FOR THE LEADER WHO KNOWS THEIR TEAM NEEDS SOMETHING REAL
Your team does not need another training. They need to actually feel something together.
Culture is not built in an all-hands meeting or a slide deck about company values.
It is built in the moments when people stop performing and start connecting.
Dr. Erica Buchholz brings the neuroscience of play, laughter, and genuine connection into workplaces of every size, in person and virtually, in a way that shifts something people carry with them long after the session ends.
Or scroll to see what is possible.
LET’S BE HONEST ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING IN MOST WORKPLACES RIGHT NOW
Your team is showing up. They are just not fully there.
You can see it. The meetings where nobody says what they are actually thinking. The collaboration that stays surface-level because nobody feels quite safe enough to go deeper. The team that works alongside each other every day and somehow still feels like a collection of individuals rather than a unit.
It is not a skills problem.
It is not a process problem.
It is not something a new project management tool is going to fix.
It is a connection problem. And it has a science-backed solution that most organizations have never considered.
The research in neuroscience and positive psychology is clear: teams that play together perform together.
Not because play is a warm fuzzy nice-to-have.
Because play activates the same neurological pathways that make humans feel safe, creative, and genuinely connected to the people around them. It lowers cortisol. It raises oxytocin.
It builds psychological safety faster than any structured trust-building exercise ever designed.
And here is what nobody in corporate training will tell you: the moment that signals a team has actually connected is not when they complete a challenge together. It is when someone says something honest that they have never said in a meeting before.
When the mask comes down just enough that the real person underneath it becomes visible to the people they work with every day.
That is the moment Dr. Erica builds toward in every single session she runs. And it happens more reliably than you would expect.
Dr. Erica works with organizations at every stage of culture development
You are planning an event and want something genuinely memorable.
Whether it is an annual retreat, an offsite, a conference, or a team celebration, you want something people will still be talking about six months later. Not another icebreaker. Not another ropes course. Something that actually shifts how people see each other and themselves at work. Dr. Erica delivers keynotes, Laughter Yoga sessions, and LEGO Serious Play workshops that leave rooms different than they found them.
Your team is burned out and you need to do something about it.
Burnout is not a personal failure. It is a systemic signal that something about how your team is operating needs to change. Dr. Erica works with teams and their leaders to rebuild the psychological safety, joy, and genuine connection that makes sustainable performance possible. This is not a one-time band-aid. It is the beginning of a cultural shift.
You are building or rebuilding culture and you want to do it right.
Culture is not a mission statement on a wall. It is the lived experience of every person on your team every single day. If you are building something new, inheriting a team that needs a reset, or leading an organization through change, Dr. Erica brings the science and the tools to build a culture where people actually want to show up.
THREE WAYS TO BRING DR. ERICA TO YOUR TEAM
Every offering is science-backed, customized to your team, and available in person or virtually.
-
![]()
Laughter Yoga for Teams
The fastest nervous system reset available to a group of humans. And yes, there is real science behind it.
Laughter Yoga is not stand-up comedy. It is not watching funny videos together. It is a structured, evidence-based practice that uses voluntary laughter exercises and breathwork to trigger the same neurological response as genuine spontaneous laughter, regardless of mood, stress level, or whether anyone feels like laughing at all.
The science is straightforward: the brain cannot distinguish between real and simulated laughter. Which means the benefits, lower cortisol, elevated mood, increased oxytocin, improved group cohesion, happen whether the laughter starts naturally or not. Within twenty minutes, something in the room shifts. People who arrived tense leave lighter. People who barely knew each other's names start making eye contact. Teams that had been operating at arm's length begin to feel like a unit.
Dr. Erica is a Certified Laughter Yoga Leader who has led sessions for organizations across a wide range of industries and team sizes. Sessions are customized to your group, your culture, and your goals, and are available for teams of any size in person or via Zoom.
Perfect for: Team retreats, conference openers or closers, wellness days, onboarding cohorts, leadership teams, any group that needs to exhale together before they can connect.
What it is not: Forced fun. Nobody has to be funny. Nobody has to perform. The only requirement is showing up.
-
![]()
LEGO Serious Play Workshops
The methodology NASA uses. The experience your team will not stop talking about.
LEGO Serious Play is a research-backed facilitation methodology originally developed at MIT and adopted by organizations including NASA, Google, and the BBC. It uses structured, hands-on building with LEGO bricks to unlock creative thinking, surface assumptions, solve complex problems, and build shared understanding in ways that traditional meetings and brainstorming sessions simply cannot reach.
Here is why it works: when your hands are building, your analytical brain steps back and your creative, intuitive brain steps forward. The physical act of constructing a model externalizes thinking that would otherwise stay locked inside someone's head. Ideas that would never survive a traditional meeting room become visible, tangible, and discussable. And because everyone builds, everyone contributes, including the team members who are usually quiet in group settings.
Dr. Erica is a certified LEGO Serious Play facilitator who designs every workshop around your team's specific goals and challenges. Whether you are working on strategic planning, team identity, communication, or innovation, the methodology adapts to what your team actually needs.
