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Energetic Radio with Dale Sidebottom & Paul Campbell is a fantastic tool for people looking to bring fun play and happiness into each and every day. Listen along as Dale interviews world-renowned experts and shares his own experiences with you in this weekly podcast.
Welcome to the Energetic Radio podcast. This episode is brought to you
by the school of play dotco, hosted by Dale Sibonham and
Paul Campbell. Each week, we'll bring to you tips, strategies, and ideas
on how you can bring more joy and happiness into your life and those you
share with. Alright, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome
to the Energetic Radio podcast episode 340.
Wow. We we're getting there, Darwin. We're we're racking them up. We're racking them up.
Oh, yeah. And today's a cracker. We've got a special guest on today.
And the best thing about this special guest is up until 2 weeks ago, we
had no idea this man existed. We had not crossed paths
yet, but let me tell you, we are bloody glad and bloody wrapped that we
did, because you're gonna come to love him just as much as we do.
But our special guest today is Marcus Veerman. Welcome,
Marcus. How you going, guys? Great to be here. Really well. Thanks.
Thanks for joining us on energetic radio. Just for you guys playing at home, what
we love about Marcus, he's a creative mastermind.
He's got an amazing social conscience. He's a bloody good
human. We strongly believe here at the School of Play that
kindness and play are superpowers. And let me tell you,
this man has them in spades. And when
we heard his story literally a week ago now, we we we crossed paths and
and heard his story. We instantly went, we've gotta get this done to the podcast.
I think I stopped in midlife and said, just do you wanna do a podcast
as well? Keep talking. 100%. And and the cool thing
is, Marcus used a term called a nowist.
You know? And and, Marcus, you're gonna piss yourself, but I've used that term a
few times since our meeting, with business calls and business meetings,
and I've used the term now. So it's gone it's landed really well, to be
honest with you, mate. So, I think that's a movement that might stick bigger
here at the school play. So before we get going, thank you for
introducing us to the world of Naos. And, the man to my right
is definitely Naos. No. No. You're a Naos, so, that's bloody brilliant.
Marcus, before we kick things off, Dale hates it, but I love it. I'd like
to I'd like to start our podcast episodes with some useless
stats based around about, what episode we're up to. We're up to
episode 340, people. And let me tell you, finding stats is getting increasingly
Kinda metric. Harder and harder. But here we go. So stats
for 340. At the recent Paris Olympic Games,
there were 340 shooters at the games. There you go. Spare few
athletes. Yep. The world record got 2 world records for you. 3 world
records, actually. The world record for the largest stack of casino
chips is from Travis Stitch, and it's 340
casino chips stacked up vertically before it fell over. Wow. Not
bad. And the largest drum set in the world consists of 340
pieces. Can you imagine playing a drum set for
340 pieces? Where the hell would you start? I can't imagine you got 3 stats
for 3. I'm pretty impressed with those ones. I'm pretty impressed. If you can see
Marcus' face right there, he's like, what if I get through here? I'm just trying
to imagine, like, having arms, like, having that that many pieces and
having arms, like, how would you arrange them so you could reach them all and
reach them? Agree more. And I haven't seen a visual of these 340
people, obviously. Real? So it might not be real, but I thought Google told me
yesterday, oh, chat JPT. Found me some rippers. But, yeah, what a what a
couple of stats to open up our episode. But, anyway, back to you, Marcus. So
I won't steal your thunder too much, but I just wanna explain the to our
listeners, why we fell in love with you, straight away.
And so Marcus is the CEO of Playground Ideas and
the founder of what's an amazing concept called the noodle cart.
And my favorite thing is since 2010, he's built 7,212
sustainable playgrounds in a 143 countries that's
impacted over 3a half 1000000 children globally.
Bang. Huge. I should
say, just for the listeners out there, I cannot take credit for the
vast majority of those. We run an online platform
that supports, like, thousands of amazing people around the
world to do that work really cost effectively
themselves, and we just give them everything they need to make sure that
it's, you know, adventurous and well designed and safe and all of
that stuff. So I, yeah, I can't take credit for the vast
majority of that. I have built a lot of playgrounds in really absolutely
amazing places, around, you know, along
the Taibang border for refugees and other things, which maybe we'll talk about. But, yeah,
definitely, I need to give huge amount of kudos to the community
who picks up the challenge every day and builds a playground somewhere
different, which is you know, the they're the real heroes. So I'm not trying to
be sort of, you know, foe humble about it. I'm proud of what I've done,
but I definitely, you know, I can't I I always I always
just try and be really clear that I have not physically traveled to all those
countries into wood and, you know,
done stuff. I did a lot of that in my early days, and I I
expended way too much energy trying to kill myself doing
that. And, you know, I'm really glad that we engaged a community of people who
jumped on board and done that. I love that. What what's the saying you, you
give a man a fish, he eats for a day. You teach a man how
to fish, he eats for a lifetime. Right? So that's what you're doing. You're you're
educating these people in third world countries how to sustainably
build their playgrounds and therefore they can then spread that to ripple effect. Right? And
then they can then teach other people, and it goes from there. So it's a
really sustainable practice, BB Krater. But, you know, at the start there, I
said he's a bloody good human and how's that? Already already humble already humble off
the bat. You know, I can imagine how he saw a thumb you should have
from Belton in play 7,200 playgrounds. Jesus
Christ. Yeah. I'll definitely have I love it. I love it. Marcus, one of the
questions we love to kick off on the pod is is a really simple question.
And it's it's what has lit you up in the last 7 days?
That's a really good question. What has lit me up? I think the big thing
at the moment, so within so
you mentioned noodle cart. We now have to call it kinda noodle
because we've got the carton, the row for schools, and then we've got this new
one, the pod, the noodle pod for homes. And I think,
we have finally we're currently shipping, like, a 1,000 of them
to families around the world. And what just has just set
me on fire is we've got this so I didn't wanna just
make a toy. I wanted to create a community of people. And so now
there's something like 4 to I guess it's 4 to 500 families who are part
of this private chat group just for families so that they sort of feel
confident to share their stories and the stuff that they're doing. And,
you know, we've built, you know, hundreds of different
configurations of our toy that kids can play with toy replacements and then other
kooky strange, crazy toys. But just in the last week,
we've had so many people just have just blown me
away with new and crazy cool ways
to design stuff for their children, but then also children feeding
back. They just leave this thing in the middle of the room and children building
these just super cool just cute little super
cool creative things that children have just been able to just experiment
around until they come up with stuff. And that that just, you know, that
just warms my the cockles of my heart to see families
face to face, screen free, just,
you know, in that flow creative flow state between a
parent and a child or siblings even. We've had a whole bunch of videos of
siblings, you know, older kids pushing their little, you
know, baby siblings around in a little toy pram or a cot or something
they've just created. All that kind of stuff is just it's, you know,
like yeah. That that's that's some good quality stuff. It's rewarding.
Right? It's rewarding to send you yeah. What what it's kind of fruition. I won't
lie to them. I because we we did some research once we met you, and
then we went and I did some research. And, I came across you
noodle pod, and I'm blown away with it. I think it's a
ripping idea. I've already shared it with a few of my mates who have,
just had kids or have got young kids. I'm like, you guys, this is a
great Christmas idea. Because not only is it is it wooden, and parents
love wooden things because Plastic crap. You know, you kinda mind drawing this plastic crap
every day. It's fine. But it's it's beautifully made and crafted,
but what I found is it it would turn your children
into toymakers, into engineers, into creative little
souls. It would just do wonders for them creatively.
And, yeah, I think it's a brilliant idea. And as you said,
that one little pod, that one little idea you've got can be
transformed into hundreds of different activities or ideas or concepts,
and it's endless. Right? And I think it is a brilliant concept. For those of
you who haven't checked it out, jump on. Just just Google noodle card or noodle
pod. I think it's a ripping business, Christmas idea.
I wanna throw on the spot Mark. Because I'm not sure if you can throw
us a discount code for a Christmas gift card through our listeners or something. I'll
Oh, yeah. If that's alright. No. If you go to the
the actually, the best thing that you can do is just go to the website
and join the VIP club. It costs $29.
