Joy Anyway, with Jan Hoath

Joy is easy to talk about when life is smooth and brutally hard to reach when your identity breaks, your plans collapse, or fear takes over. Sean Fargo sits down with leadership coach and author Jan Hoth, the “Joy Alchemist,” to get specific about what joy really is and what it is not. 

Visit Jan's website: https://www.janjoymentor.com/

Buy her book: Joy Anyway: https://a.co/d/0bAmOfeb

We draw a clear line between fleeting happiness and joy as a steady state of being that can hold grief, anger, and uncertainty without pretending they aren’t there.

Jan shares her own turning point from teenage depression after an injury ended her swimmer identity, and how an audacious opportunity cracked open a new future. From there we get practical: mindfulness as the gateway, “micro joy” habits you can use in minutes, and her unforgettable “Fruit Loop moment” story from a children’s hospital that became a repeatable tool for resilience. If you’ve felt stuck after divorce, job loss, burnout, retirement, or a health scare, this conversation offers grounded steps for finding possibility again.

We also go straight at toxic positivity, the signs you’re forcing a smile, and why the fastest route back to authentic joy sometimes starts with letting yourself feel the full depth of the moment. For entrepreneurs, managers, community leaders, and therapists, we explore joy as a leadership superpower that improves creativity, decisiveness, and team culture without guilt or bypassing. If this helped you, subscribe, share with a friend who needs a little light, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Teach mindfulness without self-doubt, fear of judgment, or imposter syndrome. 

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Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.

Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — this podcast explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.

Each episode offers a mix of:

• Practical mindfulness and meditation teachings
• Conversations with respected meditation teachers, clinicians, authors, and researchers
• Real-world insights for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and caregivers
• Gentle reflections for anyone navigating stress, anxiety, burnout, grief, or change

If you’re interested in:

• Mindfulness meditation for everyday life
• Trauma-sensitive and compassion-based practices
• Teaching mindfulness in an authentic, non-performative way
• Deepening your own practice while supporting others

…you’re in the right place.

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome everyone to the Mindfulness Exercises Podcast. My name is Sean Fargo, and today I have the joy of reconnecting with an old friend who I haven't chatted with for a few years now, but she is one of my more favorite people in the world who I got to work with in deepening mindfulness and meditation and service to others. Her name is Jan Hoth, also known as the Joy Alchemist. Imagine waking up each day feeling inspired, aligned, and fully alive. With Jan as your guide, that can be your reality. She's a speaker, she's a coach, she's a poet. I think she's also a backcountry skier, if I'm not mistaken, who lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. She wrote a book that she sent to me a couple weeks ago called Joy Anyway. And you can find it on Amazon. People send books to me all the time. And this was definitely one of my favorite books because it's like kind of short and sweet, but it's also dense with wisdom and practical steps and tools. I just read like two or three pages at a time, and it gives me so much value and kind of unlocks things inside me. It's like, oh yeah, like this is so helpful for me today. And I'm like really genuinely excited to dive into your work these days, Jan. Get to know more about all the tools that you're integrating and how you're helping people. I know you have several different offerings, but I know that when we were working together, you just embodied a lot of what you teach. And I just feel like you walk your talk, and that's not always the case. But drawing from Jan's rich background as a leadership coach, mindfulness meditation teacher, and former professional alpine ski instructor, Jan offers a unique perspective. She's created the happiness prism, a transformative process that helps you create a life free of regrets and rich in lasting legacy. She's also the creator of a 365-day challenge for women, even working with the seasons on building joy in their life. And she's a speaker, she's a coach, philosopher, even. She loves dogs, traveling, surfing, learning banjo, sailing. I mean, even just reading your bio is making me smile. Thank you so much for joining our podcast. It's a pleasure to reconnect with you today. Thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Thank you so much for having me. It's such an honor, and I'm humbled by even that opening. I knew instantly when I was able to write the book and wanted to acknowledge you in the book and wanted to get a copy to you. It just, I knew it was a divine connection and honoring. We all have amazing teachers, mentors, peers in our path. And it was just so exciting to be able to share the book with you. And now I'm excited to be able to share it with your amazing audience. Cause this message that lives on my heart of joy to the world and the vision of a joy-led world and to be fulfilled upon one conversation at a time, one leader at a time, is a never-ending endeavor of mine because just the practice of mindfulness and joy has created such a rich life for myself, my family, who I love and adore, and everyone I've had the privilege of encountering. And, you know, it's just an honor to be here today.

