Lyle Estill

Small Is Possible: Life in a Local Economy is full of inspiring tidbits about one community's attempts at creating a local economy.

Small is Possible reads as if it were fiction, telling the stories, trials, and tribulations of the individuals within the town of Pittsboro, North Carolina. And along the way, you begin to feel you know the characters, and you take a part of them with you into your own community. While certainly Pittsboro and its people are not perfection, they are real, and their successes are inspiring.

I will note that when I first began reading this book, I was turned off because the stories take place in a small town, while I now live in a large urban area with very different needs. But as I continued reading, I found that many of Estill's words apply to any community.

OPEN SOURCE

One of my favorite ideas in the book is the idea of open source. Once you let go of this idea that everything must be copyrighted, everything must be owned and protected in order to make money, you become free. As you make new information available to others, they use it, improve upon it, and somehow down the line opportunities arise for you. Either you are hired as a consultant, or you have an idea that has been improved upon for free, or in some other way you are rewarded. And when you are working toward an model of sustainability, the planet is rewarded as well.

I have taken this idea to the blog world, where I no longer get angry when someone posts a blog entry of mine without asking. Because it's going out into the world, someone else is reading it, and when I let this go, usually I am somehow rewarded down the line.

I have taken this idea into the consulting world, into business relationships, and into life as a whole. It is an amazing thing. Like magic, or some would call it karma: as you give, somehow it comes back to you in a positive way.

Open source ideas quickly foster a more open community, a more open and honest society. A group of people or organizations all start working toward a common goal rather than all working against one another.

Beautiful, isn't it?

FINDING YOUR NICHE

Another beautiful idea is that a community needs a variety of people and businesses to thrive. And that as you begin living locally - and begin working toward a healthy community - people and businesses find their niches. And when you find your niche within the local economy, your own happiness rises. Your sense of well-being increases as you realize your positive and necessary contribution to society.

As we go further into debt and economic security throughout the world, nurturing our small, local, sustainable businesses and infrastructure will become increasingly important. It is our local economy that insulates us, it is our local infrastructure that protects us, it is our local community that sustains us.… (més)