299 Kristi Herold

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast where you learn how to extract your business and personal Deep Wealth. 

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Kristi Herold is the CEO of JAM, a global business connecting people through play and one of the largest recreational sports leagues in the world. Since 2020, JAM has produced over 3, 500 corporate team building events in over 30 countries. Kristi consults and speaks on how to move a culture from surviving to thriving.

Her best selling book, It Pays to Play, [00:02:00] a rich resource to help organizations playfully connect with their teams and improve productivity, retention, and workplace culture.

Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. And for all you listeners out there in Deep Wealth land, we're going to use the F word a lot. Fun. That's right. And let me ask you something. Do you believe the saying, the team that has fun together, stays together, has bigger profits together and creates a market disruption?

Well, we sure do as does our guest, but I'm going to put a pause on it right there because we have, as you heard in the official introduction, A fellow business owner, a thought leader, an incredible best selling author, and a change maker, market disruptor, all in one. Imagine that. Chrissy, welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast.

An absolute pleasure to have you with us. And there's that saying, Chrissy, that there's always a story behind the story. So what's your story? What got you from where you were to where you are today?

Kristi Herold: Daphne, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here. Story behind the story. I grew up in a small town north of Toronto, Sudbury, and always was running businesses as, very entrepreneurial from a young age. Grew up [00:03:00] in a very entrepreneurial family. My dad was an entrepreneur. We talked a lot about running your own business at the dinner table.

So did different, land, lawn cutting, that kind of thing in University, ran A painting franchise of College Pro Painters, and I also ran a custom clothing business. Didn't do very well in university. I studied commerce at Queen's and I barely passed, but I did really well running my businesses while I was in university, so, that's probably why I was barely passing in school.

After university, moved to Toronto, so I was literally a small town girl living in a lonely world, moved to the big city, and I was struggling to meet people, and had heard about these Adult Recreational Sport Leagues in the United States, in Chicago and San Francisco, and I thought I could try something like that in Toronto.

I knew I wanted to run my own business, but I didn't know what, so I started up the Toronto Sport and Social Club in 1996, and it was sort of an opportunity to fix my own problem and have a business for myself. So, started off 1996 with, I think we had flag football, basketball, beach volleyball.

Softball [00:04:00] and soccer, if I remember correctly, that's what we first started, had 52 teams sign up that very first season, so about 500 people and fast forward 27 years, and we're around 11, 000 teams on an annual basis getting close to 150, 000 people playing. And we've created a vision for ourselves, which is to get a million people playing every year.

So we still have a ways to go to, hit that million people playing every year, but along the way, we've touched a lot of the lives in a very positive way. The pandemic really crushed us. We were shut down for 18 months during the pandemic because you couldn't connect in real life running sports.

So we had to pivot. During the pandemic, and that's when we started the corporate side of things, helping corporate teams connect through play. So we stayed true to that core purpose of connecting people through play. And we started doing corporate team building events. And that's when I wrote my book, It Pays to Play, how play improves business culture.

And we produced over 1, 500 corporate events in the first year, did over a million in revenue that first year. And that's been growing since. [00:05:00] And now we're not just doing virtual team building events, we're also doing in person team building events and now also corporate culture consulting helping companies integrate playfulness into their day to day operations to help improve their workplace culture.

So it's interesting how the pandemic was really a harsh very difficult, big challenge to us initially, but it's actually kind of opened up and blossomed some great opportunities we never would have had otherwise. So that's sort of the, from start to where we are now and lots of exciting opportunity ahead.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Christy, it's an incredible story. And before we go into that, a couple of things, firstly, for our listeners in the show notes, there'll be actually a lot of links. We'll talk about some of them a little bit later on, but one of them is to the book, It Pays to Play, How Play Improves Business Culture. So go to the show notes, click on the link, get the book.

It's fabulous. But Christy, let me ask you this growing up, you're in an entrepreneurial family. I'm just curious. How did that perhaps shape you, maybe you didn't even realize it at the time, as you're growing up, with how you looked at the world [00:06:00] relative to people who weren't in that kind of environment?

Kristi Herold: It definitely shaped me and I was, I think I actually was kind of aware of it. My mom was a homemaker and she was incredible, you know, there were always, fresh baked cookies and brownies, like my friends would come over and raid the pantry because there was always home baked goods there she knit, sweaters for me, she sewed clothes she was a real true, Home is where the heart is.

And our home always felt like a very warm, inviting place. And our friends were always welcome. I was impacted by that combined with my dad. He was an entrepreneur. He ran his own business and his business was a lifestyle business. He wanted to be around. He was always home for breakfast. He was always home for dinner.

