Latest / Art of the Question / How to Live a Playful Life (And Why It's Important) - Jeff Harry - #9
Transcript
- speaker-0: I saw that you also watched the movie Big with Tom Hanks and that it has had a pretty big impact on your life. And that was one of my favorite movies as a kid. for starters, for the people that haven't seen the movie, what is the movie about and why is it so important to you? speaker-1: So Big was one of Tom Hanks like really early films, right? It actually was one of the ones that like made him pretty big before Forrest Gump and all those other things. But what I loved about that movie is I saw it when I was in third grade and basically the concept of the movie is he wishes that he was big. He wishes that he was older. ⁓ And then he does that and Then he's like, well, I got to get a job. And while he's like, out how to get a job, he goes to FAO Schwartz. He goes to like a toy store and just starts dancing on a piano and playing. And then someone hires him to basically play with toys for a living. mean, and then I didn't even realize it was a job. I didn't realize that was like a possibility in my life. So as soon as I saw it, I ran home. And then I ran to FAO Schwartz and danced on a piano, but no one offered me a job. So that was super disappointing. And then I just started writing toy companies like in third grade. And I just didn't stop until I literally got into the toy industry. Like, I don't know, like 15 years later. And, and I don't know if you've ever gotten exactly what you've always wanted and then been so disappointed when you got it. Right. But, ⁓ Yeah, the toy industry was not fun. No toys, no joy, no high fives, no play, no play. And I was like, why do I, why did I even want this? ⁓ I want to play. So I left New York. I came to the San Francisco Bay area. I found a job on Craigslist, which is a super shady site. ⁓ and it was teaching kids engineering with Lego and, ⁓ yeah, I basically grew this organization that, that got kids to play for a living for like 15 years. And that made me start to get people to play in the workplace. And then now I'm a speaker and I just travel around and try to make work suck less through play. So that's all because of big all because of it. speaker-0: Yeah. And why was it so disappointing when you finally... Because I believe someone, when you started emailing those companies of people in the toy industry, they advised you to study mechanical engineering to actually build toys and then... speaker-1: I mean most most people thought I was a scammer because they were like there clearly can't be a child Writing all the because I would send like six to the same place, right? ⁓ So that's the first thing but then when someone finally did write me back they were like, yeah You should go in mechanical engineering, which I probably should not have done. I probably should went into industrial design, but who cares, right? And and then when you get there you just realize like they're just selling plastic Like they don't really care if the toy brings people kids happiness or not. They're just hoping that it makes them money. So a lot of people were just not very playful in the toy industry. And I was like, man, this, this sucks. I thought this was going to be like the movie and it was not. speaker-0: But that's interesting though, because you would assume that if a toy is... if children actually like to play with a toy, that it will sell more and therefore that it makes them more money so that it's therefore in their best interest to think of toys that are fun, right? I mean... speaker-1: But it's more in their best interest to make the cheapest thing possible and sell it for the most amount of money. That matters more. I mean, do remember He-Man? speaker-0: Yes, yes, yes. I believe they're doing a movie on that. speaker-1: Yeah, they're doing the movie movie, right? So here's a great example, right? This is Mattel Mattel had this he man ⁓ Skin they had this he man like toy that had a snake on it and it apparently shot out Slime right? Well, there's a rumor that they didn't sell enough of those I Can't confirm this but they didn't sell enough of those So that when the Harry Potter movie came out, like 15, 20 years later, there was also the same model with the basilis shooting out slime. And I was like, dude. So like it's examples like that where it's just like, ⁓ my gosh, man, like they're constantly trying to cut corners and their goal is not to bring happiness. Happiness just happens to be like a side effect if they make a good toy. Right. speaker-0: Yeah. All right. So now ⁓ you are teaching people and businesses and teams what it is to play again and teach them how important it is to have play in one's life. How do you define play? What is it? speaker-1: Well, I define play as any joyful act where you forget about time, right? Where you're fully immersed in the moment, where you're fully present, right? ⁓ And you do your best work when you're at play, when you're in flow. know, ⁓ positive psychology studies find that you're five times more productive, 500 % more productive when you're in flow. And in great examples, what was it? I think it was Stephen Johnson said, you'll find the future where people are having the most fun, right? So if you're going to find the future where people are having the most fun, the most innovation comes from play spaces, places where people could play. So a great example of that way back when was like Google. Google used to have something called the 20 % rule where you could create whatever you wanted. ⁓ if you worked for Google, you can make whatever you wanted, but you only had like, I don't know. A few hours a week like four to maybe seven hours a week, but it's just like just make something that's kind of cool. This was the beginning of Google and what came from that play was Gmail, AdSense, Google News, Google Maps, Google Earth. The foundations of Google came from play, right? And we forget about that, especially in the workplace. ⁓ And you'll see a lot of startups that first started because they were so fun to just like, let's figure out this problem. And now they're way too serious and they've lost all the joy of why they're doing the work that they're doing. speaker-0: Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned flow there. mean, I used to ride BMX bikes, freestyle BMX bikes. I'm currently recovering from a torn ACL riding BMX bikes, ⁓ got injured. But when people ask me what I like about riding BMX, it's one of the only things that I can do where I get completely immersed in the moment. And my house can be on fire. Everything. My house can literally be on fire. I don't care. I'm