That $29 will get you, by the time you factor
in, free shipping and the 30% off discount that
we're offering at the moment, you're getting it for almost half price. And without
wanting to hustle people, when you get this, we are we are having to
we're sort of going out of that launch Kickstarter phase
and into, like, just a normal sort of, you know, ecommerce
kind of thing, because we've just
we've we've almost delivered all the Kickstarter pods. And once that's
done, we've got a we've actually got to run a business and make it
work. So all of that all of that will go away because we're starting
to get real recommendations from real families going, hey. This is a great investment. You
should do it. So but right now, if you join the VIP, you're
getting, like yeah. It works out to be almost 40% off, which is
100 of dollars. Wow. Yeah. So you are That's better than any
code. 100%. You've I exceeded most of the time. I was gonna
get a 10% discount code today. That's what I was I was gonna get a
10% discount code today. That's what I was hoping for. I was like, surely, he'll
give us a discount. He's given us 40%. Thank you. I appreciate that. That is
awesome. I can give you a QR code if you wanna put it on your
page or whatever. The ping pong scan if you want. I can we can totally
do that. We can do that. So listeners, for sure, let's let's do that. So
we'll throw a QR code up there, for sure for listeners,
and you can access it. Honestly, it will make a great Christmas present, for
your nieces, your nephews, your kids, whatever it might be, your grandkids. I
guarantee the parents won't be upset when they pull that one out of the box.
No. They won't. Because it's not plastic crap. Yeah. It's not a screen. It's not
a screen, and it will do wonders for their little minds. That's for sure.
Anyway, let's get away from the the noodle cart and the business itself. We wanna
hear a bit more about you, Marcus. So, tell us a bit of that story,
mate. Yeah. Yeah. You activated us, after I'd
blabbled and you said you've got ADHD, so do I. We connected
very well over that. We both love play. But then you just proceeded to
tell us one of the most elaborate stories that just kept getting better and better
for your journey of what you've been able to achieve to where you are now.
So give that to our listeners, mate, because we wanna hear it again. Yeah. Where
did they start? Where where did where did play Playground Ideas and the Noodle
Cuddle begin with your kindness? So okay. I'll try. And just tell
me just tell me to shut up or move on. I
go down like like, if I go down too deep down to rabbit warren rabbit
hole just a little bit. I think the the very first thing was I
so this is an education podcast. I am a trained
teacher. I, studied
both I started at Latrobe and did a bit of my end study at,
Victoria Uni, and I was really lucky throughout that process to study health,
specialization in health and outdoor education, sort of as my sort
of specializations for it was a prep to 12 degree.
And I think having that focus gave me a broader aspect of child develop
childhood development and sort of what we're trying to do as teachers, you know,
not just focusing on curriculum, but actually a holistic view of what is a
child and and, you know, how do we
want them to go through education and parenting as
well to come out the other side to thrive with the skills that you need
to do well in life as opposed to, you know, we look. I think
it's well known these days that just because you do well in school doesn't mean
that you do well at all in life. You know? That that that they're not
those things are are not correlated. And I think also you
can be, you know, along with that point, you can be an a grade student,
but, you know, there's a lot of things that we don't call mental health
issues or mental illnesses or disabilities. But if you're chronically
shy or you're lacking in confidence and, you know, the
ability to put yourself out there in this kind of new gig economy world
where you kind of, you know, just gotta kind of make
make your own path. You know, you don't have some career dude who's gonna
go, right, you know, start as an internship and then move up through the ranks,
and then you get a gold watch at the end of your life. We're
we're really, really. We don't live in that world. Like, I mean, decades
ago, that's changed, but I feel like we're still stuck in this kind of
world where we expected if we just do this thing, there'll be a path for
us. But, actually, what we're seeing is that that's that's not true. You know? And
with house prices the way they are and other things, you've gotta kind of hustle
a little bit and sort of find your way through these things, to be
successful. So first of all, I I think I was lucky to sort of
see things from a holistic perspective. 2nd of all, I was
extremely lucky, just totally by chance that the the
my last year of uni, there was an opportunity to
do the last 6 months of my study in the Philippines. So I went
to, developing, you know, low income nation.
I was very lucky to study at a really premium university there,
but, you know, you'd walk out of the gates of the school, and I was
you know, there was just abject poverty,
everywhere. Right? And so we were we were also
became honoring members of the University of the Philippines mountaineering
club. So we got to travel the whole country top to bottom and did them.
It just it was an incredible time of just opening my
eyes because I've never I've I've never even been on a plane when I was
Oh, wow. In my life. In the Philippines. I I don't know how that my
my dad is like a hardcore environmentalist, so we just didn't fly. You know?
We would we drove to Queensland to go on a holiday once to go to
expo 88, you know, things like that. So, that was it was just
it just blew my mind. So I left university after this last 6 months of
going overseas with this sort of, like you know, it's just so ready
and ready to go. So, basically, the 1st 7 years so
this is really where it started was I spent 7 years,
working at a whole bunch of schools and then eventually working all over the
world with kids in outdoor education, mountaineering, sort of
mountain guide sort of settings. And I think when I look
back on that, although I didn't recognize it at the time, I was getting
an education in education by watching
these kids in open ended environments where we did on a
daily basis know what the outcome of today was gonna be. You know, whether the
storm was gonna come, whether we're gonna make it to our destination or not, whether
someone was gonna get sick, whether we were gonna burn the pasta and go
hungry that night. You know, I watched kids in that
environment thrive and adapt to that
heightened challenge of real life hitting them in the
face on a daily basis and then having to respond to that
in real ways. You know? And so for me, it was just right from
the get go. I could see there's this fundamental need for
children to rub against the real world if we want
them to be mature and confident human beings. You know? And and and
education can sometimes feel quite insular and
closed off from the real world. Like, they're sort of seen as 2 different things.
So I was quite lucky in that sense.
Then I got to a point when in my late twenties where I would literally
look at my backpack on a I got to the point where I wouldn't even
pack until, Monday morning. So I did get
and I would see look at my backpack on a on a Monday morning, my
empty saggy backpack, and be like, I just don't know if I can do this
anymore. Like, I was just completely burnt out. You know, I was I was working
30 to 35 weeks in the bush every
year. So think imagine that you're teaching, what you're doing, what you're teaching. Imagine that,
but you're in on a mountain, rain, hail,
blazing sun, freezing cold winters every day,
waking up on a rocky thermarest, you know, all that stuff.
Asthma attacks in the middle of the night. You know, it's just it's pretty it's
a hard job, and it's not very well rewarded.
So then I I heard about this guy, Russell Kerr, really inspirational guy. Some of
your listeners, I'm sure, will, know of his effect through the hands on
learning program. Again, amazing program.
At the time, he was running it in, like, maybe 2 to 3, maybe
4 or 5 schools, I guess. Basically, they this
had the same vision. Right? You take kids out of their classes for a day
a week with the recognition that there is a lot to learn in the
real world as well as in education. So we can get these not not
just disadvantaged kids, not just the naughty kids who are really, sort of
causing a lot of problems in the classroom, but just the kids who'd really
we saw potential in them because they were more creative and more open and
wanted bigger challenges and, you know, wanted to be more responsible for what for
their learning and stuff. Took them out of their class, and we did crazy things.
We built full sized classrooms. So Frankston
I think it's Frankston College was the very first one who built this beautiful straw
bile workshop in the school with kids from the
foundations all the way up a full construction. And then, you
know, bike maintenance, and we donate the bikes to disadvantaged kids, and
we did park furniture and all like, I mean,
over the years, I've done crazy things. I helped
that was my first kind of go at getting involved with the start
up idea, and I helped to write the manual and to sort of set that
organization up for success with Russell. And I
was unbelievably blessed and lucky, and I have endless
amounts of gratitude for the fact that we were chosen by Social Ventures
Australia as one of their, like, high intensity
mentorship programs where we got to be mentored by,
you know, accountants and lawyers, and all these corporate people came in and
helped to support us to grow that program. So, I
did that for a few years, and that's now still absolutely in
existence, and our belief is in hundreds of schools around Australia, and that's
an incredible program. The reason I left was because I got
married to my wife, and she said to me, I'm not marrying you unless we
go and live overseas and do some development work. She's
like, for a while. She wasn't you know, this image of a
of a swooning wife that I say, will you marry me? And she says, yeah.