He often drove me to school in the mornings. Both my parents were there for , all of our extracurricular. You know, If I was in a musical, they were there. If there was a field trip, one of them was with me. Our parents were incredibly supportive.

I kind of wanted to emulate both of that, both of my parents. I wanted to be there for my kids and on their field trips and helping with the [00:07:00] bake sales, but I also wanted to be like my dad. I wanted to run my own business. I wanted to do my own thing. And so, It really shaped me and what I most appreciated was seeing how my dad running his own business, how much that gave him power over his own time. 

Three thirty football games, he could come out and cheer me on. In fact, he was actually, he helped coach our girls flag football team in high school. He could do that because he ran his own business. He was in control of his own time. And so that's where the, for the first 20 years of running Sport and Social Club, which is now, by the way, rebranded to JAM.

I forgot to mention that. We rebranded to JAM during the pandemic but when I started the Sport and Social Club, I intentionally wanted a lifestyle business. So 1996 to 2006, that first 10 years, I put a I built a great team had three children during that time, and then from 2006 to 2016, I really sort of stepped back from the business and let my team, who are amazing, run things and I was very part time involved in the [00:08:00] business in that ten years, I had created a lifestyle business so that I could be around for my kids.

I was always home for dinners. I was always at all their special extracurricular events. I was able to bake and do the things that my mom did. By running my own business, I was able to create this valuable, the lifestyle I wanted. It wasn't until 2016 when my kids Sort of didn't need me around as much and I was kind of bored 20 years and at that point it was in 2016 that I really decided let's scale this business, let's create a new challenge and I didn't know how I would do it ended up being through acquisitions.

We've done nine acquisitions, the 10th is, should close next week but that's what I've been doing since 2016 is really trying to scale up our organization and be in many more cities and get a lot more people playing in that vision of. one million people playing that was, became the vision in 2016.

So that's, I think how, having my dad as an entrepreneur, raising us really impacted me knowing, just seeing the control he had over his time. It's what I wanted.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Chris, he's such a heartwarming story. And for our listeners, what a lesson for [00:09:00] all of us, because Chrissy, as you're sharing this story, what's coming across, I'm sure your dad said some wonderful things along the way and was terrific in that regard as well. So what you're remembering though, is how he made you feel and the actions that he took.

And so for us as business owners, founders, entrepreneurs, whether it's with our family or whether it's in the workplace, it's such a, really a visceral reminder of how important that what we do, how we make people feel, and I know you love Anjum Ailu and you have some quotes there, but one of the ones that I always remember with her, it's not what we say and may botch it a little bit, but it's not what we say, it's how we make people feel.

And that's really coming through loud and clear here.

Kristi Herold: Yeah, and my dad also was a great mentor. I remember very early on when I was running my College Pro franchise, the very first year, halfway through the summer, I had half my painters quit on me. And so I had to stop marketing, stop selling. I had to instead start recruiting and hiring and retraining painters so I could get my production back up and running again.

And, That was [00:10:00] a harsh lesson to learn, and I realized why they quit was because I was being a bit of a dictator. I was, like, not a very fun person to work for. I just was demanding and didn't really think about them as people. And I remember at that time, I was pretty beside myself, and I sat down with my dad, and he said, Christy, you need to remember.

If you don't have people, if people aren't your priority, you've got nothing 

And it was a really great lesson to learn very early on and helped me realize how important it is to build great workplace culture, to invest in having a culture where people wanted to be there. And it's paid off in the last, since the pandemic since 2020, I've had three employees leave.

And come back. I write about two of them in the book. our third, who left 2021, left for what they felt would be better career opportunities, more money, they've come back because they realized they want to work in a place where people care about them as friends, [00:11:00] where the workplace culture is fun and that they care about the purpose of what we're doing out there, the way we're touching lives, it's a really powerful thing to remember that we obviously want to be competitive with how we compensate people, but it's not just about you.

Money. It's how you make people feel. and that's a beautiful thing about focusing on having some fun and integrating a little playfulness into the workplace can really go a long way for retention and loyalty. lot easier to onboard someone who's been a great teammate in the past than it is to recruit and train and hire brand new people.

So, culture is really important.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And speaking of culture or of playing, what really struck me and hit home, it was in, I want to say the first few pages of the book. And you told a wonderful story. Let's go back to World War I. You had the German army, you had the allied forces. It's around Christmas and they're literally killing each other on the battlefield.

But they then took a break. It was Christmas and they got into the festive spirit. And they end up playing in a playful manner. One moment they're killing each other. The next [00:12:00] minute they're playing. And to me, it just really struck home how it's wired in us to really want to play, to have fun. Would love your thoughts on that.