if I'm dropping in on those ramps flowing through the literally flowing through the dirt jumps in the air, because it's something that I can do. There's definitely skill involved. Yeah, I am hyper focused. But it's also something that comes easy to me because I've had so much practice doing it. So I believe those are two components that are very important to achieve flow state. has to be, you cannot achieve flow state while you're sitting on the couch, right? So it has to be somewhat challenging, but not so challenging that you don't know what to do because that'll get you out of the flow state. So I believe for me, it's the best example of getting into that flow state. Nothing else matters. My world gets so tiny when I'm doing that. It's just me and the bike. Nothing else. speaker-1: Interesting you say that because the doctor of flow right dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Had this flow chart. I hate flow charts mostly but his flow chart I actually like because he would talk about how There's challenge and skill right challenges here skills here And when you first start a job or anything when you start anything you have no skill right, but the challenge is really high So you have a lot of imposter syndrome. You have a lot of anxiety. So you can't get into flow because they're like, I don't even know if I can do this job. Right. And then when you've been at a job or experience for a long time, now your skills high, but the challenge is gone. So now you're just bored. Right. But what you talk about is that moment when skill and challenge meet. Right. That's the moment. So you have to figure out, OK, what is it that I want that is challenging and where is my skill set where I love to do it most? And I love that you use the example of BMX because I mean, I love BMX, dude. I've never done it, but just watching it, like when y'all leap and you have to like land perfectly on the hill and you're like one with the hill as you're going through the next one. And if you at any point get out of flow, you might die. Right. Like, like that's how serious it is. But you're like truly one with, um, yeah, one with it. I watch. YouTube videos of people that do the run on a bike down like mountains with snow. And I'm like, this is amazing, man. This is, I've watched this all day because I can just feel how present they have to be. speaker-0: Yeah, it's incredible. It's an incredible feeling and I hope to get back at it as soon as my knee has healed up. What makes you get into the flow state? ⁓ speaker-1: I make a lot of stupid videos. I wear a lot of wigs. I make fun of the work environment a lot. ⁓ I now get into the flow state when I'm speaking a lot. ⁓ Because again, and this is great for anyone that's ever considered thinking about speaking, the best advice I've ever heard going on stage is like, it's not about you. It's just not about you. Like, there's a message, you have to channel it. You have the privilege to be able to be on stage to channel it. But that's it. And when you're like that, then you're like, ⁓ you're not worried about the arms or the perfection or, know, did I make a mistake here? You're just sharing something that you're like, I think this might benefit the world. Right. ⁓ So speaking that recently, I did the Camino. Do you know the Camino? Yeah, it's a well, yes, this walk. ⁓ It's from many different places. ⁓ could be from France, it could be from Spain. speaker-0: Is that, that's a walk, right? speaker-1: Or it could be from Portugal. I walked from Portugal last year. It was about 192 miles in nine days. And just like the concept of just like, I just like to do play things, right? ⁓ And the concept of just meeting random people while I was traveling and walking and just getting bored ⁓ actually helps my play. What's ironic that a lot of people don't realize All the play ideas that you have appear when you get bored. But we never allow ourselves to get bored because like we're being inundated with date with information all this time. You know, we're doom scrolling. I mean, we get more information in a day than most people in the 1800s got in their entire lifetime. So like no wonder we can't create, but when you allow yourself to really get bored, that's when really magical cool, innovative ideas come up. speaker-0: That's so interesting. I haven't thought of it in that way. I just thought when we get older, like children, they play all the time. And then as soon as we get older, we think of play as something childish. Pardon me. So then we just stopped playing. We become teenagers and it's like, nah, plays for little children. And then maybe We get a job and then we forget about play altogether. I always thought it would have just something to do with growing older, which it doesn't necessarily have to be. But I had never really considered the technology aspect because it's really true what you're saying. As soon as you're like, maybe your phone's dead or whatever, or you're just killing time, you're waiting. And then you see a little ball in the room and you just pick it up and you start fumbling it around. Play happens when you're bored. think technology is a big ⁓ reason why we stop playing as we get older and why? speaker-1: I know it's so much the technology, it's the attention to technology, right? It's so many apps that are demanding our attention. And you notice, like, even during COVID, even with all the apps and all the binge watching, at some point people got so bored that they started going outside, right? They started doing puzzles. They started making sourdough bread or like they started doing hobbies. Everyone started doing hobbies that they never did. because now they had downtime, even with all the technology. So I don't want to blame the technology. I think it's more the concept of like, you know, everyone's demanding our attention. But when do you, when are you just giving attention to yourself? Right? My phone recently died, you know, and I didn't bring it with me while I was walking around. And then all of sudden I started having conversations with random people. Like, what's the magic that can happen? Why do people have such joy while they're traveling. Probably because most of time they're present and they don't have their phone out. You know, if you notice that people that do have their phone out the whole time can't connect with other people. like, and, and, and it's interesting you say about like, you know, play a lot of adults see play as frivolous. Look at the people having the most fun right now, the adults that are having the most fun, right? They're doing jobs that like you, you look at like musicians or Or people in sports like BMX