Why does nearly everyone reject Gandhi’s advice?

Michael Jackson's song, Man in the Mirror, got stuck in my head: I'm starting with the man in the mirrorI'm asking him to change his waysAnd no message could have been any clearerIf you wanna make the world a better placeTake a look at yourself and then make a change It's clear: If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change. I know of nearly no one taking this advice. Everyone instead chooses to live by something like: if you want to make the world a better place, complain…

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Robert McNamara and Geoengineering

Following up my podcast episode 516: Geoengineering: Prologue or Epilogue for Humanity?, I rewatched the documentary The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. The movie is fascinating, relevant, and poignant to our geoengineering question, particularly Robert McNamara's approach to major decisions he played major roles in. The big ones were firebombing Japanese cities in World War II, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and escalating the war in Vietnam. The movie goes into more depth, but here's a quick quote of McNamara describing how right a decision seemed in the moment and how wrong it seems…

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355: I balance values the same as anyone

People constantly suggest they have to balance different values as if I didn't. It came up in a recent conversation so I shared about it today. An element I factor in is how my pollution affects others---not just what I know about or wish I contributed, but what I actually contribute. Yet people think I factor in nothing else. It's weird to learn people see you as one-dimensional. If they felt others viewed them as they see me, they'd be insulted.

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Why I’m not waiting for the government to act on the environment

Social and cultural change generally start from outside government. Government nearly always follows. Mandela, Gandhi, King, Havel, etc all started outside government. I'd love to see government lead, but the most effective thing for anyone who wants government to act to do is to act first. That's why I'm acting, or one of the reasons. When enough other people see the pattern, they'll stop blaming others' inaction and act themselves. Then politicians will see where the votes are going. I'm pretty sure Gandhi had situations like this in mind when he suggested to be the chance you wanted to see.…

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Op-ed Fridays: which is easier, freeing slaves or not using disposable cups and bottles?

This morning's New York Times posted a story, Holocaust Is Fading From Memory, Survey Finds, reporting a survey with results such as Thirty-one percent of Americans, and 41 percent of millennials, believe that two million or fewer Jews were killed in the Holocaust; the actual number is around six million. Forty-one percent of Americans, and 66 percent of millennials, cannot say what Auschwitz was. My last name, Spodek, is Jewish-Polish, though my father clarified that though our ancestors came from within Polish boundaries, they weren't considered Polish because they were Jewish. His parents and grandparents came to the United States…

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The environment: Little things matter but NOT because they add up

The internet is filled with "10 tips to lower your carbon footprint" and "21 easy ways to help the environment." Here's a screen shot: There are too many pages of them to count. They aren't working. Sure, some people might change a light bulb or two, but greenhouse gas levels aren't decreasing, nor is pollution, nor resource depletion. The number one problem with "little tips" People say enough little things add up to big differences. When the people leading others to consume fossil fuels wantonly are the Koch Brothers and Donald Trump, the measure of change is against their results…

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If I led in the environment and no one knew my name, what change I created would be my legacy?

Following up Dov Baron's questions from yesterday and the day before, the next and last question he recommend me answering was Question: If I led in the environment and no one knew my name, what change I created would be my legacy? Listen to the conversation (on iTunes) My answer: My legacy would be that people will view changing their behavior to reduce their pollution, greenhouse emissions, resource depletion, and the like as joyful fun opportunities for personal growth that they wish they did earlier. This perspective would change for most people from seeing such changes as deprivation, sacrifice, and pointless.…

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Zuckerberg and DiCaprio Take Heat for Flying Too Much

My Inc. post today, "Zuckerberg and DiCaprio Take Heat for Flying Too Much," begins Zuckerberg and DiCaprio Take Heat for Flying Too Much There is no half-integrity. Do it all the way or it undermines your leadership. Mark Zuckerberg announced a few months ago his plan to visit every state to learn more about people who use Facebook--people who struggle to make ends meet or fall through the cracks. Leonardo DiCaprio was named United Nations representative on climate change in 2014, which he followed up with the movie Before the Flood and many statements on slowing climate change and reducing pollution. Criticism Next thing you know, Zuckerberg…

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Patagonia founder acting on his values, even at the company’s expense. Still works out.

