208 | How Your Play Personality Changes the Way You Lead

Have you ever noticed that some activities leave you feeling energized while others feel like another task on your to-do list?

Many leaders and entrepreneurs believe they need to work harder to become more creative, more productive, or better at leading their teams. But what if the answer isn't more work at all? What if it's learning how you were designed to play?

In this episode, we explore the powerful concept of play personalities from Dr. Stuart Brown's book Play and why understanding your natural way of playing can unlock greater creativity, reduce stress, and help you lead with more energy and authenticity.

We discuss why forcing yourself into someone else's version of fun often leads to burnout, while embracing the kind of play that's naturally wired into you can restore your imagination, calm your nervous system, and improve your relationships both at work and at home.

We also dive into how understanding play personalities can transform the workplace. From competitors who thrive on goals, leaderboards, and recognition to explorers who flourish through curiosity, learning, and new experiences, you'll discover why different people are motivated in different ways and how recognizing those differences can improve team performance, engagement, and culture.

If you’re a female founder who has mastered achievement and are ready to experience more joy, play, and fulfillment, this conversation may change the way you define success.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why play is essential, not optional, for creativity and leadership
 • Understanding Dr. Stuart Brown's eight play personalities
 • Why the wrong kind of play can feel exhausting
 • How your play personality influences energy, focus, and fulfillment
 • The connection between play, stress reduction, and nervous system regulation
 • Using play personalities to build stronger, more engaged teams
 • Why different employees are motivated by different things
 • How the right role fit leads to better performance and less workplace friction

Resources Mentioned

Play by Dr Stuart Brown 

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Transcript

Why Play Matters For Leaders

Erin Gray 0:02

Welcome back to the podcast. Today we're going to talk about your type of play personality, the book Play by Stuart Brown, and how it actually helps you become a more effective and compassionate leader. So let's dive in. So I've been talking about teaching, advising, advocating for play probably for the last six or seven years, since I have become more of a playful person myself, as I have incorporated more play into my life, where it's not just about the grind and all of that stuff that I was taught growing up. And I highly recommend, I'm not gonna go through each play personality. You can go do that on your own. You can go read it the book, but I highly recommend reading the book Play by Dr. Stuart Brown. He talks about how play shapes the brain, how it opens your imagination, how it invigorates the soul. And I also think that this is when we play more as founders. I think that that is where we connect to our flow. And we also are able to get so many different insights. And I think we are also able to be a better leader and founder for our team and for our employees.

Competitor Vs Explorer At Home

Erin Gray 1:18

So the awareness that I had the other day is my daughter recently has started playing volleyball, and she is definitely one of the play personalities that Dr. Stuart Brown talks about is the competitor. That is someone who genuinely enjoys competing. Like the fun and the joy of winning, of keeping score, of beating someone else is actually a form of play for them. That is my daughter to a T 100%. If you ask me, I could care less about winning. Like when we play badminton outside or we play volleyball with her or any other sport that I play, I don't even care about the score. I just want to know, are we having fun? Am I having fun? And is this an enjoyable experience? For me, actually, when someone is competitive and they get like, they start getting upset and all of that, like for me, that actually, I don't want to say takes the fun out of it, but that's just not a joyful thing for me. So the awareness that I had was, oh, that's how she likes to play. And I am more of the play personality of a kinesthete, or I think it's an also an explorer, right? As an explorer, I love to travel, I love to move through time and space, I love to meet different people. Like that is one of the ways that I play. The kinestete is more someone who loves to move their body. So I get genuine satisfaction of riding my bike, of surfing, of e-foiling, of kayaking or stand-up paddling. Like I love to move myself through time and space. It's where I get some of my most creative ideas. And when I don't do that enough, I notice where my creativity kind of wanes.

Stop Copying Other People’s Play

Erin Gray 2:55

So recognizing, if you get the book, you read the book, recognizing what is your play personality and are you actually playing in the way that is best for you, is in alignment for you. I think that there are two parts that I want to kind of mention here on the podcast. The first part is when you recognize what your play personality is, you will start to see how much we have kind of been forced into a different way of playing. I think we look outside of ourselves, we see people on Instagram, we see people doing certain things, some of our friends, and we're like, oh, I want to go do that, or I should do that, or I should like to do that. Like pickleball is a huge thing. I have no desire to play pickleball. That doesn't mean that that's not correct for somebody else. It's just not my one of my favorite ways to play. I thought of that I that I would like a hip-hop class, so I took private lessons for a while. Recognize I'd much rather spend my time on the water than I would dancing. It's not a problem. It's not that that hip hop is bat is bad and I don't like it or it's not for everyone else. It's just it's just not for me. And so I think first and foremost, we have to allow ourselves to play with the idea of play. Don't be so serious about finding out what is your number one play personality, and also what are the ways that you actually like to play? I think somewhere along the way, we were taught and told that play was like for kids. Adults don't do that. We don't have time for that. And so we kind of dimmed our light and got smaller. And, you know, when I first got started, I had to think about like what are the things that I actually like to do? What did I do as a kid? So when you read the book and you figure out, okay, what is your play personality? Stop judging that it doesn't look like your business bestie, or stop judging that it doesn't look like the way that your husband's, you know, loves to play. That's first and foremost.