and stuff like that. They're all playing Alyssa Liu who just won the Olympics Perfect example of play perfect example of play she Had so much pressure put upon her since she was like five to be this Olympic Skater right she gets six in I believe it was in Russia, and then she just quits Because she's like, it's too much pressure. Like, I don't really enjoy it. You know, the quad god guy was getting all this pressure as well. ⁓ And then like two years out, you know, from the next Olympics, she just feels like, you know, I feel like skating again. But when she came back and she was like, I feel like skating again, she was like, I come up with my own choreography. I come up with my own practice schedule. My father shouldn't be here because he just adds pressure to me. And I just want to have fun doing it. I don't really care about the results. I just want to skate because I miss skating and I just want to play again. And she fully embraced it and then started winning. But what's interesting and I challenge your listeners to go rewatch that performance, especially the ending when she got the results. When she won, she didn't really care. Like that wasn't on her face. She was just like, great. Because she was more happy with the fact that she skated. the way she wanted to skate it. And she cared about the process. She was in love with the process. She was in love with the play again. speaker-0: I'm so glad that you brought her up. She was on ⁓ my list of topics that I wanted to discuss today because like you say, I think she is the embodiment of a new sense of... I believe the grind set is slowly dying. We had a period where people were rising grind, 5am club and you can sleep when you're dead type shit and you know, all the... speaker-1: And I'll see you. speaker-0: Yeah, fill in the blank. And I believe people figured out that it's a scam. that it grinding away your life does not make you happy. Even when you achieve the goals. What's the purpose? Usually you'll achieve a goal to be happy. But why postpone your happiness when you can also be happy during the process? So I think she embodies that perfectly. speaker-1: Right. And I even talk about this in my TED talk, because I talk about dismantling patriarchy through play. The whole concept of patriarchy is like hierarchy, right? It's just like, I'm going to hustle and grind and beat everyone until I get to the top. And then you get to the top and then you're lonely. Then you have all the you have all the things. But, you know, I see a lot of billionaires that are not happy, right? There's a lot of people I know that are rich. that are not happy and they just keep trying to acquire more stuff to bring them happiness and it's just not happening. ⁓ When what's the point, right? The point is, can I be happy in the process of what I'm creating now? And if you even look at some sports players that are now retired or you look at bands and you ask them about what was your favorite time, you would think it would be when they're winning championships, you think it would be But when you talk to a band, they talk about how they loved being in a crappy used van, driving around, performing for like 40, 50 people way back when like no one knew who they were. Right? They miss that. They miss ⁓ that experience because that's when they were mostly present and mostly connecting with other friends. speaker-0: Yeah, I believe Dana White says if you can't be happy with the little things when you're broke, you won't be happy on a yacht. speaker-1: Yeah, that's real. speaker-0: Yeah. And I also had to think of you ⁓ when I read this quote and when I was preparing for today. ⁓ Are you familiar with this quote from Dr. Robert Glover ⁓ in the context of what makes a person attractive? No. A man in this case. But it's a man who is comfortable in his own skin, knows where he's going and has fun while he's going there. speaker-1: I like that. See, like that. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. I resonate with that because I mean, it's it is a roller coaster. ⁓ I don't know, it seems like nowadays you could just binge watch your binge watch Netflix until you die. Like you really could. You could, you know, and barely anyone is creating that. So when I challenge people like, okay, well, how do I play? I mean, I've been an adult for so long. What do I do? I really challenge people, get fricking bored. Like, your soul away, like go walk, go do something where you have to sit and listen to your own thoughts. And then what's eventually going to happen is you're gonna get a bunch of nerve-sided ideas, right? Ideas that make you nervous and excited. And you're going to be like, should I do that? Like, should I start a podcast? I don't know. Should I get on a bicycle and then ride on this crazy like, like ramp? Like this is ridiculous. Like whatever your, your inner child is going to show up and it's going to start giving you all these suggestions. Explore one of those. And what you'll find when you finally take the leap is that you're like diving into this pool of fear, but then you realize that fear is just false evidence. Evidence appearing real right like it's not it's not that scary and then all of a sudden you have an adventure that you wouldn't have had before and Anyone can do that any day like this could be the day in which you Start to play in a brand new way, right? And all you got to do is allow yourself to get bored to get there speaker-0: Yeah, does play come naturally to you because when you saw that movie, when you were relatively young, you reached out to companies that were in the toy industry. And then after you taught children how to play with Legos, then you graduated towards teaching people and teams how to play. literally it's been a theme throughout your life. But for me, it's something I recently have to instill in myself because I noticed for the last few years I've been very oriented on my goals and I was I was trying like if I have fun then I won't achieve my goals probably so I should just focus on the business focus on on getting to the gym and focus on eating healthy and and I was just I was losing Yeah, fun, basically. was losing and it really made me realize like, what's the point in me pursuing all these goals? It is eventually to have a better life. And when do you live your best life? It's when you have fun. So that's also part of the reason why I wanted to talk to you about this topic so much, because it's something that doesn't come naturally to me, but it seems like it does to you. speaker-1: It does. It does. I mean, it does be, you know, lucky enough because like I rejected being cool really early on when when I was like 