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This Sustainable Life — Science & Medicine
This Sustainable Life

Do you care about the environment but feel “I want to act, but if no one else does, it won’t make a difference,” and “But if you don’t solve everything, it isn’t worth doing anything”?

We are the antidote! You’re not alone. Hearing role models overcome the same feelings to enjoy acting on their values creates meaning, purpose, community, and emotional reward.

Want to improve as a leader? Bestselling author, 3-time TEDx speaker, leadership speaker, coach, and professor Joshua Spodek, PhD, MBA, brings joy and inspiration to acting on the environment. You’ll learn to lead without relying on authority.

We bring you leaders from many areas — business, politics, sports, arts, education, and more — to share their expertise for you to learn from. We then ask them to share and act on their environmental values. That’s leadership without authority — so they act for their reasons, not out of guilt, blame, doom, gloom, or someone telling them what to do.

Guests include:

Dan Pink, 40+ million TED Talk views

Marshall Goldsmith, #1-ranked leadership guru and author

Frances Hesselbein, Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree, former CEO of the Girl Scouts

Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author

David Allen, author of Getting Things Done

Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager

Vincent Stanley, Director of Patagonia

Dorie Clark, bestselling author

Bryan Braman, Super Bowl champion, Philadelphia Eagle

John Lee Dumas, top entrepreneurial podcaster

Alisa Cohn, top 100 speaker and coach

David Biello, Science curator for TED

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Latest Episodes:

420: Three Years of Leadership and the Environment! Dec 09, 2020

Show notes

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.

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419: Balint Horvath, part 4: Fatherhood and sustainability Dec 08, 2020

Show notes

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 minimalist values he already developed. I contend that sustainability resonates with some values in everyone. He didn't start with an advantage. He found one anybody could.

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418: Chester Elton, part 2: The world's number 4 best leadership speaker, trainer, and thought leader Dec 06, 2020

Show notes

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 shares about his experience decreasing pollution. I've had several guests who contacted me midway and said they couldn't figure out how to do their commitment. In all cases, with a little reflection and support from me they've surpassed their expectations.

I confess I thought Chester might come back with not knowing what to do. On the contrary, he did it and shared the results. I meant to ask him if he felt "I could have done this a long time ago" because it felt like in the end, after he got past what he described we build up in our heads, he found the action simple and easy.

He sounds like he'll find other things too so I hope he takes me up on the future invitation.

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417: Dan McPherson, part 2: Recovering from his heart attack, cutting out water bottles Dec 03, 2020

Show notes

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 choosing what to buy and put in our mouths.

His experience to me reinforces how much we do on autopilot that hurts others and instead of facing we put out of our minds because it superficially makes us feel bad. We don't see the life improvement after the transition. Dan has experienced it.

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416: Rod Schoonover, part 1: Resigned in protest after White House tried to delete "basic science" from climate change report Dec 01, 2020

Show notes

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 what's easier, and we're inclined to think if we just keep our heads down doing what we're doing we'll be able to act later or our consciences won't catch up to us. Rarely do we risk our careers, livelihood, he was a new first-time father, or see our choices made public.

We can learn from Rod.

As Rod and I are both former physicists, it felt heartwarming to hear a systems approach, a view few people get. Many who do haven't practiced them. I love getting to talk to someone experience and fluent in them. On the downside, we who view from systems perspectives see how imminent collapse may be and how futile non-solutions are for treating only elements of the system. On the upside, we see how simple and effective systemic solutions can be. And fun.

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415: Marion Nestle, conversation 2: Let's Ask Marion Nov 30, 2020

Show notes

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 delicious. It's personal. We can grow it. I hope that connection to our food came out in our conversation and that we can increase it.

Most Americans seem to view food, exercise, and the environment with horror, sources of guilt, shame, confusion, and uncertainty. Marion lives the opposite. I think I do too. Knowing all about food and our food systems may seem like work, but it leads to delicious joy, community, and connection.

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414: Nir Eyal, part 2: He committed to avoiding flying before the pandemic Nov 29, 2020

Show notes

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 motivated him.

I'm sorry the technology conversation probably sounded annoying. On the one hand it's annoying for everyone, on the other, what do you do when you disagree on something? Not talk about it? Avoiding the conflict doesn't resolve it. It leaves it to fester. That's fine on issues that don't matter, but the air we breathe, water we drink, and soil we eat from matter. I hope to run with him when he gets back so New York can see two old men running barefoot together, laughing.

We can not talk about it and just let the ballot box decide. As far as the environment goes, we saw how that worked out in 2016.

I closed the episode with a plug based on the couple stories about famous, successful people inspiring me to physical, emotional, and intellectual fitness and life improvement. If you want to bring into your peer group the most amazing people you can think of, start a new branch of Leadership and the Environment. Since we recorded, several branches have started, coming from Sweden, England, Italy, and soon Japan.

I will train you in the basics of starting a podcast and the elite skills of connecting with people you only dreamed of.

The guy who started Leadership and the Environment Sweden just reported back to me how his third guest was an important government official from his home town and she is putting him in touch with a Parliament member. It happens that fast.

If you want to start LatE Acting, LatE Silicon Valley, LatE Hip Hop, LatE Sports, or any field, contact me. I'll train you, you'll meet the people of your dreams, lead them to contribute to a legacy of stewardship, and they'll thank you. It takes some effort, but anyone can do it.

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413: Michael Moss, part 1.5: Maybe that was the addiction speaking Nov 25, 2020

Show notes

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 damaging to Earth's ability to sustain life and human society. Since they work to get past your defenses, often with children too young to have developed defenses, I would call them insidious or creepy, like a tick creeping slowly past your defenses.

The challenge in changing these habits, from one perspective, is to create new neural pathways. We focus on the objects of our craving and the craving, but looking past our craving to seeing that we are training ourselves and the feelings of withdrawal will pass seems to make it

easier.

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412: George Chmiel, part 2: Teamwork from garbage Nov 22, 2020

Show notes

"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, especially if you like organizing or you know sponsors.

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411: Winston Churchill and the environment Nov 19, 2020

Show notes

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 context

Most of WWII as we know it hasn't happened yet and they don't know what to expect. Do they expect more, less, or what, we don't know.
He's 65.
He knows every person in the UK will listen to his speeches, as will probably nearly everyone who speaks English in the US, Canada, Australia, and the commonwealth.
The King will. Roosevelt and Stalin will. Hitler will. Mussolini will.
Nearly everyone remembers WWI and the tens of millions lost then.
England once held the largest empire ever. Now they were an island. The Axis powers had destroyed most of Europe. Who knew if help might come from the US, Australia, India, or any place. Hitler was dominating with strategies, tactics, and equipment nobody knew how to defend against.

Excerpts

‘Blood, toil, tears and sweat’

13 May 1940. House of Commons

Churchill's first speech in office

“I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. This is our policy. You ask, what is our aim?

I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory, there is no survival.”

‘We shall never surrender’

4 June 1940. House of Commons

After Dunkirk.

“Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous states have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

‘Their finest hour’

18 June 1940. House of Commons

To the pilots of the RAF.

“The battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned upon us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war.

If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”

‘The few’

20 August 1940. House of Commons

To the RAF pilots.

“The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

Our context

Now consider our context regarding the environment. How many of these points sound true and how many has anyone shared with you?

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.

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