112. The Rural Rebound with Erik Osberg

Hey everyone, our guest on today's episode is Eric Osberg. He has a very cool job title which we get into, and it's kind of the basis of our entire discussion. Eric is the Rural Rebound Initiative Coordinator. He is located in Otter Tail County, Minnesota, and basically we get into a discussion about what the heck is a Rural Rebound Initiative and How do those of us that don't have the funding or have that specific thing, how do we take some of what he's doing? How do we learn from what he's doing? This is a fun episode because we hearken back to everybody's favorite rural sociologist, Ben Winchester. We talk about that. So in this episode, we talk a lot about just what drives people to move to small towns. How do we capture that? How do we influence that? And what can every single person in every small town do to start to take control of the story? Eric is a great guy, super fun. I had never met him in person. I still haven't. But you could just hear his passion for what he's doing. And there's so much that we can learn. And again, even if we don't have a specifically funded position, what is the average person trying to do cool stuff in their small town? How do they take things away? And there's plenty to take away. So enjoy this episode with Eric Osberg. Well, hey, Eric, welcome to the Growing Small Towns show.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah. So you, my friend, I'm calling you my friend already because we talked for 2 minutes and I said I already like you, which is always really fun. So I came across, came across you and your, and your title specifically, and we're going to get into that here. You're a Rural Rebound Initiative coordinator, right?

That's right.

And you're located in Otter Tail County, Minnesota, so you're my friendly neighbor to the east. And this was in a Daily Yonder article, and we'll, we'll reference the article in the show notes, but you've worked with and talked a bit about some of Ben Winchester's his data and kind of his research. And so why don't you tell us a bit about what that actually means, what your work feels like day to day? And, and I guess my follow-up question to that is, for those of us that maybe live in a community that won't ever actually create a position called Rural Rebound Initiative Coordinator, what, what could the average person do, right, to channel some of that? Because I think if nothing else, it sounds like something we should all be primed to be thinking about us in small towns, right? So it's awesome, awesome, awesome to have you. Let's hear all about this initiative and, and what it looks like.

Well, again, thanks for having me. I really appreciate you reaching out. So I started in 2017, so January of 2017, I started this brand new job at Otter Tail County. It was grant funded in the first 2 years. My boss, Nick Leonard, super smart guy. He had met with stakeholders throughout the community. How do we address this work? You know, this was 2016, right? And we were working, we were trying to address the workforce shortage then, right?

Uh-huh. I wanna be like, how's that going for you, Eric? Just, it's just, it's hard, right? And it's particularly hard now. Yeah.

It's not as bad as it was supposed to be. Let's put it that way. Our numbers are better than they were projected. We were just looking at 'em this morning. From a data point. But so anyway, so they had this grant-funded position. It was going to be grant-funded for 2 years. And, and to your point, it's based off of Ben Winchester's Brain Gain research. And Ben Winchester's research, you know, the, the traditional narrative of rural is we're dead, we're dying, everybody's moving away.

Talent, right? Our young, our young educated talent, they are leaving in droves. That's the story.

That's the story. And Ben has data that says, now wait a minute, if you look at age cohorts, if you look at 30 to 49-year-olds, these are, these are people that most, many, not necessarily all, but many rural places have a net gain of 30 to 49-year-olds. Your population may be growing it just doesn't look like people thought it would. Do you know what I mean?

So, so, so, two, two quick things to this, um, Eric, just for our audience. And if you don't know who Ben Winchester is, we will be, uh, also— because he was on our show, so he's been, he's been on the podcast. And so we'll make sure that we— because I can't remember what episode it is. That would have been really good prep work for me to do, but I don't prep. This is— we sit down and we have a conversation. So we'll make sure that we link to that episode But the other thing that— so that's the first thing is so people know they don't have to try to find him. We'll get him to you. But the thing with this particular net, the net gain of this specific age group, right? Yep. Our communities on the whole still may be losing overall population because we might not be attracting and recruiting that group of people back at a pace to keep up with those that are dying, which is— that's a challenge, right? That's something that we need to be thinking about. But I think it doesn't tell the whole story if it's And that's what Ben is trying to point out. Like, if we're actually gaining population in this key demographic, and I mean, it's a key demographic because that's the age that a lot of people might— when you're out of your 20s, you might have some financial stability. You might be able to add back to your economy a bit more readily and easily. You're also— you tend to be— that's the group that has children. And so children add to our schools and children add to our population and all those things. So that's the reason it's so compelling. Because if you don't dig deeper, you wouldn't know that.

