same kind of ring to it as content creator, but content curator, but it's a different skill set, it's a different value add that there's such a role for that. In a world where we're just overloaded with choices, information stimulation, options, we are bombarded.

Courtney Johnson [00:38:43]:
It's only going to get more intense. The amount of information is only going to get more and more and more. I believe the role of a curator is only going to become more and more in demand and more and more important. And there's so many ways it can play out. Like I follow this Spotify account called orchid music design, and they curate incredible Spotify playlists of, listen to this while you're making dinner. Listen to this while, whatever. I didn't have to go through and find all the billions of songs off of Spotify, you know that I, and I would happily pay money to this app. I would subscribe to them in order to get their best playlist.

Courtney Johnson [00:39:22]:
So beyond just information or stories in the written or contextual way, music, again, like art, like boutique, there's so many, so many ways that you can curate. There really is space for everybody. There's a lot of power. You can also self curate. I often share a story of this tech CEO that I managed. I manage all of his social media, and that's, like, an intimate position. When I manage somebody's social media, I see their messages, I see everything that comes up on their feeds. I see their personal life.

Courtney Johnson [00:39:56]:
Right? And this one tech CEO, I really admire him. He's awesome. I opened his Instagram feed for the first time, and I'm scrolling through, and I was shocked because every single thing was so positive, so incredible. I remember the very first picture I saw was a meme about, like, when you love your wife so much and she's so amazing or something, and it was like two teddy bears. And then I, like, scroll, and it's was like a motivation video, and I scroll, and it was like an inspirational quote. Then it was something beautiful, and I was just like, wow. Like, that's what this guy is feeding into his head every single day. Just this amazing love, incredible, like, positive messages in his social media feed.

Courtney Johnson [00:40:36]:
Of course. He's so successful and peaceful and, like, living such an incredible life. So even if we don't necessarily want to be content curators for others, we all have to content curate for ourselves. Like, that is really important, who you follow and what you block, what you allow in. Like, there is strong boundaries that need to be created because stories are so powerful. And it's funny that. I know the. It's funny that the word meme has been turned into, like, Internet meme, too.

Courtney Johnson [00:41:05]:
But there is power in silly Internet memes.

Vision Battlesword [00:41:09]:
Totally.

Courtney Johnson [00:41:09]:
So much power. It's crazy.

Vision Battlesword [00:41:11]:
Well, I'm so glad you brought that up. A meme in the sense of, you know, a square picture with a caption overlaid on it. Like, in that definition of what a meme is, is really a micro story, and it's like a very, very efficient information vehicle, it seems to me, you know, you take this thing that can be shared so quickly, so easily, it can go viral within a matter of seconds. All of a sudden, it's making impressions on millions of screens, and it's hitting someone's eyes, it's hitting some brain, and immediately you're getting a story, immediately you're getting an idea, and it carries emotional content with it, which even makes that story more impactful or maybe makes that impression on your nervous system, makes that land in your psychology and your consciousness and makes it sticky. It's a brilliant, brilliant mechanism.

Courtney Johnson [00:42:12]:
I find memes to be so fascinating. There's so many. Yeah, they self select for certain culture like people that understand a cultural moment, and then there's so many layers to understanding the context. And they can be so positive, they can be so negative. I have to get rid of memes altogether because I found myself consuming pretty negative memes that in the moment I laugh at them and I'm like, oh, that's so funny. Something like, oh, whenever you, I don't know, try on clothes and you think you're really fat or something like that, this meme did not, not actually resonate with me. But that's like an example. I would be like, oh, ha, that's so funny.

Courtney Johnson [00:42:46]:
Send it to a friend. Like when you're, when you clock, when you clock it, you're like, oh, my God, like, what am I doing?

Vision Battlesword [00:42:51]:
What did I just take in?

Courtney Johnson [00:42:52]:
Yeah, and they come so fast.

Vision Battlesword [00:42:54]:
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's the dark side, that's the shadow side. It's like, yeah, it's something that tastes like candy. It's like a candy coated pill. But what's on the inside of the pill? Is it vitamins or is it a little bit of poison? You know? Yeah, yeah, we got to be careful. It's so true. And that stuff's hard to filter. Yes, well, so coming back to content curator and self selecting these two terms, putting that together, the other thing, I think that the other direction that I see this moving in as a way of us creating boundaries for ourselves and what type of stories that we want to create and share and consume with each other as communities. You know, I look at that as, again, like you said before, it's almost like in an earlier, the earlier days of the Internet or up until the present day, certainly, but it almost seems like there's kind of this, like one model, everything heads in this one direction where the idea is, I'm going to go public, I'm going to go as far and as wide as I can.

