Cyndi Burnett [00:00:00]:
A few days ago, I was at my neighbor’s house and they have a little boy there. He’s seven years old and I haven’t seen him in a while. And he came out and I said, oh, how is school going? And he’s like, I don’t like school. I said, oh, come on, buddy, why don’t you like school? And he said, it’s just not fun. And I thought about it. I’m like, oh, gosh, seven years old and school is already not fun. Like, why? This is the, that’s been in my mind. Why is school not fun?

Mike Rucker [00:00:27]:
What do you think?

Matthew Worwood [00:00:28]:
Hello, everyone. My name is Dr. Matthew Werwood.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:31]:
And my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett.

Matthew Worwood [00:00:33]:
This is the fueling creativity in Education podcast.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:37]:
On this podcast, we’ll be talking about various creativity topics and how they relate to the fields of education.

Matthew Worwood [00:00:43]:
We’ll be talking with scholars, educators, and resident experts about their work, challenges they face, and exploring new perspectives of creativity.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:51]:
All with a goal to help fuel a more rich and informed discussion that provides teachers, administrators, and emerging scholars with the information they need to infuse creativity into teaching and learning.

Matthew Worwood [00:01:03]:
So let’s begin.

Cyndi Burnett [00:01:05]:
Hello. We have a fun episode for you today. Today we have Dr. Mike Rucker, who is an organizational psychologist, behavioral scientist, and charter member of the International Positive Psychology association. He has been academically published in publications like the International Journal of Workplace Health Management. His ideas about fun and health have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and many others. He currently serves as a senior leader at active wellness and is the author of the bestselling book the Fun Habit, which is out now and I have read and highly recommend. So I invited Mike to the show.

Cyndi Burnett [00:01:45]:
Welcome, Mike.

Mike Rucker [00:01:46]:
Thanks for having me, Mike.

Cyndi Burnett [00:01:48]:
I think it’s important to start with your definition of fun. What is fun and how do we cultivate it in our lives?

Mike Rucker [00:01:55]:
So the way I define fun is, I start with kind of an academic definition. There’s this concept in psychology called Valence. It’s just a Fancy word for pleasure, right? And so fun is anything on the positive side of valence. So, meaning that we’re getting enjoyment from it and we’re drawn to that activity. And anything unfun is on the negative side of valence. So we’re kind of repelled by it. It’s hard, it’s depleting and things that don’t bring us joy. And so, simply put, fun is finding pleasure in the activities that you’re doing.

Cyndi Burnett [00:02:29]:
Well, that sounds fun. So how do we bring fun into our lives?

Mike Rucker [00:02:34]:
Yeah, so I think what the research shows is that especially as adults, as we get older, we tend to habituate our daily routine. And so a lot of folks aren’t looking through the lens of finding joy in the things that they do in their day to day. We’ve really been groomed to look at productivity and how do we squeeze the most out of every minute. But this idea of how do I also look at the things that I’m doing and making sure that I’m enjoying myself in context becomes something that’s also valuable. Right. And what we found is that just a lot of folks, when they look back at their week, aren’t enjoying the things that they’re doing. And this is starting to have a ripple effect in a really negative way. Right.

Mike Rucker [00:03:21]:
We know when folks aren’t finding joy in life, it’s a slow burn. So it takes longitudinal studies to kind of identify it. But there’s a pretty direct line to the record levels of burnout we’re seeing, especially with educators, physicians. For the first year, we saw nurses on strike. Right. And so there’s a whole host of headwinds why that’s happening. Knowledge work is one of them. The fact that we’re getting information 24/7 where our previous generations didn’t.

Mike Rucker [00:03:52]:
So we kind of had this always on life that didn’t exist before. And then also just the fact that our lives are becoming more routine. And so being able to kind of get that nudge that invitation to go back and start to say, hey, I have some agency and autonomy over how I do things and how I spend my time becomes important in that context. And then sort of a side narrative is also the leisure issue that we have here, especially in North America. Right. We’re the second to last with regards to giving PTO. And so, so many people sort of mortgage having fun for these once a year episodic vacations. And if those go south, then essentially the one opportunity they had to enjoy themselves isn’t available and they have to wait till the next year.

Mike Rucker [00:04:40]:
So figuring out how to sort of work around that problem that we’re so leisure poor is also something that needs to get worked on.

