104. Why Locals Need Our Love

Well, hey, my lovely, amazing Growing Small Towns show podcast listeners. Thank you for giving me and my team the time we needed this summer to take a little bit of a reprieve like we always need to do. And frankly, it's not, it's not a reprieve. It literally is just a function of not being able to juggle all of the things with my 3 children home with me all summer. So they officially went back to school. We are officially back in the swing of life and work with a semblance of a schedule, and it's fantastic. So today we are excited to— it's kind of a series, I guess, but that's more for me to know than you to really pay attention to. I think this last year, if you've been following along with the work that we're trying to accomplish through Growing Small Towns, you'll know that we're big fans of trying stuff out, right? Giving things a shot, seeing if it works, that iteration and that trial and error, it just really fits for me. But what I do also know is that at some point you have to be like, okay, well, this— that isn't working, so what is going to work? So with all of that effort this last year, we've also— I think I personally and the team I work with, we've gotten some pretty good clarity around who we really want to support, what we think that support can look like. And there again, like, that's That's legitimately a, well, let's, let's make our best effort based on everything that we've been hearing from people for the last year and put something together and see if we can do it. So, so this podcast today is a bit of an introduction into our thought processes about what small towns can do to remain relevant, to stick around, to be successful, and to grow. So Growing Small Towns really was founded on the idea that people are the difference. And I'm by trade, prior to this work, I am and still am, actually not even prior. I do this work actively alongside running Growing Small Towns as an organization. I'm an organizational development consultant. And essentially what that means is, and I'm going to say I don't have a degree in organizational development. I've just been in the way of these things professionally for well over a decade, almost 15 years I've been doing this kind of work. And so essentially what it means to me and when companies reach out to me and say, hey, we want this or we want that, you know, normally it's like we want to train our leaders. I mean, which is really generic and that's all, that's fine. But I work with the kinds of companies that actually want to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to saying our people are our biggest asset. Like everybody says that. Everybody says that because it's the right thing to say, but saying it and then doing it are two very, very different things. And so I love to work with companies that are truly committed to creating a culture that they can be proud of, a culture that fosters the kind of engagement where people feel like they're so much more than a number, that what they have to contribute, what they have to offer is seen and validated and appreciated. And, and that takes effort. Right? So when Growing Small Towns, when I launched it, some of these thoughts were the thoughts that I had, like, what would our communities look like if we took a similar approach? And there's a few core values that we employed when we launched this, this nonprofit. And that has become— it has crystallized over this last year that those values that we set forth, and they're my personal values, right? Like the things I care about when I think about what would make a community better. They don't just apply to how we operate and run growing small towns. It's also what small towns can actually do. So this next upcoming series is kind of going to take us through— it is my lens, my perspective on what these values could and should look like. And ultimately, the goal with this is to support anybody in a community that has the passion to make things better, and hope in their soul that not only can things get better, but that they will. I want to work with open-hearted and open-minded people. I say that all the time. You know, this last year I really wrestled with— and some of this is just catching you up, I guess, on where we're at, because I think starting a nonprofit with a giant building renovation and all of that, uh, it was a lot. It was a lot to take on. And ultimately, I want to create a sustainable organization that makes the kind of impact that I set out to make when we started this thing. And it's not just me, I mean, it's me and it's all the partners that have— I've met all the people that we've met. But when we first started, it's like, what lane do I belong in? Am I an economic developer? That whole world doesn't really feel like it's quite right. There's a lot of reasons, and I could get into that, and we're not going to. I don't want this solo cast to be like painfully long for you guys. But, and, and, and again, like I've actually experienced times where I've been in a room full of economic developers and I look around and I'm like, This just doesn't feel like— these don't feel like my people. And I do think that that matters. I think very differently about community development. So over the last year, I've been like, where's my place? You know, like, who, who do I belong