Piera Gelardi

Summary

Design Matters with Debbie Millman – Episode Summary

Guest: Piera Gelardi

Date: June 29, 2026
Main Theme:
The transformative power of playfulness in adulthood, creative careers, overcoming perfectionism, and building vibrant, resilient lives and organizations.

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Episode Overview

Debbie Millman welcomes Piera Gelardi—entrepreneur, author, and co-founder of Refinery29—for a lively, heartfelt conversation. The episode explores Piera's creative upbringing in Maine, her journey building Refinery29, her struggles and lessons learned regarding perfectionism and burnout, and the essential role of play and joy in adulthood. Piera’s new book, The Playful Way, and her new venture, Numa Luma, serve as the foundation for discussing how playfulness can fuel innovation, connection, well-being, and personal growth.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Playful Beginnings and Family Influence

• Creative Household: Piera grew up in Maine, where imagination was woven into daily life; dinner conversations became brainstorming sessions.

• Naming and Wordplay: Her father excelled at playful naming, including "Kidioki" for a kids’ karaoke club—pun games ran in the family.

  “Now my daughter and I also do these kind of brainstorms… she was brainstorming an idea for a haunted house called Haunt You for Years.” —Piera (05:07)

• Blend of Work and Play: Her father, an engineer and entrepreneur, demonstrated the value of merging curiosity, creativity, and experimentation into all aspects of life.

  “That blend of work and play is really vital and really alive…” —Piera (05:57)

• Dialectic Mindset: Her mother instilled wonder, empathy, and the capacity to hold complexity—being both playful and nurturing through life’s challenges.

  “She could hold two truths that felt dialectically opposed… she really used wonder and playfulness to move through the world and continue to grow.” —Piera (06:47)

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2. Early Encounters with Creative Expression

• Beachcombing as Meditation: Childhood beachcombing taught her to seek beauty and wonder where others might not notice.

• Formative Media: Sassy Magazine (a gift at age 13) provided visibility, validation, and inspired her ambition to move to New York.

  “It really gave me this window into New York, into this group of women who were making content that was real, raw and relatable…” —Piera (14:34)

• Exposure to Arts: Summers at camp, NYU art education, and creative pursuits (writing, performing, visual art) clarified that meaning-making and magic drove her choices more than any singular career plan.

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3. Navigating Early Career and Perfectionism

• Magazine Work: At City Magazine, a small, collaborative staff let her explore all facets of publishing—from editorial to advertising.

• Creative Culture: Brainstorms encouraged wild ideas, laughter, and psychological safety—a model she carried into future team leadership.

  “Laughter is such a conduit to creativity… moment of openness and of the subconscious connecting ideas…” —Piera (21:46)

• Formative ‘Failure’: An ambitious magazine prototype “Team Radio, Let's Get Awesome” with friends never got published due to lack of funding. This taught her to start small, iterate, and share work before it’s “perfect.”

  “If we had done it in a different way… built an audience… it was a really good lesson…” —Piera (27:38)

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4. Building Refinery29 – From Grit to Growth

[33:12–38:31]

• Origin: Founded in 2005 to give visibility to emerging designers, started with a $5,000 investment and a passionate team.

• Evolution: Launched as a map-based site, quickly shifted to daily content based on audience feedback and behavioral data.

  “Day one was great… Day two, day three, and there was not really a big reason for people to come back.” —Piera (33:54)

• Culture: Everyone did every job; “no job is too low” was foundational.

• Expansion: Became a multi-topic destination—adding beauty, money, health, identity, sex, and culture, always using small, test-and-learn content experiments.

  “It all came from having a curious, experimental mindset and putting an idea out there, seeing what came from it…” —Piera (36:43)

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5. Pressure, Burnout, & the Rediscovery of Play

[38:31–45:14]

• Success and Strain: As Refinery29 scaled, Piera felt increasing pressure to "conform" to corporate norms.

• Crisis: Attempting to hide her natural playfulness and curiosity prompted burnout and self-doubt, despite the company’s external success.

  “I found myself laying on my apartment floor crying about what a failure I was, in a moment when the outside world thought that I was an overnight success.” —Piera (41:20)

• Coaching and Recovery: A coach encouraged her to lean into, rather than hide, her playful qualities—using practices like the “shake break” to regulate nerves, and “flash expression” to process feelings.

  “Creative expression is really helpful for me in those moments…” —Piera (44:08)

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6. The Creation of 29 Rooms

[45:14–49:40]

• Conception: A brainstorm for Refinery29’s 10th anniversary led to the ambitious, immersive “29 Rooms” experience.

• Resistance & Persistence: Initial executive pushback (“maybe we should just have a cocktail party”) was overcome by curiosity, asking questions, and co-creating solutions.

  “Knowing what the actual concerns were, we were able to go back and actually make the idea stronger and more robust and better.” —Piera (47:11)

• Result: 29 Rooms became a defining, wildly popular brand experience, cementing Piera’s belief in playful, collaborative problem-solving—even under pressure.

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7. Life After Sale—Letting Go and Redirection

[49:40–52:37]

• Selling Refinery29 to Vice: Bittersweet and clarifying—Piera acknowledged both readiness for change and the challenges of departing a company so intertwined with her identity.

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8. Radical Playfulness – Message in a Bottle

[52:37–57:14]

• Book Inspiration: After leaving Refinery29, Piera struggled with doubts about championing play in adulthood. On a walk in Cologne, she asked the universe for a sign and found—literally—a message in a bottle from a 7-year-old extolling the joys of play.

  “All of a sudden I heard this clinking sound and I looked down at my feet and there was a message in a bottle.” —Piera (00:01 / 53:04)

• Bringing Play to Adults: The experience renewed her commitment to making playfulness central in her next chapter—leading to her new book and startup.

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9. The Cultural Problem with Play

[57:14–62:44]

• Why Play is Dismissed: Societal and internalized messages (“anti-play posse”) teach us to devalue playfulness in favor of productivity, conformity, and coolness.

  “We hear it in the voices that tell us to strive for perfection… those are shrinking forces…” —Piera (59:41)

• Playfulness v. Seriousness: Playful energy allows for humor, improvisation, open-ended problem solving, and resilience—not the opposite of seriousness, but an essential companion to it.

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10. Frameworks for Adult Play

[64:07–66:49]

• The Eight Powers of Play: Humor, imagination, exploration, creativity, movement, noticing, game-making, curiosity.

  “Playfulness is a practice. It’s a muscle you can develop if you want to…” —Piera (65:26)

• Reframing Play: There’s no single “type” of playfulness—adults can identify with and develop different “powers” to fit their temperament and life.

• Practical Tips: Example—Piera turned the stress of a car alarm into a ritual “car alarm dance,” reframing disruption into playfulness and sharing joy with others.

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11. Building Numa Luma: Play as Daily Wellness

[66:49–70:58]

• Numa Luma: Piera’s new company, named for “pneuma” (life force) and a playful rhyme, aims to make playful creativity part of daily well-being.
• Product Vision: The app delivers quick, low-stakes creative practices—“the antidote to brain rot”—to encourage creative connection in micro-moments, not just designated “creative time.”

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12. Wonder Wandering and Lasting Practices

[71:08–72:11]

• Wonder Wanderer: Piera celebrates small-scale, everyday play as “wonder wandering”—practicing childlike attention and curiosity, seeking delight in daily walks, and looking for magic everywhere.

