If you've heard about avoiding straws -- if you're actively avoiding straws -- Dune Ives and the Lonely Whale, the organization she's the Executive Director of, have influenced you. If you've asked yourself, why straws or what the point was, that's what she wanted: for people actually to talk about things on a human scale. If you've taken the next step from straws, Lonely Whale has influenced you all the more. When Dune co-founded Lonely While, she didn't know the untapped demand. They just started and finding one change leading to another. Her approach helped change my views about straws and small changes. I no longer see them as just the one act any more than playing playing scales is too small to learn to…

If you're in entrepreneurship in New York City, you know Joanne Wilson, especially among the women entrepreneurs I talk to. She's prominent in the New York entrepreneurial world, as well as art, travel, food A lot of investors live stressful lives. Joanne doesn't. As you'll hear in our conversation, she also leads a rewarding life, which you'll also read in any of her blog posts or hear in any of her podcast episodes -- the happiness, fun, and emotional reward she describes her life with. I think it results from her focus on people, relationships, and community. Like any great leader, she focuses on people. The first thing she does after vetting people she invests in is to support them. Our conversation covers more personal…

When you think of negotiating, do you think of honesty, fun, and openness. How about hostage negotiation with terrorists? Chris Voss brings the experience of negotiating in some of the world's most challenging situations to teaching you to negotiate and honesty, fun, and openness are some of the top things he brings. How would you like to look forward to your next negotiation that way? He also brings social and emotional skills to a field long dominated by abstract principles, which help, but develop your performance. His approach, beyond just book learning, is relevant to all negotiation, particularly relevant to environmental leadership. His book has several effective techniques that overlap with mine (compare with Leadership Step by Step's chapters 18 and 19) though he has…

Today's post covers a dramatic proposal I see as a clear winner. It's big and bold but everyone benefits from it. Its challenges are in garnering support and implementation, but once started I see it sustaining itself as a national jewel. First some context. I've talked about my return from Shanghai a few years ago to a crumbling airport, creaky trains, and crumbling train stations. Anyone can see this nation's crumbling bridges, roads, and infrastructure. Same with my train trip across the country. Amtrak is a third-world train system. It measures its delays in hours. First-world train systems measure delays in minutes and seconds. As a New Yorker I see our subway, which carries billions of rides annually, has fallen to disrepair. Its slipshod weekend…

This podcast has featured some world-renowned guests, with more renown to come. Popular downloads include Dan Pink, multiple #1 bestseller, 40+ million TED talk views, Beth Comstock, former Vice Chair and CMO of General Electric, Marshall Goldsmith, #1 ranked leadership guru and author, Frances Hesselbein, Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree, Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Ken Blanchard, author, The One Minute Manager, over 13 million sold, Jonathan Haidt, #1 bestselling author, 8+ million TED talk views, Vincent Stanley, Director, Patagonia, David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, over 1 million sold, Dorie Clark, bestselling author, Jordan Harbinger, top 5 podcast, 4+ million monthly downloads, Doug Rushkoff, #1 bestselling author, producer, media theorist, Dave Asprey, founder Bulletproof, NY Times bestseller, Bryan Braman, Super Bowl champion Philadelphia…

Happiness comes from skills, which you can learn, which Nataly teaches. Environmental action does too. Happiness and living harmoniously with the environment and your values go well together, as would make sense given our environmental history. Many people think starting small isn't worth it. Watch Nataly's videos and read her book about improving happiness. Any skill you learn helps you learn other skills. Starting small works. I suspect her experience developing happiness-related skills enabled her to reduce her bottle use by 99%, improving family morale in the process. You tell me if you think she'll apply it more, since you'll hear how she made it meaningful. I suggest that if developing happiness skills helped her act on her environmental values, that acting on environmental skills…

People seem to have a hard time imagining a world without growth, specifically economic growth or population growth. There's personal growth, but I'm talking about materially measurable growth. People seem to believe that economic growth is necessary. I've looked and haven't found any reasonable proof of its necessity. People say you need inflation to keep motivating people, but I don't see any founding for such a belief besides their unfounded, and apparently self-serving, idealism. We understand people and our motivations better than they used to when these economic theories started. Sadly, our financial and political systems keep operating on these flawed understandings. On the contrary, I've found societies that have lived for tens to hundreds of thousands of years, stably, which disproves that you need…

Hearing an astronaut talk about space is unparalleled. I imagine anyone and everyone wants to hear about seeing Earth from space and what launch feels like. You have to listen to hear it from a man who experienced it. Having walked in space twice is a minor part of his achievements. He earned degrees from West Point, the U.S. Army War College, Columbia Business School, and London Business School, on top of his military and NASA careers. What gets you to space isn't just fitness and technical skill. It's knowing that you will succeed no matter what. That you can work with everyone. Like business, leadership, family, and most of life, success reaching space is about people. Tim talks about integrity, consistency, and followership, which…

When I played sports competitively, I once watched a pass go by me without trying because I thought I couldn't make a play on it. A teammate asked why I just watched. I said, "Because I couldn't reach it." He said, "At least try!" Larry Bird said something similar: "It makes me sick when I see a guy just watching it go out of bounds." The view has stuck with me. I haven't gone for every pass I could, but I respect when an outfielder sprints to the wall even when he know the ball will carry over the fence. The difference between watching and trying is meaning and purpose. I try for as many passes as I can. The pervasive environmental view, "If I…

Dawn Riley has sailed in 3 Americas cups, won around the world races, and led other teams. I wish you could see the context for our conversation. We're at the sailing center she runs to restart the elite level of American sailing. Before this conversation she sent me out to see Olympic medalists competing on the Long Island sound. Shortly after, they all came in for a barbecue -- Olympic medalists, a gold medalist, a Crossfit Games champion, and more. You'll hear these world-class athletes, trainers, organizers, and so one talking in the background over the course of the conversation. My top measure of leadership is who follows them. Dawn is surrounded by people who are themselves global leaders, and she is taking them to…

I'm trying something new for my third conversation with John: releasing the conversation unedited. While no editing means the sound is raw, you also hear everything. Why? Because you can hear how our relationship is developing into a friendship. in contrast to most conversations about the environment that I hear. They're about facts, doom, gloom, what the government should do, how nothing matters, and other analytic, academic, abstract, philosophical stuff. Anything but saying, "I'm going to act and do something new." John acted. He led me back to act. We both enjoyed our new actions though neither of us would have loved picking up garbage for no compensation for no reason. When connected to our values and our little race to the top, we both…

Sally plays a big role leading an iconic brand, with her team taking it in directions no onehas taken media before. She's also played major roles in the New York Times and other major media outlets. In this first part of my conversation with her you'll hear Sally's passion about the art of storytelling, what evolves and what stays the same as media evolve, and how she leads people and teams. Sally shares about caring and passion, which are integral to success in business, at least how she does it. I think you'll appreciate her take on fashion's reputation regarding the environment. The conversation went long enough -- I think we both enjoyed it that much -- that I couldn't fit it all into one episode. This episode is more about leadership, journalism,…

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…