Leadership And The Environment

Vanessa Friedman sees the fashion world from a vantage point few others can as the Fashion Director and Chief Fashion Critic at the New York Times. She arrived there after pioneering roles covering fashion at Financial Times in a first-ever role there, InStyle, Vogue, Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, and Elle.She shares the industry's forays into sustainability---or responsible fashion in her terms---as well as sharing her thoughts on it.Right off the bat she talked about reducing consumption, which I differentiate from reusing and recycling, which most people jump to, but I consider tactical. Reducing is strategic. Harder to get at first, but leads to easier life and work.I was awkward, as I don't know the fashion world, but you can hear from her that environmental responsibility is catching on in fashion. Barely so far, but in some places at least authentically and growing. It looks like there's hope in the industry, though they have a long way to go, a lot of resistance, and many players acting in the opposite

Former guest and founder of the most popular men’s dating advice website Chase Amante guest-hosted me to continue the conversation I started with Dov Baron on learning attraction, dating, and seduction and applying it to leadership. My conversations with Dov are in earlier Behind the Mic episodes.I start by sharing why I broached this topic at first with Dov, despite it not obviously connecting to sustainability. The short answer is that leadership for me means sharing relevant parts of yourself candidly and openly. While business school leadership classes opened the door for my learning social and emotions skills of leadership, practicing in the world of learning attraction gave me practice on many social and emotional skills for leadership. After mastering them, I honed how to coach and teach them being hired by one of the top gurus in the field.We treat misconceptions about the field, or at least our exposure to it and our practices and community. I'm sure some will retain misconceptions and misapply them.

I'm in my second month since I unplugged my fridge. Why unplug it?Not because I think its power makes anything more than a negligible difference. This episode describes why.Here are my notes I read from:The other two reasons I unplug the fridge. The first was after reading Vietnam and much of the world ferments, I was curious to learn fermentation. Second is reading how much backup power a grid needs to maintain perfect uptime. Resilience. Each bit after 99% costs a lot more. Alternatively, 95% requires almost no backup. Third is to learn and grow myself. Neediness and entitlement, especially to things that hurt others and nobody needed for hundreds of thousands of years, doesn't make me better person. Do you know anyone spoiled? Do you describe them as "You know what I love about Kate? She's spoiled and acts entitled."Low Tech Magazine's two articles I mentioned, plus a third on how resilience increases security tooVietnam's Low-tech Food System Takes Advantage of DecayHow (Not) to Run a Modern Society on So

Kip Ward is a retired General who, among other things, was the first leader of the Africa Command. He shares his background so you can hear it from him. It's extensive, having served at every level of the army. I met him through previous guest Frances Hesselbein and watched a few videos in which he spoke of leadership, which I linked to below.He spoke of things I don't see in sustainability and environmental stewardship but work. I took away from those talksAddressing the conditions that led to a situationGood, effective governance through sustained efforts, which he contrasts with technology or authorityAuthority and force being the last option, despite it being what he was trained in to reach that levelUnderstanding the society and people you want to lead. Their interests and views drive all you do. You have to know your team and goals, but theirs drive strategy.Get to know people and what matters to them.Listen.Do yourself what you expect them to do.I particularly like his commitment for reasons you'll und

If you haven't listened to Brent and my first two episodes, I recommend listening to them first. Also, I recommend reading Milwaukee Brewers’ Brent Suter Sharing Love and Joy.I haven't approached the environment from a religious view and Brent and I spoke about plenty of interesting things the first two times, so we didn't get to it. Lately listeners have probably heard how much William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and their peers have become role models. I wrote Brent to see if he knew more about them and could share.He said he was happy to. I'm not used to talking about religion in public, but he was and was happy to record. I reread the story about his Christianity and was pleasantly surprised to see words he connects with his work that I do---joy, light, love faith, kindness, service, mission---that are the opposite most environmentalists seem to. They look at stewardship like chore, obligation, burden, sacrifice.I've started saying "I don't have to steward. I get to." Taking respons

We correct two big misunderstandings.First, most people associate acting on the environment with obligation, chore, deprivation, and sacrifice. We lead them to feel that way when we tell them what to do. We may think we're right because the science says so, but leadership depends not on how right you are but how the person you want to motivate feels.Second, people don't know Deming, or associate him, to the extent they know him, with statistics and how they felt about math problems in school. When you get Deming, you see understanding patterns reveals effective leadership, which is liberating, even fun.Kelly shares how digging dirt and planting plants became fun when led effectively. Since everyone cares about the environment in some way---after all we all breathe, eat, and drink---we can all feel this way.As I speak to more people in the Deming community, I sense we are forming a strategy to apply Deming's work to sustainability. As he turned around Japan in a few years to lead the world, so can we lead our

