[FOCUS] Systemic Change Starts With Intrinsic Motivation by Josh Spodek

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Welcome to common sessions.

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Um, Lakey.

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And as we are about to step into

the new year, we are bringing

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you another special rebroadcast.

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Today we dive into the second part

of our discussion with Josh sporadic.

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A leader in environmental advocacy and

personal change, who lended a segment in

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the daily show if you want to find out

why you can listen to the previs episode.

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And this.

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Segment jealous shares, deeper

insight into his journey of

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personal transformation and

environmental responsibility.

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Challenging conventional notions about

sustainable living and climate action.

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Josh.

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Believes that the key to systemic change

lies in individual transformation.

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That is why his work also includes

coaching high profile leaders.

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Like C-suite executives.

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From major polluting companies or

politicians to cultivate a deeper

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sense of environmental responsibility.

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And this influences.

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Because the actions can create significant

ripples through the positions of

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power . Have you had experiences with

some people and, and sort of, can you

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share some of those with us of people

who may not be themselves in a place

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where they're, they're intrinsically

motivated to go try and forge a new

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trail and experiment themselves?

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Can you talk to a little bit of that?

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One comes to mind, there's like,

the people I want to lead are

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gonna be the people who can

make the biggest difference.

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So these are gonna be.

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C-suite executives at major polluting

companies, politicians, elected officials,

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also people in culture, singers,

athletes, movie stars, television stars.

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These are the people that are

the most effective role models.

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And there's one executive at this oil

company, and I can't say who it is

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and I can't say where it is because

we have a working relationship,

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but he, for the longest time, we.

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Keeping in touch, but not really

talking about energy and pollution.

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But I really wanted to work with him.

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And so I've developed something called the

Spock method, which is a, a way to work

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with someone to evoke their emotions and

feelings and values around the environment

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in a supportive, nonjudgmental way.

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And then lead them to come up with a

way for them to act on those emotions,

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on what the environment means to them.

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And this is a very different, subtle,

Critically different thing than to

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say, here's what you have to do.

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It's what do you like to do?

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And how can you do something like

that relevant to the environment?

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And by making it meaningful in that

way, because they're acting on their

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values, not what the New York Times

tells 'em they're supposed to do,

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or Greenpeace tells 'em that they're

supposed to do, then big or small

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doesn't matter because they're gonna

like it and they're gonna do it more.

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So he was resisting.

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I kept saying to him, let's do this

photo method, because I think once

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you do it, you'll really appreci.

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The way that I work and

you like doing more.

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And he was like, no, no, no, no, no.

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So we keep the conversation going

and at one point he talks about

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visiting a relative and he sees

something that he had read about that

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he hadn't seen with his own eyes.

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And that was that near this

relative, it was his grandmother

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and, and there was a force near

her where he used to play as a kid.

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And it didn't get cold

enough in the winter.

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And there's a beetle that could

continue to grow that normally

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would not grow because of the cold.

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And the beetle had just

eaten up this whole forest.

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So I haven't seen a picture of

it, but it sounds like it was just

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stumps acres and acres of stumps.

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And he was heartbroken because

it was something as a kid.

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And so even though this was in a

statement of something that mattered to

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him, and I walked him through the Spock

method without asking him, but since

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it was out there, I could work with it.

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And he decided that the way he would

act on this was that he takes a walk

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in the park near where he lives.

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What he committed to was to pick

up litter in that park to keep it

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a little cleaner, and it evolved in

the month or so that he was doing it.

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I think I forget exactly how long he

was doing this to involve his daughter

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and his daughter started when he would

go to the playground with his daughter.

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They would pick up litter.

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And people around them.

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At first were like, what's

wrong with you guys?

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And then eventually they started picking

up letter two and it became something

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between him and his daughter that was fun.

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So this is not an obligation,

this is not in his mind.

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He's doing something that he

enjoys, partly in reaction to the,

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the magnitude of the feeling he

had when he saw the the forest.

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Because of this, he starts

saying, all right, let's bring

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you into the company now.

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Let, and he's, he works with

people in C-suite of one of the

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major oil companies in the world.

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And in order to bring a new

leadership coach, it has to go

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through several steps that they

have a lot of internal leadership

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coaching and a lot of inter practices.

