Rob Alvarez Bucholska
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Reese Zahner Gets Brain Upgrades With Board Games | Episode 364

 

If you’re struggling to keep people engaged and loyal in your product or business, check out my FREE gamification course to learn how to do just that: bit.ly/freegamificationcourse-web

Games like Dungeons and Dragons can unexpectedly become a training ground for executive functioning skills, turning what many consider a challenge into a superpower for Reese. In this episode we delve into the unique relationship of ADHD and both board games and tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs). The discussion features insights from Reese Zahner, exploring her journey to discover these cognitive benefits, we highlight how structured gameplay can offer more than just entertainment—it can be a therapeutic tool for managing ADHD.

Reese is an avid board gamer and game master who is diagnosed with ADHD. While playing her first campaign of Dungeons and Dragons two years ago, she realized playing the game was passively working on her executive functioning skills and using her ADHD superpowers. She’s excited about exploring the connection between ADHD and Tabletop roleplaying games.

Rob is a host and consultant at Professor Game as well as an expert, international speaker and advocate for the use of gamification and games-based solutions, especially in education and learning. He’s also a professor and workshop facilitator for the topics of the podcast and LEGO SERIOUS PLAY (LSP) for top higher education institutions that include EFMD, IE Business School and EBS among others in Europe, America and Asia.

 

Guest Links and Info

Website: cleochilds.com

 

Links to episode mentions:

 

Lets’s do stuff together!

Looking forward to reading or hearing from you,

Rob

 

Full episode transcription (AI Generated)

Rob:
Hey, this is Professor Game, where we interview successful practitioners of games, gamification and game thinking to help us multiply engagement and loyalty. I’m Rob Alvarez, a consultant and the founder of Professor Game and a professor of gamification and games based solutions at IE Business School, efmd, EBS University and other places around the world. And before we dive into the interview, if you’re struggling with engagement in your business and are looking to find out how to make sure your users stay with you, perhaps you will find our free gamification course useful. Find it for free in the links in the description Engagers welcome back to another episode of the Professor Game podcast. And we are now with Reese. Reese, we need to know, are you prepared to engage?

Reese Zahner:
I am so prepared to engage. I actually already got engaged and now I’m married. So that’s how. That’s how engaged I am.

Rob:
Yeah, let’s do this. Let’s go. Because today we have reason. Zahner, is that a good pronunciation? Is that okay?

Reese Zahner:
Yeah, yeah. It’s about a 50. 50 shot. So you got it right. Yeah. Or I got it wrong. You know, I don’t really know. It’s one of the two.

Rob:
So she’s an avid board gamer and game master who is diagnosed with adhd. And while playing her first campaign of Dungeons and Dragons two years ago, she realized playing the game was passively working on her executive functioning skills and using her ADHD superpower. So she got excited about exploring the connection between ADHD and tabletop role playing games. So I’m guessing, Engagers, that at this point you already know why she is here. But Reese, is there anything else that we should know before we kick off with a few questions?

Reese Zahner:
No. I think I’m not a cool person, but I am an interesting person and I think maybe that will come across in this podcast. We’ll see. That’s the only other thing people are like, you’re really cool. I’m like, don’t lie to me. I know. I’m not interested though.

Rob:
Back in the day again, this is probably. I’m dropping my age or reference to that here, which I don’t mind. The Nerds versus something. That movie where the nerds were getting back to the cool people and so on. I do feel that generationally this has changed a lot. And maybe the nerd word is still used in a negative sense, but when you say geek, it kind of has a little bit of a cool aura to it. And being a geek is not sort of not like when you say, oh, this is this Nerd. You’re this nerd. It used to be like a bad thing to tell people. I never mind it.

Reese Zahner:
Maybe I’m super nerdy. Like, I own the nerd. I own the nerd. Like, I, you know, my favorite candy is Nerds. I’m just kidding. It’s actually not. It’s. It’s dots, which makes me like a super nerd because I like dots. And you can only give it Halloween. But no, I am queen of the nerds. I have over a hundred board games and I turned our front room, that’s a sitting room. It used to be like a sitting room. I turned into a board game room. And I have like a custom built board game table. I got like over from Poland and it got shipped over to the United States. And. And so I play board games three times a week, which is really, you know, awesome. And I sometimes play board games by myself, like Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective. I just literally get a glass of wine, turn on Victorian atmosphere in the background, and I just solve mysteries by myself. So my life is. I’m living the best life. And I don’t mean that facetiously. I mean, like, I genuinely am having like a great life. And board games and Dungeons and Dragons are a huge part of that.