And, and I would take— and you're absolutely 100% right— and take it one step further. And those people have 1.2 kids versus in the olden days they used to have 2.2 kids, right? And so, and so I've heard Ben use the words total population infatuation, right? Like everybody gets infatuated with our total population, and that's, that's, that's an unwinnable war, right? Like you're not gonna unless people are going to start having more kids and people are going to stop dying. So your question was on a day-to-day basis, what does my job look like or what does this initiative look like and what it boils down to? So, so I started in 2017. I got the job, I went and listened. And if you've had Ben Winchester on, then you're— then you know, right? Like you've heard, you've heard the pitch. And I went and listened to Ben speak. And he talked about narratives. He said there's a traditional narrative of rural, and then he talked about rewriting the rural narrative, right? And so I've altered that a tiny bit, and I just, I take the re out of it. I just say that we're writing our own narrative. And we used to, and this is not a knock, this is not meant to be detrimental, but we used to depend on traditional media to write our narrative.

100%. Right.

And now we don't, right? Like, I'm talking on a podcast with you right now. This is, this is you writing your own narrative. And so that's what we do is we write our own narrative on a daily basis, 7 days a week and 24/7. And we use a lot of digital formats to do that. And that's what it looks like is writing our own narrative and documenting the real reasons why people would choose to live in a place like this. I don't spend a lot of time making commercials— I'm doing air quotes for your audio audience right now— I don't spend a lot of time making commercials, right? Like, we're just telling stories in various manners of the good reasons that people choose— that they already— they, you know, a lot of talented young people choose to live here. Why is that? We ask them and then they tell us and then, and then we announce it to the world. So exactly, that's, that's my gig.

Yeah, I love it. I love it so much. And I, so I have some questions for you, like, as you're talking to that particular demographic, right, which I think in Ben's research— and again, I'll just say this, like, I gave Ben a hard time. I was like, I don't usually get too stoked about data. Like, it's just, I know you need it, like, it's just not my brain. I am not a researcher brain. I am an anecdotal story collector. That would be much more my speed. So I said, I love that you make, you make data this captivating. Like, he's really captivating.

He is. He is super.

Yeah, it's awesome. It's super awesome. And then he's a rural sociologist. Like, who knew that was even ever going to be a thing? So anyway, Ben is absolutely a guy to know. But talking about this demographic, and then again, too, like, what are the reasons? Why might people want to be coming back? So what is it that you're, that you're finding? What are the stories that you're hearing specifically? If this is— is that the group you're targeting? First of all, you know, for sure, just because that's— those are the ones that, again, it's raising your— the goal. This is something Bennett said. When you focus on that particular age, you're looking to overall reduce your median age, right? By bringing in that group of people. Because like my community, so I'm in a town of 1,800 people, we don't have a college here. So we are going to— so again, you want to talk about inevitables, right? People are going to die. It's an inevitability. People are having less and smaller families. That is an inevitability, something we're not going to change. And it is also inevitable pretty much that if kids are going to further their education, they're going to leave our community. The question is like, what kind of things do we have to lay, lay in place for them to even know that this could be a destination for once that part of their story or journey is over, right? So anyway, what are you finding, Eric, as you're having these conversations? What are the most compelling things that you've heard since you've been doing this kind of work?

