Terms

"JoClub is the acronym for Journaling Club, but also fits in by my name." Jo Franco begins. "When I began writing, I was aware of these huge feelings, and that I had older siblings who were not interested in hearing about the story. Therefore, I began writing."

"I grew up undocumented living in the shadows, hiding from authorities, and speaking Portuguese as well as learning English by tripping through the maze," she recalled. "I acquired a variety of different languages as I was obsessed with being accepted. Meanwhile, I was very disregarded because I was an odd child. My appearance was different from everyone other kids. I was the youngest kid and I was the quietest. voice, and a quiet personality.

"Of course I'm not able to see in the future that's what it was However, for the time I was in a state of agony of 'Why am I misunderstood I'm not understood?', and many of us go through the same thing."

Happily, Jo had the tool of writing: "I had a more than a sympathetic relationship with myself just observing without judgment. I wrote all of this negative stuff, but I am aware of the good things that were happening within my own life. I was able to modify my writing, not just what I had written however, I started to reverse engineer how I see things because I wanted to read positive stories. It was necessary to see positive aspects to find positive things for writing about. I began to be a more optimistic person. It helped me become more optimistic."

Making sense of the situation

When she attended college at the University of Manhattan, Jo was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of voices she was competing with. She was also able to locate a much-needed place in her journal. "It did not matter if I resided located in the States or traveling in other countries, I always used this journal to allow me to go back to myself.

"My "why" is to give individuals the same sense of "You're gonna be okay, no matter how ugly the circumstances happen. Not only will you be able to support yourself emotionalally, it's also also lovely to document your story - because in documenting it is a small act of gratitude for the fact that it began to happen. Your identity will always be in self and your own thoughts."

"There's scientific evidence to back this assertion," she says. "There are clinical trials of writing to aid in medical treatment. People who record their gratitude are more content."

"Give your mind a break. Let the weight go from your head and put it on the page. When you write about bad things, you give yourself distance, which allows the reader to analyze it using the least emotional response. We can be sucked into a frenzy by emotions. They're at the heart of all things; at the root of self-confidence, at the root of charisma, at the root of walking into a room and being able to attract good fortune."

"Maybe this is a membership"

Jo had certainly attached many positive things in the year 2020. With her YouTube channel, which has more than a million subscribers she was getting paid to travel. "I was living this exciting, public life, but behind the scenes, I was writing. This was the essence of me the only thing I did was writing."

In January 2020, she booked her first Netflix job as the presenter for The World's Most Amazing Vacation Rentals. "It was a step away from YouTube and into the traditional way of presentation. If you've had the pleasure of working on a production set, they know these days are long. It's 16 hours and an endless cycle of 'Hurry up and sit'. You're ready to go: makeup, hair and everything is completed. There are lines written on your mind and they're like, "No no, it's just a joke, we have to pause""

In all of those pauses often lasting for long periods, Jo would write. "Writing was something I loved which is why I wanted to turn it into a career." After covid came on and the show ended, her main source of income dried up.

"I felt anxious like everyone else. I started sharing photos of my journal entries. It was 100 days later and I had journaled publicly on Instagram Stories. I thought, "Hey it could be a membership' - maybe users would want to join within a room online with me and be journaling as a group. This was the way JoClub was born. It was just 4 years ago. Which is crazy!"

In on the Netflix show, Jo realized that journaling was the lens by which she was able to see the world. "It was more than an interest. If you're on the road for two days, you're tired. It's easy to get caught up in something completely unrelated with what you're getting to be paid.

"You recognize, "This is how I understand the meaning of my world. It's a way of life. This was clear to me that if I put aside everything else, the one thing that I cannot let go from me is my writing. It was important for me to incorporate that into the next phase of my career."

Creating something bigger than herself

Jo decided to get involved in her project. "I had to upload three videos per week across three different languages. I needed to recruit individuals, and then fire them. I learned how to create a content machine."

However, something had to be changed. "I didn't want to always work. If you're exhausted or worn out, which is common among creators and you're exhausted, you'll never be able to make money. I've realized that, if this is an occupation I'm planning to continue for a long time I'll need to figure out an avenue to take my face from some of the opportunities to make money."

Jo wanted to create something bigger than herself. The journaling club started with a bang on Zoom: "The membership started at just $19 per month, and included a live call a month and I'd send out daily journal prompts for everyone's email inbox."

She envisioned a curatorial experience that was similar to a yoga class. There were two prompts, then the discussion. Then two additional prompts, then breakout rooms. "It was IP (intellectual property)," she recalls. "After the period of six months I started asking myself, can I train facilitators on how to conduct these events? Indeed, will these facilitators benefit JoClub in ways I have never could? The participant wanted to "extract the goodness" and collaborate with the facilitators, who were once members of JoClub, to design the art journaling form, a 'bring your own song' for budding musicians and other such.

"Now there are six sessions every month and I'm hosting as many as I want," she continues. "Beautiful events that I could never think of happening have begun such as retreats I organize and I did a pilot at a university and we're working on different issues. I could not have done it had I remained as Jo Franco's group with me at the top."

Culture and community

"An intriguing aspect of membership is that you create the culture" she adds. "If somebody's paying for a membership, they're walking into your home, which means you can design your house in the way you want." Jo and her team have researched ways to build more lively conversations so that "people have conversations in community spaces, so they feel like they're getting what they paid for."

"It's the difference between an audience and a member," she adds. "An audience is going to engage with whatever you are posting however it's not necessarily a dialogue. If I share an image and someone comments and I reply, but with a community that I'm curating, I'm involved in the actual structure of the community from the moment they sign up to the membership."

Jo has thought a lot about the process of onboarding and how we treat new members. "How can we reduce the impact of a person walking into a room feeling like they don't know anybody? This is the time to focus on the curation of culture which is the reason members remain for years to come."

It's not simple. "It's something you have to be passionate about in order to keep improving as a membership an ongoing thing. If you do not pay attention to the news and you don't pay attention, you'll lose all your members."

It's evident that Jo is bringing the compassion and self-awareness derived from her journal into how she manages her membership. Actually, she believes journals help us become more aware of ourselves. not taught as kids: "We're not given tools to deal with emotions. There are tools that can help you save yourself when you feel you're losing your footing. It was difficult for me to comprehend these benefits. It was just a wonderful pastime. As I grew older I realized, "Damn! it's been my secret""

When people ask 'Jo, you're only 30years old, what did you do all of this?' I've just written about it and everything went well," she laughs.

More information

To learn more on Jo Franco and to become a part of JoClub, visit, go to joclub.world.