Written by Lee Lott | 09 November 2011

Joy is standing in the light of your authentic power and expressing it, by creating and living the life and work you love.  Joy resides at the core essence of your Being. It is energising, free and available to you 24/7. Joy facilitates good health.  It is a magnetiser to more joy and insulates you against the more challenging times we are now living through.   However, it takes a conscious act of will each day to align with joy. It is vital to well-being.  Ignoring it opens the floodgates to stress, which is bad for the bottom line. This is well illustrated by the news that Antonio Horta-Osorio, the Chief Executive of Lloyds Bank, has been signed off work due to stress.

In turn,  Moody’s credit rating agency, have announced  that they may downgrade Lloyds Banking Group due to concerns that re-structuring plans may be delayed due to the absence of its’ Chief Executive because of ill health. Significantly, joy is a stress-buster.   Across professions and organisations, millions of days are lost from work due to stress. Stress, is the main cause of time lost off work.

In part this is due to joy, not being made a priority in education and professional development training or management strategy. Being joyful is not to be lightweight, it is to be light-hearted and empowered.  Aligning with joy is a practical, personal and commercial tool. It is cost effective. Sibbes once said, “we can do nothing well without joy.”

Modern education is cold. Whilst excellent for training the mind, it ignores the warmth of heart centred qualities such as joy, courage, kindness, generosity of spirit, integrity, truthfulness and so forth.   You cannot teach people what they already possess. However, businesses and organisations could foster a climate which promotes joy and well-being.

Being heart-centred boosts the bottom line.  There are two ways of living and working, with struggle or with joy, the choice is yours!