Kristi Herold: Yeah, play is so powerful and it's often overlooked and forgotten about, and I think the word play really triggers a lot of people to, it's it can be very divisive. People are like, we don't have time for play at work. What does that mean? What it means truly is fostering some friendships,

So, And when we do that, trust and collaboration improves, creativity improves, people become more engaged with the work they're doing, and more loyal to your organization. So your retention improves, which is an incredibly costly thing if your turnover is high, you can reduce turnover by investing in fostering friendships.

And yeah, on the battlefield of World War I, I mean, what a beautiful example of, they were literally... Killing each other one day, and the next day they put down their guns. They refer to this as the Christmas Truce and they literally, Germans and the Allies got together on the battlefield and they kicked a soccer ball around the [00:13:00] battlefield.

It literally, play literally stopped the war and play is so natural, right? If you think of, look at any animal. Look at your dogs. Dogs are playing all the time. natural. As children, we play all the time. And it's only society has sort of made us think that we should stop playing when we grow up, that we need to get serious get to work.

 Margaret Mead absolutely brilliant woman, ahead of her time she always challenged status quo on things like race relations gender equality nuclear arms.

She's known for having said that it is utterly false. Cruelly arbitrary to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age and all the regrets into old age. And I just am like, I agree with Margaret Mead, like it's absolutely ridiculous. Why has society sort of.

Compartmentalized, we should be having fun throughout our whole lives and when we do, it pays off. There's a huge ROI from investing and having a little [00:14:00] bit of playfulness and fun in the workplace and in our personal lives.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Also true, because you know what, Chrissy, the social programming, somewhere along the lines, it just kind of snuck in, and now it stays there, where it becomes a bragging, right, oh, I worked 80 hours last week, or I worked 100 hours last week, and if you come along, well, you know what, I worked Ten hours last week, but I hid it out of the park.

Somehow that's frowned upon. And I want to ask you this because you're really wearing a couple of different hats at Jam. So on the one hand, it's with the different sports leagues and I love that goal of a million players a year or hopefully even more as you get there and surpass that. So you have the sports leagues on the one hand, you have the corporate events on the other hand.

But I'm wondering, as you look at the end of the day from both of those activities, what are some of the common themes that are coming out of that? Because people are people, whether we're playing in a sports league or we're having some corporate events, but we're putting some play into the workplace.

And I know you do an incredible job in the book and talk about, hey, retention, engagement, health, creativity,[00:15:00] big picture wise? What are you seeing when you combine all that, when all is said and done, what's the narrative here? 

Kristi Herold: such a good question. there definitely are some similarities, although, as you point out the sports leagues that we're running in about 15 different cities now across Canada and the U. S. The Jam Sports Leagues are very much a B2C business, getting lots of people playing in like, intramurals for people who are no longer in university, so all different types of sports, and then the corporate side, our B2B side that we started during the pandemic is the team building and now the culture consulting.

The common thread Is our core purpose of connecting people through play. What happens when we play as individuals or with our teammates at work friends from wherever. So whether we're playing a game of soccer with people from our, you know, maybe it's a work team, maybe it's a bunch of friends from university, playing a game of soccer or kickball or beach volleyball, we finish that game and we go home and we feel re energized Invigorated, we had some social connection, which is incredibly [00:16:00] powerful.

The Mayo Clinic has done studies to prove when you combine your exercise with social sports like tennis, basketball, or soccer, it adds 20 percent longevity to your life. That social connection, that mental health benefit you get. is so powerful. So there's that. And then when you take a little time to play and have some laughs with your work teams, whether that's doing a virtual event, like a trivia lunch and laugh, or a virtual escape room, or maybe it's an in person, maybe you're going to do an axe throwing, or maybe you have a, company choir, or a company rock band, or a company soccer team, whatever.

When you take a little time to play, And engage with your teams from work, same thing happens. You're fostering friendships, you're strengthening relationships. And when you feel more connected to people as Human beings versus just a work colleague who you only look at spreadsheets with and that's all you ever talk about.

When you feel more connected as people, you're much more apt to trust them. You're much more apt to be [00:17:00] vulnerable with them, to say, hey I'm really overloaded. Can you help me? I could use some help. Or you're much more apt to offer. I see you're looking kind of stressed. Do you need some help right now?

Because I don't have a lot on my plate. Can I help you? You're strengthening team collaboration, which only benefits the organization. And it makes people much happier getting out of bed and going to work the next day when they know they're going to have some laughs with the people. They work with, by the way, doesn't, play doesn't have to mean just stopping to have an event.