13, 14 years old, I was like, this is too difficult to be cool. Like it's just too much work. So I'm just going to I'm just going to make games in my basement and then just invite my nerdy friends over like it's stranger things. Right. Like that's basically was my like childhood and heck, even my teenage years. Right. But I think your experience is most people's experience. We're told that we're supposed to be results oriented, right? You know, and that we should be constantly focusing on the next result, the next result. But, you know, as the phrase, expectations are the thief of joy, like you have so much expectations on what, like I gotta go to the gym now. I gotta go, I gotta get this six pack now, right? All right, now you got the six pack. Now are you happy? Like this constant colonizing, and conquering that just doesn't fill the void. And again, if we're talking about sustainability, not the rise and grind, the people that are playing last the longest as well. So like, for example, great example with the podcast, I've been on many podcasts. I was on a hundred podcasts in 2020. Probably 60 to 70 percent of them are not around anymore, right? Because people just lost it. They, you know, they were like, I'm not getting enough followers or whatever it is. But the podcasters are just making it because they love it, because they're fascinated by it, because they just enjoy the process of it, are the most successful because they just stick around and they're willing to experiment. They're willing to try stuff. They're willing to do research like you do. A lot of people that I do podcasts with have never done research in their life. like, who are you? What are we talking about today? You know, they have like seven podcasts in a row that they're interviewing in one day, right? So again, it's about how do you enjoy that process? Because you're, ironically enough, you'll be more successful, the turtle, than the hare because you simply are being fully present. speaker-0: Yeah, how does play relate to creativity? speaker-1: I mean, I feel like they go hand in hand, right? Like, it's interesting right now that we're so obsessed with AI, right? And we're like, AI is gonna be the future. And it's just like, well, what's AI gonna create? It's just regurgitating what other people have created before, right? And if you think about your most creative moments, what happened right before that? You're probably bored, right? You're probably like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I guess I'll just do this thing. You almost have this itch that you like have to create this thing. Like I feel that whenever I need to make a video, I'm like, I gotta get this video out, right? It's almost as if genius is visiting me. Not that anyone is a genius, but the genius literally visits all of us. And it's just like, create this thing. And then you ignore it. And then it goes on to someone else. And then they make it you're like, ⁓ they stole my idea, right? But if you actually like allow it to channel through you, then all of a sudden other creative ideas, other like, you know, fairy dust type ideas visit you and then you start creating more and more and more. Right. So it's almost like creativity is a, is a muscle and you just have to allow your inner child to speak to you in order to have it keep showing up for you because your inner child always wanting to create. speaker-0: Yeah, are you familiar with the Torrance test? The creativity test? speaker-1: Was that for with NASA? Was that the NASA one? speaker-0: I'm not sure if it's NASA. I only recently discovered it, but the Torrance test is apparently the test, the standard test, how they measure creativity. Children between four and five are almost without exception creative geniuses based on this test. But only 2 % of adults scores like a creative speaker-1: It's like around like 8 % speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So somewhere along the road, we lose our sense of creativity and it probably has a lot of... ⁓ I can imagine as a child, you don't know so much about the world yet. You don't know all the rules. So your brain is allowed to think more freely. If you're being told no or what to do or no, it works like this. start to think in a rigid manner. I believe that's why sometimes when people are trying to solve a problem, they introduce someone from outside of their company or outside of their team in order to look at this problem. And usually they'll come up with a completely different perspective. ⁓ But I think it also probably has a lot to do with play as well. speaker-1: Absolutely and my understanding of that test is that was funded by NASA and part of the reason why was because all of the straight-A students that were coming out of colleges and joining NASA were not creative and was like we're trying to get to Mars, right? We're trying to build a satellite that's going to last long after we die. I need new ideas, not regurgitated ideas, your ability to memorize stuff. And they were so frustrated with the adults because the adults were not creative at all. And you're like, where is the creativity going? And it's our school system that's built off of this whole assembly line, you know, sit in rows, follow rules, listen to the bell type construction line that we're not producing creative geniuses anymore. Or maybe we never were. ⁓ and we're not fostering speaker-0: Yeah. And you work with a lot of ⁓ big, very big clients and they come to you. They want to do one of your workshops or they want their team to be more playful. In your experience, what do most people or large corporations get wrong about play? Because I believe you mentioned something about having a slide and a ping pong table. Yes. Yes. Does not consist. of play but forced fun. speaker-1: Yes, they, yeah, they, they mix up play with forced fun. And forced fun is like, hey, now everyone's going to play. Hey, now we're all going to go bowling and then we're all going to get along. Hey, now we're all going to get in an escape room. Right. We're all going to play pickleball and then everyone's going to get along. Like it's it's which actually sucks because play the re the most important thing about play or one of the most important things about play. Is your it's a choice, right? When you used to go to the playground you'd be like, what do I want to play today? Or maybe I don't want to play right before fun is everyone's gonna have fun and we're all gonna have fun now, right? It's scheduled and it's just like what are you scheduling my fun, right? ⁓ we're like at walmart, you know in all those, ⁓ all those places we're like, ⁓ is everybody ready? Is everybody