Vision Battlesword [00:44:03]:
I'm trying to blow up. It's about numbers of followers, it's about numbers of likes, it's about numbers of views, it's about getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And what I'm wondering and what I'm seeing is, what if there's a value in keeping things small?

Courtney Johnson [00:44:20]:
Absolutely.

Vision Battlesword [00:44:20]:
And what if there's a value in creating these more like micro communities where we can actually create and share content within for each other, like what sacred conversations is, and it doesn't have to get big. And that's not, that's not even the idea. And maybe we do, or maybe we even don't want anyone to be able to find us or to be able to see this, but it's not, that's not the point. But maybe we can take in information and curate that internally ourselves within like a trusted circle. And then maybe from time to time, we do actually want to try to reach a larger audience with whatever it is that we're doing. But that, more of that discernment, more of that discretion and a closer circle.

Courtney Johnson [00:45:03]:
Of relationships, I think that is very important. I'm very happy you brought that up. I actually have that in my own content creation business. I have my public content, and then I have a private Patreon where I post a mini podcast or, you know, recording or essay something every single week, and people pay $10 a month for it. It's a small community, but I was really inspired by, and I can be more. I could talk about more things there. I don't have to worry about the trolls. It's people are, it's almost co created because people are giving me, you know, inspiration.

Courtney Johnson [00:45:36]:
Hey, can you post about this? Can you make an audio episode about this topic? I have these questions. Can you answer them? I can answer them publicly to one person, help, you know, 100 people. And it's amazing, but I was inspired to do this. From Kevin Kelly's concept of 1000 true fans. Kevin Kelly is a writer. He has this amazing essay called 1000 true fans where he's saying, you don't have to have this goal of becoming this giant mega influencer with millions and millions of followers or this giant musician with millions of streams. Whatever, whatever your media might be, you don't have. That doesn't have to be the end goal.

Courtney Johnson [00:46:12]:
That's not the only way to be successful. A thousand true fans is this concept of, if you can have 1000 people give you $10 a month, and you can give them more than $10 of value, so they're giving you $10 a month that sustains your life. That's $120,000 a year that sustains your life, and that sustains the equipment or whatever you're creating or whatever it may be. And it's a great essay. He talks about how this is in the context of writers, journalists, musicians, content creators, video creators, all of that. And I just think it's amazing because it is so, like, it is not for everyone to become this big famous. Like, fame is not for everyone. Like, growing as big as possible is not for everyone.

Courtney Johnson [00:46:51]:
And I love that 1000 true fans gives an extremely attainable, like, value, driven with your audience and also like, like gold that can sustain you and you can even thrive, like, doing that. And obviously you can play with the numbers or whatever, but that being a starting place is such a reasonable and amazing way for anybody to, like, make a living off of the thing you're passionate about.

Vision Battlesword [00:47:15]:
Hmm. And what about even. Not necessarily in a strategy where you're trying to monetize even what you're doing? What about, you know, just an idea of how we share our stories with each other?

Courtney Johnson [00:47:29]:
Yeah, I mean, that is very important too. But if you're doing it in a way where you need to have energy to make the thing, like, if it costs $100 to make the video, you know, I think it's important that it's co create. The people in the community are co creating that. So you're not being negative in value yourself.

Vision Battlesword [00:47:49]:
Yeah, well, that's, that's what comes back to value for value.

Courtney Johnson [00:47:52]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [00:47:52]:
You know, in, in my philosophy.

Courtney Johnson [00:47:55]:
Yeah, I like that, but I, but I. You're right, I don't, I mean, I don't think you need to monetize everything at all. I do think that the idea of small private communities is again going to become even more and more and more important as there becomes more and more content and more and more communities. So, yeah, I think it's a great idea.

Vision Battlesword [00:48:17]:
Yeah. And now that I'm thinking about it, I think the community concept can be even more important on the curation side.

Courtney Johnson [00:48:27]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:48:29]:
But then additionally, I'm just also kind of thinking about it on the content side as well.

Courtney Johnson [00:48:34]:
Both are. Both are content. If you're curating content, you're still giving out content. Doesn't matter if you made it or you didn't make it, you're still giving value. But it is. Well, I guess you could probably argue whether that's more or less effort. Maybe it depends on the person, but I definitely think that you don't have to create any content to create value. Like, the curation is more than enough.

Vision Battlesword [00:48:56]:
Are you open to sharing anything at all about your power activation?

Courtney Johnson [00:49:02]:
Oh, yeah, I would love to.

Vision Battlesword [00:49:03]:
Okay, so without talking about any specific details of, like, what that is and how it works, but, you know, within the framework of, I'm just remembering your dream and I'm remembering how the stories, the idea of helping people to share their stories and especially, like, creating your own stories, and I think there's an idea of really activating helping people to activate their voice was a big part of your dream.