It actually can be integrated in everything we do. It can be how we communicate, how we're sending our emails. Are your emails making people laugh a little bit? No matter what business you're in, you can have some laughs with your communications. Because no one really enjoys reading boring, dry, corporate communications.

Everyone loves to laugh a little bit. So have a little fun with how you're communicating, whether it's on social media or your communications, whether it's your... terms and conditions. Our terms and conditions for our corporate events, have the legalese, and then there's a [00:18:00] jam interpretation that's written in red, so people can it's just a funny little one line that interprets the legalese to get the point across, but it's, really ridiculous and funny, so it makes reading the terms and conditions kind of entertaining, because no one really enjoys...

Reading that, right? It's how you celebrate loyalty. Are you doing shout outs of great work being done? Are you having core value awards once a month? Are you celebrating loyalty when someone hits their one year anniversary, their three year anniversary, their five year anniversary? Are you celebrating those playfully?

 At JAM we talk about press play to start, so we take three to five minutes at the start of every meeting to have some playful fun. That's just a little connection between the... Five, eight people who are in the meeting, there's something playful to get it started and it's always a little different.

Kristi Herold: Those are really powerful ways to integrate and get to know people as friends and to strengthen relationships and community, which spills over into all the benefits I talk about in the book.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Chrissy, with what we're talking about here at Deep [00:19:00] Wealth, we say this is really in what we call the art side of business and the art side of success. And I know there's some listeners that are saying, okay, you know what, Chrissy, Jeffrey, yeah, sure. Chrissy, you have a great story and congratulations on your success.

That sounds good. You know what though? It's got to show up in the bottom line for me. I'm not seeing how play or having fun is showing up in the bottom line. So for that listener, why don't we bring from the art side to the science side? Let's give them a little bit of a carrot here, the what's in it for them.

Tuning into WII. FM, as we say at Deep Wealth, the what's in it for me, radio station, because we are squarely in. Step two X Factors in the Deep Wealth nine step roadmap. What's an X Factor? An X Factor like culture, which is exactly what we're talking about today. It really makes you, when you do it well, world class.

It distinguishes you from the rest of the marketplace and money can really buy a lot of things from your competition. They can copy you. You cannot copy culture. All the money in the world can't do that. So I know it's, I want to say chapter six, give or take, it was [00:20:00] talking about how you create happy customers.

From having the play, having that kind of fun culture. So for those listeners who are a little bit dubious right now, okay, play in the workplace, let me think about that. What's in it for them, Chrissy? What can you share of how we're increasing profits, client retention, all those wonderful things that go along with that?

Kristi Herold: So there's a few ways. The first I'll say, let's talk about productivity and engagement. Stats have shown that when 60 percent or more of your employees say that they have a close friend at work, the studies have proven those companies that have that stat Our 12 percent more profitable.

That's a Gallup poll. Secondly, let's talk about retention and turnover. We know that turnover costs anywhere from 50 to 150 percent of someone's salary. Let's say you've got 100 people working for you and you've got An average salary of 50, 000 and your turnover, if your turnover is up in the sort of average sort of 18 [00:21:00] percent industry wide, costing your company a million and a half dollars a year in turnover.

If you invested 150, 000 in having an improving your workplace culture and having a little more fun, and you can get Two or three people not leaving, that's already paid off, right? You reduced your turnover to, instead of 18 percent, maybe you can get it down to 15 or 14 or 13 percent. Huge savings.

So the investment pays off there. Further, When you have a workplace culture that people want to work out, when people say they have a friend, close friend in work they are far more likely to recommend your organization as a great place to work. When you're recruiting efforts become much easier. You are going to be able to recruit far better talent far more easily.

And then the last piece I will say to talk about the Happier customers. we've all experienced being on the other end of a phone call with a grumpy customer service rep versus [00:22:00] an energetic, happy customer service person. How was that experience for you? If you think about those experiences, How drastically different they are.

You hang up the phone with someone grumpy who clearly doesn't like their job. It makes you grumpy and it makes you go, I never want to do business with this company again. And I'm not telling anyone to do business with this organization. In fact, I'm going to tell people negative stories about this organization.

It was such a miserable experience. Versus... You've been on the phone with someone who is super energetic, super willing to please, happy, clearly loving their job. You're going to go out of your way to tell people to use it and you're going to stick around and come back as a customer. don't know the statistics on this, Jeffrey, we all know there's truth to that.

You cannot deny that happier and more engaged employees will translate to happier customers.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. And Chris, as you're talking about that, you remind me of the site Glassdoor. And if you're not familiar with Glassdoor, it's an online website and this is where employees, they come onto the site and they [00:23:00] very openly share what they like, but also what they don't like about any given company, maybe even your company.

