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32 episodes with sean hart
2 episodes with sean hart
2 episodes with sean hart
2 episodes with sean hart
A mortgage broker with a passion for uncovering hidden opportunities, Sean Hart of CMG Home Loans uncovers his unique journey from a family mining legacy in Montana to a thriving career in mortgage brokerage.We learn how Sean's experiences in gold mining, even being featured on Discovery Channel's Mine Rescue, mirrors his passion for helping families achieve the dream of homeownership. Hear tales of perseverance, innovation, and heartfelt client advocacy that defines who Sean is. Whether you're fascinated by mining, homeownership, or the drive to overcome challenges, this podcast offers a captivating mix of insights you won't want to miss!What's the most unexpected lesson Sean learned from his family's mining legacy? Is there still gold to be found in California? How did it feel being featured on Mine Rescue?CLICK HERE for more information about Sean Hart.CLICK HERE for more information about CMG Home Loans.
Our latest episode features the creative minds behind the world premiere of "The Fall" at the Mammoth Film Festival. Join director and writer Sean Hart, producer Michael Schilf, and talented actors Jeremy Sumpter, Cassandra Scerbo, Matthew Fahey, and Thomas Cocquerel as they share the profound journey of bringing this emotionally charged film to life. Uncover how Sean's personal experiences with loss shaped the narrative, and explore the unconventional yet effective collaboration that formed the nucleus of this remarkable project. Peek behind the curtain to understand the foundational pillars of Lunar Door, the production company co-founded by Michael Schilf, which emerged from the success of a short film in 2019. Discover how the team leveraged enduring industry relationships to assemble a dream cast that included friends and seasoned actors for "The Fall." This episode offers more than just a glimpse into a film premiere; it's a testament to the power of collaboration, storytelling, and the resilience of a creative community. Perfect for those passionate about filmmaking, artistry, and the transformative impact of compelling narratives, this is a conversation you won't want to miss.Send us a textFor our listeners, CFA's teamed up with We Make Movies to get you a discount on production management services, including access to comprehensive production insurance and workers' comp for your next shoot. Visit wemakemovies.org/insurance and use code CFA23 on your intake form for 10% off your quote.Calling all actors! Take 25% off your membership at WeAudition with code: CFA25 Website: www.cinematographyforactors.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cinematographyforactors TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cinematographyforactors Cinematography for Actors is a community aimed at bridging the gap between talent & crew through our weekly podcast & community events. Our weekly show supports the filmmaking community through transparent, honest & technically focused interviews with the goal of elevating the art of effective storytelling.
This year, the featured winner of the Rocky Talkie Search and Rescue Award is the Black Canyon Search and Rescue team, who performed an incredibly technical rescue in 2023 in the Black Canyon, after a climber took a bad fall that left them unconscious, needing medical attention almost 2,000 ft down into the canyon. In this episode, we sit down to chat with Sean Hart, one of the SAR team members at the scene that day, who walks us through the unique challenges of climbing and rescuing in The Black, the harrowing rescue by Blackhawk helicopter, how critical communication is in rescues, and how to always have a plan B. Learn more about the Rocky Talkie Search and Rescue Award, watch the film about this incredible rescue, and get the chance to give back to your local search and rescue team AND win some incredible gear by going to https://rockytalkie.com/pages/sar-award
Experience the heart and soul of independent filmmaking as we bring you behind the scenes at the Mammoth Film Festival for THREE Lunar Door films!Join us as we delve into authentic storytelling and the tight-knit bonds formed on set of “The Fall” with the team including director Sean Hart, producer Michael Schilf, and actors Jeremy Sumter and Cassie Scarbo.Then, strap on your skates and glide into the thrilling world of "Ice Cross," where we share the production adventures and personal triumphs of four athletes.Finally, embark on a two-wheeled journey with “Tracing the Divide,” discovering the profound narrative that unfolds from Canada to Mexico. This episode captures the essence of filmmaking, showcasing the magic of storytelling against the backdrop of epic journeys.Send us a Text Message.For our listeners, CFA's teamed up with We Make Movies to get you a discount on production management services, including access to comprehensive production insurance and workers' comp for your next shoot. Visit wemakemovies.org/insurance and use code CFA23 on your intake form for 10% off your quote.Calling all actors! Take 25% off your membership at WeAudition with code: CFA25 Website: www.cinematographyforactors.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cinematographyforactors TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cinematographyforactors Cinematography for Actors is a community aimed at bridging the gap between talent & crew through our weekly podcast & community events. Our weekly show supports the filmmaking community through transparent, honest & technically focused interviews with the goal of elevating the art of effective storytelling.
Post Purchase Pro Marketing Seth Stevens and Shawn Hart, Post Purchase Pro – The Sharkpreneur podcast with Seth Greene Episode 884 Seth Stevens and Shawn Hart Seth Stevens and Sean Hart specialize in helping Amazon sellers grow their revenue by building real relationships with their customers through email and text marketing. Listen to this informative Sharkpreneur episode with Seth Stevens and Shawn Hart about helping people sell more on Amazon with Post Purchase Pro. Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week's show: - How post purchase marketing is everything that is done after the initial sale. - Why following up with you customers is an important part to any business. - How building everything around your brand allows you to exit your business successfully. - Why reminding your clients with follow up texts or emails about other services leads to more sales. - How the most valuable asset of any business is their customers. Connect with Seth and Shawn: Guest Contact Info Instagram @postpurchasepro Facebook facebook.com/postpurchasepro Links Mentioned: postpurchasepro.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sean Hart, VP of Development for American Family Care talks about relying on their mission statement to guide development and growth successfully and providing the support franchisees need. "See customers where they are in ways that are convenient for them at prices that make sense for them."
Shaun Hart is a former AFL player who reached the pinnacle of success when he played for the Brisbane Lions and they won the premiership from 2001 through 2003. However, he says that even though he and his team were having success on the field, he was often battling with depression off the field. In this interview Shaun shares about his testimony of how his life has been transformed through Christ and about his current efforts to help prevent suicide. Support the show: http://historymakersradio.com/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What we discussed: We have a proliferation of agreements, commitments, and pledges to achieve climate mitigation. But what's underneath the pledges? And which pledges achieve the action that we need? Kaya Axelsson and I discussed incentives, purpose of business, and pledges in our reflection of Season 3 interviews. Why it matters: What if every think tank, university department or company organized themselves with the responsibility of reducing 1 gigaton of carbon? This is a simple metric that allows people to thrive in their job yet organize the goal to meaningful impact. What it means for you: There is carbon being emitted from every sector – whether agriculture, real estate, manufacturing, retail, and so on. Which gigaton of reduction are you focused on? About Kaya Axelsson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaya-axelsson-7057834b/About Levers of Exchange:Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: https://www.leversofexchange.com/ Season 3 is funded by a generous grant from the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, at the Saïd Business School, Oxford University. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
What we discussed: Systems change needs people who have broad views and understands the details. Kaya Axelsson and I reflected on the similarities behind the differences of electric utilities, water systems, telecom, financial and maritime sectors that our guests discussed. Why it matters: The general concepts of systems change needs to be implemented by practitioners who are deeply focused on the details of how their system works. When we zoom out to see the commonalities, we see how the challenges in one sector may have already been addressed by another sector. What it means for you: Bonus ContentAbout Kaya Axelsson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaya-axelsson-7057834b/About Levers of Exchange:Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: https://www.leversofexchange.com/Season 3 is funded by a generous grant from the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, at the Saïd Business School, Oxford University. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Personal Resilience. Vision. Listening, and a sense of curiosity. These were the skills that our Season 3 guests recommended students and early career professionals learn today if they want to enter the sustainability sector. Our guests spanned across telecom, water, finance, maritime, electric utilities and cultural systems. I was curious, are the skills to succeed the same or different? I asked every guest, what skill they would advise a student or early professional to learn. The answers were very revealing.Natalia Pshenichnaya, the former Head of Programmes at the GSMA Foundation tied personal resilience to how this deeper inner awareness keeps the person grounded in what's important to them. Joaquin Viquez, a water consultant for the German Development Agency G-I-Zed, also pointed out the importance of a vision and personal passion.James Mitchell trained as a cellist before creating a career in Sustainable Finance. Now at the Rocky Mountain Institute, he pointed out that just like in a chamber music group, listening to each other, hearing each other, responding and reacting in kind with each other, is a critical skill to learn.Three of our guests, however, pointed out the power of curiosity and asking the right question, including Jeremy McDaniels, now the Senior Advisor for Sustainable Finance at the Institute of International Finance.Stuart Hilen, a Portfolio Developer at EnergyAustralia, put it differently. He considered the skills he looks for when hiring team members.Finally, Shruthi Vijayakumar summed it up beautifully. Questions invite others into our own space, to question with us.So, there you have it. Those are the skills that students and early career professionals should learn. It's not the textbook lessons that will create systems change. It's the interpersonal skills of inviting others in, of making chamber music together, that will create the new systems for everlasting change. Guests:· Stuart Hillen, EnergyAustralia, Melbourne, Australia https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuart-hillen/· Jeremy McDaniels, Institute of International Finance, Washington DC USA https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-mcdaniels/· James Mitchell, Rocky Mountain Institute, London, UK https://www.linkedin.com/in/james20/· Natalia Pshenichnaya, formerly GSM Association, Berlin, Germany https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalia-pshenichnaya-7107781a/· Shruthi Vijayakumar, Education New Zealand, Auckland, New Zealand https://www.linkedin.com/in/shruthivijayakumar/· Joaquin Viquez, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, San Jose, Costa Rica https://www.linkedin.com/in/joaquinviquez/ About Levers of Exchange:Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: https://www.leversofexchange.com/Image by Juraj Varga from Pixabay Season 3 is funded by a generous grant from the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, at the Saïd Business School, Oxford University. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Have you ever wondered if skills that got us to where we are today, may not be the same skills needed to solve the world's most pressing problems? For those who have been listening to Season Three, you know that we interviewed six practitioners who work deeply at the intersection of large systems. What are the skills necessary to thrive at those intersections?Shruthi Vijayakumar, a Global Shaper at the World Economic Forum and co-founder of the Emerge Institute, points out that making sense of cultural systems means understanding the historical context and how one fits into the social fabric. For Stuart Hillen, a Portfolio Developer at EnergyAustralia, as an engineer, he found his calling using his problem-solving skills to understand how things work and how things are made.Another trained engineer, Joaquin Viquez who works for the German Development Agency GIZ. He attributed a sense of knowing what's missing rather than noticing what was there.For all of us who work at the intersection of systems, it's communication that is the ultimate skill. Communication comes in many forms. For James Mitchell, Principle at the Rocky Mountain Institute, the stakeholder engagement he had to do in the maritime sector required a lot of listening in order to get the Poseidon Principles launched. Natalia Pshenichnaya, who spent many years at the GSMA Foundation, found new products and applications of how the Telecomm sector could alleviate poverty and improve agriculture businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa. She pointed out the importance to articulate messages in the language and jargon of whomever she was talking to.Finally, Jeremy McDaniels credited facilitation skills at bringing people together across many sectors. As the Senior Advisor for Sustainable Finance at the Institute of International Finance, he interacts with global actors, across 400 institutions and tries to strive for consensus.So there you have it - it's the art of figuring out what's possible. Some of it is curiosity driven, some of it is breaking down big problems into its constituent parts. But time and again, we heard just how important it is to translate between stakeholders - the jargon, the expectations and the underlying mentalities. Hopefully this episode gives you an idea of what skills you have, and what you can develop for a successful future.Guests:Stuart Hillen, EnergyAustralia, Melbourne, Australia https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuart-hillen/Jeremy McDaniels, Institute of International Finance, Washington DC USA https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-mcdaniels/James Mitchell, Rocky Mountain Institute, London, UK https://www.linkedin.com/in/james20/Natalia Pshenichnaya, formerly GSM Association, Berlin, Germany https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalia-pshenichnaya-7107781a/Shruthi Vijayakumar, Education New Zealand, Auckland, New Zealand https://www.linkedin.com/in/shruthivijayakumar/Joaquin Viquez, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, San Jose, Costa Rica https://www.linkedin.com/in/joaquinviquez/About Levers of Exchange:Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: https://www.leversofexchange.com/Image by ErikaWittlieb from PixabaySeason 3 is funded by a generous grant from the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, at the Saïd Business School, Oxford University. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
What we discussed: Wouldn't it make sense, if climate change is a global issue, that we have a consensus in how to approach it? Unfortunately, it's not as easy as it seems. Although the financial sector is building consensus around required disclosures using the framework developed by the Taskforce for Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), different countries are implementing it in different ways. Thus, a fragmentation of policies and approaches may unintentionally undermine progress.Why it matters: There is a tension between explore/exploit. Sometimes, the best strategy is to explore new options by segmenting, fragmenting, and allowing multiple solutions to crop up, while other times it's best to exploit the best option so as to achieve efficiency of scale. The question is: does the financial sector still need to explore ideas of how to align finance to environmental outcomes, or do we need to exploit the structures and methodologies already developed? What it means for you: As you go about implementing systems change, reflect on whether you need new ideas (explore) or you need efficiency gains of existing processes (exploit).Interviewee's Bio:Jeremy McDaniels, Institute of International Finance, Washington DC USAM.S. in Environmental Management (Dist.), University of Oxford, SSEEAs Senior Policy Advisor, Sustainable Finance, in the IIF Global Policy Initiatives department, Jeremy leads projects on climate risk assessment, disclosure, terminology and definitions. He also supports the IIF's engagement on sustainable finance policy and regulatory issues with international standard-setting entities. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-mcdaniels/ In this interview, we discussed the following questions:What's your favorite movies and what's your favorite media?How we interact with sustainability data is becoming incredibly timely.How would you frame sustainable finance as you try to move the world towards net zero goals?Can you elaborate on what materiality means? When you say materiality, what viewpoint do you mean?What is the Institute for International Finance (IIF), and what is your role within IIF?Should there be a monolithic goal for the finance sector to minimize fragmentation, or should each subsector set their own localized sustainability goals?Can you clarify TCFD, Taxonomy and other standards because they each have different roles in sustainable finance?What are some global / geographic challenges that you think can be simplified for sustainability purposes?When you're working at such high levels, how granular do you need to be on the ground to make these decisions?Is any financial subsector more advanced in their sustainable finance thinking and approach?Do you notice a 'translation' issue as different financial sectors grapple with the common problem of climate change?We've spent a lot of time talking about risk, what do you see within the opportunity space?Finance, like legal, accounting, telecommunication, and many others, are just enabling infrastructures for the real economy.When we start bringing time into the equation, time introduces risk. Where is there a lot of uncertainty today? Where did you first get exposed to sustainability as the field you wanted to dedicate your career towards?What did you find at the intersection of media and the public? What do you consider to be your primary skill?To a current student, what skill or expertise do you encourage them to learn?About Levers of Exchange:Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: https://www.leversofexchange.com/ Season 3 is funded by a generous grant from the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, at the Saïd Business School, Oxford University. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
