Toy designer and educator Cas Holman joins Henry Lopez to explore how embracing play can unlock creativity, reduce stress, and help small business owners reframe failure as part of growth.

Episode Host: Henry Lopez is a serial entrepreneur, small business coach, and the host of The How of Business podcast show – dedicated to helping you start, run, grow and exit your small business.

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Resources:

Books mentioned in this episode:
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• Playful: How Play Shifts Our Thinking, Inspires Connection, and Sparks Creativity by Cas Holman

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Transcript:

The following is a full transcript of this episode. This transcript was produced by an automated system and may contain some typos.

Henry Lopez (00:15):

Welcome to this episode of The How of Business. This is Henry Lopez and my special guest today is Cass Holman. Cass, welcome to the podcast.

Cas Holman (00:22):

Thank you so much, Henry. It’s great to be with you.

Henry Lopez (00:24):

This is an exciting topic, a very interesting topic, and I think you’ll find it interesting as well. Cass Holman is a toy designer, an educator, and an author. Her book that’s just out now’s titled, playful How Play Shifts Our Thinking Inspires Connection and Sparks Creativity. And so she’s with me today to explore how embracing play, even in a small business environment, can reduce stress, unlock creativity for ourselves and our teams, and reframe failure, which is something that’s hard for us to deal with as small business owners as part of growth. You can find all of the business how business rather resources, including the show notes page for this episode. And to learn more about my one-on-one and group coaching programs, just visit the how business.com. I also invite you to consider supporting this podcast and joining the How business community on Patreon and subscribe wherever you might be listening so you don’t miss any future episodes.

Henry Lopez (01:15):

So lemme tell you just a little bit more about Cass and then we’ll get into the conversation. Cass Holman is the founder and chief designer of the Toy Company, heroes Will Rise, and a former professor of industrial design at the Rhode Island School of Design. Cass travels the globe speaking about playful learning, the design process and the value of play in all aspects of life. We’re going to particularly, of course, explore it today as it relates to owning a business. She has shared her perspective in workshops and seminars with teams at Google, Nike, Lego Foundation, Disney Imagineering, and Art Museums around the world. Some of her designs includes toys like Rigamajig.

Henry Lopez (01:57):

Rigamajig as well as play experiences at the Highline in New York City, which I’ll be visiting here soon. And the Liberty Science Center, her book again is titled Playful How Play Shifts Our Thinking and Inspires Connection and Sparks Creativity. And that’s available now wherever you buy books. Cass lives in Brooklyn, New York, but her design studio is in the Catskills in the state of New York. Once again, Cass Holman, welcome to the show.

Cas Holman (02:21):

Yeah, hi. Thank you, Henry. It’s great to be talking with you today.

Henry Lopez (02:24):

Absolutely. Lots of, I can’t wait to ask you a bunch of different questions. This topic is very interesting to me. The installation that you had at the Highline, is that still there or was that a temporary thing? Tell me about that. I

Cas Holman (02:36):

Worked with them in 2011 to kind of engage families and children on the Highline, which is a very popular park in Manhattan. And it was interesting because it’s a long elevated railway that’s now a park with beautiful landscaping and incredible views because you’re kind of magically walking the buildings in New York instead of the sidewalk.

Henry Lopez (03:02):

And in that area, basically the meat packing district, the buildings aren’t very tall, so you can actually see for some distance.

Cas Holman (03:08):

Yeah, yeah, it’s a really great park and extremely crowded, very popular,

Henry Lopez (03:13):

Very crowded.

Cas Holman (03:13):

So it was interesting to try to figure out where we could fit. Initially, I think the thought was a playground and I’m kind of known for, and particularly skilled at coming at a design problem or any sort of problem from a different angle. I tend to kind of approach things differently, which is a little bit what my book is about, but with the Highline, I said, well, maybe there’s kind of a pop-up playground or some way that the play can come out, engage the entire family in a playful experience that somehow relates conceptually or formally to the park that they’re in and then can go away when it’s extremely crowded so that there’s kind room for the traffic, the foot traffic that’s up there.

Henry Lopez (03:58):

It would be available only when the crowds allow, but then at the mass capacity it would not be there as a pop-up type situation.

Cas Holman (04:07):

At the time I was actually, there was some other designers and architects who’d thrown their hat into the ring of designing for this. So I was competing with some much larger names, which might resonate with some of your listeners when you’re kind of the little guy or the unlikely,

Henry Lopez (04:22):

The underdog. Yeah,

Cas Holman (04:23):

Intestine. Yeah. And so I kind of knew that these larger names, if there was going to be room for a playground, they would win it. They had a better track record than I did. I was pretty early stage career at that point. And so I kind of came at it from a whole different angle and said, I don’t think that it’s realistic to think there’s going to be a playground. Let’s do this kind of pop-up building set. And so I won the project and that went on to become Rigamajig.