We actually talk about this in the Deep Wealth Mastery Program, step forward, due diligence. Hey, what are your employees saying about you? And you should really know about that and get ahead of that. So they did a survey and they asked current employees or employees that were thinking of making a move, okay, what either keeps you at the company or what has you leave one company and go to another company?

And at first blush, most people will say, well, that's easy. It's money. Money is keeping people there or having people go to a new company, new opportunity. Money was near the bottom of the list. At the top of the list, what's the vision of a company? What are the leaders like? What's the culture of that company?

And as it turns out, people will take less money and maybe even a lower title if they're going to have more fun, more play at work. They're in a thriving and rich culture. It keeps them in the game. So it's exactly supporting Chrissy, what you're seeing and what you're sharing with us.

Kristi Herold: Yeah, 100%. And the other, piece to keep in mind is [00:24:00] statistics. The latest Gallup research from 2022 was saying that only 36 percent of our employees are actually engaged. with the work they're doing, which leaves 64 percent are disengaged. Of that 64%, 13 percent are what they call actively disengaged.

And so what that means is, I always sort of use this analogy, imagine you've got your hundred people on your team, and you're all rowing a boat, and your boat is trying to get you, you're rowing a boat towards that vision, towards that goal, what you're trying to achieve, the purpose of your organization.

If you only have 36 people in your boat actually pulling and rowing, you've got 51 people sitting there with their arms behind their head. They're just kind of along for the ride on cruise control and you've got people in the back of the boat actually rowing you in the opposite direction. That's what it means to be actively disengaged.

They're saying negative things about you. they're hurting you. So it's really important to be in touch with your team and know. Are my team engaged or disengaged? And how can I get them more engaged? You get them more [00:25:00] engaged by making sure they're having fun and caring about the purpose and caring about the people they work with.

If they're not, you've got to get rid of them and get some people on your team who truly can get engaged and behind what you're trying to do.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So Chrissy, let me ask you this. You very eloquently, you've walked us through some of the chapters and the principles and strategies in the book. So we talked about retention, how when people are having fun, when they're playing, they're going to stay in the company saving what's otherwise a hidden loss opportunity costs of millions of dollars potentially.

And who knows what market disruptions we've missed because we don't have the right people in place, or we're just missing opportunities. And we spoke about the engagement of how people can really just get in there and do the right thing because they're having fun, they're feeling comfortable when they're having fun, whether it's on the field or they're laughing, all kinds of health benefits that you shared of, what comes out with that.

And so let me ask you this, and, you know, I can see why they have more energy. You talk about one of the takeaways as really being more creativity. People are just creative and they're just hitting it out of the park with that. So from the outsider [00:26:00] looking in, that may not be so intuitive or so obvious.

What can you share with us of why should I look for, if I'm doing things right, to hopefully have the creativity at the workplace with my people go through the roof?

Kristi Herold: So this, again, it comes back to fostering friendship, when people feel they are friends with someone, when they're more able to trust, when you can trust people, you are willing to be vulnerable in front of them. So, If you trust your team, you're much more willing and you're doing a brainstorming session, you're much more willing to throw out crazy ideas, what might seem like crazy big blue sky ideas.

And some of those ideas can be true nuggets of gold that would, could really help disrupt your industry or help that your organization see incredible growth. If your team doesn't feel they can trust that they're not, you know, if they're not friends with each other and they feel fearful of, they might get scoffed at or laughed at, they're going to not [00:27:00] be willing to be vulnerable.

They're not going to open their mouths. They're going to sit quietly and kind of just, and not be as engaged with what's going on. it's a sad situation, but that's why a lot of creative, beautiful ideas never come to light because people are scared to do so. And so having friends at work.

It's really, it's just, I can't stress how powerful it is. It just plays out in so many different ways throughout the business. That's why the return on investing, because it doesn't need to cost a lot of money or time frankly, to invest in play and having fun, but the payoff is massive.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So, Chrissy, let me ask you this. If I'm a business, whether it's a business of five or a business of 5, 000, I mean, on the one hand, I can come to your site and I can see if you have a sports club in my local city and I can encourage people to go there and off I go with that and hopefully we'll have some play, have some fun that way.

That said though, with your other divisions, so if I'm contacting you, Chrissy, I mean, what's going on? I'm reaching out. Okay. Chrissy and team come into our company. We want to really boost our culture. We [00:28:00] want to have some play. We want to have some fun. We want to do a corporate event. Help us. We don't know where to begin, where to start, what to do.

What does that look like in terms of your, I'll call it your secret sauce? What's the process looking like?

