Latest / The You Project / #2024 The Power Of Play - Cas Holman

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#2024 The Power Of Play - Cas Holman · The You Project

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I'll get a team. Welcome to another installment of the podcast.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Craig Anthony Harper. Who else would it be joining me
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: from the other side of the world. Is my new
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: friend Cass Hi, Cass.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey there, how's it going?
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's gone great.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Tell my listeners where you're at as we speak? So
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: as we record here in the thriving metropolis of Melbourne
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: at seven oh five in the am. A very rude
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: time to do a podcast.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Now, I'm already up.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I've had my coffee, I've been caffeinated, I've gone for
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: a walk. My nervous system is just humming, so I'm
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: good to go.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Where are you? What time is it?
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm in Brooklyn, New York. It's five pm. And
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: thank you so much. I very much appreciate you being
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: up at seven am instead of me. We would not
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: have had a very interesting conversation if it were my
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: seven am and you're five pm. Thank you, Craig. Really
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: you took one for the team there.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. You definitely
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: owe me one. It's fifteen love. No, I'm just being silly.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: So you're not a morning person. What's your optimal I
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: know you're a creative amongst many other things. What's your
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: optimal creative time? When are you at your best?
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when the sun goes down. I find the sun
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: extremely distracting, and I just want to be outside, playing,
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: making things, exploring the world and people. And then when
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: the sun goes down, I can really kind of like
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: settle in and focus a bit better.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: You know, there are parts of the world it's dark
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: twenty hours a day. You know that.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know that that would work. Again, the
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: sun is distracting because I love it, right, Okay, I
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: don't know if that would work for me. I admire
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: those people, and I've watched documentaries with awe because I'm
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: just I'm fascinated by people who are capable and living
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: in models that are so different than than than my own. So,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: but no, you couldn't do it?
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: Are you a natural?
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Like?
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Sometimes like my doctorate is in psych science and my
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: undergrad is in exercise physiology or excise science, and so
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: I kind of get pigeonholed as a science person. But
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I feel I'm naturally more creative. Like I've written seven books,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: and I've done lots of stuff and built businesses, and
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm a creative living in a like
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: like a round person living in a square hole, so
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: to speak. You know, are you naturally creative or did
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: you develop that?
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: No, I'm naturally creative, and I think that the creativity,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: like pleayfulness, is a muscle that, of course we exercise,
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: and the more that are we've kind of designed our
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: lives to have room for it. And the more habits
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: we have around creativity and playfulness, like, the more we
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: use it and the more natural it comes to us.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I think I think by nature and playful
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: in part based on kind of the trajectory of my
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: life and the way I kind of came up as
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: a young adult. But yeah, I do think I think
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: that that there is some anat creativity, and then I
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: do think that there are a number of things that
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: we can like learn as skills as well.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, why do you What are your thoughts on
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: I've got a few, but I want to hear yours
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: first on why we tend to play less as we
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: get old. I mean, apart from the busyness and the
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: mayhem of life and trying to pay bills and.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: Kids and run a business, I mean, there's that I mean,
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: there's life, so you've got to get you're got to
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: get out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, But so what else is there?
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Though?
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: Are we embarrassed to play? Do we feel too self conscious?
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Do we worry about being judged because we're fucking grown up?
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: So we've got emotional bullshit?
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all of the above, all of the above. You know.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: We also we don't prioritize I think we don't really
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: respect play all that much, so we don't prioritize it.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: I think, like if you were to look back at
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: exercise fifty years ago, as someone who knows a lot
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: about exercise, we didn't respect it. We didn't know that
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: it would be good for us or that we needed
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: it right. So it wasn't a priority. It wasn't a
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: thing that people really took seriously. And I think play
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: is very similar right now. And I look forward to
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: a play renaissance where we start to respect play and
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: understand its value and therefore we prioritize it right, and
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: then we design our lives to integrate it more so
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: that things like our jobs and taxes and cleaning the
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: house and whatnot, not only like become could become more playful,
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: but also you know, make room for more play. So
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: but yes, and then the other part is that I
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: do think that as we come up, like part of
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: kind of growing up from puberty on is learning how
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: to suppress our play and instincts, right, I mean the
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: way that we go to school, the way that our
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: learning is structured in these institutions that are that are
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: really actually kind of about controlling us, right, and controlling ourselves.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: We learn how to control our instinct like hold still,
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: stop joking around, don't you know, don't be immature. All
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: of these things are this this like underlying message is
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: to be playful as bad. It's to be immature, to
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: be immature as bad. We are aspiring to be taken seriously,
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: and being taken seriously requires that, you know, we are
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: serious people. And so I think that by the time
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: we're in adultihood, we we're out of practice for one thing,
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: But we also have a lot of I call it
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: a play voice and an adult voice, and our adult
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: voice is really just shutting down our play ways at
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: every turn, Like the play the instinct that the play
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: voice that says like you know, hey, you know, throw
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: throw a throw a lot of paper at your friend
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: while they're falling asleep in the meeting, you know, and
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: then the one that says no, no, you can't do that
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: because that's not a thing that adults do, or like, hey,
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: like wow, look at that like grassy slope right there.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Don't you want to roll down that? Wouldn't that feel
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: so good? And then the adult voice is like, you'll
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: look ridiculous, you can't do that, like ah, but your
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: shirt is clean, and then you'll get your suret dirty
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: and heaven forbid, you know, there's the grass stain on
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: your elbow. So yeah, I think that that we fear judgment.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: I think we also are we kind of judgment but
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: also failure. I think we're we're if we as soon
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: as we think we're not good at something, we stop
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: doing it often more often than not. And I think
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: adults often think that they're they're bad at play. Yeah.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: I hear from people a lot who tell me that they,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: you know, they they feel like when they try to
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: play with their kids, they don't really like it, or
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: that they're bad at play. And I think that in
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: and of itself would be a reason that some people
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: might not do it, because it's hard to do things
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: that you're bad at, right, or that you feel bad at.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: We're afraid of failure. We want to want to do
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: things that feel affirming. And so yeah, there's quite a
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: few reasons.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: It's super interesting. I don't do a whole lot of one.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I'm on coaching anymore. Performance coaching I do a bit,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: but you know I do more like talking to groups
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: and podcasts and all that stuff.
