Being an Earth Conscious Boss

Emily Thompson 0:00
hello and welcome to being boss episode number 68 this episode is brought to you by fresh books cloud accounting

being boss and work and life is being in it

Unknown Speaker 0:15
it's being who we are

Kathleen Shannon 0:17
doing the work breaking some rules and even though we each have to do it on our own

Emily Thompson 0:23
being boss is knowing we're in it together

Kathleen Shannon 0:27
today we are getting a little personal and talking about that might be kind of a little bit of hippies at heart i'm a total of both very much environmentalist and we thought it would be fun to talk about what we do to try and live sustainable lives and make a difference when it comes to the impact that we're making on the earth and i think the hardest part about this conversation obviously with the internet is that nobody's perfect and it can be really overwhelming especially for as much as stuff is going on on our planet right now but um yeah let's dig in a little bit so if you guys are into the environment and kind of thinking about ideas of what you can do to make the planet that we live on a little bit more inhabitable for our future generations tune okay before we get into all things one of the things that i love about just my business in general right now is how paperless it is and i was even thinking that to write for certain periods in i was printing out the job jackets to keep track of my projects i have binders full of information and paper and i have gone almost completely paperless and that includes paperless billing through fresh books fresh books is the easy to use invoicing software that helps freelancers small business owners and creative entrepreneurs bill and get paid like bosses and paperless billing is the way to go you guys i feel like the way that money exchange has gone in the past few years you don't even have to worry about the checks in the mail you don't have to worry about losing checks in the mail and you don't have to worry about the time it takes to send out and print an invoice you can just with the click of a button send your invoice and get paid like a boss try fresh books for free by going to freshbooks comm slash being boss and enter being boss in the how did you hear about us section alright emily

Unknown Speaker 2:38
it's earth week

Unknown Speaker 2:39
yeah tell

Kathleen Shannon 2:40
me a little bit about your background as an environmentalist

Emily Thompson 2:44
well i live on the earth and i like to breathe fresh air but even let's let's not go back that far i have a degree in geography and i got it because funnily enough i started taking geography classes because i didn't want to take biology or or chemistry so i sort of fell into a geography class for one of my requirements and i absolutely fell in love with it so i think the first class i took was was at atmospheric processes so we learned like weather patterns and climate and those sorts of things and then i had to take landscape processes which is about like how mountains are formed and rivers and oceans and ocean currents and those sorts of things and i absolutely loved it we had i had a professor whose name was dr fern and david was taking geography classes as well and she was probably one of my favorite people that i've ever met she was this sweet sweet lady who was super knowledgeable about trees and about bugs and plants in a way that david and i always joked about like wanting to have a pocket fern like a little mini dr fern who we could carry on in our pockets and she could go on hikes with us and around town and tell us about all the things that we were seeing around us that we didn't know what they were so geography degree after this first couple of classes i dove into some cultural geography things also took some anthropology classes and linguistics to really dive into some of the cultural processes of like humans of the past and yeah i'm at least somewhat educated on the earth geography is literally the study of the earth and that gave me a really great understanding of both processes in terms of land and atmosphere and cultures but also what we call in geography the geographic i which is the ability to see a lot of what is happening in the world through the scope of seeing it as a whole and it all referenced in terms of space

Kathleen Shannon 4:58
I had no idea because the podcast was such a nerd.

Emily Thompson 5:04
Oh, I, you have no idea how nerdy I am. So I also have like a certification in geographic information systems, meaning I should know how to process data and come up with smart things by looking at maps and mapping things on computers. And I also took a lot of French and minor in art history. I'm super nerd, you have no idea.

Kathleen Shannon 5:26
So my first job out of college was working at an alternative newspaper. And I really bought a GIS system, because we're doing a lot of infographics and things like that, and occasionally would have a map and they trade GIS system. So literally, I'm like 20 years old, right out of college, or 22, however old you are going to graduate college, right out of college, and you know, me like I'm definitely not the most tech, savvy, detailed person,

Emily Thompson 5:59
that stuff is intense. So GIS software is actually why I ended up getting into digital design, because the defaults are really just like settings period in GIS software makes the ugliest maps on the planet. And I love maps. Like I think maps are beautiful. I we have some old piles of maps,

Unknown Speaker 6:19
I'll just do this from scratch.

Emily Thompson 6:20
And I've done that, like I remember like doing projects where my GIS class and what was coming out of the GIS software was so ugly that I would actually export it as PDF simple into Illustrator. And that's actually where I learned started learning illustrator was by not settling for GIS maps.

