This Sustainable Life

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

Matthew is friends with the guy who built the white nationalist online community, Stormfront. He is also an observant orthodox Jew. You may have heard about him because the pair made headlines and appeared on the Daily Show and shows like that.Matthew and Derek Black made headlines because Matthew invited Derek to Shabat dinner in college. They became friends. Derek eventually disavowed his earlier beliefs, in large part because of their friendship.In our conversation, Matthew shares his side of the story. Most interviews featured Derek, which will get more ratings, but I find Matthew's initiative in leading by engaging more inspiring, especially for those of us not raised as white nationalists. I compare how the mainstream approaches people they disagree with---"punch a Nazi" or saying the others don't care---with Matthew's approach. I don't think people realize Matthew's effectiveness.I could try to describe it, but Matthew has lived it, in particular in a situation with as diametrically opposed views you can imagine. Rarely do I find myself speechless to add to what the guest said. All I can say is I learned more than I expected and I expected to learn a lot.I expect to listen to this episode many times over the years. I'll keep in touch with Matthew too and bring him back. What I'm trying to work on in leading people I disagree with, he's done for longer with more personal at stake.Matthew on the On Being podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you have friends that you talk to once or twice a month---someone you can talk about important things beyond the day to day? Dan is one of those friends for me. The week before recording this conversation he told me he had a massive heart attack. He's 46 years old. I was traveling and could only hear part of the story. What I heard made me reflect all week.The pains, hospitals, and doctors were the exciting, if that's the right word, part. The parts about his son and his views on life got me in the gut. He's gone through life and death experiences before, so he could compare reflections and changes this time to others.The part about the changes he's made since, mostly about diet, made me think about my environmental changes. I asked him if he was willing to share his experience with an audience challenging themselves to change. He said yes. The first two-thirds is a gripping account of a young man facing possibly the end of his life. Then comes the parts where he faces the rest of his life and especially his son.I mentioned after stopping recording how I thought his humor would help people listen. He said, "How else can you treat it?"Since he had faced life-and-death experiences before, he adjusted to live how he wants. That if he knew his life would end soon he wouldn't change anything, tells me any of us can do so now.After recording he said he appreciated the chance to serve. I hope we learn his lesson without facing coin-toss chances of surviving.Leaders Must Lead Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.