Why do my students give me reviews like: “This was the best course I ever took at NYU. There is no substitute for doing the exercises. Thinking I understand a concept and actually trying to execute the concept was difficult. Only in working through the exercises was I able to be aware of what I am currently doing. With these exercises, I now have a roadmap for how to be[…] Keep reading →

About a month ago, the core organizational team behind the workshop I lead and its alumni community had our quarterly meeting. I shared my vision and mission. I thought everyone knew it, but when I finished, they said, “You have to share this message with the alumni community.” I was wrong: everyone didn’t know it. It was my responsibility to share it. I didn’t want to impose my views on[…] Keep reading →

Today we made SpodekMethod.com live. My book, Sustainability Simplified, mentions the page as a place for more resources and it came out last November, so it’s been almost painful for it not to be working. I couldn’t in good conscience promote the book on podcasts or elsewhere knowing it pointed to an incomplete page and therefore couldn’t enable someone to take the workshop. It’s ready now. I needed to make[…] Keep reading →

I don’t understand how people associate Elon Musk with sustainability or invention. He didn’t start Tesla. Sustainability would come with fewer roads and cars. Musk is building more roads, including underground with the Boring Company, and as many cars as he can. For comparison and context, Eli Whitney invented a new type of cotton gin. As I understand, his goal was to decrease the need for labor in picking cotton.[…] Keep reading →

Interviewers often ask “If you were a benevolent dictator, what would you do to solve our environmental problems?” They all frame sustainability as something you have to convince people to do or use coercive, authoritarian tools like passing laws that don’t yet have popular support. I identified a big fork in the path of people promoting sustainability. It comes if you’ve found, as I have, that the more you live[…] Keep reading →

I see an ever clearer path to humanity achieving sustainability, including governments, corporations, and eight billion individuals. A big part of that vision emerging is seeing that the path isn’t hoping for the best. It will result from people acting in their personal interests as much as they can, helping others. Here’s a first pass at describing that path as I see it now. I call it our entrepreneurial strategy.[…] Keep reading →

A friend who runs a business found the book Profit First by the guest of my podcast Mike Michalowicz. He shared in a private forum how much it helped him. Mike and I email, so I shared with him my friend’s post on how much his book was helping him, taking out the personal details. Mike loved learning he helped an entrepreneur, so I’m glad I emailed him. Recently I[…] Keep reading →

A month and a half ago I wrote about Eugene’s reflections on finishing the ninth of the ten exercises in my book Initiative in my post The Life-Changing, Inner-You-Revealing, Passion-Unleashing Magic of Initiative. He finished and posted about the tenth exercise at his blog: Method Initiative (Round 4) – Exercise 10: 10 Valuable People (And final Initiative methodology thoughts), and it’s as inspiring. Read the whole post for all he[…] Keep reading →

A lot of solar companies are competing for the home solar market. I once read an estimate of fifty million homes for $30,000 per home on average, meaning a $1.5 trillion market. Since most people can’t spare $30,000 for an investment that could take decades to pay itself back, if ever, these companies are marketing higher end homeowners. They are positioning themselves like BMW or Lexus. My only source of[…] Keep reading →