Lysa is a brilliant writer and speaker who has dedicated her life to helping women better know God. She is the president of Proverbs 31 Ministries and the #1 New York Times bestselling author of It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way, Uninvited, The Best Yes, Unglued, Made to Crave, and 18 other books.

Hey, friends. Welcome back to the passion and purpose podcast.
Most of you know, my guest today, the 1 and only Lisa Turkhurst.
Lisa is the president of verbs 31 Ministries and is a number 1 New York Times best selling author of books like Uninvited.
It’s not supposed to
be this way. for giving what you can’t forget, and her latest book, good boundaries, and good buys.
In this episode, we talk about how to handle heart theology and therapy, the beauty of scripture, and cultivating healthy boundaries.
It’s such an honor to have Lisa on the podcast so welcome to my conversation with Lisa Turcurst.
Hi, everyone.
Welcome to the passion and purpose podcast with myself, Louie Iglio.
and a really, really special friend on the podcast today.
I’m so excited that she is with us I hope that this podcast is helpful to her and helps her get her writing career off the ground.
This is my goal today. Uh, just an inside joke for the person who owns the New York Times bestseller list, which I am still trying to get on one time.
I think, uh, my guest today has been on the New York Times best seller list, like, for a couple of years running at some seasons of time.
So Obviously, what she’s writing is striking a chord with people, and I wanna get to the heart of that today and figure out why that is happening and why god is using her uh, her message in such a powerful way.
So welcome Lisa Turchurst, if you will.
The founder of Proverbs 31 Ministries obviously one of the best known authors on planet Earth right now.
So glad to have you on the podcast today.
Oh, thank you so much. Louie. I think your, uh, introduction was very generous.
So, um, maybe I need that to be my ringtone.
I can just listen to that each day, and it’ll it’ll it it infused my heart with great encouragement.
So thank you.
—
expected you to come in with that response. And I, obviously, you can’t say yes. It is true.
And quite amazing that I was on the New York home bestseller list for 2 years running, but, uh, books like, uninvited.
not supposed to be this way for giving what you can’t forget. These are just massive messages, Lisa.
And before we dive into to your new book and kinda un unpack what you’re really wanting to communicate through that book.
Why do you feel like your message is connecting so powerfully to people?
You know, I am grateful for that.
I think maybe it’s because I write from my point of struggle, not strength.
And I think when someone picks up a book more than wanting to be taught at first, they wanna be understood.
And there’s a great gift that you can give to someone who is hurting in some area of their life to walk alongside them and assure them that you understand the depth that they’re pain so they can trust your advice on that same level.
Yeah. Things happen to us in life. Some of them are our choices.
Some of them are not our choices and all of us find ourselves navigating difficult situations.
And I I think especially when there’s a spotlight on you, Lisa, you’re the founder of proper 31 ministries.
I mean, you have blazed a trail, especially for women, but for men and women to really love god’s word, and you love god’s word.
And that’s evident about you and every time I’ve been around you, it’s just evident how much you love the word of god and love the god of the word.
But yet, we have bumps in our in our journey, and some of them are actually a lot bigger than bumps.
And I think we I do ourselves a disservice when we wanna push them to the side and we miss the opportunity to really bring the grace and goodness of god to other people And that’s what happens when we’re vulnerable and when we let people in on the struggle and you’ve done that over these past few years in a really powerful way.
Well, thank you. Yeah. There’s a big difference between privacy and secrecy.
I believe in holding a lot of details private for the sake of healing, but I refuse to keep secrets for the purpose of hiding and not being honest with what what it is that I’m I’m walking through.
Um, you know, so many parts of my story the past 10 years, I did not want to live that.
It reminds me in March chapter 14, um, starting in verse 32, when we read about some of Jesus’ last moments in the garden of disseminate, he says 2 profound things that I relate to so much.
and he says, I am deeply troubled. I’m overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.
And then he also says, Abba, father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me.