Rob:
Awesome, awesome. So, Reese, run us. You ran us through a part of your week, but maybe let’s run through a day or a full week. What does that look like? What are you doing nowadays? What are your days or weeks or months? I don’t know.

Reese Zahner:
Look like I’m actually editing a book. So I’m an author and so I’m a poet. And so I realized that I have a spoken word poetry album. Album. And so I got it released and that got released in May. And then I realized I want to turn into a book. So I finished writing a book and now I am actually editing it, which is really exciting. So that’s kind of what my days fill up with, editing the book. But when I’m not doing that, I’m playing board games or playing Dungeons and Dragons or I’m playing other tabletop role playing games because I enjoy a plethora of tabletop role playing games. And so I am a dungeon master. So I went and I started about four years ago playing as a player. I was in a campaign of three bards in the Feywild. So we were really some. Luckily it wasn’t one of these ones where you had to do like a lot of combat and whatnot. But I went and I loved Dungeons and Dragons so much. I Was a year and a half, the Feywild. And they’re like, you should try being a dungeon master. And I realized I love being a dungeon master. But mainly it’s because I love knowing things and I love just being able to tell stories and I love being the person that has the answers and I have to do like really quick improv. And they’re like, what does this place look like? And I was like, I don’t know, let me imagine it. And then I kind of tell them and it’s fantastic. So, yeah, when I’m not editing a book, I am playing one of my like 100 board games and playing Dungeons and Dragons or Dungeon Mastering and then preparing for Dungeons and Dragons or other tabletop role playing games. Because, like, I’m into Vossen. I can play Vossen. There’s a great one. I’m learning Wild Sea and then I’m also doing Household, so which is really like Napoleonic era borrowers, like little people in a house kind of, you know, thing. And it’s great. That’s my life. It’s pretty. It’s pretty rad, I’m not going to lie.

Rob:
Sounds great. Sounds absolutely great. So, Reese, let’s actually dive into a story, right? We mentioned in your intro that you’ve been seeing sort of the connection between board games and helping people with adhd. Is there perhaps a time where you were trying to use this or maybe when you were starting and you found something, but then it actually didn’t work too well, or sort of a fail moment, a first attempt in learning? We’re all into those because we know that the biggest lessons usually come from when things just don’t go our way. In our experience, it really has a touch to it. So again, failure doesn’t have to be final or fatal. But you know, one of those moments you maybe got frustrated. If things were not going well, what did you do about it? How did you go around? And essentially we want to live the story with you.

Reese Zahner:
Yeah, absolutely. I think failure is super important and I have definitely succeeded a lot, but I’ve failed a lot. So when it comes to board gaming, I failed, I would say, because I was hyper competitive. And the idea is that I wanted to be able to play to win, not play to play. And so I. Which it’s really funny now, if you ask my husband, he’s like, you’re the least competitive people possible. And I was like, yeah, because I trained myself not to be competitive because I would lose a lot. And I was like, am I going to be okay? With this or be salty. And at the beginning I was like, I’m salty, and now I’m okay with it. Um, but I think that when it comes to failures, I think it was just the mindset of it, the failure that I went into it was I would get upset where I would play a game and someone else would beat me at it. And not realizing a few things. One, they’ve been playing games longer than me and they have a. There. There’s like game literacy. I think that I don’t. I’m coining this term. I don’t know if, like, it or. Or someone’s already used it outside of me. I don’t know it. But I think that there’s a. There’s game literacy. So at least with board games where you start off small, like you could go and do Search for El Dorado or the Quest for El Dorado, you know, and maybe Creature Comforts, kind of like these base level games. And then you work your way up until you can actually go and do like Vita Lacerta. And I would become frustrated with the idea of someone who’s like a lady, like a medium heavyweight game. And I would play. I would play against them with a slider game and they would beat me. And I didn’t realize that I was putting myself unfairly against someone else because I wasn’t at the same board game literacy level that they were. And so they had had more years of being able to learn how board games operate, how, you know, there are certain thinking patterns that go into it, how to be able to approach the game, the strategy of it versus the tactical nature of it. And I just got really frustrated. So I think that when it comes to failure, it’s definitely my mindset of not realizing that I was playing to win, not playing to play. I wasn’t playing to have fun. I was playing to compete. And I think that the second that over time, when I changed that mindset and I realized that I just enjoy the act of playing the game, to use my brain to think in interesting, creative ways, to be able to engage with my friends without phones and being able to sit there and to solve a puzzle, typically that’s really fun for me to do. The second that I started to kind of rearrange my thought processes, the more fun that I had, the more I was able to be successful. If you want to deem success as being a. A winner, I won a lot more. But I also think that I was playing a lot more games, and so I was able to kind of use the neuroplasticity of the brain to be able to rewire my brain in a way that was now more conducive to board games. So like for example, my husband has a four year degree in supply chain, which I just call a four year engine building degree. So he could like, you put an engine builder like Res Arana in front of him and he could just like every, he would win and I’d be like, let’s play a word game and then I can get back at you. I’m really good at word games. But then I realized like over time I was just like, I really like this game. I like playing with my husband. This is fun. And then I actually am now able to kind of go toe to toe with him on engine builders because I really like engine building. But I had to teach myself the thought process behind engine builders.

