This Sustainable Life

Joshua Spodek: Author, Speaker, Professor
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This Sustainable Life Podcast

Do you care about the environment but feel "I want to act but if no one else does it won't make a difference" and "But if you don't solve everything it isn't worth doing anything"? We are the antidote! You're not alone. Hearing role models overcome the same feelings to enjoy acting on their values creates meaning, purpose, community, and emotional reward. Want to improve as a leader? Bestselling author, 3-time TEDx speaker, leadership speaker, coach, and professor Joshua Spodek, PhD MBA, brings joy and inspiration to acting on the environment. You'll learn to lead without relying on authority. We bring you leaders from many areas -- business, politics, sports, arts, education, and more -- to share their expertise for you to learn from. We then ask them to share and act on their environmental values. That's leadership without authority -- so they act for their reasons, not out of guilt, blame, doom, gloom, or someone telling them what to do. Click for a list of popular downloads Click for a list of all episodes Guests include Dan Pink, 40+ million Ted talk viewsMarshall Goldsmith, #1 ranked leadership guru and authorFrances Hesselbein, Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree, former CEO of the Girl ScoutsElizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize winning authorDavid Allen, author of Getting Things DoneKen Blanchard, author, The One Minute ManagerVincent Stanley, Director of PatagoniaDorie Clark, bestselling authorBryan Braman, Super Bowl champion Philadelphia EagleJohn Lee Dumas, top entrepreneurial podcasterAlisa Cohn, top 100 speaker and coachDavid Biello, Science curator for TED Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. 782: Jane Muncke PhD MSc: Toxins in your food from plastic packaging. You'd rather know.

    4 DAYS AGO

    782: Jane Muncke PhD MSc: Toxins in your food from plastic packaging. You'd rather know.

    Toxic chemicals leach from food packaging into your food. Some of these chemicals disrupt your hormones. Some cause cancer. Some affect your children more. Some disperse into the environment and harm wildlife. For 300,000 years, humans lived without plastic. We created this system, maybe thinking only of the effects we wanted, imagining these toxic effects wouldn't happen. Maybe we didn't imagine they could happen. We don't have to create these materials or use them. We are creating more all the time. There's just so much oil, it's so cheap, and there's nothing stopping producers from creating and selling them. Nearly everyone agrees a role of government is to protect you from my taking or destroying your life, liberty, and property, yet businesses and government gain money and power from creating them. Jane's research and courses inform us of the dangers the producers don't want us to know about. In this episode, she shares how she discovered this problem, what she's doing about it, and details about the problems. She didn't originally intend to go in this direction, but chemicals from plastic were leaching into other experiments she was doing. The producer of the leaching materials didn't tell her. She had to do new research to find out, saw its seriousness, and kept going. It's scary to learn. Still, while I'd rather live in a world where we don't permit people to poison us and profit from it, as long as we do, I'd rather know than not know. The Food Packaging ForumTheir Crash Course in Food Contact Materials and HealthThe article she co-wrote published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology the day of this episode: Evidence for widespread human exposure to food contact chemicalsA CNN article on Jane's research that happened to come out the day before this episode: Toxic chemicals used in food preparation leach into human bodies, study finds Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    44 min
  2. 781: My New Major Life Volunteering Community Project, four years in the making

    13 SEPT

    781: My New Major Life Volunteering Community Project, four years in the making

    I started a new project volunteering in my community that is also a big life change I wouldn't believe I'm doing except that I am. In a sense I started the project over four years ago and it's only seeing the light of day now. Sorry I'm writing little about and the episode is long, but for now I wanted only those interested to learn in so you have to listen all the way through to hear the full scope and details. The episode I quoted in this one: 366: The Cops, Jocko Willink, and Joe RoganAnother episode I mentioned: 506: I lost $10 million on September 11, 2001. Here is what I learned from those who sacrificed and served. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    45 min
  3. 780: Jack Spencer, part 2: Policy and the Individual Choosing

    5 SEPT

    780: Jack Spencer, part 2: Policy and the Individual Choosing

    Jack shares his love for nature and passion to care for it, how central it is to his life, how much of his time and focus he devotes to it. He shares his principles of individual choice over top-down regulation. He especially opposes government subsidy for squashing innovation, including industries he prefers, like nuclear. He's not anti-government. Listen to the episode for his views in more detail. He is as sincere as they come and has thought the issues through. I couldn't help wonder how many political conservatives and libertarians care deeply about the environment yet get called "not caring." If they care but approach it differently, if I said they didn't care, it would drop my credibility in their view. I valued this conversation for his sharing openly. I think we could use more like it. Plus we did the Spodek Method and can't wait to hear how his commitment goes. I predict it will affect his relationships. Heritage is influential. I wonder if it will affect politics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    53 min
  4. 779: Nick Loris, part 2: Freedom to Explore, Freedom to Choose

