All posts by David Gottfried

Episode 59 Joel Cesare

As you may know, I love most sports and the more physical and rigorous the better. Steep mountains to climb on a bike or trail, waves to surf, and powder mountains to snowboard ignite my fire. And perhaps this also resonates with you.

The sharing economy is growing, as we no longer need to own cars, bikes and vacation homes, but can rent them out to each other. This is not only economical, but also environmental.

In this week’s Regen360 Podcast, we learn about a cool startup called StokeShare from its Chief Searcher, Joel Cesare. StokeShare is based on the sharing of sporting equipment that’s in our homes and garages building up dust if not being fully utilized. The sharing service is already throughout the U.S. and in a dozen countries, as it brings enhanced joy and stoke to participants on both sides of the transaction. I love their motto: Own Less. Do More. Share Stoke.

StokeShare also has an interesting give back program, helping at risk inner-city youth through a crowdsourced volunteer program. Please join me in my conversation with Joel Cesare, who’s also a green building specialist for the City of Santa Monica, one of the world’s foremost green cities and a former client of mine.

Episode 58 Robin Arzon

For my 56th birthday about 18 months ago, my wife bought me one of the best gifts ever. While we were celebrating at a family dinner with my folks and kid, the doorbell rings. Sara pops up and opens the door. Two guys wheel in and then set up a new Peloton spin bike. Boy was I excited, having wanted one for a year or more — to complement my extensive outdoor road-bike cycling.

Once they set up the bike complete with a monster computer screen, we turn it on and stream a random spin class from their New York recording studio.

Hey, I’m Robin and are you ready to sweat with swagger? This class is definitely explicit,” she belts out. Robin Arzon, the VP of Fitness and Head Instructor at Peloton Cycle is dressed in a bright red tailored workout shirt that says Peloton, and has about 7 bracelets on her wrist and a smile that could light up the city in a dark storm. “There’s always light through the cracks — reinforce your power,” she adds later.

Well, since then, our family has pedaled vigorously to all types of hip music over about 200 Peloton rides, almost all exclusively with Robin, including my 12-year-old daughter.

As we’ve learned, spinning with Robin is much more than an exercise class. It’s about pushing ourselves to our fullest in all of life. She’s an inspiration to not only learn about physical limits but to blast through emotional, mental and other limiting thoughts and barriers we impose.

In Robin’s recent New York Times bestselling book, Shut Up and Run, she shares her amazing life story and incredible drive and spirit to overcome everything [she was a hostage] and cherish the things “that make us go ‘Damn!’ when we’re 100.”

I was thrilled to have the opportunity to have a deep conversation with Robin and steer it far from the bike to the depths of life’s purpose. Please join us here, as Robin also inspires you to start running or spinning to an unlimited future, as she’s done for our family and her enormous community.

David

Episode 57 Dr. Sara Gottfried

For all of us, it’s tough to sustain the gains we’ve achieved from our detoxes, cleanses and diets. Most people gain back all of their weight loss within two years. And that’s because diets don’t work by failing to address the root causes for weight gain.

In this week’s Regen360 podcast show, we have the opportunity to sit down with none other than my three times New York Times bestselling author wife, Dr. Sara Gottfried. She’s also a Harvard-MIT integrative functional medicine physician.

Both Sara and I have had food issues in our lives, and she has pioneered a protocol for us and hundreds of thousands of others to learn how to eat differently – in a more balanced way for our hormones and to age younger. In this week’s podcast, we talk about ways to soothe ourselves that’s not food, and what to do if you fall off the wagon.

I’m in the best shape of my life and according to my telomeres, aging younger than my age. My weight is below that of my high school and college years. I owe it to my wife’s counsel and programs.

We’re all human, and being perfect with our food is impossible. Losing our way is inevitable, but what’s really important, is to deploy tools that help you stay the course. With Thanksgiving this week it’s the start of holiday parties and festivities, and that means lots of good food and drinks. More than ever, we need help to navigate the sugar, gluten, and alcohol.

I hope you can join my wife, Dr. Sara, and me for this insightful and helpful podcast.

David Gottfried

PS: If you’re digging my shows, please let me hear from you and leave a review in iTunes. Sign up for my BuildMove pilot course priority waitlist to be the first to learn of the training and how to create your own Plan-LTM [L = legacy].

