Have you ever read a book that stays under your skin and makes you think about it as well as ideas that seem to spawn in your mind because of it?

Are you tired of negativity in your city and among your neighbors? Do you feel like you live in a community without the actual community cohesiveness that would be nice?

Have you ever wondered to yourself, ‘there are so many issues that need to be tackled in my neighborhood and I would love to help but I don’t know where to start.’ I know I have. And now I’ve read a book that is both under my skin and causing my mind to go off in what could be some good directions. What is the book? Instructions from The Cook, written by Cleveland’s own George Nemeth (BFD) (@georgenemeth) and Jack Ricchiuto (@DesigningLife.com). You can read about or order Instructions from The Cook here.

Have you ever had an idea about something you’d like to do for a neighbor, for your neighborhood, or something you’d like implemented into City life? Or maybe you have an idea for neighborhood kids or a business venture. It all seems overwhelming but Jack and George wrote this book to show how it doesn’t have to be. And as a matter of fact, they say two important things:

- good things, ideas with longevity, usually start out small not large.

- “people will authentically support what they help create” (page 55 of the book).

- there are lots of good ideas, not just one

- meeting to talk about ideas with people of all sorts of mindsets is usually much more productive than just meeting with people who think like me (this ties into the ‘lots of good ideas’ truth above).

When Jack and George wrote about ’slow and small’ being better than ‘fast and big’, it took me back to how we learn (my education training kicking in). We learn at our best, our most comprehensive, when we start with a solid foundation of information and then expand our knowledge on that topic/subject as we go along. It helps us not live with pre-conceived ideas, but to be open to possibilities…and yeah it helps us retain the information in a way that leads to the ability to be creative with the knowledge…

Real Estate Blog - What Do Zen, Cooking, and Neighborliness Have To Do With Each Other?

During the arms race that dominated the 70’s and 80’s a friend of mine remarked something to the effect that “to accomplish change requires the intellectual ability to both accept that the situation is hopeless at the same time you believe it can be changed.” This statement haunted me for years, because if I focused on the gravity of the world’s problems, I immediately became overwhelmed and doubtful of my ability to make a difference. I felt powerless, and, if the cynicism and apathy of my generation is any indicator, I was not alone.

We regarded making change a difficult and complex task. We ordered studies, studies that took years before they told us what we already knew, things needed to change. Oh, and they also told us that change takes years and lots of money.

But what if we were wrong? What if change is as simple as making soup?

Instructions from the Cook, says it is…

Instructions from the Cook - Review « Five Husbands

Jack Ricchiuto & George Nemeth, local community-builders, have teamed up to author a new book entitled Instructions from the Cook, a collection of creative recipes and and ideas for engaging and empowering a community to change. Based on zen principles, their book speaks of how small acts can bring big change. Listen to this video interview at their book signing in Tremont with Cool Cleveland’s Thomas Mulready and learn how to initiate conversations, both on the internet and face-to-face, that maximize our individual gifts and talents to build our community.

When is the last time you actually made soup for a senior, exchanged stories with a homeless person or used one of your unique gifts to reach out of your comfort zone and help someone with lesser resources? Dive into this little gem and become authentically engaged.

Seeking Common Ground and the programs that operate under its umbrella are the embodiment of that dream. The programs include a community organic farm at Denome’s home on Hicks Road in South Bristol; a farm-to-cafeteria program that works with Ontario County Cornell Cooperative Extension, local farmers and food service directors to increase the use of local foods in cafeterias; and Herb Haven, an herbal gardening and retail training program for women and children who are striving to become economically self-sufficient.

About 50 women are participating in one or more of the programs. The community farm is a cooperative that offers the chance to learn about agriculture and help grow a variety of vegetables and other edibles in exchange for having healthy, homegrown food. At Herb Haven, women attend eight to 10 hours a week to learn life skills (such as budgeting and setting goals), horticulture and retail job skills and attend a support group. They plant, tend and harvest the garden, create useful products with the herbs and then sell them from a shop at the site in Crystal Beach on Route 364. Free nutritious meals are provided for women and children, and a child-care program offers arts, crafts, song, dance, gardening, cooking and creative play…

Group of women fighting poverty at home - Wellsville, NY - Wellsville Daily Reporter

The truth about the future is that it’s uncertain. It’s uncertain because our knowledge is alway imperfect, because we’re taking actions that will always have non-linear ripples of consequences, and people we will never meet will take actions that will impact us in non-linear ways.

When I wrote “Project Zen” a few years ago, I defined planning as preparation. But how do we become prepared for an uncertain future? Here are a few questions that help.

What matters to us?
What potential future changes could occur that we wouldn’t cause?
What potential future changes could occur that our actions could cause?
What is the percentage of un/certainty for each?
Who might have more certainty or certainty before we would?
What do we want to invest in being prepared for?

So what does planning look like for an uncertain future? It’s dreaming and translating dreams into small acts that we can commit to in the present. These questions help enrich the conversation. At the end of the day, intellectually honest planning does not produce a binder of anything. Only commitments to dreams and small acts.

The start of AA was a small act realizing a big dream. Two men started by helping two other men toward recovery and today million of lives are transformed by the community they built. If you have examples you know of or have been a part of, send them to us. The book, that will be titled “Instructions From The Cook: Recipes for Building Community” will feature descriptions, implications, and applications of a community building model around these recipes.

View the Intentional Model Recipes here. Email your recipes to recipes@radicaltransitions.net. You can also leave them here in a comment.

• Believe you can change the world.

• Work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, work whenever.

• Know when to work alone and when to work together.

• Share — tools, ideas. Trust your colleagues.

• No politics. No bureaucracy. (These are ridiculous in a garage.)

• The customer defines a job well done.

• Radical ideas are not bad ideas.

• Invent different ways of working.

• Make a contribution every day. If it doesn’t contribute, it doesn’t leave the garage.

• Believe that together we can do anything.

• Invent.

1999 HP Annual Report