I I was expecting to come in and say, I'm not marrying unless we go
back home to Australia. We do this, we do that, but not quite the opposite
of her. No. No. It's like, right. We if we don't go well, I'm not
marrying you unless you promise me that you will allow
me to do this thing where I wanna go overseas and live for a while
and do some development work. And I was like, sure. No no problem. So
I did so literally a year after we,
got married, she came to me instead of just won
this, Australian Volunteers International Project to work
with a theater organization, that creates,
like, theater shows that tour through refugee camps to educate people
on all sorts of topics, everything from washing your hands to
active community citizenship and, you know, all sorts of stuff.
And I was like, okay. So I traveled to so, basically, so of within
about, I think, a few months, all of a sudden, my world got turned upside
down, and I put everything I owned that I couldn't sell in a
garage sale in a backpack, and I ended up in Thailand. And I had for
the first time, and I was turning 30, 10 years of working my
butt off, like, you know, just doing all these crazy things that I
loved, and I landed a country at it. No idea of the language. So in
Thailand, Thailand was never colonized like the rest of Southeast Asia. So
almost no one speaks English in terms of, like, English speaking rates. If you go
to the Philippines, other places, English is well spoken, whereas we
were just I mean, I was just at sea. There was just when when we
were living in this, like, remote, village about an hour and a
half north of Chiang Mai, and it was absolutely
stunning, but, like, no type. So had to learn a language
and then work then work out what on earth I was gonna do. And it
just so happened that someone asked me to build a playground. And
this and so I did that,
based and the reason they asked me that is because I had done a couple
of projects in, Madagascar
and Vietnam where I built 2 little playgrounds with high school
kids. And they heard about me telling that story because it only happened
recently, and they said, can you build playground? And I was like, sure. So I've
I've built this really cool, I think it was a
dodecahedron cubby house. Dodecahedron is
the most complex planar shape, I think it's called.
You guys are educated. You know that? Like, there's the cube. Keep
talking. Both both PET. You're like no decohedrons. That's going by the
overhead. So Anyway, it's It sounds like it's a good thing. I don't know. I
built that little slide coming off. It was next to this beautiful lake, really stunning.
And then a little teeny tiny I mean, like, you know, I'm I'm 6
foot 4. This I'm probably 3 and a half foot high
Thai principal turned up on a little 1000000 year old
motorbike with these 2 I remember she had these 2 massive bags of rice
on each handlebar, and she was riding way up into the mountains because
she was educating this particular,
Darang community, which were kind of like sort
of second class Thai citizens. They moved from Tibet, I think,
to this remote region of Thailand, and they had a very, very
poorly, or school that had a playground. I just wanna give
you a little sort of picture for the listeners.
There's one element very common in Thailand, a little metal
ladder. Imagine, like, 3 or 4 steps going up to a 44 gallon
drum where the ends have been removed. You crawl through the
44 gallon drum, and then you slide down a little slide on the other side.
Right? Classic. You see them in Southeast Asia. Everywhere, they're really cheap to
make. When I arrived 20 years after this
thing had been installed, there was, like, like,
some rusty stub stubs of, like,
ladder edges so that the middle part of the ladder was removed, but it was
still the upside bit and these little bits, and you you crawl up these rusty
these rusty stumps. And then when you got into the 44
gallon drum, the bottom of the 44 gallon
drum, because it had water sitting in it, was just this pockmarked
bunch of holes, rusty holes in the 40 4 gallon drum.
And then if you manage to make it to the end of that, then you
had to do the, I hope I don't get tetanus jump off the
end because the slide was completely gone, and
all that was left was the 2 rusty sharp
stumps poking up from the end of the slide. That was it. Right? Was it
were were there any kids still playing on this thing? Were there for the year?
It's usually. Yeah. Yeah. So so if you look on
people can go to YouTube. If you look, like, 10 years ago, the video is
still there of that of that story of that playground. So I remember
there's a bit of video that I I recorded where I was like, this is
the worst playground I have ever seen in my life.
Like, you know, the fact that kids weren't all walking around with limbs
removed from tetanus was just so
that was the first big sort of playground we did. We did they had a
teak teak tree plantation within the school,
which is kind of weird, but beautiful. It is beautiful old
shade covering trees. And we built, like, tree houses. We had
huge slides coming off the tree, big sand pits, and,
seesaws, and all these kind of crazy stuff under this beautiful forest. It was
just really it was stunning. And the whole and the community was amazing.
All these people came out, and helped us to build it, and we had local
builders who, you know, like, they were helping to learn teach me tie and
learn how to get material. These guys were so amazing
at finding cheap materials, and, you know, we went and pulled car tires out of
old swamps from the back of the rubbish dump. That was amazing. It was a
really amazing trip. Anyway, am I going on too long?
No. Keep going, mate. So then very soon after
that playground build, we were moved to a completely different area. We went from a
very Thai town right to the Myanmar.
A lot of people know it as Burma border on the
west side of Thailand, where literally a river
that's, like, you know, in dry season is, like, a 1 or 2 feet
tall. You can literally stand on that river and see refugees just walking
across the river, going backwards and forwards to the village. They were common in Burma
at that time. You know, there were it was common for villages to be burnt
down. There was a there was a huge amount of trauma just constantly coming
backwards and forwards. You know, there were guys who would take 10ยข and with a
big car tire and take an old lady and just push her across the
river so that she'd get out of a village. So it was it was amazing
to sort of watch that see that area and sort of, you know, it was
raw. You could see it real time. Anyway,
we're living in a village called May Site, and
we arrived and went to a bar just to have a
beer at night, 1 early on. And I met this amazing
guy called Greg Antos from an NGO, the World Education
Consortium, huge, well funded US based
NGO. And he was just a he's just a legend.
Like, you know, just sitting there, I told him what I've been doing, and he
was sharing his story. And that night, he said, oh, my mother-in-law
just randomly, like, gave me a $1,000.
Do you wanna build another playground? Like, we've got all these schools, and they've not
they don't have any playgrounds at all. I'll just give you the
money. So he just literally just gave me the cash and,
lent me a car because we've never had a car before. I mean, we had
this crappy motorbike that was always breaking down. And,
and I was just like, sure. Okay. So I just started building a playground there.
And from that experience, he then said, I'll tell
you what. We every couple of months, we have this meeting with all the
NGOs to try and collaborate. It was pretty amazing, actually. All the NGOs, save the
children, all these big world vision, they come together and sit down and go, this
is the stuff we're doing. Let's make sure that we are
efficient and effective at kind of collaborating our efforts to help these
schools and also that we're not giving, you know, 2 lots of
money to one school to do the same project but claiming, you
know, that kind of stuff. And, anyway, I was invited to
launch the meeting. We it was amazing meeting, actually. By the end of it, we
had this sort of list of all the schools on the Thai Myanmar border,
and then we basically culled that down to a list of about 40 schools, which
was ones who had a a noncorrupt, you know,
hardworking principal. They needed a long lease on their
land, like a stable place because there's no use building a playground in a in
a little shop front that you rent. And they needed to have
over a 100 kids because some of the these schools are huge. They have thousands
of kids, and some of them had 10. Right? And then literally
for the next 2 years, I just every 2 weeks, we built a
playground at each one of those Oh, wow. How many years?
So we would we would start on a Monday. We build until the
following Wednesday, like the so we a week, like, 10
days. The next Wednesday, we go visit the next school and
do, like, a community consultation where we talk about you know, measure the
land and talk about what they wanted and blah blah. Find out if they
had, a few dollars that they could put towards it because we'd sort of say
we have this much. If you've got a bit more, we can do more stuff.