Rob:
A quick pause here because you’ve mentioned terms like engine builder and you were talking about medium to heavy games, like for the audience, maybe somebody who’s hearing now who has not heard this before doesn’t know what it means. Can you give us a quick gist of what these, at least these two that I remember right now, what they mean?

Reese Zahner:
Yeah, yeah. So engine builders are a type of game that you play where you start small, you start simple, and you’re trying to become more efficient and effective by using more complex actions. So the goal is to be the most efficient person in building up a quote unquote engine. And it could be anything. So like for example, one of them is, one of my favorite ones is Res Arcana, where it’s a game where you’re playing as a bunch of mages and you have to do, you have a limited amount of actions and you’re trying to use the most efficient way to be able to do those actions, to be able to get the most points as fast as possible. So an engine builder, if you think about it, it’s kind of using this process of efficiency. It’s efficiency building. Basically the more efficient person will typically win. So you have think and you have to use thought processes as efficiencies of how can I be able, what is the action that will give me the most value from this action? And the person that can think about that and be the most efficient with their actions is typically the person that will win. My husband has a degree in supply chain. So supply chain meaning is basically in a business world, how can you make efficient actions? And he, that is his entire four year degree is basically an efficiency degree. And so when I Say that my husband has a four year degree in engine building. What I mean is that he’s literally been taught the thought processes for over four years of how to be efficient, which he can then take to doing engine building, which is how to be efficient in this game. And the person that’s the most efficient will win. Well, I didn’t realize when I was playing games against my husband when they were engine builders, I was like, you, you’ve literally been. And I’m a marketing major, right. So I come about it from a very different perspective. And I didn’t realize. I was like, you’re really good at engine builders. And I was like, oh wait, Reese, he has four years of learning how to think efficiently on you and he does this as a day job. Okay. So then I was like, let’s, let’s take a step back. Let’s reset yourself. You know, let’s, let’s, you know, let’s, let’s have a little bit of some humility here and let’s just play to have fun. So I’m actually in. But I play a lot of games and so I think one of the most wonderful things about gaming, Morgan, in general is the way that your brain shifts and changes due to neuroplasticity, the way that your brain can now take in information. And the more that you play, the more connections and neural connections that your brain is making so that you can actually see things differently and be more strategic. And I just think like I can totally tell the difference between my brain of four or five years ago and my brain of now solely by playing games. And. But I’m now pretty. I can go against, toe to toe against my husband and supply chain is Jerry. I don’t have a four year degree, but I’ve been playing board games for four years and I mean, I still can’t, you know, get a job. But you. Yeah, yeah, I can play Res arcana. And he’s like, wow, you, you built your engine really quick. And I was like, yeah, because I’m efficient and I’ve been doing this three times a week for like four years now.

Rob:
Cool stuff, cool stuff. So Reeves. Oh yeah, the medium and heavyweight.