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: But I would often ask over the years of asked
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: this many times cas where I'm I'm chatting with someone
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: and I go, okay, so you've got to you know,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: you've got a health plan, you've got to diet, you
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: got a gym plan, you've got a financial plan, you've
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: got a career plan, and all of those things.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: And people who like on.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: A level, on a level, they're doing well, like from
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: the outside looking in their life's Hollywood, right, ticking all
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: the boxes, ticking all the success boxes. But in the
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: middle of that, what seems to be pretty successful picture,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: so fucking unhappy, right. And I would say to people
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: do you like having fun? And they'd look at me
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: like I'm an alien, And I say, I know this
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: is a fundamental silly question, Just yes or no?
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: Do they'd go, of course, I go, do you love
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: having fun?
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: I love having fun? I go, cool, what's your fun plan?
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Like, you've got a health plan, a financial plan, you've
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: got a career plan, and you're telling me this thing
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: that you love is having fun. Cool, what's the plan?
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: And they look at me like, I go, you need
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: to have a fun plan, Like.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: There needs to be It's good to be good.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: It's good to look good.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: It's good to function good. It's good to have a
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: few bucks. It's good to all of those things. Of course,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: a fundamental and paramount from an exist and human existence
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: point of view.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: But am I talking too fast for you? Sometimes I
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: feel like I too fast?
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: No, I can give up New York. Remember weird?
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yea, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, but I met
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: with the accent.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: But yeah, and it's like and I know it's a
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: weird thing, but just going like I have motorbikes, right,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: So I have four motorbikes. That's part of my fun.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: I train every day with one of my best friends
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: in the world at the gym.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: We go to the gym, we hang out, Like the
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: gym for me is play.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: We live ork shit, we be childish, we talk about crap,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: you know, and I have a twenty or I have
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: a business partner who runs my life who's way smarter,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: more efficient, more organized than me.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: Her name is Melissa.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: She's quarter of a century younger than me, and I
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: am definitely the child in the relationship.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: She just rolls her eyes. Right, she's thirty five or
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: thirty six or something like my shoes are older than her, right,
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: And it's like she says to me, you're such a child.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: I go, I know, thank you.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm like, I you know, when I need
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: to be a grown up, I switch it on.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: But like, and I know that, you know, I know there's.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: A lot of other variables that when yeah, you got
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: to you've got to tick all these boxes.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: I get it. But it seems like a concept.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: That we don't even really think about a lot is
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: play and fun as we get older.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I like your concept of fun plan,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: your question to people, what's your fun plan? Because I think, like,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: you know what you described the person who seems seemingly
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: has it all right. They have a great job, they've
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: got a big house, they've got an extra car, and
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: they take vacations, but you know, like, so those are
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: what we're told we're meant to need and want, right,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: And I think a lot of people like don't have
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: opportunities throughout their lives to kind of ask themselves what
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: they actually want, because maybe they want those things, but
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: also maybe not right. And similarly, like we're taught like
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: being an adult means not playing, but then every once
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: in a while it's like, wait, now, why is that? Right?
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: So every once in a while we kind of have
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: to like tune in to ourselves and say, hold on,
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: does that work for me though? Right? So, and in
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: the book, I talk about this idea of kind of
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: reframing success that one of the things that adults need
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: to do to be able to like access and get
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: back in touch with their play is to reframe success
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: and to think not just in the small scale.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: If you're if you're like, well, I'm on a hike,
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: so the goal is to get to the top of
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: the mountain. But it's not like I'm with a child,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: so it's taking forever and it's kind of frustrating. And
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: I would propose, well, in that case, reframe success. Maybe
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: success is actually just that you have you spend quality
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: time together. So who cares whether or not you make
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: it to the top of the mountain. Right. Success isn't
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: getting to the top of the mountain. Success is that
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: you had fun, Right, And so there's the kind of
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: like like in order to have like a playful approach,
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: like reframing success is really helpful because we often get
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: kind of single minded about what we think we're trying
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: to do, when in fact, like if you kind of
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: open it up and say, wait, but what's my actual goal?