Depression And Lost Identity

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Thank you. So as a joy mentor or like alchemist for people and women and leaders, like how did that origin story start for you? Like, was it always your path and your passion, or did the topic of joy kind of surface at a certain moment in your life?

Audacious Possibility As A Turning Point

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Well, I feel like every great teacher has a backstory to why they teach. Mine did start as a teenager, actually, when I wanted to be happy, but I wasn't. I fell into a deep depression. And the quick backstory was at the time I identified as a swimmer, I looked up to my big sister and wanted to be just like her. And then when I got injured in a competition and had to have reconstructive surgery, I was told after a long recovery that swimming was not my sport. My body couldn't handle that. And so I had this identity of swimmer. Anybody listening, we have these identities and these roles we play in life. And when that gets stripped away for whatever reason, or just gently dissolves, I have clients who are going into retirement and there's an organic next, but what is that next? Well, in my case, it was sudden and I fell into a deep dark depression because I was really questioning myself, this life, and what direction to go. And as much as my family and friends and classmates appreciated me and wanted to help, there was no clear path in my heart. I wanted to be happy, I wanted more, but I was prescribed happy pills and I hated them. And I wanted to tear my skin off. Like I just was not comfortable in my body, in my being, in my humanness. Yet there was a whisper on my heart that there's gotta be something else. So while the deep dark depression questioning life, there was that whisper, but that there's something else. When I listened into that whisper, it came in the most unlikely way. And that's where the subtitle of my book is Transform Adversity Through Audacious Joy. It was an audacious moment that I was sitting in German class and the substitute teacher invited me to consider applying for a scholarship to go be an exchange student in Germany. And the idea of that was audacious enough. And yet there was a spark inside of me that the idea of complete different identity, of course, going to a foreign country with people, places, things completely out of my usual realm of life was exciting. And to me, it was like a joyful possibility. And even just the possibility lit something up inside of me. And so that was the first time I had a life awakening and transition and awareness of the power of one thought followed by action that was inspiring and allowed me to shift into this awareness that I have since then utilized time and again that it was the joy-led path that led me to a better place. And I realized, though, it took courage to take those actions to follow through on the path less traveled. I realized that I had this kind of certain level of grit, if you will, a willingness to dig in and to take a loving yet hard look at myself and what was going on inside of me. And then follow through with the actions that I could feel was my heart and my joy and my truth. When I started to look around, I realized not everybody saw the world the way I did. And not everybody had these tools. In fact, most people don't have these tools. And that's when I started to really recognize that this was a lifelong mission of mine to take what I had learned to truly alchemize all my circumstances, the challenges into something greater, into essentially a superpower. So that the joy isn't just the someday nice to have that oftentimes we're not going to get to. Or it gets to be, as I like to say, mindfulness is the gateway because we have to start and look at where we are. And yet, joy is the vehicle, the path, and the fuel for that vehicle. And it will get you to that someday joyful future that's on your heart, that's in your what I believe divine truth in a more efficient pattern. More than likely, it'll be even better than you thought because the paths that we think are air quote happy ending aren't necessarily our highest truth. And that's where I also recognize like for me, joy is that access of consciousness almost to enlightenment. That when we are in that joy, I believe it's the divine guiding us to something better, because there is no prescribed path in this life. There is no one way to do anything. And in fact, I feel like when we humans do that human thing that we do, trying to structure and plan and structure and plan, oftentimes we're leaving out the bigger possibilities that we can only be available to in our joy, and yet also through the access of mindfulness. Because that's something I want to speak to here very clearly. That as I talk about joy and I teach joy, and as you know in the book, I identify the distinction between happiness and joy, that happiness is a fleeting emotion. Joy is a state of being that is all encompassing of the not joy too, that mindfulness provides us that access point of recognizing, wow, I'm not in my joy. When I was in my depression, I am not in that joy at all. Through the practices of mindfulness, of meditation, of my joy tools, even back then, before I knew it, I healed the depression and have never required antidepressants since. Now, I do recognize some people do require medical intervention. I really respect that and just want to put my little disclaimer there. This notion of joy is the both and. And I know you are so masterful at really guiding into all the beautiful practices of feeling into our full human experience. And that's part of what I'm so thankful to you for. Because if you recall, when we started working together, I always wanted to jump to the joy or jump to the happiness. And it was like, no, this journey I've been on and that I was able to pour in the book with was really developing the deep awareness of all of these life experiences happening for us. And when we can be totally accepting of all of it, the shame, the guilt, the upset, the frustration, the anger, those are the richness of the human experience. But they're also informing us from the inside. Kind of a long answer to your question. And yet, so excited to really dive in wherever you're called to take us because I feel like this conversation is not being had enough in the world. There's a lot of doom and gloom. And then there is a lot of toxic positivity. And I know I'm here to help lead the conversation of the not fluffy joy, the true superpower that is what's gotten me and my clients and so many other people in my life through the tough stuff to have reference for the life experience, but to get on to the great stuff and to have the meaningful, loving impact and influence that I believe we can all have when we're aligned in our joy.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing your backstory, your passion here. I think a lot of us do find hopelessness and a lack of joy, as you said, when our identities get broken or we're really lost in life. For you, when you were told swimming is not gonna be your sport, maybe easy for some of us to say, well, that's not a big deal. It's just swimming. But for you, that was important. And I think that for each of us, our identities can get broken when we might lose a job, if we get divorced, if we have a debilitating injury, or we're diagnosed with something, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. To us, that can seem like it's everything. It can bring a darkness into a lot of our life. To someone else looking from the outside, it might not seem like it should be that big of a deal. Like, yeah, you can get through that, but internally it can feel devastating to the point where our vision gets very blurry. Whatever we're going through, there's really no shame in feeling grief. And as you're saying, like, joy is not to run away from it, but rather we can honor it and also know that we can find well-being, brightness, and what you're describing, this audacious possibility for you that was tied to the potential of international travel and moving to a different country, meeting new people. For a lot of us, say adults or those working with adults going through a tough time. I'm curious how you might guide people through that process of finding audacious possibility. What are some of the common journeys people go through to find, say, an audacious possibility and how they can move forward with that?