Reese Zahner:
Medium heavyweight games is just basically it’s the weight of a game of how heavy it is in regards to how complex it is. So if you have, you have. So you have typically you have heavy weight gains which are really, really complex. Typically a very heavy rule set. So these are like the games that take like two or three hours just to learn. So like imagine risk, but like times 100. That’s it. So Vita Lacerta is known as, like, one of the most heavyweight designers. So he designs incredibly complex games with a very simple action selection. So you’re basically going and you’re doing something very simply every turn. But the ramifications of those actions are very, like, are cascading. So it’s a very complex game. And then medium weight or ones that are kind of in the middle, where it maybe takes 30, 45, maybe an hour to learn. And then easy weight games are the ones that can. You can typically learn in about five to 20 minutes. And then they’re not as, and it’s just a complexity scale.

Rob:
Cool, cool. Thanks for that clarification and reason. Let’s actually go for the opposite one time where when, you know, you realize something about games and you wanted to use it for something and could be your project on ADHD or whatever else, and actually it went super well. Like, you were pleased about it again the first time or the nth time, it doesn’t matter how much you had to iterate, but we want to, again, be there in that story with you. We want to see what you learned and maybe a success factor that you sort of pulled out from that story.

Reese Zahner:
Yeah, I think when it comes to success factors, actually the one, it’s a personal success factor. I was told growing up that I was illogical. Everyone said, oh, you’re so creative. Oh, but you’re really not a logical thinker or you’re not very logical. Right. I heard this growing up a lot. A lot, a lot, a lot. And then I would go and I would play like a game like Search for Plan X, which is a pure logic puzzle. It’s pure deductive logic. And I would go and I would win every time. And I would be like, whoa. And then I’d play another logic game like Chronologic, and I would win every time. And these are pure logic puzzles. And I was like, oh, wait a second. So if I’m actually looking at the data right now, if I’m looking at. I’m actually a really logical person, I can do logic really well. And what the story that I was told growing up, which really informed kind of the way that I saw myself, which is I was illogical, is actually false if I look about the, you know, maybe I’m creative, but that doesn’t mean that I’m illogical. And so it was actually by playing games that I was able to kind of redefine my relationship with myself and redefine how I Interact and how I talk to myself. So now I go and I say, I am a logical person. Now granted, I would rather be. My number one thing is to be a kind, good person. But I think I was able to kind of reclaim this thing that I felt a lot of shame about growing up. It’s like, oh, I’m not very logical. And in fact, by playing games that were logic based games, I was able to realize that that is an incorrect statement about myself. It’s an incorrect story that I’ve been told and that I’m telling about myself. And I was able to reclaim that narrative. And I love logic games. That’s my jam. I love it so much. And so, but that’s kind of like a success, I would say is like a personal success. Playing games actually helped me to redefine a relationship with myself.

Rob:
Totally love it, love that success story. Because it, you know, games are useful for many things and you know, even though the bad rep that in many ways games have had for so long, it’s sort of going down, they’re still, still a lot of resistance. When you say tell people, like, yeah, but you know, you can, you can think of it through the lens of games and. Wait, wait, wait, what do you mean through the lens of games? We’re not here to have fun. This is serious business. This is real life or, you know, we’re not playing fun and games here. This is, you know, that’s when, you know, bringing it to, whether it’s personal, professional, you know, academic life and seeing the success that you can have by utilizing these strategies or utilizing games themselves to achieve things like these is where you say, oh yeah, you know, we’re finally getting to a point where this is more, hopefully will be more and more normalized by society, professional world and et cetera, et cetera.

