Leadership And The Environment

I chose to stay at my mom's outside the cityWhy?Read stories, saw difference between places with SARS and MERS experience versus notNY and US woefully underprepared govt, corps. People didn't get itNot worried about my health, but systemAdvice is distanceWhat could happenCloser to Italy than China or IranTalked to friend in medicineTalked to friend who had been following mostUS lacks central authorityWhy not?Mom is 76. Stepfather close. I could unknowingly bring diseaseSolution isn't possible for everyone. On the other hand, everyone who can slow spread shouldAt first felt privilegedBut hard to find preciselyHaving mom?Having mom still alive?Her living outside the city? Many other situations doesn't help.That I can afford to go somewhere else?Normally couldn't but situation demands it. Like many, I can't afford. My largest source of income last year was corporate speaking, which is all disappearingIn any case, able to relocate possibly for months results from work at pruning unnecessary, which anyone can doI

My notes that I read from for this episode:Greatest danger is not to learn from it.Starting story: Preparing to launch on 9/11. While nothing on scale of victims, first responders, and those who fought, but went from 8 digit to limbo. Within two years squeezed out. Gave up following Einstein and Newton to outdoor advertising that I didn't even like. Now no way forward, backward, or anything. Lost trust in people. Closer to mom and other entrepreneurs with similar disaster.We feel everything shutting down. Huge unknown. Will things restart? How many will suffer? How many will die? What will happen to health care system? Have I bought enough to eat? Will I become infected? If so, how badly? Will I accidentally infect others?Images of China, Italy, Korea show fuller shut down ahead.Other nation's results show divide in effectiveness with if they faced SARS, MERS, and related situations.Nothing compares with experience.We've seen in America back-to-back 500-year storms, fires, and floods. My home of New York City

I view ecotourism skeptically at best. While I imagine someone could create tourism that increased the world's ability to sustain life and human society, every case I've seen at least doubly does the opposite. For one thing I've only seen ecotourism involving flying, which destroys what they pretend to help, perhaps dreaming that carbon offsets lower greenhouse concentrations while they more likely raise them. For another, they turn places into tourist traps that depend on outside money.Today's episode presents an opportunity for people to get most of what they look for in travel---adventure, different culture, cuisine, etc---without lowering the environment's ability to sustain life and human society. Visit decaying parts of the US or wherever you live.In the US, you could visit Flint, Camden, and so on. I bet visiting those places would check most or all the boxes of what most people claim they want from travel. They'd cost less, connect people to people and cultures they wouldn't otherwise. They'd bring mo

People ask, "Josh, do you really think you can make a difference?" or comment that what I or anyone does won't matter.In the first part of this episode I describe how I think our environmental future will unfold---the outcome I consider most likely. It's not pretty. I foresee a lot of gloom and doom about nature, but however much problems in nature, I think human reactions will be more important, sooner, and more destructive.My main resources for this part are the Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells and Limits to Growth.In the second part, I share what I think could unfold if we get serious about addressing what's happening---what I'm working for.In the next part, I describe why I work at something that even I consider unlikely, drawing on Vince Lombardi.Finally, in a coda, I address why I don't expect technology to save us, or more likely to augment and accelerate our environmental problem.The Uninhabitable EarthLimits to GrowthThe Do the Math blogAbout Thailand's family planningNorman Borlaug's quote

I met Nir Eyal at a podcast recording of Will Bachman, who long ago hosted me on his podcast (see links below).Nir recently publish a book, Indistractable, about how to keep focused. A lot of people ask me how I do so much. I don't feel I do, but if so, maybe I qualify as someone who achieves. Indistractable gave me tools to focus and achieve more with less distraction.In fact, I'm writing now and recorded then despite feeling like I wanted to surf the net but used a technique from the book to focus.I wanted to hear how his research and techniques on personal action would connect to environmental action, which we started to talk about (I liked to Will's episode so you can hear Nir at length about the book).Nir showed one of this podcast's more dramatic transitions from skeptical, abstract environmental discussion to enthusiastic action. I appreciate his openness to reconsider since I read him as starting with set environmental views, but let himself look at it from a new perspective, including acting. I read