And I relate to those words of Jesus so much because I have begged god that the some of the realities that I’m living now being a divorced woman experiencing the death of my marriage, I begged god for a different outcome.
but that was the outcome that that happened.
And the death of my marriage I think is the most significant heartbreak that I’ve ever been through.
It’s not something I wanted, um, at all.
And yet, if I’ve gotta walk through it, I am bound and determined that I am gonna make the enemy regret that he messed with a woman like me.
So as you’re taking this journey together, you have a podcast and an ongoing conversation in in the podcast.
Uh, theology and therapy are 2 big anchors for you.
Talk about why, uh, you’re choosing to frame everything both with theology. That’s kind of obvious and with therapy.
Well, because both were so crucial in my healing journey, I, I desperately needed to dig into scripture and and really seek throughout the journey of me trying so hard to fight for my marriage and then watching my marriage end, I had so much angst around this fear that not only was I gonna disappoint god but that I would lead other people to believe that, you know, that I thought marriage wasn’t important or encourage them to walk away from their marriages.
And that was the last thing in the world that I wanted to do.
I I’m a big proponent of marriage, and that’s why I thought so hard and so long for my marriage not to end.
And so the theology part was digging into some of those verses that I had misunderstood and yet brought great clarity when I have access to solid theologians to help me study, then one of those is Malachi chapter 2 16 where It says in some versions of the Bible god hates divorce, but that version of that verse didn’t come about until after the King James version or during the King James version in the original language that verse actually says when a man hates and divorces his wife, he does violence against the one he should protect.
And so you can see there that having a deeper understanding of that verse could alleviate so much so much angst that I was experiencing in my heart.
And then the therapy side is just quite honestly, I desperately needed someone to walk me through the very complicated emotions of the devastation that I was experiencing I needed both the emotional healing and the spiritual healing.
And combining those 2 gave me so much comfort and I think made me a much healthier individual.
There’s so many people in our world, in the church world that are like, all you need is god’s word, and all you need is prayer, and god’s power.
And that’s all you need to get better to able to recover, it’d be restored.
And there’s a whole new wave of people that are just like all you need is the latest, greatest, you know, thing, whatever that is in the world right now, and somehow you’re bringing these 2 things together, even I was listening to the podcast recently, and you’ve got theologians sitting right there with you.
You’ve got your counselor, your personal counselor sitting right there with you.
And the conversation, it feels complete in a way.
Uh, talk about navigating that in our present world and how people wanna tip to one side or to the other?
Yeah. You know, it’s interesting.
I don’t know where theology and therapy got separated because there, I would say, are so many therapeutic principles that are straight from the Bible.
And, you know, it they they are supposed to work together.
And I believe that god does give a great calling to Christian therapists to be the I guess, experts or people with educated understandings of some of the deeper emotional issues Um, that’s their calling.
And so god is providing what we need.
We just have to choose to take both parts of it, the theology and the therapy.
I always tease my, um, my listeners sometimes with the fact that Joel Doctor Joel Munamale, he brings the theology.
Jim Crest brings the therapy, and I bring the issues. And so It works because I have lots of issues.
We never run out of things to talk about, so it’s really good.
And it provides some free therapy and theological study sessions for me, which is great too.
Uh, just give me the snapshot of these books.
So I’m sure a lot of people listening to us have read them or will read them in the future, but, uh, forgiving what you can’t forget.
What’s the snapshot of that book?
Resistance to forgiveness.
How about uninvited? Rejection. Uh, it’s not supposed to be this way.
navigating deep disappointments in life.
Yeah. That’s why I believe, uh, that’s the answer to, I think, where we started.
These are these are issues that everyone is dealing with action that happens around us is part of a broken world, and there’s no way to to avoid it in life.
And I think how we respond to it is gonna be a difference maker for us.
Your new book is called good boundaries and good buys.
Just let’s take the book and set it aside for a moment.
Let’s just talk about title because you’re really into titles of books and you work very hard on it.
In fact, you’re an expert on it and you advise people on it.
I was never happier when you told me that you like title of my last book.
