The Achieve Podcast - Mia Sundstrom (National Institute for Play)

Welcome to another episode of the Achieve Podcast, the show where we highlight leaders, creators, entrepreneurs, those who are making an impact and shaping their industries. I'm Taylor Baker Baker, your host. Today, I'm excited to be joined by Mia Sundstrom, the CEO of the National Institute for Play, and you can find them at nifplay.org. Now, Mia, give us the backstory, and first off, thanks for joining us.

Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me, Taylor Baker Baker. This will be a really fun conversation. And yeah, the backstory on the National Institute for Play is actually an organization founded by my grandfather. His background is in psychiatry, and he got into studying the science of play after actually interviewing mass murderers and finding that all of them lacked childhood play. And then being like, what's going on here? There might be something to this whole play thing. And so he spent time with National Geographic studying animal play, produced PBS series, numerous worldwide speaking engagements, and ultimately ultimately the creation of a really small nonprofit called the National Institute for Play. And he's 94 years old now. And so it is my true honor to be taking over as CEO of the National Institute for Play. And what is fantastic is he is a clinician and a researcher, and he has so much great foundational knowledge around the science of play and why play matters across the lifespan. And the organization itself is in a very much of a startup phase. So we— I, I came in and kind of restructured the way that we operate and set some goals and values and kind of a strategic plan for our next 5 years. And it's been really fun to take an incredible legacy and almost turn it into a brand new business. So that's where we're at.

Wow, that is quite the story and the connection between mass murderers and play. Excited to uncover this. How big is the organization right now?

Oh, we're tiny. It is me. It's actually, we've got 3 generations right now. My mom is working for the Institute. She's the chief operating officer. And then I have a bunch of small director-level positions that are all fractional right now. So we are a team of about 10 in total, including our awesome board of directors. So awesome. Yeah.

Today's world, a small team can be effective still.

Yes. Yep, absolutely.

Now, as you see the company growing, what would you say right now is driving that growth?

You know, it's interesting. We have a really global presence, and I love that about our organization. And what's interesting is the market value for play is almost unlimited because it transcends all ages and all industries, which is really exciting and very intimidating to be at this stage that we're at. But one of the things that's driving our growth is there are a lot of brands who are trying to capture this idea of nostalgia of play, of why it matters to connect on a human level amidst a rapidly changing technological world, right? And so one of the things that we do at the National Institute for Play is to communicate the importance of play on a really fundamental human level that really changes hearts and minds about how important it is. And so we actually have an interesting product right now that's just a licensing package for the science of play content that has been tested across global markets in all different industries. And so we have some really cool international partners that we're building around the world to basically be able to promote this idea of play, to use our brand to do it, which extends our reach and is also good for them. So we, that's, I would say that's probably the number one initiative that's driving our growth right now. And it's a ton of fun because as you know, it's awesome to have really cool brand aligned, mission aligned organizations to partner with when you're a really small organization and you can't make the impact yourself. So that's been one of the primary strategies. And then the second one is I am speaking kind of all over the world right now at different conferences and leadership retreats and meetings across education and sports and finance even and design. And so we believe that a lot starts with education 'cause there's a lot of misconceptions around play and what it is and why it matters. And so to be on a selfish level, it has been totally fun to travel the world and to speak about play at a time when it really matters to people.

Yeah. Wow. I can imagine that. Now, looking back for you personally, what would you say the turning points have— the biggest turning points have molded the way you think about running the organization?

