← This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil
This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil
How To Play: Shift Your Thinking, Inspire Connection & Spark Creativity with Cas Holman | 355
00:32:27
Designer Cas Holman shows us why play isn’t just child’s stuff — it’s a radical act of creativity, leadership, and problem-solving. Get ready to unlearn rules and rediscover possibility.
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- [00:00]
A
I don't know about you, but the women in my life We've got questions about our hormones, mood swings out of nowhere, weight gain that makes no sense, a sex drive that went MIA or really missing without action, wide awake at 3am, exhausted all day, and we refuse to accept that not feeling like yourself is just part of getting older. And yet no one knows where to actually get help. Enter hers. The process is simple and doesn't involve long waits or being dismissed in a cold exam room. You can start today by completing a medical intake online and a licensed provider trained in women's health will review your information and create your personalized treatment plan. You'll also get the HERS app and unlimited messaging with their care team. It should be simpler to access healthcare built around you and your unique needs. Whether you want to manage your perimenopause or menopause symptoms, lose weight, grow thicker, fuller hair, or find relief for anxiety, hers has women covered. Visit f o R-H-E-R s.com womanswork to get a personalized perimenopause treatment plan that's right for you. That's F o r h e-r s.com womanswork not available in all 50 states. Perimenopause and menopause by hers includes hormonal health support, educational resources, digital tools and prescription options if appropriate. Hormone replacement therapies are not FDA approved for the treatment of perimenopause but may be prescribed off label for perimenopausal symptoms at a provider discretion. See website for full details, important safety information and restrictions. This episode is brought to you by Marshalls, where you never have to compromise between quality and price. The buyers of Marshalls hustle hard working to bring you great deals on brand name and designer pieces because Marshalls believes everyone deserves access to the good stuff. Visit a Marshalls store near you or shop online@marshalls.com w I am Nicole Khalil, your host of the this Is Woman's Work podcast, and I'm about a half a year away from a big time birthday. I'll be turning 50 and one of the things big birthdays and milestones often do is they have us reflect. It's an opportunity to look back on our lives and the lives that we've lived so far and decide what we want to carry forward and what we're finally ready to leave behind. And friend. I don't have a lot of regrets. That doesn't mean I've done things perfectly or avoided mistakes. I have had far more than my fair share. And some of them have been doozies. But with the benefit of hindsight, I can see how they shaped the person that I am and the life that I've built. I can really only come up with two big regrets. The first is not living or studying abroad. And the other. I wish I'd played more, had fun more as an adult. The problem is, after decades of taking both myself and life far too seriously, I'm not even sure I know where to start. Because somewhere between learning to pay bills, building a career, managing relationships, and trying to keep, like 1,000 balls in the air, I traded in my playful self for my productive self. I told myself that it was part of growing up. I told myself that I was being responsible. But really, I just forgot the version of me who knew how to play. And even worse, I forgot that it mattered. And here's the thing that's not just sad, it's a little dangerous. Because when we disconnect from play, we're not just missing out on fun. We're cutting ourselves off from joy, creativity, connection, and some of the best parts of being human. Play isn't just what kids do when they have free time or when they're bored. It's how we expand our thinking, reset our nervous systems, and remember that life is about so much more than checking things off of our to do list. So, as today's guest says, play is how we learn to be human. How we learn who. Who we are, how we learn to fail, communicate, love, fight, rebel desire, build and survive. At its best, play is life affirming, soul sustaining and mind expanding. And I don't know about you, but I could use a lot more of all of that. So let me introduce our guest. Cass Holman. Founder and chief designer of the toy company here is Will Rise and former professor of industrial design at RISD. Her work, including iconic designs like RigamaJig and GMO, has inspired playful learning and imagination all over the world. She's led workshops and seminars with teams at Google, Nike, Lego Foundation, Disney Imagineering, and in art museums across the globe. Her mission, to show us that play isn't just for kids and that it might be the thing our overworked, over, serious, over scheduled adult selves need the most. Cass, welcome to the show. And because I really mean it when I say that I don't know where to start, can you start us off by explaining what play even means for us as adults?
- [05:18]
B
Yeah, I mean, thank you, Nicole. First of all, happy upcoming birthday.
- [05:22]
A
Thank you.