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: It opens up so many more possibilities and really like
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: takes the pressure off of whatever you thought you were
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: supposed to be doing, either in that moment or in
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: this stage of your life where maybe you have an
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: opportunity to do something that feels a little bit off
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: path or off track but appeals to you for whatever reason.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about your your book in the moment.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: By the way, Cass's new book is called Playful. How
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: play shifts our thinking, inspires connection and sparks creativity.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: There it is right there, but nice plug.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: You, it's out there.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: Give God by five copies, no.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Pressure, maybe ten Christmas is on the way. I just
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: wanted to We're going to circle back to the core
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: concepts in the book. But while we're talking about success,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: this is one of my favorite topics to talk and
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: think about because in Australia anyway, I've been to the
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: States a bunch, I'm pretty sure it's the same.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Like when you think about what are.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: We taught culturally, sociologically, you know around our friends in
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: the media and the social media. You know, success is
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: about stuff, what you have, what you earn, what your own,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: what you look like, what people think you, how many followers,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: how many sales, how much money in the bank, And
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: not that any of those things are bad, of course,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: but to me that's all the kind of external visible
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: KPIs and how many people do do and I know
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: who have ticked all of most of those boxes and
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: from the outside looking in their life as Hollywood, but
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the inside out experience is shit because they're emotionally, spiritually,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: mentally bankrupt. You know, It's like the outside is all
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: shiny and razzle dazzle, but the inside is broken. And
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: so for me, I try to divide success from the
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: external to the internal. And so when people go I
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: want this, I want that, like they're all and you
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: think also cass.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: About like well, why do we want that?
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Well, we want that because we think it's going to
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: change something in here, like oh, I'll be less stressed,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: I'll be more calm, I'll be happier, I'll be more fulfilled,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: I'll be more balanced, the anxiety will evaporate, I'll be
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: more popular, more desirable, whatever. And then the truth is
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: that when we get to the top of the mountain,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: as you were talking about, sometimes we're like, oh, fuck,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I just climbed the wrong mountain. It's that mountain over there,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Like the external doesn't often equate to the internal that
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: we thought it would.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And so what you got to the top?
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Was it fun? Like are you happy up there? Now?
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: You know you're still just there with yourself, So yeah,
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: it's interesting. I mean that's just like in general, it
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: sounds like we're both just making a plug for therapy,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: like go to therapy, like ask yourself the hard questions.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean it's it's really I think that
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: the play is something that we just really we think
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: that we it's like an extra like eventually we'll get there,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: maybe we will, or like every once in a while,
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: and I think like increasingly like it is is a
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: very real human need, and I think a lot of
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: like the times that we're not feeling well, Like it's like,
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: oh wait, maybe I just need to like run around
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: for a second, or maybe I need three and a
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: half minutes of my favorite song to jump around, and
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: then I'll hop back on this email thread, right Like
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: there's really subtle ways that we can integrate it and
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: just like we just feel better and treat each other better.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: I also, I like, if i'm I can tell I'm
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: of course very in touch with my play instacs and
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: when I like am ignoring my play voice, everybody around
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: me is going to suffer, you know, So we can
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: be better to each other if we also were a
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: little more in touch with our play voices.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: Do you reckon that?
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: For you, that play is just to conduit to the
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: thing that you need, which is you know, joy, which
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: is calm, which is creative expression, which is it's like
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: that's almost the vehicle to get you the thing that
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: you really want, Do you know what I mean? Like
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: for me, seventy people, why I go to the gym
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: is to hang out with my mate and talk like
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: I want to lift someone. Yeah, I really want connection.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah Yeah, I think I think most, not most, a
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: lot of play. I would most play that at least
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: I think that adults are a little bit disconnected from
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: is social play. So there's all kinds of different types
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: of there's play types, there's kind of play personalities that
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: a scientist named Stuart Brown has kind of like defined
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: and done his work around in his research, and and
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: and then there's there's all of the various ways of
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: kind of getting these different play types or like pursuing
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: your play personality or your needs right And in my
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: mind is largely driven by being in touch with what
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: do I need at any point, you know, and is
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: it play or is it food? Or is it you know,
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: an app, is it to just be outside for a second,
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: or and you know, as a designer for play, So
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: so my whole world is immersed in play. I design
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: toys and learning materials and playgrounds. I now wrote this
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: book that's more focused on adults. And then I also
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: like in the meantime, I have to try to see
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: if along the way, like I'm you know, keeping up
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: with my own needs for playing and then at the
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: same time observing them because as an adult I need
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: to notice what it is and why as well. As
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: like learn from other people, learn from my own experience
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: with it. So uh, but I think for me it's
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: it's it's it's like a holistic wellness. It's also my work,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: like play is my work and it's in it's and
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: whether or not it's part of my work, Like it's
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: also not always fun like play is, and social play
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: in particular can be really scary and we can get
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: really really hurt because in order to play, we have
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: to be vulnerable, right, yeah, And that's why it can'
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: why it can be so impactful is that we like
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: we have to trust ourselves, we have to trust the
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: people we're with, and in order to trust, like our
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: when we trust, we're vulnerable. And then the more vulnerable
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: we are, like the obviously the more we can get hurt.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: And so there, like play isn't always hunky dory, right
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: and then similarly, like play is a way that we
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: can deal with times that are not hunky dory, like
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: times that are very hard, and we can deal with
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: hard things through play. And so I think it's much
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: more complicated than people typically think. And it's interesting. I
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: don't usually use the word fun when I'm talking about play.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but it is. I mean, of course, yeah, like
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: I just just for me.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: That's because I'm essentially a fucking fifteen year old and
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: a sixty year old body. Like that's for me. That's
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: what I equate. But it is funny, funny, it is
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: no pun intended. It is interesting because as you're talking about,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: like sometimes play, yeah, it means being vulnerable. It means
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: trying new things. It means risk, It means opening new
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: social doors. It means putting yourself in a situation you
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: haven't been. So I think maybe as well as fun,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: there's also you know, there's the potential for growth and
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: understanding and awareness, which of course you know better than may.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: All right, enough for me, give us a snapshot of
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: the book. So the book everyone applayful, how apply shoot out,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: thinking in spots, connection and sparks creativity out now tell
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: us about the book, Yeah.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Really briefly though, thank you for that for the ramp
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: launch launch pad. But I wonder if based on just
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: what you were saying about how you have books and
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: businesses and PhD candidates. I wonder if for you each
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: of these new projects is in a way play, right,
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Like I wonder if you you take on new projects
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: or new inquiries. I mean, along with being obviously a
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: very curious and excited human being, Like it seems I
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: would say like for you, some of these things might
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: be kind of how you play, right, Like you're excited
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: about something, so you dive in and you play with
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: the idea or the people or the organization through like building,
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: like you're creating these things, like whether it's a book
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: or a business or a group that does a thing together.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I think that's just to say, like, yeah,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: to me, I think play can look like that.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: I think life is it can be play in the
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: sense that a lot of it is just making stuff up, creating,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: solving problems. Just like you solve problems climbing a tree,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: you solve problems in business, you solve problems in relationships. Yeah,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of a lot of connection
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: and similarities and overlap. I like I realized when I
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: was twenty three or four casts I want to work,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: but I don't want to work for a boss. So
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: I'm not lazy, but I don't like this kind of
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: I don't really I'm a terrible employee. I'm a terrible employee.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: Do not employ me, right, so I thought, I want
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: to work for me. What does that look like?