And then and then after that, we'd go back to the old original school
that we're working at, finish that off, and have a big opening ceremony
on the Friday. And then on the weekend,
I I I missed a piece. I would I just had these flyers that I
put in the cafes. What was amazing was that people
there was a huge refugee camp, just outside of the
town we were living in, and all these backpackers from all over the world
would come as part of a just a sort of an experience to
kind of drive past and see these refugee camps and get educated. You know, there
were 2 companies that you could see it and get educated about what was going
on there and, you know, it was good because people would start to understand the
issues a little bit more about, you know, the refugee crisis and, you know, have
a bit more of a holistic view about the complexities of being a refugee
and, you know, maybe sort out some of these ideas of boat
people and, you know, who's who's in the queue and who's not and what why
people make these decisions. Anyway, then
they come back to our village called Maison, and they have a coffee or
something in the local cafe. And I had these little, you know, these little classic,
like, I've lost my cat tear off. Yeah.
And they just call me up. So within, within weeks, I had an
architect. I had these incredible mural artists.
I had, like, you know, corporate, you know,
like, you know, telecom company managers and other
people, and they would just join me. So at at any one time, I'd have
between, like, 3 to 10 volunteers working
completely for free. And they would just come along, and
we'd work together on the weekend, design a playground, and then on the next Monday,
we just start again. And we did that for a few years. Yeah.
Absolutely, man. And some of those volunteers, they came for 2 days
and stayed for, like I remember one of them, this woman, Marietta, from
Slovenia. She stayed for, like, over a year. Like, she
was just in every playground. If you look at our original work, almost every
one of those playgrounds was was painted by her. Just,
like, just amazing. Like, just the most beautiful murals all
over the school, and she just spent 2 weeks doing it. She just had a
ball, and we loved her, and it was just so that was a really
I mean, that time was it was completely exhausting because we just it was just
literally 7 days a week, but it was so you know, I look back on
that time as being one of those you know, it was like a like those
like, you know, the movie stand by me. You know, there's there's moments where it's,
like, you know, there's incredibly young experiences where you're just full of
life, full of energy, and you just the whole team is just
humming with energy every day. It was incredible. Anyway,
that's where the play comes in. You know, I just we just saw
kind of this incredible accelerated pace. Just these kids going
from no playground, no play space,
hardcore, rote learning. Like and when
I say rote learning, I need to explain, like, what that means.
Sometimes, rote learning is like, you know, I'll say
something and you tell me the answer. I've
seen rote learning, which is I will I will sing
out the question and the answer, and you
just tell me the question. You just say exactly what I've said. There's no
like, no cognition. Just memorize
this information for hours and hours and hours in a
day. Like Crazy, isn't
it? What do you expect to get from a child in for 12 years of
education when they're getting that kind of Yeah. You know? They're just
running these these freeways between, like, memorization
and the other parts of their brain that need that information as opposed to
going, you know, what are all the ways
that I can solve a problem? You know, that for
me, creativity, and, you know, doctor Tim
Paterson, who we work with a lot about what is creativity, you know, one of
the key things is, can you solve this problem in 5 or 6 different ways?
Right? Do you do you hit a hurdle and go, oh, it's okay. I'll just
I'll just hack a solution around the edge. Or do you get stuck and
go, I only have one way to solve this problem, and I'll be
stuck. You know, we see that with a lot of people. Right? You see that
kind of reaction from people where they just you know, you get those nos all
the time from people where they're we can't do this. And I'm like, but
what if we can we just, you know Yeah. Like
Give it and go another way and and redo it and go another angle and
go from there. And that's what society needs more of. Let let's be honest. Needs
more people who can think outside the square, pivot, go another way, find another
solution. And I think we're coming back to that. I reckon
we're slowly starting to come back around Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're
coming back to I think, you know, we touched on the importance of play and
and creativity. I think we're starting to really unlock the power of it,
and the importance of getting our young minds to learn through play and
learn through engagement more so than, you know, pens and paper in your hand and
whatnot. I think I think so. I think
definitely when I, you know, I get to talk to principals every way, you get
a bunch of events and different things, and I'm definitely,
I think we're in that sort of middle stage where there's an
emphasis on on that and and really knowing that
it's important. But sometimes I think there's a struggle
still that, you know, particularly in the Australian curriculum of, critical
and creative thinking and personal and social skills, still think they're a
bit too low on the pecking order of
what's important. You know? Yeah. And and really explicitly
teaching those skills, breaking them down, teaching them to some kids because there are some
kids who just they're just not gonna get it unless we teach it. Yep. And
it's funny you bring them up, Marcus. Jeepers. We've we've,
sorry. This was intended to come up today. We've we've created a curriculum, the school
of play, and we're we're literally in the process of it. We've been mapping it
against the Victorian curriculum and the Australian curriculum the last few weeks. It's been a
mind numbing process, but, and it's all about those critical skills and those
personal social capabilities. Right? And and we found that out. We've really honed in on
them, and our curriculum hits so many of those areas because
that's what we feel is one of the most important skills that these young people
need to focus on and develop. Yeah. And and so, yeah,
some hearing you. Right? Yeah. That's what blew me blew me away. Like,
so doctor Tim Paterson, is has written a couple
of books, but, he's from the University of South Australia. And he
just blew my mind when I spoke to him, and he said, you can teach
creativity. It's not a gift. It's not something that is blessed and bestowed
upon some people. You know, you can one of the he he
said, here's one of the things you need. If you wanna be creative, you've gotta
have high levels of openness. And I was like, okay. That sounds a bit waffly
and hard to how do you teach that? It's actually really easy when you
really think about it. Openness is just the ability to be open to new ideas
and to absorb them and give them a try. So, you know, I think
about openness. A really good way to think about that is in terms of when
you put a plate of food in front of a child, I've really tried to
work with my kids to be like, you may not like this the first time,
but I'd like you to be open to tasting
this food and trying to understand why why on earth someone
else would like it. Do you know what I mean? You know what I mean?
Just be open to the Yeah. To get them to be curious.
Yeah. Like like like, you know, if you get some someone from Europe and you
say, this is Vegemite, sometimes you gotta be like, just
pause. Instead of you tasting it and just your brain immediately
rejecting it before you get into anything, just take that
moment to get your mindset right to say, I am
gonna give this a shot with the understanding that it is
not this like, not unpleasant for other people. They actually
really enjoy it, and there must be a reason for that. So I'm gonna give
this one a taste based on understanding. And it and
so many things. You watch kids and you're like, you're really
low on openness. You can see it. When you when you understand it, you
go, woah. You can teach that skill because I can see it in you because
I've identified that it's something I can put in a box, and I can
assess a child. You know? So one thing we do with noodle cards, we
just we're going all over the place, but That's that's good, mate. If you
if you so he Tim Tim said it to me. I was like, well, how
would you teach a kid that? And and
I and I he said, well, what if you just took gave each kid, you
know, 10 5, 10, 15 pieces from a noodle cart? And you said,
I'm gonna give you 5 minutes, and you've
got a a device like a phone where you can take a photo. And I
want you to, under very heavy time pressure, to build as many different
configurations of things as you can in 5 minutes and take a photo of
each one. And And it doesn't matter if you don't if you get stuck. As
soon as you get stuck, just start pushing pieces together. Something will come. Just
be open that the answer will come over time if
you commit to continue to explore. The second
your brain you go into that mode of, like, shut down, shut down, shut down.
I'm not gonna you know, it's too hard or I'm gonna fail. I'm getting nervous.
I'm losing my confidence, whatever. I'm getting you know, we have names for it, like
writer's block or Yeah. There's lots of industries. We have these words for when you
get stuck. But openness is one of those things that you is
the is the practice of, you know, feeling uncomfortable, but
just leaning into it. You know? And I I just that just I mean, as
an educator, I was just like, oh, just totally changed my perspective
on A 100%. How you get kids to learn because you can teach
them these, like, what I call meta skills. It's not about learning
numeracy or literacy or whatever. It's teaching the openness
to to engage in your experiences and we
you know, if you if kids don't have that, you don't get lifelong
learners. Yeah. You know? And and I wanna thank you. Passionate about life.
