This week, my eight-year-old went to surf camp (one of the very fun rites of passage of living in a beach town). On the first day of camp, I watched a team of coaches herd the huge crew of neon-rashguard-clad kids onto the beach, through a round of stretches and warmups, and then out into the water and onto surfboards.
But what really made me stop and reflect wasn’t the novelty of a ton of kids trying to surf, nor was it the wipeouts and skinned knees. It was the slow, silly, no-pressure nature of the whole experience. It was the hula-hoops.
So much of kids’ sports have become hyper-competitive, even professionalized. Tryouts and drills and practices and tournaments.
But this experience was all about learning through play. After catching a few waves, the kids would head back up to the beach, where they’d take a breath, look around, and notice the games that were happening. Sharks and minnows on the sand. Silly dances and poses. Relay races with pop-up paper-rock-scissors battles. And group hula-hooping.
I heard another parent grumble, “This is a pretty expensive hula-hooping camp.”
But they were missing the point. Instead of focusing on an end goal (learning to surf well), the ethos of the camp seemed to be focused on…fun. They weren’t trying to develop the next generation of star athletes in a week; the goal was to make sure that every kid, no matter how “good” they were at surfing, had fun on the beach and remembered the experience positively. They were learning through play. No pressure.
And after some games and hula-hooping, most of them headed back into the water, refreshed and ready to take on the challenge of surfing again.
The power of play in thought leadership
As adults, we can take some lessons here. So many times, when we need to learn something new, we’re looking for 5 steps. 3 best practices. Foolproof plans and templates for success. A month-long course that will — *snap* — transform us. But often, what we really need to do is experiment. Play around. Tinker. Be really bad at something and laugh through it. Remember how to be a novice. Take a break, then come back and try it again.
This summer, how could you incorporate more play into your work? How could you experiment? What would you do differently if you weren’t afraid of looking silly or stupid or unpracticed? And what could you learn along the way?
I’m embracing this challenge for the summer. My plan for play: I’m going to experiment more with my own thought leadership. What books could I read to take me out of my element? Whose voices could I seek out to give me a novel perspective? What if I shook things up and tried writing and sharing in a different way? Where’s my hula hoop?
I’d love to hear from you. How could you play more in your work this summer? How could you loosen your grip a little and open yourself to play?
