Joy First®

At sixteen I had it all figured out. I was going to be a veterinarian: I'd get to work with animals, I'd make a decent living, and I'd never have to be the broke, starving artist everyone warned me about. Then my boss...

Today was too hot to work. Schools shut, there were heat warnings and travel bans in London, and my garden office turned into a sauna. So instead of the day I had planned, I let the day become something else, and...

<h1>The first joy experiment: why ease is a better engine than discipline, and how to choose it.</h1><p><br></p><p>I wanted a cut flower garden for three years and did absolutely nothing about it, until I asked myself...

<h1>I have spent my career using colour as a precision instrument...</h1><p>For brands, for commercial photography, for building the kind of visual identity that makes people trust and buy. </p><br><p>But somewhere...

<h1>What if the most ordinary moment in your week turned out to be a joy ritual in disguise?</h1><p><br></p><p>In this episode, I'm sharing what I've been learning as I move deeper into my own 'Joy First experiments'...

<h1>Have you ever hit a milestone you'd been working towards for years, only to sit in the silence afterwards and think, is this it?</h1><p><br></p><p>This is the finale episode of the Joy First Audit series: where...

<h2>No matter what colours you choose, your environment is not neutral.</h2><p><br></p><p>The colours on your walls, the quality of your light, whether your bedroom feels like a sanctuary or a storage unit, these things...

<p>I'm recording this episode from my bed, at 6:30pm, surrounded by laundry, with a partially sedated dog, and with maybe 15 minutes before my kids come home. I cannot think of a more perfect setting for a conversation...

<p>Did you know the longest-running happiness study in history (Harvard) found that the number one predictor of a long, healthy, joyful life wasn't money or success, it was the quality of your...

<h1>Did you know that financial scarcity actually causes a measurable drop in IQ? </h1><p>Not just a feeling, actual cognitive impairment that changes how we make decisions, often making a hard situation significantly...

<p><br></p><p>This episode kicks off a 6-part series exploring each category of the Joy First Audit. Today (live from sunny Morocco ooh la la) we’re diving into Vitality: energy, hormones, time scarcity, and breaking up...

<p>Some episodes arrive perfectly lit, well-rested, and uninterrupted.</p><p>This was not one of them.</p><p>This one arrived after bedtime, dinner, swimming lessons, forgotten groceries, a squeaky dog toy, and that...

<h2>The Joy First Experiment Begins</h2><p><br></p><p>After three years of podcasting about joy, colour, and business, I'm doing something different.</p><p>Something scarier.</p><br><p>I've spent two decades teaching...

<h2>What if the thing you've been trying to resolve is actually your secret weapon?</h2><p><br></p><p>In this special New Years episode, Nic's mom is visiting from Seattle (complete with sourdough starter and yoga mat)...

<h1>We've been living backwards.</h1><p><br></p><p>The lives we've been encouraged to build, rooted in consumption, achievement, and constant productivity, keep pushing us further from what actually creates lasting...