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Welcome to Highly Visible, A Little Misunderstood—where we explore life's most complex conversations with curiosity, vulnerability, and zero pressure to perform.
In this episode, you'll hear:
This is not a season of solutions. It's a season of questions—the kind you ask at your kitchen table late at night with people you trust. If you've ever felt conflicted about wanting more while fearing what that means about you, this season is for you.
Your responses may appear anonymously in the season finale as we reflect on what shifted together.
Timestamps
What if joy isn’t a destination but something already living inside you?
This is one of the conversations that never made it out during the Joy season—so bringing it to you now feels especially meaningful.
Tamara opens up about:
Jonathan reflects on his own upbringing, the legacy of joy passed down through his family, and the power of small moments that stay with us. There’s even a special moment featuring a voicemail from Jonathan’s mom that captures the heart of the entire episode: joy, love, and the quiet reminders that carry us forward.
If you’ve ever struggled to hold joy in a heavy season…
Joy is your birthright. Let this episode remind you of that.
💬 Join the Conversation!
🤝🏾 Connect with Tamara Wall
📚 Resources & Links
Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey → https://bookshop.org/a/79820/9780316365215
📬 Stay Connected:
Join us on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@HighlyVisiblePod
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🎛️ Production:
Produced & Edited by: Jonathan Dumas (@highlyvisiblepod)
Co-produced & Additional Editing by: Reggie Hall
Email: [email protected]
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What is joy really—and how do we keep returning to it, even when life feels heavy?
In this season finale of Highly Visible & A Little Misunderstood, Jonathan Dumas reflects on a whole season of On Joy—pulling together the most honest takeaways, tender moments, and practical tools from every guest. No fluff. No toxic positivity. Just real-life ways to practice joy in the middle of struggle, work, community, and everyday life.
We revisit conversations with Brandon Howard on joy in the body, Amani Roberts on creativity as muscle, Abe Medoff on somatics, Mimi Gonzalez on grief and creativity, Jennice Chewlin on joy as strategy at work, Ashmi Patel on joy guilt, Tiffany LeNoir on belonging, Louis Byrd on solution-oriented peace, and Shauntelle Carnegie on “joy-stacking” when life feels heavy.
Jonathan also shares his own confession—how he accidentally turned joy into a KPI—and what it took to re-learn joy as a practice, not a performance.
✨ What you’ll take away:
If you’re new here—start with these fan favorites:
We revisit conversations with:
Jennice Chewlin → Ep 99 | Joy at Work Isn’t a Perk—It’s a Strategy
💬 Join the Conversation
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Joy isn’t a perk you earn at the end of your to-do list—it’s a practice you build in the middle of real life.
In this episode of Highly Visible & A Little Misunderstood, Jonathan sits down with Jennice Chewlin—Latina mom, workplace wellbeing strategist, and founder of Chewlin Group—to unpack why joy at work is not “toxic positivity,” but a strategy for connection, trust, and sustainable impact.
We get into: how to stop confusing joy with happiness, why “design for joy, not just efficiency” changes meetings and morale, and what happens when leaders start small (think: human openers, meaningful celebrations, and collaborative “show & tell” lunches). Jennice shares the story of her dad biking across the border to med school—a masterclass in how struggle and joy can coexist—and we talk “mudita” (the joy we feel for someone else’s win), sport-as-reset (soccer/basketball), and how joy fuels collective healing and liberation without ignoring pain.
If you’re a people leader, culture-builder, or just a burnt-out human trying to feel human again at work, this one’s for you.
💬 Join the Conversation
🤝🏾 Connect with Jennice Chewlin
📚 Resources & Links
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What if you’re not stuck—just scared?
In this episode of Highly Visible & A Little Misunderstood, I sit down with Shauntelle Carnegie—multi-creative, employee experience strategist, and founder of Black Girl Season—to talk about the role of joy when life feels heavy.
Shauntelle opens up about navigating grief, breaking out of old narratives, and discovering that sometimes we’re not stuck at all—we’re just afraid to move. Together, we explore how humor, levity, and the small daily practices of care can create space for joy, even in the hardest seasons.
We ask:
This conversation is tender, real, and a reminder that joy isn’t just a fleeting feeling—it’s a practice that sustains us.
📚 Resources & Links
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What does it mean to find joy in the middle of problems that should never have existed in the first place?
In this episode of Highly Visible & A Little Misunderstood, I sit down with Louis Byrd, Chief Architect of Responsible Innovation at Zanago Design, to talk about how doing the hard, often frustrating work of fixing broken systems can still be a source of joy and purpose.
Louis shares how he stays grounded while working on solutions to issues that overwhelm most people, the surprising ways joy shows up in that process, and why influence isn’t always about the loudest voice in the room. We get into:
Whether you’re a changemaker, a problem-solver, or someone wrestling with the weight of the world’s mess, this conversation is a reminder that joy isn’t a distraction from the work — it’s what keeps us in it.
