Episodes
March 20, 2025
808: Silvia Bellezza: Sustainable Marketing at Columbia Business School
Silvia created the course Sustainable Marketing at Columbia. It's an elective and has become the class at the business school with the most students from other schools at the university. In looking for a guest speaker on sust...
March 4, 2025
807: Giora Netzer MD MSCE, part 1: A leader I coached to the C-suite
Are you reaching your potential, professionally or personally? Have you wondered what would happen if you got coaching? Giora did. A friend of his who was a client of mine recommended he get coaching from me. We worked togeth...
Feb. 21, 2025
806: Robert Fullilove, part 2: the spirit of the Civil Rights movement
Dr. Bob shares more about his experience acting during the 1960s, as well as today on helping prisoners and more. I hope you can hear the electricity I felt listening. Two kinds of electricity: one for the stories, another fo...
Feb. 19, 2025
805: Osprey Orielle Lake: Founder and Executive Director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN)
I was pleasantly surprised in reading Osprey's book The Story is in Our Bones that she also sees the need to change culture, including elements like our stories, role models, images, and beliefs. Focusing on cultural elements...
Feb. 13, 2025
804: Robert Fullilove EdD, part 1: Lessons from America's Civil Rights era and effective action today
People call my behavior extreme, though I'm just acting in service of others. To be more precise, I'm acting in love for others. When people suggest what I'm doing is too hard, I sometimes remark how during America's Civil Ri...
Jan. 28, 2025
803: Nick Loris, part 3: Liberty, freedom, sustainability, and Rock Creek Park
You probably came to hear Nick's experience exploring Rock Creek Park in Washington DC based on his childhood experiences in nature with his father. Since we recorded shortly after my visit to DC, where I missed Nick but visi...
Jan. 14, 2025
802: Lorraine Smith, part 2: The hidden, dirty secrets of corporate "sustainability" work
I start by sharing how much value I get from participating in Lorraine's weekly coaching group. Then she shares her path to coaching on sustainability. She worked in the heart of the corporate sustainability accounting and re...
Jan. 9, 2025
801: Travis Fisher, part 3: Restoring time with family
Meaningful interactions don't have to be complex. Travis simply shares his experiences in nature in childhood and finds ways to recreate the emotional experience today. To me the most meaningful part is the result: he expects...
Dec. 31, 2024
800: Lorna Davis, part 4: After the Sustainability Leadership Workshop
If you haven't listened to my conversation with Lorna before taking the sustainability leadership workshop , I recommend listening to it first: 794: Lorna Davis, part 3: Before taking the sustainability leadership workshop . ...
Dec. 28, 2024
799: Josh Bandoch, part 2: Leadership: Humans feel first, then reason
Josh and I talked about a few aspects of his acting on his commitment from the Spodek Method. For one thing, since he and I both study, practice, and teach leadership, we talked about the technique, how it works, how it impac...
Dec. 25, 2024
798: Nick Romeo: The Alternative: How to Build a Just Economy
Regular listeners and readers of my podcast and blog know I grew up with parents who helped form a grocery buying group which folded into a food co-op. Different co-ops work differently, but the general idea is that shoppers ...
Dec. 20, 2024
797: Alden Wicker, part 2: Try and Try Again: E-biking in Vermont
Many people think sustainability requires fixing everything or else we'll collapse. The Spodek Method creates a mindset shift followed by continual improvement, not, as they might hope, a mindset shift followed by perfection....
Dec. 18, 2024
796: Jack Spencer, part 3: Authenticity on Acting on Sustainability (also Project 2025)
We start by talking about the internal challenges Jack felt about acting to do something he wouldn't have otherwise. He cares about the environment and lives accordingly. Still, he wouldn't have done what he committed to when...
Dec. 14, 2024
795: Lorraine Smith, part 1: Leaving mainstream "sustainability" to pursue actual sustainability
Lorraine is one of the few people I know who saw mainstream sustainability efforts for what they are: ineffective and often counterproductive but self-congratulatory. I call most of them "stepping on the gas, thinking it's th...
Dec. 12, 2024
794: Lorna Davis, part 3: Before taking the sustainability leadership workshop
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 resp...
Dec. 10, 2024
793: Nick Loris, part 1.5: Heartwarming nature, family, and fatherhood
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 skepti...
Dec. 7, 2024
792: Travis Fisher, part 2: The spirit that America was founded on, Cato, and sustainability
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 ...
Nov. 19, 2024
791: Sustainability Leadership Is a Performance Art
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 worksho...
Nov. 16, 2024
790: Talking to a guy injecting on the sidewalk
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...
Nov. 14, 2024
789: Solomon Schmidt: Author of Legal Gladiator, on Alan Dershowitz
As a podcast host, I get pitched a lot of authors, books, and more. Most aren't relevant or are counterproductive to sustainability. I received an email promoting the author of Legal Gladiator , a biography of Alan Dershowitz...
Nov. 13, 2024
788: Susan Liebell: John Locke, Stewardship, and the US Constitution
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,...
Nov. 11, 2024
787: Travis Fisher, part 1: A nonpartisan, libertarian view on the environment from the Cato Institute
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,...
Nov. 8, 2024
786: Jan Mulder, part 2: The joy of finding and leading community
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 the...
Oct. 30, 2024
785: Josh Bandoch, part 1: Teaching persuasion and leadership
I participated in an online workshop in influence and persuasion that Josh led. We got in touch afterward and found our approaches to the practices and how to learn them overlap. We start this episode talking about his backgr...