Bree Groff is the author of "Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously)". She lives in NYC with her husband and 10-year-old daughter.
558 [Mindful Working Series #2]: Make Work & Parenting Fun
Bree Groff
In this episode of the Mindful Mama podcast, Hunter Clarke-Fields talks with Bree Groff about the tricky balance between work and family life. They explore:
Why work can be so addictive (and hard to step away from)
The cultural pressure to always do more and achieve more
How to find real joy — both at work and at home
Practical ways parents can model a healthier relationship with work for their kids
Bree shares wisdom from her book, "Today Was Fun", along with simple, doable tips to help listeners focus on what truly matters and create a positive ripple between their professional and personal lives.
Ep 558- Groff
Read the Transcript 🡮
*This is an auto-generated transcript*
Hunter (00:04)
You are listening to the Mindful Mama Podcast, the Mindful Working series #2 and episode #558, "Make Work and Parenting Fun" with Bree Groff.
Welcome to the Mindful Mama podcast. Here it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. At Mindful Mama, we know that you cannot give what you do not have. And when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, Hunter Clarke-Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children. I've been practicing mindfulness for over 25 years. I'm the creator of the Mindful Parenting Course and Teacher Training. I'm the author of the international bestseller, "Raising Good Humans", "Raising Good Humans Every Day", and the "Raising Good Humans Guided Journal".
Hey, welcome back to the podcast. I am so glad you're here today. I'm talking to Bree Groff, author of "Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously)". And we talk about work and parenting. She lives in New York City with her husband and 10 year old daughter. You'll get to hear some very simple doable tips to help you focus on what truly matters and create positive ripple between your professional life and your personal life. And this is part of the Mindful Work Series and it's to help kick off some work I'm doing with the new Mindful Parenting Institute. That's kind of a teaser and some work we're doing with the groups. So, very exciting. If you have a company or are in HR, we've got some cool things for you. So you should reach out at Support@MindfulMamaMentor.com.
But yeah, this is part of the Mindful Work Series and I think you're gonna love it. They're gonna talk about more joyful work. Sounds good, right? I think it's good. We don't want you to overwork. We don't want your kids to pay the price and we're going to make it so much more fun with this episode. So let's dive in.
Bree, thank you so much for coming on the Mindful Momma podcast. I'm glad you're here. I really enjoyed your book, "Today was Fun: A book About Work"- just sort of feels like those two things don't go together for many people. And so many parents, right? So many parents are overwhelmed with work, with family. In your research, what patterns have you seen about why we overwork?
Bree Groff (03:20)
Yeah, I mean, it comes at us from all different places. there's the very obvious, like, we work to make money and we feel like we have to accomplish these things in order to fulfill our roles for paid work. And so therefore we're working a lot to try and fulfill our end of the employment agreement. But it's actually far more complex and deeper than that, I find. Most tricky is not just working hard because, or overworking because we think we need to. For me personally, and a lot of other working parents I know, we work so hard because we like it. Because it's actually kind of addicting. And it gives us all sorts of things besides money, which is validation, accomplishment, a sense of identity, a sense of safety, like I'm needed and valued in this role, a sense of power, purpose, like all things which are good, but they can start to rewire our brains in the same way a video game would or social media in that it can be addicting to get the high performance review, be putting work out into the world, again, all good things.
The trouble comes really at the opportunity cost of all of that. Like if you love working and you, you know, conceivably could do it nights and weekends because you're feeling important and powerful and that's all good, but the question is, if you only have 24 hours a day, what price are you paying in order to overwork in that way? And so I find the solutions sometimes need to come from, I mean, there's a million and one productivity hacks, right, like on how to work smarter, not harder. But there's also, we need to consider too, what inside us is driving us to work so hard, to potentially be overworking.
Sometimes it's even an escape from our lives. Like I know when my daughter was first born, I was like, you mean I get to finish a cup of coffee while it's still hot? It works. Like, I'll take that. That sounds really good. So multi-coded problem, but that also means we have many solutions.
