Joy Is the Strategy: A New Model for Joy-Led Leadership

What if the goal was never to simply endure more?

After starting with one of the hardest endurance races in the world, Rachel learned a truth that reaches far beyond athletics: just because you can endure something does not mean endurance should become your life strategy.

This episode introduces Rachel’s Joy-Led Leadership framework and the four shifts at the heart of The JOY Collective:

Joy over Endurance
 Regulation over Urgency
 Integration over Compartmentalization
 Community over Competition

This is not about forced happiness, toxic positivity, or pretending life is easy. It is about building a new model of power where joy becomes strategic infrastructure, leadership becomes more sustainable, and women no longer have to abandon themselves in order to succeed.

If you have ever been praised for carrying too much, leading through pressure, holding it all together, or proving how strong you are by how exhausted you are, this conversation is for you.

Joy is not the reward.

Joy is the strategy.

Let’s use it.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome back, or welcome to Joy Unfiltered. I'm Rachel, your host, and I'm so glad that you are here today. This is a space where we stop pretending that burnout is the price of success and start exploring a different way to lead, live, and actually feel good in our lives. Because here is what I believe at my core. Joy is not the reward. Joy is the strategy. And in a world that's been built on pressure, urgency, and endurance, we're doing things a little differently around here. We're choosing energy over exhaustion, regulation over reactivity, connection over competition. And we're doing it in a way that's grounded in both science and a little bit of magic. So whether you are walking, driving, lifting something heavy, or just taking a breath in the middle of a busy day, you are in the right place. So let's get into it. Today I want to start with a story. So a few years ago, well, many years ago, I completed an Iron Man. And if you're not familiar with an Iron Man, it, you know, is a completely normal, emotionally balanced activity where you swim 2.4 miles, bike 112, and then run a full marathon. All in one day. Adorable, right? And here is the part that's gonna tell you even a little bit more about me. When I started triathlon, I started with the Iron Man. Not a sprint triathlon, not a cute little let's see if I like this race. Not a reasonable progression where I tested the waters, built slowly, and made mature adult decisions. Nope. I went straight for the granddaddy, straight for the hardest one. Which looking back may have been a little bit silly. Or brave, or wildly revealing, or probably all three. But isn't that how so many high capacity women live? We don't start with the easy thing. We start with the hardest thing. We say yes to the full load. We take on the impossible timeline. We build businesses while healing the wound, while leading the team, while managing the household, while remembering everyone's birthday while trying to become the healthiest, happiest, most evolved version of ourselves all before lunch. We don't ease in. We cannonball into the deep end and then we wonder why we are tired. Yep, that was me. I started with the Iron Man. And here's what I learned. Yep, I learned I could do hard things. But I also learned that doing the hardest thing first comes with a cost. Because if you are not careful, endurance becomes your whole identity. You start to believe that if something is hard, that must mean it's worthy. If it's exhausting, it must be meaningful. If it requires you to override your body, your needs, your joy, your relationships, and your common sense, then clearly you must be coming stronger. But that's not always the strength. Sometimes that is just survival wearing a medal. And I say that with love because I lived it. The Iron Man did teach me that I had capacity. It taught me discipline. It taught me courage. It taught me that my body and mind could carry me much further than I ever imagined. And I am proud of that. I will always be proud of that. I got a tattoo for that. I am proud. But it also showed me something that I could not fully understand until much later. Just because I can endure something does not mean endurance should become my life strategy. The finish line was incredible. But the journey the journey was where the truth lived. The early mornings, the long rides, the doubts, the ugly runs, the ridiculous snacks, the super sore legs, the moments when I wondered who on earth had made this decision. And then I remembered whoops, unfortunately, that was me. The journey shaped me. The destin the destination did give me a medal, but the journey gave me data. And one of the biggest pieces of data was this. I did not do it alone. Iron Man looks like an individual sport, but that is a lie in stretchy clothing. No one gets to that finish line alone. No one. And that may be the most important lesson of the whole thing. Hard things become difficult, or hard things become easier when they are done in community. Not easy, different, more sustainable, more human, more joyful. And that is where I want to begin today. Because for a long time I thought the point was to prove that I could endure. But now I believe the deeper invitation is to ask, can I become more powerful without abandoning myself? Can I build something meaningful without making exhaustion the price of admission? Can I lead? Can I lead without living like every season is an Iron Man I accidentally sign up for and now I have to finish alone? That's the heart of joy-led