2011 was life changing. I became a dad and I bought Viking Sports, while owning MyBike. My somewhat busy life suddenly had two monumental additions that made life a lot more busy. Over the next 4 years my wife and I had two more kids, Viking grew to 40 employees, and MyBike relocated. My focus on being the worlds best dad, business owner, and husband took up 25 of the 24 hours of each day. I was stretched thin, stressed, and tired. Then my family started making time for play and everything changed for the better.
My kids love playing. I love playing. I owned a company literally built around playing. I got away from playing as I was growing my business and micro managing my kids development. It started off with racing my kids in the yard. They loved it. I loved it. As my wife and I were playing with our kids, we were all getting exercise. My kids were learning how to win and lose, how to be good sports, and how to practice teamwork. Once that foundation was laid we began playing fun games like the Floor is Lava that involved problem solving, perseverance, risk and reward to help foster a growth mindset when dealing with challenges.
I began carving out time each day to for the family to play. We were having a blast. My stress was gone, I felt motivated, and people were seeing the best representation of me. All of that positive change was from playing. Try it. The worst that can happen is you’ll have a little fun.
LeRoy J. Watkins III 