Fun as a Catalyst: Activating Childlike Curiosity in Work Culture
📑 Chapters
00:40 - Michael introduces himself
05:29 - Avoiding toxic positivity
11:50 - Different types of fun
15:24 - Organization pivoting towards fun
24:18 - Role of childlike wonder in fun & mindfulness
27:59 - Tips on fostering type-2 fun
33:52 - Michael’s vision of organizational fun
36:43 - Jiani’s recap of the episode
37:55 - Michael’s background & childhood
40:04 - Major challenges in Michael’s life
Watch the full episode here.
💕 Story Overview
On S4E9 of the @MAGICademy Podcast, we’re joined by Michael Rucker to talk about something we often forget to prioritize: having fun! Michael is an organizational psychologist, behavioral scientist, and author of “The Fun Habit: How the Pursuit of Joy and Wonder Can Change Your Life”. We talked about fun and happiness in organizations and in our personal lives, the different types of fun, and how they have different effects on us, and how we react and process fun internally.
Michael's journey into the realm of fun began after a series of personal challenges in 2016, including the loss of his younger brother. This prompted him to reassess conventional approaches to happiness and led to the realization that chasing happiness often results in feelings of inadequacy. Michael talks about this and also shares some vital insights on fun and mental health while providing some tips on how to improve it by ourselves.
🌼 Magical Insights
Different Types of Fun: There are 3 types: Type 1 would be anything that it’s fun and we enjoy doing. Type 2 relates to things that are hard for us but bring us good rewards. And Type 3 is about basically everything else, what we don’t really enjoy doing. A good way to set goals for ourselves and find motivation is to try and see things for their benefit to us, in order to put type 2 fun to good use. Some things are just easy and enjoyable to us but, for the rest, it’s important to try and see what we’re gaining from that in order to enjoy them more,
Fun on Social Media It’s Not What it Seems to Be: When we go into social media and we see challenges, lifestyle tips, influencers who are dedicated to appearing happy and broadcasting their life to everyone saying how happy they are, it’s important to remember that it’s not real fun because maintaining the habits they share on social media is actually very hard and requires a lot of dedication. What’s best is to find what makes us feel good, get rid of what doesn’t, and live a happy, healthy life where we’re comfortable with who we are. Pretending to have fun or be happy is not enough, we have to actually feel the emotion.
Pivoting Towards Fun Environments: A good example of companies adopting fun practices is Best Buy, which has made fun one of its core values. This strategic shift emphasizes the importance of enjoyment in the workplace, fostering a culture where employees feel engaged and motivated. Some practices include team-building activities like workplace parties, learning lunches and friendly competitions, flexible work arrangements, recognition programs, etc.
Getting Real with Ourselves to Foster Type-2 Fun: Type-2 fun is related to activities that cost us or require dedication but, in the end, the rewards are good for us and we enjoy them. To get to a point when we can harness this type of fun we need to ask ourselves, honestly, what do we want to do or achieve? It might be something that we aren’t necessarily going to enjoy but as long as we know that it will bring us something positive our motivation will come eventually. All we need to do is trust the process and motivate ourselves to start and celebrate every little progress we make.
⭐ What’s Michael’s Magic?
Michael’s unique magic lies in his ability to transform the concept of fun into a structured, actionable framework that enhances well-being and joy in everyday life.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Michael highlights the various types of fun and their unique impacts on our well-being, advocating for a more intentional approach to integrating joy into our daily routines. He provides practical strategies for individuals and organizations, emphasizing autonomy and choice in how we engage with fun.
The episode serves as a great reminder that fostering a culture of fun not only enhances personal happiness but also contributes to healthier, more productive workplaces and lifestyles.
If you would like to stay tuned with our future guests and their magical stories. Welcome to join us.
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Jackson, G.T., Dempsey, K.B., & McNamara, D.S. (2011). Short and Long Term Benefits of Enjoyment and Learning within a Serious Game. International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education.
Plester, B.A., & Hutchison, A. (2016). Fun times: the relationship between fun and workplace engagement. Employee Relations, 38, 332-350.
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Michael Rucker, Ph.D., is an organizational psychologist, behavioral scientist, and author known for his focus on the intersection of fun and well-being. He is the author of “The Fun Habit”.
Rucker’s work emphasizes that while happiness can often feel elusive, fun is an actionable pursuit that anyone can engage in at any time, regardless of circumstances. In addition to his writing, Michael engages with audiences through various platforms, sharing insights on how to make fun a daily habit that enhances overall well-being and productivity. -
Jiani (00:07)
Welcome to MAGICademy Podcast Today we have an exciting guest, Michael, and he is the author of The Fun Habit. And he's being trained as a scientist and he has decades of careers helping people to pivot into thinking and leveraging the power of fun, especially type two fun. And you may wonder why a...
scientist, why a scientist turned into this idea of fun. Would that be something hidden? That's something interesting that we need to hear about. Let's welcome Michael and welcome so much to participate our podcast today. Thank you very much, Michael, for coming.
Mike (00:52)
Oh my goodness, thanks for having me.