excited? And you're like no i'm not Like it's 7 a.m. in the morning. Like I am not happy to be here and you're trying to get me to fake smile my way through this crap, right? It's such gaslighting. And when I define play, you know, as any joyful act where you forget about time, I define play as like, what is your staff's flow work? How do you let your staff play on their own time, not on your time, on their own time? How are you giving them the tools to be like, all right, we're coming up with a new marketing strategy. Instead of us just brainstorming it inside a box building in a box room and around a box table and then be like, Hey, let's think outside the box. Everybody. Right. Why don't all of you do your own thing? Be all creative, go outside, figure something out, play around with stuff and then come back to me with an idea. Right. Like allow, give yourself, give your staff a playground where they can potentially fail. like small failures while they're taking risks so that they can create something innovative and new. That's what I suggest. And I think there's a lot of tech companies that claim they do that, but they also force their staff to work so much, you know, that they're working 10, 11 hours a day that again, they can't play because there's so much stress and anxiety. You can't do that when you can't be creative when you think you're going to lose your speaker-0: No, that's probably difficult. like that you said you've mentioned failure. So the possibility of failure. Why is it so important? How does failure relate to play? speaker-1: Well, let's give a great example from BMX, right? Like you gotta crash. Like you gotta crash to know how it feels. You gotta crash to know when to land on the lift, when not to, when you've overextended, when you haven't. Like there's no way around it. And I think it's funny that, you know, especially on LinkedIn, you get all these people that are like, hey, I'll help you make seven figures or hey, you know, I'll help you get your podcast for a million followers. There's all these people that are like, take the shortcut. will help you get through the shortcut. No, you know, I love this quote. I forgot who is it from, but it's called the, the, longest way around is the shortest way home. Right. The longest way around is the shortest way home. And that means like, you got to learn who you are. You got to learn who you are in the failure. You got to learn how do you adapt to the failure? You got to learn how to get up after the failure. And if you take the shortcut, you might get the result. But you have it earn the result. So you're going to lose it. know, there are there were there was a comedian ones that became way too famous way too early on for a movie that he did. But he wasn't ready to do he wasn't a good standup comedy person by then. So he would pack out these rooms of like thousands of people and then he would just bomb because he sucked at it. Right. So you have to you have to fail. Like this is the whole. Process of everything you making your podcast me speaking, you know, I remember speaking in front of 600 people Feeling amazing and being this was like four years ago and I was like man. I'm finally here I'm the best speaker around and then the next day I had to fly to another place to speak and no one showed up I spoke to zero people it was humbling Right to say the least you got to experience all of those feelings So that when you finally are in those situations where like there's enough pressure, right? The challenge and the flow, like you'll go into the flow state because you're ready for the challenge. speaker-0: Yeah, it's so interesting that you say that because I did some research and I was curious to know why play is not just something that humans do, right? We see cats play, dogs play, all animals play all the time. So there must be some biological reason why we evolve to play. Go ahead. It can be coincidence that all of these successful creatures that have existed for millions and millions of years, that they all play. So based on from my understanding, the reason why we as creatures ⁓ play all the animals is to exactly like you say, prepare us for when stuff gets real, like small cats are wrestling with each other and they're biting, they're not biting like full force, but they are practicing to kill essentially when the rubber meets the road. speaker-1: Yeah, and play is part of the survival aspect, right? Like, play is just as important as sleep, love, know, connection, all these other things, right? If you look at the goats, is it the goats? I think it's the goats that like climb the mountains and have barely any place to like hold. If you watch how they teach their kids, they just go. And then their kids have to figure it out, right? You know, and they go, they first start on small things, but they build up to it. So play is also part of our survival, you know? And if you think about it, ⁓ Dr. Stuart Brown talks about how play, the opposite of play is depression. You know, it's like not feeling not connected to the world. When we play, we learn compassion, empathy, humanity, the ability to work with each other. One thing that was really interesting about Dr. Stuart Brown's work, he's the doctor of play, right? Is one of the first school shootings ever to happen in America. And I think the 60s, early 70s was at University of Texas. You know, the guy that went on the tower and shot a bunch of people. And when Dr. Brown studied his play history, He found that that guy never played on top of the fact that he was abused on top of you know, the fact that he had a horrible childhood He never played and connected with other people. So he did not see them as human beings Right. So again play has the ability to reduce hierarchy reduce patriarchy and actually connect us with each other and I talk about this a lot in my TEDx talk of like play can heal the division between us in magical ways that most people could never fathom. speaker-0: Yeah, I believe Stuart Brown is ⁓ after that he figured out that this shooter had never played as a child. He went on to investigate this and I believe he spoke to six thousand people who were incarcerated and neither of all those people had experienced play while there were a child. I believe that was some of his findings. speaker-1: And then I will say on the flip side, if you look at what play could possibly do, what's the magic that play can do? I don't know if you know, are you familiar with Christmas in the trenches? No. Okay. So back in world war one, I talk a lot about this in the TEDx talk is back in world war one, a few months after the war had started. And if people remember like world war