Kristi Herold: The corporate event side is People who maybe want to do, a once a year event or a twice a year, and we always tell people, look, once a year event is really not going to make great culture. Don't stop doing that if that's all you're doing, but that in and of itself isn't quite enough.

 So we do events for organizations that are, you know, holiday parties or it's the annual general meeting event or whatever, summer picnics and these can be in person events. Hybrid events for companies that have people remote and in person or fully remote, virtual events.

We have things like escape rooms, game shows, amazing races, scavenger hunts Office Olympics. We have a lot of companies who sign on and do a once a month lunch and laugh. So instead of a lunch and learn we bring them the fun. They don't have to think about it. They just sign up their team and we [00:29:00] show up, whether it's...

10 people or 50 people or 200 people, there's a link that they get and they show up and we'll connect them through a playful fun event over a lunch hour or a happy hour once a month and it just enables people to connect and have some laughs with their teammates which Then flows over into fun later, but then the other piece, Jeffrey, is what we're starting to do a lot more of now is the cultural consulting side, because a lot of people get stuck on thinking, well, we can't just stop and have events all the time.

That's not what we're talking about. we can teach people how to integrate playfulness into their day to day operations. So we can talk about. Looking at the meeting pulses. How are you running your meetings? We can teach people how to have a daily huddle that actually has a different leader every day and starts with good news and ends with leader's choice.

Little, short, seven minute daily huddle that can have some powerful sparks of playfulness. We can teach people how to have a mayor, which the mayor is [00:30:00] elected in three times a year and runs the social committee. You can teach people how to celebrate. And recognize great work going on with shout out channels or awards around, weekly awards, monthly awards, to celebrate great work being done, and it can all be done very playfully.

There's ways of integrating throughout your day to day operations, having a little more fun at work, once you get going with it, it doesn't cost money, it doesn't take a ton of time, it becomes the I'm Fabric of your organization. And then you build on that by the way, we always say, don't force fun. If you're going to have a company sports team or a company choir or a company book club, don't force it, make it optional. Say we're going to sign up a team for, to play in Jams Kickball League or Jams Beach Volleyball League. We're going to put a team in, but it's optional. We're not forcing people. Does anyone want to play? We're gonna pay for it. We're gonna have our company t shirts out there, so your branding's getting out there, but we're not forcing you to do this. We're gonna have a book [00:31:00] club once every two months. We're gonna read a book together and discuss it over a lunch hour.

We're not forcing you to do this, but if you do join us, we'll pay for the book. It's things like that, that you just make these things optional, and then as people start to jump on board, Others start to hear about it and think, hey, I want to do that, too. By the way, having a company sports team or a company choir, these are great ways to bring people together in person if you're working remotely, but you're sort of all in a similar hub.

What a great way to get people seeing each other in person. They don't have to come to the office, but they see each other in person. And, Sam from accounting gets to know Sarah from the HR department, gets to know Mark from marketing, gets to know, Sarthak from the dev department.

Like they're all playing on one team together, or they're all singing in the same company choir in person. That's where powerful sparks can happen. So you're breaking down silos. You're breaking down hierarchies. And that's where friendships foster and people get far [00:32:00] more engaged.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, Chrissy, as you're talking about that, you're really, you're hammering home, for starters, oftentimes we're spending, if we're in the office, more time with our colleagues than we are with our family during the week. And so it's really, it's our family away from our blood family. And at the same time.

Lots of things came out of the pandemic. I mean, technology just accelerated probably by a decade or so, but we saw how people left lousy commutes and terrible commutes and horrible bosses to say, not for me, I'm going to find something else. Even if it's a lower paying job, it's all about living a life that I'm going to enjoy and really going to cherish.

And so everything that you're saying really pours into that. And now, particularly whether a company is against remote work or embraces remote work, it's here to stay, it's not going anywhere. And so it sounds like with these kinds of virtual events that you're doing, or even in person events, it's a bridge for that culture to bring people together.

Thoughts on that?

Kristi Herold: That's exactly right. It's just another [00:33:00] opportunity to help people connect and have some laughs outside of looking at spreadsheets, outside of looking at PowerPoints. That work has to happen, but you can be having some laughs along the way and that work becomes far more engaging.

It's like... Taking a recess break when we were kids, there's a reason they got us up and out of our desks and outside to run around and play with our friends for a little bit. That doesn't need to stop just because we're adults, right? Have a laugh over lunch together and you can do it virtually, you can do it in person.

It doesn't need to stop and it just really adds to it. Great life and spark to your culture and your team at work.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So Chris, a pun intended, it really does pay to play as you really shared with us and you've gone down some rabbit holes with me here. Before we go into wrap up mode, I want to ask this. Is there perhaps a question that I didn't ask or a topic that we haven't covered or a message that you'd like to get out there that we haven't spoken about with the community?

