Podcast

If you've followed sensible, expert advice on the pandemic, you've probably read or seen Ashish Jha in the New York Times, The Atlantic, CNN, Washington Post, and everywhere. On Tuesday he testified to the US Senate. He's Harvard's Global Health Institute's Director. Over 200,000 people have taken his online Harvard courses, which you can for free. Over 80,000 took Ebola, Preventing the Next Pandemic and over 120,000 took Improving Global Health: Focusing on Quality and Safety. As it turns out, we were college teammates on the ultimate frisbee team. I'll link to a few top articles by him. With so many interfaces between the pandemic and us---health, government, research, policy, etc---you can read a lot of his views and experiences from different sources. I wanted…

I loved Steven Pressfield's book The War of Art. I found it inspiring. It had a property that qualifies for me that something qualifies as a work of art: it said something I always knew was true but that I'd never seen expressed that way." I mention it for two reasons. One, I recorded a podcast episode with Steven the other day, which led me to reread the book. Two, I found the book applies to acting in stewardship. Substitute a few words and new meaning emerges, mainly changing art to stewardship. Most of the rest follows. That recording is in the editing queue so should be ready in July. I describe the analogy in this episode's recording. I share a few examples. I hope…

Today was a rough day for me in New York. Most of my solo episodes I start with a point. Today brought me down enough that I decided to share more openly some thoughts I get when seeing situations that look hopeless and are deteriorating. I wouldn't listen to it if you feel down. Normally I try to support others. It occurred to me, I hear almost nothing back from listeners, friends, family, or the world providing hope or support. More commonly people seem mystified that I or anyone would try to live sustainably when they could instead eat, travel, buy, etc with nary a thought of stewardship or empowerment. Below are my notes reminding me of a few things during the day to cover…

I haven't taken political stance because I am working to removing wedge-ness from environmental policy. I'm working for people to see laws about how people affect others through the environment as we view traffic laws. We don't see red lights as red tape or bureaucrats telling us what to do. They make our world safer even if they slow us down sometimes. One day we'll see keeping mercury out of fish and other pollution similarly. I met Jonathan in person practicing democracy---gathering signatures in my neighborhood. I learned of him after meeting Andrew Yang, whose candidacy I valued. Last year I heard Andrew Yang speak and liked his message enough to read his book, The War on Normal People, and learn more about universal basic…

Think of where you are now in two ways---first, how it looked before humans arrived there, second, how it looks now. The difference is our influence, which results from our behavior, which results from our beliefs, values, hopes, dreams, and so on. In other words, the environment is the outward manifestation of our beliefs.

Dave Chappelle set a line for himself that when he became famous he would not cross it. His life crossed it and he left a successful show and a $50 million contract. He returned to become more successful than ever. I recently saw him win the Mark Twain award. Here's Wikipedia on him staying true to himself: Season 3 was scheduled to begin airing on May 31, 2005, but earlier in May, Chappelle stunned fans and the entertainment industry when he abruptly left during production and took a trip to South Africa. Chappelle said that he was unhappy with the direction the show had taken, and expressed in an interview with Time his need for reflection in the face of tremendous stress: "Coming here, I…

Dov and I started by talking about experiencing fun for the first time. I'm not the most fun person ever but a lot more now than before. He handled context that kept me from recording before despite knowing I wanted to. By context I mean legality, framing, and things that if you don't cover it's just talking about drugs, not life. I shared a few stories showing how I integrated the social skills the MDMA experience helped prompt, which leadership work eventually complemented and augmented when I went to business school. But the deep part of this episode is my sharing my experiences of powerlessness as a man compared to women, as well as the stories of few men who experienced similar situations that suggest…

Education and learning, not just scoring higher on tests, is at the core of my leadership practice. Today I bring a luminary of education work, Julie Wilson. As hyper-educated person who late in life, in my 40s, learned that doing well in school didn't mean success in life, especially in an educational system based on coercion and compliance. I came to see learning social and emotional skills improved my life more and solved our greatest problems. Covid-19 is one of our greatest problems, affecting education more than nearly any other field. Partly it's affecting our brittle, non-resilient educational bureaucracies, which differ from teaching students. It's also affecting learning now and for an unknown time to come. I wanted to talk about self-directed education and we…

