So, Gary, tell me about a time when you took a game into a corporation, one of your clients, and what happened with that? What I'd love to hear is what they brought you in for and then what kind of it turned out that they brought you in for?

Yeah. I have so many. But to narrow it down on something that's very impactful that there's a really great take away. I was working with the San Diego Padres with the sales team, and they brought me in just through the normal team building leadership development. All of these salespeople are like individual entrepreneurs. They have a book of business but at the same time, they have to work well together. So this was a great way to build community, it was a great way for us to learn in a playful environment. And the story that I think the people or people listening can resonate with is that there was this V.P. V.P. of sales and just on paper, everything was going very well. Well, she was well regarded at the company. She had a really great team and we did this activity that had the intention of the activity was to help people realize that multitasking is not a good thing because most people think they can multitask but in reality, what you're doing is just brain switching. And so the game was designed to really accent that and give people an experience so that they learned firsthand that they're not as effective as they think so that you can get rid of that overconfidence.

And at the end, when we were doing the debrief on the activity, this V.P., she had this experience and she shared a story with us that was very vulnerable and allowed us to sort of work on that in real time. So let me tell you about the game first and then I'll tell you about her experience. So in this activity, we're in a group environment, the person in the middle is the focus and then everyone gets a chance to be in all the positions. And your main job is to just listen to the person in front of you tell a story. And after forty five seconds, you're going to be quizzed on how much detail you could retell back and you know, if you got at least a minimum of ninety five percent correct, you get a thumbs up awesome, well there is a catch. There are people on all sides of you that are asking you questions, someone's going to ask you additional questions, someone is going to ask you fill in the blank question, spelling questions and you have to answer them all while trying to do your main objective. And by doing that, every time that you take your attention away from the story to answer a question.

You missed part of the story, and it also creates in your body cortisone adrenaline, which the effects of, those are short term memory loss, rash decisions, stress, anxiety. And so then we're debriefing and most people were talking about a well, they didn't realize that they know, they didn't know as much because they thought I heard the story and then when they went back to recall the story, they realized in that moment that they just didn't remember. And so then we're talking about the effects of, you know, multitasking and how that impacts their business and their day to day work. And this VP, she quietly raises her hand and she's almost in tears and she talked about how she said, wow, I had a different experience. Yes I realized that multitasking is bad however, I saw that experience is how I set up my team. In that I was the person in the middle and all the people that were asking me questions were my team and I set that up, I set up an environment where they have to bring everything to me, no wonder I'm so stressed out all the time and, you know in that moment.

You know, as a collective group, you know, brainstorm, how can we adjust that? And so that was like a very powerful moment where through play through activity, someone was able to realize, wow, there's a different way of doing things and because it's a low stakes environment, we can experiment, well what else could you do? I love this story, how do you, do you just have a roster of a million games? How do you decide which games are going to help you achieve what purpose? When you go into your client's.

I do have a lot of roster, I like a lot of games well, my background is in applied improvisation. So as an actual theatrical improviser, I've been performing on stages for the last decade with an ensemble making things up on the spot. And the games that we have used to help us get in that state where we can do that works very well to teach people how to listen better, how to think quickly on their feet to be more adaptable. And so I've taken a number of those games and brought them into team and individual situations to help people, you know, learn in a low stakes environment. Also, because the cool thing about play, and I call this purposeful play where you can play a game and then it has a different meaning. You can play essentially this is the cool thing about playing this is the cool thing about our brains is you can play any game. And if it's set up in a certain way, you can think back on that experience and learn so much about how you show up in the world.

Well, when we met, it was at an event in Hawaii and you led us through games and I would not have believed what you just said. You know, there are the people who are like how you do anything is how you do everything. And if somebody cheats at golf, that's probably who they really are as a person and I always felt like, you know, even in different contexts, people are different in different contexts.

But I think when there was a game that we all played together and I was still new to the group, that I had kind of some first impressions of people. And through the playing of the game, what I really saw was like, wow, this is somebody who doesn't give credit to people and this is somebody who can't stay focused on the task. And, you know, there was a bunch of I just thought it was a really interesting exercise. And I did feel closer to the group as a whole after we had played this, the whole segment of games. So I really liked how it brought people together. I mean, it also shows you who is like that's not somebody who's for me. So there are certain people in the group who are not that way. So do people tend to bring you in more often for problem solving or for team building? What do you feel like is what you're known for to your clients that they bring you in for?