Kathleen Shannon 6:40
That is so funny. The thing that I always loved the most about designing wedding invitations never I personally my favorites career doing that was RSVP cards. Surprisingly I love this RSVP cards and then the mass. Yeah, okay, so my background was being a little environmentalist was a little bit more like, I was 15 years old, who was into being a hippie. And it was all about like, Peace Love. Mother Gaia, like so I kind of came at it from like a really trendy right way. But I had a lot of friends like we had an environmentalist club after school, and we would go pick up trash from the creek behind the school, stuff like that. Mm hmm. And I remember whenever I was a kid being really affected, and I don't know if this was like if there was some sort of 1980s campaign, kind of like how there's the war on drugs and like, Don't dare dare to be a kid that doesn't do drugs, whatever those t shirts were. I feel like there were also environmentalist campaigns happening around the same time, that really got me riled up and freaked out like the earth was about to crumble. And then as I got older, I found that I kind of fell out of trash on the weekends for fun on my local Creek, or like, Oh, I remember what it was when Ray's younger it was that you're supposed to cut the cocaine into the coke cans, and because that will choke dusts. So I was always really insistent about doing my part to save the world by cutting the CO greens,

Unknown Speaker 8:15
you know, stuff like that.

Emily Thompson 8:16
Yeah, well, and I remember all of that stuff, too, whenever we were kids, but I like I never really got, I mean, obviously terrified of, you know, the things they were talking about, because they all like all those elementary school things that they would take me to, like, I always seriously took them to heart and would go home and like, you know, make my entire family like brush their teeth for two minutes in front of me so I can make,

Unknown Speaker 8:38
right? Yes, brushing your teeth. I remember learning that in elementary school,

Emily Thompson 8:42
too, right. And then being convinced that I'd done it wrong for years and all of my teeth were going to rot out. But But for me, I never really got really got into it until it was until it was in college. Like I didn't have like the preteen hippie phase that a lot of people do. And is especially surprising if you know me now because I'm totally an adult hippie, probably like I'm the adult modern hippie, that's the term I like to use. Ma cuz that sounds better than just hippie. But for me, it was like getting in school and the way my brain works like me and my metrics and like needing to see numbers and like flowcharts and shit like that. It was it was really getting into the science of it and like learning all this stuff from an academic standpoint, that really sort of set me on that path really hardcore for being seriously concerned for what was going on. Because like you can hear about things in documentaries in a little school like settings and those sorts of things. But for me, it was like academics like getting into school and and seeing what was happening from that standpoint. That made me want to be more active or at least, at least be more self aware than I ever had been before.

Kathleen Shannon 9:56
And you know, I think those campaigns in your head like it Make sure that you cut the Koch greens, I think that they do a disservice to what we can actually be doing to be environmentalist, because those are the kinds of things that when we grow up and get older, you get discouraged. Because really is, like, why I just shouldn't be buying the coke in the first place. Yeah. And that little things like that, or at least this is the way that I feel little things like that aren't really making a huge difference. And I think it's the same reason why people don't Rock the Vote, because especially if they live in a state whose politics don't align with theirs at all, it's hard to feel like you're making a difference. Whenever everything seems so big and overwhelming and messed up. Like how are you going to make a little bit of a difference? So let's talk a little bit about that, like I would love to hear on a daily basis. Or maybe let's start here, what what issues around the Earth are concerning the most right now.

Emily Thompson 10:54
For me what like, is seriously scaring the pants off of me, like on an ongoing basis is like climate change. And, and I know that this is like a been a really big topic. But whenever you've grown up the past, like, I don't know, 10 years, like I have been surrounded by professors and, and like the fact that I still have it on my Flipboard on my iPad, like the things that come in, in terms of what is happening with with climate change and on the planet is really creepy. And then what really, really hit home for me because I remember like global warming and who doesn't remember like Al Gore, try and tell everyone about global warming on the coldest day on record in New York City.

Kathleen Shannon 11:38
But is this Austin? Or he told us that he invented the internet? I

Unknown Speaker 11:42
obviously don't

Kathleen Shannon 11:46
know, I haven't watched his documentary.

Emily Thompson 11:48
I think I watched part of it.

Kathleen Shannon 11:50
Like it's actually really good.

Emily Thompson 11:52
Is it? Well, I don't know. That was so long ago, maybe I have watched the whole thing I know, I've at least seen part of it. I don't know. It's called An

Unknown Speaker 11:59
Inconvenient Truth.

Emily Thompson 12:00
Yes. So you know, I remember like when all of that was happening, and like it being called global warming, and then that becoming seriously controversial because humans hate naming things that offend them. And, but now, like climate change, what really hit home for me, though, was whenever we went on our road trip this past summer, so I went on a road trip, whenever like a cross country road trip whenever I was a kid, and I remember quite a bit of it, I think it was like 11 or 12. And then this past summer, we took our 40 day trek across the country, and just sort of seeing some of the changes. But then also talking to a lot of the people about what had been happening locally, was really devastating to me in a lot of ways. And in several parts of the country. I remember it being like super specific. For example, we stopped to hang out with a friend of ours from high school in the Eastern Sierra Nevadas. And he's lived in that area for a couple of years. And they were saying how I mean, we were there in June. And they said that, you know, in years past there would be snow that would be on the on the mountains until the Fourth of July. And the fourth of July was very often the last official snowing or snow skiing day. But we were there in mid June and it had not had any snow for like a month and a half before then or seeing all the lakes that had literally dried up before people's eyes in the past five to 10 years. And those sorts of things. So sort of living in it like we literally lived on the earth like in the earth like camping and driving and being in the trees and on the ground for 40 days was a really sort of life altering experience for me in terms of what we are doing to the planet and how we're not making changes fast enough, I don't believe to fix anything that we've broken so far.

