How Closing Her Biz & Getting Divorced Led to Her Dream Life

In this episode: 

Today we are talking to a true inspiration in decision making, Lisa Jellison, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She began her whirlwind life journey after hosting a foreign exchange student, learning to say YES to all the things and also deciding when to say no and chase her dreams. Find out how she went from a pretty okay life to deciding to close her SUCCESSFUL private practice and live her fulfilled dream life. 

Christina Lecuyer’s Bio:

Christina Lecuyer is a former Professional Golfer, a three-time reality television competitor, Confidence + Mindset Coach, Motivational Speaker, and Founder of Women with C.L.A.S.S. Mastermind, as well as Decide It’s Your Turn: Women’s Weekend. Christina’s mission in life is to empower people to fully live in their purpose, confidently and successfully! 

Lisa Jellison’s Bio:

I grew up in Northern California and received my Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology from National University in 2006. I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in the State of California and have an online private practice. In my 15 years of experience, I have successfully helped people overcome anxiety, depression, and trauma. In 2017 I made some life changing decisions. I had a full time, in-person, private practice in Northern California and I decided that I had a deep desire to travel, explore the world, and learn about culture. With time, persistence, thinking outside the box, small action steps, and not giving up, my dream became a reality. Now I am living in South America (Paraguay) and loving every minute of it! My passion is also helping people accomplish their adventure and dreams and watching them wake up everyday with joy and zero regrets. 

Resources and Links:

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating on iTunes and leave us a comment about what you’d like us to talk about that will help you realize that at any moment, any day, you too can decide, it’s your turn!

Full Episode Transcript: How Closing Her Biz & Getting Divorced Gave Her a Dream Life 

Christina: Y’all, I’m so excited for this morning’s interview. 

I am here with one of my good girlfriends, former clients, STILL good girlfriends, Lisa Jelison, and I am so excited that you’re here. How are you? 

Lisa: I’m good. I’m so excited to be here too. I’ve been asking like, “Can I be on the podcast?” And here I am. 

Christina: Yeah. Here’s the thing, a lot of people have asked to be on the podcast, and especially in the beginning of this, I want to make sure that it is really the right people. 

And when you ask there was no way in the world that I would’ve not had you on. This podcast, as everyone knows, which is all about decisions and deciding, and the POWER of deciding it’s your turn.

And there’s probably two clients over the course of the last five years that have literally stepped into the power of deciding more than you. So for those of you who don’t know Lisa, she’s not a social media star, she’s not a celebrity, she’s not an athlete.

She’s not anything except for an amazing human being who, she’s obviously a therapist and a wife and all the things, but she is such a role model to so many people in our mastermind groups and our retreats and my coaching clients. Every single person who meets you is like, “Oh my God, if I could have the confidence and the mindset and the power of making decisions like Lisa, we would all be so happy.”

So that is the number one reason why you’re here.

Lisa: That’s awesome. That’s like really nice to hear. I love to hear that. 

Christina: But it’s a hundred percent true. Today we’re going to talk all about so many decisions that you’ve made in your life. I know that there’s a few of them, but definitely the power of the two main decisions I think that, and you tell us, that pretty much transformed your life since what, 2017?

Lisa: Yeah. Like 2016 it kind of started. And then 2017, I took the leap, I just made the decisions. They were really hard and I did it. 

Christina: Yeah. Okay. So let’s talk a little bit about that. Let’s talk about these decisions that were really hard, but really honestly transformed your life.

You know, your questionnaire, one of the coolest things I read and I believe it about my life too, is that I have a life that’s un-fucking-believable. And so do you, because you’ve decided it, so take us back to 2016 and get us to where you are now. We can dive into all of the things.

Lisa: 2016 and even before I wasn’t necessarily unhappy, but I was comfortable and things were, things were going okay.

I was married. I had a nice house. We had nice cars. We had a boat, great friends, the best friends I’ve ever had in my life. And nothing was necessarily wrong with my life. But I ended up hosting it for an exchange student, my husband and I. And he was from Brazil and it was the most amazing experience I’ve ever had.