Episode 56 Beth Rattner

For much of our history, we’ve struggled against nature, even working to tame it as we built civilizations. However, the field of Biomimicry turns the issue around 180 degrees and shows us how to learn from nature as our best teacher. If we study nature and begin to embody its design laws into our creations, we can live in greater harmony and life flourish.

Human systems design has been flawed for more than a century, and none greater than after the industrial revolution. We’ve created enormous pollution, waste, and harmful toxins. As a result, the health of the planet and all of us is suffering and our future sustainability questionable.

In this week’s Regen360 iTunes podcast we learn from Beth Rattner, Executive Director of the Biomimicry Institute, which was founded by Janine Benyus and Bryony Schwan in 2006. The Institute is helping us learn from nature through its programs and tools including ASKNature.

Our future resiliency requires a nature-based design approach to everything we do. I hope you’ll join us to learn more. We need to “view nature not as a warehouse of goods, but as a storehouse of knowledge and inspiration for sustainable solutions.”

David Gottfried

From Hulk to Activist – Mark Ruffalo

To create a healthier, sustainable future individuals must awaken and embody their beliefs by their everyday choices. It also requires the work of visionaries and activists, like Mark Ruffalo, who use their voices and activism to manifest change and inspire others to answer their own inner-call.

Mark’s story is BIG and STRONG. You may know Mark Ruffalo best as “Hulk” in the movie Avengers I & II, in addition to other leading roles (The Kids are Alright is my favorite). While I love his films, I’m most impressed with how Mark has used Hollywood acclaim as a foundation from which to make the world a better place. In addition to acting and filmmaking – Mark’s a powerful humanitarian, environmentalist and Activist!

I met him years ago through his work trying to green New York by leading the fight against fracking and then his work with the Solutions Project inspired by Stanford, my alma mater, where I got the green bug.

I was excited to interview Mark Ruffalo for my first Regen360 podcast to learn more about him and his realistic plans for making the change to green energy using the technology we have right now and not toxic to our aquifers and health.

You can listen to my full interview with Mark on REGEN360 Podcast Episode 1. Below are some of the highlights.

Mark’s Hears the Call Early

As a boy in 1970s Kenosha, Wisconsin, Mark had a passionate love of nature.

At the time, me and my friends formed a little group called, “The Foresters”…our dream was to…protect the forests. This power plant was [in Kenosha] and I started to notice…how it degraded the vibrancy of the life there. I think that was probably where my environmentalism started.

Mark’s grandmother lived on Lake Michigan, and during visits, he noticed fish and lakeside wildlife had growths and sores that weren’t natural. The more he paid attention he realized environmental pollution was destroying life as we know it.

You Can Effect Change

Through his early participation in movements to reduce pollution, change emissions policies for coal power plants, and clean up Lake Michigan, Mark was struck by the reality, “you could effect change…you could be a steward of your environment…there were things that could be done – and we did a lot.” The Lake Michigan’s clean water and the disappearance of cancer-ridden fish and dead birds were evidence of this.

Eventually, Mark moved his family to New York, had a successful acting career and decided it was time to put his social conscience to work making a difference in the global community.

I had three kids; it wasn’t just me and my wife anymore…and I don’t like the future that’s being promised to us today by continued fossil fuel usage and our mass consumption…I want to change that.

The Solutions Project is a Powerful Movement for Change

The Solutions Project is exactly that – a platform for creating plan-based solutions for the entire US. Their plans for all 50 states include:

  • Take each state to 100% renewable energy by 2050, based on the technology available today.
  • Creating millions of jobs
  • Saving 250,000 lives per year by reducing fossil fuel pollution-related deaths.
  • Saving the country millions (potentially trillions) in healthcare costs by mitigating pollution.

One of the organization’s goals is to create viable plans that acknowledge not everyone is a “tree-hugger,” meaning global solutions need to make good business sense.

Walmart doesn’t put solar on all their stores because they’re tree-huggers. They [do it] because it stabilizes their costs for long-term energy – and that’s good business.

Mark learned this lesson in the midst of the hydro-fracking fight. He realized a significant percentage of the population doesn’t want to sacrifice anything to change the lives they’re living now. Thus, environmental arguments and solutions must be universally viable. This led him to partner up with VP of Tesla, Marco Krapels, Stanford expert, Mark Jacobsen and other visionaries – eventually founding Solutions Project.

True Change Requires Concrete Plans – Not Theories

Mark points out we need a second industrial revolution to clean up the mess of the first, and the unbelievable reality that in the decades of theorizing and talking about it – nobody has broken out with a realistic, do-able, real-life plan – until now.