Henry Lopez (04:51):

I see. So that’s the origins of rga.

Cas Holman (04:54):

Yeah, and that was also in a strange way because it was such a high profile project, the budget was not very big. I think that with a lot of projects like that, the incentive is the exposure. So this kind of idea, I’ll take this project that doesn’t have a big budget and I may not make a lot of money on it, but I’m going to get a lot of exposure, which will lead to other things. Of course, in this case, the project wound up costing me money, but as I was developing it, I realized that was likely to happen and so I kind of was developing something that I suspected I could then make into something else that would be a product that I would be able to sell and then make money on.

Henry Lopez (05:36):

You thought about that pretty early on, you say, okay, to justify this, I need to see if something doesn’t come further from this that I can take on.

Cas Holman (05:43):

Exactly. Yeah. So I was a little bit, my primary concern was to fulfill the needs of the project, which was very child centered. And so the

Henry Lopez (05:53):

Design, what was the goal? What was the objective that they gave you

Cas Holman (05:57):

To engage families? To kind of engage families in play, which typically is a playground, and the park up there is known for its landscaping, but because there’s so much traffic, you’re actually not allowed to touch any of the plants.

Henry Lopez (06:15):

None of it is interactive. Yeah.

Cas Holman (06:17):

If with 10,000 people a day, there would be no plants left if everybody touched them, which quite confusing for children. So I was trying to kind of direct the kids’ attention to parts of the hy that they could touch, which are the other really cool kind of industrial elements, the huge nuts and bolts and the detritus from the railway that was there, these really big, beautiful rested parts and pieces that are still part of the park. So yeah, I was kind of trying to do a few different things, but in the meantime, keeping in mind that I might want to continue designing this into something, kind of re-engineer it for mass production after I’d made the one kit that was the pop-up play element.

Henry Lopez (06:58):

So this then is the precursor of the development of RMA jig and that’s what it became. Explain what RMA jig is without visual aid here, how it does it work and

Cas Holman (07:10):

It’s always

Henry Lopez (07:10):

Funny, just describe it. Yeah.

Cas Holman (07:12):

As a designer, my work is of course based in objects,

Henry Lopez (07:16):

So

Cas Holman (07:17):

I am getting more and more skilled at using words, thankfully after 30 something years in the field. But typically we like to point out pictures. So Rigamajig is kind of a giant oversized set of parts and pieces. A building kit as it were, so large wooden planks that are up to five feet long. If you imagine a huge wooden erector set

Henry Lopez (07:43):

Maybe that are plywood pieces, at least the images that I’ve seen or maybe that was originally right, plywood cutouts. Yes.

Cas Holman (07:49):

The plywood is important because wooden planks are wooden planks. So everything about rigamajig relates to how things are actually built. So as children are playing with it, they’re learning how the world is made. So if they make a table out of regamijig, they can translate that into how a table is actually made. And so the nuts and bolts while they’re oversized and there’s brackets, so there’s giant plastic nuts and bolts that are designed so that children don’t need a tool. I wanted the emphasis to be on kind of play and creation, not on mastering a tool or more likely trying to find the tool. The tool being your wrench or your screwdriver.

Henry Lopez (08:32):

Correct. It’s all just your hands, your fingers.

Cas Holman (08:34):

And then there’s pulleys and some kind of abstract shape so that the children can build not only kind of a fort or a pulley system or crane, but also a dragon or a monster or an elephant to say. So yeah. So it’s important to me that children can create things as much as kind of build them and all of it comes with no instructions.

Henry Lopez (08:57):

That’s what I was just say, there’s no build it like this or follow these steps. With the Lego set, it’s all where your creativity will take

Cas Holman (09:05):

You. Exactly. And kids, they don’t need instructions, they don’t need the how to. So if the kid itself is fun enough, which most building kits like children enjoy playing with the pieces on themselves, then they’ll build with it whether or not they notice once they start playing with it in order to understand how it works or what is the system. Two of one is or two of these is one of those, or like, oh, I can twist this like that, and it does this. So they kind of play with it in order to figure it out. And then before they know it, they’ve started building something and then they just kind of continue. And whether or not they’re building toward a specific outcome like a fort or a cart or a wagon, the process of building is when the play happens, when the collaboration happens. And it’s really, it’s a marvelous thing to observe

Henry Lopez (09:53):

Because the collaboration piece, some of the pieces are large enough that it takes two children or two adults or a child and an adult to hold in place that’s purposeful. Is that correct?

Cas Holman (10:03):

Yeah. Yeah. I think that challenging is really important. There’s a misconception that things should be kind of easy to use, but in fact when things are challenging and when you have to ask for help and when you have to do it with a friend, that’s when a lot of the learning happens. And that’s also when you’re kind of engaged and excited

Henry Lopez (10:21):

And collaborating, right?