I was like, okay. That’s good because you have you’ve figured out how to how to grab titles that grab people.
So how did you do that? How did you figure out the whole title thing?
The whole how did you get to become the expert.
My friends go to you and and I should be coming to you and you help them hone their message.
You help them craft their title.
You helps them with, you know, what is this book really need to say and how does it need to say it?
How did you fall into that lane?
Well, I don’t write my books, um, without an audience.
So I have a kind of a different flow I, um, I involve a focus group, the same group of people for each book, um, and it’s about 40 to 50 women, and they are as important as any other aspect of my book writing.
and it that’s a different group for each book.
Um, but they give me language around the topic that maybe expands my vocabulary.
So my writing becomes more relatable to different people and how they phrase different things.
And a lot of times, the titles for my books comes out of my discussions.
So the way that these groups work I will write 2 or 3 chapters, and I send them raw material, and they give me very honest feedback, and we meet.
Uh, it used to be in person, but now we do it over Zoom.
And they have permission to speak freely because I don’t sit in their small groups.
So if we have forty people, then we have 4 small groups of 10.
Some of my staff members kind of collect all of their feedback, but they have such permission to speak freely.
And one of the best things that that group does for me besides help me think through the title, um, is they share with me skepticism that they have So I can write to the skepticism and not avoid it.
And I think that’s a deeply connecting aspect of my writing with my eventual readers.
Brilliant. My friend Matt Redmond always would say, um, to write with the door open.
That was the phrase he used when he was songwriting.
And I think Man, we we wanna protect our art, but, um, to hone the craft, uh, of really becoming great at at anything in life, you’ve gotta be willing to open yourself up to the process of listening to people and um what’s an example of how somebody said, hey.
Talk about writing to skip to the skeptic or to skepticism. Can you give an example of that?
Yeah. So it’s pretty common when I’m writing that my writing steps on my own toes.
And there’s usually some point in every book where I wanna throw the book across the room because I just think how unfair this principle is this biblical principle or how hard it is to live this out And so I don’t ignore that.
When I have that feeling bubbling up in me, I know the reader’s gonna have that feeling bubbling up in them.
And so I will say, If I were you, I would wanna throw the book across the room right now.
I get it because I wanna throw my own
book
across the room. And so that’s an example.
Another example especially with the topic of boundaries, um, I wrote, I you know, this is easy to type out these pixelated letters on paper.
It’s so hard to have these conversations.
And so because I acknowledge how challenging these conversations are, I wanna give you scripts to follow that you can take and make your own so that you’re not so frustrated when you come up with a good boundary, but you don’t know how to talk about it.
And so not only do I step into their skepticism, but I try to solve the issue that the skepticism is bringing to the surface.
So helpful. Let’s talk about the book, good boundaries, and good buys.
Um, where does this one fit in the art of the narrative that that you’re on in terms of the last few books?
Well, I’ve heard people say this completes a trilogy.
And I appreciate that, you know, and the trilogy being it’s not supposed to be this way for giving what you can’t forget and now good boundaries and good buys.
That was not done intentionally. So if this is a part of a the last book of a trilogy, then I think god put that together, not me, because I’m not quite that organized, but I understand that this feels like, a very long journey that I’ve been on.
And, um, this is the ending of that journey and the beginning of a new journey.
And so good boundaries and good buys really was birthed out of when I experienced the death of my marriage and I was no longer working on that marriage, I kept going to therapy.
And needing to work on myself and admitting that I had work to do and probably the biggest area of work I needed to do was understanding healthy boundaries and how healthy boundaries can lead to healthier relationships.
I always have this angst, Louis, that boundaries fell a little unkind, maybe and I didn’t have the emotional fortitude or the biblical confidence to actually implement healthy boundaries.
And if you look at any kind of relationship where you feel like you’re doing a little dysfunctional dance, show me the relational chaos and I’ll show you where there’s a lack of boundaries.
So let’s take it head on. You just mentioned it.
Um, what gives you the biblical confidence to to really lean into the idea of healthy boundaries?