Well, we're blessed in that we have a ton of outdoor recreation in Otter Tail County, Minnesota. We've got— and I don't want to focus on what we have and what other areas don't have— that outdoorsy lifestyle, right? I will say this across the board, wherever you are in the world, okay, if you're, if you're in a rural place, people are looking for a slower pace of life. They're looking for connectivity with community. They're looking for good schools, they're looking for affordable housing, they're looking for— and these are things that can happen anywhere, right? Like, you don't— it doesn't— those types of things aren't attached to a place on Earth. Those can be fairly universal. And so the funny thing is, in Ben's research, and I'll reference back to Ben's research, a job isn't in the top 8 or 9, you know what I mean? Like, people are— the old school way of, of thinking was people are going to move here, you know, let's get the jobs and then people are going to move here for the jobs. And what we're saying is not necessarily in that order. People are going to move here as a lifestyle choice. They're— and I heard an interesting quote the other day when somebody said, if you've seen one town, one small town You've seen one small town. So the reason I bring that up is each community is— so you asked, what can a community do that doesn't have a, you know, what should we be doing or how could we begin? What I would say is the first step, if there's any community organization going on at all right now, is try to figure out what your strengths are.

Right.

What is your community good at? What are you proud of? I've run meetings, I've been in a group of community and there's community members It doesn't take long before the conversation starts to trend towards what you used to have or don't have. We don't have, right? Well, we don't have this.

That is another big one, Eric. Seriously, what a great point to make because like, so one of the quotes that I love is that I, you know, I want next year and the years ahead of us to be the good old days. Like, why is it that the good, like, you know, and a lot of times it's because you remember that specific time in your life as being a time of goodness and awesomeness. We can't live in the past. And I always say, like, if it's— if it was so great, well, let's talk about what that could look like in today's context, right? So I— that's a huge thing. I think we hold on to, like, days forgotten, and we mourn it instead of— instead of getting creative about how to bring that kind of feeling back.

And I'll— I'll keep giving credit to Ben. Ben says nobody is going to move to your community out of pity.

That's my favorite thing that came out of his mouth. I've said it so many times, right?

Like, people— again, it— so when, when I'm, when I'm holding these community meetings, I— and, and again, it's kind of— you mentioned inevitable. It's inevitable that eventually the conversation turns to what we used to have or what it used to be like or what we don't have or whatever. What I've said is, tell you what, this isn't that meeting. Yeah, not— we're not going to talk about that. I'm not ignoring that. I'm not— whatever issues we have or problems we need to solve, that's great. But that's a different meeting on a different day. Today we're going to talk about what our strengths are. And I'm going to paraphrase Ben again, people want to live in your community for who you are right now.

Right?

They just don't know about you yet. Right? And the awareness isn't there yet. And so So that's what we spend a lot of time is we've done individual work with individual communities within the county to try to, to, I try to come to a shared understanding of what are our, what is this community's assets and then how do we communicate those assets to the rest of the world. And I use, and I use that phraseology because I mean it, right? Like the, that's the other thing is you aren't necessarily, you're not limited in where you can be drawing your, future residents from. Like, they can be from— they can be from Washington State, they could be from Florida, they could be from Texas, they could be from the coast, they could be from down south, you know, they could be from— they could be from a different country, they could be from anywhere, right? And so people want to live in rural communities. The data suggests that people want to live in rural communities for what they offer as is right now. And it's just a matter of letting those— of introducing Community X or Community Y or Community Z as an option. I will say this, though. So I'm what we call the— again, I'm doing the air quotes. Sorry, it's a visual cue.

As long as you say it's air quotes, then they hear it with air quotes, like sarcasm font, right? Right, right, right.