one, a lot of people didn't even know what was happening, why we're in these wars. So you had a lot of 18, 19 year old kids just there. Like, I don't even know why I'm there. So it was interesting. was, ⁓ the Germans, ⁓ the British and the Irish were all at a stalemate for months in, you know, entrenched warfare. They're literally just sitting in trenches, freezing their butts off. And on Christmas Eve, and this happened in many places on Christmas Eve, There is a story of ⁓ these German soldiers who started singing Silent Night together. They were just singing Silent Night in German. And then this bagpiper, I think the Scottish bagpiper started playing it on the opposite side of the French. And then these Englishmen started singing and they started singing carols. Over the trench and then this one German soldier comes out with candles, right? almost like a like a truth flag and he meets an English person Englishmen on the same field where like people had like just died right where so many of their soldiers had been and then more people started coming out and they started trading chocolates and cigars Someone brought out a soccer ball And they started having a soccer game between, I mean, we're talking about people that have been shooting each other for months. And this happened all across the trench line for like hundreds of miles. And there were some people that actually came out of the trench and then got shot. so like there, but there were, there, they were so itching, so like yearning for this ability to connect with one another, ⁓ that they were willing to risk their entire life. And look at that, that play that happened that night, the next day, they were ordered to shoot each other and a lot of people could not. So literally play stopped a world war for a day. You know, so like that's the power that play can have. And I think a lot of people don't realize that. speaker-0: That's incredible. I understand that play is, I forgot who the scientist is who discovered this, but that play is similar to fear, to hunger, to lust, to grief, to fill in the blank, like these raw, like primal emotions and yeah, primal capabilities, drivers of humans. that plays is up there as well. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. It's just as important. Yeah. speaker-0: Are there any examples of companies that ⁓ perhaps went to you or didn't even go to you, but that you think are setting a very good example when it comes to embodying a culture that is open to play? speaker-1: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot that started off playful, right? ⁓ Tony, she's a Zappos really creative. Their whole motto was like, if you take care of your employees, then they'll take care of the customers. They allowed their staff to like wear whatever they want, wear costumes, be absurd, be ridiculous. ⁓ That was a real, that's a really play oriented. organization and ⁓ they were super successful because of that. Google early on, they're not like that anymore, but at the beginning they were like that. Heck, even Amazon early on was playful because they, it's interesting. It's not even so much the, the like just companies as much as, ⁓ Startup culture not the startup hustle culture, but the creative can I solve this culture? There was even I forgot it was called like fish but it was these these guys out of Seattle that would like throw fish and And part of their I forgot what fish stood for was the fish acronym. Let me see if I know it ⁓ What that was like about fun Yeah, yeah. Their whole fish thing was like. The fish philosophy was play, make their day, be there, choose your attitude. And for a while, this fish philosophy actually impacted a ton of organizations, but it all came from Pike Place Fish Market, like this random like market of fish that was just happened to be, you know, selling fish all day long, but people actually learned how to connect and use play as a way to ⁓ build camaraderie and build teams that way. I don't know if there's specific companies as much as philosophies that people embraced. then many of them forgot about it. Costco, another great organization that still supports their staff. And then on top of it, many of these organizations like a Costco. not only allow their staff to be ⁓ creative, heck, Southwest used to be that until they got bought by private equity, right? But they pay them really well as well. So the combination of multiple things are crucial. speaker-0: Yeah, is it something to do with size perhaps that that as soon as it comes to get speaker-1: For a while Southwest was really creative for like 20 years They would allow their flight attendants to do their presentations However, they wanted they you know, they they would give a lot of room for their staff to be creative and They were a fortune 500 company with you know, tens of thousands of staff ⁓ If not more, so I don't know if it's the size. I think it's I think it's the ⁓ the desire, frankly, like is fun a crucial, important component of your mission statement? You know, is play really crucial to how you get things done or as soon as you get by bought by private equity or as soon as you get seed money or as soon as you bring in like a new CEO that is so results oriented that they forget the whole culture of it, you know, Another great example is Savannah bananas. Have you ever heard of the Savannah bananas? speaker-0: No, but that sounds fun. speaker-1: Awesome example, right? It's a minor league team. Nobody should care about this minor league baseball team, but they were like, you know what we're going to do? We're just going to make baseball, but we're going to do all the fun things. We're going to do all these create creative things. We're going to dance during the middle of the game. We're going to do flips. We're just going to, it's going to almost feel like the Harlem Globetrotters of like baseball. All of a sudden Savannah bananas started selling out small minor league stadiums. This was like, four or five years ago and then they kept doing it. They would bring celebrities on to play baseball with them and they got so big that they started selling out major league baseball stadiums and now they make they they are more impressive than than the major leagues, right? All based on play, all based on a CEO that embraced play. speaker-0: That's, that's awesome. I mean, I've never heard of them, but I will definitely look them up. If someone is listening to this conversation and recognizes that he or she has lost it. Yeah. Play in their lives. ⁓ what do you recommend people to do? How do people introduce play in their lives when they're working in a situation? Let's say their employer doesn't