SPEAKER_01 14:14

It's churned up time and time again. And I love how you said the identity is broken and that there is this hopelessness, oftentimes, where I come into the life of my clients. And so how I help them is really we do start with mindfulness. We acknowledge where they're at, we acknowledge their experience, we acknowledge all the things that they have going on as the gateway. And then in the work that I do through my process of the happiness prism, I support them in beginning to take incremental steps because there is no quick fix to life. There's no quick fix to hopelessness, there's no quick fix to the feeling of brokenness and that shadow that you were talking about. What we begin to do is just start to look for the little joys and audacious moments. And one of my other signature stories that's in the book and I talk about a lot is a cancer scare with my son when he was six weeks old. I was the breastfeeding mom in the hospital at the time, and this is the short version. You can get the long version in the book. I woke up in hospital the morning after when we were realizing he has a life-threatening condition, we don't know what it is, and I need to feed him and myself. And I realized I could order off the menu when we're in a children's hospital. And the opportunity of looking at the menu, of seeing Fruit Loops on the menu was audacious enough that made me giggle in the moment, even though I was devastated in this nightmare moment. And yet a loud voice came over me saying, Jan, yes, it's not nutritional from a functional standpoint. It's nutrition for your joy, for your soul. So I actually ended up eating the fruit loops and had a good just mini moment of giggling and just joy moment. And in that moment, I was okay. In that moment, he was okay. He was even giggling in the crib next to me. This is a story I tell time and again because the quick ending is even though we spent 12 days in the hospital, every day I looked for what I now have coined as the Fruit Loop moment. And a Fruit Loop moment is a spontaneous, essentially audacious joy moment that just brings a little bit of joy and light, even if you're amidst a challenging space. After 12 days, we actually ended up leaving the hospital with a medical mystery and a medical miracle, like off the record. I tell this story to my clients and they love it, and they're always sending me pictures. Just yesterday, I got another picture of a client going, I thought of you. I saw fruit loops. But they know that that is an invitation to look for the little joys in their life. And that's where we start. And I've had clients that I have coached through divorce. I've had clients who I've coached back from the edge of divorce. I've had clients coached through job loss, job retirement, stepping into bigger roles as entrepreneurs owning their businesses. I've had women in all spaces and a few men who have come to me in these spaces that, like we were just talking about, of hopelessness or really not sure where to go. We start with these little micro habits and these micro invitations and personal permission to start to look at and take those little joy steps. Now, the Fruit Loop moment, it was like 10 minutes that I'm eating Fruit Loops. And that's what I encourage my clients to see. Like a little bit of joy in their day doesn't have to take much. It could be a delicious coffee, it could be a chat to a favorite friend, it could be drumming up something on YouTube, like I love my husband. He will pull up Britain's Got Talent and watch the gold buzzer moments. And those are so heartwarming and they can bring you joy. You can even ask Siri, tell me a joke. And you know that Siri, if you have an iPhone, will tell you a joke. And so we can find these little incremental moments, even though the divorce is devastating, even though the tax bill is bigger than we thought, even though it might be cancer or it is cancer and we're fighting it. That's the notion that I'm here to be a stand for is it's even though we honor that audacious joy, and that's actually getting you into a state of being of awareness, to be more available to the solutions and to be energetically attractive to the people, the places, the ideas, and the opportunities that will help you shift out of that challenging circumstance. The little joy moments are like turning on the light incrementally, and maybe it's just fairy lights to start in the dark space. But those fairy lights strung together will lead you out of the dark into the light where I believe we're all meant to be as divine beings. It's part of the human experience. All of it.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Yes.

