As you may know, in this season I’ve been sharing the top ten joy first decisions of my life in a nice orderly chronological countdown, and then yesterday happened and had to through out the plan and have this conversation instead. 

So, totally out of order, this is joy first decision #5, arriving early and slightly out of breath, with my friend Nicole Begley.

Not that many weeks ago I asked Nicole for ten minutes to hear me out on idea sort of related to our annual launch of the Commercial Pet Photography Academy - and I asked her to listen and not say no before she let me finish.

We have both spent nearly two years streamlining our businesses, cutting and refining programmes, and getting really good at saying no.

Well, long story short, it’s about 8 weeks later and here we are. Yesterday we launched a new brand, a new program, have merged significant revenue streams from our separate businesses into a shared one, and retired a launch we had a great time running for five or so years. 

This thing we’ve created is called the Creative Freedom Rebellion.

Today we’re exploring how you tell the difference between being flaky and moving into more alignment (something I refused to let myself do 2 yrs ago which made big, big problems for my biz). 

We also share the 4 things we’ve found our most successful clients have in common (even though their versions of freedom, joy and financial success were all quite different). 

And we talk about why neither of us wanted to build another room built on polite niceness where the house rule is that ‘we don't talk about that here’.

There is also a clip from the call we ran yesterday, including a really moving moment from one of our clients that I have not stopped thinking about.

Watch the full replay from yesterday: https://www.nicolebegleyedu.com/rebellion

Apply for the Creative Freedom Rebellion: https://www.nicolebegleyedu.com/rebel

Nicole's podcast: https://www.freedomfocusformula.com/blog

If this one lands, we would love to hear from you. xx -Nic & Nicole

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I finally opened the shop I'd wanted for a decade: A photography studio and pet boutique two minutes from my front door, in beautiful Southwest London. I signed a ten-year lease and invested £40,000 pounds in the business (most of which was spent on renovating the derelict space), and I named it 'Little & Large' after my Great Dane and French bulldog. It truly was a dream come true.

But not even two years in, I was clear that this investment, this beautiful dream was actually a big mistake.

In this episode (Joy First Decisions #3 and #4) I tell the whole story: the VAT I never understood, the freedom I lost, the guilt of realizing I'd built my own cage, and the decision I dreaded most which turned out to be the joy first decision in disguise. It's the one that led to Whyfinding®, to the work I actually love, to the next business which grew to six figures in eight months.

If you've ever hung onto something too long because quitting felt like failure, this one's for you.

In this episode:

• How to tell whether a decision is rooted in joy or fear

• Why joy doesn't always look shiny (and often asks for discomfort first)

• What closing the shop made possible that I never could never have foreseen

Go deeper on Substack: joyfirstworld.substack.com

If this resonated, follow the show and leave a review - thank you! See you next time for Joy First Decision #5

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My fiancé was a genuinely nice guy. We had a solid 8/10 life: there was no, drama, no red flags, and we were comfortable... which I guess is what made it so hard to explain why I was leaving.

Welcome to #2 number in our series on the Top 10 joy first decisions I've made. It's the story of why I called-off an engagement, packed-up and moved from Seattle to a L.A. and wrote a very important list of 200 things. It's also the story of what happened five months later at a wedding in a Bavarian-themed town... where a handsome guy handed me his business card.

In this episode:

- The question I kept asking myself (and why the answer sits inside the question)

- What I discovered about my relationship that made me end it

- The list of 200, and the worthiness work that it kicked-off

- The hives, the joint pain, and the parts of this decision that were truly brutal

- What made me deciding I was willing to be alone forever

- How I met the man of my dreams (complete with sexy British accent)

Go deeper on Substack: joyfirstworld.substack.com

xx -Nic

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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 at the vet clinic looked at some photographs I'd taken at the clinic and asked me one question that blew the whole plan out of the water.

This is the first in a 10-part series where I walk back through the biggest joy first decisions of my life, the ones that felt a little (or a lot) reckless at the time, and look at how they actually turned out. This one is about choosing passion and creativity over the responsible plan, dropping out of art school the same day I brought home a Great Dane puppy, and building a career in a risky field that didn't really exist yet.

In this episode:

- Why the "starving artist" fear runs so much deeper than money

- The moment I realized what I wanted and what I'd planned were two different things

- How a tiny, tightly niched photography business taught me everything about branding

- The joy lesson under it all: joy is not an indulgence, it's information

Come and go deeper on Substack at Joy First World, https://joyfirstworld.substack.com/ and take the Joy First Audit to find your current joy pulse... and maybe get a nudge in the next right direction for more joy in your life.