I rarely simply post someone else just talking, but my focus lately on motivating people to act on their values against comfort and convenience has resulted in such a desert that the video below was too refreshing not to share. No one I talk to considers avoiding one flight. No one who visits can stop bringing garbage. Yet this man keeps choosing actions that would appear to hurt his company, yet he's become a billionaire and they haven't. For example (at 38:18 in the second video below), he had his company research the toxicity of materials his company used. When…

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Leadership and the Environment podcast episode #4: My talk, recorded live, June 19, 2017

Still a work in progress, below is my latest keynote on Leadership and the Environment. I gave it to a live audience, June 19, 2017. Sorry, no video. Since it’s still a work in progress, so I welcome suggestions for improvements. [EDIT: click here for the audio]

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Why I turned down nearly $10,000 to teach for an Ivy League school for a week in Shanghai

Columbia University offered me nearly $10,000 to fly to Shanghai to teach an entrepreneurship class, block-week style, meaning a semester in a week, 9-5 each day. I've taught that way before and got great results. I love teaching entrepreneurship. I'm not bragging to say that my reviews say I'm exceptional at it. I love my alma mater, Columbia, and as an adjunct professor, experience teaching at Ivy League schools helps my career. I had developed the relationships with the department that offered me to teach with them for years. I had worked on making this opportunity happen for years and…

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Call for action to you – for a new path to reduce climate change

Prepare for one of my most important podcasts from someone who knows the science behind the environment. Want to improve the environment? You may remember Balint, a fellow scientist who got a PhD in physics became an entrepreneur got passionate about improving in business, and teaches experiential project-based learning. from his first podcast interview of me, which covered leadership and education. We continued our conversation and spoke the way only physics PhDs can. I shared what I've posted here about my developing plans to start a movement on leadership and the environment. We decided to record another conversation on it…

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The Leadership and the Environment Podcast: It Starts Here and Now

Everyone wants a cleaner environment and recognizes human behavior is trashing it. We can't stop ourselves because of the systems we created that make it convenient, comfortable, fun, and in nearly every way emotionally rewarding to pollute except that it's against our values of leaving the world better than we found it. Only you know your values and what better means to you, but I've never met anyone who didn't consider cleaner air and water better. We don't want to pollute, yet our systems make us. So few people act to reduce their pollution, forcing us to rationalize why it's…

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How science improves leadership and coaching: My conversation with Ron Potter

Does a background in science help someone lead? ... does it help someone coach? If so, how? I spoke with longtime leadership and executive coach Ron Potter, who came from an engineering and technical background to coach executives at top levels of major global companies, about how our backgrounds help. We covered: How a science and technical background helps us understand and work with emotions better than others ... and the limits of rationality ... and how to work with them effectively, calmly, and productively How science helps change beliefs, freeing yourself and teams from mental jails How a science…

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Personal responsibility, leadership, and global warming

Global initiatives miss the one big change you, the person reading these words, have control over and nobody else does, which is your behavior. If you don't change what you have control over, why would you expect or suspect anybody else would? Will you change what you can? Though I can't prove it, I know that if you do and you stick with it, however much it looks like sacrifice now, you will be glad you did. In fact, you will rank it among the best changes you've made in your life. The above words were my response to a…

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Learning social and emotional skills is hard but worth it

Ultimately all the advice in the world leads to one simple starting point: You have to act, practice, and rehearse new skills to get their benefit and those first acts, as with any new skill, will be clumsy, embarrassing, and full of other challenges that will lead the novice to feel bad. If you try, you will fail and feel bad, worse than if you never tried, but if you stick with it, you can overcome the failures. You'll never lose access to the skills you now have it you don't want to feel or act social, but you can…

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The Great Barrier Reef’s Demise and You

According to The Guardian: Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage': scientists despair at latest coral bleaching data ‘Last year was bad enough, this is a disaster,’ says one expert as Australia Research Council finds fresh damage across 8,000km I read this at a message board for geeks and entrepreneurs and shared the following, which I wanted to share here: Many posts here about how sad and disgusted people are. Not much about people taking personal responsibility. What do people think the carrying capacity of the planet means? Sustaining more humans means sacrificing other life that competes for our resources. It…

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The One Way Ticket Show podcast: the American Revolution and Leadership

