Podcast Summary: The JOY Broadcast

Host: Ali Mortimer, Life Consultant & Joy Coach
Episode: Baking JOY into my life
Date: September 14, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode of The JOY Broadcast is a solo reflection with host Ali Mortimer, focusing on how to "bake joy" into one's life. Ali shares a personal story about a recent "energetic reset" and introduces her metaphorical "cake of joy" recipe. Drawing parallels between baking, joy, and human design, she explains how to realign with joy and self-love after periods of frustration or burnout, particularly as routines shift with changing seasons. Key takeaways involve moving from discipline to devotion, redefining self-care, and utilizing concepts from human design as practical tools for amplifying joy.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Embracing Change and Seasonal Shifts

Timestamps: 00:01–03:50

• Ali sets the tone by celebrating the new autumn season as a marker for personal change:

  "I do love a change in season. It is that marker, isn’t it, to slip into a new way of life?" (01:26)

• She candidly explains that a planned interview episode was rescheduled due to technical issues, prompting a personal, reflective episode.

2. Experiencing an Energetic Funk & Pivoting to Joy

Timestamps: 03:51–10:36

• After a “hard pivot” into a disciplined routine post-summer, Ali describes finding herself in a funk:

  “I was in this real funk, and I did not feel myself.” (06:06)

• A conversation with her own coach helped her realize the issue wasn’t what she was doing, but who she was being:

  “It has everything to do with who I’m being, and I’m not being myself.” (06:40)

• She paused all routines except those that nurtured self and energy, aiming to realign with her authentic joy.

3. The Cake of Joy Recipe Metaphor

Timestamps: 10:37–27:20

a. Foundations: Peace of Mind & Health of Body

• Drawing from years of personal growth, Ali equates peace of mind and health of body to “creaming together the butter and sugar”—the essential base of any cake or life.

  “That was like, oh, that’s exactly what peace of mind and health and body is. It’s the foundation for our cake.” (13:10)

• Meditation and mindfulness, particularly learned through hardship, are her primary tools:

  “Just keep breathing, just breathe through this, everything’s going to be okay.” (15:30) “I love to be in stillness... just sitting in the garden, listening to the birds, sitting on my stump with a cup of coffee.” (16:42)

b. Loving Approach: From Discipline to Devotion

• Ali notes that strict discipline and restriction drain her energy:

  “By doing it that way... that does not work for me.” (18:44)
  “My way has always been... devotion. So it was like, oh, I just need to slip back into devotion. I’m in the wrong gear.” (19:25)

• She encourages letting go of rules and responding to personal needs.

c. The Love List: Eggs and Flour

• Love, both for life and self, is the next vital ingredient:

  “Love is the eggs... the structure that holds everything together but also adds a real richness and depth.” (22:30)

• The “love list”—noting what and who one loves—is a practical tool she used to find light during dark times:

  “All I need to do is think about what I love and do that.” (23:43)

d. Dreaming: The Raising Agent

• Dreams and vision act as “the raising agent” (baking powder/soda)—what lifts and lightens life.

  “Without this agent, I think, in your life, without the ability to dream, to vision, to see beyond where you are, that’s when you can sometimes feel a little bit trapped.” (28:19)

• Differentiates goals from dreams:

  “A dream is when you can see no way of how it can happen. A dream is for the fun... ‘Wouldn’t that be amazing?’” (29:25)
  “Dreams for me is how I make progress. Keeps you moving.” (30:54)

e. Magic: The Sprinkles

• The unique “magic” each person brings is compared to cake sprinkles.

  “The magic is the sprinkles on the top of the cake that make it you.” (32:28)

• Personal differences, family preferences, and human design profiles create unique life flavors.

4. Human Design as a Joy Recipe Book

Timestamps: 34:00–40:45

• Discovering her human design in 2021 radically accelerated her joy:

  “Human design has really just become the recipe book that showed me how to combine my ingredients in a way that works for me and my unique self.” (34:55)

• Human design can reveal relational dynamics and help smooth tension:

  “When we put our charts on top of each other, we complete each other.” (36:22)

• The forthcoming “UNHD” program offers practical application of human design alongside mindfulness, health, and business wisdom.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Redefining Joy:

  “Anything that pulls me out of [joy], I feel grumpy and frustrated.” (08:34)

• On Self-Alignment:

  “The frustration that I was feeling was my alarm bell... for anyone who is a generator in human design, is that you're doing it wrong and you're dampening your joy.” (20:30)

• On Devotion vs. Discipline:

  “Discipline doesn’t work for me. Let me shift... shift into devotion.” (19:30)

• On Coming Back to Love:

  “If I am what I love and if I love what I am, then all I need to do is think about what I love and do that.” (23:43)

• On the Power of Dreaming:

  “A dream is for the fun. A dream is the imagination. ‘What if we could do this? What if we could go there?’” (29:27)

• On Joy as Serious Business:

  “Joy is a serious business. I take my joy seriously because I’m serious about living a life that I love.” (33:13)

Key Timestamps

• 00:01 – Episode introduction, seasonal reflections
• 06:40 – Realization: “It’s not what I’m doing, it’s who I’m being.”
• 13:10 – Introducing the “cake of joy” metaphor
• 15:30 – Story: practicing meditation during her mother’s illness
• 18:44 – Lesson: discipline and denial sap joy
• 19:25 – Pivot: moving from discipline to devotion
• 22:30 – Love as eggs and flour in the cake of joy
• 28:19 – Dreams as raising agents; importance of vision
• 32:28 – Magic and individuality as cake sprinkles
• 34:55 – Human design as a recipe book for unique joy
• 36:22 – Human design in relationships: “we complete each other”

Tone and Language

Ali’s language is warm, reassuring, and gently motivational. Personal anecdotes, metaphors, and vivid imagery make philosophical ideas feel practical and accessible. The tone is empathetic and conversational, often drawing on real-life challenges to foster connection and hope.

Conclusion & Takeaways

Ali Mortimer invites listeners to reflect on what joy means for them, using the metaphor of baking a cake to construct a step-by-step recipe for joyful living. She ties in themes of self-compassion, alignment, and embracing one’s unique blueprint (with human design as a practical tool). By letting go of rigid routines and returning to practices and people that spark genuine love and excitement, listeners are encouraged to “bake” a more fulfilling, resilient life.

Final words:

“If you’re ready to use human design to amplify that and speed up the creation of your cake, I’ll drop the links in the show notes and I will look forward to speaking to you very, very soon. Lots of love.” (40:10)

Recommended for:
Anyone seeking to realign with joy, especially after burnout or life transitions, and those interested in blending personal growth with practical tools like human design.