Playing Life’s Game: Bridging Esports and Improvisation

Tom Leonard 

I'm the host of the Gamers Change Lives podcast, where we talk about how eSports can create jobs anywhere in the world. Play games, create jobs, change lives. In season one, we talked about jobs. In season two, we talked about “Follow the Money”, about investment, about sponsorship. And now in season three, we're talking about other topics we call Esports 101. Really happy to have a special guest here today. Patricia Ryan Madsen, who is the author of a great book, we're gonna be talking about, Improv Wisdom, and also Professor Emeritus from Stanford University, where I went to school. Welcome, Patricia.

PATRICIA MADSON 

Thank you, Tom. Looking forward to this conversation.

Tom Leonard 

First, I have to give a shout out to Matt Abrahams, who we had, and he's the one that suggested we connect and be able to talk because he mentioned your book several times in our episode that will be coming out here this weekend as we record. And so that's what introduced me to some great concepts there. So the first question I got to ask is: Are you a gamer?

PATRICIA MADSON 

No, sir, I'm sorry. In fact, I may be the first guest on your program who has never, never even done a video game.

Tom Leonard 

Which will make this even more interesting. 

PATRICIA MADSON 

And I had to look up what esports is, and it looked so interesting. I was gonna try to get from you a recommendation of one to take a look at, because I thought, wow, there's this whole world of people doing things together that looks like a marvelous idea that you're supporting, but I've never seen one, so.

Tom Leonard 

When you talk about it in your book about, which we'll talk about in a minute, but enjoy the ride. It's like playing games and the value of playing games. And it's like, that's what I keep reminding people all the time here. It's like, you're in an industry that's based on people playing games. I mean, it's like, how tough can it be? Not everyone, you know, you're not like a chartered accountant or something like that. So where are you speaking to us from?

PATRICIA MADSON 

Yeah.

PATRICIA MADSON 

I am in the little town of El Granada, California, which is about 25 miles south of San Francisco and just north of Half Moon Bay, California. So we're over the hill, as they say, from Stanford and Silicon Valley. And it's very cool and lovely with the ocean air where I am today.

Tom Leonard 

Yes.

Tom Leonard 

Yes, yes. It always seemed like if there was going to be fog somewhere, it's like you guys see it first. Yes, yes. Yeah. Want to talk a little bit about our audience here, because one of the things that it's really good to kind of give you a feel for who our audience is and our audiences are gamers, people who are playing games out there, and some of them at some of the highest levels.

PATRICIA MADSON 

We've got it, yeah.

PATRICIA MADSON 

Mm-hmm.

Tom Leonard 

that are out there, we have esports entrepreneurs and they basically fall into two categories. They're either people who are building a team or they organize tournaments. And we'll go through it a little bit, get your recommendation on some things that could be helpful for them. But the first thing I wanted to do, do a little quote here from your start of your book. You talk about the people that I admired were not looking over their shoulders to see if people were applauding. I do this because I know it needs to be done. That is the theme. If there's one theme of our entire podcast, that is it. Because we talked to people, they weren't looking for a role model, they weren't looking for permission, they just went out there and did it. Can you explain a little bit more on how important that is?

PATRICIA MADSON 

I think it's, most of us spend a lot of our life actually looking over our shoulders in some way. We all, it's human to want to be liked and admired. And there's a great fear in looking stupid or not doing well enough in other people's eyes. But I have to tell you, as someone who, I just turned 80 in December. So if you spend too much time looking over your shoulder at what people think about you, you're gonna waste some precious moments. So it seems to me like the people that are involved in the gaming that you're helping to support and cheer for are doing the right thing of going after what gives them joy and pleasure and makes meaning in their life, whether somebody else thinks it's cool or not. I think we need to be, that needs to be done. The phrase I think is really useful because that's different from what I want to do or what I think I ought to do or what people think I ought to do. The need to be done comes from a different place in us, I believe. And I can't tell you exactly where that is, but sometimes I simply know what needs to be done. When my cat box has just been filled, what needs to be done is clean it. So there are things that are really obvious in life. I'm not sure how this translates exactly to the gamer's world. Maybe you would.

Tom Leonard 

We'll talk about that in just a minute. Could you describe a little bit about what improv is to our audience? Because I think if people have heard about improv, they probably think about improv comedy out there. And could you expand a little bit on what improv is from your perspective?

