This Sustainable Life

Rarely do you meet someone who created a word that became common. My guests today, Gifford and Libba Pinchot, created the term intrapraneurship. In the world of leadership and entrepreneurship, they created a discipline.After years of activism in the 60s, through entrepreneurship in the 90s, and what attracted me to them most, they started a business school from scratch, the first to offer an MBA in sustainable business. Beyond teaching students, they changed the field, as you'll hear in our conversation.I've worked with a lot of business schools. Today they all have to work on sustainability. As a professor, I can't imagine sustainability and nature not infused into my courses. The Pinchots helped start that trend. In earlier conversations, we talked about them starting a new branch of leadership and the environment, so toward the end of the conversation, we go meta and talk about how to start a podcast.(I hope you listeners consider starting a branch yourselves. It will give you the opportunity to lead a movement. It will also set you up to meet the most important people in a field of your interest and make them feel great. Anyone listening who wants to meet the most valuable people they want and make them feel great about helping create an environmental legacy, contact me and I'll get you started.)Pinchot & Co. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our last episode ended with two subjects either of which I'd love to cover---an NFL tight end picking up other people's garbage and stoicism. We had covered life for a professional team athlete under a pandemic. Then George Floyd and Black Lives Matter eclipsed the pandemic in the media and public discourse.We covered all these topics in this episode, starting with stoicism, which I think set the tone for thoughtful, reflective conversation onimportant but difficult topics.None of my podcasts are scripted, but this was probably my most unscripted. Though it only scratched the surface of sharing personal experiences, hopes, fears, expectations, and other vulnerabilities, it seems the start of what to share. In this case, Chris's thoughtful conversation helped, especially applying stoicism to our situation.On a personal note, as an emerging public figure, if I'm not flattering myself to say so, I've had conversations with friends and family with misunderstandings that got us angry at each other, even if on the way to greater understanding. It's scary to talk about personal things in an environment where people look to interpret things in the worst way.It sure is easier to watch others in public and criticize them.Check out this video showing off Chris's offensive line skills: Chris Manhertz shutting down the league's top pass rushers Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm continuing my practice of bringing leadership to sustainability, following my bringing speeches and messages by Patton, Frankl, JFK, King, Mandela, Henry V, and others. Today I bring President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address honoring men who fought and died in battle.I hoped to draw parallels to acting in stewardship today but faced two big differences. First, we don't have to risk our lives---the opposite. Living in harmony with nature creates joy, connection, and community. Second, nearly nobody today acts sustainably! Lincoln could speak in honor of people who acted. We can't today because we feel too entitled to flying when and where we want and everything that goes with it.I see Lincoln's address as motivation for us to act, however easy compared to the men at Gettysburg, and earn honor and praise from people around the world today helpless to prevent us hurting them for our comfort and convenience as well as future generations.Acting in stewardship for them to restore and increase Earth's ability to sustain life and human society is our great potential honor. To the extent I've done so, I love it. I'm not alone. We're small in number but growing. I hope you'll join us.Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For years I thought fusion could solve our environmental problems. Serious consideration betrays that false promise, illustrating it would only continue the the pattern creating the problems we're trying to solve.Even if it works, it leads to two results I see as problems. One, it will lead us to keep changing our world away from the environment we evolved in to allow us to thrive and enjoy a bountiful world. Two, it will lead us to keep growing beyond the limits of what it can support, as we have with comparable technological advances. If we ever expect to stop growing, why not do it now, when the stakes are lower? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Andreas and I go back five or ten years. He hired me as a coach when he was selling his share of a business he cofounded. He appears in my book Initiative about that experience and what he's done since.I invited him as a guest for two reasons:One, he started the Leadership and the Environment Sweden podcast. I shared with him my vision of working on sustainability in a way to help people become valuable in their communities. I coached him on podcasting. He's still ramping up with only a few guests so far, but you'll hear in this episode his experiences, how shy and introverted he felt before starting, and how much the training led him to enjoy it.Two, he's taken on challenges to act on environmental challenges to where he looks forward to taking on more. He talks about his challenges to avoid plastic, sleeping outdoors once a month, limiting his meat, and the unexpected joy they've brought him. You'll hear how acting changes his perspective from expecting a burden or chore to enjoying the process, from feeling disconnected to learning more about himself. He's starting, so I look forward to bringing him on again after he's reflected more.I hope you'll listen actively, thinking about communities you'd like to bring joy and stewardship to and how strong his fears were thathe's enjoyed getting over. If you'd like to start a Leadership and the Environment offshoot, contact me, let's start training you, and let's start you meeting, befriending, and becoming a peer of the most important people you can think of.Andreas said,You might find it interesting how my no plastic challenge is developing. Yesterday I went to a summer party with my now former colleagues. And I've consumed very little plastic these past few months and I've gotten used to and it feels good to not do that. So when they bring in all the food they've ordered for everyone, all of it packaged in plastic, with plastic forks and plastic cups I feel horrified. I keep seeing the mountains of plastic in India from that documentary you recommended, and the plastic beaches in the Philippines. My rule was no plastic when I buy food in the store but now I think I need to step it up.I can't tell you how heartwarming hearing someone share how my influence helped someone improve his life feels. I'm not sure what you heard, but I heard profound change in many areas---personal leadership, environmental stewardship, meeting people, self-expressionMost of all, I heard deep connection with something powerful through connecting more with nature. I heard him struggling to put into words the feelings propelling him to keep