leadership. Joy-led leadership is not about avoiding hard things. I love hard things. I really do. I love discipline. I love ambition. I love women realizing that they are stronger than they ever thought that they were. But I no longer believe that strength has to look like depletion. I no longer believe that leadership should require us to override our bodies, disconnect from joy, and call it success. And I no longer believe endurance is the highest form of power. Endurance is a survival skill. It is not a leadership strategy. And that's why we're here today. Because so many of us have started with the Iron Man. Maybe not literally the Iron Man. Maybe you have never voluntarily spent an entire day swimming, biking, and running, which may honestly may mean you are just a little bit wiser than I was. But you know what I mean. You started with the hardest thing. You carried the full load. You led through pressure. You stayed capable. You kept going. You became the person everyone could count on. And somewhere along the way, you may have wondered, is this success? Or is this survival just with better branding? This podcast and this forum exists because I believe there is another way. A way rooted in joy over endurance, regulation over urgency, integration over compartmentalization, community over competition. Because the destination matters, the goals matter, the impact matters, the mission matters, but the journey matters as well. And if the journey costs us our bodies, our relationships, our creativity, our peace, our sense of self, and our joy, then we have to be brave enough to ask a better question. What if joy is not waiting at the finish line? What if joy is what helps us get there whole? What if joy is not the reward? What if joy is the strategy? That's the question underneath this entire podcast. And that's the question I want to invite you into today. What would change if joy led? Not after the deadline, not after the next promotion, not after the launch, not after the kids are grown, not after the next goal, not after you finally become calm, organized, enlightened, hydrated, financially optimized, and emotionally available at all times. Now what would change if Joy led now? That question changed my life. And it became the foundation for everything that I am building. The Joy Project, the Joy Collective, my book, Joy is the strategy, this podcast, the Joy Led Leadership Forum, this movement, this work. Because I believe we are at a leadership threshold. For too long, leadership has rewarded endurance, urgency, compartmentalization, and competition. And let's be honest, women have proven that we can succeed inside that model. We can perform. We have done it. We can produce, we can manage, we can hold it together. We can lead, we can lead the meeting, send the email, handle the crisis, remember the birthday, organize the event, support the team, soothe the tension, carry the emotional labor, and somehow still be expected to have good energy? We have proven that we can endure. That's not the question. That has never been the question that I'm asking. The question is, at what cost? At what cost to our bodies? At what cost to our nervous systems? At what cost to our relationships? At what cost to our creativity? At what cost to our truth? At what cost to our joy? Because a leadership model that requires disconnection is not sustainable. A success model that rewards depletion is not sustainable. A culture that treats urgency as importance is not sustainable. A life that looks impressive but feels empty is not sustainable. And here's the beautiful disruptive truth. Joy interrupts that pattern. Joy does not make us less powerful. Joy makes our power more sustainable. Joy is not soft. Joy is not fluffy. Joy is not a decorative throw pillow on the couch of leadership. Joy is strategic infrastructure. Joy is capacity. Joy is coherence. Joy is connection. Joy is regulation. Joy is energy. Joy is meaning. Joy is what allows us to keep building without breaking ourselves in the process. And I want to be very clear from the beginning. When I talk about joy, I am definitely not talking about forced happiness. I am not talking about toxic positivity. I am not talking about pretending everything is fine when everything is very much not fine. I'm not asking anyone to smile through injustice, grief, pressure, loss, or exhaustion. That is not joy. That's emotional wallpaper. Joy is deeper. Joy is sturdier. Joy is the part of us that stays connected to life even when life is complicated. Joy can exist with grief. Joy can exist with uncertainty. Joy can exist with hard conversations. Joy can exist in seasons where happiness feels really far away. Joy does not deny reality. Joy expands our capacity to meet reality. Joy says, Yes, this is hard. And there is still meaning here. Yes, I am really tired and I am still worthy of delight. Yes, the work matters, and so do I. Yes, the world is really heavy, and I refuse to surrender my humanity to heaviness. That's joy. Not a mood, not a luxury, not a personality trait, a practice. A strategy, a way of leading, a way of building, a way of staying whole. The model I teach is joy-led leadership. And joy-led leadership is built around four core shifts. Energy over endurance, regulation over urgency, integration over compartmentalization, community over competition. These are not just pretty phrases, not something just put up on the wall. These are invitations into a different way of living and leading. So let's walk through them together today. The first shift is energy over endurance. And this is where that Iron Man story that I told at the beginning