  “Wonder wandering for me is just having those childlike open eyes where I believe anything is possible…” —Piera (71:33)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the creative household:
  “A casual thought like, what if we started a kid’s karaoke club? Would become an hour of naming, strategy, and possibility.” (Debbie, 04:24)

• On the trap of perfection:
  “Perfectionism … it removes the vitality, you know, it's like that pure expression, you know, it's sort of like how often our first thought is our best thought.” (Piera, 29:41)

• On the power of humor in creativity:
  “Laughter is such a conduit to creativity because of that moment of openness and of the subconscious connecting ideas behind the scenes.” (Piera, 21:46)

• On personal burnout at the peak of acclaim:
  “I was laying on my apartment floor crying about what a failure I was, in a moment when the outside world thought that I was an overnight success.” (Piera, 41:20)

• On the car alarm dance:
  “I started doing a car alarm dance every time the car alarm went off. And I had this little dance that goes with the car alarm… then they all start laughing.” (Piera, 61:04)

• On wonder wandering:
  “I have a practice of wonder wandering… having those childlike open eyes where I believe that anything is possible.” (Piera, 71:33)

• On finding the message in a bottle:
  “I heard this clinking sound and I looked down at my feet and there was a message in a bottle.” (Piera, 00:01 / 53:04)

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Important Timestamps

• [05:44–07:21] Upbringing and influences of Piera’s parents
• [14:00–15:29] Impact of Sassy Magazine on young Piera
• [19:55–21:19] Lessons from early magazine work and creative environments
• [24:51–28:59] Learning from an unfulfilled magazine project (“failure”)
• [33:29–38:31] Starting Refinery29 and responding to audience feedback
• [41:20–43:16] Burnout, coaching, and the rediscovery of play
• [45:14–49:40] Creation and impact of 29 Rooms
• [52:37–55:43] The “message in a bottle” as a catalyst for new creative direction
• [57:14–61:06] Societal resistance to play and reframing challenges playfully
• [64:11–65:33] The Eight Powers of Play: framework and its value
• [66:59–67:57] Naming Numa Luma and its meaning
• [71:08–72:11] The daily practice of “wonder wandering”

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Conclusion

This episode is a rich, inspiring exploration into the interplay of playfulness and seriousness in creative and professional life. Through vulnerable storytelling, memorable anecdotes, and actionable frameworks, Piera Gelardi highlights why and how adults can re-integrate play into their daily existence—for innovation, resilience, leadership, and joy.

“To me, being playful is being curiously, creatively, courageously engaged with life.”
—Piera Gelardi (62:28)

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Further information:

• Learn more at pieragilardi.com and numaluma.com
• Read Piera’s book: The Playful Way: Creativity, Connection and Joy Through Everyday Moments of Play

Transcript

[Piera Gilardi]

All of a sudden I heard this clinking sound and I looked down at my feet and there was a message in a bottle

[Debbie Millman]

from the TED Audio Collective. This is Design Matters with Debbie Millman. On Design Matters, Debbie talks with some of the most creative people in the world about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they're thinking about and working on. On this episode, a conversation with Pierre Agilardi Important role of Playfulness in our

[Piera Gilardi]

Lives Playfulness is a practice. It's a muscle that you can develop if you want to.

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[Debbie Millman]

this episode is sponsored by Kohler Smart Toilets. The objects we interact with most are often the ones we notice least. The Kohler Smart Toilet challenges that assumption. What if the most overlooked space in your home could become the most considered? Their Vail Smart Toilet is a sculptural silhouette that isn't just intentional, it's a philosophy that design changes everything. The Kohler Vail Smart Toilet is sleek, with a rounded shape that's more like architecture than just plumbing. And it goes beyond looks. The touchscreen controls and customizable cleansing features offer a level of comfort and cleanliness that exceed expectations. It's all about elevating those ordinary daily rituals into something extraordinary through thoughtful design. Kohler has been pushing these boundaries for over 150 years, mastering that balance of stunning form and high performance function That's a long time to get it right, and it shows in Every detail. Experience the difference of Kohler Smart Toilets. Find out [e-mail] Piera Gilardi is a creative entrepreneur, a writer, a New York Times best selling author, and the co founder of Refinery29, the groundbreaking media company that helped redefine how an entire generation of online readers engaged with style, culture, money, identity and power. Raised on the coast of Maine, Piera grew up in a family that treated imagination as part of everyday life, a sensibility that would later shape everything from Refinery29 to her newest work exploring creativity, connection and play. Her brand new book, the Playful Creativity, Connection and Joy Through Everyday Moments of Play, the Adult's Guide to Unlocking Innovation, Stronger Relationships and Better Health, examines how and why playfulness is a source of resilience, curiosity and experimentation in an increasingly anxious and performance driven world. Pierre Gilardi, welcome to Design Matters.

[Piera Gilardi]

Thanks for having me.

[Debbie Millman]

Pierre, you grew up in a small town on the coast of Maine. As I said in my intro, in a house where ideas were treated almost like living things and dinner conversations often became brainstorms. A casual thought like, what if we started a kid's karaoke club? Would become an hour of naming, strategy, and possibility. Is it true you named your karaoke initiative Kidoke?

[Piera Gilardi]

Kidiokee?

[Debbie Millman]

Kidioki.

[Piera Gilardi]

Kidioki.

[Debbie Millman]

I mean, that's an incredible. Is it true?

[Piera Gilardi]

That was a name my dad came up with. He's an incredible namer. And I think it runs in the family because we practice a lot, we do a lot of pun games, a lot of naming, and it's actually really fun because now my daughter and I also do these kind of brainstorms. So this weekend we were on the beach in Maine and she was brainstorming an idea for a haunted house called Haunt yout for years.

[Debbie Millman]

Wow. I guess the genetics is strong because these names are really good.

[Piera Gilardi]

Kidioki.

[Debbie Millman]

That's a strong kid's brand's name.

[Piera Gilardi]

Thank you.

[Debbie Millman]

Your father was an entrepreneur and an engineer. Your mother was a social worker, an artist, a gardener, and someone deeply rooted in care and community. And growing up between invention and compassion, how did each shape the way you move through the world at that time?

[Piera Gilardi]

Yeah. My parents shaped me in ways that I'm still uncovering. And I think with my dad, I grew up. He was an entrepreneur. He worked a lot, he was away a lot for work, but when he was home, he really prioritized play and creativity with us. So one of my favorite activities was he and I, we did a dollhouse from scratch and we wired it with electricity. We Made miniature books. And we would find things in the recycling bin and turn them into furniture. So we'd take a toothpaste and make it into a lampshade, of course. And so he really showed me that sort of. That blend of work and play is really vital and really alive, and that it's important for us to play into adulthood. And he has such an experimental and curious mind. So that really shaped me. And then my mom, yeah, was someone who was a social worker and very rooted in care and community. She's the kind of person that brings you a pot of soup if you're sick. And with her, I think what shaped me the most was her obsession with the dialectic. So the idea that things can be both. And, you know, she has children's eyes, like eyes of wonder. But she's also someone who grew up with a lot of trauma and worked with, you know, people who were working through a lot of trauma. And so that really shaped me, the way that she could hold to truths that felt dialectically opposed to. Also the way that she really used that sort of wonder and curiosity and playfulness to move through the world and to continue to grow and move through hard things.

[Debbie Millman]

One of your earliest forms of play was beachcombing along the Maine coastline, and you described learning to find treasure where others saw debris. How early did you begin training yourself to look differently? Or was that something that just came really naturally to you?

