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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:

390: George Chmiel 1.5: Sustainability, hard even for an ultramarathoner, but he doesn't give up Sep 30, 2020

Show notes

George's challenge involved people congregating outside, which California banned, increasing his challenge. Personally for him, Badwater got canceled for 2020, the race that starts in Death Valley and ends up, over 100 miles later on a mountaintop. Widely regarded as the hardest race in the world, he was looking forward to it. Can you imagine the training, then you feel like what was it for?

So life conspired to make acting on his environmental values for the podcast more difficult. He contacted me to ask about taking more time. I share with him how guests have struggled before. I'm not trying to suggest change is easy, but to accurately show listeners the challenges. George magnanimously agreed to share his vulnerabilities. So we scheduled this episode 1.5 to share the challenges he faced.

Leadership isn't about doing easy things. It's about facing what others don't and overcoming it. I believe you'll hear from George that the rewards are more than worth it. What he shares about emotions, I believe will inspire you. He speaks with experience having felt disappointment, despair, futility, and more beyond what most of us do.

I love this podcast for bringing people like George into my life. Actually, not the podcast. The podcast is just one manifestation of living by my values even when it's hard. He reminds me I haven't hit hard yet. Not flying? Avoiding packaged food? Picking up garbage? They're child's play compared to what he does.

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389: Why environmentalists can be so annoying Sep 29, 2020

Show notes

I speculate why environmentalists can be so annoying sometimes and why you'd still like to become like them, just not the annoying part.

This episode will help you.

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388: Nir Eyal, part 2: Another role model avoiding flying pre-pandemic Sep 24, 2020

Show notes

Nir and my second conversation covered how I inspired him and how he inspired me. If I'm not too presumptuous to say I inspired him, the first part is about his choosing to avoid flying. Several months into the pandemic, we're all used to not flying, but when he committed, before the pandemic, most people I talked to called not flying impossible.

By contrast, Nir emailed me about 24 hours after our first conversation to say he had already substituted one flight with speaking remotely. In our conversation, 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 sharing with him since our last conversation about my practicing. Finally I could share with him. He shared how he got started, what motivated him.

On the other hand, our technology conversation may have sounded annoying. What do you do when you disagree on something? Not talk about it? Avoiding the conflict doesn't resolve it, which is fine on issues that don't matter, but air, land, and water matter. 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 hope to run with him when he gets back so New York can see two old men running barefoot together, laughing.

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387: Maja Rosén: Leading not flying Sep 21, 2020

Show notes

The not-flying-by-choice community is fairly small. About 80 percent of humans can't fly because they can't, but among people who can but choose not to, we're limited. Still, I can't believe I only found out about Maja recently. A few minutes into her TEDx talk, I knew I had to bring her on.

She's avoided flying about double how long I have. I could hear from her every sentence that she's had to face all the addiction speaking of people claiming what I did before I challenged myself to go that first year without flying---"I can't avoid it," "the plane was going to fly

anyway," and all that.

You know the feeling of understanding and support you get when you talk with someone who has shared a rare experience, nearly universally misunderstood? More than personal understanding, she revealed a situation I dreamed of and intellectually knew would happen, but hadn't heard of.

For ten years people in Sweden said what everyone here says about not flying being impossible and all that addiction speaking. Then in the past few years it changed. The logic behind not flying didn't change. The pandemic hadn't hit. Their values didn't change. People talk about how Sweden's culture differs, but this change happened within Sweden, not between Sweden and some other place.

She said that when they crossed a threshold of people who considered not flying, people started changing, I believe because their neighbors did. She described how a couple editorials from Swedish celebrities choosing to avoid flying influenced a lot. It sounded like my strategy for this podcast. I'm trying to reach a critical mass of people, focusing on influential people, to where people know someone who has acted.

I can't tell you how much our conversation warmed my heart for feeling understood on something I value and for which I felt vulnerable and enthusiastic for seeing a light at the end of a tunnel I've been in now in my fifth year. I can't wait for when culture changes and people treat flying like a rare occasion.

I was there. I looked the other way to avoid facing my pollution. There's a way out. We can shake the addiction. The main way out is spending more time with family and your community, gaining more control over your career. It feels impossible. When people around us change, we change. When we change first and others follow, that's leadership. You can help lead us out of this mess.

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386: Bob Inglis, part 1: the EcoRight, a balance to the Environmental Left Sep 18, 2020

Show notes

Everyone can lead when everyone around them agrees. How about when your conscience tells you what's right differs from everyone around you?