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: How do I do stuff that I enjoy that is fun,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: where I'm learning, growing, evolving, makes a few bucks and
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: I get excited to go to work. I knew that
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: when I was twenty, right, And then when I was
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: twenty six, I opened Australia's first personal training center.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: So that was thirty five years ago, right, So for.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Me, and I don't mean like, yeah, it was good
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: and it went great and it was fun and I
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: ended up opening four centers and all of that. It
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: was great, But just for me, the excitement of doing
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: new things and opening new doors and fucking up and
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: getting back up and learning and growing and evolving and
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: getting shitit wrong, getting shit right, figuring out how do
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: I what's marketing, what's branding, what's leading, what's leadership, what's Yeah,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: you know, I had no ideas, So it was just
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: every day was like new lessons and it was.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: Very much for me in a way. It was played.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an extremely pleaful process and a pleaful approach
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: to all of those things, which is wonderful. That's great,
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: you spoke new spokesperson of a pleaful approach to leaf.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: Exactly, just quickly before we dive into your books.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: So, we have a lady on Her name is doctor
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Sam Casey, and she lives on the other side of Australia.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: We're on the East coast. She's on the west coast.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: She's over in well, not in Perth, which is the capital,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: but above the capitol. Anyway.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, her whole thing is play therapy for mainly for
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: little ones. But yeah, so hold her whole work, Korea books,
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: all of that is around.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I think it's I think it's like it's
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: across the spectrum, right, It's across the lifespan. And even
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: you think about it, old people, old old people in
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: God blessed in homes. What are they doing, Like a
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: lot of the time they're just playing with them like
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: games and music and yeah.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: So yeah, anyway, I'll shut up.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Tell us about the core concepts of the book, the
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: ideas in it, and what was the kind of genesis
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: for it.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Well, So, as I mentioned, I'm a designer who has
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: been designing toys and playgrounds and playspaces for close to
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: twenty five years, and in that time I continued to
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: hear from adults from my either clients or audiences. When
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: I was doing a talk or presenting my work, the
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: question was was so often what about adults? And I
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: managed to reaction was usually just I don't go to therapy.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: I'm not qualified to answer that. I don't know. I'm
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: busy doing this other thing, you know. And eventually I
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: realized that I've also was an art professor for thirteen years,
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: working with design students and also fine art students, and
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: noticing that they had a really hard time playing, which
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: is surprising because art for many people is play making.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Art or being in a studio is playful like and
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: has a lot of similarities with these the concepts of
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: flow right when you're when you're in a playful mindset,
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: so and and and the kind of working with them
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: and figuring out how to craft assignments or have conversations
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: with them so that they could feel, you know, free
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: to play. I kind of was was starting to fine
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: tune some of the ideas that I wrote about in
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: the book, you Know, which are the reframing success that
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: I talked about, the kind of embracing possibilities, which is
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: a little bit about curiosity and being open to what
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: you might find that you don't expect. And I also
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: found with my design students that they were were like
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: the willingness to trust themselves had so much to do
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: with how much they were able to trust each other.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: And then when when we all got to a place
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: where we trusted each other and I had like carefully
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: crafted this safe space for them to play in, it
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: got so rich, Like the ideas were beautiful. They were
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: excited about what was happening. Like a whole new level
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: of creativity erupted when they could really really like like
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: trust themselves and each other and get into that playful mindset.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: And a big part of that was judgment. The fear
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: of judgment, not just of that others were going to
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: judge them, but realizing just how much they were judging
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: themselves for the play instinct or for the for maybe
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: they were going to play wrong or maybe they were
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: you know what if they what if it you know,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: fails or I look dumb, or my peers don't respect
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: me anymore. Especially, you know, the undergraduate students who were
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: just coming out of school, they were really attached to
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: grades and kind of extrinsic motivation, the type of like
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: rewards we get from from grades, but also from video games, right,
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: this idea that you play in order to level up,
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: so you're not like you never kind of have to
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: ask yourself internally like what am I doing and why
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: you're just like doing that so that I can get
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: to that, right, Like I've been told this is the goal,
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: So this is what I'm doing. I'm walking this many
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: steps to reach however many steps a day. I'm like,
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: everything is like extrinsically motivated. And so after ten years
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: of being a professor, I've kind of again like realized like, oh, actually,
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: I really know how to kind of fine tune this,
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: like getting people into a state where they can connect
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: with their intrinsic motivation to play, not just like you know,
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: play the way that we do with games and sports
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: and video games, but free play where it's open ended
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: and intrinsically motivated again, so that it's coming from like
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: what do I need? What am I interested in? That
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: may not be what I've been told I should be
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: interested in or as cool to be interested in. And
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: so yeah, so the book is setting out to kind
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: of help adults both understand and respect play, because if
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: we understand the importance of it, you know, we're much
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: more likely to then get on board with that. It's
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: not easy to embark upon the how. And then I
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: go a bit into the how, like how how we
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: can integrate it more into our lives in ways that
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: we probably already do but maybe just haven't really called play. Yeah,
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: so it's it's been interesting, the like I said, the
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: I heard from people who would compare their play either
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: to how they played as a child or how their
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: own children played, like people saying, you know, when I
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: try to play with my five year old, I got
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: to tell you, it's really boring, you know. And I
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: was like, of course it is. You don't expect your
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: ten year old to play the same as your five
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: year old. You're thirty, why would you play. Your play
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: is not going to look like your five year old's play,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: So thank you, and yes you should keep playing with
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: your five year old, but don't expect their play to