- [05:23]
B
I also just, I turned 50 last year. So I identify with what you, how you were describing kind of. It's a, it's a, it's a big one.
- [05:32]
A
It is a big one and I'm super excited about it. I feel like it's a point of pride almost. I don't know.
- [05:38]
B
Yeah. My party was called 50 and Feral. I really, I was like, this is how I'm gonna roll. You know, a friend, I might borrow that. Yeah, I encourage it. Do your best. I'm just giving you more homework now. Not only do you need to play, but yeah. So I mean, that was a beautiful introduction and I'm actually quite moved by your words because I think that your experience is a very common one. And the. Like you said that we trade in productivity for play, right? Or we, we prioritize our lives and the things in our lives in a way that don't leave room for play. We don't prioritize it. If we can start to understand the value of it, then we will. The way that, you know, we do with kind of a healthy diet and getting enough sleep. Right. Like maybe at some point in life we weren't, we, we weren't as in touch with how much we need to sleep or what a big difference it makes when we eat well. Right. And then as soon experience eating well or getting consistent amounts of good sleep, we like, oh, right. Okay. I'm gonna, this matters and I'm gonna make this a priority. So. And for me to your question, like kind of what does play mean to our lives? There's a lot of different kinds of play, right? There's kind of sports and video games and crossword puzzles and going dancing. Right. Going out to dinner with friends. So there are ways that we kind of, that adults are, are quite good at playing and we can do. And what I focus on in the book is free play, which is a little bit different than some of the more structured play in that it puts us in touch with kind of what we intuitively might do. So it's kind of open ended play. So unstructured. In my experience, being a professor of what I would consider young adults in undergraduate and graduate art education and also just in life as a professional person. In my experience, our lives are very structured and increasingly so, especially like you said, with product that need to be kind of productive or the feeling that we can't waste time. Like this idea that time is a commodity is even kind of telling in how we think about how we structure our lives. So in free play, it gives us a chance to connect with something that is not about an outcome. Right. So we can kind of dive into an activity, not know where it's going, not need to be good at it, and really just play for the sake of playing. Which is not to say that it doesn't have value. Right. So on the one hand in the book, I'm trying to balance that this has value and we should prioritize it and it's good for you. And at the other hand, I'm saying we need to be able to play not because it's just because it's good for you. Don't play because now you have to be good at play in the same way that you have the pressure of, great, now I have to be good at yoga or now I have to be good at. So these things that actually it's not about being good at it, about letting yourself do it.
- [08:42]
A
Okay. A few different things popped into my head. One of them, and you kind of alluded to this, is something that I experienced. I can't imagine I'm the only one, is when I do things or want to do things that fall under this category. For me, it's a lot like puzzles, games, things like that. There is this nagging voice. I almost feel guilty about it, like I should be doing something else or that this is not the. And I put in air quotes, best use of my time. And so can you give us. Because I want to talk about free play and playing without there needing to be a reason. But before we do that, can you talk to us about the outcomes, the benefits, the reasons why, not just allowing ourselves, but encouraging ourselves to do these things? Why it matters? Yeah.
- [09:35]
B
My background is a designer. I design, as you mentioned, toys and playgrounds. And when I set out to write the book, I really wanted to appeal to people who might be kind of skeptical, as many of us are. And I also know even if we aren't skeptical, it really does help us prioritize things if we kind of believe it.
- [09:54]
A
Right.
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B
If there's. We like evidence, we like proof. I love science. So I partnered with a science writer named Lydia Denworth, who did quite a bit of research. And it's interesting. There's a lot of research about kind of play in general, both animals, of course, children and kind of humans in general, but very little specifically about adults. There's so much research that shows the benefits of play, and one scientist in particular named Stuart Brown, who studied play deprivation and the cost to kind of our identity and our development of not playing. Right. So there's research that shows of course, the benefits, both emotionally and physically, socially of the benefits of playing. And then also research that has shown the huge detriment of play deprivation. And so we know that it's great for our psyche, it's great for our bodies, it's great for our relationships. And I think one of the things that specifically free play does is connects us to kind of our intuition and our kind of intrinsic motivation. I think, like I said, with. With our lives being highly structured, I think we've become a little bit out of touch with kind of what we need at any point in time in a way that play can be something that can help us get what we need in the way that, you know, sometimes when you're like, ah, I feel weird today, do I need to eat? Do I need to nap? Do I need to, like, go meditate? Right? And I think play can be one of those things that we can start to get in touch with. Like, oh, maybe I. To just go and putter, right? Or like you said, maybe I need to do a puzzle, which for many I would consider meditative play.
