Sasha Laghonh invited me back to her wonderful Moving Mountains podcast, which just posted. I shared a few upcoming projects I haven’t shared yet. Curious to try open-mic stand-up? She asked me about my recently performing open-mic on a New York comedy stage (which I recommend). We also talked about the origins of my Leadership and the Environment podcast and the sports and acting stories that helped start me on[…] Keep reading →

People keep acting like I have some special discipline that most people don’t. They think the burpees, cold showers, avoiding packaged food, and so on take effort. They don’t. Creating a lifestyle where they are normal and easy took effort—a once-in-a-lifetime effort—followed by their being the default for the rest of my life. Almost no willpower or discipline needed. People don’t believe me. I think they find it easier to[…] Keep reading →

For David Burkus this is a second conversation. We spent a lot more time talking about leadership more than environment. Of course, we talked about environment too but his book Friend of a Friend just came out and so we talked a lot about networks, how networks work, what networks are, problems that happen if you’re not aware of these things, how you can avoid them or get out of[…] Keep reading →

How Arianna Huffington, Ryan Holiday, Marie Kondo, and Successful Leaders’ Start Their Days Successful people start their mornings with routines. Routines make difficult habits doable. You don’t have yours? Time to start. Need help? I loved finding MyMorningRoutine.com, which posts a new successful person’s morning routine each week, including mine. You can also find Arianna’s and Ryan’s (though mine is best. . . for me, that is. It’s surprising how[…] Keep reading →

The Perfect Workout, Perfected? Regular readers know I find physical conditioning integral to leadership (and a rich, rewarding life). Research shows it. Research shows a few exercises work the whole body and cardiovascular system with low risk of injury–particularly swimming, cross-country skiing, and rowing. The first two need pools or snow. Rowing requires only an indoor rower, which is why I’ve put over 1,000,000 meters and hit big achievements (for[…] Keep reading →

I just watched a bunch of motivational videos. Here’s one, for example of LeBron James. People keep remarking at my burpees or picking up trash or generating less trash than most Americans as impressive. I watch LeBron and I’m not in the same league. What I do is ordinary in comparison. It’s not just that I haven’t achieved what he has. I don’t see how, knowing what Michael Jordan did,[…] Keep reading →

I Haven’t Eaten for 3 Days and It’s Amazing It’s Sunday and the last food I ate was lunch Thursday. I’ve ingested only water for 72 hours and the experience is life-changing. I love food, but I have eaten nothing and drank only water for the past 72 hours. Why? Partly because I kept hearing from friends and the media that they enjoyed fasting. Since swimming across the Hudson River,[…] Keep reading →