Thank you for joining us for episode 566 of Live Happy Now.

When times get tough, it's time to play.

And today, we're going to learn how to do that.

I'm your host, Paula Phelps, and this week I'm talking with Piera Gilardi, a creative entrepreneur who brings play into every room that she enters.

She co-founded the media brand, Refinery 29, and was named one of Ad Age's 50 Most Creative

People.

Fierra has a brand new book out called The Playful Way, and she sat down with me to explain

why play is the antidote to serious times.

Let's have a listen. Pira, thank you for joining me

today. Thank you so much for having me. This is a delightful book. This is a delightful conversation we're

going to have. You're such a great cheerleader for creativity and playfulness. Can you tell us at what

point in your life you connected those things with well-being?

I'm someone that's always been playful, always had creativity as a thread through my life,

and that's always been something I valued. But as I was building a company, I started to think

that that playfulness wasn't appropriate for the workplace, right?

My imposter syndrome crept in and I thought, if I want to be taken serious, then I need to pack

that play and creativity away and present as this more serious person.

And what happened was that when I did that, I started to feel less resourced. I started to feel less

resilient. I started to, because I was shutting down sort of my authentic self and I was also

shutting down my play powers, which are actually so powerful for problem solving, for self-regulation,

for finding joy in the day toto-day and in the challenges,

I got completely burnt out and I found myself laying on the floor of my house,

...