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: be your play. Like you now get to find your
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: own play, you know, and it'll feel as good as
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: when you see your five year old playing. But let's
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: like reframe this idea that you have to play like
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: you did when you were five. You might that could
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: be that might be what's in you. But as an
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: adult developmentally, you have really different needs of your play
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: right now?
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, have you looked at what's happening in the Brian?
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Whe am I applying us all the people? Have you
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: had a look at any of the year I saw it,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: h year, I saw it around?
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: Tell us about that.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So my co writer, Lydia Dinworth is a science
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: writer and and so she did a deep dive and
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: and we did find some research, but there is not
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: a lot of research into adults in play. I mentioned
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Stuart Brown and he is a neuroscientist and has a
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: beautiful ted talk that is that I can't recommend highly enough.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: And you know, we found again I'm rotting it down.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Stuart Brown. Yeah, and and uh he also
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: has a book that I recommend that's about I think
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: it's called Serious Play and and yeah, he's been a
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: huge influence on my work. I had the opportunity of
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: talking to him recently and it was I cried, Yeah,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: it was beautiful. He's amazing. But we did find, uh,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: you know, company like Caltech Jet Propulsion Lab did some
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: research about their their engineers, you know, about what kind
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: of play like. They found that their most successful engineers
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: were those who tinkered as children, you know. So there's
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: been like correlations between who you are and as an
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: adult and what kind of play you had as a child,
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: And there's been a lot of there's some kind of
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: broad play studies that have been has been done on
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: lab rats, So we've learned quite a bit about play
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: through studying play and animals, which I think is kind
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: of generation agnostic most of the time, though it's applied
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: to children. So I'm interested and I hope that that,
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: like I mentioned, that maybe there'll be some kind of
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: play renaissance, that we can get some more research that
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: shows the benefits of play so that people we know
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: even more, and or we structure our lives and and
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: our culture to include out more, you know, and people
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: are able to play without fear of looking silly.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: So if you had to do a sales pitch for
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: play and you were talking about features, advantages, benefits, as
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: we do when we're all selling anything, right, here's why
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: you should come to our workshop. Here is why you
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: should buy our car. Look at my new protein shape.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Forty grams of protein. So what are the I mean?
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: And again, this is just your experience and insight. What
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: are like the top three or four benefits for somebody
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: listening to this who's like forty five and they're like, yeah, great, cast,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: that's cool, but you don't understand my life.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I got all this shit going on. It's all
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: right for you, professor. I mean, what are the benefits,
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: like as in.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Tangible outcomes that we might expect through starting to incorporate play.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, so, first of all, if if you're
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: in the ruts, like now is exactly the time to play.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: It's essential for psychological, emotional, physical health, of course, and
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: those those are documented that there is research to show
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: that across the board that it has an immense benefits.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: And I think even if it doesn't always seem intuitive
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: based on where we frame play in our lives, may
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: not be intuitive to play when things are hard or
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: when you know you're feeling sad or you're you know,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: that is in fact the time that you could benefit
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: from at most. It also shapes our identity and it
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: helps with adaptability. So playing an uncertainty is approaching uncertainty
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: with play. The more that we play, the more adaptable
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: we are. That's also proven and so kind of it
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: puts us in a state where we're more likely to
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: be comfortable with uncertainty and therefore be more adaptable if
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: if we play more, because then we're used to kind
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: of you know, doing or approaching things without expectation. For
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: first of all, I think expectation is a huge part
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: of what makes us hung up on what's you know,
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: uh an outcome that we want uh? And I think
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: that it's it's it's not about like, so I have
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: to say as designer, I love design. I'll design anything
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: I love. I love designing, and and I've been approached
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: to design things for adults in play and and as
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: much as I would love to say like yeah, I'm
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: a great designer, I'm the right person for the job.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: It's not about materials and like, there's no golden key
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: of if you buy this thing, you as an adult
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: will play right. It's a mindset which makes it way
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: more accessible to everybody. It's you, don't you. You can
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: shift how you're approaching you know, your daily life, how
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: you do the dishes, how you have set up your office,
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: how you walk your dog or go get groceries to
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: be more playful, and you will reap the benefits of
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: that play. So it's not about materials or environment or
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: like the ideal person. You know, having again, like having
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: a playful friend or having someone to play with always
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: helps a lot, But it really is it's a mindset
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: as much as anything else.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would be fascinated to I love the thing
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: that you said about going into something even if it's
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: a challenge or a problem or a new thing or
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: an uncertain thing, with a playful mindset, because like, what's
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: happening in the mind is happening in the body. Right
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: If you think something terrible is happening, well, your nervous system,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: your cardiovascular system, your endo crime system, everything believes you.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: So now that theoretical construct has become a real experience
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: in your body, you know, and everything every kind of thought,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: well not every thought, but you know the big things.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: If I tell myself a story, and the story is that.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Right now is the best time I've ever had, and
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: I believe the story. I've got dopamine, I've got probably
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: a bit of oxytocin because I think you're great, and
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, my blood pressures down and my
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: body's producing happy hormones, a bit of dopamine, but whatever.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: You know, It's so funny how the way that we
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: think about things literally literally on an experiential level, if
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: not on an external physical level, but on an internal
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: experiential level for us becomes real and I think the
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: whole And for a lot of grown ups, I would think,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: like how I use the word grown ups like I'm
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: a child. For a lot of grown ups, I almost
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: think it would feel to them counterintuitive, like how could
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: you even suggest I play? Do you not fucking see
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: what I'm in the middle of?