I would highly recommend it if anybody is interested in hosting foreign exchange students, for me, it was life changing and I just feel like you learn so much about culture. And he invited me to come. He invited my husband and I to come to Brazil, to visit his family, to meet everybody, see everything they were going to take me around, take us around.

My husband ended up deciding he didn’t want to go. He’s not like me where I want all of the experiences. Let’s do it. And so I went and that just doubled my, “Oh my God, this is the most amazing thing I’ve ever done.” I realized the world is so big but yet small at the same time. And I want to know more of it. 

I had never traveled out of the country before, other than going on a trip, a cruise to Mexico. That was it, which I don’t really consider that traveling out of the country at this point. But when I got back, it’s like I had this whole new outlook. Like life is short, I want to do all the things. I want to see the world. I want to travel. There’s so many options. I’ve always kind of thought outside the box, but at that point I was thinking WAY outside the box, like how can I move my job online and do all this traveling and live in other countries.

And my husband was just like, “Yeah, how am I going to get my boat there?” And I was like, “Who gives a fuck about your boat? You’re going to be traveling the world.” That was the exact thing that he said that at that moment, it was like, I knew that this, this isn’t going to work for me. It’s just not gonna work. But I pushed through. 

We went to some counseling together, which we had done before previous years. And I ended up going in 2017 to a trip to Paraguay with a friend’s mom, who is Paraguayan. And again, just had the greatest time, just life-changing experiences. Again, the world is so big, I want to see all of it. 

My husband, while I was gone just treated me horribly. It was like he resented me for having all of these experiences. And then I kind of realized through that process that he’s kind of emotionally abusive and he had been for a few years just from things that had been going on in his life.

And we had been together for about 10 years at that point, 9 or 10 years. And so when I got back, we again went to some counseling, but I knew and I told him I think that I want to divorce. I don’t want to live like this anymore. I know there’s more out there and that was the first really hard decision, you know, because he had no idea that that was coming, I mean, he should have, but he had no idea that was coming.

And when you say like, “I want a divorce”, you’re going to break up, that your entire life is going to change. You’re probably not going to live in the same house. You’re not going to have the same things. You’re going to have to give up some of the stuff that you love. 

What’s going to happen to your friend group. When you have a friend group that consists of you and your husband with other people and their husbands, it’s like, and somebody has to choose, or neither one of you get to go back. Or it just was probably the hardest for me to come to terms with was what is our friend group going to look like? Because I had a great friend group at that time.

But I just decided that living the life that I want to live in the way that I want to live it…I mean, both my parents passed away by the time I was 33, like life is short. I want to do these things that this was kind of, not the only way I would be happy, but I didn’t feel happy with the life I was living anymore.

And I didn’t want to live like that. Who wants to live another 30 or 40 years feeling that way. I don’t. 

Christina: So I just want to stop you there for two seconds, because I know that someone listening to this podcast right now is feeling the exact emotions that you’re feeling to their core because you hear it so often how people just like. , “Well, shit, this is what I said I was going to do.” And neither one of us are promoting…

Lisa: That was exactly the thought that I didn’t want to live with. I was 36 at the time and I thought to myself, “Well, we could work on this. We could go into more counseling, we could do this.”

To my core, I didn’t feel like it was going to help. I felt like for me, it was done and I thought, ‘If I stay in this and it goes by another two years, four years, whatever, I’m going to be 40 or 50 going, fuck, I wish I would have left when I was 36.” And I didn’t want to have that regret or that thought. I don’t live my life with regrets.

Right now I don’t have any regrets and I didn’t want to feel that way so that was why I said, “I want a divorce, I know it’s not going to work. And you are mean to me, like you’re mean.” The divorce for him wasn’t necessarily hard. I think the love had been gone for like a year for me. So I was already kind of past that. 

What was the hardest was losing my friend group. I completely lost my friend group during that whole process, just in the process of picking sides and if somebody wants to be my friend, they want to be my friend. If they don’t, then I don’t beg for anybody for friendship. 