Courtney Johnson [00:49:30]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:49:31]:
I'm just curious what that means for you and how that's been manifesting for you.

Courtney Johnson [00:49:35]:
Yeah, so the deepest, most important part of that is, or has been and is helping people understand that they are creators. Through their stories and through their voice, they can create a. Anything that they want through their stories and their voice. So a big part of my activation was creating content, materials, courses around that and around empowering other people, because it is just my favorite thing in the world to see other people realize the power that they have in that and go and use that power, because it truly changes lives. But it all comes down to understanding that you are a creator. And that is the way, or a way that we as humans can create is through your voice and through your story.

Vision Battlesword [00:50:21]:
Yeah. Well, tell me more about that. How does that work? What is that power? What is that power that people have to create through stories? And tell me about how you think that works. Like, just tell me about stories and creation.

Courtney Johnson [00:50:35]:
Okay, so I think, well, how it works, that's a great question. How I think it works for me and others I'm close to is we all have mediums of art and expression that we feel really comfortable with. And there's a few areas of that. So it has to be a medium that you all art mediums are languages. So in order to communicate in a language, you have to understand the language, and you have to be able to fluently speak the language. For example, I understand the language of dance. I've been trained in dance. I can see it.

Courtney Johnson [00:51:07]:
I understand what it's about, and I can express myself in the way I want to dance. And I feel very complete in that because it's, you know, a beautiful, fluent, joyous expression. Something like fashion or personal style, or let's say, like oil painting. As a medium, I don't really understand oil painting, but I also don't have this deep desire to express and storyteller through oil painting. So I feel pretty satisfied in that. But something like personal style or like fashion, or maybe like interior design, I do have an interest in it. I do understand the language, and I don't necessarily know how to express myself in that language, so I'm not fluent in that language. So there's a tension.

Courtney Johnson [00:51:45]:
So I want that tension to be filled. So every single person has the medium that they are, like divine or multiple mediums that they are divinely inspired and feel a desire to express through and storytell through music, art, fashion, writing, whatever business. And there's. There's a fluency. You. You understand it. You're fluent in understanding it, you're fluent in speaking it. But when there's discrepancies when there's a gap, that's, that's where the frustration happens and that's where people get, like, really scared or maybe even shameful because they're like, I don't want to share my music because I don't feel like I'm fluent in music yet.

Courtney Johnson [00:52:22]:
And it's really, I'm really afraid of doing it. But the only way to become fluent is by sharing your story and getting feedback. And sharing and getting feedback. So if you want to become a dj and that is the medium you feel divinely inspired to do. You love music, you understand music, but you can't speak it yet. The only way to learn how to speak it is that feedback loop of storytelling. And that is vulnerable. That is scary, that can feel like shame, that can feel really bad.

Courtney Johnson [00:52:46]:
And so I love guiding people through that process of getting through those blocks and relieving that tension so they feel very complete. And when they are djing, they're like, oh, yeah, like, I'm fluent in this language. I'm communicating my story in this way.

Vision Battlesword [00:53:00]:
I see. So the power of our power gets activated through stories when we learn how to express ourselves fluently and to really convert our creative energy into an expression that other people resonate with.

Courtney Johnson [00:53:21]:
Exactly. And we are, I'm not going to say we are all, but many people are very creatively stifled. Every single person has a creative medium of expression. And I do think it dulls our spirit when we cannot express through that. And it dulls our spirit when we don't feel fluent. Go to another country and try to communicate in broken, that broken language. You feel frustrated. You feel like, oh, I have words.

Courtney Johnson [00:53:47]:
I'm a smart person. I know my thoughts. I just can't get it out. I think that stops people, that frustration of not having the, you know, maybe skill set or confidence to start that process of understanding how to become fluent in that language, like, really blocks a lot of people. But I also think if more people do it and do it publicly, it gives permission to others, like, oh, they're starting their dj journey. I can start learning guitar because I've always wanted to do that, or I'm gonna learn dance, or I'm going to finally, you know, publish my poetry to the world. But it does. You do have to give yourself permission to not to have broken Spanish or broken, I don't know, Russian or French or whatever.

Vision Battlesword [00:54:33]:
So right now, I've got several questions on my mind right now. This is so interesting to me. Are you having fun?

Courtney Johnson [00:54:39]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:54:40]:
Okay, awesome. But before I kind of continue down that path. I want to bring something out onto the table to be here with us, along with all the other things we've kind of brought out. And that is, I guess, one of the main gifts that I feel that I offer to the sacred light container and other forms of my facilitation is to help people to identify their stories and to choose if those are stories that they want to continue to reside with or if they want to let them go or maybe rewrite them. And so in this context as well, this idea that we also have stories in our consciousness, we have stories that, in part, create our experience as they're kind of, like, swirling around in our minds and through our memories. Now, with that piece just out on the table, coming back to, what is a story? Does a story have. Must a story have a character? Is that part of inherently, what makes a story a story?