Jiani (00:54)
Thank you very much. And you, a lot of people have been interviewing you and you've been writing articles across all platforms. Can you give us an introduction that nobody else has heard before?
Mike (01:10)
That's a tall ask, but yeah, I think, you know, it's interesting because I do live kind of two different lives. So in my day job, I work for an amazing company called active wellness. And we're really looking at this idea of health span. Um, you know, a lot of people are talking about it. There's a really popular book right now called outlive by Peter Tia, but it's essentially this idea of, you know,
Jiani (01:14)
Heheheheh
Mike (01:39)
For a long time, we've tried to live longer, right? But now we're trying to also figure out how can we enjoy those years, right? You know, people are talking about things like blue zones and stuff like that. So that's one side of what I do, but you brought me on kind of a my side hustle. And so as a researcher and behavioral scientists, I've really been interested in this idea of enjoyment over happiness. And so the back story there is...
I was, I am a charter member of the International Positive Psychology Association. And when that started about the beginning of the millennium, you know, around 2000, we had always used psychological tools primarily for treating mental health issues like depression and anxiety. But we had all of this really interesting information that could be used for betterment, you know, ideas that are more common now, but back then,
we weren't really talking about flow, right? We weren't talking about mindfulness and meditation. We weren't talking about gratitude. And so 25 years ago, it was important to get those things out there. What happened, unfortunately, is around 2015, 2016, what we learned is we had kind of pushed people too far to be overly concerned with their happiness. So this...
You know now we have a term for it because it's so you know, it's it's better understood You know this idea of toxic positivity but back then we didn't understand that these folks that were essentially creating you know a trajectory that was meant to get them happier were paradoxically becoming some of the most unhappy people and Unfortunately, I was one of them You know, I was you know looking for correlations in my life and trying to
architect a life that would optimize my happiness and it kind of worked for a couple of years. And then unfortunately, um, in 2016, I had kind of a series of, um, unfortunate events. My younger brother suddenly passed away. Um, I had been a lifelong runner and got injured and couldn't run again. And so, um, you know, I had all these tools at my disposal. I had been a practitioner, a positive site for quite some time. I'm like, you know, I'll will myself out of.
the fact that I'm unhappy right now. I'll figure it out, you know, with enough gratitude and meditation, I'll be able to pull myself out of this trench. And again, I was one of those people that unfortunately, because I didn't have the emotional flexibility to deal with it, because I thought, you know, I'll just use optimism in my Pollyanna glasses, right? Instead, I started to become really unhappy. And so because I am a researcher, I wanted to figure out why.
And now we understand better, right? Some of this, I think the foundational research comes out of the University of California, Berkeley, amazing researcher by the name of Dr. Iris Mouse has done a lot of work in this area. But what we know now is that people that are overly concerned with trying to be happy all the time actually spend a lot of time in rumination about what to do rather than using that energy to actually enjoy things. And so,
To answer your question discreetly, that's why this work for me has become important. The idea that when we're in the moment and understand that we have the power to have fun and enjoyable experiences whenever we want, despite our emotional disposition, because we're going through a divorce or we just lost a job, maybe being happy isn't the appropriate emotion. But still enjoying all the gifts that life has is, right? Because that's what fills us up. If we're not finding joy at all,
in life, you know, we tend to fall off a cliff emotionally. And unfortunately that becomes a downward spiral. And so, um, the tools that I've kind of brought forth, mitigate this kind of happiness trap that has developed out of good intention, right? Cause they're still, gratitude is still an amazing tool when used effectively. Meditation is an amazing tool when used effectively, but because so many people have kind of latched on.
to these and over prescribe them, we needed a better way. And that's what the fun habits all about.
Jiani (06:03)
Wow. And thank you, Michael, for sharing with us this trajectory, the challenges, and then stories that behind the advocacy for a healthier way of finding happiness and empowered by the power of fun.
I'm very curious, like you shared a little bit behind the motivation of writing the book, you know, the fun habit. You also talked about in your recent blog, you talked about this like 75%. What's the, what's the overall message behind this empathy and this like empathize on being.
fun, the power of fun. Is this is fun really like important because you talk about, oh, there could be like toxic positivity. And we talked about like, you know, just maybe just enjoy, enjoy little moment would be the good. Should we still focus our mind on the word fun? Is this even helping us? Like, can you share? Yeah.
Mike (07:11)
Yeah, so what you're referring to is a recent post that kind of hit a chord with a lot of people. Last year there was this, and I think there's a book about it too, this sort of challenge called 75 Hard, you know, it's a big, big deal on TikTok or whatnot. And it was essentially a list of things that you had to do that were incredibly difficult to execute on.
But the idea was to do it for two and a half months. And if you could maintain that, then there would be positive outcomes at the end. So making sure you drank eight glasses of water, making sure that you worked out every single day, and all of these things that weren't necessarily enjoyable, but I think done episodically, if you had the time, if you were a single person at a young age that wasn't pre -
disposed to potentially getting injured in the gym and you had a lot of time autonomy, like maybe, you know, a certain percentage of the population, uh, this particular initiative would be successful. The problem is that most of us couldn't abide by something that stringent. So the success rate was dismal, right? And all the people that I kind of interviewed ultimately were left a lot worse off kind of in line with the story that I just shared, right? Went in with the best of intentions.
