The Joy First Audit

What my 75/100 says about how I'm living what I teach

TL;DR

Links for more info:

• Join us on Substack
• Get your Brand Audited by Nic
  
• Book a Call with Nic
• 48 Hr Brand Refresh
  
• Joy First Founders' Circle Community

 

Recording with a Squeaky Toys

So I hope you can hear this, but as I sit down to record this podcast, it's in the evening.

I had to get through bedtime and dinner and swimming with the kids. I said hello to my husband who just came home from paddle. So it's not exactly been a conducive environment recording a podcast. Then I sat down in the living room with my tea and my dog to finally record... and of course... the second I start talking, she jumps up, gets a squeaky toy and starts going to town.

So I stopped recording and then I just started recording again because I'm like, of course. And you know what? This is part of it. I'm going to see if we can hear her for a second. Hold on.

[squeaky toy sounds]

And then she tries to eat the mic. So I am going to carry on because if I don't record this podcast, it will never happen. And I feel like this is absolutely perfect for a topic today.

When Do We Ever Take a Step Back?

Today we are talking about the audit, about the baseline. And I feel like it is so hard in our lives as they rush past us to see the forest for the trees. It is so easy to get so swept up in the moments, in the deadlines, in the meals, in the calories, in all of it. And just sort of forget.

One of the things that I love doing in my business is a brand audit. People send me their stuff. I have a look at it. I go deep in archetypes and color psychology and design and copy and color and imagery. And I do a video and I send it back. And it's such a good big picture bit of advice about what it is, what it could be, where I see tensions.

And oftentimes it does really take an objective observer to be able to offer that stuff. I have to get that stuff for my business, even though I'm an expert in this stuff. But when it comes to our lives, when do we ever take a step back and take an audit? When do we ever take a step back and really analyze where we are?

The Happiness Quiz I've Been Using Since 2015

Way back in 2015, I've talked about this a couple of times on the podcast, but I started my first, I guess we'd call it a group coaching program, even though I don't call myself a coach. I'm a consultant. The main difference I see between coaching and consulting is that coaches ask you questions and help you figure it out yourself, and consultants give you the answers. I've never been certified as a coach. I'm not a coach. I do offer advice, but typically it is as a consultant. I am a strategist. I analyze problems and I give advice based on what I see.

Anyway, when I started that group coaching program, I called it a boot camp. It was for pet photographers. And one of the very first things I implemented was this happiness quiz. And it was meant to establish a baseline. Then when I started my membership for pet businesses, it was one of the first things you did when you came in. You took this happiness quiz to establish a baseline.

And part of that was because my promise for these programs, what I was really trying to help people do is create freedom and fulfillment. Being an entrepreneur does definitely not set you up automatically to be free and fulfilled the way you think you will when you quit your corporate job and, you know, neither does parenting or just about any of the tough but worth it things we take on in our life, dog ownership, often not creating a lot of freedom.

Understanding the Gap

And so sometimes we step into these things wanting one thing and getting another and it really is useful to understand as we go about creating growth, seeking improvement, understanding where we are now. When we go into companies and we look at, you know, brand, brand culture, the work we do with the Joy First methodology in bigger companies, the very first thing we do is an audit. It is so important to understand where people are now so that when we figure out where they want to go, we're able to understand the gap and close that gap.

So this episode today is about the Joy First Audit. It is about the quiz that I've created that is a modified version of that happiness baseline that I've been using for a decade. It's really solid, it's really useful, and I have just put myself through it again for the first time in years. I haven't actually done this for several years. I used to do it every year as a part of my end of the year sort of reflection and summing up inside my planner.

But I've not done it for a few years and it was really eye opening. I have tweaked it along with the Joy First methodology. And so I'll walk you through it in a minute and I'll tell you where you can go grab it for yourself.

Why This Audit Matters Right Now

But one of the things that I think is so important and useful about this is that when we are in the situation I was tonight, when we are in the bedtime and the, you know, for me, because I'm experiencing so much stress and anxiety on top of just the normal stuff with hormones and all kinds, which we'll talk about in a minute when we get to the vitality part of the audit. Like I really struggle to get through some of the day-to-day, really day-to-day stuff, the driving to swimming and figuring out dinner and getting the kids to bed. I find the stress levels of that unbelievable.