Any thoughts on that?

Kristi Herold: Well, maybe one last piece I would share is that [00:34:00] mental health is really at a, we have huge awareness around mental health now because it's, become almost epidemic. It was, before the pandemic becoming highly problematic. And I think what I'd love to remind employers, business owners.

We're all focused, a lot of organizations are focusing on mental health for their employees with the providing health club gym memberships or mindfulness apps, or therapy sessions, they're all very individually focused. What I'm talking about is actually improving the social connections they have, whether it's or in person, offering that as a benefit.

Because that social connection has been proven to improve reduce loneliness, reduce depression, and it's just a hugely powerful antidote and it's something that could just be another add on for your health and wellness benefits is having those company sports teams, providing fun social outlets for your team and finding ways to make play a little more powerful, [00:35:00] fostering those friendships inside the work day to day.

Thank you.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Chris, as you're sharing that, you remind me, you speak about the story in the book and actually you and I were talking about this offline. Maybe you can share it with our listeners. Where you have that centenarian who shared his secret sauce for life, which isn't what most people are going to think.

 I'll throw it over to you to share that wonderful story with our listeners.

Kristi Herold: Yeah I did, I interviewed a gentleman by the name of Britt Smith. He's the founder and chair of one of Canada's largest real estate corporations, landlord companies Homestead Land Holdings. is the name of the company. Britt is now 103 years old.

When I wrote his story in my book, he was 101. He still occasionally chairs the meetings of his company that he founded in 1953. The guy is an absolute Incredible human. When I talked to him, I was like, Brit, what is your secret? And he said, well, I still play every day and I nap. When I asked him about how he plays, he said, I played tennis until I was 95 [00:36:00] years old.

He said, I finally had to hang up my tennis racket at 95, but I still play a crossword puzzle every day. And I, spoke to his CFO, Francine Moore, and she said, Brit really has a playful energy and his playful, fun energy filters throughout our organization. She'd been working at the company for over 25 years.

Talk about retention. I mean, that's what happens when you have a fun, playful, energetic place to work and your leadership is, has a fun, playful energy. People want to stick around and keep working there. It's just, I can't say enough about it. and I guess I would just love if people are struggling with how can they make their, you know, they feel like, well, we have a really serious business.

How do we make it more fun? Reach out to me. I'm happy to share some ideas. The appendix at the back of my book has tons of ideas. And actually, Jeffrey, for your listeners we've got Free playbook PDF, it's ten ways to integrate play into the day to day, and there's a website, if they want to go to christyherald.

com slash deepwealth25 that's where [00:37:00] they can get the ten page playbook PDF, as well, inside that playbook is a 25 percent savings for a jam event so christyherald is K R I S T I H E R O L D dot com slash deepwealth25, and that would hopefully give people lots of good ideas.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. Firstly, thank you so much for that. And we'll circle back to the show notes, but thank you for your generosity and your kindness with that, Christy. And so for our listeners, I mean, what a great takeaway. And by the way, Christy, you already know this. I'll remind our listeners, we've had scientists, we've had doctors, we've had health practitioners come onto the show, and we all talk about longevity because of Deep Wealth Podcast.

It's helping you extract not only your business wealth, deep wealth, but also your personal deep wealth. And they're saying very similar things. Hey, if you're having fun, if you're laughing, if you're playful, if you have a wonderful social network of close friends and loved ones and family around you, That really goes a long way.

And it's really being reinforced by what you're sharing. Well, Chrissy, why don't we do this? As much [00:38:00] as I'd like to go into all these different areas, we have to start wrapping up here. And I say this every podcast, but I'll say it again, because I really do mean it. I have the privilege and the honor for every guest, Chrissy, to ask this question.

So let me set it up. It's a fun one. When you think of the movie Back to the Future, you have that wonderful DeLorean car that can take you to any point in time. So imagine now it's tomorrow morning, and here's the fun part. You look outside your window. Not only is the DeLorean car curbside, but the door is open, is waiting for you to hop on in which you do, and you're now gonna go back to any point in your life.

Maybe Christie, as a young child or a teenager, whatever point in time that would be. What are you telling your younger self in terms of life wisdom, or lessons learned, or hey Chrissy, do this, but don't do that. What would that sound like? 

Kristi Herold: I think I would take myself not too far back, I would take myself back to April of 2020 or March, April of 2020 when the pandemic first hit and shut us down, you know, I had 40 full time employees, 350 part time employees, and we were shut down, closed, and couldn't reopen in, 18 months[00:39:00] was very depressed, very scared.