If you've listened to this podcast, you know my Building Block---my technique to lead one person to share and act on his or her environmental values. You may also know my strategy to scale from influencing one person at a time to many.Describing that scaling model has taken effort. A conversation with a friend this morning about how Tesla scaled suggested to me a way to describe how I planned to scale.Today I describe what I'm thinking about calling my "modified Tesla strategy." I'm not describing a new strategy, but a new way to frame it and describe it. How one communicates influences how people understand and join a movement.Episode 154: Why you, famous person, will like being a guest See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As a sneak preview to my third TEDx talk, I used this conversation wit Larry as an example. Sorry you'll have to wait a month for the organizers to edit the video. Waiting is as hard for me as for you.When last we heard, Larry committed to picking up trash from beach with his sons and wife. Sometimes involving others can increase the challenge. Other times involving others leads to leading them, involving them in the process.What do you think happened with Larry's challenge? Does SEAL training lead to being able lead family members?I believe you'll see another side of Larry from the first two episodes, trying to figure out the emotional interaction, sharing what he learns with his family leading up to this conversation, searching inside himself, which he shares openly. I don't know how much vulnerability a warrior shares normally, if there is a normal. You'll hear it when it comes.For many listeners environmental talk and action conjures feelings of guilt, shame, confusion, futility, and the like or expectati

Food is important part of environment, as you know. The book Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman changed a lot for me. I came across it after my experiments avoiding packaged food, fiber-removed foods, and meat. Eat to Live showed me that the delicious diet I found by reducing garbage and pollution turned out healthy.You'll hear me at the beginning stumble a bit. I had prepared, but everything changed when I met Joel in person at his home. He showed me the plants he's growing in solar powered greenhouse. Now, I think I'm getting good at making my stews, salads, and desserts, but with his kitchen full of vegetables and fruit, he whipped together a salad more delicious than mine effortlessly.I invite people over and they seem to like the food and impressed with my technique. All he did was make a salad and offer some snacks, including dried fruit and a chocolate chia pudding, but he showed a mastery I haven't developed yet. I mostly associated him with nutrition and healthy eating. Now I associate him with everythi

[EDIT: moments after posting this episode, I found my first example of someone else posting on this idea only two months ago, Environmental Pollution: An Invisible Kind of Child Abuse, which got a positive response. I'm sure there's more.]After my third TEDx talk a few days ago, spoke to a couple that told me how much they reduced waste but wouldn't consider anything more. People love considering the biggest things immune from consideration, like flying or heating their homes to 70 degrees in the winter and cooling them to 60 in the summer, leaving the air conditioner on while they're out just so it's cool for thirty seconds when they get home. Or getting take out when they have vegetables in the fridge, most of which they throw out in a disgusting display of entitlement. My TEDx talk is about how after you act you'll be glad you did and wish you had earlier.I say people don't want to do small things, they want to do meaningful things and that when you act on something you care about, you may start small you

James Lipton, who started and hosted the show Inside the Actors Studio, died yesterday.Here are the notes I read from for this episode:I could talk about how much I enjoyed the episodes, his humor, and a few things I learned from his guests that only his interviewing could have elicited but I will go deeper, to share how fundamental his work has been to mine.Many times I've said that if my courses existed before I went to business school and someone were teaching them, I would have taken them instead of business school and gotten more of what I valued. He helped me create them.Context: I had taken leadership classes but, despite high grades from top school, I didn't know how to act.Watched Inside the Actors Studio for entertainment.Noticed great actors excelled at social and emotional skills, beyond what my professors could do.Noticed they tended to have dropped out of school, been kicked out, or never enrolled.How to resolve this conflict?Also noticed names popping up a lot—Stella Adler, Lee Strassberg, Sanf