PATRICIA MADSON 

Great. Exactly. I’ll be glad to. And I think that's a great question to start, because the word improv brings up comedy and cleverness and being on stage to entertain folks. And there's no question, but that some improv has that as its purpose. And some classes on improv are there to help train you to become a stage performer who improvises scenes and sketches. But if you think about it, improvisation is what humans do unless they're performing a script. Right now we're having a conversation. We could not know exactly what question or how it would be phrased. And I don't know until I hear it when I put something together. So all of human conversation is improvised. And even if we have a plan, how that happens is an improvisation. We certainly know that today, no matter what the forecasts are for, whether it's weather or politics or what's gonna be in the refrigerator, we can't count on things. We hope for them or we maybe expect them, but life is gonna bring us whatever. An improviser is someone who is awake, who is alert and noticing what's actually going on. Certainly gamers have got to have their eyes on the screen to see what's happening next. They're attentive, they're accepting because the thing that may be happening might be something you don't like or you're not happy with or maybe your opponent is scoring some points or something. You have to accept that and then you have to appreciate where you are and then act on it. What needs to be done comes after you have opened yourself to whatever is happening in life. So improvisers are people who are in a way awake to life. Right now it's very fashionable to talk about mindfulness. And that idea of mindfulness is being really alert and aware of exactly what's going on, not thinking ahead to what you're going to do. And that's one of the traps. In improv, we train to work with the idea that's right in front of our mind, right there, rather than struggling too hard to get to a good idea. And I bet good gamers are, in a sense, reactive in that way. They are right in the moment of what's going on and able to shift from one direction to another. Certainly, great athletes do that. They pivot and they deal with rebound, which I think is so important in everyday life as well as in games. So my classes are not so much about how to stand up and entertain your friends with your funny wits, although some people like to go on and do that. I'm here to sort of talk about and encourage you in your everyday life or in the thing that you love and that you're doing to show up for it more often, to accept what's going on, to have a good time, to make some mistakes, for heaven sakes, please, and to one of the maxims that I think is often counterintuitive is be average.

Tom Leonard 

I was going to ask you about that one because that was like, how do you tell someone who's really competitive out there, be average?

PATRICIA MADSON 

Well, I will tell them, I'll tell them why it's useful, because we screw ourselves up by trying to excel all the time. When I'm trying my best to give the very best interview or make the best point or whatever it is, when I'm, it creates a striving, which takes us away from our natural mind and ability. We've all seen it where that important kick that's gonna win the Super Bowl or not that he tried so hard that he just blew it. But if he'd just gone in to make an average kick I'd be darned. Look what happens when you take the pressure off yourself So the B average advice is more or less a trick to say look, of course, we all want to do well, but the most likely route to that is to get out of your way in striving for excellence. It traps us. It really does. So I was telling friends that I have a group of friends that one Friday night a month we go together to do bad art night. And the idea with bad art is that we can all do that, right? So we show up with our projects or our watercolors or our knitting or whatever and get together and it means we're doing art. 

Tom Leonard 

Yeah.

PATRICIA MADSON 

At some point, if you're not gonna make any kind of art unless you do it, so if we go, we know we can do bad art and lo and behold, it often turns out really, really well. And we've taken the pressure off ourselves. 

Tom Leonard 

I think one of the things you mentioned there is to go for the obvious. It's like, it's quite, why, I mean, everyone is always told to think outside the box, but maybe, maybe there's something inside the box that will be just as useful and easier to get a hold of.

PATRICIA MADSON 

Yes, yes.

PATRICIA MADSON 

I think it's exactly, I advise thinking inside the box with new eyes, with fresh eyes. This outside the box will take us into weird, I don't know, plaid mermaids and crazy stuff. It's easy to get crazy stuff. In fact, when I talk about creativity, creativity is a dime a dozen when you're just trying to come up with something that's outside the box. But most problems that we are facing or we need to solve have a box that if we respect it and work within it, and probably for the gamer, that's the rules of the game, the sort of the temperature of the day, and all of your own thinking about what you're doing, how you get your team working. I think that's another aspect that improv can be helpful for in your world is helping teams work together.

Tom Leonard 

Thank you.

PATRICIA MADSON 

And that has to do with making your partner look good and taking care of them rather than trying to shine yourself. It's quite remarkable how much everybody benefits if team players are looking out for each other.

Tom Leonard 

Okay, let's say if you're a gamer and you know that... I don't think there's anyone... Well, there's a few games that might be individual out there, but it's just like regular sports. I mean, there's individual sports and then there's team sports. But certainly in a team sport, do you have any specific things that someone that wants to be a better team player or wants to do things that create a better team for everyone?