Like, we're we're Sydney as 2 parents, and and I wish everyone
listening to us could have seen our reaction. We we looked at each other and
went, that was gold. Like, I'm gonna bloody try that, mate. Because I'm gonna go
my one kid hates peas. The other one loves them and this and that. But
as if you're a parent, like, we love dropping bits of gold in our pods
for not just educators, but for everyone. Right? And and
if you're a parent out there listening to that, give that give that a whirl
as openness, and and that way of explaining to your child that, hey, someone in
the world loves this. So try and have an open mind as to why they
would love that and give it a few attempts to like it. And I reckon
you'll get them most times. They'll come around to it. Right? I'm going to
try that tonight at the dinner time. I guarantee it. I'm gonna try. What's the
purpose to make it a bit more fine grain for you. Go for it. With
my kids is I say, if I'm I love cooking.
Right? I I as a creative person, you know, I love
putting different things on the plate all the time. But if you know you made
something that you like and you they probably aren't gonna like, Sometimes what
I'll do is, you know, I'll get the spaghetti bolognese out of the fridge, and
that's I know because I know they're not they're not gonna eat the tuna mornay
or I don't what whatever let's just say whatever I cook. That'd be boring,
but it's something something that I may I'm trying to.
My kids are really struggling with, meats. My wife's a vegetarian, so they haven't eaten
a lot of, protein based stuff, but really need some protein at the moment. So
I've been serving them all sorts of different things, and they get a bit iced
by it, and I get that. What I'll do is I'll say, here's your meal,
but on the edge of the meal, on the edge of the plate, in a
separate little not touching anything else thing, that's your food experiment.
Right? Just a little one portion, you know, maybe 1
or 2 spoonfuls. So you're not getting that you're not getting that,
pushback where they've gotta fill themselves up on a whole meal of
stuff that makes them wanna hurl. You're just going it's just a
food experiment. We're just experimenting right now. We're just gonna be
open to giving something a shot, but I do not expect you to like
it today. But I believe that if you were to try these
things more, you'll like them more in the future. And the great benefit is that
if we go and travel or if we go to other places in the
future, you'll feel more confident and comfortable with people, and you
won't be freaked out by weird things that they serve when you
have sleepovers or whatever. Because no one likes that kid. Right?
No one likes the kid.
Social social suicide rather than a 100%. Yeah. Like, no one no one likes the
kid that when you serve up a meal, they go, I just ate Vegemite toast.
You know? Like Yeah. Anything you want. Nuggets and chips. Nuggets
and chips. I think yeah. Yeah. You go to a pub and it'll eat nuggets
and chips. Yeah. So I that my the perfect experiment is if
you wanna try it, you know, like, try it in your lowest common
denominator size before you go up to that, you're stuck in
Brilliant tip. Honestly, man, I got to creative, though. The only
thing behind it, and I think that's anything, is the storytelling. The story
you've created around that experiment to be open. Like, you're
making it so they're the ones that are really deciding that, oh, I can do
that because I wanna, you know, I wanna be this big person. I wanna be
able to travel. I wanna do things. You're not telling them. I think that's my
biggest down point to Sydney going, oh, wow. No wonder they're not eating anything besides
nuggets and chips because I'm telling them they have to. As if they're
gonna listen to me. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a really good point that I
don't expect you know, I'm on your side. I am not
forcing you to take a step from here where you're comfortable at nuggets
and chips to there knowing that you don't wanna
be there yet. Right? But at least you can go, look. It's just that we're
just taking the first little step there, and who knows? You might even like
it. I've got more in the fridge, and we can have that tomorrow if you
like it. But I get it. I'm I'm because, you know, I think
empathy is a really, undervalued skill. Like,
seeing seeing the like, really genuinely
understanding from the perspective of a child. And I think dads and moms are
probably, I think, generally better at this. Yep. In
perspective from the child's perspective where they're like, I literally this
is horrible. You're making this horrible for me. So instead
of going doing that going, here's a little bit. You know? I get
it. You're probably not gonna like it. You can even spit it out in the
toilet if you need to, but just I just want you to try. And and
then you get rid of all those hurdles of creating that sort of
defensive, you know, head to head
combat with a child where you can get around on the other side, and they're
not gonna go hungry with cold broccoli sitting on the plane. You know? You
know what I mean? Where you're like, you're not getting up off the table, but
you're also pushing them. You know? I'm not don't I'm not one of these parents
who's just like, oh, honey, you know, whatever you wanna do. You can just eat
chocolate for dinner. You know what? Like, I'm not I'm I come from a Dutch
background. I'm actually pretty strict, but I think that the
strictness is coming into this. Like, I want you to be
an open, confident, independent
person in the future, and you get there by taking challenging
yourself to these little things. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I wanna come
back, Marcus. You spoke about creativity and the importance of creativity for young
minds, and you would have seen it firsthand the impact that when you
create these environments for children to play on and and create their games,
you would have seen them flourish and thrive and be happy little human beings. But
I imagine you also would have seen adults, thrive and
flourish from from being creative as well. And we don't wanna just make this just
about children education. Like, you know, you touched upon here the importance of creativity, and
I imagine the same goes for adults. Right? Like, if we as adults
can lean into being uncomfortable and try something new and get creative
ourselves, that puts a bit of a pepper now step as well. I know my
wife and I had a had a got pottery a little while back for our
anniversary and spinning the wheel bloody hard, bloody crazy.
But we walked out of there incredibly lifted up and bonded
and whatnot through just being something creative and something different. So what are your
thoughts on on adults the importance of adults being creative as well? You would've seen
that a fair bit in your time. Yeah. I'm when you're
telling that story with your wife, I'm just imagining, what was that, like, nineties movie
where the Patrick's face. You guys like, ghosts. Yeah. But the Patrick's eyes I
was Patrick's eyes. Just imagine imagine a bit of Patrick's face
like ghosts on a pottery wheel and having this Sander said, it was it was
romantic. Let me tell you this. Pottery, I think that's
Pottery has that nice balance balance of, like, if you fail, it doesn't matter. You
just throw into the ball. There's no I understand. No, like, risk of mucking
something up and it being permanent. You just, you know, chuck that clay in the
bin and recycle it and then start over. That's what I love about it. I
actually have a pottery wheel, and I I love it. My body does
not surprise me. You're you're a crazy you're a creative mastermind.
Look at you. You've got a pottery wheel. I think I think with
creativity, so interestingly, just yesterday, I did a
a massive training for, one of Australia's
largest early childhood providers, hundreds of centers.
And I had the Victorian, leadership teams in the room, and
I got them building stuff out of the pod. So this is our
smaller one, this one here. And
I couldn't stop them. God. That would that was really annoying. Like, I I was
like, I don't think I just a little snippet. I was just training one
little section within a, like, a whole day training, and I only had 30
minutes. But I really wanted to talk to them about their experience. And just
getting them to stop, you know, because I I gave them,
the the pod comes with a, this really cute, like, classic,
like, 19 fifties. You know, these, like,
like, tints. You know? Yep.
And I would just take the cards and just give
them 1, and I just got them first of all, completely uncreative. I
just got them to build, you know, whatever was on the
card, and I specifically selected some simple things to get them started a little
bit like a taste experiment. Once they were comfortable with it,
then I was like, okay. Now is the time to have a proper meal because
you've enjoyed it. Just I just want you as a group of 6 just to
try and build something creative. I couldn't stop them. Honestly, like, even
when I was talking to them at the end, they still look I just wanna
and I think that what's going on there is
that, both like, they talk about children being neophilic. Have you ever heard of that
term? No. Educated ones. Neo meaning
new and philic meaning, like, love or
desire or sort of, you know, being drawn
to. So children are
drawn to new experiences. So here's
an example. Imagine, like,
I'm gonna like, you know, if you buy a a set or a
kit of a certain brand of plastic,
block like blocks. Something to keep
it. Right? It's a car or a truck or a
helicopter or whatever. The neophilic nature of
of that product is you see the thing on the box, and then you get
the pieces, and then you master that task by going through the steps
to build that car, truck, helicopter, whatever.