doing more, to look for more motivation even if it means seeing horrifying things, to share withothers.Ledarskap och miljön Sverige (in English Leadership and the Environment Sweden) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I love talking with people who strive to reach their potential and beyond, and who elevate people around them---their teammates. People like that exist everywhere, especially in professional sports.Jaeden plays for the Atlanta Falcons. We start by talking about his first touchdown pass, which you have to watch. It's what you'd dream of for a first touchdown pass.Loving sports as I do and hearing about the personal experience, I indulge in asking about that play. He said he was open, but not much. It looked like a mess except that Matt Ryan through it right to him. He got hit but bounced right back, spiked the ball and did a dance.He shares the inside view, what went different than planned and other inside stuff. Then we talk about teamwork, the role of fans, training, giving everything you have.Of course we talk about the pandemic, it being an opportunity beyond surviving, digging deep, finding yourself, and reaching your potential. We also talk about the environment, acting on it, and giving all you have for everyone, how that improves life.I grew up thinking of professional athletes as bad boys, but competition is founded on reaching your potential, giving everything you have, serving your self, your team, your fans, the world. I heard from Jaeden that the level of fun you reach when you try transcends when you just settle for creature comforts or just playing okay.Is applying what he says to environmental stewardship obvious? Relating it as I see it, people ask me why I do so much---picking up litter and so on. Then I listen to athletes, business leaders, political leaders, artists, Nobel Prize winners, and all the people I've spoken to on this podcast and think of how little I'm doing compared to them. I think of how much more I can do.I hope you feel as enthusiastic as I do to find out what more I can do to serve my teammates, which is everyone who needs clean air, land, and water to live---that is, to steward this beautiful world for them.Jaeden's first touchdown Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You've heard people calling for moonshots---challenges so great we take them on as a nation. But regarding sustainability we also ask people to do as little as they can, "here's one little thing you can do for the environment."In this episode, I bring you John Kennedy's speech at Rice on the original moonshot, fraught with peril, expensive, asking a lot. He spoke with resolve we lack today everywhere, entitled as our culture has become, but especially in taking responsibility for our actions that affect others helpless to defend themselves from our hurting them. For our mere comfort and convenience. For our waste! America outright wastes forty percent of our food, which we use more fossil fuels than ever to create.I am endeavoring to bring such spirit and leadership to sustainability today.I share my thoughts on our lame attempts to motivate, then read his words, then play the recording of Kennedy himself. Let's do this. Let's restore that spirit. Let's do the hard work of transforming our economy to stewardship, responsibility, and enjoying what we have over looking the other way from pollution and craving what we don't have.The text of the full speechVideo of the speech Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Margaret is the Executive Director at The Climate Mobilization. Writing Facing the Climate Emergency brought her to me.Her psychology background leads her to approach the climate psychologically, which I appreciate and consider missing. Our internal resistance, fears, and emotions that we don't like facing seem our biggest challenges to act. Of course, more research and education help, but we crossed the threshold of knowing enough to act long ago. We aren't acting not out of ignorance but out of emotion and the skills to manage them.She writes about facing our fears, which leads ultimately to how rewarding acting on so great a challenge feels. People don't get how rewarding acting on our values feels. We both struggled to describe the ineffable emotional and social rewards of stewardship, but I think you'll hear the magnitude of it.I think we both hope you hear from us enough incentive and inspiration to devote yourself to something so huge, even if just to start getting serious. In my experience, the more you act, the more you want to act. You'll wish you started earlier.I don't know how it sounds to others, but exploring apocalyptic possibilities---I believe you'll be glad you explored them, as we do.Close to home, how many books and movies have you come across that eerily accurately foretold the course of this pandemic. If you haven't found any, there are plenty. Many people want to prepare for such outcomes with stockpiles of food, weapons, and bunkers in New Zealand.I prefer to prevent these outcomes. Margaret focuses on action, as do I. Action can prevent some of the greatest suffering. It creates motivation, meaning, and purpose.We can change the trajectory we're on. And we'll love it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Many people are looking to return to something they can call normal since the pandemic undid their earlier normal. In the meantime they struggle.Almost everyone I know knows Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. I don't know what they think the book applies to, but it applies to exactly this situation. I'll give the perfectly relevant quote here and elaborate in the episode:We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one's predicament into a human achievement.When we are no longer able to change a situation---just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer---we are challenged to change ourselves.Again, in the episode, I'll explain how this quote applies to our situation today, if you don't find it obvious already.The episode refers to my book and three videos that explain step-by-step how to change yourself to turn personal tragedy into triumph.Leadership Step by StepThe Model 1/3The Model 2/3The Model 3/3Actually, two more videos round out that series. The above three frame what to do. The next two explain what to do and how.The Method 1/2The Method 2/2 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I shared a story with a client the other day that he found deeply meaningful. I'd never shared it with anyone before because it felt so shameful. Enough time has passed that I can talk about it, so I'm sharing it here, but I still cringe over it. I shared it to clarify a misunderstanding I hear from many people that somehow things I've done were easier for me than for others, like somehow I got more discipline than others without work.When others share stories they say make them feel shameful, it never sounds as serious to me as it seems to to them, so I hope my story doesn't either. I'm not going to write it here so you have to listen to the episode if you want to hear it, but it starts with girls, or rather lack of relationships with them, and ends with huge life decisions in other areas that I would not have made had I been more open. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.