And left feeling demotivated because ultimately it was just such a high bar that they weren't able to achieve it. And so I walked that back and brought forth, you know, essentially a whole corpus of research that says when we do enjoy our healthy habits, right? When, like, let's say something as simple as wanting to work out. If you're going to a group exercise class and you really like all the people in there, you like the music that the instructor plays.
Jiani (09:02)
Mm.
Mike (09:03)
It's in line with your level of mastery. So I think you talk about flow a lot on your podcast. So, you know, the tenant of flow, right, is your level of skill up against what you're doing. That's a sweet spot when you really do, you know, feel connected to, um, whatever the, you know, activity or, or art form you're engaging in. That's when you keep doing it. That's when you're able to win the long game. And that's where fun is super special.
Right. Because when we are enjoying the things we do, we tend to stick to them and then you get that compound effect. So instead of, you know, really blowing something out for two weeks and then, you know, kind of, all right, well, I never want to do this again, because it was horrible versus like, Hey, I exercise four times a week now and I've been doing it for three years. And we just know that that incremental improvement, right. Any James clear fan will know, you know, that 1%.
is a sweet spot. But the problem is it's not, you know, at the end of the week, if you've only improved 1%, you probably won't even notice it, right? So it's not exciting. And so that allure, that thing, you know, where we just want to celebrate, you know, these monumental sort of, you know, figures or achievements has been force fed.
to us even faster now with the advent of things like social media, right? So we're so hungry for it, but it's not realistic. There's a concept in behavioral science called survivorship bias, which suggests that when we see those things that are generally outliers, right? The products of luck, a lot of times a privilege, you know, they're not really realistic for mere mortals like ourselves, right? But we think there's a norm because that's all we see. We're not seeing the other 99,
percent of people that are still doing amazing things, but didn't necessarily become newsworthy. And so how unfortunate, right? But what we do know is that the people that are always trying to climb that mountain generally aren't that happy because to maintain that level of status isn't very enjoyable. In fact, you know, one of the people that we started talking about in the pre -interview, Elon Musk, right? I meant,
It's not going that great for him. It was a fun ride. We talked about him a lot, right? But you know, Twitter's valuation, I think is that 20 % of what it was before he bought it. Tesla is now getting attacked at all angles. You know, the Hertz just sold off what 80 % of their EV vehicle splitting, you know, the resale market. So he's having, you know, so he's kind of tumbling down the mountain. What?
you know, unless that's the life you want to live. And I don't necessarily villainize that. I think, you know, if you want to be a martyr, if you're not necessarily worried about enjoying life and having relationships with others, and you're kind of narcissistic and, you know, that's what you want to do, then that's all right. But that's such a slim minority of people. Most people really just want to be loved, want to feel connected to one another and want to feel at the end of the day that they're doing a good job and one of the best ways to do a good job.
is to enjoy what you're doing.
Jiani (12:25)
So beautiful, Michael. I think because of such a prevalent mindset and how media is featuring those...
Mike (12:26)
Hehehehe
Jiani (12:39)
people who are living on a different, the outliers. And it feels like everybody in our mind is like, oh, we're not enough. As long as we are not there, we are not enough. And that possibly is one reason why we feel so much anxiety, especially for younger generations growing up. I'm like, oh my God, there's like so many unachievable or like aspiring people who aspire us to do the impossible. Sometimes we even like media, we even kind of,
appreciate people who are doing the impossible to a particular extreme and that could potentially cast some shadows in our psyche as a collective human beings on the planet right now so it's a very important message for us to kind of share out there then let's kind of I'm curious we talked about like the power of fun and in our previous conversation and in a lot of your writings you talk about
different types of font. So type one font, type two font, and type three font. And we're trying to leverage the power to the middle, which is type two font. Can you share with us a background, like a simple explanation? What is all these type of font?
Mike (13:48)
Mm -hmm.
Sure. So just for clarity, the idea of type one fun, type two fun, and type three fun isn't necessarily scientific or mine. In the book, I write about hard fun, which is more of a psychological concept, but it matches well with type two fun, right? And I really do like the distinction between the three. So let's start with type three fun so we can kind of just throw it out the window, because I think most people agree with me.
Well, no, sorry, let's back up. So type one fun is things that we enjoy. So quite simply, you know, anything that you really enjoy doing, um, kind of fits in this category. Type two fun are things that we do that are really challenging in the moment. So maybe when we're doing it, we're like, Oh, you know, like running a marathon, right? You're at mile 22. Like, why did I ever sign up for this? Right. And so it's not really fun in the moment, but once you're able to achieve that thing,
the dividends that it pays when you look back, right? Especially if you did it with friends or, you know, or with something that was really meaningful, like a lot of people, you know, will do a hard challenge kind of dedicated to something or someone. That connection to the hard thing really brings out so much fun as you tell the tale and relish in this memory. So that's the beauty of Type 2 fun. Type 3 fun is essentially,
anything that you do that's hard, that's never fun. So I find that a very interesting category that it even has fun to title, but it's essentially everything else, right? All the things that we do that are so horrible, we would never want to do them again. But the beauty is in type two fun and in psychology, the academic term we give it is hard fun, is that's really where growth occurs, right? I've colorfully in the book called it,
you know, activities in the living quadrant, because we know that's what leads to personal growth. And another reason that these things are important is that we really don't want life to be fun all the time. You know, folks that really haven't, don't have a deep understanding of my work are kind of dismissive because I think I'm just talking about whimsy and that's not it at all. What I'm talking about is that we do want to enjoy the things that we do. And sometimes that hard stuff isn't enjoyable in the moment, but.