Just Own You And Leaving Victimhood

SPEAKER_01 19:16

We're just not meant to stay there.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

There you go. Yeah. I like that phrase that you mentioned just now around attracting the energy of solutions and possibility. You talk about joy as just owning you, J O Y. I think a lot of us who may be lacking joy may be feeling like a victim. It can be very easy and seductive to feel like a victim or a martyr. I know for me, when I pull myself out of the darkness, there's a lot of acceptance, like a hundred percent acceptance that needs to happen, and realizing like I need to pull up my bootstraps here and own my patterns of thought, heal my body, do what I can to repair and move forward. Can you talk about this joy as just owning you when you're working with clients who are going through these tough times?

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Absolutely. And you speak to something that's important here too. Because when I say just own you, it's own that darkness. It's own that funk, it's own that state of victimhood that I still find myself in at times. And then that's where I also encourage flipping it from why is this happening to me to why is this happening for me? And start to dissect the life experience. Because I ultimately believe we are the creator of our own reality. And sometimes that's hard. And I know you just spoke to that acceptance piece, like accepting, wow, I created that, even the crummy stuff. And so this notion of just own you, I'm not talking about the happy, happy, joy, joy, hee hee, fluffy unicorns and rainbows. Although I love them. I am talking to the fact that that's also part of the beauty and the importance of mindfulness inside of what we're talking about here with the joy journey, that the actual quickest path out of the darkness and into true joy, which I believe is a divine expression that we are all born with. It is a birthright, but we're not necessarily taught it. And it's not necessarily as openly celebrated in our culture and honored. Like I grew up with play when the work is done. And I think that's how most people function in our world. Although I will say it's getting better, thankfully. There's a lot of beautiful thought leaders out there that are advocates of joy, and yet it's not the first go to. Encouragement to anyone listening and experiencing that space of victimhood is acknowledge I'm being a victim right now. It's like step one of like this is where I'm at. I'm feeling the shame. I'm feeling the guilt. I'm feeling the blame. And then get to a place of awareness of, like you said, get your bootstraps. But it's like, okay, great. This is where we are. And even what I recall and appreciate one of the attitudes of mindfulness is also humor. Sometimes we have to have a little laugh in the middle of that, like, wow, here I am again. In our house, we kind of talk about it as like an Eeyore moment. I think of Winnie the Pooh and the character Eeyore, like, you know, and whatever we can actually do to bring a little bit of humor to the pity party, incrementally, there's little joys or fruit loop moments that can help you pop out, which is really helpful when those come. But sometimes it's just an incremental. What can I be thankful for in this very moment? I have a roof over my head. I have shoes on my feet. That's huge compared to many people in the world, actually. And then incrementally from there. So sometimes it's a pop, and that's awesome when we can have a fruit loop moment because it really elevates the level of consciousness in a very fast way that can help with that space of greater awareness of ideas, even like how I can move forward from here, but even just incrementally, like what is that next step? And how can I compassionately recognize wow, I slipped into a state of victimhood. I allowed myself to dwell in poor me, and then have that loving self-compassion of like, okay. In fact, I will share. I have a whole session in one of my group programs called Atomic Joy. And one of the sessions, I'm gonna let you all in on a little fun one, is called Oops, I Did It Again. If you recall, there's an old song by Britney Spears and she sings Oops, I did it again, and I play it for my women, and we have a good giggle. That's one playful way that I bring to those kind of eeure moments and say, Oops, I did it again. I like to say, Well, there we are being humans again. And then from there, as the mood lifts, as the energy lightens and brightens, then we can start to get into the defining of what is joy to be now. Because that's what I also so appreciate about mindfulness is it's present moment awareness. What has you in your joy in this moment today is going to be different or a different version of it than it is going to be tomorrow and it was yesterday. And so it's a both and it's a present moment awareness. And then what's that next step? And allowing ourselves to look at, all right, where am I headed essentially? Because that's where joy becomes the GPS. It's like I know I don't want to stay here, but how do we go over there? Well, incrementally we move towards that, looking for appreciation, little joy moments, humor, radical self-compassion.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