with? And, and the reason that only matters is because if you're going to try to help a group of people, you have to be able to say, here's the group of people we help. And if you can— I'm not a big fan of labels, but if you can put a label on it and be like, we help economic developers, then that's, that's actually people go, oh, well, I'm an economic developer and I like the way she thinks about things. Right. It kind of gives people like a context or a scope. Well, it didn't work for me. Like, it doesn't feel right. I certainly don't want to work with city planners or city councils or that whole group of people. They're just too government driven for me. I don't think like the government. I won't ever. And I get people asking me all the time, like, are you going to be the mayor? Are you going to like run for this or run for that? And I was like, I just don't. I'm not going to say— I never say— I want to never say never because that's a terrible thing. And whenever you do that, I think you literally call that stuff to you and then you get confronted with the, oh crap, I said I was never going to do this and now here I am. Right. So I'm not going to say that I would never run for public office, but when it comes to the day-to-day work, I really want to help the average person who loves their town and yet wants their town to get better. I, I could, because I believe in growth and I'm not talking necessarily about more people, even though that's something I do care about in my community. We need more people, but I'm talking about development, growth. I am so wired to push myself and the people I love and the things I love, you know, to aim for better. And I don't know why, but that's just my bend. That's who I am. That's how I think. And so So we came to this conclusion, like, well, and it was— I came to this conclusion and I said to my team, I'm like, I just think it's not about their title and it's not about their role. It's not about their job. Like, I really don't care. It's about a type of individual. So going forward, our content is going to be truly geared towards the average citizen in a small town. Like, you're the dreamers, you're the doers, you're the ones getting stuff done. That's how change happens.. It doesn't require committees all the time. It doesn't require city councils. It doesn't require economic development boards. And the reason I think I'm going to be well positioned to continue to hopefully help other people is because I'm practicing this stuff in my own backyard. Because Growing Small Towns has the economic development contract, I find myself in front of those groups of people regularly. And I'm not going to lie, sometimes for me it's just, it's brutal. And it's not because the people are bad people. That's really never the case. Like, I shouldn't say never, 'cause again, never is not a great word. Sometimes it's the case. There are super shitty people in the world. I mean, let's just face it. The majority of the people that we run into where we feel these giant roadblocks or these, you know, just giant barriers, I don't think the actual answer is that they're shitty humans. It's they're mired down in the way we've always done things. They maybe don't get a lot of exposure to new ways of thinking about things. And so my role, my job, what I want to do more than anything is to help people that feel like that, you know, that feel like, oh gosh, I just feel like I hit wall after wall after wall. And I wanna be a place where we can dream together about the betterment of all of our communities. And the best thing about that is that we don't have to compete. There's no competition. Even if you live right next door to me, I don't care. You know, I initially started this organization with the intent to serve 7 counties immediately around us. And over the last year, my mantra of work with the willing and love the rest has really, has really reminded me that it's not a proximity thing. This beautiful opportunity to connect with people all over the country. And I have, it's absolutely incredible the people that we've come to know and interact with in the last year. So that's a tee up to everything that you're gonna be seeing and hearing from us going forward. It, it's not gonna maybe feel that different for you because I think we've always talked about it this way. We've always talked about community development through the lens of cool people doing cool shit in their cool small towns, right? Like, it's just who we are. But today specifically, the topic I'd love to introduce to you— and this is what, again, it's one of our, it's one of our core values, you can find it on our website, that's kind of the nice thing. If you really are like, yeah, do they really do— is this really their thing? It is. You'll be able to see it. But it's the value of growing our own. We believe that our people are our best asset, similar to companies, right? So, so today the suggestion I'd like throw out there is, or like the idea to ponder today is, what if our small communities acted more like businesses? And really, an organization, whether it's a company or a church or a community, right, it's just an— it's a group of people. It's the people that make a difference, and the thing that organizes them is they have to have something in common. Well, in a small town, there's some challenges