Here are my notes that I read from for this post: My greatest triumphs, my greatest shames.When I share personal stuff people always write how they like it. I think it's less important than learning the joys of stewardship and recognizing that flying any time you want or having blueberries 12 months a year doesn't improve your life, but it may help people understand where I'm coming from and maybe hold off a bit on saying, "yeah well you're privileged."Triumphs<ul><li>Making the best ultimate team I played on</li><li>Passing Columbia's qualifying exam</li></ul>Shames<ul><li>Bike stolen on Greene Street</li><li>Bike stolen from Wissahickon Creek path</li><li>Bike stolen from Art Museum</li><li>Shoved on Walnut Lane</li><li>Sucker punched near Central</li><li>Don't remember: girls touching my skin, boys firecracker</li><li>My stepbrother teasing me for my fat</li></ul>I'm not sure if people will consider these stories unimportant or learning important things about me. Maybe sharing such things are essential parts of leadership.

253: My greatest triumphs, my greatest shames

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 to bring the personal side of leading on the front lines and top levels of a pandemic---how do doctors and public health experts feel about people not following advice, facing triage decisions, how to be heard, and what affects a doctor personally. We talk about leadership, the intersection between the pandemic and the environment, which overlaps with his directorship and courses, and more.By the way, he created his Ebola course five years before this pandemic and predicted much of it, as did many. If predicting what's happened so far isn't enough reason to follow his advice, I don't know what is. Let's wear those masks <ul><li><a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/ashish-jha" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Ashish's faculty profile</a></li><li><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/17/us/coronavirus-testing-states.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Coronavirus Testing Needs to Triple Before the U.S. Can Reopen, Experts Say</a>, NY Times article quoting Ashish</li><li><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/health/coronavirus-asymptomatic-world-health-organization.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">In the W.H.O.’s Coronavirus Stumbles, Some Scientists See a Pattern</a>, NY Times article quoting Ashish</li><li><a href="https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/issue/spring20/article/pandemic-expert-dr-ashish-k-jha-92" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Pandemic Expert Dr. Ashish K. Jha ’92: “We Will Get Through This.”</a></li><li><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/how-we-beat-coronavirus/608389" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">How We Beat Coronavirus</a>, The Atlantic</li><li><a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/04/28/coronavirus-testing-trump-shutdown-ashish-jha-ebof-vpx.cnn" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Here's the reason we are still shut down right now</a>, CNN video</li></ul>

353: Harvard Global Health Institute Director Ashish Jha, part 1: Front Line Pandemic Leadership

I think I've accidentally led people astray, sharing how much I enjoy acting in stewardship. I would prefer doing anything I wanted whenever and wherever, on my terms---that is, if I didn't have to consider how my behavior affected others, especially those powerless to stop my effects from hurting them.Today's episode shares how I'm doing on the personal level what science suggests---no magic, nothing personal, just following the advice that makes the most sense. On the social level, I'm leading other people, corporations, institutions, and government. I'm not making things up or denying.

352: I don't want to act on the environment

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.I describe the analogy in this episode's recording. I share a few examples. I hope it helps motivate.I recommend The War of Art to nearly anyone. I recommend it especially to people who want to work on the environment.

352: The War of Art and Nature

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. 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 while speaking. As I'm writing these words, fireworks---that is, loud explosions---are going off within a block or two, unofficial.<ul><li>Helicopter since 5:20</li><li>No masks</li><li>Litter everywhere, every meal</li><li>Just saw Story of Plastic</li><li>Nobody seems to care. We can go a day without water, but 8 oz bottles</li><li>Police everywhere</li><li>Mayor absent</li><li>President exacerbating</li><li>Why bother?</li><li>Am I missing signs of mainstream effective action?</li><li>Plastic production higher than ever</li></ul>

351: A Rough Day in New York City

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, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_on_Normal_People" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The War on Normal People</a>, and learn more about universal basic income. I listened to Andrew on several podcasts until I felt I understood what he was campaigning for and why. UBI, for example, has had centuries of support across the political spectrum. Who knew?I talked to Yang's campaign people about helping with their environmental platform. (I'll talk to any politician about their environmental platform, since they could all use help). One of the outcomes was meeting Jonathan, gathering signatures a block from home. I like people acting in my world with passion, genuineness, and authenticity. Read Yang's book to learn the platform and what's driving it.In a tradition of successful people, Jonathan had left Harvard before finishing to support Yang's campaign, then to run himself in New York City's 10th district, where I live. He cares. He also acts personally on the environment, as you'll hear in this episode.

350: Jonathan Herzog, part 1: A candidate acts with genuineness and authenticity

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.

349: The State of the Environment Is The External 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:<blockquote>"Coming here, I don't have the distractions of fame. It quiets the ego down. I'm interested in the kind of person I've got to become. I want to be well-rounded and the industry is a place of extremes. I want to be well-balanced. I've got to check my intentions, man."</blockquote>Immediately following Chappelle's departure, tabloids speculated that Chappelle's exit was driven by drug addiction or a mental problem, rather than the ethical and professional concerns that Chappelle had articulated.Chappelle's decision to quit the show meant walking away from his $50 million contract with Comedy Central.[...]In an interview with Oprah Winfrey that aired on February 3, 2006, Chappelle explained his reasons for quitting Chappelle's Show. He also expressed his contempt for the entertainment industry's tone-deafness regarding black entertainers and audiences:<blockquote>When I see that they put every black man in the movies in a dress at some point in their career, I start connecting the dots.</blockquote>&nbsp;[...]Chappelle said on Inside the Actors Studio that the death of his father seven years prior influenced his decision to go to South Africa. By throwing himself into his work, he had not taken a chance to mourn his father's death. He also said the rumors that he was in drug or psychiatric treatment only persuaded him to stay in South Africa. He said,<blockquote>I would go to work on the show and I felt awful every day, that's not the way it was. ... I felt like some kind of prostitute or something. If I feel so bad, why keep on showing up to this place? I'm going to Africa. The hardest thing to do is to be true to yourself, especially when everybody is watching.</blockquote><h1>Draw your line</h1>Where do you draw your line to prioritize acting on the environment? Does billions of people restricted to their homes not cross it? How about rivers catching on fire?You will love life more if you don't allow yourself to watch ourselves cross our lines. You will love the meaning and purpose you create by making the environment your priority.Whatever you give, the work will return more.