Courtney Johnson [00:55:43]:
I would say yes.

Vision Battlesword [00:55:45]:
Does a story have to have a plot?

Courtney Johnson [00:55:47]:
I would say yes.

Vision Battlesword [00:55:49]:
What is a plot?

Courtney Johnson [00:55:50]:
The path. The map.

Vision Battlesword [00:55:52]:
Okay, so a story is a journey.

Courtney Johnson [00:55:55]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:55:56]:
From somewhere to somewhere else.

Courtney Johnson [00:55:57]:
Exactly.

Vision Battlesword [00:55:58]:
Someone is on a journey.

Courtney Johnson [00:55:59]:
Someone's on a journey in a story.

Vision Battlesword [00:56:01]:
Okay. Does a story have to have conflict?

Courtney Johnson [00:56:05]:
Absolutely.

Vision Battlesword [00:56:06]:
Really?

Courtney Johnson [00:56:06]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:56:07]:
Okay.

Courtney Johnson [00:56:07]:
I think so.

Vision Battlesword [00:56:08]:
Tell me more.

Courtney Johnson [00:56:08]:
I think a story is boring without conflict. The most beautiful pieces of music are beautiful because there's tension. There's, you know, this follows the hero's journey. There's this rising action, and then there's explosion, and then there's the crescendo, and there's a resolution. Like, I do think conflict is required for a good story, at least.

Vision Battlesword [00:56:33]:
Is tension the same thing as conflict of.

Courtney Johnson [00:56:36]:
I guess not. No.

Vision Battlesword [00:56:37]:
Okay, so does a story need to have tension, or does it need to have conflict?

Courtney Johnson [00:56:40]:
Tension.

Vision Battlesword [00:56:41]:
Got it. Okay.

Courtney Johnson [00:56:42]:
Yeah. That's an interesting. Interesting word choice, because tension could also be phrased as, like, balance or.

Vision Battlesword [00:56:49]:
Yeah, yeah. Tension could even. Yeah. It can be just sort of like a form of energy or a relationship between things.

Courtney Johnson [00:56:59]:
Right. Polarity.

Vision Battlesword [00:57:00]:
Whereas conflict implies something adversarial, something where two. Two somethings are at odds with each other, whereas with tension, it doesn't have to be. It can be more neutral.

Courtney Johnson [00:57:12]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [00:57:13]:
Okay, so a story is a journey that someone. Someone is taking a journey through tension from somewhere to somewhere else in a story. Okay, what's a story that you have had in your life that whether you judge it positive, negative, or whatever, but what's an example of a story that you carried around with you through your life at some point?

Courtney Johnson [00:57:40]:
Ooh, a story that I have been working through recently is thinking that in order to be as successful as men, I need to be like men. I need to take on characteristics of Mendez. I need to follow routines of men. That has been a story that I'm realizing now is not true.

Vision Battlesword [00:58:02]:
Fascinating. So if we break that down, the character is you.

Courtney Johnson [00:58:07]:
Yes.

Vision Battlesword [00:58:08]:
The destination is success.

Courtney Johnson [00:58:11]:
Well, the destination is. Maybe success is not the right word. Accomplishment of a goal, or. Sure.

Vision Battlesword [00:58:19]:
Okay. The definition is or. Excuse me. The destination is achievement.

Courtney Johnson [00:58:23]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:58:24]:
Okay. And the tension is you're not a man.

Courtney Johnson [00:58:30]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [00:58:32]:
That's fascinating. This is fun. I am, in this moment, learning a lot about stories, so I'm just really enjoying this process.

Courtney Johnson [00:58:40]:
How do you see yourself in the story? As, like, you're saying you're somebody who's helping people identify the stories they want to keep and not keep. Like, what does that make you in that container? Are you, like, the puppet master? Are you the book holder?

Vision Battlesword [00:58:58]:
Maybe I'm the librarian.

Courtney Johnson [00:58:59]:
The librarian? Well, the librarian selects the books. They don't select how the story goes. You're the curator.

Vision Battlesword [00:59:06]:
Maybe I am. Yeah, maybe I am. I'm the person that helps you to learn how to curate your library.

Courtney Johnson [00:59:15]:
The editor that's helping the author finish their story, and you're like, oh, is that chapter true? Do you really need that? And they're like, oh, I never thought that I might not need that chapter. And you're like, delete.

Vision Battlesword [00:59:29]:
Fair. But I certainly don't see myself as having that kind of editorial. It's not for me to say what your story should be.

