Advice to a young adult in 2021

A father in one of my online communities asked people for what advice they'd give to a twelve-year-old. I'm not a father and haven't been twelve since the 1980s, so I don't know how appropriate for that age, but here was my answer: Not knowing the kid (barely knowing myself), I can only guess at his interests and situation, but here's what I would want someone to tell me if I were becoming an adult today. If not appropriate for twelve years old, well, I haven't been that age in a while so don't mind if you filter it. I…

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2021 Nobel Prize in Physics: Climate Science and my response

Press release: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2021: 5 October 2021 The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2021 “for groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of complex physical systems” with one half jointly to Syukuro ManabePrinceton University, USA Klaus HasselmannMax Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany “for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming” and the other half to Giorgio ParisiSapienza University of Rome, Italy “for the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales” My response The…

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More Mechai Viravaidya resources: Our world’s top role model

In preparing for my podcast conversation with Mechai Viravaidya, his team sent extra material. I think you'll value knowing more about him. First, given that We Can Dance Around Environmental Problems All We Want. We Eventually Reach Overpopulation and Overconsumption, I consider Mechai's work on family planning among the most important work in the world, beyond the Green Revolution. He lowered birth rate through voluntary, fun means that increased health, longevity, prosperity, and stability, the opposite of China's One Child Policy or eugenics. He enabled us to talk about and act on the most important driver of the environmental problems…

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What Actions Reduce Greenhouse Emissions Most?

People often ask what personal actions they can do to reduce emissions most. I'll give the answer by the numbers, then give a better answer. Sadly, most people who ask then respond with reasons why they can't do anything, rationalizing that they are powerless when they aren't. They just want to feel better. By the numbers As you can see, having fewer kids dwarfs everything. I do all of the things in the chart and have never been happier, healthier, or connected to supportive community and family. I spend less money, have more free time, live more adventure, and connect…

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“The 11 Best Leadership Books You Should Read This Year” named Leadership Step by Step

Brunchwork's "The 11 Best Leadership Books You Should Read This Year" named Leadership Step by Step along with favorites including, 1. Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard 3. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey 6. 5 Levels of Leadership by John C. Maxwell 7. How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie 9. Leading with Gratitude: Eight Leadership Practices for Extraordinary Business Results by Adrian Gostick and podcast guest Chester Elton For my book they write 5. Leadership Step By Step by Joshua SpodekPublished in…

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Hear me again on the Ask Women podcast on seductive conversation

You may remember from my post Hear me on the Ask Women podcast that I spoke about my coaching men on attraction and seduction for a few years as the #1 coach in the #1 market for the #1 guru. That post began describing that podcast: What do a female comic and a professional wing girl have in common? The realistically raw and hilarious perspectives on what women ACTUALLY want in a man. Prepare to be offended and awed as Marni Kinrys & Kristen Carney take you through the uncensored and often ridiculous mind of a woman to help you…

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Working on Purpose radio with Dr. Alise Cortez hosted me

Dr. Alise Cortez hosted me for a wonderful conversation on leadership, education, sustainability, career, and more. It's radio, but we recorded video. https://youtu.be/j77zcwgqN3A?t=40 Episode notes Where have all the entrepreneurs gone? We seem to be producing less and less each year. Josh Spodek says this is due in part our educational system that teaches compliance at the expense of pursuing interests and passions in learning. He’s out to teach people to take initiative and pursue their passions all over their lives – and that entrepreneurship is available to virtually everyone. About Alise See Alise's about page for more: Dr. Alise…

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Speak Like a Leader podcast features me today

When TEDxNYU invited me to give a TEDx talk with less than two weeks to prepare, I knew a coach would help. I researched and hired John Bates. The result? Three TEDx talks and counting, plus one invited me back to lead a work group for TED Countdown. Plus I count him as a friend. John hosts the Speak Like a Leader podcast. I'm his guest today. We talk about leadership today, what happened to civic duty, how do we restore it, how to we handle lockdown, and more. Looking to improve your or your company's public speaking? I recommend…

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See my webinars on Initiative to Wharton and U. of Chicago Business School alumni.