Hunter (05:37):
Yeah, I've had Oliver Burkeman on and talked to him about that. And the thing about productivity, you know, he pointed out is that you get, you're like, oh, I'll just be more productive. But then you, you know, if you're faster sending your emails out, you're going to get more emails. Like there's, there's stuff that starts to fill, things just morph comes to sort of fill in if you, you know, you're aiming for productivity sort of to, to get to solve the problem.
Bree Groff:
There was a leader I worked with who would tell his team, the faster you realize work is a bottomless pit, the better, because you'll never reach the bottom. There's always more stuff that would be good to do. And so I'm a huge fan of Oliver Burkeman. He blurbed the book even, but because if we're never going to reach the bottom of work, then we definitely need a different strategy. And we need to acknowledge why we're trying to get to the bottom of our work pits and how we can in some ways distance our identities and our sense of accomplishment and meaning and purpose from work such that what's left to the time that we freed up can be filled with family, friends, leisure, rest, all the other really important parts of our lives.
Hunter:
Yeah, it's interesting. It kind of overlaps in some ways with parenting in a lot of ways, like where we, a lot of us, I think we're trying to find the sense of worthiness from either parenting or from work, right? And these are sort of these two big buckets that are trying to give us that we, you know, we were taught to work hard at these things. You know, we're taught from a young age to get good grades and work hard and do all your homework and get everything done and then we apply that to our families, to our kids, and to our work lives.
Bree Groff:
Mm-hmm. Yes. like I know as a woman too, like I feel like I've been surrounded by these messages of like, be the good girl, get the good grades, do what you're told, these people don't disappoint. Like that's been also my own journey and like what does it feel like is expected of me? Yeah. And they're impossible standards that I never agreed to, but somehow just like I ended up swimming in this water. And so it is a question then of can we be worthy simply because we woke up this morning, simply because I'm a mother who loves her daughter. The most valuable parts of yourself that you bring to work often are not the quantity of emails you can crank out or the quantity of work, especially in knowledge work professions. It's not the quantity, it's the quality of thinking, it's the quality of relationships that you have within a business. Like many things that don't require a brute force approach to working. And believe me, I have worked nights and weekends for a year. Like I'm very familiar with that lifestyle.
And yet I don't know, or rather there's a drop off in terms of what we are actually delivering to the business when we work into our 70th, 80th hour of work in a week. And so there's some hope, I think, for being able to detach a little sooner and sort of retouch to the rest of our lives.
Hunter (09:18)
I love it, because your book is kind of against the grind, right? Like, it shouldn't be a grind. And A, we don't want to overwork. also beyond that, to even push the envelope even more, your book is all about finding more fun at work, which is so interesting. And I don't think a lot of people associate that term with their work. So how do you define fun at work? What feels authentic and meaningful for grownups who are juggling a lot and have a lot of pressure?
Bree Groff:
Yeah, for sure. So I like the term fun because it feels very visceral. It's very childlike. I like that it doesn't have like a very strict definition in that usually you can tell if you're having fun. Like I'm having fun right now. Like this is stimulating and interesting and it's fun to talk to you and listen to the questions. You can also always tell if you're not having fun.
Like I'm sitting with a hunched back doing my expense reports, or I'm trying to like prepare for this board meeting that has me like totally scared out of my skin. And so it's a visceral quality, but I think what I like about that is our experience of our lives can't be defined. mean, obviously happiness researchers try to quantify it or engagement surveys try and, you know, have you on a five point scale, say how much you're enjoying.
You know, your work, but ultimately, like the title of the book today was fun. think it's a very simple metric for if you're enjoying your days and therefore if you're enjoying your lives. If at the end of the day, you think to yourself, well, there are some tricky parts. There are some funny parts. That part was really bad, but then we recovered there. But on the whole, today was fun. Like, I think if you can say that most days of your life, you're killing it, you really, really won.
Hunter (11:27)
Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
Is that compatible with getting all the stuff done, being responsible, producing for your workplace, all that stuff?