Again, it's something that lights us up because we have done the hard thing. And so if you're always looking for easy, simple pleasures, ultimately, you know, you'll be trying to find these dopamine highs and you can get in kind of a vicious cycle because you're not pushing yourself, right? There's not these moments where you're creating emotional flexibility. You're always kind of looking for that cheap thrill. Um, you know, at its worst, that's things like addiction, right? Or folks that are always kind of escaping.
Jiani (16:47)
Hmm.
Mike (16:50)
anything that's hard by running around whatever their form of escapism is. We have this term that you're generally running towards something or away from something. And so the goal here is to run towards something, something that either leads to your own betterment or makes you feel like you're connecting to something bigger than yourself. But you also want to be able to enjoy that. And so...
That's probably a little bit longer of an answer than you wanted, but those are the tenets of those three types and why they're important.
Jiani (17:28)
And then I'm curious, you have been helping organizations in the past decade to help integrate the message of fun, helping them to pivot their mindset and reach an outcome that they would otherwise have not even thought about. Can you share with us some case studies or interesting stories, impactful stories that you have helped organizations to pivot and be successful?
Mike (17:56)
Yeah, I think there's a few different areas where my work's making an impact. One is this idea of inclusivity when it comes to fun. I think in prior decades, what was considered fun was the after work happy hour, right? Or what we call forced fun sometimes in the literature, this idea of like, I have an idea of what's fun, I'm gonna force all of you guys to do it.
Right. One of my colleagues in the space jokingly talked about how escape rooms for a couple of years became kind of a popular, you know, and I think they still have their place. I think escape rooms are extremely fun, but the idea of a dysfunctional group within an organization being all stuck in a room together that, you know, they don't really like each other. And that's the idea of, you know, creating a fun environment. And so how do you start?
Jiani (18:50)
Ha ha ha ha.
Mike (18:55)
you know, from a level of empathy and co -create these experiences so that people all feel like they have a buy -in and that you're kind of playing to the preferences of the group, right? Because oftentimes if, you know, a majority has a predisposition to extroversion, but the other folks don't want to do something crazy, you can actually create, you know, what we term moral injury. These folks don't want to be there. They're not having fun.
And on the contrary, now they feel completely disconnected to the group, right? But with a little bit of forethought, you're able to ask everyone, what do you think you want to do? And generally when you do that and groups feel like they can co -create those experiences, you can find out what they want to do. And ultimately that will be fun for them because they all had buy -in and they didn't feel like it was prescribed. And so the important piece there,
And what I really advocate for is kind of going beyond that and finding fun in the elements where the employee truly has agency autonomy. And funny enough, where that starts is just allowing employees to take their lunch break so they can use that one hour to enjoy whatever they want to do. Again, if they're introverted, maybe that's enjoying a good book that they want to read.
If they're extroverted, it's connecting with either a colleague or better yet a friend, you know, that's a couple of blocks down the street where it makes sense for them to go have lunch. And study after study shows that when you're able to have this respite, you show up the second half of the day with much more vigor and vitality to do the harder things. And so if there's anyone else out there that's as geeky as me about all the science, the primary principle here is the hedonic flexibility principle.
It's been studied in a myriad of different ways, but the big study, if you Google that term, will come up. It's from Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. And what it looked at was folks that did have these transition rituals in work, right? That either were taking their break when they were off of work at 7 p.m., they put work aside and actually enjoyed the limited amount of leisure they had.
Um, and those folks that were able to do that well, right? Even if it meant scheduling fun into their calendar. We're paradoxically some of the most productive people, but not only this, and I think this is what will interest you the most. They were also the ones that were the most creative because when you have recharged your batteries, right? When what I colorfully call your fun cup being full, then you're able to unlock nonlinear thinking when we're tired.
We have to rely on our heuristics and our algorithmic thinking. We're just like, okay, I know how to do this. I'll get it done. I'll power through, right? And then finally I'll be able to get some rest. But that keeps you in that downward spiral because then you show up that evening so tired that you're not gonna do anything that's enjoyable, right? You're just gonna plop down on the couch, maybe mindlessly surf Netflix and then start all over again. The folks that are like,
I crushed today, now I'm going to go off and play pickleball with my best friend, right? So they're actually engaging in pro -social behavior as well. Then they show up the next day happy and they're able to do that again. And so the folks that work with me in this way are able to create environments where people begin to thrive, right? Instead of just feeling depleted. And in North America, especially, this is so important because a lot of my academic work was with physicians.
