110. 5 Things Holding Small Towns Back

Well, hey, Growing Small Towns listeners! I'm coming at you solo today, and again, it's never because we don't have enough cool people doing cool stuff in their small towns. That's not the situation at all. But I often, again, have these moments where I think to myself, okay, this is like the 6th time I've been asked this thing. And so when I start to see that theme emerge, I think I don't know, maybe our listeners, we should have a dialogue about this. So today I wanna share with you, and again, this is my perspective, friends. I feel like I've learned a decade's worth of stuff in the last several years having launched Growing Small Towns as a 501, tiptoeing into the world of economic and development, civic engagement, community development. And I never claim to have all the answers. What I promise always to you, to the people that read our blog, to the people that come to us for help and support, is that I will share the best of what's working and share the best of what sucks. Because when I say the best of what sucks, it's because that's where all the learning takes place. We always want to hear a good success story. Everyone wants to be part of a winning team, and we become winning teams by trying lots of things and having those apparent, uh, quote-unquote failures. These 5 things that I believe are potentially holding small towns back are certainly going to be things that fall into the arena and category of people stuff. I, over the years, have struggled to articulate, like, what the hell do I exactly do, right? Like, people ask, and now I'm just like, what's people stuff? That feels pretty dang straightforward to me. There's people in organizations, there's people in churches, there's people in homes, there's people in communities. As an organizational development person, that's what I do. I'm always thinking about, like, how do we switch— either switch the people around, how do we provide them with more skills, how do we help them figure out a skill, or give them a tip or a different way of thinking about something that helps them get different and better results. That's 100% what org development is about. It's about the, the maximization of people. So these 5 things are going to be very much on the side of, let's call them mindset and attitude shifts, And again, like, I've blogged a lot over the past few years, done a lot of podcasts, and I think we are never going to be able to change anything if we're unwilling to call a thing a thing. That's a hard place to be if your community is struggling, if you've lost major employers, or you've had some, you know, a natural disaster, or you've had something, or you just look around and you think, okay, we're not as good as we could be. Well, that's everybody, guys. Like, I just wanna say that it's okay to look around and say we could be better. People get fussy about that, you know, just like, well, how dare you? And I say, well, how dare we not? Okay. How dare we not point out the things that we could be doing better and then think about what would happen if we shifted that just 1 tiny percent. So today is all about these 5 things that I think from my work that might be holding small towns back and also Ideally, maybe what we could either do about them or what we could encourage people to do. Again, always knowing that we don't get to tell anybody what to do. We don't get to force them. We don't get to, you know, if we could change other people, then none of these conversations would matter and I wouldn't need to do org development because everybody would be figuring their own stuff out and we'd be mandating all of the stuff we want people to do. Wouldn't that be just swell? Okay, so here is And I was gonna say without further ado, but there's always an ado. It's me, come on. Here's the 5 things that I think might be holding our small towns back. Number 1, we lead our thinking with constraints. We are constraint-led thinkers. And/or if you are like, no, I'm not Rebecca, I don't think I am either. But I will say that we often have people in positions of elected leadership or city government or economic development Oftentimes, those folks tend to have more of a constraint-led thinking way about them. Now, okay, when I say it's holding us back, again, just like recognize that there's a reason that the government might be more prone to being constraint-led. It's kind of what they're supposed to do. So what this comes back to is, why do we keep going to the government first, or these groups? Where we know this is what we're going to see. So I'll just tell you, and I'm going to reference a few of our past podcasts too that I think maybe give you more on this if you want it. The one I'm going to reference on this happens to be another solo cast with me, but it was episode 103 where we talked about keeping your fire lit. So people that have— that are the natural devil's advocates, or they're the natural one to point out all the ways in which something might go wrong, we 100% need those people. I would like to suggest we don't need them at the beginning of something. Because here's what I think we forget. There's a few things we forget as we're— and again, like this idea of constraint-led thinking. It would be like a new initiative or a new idea gets mentioned or brought up as a, what if we tried this? And so if you go, what if we, automatically there are groups of people that go, oh, well, if we did that, then this would go wrong, and this would go wrong, and this would go wrong, and this would go wrong. And you just sit there and you're like, well, God, that seems like a way down the road problem. And so what I— so there's a couple things here. First, it's recognizing that at the beginning of the selling or the enticement and kind of buying, you know, getting that buy-in and, and commitment for an idea, it really has to be about vision casting. We have to be able to articulate the future that a successful implementation of this