Kathleen Shannon 13:58
What about you? So one that hits close to home and keeps me up at night literally is the fracking. So as of right now, today, which is the day that we're recording is April 14 13th. We've had one earthquake today 34 earthquakes in the past seven days 201 earthquakes in the past month 3357 earthquakes in the past year. Now I've looked at the history of earthquakes. And again, I can't quote on this because I don't have this to say it's right in front of me but we maybe had like 14 earthquakes a year and we're talking a little teeny tiny ones that are only captured by equation equipment that captures that sort of thing. Now, it's still a lot of those earthquakes are like thought like I don't feel every single earthquake that is reported but I wake up often and I'm like, Oh, is that an earthquake? Like, I feel them a lot. And this is happening because of drilling and fracking. So what that is, is like, Oh, it's a way to get natural gas by pumping water into the earth, and then they have to clean the water. I mean, there's so much stuff around it. And I'm actually not entirely educated. And I think that this is why it's hard. This is why it feels hard to be an environmentalist sometimes, because I cannot make it my full time job to know the facts, or to understand it enough to feel like I'm allowed to have an opinion on it. But the truth is, I don't need to know that this is bad for the earth to have an opinion, you know, I would have to know all the ins and outs of it to know that it's bad, it's bad. And so fracking is a concern of mine. And they started trailing fracking near a lake that my parents apply, which is where Oklahoma City gets its drinking water from. And it's all about money. And it's all about the oil industry and rich people getting richer. And I understand that a lot of people get jobs from this, but we've got to put the earth as a priority. And I feel so crunchy saying that. But it is so important. So recently, I've decided and we can get more into this later. But I'm having a really, really hard time paying taxes to a state that does not support my values at all. So that's one way that I decided that maybe I can try and make a difference is to not only vote with my dollars, but vote with where I live, so we can talk more about that later. My other second biggest concern is probably factory farming, and what's going on with food, even whenever I buy organic, and again, you have to pick your battles. I remember one time I had someone comment on one of my posts rise in q1, they were like how do you feel about the exploitation of key moi farmers. Like I can only do like I can only do so much right. And that's what I want to get across here is that you can only do so much but but you can do something, you can do something. And so factory farming is one of those other things where I just started eating meat again, after 17 years, I've been eating it for probably a little over a year now. And I always train ethically sourced my meat and make sure that it's as local as possible that it's pastured, that it is grass fed, you know, that sort of thing. I try and buy organic but those are things that really concerning and make me a little afraid for my kids future and his kids future and so on.

Emily Thompson 17:44
Yeah, a definitely I agree the the farming and like changing of our food in general sort of scares me and like my, my, one of my best friends is on the side of like, of like we're humans, this is science, science is good. Therefore what we're doing is good and like so there is certainly that mindset. And I think in a lot of it, obviously, like every opinion has weight. But I think the thing that scares me the most about all of these things, whether it's whether it's fracking, and like pulling out natural resources, and like, the reason why fracking is a thing is because it allows humans to pull out natural resources such as natural gas and oil more quickly than any other any other process that we have to do so. So I mean, it literally is profit, like it is a for profit that this is being done. And the same thing for food, like we are genetically altering food and animals so that we can more cheaply harvest them. And so that we can grow them more efficiently, which is all about profit. And a lot of climate change is around pumping fuel into the air so that you can generate profit. And it's so that or cutting down trees for profit, like all of these things are for money, which is only going to get us so far. In my thing with all of this, whether it's it's quickly pumping out fuel from the earth, or if it's genetically modifying potatoes, or tomatoes, or fish, or if it's I don't know, cutting down trees to build things and therefore like cutting out the processes of trees allowing or cleaning the air for us. Like what we are in at the moment is like we're dealing with, we don't know how to deal with untempered processes, like humans are pretty damn smart. Like we've figured out a whole lot of shit. And in the timespan that we've been on the planet like we know what the climate would be, if effected five years from now because we understand those processes, but we're changing those processes. And we don't know what the outcome can be from that. So whether we're changing the process of how fish reproduce, we don't know what the outcome is going to be of that. And if it's pulling out fuel too quickly from the earth and pumping it into the air, we're affecting processes in a way that we cannot, we have no control or understanding of where that's going to go. And for, you know, cultures as big as what the human culture has become, like having that insight into what to plan for is kind of what ensures our like, lasting power as a species on the planet.

Kathleen Shannon 20:38
Okay, changing the subject. Let's talk a little bit, we've talked a little bit about the things that scare us. Let's talk a little bit about the things that we are currently doing that maybe big or small, help make a difference. Like what what kinds of tactics are you employing right now to save the Earth?