Reese Zahner:
I think so. And I think games can teach you a lot about the way that you naturally think, like the way that your brain operates on a natural way. I think that, for example, like I was not good at supply chain engineering. Like I was not good at efficiency puzzles. I was good at logic puzzles, but not efficiency puzzles, which I would think are kind of synonymous with each other, but they’re not, they’re a little bit different. And I could teach myself though, how to be good at efficiency puzzles after practice and actually learning in my brain, adapting to them after practice and practice, I could be able to think in a more efficient manner. I think also like word games, for example, I come much more naturally to me than something like efficiency puzzles did. Initially, because I think that I. But that would make sense because I’m an author and I’m a poet and my husband’s like, please don’t make us play word games. And I’m like, word games? And he’s like, please, no. He’s like, please, let’s, let’s not do relationships with the word games. And now I found a game that’s actually called Hooky. And it is a game. It’s a deductive logic word game which is just a Venn diagram of just perfection in my brain. But I think too is like, it taught me a lot about the way that my brain naturally operates and it also taught me a lot about the way that my brain can grow, which is just like a wonderful thing is the fact that we are. We are porous animals that have neuroplasticity and our brains are not static, they are dynamic. And also not every game has to be for every person. There’s a lot of individually individualization that comes within the gamings that you can do. Like, for example, I lean very heavily to cute things. Like, I love me. You give me like a cute animal art. And I’m all about. There’s a game called Mycelia that has like a little like card cartoon mushroom in it with a cute little tagline that has a pun in it. And I’m like, I’m just like, here’s my money. Let me have like the little mushroom man that walks around kind of like a, like a toadstool or whatnot. I would like this thing, please. But maybe someone’s more into Brass Birmingham where it’s, you know, a lot darker and, or a lot darker kind of aesthetic. So it’s not as bright, but it also is much more into like the industrial age and like the 1800s. Right. I think that there’s such a wide variety of games that you’re able to go and find what are. Is the things that bring you joy and what is the thing that you can be able to engage with on a personal level that only works your brain, but works your soul and your heart. Because like I. My soul and my heart are so full of joy when I see this little mushroom man on my little car, like, I can’t even tell you.

Rob:
That’s nice. That’s nice. And you know, we’ve been, we’ve been talking a bit about, you know, success and failure. You also mentioned that, you know, and I’ve, I’ve sort of mentioned it a couple of times of how to relate gaming to adhd. So if you were going to teach this to somebody else, maybe you do. Is there a process, a series of steps or of games that they should play? Can you run us quickly through what that could look like if you don’t have it already sort of created?

Reese Zahner:
Yeah, absolutely. So when it talks about ADHD and the connection between gaming, what it really is is it’s being able to work your executive functioning skills. So one of the things with ADHD is that there is like a lack of executive functioning skills just by the sale the sole reason that the synapses work with the prefrontal cortex. Right. And so like for example, executive executive.

Rob:
Skills run us through quickly through what that means. I. We’ve mentioned a couple times before actually.

Reese Zahner:
Well, it’s really I have, because I am creative, I have a diagram that I created. Okay. So for example, you have with your executive functioning skills. So planning, organization, task initiative, cognitive flexibility, attention, self control, metacognition, working memory, time management and perseverance are all things that fall into those executive functioning skills. And then what board games really help with is this idea of cognitive flexibility. How can I be able to take information from over here and be able to place over here? How can I take something that I did in a game that was successful in one game and maybe be able to implement it here? Attention. You have to be able to really focus in on what’s going on within the game. Self control. So this idea of regulation, of being able to regulate your emotions is something that I really had a difficult with because I would be like, oh, I’m frustrated, right. And, and then because my. One of the things that happens with my self control is that I would kind of let my emotions kind of run away with me a little bit. And then over time by playing games I was actually able, excuse me, to have more self control over my emotions and I was able to stay calmer for longer which would allow me to actually and be in a kind of a flow state which would actually allow me to think more clearly. So I was able to kind of talk. I was able to learn how to become less frustrated easier over a long period of time, which allowed me to actually perform better at the game. Working memory. So being able to keep a lot of information at one time in your head and how to think three or four steps ahead is really one of the things that I had to learn about over time. It’s not something that came naturally to me. I would kind of say, oh, I can keep one thought in my head and I would work really hard to keep it in my head and then I would kind of do that and then I would lose though to people that could kind of do three or four thoughts in their head because they had more executive functioning skills than I did because the way that their brains worked. But over time because of neuroplasticity and playing a lot of games, I was able to gradually be able to keep more information in my head so that I was able to plan out longer, more complex, more strategically sound moves which allow me to then be able to play a better game. So I was able to keep more information in my head than I was at the very beginning of playing games. So now I can go and I can keep a lot of information in my head and run a lot of analysis that I have when I’m playing a game to figure out what is the optimal move in a way that I wasn’t able to do four or five years ago. And I’ve been actually able to work on my executive functioning skills and perseverance. How do I stay at a game and how can I be able to play a really good game over time without giving up something that was really hard for me initially? And then planning, I think that’s another one. When you talk about board gaming, I kind of mentioned it before, I meant how do you plan an optimal strategy? Right? How can I be able to have an Act 1, Act 2, Act 3 with being able to go and play out a strategy that maybe a move that I’m doing now is going to help to inform a move that I’m wanting to do four steps in the future. That’s not something that came naturally to me and it’s not something that my brain was naturally good at at the very beginning. But now I’m able to think in longer, more complex, complicated ways down the future which allows me to be more strategic. And so I think that for me and all of these things that I’m doing in my board games are actually in the way that I’m working my brain while playing a board game is actually helping me outside of my board games. I’m able to take a lot of this information. So optimally, like what is the optimal move? I’m able to take a lot of this analysis that I’ve doing in board games and I’m able to put it into my real life skills in my real world and I’m able to think when it comes to maybe relationships or like what I’m doing with the book. How am I able to analyze contracts between each other? What is the optimal move to make. I’m able to actually do that in a real world setting rather than just in a game setting. And so. And also I’m able to take a lot more memory. I’m able to use my working memory, so I’m able to hold a bunch more information in my head where I could be able to have multiple thoughts. Like when I’m writing the book or whatnot. And I’m going through.

