Listening to an episode of Sam Harris’s podcast featuring Roland Griffiths, Johns Hopkins neuroscientist researcher, on psychedelics revealed that much of their benefit sounds a lot like my guests talking about their experiences of nature. I think we don’t know how much…
Most second conversations on this podcast come weeks or months later, after the guest does his or her Spodek Method commitment. In Michael’s case, our first conversation was so engaging, we kept talking almost two hours, so I split the conversation into…
*”The average modal age of adult death for hunter-gatherers is 72 with a range of 68–78 years. This range appears to be the closest functional equivalent of an ‘adaptive’ human life span.” Would you be surprised that humans evolved to live to…
Janet shared how she found This Sustainable Life, what kept her coming back, the guests she liked, and how it’s affected her. I wish I had recorded episodes with listeners before to learn what you all like, don’t like, and want more…
Leaders who know how to lead and change culture know culture eats strategy for breakfast. This concept figures strongly in Michael’s book, Gridiron Genius. When most people watch football, they see the game, maybe the game plan and strategy. We see it…
Regular listeners know I started an experiment disconnecting from the electric grid. I began May 22. Then on July 22, I posted an episode that the solar panel or battery broke, or both. I didn’t see how I could continue so said…
Where was Michelle Nijhuis all my life? She lived off the electric grid for fifteen years and I was about two months in, so we shared stories of the experiences. She did it much longer and her fiance had to assemble everything…
My proposal and rationale for the next amendment for the United States Constitution. It will sound crazy, impossible, and too hard at first, as it did with me. But the more you consider it, the more the objections will fade. It is…
When I wrote up my experiment to live with my apartment off the grid in Manhattan for a month, I looked up what I did the morning I started. My library records show I borrowed and listened to Sebastian’s book Tribe, then…
In this sixth conversation between an Extinction Rebellion Rebel and a home-grown sustainability leadership (I hope) leader, we explore more of the life of someone who has devoted himself to solving our environmental problems. We continue comparing and contrasting the approaches, learning…
Here are the notes I read from: 40% of pregnancies are unplanned. Overpopulation is a major problem for environment so it’s a topic for this podcast. Girlfriend who pressured me into unprotected sex and got pregnant Not only women’s issue. Men have…
Having just started month three of living off the electric grid in Manhattan, technical issues led me to stop the experiment. I’m not sure the problem, but connecting the solar panels to the power station, it doesn’t charge. I don’t know how…
Here are the notes I read from: Yesterday my mom suggested I move away from the city if it makes me feel so bad. Last week my dad reaffirmed that he wouldn’t appear on the podcast without some vague conditions he was…
Mike committed to a year-long task. Few guests go for so long. Since we’re in a writing group together, I’ve seen him in between, but since I want you, the listeners, to hear guests’ results first, I didn’t ask him if he…
Nakisa shared about the intersection of nature and its disappearance growing up, as well as her growing awareness of it, family, community, and a polluting cement factory appearing in her neighborhood. We recorded shortly after the Buffalo shooting of May 2022, and…
In Etienne and my continued exploration of each other’s work, we look at my leadership work from his perspective. What are the differences between leadership and protest? What’s the difference between a purity test and living by your values? How do my…
We start by my reading the emails where I invited Whitney to this podcast by cursing with a few f-bombs, showing how we started our interactions. Before recording our first episode we met in Washington Square Park and picked up litter together.…
You’ve heard of The Chicken Soup for the Soul book and series. I had to start this conversation by apologizing that I did the opposite of the advice everyone knows: “don’t judge a book by its cover.” Something about the title and…
Listen to the difference between Ash’s tone, her level of engagement, and her type of engagement between what she talks about in the first few minutes and about fifteen minutes later. In both cases she shows a high magnitude of emotion. At…
Since Bill visited the Hadza in modern-day Tanzania, and I’ve been learning about cultures that have lived for tens to hundreds of thousands of years, I asked him about how they lived. We talked about their religion, rituals, dancing, singing, fashion, textiles,…