And physicians are so burnt out that we're seeing them leave the vocation, right? Last year was the worst year for them ever. It was kind of, and you know, this arise was initially blamed on the pandemic, but you can't blame the pandemic anymore. 63 % of physicians are saying that they are so overwhelmed by the profession. Again, that there's this level of burnout that a lot of them don't even want to do it anymore. And that's going to create a real problem.
And that's only one example of what we're seeing across the board. And so in that context, this becomes extremely important. And so there's that component and then kind of adjacent to it is just access to leisure. And so another thing that, trying to help advocate and we're making inroads here is making sure that people aren't just taking one vacation a year. The US is second to last with regards to,
giving access to PTO. I think on average it's 10 days a year for one year's worth of work. There's only one country worse than us in the developed world, Micronesia, at nine days off. But the sad part isn't just that stat, right? Because it's harder, you know, these institutional sort of social norms are harder to enroute. What's really sad is despite that limited access to leisure, only 50 % of us are even taking our vacation.
And what we know is that the people that don't do that ultimately start to hate what they do, right? Because they're not finding joy anywhere. And so in that context, that's why this stuff becomes extremely important. So that you do enjoy what you're doing, right? So that you can play this long game so that ultimately whatever lights you up, you have the wherewithal to keep doing it instead of just, you know, at some point breaking down and not being able to do anything. You're now in a state of crisis were.
You can't think about being productive, contributing in any way. You really just need to take care of yourself. And once you get to that level of burnout, I mean, fun's not going to save you at that point, right? Now it's truly a clinical condition, and you're working with a physician rather than digging yourself out of a hole.
Jiani (24:55)
Yeah, and then we ask the question is everything all worth it? If we really into that and that gives me like this kind of like a sprint and then you like you push it hard and you stretch it and then if you stretch it too hard it can't come back.
Mike (25:00)
Yeah.
Well, that's the problem, right? Cause sprints are really helpful. I mean, a sprint is a great analogy for hard fun, right? Like if you understand the rules and there is a goal and you know, once you get to the goal, you can celebrate that win. That's beautiful. You know, again, I think that's where I get my work sometimes, uh, you know, that folks that don't intimately understand it are like, he doesn't even want you to do that. No, absolutely not. Those are the moments, right?
The problem is that we never spin down, right? Especially in knowledge work. A lot of times we don't know where the goalposts are and it just keeps going and going. And especially because the advent of devices, right? We're never the, we don't have the chance to cognitively spin down because we get home and look at that notification. You know, uh, I have an email from my client, so now I'm stuck in work mode till my bed hits the pillow.
And what we're learning is this access to leisure is as important as sleep. So in the nineties, I'm probably dating myself a little bit, but we used to champion sleep deprivation, right? You know, I only got three hours last night. You know, I'm on my grind. Yeah. But, you know, again, before we hit record, we were talking about Huberman. You've got all these really smart people that if you're not engaged in sleep hygiene, then you're not a hustler because.
Jiani (26:22)
Super great. Good job. Keep on.
Mike (26:36)
We know you're, you know, you're going to fall down, right? It's a tenant of good health. And we're learning the same about enjoyment, that if you don't have a component of your life, that's enjoyable. If you're not enjoying the things that you're actually doing, ultimately, you're going to fall down and you're not going to have the resilience and the ability to do the things that you want to do, similar to, you know, being sleep deprived. And so if you're,
funds have darved, we need to figure out how to fix that.
Jiani (27:07)
Yeah. And then do you think one of another kind of wonder in the end audiences that like childlike wonder and the curiosity you talked about the importance of leisure, the importance of self -care and the creating space, white space that we can kind of rejuvenate. Do you think
Mike (27:15)
Hmm
Jiani (27:33)
The childlike wonder, what role does, do you think the childlike wonder of curiosity play in the whole process of type two fun or the hard fun as you, yeah.
Mike (27:43)
Yeah, no, that's a great question. So in psychology, we have this idea of valence, right? And so valence is just a, like all scientists, right? We have to give fancy words to simple ideas. And so valence is just, you know, pleasure. Are you attracted to what you're doing? And do you find enjoyment in it? Right. And so, you know, things like being happy, joyful, engaged, excited, these are all.
Jiani (27:55)
Hehehehehe
Mike (28:12)
you know, on the positive side of valence. Being bored, frustrated, angry, these are all things on the negative side of valence, right? This idea of wonder and awe is this beautiful place that transcends valence because when we're in those moments, right, it's kind of a blank space. We forget all that social conditioning that we have in our brain, you know, all of the sort of scripts that have made us who we are. And we're more open to how beautiful life is because...
you know, whether it's a moment in nature, whether it's, you know, you're engaged in a creative act and you just see it all really clear outside of, you know, self-judgment. Those moments open up a world of, you know, complete access to information. That's just so beautiful when people are in it. It's really hard to describe, but we know folks that can access that more naturally do tend to be happier because.
