📚 CuratedLA interviews Courtney Ferris

COURTNEY FERRIS

Interview presented by Your Startup Operations

🦁 HEY DUDE! 👋 COURTNEY FERRIS is a creative visionary in the dynamic world of the digital marketing industry, whose love for people and life won many over on her recent role as Player 424 on Amazon’s Beast Games.

📺️ @courtferris
📸 @court_ferris
🖥️ Courtney Ferris

MEET COURTNEY

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN IN LOS ANGELES? 🏄️ 

I moved out here just about a little over a year ago, so I have only been in Los Angeles for a year but I am from Scottsdale, Arizona. I traveled to Los Angeles often before I moved out here because I have always loved LA. 

I wanted to build here to eventually get into what I am into now and have opportunities.

LA is the perfect place to live.

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WHAT IS YOUR BACKGROUND? 📸 

So, I’m an only child. I grew up with divorced parents, very in the middle, back-and-forth. My mom is an ICU nurse, in the Mayo Clinic. She’s an angel, and she works really hard, and she’s probably one of the best nurses in the world. And my Dad is a real estate agent in Arizona. 

No brothers or sisters, super independent, very much so on my own path in life always. 

I have always been an underdog type of person my whole life, I feel like. I am not so much interested in being in the spotlight, just more interested in connecting with a small group of core people that I love, and being kind and loving towards everyone else, either way. This has given me the ability to make really beautiful friendships with a lot of diverse people.

But I groove on my own wave.

If people like to be around me, I invite them to be around me. I don’t know, a lot of underdog vibes because I know that I was not super popular, and I did not care to be. 

I graduated college pretty early, graduating in three years instead of four. I was really into school, so it was easier for me. I had a full-ride scholarship where I studied psychology and human behavior. 

A deeper passion, that’s a little more on the analytical side, is neuropsychology. I just love people, honestly. 

I wanted to mix what I studied with holistic medicine, to try to find a way to hear the world. It was a big goal, especially with having to get a more intricate degree, like a doctorate. And I wasn’t really interested in getting a doctorate and I decided to pretty much pursue my creative passions, which have always been photography. 

When I was in high school, I won first place for a photography competition, and I always knew that I was really into photojournalism. People told me you can’t make money with photography, so I should study something else. And of course, I studied something else that you can’t really make that much money with, psychology. So again, I delved back into my creative pursuits, and I moved to Hawaii after college where I started doing surf photography. 

While in Hawaii, I worked at a surf and coffee shop, and I also taught yoga. I had a few different jobs, all just in the pursuit of happiness, truly. And my happiness really does come from my creative career, but COVID hit, and after two years of living in Hawaii, I moved back to Arizona. 

Back in Arizona, I started bartending, which was random, because I did not have any bartending experience, but it just worked out until I started to get tired of working for somebody else, which is when I would start doing professional photography for hotels like Hilton, and a lot of restaurants in Scottsdale, and ended up moving within the celebrity scene, doing a lot of work with artists, musicians, and always with brands.

Then it kinda became me being in-front of the camera instead of behind it, and I became a model and an actress. When this happened, I made the move out to Los Angeles and have been pursuing this career and it has been a really good role ever since.   

WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES? 🤝 

Things that I do to keep myself on the ground are community, being around people and seeing how we can create together. And my YouTube, which just got monetized, so I am making content on YouTube for people to enjoy. And then growing on social media to connect brands, to connect influencers, and continue doing what I do best in my career. 

My main focus is my career, and focusing on it. It might not necessarily be a one-track thing, so I am investing within certain areas of my life. 

But with the time that I do have to myself, I will play the ukulele. I love to paint, I used to paint surfboards in Hawaii, so if I find a nice board to paint, I’ll paint a surfboard. 

Earth is our home and it is really important for me to explore this life while I have it.

WHAT ARE YOU READING? WATCHING? 📚️ 

I’m only watching Beast Games. It is the show that I am on. It is my first TV show. 

I don’t really consume many TV shows or movies, I don’t even have an Amazon Prime account, so I’m using my friend’s account to login and watch my show. But that’s pretty much the show that I am watching right now.

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COURTNEY X BEAST GAMES

TELL ME ABOUT BEING ON BEAST GAMES 🦁 

They are a genius group of creative people.

I went into the Beast Games not knowing what I was really getting myself into.

