Episode 1 - The Story Behind This Podcast: A Candid Conversation

In the premiere episode of Life After Fear: Redefine Your Limits, host Courtney Schoch introduces herself and shares her transformative journey from high school dropout and teenage mother to successful airline pilot, public speaker, and author. Joined by her friend Dakota, Courtney discusses the motivation behind her new podcast, her experiences overcoming adversity, and the importance of confronting fears. They discuss the podcast's goal to build a community and inspire listeners to uncover their resilience and surpass their limits. Additionally, Courtney addresses her apprehensions about sharing personal details in her book, 'This is Your Captain Speaking - Reaching for the Sky Despite a Lifetime of Abuse, Depression, and Fear,' and hints at a sequel. The episode concludes with previewing future podcast topics and listener engagement opportunities.
Learn more about Courtney

Learn more about your host Courtney Schoch

Transcript

Courtney: Hello, everyone. Thanks for listening to Life After Fear, Redefine Your Limits with your host me, Courtney Schoch. This is where you confront your fears and transform your life. Today is my very first episode, and I'm very excited to be here with a dear friend. Her name is Dakota. We met a few months ago. She read my book. And she had a gazillion questions. She's awesome. And we thought who better than to bring her in to ask these questions. So the community gets to learn a little bit more about me and why I'm starting this podcast. So I'm going to hand it over to Dakota. 

Dakota: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Courtney. I'm so excited to be here and to find out more and to help your listeners to find out more as well. I think a good place to start is what got you here. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey? 

Courtney: Sure. So my journey to start off with, I've been, I feel like a little bit of everyone from a high school dropout, single mother. I am a successful pilot with Southwest Airlines now. Yeah. I had a history of domestic violence I've been on food stamps before, I've also had lots of money before, and I've also lost lots of money. I feel like I've had some really big wins and some big losses in my life, and I feel like I'm really relatable.

In my experience, a lot of people can take some insight and grow some strength and courage just from hearing some of my stories and some of my experiences, both good and both bad. for your time. And I'm also a public speaker and I wrote a book and I feel like the podcast supplements those because it's the, has the ability to create more of a community.

Dakota: Absolutely. I love that. So what is the overarching goal of this podcast outside of creating a community? What do you want your listeners to be able to take away from this podcast? 

Courtney: I want them to know that everyone's struggling. It doesn't matter how successful someone is. Someone's always dealing with something. And the takeaway from this is I want everyone to know that they can be better than they thought that they could be. And sometimes we just need a little bit of encouragement and they can really tap into resilience, which is a superpower. And honestly, everybody's afraid. Everybody has a fear of something.

Rather, it's a fear of doing a podcast or public speaking, or even just having a difficult conversation with someone. When you take on those fears, you really unlock the power within you to take your life to another level. 

Dakota: So what kind of unique perspectives and insights can listeners expect to hear in your podcast that they won't be able to find elsewhere in this age of everybody is starting a podcast. What are we going to get from this one and what insights can you give us?

Courtney: Sure. So from this podcast, I believe that people are going to get the honest truth, right? They're really going to get a transparency, which I was very clear with in my book that I wrote. I'm not afraid to talk about the hard stuff or answer questions about the hard stuff.

And I oftentimes talk about things that other people don't want to talk about and it makes them uncomfortable and I feel like those topics need to be discussed because in an age where everybody is filtering everything. I mean I don't know about you, but I go on to social media and I feel super depressed by the time I get off of it because I think wow, like my life is not as great as everybody else's or I'm not as skinny as everybody else or all these things.

Everybody layers filters all over themselves and here you're not gonna get that. You know, we're recording this podcast and I'm going to be honest with you I'm editing it and we're just like, I'm learning. So this is pretty fun. And during the podcast, you're going to get strategies, resources leadership, and a connection to a community that we're going to build together. And the list just goes on and on. 

Dakota: I love it. You talked a little bit about, obviously your book, we mentioned your book and after reading it, , I think one of the first things that popped into my head and I think as other people will read it too, this question will come up is, was there any apprehension about sharing so many intimate details of your life?

You talk about transparency and I think it's amazing, but before you really started doing it, was there any kind of, were you hesitant at all? 

Courtney: Oh, sure. I had my first or I was asked to be a keynote speaker. In 2019, I'd never been a public speaker. They asked me to share my story on stage and in front of seven or eight hundred people in San Diego. I'd never really shared my story except to a couple of adult learners. Those were adults that were getting their GED. I was apprehensive just to talk to those people. It's about eight or nine people, much less go on a big stage to talk to people because these are really intimate details.

When I went on stage, I shared 20 minutes of my story. People loved it. A gazillion people came up and said, Hey, you've got to write a book. It's so inspiring things that you're talking about because people just don't talk about this stuff. So I thought about it for a while and yeah, there was a lot of apprehension because here I'm putting out that I dropped out of high school, I mean I was a stripper at one point in my life . There are a lot of kind of some people would consider racy things in the book, and I was concerned about my career because I didn't know how that would be Accepted because I'm a small minority only about four to five percent of women are airline pilots. And I worried about what my image was gonna be.

