We’re at the halfway point of Leadership Step By Step’s exercises! This week’s exercise was to avoid imposing values on other people. What exactly does that entail? To start, avoid using the terms “good”, “bad”, “right”, and “wrong”, but with a stretch goal of also avoiding “should”, “appropriate”, “better”, and “worse”, among a few others. Not forever, but just for […]
My 3 Pillars of Sustainability – The Values I Focus On To Give My Life Meaning
As a blogger, podcast host, and attempted influencer, I spend a lot of time thinking about sustainability, but also how to recruit more people to the cause of living a life that is better for you and better for the planet. “Save the Planet” works great on people whose values are to help wildlife or preserve natural spaces (people like […]
Leadership Step By Step – Exercise #10: No, But, However
For the tenth exercise of Leadership Step By Step, I had a deceivingly simple task: do not start responses with the words “no”, “but”, or “however.” The goal of which was to become more self-aware of how you interact with people and specifically, whether you are communicating in a way that is detrimental to relationship-building. What does a good conversation […]
Leadership Step By Step – Exercise #9: Adopt a Challenging Belief
For the 9th exercise of Leadership Step By Step, I had to do the exact same thing as in Exercise 8 (feel an unwanted emotion, identify the unwanted belief, find a belief to replace it with), but now with a challenging belief. The trick is…I feel like the two beliefs I ended up trying to change for the last exercise […]
Keep It Simple: The Most Important Lesson I Learned From A Year of Plant-Based Cooking
As most of you already know, last year I embarked on a journey to increase my knowledge of vegetarian and vegan recipes and I truly learned a lot from making a whole new slew of dishes that I’ve never made before, from simple veggie pasta, to Indian chickpea masala. Some of you may be wondering…How many of those dishes am […]
Leadership Step By Step – Exercise #8: Adopt a New Belief
For the next exercise, I had to adopt a new belief, using the book’s methodology: identify a negative emotion that comes up frequently, name it, identify the belief that brings rise to it, then identify the new emotion you want to replace it with, and come up with a replacement belief to think of everytime that negative emotion comes up. […]
Verdant Growth: Stretch Goals for 2025
In my last blog post, I covered some of my main goals I want to achieve in the sustainability/Verdant Growth side of my life, but I have a few smaller stretch goals that I’d like to try for as well. These are goals that I thought of as I tried to figure out what I want my goals to be […]
Leadership Step By Step – Exercise #7: Authentic Voice
The Authentic Voice exercise is a simple exercise on the surface: instead of writing your inner monologue like I did in exercise #3, this time you have to verbalize it, first alone, but then with friends, family, or anyone else. The first couple of times doing this exercise on my own made it seem easy enough – it was just […]
Hello, 2025! Challenges for the new year!
We’ve entered 2025! This means it’s time to set some new goals for the year. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’d like to do this year in regards to living happier, healthier, and more environmentally conscious, and how I reflect that on the internet (blog, podcast, videos, etc.). Mindset When people think about sustainability and responsibility, we generally […]
Leadership Step By Step – Exercise #6: Unwanted Beliefs
This week, the Leadership Step By Step exercise was to attempt to identify unwanted beliefs everytime you feel an emotion you don’t like. This exercise felt distinctly different from the past two. Whereas when I was just trying to identify as many beliefs of mine or others felt like it was something I had to constantly remind myself to do, […]