So I'm what we call the on-the-map person. It's my job to put Otter Tail County on the map. There are other people who are smarter than me that are working on what we call infrastructure need, childcare, housing, broadband. There's people that are working on employer and employee resources. How do we help our current employers or our current employees be bigger, faster, and stronger? And then the fourth, the fourth element of this, it's a four-legged stool, if that's a thing. The fourth element is what we call welcoming communities. Because what we say is, if I did, if myself and my team did a great job of marketing Otter Tail County as a place to live, and there was the housing, and the broadband, and the childcare, and there was the jobs, and, you know, all that was set up. And when people came, if they didn't feel welcomed, the likelihood of them telling their friends and neighbors or the likelihood of— I hate to take it so far as them— of them staying, right? Those are the 4 things that we have identified: putting us on the map, which is my job; creating infrastructure that is needed for newcomers; supporting our employers and employees; and then trying to not necessarily create welcoming communities, but again, amplifying the ways within our Communities are already welcoming. And if there's a way to help foster that and grow that, great. But that's really our four-legged stool approach to the, to the resident recruitment puzzle. The other thing that I, if I can keep going, the other thing that I would say is we, we use tourism as a first date. And what I mean by that is people don't just walk up to somebody and say, hey, will you marry me? The first— that's a process. That's a long sales cycle. Again, back to the traditional way of looking at it. In the traditional form, economic development or resident workforce recruitment is over here, and tourism is way over there, and never the twain they shall meet, right? What we're saying is, no, no, people live here for the same reasons they visit here. And so we've incorporated the live-work message into our tourism message. So we're like, come and visit, come and play, come and stay, come on vacation. Oh, by the way, you don't have to leave, you know, there's plenty of jobs. And, and so that's right, that's the other, the other element that we— I think that is a little bit different than most other elements out there, is we embrace tourism as a means to get our, our livability message out there.

Yeah, I love— and I love this approach. I think there's a lot of how that you and this particular initiative approaches these topics that really, it really resonates with me. Like, it lands with me. I always call myself like a reluctant economic developer because I tend, technically I do that for the community of Oaks. I don't have that traditional outlook on it at all. Because again, if jobs were the thing that made people move to our communities, we live 30 miles from a Bobcat manufacturing plant. They have like, they employ like 1,200 people. That place would be, that community would be booming, right? But it's not. A lot of people travel in for those jobs. And now with remote employment, that opens up a whole world of, of different people. And so this to me too, when I, when I think about this, we're talking resident recruitment, we're, what we're talking about is the human capital. We're trying to attract new humans to our places, right? So some people call it talent attraction, some people call it resident recruitment, call it what you want. We're talking about humans, and humans make their decisions based on emotion, right? And so this whole thing with welcoming communities to what that leads to, it's not just like their first 30 days, right? It's, it's about the fact that the quicker that we can have them plug into the things they love and the things they care about, the much more likely we will be to get them to stay. Right? Because that's where sense— that's where a sense of belonging gets fostered is often through contribution or finding the ways to plug into the stuff you love to do. Right? Like, that's the point of it.

100%. And I agree wholeheartedly. The phrase I've used, you sell the sizzle, not the steak, right? A steak is a steak, but this— so it's an emotional, long-term decision that people are making.. And so figuring out a way to create a welcoming message that resonates with the others. And the other, the other thing is, so back to, you had mentioned the kids who want an education are going to have to move away, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

So one of these, and this is, this is another thing. Again, I'm, this isn't my doing. This is just somebody else who's working on this, but, but we have a youth skills training program that is fairly new in the last year and a half-ish. And what happens is, like, right now what's happening is these high school students are going on tours of various employers, right? And the way that I look at it is we're not necessarily trying to keep them from leaving. We're just trying to plant the seed that, you know, go ahead and leave, chase your dreams. You know, we love you, we're proud of you, go conquer the world. But when you turn 30 years old and you decide, you know what, maybe this wasn't what I really want in life, there's a job for you here. And it's not, it's not failure to move back home. You didn't lose. If it's time to dream a different dream, now is it. That's okay. And that's growth. That's not, that's not losing. That's growth.

