Matt kicks off the week with joy on his mind — no articles, no data, just one tool worth stealing. He’s three weeks into a book club run by his friend and colleague Shannon Hernandez around her workbook Practical Joy: Simple Tools to Cultivate More Joy Every Day, and last week’s exercise stuck with him. It starts from a feeling most builders know: waking up and wondering how you ended up doing so much you don’t enjoy, your schedule packed with meetings at the wrong times, pedaling hard and quietly asking whether it’s worth it. Even a little off-track, Matt notes, carries a high cost — and there’s no perfect fix, but there is a way to see the drift clearly.
That’s the joy compass. Put a value that brings you real joy in the center — for Matt, it’s deep human connection — then draw the four directions. North is time: how does this value shape how you spend your hours? East is work: how do you want it to shape what you create, offer, sell, and how you operate? South is relationships: how does it shape the way you connect, collaborate, and ask for support? West is body and energy: how does it shape the way you care for your nervous system, your rest, your movement? Filling it out, Matt found himself reconsidering which meetings he takes and whether they should be in person, caught a blind spot (an auto-joining meeting recorder that quietly worked against connection with someone who wasn’t expecting it), and got the nudge to restart the Central Park walks that let him move and connect at once. Some of it revealed gaps; some of it simply validated what he already does for joy and reminded him to schedule the next one. His invitation: draw your own compass, find where you feel integrated with your value and where there’s a gap — because closing that gap is where a little more joy is hiding.
More about Shannon here: https://joyfulbusinessrevolution.com