When you feel that connection to something bigger than yourself, there's this, and it has been studied, this isn't just conjecture, but like Lisa Feldman Barrett has done some amazing work in this area. When you feel that connection to kind of a greater intelligence, whether you wanna call that super consciousness or whatever label you wanna give it, you feel smaller, right? In a good way. And once you begin to feel smaller and kind of,
are more intimately aware of your fit in the world rather than your rank amongst your peers, then your problems seem a lot smaller. And once your problems seem smaller, that's really a much safer, good mental space to be in. And so there's a whole host of benefits. One, again, just feeling connected, but then two, you can pull ideas from disparate places. And that's where some of the...
you know, most interesting innovation comes because so often, right, we're reading the same blogs or we're, you connected to the same thought leaders were in our space. Right. And, but the folks that really come up with these amazing ideas are the ones that are able to be like, wait a second. I remember, you know, like, let's take, uh, you know, wellness, my area of interest, you know, Oh, that is so cool. What they did at that restaurant. Like,
You know, there was really empathy for the client. They were being mindful, you know, about what they wanted and they created this level of service just because they were listening, you know, to the patrons. Like we could do that in our wellness centers. Right. And so that kind of thinking, but so many of us don't, right. We're just like, you know, what is the, the stop, right? What is the standard operating procedure and how can I reach this level of excellence? Like my neighbor's doing instead of, you know, creating something beautiful within our.
own heads because, you know, we're so information rich now that oftentimes it becomes overwhelming. But being able to find, you know, a reconnection to wonder really does open up a lot of doors.
Mm -hmm.
Jiani (31:19)
That's beautiful. I was like, can you keep talking? Can you keep talking? So I think in your in your approach, is there any practical strategy where for our listeners, if they were like, oh, I'm interested in like, you know, fostering this like type two fun and so people can think, you know, on a bigger, much bigger picture in a much healthier way.
What's the strategy? Are there any particular strategies? Can you kind of give a simple framework or steps or some sort of guidance for people to start at least thinking the possibilities of turning their environment into a fun, igniting space?
Mike (32:10)
Well, specifically to type two fun, I mean, it's really just an invitation to get out of your comfort zone, right? So looking for strategies to be able to implement that more, I think you want to be premeditated about what you want to do, right? Because if it's something that you have no interest in, then it's never going to become type two fun. It's going to always be type three fun and what a shame, right? So.
The first is what do I want to do that's going to kind of stretch me, you know, lead to personal growth or, um, you know, a connection to something bigger. So, and, you know, the beautiful thing is that's a big tent, right? It could be, you know, uh, a spiritual practice where you're, you know, really getting into meditation because meditating for more than 30 minutes is hard for a lot of us, right? For others, it's going to be some sort of endurance sport. So like a connection to nature, which is really another great invitation.
to awe and wonder. For others, if they're really into an art form, like for instance, my dad's a musician, it could be that connection to their craft, right? So again, it runs the gambit, but figure out what you think is going to be enjoyable, even if it's not enjoyable in the moment, something that when you think back about it, it's really gonna light you up. So that's important. Once you engage in that activity, figure out...
What are the things that you can celebrate along the way? Because what we know is that the folks that tend to fail at the long game are the ones that wait to sort of celebrate that win at the very end, right? So figure out the milestones that where you can be like, whoa, okay, I'm 20 % there. This is amazing, right? Like, you know, I know I'm going to get there and I know, you know, the road ahead is hard, but like, wow, you know, I've already taken the first steps. Like the folks that are able to do this and that's -
Again, I keep having these little asides for people that want to go into the research. BJ Fogg has done some amazing work about the concept of celebrating more and more frequently, sometimes referred to as microjoys. Doing that along the way of any type two fun is super important. Then remember to savor it, right? I meant, if journaling's your thing, it's not for everyone, but if you do like to journal, making sure that you journal the process so that...
You richly encode all the information that came about, right? Cause if you're engaging in type two fun, it generally is strenuous. So, you know, oftentimes we can get overwhelmed, but unpacking it through savoring the process. And again, enjoying the fact that you did this hard thing becomes extremely important. And then if there are moments that are really, really challenging, I have a concept called activity bundling where is there a way to pair.
something to the hard task so that you want to do it more. Right. And so this work has some interesting work in this area has come from Katie milkman, who's an amazing Bay real scientist. And so what she did was found people that really liked podcasts, but essentially gave them the directive that they couldn't listen to the podcast unless they went and did a hard workout. And so.
One, folks did the hard workout more because it was, you know, even though it was just kind of game mechanics, right? It was the only time that they could access this thing they really enjoyed. But then also it made the workout more enjoyable because here they are, you know, doing something that they want to do listening to the podcast, but they're also now doing something that they didn't necessarily find fun, but was leading to betterment, right? And so that type of strategy can be overlaid on anything.
that you want to do, whether it's comedy and music. Again, the people that you're doing it with, we already talked about group exercise. For some, it's the environment, right? Again, nature is an amazing way to kind of an invitation into some of this. So access to that as well. So those are the three strategies that I would give you to kind of make sure that hard fun is as successful as possible.
Jiani (36:17)
Ciao.
That's beautiful. And I would like to add another one. Animals. Dogs and cats, birds, squirrels, chipmunks.
Mike (36:27)
Yeah?
