Summary
Joe Hudson teaches how to draw healthy boundaries that actually open your heart rather than close it. He begins by noting that every paragon of love—Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Gandhi—had strong boundaries, and that boundaries allow people to feel safe and trust you. The key principle is that a boundary is about what you will do, not what the other person must do, which avoids power struggles entirely.
Joe shares a personal story about how he and his wife learned to stop yelling at each other after a therapist named it as verbal abuse. Instead of trying to control each other’s behavior, they established a boundary of gently walking away when yelling started—always telling the other person when they’d return (to avoid triggering abandonment). He emphasizes that how you say a boundary matters: if you’re scared of attack, you’ll either invite attack through timidity or through hardness, but if you’re genuinely firm in your own boundary, the other person’s reaction becomes irrelevant.
The deepest insight is that the only reason we struggle to draw boundaries with others is that we can’t draw them with ourselves. If we yell at ourselves internally, it’s hard to tell someone else not to yell at us. If we constantly criticize ourselves, we can’t draw boundaries against external criticism. The real work of boundaries is being okay with the boundary yourself.
Key Concepts
- Boundaries open your heart
- Boundaries say what you will do, not what they must
- Leave fights in connection, not withdrawal
- Boundary firmness eliminates fear of attack
Key Quotes
“If you think about any paragon of love—Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Gandhi—you’ll notice that they all have boundaries.”
“You’re never going to tell them what they’re going to do or what they have to do. You’re always going to talk about what you’re going to do.”
“I would rather move a mountain than change a person, because moving a mountain is easier.”
“You only care about the response when you aren’t firm on your own boundary.”
“If we yell at ourselves, it’s hard for us to see that it’s not okay for somebody else to yell at us.”
“The real work is being okay with the boundary yourself, because once you are there, attacks really aren’t relevant.”
Transcript
if you think about any Paragon of Love Martin Luther King Mother Teresa Gandhi think about that like very loving person that you know and you’ll notice that they all have boundaries my name is Joe Hudson I’m a former venture capitalist and a coach to some of the most notable names in Silicon Valley in today’s video we’re going to talk about how to draw boundaries and how you can feel great doing it so the first thing is how do you draw a boundary that opens your heart now this kind of doesn’t make sense for a lot of people so let me make it really clear often times we get this feeling that if we draw a boundary they’re going to think that we don’t love them but that’s not the case at all it allows people to know they’re safe it allows people to know what we want we can’t really trust somebody’s yes if they’re always saying yes yes yes I’ll do that yes I’ll do that yes I’ll do that you’ll know that the resentment is coming you’ll know that the other shoe is going to fall because they always say yes and when somebody can say no to you and they can do it without a hard heart man you can really trust them so it’s really important that you do it with an open heart that you really allow each boundary you consider the boundary before you draw it and you say hey no matter how they react to it does it open my heart that’s the first thing that you need to know to draw boundary now the second thing is that you do not want to get into a power struggle so you’re never going to tell them what they’re going to do or what they have to do you’re always going to talk about what you’re going to do so let’s say you have somebody who always gets angry at you and you don’t want that in your life anymore so you draw this boundary and the boundary isn’t you need to stop yelling at me the boundary is hey when you yell at me I am going to leave my wife and I we were in our like 20s and we had grown up in families where yelling at each other was always the thing and I remember like we were yelling at each other we were repeating that pattern we had this great therapist she was like an older lady at the time I think maybe she’s like our age now but anyways there was this great moment where she goes oh that’s verbal abuse she goes you’re yelling at each other as verbal abuse and it hit both of us and we’re like no it isn’t and she’s like no no no here like this is the definition of verbal abuse and we’re like oh crap it’s verbal abuse and at that moment we realize oh that’s not okay but we also for whatever reason at the time couldn’t control the yelling we couldn’t like stop our yelling and so what we could do is we could just gently walk away and say hey I’m going to walk away if you’re yelling and so often times one of us would say hey I’m going to walk away I’ll be back in 10 minutes and the other one would get even more angry and I realized like oh get angry as you want I’m just I’m going to walk away either way like it’s all good I don’t need to stop your anger I just need to stop listening to it for a while so that I can be back in myself and then I can come back with more love because my heart is more open it’s just that simple now some important things here is that when you leave you always tell somebody when you’re going to be back because if you don’t tell them that it feels like abandonment so you never want to have the person feel abandoned because that’s only going to entrench the behavior because they get even more scared and it’s even more of a power struggle so you just want to let them know that you’ll be back when the conditions are right when you are comfortable and safe and feel good about coming back which really helps you refine the thought process that it is about what you’re going to do not what they’re going to do you can’t control another person there’s this great indigenous saying and it says I would rather move a mountain than change a person because moving a mountain is easier and that’s absolutely the case in boundaries if you get into a place where you’re trying to change the other person it is an uphill battle the whole way but you can control your behaviors every single time so the third thing about the boundary is how you say it so often times somebody drawing a boundary is really scared of being attacked and so they’re going to say it either oh my gosh I’m scared you’re going to attack me which invites an attack or you’re going to say it like yeah this is how the boundary is your attack isn’t going to hurt me it’s going to be very hard which also invites an attack but if you have a good boundary like what would make you care if they attack you you’re just like hey I’m not going to be here for this and they’re like I’m attacking you and then you’re like yeah so I’m leaving now the thing about a boundary is you only care about the response when you aren’t firm on your own boundary boundary when you’re not okay with your own boundary when you say no it’s not okay for me to leave or it’s not okay for me to take care of myself that’s the only time you’re really scared of an attack so if you can’t overcome your fear of the attack if you can’t get over the idea that they’re going to run over your boundary or they’re going to attack you then the real work is to be okay with the boundary yourself to say yeah it’s okay for me to walk away if someone’s yelling and if you start really looking at that the only times it’s not okay for us to draw a boundary is when we can’t draw the boundary to ourself so if we yell at ourselves it’s hard for us to see that it’s not okay for somebody else to yell at us if we criticize ourselves all the time then it’s hard for us to draw a boundary with somebody who’s constantly criticizing us so the real work is being okay with the boundary because once you are there attacks really aren’t relevant cuz you can always leave until they’re ready to settle down and treat you with respect it’s just that simple so if you like the video please subscribe and in the 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