Speaker 1: She said, it's now never I got fighting in my blood.
Speaker 2: I'm tiff.
Speaker 3: This is role with the punches and we're turning life's
Speaker 3: hardest hits into wins.
Speaker 2: Nobody wants to go to court, and don't.
Speaker 3: My friends at test Art Family Lawyers know that they
Speaker 3: offer all forms of alternative dispute resolution. Their team of
Speaker 3: Melbourne family lawyers have extensive experience in all areas of
Speaker 3: family law to facto and same sex couples, custody and children,
Speaker 3: family violence and intervention orders, property settlements and financial agreements.
Speaker 3: Test Art is in your corner, so reach out to
Speaker 3: Mark and the team at www dot test Artfamilylawyers dot
Speaker 3: com dot au. All right, everyone, I have three guests
Speaker 3: to welcome today. This is exciting, not just three guests,
Speaker 3: but three generations dot com to Stuart Brown, his daughter
Speaker 3: Lauren Sunstrom and his granddaughter Maya Sunstrom.
Speaker 2: Welcome the three of you to the show. Thank you
Speaker 2: for coming, Thank you.
Speaker 4: King to be in Australia with you.
Speaker 3: I wish you were in Australia. I wish we were
Speaker 3: all sitting in a room together, especially for the topic
Speaker 3: that we're about to talk about. Hey, yeah, how did
Speaker 3: it all start? Stuart play the science of play? How
Speaker 3: did you even get obsessed with this?
Speaker 5: Listen, we all start up players, So you know, I
Speaker 5: think I had a good family background when I was
Speaker 5: a little kid that was very pro play, so that
Speaker 5: my youth was not terribly complicated other than just.
Speaker 4: For playing, but professionally.
Speaker 5: I got involved in play because I studied initially murderer
Speaker 5: who had killed a bunch of people off the top
Speaker 5: of the Texas University of Texas tower, and he himself
Speaker 5: was killed in the act of his tragic wounding of
Speaker 5: fourteen and wounding of thirty two and killing of fourteen.
Speaker 5: And I was part of a commission because I was
Speaker 5: a young psychiatrist at the time, and we delved into
Speaker 5: his background, his brain, everything we could find out about him.
Speaker 5: And one of the most penetrating aspects of his existence
Speaker 5: was that his highly disturbed father prevented his playing and
Speaker 5: again and again. So that insight from the depth study
Speaker 5: of this one person with a whole group of experts
Speaker 5: that from all over the world really to study him,
Speaker 5: me to spent a year of research studying homicidal males
Speaker 5: in the Texas prison system and comparing them to a
Speaker 5: cohort of individuals who were matched as far as age
Speaker 5: and demography and so on, and they didn't play. The
Speaker 5: homicidal people didn't play, and the others had more normal
Speaker 5: play patterns. So that's long time ago. That's what got
Speaker 5: me professionally curious about what is play exactly. So I'm
Speaker 5: an old guy, So we could spend the whole hour
Speaker 5: talking about my background, and I think we've got other
Speaker 5: things to do. But I've spent a lot of years
Speaker 5: studying play, the neuroscience that play play itself, and the
Speaker 5: National Geographic sponsored me for a period of four years
Speaker 5: or so to study wild animals that play in the wild.
Speaker 5: So I've had some exposure to play itself, and hopefully
Speaker 5: you and the rest of us who listen to this
Speaker 5: will play more as a result of learning about it.
Speaker 3: Oh you know, I love That was such an unexpected answer,
Speaker 3: And what this is why I love not researching too much.
Speaker 3: I do enough research to try and find the very
Speaker 3: best person in the world for the topic I want
Speaker 3: to talk about, and then I don't dive to because
Speaker 3: I get so excited when I hear this. So I
Speaker 3: don't know if that if that story, if you've if
Speaker 3: you've got that anywhere on your websites or anything that
Speaker 3: I was like, Oh, I didn't know it started there.
Speaker 3: That's that's insane. When you were studying that particular area,
Speaker 3: what were the other things, What were the other aspects
Speaker 3: that you were looking at? And when did hey, let's
Speaker 3: look at how much play these guys are getting.
Speaker 5: Oh, we looked at poverty, we looked at abuse, we
Speaker 5: looked at isolation, we looked at out genetics, we looked
Speaker 5: at as many elements of the individuals that we studied
Speaker 5: as possible, and did the same as much as we
Speaker 5: could for the people that.
Speaker 4: We matched them with.
Speaker 5: The initial mass murderer, whose name was Charles Whitman. We
Speaker 5: had the resources and the personnel and a focus that
Speaker 5: was allowed that particular study to go into greater.
Speaker 4: Depth, I think than any of the subsequent school shooter.
Speaker 5: Phenomena, which is sadly has happened again and again.
Speaker 4: That was a different level.
Speaker 5: It was then the most severe mass murder in the
Speaker 5: history of the US, and so the resources for that
Speaker 5: particular research were greater than the subsequent others.
Speaker 4: But the play element.
Speaker 5: Revealed itself again and again and again in individuals who
Speaker 5: were anti social violent.
Speaker 4: Wow, not very playful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no, how did At what point did you?
Speaker 3: I was going to say, drag these but I wouldn't
Speaker 3: take much dragging into a family business that revolves around
Speaker 3: fun and play. So at what point did Lauren and Maya?
Speaker 3: Did you join the team and get as obsessed with play?
Speaker 3: Easy thing to get obsessed with.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I've always been
Speaker 6: a huge.
Speaker 7: Fan of my dad's work here, and I had quite
Speaker 7: a varied career and did a lot of different things
Speaker 7: and really always was just a student of this and
Speaker 7: tried to incorporate it into my own life.
Speaker 6: I've gotten much.
Speaker 7: Better at that recently and really leaned into it in
Speaker 7: the last couple of years with a role here at
Speaker 7: the National Institute for Play. So I think what's really
Speaker 7: fun question, and kind of the crux of this is
Speaker 7: not so much how it played out in my life,
Speaker 7: because he was still practicing and it wasn't so evident
Speaker 7: then that, you know, all of his research hadn't been
Speaker 7: done when I was a kid. But by the time
Speaker 7: Mia came around, I was pretty committed to saying, wow,
Speaker 7: this really makes sense, and so as a parent I
Speaker 7: was able to sort of take the leap of faith
Speaker 7: that said, hey, we can do more and more play
Speaker 7: based education with the kids, and let's see, let's see
Speaker 7: what happens.
