S5:E7 - Building Possibilities in Small Towns with Deb Brown

You are listening to the Growing Small Towns Show, a podcast dedicated to supporting you, the person who really cares about the future of your small town. We believe when people get better, everything gets better, and our episodes offer the ideas and actions that prioritize people and small communities. Thank you for listening. We're so glad you're here. Our guest on today's episode is Deb Brown. Deb is the founder of Building Possibility, where you can find all of her awesome ideas for helping small towns grow, get better, create change. Uh, and she's also just— she's got a real scrappy sense about her. I actually call that out in this episode. Um, and she's also the co-founder of Save Your Dot Town, um, with Becky McCray, who was featured earlier this season. Deb joins us today to talk about her new book, and it's not just like a standard book. It's almost more like a workbook. And the book is called From Possibilities to Reality: Save Your Small Town with These Uniquely Doable Ideas, Projects, and Success Stories. So she joins us to talk about the book, what you can expect from inside of it. And you're just going to hear not only Deb's heart, but her truly her vast experience in working with towns of all sizes. To help them create the changes that they most want to see. Enjoy this chat with Deb Brown. Well, hey Deb, welcome back to the show, friend.

Hello Rebecca, it's good to be back. I'm so thrilled to be able to talk to you.

It's so good to have you back. And you, um, we just had Becky on not that long ago and, um, you two are still working on great stuff, but you specifically did a whole separate thing and I've actually got it. I haven't shown this to you. I know, I know. I wanted to actually surprise you. And yes, and I have, I've just perused it. I'll be honest, I haven't read cover to cover. Oh, here's your cover. It's got little markers.

Oh, I got tons of markers in mine. Yeah.

Deb, this, this book, this book is exceptional.

Thank you.

It's so— I'll just share a few of the things that I really loved about it at first glance. First of all, I love the size of this book. It's much more of a workbook feel.

It was designed for that.

Absolutely. Yes. There's prompts in it too for people. And of course, we're going to link directly to this in the show notes so everybody can get their copy. But what I think is so— I feel this way in my bones. The thing I think is so special about this book is that you're— in everything I've ever heard from you, right? And as I've followed you and Becky now for, gosh, I don't know, a good handful of years.

10 years.

It's been 10 years. You never come at this work like, look to me, I've got all the answers. But you're very much like, I've seen a lot of stuff. And here's some of the coolest stuff I've seen. And let me give it to you because you, you get and understand so viscerally, I think, that the most important thing I think that we can give small towns, if we're going to give them anything, are, um, are ease— are ideas that they can easily replicate. Um, and again, it maybe won't look exactly the same. I mean, like, when we always get that, right? People will, right, their own twist on things, but This, this book is just filled with ideas and examples and stories along with now you do it kind of like, here's some ideas. Now you put it into action. It's, it's a really incredible book.

Thank you. Thank you. It, I've been, God, I went to journalism school when I was in high school at the University of Iowa. I have wanted to write forever and my mom was a school teacher. And I always wanted to write my own book, right? And I was just scared to do it because what if it wasn't any good? What if it didn't meet the standards that everybody I know thinks it should meet? Common kind of stuff we as women go through. Of course. And finally, a couple of years ago, I sat down and I said, I got to write this book. And then I really thought about it. I was like, you know what? I know all the stories. I tell people the stories all the time because stories matter. People can see themselves in the stories. I could lecture till the cows come home, but that's not interesting. So I just sat down and started putting it all together, all the stories, and then had to figure out the different chapters that they could fit under. Um, if I'd had done originally, I was just going to do an ebook, simple text ebook, right?

Yeah.

And then I thought a little—

so glad you didn't stop there, really I am, because this is This is something like I literally, as we're talking, I'm holding it in my hand. There's something— it activates, it activates us more, I think, like in a kind of a holistic way, right? We're not just thinking about it, but we're actually, you know, you've got the prompts that make you just want to dig in and do stuff. So I didn't mean to interrupt your train of thought, but I'm just really glad you didn't stop at an ebook.