Rob:
This is sheer practice, right? You’re just. By doing it so much in the board game, in the board game world or tabletop RPGs, it just happens, right?

Reese Zahner:
Well, because it’s the way your brain is literally creating different synapses, your brain. One of my favorite things about humans, I love a lot of things about humans, mainly taste buds, because I love eating food and I love tasting good things. Number one is taste buds. Number two is neuroplasticity, this idea that your brain is not, not static, that you can actually work your brain and your brain can change based off of the inputs that you put into it. And you can change to make your brain different in a really good way. And by good, what I mean is a very practiced way. And you can be able to continually learn and become a better learner, a better thinker and a better strategist, a better tactician by working those skills that do those things. And what I love about gaming, though, is that you’re doing it for fun. It’s all fun. Literally, it’s all fun and games. So you’re doing it in a way that’s pleasurable, that’s really fun, that is a pleasure and a delight to do. And it’s a really fun way. But you’re working your brain passively through play. And then you’re able to take these passive skills that you’re working on through play and being able to put them into your real life. And then brain is now more capable of being able to go in and to work more optimally in real life. You know, in real life skills, meaning outside of a board game, isn’t that not just, like, make you, like, super excited? Just about, like the brain and like, I just. It brings me joy and it brings me hope and it makes me. I know when I’m playing a game, it makes me think I’m not only having fun, but I’m actually working my brain. And candidly, like, one of the things is that my mom, like one of the album is about is like, my mom died to Alzheimer’s. And I know that, like Alzheimer’s is a really big, like, I’ve done a lot of research. I Or I read a lot of scientific studies, and I know that I need to work my brain because one of the ways to be able to prevent Alzheimer’s is by working the brain. And so. And they. There’s a scientific study. I’ve actually talked to the researcher that said by playing games, you may be able to help prevent cognitive decline. Well, that’s something that’s, like, super near and dear to my heart because I know that I’ve lost someone to Alzheimer’s and it’s something that’s hereditary to me, and I can be able to actually have a means of passively, through play, working my brain, which I might be able to help to lower my risk of Alzheimer’s and cognitive decline. So, on a very personal note, it’s also. I’m. I’m not only passively, through play, working my brain, I’m also being able to passively, through play, be able to help to maybe prevent the disease that took my mom and has taken a lot of people in my family. And I’m doing all three games.

Rob:
Makes sense. So, Reese, after all these questions, we’ve gotten so much value from your words. I do have a couple of relatively quick questions. Is there somebody that you would like listen to in this podcast answering these questions? Anybody that brings you inspiration, any thought process, and then if there was a book you would recommend again for inspiration or that has brought you joy or whatever, which book would that be? So person to interview and a book.