Speaker 6: It's always a little bit of a roll of the dice.
Speaker 7: I'm in Boulder, Colorado, which is a really awesome place
Speaker 7: to live. We're super privileged to be here, and there
Speaker 7: were a lot of great schools, different kinds of schools.
Speaker 7: And I might just hand it off to Mia to
Speaker 7: talk a little bit about her schooling and how how
Speaker 7: that happened, because it's kind of a it's just a
Speaker 7: fun story and it sort of brings it full circle
Speaker 7: with these three generations.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Sure, well I'm first of all, I'm involved because I've
Speaker 8: lived it and live it is the best way to
Speaker 8: believe in it. And having lived it and believed in it,
Speaker 8: I'm like, I've got to share this. So I was
Speaker 8: just lucky to be born into it. That's really all
Speaker 8: I have to say. But yeah, I think my grandpa
Speaker 8: and my mom identified early that I was a big
Speaker 8: mover and being a mover in a kinestete is one
Speaker 8: of the ways that some people play, and for me,
Speaker 8: that was kind of my primary play personality. And we
Speaker 8: can get into what that means a little bit later.
Speaker 8: But when they identified that, and they identified that I
Speaker 8: learned best while I was moving and while I could
Speaker 8: be bouncing on a ball or doing other things and whatnot,
Speaker 8: They're like, all right, like, let's think about what maybe
Speaker 8: like less traditional type of schooling might nourish this learning style,
Speaker 8: in this play style.
Speaker 9: And so I went to an awesome charter.
Speaker 8: School in Boulder that was all about self directed learning
Speaker 8: and finding things that you are passionate about exploring and
Speaker 8: doing it for its own sake. There wasn't even grades.
Speaker 8: It was like learning how to learn at its core
Speaker 8: and celebrating whatever way you learned best, which for me
Speaker 8: was through movement. And so I kind of like just
Speaker 8: was able to kind of nurture that growing up. And
Speaker 8: I think so many of us, like you were saying,
Speaker 8: when you talk to adults, you talk about fun, and
Speaker 8: they're like fun, Like, shoot, I haven't thought about that
Speaker 8: in ten years, to take what do you mean fun?
Speaker 8: And so for me, it was like this amazing journey
Speaker 8: of I was also a gymnast, so I did gymnastics
Speaker 8: because that was my ultimate form of play. And I
Speaker 8: was fortunate enough to follow that all the way through
Speaker 8: the NCAA Division one level and also to coach at
Speaker 8: the Division one level, and I was just like, that
Speaker 8: was my play nature, kind of like being traced all
Speaker 8: the way through adulthood in a career and so I
Speaker 8: just feel so lucky that I was able to like
Speaker 8: nurture that, have that nurtured and follow it.
Speaker 9: So that's why I believe in this work. And that's
Speaker 9: where I jumped in, Oh.
Speaker 3: I love that you made me think of three people,
Speaker 3: two of which I've had on the podcast, and one
Speaker 3: is any one of my favorite guests is an Australian school
Speaker 3: teacher called Gavin McCormack, and he is a Montessori school
Speaker 3: teacher and he is all about that style of learning
Speaker 3: you just described. And when I speak to him, and
Speaker 3: when you were talking, I got goosebumps. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: I just press for rewind and take me back to
Speaker 3: childhood and give me that, give me that. And then
Speaker 3: I thought of Sir Ken Robinson when you're talking about
Speaker 3: movement and that beautiful ted talk that he did. And
Speaker 3: I cannot remember the third one I talked about. I
Speaker 3: thought of, so there you go.
Speaker 9: Examples.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and just that idea of what play is
Speaker 3: for different people?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 3: I don't know who to aim this question to, maybe
Speaker 3: the first person to raise their hand with an answer,
Speaker 3: But how difficult is it to have a teaching around
Speaker 3: play and have all of that? I guess cognition that
Speaker 3: you're doing thinking about it, developing it, understanding it, and
Speaker 3: not turning it into a system that takes away the
Speaker 3: play from the play.
Speaker 5: I jump into that, and I think the experience itself
Speaker 5: transcends the analytic aspect of it. You don't ask a
Speaker 5: smiling little baby who's joyfully got a social smile, that's
Speaker 5: reacting joyfully to being teased, or being having fun with
Speaker 5: a parent, or being tossed up in the air why
Speaker 5: they are playing.
Speaker 4: It just happens. So I think at some.
Speaker 5: Level that quality of experiential comes first, and the state
Speaker 5: of play, the joyfulness is really deeply embedded in our
Speaker 5: nervous system. The right triggers whether you're an infant or
Speaker 5: somebody in a memory care unit, and that you get triggered,
Speaker 5: you get into a state of play. So I don't
Speaker 5: know if that answers or deals with kind of your
Speaker 5: question about it, but it sort of gives us sense
Speaker 5: that play exists within us. It's differing with age and
Speaker 5: gender and culture and with personality. I hope we get
Speaker 5: a chance to talk about later, but it's part of us.
Speaker 5: And when we don't get it, such as the young murderers,
Speaker 5: we're in trouble.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think too, that key You kind of got
Speaker 8: to the crux of the hardest part about all of this, right,
Speaker 8: is that play in itself is done for its own sake.
Speaker 8: It's voluntary. There's not often a ton of structure. That
Speaker 8: is the nature of it. And we live in a
Speaker 8: society that continues to try and build in more and
Speaker 8: more structure, and like we believe in the moral virtue
Speaker 8: of work, and that play is even like the breeding
Speaker 8: ground of sin, and you know, more consumption, more production,
Speaker 8: like this is what makes us successful. And so we
Speaker 8: have these systems that have been created that really try
Speaker 8: and almost like commercialize play in a sense, and it's
Speaker 8: contradictory to what play is itself. And so I think
Speaker 8: that that is like the crux of why this work
Speaker 8: matters is because that those two things are kind of
Speaker 8: intention most often for a lot of people, particularly when
Speaker 8: we get into adulthood. So I think what it comes
Speaker 8: down to is being able to identify how a system
Speaker 8: can support less structure, like how a system can create
Speaker 8: more space and can create more creativity and can create
Speaker 8: these like interesting and novel new ways to just actually,
Speaker 8: instead of building in more structure, to take away some
Speaker 8: of the structure and see what answers might be in
Speaker 8: that space that's left.