It's, um, So I wrote a book called— it's actually called How Mommy Got Her Groove Back. But it 100% is about that time in my life. I moved back here, I was 28, so I was almost, you know, almost 30. We hadn't had kids yet. And a lot of people get really pissed, frankly, when I say this, but I really struggled with that feeling of like, what does it say about me that I'm back here? And people get mad about that. But I think if we don't acknowledge that that's the story that we've been telling, I didn't an entire generation of kids, then we're missing the opportunity because pretending it's not there isn't going to help anything, right? We can't work through stuff if we're not willing to say it out loud. So I make some enemies when I talk like this, um, but it's a real thing. I just get really excited about the fact that like we now can tell these young kids, like especially if they're going and they're getting their college degree or they're going to a trade school or whatever they're doing, that You know, it's great if your dream is to go out, right? Yep. You won't know if it's right for you until you do it. And so if you do it, if you go out and you just— there's something missing or you're feeling some other calling, there's a good chance that with the right support network, the right people in place, the right set of factors in your hometown, that that dream could actually live in your community. Like small towns, there's no— like the size— my thing is that the size of your zip code doesn't determine the size of your life. Anymore like it used to, because we used to, you know, we lived in a different world. I didn't have a cell phone when I graduated from high school. That wasn't a thing. I didn't get one until I was in college, right? So our world, the fact that our world gets delivered to us through phones now, like, there's almost no opportunity that can't be achieved unless it's like corporate, corporate work, right? Like, obviously there's certain things you'd have to leave for, but That's where our opportunity is, I think, Eric, is just to show them. It's amazing the kinds of things you can do from any corner of the world as long as you have good internet. And that's why infrastructure is important for sure. Right? I mean, it's just, that's the story we've gotta take a hold of.

And I agree with you in that if you don't address it or if you can't say it out loud, it becomes this scary thing that nobody talks about. There are some that view this— so this youth workforce thing that we're going to call it— there's some that view it as a way to keep kids from leaving. And I'm like, you can't keep— you couldn't— 18-year-old kids are going to leave. I would rather that they left and explored the world and did whatever it is because you never want to feel like somebody has been trapped or coerced, or they have an itch that they didn't get to scratch, right? So that's another thing that when you talk about, you get a little bit of pushback. That's, that's where I get a little bit of pushback is I'm like, listen, our goal is not to keep kids from leaving small towns, because that's been happening since the dawn of time, right? Like, that's a, that's, that's a human instinct, right? Like you go up grow up and you want to leave your home, right? Like, yes, you fly the coop, right? And then when you grow up in a rural, small rural community, that could mean not only literally leaving the home you grew up in, but leaving the community that grew up in. And all you have to do, though, is, to your point, reposition that rebound as a viable, good option. It's not failure. You didn't lose. It doesn't mean that the world beat you. It just means that you went out in the world, you took a look around, and you said, you know what, when I start having kids— and that's, that's the other factor here, and you, you didn't have them when you returned, but you were getting closer, assuming you have kids now. Do you have kids? Yep.

Right.

So you started to look at the world around you, and you remembered where you grew up, and you were like, you know what, I want my kids to grow up in that same environment. So you bring them back and then now your kids are probably, you know, your kids are going to leave and they're going to go explore the world.

Right.

And you can tell them, hey, it's okay to come back if and when you want to.

So. Right. There's two things that are coming to mind too. One is that one of the biggest things I think, and I would love your opinion on this, that our communities need to maybe grow in or develop within ourselves is our willingness to let ourselves be changed by those rebounders. That's the thing is, you know, they come back to us on fire to add value based on what they learned and what they experienced. And what I found when I first came back was a lot of people like, oh, like, who do you think you are? You know, kind of a thing. And I didn't— and that might have been my approach. Like, it's not like all the people were just hard on me. But we need to be willing to let ourselves be changed instead of fighting everything that's new. And that's not just for rebounders, that's for newcomers, period. Right? We don't need everybody to assimilate. And that's a Ben Winchester thing, too. He doesn't like that phrase because it suggests that we're saying toe the line, fall in line. This is how we do things here. And if you want to fit here, you've got to do it like that. We want people to come and bring the best of what they know, bring the best of what they experience, and let it live somewhere. And that's tricky. I think culturally that's a tricky thing for people in small communities, or it can be.