Matthew Worwood [00:04:51]:
There’s a few things that you reference that I would like to explore from a classroom perspective, but I suppose in theory we could speak about them outside the classroom as well. It’s the idea of routine habit. And when you’re talking about PTO, I start thinking about just having new experiences. That question maybe is on its own. Are we more likely to have fun when we’re experiencing something new. And the reason why I bring that up is, of course, not just teachers, students. We obviously get into a routine of learning. And my eldest is just really disgruntled about his current routine in life because he says he goes to school, comes home, does homework, goes to school, comes home, does homework, and he doesn’t like that routine.

Matthew Worwood [00:05:40]:
And I can see the joy that he once had for learning slowly going away. And that’s obviously an example of students. But I have no doubt that we can also relate a similar thing to teachers as well. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that. This getting into the habit, the routine. But then also, is it just a case of we’re not being exposed enough to novel experiences, or can we have fun while we’re in the routines?

Mike Rucker [00:06:05]:
The truth lies with both. But you’re certainly right that novelty tends to be something that’s exciting, especially if it’s geared towards your preferences. The literature is clear that when we’re kind of excited by something, when we’re anticipating some sort of arousal event, that we tend to encode that information in ways where recall becomes easier. So adding novelty in that respect is important. And then also it just gives you something to look forward to. Right. When we have habituated our routine, we kind of know what to expect. And so even if there is new learning, we’re not really turning on our brain with regards to thinking that we have to index each day or each individual module.

Mike Rucker [00:06:51]:
And so to the extent that we can circumvent that, it becomes important. And then there’s a lot of work coming from Dr. Wooley out of Cornell in this area where if you add elements that allow creativity to flow, novelty, or just allow a little bit more agency over how the student goes about that work, so they have some choices about how they engage it. So even if it’s a habitual regiment with regards to the curriculum of the course, allowing the kid to tackle it in a way that’s exciting for them. All of these have additive benefits that we know. Just one, make it more enjoyable, but then two, give that student more willpower to stick with that course.

Cyndi Burnett [00:07:38]:
Well, when you’re talking about fun, does fun have to be sort of wild and crazy? Do I need to be having dance parties in my classroom? Do I need to wear a costume? What does it actually look like? What do you think it might look like in the classroom?

Mike Rucker [00:07:53]:
Yeah, thanks for that question. Because it goes back to the extent you can let the learner guide what they think is fun becomes important. So certainly boisterous behavior is going to get students attention. But ultimately, if you have students that have preferences for low arousal activities, like, I just want to do deep work, I want to get engrossed in whatever activity I’m doing, then kind of the craziness of the class is going to repel them a little bit. Right? The same thing with introverts. If there’s some sort of engagement that requires them to sort of engage with others, that might not be something that they would classify as fun. Right. And so one thing that I always like to clarify is sometimes learning isn’t necessarily meant to be fun.

Mike Rucker [00:08:40]:
I meant growth happens sometimes in discomfort. But what I would suggest is that we aren’t having enough fun and that it’s clearly a useful vehicle for improving circumstance. And so to answer the question, what are elements of it that are modular so that it can be a fun event, but students can pick and choose what’s going to make it fun for.

Matthew Worwood [00:09:04]:
Them even I’m thinking about the interaction I’ve had with my kids teachers and the back to school nights, and I’m reflecting on the teachers talking about the upcoming year, all of the things that they’re going to do, and just thinking right now, I think pretty much every teacher I’ve interacted with talks about a fun project and that fun project. It might be September that we’re having this back to school night, but that fun project might be in April, and you can see the teacher lights up. They typically talk about their past students having lots of fun doing it. And my question for you is, I wonder if that project is fun because it’s almost like a disruption to the routine and it is something to look forward to. And so I wonder if there is a subtle benefit to having some of these routines and then integrating these different experiences, these new fun experiences that disrupt the routines as opposed to trying to integrate fun activities throughout the academic year because maybe they might become more routine. Does that make sense?

Mike Rucker [00:10:12]:
It makes absolute sense, and you’re spot on. So the one thing about novelty is that if it’s overused, then all of a sudden it becomes less effective. Right. And so there’s an interesting study that I often cite, and this will make sense in a second out of UCLA that asks folks to approach their weekend like a vacation. Right. And we know that has a huge benefit. That’s essentially just a mindset shift. Right.

