About Lisa McCourt

Since Lisa McCourt's bestselling books about unconditional love sold over five and a half million copies, were translated into 11 languages, and received multiple publishing industry awards and starred reviews . . . she thought she was a real smarty-pants on the subject of love. Then a lightning bolt of divine insight struck her and she realized, at last, that there's one rare flavor of love that transforms everything and without it, no other flavor can exist. Self-love: it's not just a cliché anymore! Once Lisa witnessed the miracles that are possible through true self-love, she made it her mission to perfect the art and science of achieving radical authenticity and outrageous self-adoration. She has taught her juicy-joyful, sometimes shocking, always delicious methods to thousands in her popular presentations and online trainings. Lisa lives in sunny South Florida with her two self-loving kids.

How Juicy Joy Was Born

I am the poster child for the popular Richard Bach quote, "We teach what we need to learn." At age 14, I read Wayne Dyer's Your Erroneous Zones, taking copious notes and copying passages from it into my journal. I'm sure the title's wordplay was lost on me, but the book's message wasn't. From that moment on, I was hooked. In college I was so fascinated with comparative religion that a maverick psychology professor allowed me to create a credited independent study program on the overlap between modern metaphysics and ancient spiritual thought.

I went on to devour every pop-psych and metaphysical book or training I could find, taking dozens of the most notable courses and working with some of the world's top coaches and gurus. What I appreciated most about all of these experiences was how remarkably similar they were, and how their principles almost always were based in the ancient truths I'd learned from my comparative religion studies.

My life-long passion for personal development seemed to be serving me well. It was good stuff and I was a diligent pupil. Early on, I became a powerful manifester who created an adult life that was, by all objective measures, fantastic. I had a wonderful, supportive husband and two sweet, smart, kids, a beautiful home in my favorite part of the country, stellar health; time for volunteer work; plenty of friends; and a successful, dream career as a speaker and bestselling author of parenting books and children's books that were selling millions of copies.

And I was always the cheerful one. Everywhere I went, people commented on my smile, my agreeable nature. I always looked the part—to anyone who might be forming any opinion of me, anywhere. The right suburban car, the right clothes, the right social life, the great kids in the great schools, brought up by the best parenting principles.

It's not like I even consciously felt the lie. I told myself everything was perfect all the time. It had to be. Perfect, perfect, all the time. What would happen if I stopped being perfect for a second? Devastation. If I stopped being perfect, who would love me? And without perpetual love from everyone around me, how would I survive?

It sounds ridiculous, but that was the core belief I uncovered. If I stopped smiling, if I stopped pleasing, if I stopped doing the dance everyone enjoyed me doing because it made their lives easier, or lighter, or whatever—if I stopped any of that for even a second, the love-well would surely run dry and I'd shrivel up into a hard, cold, ball of ash and disintegrate into nothing. So I couldn't stop. Ever.

And if I started to feel empty and vacuous and lifeless inside, as long as I kept playing all the right parts on the outside, I'd be okay. Maybe with the right affirmations, or with the next self-help book, or the next seminar, I'd be able to patch that up without anyone ever being the wiser. And if I couldn't patch it up, at least I was always really, really good at hiding it, and as long as it stayed hidden, everything would be fine.

I woke up one day to the regrettable realization that despite all of the work I'd done, there was a substantial layer I'd yet to crack. I'd accumulated a wealth of supremely valuable knowledge, but I'd only been applying it to half of me—the half I could bear to own, the identity I'd so painstakingly crafted. I'd been unwittingly plastering layer upon layer of spiritual platitudes over a damaged and wounded core that I had never dared acknowledge, much less dive fearlessly into.

Out of that critical awareness, Juicy Joy was born. With laser-like clarity, I suddenly knew that authenticity and self-love were the keys to the kingdom. Without them, nothing else can bring you joy. With them, nothing can fail to bring you joy.

How Juicy Joy Evolved

In the late 1990's, when I started getting invitations to speak at schools across the country as a bestselling author of children's books, I talked about my books and about writing. But that didn't seem fair. The whole student body was required to attend, and evening presentations were often requested for the school staff and parents. It seemed to me that all those hundreds of people couldn't possibly be interested in writing so I switched the focus of my presentations to "creativity."

Since I was such a spirituality and self-dev junkie, it didn't take long for me to start taking liberties with the word "create." I'd gloss over the requisite blah-blah-blah about creating art, literature, poetry, etc. Then I'd launch, with relish, into what I loved best—teaching these adults and kids how to "create" situations and outcomes, how to create themselves, and how to be masterful creators of their own lives.

I was afraid the national public school system would catch on and stop inviting me, but the opposite happened! Word-of-mouth about my unconventional approach to teaching creativity got me more school bookings than I could handle. The evening presentation to the adults became the biggest selling-point of my visits. Eventually, the school visits led into all kinds of adult speaking gigs at national writers' conferences and spirituality conferences. I started leading workshops at libraries, spiritual centers and stores.

During my first decade as an author, I'd felt a calling to help children grow up feeling unconditionally loveable and unquestionably valuable as their true, unique selves. All my training had pointed to the irrefutable conclusion that self-love was the ticket to healthy emotional development, so I'd felt compelled to bump up the worldwide average on the number of kids who are brought up feeling unconditionally loved. After selling over five and a half million books to parents and children, that goal felt satiated and I was ready to move on to a new passion: helping millions of adults feel that same kind of intrinsic, sublime worth and self-honoring, even if it meant feeling it for the first time.

I was thrilled to have so many opportunities to share my love of self-dev material with others, and even more thrilled at their apparent appreciation for my unique delivery and personal perspectives on these ancient principles. I became an enthusiastic New Thought broker. My early presentations consisted mostly of me telling my audiences about the most recent fascinating modalities I'd tried and reviewing the powerful books I'd read, always through the filter of how each concept could help one become more authentic and self-loving.

It was exhilarating to realize that I was opening up magical and promising new worlds for people! My passion for this kind of "recruiting" eventually overshadowed my other professional passions and I began shaping my plethora of adult workshop materials into the book, Juicy Joy – 7 Simple Steps to Your Glorious, Gutsy Self. I knew I'd hit upon a system for never having to settle, ever, when it came to the amount of joy and richness I experienced in my life. And I couldn't think of any greater life purpose than to help others discover that same secret.

Only through radical authenticity and self-love is sustainable joy possible. The seven steps in this process are simple, but they're not easy. They're straightforward, but they require personal bravery and determination. They will set you free, but only if you're ready to bask in the sublime release that comes with full emotional freedom. If you want to learn the most effective ways to step into your own true greatness and love the hell out of your precious self, come hang with me. I will set you up.