In this episode I describe how important I consider the accessibility of my personal behavior solutions -- a matter of integrity, not to be confused with behavior to influence others, which is a matter of leadership.Here are my notes I read from for this episode.Access and its importance to me. Food available in food desert. I spend nearly no money on fitness. Yes, I live in a nice neighborhood, but I don't make much more than the average American. I treat Greenwich Village as a village -- that is, I try to meet my neighbors, local farmers, local shopkeepers, and not try to escape every few months. I don't buy expensive things like Marie Kondo sells. I buy little I don't need. My most exotic recent vacations include a ten-day meditation retreat a bus ride away and a train trip across the country.My top food habits include foraging for food within walking distance, though some berries a subway ride away, and getting the most abundant and cheap vegetables in season. I eat more beans than almost anyone. I carry

I met Brent through guest Tia Nelson, both Wisconsin celebrities---she in politics, he in sport---who work with the Outrider Foundation.He is this podcast's first MLB pitcher in string of athletes from the Olympics, NFL, Americas Cup, beep baseball, and more. I bring athletes because they excel in the key leadership domain of personal growth and development.In a world based on polluting, environmental action requires challenging yourself to grow and develop. Early leaders like this podcast community have to swim upstream, acting against cultural norms.Besides winning on the diamond, as you'll hear from Brent, he is also developing himself, his teammates, the Brewers organizations, and the Brewers fans to act environmentally. Professional athletes not being known for hugging trees, he's choosing to take on challenges he doesn't have to. He wrote of his stewardship and teamwork in Winning Over My Baseball Teammates to Strikeout Waste.In this episode he shares why and how. We also talk about the professional ath

What is Earth's carrying capacity? Why is it important?Many ask how we will feed 10 billion people. Mathematician way of asking is if we can feed so many and if so how. Maybe we can't.First, don't want to know. While it depends on many assumptions that aren't hard or measurable numbers, like standard of living, distribution of resources, and technology, we can say it's maximum misery per person.How do we narrow it down? Could ask resources per person and how much resources Earth can provide. Limits to Growth projects how much planet would sustain from a systems perspective including history and how we live our values.I prefer a historical perspective I learned from Alan Weisman based on the Haber-Bosch process, which enabled artificial fertilizer. Before artificial fertilizer, limitations on fixing nitrogen to grow food suggest Earth could sustain about 2 billion, enough to create Einstein and Mozart. Want people like Jesus, Buddha, Laozi, and Aristotle? We needed only a few hundred million to create them.If

Alan Weisman's book Countdown changed my strategy to the environment. It ranks among the top most influential works I've read, watched, or come across, up there with Limits to Growth.Why? Because when you look at environmental issues enough, and it shouldn't take too long these days, population always rises to the top as one of the top issues. Many people today hear about projections that the population will level off around 10 billion. Actually, the ones I see project that the population will keep growing exponentially then, just slower than now.If you only look at one issue---only climate, only deforestation, or only extinctions---they seem possibly solvable, but they're all linked. Solving several at once---say meeting power needs while the economy falls apart and food becomes scarce---looks impossible.Also, since nothing deliberate limits population growth, we're lucky if it levels off. We aren't choosing where to level it off and 10 billion looks three to five times what the Earth can sustain. Cultural c

Here are the notes I read from for this episode:Outward manifestationBeen saying latelyWhen you see pollution, dingy skies, sea levels risingAny one person listening may not haveBut if American, likely more than nearly anyoneLess technological, more social and personalResults from our behavior, from our choicesFrom our beliefs, stories, images, desiresOpposite would be stewardship, caring about others first, serviceWhy leadership mattersCrazy part is harmony with nature simplifies lifeCreates joy, community, connectionNot about guilt or shame, just perspectiveIn all fairness, some past systemsI'm just like everyone else. When I think of something fun and polluting, I think, maybe it won't matter, the plane was flying anywayThat's the cause of global warming and our climate problemsMaybe I'll get away with it. Maybe my contribution won't countYou can blame it on lots of things, but that attitude and ones like it are at the root of that behaviorThe outward manifestation of that thought is pollution See acast.co