- [11:42]
A
Right?
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B
So doing something like that is meditative play. And the way that, like bird watching is what I call attention play, right? Or kind of when I'm on the. I live in Brooklyn. I take the subway everywhere when I'm on the subway. I love people watching. And it's kind of attention play because I'm just noticing all of the things. But. But I'm also kind of. It's imaginary play because I'm also inventing stories about everyone and wondering where they came from.
- [12:10]
A
And so glad it's not just me that does that.
- [12:12]
B
Oh, no, it's so fun. I love that play. So I think that there are also ways that we do play that we maybe don't think of as play, you know, So I think we do take care of ourselves with play, whether or not we know it. I think we could just do a lot more of it.
- [12:27]
A
Yeah, that's something that keeps popping in my head as I might be doing this more than I'm conscious of. Of. And the opportunity to choose to do more of it and allow for myself to do more of it. I. I think is something I'm excited about. You talked about not needing to be good at it for us high achievers, right? That can be really. Or I think of things like sports, pickleball. I know four people who've had serious injuries in the last couple months playing pickleball. And I'm like, might have been a little too competitive about it. Right. So any tips about how to pull ourselves out of that? Because I think it's unconscious. Right. We unconsciously get competitive. We unconsciously want to be good at something or achieve or accomplish at this point. Any tips about how to catch that?
- [13:19]
B
Yeah, I. Well, first of all, you know, this is what our schooling does. So we spend our primary years, we have, you know, 1st through 12th grade learning to want to succeed. Right. All of our learning is wrapped up in grading. Right. So the kind of extrinsic motivators of grades and competitive. And so we're all set up to kind of ruin everything by needing to like, succeed at it. Right. So one of the. So there's kind of three tenants in my, in what I'm proposing will help adults play more. And one of them is reframing success. Right. So what does it mean to succeed? Right. Like, is the goal to win at pickleball or is the goal to laugh with your friends, get some exercise and maybe be outside, you know. Although I will say there's a lot of now indoor, highly competitive pickle. Like, I, that's, that's when that I'm, I, I saw it coming. I was like, I wonder if we're going to ruin pickleball too, because it just seemed like such a wonderfully silly sport at first.
- [14:25]
A
Right? Yeah, no, good point.
- [14:27]
B
And it's still, I think for many it still is. But one example of that is the other night, some, some friends and I kind of in it. There was an impromptu. A lot of us trying to go out to dinner. And in New York you can't really just kind of roll up to a restaurant. And, and so we were kind of like, ah, we've got an hour wait over there. Or we could, you know, try to take the subway and go to this other neighborhood and maybe get in there. We were trying to eat somewhere good. But at some point I said, you know what? Like, success isn't a delicious meal. Success is that we all get to sit together and, and eat. Cause we're hungry. So let's just go to that place that's not that great, but we know we can get in, you know, so it was like such a. We like released ourselves from it having to be an epically delicious dinner. Because the point wasn't necessarily the meal. The point was all of us being together. Right. So I do, I think, like, it's important, I hope that we're starting to develop an awareness of do something because you love it, whether it's you or your children, like, be there for the, for the joy of it and the play of it, rather than the needing to be good at it or needing to succeed or become competitive or professional. You can be a bad dancer and keep dancing. There's so many ways to play basketball. If you're not on the winning team, it's about the play. Right? So releasing judgment is a big one. Reframing success is another. Releasing judgment is also trusting yourself and the people that you play with that they like you, like they wanna play with you. No one is gonna make fun of you for being bad. And then also like, don't make fun of yourself for being bad. Or you know, or if you really wanna dance while you're in line at the grocery store, let yourself do that, try it and everything will be okay afterward, right? Singing while you're walking down the sidewalk. And I think we often we just don't let ourselves do things because we're afraid of looking silly.
- [16:25]
A
There may be studies on this, but I'm just pulling numbers out of my butt. I feel like there's probably 80% of the releasing judgment is the judgment we have of and for ourselves.
- [16:35]
B
Absolutely.