[Piera Gilardi]

I think that practice is almost like my childhood meditation. I would. I had a lot of time to myself when I was a kid, and so I would walk on the beach and look for a little glints of colored glass or rope from a lobster trap, just anything that caught my eye. So I do think that really trained me from a very early age to be looking for wonder, to be looking around me at all times. And, you know, now as an adult, I live in New York, obviously a very different environment, but I still have that practice of every day I look to see things I haven't seen on my block. There's always something new to find, even in a one block radius around my house. And so I think that just always keeps me engaged. It keeps me feeling like the world, things are changing, I'm moving forward. And I often find a lot of inspiration and ideas from that practice of noticing.

[Debbie Millman]

At three years old, you stated you wanted to be a birdie, a ballerina, get divorced, and live in Connecticut. Tell us about those very specific aspirations.

[Piera Gilardi]

Yes. So, yeah, when I was three, I was just so smitten with my Aunt Judy, who Was divorced and lived in Connecticut and is an amazing artist and just a fantastic, fabulous person. So she shaped my desire to get divorced and lived in Connecticut because I just wanted to be like her. And I think I wanted to be a birdie because I wanted to be free and to fly and a ballerina because I love dancing, expressing myself through movement. So, yeah, those are my three year old aspirations. Haven't accomplished all of them yet.

[Debbie Millman]

And there was a time, I believe you wanted to be a marine biologist.

[Piera Gilardi]

Yes, Deeply influenced by living in Maine, by the coast and just being in love with the ocean, which I still am. I love water.

[Debbie Millman]

You spent summers at camp immersed in writing, Shakespeare, storytelling, even mime. What first pulled you toward creative expression as opposed to biology or dance?

[Piera Gilardi]

Yeah, well, until I went to college, I actually was, you know, sort of between the world of science and art and I was really interested, deeply interested in both. But creative expression pulled me harder. And I think it was always a way of finding meaning and magic in the world around me, of understanding myself, other people and the world. And yeah, it was just a practice of expression and processing and moving through the world with curiosity. And so I've done so many different forms of creativity, which is its own thing. Sometimes I, you know, I think that phrase jack of all trades, master of none, is so insidious and has lodged itself in my brain. But I also think that we're here to express and there's like this amazing Martha Graham quote about how each of us has this life force, this vitality in us and it's one of a kind and if we don't express it, it just disappears and the world doesn't get to experience it. So I think my whole life I've felt really pulled by that need to express and explore and see what can come out of me. And I've done that in so many different ways, through writing, through performing, through visual art, through entrepreneurship. It's a constant exploration. I'm always wanting to find that, that next thing that I can try and that I can see what comes out from that exploration.

[Debbie Millman]

Well, as somebody that is also pulled in lots of different directions and always wanting to do new and different things and somebody who's also thought about a lot of that. Jack of all trades, master of none. What I can tell you, because I'm quite a bit older than you are, that that's only an issue when you're younger, because as you get older, you keep doing those things and you keep doing them more, you keep getting better at them. One would hope so by the time you're in your 60s, you're actually. You end up being like, pretty good at a bunch of different things, which is really cool. It just takes a lot longer to get there than somebody that spends all their time doing that one thing.

[Piera Gilardi]

Wow, I love that.

[Pura Sponsor]

Right?

[Piera Gilardi]

That makes me feel, yeah, I have to say, overjoyed, expansive.

[Debbie Millman]

Now, I don't know that I'm an expert at anything, but I do know that over 25 years of pursuing a whole bunch of different things, I have gotten marginally better at most of them.

[Piera Gilardi]

I think you're really amazing at a lot of things.

[Debbie Millman]

I don't know if I'd go that far, but I find it a real comfort to think that. And I tell a lot of people this. I remember being at a job interview, a Conde Nast, my very first job interview, and the woman looked at my portfolio. She's like, are you a designer or a writer? You have to pick one.

[Piera Gilardi]

Right?

[Debbie Millman]

And I really believed her. And I think that's why I ultimately didn't get any job, because I couldn't pick. And I'm glad now. At the time, it was harder, but, you know, 40 years later, not so hard.

[Piera Gilardi]

I had that exact same experience. I went to a job interview at one point and they said, what's your five year plan?

[Debbie Millman]

Oh, I know, I read about that. Tell us. Tell the listeners that story.

[Piera Gilardi]

Yeah, they said, what's your five year plan? And I said, well, I want to try as many things as I can and, you know, figure out what I'm good at and what I love doing and pursue that. I don't remember exactly verbatim what I said, but it was definitely the wrong answer. I did not get the job. And I realized that you're supposed to have a straight line type of answer. And I'm not a straight line kind of gal.

[Debbie Millman]

Yeah, when I train my students, I have an undergrad class that I train on how to get jobs. I tell them when they're in an interview, pretend you're on the witness stand. Really short answers, yes and no. One example, that's it. Otherwise, you talk too much, you get in trouble, you don't get the job. Let them fill in the silences.

[Piera Gilardi]

I need that advice.

[Debbie Millman]

You discovered Sassy Magazine as you were growing. How did you find it and what did it give you that you weren't finding elsewhere?

[Piera Gilardi]

So my mom's best friend, Diane Jenkins, who passed this past year, she was this incredible potter and artist and someone who was just so. She was so deeply connected and I think she saw me as a queer teenager in May, and she saw kind of like my eyes darting around for the exit sign and just like, I knew who I was, but trying to figure out what to do with that knowledge. And she gave me, for my birthday, for my 13th birthday, subscription to Sassy magazine.

[Debbie Millman]

Wow.

[Piera Gilardi]

It was so intuitive of her. The subscription to Sassy magazine really changed my life. It really gave me this window into New York, into this group of women who are making content that was real, raw and relatable, that was challenging, the status quo. And that made me feel really seen for the first time. And I think it was a huge influence in me. Definitely an influence in me wanting to move to New York. Then. It was a huge influence as I was building Refinery 29. And I sent her a thank you letter a few years ago for the gift and telling her how much it shaped me. And then she sent me a letter back and she said she had no recollection of giving this gift whatsoever. But that was kind of her energy. She was just so intuitive and connected and really, really saw me in a way that I needed to be seen at that time in my life.

[Debbie Millman]

Shortly after you then took your first trip to New York and you've written about how something really profound shifted inside you at that time. Can you talk a little bit about what happened during that trip?

[Piera Gilardi]

I was a teenager and I came to New York and it was just so expanding. It just shifted something inside me. It gave me this sense of poss and of momentum and of my life moving towards this very tangible goal.

[Debbie Millman]

Talk about going to Jerry's Diner and seeing Stephanie Seymour.

[Piera Gilardi]

Yeah, so I came to New York with a friend who I knew in Maine, but she was from New York and so she was more connected to the city and was able to take me around. And yeah, I remember we went to soho, went to all these cool boutiques. And also, like, fashion wise, I was just so excited to see these individuals, independent designers, these independent boutiques. And we went to Jerry's in SoHo. And we're sitting there having lunch and sitting there with Stephanie Seymour, the model who I knew from Guns N Roses November Rain video. And I remember she was wearing a turquoise and green sundress, just looking absolutely stunning. And I was just so starstruck and wowed and amazed by this place where you could just go have lunch and see Stephanie Seymour. I also remember visiting my cousin Michael, and he knew so many people. He was in the creative world and we were just walking around his neighborhood and in the East Village and he was just kept seeing people and saying hi. And I was like, how can you. It's such a big city. How do you know all these people? And he said, you don't live in New York. You live in your neighborhood. And so that was really helpful to me too, when I did move here, to feel like I was in this big place, but the people around me, like the people that I went to school with, my friends, the neighborhood was a little, you know, ham within this big place.