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: Do you ever come up against that?
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah? And I even feel it, you know, Like I mentioned,
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: I moved in the process of moving, which I don't
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: know why we ever forget how much moving sucks. It
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: never doesn't suck, Like who cares how prepared you are?
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: Who cares how many days you have off? Like it
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: is always gonna sun and still you know, a couple
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: of days ago, I was just like chased by wolves.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: I mean every part of my body, like you said,
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: everything in my system thought that I was like being
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: chas hunted, you know, And I like took a walk
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: and it wasn't enough. I was trying to like do
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: some yoga and it wasn't quite enough, and my partner
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: came home and put on some music and I like,
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: and they like kind of and I didn't want to dance.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: They were like dancing around and I was like, I
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: hate you, Why are you making me do this? You know?
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: But it worked. We danced, and I just like, then
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: I just started crying, like you know, then you just release, but.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: It's like you'll sign your partner, fuck your ideas, fuck
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: your dance, fuck you play no.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: Also because I knew they were right, but I didn't
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: want so what you're saying where people will be resistant,
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: where it's like I want to, but I know I'm
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: frustrated because it's hard and I'm out of you know,
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: once you're in the when your system is stiff, like
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: that's not like a place that's easy to like play from.
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: That's why I think like my other like dabblings into
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: play weren't working. It needed to be like a full
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: body dance around loud music. The dog barked, you know,
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: in order to really like have me shake it off.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: And then it just like I was so much better
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: afterward and was able to like attack some boxes and
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: feel okay about having a home you know, like it's okay,
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: we do have a roof, we are safe, it is fine,
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, so yeah, yeah, it's I think. And
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: again that's where a big part of the book I
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: spent just kind of continuing to reiterate this matters, like
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: it is proven this way. Like Lydia, my co writer,
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: my collaborator, she brought a really different perspective than I
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: do to the book, and in ways where I was like,
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: why do we need to prove that? You know, she
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: was like, we need to prove it. So at every
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: turn we did, we went in and we're like, believe us,
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: like you got to trust us. Here's here's some it's
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: not just us, here's some other people, and here's a
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: research study, here's some other evidence of this. And it's
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: really it was critical.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Especially now, especially now when people are lock show me
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: the data, show I mean the research.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, so he's It's funny.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: When I got told a few days Agollege chatting with you,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: I had this idea about something I've thought about thirty years, right,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: and I thought, I'm going to ask you about it,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: and You're like, what is he going to say? So
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: I for me as an excise scientist. Right, I'm always
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: thinking about you know, once people get to generally forty
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: five point fifty, there's a lot of variability around that,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: but things can start to slide, you know, bone density,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: muscle mass, balance, cardiovascular fitness, immune system like, general health wellness,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: like basically how well their body's working. You know, so
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: and I and a big part of the physiological decline
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: that people see for much of the population, it's not
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: it's not because they've got to a chronological age where.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: Everything just falls apart.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: It's quite often because they it's a bit of that,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: but it's more that they're just not doing anything. They're
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: not playing, they're not lifting weights, they're not moving, they're
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: not working against resistance. They get to a point where
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: they're not some of them not solving many problems. They're
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: not putting themselves in situations. I mean this with respect listeners.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: They're not putting themselves in situations where they're being challenged physiologically, emotionally, psychologically.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: But let's just stay with the body.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: And you know, it's like I've worked with people in
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: their seventies who are stronger, fitter, more functional, better balance,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: better muscular endurance, better overall strength, bone density, and function
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: than the typical forty year olds, right, people in their seventies.
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: And it's not because of their genetics.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: It's because of what they do, you know, It's because
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: of their choices and their behaviors and their lifestyle. Now, one,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: we don't want to be obsessed with exercise, of course,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: but also you can't get another body, right. And I
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: was thinking about, you know that famous George Bernard Shaw quote,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: which I don't know if you like or hate, but
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: you know, we don't stop playing because we grow old.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: We grow old because we stopped.