Yeah, change is hard, right? Like, you know, self-improvement is hard, change is hard, challenging norms is hard. You know, that's all super scary and hard, and change gets met with resistance, right? And that's, that's just And so you're, again, I agree with that. But knowing that you're going to face some of that is kind of half the battle, right? Like, it's okay. It's okay to, if there's resistance to change, it's not necessarily a symptom of that community. That's a universal truth, right? Like, right, change is hard. And letting go of what we used to be is hard. And the good news is, and again, this is another selling point, if you will, for smaller rural communities, you can have a pretty big impact on your community in a rural place. And, you know, so if you're in a large urban area, it can be much harder to enact whatever change it is that you believe will make that place a better place. But in a smaller community, it's much more attainable to create a group of people that can bring about positive change. And most change is positive.

So, right. That was actually going to be my second point with these young folks, right? This generation that's now going to be coming into the workforce, Gen Z, if you will, right? Again, it's like, doesn't matter what their label is. It's just recognizing that they're the most socially conscious generation to ever have stepped foot into the workforce. And so that's what we get to sell to them, right? Impact, contribution and impact. It's such an important and underutilized thing. And so, you know, like what this looks like for me here in Oaks, you know, I'm, I'm not, I'm older than that, um, but I see it and I just think it is so cool. And it's, it's such a positive spin on the air quotes is my term, entitlement that we think this generation just possesses, like a deep sense of apathy. They don't care, they don't strive, they don't work hard, they have no work ethic, they're entitled. Well, okay, so some of that on its face may look, may be true. There's this other really amazing thing that it's their social consciousness. They care about stuff. And so if our community can provide avenues for them to make the kind of impact that they wanna make. That's a deep sense of belonging and connection to a, a place, you know? And then as you change stuff, as you are a part of groups that are changing things, that just become— it becomes part of your legacy, like what you've done in your time there. It's just such a special thing to be able to sell and market and brand, if you will, you know, for any small community.

And that again becomes part of the narrative, right? If at the end of the day, I view my job as it's my job to write our own narrative, finding a way to weave that placemaking into the narrative is a good thing. And then it's just a matter of trying to figure out, okay, how do we get as many earballs and people to see and hear this message, right? That they, they know that we exist. And, and so, yeah, that's my gig.

So as we wrap, if you give one bit of advice to anybody, because our listeners tend to just be— I've kind of decided that, like, because I went down a path when we, when we first started Growing Small Towns, it's a nonprofit, right? Went down the path of like, okay, I want to talk to economic developers. And then I quickly would find myself in rooms full of economic developers, and I was like, I don't fit. I'm like very much like the Sesame Street, like, one of these things. I was like, I don't belong here. I don't know. And so really, it to me is more about a spirit, right? Like a spirit of just, I want cool stuff to happen in my town. And so they're the kind of— so our listeners are the kind of people that want that and then are willing to take the risk to try those things. And so that's what this podcast is all about, is highlighting the different ways that we could do that. So thinking about that person listening from there, probably on some dirt road, right, in their small town. What's one thing that every single listener could do right now to kind of push the rural rebound for their own community based on, you know, what you've seen, what you've experienced in your work?

One thing. One thing is, so I've talked about narrative, writing your own narrative. The other part that I haven't mentioned about that is our self-talk. So the one thing that everybody who hears this could do is when you're talking about your community is monitor, filter the way that you talk about it. And I don't mean you, you, I mean, the collective us, right? So again, back to these meetings, when people would start to go down the road of what we used to have and what we used to be and what we used to whatever, that's That's negative self-talk. That's— I don't want to sound like I've ever been in therapy, but I might have been in therapy once or twice.

I'm pro-therapy, Eric. Okay. So openly here.

So, so that's that negative self-talk. It's easy to blame others for our current state, right? Whatever that may be, right? It's easy to say, oh, the traditional narrative of the traditional media has us where we are right now. The harder part is to say how we talk about ourselves is as much of a factor as how somebody else talks about us. And I can't control how the outside thing talks about us. The only thing I can control is my self-talk. So the one thing I would say that everybody out there can do to address whatever this resident recruitment, human recruitment, talent recruitment is to monitor your self-talk. And when you find yourself in a group of people, and you start to go down that woe is us road, right? Remind yourself that nobody's— in Ben's words, nobody's going to move here out of pity.