I've just spent a weekend away at a writing retreat, which has been glorious. It was four days of writing, someone else cooking and bringing me tea, uninterrupted work sessions, only breaking for snacks and a bit of chat, and then another uninterrupted work session, uninterrupted sleep, a bath. I mean, a sea view. What more could you want?

Coming Home to Myself

And I felt amazing when I came home. I came home a couple days ago and my mood has been light and I've had so much patience and I've been like jumping from task to task and getting so much done and so creative. I've just been in this great, great place.

And then today, like a tsunami, I got hit with all of the stress of the normal stuff. I'm not done with this thing, but it's time to pick up the kids and we need to do this. And then there was situation on the playground, which made me late, and then I forgot one thing, and then that led into something else, and then I didn't get the tacos, so I've got to drop the kids off at Swimming with Dad and go back to the grocery store and then go pick them up and then drop Dad off at Paddle and then, oh my God, you know, you know. Whatever stresses you have in your life, you know. Kids or not, you know, you get it.

And one of the things I realized by having that time away is A, how important that is because I was such a better person. When I got back, I could, like, I recognized myself again. I was like, this is me, there she is. Like, she's relaxed, she's happy, she's fun. She's like, not a nightmare to live with. Hello.

From Swirling Mess to Clear Action

And how important it is to kind of stop and take a minute. And what's been really useful for me about going through this audit is seeing the places where I have the most work to do, most of them are not a surprise, and also seeing the place where I'm 15 out of 15, where I'm like, wow, I am absolutely nailing that one, which is great.

And I love this sort of activity because it gives you a working checklist, right? It gives you a really clear picture of where to focus your energy to improve, and it really takes it out of that big swirling messy mass and into super clear super actionable next steps.

So let's talk about this Joy First Audit. Let's talk about what it is and what it's going to do for you and your life.

What Is the Joy First Audit?

So I'm calling this the joy first audit, but the number that it's spitting out, I'm calling a pulse. Let's take our pulse. Let's take our joy pulse. And whether you call it the pulse or your joy number, the idea here is it's a score out of a hundred. And after you take the quiz, you will be able to kind of see where you stand.

So I've just taken mine and I am 75 out of a hundred. Not bad. I'm okay with that. I know where I have work to do. None of it is a surprise. And I'm okay with that.

And one of the very cool things, because apparently this is what I do now, is that I was like, I don't wanna build a quiz for you. I've got a really easy Google Doc you can use, but I'm like, I wanna build a chat GPT for you. So you can go sit down, get asked questions, answer those questions and get given a score and get given next steps and then have a conversation about those next steps.

So I have built not just the audit but a really cool little chat co-pilot to help you take the audit and come up with some really good next steps. So I'll tell you how you can find that in a minute. But it's a very handy tool. It was very useful for me.

The 6 Categories

So let's talk about this audit. It's six categories, okay? And these six categories are, you know, they're based on a lot of things. There's a lot of the sort of coaching wheel of the year, wheel of life stuff in there. It's the basics, vitality, security, connection, joy, environment and purpose. There's a lot of the joy codes woven in here.

And it was really interesting to go back to the happiness quiz and look if there was like, anything missing or overemphasized or under-emphasized. And it was pretty spot on. I was pretty proud of 2015 year old version of me who came up with that. It was pretty good. We've just reorganized it a little bit, added a few questions and tweaked a few things.

So those of you guys who've been in my world a while, you'll remember that sort of happiness quiz and getting your magic number. And this is an updated version of that.

My Results: 75 out of 100

My lowest scores were Vitality and Security.  

My highest score was in purpose, 15 out of 15. That was a nice one to see. And then I was really high in Connection and Joy, which is also nice to see. And then my third highest was Environment. And that was 12 and a half out of 15. So all in all, 75 out of 100.

And what I'm going to take you through over the next few episodes is each one of these sections one at a time. So we'll do vital. We'll do next. We'll do it. So what I'm going to do in the next few episodes is we're going to have a look at joy as it relates to each one of these categories, which I think will be really fun. I'll share a little bit of what I'm doing, a little bit of what my clients have done and give you some really good next steps for each of the categories.