Mike Rucker [00:10:39]:
But if you look at that longitudinally and you think about your weekend every weekend as a vacation, ultimately that kind of intervention is going to lose its utility, right. Because you’re like, okay, I’ve done this before, so I use that as an example to answer your question, right? If every week there’s this new thing where you stop to understand why you’re in this environment, I think it would lose its utility because, one, there wouldn’t be structure, right? And we know students and children in general need structure, need scaffolding to some degree so that goals can be achieved. But to your point, adding this novelty then lights them up, because it is these episodic rewards of, like, okay, I can break the routine. This is sort of exciting. And I can play with ideas that are now seeded through mastery because we did the work. And then think about them in a nonlinear way in a very safe space, which is oftentimes when good teachers put these things together. Happens. Like, for instance, my son just did a living museum where they picked their favorite person.

Mike Rucker [00:11:48]:
They had to do a report on it, right? So it was a writing assignment, and they learned how to research. But then it was this performative art where all the parents came into the auditorium and got to see these kids come alive. And to these people that they really endeared. And so what an amazing, fun thing that really gave the students a lot of autonomy on how they wanted to go about it. Some got in costumes, some didn’t. Some read the speech, the introverts. So it wasn’t like they were put on the spot, but they still were able to participate. So you saw this wide breadth of ways of having fun that was really inviting for the student and a great way to sort of learn about history.

Matthew Worwood [00:12:32]:
That’s a wonderful story.

Cyndi Burnett [00:12:33]:
That is a great story. I love that. I haven’t heard anything like that before either.

Matthew Worwood [00:12:38]:
I did that in my drama school. I think that’s why I’m finding it fun. And to your point, actually, it was very different because instead of doing a play, we had to go and study an animal for three weeks. So typically, we would do a play every three weeks, but this one particular period, production period, we had to go to the zoo and study an animal. And then the production was us publicly, in essence, acting out a zoo, and people would come and see us in our cages. There’s something really fun about that activity, and I’ve never heard it or even thought about it in the context of an elementary school. I’m assuming it was an elementary school, but that’s fantastic.

Mike Rucker [00:13:16]:
That’s fantastic. And it’s also a great example. Right. If you approach it with some creativity, you generally can add a lot of elements of novelty to something that might at first blush seem routine. So, again, curriculum is important. We all know that structure is important. We know that you kind of need to know where you’re going. But figuring out intermittently how to make it more exciting again has a whole host of benefits.

Cyndi Burnett [00:13:45]:
So there’s where my question lies. So a few days ago, I was at my neighbor’s house, and they have a little boy there. He’s seven years old, and I haven’t seen him in a while. And he came out and I said, oh, how is school going? And he’s like, I don’t like school. I said, oh, come on, buddy, why don’t you like school? And he said, it’s just not fun. And I thought about it. I’m like, oh, gosh. Seven years old and school is already not fun.

Cyndi Burnett [00:14:10]:
Like, why? This is the question that’s been in my mind. Why is school not fun?

Mike Rucker [00:14:14]:
What do you think? Well, each situation obviously is going to be unique, right? I don’t know this child circumstance, but some of it is coming out of the pandemic. I think we’re still trying to find our way. Right? I don’t want to place too much blame on that, but ultimately, again, I think some of it’s social conditioning. So how do we get ourselves out of that and start to make things more exciting in the sense that the child does want to get to the classroom. And so figuring out ways of being inviting. I saw a video recently where a teacher had unique introductions to each student as they came into the classroom. Have you seen that one where they kind of slapped the door and they each had their personal sort of greeting? And so I think to the extent in the book I talk about story editing where if you see that within your classroom, one doing some sort of diagnostic work so you can figure out what is the root cause of students feeling like it isn’t enjoyable experience. And then trying to figure out within your own creativity, but also co creating it with the students so they feel like there’s some buy in.

Mike Rucker [00:15:30]:
How can we change this course so that, again, not suggesting that the whole entire day is whimsical, but how can we add elements where people are excited? Like, I can’t wait for this to happen, instead of the sort of old cliche of waiting for recess, right.

Matthew Worwood [00:15:49]:
I do think there are pockets. I keep reflecting on elementary schools like the sports days, these science fairs, the elementary school teacher that turns the classroom into a gingerbread house. The elementary school teacher that creates a scavenger hunt with insects. In my school, my kids school, the no uniform days. I think that to give credit, there are situations where some schools, not all of them, whether they mean to or not, try and mix up the routines and create some opportunities for fun. But as we progress up grades, I think that maybe I’m seeing less of those opportunities, because to your point, you’d referenced it in your first answer. We start getting into those routines and habits. We’ve got the sports, we’ve got the theater productions.

