Meet the Joyologist: How one woman created the coolest job ever

Imagine if your job was to tour with artists like Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat, to make green juice, and teach yoga. Sounds crazy awesome, right? Well, Tricia Huffman made this job a reality, and it has a name—Your Joyologist.

Basically, a joyologist is someone whose job it is to “support and encourage your physical and mental health, so you truly live and love your life,” explains the wellness maven, who is based in Orange County, California, but runs in healthy circles on both coasts. That means making sure a major artist on tour is exercising, eating healthy, getting enough sleep, has someone to share their feelings with—or all the things that allow for happiness, she explains.

“I’m the person that would ground them down when they’d get upset and slam the door,” says Huffman, who just taught at Soul Camp. “Their life is really hard and they have busy and crazy schedules. It’s also super exhausting living on a bus. If the artist is in a bad mood, everyone’s walking around on egg shells. I decided to take care of the artist.”

The resume of a Joyologist

Huffman’s career in joyfulness didn’t come as a result of childhood based on rainbows and unicorns. After battling fibromyalgia during elementary school (although she wasn’t diagnosed until 18), at 15 or so Huffman decided to “take on self-love and stopped putting up with bullshit. I was in such physical pain I couldn’t deal with people being fake and playing games,” she says.

She moved to Chicago at 18 to fulfill her dream of being a concert sound engineer, where she was prescribed various medications that “messed her up more” and led her “into eating well and finding natural ways to heal,” Huffman explains. Shortly after, Huffman was plucked from her job (at House of Blues) by a tour company and began traveling with Grammy-award-winning artists as a sound engineer.

“It was all men, and there I was on tour with my juicer and doing yoga on the bus and making gluten-free vegan meals,” she says. “I had to have a thick skin.” Huffman’s dad then passed away in 2008, and that was the wake-up call to leave sound engineering. She returned to the tour as a production assistant for Jason Mraz.

“I don’t know what you’re doing, but keep doing it”

“Managing Jason’s tour didn’t last long,” she confesses. But it worked out: Instead of organizing itineraries and spearheading logistics, Huffman began teaching yoga, organizing dressing rooms, and making raw vegan meals for everyone on the road. “I remember Jason saying, ‘I don’t know what you’re doing, but keep doing it.” She took on the title of “Jason’s Joyologist,” becoming “Your Joyologist” soon after, and working with other artists and performers like Colbie Caillat and Justin “Kredible” Willman.

Huffman decided last year to focus on her own happiness for a change, and quit touring to settle in Orange Country where she does one-on-one coaching in person and remotely, and inspires joy-seekers with her just-launched Affirmation Deck—as well as motivational messages on her website and social media.

“I get so moved from people replying my newsletter or tweet,” she says. “Whether it’s a celebrity calling me to get out of their head, or getting a response on a tweet from one of my followers. It’s like, holy shit, I actually am making a difference.” —Jamie McKillop

For more information, visit www.yourjoyologist.com