Cas Holman (10:22):

Yeah, exactly. If it’s a little bit harder than you feel more accomplished when it’s finished. And especially when children are able to build something that’s larger than themselves, they’re like, wow, it’s really empowering for them. So most of the things that I design, whether it’s kind of a product or a play space or I do a lot of work with museums and children’s museums, the things that children can do or the things that they move are much larger than them so that they feel like they have agency in the world. Interesting.

Henry Lopez (10:55):

This is Enri Lopez, briefly pausing this episode to invite you to schedule a free coaching consultation with me. I welcome the opportunity to chat with you about your business plans and offer the guidance and accountability that we all need to achieve success. As an experienced small business owner myself, I understand the challenges you’re experiencing and often it’s about helping you ask the right questions to help you make progress towards achieving your goals. Whether it’s getting started with your first business or growing and maybe exiting your existing small business, I can help you get there. To find out more about my business coaching services and to schedule your free coaching consultation, please visit the how of business.com. Take that next step today towards finally realizing your business ownership dreams. I look forward to speaking with you soon, I suspect. And tell me if I’m wrong, that the adults get much more frustrated with this than the kids do. Is that fair?

Cas Holman (11:53):

I don’t know.

Henry Lopez (11:55):

Frustrated. I think meaning frustrated in that I think this is my hypothesis, you’re going to prove me wrong or support this. Part of why this is so important for adults as we start to apply this to the small business environment is that we forget how to play and we lose our creativity to some extent. Or we think that we lose our creativity, we want to build something purposeful, but kids are more free to imagine and explore and go with the flow. Is that true

Cas Holman (12:22):

What you observed? Yeah, absolutely.

Henry Lopez (12:23):

Okay.

Cas Holman (12:24):

Yes. I think with Riga, Maji as kind of exemplar of what you’re describing in terms of the state of adulthood and comfort with uncertainty, adults when they see, so for example, with the Highline, when we first launched it, children would run up and just start building something. There would just be the materials were kind of laid down on the ground or in a pile on the ground, all the hardware is in buckets and the kids would just run up and start playing with it. And adults would kind of hang back and say, well, what is this? And I’d say, what

Henry Lopez (12:54):

Do I do?

Cas Holman (12:54):

Yeah, jump in. And then they’d say, well, what do I do? And I’d say anything, what can

Henry Lopez (12:58):

I build with this?

Cas Holman (12:59):

Yeah, build with it. And they’re like, but what am I supposed to build? I say, build whatever. And I think adults were, to be fair, I have some theories as to why this is, but we’re not very comfortable with uncertainty in that way. We’re hesitant something to dive into something that we’re unfamiliar with because we’re kind of afraid of doing it wrong. We’re a little bit uncomfortable that we might look, look stupid, I think is a common saying, I don’t want to look dumb. And I think also we like to do things that make us, we feel good when we’re good at something rather than feeling good when we are just trying or playing with something. So I’ve met a lot of adults who kind of don’t want to jump in until they know how to succeed at it. And until they know that they can succeed or what it would look like to succeed at it, they don’t want to jump in. And I’m kind of like, well, how do we know if you’re good at this if you don’t try it?

Henry Lopez (13:56):

I think cas that this so brilliantly, you could just as easily be describing what someone back, particularly with starting a business,

Cas Holman (14:06):

Absolutely

Henry Lopez (14:07):

The exact same fears and concerns and fear of embarrassment and looking stupid, oh, I got to learn more. Oh, I don’t know enough. Maybe after I take this class or take this course. It’s the same thing, isn’t it?

Cas Holman (14:19):

Yeah. Yes. And I was just this morning talking with somebody from Tony’s chocolates, which they have a very interesting business model, and we were talking about at what step did we realize we were just going to have to completely invent our own model for, in their case, the way the chocolate is sourced, the way it’s farmed, the way that they process it is completely different than the way that the rest of the industry does it. And similarly, I think the way that I approach what type of projects I take and the way that my products are sold, I kept buying the kind of entrepreneurship for dummies or the toy and game inventors handbook, all wonderful books, but in all of them I was like, wait, so bits and pieces of this relate, but I’m still not finding where’s the how to for this? And then I realized, oh, right, I’m going to be inventing this as I go. I’m going to have to make it up.

Henry Lopez (15:10):

And furthermore, we also look for where’s the book that tells me that gives me the guarantee that this is going to work out.

Cas Holman (15:17):

I don’t know how far a business an entrepreneur would get if they were waiting for a guarantee. I don’t know if those exist.