idea or thing would look like. How we're better, how the people in the room are better. I think that's another thing. And this is kind of a— this is maybe a 6th thing. And maybe throughout these 5 things, you're going to hear extra things. But this is the thing, too. We forget how selfish people are by nature. If you were to ask yourself the question of, like, why might somebody lead with constraints? Well, one reason could be just fear. It could be fear of losing something. It could be fear of screwing up. It could be fear of failing, quote unquote, publicly, right? It could be fear of a lack of relevance. That's something that holds small towns back all the time. We're gonna, again, we're gonna talk about that more, but right now we're talking about these people that just immediately go, well, here's the 15 ways that's not gonna work. So the first thing is just to simply say, okay, I get it. There are obviously a lot of things. And then also, if you don't have a fully baked idea, how do we ever get beyond that if everybody throws up the obstacles, right? So if you say, okay, I can appreciate that. Instead of finding all the ways and all the problems, 'cause there's certainly going to be things and obstacles that we've gotta overcome down the road. Let's just talk about the pluses and minuses, the merits of the idea itself, and try to get people back on the why the hell are we doing this, okay? So I wanna share with you an example locally here in Oaks. There's this beautiful little green space across the street from our facility on Main Street here in Oaks. I said all of that twice. That was super redundant. Across the street, there's a green space. It has— it's flanked by two buildings. There's a fence along the back. I mean, it's like you look at it and you're like, oh, that's a nice little park. But there's— it's never been developed. And by developed, I simply mean there's not intentional seating. It has no plantings with any real intention or design. There's no public art in it. And to me, I look across that street and I simply light on fire thinking about what it could B. So we started kind of pitching this idea, and when I say we, it's me and our chamber director, and we presented it to the chamber board. Everything— the chamber board was all excited and on board. The community is also very excited about it. So here's the deal: we have a hell of a lot of hows to figure out. Hows meaning the how versus the why. But we have to start with the why because we And again, like government officials and elected people, sometimes the why isn't compelling to them. All they think about is the hows. How are you going to get this done? What do you need from us? How much is it going to cost? How, how, how? And so I think it's recognizing that those people have to play a role, but maybe it can be further down the road when you need challengers introduced into your idea. And again, that comes specifically from episode 103. So I encourage you to just listen to that. But really it's dream casting and vision casting. So it's two— this is kind of two things how we overcome this. One is to help people get back to envisioning the why versus the obstacles. That's number one. And number two is just simply recognizing that constraint-led thinkers are always going to exist and we actually need them. So just thinking strategically about when do we introduce our idea to a group of people that likely is going to present all the flags, red flags, problems, and issues. That might come up. Because again, if we underestimate anything, it's the incredible things that a group of impassioned individuals, grassroots, average people in their communities can get done when they really give a shit about it. It's incredible. Okay, so number 1 was we lead with constraints. Number 2, we underestimate the cost of doing nothing. So I just was on a podcast with a gentleman who does this great podcast up in, it's called the Rendezvous Region, which is in northeast North Dakota. He had me on his podcast, and he— this was the question he asked me, is like, what do you think is one of the biggest things holding small towns back? And this was actually my number one answer. So again, I have found myself in a position throughout the past couple of years where this problem is, is a looming issue, this thing that everyone's like— and again, it's like everyone knows we all have kind of perpetual problems that just never get— they keep coming up on your monthly agenda, but they never get addressed or fixed or moved, and it's because we haven't landed on like what we consider the perfect magic bullet plan to attack that thing. And I found myself in a situation where I've been like, what if we tried this? And what if we tried that? And so everything I talked about with number 1, I physically feel in my bones, like I deal with it all the time. But this is a thing that I've now started to turn back when I find myself in those situations, and I say, okay, This is great. If what I'm proposing doesn't feel like something you want to pursue, let's talk about what happens if we do nothing. Because I don't think that a lot of boards in particular, or I would even say organizations— this isn't just relegated to community groups. I mean, this is every organization. Again, I'm an organizational development consultant. Sometimes that aversion to risk becomes so strong that we forget that life is risky inherently. And again, that there's this enormous cost if the decision is to just sit, stay still. It's like people have forgotten that doing nothing is a choice. So I want to remind people, it's like, okay, well, we can't ever take all of the risk out of something. If there's zero risk involved, we're not actually changing anything or moving anything forward. So when did risk mitigation become risk aversion? And how do we engage people in that conversation. And the last thing I would say about this too, and they all kind of tie together, I mean, this is all attitude stuff, right? But