Speaker 3: I love how you've articulated that. When I often talk
Speaker 3: about this idea of play or doing something for ourselves,
Speaker 3: I find that, yeah, there's this fine line of Okay,
Speaker 3: how do we implement something new. We build a structure
Speaker 3: and a routine. We'll find something that is spontaneous that
Speaker 3: you haven't done, and do something for the sake of it,
Speaker 3: you know, do something joyful, and then in order to
Speaker 3: keep doing it, we try and build a structure around
Speaker 3: it so we'll keep doing it, and then the novelty fades,
Speaker 3: and novelty is half the enjoyment of it. So I
Speaker 3: feel like that can be and I guess for me,
Speaker 3: you might have more ideas or strategies for it. For me,
Speaker 3: it is bringing people's awareness to these things. But I
Speaker 3: don't have I don't always have an answer, and I
Speaker 3: don't think the answer is the same for everybody.
Speaker 2: But maybe it is, and maybe you can tell me
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 4: I don't think it's that simple. You know. To me, the.
Speaker 5: Is often in observing a young infant and what gives
Speaker 5: them spontaneous glee, whether it's music or being touched, or
Speaker 5: wiggling around, or a pet or a bright colored toy.
Speaker 5: But you begin to have some sense of what spontaneously
Speaker 5: lights their candle. And if that lighting of the candle
Speaker 5: is nourished in the course of parenting, in the course
Speaker 5: of education, that kid is going to probably choose a
Speaker 5: profession and use their talents based on their play nature.
Speaker 4: And when that happens, we all are better off. Yeah.
Speaker 7: I want to add something to you back to this
Speaker 7: question of productivity and you know, trying to a structure
Speaker 7: of life. I mean, what's so ironic here is play
Speaker 7: can actually make you more productive.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 6: Productivity isn't just spending a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 7: Productivity is like doing the right things at the right time,
Speaker 7: line up with your values and you know that in
Speaker 7: accordance with your life and how you want to live it.
Speaker 7: And play can increase your focus and you know, your
Speaker 7: executive function and so many things in your brain will
Speaker 7: go into this.
Speaker 6: For sure, because this is kind of the science.
Speaker 7: Has your back as you're going into play here, and
Speaker 7: so it's just really, you know, we shouldn't think of
Speaker 7: play as like this frivolous.
Speaker 6: Oh, I'm just out here doing something.
Speaker 7: It's actually a way to ground your life in more productivity,
Speaker 7: meaning authenticity and the like.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 3: I have talked about and listened to content around that
Speaker 3: idea of social contagion. And so one of the statements
Speaker 3: I'd like to make to people is to not have
Speaker 3: fun is the most self To not have fun is
Speaker 3: the most selfish thing you can do, because you take
Speaker 3: in eurochemistry, like you, when you have fun, you get
Speaker 3: oxytocin and all those beautiful hormones and then you go
Speaker 3: to other people and you infect them with that in
Speaker 3: your presence. And so to not have fun, you take that,
Speaker 3: you know, adrenaline and stress hormones and cortisol ridden body
Speaker 3: of yours into into serious mode. And that's what that's
Speaker 3: the version of you that you're spreading with people.
Speaker 4: That's exactly it. You got it, you got it, you
Speaker 4: got it all right.
Speaker 3: Now I'm having fun. See now I'm having fun. I'm
Speaker 3: full of oxytocin.
Speaker 6: Now I want to come to one of your classes there.
Speaker 3: What about how hard is it too? I'm thinking about
Speaker 3: the adults, So obviously we want it for parents and
Speaker 3: families and that generation where we get to impact children
Speaker 3: with this and offer them that that's amazing. What about
Speaker 3: adults listening in and going play was never a part
Speaker 3: of my upbringing, you know, getting good grades was a
Speaker 3: part of my upbringing or making sure I was okay
Speaker 3: because I'm really independent. And how do we support ourselves
Speaker 3: as independent adults and developing these play habits.
Speaker 4: Well, I'll jump into that one again.
Speaker 5: I think we don't tend to prioritize play as something
Speaker 5: that's as fundamental as washing your hands or eating a
Speaker 5: good diet or you know, getting outdoors every once in
Speaker 5: a while just because it's good for you. Well, play
Speaker 5: is an intensive part of human nature, so that when
Speaker 5: you don't prioritize it, it's there is a lack of
Speaker 5: personal hygiene that's associated with play deficit. So I think
Speaker 5: having the general cultural understanding of it's important to you personally,
Speaker 5: and then how do you play yourself that's a whole
Speaker 5: other issue. But to be able to prioritize it and
Speaker 5: say this is a significant element for me to be
Speaker 5: fully human. I'm just not going to be a fully
Speaker 5: human being without play.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I would say too, Like, I mean, experimentation is
Speaker 8: a huge part of play, and you know, like when
Speaker 8: you're playing, your amgdala calms down and it gives you
Speaker 8: the permission to take risks and be less afraid of
Speaker 8: failure and make mistakes and not have those you know,
Speaker 8: big consequences for them. And so for adults who haven't played,
Speaker 8: like experiment with play like figure out you know, do
Speaker 8: you like to collect things? Do you like to joke
Speaker 8: around you?
Speaker 7: Like?
Speaker 9: Are you an artist? Are you a mover?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 8: You know, there's and we'll get into the personalities I'm
Speaker 8: sure at some point, but kind of like what is
Speaker 8: it for you that gets you into that state or
Speaker 8: as my bo said, that play trigger you know, and
Speaker 8: like just just mess.
Speaker 2: Around with it. I'm loving this.
Speaker 3: We've all brought up play personalities a few times now
Speaker 3: and my curiosity is going off tap. So we're gonna
Speaker 3: have to dive into that now and need to know.