Well, when I started studying in the Bible with this question in my mind, is god okay with boundaries?
I was shocked when I started in Genesis 1 to realize god established the foundations of the world using boundaries.
He separated the dry land from the sea, the light from the dark. Those are all examples of boundaries.
Then of all the topics that god could have chosen to be the subject matter of the first recorded conversation between god and man in Genesis too.
God chose the topic of a boundary.
Wow.
He he says to Adam, you are free. So I was like, wow. Look at what god’s doing.
He’s establishing where the freedom is and the only way to do that is to establish where the boundary lines are.
You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, not overly strictive, absolutely, he’s still providing for Adam’s needs.
You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from this tree.
This is the parameter, the rule, the boundary, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
and a consequence or else you’ll die.
And what god is establishing there with Adam is such a gift because he’s establishing where the freedom is so Adam doesn’t have to walk on egg shells and wonder every time he plucked something from a tree.
Is this okay? Is this okay? Is this okay?
So these boundaries just gave such a beautiful experience of freedom with some protection, which is that one restriction the knowledge of good and evil.
God did not want Adam or any human to have to carry the weight of the knowledge of evil.
And that’s why he wanted to protect Adam from that and protect all of us from that.
And then when Adam violated the boundary, Adam and Eve, then, um, there were consequences.
And my therapist always says a boundary without a consequence is nothing but a bad suggestion.
And so I started to gain a lot of spiritual confidence, biblical confidence that boundaries are not just a good idea.
They’re actually god’s idea. And then probably my biggest biblical in this whole process was watching and reading how god put the temple together and how he granted access to certain people, not all people, And the greater the access someone had to the holy of whole leading up to the holy of holies, the greater responsibility that they had to bring and the greater consequence would be, the more severe the consequences would be.
And so the thing that was just so incredibly eye opening to me is when I think about those words, when I think about access, responsibility, and consequence.
The high priest had the greatest amount of access.
Therefore, he had to carry the greatest level of responsibility, and he suffered the greatest consequence.
Only the high priest could go into the Holy Foley’s once a year to make a tournament for the people, and that kind of access required that he be perfectly purified and cleansed or else he would drop dead.
So I started thinking about especially those 2 words, access and responsibility.
And I discovered a huge problem I was having.
So I was giving level 10 access to people who were only demonstrating level 3 responsibility.
Great.
And the difference between that is where the chaos and the lack of boundaries usually existed So the mistake I was making also was that when that was happening, I kept trying to put a boundary on that person to bringing level 3 responsibility to make them be more responsible with the access that I’m giving them.
But The frustration came when I couldn’t control or change another person using external pressure.
So I realized I have to put a boundary around myself.
And if they are only willing or capable of level 3 responsibility, the boundary I put on myself is to reduce the access I grant them down to level 3.
So relational equilibrium can be achieved.
Why would you why do we want to give people greater access than they’re willing to be responsible for.
So why were you giving the person level 10 access when they obviously didn’t earn it, didn’t deserve it, couldn’t be responsible with it.
Because I wasn’t aware of what I was doing. And when we know better, we do better.
I just kept being so frustrated thinking in my mind.
Why isn’t this person doing what should be done with this kind of relationship that we’re in.
And, honestly, Louis, another confession that I will make is I’ve struggled with people pleasing, and it just felt so many times like being in ministry I just didn’t have the same kind of permission that other people had to say no.
And so I was always doing this weird dance of wanting to keep other people happy, which somehow in my mind validated my testimony more or validated me being in ministry more, But as I worked on this in therapy, I started to realize that it was actually really selfish of me to be people pleasing because I wasn’t just people pleasing to keep other people happy.
I was trying to keep other people happy So they wouldn’t take for me what I felt like they provided that I wouldn’t be okay in this world if they took it away.
And so I was afraid to draw boundaries because I was afraid of what that other person would take away from me.
I think we will always be desperate to get from other people what we fear we will never get from god.
talk about the other side of this, um, Jesus.
