This Sustainable Life

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...

Here are the notes I read from for this episode. Following pattern of effective speeches and leadership to lead people to love doing things not obviously personally benefiting. If you've seen movie Patton, George C Scott delivers a shorter, cleaner, but better acted version. Compare what he's asking his men to do with what it takes to pollute less What is required of us in environmental stewardshi...

The actions we can take to preserve the environment are so simple anyone can do them. They improve our lives, connecting us to each other, freeing us from distraction of craving and separation. Role models help. Nelson Mandela worked harder and faced risks greater than any of us need to---if we even face any, since eating more fruits and vegetables and spending time with people close to us improve...

George and I talked about three big topics George Floyd demonstrations and riots from the view of a man watching his businesses and his communities' businesses vandalized and destroyed. You'll also hear him reflect as a man who dismissed Colin Kaepernick---in his view disrespecting the flag. Why did he have that view? For supporting veterans, especially veteran suicide, through incredible runs---u...

Here are the notes I read from on recounting the potential I saw for the Spartan Race community and its founder, Joe De Sena, if they chose to prioritize environmental stewardship.   Context: Joe: carries chain up 1,000-foot hill, brings others with him, invites people to climb hill for 24 hours, leads to Spartan Run. Brings people up to carry boulders up steep hill, which they pay to do. Com...

“Don’t ask kids what they want to be when they grow up. Ask them what problem they want to solve.” Jaime explains what his title of Google's "Education Evangelist" means, how he got it, and how it results in him advancing education globally. We talk about education when student-driven, how that paradigm differs from what nearly all schools now do. Also how it is everywhere in life. He gives an ins...

Here are the notes I read this episode from: People keep acting like I'm different, that they have to balance things that I don't when acting on the environment. So I'll share a recent decision I made. People I tell have sounded intrigued and delighted to hear it so I'll share with you. First sensed hairline retreating at 19. Not much for maybe a decade following, I don't remember. Maybe 10 years...

Steven Pressfield's War of Art is a perennial bestseller. If you haven't read it, I recommend reading it, even if you delay listening to this podcast. Well, listen to this episode since it will prepare you. Before I read it, I could not have imagined someone writing it. I can't think of another book like it. It's helped countless people start acting on passions. Steven shares how the book emerged-...

  While I was jogging (actually plogging ) along the Hudson River around 7:30am, a person not wearing a mask stepped into my path, blocking me, saying the person's shoes had been stolen. The person seemed to let me pass, but then threatened me and threw a bottle that shattered at my feet as I ran past. I kept running, the hair on the back of my neck standing up and my adrenaline high. I don't...