Notes from Matt Weinstein’s Presentation

Playfair, Managing to Have FUN, Work like Your Dog, Dogs Don’t bite when a Growl will do, wife
Geneen Roth, Women Food and God…

Picking Partners... can freak your crowd out…

“I try to find ways that are precise to put people in partners, but give them something else to think
about. In a moment I am going to ask you to stand up and put your right first or your left fist in the air…
Find one other person in the room with the same fist up as yours…”

“Creative cheating”
Right Fist, Left Fist
Right fist, left fist in the air
Have your right fist in the air, now put your left fist in the air
Find someone with the same fist in the air and sit down next to them
Forced Choice- find somebody who is doing the same thing as you.
Constructive cheating… if you’re the last one, change your fist to find partner.
Okay, everyone stand up, put a fist in the air, and find a partner, then move with your things to another
place for both of you.
Anybody without a partner?
Here’s why we do it this way: Right fist, left fist, is called a “forced choice” always say find someone who
is doing what you are doing. Has to be the same choice… not different.

Games Pressure
First childhood games- created terror and violence
Created sink or swim
“My company is 35 years old this year… started at a game preserve, adult playfulness thing. Corporate
games for them all to fall in love with each other, we played with childhood memories. It almost became
a violent event… childhood games have a “top of the mtn.-competition” focus, so it became craziness…”
SO, we started to do sink or swim experiences, about the entire team pulling and working together,
focusing on teamwork.

Rock/ Paper/ Scissors (3 symbols- fist, fingers in scissor form, flat palm)
Winner is first to 3 points
1-2-3 shoot!
Winner must hit the loser (need to link fingers- in case of H1N1, no licking)
Let’s get up and do it
Start: basic rock, paper, scissors game… and you and your partner are going play original game

Secret Hand Shake: Before you leave each other, develop a secret hand shake together
Develop a secret handshake together only you and your partner know. So later, if I say go find your
partner with your secret handshake, you can do it.

Share with your partner, what’d you learn, what’d you like: Sink Swim, Win Lose

Get into groups of 4 or 6- great- now exchange partners so you have a new partner. Now dissolve that
group of 4 or 6 so you have a new partner.
- This avoids getting people to sneak out of the room when you are changing exercises.
Tiger, Fireworks, Person
Tiger- ferocious, rooooar!
Fireworks- creative, intuition, ohhh ahhh
Person- passion, inviting, extend hand out in best NY accent “How ya doing?”
Goal is to do exactly the same thing at exactly the same time. No secret handshakes, and no secret
booty Morse code.
1-2-3 How many people got a match?
Again
Final chance
- Don’t choose one this time, let it come to you. Even if your mind says “There is no way she is
going to do tiger again.”

Take a seat
Corporate belief:
Or any that creates more fun and bonds the group
Do I feel any closer to my partner right now? Yes! Even if you didn’t successfully complete the goal. Even
if you went 0 for 3, it wasn’t your fault. It was your partner’s fault.

Now compare the Rock, Paper, Scissors with the Tiger, Fireworks, Person.

Oh, stand up and create a little group partner dance that you two can do together.

Put 1-5 fingers in the air. Find someone who’s # plus your number add up to an even number. Once you
have a partner, stand back to back.

All chairs out of the center

Centaurs were beasts in Greek mythology who were half human and half horse.
Centaur partners: one behind the other, arms up and hands on arms of leader in front.
Stand behind your partner and grab their wrists.
Go greet and meet other centaurs
Centaur “high 5”
Centaur hug
Blow a little centaur kiss
Do a little centaur dance

Start… switch roles

M
ake a little affirmation cheer together, for later connection
Come up with a little pep rally chant that you can use to pump each other up.

Somebody give me that name of an animal

Elephant- what does it sound like?
Dog- Roof, roof
Duck- quack, quack

Close eyes- see the 3 animals walking out of the pond, there is a loud noise and 2 animals run away,
only one is left. Make the loud noise of the animal that is remaining.
Walk around and find everybody else who is making the same noise that you are.
Make a triangle

As a group, choose three positions:

Position 1
Position 2
Position 3
3 symbols… for group
Each group- decide your position

Object: In a maximum of 5 rounds, all 3 groups need to do the same position at the same time without
talking to each other.
Point to person who you think had the most influence on the group’s decision
How many think that we are going to get it on the first round?

Show the position you choose on the count of cabbage.

Carrot, beat, cucumber, potato, lettuce, cabbage!

Okay-regroup-30 seconds. You can do same thing or you can change.

Hands at side, neutral position.

Okay, pick a category.

Pick the month you were born. Shout it out ‘!” you have 30 seconds to find the other people who are
born in the same month.
Mingle to find 12 mo. Birthday circles… Cheer

Shout out your month when I call your month.

Jan, Feb, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
When I say go, January will get up and say their name.

Now there are four seasons of the year.

