Don't give up seeking joy with Dr. Lindsey Godwin

“There's so much more to us and to the world than just what's broken.” - Dr. Lindsey Godwin 

How do we find joy when the world feels overwhelming? 

In this episode of Standing Up Strong, guest host Dr. Jillian Coppley sits down with Dr. Lindsey Godwin to talk about resilience, hope, and the power of paying attention to what’s good. Lindsey says joy isn’t about ignoring life’s challenges—it’s about finding the strength to face them. She talks through the science behind our tendency to focus on the negative, the importance of creating space for what truly matters, and the little moments of beauty and connection that help us keep going. This conversation is a reminder that joy can exist alongside struggle—and that noticing it may be one of the most important things we do. 

Dr. Lindsey Godwin is the Robert P. Stiller Endowed Chair and Professor of Management at Champlain College, where she teaches leadership, Appreciative Inquiry, and positive organizational change. She serves as the Academic Director of the David L. Cooperrider Center for Appreciative Inquiry, partnering with organizations around the world to design strengths-based approaches to leadership and change. Lindsey is also the co-founder of Bellflower Street and co-author of the #1 new release Ditch the Ditty: Doing What Matters Instead of Doing It All, a practical guide that helps women move from over-obligation and overwhelm to greater clarity, purpose, and intentional decision-making.  

Dr. Jillian Coppley is a visionary executive recognized internationally for her expertise in character strengths, wellbeing, and organizational transformation. With deep experience in positive psychology, strategy, and change, she has led large-scale collaborations, built global programs, strategic partnerships, and thriving organizational cultures that empower individuals, teams and organizations to flourish. Her leadership blends strategic vision, research-based innovation, and deep personal care for others —creating environments where people and programs thrive and where meaningful, lasting impact takes root.  

This series is part of the Cynthia & Harold Guttman Family Center for Storytelling at the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, where the science of character strengths is integral to our work creating a community of upstanders.  

https://www.holocaustandhumanity.org/  

https://www.youtube.com/@holocaustandhumanity   

Our thanks to the Mayerson Foundation and the VIA Institute on Character for their support of this series  

https://www.mayersonfoundation.org/    

https://www.viacharacter.org/    

Episode Resources     

Follow Jillian  

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcoppley/ 

Follow Lindsey 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlindseygodwin/  

Dr. Lindsey Godwin
https://www.lindseygodwin.com   

David Cooperrider Center for Appreciative Inquiry
https://appreciativeinquiry.champlain.edu 

Books & Authors Mentioned 

Ditch the Ditty: Doing What Matters Instead of Doing It All
By Lindsey Godwin & Stephanie Jones
https://www.ditchtheditty.com/  

Positive Psychology Research
Barbara Fredrickson's work on positive emotions and Broaden-and-Build Theory:
https://www.positiveemotions.org   

Rick Hanson
(Referenced for the "Velcro for bad, Teflon for good" concept)
https://www.rickhanson.net    

Maria Sirois
https://www.mariasirois.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Inside you lie unique character strengths just waiting to be used. Standing up strong is where we harness them to build resilience, spark hope, and inspire courage. Lean into the best parts of who you are and lift others as you rise.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

Hello and welcome. I'm Dr. Gillian Copley, and this is the Standing Up Strong podcast. Thank you for joining us. In this podcast, we welcome some of the biggest minds and biggest hearts in the field of positive psychology. Truly global luminaries in the field of human flourishing. Our guest today is one of those such beings. I am so delighted, so delighted to welcome Dr. Lindsay Godwin. There's so many things I want to share with you about Lindsay. As always, I'm just going to limit it to a few because I just want you to hear her words of wisdom as soon as we can get there. So let me tell you just a minute, a minute or two about Lindsay. Lindsay is the Robert Stiller Endowed Chair and Professor of Management at Champlain College, where she teaches leadership, appreciative inquiry, and positive organizational change. She is the academic director for the David Cooper Writers Center for Appreciative Inquiry. Working with organizations around the world to design strengths-based approaches to change. She is the co-founder of Bellwether Street and the author and co-author of multiple highly acclaimed, truly extraordinary, I have to say, books and publications. She is a wise woman who I feel so fortunate to know. And I will share one personal thing with you all about Lindsay, which I also love amongst all these other things, that somehow, with all those accomplishments, she also has a secret identity as an artist, both as an oil painter, a creative writer, and so much more. And she is delighting us, actually, with one of her pieces right behind her today.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

So welcome, Lindsay. I'm so happy to have you here.