Unknown Speaker 20:58
Oh,

Emily Thompson 20:59
and just little things, I think what we were saying earlier about, like, these are big problems. Really big problems, like I try not to cry, no, I'm not gonna cry. I'm trying not to laugh at how horridly hysterical it is. Whenever, whenever David and I have tried to watch some of those, like last episodes of cosmos, where like we talk or where Neil deGrasse Tyson, who is one of my personal heroes, shows the models of like, what happens to the earth if we don't like make some decisions and move in different directions. Like, I almost can't even watch some of that stuff anymore. So for me, though, it has been showing that shit to Lily. And it's like, trying to educate her. And on multiple views. I know a lot of what can happen whenever you are like educating children as you like, show them your view. And that's it. But we have made mindful steps to show Lily multiple views of, of what can happen. And because David and I have both been involved in the science side of it, we know plenty of the views. One of our professors was an adamant preacher about global warming not being a thing. And we all listen to it. And we all read the articles. So giving Lily some of those perspectives. For me. One of those things, though, is educating my kid. And it's showing her what's happening. Whenever we were on our road trip, we had conversations with her about what was happening with the world and, and she would get really sad about it, we would talk about things that we could do. So one for me is having these open conversations with my child with the next generation, showing her multiple views of what's happening and what could happen. And then also being a little more practical on some of the things that we do ongoing. So one of those is we have a garden like we grow a lot of No, not a lot, we grow some of our own food. Not much, not so much that to like we have a farm by any means we just have a couple plants, we have some herbs, I grow my own herbs, I don't like getting those from the grocery store. Because those little plastic pouches make me sad. But we do grow a lot of our own herbs, and just some fruits and vegetables that like get us through the summer really well. One of the things I want to do this summer is visit my grandmother and she's going to teach me how to can so that will be something that we do in the future just sort of counting on ourselves for some food to make the transaction of getting food from plant to my mouth, a little less intense in terms of transportation and packaging. And goodness knows what else in between.

Kathleen Shannon 23:44
So one documentary that kind of changed my life is called no impact man who watched it.

Emily Thompson 23:51
I haven't seen that one.

Kathleen Shannon 23:52
Okay, it's really fascinating as well, the guy who decided to make Zero Waste for a year. And I think that he had a build up to it. And I think he recruited his girlfriend to join the adventure. They may have even had a kid together. Anyway, definitely a challenge for sure. And after I watched the documentary, I was like, Okay, I would make zero waste. That's really not feasible. But what I love about extremes like that, is that now I do think whenever I'm at the grocery store, I would rather get some cilantro that's not in a package versus the stuff that is in a package. And do I really need to put it in a bag. I mean, sometimes I do because or else it will be more wasteful for it to go bad because it like dries out or whatever. And so oh and another thing is I tried to start a garden one year and I found out that it was actually more wasteful for us to train we put more resources and money into trying to start a garden that failed miserably. Isaac you know what I'm gonna leave this up to the local experts and I committed to buying my food locally for free Good while and so I hit up the farmers market every weekend. And rather than growing my own garden, I supported the guys locally who were better at it than I was. And so those are a couple of things that I've done in that similar Vale. But going back to no impact man, but I wanted to say about that is, what it's done for me is it's really made me keep in mind packaging a lot. So I think a lot about how I can create less waste in general. So again, I'm not zero waste, but I but I've cut it down by fractions since watching that documentary. And one thing I feel guilty about all the time is how much I use Amazon Prime.

Unknown Speaker 25:39
So lady,

Kathleen Shannon 25:42
so like the way that like, my environmentalism has gone down the tank whenever it comes to convenience, especially since having a child and then like feeling like I'm buying them all these Tories have been the next year he's not even going to use and they're plastic and how much energy has to go into making this toy. But oh my god, he loves it so much. So stuff like that i i think about it, but I don't beat myself up about it. So just like we talked about with being a creative entrepreneur, and getting your to do list together and getting in the right mindset, it is a practice, it is not anything that any of us are ever going to be perfect at. So just throwing that out there. What else you guys recently got that house and I'm so curious about

Emily Thompson 26:27
that house, we did, I'm really excited about how so like this is this is definitely the purchase that David kind of had to talk me into. Because it's bats. So we live in the like foothills of the Appalachians. And we live in a bigger city. But we're Chattanooga is a pretty green city, which is one of my favorite things about which means there are tons of trees everywhere. And Green City is actually like a technical thing, like places are designated as green cities by having greenery everywhere by having lots of trees. Chattanooga is one of those, which is one of my favorite things about it. And I know I noticed. And, and but because we've built a city and in a in a central part of lots of animals migration patterns, like we're right near a river, we're sort of at the end of the foothills, like lots of things migrate through here. David really wanted to get a bat house. And so it's just this little wooden structure that you stick up on a pole. And it gives bats a safe place to sleep whenever they're here during their migration patterns. And again, David had to talk me into it, the first one he showed to me had a very large bat symbol on it. And he was like, this is going to be on a 15 foot pole. And I said, I'm not going to be the bat house. But he did end up finding one that has a much smaller and conspicuous bat symbol on it, that it's just kind of like a two by three box that's about an two by three feet. That's about four or five inches deep. And it's going to go up on a 15 foot pole and house. I think up to like 120 bats. And so one we're giving bats home, which is really nice

Unknown Speaker 28:25
to say goodbye the bats are

Emily Thompson 28:26
no, they'll they'll find us there. Potentially we won't have bats for like the first year or two which is is fine. It's an investment long term in our local community. But um, but the best thing about it, the thing that totally sold me was that bats eat mosquitoes like crazy.

