
842: Silvia Bellezza, part 1.5 and 2: When at first you don't succeed
From This Sustainable Life by Joshua Spodek: Author, Speaker, Professor
December 26, 2025 · 40 min · Episode 842
About this episode
The episode discusses a leadership aspect of the interaction with guest Silvia Bellezza, focusing on commitment and intrinsic motivation in sustainability.
Since Silvia teaches as a business school, I'll address a leadership aspect of our interaction. I skimped on a leadership step, so we did an episode 1.5, which is my lingo for redoing episode 1 when the person wasn't able to fulfill his or her commitment. That's my responsibility as leader of the interaction. Silvia and I had a wonderful first conversation that led to a commitment that sounded like she'd enjoy it and doable, but in the end wasn't quite. Even if a quick hike north of the city would be enjoyable, catching a Metro-North train from Columbia University isn't that convenient and her schedule may not have bee as flexible as she suspected in our first conversation. For those listening to these conversations to learn the Spodek Method, in our first conversation I didn't check with her how practical the commitment was given her constraints. As the leader of the interaction, I should have asked ahead to imagine her schedule, the logistics of catching the train, and so on. The key measure the first time someone acts on their intrinsic motivation isn't how big it is. It's if they person does it. When someone acts on intrinsic motivation, they'll find it rewarding. If they…
People in this episode
Host: Joshua Spodek
Guest: Silvia Bellezza
Topics covered
- leadership
- commitment
- intrinsic motivation
- sustainability
- environmentalism
Keywords
- leadership
- commitment
- intrinsic motivation
- sustainability
- environmentalism
- Columbia University
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Columbia University
More episodes of This Sustainable Life
- 853: Kate Williams: CEO, 1% for the Planet · June 11, 2026 · 1h 21m
- 852: Steven Pressfield, conversation 2: His new book, The Arcadian (and A Man at Arms) · May 29, 2026 · 58 min
- 851: J. Eric Oliver: How to Know Yourself · May 18, 2026 · 1h 9m
- 850: AJ Harper, part 1: Write to change lives, including yours · April 24, 2026 · 1h 12m
- 849: Josh Bandoch, part 3: How to Get What You Want: Mastering the Art and Science of Persuasion · April 22, 2026 · 49 min
- 848: Peter Simek, part 1: EarthX's CEO · April 13, 2026 · 50 min
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the This Sustainable Life podcast page.