Oh my goodness. So many things have. I mean, I think one of the core signatures of a strong leader is just this ability to continue to learn and adapt and grow. And that's a kind of a Marquis piece of play too, is to creatively think outside the box and to always have this understanding that our con— while our constraints are there, there's always ways to think around them and to move around them in really creative ways. And so I'm always challenging myself and our team to just keep learning and keep growing and keep adapting. 'Cause as you know, everything is moving so fast right now. But I think one of the core things that switched, and this was kind of what launched us into this licensing sort of product, is just this understanding that if we can use the work that others are doing to amplify our message, that's how we're going to extend our reach in the most valuable way. And to find trusted partners around the globe who are doing really different things, but who are all coming back to that same baseline of play, kind of helped it just click in my mind that like, we are so much bigger than just our little organization of 10. And so have those partners and then to be able to kind of feed everything that we create and do through them to test on their markets and again, just amplify that reach. That has been an entire mindset shift for me instead of just thinking B2C or just even thinking what audiences can I reach through my talking, right? So I think that, you know, with the way the technology works and how easy it is to communicate all across the world and translate into different languages and whatnot, this idea that what we really need is trusted partners who are kind of on the ground doing the work, whether they're teachers or therapists or trainers, or whether they're executives, right? That if they can test this and then they can give us feedback, that's going to just amplify and kind of like speed up our reach significantly.

Wow. Wow. A lot to unpack there. Now, as you guys try to grow and expand, what have been some of the biggest bottlenecks or obstacles that have gotten in the way?

Yeah. I mean, I think, You know, it's interesting, as everybody who's tried to run a startup knows, it's a matter of priorities, right? Because there is so much to do all the time that it can feel really overwhelming. And one of the things that is meaningful to me is just to remember that there's this space between stimulus and response, right? And we're being constantly stimulated by all these things and you need to do this and this person is sending an inquiry and how, why aren't you doing this yet? Or why aren't you in this industry? Or haven't you thought of this, right? And there's a lot of pressure on all of these moving pieces. And I'm the kind of person who wants to get it all done right now. Like, major sense of urgency, which is useful in some ways, and it can also be problematic in some ways. And so I think this overstimulation of just wanting to be in so many spaces at once because the market value is so big and because play is having a little bit of a moment right now. And because there's this pressure to accelerate the pace of work so much with the capabilities of AI, it's hard to create the space to figure out what actually matters. So one of the things I remind myself often is that there's a space between stimulus and response, and right, our core human freedom lives in that power to choose our response. And so to just create some space between every decision so that there's strategy behind it, so that the right people are involved, so that we're not stepping ahead of where we are, because we're seeing that, in a lot of industries right now, in a lot of places of we are in a race. And sometimes I wonder if anyone has stopped and asked what we're racing towards. And so that's what I'm trying to stop and ask, right? But I would say that's a challenge, of course, especially at this startup phase. And then the second challenge is that the world just doesn't understand play. You know, we are talking so much about this, you know, post-pandemic social media and AI-driven world that's fracturing the way that our communities connect, The buzzwords are loneliness, their polarization, their disconnection, turnover. Like, we're seeing these trends and we're talking a lot about these trends. What we're not talking about is that in part what we're seeing are the consequences of play deprivation. And so, and when you can't sell play, like, if I go to you and I'm like, I am here to talk to you about play, you're like, what? But then if I can come in and say, I am here to talk to you about innovation and creativity and how to drive human power that AI can't do alongside AI so that we're staying 20 years ahead of it, right? So that we're reminded of what capabilities truly matter in the end and how we can use it for the betterment of humanity and not the detriment. And like, what if I were to tell you that engagement can improve when you, when you center around play, right? And that will improve retention and like team collaboration and all these things that we're, we're talking about that are missing. But that we're just not thinking through how do we actually do this beyond your typical like leadership model, right?

Wow.

There's a really innovative solution to these things. And so I think we really have a hard time selling it still, which means that it's good cuz we're on the front end of it. And it's also hard cuz it takes a lot of convincing.

Cuz you're on the front end of it. Now when it comes to your messaging, your outreach, your marketing systems, what has been working well and where are you still seeing the gaps and frustrations?

Sure. I mean, we champion play as a public health necessity. So play promotes cognitive, social, physical, and emotional growth across all ages, not just for children. It's true for adults too. So it's biologically hardwired into the most ancient part of our brains. It's part of what makes us fully human. So we like to talk about play in the same way that we like to think about the importance of sleep sleep or the importance of good nutrition, right? If we don't— if you don't get a good night's sleep, you don't feel very good the next day. Yeah, masturbation can actually have some of the similar consequences. We might just not notice it as quickly. And what's interesting is, as humans, we're not trained to be like, why am I not feeling good today? Oh, maybe it's because I didn't play enough 3 weeks ago, right? So like, we don't make these connections. Um, and so a lot of our core messaging is just re-centralizing play as a priority for our individual but also our communal health. And so we basically— our branding is around play as a public health necessity, and that has been sticking.