So if they’re going to choose him throughout the process, then, you know what, he probably needed it more than me because he was kind of an emotional wreck. 

Christina: Well, so that’s another massive hit there that I want everyone to understand is that Lisa has this belief in herself that like, “You know what, obviously that wasn’t for me and he needed it more.” Like, that’s huge for you to even be able to say, that even in the moment, I’m sure in the moments, you’re just like, fuck these bitches.

Lisa: Yeah. I was. 

Christina: But in hindsight for sure. It’s like, “You know what? He obviously needed it more.” 

So I’m loving this. And I know that so many people are definitely resonating with this right now. And I know not everyone, you know, the choice is divorce, but for you, it was so clear and you’re not living with regret.

I love it. Go ahead. 

Lisa: Yeah, it was so, so clear. It was like super fucking hard to say those words, but like I knew that it needed to be done. And I’ve never really thought of myself like this, but I live my life very spontaneously at this point. And it was from one month to the next, like I got to do it. 

Christina: It’s funny that you’re saying that, because I think of you as the most spontaneous human on the planet, so many people who know you from our retreats and our masterminds, they would all say the same thing. Lisa lives so spontaneously, but it’s so free.

Oh my God, again, the decision of living like that is so incredible. 

Lisa: Right, right. So that happens. So I move forward with my plan. I want to travel. I want to live outside the country. These are the things I want to do. I’m going to figure out how to do it.

And at first I looked into teaching English abroad, like moving abroad and teaching English, which is totally doable. So I actually took a course and I got certified as an ESL teacher. I have a certificate and everything. I can do it. 

And I was like, okay, I guess I’m going to do this, not my passion. I’m not in love with teaching English. Like ew. Ha! But if that gets me to the place that I want to be, then, then I’ll do it. And then I found that, I’m a therapist, a licensed marriage and family therapist. I found that there’s actually companies online that provide online therapy and you work for them on a contractor basis.

So I applied with one of them and I got the job. So I was like, “Oh, this is way better. I’m going to get paid more than I would get paid teaching English. And I get to do what I love.” So I started with that and I had a friend now, he’s my husband, who lives down here that I had met when I was traveling.

And came down with him. We found an apartment. We got all the stuff for it. Like I came down in April or May of 2018 and I found a place, nice place, apartment, got all this stuff. And then I went back to the US and I started closing everything down. I found a renter for my house. I packed up my stuff that I wanted to keep and I sold stuff that I didn’t want or gave it away or whatever.

And the hardest part of this process was closing my practice. I had a really successful private practice. I had it for 10 years, 9 or 10 years at that point. I started it from scratch, literally like two clients, and I built it up to this practice that like everybody knew me. My phone rang off the hook, like really successful.

And that was the hardest because that’s the scariest thing, right? Like, that’s your livelihood and you’re just like, ‘Bye!”

Christina: What did you feel in that moment? Because I know so many people again, are going to resonate with this. Obviously, like you were telling me you wanted to be on this podcast. I’m like, fuck bitch. I wanted you on this podcast because let’s be real. People need to hear this story because there’s so many people that are going to be resonating with this. 

So in that moment of closing a practice that was multi-six figures, that was very successful, that had all of these clients, how in the world did you make that decision, that closing that was a decision that had to happen?

Lisa: Oh my gosh. I just knew. I don’t know. I don’t really know how to explain it other than my passion, my drive, my excitement, my desire to want to do this other thing, which was living outside the US. Learn how to speak Spanish. Have all these experiences. Travel more, have more free time.

Like all of those things, even though the other was scary as fuck. Like, the only way to get to that place was doing this, where I had to just say like, ‘Okay, I’m closing.” And the way that I rationalized it, I think in my head also to help me with that decision was, “You know what, if I go over there and I live for a year and I fucking hate it, then I can come back and people probably won’t even notice I was gone.”

I should just open back up again and it’ll be fine. So that was kind of how I also rationalized it for myself, which was, do this for a year. If you hate it, you can come back and just open up again.

