Latest / Your Money, Your Rules | Financial Mastery, Wealth Mindset, Leadership Principles, Intuitive Decision-Making, Human Design / 208 | You’ve Learned How to Work. But Have You Learned How to Play?
Transcript
- 0:02Erin Gray: Welcome back to the podcast.
- 0:03Erin Gray: Today we're going to talk about your type of play personality, the book Play by Stuart Brown, and how it actually helps you become a more effective and compassionate leader.
- 0:14Erin Gray: So let's dive in.
- 0:17Erin Gray: So I've been talking about teaching, advising, advocating for play probably for the last six or seven years, since I have become more of a playful person myself, as I have incorporated more play into my life, where it's not just about the grind and all of that stuff that I was taught growing up.
- 0:38Erin Gray: And I highly recommend, I'm not gonna go through each play personality.
- 0:43Erin Gray: You can go do that on your own.
- 0:44Erin Gray: You can go read it the book, but I highly recommend reading the book Play by Dr.
- 0:50Erin Gray: Stuart Brown.
- 0:51Erin Gray: He talks about how play shapes the brain, how it opens your imagination, how it invigorates the soul.
- 0:59Erin Gray: And I also think that this is when we play more as founders.
- 1:03Erin Gray: I think that that is where we connect to our flow.
- 1:08Erin Gray: And we also are able to get so many different insights.
- 1:11Erin Gray: And I think we are also able to be a better leader and founder for our team and for our employees.
- 1:18Erin Gray: So the awareness that I had the other day is my daughter recently has started playing volleyball, and she is definitely one of the play personalities that Dr.
- 1:26Erin Gray: Stuart Brown talks about is the competitor.
- 1:29Erin Gray: That is someone who genuinely enjoys competing.
- 1:32Erin Gray: Like the fun and the joy of winning, of keeping score, of beating someone else is actually a form of play for them.
- 1:42Erin Gray: That is my daughter to a T 100%.
- 1:45Erin Gray: If you ask me, I could care less about winning.
- 1:48Erin Gray: Like when we play badminton outside or we play volleyball with her or any other sport that I play, I don't even care about the score.
- 1:57Erin Gray: I just want to know, are we having fun?
- 1:59Erin Gray: Am I having fun?
- 2:00Erin Gray: And is this an enjoyable experience?
- 2:02Erin Gray: For me, actually, when someone is competitive and they get like, they start getting upset and all of that, like for me, that actually, I don't want to say takes the fun out of it, but that's just not a joyful thing for me.
- 2:14Erin Gray: So the awareness that I had was, oh, that's how she likes to play.
- 2:18Erin Gray: And I am more of the play personality of a kinesthete, or I think it's an also an explorer, right?
- 2:25Erin Gray: As an explorer, I love to travel, I love to move through time and space, I love to meet different people.
- 2:30Erin Gray: Like that is one of the ways that I play.
- 2:32Erin Gray: The kinestete is more someone who loves to move their body.
- 2:36Erin Gray: So I get genuine satisfaction of riding my bike, of surfing, of e-foiling, of kayaking or stand-up paddling.
- 2:44Erin Gray: Like I love to move myself through time and space.
- 2:47Erin Gray: It's where I get some of my most creative ideas.
- 2:50Erin Gray: And when I don't do that enough, I notice where my creativity kind of wanes.
- 2:55Erin Gray: So recognizing, if you get the book, you read the book, recognizing what is your play personality and are you actually playing in the way that is best for you, is in alignment for you.
- 3:09Erin Gray: I think that there are two parts that I want to kind of mention here on the podcast.
- 3:12Erin Gray: The first part is when you recognize what your play personality is, you will start to see how much we have kind of been forced into a different way of playing.
- 3:22Erin Gray: I think we look outside of ourselves, we see people on Instagram, we see people doing certain things, some of our friends, and we're like, oh, I want to go do that, or I should do that, or I should like to do that.
- 3:32Erin Gray: Like pickleball is a huge thing.