Henry Lopez (15:24):

It doesn’t. Exactly. Right. Alright, this is fascinating, but let me take a step back. I want to understand how you got here. So tell me about what you did earlier in your career. What did you study in the university?

Cas Holman (15:36):

Yeah. I went to uc, Santa Cruz, and initially I studied, I was interested in the natural sciences, but I will say coming up in all through childhood and then even in high school when people said, what do you want to be when you grow up? That question just stressed me out to no end.

Henry Lopez (15:55):

Interesting in

Cas Holman (15:56):

Part because I was just interested and enthusiastic about so many different things. And in part because when I kind of looked through the folders of potential jobs or careers in the career center at my high school, this was the late eighties and early nineties, and so I wasn’t seeing very much creative work. And so I was a little bit under inspired by what I thought the options were for what I could kind of be when I grew up. So I went to college because I was interested and curious and thought maybe I’ll figure it out while I’m there. And after the two years of taking liberal arts education, I was like, I’m supposed to declare a major and I still have no idea how my curiosity and love of the world is going to relate to paying my bills. So I took a couple years off and went and was a research assistant in the Galapagos Islands actually.

Cas Holman (16:54):

Wow. Which was incredible. And because I had been interested in the natural sciences and I knew how to sail and part of the job was sailing this research vessel from island to island in the Galapagos. So I was chasing iguanas and sailing around and it was really wonderful. And I was there that I kind of realized, well, I’m pretty bad at data really. I can catch a lizard, but boy, keeping my data organized or when it comes time to try to analyze and I really just don’t, I’m not interested in that part, which is of course a huge part of science. And so I was there for a while but realized, okay, I think this ist what I want to do. And when I went back to school, I focused on the more theoretical and philosophical elements that I would’ve been drawn to as well as art. So I had a double major of feminist theory and fine art, mostly sculpture at the time, which in my mind is actually exactly a toy designer. I see.

Cas Holman (17:55):

Yeah. I put those together now and I’m like, oh, that makes sense. That tracks. I was thinking about how to have an impact and how to help children feel like they have agency and help them figure out who they are. And also with sculpture and with the art, there’s the design part of it. And at the time I didn’t really know very much about design, so I had been a chef also when I came back from the Galapagos. So I had a job to support myself all through undergrad. So I’d been working in kitchens and I kind of worked my way up into some great positions and I moved to San Francisco and had been cooking for a while. Long story short, adventured my way through a number of different careers two or so years at a time before realizing like, oh hey, design. This would be a great way to bring together that I am drawn to making art and creative pursuits. And also I like the applied version of it. And so I went back to school for design and the first thing that I made wound up being a toy. And from there it kind of all just made sense and I kept working.

Henry Lopez (19:02):

Did you have back then also an entrepreneurial desire or did that come later?

Cas Holman (19:07):

I think for me the entrepreneurial desire is more in having an idea of how I want something or how to put this. I knew that, for example, the toy rigamajig, I knew that the design of it was what it needed to be in its purest state for play. I designed around play and children’s imagination, this object that was perfect for play and imagination. And so from there, when I started talking to other companies and toy companies about bringing onto the market the way that they wanted to change, it wasn’t about play or imagination. It wasn’t about marketing and what people are used to buying or what they knew would sell. So I was kind of butting up against that. Their business model wasn’t going to let them be very brave. As most companies, once they know something sells, they’re going to play it pretty safe.

Henry Lopez (20:15):

Of course they got to play it safe.

Cas Holman (20:17):

And what I was proposing would’ve required them to take a really big leap of faith, not just in me, but in the potential consumer. And I thought that, I said, I think people will understand and value and buy this. And they said, well, we can’t guarantee that people will understand it or buy it, so we can’t take this risk.

Henry Lopez (20:39):

So it is that ability to now not having somebody else dictate where you go or how you bring your creativity to market. That was really more what it was about for you is not having anybody put boundaries on where you go or what you develop. Is that fair?

Cas Holman (20:55):

To some extent, yeah. Initially it was mostly I wanted the product to be about the play and the child, and I was willing to do that with my own business in a way that others were not. And then as I grew the business, it became more about again, developing a business model that trusted that other people saw the potential that I saw in products and learning materials that were very, very different than what the rest of the market had less about. And I understand and a lot of colleagues who they enjoy not being their own boss or the accountability is my own, and I’m familiar with that. But I think for me it’s actually a little bit more about trusting my own vision and my vision differed from what other businesses were doing.

Henry Lopez (21:51):

Sure. So then you start to translate this because obviously as I read your bio, you’re doing this kind of teaching, playful learning to corporations, to businesses. Explain to me what it is that you do there for a typical business or you mentioned Tony’s chocolates a smaller startup. Can you summarize what it is that you do or help them do?

