Welcome to the Best Ever You Show with Elizabeth Hamilton Guarino. Here to help
you find success in all areas of your life. The power is in your
hands. Join our network for free at best ever u dot com. And
now here's Elizabeth. Hey, everybody, it's not just me Elizabeth, but
I'm sure it should be like And now here's Elizabeth with like awesome author Lisa
McCourt. Lisa, how are you today? Welcome. I'm wonderful, Elizabeth,
so happy to be with you. Yes, it's fine, it's great
to have you here. So I know you from your kids, your kids
books. So I'm a mom of four boys and they're now in their twenties.
They're twenty two, twenty four, twenty six, and eight and twenty
eight. So I know I love your Stinky Face really really, really well.
And so how I'm gonna just start there because I know our audience knows
that book. And then we're going to talk about Lisa's new book here in
a minute. It's called Free Your Joy, the Twelve Keys to Sustainable Happiness.
But Lisa, like, you're the author of I Love you Stinking Face.
I love that book. Thank you so much. Yeah, I was
really immersed in the world of personal development personal growth at that time, and
I just you know, as any of us who do this kind of work,
I know you have recognized this as well, Elizabeth. The core unworthiness
is just so vampant and so much the cause of all your limitations. And
that was just beginning to dawn for me, the prevalence of that in the
magnitude of core unworthiness. And that was my goal. I was pregnant with
my first child, and I said, I just want to write a book
that I can lead to my child and that other parents can lead to just
kind of nip the head in the bud, or at least try to set
a foundation of don't matter what you do, what you are, what happens,
you are inherently so lovable and perfect and beautiful and worthy. Well that
did it, didn't it? Nine millions some books later you sold. It's
pretty hard. And I don't know if you're I don't if you're aware of
the universe cosmic twist that occurred a bit later. But the baby that was
in my belly at that time is my beautiful and perfect transcender daughter. And
that led to a lot of work with the transcender community, and that book
has actually become a little bit of an emblem in the LGBTQ community. Kids
who were read that book as a child and now are finding that they've they've
found that limit to their parents unconditional love and support and it's it's really really
heartbeaking, but it's it's gifted amongst young adults these days for that that reason.
Good. I love hearing that. Thank you for sharing that with me,
because I always worry about people. I'm a I'm a worrier about of
people and their joy and their happiness and their love and their peace and their
being their best and acceptance and you know all those things that go with,
you know, helping people be their best. I'm a I'm a people worrior
like that, and I always it pains me when I hear stories otherwise when
font accepted and things like that, no matter who you are and where you
are, So yeah, well I so go ahead, No no, no,
I just like I feel your heart, I feel you, yes,
yeah, I feel yours too, and it comes through and you're free.
The Joy Book I was, it's just your book arrived to me like probably
about two days ago. So I started reading it and then I put it
down. I'm reading it again because it's it's meant kind of for a year
long journey for your joy. So I've done your half of your book in
two days. But what I'm doing through it is I'm I'm highlighting, and
I'm marking up, and I'm sticky noting and things like that. Places where
I want to go back and read and digest it more thoroughly and things like
that. So it's it's a really great book. I'm gonna just say it
again. It's Free your Joy, the twelve Keys to I'm going to get
this right to sustainable. It's happiness. And the publisher is HCI, the
distributor is Simon and Schuster. And the author of lisamc. Court. You
spell her name the last name mc capital c owe you rt and you can
go to our website, which is Lisamacort dot com. While we're talking or
whatever, and I was, I was really excited to hear all about joy.
It's one of my favorite favorite topics. And I want to know kind
of like why you wrote a book about joy. Yeah, it's always been
my date word. I know that's kind of weird, but I feel like
everybody recognizes that they want more joy. Like matter how much joy you have
us, they're like money or respect or power. Like we humans, we
just want more. We want more joy, more, more of this,
more of this. And so you know, if I had said, what
you really want is more alignment with your soul essence, you know, like
I don't think as many people would really buy you to like understanding that's what
they really want. So joy is the result of aligning with a part of
us that everything human being possesses. Is nobody walking around out there without one
right, it's your soul, is your spirit. If those terms are uncomfortable,
then it's just your higher self, your best you that you came in
here, the essence of you that you came into this human suit. As
and all of us along our journey in this human suit gather obstructions to experiencing
that aspect of us. Being able to align with it, it will being
able to sustainably keep it in the forefront of our existence. We want that
part of us to be driving the bus, and for most people, we've
been conditioned for it being like way way way in the backseat. If we
even acknowledge it's there, you know, so to me, joy has just
always been the natural, inevitable result of finding alignment with that part of you.