I like to say that the entry level to me is through team building. There's some sort of quarterly event and they want to supplement it with whatever they have on the agenda. So they say, oh, let's do something fun. You know, they probably heard about me from a colleague or something like that. And then I get brought in for team building experience. The cool thing is the way that they're structured, you can't unsee what you just saw. You can't experience what you just experienced. And I like to say that we are all perfect just the way that we are. The challenge is we're put into a situation that will essentially bring out the worst in us. And that's why I like to say, you know, don't hate the player, hate the game. And a lot of times in these corporate environments, you wonder, why are people so cutthroat? Why are people stepping on each other's toes? Why are people not listening? And I'd like to say no one said I'm going to get this job and be the most and be the biggest ahole that I can be. It's just that over time, because of the environment they sort of develop that personality. And so as a result of the team building experience, you know, at the end, you know, there's a debrief and I was like alright, what do we need to work on? Because I say, yeah, this was a fun event. You're going to have a lot of fun, but it's got to be often naught if you don't take this moment to break down, what are the things that we need to work on as a group? Take stock in that and then make steps to improve. And that's where I get right back to companies that I work with because through these games, they start to realize, I love what you mentioned earlier about habits because, you know, maybe when you first started working at a company, you know, you had one intention, but because of the environment, you develop these habits and then they become unconscious. And so now through play, you've exposed those you have an awareness to and now it's just all about creating an environment where you can learn and grow from them.

I love that, and so do you then make a kind of plan together with the companies that bring you back in for transforming those habits or working on those behaviors together?

Yes and no, I like to say as a facilitator, I'm there to hold space at the end of the day through this, you know what you need to work on. So you don't need me to say you need to work on this, you will decide, Oh, you know what? As a result of this, I need to work on this thing. I'm probably not the best collaborator and then from there, yes, I can be a resource to help with additional training where we can play games and then we can learn from that, because this is a true fact to create a new synapse in the brain, It takes about 420 repetitions. A long time, this is a shortcut if you can infuse it, it would play. You can decrease that to about 20 repetitions. No really? Serious, that's amazing, yes, I know and the people are going to have time for play. Well, you're looking at play through the wrong lens, from zero to about nine everything that kids learn is through play. When you are playing, your brain is in an alternate reality where you are experimenting. But the cool thing about play and through these facilitated experiences, it's I call it a peak emotional experience, P.E.E. for sure. And you are doing something, you're having a lot of joy, you're having a lot of like all these emotions. You're with your, you know, your comrades and your brain is in this peak state. And when you're in a peak state, your brain is heightened and it's taking stock of everything that is happening and you're going to be more likely to retain that information considering, you know, compared to the opposite of like or do it again or I do it again and it's not play, it’s more of just like going through the motions.

That I really understand, that takes me to the way that I see this in my work and my clients and my clients are the consultants who also serve those companies like you go into. One of them said to me, I haven't been able to do that because it feels like work. And I really identified with that because one of the things that I've struggled with recently is a heinous task that I needed to make happen on a project. And I just did not want to do it and I was fighting and fighting and fighting with myself. And there was a part of me that was like, here's a playful way to do it and I was like, shut up I’m busy. So when I finally relented and said, all right, what's your brilliant idea? And I did it that way it got me out of this amazing trench and moving forward. So in both cases, I think when we regard things as feeling like work, it makes them hard to do. But we are working and so what's the way that we as small business owners or one person businesses or if I have a small consultancy where there's a few people who also work with me and for me, how can we bring this sensibility in? Yes, a few things, first and foremost, a wise woman once said for every job that must be done, you add an element of fun and snap the job's game and that was Mary Poppins, in case you didn't know.

And you're absolutely right. When you can see the work as play, you will do it for the sake of doing it, because think about any game that you have ever played. The joy is in the game and yes sometimes with sports and gambling stuff, stuff like that, like I feel like the emphasis becomes on winning in that case. In my opinion, that's not true play something else takes over and there's an amazing book called ‘Primed to Perform the Science of Total Motivation’ amazing book, highly recommended, it talks about creating cultures where you can do your best work. And this is because they have a course called Total motivation and in that book, they look at what are the three intrinsic motivators and then the three external motivators and how it would lead you to doing your best work and so if the three intrinsic is play, as in, you can see the work as play and it may require some creativity, but you can see the work as solving creative problems and actually doing the work is thrilling for you brings a lot of joy. The other one is Potential, you see the potential of some of what you do like all right it's going to help me grow, it's going to help me do all these other things. And then the other one is Purpose, the impact of the work Is what drives you and again, it requires some reframing of the work because most people focus on the external. So emotional pressure, so if I don't do a good job, I'm going to be shamed or I'm going to be disappointed in myself if I don't achieve certain things or economic pressure and you know, I need to make money for a living to help my family or there is some sort of bonus structure if I can hit so many marks. And then the last one, which is the worst, is Inertia where you like, I'm just here because I'm here, I've been doing it.