Cas Holman (22:13):

Yeah, with Tony’s, I was just, we’re going to be on a panel together, so I was just talking to them about I see, no, I haven’t worked with

Henry Lopez (22:20):

Them, but the other companies like Google and Nike and Lego, what is it that you help them do?

Cas Holman (22:24):

Yeah, sometimes I come in and we’ll do kind of a workshop with their teams in order to have them either connect with each other or their own kind of play their own inner drive to play. And so sometimes it’s about team building and playing together. And I have a really kind of specific model for non-hierarchical play so that a team doesn’t kind of come in and stay in their normal mode of bosses and subordinates, and I’m this role and you’re in this role. So I have a very kind of specific template that I adapt based on the company and the goals of that workshop. But I kind of help teams understand each other and see each other differently so that they can be more innovative or just more enjoy the process more, but somehow work better as a team.

Henry Lopez (23:19):

And is that in part because that traditional hierarchical system that exists in most large corporations can stifle creativity? Is that one of the reasons why?

Cas Holman (23:29):

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean especially now the entry level people tend to have less kind of power, less decision-making sway, but they also tend to have some of the newer, more unique, more novel that people want. And so it can be harder for them to be heard or feel, not just feel heard, but actually be heard. So it’s harder for those ideas to make it onto the table of development when there’s this kind of hierarchy working against it based on whose ideas are valued, et cetera. So that’s one part. The other part is also just teams work better when they understand each other and can see each other for what their strengths are. I see. And often people’s strengths aren’t pitching an idea at a meeting.

Cas Holman (24:20):

So in play we can kind of see each other in ways and kind of speak a common language that isn’t business pitch speak. And so a lot of the ideas that are coming from people who are less eloquent in a meeting or less likely to speak up or less quick, those ideas don’t get heard. So in playing together, you can kind of learn to speak each other’s languages and the kind of go-to language that happens in meetings is totally irrelevant in the context of these play workshops. So it’s also kind of a nice reprieve to flip the hierarchy where again, the maybe less visible skills become the strongest and most important ones within a team

Henry Lopez (25:05):

In these play workshops. I get it. Where obviously we’ve all participated in types of workshops, but got to imagine there’s also you’re sharing with them and teaching ’em how to use tools that I can take beyond the workshop that I could apply, that we can apply ongoing. Because a lot of times what happens with these types of things is, yeah, great exercise, but then we leave it there and we don’t bring that into how we operate. Is that part of what you’re helping them do is how do we incorporate play to help us bring out all of these things that you’ve highlighted, including creativity?

Cas Holman (25:36):

One of is kind of seeing each other in a team and understanding how to be a more playful team. And the other is how to integrate play into their whole process. And so where in their processes we can shift things up and make it more playful. And playful doesn’t mean and we jump around and

Henry Lopez (25:56):

Right. Yeah. So give me an example of what that might look like, especially if we scale it down to a small business. What might that look like, Cass?

Cas Holman (26:04):

Yeah, I talk a lot about a playful approach, which doesn’t mean pinball table is great or a ping pong adding a ping pong table to the office. Sure, great, that’s wonderful, but that’s not what I’m

Henry Lopez (26:16):

Actually, I’m talking that’s an it. That’s something else. Yeah,

Cas Holman (26:19):

That might be a play break. Right, good point. So playing as a way of taking a break from work also great. But what I’m advocating for here is that the work itself is also more playful. In some cases that might mean if you always have a meeting in this conference room, take your meeting outside and sit in the grass or have lay on the ground and be looking up at the leaves of a tree while you’re brainstorming or while you’re discussing a decision around what to do in quarter three. So kind of just mixing it up,

Henry Lopez (26:56):

And that might sound hokey, but that the venue, your environment really is one of the key components to generating creativity, isn’t it?

Cas Holman (27:05):

Generating creativity and just stepping out of habits.

Henry Lopez (27:09):

I see.

Cas Holman (27:10):

So we kind of have habits of, all right, now we got to get through this and this is going to happen next, and then he’s going to shoot down my idea, so I’m going to stop pitching one.

Henry Lopez (27:18):

And especially nowadays where we have all this emphasis on structured meetings and an agenda. And so for certain meetings, of course that makes sense. But for other meetings you’re proposing, let’s bring some play into it as you described

Cas Holman (27:29):

It. Yeah, I think that often we wind up, we’re meeting, again, a lot of what I designed for is to allow for open-endedness. And so in play when we have a playful mindset or we have a playful process, we’re less attached to the outcome. So we’re not having the meeting in order to get to the end. So often meetings are like, we’re here to figure out this one thing and then we’re going to figure out how we’re going to do it and then we’re going to be done. So you’re just working toward a solution which may not even be the best solution. Often they’ll be like, maybe there’s a brainstorm or there’ll be a couple people who pitch ideas, and then you kind of take one and then figure out what it takes to get there. And then you move on. And what I’m proposing is you kind of linger in some of the unknown. You say, we’re not going to leave until we have 10 ideas and five of them need to be bad. And when the bad ones, no matter how absurd. So it’s like, okay, so here’s some initial ideas. Now let’s think of some totally absurd ideas. Or now let’s think about come up, give me two ideas that are just not possible, or give me two ideas that would be way too expensive. And then when those come up, you get to kind of linger in, like, wait, but maybe that isn’t impossible

Henry Lopez (28:40):

Actually, or maybe a part of this is good or what if we did it took that idea and ran in this direction with it?