- 3:34Erin Gray: I have no desire to play pickleball.
- 3:36Erin Gray: That doesn't mean that that's not correct for somebody else.
- 3:39Erin Gray: It's just not my one of my favorite ways to play.
- 3:43Erin Gray: I thought of that I that I would like a hip-hop class, so I took private lessons for a while.
- 3:47Erin Gray: Recognize I'd much rather spend my time on the water than I would dancing.
- 3:52Erin Gray: It's not a problem.
- 3:53Erin Gray: It's not that that hip hop is bat is bad and I don't like it or it's not for everyone else.
- 3:59Erin Gray: It's just it's just not for me.
- 4:00Erin Gray: And so I think first and foremost, we have to allow ourselves to play with the idea of play.
- 4:07Erin Gray: Don't be so serious about finding out what is your number one play personality, and also what are the ways that you actually like to play?
- 4:15Erin Gray: I think somewhere along the way, we were taught and told that play was like for kids.
- 4:21Erin Gray: Adults don't do that.
- 4:22Erin Gray: We don't have time for that.
- 4:23Erin Gray: And so we kind of dimmed our light and got smaller.
- 4:27Erin Gray: And, you know, when I first got started, I had to think about like what are the things that I actually like to do?
- 4:31Erin Gray: What did I do as a kid?
- 4:33Erin Gray: So when you read the book and you figure out, okay, what is your play personality?
- 4:38Erin Gray: Stop judging that it doesn't look like your business bestie, or stop judging that it doesn't look like the way that your husband's, you know, loves to play.
- 4:46Erin Gray: That's first and foremost.
- 4:48Erin Gray: And I think also the biggest theme here, the umbrella that I want to bring home is understanding how your team likes to play, because every employee or team member is very different than another.
- 5:02Erin Gray: I think this kind of ties into as well as understanding your human design and also understanding their human design because you can support them to their fullest when you understand what their human design is and yours, as well as their play personality.
- 5:16Erin Gray: I think about this from like a sales, if you've got a sales team.
- 5:19Erin Gray: If you have someone who is a competitor, like my daughter, who loves to win, they're probably gonna be super motivated by KPIs and games or like, you know, competition winning, like leaderboard and all of that kind of stuff that competitors love to measure against.
- 5:41Erin Gray: And this this doesn't mean that because you have someone who isn't a competitor that they won't be good at sales.
- 5:46Erin Gray: That's not what I'm saying.
- 5:47Erin Gray: I'm just saying that the way that you are going to that they are gonna be motivated or more devoted, I like that word better than motivated, the way that they're gonna be devoted to their craft is going to be very different.
- 5:58Erin Gray: So let's bring this into business.
- 6:00Erin Gray: If you think about sales teams, if you have a sales team and you have somebody who is a competitor, they are gonna be lit up by wanting to win.
- 6:08Erin Gray: They probably will enjoy, you know, the sales leaderboards, the Monday morning KPI records, the monthly contest, you know, breaking records, recognition, you know, all of that public celebration of wins.
- 6:23Erin Gray: And if they, you know, come in second place, you know, they are gonna be thinking about how can I get to be number one?
- 6:30Erin Gray: Because that is their their true natural nature and enjoyment of playing.
- 6:35Erin Gray: Like it is competition for a competitor type of play personality is energizing to them.
- 6:42Erin Gray: It's not draining.
- 6:43Erin Gray: But if you take someone like me, who is an explorer, still a phenomenal salesperson, but the way that they are going to be energized and motivated and devoted is going to be very different.
- 6:54Erin Gray: Like they're going to get energized from meeting new people, from learning maybe and exploring about the different industries, for talking and traveling and to the clients, solving different problems, right?
- 7:07Erin Gray: Discovering different opportunities, being given autonomy.
- 7:11Erin Gray: So if you put them or you try to lead them in the same way, it's not going to be the best for either one of them, right?
- 7:20Erin Gray: Because if you are trying to lead everybody in the same way, one of them is going to feel great because if you're leading from that competitiveness, right?