But today I just wanted to give you a brief overview of the audit as a whole and share a little bit about how it's going to work and where you can find this for yourself, how you can go take it and report back because I would love to know.

Starting on Substack

So that brings me to another interesting point, which is, as I mentioned last time, I am building a sub stack right now. Now, what I didn't know, which is super handy, is that my friend Angela, who I went away with last weekend for my writing retreat, is in the process of starting a Substack agency. Hello. Very cool. Let me know if you want her details.

And so it was great to kind of bounce some questions off of her and see how she's building hers and get some tips and advice, et cetera. And one of the things that became very clear for me is that our Substack is going to become the sort of the silo or the ground for all this lifestyle stuff, all the B2C, as I would call it, the stuff that isn't about business and brand, the stuff that's about life, the stuff that's about your closet, your home, how the Joy First methodology is fitting into your life.

And what was really important to me for building that out was having a place where we could really connect, where we could have an actual conversation and not just me putting these podcasts out into the ether. And so Substack provides that.

Three Levels of Substack

So there's going to be three levels of our Substack. We are still in the process of building it, but you can go sign up for any of these levels right now.

There's a free one, obviously, where we will do some basic stuff. I'm doing some vlogging, so there'll be lots of vlogs coming out there. I've recorded loads of these already, and we're in the process of editing them and getting those uploaded.

There is a paid level, which is extremely affordable and cheap. It is $5 a month or $49 for the year. And there is going to be some fabulous stuff in here. This is just where I'm gonna shove everything that I'm working on. We are gonna have recipes. We are gonna have things like that chat that I mentioned, that GPT. I'll build some GPTs out for you as they come along. And the audits there.

We are going to have, once we have a hundred paid members, tell your friends, I will start doing a monthly color club where I will do a live call and I will walk you through a particular color and I will let you know in advance what that color is going to be. And my sort of hope and suggestion is that we all color or paint or draw or something with that color while we connect.

You don't only have to use that color. You can just do coloring if you want to. But what I'd really like to do is build up, you know, this really fun storytelling and, you know, psychology around this color so that you can feed yourself with that color and what that color has to offer you as we connect and chat. And so once we have 100 paid members, I will start doing that once a month, which I am really, really looking forward to.

Self-Publishing and KDP

I'm also looking forward to putting in some coloring books and some other really cool stuff, maybe some journals. My friend Angela is also like a KDP Amazon like whiz she published and like actually published to Amazon like three books in three days. Amazing. But I have self-published one book and I've published one book with a traditional publisher. The book I'm writing now, Joy First, I am going to publish with a traditional publisher, but I actually really like self-publishing.

I have not been into KDP, which is the platform that you can self-publish on Amazon, in a very, very long time. I finally got my log in and I looked at like, how many books have I sold here? I have no idea. I get royalties every month, but they're tiny and I have no idea. So I still actually really need to look up that number. I think it's about 3,000 or so, but we have about a hundred reviews on Amazon, which I thought was pretty good for a little self-published book that I haven't promoted ever.

And so I'm really excited about getting some things off my plate so I can make some of these things for you so that you can get them in physical, tangible form. Things like journals, things like coloring books, because I think that's going to be really important part of our work together is how to, you know, how I can support you and me. I want to use these things too, to, you know, create these little joy spaces, create these little rituals and habits that are really good for our joy and well-being.

So. Anyway, to be continued, that stuff will all get dumped into the paid.

My Super Cool New Plan...

And then our founding member level, this is very cool, very excited about this. I have a signature course called Color Joy, which has got rave reviews and it's been a beautiful source of wonderful stories and transformations for the book. But it's a course for helping you find your colors and navigating the crossover between like color analysis and what you look like and personality and the colors that you like.

Because what happens for a lot of people is they take our personality test, they find out they're a fireside, woohoo, it totally matches the brand, they feel awesome, they have their colors done, they find out they're a winter, and they're like, oh crap, winter, which I call star shine, and fireside, they're really different color palettes. How do I do this? If I'm one thing and my brand is another, how do I show up in my brand? How do I do this? Or I look like a winter, but the colors I like are really warm and muted. Like, how do we do this?