Christina: That is so, so, so important because I want people to realize that every time – so many people have such a hard time making a decision and they believe it’s forever and ever, amen.

You are so smart. No one took away your degree. No one took away your ability to have amazing clients. So you’re like, “I’m just going to give this one year. I’m just going to commit to this for one year,” because if you didn’t, Oh my God, the regret would be…

Lisa: I know, I know! I know if I didn’t, I would always wonder. The regret would be there.

You just have that burning desire that you can’t quiet about this thing that you want to do. And that was closing my practice and that was how I needed to get there. And I just kept telling myself like, I found a place that I can afford with the money that I’m going to make online, because money was a huge concern for me, but I worked that out. 

I just figured all that out, you know? So I didn’t go here with any debt. I don’t have any debt, so I didn’t come here with any debt. But yeah, I just kept telling myself that, “If it’s terrible, we’ll just come back in a year and honestly, nobody will know.”

Christina: Okay. So you sold your practice, moved down to Paraguay. What’s next? There are so many decisions here. 

Lisa: Right, right. I get down here and I’ve got my online gig and it really doesn’t take up very much time. It’s just a lot of text messaging during the day, which you can do from anywhere.

And then only a few people wanted video calls. So I had all this free time and I spent it traveling like I had wanted. I can’t even tell you in that first year, I mean, we did a cross country US trip, which sounds weird cause I came back to the US to do a cross country, but you know, how many people get to do that?

Nobody plans to do that. People don’t have time to do that. So we did a cross country US trip. We had gone to Argentina a couple of times, Brazil a couple of times. We actually had planned to go to Bolivia, Peru, and Chile in April of last year, but that got canceled because of COVID, but I lived it up, like it was great.

And then my friend turned into a boyfriend and is now a husband during that time. So that was another very spontaneous decision that we made. We’d been dating for a few months and we came to the US, he came with me to do our cross country road trip. And we stopped in Vegas, it was on our list to stop in.

And yeah, we were like, “Yeah, let’s just get married while we’re here.” Like again, I guess that’s a very spontaneous way to live your life. But, we had an Elvis wedding, we got married and it was great. It was great. Coming from a life that I planned everything and this was just like, yeah, we’ll have an Elvis wedding. I mean, who does that? 

Christina: It’s truly incredible. I think one of the cool things about all of this is that you were really listening to your soul and listening to your heart and actually truly making a decision from a place of what is the thing that is going to light me up. Life is so short and obviously we didn’t touch on it, but losing both of your parents before the age of 33, that’s got to do something to you inside of you that you’re like – 

Lisa: Totally.

Christina: Totally.

Lisa: Losing my dad, I was 33. I think it was in 2013. I was 33, or 32 maybe. But my dad died, I don’t know. I’ve lived without my mom. My mom died when I was 10. So I don’t even know what it’s like to have a mom cause like zero to 10. I don’t know. By this time I’ve lived twice the amount of time without her. So I don’t even know what it’s like to have a mom. But when my dad died, it kinda woke this part of me that was like, “You know, life is short.” Both my parents didn’t get to do the things they wanted to do. My mom died when she was 41, I’m going to be 40 next year.

And my dad died when he was, he was 68. But he worked literally until three weeks before he died. And that was only because he got sick. He had all this retirement, all this money and he did nothing. He maybe went to Reno a couple of times a year because we’re from California.

But I just feel like neither one of them really got to live and when he died, I was like, “I don’t want that to be me.” Like everybody says, “Let’s wait until retirement. We’ll travel when we’re retired or we’ll do this when we’re retired or have more time or whatever.” And it’s like, the time is fucking now.

I might not make it till I’m 65 given my family’s track history. So I was like, I want to do all this now and if I have the opportunity to do it, I’m just going to do it. And whatever happens, I’ll figure it out. 

Christina: I think that’s so good. And you know, two things are kind of coming up for me.