Well, I'll tell you what really made the difference. I said if this is going to be a real book that I'm self-publishing, because trying to find a publisher, that whole process was insane, especially writing about rural communities. There aren't very many publishers that want to cover that, if any. So I found where I was going to have it printed, and I'm the publisher. But I knew I had to have some kind of design thought around it. So I asked a whole bunch of people, who's a designer that could do this? And I had friends tell me, you need to call my brother. Send him an email. Here's his email. He'll send you some samples. I'm like, okay, that sounds great. Well, he's an illustrator. He's not a graphic designer. And there is a difference. Yes. Because he has an eye not just for the artwork that's on the COVID and on some of the pages in between, but he's the one— open the book to any page and he's the one that worked with me to choose the font and pull boxes out that, um, highlighted some other things and where to put the pictures. He made this. He took took my ideas and my work and made it into a wonderful, easy-to-use book. And I paid for that. I supported another small business. Of course I paid for that. I didn't want it free. And I think we have to do that.

Yeah. The other thing that's really cool about that is that this really is a work of art. I mean, it is. As you're talking and I'm looking through it, because layout Layout is— it's intense. It's an intense process. There's a lot of stuff in this book. Yeah. And so, you know, the fact that the way that things are offset with different fonts, called out with different fonts, all of that, it really does take a different skill set. And so I love that you, that you mentioned that because I think too, like, artists, somebody that has a creative lens like that, they can make our projects so much better.

Absolutely. You know, absolutely.

And obviously the content is all on you, but it really comes to life in terms of how it's laid out.

You know, I love art so much, and that's just another great reason. There are people making a living using their art, and we don't give them enough credit. And this guy's name is Mars Mandarico. Long story about his 6 brothers with all kinds of fun names. And he had the vision. He just knew. It's what he does for a living. First of all, he lays out books. So he had the experience and he also had that artistic vision. And I got a lot of emails. What about this, Deb? What do you think of this idea? And I'm like, just do it because I love what you're doing. Let's figure it out. Right?

Isn't that amazing when you can actually relax into the partnership like that? You can just be like, look, I'll give you the stuff and you do your thing because I love everything that you're doing. So just for the listeners, I want to call out the sections of your book.

Okay.

We don't necessarily have to— I'm going to read them off, but then I'm going to ask you a couple of questions. Okay. About—

You got it. —each section.

So your book has 8 sections. So there's Bring People Together, Community, Youth and Young Families, Art as economic development, empty buildings, business promotion and marketing, and funding. Of those 8 sections, um, so it's a 2-part question. What was the easiest to collect? You know, when you, when you think back and you look back over your career and you think of all the things you've seen, like what was the easiest one to pull stories from and which one was the hardest?

Well, the easiest one was empty buildings because that's my area of expertise is Save Your Dot Towns. That brown's damn. Yeah, that really is. And I have lots of stories, but I have lots of information too. And I was able to share not just the stories, but the information people need. Take this book and go to your city council and say, hey, do we have these kind of ordinances in here? Can we get this? Because we need an empty building register, which is a good place to start. Not an empty building ordinance, but a register. So you keep track of who's got empty buildings and, and then the fire department can go in every 6 months and inspect to make sure they're safe. But you have to start somewhere. I'm going down the empty buildings road.

I'll come back. No, you're good. I also just want to make a note about that. You have a really valuable toolkit, right? So we'll make sure we link to that in the show notes too. Yeah, a toolkit all about empty buildings. Filling empty buildings. Yeah, that's true, right? Yeah, yeah, that is true. All in toolkit. And in fact, I think that was one of the things that I found you— that's, I think, how I found you so many years ago, um, which is just wild. But I was like— and so that's also really fun. I think— I hope that when people listen to this, what they also hear is just how lovely and enduring even online relationships like this can, can become, because At the time I was, um, I was a chamber president.

Like I was, yeah, I'm sure that's how you found me.

