This Sustainable Life

Nir and my second conversation covered how I inspired him and how he inspired me. If I'm not too presumptuous to say I inspired him, the first part is about his choosing to avoid flying. Several months into the pandemic, we're all used to not flying, but when he committed, before the pandemic, most people I talked to called not flying impossible. By contrast, Nir emailed me about 24 hours after ou...

The not-flying-by-choice community is fairly small. About 80 percent of humans can't fly because they can't, but among people who can but choose not to, we're limited. Still, I can't believe I only found out about Maja recently. A few minutes into her TEDx talk , I knew I had to bring her on. She's avoided flying about double how long I have. I could hear from her every sentence that she's had to...

Everyone can lead when everyone around them agrees. How about when your conscience tells you what's right differs from everyone around you? Bob Inglis is a former Congressman from South Carolina---the reddest district in the reddist state, as he puts it. The short story is that he stated he believed the science behind climate change. That was ten years ago. They voted him out. You'll hear in this...

I first crossed paths with Coleman at a conference that previous guest Jonathan Haidt organized on promoting viewpoint diversity in academia. I hosted a breakfast panel discussion. Coleman spoke on a panel later that day. He shared views that sounded reasonable and well-expressed, but I also knew social media mobs attacked him, though not often engaged. You hear about situations like that. I wante...

Here are my notes that I read from for this episode: Play Thomas N. Todd recording Repeat it, explaining from ad campaign Context was civil rights---that is equal rights for blacks as for whites in the US. I don't know context but I think pointing out that blacks who could fight best---educated, could speak to whites best---instead of helping other blacks would rather be white and not fight for eq...

Are you fatigued from pandemic defenses like wearing masks and washing your hands? Is your community, like New York City, doing well? Do you feel since we're doing well, we can let up at last? Do you know what happens when competing against an opponent you can beat, but instead of playing to your potential, you play to theirs? You tie them or even lose . The fatigue we feel is mental and emotional...

Kelly is experienced in theory, practice, and community of W. Edwards Deming. If you don't know Deming, you'll hear from this conversation, but for context, growing up my top role models were Gandhi, King, and Mandela. As I practiced sustainability, I realized acting in harmony with nature and motivating others to connect with deeper values isn't exactly what they did. New role models emerged: Pat...

Kevin Cahill's grandfather, W. Edwards Deming, changed nations. An emperor awarded him a medal. If you don't know either, listen to the first few minutes when I describe him. Deming has become one of my top role models. He transformed nations in a few years---the time scale that climate scientists say we have, not that climate is our only problem. He shows what one person can do---the opposite of...

Matthew is friends with the guy who built the white nationalist online community, Stormfront . He is also an observant orthodox Jew. You may have heard about him because the pair made headlines and appeared on the Daily Show and shows like that. Matthew and Derek Black made headlines because Matthew invited Derek to Shabat dinner in college. They became friends. Derek eventually disavowed his earl...

Do you have friends that you talk to once or twice a month---someone you can talk about important things beyond the day to day? Dan is one of those friends for me. The week before recording this conversation he told me he had a massive heart attack. He's 46 years old. I was traveling and could only hear part of the story. What I heard made me reflect all week. The pains, hospitals, and doctors wer...

Rarely do you meet someone who created a word that became common. My guests today, Gifford and Libba Pinchot, created the term intrapraneurship . In the world of leadership and entrepreneurship, they created a discipline. After years of activism in the 60s, through entrepreneurship in the 90s, and what attracted me to them most, they started a business school from scratch, the first to offer an MB...

Our last episode ended with two subjects either of which I'd love to cover---an NFL tight end picking up other people's garbage and stoicism. We had covered life for a professional team athlete under a pandemic. Then George Floyd and Black Lives Matter eclipsed the pandemic in the media and public discourse. We covered all these topics in this episode, starting with stoicism, which I think set the...