Bree Groff:
Yes, okay, so for sure. Sometimes I think about it, there's a kind of fun that's like icing fun, which is like the apocryphal ping pong table or the work app happy hour or that sort of stuff that's not working in all play. Like I'm very pro ping pong and pro happy, like that's all good stuff, right? But I think, yeah, the straw man version of that argument is if you do too much of that, you're not getting the work. And you wouldn't feel purposeful either, I guess.
But I would argue actually, like, if that's the icing, the cake of work is also fun. So if I come up with an idea that I think is, really strategically sharp and could help our project or our team solve something, and I share that idea and someone's like, breathe that, my god, I didn't think of it like that, that's so smart. And I'm thinking, like, my gosh, I was kind of pleased with myself and it was fun to come up with that idea and I was creative and now I get to build that idea with colleagues who I enjoy. Like that is, that's also fun. And so it's not that fun needs to be at odds with productivity. mean, getting things done feels good. I think we all know that. whether it's something big and strategic and profound and creative for the business.
Or it's just something simple, like you've checked off a whole bunch of to-do's, that it feels good. And so I'm trying to sort of expand the notion of how might we find fun in the day to day, whether, no matter what your role is, whether you're an accountant or a landscaper or a barista or a marketing manager, is there something within your role
And again, not the ping pong tables, but something actually within your role where you can share some of your own creativity, where you can create something impactful. I even think of a, you know, a marketing copywriter who writes some really clever copy and it's like chuckling to themselves and they're like, hey, work colleagues, check this out. And then they laugh like, my God, that's so good. Like you're doing the work, but it doesn't have to be painful. I think.
What I find frustrating is that we sometimes equate pain with greatness or, you know, we say nothing worth doing is easy. And it's just not strictly true that doing really impactful work doesn't require pain. You only get paid because you create value. You don't get paid because work is painful. And so if we think about how could I make whatever task I have at hand more fun?
If we even stop to ask the question, that opens up a whole bunch of possibilities. Like, do I want to write 10 performance reviews hunched over my computer? Or do I maybe just like want to walk to a park nearby and do them with a hotspot and see if a colleague wants to come and maybe we high five each other when we finish each one. That there's so many ways that we can imbue humanity and creativity and movement and play in the actual take of our work, if you will.
Hunter :
You know, it's funny, you mentioned a lot of different jobs as you speaking there. And it made me think of a job that I had when I was a teenager. And I, cause I've been working since I was 12. I was like a maid when I was 12. But anyway, when I was a teenager, I worked at Dunkin Donuts at the end of my street. And a lot of times it was a grind, was busy, you know, whatever. Sure. But then there was these afternoons where I worked with Diane Pimenta and she and I, we, this was a long time ago where it was pre- fancy coffees. We like developed a new strategy for iced coffee where we would melt the sugar at the bottom with hot coffee first and flip the whole thing over. Anyway, people would come from places, know, towns around, this is in Rhode Island, they're everywhere, to get our iced coffee. And then we would force it, we would just like look at each other in the beginning and we'd be like, because we wanted tips, we're like, we're gonna smile to everybody. And we would be like, yeah. And then we would like, force ourselves to smile, and then we would end up having so much fun. And we were doing an incredible job. Like we were making the coffee better. We were smiling at everyone. We got great tips and we were psyched by the end. And it could have been a real, it could be a real grind, but we ended up making it really fun. And we were more effective ultimately by doing so.
Bree Groff:
For sure. I love everything about that story. I wish I could have gotten my coffee from you back in the day.
Hunter (18:29)
We did have some fans, actually I had one guy. We got gifts through the drive-thru occasionally, it was very strange. but go on.
Bree Groff:
Yeah, if there were social media, I'm sure you would have had a cult following, like you have to go get your coffee. But I love that story so much, like for about a billion different reasons. But one, yeah, you made your fun. Like you took whatever was in front of you and you found a way to do it with a friend and creativity and a joy and it was impactful. And I can only imagine the customers, I mean, clearly this was effective from the customers.
