I found myself thinking, Who am I to be experiencing such beauty? It felt like just yesterday that I was an inexperienced college student taking the helm of a small non-profit organization. Now here I was, watching hundreds of hearts filled with joy from an experience that is available to most of us every single day. We just have to know where to find it, because it usually occurs outside our typical view.

It was not until I found Extra Special People, Inc. (ESP) that I fully understood this. ESP is a nonprofit organization, scaling throughout the southeast and soon the country, that exists to create transformative experiences for people with disabilities and their families, changing communities for the better. At age 18, I walked in fully aware of my deficits and uncertainty. Would I say the right thing? Handle the awkwardness the right way? Would I offend someone?

I did not have enough experience.

Then I engaged with people who looked, acted, and responded differently than I did. People with disabilities, some mild and others so profound they could only communicate through movements. In their embrace, the feelings I had when I walked in melted away.

By leaning into the awkwardness, I found a life-changing aha.

I found a joy that I didn’t know was available to me.

Now I want to make it available to you.

This book is for you: the leader who is longing for more joy for yourself and your organization. For you: the college student who is isolated, but whose heart longs for community. For the mom, who is raising typically developing children but longs for her children to not only receive but learn to give. For the professional, living a life transactionally who is looking for a more meaningful exchange.

Researcher Matthew Kuan Johnson, a philosopher and cognitive scientist at Oxford, noted that despite substantial and relevant work that has come from positive psychology in recent decades, “surprisingly little work has been done by this field on joy.”[1]

According to Johnson, people find experiences of joy difficult to articulate. In his work, he hypothesizes that the very nature of joy pushes the boundaries of our ability to communicate about lived experience via a spoken language.

My two decades of work at ESP tell me he is describing something we can all attest to. I’ve daily observed people leaving our offices or events with the afterglow of their experience. While diffcult to articulate in words, the closest description we have for it is joy.

What is joy?

I describe it as light.

Unable to touch. Unable to grasp.

But when it enters our beings, it radiates from our skin to our souls.

It fuels a sense of purpose.

It illuminates life’s meaning.

“With joy,” says Bréné Brown, “colors seem brighter, physical moments feel freer and easier, and smiling happens involuntarily.”

I have learned from the most unexpected people that joy is neither a feeling nor a circumstance.

It is also not happiness.

Joy is an exchange.

My friends at ESP have shown me this. Their experience of life is not tainted by culture’s expectations, filters on Instagram, or society’s definitions of success. Much like a child with a dandelion: what is seen is good, wonderful, and beautiful to see, not what someone or something told them to see. They have taught me, and many others, that to connect genuinely with someone who doesn’t see, hear, or process the world like you is to exchange apprehension, misconception, and judgment for profound joy. And this exchange is available to each of us.

“If you want to get warm,” wrote C.S. Lewis, “you must stand next to the fire. If you want to get wet, you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace … you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them.” 

Our souls long for joy, especially in these times we’re living in. This is a book about how to step closer to, or even into, the places where it exists in abundance. But like the dandelion, such places are not always where you’d expect.

Laura Hope Whitaker, M.Ed. is the CEO of Extra Special People, Inc. (ESP), a nonprofit that exists to create transformative experiences for people with disabilities and their families, changing communities for the better. Laura joined ESP as a volunteer and counselor in college and, at just 19 years old, stepped into leadership as the Executive Director following the founder’s passing. Under her direction, ESP has grown into a nationally recognized organization with innovative programs like Java Joy and SeeAbility, reshaping how communities welcome and employ people of all abilities.

Laura is the author of The Joy Exchange, a book that invites leaders, organizations, and communities to rethink how joy, purpose, and people shape culture. She is a recognized speaker who has delivered a TEDx talk and has been named as one of Georgia Trend’s 40 Under 40, the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Most Admired CEOs, and the University of Georgia’s Alumna of Distinction.

She serves on the Board of Directors for the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities Board, and the Oconee State Bank Board. Laura holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in special education from the University of Georgia. She lives in Athens, Georgia with her husband Joseph and their three children, Owen, Finley, and Tate.

Laura is photographed here with the cover artist for The Joy Exchange, Suzanne Goossens (ESP Member and Java Joy Joyrista)