The neophilic part of a of a human's brain says, okay. I've
mastered that task. Although those blocks can
do thousands of things, that
box has told me that it has a function, and I've mastered that task. And
now I need something new to stimulate my
brain because new things create new connections
in the brain. Right? And so
I think that we get a lot of hormonal,
like, good, like, dopamine and, probably
oxytocin and some other things when we're socially connected to people doing creative
open ended things because we're constantly doing new things and
making new connections, and our brain rewards us for keeping that
brain flexible and nimble and worked out. And I
think that's why you and your wife really enjoy that
pottery is because you're both there's a lot pottery is
great great example because you're doing something new. You're
connecting your head, heart, and hands. It's a social activity with your
wife. You've got your brain engaged because you've gotta design and
create so that something that you want in your mind, And it's connecting with your
body, your balance and your fingers, it's fine and
gross motor skill to create this vessel or whatever you're doing. It's very
it's a very organic connected process through your whole body. And
having a room of pottery wheels where people do it just turns that up to
give you the social aspect as well, and all these new experiences,
work really well. And so that's why I was I would always say with
plastic blocks or newer pod pieces, just buy the box of
stuff. Don't get to the box with the thing because you don't wanna trip that
neophyllic. You can buy another box and another box and another
box and another box. You wanna open so that the child
sets the challenge on their own. Yep. And that when they set the challenge the
next time, they'll set it on their own instead of going, I have to
complete that task, and I have to complete the helicopter. I have
to complete the, you know, the whatever. The what's it called?
Millennium Falcon or whatever. Yeah. Once that's done,
have have you noticed that with your own kids? Like I'm I'm I'm mind blown
here because I'm putting myself Dale's son, Sonny
is a jet at building things out leg Lego blocks. No instructions. Just builds
structures. It builds house and house. And every time I come over to the new
one, I'm like, that's amazing. There's windows and doors on and on the opposite, and
now my light bulb is going off, man, I've been doing it wrong because I'm
a set builder for Lego with my son Hunter, so I will buy a set.
And the latest one is a Star Wars Darth Vader spaceship. So it's funny
you said them all in full. And the same and we build it, we finish
it, and then we roll around and then play with it. And then it tends
to sit there and not get then give it another thought. I
really like I love, like you know, I think there's a lot of merit to
building something and then having that beautiful thing as a decoration in your
house. No problem. What my child would do is they would
deconstruct it usually after they've dropped it on the floor and
had a total freak out because it's like you know? And and and
also the desire to fix it is not there anymore because it's the task
was finished. Yeah. So then it would just literally slowly get deconstructed
into a box of things, and then they just want an upset. And so
the expert, whatever, would come along that they would yeah. So
Yeah. So for all you parents out there, we're better off and I think this
is gonna be right. I think we're better off just buying a massive tub of
blocks of Lego than and let them free play. Right? Let them be creative and
let them create their own pieces of piece of work,
and and that's better for them. Yeah. It's absolutely better for them. There's
there's I I don't I I would I would almost challenge
anyone in the world listening to this thing. If you can if you can show
me that following step by step instructions is better for a child's brain, I'd
love to, like, argue that out. Thanks. Must. True.
You know, once you've mastered the art of reading some instructions, like an IKEA
catalog, and are able to put together a bit of furniture I mean,
really, what else is more to learn there? There's there's nothing. Whereas
you said, you know,
if you say to the child, here's a bunch of random stuff, create
something of value that's new,
interesting to you, and and or someone else and
that, you know, makes the world a better place. I mean, that, you know,
like, adding value to the universe is Right. Is the I know it sounds a
bit awkward and kind of No. It's it's but it's true and it's beautiful. Oh,
Oh, it's a bit cliche, but I think, you know, being a producer of things,
you know, I think is, or a, someone who
can solve problems. You you know, it doesn't I don't mind if you're, like,
one of those you know, if you're working for Greenpeace and trying
to save a forest or you're, you know, creating some new financial system
or whatever, I'm agnostic on the the end or, you know, what
industry or whatever thing you end up doing in your life.
But the ability to see, you know, each
next step of your journey, take responsibility for that, and then
create a solution to those problems, is
just so important. You know? And and I think that I can sum that up
actually as saying that I've always had,
that I had for years on my wall, and I'm just remembering it's gone now,
is that success is just the ability to
fail time and time again and keep going. Yeah.
That's the only difference between people who suck at
things or are not very successful is that
or at least, I mean, at least that's true in my life. But Yeah. I
agree. Look it up. We haven't done very well. It's just that they stop. You
know? Like, if you just keep going and keep trying things, most
things you know, there's a lot of things that will eventually work. And it might
I don't mean that, like, if you've got an idea, you should religiously stick to
that idea, you know, and just
commit to it. You've you've gotta you've gotta get feedback. That idea might
morph and change into something completely different. But most
ideas, if you keep working on them, if you've got a kind of a kernel
of a good idea there, eventually, even though it might be something completely different in
the end, the success will come from you just Yeah. Working through
the challenges to make it work. You know? Because every file we talk about a
lot in this podcast and in our office, the importance of failure and embracing
failure. Right? Because that's what that's the only way you learn. You learn nothing through
success. You really don't you you learn far more through your failures that
lead to your success. Yes. So never never give up after the first failure.
Ridiculous. Expecting that you're gonna be successful even I
mean, who's that, tennis player? I think it was Roger Federer that said,
when he looks over his entire career, you know, one of the most, successful tennis
players in in the world, I think that he wins. If you look at it
on a point by point basis, he wins 52% of
his points. Yep. Is he playing hard? He
is playing against hard opponents who are trying to crush
him. Right? So it's only that tiny little extra
bit that he does over other players to win the game
and expecting that so, you know, just sort of putting in perspective what success is.
It's just a tiny little bit more than than, the other person. Not being
perfect, is it? It's not being perfect. There's no such thing as perfect. There's no
such thing as perfect. Don't you chase it? No. Yeah. Absolutely. And there's a fantastic
Michael Jordan video where they've compiled, like,
him taking shots and missing them all. Yeah. He's like game
winning shots. I've seen that as well. He only hits he was good. Yeah. Trust
with the gaming shot x amount of times and missed it more than he more
than he hit it. Right? But everyone remembers him for the few times that he
hit it. So he's spot. But he but he learned from those times. He missed
in career career resilience and whatnot. And he still wanted that shot. And I think
that's the key. That's yeah. I love that point. He still wanted that shot. Even
though he'd missed before, he didn't say, no, give it to Pippen, give it to
Longley, give it to Steve Kerr. He goes, I I still want it. Let's be
honest. Give it to Longley. No. No. I don't know who Longleaf
is. Yeah. So Marcus Marcus looks a little bit light. Longleaf come and think, oh,
he's a little bit shorter. Oh, long distance sport. Was it? Yeah. Really?
Was he at all? Okay. Yeah. He's massive. He's massive. Now so,
obviously, we've mentioned so many things today. And I think that's the beautiful thing about
connecting with superstars, Marcus, that we get so many
different things out of these podcasts, and we think we're gonna take away. We're very
selfish because I've been sitting here, things I need to hear
individually that I didn't actually know today Yeah. That I can take away.
And, I love that around just being open. So getting
back to the noodle pod because I think, yeah, so many people out there are
looking for ways to be creative. Talk us a little
bit about how it came to be. More importantly, you had an
awesome kick start campaign, and now they're going gangbusters.
Little bit of an idea of how you created that and where the concept came
from, mate. Yeah. So, actually, that I'm glad you brought
me back to that. So picking up on that story of how we got there.
So I was in Thailand, and that that
sort of, you know, that Thailand experience has absolutely been
monumental to having the understanding to create the
noodle pod. So I went to Thailand, did that 2
years, came home, completely burnt out, exhausted. I was
like, I gotta stop traveling. You know, I I can't
get, like, some, you know, nasty gut bacterial or dengue
fever again. You know, I really it was an amazing time, but it was
also tough on my body, tough on my health because we're just working so
hard. So that's when I started Playground Ideas, which
basically took everything I've learned in Thailand, put it online, and
just went, you know what? I reckon there's probably 20 people in the world
right now who would who need this
information. You know, that kind of classic sort of Instagram post of, I don't know
who needs to hear this right now, but here it is. That went from 20
playgrounds a year to we doubled it 40 to 80 to
whatever. And, Pre COVID, we were somewhere
between 700 a 1000 projects, and I think post COVID now, we're
sitting about 5 to 700 per year, something like that. So we're
just getting back up to that, to that level again, which is exciting.