Speaker 5: Okay, well, I think Bea is the one to give
Speaker 5: that rundown.
Speaker 4: What do you think? Oh? Sure?
Speaker 8: Only because of you, though, well, I think it deserves
Speaker 8: another bit of background in history on my grandpa and
Speaker 8: how cool he is. But he's conducted, you know, thousands
Speaker 8: and thousands of play histories, and in those play histories
Speaker 8: he's noticed some patterns start to come up in terms
Speaker 8: of the way that people play. And so he had
Speaker 8: kind of identified eight play personalities that aren't meant to
Speaker 8: be like rigid and profiling, but just a framework to help,
Speaker 8: like you're saying, adults and people just understand better what
Speaker 8: activities and things might make them enter that state of play.
Speaker 8: And so those personalities are the artist's creator. Those are like,
Speaker 8: you know, the creative type, the making things, the crafters,
Speaker 8: the designers, the joker, so you know, the humor and
Speaker 8: the silliness and just wanting to make other people's laugh
Speaker 8: as a form of play. The competitor, so that those
Speaker 8: are that like rare breed of athlete where you see
Speaker 8: where like they thrive under the highest level of pressure,
Speaker 8: like that is play to them. There's also the explorer,
Speaker 8: so just people who love to explore, whether that's like
Speaker 8: places or even like stories or concepts or emotional things whatever.
Speaker 9: That is the director.
Speaker 8: Those are the people who might play organizing their juncture
Speaker 8: or something.
Speaker 9: And then there's.
Speaker 8: The collector too, so people who like to collect things,
Speaker 8: the storyteller.
Speaker 9: I think my grandpa has turned into one of those.
Speaker 8: And then finally the kinnesty, which is what I mentioned
Speaker 8: that I am. And so yeah, again, you can fit
Speaker 8: into multiple categories. It may evolve over your life as
Speaker 8: you experience new things, but it's just a way to
Speaker 8: help people kind of dive into those activities that make
Speaker 8: them plea for.
Speaker 6: Where do you fit on that spectrum?
Speaker 7: TIF, I'm curious, I'm I'm trying to tag you with
Speaker 7: what you've already told us, and I'm guessing like some
Speaker 7: competitor in there, there's definitely the kinnessthe what do you think?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what's funny because there were so many
Speaker 3: of them where I was like, oh, bit of that,
Speaker 3: oh bit of that. You know. Definitely the competitor is
Speaker 3: a big one, a bit of the creative, but also
Speaker 3: that kinesthetic. What I find really interesting over the last
Speaker 3: few years is recognizing I got into boxing at twenty
Speaker 3: nine and and one of the biggest gifts I had
Speaker 3: in that space was just this tenacity and this willingness
Speaker 3: to do the hard thing and to not feel and
Speaker 3: to not react inside that really hard, terrifying environment. And
Speaker 3: then over a short period of time, it brought up
Speaker 3: past experiences that I'd suppressed that I dealt with from childhood,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, oh, there's some work to do here,
Speaker 3: And so I went into doing a lot of work
Speaker 3: on emotions and intuition and feeling and bringing all of
Speaker 3: that to the surface. So I look at kind of
Speaker 3: in the past that those personality profiles and some of
Speaker 3: the tests that you do and the things where I
Speaker 3: wasn't very kinesthetic, and it was like that was shut down.
Speaker 3: But once I'd got into boxing and started to bring
Speaker 3: it up, it's I'm very kinesthetic. Now, I'm a doer.
Speaker 3: I'm a fidgiti, I'm an get in amongst it, not
Speaker 3: like sitting still. But you guys, what are all your
Speaker 3: play personalities.
Speaker 6: That's a great story.
Speaker 7: By the way, I'm like me, I'm someone who likes
Speaker 7: to move, have always been that way. I'm really social,
Speaker 7: so if i'm and I love the outdoors, So if
Speaker 7: I'm outdoors moving with the people I love, that's kind
Speaker 7: of it for me. Lately, I've gotten really into dance,
Speaker 7: which I love. It's the more I do it, the
Speaker 7: more any self consciousness disappears, the better I feel, the
Speaker 7: better my life is, the better I can handle things.
Speaker 7: It's really remarkable knowing what I know about play. I've
Speaker 7: kind of been a little bit more of a student
Speaker 7: of this, but I can tell you it's you know,
Speaker 7: the things that you say about play and creating resilience, adaptability,
Speaker 7: you know, reducing your stress have absolutely been true for
Speaker 7: me with my dance.
Speaker 3: Love that Maya, Oh, you've talked about yours. You're I
Speaker 3: feel like your door right in the boxing ring, Mayor.
Speaker 8: I'm definitely a competitor too, But again, like that was
Speaker 8: that was that came out a lot more in my
Speaker 8: gymnastics career, and now I would say I'm more like
Speaker 8: the Kinnessee explorer than the Kinnessee competitor. But yeah, I'm
Speaker 8: pretty I got all. I got a lot of that
Speaker 8: in there too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, amazing. And Doc what does the docs play play personality?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 5: I was just thinking about that and about fifteen minutes
Speaker 5: before the podcast started, Cookie, a dog that I share
Speaker 5: with a renter, came up to the doorway and gave
Speaker 5: me a long, intense cookie look directly into my eyes,
Speaker 5: and I thought, well, at this moment, I'm a kind
Speaker 5: of a oxytocin laden social dog, human player. So that
Speaker 5: there was a sense of freedom and kind of a
Speaker 5: sense of a shared moment with that dog, and that's
Speaker 5: really a precious part of today for me. It was
Speaker 5: just unexpected great. So, as MIAs said, you know, my
Speaker 5: longing to get to Wimbledon or play at the US
Speaker 5: Open in tennis didn't happen. And the ten years I
Speaker 5: spent playing pretty competitive tennis up until my eighties ended
Speaker 5: when my partners either died or couldn't play anymore. So
Speaker 5: that the storyteller component, which I like to do with,
Speaker 5: which is what we're doing now, telling the story of
Speaker 5: play itself, is playful for me. So you know, it's
Speaker 5: even though I've kind of devised these eight archetypes of
Speaker 5: more common clusters of playfulness, they don't They're not scientifically rigid.