one of the things I find just wildly fascinating is that sometimes I think we forget where we came from. So in Oakes, North Dakota, we were organized. I don't— I won't know the exact date. Okay, let's say it was late 1800s because I'm thinking— I think it was actually 1888, I think, because 'cause we had a centennial. I think that's right. Pretty sure I was 8 years old when I put on a little prairie girl costume with my mom and walked in a pageant. Okay, anyway, pretty sure it was 1888. When our forefathers, the pioneers that started my community, when they came here, they built what we live in today out of absolutely freaking nothing. Like nothing, guys. And so when we can't see our way forward for something that isn't really that big of a deal, I sometimes I'm just like, whoa, what would our pioneering founders think of us today? Like, we're not building, we're not starting over ever. We're building on really cool things. And so sometimes I think we just need to remind ourselves of that. Like, hey, we've always been pioneering people. Imagine the risk involved of putting— again, I mean, I've told you guys a few times, we're quite geographically distant, right? It wasn't as if we're 10 miles outside of Fargo and our forefathers came along and said, we should put a town here, it's nice and close to that big town. No, we're, we're 110 miles from Fargo and 70 miles north of Aberdeen, South Dakota. We are geographically like far from things. So can you imagine the risk of the people that showed up here? And it's just this flat, desolate dust bowl with no trees and like nothing. We had some— we eventually had railroads put in. That was obviously partly why our pioneers came in. But think of the enterprising nature of those humans, and let's tap back into that, because that's what we need now, is some pioneering, innovative, fresh way of looking at stuff and not being so damn afraid of taking a little risk. Okay, number 3: we treat today's decisions as if we are the only ones that will benefit or not from it. We treat our decisions that we're making today as if they're only about us. This is a frustration of mine. Again, like, I don't only mean to come on here and be like, "I'm so frustrated," but I, I want you to know that as I have these conversations, these are the some of the things that I've started to say back. And always, always hold space for people's differing opinions by just saying, you know, I can appreciate that. That's an important thing, like showing that empathy of like, I'm listening to you. And you can even say, I totally don't get it because I don't see it that way. So let's talk about that, right? Like, it's just a dialogue. And again, I feel like some of these things are just these good human-centered skills that we suck at because we've been out of practice. Plus add on like the stoic nature of kind of our culture and the fact that we're bootstrap kind of people and we're— we work hard and we put our heads down and we don't bitch and we don't complain. Well, that also means we're not talking, we're not actually dialoguing, right? So it's kind of been fun to be me and how I've always been wired moving into this time where I think this kind of skill set is freaking important. And obviously we're not seeing it play out on any sort of national stage either. So these are the things that I start to say, like, okay, so how this plays out— we treat our today's decisions as if they're only about us. It plays out like this for me when people say, well, I don't want that. So I'm going to give an example, and this is, this is kind of a tenuous example to share, but it's an example. You know what, I'm not going to share a real life one because I don't want to hurt anybody. Like, that's not the point. Let's just go back to our pocket park. There are definitely people that have said out loud, like, I don't think we need all of that. Or like, "I wouldn't go sit there." And I always smile and I say, well, it is, it's amazing though that we have this opportunity to offer amenities to a diverse group of people. And it wouldn't be fun if all the people that made all the decisions only did things that benefited them because that doesn't build community. How do we encourage a sense of belonging for more people if we're only building things that a certain small group of people wanna see? That doesn't actually make any sense when you think about it. So sometimes we just need to challenge people. And again, not challenge them in like a confrontational kind of way, but simply saying, okay, well, that's, you know, it's interesting. Have you thought about it this way? Or what about— I love to say, what do you think the people that move to this community 10, 20 years from now, what do you think they're going to want? Isn't that a fun— and I was just like, isn't that a fun thing to ponder? Because sometimes it's hard for us to see beyond today, and I understand that. Yet that's exactly what we're doing. These big decisions about what goes in, what goes out, what we do, how we do it— it's not about just us. And I am very forward-focused. I think about my kids, and I don't know if they're going to end up coming back here to live, staying here. I have absolutely no idea. I'm certainly not going to force them to do that. But I would love to know that while I was here, I created a community that they'd want to come back to. Whether their lives bring them back this way or not, that's not the point. The point is just, while I've been in this role doing this work, have I helped to make this community better? And I understand that better is subjective, but I'll hold that tension. I'll be like, yep, it certainly is. So, and then if people get really fussy, I'll just be like, well, what do you wanna see? Asking people that question, it really forces them to cut the bullshit. Okay? And I'm talking about really difficult people, you know, the ones that are just like, they hate everything, they hate change, they hate visitors, they