And so it's a program to help you find that, manage that tension, find your colors, find your personal style. And it's basically taking what I do for brands and applying it to life. It's really cool. It's really fun. And that is going to live inside Substack moving forward.

And I am also, as you might've guessed, building out a really juicy AI tool for that that will actually help you analyze your colors and your personality type and blend it together so that you don't have to do all this thinking on your own. You can actually get support. Understanding tonal harmony and color harmony and your style persona and all this stuff. I'm really excited about that. So that is going to be coming to the founding member level of Substack.

Still Building It All Out

Like I said, we're building all of this stuff out now. I hope to have all this stuff pretty well ironed out by the end of the month. If you want, you can go join now. I won't stop you. But we'll be slowly adding things between now and the end of the month as we complete them. I've recorded loads of vlogs. And like I said, those are coming up soon. And I think it's going to just be a really fun, really real space.

And as I've been going through that process as I've been, you know, if you've listened to this podcast for a little while, then you know that I've been sitting for about two years with where I want to double down in my marketing channels. And I have made a couple really big decisions, one of them being Substack. Another one is that I am going to really focus on talking about life, talking about joy first, talking about color, talking about our homes and our lives in a much bigger way.

And I'm going to keep talking about B2B stuff, business stuff, but that's gonna mostly be over on LinkedIn.

My Three A's for Showing Up

And so what I needed to do is I needed to create some rules for myself. And I thought you might appreciate these because I thought you might be in a similar place. I've heard this from a lot of my clients. It's a conversation I hear coming up a lot. And I think you might like these.

I've created three rules for myself to guide my Substack journey and they are going to keep me on track doing the right thing in the right place. They're my three A's.

1. Authentic Over Polished

And the first one is authentic over polished. I'm sure nobody can relate to perfectionism but what is really true for marketing right now is that perfection just isn't hitting. It's just not relatable as AI builds. We've got to be more real. We've got to be more ourselves. We've got to be willing to look ugly. We've got to be willing to look imperfect online.

And for me, the rule that goes along with authentic over-polished is the message and the mission are more important than my ego, period. So if that means showing up in my pajamas with no makeup or in bad lighting or in my car, so be it. That's what has to happen. Authentic over-polished.

A big part of what this also means is showing you the real instead of showing you what I'd rather show you. So showing you the whole picture, not zeroing in on the small pretty piece, showing you the ugly along with the pretty and really kind of letting you behind the curtain of what's really going on instead of just sharing the stuff that feels safe.

And that is why I've created the sort of paid private area in the sub stack because that helps me feel a bit safer being more vulnerable with you, that I know that the people who are in that space are people who will hopefully benefit from that, who will understand it and that we can kind of grow and share together. So a lot of that is, you know, again, not just showing the curated pretty stuff, but showing all of it.

2. Art Over Algorithm

The next rule is art over algorithm. And this one's really important to me because a big part of what I'm excited about for this is keeping it fun, keeping it creative, allowing myself to spend time and energy on it in a way that feels joyful instead of in a way that feels like trying to please the algorithm.

So if I'm ever down to a choice between self-expression and desire or creativity versus what the algorithm prefers, it's gonna be art first, period.

So just because the algorithm on Instagram prefers reels, I'm still gonna just put up photos because I am a fucking photographer. Like, it is how I communicate. So not every post is for views or reach or whatever. I am in this for the art of it as much as I am for any kind of growth or benefit from it because I am desperate for a place to have that creative outlet that I just haven't had for a really long time.

So I have always kind of held strong around not quote unquote dancing for the algorithm when I've done TikTok or reels. Like I'm not jumping on trends to the point where I have to just do silly dances to get views. Like that's not what this is for me.

And so the way I choose to do this is art over algorithm. And what that means is, you know, kind of goes back to the first one being authentic, over-polished. It means testing things that won't work. It means probably boring you sometimes with shit you're not interested in. It means having videos that are longer than 12 seconds. And it also means, you know, being able to experiment without fear of things that, quote unquote, don't work.

