How to Start a Joymaker Club

Before starting an official Joymaker Club, meet with the Chair of the Joymaking organization. This is partly an interview and partly an orientation. You'll talk about:

• whether you have the bandwidth to lead a club
• how much time the role requires
• what City Captains are responsible for
• whether the model is a good fit for you
• what is expected from an official Joymaker Club

Every Joymaker Club should have two City Captains. Don't start alone. Look for somebody who is as passionate about Joymaking and self-improvement as you are. Ideally, both Captains already have some experience bringing groups together.

Choose someone you trust to:

• show up consistently
• take responsibility
• facilitate conversations
• care about the quality of the community
• challenge people while encouraging them
• practice Joymaking themselves

You only need four committed people to begin. Personal invitations are usually the best place to start. Try:

Quality matters more than quantity. You are not trying to build the largest WhatsApp group in your city. You're building a room people don't want to miss.

Allow people to arrive. Welcome each other warmly and settle into the room. Then call the meeting to begin.

If someone is joining for the first time, give them a moment to introduce themselves. Invite them to share one of their greatest pieces of Joymaking wisdom and one of their favorite memories of creating joy for others. This immediately allows the group to learn from them rather than treating them as an outsider who needs to prove themselves.

Celebrate Joymaking wins from the previous month.

• a gathering you led
• a social risk you took
• an incredible conversation
• a moment when you brought a group to life
• a breakthrough in your own vitality
• something you did differently as a leader
• an act of Self-Activation
• an act of Relational Activation
• an act of Group Activation

Notice what is working. Make progress visible.

Now share where you fell short.

• Where did you hesitate?
• Where did you flop?
• Where did you avoid taking the lead?
• Where did you fail to invest in your own vitality?
• Where did you know what good Joymaking looked like and choose not to do it?

Confessions aren't about shame. They're about making failure normal enough that we can learn from it. When people can speak openly about where they struggled, failure loses some of its power.

Break into groups of three. Each person gets time to talk about their month.

• what you've been practicing
• what you've learned
• what worked
• what didn't
• where you're struggling
• what you're trying to become better at

The other two people listen, ask questions, teach from their own experience, and offer advice. Approach each other with curiosity. The goal isn't to prove how smart you are. Try to give the other people in your group as much value as possible. Help each other rise.

Come back together. Share important lessons from the small groups, insights worth giving to everyone, ideas that emerged, and questions the whole group could explore. This can become the least structured part of the meeting — let the conversation evolve when something valuable emerges. City Captains should still facilitate actively: protect the group from rambling and keep the discussion relevant to becoming better Joymakers. Before moving on, invite people to appreciate someone from their small group who helped them.

Everyone chooses a concrete goal for the next month. Your goal should connect to Joymaking in the real world.

The goal isn't personal improvement for its own sake. Ask: How will becoming better at this increase my capacity to create joy for others? Post your goal in the club's WhatsApp group.

Before leaving, make gratitude explicit. Share something you appreciated about the meeting or somebody in the room. Who helped you? Who inspired you? What are you leaving with? Say it out loud.