Volunteer, you know, again, like unpaid volunteer position, just the president of the chamber board in our little town of 1,800 people. And we had a lot of empty buildings at that time. And so I, I probably went out and Googled it and up comes Deb Brown. And so that's kind of fun. And then now to think that for 4 years, just recently here, I did economic development. I mean, it's, it's, It's so special and so fun. But yes, you really do have incredible ideas, not just in this book, but in that toolkit for what people can do. Thank you.

It wasn't hard. The first one I did, the Empty Building tour, I didn't know I couldn't do it. And that's why it worked. Okay.

Well, sometimes I think that's all I spend my time doing is just reminding people Well, who told you you can't? You know, my permission.

Tell them it's my fault.

I say that all the time. Yeah, that's awesome. Okay. What was the hardest? All right. The hardest.

Where's my list again? I got all excited and lost my page. Originally, it started to be fundraising because I was looking at it from the angle of grants are so hard and it's hard to find money. It's hard to ask people for money. And then I had to step back and say, okay, there are people that do that for a living. So it might be hard for you, but it's not hard for them. Mm-hmm. So create your partnerships and work with the people you need to work with to do that standard stuff. Let's take a look at some of the stuff that's not standard. How can you make a difference in your community by fundraising? And then all the stories came out, made it easy. Yeah. So it started out hard. So let's see, what are the other ones? Ah, well, may be youth and young families. And simply because I don't have— my kids are 50 and 46, you know, I don't have youth around me or near me. So, um, I had to pay special attention to the kind of things I was hearing when I visit communities and the questions I was being asked. I always ask if I can go into the school and teach the Idea Friendly Method because they get it. They get it. I can say, here's the 4 steps. Okay, what do you want? What do you want? What do you want? And then we build it up. The last time I did it in Okolona, Mississippi, 7 minutes was all we had to do it. And those kids were fabulous. Unbelievable. One of the ideas— now think, 7 minutes to do this, right? Uh, one of the young girls says, we want somebody to do hair that's our age. And I'm like, oh, that's a great big idea. They figured out who their crowd was. They're building connections, who their small steps were. And then they stood up and presented and said, okay, so we're going to do it in the gym. We've got about 6 people in school that already do hair and they're really good, but we want them to learn from the experts. So the experts will come and walk us through some of the things they can do, and then we'll figure out— that's a small step. We'll figure out how to build businesses after that and what they have to do. I'm like, oh my God, is that not brilliant? 7 minutes. You kind of want to go, oh my God, that's really all it takes. Yes. Yes.

I mean, again, and what I love about the idea-friendly method, and we did cover that in some detail with Becky, of course. I'm sure. Yeah. You guys are in partnership at savior.town. But it's the fact that that's actually how the best things happen. So I love the simplicity of it. And I say it all the time with a lot of my stuff. It's like the things we're going to talk about are not revolutionary. They're just things that Somehow along the way, we've either forgotten or we were told that they weren't complicated enough, like complex enough. Sold this story that we have to have 15 steps to make great shit happen. And that's just not true.

No, it's not true. Not at all. So with that whole youth section, and then I did some research as well. Now I'm talking about kids still in school. Really kids, high school, 5th graders, that whole thing. Yeah. Um, and I shared some of the stories from my trips, and then I got to thinking about, well, let me find some information on what they could actually do to make a difference in their community. And I got to thinking about city councils, um, because I know people sitting on city councils, and they're, uh, I have a friend that started a Youth in the City program that involved 2 kids, I think juniors, to sit on their city council, non-voting members. I thought, well, that's brilliant, that every small town should do that, because we, we have such a divide between here's the school and everything is sports and activity related, and here's the community, and seldom do they cross paths. Absolutely. So, so that makes it better to, to figure out how to be involved in both things. The school for me with no kids in the school, and then of course the city council for young people that don't even know what it is. So we— I talked about that a little bit. Um, there's another story in there about a community, and I think it's DC or Maryland out east, um, that their kids are writing graphic novels to explain some of the stuff that's going on in their community and sharing their ideas. That's cool. I know.