And if this one lands, for you I'd love a review. Help us help new listeners find us.

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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 somewhere between a slow coffee with my father-in-law, a grocery shop where my brain refused to cooperate, a garden picnic, and water fight with the kids, and a barefoot evening watering the plants, I realised the whole day had been one big joy first experiment.

This one is recorded late, off the cuff, and a bit un-edited (you get to see exactly how last-minute this show sometimes is). But showing you all of it felt like the honest thing and very in the spirit of what this season is all about: what joy actually looks like in the messy middle. Not the pretty, pre-planned, beautifully spacious version we put on a pedestal.

In this episode:

• Why joy first living is a series of small choices (not one grand cinematic gesture)
• The "judgey clipboard lady" in your head, and what changes when she takes the day off
• Why entrepreneurs never seem to get the free passes everyone else does
• How to keep a commitment without letting time-scarcity turn you into a jerk
• Integrating joy into the chores and the to-do list, rather than treating it as separate

Take the Joy FIrst Audit Substack: https://joyfirstworld.substack.com/t/joy-first-audit

If this show gives you something, a review on Apple Podcasts helps more people find it. And come and find me on YouTube, where these episodes go up as videos too: https://www.youtube.com/@JoyFirstWorld/videos

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I wanted a cut flower garden for three years and did absolutely nothing about it, until I asked myself the question I've been putting to my clients for over a decade: what would be easy? ( £80 and 2 pre-treated wood 'build-your-own' kits later, I had one.)

This is the first of the Season 4 joy experiments, and it's a big one: choosing ease and joy on purpose, and why that's a better engine than discipline.

In this episode:

• The two questions that change the energy you bring to just about everything, and why that energy is so important.

• The dog-training science behind my dislike of the word discipline, drawn from years working with Victoria Stilwell

• The honest caveat about joy vs comfort

• Why frameworks make better scaffolding than gospel, and the human design insight (with Jazze Jervis) that reorganised how I work

• Real "what would be easy" decisions, from the flat-pack flower beds to where values complicate convenience

LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:

• WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/FZgvz4V7Vfs
• How and why I ditched discipline: https://www.instagram.com/p/DZMyoCCsyN-/
• Forbes article | Comfort & Joy: https://www.forbes.com/sites/nelldebevoise/2026/06/09/comfort-and-joy-are-not-what-you-think/
• Find your colour personality type (the quiz): https://go.jnicholesmith.com/quiz
• Go deeper with us on Substack @joyfirstworld: https://joyfirstworld.substack.com
• Free Summer Alignment Sessions on alignment: https://go.joyfirstworld.com/summer
• Our Joy First Founders' Circle community: https://go.joyfirstworld.com/jffc
• Jazze's free 'Find your Human Design' tool: https://www.jazzejervis.com.au/generate-your-chart-nic 

If this resonated, subscribe and leave a review. It helps more people find their way to a bit more joy.

With love, xx Nic

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For brands, for commercial photography, for building the kind of visual identity that makes people trust and buy.

But somewhere along the way, I forgot to use it for myself.

This is the first of our joy experiment episodes dedicated to colour, and it is a bit of a confession. Because even as a colour psychology expert, I got so caught up in life lifing, that I stopped consistently putting colour to work as an intentional joy practice on the day-to-day... Something I purposefully set out to rectify this year.

In this episode I walk you through how that is changing: from the rainbow placemats pulled out of a cupboard, to the home renovation I have been putting off for five years, to getting my own colours done properly and discovering I am a Seaside even though my entire personality is Fireside. And the moment I realized doing in-person colour analysis for others, in Lancashire, is one of the most joyful things I have added back into my work.

What we cover:

— Why colour is one of the most underused joy tools we have (even though it is free and accessible right now)

— The specific ways I am using colour for joy this year

— The fear that stops most of us being brave with colour in our homes, and what I think it is really about

— What happened when a colour expert finally got her own colours done

— Why I started offering in-person colour consultations in Lancashire

— What colour harmony actually feels like when you find it for yourself

If you want to find your own colour and personality type, take the quiz: https://go.jnicholesmith.com/quiz

And if you want to go deeper with your personal colours, including the AI tool I built to help you bridge what looks good on you with what you actually love, that is inside the Joy First Substack at https://joyfirstworld.substack.com/ - Available to founding members.