So that's why I use that word. Yea. So one of the
reasons why I write my books is kind of sometimes not always, but you
know, you kind of hope you leave them around your kids freedom or hear
your messaging, or you know, they've grown up with two so they hear
your messaging like mine were raised with like hashtag gratitude on the refrigerator and a
bunch of other sayings. But you know, is this a book for your
children to read? And remember? Is this a book for an older adult?
Yeah? I as I was reading, like you know, this is
from her heart to her kids, and everybody else just gets to kind of
come along for the ride. Yeah. My kids also have been brought up
with all of those and it's funny they both have interests but in different ways.
My all this daughter, my transgender daughter, has always been very metaphysically
oriented, very psychically gifted into crystals and things like morsel than than I am,
so she always completely related on that aspect. And my other daughter is
very pragmatic. She's you left doing her medical degree, she's not you know,
not really as interested in the woo woo end of things. But she's
been in my joy school. She loves the to be in the classes,
and she'll be the first one to read the book. And she's you know,
she's always been interested more from the psychology angle. So I appeal to
my children in different different parts of what I do, don't we all or
for not appealing moments? Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, So let's see
where don't want to go with this. So if you hear me fumbling around
here, I've got papers in your book and all this stuff. So oh
I love you love that. Yeah, this is me. This is your
book rattling around in my hands. So we don't have you know, clean
perfect studio audio without you know, a book rattling around in my hands here.
So tell me, tell me about about the book and what you want.
Like if I'm going to go buy your book on Amazon or Bars and
Noble or Books a Million or wherever or those independent bookstores, what do you
want me as the reader to do? Like, of course, read the
book, but what do you really want us to learn and do from reading
your books? Because it's time and energy to read a book Oh yeah,
for sure. So so what my guest, My best goal for the book
is that for somebody to actually pay attention to that title and want to buy
it, you know, that's that's like that shows that there's a crack and
opening of belief that we can create a more joyful, sustainable status quo for
ourselves and most people. It's been my experience that most people out there,
in the great out there don't have that belief, don't don't even really think
that it's possible to make some changes, change ups in habits and sustainably elevate
what I call your joy step point, your your day to day baseline for
how much joy and meaning and vibrancy you experience in your life. So for
somebody to be interested enough to have this book in their hands or on their
audio, I feel like then the just get the cobar in there, and
we just widen that belief, and we just get it stronger and stronger with
each page, with each chapter, with each week of practice. Because really,
the degree of which you believe you're in control of your joy, your
happiness is the exact degree to which you will be able to up level your
life. Yeah, we're always creating our whole existence based on our beliefs.
So that's really all it requires. So if somebody's already got the books,
then hey, there's already like a little bit of an opening of belief.
We just got a wide in it and that happened naturally by doing the practices
and seeing the results. Yeah, but I'm going to add and not that
I think that we have grumpy people listening to the show or anything like that,
or unhappy people, but you know, I do think and I've had
moments in my life, like after my dad passed away where I was in
grief and grumpy and angry and all those low vibration things that you're feeling and
feeling sort of stuck and should quit best of use write another book. You
know, all those things just come to the surface. So I would also
say, like we USUAD just said something really brilliant right there. You know,
this book kind of gets at Crowbar in there. So if you're feeling
that way, I know, the last thing you want to do is tellably
have a book. It's like, yeah, be all joy, you know
kind of thing. But maybe it's exactly what you need. I know,
yesterday, for some reason, I dipped in my energy. I'm like,
oh, did I like eat something that's not making me feel well? Why
do I have this funky like energy about me? Today I couldn't figure out
what I was so grumpy about. And then I kind of figured it out.
But today I started reading your book again. I'm like, oh,
there's my joy, you know kind of thing. And it's hard, though,
when you're grumpy to pick up a book about joy, isn't it?