Matthew Worwood [00:16:43]:
Everyone is in so much structured activity. And those structured activities, partly to do with us being able to survive and fit them into the day, are typically well organized and highly routine based. And I’m wondering if both older students, but also teachers, are there opportunities for us to find fun despite the fact we’re interacting with a routine that we know very well?

Mike Rucker [00:17:12]:
Yeah, so there’s different tools that can be used depending on the circumstance, but I certainly think you can always add some sort of element. We’ve kind of already gotten into that, and I call that activity bundling. So what is something that you potentially could add? There’s generally three variables, right? Is it the environment? Right. Are people just sick of being in the four walls of the classroom? So if you have the privilege of being near some sort of nature installation, if you took it out there, even though it’s a subtle shift, would it be more pleasurable? Is the activity essentially what’s gotten stale? So is there a way, again, going back to the museum example, that you could switch up the way that you’re teaching so that the activity becomes more enjoyable, but you’re still accomplishing the same goal? And then sometimes, quite frankly, it’s the people, right? I think in this context, that’s harder to change. But is it the mix of people? Do you have the right groups? Is it time to kind of rethink how you’ve organized some of the ways that people are learning together? So playing with those three things tends to be a way to at least increase the pleasure that you’re having.

Cyndi Burnett [00:18:29]:
So sometimes I wonder if we want to build more fun into the classroom, we have to look at what the teacher is doing, and sometimes in the teachers that I talk with, they’re just so burned out. And so one of the things you reference is that fun is the elixir to burnout. And so it’s almost like, I wonder if by bringing fun into your everyday life, then that will help you bring fun into your classroom. Would you agree with that?

Mike Rucker [00:18:53]:
Yes. So there’s a concept called the hedonic flexibility principle that certainly suggests that if you do find yourself burnt out, finding ways to improve your circumstance can be additive. Right? And there’s a whole host of science behind that. So it’s not just one assertion, right. A lot of folks will be familiar with social contagion. So if you start to feel better, then the folks around you will feel better if you understand how fun can be invigorating. So if you’re enjoying yourself after the classroom, you have a clear transition from your life as a teacher into your leisure life, and you start to enjoy yourself. What we find is that that will often carry over to the next day.

Mike Rucker [00:19:43]:
And there’s a whole host of research to suggest that what I will say is, don’t think you have to do it all at once. Where I find people get blocked is, okay. I need to figure out how to be a fun person, right? And it really does require like anything kind of tiptoeing in it. So figuring out small steps so you don’t feel overwhelmed or it becomes this episodic sort of thought and it doesn’t work because the first week blew up on you and then you kind of give up on it again. Start slow, figure out what it is. Add elements after work if you can, and then add elements into the classroom where even if you’re not enjoying yourself, seeing if by inviting joy to the students changes the outcome that you had, right. So that you’re accomplishing your goals, maybe even if you’re not having fun. And one thing that we do know, my academic background.

Mike Rucker [00:20:40]:
I look more at physicians than educators. But across most vocations that are of service, when you are that depleted, you really start to lack empathy. And for most people that are serving others, once that empathy goes out the door, then outcomes across the board, right, whether that be patient outcomes or student outcomes, generally suffers. So most folks have gotten in these types of professions because they did want to make an impact. And in that context, when that’s illuminated, like, hey, if you really just don’t like showing up, then it probably is not just impacting your psychological well being, but it’s having this ripple effect and you’re probably not serving the reason that you got into this vocation in the first place. And so with that directive, even if it means let’s just figure out how you can have a little fun after the classroom as kind of a first step is a good place to start. I do feel like there is this awakening where people get it. At least in my state of North Carolina, they’ve increased the amount of teacher work days they really are trying to figure out how to be more equitable about how time is spent and creating opportunities so that folks can get together and sort out solutions as a team rather than feeling like the burden is all on their shoulders.

Mike Rucker [00:22:04]:
I’ve been pleasantly surprised, at least in Guilford county where I live, that this is being thought about, but I don’t know nationally if that’s true.

Matthew Worwood [00:22:13]:
No, in the state of Connecticut I would say somewhat limited interaction with schools. But when I compare it to what was quite a significant interaction with schools about ten years ago, certainly you’re seeing schools and school districts trying to facilitate more agency for their teaching community, for them to identify what they want to work on. That empathy piece, I think is really important for teachers who might be listening to this show and just kind of starting to wonder whether or not they’re reaching burnout. I certainly think I can relate to even the medical profession when I’ve gone in and felt like a doctor is burning out and I feel like I did hard to hide it, but I do. I think I can connect. When I’m burnt out and you receive that problem that you’ve dealt with ten times, you’re slightly different in how you respond. And I think that we quite often talk about setting goals for the year and thinking about opportunities for small wins, opportunities to be creative. But my takeaway, and I know we haven’t finished, but my takeaway is at the beginning of each academic year, at the beginning of each semester, I’m going to ask myself, where is the opportunity for me to have fun this year? Me, Matthew Werwood, because there’s facilitating fun with the students and my gut feeling is there’s a lot of educators that do that well.

