Prime (noun)
the state or time of greatest vigour or success in a person’s life.
Hi, I’m Jason. This is where I share openly about the challenges, insights and lessons from my own journey. My hope is that these thoughts spark reflections that help you navigate your own path to living better and leading better.

Jason Leavy
Founder
Prime Perspective:
Reflections on Leadership and Growth
"Play lies at the core of creativity and innovation."
– Stuart Brown, M.D., founder of the National Institute for Play
When I think about the most rewarding chapters of my corporate career, one common denominator stands out. The teams that delivered exceptional results were the ones that knew how to play.
Not the scheduled 'team-building' activities. Not the forced frivolity of company socials.
I'm talking about genuine play, the kind where you're in the work: experimenting with ideas, trying things that might fail, working under pressure to a tight deadline, but finding the joy in creative problem-solving.
I'm talking about when someone proposes a wild idea in a meeting and instead of shutting it down, the team riffs on it, builds on it and sculpts it together into something brilliant.
I'm talking about work that feels less like grinding and more like exploring – where curiosity and creativity drive the process and where passion gets you over the line.
We've created a business culture that treats play as the opposite of serious work. As if being productive means eliminating playfulness. As if the best results come from rigid focus and grim determination.
Neuroscience tells us we've got this completely wrong.
Your Brain on Play
Let me share what happens in your brain when you're in a state of play – and why it matters far more than you think.
Research by Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, reveals that play is not a luxury or waste of time, it's a biological drive as fundamental as sleep. His decades of research demonstrate that play literally rewires our brains for better problem-solving, innovation, and adaptability.
Here's the mechanism: When we engage in play, our brains enter a state that neuroscientists call ‘low-stakes exploration’. In this state, the prefrontal cortex (the part of your brain responsible for planning and decision-making) becomes more flexible. You make unexpected connections between ideas. You try novel approaches without getting paralysed by the thought of the consequences.
Studies from MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory confirm that this playful, exploratory state significantly enhances our ability to learn new information and recall it later. When you're playing (in this context I mean when you're genuinely experimenting without attachment to a specific outcome), your hippocampus, which is responsible for learning and memory formation, becomes more receptive to encoding new patterns and insights.
The performance benefits are measurable:
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Enhanced creative problem-solving
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Faster learning and adaptation in new situations
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Easier recall of ideas, facts, or connections
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Increased resilience to setbacks
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Play isn't what happens as a reward for great work. Play is a pathway to achieving it.
The Contagion of Playfulness
But here's where it gets really interesting for leaders given the power dynamics at play (sorry, couldn’t resist it!).
Research by psychologist Barbara Fredrickson on positive emotions shows that playfulness is contagious. Her 'broaden-and-build' theory demonstrates that when one person adopts a playful mindset, it expands the cognitive and emotional resources of everyone around them. Your approach as a leader doesn't just affect you, it reshapes how your entire team thinks.
When you create space for play and experimentation, you're not wasting time. You're building an environment where:
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Innovation accelerates because people feel safe to test unconventional ideas
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Psychological safety deepens because play signals that failure is part of the process, not a career-limiting move
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Learning compounds because playful exploration creates multiple pathways to understanding
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Trust strengthens because shared experimentation builds bonds that formal work simply can’t
I saw this firsthand during my years in the creative industries. The teams that produced the most innovative work weren't the ones with the most structured processes, they were the ones that had mastered the art of serious play. Fully committed to the work while maintaining a spirit of experimentation and discovery.
I Lost My Way With No Play
I'll be honest, towards the end of my corporate career I lost this completely.
The global COO role came with its external markers of success, but internally I was navigating a culture that wasn't designed to celebrate play or recognise its value. Every decision felt weighted with consequences. Every meeting required a polished performance. There was pressure to eliminate anything that felt unstructured or experimental.
It was exhausting, especially because I was suppressing an authentic part of my character – the willingness to explore, to experiment, to approach challenges with curiosity rather than just competence.
I stopped playing. And it showed.
The company was also remote by design, which compounded the problem. Remote work can function well for execution, but I believe it stifles the spontaneous, unstructured moments where play naturally emerges and bonds are formed.
Research by evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar at the University of Oxford demonstrates why this matters so much. His work shows that shared play (not just shared work) triggers the release of endorphins that create what scientists call 'social bonding’.
This isn't just about team morale. These neurochemical changes literally strengthen the neural pathways associated with trust and cooperation.
When you play with someone – when you experiment together, laugh at shared failures, celebrate unexpected discoveries – you're fundamentally altering your brain’s wiring in ways that make future collaboration easier and more effective.
This is why the best teams I've worked with always had an element of playfulness in how they operated. It wasn't despite their effectiveness, it was the foundation of it.
5 Ways to Rebuild Play
So how do you rebuild play into a work culture that's forgotten how?
1. Model experimental thinking
As a leader, your team takes their cues from you. If you only ever present polished thinking, they'll be afraid to share half-formed ideas. Share your process, not just your conclusions. Give yourself and others permission to think out loud.
2. Create low-stakes environments
Play requires safety. When everything feels like it has massive consequences, people become rigid and cautious. Build in time and space for experimentation where failure doesn't carry punishment. Research by Dr. Stuart Brown shows that play is a catalyst for developing adaptive, resilient problem-solving skills.
3. Think like a scientist
We're conditioned to only acknowledge success. But some of the most valuable learning happens when experiments don't work out as planned. Think like a scientist and embrace the process as a journey of discovery – make space to examine what new data points and insights were highlighted through failure.
4. Protect unstructured time
Schedule isn't the enemy of play, but optimization is. If every minute is accounted for, there's no room for the wandering conversations, the tangential explorations, the ‘wild card’ moments that lead to breakthroughs. Deliberately create pockets of unstructured time where the team can explore without an agenda and a specific outcome.
5. Encourage cross-pollination
Play often emerges at the intersection of different disciplines, perspectives, and skill sets. Create opportunities for people to work with colleagues outside their usual circles. The cognitive diversity itself becomes a playground for new ideas.
The bottom line is when you eliminate play from your work, you inadvertently eliminate one of your brain's most powerful tools for innovation, learning, and adaptation.
This isn't about being less serious or less committed. It's about recognizing that play and performance aren't opposites, they're inextricably linked.
So go play. At the very least you’ll have a lot of fun… and the results may just surprise you.
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