SPEAKER_03 2:14

Thank you, Gillian. I'm delighted to be here.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

So Lindsay, over time we have talked about this idea of that the world, you know, sometimes it feels like it is screaming at us the bad stuff, and it's just ever so softly whispering the good stuff. And one of the things that you have shared in your newest book, which we'll talk, I hope a bit about, is that this notion of looking for the good and hearing the good when it's hard, isn't um a luxury that some of us might think, but in fact it's a necessity. And you even go so far as to um say that joy, I think a quote from from um another author potentially that joy is an act of resistance. I'd love to have you start us off by talking a little bit about what that means to you and what you think about when you say that.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

Yeah, oh, thank you so much. And I think this conversation is is always relevant, but apparently it feels every day that I wake up, it's becoming more and more relevant, as you know, Jillian. Um, I think you're right. I I love this metaphor of volume. I feel like the volume of the world for all of us feels like it's being turned up every day, and that volume is typically on the negative stuff, right? We can't look at a piece of media or the news without seeing crisis, outrage, conflict. Um, our brains are constantly absorbing that noise. Um, and really I think that that noise ends up drowning out all of those things that can keep us grounded. Joy, connection, beauty, um, those ordinary moments that remind us that we're human and human. And as you're right, I think finding joy isn't about escaping reality. It's about staying resourced and and looking and finding joy and noticing it is what gives us fuel to face the challenges. So I always say, yeah, joy and and um strengths and all of these things that I know we look at of what creates flourishing. It's not fluff, it is the fuel. Um, and I know, yeah, joy is resistance. I I wish that that was my quote, the toy, the Derek Watch um quote, joy is an act of resistance. When a colleague shared that with me, it just hit me so deeply because I think that we often think of joy or happiness as somehow being naive in the world that we're in right now. Um and I love this reframing of joy as something as defiant, right? In a world that we see that profits off of our fear, off of our division, off of our exhaustion. Um, choosing to notice what's still good is a way of saying, you nobody can take what matters from me, right? And I think a big piece of this is joy and finding those things that give us joy authentically isn't about denying suffering. It's not about denying the challenges or putting our you know ostrich head in the sand, but recognizing that joy and our challenges, they it joy coexists, it is there, just like the challenges are there, and it reminds us that there's so much more to us and to the world than just what's broken. And if we don't bring that intention to seek those moments, to notice them, um, we do miss out on them. I mean, we'll get into sort of with the neuroscience, and yeah, that's the whole field of positive psychology. But um, yeah, so anyway, to me it is it is about um joy isn't a naya bate, it is an act of defiance in many ways in this world that we live in.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Yeah, I love that, Lindsay. I mean, I'm so used to you talking about, you know, the organizational perspective. I mean, you are, you know, known for your leadership around the world and appreciative inquiry and the transformation of organizations looking for, you know, the best of who they are. But I love hearing this very personal level of what it means in our everyday lives. Um you have said that our hyper focus on what's wrong can leave us stuck in a state of despair, um, unable to see the moments of beauty and the connection still around us. You know, when we know that our brains are just hardwired to do that. I mean, regardless of this escalating noise in the world from the get-go, we've been hardwired that way. But you know, I'm curious for folks who are listening in, and you know, maybe in the midst of challenge, um, what are the what are the cur encouragements you would give? What are the tools or strategies you would um you would ask people to consider? Because you said pretending is not what you're talking about. It's something else to actively do. Right, yeah, to actively do in your life.