Bob Inglis is a former Congressman from South Carolina---the reddest district in the reddist state, as he puts it. The short story is that he stated he believed the science behind climate change. That was ten years ago. They voted him out.

You'll hear in this episode the story of how he transformed to take such a risk, how he responded, and what's come since. Last month he "endorsed Joe Biden for president Monday, arguing the Democratic nominee will help stabilize American politics and restore the country’s institutions."

I'm linking to his two TEDx talks, a Frontline interview, and his new organization, RepublicEN, which I recommend no matter your political views. I consider acting on your values leadership. I've met or heard of few people who have led on sustainability as much as Bob. Many people on the left talk about it, but haven't led---that is, they've mostly spoken to people who already agreed with them. They haven't worked with hearts and minds.

Most of us want to act on ours but hold ourselves back. I bet you'll find him a role model for actions you've held back on, whether related to nature or elsewhere in life.

We talk about meaning, purpose, and faith. I hope we can wrestle the wedge from those at the poles of our polarized society, as Bob spoke at the end.

republicEN
Bob at TEDxBeaconStreet: Conservative Climate Change. (No, he's not kidding)
Bob at TEDxJacksonville: Changing the Dialogue on Energy and Climate
The Frontline interview

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385: Coleman Hughes: Race and social media mobs Sep 18, 2020

Show notes

I first crossed paths with Coleman at a conference that previous guest Jonathan Haidt organized on promoting viewpoint diversity in academia. I hosted a breakfast panel discussion. Coleman spoke on a panel later that day. He shared views that sounded reasonable and well-expressed, but I also knew social media mobs attacked him, though not often engaged. You hear about situations like that. I wanted to bring someone on who had weathered such storms.

Partly, you've heard me talking more about race. My next book covers race a lot, so I've had to practice developing my voice in an area I've seen people lose their careers. Coleman didn't. On the contrary, he recently spoke to the US Congress on reparations, opposite another well-known writer on similar subjects with different views, Ta-Nehisi Coates.

In our conversation you'll hear his experience choosing to publicly take on subjects knowing that internet mobs might attack him, being attacked, withstanding it, and coming out stronger for it. I ask his advice on my considering doing so. Not many people take on these challenges and emerge stronger for it. His experience helped me to follow in his footsteps since then.

It's crazy to think of how we live in times that everyone seems to recognize as suppressing open discussion---that is, our time seems like future historians, should we not destroy ourselves, will look at as historic low in terms of open exchange of ideas, understanding, listening.

If we do destroy ourselves, our lack of open exchange probably will have contributed to not finding a solution.

Coleman Hughes's web page

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384: They would rather switch than fight Sep 17, 2020

Show notes

Here are my notes that I read from for this episode:

Play Thomas N. Todd recording
Repeat it, explaining from ad campaign
Context was civil rights---that is equal rights for blacks as for whites in the US. I don't know context but I think pointing out that blacks who could fight best---educated, could speak to whites best---instead of helping other blacks would rather be white and not fight for equality
I'm going to approach this concept from three directions applying it to sustainability and stewardship.
I've spoken to a lot of people about sustainability and led many through my podcast's 4-step process and have seen them from many backgrounds, levels of awareness, levels of greenness, how much they say people should act.
I'm going to share an observation. Personal and casual, not rigorous, so I don't know what biases might influence it, but seems to me that those presenting themselves as the most green and aware don't act. They decline to do the process. If they do it, they don't come up with an activity.
They often claim they're doing so much already.
They often talk about it moralistically, like they don't want to act like a paragon of virtue or they're already virtuous enough.
I don't think they realize they're implying they don't want to do it, that it's hard, that you should against resistance, that they really want to do other things but they have to.
I never got so moral about it. I mean, stewardship felt right for me, but I presume everybody does what they consider right all the time. I'm not trying to impose my values on others. I'm trying to help others live by theirs.
My main point is that acting in stewardship turns out more fun, easy, rewarding, inexpensive, joyful, connecting to family and community, and so on than our mainstream society implies. Much more, but only experience seems to lead people to understand and live.
All these people preaching virtue but not acting set the actual changing of behavior backward. They lead people to want not to act by their word and deed.
Actually, there's another group that consistently doesn't act---leadership writers and gurus. Consider Beth Comstock, a leader. She went for avoiding plastic. She failed. Instead of trying to hide it, she shared her experience. She allowed her vulnerability to show. I learned from her. Several leadership people declined to do the exercise, told me how much they are already doing, or told me they're already doing the most they can. These are well-off Americans, among the most polluting in all of human history, claiming they're paragons of virtue.
So I'll approach not acting despite thinking you're helping from another standpoint, MLK's Letter from Birmingham Jail.
"over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality."
I feel like MLK faced similar struggles. Moderates who said they agreed with him actually slowed him down.
Michael Moss talking about trying to lower screen time for his challenge put it clearly and concisely. When he noticed himself justifying using his phone more, he said "Maybe that was the addiction talking." We like comfort and convenience. We like doing what we're used to, what we know will give us reward when and how we expect. Changing that pattern risks losing the reward we expect, leading us to justify our urge, our craving to resist change.
That's the addiction talking.
Finally the third approach to people who could lead people to stewardship but in practice lead them to resist changing comes from a peer-reviewed study entitled, "Believing in climate change, but not behaving sustainably: Evidence from a one-year longitudinal study"
"we found that climate change skeptics were generally more likely to report pro-environmental behavior than their high-belief peers, but
that higher belief reliably predicted support for federal climate change policies"
I interpret it to say that people who believe more want others to change or authority to force change, but they don't change themselves.