Wow. I have never heard that connection. Play deprivation. Deprivation. I love that term.

Yeah. Yeah.

So it does vary on type of personality on how much play you need.

This is fascinating. It's so one of the things that when we talk about challenges too, is that there's no really good definition of play. It sort of transcends our ability to describe it. And even leading researchers don't have consensus among a solid definition. But what we do know is that play can look really different for everyone, right? It's deeply personal. It's deeply individual. It's rooted in our deepest intrinsic drivers and motivations. That we are born with and that are nurtured over time, or that we may lose over time. And so everyone's at a different stage sort of in their play journey, specifically adults. Some may have kind of forgotten how to play, lost what that looks like for them personally, right? Whereas some adults are really great at playing still and do it every day. And you can pick them out in a crowd if you, if you notice them. But what we can give an example to, right? Like, for some people running is play. For some people running is literally the most dreadful activity in the world, right? So, so these constant, like these environments that we're moving through both internally and externally, every moment of every day shift and dictate sort of our ability to access that play state, right? And so it is deeply individual and personal. And we like to talk about different play styles. So we tend to think of play in really narrow lenses, right? But it's actually, much broader than that. There's exploratory play, there's rough and tumble play, there's risky play, there's object play, creative play, movement-based play, competitive play, right? So there's all these different types of play, and oftentimes what happens as we age is we don't honor the way that we like to play because society, right, tells us it should look like this. So yeah, yeah. Wow.

So have you guys gone through and quantified the different styles and types of play then?

Yeah, we have a framework, and we created this framework based on taking thousands and thousands of clinical play histories of folks and starting to notice some patterns in the ways that people played. So it's not like a super scientific crazy, like, personality framework— there's a lot of layers to that— but it's just a way for people to sort of get back in touch with what does play mean to me and what can this look like sort of in my daily life without really like adding it as a to-do item, but just integrating it into what's already there. And so, yeah, we have— that's one of the many tools that we have is a play styles framework and sort of an assessment and report. But we haven't quite launched that yet. So again, lots of, lots of new projects in the works.

Wow. Now, out of curiosity, you mentioned a little bit about it with AI and automation and some of that speed that's been happening. Where have you guys found ways to utilize it? Where do you still see opportunity and maybe threats? Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. I mean, I'm pretty sure the potential is untapped for how to use it. I think we're, we're careful about using it to outsource our critical thinking. I think there's a really interesting line between using AI to automate everyday tasks and to help with some details of contract writing that we're going to run by the right people and some of the things that, you know, are just like those, those, that busy work. So we are good about using AI for busy work. There's still a lot more automation we can do in our tasks, in our CRM, in our email marketing, right? Like that's, that's all kind of where our focus on automation is. Where we're very keen to not use it too much is in creating our content, curating our content, pulling the right things together, synthesizing research studies. It can do that and it can do it pretty well with some accuracy, though it makes many mistakes and it comes up with fake sources. And it's actually really— there's a lot— it's almost more work to use AI and then to vet it properly than it is to just read it yourself and do it. But one of the things that's really important to me is that we really like eat, sleep, breathe, play in our own knowledge base of it. Like if I'm going to an audience to speak about play, I sure as heck better know what I'm talking about. I can't have AI write my presentation for me, right? Like that's outsourcing my critical thinking. That's outsourcing. So I think that that's where the threat lies, right? Is that AI can go so much faster than the human brain that I can write 10 proposals in an hour and I can have no recollection of what any single one of them says. When I go to sell that on the meeting with the person, I have no idea what I'm talking about. So I think that we are not compromising speed for like the authority and the brand voice that we bring through human-to-human communication. And it's tricky. It's tricky to not do that. And it's also tricky to figure out what that's gonna look like in the future. And of course the tools are getting better and better, but we, when we outsource our critical thinking, we're losing the part of our brain that we have to exercise to be innovative. And so that's the piece that we're careful about.