[Debbie Millman]

I know you went to nyu. What was your first entry neighborhood around your school experience?

[Piera Gilardi]

Yeah, so I went to nyu, but the summer before, I went to risd pre college program. And that shaped me in a huge way too, because the people that were there were so inspiring. They were from so many different places. It felt very queer, it felt very held. And when I moved to New York, I. I knew a lot of people because a lot of the kids that had been in the program with me were at different schools. So even though I went to nyu, I had a lot of friends at sva, at Cooper, at the New School, Parsons. So I came with a community. And that really meant that my New York entry was so fun and so immediately social. But yeah, coming to nyu, I was living in the East Village. I lived in the dorm for one year before I moved into an apartment also in the East Village.

[Debbie Millman]

You came to NYU with an intention of majoring in studio art. Were you at that point considering becoming a fine artist?

[Piera Gilardi]

Yeah, I was. And a couple things happened. I found the practice of being a solo artist to feel a little bit, yeah, a little bit too solitary for me. And at the time I was, you know, living in New York. I was working as a babysitter. I was going to school, partying a lot, and I decided to get an internship at a magazine. You know, kind of influenced by that experience of loving Sassy magazine and also wanting to see if there are other ways that my creativity and my art skills might take shape. Also, I had no idea how to become a fine artist. And it was only the last week of school that there was any conversation about how you actually make money or a living from being a fine artist. So I was already thinking about, how am I going to make money from, like, when I was a sophomore. So I got an internship at this magazine, and that ended up becoming my first job as well. And in it, I really loved collaborating with different people. I loved the whole process of coming up with ideas and bringing them to life across the written word and photography and design. And so Even though I had thought I would be a fine artist, I ended up shifting into working in publishing.

[Debbie Millman]

The magazine that you interned at, and then eventually got a job at City Magazine. And you eventually became the photo editor. What kind of opening did that editorial work give you creatively?

[Piera Gilardi]

Yeah, I actually started as an intern there, and because it was a very small staff, I ended up getting to work with the editors, the design director, the creative director, even the sales director. So I got to have. Because it was a super, super small team, I think there was six or seven people. I got to really see the whole process of how the content came together and how the ideas came together and even how it was sold, how they brought in advertisers. That was really fun for me because I always had multiple interests, and I. I love exploring creative expression in these different forms. So I got to really do that and see that 360 degrees of bringing an idea to life in a multidisciplinary way.

[Debbie Millman]

You've described the office above a Soho bar as casual, unconventional, and psychologically safe. Brainstorms could get weird. People could sound foolish without consequence. That's pretty progressive. How rare does that kind of creative environment feel to you now?

[Piera Gilardi]

Well, it was very formative, and I actually didn't know that that was not the way most places were. So I worked there. And then I started Refinery. So I didn't really have an experience of anything different. I went to art school, and that's the environment at art school. It feels very open to ideas, very exploratory, experimental. And then I went into this magazine that was very unconventional. I mean, it was above a bar, and there was definitely a lot of crossover between the bar and the office, shall we say?

[Adam Grant]

Yes.

[Piera Gilardi]

Yeah. It was really a fun brainstorm environment because we would just throw the craziest ideas out there and everyone would laugh. And I got to see this pattern emerge where someone would say something totally ridiculous. We'd all burst out into laughter, and then, boom, brilliance. And I realized how laughter is such a conduit to creativity because of that moment of openness and of the subconscious, like connecting ideas behind the scenes. And so that was something I really tried to replicate when I had a team of my own and I was starting Refinery was. How do I create those type of environments where we're free enough to say the bad ideas so that we can get to the really good idea?

[Debbie Millman]

While you were at Citi, you met Christine Barbaric there, someone who would eventually become one of your business partners at Refinery 29. What was that first meeting, like, for you, was it very electric?

[Piera Gilardi]

It was very intimidating. I was an intern and she's older than me, so she was the. I don't know what her title was. I think it was executive editor. And so, you know, I started off with her giving me assignments and me executing them. You know, she would say, you need to call and fact check this story. It's a travel story in India. And here I am trying to call places in India and fact check these businesses and do these different things. But over time, you know, she came to really trust me and trust the creative collaboration, and I started being more of a thought partner to her on things. Yeah. So we collaborated and became close when I was at City Magazine as her intern. And then when we were starting Refinery, actually, before I was officially involved, my co founders were asking me if I knew anyone who might want to be an editor. And I said, oh, you should talk to my old boss. You know, I didn't think that she would be interested, but I thought she would know a former intern or former assistant that she would recommend. And they surprised me by telling me that she wanted to be part of it, but that she only wanted to do it if I was going to be officially, I was involved, but not in an official capacity, just because I like ideas and I like, you know, working on things and building things. And so, yeah, it was thanks to her that I got officially involved in Refinery29.

[Debbie Millman]

One of your first collaborations. Pre Refinery29 was a magazine about creativity and entrepreneurship, and you worked on it every Sunday for nearly 18 months. You created a fully realized, rich, photographed and designed 250 page prototype. What was the name of the magazine? I couldn't find that anywhere.

[Piera Gilardi]

Sorry. You go so deep on research. I love it. I love it. Yeah. So before Refinery, when I was still at City Magazine, I had the entrepreneurial itch and I knew I wanted to create something of my own. And so I was working on a magazine called Team Radio, let's Get Awesome. And it was a magazine that was all about the spirit of creation, all about the spirit of people just running with an idea and making things. So we had different kinds of stories in there, stories of artists, of wild things that people created spontaneous events. And it was a very joyful, very exuberant publication. But what happened was that the three of us making it, we were all creative people with a design and photography background. None of us really knew how to get something funded. We didn't have funds, so we just made this whole magazine and we had all these ideas for all these bells and whistles, we were going to have Die Cuts and Flexi Disc in the magazine, all these things. And we made a whole 250 page publication, written, designed, photographed. And we relied on our whole big creative network to create it. And then we had no way of getting it made because none of us had money and we didn't know how to get money. And we were trying to. You know, I was calling everyone I knew that had a connection to a brand and trying to get people to sponsor it, but eventually we just kind of got tight. You know, it kind of like the band disbanded. I wanted to put it online and make it a digital publication, but my friends that I was doing it with thought that that was a, you know, kind of cheapened it. And so it just never got made. And then meanwhile, I started working on Refinery 29. And that, you know, ended up kind of pulling me in a totally different direction.

[Debbie Millman]

You've said that and you refer to it as a failure. You said that the failure taught you to start smaller and iterate instead of perfecting in private. You've also talked quite a bit how you are wired toward perfection. How hard was that lesson for someone that is so wired toward perfection?