here. Okay, so I'm going to be very upfront about that. What we're really talking about is culture, and culture is essentially the way we do things around here. I mean, that's a simple way to look at it, right? Companies have a culture, and in the absence of definition, that culture still gets created because people just start to do what they do. And if it doesn't get defined differently, or if nobody says, okay, that's not the best of us, but it's not how we want to be, then people will just continue to do it because it becomes acceptable, right? And that— so that happens. That's why companies need to really take control of the who are we, why do we exist, what's our purpose, what are we here to do, what do we care about, and how do we demonstrate that. That's culture. That's the kind of culture conversations I have with companies all the time. So now you try to translate that conversation to a community, and here's, here's where it gets tricky, right? There's no boss in a small town. You can say that city council or whatever, your mayor is your boss, but that's not really true. Like because he can't fire anybody, even if that person, he or she, if your mayor happens to be female, right? Even if your mayor, if you want to call that person the boss, that's fine. But that person doesn't get to fire people. I mean, there are probably reasons you can, quote unquote, kick somebody out of your town, but the mayor's not the one doing that, right? So it's a challenging concept to think, okay, well, so then what does that look like when Everybody's kind of independent and there's not something binding us together. But again, the commonality in a community is our zip code. We do belong to each other. And personally, I think if we don't start acting as if we belong to each other, looking for ways to honor, support, and help each other, I think we're missing an incredible opportunity. And so this is essentially about I'm going to try to quit saying the word essentially. This isn't even essentially about— this is about loving the ones you're with. And I've talked about this a little bit before, but it really has become even more crystallized for me in the last year working with the people again in my, my own town and all the other towns that I talk to. There are already people that have chosen our community. So this, this idea of growing and like, how do we get more people? How do we attract new businesses, new people, new, new, new? You're never gonna— you're never gonna hear me argue that that's not a good thing to do because I love change and I I love bringing new and interesting things to my community. I'm saying it's not a both, it's not an either or, it's not an old guard versus new guard. It's a both and. What if we actively chose instead to love the ones that are already here? I reached out to my friend Jeff Sigler, who is the founder of Revitalize or Die. He was on an episode with us talking about civic self-esteem, which was a really cool episode. I encourage you to listen to that one. We'll drop that one in the show notes. But I asked him, I said, you know, Jeff, you do a lot of writing and speaking about the danger of being tour— like so tourism focused that you build your community for the non-resident. And so he and I, I will say he and I diverge in thoughts in some respects. And I, I don't know, I don't know. I get to, I gotta, I gotta bring him to North Dakota. That's really what I wanna do and have a really cool conversation with him in real time with real people in the audience. He's in a much larger market. Than we are. And so I don't know if he just sees the detriments of externally focused development and how much it's ruined his city. I don't feel like our community— I still feel like we really do a pretty solid job of helping our local people step up. But I do think there's an enormous untapped potential, like latent potential of time and talents and treasures and skills that we haven't tapped. And if we think about this differently, we may actually grow without having to recruit another single person to the community. I mean, this is really, again, like companies, and this is why my brain thinks this way. It's like in companies, you've got two people strategies primarily. You've got retention and you've got recruitment. We often think of them as like two separate things, but really they're two sides of the same coin. I don't find any joy or delight in the notion of constantly looking for new people. Like, it's like a never-ending hamster wheel. To me, it makes a whole lot more sense that we would start with the ones that are already here. I mean, companies get that, right? It's like they know that it's, it's like the Harvard Business Review actually says that it's up to, it can cost up to 25 times more to get new customers than to retain the ones you have. Well, why wouldn't the thing, why wouldn't that be the same with people? You know, and again, furthermore, if we create a community that people are really so pleased to stay in, that becomes a beacon of a quality place to other people. And, you know, if, if everybody in your community hates living in your community, how are you gonna get anybody new to even look at it? So again, it's not that I'm not a fan of visitorship. I love the idea of external investment, cleaning up our local economy. Those are things I talk