I'm gonna have to dig into that one. There's just— there's just— it's just so cool. I mean, it really is. It's so, so neat. And by the way, I probably should actually name your book. I was— I was sitting here, I couldn't even say what it's called. So it's actually called From Possibilities to Reality: Save Your Small Town, and then the ellipsis at the bottom is, with these uniquely doable ideas, projects, and success stories. And that's exactly— I mean, that's exactly what it is. Yeah, I think that it is. Yeah. The idea of— well, and okay, so it's funny, this book, I think if I'm right, Deb, you have a section in here. Yeah. Okay. I was right. Who should read this? So my favorite is that you've got the usual suspects and basically all the people that are either elected into positions or they're somehow paid to care about these things.

Right. The usual suspects.

Yeah. Paper people, economic development people, Main Street people, those kinds of things. But then you wrote, but it's just not those people. So who else do you see this book being for? Because that, for me, is like the gap that I find most fascinating is just I want to reach out into every little town and find just those like crazy people, and I say crazy with all the love in the world, like the ones that like are waking up and they're just like kind of on fire to make cool shit happen, but they're not necessarily in these really specific positions. There isn't like a home for those folks exactly. Right. And so, you know, when you think about who else, who are the other people that you, you can really see embracing and using this book?

Anybody that's got an idea and wants to try something. Mm-hmm. Um, we've been told over and over that, um, we can't do something. Oh, you gotta better ask the city about that, or you have to talk about the school about that. You better get permission. And I'm telling you now, 99% of the things you wanna do, you do not need permission for. And the beauty of the IDEA-Friendly Method is you are taking small steps. Permission is easier to give yourself with a small step. Just go do it. So let me give you an example. A friend of mine owns a furniture store in Webster City, Iowa, and we were talking about murals one day and, uh, we didn't have any. I think there might have been one, and we thought, man, it'd be nice to have a mural on that and on the side of that building. And he said, yeah, it really would. I'm like, okay, I'll be right back. I went over to the building owner who worked in the building, and I said, um, Donovan, can we put a mural on the side of your building? He said, yeah, do I have to pay for it? I'm like, you can kick in some money, but not a lot. Okay. Yeah, go ahead. So permission granted from the building owner. Nothing in city code that says you got to get permission to put up a mural, right? That's his building. He can do what he wants. And so I went back to my friend and said, okay, I have permission for the building. Will you take it from here? He's like, what? I'm like, well, make it happen. You know the artist, you know the painters, you know the design you want. You're, you're a designer. It's what you do for a living. Just make it happen. And that's exactly what he did. Found a couple of painters who are very good, work in the community, local. Um, talked with one of the local arts organizations to see what kind of image to put, and he found some money to pay for it, and they put the— they put it up. I love that. So simple. And you know what, if it had broken down anywhere in the process, it's just an opportunity to take a look at what did not work and figure out, okay, do we want to continue? First of all, what can we do to fix it if we do? And let's celebrate a little bit because we tried our idea. Always celebrate whether you win or lose. Always celebrate.

The Growing Small Towns show is recorded locally at the Growing Small Towns podcast studio located in Oakes, North Dakota. It's produced by Pheasant Canteen Studio in Aberdeen, South Dakota, with marketing support from Cassidy Johnston in Canyon City, Colorado. Our intro music was created and produced exclusively for Growing Small Towns by James Bergman, singer and songwriter from Fargo, North Dakota. Local and small, it's what we support and it's who we love. Get your community a shout out on the podcast. Call 701-203-3337 and share your small town success that you just don't feel is being celebrated quite enough, and let us shout you out. You can also share your biggest people challenge, and we'll dedicate an episode to offering ideas to help. Hell, you can Basically tell us anything and we'll do what we can to answer. We can't wait to hear from you. Shout out to Cody Piper from Becker County, Minnesota. He shared with us that Project 412, which is a local nonprofit organization, had a big audacious goal to bring internationally acclaimed Danish Finnish recycling artist Thomas Dambo to the area, and he came and did this project where he installed 6 permanent installations of trolls. That— there's a whole map, you should totally check them out, uh, look them up online. And now the DL Trolls project are one— it's one of 130 of these installations that can be found worldwide. That is lofty, ballsy, if you will. And so we love that kind of audacious behavior in our rural communities. And so big shout out to Project 412 from Becker County, Minnesota. It's because we need to celebrate the learning that took place. Right, right. Because that's, that's what happens. Like you either get an amazing outcome and you're so stoked about it, or if you don't get exactly the outcome you want, you are smarter than you were yesterday. Like, you know, that's right. Thing now that you didn't know before. And you don't, it's, we don't learn things best just by like reading about them. And that's the other thing with your book. Like, it is very clear that this book is meant to be used to put our ideas into action. Not, not just to read about a bunch of cool stories. The stories are cool. They absolutely are. But they're meant to be like, hey, these people did it, so you can too. Right? Stories are meant to do that. We're meant to see ourselves in them and go, oh my gosh, if they did it, I bet I could. And that's what this book is all about.