matters. Because I know endurance. I respect endurance. Endurance is necessary. I am not saying that at all. Endurance is necessary. There are seasons where you absolutely have to keep going. There are moments in life that ask you to dig really deep. There are times when discipline, grit, and perseverance are what actually gets you through. Endurance is not bad. It's not evil. Endurance is a survival skill. But survival skills are not meant to become identities. The problem is not endurance itself. The problem is when endurance becomes the whole operating system. When we become proud of how much we can tolerate, when we measure our worth by how much we can carry. When we confuse our capacity to survive hard things with a mandate to keep choosing hard things. Am I becoming more alive or less alive on the way to this goal? Because the journey is not separate from the destination. The way we build matters, the way we lead matters, the way we pursue success matters. If we reach the finish line depleted, disconnected, resentful, and unrecognizable to ourselves and our friends and family, we have to ask whether the medal was worth the cost. And I'm not saying the destination doesn't matter. I'm not saying that I don't have the tattoo in the medal for the Iron Man. It matters. It does. As I said before, goals matter. Impact matters. Achievement matters. The mission certainly matters. But the journey forms us. Every day. How we work is shaping who we are becoming. How we lead is shaping who we are becoming. How we handle pressure is shaping who we are becoming. How we treat our bodies is shaping who we are becoming. And how we relate to others is shaping who we are becoming. The journey is not just the road to the destination. The journey is the transformation. That is true in athletics. It is true in business. It is true in leadership. It is true in relationships. It is true in life. So joy over endurance does not mean we stop doing hard things. It means we stop glorifying depletion as proof that we are devoted. It means that we stop making exhaustion the price of significance. It means we stop calling overextension ambition. And it means we stop applauding people for running on fumes and start building cultures where energy is protected, where it is restored and respected. Because here's what I believe. Joy is not the opposite of discipline. Joy is what makes discipline sustainable. Joy is not the opposite of ambition. Joy is what keeps ambition from becoming self-abandonment. Joy is not the opposite of high performance. Joy is what allows high performance to become sustainable performance. That is shift number one. Energy over endurance. The second shift is regulation over urgency. This one is huge. Because urgency today, urgency is everywhere. Urgency, it feels like has become the soundtrack of modern day life and certainly. Modern leadership. Everything is urgent. This email is urgent. The decision is urgent. The meeting is urgent. The follow-up is urgent. That text is urgent. The slack message is urgent. The thing that could absolutely wait until tomorrow has become somehow put on a tiny red siren and is running around in your nervous system screaming. Urgency feels powerful. It feels productive. It feels important. And sometimes, yes, sometimes things are truly urgent. But most of the time, what we are calling urgency is actually pressure. It is fear. It's reactivity. It is the need to prove ourselves. It is the need to control the outcome. It is the inability to pause long enough to discern what actually matters. And when leaders operate from urgency, they do not just make decisions. They create weather. People feel it. Your team feels it. Your family feels it. Your clients feel it. Your community feels it. Urgency, urgency changes the temperature of a room. It narrows our thinking. It tightens our bodies. It makes us more reactive. It makes us less creative. It makes us feel like everything is a threat. And if we're not careful, urgency becomes the culture. A culture where everyone is always bracing. A culture where people are afraid to make mistakes. A culture where speed matters more than wisdom. A culture where responsiveness is confused with value. A culture where the loudest thing gets attention, not necessarily the most important thing. Regulation over urgency asks us to interrupt that pattern. Regulation does not mean we become emotionless robots. No, thank you. I am certainly not interested in becoming a leadership appliance. Regulation does not mean we are always calm, soft-spoken, and perfectly serene while sipping herbal tea and using phrases like, I'm just noticing. It's lovely for some people, but some of us are expressive human beings with big feelings, fast brains, their mouths move fast, strong opinions, and approximately 14 tabs open in our souls. Regulation is not about having no emotion. Regulation is about staying connected to yourself in the presence of emotion. It's the pause before the reaction. The really big deep breath before answering the email. The moment where you ask, what's actually happening here? What am I really feeling? What story am I telling myself? What does this situation right now call for me or need from me? Am I responding from clarity or reacting from pressure? That pauses leadership. Because the most powerful person in the room is not always the loudest. It's often the most regulated. The person who can stay present when the room gets tense. The person who can tell the truth without creating unnecessary harm. The person who can make a decision without outsourcing it to panic. The person who can hold complexity without immediately forcing