Kathleen Shannon 28:46
Yeah, so apparently went everywhere.

Emily Thompson 28:52
So here's something cool. We learned while we were traveling the country because mosquitoes Love me Love me really, really bad. And so but it was there were a couple places that we would go where they would eat David but not me. Or they would eat Lily but not David or II, or none of us would get eaten by mosquitoes or we would all get eaten by mosquitoes. So I think like mosquitoes have different tastes in different places. So you could go some places and not get affected. And because we live we live in the woods, like I mean, we're in a city but if the city weren't here, this would be the woods. And so and we're right beside a river. We're in a really wet climate like I think we've been recently in do not quote me on this. I've heard this around. We've been recently re designated as a temperate rain forest. Because we get so much rains there's lots of standing water and a lot of places, tons of mosquitoes. So one bat apparently you will eat up to 4000 mosquitoes a night. And so if our house fills up with 100 bats, that'll be 400,000 mosquitoes that are eaten Generally around our house every single night, so I'm not getting Zika bitches.

Kathleen Shannon 30:08
I went to bat house now,

Emily Thompson 30:09
you should google him. We found tons of different times and you can get just one you can get like polls that will fit like three

Kathleen Shannon 30:16
or four on your bat house.

Emily Thompson 30:19
100 bucks, maybe 120 bucks and included the bat house and the pole. And like all the hardware David's going to have to get he's getting some post hold posthole diggers and some Submit. But so I think it was 100 120 bucks.

Kathleen Shannon 30:34
I think that's are so cute. You know, Paul Jarvis has a thing for rats. Yes,

Emily Thompson 30:40
I like that. That's hysterical. I think they're kind of cute too. And like I know a lot of people are like, oh, babies, and again, don't quote me on this because I don't have a hardcore source. But David found a little resource online and Don't believe everything the internet says but sure they said it on the internet. That apparently only like 40 people in the past 40 years have gotten like rabies from bad so that

Kathleen Shannon 31:00
gene is gonna turn into Cujo. Oh God, isn't it? I have seen that movie. hit by a bat. I think that's how he gets rabies. Well, if

Emily Thompson 31:11
he was a bat and like oh, no, because I thought he was down digging in a hole. Was it a bad or like a rabid skunk or something?

Kathleen Shannon 31:18
Yeah, Cujo is the scariest,

Emily Thompson 31:21
scariest movie. But yeah, we got the bat house in today. And David, I think he's going to put it up tomorrow. So I'll keep you guys updated on how the bat house goes. I'll Instagram my first bat friend. Alright, guys, I know that Caitlin and I are taking you in a totally different place with today's episode. But we think that this part of our message is important to share. Being boss is knowing you're in it together, right. And with all things green being chatted about, I want to step back into the world of being boss and talk about one of my favorite ways to make green money that is in an ethical way that doesn't harm the earth in any way. One of my very favorite tactics for connecting with potential clients is through booking mini coaching sessions with folks who need my brand of help. So whether you're out to become an environmental consultant, helping make homes more energy efficient, or a wellness coach helping stressed out CEOs to find their centers so they can help make the world a better place. Mini sessions are a great way for you to connect with potential clients who needs your brand of amazingness. Here's how you do it. First, you're going to email your list and let them know that you are opening up three free 30 minute coaching sessions for the first three people who sign up. But first sign up for acuity scheduling so that getting those mini sessions on your calendar is a piece of cake theory free is not required. And adding that acuity scheduling link to that email means that they can book with you easily see how badass you are. And you can focus on wowing them with your expertise. Show up for that meeting and rock it out. As soon as you hop off the phone, send them a recap email of what you talked about, including an actionable piece of homework, that will get them moving forward. Then follow up as needed to see if they're interested and really investing in having you help them reach their goals. Schedule clients without sacrificing your soul or harming the planet. Sign up for a free 60 day trial of scheduling sanity at acuity scheduling.com slash being boss. Now, let's get back at it. Okay, so what else like what else are you doing that makes you feel better about your hubby and your anti hippie ways?

Unknown Speaker 33:37
I'm cutting the rings on my coke bottles. Good

Emily Thompson 33:43
You should we still do it?

Kathleen Shannon 33:45
Um I don't drink that stuff.

Emily Thompson 33:49
Did your I guess your Lacroix comes in a box. They don't act like you're too big to drink things that come out of cans.

Kathleen Shannon 33:55
Since I've been hit on a budget since tax season, their new year Lacroix he's got water out of the tap is what's happening.

