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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:

360: Sparta could make history Jul 21, 2020

Show notes

Here are the notes I read from on recounting the potential I saw for the Spartan Race community and its founder, Joe De Sena, if they chose to prioritize environmental stewardship.

Context: Joe: carries chain up 1,000-foot hill, brings others with him, invites people to climb hill for 24 hours, leads to Spartan Run.
Brings people up to carry boulders up steep hill, which they pay to do.
Community: Integrity, personal motivation, fun, supportive
Tasks: Learn about yourself, great joy, striving, constantly improving They understand the mental and physical side, learning, growing, deeper satisfaction and reward than cookies and ice cream.
Got me to go to Vermont and run up and down hill seven times.
Environment: abysmal: trash, doof, little fruits and vegetables, bottles, ignoring well water, no natural fibers
Texts from kids
But huge potential. 7 million members. They know you have to go through uncertainty, pain, struggle, mostly self-doubt, your mind telling you reasons to stop, working through them.
I've spoken with world-class leaders. Joe and his community see what to do and have lived doing it in other areas.
Competitors included blind, one foot, 61-year-old, black, white, hispanic, carrying 100-pound load, loads of kids.
I proposed one trash bag per event that all have to use and only fill
one, maybe one recycling container, but keep it empty too.
No single-rider cars. Joe said needed big fine. Given their integrity, I
proposed internal motivation. After speaking I thought instead give them cash and time off their finishing time so the'll go on record as having beaten people they didn't deserve to.
If Joe and his team act on my ideas, could become first main community to lead. They'll enjoy the process -- eating healthier, saving money, carpooling -- they'll enjoy discovering nature too.
Everything they get now in mind and body, they'll re-create in their
relationship with nature.

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359: Jaime Casap, part 1: Google's Global Education Evangelist Jul 13, 2020

Show notes

“Don’t ask kids what they want to be when they grow up. Ask them what problem they want to solve.”

Jaime explains what his title of Google's "Education Evangelist" means, how he got it, and how it results in him advancing education globally. We talk about education when student-driven, how that paradigm differs from what nearly all schools now do. Also how it is everywhere in life.

He gives an insider's view of Google, how it reacted and transitioned from the pandemic, physically on the inside of its buildings.

The most exciting part of the conversation comes at the end, when our conflicting views on the environment, the future, and technology build to a crescendo of disagreement, but also curiosity, but not checkmating each other.

It's difficult to stop a conversation in the middle, so sorry you'll have to wait for our next conversation, but we've scheduled it.

Disagreement happens any time two people's values differ, which means between any two people. I loved that we knew points of disagreement but instead of trying to defeat each other, we learned.

I talk to a lot of people with similar views to what he expressed, but my experience so far has been that they are closed to other views. I suspect they see that resistance in me, I can't tell. With Jaime I felt we were looking for understanding the other's view, which I value.

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358: Bald Versus Plastic Jul 10, 2020

Show notes

Here are the notes I read this episode from:

People keep acting like I'm different, that they have to balance things that I don't when acting on the environment.

So I'll share a recent decision I made. People I tell have sounded intrigued and delighted to hear it so I'll share with you.

First sensed hairline retreating at 19.

Not much for maybe a decade following, I don't remember.

Maybe 10 years ago started using minoxidil.

Don't know if works or not, but used as insurance. Not insanely expensive.

Tested on thinning in back, so even less sure if it works.

Over the past few years noticed it becoming my greatest plastic consumption.

Thought more about stopping.

Even stopping flying was reversible. Never decided to stop forever, just kept finding that it improved my life not to fly. Constraints breed creativity.

Stopping minoxidil not reversible. Might not do anything. Might go bald. I don't want to go bald. I like my hair.

But I'm pitting purely my vanity against reducing plastic pollution.

Last bottle of last 3 month supply was running low. Kept thinking about it. Risk balding, but maybe no difference.

Last American president elected bald was Eisenhower. Have to beat Hitler to get elected. Women complain they get judged by appearance, but men do too.

Felt helpless, yet also recognize the alternative is simply to live with my genes. What chemical shitstorm is in that stuff anyway?

But the bottom line was every time I've chosen to live by my environmental values, it's improved my life. I used to have faith, but faith is belief without evidence. Between avoiding packaged food, avoiding flying, picking up garbage daily, plogging, all of which I thought would worsen my life, they've all improved it.

So I made a deal with myself to flip a coin. Heads I'd keep it. If every 3 months I flipped, eventually I'd have to end.

I started making deals with myself -- just get to 50 years old. It's so little plastic compared to everyone else. Just one more time. I found out you can buy the raw ingredients on Alibaba. What if I found a great price? Rite Aid had almost half off online. Another place even lower prices, but then more packaging.

