This Sustainable Life

You've heard that with social media, Google, and most free services, you're the product. The idea probably provoked thought when you heard it. Now it probably feels old, an ending point.What if you considered it a starting point? Where does it lead? What does it tell you about yourself, society, the internet, markets, humanity?Doug Rushkoff follows dozens of ideas like it and weaves them together into a tapestry of a new way of looking at media, individuality, advertising, algorithms, and more.For example: the internet began as a medium to unite people. Over and over its innovations with the most promise to bring people together instead came to separate us -- Google and Facebook being the biggest examples. They are now the greatest advertising media ever, increasingly getting in your business and personal life as much as you can. Their executives have to testify to Congress for undermining democracy.How did such results happen? What do they mean? What can we do about it?A few months ago friends started telling me to listen to Doug Rushkoff, because he talks about media like I do.It turns out after he wrote many bestselling books and a renowned podcast, just after I heard about him, he wrote a new book, Team Human, and was speaking a few blocks away from me, introduced by his friend and guest of this podcast Seth Godin.To prepare I listened to his podcast, which I loved, watched his TED talk, which got me thinking, and watched one of his several Frontline episodes, called Generation Like.Seth introduced us and here's the podcast.I appear at 48:25 on Team Human episode Book Launch: A Live Team Human Conversation with Douglas Rushkoff and Seth Godin. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Would you expect the army to change sooner or later than other institutions---say business, traditional education, or non-profits?Col. Spain committed to using less plastic bottled water for 30 days. He reduced his typical use from 40 bottles to 1. At what cost? It sounds to me like the "cost" was of practicing discipline and selflessness, which sounds positive to me, what leads to long-term change.I suggest listening for the emotional timbre of his change. Would you say he considers his life better or worse? He practiced personal leadership. He affected his family in a way I think he'd call positive. I heard him sounding satisfied for leaving the world better for his new behavior. I heard him want to continue.For those looking to learn leadership, you'll hear me explain, about 15 minutes in, my leadership technique from my book and practicing here my emerging Leadership and the Environment technique to motivate people through intrinsic motivation.Why not follow the leader of the leadership department of one of the top places for teaching leadership?Having interviewed him at West Point, I can't help asking, why are we following other countries on something that improves our lives?I hope you'll ask yourself: Why wait for laws or others to start? Why not start yourself? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I learned a lot in this conversation. That's a euphemism for it being challenging for me, since her values and working style differs from mine. You'll probably hear me struggling to listen and learn her experience and perspective.Part of why I invited her and value our friendship is our different values. Different values mean we balance them differently. Leadership means listening, making people feel understood, and supporting them as people, even when you disagree, at least my style.Listening now, I don't think I listened as much as I could have. I could have learned more about a different perspective that many people share. This conversation led to several monologue posts I put up on awareness often leading to inaction, rather assertive ones.As always with Ann-Marie, enjoyed the conversation and valued her being herself. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Before acting on my environmental values, I felt guilty and helpless. I didn't like those feelings. All the analyzing, raising awareness, and planning, I now look back and see that I was occupying my mind, making busy work for it, to distract myself from those feelings. I could feel I was doing something even when I wasn't.I kept trying to ascribe the cause of the guilt and helplessness to others, but it didn't go away. It couldn't, because they were purely internal: my behavior was inconsistent with my values. No blaming others or waiting for awareness or planning or analysis would change that conflict. On the contrary, they kept me from addressing it.Today's episode tells my emotional journey liberating me from guilt, blame, and insecurity, replacing it with determination, expectation of success, and action. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dave saw the problems with growth to local communities, the national economy, the global economy, and the environment. He questioned the the nearly unquestioned belief that growth is good, especially GDP and population growth.Once you question it, like a sweater unraveling, you start seeing the problems it causes. I haven't been able to communicate its problems to someone who disagreed, so I won't try here, though if you've also tugged at any of its loose ends, Dave's documentary, his podcast, and this conversation will help you feel like you're not alone.You're not crazy. There's plenty of evidence that I find conclusive that for whatever it helped before, growth of a certain percent a year---that is, exponential---is unsustainable and the more we push to keep it up, the more problems we create for ourselves. Sadly, people who believe growth solves problems, when they see problems that growth causes, push for more growth.You'll be glad to know that not pursuing growth doesn't mean returning to the stone age. It means focusing on relationships, enjoying what you have, and other meaningful things.Listening to David leads me to imagine the resistance Martin Luther King or Gandhi must have faced promoting non-violence. Or the first women to wear pants. I'm glad they stuck with it. The analogy isn't perfect, but it's meaningful to me and I hope Dave sticks with it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lately, I've thought of people who say they can't avoid plastic bags, bottles, flying. I suggest just declining, but they say they can't. Saying no reminds me of Rosa Parks.She said no. She didn't just act on her own as the campaign was planned and strategized, but she did it. She was arrested, which no one will be for declining a water bottle.Why do we honor someone if not to follow when the chips are down? Why remember her if when we feel it's right to say no, we don't?Her actions also suggest that even when many people agree and want to act, a spark helps. It seems everyone wants cleaner air, land, and water. As long as everyone thinks, "If I act but no one else does then what I do doesn't matter," everyone keeps sleepwalking, keeping polluting.She was a leader who accepted her fate of arrest, risking more in context of activists being lynched and killed. We have it easy in comparison. We can say no and lead others at no risk.Also like her, saying no is the beginning or a big escalation. For her it escalated the civil rights movement, including leading to federal legislation of the civil rights acts in the next decade. For you it will lead to polluting less in more parts of your life, living cleaner, and almost certainly federal legislation.Between mindlessly sleepwalking through a polluting life and leading others to pollute less and live more cleanly, which side of history do you want to be on? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

People see my apartment and often describe me or my lifestyle as minimalist.I don't like labeling people or being labeled, but if anything, a more apt label would be maximalist.You might see the lack of stuff, but my focus is on values, relationships, self-awareness, free time, fun, joy, mental freedom, physical freedom, simplicity, space, delicious food, beauty, fitness, social and emotional skills, happiness, emotional reward, and so on.You can't see those things, but I focus on them. The more joy I create in my life, the more I want to create more, which a TV gets in the way of for me. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you haven't started plogging, I recommend it.What's plogging? It's a term the Swedish created for picking up garbage when you run.I've picked up at least one piece of trash per day for a few years. In fact, this podcast began from a former student who, when he heard of my practice, committed to picking up 10 pieces of trash per day for a month.Most people do it by bringing a bag to collect the garbage with. I wasn't sure how to start plogging in New York because there's so much garbage. If I picked up everything I passed I might not make a block.Also, I don't want to run with a bag.Listen to my second conversation with John Lee Dumas and you'll hear how his commitment to picking up trash from the beach near his home inspired me to stop analyzing, planning, and thinking, and act. I have to relearn that lesson over and over.Action raises awareness more than raising awareness leads to action. Actually, planning, analysis, and raising awareness delays action, at least environmental action given that everyone is plenty aware. The environment has been front page news for years so everyone is aware. Certainly everyone listening to this podcast is.The best way I know to do something you don't know how is to start the best I can and learn from doing, then iterate.Picking up every piece of trash is impossible. Planning away from the street doesn't work.I started running and developed rules that work for me.Rule 1: I only have to pick up trash directly on my pathRule 2: Cigarette butts and smaller I ignoreRule 3: Nothing wet or in a puddleRule 4: If a trash can is not in sight, I don't have toNow I favor plogging to regular running. It's like running with random lunges. My quads tire faster. Sadly it fills you with disgust at the filth people create and tolerate without cleaning. By people, I mean everyone.It also fills you with a sense of civic pride. I make a little game of trying not to be obvious while being obvious. I dream of others picking up the habit. People see it as dirty when it's actually cleaning the world. The people who litter seem the dirty ones to me.Links:Wikipedia on ploggingJohn Lee Dumas's episodes on this podcastMy Inc. article about my former student who committed to picking up ten pieces of trash a day for a month and inspired this podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A friend who treats opioid addicts told me about the squalor they live in. They don't see it because they're thinking about their next hit, which will bring them euphoria. They'll steal and prostitute themselves to maintain their habit, not thinking about the filth they live in or whom they hurt to bring their next hit.People don't seem to see the filth we've turned our world into. People seem willing to ignore whom they hurt with their single-use plastic and the jet exhaust they impose on billions of others.The longer I go without packaged food and flying the more people talking about them sounds like people talking about heroin. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"To start, I need to build awareness."Who hasn't said that about polluting less? It seems the standard starting point. On the contrary, it's the standard delay tactic.In a world where environmental issues are front page news and everyone sees the pollution that they create, claiming a goal of awareness more often delays action. You're already aware. Plenty aware.Action creates awareness more than awareness creates action.Beth shows personal leadership---accountability, responsibility, openness, honesty, and more---in revealing that someone who is plenty aware, when she chooses to act, reaches whole new levels of awarenessI believe most people delay action because they anticipate how much awareness of themselves they know action will create. They'll realize they could have acted long before and will feel bad about it.She got hit over the head with how much more she depends on plastic than she expected. She didn't hide from it. Unlike most people, instead of giving up, she used the opportunity to grow, to try to live by values that she thought she was but wasn't. Thinking, planning, and trying to build awareness without acting is like standing still in comparison.Yes, it makes us feel bad to live with our values in conflict with our values. We can try to cover up those feelings by ignoring the conflict. It doesn't make it go away. That conflict manifests as anxiety, anger, shame, guilt, and other emotions we don't like. Instead of changing, we cover up, blame others, and point fingers. Anything but changing.The route out of feeling bad is to face and overcome the internal conflict creating those feelings. Other people and the world don't create internal conflict. We do when we value one thing and do another.Few people face such challenges, fewer still among renowned leaders, fewer still publicly, fewer still keep at it and find ways to use the challenge to recharge them.Beth did. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.