And studies show that those three externals over time would decrease performance because of what it does. It takes away your drive to do what is called tactical performance. So tactical performance is just your ability to do the job, just the nuts and bolts. But if that's all we needed, Blockbuster probably would still be in business let's just be honest. If we just do the tactical performance, Kodak would still be the leader. We need adaptive performance as well and that is your ability to be agile, that is your ability to be creative. And if you're just focusing on those external things, it actually takes away your ability to do creative thinking, because if you have too much emotional pressure or economic pressure, then you're not going to take risks. You're not going to do the thing that the main lead, you know, is a potential failure. But we need those things and that's where play comes in too because the cool thing is, think about it any time that you've been playing whether it's a sports game or a video game or shorts and ladders, sometimes you have to take a risk. But in the play state that's encouraged. In the play state, that is seen as a fun challenge. That is what's necessary, why can't we take this same mindset and bring it to business?

So what's what? I mean, I've heard of, obviously, of people being motivated by purpose and people being motivated by potential in, as the kinds of businesses that we are. What I haven't heard about is people being motivated by play. I talk about this a lot of times in terms of joy, like you should be in a joyous state all the time in your business and my reason for that is because if I wanted to be non joyful, I would stay in my corporate job. Listen we chose this, we chose this, we're doing this let's be joyful doing it instead of miserable. And if you're miserable, it's a sign you need, something needs to change. So what I had never heard anyone say though was like, well, you should, where's the play now? If I think about it, there are many things that we're doing, I mean, I would say what we're doing right now is playing even though it's like just smart. But you know, I wanted you out here because I was like, I want to be in Gary's energy because his energy feels great and I love that you're able to offer the science behind it, the reasons, why behind it, reasons why this stuff works.

So what are ways, like how you play in your work? Running a business and doing the business,it's not just when you're with your clients because I've seen you. And you don't look like you're playing, you look like you're holding boundaries, keeping people safe, like you're really amazing to watch lead exercises and also debrief the exercises because you're in charge and there's a different part of you than when you're presenting and you're like a fun guy, the guy who runs those exercises is a different version of yourself, so where does that play come in?

That's all play and so this is, it needs to start by changing the definition of play because a lot of times we see play as very juvenile, which I love that version as well but play, one of the cool things about play and defining work as play is like you feel that the work itself is the reason why you're there and for me I enjoy the work, I enjoy being there to hold space for people and seeing that transformation take place. I do bring a bit of levity when necessary, I sprinkle it in you know, it's just like a seasoning if you have too much, it's going to ruin the dish. But for me, I see work as play as an oh, I'm overcoming challenges as you said earlier, an adventure, I look at it through that lens and I like to say there is a difference between being child-like and then child-ish; child-like you bring that sense of curiosity, you bring that sense of wonder, you bring that sense of joy. You're trying to overcome challenges. Child-ish is a stuff we want to avoid being spoiled, you know not sharing all of those things and so that is how I look at the world now. So for me, because that work is so much of a thrill for me, I leave feeling energized, I love it and I want to do more of it. For me I also and that's to be honest, that's a small percentage of the overall work, I wish, I was on stages every single day or in community every single day doing this work is not a reality and so for the people that are running their own business, this is where you really have to get creative, is how can you look at the other aspects of your work as play?

I need to build my business, my book of business by doing outreach you know, I have to do invoices and stuff like that maybe it's just like look, this is outside of my zone of genius, I should probably outsource that and that would be a great investment for you, because then you can save that energy for something else. But if you say you can't say right now, it's not a feasible thing. All right well, how can you bring it? How can you bring the spirit of play into the work? And that might mean that here.