But a few years ago, I was asked by a
government development like, a the development,
imagine, like, USAID or AusAID, but a different government
to we won this contract to build playgrounds in
a very young fledgling nation in the
world. And,
there were 3 we needed to build 300 playgrounds all over the
country, like, from forest to
beach to crazy mountain areas to rural areas and
in city areas. It was a really hard project. And for lots and lots
and lots of reasons, corruption,
just challenges with those environments, materials, all that stuff. The
project went very, very badly, and and it really left me in a
hole, for lots of reasons. Some of them
was a big learning for me. A lot of them were
other things out of our control, but I I really sort
of as I clawed myself out of that hole of just feeling like, you
know, we just really done a disservice to this new country and
how we could help the kids. I had this kind of thing of
like and again, this is this, like, failure and success is
just I had this thing of like, what if, again, what if we
could circumnavigate all of the challenges that we had
faced to just get a play space to those
kids directly. And my idea was
what if we had something in a box that was flat packed on the kind
of IKEA model that you could just put in the post and get it
to the to a, you know, a location in that country and then disseminate it
out and sold a bunch of bulbs. So this and
that became the concept of the noodle cast, the
original noodle cart, And crazily at that time,
this absolutely phenomenally talented woman called
Emma Ribbons, who was a Belgian
kind of toy wooden toys on a high quality educational
toys, contacted me and said, hey. I'm in a
bit of a loose end. We get these all the time. Can I help you?
I'd like to I wanna build a playground. I I wanna do something. I've been
working in this thing, and I I need to get out of get out of
town and do some. And we on a very first phone conversation, we started
cooking up this idea. What if you could create something better than
a playground and better than a toy that
that did that that embodied the
the values that we as sort of
humans want in our children because in a lot of ways,
here's 2 sort of another factoids. First of all,
like, what value does a slide I've built, I should say, I've built hundreds
of slides. Right? But what value does a slide
have? What do you have? You know? Like Yeah. A
slide is super fun, but, really, for me, a slide fits into the
category of play like like Netflix fits into
education. You know, there can be some good stuff there, but, really,
it's kind of mostly entertainment. Right? Yeah.
As opposed to a playground that has something like a shop front.
Mhmm. They're like a shop front. In that environment, children are
interacting. The outcome is unknown. It's open ended, and it changes
on a daily basis. The value of a pretend shop front versus a
slide is is chalk and cheese. Yeah. You see what I mean? In terms of
play and design. And we were like,
well, what if we created something
that embodied these values that we want of
social connection and social skills development, you
know, cognitive challenges constantly changing, and
physical challenges where you could create something which adapted to your abilities.
Where it's instead of having a, you know, like a like a, I don't know,
a pretend key a pretend kitchen that has a bench height that's this. You could
just build something that worked with whatever ability. If you're in a wheelchair, if you
have a cognitive impairment or whatever, you can build spaces that take
you from where you are now to the next wherever you're
going. Right? I know that's a vague statement, but you can kinda get where I'm
going. Right? It's something totally, genuinely inclusive where
you create that world. And in the process of creating, you enjoy
taking those challenges to the next step. And that
that became well, the first one was like a garden
cart with a bunch of milk crates in it and a bunch of, like, just
recycled stuff. And then that
very, and then we did a trial in,
Lebanon with refugees, and they stole everything. Like, these are
super important and
plates and cups and spoons and see and and whisks and
all that stuff. They they they pocketed everything. And I and I was
like, what an idiot. That's totally of course, they did. We've
got, you know, 3, 4, $500 worth of kitchen
items here, and we and we're giving them to kids who don't have kitchens at
work. Right? So, you know, they just everything just disappears. So that's when we
transitioned, and we went, you know what? We're gonna create something where all of the
pieces are only usable and valuable to children,
and they can create everything, but they're not so things will go missing.
That process cost a huge amount of money because we tested in a
bunch of refugee camps around the world, and that's obviously very expensive. So in the
final trial in, like, maybe early 2019, we tested
in 12 schools this loose parts box all made from
plywood and silicone and fabrics and all this other stuff
in Australian schools. And 8 of the 12
said, can I buy 1? And I was like,
I literally just I was like, I I never need this. I'm
like, alright. Like and then all of a sudden, like, sort of
processing that information, I was like, oh, what if we could have our charity of
Playground Ideas? And that could be funded through
amazing schools who wanna move into this area of open ended learning
and and getting more engagement, and that flow statement
from kids where they can then take teachers can observe that and then jump
into the curriculum or say or even say, hey, Fred, what you just
did there by balancing those two things together, that's called leverage. Can you tell the
class what how you managed to get those things to do that? And all of
a sudden, you're doing the curriculum, but in this really organic Through
play. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Through play. Through the just experiment exploration,
whatever. And you gain STEM skills and social skills and all personal
social, creative and creative thinking skills. They're all there, and in a
real way, you can actually assess kids. And that's where we sort
of shifted to say, we will sell these
to Australian schools and other, you know, western people who can afford them. We'll sell
them to NGOs, and we will continue to
do our development work where occasionally we have grant rounds and
donations of arts and rollovers to different countries and different things.
So at the moment, I'm actually just working on, I just
got a donation yesterday of, a few
$1,000, which will turn into a grant to
donate pods to domestic violence
shelters for women who've left home with
children who leave everything behind and and don't
because it's a it's a great sort of therapeutic thing for kids. So
that's where we started from was this failure, and I
and, also, we also had problems with when we were building playgrounds. Sometimes the materials
would get stolen overnight. So that we you know, we'd order all the materials, and
we'd be about to build a playground. Someone would jump the fence and steal all
the steel. Or, or another problem was, like, we'd be
building a playground in India, but it's monsoonal. Right? And, you
know, Bangladesh or India, sometimes the play space would be a meter
underwater for, like, 3 months of the year. How do you build a playground in
that environment? So then the both of you got a noodle cart is you can
bring it inside and just use just push the desks aside. Yeah.
We literally worked on a project where the school was an island. The the school
building was, like, literally a raised bit of earth, and all around it had
stepping stones to get out of the school, and then in the dry season, they
could play. You know, this noodle cast has solved a bunch of these really
weird problems that we had to deal with, but just so happened to
also create this amazing educational stimulation
creativity open ended tool for you know? Well
done. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. So that that's kinda how we got there.
And now what we've got is we've got the noodle cart for 30 kids.
So that's our big, super robust industrial
sort of version. And the reason it looks so industrial is because it's designed to
go to into refugee camps, and I never wanted to create one for
poor kids and one for rich kids. It's the same thing that goes everywhere.
And then during COVID, we really you know, obviously, schools
don't want a product that everyone's touching, so we just put went head down, bum
up, and we created the rover, which is,
a small group tool. So that's fantastic next to the like, for
instance, like the AP or deputy principal's office. Instead
of kids coming out of their classes having a meltdown and you trying to
talk to them face to face when their brains are exploding with cortisol
and stress hormones, just give them 20 minutes with the rover
where they can be self directed, in control of themselves,
and they can build something which is interesting to them. They get back on their
base, and then you can have a side by side conversation about what happened with
mom over Christmas, over over breakfast, whatever.
So we that's so they've they've been using 100 of schools with the
well-being teacher or the or the AP.
After that, we designed one for, hospitals. So
there's a recycled HTP plastic version of the rover
because there are no resources for OTs and other people in high
infection environments for kids who has got cancer or other long
term illnesses in hospitals. So that's sitting over
there in the office. We haven't sold any yet with because we we hit COVID,
and it was just like impossible Yeah. To make that work. Is
anyone listening who thinks that they could help us to get them into hospitals? I
would love to talk to you. And then the final
thing is obviously the pod. So that's this you know, it's if people are
watching, you know, it's a it's a box full of stuff about the
size of 2 shoe boxes and comes with sticks
and wheels and fabrics and silicon pieces and all of that stuff that can
does two main things. It replaces toys. So you mentioned that sort
of at the start. Mhmm. Reduces clutter.