One is you and I are very similar in regards to “Life is now.” Like life is now even, this COVID situation. So many people, it doesn’t matter what you think of COVID whether you’re scared to death or you’re like, ‘This is some bullshit”, both, it doesn’t matter. At the same time, my whole thought process on this is life is now like COVID is yes, COVID exists. It’s here. The world has slowed the shit down, but you don’t have to because life is now. I’ve said it throughout this past year of COVID, is the fact that like, this amount of time is not going to be tacked onto the end of our life, like this still life and you still have to enjoy it and you still have to.

Lisa: And COVID might be around for a few years. I don’t know. There’s certain things I can’t do here, but I’m doing it as much as I can. Like there’s a lot of Paraguay I haven’t seen. So we travel around all the time. We took tons of trips once we were able to start traveling around again and we just did like three trips in December.

Alex is talking about going fishing again this month. We’re doing everything that we can because I’m not gonna sit around and waste the time. So yeah. 

Christina: Time is so valuable. Hey, I have a question for you. And I think a lot of people will probably ask themselves this and you lost both of your parents before 33.

I’m very fortunate to say that, I’ve really only lost one really important person in my life when I was 18 years old, my best friend committed suicide. 

However, I’ve always had this feeling, and I don’t know what it is, but that life is so, so short. And that’s the reason why I now live like you do, which is very much like life is now. Let’s enjoy now. I don’t give two shits. I do care about the future, but I’m also kind of like, I’m not waiting for anything. Life is a hundred percent now. Do you believe that someone has to have like this, like loss or tragedy or something like that in order for them to say, “Hey, fuck. I gotta take life by the horns.” What do you think that is? 

Lisa: I’ve never really thought about it like that, but sometimes I think it does take like a big “Whoa”,  shock or surprise or a big thing for people to go, “Oh wow. This is real. This is serious. I don’t know if it does all the time, but you know, like humans, I’m just going to generalize and say we get really comfortable in things. And people kind of generally don’t like change. 

Even for me, change is hard when I make a change or do something different. Change is scary. It’s the unknown. So people take comfort over having to do that scary change. And so maybe sometimes it does take something really big happening or something scary, or really just like, wow, I should do something different, you know, like people have heart attacks and then they change their will or something. So yeah, maybe it is that way. I’ve never really thought about it like that.

Christina: Well, it’s interesting that you just said right now you are not one that likes change because wholly wow, you are in constant change. 

Lisa: I know I am. I am. But change is still, at the beginning, uncomfortable. I can’t say I don’t like it because I do like living in that constant state of change. That’s why I think I’m so spontaneous, as I do like living in that constant state of things are different and new and exciting.

But you know, it’s an adjustment every time. Like it’s scary. It still doesn’t make it not scary. Am I going to like it? 

Christina: I think that is so… 

Lisa:  I remember, sorry to interrupt! I don’t know. Number one, one thing my exchange student said to me when he was living with us and he was through the rotary. People probably know the rotary, but the rotary teaches them that when they come to say yes to everything. If somebody invites you to do something, if somebody has this experience or…just say yes to everything. And that’s how they kind of encourage them to have a great experience here because they’re going to get to try a lot of stuff instead of just being shy or being nervous and saying no and staying home.

He told me about that and I was like, “Oh, that’s a really cool way to live your life.” And since he kind of told me about that, that’s kind of how I live my life. Somebody asks me to do something, it’s something maybe I think I won’t like, yeah, I’ll do it. Sure. Let’s try it. When I came to Paraguay, I got asked to go skydiving because a friend of the person I was with does skydiving, like for a living, he teaches it. He takes people, all of that. 

And I never wanted to skydive that terrifies the shit out of me. It’s not something I’ve ever wanted to do, but because he asked me and I was in a different country and it was like, “Well, okay, sure.” And I’ll never do it again. I didn’t like it, but I did it.

Christina: That is so huge. Oh my God. So the two things there, one talking about this is that you truly feel like you say yes to everything and that is actually what propels you into living this life that is obviously spontaneity, adventure, travel and learning new cultures and new people is something that excites the hell out of you.

I think so many people are listening to this podcast. They don’t even know what the fuck lights them up. They don’t even know what makes them excited. 