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My second Behind the Mic conversation with Dan McPherson gets to why I've talked about race lately. Why on a podcast about sustainability, leadership, and the environment, do I take the risk as to talk about a topic that straight white men get canceled for?If it didn't further my mission of helping restore Earth's ability to sustain life and society, I wouldn't let another topic divert attention. Whatever problems people struggle over, if anything ties us together, we breathe air, drink water, and eat food that we are sleepwalking as a nation, culture, and species into poisoning.This episode presents a topic connected to race I've talked a lot about with friends and family to figure out how to treat publicly but that I consider too important an approach to sustainability to leave aside, whatever the personal risk. The personal risk doesn't come from this view nor from anyone who understands me, only from people who misunderstand.Listen on and hear the view. I hinted at it in my conversation with Eric Metaxas.

I started this podcast November 30, 2017. In this episode I reflect on before starting the podcast, the fears and hopes driving it, the friends it brought me, some challenges, some joys, accomplishments, and such.I also share how it changed me and how if you want to change the world and love doing it, you can too. I've trained a few new hosts starting their versions.Between my personal growth, the guests, the hosts starting their branches, and feedback from listeners, I can't tell what part I love most.Here's to another three years!Here's to another thirty years! . . . though I hope we will have changed course enough before then not to need it. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Let's talk fatherhood and sustainability."Josh, you don't understand since you don't have kids, it's impossible to avoid producing waste," people keep saying. Since they say other things I've done is impossible before learning I've done them, I expect they're making excuses and that I could solve parenthood problems too. Without kids I haven't solved their problems (though guest Bea Johnson has in her family of four that produces less landfill waste than I do), but I expect I could.Balint became a father since he was a guest. We decided to record a new challenge for him as a father. The first episode we just spontaneously started recording, so we didn't set up microphones. I decided to trade catching the moment for sound quality. In the second half we recorded with our good microphones.Since some podcast guests have stopped their challenge shortly after their second episode, I'm gratified to hear a guest continuing it forever and building on it. You could say maybe he's continuing it because it fits with mini

The Global Top 30 Gurus named Chester the world's number 4 best leadership speaker, trainer, and thought leader, as I happened to find while researching before our conversation. I had to ask him about it, which led to him sharing about it. Naturally, he spoke humbly about it, but we get some inside views of his rarified level of the corporate and government leadership world. (The list named two other podcast guests and one who hosted me).When I asked about his path, he shared so many wonderful and helpful stories, I kept asking him for more. I wanted to hear about his bottle commitment, but our conversation became a master class in more than becoming a leadership guru, but also to manifest any passion. You'll hear that his passion wasn't to do what it looks like he's doing when you just look at his behavior. That's what you see.He shares what motivated him to start and what kept him going through failure, working for no pay, fear, anxiety, and the things you don't see if you just see bestselling author. He sh

Between asking about recovering from a heart attack in your 40s and about water bottles, where do you start? As it turns out, they're more closely related than you think. We started talking about recovering from the heart attack. Dan has faced his mortality several times before, so fear of death didn't hit him most. We talked more about changes to his lifestyle, particularly diet, which connected with sustainability.As a leadership community leader, Dan noticed and shared about his emotional experiences. Since we're friends who talk a lot, I think you'll find the conversation more friendly than most, so I think you'll hear more intimacy than with many podcast conversations.Dan seemed to reach a greater ratio of change to effort than many guests. He sounds like he's just starting, maybe because he's changing a lot of things in his life now, maybe because he's changed before. I love that he's made the term doof a part of his vocabulary and that it's taken root with his family. Man, it clarifies and simplifies c

In June and July 2019, you may remember reading about Rod Schoonover in the NY Times, State Dept. Intelligence Analyst Quits to Protest Blocked House Testimony, Washington Post, CBS, and more in the links below. He resigned in protest as a long-time government intelligence and security researcher and analyst, focusing on a field he helped create---climate security. He focused on learning how environmental changes would affect the security of the United States. If you're American, that's your life and mine as our nation leads the world in plunging the Earth into uncharted environmental territory.The White House blocked his testimony to Congress---not disagreed, blocked. Even places like the conservative American Enterprise Institute went on record saying how things like that don't happen in the US. He loved his job, his work, the people he worked with. This episode will share what happened from his inside view.We also cover his personal choice to act. We all face choices between what we think is right versus w

Food started me on this journey. If it's not a major source of joy, community, and connection, the opportunity is there to make it so.Marion Nestle does it. She returned after recently launching her book Let's Ask Marion, which I consider her most accessible. I read What To Eat, around 500 pages, and loved it, but Let's Ask Marion is under 200, with quick chapters, though still comprehensive in covering her most important topics.Our conversation covers background not in the book of her and her co-author, Kerry Trueman, who researched the questions, asked them, and planned with Marion the book's structure and content.Since her first appearance on this podcast, I sat in on her class at NYU---one of the benefits of teaching there myself---so got to know her work and history in more depth. She helped found the field of food research. I was glad to get some of that personal touch at the end---the plants Marion grows and her attitude to them.She wrote in the book that her top consideration about food is that it's d