Reese Zahner:
I’m this person. I am. I can’t help it. It’s who I am as a person. I really like Marcus Aurelius, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic philosopher from ancient Rome. Like, I. If. If I could have. If I could interview. I just think he’s so fascinating and he has such a great way of thinking. He’s like, such. I would. I would go and interview, like, one of these Stoic philosophers, because I am not a stoic person. I am. If you cannot tell, I’m a very animated person, and I like things a lot, and I’m very, like, energetic. And I’m like, if I love something, like, I love it to my core. And the Stoics are saying that, yes, that’s great, but also learn how to let go and how to be able to. How to be able to think clearly without, like, without fear. And I’m like, that’s really hard for me. So I would love to put Marcus Aurelius, maybe by Playing like, Feast for Odin or like a Vita Lacerta game. And I would love to just interview Marcus Aurelius. And I’d be like, how do you meditate? Because I’m not good at it. Anyway, that’s a funny joke because this book is called Meditations. Anyway, I digress. And then I. For inspiration, I’m reading a book right now, and I think it’s called the Missing Thread, and it’s all about women who are. Who have. Who are in the ancient history, like ancient civilizations that really haven’t been talked about in ancient civilizations, and they’ve kind of been looked over. So I’m really going through, like an ancient Greek, ancient Rome kind of phase right now in my learning, in what I’m reading. So I would just say for inspiration, there’s, like, a lot of ladies that have done amazing things, and I get inspired by the amazing thinkers and the amazing, like, the amazing ach. Achievements that women have done before me that I didn’t even know about that really haven’t been brought to the forefront of history and historical learnings. And so for inspiration for me, I just get to learn about amazing women doing amazing things who have amazing brains, and I get to be able to learn about them and say, look what we can do with our brains. And how neat is that? So those are my. I would like to interview Marcus Aurelius, and I would like to, for inspiration.

Rob:
Maybe with AI now, we can, you know, dump a lot of information on Marcus Aurelius and then, you know, ask him questions. We’ll see. We’ll see if that’s possible in the future.

Reese Zahner:
We’ll see. And I just want to learn about different ladies. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I can read his book. I can read his book. So I’ve read it. Or it’s on my. It’s on my to do list. But I’m reading right now about really, like, you know, awesome ladies from ancient history.

Rob:
Totally. And now I’m going to make the difficult question of the podcast, and especially for a person like you, what is your favorite game?

Reese Zahner:
Easy. Sherlock Holmes. Consulting Detective. The fourth in the series. The Baker Street Editions by and Dave Neal is one of my favorite, if not my favorite, board game designer. He’s so good at this, I literally emailed him and I said, you’re amazing. Or ooh. Ooh. Okay, I’m gonna be selfish because that’s true. Because it’s hard. It’s hard for me. Anything by Rita Orloff. Rita Orloff does post curious. She’s insane. She’s like the best puzzle designer I’ve ever come across. So if you love escape rooms. She’s insane. She’s insane. Her puzzles are magnificent. And they just make my brain and all there’s difficult, but they’re fair and they just make your brain just when you realize it’s a fair puzzle and I’m just like, I’m just too stupid to figure it out. And she’s way too smart and then you’re like, that was a great puzz. I love that. And when you’re like, hey, Dave, that was a really great Sherlock Holmes consulting detective puzzle. I love that. So really, I just love playing games made by people that are smarter than me. And then I love being able to like, see how they’ve done that. And I love feeling like just. I love cleverness and I love playing games by clever people. So Dave Neal, anything Dave Neal does, shout out to Dave Neal and shout out to Riedel or off. Cool.

Rob:
Good stuff. Reese. We’re arriving to the end of the interview. Running out of time. However, you know, now is the time if you want to make any final comments to the engagers, let us know where we can find out more about what you’re doing, your work and of course we’ll say after that that at least for now, it’s game over.

Reese Zahner:
Follow your joy. It’s your joy. I would say follow your joy. And at the end of the day, have fun because I think life is too short to be too serious. Have fun and follow your joy. And that’s all I got. That’s me. And just know that you’re working your brains when you play games. And isn’t that a wonderful thing?

Rob:
Absolutely, totally is. Thanks again, Reese for joining us today, for investing your time in giving us all your insights, all of your thought process, all the stuff that you’ve been working on. However, recent engagers, as you know, at least for now and for today, it is time to say that it’s game over. Hey engagers, and thank you for listening to the professor game podcast. And since you are into gamification and game inspired solutions, how about you go into the free gamification course that we have for you? Just go to professorgame.com freegamification work course, all one word professorgame.com freegamIFICATION course and get started today for free. After that we will also be in contact and you will be the first to know of any opportunities that Professor Game might have for you. And remember, before you go on to your next mission, before you click continue, please Remember to subscribe using your favorite podcast app and listen to the next episode of Professor Game. See you there.

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