What we discussed: From water, wastewater, biodigestion and agriculture, Joaquin and I talked about how growing up on a farm in Costa Rica influenced his approach to problem solving as well as some of the critical challenges faced by his country. Through his stories, we looked at how the issues he's worked on are interrelated, and which skills have been transferrable between sectors. Why it matters: Joaquin thoughtfully pointed out inquiry and curiosity as the critical skills to understanding how systems work and implementing change. He's not embarrassed to not knowing the answer, and he unabashedly asks “why” as a way of finding out.What it means for you: That confidence to explore what one doesn't know is a skill that systems change agents can adopt. Shruthi pointed it out too in her interview – there needs to be a humility in acknowledging what we don't know as much as we need to recommend best practices of what we do know. Interviewee's Bio:Joaquin Viquez, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, San Jose, Costa RicaMBA, Saïd Business School and Skoll World Forum Fellow Joaquin Viquez is an Agricultural Engineer and a passionate social entrepreneur with 15 years of experience in Latin-American working in environmental projects, water and sanitation. He currently works for the German Agency for Cooperation GIZ in its office in Costa Rica in a regional water and sanitation projects. https://www.linkedin.com/in/joaquinviquez/ In this interview, we discussed the following questions:You grew up in an agriculture family. How did that shape your childhood?How do you view problems through experience? How old were you when you had that formative moment?What were some of the things you tried to do with the extra fruit?You won Technology Review 35 from MIT. That award was given to you for an extension of this idea.What was the technology you won for?Can you elaborate a bit about the methane problem, from the climate side?What were some of the value-added benefits you were able to get to the farmer?How do you personalize a biodigester?What questions were farmers asking of you and what were the factors you could tweak?So how did you pivot working in biogas to working in water? What's the connection there?Can you give us an overview of what are the key issues of wastewater treatment and sanitation?Do different geographic scales (national, regional) have different sanitation issues?Water can be super hyperlocal. How do you deal with that?Can you ever take a technology and plop it into a community, or do you have to tweak for that community?Tell us about GIZ and how it tries to tackle some of these water issues in Costa Rica.What would you say is your critical skill that you're bringing to the team?How important is it to work with local representatives to take care of one's own backyard?What's the web of moving parts that drive towards sanitation outcomes?Water and wastewater - is it more common for one company to manage both?The agriculture / water nexus isn't just watering plants, it's also dissolved phosphorous. Can you explain that?We talked about several different systems and their stakeholder groups. When you're getting introduced to a new system, how do you tease it apart?How do you create systemic shifts?When did you first notice the web of moving parts and when did you decide to do something about it?It's important to notice what's missing! How would you describe the sense of noticing what's missing vs. noticing what's there?The feeling of inquiry and naivety is a benefit of coming in as an outsider.What's your approach to problem solving?Do you see a type of urban development that's more sustainable than others?Most infrastructure tries to centralize for efficiencies scale. But in wastewater you see the opposite, so that localities can take advantage of natural-based solutions.Why is that? What's unique about water / wastewater such that decentralization is preferrable?To a student, what skill would you encourage to learn? About Levers of Exchange:Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: https://www.leversofexchange.com/Season 3 is funded by a generous grant from the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, at the Saïd Business School, Oxford University. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
What we discussed: In a developing country, the mobile phone is a person's first interaction with technology. Thus, the telecom sector is at the tip-of-the-spear to offer banking services, agricultural notifications and health services to hard-to-reach areas.Why it matters: Within 5 years, climate change will change the agricultural crops across much of the world. Yet for small-holder farmers, working on family plots, they are cut off and unaware of the disruption to their livelihoods that is coming their way. What it means for you: It took innovative business models in order to convince the telecom sector to offer new products and innovation in rural areas. Yet the ones who did, reached customer loyalty upwards of 70%, unheard of in the sector. This podcast is a classic case of getting to know your customers on-the-ground to develop life-changing products and services.Interviewee's Bio:Natalia Pshenichnaya, formerly GSMA Foundation, Berlin, GermanyMBA, Saïd Business SchoolAs Head of Programs, Natalia oversaw GSMA Foundation's global portfolio of telecommunication innovation projects. She managed multi-million progammes (£10-20M+) across all stages: from design to evolution, pivot and completion, including GSMA AgriTech, CleanTech and mHealth initiatives. https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalia-pshenichnaya-7107781a/ In this interview, we discussed the following questions:What are some of your favorite vegan recipes?What was it like growing up vegetarian in Russia?How did you start your career in the Telecom sector?When you got to GSMA Foundation, you fell into just the right mix based on your interests. What was your role?What is GSMA Foundation as an organization? Why do you think the telecom sector got interested in impact broadly, but also agriculture specifically? Is competition beyond your traditional industry sector going to become more common through internet-of-things and technology?When you were talking to the farmers on the ground in Kenya, what were some of the problems they would reveal to you?We're talking about small holders, independent farmers who own their own plots. They are subject to these massive shifts in climate.Where does the telecom technology come in and what were some technology solutions?Why could the telecom sector make a difference when other sector couldn't?What was it like when you started off in AgriTech? What was your north star? What do you think is the role of the enabling technologies to climate change?It hints at how societal acceptance of technology lags behind technology adoption. Did you see similarities in working with farmers and with medical tech? What do you consider to be your primary skill?How complex was this interconnected web that you had to work within?There is lot if inertia to not do things when there are multiple stakeholders. How did you find leverage to make change happen?What is what you're most proud of?When you jump into a project that not only you haven't done before, but no one has done before, what do you do first?To a student or early professional today, what skill or expertise do you recommend them to learn? About Levers of Exchange:Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: https://www.leversofexchange.com/ Season 3 is funded by a generous grant from the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, at the Saïd Business School, Oxford University. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
What we discussed: Except for roads, we don't tend to interact with large, physical infrastructures. For sure, we see the wires of the electric grid, but we don't commonly see the electric power plans, refineries, and substations. Stuart and I discussed the business models and challenges that electric utilities face in Australia as they undertake decarbonization efforts. Why it matters: We often forget that we rely on infrastructure being available 100% of the time. Yet the cost of keeping the electric grid operating at that level is immense. Utilities build physical hedges in terms of overcapacity so as to provide certainty on uptime. What it means for you: As you think of system change, think of the failure modes of the system. How many failures are you willing to tolerate? How many can you avoid, and how many backup plans do you need to draw up to guarantee a certain performance criteria? Interviewee's Bio:Stuart Hillen, EnergyAustralia, Melbourne, AustraliaMBA, Saïd Business SchoolAs Portfolio Development Lead Stuart is responsible for originating and executing generation development opportunities to transition EnergyAustralia's 5,000 MW generation portfolio. Technologies covered include utility scale storage, pumped hydro and renewable investments. https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuart-hillen/ In this interview, we discussed the following questions:What's your favorite infrastructure?What were the critical skills you learned as a civil engineer that helps you with your day-to-day jobs?What is the problem solving approach you take as a trained engineer? What's your role at EnergyAustralia?What stage of project development do you get involved in? What is the business model of EnergyAustralia?So you try to have the right physical portfolio mix to provide electricity. When you don't have it, you procure it from the market.Can you describe dispatchable power? Batteries time-shift resources, depending on what's available on the market. Given these movements of fuel shifting globally, what's the role of the utility in decarbonized future?There is quite a bit of indication to "electrify everything". It implies the need to double the size of the electric sector to absorb the transportation sector!You've mentioned a smattering of technologies. Technology cycles are usually 6-18 months, yet utilities need to think in 30 years. As a project developer, how do you match these time cycles?When you're project financing, how much do you have to take into account new business models? What is the not-often discussed field of Ancillary Services?Can you comment on the high costs to effectively maintain 100% uptime of the electric grid?Sometimes the overbuilding is criticized as waste, but to maintain nearly 100% uptime, one just need physical assets as hedges.Another way of creating that resiliency is fuel switching. What's the advantage of the hybrid power plant you worked on?Is Hydrogen a drop in fuel for Natural Gas? Have you seen the trend of hydrogen projects?Hydrogen electrolyzes produce the hydrogen. What sounds unclear is whether the electric utility should own the business model of producing hydrogen, right?When you're evaluating technologies, how do you know if a technology is "good enough"?Are we waiting for technology to improve, or for capital to implement?How many different stakeholders get involved and how many do you have to satisfy? When did you first get exposed to these issues that made you want to work with an electric utility?Were you surprised by the level of complexity of the stakeholders and issues involved?What is it about complexity that made you want to seek it out?So basically, complexity gives you job variety!To a student or early professional, what skill would you recommend them to learn?Curiosity has a humbleness of knowing that there's more to know, and a seeking of what one's lacking.About Levers of Exchange:Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: https://www.leversofexchange.com/ Season 3 is funded by a generous grant from the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, at the SaïdBusiness School, Oxford University. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
What we discussed: The fabric of society is a fine mesh of cultures. When we change world views – from western to Indian to Maori – we find different interpretations of how each culture considers their environment. Why it matters: A sustainable future requires us to make new connections and partnerships with unlikely stakeholders. Yet each of these stakeholder groups are going to have their own expectations, assumptions and modus operandi. Shruthi is really teaching us how to be aware of the different groups we identify with, and how we can translate across those groups to achieve a sustainable future. What it means for you: This episode highlights the importance of understanding a person's cultural roots and heritage as a lens of how they view sustainability. We can apply the same principles of listening, curiosity, and inviting others to join our journey, to our professional lives and our personal lives. Interviewee's Bio:Shruthi Vijayakumar, Global Shaper, World Economic Forum, Auckland, New ZealandMBA, Saïd Business School and Skoll World Forum FellowShruthi is an educator, coach, facilitator and strategist in the field of systems leadership, sustainability and innovation. She has been recognized as a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum and a Global Changemaker by the British Council. She has spoken at WEF's Annual Meeting in Davos and TEDx. https://www.linkedin.com/in/shruthivijayakumar/ In this interview, we discussed the following questions:What is your favorite Haka moment?What is the relationship between the Maori people and the New Zealand Government?How does your multi-ethnic background frame your work in equity, justice and inclusion?How would you frame environmental world view from these different frames?How would you say that influences the work that you do? What would you consider your most important skill?When you're facilitating these conversations, how do you impart that fabric of society onto the people you're facilitating?When did you first noticed the interconnected web of moving parts?About what age were you?What were some of the grassroots projects you participated in?When did you realize you could leverage change within this tangled web?What was it like being inside the Boston Consulting Group?How did you see innovation work within consulting vs. the work you do today? What's the difference between inclusion and building the table together?What does Emerge Institute do?Can you please speak to some of your work at ocean lab?When you have big systemic change goals, how do you bring people along?If you were to re-imagine the education system, what would you do?What skill or expertise would you encourage students to learn? About the Levers of ExchangeInterview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: https://www.leversofexchange.com/ Season 3 is funded by a generous grant from the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, at the Saïd Business School, Oxford University. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