You can always tell as a customer or as a client when an organized area, somebody is enjoying themselves. Like when your barista is having fun, it's magnetic. We're like, I want to be having fun too. Like they're expressing themselves. I want to express myself too. It's like, it's just such a nice way to run a business, but also just sort of be in a community where you're inspiring other people.
I mean, maybe someone else went off to work that day with their coffee and was like, you'll never guess coffee is. know, anyway, I think it's fantastic.
Hunter (19:45)
Okay, but not everybody can have the great pleasure and joy of working at a Dunkin' Donuts. So there are a lot of different work cultures. And in today was when you talk about the idea of like re-imagining work cultures. So I know there are parents who listen that are in leadership roles. What advice do you have for them, for parents who want to model a healthier, more joyful work environment?
Bree Groff:
Yeah. So in any role in leadership, whether you have like one direct report or you're leading a team or a whole organization, you are the culture maker. Like people are looking to you for, and I would just loosely define culture as what's normal here. What's accepted and won't get you any side eye and is generally a thing that we do. And so I would think of what you want to model is the kind of thing that you would want modeled for you. So to be more specific, I love when leaders model their own humanity. And you can do this lots of ways. Instead of wearing a super professional, you look put together like you spent all this time on your outfit this morning, maybe show up in like stretch joggers, especially if you're gonna go for run after work. It just sort of models, I'm a human, I value my exercise.
And I'm just as smart when I'm wearing my stretch joggers as when I'm wearing my like slacks or whatever it is. You can also model balance. so I would always love, especially in the summers, if your company does like a summer Friday sort of thing, I worked with one leader who was so adamant on leaving loudly at like noon or one on Fridays. Summer Fridays being the sometimes prevalent custom of sort of knocking off early in the summer months. And she was so adamant about it being loud because what she was trying to do was glamorize balance. And I love thinking of balance as glamorous because we often think of like, if I'm going to sneak out early on a Friday, like even the word I use, sneak, it feels like, ooh, trying to schedule any meetings or like schedule send some emails and I'm just going to, like, slink at. But in her team, there wasn't this assumption that if you were leaving early on a Friday, you were underworking or underperforming. It was actually the opposite, that if you were still there at 4 p.m. on a Friday, like, why weren't you efficient enough to get all your work done? Like, what happened there? And so not to, like, shame anybody. But I love that the balance was on the side, or the glamour was on the side of balance.
And so it's, what are those things that you can use your power to model for others that has people being more themselves, having more balance in their life, being more creative. Also, maybe you're the one as a leader to share the crazy half-baked idea. And then therefore others are like, well, maybe I'll share my crazy half-baked idea too. Because that's what promotes a culture of creativity. So a few options for you there.
Hunter:
Yeah, I like that. I definitely know that as somebody who's worked in creative work my whole life that you have to have a lot of terrible ideas to get to the 20% that are good. So there needs to be, it's all about quantity really. It's about numbers rather than quality sometimes. Or quality comes from quantity, I think, as far as ideas.
Bree Groff:
Yes, absolutely. It's just acknowledging that we are not machines, we're humans, and this is how human brains work. They work by sort of flushing out bad ideas, they work by socializing ideas, they work by somebody saying a crazy idea which sparks another idea for you. That honoring that that's how human brains work, it's not that you sit down in a 30-minute meeting, you're like, best ideas go, and then it's an acknowledgement that, yeah. We work for our brains as much as our brains work for us.
Hunter (24:04)
That's true. That's true. Okay. what about, how about a parent who's in a work culture that's kind of like a grind culture? For that parent, how can they take small steps towards more joy and ease at work without risking their job, risking their livelihood?
Bree Groff:
Yeah. Okay. So one fun tactic and one scheduling tactic. So let me start with the scheduling one. It's a little more boring. If you work in a culture where it's normal to work all day long, nights, weekends, be available 24 seven, and you're looking for more ease. What I often find in clients that I consult for, but also in my own life is that work takes your life first.