- [16:36]
A
More often than not, other people don't care and the people who love us, you know, are happy to see us having fun or a smile on our face. And I also think of like the six year old self where it's like, if somebody is being judgmental about our play, then it's like, I just don't want to play with you anymore. Yeah, right. Yeah.
- [16:54]
B
And. And if they even notice, I think that's also one of the wonderful things. And it's kind of in our early teen years that we start to be aware of people noticing or judging us. And before that, no, like that's. There's a beautiful oblivion to it, you know? Totally. And I'm finding that in my later years, I'm almost going back to where I was before puberty where I just like didn't care. I was oblivious, didn't notice what I worried, I just didn't notice. And I feel like I'm like, there's something that's like bringing me back and in a way that is really glorious. And I'm loving about being over 50.
- [17:29]
A
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- [18:53]
B
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- [19:20]
A
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- [19:51]
A
Yeah, I'm finding that too. The older I get, the less I care. And it is freedom. I don't know how to explain it any other way than that. Okay, so reframe success, release judgment. You said there's a third, right?
- [20:04]
B
Yeah. The third is embrace possibility. So when we embrace possibility, it's a little bit about curiosity. So it's kind of staying curious and it's also just kind of being open and aware of what comes out of It. So another example, a friend of mine was going hiking with her son and he was dilly dallying as seven year olds do. And she was getting really frustrated. She was like, we're going on a hike, you know, we have to reach the top. This is what this hike is, is that we go to the. And then we could see the view. But he wanted to, you know, pick up sticks and poke a rock and turn over logs and play with moss and smell the ground. And at some point she just kind of said, wait a minute, we'd been talking about this. And she, she said, maybe this is what we're doing, you know. So she was kind of reframing success, but in the process of reframing success, they found this whole like orchard of different mosses. And he's been obsessed with moss ever since. And she was really interested in moss. So they kind of what was a hike became this like moss exploration. And by embracing possibilities she was like, okay, I guess we're not gonna hike necessarily, but we're in the woods. Our goal was to be together and to be outside. So here we are. And now they have this family wide passion for moss, right? So that's a little bit like an example of kind of embracing possibilities. Like what, when you kind of are present for what might arise that you don't expect and you stay curious, then these whole other things can emerge that you might not have even noticed or you may have shut down if you were really single mindedly kind of moving toward a goal or working toward an outcome.
- [21:50]
A
And is that also kind of a good example of free play, not having a destination or end goal or like just sort of like, oh, this, this took me in this direction. I, I think kids do that really well. It's like they start something and then all of a sudden they're like over here. And you're like, where did that come from? But yeah, it's because they don't have restrictions.
- [22:10]
B
And similarly, I think when it, when, when adults can kind of kind of release the judgment that makes us feel like, no, you gotta be productive or like that's a waste of time. Or like, what are you doing? That usually when I say to myself, wait, what are you doing? How did I get here? That's when I'm really like following my intrinsic motivation so that I like maybe needed to rearrange my knickknacks or like play with my plants. And I'll be like, wait, I was doing like, why am I in the plants right now? I don't know. Cause I need to. Okay. Let myself do it. And usually, like, I'll do it for another 10 minutes or so, and then I'll be like, ah, I feel good. I feel better. Okay. You know, so that's like its own kind of play, whatever kind of tinkering. I think tinkering is a very, very common way that adults play, and there's something there that we need, but we often don't let ourselves dive in and just rearrange our knickknacks as much as we might benefit from.
- [23:03]
A
Yeah, I am a tinkerer for sure, But I think the opportunity is to put it in the play category, even just in my own mind, because. Yeah. Do you like yourself doing that a lot? I do, but then I, like, call it organizing or whatever, but I'm, like, organizing something that really does not need to be organized. It's more just like a feeling of, like, oh, I just want to mess with this a little bit.
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B
Yeah. Find order.
- [23:27]
A
Yeah.
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B
Yeah.
- [23:28]
A
Okay. You talk about adult play types, and I think you mentioned a couple earlier, but you talk about different ones in your book. Can you give us. I don't know how many there are, but a rundown of a few of the most common play types or ones that we might want to be mindful of.