PATRICIA MADSON 

It's watching the other players as if they are your world. It's really paying attention to the details. I think another thing is making sure that you not only notice, but compliment each other. Man, that was a great shot. Wow, I was so grateful you were there. If you hadn't been to my left, we couldn't have done that. So it's recognizing what other people are doing specifically from which you benefit and then letting them know that. It's constantly being both generous and grateful. Those two Gs are real important.

Tom Leonard 

Yeah, and so much of what you're describing is just general rules in life. It's like it's like this is not rocket science. We're not we're not trying to describe something that should be foreign to anyone, which one of the things I really liked about your book was just the exercises that went through there. And so much of it was just so it's like, man, that's just common sense. But I hadn't thought of it that way. And that's one of the reasons that I was really happy to have this conversation, because as I said before, people in esports and playing games, they're already improvising, but this gives them a framework to maybe expand on it so that they understand and can get the most out of it. What if someone is a coach of players and they want the players to do better? What kind of techniques can they use to inspire their team?

PATRICIA MADSON 

I think it's working from the positive, a little bit like I was just talking about. It's noticing in detail what your players are doing, pointing it out that you've noticed and approving of that. You're more likely to catch more flies with honey than vinegar, constantly looking for the things the teams need to correct. So I would say coach from the positive, golly, and look for every opportunity you can to make a specific note and say, you're doing a great job in that particular role. So that's one of the things, it's basically coaching from the positive and pointing out specific details. No one has ever reported that they've had too much praise for heaven's sakes. We're all just longing to have someone notice that we're doing okay. Or in fact, my latest little practice wherever I go is seeing how often I can say, you're doing a good job. You're doing a great job. I tell it to clerks and the way they brighten up and it seems to make their day. And all I have to do is really notice because pretty much everybody is doing a good job. And nice to hear it. You're doing a great job, Tom. Golly, out of nowhere, you found this and have invited me so warmly into this riverside room.

Tom Leonard 

Yes. So on the other side of that, if you're always positive and you're always giving positive feedback, how do you then give them the bad news? It's like, OK, it's like you always it would be nice to always be positive, but people don't always. You also need to be honest with them about how to improve. How do you do that?

PATRICIA MADSON 

I think it's by giving examples of what is a better way or what's a good way to do something that's not working, that's still using positives to deal with the negatives. Say if you're noticing that there's a particular maneuver, somebody, I'm a big fan of women's basketball, and we notice that somebody who's supposed to be guarding the right side seems to forget every time they go down. You might point out a better way to do that without just saying you're not doing a good job, but by looking at what is going to improve things and seeing if maybe the player has some feedback too or are you having problems guarding there? Is there some way we can help you do what you're supposed to be doing better?

Tom Leonard 

That was one of the things that Matt talked about, Matt Abraham's, was on because I was asking him, I asked him to give me critique, to give me three things that I could do to improve my podcast. And because how often am I going to get to talk to a Stanford professor on communication about my podcast. But it was interesting because his concept was very similar. It was like, okay, you know, I always stood out with something positive. It's like, oh, you always do, you're always doing this, but you know, you could do this and other people have done this. And I've seen this sort of thing.

PATRICIA MADSON 

Ha ha!

Tom Leonard 

And so he was being constructive at the same time, not overly critical.

PATRICIA MADSON 

I think that it's how you give a note makes all the difference. But there's a feeling of criticism that we all recognize or when we're really told that what we did didn't work or we're wrong. It's glowingly clear when, and even if the criticism is meant to be constructive and helpful, it's sort of how it's delivered. I think it might be valuable to have a conversation with a team, if you're the coach, about what are the ways that when we're trying to improve, what are the things I can help you with? What would you like to know from the outsider's perspective who wants us to win and do better? And are there ways that we're working that you think ask them to be a coach? There's another thing of kind of turning that around, make a player for each game, the secondary coach for the day or something. So that they're also looking for what they can, what kind of helpful advice they can give to their other teammates. We're bound to have, we always think we know what somebody else could do better. I just ask my husband, I can definitely tell him what he could be doing better and how. But he doesn't wanna hear that. But maybe if I ask him, is there something that you think my perspective might help you on? I think it's constantly a dance to try to improve communication and improve ways that we can make sure how much we respect each other and, and be there when it's needed. I was trying to think of some of the other maxims that might be useful. The, well, waking up to the gifts is my favorite of all of them. And that's a mindset. You might say improv itself is a mindset. Waking up to the gifts is noticing how something that is sort of working for us all the time and is actually a great benefit. There's something called a vampire, what is it? Vampire energy. Right now, in your home, there are a lot of things that are plugged in that we're not using or don't pay much attention to, but that energy is being supportive. But when I reach over to turn on a light or plug in my iPad or something, it comes alive for us. And I think that I'm a great fan of starting to notice what we're receiving from each other, from the environment, from all of the power's sources of energy right now. You and I couldn't be talking without the miracle of the internet and with this particular app that's helping us listen and communicate. Isn't that amazing? I think part of waking up to the gifts is never, never letting ourselves be blasé about all the stuff that is already working. There's an improv game where we say, what's not wrong about today? What's not wrong about today is I don't have a toothache. Oh boy, the big hurricane in Florida has not hit my house. And that's not just silliness, it's also a way of realizing, even in the worst of circumstances, there's a lot of support. That's also what we're learning in this, in the current hurricane in Florida, that people are coming to everyone's help and defense and we're here for each other. Improvisability.