And then your kids, your health, your leisure gets the scraps. Like whatever happens to be leftover. Like, I finished working at 9.30, I have like 30 minutes to binge watch TV or maybe go like kiss my kid good night. So instead of letting work take first dibs, what I always try and do is I try and get there into my calendar first. So my daughter's art fairs, softball games, my doctor's appointments, her doctor's appointments- those go on the calendar far in advance, months in advance, because I know it's so much harder to accept a work meeting, then go and decline it and be like, oh, sorry, I really want to be at my daughter's game, but that feels wrong to say. If I can get those on the calendar first, I have a much better shot, not 100%, but a better shot at saying, oh, I have another commitment, then I can't make it, let's schedule this another time.
So that's one of my best personal tricks for making sure that you get dibs on your own life. The fun tip, like if culturally your company is really buttoned up and you feel like you have to put on your business mask every day, my favorite tip is to try a little act of micro mischief. And this is nothing that threatens the bottom line, nothing that threatens your job.
It's a little sort of like a dropper of food coloring into the water of a very formal culture. So you can think of this as, you you're wearing your very professional clothes, but maybe you're wearing your socks with a crazy print. Or maybe you're wearing shoes. One of my colleagues had these amazing loafers with a fuzzy lining. They just looked divine.
And so everyone was like, Mitch, where did you get these slippers? And it became a topic of conversation. So it could be something in your dress. It could be something even just like in the way you're sitting. If everybody has perfect posture around a meeting table, maybe you're sort of like leaning back and stirring your tea or even folding your legs up. It's little acts of subversion that show that you are human, that you have a personality, that you want to self-express in some way.
Or maybe if you have a deck or a report of some sort, maybe you put a little joke in there, or maybe you use a ridiculous font, like a little papyrus for your headings, and someone like that looks ridiculous, and you're like, yes, thank you. That's just for fun. And what I find, sometimes I call these people give no shits role models, which is something that, I don't know, it doesn't really roll off the tongue, but it's a term I coined for myself. If I see someone being a little bit more human than the rest of the room. I'm attracted to that energy. Like, that's compelling. And so not only does it feel good for yourself to show up as a slightly more human, like maybe you're doodling a frog during the meeting and someone's like, cool frog. You know, not only is it good for you, but it also starts to plant seeds of it's okay for us to be a little less formal, a little bit less professional. Because none of these things like funny socks or doodling a frog makes you worse at your job. None of it threatens productivity, but it does allow us to show up to work in a way that doesn't require a business mask or feeling like we have to be somehow subhuman or bionic in order to be successful.
Hunter (28:42)
It's kind of like, I'm thinking, how can I have fun today? You know, and I just, and I'm in a kind of a rigid environment and yeah, doodling a fr... I mean, that reminds me of when I was a teacher in a school system and I would go to the meetings and I would do a lot of doodling in the staff meetings. But as the art teacher, I was a little like, yeah, they, you they have, you have a little bit more permission to be a little more- but yeah, think you could see that in a lot of ways. I imagine like maybe a little mini rubber ducky and pop it on someone's desk for fun.
Bree Groff:
For sure. And the thing to remember, one of the best things about consulting with CEOs and big executives, Fortune 500 companies, 500, 150, they also want to be having fun. Like, I remember before I started to get in those rooms, I'm like, oh, these are very professional people who only respond to arguments about the bottom line, and they are, you know, on top of everything. And then to be in the rooms with them,
They want to have fun too. They also want to feel like themselves. They also have kids. And so I think when we start to crack this false assumption that everyone else is professional and I'm the human and if I show any of my humanity, I will be somehow othered. No, the truth is everybody else is wearing their business mask too. And if you take that off underneath that, they're also humans who just want to have a good day who do want to spend time with their kids, like mostly if they're not being jerks, who like also would like to doodle from time to time. And the trick is in all taking off those business masks together to allow for some of that humanity. And so maybe it does start with the art teacher who doodles a frog. And then before you know it, the math teacher is like doodling some trig functions or something, whatever it is. It's a bit of permission to live your life at work as a human, because we are. And sometimes we forget that.