feel the same about players as they perhaps. speaker-1: Yeah, so, so there's I have a few different suggestions. One is the first one. Allow yourself to get get bored and then see what ideas pop up. But the second one, and I recommend they do this with friends and they can even do this with their colleagues. They ask them two questions. Ask your friends two questions. What value do I bring to your life? Like, why are we friends? Like, what do I do for you? Like, what's the gift of me that I give to you? Right. Which is a really hard question for people to ask. And the second is When have you seen me most alive? Right? When have you seen me most playful, most curious, most creative, most myself? Right? You ask them those two questions and your friends will tell you and you just start writing these ideas down. And the reason why I recommend three to five different people is get many different perspectives from your colleagues, from your family, and they'll remind you of your play without you even realizing you're like, Wow, I used to be a writer. That is true. Wow, I used to dance a lot. I don't dance anymore. How come I don't dance anymore? Right? They'll remind you of these ways in which you were. I used to travel. I love traveling. When was the last time I got excited about travel? Right? They'll give you these ideas and you can jot them all down, look for the patterns, and then even work with the same three to five people and be like, help me to play more. Help me to be more creative. Help me. to risks in a way that I haven't in a really long time. Help me to feel more alive. I mean, this is the whole point of why we're here, right? It's not to binge watch Netflix, even though I do enjoy watching a little Netflix, right? Think about when you were binge watching Netflix, what are you watching? You're watching people play. You're watching people's other, their creativity, their ways in which they were bringing joy to the world. There is a way in which you can bring joy to the world, to other people. What is that? Why are you not doing that? This is your holy charge to actually explore that because you're not only doing it for you, but the ripple effect that you could have on so many people is astounding if you allow yourself to sit in speaker-0: And this will be ⁓ something that people can do perhaps even 30 minutes a day after work or they can do it in the weekend. speaker-1: They can do whatever they want whenever they want man. I mean you could even ask yourself at work What is the work where I forget about time right? What's my zone of genius work my flow work? You know, what's the work? I'll do even if I wasn't getting paid to do this work ha and then and then ask your employer Right or ask your supervisor. Hey, can I can I do a little bit more of this work? Like I'm creative. Can I write our blog posts? I Love doing podcasts. Could I create a podcast for the for the organization? You know, I'll still get my other work done, but I want to work on this as well because I think it would actually benefit the organization. You'd be surprised how many times your supervisor would be like, hey, that could actually be beneficial to us. All right. Explore that. speaker-0: Super interesting. Yeah, I think it could help as well. And I also think the get bored part, ⁓ it reminds me of a scene from a book I recently read. Have you read ⁓ Shackleton or Endurance? ⁓ Shackleton's incredible. Okay, it's one of the best books I've read ⁓ this year by far and perhaps even in forever. It's great. It's about... This ⁓ Ernest Shackleton, he's an English ⁓ adventurer, So he wants to do an exploration on Antarctica at the Arctic. So this is, they leave with 27 people to the Arctic the week before the first World War starts. Yes. speaker-1: Wait, this is the guy that put the post up the job posting speaker-0: ⁓ could be, ⁓ mean, he had to recruit a lot of people, so, ⁓ he could very well be, but after a couple of weeks, they reached the, the Arctic and then their ship gets stuck. Yeah. ⁓ because the ice closes in on them and then have to leave the ship and then they have to, first they wait until. help arrives or until the ice melts or shifts out of place. But it never does. Even though it's freezing and it's 1917. So it's not like they can call someone or bring in a helicopter or something. They are stuck. So obviously they have to do some hunting and they have to do, but they get bored. And there's these beautiful pictures of these guys playing soccer on the ice with a bunch of 27 people and with their stranded ship in the background and they're playing soccer ⁓ even though their lives are very much at stake and they're probably going to die but they're still playing soccer. speaker-1: That is awesome. You know what's crazy? Okay, wait, Ernest Shackleton, right? ⁓ Okay, so I ⁓ have studied him, but not that specific one. I studied the job posting that he put up ⁓ when... Yeah, so the job posting that he put up when he... speaker-0: Yes. speaker-1: was looking for the people that he wanted is fascinating. So because I've actually done talks on him, not realizing that he wrote a book. So the job posting is this, it's called, it goes, men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in event of success. Ernest Shackleton for Burlington Street. Like that was his post, dude. Like that was so. So in addition to I love the play part of it. The part that I talk about when we're doing is we're like, be re we we do that example when we talk to companies about job postings. We're like, be real. Don't lie and say it's amazing. Just tell people what it really is. Because then you attract the right people that would survive something like that, right? Like he didn't over promise was like, we're definitely going to make it. You know, he was just like, this job might suck and you might die. And look at them. Look at they all survived, right? They all survived. speaker-0: That's incredible. mean, I had no idea about this job listing. I love that story. I'll have to look that up, it's it's yeah. I mean, definitely read that book. It's from Alfred Lansing. And it's Endurance. Incredible journey or for Yasha. It's And it's and it's so good because all these guys wrote diaries, right? speaker-1: It's called this just as like speaker-0: So he had access to around 20 different diaries. And then he also did some interviews with some of the survivors. So it is literally written like a thriller or because he has all the information from day to day. ⁓ when you're reading that and think of my life is difficult or I'm struggling with something and you're reading that, it's like, okay, those. Let me put it this way, Shackleton was