Entrepreneurial spirit runs in the Gable family. Mesa businessman Dennis Gable and his 13-year-old daughter, Nevaeh, recently teamed up to create a colorful card game that aims to boost mental health and cope with complications that come with the isolation of quarantine.
The game, creatively called 52 Card Pick Me Up, is a fun way to identify feelings and emotional needs during a turbulent time.
The game has four suits: Affirm, Act, Feel and Need. Each category has 13 cards that have corresponding words on them. For example, the Affirm cards feature supportive phrases such as “I am content.” The Feel suit focus on emotions such as “spontaneous.”
“It depends on the person, but I like to take out one from each category,” Nevaeh explains. “I just lay them out flat based with the colors and pick whichever ones I feel are for me, turn them over and see if they resonate.”
Dennis says it was designed to be played individually, but it can also be a catalyst for conversations in a group setting.
“I have had people tell me that they’ve sat around and played the game with other people where they lay out all four suits and each person picks four cards and create a dialog,” he says.
The name is an homage to the humor of the practical joke 52 Card Pick Up, in which someone flings a deck of cards on the floor and invites another person to pick them up, but “making it something that is hopefully helpful for people,” Dennis says.
The cards are simple with clean, colorful designs and the game doesn’t require a lot of learning to play. Each card features singular statements such as “meditation” or “grateful.”
“The goal is that it aligns what you’re feeling with an action you can take, whether that’s to show self-love or apologize for something you’ve done,” Dennis says.
And it’s not all positive, Nevaeh adds. Some of the cards feature negative emotions such as “angry” or “anxious.”
“You need to have a variety, which sometimes makes people uncomfortable but it’s good to have them identify what they need,” she explains.
Dennis admits that his relationship with his daughter is “not always rainbows and butterflies,” but the card deck has helped them see eye to eye when they butt heads. Though he acknowledges that 52 Card Pick Me Up can’t heal a relationship, it allows players to identify where they are falling short as an individual and apply that to how they relate to others.
“It’s a tool that can help individually bring some understanding so that you can be in relationships better,” Dennis says.
The cards can benefit anyone from age 5 to age 50, Nevaeh says. For kids, it’s a fun exercise to see the colors and learn what the words mean. It’s also a way for teens to navigate the confusing emotions that come with adolescence. For adults, it can help put things into perspective, Dennis says. And it’s especially helpful during a global pandemic.
“Everything is so chaotic, especially if you’re in the same place with the same people all the time,” Nevaeh says. “It can help reduce conflict, know what emotions you’re feeling and better communication skills.”