Matthew Worwood [00:23:40]:
But I think we also need to say where is my opportunity to have fun as well? And we probably need to prioritize that just as much.

Mike Rucker [00:23:48]:
Yeah, that’s a big one. And even though this is such a low level tactic, I found that this invitation has really been hitting home. So I’m going to share it and that is take your lunch break. So many of us don’t do that. And you can google how deep this research goes. But even if fun for you, because for whatever reason, you can’t find fun in the classroom, taking a clean break and having a transition because the lunch hour is yours instead of working through it so that you come back the second half and are renewed, that’s a great piece of space to experiment on what is fun for me? Do I reconnect with another teacher that I really like and we do something that’s absolutely not related to the classroom. Am I an introvert? So I get engrossed in a good book, even though it’s a positive form of escapism. I’m kind of just removing myself from that cognitive load of the classroom.

Mike Rucker [00:24:47]:
So again, it’s a very pedestrian recommendation, but so many of us aren’t doing it. And if we extend the workday through that and don’t take breaks, it’s really when we start to see these fissures psychologically.

Matthew Worwood [00:25:02]:
Well, from the very beginning, since we started talking, and you were talking about, I think, before we started recording the idea of routines, and we as parents, we go from place a to place b, and I bet a whole bunch of teachers are also suffering from that. And I’m sure that’s contributing to burnout as well. It’s not just the classroom environment, it’s our lifestyle. And I think those transitions are really important and I think we’ve got to really be conscious.

Mike Rucker [00:25:30]:
It’s great.

Matthew Worwood [00:25:30]:
We all want to be super successful in our careers, and it’s great that we’re working hard and hopefully we’re going to be noticed and hopefully we’re going to be successful. But to your point, there’s times where I have the summer and I’ve got the choice between two books and I look at one book and I say, well, this is something I should read for my profession. This is something that I want to know to assist me in my then, you know, the other part of me was like, well, maybe I should just read the Percy Jackson books and see what my kids enjoying about it. And it seems small, but that’s a choice right there, to disengage, to go and do something new. And I think we all need to keep reflecting on that, making sure we build in those transitions. Whether it’s lunch break, whether it’s kind of like the bike ride to work as opposed to taking the car in, if we could bike ride wherever it is camping, we’ve got to find those moments to kind of break this routine. Otherwise, I think that we’re all vulnerable to burnout.

Cyndi Burnett [00:26:22]:
Oh, Matt, I really want to build on that. But hold on one moment.

Matthew Worwood [00:26:30]:
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Cyndi Burnett [00:26:38]:
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Matthew Worwood [00:26:50]:
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Cyndi Burnett [00:27:04]:
To learn more, check out curiositytocreate.org, or check out the links in the show notes for this episode. So, Mike, to build on what Matt just said, I loved the piece in your book around taking things out and evaluating your life, looking at your day, and what agonizes you and how to take those things that agonize you and remove them and replace them with fun. And the thing that has been an absolute game changer is the nothing that you talk about and how we spend our time on the nothing. So can you elaborate on both pieces for us?

Mike Rucker [00:27:39]:
Yeah. So whenever we build our systems, right, we’ve been talking about habitual behavior. It’s so easy to always add things to a busy life. Anything that we do right, we tend to add and add and we never take away. And so again, another invitation to be like, look at all of these things. Matt, that was a perfect example. I had these two books, right? And your mind’s like, I’ll figure out a way to read both of them. But generally that’s not practical, right? And there’s a whole host of examples of that where, again, especially if you also have children, where our lives are so overprescribed because we’ve kind of just habitually gone through our days that there are aspects of things that we do that we could just stop doing, right? It might be that toastmasters on Thursday night.

