[tslug]

Find a way to spend time with kids. I find kids are consistently better at knowing how to "be" than adults, and they can help you reset how to perceive reality.

In my shirt pocket, I always carry stickers from a game I'm working on. Whenever I bump into a parent wrangling kids, I offer the parent stickers with this line, "In case these are of some use."

I do not explain they're from my game, nor do they have any branding on them. It's not about that. It's about making a kid happy with a sticker, and it works.

They do all kinds of things with them, from sticking them on themselves to immediately creating stories behind them. The good parents usually remind their kids to "thank the nice man for the stickers" and then they proceed to be good kids and deliver perfectly adorable "thank you"'s.

I've seen and done a lot of things, and it'll sound trite, but not nothing can compare to making a kid smile.