Episode Transcript: #694 - Jane McGonigal
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All righty Jane what's happening? I'm here. You are here. You made it. I'm excited too. Thanks for doing this. Appreciate it.
So your story is a very fascinating story. You got a brain injury and you decided to make a game to help your brain recover.
Now what led you to even attempt something like that? I've never heard of anything like that in the past.
Well I had been designing games professionally and researching them for 10 years by the time I hit my head.
And it was not my first instinct. Oh I have a brain injury. Let me make a game.
But you know about a month into the recovery I wasn't getting any better. I was really depressed and anxious.
I mean I was it was like the lowest point of my life.
And I knew from my research that when we play games you know we have more optimism.
We're more determined. We're better able to ask people for help right to team up with us be your allies.
And I just figured well this is like the worst I've ever felt in my life.
Maybe if I can bring some of that gameful spirit to recovery I could kind of jumpstart my brain back into healing.
So what was the nature of your injury?
I mean it was it started out as just a normal concussion.
How did you get it?
So this is my public service announcement for the episode.
I was standing up from underneath an open cabinet and I'm a runner so I have really strong legs.
And I was just in a hurry and I was full force right up into the corner of the cabinet.
Hit my head and it was like classic you know my husband was joking around you know who's the president.
And I couldn't remember who the president was and I was like oh shit that really bad.
Yeah.