Here are the notes for the introduction I read for this episode: This episode covers a few big experiences that led to my dedication and intensity, starting from sports, my relationship with my father, acting lessons, and various highs and lows. The intriguing stuff about drugs comes about two-thirds through. Since recording this episode, I've asked a bunch of people their thoughts on sharing about taking them. I guess I'm behind the times that I still think sharing doing something illegal was a problem, but everyone talks about how normal it is to talk about, citing Michael Pollan, Joe Rogan, Sam Harris, Snoop Dogg, and so on. What's wrong with our laws that they're this out of touch with society? Dov starts asking me about…

Race is a major topic since police killed George Floyd in custody. I consider one of the major problems that people don't feel heard or understood. I see virtually no one in authority showing that they are listening. A friend who is white share some of how she is struggling. I shared my background regarding race. She said I should share that background. I shared it with others. They agreed. This episode shares my experiences regarding race---a loose collection of memories. One person said hearing my details helped him think about his, which was my goal: to help people express themselves. I start from my earliest memories through grade school, high school, graduate school, starting companies, and recent reflections.

Many people suggest people as guests who are doing "environmental things". They don't know my strategy with this podcast, which I describe in my solo episode Clarifying my strategy. The crux is that I focus on leadership and bringing leaders to the environment before focusing on the environment. I consider our behavior the problem to change. Environmental degradation results from behavior. Most people are trying to make some process more efficient, like making cars electric or use less plastic in some process. That's management. It accepts the values of a system that pollutes, and generally augmenting and accelerating it: Uber doesn't decrease miles driven. It increases it. Chad started Living Lands and Waters, a non-profit where people get in the river and clean garbage. It…

For background, first listen to my first Sex, Drug, and Rock and Roll episode, part 1: Rock and Roll,  how Bruce Springsteen's Broadway show motivated me at last to share some episodes about me. Listeners have asked to know me. I tried to put myself in the background, considering leadership and nature the important parts of the podcast, as well as the guests. Bruce sharing personal stories showed me the value of sharing, in his case about the man behind the music and in mine the man behind the podcast. In that episode, I committed to sharing more about myself and sank my ships, so, like Cortes, I couldn't retreat. Still, weeks passed without sharing. I shared my fear to act with leadership guru and…

I love talking to professional athletes. Today I talk with Chris Manhertz, a tight end in the NFL with the Carolina Panthers. We cover three main things and partly a fourth. Making the NFL never having competed in football. He played basketball in college, but made it, now five seasons in. I'd call it a dream come true except for the work it takes to make happen.Playing during a pandemic. Sports are hit as hard as anything. Athletes reach their potential. How is he responding? How can we all respond?The environment, of course.We just touch on philosophy and stoicism, which we'll cover more in our next conversation. If you want to reach your potential, people like Chris Manhertz help. I hope the audio picked up…

Want inside views of covid-19 in the epicenter of the epicenter? Michael has been working at the front line of Covid-19 in New York City. He's also my brother-in-law who has known me since the 80s. I started the pattern of bringing people to share inside views of my work with my mom's episode, which I encourage you to listen to. He shares inside views on the flaws and weaknesses of both. He starts by sharing stories only surgeons can---for example, of saving someone's life on an airplane. You know in movies when the plane captain asks if there's a doctor on board? It happened to Michael when he was the only doctor on the flight---then just starting. He says he didn't fully save a…

Brooklyn Borough President means Mayor of Brooklyn. If Brooklyn separated from New York City, Eric Adams would be the mayor of the third most populous city in the country. If it separated from New York State, he'd be Governor of more people than 15 states. In this episode you'll hear why in 2013, Adams was elected Brooklyn borough president with 90.8 percent of the vote. He shares his transformation from his diet causing him to nearly losing extremities and vision to loving food they way I do. We cover the gamut of food issues---politics, education, business, history, but most of all family, community, and personal joy, community, and connection. It's hard to keep in mind hearing him how far he came in only three years---meaning…