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: Playing, which I'd love your version of that, by the way,
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: But it's like, yeah, when you think about play, When
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: I think about play for grown ups, I think I would.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: And I've thought of this for decades. If someone wants
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: to do it, have my idea. Feel free is building
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: literally playgrounds for old people or the equivalent, where obviously
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: it's got to be done the right way, but there
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: are things for people let's.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: Say sixty plus.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: I'm just plucking a number where the entire reason for
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: that facility or that resource is play. Nothing else but
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: apart from the psychological and emotional benefits of which you
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: speak grasshopper. There are also lots and lots of physical benefits,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: you know, balance, coordinations, strength, confidence, muscular endurance, bone density,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: nervous system benefits. How good would it be cast to
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: build some fucking you know playgrounds for old people.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: Well, so these do exist. You are correct, You are
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: correct that this is a great idea, and they do exist,
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: and they often are more well around the world. So
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: I think almost every playground manufacturer at this stage has
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: has some and it's the adult but they kind of
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: there sometimes are a little bit park course, are parkore inspired.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: Other times it's like it's you know, there's like a
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: thing that's kind of an elliptical Yeah, yeah, yeah. And
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: I see these all over the world every country that
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: I've been to, and some more than others. I've seen
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: these around dotted around cities, and also in some countries
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: I see them being popular, like they're crowded all the time,
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: versus in the US, where they're usually a little dusty
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: because people like to do what they want to do
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: it in the basement instead like, ah, nobody can see
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: me exercising. I don't know, I'm kind of weird about it.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: But but the thing and I think they're wonderful from
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: a from a fitness and like you said, like the
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: physical benefits and if there's if there's other people and
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: you're meeting your neighbors, then it has the social benefits.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: And so I think that they're great for that. Uh
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: And and I would just plant the seed that I
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: think that there's there's there are ways that also we
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: could kind of set up the systems that we support
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: our aging population in so that they included more play
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: and maybe overlap with younger kids. Right, Like I've I've
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: read about different countries where often they'll have like retirement
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: villas and kindergartens that overlap for a couple hours a day,
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: not for the sake of babysitting, for the sake of
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: like benefiting. It's mutually beneficial, and it shouldn't. It's not
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: rock rocket science, like that makes so much sense, right, Yeah, Yeah,
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: And I actually I just did I just did a
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: project with the A branch of the UN, the International
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: Labor Organization, the International Training Center of the ILO, which
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: is part of the UN, and we did this workshop
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: which was intergenerational play where we had people who were
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: between seventy and eighty who did this day long like
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: play project creative generative thing with eight year olds and
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: it was really incredible, and it was really specific about
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: kind of setting up this workshop so that there was
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: no expert right, Like I think when we're when a
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: young person is working with somebody older, it's easy for
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: everybody to kind of slip into a hierarchy of like, ah,
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: now I'm teaching you, or like oh, this is the
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: drawing exercise, so the kid is going to take the leader, like, oh,
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: this involves information, so now the old person is the boss,
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: you know, And so I set it up really carefully
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: so that there was never kind of a hierarchy, and
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: then they had to really really kind of work together
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: and communicate and try to learn each other. Yes, so
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: I think that that's also something where like the cognitive
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: benefits of playing together could be less physical. But of course,
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: like you know, they were moving around and they wound
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: up doing these performances that did involve dancing and you
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: know a lot of pretend play. But yeah, again it's
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: like there's there's there are ways that that when it's
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: open ended or when it's free play, like as humans,
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: like we're going to want to move our bodies, right,
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: it'll happen if we let it. But yes, I love
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: your thinking and and those do exist. And so does
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: that mean that you don't have any in Australia You've not.
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: Seen I know exactly what you're talking. No, we do
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: have those.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: For me, they're more like they're like, yeah we have those.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: Where's one five kilometers from or a few miles from
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: where I am. Now there's a bunch, but they are
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: they're like exercise stations. They're like workout whereas I'm literally
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: talking about play, I'm literally.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: Talking about I'm talking.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: About swings, swings, monkey bars. I'm talking about like a
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: child's playground built more suitably for adults, rather than workout
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: stations along the foreshore, which we have here in Melbourne.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: But yeah, all right, so we've got to wind up.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: But I've got a couple of questions I want to
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: run by you. I don't know what my question is,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: but I just want you to riff on think out
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: loud for us on computer games or like screens like
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: play but involved computeed So where there's a you know, yeah,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: you know there's a kid sitting up first person shoot
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: or whatever that you thought around.
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: That, Yeah, I mean I think that we are not
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: doing children or ourselves any favors by making those as
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: big a part of their lives as of all of
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: our lives as they are. Yes, and I think that
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: there are ways that screens and digital technology are part
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: of our lives and need to be part of our lives.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: I don't think that that's necessarily where we need to
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: be playing in particular, Like we're so separated from our bodies,
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: so the types of play that happen when you're that
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: disconnected from your body, and like, you know, we read
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: about that that they for the competitions, like they don't
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: go to the bathroom for eight hours and they eat
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: weird chips or protein blobs in order to sustain. Like
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: that's not it's not good for anyone, right, And so yeah,
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: I as much as possible, And I know that it's hard,
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: but like I try to get parents to really like
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: like just kick them outside if you can, and or
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: give them a box, Like there's so many other ways
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: that kids can play. And it'll be hard at first,
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: but once they have the muscle, once kids like are
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: back in touch with what they want to do, how
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: they might want to play, they will stay off the
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: screen and so, and you asked about the slogan based
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: on George Bernard Shaw's that quote, and I have a
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: couple of different versions, and one is easy is boring
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: because we often think that with children, especially that the
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: play should be right, it's so easy to use. And
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: I'm like, well, then it's boring, like that's not going
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: to challenge. Then nobody grows from something that's easy, like them,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: let them do something hard, you know. So similarly, I
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: try to apply that to parents who are weaning their
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: children off of digital devices, or adults even who are like, well,
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: but I'm kind of uncomfortable dancing. I'm uncomfortable, you know,
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: doing that in public. And it's thinking, well, keep pushing yourself,
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: like it'll be worth it.