[Piera Gilardi]

Yeah, it's interesting, I think that. But the practice of playfulness and experimentation. A lot of my core practices in life are workarounds for my quirks and my wiring. So I'm definitely really wired towards perfection. I have to do a lot of things to work around that and actually put work out. So that creating that magazine and having it not get made really felt like a huge failure because I got so many people involved. We threw a big party for it. Like, we were talking to everyone we knew about it, had a lot of creators, you know, contribute to it, and then we couldn't make it. And I was. I really felt very ashamed. I felt I really took it very hard. But it was also a good lesson in learning to. I think if we had done it in a different way, if we had put it out as a zine, you know, and Instead of making 250 pages, you know, done a smaller page count, printed it cheaply, started to build an audience for it and start to get the ideas out and the practice of it, I think we would have also had something to show then to brands and we could have done smaller parties, brought people on board for those. And so it was a really good lesson. And then when we were starting Refinery, that was. The lesson was like, just put the work out there, learn from it, hear what people have to say, find the people that will help you to get the thing done in a small way so that you can build on it and go bigger. And so that's really been my approach since that failed magazine. I have to do a lot of things to psych myself up to do that, even on a small scale. But I know how to do it now. And so that's the practice.

[Debbie Millman]

I think the fact that it's a finished magazine means that it was just unrealized as opposed to failed.

[Piera Gilardi]

That's true. I think failure is a really harsh, harsh word. You know, it's like Corita Kent said, there's no win, no fail only.

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[Debbie Millman]

One of the things that I found so interesting as I was living your life through my research was your stance that perfectionism could be its own obstacle. And that really sort of stopped me. And I've been pondering that because we are people that are creative, we do want things to be perfect. I'm constantly sort of moving things in my house to make the sort of visual perfect. But that is a real way of kind of removing some of the joy.

[Piera Gilardi]

Yeah, I think it removes the vitality, you know, it's like that pure expression, you know, it's sort of like how often our first thought is our best thought. When you're in a creative process and when we start to perfect and slice away, you know, it's like death by a thousand cuts. But also I think it starts to shrink us and shrink our expression in a way. And similar, you know, I think it's similar actually to sort of that. That cool police voice in our head that tells us, you know, don't be cringe, don't put yourself out there like that. And perfectionism, you know, where it's like, I don't want to make a mistake. I want it to be just so, or else I'm not going to show it. Like, those are shrinking forces. And I truly believe that our life force, our spirit, is here to expand us. And so we have to find our workarounds for those voices and those for forces that try and shrink us and make us smaller and tighter.

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[Adam Grant]

there, it's Adam Grant from ted's Rethinking Podcast and this episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. I get to spend my days studying how people think and what it actually takes to change our minds. It's work I find deeply meaningful. But even in meaningful work, there's still busy work. The admin, the repetitive processes, the invisible load that pulls attention away from what really matters. That's where ServiceNow's AI specialists come in. They don't just tell you what you should do about your busy work, they actually do it. Start to finish, cases closed, requests handled, no extra work for you. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit ServiceNow.com hey, it's

[Paige from Giggly Squad]

Paige from Giggly Squad and I want to let you know that if you want the newest and hottest beauty products, you have to go to Sephora. I'm obsessed with the one size liquid blotting paper spray. It's the first of its kind blotting spray that mattifies for up to eight hours. It's unreal. There's also the Summer Friday shade drops SPF 50, which basically lives in my bag at this point. Oh, and the Kayali Eden Plush Pear. Smells so good.

[Piera Gilardi]

Good.

[Paige from Giggly Squad]

It's sweet, warm and addictive. Like people literally stop me and ask what perfume I'm wearing, which, you know I love. So if you want the makeup, skin care, hair and fragrance products everyone's about to be obsessed with, shop only at Sephora.

[Debbie Millman]

You founded Refinery 29 in 2005 with four people, $5,000, and a belief that emerging designers deserved visibility. How and why did this idea first enter your collective minds?

[Piera Gilardi]

Well, we were living in New York at the time and there were so many amazing independent designers and boutiques and they didn't really have a place, you know, to market themselves. The big magazines were Focused on the big brands that brought in the big advertising dollars. And the. The digital media space was very nascent. It felt very exciting and fresh. And so we had this idea initially to make this. It looked like a mall map. It was a map of the 29 best independent designers and boutiques in New York. You could hover over it and look inside the store, meet the owner, see some of the things that they sold. And that was the first thing that we released. And it was interesting because people told us, you're never going to be successful. There's a reason these magazines don't write about these small designers is because they don't have marketing dollars. But what ended up happening was that that was our community of people. And at first they also thought. A lot of people thought digital was cheap at the time, and they didn't really trust it. They didn't think it was worth doing. But the designers and boutiques started to see that people were coming to them through finding them on refinery. And we started having parties at these stores. And so they ended. Our first collaborators, our first advertisers, even our first investor was Stephen Allen, who had multiple boutiques in New York. And so we grew from there. So we launched with this map, which was great for day one, day two, day three, and then there was not really a big reason for people to come back. And so we ended up also being a failure on, like, day three of starting our business. Like, traffic tanked and it was like, oh, time to try something new. But that was also, you know, that was kind of the ethos. Like, we saw what wasn't working and we were able to. I loved working in digital at that time because I had worked in a magazine and you don't get immediate feedback. You know, maybe you get a letter from someone or email from someone, but for the most part, you just put. Put it out. You don't know. And I loved the immediacy of seeing at that time. It felt so exciting to see how many people looked at this and like, what are they saying? What are the comments? I moderated the comments for years. And so then. And it was like that process of like, okay, this is working. This is not working. Like, what do we do with that? What can we create? What's the next thing we're gonna try? So then we started doing more daily content and experimenting and seeing what resonated with the audience and built from there, like every day, throwing spaghetti at the wall every day.

[Debbie Millman]

You described those startup years as doing absolutely everything. Photography, analytics, comments, design, writing. There was a phrase you and your co found no job is too low.

[Piera Gilardi]

Truly.

[Debbie Millman]

And Refinery 29 began around discovery, around independent designers, but evolved into something much larger. Money, health, identity, power, culture. When and how did you realize your audience wanted more? And where did the confidence to keep going into those new areas come from?

[Piera Gilardi]

It all came from having a curious experimental mindset and putting an idea out there, seeing what came from it, and then using that to jump off the next experiment. This is such a small example, but at the beginning we were all style. And then we thought, let's see if our audience is also interested in beauty. Which seems kind of obvious because it's like a right next door neighbor. But we said, okay, let's try three different beauty pieces and see what happens. And they outperformed our fashion content by three times. So then it seemed very clear, okay, we're gonna give our audience more beauty content. So then we thought, okay, we're really interested in having a new perspective on sex and relationships. Let's try three different stories on sex and relationships and see what happens. And again, it's like 3x. The beauty content that was our approach was always, what are we interested in? Or what are we hearing from our audience? And let's try it out and see how it goes and what we can learn from. And sometimes the experiments wouldn't work out and it wouldn't be a topic that really would catch on for our audience. And sometimes it would, and we would go from there.

[Debbie Millman]

At its height, Refinery 29 had hundreds of employees, $100 million in revenue. You won a boatload of Clios and Webby awards. You were on Fast Company's most innovative companies list five times. You spent four consecutive years on Inc. Magazine's 500 fastest growing companies in the U.S. what was it like to have that type of meteoric rise and capturing sort of the zeitgeist of the time in that moment?