Emily Thompson 34:07
Damn tax season. There you go. Oklahoma fund your fracking with Kathleen's Lacroix.

Kathleen Shannon 34:14
Right. So I mean, that will bring me back to this. I feel like the biggest impact I can make is moving to a city that supports my values. That is really where maybe we can just have one car utilize public transportation and that is something my husband is so passionate about in which Oklahoma offers zero have and smells heard about that though. Like let's look at New York City. For example. I love living in Oklahoma because I can breathe fresh air and the cost of living is super cheap. But also cities in some ways. I don't think that they're environmentally friendly necessarily. And I don't think that I would get the nature fix that I would get in New York City which is why I'm looking at something like Seattle because I can go to bed now. rain forests across the way I can go climb some mountains. So I just need a look at it. But that's like a big thing that I feel like I can do to make a little bit of an impact possibly.

Emily Thompson 35:13
Yeah, that's that's one of the reasons why we decided to move to Chattanooga. So don't quote me on any of this. But they say, I believe it was in the 70s or 80s, some guy from some big news thing came to Chattanooga was standing on one of our bridges and told the world more or less, that Chattanooga was one of the most disgusting cities he'd ever been in. It was like, super polluted. It was like super poor and super, like unmanaged. It was really disgusting. And the city rallied. And over the past 20 years, Chattanooga has become a super Green City. In a lot of ways, like our public transportation is either electric or hybrid. We have bike like legit bike lanes on the roads downtown. And there are tons of incentives locally for things like getting getting solar panels, or you know, buying electric cars, like Chattanooga has turned into a very green incentivize to city, which is one of the reasons why we wanted to live here, David and I are really passionate about a lot of this stuff. We know a lot of things that are really scary, and we don't want them to happen. So for us, it was you know, if we're going to be paying taxes, then let's pay them to at least a city, not so much the state to a city that we that we believe in that is doing things that are good, that are that are supporting entrepreneurs and supporting tech development and, and putting their money in their mouth with where their mouth is in terms of wanting to be a more sustainable city. They're actually doing it, which is why we're here.

Kathleen Shannon 37:02
I love that so much. You know, honestly, I think that you and I and we are building a platform were even having a conversation about this could go a long way. So one thing I was thinking about as we were gearing up to do this episode was really recommitting to some of those little things that riled me up as an elementary kid, right? And so maybe now i'm not buying the coke, but I'm cutting the rings on but one thing I do buy a lot of is bottle father's now that's bad, these layers. So unnecessary. It is unnecessary. I mean, that said like, look at Flint, Michigan, that aside, like we live in the first world, we can drink water out of the tap, right? Yeah,

Emily Thompson 37:48
that's a habit I cut a couple of years ago. And I think there are a couple of those little habits that you can tie like not doing bottled water, like just get a Brita filter for your like that goes into your refrigerator or fits right onto your tap. We did that a couple of years ago and it changed our life like it also super affected our budget. Bottled water is not cheap. But getting a Brita filter

Kathleen Shannon 38:10
is and I'm not drinking bottled water at home necessarily. I do have a filter here. But even whenever I'm traveling, I want to recommit to not buying bottled water at the airport or we run on a road trip I haven't really great water bottle that I can bring with me. Some other things that you know, honestly, this is going to sound kind of silly, but I think one thing that I thought would make a big difference almost is creating an emotional, spiritual connection to the earth. I'm not about to get all weaker on you. But like going on more hikes and being in nature. And again, I think this is why I'm craving the Pacific Northwest so much. But there aren't a lot of opportunities here to get outdoors just because your balls hot, or there's an ice storm, or there's a tornado or it's so windy that you

Emily Thompson 38:58
were there there's flat and nothing to know I know well, you don't really live in the most beautiful part of the country. And that's actually so that that was one of the side effects of going on our like grand adventure this past summer and camping. Doing like 40 days of living on the road was we really got reconnected to like to the planet and not why we were doing we were not going out there to have some sort of like some sort of like magical nature experience. We were going out there to like camp and hang out by the bonfire. But it did give us that like that reconnection that we felt we needed or we didn't even know we needed to what's happening on the planet. And it's also one of the reasons why we've decided not to do one the summer we had the idea that we would want to do it again, maybe not quite as big this year as we did last year. But we've decided not to and part of that. So We can do more exploring around where we've recently moved. So we've lived here about eight months, and we have not done near as much like outside exploration as we had as we'd wanted to. And we are committing to doing that this summer, like, we're not going to vacation elsewhere, we're going to vacation here, we're going to do some hiking and checking out some things locally, I think that's a, that's a good tip for anyone that like it, reconnect to the earth a little bit, go take a hike, go take a hike, and just be where you are live, where you live for a minute and not live where you live in terms of the concrete structures around you, but live where you live in terms of like your place on the planet, and like in the natural world.

