Most Days Episode #1: Why the heck am I doing this?

Perfection is a trap, and most advice sounds better than it works. I'm starting Most Days with a simpler, truer standard: aim for progress most days, not flawless every day.

In this first episode I get into the real reasons I'm doing this. I want accountability that isn't already built into my work. I want to slow life down through some actual self-reflection. And I've had a long-standing itch to teach while I'm still learning in real time.

I also lay out the format so you know exactly what you're signing up for. You'll get short solo episodes built for real schedules and short drives, plus "Nap Time With Courtney and Kevin," conversations we record while the kids are asleep. Those cover working together in a family business, navigating marriage and partnership, and parenting while building a company. Down the road I'll add owner-operator interviews with leaders who've rebuilt, failed, learned, and kept going, with a focus on the human side of business and leadership.

Then I unpack what "most days" actually means and why it changes everything. Add those two words to almost any bold claim and it gets more honest, more useful, and more forgiving. That same lens shapes my early topic pillars: money mindset, burnout, and raising kids with healthier financial literacy and a healthier relationship with work.

If you're trying to lead well, parent well, and stay well without pretending you have it all figured out, you're in the right place. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs permission to breathe, and leave a review so more people can find Most Days.

Transcript

Welcome To Most Days

Courtney 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Most Days podcast. My name is Courtney. Thank you for being here. This is our very first episode of Most Days, and I am so excited to just give you a quick introduction about what this is, why I'm doing this, what you can expect. So let's dig right in.

Why I Finally Started This

Courtney 0:20

First of all, I've been asking myself, why am I doing this? I've wanted to start a podcast for a while, and it wasn't until recently, actually, that I kind of had this epiphany about most days, the name most days, um, and what it means to me that really put me over the edge and made me decide to jump in and do this. So I've brainstormed why I'm doing this, and I've come up with a couple ideas, and I'll run them by you. We'll see what you think. So, my first idea of why I might be doing this is I seek accountability. Um, I don't have a ton of accountability built into my work. I am, I have partners, uh, but they're not super involved with me on a daily basis. And so when I set a goal, when I want to change something, when I want to get better at something, I don't really have anybody checking up on me and seeing how I'm doing. And so building this podcast and blog and social media platforms, I'm hoping, will help me build that community and hold myself accountable to the changes that I want to make. I'm on a mission to become a better leader and a better parent. And if I say that enough times, if I put my money where my mouth is, here and on other platforms, then I'll be forced to do it. So it's kind of like this built-in forced accountability that I'm seeking. Um, the other idea of what this might be about is self-reflection. I have noticed since having kids that life is just going by so fast. And when I do stop and reflect, whether that's writing or speaking or journaling or writing down what I'm grateful for, whatever it may be, time slows down a little bit. And if you have kids, even if you don't, you know that feeling of just kind of wanting to pause a little longer. And I think when I force myself to slow down and reflect, I can slow down time. The third one, uh, I really wanted to be a teacher when I was in college. And I think there's a part of me that still wants to be a teacher. I love helping people at work through their problems. I love giving advice, but I also really love learning and and I like, I believe you can learn faster if you're also forced to teach. And so I figure if I can help some of you learn while I'm learning, A, it'll go better for me, and B, I can help you and scratch that itch to be a teacher. The fourth option of why I might be doing this is maybe I'm just a narcissist and I like the sound of my own voice. That could be it. Or it could be a mixable four. So whatever the reason is, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're gonna do this with me. The format of this podcast, there's gonna be a couple different um

The Formats You Can Expect

Courtney 3:06

types of episodes. The first is what you're looking at right now, me solo. And I promise those are gonna be short. That's gonna be, hey, here's something I'm noticing, here's something I've learned, and I want to share it. I have a really quick drive to work, and so I don't like to listen to like two-hour long podcasts. Sorry, Joe Rogan, but I don't need two and a half hours of a conversation. Um, if I'm solo, it's gonna be 10, 20 minutes. I'm not a great storyteller. It's something I'm really working on. I'm not good at like elongating my message. I'm pretty short and sweet. So those are gonna be short, solo. The second type uh would be with my husband. Uh, we believe that, well, let me back up. We have worked together longer than we've been together. So we've worked together 10 years now. We got together, I don't know, we got married four years ago. Um, and so we we have a lot of experience working together before we were a couple. And I think that that experience can help us with people who are or help us help people who are in family-owned businesses or starting off a business with their spouse or with their partner, because we've figured out a lot of the bumps. Like we don't have it all figured out, but we've been through a lot together and we know how to work with each other. And so, and we're now we're parenting together and we're figuring that out together. So we're really hoping that we can find some topics that other comp other couples like us, couples that are raising a family and trying to build a business, uh, might be interested in, and maybe we can help learn from each other. So we're gonna call those episodes nap time with Courtney and Kevin because we're gonna record them. We already started recording them during our kids' nap on Saturdays. Um we talk until the kids wake up, is kind of the rule. Um, hopefully, if they sleep for three hours, we won't talk that long. We'll stop and pour a drink, but expect those to be a little longer. My husband's kind of long-winded, more long-winded than me. Um, so we're gonna call those nap time with Courtney and Kevin. And then last but not least, the original intention of this podcast was to be owner-operator interviews. So I really want to interview other leaders who are doing doing things the way I want to learn to do. Does that make sense? Um, leaders who are maybe a little different than than normal. Um, maybe it's a family business, maybe they are in business with their spouse, maybe they rebuilt a business, maybe they failed and they want, and I there's lessons to learn there. I don't want to just do your normal, like, this isn't gonna be operations. Um, there might be some of that talk in there, but more I want to talk about leadership. I want to talk about burnout, I want to talk about inspiration, like yeah, just not your typical business podcast. I I want to dive into the humans behind the business because that's that really interests me. So I know that's not a great explanation, but you'll see when we get there. Um, those will be coming further down the road, a little harder to to coordinate and edit and everything. So those will be coming later. In the meantime, it'll be just me or me and Kevin. Um third thing to