What we discussed: The oceans are our last “commons” of the world, legally defined to be outside the jurisdiction of every country. Thus, maritime management is a great case study of Nobel Laurate Elinor Ostrem's work on managing the commons. Why it matters: Unlike the tragedy of the commons, Ostrem demonstrated that communities can come together to manage common resources without the need of a top-down, hierarchical approach. However, a grounds-up system has a set of rules to follow: Clearly defined boundaries; Proportional equivalence between benefits and costs; Collective choice arrangements; Monitoring; Graduated sanctions; Fast and fair conflict resolution; Local autonomy; Appropriate relations with other tiers of rule-making authority (polycentric governance)What it means for you: As you go about creating systems change, create new systems that are known to work. Ostrem's model is one such model that can be used to manage shared resources. Interviewee's Bio:James Mitchell, Rocky Mountain Institute, London, UKMSc, Nature, Society, and Environmental Policy, University of Oxford, SSEEJames works to align capital flows with climate targets through innovative research on climate risks and opportunities as well as highly ambitious cross-sector collaborations. James has played a leading role in the creation of the Poseidon Principles, the first global climate alignment agreement for financial institutions. https://www.linkedin.com/in/james20/ In this interview, we discussed the following questions:How many frequent flyer miles does your cello have?How does a studied cellist make the transition into sustainable finance?What got you interested in environmental policy in the first place? When did you first get exposed to these ideas?Now that you've been in sustainable finance, how do you frame it?Finance is ultimately an enabling sector. When we say the financial sector is aligned to climate outcomes, what does that mean?It makes me think of other enablers like lawyers and accountants, who have small footprints but enable consumption across the broader economy.Should a bank's portfolio be a reflection of the real economy, or does it have agency to create the real economy?Sustainability within a company is "the whole company." You're pointing out that's true for the entire economy.How do you drive to these market-based solutions for sustainable finance? Do you find more interest in different geographies, such as Europe, US, Asia, or is it a global interest?What are the Poseidon Principles and what was the impetus in developing them?Was the maritime sector involved in the conversation? You're doing metrics for specific subsectors. Why not do one for the entire maritime sector?How many stakeholders did you have to engage with to find your initial set of signatories?The Poseidon principles is simple – there's effectively only one metric. How did the stakeholders settle on that metric?You could have chosen 50 metrics, but you chose just one. Do you think that set the Poseidon Principles apart from the other initiatives out there?What was your most important skill in getting Poseidon Principles Launched?When did you first notice this interconnected web of moving parts?How did Elinor Ostrem's work on the Commons influenced your work?Was there something about the Maritime sector that made it a viable application of Ostrem's work?How do you define the boundaries that the industry sub-groups will work on?What other sectors have similar properties as the maritime sector?One difference is that the maritime is a consumer sector whereas oil & gas is a producing sector.It seems that the more specific the metric, the more actionable. But what about the notion of needing holistic solutions? How do you manage that tension?To a student or early career professional, what skill or expertise do you encourage them to learn? About Levers of ExchangeInterview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: https://www.leversofexchange.com/ Season 3 is funded by a generous grant from the Skoll Center for Social Entrepreneurship, at the Saïd Business School, Oxford University. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
What we discussed: Systems pervade our everyday life and often go unnoticed. Yet making the world more sustainable requires system change. I asked each of our guests to describe when they first noticed the systems that they work within and to describe their formative moments that set them onto their careers. Why it matters: These formative moments become part of how each guest approaches problem solving in their unique way. They frame the thinking and the context of how each approaches the climate crisis. What it means for you: Each one of us has a formative moment. I ask that you, dear listener, reflect on yours. When did you notice the system? More importantly, when did you decide to do something about it? I hope that the six stories in Season 3 will offer inspiration to help us implement our own climate and sustainability strategies.Guests this season:Stuart Hillen, EnergyAustralia, Melbourne, Australia https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuart-hillen/Jeremy McDaniels, Institute of International Finance, Washington DC USA https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-mcdaniels/James Mitchell, Rocky Mountain Institute, London, UK https://www.linkedin.com/in/james20/Natalia Pshenichnaya, formerly GSM Association, Berlin, Germany https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalia-pshenichnaya-7107781a/Shruthi Vijayakumar, Education New Zealand, Auckland, New Zealand https://www.linkedin.com/in/shruthivijayakumar/Joaquin Viquez, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, San Jose, Costa Rica https://www.linkedin.com/in/joaquinviquez/About Levers of Exchange:Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: https://www.leversofexchange.com/Season 3 is funded by a generous grant from the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, at the Saïd Business School, Oxford University. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
I always feel fortunate to get the lineup of guests that we do for this podcast. They carry with them many years of experience and wisdom. One of the areas of continued relevance is advice they give to early professionals. We asked each guest what common challenges they've observed in early career professionals and what mentorship advice they usually give. Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: http://www.leversforchangepodcast.com/Let us start with Jay Bruns, the Senior Climate Policy Advisor to the WA State Insurance Commissioner. His answer was a succinct of the Career Advice Episode from Season 1 - to search for sustainability impact within your existing job rather than applying for a job title that includes Sustainability. Suzanne Singer, Chief Engineer of Native Renewables, see that students as young as Junior High and High School are already getting interested in clean energy jobs. To those people, there's nothing more important than getting good grades because, unfortunately, it’s the metric most of the world relies on. When people enter the work force, they face a multitude of challenges, from simply landing a job, to not settling for less than what matters to them, as Ben Kott, CEO of LightsourceBP Labs observed.It's great if you already have that vision, but what if you don't? Or, what if your vision isn't right sized to your capabilities? Prachi Vakharia, Managing Director of Womanium noted that she often runs into people who underestimates their abilities and encourages people to dream bigger.Stacy Flynn, CEO and co-founder of Evernu agrees. And not just dream bigger, but for a lot of female leaders, to not lose confidence in their abilities and the pursuit of their dreams.But no matter one's passion, their ability to perform must match their visions of big dreams. The upshot? Work hard and know why you're doing it. Jud Virden, Associate Laboratory Director of Pacific Northwest National Labs explainsSo, there you have it. Whether you're in high school or junior high, just trying to land your first job, or trying to shift careers, it is a combination of dreaming big, of knowing the "so what" question that you're working on and working hard to deliver on achieving it. But above all else, it's the grit to continue. After all, each of our guests have spent many decades on their career journeys and they would not be where they are without perseverance.
We are inundated with information and news these days. And since Climate Action is a globally interconnected systems problem, there's a lot of information one needs to know and interact with. That can leave people feeling overwhelmed that they need to master knowledge and skills just to make an impact. So, I asked each of our guests where they receive new information from and how they stay current in an increasingly complex field. Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: http://www.leversforchangepodcast.com/Jud Virden, Associate Laboratory Director at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, manages over 1000 engineers, and he relies on talking to people. Both Jay Bruns, Climate Policy Advisor to the WA State Insurance Commissioner and Suzanne Singer, Chief Engineer of Native Renewables, see talking to industry people as a critical source of information. Both of them gets their information from many respected sources.Just getting information from multiple sources isn't enough. As Ben Kott, CEO of LightsourceBP Labs reminds us, we have to make sense of our information and suggests that one way to do that is through discussions with peers. Stacy Flynn, the consummate systems thinker, gave us her trick in synthesizing new information. It's by scanning table of contents of many books at the same time, and drawing connections between them, even before reading the books themselves. Lastly, Prachi Vakharia, Managing Partner at Womanium, gave a very succinct framework of how to sort through the information and stay current:So, there you have it - qualified information, synthesized ideas, hearing it from people who are doing the work. Break them out into current events, industrial news, and general knowledge. And lastly, talk to people. Share ideas. Listen. I hope you are able to adopt some of these best practices of staying current and well informed.
Frequent listeners to this Podcast know that I like delving into the cleantech and climate story of many different sector, looking for similarities of problems and solutions. I was curious how many other people looked beyond their traditional silos for inspiration. So, to the podcast guests of Season 2, I asked them, what unexpected collaborations have they found themselves in. Answers came in two general categories, those who were surprised, and those who were diligent. Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: http://www.leversforchangepodcast.com/Prachi, Managing Director of Womanium, sets the stage of being open to spontaneity, to welcome surprising collaborations to happen. This surprise can manifest itself in many circumstances, as Suzanne Singer relayed in an anecdote. Not only is she the Chief Engineer of Native Renewables, but she also manages the Social Media account. Sometimes the surprising collaboration isn't with someone unexpected, it's an unexpected reaction of someone within the industry. Stacy Flynn, CEO of Evernu, reflects on some of her efforts working from within the textile sector.Even if one doesn't find themselves in surprising collaborations, they still make an effort to cast a wide net. Jay Bruns, the Senior Climate Policy Advisor to the WA State Insurance Commissioner shares how he learns new information with like-minded individualsAnd no matter how long one works in the climate industry, there is always room for surprise, new opportunities, and new intersections to explore. Jud Virden, of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, shares his excitement to be working on the intersection of the energy and energy and marine technology sector.So, there you have it - surprising results can come through both expected and unexpected collaborations. Intersections of industry and infrastructure is where future innovations will occur. Put yourself in situations where the opportunity for new ideas to emerge. Train yourself to notice them when they do and take advantage of their spontaneity. Then delight in the deep exploration of the new opportunities that present themselves.
The United Nations Sustainability Development Goals has been a great rallying point for global action. But did you know they are set to expire in 2030? The next decade will prove decisive on achieving our climate targets. I asked each of our guests this season what brought them optimism about climate impact. It is easy to become cynical about action to mitigate or avert climate crises. So for our guests, what do they see that brings them hope?Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com) Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.comSeveral pointed to the urgency of the problem, and the opportunities it creates. Ben Kott, CEO of LightsourceBP Lab reflected that there are now climate 'carrots' of opportunities, not just the stick of punishment.Prachi Vakharia, who worked a number of transportation companies saw the same evolution in corporate America. For Jud Virden, who has been on the cutting edge of technology innovation, with his career at Pacific Northwest National Labs, he has seen steady progress, albeit behind-the-scenes. He's optimistic that the cause is becoming more mainstream.At the global level, Jay Bruns, Senior Climate Policy Advisor to the WA State Insurance Commissioner, reflected on the greater visibility climate is getting from regulators across the US and globally. But the actions need to happen faster. Closer to home, Suzanne Singer, of Native Renewables, saw a rising interest in junior high and high school.It's this next generation that gives Stacy Flynn, CEO of Evernu, her optimism. It's not just about the leaders of today, it's also about cultivating the leaders for the second half of the 21st century.So there you have it - lots of reasons to be optimistic about our progress. As Jud pointed out, there's lots to do and as Jay is concerned about, will the change happen fast enough. However, the growing number of people who are working on it, talking about it, and embedding it into their work and lives, is one cause to be optimistic about the future of climate action.
Stacy Flynn, Founder and CEO of Evernu, is our guest. It is a textiles innovation company looking to take recycled fiber from discarded clothes and give it a new life. Over the course of our conversation, I asked, 1) How do clothes get from the farm to the retail stores? 2) How do you innovate in conservative industries, such as textile manufacturing? 3) Where one starts in building new systems solutions.Now let us listen to how a career that started in fashion and fabrics is now working on recycling and repurposing.Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com) Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: www.leversforchangepodcst.com
Ben Kott, the CEO of LightsourceBP Labs, a subsidiary of BP that manufactures and sells home energy management solutions joins us. It is people like Ben who BP relies on to meet its climate goals. We caught up in October 2020 and discussed 1) What it was like inside BP when CEO Bernard Looney made his announcement.2) The value proposition of big data in the clean energy future. 3) How to flex frameworks and pivot when necessary. Listen to how Ben is being an entrepreneur within a major corporation.Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com) Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.com
Today’s guest is Suzanne Singer, founder and Chief Engineer of Native Renewables, an organization that brings renewable solar energy to the 15,000 tribal homes that are off the grid. We talked about 1) How does one translate technical language about Solar Panels into Navajo? 2) What are the cultural values embedded in Native Renewables?3) And what it was like transitioning from being a researcher at a national lab to being an entrepreneur. Listen to this episode to hear how the lessons learned from being off-grid can educate us in our path to net-zero. Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com) Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.com
Today’s guest is Jay Bruns, the Senior Climate Policy Advisor to WA State’s Insurance Commissioner. Over the course of this interview, we will discuss 1) How are global climate risks affecting insurance risks?2) What is the role for the insurance sector in long-term climate change? 3) How does the insurance sector deal with up-and-coming technology innovations?Now let us see how a multi trillion-dollar industry responds to global climate change. Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com) Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.com
Today’s guest is Prachi Vakharia, an entrepreneur and mentor to many companies in the transportation and mobility sector. Over the course of this interview, you will hear her stories regarding 1) How that last mile is getting disrupted by technology.2) How innovation differs, from the MIT Media Labs to AES, a major utility.3) And How to close the gap between educating women to nurturing female leaders.Listen to this episode to see how one applies different models of innovation to different organizations for different scales. Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com) Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.com
Today’s guest is Jud Virden, the Associate Lab Director for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Our wide-ranging conversations spanned topics such as, · How do you create an innovation pipeline when we’re looking at problems with 30-year horizons? · How do you turn data into something people want to use?Listen to this episode to hear how the National Laboratory systems, since their founding after World War 2, continue their mission of pursuing Big Science. Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com) Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.com
Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com) Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.com Our guest Jay Bruns, asked Benjamin Kott, the CEO of LightsourceBP Labs, · How does BP staff and internal people see its commitment to moving away from fossil fuels? Ben’s question was for Prachi Vakharia, Managing Director for Womanium, an organization promoting female leaders. He asked, · As a tech dad, how do I encourage STEM at home for my young daughter?Prachi, in turn, posed a question for Jay Bruns, Senior Climate Policy Advisor at Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner.· How does the Insurance Sector navigate the risks and responsibility of autonomous vehicles?Suzanne Singer, a former employee at Lawrence Livermore National Labs, had a question for Jud Virden, the current Associate Laboratory Director for the Pacific Northwest National Labs· How are technical organizations building more entrepreneurial capabilities?Jud, in turn, asked a question that Suzanne, now an entrepreneur who founded Native Renewables, a solar company operating in Navajo Nation,· What key policy / financing changes need to occur to accelerate the clean energy economy?Lasty, Suzanne posed a question for Stacy Flynn, the CEO and Co-Founder of Evernu· How do women entrepreneurs overcome the challenges of finding funding?Thanks for joining us and I hope you will subscribe to Season 2, or listen to some of our Series 1 episodes. Thanks for listening, and as always, when looking to make an impact, start by searching for your levers for change.
