Here's Where It Gets Interesting - The Power of Fun and How to Have More of It with Catherine Price

Episode Date: January 19, 2022

In this episode, Sharon is joined by author Catherine Price, whose new book, The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again explores the concept of fun and why it’s a necessary part of the human experience. Catherine set out to pinpoint the definition of “fun” and she found that universally fun experiences meet three criteria: playfulness, connection, and flow. Catherine explains why play is so much easier when we’re children, and how passive “fun” like scrolling through social media, is not an equal stand-in for active fun. Learn how to create the habit of noticing daily delights and embrace opportunities for fun. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, my friends. I have an absolutely delightful conversation to share with you today. I am chatting with author Catherine Price about the power of fun. The power of fun is so important and she has a fantastic new book out about the science behind the power of fun. We actually had so much fun talking to each other. And I think you are going to have a bunch of light bulb moments with this conversation. So let's dive in. Let's dive in immediately. I'm Sharon McMahon and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. You know, we were chatting before about just how challenging the last couple of years have been. I don't think there's anybody who is like these unprecedented years have been

completely joyful. I think the one person in the world who's done that is my six-year-old. Like, you know, like the depths of last winter, she was like, this is the best year ever. And we looked at her and we're like, please hold onto that. Please. You were the only person in the world, but yes, I agree. It's not been like the peak, peak, peak fun of humanity. These are not going to be the good old days. Yeah.

They'll just be the old days. Be like, oh my goodness. I am so glad that's over. Days. Not the good old days. Be like, oh my goodness. I am so glad that's over. Days. Days. Not the good old days. So I'm curious, first of all, you're a science journalist and your work has appeared, pick a top publication, top magazine, top newspaper. It's just been everywhere. You've written a number of books and I'm so curious about what it was that made you choose this topic and choose this topic about how to have fun now. Well, this book, the power of fun is actually a direct follow-up to my last book, which was called how to break up with your phone. And at first,

there might not seem to be a obvious connection there, but basically what happened was I had this kind of wake up moment where I realized that I was letting my life be stolen from me in five minute increments from under my nose on my phone. And I decided I wanted to change. And I wrote this book, How to Break Up With Your Phone. And then as a result of that book, I did make a lot of changes in my own life and perhaps unsurprisingly ended up with a lot more free time. And I did not realize when writing how to break up with your phone, that really that's the first step. The second step is to figure out what you actually want to do with your free time. Right. And then I remember having this kind of wake up moment for this book,

where I was taking a break from my phone and all devices. My husband and I were doing this practice that people call a digital Sabbath of just taking a 24 hour break from all of our technology. I was in the same room I am right now speaking to you. And I had this hour ahead of me because my daughter was napping. My husband was out of the house where I could do whatever I wanted to. And I couldn't think of a single thing I wanted to do. And it was a horrible moment. I thought, oh my God, I'm just sitting here waiting for dinner, which essentially means I'm sitting here waiting to die. That's where my mind went. And I ended up asking myself a question that I had asked people during my research for how to break up with your phone, which was what's something you say you want to do, but you

supposedly don't have time for. Yes. You know, which I recommend everyone ask themselves. And I'd never thought to ask myself that question, even though I'd asked all these other people. And my answer was guitar. I want to learn how to play guitar. And I ended up signing up for a class the next day. And that one little decision and moment led to this adventure that not only introduced me to a whole new source of joy in the form of music, but also got me very curious in what I now recognize as fun. And so that was the moment that led to the exploration that in turn led to this book. I love that because that it's such a powerful question, right? We we've all heard the adage

that it's not that you don't have time. It's that you are, you're not prioritizing whatever it is. People who are saying, I don't have time to go to the gym. It's that you have other things that are a priority. Like that's not a priority for me. Try saying that's not a priority for me and see how that feels instead. Right. Exactly. Like that's not at the top of my list. That's why we don't have time for it. Exactly. Cause you make time for the things that you make time for. That's right. Right. But see, that's not, that's not fun for you, but it is fun for some people, for some people that actually is a source of joy. Um, see, I think that's where we get into the definition of fun. Yes. Let's talk about what does fun mean? Okay. So to explain how I came to kind of think

about the definition of fun, as I said, I signed up for this guitar class. I started going to this guitar class. It was like a BYOB, very laid back guitar class at a local music studio that actually normally does kids' music classes, but also has an adult program. And as I was in these classes, I just felt this sense of energy and this feeling of happiness and buoyancy that wasn't unfamiliar. You know, I'm a pretty happy person, but it was very powerful. And it was something I hadn't experienced in that way with that regularity in a while. And I noticed that the feeling stayed with me for the days after the class. I just felt much more lighthearted and playful and alive, frankly. And I got really interested in trying to figure out what that feeling was. Like, what's the word to describe this feeling? And I realized that the feeling was fun.