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So we have to present how I

work for their internal review

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to make sure that it works.

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We're working on creating

this presentation.

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We're using past presentations

of things that have worked

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and the usual corporate stuff.

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And the, the, the method, by the

way, is in corporate speak, would be,

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this is a mindset shift followed by

a process of continual improvement.

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And I start with a mindset

shift with this photo method.

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And then the continual improvement

is, you know, we always overestimate.

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Not always, but we tend to overestimate

what we can do in a day, but

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underestimate what we can do in a year.

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And so lots of these little changes

add up to a lot in one person.

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If you keep doing it right, you can't

just do one thing and stop anyway.

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We get to doing this presentation

and or we're forming it.

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And in the presentation we're putting

all these numbers and how it works

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and past clients and things like that.

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And then he puts in, he says, here's

this picture, and it's a picture of his.

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At a playground and she's standing

there with a big smile on her face and

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she's holding up a piece of litter.

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He said that we are at the playground

together and she saw a piece of litter.

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She was on the monkey bars or

whatever, and she just runs

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over and picks up the litter and

she's so happy that she's got it.

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And that goes into the presentation

because what's gonna make this

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work at the company is not

the numbers, the oil company.

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They know the numbers better than anyone.

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They know what works, what

doesn't work, and so forth.

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What they don't know is that when

they do this, they, the executives are

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gonna connect with their kids more.

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They're gonna love the

experience on a human level.

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That is something that you can't fake.

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I can say to someone, You're gonna

like doing this because it's gonna

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bring you closer to your family.

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It's gonna bring you closer

to everyone in the world.

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It's gonna connect you.

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You know, most people

think, oh fuck, I can't fly.

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I'm not gonna get to go see Machu Picchu.

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I'm not gonna get to see all

these different cultures and

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I'm not gonna see my mom on the

other coast and things like that.

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But when we see that taking others

into account for everything that we do,

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because every the pollution, you pollute

the air, you pollute everyone's air.

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We're all connected this way.

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That's a beautiful.

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That's not a burden that I

have to take into account.

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Oh, every time I do something, I

have to think about every other

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person on the planet that's glorious.

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And now he could show that

from his personal experience.

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And you might say, well, picking up

litter in the park is not a big deal.

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Well, I'm gonna be talking.

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Well, we can't be for sure, but looks

like I'll be on a path toward talking

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to the C-suite of a major oil company.

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That could be some pretty big

change, and that's why I don't

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think that you can get there.

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Genuinely, authentically living

the values and enjoying them.

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Actually, if I go back to that first

time when I was avoiding packaged food

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for week, there was a part of me that

wanted to hate the experience, that

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wanted to feel miserable and realized

if the cure is worse than a disease,

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I would take the disease and just say,

well, if we go down, we go down, but

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at least I'll have fun and join the I.

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I kind of wanted that to.

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Because it would've been so much easier

just to say, I throw out my hands.

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What can I do?

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Only governments and corporations

can make a difference.

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I can't make a difference.

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But that was wrong.

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It's a much better life.

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Living humble to nature than there's

a quota came from Abraham Lincoln.

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I actually, I gotta say cuz

video uses so much power.

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I'm reading a lot more books these days

because I'm not watching videos and I've

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read two biographies at Abraham Lincoln.

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and both.

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Great.

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I can't believe I've made it

this long without learning

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more about our 16th president.

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Well, America's 16th president.

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I'm American and it's, I'm not gonna

say it word for word I, but it says The

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worst thing you can do to yourself is

to do something that you know is wrong.

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Once you do something you

know is wrong, you have to

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convince yourself why it's okay.

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You have to suppress and deny

and twist yourself up inside and.

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I mean, Lincoln knew what happened

when people did that, but we have

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a culture built on polluting.

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Knowing that we're polluting, knowing

that it's wrong and internally

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twisting ourselves up to say, why?

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Oh, our, the plane was gonna fly anyway,

or, what I do doesn't matter, or only

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governance in corporations can make a

difference on the scale that we need.

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It twists us up it that is not.

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I could only have found that

out by actually living this way

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and finding the glory in it.

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I dunno if I've gone too off, too off

topic or to a side, to any sidebar.

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I think this is beautiful and,

and we're, we're, that's what

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conversations are all about is figuring

out and finding out where they go.

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