You know, everybody’s gonna bring up Jesus at this point and say Jesus had no boundaries.
Jesus went the extra mile. He gave it all. He made himself vulnerable.
He, you know, he opened up completely totally to everyone.
Um, talk about your response to that.
Well, Jesus wasn’t close friends with the entire world, though the entire world may have been fascinated with him at certain points of his ministry to wanna be best friends with him.
He chose 3. And then, you know, he chose 12, and then he had concentric circles.
And Jesus’s divinity was absolute perfection and complete, but his humanity was dealing with the same grit and grime that we do here on earth.
And I agree Jesus app absolutely laid down his life and and called us to lay down our life for our friends.
But Jesus laid down his one life to accomplish a high and holy purpose.
He did not lay down his one life to enable bad behavior to continue.
Wow.
That’s a that is a perfect, um, I think, segue into, uh, to all of our lives.
What when do we know we need a boundary? Let’s just start there.
And do you always have to, uh, explain the boundary to the person that you need the boundary from?
Well, again, my wise therapist has told me, ingrained this in my head, adults inform children explain.
So we do need to inform people of our boundaries And, um, and if they have questions, certainly we can discuss it, but we don’t need to debate it.
and we don’t need to explain why it’s necessary. And we definitely don’t need to say, I’m establishing this boundary.
Okay. So I’m not saying you ever do that, Louis. I do that.
Um, so show me the relational chaos in your life, and I will show you where there’s a lack of boundary where there’s this frustration in your heart where you start to think, I can’t keep doing this.
I don’t know how much more of this I can take, or you get so worn down and frazzled where you start to say, I don’t know what else to do, but if this doesn’t get better, I’m out.
And we tend to let things go so long to where suddenly we start reacting in extremes, either we become a compete peep complete people pleaser, and we just keep saying yes, to everything to try to keep everybody happy, which is exhausting.
Or the opposite extreme is we get so frazzled and frustrated that we just shove the other person away.
Foundries help us bring all of that back to the middle. Boundaries are not meant to shove others away.
they’re to help hold me together.
And so boundaries should never be used as a tool to control, manipulate, or punish another person.
boundaries are to help me stay self controlled, and that’s my responsibility.
What do you say for the person who realizes there’s chaos, but they don’t know which boundary to set.
They don’t really they’re so in the chaos that they don’t really know how to establish a healthy boundary.
Well, in good boundaries and good buys, I have lots of lists where people can become a little more self aware of what it is that’s really bothering them.
And here’s a couple of those things to consider.
Where in my life am I diminishing the best of who I am to cover up for the worst of who somebody else is?
Great question to consider. Right?
Um, where am I saying yes or to whom am I saying yes to when I clearly know, I should be saying no.
And where am I hyper extending my capacity to the point of bankruptcy not requiring the other person to be more responsible with the access that I’m giving them.
And here’s a great way to sort of think through this.
Um, Louis, I can tell you with certainty that you are already doing boundaries really, really well even if you’ve had thoughts throughout this interview that you’re not as good at boundaries as you wanna be.
Um, I’m not putting that on you.
I’m just saying I can prove to you you really are good at boundaries. Are you ready?
Yep.
Okay. Do you have a bank account?
I do.
Do you have a security passcode on your bank account?
Yes. I do
7853.
Okay.
So, Louis, do you have unlimited resources in your bank account?
No. I do not.
Okay. So it wouldn’t be wise for you to give us all instructions of how we could have absolute access to all the money you have in your bank account.
Right?
For sure.
Is that because you’re unchristian?
Uh, it’s because I’m wise.
It’s because you’re wise. You know that if you gave free access to everyone to have your your bank account information and for everyone to be able to get to the money in your bank account, you know that I would be unwise because you don’t know if everyone would be responsible with that kind of act Therefore, you limit the access down to the level of responsibility.
I have zero access to your bank account, Louis.
and it’s because I have demonstrated zero responsibility with your money.
You just don’t have an experience with me. It’s not that you had a bad experience.