about and I also practice them. I also think we have neglected our own people. So what Jeff had said was, he goes, "I'd like to say it this way, like dance with the one that brought you, make your residents the star of the show, lift them up, make them wealthy, make them happy, turn them into small business owners and developers, give them the greatest place to live that ever existed. And I promise all of your other problems will fade into the past." And I love, again, I love that because it's people-focused. I think again, it's a both and, but today this is what we wanna talk about, or what are some ways that the average person, again, you don't have to be a city council member, you don't have to be the mayor, you don't have to, you don't have to have any official title. You just have to care. Here's a few ideas for how we can do that. Okay. The first thing, and again, I, I'm a fan of simplicity and the kinds of things that are both free and easy if you just focus. So here's the first idea. Is really to champion other people, be their biggest fans. You would think that that's not hard, but I think we forget about our immediate circles of influence. Every single one of us has them. And when the world, the big broad world gets too heavy, that's actually what I do to remind myself like, okay, there might be difficult, hard things happening all across the world. What's happening right in my own backyard? So, you know, thinking about my kids, my family, the people I, that I do work with and interact with. That's our immediate sphere of influence. So this is simply thinking about how do we, you know, if we pay attention to the people in our immediate circle and we notice them doing cool things, what are some of the things that we might see? This doesn't have to be business owners. It doesn't have to be people doing amazing things. They're the people literally that just by being who they are, they make your life richer. This is deeper than a thank you, at least in my mind it is, because again, If we can isolate the actual personality trait or the skill or the ability that they have, that when they use it, it makes our lives better, they start to feel seen and actually valued, not just because they're our neighbor or because they're nice. Like, there's a richness to this activity that I'm really hoping that you, that you take seriously. So I share in the blog post from this week a few random things that you could acknowledge. So First day of school in my hometown, my middle son, it was also his birthday. Um, we get out to the bus stop and we always take a bus stop picture in our neighborhood. And one of the other parents was like, we were gonna sing to, you know, to your son, but didn't wanna embarrass him, whatever. And I, in my head, I'm like, I wanna sing to him, but I don't, I don't wanna embarrass him either. If someone else does it, he's not going to actually be as embarrassed, right? As if his own mom did. And then blasting out of our other neighbor, neighbor's house comes this other mom and she just like, She, we take the picture and she goes, we gotta send to Carter. And she just started, it was that kind of, it's, that's a special thing. And I, I texted her and said, gosh, like, thank you for doing that for him. It was special. It was awesome. Right? So that's something we have a bunch of young people, iGeneration kids, right? That are, that we tend to be like, oh, they're so entitled. They don't have any work ethic and they can't communicate. Like that. These are the things I've thought, I will admit. And and/or have maybe seen and definitely hear other people say. So what if, you know, you notice a young, a young person working at your gas station and they actually demonstrate a pretty rockin' set of customer service skills? That would be something to stop and actually say to them, like, you are doing a really great job. And then again, not just you're doing a great job because that's not enough. It's like you demonstrate really phenomenal customer service skills. It's so cool to see someone your age doing that. That will help that child understand, like, again, we get what we reward. So why are we, instead of bitching and moaning about, but like, nobody volunteers anymore and nobody does this and we can't get people to show up and we can't get this, we can't get that. Let's reward the good. It's average, ordinary local people is what we're talking about here. Not, um, not the people with titles, not the important people because everybody's important. Again, the other thing with this is we talk a lot about the 80/20 rule, right? Like 80% of the work's done by 20% of the people. And I think the reason things like that become clichés, because there's some truth to them. But what if every single one of us committed to acknowledging these little acts of awesome in our immediate circle? What if that 20% shifted just 1%? What would happen in our small towns if 1% more people got involved because they actually felt like they mattered? It's a kind of cool thing to consider. And again, all the people that are like, how do you measure your success? I was like, I don't know, it feels better to be here. Like, I— again, if you want data and like metric-driven stuff, I'm not— you're not going to find that here because culture isn't necessarily— it isn't always that easy to pinpoint. But