Photograph by the author
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In my new book, Be Your Best Game Master: 12 Secrets to Happy, Successful, and Kind Self-Growth Practices, I shared that each of my books, their writing, and their publication was a special turning point in my life. That also happened for Be Your Best Game Master.
Toward the end of the last chapter, I wrote:
“I will forever be grateful to have embarked on the adventure of writing this book and been involved in all the moments this adventure entailed, both exciting and scary, uplifting and frustrating, revealing and confusing, and many in-between. I realize now that I had never practiced self-compassion, self-respect, self-love, and ultimately self-growth as genuinely, truly, happily, kindly, and successfully as I did near the end of working on this book. My relationships with those around me have become warmer, stronger, and more supportive in both ways.“
And I experience every day that this adventure of discovering myself continues.
I will let the book introduce itself, including the reasons for its existence. Here is the introduction in its full shape (5-10 min read). And at the end of it, you will find the book’s description and links where you can get a copy.
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Most of us have ideas about what makes us as persons. If we are not quite sure or when enticed by others, we take personality tests that label us as introverts or extroverts, skilled or not at listening or expressing ourselves, and other skill sets. Then we use those labels to describe ourselves or explain and justify our behaviors.
At the same time, most of us have done something, and most probably more than once in life, described either by those who know us or ourselves as entirely out of character. We blurt something in a conversation, wondering where those words came from.
Every day, we find ourselves confused in small and big ways, not only by what occurs around us but also within our own minds. All the while, we strive to grow and achieve our dreams and goals.
This complex adventure, which comprises a human life, enticed me to write Be Your Best Game Master: 12 Secrets to Happy, Successful, and Kind Self-Growth.
The process of writing this book mirrored the sophistication of a human life. It was both exciting and challenging, also because this book has experienced a drastic metamorphosis multiple times, until it became what you are reading right now. Researching and writing Be Your Best Game Master was a growth process with a steep learning curve for me.
We all want and need to grow. Both physically and mentally. Some of the physical growth slows with time, but to live a full and rewarding life, we should never stop learning and growing mentally.
But how do we grow successfully and joyfully? And how can we take care of ourselves during this growth?
For myself, I discovered many different processes during my self-growth. I am a leader, life coach, parent, and partner for myself, and at times I act as my own therapist. I also explore my emotions, feelings, and thought processes, and try to understand them. By letting myself be led, taught, and live out my inner child, I might act as my own patient. Additionally, there is a researcher, an anthropologist, and a sophisticated culture of one person being studied with curiosity [See more about the idea of being our own anthropologists and studying ourselves as cultures of one person in Chapter 5, “Compassionate Listening.”].
All these processes sound like roles in a role-playing game. In my book, Actual Real-Life Role-Playing Games, I claimed that everything in life is a form of role-playing game (RPG). But only recently have I realized that all those emotions and feelings whirling inside me, and the thought processes running through my head, are one or even more RPGs, too.
Exploring this idea, learning about the gameplay in RPGs in their classical meaning, and writing and rewriting this book several times made me aware of one specific role we all play in the games of our lives. And this is the role of a game master.
The title of the book is Be Your Best Game Master, because we are all game masters of our lives, and the more we learn and grow as we live, the more skilled game masters we become. And the best thing about it is that we can consciously resolve to be our best game masters we can ever be.
When I share ideas in this book with people who have never heard of them, I am met with surprised and excited expressions on their faces, as if I were sharing big and exciting news or even a secret with them. Even after living gamefully for over a decade and writing about this possibility for almost as long, I still feel like I discover many of those secrets myself, some of which have been practiced and known for a long time, but are often experienced anew.
Being my own game master, especially in the RPG that exists within my mind and body, is a relatively new concept for me. It has been about a year, and it is short compared to more than a decade of living gamefully. On the other hand, playing a daily RPG for a year will sound like enough to pinpoint lessons learned to many experienced RPG players. When I think of these lessons, I can identify many of them. I thought of picking ten and concentrating on them, but then two more, equally important, came into my field of view.
Thus, Be Your Best Game Master is a collection of twelve secrets, which represent my biggest epiphanies, both over the years of living gamefully and over the past year of consciously being my mind’s and my life’s game master. And since these gameful practices and perspectives helped me grow happily and successfully, while treating myself and those who interact with me with kindness, this book’s subtitle is: 12 Secrets to Happy, Successful, and Kind Self-Growth.
As you might guess, this book is divided into twelve chapters. They are relatively short, with each one readable within thirty minutes, and some even within ten. The twelve secrets build upon one another and are tightly intertwined with each other, which you will see through numerous references between them. Each chapter begins with the formulation of the secret in focus, followed by a detailed discussion of my discoveries as I explored and contemplated each one. At the end of the book, you will find a chapter listing all twelve secrets. I see this list as your game master’s cheat sheet.
Initially, I wanted to use as few quotations as possible in this book. However, the fact is that I love reading and quotations. So, this book is not different from my others in this respect. But if you read my other books, you will discover many new quotations I haven’t used before. The research for this book was akin to observing other life gamers playing various games in their lives, including RPGs in their traditional sense.
Throughout this book, I refer to my previous works on living gamefully. These include my books, as well as articles I have published online, most of which were published on Medium. Some of these articles are excerpts from my books, and others are standalone pieces. You don’t have to be a Medium member or subscriber to read my articles. All of them are available for free reading.
If you wonder how best to explore the content of this book, I recommend reading it like a novel, or, given its length, a novella. And just as with a novel or a novella, I recommend that you don’t expect reading it to change you. You change every day, every moment anyway. You don’t need to push the change. I enjoy the idea of embracing the change process, whatever it may be.
I hope the only expectations you have for this book are for it to be interesting, fun, and engaging to read. And I hope this book will fulfill these expectations. If it will, then it will be of value. And it will become your awareness booster. That is one of my favorite expressions nowadays, and I find it speaks for itself.
If I were to summarize Be Your Best Game Master with two words, then I would say that this book is about practical self-compassion. Practicing self-compassion is inherent to practicing self-love and involves taking responsibility for how you feel and act while pursuing something, even if others, including significant others, might disapprove. It is not about feeling blissful all the time, because you cannot, and it would not be exciting otherwise. It is about exploring and discovering yourself at every step.
Let’s begin!
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In this unique and surprising book, an avid life gamer with over a decade of experience of living gamefully, Victoria Ichizli-Bartels, shares twelve secrets to happy, successful, and kind self-growth practices.
Drawing on the wisdom of games, in general, and that of tabletop role-playing games, in particular, Be Your Best Game Master provides practical guidance on cultivating self-compassion and self-love as you lead, educate, heal, coach, parent, support, and partner yourself through life.
If you as many others want to learn how to explore themselves kindly and successfully and how to reveal to the world around them and to themselves the best of the best they have inside them, then let Be Your Best Game Master be your trustful companion showing you how you can live in an exciting and rewarding discovery mode of your emotions, feelings, thought processes, and experiences.
Read this book and uncover the collective power of various aspects of yourself, as if they were players in very special role-playing games, your mind’s and life’s RPGs, and keep on winning these collaborative games.
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