I didn't know what was going to happen. I should have been celebrating 25 years of connecting people through play, and instead I'm being mandated to not operate at all, and I'm not sure we're going to survive. I would be able to tell myself, trust that you're going to find a way through this. Trust that you're going to get some great lessons from this.

When things are really hard, I think we are forced to try new things, go through doors that are open for us and experiment, and you just never know what's going to happen. In hindsight, looking back at all the challenging times I've had, and there have been many, something good always comes from them.

In the long run. And I wouldn't have believed if you told me in April 2020, that we would have created this whole new corporate business, that I would write a book about corporate culture. I wouldn't have thought that wouldn't have been what I would have seen happening.

And, trust in the process and trust in the journey. We find our way through, just be resilient and optimistic and you're gonna find your way through this, I think is what I'd like to have told myself, because it was a really [00:40:00] painful time.

Jeffrey Feldberg: That's great. Such wonderful advice. And there's a lot of insights in there, Chrissy, as you shared with everything else with us today. Really Every situation, there's always two sides to the coin and it never ceases to amaze me. Someone like yourself, incredibly successful, making a difference out there.

When this first hit, you know what, I put some, no judgment here, but I put some judgment on it. Hey, this was bad. What's going on here? Oh my goodness. How am I going to do this? Yet you find a way when you're looking back, it's, hey, this is actually one of the best things that could have happened because look where we've gone, look at what we've done that would not have happened if what first appeared to be something terrible, if that wouldn't have come onto the scene, we never would have got to here.

So it's always interesting for our listeners, some great takeaways there. And I know, again, for listeners, everything's in the show notes. I want you to go there, buy the book, it pays to play. We also, Chrissy, we have that very special link that you have for all the Deep Wealth listeners, where they can get that resource and also reach out and speak with you, but speaking of online, for a listener who says, yeah, you know what?

I have some questions or I want to implement a [00:41:00] program. Is it the chrissyherald. com site that is that the best place where they should reach you? Or where should they go?

Kristi Herold: They could go to christyherald. com or they could go to jamgroup. com if they're interested in an event or message me on LinkedIn, any of those work.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. So we'll have all that in the show notes. It'll be a point and click. It doesn't get any easier. Well, Chrissy, it's official. This is a wrap. And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, firstly, congratulations, and may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. Thank you so much.

Kristi Herold: Thank you so much, Jeffrey, and my last words to you are keep playing.

Jeffrey Feldberg: it. Thank you. 

Sharon S.: The Deep Wealth Experience was definitely a game-changer for me. 

Lyn M.: This course is one of the best investments you will ever make because you will get an ROI of a hundred times that. Anybody who doesn't go through it will lose millions. 

Kam H.: If you don't have time for this program, you'll never have time for a successful liquidity 

Sharon S.: It was the best value of any business course I've ever taken. The money was very well spent.

Lyn M.: [00:42:00] Compared to when we first began, today I feel better prepared, but in some respects, may be less prepared, not because of the course, but because the course brought to light so many things that I thought we were on top of that we need to fix. 

Kam H.: I 100% believe there's never a great time for a business owner to allocate extra hours into his or her week or day. So it's an investment that will yield results today. I thought I will reap the benefit of this program in three to five years down the road. But as soon as I stepped forward into the program, my mind changed immediately. 

Sharon S.: There was so much value in the experience that the time I invested paid back so much for the energy that was expended. 

Lyn M.: The Deep Wealth Experience compared to other programs is the top. What we learned is very practical. Sometimes you learn stuff that it's great to learn, but you never use it. The stuff we learned from Deep Wealth Experience, I believe it's [00:43:00] going to benefit us a boatload.

Kam H.: I've done an executive MBA. I've worked for billion-dollar companies before. I've worked for smaller companies before I started my business. I've been running my business successfully now for getting close to a decade. We're on a growth trajectory. Reflecting back on the Deep Wealth, I knew less than 10% what I know now, maybe close to 1% even. 

Sharon S.: Hands down the best program in which I've ever participated. And we've done a lot of different things over the years. We've been in other mastermind groups, gone to many seminars, workshops, conferences, retreats, read books. This was so different. I haven't had an experience that's anything close to this in all the years that we've been at this.

It's five-star, A-plus.

Kam H.: I would highly recommend it to any super busy business owner out there.

Deep Wealth is an accurate name for it. This program leads to deeper wealth and happier wealth, not just deeper wealth. I don't think there's a dollar value that could be [00:44:00] associated with such an experience and knowledge that could be applied today and forever. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Are you leaving millions on the table? 

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