This Sustainable Life

Jack shares his love for nature and passion to care for it, how central it is to his life, how much of his time and focus he devotes to it. He shares his principles of individual choice over top-down regulation. He especially opposes government subsidy for squashing innovation, including industries he prefers, like nuclear. He's not anti-government. Listen to the episode for his views in more deta...

Nick and I talk about freedom, liberty, personal action and, however paradoxical to most people, how important personal behavior is in changing systems. Then we talk about markets, regulation, and democracy and how they interact with community norms. Looking at the words markets, regulation, and democracy, they may look academic or abstract, but I think you'll find the conversation fun because it'...

This episode follows up the last one, on how you can learn sustainability leadership through our workshops, so you can practice sustainability joyfully. You can teach others to, and teach others to teach others. If the process only led to a few people changing, or even many, it wouldn't be worth pursuing. Unlike almost any sustainability work, it can lead to global cultural change and a joyful, re...

If you've listened to a lot of this podcast, you've heard me walk guests through sharing their values on sustainability and acting on them. Why do they enjoy what most people consider deprivation and sacrifice? You can learn to do it. A growing team of us teach workshops in sustainability leadership. One is coming up, September 10, 2024. You can become a leader in a movement to live joyfully susta...

I'd heard of Strong Towns for years, mainly through guest Jason Slaughter 's Not Just Bikes video series, and finally joined the community by taking a couple of their courses . I can't recommend them enough. Chuck Marohn founded that community. He found and publicized several of their core discoveries. Some include: North American cities grow based on a Ponzi scheme, the combination of a street an...

You've probably listened to Bruce's past three episodes, so you probably know he wants a path to exist that leads people to want to live more sustainably and spread that change to others. It would mean them overcoming their addictions. By them, I mean all of us, since if we order takeout, fly, and drive big cars, we're in the group that has to change. His experience with addicts tells him it's har...

I ask guests to do episodes 1.5 when they tell me they couldn't do their Spodek Method commitment or keep postponing. Sometimes they say they don't want to share that they didn't do it. But experience has shown that talking about that vulnerability by sharing that they didn't do it overcomes it. Then redoing the Spodek Method usually leads to it working better than expected. The goal isn't perfect...

Frederic describes his program The Week in our conversation. I did it last year, invited by a friend (whom I misname in our conversation, sorry) and recognized him. Podcast guest and mutual friend Lorna Davis had introduced us before he had started creating The Week . The Week is one of the few programs on sustainability approaching it as a leadership effort, not management or lecture. Anyone can...

I find this series of conversations with Bruce to be ending up excellent examples to learn advanced Spodek Method from. I think they're also engaging. I certainly enjoyed the conversations with Bruce. You can tell he believes in the vision and isn't trying to answer askew, or maybe I'm not picking up on cues, but the interaction is both not clicking but not falling apart either. If you're learning...

Regular readers of my blog know I took a course, Conservatism 101, from the Leadership Institute, which led me to read conservative literature I hadn't before: Edmund Burke, Frederic Bastiat, Friedrich Hayek, Russell Kirk, and more. This reading came after I started reading and watching Milton Friedman, Julian Simon, Ayn Rand, and current followers of their work like Marian Tupy, Gale Pooley, and...

Regular readers of my blog know I took a course, Conservatism 101, from the Leadership Institute, which led me to read conservative literature I hadn't before: Edmund Burke, Frederic Bastiat, Friedrich Hayek, Russell Kirk, and more. This reading came after I started reading and watching Milton Friedman, Julian Simon, Ayn Rand, and current followers of their work like Marian Tupy, Gale Pooley, and...

Kevin and I talk about volunteering at the Chelsea Community Fridge, how it formed, how it's evolved, and our roles. You'll hear he's involved with it more. I was curious to learn about parts I don't know about. It's outdoors so it operates 24/7, 365 days a year. New York City has no lack of hungry people, nor places with extra food. It's insane to see how much we waste, except that nearly every A...