SPEAKER_03 7:26

Right. Oh, there's so much in that, Gillian, that comes up for me. And um I think you're right. I think first I just want to to note what you're saying is like I think we often misconstrue, misunderstand positive psychology. Again, my work and appreciative inquiry at the organizational level, I think has been misconstrued over and over again as somehow, as you said, sort of Pollyanna, this sort of like positive ostrich in the standing. Um, and it's actually just the opposite. I think that when we really look at what is positive psychology really a search for, it's so resonant with what you know my work would talk about appreciative inquiry. It is a search for what are those life-giving moments that exist all of the time. So appreciative inquiry at an individual level, at an organizational level, at a society level is how do we look for and inquire into those things that are life-giving in us and around us? And um, my my colleague David Cooperwriter, I love that he's recently been, he wrote a wonderful piece about appreciative inquiry uh in a broken world. And this question, right, of like how can we be appreciative inquirers and and you know, this this quest in positive psychology for this, you know, what creates flourishing. Um, and I really love the he talks about this hierarchy of um, you know, typically we think of positive psychology, we think of appreciative inquiry, we think about inquiring into the moments of extraordinary moments, right? That is so easy for us to see the positive, the good in those, you know, high peak flourishing moments, um, and and that is wonderful. It's more challenging to how do we become intentional inquirers in those ordinary moments, like our daily ordinary moments, and um, but that is that is the muscle, and I'll talk about some of yes, the ways that I do that myself. And even though what what I love, David and others were sort of pushing, like it's not just in the ordinary, it's even in moments of tragedy that there are, you know, even in our hardest, most challenging times, we can still look for what is giving us life now. What is, and and it's not again about ignoring that. I'll give you a personal example of this, and it'll get into yeah, some of the the different um ways that I bring this into my life at an interpersonal level, let alone at an organizational level. But uh, Julian, as you know, my dad recently passed away unexpectedly, and so it's like how can I have moments of joy in that space, right? In this deep grieving, this deep sadness that I have. And at the same time, I've been very intentional in both recognizing, being open to, intentionally looking for those moments that are life-giving to me, even in the midst of deep sadness. It's not about me ignoring my sadness, it's not about me pretending that I'm not um heartbroken, um, but it's also noticing the ways that people are showing up for me, noticing the kindness that is coming from friends, from colleagues, from family. I was just recently home over Thanksgiving, um, I had not seen one of my high school friends for probably 20 years. I saw her, her mom remembered that one of my delights in my life was her chocolate-covered peanut butter balls. And this woman made me chocolate-covered peanut butter balls. And so talk about, you know, looking for for the even the glimmers, the little things that are the balms for our soul, even when things are sad. Um, and this happens over and over again. Like in when I think about my own other other times of challenge, of tragedy, you know, it's again so easy when things are going well to look for this. It's you know, we really have to flex those muscles in these times of personal challenge. I remember when my my father-in-law was in the hospital on hospice, sort of, we were losing him and my uh his granddaughter, my niece, had just been born in another state, and it was becoming clear that he wasn't going to be able to see her in person before he um passed on. And I remember him, one of his wishes was he was like, I just wanted to smell that newborn baby smell. A nurse went and got baby powder and sprinkled it on my father-in-law's pillow so that he could then FaceTime with this grandbaby and smell her. Like, talk about you know, holding the full spectrum of of you know humanity before us. Again, um, so that's what I'm talking about when I'm looking at those intentional ways that we find joy even in the midst of deep, profound sadness. It's not again about ignoring about being Pollyanna, but it is recognizing that joy and beauty and humanity and gratitude can live right beside these other deep feelings. And in fact, it is those moments that again give us the energy and the ability to face the challenge.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:15