[Piera Gilardi]

I have so many words. It was so many things. It was thrilling, of course. And I got to do some of my most exciting and biggest creative work, like launching 29 rooms. And it was really challenging. We had this slow build, actually, you know, the first eight years we were building and iterating and growing. And even though it was growing, it felt gradual. And then at the eight year mark, we became, quote, unquote, an overnight success. Where other people thought we were an overnight success, other people thought we popped off and all of a sudd. It was, you know, there was more pressure. We were bringing in people from more corporate backgrounds and those playful qualities that I had of experimentation and curiosity and taking those risks. All of a sudden, with the new pressure on us and being surrounded by people that were talking in jargon and knew these business concepts that I wasn't familiar with, I started to feel like the art school kid at the adults table. And I started to feel who I was and how I operated was not the right way. And so in that moment, I started to pack away some of those playful qualities. I worried that if I asked a question in a meeting, it would be instantly obvious that I didn't know the answer. I worried that if I floated a big, wild, imaginative idea, I would look unrealistic. If I brought humor and levity, I would, you know, seem unserious. And so I started to try to conform to this idea of, like, what a successful business owner executive looked like. It was a really difficult time, like, where we were, we were growing so fast, and I had to learn a lot. I had to pick up a lot of new skills to get to that next level. But right in that moment was when I basically put away all the skills that got me there, and I crashed in that moment, actually, I experienced this really big burnout because suddenly I didn't have those qualities that really were the ones that helped me to learn and to grow and to be improvisational and work with what was going on. So in that moment, I found myself laying on my apartment floor crying about what a failure I was in a moment when the outside world thought that I was an overnight success. It was a really important moment, though, because it was a moment where I thought I wasn't the right person for my company anymore. I was seriously considering if I was going to need to resign because I just didn't think I had what it took. I was fortunate at the time to be working with this coach and. And she said, why do you think that the qualities that got you here can't get you to that next level? And so she said, what if you actually lean into those qualities more? What if you lean into that curiosity, that creativity, that levity and joy and that imagination and see what happens? And so I did that. And it was when I leaned into those things even more and valued them that I was able to really go to that next level with more alignment and more. More connectivity to the people around me and actually expanded my creative thinking in a big way, too. But it was. Yeah, it was everything. It was. So that moment, you know, that. That meteoric growth was a lot of excitement, a lot of fun, a lot of pressure, and a big Growth, big growth moment.

[Debbie Millman]

Is it true that you wrote a list titled ways I'm failing right now at that moment?

[Piera Gilardi]

Yes. So in that moment, I was so depleted, I was so overworked and underplayed. I wrote this list that I found years later that said ways I'm failing right now. And it was this laundry list of like basically every aspect of my life. I said I was failing as a leader, as a creative, as a friend because I wasn't available. As a daughter, I was failing. I was trying to get pregnant for years. So I was failing and my fertility was this horrible list. And it really represented like where I was in that moment where I was just so depleted and lacking. I was lacking perspective, I was lacking self compassion, and I was just really brittle and burnt out.

[Debbie Millman]

Do you credit the coach with giving you the tools to be able to begin to see yourself differently, or do you feel like there were other aspects that you had to learn in order to, as you put it, see your own gifts as gifts?

[Piera Gilardi]

I think that my coach, Katia, she really helped me to look at what had gotten me to that point and what my gifts were and also to remind me of my own practices that had helped me in the past. She asked me a lot of questions. She was very curious. And so once she started to ask me what has helped you in the past, I actually started to build essentially my own bespoke set of creative practices that I can lean on and use in tough moments. So I told her that dancing and movement really helped me. And so she said, great. If you have these moments where you're feeling really pressured, can you do something with that? So I started doing what I call a shake break. So I'll do a quick one minute free movement dance break before a pitch, a presentation, a podcast interview. Like to get out of my head and into my body and just move through the nerves. I also, like navigate a lot of depression, anxiety, and so she helped me to see that creative expression is really helpful for me in those moments. So I have this flash expression practice, which is either writing or drawing about my feelings in a moment as a way to move through them instead of getting stuck in them. So through that moment, I actually saw both the gifts and qualities that I had that I wanted to bring into my work, as well as kind of the unique coping strategies that I could lean on in those moments where I felt really pressured.

[Debbie Millman]

I believe that your idea and concept for 29 rooms, which was 29 rooms in a warehouse that were designed as spaces, physical spaces, was originally not Welcomed was the push to make that happen and then its ultimate grand success. Something that helped you begin to understand that your gifts were gifts.

[Piera Gilardi]

That was a really pivotal moment. So we were at the time celebrating our 10 year anniversary of Refinery 29. And the executive team at Refinery said, we want to celebrate this 10 year anniversary and we want to do it in a way that's going to be disruptive, the way that our brand has been disruptive in the media space. We want to do something that invites our audience in and is inclusive during Fashion Week, a time that has typically been exclusive because that felt very natural to our brand. And we also wanted to thank our audience for our success. And the other thing was, how do we do this in a way that's gonna bring in brands and press and be this big moment? And so it was a really exciting brief and I took it back to the creative team and we had so much fun brainstorming, what are we gonna create? And my favorite exercise that we did is I asked everyone to come to the brainstorming and tell us about the best nights of their life. So people came with all these amazing stories of like, you know, you show up at this location and you think, where the hell am I? And then you go through a secret hallway and end up in this space. And people told these stories of, you know, magical art installations and unexpected performance. And in the ideas that people brought to the table, there was such a surprise and delight and unexpected quality to it. Through these series of brainstorms, we came up with the idea of 29 rooms. So we wanted it, like you said, take over a warehouse, fill it with 29 different rooms, work with artists, celebrities and brands to bring the rooms to life and to bring our digital content and the themes that we talk about to life in an experiential way where our audience could come through and express themselves. And really, basically an adult playground. We were so excited about it and went into the executive meeting and me and my team presented and there was initial excitement. And then someone said, I don't know, maybe we should just have a cocktail party. And it was like a pin in a balloon. Pin in a balloon, just all the air coming out. But it was also a moment where I leaned into my playful skills and I didn't shut down. I said, okay. I got curious, I asked questions, I said, okay, like, what are the hesitations? What needs to be true in order for us to feel excited about this idea, to feel like this idea is possible? Through that, I learned the real hesitations. You know, people Were worried about how are we going to get people to this event in Brooklyn during Fashion Week? How are we going to get brands to sign up and help us to be able to. To put this event on and afford it? How are we going to get press to write about it? Those were the concerns. And knowing what the actual concerns were, instead of only hearing the no, we were able to go back and actually make the idea stronger and more robust and better. And so it ended up being one of the things that Refinery 29 was most known for. It was something that brought so many brands and celebrities and partners to us. It got us an enormous amount of press and social buz. And so it was a really big moment of recognizing that those skills and gifts of, like, playfulness and creativity and experimentation are important not only in the creative process, but also in the process when things get hard or when there is pressure that I could lean on those things too, to collaborate. You know, it wasn't about just pushing my idea through. It was actually about how do I work, work with everyone in all these inputs and make them all part of the creative juice that's going to make this thing, like, really yummy.

[Debbie Millman]

After 15 years of continuous growth and success, you and your partners sold Refinery 29 to Vice. The company you and your co founders had built from $5,000 and four people was being valued at roughly $400 million. It's hard to even say that number from the outside. That reads like triumph inside the experience itself. What did that moment feel like for you?

[Piera Gilardi]

It was this moment where it was like moving out of a beloved home. And even though, honestly, I'd been doing it for 15 years and I was ready for something else, I was ready for a different energy. I also very much needed some kind of break. It also was really bittersweet to leave it. And it was a hard moment, too, because I was so connected to so many people in that moment, and I left. And I also realized, like, the ways that some of those connections were very transactional. And when I was no longer in that role and no longer useful in that way, a lot of people fell away. So that was a mix of being clarifying, but also challenging.

