Josh's Weekly Insights - Sept. 10,2025

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”

-Desmond Tutu

At one point in my career, I was able to hear Desmond Tutu speak at an event. I don’t remember exactly what he spoke about that day but I do remember his laugh. He had a laugh that could brighten the room and make you feel welcome.

I thought about this quote because as I was teaching today I realized that we often get stuck on what is going wrong. For my job, I travel a lot and even missed some baseball games with my kids last night. I can focus on what I missed or recognize that as a sacrifice to provide for them. I don’t always have the right words for the moment when I am teaching and I can focus on that or recognize that no one expects a perfect presentation and that my imperfections make the content more relatable. 

These are challenges that I have to face routinely in my job but those challenges don’t define me. I get the opportunity to go through that “darkness” because of the joy I get from serving others and trying to help leaders make their world brighter. 

Joy and hope seem to be getting harder and harder to track down. Maybe that is because algorithms aren’t as profitable when they aren’t focused on outrage or maybe it is because we are so focused on capturing moments that we forget to live in them or some other reason. However, we all have the opportunity to bring hope to each day we get on this earth.

Laughter is free and can be shared with everyone around you. All it takes is one moment to find joy and appreciate that life is too short to constantly be focused on all the difficulties we are facing. Will difficulties disappear because we are laughing? Definitely not! But will it be easier to continue moving forward with joy in our heart and a smile on our face? I absolutely believe hope makes each step a little lighter and easier to take.

Ask yourself one question today, what can you celebrate? Whether it is personal or professional, I would love to hear what is bringing you joy today. Maybe we can even share a laugh together soon!

Now get out there and crush your week!