Hunter (30:59)
Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
Well, it's funny because one of the most effective things we can do as parents and in our parenting is be more playful, to be a little lighter, to have a little bit more of a sense of fun. that gets kind of, sometimes the energy to do that gets sapped by burnout and overwork, right? So it's this sense of lightness and fun that is missing sometimes in both places that can be make us feel really heavy. And I wonder if it's like, you know, just like when it, when I'm talking about mindfulness, you know, I say that it's really wonderful. You can actually practice mindfulness in any kind of area of your life. can practice mindful walking, dishwashing, all of those things, but often we're not going to really actually remember to do that unless we have some sort of little anchor or formal anchor in our day where I say, okay, maybe after after right before I go to bed at night, I set a timer for 60 seconds, know, two minutes, and I just breathe quietly and I invite that quiet in my life. And I have a practice to help me remember to bring these moments of presence and mindfulness into the others of my life. Right. So I wonder if it's some somewhat the same with playfulness, you know, cause I remind parents about playfulness, like you guys are best robot boys- all of that stuff and be like, yeah, you know, and maybe practice it like you might be reminded about mindfulness and practice it for a couple of weeks. And then you're, it's making differences in your life, but then we just get in this stream of things and our rhythms and we forget. And I wonder if it's the same with being playful and bringing a sense of, can have fun into my work is one of the problems is that we just forget we don't even realize that we could in the first place.
Bree Groff:
Yeah, because we have this false assumption that it's not efficient. And sometimes play or humanity at work, honestly, it's not efficient, but it is effective. And sometimes we get those two things confused. so, you know, speaking of like rituals or how to embed it, one of my favorite tools is called a check-in, which at the top of a team meeting, it could even be a one-on-one at least once a week, could be every day, if do like a stand up kind of thing. In the meeting, you say, how's everyone doing? On a scale of one to five, you're gonna hold up your hand. It could be a fist if you're having a truly awful day or a five or a two. You go one, two, three, go. And then once around the room, about 30 seconds each, everyone just says why. And it could be something about work, like I'm stressed about this meeting later. Or it could be like, oh, it's my birthday this weekend. Or like, oh my kid won the championship something, something, and we were so excited for them. And so we went out to celebrate last night. Also, I'm a little tired. It was worth it. So you're starting to humanize the room, and it takes all of five minutes, depending on the size of the team. And it's probably the thing I recommend most or am most urging clients to take on because it's such a simple practice. We know it's the start of a meeting. Maybe it's our team weekly meeting. We're going to do this thing to just inject a little bit of humanity or play or whatever it is. you know, five, seven minutes at the top of a meeting is not threatening anybody's business, but yet it's making such a more effective culture and team because we know each other and we like each other. Another similar one is I love asking the question, what's the most hilarious solution to our problem.
So that's what I just pull out of my back pocket if we're like, shoot. So we're actually like sort of behind on this timeline and you know, we have this other dependency and the team needs this like, what are we going to do about it? Okay. What's the most hilarious solution? And then it can be anything. It could be like, well, let's send Joe to the ops team and maybe he can do like, maybe he can sing our status update. Maybe you can record it singing, send it to them, because they're a little bit mad at us right now for being behind on our timelines. Maybe a singing gram from Joe is going to lighten their mood and also tell them where we are. Like, I don't know if that's the solution or not, but it sort of just reorients us to what is a possible and viable and professional, I would say, solution.
Because professional doesn't necessarily mean no humanity. It just means doing good work with respect on time. And maybe if you're a little late, you send Joe to go sing about it. But those sorts of little rituals or little micro questions that you can throw in the workday, I find make a huge difference.
Hunter (38:24)
I love that. have a friend who works doing some management at the pool and he uses chat GPT to make poems about things. l I went to the pool yesterday and there was an area where they're trying to grow grass and it was like this cute little rhyming silly poem on the sign that talked about the grass growing. It was adorable. And I thought that's the best use of like AI is just like this fun interpersonal, you know, communication, make it fun. Right?