Speaker 5: And you just exemplified a mix of what I would
Speaker 5: say the creator, the kinnisthe and the competitor, which are
Speaker 5: part of who I think we're experiencing here today. But
Speaker 5: for all of us to find those things that really
Speaker 5: engage us, that take us into a state of play.
Speaker 5: To me, that's a public health necessity for every one
Speaker 5: of us. It's this is not minor advice from you know,
Speaker 5: a senile old doctor. This is really really an important
Speaker 5: component of our being human.
Speaker 3: I one hundred percent agree with that, and I think that,
Speaker 3: you know, one of the most important things. Loved this
Speaker 3: whole self awareness journey, and it's beautiful. It's so helpful
Speaker 3: when we have some guidelines around profiling personality traits and
Speaker 3: finding ourselves through those lenses as a starting point. But
Speaker 3: the idea I use a system called pH three sixty.
Speaker 2: So I did the studying.
Speaker 3: Around that, and that's an epigenetic based personality like personality, body, mind,
Speaker 3: spirit kind of you learn a lot about yourself. And
Speaker 3: what's beautiful with what you were reminding me of is
Speaker 3: there's specific health types we call them who so say
Speaker 3: we're talking about working out. What's most important for a
Speaker 3: couple of those health types is actually the environment they
Speaker 3: work out in. And for two there's one called a connector. Right,
Speaker 3: they're people people, and their archetype is a puppy dog
Speaker 3: because what's most important for them when it comes to
Speaker 3: working out is they want to have fun and being
Speaker 3: a team and being a clan and so working out
Speaker 3: alone in the gym by themselves is not going to
Speaker 3: get results. But being in a fun, playful environment where
Speaker 3: where they're making everybody they're just little oxytocin demons. And
Speaker 3: it's exactly what you're describing here. And it's really important
Speaker 3: to know that about yourself because we spend so much
Speaker 3: time comparing to other people. Oh, that person gets results
Speaker 3: and I don't. And it's like, might not be that
Speaker 3: you're doing the wrong exercise. You might just need a
Speaker 3: buddy to make you have some fun while you're doing it.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, And I love your story. You know you're on
Speaker 6: story when you start.
Speaker 7: You talked about getting into the boxing ring at twenty nine,
Speaker 7: and all this stuff comes up and then you get
Speaker 7: better at it and then it becomes really central to
Speaker 7: who you are. And one of the great quotes about
Speaker 7: play is that it's practiced for life. Yeah, And that
Speaker 7: just came to mind when you were telling your story
Speaker 7: about that, because again, you kind of play the stuff
Speaker 7: out and then when stuff really does hit you in life,
Speaker 7: when you do get punched, as you say, roll with
Speaker 7: the punches, you can.
Speaker 4: Roll with them.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think these days there seems to be such
Speaker 3: an emphasis out there in the echo chamber of resilience
Speaker 3: of do the hard thing, do hard things, do hard things,
Speaker 3: and have all this ego and bravado around it, but
Speaker 3: there's no context. And I've always said, we have to
Speaker 3: do hard things, but those hard things have to be
Speaker 3: fun to us. Like for me, there was nothing harder
Speaker 3: than stepping into the boxing ring to get punched in
Speaker 3: the face, to have your body fueled with adrenaline and
Speaker 3: Europe and effort and all of the wild thoughts and
Speaker 3: narrative that goes on. But for me, that was so
Speaker 3: fun and purposeful, so it was worth it. If that
Speaker 3: wasn't purposeful for me, it would not be worth it
Speaker 3: will be terrifying things. So it's about finding things that
Speaker 3: make you nervous that at the end of it you
Speaker 3: love it and then you want to go back.
Speaker 8: Absolutely. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I got into mountain
Speaker 8: boke greasing after my gymnastics career, and I like two
Speaker 8: years and I signed up for one hundred mile mountain
Speaker 8: bike grease and so many people were like, that's not
Speaker 8: a hard thing, Like that's just crazy, and like for me,
Speaker 8: that's to what you're saying like, that's my hard thing,
Speaker 8: that's fun, that reminds me that I can do hard
Speaker 8: things for me.
Speaker 3: That is way more terrifying than a punch in the face.
Speaker 3: I went for one e bike mountain bike ride in
Speaker 3: Tazzy with my uncle recently and I was like, this
Speaker 3: is so dangerous.
Speaker 2: I am terrified. Give me punch me in the face
Speaker 2: any day of the week.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I disagree with that. On the opposite, I disagree.
Speaker 3: Isn't that great with the National Play Institute? What what
Speaker 3: are we doing? What do we what or what's the
Speaker 3: biggest barrier? What are we what are the pills that
Speaker 3: we're teaching or we're achieving? See how I've just made
Speaker 3: myself part of the team and this has become a way.
Speaker 4: But what we've been doing here is part.
Speaker 5: Of the essence of the National Institute for Play, which
Speaker 5: is to bring the essence of what play is into
Speaker 5: more full activity and public consciousness and implement it into
Speaker 5: schools and learning and parent parenting where it's across the
Speaker 5: board and the let's say the assembly line approach to
Speaker 5: education which Henry Ford helped establish, and the feeling of
Speaker 5: you've got to get your kid into to Princeton or
Speaker 5: Harvard or you know, I don't know where in Australia
Speaker 5: the best the same pressure is on, but I'm sure
Speaker 5: it's there. But to begin to say, wait a minute,
Speaker 5: this is not the essence of life. The essence of
Speaker 5: life is to do something for within yourself, which is authentic,
Speaker 5: which engages you, which produces a sense of purpose and mastery,
Speaker 5: even if it's avoiding getting punched in the face.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm serious.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I train a young girl trained it for the
Speaker 3: last few years, and she's fourteen when she started with me,
Speaker 3: and she's very smart and very academic, and we've had
Speaker 3: a lot of conversations and she talks about grades, and
Speaker 3: she talks about what she might she might be in
Speaker 3: the undertones of what pressure is on young children today.