[Debbie Millman]

Yeah. For much of your adult life, you have been building things at enormous scale. A company, a media brand, experiences, teams. But your new book, the Playful Creativity, Connection and Joy through Everyday Moments of Play, feels born from a very different question. Not how to achieve more, but how to remain alive inside your own life. And I'd like to read a short excerpt from the Power of Play about how you came to the decision to dedicate your next chapter in your life. And you write, in the summer of 2022, I stood at a crossroads. For years, I had witnessed the transformative power of play in my work as a creative leader, a teacher, and a mother. I'd seen how playfulness could help people process emotions, spark brilliant ideas, and come alive like nothing else could. A quiet voice inside me kept suggesting that I should dedicate my next career chapter to bringing more play into people's lives. But doubt crept in. Could I really build a career around something as misunderstood as play in adulthood? Would people truly see a need for this in our achievement obsessed world? The question swirled, leaving me stuck between possibility and practicality. Piera, you then decided to ask the universe for a sign. My question here is, my two questions are why did you do that? And what happened next?

[Piera Gilardi]

Yeah, I was stuck between possibility and practicality. And I felt this pull to dedicate this next chapter of my career to play. And paradoxically, I had this thought that I would not be taken seriously if I did. And my friend Sophia, who's a very spiritual, very playful friend and journalist, suggested that I look for a sign. And being the open, why not person that I am, I thought, sure, I'll ask the universe for a sign. So I said, okay, universe, if I meant to pursue play in this next part of my life, show me what you got. I was in Cologne, Germany at the time, and I went for a walk along the Rhine river looking for a sign. And first I passed a playground. Okay, okay. But I thought there's a lot of playgrounds. And the one that I saw sort of looked like a medieval torture device. And I decided, not my sign. That's kind of blaze, yeah. I said, no, not my sign. Then I passed a carnival. It was still being erected. And I don't know, it just like didn't have the magic and the joyfulness that I was waiting for. And so I said, I don't think so. I guess I'm very picky about my signs. And then I was at the end of the walk and I was about to turn around and I decided to walk down to the edge of the river and look across at the Cologne Cathedral. And I was standing there at the edge of the river and all of a sudden I heard this clinking sound. And I looked down at my feet and there was a message in a bottle. Okay, I'll take it. So I picked it up and it was a letter from a 7 year old boy called Eliano. And he talked about his love of spielen, which is play in German.

[Debbie Millman]

Who was the letter written to?

[Piera Gilardi]

So it was a letter in a bottle, and it was up finding out, because there was an email at the bottom. I found out that it was a project that he and his mom had done to connect with people through creativity. And so they did 50 different acts, and this was one of them. And so the letter was just to whoever found it, but he talked about play. And the act that launched the letter was also so symmetrical to what I wanted to do. Right. Like, I wanted to explore play and creativity as a way of connecting people to themselves, each other, the world, to creativity and joy. And so, yeah, this family that launched this bottle as a form of connection, it landed at my feet and launched me into this next part of my life.

[Debbie Millman]

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that this was actually the third time you found a message in a bottle over the course of your life. Is that true?

[Piera Gilardi]

That is correct.

[Debbie Millman]

I mean, don't you find that a little weird? Wild, Crazy, cosmic?

[Piera Gilardi]

Pick a word.

[Pura Sponsor]

Yeah.

[Piera Gilardi]

I mean, people say you didn't find. It's not a sign, it's a billboard.

[Debbie Millman]

Yes, that's a perfect word. That's a perfect word for you.

[Piera Gilardi]

Yeah. Well, it's that beachcomber in me. You know, I always have my eyes looking for wonder, looking for signs, looking for magic. And it's a practice that I have done since childhood, and so therefore, I see a lot of magical things.

[Debbie Millman]

Did the other two messages in the bottles come at specific moments where you needed to be told something?

[Piera Gilardi]

I would like to tell you, yes, but that would be a lie. The other two messages in a bottle I just randomly found, and they didn't mean that much to me, but the third message in a bottle felt cosmetic.

[Debbie Millman]

Hit it out of the park.

[Piera Gilardi]

Yeah, really hit it out of the park.

[Debbie Millman]

In the playful way you state that. Playfulness is often dismissed as frivolous, a charming but dispensable quality best left in childhood alongside stuffies and imaginary friends. Why does that happen? Why is that the general stance on play?

[Piera Gilardi]

As we grow up, we hear a lot of voices that tell us that play is frivolous. You know, it starts in school, right, when we're told, told, sit still, there's a right and a wrong way to do things. Play is for recess. We start to hear it as we enter the workforce, and it's all about efficiency. And we think that play is a diversion, that it's unproductive, that it's unserious we hear it in the voices that tell us to strive for perfection. We hear it in the voices that tell us to be cool or to not be cringe and not stand out. So there's a lot of different. A lot of different forces that keep us from playing. And I think it's the same, you know, it's a lot of forces that try to put us in a box and keep us doing things in a sort of more conformist sort of way that centers around efficiency and productivity and fitting in. All of those things start to tamp down our playfulness and start to teach us that play is an incorrect way of being in adulthood or should be reserved for special moments of release, like the vacation, you know, work hard, play hard, that type of message.

[Debbie Millman]

You state this about playfulness in your book. Playfulness is finding humor and lightness even in tense moments. Staying open to possibilities rather than fixating on one right way. Experimenting rather than seeking perfection. Bringing an ethos of curious exploration to difficulties. Finding wisdom in the body when the mind's tied up in knots. Turning your attention to notice details and find wonder. Reimagining dull tasks through reframes and games. Improvising when things go sideways. One of the dichotomies that you talk about in the book is the difference between the playful way and the pressured way. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about the difference.

[Piera Gilardi]

So often we get into the pressured way, and I can give you a little anecdote.

[Debbie Millman]

Please.

[Piera Gilardi]

When my daughter was a baby, we moved into a new apartment, and there was this car alarm that kept going off every day. And I would just feel so stressed about, was so disruptive, it was so loud. And I would just get into this state of like, why is this happening? And it was so frustrating. And at some point I realized that this car alarm is just gonna keep going off. And I can get into that pressured state where I'm fighting against it, where I'm asking, why is this happening? Where I'm spiraling into stress and, like, white knuckling my way. Or I can take a different approach. And so I started doing a car alarm dance every time the car alarm went off. And I had this little dance that goes with the car alarm. And so every time it would go off, it started to shift in my head where it was like this super annoying thing that stressed me out and was, like, ruining my life to all of a sudden, oh, now I get to do the car alarm dance. And my daughter and I were walking down the street two Weeks ago, and this loud car alarm was going off and there was a group of people that were trying to enjoy a beautiful day. They were sitting outside and they looked so stressed out from the car alarm. And then there was this woman who was just like yelling. This is so dysregulating. And then my daughter and I both.

[Debbie Millman]

That was me.

[Piera Gilardi]

Yeah, I mean, it is.

[Debbie Millman]

It wasn't, but it would be.

[Piera Gilardi]

It is. But then my daughter and I started doing this car alarm dance and everyone's looking at us and then they all start laughing. You know, it's just this silly moment, but it's a small example, but it's sort of this idea that in life there's a lot of things that we can't control and, and that we don't want to happen, or change is constant and we don't always love it. And we can either be in this pressured state where we're fighting against what's happening, we are white knuckling we're trying to control, or we can be in this playful state where we're saying yes. And we have that improvisational mindset where we're accepting, even if we don't like it, it what's happening. And we're finding a more curious, open, creative way to work with whatever's happening versus fighting against what's happening. So this is my life philosophy. This is like I. I bring it into all kinds of things. It's, you know, whether it's a work challenge or a day to day frustration or even something heavy like grief. I try to weave this in as my, as my life philosophy because. Because to me, being playful is being curiously, creatively, courageously engaged with life. It's when we're working with what life brings us and believing that we can make meaning and magic out of that versus feeling like life is happening to us and we're fighting against it.