What Most Days Really Means

Courtney 6:17

go over. I want to uh talk about what the what the name most days means. So, like I said, I've had this idea for a podcast for a while, and it wasn't until I had the most days inspiration that it really all clicked. Any piece of advice that I've ever gotten, any piece of advice that I could ever give, would be more accurate with the words most days at the end. Um, you know, you can give somebody advice about, you know, if you wake up in the morning and meditate, you're gonna have such a better day, and you can do most days. It's not gonna work every day. Uh, it can be applied to all parenting advice that I've ever received or ever given. You know, it never works 100% of the time. Nothing does. Uh, it could be applied to every piece of business advice I've ever been given. Most these things work most days. It also could be applied to our determination and our work ethic and our who we are. I'm accountable most days. I'm a good mom most days. I'm a good leader most days. We don't have to be all perfect all the time. And we're not. We're just not. It's that's a fact, right? Um, and so most days to me is permission to take a deep breath. You're not gonna be perfect every day. We're aiming for most days. Since naming the podcast, I have been using the phrase much more often. And it is funny how often you can make a statement more true by adding the words most days at the end. Um, I recently did a video on Instagram about money that kind of got people fired up. And uh, my what I said is that if money can fix it, it's not a real problem. Most days. You know, there's exceptions to every rule. And and that's what most of the comments that were negative were talking about exceptions. Yeah, there is gray area and every single statement that's ever been made. And I think most days just helps refine that. That's what most days means to me. When I'm solo or when we're talking, me and Kevin, I have refined some content pillars that I'm going to base most of the content around. And this is from a couple, like a

Money Burnout And Healthier Kids

Courtney 8:35

month now, of putting myself out there on social media, which has been cringy to say the least. But my goal with being out there on Instagram, I tried TikTok and I hate it. So I'm probably gonna pull off that. But my goal of being out there on Instagram was to figure out what my future audience wants to talk about. And I talked about some things that I like really like and want to talk about that didn't really land. And then I talked about some things that I like that landed and really got people thinking. One of them is money, and one of them is burnout. Those two topics. Um, money, I have some interesting thoughts about money that um I don't think are very common, that my mom taught me. I said it in a couple minutes ago. If money can fix it, it's not a real problem. I'll dig into that on a whole episode. Um, but I've spent time developing a healthier relationship with money, uh, one that allows me to be a little riskier, I think, than your average person, which I think is necessary as a business owner. Um, and so money was just has become very clear. It's something people want to talk about. And it's and I'm I want to talk about it. I originally, one of the topics I really wanted to dig into was financial literacy to our children. So that's also a topic I think we're gonna dive into more is how do we raise kids who have a healthy relationship with money also. And then the topic that was kind of a surprise, I didn't realize how how big of a deal this was, is burnout. Um, millennials are burning out at a at a fast pace. And I've spent a lot of time over the last month thinking about why that is. And I've experienced burnout myself. Mine was more, mine was very much woven into postpartum depression. And so, you know, it's kind of hard to sometimes to tell one from the other. Um, but I'm watching people, I'm listening a lot to what people, especially women out there, are saying about burning out from corporate America. And I really think that I could get to the bottom of it. I always like when I see a problem, especially one that like is hurting people that I know and love, I want to help, I want to fix it. And when I see a whole generation talking about this, I want to help. Um, I love my job, I love my work, I love to work. I've always loved to work. Um, and I have some ideas about why we're burned out. And I don't think they're groundbreaking. I don't think it's anything that doesn't isn't common sense, but sometimes common sense isn't so common, right? Especially when we're stuck somewhere. And I think a lot of people are stuck right now. So, and and I think the burnout that people are experiencing is very much tied to their relationship with money. So I think that's a really interesting crossover too. So, not only how can we improve our relationship with money, how can uh we improve it as it relates to our burnout? And then also how can we pass that down to our children? How can we make sure that our kids have a healthy relationship with their money and their job, uh, then healthier maybe than than we do? So those are some ideas. Uh, I'm gonna let this go where I want it to go. This is my creative

Creative Outlet And How To Subscribe

Courtney 11:53

outlet. Um, I work in an industry in which I'm not actively participating in the hobby. Um, and so I I've always felt like I don't have a creative outlet. You know, sourdough only entertained me for so long. I still make it on the weekends, but it's not making like flower patterns in my bread. It isn't doing it for me. I need something else. I made candles for a little while, made bracelets. I need more. So this has been a great outlet so far. Of I'm able to do some graphic design. I designed my website, I've got this podcast, I'm making videos. Like I am really loving the photography and videography and the and this podcast editing, even. So that's really what's why I'm doing this. One of the big reasons I'm doing this. Maybe I just drilled down into it. I just want something that's mine and I want something that's beautiful. And so I'm gonna talk about whatever I want to talk about, but I also want to give you a heads up for what you're getting yourself into if you're gonna subscribe to this podcast. So thank you for being here for the very first one. I hope you subscribe. I would love to have you back. I don't know what the cadence is gonna be yet. I don't know if they're coming out once a week or every other week. I would, I'm gonna try for once a week. Um, but I'll let you know. If you sign up for emails on my website, I will let you know or just subscribe to the podcast and you'll get notified when it comes out. Thank you so much for being here. Have a great day. Is that how you say goodbye on a podcast? It's how I say goodbye on the phone, right? I don't know. Never ended a podcast by myself.