    2 SEPT

    779: Nick Loris, part 2: Freedom to Explore, Freedom to Choose

    Nick and I talk about freedom, liberty, personal action and, however paradoxical to most people, how important personal behavior is in changing systems. Then we talk about markets, regulation, and democracy and how they interact with community norms. Looking at the words markets, regulation, and democracy, they may look academic or abstract, but I think you'll find the conversation fun because it's personal. We don't talk theory. We're talking about how we live and work. A core of our conversation is where a society or state draws a line between things that benefit some people but hurt others. Some things may make messes but everyone agrees should be allowed, like exhaling or pooping. Others everyone agrees should be illegal, like putting poison in someone's food. But what about putting poison in the air in the process of doing something people like, like flying? We talked about free markets too. We also did the Spodek Method. Nick grew up near me, so his description of nature resonated more than most. Nick's profile at C3 Solutions Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 4m
  5. 778: The Entrepreneurial Strategy to Restore Sustainability Globally Without Waiting for Governments and Corporations

    1 SEPT

    778: The Entrepreneurial Strategy to Restore Sustainability Globally Without Waiting for Governments and Corporations

    This episode follows up the last one, on how you can learn sustainability leadership through our workshops, so you can practice sustainability joyfully. You can teach others to, and teach others to teach others. If the process only led to a few people changing, or even many, it wouldn't be worth pursuing. Unlike almost any sustainability work, it can lead to global cultural change and a joyful, rewarding path to it. It doesn't require sacrifice or deprivation. It may look like it from our current culture, the culture that's lowering Earth's ability to sustain life, increasing isolation, and decreasing health, safety, and security globally, despite our reaching such pinnacles of scientific and technological achievement. Hear in this episode how we can change the world by having more fun. Then contact me to learn more and sign up. The next workshop begins September 10, 2024. You'll only wish you started earlier. The Sustainability Simplified Entrepreneurship StrategyContact me to learn more and sign up Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    21 min
  6. 777: How the Spodek Method Workshop Differs From Other Sustainability Work

    1 SEPT

    777: How the Spodek Method Workshop Differs From Other Sustainability Work

    If you've listened to a lot of this podcast, you've heard me walk guests through sharing their values on sustainability and acting on them. Why do they enjoy what most people consider deprivation and sacrifice? You can learn to do it. A growing team of us teach workshops in sustainability leadership. One is coming up, September 10, 2024. You can become a leader in a movement to live joyfully sustainably, to change global culture at the last minute. Here is the recommendation I quote I would like to share with you my experience with confronting climate change head on this year. I decided to make it the year I stop my gloom and doom and to let go of my self-talk that reinforced that I am helpless to do anything. I am discovering that changing my own behavior is joyful and empowering. Deprivation and sacrifice are the OPPOSITE of how I feel about the daily journey toward habits that care for our beautiful planetary home.How did I come to this change of heart? My daughter took a class with Josh Spodek in Sustainability Leadership and I happened to be at her house while she was taking it. This led to conversations that challenged my pessimism about being able to do anything more than I was already doing. My pessimism about individual action making any difference was challenged. It fundamentally came down to “I can continue along as I am and for certain nothing will change, or I can take the reins of my part of this giant puzzle and have the chance to be a part of the solution”.A large part of my motivation came when I used an online carbon calculator to determine my “carbon footprint”. I discovered that from flying alone for the first seven months 2023 I had belched out over 10 times the amount of carbon that is considered the “sustainable limit” per person per year. This number didn’t even include gasoline, natural gas, or any other modes of consuming or polluting. It literally made me cry. It also made me get serious.I took the course that my daughter had taken and found a source of support, inspiration, information, and skills that were new. One of the things about this class that I think is most powerful is that there is nothing “prescriptive” about it. There are no lists of things you should do now and things you should avoid now. No one is deciding for you or shaming you into choices. Instead, it is an inward journey of connection to one’s own internal motivation that is grounded in our own experiences in nature. It is a process of continuous improvement, so I didn’t decide to reduce my trash consumption and then stop when I did that. I look every day for new ways to lessen my impact, and every time I find another way I feel GREAT and motivated to figure out what’s next.I am writing to invite you to take this class. Josh’s model is to use conversations with each other as the foundation of connecting to our internal motivation, conversations using the Spodek Method. These conversations help build a community of people who have experienced the joy of taking self-directed action in one’s own life. As with any BIG problem, the solutions require all of us. This class helps, one person at a time, to build a community of people who see themselves as part of the solution. I think you will be surprised and delighted with the empowerment you feel to take action.The Entrepreneurship StrategyContact me and sign upThe episode with Trish, who has cancer Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    18 min
  7. 776: Chuck Marohn, part 1: Strong Towns and Sustainability Leadership