So I do, I mean, there's those are like deep, profound examples that are just really um raw for me right now. But I do this in lots of different ways in my life. I I always joke that um, again, we sort of look at you know what what we seek, we find. Yeah. And so it's all there to be seen. And so one of the this might sound silly, Jillian, but one of my favorite ways of looking for little sparks of joy is I intentionally am always on the hunt to look at what is an authentic compliment that I can give a total stranger. Not something like, you know, I'll just like telling everybody I like their shoes or something, but intentionally really being on the lookout for like what is something that sparks me about somebody that I, you know, encounter, and that that then we find that, right? We find what we look for. So I I have a lot of practices like that. I try to notice what makes me and who makes me laugh. Um and I I um do a lot of with my students, with my own children, um, looking for the those one good things, right? What is this tracking and noticing and giving voice to the what's um what's gone well today?

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:41

So lots of other things like that we can we can get into, but um I'll pause there because you probably have things you want to say.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Well, first I want to absolutely acknowledge that at once, you know, you being this acclaimed researcher and global presence in this field, and being, you know, so incredibly um wise and research-based, and then you can tell us this very personal story about who you are and how you show up in the world, and especially with a very meaningful event that has just happened for you. So I just I want to acknowledge your bravery and your vulnerability in doing that, and and in so doing, helping us learn. So thank you, Lindsay. Truly, thank you so much. And all the ways that I know to be true of our time knowing each other over these many years, that of just that active looking for the good is so present in you and in your books and in your research, and it's it's helping us all learn. Um, I had this, I don't know if it's because I'm talking to you and I know you're a visual person and a visual artist, but as you were talking, I had this like visual come up in my mind almost like the things that are joyous, it's almost as if they're smooth surfaced and they just slide away and we forget them. And the things that are difficult and you know annoying even to us are kind of roughed edge and they're they create friction and they're sticky in our lives. I don't know if that's meaningful at all, but I just thought I'd share it with you, knowing that you are you are such a visual person.

SPEAKER_03 16:17

Jillian, I you are once again reading my mind that that's you're actually um, and you probably know this too. It's one of my favorite quotes um in the field of in neuroscience and stuff from Dr. Rick Hansen, who talks about the brain is like velcro for bad and like Teflon for good. He literally says that. So talk about a visual metaphor. Um, I yeah, I I love the neuroscience work that he does. Um, and and that's the exact metaphor. I mean, I think that is a perfect visualization. You're exactly right. Our brains are like velcro, it is sticky, like the bad sticks more. We have so much research behind that that you know, we ruminate more, we remember more, all of these different things, these negative moments. We notice them, and just as you said, there's a reason for that. We need to normalize that. I mean, it's not bad, let's just recognize that like our brains are built to naturally scan for danger, to notice what's wrong, what could go wrong, what's missing, and what a beautiful thing because it kept us alive with our ancestors, right? There's a reason for that, but now you know we're we're we're not we're not being chased by bears and lions like we and our still wired, different, different threats in our lives these days, but our brain doesn't differentiate between a bear chasing us and an email that that sort of jars us, right? That like a that hijacks our amygdala as well. And so we are still in this mode of like trying to constantly that that built-in negativity bias is real, and I think that we shouldn't ignore that, we shouldn't um we should recognize that and normalize it, and because of that, we need to then realize how important it is for us to then intentionally look for these good things because just as you said, the bad is sticky, just as Dr. Hanson said, bad is like velcro and good is like Teflon, it just slides right off. Um and so um, yeah, in in our modern life, um we spend less time consciously taking in the good, is what Dr. Rick Hansen says, right? And so again, we need to then build practices and intentionality in our personal life, in our team and organizational life, and in our community and social spheres of intentionally pausing to notice these moments, to absorb them. Um, and that way, you know, it gets into Barbara Frederickson's work that that really becomes then a mental resource for us in a different way with that broaden and build theory. But um, yeah, when our biases go unchecked, we get this distorted picture of reality. We start thinking everything is bad or everything is falling apart. And again, redirecting our attention doesn't mean that we're pretending that life is important, or like I said with my example, like I'm not pretending that I haven't lost my father or different things, but it gives me um equal airtime, or at least the possibility of airtime of taking in what's good, what's working, what's meaningful, so that I have energy to face the day and to face those feelings that are challenging.