I consider leadership a performance art and the environment the most beautiful thing around. Abbey and I talked about beauty, art, performance, teaching, technique, craft, and everything that goes into mastery. She has little experience with burpees. I have little with painting, but we connected on mastery. I think I can safely say we both look forward to our next conversation. Just after stopping recording we both commented on how much we enjoyed connecting on what underlies all fields amenable to mastery. Abbey has painted a painting daily since 2007. As someone who has done burpee-based calisthenics and written blog posts daily for nearly as long, I couldn't wait to talk to Abbey about the personal growth, community, connection, self-awareness, self-expression, and so on that…

Fresh and organic vegetables at farmers market Below are my notes for my podcast episode: 337: Why we feel miserable under lockdown. I got more feedback on it than usual and some said they might want to comment on it, which my podcast doesn't allow. The notes are just the skeleton. As you'll hear listening to it, I elaborate on them somewhat. I discuss the connection between perceiving lack of variety in food made from scratch and feeling miserable and bored under lockdown, despite having access to all the world's art, music, literature, and culture ever recorded and more material abundance than kings only a few generations ago, despite our material abundance being only slightly less than a few months ago. Here are the notes…

I discuss the connection between perceiving lack of variety in food made from scratch and feeling miserable and bored under lockdown, despite having access to all the world's art, music, literature, and culture ever recorded and more material abundance than kings only a few generations ago, despite our material abundance being only slightly less than a few months ago. Fresh and organic vegetables at farmers market Here are the notes I read from for this episode: Yesterday recorded episode with Rob and my stepfatherTalked about food variety, said mine lacked varietyOnly tried three timesPeople always see theirs as varied, others as notPeople say I don't like Chinese or Indian, billions, huge varietyI see McDonald's and Taco Bell as sameCount Chocula versus Froot LoopsI made something…

If you measure an interaction with someone by how much it affects and improves your life, my conversation with Julian was profound. Why? His conversation led me to start meditating regularly---something I've considered for year but never implemented, until the morning after our conversation. Longtime listeners know I've meditated for nearly 15 years. I've chosen infrequent deep dives---5-10-day retreats with no reading, writing, phone, internet, or talking---finding that I've gotten most of the value of daily practice from my other sidchas. The morning after our conversation, I started and have kept going since. I credit Julian's conversation. I met Julian after hearing an episode of his podcast featuring Wen-Jay Ying, an entrepreneur who founded one of the CSAs I get my vegetables from in New…

The quote you just heard was Rhonda's description how showing people how to cook the way I showed them could save time and money for people to enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables. After Rhonda and my first conversation, I recommend watching the video of my going to the Bronx for the group Rhonda assembled at a church for me to demonstrate cooking my famous no-packaging vegetable stew. This conversation came shortly after that potluck. Rhonda and I share hear how that event went. One woman said you couldn't cook that way up there, but then everyone else said it was possible. Rhonda knew everyone there, so listen to our episode to hear her read. Rhonda sounded to me upbeat about her Bronx community finding value…

This episode starts off strong with Jethro's matter-of-fact description of riding a bike in minus 40 degree weather. He's a principal going to school, but could be talking about radical mountain biking. I don't remember my principal being this badass. I don't remember anyone talking about activity like this so understated. I wouldn't be able to hold myself back as he does. Tell me if you don't laugh when he talks about what the cold does to his tires. You'll notice we recorded a long time ago when we talk about Greta Thunberg. Listen to the end, especially after he talks about his daughter, where we get into what actions like these are about. It's about meaning and purpose and living an intentional life of…

This pandemic continues to reveal new aspects of relationships—or rather spending time with people does. I think we used to spend more time with people, not mediated by the internet or distracted by screens and other powered things. I shared a new analogy in my conversation with my mom that several people liked. I found that my stewardship contrasting with my mom and step-father's wanting to live like they always have reminded me of the 70s television show All in the Family. For those who don't remember it, the show garnered huge audiences and stellar reviews. From Wikipedia: All in the Family is an American television series that ran for nine seasons, from 1971 to 1979. The show revolves around the life of a working-class…