Throughout her life, Grace Harry has seen the ups and downs but has always remembered that you can end the day with joy. As the author of the memoir The Joy Strategist, Harry takes the readers on a journey of finding their joy, how to rediscover it, and how to incorporate it into their daily lives. Harry, who has worked as a music industry executive at Island Def Jam and Jive Records, challenges people to find their true selves, and how to tap into the potential that they were given to make an impact on the world.
Harry spoke with rolling out about her book, her superpower, and how people can find joy in their lives.
What inspired you to write this book?
This idea started to whisper into my soul when my daughter was about 2 or 3 years old. We were riding a bus in Brooklyn, [New York]. We have this deep experience around parenting and fear, and I got a massive hit about how these things don’t work in tandem together to make optimal adults feel that they can do anything in their lives. I was at the end of a third marriage, and I realized I wasn’t in my joy. I couldn’t access that feeling, and yet my life felt so aspirational. I felt so blessed to have it that I felt bad and guilty, so I didn’t want to share that, and what started as a scavenger hunt of my own joy and inquiry around how to feel differently in my life started this book process.
Where should a person be in their journey when they read this book?
You should be wanting to make a change. You could be wanting to make a change and you’re still on the floor, you can be wanting to make a change and you are someone who always makes a change. The concept for me is that we live in a world that’s complicated in a way that many of us have never lived through before for various reasons. It’s this concept that if we’re looking for outer systemic change, it has to start with inner systemic change. … You should be in the “want” place. I want to feel differently, I want to have a different experience.
Why is it necessary to be strategic?
Everything has to have a strategy. You can’t just say, “I want to be in a relationship, I want to build a business, and I want to go to the store.” There’s even a strategy for getting up to go to the store. You need clothes, you might need some money, maybe you have a list. I want people to understand there’s nothing new to do. We have all these practices, it’s just the belief and permission to lean into them and take that show on the road. If you have anywhere in your life that you know how to make something happen like going to a restaurant with my friend, that’s a strategy. What restaurant? What am I wearing? What’s the weather? I want people to lean into the importance … that we all are unique empires.
Why should people take agency over joy in their lives?
Happy is a concept and joy is the conversation of our own hearts. I chose joy because every spiritual faith has some version of joy. I’m polyamorous when it comes to spirituality, I love any belief that’s about truth, faith, joy and grace. Go back to your own concept such as the Bible and look at what joy is. It’s not that joy is not for you, or coming to you, but all the places we work to keep joy out.
How did you know that you needed to take a new trajectory?
I don’t feel like I had a choice. I’ve had an amazing life with opportunities beyond my wildest dreams. What I can attribute that to is two parents who instilled in me that you can figure anything out, which is a massive gift, but also, I understand that there’s a concept that if you do a good job on this planet, you’re going to go to heaven. I don’t believe that we’re here and that there’s any version of God of my understanding, that wants me to live in emotional, physical, mental pain. I understand in the same way I have to learn in school if I want to have mastery over anything, I also realize that there is work for me to do inside my own body, it’s to find that joy and experience of pleasure that I was not giving myself at the time. The most important thing is understanding that two opposing forces can both be true. The opposing forces are that joy is your birthright, that it’s fun, that there’s pleasure, and that we have access to these things.
How can this book impact people who are feeling down?
This book is not a book about me. What I did is I gave some examples of things and places just so I could make people understand I’ve also done that work, but this book is to remind you that you have the answers, that you’ve done it before, and that you know how to do it, even in tiny ways. If you don’t want to do it on your own, then get somebody in your life to be your accountability partner. If you want to do it only in your career, there’s no way out in this book. I made it fun and playful. A song a day could be all that you need.
We’ve been sold this concept that life is supposed to feel fun, happy and amazing. That’s not the truth of life. The truth of life is to learn to how to ride the waves and to bring with you whatever is in your suitcase to ride those complicated waves. We don’t have a choice. Life is going to throw things at us whether we feel we’ve leaned into those experiences or not, so finding tools like this book that are easy to read, fun to read, and that speak to you directly into the experience you’ve already had is a safe place to hear, “You’re welcome” and “Get started.” I don’t even think it’s that we have an option, we just have to figure it out, and it might not be with this book. There are so many resources out in the world that you’re going to find one that speaks to you in the language that your heart understands. Most of us are good at doing this for other people, and that’s the most important thing to understand. We all know how to do this, but we just need motivation.
Describe your superpower.
I feel my superpower is that I am completely authentically intrigued by everybody’s story. I didn’t realize how much attention was such a deficit. People don’t get attention and when I meet someone and they have something to share with me, I’m in your eyes, I’m excited, and I have ideas that make people feel seen, and that alone I feel like is what all people need at times, to feel validated and to feel like they could continue, and I really am excited by whatever you have to share and that’s a superpower to me.