not lying when he wrote that job listing. speaker-1: You might die! speaker-0: It's absolutely, it's a crazy story. Have you seen the movie Marty Supreme? speaker-1: I have not! I haven't seen the ping pong movie yet, is it good? speaker-0: It's good. And it's, I believe it's also a great example of someone who is very big goals, who is very ambitious, ⁓ but still values play and is very playful. I think the fact that they made a whole movie out of it together with Alyssa Liu at the Olympics, I really feel like there's some shift going on in people's perception about how we should live life and what success means. Do you have that idea as well? Is Elrianne an upward trend? speaker-1: I mean it I completely agree with you that the the the rise and grind ⁓ hustle culture Had its due over the last like 20 years, right? And now you're realizing like a lot of those a lot of those thought leaders are Disappearing right or they're falling by the wayside or they're just not resonating anymore Like I used to listen to Gary Vaynerchuk. I don't anymore. It's not His message doesn't resonate with me ⁓ because it's just not sustainable. Right. But I think the other aspect is because there's such like volatility, you know, and it's such a surreal time where you don't even know if we might go into a world war that people are. And we just came out of COVID and a lot of people died during COVID and just reminds you of like how precious your life is. People are thinking like, I don't know how much time I have. So why not focus on what I can do right now? Why not do have joy right now? So how can I actually access that? ⁓ And that's why people, especially during COVID, they lean back, they actually fell back into play without even realizing it. They called it hobbies or they called it something else or projects, but they really were just falling back into like, what brings me joy and what makes me feel present, right? Here's my belief. My belief is that, you know, in many ways, patriarchy got us to this point. And this is why we're in such a tense time where, where people do not feel connected and, ⁓ plays very much more feminine leadership. It's much more EQ. It's much more empathy. It's much more compassion. And I believe for us to survive as a species, we actually have to embrace a much more matriarchal future where like Hierarchy has gone away and it's and we're more focused on community and mutual aid, right? That's how we actually survive. What was it? ⁓ do you know are you familiar with abraham mazlo's hierarchy of needs? speaker-0: It does ring a bell, but I wouldn't be able to do Yeah speaker-1: Yeah, so I mean, most people know the hierarchy of needs that this person created was like, you know, you know, make sure you could eat, make sure you could live. Right. And then you like kind of build up on this pyramid to self actualization. Like, that's the goal. Right. And that was his interpretation. But what a lot of people don't know is that Maslow. ⁓ I don't know if he misinterpreted or or just got it not complete, but he got that idea from the Blackfoot Nation, with Native American tribe in Canada, where it was not a pyramid. wasn't this goal of like, go, you get this and then you get this and you get this. the Blackfoot Nation's hierarchy of needs was set up more like a teepee that was like connected. ⁓ and self actualization was at the bottom, this whole concept of like, who am I and how am I contributing to the world? Self-actualization was at the bottom. Community actualization was then the next level. And that was like, how are we connecting as a community? How are we looking out for one another? You know, in a lot of Native American tribes, poverty wasn't a thing. If one person was poor, the whole tribe was poor, right? So they all looked out for each other. So that was community actualization. And then on the top of that ⁓ one was cultural perpetuity. This whole concept of ⁓ my life by itself is not important, but I am also the connection between my ancestors and my descendants. I call cultural perpetuity is breath of life. So I get to breathe in all of what I've learned from my ancestors and breathe it out. What they what I want to give to my descendants, right? You know, that's historical traumas, that's lessons learned, all these things. So you're thinking about, you know, Native American tribes always thought about 10,000 years in the past and 10,000 years in the future when they were making their decisions. That type of concept of how to live your life is much more community oriented and then it's not individually focused. So you're not going to have all these like midlife crisis and all these people that are like, got to leave a legacy. I got to put my name on everything because it's not about you. by yourself. It's about the community and it's about the legacy of everyone that you're connected with. That's the way in which we need to lean in going forward and all that connects back to play. speaker-0: Yeah, and I also thought it was interesting what you said earlier about COVID. think COVID might have been the start of this new wave of thinking because I believe they call it the great resignation event. believe something like 50 million people quit their jobs during COVID, including myself, by the way. I used to be a tax lawyer, worked for Deloitte, had fantastic colleagues, a lot of fun people, don't get me wrong, but being a tax lawyer just wasn't fun and playful life to me. So I quit my job and became a journalist. And yeah, it was a wake up call. And I also picked up my BMX bike during COVID because ⁓ the gym was closed. I hadn't ridden my bike for over eight years. Then they down the gyms here. And I might as well get my BMX bike again, because I don't need anyone to ride my bike. I don't need permission. I just go to the skate park and right. So yeah, I really ⁓ resonate with that. speaker-1: ⁓ yeah. I think we're going in a good future if we can get out of our own way and survive, you know, ⁓ you know, narcissism. We can get we we can get to the play. And I feel like we can have a Star Trek type future if we allow ourselves to play. speaker-0: That sounds like a bright one. Jeff, this was awesome. Thank you so much. This was a lot of fun. Where should people go if they want to keep up with your work and what you're doing? speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. If you want to find me, you could go to rediscoveryourplay.com or if you want to see my ridiculous videos, you can find me at the handle at Jeff Harry plays J E F F H A R R Y P L A Y S and I'm on Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook, blue sky, LinkedIn and YouTube all at that handle.