I am in the joy business; that set the tone for everything.
observation — attributed to Mark Johnson
When Johnson first asked Roger Ridley why he was singing on the street, Ridley answered that he was in the joy business. He comes out to bring joy to people. The line set the tone for Playing for Change. It is not a business; it is about joy and music, and everything that comes out of that, whether building schools or making people feel more connected. The framing matters operationally. Organizations whose founding line is about market share or scale produce different work than organizations whose founding line is about joy or service. Johnson's project succeeded partly because the framing kept the work oriented toward what mattered, not toward what could have been monetized.
For founders, mission-driven organization leaders, and creative entrepreneurs thinking about what frames their work. The observation is most useful as a question: what business are you in, in the deepest sense.
roger-ridley, joy-business, framing, founding-principle