Or is it? No? I think that's exactly it. That's exactly and
we get addicted to our lower emotions. It's just a glift on the system
that the human being. We do tend to wallow in our misery and there
has to be like a desire to pull out of it, right, and
if there's not, that is wire. You're not going to open the book
and you're not going to do that really easy first practice, and that is
a problem in the system is that we often are just kind of comfortable in
our lower vibration states. Yeah, and recognizing that we are need to needing
to kind of elevate is is different because you know, I have you know
how you have a favorite buzzword of joy? You know, it's your kind
of go to word. Maybe you have other ones too, because I do
that word a year thing, but I think my favorite one is abundance,
and I think it kind of goes hand in hand with joy. And I
never been abundance in a sense of like, oh, money's you know,
falling off, treason into my pockets or anything like that, But I just
love the feeling of not less than. Yeah. Now, that is a
beautiful world word because one of the things I talk about in the book is
this primitive green programming that we all still our subject to you, because our
Skateman ancestors were like a little Pliny blipp Ago in the grand scheme of things
and scarcity, scarcity for reass competition over desirable meets and the right varies and
the right season, and you know that was that's hardwired into us. It
doesn't really have application. And now our western privileged societies that we live in,
but we still are or programmed with that default setting to think about everything
in our lives in terms of scarcity. So abundance feels like the antidote to
that. To me. You can have abundance of joy, abundance of the
rest, abundance of peace, abundance of finance or resources, if that's what
you're you're needing. Abundance of love. I think it's a beautiful word.
Love. I love that word. It's just like become one of my favorite
ones. And I think it's like so like you were saying, like it's
so it just applies. It's like the antidote to when you're feeling like less
than or does any kind of negative anything. It helps you give yourself perspective,
much like joy. I think as well, like if and there's a
point in your book and I can't remember which page page it was on or
anything, but it wasn't like you're not saying like I think you said,
like be all Pollyanna on it, but not you know, at the risk
of being Pollyanna, that's not what you're saying. Can you fix that sentence
a little bit there for me? Yeah, absolutely, it was. I
think it was in one of the self assessments about like do you expect the
best to unfold or are you afraid of looking like a Pollyanna if you were
to take that approach, Yeah, where has life shown you that taking that
approach is the portal to miracles? Like only when we expect to the best
to unfold, as opposed to always expecting the worst case so unfold. That's
when we created that way. You know, we have to have the belief
of the excrecation before we can have the creation. Yeah, you were talking.
I think you were talking about faith, unwavering faith. That was something
my dad had. My dad was so sick from two thousand and four to
twenty eighteen, and I would say, what is making you continue on where
other people would give up, you know, because he's a subject in my
books and things like that. And he had such faith and hope and such
a positive, positive vibe even in the sickest and worst way, you know,
when he was just so sick and so not feeling well, he always
had such faith and it was amazing he applied such positive energy to being sick.
It was it was a true, a true lesson. Do you find
that that's something that joy can bring, is positive through just anything coming your
way? Oh, people like that are so beautiful to be around. What
a blessing for you, And what a blessing I'm sure you were for him,
And and that's that's just it. It's when we can source that from
within which is a learned skill. Any of us can learn to do it.
When we can source that and be that we are shining so much love
and light onto everyone around us. And then, you know, love ripples
so all of those people, everybody that they are in contact with that day,
whether it's the kid making your sandwich on the dully or the guy getting
in the elevator with you, it ripples out. And that's why people like
your dad, you know, people told many people are afraid to put some
effort in time into their joy in elevating their own personal vibration because I feel
like that's selfish when there's so much suffering in the world. But it's the
very best thing you can do for those around you and for everybody beyond that.
It just ripples out so absolutely that you know, having those kind of
people in our lives are such a blessing. Yeah, I must think at
points we you know, great doctors too, but I think it points there
were moments when it was hopeless and we willed them well and he willed himself.
Oh, it was a really interesting thing, my dad being sick.
So yeah, I believe that cool human being and we plastered his hospital walls
with photographs of all eleven of us kids and Grant can you get tiny kids
eighteen or seventeen grandkids at the time, and all this stuff, and we
just we we willed him well as best we could, and it worked.
It worked for a while until things, you know, he just got his
chick. But that was a really long time to survive with what happened to
him. Thank you for listening to that. Talked about my dad, Tyd.
He's always he's always around. See, you've got a word in your
book, and I feel like my Midwest self is going to destroy the pronunciation
of this word. But it's like, is it kirk kirk lunk like kirk
like it's neat for Midwestern k I feel like it's very literally like kirk lunk
kirk luck. Did I get it right? You've got it perfect. I
don't even know where it came from to tell you the too it I've just
been saying it for so long. But I don't know if if for somebody
else say it or I meet it up. But yeah, it's just I
feel like we need this word in our vocabulary. Those of those who are
on a spiritual talk and have done this sort of a metaphysical study or just
personal growth study for a long time. It's that moment that really shake your
beautiful moment when this idea that you've heard about and agreed to and you know
you already had the light bulb go off in your head that some prior workshop
or retreat. Oh yeah, this is a solid principle. I am behind
this, I agree with this, this is I'm on board. But then
at some point, after hearing it repeatedly, you're hearing how people have applied
it to their lives. It just goes kirk clunk down into your bones,
into your soul, and you're changed by it. And I feel like that's
what this whole journey is about, is just hearing these things and being in
those containers, those energetic containers enough that these concepts that seem like great ideas
and theory, but they aren't really the way the world works. So we
kind of just keep them over here in our once a week, you know,
workshop that we go to. But when they become part of your life,
when they just become your default setting, it's such a beautiful, beautiful
thing when that happens. So I had to make up a word for it.