a false solution. The person who does not need to infect everyone else with their own internal chaos. Because we all have that sometimes, right? But that is power. And let me say this gently but clearly. Your nervous system is part of your leadership. Let me say that again. Your nervous system is part of your leadership. Your body is not separate from your leadership. Your regulation is not a personal wellness bonus. It's a leadership skill. Because people do not only respond to what you say, they respond to what they feel when they are around you. Do they feel safe? Do they feel pressured? Do they feel trusted? Do they feel braced? Do they feel invited? Do they feel like they can tell you the truth? A regulated leader creates space for honesty, creativity, and trust. An urgent leader often creates performance, protection, and fear. And I say this as someone who has absolutely led a team from urgency before. I have absolutely sent the over-explained email. I have made the fast decision because waiting felt really uncomfortable. I have tried to solve something immediately because uncertainty, you know, felt like a huge raccoon loose in my chest. I know what urgency feels like. But joy-led leadership asks us to practice something different. It asks us to treat the pause as powerful. It asks us to stop confusing speed with strength. It asks us to lead from a body that is present enough to choose. So that's shift number two: regulation over urgency. The third shift is integration over compartmentalization. This one is personal to me. Because so many women have been taught to live in pieces. We have our professional self, our personal self, our spiritual self, our ambitious self, our tender self, our leader self, our friend self, our mother self, our daughter self, our self, our self, our self, ourself, right? The self who is strong. The self who is tired. The self who has all the answers. The self who is still healing. The self who performs well in public. The self who quietly falls apart in the car. We were taught directly or indirectly to separate, to leave part of ourselves at the door. We were taught to be polished, to be appropriate, to be productive, to be professional. And yes, there are contexts where discernment absolutely matters. I am not saying that in every meeting you need to share your entire emotional memoir. But compartmentalization becomes dangerous when we start believing that leadership requires us to disconnect from ourselves or from our humanity. When we believe our bodies are inconvenient. When we believe our emotions are liabilities, when we believe our stories are irrelevant, when we believe our joy is unprofessional. When we believe our needs make us weak. That's not leadership. That is fragmentation. Integration over compartmentalization says, I get to be a whole person. Not unfiltered in every room, not without boundaries, not messy for the sake of being messy. Whole. Integrated. Aligned. It means my values are not separate from my decisions. My body is not separate from my strategy. My relationships are not separate from my capacity. My energy is not separate from my performance. My story is not separate. My story is not separate from my leadership. My joy is definitely not separate from my power. This matters because we cannot build sustainable leadership from a divided self. When we keep cutting ourselves into tiny little pieces, eventually something starts to hurt. Your body speaks to you. Your relationships speak. The resentment speaks. The anxiety speaks. The lack of joy speaks. Integration invites us to listen to the whisper before it becomes a scream. It invites us to ask, where am I performing a version of myself that no longer fits? Where am I leaving my body behind in the pursuit of success? Where am I saying yes? Well, my whole system is saying no. Where am I making decisions that look impressive but really feel misaligned? Where am I hiding the very parts of me that carry my wisdom? Because often the part of you that you think is inconvenient is carrying the information that you need. Your fatigue may be care may be carrying the information. Your resentment may be carrying information. Your envy may be carrying information. Your desire may be carrying information. Your joy, your joy is definitely carrying information. Joy tells us where there is life. Joy tells us where there is alignment. Joy tells us what matters. Joy tells us what we want to build more of. Joy is data. And for high achieving women, that can be a radical idea. Because many of us have been trained to distrust joy. If something feels too joyful, we wonder if it's serious enough. If something feels too easy, we wonder if it counts. If something feels too aligned, we wonder if we're being irresponsible. We have absorbed the idea that struggle somehow makes something more valid. But what if alignment is not a lack of seriousness? What if joy is not a lack of depth? What if the things that light us up are not distractions from our leadership, but clues to our most powerful contributions? Integration means we stop exiling those clues. We bring them into the room. And that's the shift number three: integration over compartmentalization. The fourth shift is community over competition. And this one might be the heartbeat of it all. Because I believe we were never meant to do the hardest things alone. As I said before, I learned that in the Iron Man. It is not, it is not a solo sport. And I have learned it again and again in life. Yes, there are parts of the race only you can do, or only I could do, right? Only I could swim my swim. Nobody could do that for me. Only I could bike up