Lisa: Oh my gosh. That’s so true because I work with clients all the time, but I’m like, “What excites you? What are you passionate about? What do you like to do?”

And people are like, “I don’t really know. I haven’t done those things since I was like a teenager.” And that’s really sad to me. That’s sad. I can tell you exactly what I like. 

Christina: Isn’t that amazing? That is so amazing. So everyone listening to this, if you are listening and you are like, “I don’t know what makes me happy.” That tip that Lisa just said, if you take one thing from this podcast, start saying frigging yes!

Lisa: Say yes to everything. Somebody asks you to do something, say yes, somebody has a new restaurant they want to go to say yes, I don’t know whatever it is. Just say yes and it really is life changing. 

Christina: Oh my gosh. Yes, yes, yes. Say yes to everything. I love that so, so much. I actually read that Shonda Rhimes book, A Year of Yes and it was really a phenomenal book. 

Lisa: Whoa, there’s a book about that. 

Christina: Yes, there is. It’s called Shonda Rhimes. I believe she’s the lady who created the nursing stir show. People are going to be yelling at their podcast right now.

I’ll think of it. I’ll think of it by the end of the episode, but I know everyone who’s listening already knows who the Shonda Rhimes is. She’s a huge, massive television producer. And she said that she said no to everything. And she kept herself very much. She only worked all the time. She said no to everything. And then for one year she said, “I’m going to say yes to everything.” 

And it was called the year of yes. And she literally did a year where anytime anyone asked her, she had to say yes. And that’s very much what you’re saying in the same breath is just start saying yes to things and start cause then that way you can find out what you want to do.

Lisa: Exactly. And you know what? You have so many more experiences and they light up your life. Like it’s just, yeah. I can’t say enough about it. I’ll go back just for a second about my exchange student, when he was living with us, he had all these things he wanted to do. And I want to give somebody a good experience. So I don’t want to just be the kind of family that sits around at home, which at the time was kind of like my husband. And so I just would take my exchange in to do all these things. We went to a baseball game, a basketball game. We went down for an LA, toured all the Hollywood and universal studios and all the shit.

Oh, we drove up like Highway One in California. And mind you, these are all things I’ve never done. I had never been to a baseball game. I had never driven up Highway One. I’d been to LA before to the Hollywood part. I’d done all that. There’s tons of other things that we did.

I think we went to Oregon. We had to come to Reno. I had been to Reno though. During that time, that eight months that he was with us and we did all these things, I was like, I’ve done so much more stuff like with him than I have done in the whole time I’ve lived in California.

And the excuse is always, “I don’t have the time or I don’t have the money or we can’t do that” or whatever the reason is. And I realized there is, there really is no excuse. You make these excuses, but you can obviously, I obviously can do them because there is time and there is money.

So there was no excuse. And I think a lot of people kind of live by those excuses. Oh, I just can’t. I have this or I, you know what? I have an Apple tree in my front yard. I don’t know. Sometimes they’re really dumb excuses. 

Christina: Yeah. And I think you hit the nail on the head there where most people want to stay safe. And by the way, that show is called Grey’s anatomy.

Lisa: I don’t watch that either.

Christina: But a lot of people do and they were yelling, literally blown away. But all that to be all that to be said, is a hundred percent, I think that’s going back to number one, making the decision that you’re going to say yes to everything.

And number two, realize that the excuses that you are making are actually the thing that is keeping you from the life that you actually truly want. 

Lisa: Totally. Totally. That’s exactly it. 

Christina: Yeah. We want an abundant happy, fulfilled, passionate, purposeful life and so often we are the only thing, keeping ourselves from that. 

Lisa: And I don’t think that everybody has to live their life like me, like leave the US and I don’t think everybody has to do that. But I do think there are things that you want to do, or even if you want to have a giant ass garden in your backyard or something, I don’t care what it is. There is a way to figure out how to do it. And that’s what I just feel like inspiring people about is like there’s outside the box options. You can figure out how to do it. There is never like a thing that you can’t figure out how to do. Google is a great thing.

I used Google a lot when I was going through this process, but you’ll figure it out if you just take the time to think about it or have some outside the box options. 

