This Sustainable Life

I was pleasantly surprised in reading Osprey's book The Story is in Our Bones that she also sees the need to change culture, including elements like our stories, role models, images, and beliefs. Focusing on cultural elements doesn't mean ignoring or leaving out measurable things like greenhouse gas emissions or plastic waste. On the contrary, focusing on those things without addressing our storie...

People call my behavior extreme, though I'm just acting in service of others. To be more precise, I'm acting in love for others. When people suggest what I'm doing is too hard, I sometimes remark how during America's Civil Rights era, some people went to jail for different people's freedom. Nobody looks forward to going to jail, yet people did. Their actions make mine look easy and fun. Still, I s...

You probably came to hear Nick's experience exploring Rock Creek Park in Washington DC based on his childhood experiences in nature with his father. Since we recorded shortly after my visit to DC, where I missed Nick but visited his friends and colleagues, and podcast guests, Jack Spencer and Travis Fisher , we talked about them. I mentioned visiting Heritage and Cato. Then we spoke about differen...

I start by sharing how much value I get from participating in Lorraine's weekly coaching group. Then she shares her path to coaching on sustainability. She worked in the heart of the corporate sustainability accounting and reporting. She saw it mostly did nothing and often exacerbated the situations it purported to solve. She has created a practice that exposes and helps fix these problems. I ende...

Meaningful interactions don't have to be complex. Travis simply shares his experiences in nature in childhood and finds ways to recreate the emotional experience today. To me the most meaningful part is the result: he expects to spend more time with his children (and dog) doing something he's meant to do a long time . It doesn't cost money. It sounds like it will give him more time. The cleaning p...

If you haven't listened to my conversation with Lorna before taking the sustainability leadership workshop , I recommend listening to it first: 794: Lorna Davis, part 3: Before taking the sustainability leadership workshop . In this episode, Lorna shares her experiences, reactions, and thoughts from taking the workshop. They're all multifaceted. They come from her classmates, leading them in the e...

Josh and I talked about a few aspects of his acting on his commitment from the Spodek Method. For one thing, since he and I both study, practice, and teach leadership, we talked about the technique, how it works, how it impacted him. Since leadership involves emotion, empathy, and related social and emotional skills, we talked about the emotional journey. If you ever want to infuriate me, maybe th...

Regular listeners and readers of my podcast and blog know I grew up with parents who helped form a grocery buying group which folded into a food co-op. Different co-ops work differently, but the general idea is that shoppers co-own the business. There's less motivation to stock doof and more to source local, fresh produce and keep money in the community. While we still shopped at supermarkets, we...

Many people think sustainability requires fixing everything or else we'll collapse. The Spodek Method creates a mindset shift followed by continual improvement, not, as they might hope, a mindset shift followed by perfection. Alden has had her electronic bike in Vermont for some time but hasn't ridden it. She's used doing the Spodek Method as her excuse to ride it, but it's taken time. This time s...

We start by talking about the internal challenges Jack felt about acting to do something he wouldn't have otherwise. He cares about the environment and lives accordingly. Still, he wouldn't have done what he committed to when we spoke. Does that mean what we would do is inauthentic? Then we talk about nuclear and other policy issues. Heritage's Project 2025 came up so he shared some back story the...

Lorraine is one of the few people I know who saw mainstream sustainability efforts for what they are: ineffective and often counterproductive but self-congratulatory. I call most of them "stepping on the gas, thinking it's the brake, wanting congratulations." Unlike most others, once she saw their counterproductivity, if not outright lies, she left. She works to promote an "economy in service of l...

Lorna first appeared on this podcast in 2021. We became friends and remained so, though we challenge each other, as you'll hear in this conversation. We don't try to. Just things about the other annoy us. But how much we respect and learn from each other outshines that annoyance. Lorna knew about the Spodek Method and workshops for years. I don't know why she didn't join one until now, but somethi...