Letting Go of Platform Pressure

And this isn't another important one for me as well because I'm in the process of building a platform for my book. And so that's really clouded my judgment as I'm like, I have to grow, I have to grow somewhere quickly because I spent my career being the secret weapon in other people's businesses. I have not really spent my career building up my own channels or becoming an influencer or, you know, using my skills for good in terms of my own channels.

I built up huge channels when I was at Dog is Good and we built up some decent sized channels for working with dog, but I've just not put any energy into anything other than that since then. So I've really been kind of sitting with what do I want to focus on and where do I want to do that? And then I felt like, gosh, I've really got to do it quickly for this book because I need this platform.

And I've let go of that because I have a pretty good platform without having 50,000 followers on Instagram. I have a lot of other things going for me. And I've just released that as a need to do quickly because it's just making me crazy and I thought TikTok might have some easy wins and there have been some easy wins.

I've just checked. I just got like 30 new followers and like 4,000 new likes or something because that Disney video I did about the Disney castle, you might have heard me talk about this before, just keeps blowing up. It's at like two days ago, it was at 650,000 views. Today, it's at 270,000 views. Like it's just, it's crazy.

So that was a quick win, but that was pretty much the only one for me on TikTok. And I've grown more on TikTok since I've not been posting for a couple of months than I did while I was posting like three times a week.

So anyway, art over algorithm.

3. Action Over Perfection

The third one is action over perfection. And this one is kind of similar to the first, except that it is much more about prioritizing consistency and activity over getting it perfect.

I have a really complicated relationship with perfection and I'm sure many of us do, but the problem is it's really exacerbated by the work I do in branding because it is very, very important to me that the brands I build for my clients are absolute perfection. The perfect logo, the perfect images, the perfect colors, the perfect shapes, the perfect brand guidelines, like I throw my heart and soul into what I create for all of my branding clients and I am extremely discerning.

And I work extremely hard and I go the extra mile as whenever and always possible to make sure that the brands that I produce and that I hand over are perfection in every way. Like it's not good enough for me to just do what I said I would do and give you a brand. Like I have to feel like it's perfect, which is a, you know, it's a lot.

And because I do that in my work, obviously that continues to feed the perfectionism monster, which makes it really hard to not do it in my life.

The Problem With Perfect Branding Content

And I notice that a lot of branding content that's out there is very, very, very perfect, which is great, right? Because what we're trying to say is, hey, I'll make you a perfect brand. But what I think the problem is with that is it continues to feed this like not enoughness monster where people see, you know, the perfect feed with the perfect branding and all the perfect things. And it just makes us feel like crap that our brand isn't that perfect.

And so as someone who works really hard to create brands that are perfect and someone who is battling perfectionism in their life, I want to bring you something that isn't perfect to show you the full spectrum of what it means, especially behind the scenes, to be running a business.

And, you know, the brand will come. When you're ready, the perfect stuff, the really pretty stuff, the amazing images, the beautiful color, like being able to invest in brand in a week, which is a huge investment, like those things will come. You don't need them to be happy. You don't need them for joy. You don't need them to be worthy. Like you don't need them to make a load of money. Like you just don't.

And I think what is really important to me as we move into this journey together is that I show up consistently without the burden of feeling like I have to have the perfect edited video before I can share it with you. And it's going to resonate with you or it's not. We'll see. We'll see. I'm sure we'll learn stuff along the way.

But what I also hope is that it gives you permission to just show up without that perfection, like nipping at your heels all the freaking time. Because who needs that?

How to Get the Audit

OK, so let's talk about how you can get this audit. Like I said, it's six categories. It is, the categories are weighted slightly differently. Sorry, Vitality and Security are weighted bit heavier than the others because let's be honest, they're really, really important.

The way you can go get this right now is to go sign up for our Substack at JoyFirstWorld. Just look up JoyFirstWorld on Substack and subscribe. And when you do that, you will get an email. In that email will be the link to this audit.

That is it. That is how you do it. And right now that's the only place you can get it because obviously I want to get you over there on our sub stack. And we will, like I said, be adding to the paid level very soon. It's not in there yet. A really cool GPT to help you have this conversation. And that'll be coming in the next couple of weeks.