You just don’t know how responsible I would be, and that’s not because you’re unkind, un Christian or terrible pastor.
It’s because you’re wise so you don’t bankrupt yourself.
We know this really, really well with our bank account, but we forget it with other areas capacity in our life, with our relational capacity, with our time capacity, with our emotional capacity.
We just forget that we are not unlimited. Only god has a limitless supply.
I talked about a few years back and have talked pretty openly about it when I fell into this pit of depression that I didn’t know existed before I found myself in it.
I’m kinda coming out of that and trying to peel back some of the layers.
I I don’t know exactly the formula that got me that got me into that pit, but I know that there were two last hands that kind of pushed me over the edge, and they were, um, need for control.
and, um, an unhealthy need of approval of other people.
And we were planning Pashion City Church at time that I fell in this hole.
Uh, we were just in the early stages, and I think I I learned right on the front end, Lisa, that the last job you want, if you or if you need control or you need the approval of people is to be the pastor of a church because it’s god’s church, and you’re not gonna have control.
And if you do have control, it’s not gonna be a very healthy church.
Um, and the need for approval is just not gonna happen.
And I think that I wanna just talk about that for a minute because I feel like the reason why we our bankrupt half the time is because of our own need for approval.
And and like you said earlier, it’s not really our desire to to be more like Jesus.
It’s our the fact that we haven’t really realized how much Jesus loves and accepts us as we are right now and is what we need.
He is what we need, who we need in life.
So how before we get to the chaos and the boundary and I’m depleted, I need to learn how to say no more I think I need to learn how to say yes to him somehow as a precursor to being able to say no to other things.
Louie, I relate to that so much.
Another struggle that I have is, is social anxiety sometimes.
If I am placed in a situation where I walk into a room or a reception, and everybody’s already talking to somebody.
And I’m just there. by myself, and it creates this really anxious feeling in me.
And so often I would find myself going over to station with him.
He was probably, like, woman go away.
I’m trying to serve sodas, but I was just so desperate to feel like I belong in that room.
And so many times, I would just make an appearance and then at a gathering like that, and then I would go back to my hotel room and just think that’s just not for me.
One time when that happened, the lord really challenged me And I felt like the lord was saying, Lisa, you were walking in that room desperate for acceptance and approval.
instead of walking into that room, bringing my acceptance, bringing my love into that room, bringing my peace into that room, Do you not realize that every single person in there is desperate for that same kind of acceptance, approval, and love?
And I don’t want you walking into any more of those rooms begging others for scraps of all of that.
I want you to live from the place that I have accepted you, I love you, and you are a conduit of my peace and my acceptance and my love to other people.
So you walk into that room, bringing that with you, and the atmosphere will change for you.
And it did. And based on that social anxiety and my desperate need for approval and acceptance and all of that, doing that practice of walking into rooms realizing that I don’t wanna walk in there begging other people for what they can give me.
I wanna walk in there eager to give that to other people.
It started to change something in me, and it helped me learn to live from a place of love, from a place of acceptance, not desperate for it from other people.
So when we draw healthy boundaries, If we are scared that by putting a healthy boundary in place, that that other person is gonna reject us, chances are that the person’s eventually gonna reject us whether we have a boundary or not.
It’s just, are we gonna be sane throughout the process? Are we gonna remain self controlled in the us.
Healthy people respect healthy boundaries, but unhealthy people usually have never met a boundary that they really like.
So so good.
What what is, um, how do we get to the power of no.
Uh, I think it I I love what you’re saying, and I do, uh, I’m 100% behind this idea that we live from acceptance and not 4.
This is the kingdom. And, of course, we’re stuck in a world right now that disconnected, you know, the the love of god from the way that we do life together.
So we’re all living in this social media metaverse that is constructed by people void of the pure love of god for each one of us.
And so, you know, we live by the like and the likes actually the shape of a heart.
And that awesome. You know, if it’s a YouTube view, it’s a thumbs up. So that seems like a like.