Cas Holman (28:46):

And when everyone in the room is playing together as a team and has a playful approach, then they all buy into trying to figure out how to make that bad or that absurd idea feasible or make it work or what would that look like to make it work? And so when there’s no kind of ownership or one person trying to pitch an idea, everybody’s whatever the idea is, everyone is on board and trying to brainstorm around it. It also kind of shifts it so that you get an automatic buy-in from people in a way that there’s something again, which relates to hierarchy when there’s one person that owns an idea and then is responsible for it, whether it’s in a company structure with a brainstorming meeting or even with the family dinner when one person is like, I want to try this restaurant. And if the whole family doesn’t get on board, then inevitably they’re going to be feeling the stress and responsibility the whole time of, boy, this better be good. It was my idea. And I think that is just never going to bring people together the way that thinking of it as play testing, let’s play test that new restaurant and we’ll see how it goes. We’re all invested in trying to make it work and we’ll talk about what worked and didn’t work and how we would do it

Henry Lopez (29:59):

Differently. Exactly. We liked what we didn’t like. We all

Cas Holman (30:01):

Work on

Henry Lopez (30:01):

It together and determine collaboratively if it made sense.

Cas Holman (30:04):

So a playful mindset or a playful approach is really kind of a way that we can move into things with, like I said, it’s an approach that us makes us much more open to what we can discover along the way and less attached to some specific outcome that we think is supposed to be the thing that happens.

Henry Lopez (30:29):

Yeah. Alright. The book, again, the title is Playful, how Play Shifts Our Thinking Inspires Connection, which is a lot of what we’ve been talking about here, I think, and sparks creativity. The question I always like to ask is, what brought you to writing a book? You write it, and who ideally is it for?

Cas Holman (30:44):

So I’ve been designing for play for children and families, well and teachers and classrooms and things for over 20 years. And I’ve gotten quite a big audience in part because of a docuseries on Netflix called Abstract, the Art of Design. One of the episodes is about me and my work, which was beautiful. It was wonderful. A lot of the feedback I got after that were dms and messages from people saying, great, amazing, very inspiring. What about adults? And I would kind of shrug it off like, ah, I’m not qualified for that.

Henry Lopez (31:24):

Because up until that point, your focus really had been how do I apply this to children?

Cas Holman (31:29):

Even when there were parts of the design that were for the teachers or the caregivers

Henry Lopez (31:34):

Or the parent. Yeah, exactly.

Cas Holman (31:35):

Yeah, it was always in support of the child’s play, which also, I have to say regamajig is hugely popular in children’s museums because the families play together, which is interesting. I think the adults have as much fun as the kids do, so that feels like a success. But the question about Cass, when are you going to design for adults in play and letters from people really touching letters saying how much they miss play and that they know the value of play, but they don’t know how to do it anymore or they feel like they’ve forgotten or they’re not allowed to play. And so it didn’t feel to me like a design problem. One part of my business is selling the products that I develop, and another part of the business is designing other things for either other companies or other kind of new design projects.

Cas Holman (32:23):

And then of course the consulting a bit. I felt like this isn’t a matter of designing something. Adults don’t need a perfect playground or a perfect toy. Adults need a mindset shift. Adults need to unlearn how to not play. Because when I really then started talking to people and doing some research and reflecting on my work and also my experience working with university students, so graduate students and undergraduate students, they as designers have to be in a playful mindset in order to be creative. And so as their professor, a lot of what I was doing was creating the conditions for them to feel creative. So I realized, wow, actually maybe I do know quite a bit about adults in play. And so yeah, I thought, okay, I, I’ll design for adults in play and it’s going to be a book. Because what we need is, like I said, we’ve learned how to not play. Part of becoming an adult is stop acting like a child. Absolutely hold, still be serious. You need to be taken seriously.

Henry Lopez (33:33):

Everything we do needs to be quantifiable. All of those

Cas Holman (33:36):

Things. You got to be productive, you got to be efficient, which is also true, we do. We have more responsibilities than children do.

Henry Lopez (33:43):

Of course we still have to produce.

