#SeriousPlay — Coming Full Circle
WHOOSH. My bedroom door opened abruptly. The wind created from the door was nothing compared to the air created by my father’s skin-penetrating voice. “What the heck are you doing?” his voice struck, “Do you even know what time it is?” Normally my inability to respond to my father was out of either respect or terror. This was different. I couldn’t respond because, well, I had absolutely no idea what time it was. Nighttime? It was definitely nighttime.
After a scolding from my dad, I went to bed. It was well after 1am. If memory serves, it was over the Christmas holiday, so I probably didn’t have school the next day, but for a 10-year-old, staying up beyond 1am is usually pre-planned and done out of an attempt to do something that feels seemingly illegal. This wasn’t the case that night. It could have been 9pm. It could have been 11pm. It could have even been 3am had my dad not seen the light emanating from under my door when he went to get some water from the kitchen. You see, I was in a complete flow state. Time had simply lost all meaning and yet every motion I made felt more meaningful than almost anything I had ever done before. Every action had a purpose. I was fully present, in the moment and yet time had ceased to hold the finite value that we are now increasingly aware of as adults.
You see, I… was playing with LEGOS. Surrounded by blocks of all shapes and colors, a rainbow of possibilities and at the end of it, a treasure like none I had ever had before. Partly because each time I played with my Legos, I was creating something completely new. Each creation had a story to tell. Even if I didn’t have the words to formulate them, my Legos had a message and a meaning. Sure, I had some Lego sets that came with instructions and those were fun. I rather liked building without knowing exactly where I was going. It was at that moment around age 10, I knew I was a builder. I took many drafting classes, even a computer class learning one of the first versions of Auto-Cad. I continued toying with my Legos even into my high school years. Off to college I went, architecture school of course. Though, this particular set of blueprints didn’t go exactly as planned.
When I left USC’s School of Architecture after a year, it was like I put away all my toys. It was time to grow up. Architecture wasn’t fun anymore. Not only did I stop building, but I also stop creating and dreaming. What I thought was the expiration of creative desires I later discovered was a heaping of depression and massive amounts of anxiety. It had nothing to do with architecture, but my 19-year old self didn’t know the difference. Many years, a lot of painful lessons and that failed attempt to become an architect later, I learned about flow states in grad school. The ‘Late-Night-Lego’ memory resurfaced as did my passion for building something amazing with my life. I studied the likes of Csikszentmihalyi and would probably speak about him more if I could ever get his name right. The simplest way to explain a flow state is Neo’s character in the climax of the first Matrix when the 1s and 0s rained down around him and he moved in slow-motion while everyone else foolishly and unsuccessfully tried to battle him. We’ve all experienced a state of flow. Do you remember the last time you metaphorically donned a black trench coat like Neo and slayed your homework or dance class or a round of golf (okay probably just the front nine)? I could spend the rest of this blog writing about Csikszentmihalyi’s work on the connection between creativity and flow states, but this story is about architecture. Wait, what? Hold that thought.
In a few days, I am starting the LEGO® Strategic Play® methods facilitator training and certification. I feel like a kid again. For three straight days I get to do some of my favorite things all at the same time: play, develop myself personally and professionally and finally, learn about how to help people find their own unique box of Legos; helping them remember what fun it is to ‘act like a kid again.’ As they explain it “LEGO® Strategic Play® Workshops expand your imagination to engage minds at a deeper thinking level using highly visual, tactile, and auditory methods that create emotional responses within an experiential framework.” To put it simply, akin to that 10-year-old me who didn’t have the words to make meaning of his future but could surely build it, sometimes people and companies lose the ability to formulate the next story they need to tell to their customers or their clients. In a state of stuck, I truly believe that what they most need is to remember what it means to play like a kid, full of wonder. This is the power that can come from a handful of plastic blocks.
Sometimes when I am sharing my personal narrative of how I got here and I have longer than an elevator ride to do it, I start with this same story. Whoosh, my bedroom door opens abruptly again and again. I leave out some things but always include the part about wanting (and failing) to become an architect of buildings. I add the parts about the master’s in psychology and the coach training and all that stuff. And then I end by saying, ‘You see, I am an architect. I just realized that the medium I was best suited for was not concrete or steel, it was people, specifically people’s futures and aspirations.” I love telling stories, especially the ones that come full circle.
So, as I sit here tapping away on my computer, decades removed from the first of many late-night Lego adventures, I am excited to build the next story of my career. Not a 2nd-floor addition or the 65th story of a downtown high-rise. No. This story is much better. This story’s foundation is rooted in my values: playfulness, connection, harmony, and growth. It’s the story about a kid who loved to play until one day he forced himself to put all his toys away, thinking that he had to grow up. And then one day, years later and after a long, winding and sometimes turbulent road, the grown man accepted that kid and all his toys back into his life. The man: serious, analytical and awestruck by the recent developments in neuroscience is systematic with his methodical mind. And the boy: playful, creative, and full of wonder is pure empathic heart, just waiting for recess.
Coming full circle means I have never felt so whole. Within this circle is equal parts art and science. In my view, this is the yin and yang of coaching: Serious Play. It gets no better.
The oft used Carl Jung quote has never meant so much to me as it does today. “What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Herein lies the key to your earthly pursuits.”
So, in just a few more hours, this man is taking that boy inside of him to develop his skills to better help others learn how to play and think differently with three days of LEGO® Strategic Play® training. And this time, we can stay up all night.
