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Live Your Possibilities

Speaker: Matt Payne

4/26/2025

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Today I want to tell you

  1. To ponder possibilities on previously profitable phenomena.
  2. To not get stuck in a local minimum
    1. Be stochastic!
  3. To think about dungeons & dragons
    • And other ways local minimums have been avoided.
  4. To OODA loop!
  5. To know that Starfish > Spider
  6. To build families
  7. To have fun!
  8. To Live Your Possibilities!

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Be stochastic?

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That is to say:

EXPERIMENT!

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simulated annealing is fun to talk about.

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Why? TM has money problems! Read Mike’s blog and

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Around 3:45 into the broadcast of 3/26/2025 board meeting

“”Introduce the club excellence initiative focusing on strengthening existing clubs … not yet sufficient to ensure our long term sustainability how our clubs and districts perform effects of members and our bottom line.”

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“Difficult but necessary financial and organizational decisions”

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What to do? Experiment with:

previously profitable phenomena!

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  1. Gillette razors
  2. Ethernet!
  3. D & D

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D & D?

“the D&D Open Game License 1.0a was a pivotal moment that fostered a massive expansion of the D&D and tabletop gaming economy by empowering creators, increasing content availability, and ultimately attracting more players to the hobby.”

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Phil Edwards’ YouTube rocks!

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These stories are example of avoiding the local mimimum

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Escape local minimum trap with

  1. Experimentation!
    1. Be stochastic!
  2. OODA (aka Science!)
    • Observe
    • Orient
    • Decide
    • Act

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Experiment with good humor!

  1. Respect
  2. Integrity
  3. Service
  4. Excellence

Excellence does not have to be only proportional to sales. Eg. NPS is good too.

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Barcamps

Breadwinners

Coffee talks

Lean Coffee

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Starfish > Spider

  • Learned this idea from a YouTube of Rachel Myers’ talk at GitHub.
    • Being a starfish is about building resilient communities without single points of failure.
  • There’s also the starfish story, a reminder of how one person can make a difference.
    • It’s about my favorite part of my Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the courage not to give up on what I think is right, even though I think it is hopeless”

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Recommended read: Amy Poehler’s book

Amy talks about the rules of improv that begin:

  1. Say “yes, and!”
  2. Add new information.
  3. Don’t block.

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Pump YOU UP to Live Your Possibilities!

  1. Spread the joy of better listening, thinking & speaking
  2. Demonstrate service & leadership in organizing events beyond club meetings & contests
    1. Try Breadwinners
    2. Try Bar Camp!
    3. Try Coffee Talks
    4. Try Lean Coffee
    5. Try YouTube videos & shorts
  3. Make starfish!
  4. Avoid local minimums

TM must do A, B, C, & D. And may do anything else in the alphabet too!

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