Yeah, I meant, especially those imitations to wonder just watching animals and watching them at play and the fact that they're not married to meritocracy, right? Like an underlying theme to what you and I have discussed the last 30 minutes is a lot of these problems are kind of rooted in meritocracy. And I don't want to villainize it one way or the other. Meritocracy has its place. It keeps us moving and it keeps us motivated. But.
You know, what's interesting about animals is they don't care about a promotion or a trophy or, you know, um, I mean, I guess some animals do care about, uh, you know, worker, right? There is definitely, you know, uh, alphas and betas, but for the most part, they're not trying to win anything. And when you just watch them enjoying the world, you know, it can be inspiring.
Jiani (37:31)
I remember one time we were at the Niagara Falls park and there's this squirrel he would bring his nuts and he would go and sit next to the fall and then just like chewing on his nuts and then just like seeing the fall and then as if nobody there's like a lot of people coming by and he was just like sitting there and just like chilling.
We even recorded that video. That's beautiful. Let's kind of talk about the future. If we kind of manage to keep this meritocracy in a very healthy balance and the technology continues to develop at the current speed or even faster speed, AI.
Mike (38:05)
Oh no, that's awesome.
Jiani (38:32)
virtual reality and neural links or brand machine interactions. How do you see the role of type two phone or hard phone play? What would the world look like? I do.
Mike (38:50)
Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, I think even though it's a really old book, there's a cautionary tale in Brave New World. Have you read that? Yeah, that's all right. But so in that book, you know, it's kind of, you know, a cautionary tale in the sense that they have developed this drug called soma that essentially.
Jiani (38:58)
Not yet. I should. It's my next read book.
Mike (39:16)
allows you to displace discomfort, right? I mean, it's just kind of like the drugs that we have today, only it's more accessible and it doesn't have the consequences of street drugs, right? And so you have all these rich elite essentially always taking soma because it allows them to kind of numb themselves, right? And so to answer your question, one of the consequences of all of these devices,
is it allows you to displace negative valence, right? And we kind of trick ourselves into thinking that that is fun. When it really isn't, we know that from, and not just because it's inherent, but from empirical research, like, and that's why you're seeing loneliness and depression so prevalent in kids today, right? Because you're not connecting with others. You're getting a little bit of dopamine, but you're getting no oxytocin. And again,
All you're doing is relieving pain, right? You're relieving that boredom, anxiety, you know, kind of loneliness, but it's not fun. It's not connecting you to anything. And so to answer your question, where hard fun certainly has its place in the direction that we're going, is being able to continually flex our emotional flexibility, you know, to create moments where we're pushing ourselves and finding that connection.
so that things aren't always just so easily accessible for us to displace boredom. So that we're creating opportunities to grow, to figure out what we're connected to instead of that being force fed down our throats through algorithms that really quickly figure out what will keep us intoxicated with regards to kind of just, you know, mild intellectual stimuli. So.
Under that lens, it's extremely important because it's going to be the way that we do stay connected, right, and sort of are able to mitigate some of the big consequences of the overuse of technology.
Jiani (41:19)
That's beautiful. And I think as we move into the next chapter about the magic piece, let's give our audience a brief recap of what we've been talked about. So we talked about the story of Mike and how he turned his or how he integrated his rich scientific training into develop the book called fun habits and helping people to really start thinking about.
What are some healthier ways of having fun? We talked about the hard fun or the type two fun and how, you know, that's kind of the fun where it keeps us in the flow. And we also talk about the pros and cons of meritocracy in this world and how there needs to be a balance. And we also talk about the role of inclusion and diversity, how we can make fun by just a deep listening of what people really want.
And escape from may or may not be the answer of collective fun in a workspace. And we also kind of flexed our imagination muscle a little bit, looking to the future of what kind of, you know, how can we continue to have fun or a more richer emotional experiences despite all the advances of technologies and just in general, have that happy balance, a powerful balance.
on everything else beautifully said Mike and let's move into your magic space so what did you enjoy what did you enjoy doing when you were around 11 years old and time just disappeared
Mike (42:44)
Thank you so much.
Alright.
Yeah, for me, it was always creativity, right? So in positive psychology, a professor by the name of Marty Sugglman has done a lot of work with regards to signature strengths. And my strength is always curiosity and creativity. So I think that's something that I've been interested in. And I've always had this entrepreneurial bug. I remember like a story from when I was 11, I went.
And I didn't really know what I was doing. And I got a business permit because I thought that's what all entrepreneurs needed and started selling a magazine I made about skateboarding. And yeah, so, you know, it was like kind of my first professional outlet knowing that, you know, I wanted to do a creative endeavor. And the funny kind of punchline to that story is I didn't realize that you needed to renew it each year. And so the following year,
My parents got like this letter from the city government that, you know, I was incurring a fine because I hadn't like followed the procedure because I had no idea what I was doing. But yeah, it's rooted early on. I knew that I wanted to, you know, make my dent in the universe, as they say. So yeah, it started in my early age.
Jiani (44:17)
You would wish I should partner up with a compliance strategist back there.