Bree Groff:
I know, yeah, we need to deploy the robots for our enjoyment. That's a whole other conversation. But yeah, if the robots are not making us laugh, then I don't think that they're doing their jobs. That's hilarious. Why not? Like, made your friend happy, I'm sure. It made anybody who read it happy. Amazing.
Hunter (39:27)
Yeah, exactly. Why not? All right. the book itself, Dear Listener, is very playful. It's very inviting. It's fun to look at. I think a lot of us, read a book about work that is also fun. It may feel a little strange. How can people, besides reading the book, they should do that, but reconnect with our own sense of play as adults, especially if we've been serious for a long time. And this could be at work or at home.
Bree Groff:
So in terms of the book, as a spoiler alert, there's a crossword puzzle in there. There is a fortune teller you can cut out. So I'm like, my God, if I'm writing a book about fun and it is boring and just walls of text with research like that, no, absolutely not. So I had fun in creating it. And so to your question, I think there's all sorts of ways that if we believe
If we hold the mindset that we deserve to love our days, most days, some days will be bad, but most days we deserve to love our days. Our pleasure is important and we deserve to be laughing and smiling. If we start from that premise, then we start to open up the question of like, how do I want to spend this day? So on the personal side, there's a section in the book about ultimate lounging, which is a term my friends and I coined if you're getting so good at lounging that it might just become an Olympic sport. so there were times where we're like, we are killing it. So this was, this could be instead of just like, I don't know, scrolling on your phone while your kids watch a movie and you're just, it's how can we be intentional and ambitious about our play, not just our work? So maybe you're getting in your coziest pajamas, bonus points if they match as a family.
You're making popcorn with some sort of ridiculous seasoning. Maybe you put pop rocks on your popcorn and then the whole family is like, my God, this is nuts. Then you're curling up on the couch. Maybe you have your favorite beverage, adult or otherwise, know, hot chocolates all around. And maybe you've scheduled it in advance and asked your kids like, okay, what other like food should we have? Should we, if your kids are little, should we set up the stuffed animals? If they're older? Lucky for you because you get to watch a better movie. But that's the sort of intentional fun, not to put pressure on fun, like that's the last thing that I mean to be conveying here. But I think sometimes we take work so seriously and then the rest of our lives is like whatever we can cobble together. But what happens when we take our lounging seriously and our leisure seriously? I also, love a jigsaw puzzle. I'm looking to the right over here, because we just started one last night, because they are so, they are like the most anti-capitalist thing you could imagine, right? There's no point. You take it apart when you're done. It's all process.
Hunter:
Exactly, right? Like somebody cut it up just so you could put it back together, just so that you can then take it apart again. But I love it because it's such a statement. That joy of doing the puzzle, even though it had no outcome, that mattered. And the same is true with
Bree Groff:
Spending time with my daughter is not productive in any sort of like economic output. But if I love the time, she loved the time, or as a family with my husband, we loved the time, then that's valuable. And I know many times in my life, it's been hard to equate that value with, and yet I could have been doing this thing at work that would have had some sort of economic value or career value, but just putting, placing importance on the amount of enjoyment we get from our finite days on this planet, I think is the first place to start to prioritize our fun, to feel that we deserve it.
Hunter:
I love that. I love that. Okay, but if there's a parent who came to you and said, I feel guilty, I feel that guilt for taking breaks or even for enjoying work. I feel guilty for enjoying work when there's a lot to do. What would you say to that?