- [23:43]
B
Okay. So I mentioned meditative play, which is kind of a slow play, and I mentioned attention play, which was kind of the bird watching. And of course, like, with adults in the adult play types that I've kind of defined, all of them can be done socially, and many of them frequently are social. So social play is in its own category, because I think, like, we do these socially. And then similarly, free play isn't its own category because each of these types of play can be done as free play or as kind of more of an organized play. One that's kind of, I think, interesting is misbehavior play. You know, so some. For some people that could be, like, snooping or getting, you know, like, looking. Looking in somebody's fridge when you go to their house, which I am always want to do, whether or not I do it, which feels nicer than looking in medicine cabinets, which we also, I think probably most of us want to do, but that's kind of misbehavior play. But for many, like, having a night out where we, like, maybe we drink too much or kind of like pushing boundaries. Right. And I think that in that also, even kind of dressing up, whether it's like just putting on an outfit that feels more extreme or like, it Brings out some version of your personality is a way that we can also kind of play with our identities. So drag is kind of behavior play, but also kind of misbehavior play because for some people it's pushing against something they feel like they shouldn't be doing. There's also, there's like embodied play. And I think for adults, you know, dancing around and sports, of course, are embodied play. But on the free play end of things, I love a kitchen dance party just like impromptu while people are doing dishes, you know, move around all kinds of like, you know, swimming and playing at the beach and things like that are kind of a more of the free play version of embodied play. And I think that what you brought up with kind of rearranging things or tinkering are a little bit about like, there's something about creating order that can be playful. That also reminds me of watching a. I don't know when the last time is you watched a child play with a dollhouse. Kind of like making things feel just so as a way of feeling some control, whether it's domestic or not. And I think that that can be. Can be playful in a way that if we, if we kind of rearrange things such that we don't know, like, ah, what would happen if we did this. Right. So in, in each of like these, these adult play types, there's a way we can enter them with what if? And that helps us kind of stay open to whether or not it's successful. Right. So if you say, well, what if we put the couch over there? And then you might say like, oh, wow, yeah, that doesn't work. But you've learned something about what was good about it before. Right. And in the meantime, it probably changed the dynamic of what happened in your living room, you know, or saying like, let's all sit on the floor tonight. You know, I've done this before with dinner parties where we just, we run out of chairs. And rather than having a couple people sitting on the floor on a weird trash can, we just all sit on the floor. And it really changes the dynamic in a way that's quite lovely. And it takes all of us out of our normal, you know, posture. So there are ways that just shifting something, whether it's domestic or also in your work life, can really give you kind of. And thinking of it as play and entering it with a playful mindset can really kind of give you a new perspective and make something feel fresh or, you know, interesting again.
- [27:19]
A
Yeah, well, I'm not gonna lie. The misbehavior play. The minute you said it, I was like, tell me more. I don't know what it is. It reminded me. The thing idea that came into my head was, you know, when I was younger, in school, like, high school or college, getting the giggles with one of your friends during a class or, like, where it's like, you know, you're not supposed to, but just the, like, uncontrollable. And the fact that you're laughing when you shouldn't be makes it even funnier. And then all of a sudden, you get kicked out of class. That happened to me once, but, oh, man, Just, you know, this idea of pushing against expectations or perfection or letting go a little bit about what people think or how it looks.
- [28:01]
B
Yeah.
- [28:02]
A
Something about that, I think is appealing to me now.
- [28:05]
B
And I want to just also add that I think for many adults, any play, just playing is misbehaving. Right. Like, it's actually, I would like this to not be the case, but, I mean, this is why I wrote the book. Like, it's so hard for us to let ourselves play. Right. I think that we all know how to play. We became who we are through play, and then we learned to not play. Right. To be an adult, like, definitively is to not play. Like, as you were. I mean, I think probably all of us throughout our teen and preteen years, like, don't, you know, don't act like a cat or, like, grow up, all of these things. Like, it was bad to be a child or it was bad to play. You know, you won't be taken seriously. You won't. People won't respect you if you're playful. Like, you need to act like an adult.
- [28:51]
A
Right.
- [28:52]
B
So just playing is already misbehaving in a way that I think requires that we be brave and trust ourselves and trust the people around us a lot.
- [29:02]
A
Totally. Okay. So that leads me to my last question, which is for those of us who have taken ourselves and life far too seriously and want to explore and misbehave and play a little bit more, any tips around communicating or inviting other people in our lives to play with us? You mentioned it. Most of it being social. And I don't want the people in my life to think I've all of a sudden gone off the deep end. Right. So, like, how. Which I guess is probably fine, but how do we communicate? How do we invite other people into this with us?