We covered two main points: how I inspired him and how he inspired me. If I'm not too presumptuous to say I inspired him, that is, the first part is about his choosing not to fly. Several months into the pandemic at the time, we were all used to not flying, but when he committed, before the pandemic, most people I talked to called not flying impossible.Some backstory: Nir emailed me about 24 hours after our first conversation to say he had already substituted one flight with speaking remotely. In this episode, he shares about how he made it happen.Then we get into a back and forth about technology. We agreed on some and disagreed on other parts. Then I switched to what he inspired me on: barefoot running. When most people say barefoot running, they mean minimal shoe. Nir was the first person I met who ran without shoes. Finally I had a role model who ran in Manhattan without shoes. I had been emailed with him between conversations about it. Finally I could share with him. He shared how he got started, what mo

Michael wrote me the morning before we scheduled this conversation to say he ended up spending more time on the screen when he intended less. He wondered if we should skip it. Longtime listeners may remember similar results with guests Jim Harshaw and Caspar Craven.I told him I'm not looking for a Disney version implying that acting sustainable was easy. I believe listeners engage more with hearing the challenges than perfection, though it would mean him sounding human. He magnanimously agreed. So we'll get to hear his challenges.As it happens, his next book is called Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions, which overlaps with getting hooked on screen time. We ended up with some sneak preview of the book and how it relates to polluting behavior, especially Michael's challenge.We describe a parallel between changing eating habits and sustainability habits came across, as well as the techniques doof industries use to establish habits that help them, however unhealthy for you or

"You heard it here first." We start by reviewing George's experience picking up garbage with a team he organized. We started creating a project.It spontaneously arose, but I see a chance that we'll make it happen. Maybe soon, maybe it will take time. Maybe it will go nationwide. Maybe it will fall apart. Maybe it will change culture. Maybe future generations will look back at these changes as what sparked the turning point. George's gym, Spartan, Litterati, SoulBuffalo, Generation 180, Living Lands and Waters, The Story of Stuff, . . . there are a lot of organizations that want to act who are part of this growing community.I want to contrast George's motivation from your typical gym's or most organizations'. Most gyms work you now for a later payoff. For George, the future benefit is nice, but it's a side effect. The effort itself is rewarding. We heard it with Joe DeSena and Spartan. You hear it from me with my sidchas.Listen to the conversation. If interested in participating or contributing, let me know, e

The notes I read from:Missing messages on the environment we can learn from Churchill. I'll read from some of his most famous speeches, during WWII, then I'll play the close of one, from June 4, 1940 “We shall never surrender.”Some points:It's bad. It's as bad as it's ever been. There's no escape. Your life is in peril.It's huge. Nations have been wiped off the map. The world is at stake.We are dying. Many of us will die.We must act, ourselves. You, me, everyone. We must put ourselves on the line.We can't delegate or pass this off.We can make it. We must join together.We have done it before. We are a great people.We are humble. “We” are just an island.We have a purpose, not just defense.I will give it to you straight. No lies. No dancing around the issues.I'm in it with you.Despite the depth of our misfortune, we have the means to make it our finest hour. We will. Those who give the most will feel the greatest reward.You know what to do—everything you can.You help yourself by helping everyone.Churchill's cont

Here is my second episode with guest Dan McPherson of Leaders Must Lead on race. Probably one more after this one.Say someone doesn't know something about race but wants to. If that person sees others talking about the subject get chastised and even fired, how can that person learn? If anything, won't they learn not to ask? If so, won't they remain ignorant? Doesn't ignorance contribute to racism.Dan and I discuss these questions and more. He shares some surprising personal stories of being attacked and more, as do I. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Everyone gets we have to change system, which means global economy. They think we have to start huge. If it's not big enough, it's not worth doing.History suggests otherwise, in particular Edwards Deming's results transforming Japan in the 50s, or the U.S. war efforts before that, or several American companies since.Kevin runs the Deming Institute, which trains people in the Deming philosophy and practice. Kevin speaks from experience as the grandson of Dr. Deming. They didn't start by doing big huge things. They started with a systemic perspective, understanding where and how to act. Kevin's personal project of changing light bulbs in his house illustrates how leading this way leads to results beyond what we see with just going big from the start.I won't like that I often felt slack-jawed at Kevin saying exactly what I've tried to share with others but they never get, but Kevin speaks with decades of experience. Actually generations. I also can't wait to start working with leaders and people in organizations