Winter- Dec, Jan, Feb
Spring- March, Apr, May
Summer- June, July August
Fall- Sept, Oct, Nov
Place in 4 quadrants of the room. Name and point.
4 season groups: form a circle holding hands
Form a circle with your season facing inward.
Yell out number and group hops their number
Yell out a direction, if fit question asked, high 5 in center
Anyone can count a number and a direction.
3 left (group jumps to left 3 times and counts out loud). Person who called out number can call out a
category.
- Ate eggs for breakfast:
Anyone who did walks to middle of circle and high 5’s the place and continues to walk to the other side
of the circle. If not, stand in outer circle.
- Anyone who’s gotten a speeding ticket in the last year
- If you’ve left a pet at home that you are very attached to
Okay do it!

Game: Sub Prime Mortgage

Eviction Notice: tenant moves , house stay together
Subprime Mortgage: tenants stay, house leave
Extreme Makeover: Everybody moves (can become a house or at least after you move)
-Always one person left over- like reversed choice
-You can not reenter the same house-
Goal is to not be left over, and for left over person who calls the next category to find a place.
Option: in each house, person who leaves the farthest away from the room has to move
3 Partners form a house with their hands, tenant in the middle

Diamond Dance
Get into a group of 4 people.
Any group not a group of 4 yet?
Stay in line facing the stage
Line up in order of how many hours of sleep you got last night.
Line up in order left to right by age.

Group of 4
- Left to right put in order of: who traveled furthest, how many siblings
- By age, pets, tallest, etc
- Form a diamond of 4, now everybody rotates to face… different wall, creates new “front of
diamond”
- DIAMOND DANCE: the person in the front leads the diamond
Music: To music
Now line up in diamond shape facing the stage. If you are the front of the diamond. Now rotate 90
degrees . Rotate again facing back wall-person in front of the diamond, raise your hand. (All 4 directions)
We are going to dance and piece of music moves you. When I say rotate you will rotate 90 degrees.
Imitate the dance moves of the person in the front of the diamond. Rotate!! Rotate!! Etc 8X total.

Boss-Employee
Red or Green-Groups of 3- none of who played with today, all of who choose same color as you did
Simple choice, Red or Green… choose one…
Find your color group, GO… make a group of 3
Each choose one of these: Head Honcho, Big Cheese, Top Banana
Top Banana, you are the BIG boss, so you send your two employees out to spread great JOY…keep
sending them out over and over again.
So boss you have 15 seconds to get from your employees what you want, G-rated.
Each person gets one minute to send partners out on a mission of joy. Such as-find people who traveled
at least 1000 miles to be here and tell team how much you appreciate their commitment to the work, or
go hug anyone with a blue shirt on.
Employees, this is not the time for the strike. If recipient doesn’t appear to like or want it, return and
say “mission Impossible” If they ask you to do something you can’t possibly do, just say “mission
impossible!” And bosses will give you a different task to do.
After 1 minute “Return to your boss” and now boss you can ask your employees for some form of
nurturing for 15 seconds. Keep it G-rated!
Repeat for: Big Cheese, Top Banana

Next Big Cheese (Repeat), then Head Honcho’s turn to be the next boss.

Find your secret handshake person and do your secret handshake with them.
-Share what is one thing you love about yourself since we started this morning (1 minute)
Secret Hand Shake Partner: share one thing you learned about yourself this morning
Find your special dance partner
-What do you appreciate most about being part of this Train the Trainer group? (1 minute total)
Make up a Secret Dance:
What do you like most about this Train the Trainer group?
Find your affirmation partner and …them up together
*-Share who you had the most respect creatively for after into their morning so far.
With a new partner, what was the best experience you had with another partner today?

This has been a wonderful Circle

Form a large circle.
Take hands and take baby steps to the left until the person says, “Stop!”
(Then they share positive feedback and share an appreciation of the whole group, to a partner person
who affected you, or to me the leader)
“Go!”
If you think everyone share and all is complete, someone can say “Are we done yet?”
Someone can say “No! Go!”
Or leader can say “This has been a wonderful circle.”

Singing Vowels
Return chairs to original position, all seated, close eyes and imagine your voice in its greatest operetta
sound, all together
Andrea Conducted Happy Birthday, because it is 
Conduct- one syllable at a time
Divide group into 1/2/3 sections
1=E 2= O 3= I

Get into group of 3 then sit down again…

1-2-3-3 about 0-5 fingers
Keep doing it until get full fingers out there if yes, do it with 2 fingers- see if you can get 2 3
Stand up with your group of 3 and make groups of 6
Put hand out, extend fingers to add up to 11, then another number up to 27, work as a group
Next group of 6..No one can stand for more than 5 seconds in a row but always 4 standing.

All of you seated… then stand, and all individually doing own thing…
Always follow the one in front of you…
4 directions, 4 different songs…
Dance to the four directional leaders…

No one can stand for more than 5 seconds, but there have to always be 5 people standing.

What I liked about today- start with A, next statement has to start with B, next with C
-leaves from stage with group of 4
- debrief sessions of the day alphabetically

People much more lose when someone tells them to do it, versus create it themselves
Diamond Dance for whole group in seats
*Option-bring one person up on stage to do a different dance each time
- have them lead us.

“Playfair”
www.Amazon.com

“People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them.” Epictetus (c.55-c.135 C.E)
“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
Joseph Campbell

Ask what’s not wrong in my life right now?