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Many of us think that because we’re in business, we can’t have fun. And what that leads to is a lack of creativity, burnout and,… well, not having fun anymore!

Jeff Harry, Play Expert and all around great guy, comes to tell us the science behind play and how it helps us be better in our business.

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Alyson Lex
A lot of times when we get into business, we get so far into the grunt work, the grind the hustle that we stop having fun, and we lose that passion for our business. We lose our drive, we lose our motivation. We forget why we're doing this in the first place. And we know that that's a problem, mentally, productivity wise, income, wise, all of that stuff. That's why when we met Jeff Harry, who is an expert in play, and an all around fun guy, we knew that we had to have him on to talk about play and the role that it can take in your business. So Jeff, thank you so much for being here with us today.

Jeff Harry
Oh, I am to be here. I'm

Alyson Lex
super excited. Definitely bringing a ton of energy which I love. I know that Jennie is probably going to have to referee us a little bit on this episode. But yeah, I'm

Jennie Wright
ready. I got my whistle. We're gonna

Jeff Harry
we're here to cause chaos.

Jennie Wright
Don't say that. You're gonna drive me crazy.

Alyson Lex
That's part of the point. Okay, so when you talk about play, tell me what you mean when you say the word play cuz I think your trucks and superhero figures with my four year old? Sure. So I

Jeff Harry
define plays any joyful act where you're fully in the moment where there is no purpose, there is no result, you don't have anxiety about the future, you don't have regrets about the past, you are just fully in the zone, like you've fallen in love with the process. So, you know, play can look like anything, you know. So for example, I have a client that is a lawyer. And she's like, I don't play, and I go, Well, what do you do? And she goes, Well, I take people that hate each other. And then I have them agree on one thing. And then I was like, Well, tell me more. And then she was telling me she got super excited. And you could tell and I was like, that's your play. So I have a broad vision of what play is. But really play is like synonymous with flow, which is when we do our best work.

Alyson Lex
That is really interesting to me, because I always thought it was weird that I enjoy

Jeff Harry
work.

Alyson Lex
Yeah, why I love brainstorming and getting kind of going and I tell a story about how I met a lady in line at the grocery store who was worried about this was obviously when you still went to the grocery store and talk to people. But when she was worried about losing her job, and I asked her what she was doing, and I like built a business for in line at the grocery store was so much fun. And I'm still it was like four years ago. I always thought it was weird. But what you're saying is that's what play is that is

Jeff Harry
exactly what play is where you are fully yourself, where you are basically, as my business mentor, Steven worldly says, like, you are basically getting paid to be you. Right? And like isn't that we're all we're all trying to be, you know, not trying to be somebody else not trying to do something else, but simply just be ourselves. And if you think about your best moments in your life, their play moments, so why wouldn't you be focused on trying to create more of those?

Jennie Wright
Make sense? I like it. Allison, by the way, just as a tidbit, Allison actually gets super excited by problem solving. Throw a problem at her and watch what happens.

Alyson Lex
She gets a little excited today.

Jeff Harry
Oh, I love I love that. And there's there's something like magical about, you know, Howard Thurman says this quote, don't ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive. Because what the world needs is for more people to come alive. And when you Alison are doing your thing, right? When you then you actually are also solving all these people's problems by simply just being you and I run this workshop with my friend Lauren. Yay, called your futures where your fun is, where we actually find out what people love to do as a kid. We break down the actual core values of the play values that they did. And many times what they did as a kid ties exactly to what they did. They do now as adults.

Jennie Wright
Hmm. Okay, that just brought up a whole thing for me trying to figure out what it is.

Jeff Harry
I'll give you an example. So I'll give you an example. My my, my colleague, Laura, and he loved playing sardines as a kid, which is reverse hide and seek. It's basically one person who hides, then the next person, if they find the person that hides, they pack in with them. And they pack in like sardines until you have like eight people in a corner. You know, and one person being like, Where's everybody and everyone's like, be quiet, right? Um, but the reason why she loved playing that game, when we broke it down was she loved the creativity of it, the collaboration and the connection of it, like those are her play values. So then it's just like, what is the type of work she loves to do now, you know, all of that around building community, you know, problem solving, and also like being collaborative. So you just have to think about that with any of the any of the play things used to As a kid, and then see if that is something that you still incorporate into your work now.