Steven Shalowitz, host of The One Way Ticket Show podcast, posted yesterday our interview, "Josh’s one way ticket is back to this historic time in American history," which covers the time in history I would choose to go to if I could magically go there with no chance to return, as well as Leadership Step by Step. Click here to listen! I find the show fascinating, as well as his guests, who include Nobel Prize winners, heads of state, heads of industry, and more, including, at last, me. From the podcast's about page: There was one question Steven Shalowitz thought…

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How not to be afraid to be yourself, Italian style

The other day I was interviewed for a podcast (I'll link to it when they edit and post it). The interviewer asked me how I accomplished so much. I told him and his listeners to look up sidchas on my blog. Everyone who aspires to greatness knows the importance of building discipline, integrity, dedication, and other skills. I accomplish things by acting by my values. I practice with small challenges like daily exercise, daily writing, cold showers, and so on. Almost nobody does these things or their equivalent for them, yet they want the benefits. You have to do things…

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My courses will lead students to leave traditional, lecture-based universities — to greater success and reward

I loved university. Studying physics, universities are about the only places to learn it. I value university for many things. They do a lot of valuable things better than any other institution or alternatives---the hard sciences, for example. It's not right for everyone and it does some things terribly. Places other than universities do some non-academic activities so much better than school. Experiential learning---how I teach leadership, entrepreneurship, sales, and hustling---is so much more effective at teaching leadership, entrepreneurship, sales, and hustling, than traditional, lecture-based education, that you could consider the latter counterproductive. Moreover, experiential courses where students create major…

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Video: Integrity means considering the results of your actions on other people

The forecast for the day after tomorrow in New York City, for mid-February, is 58 degrees Fahrenheit (14.5 C)---beyond unseasonably warm, especially after a 72 degree Christmas Eve (!!), followed by the hottest month for the planet recorded relative to normal. You know the signs we're beyond the possibility of climate change. We're in it. My version of leadership means taking responsibility for your actions and their effects on others---all the effects, not just the ones you want. However much you think pollutions happens mostly from others, not you, you contribute to it. Which means you can change your behavior…

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How to Decide Without Regret in business and life

After teaching, coaching, studying, and practicing leadership for twenty years, I announced my online leadership course, “Introducing the most effective leadership course available anywhere.” I’m hosting a series of free webinars on the most actionable, useful, effective, and exciting parts of the course. My webinars will always deliver exclusive, valuable lessons you can use that day and how to build for the long term. Attend my second webinar, free, this Sunday, February 14, 1pm Eastern Standard Time! All you need is an internet connection. How to Decide Without Regret ... in business and life Click to register! From the registration…

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Introducing the most effective leadership course available anywhere

If you read this blog, you know I care about leadership and how to improve yours---in business, personal, family, and every other part of your life. I presume you do too. As much as you've learned from the blog, you can learn more from doing. If you want to improve because you're moving up the corporate ladder, just finished school, starting your own projects, or any other reason that you have to lead people and teams, developing leadership skills from practice will improve you most effectively. Anyone can improve their ability to lead, and the most effective improvement comes from…

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Sidchas when you’re tired and exhausted? Especially!

I can't tell you how exhausted I was when I got home yesterday. Traveling meant about five hours of sleep in the forty-eight leading to last evening's sleep. Telling a client about burpees and Sidchas recently, when I mentioned doing them when tired, drunk, or otherwise discouraged, he asked, "wait, you do them then too?", implying that for a long-term activity, you don't have to be a stickler for rules every time. After all, how much does one instance matter out of many? On the contrary, the value of the combination of the activity being self-imposed, challenging, and daily arises…

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Abraham Lincoln and the unintended side-effects of leading through authority

Using authority to lead may achieve your goal but it creates unintended side-effects, nearly always counter to your goals. To you personally too. This scene in Lincoln illustrates how the side-effects can last centuries. I long wondered why people resist accepting the Civil War. Why wouldn't they celebrate ending slavery? When you motivate someone through authority, you are making them do something they don't want to do. You're threatening a worse outcome if they don't do it---firing, a bad grade, a spanking, jail, garnishing wages, etc---implying that being with you can be even worse. What are you presenting about yourself?…

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