Choice #6 at the Soul of Leadership is Joy.
Some call it peace, enlightenment, satori, nirvana, or grace. Gino calls it Peace in Shine. I call it Joy, because when I experience it, there is always a lightness to it.
Anne Lamott says, “Peace is joy at rest. Joy is peace on its feet.”
Whatever you call it, it isn’t pleasure.
Pleasure is what we reach for when we don’t have joy.
Pleasure is outside-in.
It’s the short-term gratification. The self-soothing. The addictions we talked about in Discipline.
Joy is different.
Joy is intrinsic. Integral. Hardwired into who you are.
It doesn’t come from what happens to you.
It flows from how you choose to be.
So what gets in the way?
At the extreme, suffering comes from pain, loss, or hardship. But the real architect of suffering is not the event; it’s our complaint about the event.
The adversary of Joy is complaining.
Marcus Aurelius said, “Never be heard complaining… not even to yourself.”
Years ago, I learned why.
I collapsed on the north bank of the River Thames in London with excruciating pain. It felt like a lightning bolt shot through my spine and dropped me to the ground. It was so intense that, for a moment, I thought about pulling myself into the river and drowning just to escape it.
Then something inside me said, No.
I curled into a fetal position and said, “I want to live.”
In spite of everything, I want to live.
The pain did not decrease.
But in that moment, the suffering stopped.
Three days later, I came out of spinal surgery for a ruptured disc.
What I learned that day was this:
Fearlessness is possible.
Up until then, I believed only courage was real — acting in the face of fear. But that day I experienced something different. I felt gratitude just to be alive. And that gratitude dissolved fear.
That is the catalyst for Joy.
If you want to 10x your joy, turn your complaints into gratitude.
Complaint contracts your world.
Gratitude expands it.
Complaining makes you a victim of circumstances.
Gratitude makes you free within them.
And freedom is the soil where Joy grows.
Fearlessness creates absolute freedom.
When you are free from complaint, you are free to choose. And when you are free to choose, you can align your life with what you are uniquely built to do.
That alignment is Joy.
In EOS®, we call this Core Focus™.
For your company, it lives on the V/TO™.
But you have a personal Core Focus™ as well.
It’s found in the upper left quadrant of the Delegate & Elevate™ tool — your Unique Ability. The work that energizes you. The contribution that feels natural. The value that only you can create.
Joy is not found by escaping your life.
It’s found by stepping fully into your design.
So here’s the real question for Week 9:
What complaints are keeping you from your Core Focus™?
Sometimes they sound practical:
“I don’t have time.”
“Now isn’t the right season.”
“I have too many responsibilities.”
But underneath, they are deeper:
“Life is against me.”
“People can’t be trusted.”
“I’m not enough.”
“I don’t belong.”
These are not circumstances.
They are narratives.
And narratives can be rewritten.
Gino Wickman calls this “shedding” in Shine — shedding the identities and stories that no longer serve you.
Release the complaint.
Replace it with gratitude.
Gratitude that you are alive.
Gratitude that you have gifts.
Gratitude that you get to choose.
From that place, Joy is not something you chase.
It’s something you access.
Freedom from complaint.
Freedom to be yourself.
Freedom to do what you love and are great at.
That is Joy.
Next week, we’ll explore how Love and Joy together create an entirely new way of being and a new level of leadership.
I’ll see you at the top.
Until then,
Venture on,
Philip