I also worried about my family also some of the stories, there are a lot of stories I did not include. So what pushed me to have the courage to write the book was knowing that I could inspire. Even if it's just one person, from all of those terrible experiences I've had, if I turn them into something positive, it makes all of them worthwhile.

So I feel like I was put on this earth to go through those experiences, to do something and turn it around. And when I got outside of thinking about myself and thought about others, that gave me the courage to write this book. 

Dakota: It's amazing, honestly. It's beautiful. It's such a real and raw story and it's incredible to read it and to know you as a person as well and to get to know you more and to see truly that I mean if you can overcome and make lemonade out of the lemons that you were handed throughout your life it really is a very inspiring story and it instills a lot of courage in me. Having read your book to know that all of the adversity that happens in all of our lives is we can easily overcome it with just a little bit of dedication and a shift in perspective.

So I do think it's really beautiful and I think that you've already done what you've set out to do with this book and if it's just one person, it's me. If you've got one fan, it's me. I really, I think that's amazing and thank you for sharing your story in this book. Truly beautiful. 

Courtney: I really, it touches my heart to hear someone tell me that. Because it just makes me know that I'm on the right path. Just to keep going forward. And I know you and I have had some discussions and there have definitely been some challenges that you've faced. And if I can be a pillar of strength for anybody, or even just a sounding board for someone, I'm happy to do it.

Dakota: Absolutely. That's awesome. Yeah, I love it. 

Courtney: And one thing, too. I don't even think we mentioned the name of the book. That's okay. So it's called “This is Your Captain Speaking, Reaching for the Sky Despite a Lifetime of Abuse, Depression, and Fear” okay. Back to you, Dakota. 

Dakota: After reading this book too it ends at a different spot than we met. So I'm very curious and I know that your listeners will be curious as well when they read it. Is there going to be a sequel to your book? Is there more of Courtney Schoch that we get to hear? 

Courtney: Yes, so I have been asked that numerous times and just to give a little background on the book. It was scheduled to launch in 2020, the month that COVID hit hard March - April time, I had several speaking engagements, planned a book launch, a book tour, all of that canceled, but I still went ahead and released the book, a soft launch, so to speak. And since that time, a lot has happened. My life looks completely different and there'll absolutely be a sequel. I'm thinking about starting to write it this spring. 

Dakota: Amazing. 

Courtney: Oh, thank you.

Dakota: I'm very much looking forward to it and I know that others will as well once you read the first one. It's amazing to hear and I love to see where you are now compared to through the book and everything. I found myself as I was reading it, just rooting for you so hard throughout the whole book. I was like, I don't know what's going to happen next? It's an emotional rollercoaster just reading through it and just rooting for you the whole time to see, what's going to happen next and how are you, what gets you to who you are today.So I think that's really amazing. Thank you Dakota.

Courtney:Thank you Dakota. I appreciate that. I always tell people, when they read the book I'm like it's not a long book. It's a couple hundred pages and it's not really tiny font, and I've been told it's a really pretty fast read for the most part. I know Dakota obviously read the book and then also her husband and I'm really surprised by the amount of response I get back from men, the men who read the book. I never expected it, but they're like, Oh, I'm really enjoying the insight that a woman has in some of the struggles and challenges and it's pretty eye opening for a lot of people.

Dakota: Absolutely. And it's the talking about how people need adversity in their life is something that my husband talks about a lot. You need adversity. You can't just skate through life and not deal with any challenges. You need some strong adversity to build some character. And so he's reading this and he's okay, I think I need to back it down on how much adversity people need because truthfully, it's I think it's more than any one person needs to have in their life, but he really, from that male perspective, he really appreciates hearing about the trials and tribulations, because so many people, I think especially in the airline industry, something that I've noticed, is that people are like, oh I'm here, I'm an airline pilot, look at me, you know I'm flying all over the world, I'm doing all these cool things and nobody sees and I think it's really cool to see that whole journey, and then of course from a woman's perspective as well, because it is such a male dominated industry I think the more men in that industry that hear from a woman's perspective, the better, because they just need to understand what's going on the other side of things.

Courtney: Yeah, absolutely. I agree. And we all face challenges, we always do. Progress equals happiness, have you ever noticed that? If you're not growing at all, you're just stagnating or you're moving backwards and the challenges and the critical thinking it takes and just the resources we have to dive into within ourselves and outside of ourselves to get past whatever challenge that we're dealing with rather It's a breakup or a loss of a job or we just want to do something different I think it's really important that, to realize that adversity and challenges are really opportunities for growth.

Dakota: Absolutely yeah, we have a saying in my household - stagnation is death. Life continues to move forward. If you're not moving forward, even the slightest bit, you're falling behind. There has to be forward motion and forward motion is not always vertical. It goes and it flows.