We can…theorize…all day long…it’s a topic of conversation. But once you have a plan backed by some entity or university, like Stanford, now you have a deep science to…create a debate that has credibility...it actually shows you how you can do it.

With their plan, you don’t bring on new fossil-fuel technologies when the old ones become obsolete – you replace obsolete fossil-fuel technology with green technology.

It’s very gentle, it’s very elegant…it’s not asking anyone to give up anything…just to begin using what’s available.

This can all be done with wind, water and sun – and each state uses its own resource to make the plan a reality. There’s absolutely zero need for fossil fuels or nuclear energy. Best of all, this is all available to us today.

Replace Doom & Gloom with Abundance

I love how Mark wants to transform the doom and gloom approach the environmental movement is known for with a vision of the abundance waiting for us on the other side.

The bottom line is a future including fossil fuels is a brutal and ugly one – but switching to the green energy model right now immediately equals a positive future where many global health issues are obliterated,  Mother Nature is honored and protected, and humanity achieves liberation and abundance.

I’m grateful to the fossil fuel industry for giving us the 70-years that brought us through the…technological revolution. Now we can evolve…

What a treat it was to discuss these and other issues with Mark. It’s time for us to support the plans put forth by the Solutions Project for a completely practical – not to mention kinder and healthier – future.

Don’t forget to check out this (Episode #1) and other inspiring interviews with our world’s leading environmental visionaries at REGEN360’s Podcasts. Are you ready to let REGEN360 help your vision become part of a greener, more sustainable movement? Sign up for my priority waitlist to create your own legacy.

Episode 55 Todd White

I must admit, I love good red wine. But unfortunately, not all wine likes me.

Then I met Todd White at a business mastermind a few months ago, and a healthy wine option appeared. Todd imports European dry farm wines, and that’s the name of his fast-growing Napa business. And as I’ve found, his wines don’t make me tipsy [and believe me, I’m a super lightweight], or give me hangovers the next morning. Wow!

I tracked down Todd to visit with us on Regen360 Podcast for this week’s interview so that I could ask him all of my questions: mostly the big why, how and where of the commercial wine industry and the differences of his wines.

As you’ll hear, Todd is a super energetic and enthusiastic wine expert, and equally, a self-declared “biohacker.” In our interview, he discloses the hidden health details of the wine industry and his firm’s criteria for protecting us. We also dive into Todd’s biohacking activities.

You’ll learn, enjoy and don’t miss out on Todd’s special offer to our listeners at the end. It’s a wine gift for the holidays that’s free!

Cheers!

David

Episode 54 Alvaro Sanchez

More than ever diversity issues are coming to the forefront. This includes recent NFL knee taking during the national anthem, as well as corporate CSR initiatives and city planning. There’s also a corresponding relationship between diversity and sustainability.

How we design cities makes a difference where communities of color thrive and race isn’t a barrier to opportunity. This week’s Regen360 iTunes podcast is with Alvaro Sanchez of the Greenlining Institute. He’s an expert in environmental equity and urban planning. We discuss these cutting-edge issues and also DACA immigration.

Please join me for an engaging and important conversation as our nation still struggles to provide triple-bottom-line profitability for all.

-David

Episode 53 Jason Harris

How do we spark everyone into beneficial action? After all, we’re all responsible for Earth, our home, and the health of people and other living species.

But time gets in the way. We’re often distracted and busy. Our plate is already full, and there’s just not much room to add do-good initiatives. It becomes a distant thought for later…

Well, what if you could make room for adding a Plan-L™ to your work and life now? If you didn’t guess it, “L” stands for legacy – one of my obsessions, since starting the U.S. Green Building Council and then later the World Green Building Council and a successful consulting practice.

As you’ll learn in this week’s Regen360 podcast show, adopting a Plan-L™ right now can not only help people and the planet, but boost your sales, and enrich relationships. It involves soul based work that makes it easier to get up in the morning and boosts your brands, as well as many other benefits such as employee morale and retention.

Please join me in listening to my interview with Jason Harris, President and CEO of Mekanism, an award-winning ad agency with heart and values. The firm has leading clients such as Disney, Adidas, Levi’s, Ben & Jerry’s and The White House. It has made “good” an integral part of their strategic plan and service offering.

David Gottfried

PS: If you’re digging my shows, please let me hear from you and leave a review in iTunes. Sign up for my BuildMove pilot course priority waitlist to be the first to learn of the training.