This Sustainable Life

I felt a special bond with Ani before interviewing him. He introduced himself telling me that he read my Inc article What a Year Without Flying Taught Me About Responsibility, Empathy, and Community over a year before and, agreeing with it, challenged himself to avoid flying.He was 14 months into avoiding flying. He joked, "I hate you and I love you," because the challenge was so great but so was the reward.More about Ani, from his page:Ani helps entrepreneurs and high impact leaders feel aligned inside out, so you can create from a profound sense of calm, clarity & comfort, and translate your limitless potential into a wildly successful and meaningful life & business aligned with your true purpose.He has spent decades studying how the human mind works, and perfected a set of tools that can help you break free of the programming that limits you and keeps you in a constant state of stress, anxiety, fear, and overwhelm, and master your mind so you fall in love with who you really are, feel seen and understood by those around you and actually enjoy the success you have worked so hard for.His work as a coach and speaker has helped hundreds of people destroy the hidden blocks that limit them, unleash their unique superpowers, and permanently rewire their brains for epic success & happiness. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shana is the founder, CEO, and Lead Trainer at Yadid’it! Dog Training, the Executive Director at Yadid'it! Sustainable Dog Rescue and an ABCDT (Animal Behavior College Certified Dog Trainer). She is, in her words, super quirky, a loving dog-mom, an eldest sister to two loving siblings, and a sexual trauma survivor. #metooGrowing up a practicing modern orthodox Jew and attending a yeshiva day school from elementary through high school, Shana always had a strong inclination towards the concept of Tikkun Olam (repairing the world). Tikkun Olam, the Jewish concept defined by acts of kindness performed to perfect or repair our broken world, is the driving force behind her founding the two Yadid'it! companies.Tikkun Olam is often implemented when discussing issues of social policy, ensuring a safeguard to those who may be at a disadvantage, as in the case of people that have experienced sexual force or violence of any kind. Yadid'it! is the overarching brand-name for Shana's for-profit dog-training company and non-profit dog-rescue organization. The two sister companies work together to cultivate healthier lives for trauma survivors, human and canine alike, as her personal contribution to Tikkun Olam.She always had a special bond with animals, especially the misunderstood. Using her unique bond with dogs, she has trained over 500 dogs and their owners over the course of her six year dog-training career. She has also rescued six of her own dogs, and helped to get countless foster dogs adopted.Reading Temple Grandin’s "Animals in Translation, Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior" shortly after turning 21 proved a pivotal life point. Her understanding of her relationship with animals began to unfold. She identified therapeutic benefits between rescue animals and human survivors of sexual traumas, eager to see if all the clarity she felt flipping through the pages of Grandin's book was more than just an idea. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You might not guess from the beginning of our conversation that we'd talk about almost being attacked by a hippopotamus in Botswana, with crocodiles, and apes that might rip your head off, nor family triumph and tragedy, the Amazon, exploration of the world, external and internal.Jonas lives a wonderful life and it wasn't handed to him.After covering his tremendous accomplishments, we turn philosophical, but also about action.Then we spend more time talking about his perspective on the environment, and how his views formed along the Amazon, Botswana, Texas, Mexico, and his own stroke, his brother's death, his art, and more.I don't know about you and I don't want to reveal his personal challenge, but I would love to go on a nature walk with Jonas, not just for the adventures he's had, which suggest he'd have more adventures again, but because he cares. He'd do it out of passion, which I expect he'd share. Then again, wherever we are -- city, suburb, exurb, slum, gentrified area -- somewhere is the most natural context we have available to us.I recommend his New York Times article, What I Learned From a Stroke at 26: Make Time to Untangle, before listening and follow the links he mentioned after. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I finally saw how to see reducing versus reusing and recycling. The distinction is subtle until you get it. Then you see that missing it leads people to counterproductive behavior and, egregiously, feeling good about that counterproductive behavior, leading them to do it more.I read yet another person posting about recycling who didn't realize or address that if we keep producing plastic, it won't matter how much we reuse or recycle, we'll still choke ourselves with it.The pattern and view I describe in today's episode applies for mercury, CO2, ocean acidification, using up resources other species need until they're extinct, and so on.Actually, it's more, because reusing and recycling increase supply, which lowers the cost. The place to look for the effect of recycling is not at the specific case. Yes, if you recycle a given water bottle it will stop that bottle from polluting, but lowering the price by putting it back into circulation leads to more uses, like individually wrapped apples and other waste. It's like the fat on an obese person who keeps eating more calories than he or she uses. You get rolls on top of rolls and fat stuffed between all his or her organs.We're bursting at the seams with plastic, and everyone stops at recycling or reusing while we produce ever more. Same with CO2, mercury, etc.I've tried to figure out how to explain that feeling good about counterproductive behavior accelerates it.Today's episode shares the view I came to recently. The title describes it:Reusing and recycling are tactical. Reducing is strategic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When last we heard from Dov, about a year ago, he had limited driving his James Bond Jaguar, enjoyed the experience beyond expectation, and said he was considering getting rid of it.For a year I've wondered what came of his commitment.Many