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b'There is a moment in the history of Strong Towns that has become legend both inside and outside of the organization. For those of you that haven\\u2019t heard about it before, it was the most important pivot point in the direction of the movement.\\nAndrew Burleson\\u2014our Board Chair then and now\\u2014was standing up staring at a collection of Post-it notes on the wall. He had just walked us through an exercise to sort those notes. On each one was an idea\\u2014think of it as a program\\u2014of what the organization could do. There was about three dozen Post-its representing the ambitions, dreams and aspirations of those of us sitting in the room.\\nOur problem was never trying to figure out what to do. Our shared objective was to change the development pattern of North American\\u2014no small feat\\u2014so there was a nearly infinite list of things that needed to be done, stuff we could do. The difficult question was always deciding what we should do. Most pointedly: What do we say no to? What opportunities do we pass over and what do we focus on?\\nAndrew\\u2019s sort had challenged us with two questions: First, what do we do well? Second, of the things we could do, what would be the most effective in furthering our mission? We collectively haggled over the answers, sorting as we went.\\nAnd then, magically, there appeared in front of me one of the greatest moments of clarity I\\u2019ve ever experienced, where all the things we did well clustered with the things that mattered, providing powerful guidance for what I needed to do with my life.\\nTwo out of the three things we said we could do ended up on the scrapheap, including doing consulting work for cities (the thing I had done for two decades, knew well, and\\u2014no small point\\u2014was currently paying the bills and keeping the organization in business).\\nThe Post-its that were left had no easily discernible business model, but a much clearer path to changing the world as we understood it. We decided that we would focus on (1) creating compelling content, (2) distributing that content broadly, and (3) nudging people to take action. We decided to put all our efforts into developing our ideas and then getting them out into the world, with a focus on making them actionable for people.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\nAnd that\\u2019s what we\\u2019ve done.\\nBecome a member of Strong Towns today by going to https://www.strongtowns.org/membership.'