Jennie Wright
I like that. So you also say that play helps with creativity. Can you kind of elaborate what you mean by that I've always had some problems with my creativity. I was, you know, I just kind of want to understand a little bit more about what you mean.

Jeff Harry
Sure. So let's break down the some of the brain science behind it, right? When we, you know, usually your brain is in a beta state. And what happens is your prefrontal cortex has, that's where your inner critic is. And your inner critic, as much as like a lot of people are like, I want to quiet, your inner critic is there to protect you, right? It's protect you from all the dangers in the world. But what happens when you go from a beta state to a flow state is part of your prefrontal cortex actually shuts down and your inner critic starts to dissipate. And then what happens is your implicit mind appears, that's where the creativity comes, right? And then all of a sudden, you start to see all of these opportunities in front of you, you get this shot of dopamine, you can become highly curious, curious just about the world. And you felt this when you've like, traveled and just been like saying yes to everything, but maybe I'll do this, or maybe I'll do that. And we'll and you know, and, you know, one of the biggest challenges that adults have is we get so fixated on results, that we're like, it has to happen this way. But when you're in a flow state, you're, you're open to all the opportunities in front of you. So when you're traveling, you're just like, well, I'll just say yes to this. And yes to that, maybe I'll try that. And you're just much more curious. And think about it, when you are fixated on results. You know, expectations are the thief of joy, right? You know, you are setting up, you're setting yourself up for not only the part where you're blocking out all of the other opportunities, all the creativity that could be there, but also you're setting yourself up for potentially being extremely disappointed, because you're, you're just focused on this one way it has to go. And then you don't see what's possible. And there's so many businesses that miss out on that, especially going into 2020, when they had all these plans and what was supposed to happen, it didn't happen. And then they still were fixated on trying to make those 2020 plans happen, when that just wasn't gonna, it just wasn't the reality anymore. And if they were only willing to mourn what happened in 2020, let go of it, then they could have started to create something amazing with the rest of the time they had.

Jennie Wright
So find your play values, I want to understand a little bit more. How do I start with that? How do I get that going?

Jeff Harry
Did I freeze?

Jennie Wright
Yep, you're frozen? We can hear you.

Unknown Speaker
Are you there, Jeff?

Jennie Wright
So I love what you were saying about finding your play values? Do you mind sharing a little bit more? How do I start doing that?

Jeff Harry
So there's two fascinating ways you can actually explore how to play a little bit more, I learned one from my play mentor, Gwen Gordon, where she first says you can play as long as you're in an anxiety ridden state, like as long as you're feeling anxiety, or feeling anger or feeling some emotion that is really making you tense, it's really difficult to play. And you actually adopt, you know, your nervous system from the person that took care of you the most the person that actually sued you, right? I'm like doing this, because it's like, how did you sue? How did you calm yourself down? So it's really important to first identify how to how do I soothe myself what actually calms me down? I have some of my best ideas in the shower. I just become extremely calm. There are other people go walk, right, right. Other people go walking, other people will go running or they play basketball. Others do three pages of mourning pages, like what is the thing that calms you, you know, where then all of a sudden you you have ideas that starts to just show up? It's the same thing that I What would you say?

Jennie Wright
It's a walk for me, I have to walk. That's my credit.

Jeff Harry
Right? So then the second thing that we challenge people to do is to get bored. And that's really weird coming from a play guy. But what I mean by that is like, stop binge watching Netflix, stop looking at your social media. And I'm not talking about forever, I'm talking about one to two hours. And if you're like I don't have time I have to be checking, you know, look at your phone, you are on your phone three to five hours a day. So you clearly have some die, right where you're in that endless scroll. So and the reason why we want to block that out just for a little bit is because we get inundated with more information in a day than most people get in the 1950s in an entire day. year. So that and all that information is telling you that you're not enough that you shouldn't create. So it's actually preventing you, I don't know if, for me whenever I watch too many videos, then I don't want to create any videos because I just assume all ideas have already been created, right? So if I'm able to write right, Ellison, so if I'm able to block that out, then I get bored. If you think about when you were a kid, that's when you had your best ideas. It was also when you had your craziest ideas and most dangerous ideas. But that's when they started showing up. And what you're doing then is you're practicing listening to that intuition, listening to that inner child, that inner curiosity, and you're strengthening that muscle and then, and then once you get bored, all of a sudden, the whispers start to appear these things and it's gonna whisper something to you, that's really both exciting and scary, right? And it's gonna say something like, start that podcast, you know, create that video, you know, take that risk, email, that person been waiting six months to email, like, do that thing that you know, you've been wanting to do, but you've been putting off. And if you do all of that, that is just one example of a way in which you can tap back into your play.