Bree Groff:
There's also, I mean, this is all a pendulum, right? Like I'm not saying, condense your work and then spend as much time as possible with your family. Because work is, I mean, I wrote a whole book about how work itself is joyful. So if you're enjoying work or not spending all of your time fawning over your kids, that's great, just for 10,000 other reasons. So for example, this weekend my daughter, was going to go ride her bike. She's like, you want to come watch me do these like fun figure eights? And I said to her, you know what Arden, you know I love spending time with you, but also I think I need a little alone time. Like I'm going to read a book here. And she's like, yeah, you deserve a little time to read your book. And it was so sweet. And then actually after I read for a little bit, I went to go meet her and see her ride her bike. anyway, she had that story to say that kids seeing us in your- our- leisure or to your question, enjoying our work is really valuable because I want Arden to grow up and believe that work can and should be joyful. I mean, she sees me stress out. She sees me get frustrated about something at work and I'll tell her like, this thing happened today. And she'll be like, yeah, that does sound hard. She's a great work therapist actually as a kid. But I love that on the whole, she sees that for my husband and I that that we have fun at work. And I think that that's valuable for kids to see because then they grow up thinking, I'm going to have a relationship with work that is not based on I need to prove myself, is not based on I need to grind for this impact or paycheck, but I'm going to make sure that in my working days, I'm generally having a good time.
And I think that's what we model for her. So I think as a parent, like if you're enjoying your work and you're like, sorry, I got to work on this thing. I don't know, maybe just spend 30 seconds explaining to them why it's fun. Like I'm doing this presentation. I'm going to be working late tonight, but also like, do you want to see it for just a few seconds? Because I worked really hard on it. I'm really proud of this part. This part we did together with another team and we had such fun doing it. Okay. I'm going to go back to my work now. You go hang out and do your homework or whatnot. And then I think you set a really great example and you're getting your work done.
Hunter (46:33)
Hmm, I like that. So if we're feeling that guilt, I mean, I think the guilt can go both ways. Like I'm the guilt for too much work. I'm feeling the guilt for too much time. All those things. Yeah. I mean, I guess it's a matter of listen to this podcast again and remind yourself, take things in that are of the culture of that you're valuable. You don't have to be a cog. You can be productive in other ways and contributing value in other ways. And it isn't necessarily more more, I suppose that is your production. It's the same with your kids. It's not about every second. It's about, kind of, what I'm hearing from you, from this, from both of this is it's about bringing your full presence to all of the things you're doing as much as you can.
Bree Groff:
Yeah, mean, that's exactly right. Like that's what I want as a human. I want to feel alive. Like I've got this beautiful day to be alive on this planet. I won't have these days forever. And yet today I have. So what is the most, what is the best use of that day? And this is not to stress myself out or create guilt that I'm doing so too much here, not enough there. At best, you're having fun at work.
And you're having fun at home, that you're enjoying your work and you're enjoying your time with your family, your kids, or by yourself. Like it will always be true that we only have 24 hours in a day. And so if the guilt isn't, sometimes guilt is important because it's correcting like a big swing, like a big over imbalance of I'm barely seeing my kids or I'm really struggling at work. But if you're sort of somewhere in the middle of that swing,
Because then the more that we can enjoy our work and model that for our kids, and the more that we can enjoy our kids and also model that for our colleagues, then you've gotten yourself into a positive feedback loop. And then most days, it's kind of of works itself out.
Hunter:
Well, this was fun. Talking about today was fun. Thank you so much, Bree. Bree's book, "Today Was Fun: a Book About Work (Seriously)", is available everywhere books are sold. It's out now. I think it's a great purchase if you are wanting to have a sense of fun and need a reminder in your life about how to do that. Thank you so much for doing what you do and thank you for coming on. If people want to find out more about what you're doing? Where can they find you?
Bree Groff:
Sure. You can find me at BreeGroff.com. I'm also on Substack and write there regularly, LinkedIn as well. And of course you can pick up a copy of the book.
Hunter:
Well, thank you. It's been a pleasure to talk to you and I hope people have more fun. Have more fun, people.
Bree Groff (49:44)
Where are your crazy socks today? You see what happens.
Hunter:
Yeah, wear the crazy socks. That's bottom line. Bottom line of this bad guess. Yeah. All right. Thanks, Bree.
Hey, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you liked it, let me know I'm @MindfulMamaMentor. And like I mentioned in the intro, I've been doing talks for groups and corporations. And if you are working a place and want me to come talk, let me know. You can find out more about it on the Speaking tab at MindfulMamaMentor.com. So I hope this episode helped you. And I wishing you, I am wishing you a great week. Namaste.
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