Christina: I love it so much. So tell me in the last couple years, what do you think are like some of the best decisions that you have made?

Obviously, besides moving to Paraguay and meeting your husband, but if those were them, then those are them. 

Lisa: I feel like I’m living my best life right now. And I feel like it’s only going to get better. It’s going to get even better than this. I mean, let’s be honest, like COVID has been a rough year. But it’s going to get better. 

And I feel like that is really largely due to my decision to host a foreign exchange student, my decision to get a divorce. I also went to Brazil. They kind of like started that process, but I got a divorce and then moved to Paraguay. Those have been the biggest decisions in my life.

And then more recently, and this is your podcast is not why I’m saying this, but you know, going to your mastermind. Or was it the mastermind I went to first? 

Christina: Yeah. The mastermind first and then the retreat.

Lisa: Yeah. So the mastermind actually was really a big thing in my life, too. I think I learned a lot of things about just myself and my character and my thinking patterns, my mindset.

I feel like from that also, it helped propel me into a whole other world of like, I think business, what I was doing for myself and the level up also was helpful, like on a personal and business level too. But since then, I’ve doubled my income down here in Paraguay.

I have been trying for a while – just let me talk for a second about the mastermind. I had been trying to like build myself up on Instagram, get clients from there and nothing. I think I did that, I mean, this isn’t that long of a time, but I was doing it for about six months, eight months maybe and nothing.

I was getting nothing, like it wasn’t paying off. So I kind of like when I went to the mastermind, you guys were like, “Does it bring you joy?” And I’m like, “No, it doesn’t. I don’t like having to be on there or write up a post, spend an hour or I don’t like it. 

Christina: Let stop for two seconds because that is so, so, so important. Lisa is saying something that she absolutely hated to do and was not working for her. She’d be doing it for all of the wrong reasons. So I want you to hear that is the fact that so many people are doing something completely for the wrong reasons and no wonder it’s not working and it fucking brings you absolute misery. 

Lisa: Yeah, it was bringing me misery. I was not joyful about it. It was like, “Okay. We’re traveling this weekend. I have to make sure I do my posts.” Like, Oh my God. It’s just not me. It’s not like the kind of person that I am in general. So, I went to the mastermind and you guys were like, “Stop doing it, you don’t like it. Stop doing it.” 

So I did it and it gave me permission to not do it anymore. Yeah. And I pivoted and I ended up putting myself on www.psychologytoday.com, which is like a national, even international, website for the therapists to put themselves out there and then puts them in searches and people would find them on there or whatever.

So I put myself on there and it costs $30 a month, but that was the reason why I had wanted to do it in the first place was because I didn’t want to pay anything monthly. And I thought, “Oh, if I can just get clients from Instagram then.” So I put myself on there, just bit the bullet, $30, whatever.

It’s not even like I couldn’t afford $30 a month. I don’t know what my resistance was. And I exploded, my business exploded. I was full within two months. 

Christina: And I want you to touch on that. One of the biggest issues that you have had, or one of the things that you’ve dealt with is definitely the money mindset.

I remember us sitting at the breakfast table and Lisa throughout our mastermind weekend, we came together. So for this mastermind, there was a retreat in the beginning. And so it was very much like I’m here for business. This is all this is and everyone else had tears and breakthroughs and all the things.

And it’s our very last day and Lisa, she was a rock. We couldn’t get her. And then at the breakfast table, it was just like you had your biggest “aha” moments the day we were all leaving and yeah, having that money mindset shift, where you were literally like I have to, I don’t even know how I’m gonna make a hundred dollars. Fast forward literally 18 months. Go ahead. 

Lisa: Totally, totally. Now, I’m making 8k to $10,000 a month. And when I first came here to Paraguay with the online thing that I was doing, I was making about 3 to 4,000, like on a good, on a good month. So, that’s like double my income, just from putting myself on the Psychology Today website and it just filled me up with clients.

Plus, I ended up applying for a different online platform that pays twice, about two and a half times as much as the other one was paying. And so I quit the other platform and I just go with that one now and then private clients. 

