This Sustainable Life

Previous guest and retired dating coach guru Brad P suggested inviting Marni as a guest, his longtime friend and colleague. She coaches men on attraction, dating, and so on. Curious?She pioneered women coaching men in this area, as you'll hear in our conversation, helping transition the field in ways you'll hear her describe. Her fourteen years of experience led her to expertise, understanding, skills, insight, and fun. I don't know of her peer.She shares her expertise and experience. I predict you'll find her story fascinating, engaging, and fun.On a personal note, I'm continuing the opening up about my practicing and coaching dating, attraction, seduction, etc. so you'll get to hear more of my evolution in something important to me where I felt vulnerable. I was also a guest on her show, the Ask Women podcast, which listeners have given positive feedback on. She and her cohost Kristen Carney created an open, fun context where I could feel comfortable sharing my dating coach history.I don't know about you, but I felt like I got to see into a quasi-secret world or perspective that I knew about but hadn't actually heard from directly and openly. And we have mutual friends.And if you're a man looking to attract women, I recommend contacting Marni for coaching.Marni's page The Wing Girl MethodThe Ask Women podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

People are criticizing politicians and others over handling Covid-19. I don't blame or criticize people for not knowing how to handle particulars of this situation, but we can respond more effectively.Some parts of the situation are unique to Covid-19. Some are endemic to crises. We can learn from how people handled past crises effectively and ineffectively.Today I talk about John Kennedy learning from the Bay of Pigs disaster to lead through the Cuban Missile Crisis.Important urgent tasks like sourcing ventilators are important, but if we miss learning the important non-urgent things to prepare for the next situation, which likely won't require ventilators, we'll find ourselves here again.Bay of Pigs invasion: Kennedy’s Cuban catastropheJFK’s Legacy and GroupthinkThirteen Days (film) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I chose to stay at my mom's outside the cityWhy?Read stories, saw difference between places with SARS and MERS experience versus notNY and US woefully underprepared govt, corps. People didn't get itNot worried about my health, but systemAdvice is distanceWhat could happenCloser to Italy than China or IranTalked to friend in medicineTalked to friend who had been following mostUS lacks central authorityWhy not?Mom is 76. Stepfather close. I could unknowingly bring diseaseSolution isn't possible for everyone. On the other hand, everyone who can slow spread shouldAt first felt privilegedBut hard to find preciselyHaving mom?Having mom still alive?Her living outside the city? Many other situations doesn't help.That I can afford to go somewhere else?Normally couldn't but situation demands it. Like many, I can't afford. My largest source of income last year was corporate speaking, which is all disappearingIn any case, able to relocate possibly for months results from work at pruning unnecessary, which anyone can doI don't have kids, which enables a lot, but a major factor in not having kids is not being able to afford them.Feels like the opposite of privilege, not being able to afford somethingStill, people have told me I'm privileged for it.Candidly, it feels that way, but I can't put my finger on it. My family isn't loaded. If middle class is privileged, I guess, but then everyone outside poverty is privileged.Back to CovidWhat made case for me was seeing scientific models that what we're seeing with minimal testing implies far more we haven't tested, which implies far more who can transmit but haven't shown symptoms, which could be you or meBiggest problem would be if we don't learn from it.Biggest lesson so far: can't not fly -> can not flyBecause however big Covid, scientists have predicted pandemics based on overpopulation and over travel for generationsThey've also predicted a lot more to come.Best course beyond this pandemic is to implement globally what Thai people did: lowering birth rate globally to around 1, 1.5 children per woman.In the immediate, follow expert advice, of courseThe two articles that influenced me most:Coronavirus: Why You Must Act NowHow Will Coronavirus Spread? Liz Specht Breaks Down Systemic Risk – by the Math – As 16 Million Are Quarantined in ItalyThe chart I described, from the first link above: Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My notes that I read from for this episode:Greatest danger is not to learn from it.Starting story: Preparing to launch on 9/11. While nothing on scale of victims, first responders, and those who fought, but went from 8 digit to limbo. Within two years squeezed out. Gave up following Einstein and Newton to outdoor advertising that I didn't even like. Now no way forward, backward, or anything. Lost trust in people. Closer to mom and other entrepreneurs with similar disaster.We feel everything shutting down. Huge unknown. Will things restart? How many will suffer? How many will die? What will happen to health care system? Have I bought enough to eat? Will I become infected? If so, how badly? Will I accidentally infect others?Images of China, Italy, Korea show fuller shut down ahead.Other nation's results show divide in effectiveness with if they faced SARS, MERS, and related situations.Nothing compares with experience.We've seen in America back-to-back 500-year storms, fires, and floods. My home of New York City has seen a hurricane, not nearly the country's severest.We know more is to come.We lack relevant leadership experience.I don't