Did you know the longest-running happiness study in history (Harvard) found that the number one predictor of a long, healthy, joyful life wasn't money or success, it was the quality of your relationships?

So why does connection feel like the first thing we sacrifice when life gets full?

In this episode of the Joy First Audit series, I'm sharing my score for Category 3: Connection... and even though I came in at 14/15, there's a lot more going on beneath the surface.

We go into:

• The difference between not being alone and actually feeling seen

• What's happening in marriages and intimate relationships as we enter our forties (and why so many women are quietly renegotiating everything)

• Real vs superficial friendships: and how I've been looking locally to find something that feels nourishing

• The people-pleasing and guilt thread that runs through almost every connection question in the audit

• Why self-connection is the bank account that funds all the rest

This one gets honest about perimenopause, neurodivergence, the IDGAF era, and what it actually takes to feel genuinely connected when your nervous system is running on empty.

If you want to take the Joy First Audit for yourself, you can find it on our Substack @joyfirstworld.

Free members get the analog version. Paid members get access to a custom AI co-pilot that walks you through the audit and helps you take your next steps.

Next week: The Joy Audit

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Not just a feeling, actual cognitive impairment that changes how we make decisions, often making a hard situation significantly worse.

This week on the Joy First Podcast, I'm sharing my honest score from the money and security section of the Joy First Audit (nine out of twenty, if you want to know), and getting real about what's behind that number.

This isn't a tidy little success story, it's a pretty raw look at 20 years of entrepreneurial cycles: the lawsuit that ate my savings, the double-burnout before 30, the year, six and seven figure successes, the year everything seemed to break at once, the ten year cycles, and what I'm doing right now in this next 'rebuild' stage.

We explore:

• How Scarcity makes us dumber
• The tunneling effect and why financial stress pushes us toward decisions that feel urgent but make things worse long-term
• My full money origin story, the parts I don't usually talk about
• How the Joy First Audit surfaces the difference between actual financial reality and the fear running the show
• The practical choices I'm making right now to reduce costs without abandoning the self-care that's keeping me functional
• Why building recurring, non-time-dependent revenue is the priority I keep coming back to
• Three brilliant women whose work has genuinely changed my relationship with money, and where to start with each of them
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Resources mentioned:

• Denise Duffield-Thomas: Get Rich Lucky Bitch + Money Bootcamp — denisedt.com
• Ann Wilson: The Wealth Chef
• Catherine Morgan: It's Not About the Money (book + podcast)
• The Joy First Audit: joyfirstworld.com/substack (free + paid with custom GPT)
• Find this (and last week's episode on Vitality) on our new YouTube channel @joyfirstworld

The Joy First Podcast is hosted by J.Nichole Smith, colour psychology expert, brand strategist, and working mum of two: finding, choosing and sharing joy while navigating the messy middle. New episodes drop every other week.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode kicks off a 6-part series exploring each category of the Joy First Audit. Today (live from sunny Morocco ooh la la) we’re diving into Vitality: energy, hormones, time scarcity, and breaking up with optimization. I share my own (not great) score and what I’m changing right now as a result.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/bkehOyf-oxw

Join us on Substack and take the audit: https://substack.com/@joyfirstworld

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.