- 7:28Erin Gray: I think back to like my financial planning days, and we used to have like Monday morning meetings, you know?
- 7:32Erin Gray: And it's like, can I just skip that?
- 7:33Erin Gray: Like, I do not care about what anybody else's numbers are.
- 7:36Erin Gray: I don't care.
- 7:38Erin Gray: And so you really have to, I think, understanding the way that your team is, the way that your team moves.
- 7:44Erin Gray: So if you did have somebody who was a competitor and you did have someone who was an explorer, you're going to coach them, you're going to advise them, you're going to motivate them in very different ways.
- 7:55Erin Gray: You're going to have different conversations with them about that.
- 7:59Erin Gray: I remember when I was, you know, working with a client and I just asked them, I asked her, I said, ask your team, what does sales mean to you?
- 8:08Erin Gray: And I had her do some journal exercises with her team.
- 8:12Erin Gray: And it was fascinating to hear you could just pick out the ones that were like more competitive in nature and the ones that were more so relationship-based.
- 8:23Erin Gray: And what that drive was for them was very different.
- 8:27Erin Gray: And so you have to really understand your employees.
- 8:31Erin Gray: You have to care enough to understand what motivates, what drives them because we're all driven by different things.
- 8:37Erin Gray: And so when you understand that, you can lead them, you can teach them, you can advise them in very different ways that will allow you to get what you want and also allow them to have what they want as well.
- 8:52Erin Gray: It's just going to be coming at it from a very different perspective.
- 8:56Erin Gray: I think the other thing here that you have to really remember too is if you put a competitor with maybe someone who doesn't like to play that way, there might be friction.
- 9:06Erin Gray: So really recognizing what are the tendencies that my, and I'm just using this as an example, you know, my sales team, but what are the tendencies of those people?
- 9:17Erin Gray: Because in order to support your employees, understanding who they are as a person, understanding their human design, understanding their play personality will allow you to support them and put them and pair them, you know, if you are pairing them up or, you know, even training.
- 9:35Erin Gray: I think about this.
- 9:36Erin Gray: I was working with a client and we were talking about training.
- 9:38Erin Gray: If you have someone that doesn't have any desire to train, putting them in a place where they have to train is not helpful to them and it's not helpful to your new employee.
- 9:48Erin Gray: So you really have to ponder and contemplate what are my employees' strengths?
- 9:53Erin Gray: What do they love to do?
- 9:55Erin Gray: And are they in the correct position in my organization?
- 9:59Erin Gray: So I highly recommend go get the book Play by Stuart Brown.
- 10:02Erin Gray: Read it first and foremost.
- 10:04Erin Gray: I always say, like, take it in to you first, right?
- 10:07Erin Gray: Before you start to teach this to your team, go take it and go embody this work for yourself.
- 10:11Erin Gray: What is your play personality?
- 10:13Erin Gray: Go play with that.
- 10:14Erin Gray: Go figure out what that is for you.
- 10:16Erin Gray: And are you playing enough in your life?
- 10:18Erin Gray: Are you allowing enough creativeness, enjoyment, joy throughout your day and your week, or are you all about business all of the time?
- 10:27Erin Gray: So, first and foremost, do this for yourself.
- 10:30Erin Gray: Understand for yourself first, and then go take it out towards your team.
- 10:35Erin Gray: I think the best thing that we can do for ourselves, for our team, for our business, for our families is to be lit up first.
- 10:42Erin Gray: So figure out what your play personality is, then play with it, go enjoy yourself, have fun.
- 10:51Erin Gray: So go buy the book, go read the book, embody this work first, figure out what your play personality is, or personalities, I should say, right?
- 11:00Erin Gray: I'm kinesthetic and explore, and recognize what is it that is the best thing to support you and how you like to play, because that is where all of our creative ideas come from.
- 11:11Erin Gray: And then you can take that to your team.
- 11:14Erin Gray: Okay, I'll see you in the next episode.