The Daily G.I.F.T. from The GratiDude

Nobody ever regretted playing when they were old. Doesn’t that tell you something?

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The G.I.F.T. Today

Grateful: to keep coming back to the journey and process every morning, noon and night.

Intention-stay connected to that very small thing you control, keeping ego in check

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Morning Meditation from The GratiDude

“Quit playing around, we aren’t kids anymore!!” Ouch. That sucks.

I vividly remember the times I spent coming and going to recess in elementary school, that incredible feeling of joy that was associated with playtime.

I know how much I loved recess because I remember how devastating it was when we would learn that there would be no outdoor recess on a particular day.  Have no fear kid, as we would be allowed to let off steam and run around the gym and play however that’s not the same as a giant playground and woods on the periphery for both exploration and decoration.  

Eberwhite elementary school is where recesses became celebrations of freedom and expression, creativity, laughter, joy, physical exercise, and the celebration of movement and play.

School Systems in the 50s, 60s, and 70s were BIG into = letting kids run around and play.

Every couple of hours, it was in EVERYONE’S best interest to get that energy out,  so we would have a morning and an afternoon recess.   We were also awarded time to play after lunch outside, so in effect we were never going more than a few hours without running around and coming back in with rosy cheeks.

As grownups in a modern world, there is nobody that is going to spoon-feed us play and activity like this and schedule it for us. It is something we must do and be available for.  Furthermore, play does not have to be reserved for the spaces and times outside of the workplace, as we talked about quite regularly in our last coaching series when we utilized the book FISH! and its teachings that reminded us to invoke play whenever we can.

The challenge for many people, however, is that they are moving through life without staying connected to that part of themselves that is in touch with what gives them or provides us with the greatest amount of joy.  It is as if we feel like the little kid in us must just die and go away because playtime is over and being an adult is all about being serious and not having fun.

Life does not have to be this way, and this is just programming that we ever received that does not serve us, so we are choosing not to keep it.

The concept that making money and doing business has to be a serious affair with very dower expressions and absence of joy and effervescent energy. 

I was telling my barber Dave last week how we copied some of the ideas that Apple used for monthly celebrations at our original golf GPS company back in the late nineties early 2000s that was called ParView.

You see, my very first apartment in California back in 1988 was in Cupertino and about one hundred yards from the parking lot of the original Apple Computer company campus.  From our little back deck, we could see how Apple would throw a big ass party once a month on Fridays for all employees to celebrate the progress and good news of that month.

There were kegs, and people playing hackey sack, throwing frisbees, it looked like Golden Gate Park on the weekend in San Francisco.

At ParView, we took this idea and turned into what we called it. “Good news Friday “which was a big celebration of the company activities, but more importantly, all the people, family and friends that made the company work.

Invoking play in your day-to-day life also honors the fact that we are just big kids in these meet suits and the more that we can stay connected to that playful innocence the more joy we can weave into our life and the more fun we can have.

Play can have many emotional benefits for adults, including: 

Improved mood: Play can help improve mood and reduce depression. 

Reduced stress: Play can help reduce stress and anxiety by helping people modulate their reaction to stressful events. 

Improved relationships: Play can help improve relationships by increasing empathy, compassion, trust, and intimacy. It can also help break the ice in awkward social situations and create new friendships. 

Increased creativity: Play can help boost creativity by stimulating positive emotions, which can lead to better problem solving and greater insight. 

Improved brain function: Play can help improve brain function. 

Healed emotional wounds: Play can help heal emotional wounds by engaging in the same patterns of behavior that positively shape the brains of children. 

Improved social skills: Play can help develop social skills, such as how to express emotions, delay gratification, and understand how others feel. 

Increased energy: Play can help increase energy. 

Play can be beneficial for people of all ages, and it’s not just for kids.

When you give people the opportunity or permission to be joyful, the energy that results is so good for everyone around and for the planet that we obviously should be doing more of this.

Don’t over complicate things in your own life while we are on this subject if it feels good to play and it’s not going to get you in any trouble then you should play every single time.