Sessions run from two hours to a full day depending on scope. Available in person or virtually with facilitation kits shipped directly to participants.
Perfect for: Strategic planning sessions, team identity and values work, innovation and creative problem solving, leadership development, cross-functional team integration, any situation where you need real thinking from everyone in the room, not just the loudest voices.
-
![]()
Keynote and Conference Speaking
The talk people are still quoting three months later.
Dr. Erica has presented at international academic conferences, appeared as an expert guest on podcasts, television, and radio shows, and delivered talks to organizations across the United States and Canada. She has contributed chapters to published books and is currently finishing her own.
She does not deliver generic motivational speeches. She delivers the science of play, connection, and the human nervous system in a way that is immediately applicable to the real lives of the people in the room, whether those people are parents, professionals, or both.
Every keynote is customized to the audience, the event theme, and the specific outcomes the organizer is looking for. Dr. Erica works with event organizers in advance to understand who will be in the room and what she wants them to walk away thinking, feeling, and doing differently.
Signature topics include:
Make It Fun and It Will Get Done: The neuroscience of play and why organizations that build joy into their culture outperform those that do not.
The Regulated Leader: How your nervous system sets the emotional temperature of your entire team, and what to do about it.
Connection Is the Cure: What the research on human development tells us about building teams where people actually want to show up.
Burnout Is Not a Personal Failure: What is really driving the exhaustion epidemic and what science-backed sustainable performance actually looks like.
Available for conferences, retreats, leadership summits, professional development days, and organizational events of all sizes. In person and virtual.
WHY ORGANIZATIONS KEEP COMING BACK
This is not team building.
This is neuroscience applied to the way humans actually work.
#1. The science is real.
Every offering is grounded in peer-reviewed research on neuroscience, positive psychology, and organizational behavior. Dr. Erica does not bring feel-good activities. She brings evidence-based interventions with measurable outcomes. And she will tell you exactly why each one works.
#2. It is customized every time.
There is no off-the-shelf session. Every workshop, keynote, and Laughter Yoga experience is designed around your team, your culture, your goals, and the specific moment your organization is in. What works for a startup of twelve is not what works for a department of two hundred, and Dr. Erica knows the difference.
#3. It works virtually and in person.
Remote and hybrid teams deserve the same quality of connection experience as in-person ones. Dr. Erica has developed and refined virtual delivery of all three offerings, including shipping LEGO Serious Play kits directly to participants before virtual workshops. No watered-down version. The real thing.
#4. People remember it.
The standard for any session Dr. Erica runs is simple: people should still be talking about it months later. Not because it was entertaining, though it usually is, but because something shifted in how they see each other and how they show up together. That is the bar. It is met consistently.
What event organizers and professionals are saying
WHO YOU ARE BRINGING INTO YOUR ORGANIZATION
Dr. Erica brings fifteen years of research and real-world application to every room she walks into.
Dr. Erica Buchholz holds a PhD in Applied Developmental Psychology and has spent fifteen years at the intersection of neuroscience, positive psychology, and human development. She is not a corporate trainer who stumbled into play. She is a researcher who followed the evidence directly to it.
She is a Certified Laughter Yoga Leader, a LEGO Serious Play Facilitator, and a certified coach trained at the Martha Beck Institute. She has presented at international academic conferences, contributed chapters to published books, and is currently finishing her own. She has appeared as an expert guest on podcasts, television, and radio shows across the United States and Canada.
She has worked with organizations ranging from small entrepreneurial teams to large professional associations, delivering sessions that are simultaneously scientifically rigorous and genuinely fun. She takes the science seriously so the experience does not have to feel serious.
When Dr. Erica walks into a room, something changes. That is not a marketing claim. It is what people who have been in those rooms consistently report.
HOW IT WORKS
From inquiry to unforgettable session in four simple steps.
STEP 1: You reach out. Fill out the inquiry form below with a few details about your team, your event, and what you are hoping to create. No lengthy RFP required. Just a sense of what you are looking for and when.
STEP 2: Dr. Erica responds within 48 hours. A real response from Dr. Erica herself, not a generic autoresponder. She will ask a few questions to understand your goals and confirm whether the timing and scope are a good fit.
STEP 3: You have a brief conversation. A short call to talk through the details, customize the offering to your specific team, and make sure this feels right before any commitment is made. No pressure. No hard sell.
STEP 4: Your team gets an experience they will not forget. Dr. Erica handles everything from there. You show up to a session that is already designed, already customized, and already ready to shift something in your team.
Dr. Erica responds personally within 48 hours. No automated sequences. No sales pressure.
Your team deserves more than another PowerPoint.
They deserve to actually feel something together.
Whether you are planning an event, navigating a cultural challenge, or simply ready to invest in your team in a way that actually works, Dr. Erica is ready to talk. The inquiry takes five minutes. The impact lasts considerably longer.
Or email Dr. Erica directly at Erica@BecomingPlayful.com