In this engaging session, Em Stroud, the Comic Coach, shares her unique perspective on integrating play into our business lives for greater success and joy.

Em advocates for the inclusion of playful activities in both personal and professional settings, emphasizing that play can alleviate stress and enhance overall well-being. Highlighting her work with top global businesses and her movement 'Laugh Think Play,' Em discusses practical steps to incorporate play into daily routines and outlines twelve distinct play personalities. She passionately argues that by giving ourselves permission to play, we can achieve a more balanced, joyful, and successful life. This talk offers valuable insights for mid-career professionals looking to infuse more joy into their work and lives.

Speaker Links:

Website: https://emstroud.com/

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/em-stroud

Learn More:

If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my Life Satisfaction Assessment. It's a 30-minute program where I guide you through a deep dive into 10 areas of your life to assess what's bringing you joy and what's bringing you down. I call it Derailed and it's a fabulous place to begin a joy-at-work redesign.

https://www.midlifeunstuck.com/derailed

From the very first moment I met M.

Stride, I recognized her as a different animal.

The rest of us at the TEDx auditions were sweaty palmed and awkward.

She was intimidatingly relaxed.

Her hair was spiky and blonde.

She wore an American style baseball jacket and funky trainers.

And she laughed at herself and made us laugh at ourselves.

I asked Em to speak to you today because she does serious and important

work, but she doesn't do it seriously.

She does it playfully.

And I know for sure that she's going to bring a little playful joy into your next

10 minutes and into your work tomorrow.

Let's dive in.

Play more for more success in business and life.

I know the word play and the world of business perhaps don't

naturally go hand in hand.

And I truly, truly believe that if we did allow ourselves to play a little bit more,

both at work and in life, you know what?

We'll feel better.

We'll be more successful.

And more importantly, we'll have more fun and joy, which let's face it.

After COVID and everything else that's going on in the world, seems

like a super, super good idea to me.

Hello, I'm Em and I am a comic and I'm also a coach.

So people know me as The Comic Coach.

I'm also the founder of a new global movement called Laugh Think Play.

And one of my really big drivers is that I think as adults, we need to play more.

Kids have it right.

They have play times because in that time they get to go and change what's

going on in their body and their mind and they go outside and they play.

Now, if you're listening to this going, but hang on, I'm a full

grown adult with a very big job.

Awesome.

But you know what?

As a kid, you learn through play.

And somehow in the world of society, in the world that

we live in, we've forgotten.

That actually play is key to us feeling better, feeling more present

and actually being able to really enjoy moments every single day.

Now, I've been lucky enough.

I've worked with some of the top people around the world.

I've worked with top businesses, everything from Bloomberg,

Bayer and Barclaycard.

I've also worked with businesses that don't begin with a letter B.

And if there's something that I've observed is that when we allow

ourselves some time to really play, it can fundamentally change how we feel.

Now I'm in no way suggesting that play means that the rest of the world

and the challenges and the business objectives and the career objectives

that you have suddenly disappear.

But what I do know to be true is that when we allow ourselves a little bit

of time to play, we can feel different.

And when we feel different, actually the things that we perhaps are

getting stressed or overwhelmed or creating anxiety about actually

can just get a little bit less.

And I know this to be true, because you remember back in COVID when we were

locked down, there was a couple of times where I found out some really hard news.

I found that a couple of people that I knew basically were both in hospital.

This is when we were in lockdown, so we couldn't go and see them.

And obviously I was really worried.

Now I spend my life helping people play and think about play.

And, My son, and he was nine at the time, came up to me and he obviously saw

that I was a little bit stressed out and a bit worried about these two people.

And he's like, mum, let's play a game.

And I was like, I don't really want to.

Because I was really feeling that anxiety, that worry, that concern.

He's like, come on mum.

So it's like, okay.

So we ended up playing this game and we created a game that involved throwing

table tennis balls into glasses.

It sounds a bit like beer pong, but I promise it wasn't beer pong.

And we ended up then drinking these revolting drinks.

If one of us got the table tennis table in the glass and they were the sort of

most beautiful drinks that only a nine year old boy could create, you know,

for example, coffee with soda with a dash of lime juice, you get the idea.

And we played for about 40 minutes and we giggled and we laughed.

Did that change the reality that my two friends were in hospital?

No.

But did it change how I felt for those 40 minutes?

Yeah.

And then when I stopped playing, did I feel slightly different?

Yeah.

So I'm not suggesting that play is this magical elixir, but what it can do is

give us a bit of space to feel different.

And in this world that we live in, surely that is super important.

It's a play.

What I find really fascinating that generally when I ask a room of

adults, we're going to play, I have a look that adults respond with me.

I'm like, Oh no, I don't really play.

That terrifies me.

Please.

Can we not play?

Because I'm going to probably get it wrong.

And we get really fearful around the word play.

And I think that has to change.

So I've broken play down into, in essence, four things.

And it's very simple because I'm a simple soul.

So the first bit of play is the P.

So you have to give yourself permission to play.

Now, in a moment, I'm going to share with you the 12 different ways that

I've identified that adults play.

And once you know them, suddenly you might go, Oh, actually, maybe I do play

a bit more than I think, but you have to give yourself permission to play.

It's really important.