So I flipped the coin. Tails on the first try. I made a rule only flip a coin when I can't decide any other way, then never reverse that decision or it undoes the value of coin toss's decisiveness. Still I started bargaining with myself.

Are you getting how hard I found this decision? I was deciding in the moment a choice to affect me possibly for the remaining several decades of my life.

I didn't refill. I still went to Rite Aid intending to buy another box, against the coin toss, but the low price was only online. I was going to break my rule, but didn't because of circumstance.

Within a day I could feel new breeze on my forehead. Maybe coincidence, but maybe I'll end up bald in a few months. Maybe it will recede a bit and stop. Who knows?

I don't see a path to this choice improving my life, but I'm going with it. Talk about your first-world problems, right? But everyone goes through similar decisions too. Should I buy the coffee on the way to work in the disposable cup? Should I take a subway or shared ride?

We all do mental gymnastics to rationalize behavior we know is against our principles. I do. My difference today versus me years ago is that I've moved my balance toward stewardship. Each time I do, I find it improves my life. Before long I find role models beyond where I am. I learn from them, for example Bea Johnson, whose family of four produces collectively less trash than I do.

The world will see the results.

Some relevant posts of mine:

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357: Steven Pressfield: The War of Art and Nature Jul 07, 2020

Show notes

Steven Pressfield's War of Art is a perennial bestseller. If you haven't read it, I recommend reading it, even if you delay listening to this podcast. Well, listen to this episode since it will prepare you.

Before I read it, I could not have imagined someone writing it. I can't think of another book like it. It's helped countless people start acting on passions.

Steven shares how the book emerged---things you won't get from just reading it. After we finished recording, he told me how he shared new things in this episode and he's appeared on many podcasts.

I also commented on how the resistance he described to the individual on the verge of creating translates almost perfectly to two places, the individual acting on his or her environmental values as well as us in our communities, as a nation, as a species. Listen to hear his comments on that observation, and why his response made me feel so honored, flattered, and motivated to follow up.

He's friendly. We spoke a bit after stopping recording. I asked him about an op-ed piece I'm working on that I feel expresses myself well and will serve the world but many people will object to. It feels great to hear from someone who has inspired so many to weather those risks to be true to yourself. Resistance looms large nonetheless.

Anyway, I don't recommend that many books, but I recommend War of Art.

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356: I was assaulted again this morning. Can I talk about it? Jul 05, 2020

Show notes

While I was jogging (actually plogging) along the Hudson River around 7:30am, a person not wearing a mask stepped into my path, blocking me, saying the person's shoes had been stolen. The person seemed to let me pass, but then threatened me and threw a bottle that shattered at my feet as I ran past. I kept running, the hair on the back of my neck standing up and my adrenaline high. I don't know if the person had a weapon.

I describe more and some of how it affected me in the audio.

I was first going to say I was threatened since he didn't touch me. I'm not a lawyer so I looked up the definition. According to FindLaw.com's page on Assault Torts and Injury Law:

legal scholars define assault as an intentional attempt or threat to inflict injury upon a person, coupled with an apparent, present ability to cause the harm, which creates a reasonable apprehension of bodily harm or offensive contact in another.

Notice the words “attempt” and “threat” above. In tort law, assault does not require actual touching or violence to the victim. We use another term for the touching or contact: “battery.”

Here are the notes I read from:

The story from this morning running
Happens all the time, not daily but throughout my life
I don't think he did it because black, but I suspect were I not white it may not have happened. Can't say this time.
When I stayed in Atlanta
Friends say, you can say to us but careful with others
Shared about mugged childhood, but still happening
Maybe there is a secret white suburban life I don't know about
Recently white friends have started sharing how they've been mugged
Consistent with Dov's saying how sharing stories will lead to others feeling they can share too
That's all background. Here is my point: every time I bring up suffering or being threatened, while I may get some listening, the other person always says, remember others have it worse---not that person, not even someone with their skin color
So they don't know from experience but they're telling me as if I haven't heard before, and they're presuming to know my experience
I don't know anyone's experience but mine, but everyone absolutely everyone dismisses it without asking, presuming it's the caricature in the mainstream.
When I hear white people talking about BLM, George Floyd, there's always this mea culpa. Maybe they are guilty, I don't know. I never hear them speak about their problems. Maybe they have no problems, maybe I'm unique, but that people open up with me when I share and they hear I'm not white supremacist or racist---though in today's world white people even mentioning race without saying how they are allies or something making up for guilt or things like that---then they tell me about their experiences, but they insist on my respecting their confidence, which of course I do.
So much of what I hear from white people sounds so similar and
inauthentic, I don't think they're being open, honest, or candid. Maybe
many are as privileged as they say, but people have told me about being attacked, their lives threatened with weapons, and so on.
I think about risks maybe not every day, but all the time. And when I
don't, some guy walks into my path, throws a bottle at me, and threatens me.
For a while I feared sharing messages like this because people might
suspect I'm turning into a white supremacist. I came to terms that if
people think that about the opposite, I can't let their preconceived
notions hold me from acting for equality.