So if you want to just jump into the paid one, feel free. It's five dollars a month or 49 for the year. And like I said, there's going to be loads of stuff that we're going to be dropping in between now and the end of the month and then ongoing from there.

So I would love to hear from you. If you jump in and take this audit, I'd love to hear your score. Let's start a thread in our private member chat about it. I will go ahead and start one there. So when you go do it, you can jump in and let me know what your score is and how you're doing with that.

Next Episode: The Vitality Audit

Next time, we are going to have a look at the vitality category. We're going to talk about it. We're going to talk about how not to do New Year's resolutions. We're going to talk about the stuff that really matters. We're going to talk a little bit about the research, about joy and vitality. And I'm going to share some of my personal journey. I've done some really cool vlogs about the stuff I'm already doing with my vitality edit for myself.

I'm gonna share a little bit about my weight loss journey because that's been a big part of my vitality piece as well as some other things. So yeah, I encourage you to go take that audit so that we can kind of play along together in that conversation next time.

Bi-Weekly Schedule + More on Substack

The other thing I just wanted to mention is we are back on a bi-weekly schedule on this podcast, so every other week, but there is a lot more happening on a regular basis. There will be between now and the end of the month in Substack as we build our rhythm and we build our structures and we build our tags and website and everything over there, that is a place where I'm going to be doing quite a lot of vlogging.

So there's going to a lot of video content. Of course, there will always be posts. There's a private podcast, which will also probably mostly be video. But that is a place where you can kind of connect more regularly if that's what you want to do.

As I mentioned, we are also creating new accounts on Instagram and TikTok. They're babies, but they're lovely. And those are both the Joy First World as well.

So welcome to the Joy First podcast. I know this was kind of a funny one, but I'm really, really excited for you to go take that audit, get your number, find your baseline and really start to understand where your biggest gaps are and prioritize those.

The Rule of Threes

As I've mentioned before in our community, the Joy First Founders Circle, we do a lot of planning and goal setting. There's a physical planner that comes with that group membership and I really encourage setting three goals.

And those goals are a revenue goal, a growth goal, which might be something personal or it might be something in business. It could be like your email subscribers or I want to run a 10K and a joy goal. And the joy goal is to offset the other two so that you're not working yourself into the ground because we are very anti hustle culture around here.

So if you want to keep that, take that, run with that. But I think the vitality audit is a really, really good place to look if you are still in your goal setting planning phase, if you're still figuring out your prioritizing.

And the other piece that goes along with that, I call it the rule of threes, is we set these three goals. And then every week I have three non-negotiables. And so a lot of times those will be aligned with those three goals. A lot of times they will be aligned with stuff like in this audit where it's like, okay, so I can see where my biggest gaps are in terms of where my joy is really in trouble. And those are the things I'm going to double down on while I kind of hover around everything else.

So if you're someone who struggles to prioritize, I definitely have throughout my life and career. Those tips I've found for myself and for my clients, I found really helpful. The three goals and the three weekly non-negotiables.

My Weekly Non-Negotiables

If you do join the Substack, I'd love for you to jump in that chat and let me know what numbers you're working on, what areas of the Vitality Audit, and what are those non-negotiables for you that you're going to be looking at this week.

So mine are often things like sleep, bedtimes, steps, water. In the past, it's been things like protein, hitting 100, 120 grams of protein every day.

And the reason those are my non-negotiables is because I find those so much harder than I find a lot of the work stuff, which I'm just gonna get done. The other thing along with these rule of threes we talk about is like max three to-dos every day, like three important things that are getting done in addition to the deadlines.

You can find out more about that if you wanna check out Planning Circle, Founder Circle, which is our community for founders. I'm happy to chat with you about that, but I'm hoping that those little tips, that little bit of advice is helpful.

Wrapping Up

And I'll wrap us up for today. I will see you next week to talk about the Vitality Audit. Hopefully you'll have a chance to check it out before then. And I'll see you then.

I hope this episode helps you find, choose, and share joy this week. If you're looking for a little joy to share, you know, why not share this episode with someone you think might appreciate it or send them last week's, get them started. You know, with season four, episode one, let's start at the beginning and go on this journey together.

I'm so grateful that you're here. Thank you so much and I'll see you next time.

xx -Nic