people "forget" or give up on commitments to bring mugs with them to cafés. What could I expect from a guy who aspired since childhood for a specific car to show the world he arrived from the ghetto to success?For people who insist remembering to bring a bag to a grocery store is impossibly difficult, surely anything about a car is too much.But Dov isn't anybody.A wrinkle?Tomorrow my book Initiative launches. Launching a book takes incredible time and attention. Letting yourself get distracted is a disaster because you may not catch up in time.My mind is saying, "Stay focused, Josh. Post about the book and nothing else. Dov's episode can wait."My heart says, "Dov's story may be the most remarkable and meaningful of your podcast. Don't wait."My heart won.Actually, they both won because this podcast is the direct result of my taking initiative in my life, creating the results the book is about and Dov's results outperform my expectations. This episode shows me what can result from leading people to share their environmental results and act on them.Dov's experience shows what happens when you take initiative. You discover your values. Only acting on your values reveals them to where you can reach your potential.My experience creating this podcast created the same result in me: unearthing latent passions, acting on them, attaining results I never would have expected.If a man gets more value from getting rid of a car than keeping it, what are the rest of us capable of getting rid of and thereby improving our lives?This episode is about initiative, action, and passion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My book, Initiative, launches in two days.In it I start by describing how Shark Tank, other media, and other parts of our culture that claim to promote entrepreneurship actually discourage it.A few months ago, I met Mark Cuban, one of Shark Tank's main figures, at NYU-Stern and saw him playing his Shark Tank role with students presenting.I was impressed with Mark and initially with the format, but then things changed, which I describe in today's episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Imagine someone said too much stress and proposed giving someone with stress shoulder rubs or body massages. I bet a lot of people would say, "I'm stressed. I could use a shoulder rub." If they were ready to give the shoulder massage then and there, they wouldn't say, "You know who should really get them: the government or big corporations."Yet suggest acting on their environmental values and they'll say their doing something wouldn't make a difference. They'll say go to government or big corporations first.My difference is that I've learned that acting on environmental values is like a massage, but for your soul, after assaulting it for your whole life by living against your values, twisting yourself up inside trying to convince yourself that the jet fuel you paid for that's coming out the back of the plane doesn't really have anything to do with you.There's nothing special about me giving greater access or ability to enjoy nature.I just had yet another meal where a past guest recommended I meet a friend where for a couple dollars, we both ate to our fill with enough for two or three more meals left, almost no packaging (she brought chard with rubber bands), we both repeatedly commented on how delicious the food was, it was convenient, quick, and led to greater conversation.Avoiding food packaging once felt like a challenge. Now food packaging seems disgusting. Avoiding food packaging is like avoiding stepping in dog poop. Living a processed life handed to you by organizations motivated by profit and growth is the opposite of a massage. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is a podcast about leadership. Initiative is a major part of leadership. If you want to lead environmentally, you need to initiate because the world is likely going in an opposite direction than you want.More fundamental to knowing the parts of leadership is how to learn to do them. You can't lecture or coerce someone to learn to take initiative or to initiate, but lecture and coercion are the main ways our educational system teaches.My next book, Initiative: A Proven Method to Bring Your Passions to Life (and Work), launches in a couple weeks.I wrote it based on my course, where students consistently learned to unearth passions and initiate projects that help others so much they reward them for it, telling me they didn't know they could learn such things, especially in school.On The Leadership Update Brief, host Ed Brzychcy asked perfect questions to give an overview of Initiative. In today's post, I edited just the relevant answers to give that overview.Here's the full conversation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're living in a world of people who are judging parenting from the view of a partier, which makes sense when you don't have a child -- something to take responsibility for. But we have such a thing, the environment.The joy you wish you could get from exploring nature you can get from protecting it, even if that means picking up other people's garbage.I know people who used to party a lot. When they have kids they take on responsibility far greater than bringing reusable bags to the store, giving up their old fun lifestyle.I have yet to meet a parent who regretted that responsibility. We can learn from that perspective and apply it to what has effectively been a few centuries of partying on fossil fuels. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The challenge for habits isn't starting them. It's not stopping them.I've started many. Actually, I've probably started fewer than most. I've stopped fewer. Mistakes: focusing on starting, wondering the value of it to you, they're mostly valuable, the problem isn't that they aren't valuable, it's that they are and that there are too many, asking how to start. To start is simple. Floss your teeth.The problem is that one day you won't and if you miss one day you can miss two. If you miss two, it's all over.Aristotle's quote on excellenceExcellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."Lombardi's quoteWinning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while; you don’t do things right once in a while; you do them right all of the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.Today's post gives the top advice you'll hear on how to maintain habits. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.