Terms

"JoClub is the acronym for Journaling Club, but also is a fitting name." Jo Franco begins. "When I first started writing I was aware of those feelings, and I was aware that my siblings from the past didn't like to hear about it. So, I began writing."

"I grew up undocumented, in hiding, speaking Portuguese and trying to learn English and stumbling across," she recalls. "I acquired a variety of different languages and was always awed by being understood. At the same time, I was unpopular due to the fact that I was thought of as one of the very few youngsters. My looks were different to everyone other kids. I was the least tall kid so I had this low voice and a quiet personality.

"Of of course, if I look back and see how it was, however for the time being, it was just anguish of not being understood?' and so many of us suffer through this."

Happily, Jo did have the ability of being able to write: "I had a more than a pity relationship with myself being able to observe without judgement. I've written a number of negative stuff, and yet I am aware of the positive things that have happened within my own life. Then I began modifying my writing, however, I started to reverse engineer my perception of things since I was looking for positive stories. I would have to observe positive things to have positive experiences to write about. I changed into a more optimistic person. This tool saved me."

Understanding the context

In the time she was a student at the college within Manhattan, Jo was overwhelmed by the volume of voices she competed with. But, she was able to find a space within her journal. "It wasn't a matter of whether I lived in the States or went on a journey, I was able to utilize the device to allow me to go back to myself.

"My "why" will give all those who surround me with the belief that "You've got it" regardless of how difficult things can be. In addition, you'll be able to help your own emotional well-being as well, it's also a beautiful thing to record your experience through writing it down. It's an act of appreciation for the fact that the event happened in the first place. You'll always fit in your own world and your own thoughts."

"There's evidence-based science to support this claim," she says. "There are studies conducted on the use of writing in medical treatment. If people record their gratitude and gratitude will be more satisfied."

"Give your brain a break. Let the stress go from your head and put it down on paper. If you write about negative incidents, you create a distance that allows you to process it with empathy. The emotions can make us insane. They are at the root of everything. They're at the source of confidence, at root of charisma. This is why people enter an area and being able to attract the positive vibes."

"Maybe this could be a membership"

Jo had certainly attached many positive events until 2020. Through her YouTube channel with more than a million subscribers she earned money to travel. "I was living a thrilling private life. But at the same time, I wrote. This was the essence of me. All I did was writing."

In January of 2020 she was awarded a Netflix assignment as host of The World's Most Amazing Vacation Rentals. "It took me off of YouTube and back to the standard method of presenting. If you've ever been in a studio and witnessed the hours can be very lengthy. The workdays are often 16 hours long with lots of 'hurry up and sit'. It's time to get ready: makeup, hair and everything is completed. You've got lines on your mind and you're thinking "No No, I'm not kidding! We have to slow down for a minute""

When there were breaks, which could last for hours, Jo would write. "Writing was a passion for me, so I had the desire to turn it a job." Then, when covid was on and the show stopped her primary source of revenue dwindled.

"I was anxious, as was everyone was. I began posting pictures of my journal entries. The next day, I was 100 days old and I started sharing my journal publicly via Instagram Stories. I was thinking "Hey perhaps this could be an opportunity to join a club' individuals would pay within a room online together and write together. This is how JoClub was born. This was about almost four years back. That is insane!"

While watching the Netflix show, Jo realized that journaling is the way through that she could observe the world. "It is more than the act of a pastime. When you're traveling for two days, you're really exhausted. You're doing things which has nothing to do with the job you're being paid for.

"You realise, this is how I make sense of my life. It's a way of living. It became clear for me to separate myself from anything else. The only thing which they cannot take away from me is writing. It was important for me to include that in my next chapter in my professional career."

Her efforts are greater than she can imagine.

Jo was inspired to participate with her work. "I had been posting 3 videos a week in three different languages. I needed to recruit people, fire people. I was able to understand what it meant to build a machine for content."

There was a need for something to change. "I did not want to be constantly being working. If you're exhausted or exhausted as is the norm for creators and you're exhausted, it's impossible to earn money. It was my realization that it's a job that I'm gonna maintain throughout my life, I'll need to come up with ways to remove my mind off many opportunities to make money."

Jo wanted to create something more substantial than her. Journaling groups were launched at the beginning of Zoom: "The membership started at $29 per month and included a monthly live chat and daily journal prompts to everyone's mailbox."

The idea was to create an experience as similar to yoga classes. There were two questions that followed a discussion, then another question, then break-out rooms. "It was IP (intellectual property)," she recalls. "After the period of six months I started asking whether I could educate participants in these seminars? Actually, could facilitators assist in enriching JoClub by ways that I would have thought of? They was looking to "extract the good" and collaborate with facilitators, who were once JoClub members to design the art journaling style as well as a "bring your own tune" contest for children's musicians along with other similar activities.

"Now there are six sessions each month and I can organize as many as I like," she continues. "Beautiful elements that I'd have never imagined would happen: I host retreats, and conducted a pilot program in an institution and we are currently working on different challenges. It would have been impossible to do this if I had kept it as Jo Franco's group that had me at the top of my game."

Community and culture

"An interesting part of membership is that you can create an ambience," she adds. "If you pay for the membership, it's like walking into your home, which means you can design your house in the way you want." Jo along with her team has analyzed methods to make discussions more engaging so that "people are able to talk about issues that are part of their community and they'll feel they're getting their money's worth."

"It's what differentiates an audience and a member," she adds. "An audience is going to interact with what you're making, but it's not a conversation. If I post something and someone comment but I respond through a group I'm curating, I'm a component of what happens - from the moment they sign up to the members."

Jo thinks about the sequence of onboarding and how we deal with new members. "How do we mitigate those who walk into a room and feeling that they aren't a part of the community? That's the perfect best time to start the art of curating culture that's why members stay for a long time."

The woman is well aware that it isn't easy. "It's an ability that needs to be a passion about in order to keep improving because a member's status is a living thing. If you don't pay attention to how things are going, you'll be losing every member you have."

It's evident that Jo has incorporated the empathy and self-awareness she's gained from her journal into the way she conducts herself in her group. Actually, she believes journals aid us in becoming more aware of our own self. It's not something we are taught at an early age: "We're not given tools to process emotion. It's possible to help you avoid losing your balance. It was difficult for me to understand these advantages. It was a simple recreation thing to do. As I grew older I realized "Damn! I've been hiding my secret""

When people ask "Jo, you're just 30 years old, how have you accomplished everything? I just journalled about it and everything worked out," she laughs.

More details

To learn more about Jo Franco and to become an active JoClub member, go to www.joclub.world. JoClub is open to new members. To join, go over on joclub.world.

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