It's a great word. And that is a hard concept to explain to
people because as self help authors like, I've heard myself called not pragmatic,
and I'm like, oh no, no, no, no no. What
I'm trying to say is this gratitude thing, it becomes part of you.
You root your whole entire being in it, so that when something comes your
way, you know, you see it from a totally different point of view.
Men, maybe even much different than other people see it because they're on
a different wavelength, path, space place, whatever it is, and that
is that's hard to explain. So as you were talking, I wrote down
like gratitude, abundance, joy, peace, happiness, and all those like
lovely love, high vibrational type words. What happens to you when they become
part of you? Like your method of operation, like I operate from gratitude.
You I'm sure you operate from a number of things, but for sake
of this, I'm just going you great from joy. What happens to your
being when you operate from that place versus like operating from anger or sadness or
grief or impatience or whatever. Lilia's sister for sure, and it's it's a
practice of skill. Right, like habits. We all are habitual creatures.
We all have habitual thought patterns that are just going across that ticker tape in
our lines all day long. And habits are not known for being particularly easy
to break, but we all know they are breakable. It is something that
you can do with some commitment, with some practice, you can install a
whole new thought pattern default system. Yeah, your book's a perfect book for
somebody saying this always happens to me, don't you think? Yeah, And
that could be a huge nut for a lot of people to really kind of
by desk is that. Yeah, it does keep happening to us because we
our reality manufacturing machines, and if we're always creating our next reality from the
energy that is being inconsistent within us, we're going to keep creating the same
reality in us since again and again, even if because different wrapping people.
It's only when we take control of the creative matter, the clay that we're
creating from our energy, that we can never create anything different. So,
yeah, it is a good book for that, but someone has to be
ready to kind of hear and acknowledge that and take responsibility. And it's kind
of beating ourselves up if we're creating things we don't like, you know,
that's such a slippery slope. It's like once you decide, yes, I
am creating everything out there, even these things that I'm really unhappy. But
you can't beat yourself up about that because we just it's what we do.
We don't know any better. It's all done so innocently, so unwittingly,
that having compassion for that whole creative cycle and compassion for ourselves is the only
way to heal it and change it. It's a great word. Compassion,
such a good word. Compassion for yourself is a big thing. Because I
don't know about you, Lisa, but are you. My website anyway doesn't
say perfect ever you. It says best ever you. And I really mean
that from my heart. You know. I think there's certain people you pray
are perfect, like surgeons and pilots and people you know, but even they
make mistakes and things like that. But on a day in and day out
basis, you know, to try and be your best and live your best
life and bring the joy and the happy energy and and all that stuff.
Even if you even if you're disrupting, like what you were kind of saying,
like disrupting your flow of whatever it is you've got going on. I'm
going to be choppy here, but bringing back in that compassion for when you
make those mistakes or when you aren't perfect, or when things aren't great or
whatever it is. Like this morning on my Twitter, I put out a
note that said yoga pants. So it's like the antidote to jeans, because
jeans make everybody's franky, you know, or something like that, which you
know, if you think about a woman in the dressing room trying on jeans,
there's nothing but frustration. But yoga pants are like in the perfect whatever,
and and then you and then you hold on waiting on the don and
then you go into this, you know, beat yourself up for eating this
or that because your jeans don't fit, and you're like, no, no,
no, just the yoga pants are good. No kind of thing.
