Welcome to Classically Trained: Life & Leadership Lessons from Classic VIdeogames

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Welcome to Classically Trained: Life & Leadership Lessons from Classic Videogames

Welcome to Classically Trained: Life & Leadership Lessons from Classic Videogames

At first, you might be thinking “How do life & leadership lessons go with videogames?”

I remember while growing up, parents and others adults telling me that no one would pay you to play video games, that you would not get a job doing that.

Also, the claim that “Videogames will rot your brain,” was common – but research actually contradicts this. There are even some interesting applications of videogames, including an important role in how surgeons are trained.

Surgeons who play video games three hours a week have 37 percent fewer errors and accomplish tasks 27 percent faster.

~ Dr. James Rosser Jr.

Basing his observation on results of tests using the video game Super Monkey Ball. 

Videogames may even help prevent Alzheimers.

What I want to do here is share with you my experience – as a lifelong gamer, I have 30+ years of gaming experience, and I grew up during the age of the consoles in the 80’s and 90’s.

I am also a retro game collector, and while not the largest collection, I have a pretty good start – I’ll post various items from my collection under the “Game Shelf” section of this site.

I also have a professional career as the Manager of Organizational Development, where I train leaders, Directors, and managers on topics like Time Management and to communicate effectively.

Personal productivity is area of great interest to me, and this site is about the marriage of these topics with videogames.

I’ll be sharing lessons learned from videogames, as well as what I have learned from real world experience and reading, and I will integrate the two worlds.

I expect this to be a lot of fun (at least for me!)

I hope you’ll stick around for the games, the lessons, and some great conversation.

I’m all about helping others succeed, so if you have a workplace challenge or an area professionally that I can provide some insight and strategy for, let me know!

3 Responses

  1. Matthew Ray

    Great premise and clever name. Looking back I learned valuable skills like resource management and number sense from games like Sim City, Oregon Trail (during elementary school on an Apple II), Red Alert, the list goes on. I look forward to reading more.

    • Jon D Harrison

      Hi Matt, thanks for commenting! Those are all great games for learning and practicing some important skills. Oregon Trail was always bittersweet for me, as I arrived in Oregon after losing half my family to dysentery.