Tom Leonard 

Did you see where even the governor of California and the governor of Florida had civil words between each other to support? And I was just like, I'm gonna circle that one because that's like, wow, it took two hurricanes to make that happen. But it's like, it can happen.

PATRICIA MADSON 

Exactly. That's so true. There's a whole book about how we rise in our humanity when there are natural disasters. There's a book about the San Francisco earthquake and all of the communities that formed around that. I think it's Rebecca Solnit's book. 

Tom Leonard 

Could you talk a little bit about culture? Because you've been around the world, you've been to other cultures out there, and I just know being around Stanford, I mean, there's students from every part of the world, which is part of the benefit there, and so you have a lot of different cultures. Does improv translate well to other cultures?

PATRICIA MADSON 

Mm-hmm. Yes, it has, I think it does. In fact, what we learned, I just had a reunion of the group that I formed called the Stanford Improvisers. They came into being in 1991. And we had a 32nd year reunion and 130 of them from all over the country and the world actually showed up to celebrate their being a member of this group. And we started playing games, rather than just standing around drinking and talking, we started playing improv games. And what was remarkable to me was that across generations, some of my students who are now 55 years old, along with the 19 year old sophomores at Stanford, jumped in and played games as if they were old friends, because the baseline of this culture is to say yes to each other, to have positivity as your default. And they're primed to do that. And so when they got in the room with a hundred other people of different generations, the culture of improv lifted us all. It was just a miracle. I thought if the world could all be improvisers, there'd be less sort of political struggle, where our politics have gotten such that they can't agree on anything. And so I would like to get the politicians in a room and play yes games where they have to agree with each other. And that's the only rule that's allowed. And then once you have to agree, then you're gonna work to find a way that agreement makes sense to you and you're not just doing it because of the rule. So this is positive, go ahead.

Tom Leonard 

It's interesting because when you're talking, I'm bringing up, I brought up culture and I'm thinking, oh, Asian culture versus South American culture versus American culture. And you start talking about the different age groups in the culture differences. It was interesting, because you were talking about cultural differences that were not the first thing that I thought of, but I can see exactly what it is that you're saying.

PATRICIA MADSON 

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that a culture, somebody said, what is culture? Culture is the way we do things, all right? It’s that simple. And if the way we do things is to have a default agreement that we're going to go positive and work from that area, I discovered that there actually is a culture of improv. And I do think that crosses timelines, age lines, as well as different cultures, not only politically, but ethnically and in the world situation. There are improv groups that are formed around my book in China now. I keep hearing from my Chinese improvisers and they really love the idea that they're learning to play together and have fun doing games, because we're actually, in a way, we're gamers too. But the game we might be playing is, all right, now, both of you in this scene have to speak only in three-word sentences, go. And so two people jump on stage with that restriction, that becomes an improv game, and they make stuff up using three-word sentences and we have a great time.

Tom Leonard 

Yeah, no, it certainly sounds like it. And yeah, just as you're describing that, I'm just thinking about how that would work out and with other people how much fun it would be to be, to be creative. Yeah, I can see the attraction to it a lot. One of the things you mentioned in the book, and I think, let's see, in my number, in maxim number seven on facing facts, wishing other people would change, because I think that's one thing that so many people spend so much of their life and just in personal relationships, that's one area. But you're just trying to get people to change when maybe you can figure out ways to work with them and make it good, make it better for everyone working with the way they and I was also thinking the opposite. It's like people are working with me. It's like, okay, it's like, how do they have to work differently around me? So could you talk a little bit more about that particular idea?

PATRICIA MADSON 

Absolutely. I love that you brought it right back because the only person we can change is ourselves. And the only thing about ourselves that we can change is our behavior. We actually can't even change our feelings. They sort of come and go. But starting with this topic was if we recognize that we fundamentally can't change other people, oh, we try as hard as we can, we can all testify it doesn't usually work, even if we make very helpful suggestions. So instead of my whole practice now I am trying to become more and more accepting of the way other people do what they do. And it starts with that annoying feeling I get in my body when I say my husband does that thing that he does, okay. He's doing that again. So I can take it.