Like I was having fun. And I also realized it wasn't about the activity. Like at first I was like, oh, I just, it's because I'm learning guitar, but it wasn't that it was something bigger than that. There was something kind of more profound almost to it. It was nice to have a new skill, but it wasn't about that. It was this feeling it was giving me. So I got really curious about what fun is, if that feeling can be described as fun, then what is the definition of fun? And I was really fascinated to discover that there's not a what is the definition of fun? And I was really fascinated to discover that there's not a good agreed upon definition of fun. If you look it up in the dictionary, you'll find things like lighthearted pleasure or just amusement. And I think that's true and can

definitely describe what you're talking about from people who are looking at Instagram, but it didn't really tap into the profundity of what I was experiencing. This kind of, I don't know, this visceral sense of life. So then I was like, okay, is that just me being me? And, you know, I've already revealed that I'm very existential. Am I just over being overly dramatic about this? So I ended up recruiting this huge group of people from around the world that I called the fun squad to test out my definitions and see what they thought fun was. And one of the first things I did with that group was that I asked them to actually share with me three experiences from their own lives that they would describe as having truly been fun. I didn't propose my definition. I

didn't want to bias them, but I just wanted to gather these stories first. And then, then I proposed my definition several pages into the survey. But when I read people's experiences that they described, it was the same energy. It was so interesting. They were telling me these stories that range from dramatic things that involve, you know, exotic trips and kind of your stereotypical, like, Oh, that sounds so fun. But there were also all these little moments, you know, going out in the rain with their grandfather and deliberately getting soaked or staying up late one night with their mom after redecorating their bedroom as a pink Parisian oasis and talking in funny accents. Or just someone talked about squishing mud through her toes with her friend

Margaret and how this was so fun. And it was fascinating to me that there was this same energy running through these stories that they were sharing. And the definition that I proposed, which spoiler alert, the vast majority of people said, actually, this really does describe my experience is that this feeling of true fun happens when we experience a combination of three States. And those three States are playfulness connection and flow. And to clarify by playfulness, I don't mean you've got to play a game. Adults hate the word playfulness. So if you're clenching up inside guys, it's okay. Relax. It's just being lighthearted and not caring too much about the outcome, doing something just for the sake of doing it. That's really unusual for adults. and I think some people can, but in truly the majority of stories people shared with me, another person or another creature was involved. You know, sometimes it was like a dog, but it's another, it's a special shared experience. This was true for introverts as well as extroverts.

And then flow is the feeling of getting so engaged in your present experience that you lose track of time. Now that, and there's an important clarification there, which is that flow is an active state. So if you're passively consuming something, you can't be in flow. That's what's called junk flow. It's more like hypnosis. And I think that's an important distinction because a lot of times when we do things, quote unquote, for fun, we're actually doing things that induce a state of this junk flow. And for many people, that would include scrolling through Instagram. So the reason I'm kind of pushing back on the idea that Instagram could be true fun for anyone. Well, first of all, I've collected literally thousands of anecdotes of fun from people all around the world, and none of them have scrolling through social media as one of their true fun experiences, but also because it's so often passive and there's so often an element of judgment of yourself or of other people and judgment is antithetical to flow. Like you can't be in it and it's not playful. And there's not a sense of active engagement. And then I also think there's a really important distinction

between true fun, which is that playful connected flow. And what I think of as fake fun, which are activities that are marketed to us as fun, and that might produce an initial jolts of pleasure, but they're essentially just like junk food. They might be fun in small doses, but difficult not to consume in excess. And then when you do, you end up feeling gross. Isn't that true of anything though? I mean, like, isn't that true of like, I've been on vacation for too long. I need to get home. Oh yeah. Well, but I think that that's not when you're having true fun. So true fun is really this like active, engaged, joyful state that when it

happens, at least for me, I can't get enough of, I mean, I'm sure I could get enough of at some point, but I find that the only time I like going to bed at a very reasonable hour, like 10, right? If I look back on the past four years and I can tell you the nights that I stayed up way past that bedtime and they all were when I was having true fun and they all involved me staying up till like three in the morning because I was having so much fun. I didn't want to stop. And I might end up tired afterwards, but I never regret. I don't feel gross. I feel amazing. And that joy that comes from having had that fun buoys me. I mean, just a couple of weeks ago, as an example, I got together with some friends in a parking lot. I'm 43 and I was like in a

parking lot and playing music on a guitar. We started at like nine and all of a sudden it was 2 45 in the morning. I thought, Oh, like what just happened? All of us were like, what just happened? What did we do? You know, and it took a day or two to physically recover from it. I can tell you that was like three weeks ago. I'm still feeling the positive effects. So I think when you're truly having fun, you can kind of tell if you want to get home from the vacation, you're not having true fun in that moment. Why do you think we need to be taught how to have fun? Oh God, so many reasons. We're so out of practice. I mean, I think, I think we're, yeah, adults have just been guided in the wrong direction for so much of our lives. Like kids are much more able to tap into true fun than adults are because they're not self-critical yet. They don't have phones yet. Hopefully they're not performing their lives are actually living their lives. And they're not so concerned about making mistakes. You know, they're willing to keep trying and try new things because everything's new. So they're at an advantage. I think adults were a really out of practice.