People I talk to on the political left who care about the environment see people on the political right as opponents to defeat. When I share that I talk to people from Heritage Foundation, where Nick worked, they sound skeptical at best, more commonly incredulous and fearful. In this episode, you'll hear heartwarming stories of Nick's childhood with his father, then Nick today finding a way to man...

We recorded this conversation just after the election. We talked about it, especially Travis's and the Cato Institute's views. One of his main views is that the US puts too much executive authority in the president. I'm also We shared our concerns about the Inflation Reduction Act coming from different standpoints, but agreeing with each other. Our main conversation was about approaching sustainab...

I'm following up my recent solo post, 790: Talking to a guy injecting on the sidewalk , with another extemporaneous one. This one is also with a former podcast guest and fellow teacher of our sustainability leadership workshop , Evelyn Wallace. This episode gives an inside view of how I develop ideas in our entrepreneurial team. In particular, I share a few insights into what I offer in the worksh...

On a beautiful sunny Saturday, 9:50am, I was walking to Washington Square Park to charge my battery and talk at 10am to my friend Dan McPherson ( he's been on the podcast , where he shared about his heart attack at age 46 the week before we recorded). I saw the guy in the picture injecting. I asked if I could take his picture and a brief conversation ensued. Instead of my planned conversation with...

As a podcast host, I get pitched a lot of authors, books, and more. Most aren't relevant or are counterproductive to sustainability. I received an email promoting the author of Legal Gladiator , a biography of Alan Dershowitz. I knew the name from the news, but didn't know more than the name, maybe a whiff of his being controversial. I looked up the book and author and found both fascinating. I sc...

I quote Susan in my book, Sustainability Simplified . In it you'll see how much John Locke influenced my long-term vision for the US to understand and solve our environmental problems. Learning about the Thirteenth Amendment, which (mostly) banned slavery, and its improbable path to passage and ratification led me to think about solving our environmental problems similarly. I learned that many peo...

I've been curious in what ways libertarian views on the environment and sustainability differ from conservative views. Travis worked at the Heritage Foundation, which is more conservative, and now works at the Cato Institute, which is more libertarian. Since I haven't spoken to many libertarians directly, I'm interested in this conversation to learn, so it's a conversation, not a debate. Early in...

Usually when someone does their commitment with the Spodek Method, they enjoy it. Nearly always they do more than they commit to. Sometimes someone really enjoys it. Jan went to town on his commitment. You might wonder if there's any appeal to picking up litter. Is it worth the effort? Who cares, anyway? After all, more people litter than pick it up, as anyone can tell by how much litter there is...

I participated in an online workshop in influence and persuasion that Josh led. We got in touch afterward and found our approaches to the practices and how to learn them overlap. We start this episode talking about his background and what led him to learning and training others in the practices. Then we talk about what we like about learning and practicing them, what works, what doesn't, misconcep...

If you haven't listened to episode 781: My New Major Life Volunteering Community Project, four years in the making , listen to it first for context. That episode describes my journey to start volunteering as an auxiliary police officer and the background to it. Depending on how well you know me or not, you may find the activity as surprising as I do, though I seem to be a minority in that regard....

Jan is a listener of this podcast who contacted me about how it changed his life. He is listening to each episode, starting from the beginning . I invited him to be a guest and he accepted. We've also crossed paths through working with podcast guest Dave Gardner , and his work in Growthbusters and running for President of the United States . Jan is Dutch, living in Germany, so can't vote in the US...

Toxic chemicals leach from food packaging into your food. Some of these chemicals disrupt your hormones. Some cause cancer. Some affect your children more. Some disperse into the environment and harm wildlife. For 300,000 years, humans lived without plastic. We created this system, maybe thinking only of the effects we wanted, imagining these toxic effects wouldn't happen. Maybe we didn't imagine...

I started a new project volunteering in my community that is also a big life change I wouldn't believe I'm doing except that I am. In a sense I started the project over four years ago and it's only seeing the light of day now. Sorry I'm writing little about and the episode is long, but for now I wanted only those interested to learn in so you have to listen all the way through to hear the full sco...