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: My last one, I just want to chat a little
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: bit about I'm just going to say the book again everyone,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: just because I can play for how play shift now
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: thinking inspires connection and sparks creativity. Cass Holman, I'm interested
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: in like I'm not, even though I'm stumbling towards the
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: finish line in my PhD.
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: I'm not.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: I don't call myself an academic like I'm a pro academic.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: I'm much more like I'm not even good at academic,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: Like I'm okay if I'm fascinated. I'm fascinated in what
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: with what I'm researching and my studies and.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: The studies that I've run and all of that. So
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: that kind of makes it easy for me.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: But but I think, and again, I love teachers. I
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: understand how hard the job is. I understand having thirty
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: different kids in a classroom with different needs, personalities, predispositions is.
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: An impossible task. But cass, what are.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: Your thoughts around integrating you know, play and learning. I
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: just feel like every kids have different learning styles, and
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: some learn better moving. Some are built for sitting at
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: desk and reading a book. I am not built first
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: I imagine you're not. I don't know, but me sitting
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: and at me trying to just read something and absorb it,
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: I might as well just punch myself in the face, right.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: I need to figure out how the fuck do I
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: consume this? How do I remember it, retain it, understand it,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: and then operationalize it. And it's not by sitting at
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: reading a book. So what are your thoughts around that?
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: I feel like there's a real opening for multiply in learning.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, rigamajig is for you. So one of my
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: designs is called rigamajig and it's a it's a giant,
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: huge scale building kit that does just that. And the
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: thing that's interesting is that so it's like a imagine
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: an erector set but huge.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: Everybody have a lot, Yeah, tell everyone what's what It's
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: called rigamajig.
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: R I G A M A j I G got website.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But what's what's amazing is we spend so much
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: time kind of trying to justify, like, here's all that,
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: and there was a research study to prove that rigamajig
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: worked for this and that. But it's like if you
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: see kids playing with it, you know, they're learning math,
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: they're learning like all of the things, but they're moving
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: their bodies around while they're doing it. So it's an
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: embodied learning. That is, it's so much richer than what
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: they would learn by looking at diagrams in a book,
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: you know, or so not not everything can be can
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: be you know, it's experiential learning, and it's like constructivist learning.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: And of course in play, what we also see is
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: that kids like who wouldn't usually play together or aren't
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: necessarily friends wind up working together because they need each other, right,
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: and that is at the core of like why I
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: do what I do. My other slogan is if we
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: can play together, we can live together.
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: Wow, And it's very true. It's very true. And I
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: would love to figure out a way to get a
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: lot more adults who aren't usually maybe inclined to hang
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: out together, to like play together because there's and it
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: happens here in you know, I live across the street
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: from a playground that has a lot of basketball courts,
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: and so there are a lot of adults sharing space
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: and conflict resolution in every form, and it's beautiful. It's
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: a little tense at times, but it happens because they
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: all want to get on with the game, right, so
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: they're incentivized to resolve the conflict so that you can
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: move on. And it it doesn't happen in other places,
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: Like it's certainly not happening in a lot of the
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: other places where we're having this global discourse between with
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: different opinions, right, So yeah, I think that I think
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: absolutely playful learning, especially for kids also for adults, is
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: like the ideal way to learn with your entire self
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: present your body is getting it. Your mind, your collaborative muscles,
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: your emotions are there when you're doing it in play,
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: So playful learning out of the way.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: Last question, what's that burning thing in the back of
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: your mind that you want to do but create?
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: Next? What's that? What's the next big? Maybe it's top secret,
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: maybe it's a NASA experiment. But what's the no, what's what?
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: No? I love? Yeah, yeah, no it's not. It's maybe
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: a secret, not a secret. But I I love summer camp.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: I loved camp as a kid. When I was teaching
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: at risdy Is, the art school in Rhode Island I
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: had I lived at. It was a retired summer camp
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: that was kind of turned into a living house, but
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: the property was felt very camp like, and I think
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: I would love to eventually have a summer camp. Maybe
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: it's an adult summer camp. I don't know.
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that'd be amazing.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just my favorite vibe.
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't mind a camp myself. Well, congrats.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: The book Last Time is called Playful to help play
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: shift our thinking, inspires connection, and sparks creativity. Congratulations, you
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: you're doing a good job.
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: I love how you think. I love your energy.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: I would like to play with you one time in
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: the physical world, through it dimensional.
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know what we'd play, but
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: it'd be fun.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: We'd have some fun, absolutely, Maybe maybe there'd be no fun,
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: Maybe we'd just.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure we'd get very serious about it.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would definitely win a cast. We'll say goodbye
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: off here but for the minute. Thanks so much for
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: being on the You project.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Craig. It's been great.