those massive hills. Only I can run to the end. Only you can make certain decisions. Only you can tell the truth about your own life. Only you can choose your next brave step. But you were never meant to do that unsupported. Iron Man may look like an individual sport, but it is deeply communal. And leadership is the same. From the outside, leadership can look very individual. It's your title. You are the one standing on the stage. It's your company. It's your decision. The visible person at the front, that's you. But no one builds anything meaningful alone. No one sustains impact alone. No one carries a vision alone. Or they can do it with cost. But yet so many leaders are lonely, especially women, surrounded by people, but feeling really alone. Respected, but not always supported. Visible, but not fully known. Needed, but not held. Admired, but not always nourished. And competition culture intensifies that loneliness. It teaches us to compare instead of connect. To scan the room for threats instead of allies. To measure our worth against someone else's timeline. To believe that someone else's success means perhaps there's less of a possibility for us. But that's just scarcity wearing lipstick. Community over competition says your success does not diminish mine. Your joy does not make mine smaller. Your visibility does not steal anything from me. Your brilliance does not threaten me. We can rise together. We can build together. We can tell the truth together. We can open doors for each other. We can normalize a model of leadership where power isn't lonely. And this is not just a nice idea. This is strategic. Community expands courage. Community expands creativity. Community expands resilience. Community expands accountability. Community expands imagination. When you are isolated, fear gets louder. When you're in community, truth gets louder. And we need truth. We need rooms where women can say, I'm tired. I want more. Hi, I need support. This model's not working. I have outgrown this room. I am ready to build something different. I do not want to compete with you. I want to collaborate with you. I want to create with you. That kind of room, that kind of community changes people. It changes leadership. It changes culture. It changes what we believe is possible. This is why the Joy Project matters. This is why the Joy Collective matters. This is why this podcast matters. Because we need places to practice joy together. We need places where joy is not just treated as cute or extra or unserious or silly. We need places where joy is understood as a force for connection, capacity, and change. And one of the simplest ways we are practicing this right now is through one joyful text a day. That's it. One joyful text a day. Not a dissertation. Not a big long poem. Not a branded campaign message with twelve fonts and a Canva template. Nope. Just one message to another human being. I'm thinking of you. I'm grateful for you. You matter. You crossed my mind, and it made me smile. I believe in you. You are not alone. That is joy in motion. And it's a small enough thing to do, and that matters. Because sometimes, sometimes we make joy too complicated. We think it requires a vacation, a perfect morning routine, a healed nervous system, a clean house. A fall bank account. A tropical location. Although that might be nice. A personality transplant. But joy often begins much smaller. It begins with noticing. It begins with allowing. It begins with sharing. Those three things? Those are what I call the joy macros. Noticing, allowing, sharing. Noticing. Noticing is just where joy begins. Because joy is often not absent. It's just unnoticed. We move so quickly through our lives that sometimes we miss the small moments that could nourish us. The light through the wind. The laugh that catches us off guard. The friend who checks in. The song that changes our entire mood, you know which one that is. The quiet moment before the day begins. The feeling, maybe it's just the feeling of being useful, the beauty of someone telling the truth. The tiny evidence that life is still offering goodness. Noticing does not erase what is hard. It just widens the aperture. It says, yep, this is really difficult, and there is also beauty. Yes, I'm carrying something heavy today. And there is still also connection. Yes, the world is messy, and there is also light. Leaders who notice only problems create anxious cultures. Leaders who notice progress, courage, effort, humanity, and possibility create cultures where people can breathe. What we notice, we amplify. And then there's that second macro, allowing. This is where many of us get really uncomfortable. Because allowing joy sounds simple, but it asks a lot of high-achieving people. Can you let good in without immediately bracing for the bad? Can you receive support without apologizing? Can you enjoy a moment without earning it first? Can you rest without guilt? Can you celebrate before everything is perfect? Can you let yourself feel delight without dismissing it as silly? So many of us are defended against joy. Not because we don't want it, because receiving joy. Requires vulnerability. It requires us to soften. It requires us to stop scanning for the next problem for five whole seconds. It requires us to believe we are allowed to experience goodness now, not later. Not after the inbox is empty. Let's be honest. An empty inbox is this mythical woodland creature with a Wi-Fi password. You are allowed joy before everything is done. You are allowed joy before everything is fixed. You are allowed joy while you are still becoming. Remember that. The third macro of joy is sharing. Joy