The World Joy Project

Join me for a new adventure

As you’re reading this, my family and I are packing bags, losing socks, double-checking passports and getting ready to head out on a big adventure.

Let’s catch up.

My name is Brad Montague. I write stories, draw, and create experiences (often for kids, with kids, and people who care about kids). My work is an attempt to help myself and others notice what’s good, what’s human, and what still matters. I’ve spent a lot of my life believing that small, hopeful things can ripple outward in big ways … especially when we share them.

Over the next few months, I’ll be on a 13 city speaking tour across southeast Asia, New Zealand, and Australia. With these events, I’m sharing new talks and workshops about joy, creativity, and what it takes to stay human while building things that matter.

But that’s not really the point.

This is all part of something that’s been quietly growing in me for a long time.

Let’s call it The World Joy Project.

Here’s the simple idea:

I am collecting small, honest glimpses of joy from people around the world (especially kids) and sharing them back like little postcards of hope to the rest of the world.

A drawing.
A scribble.
A story.
A favorite thing.
A moment that made someone smile for no big reason at all.

As I move through places like Kuala Lumpur, Cebu, Manila, Jakarta, Surabaya, Bangkok, Ho-Chi Minh, Aukland, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Sydney, I’ll be listening, learning, and paying attention. Gathering these small offerings of joy and wonder from the children (and grownups too) who live there and then sharing them with the next city and beyond.

Leaders in each of the cities we’re traveling will be gathering submissions locally, but also I’m eager to hear from you, wherever you are. Feel free to pass this around to any friends, classrooms, or wherever there’s good people who know what joy looks like.

Artwork and joys big and small can be submitted here: the World Joy Project

The thing I keep coming back to (and keep relearning):
What we pay attention to grows.

Right now, I want to grow joy.

Amy Krouse Rosenthal once said, “Pay attention to what you pay attention to.” She lived that idea beautifully.

There’s so much begging for our attention, but not all of it deserves to grow. It’s up to us to grow the good stuff and joy is a great start. Joy does this wonderful thing we it’s shared … it multiplies. Yes, it seems like there’d be less of it, but no… it stretches. Joy defies all laws of physics and math and probability and… just grows. There’s a magic to it… the more we share joy, the more there is.

So, alls I’m saying is we could do with more of that.

When it comes to this tour… with my family… with this work… with this travel… with all these possiblilites… I am equal parts excited, nervous, and nervcited (that’s the technical term).

I want to grow joy. I want to grow wonder and noticing. And .maybe that’s what joy is, afterall … noticing. Paying attention. Let’s grow it. Let’s grow the small, human moments that don’t make headlines but quietly hold the world together. The joy.

I need your help to do this.

Thank you for being here.
Thank you for noticing.
Thank you for helping carry a little more joy into the world.

with so much hope
and a world full of joy …

Does this project speak to you?

* Share a piece of joy!
If you know a child, a classroom full of children, or anyone in any part of the world who could draw, write, or show what joy looks like to them, I’d love to include it. Submit here.

* Help carry the project forward!
Becoming a paid subscriber directly supports our travel, the storytelling, and the sharing of these moments along the way. You can also buy me a coffee here.

*Pass it on!
If this made you think of someone, send it to them. Joy travels best that way.