Tom Leonard 

He can't hear you, can he?

PATRICIA MADSON 

No, he can't, he's just gone out for his run. But if he could hear me, he would agree with this. What I do now when I notice that he's doing that thing that annoys me is I first notice that, ah, I'm getting annoyed, interesting. So what should I do? I take a breath, I breathe, and I realize I'm just gonna accept that the way it is and kind of move on. That the sooner you're able to learn this factoid of life and then try to get better at it. I still get annoyed at people, but my response to it is different rather than just going off on that tangent. There he goes again, oh, I'm so annoyed and golly. Blah, blah, blah. I think of an example. We go to a gym in Half Moon Bay. And there's one fellow regularly who comes in the morning and he gets on the treadmill and he pounds the thing like crazy. It's so loud and he pounds and he pounds and he pounds and I make noise and just drives me crazy. Probably everybody else in the gym too. So I noticed that every time I was going in there and I was listening to him do that, I was thinking, I was getting upset by it. So I thought, wait, he's going to now be my sort of class action suit to try to see if I can work differently with myself. Because we've agreed we can't change that guy. We don't need to, he's doing what he needs to do. So when I noticed that, it's like, oh, there goes that guy again, interesting. All right, now what do I need to do? Okay, I need to pay really good attention to the machine that I'm on, and see if I can't get my muscles working a little better, and just shift my attention off of him altogether. As soon as I do that, my world changes for the better. He still gets to do the annoying thing he's doing, but the reality is that if I can let go and practice letting go of annoyances because there's no point in it, all it does is annoy me and ruin my day for the next half an hour. So now when I go into the gym and he's there, it doesn't even bother me anymore because I've kind of changed how I look at that whole situation. He has a right to pound the thing and I don't need to fix him and I can have a good day just as well.

Tom Leonard 

I think that makes a whole lot of sense because it's certainly in playing games and you're on teams and you're not going to want you're not going to like every single person on every team you're ever a part of and even casual teams or even more so. It's like  if you spend all your time concentrating on them, I mean, it kind of throws you off. How do you get other people into improvisation? Let's say we're agreeing that improvisation, there's all kinds of benefits here to people, whether you're a gamer, whether you're an entrepreneur, that you could benefit from it, you really believe that and you want other people in your organization to do it. How can you recruit them?

PATRICIA MADSON 

Well, there's increasingly improv classes everywhere. So one thing would be to check out if there's not a check online to see improv classes in my area, to see if there's a class, okay? My second thought would be to get a copy of my book or listen to the audio book. This has got some good ideas. You don't have to be in a class to realize that, Oh I can just show up for the thing I need to do, or I can be average, or I can... Some of the things we've just been talking about. There's good advice in the Improv Wisdom book, and it's now available in nine languages, and there's even a Russian audiobook. 

Tom Leonard 

I saw that on your website. I thought, wow, Russian even.

PATRICIA MADSON 

Yeah, I was telling someone that there is a single braille copy in Chinese of this book in a Taiwanese library, of all things. So the book's got is kind of an easy read, a good way to get ideas. The other thing is most communities have some kind of improv groups. And very often those groups here in San Francisco, there's Bay Area Theatresports is one, and there's Comedy Sports in the San Jose area. And there are two or three other people who are teaching improv classes. And they're generally inexpensive and harmless. Even if you think, well, I'm not a comedian, you could probably enjoy taking a class or going to a performance, or just reading a book about it.

Tom Leonard

Yes, yes! I mean, we're definitely but links to your book, because that's what got us here into this conversation to begin with, because one of the things I like about your book is the exercises. Because it isn't just like, preach, and then on to the next chapter. It's like, no, it's like, do these things. And you know, you're opening a little gift in your mind. And it's like, you know, it's like, oh, how did that happen? So it's very practical.

PATRICIA MADSON 

Thank you. 

Tom Leonard 

When you work with young people, maybe this goes back to culture, when you work with people at Stanford that are in as an undergraduate class there, do they think of improv differently than maybe we do? Because one of the things I keep thinking as I hear you talking about all these things that to a certain degree come with age. I mean, it's just like to be able to let things go and look at the bigger picture and all this kind of stuff. And I always think, well, maybe I do that because I'm older. But what about young people? Do they look at things differently?