    31 AUG

    776: Chuck Marohn, part 1: Strong Towns and Sustainability Leadership

    I'd heard of Strong Towns for years, mainly through guest Jason Slaughter's Not Just Bikes video series, and finally joined the community by taking a couple of their courses. I can't recommend them enough. Chuck Marohn founded that community. He found and publicized several of their core discoveries. Some include: North American cities grow based on a Ponzi scheme, the combination of a street and a road fails at both and wrecks everything it touches, cores of cities usually make the most economic sense, and outlying areas usually sap money and vitality. I invited Chuck because of the overlap between city planning and sustainability. Over half of humans live in cities. Many can't avoid following the patterns of where to live, traffic, where to eat and shop, and how to spend money determined by their urban environment. I often say we don't need more electric cars, we need fewer roads, not that electric cars help. I also learned from reading about him and you'll hear in our conversation that I wanted to learn from his having started a community running against the mainstream values making a lot of people money. I see him as a role model in this way. We talked about it some, but then got into the Spodek Method, which I think you'll hear he enjoyed. Strong Towns web pageTheir courses (I've taken 101 and their Not Just Bikes courses so far and recommend them) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    58 min
  8. 775: Bruce Alexander, part 4: The Spodek Method clicks at last!

    29 AUG

    775: Bruce Alexander, part 4: The Spodek Method clicks at last!

    You've probably listened to Bruce's past three episodes, so you probably know he wants a path to exist that leads people to want to live more sustainably and spread that change to others. It would mean them overcoming their addictions. By them, I mean all of us, since if we order takeout, fly, and drive big cars, we're in the group that has to change. His experience with addicts tells him it's hard, maybe impossible. On the other hand, while people may be conflicted and may have suppressed many of our emotions around the environment, we love nature. In this episode, we hear the Spodek Method finally clicking with Bruce. One interaction with it isn't supposed to change the world itself. It creates a mindset shift, which one has to follow with continual improvement to change one person, then to spread, but here you can hear it clicking. Ideas that spread, win. Emotions too. Here is a case where the emotion kicked in with someone skeptical. It's not alone a solution, but a proof of concept. In entrepreneurial terms, the technology works. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    45 min
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About

Do you care about the environment but feel "I want to act but if no one else does it won't make a difference" and "But if you don't solve everything it isn't worth doing anything"? We are the antidote! You're not alone. Hearing role models overcome the same feelings to enjoy acting on their values creates meaning, purpose, community, and emotional reward. Want to improve as a leader? Bestselling author, 3-time TEDx speaker, leadership speaker, coach, and professor Joshua Spodek, PhD MBA, brings joy and inspiration to acting on the environment. You'll learn to lead without relying on authority. We bring you leaders from many areas -- business, politics, sports, arts, education, and more -- to share their expertise for you to learn from. We then ask them to share and act on their environmental values. That's leadership without authority -- so they act for their reasons, not out of guilt, blame, doom, gloom, or someone telling them what to do. Click for a list of popular downloads Click for a list of all episodes Guests include Dan Pink, 40+ million Ted talk viewsMarshall Goldsmith, #1 ranked leadership guru and authorFrances Hesselbein, Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree, former CEO of the Girl ScoutsElizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize winning authorDavid Allen, author of Getting Things DoneKen Blanchard, author, The One Minute ManagerVincent Stanley, Director of PatagoniaDorie Clark, bestselling authorBryan Braman, Super Bowl champion Philadelphia EagleJohn Lee Dumas, top entrepreneurial podcasterAlisa Cohn, top 100 speaker and coachDavid Biello, Science curator for TED Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Information

  • Creator
    Joshua Spodek: Author, Speaker, Professor
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2024
  • Episodes
    790
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Joshua Spodek: Author, Speaker, Professor
  • Show Website
    This Sustainable Life

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