So I know why I was grumpy Yesterday's because I wolfed down two pieces of
pizza and then I and then I was like, oh man, my jeans
don't fit. And I had that whole thing and things that we're talking about
in pragmatic ways right in reality, you know, right, pizza was not
going to be this my joy. Nor were jeans take that one? Yeah
no run, Yeah, I don't know what to do that when that was
too adorable. But yeah, and you know what, You're allowed to have
pizza too. You're allowed to have joy from pizza too. You're allowed to
have joy on the days that your teens get great, and you're allowed to
have joy on the days they don't because you have that joy of the yummy
pizza. So you know, we get to be our human creatureselves sometimes and
and yeah, just just giving up on that judgment for the pizza days is
a huge game changer. It's like, yeah, I'm gonna happy the pizza
sometimes I deserve it. I'm gonna lovely right there, jeans are going specked
away for a day anyway. Yeah, I know, just some just some
fun. You know, if you can't laugh at yourself, boy, that's
part of it too, right, the laughter and the fun. And I
think I think so much about I think about joy and happiness. I also
think about laughter, do you Yeah, Oh for sure, yeah, there's
laughter therapy. Those whole you know, books are written about the cancer peach
and who just go and laugh for an hour a day and use a trial.
It releases endorphins that calms the nervous system. There are all sorts of
things that our bodies do that have a tremendous impact on our body chemistry.
Humming. Humming changes our body chemistry, something about the vibration. And David
Primosa has a limesher chocolate but laughing for sure. They say, even just
putting your face into a smile, like using those muscles in your face with
smiling sends messages to your brain to release dopamine and endorphins, I mean,
happy chemicals. So yeah, yeah, and I love it, you know.
And key two, Lisa talks about know Thyself and on page fifty nine
and sixty for all of you new to self help, which I know we
seem to get people kind of listening in and trying to figure out what they're
gonna do with their own journey and things like that. But there's a really
cool I'm so glad you put this in this book, Lisa, because even
I am, like, I don't really quite so much information on meditation out
there that it overwhelmed my brains. I absolutely just my brain's like I don't
know which one to trust which one to do, and so I usually end
up kind of doing this and it's described perfectly in your book, and I
like it because it just taught me a few things. I'm like, oh,
okay, there's some things I can do. But fifty nine sixty sixty
one. You talk a lot about meditation. Do you want to talk more
about meditation now? Maybe? Sure? Yeah. I think that the word
scares a lot of people off. It goes one of two ways. Like
the happier listeners probably like, oh, I would never go a day without
meditating, Like people who have built the practice typically love it and our proponents
for it. But there are a lot of people who I think would say,
like, oh I tried that. It wasn't for me. I don't
know how to turn off my thoughts. First of all, it's not about
turning off your thoughts. Nobody's turning off their thoughts. So it was just
not really a thing that happens in this human form. And so I tried
to give alternatives and different ways, and there's chance thing, and there's you
know, basically, anything we do with enough mindfulness can become a meditation.
You can have admitting meditation or a cooking meditation or walking meditation. So I
try to take the you know, the mystery out of it in that chapter,
because all it's really about is setting that little bit of distance from your
thoughts. Right our thoughts are feeding us a load of crop every day,
that's the ticker tape is going by. They say seventy thousand thoughts a day.
Most of them are the same ones we had yesterday and last week and
last month, and the statistics say the majority of most people's thoughts are negative
thoughts. This is alsto part of that primitive brain programming that we had,
you know, when we were when our survival was in question every day,
when we actually had to be on high alert for the dangers that could come
around any corner, and propagation of the species was a really strong biological needs
that seemed threatened. And it's not that way anymore, but our brains hadn't
caught up. So these spots that most of us are watching go by every
day and attaching to and identifying with are generally not serving our joy. So
meditation is really just a way to get a little bit of distance, and
not only during that time that you're meditating. That's not really the point,
because a lot of people will say, Oh, I meditated and nothing happens.
Nothing happens, but I meditated, nothing is supposed to happen. It's
just a little practice session so that when you are out there in life and
something's triggering you, you've built the muscle for pulling back a little bit,
taking a little bit more of that observer role, watching your thoughts, watching
your reactivity, instead of being caught up in the drama of it like most
of us are conditioned to do. So that's really all meditation is about,
is just just building that muscle of having a little bit of distance from identifying
with our thoughts. Because once we are disidentified with those thoughts and we're in
that observer role, that's our soul. That's our soul self watching our human
self. And the more we can align there in different ways, through different
practices, the more the natural joy that we are is going to flood into
our experience, because we are all joy at our core. M I love
that good learning show for people. I love when we get to learn what's
your favorite chapter? Do you have one? I know that I know that's
not a fair question, but if you can just just code for pick one
and talk about it. But I think you have a tip. I think
it's I think it's chapter ten because I just did a launch party. I
had an online lunch party and I had a live lunch party, and for
the live launch party, it was mostly party and I was just going to
do a little bit from the book. So I was looking through, thinking
like if I was going to read something, and I was going to read
the beginning of chapter ten. But then I realized, do you know what,
without the context of all the other chapters, I don't know that it's
it's as rewarding. But it's a chapter where I describe one of my eight
teachers. I use a lot a lot of teachers in the book because that's
how I learned to these things, is by all my beautiful, fabulous like
teachers that I've had, so I want to be sure and always credit them
and call them out when I'm teaching from them. And Rupert Spira has this
analogy of sitting on the couch and looking at a blank screen and your friend
comes in and says, hey, what are you doing. You say,
I'm just sitting here looking at this screen. And the next day you're sitting
on the couch looking at the screens. But the TV's on this time,
and your friend comes in and says, hey, what are you doing?