PATRICIA MADSON 

You know, the reality is I haven't been in a classroom with young people now in about five years. I've been on Zoom, in Zoom rooms with them. I do think that if you wanna call these ideas wisdom, which is a very kind of upscale word for a bunch of living principles, if there's wisdom there, it sort of crosses the specter, I think, of time, of age. And it's certain, I never have any problem with the freshmen in my classes selling some of these ideas because they do them. If it was just listening to me tell you this is good for you, I can understand why. I don't think so. That's an old lady saying, accept life, so there, ah ha ha. But once you've tried something, for example, one of the things is to go home a different way. So when you leave the office today or you're on your way back to the dorm or whatever, wherever you're going, take a different route. So just on purpose, do it a slightly different way. And while you're going that new way, see if you can notice some new landmarks or see things that you hadn't noticed before. We are creatures of habit and that's often a very good thing. If you've got a good habit, hang on to it. But I think sometimes our world opens up when we just try an ordinary habit in a different way. I think also these COVID years means many of us have spent most of our time indoors rather than out with other people. So when you do get a chance to go out, or even if it's on your daily walk, try going in the reverse direction. Try giving yourself, I do the same walk almost every day, but I give myself a different problem. Okay, today I want you to notice how many things in the environment are gray and the different shades of gray. So let's look for the gray things. And then when you see something, name it. Okay, gray cement. Okay, there's a gray tree. Okay, gray bird. And it allows me to work on my powers of attention because that's really what interfaces us with life is what we're paying attention to. If I'm sitting in front of my computer before my game starts, and what I'm doing is I'm ruminating over some problem I've got, something that was happening with some technology that wasn't working and I'm really annoyed with one and on and on and on with my mind going round and round. I'm missing what's around me. I often suggest, in fact, I'll give your listeners exercise right now. Okay, let's everybody close your eyes right now. I'm closing mine and Tom is closing his. I can't see that he is, but I trust him.

Tom Leonard 

And this is the way that we're going to be able to do it.

PATRICIA MADSON 

Okay, everybody close your eyes. Just take a breath and try to imagine what's around you in the room right now. Could you describe the various things that are in your visual field right now? Could you draw a picture of them? Is there, what's closest to you? Are there any color differences? What's the lighting right now? Okay now let's open our eyes and let's look around. I'm gonna look around and notice what I hadn't noticed before. So, oh, wow, that's the pen I've been looking for. Okay. When I look around just to notice the ordinary world that I'm in, I'm not paying attention very much to that.

Tom Leonard 

So when I look up here, you notice the difference. You notice the difference. Yeah.

PATRICIA MADSON

It's true, I'm not in the middle of a game where I'm trying to toss a ball or catch one, but we can always get more out of life if we notice the world that we're in more detail. So I'm a great believer in challenging yourself from time to time, just wherever you are, take a breath, close your eyes, and see if you can remember what's around you. Then when I open my eyes, I'm often shocked at the actual world that I'm in. Does that make sense?

Tom Leonard

Completely, completely. No, because I was doing that from your book. And then just right now, which is really good for everyone, is just like, where'd that can come from? I remember, I brought it in. My phone is right there. It's like, paying attention. And one of the things I like hearing also in your book you're talking about, remembering people's names. Because I don't know, it's like I have this thing when I'm reading a book, I skip over the names. I just, I've always done it that way and then I've gotta go back and who's this person again and so on. And it just makes so much sense to just pay attention, which most of life. One of the things you're saying about doing things differently. I was reading somewhere about eating with your left hand. If you're right-handed, eat with your left hand. And so I'll like once in a while, I'll eat with my left hand. And it's like, well, you know, it's not like I'm gonna starve or anything. It's like, yeah, I can do it. But it's like, it does something different to your brain. That big believer in that. Don't want to be respectful of your time here. What's the biggest surprise that's come up in all your years of doing improv? What is it that comes to mind first that you're like, this really surprised me?