Like, kids kids need space to play. If you
wanna connect your brain and your hands and your feet,
they're most people's bedrooms these days are kind of storerooms, really. It's
like a bed and the stuff, and then and then the actual
place spills out into the the lounge room. But because that's
a shared space, often it drives parents crazy, so the kids are having to
shuffle all the stuff back in the bedrooms. The pod,
by replacing all of your large scale toys like ride ons
and, rock, rocking horses and standing tables
and easels and, you know, that little, you know, that little, like,
hammer game where you hammer pegs into a box or it's like a,
you know, like a shape sorter, all these big toys. It just does all
that. So you don't need any of that. So that then goes
creates a space in the bedroom for the children to do cartwheels and somersaults
and all that stuff. And then the second big
thing that it does that I think is is its fundamental
change that makes it a toy like toys
were always supposed to be is it gives the child the opportunity
to develop and grow by creating their own stuff instead of
just doing whatever some corporation tells them to do on
the front of the box. I mean, you know, any toy that you look at
on the box that tells you where an adult can look at and go, I
know exactly what is gonna happen with this toy.
It's got one function. And for me, it's a bit of a waste of money.
It's a bit of a waste of space. It's a bit of a waste of
resources and plastic and all that stuff. You know? And and for me
instead, you know, and this is totally biased, but I'm like, buy
toys and do a 1,000,000 things like the pod, and
then take your money at birthdays. Here's my big, like you
know, so do that big investment of the a really high quality thing like
the pod. And then what I do with my kids at Christmas and whatever is
I say, I want you to think big. What is the
craziest thing that you love? Ridiculous. I don't care
what it costs. You know, for my daughter, it's horse riding lessons. I can't
afford horse riding lessons. What am I? I'm not a Persian king. Like,
they're not. Right? So, like, it's it's
so expensive. So what I would just say is, okay. Then that's what we'll ask
people for. We'll say that that's what you'd really love. And so she's
been able to go for horse riding lessons throughout the year because for
her birthday and for Christmas, that's what she asked for. And my for my
son, it's been a mountain bike. And this year, he got
some crazy expensive basketball boots because
he's, you know, just he got bought a pair of Jordans. And we
put in a bid for his birthday. And then he asked all of his friends
and family to put in, and he walked into, you know, this massive
sports store with literally, like, a a roll
of cash. And he's like and I was like, good on you. You know? Like,
this is a great no plastic crap. Something he
really committed to and love, and I know that he'll use throughout the
year. And it was you know, he got to be in control
of that and to have that experience. So for me, you know, things that get
you experiences and less stuff is is really the
answer. Yeah. I love that. And that's a brilliant way to wrap up. And I'm
obviously making some notes as we go along, and it's this pod has gone
on so many different avenues and journeys and but there's been little
bits of gold the whole way through it that I'm going to take away personally
with me, as a human being, but as a parent and as a father.
And I'm going to try and recap a few things here as as we sign
off. But Good luck. Good luck. We want to start with perspective.
Let's rewind the very start of it and and your story to get to where
you are and how you came about being, you know, the CEO of Playground Ideas
and just put things in perspective, people. So think about what the other side of
the world are facing, refugee camps, you know, poverty, etcetera, etcetera,
and be incredibly grateful for where we are and what you've got, and try to
always put things in perspective. I don't think it's that bad what we have to
deal with on a day to day basis, what some people think and feel. Yeah.
And listen to this pod and go jeepers cross. Look where Marcus has come from
and what he's been doing over there, and and they would have been happier. Right?
I mean, when we first met, you said they were incredibly happy communities still
despite having nothing. So, you know, put things in perspective. Travel,
people, gold bloody travel. Yes. Marcus, I'm sure you'll attest
for this. My old man. I'm forever grateful for him. He gave me
some really standard advice that I need to go and see the world. And it
seems as though you travelling has changed your life. It's like a fork in the
road moment. Right? Perspective is everything.
Travel gives you perspective on where you sit in the universe. Absolutely.
Yeah. I love that. Sense of community. The
places you've worked in have had a sense of community in spades, and
they've been willing to give up everything for that sense of community, give their
time, give their resources, the guy that gave you a $1,000 without even knowing you.
You know what I mean? To do something good for their community. People that are
contacting you constantly to wanna go and contribute to a sense
of community and then staying there for a year's time. So if you're listening to
this, I think it's good for your soul, and it's good for those around you,
and it's good to role model to go and be a part of your community
and give where you can. A little bit of time, a little bit of energy.
You what I mean? That sense of community is brilliant. Humanity is awesome.
I've written here, humanity is awesome. You've restored my faith in humanity a bit today,
Marcus. I appreciate that. You yourself are an
unbelievably great human being, and it sounds like you've worked with
100 of amazing human beings. And, yeah, it's just really beautiful
to see that there are people in the world that that are really here for
other people, and and that kindness ripple effect is amazing.
Creativity, I'm gonna almost finish. Creativity is super important for our
development, our kids' development, but for our happiness and our connection.
And I'm gonna throw you something. If you're an employer, if you're a manager, if
you're running a business meeting, if you're doing anything, get something
fun and playful and creative for your team to do at your next
team meeting. Yep. As Marcus touched upon you, and he worked with x amount of
educators, and he couldn't bloody stop them talking, couldn't stop them going nuts, couldn't stop
them having fun. And in that moment, they were present. They weren't worrying about their
to do lists. They were present, and they were connecting with each other in a
really fun, playful way. And they walked out of that session with a spring in
their step. And that's just through being playful and being creative.
So if you're in the position to create that opportunity for people, do
so. Yeah. 100%. You know, do so. It's super bloody powerful and important.
This is my bit of gold is food experiment. You
know, we've got I think this podcast has got a parent with wait. Pop culture
parenting, get your heart out. This is now, yeah, this is now parenting
podcast as well, and I love that. And I think people are gonna take a
lot away from that. Me personally wanna thank you and Dale too because I'm a
100% trialing the food experiment on my children's plates moving
forward. And most importantly, mate, just, you know, give back
to people whoever you can, and don't be put off by your
failures. You know what I mean? It's not always gonna succeed for someone. Celebrate them.
Yep. Embrace them. Learn from them. Keep going back to the well,
and eventually gonna end up in places like you ended up, mate. And you are
doing incredible things for this world, not just Australia, but for the world.
And people go out and research. I'm not this isn't a selling point. We're
not making nothing out of this. But go and have a look at the noodle
pods and the noodle carts. I think it's a ripper. I'll personally buy one for
my kids for Christmas, and and use we'll put the the QR code
up. But, what you've created, Marcus, is a is a truly genius
little bit of equipment for kids and people worldwide, and it's doing good for
humanity. And, yeah, from the bottom of my heart and from the bottom of my
dials, I wanna thank you for coming on our podcast. No worries.
Appreciate it. And and, look, just one thing I did mention is just we
also have incursions for kids. So they start at $12. So if you
wanna try it, there's, like, 0, like, you
know, obstruction to entry to just give something like this and go. And just
see see how it works. We'll even give you a free demo if you're a
teacher. We'll just come to your school and show you that we're that confident in
it, and it'll and we know that it'll blow your mind. So Yeah. And I'm
thinking, like, child care centers, like, we've both got kids at yeah. We've both got
kids at kinders, and I think they should both our kinders they should have one
of these at their kinder because I think it's way better than the toys I
see them playing with. So early childhood centers, primary schools, high schools,
even like Kinder's a 100%. Yeah. Get amongst it. Research it. Hit
up Marcus, at Playground Ideas and Noodlecart.
You won't be disappointed. And we'll round that out. So, Marcus, I know
this isn't the end of our journey together. I'm pretty sure the 3 of us
will will collaborate at some stage in the near future, and, I'm really looking
forward to that. And, yeah. Thanks for your time. I really appreciate it. Thanks, John.
Thanks so much. Awesome. Take care.