So like there’s a good time and a bad side, a good side is I’ve doubled my income. That like little negative side is that I actually work three days a week now, and that’s not like my ideal life, but. 

Christina: Pretty much one day a week would be my maximum, but suffering through, I am working three days a week and making 10 grand a month. Like literally though. Lisa may not have a blue checkmark beside her name, but I know this is going to be one of the most highly regarded podcasts because I know a hundred percent. I know it because every single person who has met you in my masterminds or in my retreats, or as a human being in general.

People can tell even through the microphone, I know that they’ll be able to tell that you are literally one of the most decision-making, powerful, joyful people and you are living your life that you absolutely love. And that’s kind of why people are resonating with me because I fucking live a life that I love.

And you are doing the exact same thing on your own terms, working three days a week in fucking Paraguay, like yeah. 

Lisa: Yeah, I do. I love my life and you know what? I’ve just passed two years of being here and I don’t think I’ll ever go back to the US. That’s my thought right now, judging by the way I live my life, I can never say never, but I feel right now is I don’t think I would ever go back there.

Paraguay is definitely not my end game though. I’m not going to live the rest of my life here. We both, my husband and I, have goals that we want to live in other countries as well and travel around and he opened a business. And so, I can work from anywhere because I work online and his business, once it takes off a little bit more, we’re giving it like five years then it should be able to run itself and he’ll be able to travel and we can just do whatever. Also my five-year goal, I’ve said five years, I don’t know if it’ll take me longer, but like five years. I’d like to buy a couple more properties in the US, I’m saving money right now.

We’re building a house here. That’s going to be a vacation rental. We’re going to put it on Airbnb. And then I’d like to buy a couple more properties in the US and continue to make money off those and work even less. So. 

Christina: Three days a week, 10K a month and I want to work less. No, you are like literally the dream you have, your attitude is so fantastic. I feel like it’s a pleasure to know you. I know that you kind of joined to work with me, but I feel totally reciprocated in the fact of who you are as a human being and I’m just super grateful to know you. 

Okay. So I always ask my guests one final question. And the question to you today is what is one decision you were afraid to make, but once you finally made it, it ended up better than you expected, or if it didn’t, what was the shitty lesson that you learned that you wouldn’t take back? 

Lisa: I can’t choose. No, I can. It’s moving to Paraguay. Moving to Paraguay was the best decision that I ever made. It has been totally life-changing for me. I mean, even if I would have only stayed for a year, I still don’t think I would have said I regretted it because when you have that deep desire to do something, you just have to do it and see.

And I think I would’ve learned a lot from it anyways, but definitely the best. I mean, it’s given me more free time, freedom. I probably make more money here doing what I’m doing that I made in the US and the cost of living is cheaper so I live good on less money. It just has really opened me up to also just being able to travel and do the things that I dream of doing so.

Christina: I know every single person listening to this podcast today is going to truly be inspired by you to hopefully do something that they have been putting off or saying yes to all the things and literally choosing and deciding to live a life that they love. 

Lisa, I love you and adore you. If people wanted to connect with you and just tell you how much that you’ve inspired them, where can they find you even as a therapist? Where can they find you and tell us all the things? 

Lisa: I have a website, it’s just my name. It’s www.lisajellison.com and I’m sure you’ll probably put that in the show notes. And I have an Instagram, a business Instagram is @LisaJellisonLMFT. I may not post every day, but I do get on there. I do check my messages like that. You know, you can contact me there and they could email me, Lisajellison517@yahoo.com. Or if you’re just Googling around and you want to check me out on Psychology Today. 

Christina: Amazing. Well, all of that information will be in the show notes. Girl, I adore you. I love you. I’m so thankful that you were wanting to be on this podcast because there’s not very many people I can think of that literally make powerful decisions the way you do. And so thank you for being here.

Lisa: Yeah. And thanks for having me. It’s been great. 

Christina: Yeah. I’m so glad. Love you. Talk to you soon.

Lisa: Love you!