As much as we are in a hurry to see change, being thoughtful about it can pay dividends in the long term. Balancing these two forces out - takes real leadership. So who will win the race? The Sustainability Tortoise or the CleanTech Hare?Let us hear how our Season 1 experts determined when it was the right time to act fast, and when they made decisions slowly.Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.comShow Notes“Our philosophy was just - fail fast”“The decisions about major investments were made slowly”Welcome to this compilation episode of the Levers for Change Podcast. I'm your host, Jimmy Jia.As much as we are in a hurry to see change, being thoughtful about it can pay dividends in the long term. Balancing these two forces out - takes real leadership. So who will win the race? The Sustainability Tortoise or the CleanTech Hare?Let us see how our Season 1 guests grappled with the decisions placed in front of them.Shilpa Patel, ClimateWorksA decision that seems to have the support of the team. Because, remember, you very rarely do these things solo. You have teams of people you talk to and you have the overall support of the team. it’s a much easier to take rather than something dissonant.Jimmy Jia (JJ): That was Shilpa Patel, talking about her experience at the World Bank and the International finance corporation. Decisions can be fast if all of the stakeholder engagement has already occurred. This was a running theme across the podcast series. Steve Klein, former CEO of Snohomish PUD, defined his autonomy as what was within the strategic plan.Steve Klein, former CEO, Snohomish PUDI could definitely operate within the bounds of the budget and the strategic plan. I believed and followed through very strongly to be on the same page with the board. So therefore, I put together a strategic plan that wasn’t just grand platitudes. It had specific targets and statements of positions on things so that I would have the flexibility. Then when we set the budget up, I would go to the board and explain how this budget I presented to them carries out this strategyJJ: Some decisions happened surprisingly fast, as Jackie Drumheller of Alaskan Airlines relayed in the removal of plastic straws from the airline.Jackie Drumheller, Sustainability Director, Alaskan AirlinesRemoving plastic straws from people’s cups – almost overnight, it was that simple. It was like, “hey that’s a great idea. Yeah, this is good timing.” - “ok.” - “Let’s use up our stock and then we’re done.” - “Ok”. Once we finally decided now was the time, because we had been talking around and never did it. When we said let’s do it, we just did it!JJ: Even then, there was consensus among the stakeholders. Rich Sonstelie, former CEO of Puget Sound Energy, believed in the power of teams.Rich Sonstelie, Retired CEO, Puget Sound EnergyDecisions that had to be made quickly, and therefore were, had to do with getting the right people into the right place. Any utility executive, whether at the CEO level, the managerial level, vice present, or whatever, is only going to be as effective as his or her subordinates are effective. The CEO’s ability to “get things done” is relatively limited. The thing that had to be done relatively quickly all the time was to get the right people into the right job. If there were people that had to be removed, in the utility industry, you did that rather gently, but you had to do it. You have to get the right people in place. I think people make mistakes in all kinds of companies, including utilities, when they sit there and watch non-performers and don’t do anything about it.JJ: Brewster Earle of Comfort Systems reflected that the executives had much autonomy and making fast decisions was within the scope of the company.Brewster Earle, former EVP Energy Systems, Comfort System USAOur philosophy was just fail fast. If something came in, we’d get the right people into a room and just have at it for whatever it took, an hour, two three, about an opportunity to make some changes and make some decisions. Everybody would get the chance to present their perspective and then collectively we would decide. And if we were gong to amek a decision, we were going to go as fast as we possibly could and then adjust to what happened going forward. If there was change or if it didn’t work out like we thought, we’d simply reassess. We’d literally take the hit, said OK, that was a mistake, we’re going to stop doing that.JJ: So what are the limits to this autonomy? Is the mantra always making fast decisions? Of course not. So when are decisions made intentionally slowly? Brewster?Brewster Earle, former EVP Energy Systems, Comfort System USAThe actual situation in a large company like that was, who else might this impact? If this could have any kind of negative impact on a sister operating company, or even reflect poorly on Comfort, if we were taking that kind of risk, we would move very slowly and we’d engage a whole bunch of people to get other opinions, particularly those who might be impacted.JJ: Thus if fast decisions happen because the consensus was already built, it is the consensus-building process that takes a long time. Rich Sonstelie elaborates:Rich Sonstelie, Retired CEO, Puget Sound EnergyThe decisions about major investments were made slowly. They were made slowly both because the investments tended to be so large, which they are, and utility boards tend to be conservative by their nature, and should be. They should be people who ask tough questions and don’t readily venture out into new ventures. And we have all of these parties that we’ve been talking about, to convince that this makes sense. You don’t just jump into these investments when you can have regulators decide they weren’t prudent and you never recover the costs. Things like that are what brings utilities to bankruptcy.JJ: And when stakeholder agreement requires the entire company’s participation , decisions might seem super slow! Sabrina Watkins noticed this in running Sustainabiltiy at ConocoPhilllipsSabrina Watkins, former Global Head of Sustainability, ConocoPhillipsWhen you think about the sustainability of the company, is the whole company. In some sense, there is a lot of autonomy in a sustainability group because there’s a function that you are responsible for called sustainability. In then if you look at it in a different way, there’s no autonomy whatsoever because in order to actually get anything done, it requires action by folks outside of the group. To actually move the company forward in sustainability, requires the action of people all over the company.JJ: Slow and steady wins the sustainability race. Karen Wayland mentioned the Quadrennial Energy Report as an example. It is a massive report, published by the Department of Energy, that reviewed the energy issues across the entire United States.Karen Wayland, kW StrategiesI think the Quadrennial Energy Reivew. It took us not quite two years to do this huge inter-agency bill, where we had hundreds of different research projects with the national labs that fed in and were synthesized and written and we had many inter-agency meetings and meetings with the White House and stakeholders and that was a long process. The end result was a really incredible report that I’m really proud of having being part of. That turned into legislation that was signed by the president. So it was worth doing it right and doing it comprehensively.JJ: Sustainability is a long-term goal. Jameson Morrell of Jacobs Engineering reminds us to keep an eye on the ball, even when no one else is paying attention to the Sustainability Game.Jameson Morrell, Sustainability Intelligence, Jacobs EngineeringWhere it’s really slow I think are in areas where we’ve stalled. The pressure has changed or progress has been made good enough. These are long-term risks that certainly impact the bottom line and sometimes in those business cycles we stall out. It’s the ability to have the patience to say we got a good strategy, we’ve got a good plan, we understand we need to address that, it’s just the wrong time. There are different material risks that are more pertinent right now to survive as a company, and so it’s trying not to lose sight of those. It’s trying to say ‘these are still a priority, but we’re going to table them this year.”JJ: Steve Kline, you get the last word. It's about expectation setting of any decision, regardless of whether it's fast or slow.Steve KleinI think the key to any CEO is that you never want to surprise the board. You always want to bring the board along. I followed that same theory even when a problem arose. Some people thought I was foolish or silly to do this but I even did it when I was an early supervisor and manager before I was a CEO. When a significant problem would come up, I’d go to my boss and say “I’ve just become informed of this significant problem” And I knew the first thing they’d say. And before they could get it out, I’d say, “Here is the plan I intent to implement to address this and I will keep you appraised if these milestones aren’t met”. They don’t find out about it from someone else. They know I’m on top of it already. So if their boss came to them and said that they’ve heard about a problem, my boss could say, “hey don’t worry about it”.JJ: In summary, take your time in building a stakeholder group correctly. It will help you sprint faster and with a stronger mandate if you do. To find out more, visit us at www.leversforchangepodcast.com and look for the What If Sandbox retreats. It is here where stakeholders meet and collaborate across many cleantech sectors.Thanks again for listening to this compilation episode. Again, my name is Jimmy Jia. The music is by Sean Hart. I hope the advice given by the experts will help you in your journey as you search for your Levers for Change.
Jobs. They are on the top of everyone's minds, and sustainability jobs even more so. Millennials are even willing to take a fairly substantial pay cut in order to move in a job with more sustainability responsibilities.My name is Jimmy Jia. In this bonus episode of the Levers for Change Podcast, we compile the advice and suggestions given by our Season 1 experts on how to best enter the sustainability workforce as well as what expertise the sector needs.To hear the full interviews, please go to www.leversforchangepodcast.com. Season 2 will be launching this Fall of 2020 and we will announce more details soon.Let us start with Jackie Drumheller of Alaskan Airlines, who told us what to do; and Jameson Morrell of Jacobs Engineering who told us what not to do.Jackie Drumheller, Sustainability Director, Alaskan Airlines· I get a lot of intern application. You can be looking at 300 applications and I would throw out every single one where the person didn’t reach out to me independently during the resume process. Because there’s no point. You have to be a self-starter, you have to have initiative and you have to have drive.· If you’re just sending in an application to our giant HR-in-the-cloud, you’re not demonstrating any sort of initiative. Show me that you’ve started a composting collection in your school or you’ve persuaded management in your job to get rid of water bottles. Because then you know what it really takes to implement sustainability initiatives in the workplace. Then you really understand what it took to relay the business case or how to influence people or how the organization works. And then you have the passion and persistence to get it done.JJ: Thanks Jackie. So Jameson, what shouldn't we do?Jameson Morrell, Sustainability Intelligence, Jacobs Engineering· The biggest mistake I see? You go into LinkedIn or a job description on a job board and you google search for “sustainability”. And you see the name “Sustainability Manger” or “Sustainability Director” or something like that. It’s like the front door of a crowded restaurant.· There’s a lot of people who are focused on that word. You can easily walk around the back and become a cook for a year, and move right into that sustainability job. And so that’s my advice. Study something that you love and augment it.JJ: It’s good to know that there are many impactful jobs, even if they don't have sustainability in the job title. So then what type of job titles should you be looking for? Sabrina Watkins of ConocoPhillips tells us where to look.Sabrina Watkins, former Global Head of Sustainability, ConocoPhillips· Everywhere! It’s a silly answer but it’s actually quite true. I have had so many mentoring sessions with professions who want to do more in sustainability but they are in information technology, or they want to do more in sustainability but they are a mechanical engineer. Honestly, all of those skillsets are needed to move the company forward in sustainability.· We need to have interest and aptitude. It takes an engineer to sort out a new piece of equipment that could reduce emissions and to understand what sort of emissions monitoring equipment is best suited for our operations.· It needs people who are good at social engagement to work with communities to really understand what they’re expectations are of the company and not someone who isn’t skilled at that sort of conversation and just clams up.· I think there’ slots of way to contribute to sustainability. If you want to be in a sustainability group, then it requires both academic work in sustainability as well as depth of expertise in a particular industry.JJ: Brewster Earle of comfort systems debunks the notion that sustainability jobs require a college education, saying we need more technicians.Brewster Earle, former EVP Energy Systems, Comfort System USA· It’s purely technicians. The technical tradespeople. The workforce is aging. It is quite interesting and shocking. The notion that college is the preferred path, I can’t debunk that enough. It’s simply not true. Some people would be great at trades and can make a good living. That’s the big challenge in the industry at the whole. We need more tradespeople that can look at a plot of land and make something out of nothing. make some grow out of nothing.JJ: Steve Klein couldn't agree more. He used to be the CEO of Snohomish PUD, a major utility, and he had to hire many tradespeople.Steve Klein, former CEO, Snohomish PUD· We put so much emphasis on college and getting advanced degrees and here we are dying to find line electricians and meter technicians that, with overtime, make over $120,000 a year and we can’t find people to fill those jobs. Certainly, it’s a very fulfilling career. And based on today, it’s not swinging a hammer. It’s some physical work, but it’s still a lot of mental work because everyone carries a laptop nowadays. All of these systems are complex so even if you’re tweaking it with a screwdriver, you got to understand the technology.· Then you go beyond that, utilities get involved with everything. They have accountants. They have biologists, particularly here in the Northwest where with hydro projects, we are managing fish protection. In terms of the electrical energy side, there are many different sides of it. When I was in college, you had to specialize in power engineering. Now there’s many different areas to look at.JJ: What if you're looking for a promotion rather than looking for a new job? As Rich Sonstelie, retired CEO of Puget Sound Energy says, take an interest in how the business works beyond your day-to-day duties.Rich Sonstelie, Retired CEO, Puget Sound Energy· For those like me who came in like I did with an MBA, prove that you’re really interested in the utility business. This concept of MBAs coming into companies and thinking that they’re prepared to go into top management immediately, boy, what a way to alienate everybody around you.· Again, show that you’re interested in the big picture. Quiz your leaders about why we’re doing this. Tell me who else is involved.· I think the older business people delight in young people who ask questions. There’s a lot to learn from the mid-career, late career folks. It’s very flattering really.· I had people in the latter part of my career, who came and ask for a meeting and my assistant always knew that my door was always open. Some great people came to ask some really great questions. And I got to know them a little as well. And I don’t think it hurt either of us.JJ: Learn the business process, yes. Also, learn the political process, as Karen Wayland who spent a career in Congress and the Department of Energy, reminds us.Karen Wayland, kW Strategies· I think everybody should have a stint in Washington. I look on Facebook and Twitter and I listen to the conversations I have when visiting friends and family outside Washington and they really, truly do not understand the process. I think it’s useful to have a better understanding of the process so that you’re more forgiving of the process and not so cynical about it or misinformed about it.· For instance, the framers of the constitution, envisioned things moving fast in the House and things moving slow in the Senate and of the thousands of bills that are produced every year by the 535 members, very few of them ever become law, by design.JJ: Where you find a job might be surprising. The most unexpected companies might be hiring people with expertise in climate. Shilpa Patel of ClimateWorks elaborates:Shilpa Patel, ClimateWorks· There’s so many entry points now. I think the financial sector as a whole recognizes that this is a critical thing we have to deal with. You can do it in banks, certainly the investment banks, the private equity or funds that are focused on environment and climate.· You can do it through philanthropy, a think tank, like WRI, you can certainly do it through a multi-lateral development bank. All of them have climate as a priority.· The corporate world is very much looking into this. And very frankly, even the oil and gas majors are looking at climate and what it will do to their business. I think you can influence and work on climate finance in so many different was now.JJ: Lastly, here are some skills to succeed.Jameson Morrell· Understand system thinking. Understand what’s new.· Get your foot in the door of an organization you want to work for. And when your foot’s in the door, find those people because the teams are in there and they’re cross-functional teams and they’re moving somewhere.· And then from there, you can move all over the place.JJ: To summarize, it's not about looking for a sustainability job title. It's about turning your job into a sustainability job. I have heard of CFOs going to Green Team meetings to find people to promote because those who attended were working towards the company succeeding, not just their own careers. Those people cared about how the business worked, improving its functions and building cross-functional teams. In essence, they were learning how to lead.Thanks again for listening to this compilation episode. Again, my name is Jimmy Jia. I hope the advice given by the experts will help you in your journey as you search for your Levers for Change.Visit our website at www.leversforchangepodcast.com for additional podcasts, books, courses, and other resources.Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com) Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.com