B we have a lot of responsibilities. I mean, that we legitimately have to take care of, but we've also kind of internalized this feeling that we can't have fun. It feels frivolous and it feels self-indulgent. We think that we can't be people who prioritize fun and be people who take the responsibilities seriously or who do good work in the world, because there's obviously a lot of problems in the world that need to be addressed. Right. But we have this very zero sum approach to life. And we also seem to think we've been conditioned to think that our time is money. And so the best uses of our time are the uses of time that results in money. And so we work all the time. Ironically, of course, then we spend our leisure time that we have worked so hard to have. We're so tired

that we ended up just spending it on passes of consumption and junk flow. But I think what I, I know what I found in my research is that this is totally backwards because But I think what I know, what I've found in my research is that this is totally backwards because fun is actually not frivolous. It's actually essential to our happiness and our mental and our physical health. And the more fun you're having, the more energy you're going to have to address the less fun things in your life, to actually be someone who causes positive change because you're not going to be run down and depleted all the time. And that's something that I've found to be particularly powerful about fun. I love that. Somebody asked me recently, we were talking about political extremism. This is not a question about your political beliefs, just more of a concept of like the idea of the growth of political extremism, turn on any cable news channel, right? And you can see a lot of angry people, a lot of angry people, nobody on cable news is like, I'm having a great day. You know what I mean? Like, how's your day going buddy? Right. Um, and so I was commenting that like, I don't, I don't have any time for that because that seems like you're just existing in

this energy state of perpetual anger. Like pick a political spectrum. I don't care if we're talking about political extremism on the left or the right. It just seems like, like, am I supposed to just feel anger 24 seven? Like, that's not fun. Like I would rather just like a lot of things I'd rather be doing than hyping myself up into a state of rage. I mean, when you put it that way, right? No, I couldn't agree more. I mean, actually I often say, you know, I used to live in California and there were, there's, you know, there's like so many bumper stickers. I'm from New York originally. So I have a low tolerance for bumper stickers. Um, but there's this bumper sticker that was everywhere. That was, if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention. And I was like, uh, maybe I am paying attention. I'm

just choosing not to pay attention only to things that outrage me because things that I wish, because why would I want to do that? So I think you bring up a very important point that that is one of the most powerful aspects of fun is that when we are having fun with people, our differences melt away. It allows us to connect with our shared humanity and to see people as people. You cannot get in an argument with someone when you're laughing hysterically with them. You know, it's fun brings us together. And right now there's so many forces that are driving us apart, including again, sorry to harp on social media here, but you know, that's the problem. And to me, that is one of the most powerful things. You can have bitter disagreements politically with someone and

then have a wonderful time dancing with them at a wedding or doing something fun together, like having this experience. And I think that's an un under acknowledged benefit of fun. The more we were more people have fun together, the more they'll be able to see each other as people and not focus on differences, but instead focus on what we all have in common. So I think it's a really beautiful thing about fun. That's such a great point. It's really hard to hate people up close. Yes. And it's also hard to have fun from far away. Ooh, yes. Those are very true statement. I like that. So not that you can never have fun on a zoom call, you know, like not that you can never

have fun on talking to your friend that lives overseas. You're like, not that that can never be fun, but generally speaking, it's, if you're having fun with somebody up close, it's really hard to see them as anything other than a human of infinite worth. Exactly. And you know, there's a book, um, I don't know if you've read called humor seriously, which I recommend to you and your listeners and the authors actually would be interesting guests.

They're these Stanford professors who teach a class on humor in the business school. And they have two anecdotes in their book that you just reminded me of about how in their case, they're talking about humor, but in terms of political things and using fun as a way to bring people closer and see each other as humans in a way that actually is quite productive. And they share these two stories. One is in George Bush's cabinet, his story, I think it was Alan Greenspan. It was like one of his first days making this presentation. And George W. Bush made fun of him because he had tan socks on. I mean, just playfully, like playfully ribbing him. And I think Alan Greenspan was a little flustered. And then some other people on the team realized, oh, this is a good opportunity for

like a funny joke. And so at the next meeting, they surreptitiously got everybody, including Dick Cheney to wear tan socks to the meeting. And so as it's starting, they all kind of like hiked their pants up a little bit so that all their socks were showing. And at some point, George W. Bush saw this just started cracking up and they all laughed and they said it really like made them closer as a group. And that little moment of playfulness and fun like stayed with them. They also apparently saran wrapped Karl Rove's car as a side note. But then on the other side, there was also a story they told about Madeleine Albright going on this diplomatic mission in Asia. It was at some big conference and she's doing this high stakes negotiation with her Russian counterpart.

That was about Myanmar or something. And apparently at this conference, there's a tradition of skits. You have to do a skit. And so someone approaches Madeline Albright with the lyrics to Mary Had a Little Lamb. And she was supposed to sing this. And to her great credit, she's like, this is a horrible idea. I'm not singing Mary Had a Little Lamb. But she ends up teaming up with the Russian guy.

And the Russian delegation provides a lot of vodka and they get together and they have this like late night in which she and this other guy rewrite the lyrics to West Side Stories. I just met a girl named Maria. So they called it East West Story and they rewrote it as I just met a girl named Madeline Albright. And she starts to sing it at the skit. And then the Russian counterpart gets up and joins her. They do this duet to much acclaim. Right. And she starts to sing it at the skit. And then the Russian counterpart gets up and joins her. They do this duet to much acclaim. Right. And so they had this ridiculous experience. And you might at first be like, what the heck does that have to do with diplomacy? This is serious. Like you should be playing tan sock jokes or saran wrapping a car or making a skit with the Russian. But in fact, she said that that connected them as humans and their entire relationship from there. That point forward was different. And even though they had major disagreements and tough moments, they saw each other as humans. It became a friendship and it was because they had that

shared experience of fun. And I think that's just really useful for us all to keep in mind. It's not frivolous. It's so important. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together, we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind-the-scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It's Steve Carell in the studio every wednesday we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests and we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions

and comments so join us for brand new office ladies 6.0 episodes every wednesday plus on mondays we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. George W. Bush, regardless of whether or not you agree with him politically, he was very well known for his sense of humor. Yeah. He's a fun guy. I mean, he and Michelle Obama are super good friends. Yes. And one of the reasons she likes him is because she loves his sense of humor and he makes her laugh. Every time you see pictures of them together,

they're chuckling. It's kind of like a, an internet joke now that they make a beeline for each other when they're in the same room, they just clearly enjoy each other's company. And it really is centered on that sense of humor. Yeah. The sense of humor and that they have fun together. And I think that's a great example to look at because it's like, yeah, they could get into a fight if they wanted to about their view on healthcare or like any other political issue, but they're choosing not to. And they have a great relationship. And I would think that it probably would help

if they did then try to engage in a serious discussion. They'd be coming at it from a place of affection and closeness, even if they have disagreements, which is something I think we all could learn from right now. That's such a great point that when you take the time to have fun together, it makes potential disagreements much less volatile of the future. And you might actually find yourself having more productive negotiations, more productive conversations. You're totally right. That I think now if Michelle Obama called George W. Bush and

was like, listen, we got to talk about this thing. I know you feel this way, but here's how I feel. They would probably find a much more reasonable solution than if from day one, she had just called him and been like, I don't care what you have to say. You're totally wrong on this topic. Completely. And clearly they have a relationship and it's been really facilitated by them enjoying each other's company and prioritizing fun and saying, yeah, and focusing on what they share in common, which is their sense of humor. And I mean, I don't know, I'm projecting, but they really do seem like they like each other a lot. And I derive joy from seeing, I think that's also interesting is when you see other people having fun, it really is like a contagious feeling in terms of the energy it can produce. And so I think that's a

reason that, I mean, in addition to passing along things that cause fear and outrage, which we're definitely naturally inclined to do, we also want to share things that make us happy. Like if you find something that makes you laugh, like an SNL skit or whatever it might be, there's a desire to share because that's a part of our human nature too. And I think that if you think more critically about fun and prioritize it more, you can also prioritize that kind of thing instead of just defaulting to our brain's natural tendency to focus on the things that divide us. That's such a great point that we could actually choose to focus on, like, let's focus on things that we enjoy. And it doesn't mean that we have to completely ignore the world's problems and just like stick our head in the sand and be like, well, but I'm homelessness isn't real. Like it's not pretending that things aren't real.

And it doesn't mean we shouldn't work on those issues, but just in terms of how are we devoting our time? We could choose to spend our entire time on social media or in via email or whatever it is sharing all the things that we feel outrage about. But that again, doesn't seem like very much fun. Well, also, you know, it's so funny about that. It may be funny is the wrong word, but you know, people are like, Oh, fun is frivolous. Well, that's frivolous too. I'm sorry. If you're just sharing screeds on Facebook, what's that really doing? That's not doing anything at all. At least if you're focusing on the positive, you're making at least yourself feel good. But when you're just sharing outrage, you're not making anyone feel good and you're not doing anything to solve the problem. So in a way that's almost more frivolous,

I would say, and stupid. That's such a great point. Yeah. And it occurs to me, one idea, if you've got any listeners who are like, well, great, but I can't saran wrap Karl Rove's car. What am I supposed to do to bridge these political differences? One practice that I've found to be really helpful for people is a practice of delight, noticing delights. And I got this idea from this book called appropriately the book of delights by this poet named Ross Gay. And he wrote an essay every day for a year about something that delighted him crazy. So what he would do is he'd notice something that delighted him and then put a finger in the air and say out loud delight. And then he'd write about it. And I just loved that. And what he noticed is that the more he tuned into delight, the more delights revealed themselves to him. And he describes it as being like tuning into

a radio frequency, you know, just start to notice all these things. And so a friend and I started our own delight practice after reading that book. And so we would go around in our own lives and just notice things that delighted us and actually put a finger in the air and say delight out loud, even if we're alone, which by the way, it's like scientifically validated both those things to help you actually savor and, uh, benefit from it's actually a member of the experience. Yeah. And actually boost your mood. So it's actually quite effective, but what we also started doing is just sending photos to each other over text of things that delighted us. And then I subsequently started doing that with other friends too. And then I suggested it to people on my mailing list and people on that

list started doing it. You know, some people share them on social media. Other people started a text chain, like a family text chain. But the reason I bring that up is that it provides a way for you to interact with, say, family members with whom you do have political differences and who you keep getting into these same arguments with, but who you still do love and you wish you could be closer with, right? Or at least you like enough that you wish you could be closer with. And you start a delight chain. And honestly, and every time I get a delight from a friend, I am delighted. It's a lovely contagious effect. My friend just the other day sent me pictures of ice crystals on his car windshield, which speaks to the fact that it doesn't need to be big.

So anyway, if that idea is useful to anyone who's listening, it's, I can tell you it's quite effective and it is fun. And it gets you in more of this mindset, as you were just saying of focusing on the positive and the good things without making it seem like you're a Pollyanna and without making it feel like a burden, you know, it's not more work. It's kind of like, Oh, that red leaf is delightful. Delight. I love that idea. I, I frequently feel delight and I share it on my social media. And sometimes people like to tease me about the things that I tend to feel delight over. What's one of those things? I'm curious. Whales. I absolutely love whales. And every time I see like a baby whale or like a whale breaching out of the water and like making this huge splash, It just delights me. I just love it.

And so I frequently share pictures of whales and people are like, what in the Sam Hill is this account? Do you know what I mean? Like random whale photos amidst everything else. I think that's delightful. I think that's like meta delight. I am delighted by the concept of your feed having just random whale photos. It has a lot of like, I answer a lot of government questions like what is happening in Congress. And then legitimately nearly every day, it is interspersed by delightful animal content that brings me delight. But some people have told me watching you be really amused by whales is very amusing. Yes, exactly. That's the emotional contagion, right? And I think that's the beautiful thing, but it's, and it's really important to note that that's true for negative

emotions too. You're around someone who's really stressed out or anxious or angry. You're probably going to get stressed out, anxious and angry too. So I think that all of this is kind of circling around the idea that we should be much more careful about what kind of emotional influences we allow into our lives and then how we choose to direct our own spotlight of attention. Because we do have the choice right now. For example, I'm choosing to focus entirely on our conversation. I have no idea what's going on in the street outside. I don't know what's going on in this room.

Like that's my choice. And that means that that's what I'm going to remember. One of my biggest takeaways from writing how to break up with your phone was that our lives are what we pay attention to, right? Like you only experience what you pay attention to and therefore you only remember what you pay attention to. And it means that anytime we make a decision in the moment about where to pay attention, we're actually making a bigger decision about how to live our lives. And I think that's so important, especially now where there are so many potential sources of stress and anxiety

and fear and outrage all around. That's all true, but there's also all of these daily delights there and there's all these whales, you know, it's like, there's little things or these opportunities. I mean, another thing I really think about a lot that I recommend for people, especially right now, or, you know, depending on where you are and what your take is like, I'm personally very cautious and I've really cut back on social activities because just things are really bad right now. There's not that many opportunities for socialization in the way that typically results in true fun for me, but I can find moments of playfulness in my day, or I can generate them. I can find moments of connection or I can generate them and the same for flow. And so I'm really

trying to focus on creating or appreciating as many opportunities and moments of playfulness connection or flow as possible. Cause even if they happen on their own, it has a positive effect. It boosts my mood. It makes me feel just more purposeful, more joyful and more alive. And then on occasion, when those three things, two or three of them happen at once, the effects are even better. But my point being like, I'm really trying to use the concept of true fun to find this playful connected flow as a compass to get myself to face a different direction. Instead of allowing all the sources of fear and anxiety to be my true North, I want fun to be my true North. And the more I head in