PATRICIA MADSON 

I think what has surprised me is how these ideas from the culture of improv have the power to change people's lives. Over the years, the book was published in 2005. I've probably received two to 3,000 letters and emails. That surprises me that having written down 13 maxims, people read the book and say this made a difference. So something as simple as codifying some ways of looking at things. I think of this as a, I don't know, a mindset. How do you teach a mindset? I don't know. Well, you offer it up and it either is helpful or not. And I guess that's the big surprise is how useful it's been to engineers, to people in sports. I was invited by the Stanford Volleyball coach to come and give an improv class to his players. And so we stood around and we played a game where we pretend to throw a sound, whoosh, and we look at someone in the circle and then they catch that sound, whoosh, and look at someone else and say, me, and they catch it. All right, silly game where we're looking, sending, and receiving sounds. The game was transformational because it woke us all up. Because what we're doing, of course, in volleyball is catching and releasing and paying attention to where the ball is. And when we were throwing these imaginary balls in a fun way, it was a game, we learned something about how we relate to each other, how we make contact. I need to kind of look across the circle and I'm gonna throw it to you and you know it's, uh-oh, she's throwing it to me. So that improv is also a surprising thing to me is its utility across platforms. It's being used to train caregivers for Alzheimer's. Imagine, so with an Alzheimer's patient, they often have some different reality. They're confused and they say different things. And so an Alzheimer caregiver would, through improv training, learn to accept whatever alternate reality the patient has and work with it rather than saying, no, Margaret, you've already had your lunch. So that improv can help Alzheimer's caregivers, it can help people who are first responders in crisis. We've worked with entrepreneurs, we've worked with airline hostesses, that kind of universal app. Clickability of these ideas is another happy, happy surprise. I never set out 25 years ago to write a book that would change the world. I just thought, I know these things and it's useful to write them down. So.

Tom Leonard 

Thank you. Now, that's great. I like when you're talking about how long it took you to write the book. And so many people are like, oh, I've got to do this right over here. It's like, no, not always. It's like there's a reason for things. One of the things that I'm also going to quote in there because I really like it is to enjoy the ride because we're talking to people who are playing games or in an industry that's playing games. There's something about playing games, making up stories, and performing zany challenges that appeals to the kid in all of us. Why is that important? Why is that valuable?

PATRICIA MADSON 

Because play is one of the things that I think keeps us alive. There is so much in contemporary life which is organized, which has a set way of being. In fact, most of our education is learning how to understand and execute systems of various kinds. That's the notion of play, and I mean, I think probably there's a whole show here in someone who's an expert on the word play, that lifts off consequences. Although that's not true. Many of the games that we play have a winner and a loser. And certainly folks like to win. But the process of doing that allows you to be in a different kind of world. Since then, I was just at our family reunion and somebody brought a Monopoly board and I golly, I haven't played Monopoly in a thousand years. And so we all started playing Monopoly. And there was one guy in the group who had a whole bunch of strategies that he was offering to buy up things from people that already had them. I'd never seen that happen in a Monopoly game. I was fascinated because he was dead set on winning, not only playing it, and he did, because his strategies were fascinating, and I thought, that's great, I don't care whether I win or lose, but of course you do like to win, and you're happy when you get boardwalk and put hotels on him and whatnot. I had a question for you, how serious is the winning in these esports leagues and teams?

Tom Leonard 

Yeah.

Tom Leonard 

Very, very. Because you have casual gamers who are out there for a good time. What you find is, what I find is certainly people get together to play games as a social event. And one of the things, I'll be out on Twitch watching people play games and I'm like, “I'm better than these people”. And I am not a good player, but I'm better than those people are. But they are having so much fun together. It's a social event. Man, that's really good for them. They happen to be playing a particular game, but the real goal is to be together. Also, you find across-generational within families, because you'll have kids playing with their dads and so on and their moms. But it's like there's not a whole lot of things in family life that can be so cross generational and just and be important to both sides. It's like, you know, no one's no one's doing it because they're trying to make the other side feel good. It's like, no, they're both trying to win. But on the professional side, it's very important to win. And they spend a lot of time and effort training to get better because a lot of times, and we always like to tell the stories of people going to global tournaments around the world and to qualify for a global event is just a huge deal because then it means that, you know, we're talking to Kwesi Hayford in Ghana, Ghana Esports Association there, and he took his team to Bali to play. And you just think “What would it be like for a team here in California to go to Bali?” Think what a big deal that would be. Think what it was like for his team in Ghana. So we had them, and we had one of the best episodes, in fact one of the wildest episodes. We had all the guys that went to Bali talk about what the event was like and how on their terms, it was life changing. Another thing that we keep hearing over and over again is like, how do you convince your parents that this is real? Because it's been so many times and maybe the best story was, uh, Jadesola in Nigeria, her son made her an Instagram video to explain to her why esports was important to him. And just in general, I mentioned that to Matt and he was just like, wow, he said just from the personal dynamic, you know, of who's the teacher, who's the, who's the student. He's like, that's really, really good. So, um,

PATRICIA MADSON 

Hmm.

Tom Leonard 

So yeah, winning is important, depending on different people. But one of the things that I've found certainly with the people we've come across here in the podcast is just how generous people are. People want to help other people. I mean, some people, they're competitive when they're playing games. It's like life and death. I mean, they want to win. But off of the screen, it's like, no, they're all in it together and it's just camaraderie.