SPEAKER_02 19:45

Absolutely. It goes back to the necessity of it all. I want to shift gears just a little bit if we can, which is you know, when I hear you talking, of course, it's this notion of how we direct our attention, right? Because there's a there's a smorgasbord in front of us, how are we gonna direct our attention? And the other way that I've talked, I've I've heard you talking about doing that is in one of your books, Ditch the Diddy, which is instead of the whole field, let's let's get focused, right? It's about um, well, I instead of me saying what it's about, tell us a little bit about that work and tell us a little bit about your thinking there in terms of being really intentional about narrowing the field. And and those are my words, so correct me.

SPEAKER_03 20:31

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And that's a great, again, wonderful visual metaphors, Jillian, as always, this narrowing of the field. That is a piece of this. Ditch Ditch the Diddy, our book, and the subtitle is doing what matters instead of doing it all. And you're exactly right. This on this work, particularly, I mean, for me, it is relevant for everybody. The book itself and the the genesis of the book was in particularly about um also gendered socialization, right? As we as women in particular hold a lot of um putting others' needs ahead of our own. We get you know reinforced and socialized to be caretakers to others, to sort of the perfectionism, the rumination that we hold to make sure we're sort of doing it all for everybody else as a caretaker and get reinforced for that. And um, but again, we all can do this. And so for us, it a Diddy became this metaphor. Um, a Diddy, the the word itself comes from the Diddy bags that people you know that used to be that sailors they were literally called ditty bags that like held all of their stuff in them. Anyway, um, it was helpful to have this visual metaphor of these are things that are are are not necessarily ours to carry. Um so it's those things in our life that we don't want to do, we don't have to do. Um, but we say yes to them because we're trying to be polite or nice or You know, caretaking. And so if we keep doing that over and over again, um we apparently still only have 24 hours in a day. Who knew? And seven days in a week, who knew? And so the idea with this of doing what matters instead of doing it all is getting really clear on our values, our priorities, the you know, we call them, you know, what are our essentials at the end of the day, literally and metaphorically, right? Whether that's the end of the day, the end of our time in this plane of existence, what does matter to us in terms of the relationships we have, the impact we want to have, the character that we want to be embodying, and how do we make decisions about where we spend our time based on that? Instead of trying to do it all for everybody just to make everybody happy. How do we really put our energy in time and space in those things? Again, it's not about selfishly just what's going to make me happy, but really this sense of always acting from that place of intentionality so that we're not just reacting, which we again, especially as women, often will say yes to be helpful before we even take a pause to say, is this something that I need to do, that I want to do, that is meaningful, or will my time be better served if I, you know, if I'm not spending five hours over here, I'm spending it over here doing something else. Um, so that narrowing of focus is in some ways it's a narrowing exactly of focus because in some ways it's sort of a cleaning of a plate a little bit. The the ditching of the ditty, right, is this visual of like literally getting rid of these bags of things that hold us down and weigh us down. And exactly how do we in some ways it's a it's a paradoxical, right? Narrow our focus onto those things that matter, which paradoxically give us more energy to then do the things that do, reducing that overwhelm and really um feeling like if we narrow our focus, joy has a chance to land, I think more, right?