I like how we're going full circle with the Fruit Loops.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Literally.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

Yeah. Forgive them.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

They're circles.

Spotting Toxic Positivity Red Flags

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Yeah, I think this is really helpful for those of us who can feel stuck in, say, the negativity. And you've been clear that joy anyway is also not about, say, this toxic positivity where we might be spiritually bypassing under the guise of staying positive, quote unquote. And so I'm curious, like, what are some red flags for people if they've slipped into the state where it's always unicorns and rainbows and puppy dogs where they might be sort of ignoring some of the messiness or some of the raw feelings of life? How do you identify those and help people to work through that end of the spectrum too?

SPEAKER_01 26:02

That's such a great question. I've actually never been asked that just that way. So I'm excited to dive into this with you. What's coming up is two things. One, it's when it really starts to feel shallow and you can feel it. There's no depth to it. Your smile doesn't feel genuine. And you can actually read it off of responses of other people's cues. That it's like what you're saying, how you're showing up is not landing. And when you do a mini check-in, it's like, ugh, this does feel kind of shallow, surface-y, and kind of ick. And that's the toxicity piece because it is toxic. But what's also coming up because I'm so visual. And there was the Lego movie. And I don't know if you've seen it or anyone listening is, but there was this particular scene where this unicorn kitty is like, I can't not be joyful, essentially is about to implode. That's the experience that I know I have and that I see in others. That it's kind of like you see an implosion or explosion or like a train wreck waiting to happen, especially with the practices of mindfulness. You can feel energy and you can sense the tension. And there's a tight rigidity around it. But then also inside of that, things aren't working out. They're not lining up. And that's where it's like, no matter how hard I try, like the Unicorn Kitty, like trying to make it work. It's not working. I didn't necessarily answer the question directly, but it's all these different sensory things. But then it's also recognizing that things are not coming together. You're not getting the parking spot that you wanted. You're playing phone tag with the person you're trying to get a hold of. This is how it plays out in your everyday life. You're not being heard by the people that you want to hear you. You feel misunderstood. You go and order coffee at the coffee shop and it comes back not the way you want it. There is little insidious pieces that are all evidence pointing to you're trying to be joyful, you're trying to be something that you're not. It is a loving invitation to go, maybe we just need to let ourselves be in this not joy moment because that actually is the quickest path back to your true joy. And that's where another concept I talk about in the book is called the deep end of joy, and recognize that I really do believe everything's happening for you, and that holding on to the toxic positivity is causing you to actually miss out on the full breadth of the human experience, that maybe right now you need to feel full anger. I do a process with my clients when I'm working with them in person where I really give them full space and breath to feel the full anger or feel the full sadness and incredible healing tears or healing expression that we need to get it out so that we don't implode or explode with that toxic piece. Now, I will also admit I am such a big fan of how fast can we get back to the joy stuff? Because it's so much more fun. And so I've fallen to this toxic positivity myself. And I think that's why I can be such a great spokesperson to this, that it's like it isn't always perfect. And again, unicorn and rainbows. And the more that I have learned, and again, through mindfulness to embrace the full experience, which I call the deep end of joy, that then we're available to the polarizing and the uh opposite experience of that capacity to be with the depth of the anger, the sadness, or whatever there is to feel, that it also allows us the breath to be an even greater joy.