You know, by me sitting down for thirty five minutes and doing invoices or all these other things which I don't like to do, it allows me to collect revenue, which will allow me to put more back into the business. Now we're getting it to mindset and then also, what if you made it more fun? Like, why does it have to be like you said, a joy state? How can you put yourself in a joy state to do the boring stuff? And I know there's resistance, but what if we asked our younger version of ourselves that you know, the child version of ourselves really has the answer? Well, how would they do it? Right I love it, so things that come to mind for me are like putting it on a timer and seeing how fast I can do it and also putting a fun logo or sticker or message on each of the invoices, because that would make them feel less like boring money and more like sending a message to someone I love who was my client.

You know, one of the ways that I make a lot of heinous tasks fun is that I do them with my team because then they're collaborative and that's just immediately more fun for me. And it was really good for me to discover that years ago that I want to be, for a lot of people they can't get the work done in their business that's for them we always get client work done right because it's hard for us to get our work done and when I realized I need to be accountable to somebody and how about I'll be accountable to my team. So my team is constantly hounding me for things that I do. But I love that because they make the work funner, I want to think about like this is the thing that I owe to them and stuff. So during your day, when you need breaks, what are some kind of play breaks that you take?

Yes, so that's, I'm so glad that you brought that up, because that's the other thing that busy professionals, busy entrepreneurs need to realize. A lot of times, you know, you get the POV of, well, you know, I'll sleep when I'm dead, all right, cool that's nice or, you know, we need to hustle, hustle, hustle, I'm with you, you know, the work's not going to do itself and if you want to make an impact in the world, you need to need to work a lot.

But I'm all about working smarter, not harder, I'm all about being intelligent and the science shows that the longer that you work without breaks, you know, the more likely you're going to make mistakes. You know, I heard this phrase that when you rest or actually say that you should work from a place of rest instead of trying to work so that you can rest.

Ok, that's a good one, so can you say that again for us. You should work from a place of rest instead of working so that you can rest. What does it mean to work from a place of rest? It means you need to fill up your container so that you have something to pour from it, and you need to be mindful of when that container is getting empty. And if you are a person that wants to make an impact in the world, why would you give someone your gift that's not 100 percent.

And so how I look at this is I start to categorize the activities that I do of either silly me with energy or reducing my energy. And if I'm doing something that is reducing my energy for a long period of time, I need to take a break and I need to rejuvenate. That is clear and simple, that way I can be at my best and as a result, I can probably get things done faster with more accuracy than if I'm just like I just need to power through, don't get me wrong there's going to be the person that’s listening, that’s like you don't get it Gary, it's urgent you know, I've got to get to someone, you're right that should not be the norm, that should be the exception and what I do is I have moments and I need this the thing, I can't even trust my own self, so I need to have interventions.

My amount of energy, and I swear I have more energy than I really have. And so I set up situations like what you said. Look, I'm only going to work on this for about 90 minutes, and then I'm going to give myself 20 minutes of rejuvenation and then I'm going to do a five minute setup and then I'm going to jump back in again. That's like my sort of cycle and during that 25 minutes, I have what is called a playlist and these are the things that bring me joy, these are the things that spark my energy and studies show that when you do that, you will be able to actually perform longer, harder, better, faster than the person that powers through.

I love that and I feel like I want to assign to everyone right now, listening to write down your top five rejuvenators, because what comes to me immediately like you know, my animals give me joy, so if I just go and look at them, then I immediately get an endorphin rush and then there are birds right outside my window. I go outside in all kinds of weather because that helps me, you know, kind of elevate and then also I might kind of text with somebody so I'm connecting with people. So those are the things that, you know, rejuvenate me and that's usually what I do on my little five minute breaks I try to go towards my husband away from snacks in terms of, you know, the choices that I make when I have a break, so those are mine what are some of yours?

Yeah and see, that is play, that again is play. And for me, I have a three year old son so I step out of the office and I catch his attention and he is like on me, he's like am ready to go and then he's like hey, how about we do this, how about we do that also what are the things that I love to do and this is something that is unique to everyone and I invite you listening to take inventory of this is when you were younger things were simpler, what did you do for play? And, you know, when I say play is like not just sports but what did you do for leisure? What did you do for enjoyment? And the challenge is how can you incorporate that in a short period of time? So for me, I loved building Legos when I was a kid, so actually my son stole most of them so I don't have any within arm's reach currently, the act of doing it is joy and it's not about what I build, it's just like, oh, wow and then I look at some stuff on my wall, oh this is really rad you know, look what I created. But that is like the icing on the cake I'm not doing it for that, I'm doing it for, you know that Piece of nostalgia. Another thing, when I grew up I really liked video games. You know, those sort of wretched it's funny seeing that it's retro now, but like Super Nintendo PlayStation, stuff like that and what I have, I have this on my computer, I have this emulator, I can play those old school games. And so if I need a little bit of an astrologer, I'll go in for like twenty five minutes, I'll go play one of the games I love playing as a kid. And again, it's not to beat it, it's just to have that moment to just take my brain off of what I was working on, and Pro tip: if you really want to jump back into the work and hit the ground running, you need to give yourself a cliffhanger.