SPEAKER_02 24:17

So oh, I love that. I love that expression joy has a chance to land. That is that's very powerful to me. Um, you know, as you were as you were talking about this, I was thinking about the intersection between how we think about character strengths and finding time for your signature strengths to show up in your day. And I see as you're talking about narrowing and determining, you know, what is most important here given my purpose, who I am, that there's a real intersection between making sure that there's space, for instance, for you know, if creativity is one of your signature strengths, that you're allowing time for it to show up and the joy that that will bring. Or, you know, if it's love of learning or what have you, making sure that you are making the time on a regular basis for those things to show up, and that means making some choices about maybe what doesn't show up that day. Yeah, does that exactly? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:13

That's so I think um spot on. It's it's we have to give space and make space for those things because otherwise, back to what we were talking about, the noise of the world is not getting quieter, it's not going away. And so we have to be able to sort of tune our own radio, right, to those things that um matter to us. And I love, yes, the this the idea of signature strengths. And um, my dear colleague Maria Sawa, her work really looks at this specifically, the appreciation of beauty as uh as one of the the key things that sustains us as humans and in fact sustains us as a society. Um, how do we notice and appreciate those you know, beauty of excellence, beauty of all these different things? But um because again, what we what we find um again beautiful in different ways are things that we want to then preserve and cherish. And so, how do we again bring our attention? Um, which again, in such a noisy world, how often do we stop and pause the way the light hits something at 3 p.m. versus 5 p.m., the way that you know my um steam rises from my teacup. I mean, those are micro moments of beauty, and we can also then look at um you know generosity um and those acts like the nurse bringing baby powder to my father-in-law's pillow is an act of beauty and generosity, you know.

SPEAKER_02 26:51

So yeah, it makes me think of the um uh Keltner work on awe and that beautiful book about we can find awe all around us, no matter where we are. Um those moments that can be small but still take our breath away.

SPEAKER_03 27:09

Right. I think that's such an important um reminder, Jillian, because I think sometimes we forget and think that they have to be these macro experiences, and that's what I love about Maria's work and all those things, is and even you know, Barbara Frederickson's Love 2.0, it is the macro is important, but the macro is made up of the micro. And so I love Barbara's work on you know, like micro acts of love, um, and you know, again, having an authentic even smile and greeting with a total stranger can be a micro moment of love and humanity. It's not it's not always these sort of yes, um macro over-the-top things, but those are the as Barbara Frederickson talks about, right, those become like the emotional and mental nutrients that we need to be healthy again to be able to function and face, especially a world that is increasingly loud and challenging and complex. So it's like eating your vegetables. We need these micro moments. Turns out all of this comes back to our advice of eating your vegetables, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

But they're good vegetables.

SPEAKER_03 28:35

Micro moments of, yes, whether that is it's not just broccoli, it's micro, micro moments of real human connection are important.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

So, Lindsay, you have shared with such enthusiasm and grace, as you always do, so many insights in these quick few minutes that we've had together.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

But I'm curious if you had, you know, just one encouragement for people to remember or an action to take or something just wanted them to continue to know. Um, what would you want to leave people with?

SPEAKER_03 29:11

Oh, that's a good question. I think um I would really encourage people to remember that joy and these moments are not the opposite of seriousness. Joy is an antidote to despair. I think that again, it's not about ignoring what's wrong, it's about refusing to ignore what's right. And we often do that, and so I think that my reminder, my invitation, my hope for every listener is to um notice and not just notice, but authentically claim at least one small moment of joy every day as an as an act of resistance. Feel like you're you're you're in the resistance by finding that authentic moment of joy for yourself in whatever form or shape it is. It doesn't have to make sense to anybody else. It just has to be authentic to you.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

Yeah. Well, dear Lindsay, you have certainly made me more joyful in these last minutes talking to you. So thank you for that gift. I appreciate you dearly. Thank you for spending time with us today. Thank you for having me. And thank you to everyone who has been listening. Let's keep standing up strong. Let's keep showing up and looking for the best in ourselves and one another, and that's how we truly will make the world a better place.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Standing Up Strong is a production of the Nancy and David Wolf Holocaust and Humanities Center in partnership with the VIA Institute on Character. Find the link in the show notes to take the Character Strengths survey for free. Managing producer is Ann Thompson, technical producer is Robert Mills, and technical director is Josh Emerson. This series is part of the Cynthia and Harold Gutman Family Center for Storytelling and is generously supported by the Marison Family Foundation. It is recorded at Technical Consulting Partner Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio.