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The Power of Play: How a Playful State Rewires Your Brain for Better Leadership
Introduction
What if I told you that allowing a state of play would help reset and re-energize, reinvigorate your brain? We use our brains for a lot of things in the leadership realm, and they need to be operating at tip top performance. They need to get out of the fight or flight mode and give themselves the ability to restore and rejuvenate. We have an amazing organ up there in our heads that can do that. If we set the stage for it properly, and it has been determined that having a playful state might just be the answer for that best reset and rejuvenation that you need. My guest is a gentleman who specializes in this area. His name is Zander Phelps. Zander, welcome to the show, man.
Thank you. Doug. Stoked to be here.
Meet the Guest: How Play Became the Great Connector
I was asking you in the green room. How did you kind of get into this place of, you know, play for business leaders and share with everybody what you told me?
Well, it kind of happened by accident.
I was basically in a really stressful job and got burnt out quickly, and then ended up selling all my things and traveling the world for, for ten years with a backpack. But right before leaving somebody, one of my friends gave me his foot back, and that allowed me to play with people all over the world. And so play became the great connector. So it was only till later on that I started like doing the neuroscience behind what play does for us. That started becoming something. Oh yeah, we need to know more about this to help people from burnout and stress and things that that people get overwhelmed easily and then start realizing that play is actually the amazing solution for that, because your brain immediately recognized it. Is it safe? When you’re playful mode, you’re not being chased by a tiger. You’re not. And since we’re so bombarded by stress all the time, It’s a key component.
The Brain Chemistry of Play
I love it, and we were talking about the actual chemical and metabolic effect that that play experience has on the brain. So elaborate on that.
Well, once your body gets out of this stressful, stressful day, I immediately recognize that it’s not in that safe. Cortisol levels immediately plummet. And that’s that’s your stress hormone. So by getting those under control, your body starts thriving. At that point it starts to be able to repair. But you also get the the oxytocin serotonin neuropeptide and you get the beautiful brain chemicals going on and those released into the body. So they almost become like, you know, dopamine as well, but it becomes like, almost like a neurological hit of a, of the feel good drugs. So that’s what we’re you know, that’s why play is so addictive. That’s why we find so much enjoyment in it. So it’s just a way of tapping into that in a, in a really reliable way. And that’s what we’re trying to connect with and being able to do it. What I call the called. I called the play flow state because it’s something you could actually jump into really quickly just by triggering that, that those feelings.
What Recess Taught Us: Play in School and at Work
So give us some examples of the kind of play when we talk about that. I mean, when I first read your material, I immediately went to sort of the playground at school. You know, we took breaks during the day and it made me think, did our educators know something we didn’t know at the time? You know, was it a good thing to have that recess break in the middle of a otherwise intense day, sitting at your desk in third grade, you know? And was there something to that that really helped?
Absolutely. And it’s sad or it’s almost scary to see how it’s being taken away from the kids nowadays. The recess break has been cut down shorter so they can put in more, more time to study and stuff like that. And without those breaks, your brain does not have a chance to reset. And that’s the problem. Your brain starts shutting down, and so you cannot come up with creativity and you can’t really learn unless that brain has the recuperation time. So whether they actually knew it or not, I think it was more like, you know, children naturally want to run around and sew and play.
So if you kind of suppress that too much, then you get children who are anxious and and get all these, you know, other, other conditions that are problematic. So I, I’m not sure how much that was actually realized, how important it was or if it was something like a necessity because you don’t have anxious kids in the class. But nowadays, rather than increasing playtime or suppressing it and dealing drugs to kids for for their natural anxiety about being sitting down for so long. So it’s kind of one of those things that we’ve got to really recognize the importance of it and bring it back into our school life, but also our work life. And that’s also a key component to keeping an adult healthy brain is incorporate play into your workday. Even five minutes will change your day completely if you do it five minutes every hour. Just find little ways to play. It makes a huge difference.
Practical Play Tools for Stressed-Out Executives
Yeah, I think about the infamous settings out in Silicon Valley. You know, the foosball tables and the little basketball hoops in the break room and things of that sort to give that that break. But but let’s talk about some of the solutions that you had. Kate, are there any specific recommendations that are sort of your go to remedies for this?
Well, it’s it’s important to recognize that I’m, I’m when I’m trying to work with people who are in a work setting. We don’t I mean, I love I love that a lot of companies are focusing on that, creating those systems that where people are playing in the traditional sense so that they have that team camaraderie as well as they they’re excited to go to work because they’re going with their friends and playing a little bit. But as far as like executives are, people who are in stressful situations they can’t seem like they’re playing will also be not Got serious. So I tried to do is incorporate little. Little tools into people’s lives. They can pull it instantly. One of the things I really recommend. Is it’s this thing called horse lips where you, you see people do a lot like, like I was watching the World Cup and you see how people do that a lot.
They’re like, but that naturally does is it resets your vagus nerve, it stimulates your vagus nerve. So what I train people to do is do that in when they’re lying in bed, like almost first thing in the morning is before you even get up, let’s just do a round of that where you go. So it sets a muscle memory that you’re safe. You’re in a situation where you’re in bed when you’re lying down. So your brain associates that with that movement. So not only does it affect your vagus nerve, but it automatically calms your brain down. It is a way of play as well. So when you’re in a stressful situation, you just look to the side and go, oh my gosh, what am I going to do about this? And all of a sudden you get that tingling sensation and your brain goes, it gives it a moment to relax. And then usually you can find it with a it looks like. Solutions come to you when your brain can relax. That’s the key point.
If it’s under stress, it can’t figure things out. It’s dealing with that stress and trying to trying to focus on that. Once you disrupt that, it almost immediately gives your brain time to figure out workarounds to solutions that you weren’t aware of. So that’s just one way. There’s little gadgets that you can hold as well. Squeezing a little ball thing that I call these little taquitos. But I also give people these where they could just squeeze it. This this tactile sense immediately stimulates your brain. You can rub it between your hands. This gets your left and right brain hemispheres going, gets that corpus callosum activated. And then that alone will trigger your brain to relax and just focus on this. So these are little simple solutions. But there’s there’s you got to have a bunch of toolkits depending on where you’re at.
Fidget Spinners, Stress Balls, and the Occupied Brain
So I think about the phenomenon of a couple of years ago, the fidget spinners that everybody started grabbing on to. And I don’t hear as much about those now as we did for a while there. But I’ve got I’ve got one around here on my. Desk somewhere, I know. Yeah. you know, it is interesting, now that we’re talking about this, I can think of some leaders I’ve worked with that they have that that like that ball that you were showing that, you know, and they would sort of constantly massaging it and you’d be in a meeting with them and they’d be sitting here at their desk kind of rubbing that and doing things. And for some I guess it might have been a distraction. But, you know, I guess for the leader that was doing it, it was it was doing all the right stuff. Right.
Well, yeah, it does, it does keep your, your brain occupied part of it preoccupied on this. So you can you’re when you’re focusing having this tactile sense going, it kind of prevents your brain from going into that, that, that locked in state. So that’s a it’s a it’s a simple thing to do. But if you have these with you all the time, it’s really amazing.
But this this one’s the ultimate play tool. This this is also reminds you that you can play. That’s the That’s so you can throw it at each other. You can slap them around. But this is my this is my tool just to just to get people to play.
A Team-Building Story: The Koosh Ball Chain
I’m thinking of a team level workshop I did one time. And there’s a lot of gimmicks and gadgets that people have used for team building, teamwork and all that. And, the one that was kind of a go to for me. I had gone to the, you know, the dollar store and bought a bag of cous balls. Yeah. And we started a chain. We had everybody on the team get in a big circle. And the challenge was one guy was the start. Call him number one. He was to take the ball and throw it across the circle to somebody there. Number two and two was to find the number three and throw it to them. And then we we kept doing that until everybody had a touch on the ball.
And you get them Rhythm. Get the pattern established with the one ball, and then you introduce a second ball. You know. Give it a second ball to the first guy. After he throws his first one he throws his second one. Same pattern. You don’t disrupt the pattern. You you follow the same pattern of, you know, 1 to 2 to 2 to 3, to three, to four, etc., until you’re done. and it’s pretty interesting. Even non-athletic people kind of get the rhythm going and, and they all what I’ve observed when I do this is the first couple of rounds, especially with the 2 or 3, maybe the third or fourth ball. It gets really confusing and people are dropping it, but you keep trying to get the rhythm and it’s I can almost imagine the brain sort of locking in, going, okay, I know what I gotta do now.
Yeah. And if you encourage sort of the rhythm of it, it’s almost like everybody’s thrown at the same. And they figure out they have. To throw it. Throw different heights. So they can get clearance of the crossfire that’s coming in there. And. Right. It’s a really interesting tool when we get it done. And then usually what I do when that’s over, I’ll, I’ll let them keep the balls, you know, as, as a memento and a reminder of what they were able to do as a team when everything got in sync and got harmonized and, you know, was really operating. And like I said, even people with minimal eye hand-eye coordination ability could, could figure it out. It was a simple enough, simple enough to ask that. You know. You might have been terrible at the start, but you got good near the end.
It’s simple, yet profound. That’s that’s the best. That’s the best combination because it’s, you know, you got to be able you got to be able to get things that people can grasp on to easily. But then again, getting that brain to relax into something that’s playful. It’s all of a sudden it changes up everything. And you’re creating. You’re creating a team camaraderie there of everyone’s working together. So it’s a that’s a beautiful game all together, all around. So love it.
Redefining Play for the Workplace
So how do you typically when when you might get invited to come into a company and talk to the leadership team. Well what do you usually start with or how do you how do you initially engage?
Well, I initially talk about the what what play is like like redefine play for the work setting because it’s not something it’s not play is not the antithesis to work. Play is the foundation of it. Like having having a correct optimizing so people do not have burnout. Creating a system where people feel they get the team camaraderie going, and by the importance of getting that, that brain to give that chance to relax creates opportunities for creativity. So people so it’s laying the foundation of what play means and changing the definition to encompass what it is for the work environment, because that’s one of the obstacles you have with people as people are like we associate play with goofing off with not being, you know, productive with, with, with just, you know, there’s so many negative associations with it.
We’re now starting to turn the page on it, because now we’re actually getting the neuroscience behind what it does for us. So that’s that’s a helpful tool as far as getting people to recognize okay, let’s let’s start incorporating this more and see the return. Because humans are not created to do mechanical. We’re not like machines. And we’re a lot of a lot of since the Industrial Revolution, humans have been put into that place of trying to do mechanical things. When that’s not our best state, our best state is being in creative mode. It’s something that the humans are excel at. So by inducing some of these, these playthings into the workforce, you start creating an environment that shifts everything. It creates. It creates that that that feeling that you’re safe, that you can can be creative, you can work better because you have the times for the breaks and you look forward to those times. And so it helps create a whole environment of of yay, I can I can come to work and still have a good time.
So it’s really important to talk to the leaders about that, get them on the same page of what it is to create that environment and the importance of that.
The Vision Board Story: Culture That Connects to Purpose
You know, I’m this may be a severe tangent to all this, but I’m thinking about an owner of a business that I know who encourages his team to come together quarterly and encourage. Maybe he’s the wrong word, but he’ll he hosts like a social gathering and, you know, it’ll be a cookout or barbecue or something. But during the time he has every member of his team work on updating or creating a vision board, a personal vision board, you know, self, family, you know, whatever unrelated to the work. And this is a plumbing company, by the way. So imagine an army of plumbers sitting around a craft table building these vision boards. But he uses it. It when they’re done, they they put all the boards on display around the company headquarters. You know, when you walk through the hallways, they’re peppered with these vision boards.
And this is a good sized plumbing company. Last time I talked to him, he was hosting sponsoring about 40 trucks. So, I mean, it’s okay. It’s a good operation. And but the but the value of it is that he encourages people to really be intentional about the life they want to lead. And oh, by the way, you can fulfill a lot of those dreams, goals and visions by working for me. Because we have incentive programs, we have bonus opportunities. We have a lot of things that are tied to the service culture we want to create. And all of those incentive things are tied to the high grade culture. And we’re talking residential plumbing. This is not commercial or construction type plumbing. But, you know, truck pulls up, you got a leaky toilet and the plumber comes in and takes care of it. It’s that kind of operation. And when I first met him, he was telling me the story about these vision boards, and he said he had a new guy come to work for him.
That was a master plumber. But he had worked for a couple of other companies and was kind of burned out and came to work there. And right soon after the guy joined, they were doing this social and they told him to create a vision board. He had no idea what that was and never heard of it. And they sat down with him and explained it. And the only thing he could come up with, He wanted to earn enough money to buy two bicycles for his daughters. Oh. And that was his vision of what he needed to do on the near horizon. And the owner told me, he said, man, when I saw that on his board, I thought, oh, dude, you’re going to be so happy working here. Because. Because the incentive programs that they were kind of yet to unveil to him, because he was new, we’re going to accomplish that in like no time. You know. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. And sure enough, the guy had been working less than a month and he hit one of the incentive drawings or game things that they do, and, had the money to go buy the bike.
So, you know, he, he was like, all in. I mean, it was like I. Provided for my girls. And, man, you know, this is a great place to be. And I’m, I’m such a happy camper, you know. And so it’s so interesting. And my point in saying all that is, you know, that wouldn’t have come around. Well, it would have eventually come around in a classic job setting saying, here’s your truck, here’s your job tickets. You know, here’s your quota. Hit the quota, you’ll get a bonus. Boom. You know, we’re done. And but tying it to that personal value of wanting to really be a good dad to his daughters, you know, that that just cemented everything.
It creates that why that people that’s tangible for people, that’s that’s. And then creating that culture in in the business is, is huge because you have people who are, who want to stay in that type of environment because they recognize that people that you have the leadership that’s encouraging, that that’s that’s a it makes it personal versus just being another number.
Another thing. Oh yeah. If you have a if you have a standard system of like, oh, you get this much bonus if you do this much work, but there’s no there’s no connection with it. People will go through and it’s again a mechanical thing and okay, I’ll just do this to get that, that reward. But if by creating those things where you have people think about what they want and creating those vision boards is extraordinarily powerful, it’s a very powerful tool. But when you create that culture and you have everybody, everybody looking at coming into the place and seeing other people’s vision boards and encouraging them and and seeing that they want that. So you have other people visualizing that for them. You’re creating such a magical culture of people. I mean, that’s how powerful our brain is. You know what I mean?
Well, it struck me. I’m connecting the dots here on what you’re telling us and what this guy’s doing there. It it struck me that even in a very momentary way, when a, when a guy comes in from the field, maybe he’s had a really crummy day. he walks down that hall and then kind of immediately looks at the. And and believe me, these boards are no work of art at all. I mean, they’re they’re just kind of, you. Know, there. But but the message is clear and, and just sort of casually walking through that checking and, and refreshing and reminding themselves on what they know about a colleague, a friend, a, you know, a coworker. I got to believe that some of that brain science is kicking in, and they’re getting a different wash of comfort and security that they they didn’t have when they got off their got out of their truck in the parking lot.
Yeah, 100%. You know, it’s it gives your brain it’s walking into a home that you’ve helped create, if you will. You know what I mean. Like it. So it gives you that that brain, that sense of comfort. It gives that sense of like, okay, I’m safe again. This is, you know, that’s that’s what I believe I can imagine, you know, just looking at the. How. How? Walking into someplace like that would just make you feel like. Okay, this isn’t just a sterile environment. This is something that people do care about each other, and people are connecting that way. That gives your brain a sense of relaxation.
Juggling: The Ultimate Brain Exercise
Yeah. I want to take a little bit of a shift here. Zander, I noticed on your website you also talk about juggling. And let’s tell us what that’s about.
Juggling is my my primary skill or thing that I recommend to every human. I mean, literally, it’s like the I call it the ultimate brain exercise. But what you’re doing when you’re learning juggling is, is teaching your brain that it’s okay to make mistakes. First of all, you know what I mean? So you’re learning how to how to deal with that. But by the time every step of juggling, because when I teach people, I teach three steps versus like just jumping in or trying to do a two ball, which is what most people strike. I say, do you one ball tricks that you can do to establish a foundation of neurological connections that start coordinate the left or right hemispheres? But juggling is so extraordinary for your brain, it’s really hard to put into words that one simple thing that you can do between going between your left or right hemispheres, you’re catching with your hands, which are your gateway to your brain, the amount of neuron connections that come to your hands as far as the movement, the tactile senses, stimulates your brain in such a profound way, and you’re going in a pattern that the brain loves between those two hemispheres, or the corpus callosum is just shooting these neuron connections that are holistic brain pulses.
So they just they’re literally shimmering through your brain, this electrical currents. So when you’re doing it. It. It puts your brain in exactly in that, in that, that state what I call that, that play flow state almost immediately. And so your brain knows it’s safe. It’s know it knows it’s okay. And so juggling is something I could do anywhere. I do it walking on the street. I do it while standing in lines. Everywhere I go. I try to do it just to. Not only does it give me that sense of peace, but I’m hopefully stimulating other people to remember that it’s everything’s okay, because even looking at juggling is actually good for your brain. When you’re when you’re seeing those balls criss cross, your brain is doing some, some mathematical injections and, and and getting a state of. Okay, cool. So that’s that’s one like it is the simplest way to exercise yet stay fun. And you can always learn a new trick. So you’re constantly challenging your brain and getting those rewards when you achieve those goals.
So if you’re learning the first the cascade and then you do a reverse cascade and it takes you, let’s say, a week to learn how to do that. You go through that week struggling, but then you get that reward almost immediately and you get that the brain going. I can learn something hard and continue to grow with it. So it’s it’s, you know, people always ask me, well, how many balls can you do almost immediately if I’m a juggler? Well, how many balls can you do? It’s not really about how many balls you can do, it’s how many different tricks you can do that shows. That shows a determination just just to coordinate your brain in different ways. But I mean, I, I it’s hard for me again to emphasize how amazing it is for you to do so. I’m like, everyone should learn how to juggle. Just even the challenge of learning is set you, set you apart as far as being able to push yourself to do something that’s a little bit out of your comfort zone.
But again, the rewards, the ROI on it is off the charts. I mean, it’s just it’s just incredible. The amount of amount of things, the amount of things you can do to exercise your brain and how much time they take to do juggling is is incomparable. The time it takes to learn how to juggle versus the reward. What what actually does for you.
Coaching Someone to Juggle: A Leadership Parallel
That’s fascinating. When I when I read that on your website, I was immediately reminded of an experience I had. I signed up for and participated in the John Maxwell Coaching workshop that he conducts every year. And we were I don’t it’s not important day one, day two, whatever. But anyway, we were generally teamed up on a table of eight. You know, there was these large round conference tables kind of thing. And one of the assignments, they said, all right, all y’all are coaches. We have a new challenge for you. We want you to coach a teammate how to juggle. And we’re all kind of. With what you know. It’s kind of. Like coach. Juggling. Okay. I don’t know how to juggle. How am I going to coach it? Well, that’s the whole. Point of of coaching. There’s a lot of situations we get introduced to. We don’t know anything about the work. We don’t know anything about the technical side or the legal side or any of that. But you’re there as a coach to try to elevate the candidate you’re talking to. So, you know, we we went out at it and lo and behold, the guy I paired off with, he knew how to juggle.
Oh nice.
But to your point, he didn’t really know any tricks. He had a three ball rotation. I don’t even know the terminology for it, but he could take the three ball and that’s all they gave us was three and he could get them going, you know. And he had them in a rhythm and blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. But he his altitude was a pretty low range, you know. So what I got inspired to do, I’m thinking literally, you know, as a coach, we’re trying to elevate people’s performance. I said to him, I said, have you ever tried pacing this a little further apart, get more altitude on your toss? And he kind of went, no. And, you know, I said, well, you know, why don’t. Why don’t you see if you can extend it by about like six inches. Let’s let’s just try that. So he, you know, he, he broke his rhythm and was trying to get a little more altitude. And of course it messed everything up. But he kept practicing, and in the short little time of our exercise there, he got to where he was. He was throwing him about three feet in the air, you know, and had this pretty long extended toss. But it it certainly affected the rhythm of everything. But he made the adjustment and had it going on. And then at that point I asked him, can you reverse direction? And, you know, it all. Fell. Apart again, you know, but. It’s just that’s my correlation to your juggling story. And I, I have been in and out of juggling, I guess is what I’ll say as a kid. I figured it out. I, I used to play tennis and I would juggle the tennis balls and that worked just great. But then I. Think I started trying to juggle golf balls when I was out on the golf course, and that didn’t work too well. So. Gotcha.
Well, actually, it’s funny because tennis pros are now recommending all their clients do. Juggling just for. Just for the hand-eye coordination. For the peripheral vision. Dust and things like that. But one of the things when I teach people juggling, I say I wouldn’t. I don’t recommend tennis balls because they bounce all over the place. Once they hit in the air, they bounce. And so that’s the thing I’m like, so but you can actually make really nice juggling balls out of rice, plastic bags and balloons that you clip and wrap around it. They’re really easy to make. So I teach people to make those things first. But, you know, and there are steps that you do with one ball to get your because there is like an optimal height for the toss, which is just above your forehead. So you learn through the steps to do that. So, you know, it’s one of those things you gotta you gotta you learn the steps, you learn the ball height. And then and then you start with the one trick, and then you keep on going through the tricks. So it’s just a matter of like, okay, once you learn one trick, you get that down that that’s usually that’s usually I’m like, okay, that’s good enough. If you learn that one trick, that’s great. If you’re because then because as soon as you do that, your brain does relax. But if juggling inspires you, if it’s something like, oh my gosh, I really enjoyed this, then you could start learning all the different tricks. And then there’s a then you just then you open up a playbook that’s that’s just incredible.
I mean, like, I’m still learning. I’m constantly trying to learn a new trick, but it’s just, you know, and every time I go through the frustration process and then, okay, I can get it. And so it’s it’s it’s extraordinary.
What Clients Say: Play as a Game Changer
Well, let me ask you this, Zanders, for clients that you’ve worked with, what what’s their report back to you after they’ve adopted some of these practices? What what kind of feedback do you get?
It’s a game changer. It really is because you get you get. Most of my clients are in a state of perpetual stress. They’re constantly trying to put more on their plate to try and new practices that they’re trying to do, or other ways to try to achieve a calm. But the simple solution of just incorporating a little bit of play into whatever you’re doing it doesn’t create any extra time or things that need to focus on it just gives them an excuse to do something goofy. But they find themselves. Once you start training your brain to start adding play into your world, everything can become playful.
You know what I mean? Like if I’m doing the dishes or something like that, I do a little dance or when I vacuuming, you know, same thing. I sing a little jiggy or something like that. But by training your brain, that’s okay to play. Then it finds a way to do that through everything. So so it immediately you recognize the benefits almost immediately. And then you then you incorporate that into your daily life. And then your brain says, you know what, I like this. How do we do more of this? How do we create more opportunities to play? How do we create more opportunities just to just to smile every day? This creates an ether or an energy in the company that changes everything because then people feel safer around you. People are able to open up to you more because you’re not. You’re not so stressed. You’re not ready to attack somebody. So it changes the dynamics of a company dramatically if you just if that’s why, that’s what’s kind of cool to affect the people who are at the top, the people in the most stress get them to change a little bit, give them the thing, and that disseminates through everything.
So it is it is. It’s a game changer.
Closing Thoughts and Where to Find Zander
I love it. Well, Andrew, this has been great, man. Tell people the best way to get in touch with you if they want to know more.
Zplaycoach.Com that’s the website I’m constantly working on. Working on trying to update things or got a new book coming out next month, which is like the journey that I did. The it’s called The Path of Play, but it talks about the journey I did with the backpacking and how play became the the overall, the thing to connect. Everybody knew where I was. People respect play and they understand it. So that’s a that’s a little more of that. It’s also a play journal. But you know, that’s the best way to connect with me is on the website and see what’s going on. But there’s also a bunch of free things on there. Another thing I recommend is origami for brain development. So there’s a bunch of origami stuff on there as well. With with dollar bills is what I focus on because they’re they’re really easy to have with you all the time.
And you can you can, you know, make good animals out of it. But there’s juggling courses on there that’s for free. The how to make the juggling balls is on there as well. It shows all the all the steps to do that. And just a bunch of little fun resources and tools to help you just unlock your play flow state.
That’s great. Well, well. As always, folks will have that link on our in our show notes and check out Zander’s stuff. It it is a fun website, I’ll say that. Just, you. Know, spoiler alert. Good stuff to look at. But Zander, one last time, thank you, man, for sitting in. Love what you’re doing. Keep it up. We all we all need a little more joy in our life.
Thank you. It was great to be here, Doug. And great to connect with you. And. Yeah, just bring on the play. Let’s do it.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Well, folks, that’s about it for today. This is the part of the show. I do like to remind you, we have a video version over on YouTube channel by the same name, leadership powered by common Sense. Hop over there, check out our archives, leave us some comments feedback? Join the channel if you will. We will have shorts from this episode published there as well. So jump in and join our community and let us know if you’ve got an idea for a guest or a topic we haven’t covered yet. We’d love to hear from you. And if you need to get a hold of me, just go over to my website, Doug thorpe.com, and I do have some resources there for you to enjoy and would love to hear from you, but for now we’re going to sign off, say goodbye, go out there and make it a great day.
Meet Our Guest
Zander Phelps is the founder of zPlayCoach and creator of the PlayFlowState, a movement-based approach to reducing stress, boosting brain function, and restoring joy through play. After experiencing burnout in high-pressure creative work, he spent a decade traveling the world discovering how juggling, movement, and playful connection transform mental wellbeing. Featured in USA Today and Science Times, Zander now helps individuals and organizations reconnect with creativity, resilience, and human connection through the neuroscience of play.
Zander’s work lives at the intersection of play, brain health, creativity, wellness, and human connection. Through his “Path of Play” philosophy and decades of experience helping individuals and organizations rediscover joy and presence, he brings a perspective that feels both refreshing and deeply needed right now.
What I especially appreciate about Zander is that he doesn’t just talk about well being intellectually. He embodies it through experiential practices that help people reduce stress, reconnect to creativity, and optimize how they think, lead, and live. His work around PlayFlowState, movement, mindfulness, and playful learning creates conversations that are both energizing and surprisingly profound.
zplaycoach.com, zplaycoach on Instagram, tiktok, and YouTube.
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