You know, we all prioritize work.

We all make sure that we have time for work.

Why do we not give ourselves more permission to play?

And in order to play, you have to be conscious and put time into play.

Otherwise, suddenly before you know it, another five years have

passed and you haven't done anything that really makes your heart sing.

The second part of play is the L part, which for me is love.

To play is an act of deep self love.

Now, however you play, what I do know to be sure is that all of us as adults,

when we do play, we're more present.

The rest of the world falls apart, falls, falls apart.

It falls away, right?

And actually it's a deep act of love to go.

You know what?

I'm going to prioritize me and I'm going to allow myself to do this

thing that makes my heart sing.

So in order to do that, it's the third part of play, the A,

it's you have to take action.

If you want to play more, you are going to have to put it in your diary.

You can't bypass that.

And yes, that might feel a little bit contrive, a little bit contrive.

You might be like, ah, the M, then it doesn't feel spontaneous.

The thing about spontaneous play is.

Is that generally most of us, especially when we're mid level at work and we're

really full on, we've got families and we've got care responsibilities.

It's really hard.

That spontaneous stuff doesn't happen because we don't have that much space.

So you have to action it.

You have to put it in your diary.

And the thing is, is the more you put it in your diary, the more you're

going to notice how better you feel.

So then the spontaneous stuff happens because you're remembering

how good it is to feel better.

And then the final part is unsurprisingly the why, which is the yes and.

It is going, yes, I'm going to play more and yes, and it's

going to help me feel better.

And yes, if I encourage more people around me at work and at home to

play, you know what, we're all going to feel a little bit better.

And imagine if all of us do that, the whole world will start to feel better.

A little bit of play every day is really quite magical.

So what are the 12 ways that we play as adults?

I always think it's useful, you know, especially as adults,

I need to know how I play.

So here they are.

Most of us will generally relate to three ways.

Most people, most people play in about three ways naturally, but I think once you

know all 12, one of the things that you can do is start to be a bit more curious

and go, well, actually I might try that.

So most of them are pretty self explanatory.

So there's the comic.

I don't think I need to explain that.

You know, there's people that really like to make people laugh.

There's the storyteller.

It's a beautiful thing to play with words and to create stories.

And you all know people that are brilliant storytellers

and you might be one yourself.

There's the producers.

So, you know, film producers, TV producers, people that like to

produce stuff by the end of it.

It could also be, you know, gardeners, things like that, where

you really do produce something by the end of your action.

Then we have the spectators.

People that love to go and watch stuff.

I just went and saw Pink and I loved it, but Pink wouldn't have had the

same experience and it wouldn't have been a joint playful experience

had there been no audience there.

Remember watching football during COVID wasn't quite the same, was it?

So spectators is again, a way of playing.

Then we have the competitors.

We all know those people who managed to make a competition out of everything.

Now, no doubt if you're listening to this and you're a competitor,

you're like, yep, that's me.

And you put your hand up really quickly.

You're like, now I can say that because I am a competitor and there's nothing

wrong with being a competitor by the way.

It's just one of the ways that we play.

But quite often people that are competitors, the other way that

we play is we can be a mover.

So those are the people that love to move their body, but they're

not interested in the competition.

You know, they might love dance or yoga or running, but they're really doing it

because they love the feeling of movement.

Then there's the collectors.

I put my hand up, I am definitely a collector.

I love collecting books and trainers and records, and I can

lose myself in all of those shops.

Then, now this is definitely not me, there's the organisers.

Now, those are the people that love to play with Excel spreadsheets.

They love moving stuff around and go, oh, look what's happened.

And then we have our dreamers.

Now these kind of people, when they like to play, they can just spend

hours in their own minds just going off and just dreaming in their own head.

It's a beautiful way of playing that.

Then you have the thrill seekers.

These are the people that might go and, I don't know, jump out of a

plane or ride motorbikes pretty fast.

Quite often.

It's a solo activity or quite often you wouldn't even know that they're doing it.

And then the final way that we play, and there's two more, the final way that

we play is the artist and the maker.

So the people that love to create different things that love doing the

crafty things and stuff like that.

And then the last one is the explorer.

Now, of course, there's the travel and all of that kind of stuff, but also those are

the kind of people that if you're sitting watching a film and then they're going,

Oh, I wonder what that act has been in.

They find themselves for a good hour going on IMDb and quite often

end up not watching the film.

So there's the 12 ways that we play.

I wonder which ones really relate to you.

And I wonder which ones you're curious to go and try.

Now for me, if you play a little bit more, you're going

to feel a little bit different.

If you really do put what I've just suggested in this short little talk into

action, you're going to feel better.

And if you're lucky and you've got kids around you, they can guide you how to

play because to play is to be human.

To play is to be fully present.

And when you do both of those things, you feel better.

If you feel better, you're far more likely to succeed in your work.

And you're far more likely to succeed in your life.

And let's face it, we only get one of them.

So why would we not enjoy it?

Thanks for listening.

I've been M Stroud.

I hope that this has landed.

If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my

Life Satisfaction Assessment.

It's a 30 minute program where I guide you through a deep dive into 10 areas

of your life to assess what's bringing you joy and what's bringing you time.

I call it D.

It's a fabulous place to begin a joy at work redesign.