Courtney Johnson [00:59:40]:
Wait, I think you're more of the mirror then. Like, when you're the audience that's reflecting back, you're the. You know, I'm putting out a blog, and I'm seeing that the audience is asking me questions about it or provoking or being like, oh, interesting. What is this? Or I'm seeing the data, and the data is like, oh, at minute three, people are really interested. What's going on at minute three? I've never even thought to think about that topic or write about that topic.

Vision Battlesword [01:00:04]:
That's closer. Yeah, I think it's more. So, yeah, you're helping me flesh this out. I think it would be more like someone comes to me and says, I have a story that begins once upon a time and ends, and they lived happily ever after.

Courtney Johnson [01:00:21]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [01:00:22]:
And I challenge the person to read the whole book.

Courtney Johnson [01:00:25]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:00:25]:
I'm like, okay, well, let's walk me through that. What's on page two?

Courtney Johnson [01:00:29]:
Right?

Vision Battlesword [01:00:29]:
What's on page three? You know, then we read the book together. That's all. We just read the book together. And then at the end of that, we come to a conclusion of whether this book makes any sense as a part of your library anymore.

Courtney Johnson [01:00:46]:
I think it's. Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:00:47]:
And is this story really true? That's really the ultimate question. Let's read. Let's read this story fully, and then you just tell me, does this seem true?

Courtney Johnson [01:00:56]:
Like a reflector?

Vision Battlesword [01:00:57]:
Yeah, I guess so.

Courtney Johnson [01:00:58]:
Wow, that's awesome. I would say that's pretty true.

Vision Battlesword [01:01:02]:
Yeah. Thank you.

Courtney Johnson [01:01:05]:
There is a lot of storytelling integrated into dream storming, so. Yeah, that is cool.

Vision Battlesword [01:01:11]:
Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I think dream storming is a storytelling exercise. Without a doubt, we are going into a new story. We are imagining what a new story could look like.

Courtney Johnson [01:01:25]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:01:26]:
What a new story might look like. Yeah.

Courtney Johnson [01:01:28]:
I think what's really fascinating about it is it would not work alone. Like, you can't really dream storm only by yourself, because, like, you're saying you're reflecting back, things that maybe I wouldn't have even thought about. Or not only you're reflecting back, but other people in the room are reflecting back. And I actually, since learning about dream storming and doing just vision boards and stuff like that, I've noticed that as a gap in myself where I'm like, okay, I made this nice vision board as my desktop wallpaper, but nobody's seeing this. Nobody's reflecting back any of this. To me. Is there a part of this where I'm looping or spiraling into something that maybe isn't true or I don't necessarily need or want, because there is no reflectors here. So I think there's such a important need for reflectors.

Courtney Johnson [01:02:18]:
And next time I make a vision board for my desktop wallpaper, I'm going to do it with a group of people, like, or all making vision boards together or something, because that part of it. I've never seen the reflection part in any other goal setting experience.

Vision Battlesword [01:02:35]:
Yeah. It usually is a very individual exercise, and that is a part of the magic of the process, at least as we practice it, that there's something really, and you may remember also, we're doing a little bit of a deconstruction of the power activation. This is fun. You may remember also the golden gossip game, which is also a storytelling game. There's something so important about being witnessed and then reflected in that process, and I haven't fully digested it or dissected it in terms of, like, what exactly is the psychology or spiritual aspect of what is going on there, but you experienced it, and so many people have experienced it, just like, how powerful that experience is. And if I. When I describe the game to you, you go like, that sounds cool. But then you play the game, you're like, oh, my goodness.

Vision Battlesword [01:03:34]:
I don't know what just happened to me, but something changed. Something shifted in hearing two people tell my story to each other through their own words and through their own eyes and their own lens. It's, like, profound.

Courtney Johnson [01:03:49]:
It is. Yeah. It is really, really amazing. That is very. Yeah. That's a part that I think is missing in, again, a lot of dream or goal setting or affirmation practices. Even in my daily affirmations, in my journal, there's nobody to witness that. So it doesn't feel as powerful because maybe you're getting in your own head.

Courtney Johnson [01:04:12]:
I don't know, but, yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:04:14]:
Wow. Maybe that's. We're onto something pretty cool here, I think, because maybe that's what we're seeking with this whole social media, with this whole idea of putting ourselves online and creating content and wanting to have an audience. We want people to witness our stories. And then there's also something, and you can kind of maybe relate this to our relationship with food. There's certain things about how we're constructed as biological organisms. There's certain ways in which we can create a runaway process or a feedback loop because we crave sugar, we crave fat, we crave that taste good to our body because they should be nutritious in the environment that we evolved out of. But we've now short circuited those processes, and we can actually make ourselves very unhealthy if we don't self regulate with that.