grows when it moves. That's why community matters. That's why one joyful text a day matters. That's why storytelling matters. That's why gatherings matter. That's why the Joy-led leadership forum matters. Joy is not meant to be hoarded. It is meant to ripple. And when we share joy, we do not only give something away. We we become different ourselves. We remember we have agency. We remember we are connected. We remember that even in a loud and heavy world we can still contribute light. This is the work. Not pretending, not bypassing, not ignoring reality, practicing joy as a way of staying human and helping others stay human too. And that brings us all the way back to joy-led leadership. Because joy-led leadership is not about personal happiness alone. It is about the conditions we create in our bodies, in our relationships, in our teams, in our organizations, in our communities, in our movements. Joy asks, what kind of conditions allow people to access their best energy? What kind of conditions allow truth to be spoken? What kind of conditions allow creativity to emerge? What kind of conditions allow people to recover, repair, collaborate and grow? What kind of conditions allow sustainable impact? This is why joy belongs in leadership. Because leadership is not only about vision, it is about conditions. Is it about culture? It is about how people experience themselves in your presence. Do they shrink? Do they brace themselves? Do they perform? Do they hide? Or do they expand? Do they contribute? Do they tell the truth? Do they feel their own possibility? Joylled leaders create conditions where people become more alive, not less. And that does not mean everything is easy. That does not mean everyone is happy all the time. It does not mean you are happy all the time. That does not mean that there are no standards, no accountability, no hard conversations. Actually, joy-led leadership requires honest conversations. It requires clear boundaries. It requires responsibility. It requires courage. Because joy is not the absence of challenge. Joy is the presence of meaning, connection, and capacity inside challenge. A joy-led workplace can still have deadlines. A joy-led team can still have goals. A joy-led leader can still hold people accountable. A joy-led organization can still pursue excellence. But the energy is different. The assumptions are different. The cost is different. Instead of asking, how much can we extract from people before they break? Joy-led leadership asks, what conditions help people bring their best contributions sustainably? Instead of asking, how fast, how quickly can we move? It asks, what pace allows wisdom, quality, and humanity? Instead of asking, who's winning? It asks, what are we building together? Instead of asking, how do I prove that I belong? It asks, how do I lead from wholeness? That is a different architecture. And we desperately need it because the old model is cracking. People are tired. Leaders are tired. Teams are tired, families are tired, communities are tired. We are tired of pretending that constant pressure is normal. We are tired of being praised for the very patterns that are depleting us. We are tired of productivity without purpose. We are tired of connection reduced to calendar invites. We are tired of leadership that has no room for the human body. We are tired of success that makes us strangers to ourselves. And that fatigue is not failure. It is information. It is a signal. It is the body, the spirit, and the culture saying there has to be another way. And there is. Joy is not the whole answer. I know that. But joy is a doorway. Joy is a compass. Joy is a strategy. Joy points us back to life. Joy points us back to energy. It points us back to meaning. Back to one another, back to ourselves. And this is where I want to name something important. Joy is not a reward at the end of the path. Joy is how we walk the path. Joy is not waiting for you at the finish line. Joy helps us get there as whole human beings. And this matters, and I'm guilty of this because many of us have been living with a finish line mentality. I'll enjoy life when I get there. When I hit the number, when I get the title, when the business is stable, when the book is done, when the kids are older, when the house is organized, when I lose the weight, when I have more money, when I have more time, when I finally feel ready. But let me share this with you. There is always, always another finish line. Always. If we attach joy only to arrival, we're going to spend our entire lives chasing a future version of permission. And I don't want that for us. I don't want that for myself. I do not want that for women. I do not want that for leaders. I do not want that for our communities. I want us to build lives where the journey matters. Where the way we pursue the mission reflects the mission. Where the way we lead reflects the world that we actually want to create. Where the way we treat ourselves becomes part of the strategy, not an afterthought. Because here's the truth. How we get there is who we become. If we build through pressure, we become pressured. If we build through urgency, we become urgent. If we build through isolation, we become lonely. If we build through self-abandonment, we become disconnected. But if we build through joy, we become more alive. If we build through regulation, we become more grounded. If we build through integration, we become more whole. And if we build through community, we become more connected. That is joy-led leadership. And that is why this movement, this theory, this podcast, the Joy-led Leadership, that's why it all exists. And