[Debbie Millman]

In your book, you argue something fairly radical. You state that seriousness gets too much credit. When did you begin questioning the cultural equation between seriousness and value?

[Piera Gilardi]

I think throughout my life I have challenged that idea of seriousness being the thing that is valuable because I got to see it in childhood that my parents did both, right? My dad had a business and he was playful. He was experimental and successful. My mom dealt with really serious things in her, her work and her personal life. And she chose to be joyful and full of wonder. And so I got to see early on that play and seriousness are not opposites. It's playfulness that allows us to navigate serious things in life with more resilience with more creativity, with more resourcefulness. It was also when Refinery 29 was growing and I had that moment of packing away my playfulness and trying to be taken seriously that I saw that this like a fool's errand to try to be taken seriously, because I want to be taken playfully. I want to value playfulness, and I want to embody playfulness, and I want to show people the value of playfulness.

[Debbie Millman]

Talk about the Antiplay Posse. What is that?

[Piera Gilardi]

The Anti Play Posse are the external voices throughout our life that have told us that play is frivolous, that it's childish, that it's unproductive, and that we've internalized and that we now hear when we're doing playful things. So it could be the cool police that's telling us, don't be cringe. It could be the perfectionist that's telling us, you know, make it perfect, don't make a mistake. It could be the responsible adult that tells us, you have responsibilities. There's no room for joy. And those voices, you know, they start to really shrink us, and they start to limit how we feel like we can move through the world. And so in the book, I name them and then I give compassionate retorts because they are there to keep us safe. You know, they're there for a reason, but they're not really correct in how they're trying to keep us safe.

[Debbie Millman]

Your book includes a framework that identifies eight powers of play. They're humor, imagination, exploration, creativity, movement, noticing, game making, and curiosity. Tell me what you believe. Organizing the book in this way allows people to understand better about themselves.

[Piera Gilardi]

So a lot of people tell me they're not playful because there's one dominant way of thinking about being playful. And people either think it's very childish or they think it's very humor, levity, silliness. And so people that are not those things don't think they're playful. And so when I was working on the book, I started to really dig into the research around play and looking at Stuart Brown's work from the National Institute of Play and studies of playful people. So through my work, through my own experience leading play and then through research, I. I realized that it would be really helpful for adults to understand that there's not one way to be playful, that playfulness embodies all these different characteristics. And also that playfulness is a practice. It's not something that you are or aren't. It's a muscle that you can develop if you want to. And I wanted to show people how they're already playful and help them to identify what their powers of play are. And then also show them how in day to day life they can strengthen other powers and bring those into their lives to bring more creativity, connection and joy.

[Debbie Millman]

In April 2025, you launched a new company devoted to play called Numa Luma. Is there a significance to that particular name?

[Piera Gilardi]

There is. So when I was naming, I wanted to come up with a name that was a made up word for funsies and trademarkes. And there's a Greek stoic concept called pneuma, which is our indwelling creative spir spirit. It's like our life force. And so I love the idea of our life force being this creative spirit. And so I took the essence of that word, pneuma, I changed the spelling. And then I love rhyming, as you know, from my book. So I was rhyming it and I came up with Numa Luma. And then I loved that Luma was like luminous. And it also, I looked it up and it means to make, create or compose in a stoning in. So that was just a synchronicity that I thought, you know, okay, universe gives me a check mark. So yeah, Numa Luma. It also feels like it embodies playfulness. It's fun to say.

[Debbie Millman]

On the numaluma website, you ask this question, what if your most alive moments happen between the mundane parts of your day? Why is that question important?

[Piera Gilardi]

It's important because so often we see creativity as, as this big act, right? We look at the finished book, the amazing renowned podcast, and those are our markers for creativity. But what I've found in my life to be true, especially as I navigate the harder things in life, is that it's actually the day to day acts of creativity, those micro moments, the things that happen in between the big events that actually make up the substantive matter of our lives and actually are the things that make us feel the most resilient and connected. And so when I was coming out of the period of teaching all these play workshops during the pandemic, I started interviewing the people that had joined the workshops and asking them about creativity and play in their life. And what people were telling me was that they didn't have time for creativity and they didn't have skills. And so that insight really inspired me to think about how can I create a company that gives people more permission to explore creativity and play in those small moments and make it really bite size, really doable, so that it actually builds and grows those creative muscles over time versus it Feeling like this intimidating thing that you have to have a ton of time and skills to accomplish.

[Debbie Millman]

You just opened early App Store access to build what you've referred to as the next frontier of wellness. Can you talk a little bit more about what you're doing?

[Piera Gilardi]

We just launched the first version of our app and it's essentially a daily creative practice that you do with other people. And it's all very low stakes. You do it in one to three minutes. We really designed it intentionally. We didn't want it to have any of the kind of traditional performative social media metrics. So it's not about likes, it's not about comments, it's about expression and really putting something out there so people are making on the platform. They're really having fun with it. We're hearing people say, this is like the antidote to brain rot. This is my daily joy. And so what we are building is both the in person experiences. We started with events and then the app is the daily habit. So it'll grow to have more features. But what we're trying to accomplish is helping people to shift their state through creative play and unlock more joy, connection and aliveness in their day to day.

[Debbie Millman]

Pierre, I have one last question for you. Can you tell us what being a wonder wanderer is and what it entails?

[Piera Gilardi]

Yes. Translating from my early days as a little girl in Maine looking for treasure while beachcombing. I have a practice of wonder wandering. And it was born out of a period of depression where it was really hard for me to leave the house. It was hard for me to get out of bed. And I decided to tune my frequency to the frequency of wonder and awe. And I would leave my house and go on a walk and say, okay, I'm looking for micro delights. I'm looking for anything that catches my eye, anything that's interesting, and I'm going to look up, down, zoom in close and see what I discover. And so wonder wandering for me is just having those childlike open eyes where I believe that anything is possible. I believe that there is beauty and magic in the world around me. And I am on a mission to put myself in a path of surprise and find it.

[Debbie Millman]

And who knows, maybe as we do that, we'll find our own little messages and bottles clinking on our shoes.

[Piera Gilardi]

I hope so.

[Debbie Millman]

Pierre Gilardi, thank you so much for making so much work that matters. And thank you for joining me today on Design Matters.

[Piera Gilardi]

Thank you so much. Thanks for playing.

[Debbie Millman]

Pierre's new book is titled the Playful Way. Creativity, Connection and Joy Through Everyday Moments of Play, the Adult's Guide to Unlocking Innovation, Strong Relationships, and Better Health. To learn more about Piera, you can go to her websites pieragilardi.com and numaluma.com this is the 21st year we've been podcasting Design Matters, and I'd like to thank you for listening. And remember, we can talk about making a difference. We can make a difference, or we can do both. I'm Debbie Millman and I look forward to talking with you again soon.

Design Matters is produced for the TED Audio Collective by Curtis Fox Productions. The interviews are usually recorded at the Masters in Branding program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, the first and longest running branding program in the world. The editor in chief of Design Matters Media is Emily Weiland.

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