Vision Battlesword [01:05:09]:
Maybe there's something similar in the way that we crave that kind of reflection, witnessing validation. But that can turn into a runaway, you know, that can turn into something unhealthy when we need, like, more and more and more, let's say, followers or likes or whatever that may be, or like we don't feel good enough if we haven't achieved a certain level of visibility or status. But there's something innate that's just important about being human. And I actually need you to hear my story, and I need you just to receive it and then reflect it to me in the same way that we might need physical affection.

Courtney Johnson [01:05:46]:
Yeah. One thing, one resistance that I had in dream storming that I know other people have shared because people have shared this with me, is sometimes you're even afraid to verbalize your dreams.

Vision Battlesword [01:05:57]:
Yes.

Courtney Johnson [01:05:58]:
And so I think that is an act of power. And courage in itself is verbalizing that is a thing that I want, or that is okay, that I want that, or that is, maybe people will think I'm crazy or that's too big or that's too small, like, whatever it may be. And so I think in dreamtorming, that is also such an important part of the process because, yeah, you can write down what you want in affirmation, say it to yourself. But something about saying in front of other people where you have to overcome that uncomfortable cringe. And I do think when it comes to social media and putting yourself out there, digital media, even sharing your art, music, business, whatever, you have to overcome that cringe of, like, I'm launching my, I'm sharing my art, like, I'm sharing my paintings now I'm going to go in this gallery. You have to overcome that cringe of like, oh, people are publicly seeing that I desire this thing.

Vision Battlesword [01:06:46]:
Yes.

Courtney Johnson [01:06:46]:
And that I think that we do. There is a judgment on people that publicly desire something, but there's not a judgment on people who have publicly already accomplished that thing. That's why it's cringe to see people just starting their YouTube channel or whatever. That's why we feel cringe when we're just putting out our music for the first time. So that's also an important part, is maybe when other people are reflecting back to you and you're overcoming that cringe feeling, there's like power in that.

Vision Battlesword [01:07:14]:
Yeah. Yeah. You're hitting on something so important, especially as it relates to dream storming, because I think that is one of the most powerful parts of the process. And important parts of the process. You know, many people who come to our experiences have never really, maybe not, maybe never, say never, but some people have shared with me that they felt like this is the very first time that they felt like they were in an intentional container that really was safe for them to speak their full and honest truth of their desires. It's like, wow. I mean, to your point, it's like maybe there's things that you think internally. Maybe there's things that you don't even let yourself think internally.

Vision Battlesword [01:08:00]:
Maybe you tell it to your journal or to your diary, but it's an isolated experience. And that shift from being with yourself and whatever your dreams, your fantasies, your desires, your real needs are, and other people, even one other person, someone else, knowing that there's just, there's something transformational about it in your relationship to the universe is what I'm saying. But also your relationship to yourself.

Courtney Johnson [01:08:31]:
Yeah. It's very interesting. I don't know why there is so much shame around desires, but I do think a big part of it is the stories we've been told of what we should desire.

Vision Battlesword [01:08:42]:
Yes.

Courtney Johnson [01:08:42]:
And if we don't desire that and we deviate, that is bad. That is shameful. And it's interesting because it is the first container where it's, like, the societal standards of what you should do and should be, how you should act off the table. Like, what is the thing you actually want? It can feel, like, heavy. It's, like, a lot.

Vision Battlesword [01:09:02]:
Yeah. I think you're exactly right. I think that for whatever reason, we receive and repeat stories in our culture that teach people about what is okay for them to want desire in life. That is fundamentally out of alignment with what most people naturally do want and desire in life. And that's weird.

Courtney Johnson [01:09:30]:
It is very, very weird. It is very weird. And then that's where, again, like, the perversions of the stories come in. Because if you're not actually seeing or honoring the things that you want, maybe you'll sidestep and try to have that thing in a different way. That's not actually great. And if you're not honoring your shadow in some way, that's productive. That's going to be so destructive.

Vision Battlesword [01:09:55]:
Welcome to Shadowville. Exactly.

Courtney Johnson [01:09:57]:
Welcome to Shadowville.

Vision Battlesword [01:09:58]:
I love that stories that, you know of in our culture about what we are allowed to desire.

Courtney Johnson [01:10:08]:
Oh, man. You are allowed to. Well, first of all, you're not allowed. I think it depends on what culture you were raised in. In the culture I was raised in, you're not allowed to desire too much. You can, you have to have some sort of, like, suffering, or else you're not doing whatever. So you can't desire too much. You have to desire a family.

Courtney Johnson [01:10:28]:
You have to desire getting married, having children. You have to desire a stable job. You have to desire having a job at all. You have to desire having a family at all. Like, you have to desire fitting in in these certain ways of dressing or looking or showing up in self expression. Those are kind of the main things that I. I mean, desires that were placed on me, at least.

