I needed something to get me thinking again, so I asked Brooke what she thought were the five most incredible things happening in Youngstown right now. I know, I know—I shot low—and she confirmed it:
Only 5?
Oops.
I think that the most incredible thing happening in Youngstown is intangible: the energy. The amount of excitement and opportunity, and that swell of feeling that envelops everything as people start to realize what opportunity really looks like. It’s the acknowledgment that there is so much we can do and nothing holding us back (or at least, nothing that we cannot change in order to get what we want).
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
If you need a refresher, though I know that most of you frequent my personal blog, I’ve been talking about Youngstown intermittently for the last few months. Mostly in one long swath, and an inkling a couple of weeks ago—because the situation there is so interesting, but also heavy on the economics (and politics!) in ways that boggle my mind just a little bit. The big picture, however, doesn’t change the fact that Youngstown’s businesses, its people, its very basic energy could benefit from a handful of changes that, well, everyone benefits from, for the most part. The biggest of these is in changing the way it thinks.
Ha! I know you knew I was going there. You know what started it, for me personally? Psycho-cybernetics. I just couldn’t believe that someone out there had the idea that you could change what you are by thinking about it. And maybe I was a little bit skeptical in the beginning… maybe I wasn’t sure. Hell, nobody’s ever sure. But if I’d waited until I was sure to run this thing full-time, who knows when I would have gotten there? I think it’s something you feel, in your gut, go for. And I’m not saying there aren’t a few really practical solutions for Youngstown’s situation, because there are (and don’t be too surprised if that’s my next post), but the big one, the really powerful one, is in the thinking.
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