Most people the reason why they don't want to stop is they like to get to the end. Well, guess what? Your brain is still working on it, even though you're not consciously working on it. So just if you think about a show that you love to watch, when we had shows that came on weekly instead of being watching every episode, when it ended, you couldn't help but to continue to think about it for that whole week. That's how our brains work, our brains want to finish things, they want to in that sort of ellipse. So if you can pause whatever you're working on, especially if you're trying to be creative, then go off and do something that allows you to rejuvenate, allows you to take your brain off maybe you're doing something, you know, that is physical or something like that. When you jump back in because your brain is still working on it, you're going to jump back in and probably have this spurt of inspiration and then and then you're not going to like you're not going to have any setbacks. I love it, I love that idea. So you leave the work with an open loop that it works on while you're doing play or rest or whatever you're doing and then we come back, you can work on closing the loop more expeditiously than you would have without the play, that's amazing, I love that idea and did not know that. That's what I'm here for, Yay! ok so you, I and our listeners are a consultant and you work with some amazing Blue-Chip companies and I wondered who were some of your first clients when you started doing this? And then how you got a foot into these really, really amazing corporations that you go in and work with.

Yeah, so just a quick primer on how I got to where I am, I never thought that I would be where I am now because it was never my intention to run a facilitation company, even though now when I think back, I'm like, yeah, I am where I need to be and this is amazing. So after the last business that I was in, I was in with a business partner we broke up. I was at a crossroad and I was thinking, well, what's next? So this facilitation stuff that I did, I had done on the side, I had done for fun, I done for free it was how I grew my team. So it was something that I enjoyed and then I was thinking, maybe there's something to this and most credit, if I'm on it like 99 percent of the credit goes to my wife for inspiring me to like, pursue this even further. So listen to your partners out there. They know you better than you know yourself, so that's lesson number one. But number two is, well, how do I get clients? And I learned from a mentor of mine. People buy from people that they know, like and trust at the end of the day. So I would rather consider myself a person of influence than a salesperson you know I don't want to like say, hey, you need to buy my thing I don't even know you, but do it anyway. I was all about well, I know that this is like, I'm just being honest I was like most people they would think this is kind of weird. Why should I invest some you know, pretty hefty dollars into something that I don't really know much about, seems kind of weird. So what I did was I reached out to my network and because I knew I had something, but I knew it was if you tried it, you will be hooked and you will want more. So I was like, I'm going to be the drug dealer for play. And so that was my thing and again, it made it very playful, not because I'm going to be a drug dealer, but it was more of how can I do the things that I like to do? I like to connect with people. I am very social, so I reached out to people that I knew and I said, hey, look, this is what I have going on. I am starting a new endeavor, you may not have done improv or any sort of play like this, but I know that you're probably looking for some enrichment for your team. So I offered what I called a complimentary recess. I said for forty five minutes I'll come and I made my gift to you, I'll deliver this, I love to get feedback, if there's stuff you'd like let me know if there's stuff that didn't sit well let me know cause I'm refining this all I ask is that if it was something of value, if you see an opportunity for us to work together, let me know. I'd love to be considered or if someone that you know could benefit from this would you mind making an introduction? And again, I made it a Win-Win because in the world of improv, where I come from we have these principles that allow us to create magic on stage. And one of them is how can you make your partner look amazing? So the last thing I want is to, like, pressure someone. I know it works, but I don't want someone to come from a place of pressure to make a decision. You know, there was a time and place for that, but for this, you know, I want them to be curious, I want them to come from that playful state. And so that's what I did and for me then, it was more like play instead of all right Gary, you got to get 10 more sales calls. You know, so I looked at it as, oh, I'm just connected with people all right and then it became like fun. It became a game and then people said yes, some people said no but a number of people said yes and then I got so many amazing testimonials.

