This Sustainable Life

The notes I read for this episode were long, so instead of including them in the podcast notes, I posted them as a separate blog post:  The text from episode 630: Simplifying Meditation Words and Meaning . My book: Leadership Step by Step The Science article I mentioned: Limits to economic growth The article showing humans lived to a modal age of 72: Longevity Among Hunter- Gatherers: A Cross...

We started talking about Michelle's commitment to avoid scrolling on vacation. She did. It sounds like it was both no big deal and something worth building on. We had intended to keep the recording to under thirty minutes for scheduling reasons, but the conversation kept staying too interesting to stop. We talked about addiction, how big a difference small differences can make, the difference betw...

I think Jay's commitment may be the first where I participated and we had a blast! You may remember he committed to kayaking on the Hudson. He invited me to join. As you can see from the picture, I did, and we kayaked together. We shared about the experience. Note the change in our conversation and relationship from last conversation to this one. By last conversation we had spoken several times to...

Nadeem contacted me as a listener to suggest Abdal Hakim Murad as a guest, as I hadn't hosted any Muslims on the podcast by then. I learned a lot and enjoyed meeting Abdal, plus Nadeem and I stayed in touch. When Janet Allaker 's first episode with a listener went well, I invited Nadeem to be a guest. He loved the opportunity. I think we both enjoyed the conversation. If you're a regular listener,...

Regular readers and listeners know my passion for cleaning my local park, Washington Square Park, and how my heart breaks at how we abuse this sliver of a vestige of nature, especially the mornings after the Queer Liberation Marches of the past two years. As an organizer, Jay didn't have to respond to my request, but he did. By the end of this recording, you'll hear us talk about reducing waste ne...

I answer my first listener questions. If you have questions on topics I write about, like leadership, sustainability, sustainability leadership, sidchas, habits, academia, physics, podcasting, and so on, contact me . This episode's questions: Hi, Joshua, in the winter months of this year, in New York, in your flat, will you use heating or blankets? Can you describe a time when you struggled with a...

I came across John from listening to one of his podcast's season, Seeing White , about the development of whiteness as a race. I listened to the whole series, which I found fascinating and provocative. Then I discovered another season, Men , covering another topic important to me. I invited him to be on the podcast, then I learned from him the most recent season, The Repair , is on the enviro...

AJ is in some ways a kindred soul, actually doing things many people hear about or even talk about, but rarely do. Regular listeners might remember our mutual friend Mike Michalowicz suggesting we talk. We start by talking about things AJ has done and written about. He read the encyclopedia cover to cover. He lived a year following biblical instructions as literally as possible. He practiced radic...

Stephen's book, Trust & Inspire , recounts today's effective way to lead, by creating trust and inspiring. He laments people still relying on the old techniques of commanding and controlling, which may have worked in more industrial times, but not today. They provoke resistance, the opposite of trust and inspire. Those familiar with my work have heard me lament what people do in sustainability...

In our third conversation, Whitney and I get more friendly and conversational, fun conversation. He's been picking up more garbage, which I hope is part of a journey of continual improvement. Since long before we met, he rides his bike to get around the city. Otherwise, he's focused on other things in life than sustainability. He's examined a lot of parts of his life, but not his impact on other p...

Listening to an episode of Sam Harris's podcast featuring Roland Griffiths, Johns Hopkins neuroscientist researcher, on psychedelics revealed that much of their benefit sounds a lot like my guests talking about their experiences of nature. I think we don't know how much we're missing by paving over and cutting off as much as we do from nature. I'd guess people before we cut ourselves off from raw,...

Most second conversations on this podcast come weeks or months later, after the guest does his or her Spodek Method commitment. In Michael's case, our first conversation was so engaging, we kept talking almost two hours, so I split the conversation into two parts. The first mostly covered Michael and his research. This part covered applying his research and my leadership to sustainability. What ca...