And you say, oh, my god, there's you know, Marjorie's husband
was stabbed by the clown and now he's hiding under her bed. And your
friend's like, oh, it looks to me like you're doing exactly what you're
doing yesterday. You're sitting on the couch looking at the screen. So it's
a metaphor for becoming the observer, like we've been touching on, and how
everything that's out there in their external reality, it's really just a drama that
we've created. We are as a projector, we're the ones who are creating
all of this out there, And the more we can become detached from it,
the more we can not be reactive, the more we can stay aligned
with soul. And Yet, and I think this is the part that I
like in this chapter because I never hear anyone else talk about this. I
don't like I've been in these spiritual trainings where it's all about watching the screen.
I don't like that on a moment to moment basis because for me being
here in this human suit. I relish this human stuff. I relish the
pleasures of the flesh. I relish the connection and the relationships. And I
don't want to be reminded of the screen all the time. So I've sort
of invented this for me. I can decide when I want to get lost
in the movie and forget that it's a fake thing that I created. And
other times when I can pull back and sit on the couch and turn down
the volume a little bit and blur it out the images a little bit.
And and in that way, the show that I'm watching unfold goes from being
a high intensity drama some more of a documentary, so that I can not
be entangled in these storylines that cause suffering. Instead of seeing, you know
how, you know, why is it happening? I can say, well,
what did my soul want to show me when it need and directed this
movie? What what am I to learn from here? How can I evolve
from this? And it's just kind of a metaphor that if I had been
reading it, it would have sounded better. But that's that's that chapter that
I really like. Yeah, no, I like this chapter two. It's
funny. I read two from the front and three from the back, which
was the remaining three chapters just to kind and so I'll go back and read
the middle of the book. But I was just trying to kind of get
a feel for the book beginning to end, and I noticed IM like,
I'm going to have to read this more thoroughly, but we're good for today.
Anyway. I'll have and I'm gonna have you back on and talk more
about your book. But I like the there's some quotes in this chapter from
there and you talk about so my favorite people too, but you're like,
you talk about I don't mind what happens Mike Drop you know that one?
And then they are of course, and I'm Miguel Ruiz, who I've had
father and son on my radio show before. If you haven't listened to that
show, that was a cool show. I'll send you a link to it.
If you haven't heard that one, Lisa, I thought, yeah,
no, really super fun. And they're and they're friends of yours. So
tell me, tell me, Ah, I don't even know the kind of
question I want to ask other than this, these are great quotes, But
tell me why it was important to loop these people into this chapter. How's
that. Yeah, No, I think every chapter I've loops people in.
I don't know. I have always I've always had this feeling ever since I
decided because I think, I don't know. This was the case for you,
Eliza, But I have a lot of friends who write about the kinds
of things that we write about, a lot of friends and personal growth,
and for many of us, that first moment up, I think I want
to write a book. Who am I to write a book? You know?
There are so many great books out there, And there was really this
turning point for me where I realized, like, I'm just joining a team.
I'm joining a really important army. Because for every person out there who's
never looked into personal growth or spirituality or metaphysics or any of this stuff,
for every one of them, or let's say, for everybody who has who
has been initiated into this world, there was a teacher. There was somebody
someone along the way. Something they were scrolling down a Facebook feed or a
book caught their eye in the bookstore, or somehow they had exposure to a
person's energy that made them curious enough to dip their toes in these waters and
start exploring there. And that's going to be different for every person out there
who would really been from this kinde of messaging. So I feel like the
more of us that there are on this team, the more likely it's going
to be that someone's going to catch a group with our personality, our form
of delivery. And ever since then, I've just been such a proponent.
My joy school has always been equal parts I'm going to teach you what I
know, and I'm going to bring in this amazing teacher, and I'm going
to bring in this amazing teacher because to me, the joining of all of
that, it's what's so powerful and what I love about being on this team.
