Playing with Purpose - Continued

Thanks for letting me take a break and tease you with another installment of Breathe yesterday. Watch and listen carefully to this clip from youtube. These people are making fun of having fun. Have you been forced to brainstorm under pressure? The boss in this clip says, "There are no bad ideas." and then shoots most of the ideas down. However, they are "playing" with you. Your brain is relaxing and making room for a really good idea. Long live Duluth Trading Company! When you finish the clip read more below. Thanks

Dr. Edward M. Hallowell wrote a great book called Shine (Harvard Business Review Press 2011). It's all about brain science. He is a psychiatrist who taught at Harvard Medical School for twenty years. He also practiced privately. He devotes a large section of his book to playing. I hope to share some URHBs with you that I learned from his insight and wisdom.

"...people who can play and connect use the assets of their right brain qualities like intuition, vision, ability to switch contexts easily, ability to quickly get the gist, and the like. While [these people] may have created a distraction in the heyday of the information age, the ability to play is an essential tool in the conceptual age.

Furthermore, in our current world of information overload, speed, and mandates to increase productivity, people tend to drill down and get into a negative mood. As Martin Seligman states, citing abundant research, 'Positive mood produces broader attention... more creative thinking... and more wholistic thinking... in contrast to negative mood which produces narrower attention... more critical thinking, and more analytic thinking'."

How was you mood when you got the gist of this advertisement? Were you or are you willing to purchase three extra inches of shirt? When I show this to groups in person the first thing that happens is that everyone laughs and then everyone agrees that it's a great idea. If a simple youtube clip can do that to us what can you do in person when you play? Stay tuned for more!