I recently spoke online to alumni groups from the Wharton and University of Chicago business schools on developing initiative, specifically from my book, Initiative. Here are reviews from NYU students who did the exercises I describe in them. I asked if I could share the videos from the webinars. Here they are. As I say in them, I designed them to give you enough to work with on your own. The book is more comprehensive. Contact me if you're looking for yet more, like coaching. The University of Chicago Business School webinar https://youtu.be/k1pSmCyq8RQ The Wharton webinar and announcement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xStDgI3odiY

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My new challenge to help people pollute less

The four-step process I describe in my first TEDx talk goes: What does the environment mean to you? What do you think about when you act on the environment?I invite you at your option to think of something to do to act on that meaning or motivation?Make it a SMART goalSchedule a follow-up conversation to hear how it goes. My new challenge I developed another challenge for when someone practices something that pollutes or hurts others and they want to decrease. For example, someone who mows their lawn with a riding mower, so far thinking there was no alternative. This…

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297: RIP James Lipton, a huge influence and inspiration

James Lipton, who started and hosted the show Inside the Actors Studio, died yesterday. Here are the notes I read from for this episode: I could talk about how much I enjoyed the episodes, his humor, and a few things I learned from his guests that only his interviewing could have elicited but I will go deeper, to share how fundamental his work has been to mine. Many times I've said that if my courses existed before I went to business school and someone were teaching them, I would have taken them instead of business school and gotten more of…

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Hear me on the Ask Women podcast

Would you expect me on a podcast called Ask Women Podcast: What Women Want? With an episode title "How To Be A Leader With Women | The BJ Technique"? Yes, 'BJ' meaning what you think. Here are the notes about the hosts, Marni Kinrys and Kristen Carney: What do a female comic and a professional wing girl have in common? The realistically raw and hilarious perspectives on what women ACTUALLY want in a man. Prepare to be offended and awed as Marni Kinrys & Kristen Carney take you through the uncensored and often ridiculous mind of a woman to help…

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Hear me on the Better Leaders Better Schools podcast

Want to lead people so they want you to lead them again? To take initiative effectively? Many people ask counterproductive questions, like "How should I do X?", "How do I convince someone to do Y?", or "What do I need to know to become a leader?" The most effective question is "How do I learn to lead?", or in entrepreneurship and taking initiative, "How do I learn to take initiative?" Leadership doesn't come from knowing more information or facts, nor from a one-time action, nor from convincing people. It comes from practice. By focusing on how to learn to lead,…

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See my TEDx talk live, this Saturday, April 6!

You know you've wanted to see a TED talk live. Now's your chance. Cancel your old plans for next weekend. [NOTE: I will post the video of my talk here when the organizers finish editing and post it. They estimated 6 to 12 weeks from April 6 -- that is, likely late May or June.] See me and six other brilliant, engaging speakers this Saturday, April 6 at TEDxNYU---the intersection of two world-renowned institutions. This year's theme is Disruption. In NYU's Kimmel building, 60 Washington Square South, 10th floor, starting 10am. Get tickets and logistics here or contact me and…

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My humbling leadership start

Business school humbled me from before I started my first classes there. I came in thinking, "I have a PhD in physics, so all the math will be easy, and I ran a company, so I know all the business. I'll have fun for a couple years and earn a degree that will be my passport to success." On the contrary, I found finance and accounting not about math, but organization that I didn't understand. Moreover, all my classmates understood it better. And business was about people, emotions, relationships, and other blind spots I didn't know I was blind to.…

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Why Every Parent Should Watch This Movie

Have you noticed how many of today's most successful people chose to leave our educational system--Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg, Erin Brockovich, Elon Musk, Sean Combs, Lauren Hill, Michael Dell, Whoopi Goldberg, Larry Page, and Sergei Brin, to name a few. Ever wonder why people who chose to leave mainstream education became so successful? Why did breaking the once-standard advice "stay in school" not work for them? As a professor of entrepreneurship and leadership at NYU, their consistent success drove me to learn and practice what works that school misses. My recent piece Why Every…

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Student reviews of my leadership course, summer 2018

Last summer, I taught a short version of my course to working professionals. I taught it through NYU, though it's one of the courses I teach independently online and in corporations. It overlaps with my coaching for leadership clients. Here are the student reviews---as usual, all of them, no cherry-picking. Summer 2018 leadership student reviews Yes, I would definitely recommend this course to others. The combination of interactive classes, consistent feedback loop, historical examples, and in-person troubleshooting made it a very productive use of a mere 12 hours. I will definitely use these techniques in the future both at work…

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Handling Trigger Warnings, Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and Other Outrages