Vision Battlesword [01:10:49]:
What is it not okay to desire, according to your stories that you've heard?

Courtney Johnson [01:10:52]:
Oh. Oh, my God. Anything. You can't desire any alternative. Family situation, relationship situation, self expression situation, work situation, living situ. I mean, nothing. That's pretty much it, right? Like, that's all of it.

Vision Battlesword [01:11:06]:
So you're not allowed to desire anything except the basics of doing a job and raising a family.

Courtney Johnson [01:11:13]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:11:13]:
Wow, that's a rough culture.

Courtney Johnson [01:11:15]:
That's heavy. I know. And that's the straight and narrow path.

Vision Battlesword [01:11:20]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Courtney Johnson [01:11:21]:
And of course, that is. I'm actually working on an essay about this right now, but that is my theory on why there is so much, like, really horrific crime in these communities. Especially, like, sexual crimes with children, especially, like, exploitation of other people. Especially, just like, crimes that are not as common. I don't know. They concentrate. Right. And there's actually a Texas monthly article that came out last week about a community that was close to mine, and it's like, why is this community rampant with, like, child pornography or child sexual abuse materials? I'm like, I know why.

Courtney Johnson [01:11:55]:
I know why. Because there's no differentiation of a sin being involved in. That is the exact same thing of having sex before marriage or making out with someone for more than 3 seconds. All the sins are the same level. And so if there's no nuance, if there's no honoring, if there's no whatever, people go to the extreme. That is a very clear cause. So I do think stating, or maybe it's something like, yeah, maybe something like, I'm a woman and I don't want kids. Or, like, again, maybe it's I don't want a job.

Courtney Johnson [01:12:27]:
Like, how do I set up my life where I don't have to work? Like, I don't want a job. Maybe it's I want a different relationship situation than what the world tells you, like, or sexual situation, like, whatever it is. If you cannot name that, I think it will eat you.

Vision Battlesword [01:12:41]:
Yeah, exactly. What you just said. If you cannot name that, that's what we do.

Courtney Johnson [01:12:46]:
And name it in front of others is what I've realized. But that's the hard part.

Vision Battlesword [01:12:50]:
Are you ready to just name it? Are you ready to name your desires?

Courtney Johnson [01:12:53]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:12:53]:
And let's actually put them on a whiteboard.

Courtney Johnson [01:12:57]:
Yeah. Can we put these on a whiteboard?

Vision Battlesword [01:12:59]:
Let's take a look at what this looks like. What would it look like if you were able to fully and completely, without any level of shame or restriction, express your true, honest desires? What would that look like? And just the naming of that is just an incredibly profound shift for most people.

Courtney Johnson [01:13:23]:
It is so hard. It's like, why is that so hard to do, to even.

Vision Battlesword [01:13:27]:
Because our stories are so strong and we receive them from such a young age with such heavy emotional content attached to them. I think, yeah. What do you think?

Courtney Johnson [01:13:40]:
I would agree. I think, yeah, heavy on the emotion. And that's, like, where the shame comes up. Around it. But it is. I don't know. It is so. It is so crazy to me.

Courtney Johnson [01:13:50]:
Like, the power that just. That has it is. It is crazy, but it is such a beautiful container to be able to have the respect or just the space to be like, this is what I want. And people are like, okay. Without the. I think maybe that's, like, a transformational part, is you're like, I want this thing. And people around you are like, okay. And then it's not like the world is coming crashing down and you're, like, falling into the pits of hell.

Courtney Johnson [01:14:17]:
I think it's traumatic about it. No, I think it's powerful because there's neutral responses like that. That is like, the story that's reflected back is, oh, this is neutral. It's not like, yeah, yeah. Which I think a lot of people, me included, like, go into it thinking like, oh, I will be shamed for this desire, which, like, that doesn't. Like, it's the opposite of that, of course, like, we're bringing these things to the surface. But I do think that is, like an instinct, if you've been conditioned in those ways, to almost be shamed, like, to feel so much shame around your desires and to tell yourself stories that reinforce that.

Vision Battlesword [01:14:51]:
Yeah. What about a positive story?

Courtney Johnson [01:14:54]:
Are there positive stories, positive stories in general, in life?

Vision Battlesword [01:14:58]:
Yeah.

Courtney Johnson [01:14:58]:
Oh, we had so many positive stories. Yeah, of course.

Vision Battlesword [01:15:01]:
Does a positive story have an inherently different structure? Does what you would call a positive story have an inherently different structure? Like, for example, we took the story, in order for me to be successful or achieve the kind of things that can be achieved in life, I have to be a man or act like a man. So we've got a character, we've got a destination, and we've got attention. Now, what about a story? Like, I have the power in my life to write whatever story that I would choose for myself.

Courtney Johnson [01:15:34]:
That is.