*"The average modal age of adult death for hunter-gatherers is 72 with a range of 68–78 years. This range appears to be the closest functional equivalent of an 'adaptive' human life span." Would you be surprised that humans evolved to live to 72 years old? Wait, isn't one of the greatest results of our technology and progress to advance human lifespan from 30 years old? How long do humans live nat...

Janet shared how she found This Sustainable Life , what kept her coming back, the guests she liked, and how it's affected her. I wish I had recorded episodes with listeners before to learn what you all like, don't like, and want more or less of. Listening to it after recording, I consider our conversation one of the most accessible for new listeners. Janet described various aspects of it that I su...

Leaders who know how to lead and change culture know culture eats strategy for breakfast. This concept figures strongly in Michael's book, Gridiron Genius . When most people watch football, they see the game, maybe the game plan and strategy. We see it on the scale of a play, maybe a game involving twenty-two men on a field, maybe also the coaches and trainers. Michael sees each play in the contex...

Regular listeners know I started an experiment disconnecting from the electric grid. I began May 22. Then on July 22, I posted an episode that the solar panel or battery broke, or both. I didn't see how I could continue so said that after I finished recording, I'd declare victory, reconnect to the grid, cook lunch, and move on. Regular listeners and readers of my blog know that I posted about keep...

Where was Michelle Nijhuis all my life? She lived off the electric grid for fifteen years and I was about two months in, so we shared stories of the experiences. She did it much longer and her fiance had to assemble everything from scratch. I'm only two months in and can use off-the-shelf parts, but I'm in Manhattan, so can't set up a permanent system. Some similarities: connecting with nature, le...

My proposal and rationale for the next amendment for the United States Constitution. It will sound crazy, impossible, and too hard at first, as it did with me. But the more you consider it, the more the objections will fade. It is the right tool for the right job. Nothing else is. I'll write more about it later. For now, just the audio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When I wrote up my experiment to live with my apartment off the grid in Manhattan for a month, I looked up what I did the morning I started. My library records show I borrowed and listened to Sebastian's book Tribe , then my browser history shows I watched a ton of videos featuring him. Soon after I read Freedom , watched Restrepo and The Last Patrol . His work makes you question your values, the...

In this sixth conversation between an Extinction Rebellion Rebel and a home-grown sustainability leadership (I hope) leader, we explore more of the life of someone who has devoted himself to solving our environmental problems. We continue comparing and contrasting the approaches, learning from each other, developing friendship, sharing the challenges, and sharing why we do it. If you, listener, ha...

Here are the notes I read from: 40% of pregnancies are unplanned. Overpopulation is a major problem for environment so it's a topic for this podcast. Girlfriend who pressured me into unprotected sex and got pregnant Not only women's issue. Men have as much value to add as anyone who hasn't been robbed or murdered to speak on robbery and murder. Her power, reversing her word, pressuring, irresponsi...

Having just started month three of living off the electric grid in Manhattan, technical issues led me to stop the experiment. I'm not sure the problem, but connecting the solar panels to the power station, it doesn't charge. I don't know how to diagnose it without another power station or solar panel I know works to find the problem. Here are the notes I read from: Last use of electronics off-grid...

The notes I read from: Yesterday my mom suggested I move away from the city if it makes me feel so bad. Last week my dad reaffirmed that he wouldn't appear on the podcast without some vague conditions he was using my invitation to cajole me into. To move away from the problem is exactly the opposite of my mission. Nearly everyone else identifies my work as helping the world, even if they don't see...

Mike committed to a year-long task. Few guests go for so long. Since we're in a writing group together, I've seen him in between, but since I want you, the listeners, to hear guests' results first, I didn't ask him if he stayed on track. To be candid, I suspected he didn't because of the year length. Regular listeners know I bring some guests on for episode 1.5s, where I help bring them back on tr...

Nakisa shared about the intersection of nature and its disappearance growing up, as well as her growing awareness of it, family, community, and a polluting cement factory appearing in her neighborhood. We recorded shortly after the Buffalo shooting of May 2022, and talking about access to fresh produce disappearing from her neighborhood touched on it. Everything led to her sharing about her plans...