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In this episode, I'm sharing what I've been learning as I move deeper into my own 'Joy First experiments', and why the most surprising discoveries have had almost nothing to do with that big 'jump up and down' version of joy.

Today we're talking about the science behind visual progress loops and how your mundane chores can genuinely light up your brain. We revisit the 10 Joy Codes and look at how a single ordinary activity can stack multiple codes at once. And I want to challenge the version of joy that most of us have been sold: the everything-is-amazing version that, if we're honest, isn't most of life.

Sometimes joy is just medicine. Sometimes it's the thing that keeps you going, not the thing that goes in your feed.

Key moments:

• The neuroscience of why my most hated chore has become a major joy ritual for me because it feels so good

• Why I started doubling down on when anxiety was at its peak

• How the Joy Codes show up inside the smallest, most mundane activities

• Why this season of the podcast is shifting toward real-time joy experiments, in the messy middle, with all the imperfections intact

The Joy Codes Episode: https://joyfirstworld.com/blogs/joy-first-podcast/finding-your-joy-codes

Take the Joy First Audit: https://joyfirstworld.substack.com/t/joy-first-audit

Discover your Colour type: https://go.jnicholesmith.com/quiz

The best glitter pens: https://calmoverchaos.co.uk/products/constellation-glitter-pens

Arm Knitting in Lancashire: https://chunkyarmknit.com/

Painting Workshops UK: https://www.brushandtipple.co.uk/

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This is the finale episode of the Joy First Audit series: where we've been exploring the 6 categories of the Joy First audit, and today we're onto Category 6: Purpose. Meaning, growth, impact, & legacy.

The thread that holds everything else together.

In this episode I share my own pattern of "what now, what next" moments (which, as it turns out, have arrived almost like clockwork every four years) and explore why these moments aren't a sign you've lost your way. They're often a sign you've outgrown the version of yourself that built the thing you've already built.

In this episode:

• Why the "what now" moment is almost always an important milestone
• The Harvard Study finding that proves the power of purpose for living long, healthy life
• What dog ownership and ikigai have in common (and what it tells us about how even the small stuff counts)
• Why most entrepreneurs start with fear-fuelled drive and eventually have to reckon with something else entirely
• The pain or pleasure question that unlocks more Whyfinding® sessions than any other

Whether you scored 15/15 or felt every question land in a tender place, this episode is an invitation to start noticing what you're already chasing when it comes to being in service, and finding meaning in your life, business and storytelling.

Get access to the audit on our substack: https://substack.com/@joyfirstworld

Unlock the full AI-guided version with a paid subscription.

Learn more about Whyfinding® sessions: https://go.joyfirstworld.com/branding

Access the Whyfinding® co-pilot with Citrus: https://go.joyfirstworld.com/citrus

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The colours on your walls, the quality of your light, whether your bedroom feels like a sanctuary or a storage unit, these things are doing something to you, all the time. This episode, we're exploring Category 5 of the Joy First Audit: Environment.

I scored reasonably high on this one (as I guess you'd probably expect) but then.... we found a leak in our downstairs closet, so all the floors have come up, and we've been living with industrial-sized dehumidifiers and fans running at full volume for weeks. We've just been told they will have to remain another two weeks. Once again, perfect timing to be having this conversation.

In this episode, I'm exploring what happens to your sense of self when your environment is in chaos, some quick fixes to create more of the feelings you want in your spaces, and why 'aesthetic' isn't just superficial.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The five environmental factors that most consistently affect mood and nervous system regulation (according to research)

• Why the colour of your walls, your light quality, and even the clutter level in your space matter more than we give them credit for

• The 'What should I pick' dilemma, and the one question to answer first to get what you want in the spaces you get to choose

• What the Joy First Audit's 'Environment' category is really asking, and how to use your score as a starting point for adding more joy to your spaces

TAKE THE AUDIT

Take the full Joy First Audit on Substack: https://joyfirstworld.substack.com/p/the-joy-first-audit

EXPLORE MORE:

Take the Colour Personality Quiz: https://go.jnicholesmith.com/quiz

Learn about Colour Joy (free when you become a founding member on Substack): https://joyfirstworld.substack.com/p/getting-started-with-colour-joy-1

CTA

If this episode resonated, please share it with someone who you know will love it too 🧡 This is how together, we'll spark the #joyfirstrevolution

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