Well, and something will pull you to it. You'll read a story and go, I've been wanting to do that. Well, look, they did it. Another thing. Let me don't— forget to say this. We lead by example when adults work with children. If you are not celebrating the losses and the wins, what are you teaching your children? That you can only win and it's bad to lose? We don't need that lesson, right?

Well, that lesson doesn't hold. Like, if that's— you know, I get sports, I think, kind of screw us up with that a little bit, right? Because it kind of feels like, well, it doesn't really matter unless you win. Okay, well, maybe kind of, but when it comes to the real world, it's, it's the fact that you played the game and it's how you played the game. That's right. It isn't just about the outcome because I mean, that's just it. Like rarely is it just about the outcome. It's about the discovery. It's about everything that happens along the way. How we each get better along the way.

Even in sports, a huge Chicago Bulls fan, lived in the city when they won all their championships. Whole nother story. Been in a crazy— insane to be in Chicago during that time frame. And their coach, Phil Jackson, was kind of a different bird. So you want to talk about winning doesn't matter. Winning matters. But he wanted his team to be whole. When they were winning. He didn't want them out there playing when they were broken, when they didn't feel well. He wanted a team that took care of itself both on the court and off the court. He introduced ballet to these ballplayers. Ballet. Yeah. Because of the strength and the benefits of learning ballet. He introduced it— introduced meditating. So these are just a couple of things that are important small steps to the process that he brought in. And you don't see that kind of coaching so much. So I'm happy to share that story because it matters. It's the whole life thing.

Yeah. That holistic approach, treating humans as humans, not just as the function that they're fulfilling in that particular moment.

Right. Yeah. Right.

Well, that's the other thing, too, when it comes to engaging people in a community that I say that all the time, like everything you've done and everywhere you've been and everything you've tried and either won or not won at, right? Like all of it matters because you just never know when, like, you're gonna look back on one random thing you did 13 years ago and it actually applies today. That's the beauty of experimenting too. And trying a bunch of stuff out. Right. Well, and you never know who's watching you.

That's the other thing, because we watch each other pretty close. And you want people to hear this kind of story that showcases both your wins and your losses and what you learn from them.

Right. So what's your favorite story?

Do you have one from the book?

Gosh, I have so many stories in here.

Like, how do I answer that? Coffee and Calendars. Is one that we recommend often.

Yeah, that's one of your favorite ideas.

Yep, that's one of the favorite ideas. You want to expound on that a little bit? Sure, it's simple. If you're going to do it in a community, bring your nonprofits together, not in City Hall, not in a boardroom. Bring them somewhere that's fun and comfortable and have them bring their calendars with them, and you start by telling your name, what you do, and one thing people may not know about your organization. And then you go around and you meet everybody, and then you pull your calendars out and say, okay, let's look at what we're doing next month. And so she— Stacy might be doing an event at noon on Friday. Well, so am I. I can move mine to 2 o'clock though, so we can have 4 hours at 2 different locations of people in our community doing things versus somebody having to choose. So is that— this is—

that's kind of the main point, is to just look for those opportunities for either collaboration or for community building? Is that primarily the point?