that direction, the better my life is. Where your attention goes, energy flows, you know, like that, you know, that phrase that what you're paying attention to is where your energy is going to be directed. And it goes back to this idea of like, why are people choosing to live their lives in states of anger when you could make a different choice. Right. Right. Make a different choice and honestly make more of a difference in the world. We do not need more anger, right? We need more people to acknowledge the things that need to have attention paid to them, but then do positive things to change. Having stayed out and played guitar for, you know, in that parking lot like that, as I said,

is still staying with me and actually relates to this theory called the broaden and build hypothesis by this woman named Barbara Fredrickson at UNC, which is basically that positive emotional experiences are not just the results of emotional wellbeing and resilience. They're actually a cause. And so the more positive emotional experiences you can have, the better you'll be able to weather periods of future emotional stress. I think that's useful at any time, but particularly now considering how challenging the past two years have been. So the more we can have positive experiences, the more resilient we'll be, not just in the moment, but going forward. One of the things I suggest to people is people will often ask me like, well, I really don't like my Senator. You know, I really don't like my representative. You know, what, what if my representative doesn't show up for work, whatever it is. One of the things I recommend to people just, just kind of as a life practice is watch for opportunities to let them know when you do approve of their

behavior. You know what I mean? It's kind of like the positive reinforcement you give your children where you're like, I really like the way you put your dishes in the dishwasher or catch them being good. That's what my husband and I say, catch them being good. That's so funny to do that with your representative. You did show up at work good Good for you. That's right. I really like how you had that productive meeting with somebody from the opposite political party. Well, that's true. I think that's really important. Yeah. Or I really liked how you showed up at that kids Eagle scout presentation, but whatever it is, even if you're like, this is dumb, why am I doing this? If you think about it,

probably 99% of the messages that people in Congress get from their constituents are angry. Do you know what I mean? And so all they're ever getting is angry feedback. I can almost promise you they would read the letter. That is nice. They probably stick it up on their computer. You know what I mean? Like frame it and a heart on the wall. That's right. They probably stick it up on their computer. You know what I mean? Like frame it and a heart on the wall. That's right there, there, you know, team that is going through their correspondence would be like, well, I have one for you. You might want to read this one. And you know, like that person then might file that away or get that little boost of neurotransmitter to be like, I should do more stuff like that. I think that's so important because I think you're completely right. There's this negative reinforcement where they can like,

say they reach across the aisle. Right. And then they get criticized by people who hate them for it. And then the people who appreciate it, aren't the ones who are going to be sending them a note, right. Cause it's, it's more motivating to be angry sometimes, but I think you're totally right that we should be reinforcing and thanking them for behavior. And that, that might actually if done over time by enough people shift things. And I also think that's a way to be much more convincing. If you do disagree with them on something else, you know, say you really disagree with how you think they're going to vote on this one thing, but you also really appreciate that they did this other thing, like in the note to them, like say, I also, you know, I respectfully disagree with this and this is my reason, but I respect you for whatever else you were doing, you know, couch it in that way.

Yep. Instead of as being an attack. And I just think that's much more effective in general. And I think the more we tune into this idea of fun, even though it seems disconnected at first, like they're connected in my mind. Right. And the idea of trying to find the shared humanity and really emphasizing connection, I think makes such a difference. I love that. And it doesn't take long to go to your representative's contact form on their website and enter a four sentence email. Nobody is saying you need to get a PhD in literature before you write your representative a letter. People think like the letters need to be like, dear sir, or madam, right. Per my last request. You know I mean yeah yeah like it needs to be

some huge deal and it doesn't it could just be like hey my name is Sharon I really appreciate how you showed up at that kid's Eagle Scout thing it really meant a lot to him it was great to see you being part of the community just wanted to let you know that I noticed and appreciated that does not need to be fancy just cut and paste that and swap out the Eagle Scout thing you should just put that on your website as an option like a a mad lib, just like people can do that. I'm going to auto generate. No, it's so true though. And I think the other thing to pay attention to is how sending that kind of note makes you feel afterwards compared to sending an angry note, because that's another thing that's been proven is like doing good things and kind things for their people

makes us feel good too. So it's really very self-perpetuating and it creates a cycle of positive effects rather than just being like, well, I just fired off a howler of an email and hit send. And now you have this moment of feeling really self-satisfied and self-righteous, but then ultimately it's just kind of reinforcing your own negative emotions. And you just like sent that to somebody else. That's not nice. And I think also public figures have feelings too, guys. It kind of sucks if people are just criticizing you all the time. Yeah. This is one of the reasons I would never, ever want to be president. Imagine there being