Mike (44:23)
Yeah, well there's no internet, right? So we had to learn from books and if you didn't read the pamphlet, you know, it was a problem.
Jiani (44:33)
Good good good first experience and something I wish I wish like the government even though you know if they wanted to punish people just educate them first tell them you know what's
Mike (44:38)
Hehehe
Well, now there's amazing programs for kids that want to be entrepreneurs. I'm actually exploring something for my son, but you know, for anyone else that has kids, there's like this whole lemonade stand initiative and just some really, really cool programs out there that have, you know, some safety rails that kids won't make the same mistakes I did.
Jiani (45:08)
That's beautiful. I'm furniture from the island. That's wonderful. Um, so what do you think? I would take a pause here. So we're almost on time now. Do you want it to? Okay, so only two questions left one is the the challenges you kind of talked a little bit at the beginning and then we'll go to the magic If that's okay, okay
Mike (45:21)
You're OK. If we get. Yeah.
Okay, perfect. Yeah, if we can wrap up in five minutes, we'll be fine.
Jiani (45:35)
Perfect. Okay. Thank you. All right. So yeah, thank you for sharing the story of a very entrepreneurial Mike at his early age. Then the question is, you know, everybody goes through a lot of challenges. You mentioned a little bit challenges at the beginning and that kind of paved the foundation of your book. Were there any like major challenges that you have to come through?
Mike (45:37)
Yeah.
Jiani (46:03)
or evolve from that help shape who you are or your current perspective of the world as of now.
Mike (46:11)
Yeah, I would say underneath all of this work too is both my parents were workaholics so I didn't get a deep connection with them. And I think, I mean, just to be vulnerable with you, that's always left a scar. I mean, I've worked through it and we have a good relationship now, but they didn't, they certainly didn't have a very deep connection with my brother nor myself. And when my brother passed, I could see the pain that kind of,
especially with my mom, the fact that there was a lot of moments that she let go to sort of play the meritocracy game. And so it's well understood now this idea of time affluence that if we don't make deliberate choices to take some time off the table for ourselves so that we create these memories with the folks that we love.
The folks that don't do that are in a really bad position, especially later in life. The person most famous for bringing this kind of to the forefront is a Barani Ware. She has an amazing book called The Five Regrets of the Dying. And so for folks that think, you know, the hustle is the only way they will wake up in their 50s and 60s and really look back, you know, and kind of the third half of their life is pretty miserable. And so I think that struggle also, you know,
wanting to make sure that myself and the folks that I work with don't succumb to some of the pain that is inevitable if you don't enjoy some of the moments in your life helps me move forward too and makes this work very meaningful for me.
Jiani (47:56)
Thank you. Thank you, Michael, for sharing that. I think the core message is to create micro enjoyment as you can along the day. And anytime you want to have a micro joy, have it and savor it and appreciate that and remember that.
That's beautiful. So as we conclude our podcast, what do you think is Michael's magic?
Mike (48:27)
Well, I hope it is inspiring people to have more fun, right? I, we talked about it a little bit earlier on the podcast, but you know, this idea that sleep has really gotten back on the rails that, you know, most people understand the importance of sleep hygiene. Um, and that we're really helping folks, you know, be able to get that seven to nine hours of sleep and, um, and how important that has been with regards to foundational health. I think my magic spot is.
helping the world wake up that leisure is just as important. Unfortunately, when we don't engage in fun and leisure, right, it's a slower burn. We don't quite understand the negative impact it's having on us, but it certainly is. And it's causing a whole host of different problems, you know, from epidemic levels of loneliness to, you know, all of these physiological consequences we're seeing with burnout. And so,
It's not about having fun all the time, right? But it is about figuring out how we can integrate that back into our life so that some of the time in our 168 hours becomes enjoyable so that we reconnect with others and so that folks do have passions outside of serving their employer and getting that message out there and making an impact in that way. I hope it's my magic.
Jiani (49:49)
Yeah, that's beautiful. And also, that's also a sort of leadership. And if people see you constantly having fun, like micro enjoyment, and at the same time, you still get to do what you do actually do it much better, much faster. And it's like, Oh, I wanted to know, you know, what's the secret. And I wanted to learn that. So that creates like, this curiosity and potential movement along the way.
Thank you, Michael, for sharing your stories and your perspectives. And thank you for raising this awareness among our audience, leaders, entrepreneurs, and managers, and leaders of family, leaders of self, to come into this awareness that having fun should not be taken lightly.
Mike (50:41)
That's a great way to put it. Thank you so much for having me on the show. It's been a lot of fun.
Jiani (50:45)
That's great. Yeah, thank you. And for people who want to get in contact with Michael, his social links and contact information is attached in the show notes below. So we encourage you to reach out to him and get inspired by the power of...
Mike (51:02)
In the book, The Fun Habit is available wherever you enjoy buying books, local bookstore, Amazon or wherever. It just dropped on paperback, so there's a cheaper mass market version of it now too.
Jiani (51:17)
Yeah, and then the cover of the book is so beautiful. It's like, masquerading. Great, thank you, Michael. So that would be the end.
Mike (51:20)
Thank you.
Thank you.
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