I'm Scott Drake. I write software and teach leadership, but what I really do is study complex things and turn those insights into systems anyone can use. This site is where I share past and current work.

This post is Part Six of a six-part series. Get started with Part One.

By the time I had a clearer way to think about joy, the work changed.

Earlier, joy had lived on my goal list as something I wanted but couldn’t quite reach. I assumed that meant I was missing effort, discipline, or insi...

This post is Part Five of a six-part series. Get started with Part One.

Once I understood joy as emotional climate, and saw how momentum builds through the Doom Loop and the Joy Flywheel, the problem became more concrete.

I wasn’t looking for a cure or a technique. I was paying attention t...

This post is Part Four of a six-part series. Get started with Part One.

Once I understood joy as a matter of emotional climate, the next question became obvious: why does that climate drift, and why does it sometimes feel like it accelerates in the wrong direction?

The answer turned out to...

This post is Part Three of a six-part series. Get started with Part One.

When I first encountered the idea that joy is a choice, I didn’t like it.

It sounded simplistic. Even dismissive. As if difficult circumstances could be overridden by attitude alone. That didn’t match my experience, a...

This post is Part Two of a six-part series. Get started with Part One.

If lasting joy is something you want more of, the first challenge is surprisingly basic: most of us don’t have a clear way to think about it.

We use a lot of emotional language—happy, stressed, burned out, fine—but we t...

For several years, I carried a specific goal in my annual planning:

“I’m generally a happy person, but I want to feel more joy. More appreciation for what I have. More focus on today, less on the future.”

It wasn’t a throwaway line. It showed up for a few years.

What made it frustrating wa...