there certainly is correlation. There's correlation. It's maybe not causation, but it's correlation and correlated positivity, like good results that are correlated to simple efforts. I will take those wins all day long. So here's the suggestion today. Just take 5 people you spend the most time with and start with them. What are they doing to make a difference to you? And again, focus on the trait or the characteristic that they show you that you actually love and appreciate that makes your life better. I think, you know, raw enthusiasm, it's highly underrated and it's free, guys. So be their biggest fans. All right, the second is to help people find their way. For people to want to stay in a place, and this is the same for companies, BTW, it's the same. It's the same. It's a principle of engagement. People want to know that they feel their individual contributions are validated, needed, wanted, that they're seen, that they're not just a person. You're not just a number, but that you have something special you bring to the table and we see it. So close your eyes for just a second and imagine the impact of every single person in your small town. Being just slightly more turned on. And, you know, I'm talking about like, they're— that the turned on is that feeling of like, like juiced a bit. Like, I have this thing to give and I'm able to give it. It's, it's that feeling of fulfillment that we get when we are able to contribute. Can you just imagine that? I mean, every single one of us has a light inside of us, a, a light to shine, and that collective turning on would be like hundreds or thousands of those lights. Our small towns would be like little beacons of hope and awesomeness. Like, isn't that the coolest thing? And I honestly think that the, uh, you know, the principle of the 80/20 rule, the Pareto principle, the official name for it, uh, it wouldn't be a thing if more of us felt like we were turned on like that. So a lot of times the challenge here is that when it comes to getting people involved, we continue to just keep approaching the projects or the, the programs or whatever, like whatever the thing is, right? So let's say the festival, We approach the planning of that thing exactly the same way every single year. And then we get pissed because nobody wants to show up and help. Well, we aren't making it easy to get involved. We're not saying like, we need people that think like this and any of you are welcome to help us craft this thing. Instead, we're like, we have volunteer slots between the hours of 2 PM and 4 PM. And what you're going to need to do is bring 2 dozen pans of bars, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, all of that stuff. I get that there's logistics. To everything. I understand. I do a lot of events. I do a lot of events. I do a lot of things that require a lot of logistics. But if we can let go just a little bit of our real specific ways that we think things need to be and look, and we can allow a little bit of chaos, a little bit of mess in the process, more people will engage. So I want to tell you the story. We had this cool opportunity in Oaks where we did these— we auctioned off leaves. They were laser cut out of steel, and we had businesses sponsor a leaf, and then they worked with a local artist. Now, artist is in air quotes here because a word like artist, like, sometimes kind of makes people go, "Oh, I don't know if I fit. I'm not an artist," right? But so really it was just giving everybody in our community the opportunity to express their creativity. And right away, my chamber director, Kasia, she and I were like, well, how, you know, how, what the, what the hell's even gonna happen with these? Like, they're made outta steel. Like, what are people gonna do outside of painting 'em? And, and even right away people were like, we don't really get it. Like, what are we doing? We're like, we don't really know. We're just trying it. The idea came from a board member, a business got involved. Like, it was kind of a cool way. Like, people started to kind of all help us form it. Well, we ended up with 26 leaves and every single time somebody brought me into my building. This is where we had them on display during our big festival this summer. Every time somebody brought them to me, I was like, that is so cool. How did you come up with that? How did you do that? And it was an amazing display, like a physical display of exactly this thing. When we, when we get out of our own way and we let people get involved, really cool things can happen. These leaves, I mean, my goodness, holy, they were they were designed with mediums like fiber. A woman put like 14 hours into hand needling hand-dyed fiber. It was amazing. It was like a landscape. There was a gal that did a whole like needleworking, like almost like macramé. It was super cool. There was somebody that decoupaged on theirs. There was a lot of hand-painted ones, but there was different mediums of paint. It was just the coolest. So The whole thing is, is that we sometimes let our rules for how we want to do the thing get in the way of why we started the thing in the first place. And that's, that's what we want to avoid. Because if the reason we started something was to bring people together and have them experience joy or connection or delight or whatever the thing is, sometimes our