Hey. Good job. But if it’s my Instagram post, it’s a heart. that is the like.
And so it’s kinda like getting underneath the surface without god’s love saying this is how you get approved.
This is how you get valued. This is where you get accredited in our world.
And I think we’ve just gotta come into that knowing I already have a stamp of approval on my life and I am moving with the love of my father every single step of my life and connecting that and So we start there, but then I think for me, it’s learning the most powerful word in my vocabulary is not the word yes.
It’s the word no. It’s the most powerful word that I have, but people are afraid to use it.
Well, with the Instagram thing, here’s a really challenging, but good practice to try.
Post something and refuse to look at it for the next week. Just post it.
And don’t go back and look at it.
and then maybe post again and don’t go back and look at it.
And eventually, if you want to, you can go back and respond to comments and, you know, all of that.
but too many times I think we’re posting and refreshing and refreshing and refreshing, and that’s feeding that notion that I have to get this.
And it’s really chemicals being released in our brain that we can become addicted to.
So I think we need to manage that.
And so about boundaries is putting boundaries on our self so that we can stay self controlled because we are called by god to demonstrate self control.
But with the other aspect, I think we need to be true to the kindness that we want to demonstrate and feel the freedom to say no.
So I’m gonna give you a script that might help.
This is my standard script, and I mean this with all the off authenticity in my body.
So many times people make requests of me, and I know every time I say yes to one thing, I’m gonna have say no to other things, or I’m gonna risk bankrupting myself, which can happen.
And then I’m not gonna be any good to anybody.
especially the people who are closest to me, which I should be my best version of myself for the people closest to me.
So I have a script that says Dear, Sally, thank you so much for thinking of me with this opportunity while my heart says yes, yes, Yes.
The reality of my time makes this a no.
I cannot do that, but I am willing and can give this, or I just say the reality of my time is a no period.
Thank you for understanding. Love Lisa. So it gives me an opportunity to be authentic.
Like, my heart does say yes.
My heart would love to do this, but the reality of my time makes it a no.
I’m trying to also with that, um, which I am a 100% with you.
I am trying not to apologize for saying no.
So I don’t want in that script to say, I’m sorry, but it’s a no.
Because now I’m taking, you know, on the guilt of doing the right thing.
And I shouldn’t feel guilty about making the right decision. And I think sometimes when we say I’m sorry.
Uh, we end up getting a negotiating email coming back to us saying, maybe there’s a little opening here, I’ll come back with a different request.
I think clear, concise, sincere.
I am so great that you included me in this idea, whatever this opportunity, but for me right now, it’s a note.
Thanks for understanding. Bye. you know, beautiful.
Well, it sounds simple, but you know, when you actually go to do it, you’re gonna naturally feel some anxiety.
Sometimes I feel some anxiety around it.
And I also have to challenge myself to take an honest capacity, um, assessment.
and think in this season, in this time of my life, what is my and think through, I have more capacity in some areas of my life, less capacity than others.
So I have to be honest with myself, And my therapist always says we prepare in times of strength for times of weakness.
So if I do an assessment of my capacity, during a time where I don’t have all the emotional complications of a request that someone’s made, then I’ve prepared in that time of strength for a time of struggle or weakness.
And so go ahead and have my scripts ready, and this is what it is.
And also challenge myself that I don’t wanna say no to everything, but I do wanna say no to the things that are not my assignment.
And that freeze them to go on and make the request of someone else who maybe it would be their assignment.
So, yeah, I
think another thing that’s been helpful for me is to start my day with what is the thing that I’m saying yes to you today.
So before I open my email or before I have a meeting or before I’m in the flow with other people who, you know, have access a lot of different ways to my time.
Um, I wanna know what is it I want to do today because if I don’t decide that, it’s gonna get decided for me.
And it might be a good decision, and it might be an okay decision, but somebody is ready right, you know, from the drop.
to help me decide what I’m gonna focus on on any given day.
So the no is great, but the no is is available because already said this is the thing I’m going to do today.