"White Like Me," Eddie Murphy's Saturday Night Live sketch I referred to

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355: I balance values the same as anyone Jul 04, 2020

Show notes

People constantly suggest they have to balance different values as if I didn't. It came up in a recent conversation so I shared about it today.

An element I factor in is how my pollution affects others---not just what I know about or wish I contributed, but what I actually contribute. Yet people think I factor in nothing else.

It's weird to learn people see you as one-dimensional. If they felt others viewed them as they see me, they'd be insulted.

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354: Harvard Global Health Institute Director Ashish Jha, part 1: Front Line Pandemic Leadership Jul 02, 2020

Show notes

If you've followed sensible, expert advice on the pandemic, you've probably read or seen Ashish Jha in the New York Times, The Atlantic, CNN, Washington Post, and everywhere. On Tuesday he testified to the US Senate.

He's Harvard's Global Health Institute's Director. Over 200,000 people have taken his online Harvard courses, which you can for free. Over 80,000 took Ebola, Preventing the Next Pandemic and over 120,000 took Improving Global Health: Focusing on Quality and Safety. As it turns out, we were college teammates on the ultimate frisbee team.

I'll link to a few top articles by him. With so many interfaces between the pandemic and us---health, government, research, policy, etc---you can read a lot of his views and experiences from different sources.

I wanted to bring the personal side of leading on the front lines and top levels of a pandemic---how do doctors and public health experts feel about people not following advice, facing triage decisions, how to be heard, and what affects a doctor personally. We talk about leadership, the intersection between the pandemic and the environment, which overlaps with his directorship and courses, and more.

By the way, he created his Ebola course five years before this pandemic and predicted much of it, as did many. If predicting what's happened so far isn't enough reason to follow his advice, I don't know what is. Let's wear those masks

Ashish's faculty profile
Coronavirus Testing Needs to Triple Before the U.S. Can Reopen, Experts Say, NY Times article quoting Ashish
In the W.H.O.’s Coronavirus Stumbles, Some Scientists See a Pattern, NY Times article quoting Ashish
Pandemic Expert Dr. Ashish K. Jha ’92: “We Will Get Through This.”
How We Beat Coronavirus, The Atlantic
Here's the reason we are still shut down right now, CNN video

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353: I don't want to act on the environment Jul 02, 2020

Show notes

I think I've accidentally led people astray, sharing how much I enjoy acting in stewardship. I would prefer doing anything I wanted whenever and wherever, on my terms---that is, if I didn't have to consider how my behavior affected others, especially those powerless to stop my effects from hurting them.

Today's episode shares how I'm doing on the personal level what science suggests---no magic, nothing personal, just following the advice that makes the most sense. On the social level, I'm leading other people, corporations, institutions, and government. I'm not making things up or denying.

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352: The War of Art and Nature Jul 01, 2020

Show notes

I loved Steven Pressfield's book The War of Art. I found it inspiring. It had a property that qualifies for me that something qualifies as a work of art: it said something I always knew was true but that I'd never seen expressed that way."

I mention it for two reasons. One, I recorded a podcast episode with Steven the other day, which led me to reread the book. Two, I found the book applies to acting in stewardship. Substitute a few words and new meaning emerges, mainly changing art to stewardship. Most of the rest follows.

I describe the analogy in this episode's recording. I share a few examples. I hope it helps motivate.

I recommend The War of Art to nearly anyone. I recommend it especially to people who want to work on the environment.

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351: A Rough Day in New York City Jun 29, 2020

Show notes

Today was a rough day for me in New York. Most of my solo episodes I start with a point. Today brought me down enough that I decided to share more openly some thoughts I get when seeing situations that look hopeless and are deteriorating. Normally I try to support others. It occurred to me, I hear almost nothing back from listeners, friends, family, or the world providing hope or support. More commonly people seem mystified that I or anyone would try to live sustainably when they could instead eat, travel, buy, etc with nary a thought of stewardship or empowerment.

Below are my notes reminding me of a few things during the day to cover while speaking. As I'm writing these words, fireworks---that is, loud explosions---are going off within a block or two, unofficial.

Helicopter since 5:20
No masks
Litter everywhere, every meal
Just saw Story of Plastic
Nobody seems to care. We can go a day without water, but 8 oz bottles
Police everywhere
Mayor absent
President exacerbating
Why bother?
Am I missing signs of mainstream effective action?
Plastic production higher than ever

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