Handling Trigger Warnings, Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and Other Outrages Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff's new book, The Coddling of the American Mind, takes on offense and outrage with calm resolve and effective insight Jonathan Haidt's latest book, released today, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, coauthored by Greg Lukianoff, takes on one of the issues of our time—public discourse, especially in higher education—expanding on their widely discussed Atlantic article of the same name. Whether leading a small team, a company, a nation, a family, or oneself, research…

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Meaningful Connection in other languages

My Meaningful Connection exercise is one of my most popular and effective (they're all effective) from corporate speaking, one-to-one coaching, teaching, my personal practice, and my book. Since I have non-native English speakers in nearly every audience, I've decided to ask some to translate the script into various languages. My leadership class this summer afforded my first two translations. If you can help with others, please let me know. I'd love to feature your work. German Frage was sie neben Beruf und Familie gerne machen. Ich empfehle, "Was ist Deine/Ihre Leidenschaft?" oder "Was sind Deine/Ihre Interessen?" Sie werden erst noch etwas…

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The Big Talk with Tricia Brouk

Tricia Brouk is an incredible director, TEDx Executive Producer, actress, choreographer, and more. She's worked with names like Richard Gere, James Gandolfini, Kate Winslet, Susan Sarandon, John Torturo, Eddie Izzard, Christopher Walken, Steve Buscemi, and Bobby Canavale. Wow! As host of the Big Talk podcast, she posted our conversation, "Put Yourself in the Background." From the liner notes: Put Yourself in the Background – Joshua Spodek Summary What is the best way to lead and influence an audience? Today’s guest reminds us that the best way to impact others is to put ourselves in the background and focus on them.…

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How you perform gets you farther than your GPA

I wrote, to follow Ryan Holiday's Here’s The Technique That Ambitious People Use To Get What They Want, I teach and coach people to get jobs through performance and it works. Schools teach people to react, take tests, and show how great they are. For a posted opening, you're presenting yourself as a commodity -- a slightly shinier one, you hope. It's based on compliance. Most analytical, geeky types got a lot of schooling. After decades of it, most people have learned that model without awareness of alternatives. If you want to avoid challenges in life and just get a…

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Martha Graham on Freedom Through Discipline and Conforming

I've quoted Martha Graham many times. At last I got the video of her saying the words. She describes how a performer achieves freedom through conforming and discipline better than anyone, in my opinion. I believe what she says holds for any active, emotional, expressive, social, performance-based field, including leadership and entrepreneurship. The dancer is realistic. His craft teaches him to be. Either the foot is pointed or it is not. No amount of dreaming will point it for you. This requires discipline, not drill, not something imposed from without, but discipline imposed by you yourself upon yourself. Your goal…

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RJ’s TEDx talk that began as homework from my course

RJ Khalaf took my course at NYU, Fundamentals of Social Entrepreneurship, a few years ago. His class project evolved into LEAD Palestine, which led the Dalai Lama to name him a Dalai Lama fellow. He also appeared on the Leadership and the Environment podcast and was a panelist on our expert panel last week. Saturday he gave his first TEDx talk at TEDx NYU. All credit goes to him for his accomplishments, but I felt great pride seeing something that emerged from my course reach international acclaim and to see his skill in representing the project. https://youtu.be/Ig1W6M_-ka8 The beginning This…

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TOMORROW: My webinar with LEADx, “Lead without authority”

TOMORROW NOON eastern (9am pacific) see me live on the LEADx webinar, "Lead without authority." LEADx told me that over 100 people have registered so far. It's free, but you have to register. LEADx is important. They created Inc.'s annual influential list of 100 top public speakers (16 of whom have been on my podcast or I've been on theirs). We'll cover a set of skills that will get you far in life, and whose lack can lead to stagnation. You'll learn How to lead people you don't have authority over, such as your boss, clients, the CEO, family, friends…

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Learn to lead without relying on authority: Two workshops this week. You’re invited.

The Leadership and the Environment podcast team is growing, which means expanding to new ways to Develop people's leadership and Act on the environment I've interviewed Ryan and Ben, the podcast's newest teammates so you'll get to meet them when their interviews get processed. In the meantime, we've organized two leadership development workshops THIS WEEK: Wednesday and Thursday, 6pm--8pm at NYU. Click these links to register and for the details, maps, etc. Wednesday, 6pm--8pm Thursday, 6pm--8pm The event descriptions Want to improve as a leader? Do you care about the environment enough to act on it? Do both! (while having…

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