Right?

So, and so we need to speak well of ourselves, celebrate what makes our rural places unique, both the good and the bad, right? The old and the new. There's that, that yin and the yang. That's it. It's not that when— now I'm rambling, and this is too long of an answer.

But no, you're good. I like it.

When you mentioned facing resistance, you know, about change or about newness or about whatever. The other thing to keep in mind is, when you're a doctor, the Hippocratic Oath, rule number one is do no harm, right?

Right.

And so when we're talking about the evolution of rural places, or the changing of rural places, we do have to celebrate the positives of the past, right? There are reasons to, to stay connected to those roots. And there— and the last thing is we want to do is turn a rural place into an urban place. And then, you know, then people don't get living there for the reasons that they lived there in the first place. So, right.

So we, we do that. I mean, that's— I get Growing Small Towns, that's one of our— we have 5 core values. That's one of them is we honor the past and we look ahead. You know, it's both of those things. Like, We, we wouldn't be who we are today if it wasn't for the amazing things and people that came before us. Right. And yet we still have to say, okay, does what we did 20, 30 years ago, is there a way that that can be done in today's context? Right? Because we are living in different times. Like there's just, and again, people have always been people, stuff is stuff, places are places. Like I get that, but it's recognizing the opportunity. Is there something we can learn from the past? Obviously, we cannot repeat mistakes.

That'd be cool.

But it's just saying, if we miss it or love it so much, what would it look like to resurrect it or to do something like it in today's context? And I think that's where the inspiration can hit too, right? I mean, it's just— well, we also had Jeff Sigler from Revitalize or Die. You should check his stuff out. He's great. He talks about civic self-esteem.

Sure.

That's how he refers to this. And so that negative self-talk, that's what it is. If you talk badly about yourself, you don't have a good outlook, a positive outlook about you and your place in the world. The same thing happens with our communities. So I'm going to challenge our audience to take your bit of advice and add one extra little layer. And it's when you hear other people talking negatively about your place, if you're so brave and so bold, is to just ask a few more questions of them. Don't necessarily directly challenge them. But when people say, like, a common thing in a community like mine is, well, there's just nothing to do here, right? And so then you say, well, what, you know, where are you, where are you looking for, where are you looking for events? What kinds of things are you looking for? What would make this place feel great to you? Like, those are questions, right? You just engage that person and find out because that's just an easy complaint to make. And most of the time, small towns have tons of stuff going on. So then is it a marketing problem? Do we not have the right kinds of events? Like, engage that person, find out where they're really at with things, because we don't want that person running around telling everybody, well, there's nothing to do in Oaks.

And that slower pace of life, shall we say, is the exact reason people want to move there now, right? There's people in the world that have way too much stuff to do that have way too much going on. Their lives are chaotic because of the place they live in, and they would love to know that there's a place on Earth where there isn't always a million things that need to be— so it's, again, it's putting a positive— if it's a laid-back lifestyle you're looking for, right, we got it, we got it, we got it, we got it in spades.

So, and another, another fun thought, just again, if like that's, if that's your community's thing and you really want to sell that a laid-back excuse me, slower pace of life is valuable. Also, you can't become a creative individual until you experience boredom. So creativity can flourish in a small town too if there's just less going on.

Absolutely.

Then you've got leftover space to become creative and innovative.

So I like it.

There's like literally a spin for everything, and it's not lying. It is literally just looking for the positive optimism, the hope, in any particular challenge. And so I think that's an awesome, awesome challenge to our audience, is to check the self-talk and to figure out what you're good at, figure out what your assets are, and come from a place of strength. Absolutely. So, Eric, it was so fun chatting with you. Um, I hope, hope to get to meet you in person. Yeah, today, maybe great, like economic development conferences or something.

I feel like a fish out of water at those two.

Oh my gosh.

Okay, well, we'll just park you and I— you and I could sit in the back.

So, so good to meet you. Keep up.

Yeah.

And I'm sure we'll have you on again sometime soon. All right.

Thank you very much.