I love that distinction. Like, don't outsource your critical thinking. It's kind of like, let's have a robot lift the weight at a gym for us.

Right, right. Exactly. That's exactly it. And you know, it's, it's ironic. We wanna walk our talk too, right? We're talking about play and we're talking about the way that human creativity and the energy of humans and the broad array of human emotions that can drive social movements and create this massive change and evoke action, like, within humans. Like, that's the part that AI can't ever replace. That's the part that play produces. And so we want to walk our talk with that.

That makes sense. Now, Mia, when you think about the next stages of the business, what are you most excited about?

Oh my gosh, there's so much to be excited about. One of the things that's most important to me and that's foundational and most important to my grandpa as well, as us being sort of forefront and at the front of research around the play space, because there's a lot more research that has to be done. And there's some really interesting new technology and moments that we can capture, like in this really interesting global moment that we're in, whether that's biomarkers and feedback around play, right? With Apple Watch or with Oura, like how can we capture that play state? Because it is a physiological altered state of being similar to a stress state, just in an opposite way. And so really interesting, some like physiological biological data that would be really interesting to connect and to partner with organizations on. And then of course the social psychology and the figuring out like the role that play brings. We need to do another, you know, a homicidal prisoner study. Like, there's so many interesting things that we can do kind of on the forefront of play because as the Institute for Play, what we're really trying to do is continue to feed the right information into all of the practitioners and educators and therapists and teachers who are really out there doing it, selling play, working with children and adults and everyone about play, right? We want to be able to provide them the right resources to have a strong ground for the work they do. So I'm really excited about that. And it's kind of— that's definitely the next phase, and we're absolutely not there yet. We don't have the capacity for the research right now, but I'm really excited about that.

That's awesome. Now, you say a play state. Is it kind of like a flow state?

Oh, great question. Yeah, we didn't— we should define play at this point for the listeners because we've danced around it so much. Yeah, we, we like to think of play kind of on a spectrum into sort of mainframes. And the first is the state of play, and it's sort of this alternate state of being. It's almost dreamlike. It's very synonymous with the flow state, where we lose track of time and space, we're not distracted by anything, where it's done for its own sake, not for any particular outcome, where it evokes positive emotions like joy and glee and awe, and specifically where it's self-reinforcing. So it makes us feel really good and it keeps us coming back for more. So it's this really interesting, like, altered state of being that has really, really strong benefits based on the brain activity and the physiological response that happens when we're in that state. And then when we spend time in that state, what we like to think about is we can develop the trait of play. So sort of the cognitive disposition towards playfulness, something marked by optimism and curiosity, seeing problems as really fun creative challenges to solve, you know, with solutions that are interesting and novel, a good sense sense of humor, adaptability, resilience, right? Some of these core strengths of character that we actually really need right now in the world. That's sort of the playfulness trait, and that's where the real power lies. And so this is kind of like the connection. And again, it's not a perfect definition, we don't have one, but that's how we like to think about it.

Wow. So kind of like hobbies might fall in that category then.

Absolutely.

And so, and so, and then when you turn a hobby into like a business, sometimes when you do the business because you love it, it stays in that state, but it then becomes a taxation and a burden. It's no the benefit.

Exactly.

Got it.

Another really good example of that is sports, right? We often enter sports as children purely for its own sake, for the joy of doing whatever we're doing. And then as we grow up, a lot of extrinsic pressures come into play and there's lots of other things happening and we're focused more on the outcomes than the process. And then we see that 70% of kids burn out of their sport by age 13. Kids, right? They lose the fun and the play when actually Play is a really, really powerful tool to gain mastery of something. And it's also a really powerful psychological mindset to perform at a high level, right? When you're looking at it through the lens of being fully present, like it's an access point to that flow state, which a lot of athletes talk about as being the most helpful thing for high performance. Wow.