PATRICIA MADSON 

Mm.

Tom Leonard 

that you just don't see in a lot of places. So it's been really interesting that way.

PATRICIA MADSON 

I wanted to ask you too, the work that you're doing to encourage people to use gaming and esports for a variety of purposes to bring them up, to increase the quality of their lives and their own social interactions and whatnot. What a marvelous thing. I was so impressed with that purpose that you're working on.

Tom Leonard 

Thanks. Well, it all came from just working with some people across Sub-Saharan Africa doing Mortal Kombat tournaments and their motivation for doing it. And one of the things that you think of a lot of times people certainly here in the US you think about if you're a gamer, you're a streamer and you're on Twitch and you're an influencer and you've got millions of followers and you're making five hundred thousand dollars a month and everything. And it's like, well, that's only good. And that does happen and good for them. There are tournaments done in Nigeria, and Eniola and her team created an event, a multinational event in Lagos. They hired 280 people for the event. So they gave 280 people there a job for over the life of the event. And so these people made money doing what it is that they like doing. So it's like, you don't have to make a bazillion dollars to make a difference in people's lives. And that's the other thing we always want to do is we want to tell people stories. And that's why this particular podcast is a little bit off the path, because one of the things we want to do is that we always want to figure out ways to tell the stories from people around the world. And so that it's not like some guy in California trying to tell you, oh, this is how you got to do it. It's like, no, it's like, you know, you get to see, you get to see any. You see Jadesola, you get to see Kwasi, you get to see Ronnie Lusigi, and all these people who are doing that because just inspiring them to do a little bit is just part of the fun. And also storytelling is such a big part. When I was a Peace Corps volunteer way back when I was in Fiji in the South Pacific, one of the things happened is they didn't even have television. That's how long. Well, we had television. They didn't have television. 

PATRICIA MADSON 

Mm-hmm.

Tom Leonard

But every night people would sit around and they would tell stories. And they would tell stories. And pretty soon you realize, and I could speak Vigin well enough to participate. They're telling the same story. And when they told the same story, they got the same reaction every single time because they just, they loved storytelling. And the other thing is when I was in Thailand for a summer job, it's like, I never got to see it in person, but I always wanted to see if there were guys who would take projectors out to the rural villages with movies. And out in these villages, no one got to see a movie, but he would project the movie and he would do the voices for every character in the movie. And I think Coca-Cola did a commercial about it. But it's just like, how amazing was that guy out there doing that? It's a little off topic, but it's just something that was just like, people are ingenious about things when they want to be

PATRICIA MADSON 

Oh my god! Yes! Thanks! And we are stories that are, and in a sense, to be human is to have some stories. My husband is a genealogist, and he spends a lot of time making charts and connecting people. In fact, you can see on the walls, there are genealogical charts. And, but the thing he really loves is the stories. And you can take almost any word and throw it into the air and someone will have a story about it, or some memory. We play a game called portkey, where I say porch, and everybody's sitting in the circle. If they have a story about a porch, yeah, my grandmother had a porch. Oh, golly, and at night we would sit there and the fireflies would come, et cetera. And so we just sit around and generate words that produce some kind of a fragment of a memory and a story. I could go on forever. I think that's something we're missing a little bit since families aren't necessarily sitting around the dinner table and I think that's what a lot of the people who are on their devices bring up games and bring up the different apps that allow us to find shreds of stories. We need stories!

Tom Leonard 

Yes, yes, that's what I'm always telling people, the people that I've been working with in Africa. It's like always leading with your stories because that means you have really, really interesting stories that people need to hear. Hey, I'm going to wind down here because I could just keep going and we both probably have other things to do. Really, really appreciate you spending a little bit of time here. And we'll put the links to your book for people to go check out, even if they're in Russian. So I would really recommend people do that. It's just as Matt said, it's a short book, you know, but it's really dense. I mean, people can spend a lot of time. So really appreciate your time there.

PATRICIA MADSON

Great, thank you. It has been such a pleasure talking with you. You're a great host, Tom, and I'm honored to be on it. And now you've got me all motivated to go take a look at some of this gaming. I might end up being a player someday, who knows?

Tom Leonard 

There's one team in Europe called the Silver Gamers, and they play Call of Duty. They play one of the most aggressive violent games out there, but I think they're out of Sweden and they're all, you know, 60, 70, 80 years old, and they are so much fun to watch. So there is hope. So, OK, thanks again. This is the Gamers Change Lives podcast. Play Games, Create Jobs, Change Lives.

PATRICIA MADSON 

Mm-hmm. Great. Good. Thanks, Tom.