This Sustainable Life

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. This episode with Dan goes into more depth. I'll talk about it more, so consider this episode a sneak preview. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.Ecological Futures: Exploring Ecological Disruption as a Security RiskWhy Climate Change is a Security IssueA New DirectionStatement for the Record, Dr. Rod Schoonover, Senior Analyst Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Department of StateWhite House Tried to Stop Climate Science Testimony, Documents ShowFormer intelligence analyst says White House tried to delete "basic science" from climate change reportState Dept. Intelligence Analyst Quits to Protest Blocked House Testimony Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 iteasier. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.