Joy As A Leadership Superpower

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Thank you for exploring that territory. And I want to just shift gears towards leadership. You work with leaders and a lot of leaders, you know, I'm an entrepreneur and my wife is an entrepreneur, and leadership can be hard when you're leading a team, but leadership is not just business, you know, you're also leading communities, family, etc. But a lot of us feel like we have to kind of sacrifice our joy for our success. Like we'll get to the joy when we reach the milestone, when we reach the summit, when we make X number of dollars, when we retire, when we exit the company or sell the house, or whatever the goal is, we feel like we might have to sacrifice our joy. I think you talk about how the audaciousness of joy can itself be a leadership trait where we're kind of doing something different, even when it's quote unquote unacceptable by societal standards. I'm wondering if you can talk about joy as being a part of the path of leadership rather than the end result.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Yes. Gladly. Because my ultimate mission is a joy-led world and for each leader to be coming from that space. And like you said, not waiting till it's done, not waiting till it's the end of the day, not waiting till it's the end of the week or the vacation, saving it for vacations and birthdays and holidays. And this is where I will never stop preaching this message that joy is the superpower as a leader, that when you can allow yourself to be in that state of being, which again, I will continually define it as is completely compassionate, available to the not joy, but also available to the enthusiasm, too, available to the delight of the intention, and especially like as a community leader, as a business leader, as a family leader. I mean, I talk about being a matriarch in my circle all the time too with my gals and atomic joy. You honoring your joy and being in that embodiment. Firstly, you're in a better state of consciousness where you are more magnetic, attractive again to people, places, opportunities, and ideas that will move your endeavor forward. You're also more decisive, you're easier to get along with. You're going to see the creative solutions that you need to move through the challenges that you will face inevitably as a business owner, as a community leader, as a family member leader. When you are in that state of joy and demonstrating it of taking care of yourself so that you are in that space, it gives permission to your employees, to your team members, to your peers to also do their part for themselves. Because you can't get someone else in their joy. You can just demonstrate for them how to be in joy and then promote that possibility. Because if you're in that greater state of being and they are too, then united, you're going to have better solutions, better ideas, better workability. And then beyond that, you are more efficient, effective. And beyond that, when you do succeed at whatever that goal is, it's far more satisfying. And that's where I like to say joy is the secret to grit. You face struggles and challenges, whether, again, political, community, business owner, like there's challenges, there's hard times when you can lean into them with joy as your undercurrent of superpower, of enthusiasm, of inspiration to keep going and to keep looking for the solution of how do we move through this. Especially as a leader, you can't just jump ship. You have to stand in the ship, even if it's going down. But that's where joy is the space, I believe, of miracles, where you have miracle possibilities. And I think about world leaders such as like His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the former Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and all of these phenomenal leaders who do embody joy or did embody joy and have brought that as the basis of who they are to workability to actually achieve unprecedented outcomes. And so that's where joy is where we start, not what we wait for and strive for.

Helping Others Without Dimming Your Light

SPEAKER_00 34:46

Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, and that energy is infectious. I think our teams, our families, our communities are attracted to that energy for the most part, and they're more likely to listen or to value what we're trying to contribute when we're coming from that place. And for a lot of our listeners today, who are counselors, therapists, people working with others who are going through some challenges, there can be this feeling like if we're joyful, I might feel guilty working with people who are depressed. Like I need to carry their pain, or they might resent me if I'm joyful. Part of this might depend on how we define joy, but I'm curious if you have a message to those of us who are working in sort of a counseling or therapeutic role, working with those who are going through tough times, allowing us not to feel, say, guilty per se, or stuck in those energetic loops.