Yeah, I feel exactly the same way. I remember when I closed
the door to my office and the financial services industry and wrote down best ever
me, best ever You, and I was like, oh, other people
have to be feeling this way. And I went on this journey of not
knowing really I wasn't to that point a person who reads self help books even
or anything like that. So I've had to go on this journey and have
been on this wonderful journey of who are all these authors and what are their
messages and what are they saying? And do I agree, disagree? What
you know? That of thing. And for me, when I decided to
write a book, it was a moment when my dad was in a rehab
facility and for his stroke and he couldn't talk really to that point or anything
like that. It had taken like an hour to get him down to the
speech therapy session, and this nurse said to us, to my mom and
me, you know, she goes, you know, most people in this
situation can't say a word, but we're gonna play the alphabet game anyway.
And when he says, hey, I'm going to ask him for a word
that comes to mind, and mostly she goes, most people don't see anything
considering where he's at. And he said art bark and then he went benevolent,
Yeah, yeah no, And then we're like, oh boy, there's
drugs, drugs on board. He now he's like art bark and then he
went benevolence, courage, termination, excellence. F was a swear word goodness,
happiness, integrity, joy, kindness, love, em with movies on
and on and on. I'm like, oh my, I need and I
got my journal that I had my purse about it just as quickly as I
could and wrote down Glate ABC's of Life and that was the first book I
wrote. But so it wasn't like it wasn't like Deepak Chopra or anything like
that. For me, it was like my dad. I'm like, oh,
I got to tell people this. My Dad's gonna show us all how
to live through this happening kind of thing. And then I had to go
back and learn about who all these people were in writing books and in this
space and things like that. So for me, I feel like I always
have gaps, and I really love your book because I'm like, oh,
that's who that is. And that's because I still have gaps, I admit
it. Oh my god, but you had your personal guru. That's so
beautiful. That's so beautiful and even more meaningful. Yeah, it was.
It was really fun and I think I think we all have that too.
I know, I know, I know you have that with your kids and
things like that, and they become why you do what you do and some
of the things. So I want to before we go, I want to
talk about the structure of your books so people can kind of get a feel
for what's how the book is and how you intend people to use the book.
Could you go through that? For us? Absolutely, and like you
were seeing too, it's completely okay to read the book cover to cover,
and most of my Ziance readers did that because they wanted to read the whole
book. So it's fine to read the whole book and then go back and
do the practices, and it's fine to cherry picks from the practices too.
I really just wanted to create because I've been doing this a little long time,
and I used to feel like, Okay, all I want to do
is find these most powerful pieces and give those to people so they can turn
around their lives. And I've realized through my Joy School that it takes repetition,
and it takes time, and every step requires integration. So I tried
to lay out what to me felt like the most absolutely full proof system.
But if you actually spend a week on each of these things bringing it into
your day to day life, you can't help but substantially elevate your joy step
point. So that's why it's play out that way. It's the twelve Keys
or the twelve months of the year. You can start anytime, any day
of the year, and each one gives four week long practices every month isn't
exactly four weeks, so there's some little room in there. The right four
practices that you will do sequentially, each one built upon the pire one where
you integrate an idea of thought a practice and you bring it into your day
to day and in that way it allows time for each of these really time
practice spiritual principles what most of them are. Some are more modern psychological principles,
but it's really all sort of the same same basis of these are things
that work, but only when you do them. So I thought stretching it
out to a year long practice, it would give people an opportunity to do
the doing part and not just they're reading in the AHAs. Yeah, and
then does that go hand in hand with Joy School? Tell us about Joy
School a little bit, so we know what that is. I know,
I thought on your website, I think I'm going to join that. I
think it was fun. Oh my gosh, you'd be so wonderful there.
We have a weekly opportunity to meet. People are busy that everybody comes every
week, but there are four opportunities a month to meet. And it is
a lot of the practices in the book, so all the parts of the
book. All the different keys or the book are things that I've been teaching
in Joy School. But when we're live and in person, not in person,
live on zoom, we can go a lot deeper and do different things
and make it more personalized. But yeah, some people come to Joy School
from the book because they want a place to go and talk about it and
practice with other people who are in that same mindset. But it's totally fine
of someone's not reading the book too. We have that as well, as
we all learned in high school. It's possible to get get by the class
without opening the touch and that's what some people choose to do, and that's
beautiful too. But it's really just a very very supportive it's different little small
groups where where we support one another in elevating joy and so often seeing how
somebody else is applying a principle or how it's showing up in someone else's life
that provides the opening for a different Joy School or to say, oh,
I hadn't thought about it that way, And it really leads to a lot
of those kirk ones, a lot of those integration moments just by by sharing
the experience with others. No beautiful. Oh let's see now, Okay,
we're gonna We're gonna go just for sake of time. But before we go,
I just wanted I was looking at your bio and things like that here
to see if I've kind of forgotten aything. So I was kind of talking
out loud. But we simcourt dot com Joy School. Is there? Have
You've really written forty books for adults and kids? Forty books? Oh my
gosh, I just read that. I don't know why that. My eyes
skipped over that, but you have forty books. Holy moly. A lot
of those were early kids bugs, and most of them are out of prints.
My fifty baseline has stayed in print for twenty five, twenty six years
now, but I am so great before all the stinky facebooks are in frints.
But a lot of the other books that I wrote for kids, and
I wrote parenting books for McMillan at one point when my kids were young.
You know, how to read the Happy prod on how to reach the Happy
Baby, and most of those are are no longer available because I've been doing
this a long time. But yeah, that's not many. Yeah, that's
awesome. And then you've got some names cheers that I know in love like
Jack Canfield, He's endorsed my books and is a good buddy of mine.
Love him. And then also when I very first, like I said,
I was on this learning journey, we did this huge motivation marathon and this
was way back like years ago now, probably like almost fifteen years ago now.
But Michael Beckwith was the keynote. Oh yeah, yeah, doctor Michael
Beckway. Yeah, he has been one of my teachers. First shore I've
been long one time with a Gothy. I sing in the Global Choir,
which I absolutely love doing more than more than I can vouch for my my
talent at doing it, I can vouch for my enthusiasm, but I'm not
I'm not a lead. I don't get like those solos for what I'm really
good. Yeah, enthusiasm always wins. So anyway, that's awesome. All
right, Well, have I forgotten anything. It's been a true joy having
you here. And I didn't mean that as a pun or anything like that.
I just mean really like a true joy being able to being able to
meet you and have you on the best ever You show. It's so cool
and it I never thought it's funny because you know, you read these books
to your kids, and you're like, oh, h'll be so I'm I'm
a collector of kids books just so you know, I've like signed Jan Brett
books and things like that, so maybe you'll add to my collection. But
I never thought like, I was like, that'd be so cool to meet
her one day, you know. I was like, I'm like that.
When I was reading kid's books. I'm like, wherever I could, I'd
meet the author. And I never had a chance to meet you up until
this moment. Our Journeys brought us together. And boy, would that be
a highlight of my life. I'll pay you money for a copy, signed
copy if I love you stinky face. Oh my god, my kids so
funny, No money required, considerate to say. I am thrilled to meet
you. I love your heart, I can feel you. I love making
is that. One of my favorite perks of this whole little world that we're
in is getting to meet beautiful like minded sisters. Because they're not that I'm
a dozen out there right, we have to sort of like find them through
these networks. And it's my greatest blessing to have been able to connect with
people like you. I adore you a new friends. Yeah, I adore
you two new friends. So here we go. We'll go on a little
journey that we go to thank you hci and and Lindsay and everybody over there
and Christine. Okay, everybody, it's that time, you know. You
know, for me from listening to the shows, it is very difficult for
me to end shows. But we're going to do it. I'm going to
press the end button here soon. I just want to thank you all for
listening to us. We are inching up on five million downloads now and that
is listens and downloads, and that is not an easy seat. We've been
doing this since twenty ten. All grassroots. I always say that I am
My nickname was kind of still is. It's Outflow. We all know that,
but it's a funny nickname. But I always say, you know,
we're mom approved and a little bit of outflow, husband funded and things like
that, and it cracks me up. But we don't do advertising or anything
like that with anything with Best ever you, so it is all grassroots.
It's all pretty much free. You can write articles in the magazine. I
never really even charge people for ads in the magazine, so it's pretty much
a free thing here, So that's that's my thing, and I love all
of you very much for being here buying Lisa's book. Is it in pre
order or for purchase right now? Is it? Is it out for purchase
now? I bout all right? Everybody had on over to Amazon, Barnes
and Noble, wherever we get your books, independent bookstores, Free your Joy,
The Twelve Keys to s Sustainable Happiness. I got it right by author
Lisa McCourt and Lisa, thank you very much. It's been so much fun
having you here. Thank you all right. Let me to thank you by
everybody. Thank you for listening. We're so glad you tuned in. Be
brave, be bold, See you and remember to visit us at best everu dot com