On Bleeding Daylight, the story that changed the lives of all those involved. We hear about Az Hamilton’s escape from a very dangerous situation in a country overtaken by rioting. What Az describes is a shared experience. Az and I lived this dangerous escape together. So this is also my story. Just Motivation: http://www.justmotivation.com.au Az Speaks Podcast: https://anchor.fm/justmotivationCompassion Australia: http://compassion.com.auCompassion International: http://compassion.com (Transcript is a guide only and may not be 100% correct.) Emily Olsen: Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight. This is Bleeding Daylight with your host Rodney Olsen. Rodney Olsen: Something very different on Bleeding Daylight today. We’re going to hear the story of Az Hamilton’s escape from a very dangerous situation in a country overtaken by rioting. The difference is that it’s a shared experience. Together with a handful of others, Az and I lived this dangerous escape together. So this is also my story. What we share in this episode of Bleeding Daylight is a story that transformed both of our lives. The events we describe are real and set future directions for both of us. Please listen and then share this very personal edition of Bleeding Daylight. Rodney Olsen: I've known Az Hamilton since April of 2008. We shared a remarkable experience that we're going to explore together today. He's been reaching out and calling young people to a bigger life since he was still in his teens. These days, he works to inspire and empower young people. It's a pleasure to welcome Az Hamilton to Bleeding Daylight. Welcome Az. Az Hamilton: Mate. Thanks so much for having me on your show. Rodney Olsen: At the time we met, we were both working in radio. So tell me about those radio days for you. When did the radio bug bite? Az Hamilton: You know, it was a funny thing, for me radio actually probably bit in my mid teens, my brother did radio announcing before me on a little community station in a place called Toowoomba in Queensland and he had this little radio show that he did with one of his friends from school. And I think ever since I can remember, I've saved every dollar for, you know, music for the the actual show. So we used to spend all our money on CDs and my brother would play them on his radio show. So the second, my brother quit radio, cause he couldn't do it anymore, I literally went, can I have a go, I've got the CDs and that's actually how it started for me. So I'll literally rocked up with a box of CDs with no skill. And they said, well, we do need a show. You own all the music. Alright, you can have a go. So that was when I was 18 and I did about 10 years of radio from that point on, on and off. So yeah, it's, it's, it's sort of got launched out of my brother's passion and I used to listen to his show and go, Oh, I want to have a go of that. Rodney Olsen: It's an interesting passion to have radio does bite fairly hard and as you say, you're involved in radio for a number of years, but alongside that you are spending time speaking to young people, even from that young age. Tell me a bit about that. Az Hamilton: Well, actually, what was interesting, like I've always been passionate. I'm about the underdog. I don't know. I don't know what it is even when I was in school, like, uh, I went to a very, um, I suppose, a pretty straight Christian school, you know what I mean?Like, you couldn't really go too far outside the box, or it was sort of very hard for you to fit into the community. And so I always had a heart for those guys and girls in the school community, even when I was in school, that kind of just didn't quite get it, uh, when it comes to faith and things like that. So, and even the underdog. And so I've always been that way. And so when I got into radio, I did voluntary work, obviously in radio, you gotta to start voluntary. I'm sure you did too. And then when I got my first paid gig, I remember my very first week or so a guy walked in the back door of our radio station and I was star struck. I was like, Oh my gosh, like this guy, I can't believe it's him. It's him. And, um, the guy was, it was actually Sean Hart who played for the Brisbane Lions at the time he rocked in and he was just in the lunch room. And I remember going to my boss and saying, is that showing up? Why is Sean Hart here?Cause I'm a mad AFL fan. He goes, yeah. And I said, why is he here? And he said, Oh, I forgot to tell you. A part of your job is you're going to be going into schools, with Sean Hart and doing a program on making good life choices, uh, every week. And I must admit there's a couple of things, went through my head at that stage. And a lot of people don't know this about me, obviously being a speaker and a communicator for a living now, prior to that, I was actually extremely shy through school. I didn't do any public speaking. I didn't do any drama or anything in front of people. Radio was kind of an outlet, you know, no one had to see me. So when I got into radio, I had no desire to be speaking publicly. I just wanted to talk in the studio, do my own thing. So my boss is now telling me, Oh, you're going to be doing sort of public speaking and doing communication stuff on a stage in front of students. It freaked me out. And it wasn't something that I thought I'd enjoy it all but over literally doing this program with Sean, probably for the next four to five years, like I just found my passion because I was sort of forced into something I'd never done before. So that's sort of where it all started and I've probably become more passionate about that kind of medium of communication then even, you know, obviously the radio sit behind a microphone sort of situation. Rodney Olsen: So, how did it work for you as an 18 year old, still learning how to make your own life choices, and you're going into schools, telling young people how to make life choices? Az Hamilton: You know, it's so funny. Cause I, if I had a dollar for every student that I talk to in schools, now they come and go, I want to do what you do and I say exactly the same thing to them. I go, well, you need to have a life story to begin with. I mean, Sean would do the program most days and he would, he would speak for about 45 minutes and it actually happened that. On this one day, I remember it was this primary school and these kids were just being so like, they were painful. Like if you can imagine, Rodney, like the worst students ever anyway, Sean, takes some time out. He literally comes over to me. I'm just waiting for my five minute spiel at the end, to be honest. And he goes, do you have anything you can add to this story or something that can speak to these kids? And also interesting I just had a life story, like this little story that popped into my mind of when I was younger and something happened with me and my brother. And so I shared it. And the kids were completely enthralled by it. It's something I'd never shared before, completely enthralled and straight out of that show said to me, every time we do the program from now on, I want you to share that story. And so it was kind of a very organic growth in my public speaking space. I from then on every week, I would share that story. And then it, as Sean's career kind of ended in football as the transition of him not being as relevant as a footballer, sort of turned out that I would do about 50% of the presentation and he would do 50% so it was very tag team. And I did that yeah. For five years and yeah, really loved it. And obviously that sort of led into being a communicator, uh, organizations like Compassion and things like that. If you, if you ask my teachers, do you think he'll end up being a public speaker or communicater that they'd probably laugh at you to be honest. Rodney Olsen: Our paths collided in 2008 in April. We met in Sydney where we were just about to jump on an airplane. Tell me a little bit about that story from your perspective. Az Hamilton: Well for me, uh, I mean, that was about the fourth year of being involved with Compassion Australia, uh, sponsoring kids. It was through radio. I sponsored my first child, uh, reluctantly didn't, wasn't huge fan of giving up my money, but it kind of challenged me.And then I went on a bit of a journey. So it was about four years into that whole, getting to know about Compassion. And then obviously we got invited as radio announces to go on this trip. For me, cause obviously being very young, I think I was 20, 22, 23. Like I'm going to be pretty honest. I was pretty unorganized. and even up until about two weeks beforehand, I hadn't got my injections. I hadn't really, I didn't even know where Haiti was. We were going to travel. I genuinely didn't even know, Rodney. Like I remember. After being to the doctor to get my injections. When he was like saying, don't go, you're going to die. Like you probably should cancel his trip. I looked up on a map where Haiti was because I hadn't, for me being a young bachelor, it was just like, Oh, I'm getting two weeks off work. This is pretty cool. I get to travel. I haven't done much international travel. So when I rocked up to Sydney and met you guys, to be totally honest, I actually had no expectation for this trip, except that I knew I was getting off of my show for a couple of weeks and I was getting to travel and you know, that was, that was pretty much me. And that's, that is probably as naive as you possibly can get before traveling to somewhere like Haiti. But that's, that's really where I was at. Rodney Olsen: My most enduring memory was meeting you there. You were a young guy with very long dreadlocks turning up at the airport and we had just been given a couple of packs from the local Compassion representative they had a bit of water in there and some hand sanitizer and things like that and you turning up going through security. And they said, did you pack your bag? Do you know everything that's in your bag? And you said quite innocently and truthfully, no, I don't. I don't know that that was a good look for a young guy with dreads. Az Hamilton: It's so funny you say that because I don't remember that, but what's great about that story is that we recently, Beck my wife and I recently had to talk to a young guy who traveled to the States who just did exactly the same thing. He got to the airport, they said, did you pack your bag? He said, no, this, this is your bag. I said, no, it's my mother-in-law's bag. Cause he borrowed it for the trip. You know? Like, is this that young innocence of traveling for the first time? Yeah, I didn't know what they'd given me, Rodney. I don't even remember doing that, but I do remember getting patted down. That does make sense. I did get taken to the next level of security once again, 22. Oh, I'm on a trip, whatever. No big, fortunately though that I feel like the world wasn't as crazy back then. I don't know. I just feel like maybe it wasn't as crazy as it would be now. Maybe I would have never got to Haiti if I did something like that now, but yeah. Thanks for reminding me of young Az. Rodney Olsen: So you're talking about being disorganized. I do remember, of course we're going on a trip for a week and a half or whatever it was back then. And, and on that first day, we had slept over in Miami on the way off towards Haiti, and you said, Hey, let's stop at Kmart. I need to buy some shirts. Az Hamilton: Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. Well, because this is the thing I hadn't, as I told you this before. I didn't even know where I was traveling to. I'm not a very organized person. Like I remember, I remember getting calls from people at Compassion, saying, like, as I said, like two weeks out, like I should have had my, you know, immunizations or whatever.It was all the different sort of, um, you know, shots and stuff like weeks earlier. Yeah. Now, have you had your shots? I'm like what shots they're like, have you read the email? I'm like what email? You know? And so this is very Az Hamilton in his early twenties, just very, ah, like I mean I had dreadlocks pretty as a real chiller. And then I remember, I think we got to Miami and everyone was really stressed about the dress code in Haiti. They were like, you need to wear a button up shirt. I'm like, I'm a 22 year old bachelor I don't even own a button up shirt. And I bought some of the daggiest clothes I've ever owned because I needed to make sure that I fit in with the people. Um, and then when I got there, I went, I could have just kept my old clothes. I'm pretty sure. Um, and I think went on, on, uh, on arrival back in Australia. I think I just went straight to the bin and dumped those clothes. I don't think I've ever worn them again, but thank you for reminding me of that. That that's really nice. Rodney Olsen: I had my own moment in that store. If you remember, while you were picking out shirts, I headed straight down to the back of the store and found a bicycle that they had on sale and I rode that up and down the aisles so that I could say that I'd cycled in the U S so there you go. Az Hamilton: See, that's absolute passion. Rodney Olsen: There's a lot of fun leading into this trip, but once we get to Haiti, things start to change and I remember the very first morning after we had arrived in Haiti and had traveled up towards our hotel and all wide-eyed seeing what was going on. And we got up the next morning and there were these meetings going on. There were discussions happening. Tell me a little about that. Az Hamilton: It's interesting how you have different people's perspectives of a trip. Let's see, for me, I remember sitting on the outside of them. There's was a lot of whispers, whisper, whisper what's going on, but it was a young guy. Oh yeah. Whatever. We're going, whatever.I do remember them saying something about, we're not going to some region. Oh, we're going to change the area we're going to, there's been a little bit of unrest in the streets. I remember the word unrest was used a few times, a little bit of unrest. But don't worry a bit of unrest and like, and you've got to set this up for, for those that are listening.Like when we, the things that stood out to me were, I don't know if you remember these things. The things that stood out to me was that when we rocked up to our hotel, there were people with weapons out the front, there was armed guards. And I thought that was quite unique to go to a hotel and there's guards. And one of the guys from Compassion said, this is where you'll be staying. If you stay inside the walls, you should be safe. Then that was, for me, that was the stuff that stood out to me going all right, where are we again? Like, why are there people? Why are there guards? It's what, you know, this is a hotel. I don't, I don't really don't really comprehend this, but yeah, obviously the next day there are all these meetings about, there's been a bit of unrest we're going to a different project. Um, and so that was, that was it, you know, I was like, okay, no worries. Didn't even think much more of it. I don't know. What, what were you thinking? Oh, this is serious at that stage or were you just going, yeah. Oh yeah, no worries. Like I was just blasé. Rodney Olsen: I really didn't know what was going on. I