That's the calendar point. The coffee point, one of my favorite examples, um, was one we did in my town, and a young lady said, I'm So-and-so, and I work for Building Families, um, and you may not know that we have funding to help, um, stay-at-home moms that want to make their house into childcare, to help them get the certifications that they need and, and toys and set up the structure like it needs to be set up. I'm like, wait a minute, you have funding for that? Because yeah, we want to support that. Blow me away. Do you know how hard it is to find childcare anywhere? And then you have this organization that is willing to help people, workforce, economic development, childcare. I mean, look at everything it touches. I would not have known that if she hadn't told us that. Yeah. So it's that one thing we may not know about you. That's a fun question. It's a really cool question.

And I think, I think what I love about this too, Deb, is How big was Webster City? 8,000. Okay. Yeah. So a little bigger than— Big. Yeah, you get it. But I think what that also helps us do a little bit is dispel this notion that we already know everybody. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, because you don't.

And everything. Yeah, exactly. I think we're real quick to assume we know. Every, everything that a person, and again, it's like you might only know a tiny fraction of what that person. So, okay. So I have, I have a quick story I have to tell about this. Just, okay, please. So, um, when we moved back here, we were expecting our first child and, uh, the, the man who had been the business manager at our school for years and years and years. Him and his wife taught Lamaze. Now, Deb, did I know that until I needed Lamaze? You know, so my husband and I went to their house. Their house happened to be right across the street from the church I'd gone to my entire life. I had never set foot in their house before. Their daughter was my classmate. But like, you want to talk about— and they were so good at it. And they were— and they both did it. Sharon and Tom, they were— and again, when I was growing up, they would have been Hannah's parents. So again, just recognizing— and they were on fire for this, too. And we delivered— and again, this is super personal, but I don't care. We talk about these things on the show. We delivered our first child naturally and using everything they had taught us. And she was one of the first people I texted. She came and saw me in the hospital. And she was just so excited, and they helped us achieve that, right? Isn't that neat? It was such a moment of just like, who knew? Who knew this? Right?

And throw on top of that, who teaches Lamaze in a town of 1,800 people?

Well, exactly the idea that that even existed. So I just think— and I also think what's really cool is like, we can find these connections now so much faster because of social media. I mean, How amazing is it to be able to throw your hand up and say, hey, local friends, I'm looking for somebody that does this. And you throw up a post like that, oh my goodness, will people come out of the woodwork. But I, I just think it's the reason I love coffee, the coffee and calendars thing is because you're actually asking people to come together, which that's, that's the best. But there's no ex— there's just no excuse to ever assume we know everything about people anymore. Right. There's so much hidden talent in a little town like mine.

Well, and it's bringing down the silos too. For years and years and years, each organization worked in their own little silo and they didn't work together. And that just takes those silos down and introduces you to what people are actually doing instead of what you think they are doing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That collaboration is important.

Yeah. That those assumptions really do kill collaboration.

Yeah, yeah, you got to get past it. You got to assume it, but then go ask them about it if that'll make you feel better.

Yeah, maybe don't just run with the assumption. You assume all you want, but at least make that assumption clear, right? Like, hey, this is what I think you do. What else is there? And what is something that I don't know about you? Tell me that.

I love that question. So I also have a little tiny bonus story on page 100 at the bottom. The fella in the picture is Andrew Lattisaw. He's from Katanning, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania, 3,923 population, almost 4,000. And they— he does YouTube videos. So here's the deal, um, he's a pastor, I believe, and an insurance agent. You know, he did a small town, you gotta have two jobs, right?

Yeah. And then he just does other community with his benevolence. All of his benevolence happens in his free time, right?

Right. So he went around a couple of areas in town with his little clipboard and wrote the address down of a house and what it needed. So does it need a new roof or does it just need the front steps fixed? What did it need? And numbered them 1 through 5, I think, 1 being the least amount of work and 5 being the most. And then he got some of his friends together and said, let's, let's go fix some of these buildings. That old lady needs her lawn mowed and she can't do it anymore. Her husband died. Every, every place had a story, right? So they went and did the ones that they were allowed to do. And what they started to notice in that block Now other people are cleaning up and fixing their porches and doing those little things. He has gone on to do the entire town, made a spreadsheet for the entire town, and is making a huge difference in Katanning. And he's got his own YouTube channel that tells you all of the stories.