an entire 24 hour news cycle devoted to how horrible you are. Right. That's true. Just pretty much just, yeah. Just you. Wow. I hadn't thought about it that way. Just you are horrible to tens of millions of people. And they want to talk about it around the clock. Yes. Literally. Doesn't that sound like a horrible job? There's many reasons I would not want to be president, but that is one of them. That's one of them. There are exactly, there's many reasons, but that is just like, I don't, that sounds terrible. Yeah. Exactly. Oh my God. You really would just have to not watch it and just be like oblivious to it because otherwise you would spend your whole day like

mired in this, like 50 million people think I'm the worst person alive on earth. Do you want to see something that brings me delight? Yes. I have a, do you have a whale in your, in your office? No. Oh, well, yeah, I do. There's a whale back there. Actually Tess, there's a whale behind a ramp. Yep. Let me show you the thing that I, that I found recently that I was like, that is delightful. Okay. These are penguin feathers. Oh my God. Okay. Look at how dense penguin feathers are. What? Wait, that's like a one feather. It's a wing. This is like, it's one feather. No, no. This penguin died of old age. Okay. Penguin died of old age was not hunted or anything like that. And this is

like, so this is like the penguin skin. And this is that black part that makes it black. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. All of these are feathers. Those are individual feathers. Can you see that? That looks so cozy. Individual feathers where it's like, it almost, you know, how penguins look like they have skin. You know what I mean? Yeah. That just shows how dense the feathers are. That is very delightful. Isn't that kind of delightful? It really is. I kind of think so. I'm like, I've never seen that before. It's kind of delightful to look at. We really could just continue having fun chit-chatting about all the things that we think are fun. But I think that's a good point too, right? Like a lot of times people think having fun, even if they internalize or agree with my definition of playful connected flow, they think that there has to be this big production, big production. You got to go somewhere. You got to do something. You got to take a step away from your whole life. But in reality, if you start paying attention to your own life as it already is, if you're anything like me and many of the people I've spoken to, you'll start to notice you're actually having a lot more moments of playfulness, connection, and flow,

sometimes all together than you recognize. And once going to the theme of our conversation, once you start choosing to pay attention to those moments, you begin to appreciate them more. So for example, like I haven't gone anywhere during the course of this conversation. And if you've noticed, I'm not in Hawaii. I have not gotten on a plane. I'm just sitting in my living room, still sitting here, but I've had true fun, like in the true full sense of the word with you, because I've been connected with you in a playful sense that I've been totally in flow. And so if I make a point of noticing that, you know, I like to think at the end of the day, like what were my moments of playfulness and connection and flow? I can say, oh yeah, that hour when I talked to Sharon, like that was fun. And then

I start to catalog and you start to realize like like that was fun. And then I start to catalog and you start to realize like you have these moments. And to me, it's almost like gathering beads for a necklace or something. You just have these little moments that you then can look back at and savor and feel good about. And certainly some of those beads are going to be bigger than others, but there's a lot of them. So anyway, I just want to encourage people to try to do that yourself during the day and just notice what moments are already existing and then think of what other, what else you could do to generate more playfulness connection and flow for yourself and for other people and just see where that takes you. I love that too. I saw something on

that. I was like, that's such a great idea where when you have that kind of an experience, just jot it down and then put them all in a jar. And then on new year's Eve, you can dump out the jar and reread all of the moments of fun you had the entire year. Yeah. I think that's a great idea. You know, you could do it with delights too. Like any of those, just like a jar of, like, you know, actually was thinking, I was trying to think about things I could do personally to kind of boost my own spirits during the winter and also share, boost other people's spirits too. And I was thinking it'd be kind of fun to like send out like delight jars. Like I have type one diabetes, so I can't

really eat baked goods, but I like baking. So my husband and I baked fun stuff with our kid. And then we gave said baked things to friends with like a jar to put delights on. And somehow I have this vision of having like a chain delight jar where like, like we give it to someone, they add their own delights and they do something nice for someone else. And they give the delight collection to that person. And basically like it just grows and grows and grows. I thought that'd be really cool. I love that. I love that idea too. And you actually have a whole challenge coming up about that built around this idea of the power of fun built around this idea of how to have more fun. And so tell me more about this challenge that you have coming up, because I feel like a lot of

people could take a lot of things away from it. Well, I'm going to call it an invitation to the people. Don't think I don't challenge challenge. Sounds like a workout challenges right now. I'm an invitation. So let's sit to back up for a second. So my book, the power of fun, like the first half is a look at the science, like what fun is and kind of an exploration of why it's actually extremely good, if not essential for us. And then the second half is this step-by-step plan for how to actually go about having more of it. So that's how the book is structured, but I wanted to do something that would help people put these ideas into action, ideally in like a group format.