I hadn’t actually really consumed MrBeast’s content prior to this, but I knew who MrBeast was, everyone knows who he is. But, I always tried to get casting in modeling or commercial acting, and I do UGC, which is User Generated Content for brands, which is basically acting.

So, I applied for this unscripted reality TV show, and it did not say that it had anything to do with MrBeast. I just applied, and they wanted me in. And I was like, ‘Ok, let’s do this. This could be a nice sidequest.’ The sidequest turned into a month of filming, where I went to Canada, Panama, and Vegas, and I met some friends for life, truly.

Money was never the main goal. Of course I had money in my manifestation journal, but I always trusted what God wanted me to do, and God took me pretty far in the game. 

WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH THE MONEY IF YOU WIN? 💰️ 

Give money to my Dad, because he is a real estate agent, but yet, does not own his own house, as there have been struggles since the 2008 market crash. 

I would also help my Mom. Even though she saves human’s lives, she also wants to save animals' lives, so I would buy her a farm. That way, she can have dogs and whatever animals that need an open field, and a safe home. 

And then I guess when it comes to me. I haven’t thought about that. I would figure out a way to do something with it, for fun.

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COURTNEY X THOUGHTS

WHAT IS A MENTALITY THAT YOU TRY TO LIVE BY? 🧠 

The first thing that I do in the morning is I thank God that I woke up. There have been times in my life where I have almost lost my life and every day genuinely is not promised, it is a blessing. Something that I start my day with is just gratitude to God, truly. 

And though I don’t have a certain phrase that I really like, I do like to ponder on certain philosophies.

A lot of the time we are really passive with our lives, so I try to be really forward and purposeful with my life. From that standpoint, every day just depends on what the day has for me and how much energy I have to expend into the inner world with trying to take care of myself, and hope to cultivate a really, happy, healthy, beautiful lifestyle.

What is important in life is really your friends and your family and your health. That is literally it. 

COURTNEY ON FAITH  ✝️ 

I had an entire journal, pretty much throughout my whole college, and post-college, full of photos and written words about what I wanted my life to be like. So I basically did manifest a lot in my life, but what I did come to realize is that you have to be careful what you manifest, because sometimes you will get things on terms that you might not be ready for, or you wouldn’t have wanted.

God comes into play a lot when it comes to manifestation and those tools that can play with the Universe’s flow.

You have to bring God into the equation. Trust that God has a path for you.

COURTNEY ON MUSIC 🎧️ 

Listening to worship music has been a huge part of my life. I think that music nowadays, what we consume, is really manipulated in certain ways to bring us down to a little bit of a lower level. So, listening to worship music has really brought up my energy, changing what I consume.

COURTNEY ON COMMUNITY, WORK + CREATIVITY 🚀 

My photography business did not happen overnight, it was a continuous movement of constantly reaching out and networking with the right people.

It’s about getting outside, knowing the right places to go, being around the right people, and having the confidence that you belong in those rooms in the first place.

A lot of it is just non-stop pushing towards making more connections. If you feel a pull towards something, or an event, or you think you can figure out how to connect yourself to somebody through someone else, then you can find a way to work with someone. There is always a way. 

You have to build your portfolio to be pretty strong so that you are confident enough to work with the people that you look up to. Eventually, you will be on the same level and they will be reaching out to you. 

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COURTNEY X LA

FAVORITE LA MORNING HANGOUT SPOT? ☕️ 

I usually go to the beach in the morning. And any coffee shop. Coffee is a necessity. I will drink pretty much any coffee as long as it has oat milk in it. 

FAVORITE LA EVENING HANGOUT SPOT? 🪩 

I like The Woods, it’s a dispensary hangout spot. 

I go there with work and work on my computer since I work remotely. It’s a really cool vibe. People are smoking, and it’s really comfortable. I can sit there and work for hours.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE LOS ANGELES? 🤙 

I would describe Los Angeles as a creative hub full of artistic people that follow their dreams. That is why we need the right people because dreams come true here. If you have a group of people that care about your dream and want your dream to come true as much as you want theirs to come true, then you are in the right place. 

But if you find the wrong people, then it can take you down the wrong path. Los Angeles is a unique place to be. You have to have discernment and you have to be hard working.

HOW WOULD LOS ANGELES DESCRIBE COURTNEY FERRIS? 🤷‍♀️ 

Hmm….I don’t know.

I haven’t put a lot of thought into how I am perceived by others, especially because that is opinionated, and who cares about what people think about Courtney Ferris.

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