stupid rules make it the exact opposite of all of that. So what does it look like? To let go of some of that. So here's, here's the suggestion, the challenge to you. Um, consider all the things that you're involved with and actually think about like what kinds of talent, skills, and abilities would really make a difference, like would help this thing be better than it is. So then there's two follow-ups with that. Either make a social media post asking like, who in our community has this skill? We're looking for people that look, that look, think, act, whatever, like this. That or the other thing. Okay. If they respond, simply invite them to lunch and say, you know, or coffee and, and tell them about what you're trying to do and say, you know, gosh, I love that you responded. I had no idea that you're able, that you're capable of doing this kind of thing or that you even care about this kind of thing. It's so awesome to be connected to you. That's the other thing. We think we know everybody. Well, we don't know what, unless we've asked, we have no way of knowing what people's actual drives and desires are. So then the second thing, if there's already people that you know that you would think would be a great fit for your thing, also invite them. And, and instead of being like, I'd like you to chair the committee, I'd like you to join my board, I'd like you to, you know, again, man the booth from this time to this time and bring the bars and bring the blah blah blah, just say, we have this thing that we need to do, we need a lot of help. Is there anything that you're particularly drawn to that you'd be interested in helping us achieve with this thing? And I get it, you might be like, yeah, that's not going to get done, Rebecca. And, and maybe not, I mean, maybe not, but I'm telling you, I've seen it way too many times where I'm like, do you want people to support this thing or do you just want to control the thing? Because those two situations, they're mutually exclusive in a lot of situations. And then all the people that are controlling everything, they get pissed that nobody gets involved and then the thing dies and then everybody's pissed. But then someone goes, oh, what if we revitalize that thing and it looked like this? You know, sometimes the thing has to die a natural death. It's just the way it goes. So let go of the rules if you can to some of the things that you've been clinging to for decades and try to see if you can let others change the process for how it gets done. You might just be surprised at how many people want to contribute. And again, it is an engagement principle. When people feel like they're valued for their individual contributions, they're more likely to stay and matter in a way that they maybe haven't in the past. Okay, number 3, here's the last one. Just quit waiting and asking for permission. You don't need permission from everybody. Sometimes, yes, certain projects will require formal approvals from formal people, um, and when that's the case, like, good luck to you, you know, where the, the government people are slow and they're— it's like slow to act. They're black and white. They love the rules. Those of us that come from the private sector, you know, we're adaptable, we're flexible, and we think ahead. Like, we're vision-oriented, right? They just don't mix that easily together. So the biggest thing that I see with this is where we have what we think is a really great idea, and then we want to outsource it to the city or to some committee. We can't expect to shame people into taking on our vision. They're never— other people are never going to love our ideas as much as we do. That's, that's the thing that we need to just be honest about here is like, if we want to see something get done, we can't outsource that and expect other people to take it. Now, at some point, maybe someone else will take it if you pilot it and beta test it and whatever, and it kind of has some legs. Like, it might get taken over by somebody else. But I think it's also just a matter of, if it doesn't get taken over, why can't we just be happy with the run that something had? Right? Again, it's, it's your idea. It's fitting. There's so much value that comes from us implementing our ideas. And if it doesn't matter if it doesn't last forever, right? So the other thing along with this is this waiting for permission. I often hear in my own town and other towns I work in that there's just a lot of perceived nepotism, just meaning favoritism, right? Like if you don't have this last name, then you can't get anything done in our community. I'm sure that there's there's a baseline truth to this, probably. But at some point, if we really want to thrive, this argument of like, I don't have the right thing, or I'm not the right person, it's gonna have to fall away. The best ideas are the ones that get done. It's not— the best ideas aren't ushered forward by people with certain last names. They're the things that actually get done. And trying things out is how we learn and grow anyway. So how can you test your idea? You know, don't ask for permission. Ask 2 to 3 other people, friends that, that agree or that think it'd be cool too. And then think about what a simple, small way to test that might look like. Now, I struggle with that part. Let me be honest. I don't really do things