The Joy You Choose: How to Create Light When Life Gives You Every Reason to Lose It

Intentional Joy in Difficult Times: How creativity, art and small deliberate choices can help people reconnect with themselves during adversity.

We tend to think of joy as something that happens when life is going well. But what if joy can be intentional - something we actively create, especially when circumstances are difficult?

Anne Paphitis can explore how creativity, art and moments of genuine enjoyment can help people reconnect with themselves during challenging periods. Her evolving work through Crown Intentions has increasingly centred on art, creativity and joy, alongside the idea of being intentional about finding joy while navigating adversity.

Anne is the right person to lead this conversation because she doesn't approach joy as forced positivity or pretending difficult things aren't happening. Instead, she can talk about the small, deliberate choices that can bring creativity, playfulness and meaning back into our lives - making this a conversation that could resonate with entrepreneurs, leaders and anyone navigating a demanding season of life.

About Anne Paphitis

Anne Paphitis, podcast guest

Resilience Coach, Speaker & Personal Reinvention Expert

2019 Began formal coaching trainingFounder Cambridge school for students outside mainstream educationAcquired business Rebuilding a new company

Anne Paphitis builds work from the conviction that life can be rebuilt, even after everything familiar has been stripped away. Born and raised in South Africa, she spent years running a Cambridge school she founded for young people who did not fit into mainstream education - students wrestling with anxiety, bullying, depression or simply falling through the cracks. Watching teenagers who once doubted themselves sit exams, head to university and later return with messages of thanks shaped her belief that change often starts the moment someone finally believes they can do more.

A formal coaching course in 2019 gave Anne new tools to work with that same dynamic in adults.

She has reinvented her own life several times: falling unexpectedly in love with Ireland, emigrating, and more recently selling her school and buying another business she is rebuilding. Those lived pivots - the uncertainties, the practical choices and the tiny steps that rekindled hope - are the material of her work.

She is drawn to conversations that lift people out of survival mode and help them reconnect with purpose, confidence and simple joy.

Anne prefers dialog and human connection to one-way advice. She loves being onstage or in conversation because she feeds off other people’s energy and watches them leave with a small but real shift.

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