Cas Holman (33:45):

But

Henry Lopez (33:45):

How we get there, especially with more creative endeavors, that’s where we threw it all away. And we need some more of that. How to do that. Well,

Cas Holman (33:52):

Yeah, we can get it back. I think a lot of it is, I have kind of three essential elements that I think will help adults relearn how to play. And the first one is releasing judgment. And that relates to, I think as adults we judge ourselves and we fear the judgment of others in a way that keeps us from playing kind of what I mentioned. Oh, I don’t want to look silly, or business owners are very familiar with this, people have to trust you or they won’t hire you or buy your product or come to your store.

Speaker 4 (34:29):

And

Cas Holman (34:30):

So we’re very, we kind of perform business owner. And a lot of that is because we think that’s what we need to be in order to. So there’s good reasons that we fear judgment, but I think we’ve gone a little overboard. So one is releasing judgment, so trusting yourself and trusting that others will see you and not expect you to be something that’s more serious than you need to be. The second is embracing possibility. And embracing possibility is really being open to what might happen rather than overly attached to what you expect or what you already know. Oftentimes when something throughout life or in our business, but something comes up, if it’s not what we expect, we assume it’s bad. And often it’s not. Oftentimes it’s either neither here nor there, it’s just different than what we expected or it might really great. There could be an opportunity, the shop next door that you thought was going to bring in half the business closing or something, whatever unexpected things we so embracing, I think

Henry Lopez (35:37):

That’s such a key point here. So if I could interrupt, because

Cas Holman (35:40):

I think

Henry Lopez (35:40):

This is so critical to what I see keeps small business owners is they’re so rigid and they don’t know how to then creatively problem solve. I think that’s partly what you’re talking about here is embrace that there might be other ways to do it, other possibilities on how to solve this problem or this challenge

Cas Holman (36:00):

And the thing that we think is a problem isn’t always a problem,

Henry Lopez (36:04):

Might be an opportunity.

Cas Holman (36:05):

Yeah, yeah. Or alright, are we solving it just to put it back the way it was or can we solve it into something else and see what might happen? Right.

Henry Lopez (36:17):

Okay. Alright. So that’s number two. Number three,

Cas Holman (36:19):

Yeah, embrace possibilities. The second one, and the third one is reframe success. And in reframing success, we’re kind of asking yourself, alright, what am I really, what am I actually after here? What are my goals? What am I assuming is success, right? Am I assuming that success for my business looks like doubling profits or maybe success for my business is having a portfolio of clients that makes me really proud or maybe success is that I get to do the role that I want in my business even though it means I’m not going to grow as fast. So maybe success looks like I’m happy and able to have dinner with my family every night rather than assuming that success looks like tripling your profits

Cas Holman (37:09):

And you could still be a successful business and have dinner with your kids and that might look different than tripling your profits. So always cognizant of, yeah, what am I after here? Do I want to just grow exponentially or do I want to grow in a way that still allows me to do X? Right. So I think that’s applied, and I’m using that example that applies to business, but it also applies to things like I was talking to someone who was saying that they were going on a hike with their five-year-old and it was actually their niece and she just kept looking, picking up pine cones or taking wandering off the trail. And in my colleague’s mind success was that this five-year-old, she and the five-year-old get to the top of the mountain, they complete this hike and feel accomplished and the five-year-old gets to experience. I walked a mile up a hill and I said, well, but isn’t the goal to kind of have quality time with your niece? So whether or not you make it to the top, you’re out in nature. If she wants to play with the moss, hang out and play with the moss. Right? Success,

Henry Lopez (38:21):

That’s just such a classic adult kind of goal. We’re going to do this by golly. And that’s the objective.

Cas Holman (38:27):

And she was getting really flustered with the kid and with the whole experience, she was in her mind, she had in her mind, we’re going to get to the top and it’s going to feel so great and then we’re going to be able to say that we did this thing. And I was like, so probably neither of you was having very much fun because you had in your mind that success was get to the top when in fact success is just being together in nature and having fun

Henry Lopez (38:54):

And the exploration that the child got to get and the time together. So

Henry Lopez (38:59):

That’s such a great analogy. I think if I’m getting it, releasing judgment would’ve been to just trust yourself that this is going to go well. Don’t put any preconceived notions on how it’s supposed to go it. The fact that we get to experience time together with this important person in my life and experience nature, embrace the possibilities of where it might go. It might be that we spend the whole time throwing rocks in the creek or whatever the case might be. And then success is that we did it and that we explored and experienced together. Is that fair?

Cas Holman (39:28):

And not getting hung up on what you thought success might look like,

Henry Lopez (39:32):

Which goes back to the exercise in the business environment. Sometimes we go into these creative meetings or brainstorming sessions with that reconceived hard notion and it keeps us on a particular track as opposed to allowing us to play through these ideas.

