I hope you had (are having?) a great holiday season, and an end to 2024! I’ve been off work and have enjoyed slowing things down for myself after a busy year.
We unfortunately had some sickness in our house, likely initiated through a sleepover we hosted just prior to the break. Both my daughter and youngest son got fevers of nearly 104F.
They were each sick for several days, offset from each other by a couple days. My son essentially slept on the couch with a fever for most of Christmas. Poor guy!
We had to cancel family plans to decorate sugar cookies, but I’m glad we did, because in addition to fevers, we had one hilarious incident of vomit! 🤮
Sorry to be gross, but my son barfed on the floor. Then he stepped in it trying to get to a trash can as he barfed again. My wife also stepped in it trying to clean up, then started doing those ‘blargh’ kind of retching noises because it was making her feel like barfing.
I was cleaning up on the other side of all of this, and I was losing it with laughter.🤣🤣🤣 It was like watching a sitcom! Between the barf, the footprints, the almost secondary barf, it was all too much and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
In more pleasant developments, I’ve been getting ready for goal setting. 🚀 For personal goals, I’m going to make a shift from calendar years to birth years.
So instead of setting 2025 goals, I’m going to set goals for the year of me being 45. The year will start on my birthday.
Picking any kind of yearly goal is somewhat arbitrary, but I like aligning it to my own trips around the sun instead of the standard calendar.
What do I want to accomplish while I’m 45? 🤔
I’ll share some ideas when I’ve got that figured out, but it’ll be informed by my lessons learned from last year.
For example, as is common, I had too many goals. I had seven just for health and wellness. That’s more than I could remember, much less develop effective habits for!
I’ll be streamlining for age 45. 😁
What about you? What are some of your goals for the next year? How did your goals for last year go?
I’d love to hear about it; email me at heykev@kevinnoble.xyz and tell me all about it.
Kevin
A Quote
“
Everyone needs help dealing with other people. But when we dig down deeper, the key always starts with what’s going on with you.
— Alisa Cohn in "From Start-Up to Grown-Up"
Three Things
1 - 📘 The Ocean at the End of the Lane - This is the first five star book I’ve read in almost three months. It’s a work of fiction by Neil Gaiman that really pulled me in. The idea was unique, the pacing was great, and the writing was melodic. The ending was also satisfying, and the overall length was just right. From Amazon’s description: “This bewitching and harrowing tale of mystery and survival, and memory and magic, makes the impossible all too real…” This is on sale at Amazon for $2 as of when I linked this.
2 - ⚽ King’s League Soccer - Have you seen this Spanish soccer league that modified the rules to make it more video-game-like? The pitch is smaller, there are fewer people (7 on 7), you get “power ups” at the beginning, and they roll a huge dice at halftime to change how many people play. They have designs on expanding this around the globe. More on it here.
3 - 🧨 A Deck of Check-Ins - Humans benefit from checking in with each other when beginning (and closing) meetings and offsites. If you’ve ever had to create those moments, you know how hard it can be to come up with them! This deck has proven examples used by HopeLab that you can borrow.
Deep Dive on the Importance of Play
“A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men.” - Roald Dahl
Children are almost universally playful. It’s hard-wired into us as humans.
Then over the years, for many of us, the burdens of life and adulting can suck the play right out of us.
Or maybe it’s just feeling compelled to emulate all the other serious adults - who are typically telling us to be more serious.
So…we become serious. We become adults.
You may be adult, but don’t forget, that’s just a physically larger version of your five year old self. There’s no reason to get rid of your playfulness just because you got bigger.
There are a lot of benefits to retaining and cultivating your playfulness!
Today I’ll share my thoughts on the importance of play.
The Benefits of Play
The problem you’re facing does not care if you frown about it or laugh about it. It’s impervious to your feelings.
But YOU, and the people around you, will definitely feel differently depending on whether you’re laughing or frowning.
In my story to start today’s newsletter, the vomit on the floor needed to be taken care of whether I’m angry or crying laughing. The mess didn’t care about my attitude, but I know the feeling in the room was better because I was laughing.
Feeling follows action. The act of laughing creates a feeling of ease. Frowning creates the feeling of stress. We’ve got enough stress in our lives; there’s no need to create even more.
If the problem you’re facing isn’t influenced either way, you might as well pick the thing that makes everyone feel better! Choose laughter and play.
Feeling better isn’t the only benefit of play. It’s hugely beneficial for innovation and problem solving.
In stress, our brains are less effective. Our field of view narrows and we’re in reptile brain mode. We aren’t leveraging our higher functions. We aren’t as capable of learning and growth.
Play reverses that stress and widens your aperture. You’re able to see creative solutions to problems.
“Second, play is an antidote to stress, and this is key because stress, in addition to being an enemy of productivity, can actually shut down the creative, inquisitive, exploratory parts of our brain.”
Laughter is a good gauge for the health of a team and organization.
It’s really hard to laugh when there’s fear. It’s really hard to laugh when everyone around you is stressed and not having fun.
The absence of laughter indicates there’s a lot of fear and stress, which are not conducive to performance.
No one laughs in front of the dark lord.
Laughter itself can be an act that contributes to safety. If, as a leader, you can laugh at your own foibles and any problems in the business, you indicate that it’s safe for others to do so as well.
Laughter will bring the temperature down. You need this lower temperature to unlock the broadest problem solving capacity in your team.
“Embrace Fun: This obvious one is still worth mentioning, because laughter is not just laughter; it’s the most fundamental sign of safety and connection.”
You may have a given level of playfulness in your life right now, but it can be changed if you want.
You do this through metacognition and rewiring your thinking.
As an adult, a lot of your responses to stimuli are automatic. You’ve spent a life navigating the world, and you’ve turned many things into automatic responses to conserve energy.
If you want to respond to stressful and challenging situations with laughter and play, even if that’s not your response today, it is possible to change.
If it feels like there’s no option to react other than how you react, that’s your clue (any time you see no options, you’ve got a limiting belief holding you back).
It might be helpful to remember that other people react differently. That shows that a human is capable of reacting in a different way, and if a human can do it, you can do it.
How do you rewire? It starts with self-awareness. You just have to notice that you’re reacting in an un-playful way, then choose to react differently.
You have to be willing to look at your thoughts and behavior to rewire.
When you switch tracks like this enough times, eventually your reactions become naturally playful and it requires less conscious effort.
How do you play?
You’re ready to play. Now what?
One of the best ways to kick start play is to remember what play was like for you as a kid. What did you do to have fun? How did you spend your time?
Did you draw? Did you build things? Did you run around your neighborhood? Ride bikes? Dress up? Dance?
Bring this back!
Whatever childhood play was, bring it back! How can you do a little bit of that in your nights and weekends?
Work isn’t off limits for play, by the way. How can you bring play into your work?
Did you like to draw? Draw more in your work! Put emojis in your Slack messages.
Did you dance? Do a little dance to start a meeting. If that’s nerve-racking, do a shimmy on the way to the meeting.
Have fun. Experiment!
“Don’t feel guilty about taking time off from your usual adult duties to play. It is contributing to your work. Consider the time as an investment in your innovation and overall happiness.”
I’m taking my own advice this week. I’m already a little bit of a goofball, but taking time off work and being intentional about play has made it a little easier. I’ve been doing puzzles, playing air hockey, drawing, cooking, playing board games, and doing weird little dances around the kitchen - plus my normal level of joke-making.
What do you do for fun? What looks like play to you? I’d love to hear all about it. Email me at heykev@kevinnoble.xyz and let me know.