And then someone said oh, you got to go talk to such and such. And so then it became a warm introduction and then that led me to speaking on a few stages where I was able to do my complimentary recess instead of like a group of 10, I did for a group of 300 and those people said, oh, well, let me bring you into my company and so that again is how it happened but the main lesson here is I took something that seemed like a dreadful thing, like making sales calls, and I made it to fun. It was like, well, if we were kids, what would kids do? Oh, kids like, hey, do you want to come out and play? If you want to do this, like it. That's how I looked at it. I just love it, it's so beautiful, I mean I haven't heard the word recess probably in 10 years. So I just love that idea and I feel like who wouldn't want that? so it's, you know we would call it free sampling, it's a free sampling strategy it's the same thing that The Coca-Cola Company uses to get new consumers, you just go and you really want it, want to try it, you hand it to them and they try it and then you have either somebody who's a consumer or someone who says, I don't want it but that's the way that they grew that and I think it's a fabulous strategy and it's you know, you have to be brave and take risks and all that stuff but it's what I like is that you found something that was palatable for you and doable for you and as you said, it's totally win win for the people who brought you in. So I super love that and I know that what you do is experiential and so probably your business is one of the ones that had to pivot, our new favorite word for 2020 when COVID hits so can you share with us what basically how that hit you and then what you've done to adapt.

Yeah, I feel like I've been you know, pivoted is like a new dawg for me because in the beginning I thought the answer, like when I first started doing this, I thought the answer was improvisation. It Turns out that most people are scared of improv. Who would have known? So then I was like, all right, well, what's your like you know, what are you looking for? Oh training alright cool, that's what I do, I do training I'm a trainer especially around play like, oh, we don't have time for play, don't worry this is enrichment, like this is wellness, you know and so, again, I'm all about adapting. You know, I'm trying to, like, learn, you know the core my core offering stays the same, but it's all about listening and well, what are you looking for and how can I make that alignment? And so COVID hit like I guess everyone's the same thing. You know, when you kicked off 2020, no one in their wildest dreams thought that they would be dealing with a global pandemic. I thought this was going to be the year that I got into as many companies as possible but the cool thing and on top of that, I liked how I had the intention for the year of experimentation, consistency and joy, those are my three code words for 2020. And when COVID hits, I did have a moment of mourning of like, oh, what am I going to do? You know, followed by holy crap like what's going on. Because my business went from about to be on, you know, a few dozen stages and in front of a few dozen companies to nothing to crickets. And so one of the cool things, I again follow my own advice, I took some time to reflect and I was just building Legos and you know, I said, well, in improv you know we like to say, “what is the diamond in the garbage?” And I said, well I did say I want to be in as many companies as possible, well, I can't go anywhere but I can because there's this thing called the Internet. And so I immediately jumped into the sandbox I think I went a little bit too much I talked with that in a moment, but I said, you know what? I have more time, I have a lot more time than I thought. Now, I would love to do some collaborations like I want to see how this is going to work in a virtual world. So who wants to collaborate? And so I started doing weekly improv, complimentary improv workshops on them, again, doing what I did in the very beginning. I was like, hey, look, we're doing this on Zoom who wants to come right out? Give me some feedback and as a result, that's how I connected with our mutual contact Heather Willems, because someone said, hey, you need to meet Heather. She's doing some really cool stuff with graphics facilitation, you two might be able to do something pretty rad. And then that's how we created an amazing, very powerful workshop on playing with fear. And so that is what I spent my April, May and June doing and then I ended up burning myself out because, again, like I said earlier. So I don't know what too much is and so then I had a sort of slam out on the brakes. But at that moment, I had something pretty amazing, I road tested dozens and dozens of games in a virtual environment and I found that some games, some experiences were even better in a virtual world, that now I had even more confidence, like when companies were realizing, well, we're going to be here a lot longer. We need to get things going again, we need this enrichment, we need this, you know, personal development. I felt very confident with my ability to deliver a world class experience that is going to help people with that transformation.

That is super, super smart. I've heard a couple of people say that they adapted, they practiced, they came in, they did the events. They experimented with different things and then they also have arrived at events that they feel like are better, well they don't feel like they're the respondents. The participants are saying this is better than when we were doing this live. So I think that's amazing and I'm not surprised, I'm a big like I would prefer almost everything was virtual, so I think that's super important what I want to hear about is what was your recovery transition from exhaustion to kind of like back on track again? Yeah and so I first and foremost, I had to be aware, I had to have an awareness like oh, this is what I'm feeling is burnout, and I've read so much stuff recently about you having a thing called surge energy when things happen, like you go into a crisis mode and then that takes a lot of your stuff but if you're not careful, you can reach that level of burnout. And then also there was another one of the names escaping me but it's basically like if you're a person that is providing services for others, you know, because you're in that and other people's energy will drain you faster, you'll find that burnout won't come out of nowhere and that's essentially what happened to me.