think a bit like you, I was kind of on the outside of those conversations. There was four of us from different radio stations in Australia had traveled to Haiti to see the work that Compassion was doing so that we could head back to Australia and be able to tell those stories. So of course we needed to go and visit the projects as you say, connected with local churches and, and you're right. They did use terms that would suggest that nothing much going on, but we'd better not go there and so we're thinking, okay, if, if that's the case, then, then we'll, we'll just sort of relax a bit and we'll go to a different place with no idea of what was about to unfold and I don't think we still had any idea until it really did begin to unfold. And maybe you've got a perspective on when you first realized that things weren't as they should be. Az Hamilton: Every, everyone has a life story that changes the trajectory of their life. And I think that morning, that fateful morning where there's been some unrest in the streets, um, impacted me on multiple levels. Everyone remembers things differently. I remember things like rocking up to the project. There was hundreds of kids jammed into this room. It was very basic, but the kids were so happy to see us and. You know, obviously I had my dreadlocks, the kids wanted to plait them and so that was pretty overwhelming. I remember I'm feeling deeply personally that I think thinking to myself, man, I'm a rubbish human being. I complain about so much stuff. These kids.are really simple living, very basic, simple lives. And somehow they found joy in this moment. And, um, I remember we hung out at the school or we looked at some of the stuff that Compassion was doing. That was all very impressive, and I don't know who told you Rodney in this time, but for me, I remember Guilbeau. He was one of the guys from Compassion came up to me, whispered in my ear, Az we need to go, go to the, go to the vehicles. We need to go. There's been some unrest we need to go now. That was the moments like, Oh, okay, sure. And I remember when he was sort of old sort of bye kids and we found ourselves in that vehicle. So I don't know how you were in that pro what were you doing or thinking, how did you even find out we had to leave? Did you have a whisper in the ear or was it sort of like you just followed everyone else? What was going on for you? Rodney Olsen: I distinctly remember, we were told that we would have opportunity we're there as radio people, we needed to record interviews and so we had our recording devices. We'd interviewed some of them kids through a translator. And we were told that some of the parents were going to turn up and that when they turned up that we could interview them too, to let them tell us what the impact of Compassion on their family was and yet parents were turning up, taking kids straight away, turning up, taking kids straight away. And I remember them saying, ah look, they, they wanting to take their children home. They feel safer there. And we realized that something was not right. And then we spent a fair bit of time just in the office talking over what happens in the program rather than just spending time out there with the kids and, and then they said, yeah, we need to go. Az Hamilton: Isn't that incredible that you remember that? Because I remember being in the office. But I don't remember anything about the parents rocking up or any of that stuff. Isn't that insane? I was probably so caught up in hanging out with the kids and knowing me being who I was back then, you know, very, whatever, pretty chilled, you were there on mission to make sure you could get as much radio as possible. Whereas I was just, they're probably thinking, I'm just taking this in. Rodney Olsen: Make no mistake. I thought I was going on an adventure. This is something that, that has radically transformed my life as it has for you. And yet I was thinking here I am, I'm I'm on an adventure and yes, I needed to, to gather the audio and gather the stories and I had that mindset, but I was there for an adventure too and none of us were expecting what then happened. Az Hamilton: No, and, and once, once again, I remember we got to the point where we had to leave and the two, four wheel drive vehicles. I do remember that I was in the vehicle I'm pretty sure I was in one of the vehicles that was a ute styled tray kind of four wheel drive, and we had another vehicle go ahead of us. It's a bit of a blur this next bit for me, because I think I'm trying to put timelines on what happened when I do remember we were driving down, um, heading towards where we'd come from and I remember people from the local community coming out of their sort of side alleys and out of their homes sort of just pleading with our driver, go back, go back. It's not safe. And you can see, you can see on their faces that, uh, this is not good. This is something's not right. And we didn't really know what was going on. Obviously I think the Compassion staff were trying to protect us from as much as they could, like try to keep us calm. And they did an amazing job because I remember our drivers turned around at one point and went in a different direction. And then I remember going down that direction and then it happened again. I do remember, uh, the driver and he's like, no worries. We'll find another way. We'll go to the office. And it was very much like, okay, we're changing all our plans. We're going to take you to the Compassion office in the middle of town. It's going to be safer there. That's when everything just sort of got out of hand and crazy. Is that, how you remember what, what was going on and how do you remember that exact same sort of process of getting from this project into town, in the heart of what we're about to see? Rodney Olsen: I believe we were at trying to head back to the hotel. They had decided that rather than visiting another program, which was originally on the agenda, that it was safer to just go back to the hotel but in the meantime, as you say, we changed direction and, and streets that we'd gone down before now had barricades and, and it was just not safe. And as we turned onto that main street, that would have led us to the hotel. That's when I remember people running down towards where we were, uh, with fear in their faces saying, do not go up there. And that's when we went through the gates of the Compassion office and went inside and then things got real. Az Hamilton: What I remember is getting to that main point before the people were running at us and we were on that main road in the heart of town. It was like the main street of Port au Prince and there was no one around, it was like, it looked like a bomb had gone off. I don't know if you remember, um, just like the burnt rubbish up the sides of the roads. Cause for me instantly, as soon as we hit that main road, I felt like I was in some kind of movie reel.It felt like something I'd never seen, it was like, this is not real because there was fires and it felt eerily quiet where we were driving. And I remember Edouardo just slamming on the accelerator, like whiplash in the back, like just takes off. And yeah we landed probably a couple of minutes later, you know, now idling out the front of those big metal gates of Compassion and as you just mentioned, people running at us saying, you can't go further down. And I also remember there was a group of guys that had machetes that ran up behind our vehicle and they stole some stuff out of the back of the tray, I think it was like some drinks or soft drinks or, um, or some water bottles, whatever. And that is sort of took off and we will all just waiting for these gates to open. I remember it seemed like an eternity. I know that one other guy in the car, one of the other announcers, he was really emotional because he could see what was coming towards us from down this main road and I don't know if you remember it clear as I do, just sort of seeing a mob of people waiting on the other end of the road, coming towards us. Like they were in some kind of march or riot or something, and we're sitting in the car, we can't move because the Compassion staff they'd already shut these gates, cause they knew it was coming and we're kind of calling them and saying, let us in and they're trying to move cars around and it was just one of those very time stands still, but everything's moving at a very rapid pace. Uh, and as the, the gates open, I remember we went in, shut the gates really quickly, and all I remember was, come with us, be very quiet and it was just very much about it like, just move fast and we just follow the staff into these office buildings and that sort of thing. What I remember to that point. What do you remember from that? Like that these are the points that sort of stick to my, my memory that I can play over in the mind. You know, you see it over and over and over again. And it's sort of seared to the memory bank, but what was, what was the memories in that moment for you? Rodney Olsen: Well, certainly as I mentioned, those people running down the street towards us with, with fear in their faces and that was because there was that group, as you mentioned, that was further up the street coming down and so they were wanting to get out of their way and they were warning us to be away as well, and that's when we did get through those gates eventually and went upstairs and then we stood at a very high window, which seemed to be untouchable for us, but we were at a very high window and started peering out and seeing some of those people come down the street. Some of them were with bits of wood and other instruments, Az Hamilton: Metal pipes. Rodney Olsen: Metal poles and all sorts of things. Az Hamilton: All sorts of weaponry that they could find, whether it be a machete. Um, I don't think there was a lot of guns. It was more just like, what do I pick up? And I'm just trashing and stuff. And this is at this for me is definitely, let's say that, you know, you're, you're memories are connected to emotions. My emotions were at all time high. I remember peeking through the blinds cause we were, we were peeking through the blinds. We're very high up. In an office building. And I remember feeling exactly the same as you. We're safe now we're in this office. As long as we stay here, we'll be fine. You know, they can't see us. Uh, and it was like clockwork. It was a very surreal experience like clockwork, few hundred, maybe a thousand people marching through the streets, sort of past our building and they kept on sort of walking past and there was screaming something that were chanting something and if anything was in their way they were breaking it or smashing it. And for me, the most defining moment is that at one stage, these guys had gone past our building and I must admit, I felt a sense of relief that they've passed. They're gone. We we've, we've dodged this bullet in a sense. And then like for me, the worst possible thing happens. I remember there was a rioter who passed our building, who was just part of this, you know, riot protest and I reckon he was about 19 years of age, 20 years of age, he was only a young Haitian guy. And I remember him stopping in the middle of the road and just looking back at our building, like looking up at him and always standing directly next to a garden. And Dan. Uh, who is from Sydney. And if you've ever had one of these moments where you lock eyes with someone, you know, you just get eye contact with someone and you're like, Oh my gosh, I can see it like this. But you know what I'm talking about, Rodney, right? You, you see someone, it doesn't matter if you wanted to get eye contact, but if you lock eyes, there's just a moment of, we we've connected. We now know each other and I remember locking eyes with this guy. And I remember literally like in a sheer moment of panic saying to Dan, and this is the succession of how I remember things. I remember saying to Dan, Dan, they can see us. Which was something that I didn't think was possible how high we were. And Dan was a very level headed guy and he's like, Az we're pretty high up, I don't think they can see us from down there, but I'm sure I was locking eyes with this guy, unless he's looking past me. He was one of those, you wave to someone and they're actually waving at the person behind you. But I remember feeling like we know he can, they can see us right now.And Dan kept trying to reassure me that we're pretty high up Az it's not that bad. And then it was within a split second or two. One of the Compassion staff members says it's probably not safe to be near the glass. Let's go to another room. It was this sort of just, maybe we'll move into another room. And as we turned around, that's when everything just went pear shaped I remember the massive explosion in the room, glass just shattering and we've all hit the deck. Do you remember that? Rodney Olsen: I do remember where we were reminded. Hey, look, it's probably not safe to be there step back. And it was just as we stepped back that there was this huge sound.Now I don't know what you thought it was in the moment because I still can't be sure what I thought of in the moment what it was, but I know that certainly some in the room thought it was a gunshot, but we didn't know, but everyone dropped to the ground as glass started to shatter around the room, we later found out it wasn't a gunshot, but it was still pretty frightening. Az Hamilton: Actually. I wish I had it, but I had an old camera. And I remember going back into that room just before he left. And we'll get to that later to take photos, all the glass all over the floor. Um, and yeah, it'd been rocks had come smashing through the windows and they just completely obliterated, um, one of the entire front windows, unfortunately, that camera in transit disappeared. So I had no, no proof of that, but I remember thinking this, I think, did we get shot at what was going on since that glass here? And we were on the ground, it was, it was panic stations. I mean, the staff were like, get up, go. And we were running through the back of these, um this office block. And we found ourselves, bolt locking a door into a small office where the staff were now telling us the people have seen us and we're not sure if they'll turn on our building. We've got I remember one computer in that room. Do you remember one? I can only remember seeing one computer. You can write an email to someone you love, and that was that it was just such a terrifying but definitive moment of this is real like you, gotta write something to someone you love. This might be the last thing that you write but the people have definitely seen us and we don't know what that mob is going to do outside. Whether they're going to try and take down a gate, come into our building, but now we're just locked in a room and, um, we're going to do our thing. Rodney Olsen: It was a very scary moment, as you say, and we're, we're in a back room. And for part of that, we had some local Compassion people that were with us, but most of them were off in another room room trying to sort out what it was that they thought that we should do. What was that that maybe needed to be done to, to secure our safety for not just for us, but for everyone there. Maybe at this point, because we've, we've talked about there being, rioting people and all the rest, maybe you can give us a bit of an understanding of, of why there were riots in the street. Az Hamilton: It's so interesting. Obviously we got out and that's a whole, that's a whole ‘nother story. Um, but I do remember we were being evacuated. We're waiting the airport asking questions. Cause like you Rodney, it like that was, they were chanting in their own language. Like they were saying something over and over and they were yelling and screaming. I remember watching on the news, seeing the president pleading with the people, please calm down. What had happened was we got explained to us, what had happened was the food prices have gone through the roof on this little Island called Haiti and it's only a couple of hours away from Miami on a flight. So it's not far at all because the food price has gone through the roof. And the cost of living had gone up and they were earning the equivalent of what two American dollars a day. There was a massive food shortage and the people were, rioting was literally chanting somebody help us. Our children are dying as stomachs feel like, I remember this statement when they told us what they were saying, one of the statements was as stomachs feel like they're being eaten by acid. Our stomachs, feel like they're being eaten by acid. Please help us. It was only after we got out of Haiti I went and did a lot more research on what they meant by that and throughout so many of the rural communities, kids were known to eat these mud pies, which were literally just soil mixed with sugar and oil dried in the sun and you can still look this stuff up it's just full on and they were like mud pies and the kids would eat them. The parents would say, eat this at least your stomach will feel full. And I think the stat back then was something like one in six children on the island wouldn't even make it to their fifth birthday, and