Vision Battlesword [01:15:34]:
Does that have a same character journey, tension arc to it?

Courtney Johnson [01:15:39]:
I don't think so. Maybe this is the new story we're writing. Maybe I. Yeah, that's so interesting because I was just about your. I was just about to say the difference in a really positive story and negative ones is the positive story is more open ended. It's not a truth that this is the truth for everyone. It's not everybody has to do this, or everyone has to follow this character or be like, this character. It's exactly what you said.

Courtney Johnson [01:16:03]:
The ability to choose. It's a. Choose your own adventure novel. That is the most positive story is doing what you want. To do following your desires.

Vision Battlesword [01:16:13]:
Yeah. Okay. Does that have a different structure to it?

Courtney Johnson [01:16:17]:
Seems like it, yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:16:19]:
What is the structure of that?

Courtney Johnson [01:16:20]:
Choose your own adventure. It's not that there is one path. It's that you're opening to page one, and it's saying, if you want to blah, blah, blah, jump to page four. If you want to blah, blah, blah, jump to page six. But it's an infinite. Choose your own adventure.

Vision Battlesword [01:16:31]:
Interesting. Interesting. Okay. So there's still a character, but there's not necessarily one specific destination.

Courtney Johnson [01:16:40]:
Not if you don't want it as the person going through the choose your own adventure. And there doesn't necessarily have to be rising action or a climax or falling action or tension if your character is not choosing that.

Vision Battlesword [01:16:50]:
Huh. Okay. Is that story interesting?

Courtney Johnson [01:16:53]:
I think so. I think so.

Vision Battlesword [01:16:54]:
Would you read a story that was open ended and didn't have rising action or tension or.

Courtney Johnson [01:17:01]:
Well, it could.

Vision Battlesword [01:17:02]:
An antagonist or it could.

Courtney Johnson [01:17:04]:
You could just.

Vision Battlesword [01:17:04]:
Is it entertaining is what I'm saying?

Courtney Johnson [01:17:06]:
I think so. Because the. Okay, I love to choose your own adventure novels as a kid because you can read them over and over and over in a bazillion different ways.

Vision Battlesword [01:17:14]:
I loved them, too, but I remember that they had tension and action and all that stuff. It was just the difference between that and a linear story. Well, they were still actually linear. Well, they were branching, but you would take a specific path.

Courtney Johnson [01:17:31]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [01:17:31]:
And that specific path was a story.

Courtney Johnson [01:17:34]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [01:17:34]:
With characters on a journey through tension.

Courtney Johnson [01:17:37]:
Yes. But what I'm saying is that if this is like, and if it's a truly infinite story, it doesn't necessarily have all those components. If every stop you get to has infinite next steps.

Vision Battlesword [01:17:48]:
How about this? How about it is the same structure and the story, you are a powerful creator that can choose to write whatever story for your life that your heart desires. That's a story. How about you are the character, the destination is the life you would choose for yourself. And the tension is. What is that?

Courtney Johnson [01:18:17]:
The tension is figuring out. Yeah. That is a beautiful story that gives you autonomy to create.

Vision Battlesword [01:18:24]:
But it's still tense. Yeah, there's still action.

Courtney Johnson [01:18:28]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [01:18:29]:
But we don't know what the ending of the story is going to be.

Courtney Johnson [01:18:32]:
I love that because it has so much adventure, because in order to figure out what the life you want, like there is exploration, there's adventure, there's trying out lots of different things, seeing lots of different things to see what you resonate with and being exposed to many different things. But I love that you're saying the story is that you are a powerful creator. That is the story and you can create the life you want.

Vision Battlesword [01:18:57]:
It's pretty meta.

Courtney Johnson [01:18:58]:
Yeah, it is pretty meta.

Vision Battlesword [01:19:02]:
Well, so you brought the topic to the table. So is there anything else that was on your mind about stories or storytelling that you wanted to talk about?

Courtney Johnson [01:19:11]:
I feel like we really covered a lot. No, there's nothing that's outstanding. I feel like that was a very incredible and complete conversation. Is there anything else you would like to add? Vision?

Vision Battlesword [01:19:22]:
Actually, not right now. That felt really satisfying and complete, just like you said.

Courtney Johnson [01:19:27]:
That is a great ending.

Vision Battlesword [01:19:28]:
Yeah, I enjoy that. Well, thank you so much. This was so cool. I would love to do this again with you anytime.

Courtney Johnson [01:19:36]:
I would love it too.

Vision Battlesword [01:19:37]:
I hope you had fun.

Courtney Johnson [01:19:37]:
I love to chit chat. That's my specialty.

Vision Battlesword [01:19:40]:
Awesome. Well, thanks, Courtney.

Courtney Johnson [01:19:43]:
Thank you.