Alyson Lex
Okay, so when you said that bored kids have the best ideas, you got the most mischievous look on your face. And I know people listening can't see it, but it really made me wonder what you got up to. That's a whole conversation. And

Jeff Harry
I used to create potions I used to just take like antifreeze and ants and all this stuff and put them in a jergens shampoo bottle and then sprayed all over the the grass was amazing. And horrible for a month. I was

Alyson Lex
like, Oh, yeah, the word for mother. I made I cooked with mud a lot. Oh, yeah. I didn't do dangerous stuff. I did. Messy like, I got dirty. Right, right. Anyway. So okay, so we've tapped into my play. We've got my creativity going. Now, here's where I struggle. And I think some of our listeners do too. I'm really good at getting excited about like the idea. Yeah. And the planning and yeah, the plotting. And then once that flow is over, I'm over it. Yeah. So how do I keep it going? How do I keep that motivation, and that inspiration and that drive, going, even when I'm not in that excited state anymore? It is. So this is this is about? momentum,

Jeff Harry
right? And it's also about also not wanting it so bad. Because as long as you want to get into flow, then you can't, because again, you're in an anxiety ridden state where you're just like, I need to be in it. Like I must fight for you can't force it, right. But here's a good example of what I do. And I would encourage your your listeners to try this is like so I start my day by making a tic Tock video, you know, like a ridiculous stupid video. And then why do I do it has no ROI has no productivity, or productive value, right? I just do it because it's fun, because it's interesting to me, because it sparks my creativity and my problem solving and all this stuff, right? So whatever, just doing something just for the sake of fun when I do that, what I do with them, and I do that at the beginning of my day, I'm actually priming my day to look at everything as play, you're priming your mind to look again, your brain looks in patterns. So you know, it starts to look for other positive priming patterns. So one of the tricks that my friend Deseret taught me was whenever something good happens, I asked myself, how can it get any better than this? And I asked myself that question from a curious state, like, ooh, how can it get any better than this? I just made like two. So here's an example. I just made two tik tok videos. Oh, how can it get any better than this? Ooh, then I'm on this System to THRIVE podcast with both of you. Oh, how can it get any better this later on, I get to hop out of a brainstorm of my friend Lauren. And we're going to create like a brand new video, how can it get any better than this, and you start to stack all of these positive moments, they and your your brain starts to look for positivity. Now, on the flip side, when you have a bad day, I challenge people about whether they had a bad day. Because thoughts usually only lasts between nine seconds and 90 seconds. So what your brain is doing is your room and you had a bad moment. And then you ruminate about that bad moment, 1000 times and then you prime your brain to look for the next bad moment and you just kept doing bad moments. But if you can simply shift back and ask yourself that question with curiosity, not yearning but with curiosity, like how can it get any better than this? And you stay curious, not focused on one result. That is when you can continue that momentum. It's when we're like now you know I'm Dennis anymore because like, you know, I'm just looking for this certain thing. I want it right now well, then you can't have it right now. You just have to play with that intuition, that inner child that constantly wants to play, and it's just waiting for you to give it attention.

Alyson Lex
I'm feeling personally called out on it right now thing. Jenny can attest to this. I want what I want. I want it right now. And I want it with no work.

Jeff Harry
Why not? Yeah. Well, I mean, here's a perfect. Here's a great example. Right? I take this from Elizabeth Gilbert. You know, as I was doing a lot of research, at one point, I watched like 15 hours of her talks, because I was doing it for a podcast I was about to do about her. And one of the best things she says is personal transformation doesn't happen until you get tired of your own Bs, right? And we all have to ask ourselves, what is the BS we're saying to ourselves right now, in March, I was telling myself, I don't have time to make videos, I just don't have time. You know, like, I don't like my voice, blah, blah, all these excuses, and then quarantine head and was just like, guess what you have all the time in the world? What are you going to do with it? And now I make a video a day. So we really have to be like call also calling ourselves out? And like, What? What have we been telling ourselves to prevent ourselves from growing bigger, you know, and challenge that Bs and see, like, you know, am I tired of telling that old story anymore?