Kathleen Shannon 40:42
And I think that's part of it, too. Whenever I think about seeing the world, I get really overwhelmed. Thinking about wars, I've started thinking about the oil industry on like a global level. But if you keep it local, which again, is like Oklahoma is the whale capital of the world. And if you keep it local, think about the difference that you can make, even in your neighborhood by planting trees in the median with your neighborhood association, like there are things locally that can make a big impact, if anything, just your day to day life, if that makes sense. So, um, I think that that's huge. I also I'm trying to think of some other things that are little that really feel like they add up for me, the packaging thing is huge. Like, whenever I'm grocery shopping, I'm more inclined to Okay, for example, here's like a little tiny minor choice that I had made the other day was I was buying flops and crackers and like they've gotten a 10 pack where they were individually sectioned off, which would have been perfect and like really easy to just give them a bag of crackers. Or I can buy the big box and divided it out myself into like a little bowl whenever he's eating. And so I thought the big box because it's less packaging. So that's like one thing that I really looked at, I buy my oats in bulk rather than in individual packages. So for me, packaging feels like a big thing. What

Emily Thompson 42:07
else I think like because whenever I think about some of this stuff, especially recently, I think about I think back to the episode we did with Carolyn Elliot, where she says like that part about recognizing that your hands are not clean, and there's just there's really on some level, if you want to be a modern human being, you have to be okay with the fact that you're getting your hands dirty in some way. But so packaging is like one of those necessary little evils unless you literally want to grow all of your food and kill all of your animals. But, like recycling is also the answer to that like being more mindful of buying the packaging that you know, you can go home and recycle and then actually recycling

Kathleen Shannon 42:47
it. Let's talk about recycling for sure. I'm not sure. Here's what that means thinking about this. I'm not sure how efficient it is for the earth. Because here's what got me thinking about this is I cloth diaper for a while and I felt real smug. Like then I was doing so much laundry. Then I was thinking what went into producing the fabrics that went into these cloth diapers, how much water my spending, you know, so for me, it kind of evens out and then after a year, it got really stinky. It was not working for us anymore. My husband does all his laundry and was getting like really annoyed with washing. He was on board with cloth diapering, too. So now we buy the disposables like the seventh generation disposables, and honest disposable so they're disposable diapers that are allegedly more environmentally friendly. But all that cloth diapering started getting me thinking about recycling, and like how much energy is going into recycling existing things. Versus Okay, so let's look at paper versus plastic. For example, whenever you're checking out the grocery store, a certain minut amount of energy goes into making that plastic but how much energy goes into making the paper and then the paper breaks down? It doesn't fill a landfill you know, it's just kind of like how you weigh those things out. So for me, I don't know like looking at the grand scheme of things I haven't much recycling I still do it don't get me wrong, but I wonder how much of it is like it just making us feel good. And then sometimes I want you to know I really think about this all the time I watch the trash guy come pick up the recycling and I'm like, what's going to a landfill right?

Emily Thompson 44:40
So I mean all of those are welcome to the like the issues of very many modern human beings. If David Niven had the same exact conversation like is it really more like environmentally friendly for me to use like regular plates and put them in the dishwasher and waste that water than it is to throw out or like recycle a paper plate like because

Kathleen Shannon 45:08
i don't know like i really don't know and then at some point is looking at what's going to preserve your own sanity and i feel like the cloth diapers were heading us towards divorce like divorce or people going

Emily Thompson 45:24
through a divorce won't recycle anything they're just done so no well and i think i think on some levels becoming more educated which i know on some level like who has time for that but this is our planet in the future of ourselves and our children so maybe we should all like go watch a couple more documentaries in our like i actually have a neighbor who recently told me she has instituted saturday morning documentaries and so while she's sort of putting around the house she'll put on a documentary and like do the dishes who knows what kind of soap she's using or you know cleaning the house and she'll put on documentaries and maybe like maybe i challenge us all including myself to like become a little more educated on the stuff that you do every single day and

Kathleen Shannon 46:12
both of us should watch documentary and do a blog post and follow up

Emily Thompson 46:17
i love that game in totally doing

Kathleen Shannon 46:21
so then that means that you have to watch documentary literally this weekend matt okay good and i'll make my thursday at all being my thursday blog posts like kind of a quick review if you can just write like a quick recap of one thing that you learned when when action stuff that you're going to perfect and i'll do this a perfect

Emily Thompson 46:39
let's educate the entire being balls community on how to recycle a little more smartly

Kathleen Shannon 46:44
i think no impact man would be a good one but i'd like to recommend for you and i think it'd be fun for a little you to watch to hopefully

Emily Thompson 46:50
down we're doing it i'm good now i feel better about that i'm gonna learn something new because i think i know that recycling is a pick your battles scenario and it is it is for us dave and i have these conversations all the time and yeah let's educate i'm down

Kathleen Shannon 47:11
i also think my thing about this whole thing too is i don't want to be a slacker this i don't want to just like a post on facebook i don't want to just do this podcast and feel like i'm doing good by you know what i mean i want to really do a couple of things yes so my commitment is to stop buying bottled water altogether and then maybe i'll come up with one more action step after i watch my documentary

