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Are your customers the kind who politely come and go and sometimes leave you little hearts on social media? Or are they actually obsessed with what you do? The difference between an incredible brand and all the others is how they create fans. Welcome to the Brand to Fan Show, where we unpack the phenomenon of fandom and how to cultivate affinity, loyalty and trust list to build more fans so you can future proof your business. Here's your host, Lauren Teague. Welcome back to the Brand to fan show. I, of course, am your host, Lauren Teague. I was doing some reflecting a couple weeks ago about the things that I enjoyed the most when I was five years old and the things that came to mind to me, two things really instantly came to mind. One, I was always outside doing some sort of play while my parents were working in the yard or on the property. My brother and I always found a way to play outside.

The second, probably to no surprise, who listens to this show. I also remember watching a fair amount of sports for a five or six year old. So both of those things combined no doubt shaped how I moved through my life and how I'm here. Well, today I'd love to introduce you to someone else who loves play. Christy Harold is the CEO of Jam, which is a global business that connects people through play. And it's actually one of the largest rec sports leagues across the world. And now, since 2020 and the Pandemic, jam produced 3500 different corporate team building events in over 30 countries. Christy consults and she speaks on how to move a culture from surviving to thriving.

And she wrote a bestselling book called It Pays to Play. In 2020, she was named as one of Canada's top 100 Most Powerful Women and was a Canadian Woman Entrepreneur Awards finalist in the very same year. So while the rest of us were trying to adjust to a new normal, christy was out there kicking some booty on the field. Christy, it is such a pleasure to have you join the Brand of Fan Show. Welcome, Lauren.

Thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to join you. I've heard many of your episodes and super excited to be oh, that's so, so sweet.

So we're going to have a little fun today. We're going to do a little play in this conversation back and forth. But as you've heard, as you've listened to some of the episodes, I always kind of like to start from that beginning. Right. I talked about one of those things that I love to do when I was little. What is something that you love to do that when you were young or did you have something that you are a fan of from an early age?

I mean, like you, I have always loved to play, and sports was a big one for me. I love to play sports. I've never been much of a fan, believe it or not, of watching sports. I've always just wanted to get out there and be playing them. And I think probably because I had two older brothers, I was constantly trying to keep up with the boys. So my very first taste, I grew up in a small city north of Toronto, and when I grew up in the late 70s, there were no girls sports league. Like, there was no girls soccer. There was not even mixed gender soccer back then.

So my mom signed me up to play in a boys soccer league. My hair was cut short because I wanted to look like my brothers and everyone I told everyone my name was Chris, and I played a full season, and the boys didn't realize I was a girl until I got to the season ending banquet. My mom made me wear a dress, which was horrifying for me at the time. And that's when everyone figured out, oh, my gosh, Chris is a girl. And they invited me back to play a second season. So I was the only girl in this all boys soccer league, playing soccer for two seasons as a seven and eight year old. And that was my first taste of, I think, playing team sports. And I've just loved playing ever since.

Played every high school sport, played intermurrals through high school, and then after university, moving to Toronto, I didn't know a lot of people in the big city, and I thought this would be a fun business to start to help connect people through play. And so I started these adult rec sports leagues back in 1996 in Toronto and didn't have any thought that this would become what it has today. But, yeah, now we're connecting hundreds of thousands of people through playing of adult rec sports. And then, as you said in the pandemic, we pivoted to starting our corporate team building, connecting corporate teams through play with initially just virtual playful events, and now we're doing in person events as well, and then consulting and helping companies make their workplace a little more playful and fun to help with retention and engagement and energy of their employees. So I'm just all about connecting people through play however I can.