What You'll Discover In This Episode:
Let’s take a short trip back to the year 1988 when the movie Big starring Tom Hanks debuted.
If you ever saw the movie, you probably remember the famous piano scene where his character Josh Baskin played Heart and Soul and Chopsticks on a giant piano built into the floor of a toy store.
Josh was clearly leaning into his inner child and living his best life during that scene. He didn’t care how his unskilled piano playing sounded, who was watching, or what opinions shoppers and employees had of his shenanigans.
He only cared about having fun and enjoying the opportunity a giant working floor piano presented to him, so… he played, just as a care-free child would do.
He even landed a job where he got to play with toys all day. How cool is that?
My new friend and kid at heart, Jeff Harry, thought it was cool. So cool, in fact, that as a young boy, Jeff asked around at toy companies to figure out what career he should go into so he could play with toys all day.
One costly and time-consuming mechanical engineering degree later, Jeff found himself working for toy company after toy company, sitting in cubicle after cubicle, with zero play integrated into his day. Ugh. This was not what he had in mind at all.
Determined to find more joy and fun in his career, he reinvented himself as a master of play and international play speaker who shows individuals and companies around the world how to tap into their true selves — to feel their happiest and most fulfilled — all by playing.
In this episode of Productivity Straight Talk, I sit down with Jeff Harry to discuss how infusing play into your workday can revitalize your spirit and add joy to running your business while also positively impacting your productivity. Win-win!
Episode Links & Resources:
About Guest:
Jeff Harry shows individuals and companies how to tap into their true selves, to feel their happiest and most fulfilled — all by playing. Jeff has worked with Google, Microsoft, Southwest Airlines, Adobe, the NFL, Amazon, and Facebook, helping their staff to infuse more play into the day-to-day.
Jeff is an international speaker who has presented at conferences such as INBOUND, SXSW, and Australia’s Pausefest, showing audiences how major issues in the workplace can be solved using play. Jeff was selected by BambooHR & Engagedly as one of the Top 100 HR Influencers of 2020 for his organizational development work around dealing with toxic people in the workplace. His play work has most recently been featured in the NY Times article: How Do We Add More Play To Our Grown-Up Life - Even Now. He has also been featured on AJ+, SoulPancake, the SF Chronicle, and CNN.
