The FUNcoach

Say you want to make something more fun - a game, a toy, your job, your company, your relationship with your spouse or kids, your life...

So you call or email or Skype your local Funsmith, and you say: "I want to make something more fun." And you arrange to meet, by phone, by email, over Skype, at a coffee shop, or at a local park for a walk'n talk. For, say, a couple hours. For some agreed-upon, agreeable sum.

You know this Funsmith is a fun guy - warm, welcoming, caring, insightful, and most of all, playful, very playful. An expert player, in fact - someone who knows many different ways to play, many different kinds of games and many ways to play them, who knows how to have fun, how to create fun, how to share fun, how to be fun. A professional player. Someone so playful and so knowledgeable that you'd pay to play with that person - for a lot of reasons. Because it's fun to be with that person. Because you like yourself even more when you're with that person. Because, during the time you or your child or your parents spend together with this person, you can, without any sense of guilt or obligation, expect that that person will focus all that playful expertise entirely on them. On having fun with them. On helping them find ways to make things more fun.

Let's say you are the one who goes to that person, every week, for a couple of hours, every other week, or month or whenever you feel like going. Even if all you did was play together, it'd be worth it. Because it'd be fun - real, meaningful, personal, deep fun. And because this professional player always makes the rules negotiable, adjustable, the only goal being to find a way to play so that you can all enjoy the game, all be challenged, together - it'd be a lesson in how you, too, could make things fun again, even if they were only games.

But let's imagine that you go further, you and this person, and you also focus on how you might make other things more fun. Not just games, but things like work, school, relationships.

Let's say that, G*d forbid, you've lost someone. Someone close. Or you've lost something important to you - like your money, your job, your house, your wallet, your pet. And you're still grieving. And you go to this play expert, and play. It's almost a miracle, you know, how you and this expert player can manage to set all that grief aside for a while, and actually have fun again. Which reminds you, naturally, how many ways are still open for you to feel whole again, feel at play, in play. That, alone, would be worth whatever it costs. Just being reminded, experiencing yourself at play again. And if you want, you and this expert player could also spend some time thinking about other opportunities for fun in your life, for bringing fun to your children, parents, spouse, neighborhood, community. Or thinking about what you've already tried, and what was the most fun, and what you could do next.

Once you find something that you want to play again and again together, something that remains fun for you both, you can begin to explore other games, expand the repertoire of games that you can both play together. It's not about what you want to play or what your play expert wants to play but about what you can play together.

Sure, things will come up, and you'll want to talk about them, but the more that you can focus on having fun together, the more successful you will be.

This isn't therapy. Or if it is, it's not about the talk. It's the fun. That's the whole point of it. It's not about playing so that you talk about all the painful things in your life. It's about playing so that you can learn to play more with the rest of your life. It's what I call the practice of Deep Fun. And the practitioner is what I call a "Funsmith." Which, coincidentally, is the very thing I've been calling myself.

I call myself a Funsmith because I've come to the realization that, from time to time, we all need to be reminded how to make things fun again. We need to be reminded that we even have that option. It doesn't take much. Fifteen minutes of watching or listening to just about any newscast is enough to do it for you. A phone call with someone who is already having something very other than fun. A meeting with someone who's "secret agenda" is about proving how more important she is than you. A driver who ignores you on purpose. Lost keys. Lost temper. Losing. And the whole entire beautiful thing is ruined.

I've learned that i t's easier to help people remember how they can make things fun again if you start with things that are already supposed to be fun. Like the games you play just for fun. Because losing or winning that kind of game doesn't mean anything. Which explains Major Fun and Junkyard Sports and Pointless Games.

So I practice Deep Fun. I talk to people about fun, about what's fun in their lives. I teach people funny games and I teach people how to change funny games to make them more fun. I teach them games that are so unimportant that people can cheat if they need to, quit if they want to, play simply because it's fun. And, funny enough, that's how I help people recover fun in their own lives.

In that same way, I can help you practice Deep Fun. I can help you make things more fun in your life, I can help you make things more fun in other people's lives. I can help people who make games make their games more fun. I can help people who play games make game playing more fun. I can help people who have stopped playing find games that will bring them fun again. I can help them find fun in the world in their family and even inside themselves, hence The Well-Played Game and Recess for the Soul.

I do this in person, on the phone, by email, with individuals or teams or professional groups. You pay what you can. I do what I can.

We should talk. Better yet, we should play. 

 

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