Cas Holman (39:49):

Exactly. Yeah. And I think the fear of failure is a big one, that

Henry Lopez (39:54):

Huge one. So let me wrap it up with that question. Cass, we kind of touched on this already, but how is it that, and maybe it’s covered in the book specifically, but how are you helping business owners through playful learning and all of these techniques and tools and games deal with this paralyzing fear of failure and failure in whatever context it could be in making a decision or it could be in starting the business

Cas Holman (40:17):

Altogether. So I think a playful mindset for a business owner is going to really make them much more agile. I think the speed at which technology and consumer habits and our lifestyles change, in my mind, the most important thing any human can be right now is flexible, agreed. A business in particular, being agile is critically important. Being able to evolve or shift or change tax as needed and being playful, having a playful mindset will really make you much more agile, much more comfortable with change, much more kind of creative in how you confront change when it’s usually actually it’s the other way around. Change kind of confronts us. I find these days when you’re facing change or when you’re facing something new or a challenge or even just a decision, being playful in your mindset will help you be more creative and more flexible and more agile. And so I think in that way, a playful mindset is really essential for business owners.

Henry Lopez (41:25):

Well said. Couldn’t agree more. Alright, I’m going to wrap it up with, there’s two combined questions here, but what’s one thing you want us to take away from the perspective? A small business owner or I’m planning to start a business, what’s one thing you want us to take away? And I want to combine that with where do I get started with this? So what’s the key takeaway and where do I get started to apply playful learning?

Cas Holman (41:46):

I would say a good place to start is take a beat. And I like starting with a play memory actually. And this does relate to business, sit with yourself instead of timer. I love setting a timer because I think we have a really abstract notion of our attention spans are very odd these days. So set a timer for three minutes and just sit with your eyes closed for three minutes and recall a moment of play from your childhood and think about the textures, who was around you, what was going on in your home life, your friends, your siblings, whatever. And just kind of remember, and I would bet that some element of that play memory is still present in either what you’re doing in your business or why you’re doing your business the way you do it or what you’re doing exactly in your business.

Cas Holman (42:42):

I bet that some element of who you were when you were in that play is part of your business now. And when you connect with that, take that kind of, yeah, why am I doing this? Right? So connect with what are your goals? Why are you, regardless of your business models or your mission statement, why are you as a founder, as a small business owner, as an entrepreneur, why are you doing what you’re doing? And somehow integrate that into your decision making and into how you’re framing success. So that part of who you are is always present in what you’re doing. And I think that that alone will help you be more playful and help you be more present in the work you’re doing or the business or your colleagues in your family and your whole life. Because play is so central to who we are and the more we can integrate that part of ourselves into our lives, the better we’re going to feel and the better we’re going to perform.

Henry Lopez (43:47):

Agreed. Thank you. I appreciate that because to me, the way that I think about that, as you were saying that is I look at building a business or starting business as a creative endeavor. I consider myself a fairly creative person and I’m creating something that I’m putting out there into the marketplace. Therein lies the fear of it getting rejected,

Henry Lopez (44:08):

But that’s how I’m passionate about it. And that can manifest itself into how I want my retail place to look, to the service that my staff provides. All of that is part of what I’m putting out into the world and that’s the way that I look at it and it’s all in how I look at, like you said though, thinking about how I played and how important creativity was to that, it’s why I liked art, for example. Alright, we could keep talking for hours, but we’ll start to wrap it up here. Cas, tell us where to go online to learn more.

Cas Holman (44:38):

Cas Holman, C-A-S-H-O-L-M-A n.com is my website. Playful can be bought at any of any your local bookstore or online, wherever you buy books. There is also the audio book is available and I read the book. That was quite an experience. Oh, you did? That’s wonderful. So I recorded the audio book, so it’s also available as an audio book and Riga Majig is available@rigamajig.com and yeah, I’m all over. Excellent.

Henry Lopez (45:05):

And we’ll have links to all of that in case you’re somewhere where you can’t write it down. I’ll have links to that on the show notes page for this episode at the how of business.com when you go to the how of business.com, just search for CAS is probably the quickest way to find this episode and I’ll have the link to the book as well as to her sites there. Cass, fascinating conversation. Thank you for sharing and for spending the time with me today and answering all my questions and giving us all these insights. Thank you.

Cas Holman (45:31):

Yeah, thank you Henry. Great. Really, really thoughtful questions. That was a fun conversation.

Henry Lopez (45:36):

Thank you, I appreciate that. This is Henry Lopez and thanks for joining me on this episode of The How of Business. My guest today is Cass Holman. I release you episodes every Monday morning. You can find the show anywhere you listen to podcasts, including the How a Business YouTube channel, and the website, the how a business.com. Thanks again for listening.