small. I'm like, no, I just, I wanna do it and I wanna do it right. That's, that's okay. Just, it's a tougher lift. You're just gonna have to realize that it's a lot of work. If you can test something small with just a handful of people, you know, the risk is less and the, the, the fall is less if you, if you don't, if you're not successful with it. I will say, If any of my fellow rulemakers, like traditional structured folks, are listening to this, like you're a city council person or you're an economic development person and you're thinking, I don't want us to be the roadblock, here's the question I would ask you to consider. Because there are all these rules, we have all these reasons why we put all these rules in place. Sometimes we're creating rules for the exception instead of the 90% of the time situation, and that's unfortunate. I know we love rules because then we can say, but we're treating everybody fairly. But I do think sometimes that some of the rules that we've created, again, we're not talking specific laws that get handed down from like your state century code. I'm not, I'm not talking about that. But even those things can even be changed. I get that it's not simple, but I'm talking about, you know, community. Again, this is a piece of culture, just like the things that we've come to accept as facts and has to be this way when really maybe they're open to being changed. So if you have rules like that, here's the question. All rules, I feel like, need to have this question is, uh, what if the rules that we employ were less about what we can't and won't do, as in coming from that place of negativity, and more about what we can and should do? Can you imagine that reframe? Like if, if you went into a board meeting and instead of going like, what's the roadblocks? What's the obstacles? What's the problems? What's the hangups? Because that's what we do. We're wired to look for those immediately. What if instead we went, what's the vision? What's the hope? What's the possibility? What's the potential? That's an— that would be an enormously different way for these groups and boards to, to focus. So, so again, knowing that you, dear listener, may not be one of those people, I hope that these 3 things are things that feel like something you can do. And maybe, maybe even just the, the very thought of thinking about how can we grow the people that are already here? How can we give them more opportunity? How can we support them differently? What do they need to fall back in love with our community? Because they're the ones we're with. What does it look like if we would invest more fully in them? So the last thing I'm going to leave you with today is, this is a quote from Henry Ford, actually. I use it, I've used it kind of flippantly actually in training because it's just such a common thing. As he said, the only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them. Them and having them stay. That's 100% true in companies. We don't want unmotivated, untrained, and unhappy employees to stick around. But I would suggest that why would we want the same in our communities? Why would we want disengaged, unhappy, disgruntled people to remain in our community? And so while growing our own isn't a magic bullet, I mean, none of these things ever are. Just while we're all thinking about how do we attract new businesses, new ideas, and new people, let's not forget about the people that are already here. And that 1% shift, that 1% incremental betterment, what would that do for the people that you live and do life with? Let's help them. Let's help them grow. They already belong to us. And honoring the ones that are already here is really a great place to start if the goal is to find more. So, um, with that, welcome back, friends. I'm, I'm so excited to be back, uh, recording with you, having a schedule, my brain really likes a schedule. And like I said, we're really going to be focusing on the average cool person trying to do cool shit in their cool small town. And again, sorry for the swears. It's— they're light swears. That's just how I am. We try not to take ourselves too seriously, and yet we're really committed and dedicated to the work. And it's hard work. The kind of work that we're talking about is— it is hard. But you are not alone, and we are always, ever cheering you on. So until we talk to you again, I would— by the way, the, the last thing too is if you listen to this and you take any of these tips and actually implement them, please tell us. We love nothing more than to give shoutouts to our listeners on future podcast episodes, or even just highlight you on social media. Like, if, if you've done something really cool, we want to share those stories. There's— because again, this is part of taking back the narrative, right? Like, if we aren't sharing the best of our stories, then we're letting people that aren't with us tell it. Um, and we need to take control of the story. We need to market ourselves, and we need to be damn proud of the hard work we're doing. So if anything lands with you, or you see any cool results of implementing any of the things we talked about today, my goodness, please send us a note. Let us know. We'd love to celebrate with you. Okay, friends, have an amazing day. Until next time, keep doing what you can with what you've got, right where you're at.