Speaker 3: And there's times that I've just said, all mate, you
Speaker 3: could punch people in the face in a gym and
Speaker 3: be a personal trainer and probably live your best life.
Speaker 3: I was like, I am living my very best life.
Speaker 3: I'm having such fun every single day, hanging out with
Speaker 3: people I love, doing the thing that lights me up.
Speaker 9: Amazing, that's fantastic.
Speaker 7: I think of, you know, your culture as being way
Speaker 7: healthier than ours here in the US, and you know,
Speaker 7: you guys uses every rc I knows how to have fun,
Speaker 7: and wow, they're in Melbourne with urban surf, and you
Speaker 7: know these other new surf parks that are coming up
Speaker 7: the break where Mia and I are aspiring surfers and
Speaker 7: we could definitely use that.
Speaker 6: But it's funny to hear you say that again, because.
Speaker 7: I maybe my views aren't correct, but I feel like
Speaker 7: we're pretty upside down here in the US on a
Speaker 7: lot of our priorities. And again, you guys lead the
Speaker 7: way it appears. But what do you think about that?
Speaker 3: Well, I just wonder if you also think that we
Speaker 3: are all fighting kangaroos on every intersection over here. We
Speaker 3: recently saw a video that went viral over here where
Speaker 3: there was a big kangaroo in an intersection on a
Speaker 3: road and there was a dog barking at it and
Speaker 3: they would bouncing around and just all the comments of like,
Speaker 3: this is what this is what you know, this is
Speaker 3: what everybody else in the world thinks Australia is like
Speaker 3: every day.
Speaker 7: No, no, no, I think you guys are just superior.
Speaker 9: That's mainly we do have.
Speaker 3: We do have a very playful cheeky, fun, self deprecating
Speaker 3: essence tools.
Speaker 2: So I think, which I love.
Speaker 8: I think that's what we're that's what we're out to
Speaker 8: find right at the National super Play. And I think
Speaker 8: just to pegback on what my grandpa said about that
Speaker 8: is like, yeah, what you said is, you know, it
Speaker 8: starts with awareness, like and so that's kind of the
Speaker 8: starting point for us as just building that awareness, but
Speaker 8: also really trying to make it practical for people, you know,
Speaker 8: like helping them understand that play isn't the opposite of work,
Speaker 8: it's just like something that can support their work and whatnot.
Speaker 8: And so to give them just like within each personality
Speaker 8: some like really practical ways to implement it and maybe
Speaker 8: even to use it as a competitive advantage in business.
Speaker 8: And then also you know, in terms of customer relationships
Speaker 8: and like it seems to fit since it's so the
Speaker 8: essence of humanity and who we are as humans, it
Speaker 8: really fits in every category of life, whether that's relationships
Speaker 8: or work or parenting or whatnot, And so figuring out
Speaker 8: what those categories are and like how we can kind
Speaker 8: of dive into each of them and give sort of
Speaker 8: like specific recommendations in each area of life is like,
Speaker 8: I think the broad scope of what the work can be.
Speaker 3: What tends to be the biggest barrier that comes up
Speaker 3: that you come up against. You like you going and
Speaker 3: you're introducing this concept of play. What are the most
Speaker 3: common things that seem to get in the way for
Speaker 3: people or beliefs?
Speaker 5: Oh, there are a lot of them, But I think
Speaker 5: it depends that somewhat on age. I think the for
Speaker 5: middle aged people, the feeling that it's frivolous and that
Speaker 5: their life has to be devoted to accomplishment, which has
Speaker 5: taking out the garbage and paying the mortgage and saving
Speaker 5: money and getting your kids into college, so that there
Speaker 5: is a sense that the importance of play is diminished
Speaker 5: as compared to productivity and outcome.
Speaker 4: And I think that's a.
Speaker 5: Cultural phenomenon that is general and it may not be
Speaker 5: as intense in Australia. And there's certainly exceptions here where
Speaker 5: you know, nonsense is honored and play is enjoyed, but
Speaker 5: you know, in general, the cultural norms are not to honor,
Speaker 5: particularly in adulthood playfulness. And then I think the evidence
Speaker 5: for kids who are screen either addicted or screen use
Speaker 5: is eight.
Speaker 4: Hours a day.
Speaker 5: And you know, I read some things today, just how
Speaker 5: much screen use is and how little that interpersonal play,
Speaker 5: and the idea that you've got to get involved in
Speaker 5: some rough and tumble and risk taking play as a
Speaker 5: source of learning how to get along with others and
Speaker 5: how to tolerate the differences. And if you don't get
Speaker 5: the play, you're going to be anti social or dissocial
Speaker 5: or hampered in your personal interpersonal skills. So I think,
Speaker 5: you know, we've got a wonderful mandate to bring play
Speaker 5: more completely into the world as we know it. And fortunately,
Speaker 5: the science about the neuroscience in particular of play is
Speaker 5: just really solid. It's wired into the sub cortex of
Speaker 5: the brain for where our survival centers are. And the
Speaker 5: animal play is pervasive. If you look at the five
Speaker 5: hundred million year heritage of an octopus being in the
Speaker 5: ocean that.
Speaker 4: Long, and they play and so do you know, so.
Speaker 5: Do the neurove transmitters that are part of the octopus
Speaker 5: or a jellyfish existence. So the looking at the evolution
Speaker 5: of play behavior, one sees that it has been around
Speaker 5: for millions and millions of years. It's fostered survival, belonging, adaptation, etc.
Speaker 5: So I can go on and on the storyteller would
Speaker 5: take over, so I'll shut out.
Speaker 3: I'd love to hear like just with the other two
Speaker 3: just based on I guess generation and ages, if you
Speaker 3: find there's different barriers.
Speaker 2: So, Lauren, what do you what do you think?
Speaker 7: You know, I'm in a good spot right now because
Speaker 7: my kids are now, you know, in college, out of college,
Speaker 7: and I've got more freedom to explore. And I'm old
Speaker 7: enough that I just don't I don't care as much,
Speaker 7: you know, I'm more willing to do the things that
Speaker 7: I want to do and to be myself.
Speaker 6: It's one of the benefits of being over fifty, you know.
Speaker 6: I think it's it's a it's unfortunate that it takes
Speaker 6: this long.