And so once I had that awareness, I needed to be true to myself and so again, I know common sense is not always common practice. But I went back to basics, you know, prioritize rest made sure that I was getting more rest than I was getting before and also my three year old son, you know, started sleeping even more through the night so that made things a lot better but you know, also boundaries. And there's something that my wife and I did that I was talking to a behavior specialist and they were like, oh, my gosh, that was so smart like again, we were just like in desperation mode because our son would get up super early and we wouldn't have, like, that sort of time to sort of ease into the day. And so we got him this clock and we said when it turns green, that means you can come out of your room. Until then, if you wake up and it's not green, you just have to just hang out in your room you can play, you can do whatever you want, but you stay in your room. And so, again, that created space for me to get some meditation and I again, wasn't able to go to the gym, but I still did some stretches, you know, tried to get some yoga and I started running on jogging, at least until the fires and air quality was kind of bad. But those are the things that, again, started rejuvenation process and you have to, that's the thing if you don't have the right intention for it, if you don't have the right purpose for it, you're not going to see it as a rejuvenating feature. If your definition of that is like, oh, that's something that weak people do well, you're not going to get the benefits from it because you're going to feel like you're coerced into that and your body's not going to reap all the benefits of someone with an open mind that realizes like, no, this is a necessity.

Thank you so much for sharing that, Gary, because I feel like that's the situation that a lot of people find themselves in. I think it's hard for them to be aware of it and then it's hard for them to to do the things that you did and your clock tip is gold. One of the things that we talked about, you know, they had these experiments with mice where if mice don't play, they die, I tried to Google that and I got a thing about computer mice and gamers who also think that if they play too much. So why are play and creativity essential for us as human beings?

The second thing that you're referencing is that they had mice and some mice they took the play away from them and then the others they allowed them to play and the mice that was sort of starved of play. What ended up happening was their brain didn't fully develop like the other mice. And when they were put into situations where they needed to be clever, where they needed to outsmart like cats and stuff like that, they weren't able to do it. They were stressed more often than not, they you know, they were in this constant state of anxiety because they didn't see any other possibilities, because they didn't have, they didn't grow the ability to be adaptive and so the mice that played, they were more adaptive and they When they looked into situations that were uncertain, complex and maybe ambiguous, they saw that as an opportunity to learn and to grow. And, you know, we're very similar to mice in that regard, is that and there's an amazing book called Super Better by researcher Jane McGonigal. And she talks about the growth benefits of using play as that group as a medium and so she says, first and foremost, you need to go in with the right purpose. If you see play like I said earlier, as something to rejuvenate, you're going to use it to its full benefits but if you see play as an escape, as in I can't deal with this right now so I'm just going to escape by playing because I don't want to deal with it then that's going to be your pattern. Every time something scary comes up, you're going to play and not deal with it, play is just one sort of medium you know, some people use it with eating, some people use it with exercise. You know, again, it's all about your intention and your purpose and your body is going to respond accordingly and the cool thing about play, as I mentioned, is when you play, your brain is connecting the dots. Your brain is doing so many things when you're playing with groups, if we had EKG machines on our heads, it would reveal that our brain waves are in sync and if our brain waves are in sync, we are starting to produce oxytocin and serotonin, those are the neurochemicals that help us feel like we belong, help us trust other people. So I don't know about you, but that seems like something that is a necessity would you agree?

Definitely and I love how it leads them to be more adaptive, adaptable to their environment, resilient. I mean, so what I love about the mice example is if you think about yourself, you said you like us we learn through play from zero to nine. So, so much stuff you learn about winning, losing you don't always learn the right lessons when you're a child, but winning, losing. Here's a different way here's a place I can go hide where they won't find me, here's you know what I mean it just makes you so much more creative. So I wanted you to talk a little bit more about creativity, because I think a lot of people feel like they're either creative or they're not creative and that it's like it’s a kind of a switch rather than a skill that you can develop. And I mentioned to you before that I feel like my creativity, especially in improv, which I used to play in, has regressed and I got, like, stupid in my improv that made me feel like, oh, I used to have this access to the thing that isn't there anymore. So can people become more creative?