Coaching Teams Based On Play

Erin Gray 4:48

And I think also the biggest theme here, the umbrella that I want to bring home is understanding how your team likes to play, because every employee or team member is very different than another. I think this kind of ties into as well as understanding your human design and also understanding their human design because you can support them to their fullest when you understand what their human design is and yours, as well as their play personality. I think about this from like a sales, if you've got a sales team. If you have someone who is a competitor, like my daughter, who loves to win, they're probably gonna be super motivated by KPIs and games or like, you know, competition winning, like leaderboard and all of that kind of stuff that competitors love to measure against. And this this doesn't mean that because you have someone who isn't a competitor that they won't be good at sales. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that the way that you are going to that they are gonna be motivated or more devoted, I like that word better than motivated, the way that they're gonna be devoted to their craft is going to be very different. So let's bring this into business. If you think about sales teams, if you have a sales team and you have somebody who is a competitor, they are gonna be lit up by wanting to win. They probably will enjoy, you know, the sales leaderboards, the Monday morning KPI records, the monthly contest, you know, breaking records, recognition, you know, all of that public celebration of wins. And if they, you know, come in second place, you know, they are gonna be thinking about how can I get to be number one? Because that is their their true natural nature and enjoyment of playing. Like it is competition for a competitor type of play personality is energizing to them. It's not draining. But if you take someone like me, who is an explorer, still a phenomenal salesperson, but the way that they are going to be energized and motivated and devoted is going to be very different. Like they're going to get energized from meeting new people, from learning maybe and exploring about the different industries, for talking and traveling and to the clients, solving different problems, right? Discovering different opportunities, being given autonomy. So if you put them or you try to lead them in the same way, it's not going to be the best for either one of them, right? Because if you are trying to lead everybody in the same way, one of them is going to feel great because if you're leading from that competitiveness, right? I think back to like my financial planning days, and we used to have like Monday morning meetings, you know? And it's like, can I just skip that? Like, I do not care about what anybody else's numbers are. I don't care. And so you really have to, I think, understanding the way that your team is, the way that your team moves. So if you did have somebody who was a competitor and you did have someone who was an explorer, you're going to coach them, you're going to advise them, you're going to motivate them in very different ways. You're going to have different conversations with them about that. I remember when I was, you know, working with a client and I just asked them, I asked her, I said, ask your team, what does sales mean to you? And I had her do some journal exercises with her team. And it was fascinating to hear you could just pick out the ones that were like more competitive in nature and the ones that were more so relationship-based. And what that drive was for them was very different. And so you have to really understand your employees. You have to care enough to understand what motivates, what drives them because we're all driven by different things. And so when you understand that, you can lead them, you can teach them, you can advise them in very different ways that will allow you to get what you want and also allow them to have what they want as well. It's just going to be coming at it from a very different perspective. I think the other thing here that you have to really remember too is

Roles, Friction, And Better Fit

Erin Gray 9:00

if you put a competitor with maybe someone who doesn't like to play that way, there might be friction. So really recognizing what are the tendencies that my, and I'm just using this as an example, you know, my sales team, but what are the tendencies of those people? Because in order to support your employees, understanding who they are as a person, understanding their human design, understanding their play personality will allow you to support them and put them and pair them, you know, if you are pairing them up or, you know, even training. I think about this. I was working with a client and we were talking about training. If you have someone that doesn't have any desire to train, putting them in a place where they have to train is not helpful to them and it's not helpful to your new employee. So you really have to ponder and contemplate what are my employees' strengths? What do they love to do? And are they in the correct position in my organization? So I highly

Read The Book And Try It

Erin Gray 10:00

recommend go get the book Play by Stuart Brown. Read it first and foremost. I always say, like, take it in to you first, right? Before you start to teach this to your team, go take it and go embody this work for yourself. What is your play personality? Go play with that. Go figure out what that is for you. And are you playing enough in your life? Are you allowing enough creativeness, enjoyment, joy throughout your day and your week, or are you all about business all of the time? So, first and foremost, do this for yourself. Understand for yourself first, and then go take it out towards your team. I think the best thing that we can do for ourselves, for our team, for our business, for our families is to be lit up first. So figure out what your play personality is, then play with it, go enjoy yourself, have fun. So go buy the book, go read the book, embody this work first, figure out what your play personality is, or personalities, I should say, right? I'm kinesthetic and explore, and recognize what is it that is the best thing to support you and how you like to play, because that is where all of our creative ideas come from. And then you can take that to your team. Okay, I'll see you in the next episode.