Wow. Yeah. That, that, that brings down a lot more clarity to the necessity of it. Now, When you look at your own journey, the wins, the mistakes, what lessons stand out to you and what do you wish you understood sooner?

Oh my gosh. The million-dollar question. I think that, again, I think my Achilles heel is trying to prioritize too many things at once and going an inch deep and a mile wide versus, you know, a mile deep and an inch wide, whereas that's where real impact happens. So I think one of the things I would have wished to know sooner is that everything takes just a little longer than you think, and that that's okay. And it's not worth rushing through for the sake of getting it done. You need to do it right. And if you're going to do it right, it takes a little longer and you have to have a sense of urgency about it. You have to be really productive and efficient in the way that you prioritize. That's like kind of key number one. And so maximizing those priorities. Maximizing your time, not getting distracted by all of the little things. And still, even with doing those things, it really takes longer than you think it's going to take. And so for me, it's just, I call myself a time optimist. So this idea that it's basically a nice way to say I'm pretty chronically late all the time, but I really think I can get more done in the moment that I can, right? Like I have an hour and I have have like a to-do list that's probably 4 hours long, right? So I think for me, the thing that I wish I knew earlier is that everything takes a little longer, so prioritize accordingly and like get rid of all of the fluff and focus on one thing at a time. Otherwise nothing's gonna get done.

I think I'm gonna steal that title, a time optimist.

Yeah, I heard that once. I can't remember where. I wish I could give whoever said that credit, but, um, Yeah, yeah. I'm working on my time optimism.

Yeah, that is beautiful. I love that one. I will use that one. Wow. Okay. So, last question. If you had to pick one constraint to focus on and solve over the next 90 days, what would it be?

Ooh, one constraint. I mean, I hate to take the easy answer, but we're really financially strapped right now, and I think that's a really common concern for a startup, for a nonprofit, when grant funding is a little bit all over the place and it's hard to know where that's headed. And so my biggest constraint right now is financial, is finances, 100%. We are, you know, on a commission-based setup right now. I can't even pay the people that work for me a salary, and they are wonderful and we're headed in the right direction. But the constraint I'm actively solving for is to create a sustainable revenue stream for us because that will enable us to do the really impactful community work in underserved communities. And that's where— and the research, right? And that's what really matters in our nonprofit mission. And we gotta meet the bottom line before we can do that. And so one of the things that I'm really thinking a lot about is our passive earned revenue streams. And so that's kind of where the licensing comes in. That's where we're building some online products. That we're going to be able to sell kind of at scale that will hopefully create that passive revenue stream so that we can continue to broaden our reach and work on some of the really meaningful community work.

Well, that's beautiful. And for those who want to learn more, LinkedIn, they can go there, they can go to nifplay.org, Instagram, other places. Where can they find you?

That's it. That's a good start. I'm on, yeah, I'm on LinkedIn personally as well. But our organization, our website, speaking of many projects, is under construction right now. So you'll see a fresh face for the website in about a month, but there's lots of good information and resources on there. And then, yeah, we are just excited to continue to grow and scale. And what's really cool right now is we're looking at launching a campaign in the summer. So any donation that's made to the organization within the next couple months will enter a matching pool and will hopefully be doubled in the summer. And so we're at a point where any small contribution makes a really big difference.

Oh, that's awesome. And so they can do that on the website as well?

Yeah, there's a donation page on the website. So if, if it captures your heart or if you have extra questions and you want to reach out, please feel free to. But we're in a situation where any little bit makes a tremendous impact for us right now.

Oh, wonderful. And I love the work you're doing. And so yes, reach out. Talk to me and the team, see how you can get involved. Bring play back to the workspace, back to everyday life. And so I love that. And thank you to our sponsors of today's episode, Achieve Fractional, which provides fractional executive leadership for growing businesses. And if you enjoyed the episode, share it with a friend, with a colleague. If you know somebody's a little too tight wound and needs to relax a little bit, share the episode Let them know the value of play.

Yep. Love it.

Reach out to me and the team, and we will see you on the next episode of the Achieve Podcast.

Thank you, Taylor Baker Baker. Thank you so much.