348: Dave Chappelle's Line

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 to me my situation isn't rare. Note that I don't describe problems with women but a system and culture that says hashtag believe women without accountability or equality.My leadership work has been leading me to become famous but I've been afraid to get past a certain level for fear of one of the stories I tell in this episode. I had to share this to liberate myself from that fear. Again, I'm not afraid of the truth, nor of women, but of an unfair system and, for that matter, a culture that is predisposed to silence me in this area.Since recording I found some old emails from her. She found my girlfriend, I don't know how. She found postings of mine and tried to out my anonymous identity as an attraction coach, she included a picture of me with my girlfriend in an email to me, I think implying she knew things about me I hadn't told her and could act on them. One of her last emails to me listed things she wanted me to know and said "and you really don't know what I can do", which to this day I take seriously.I've held a lot of this stuff inside since the mid-90s---the experience with the woman in grad school, the late 90s my experiences with ecstasy, the late 2000s learning attraction and seduction, and the mid-2010s seeing the unaccountable power society gave a woman should she choose to act on it. But my practice is openness, allowing yourself to be vulnerable, sharing your whole self, and integration. Not sharing the experiences in this episode held me from my potential.My leadership work is about helping people improve their relationships with themselves and people they care about. I find they work best when I don't hold part of myself back, especially the most important parts, or separate parts of myself.Sharing this stuff has been a new beginning---no longer censoring myself out of fear of hashtag movements silencing my voice and experience. I'm moving to stop holding back experiences I found most developmental.EDIT: After recording this episode I shared the story with my mom. After she heard me describe the stories with women, she told me that the woman emailed her!In this case, she seems to have a lot more power. If a man wrote "You don't know what I can do" or contacted a woman's mother, he could end upin jail. If a man complains, many people will ask what he did to deserve it. Again, my issue is with a culture, not truth or women in general.Sharing these stories has opened me to share and has given me courage to act despite the fear.

347: Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll, part 4: More sex

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 do, but we started with Julie revealing an inside view of an area with as great upheaval and consequence to everyone as any, as well as her personal take.I was blown away at how much the pandemic is affecting education. I knew it was big but hadn't thought it through.Empty buildings, parents not knowing what to do, teachers not working, kids unable to play with each other, isolation possibly leading to more testing, at the same time potential for reconstruction, closer families, more love between the adults in children's lives and the children, the adults being their parents more.I haven't begun to consider it.After we stopped recording I said I hope I wasn't too assertive or aggressive about the ship at sea part. I confess I was speaking out of confusion and frustration, most likely revealing my ignorance. She said she valued the prodding. I hope I helped. <ul><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Human-Side-Changing-Education-Conviction/dp/1506398537" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Human Side of Changing Education: How to Lead Change With Clarity, Conviction, and Courage</a></li></ul>

346: Julie Margretta Wilson: Covid-19 devastating education

Leadership in the style of Mandela, Gandhi, King, and Havel, in the direction of Muir, Al Gore, DiCaprio, featuring Dan Pink, Marshall Goldsmith, Dorie Clark, Super Bowl champions, TED speakers, and more.

Do you care about the environment but feel "I want to act but if no one else does it won't make a difference" and "But if you don't solve everything it isn't worth doing anything"? We are the antidote! You're not alone. Hearing role models overcome the same feelings to enjoy acting on their values creates meaning, purpose, community, and emotional reward. Want to improve as a leader? Bestselling author, leadership speaker, coach, and professor Joshua Spodek, PhD MBA, brings joy and inspiration to acting on the environment. You'll learn to lead without relying on authority. We bring you leaders from many areas -- business, politics, sports, arts, education, and more -- to share their expertise for you to learn from. We then ask them to share and act on their environmental values. That's leadership without authority -- so they act for their reasons, not out of guilt, blame, doom, gloom, or someone telling them what to do. Guests include<ul><li>Dan Pink, 40+ million Ted talk views</li><li>Marshall Goldsmith, #1 ranked leadership guru and author</li><li>Frances Hesselbein, Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree, former CEO of the Girl Scouts</li><li>Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize winning author</li><li>David Allen, author of Getting Things Done</li><li>Ken Blanchard, author, The One Minute Manager</li><li>Vincent Stanley, Director of Patagonia</li><li>Dorie Clark, bestselling author</li><li>Bryan Braman, Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagle</li><li>John Lee Dumas, top entrepreneurial podcaster</li><li>Alisa Cohn, top 100 speaker and coach</li><li>David Biello, Science curator for TED</li></ul>

Leadership and the Environment

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253: My greatest triumphs, my greatest shames

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352: I don't want to act on the environment

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351: A Rough Day in New York City