“Play is an on-ramp, not a reward” Dara Simkin says early on in our conversation. Yep, that resonates. I too have spent most of my life saving play for after the list is done. The list is never done.

My humanness this week was about permission to change your mind, about how rigid and how right I used to need to be, and Dara met me right there with the idea of “yes, and” that she uses with the businesses she works with. (Yes, I’m organised and I can also be a hot mess.)  She reckons the need to be right is really a need for control, and that underneath control there is almost always someone who is very, very scared.

Dara brings play to boardrooms and leadership days, and what she describes is a generation of adults so addicted to achievement that they have optimised themselves right out of their own lives. We talk about grief hiding inside what looks like resistance, about her redefining success as ease, and about the morning her five-year-old lost it over a Rubik’s Cube and what she chose to do instead of fixing it.

We explore:

• The difference between real curiosity and judgment wearing a curious costume
• Play as a recovery tool for a fried nervous system, and why the micro moments count
• Achievement addiction, and how gold stars and trophies quietly become a mortgage and a boat you’re not sure you wanted
• Why adaptability is just play in a fancy suit, and what that means for the kids coming up behind us
• The question she asks herself at the end of each day: “how was I human today?”

About Dara Simkin:

Dara Simkin is a Melbourne-based speaker, facilitator and organisational culture specialist, and the founder and Chief Play Officer of Culture Hero. Born and raised in the US, she moved to Australia at 25 after winning a video competition that sent her around Tasmania in a camper van, and she has spent the last decade researching, designing and facilitating play at work. In March 2026, she co-published Full Stack Human with data scientist and futurist Tane Hunter, about how we hold onto our humanity and adaptability in a world moving faster than we are.

Connect with Dara:

• Instagram: @darasimkin
  
• Web: culturehero.co
  
• LinkedIn: Dara Simkin
  
• Book: Full Stack Human