If I don’t do anything else today, I’m gonna do I feel like god is leading me to do this thing today.
I have purpose today versus You know, I just think opening your email at the start of your day is the worst idea of of all.
I mean
—
Wait. Can I I can make another confession to you. I’ve given up on email.
I just I just decided one day I’m quitting email, and people figure it out.
So — Let’s Lisa start a Movement. I’ll join it. I’ll happily, uh, cash out my AOL account today.
Yep. I quit email. And I also, um, my voice mail has been full since
2017.
because if it’s full, then nobody can provide their to do list onto me through voicemail.
And so people figure it out. You know? And I and I’ve stopped apologizing for that.
I just I just say I’ll show you. I have
147,000
emails in my inbox. I can show you the number right here on my phone.
You’re welcome to email me, but I I will not
—
It’s gonna be a minute.
Yeah. And and it’s probably never. I’m probably I just wanna be honest. I’m not great at email.
I’m not great at voice mail.
and a lot of it has to do with my capacity and my commitment to staying healthy.
You know, I did this little exercise that I opened up my journal one day, and I said, Lisa, write down the qualities that demonstrates the best of who you really are.
And I wrote down I’m generous. I’m hospitable. I am kind. I am peaceful.
I’m fun. I’m witty. And I wrote all those things down.
And then the second thing I wrote in my journal Who is Lisa when she is frazzled and possibly fractured because of hyper extending and bankrupting her capacity in areas of her life.
And I wrote that list down, and I am self protective I am quiet.
I withdraw. I get skeptical of other people.
I get bitter about everyday requests that I shouldn’t get bitter about.
And I just want the world to go away.
And then I wrote in my journal, I need to learn to love others well without losing the best of who I am.
and that became the subtitle of the boundaries and good buys.
Well, you do that well. Obviously, my wife, uh, Shelley, doors you and counts you as a really great friend to her.
And I know that you have been all of those things on your good list to to my wife.
And so thank you. You give her so much life.
And every time she’s around you or spends time with you, it really fills her tank up as well.
So I love the good Lisa because I see it reflected in her.
I remember coming home one night when you were at our house.
And you guys were all around our little breakfast table painting, a watercolor paintings, which we still have all of the ones from that night, by the way.
And, um, I thought this is so great.
I don’t think we’ve ever done any watercolor painting at breakfast table, maybe we should take that up.
But you you paint beautifully for people and you’ve been generous with your life.
And I just wanna thank you for that.
I know to calling, but it’s really made a big difference in a lot of people’s story, Lisa, for you to be so generous with the good and the not so great in your story.
So thank you for that. And I hope everybody will lean into good boundaries and good buys So I pray god’s gonna breathe on it in a really powerful way and really take the message in in a way that’s exponentially greater than you’re even dreaming about.
Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
And, um, yeah, Shelley is so funny, Louis, because she knows she can’t leave me a voice mail, and she knows I don’t check email.
So she leaves me voice memos and sends them to me through texting, but here’s the key.
Shelley has been so responsible with that kind of access in my life that I she’s one of the people I can give level too because she brings level 10 responsibility, and I love her for it.
Yeah. She’s the most responsible person on planet Earth. So That is a gift for me.
I know for sure and anybody that is in her wake. She is amazing.
Thanks so much for your time today.
I’m really, really grateful to have this conversation and I’m really, um, I really am hopeful for this message going into people’s lives I know it’s gonna be incredible.
So thanks for being on the podcast. Passion and purpose. This is what it’s all about. Lisa Turcurse.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Louie.
Wow. How helpful was that episode?
I wanna thank Lisa for the generosity of her wisdom and for sharing that with all of us on this episode.
today. And I wanna encourage you to make sure that you get a copy of her newest book, good boundaries, and good buys.
It’s available everywhere right now.
I hope this episode has encouraged you today, and it’s whatever you’re walking through this week.
And I hope you enjoyed it enough to subscribe so that you won’t miss the next one.
And if you think it’ll be helpful to send the link to a friend.