SPEAKER_01 36:02

Oh, I love that you asked this. And I think it's so important to recognize this that having compassion for where your clients are at or your students is really important. And I'm assuming, I'm pretty sure it's safe to assume that we've all been there at some point. So we can have empathy for that. But that's also where it's important to pull back into compassion and have that awareness of wow, I know what it feels like to be where you're at. And yet recognizing that you can't be so sad that you can help someone be joyful. You can't live in lack and teach someone abundance. You can't be sick and provide health for people. And so it's loving encouragement and reminder that you're meant to be the demonstration of the joy and the possibility and the light and the path forward and the hope. And you can't do that if you're essentially in the boat with them. You gotta be the rescue boat and pull them into yours. And so the encouragement is by all means, do not feel guilty. Feel proud because you are of greater service being in your joy, being in your wholeness, and then compassionately inviting them. Some can come leaps and bounds, and some of it's incrementally, to move through their state, knowing that you're meant to be this bright beacon of light. You can't dim your light to help someone else shine theirs. I actually did a post on this not that long ago. Like an unlit match or flame can't light another flame.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

Yeah, I think a lot of us want to get into their boat. That doesn't work out quite as well.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

No, sitting in a rescue boat with no oars together, like where is that serving anyone?

The Joy Led World Vision

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Thank you for those metaphors. Those are really helpful. So you've published your book, Joy Anyway. As this takes on life and unfolds as say a movement, what cultural shifts would you like to see? And how would you like this to look like ten years down the road in how we think about these teachings and live them in different parts of our lives?

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Gosh, ten years from now, with this joy movement, really just seeing the world and the people around me and people online authentically being in their joy and authentically encouraging others to do the same. The thing is, for each of us to be in our joy, it requires very loving self-nourishment, nurturing care by many respects. That's considered selfish, self-centered. To have this movement where people, leaders especially, are leading from this space of joy, where they are incorporating more and more joy to the everyday in the workplace and encouraging it in the personal lives, the movement would truly be more workability in the world. It would be more possibility in the world. And even kind of like going back to that conversation we just had about leadership. The world would just sound kind of probably cheesy, but the world would be a better place.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

Because if we could be more loving and accepting of ourselves and our joy, then we're more available of others and theirs. And there's just more kindness and compassion that gets to go around. And then that's the space where people are more generous with the flow of economics, just more people being available to creative solutions because I believe everything is figure outable. I know that's a great book. I believe everything is work-throughable. I believe with the joy on our hearts and this mission of joy anyway and audaciously go your way would truly make this world even more brighter and loving and just wonderful. I feel like in cue the music. But it would be truly credible to see more and more political leaders, more and more business owners leading with this factor. And for our children and children's children and future generations to really recognize that it's fulfilling even more the meaning of life. That in that space of us all having room for our joy and recognizing that it fulfills an even more beautiful mosaic of life, that for our world and our population to come, that the world and the environment, everything would be thriving even more.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

Yeah, cueing the music.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

I know it does sound kind of fluffy and cute. And so I kind of laugh as I'm sharing this because we're talking about energy here, that even the joy energy causes the environment to flourish more. You know, getting into like the metaphysical of things, it does sound kind of fluffy and cute. And everything else, I want to be clear, like it doesn't mean we're not going to still have challenging times. I still have challenges that I grow through, and yet more people will be able to move forward and not be stuck and to have hope and help and support and really recognize that this gift of life is that. And so I wish I could say something more tangible, but on all the levels cultural, political, economic, environmental, we will see vast improvement with this movement of joy.

Book And Resources Closing

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Jan Ho, thank you so much for your encouragement, your care, your infectious joy, all these reminders of just owning you and the audaciousness of possibility and accepting what's here with care and gentle awareness. And thank you so much for sharing all this. I encourage everyone listening to check out Jan's book, Joy Anyway. You can find it on Amazon. We'll put a link in the show notes. Please also go to janhoth.com where you can find out more about her teachings, her offerings, her year-long challenge for women, her speaking events, everything that she's up to these days. Jan, I really grateful for your work in the world, for your influence on our world. You're certainly helping me stepping into my joy right now. And thank you for coming.

SPEAKER_01 43:02

Oh my gosh, thank you for allowing me to come bring joy to mindfulness exercises podcasts. And to you, I so appreciate you and your work in the world. So it's been really an honor to bring joy, and it's such a magnificent blend of mindfulness and joy. I really, really do believe is the way forward for this world. So thank you, Sean. It's been such a pleasure, and thank you to all of our listeners. Thank you for tuning in and just wishing everyone so much joy to the world.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

Yeah, thank you, everyone.