#232: Play
“Ok, tell me how to play?”
*Quizzical and confused face*
“Pretend. I’m you, 30 year old serious James, you’re a child, tell me how to play”
This is how one of my recent coaching sessions went.
My face lit up, fingers fiddling with the box of lego in front of me.
In my 32 year old body I became 6 years old, playing with my lego again and this adult on the screen in front of me had just asked me to share my worldly advice on how to play.
With a face full of youthful naivety and exuberance…
“Well what you do is you just start really, sometimes when you get a new lego set obviously you follow the instructions and you just do what the instructions say and you make the lego. It’s important to not rush it sometimes and lay out all the pieces so you can find them easily and it’s good to take breaks so when you start frowning you should probably stop. If you make it too quickly as well you might be a bit sad that it’s over, so try and enjoy actually making it. BUT once you’ve made it the best bit is you can take it apart and dismantle it. It’s ok to dismantle what you’ve already built that’s fine and then what you can do you can get all your other different lego sets together and MUSH them together and you can build whatever you want! You can build cowboys flying into space, you can build the robbers stealing from the native Indians, but then the native Indians get in a warship and sail to get them back. You can literally do whatever. It’s the best.”*
*1.5x speed with hands flailing
I did not know that I was so passionate about play. I did not know that my 6 year old self was such an expert.
Read between the lines and there are plenty of very wise words in 6 year old James’s words.
“It’s ok to dismantle what you’ve built”
“Better to slow down and enjoy it”
“Take breaks”
“You can literally do whatever”
When did I stop playing?
I take things very seriously, especially the very serious subjects. Mental health, gender inequality, wealth inequality, politics.
It’s all very important, very adult, very serious.
I’m scared to play. Scared to be silly. Scared to throw stuff at the wall, scared to see what sticks. Scared to pick something up and put it down. Scared to say; “I’m building this!” And then forget about it for 3 months. Scared to look like I don’t know what I’m on about. Scared not to be taken seriously.
I’m re-finding my playful side and my child-like state. When it comes to business, brands and communities. I want to play with no thought to outcome or judgement of others.
Want to sell second hand books and give books away to kids? Ok, let’s play.
Want to write a fiction novel with 1% chance of success? Ok, let’s play.
Want to regenerate Stoke? Let’s play.
Yesterday I played around with vlogging again, sharing myself, playing, talking about all the ideas I am playing with.
I loved making it and sharing it, the reaction has been heartening.
Yet I noticed so much judgement from myself. There’s a big “serious” side to me judging the way I look, that I don’t look professional, that I don’t look serious, that I’m just playing around, not really doing much.
I am challenging myself to take play really seriously and play with really serious topics.
Because, surely, we need to.
Someone needed to play around with mental health and I did. Someone needed to dress up in a dragon costume and walk around Shoreditch, branding mental health differently, someone needed to play with coaches working with people’s mental health - I did.
We need play and we need to play with some of the most serious topics of our time.
I didn’t know I was so passionate about play and I really am. So much so I spent 20 minutes yesterday dismantling a Harry Potter train set and making 3 race cars out of it. Neeeewooooommmm.
We need to play. We need to be naive. We need to ask stupid questions like, “Dad, why does nobody like politicians?” “Mum, why does everyone on the tube look sad?” “Why does daddy call where we live a dump?” “Why is everyone on their phones so much mummy?”
It’s time for me to get serious about play and play seriously in some serious spaces.
That’s where I’m going.
Play.
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