Speaker 2: Funny, she looks good for other fifty yards.
Speaker 6: Oh thank you. So it's a nice zoom lighting here.
Speaker 3: If that is the prescription of play in, let's all
Speaker 3: get on it.
Speaker 2: That is a wonder drug. The wonder drug.
Speaker 6: We definitely, I mean it.
Speaker 7: Is it is I think, you know, in the in
Speaker 7: the earlier years again, it's that same thing of.
Speaker 6: You got to be productive, you got to do certain things.
Speaker 7: I'm just really fortunate because I had my dad's you know,
Speaker 7: teachings and I could follow those and then again kind
Speaker 7: of put make those central to raising the kids.
Speaker 6: I actually took a lot of time off of work
Speaker 6: to raise the kids.
Speaker 7: I was it was real luxury. I was super privileged
Speaker 7: to be able to do that. But and I think
Speaker 7: that made it a little bit easier for sure. That
Speaker 7: was a pretty obvious and conscious choice to make. Again,
Speaker 7: not for everybody, but it worked great for me and
Speaker 7: kept kind of that playful spirit alive a little bit more.
Speaker 8: I think, Yeah, so I would say, you know, I'm
Speaker 8: in I'm of the screen generation. I'm of the twenty
Speaker 8: second you know, attention span generation. And I would say
Speaker 8: I write as I've done this work more. One of
Speaker 8: the biggest barriers I see is people don't know what
Speaker 8: play is. They're like, I'll say, oh, yeah, I work
Speaker 8: for the National and super play. What do you mean
Speaker 8: by play? Like I play with my dog, Like I
Speaker 8: go for a while, like what is what is play?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 9: Like what do you mean?
Speaker 8: Like they're almost like you that exists, like you can
Speaker 8: work about play like so I think, like I just
Speaker 8: run into the barrier of like trying to like it
Speaker 8: takes me more than like three words to explain to
Speaker 8: people what I'm doing. So that's kind of hard sometimes.
Speaker 8: But then I think the biggest barrier that I see,
Speaker 8: like more consistently and just that is actually a problem
Speaker 8: to the actual play work is just the screens. The
Speaker 8: way that like social media in particular has just like
Speaker 8: ingrained and woven itself into the fabric of our society,
Speaker 8: and it is such an easy alternative to play because
Speaker 8: instead of socializing with somebody, instead of having a playful
Speaker 8: moment in the elevator with somebody, we resort to our screens,
Speaker 8: and so we just lose these moments that we don't
Speaker 8: even know we're losing because of our devices. And then
Speaker 8: when you don't play, you forget how to play, and
Speaker 8: you have to like reintegrate it back into your life,
Speaker 8: you know. Like so I think we're just slowly like
Speaker 8: starting to lose that with our devices, and so I
Speaker 8: think just like trying to pull people out once they're in,
Speaker 8: you know, like media is a dopamine hit. It's not played, like,
Speaker 8: it doesn't have lasting benefits, it has lasting detriments. So
Speaker 8: it's like there's a clear cut line from like, yeah,
Speaker 8: some video games might be able to be playful but
Speaker 8: like a lot of what we do on our devices
Speaker 8: is just simply not play for anyone at any point.
Speaker 9: But it's easy and.
Speaker 8: It's right there, and it's like a lot easier than
Speaker 8: trying to, like, you know, be social and do these
Speaker 8: things that we've become uncomfortable with. So anyway, I think
Speaker 8: that's the biggest barrier for my generation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's such a.
Speaker 3: I was thinking before. I think you mentioned it because
Speaker 3: I wrote it down. Someone mentioned loneliness or disconnection, like
Speaker 3: the idea of that loneliness epidemic that's going on, of
Speaker 3: that we're living this life of real independence and disconnection now,
Speaker 3: like we're more crowded than ever in places, but the
Speaker 3: more crowded we are, like cities, the more disconnected and
Speaker 3: isolated we tend to be living. And then I think
Speaker 3: the same about creativity. It's like if we it just
Speaker 3: went we just incorporated play, all of the things that
Speaker 3: solves those two problems is right there. Like what happens
Speaker 3: when you just play, well, you're open and you connect
Speaker 3: and you have fun and you build relationship and then
Speaker 3: there's no loneliness because you're in present in the play.
Speaker 3: Same with creativity. I mean I am on one hundred
Speaker 3: percent guilty for continually finding myself in a state of
Speaker 3: produced produced more and more and more. And I've pulled
Speaker 3: up this year more than ever. But it's taken me
Speaker 3: years of working seven days a week and just being
Speaker 3: on this like, yeah, I do cool stuff, but I
Speaker 3: do it to the point where it's just busyness. And
Speaker 3: I was like, God, I've lost I'm losing my ability
Speaker 3: to create because I'm so busy.
Speaker 4: That's a barrier.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fix that. Fix that.
Speaker 3: What are some of the initiatives that you guys have
Speaker 3: tried or put out there or or provide for people.
Speaker 4: Oh, there are lots of them.
Speaker 5: I worked for a while with a very innovative man
Speaker 5: dealing with corporate innovation, and what we tried to do
Speaker 5: for research and development areas of these corporations was provide
Speaker 5: the researchers with something entirely different and unique that they'd
Speaker 5: never done before. For example, we would craft a piece
Speaker 5: of clay into a shape that was a nothing shape,
Speaker 5: and they were blindfolded, and you'd hand them this piece
Speaker 5: of clay and tell them to create something useful out
Speaker 5: of it, and they would laugh and have all kinds
Speaker 5: of fun. But then not that that was so significant,
Speaker 5: but then when they would deal with corporate issues after
Speaker 5: they had gone through this experience, they were much more
Speaker 5: fertile with ideas than they had been when they had
Speaker 5: hadn't had this unnamed substance in their hands beforehand. And
Speaker 5: part of this was because there is such a thing
Speaker 5: called hand brain coevolution, where the hand itself is part
Speaker 5: of fertilization of the brain, so that when the hand
Speaker 5: is grabbing something that's unknown, it tries to make it known.
