From Possibilities to Reality
A practical workbook for people who care about small towns and are ready to stop waiting and start doing something. It gives you real examples, usable ideas, and doable next steps you can use with residents, entrepreneurs, local leaders, and community groups.
Buy the book now
When you buy here, you support my work directly. You can also order through Amazon, Ingram, or Barnes & Noble, but this is the best way to support the work behind the book.
Prefer to use the book with a group, workshop, or event? Scroll down for book clubs, bulk orders, and speaking options.
Why this book
This is not a book full of theory and waiting. It is a workbook built to help your town take small, practical steps that build momentum.
Inside, you’ll find:
- Real stories from small towns trying new ideas.
- Practical strategies you can use right away.
- Discussion starters and examples you can bring to your group, board, class, or community meeting.
I wrote it from my own work with small towns, from years of listening to local people, and from examples of communities finding ways forward with what they already have.
This book is already helping communities take action.
Book clubs in 16 communities across the country are using it to spark discussion and momentum. Organizations are using it in workshops, staff learning, and local conversations about what to do next.
One example:
In Natchez, Mississippi, neighborhood leaders, business owners, and community members gathered for a workshop and conversation built around the ideas in the book. The focus was not on waiting for outside rescue. It was on listening, learning, and taking practical steps with what people already had. Read about it here
Choose your next step
Buy one book
If you want practical ideas, success stories, and a workbook you can actually use, start here.
Buy 5 books
Start a book club for your small town, leadership group, or organization.
Order 5 or more books and save 20 percent. Gather a few people who care, work through the ideas together, and use the discussion to identify your town’s next small step.
There are 16 book clubs all over the United States! Thanks to Largo, Indiana, McComb, Illinois, Colwich and Stockton, Kansas, Princeton, Illinois, Kittanning, Pennsylvania, Wildwood, Missouri, Webster City, Iowa, Badin, North Carolina, Martindale, Texas, Burney, California, and Bell County, KY for caring about your town and using the Idea Friendly Method to achieve your big ideas.
Shasta County, California, Economic Development Organization is using the book in the town of Burney for a monthly workshop! And the Center for Inclusive Entrepreneurship has started a book club for its staff! Read all about it here!
I'll send you an invoice, when you pay the books are shipped directly to you.
Use the book as a tool, not just a takeaway.
Sponsors, chambers, leadership programs, extension groups, Main Street organizations, nonprofits, and conference organizers can bulk-buy copies for workshops, cohorts, and events. Order 5 or more books and receive the group discount, with books shipped directly to you.
Want to turn the ideas in the book into a live conversation?
Bring me in for a conference, workshop, webinar, or local event. I can tailor a session around empty buildings, community action, entrepreneurship, tourism, and practical next steps for small towns.
Looking for a podcast or webinar guest?
A strong interview angle is the journey from TEDx talk to workbook: how ideas about empty buildings, local action, and community possibility became a practical guide for today’s vacancy and revitalization challenges. The webinar with Kansas State University Extension is one example of how these conversations resonate with people working in real communities.
What you’ll explore inside the workbook:
- Bring people together — simple ways to gather people, ask better questions, and build momentum.
- Build community — practical ideas that make towns more welcoming, connected, and involved.
- Support youth and young families — ways to include students, encourage entrepreneurship, and make towns more livable.
- Use art as economic development — low-cost ideas for beautification, placemaking, and local identity.
- Tackle empty buildings — strategies for tours, reuse, code issues, and making vacant spaces feel possible again.
- Strengthen local business — ideas for incubators, pop-ups, shared buildings, remote workers, and tourism.
- Promote what you have — practical marketing ideas that help more people notice your town.
- Find funding and local leaders — ways to build support, raise money, and focus on the assets you already have.
For funders, sponsors, and partner organizations
If you support leadership development, entrepreneurship, neighborhood revitalization, or community engagement, this book makes a practical resource for participants. Sponsors can bulk-buy copies for workshops, leadership classes, conferences, or community cohorts and put a real tool in people’s hands instead of one more handout that gets left behind.
Ready to help your town move from possibilities to reality?
Start with one copy, order for a group, or use the book as part of your next event or workshop. The important thing is not just to read it. It is to use it.
Sign up for email updates:
Have you already gotten your book? Here are some bookmarks you can cut out and use! One set is in color, the other is black and white. Just click on the image you want below, and it will open a new page you can print. Or use this link that is a pdf document.