hate quote unquote traffic. Like they hate Irrigation Days weekend, which is our big summer festival because just too damn many people like that. She'd be like, okay, well, so what makes you happy about being in a town? What do you wanna see happen here? And again, I am also will say, if you just can't crack the nut, just move the hell on. Like we don't have time. We don't have all the time in the world to entertain these kinds of conversations, but this is one that comes up in public discourse because we forget that it's not just about today. All right, number 4, I see us having a general unwillingness to right-size ideas. Now, a couple things here. So I've gone to a lot of conferences, and what I find challenging is that oftentimes the keynote speakers and the people that are standing on onstage are talking to us about these amazing things that have happened in Atlanta and Denver. And I don't know, pick a smaller city even, and you just go, what the— what this— what's the relevance of this for me? I live in a town of 1,800 people. But I try really hard not to get that pissy about it because— but it is a lift. I mean, I think that's something to recognize. Like, so if you're— I'll just say, if you— if for some reason you are listening to this and you are in a position to host events like this for small town people, take that into account and have your keynoters don't just share their textbook standard bit that they do if they've done something awesome. Have them think about what would you tell small town people in the room? How would you tell them to adapt what you've done to make it fit for their community? What are some ways that they could do that? Because that's the lift that every single one of us that's attending these things has to do. We come back home and we're like, oh my God, that idea, that was so cool. What would that look like here? And you start asking yourself that question and it just sometimes feels overwhelming and kind of insurmountable. So again, like, if you happen to be like an event planner person, or hey, if you guys are listening and you're like, you know, the people that plan the conferences that you like to go to, that needs to be said, especially if it's meant to be for small town people. I mean, for heaven's sake, make it simpler. Okay. But nonetheless, I do want to talk about this because I have been told— I'm going to share again 2 examples going back. The Pocket Park is one, so I'm going to come back to that. But we have along our Main Street, we have a lot of second story apartment units or residential units. And I would say right now, 80% of them or better, probably. Yeah, 80% is probably pretty solid. Are undeveloped, not in livable condition. Okay, so if we've got 15 units up there, which I think could be reasonable if we just count all the ones along our Main Street— so again, these are second story over commercial Main Street businesses— if we had 15, then we've got like maybe 4 that are rentable right now, like in condition— well, maybe 5 to rent. So yeah, my, my numbers are a little off. Whatever, don't come to me for math, okay? All I'm saying is there is an opportunity for us as a community to say, okay, how do we renovate these things? Like, what would be an interesting and creative way to renovate them? You know what I have talked about, and I've brought some people in that have done this, and we've talked about maybe we condo out and like actually legally separate the legal description between the main street business and the upper floor. Because the challenge here is that most of our main street business proprietors actually don't want to be landlords. So challenge, right? It's a challenge, but it's not, it's not insurmountable. Like, this has been done other places. Well, I bring this up one time at a meeting with all of the elected groups, like all of them, the Chamber, our Economic Development, and our City Council. And I said this to them, I said, you know, at a time where building out real estate, like a footprint, is so, so expensive, doesn't it seem like it would make some sense to try to get creative about how we could turn this existing footprint with infrastructure that's already in place. Hey, City Council, looking at you. Like, you don't have to— we don't have to add anything to it, right? What could that look like? How could we make that happen? And the first thing out of somebody's mouth around this table was, well, that seems like a Fargo idea. And I looked at him, and again, going back to number 2, where it's like we forget where we've come from, like— or that was number— yeah, it was number 2, where we underestimate the cost of doing nothing. Uh, this came in at this moment because I looked at him and I said, our entire community was built like this. I mean, the reason these buildings, these over 100-year-old buildings are here the way they are is because it was built that way. So yes, the proprietor living in their upper unit, managing their business beneath or below, while that trend has kind of gone away, the entire premise isn't a big city premise. It's how our small towns were built. So that was interesting, right? I'm like, I— that doesn't seem accurate. And also I just said, is it a big city idea or is it just smart? How do we engage in that conversation where we're not just minimizing an idea because we happen to only see it done in Fargo? I get super fussy about this. Like, I wanna be the community that goes, no, we figured out how to do this because it's smart. So the park then, the second thing, I just have to share this. So we had, again, our Chamber of Commerce is actually moving forward to purchased the lot from the private owner. And then we have this big massive plan. We have an interior— or not interior designer, excuse me, landscape architect that graduated from NDSU, lives in our community, does a lot of landscaping around here. And it was so fun to sit down with him and just be like, this is what we're envisioning. He helped us map