Speaker 5: And that was part of the creative influence that this
Speaker 5: very innovative corporate person had thought up and had me
Speaker 5: put into action.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what, My hands have made a thing
Speaker 3: or two known over time.
Speaker 2: The boxing ring. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 3: And I also just recently took up learned teaching myself
Speaker 3: off the piano for this exact reason.
Speaker 2: I was like, how can I do.
Speaker 3: Something creative and fun and unme something that's not related
Speaker 3: to anything that my cell for my current echo chamber
Speaker 3: of friends do. And it's been beautiful. It's been a
Speaker 3: beautiful kind of and frustrated. You know how hard the
Speaker 3: piano is?
Speaker 2: Hey, what was that?
Speaker 4: I said?
Speaker 5: It's a long way to play the piano from getting
Speaker 5: punched to the fees.
Speaker 3: It's made me want me to punch. It's made me
Speaker 3: want to punch myself in the face. This is so
Speaker 3: hard to get, you know, like I'm learning a new language,
Speaker 3: which is music. I'm learning this new language that I
Speaker 3: don't know how to speak. I'm reading two rows of
Speaker 3: that language at the same time, this language I don't
Speaker 3: know how to read yet. And then I'm asking two
Speaker 3: hands to do two different things at the same time
Speaker 3: on a whole bunch of eighty eight keys that all
Speaker 3: look the bloody saying that I don't know what they are.
Speaker 2: It is the hardest thing ever, ye know, from my neighbors.
Speaker 7: Maybe it will start to become playful, and you know,
Speaker 7: that would be fantastic.
Speaker 6: I don't know, that's probably a pretty tall order.
Speaker 7: But one of the fun things that you get when
Speaker 7: you are truly in a state of play, which I
Speaker 7: certainly couldn't be learning the piano. I don't think maybe
Speaker 7: you'll get there, is that you actually do start to
Speaker 7: want to master what you're doing. You know, play leads
Speaker 7: to mastery. So again, it's like this, people think, oh,
Speaker 7: I'm just playing, It's just frivolous.
Speaker 6: But actually, if you're truly in the state of play,
Speaker 6: you're going to want to get better. It just sort
Speaker 6: of happens.
Speaker 7: You're going to be engaged, it's going to be a
Speaker 7: flow state, You're going to feel good, and you're going
Speaker 7: to keep going.
Speaker 3: Look, sometimes I'm banging away there and I'm having the
Speaker 3: best time, and I sound ridiculous, and I think, oh my,
Speaker 3: my neighbors must be so sick of this caper.
Speaker 2: But yeah, no, it's very fun.
Speaker 3: Is there anything that I haven't asked that you guys
Speaker 3: want to share about play that I've missed?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 5: One of the things I think that is not known
Speaker 5: generally is that there is a consequence for play deprivation.
Speaker 5: And being a physician, I have learned that there are
Speaker 5: things like scurvy from lack of vitamin C and barry
Speaker 5: very lack of vitamin B. There are deficiency diseases, and
Speaker 5: from the study of the Murders and certain reviews of
Speaker 5: highly deficient play histories, I have this sense that people
Speaker 5: who are missing long, severe missing of play are really
Speaker 5: suffering from that deficit, and that is not known.
Speaker 4: We don't think of play deficit.
Speaker 5: In that way, So I think there's I would add
Speaker 5: that to sort of the comprehensiveness of this very good
Speaker 5: interview that you've conducted.
Speaker 3: I love the term play deficit. Anything else from Lauren
Speaker 3: and Maya that I've missed.
Speaker 8: I would just hope that this conversation gives you permission
Speaker 8: to play and to give others permission to play.
Speaker 7: We'll live right, absolutely, absolutely, That's kind of what we're
Speaker 7: here to do, is just get the conversation out there
Speaker 7: so people know, hey, this is really good for you.
Speaker 7: There's a lot more to it than just like I said,
Speaker 7: you know, fun and frivolity. So we really appreciate the interview,
Speaker 7: and yeah, it's a delight to talk.
Speaker 5: With you, and I think there is some depth. If
Speaker 5: you've got some scholars that are watching, We've reviewed a
Speaker 5: bunch of articles and books that can be tediously linked
Speaker 5: through the through the website, but if they're curious, they
Speaker 5: can find out more, I think, more about the science
Speaker 5: of play and be grounded in it, which is of
Speaker 5: course also part.
Speaker 4: Of our mission.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: I'm going to have links to your website in the
Speaker 3: show notes. Is there anywhere else you want to point
Speaker 3: people to or anything you'd like to promote.
Speaker 9: We're also on Instagram.
Speaker 8: There's videos of Doctor Brown dancing on Instagram if you
Speaker 8: want to see that.
Speaker 9: We're at Plea Institute. So yeah, I know he looks.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you, I am heading straight there.
Speaker 3: I've just found myself a new Instagram crush, which is
Speaker 3: this eccentric bloke somebody pointed out early because his name's
Speaker 3: Hugo Hugo Hamlet go check him out. It's it's really eccentric,
Speaker 3: quirky bloke and he's got blue, fuzzy hair with a
Speaker 3: bold patch on the back of his head. But he
Speaker 3: talks about the most deep philosophical stuff about life. And
Speaker 3: then sometimes he just has these videos where he's dancing
Speaker 3: in the middle of a forest and I'm just addicted
Speaker 3: to So I'm like, there's something about this guy that
Speaker 3: is so it's like watching a child. I'm like, I
Speaker 3: just can't stop watching. I'm not even end up dancing
Speaker 3: in a.
Speaker 6: Forest somewhere awesome.
Speaker 7: You know, I think you're going to feel the same
Speaker 7: way when you when you look at our Instagram. I mean,
Speaker 7: you know we need to we need to help Doctor
Speaker 7: Brown's dance and go viral.
Speaker 9: Here I'm heading over there, I'm.
Speaker 5: Not so sure that's a good idea, but I'm.
Speaker 9: Heading over there now.
Speaker 3: Everyone go and check out the Institute to play in
Speaker 3: the show notes and thank you guys so much.
Speaker 2: It was such a pleasure to speak to you. Thank you,
Speaker 2: she said.
Speaker 1: It's now ever I got fighting in my blood.
Speaker 5: D