I think the nightmare of Haiti for these people became extremely real for me in that sort of 24 hour evacuation process. And it changed me. Rodney Olsen: This is in the setting of 2008. It's the time of the global financial crisis, which as you say, raises the price of even the most basics of food. So it was the global food crisis at that time. And this is what the people were rioting about. They couldn't feed their children and having to eat mud because they wanted to put something in their kid's stomach, but they had nothing to give them and I guess, you know, like you, it was one of those things that was a defining moment where I decided I've got to do something about this. Now you mentioned that we've got to the airport and this is some of the discussion that we're having, but that trip to the airport, this is the following morning we'd been in the Compassion office. The rock had come through the window. Finally, the streets were calm. We made our way back to the hotel. And as we're going with seeing all these buildings that had been absolutely destroyed and looted by people, just looking for food for their families, spent a night at the hotel and then there was the trip to the airport. Az Hamilton: This is the thing about this trip. Even little memories. I just got, it reminds me we would get back to the hotel, which was crazy in itself. I remember the radio station from Brisbane, my boss calling me getting through, calling me and saying, can we send in helicopters? How do we get you out? And like, you don't understand. Cause on the news that night, they were canceling all flights in and out of Haiti. There was all this sort of discussion. We don't even know if we can get a flight tomorrow. So it was really interesting. And I do remember them saying we're going to leave super early in the morning because when it comes to a community like this, often throughout the day, the riots and the protests get larger and larger. Like that's what happens as the people kind of keep on coming together. So if we can get away early, we should be able to avoid the mob, get you to the airport. There was one point out that they were, you know, trying to get us on. And that was the plan. And I remember leaving early and actually seeing the other was very positive, same peaceful and quiet in the streets. It just seemed like, yeah, we're going to be, we'll be able to get to the airport. And then in a matter of minutes, it happens again, we are confronted by a bunch of people running it at car, and they're saying, you can't go through there. Uh, the roads being blocked off, further down the road. It's not safe. Our driver, Eduardo is once again, trying to keep spirits up. No worries. Well, no, we'll go back to the hotel. And I remember we turned around and we were headed it. Must've been half an hour period of time. We're heading back towards the hotel. Cause I think they sort of went let's just abandon getting to the airport at this time.But the problem was at the other end of this main period of road they had barricaded that end as well. So we we'd found ourselves caught between two of these riots or two of these barricaded protests, which were just highly dangerous. Cause I don't know if you remember in the news, I mean, people were being killed in the streets as well. The day before, as you said, everything was being obliterated. And then, you know, I remember Eduardo saying, no worries. We'll find another way. Like he was so, it's amazing how some people just have the ability to go. I know my reality, but I'm just going to stay positive. Cause these people just need to get out and I'm going to find a way. And so we are now finding ourselves, uh, driving down a part of the city or through an area in the city that probably, you know, you normally wouldn't go. And in this sort of slum sort of area and I remember we're weaving through these little roads and it was just getting more and more congested with people. And those people sort of peer into our vehicles getting closer up to the vehicles until it got to a point where, we're in the heart of the slum. And they're saying, I just remember the, the words are sort of broken English, it was like, no way out. No way out. And that was that's the moment probably for me in this trip at the age of 23, 24 or whatever I was, can't remember somewhere around that, that I'm genuinely thinking to myself, This is the day that I die. Like this is it and that's where I was at at that point. Rodney Olsen: It's interesting those times and the memories that they bring back. I do recall sitting in the car thinking that if this all goes as wrong, as it's likely to go, if the doors of the car happened to it to open, and I was looking around for places that we could run to and then slam ourselves behind these metal gates in, in these different places and trying to find a way, how can we stay safe? And I remember, and you probably remember this too, where we were in a place where the cars just had to stop, because there were so many people around us and there was a guy with a metal bar and he was trying to incite the crowd to actually attack us until someone, and we only have this translated to us afterwards, but someone in the crowd, looked at the vehicle pointed to the Compassion logo on the side and said, wait, they're from Compassion, Az Hamilton: They help the children. . Rodney Olsen: They help out, they help our kids let them go. And that's the only reason we're still alive. Az Hamilton: It's actually crazy. I do remember that guy. I remember being terrified by the fact that there was a real sense of let's overthrow these vehicles and the good reason for it. So I think we had two vehicles full of, you know, these, these Aussies that had money, uh, had equipment that was worth money. Uh, and you've got an absolute desperate situation.So we were, we were an option to maybe be a solution for a few families to survive a little bit longer by maybe removing us from the picture and the first vehicle we got to this barricade. And there was, yeah, there was all these sort of like militant sort of guys that were arguing about letting us through. And you must've been in the second vehicle, I reckon because the second vehicle got stopped and it was at that point. They let a second vehicle through because they help the children. I remember the first this vehicle got through somehow and they were waiting for us to come through and that's when there was the sort of overthrow of the people saying, no, don't let them through the other vehicle can go and whether it was, I don't know what was the reasoning for it. And then there was some, has someone in the crowd identified that work with Compassion. They help the children let them through and it was like the doors opened again, for us to get through and get out. And I just remember waiting for our vehicle to go through. I think I thought we were going to get out of this. We're going to, we're going to see, um, you know, some opportunity to get through this crowd. Cause it was such a thick crowd surrounding our vehicles. And it was just because of this one person, this one guy who somehow convinced the crowd, let them through, let them through.And I remember the picture of the people just opening up, like, like the road, just opening up and having a vivid feeling and a vivid thought process. It's like seeing the Red Sea part, but with people so that we could drive through and we drove through this crowd of people and got to the other side side of the sort of embankment. Um, and it sort of opened up from that point. I remember clearly having an image of this small child on the other side of the scene back then looking out because everything actually, everything is just in slow-mo it's it kinda doesn't it doesn't add up. It's it's kind of, this is this really happening and I think, cause it's happening in real time and it's all happening so quickly. You're trying to process, how is this happening and why is this happening? And it's such an interesting experience, but I just remember, like, it was almost like my whole life pause on the other side of this embankment, as that cars were getting ready to move forward again. And I remember looking to the right of the vehicle and seeing this little girl at the top of, of rubbish. Like she must've been three or four. And it was this huge pile of rubbish, like bigger than houses. It was just, this mound of rubbish is a rubbish tip and she had a stick that was attached to a piece of plastic bag and she'd made her own kind of self-made kite and she's just waving in the air and she's just giggling, like she's just giggling and just full of joy.She's watching this piece of plastic, just sort of taking off in the wind on the top of a rubbish pile, this memory of this kid, it just seered into my memory that here we are, this crazy situation's going on all around us. And there's this little kid somehow in the mess. And in most manic situations has found her own place of play. And has found her own place of escape with something that she's created out of rubbish. And I know that's just a bit of a weird tangent to take but I remember so clearly, because it kind of just hit me to the core of my being about what am I complaining about? Like, who am I to be this guy from Australia? Like, even though in my mess, in that time of like survival, I was still like, oh my gosh. This is daily life. Rodney Olsen: One of the people that we had traveling with us was the Vice President of Compassion for that area and he originally was from Haiti and I remember him getting out of the vehicle and trying to find a way ahead and that was going to be difficult because there were people everywhere. As you say that the roads or tracks really, they were, uh, were getting narrower and he actually found someone who was prepared to show us a way. And of course at that stage, we didn't know whether that was taking us to some of his friends around the corner who were then going to attack and rob, or whether he actually was leading us out of there. But we were told we had no choice. We had to move because staying where we were was dangerous. So we didn't know whether we were going to another danger. Or whether this was something that is going to see us to safety and I remember we kept going slowly and till we finally turned a corner and there was a crew cab ute and there were people on the back of that crew cab ute with weapons, but they were police. And this gentleman who, uh, worked for Compassion, who was originally from Haiti the image that is seared into my mind is him putting his hands up. He was a very big gentleman and there he is with his arms outstretched, way up in the air, walking towards these police very slowly so that they could see had no ill intent. Uh, he explained the situation to them of, of what was going on and it was then that they agreed to give us an armed escort to the airport. Again, it was one of those defining moments. Like I said before of, of where we were told they help our kids let them go and this was another one of those ones that kept us alive is that the police agreed that they would escort us out of that dangerous situation and get us to the airport. Az Hamilton: I remember exactly the same thing. I remember, um, seeing the Compassion staff member, having his hands in the air and we're just like, what are you doing?Cause he just left us in the car. I'm going to go and do this. And yeah. Being escorted to the airport with people, with their weapons out. Are, do you remember? Well, one of the females on the trip, um, wanted to get video footage or take photos in this moment. Cause she was just like, Oh, we need to get proof of this. You know? And the rest of the guys in our car were like, put the camera down. This is not the time. Like we're, we just need to somehow get to the airport. Like let's not try and cause any more issues, and that's, it's quite interesting arriving at the airport. I remember getting dropped off and we went into the airport and watching on the news, how the United Nations base next door to the airport was deploying all their heavy artillery. They were rolling out tanks and. All sorts of heavy artillery vehicles just to try and keep the peace. Um, you know, the president was on the TV trying to, to calm people down. And we, I suppose for the next few hours just had to, uh, navigate this idea of what's going on outside and are the mobs going to around the airport? Are we actually going to be safe? Is there going to be a flight coming in? And, uh, yeah, that's for me, you know, over those next few hours, just waiting for this flight that was going to somehow get us out of this country. Uh, super bizarre time. waiting. Rodney Olsen: It was a strange time and eventually we did get out. So in the midst of this turmoil of people who are rioting, not because they want to bring violence on anyone, but just because they could not feed their families, because they did not have enough to put food in the stomach of their children and they're, they're saying someone, listen, please, someone listen and help us. And we finally flew out of there. And, and I guess the memory for me is going down that runway, looking out the window, seeing fires burning all the way around Port au Prince, the capital of Haiti, where there been barricades and riots and fire everywhere. And then in a surreal moment, looking down in the grass, along the side of the runway, seeing kids playing soccer, and taking off, and this sense in which I felt finally we're safe, and at the same moment thinking, but there are 8 million people living in Haiti who are never going to afford a ticket to get out of this place. They are trapped here, they're trapped into poverty and I think for me Az, that was the moment I said, I've got to do more to, to tell the story of these people so that they don't have to continue to live this way. Az Hamilton: I had the same moment I had exactly the same moment. I remember flying out and then looking out the window of this plane. I remember running on the tarmac just to get on the plane. I remember getting on the plane and we didn't do any of the safety checks. It was just like in and out so quick. It was like, we've got to get you out. I had this crazy overwhelming sense that when I go home, I need to be a voice for those kids who do not have a voice. That was it. It was like, you need to do this. It was quite a fascinating thing when we got to Miami, I remember on, on landing, uh, my phone beeped and it was from my mom and my dad who actually in the States at the time, they finally got my email about how. I was locked in a room at the Compassion office and we might not get out alive but I just want to, you know, let you know what's going on outside there's rioting and so they were writing like freaking out, not sure what was going on and I remember writing back to mom and mom and saying, hi mom, we're safe we're back in Miami. Um, and I remember saying to her. Um, I don't think I'll be, I think I need to go and speak for these kids. Um, and I, I think I need to quit radio. I think I need a, I'm just so convicted by this. I don't know if I can go back to just interviewing like musos and celebrities, whatever that is. I think maybe I just, I just need to be a voice for these kids. And my mom was like, you know, very motherly. Like she's like, just don't do anything stupid. You're just emotional because I've been building a radio show. I was doing something that I loved and I was doing, I think, quite well at it. And it was, it was just for my mom being a mom, probably thinking, okay, you're just emotional and not knowing the full extent of what was going on. I think I had good reasons. It'd be like, just relax. And that was it for me. It completely changed me. I came back. I do want to say that I remember being back, we'd been back for a week or so. And one of, one of the girls from Compassion Newcastle actually came up to the radio station to debrief and she wanted to put on a morning tea and say, thank you. And I want to maybe share a bit and she wanted to share. And she shared on that day about the moment that we were caught in the, in the backstreets of the slum where they were saying there's no way out and she said, when we're in Compassion in Newcastle, we got a text from a DJ who was sort of the head of the team that took us over there. And he had messaged and said, you need to pray. You need to pray for us now. We may not get out of this one and, you know, DJ's been to on, on like dozens of trips all over the globe. And he. Um, had personally felt that this, this one we may not get out of. And so she's sharing this experience, um, from there and like, just on the Compassion in the office kind of experience of this team and she starts sharing and she said, you know, we started praying for your protection and we started praying for you instantly. Like we're talking while we're still in the slum. Like in that moment where we can't get out, they're praying. And she said, that a lady in the office stood up on a chair and prayed God part, the people like the Red Sea and everything in me just went, that's exactly what happened. That's what I saw. That's the revelation I had when the people parted.And we went through, I