Where Does Joy Reside?

This week someone asked me, “Does it need to be this hard?”

She was talking about the entrepreneur life. “It’s just not fun anymore. My life has become wave after wave of relentless challenges. Where has the fun gone in doing stuff in my day-to-day existence?”

“Where does joy reside?” my friend blurted out.

This problem has been meditated upon for millennia.

All religious and philosophical texts contain a version of the aphorism, life is difficult.

Buddhism begins its four noble truths with, ‘Life is suffering’.

The first line of M.Scott Peck’s classic book on spirituality The Road Less Travelled is, ‘Life is hard’.

In the Bible, the somewhat dramatic book of Ecclesiastes starts out with, ‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’

That life is tough is a truth that we can’t hide from - certainly not here in South Africa.

So then, in amongst life’s vicissitudes, where can we find joy?

Last week Friday, Randall and I got to hang with a remarkable human, Doc Carla Enslin (above), founder of Vega School.

Vega School is one of the top creative facilities in South Africa. At my former business, a digital creative agency, we used to actively seek Vega alumni due to the consistent high-standard of work they produced.

In the Heavy Chef studio, Carla and I spoke about design thinking, brand strategy and the importance of fostering a creative culture.

Carla’s recipe will be coming soon on HC. Doc Carla will also be live on stage at June’s Heavy Chef event on the 22nd in Cape Town.

Join us, there are still tickets available.

I’ll be MCing and sharing the stage with Carla and Richard Perez, the founding director of the UCT Hasso Plattner d-school.

One of my takeaways from the Friday interview with Carla was the sheer joy she takes in her work. Her passion for design has endured after decades at the helm of Vega.

As it happens, design is one of our key ‘ingredients’ at Heavy Chef. We believe that, in a world of noise, it’s design that will help us rise above it.

One of the my favourite TED talks, Where Joy Hides by Ingrid Fetell Lee, underpins this point.

In it, Lee connects the dots between aesthetics and intent. She concludes that great design can solve the significant challenge of inspiring us to live happier, more productive lives.

It is both the process and the outcome of design that is important.

Tapping into our innate creativity is perhaps more important than we may believe.

We can use our inherent creativity to design joy, in our own lives and the lives of the communities we serve.

Personally, I believe that the art of entrepreneurship is life’s most potent manifestation of sheer creativity.

Think of an artist. He has an idea and then uses the constraints of canvas to project his artistic expression.

Now, think of an entrepreneur. She has an idea. She then has to project that expression and also create the canvas upon which it is projected.

Entrepreneurship is a form of meta-creativity.

It’s the ultimate form of expression, which can be used to design new exciting solutions to old existing problems.

And there can be joy in that process, despite it being incredibly challenging.

Yesterday, I spent an inspiring day with a crew of entrepreneurs and trainers at FNB’s shiny Portswood building in Cape Town’s Foreshore.

One of the success stories of the day was a young CEO named Luyando. He started a business designing solutions for businesses to amplify their brands in disconnected communities.

I asked him what gave him the edge. Luyando replied, “The training programme designed by FNB and [ESD trainer] Fetola was designed to inspire me and give me confidence”.

Luyando was a bubbling supply of enthusiasm to his fellow delegates and clients.

The process and outcomes of good design can solve some of our greatest hardships.

Perhaps it can also manifest and spread joy.

Peace -