The answer is yes, just like anything, creativity is a muscle it's a skill that we can develop and yes, just like a lot of other skills or some people that are a little bit more innately talented, but that doesn't mean that you can't improve you know, so to prove that point, there was a study done by NASA where they followed a cohort from age 5 so kindergarten all the way to 18 so the end of high school and they found that the kindergartners 95 percent of them had genius levels of creativity and then it started to decline around 13 and then by the time they were 18, that same cohort only 3 percent had genius levels of creativity. And there's a lot of factors that go into play like judgment, you know, X, Y and Z but like the story that you tell yourself is very powerful if you tell yourself you're not creative you're going to believe it and so for those of you who maybe are in that stage of life, oh, I don't think I'm creative first and foremost creativity is a skill, creativity all creativity is solving problems that's it. Some number of people equate creativity with artistic ability and that's one form of creativity but, you know if you're a parent, you probably had to get very creative. I know my wife and I, we have as well, like we had a problem the fact that our son is not giving us the space so that we can sort of ease into the day. We got creative we tried a whole bunch of different things and you know what? That clock thing happened to be the solution if that didn't work, you try something else and how can you get better at creative? That's where play is important, because when you're playing, it's a low stakes environment but as you mentioned earlier yes. How you do some things is how you do a lot of things and if you're playing in a low stakes environment, practicing, being creative, then when it's important, when the stakes are higher, you're going to be more likely to come up with creative solutions.

And so one way I got this book from an amazing book by the author, by the name of James Altucher, and it's called Choose Yourself an amazing book and part of his morning practice is every day giving yourself a prompt and timing yourself and coming up with 10 or more ideas on that prompt and it can start as simple as it were 10 places to go on vacation and then it can get either more complex to what are ten ways that we can rid the world of infectious diseases. Again, it's not about being right it's all about challenging yourself to think so that's one way that you can do and again, is just training the brain to be creative, because a lot of the reasons why we don't think as fast on our toes is that we are judging ourselves. I like to say there's the clown and then there's the editor, and they need to coexist, but they can't be in the same space at the same time and so when you need to come up with ideas, you need the clown to be there. You need all the silly ideas as wacky as it is, you need them all and then the editor can come out and refine but if you're trying to edit yourself why you're trying to be creative it's not going to work.

Totally, I think a lot of us who have when you're composing and you're editing at the same time, you know that that's very gratifying. Well, I love those ideas can you share with us? So if our listeners wanted to kind of take one of your creativity classes or do one of your webinars, what is available for us as consultants rather than kind of like your clients who are larger companies? So first that and then if somebody wanted to bring you in to one of their clients, let us know about that as well. Currently as of the time of this recording, the last Tuesday and Wednesday the month I have some open offerings that's available to the public on Tuesdays it's my call facility laughter yoga and it's not doing downward dog and laughing, it's doing silly simulated laughter activities and yoga breathing and that is a lot of fun I believe it's at three p.m. pacific 3:00 or 4:00 pacific, the last Tuesday of the month, last Wednesday in the month, same time is my improv playground where we do improv activities in a virtual environment, it's open to the public on my Website, BreakthroughPlay.com is where you can find the schedule for that in case things do change. And also, that's where if you are a consultant and you after hearing this you hear about, you know, you have a client that might want to use some sort of experiential methods for team development or team building reachout, I love doing collaborations with people and again, my job is to make my clients look amazing. So you know, how can we collaborate so that we can make your clients look amazing? Awesome, thank you so much for that and anything else that you'd want to share with our listeners? We said a lot you know, if I could do something up, an experiment, try something, you know was there one thing that you heard that made you curious? What if you commit to just playing around that for a week? No, you know, low stakes.

I love it, so I'm going to commit to the prompts because I love that idea and I have felt myself not having access to my ten and I'm going to crash one of your improv classes and bring my husband because we both have a background in improv and I would love to keep playing together with him and with you. I think it would be super, super fun so I invite anyone listening to this to join us there in a brave space held by Gary for us. Thank you so, so much for everything you shared today, Gary. My pleasure and if I could just take a moment and acknowledge you. Thank you so much for holding this space where we can have conversations like this to help as many people as possible because it's so needed right now.

It's a wrap, thank you. My pleasure. Thank you.