Leadership and the Environment: Recent Episodes
joshuaspodek.com
Do you care about the environment but feel too discouraged and alone to act? We lack leadership.
Leadership and the Environment brings you influential guests who take on personal challenges to act on their values, sharing their struggles and triumphs.
Learn leadership while feeling inspired to act.
Talk about a generous conversation!Dorie Clark shares about how to make yourself known, to become a leader, and to connect with others.She shares her personal experiences, since she didn't start with any advantages, and some of what she shares in her books. We talked about one of my big questions: do you need to go through a major life challenge---a crucible---to achieve greatness or to become a leader.When we got to talking about the environment and her personal challenge, you can hear in how she takes on hers that she's taken on many challenges before. If you want to improve your skills in taking on challenges and succeeding at them, her perspective reveals a lot to learn from.Her challenge is, I think, the longest challenge someone committed to as her first. Listen to hear it.
My friend told me this show angered him -- hearing people act as if little changes were significant... not knowing not to get new plastic bags.I shared some of my thoughts on people making trivial changes and what motivates me.I expect I'll share more personal thoughts on leadership and the environment as I develop my voice.
Dan Pink's second conversation was short and sweet, like his personal challenge.After a few guests learning, growing, and leading from having to overcome big challenges, Dan shared an easy, simple experience.The story was that there was no story. While many portray changing your diet as impossible or a big challenge, Dan and his wife simply stopped eating most meat.That's it.He stopped. He could have stopped earlier. What problems arose were small and he solved quickly.If you're thinking of committing to a personal challenge, sometimes it's easy.Listen to the conversation for how to choose challenges so they're easy for you. You can always build to harder ones.Dan's new book When and TEDDan's book was released a few days ago. You may have also seen him in the news.We talked about writing, marketing big releases, and preparing for TED talks.
This conversation was fun and engaging since Judith is charismatic, experienced, and cheerful, even though it started solemnly, owing to a terrorist attack in Manhattan the day before. We covered politics a bit -- now that I think of it, one of this podcast's few forays there.We talked about leadership from many perspectives, including her storied experience, given her experience with globally known leaders (Donna Karan, etc) and top organizations (Harvard, Apple, etc). Most of us rarely get to talk to people with such connections and history.I continued to follow Judith's lead from our first conversation to use her definition of "environment," which wasn't my usual one, roughly meaning the air, land, and water we share. Her definition is more about people and relationships.I treated the conversation as somewhat challenging, to enter someone else's world. I went into this podcast as much to learn as to influence, expecting everyone to have unique views on the environment, leadership, community, and other subjects, so I welcomed it.By challenging, I don't mean the conversation was unpleasant or uncomfortable. Just that given my experimental physics background, we were far from my touch points like measurables like concentrations of molecules and concepts like conservation of energy.I presume listeners with backgrounds different than mine and more like Judith's will resonate with the conversation. My goal is to make the podcast as much for you as for me.
Tanner's third conversation continues his project beyond just polluting less himself to influencing a store, in fact a whole grocery store chain. You can hear his growing enthusiasm, that the more he works on his project, the more he finds parts of it to love and act on.Do you think because he's a gold medal winner things come easier for him?On the contrary, things don't go his way. But he doesn't give up.If you try projects and they don't work out, which describes me, I think it will help to see that people as successful as Tanner don't succeed on their first tries either. I don't know about you, but when I read their books or see them on TV, their success seems more given. Here Tanner reveals that he had to regroup and restart.From my perspective, he sounds like he holds himself overly accountable, including for things outside of his control, but I also read that he found ways that work for him. Some may look for the positive. Tanner seems to look for the accountable.But listen to how his perspective turns into enthusiasm. I look forward to the next time I feel like giving up on a project that's not going my way. I'm listening to this episode.I hope you can also hear how much fun we have together.
In conversation 1, Jim shared his values and committed to live by one.In conversation 1.5, he shared problems with the challenge and how he overcame them.In this conversation he shares how it worked. Listen to hear how persevering through challenges to live by your values leads to a better life.Judge for yourself what you find from his experience. I heard:More time with his familyQuality time with his familyFunFinding more challenges (why not, if they're fun?)Things became easier than beforeTake off your wet socksI introduce my wet socks analogy for not living by your values in this episode, which is:Say you step in a puddle and get your socks wet in the morning. You can still go about your day. If you're busy, you might not notice them.It's still a relief when you get home and take them off at the end of the day. Finally you feel fresh, clean air against your skin instead of wet sock. You look back and realize they've been annoying you all day. Making yourself busy distracted you from noticing them, but never made them go away. You wish you had taken them off earlier.Living by your values after ignoring them feels like taking off wet socks. As with wet socks, you look back and realize that abandoning your values has annoyed you your whole life. Making yourself busy distracted you from noticing that you weren't living by them, but never made it go away. You wish you had chosen to live by them earlier.Denying that you're abandoning minor values, prevents you from noticing big ones. On the other hand, fixing the little ones opens your eyes to others, which motivates you to fix them, then to fix bigger ones, and so on.You may consider small denial not that big a deal, but once you take off those socks, you realize you could have long before. Living in conflict with your values means living without integrity. It eats you up inside.Take off your wet socks. Enjoy the freedom of living by your values. The environment is a great place to start.
Judith co-founded the Harvard Coaching Institute as well as her own consulting and coaching firms -- Benchmark Communications and Creating WE -- through which she has worked with companies such as Apple, Burberry, and Donna Karan. She's written seven books. She's on several boards.
Yet she's almost counter-cultural in her way of going against the mainstream grain when it holds her or her clients back.
Yet she's friendly and approachable. Our conversation was friendly and behind-the scenes.
Everyone in leadership knows Dan Pink, his books and his TED talks.
If you want to lead, influence, or motivate people, it's a matter of time until you read or watch something of his. I started with Drive: the Surprising Truth of What Motivates Us, which led me to contact him (and criticize his work, listen to the podcast for the story).
Since then, he's supported my work and was enthusiastic about his personal challenge. As a writer and educator, I indulged in asking him about his technique, so if you're interested in improving your technique and style, you'll hear some great tips from him.
He also talks about his new book, When: the Scientific Secrets of Perfect Planning, so if it's before January 9, 2018, you get a sneak preview.
Show Notes :
Is it easy to meet Daniel Pink and what is the best way to get to know him? - [3:52]
How is respectful disagreement influencing our culture? - [6:07]
“I took away everything that wasn't David and what was left was David” - [7:10]
Building a wall – the skill of showing up every day – [10:00]
A sneak preview of the first ever when-to book - [14:22]
What is Daniel’s relation to science and what are some interesting observations he has made about it? - [16:06]
Timing questions to think about and the motivation behind asking them - [21:06]
“Just put on your shoes” - examples of “tricks” to help you reach your goals - [23:45]
A masterful behavior change technique by a 10-year-old - [27:20]
Daniel’s personal environmental challenge and his reasons to start it - [31:11]
Have you hit a crucible? – [34:18]
How can you commit to your personal challenge? - [37:13]
Books/companies/links mentioned
“When: The scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing” by Daniel Pink
TED www.ted.com/
Sam Harris podcast - https://www.samharris.org/podcast
Dilbert http://dilbert.com/
Seinfeld
WordPress https://wordpress.com/
Contact
http://www.danpink.com
http://joshuaspodek.com/podcast
The back story and goals of the podcast, and why acting on the environment can be delicious.