Trish and Evelyn took the workshop , and neither seriously acted on sustainability before it, so one thing to listen for in this conversation is what people who look at personally living more sustainably sound like. I think it's safe to say we have fun. Partly we express exasperation at the depravity of our polluting and depleting culture. We also share the experience of our eyes opening to those...

If you like food, you'll love this episode. I shared before how unbelievably delicious Andrew's food was, even if it were at a top restaurant. But he works at a hospital, so it was healthy too. I almost don't go to restaurants any more since they just pile salt, sugar, and fat onto everything. I don't need a stick of butter in every dish. I also tasted his food at a chef competition. He's shared h...

I'd heard about Chip long ago but only met him recently at a launch event for his book Learning to Love Midlife . It resonated since at 52 years old, I was smack in the middle of the part of life he was talking about, after adulthood but before old age. I've also been approached by universities with programs for people in their third acts. A big topic is finding and creating meaning and purpose. M...

I think I can safely say Bruce and I have formed a friendship, both professional and from similar interests, even though he's retired and I'm not a psychologist. I learn psychology to help lead. We're both intrigued by addiction. We both want to improve our environmental situation, not just give in. He likes the idea of the Spodek Method. He hopes it works beyond just one person. He's not sure it...

I rarely get to talk to people who expect living more sustainably to be joyful and rewarding from personal experience, not just hoping for the best. I enjoyed sharing that perspective with Erica last time, I invited her back with no specific agenda. This episode presents conversation between two people who have left mainstream culture and are living more how many people agree we should, but hold t...

I loved where this conversation led. We began by talking about recent news: Greta Thunberg taking a political stand and acting publicly on it on an issue unrelated to the environment. Guy described how he saw this action distracting and undermining her credibility in sustainability. We got to talking about overwhelming tribalism today. In the process, Guy shared views he once held that he overcame...

I start my conversation with Andy with what brought me to him: the meal after recording with the guy who hired him, podcast guest Sven Gierlinger , and the Washington Post article that read like a paid ad for their food, Hospital food is a punchline. These chefs are redefining it . I didn't record in my conversation with Sven how off-the-charts the food was because I at it after recording. Andy wa...

This conversation was brief, but covered the important points, particularly the challenges of changing habits. Dave didn't do everything he intended, though I thought he succeeded more than he did. The goal of the Spodek Method isn't to make big changes, though some do, but to share and act on intrinsic motivation relevant to nature and the environment. Just accessing intrinsic motivation at all c...

Adam treats dependence and addiction in some ways different and unique than past guests who have covered addiction. One way is the business side. For example, early in this conversation, he talks about how people at companies that create products designed to addict, like cell phones, tablets, and the apps and games on them, don't allow their children to use them . Yet they gleefully reach trillion...

I start by describing how podcast guest Carl Erik Fisher , author of bestseller The Urge , reviewed my upcoming book Sustainability Simplified as a subject matter expert on addiction. Carl mentioned how my book suffered from what Bruce describes as the demon drug myth . He pointed to Bruce's work as seminal, so I started reading it. I'd heard of Rat Park and later remembered Johan Hari mentioning...

I started by sharing my experience giving after reading Peter's book The Life You Can Save . I confess I only read it after our first conversation, but loved it. I feared reading a book by an academic philosopher arguing a point would be dry and boring. Instead it led me to donate to causes. Then, even though I didn't donate for recognition or personal benefit, the organizations I donated to conta...

Regular listeners know I see our relationships with many activities that are enabled by pollution as behavioral addictions like gambling or playing video games. Thus, I bring experts in addiction. Anna's book Dopamine Nation is one of the most accessible I've read. She covers the scale of addiction, how much it's increasing, how it works, her personal history with her own addiction, and the storie...

Kimberly has, by dramatically reducing her flying, improved her life, living more deliberately and consistent with her values. I met her when she was a panelist at an event on promoting hurting people less by flying less. I invited her as someone to explore her journey of reducing her flying. In our conversation, the shared how she went from learning the possibility to promoting staying grounded....