Lorna first appeared on this podcast in 2021. We became friends and remained so, though we challenge each other, as you'll hear in this conversation. We don't try to. Just things about the other annoy us. But how much we respect and learn from each other outshines that annoyance.

Lorna knew about the Spodek Method and workshops for years. I don't know why she didn't join one until now, but something clicked and she decided to. I think meeting Evelyn led her to see the technique appealed to people like her and unlike me; that acting as much as I do on sustainability didn't result from a quirk of mine.

In this episode, she shares her views, concerns, and thoughts about the workshop and how it might affect her and her relationships. We plan to record another conversation after she finishes the workshop. If you haven't thought about taking it, learn more about it here, then compare how you feel about taking it with what Lorna expresses.

I don't know about you, but I'm curious how she'll experience it. Have I overpromised? Is there something quirky about me leading me to unique or unusual results?

Don't forget to come back to listen to her experience after taking the workshop.

People I talk to on the political left who care about the environment see people on the political right as opponents to defeat. When I share that I talk to people from Heritage Foundation, where Nick worked, they sound skeptical at best, more commonly incredulous and fearful.

In this episode, you'll hear heartwarming stories of Nick's childhood with his father, then Nick today finding a way to manifest what he experienced then. You'll also hear he just got married, so I predict the commitment he made in this episode helps contribute to his growing family life.

I'm starting to find it hard to believe people see others as opponents regarding the environment and sustainability. Treating them that way makes things adversarial. I wish they'd stop. Let's see if working together, practicing sustainability leadership, such as with the Spodek Method, helps us work together to solve our environmental problems more effectively.

We recorded this conversation just after the election. We talked about it, especially Travis's and the Cato Institute's views. One of his main views is that the US puts too much executive authority in the president. I'm also

We shared our concerns about the Inflation Reduction Act coming from different standpoints, but agreeing with each other.

Our main conversation was about approaching sustainability from a view of freedom, not coercion or imposing values. I share my view that

If you think living more sustainably makes people’s lives worse, you have to become a better dictator.

If you think living more sustainably improves people’s lives, you learn to become a better marketer, entrepreneur, or leader.

Travis agrees on the problems with top-down coercion and we took off from there, in Travis's words: "the spirit that America was founded on."

I'm following up my recent solo post, 790: Talking to a guy injecting on the sidewalk, with another extemporaneous one. This one is also with a former podcast guest and fellow teacher of our sustainability leadership workshop, Evelyn Wallace.

This episode gives an inside view of how I develop ideas in our entrepreneurial team. In particular, I share a few insights into what I offer in the workshops. I've long known to avoid facts, numbers, and lecture. I avoid convincing, cajoling, and coercing, which I call bludgeoning. Most sustainability work I know of go in those directions.

I've long seen leadership as a performance art. We learn to practice arts through practicing the basics, which is why my books Leadership Step by Step and Initiative teach through experiential learning: practicing the basics.

Our sustainability leadership workshops teach the basics of sustainability leadership. As with any skill or art, mastering it creates freedom to express oneself, as well as liberation, fun, self-expression, self-awareness, and other skills that make life transcendent.

On a beautiful sunny Saturday, 9:50am, I was walking to Washington Square Park to charge my battery and talk at 10am to my friend Dan McPherson (he's been on the podcast, where he shared about his heart attack at age 46 the week before we recorded). I saw the guy in the picture injecting. I asked if I could take his picture and a brief conversation ensued.

Instead of my planned conversation with Dan, we recorded my experience and thoughts about the conversation with the guy injecting on the sidewalk. I haven't edited anything. I recorded with just my headphone microphone so sorry about the audio quality, but I think you'll be able to understand us fine.

I also didn't prepare. I'm not speaking from notes or even more than a few minutes to reflect. You'll get to hear my thoughts raw.

As it happens, Dan is about a third of the way through my book, Sustainability Simplified. It came up in conversation, so you'll get to hear the impressions of someone who has read it. Only at the very end of the call did I think to text Dan the pictures, so listen to the end to hear his thoughts on the book.

I quote Susan in my book, Sustainability Simplified. In it you'll see how much John Locke influenced my long-term vision for the US to understand and solve our environmental problems. Learning about the Thirteenth Amendment, which (mostly) banned slavery, and its improbable path to passage and ratification led me to think about solving our environmental problems similarly.

I learned that many people working to abolish slavery worked hard when drafting the US Constitution to make it able to support abolitionism and to disallow property in man. Slaveholders opposed them, so they accepted compromises. Still, they put enough into the Constitution to enable weakening the institution enough to eventually end it. I wondered if sustainability might have similar precedent, like some law or phrasing of the Constitution that might have disallowed polluting or depleting.

It turns out there was. It was in John Locke's Two Treatises on Government. The more I researched the man, his writings, and our Constitution, the more he seemed to apply to our environmental problems. That research led me to a paper by Susan Liebell, which I link to below.

My conversation with Susan explore the application of his work and theories.

I've been curious in what ways libertarian views on the environment and sustainability differ from conservative views. Travis worked at the Heritage Foundation, which is more conservative, and now works at the Cato Institute, which is more libertarian. Since I haven't spoken to many libertarians directly, I'm interested in this conversation to learn, so it's a conversation, not a debate.

Early in our conversation, he describes some of their differences and similarities, and why he chose Cato. He shares some of his training and background that led him to his views.

Then we talked about a few issues: the Inflation Reduction Act, regulation, how government funding of many programs results in industries growing without being profitable from its customers. We look at several moral hazards, including government gaining money and power from permitting polluting behavior and distributing funding evenly so everyone votes for something even if it doesn't help.

We recorded just before the election so talked about recording again after the election to talk about how its results affect the political, energy, and pollution landscape.

Usually when someone does their commitment with the Spodek Method, they enjoy it. Nearly always they do more than they commit to. Sometimes someone really enjoys it.

Jan went to town on his commitment. You might wonder if there's any appeal to picking up litter. Is it worth the effort? Who cares, anyway? After all, more people litter than pick it up, as anyone can tell by how much litter there is and how much it's growing.

Yet the pattern I've discovered keeps happening. On the other side of working on sustainability is always community. I can't prove it always happens, but so far it does.

In Jan's case, he found community, in particular, people who had long wanted to act. They were just waiting for someone to lead them. When someone did, they embraced acting.

How many people around you are waiting for someone to activate them? How much community is waiting to form? How much easier do you think it will be than you probably expect, based on Jan's experience?