I am now feeling very inspired to go look him up for sure and then probably have him on the show. Absolutely.

Give them a call. Tell them I sent them. I will.

I will. That's, that's so awesome, Deb. So there's a couple things in there that I hear. It's the, the one of the most important things I think is, is the action behind a movement like that, right? It, it's so, it's so common. I think we, we, we get out, we leave our house in the morning and we're either backing our car out or we're getting on a bike or whatever, however we're getting to work. And we drive the same route. We're like super creatures of habit, right? So we drive the same route, and we maybe drive by the same one thing that we can't stand, potentially, right? If you have something in your community that you just keep driving by and you're like, oh, I hate that thing. I hate it so ugly. And you say things like, I wish somebody would. And the thing of this story with Andrew, it's like Andrew was the somebody. Andrew did it. Andrew did the thing that made— again, and just sometimes it's It's as simple as, like you said, mowing a lawn, you know, painting something that is in poor shape. And little by little, those improvements, they do make a difference because that's exactly what happens. It's that natural— well, as things around you start to get better, the human tendency— now, it's not 100— it's not foolproof, right? We still have those people that are like, I'm just gonna live in my squalor, you know. That it's true. Have at it is exactly right. But I think Overall, the, the overall impact is that everything gets better. Yeah.

Yeah. And it, and it involves— you do this with a group of people. So these are people that you're relating with and you're sharing activity and good stories and laughter. How can that not be anything but good for our community to bring people together to help others but enjoy it while they're doing it? Right, right.

Well, and we've talked about this a lot in my building because the chamber office is here, and we talk a lot about how, uh, it's a great way to get the youth involved and have it be a mix of youth and, and adults, right? Because these youth, a lot of these youth programs, they all need community service hours, right? And so instead of fabricating like fake things for them to do, let's, let's do meaningful work together.

And have some fun with it.

Have fun. Absolutely. Exactly.

Yeah, life's too short not to. Um, I'm trying to think. I lost my train of thought for a moment. Yeah, happens, right? Yeah, well, maybe it'll come back. Yeah, maybe it will. Um, oh, so the old geezers. I gotta tell you about the old geezers because they're in there too. So in Akron, Iowa, um, it's way up in the northwest corner of Iowa. You can literally see South Dakota from the corner of Akron. It's like right there in the corner. They had a group of farmers that were moving into town. When they retire, they move into town, right? And these men had brought their woodworking tools with them and put them in the garage. Where else you going to put them? And their wives finally said, they got to go. It's winter. Find some place for these tools. So they'd been drinking coffee every morning at this empty old, uh, hospital, and they had found a room and plugged in the electricity work, and they were drinking their coffee there every day. They realized that the basement was dry of this building, which is unusual in the first place, um, and so they talked to the appropriate people and they moved all their woodworking tools down in the basement. And they became the Old Geezers. I think they're the Down Under Club now. They finally changed their name. Um, and what they do is if you wanted to, to make a table, but you didn't wanna buy all your tools, you would just connect with them and they'd show you and help you how to do it. So you can make that decision. I'm never gonna do this again. Right? Or I really like this. What's the first thing I could get? They also work with the students in the shop classes at the school. Cool. So it gives them some after-school hours. To work on the things that they're doing. These are guys that just used to drink coffee together and do a few things, and now they're valuable contributors to their community. They've made entrance signs for two of the entrance points in the, in the community. I mean, all kinds of cool things are happening out of people getting together around a like topic, a topic, and doing something with it.