we are going to continue to explore these ideas. If you attend the Joy-led Leadership Forum, you're going to hear from leaders, founders, researchers, coaches, creatives, and change makers who are asking what leadership can look like when it is rooted in more humanity, more sustainability, more courage, and more joy. At the Joy Led Leadership Forum, we're going to talk about pressure. We'll talk about trust. We'll talk about money. We're going to talk about civic engagement. We will talk about purpose. We will talk about storytelling. We will talk about culture. We will talk about career transitions. We're going to talk about what it means to bring joy-led leadership into your whole life. Because this is not just a professional conversation. This joy-led leadership is a whole life conversation. You don't just become one person at work and another person at home. You may adapt. You may use discernment. You may show different parts of yourself in different contexts, but you are one integrated human being. The way you lead your team, the way you lead your team is connected to the way you lead yourself. The way you lead yourself is connected to the way you love your people. And yes, I said love in a work environment. And the way you love your people is connected to the way you move through the world. And the way you move through the world is connected to the culture that we are all creating together. This is just bigger than a conversation. This is about the kind of future we want to build. And I want to be honest. I don't have all the answers. And I'm not here as someone who has mastered joy and now just floats through life on a cloud of emotional regulation and green juice. Although I love myself a little bit of both of those. But nope. I am here as a woman practicing this in real time. As someone who has endured, who has overdone, who has started with the Iron Man, who has confused capacity with calling. A woman who has learned that just because I can carry something does not mean it is mine. A woman who believes deeply in joy because joy helped bring me back to myself. That's why all of this is so personal. And I imagine it's personal for you as well. Maybe you are still listening because you are tired of leading from pressure. Maybe you are still here because success has started to feel heavier than you actually expected. Maybe you're still here because you know that you are meant for impact, but you don't want impact to cost you your aliveness. Maybe you're still here because you are building something. Maybe you're still here because you are becoming someone. Maybe you are here because you are becoming someone who can lead through joy-led leadership. And you thought, yes. That I want that. I don't even exactly know what that means yet, but yes. That makes me happy. You don't have to have it all figured out to begin. You don't have to overhaul your whole life today. You don't have to become a perfectly regulated, fully integrated, joy-sparkling leadership unicorn by tomorrow morning. I promise you don't. You don't ever have to become that. Don't ever put that on your to-do list. I mean, you can if you want to become a joy-led unicorn. I would love that, but you don't have to. But joy-led leadership begins smaller. It begins with noticing. Where am I enduring when I could be choosing? Where am I urgent when I could pause? Where am I becoming compartmentalized when I really could integrate? Where am I competing when I could connect? Where am I delaying joy until a finish line that keeps moving further and further away from me? Where am I doing the hard thing alone? That noticing is not small. That noticing is the beginning of change. Then comes one choice. One different response. One breath. One boundary, one honest conversation, one request for help. One joyful text. One moment where you choose not to abandon yourself. This is how things change. This is how leadership changes. Not through big declarations, through repeated, embodied choices. So I want to invite you to think about your own Iron Man. Not the literal race, unless that's a part of your story as well. But the thing you started with, the hard thing, the thing that took or that you took on because you could. The thing that taught you, the thing that taught you strength, but may also have taught you to override yourself. Maybe it was a job, a role, a relationship, a family pattern, a business, a caregiving season, a financial responsibility, a leadership position, a version of success, a life you built because you were capable. And then ask yourself, where did endurance help me survive? And where has endurance overstayed its welcome? Where did urgency once protect me? And where is it now running the whole entire show? Where did compartmentalization help me function? And where is it now keeping me from being fully integrated? Where did competition perhaps motivate me? And where is it now keeping me from community? These are big questions, but they're worth asking. Because the future of leadership will not be built by people who can simply endure the longest. It's going to be built by people who can stay human while holding power. People who can create energy instead of only extracting it. People who can regulate instead of react. People who can integrate instead of fragment. People who can collaborate instead of compete. People, people who can build cultures where joy is not an afterthought, but an actual design principle. That's the future I'm interested in. That is the future of the joy collective. And that's what we're here to help build. A global leadership movement redefining power through joy-led leadership. Not