I'm continuing my practice of bringing leadership to sustainability, following my bringing speeches and messages by Patton, Frankl, JFK, King, Mandela, Henry V, and others. Today I bring President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address honoring men who fought and died in battle. I hoped to draw parallels to acting in stewardship today but faced two big differences. First, we don't have to risk our l...

For years I thought fusion could solve our environmental problems. Serious consideration betrays that false promise, illustrating it would only continue the the pattern creating the problems we're trying to solve. Even if it works, it leads to two results I see as problems. One, it will lead us to keep changing our world away from the environment we evolved in to allow us to thrive and enjoy a bou...

Andreas and I go back five or ten years. He hired me as a coach when he was selling his share of a business he cofounded. He appears in my book Initiative about that experience and what he's done since. I invited him as a guest for two reasons: One, he started the Leadership and the Environment Sweden podcast. I shared with him my vision of working on sustainability in a way to help people become...

I love talking with people who strive to reach their potential and beyond, and who elevate people around them---their teammates. People like that exist everywhere, especially in professional sports. Jaeden plays for the Atlanta Falcons. We start by talking about his first touchdown pass, which you have to watch . It's what you'd dream of for a first touchdown pass. Loving sports as I do and hearin...

You've heard people calling for moonshots---challenges so great we take them on as a nation. But regarding sustainability we also ask people to do as little as they can, "here's one little thing you can do for the environment." In this episode, I bring you John Kennedy's speech at Rice on the original moonshot, fraught with peril, expensive, asking a lot. He spoke with resolve we lack today everyw...

Margaret is the Executive Director at The Climate Mobilization. Writing Facing the Climate Emergency brought her to me. Her psychology background leads her to approach the climate psychologically, which I appreciate and consider missing. Our internal resistance, fears, and emotions that we don't like facing seem our biggest challenges to act. Of course, more research and education help, but we cro...

Many people are looking to return to something they can call normal since the pandemic undid their earlier normal. In the meantime they struggle. Almost everyone I know knows Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning . I don't know what they think the book applies to, but it applies to exactly this situation. I'll give the perfectly relevant quote here and elaborate in the episode: We must never fo...

I shared a story with a client the other day that he found deeply meaningful. I'd never shared it with anyone before because it felt so shameful. Enough time has passed that I can talk about it, so I'm sharing it here, but I still cringe over it. I shared it to clarify a misunderstanding I hear from many people that somehow things I've done were easier for me than for others, like somehow I got mo...

You're about to hear a conversation post-George Floyd by two leadership writers. Normally we write for mostly business audiences. this conversation felt more personal. Normally when a friend introduces a potential podcast guest, we start by talking each other's work and figure out scheduling. With Chester---maybe given his openness and, I think, mine, as well as the protests raging---we jumped int...

Here are the notes I read from for this episode: Stand up comedians Growing up in 70s I thought everyone would want to lead, to give I Have A Dream speech of their generation Felt so natural, though universal So until recently felt others could do better, wouldn't want to compete Dawning on my almost nobody wants to Nobody seems to want to change I expect they'll be happy to change if they don't h...

Here are the notes I wrote and read this podcast from: It's no secret the tension between police and protesters in this country. I've talked to a lot of protesters in my day, having protested myself many times, especially in college. In grad school a post-doc once worked as auxiliary policeman Recently listened to Jocko Willink on Joe Rogan's podcast. I won't explain who they are because they're b...

Here are the notes I read from (maybe better just to listen): Yesterday two things, I'll start with second because more poignant. Ran into old friend a few weeks ago, clubbing, Submedia. Met at bar, first time since March, ready to walk away, wasn't going to order doof. But distant, outdoor, nearly empty. Talking for about an hour, a lot on how I transitioned. Talking about TV show. As an aside, h...

Joe DeSena founded the Spartan Race and hosts the Spartan Up podcast. For those who know about me and my burpees, cold showers, rowing a marathon, picking up garbage daily, and so on, you can imagine I love what he does. Joe has made it his mission to bring the emotional rewards of joy, service, happiness, resilience, grit, toughness, and all those things to the world by creating a culture and com...