We were lucky to catch up with Lynn Potyen recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lynn, appreciate you joining us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

For six years I helped my eldest son, Erik, navigate his learning disability and one day my husband suggested that I should use what I was learning and share it with other game players. My biggest concern was that there was no template for a game store that focused on brain health. I wanted that to be the center of everything that I did.

There was always the potential risk that the world didn’t have an overwhelming need for something like I envisioned. Not just learning disabilities but aging brain issues, socialization issues, and critical thinking, gameplay was a vehicle to help people learn. The biggest problem was that a store like that could be stagnant or fail if I pushed the envelope about brain health too hard.

As of now, 18 years later, we have succeeded in delving deeper into game play for brain health and in March of 2024 we won a global award from GAMA for Outstanding Contributions to the Games Industry. Initially my goal was to help my son to be successful socially and academically. By playing games I saw he could tap into a depth of learning, proving that his crucial thinking skills were solid even though he was not able to verbalize or write the things that were stuck in his brain. My passion has now encouraged an entire industry to think about games in a different way and evolve games to be more than memory makers.

Lynn, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

As with many successful businesses, The GameBoard began from a very personal need. In 2000, my son, Erik, was identified as having a severe speech delay. Later he was diagnosed with dysgraphia, which is a neurological writing disorder.
In response I created, The GameBoard, which was unveiled as a solution to bring innovative game play to all, stimulate brain development, and advance critical thinking. In the process, countless individuals who have been diagnosed with challenges of many types have been helped, and the community as a whole has been enriched.
With each individual I have worked to create a custom pathway. By getting to know a client, playing a few games and seeing the potential of improvement, I can recommend games and how to use them successfully. Sometimes I need to customize rules and game play to meet those goals. I am pleased with the improvements I have seen over the years in the people who pass through our doors. We take great pride in helping others build memories and skills.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I started this journey of building a business at the age of 40. I had grown up in a generation of women still being told to stay at home and have children, be a teacher, or a secretary. I was the generation of girls that were told that ‘only boys play role playing games’. When I was 18, my own mother told me I wasn’t smart enough to go to college. On the other hand my father heard that she had said that and made sure that I had a college education. He encouraged me to reach for the moon.

I married my husband, Mark, who believed in me and saw my potential even when I believed what society told me. Many years later when he encouraged me to build my own business I was doubtful, as decades of conditioning melted away, he built up my confidence. He has always been a supporter of the women in his life, from his mother, to me and to our daughter. For instance, the first time I attended an industry seminar he asked me what I learned, I was disappointed and replied “I already knew what they were teaching” and he said “so you learned you were right.”

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Perseverance, dedication, unfailing attention to my son’s success and therefore the success of other individuals I was coming in contact with. My biggest success and biggest failure is that I am very much a ‘Mom/Aunt’ first and I lean into that reputation, it has always been my armor for pushing the envelope and getting people to try things they wouldn’t normally try with others.

About four years in we had a group of severely handicapped adults brought to the store to have a game day and I had three tables set up with volunteers at the other two tables, at my table I had a nonverbal person. His caregiver kept trying to tell me that he was not going to be a participant in any of the games but I noticed that he was tracking everything at the table with his eyes. He was very involved. I brought out a game that he perhaps would be interested in. It had a rocking clown where you had to place balls on the body. I sat there and worked with him and asked him to pick up a specific colored ball. His caregiver said he didn’t know the colors. He just stared at me, reached out and grabbed the correct colored object and put it on the clown. The caregiver was surprised she didn’t think he knew his colors. Later I asked him to put the ball on the clown’s left hand. The caregiver said he didn’t know his left from right. He stared at me, leaned in and put the ball on the clown’s left hand. I told the caregiver not only does he know his left from right but he knows perspective, because he put it on the clown’s left hand. He stared at me, I could see that he was locked in and no one had ever reached out to him. And he was stuck with people who didn’t know what he could do and had never tried.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.the-gameboard.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thegameboard/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thegameboard/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynn-potyen-beckermann-a5bab215/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@The-GameBoard
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-gameboard-sheboygan?osq=games
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@thegameboard?lang=en

Image Credits

Lynn Potyen