Alyson Lex
I really like that whole letting go of like, I've totally had those days where I'm like, I am annoyed with myself. Jenny, have you? You've had, you know, I have?

Jennie Wright
Absolutely. And it's, and you let those moments fester? And yeah, it kind of ruins the vibe,

Alyson Lex
right? And then you're like, Oh, I'm so annoyed right now by my

Jeff Harry
deadline for yourself, and then get an angry that you haven't met your deadline every single day. And then you're like, and then you're beat yourself up for it. Just like you made it up. Like you're the boss. Like why are you like beating yourself up? But we do

Jennie Wright
that all the time. We're the same with goals like I want 150 people on my webinar. And I Why didn't I get 150 right, didn't promote well, and self fulfilling prophecy.

Jeff Harry
And also, let's say you got 130, which is really still really impressive. You would be disappointed because again, you were expectations are the thief of joy. We're like this is where actual like depression come in, where we're so fixated on getting it a certain way, that we're not open to like this world of opportunity that's in front of us. And it's like a playground where you can play all these things. And if you think about a kid, when they go on a playground, they're just like, Hey, what are we playing today? Okay, I'll play this. They don't even introduce themselves, then they just start playing this game, and then they stop and they go play another game. But if you're an adult in a kid's body, you'd be like, what game should I play? Should I play tag? Should I play this? I don't know. Maybe it should be on the monkey bars. And then you'd like ruminate for an hour. And then you don't get to play anything. Because the whole time you've been like debating what is the right choice, when frankly, there is no right choice. There's just like, it's just you have to just figure it out for yourself, like nobody. What is it, you have all the answers that you need within yourself. And the other thing that I loved about 2020 as much as like it was so painful and challenging and hard, is that it lifted the veil and showed that nobody really knows what they're doing. We're all making it up as we go along. So why are we trying to compare ourselves to the brain that Bernie browns and Simon synnex and Mel Robbins and all these other people? And just figure out what what works for me, what do I want to do today? What type of boss do I want to be for myself, instead of trying to emulate these people that I never would be able to achieve? And even if I got what they what they had, I probably wouldn't be happy when I got there.

Alyson Lex
I love that. I always say stop comparing your bloopers to someone else's highlight reel. Exactly. And also, like stop trying to run someone else's race. It's not your race. And it's not a race. So I really liked that sentiment. Thank you so much for giving us that reality check about letting ourselves off the hook a little bit, and then learning how to re enjoy.

Jeff Harry
And can I add one more thing to that away? Okay. But I still want to um, so I'm Viola Davis says this quote, you either claim who you are, or you end up chasing your worth for the rest of your life. You know, how many people do you know chasing their worth right now. And with every decision, we either claim who we are, or end up chasing our worth. So I always ask my clients, who are you trying to impress right now? Because if you're trying to impress someone that you won't care about in five years, then why are we doing this? We did this in high school. We don't need to do this. Again. You don't think about those people in high school anymore. But at the time, you constantly wanted to impress them. And it's just like, it's that's not going to bring us a certain level of happiness. We really need to be figuring out What makes us fulfilled what makes us joyful? You know, what makes us, us what's makes me me and pursue that and follow that curiosity and see where it takes you.

Alyson Lex
I love this. I love the permission to play. I love the finding your own thing, what works best for you. I could probably listen to talk for a very long time. And we didn't really need Jenny to referee as much as I thought we would. We stayed pretty good.

Jeff Harry
I stayed in the lane,

Jennie Wright
I still had my whistle ready to go, she had

Alyson Lex
it ready. But where can we find out more about you?

Jeff Harry
Sure. So you can find me at rediscover your play.com and you simply click on the Let's Play button. And, you know, I have a bunch of my play experiments where you can figure out more about who you are. Or if your business we can figure out your problems, or hop on a call with me and we can figure out how we can kick ass more in this world by playing more.

Alyson Lex
I love it. Thank you so much for being here and helping us learn how to play even as boring grown ups. And we will definitely put all that information in the show notes so that our people can find you easily. If you're listening, thank you. Please feel free to subscribe so you get more awesome information like what Jeff shared, we have three episodes every week way tons of information for you to help you grow your business on your own terms. And if it feels great, please do feel free to leave us a review. Thanks for listening and we'll be back with another big question next time.