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🤝🏾 Connect with Louis Byrd
📚 Resources & Links
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#Podcast #BlackJoy #HighlyVisiblePodcast #Joy #ResponsibleInnovation #Housing #HousingJustice #RealEstateTransparency #DesignThinking #ProblemSolving #EthicalTech #AIEthics #Startups #Entrepreneurship #Community #Creativity #Midwest #Fatherhood #BlackPodcasts #BlackPodcaster #BlackPodcast
What if the thing that’s been missing from your pursuit of joy isn’t more achievement, motivation, or “thinking positive”—but a deeper reconnection to your own body?
In this grounded, expansive conversation, Jonathan Dumas sits down with somatic coach Abe Medoff to unpack how embodiment, breath, and emotional range aren’t just self-help buzzwords—they’re the sustainable infrastructure beneath real joy. Abe reframes joy not as a fleeting mood, but as a resource: something that emerges when we give ourselves permission to feel, release, and reclaim the parts of us that were taught to be shut down. Together they explore:
This episode is for anyone who’s tired of “hustle happiness,” curious about what it would feel like to really be seen (by themselves and others), or ready to start practicing presence in a way that sticks.
💬 Join the Conversation!
🤝🏾 Connect with Abe Medoff
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#Podcast #BlackJoy #HighlyVisiblePodcast #Somatics #Joy #Embodiment #EmotionalIntelligence #Breathwork #MentalHealth #Healing #SustainableJoy #Trauma-informed #BlackMen&Emotion #Community #Connection #JonathanDumas #AbeMedoff #Presence #PersonalGrowth #Self-Awareness
What if joy wasn’t a bonus after surviving the grind—but the intentional practice that sustains the work, heals the wounds, and builds community?
In this stripped-down minisode of Highly Visible & A Little Misunderstood, Jonathan Dumas shares powerful highlight moments from two women doing the internal and external work—Melany Del Carpio and Kenisha Coon. They unpack how ritual, self-expression, boundary-setting, and radical commitment to joy become both armor and repair in lives filled with equity work, identity navigation, and creative evolution.
What You’ll Hear:
Guests:
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#Podcast #BlackJoy #HighlyVisiblePodcast #OnJoy #RestCulture #WorkingMoms #MentalHealth #BlackPodcastCommunity #Joy&Career #BlackCreators #JoyRituals #RestIsResistance #Self-Expression #EquityWork #CommunityBuilding #RadicalJoy #MentalHealth #IntentionalLiving #IdentityReclamation #PersonalBranding #AuthenticLeadership #BoundarySetting #PodcastHighlights #Anti-Racism #JoyAsResistance #BurnoutRecovery
What if the biggest risk in your career isn’t walking away, but staying in a job that drains your soul?
Tiffany and Jonathan dive deep on:
Whether you’re a Black woman in tech, a working parent, or anyone wrestling with a career impasse, this conversation will remind you that joy isn’t a prize for later—it’s your birthright today.
💬 Join the Conversation!
What fears held you back? What unexpected freedom came when you finally said, “I deserve rest, I deserve joy, I deserve me”? Drop a comment below or send a voice note → https://form.smartsuite.com/sszxz4mn/sxwLOAg7ur
📚 Resources & Links
• Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey
Produced & Edited by: Jonathan Dumas
Co-Produced & Additional Editing: Reggie Hall
Contact: [email protected]
#Podcast, #BlackJoy, #HighlyVisiblePodcast, #OnJoy, #Burnout, #RestCulture, #CareerJoy, #TechIndustry, #BlackWomenInTech, #BlackWomeninSales, #WorkingMoms, #CareerPivot, #MentalHealth, #BlackPodcastCommunity, #QuitWithoutBackupPlan,#Joy&Career, #BlackCreators, #CorporateBurnoutRecovery
How do you keep choosing joy when your heart keeps breaking?
In this episode of Highly Visible & A Little Misunderstood, I sit down with Mimi Gonzalez—host of griefsense, Gen-Z storyteller, and grief worker—to explore how we carry loss, build legacy, and still find our way back to joy.
Mimi shares what it’s like to live with 36 funerals by age 29—and how grief reshaped her relationship with creativity, community, and rest. We talk about the weight of cumulative trauma, the loneliness of being a highly visible griever online, and the radical act of turning grief into art.
We also unpack:
This isn’t a conversation about “getting over it.”
📤How has grief reshaped your relationship with joy?
Send a voice note or message: https://form.smartsuite.com/sszxz4mn/sxwLOAg7ur
🤝🏾 Connect with Mimi Gonzalez
📚 Resources & Links
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🎛️ Production Credits
From the publisher's feed
Highly Visible & A Little Misunderstood is about providing space to chill in the nuance of the complex conversations shaping our society and culture. We ain’t about proving anyone wrong or even proving ourselves right, but we are exploring with our guests, and you all, how to do this thing called life.
New episodes drop every Thursday everywhere you get your podcasts.
Find us on
Youtube: youtube.com/@HighlyVisiblePod
Instagram: www.instagram.com/highlyvisiblepod/
TikTok: tiktok.com/@highlyvisiblepod
Support the show on Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/highlyvisiblepod