Courtney: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that this podcast is going to help people get unstuck, is the best way that I can think about it. I think that a lot of people in their stagnation, they end up feeling like they procrastinate, and then they create these self limiting beliefs and it just gets people stuck and they get stuck in a loop, or sometimes they move backwards into frightening places, to be honest with you. 

Dakota: What did you learn about yourself while you were writing this book? I can imagine some introspection and some reflection. Is there anything that kind of came up that you realized while you were writing it? 

Courtney: I was really surprised at how emotionally taxing it was. I wrote it pretty quickly and it took me about three months to write it. Which is I happen to have some downtime and what I realized was reliving these experiences as I put them on paper. I had buried a lot of things and one of the lessons that I learned was sometimes facing things that you've buried, that you've suppressed, that you’ve compartmentalized is incredibly healing and there is an ability to be able to forgive people as you become a little further removed from it. And you realize that people are just doing the best that they could do. Even people that did, quote, unquote, wronged me, or, somehow violated me in some way.

I also hold accountability for my poor decisions that I made and definitely not placing the blame on other people, but it makes me realize that I was just doing the best that I could do at the time. And these other people were just doing the best that they could do. And today I'm able to look at people and try not to get so frustrated and realize they're just doing the best that they can do, and my place is not to judge and it isn't to let it get under my skin. But it's just to let everyone go about the path on their own journey. And the path doesn't have to be painful if you've got the right shoes.

Dakota: We're not hiking in heels out here. We're putting on the hiking boots. So we're past the fear we're done with fear?

Courtney: Not done with fear. Fear is a constant companion. So it is. So you can either learn to work with it or let it pretty much control you, or you can work against it. But in that case, I feel like fear oftentimes wins. So it's more about using fear as a tool and being able to train your mind to be able to recognize it and find different strategies and ways to use it as a resource. 

Dakota: Absolutely. I think one of the things that you said in your book that, obviously I'm not going to go through the whole thing, but one of the things that you said was that the physical response to fear and excitement are the same.

You just have to shift your mind on, is this scary or is this exciting? And that's something that's such a quick, easy takeaway from it that I've already tried to implement throughout my life. You start getting the butterflies and a little bit, palms sweaty and a little bit nervous about something.

And it's no, this is really exciting. It just feels like fear and you can adjust the mindset on it. So I like that. And I'm really interested to hear more from your podcast. I'm really excited. What kind of topics can we expect moving forward in future episodes from you? 

Courtney: There's all types of topics, so I'm not limiting it to any one thing.

There's going to be solo episodes where I'm on my own. There's going to be some episodes where I bring guests in, but we're definitely going to bring in strategies, tips, some science behind. Some of the fear and also how your brain and body works, how community works in order to support you. There's going to be just a variety of things that we're going to discuss and really the sky's the limit in terms of this because we can dive deep on a lot of different topics.

No red tape. None at all. None at all. I'm always open for suggestions too. If someone like one of our listeners has a topic or a question asks if we can address this? Yeah. Make a comment, send me an email. Post on social media, something like that, and that way we can add it to the list because this is the beginning, right?

And that's the beautiful part about starting something. We're building it from the ground up and not trying to copy anybody else.  It's me, and whatever the topics are and whoever my guests are and my listeners So we all get to build it together. 

Dakota: Awesome. 

I can't wait Courtney. Last thing where are people going to be able to find your podcast?

Courtney: They are going to be able to find it on all the platforms, Apple, Spotify, etc. We’ll also start a YouTube channel. I don't have the whole list of them, but you'll be able to find us. All the places. All the places that you would go. If you want to get a copy of my book, you can go to my website, which is CourtneySchoch.com and Schoch is spelled S C H O C H. So it always throws everybody off. Five dollars of every book sale goes towards a non profit that raises funds and awareness for adult literacy. And I can also sign it. I can personalize the book. If you don't get it from my website, you can order it off of Amazon.I won't be able to sign that one. Also from Barnes Noble and a couple of other places that have it But if you do go to my website, five dollars gets donated and I get to sign it. And I will personally mail it. Or I'll ask Dakota to help me mail things. 

Dakota: We'll talk to our friendly mailman here.

Courtney: Yeah. And the podcast too. It's going to be weekly. Every Wednesday is when we're going to post it. 

Dakota: Sounds great, Courtney. Thank you so much for having me today. It was a lot of fun. 

Courtney:Thanks Dakota. I appreciate you joining me and I'd like everyone to tune in next week for episode two, Overcoming the Paralysis of Fear.

I'd also love for you to check out the links and resources in the show notes. And please subscribe to the podcast and leave a review or a comment if you'd like to hear about something or have a suggestion for a topic. And you can also follow me on social media. Until then, keep reaching for the sky and never settle for less than what you can. Take care of everyone. See you next time.