We have a website!

Dear Team Joy,

First and foremost, I want to start by acknowledging the outpouring of support I received from you last week about my note on Israel: emails, texts, and phone calls. Thank you. Many of you offered love and support and shared that my words resonated with you. Others let me know they disagreed with my opinions, but wanted me to feel seen despite our differences. All of these responses made me feel really cared for.

I also received an anonymous, intense message of hate. It’s interesting to process that too. It brings up fear, pride, and empathy within me:

Fear — someone went out of their way to get in touch with me and share their hate. This creates this eerie feeling of being watched.

Pride - I was proud of myself for sharing, especially because I had an unusual amount of internal resistance to pressing publish. I knew that if I was honest, people might disagree with me. I might even make people feel hurt. I knew emotions were running high. I knew it was and is a terrifying time to be Jewish, whether I am publicly claiming it or not. I had to be courageous enough to press publish anyways, and I was. I’m proud of myself for it, even if there are consequences I don't enjoy.

Empathy — I could see there was a lot of pain behind the hate. Some part of my ego wants to defend myself, to make this person understand the complexity I hold within my heart. Yet, I can also see their pain has nothing to do with me, I was just the outlet in that moment. It continues to be unbelievably overwhelming to follow the news coming out of Israel and Gaza. No matter the history or identity you carry, if you are watching this crisis unfold it is heavy on our hearts.

Although I won’t be commenting on the crisis this week, I thought it was important to begin here.

It’s hard to hold our joy close amidst times of grief and pain. It makes us feel guilty to find our hearts have the capacity to hold both. But honestly, I am so grateful they do. While I am still mourning, I am excited to share a milestone that is bringing me great joy.

The Team Joy website is finally live!

I have been working on this website on and off since I opened a Squarespace account in April 2022. When I began, I had no idea how challenging it would be to create a website that I felt proud of, mainly because I believed executing this project would be linear.

Make an account, define the pages you want, gather testimonials, write copy, and then design. Keep working away, and eventually I would have a website I liked. How hard could it be?

The first version developed last fall- the website was functional but uninspiring. The colors were arguing. My business was having an identity crisis and so was the website.

The second version built this spring- it was beautiful. We made progress on the visual brand, but the content still felt off. It was too much about me.

We have been working on this latest version since June. After 3 vastly different iterations, I can see how the quest to build a clear and compelling website has mirrored my own quest to build and grow Team Joy.

It has been a process of:

• Excavation
• Intention
• Collaboration
• Invitation

Excavation— digging deeper into what I have to share with the world. While I knew how I wanted people to feel while interacting with Team Joy, it was a real challenge to put that into words. Who is Team Joy really for? Who am I as a coach? What’s the right balance of sharing my story and seeing you on yours? I wanted the webpages to represent my mission and vision through storytelling and design. In order to do that, I had to do the inner work of exploring my professional purpose, and determine how to bring people into that narrative. I know this iterative process will continue.

Intention — making every decision with purpose. The website-building process challenged me to think more deeply about my offerings— in order to communicate them succinctly, I needed to gain clarity on exactly who I serve and how. I also needed to make choices about the colors, images, and layout (which I have learned through this process are essential to how a brand makes people feel). I wanted the visual concepts to enhance how people feel about my work - warm, professional, authentic, and grounding. I told the designer I collaborated with that I wanted the brand to feel simple, with sparkle. ?

Collaboration. It was almost immediately obvious that I couldn’t do this work on my own, but I also wanted to be thoughtful about who I brought in to help. I didn't want to collaborate with one-off freelancers who would check the boxes. I wanted to call in people who would dream, iterate, and execute alongside me, because they too believed in Team Joy. People who would not roll their eyes when I said simple and sparkle, but who would make meaning from it using their own talents. As someone who has been primarily operating as a one-woman show over the last two years, working on this project in deep collaboration was not only immensely helpful, but incredibly fun. By setting up the right container, I got to watch amazing women bring their talent and voices to my brand, and the output was literally 100x better than the clunky mess I was originally creating. It’s a reminder for me of the team part of Team Joy— I believe we each have the potential to live and lead well, but we do it best when we do it together.

Invitation. At the end of the day, while this website produced a lot of personal and professional growth for me, it was always about bringing Team Joy to you. I have always wanted this to be a space that is accessible and fruitful for all who encounter it, whether you skim over a blog or become a 1:1 client. I built this website for you — to feel seen and known, to connect with my journey, and to explore opportunities for your growth. While it may be “just” a website, I consider it an invitation to join me on the journey to deepen joy in your life.

So without further ado, I cordially invite you to visit my corner of the internet.

Much love,

Isabel