see a silver lining to lower pollution if it comes through suffering and death.If any silver lining -- that given predictions for generations that neglecting our humility to the environment by dominating instead of stewarding it would lead to sea level rise, unbreathable air, famine, pestilence, and more, we can expect more -- and however bad this problem, it may give us training for future disasters.Our greatest danger in responding to covid is not to learn how to handle a population far beyond the Earth's ability to sustain or regenerate. Because we could learn what nations hit by SARS learned.We've been fortunate enough so far to face mostly localized disasters at different times. Here is one of our first global ones. The US could come together to help victims of Katrina, Paradise CA fires, and so on.We've helped foreign communities -- however imperfectly?What will happen when two or three disasters happen? Four?Today's answer is that we don't know and have no basis to answer.But we could learn now. Not a silver lining for people in Italy or Iran and probably the US who are turned away from hospital care.Nor did I know what I would do on September 12. The fallout had barely begun. My life is far better for what I learned over what comfort and convenience I lost.Learned leadership and how to teach it, over a decade now. Students and clients apply it from the West Bank, to Silicon Valley, to the nation's least advantaged communities.Five years ago began my journey to serious meaningful environmental action. It began simply, challenging myself to go a week buying no packaged food. Learned to cook from scratch, found delicious, faster, cheaper, more accessible (Saturday cooked in Bronx at invitation from single mom in food desert to show her community what I'd learned).Mindset shift to expect acting on environmental values to improve life. So when I learned flying NY-LA r/t warmed the globe a year of driving, I challenged myself to go a year without flying.March 23 begins my fifth year of what I expected deprivation, sacrifice, obligation, chore, but turned out joy, connection, and community.I threw out my garbage once in 2019, 2018, 2017. Pure life improvement amid 90% reduction according to online calculators.I've spoken to about 1,000 people on my podcast and life about not flying. About 998 said impossible.Suddenly many not flying. It's always been a matter of motivation and imagination.One flight brings you to distant loved one or job opportunity. Flying in general separates to where you have to fly. More flying means less time with family and less control over career and is a sign of privilege that letting go of improves life.My mom texted me she couldn't see me last week. We don't know if my niece's Bat Mitzvah later this month will happen. Our family is closer, not more distant, despite the physical distance.We can learn from this. It will get worse before it gets better. Maybe it will just be a worse flu season. It probably won't become like the 1918 flu coming off WWI or the Black Plague, but they danger isn't how sick you get, it's how society handles it.Let's learn as much as we can. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I view ecotourism skeptically at best. While I imagine someone could create tourism that increased the world's ability to sustain life and human society, every case I've seen at least doubly does the opposite. For one thing I've only seen ecotourism involving flying, which destroys what they pretend to help, perhaps dreaming that carbon offsets lower greenhouse concentrations while they more likely raise them. For another, they turn places into tourist traps that depend on outside money.Today's episode presents an opportunity for people to get most of what they look for in travel---adventure, different culture, cuisine, etc---without lowering the environment's ability to sustain life and human society. Visit decaying parts of the US or wherever you live.In the US, you could visit Flint, Camden, and so on. I bet visiting those places would check most or all the boxes of what most people claim they want from travel. They'd cost less, connect people to people and cultures they wouldn't otherwise. They'd bring money into depressed economies.It would develop some empathy and compassion from people claiming they want to help with those they pretend to help. Or it would expose the lie that most people claiming what they want from ecotourism really want other things, like to indulge, but to look good for it---what many people call greenwashing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

People ask, "Josh, do you really think you can make a difference?" or comment that what I or anyone does won't matter.In the first part of this episode I describe how I think our environmental future will unfold---the outcome I consider most likely. It's not pretty. I foresee a lot of gloom and doom about nature, but however much problems in nature, I think human reactions will be more important, sooner, and more destructive.My main resources for this part are the Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells and Limits to Growth.In the second part, I share what I think could unfold if we get serious about addressing what's happening---what I'm working for.In the next part, I describe why I work at something that even I consider unlikely, drawing on Vince Lombardi.Finally, in a coda, I address why I don't expect technology to save us, or more likely to augment and accelerate our environmental problem.The Uninhabitable EarthLimits to GrowthThe Do the Math blogAbout Thailand's family planningNorman Borlaug's quote:The green revolution has won a temporary success in man's war against hunger and deprivation; it has given man a breathing space. If fully implemented, the revolution can provide sufficient food for sustenance during the next three decades. But the frightening power of human reproduction must also be curbed; otherwise the success of the green revolution will be ephemeral only.