Future Here Now: Why I Do This Work

Over the next few days, I’m sharing a set of posts that re-introduce who I am, what I’m doing, and why I do this work. With so many new people joining this community, it feels like the right moment to pull back the curtain a bit.

This reflection comes from the 2021 edition of The Local Economy Revolution Has Arrived, which still stands as one of the clearest introductions to the experiences that shaped my approach to community, economic change, and the work ahead of us.

If you haven’t read it yet, you can grab a copy — and I hope you will.

✨ More news, tools, and analysis are coming this week over on Future Here Now, where subscribers get 2–4 deep downloads each week.
👉 7-day free trial available.
👉 https://wiseeconomy.substack.com

Before I talk about what communities are facing today, I owe you the foundations of where I come from — because making wise decisions starts with understanding the limits and origins of your information. That includes me.

🏭 The Rust Belt Made Me

I grew up in a small town outside Cleveland, Ohio — solidly in the heart of the U.S. Rust Belt — where my father and grandfather ran a tiny, jack-of-all-trades paint factory. For years it kept eight people busy, making everything from primers to spray paints.

And then came 1981.

I had a front-row seat to the first convulsions of the manufacturing collapse — a collapse that, in many ways, is still unfolding today. Customers shuttered. Orders disappeared. The business was sold for its parts. My father spent most of three years out of work.

Unemployment is not just a data point.
It’s a life destabilized. A family reshaped. A worldview rewritten.

That experience left a deep imprint on me — one that still drives my work today.

🧭 A Cooked-Spaghetti Career Path

If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know my career looks… nonlinear.
Journalism. English teaching. Historic preservation. Downtown revitalization. Community planning. Economic development. Public engagement. Higher ed experiential learning. Entrepreneurship.

🍝 Yes — cooked spaghetti is the right metaphor.

Each chapter rewired how I understand people, systems, communities, and the hidden mechanics that shape our lives. Each role forced me to learn, unlearn, rebuild, stretch, and sometimes start from scratch.

And perhaps most importantly, I’ve had the privilege of working with people wildly different from myself — across cultures, races, economic backgrounds, and lived experiences. I’ve had hundreds of teachers. Still do.

Those relationships have expanded me in ways I could never have imagined.

⏳ What’s Changed Since 2013

When I released the first edition of this book, the world felt complicated.
Then the next decade said, Hold my coffee.

Some things changed in obvious ways — my kids grew up, career arcs shifted, life moved. But the most significant change happened internally.

Since 2013:

🔹 My optimism about national solutions has become cautious.
🔹 My belief in local innovation has grown stronger.
🔹 My understanding of inequity deepened — painfully, honestly, necessarily.
🔹 My awareness of my own blind spots cracked open.
🔹 My appreciation for inclusion — real inclusion — became foundational.
🔹 My respect for how hard change truly is expanded dramatically.

I used to think shifting systems was primarily a process problem.
Now I know it’s a paradigm problem — a cognitive problem — a story problem.

We get stuck inside our assumptions about how the world works.
Then we build whole careers, governments, and identities around them.

Breaking that open is hard.
Rebuilding is harder.
But it’s necessary.

My own process of unlearning — especially through building a business where almost every old assumption failed — taught me what transformation really demands.

And it gave me fierce admiration for anyone willing to take that leap.

🎙️ Why I Still Do This

Because communities deserve better tools.
Because leaders deserve better information.
Because people deserve futures that work.

Because if we want to build wiser economies and healthier communities, we need more than plans and policies — we need diverse wisdom, shared understanding, and the courage to question our paradigms.

Crowdsourcing wisdom — real wisdom — is one of the most powerful tools we have for building the future we need.
Not for niceness.
Not for symbolism.
But because diverse experiences see what conventional leaders miss.

We can’t solve 21st-century problems with 20th-century assumptions.

🚀 Ready to Go Deeper? Join Me.

If this resonates, here’s where the real journey begins:

📚 Explore the Books
The Local Economy Revolution Has Arrived, Crowdsourcing Wisdom, Everyone Innovates Here, and more.

📰 Subscribe to Future Here Now
Weekly insights, tools, frameworks, and analysis to help you navigate a changing world.
👉 https://wiseeconomy.substack.com

💼 Visit Wise Economy Workshop
Training, models, and practical resources for leaders, communities, and organizations.
👉 https://wiseeconomy.com

🎤 Bring Me to Your Community or Organization
Keynotes • Workshops • Trainings • Strategic guidance.
Let’s equip your team to think more clearly, act more wisely, and prepare for the future.

💬 Thank you for being here.

If you’re new, welcome.
If you’ve been here a while, thank you for the trust.

Let’s build the future — wisely, bravely, and together.