it all out. We've applied for big-ass grants, haven't got any of them yet. We're working on it. Okay, that's the truth. We have a lot of hows to figure out. But after we had engaged in this process. I, one weekend this summer, happened to be in Fargo with my 3 kids. So my kids are 13, 11, and 8, and we went down to a Saturday event in downtown Fargo called the Red River Market, and it's held in their Broadway Square, which was developed by a development company. Like, it's a whole thing. Like, how they got that done is obviously going to be very different than how we get it done here. But I sat in a lawn chair and I did just this quick video. I was like in freaking heaven. First of all, I mean, they serve some beer and they serve some spirits, and that's always really fun. It was a beautiful day. They have this amazing, like, these amazing foam blocks and awesome stuff. My kids just had a freaking blast. And my kids are— I mean, it's not like my kids are super picky or anything, but it like— I was just— I was like, my kids, 13, 11, and 8, are playing as if they really like each other. Like, this is rad. And I ran into people I knew and I sent Kasia, our chamber director, I sent her this video and I just said, this is what we can create across the street, this kind of feeling. And so I, so I'm just even more convinced than ever before that our community will benefit like crazy from having an activated space like that. And I've sat down now with the developers of that park and talked to them about the fact that we're trying to do the same thing. Because you know what, guys, if it's been done in a bigger city, there's a way to right-size it for your small town. You just have to get creative and you have to stop leading with constraints, because there's tons of constraints. There always is. But the best things, they don't come easy, right? You got to work at it. That's number 4, this unwillingness to right-size ideas. And the last one, and I'm gonna— I'm really gonna defer to 2 previous episodes on this one, along with the consultant that works heavily in this sector because he's brilliant, but we accept sliding standards. My new friend Jeff Sigler with Revitalize or Die, that's the name of his Facebook page, I highly encourage you to follow along there. His episode with us was episode 99, and we talked about combating apathy. We talked about civic self-esteem, like, and really, so for me, I'm going to put this in Rebecca language, which is always a little bit crude, so sorry, sorry about you, but It's giving a shit about how things look, about, you know, making sure that we take pride in how things look because how things look is a reflection of how we feel about ourselves. That's why people try to take care of their physical bodies because when you look good, you feel good. And again, it's not a vanity thing. It's literally like we take care of the things that we're proud of. That's human nature. So the thing I wanna talk about with this that I find kind of interesting is that this discussion, and it kind of goes back to the apartments above Main Street as well, Because again, while talking about that, at one point one of the board members I was visiting with said, well, that seems like a problem for the property owner. And, you know, I looked at him and I just said, you know, you're absolutely right. And, and by the way, that's the other thing— don't try not to say but, try to say and, or just put a period on the first part and then launch into the second. That's just a quick human relationship tip. The but just negates everything. It creates walls. It's tough, right? So I said, you know, I, yeah, I can, I can totally see that. And you're right, it is their responsibility. And every single property in this community, there's a public benefit or a public detriment to it. And that, again, I think that's something that we're just not willing to talk about. We're like, oh, we don't want to tell people what to do. Of course we— yeah, yeah, you can try. You can walk up to some— you knock on someone's door and be like, your house looks like crap, your yard's too long, get it done, do something with it, you're embarrassing us. Sure, that could be your approach. However, I think there's a way maybe that we could engage in that dialogue without being so direct and without being hurtful. First of all, I would encourage you to, to ask the question maybe in your own community, like, what are our city codes? Especially if you've got a, just a real eyesore of a property where you just drive by it and every day your heart kind of sinks. Because I'm telling you, if your heart is sinking and it's your hometown or it's your place where you live, where you call home, You better believe that it has that same effect on visitors. And every visitor to your community has the potential to be a resident. I don't know if you've ever thought about it that way, but it's 100% true. People fall in love with places all the time when they visit. Again, I think like we let it slide and we— and then it's just this slow, this slow slide into apathy. And Jeff, Jeff talks about it a ton. He talks about— he actually just recently posted just chasing after deadbeat landlords. Like, if you have landlords that are owning commercial property and they're not taking care of it, or even residential property and they're not taking care of it, get your city council on them and enforce your codes. And if you don't have codes, then have the city council make sure they get some codes in place, because the enforcement of those things is really the only way to continue to kind of weed that crap out. Also, I think there's another episode— it was episode 102 with Aaron Baker. He talked about engaging in a huge, like, community almost service project kind of day. There's a really cool episode that was done. It's done through and with just regular people, pulling people together. And what that does, that idea of going out and massively tackling projects, it helps to