Giving Up?

You may of heard I gave up my position as Local Coordinator for South Houston D&D Adventurer's League. That's not the whole story and I feel the air needs clearing.

In The Beginning

The previous local coordinator wanted to take a break in April 2015. He was getting burnt out. I decided, why not try it? How hard could it be? Riiiight?

I quickly learned how easy it was to herd cats in comparison.

With a steep learning curve and no personal coordinating tools, I attempted to scale the cliff.

Another thing I learned was about 80% of players don't care about what's going on as long as they get to show up and get a game in. That bothered for a few month. I mean how dare they be so entitled after all the work I did to get a game for them. Looking back, I see the hypocrisy in that statement. I also saw why Shane got burnt out.

There Can Be Only One

Now at that time there were 2 local coordinators for the Houston area. Myself on the south side and Maurice and later "Cornbread" on the north side. We agreed to split our authority on the east to west interstate highway that ran through town, I-10.

Then "Cornbread" had to move to midland. I became the sole coordinator for the entirety of Houston.

People from Humble, Katy, and Baytown were looking to be to get them in games. In short, I became overwhelmed, overnight. I needed a new strategy.

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

Fortunately by this time I discovered people who did care and were more than willing to help. Henry and Marc on the West side, Michael on the North Side. I was able to start redirecting people outside of my small radius of influence to them. They made life as an LC a lot easier. I cant thank them enough.

What's more, not long after Shane came back and took on the role as an event coordinator. Life as a LC was great again!

Winter is Coming

As fall fell, my wife took a job in downtown Houston. Little by little, I had to miss games. I struggled with this and more than once I had to make last minute cancellations.

So if I couldn't run games anymore, the least I could do was bring value to my community with actionable content. I subscribed to over 100 rpg blogs and curated the best of the week to distribute to the SHAL community.

I shortly realized I was horrible at written communication. To get better, I decided to learn copy writing. Awesome rpg content creators like Mike Bourke, Neil Litherland, and Justin Alexander inspired me.

So did expert wizards of writing like Seth Godin, Demian Farnworth, Jim Rohn, and Zig Ziglar. By reading their words daily, I watched myself profoundly grow.

Looking back, I'm amazed at my progress. My messages became concise and I began to fit more value into smaller space. My retention rate with over 80% open rates for several emails.

Of course, I couldn't have done it without the great feedback. Thank you Rosember, Bill, Scott, John, and Lucas. You were great motivators for me to build better content each week. It also made my next decision much more difficult.

Twilight

I found myself torn. Torn between personal development and rpg news. I knew I needed to grow, to lose weight, to get energy, to level up in life. But I didn't want to give up the community I built.

It was healthy and vibrant and I was connecting with so many gamers across Houston. The great members who helped me out when it was just me were now local coordinators of their own. I become friends with several great rpg content creators. Tribility even asked me to guest post for them.

I had a great following online, yet still I was torn.

So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish

I didn't give up my position. I decided to let it go.

SHAL had 5 LCs and a growing community. It's in great hands with people I trust to tend it well. I decided to let it go and make 2016 a time for personal development and growth.

Of course all the knowledge I gained as local coordinator couldn't go to waste. I couldn't just discard all the wisdom from so many great people .

No. I decided to create a support network for gamers who are looking to level up in life. To face, overcome, and slay their dragons.

Do you have Dragons?

Are you overweight, have anxiety, struggle with depression? It's hard to overcome it until you face it. It's hard to face it when you think you are alone.

You are not alone.

Join our growing support network of gamers who are looking to level up in life. Together let's face, overcome, and slay or dragons. Together let's level up in life.