Lorna's challenge is one of the longest and most personal at over a year.I also couldn't wait to bring her story to you most because within weeks she was reporting the joys overcoming the challenges. We've become friends through her challenge. Within months she started sending senior executives my way as her sharing her challenge with them led them to follow.In other words, Lorna didn't experience sacrifice or burden. She experienced personal growth and friendship. At least as I heard.Don't take my word. Listen for yourself.Maybe because we met through guests Tensie Whelan, NYU-Stern's head of sustainable business and Vincent Stanley, director at Patagonia, she's outgoing and friendly. Or maybe from her experience leading, which she describes in her TED talk that came toward the end of her year buying no clothes.In any case, I keep having to remind myself she's from the C-suite of Danone, a 30 billion company, and that she helped Danone USA become the largest B-corp yet.If anyone could claim to need clothes,

I ask people their reasons for polluting activities like flying, take-out, taking taxis or ride shares where public transit serves. They consistently tell me that they love these things. They love visiting family, seeing remote places, etc.If you feel similarly, you're about to face some tough love. These motivations came to mind while listening to Thomas Kolditz on a podcast I listen to and that has featured me. He is one of today's premier leaders and leadership educators. A few words about him:Tom Kolditz is the founding Director of the Ann and John Doerr Institute for New Leaders at Rice University–the most comprehensive, evidence-based, university-wide leader development program in the world. The Doerr Institute was recognized in 2019 as the top university leader development program by the Association of Leadership Educators. Prior to Rice, he taught as a Professor in the Practice of Leadership and Management and Director of the Leadership Development Program at the Yale School of Management.A retired Br

Most people will find my conversation with Rob unexpected, but talking with someone with his experience and views has long been one of my goals. People keep associating the environment with the political left, but everyone wants clean air, land, and water.Regular listeners know Rob from my appearing in a video episode, A Different Look At Climate Change, at Magamedia.org---MAGA as in Trump's Make America Great Again. Rob supports Trump enthusiastically. In New York City, identifying oneself out of the mainstream reads of a heartfelt deliberate decision.I dislike what I see as the left's coopting the environment as a wedge issue. I don't see trying to beat the right as working. I also don't see combining the environment with things the right dislikes as effective, especially given Trump winning the last presidential election and his environmental views and actions.If you think the quote I started this episode with of Rob describing the effect of Al Gore's personal behavior on the right is unfair or irrelevant,

Nearly everyone treats acting on the environment as a burden or chore---especially would-be leaders who don't do what they say others should. They lead people to inaction.Effective leaders don't discourage. I find role models to inspire me.Vince Lombardi tops many people's lists of all-time top coaches. The NFL named the Superbowl trophy after him. His teams dominated the game.He shared the core of his ethos in a short essay, What It Takes to Be Number 1. It is an ethos of integrity, of finding your best and living your best. Acting on the environment in this time of crisis brought out my best and continues to. I am acting to bring out the best in you and everyone. I haven't accomplished what Lombardi has, so I'm sharing his message and applying it to acting on the environment.I won't tell anyone to stop spreading facts, figures, doom, gloom, and coercion, but I think they'll get more results sharing something more like Lombardi did.I believe it will be more effective. It will be a lot more fun too.The obitua

David's TED talk has over 2 million views. I recommend watching it to learn about his project, Plastic Bank, though he describes it in our conversation.Regular listeners know my views on importance of reduction first. I wanted to know if Plastic Bank's putting a value on plastic, increasing demand. His TED talk talks about turning off the valve if you're flooding, but maybe he's just moving the water around, not shutting the valve.But you'll hear in our conversation that he clearly states his goal is to stop virgin plastic production.David is leading, working with people, beliefs, goals---what I believe is where we should work.Most people tell me what they can't do on the environment, how others have to change, why they shouldn't change.David shares the opposite---how to live how you want in every way.David's TED talk, The Surprising Solution to Ocean PlasticPlastic Bank See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.