be— it helps a community, the people that care, to be the thermostat. That's a phrase I've said a lot because we can't force people to do things. But if slowly around you, you you improve everything around the shittiest property on a block or on a main street, that starts to clearly stand out. Now, if it's a person that has no self-esteem, it's not— that's not going to be enough. I can totally appreciate that. However, there is also just that internal need and desire for us to at least keep up, right? I mean, it helps. And as an economic developer or community person or something, if you end up just fully improving everything around one thing, especially if it's commercial property, you can knock on that business owner's door and say, hey, I just want to tell you that we're here to help you. What can we do to help you get your storefront looking like the ones around you? And if you position it like, hey, we see this. I hate to hear this kind of feedback coming around, you know, being told around about you and your storefront. 'cause you have an important business and your storefront doesn't reflect the quality of your business. Let us help you. They may still just be like, who the hell do you think you are? Get outta here. And if they do, yeah, fine. But nobody's saying that to anybody. We're afraid even to start that conversation. I have engaged in several of those conversations, not specifically about storefronts, but when I hear something negative about a local business, I tell them. I tell them if it's something that is actually happening. It's just people bitching and moaning. No, I don't share that with everybody. But I think about it like, okay, I have a storefront, I have a business, I would want to know. And yeah, that's a personal gauge, but that's how I decide if I'm going to use my voice to tell that, to share that difficult feedback with another business owner or not. So this interesting discussion of when does private property become a public good, my take is that it always is. Because every single, every single thing that's owned privately is publicly viewed if it's external and outside. So I think this is a call to, call to arms, kind of a call to hearts, a call to courage to help everybody level up. And I get it when there are people that don't have the funds and don't have the money and blah blah, but then that becomes a need that a nonprofit organization or a community club or some group can and will serve and figure out. So get your arms around the need. In our community, there's just enough to go around. And that might sound super elitist. I think generally speaking, that's the case. Now there are, and again, like if you are living in a community that has a serious economic depression right now, I never wanna minimize the pain of that for you. I never ever wanna say anything that makes you feel like I have no clue. What you're feeling or what you're going through. That might actually be true. I understand that there's big gaps between people that have resources and those that do not, and that's where the government can step in. That's where nonprofits can step in and fill those needs and those gaps. I'm not saying any of this is simple, but all of this discussion today is about being willing to engage in conversations in a different way. Challenge people back. When you hear people saying some of the things that we talked about today, I, I'm hoping some of this equips you with a different approach so that you can say something different back to them instead of just walking away so angry and frustrated that you become bitter and cynical. Because as a fire starter in your community, as a person with dream— like a dreamer person that really wants to see things grow, be progressive, and be inspiring— you're gonna burn the hell out if you don't start to adapt some of the way that you speak to these people and respond to people, because it's, it's hard work. It's really, really hard. Okay, so I'm going to recap real quick. These are the 5 things I think are holding our small towns back right now, and hopefully this discussion has provided some different ways maybe of looking at this. And again, I, I'm using these things, I'm not saying they work every time. I'm sure I walk out of a lot of rooms, people are just like, oh, thank God she's gone. But that's whatever, I— it's part of the deal. This is the way it was made, guys. So, okay, number 1 is that we lead with constraints. And/or we allow ourselves to be deterred by constraint-led thinkers. Number 2 is we underestimate the cost of doing nothing. Number 3, we treat today's decisions as if they're only about us. Number 4, we show a complete unwillingness to right-size ideas, claiming that they're only meant for big cities when typically that is not the truth. And number 5, we accept sliding standards, which leads to apathy and a lack of civic self-esteem and pride. Okay, so that's it. As always, please share this episode with your friends and loved ones, other people trying to do cool stuff in small towns. They're the people that we wanna know, they're the people that we wanna help. And that's all I can continue to do is encourage you as I encourage myself. I look in the mirror and I'm like, "You got this, Rebecca. You can do this." So I'm gonna say that to you. You've got this. You can do that. You don't have to do it alone. We did open up our small town support group It's on Facebook right now is how we're running it. And it's completely free because we really do want to be a place where people like you can come ask questions and say, how would you handle this? Or have you had to handle something like this? And what did it look like? So there is no reason for you to do this alone. We might be small towns, but we are more connected than we've ever been. And so let's start acting like it. Okay, guys, I can't wait to talk to you again soon. Until then, keep doing what you can to bring the cool stuff that you want to see in your small town. See you guys.