Play today.

Last post was about improv and innovation to improve the quality of life and take a couple steps closer to the Point of Passion. The POP is a state where Improv, Innovation and the concept of Play coincide and bounce together to create the type of life you – and I – desire.  A life that is filled with meaning, laughter and a strong sense of play.  Play is a concept that doesn’t need to be left on the playground.  It’s one I like to bring into my daily life – it’s not always about a game, but more about an approach.  An approach to the life I want to live and create.

One that is filled with passion.   One of the last experiences I had prior to this one, was as trainer and curriculum designer for ChartHouse Learning.  This is the group that created the wildly-successful training video, FISH!.  Where, as many of you know, one of the concepts captured by the guys in Seattle’s fish market was about play.  Before that, Ben Zander wrote about the concept in his book, The Art of Possibility. And before that, you and I discovered it all on our own at the playground in school. 

Dan Pink also writes about Play in his book, A Whole New Mind, and it’s this concept and definition that grabs me. It’s a definition rooted in created more meaning and zest in your life.  Play, as Dan describes it, comes from our nature to look at situations with a “relationship-oriented” view.  Connecting patterns and creating associations that may not have existed.  It’s through this constant pattern-connecting world that makes us thrive and more alive.  It’s the type of play that creates the most meaning in my life.  It’s been one that has been a bit of struggle to include until late. 

Too often, people have a need to be button-upped and ultra-professional.  It’s not until you can let that guard down that you start to experience life in a new way.  A way that is filled with energy, laughter and connections.  It’s these ingredients that allow us to experience a greater sense of passion in everyday things.  

Recapture that sense of play by thinking about a toy or item from your childhood that gave you great joy.  What was this item? What emotions did it invoke in you?  Describe 5 new ways that this item – or its concepts – can be applied to your life today.  The more you can let these new relationships and concepts into your life, the more you will be able to start to experience a more playful life.  And in turn, you’ll be a bit closer to reaching the Point of Passion in everyday life.