Joy expert tells Culver Academies students they should be looking for joy daily, calling it essential

Tom Coyne

Sep 18 2025

Joy expert Ingrid Fetell Lee answers question from a cadet during a Q&A session with select students at the Heritage Room in the Legion Memorial Building. (Photo by Emily Guo)

Ingrid Fetell Lee, a designer, founder of the “Aesthetics of Joy” blog and author of the book “Joyful,” told Culver Academies students that joy is an essential part of life they should be looking for daily even though adults who exhibit that emotion are often dismissed as superficial or not serious.

“Small things can have surprisingly big effects when you do them in the spirit of joy. I think it’s easy to get caught up in the flow of life and see joy as this extra. It’s how our society is constructed, is to see joy as this nice, trivial little thing you can have if you get all your work done, or it’s an extra. But joy is not extraneous. It is essential. It is part of your fundamental humanity,” she said.

Lee, who has been featured in The New York Times, Wired, Psychology Today and Fast Company, spoke to students at an all-school meeting Monday as part of the Class of 1962 Student Enrichment Series. The speech can be viewed here. Culver officials announced in August that the theme for this school year is: “Find joy. Fuel joy.” Programs are planned throughout the year aimed at encouraging students to pursue joy.

Lee told the students studies have shown that joy influences people's health, sharpens their minds, opens them to new ideas and strengthens relationships. She told the students that she hopes that instead of seeing joy as something opposed to their work, they will view joy as a fuel for their success.

“You should not just see joy as something you get as the light at the end of the tunnel. Joy is something that should punctuate your life throughout. That is what is going to make you more resilient and better able to handle the very real challenges you face in your life,” she said.

Lee told the students she was happy to be speaking to them while they are in high school because she believes that is when people begin to feel the pressure to set joy aside.

“In childhood you have sort of free-flowing joy. Then as you get older, you start to face the pressure. You start to dream big and want to do big things and start to feel responsibilities coming on. It maybe sometimes feels like that is not compatible with joy,” Lee said.

Joy expert Ingrid Fetell Lee answers questions from student emcees Nevaeh Navarre ’26 (left) and Kaya Turgut ’26 at Eppley Auditorium. (Photo by Sloan Losch)

She told the students happiness and joy have different meanings. She said happiness is a broad evaluation of how people feel about their lives over time, including their health, work life, relationships and purpose in life. She said joy is simpler and more immediate.

“When psychologists use the word joy they mean an intense momentary experience of positive emotion. This is one that makes us smile and laugh and want to jump up and down,” she said. “If happiness is how we feel over time, joy is how we feel right now, in the moment.”

She said while happiness is sometimes vague, joy leaves no doubt. She said people often overlook moments of joy because they are small and fleeting. But she said moments of joy can have big effects.

She gave as an example of how moments of joy can add up and lead to change. She said the capital of Albania, Tirana, had been devastated by corruption when Edi Rama was elected mayor in 2000, nearly a decade after the fall of Communism. The crime rate was high, people refused to pay their taxes because things were so bleak and the city couldn’t afford to pick up garbage that was piling up in the streets.

Rama decided to paint the Communist-built gray cement buildings with kaleidoscopic colors. New shops started to open, and existing shop owners took the metal grates off their windows saying they felt safer even though there had been no increase in police. People stopped littering and started paying taxes again. Rama used the money to plant thousands of trees and fix up city parks. By the time he left office in 2011, Tirana had become an international tourist destination.

“Small things can have surprisingly big effects when you do them in the spirit of joy,” Lee said.

Joy expert Ingrid Fetell Lee answers question from students. (Photo by Emily Guo)

Kaya Turgut ’26, a student emcee, asked Lee what she would do to bring more joy to the Culver Academies campus.

“I would just have to start and say you have such a joyful campus already. You have so much natural beauty. You have a lot to work with, which is not true of so many other places I consult or work with,” she said. “But I would say maybe a bit more color. Maybe some colorful art or colorful sculptures. That is something I’d suggest to bring a little bit more joy. And maybe some interactive sculptures, playful things that you can interact with.”

Nevaeh Navarre ’26, the other emcee, asked Lee if she had any advice about using joy as a leadership tool. Lee said she would suggest that students find ways to celebrate and take time to savor successes.

“Emotions are these short peaks. They spike up and they come down. And you can do things to extend the joy of an experience. One of the techniques that’s been studied is called savoring. You can savor by talking about it, so sharing it with someone else. You can savor by overemphasizing our emotions.”

She said it sends a message to your brain that you’re feeling good.

She also suggested students should focus on getting joy out of the process, not just the outcome. She said that is what great athletes do.

“They focus on the moment. They think it is me, with this ball right now. I’m going to enjoy that experience,” she said. “But really as a leader, help your team stay focused on the joy of being in this moment right now.”