And so in February, I'm going to be running a giant funtervention, I'm calling it. And all people need to do to become involved is to sign up for my mailing list, which you can, it's howtohavefun.com. And I'm going to be inviting people to do some of the things that you and I've been talking about during our conversation. I'm going to be doing conversations with some other people in the space. I'm going to be offering like worksheet. Well, I shouldn't say worksheets because that sounds not fun either, but fun sheets.

Yeah. Like, but just like prompts and things that kind of help you get in the practice of like noticing delights or, you know, noticing playful connected flow. And we'll be doing it for the month of February. And I invite all your listeners to, to take part in it, to invite their friends and family. And I think the more of us we can get to do this, the better we'll feel and the better the world will be. So I'd love to have, I'd love to have people from your, uh, listeners. Yes. Yes. Well, yeah, I would love to, I would love to. And also people in the governor community really are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. So you will absolutely love having

interaction with them. They're just, yes. And if anyone's like inspired by this, wants to talk about like, how can we bring more fun into government or how can we use some of these ideas to, you know, bridge some of our divides. Skits. I do love that story. I love it. There needs to be mandatory congressional skits. I don't think that's a bad idea. I don't think it's a bad idea. Like you got it. Yeah. Like you're kind of going to roast or something like you just got to do it. You just got to get over yourselves and do something funny together. And I think it would make a big difference. I am not opposed to that idea at all. There we go. All right. Let's make it happen. Someone out there. I do have a lot of, um, people in my audience who work in Congress.

They're either a member of Congress or they are staff members of people of Congress. So this is your official invitation for forced congressional fund. But you know what? People hate Congress. You know what I mean? Like their approval rating is terrible. It's like 15% approval rating. It's horrible. So if there were skits, that could change.

Well, it's true. There's not that much further down to go. So why not try something totally new? What's the worst that could happen? It's 13% literally what's the worst that could happen. It can't get any worse. That is a question. My husband and I ask ourselves all the time when we're thinking about, should we try something? Cause I would also say another thing we're able to do is try something new and not worry if you look like an idiot because that you have to, right. And like, you have to embrace that potential that we're able to do is try something new and not worry if you look like an idiot because that you have to, right. And like, you have to embrace that potential that you're going to be bad at something.

Cause Hey, it's the only way that you'll ever get good is to start by being bad, but also who cares? You know, I've started performing with friends at open mics. I mean, not right in the second, but like, you know, when it was more feasible to do so not because I want to be a solo performer, I never want to do that. I don't like no desire, but just because it was fun and it was kind of like, Oh, this is a collaboration we can work on together. And we can, you know, I started taking drum lessons as a result of this book. And first of all, it's so fun. I love that. But like my drum teacher and I performed together and were we perfect? Well, no, we did, but we did

a version of like Weezer's the sweater song, you know, if you want to, right. And it was just fun. It's just silly and fun. And I just recommend everyone see if there's something you can do that gets you a little outside of your comfort zone or do something that you feel like, well, I'd get a kick out of that. Like, I think we should get a kick out of more things. I completely agree. And I also love the idea of just spending more time noticing delight. The word delight brings me delight. I just, I love the sound of that word. Like it just like ding, like a little bell in my brain. Totally. It's a little thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. I would love to see more people walking around Congress just with like a finger

in the air going to light. Oh my gosh. Okay. If anyone does that, who's listening, like take a picture and send it to one of us because that would be delightful. That would be delightful. And I would share it. Yes. Among the whales. Oh, if you find a whale in the halls of Congress, definitely. Absolutely. Tag me. Yes. I'm back breaching. That's right. That's right. Well, your book, Catherine is delightful. Oh, thank you. The power of fun. I a thousand percent believe in the power of fun. I believed in it before we started chatting. And now this gave me a lot of things to think about. This gave me the scientific reasoning behind why I crave having fun instead of just like working

myself up into a state of anger about things all the time. And that it's good for us. It's good for our health. It's good for our minds. It's good for the world. It's good for our communities. It's good for our families. It's not frivolous. Thank you. It's more frivolous, more frivolous to share the things that outrage you. Yeah. You know, I had nothing. I hadn't even thought about that in particular until this conversation. Like I hadn't really put that together for myself, but I love that. Right. Like what good is that doing for yourself or the world to just post negative things? No homeless people found a home. No vets got therapy for PTSD.

Like nothing, nothing positive occurred. No positive change occurred in the world. Cause you shared that on Facebook. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Oh yes. Well, everybody needs to go read The Power of Fun and they should sign up for your funtervention on howtohavefun.com. Yes. Thank you. I hope that people do. Yes. Catherine, this was delightful. I could not agree more. Thank you so much for having me. Yes. Yes. Thank you so much

for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. This podcast was written and researched by Sharon McMahon and Heather Jackson. It was produced by Heather Jackson, edited and mixed by our audio producer, Jenny Snyder, and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. I'll see you next time.