Mike Rucker [00:28:32]:
That was fun because you used to do it with friends, but now you just go because you’ve kind of forgotten that you can de invite yourself. But the other problem, too, is that when we are at a level of burnout, where we just don’t have the energy to do anything, really what we do is tend to end our day displacing that discomfort or boredom or loneliness or whatever ails you with things that feel good because they’re alleviating us from that pain, but they’re not really leading to betterment or filling us up or truly fun for that matter, if we looked at them. Let’s just take social media use, for example. If we asked ourselves, was that really fun that hour I was looking at memes, maybe it was the one day that a couple really hit. But as a generality, most people that look back at that time won’t even be able to tell you what they did. The same for mindlessly watching television. So I’m always clear to say, if you have your show and you’re watching it with your partner. And I asked you two weeks from now, how is that hour? And you’re like, I love the embrace of my partner.

Mike Rucker [00:29:41]:
And this show was like, I remember the conclusion and I had this moral story that’s not we’re talking about, but a lot of folks are just so tired, right? They’ll just surf channels, not really paying attention to what they’re watching and what we know. And again, the big asterisks here is do it in baby steps. Don’t try and change your life overnight. You start to replace that time where you’re not really, again, doing anything fun. You’re just displacing discomfort with things that do light you up, like maybe just a dinner date with your partner. Or for a lot of folks, it’s taking a class, reengaging with something that they truly enjoyed, but for whatever reason, that just kind of fell out of their life. Whatever it is, you’re reclaiming an hour to 3 hours in the 168 that you have in a week. So that’s another nice frame, right? Amen.

Mike Rucker [00:30:30]:
168. To say that you can’t have control between one and three, most people won’t challenge that. But when they look at their schedules mindfully, they realize, like, holy cow, I’ve kind of lost control of all of it. And so finding a way to look at these activities that aren’t bringing you joy, seeing where the low hanging fruit is so that you can reintegrate things that you want to do, and then playing and experimenting with that is a useful experiment. And nine times out of ten, what you will find is that what you thought was going to be cumbersome or, like, I just don’t have the energy for that actually is filling your batteries back up, and you show up the next day just like the Cassie Holmes research project that I showed or referenced, and the next day you feel better, and you’re like, oh, my goodness. And then it becomes this upward spiral instead of the downward spiral that so many of us find ourselves in.

Matthew Worwood [00:31:27]:
Okay, Mike, we finish every single episode, asking our guests to share three tips that they can offer to teachers or educators about bringing creativity into their lives. Perhaps in your case, introducing more fun into their lives.

Mike Rucker [00:31:42]:
Yeah. So I guess just to kind of summarize what we talked about. Right. That we generally have more agency and autonomy to choose fun. Right. So if you kind of feel like you have habituated your routine and you need to break out of it, how can you use. I call it story editing, but most people are familiar with the idea of reframing how could you reframe or potentially reconstruct the things that you’re doing to add some of the novelty, the fun, the creativity that we’ve talked about throughout this? Number two would be focusing on fun that’s already there. Sometimes there are fun elements that are already part of it, but that we’re not celebrating what they are.

Mike Rucker [00:32:24]:
So maybe there’s a way to amplify some of the things that you’re already doing or getting people involved so that you take what you already have, but then uplift that by giving folks a voice or allowing them to kind of tell you what would make that activity more enjoyable. And then the third one would be, what can you do to inject fun? And so that’s what we talked about as well. Is that, is there a way to completely flip the script? Right. The first two are really accessible. The third is once you feel like you have kind of the wherewithal to flip the script, where can you come in and really get creative, right? Create that living museum or whatever it is that would help you make something more interesting. But then I would say, and sorry for adding the fourth one, take heed in what’s working and what’s not. That’s part of the fun of creativity, right? Some of these things are going to fail. And so if you recall in the book, right, Dr.

Mike Rucker [00:33:25]:
Cook playing mist with her child, reframing it, so amazing where she was actually celebrating the things that didn’t work and making that fun. Right. We can do that as adults, too, right? If something fails in a disastrous sort of like, understand that that’s part of the process, laugh at it, but then come back and figure out what would work. So those would be my three recommendations.

Cyndi Burnett [00:33:48]:
Well, Mike, our time is up, but we have really enjoyed this conversation, and I highly recommend those of you who, if you enjoyed this episode, to check out Mike’s book, the fun Habit, which you can purchase on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or your favorite bookstore. So if you like this episode or you think someone in your life needs a little bit more fun, we highly recommend that you share this link with them and encourage them to give it a listen.

Matthew Worwood [00:34:13]:
My name is Dr. Matthew Warwood, and.

Cyndi Burnett [00:34:15]:
My name is Dr. Cindy Burnett. This episode was produced by Matthew Warwood and Cindy Burnett. Our podcast sponsor is curiosity to create, and our editor is Sam Atkinson.