joy as decoration, joy as infrastructure. Not joy as escape, but joy as capacity. Not joy as fluff, but joy as strategy. And I want to say this too. Joy-led leadership is not only for people with formal titles. You do not need a corner office. You do not need a team of 500 people. Do not need a fancy badge, a podium, or a LinkedIn headline that sounds like it was assembled by a committee of buzzwords. Nope. Leadership is influence. Leadership is the energy you bring. Leadership is the choices you model. Leadership is the culture that you create around you. Leadership is how you show up when things get hard. Leadership is how you treat people when you are under a whole lot of stress and pressure. Leadership is whether others become more courageous, more clear, more connected, and more alive in your presence. That means you can practice joy-led leadership anywhere. You can practice it in your company, in your family, in your friendships, in your community, in your faith space, in your creative work, in your own body, and perhaps most importantly, in the way you lead yourself. Because self-leadership is where this begins. Before joy becomes culture, it becomes practice. Before joy becomes a movement, it has to become a choice. Before it becomes strategy in the room, it has to be strategy in your own body. So today, today I want you to ask yourself, what would it look like to lead myself with joy? Not indulgence, not avoidance, not pretending. Joy? What would it look like to make decisions from aliveness instead of fear? What would it look like to build capacity instead of proving capacity? What would it look like to honor the journey instead of just worshiping the finish line? What would it look like to do hard things with people, with people, with people instead of alone? What would it look like to stop using exhaustion as evidence that I'm doing something meaningful? What would it look like to trust joy as data? These questions are not abstract. They can change your calendar. They can change your conversations. They can change your business model. They can change your relationships. They can change your health. They can change your leadership. They can change the way in which you walk through your own life. And that is why I'm so glad that you stayed till the end. I know this was a long one today, but this is not just about learning. It is about remembering. It's remembering that you are allowed to be powerful and joyful. Remembering that leadership can be sustainable. Remembering that your body is not a machine. Remembering that community matters. Remembering that joy is not something that you just chase after everything is handled. Joy belongs here. In the work, in the strategy, in the leadership, in the becoming, in the messy middle, in the learning, in the training, in the long ride, in the ugly run, in the moment when you wonder who on earth made this decision and then remember it was you. Joy belongs there too. And maybe especially there. Because joy is not waiting at the finish line. Joy is the strategy that helps us get there whole. So here's my invitation for the next three days or for your next life. Don't listen to this passively. Don't let this become another thing that you consume and then forget. Let yourself participate. Listen for what lands in your body. Listen for what challenges you. Listen for the sentence that makes you sit up a little straighter. Listen for the idea that irritates you a little because sometimes that irritation is truth. Knocking with muddy boots. Listen for the invitation underneath the information. Ask questions. Join in conversations. Connect with people. You can do this. Send the joyful text. Choose one small practice that you're going to carry forward. Because movements are not built by information alone. Movements are built by people, practicing something together. And that's what we're doing. Or that's what I'm hoping hope that we're doing together. We are practicing together a different way of leading, a different way of building, a different way of being. Bringing it all back to the Iron Man. When I crossed the finish line, I was proud. Of course I was. It was a huge moment. But now looking back, I can see that finish line was not the only transformation. The finish line or the transformation happened in the training. It happened in the moments that nobody saw. It happened in the community. It happened in the choice that I made to keep showing up. It happened in the laughter. It certainly happened in the doubt. It happened in the days that I wanted to quit and stay in bed. It happened in the people who reminded me that I was not alone. And now I understand that leadership is exactly the same thing. Finish lines do matter. But the becoming matters even more. The impact matters. The way we create impact matters too. The missions matter. But so does the human carrying it. So let this, let this perhaps be the beginning of a new question for you. Not how much can I endure? But what kind of leader am I becoming? Not how fast can I get there? But how can I get there whole? Not how much can I carry alone, but who am I building with? Not when I not when, not when do I finally get to experience joy. But how can I have joy now? That's the work. That's the invitation. So welcome to Joy-led Leadership. We're doing things a little bit differently around here. And if you are still listening, thank you so much. Please share this with someone who you think also needs just a little nudge to become a joy-led leader. Hit the subscribe button so that you don't miss anything else. And remember, joy is not the reward, it is a strategy, and let's all use it.