I love it. I absolutely love that. I, it's, uh, it, it was, it's always good to see you for one. Mm-hmm. Um, we had a beautiful conversation before we even hit record and it's just, we did. Yeah. It's just really great. Um, this book is really important and I'm, I'm, I just wanna tell you as a person who, um, I've had dreams, I've had some big dreams, some of them I've pursued, some of them I haven't. Um, I'm very proud of you. For following through on this dream of, of writing a book. Thank you. You, you definitely have lived enough life and experienced enough things to have put together a book that can add real value. Like, it's, it's really, really exciting. I'm just going to encourage everybody listening to this, um, please go out and get this book. What I can see doing with it too, Deb, I'll just tell you, because I think often about— I think there's something really valuable about like learning together. So what I could see is, you know, having a bunch of people in your community buy the book and then you work through a chapter that you most wanna see improve in your community. That's what I'm actually thinking maybe we should do like here, you know, just thinking like, what is something we really want to, to influence? Like we don't necessarily have a problem with empty buildings right now. That's a, and it's a beautiful problem to not—

thank God. Yeah, you're right.

It's incredible, right? So maybe, I mean, the two that I look at, I think about is the idea of art as economic development. I mean, I love that, you know, just, and there's, we have a lot of talent and a lot of creative people plus a good arts coalition, right? So to be able to pull all of those people and just do an open call, like if you love art and wanna see more of it in town, join us and we're gonna work through this chapter together and we're gonna figure out what our next project is. Like, that's That's what I see this book becoming. That's very cool. Well, something that just guides a group to work through something together. I just really can see that being, being a cool application of it. That's the idea.

It's not just for one person to run with it. It's for people that like each other to gather and, and decide what it is they want to do, find out who else they need to know to do it, and then just start small. That's really the idea-friendly method.

It's not difficult. It isn't. Yeah. And that's just it. If people are listening to this and they have a big, beautiful idea right now and what they're thinking is that they haven't figured it all out, you probably know just enough to start. Like, you do, or you know somebody that does. Yeah, exactly. The idea that the planning has to be perfectly done, that just stops us from taking action.

So the whole thing slows everything down, you know. Yeah, the whole planning thing, please put that out of your head. No meetings. First of all, no meetings. You're just gathering with friends and doing stuff, right? Yep. Um, and don't form an organization with a president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and somebody's got to take minutes. No, no, no. You only have to write down the thing you're doing.

Okay, that is so important, Deb. Like Yes. Hopefully this is, this is, there's something in our brains that have told us that this is how it has to be done. And I'm not blaming anybody for that at all, cuz I, I just think kind of collectively we've gone in that direction. But it does, it slows everything down. And if you have to attend like 8 meetings before the first thing actually happens, I mean, any momentum or fire you had for the thing is dead, you know? Yeah. So I just, I love both you and, and Becky, you, um, you both have a scrappy style and I love it and I think it's really relatable and I think it's, it again, this word doable. That's done is better than perfect. Like, absolutely. And so just get out there and do stuff, try stuff and have fun with it. Like it shouldn't be a slog. Sometimes it is. And I, you know, I get overwhelmed. I was kind of telling you about some of my woes before we hit record it. It can just be— it can be tiring. And sometimes that's maybe the lesson I need is just, how could I make this fun?

Go take a nap, right?

The answer is go take a nap. But Deb, it's always so fun to have you on. I'm really thankful to you for having written this book, for the work you continue to do, for coming on our show, being my friend.

Thank you for ordering the book, and I'll always be your friend.

Okay, well, you come on back and see us soon.

I will. I want to hear people's stories. So you're doing this call-in thing, aren't you?

We're doing a call-in thing.

Yeah, tell me how that works again.

Yeah, so I don't— I'm sorry to tell you, do not have the number right off the top of my head. I don't know if I do either, but there is a call-in number. And so we, we seriously, we want people to call in and leave us kind of two things we're collecting from people. One is something that they're proud of so we can shout 'em out on the podcast. Every single one of our episodes with our new format is gonna have a small town shout out on it, which is super fun. So again, it's like we're not celebrating enough, but let us help celebrate. Let us help. Yeah. And then the second thing is, um, people challenges. We really wanna know like, what's this, what's the struggle that you're having with the humans in your community? And let's see if we can help unlock some different ways to approach it.

Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

Yeah. Well, again, thanks, friend, and we'll see you soon. You will.

Thank you. Bye now. Stay warm.

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