just was like, what, what did you just say? And it was for me, just a moment of our living, God answering a prayer. In real time on the other side of the world. And for me, because of that revelation and that clarity of God working and moving in that moment, it just struck home as a core to my own heart again, that no, no, this is not me being crazy. I need to go and be a voice for these kids. Like this is not just me being emotional, experiencing something that, you know, it's it's you experiencing some posttraumatic. Um, stuff know this, this is, this is a conviction that there there's some kids starving to death on an Island, and no one knows about them and no one seems to care and I need to be a voice for that.So it wasn't long after I over the next three or four weeks, I tried to fit that call into my radio career. I tried to use that experience and go, I can do it through radio, but I knew my time was up. And so I think it must've been about four weeks after I went into my boss and said, here's my resignation. I need to go and share with teenagers about the world they live in and how they can actually change things for the better for kids that are in need. And my boss was like, do you have a job lined up? I'm like, Nope. I just have to do it. So I quit with no, you know what that would look like. It was pretty amazing. I ended up being able to step into another job within 24 hours in a different ministry space was able to volunteer with Compassion and over that next nine months, Compassion opened up a role actually created a role for me to be a youth communicator for them, for the country and sort of build some youth product. And so I just look at that and I just go, yup, life defining moments and some people say do you want to go back to Haiti? Would you go back and I would. There's something about Haiti. It has my heart. I would go back and even though it's crazy, there's something about that place. That has captivated me the last 12 years. And, uh, I just went on mission for that next, I dunno, three to five years with three years with Compassion, to be a voice for those kids. And then post Compassion when I started my own thing in schools, working with teenagers, and just challenging young people to have a heart of thankfulness, a heart to be generous and in the right time, to reach the needs of those around them, with their generosity, with their love, with their kindness, uh, with the empathy and, and that's what I'm still doing today. And I suppose the, the foundation of it was that trip with you. Rodney Olsen: It certainly was, was an interesting trip and I did come back and worked in radio for another five years, but used that opportunity to, to speak out on behalf of Compassion and behalf of children, wherever possible until six and a half years ago, I actually started working for Compassion and that's where I am these days due to that, that absolutely life changing experience that we had. You've touched on there, the work that you're now doing with the, the organization that you founded and that you run called Just Motivation. Tell me a little bit more about that. Az Hamilton: Yeah. So as I said, I mentioned, uh, worked with Compassion for three years in their youth department. And unfortunately with the global financial crisis has actually caught up to Compassion back then and had to lay off a bunch of staff, those, um, redundancies that happened, and we were about to launch a national product for youth and I'd worked very hard on it. Um, and just in a short period of time, that just obviously that, that door shut for me. And so I actually found myself in 2011 having to finish up work and I sat down for, in any cafe for about six weeks. Um, just asking, God, God, what do you want me to do with my life? Like, what is it that you want me to do? Because I don't think it's radio. I do believe that social justice is heart of helping the needy and the poor. That's your heart. Educating young people on the world that we live in is important. I love working with teenagers. And so over this period, I sat down, it was, it was just a combination of going with social justice, a passion of mine and motivating. So Just Motivation kind of came out of this. This is my heart. And I started sort of running programs mainly just on those sorts of topics and obviously that story was one of those things. Uh, and speaking schools, I started off with a program that was just like a 45 minute session. Just sharing that story and, and giving some really practical outworkings of how we can actually change our world as young people. And then that sort of developed into full day leadership and faith sessions. So this year is my ninth year I spend my time with, working with teenagers challenging their hearts towards the things that I believe God's heart is. And we have a lot of fun. I use a lot of humor and we do big group activities, and on an average day work with anywhere between 102 hundred students. And I'll just work with that group by myself running this program. Yeah, for me, I just want to challenge young people to use the giftings and the passions that they have in their lives to impact others in a positive way. And, uh, absolutely love it. Absolutely love it. So yeah. Obviously started a podcast as well the Az Speaks Podcast for teenagers as well on a weekly basis. Yeah, absolutely love it. Rodney Olsen: Do you ever cast your mind to where life would be if you hadn't had that, that trip to Haiti? Az Hamilton: Yeah. I look back at a lot of things in my life that I, just go God's so kind to me, uh, I feel like it's interesting, you know how some people, so they just have a natural ability just to go on life's journey and they don't need like shock moments they don' t need, like really like a punch in the face to get your attention. Unfortunately, with me, I kind of find that God has to get my attention by doing the slap to the face, wake up. Hi, this is where I need to take you. And I've just been really fortunate that there's been these core moments in my life that have led me to where I am. I think about moments like sponsoring my first child like that. It was a definitive moment. I think about trips like that to Haiti. There's how many of those sort of stories that have lead me to, where I am? And I do, I do sometimes think if anything, with the Haiti trip, I do think this, and I don't know if you ever thought this, imagine if we went to Haiti and it was just a very stock standard, uh, you know, we got to see the good work that Compassion does, which is incredible. And if you don't sponsor a child with Compassion, go and do it today. If you're just listening to this, just go and sponsor child, like is the greatest thing you can do.Um, if we just got on a normal trip and yeah, we've met some great kids and we've met some great staff and we saw the great things that they were doing, helping those kids and then we got on a plane and came home. I wonder if the gravity of what Compassion is doing would have really hit like, and I'm so thankful for the trip that we got. And it was a once in a lifetime trip and even for those leading the trip. They wouldn't have expected it. I don't think a trip has happened like it since. Um, so I am thankful I was on that trip. I get students ask me all the time. Like if you, if you had your chance again, to go on that trip again, would you do it? And obviously you go, well, it'd be a bit crazy to put yourself in a dangerous position like that. But if I knew that the outcome was the same, absolutely. Like you would do it. Absolutely. Because. These things change you for the better. I think I'm a much better person, nicer person, kinder person, more empathetic person because of it.And, um, yeah, I'm thankful for the experiences that I've had, even in my younger, like young years, the life stuff that's happened to me because it does, it develops you and your character and the way you see the world. And I'm, I'm constantly, you know, growing. In those areas, but yet definitely do think back to those sort of things like a trip like that and go, yeah, um, I'm so fortunate that I was on that trip. Rodney Olsen: Az I do look forward to seeing what are some of the other defining moments that God uses in your life from this point on and where that leads you because it sounds like it's been an incredible journey so far. So I'm gonna sort of keep that in mind as I continue to watch your life and what happens in it, but I want to say a deep thank you for spending time with us today and sharing with us just a piece of your story. Thank you. Az Hamilton: Thanks, Rodney. Really appreciate it. Emily Olsen: Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight. Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others. For further details and more episodes, please visit BleedingDaylight.net
Steve Klein was the former CEO and General Manager of Snohomish PUD, the 12th largest public utility in the US. We talked about the utility’s obligation to serve. It’s the notion that, in return for a local monopoly, a utility is not permitted to turn customers away.This constrains how they set their rates, how they pursue innovation, and how they interact with the regulators and general public.Let’s look at what it takes to instill a culture of innovation into a utility.Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.com
In the first few months of 2020, several of the major oil and gas companies, including BP and Shell made bold pronouncements of a transition to a clean future.Sabrina Watkins gives her perspective of whether these declarations will amount to much, or whether the public should be skeptical of such claims. She retired from ConocoPhillips in 2017 after a decade as Global Head of Sustainability and is very familiar with not just the internal corporate decision-making necessary behind such a statement, but also community engagement at a grassroots level to connect with the people within their sphere.Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.com
In this episode, we discussed the challenges managing at the intersection of multiple systems, whether presenting a value proposition to the buying group in a complex sale, or managing 35 operating companies in 115 cities across the US. Regardless of the situation, managing the long-term, lifecycle cost of a decision is always better in the long run than being fixated with the upfront cost or the immediate benefit.Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.com
Green bonds have been a successful innovation to drive billions of dollars towards climate investments. Yet what did it take to get them started? From a small project at the World Bank in 2008, to the hundreds of billions that are now deployed, the success of the program was not expected nor predicted by the initiators.Shilpa Patel takes us on a journey, not only of what it took for the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s sister organization, to underwrite their own green bond, but also on some thoughts on how one can be an innovative intrapreneur within large and hierarchical institutions. Perhaps the secret sauce: being surrounded by a large diverse group of people who are aligned to the organization’s mission.As a generalist, Shilpa’s personal secret is to be a generalist who is able to bring together disparate stakeholders. A generalist gives one the analytical framework to integrate different streams of expertise into a holistic solution.Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.com
Supply Chain. That is what Jameson Morrell of Jacobs Engineering starts with when diagnosing sustainability at any company. It’s the upstream and downstream impacts that a company needs to be aware of for its own impact.This journey started as an army chef and a small business owner, where Jameson got to view the supply chain up close. Those lessons served well when working for DHL and tackling the carbon footprint of one of the world’s largest logistics companies.Today, as the practice lead for Sustainability Intelligence at Jacobs Engineering, he uses his experiences to help Fortune500 clients create, implement and execute on their sustainability journey, fully understanding that every company is going to be different. What’s important is to see how the different supply chain systems – be it water, electricity, waste, agriculture – intersect and influence each other.Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.com
On this quarantined episode, we are joined by our #1 fan, Sean Hart, to review Galaxy of Terror, Onward, and Tales from the Loop for this week's Crossing the Streams. For our main topic, we discus the totally pimpin' 2000s. We cover the top movies, music albums, tv shows, and video games.
Jackie Drumheller talks about Alaska Airline’s challenges in making the supply chain of an airline more sustainable.Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)Podcast Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.com
Although the specific technical, financial and political issues may have changed since Richard was CEO of a major utility, many of the managerial best practices of leading a high-performing team, are just as relevant today as they were thirty years ago.So, here’s an inside look at what it takes to run a major investor-owned utility.Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com) Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)www.leversforchangepodcast.com
What is it like to successfully pass legislation in both houses of Congress? Karen Wayland did that in both the House of Representatives as a Senior Policy Advisor to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and in the Senate as a staffer for Senator Harry Reid.Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com) Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)www.leversforchangepodcast.com
Happy Holidays from the We Do Stuff crew. Today we have our favorite guest of all time Sean Hart join us as we air our grievances, have a Thrift Store Gift Exchange among other things. Thank you for listening and above all, Happy Holidays!
In this really exciting episode, co-host Zack Fishman jumps on the phone with friends Paige Robinson (Director of Franchise Development) and Sean Hart (VP of Franchise Development) for American Family Care. In this discussion, we talk through what it’s like to be the biggest in an industry, ways they continue to stay nimble in a constantly evolving healthcare space and their growth plans for 2020.
Do we stink? Are we actually practicing good hygiene? Comedian Sean Hart joins the team as they try and figure it out. The gang competes in a Gross-Off, and shares tips on getting to your cleanest self. Ross “discovers” there are two different kinds of avocados, Lauzie finds a mysterious rash on her face, while Sean may never be able to show his face at work again. Phill puts up with all of this. PLEASE SUPPORT NOT KILLING IT BY SUBSCRIBING TO OUR PATREON Join the Not Killing It Facebook Group to share your hilarious fails with other listeners in a private, safe space. Follow us @rossisfunny, @lauzielen, @notkillingitpodcast. Email the podcast with your funny stories and feelings of discontent at notkillingit@gmail.com. Technical Producer: Phill Bowen
1 of the loftier goals of us Thr33 Tr0lls is to make a brand new theme song for each episode we unleash into the wild. Sure, we've rehashed a couple of 'em but for the most part we have stuck to this outlandish tradition since the podcast's inception. This extra special episode contains the fruits of our musical toiling as well as some random bits of sound specially cooked up just for this release. The cruder sample-based selections were created by JPL in his palatial hovel, Sean Hart made all the songs that actually sound good and, hell, we even have 2 cuts from Jad Fair, he of legendary band Half Japanese! SOLID.
Its the most wonderful time of the year. We have our first guest, the lovely Sean Hart weighs in as we talk about Christmas movies and other things.
This series of podcasts was recorded during Community Record’s Block Party 2018. This episode features Chris Rehm & Sean Hart revealing how they infiltrated a ska label and announce internship opportunities for Chinquapin records. Subscribe: iTunes RSS https://mutepoint.podbean.com/mf/web/ktpwcg/Caddywhopmus_-_final.mp3
GoatVsFish admonishes chicken. Then, GoatVsFish asks one Sean Hart if it is Goat or Fish. Follow GoatVsFishIG: @GoatVsFish TW: @GoatVsFish FB: @GoatVsFish Discussion Group Future VS: http://www.goatvsfish.com Follow Sean Hart YouTube: HeartSean IG: @seananthonyhart TW:@seananthonyhart MchineryOn Soundcloud Producer: Michael Allen CPA Executive Producer: Al Bahmani GoatVsFish Podcast is recorded at The World Famous Comedy Store, Los Angeles.
Beth Newell from Reductress and Sean "Uncle Eddie" Hart join us to discuss soft core pornography, Trump's taxes, and Fetus Funerals.
Recorded live from the UCB Theatre East Village on January 12, 2016.
Ed Galvez hosted this one as Koz and Maria Shehata each had other emergencies, but he did a great job with guest host Rebecca Lieb and guest comics Sean Hart, J. Vanessa Gritton and master storyteller extraordinaire Buck Ball.
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