Here are the notes I work from for this episode: From climate march Went 3 times: Before lunch to participate in organizing group, went to Foley Square. Seemed like tens of thousands, maybe six figures.On my way to a meeting, walking on lower BroadwayAfter my meeting, just ending Didn't hear speakers. In fact, I shared with my sister the impressions you're about to hear and she said the speakers said the opposite, which I'm glad to hear. I'm going on the hundreds I could see immediately around me, the tens of thousands I could generally see, and the few I heard speaking. Ostensibly about children, but when I hear adults saying it's kids, I hear them excusing themselves, not taking responsibility. Why only kids? No…

As always, Michelle is lighthearted and fun, even when serious. She laughs a lot. Partly because we've been friends over ten years, partly because she's mastered connecting with people. I see her everywhere (I'll call out her appearing on even longer-time friend and Leadership and the Environment guest Jordan Harbinger's podcast, where she mentioned me). Not often do I hear something in a podcast conversation that's a new habit I'm going to try. This conversation with Michelle led to two. I recommend them both and I'll try to find a way to report back how they go. Plus she shares how her book, the Connector's Advantage, keeps growing, now internationally. We talk environmental leadership. She shares her experience with plastic bags, something a lot of…

I share thoughts in today's episode I didn't have the heart to share with family on their way to vacationing in France. In my lifetime I've seen the world change and our understanding of it change from we can't really raise sea levels to knowing with certainty that it's underway and we're causing it. People younger than m used to think and hope that we'd slide by, missing out on the worst, hoping future generations would figure something out. If you're younger than about 80, I believe you know enough that you no longer live in a world where you can honestly believe others are doing it, not me, or plausible deniability. Future generations have figured something out: reducing consumption, reducing how many children to…

A friend told me the other day that while I could reduce flying, business people couldn't. It's not so easy for them, actually impossible. Did he forget that I have an MBA? That I started a business with an 8-digit valuation, that operated on four continents? That nearly everyone I know flies as a matter of course? Did he not imagine the work I turned down? More likely he didn't think about it. This morning I woke up before the alarm and though about his perspective. The overwhelming response to my suggesting that people can reduce their pollution---a statement of empowerment---is claims of helplessness. Also claims of some solidarity with other helpless people. Today's episode both savagely and, I believe, with empathy and compassion, attacks…

Adam studies brilliant people and leadership. There are many leadership coaches and researchers. If you like me and my way of doing things, which is geeky, you might be geeky yourself. You probably like leadership too. We get to his research results about halfway through the conversation. He focuses on helping people like you and me understand and improve leadership. In this conversation we focus on blind spots, among other topics, but his in particular. But Adam's focus and specialty on brilliance emerges. He's vulnerable and open. I recorded this conversation almost a year and a half ago, so you can hear I hadn't developed a voice yet. Still, some meaningful nuggets from both of us, in fact some points I haven't shared in a…

We start talking about how to learn---you have to practice. This is one of the most important things to get, not just in learning but in life. Too many people read and analyze, expecting to learn. If you don't change your behavior, you aren't learning, which I took a long time to learn. If you read and analyze, you behave impersonally---that is, you don't learn social and emotional skills. Then we talk about his smiling challenge. For what I said last time about it ducking acting environmentally, it showed how experiential exercises work. Reading and traditional learning alone don't get behavioral results like these. Also, he started acting more on wrappers, which I didn't talk about. If I had chastised him last time on doing…

When was the last time you went without a cell phone for more than a few hours? Jeremy went longer than he expected, but as chance favors the prepared mind, he was ready to take advantage of an opportunity. It sounds to me like he enjoyed using less power, however modest the reduction, he did it and discovered fun and improved relationships. Once we created machines to save labor. Now I see we create machines to create craving, which makes us miserable. Or at least the absence seems to enrich our lives. I'm thinking about taking more digital vacations. Everyone says they're hard but rewarding---like Jeremy or Vincent Stanley, Director at Patagonia, in an earlier episode---a pattern I find signals experiments I like. His experience…

Bugs will infest a plant until they kill it, then when it dies, they die. It's happening to the fig tree and cherry tomato plants in my windowsill garden. If they could keep their population low enough to avoid killing the plant, they could live longer. We seem to be doing the same with Earth's non-renewable resources. From a species perspective, what benefit do we get from fast cars and cell phones if we can't stop ourselves from overshooting the planet's resources and causing our population to collapse. As a species we would not likely go extinct from a collapse, but our global society might not recover. Plenty of human civilizations have collapsed, their ruins covered by sand and jungle, with barely a sign they…

I don't like my world being full of junk "food," litter, and pollution, but if it is, I'd rather see it for what it is and feel a disgust that motivates me to change it than to keep myself in denial and passively, complacently accept it. Yesterday's stop at a highway rest stop reminded me how we dump garbage onto the world and into ourselves. Today's picking up litter reinforced it, though I do it daily. So today I discuss disgust, which I hope you all feel, not because I think you'll enjoy the feeling, but, if the world is a way you consider disgusting, I think disgust will motivate you to act. When enough people feel that disgust and act on it by, say,…

What's the difference between burning rain forests for someone's livelihood and family in the Amazon and paying for people to drill oil that we squander in the rest of the world? I'm not asking to accuse. I see some differences, but not big ones. If you're easily offended I recommend not listening to this episode.

Not everyone gets his or her dream job. Michael Werner did, on sustainable product design at Google and Apple. Since our conversation he's become Google's lead on circular economy. Whatever your thoughts on these companies, he is in a position to help lead them in areas of great importance. How did he get those positions? By working up the ladder? On the contrary, by leading from the start, before people were following. A major goal of this podcast is to show that if you want to lead, especially on the environment, a successful path is to start leading now with what you can. Waiting for a position to open doesn't work as well. Acting creates opportunities and Michael is an example. I'm glad to hear…