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I met Nir Eyal at a podcast recording of Will Bachman, who long ago hosted me on his podcast (see links below).Nir recently publish a book, Indistractable, about how to keep focused. A lot of people ask me how I do so much. I don't feel I do, but if so, maybe I qualify as someone who achieves. Indistractable gave me tools to focus and achieve more with less distraction.In fact, I'm writing now and recorded then despite feeling like I wanted to surf the net but used a technique from the book to focus.I wanted to hear how his research and techniques on personal action would connect to environmental action, which we started to talk about (I liked to Will's episode so you can hear Nir at length about the book).Nir showed one of this podcast's more dramatic transitions from skeptical, abstract environmental discussion to enthusiastic action. I appreciate his openness to reconsider since I read him as starting with set environmental views, but let himself look at it from a new perspective, including acting. I read his thank you at the end as sincere and, I suspect, the start of something new.As a spoiler alert, he emailed me less than 24 hours after we recorded that he acted on his commitment. Listen to hear his commitment beyond most people's.Nir's conversation with Will BachmanMy conversation with Will was a few episodes earlierPale Blue Dot Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you've listened to this podcast, you know my Building Block---my technique to lead one person to share and act on his or her environmental values. You may also know my strategy to scale from influencing one person at a time to many.Describing that scaling model has taken effort. A conversation with a friend this morning about how Tesla scaled suggested to me a way to describe how I planned to scale.Today I describe what I'm thinking about calling my "modified Tesla strategy." I'm not describing a new strategy, but a new way to frame it and describe it. How one communicates influences how people understand and join a movement.Episode 154: Why you, famous person, will like being a guest Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As a sneak preview to my third TEDx talk, I used this conversation wit Larry as an example. Sorry you'll have to wait a month for the organizers to edit the video. Waiting is as hard for me as for you.When last we heard, Larry committed to picking up trash from beach with his sons and wife. Sometimes involving others can increase the challenge. Other times involving others leads to leading them, involving them in the process.What do you think happened with Larry's challenge? Does SEAL training lead to being able lead family members?I believe you'll see another side of Larry from the first two episodes, trying to figure out the emotional interaction, sharing what he learns with his family leading up to this conversation, searching inside himself, which he shares openly. I don't know how much vulnerability a warrior shares normally, if there is a normal. You'll hear it when it comes.For many listeners environmental talk and action conjures feelings of guilt, shame, confusion, futility, and the like or expectation that people will try to make us feel that way. I believe you'll hear from this episode what I try to convey in this podcast, that you'll make your life better, by your standards.After you listen, see if you can tell how much I'm enjoying this growing dare I say friendship with Larry---talking about kids, education, and so on? Deep, meaningful access to people is available to anyone through the environment, which could be through family relations, religion, food as in my case, camping, hiking, exercise, and so on. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Food is important part of environment, as you know. The book Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman changed a lot for me. I came across it after my experiments avoiding packaged food, fiber-removed foods, and meat. Eat to Live showed me that the delicious diet I found by reducing garbage and pollution turned out healthy.You'll hear me at the beginning stumble a bit. I had prepared, but everything changed when I met Joel in person at his home. He showed me the plants he's growing in solar powered greenhouse. Now, I think I'm getting good at making my stews, salads, and desserts, but with his kitchen full of vegetables and fruit, he whipped together a salad more delicious than mine effortlessly.I invite people over and they seem to like the food and impressed with my technique. All he did was make a salad and offer some snacks, including dried fruit and a chocolate chia pudding, but he showed a mastery I haven't developed yet. I mostly associated him with nutrition and healthy eating. Now I associate him with everything I'm trying to create around the environment: based in science but once you get it, about joy, community, connection, family.I realized I'm barely started developing my food-making skills.So by when we started recording the conversation, I was trying to learn from watching.By the way, if you hear noise of something brushing the microphone, it's his adorably dog, who was running around us as we spoke.You'll hear something that made me feel great---he noticed the yellow in my hand skin color and told me it meant I was eating a diet with plenty of phytonutrients. The recognition felt great.Again, Eat To Live changed my life. I recommend his books, his videos, his advice, and now his lifestyle. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.