#303: Lara leads a discussion about leveling up inspired by Mass Effect and a really good therapy session. We discuss the various ways we metaphorically and literally level up in life, and how we experience feedback systems.
Transcript
Link Keller 0:11
Welcome to Geek Therapy radio on the Geek Therapy network where we believe that media matters and we care about it. And when we talk about it, we understand ourselves and other people better. I am a host, not the one maybe you were expecting. But I am a host, Link Keller, and I’m joined by my two glorious High Definition co hosts, Josué A Cardona.
Link Keller 0:42
and Lara Taylor.
Lara Taylor 0:44
I just can’t even.
Josué Cardona 0:47
This wasn’t bad.
Lara Taylor 0:48
This wasn’t bad.
Josué Cardona 0:49
This isn’t bad
Link Keller 0:50
when I tell you how quickly I got sweaty.
Josué Cardona 0:54
I don’t hate it
Link Keller 0:55
just immediately.
Josué Cardona 0:57
Yeah, yeah. No, I’m good. Welcome, everybody. You okay, Lara?
Lara Taylor 1:03
I will be.
Josué Cardona 1:05
Okay. Good. It’s your topic, because we need to. So whenever you ready?
Lara Taylor 1:12
I’ll do some breathing, you know? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it is my topic. So I want to talk about leveling up. Does that mean? What does that mean? Yeah. I mean, you know, in games, we level up. Why can’t we level up in real life too?
Josué Cardona 1:27
Amen. No, let’s do it. Let’s do it.
Lara Taylor 1:31
I spend a lot of time leveling up. I’ve been playing Mass Effect one, I just beat it like, a week ago.
Josué Cardona 1:38
Now you you reset to zero?
Lara Taylor 1:39
Now, I reset to zero. It’s okay. It’s okay, I got a bunch of benefits for importing my level 45. Shepherd. So
Josué Cardona 1:47
I like in real life a lot more like in real life when you start a new job, but you have all that experience from the previous experience? And then and then yeah, yeah, it helps, you know,
Lara Taylor 1:57
um, but this topic came up, because I, when I’m working with clients, there’s some times where they’re like, I spout a lot of bullshit. Sometimes, you know, therapists, there’s a meme, I’ve seen going around, like a therapist will open their mouth, and you never know what’s going to come out. And but there are times where I drop little kernels of wisdom that I cannot remember as soon as I say them. But I had a client this week, one of those kernels of wisdom came out of my mouth, like, Whoa, I never thought about it that way. And then they had this realization, and then it was like, I feel like I just leveled up. And I was like, That’s amazing. Um, how’d that go, conversation about like, now I have more experience, or now I’ve got these skills and things like that, um, we stretched the metaphor quite a bit in that session. But I think about things like, there’s those kinds of breakthroughs and things like that can be leveling up, but also, other ways we can level up in life. Oh,
Josué Cardona 3:07
yeah, yeah. Yeah. So so so they they said, like, I feel like I leveled up like, yeah, like, I mean, of course, don’t go into detail about about what it was. But like, from your perspective, when they said that, what that? First of all, why did you immediately understand what they meant when they said, Because?
Lara Taylor 3:27
Because I’m a gamer, and because they’re a gamer. And I think, at that point, we, earlier in the session, we’ve been talking about, like, we’d both been playing Mass Effect. And so that was a, that was a thing, too.
Josué Cardona 3:42
Did you understand, like, what they meant by leveling up, again, conceptually, but like, what they leveled up in, like, which stat suddenly went up?
Lara Taylor 3:52
Not necessarily, I think what we kind of compared it to, and this is earlier in the weekend, like I said, in most of the stuff just like things go out of my head, I’m dealing with like 35 people a week, it’s, it’s okay. Um, or 31 people a week now. Um, so one of the things that happened was like, thinking about like, what I said was like, when you go and talk to somebody in an MMO or something and you get like an item that you need to turn in a quest, and then in their brain, they had like, experience points go up, and then I leveled up DING above their head, you know. It’s great. I love it.
Link Keller 4:37
They had a quest, the quest was to go to therapy. They went to therapy, they got the XP points. That was enough boom! level up right there. that was it.
Lara Taylor 4:40
That was exactly, exactly just just a little bit, just a little bit. But I think that you know, this client’s been seeing me for a while so they’re getting experience points every time they come to see me and we Have a moment like that or, or similarly, like, just doesn’t have to be like, Oh, I just leveled up and I don’t always drop these like wisdom bombs, but like, just gaining skills and things that they can do and information to perceive situations differently. So if it was a stat that something got dropped into, probably wisdom.
Josué Cardona 5:27
I like it
Lara Taylor 5:27
just saying
Josué Cardona 5:28
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lara Taylor 5:30
Yeah, I was I first my brain was like going to intelligence but like, no wisdom, wisdom.
Josué Cardona 5:37
They had all the information already. This wasn’t new information. It was it was definitely wisdom
Lara Taylor 5:42
seeing it in a different way. Yeah,
Josué Cardona 5:43
yeah. Yeah. I like this. I like this a lot. Yeah, we talked about a ha moment and, you know, understanding stuff, but I have been good. Leveling up. Yeah. You know, Jane McGonigal, his books, the one she did super better when she designed that game. She talks about this. In the super better book, there’s, there’s this concept of a powerup. And I’ve always used that language. And with clients, even ones who aren’t gamers, they kind of get it right. It’s like, What’s something that energize you fills your batteries blah blah, etc. But like, what’s a powerup? But But pumps you up, but makes you feel better. But that’s different, right? That’s like something. It’s like a like a temporary stat boost. It’s like, it’s not actual leveling up and going up. And that’s a that’s such a, but it is it is a feeling that I don’t I think about that all the time. Like in my head. I’m like, oh, like I just leveled up in this. And but like, it’s hard to count, what would be the non gaming? What non gaming terms? Would I use, or have I used to describe that?
Lara Taylor 6:53
you learn something?
Josué Cardona 6:56
No, because it’s
Lara Taylor 6:59
the other parts of the metaphor I want to get to don’t necessarily have to do with learning something or gaining knowledge.
Josué Cardona 7:06
There’s more? Go for it. Oh,
Lara Taylor 7:08
I mean, we’re talking like, what other ways are there in our lives that we can level up like, I can now that I’ve been hiking every week, and hiking every other week with my dad, and he pushes me a little harder, because he likes to hike more than I do. I can go for three, four miles now. And the beginning of the pandemic, I could barely make it one mile without being exhausted. So that’s leveling up. I’m about to possibly take a promotion at my job, and I feel okay about it. And that’s leveling up. I feel like in some way.
Josué Cardona 7:47
So wh...