- [29:39]
B
Yeah. In play, you know, I mentioned trust and risk, and to play is to be vulnerable. Right. Which is why it's Hard and also why it is so profoundly important to us. Right. Like, the more vulnerable we are when we find ourselves in a vulnerable, like, usually that means that there's something, a large benefit or something really beneficial that we're going to gain by opening ourselves up to something. Right? So I think that, that having the conversation with. With your friends about, like, hey, do you want to try to play more? Or like, hey, I want to, you know, I read this book or I. I think I'm going to, will you do this with me? You know, and just kind of even prefacing it in advance. And I think we do this a little bit with friends. Like, if it's. If we're going somewhere and say, oh, you know, I kind of had a rough day, like, is it okay if I'm a little bit. You know? And just saying that kind of gives ourselves permission to like, show up wherever we are. And usually this is common. I'm not alone in doing this, but I definitely will be like, oh, I haven't seen this person in so long. I really. I need to like, show up and be fun and wonderful. And some days I just can't. Right? But I feel the pressure to like, show up and be an entertainer and be like, ah, I gotta be. We gotta have a great time. And the, the times that I let myself say, like, hey, I wanna come and I wanna be with you, but I, like, have had a rough day. Like, can we just laugh tonight? Like, I need to. Just whatever it takes. Like we need to, you know. And they're like, yes. So usually your friends will be so excited to know where you are and probably have their own whatever states they're showing up in. And whether it's, I had a rough day or I had an amazing day, like, play is exactly what we need in all of those. I think it's also the anecdote for so much. There's some uncertainty happening in the world right now. And people often think like, oh, we play when things are good. And it's like, well, we also need to play when things are bad. Actually, when things are rough is really when we need to be grounded in our humanity and in our sense of self. And that is what play does. So, yeah. So I think being honest with your friends and saying, here's this thing that I want to try, like, do you want to try it with me?
- [31:52]
A
Yeah. I almost think of, like, inviting your friend over to play. Right? Like, a few of my closest friends I know will listen to this episode, so I'm on the hook Whether I like it or not, they're going to be like, all right, we're playing friend. So I hope you listening are going to do the same. So definitely go order Cass's book Playful wherever it is you buy books. Definitely. Let's keep our local bookstores in business. You can also find out more about Cass and her work on her website, cass holman.com or on Instagram. We'll put all the links and all the ways to find and follow Cass in show notes and send this episode to the friends you want to play with and invite them to play. Cass, thank you for your important work and for reminding us to have a little fun.
- [32:37]
B
Oh, thank you, Nicole. It was great to talk to you.
- [32:39]
A
My pleasure. Okay, friend, maybe the real takeaway here isn't that play is something we grow out of. It's something we grow into if we let ourselves. And it's not childish, it's not a waste of time. It's one of the most life affirming, creativity, sparking connection, building things that we can do. So whether it's building something with your hands, getting lost in a hobby, laughing till your cheeks hurt, or doing something just for the pure joy of it it, let's make space for play. Especially when life feels heavy, busy or overwhelming. Because that's when we need it most. Because fun isn't frivolous, joy isn't optional, and reclaiming our playful selves, that is woman's work.
- [33:29]
B
Are seed oils toxic? Is fluoride dangerous? Does sunscreen cause cancer?
- [33:34]
A
Social media is full of health scares and most of them are dead wrong. Hosted by a public health scientist and.
- [33:40]
B
A neurobiologist, Unbiased Science tackles trending health and science myths with actual evidence.
- [33:47]
A
No fear mongering, no agenda, just the receipts. You need to fact check Uncle Bill's Facebook posts.
- [33:53]
B
New episodes drop every Wednesday.
- [33:56]
A
Unbiased Science is your trusted source for.
- [33:58]
B
No nonsense, just science. Hi listeners, it's Jack Bishop. I'm the ingredients guy on America's test Kitchens public television show and the host of our award winning podcast, Proof. Proof combines history, science and culture to tell unexpected stories about food. Every episode is filled with aha moments that you'll want to share at your next dinner party. New episodes of Drop every Thursday. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and you might never look at food the same way again.