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383: Sports, competition, and beating pandemics Sep 15, 2020

Show notes

Are you fatigued from pandemic defenses like wearing masks and washing your hands? Is your community, like New York City, doing well? Do you feel since we're doing well, we can let up at last?

Do you know what happens when competing against an opponent you can beat, but instead of playing to your potential, you play to theirs? You tie them or even lose. The fatigue we feel is mental and emotional, which means under our control. We can choose from among plenty of role models who persevered through harder challenges than wearing masks and washing hands.

In this episode I share how I learned not to let up or play to the level of an opponent we could beat. I don't like to lose, especially when the stakes are life and death, all the more when I could cause someone else's death. I hope you share that motivation not to cause suffering to others.

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382: Kelly Allan, part 1: Deming 101, community, and beyond Sep 10, 2020

Show notes

Kelly is experienced in theory, practice, and community of W. Edwards Deming.

If you don't know Deming, you'll hear from this conversation, but for context, growing up my top role models were Gandhi, King, and Mandela. As I practiced sustainability, I realized acting in harmony with nature and motivating others to connect with deeper values isn't exactly what they did. New role models emerged: Patton, Eisenhower, and Ali, for example, but they didn't lead people exactly to connect with their values.

Then came Deming. He transformed a war-destroyed Japan starting in 1950 after helping win WWII in the US in a way comparable to developing radar or cracking the Nazi's codes for their secret messages. He did it in four years, an attractive time frame to turn around a nation's culture given scientists' warnings that humanity has under ten years to reach zero greenhouse emissions if we hope to avoid processes running out of control from our previously stable equilibrium sustaining life and human society.

Kelly has been learning and teaching Deming for decades. This episode may run long, but the conversation made me as enthusiastic, motivated, and optimistic as with any other guest, for the hope and direction Kelly gave. We talk about specific ways to follow up just knowing transformation of a nation without hope in under five years is possible. After we finished recording we already started following up with whom to talk to next.

I didn't dream before this conversation that there might already exist a community of organizations and people who have transformed similarly in other areas that would love to transform again that way. I'd thought of finding people and organizations with the biggest demand, biggest potential to change, that I was most connected to, or other ways.

I hadn't thought of people or organizations most skilled at systemic change beginning with personal transformation, nor of connecting with someone at the middle of such a community who also loves that kind of experience. Maybe this is the beginning of a big initiative. I suspect I'll learn as much as anyone.

Kelly Allan Associates

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381: Kevin Edwards Cahill, part 1: The Deming Legacy Sep 08, 2020

Show notes

Kevin Cahill's grandfather, W. Edwards Deming, changed nations. An emperor awarded him a medal. If you don't know either, listen to the first few minutes when I describe him. Deming has become one of my top role models.

He transformed nations in a few years---the time scale that climate scientists say we have, not that climate is our only problem. He shows what one person can do---the opposite of what everyone who doesn't act justifies their inaction with: "What one person does doesn't matter."

W. Edwards Deming saw and acted on systems, what many people talk about but not many get. This episode will illuminate them and, I hope, give hope and direction for what we can do.

Kevin's TEDx talk
The Deming Institute

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