Emily Thompson 47:37
i love that i love that i will watch the documentary too and see see what we can do there are in i will do that not see what we can do we'll do it and my action step we haven't even talked about yet but i'm ready to talk about it and that is like working giving into your business model so and that's something that we've remained really mindful of throughout the process of building indy and that you know online businesses and entrepreneurs have the capability of having like unlimited earning potential and as much as sure i can hoard all that money away for myself i would much rather invest in the world that i'm living in so one of the things that we did is whenever we launched our toolkits subscription which is a monthly subscription of management and marketing tips for online entrepreneurs you can find it at toolkits by indie comm we decided to work giving into our model so from the get go 25% of all of our revenue so nonprofit revenue like from the top goes to a good cause and we've done some really good things with that money in the past i guess eight or nine months since we launched it one of the things that we do is we sponsor a little girl in in haiti through a florence local charity called the 610 project and we sponsor her and send her to school so we pay for her her supplies and clothes so that she can go to school in haiti and hopefully have a bright and beautiful future we also have given to some local farms here in chattanooga crabtree frog excuse me brah crabtree farms is is one of the ones that we've given to and and they're really great about telling us the kinds of things that they do with the money and a lot of it involves educating kids and paying for field trips for local schoolchildren to come learn about farming and sustainability and just being little hippie kids and then we also very recently gave the last quarter of our contributions to the world parrot trust because i was in disney and they had mccall's flyover which are some of my favorite birds and they were talking about how horridly endangered they are and i looked at david and said that's it next next bit of money is going to the world parrot trust so we did recently give a couple 100 bucks to the parent trust and again it's not ever anything super substantial i wish i could give like tons of money to to these good causes that are capable of having a bigger impact than i then i am on my own but working that into my model and into a subscription model that we hope to only continue to grow over the next couple of years gives me the ability to give back to literally put my money where my mouth is in terms of wanting to support the parts of our human community that are doing good sending money that way is how i like to do business so for me one of the challenges i want to make is for all of you like most of you are out there starting your own business your side hustling or getting started or maybe you're in it think about how it is that you can do the exact same that's one of my very favorite things about this community as a whole is that most of us have giving built in already so if you don't have a built in or maybe you're slacking i want to challenge you to pick up the ante and and make giving a part of your model because it's something that makes me feel good and it's a way that i'm investing in my future in a way that's a little less direct than an ira but still feels just as good if not better

Kathleen Shannon 51:18
i have a recommendation for this do it so if you work a day job there are a lot of ways that you know probably your employer perhaps giving into like they're giving programs you know so i knew that i would never i worked at a day job i could give to the united way and then i could check things like planned parenthood that i gave to you well once you start working for yourself it's a little bit harder to wrap that into like your systems and processes working for yourself so jessica hische actually started a side project called 52 by 50 two.org so that's 52x 50 two.org where she gave to one charity every week so every week she's giving and you could determine what that amount is but i think it is systemising it and putting it into your flow if you want to get serious about it or maybe you just pick one but i love the idea of spreading it across a lot and maybe that's less impactful because it's not as much money like one person anyway but whatever um check out her website i just think that her her heart behind starting left side project and really caring about giving was awesome my personal giving model and again this isn't always entirely green but it's just giving money to my friends for raising funds for a certain project and especially if that project is around something that's for social good the more likely i am to give more money so but that's something you're doing that emily really inspires me and i hope that we can do that for being boston as well

Unknown Speaker 52:56
i agree we are we got some good things and talks i'm excited

Unknown Speaker 52:59
about that

Kathleen Shannon 53:02
and for our listeners let us know on instagram what you might do or what you like doing or on twitter so we are at the last

Emily Thompson 53:11
platforms nope being boss club

Kathleen Shannon 53:14
being so we are at being boss club on both twitter and instagram hashtag s tag us let us know what you're doing to be more environmentally conscious or friendly especially if you're a small business owner and you get to make choices around the business that helps you be more environmentally friendly let us know what those are we're all striving to do our part and again it's about progress not perfection it's about awareness not perfection but i think we can all agree that we need to take care of the human body but

Emily Thompson 53:45
there you have it that's a challenge at the time of recording we have weekly listener numbers in the five figures i don't want to hear anything about it's also big i can't make a difference because together we absolutely can for example if all of our listeners commit to bringing reusable coffee cups to their coffee shop when they're working remotely then we're negating the use of a hell of a lot of paper cups in a single week and as our content strategist caitlin shared with me the great pacific garbage patch that's literally at least the size of texas was contributed to by all of us so it's up to all of us to stop contributing be sure to share all of your photos this week on instagram and twitter using hashtag being boss goes green to show us how it is that you take little steps in your everyday life and work to make the world a little bit of a healthier place and just to give you some suggestions here are some other things that you can do to be a little bit more of an environmentalist you can stop drinking bottled water as kathleen is going to do i can't wait to see how she holds up by sustainable packaging so that whenever you are buying things that have packaging you are able to recycle them. Donate and give to organizations that help with sustainability. Get Smart about local politics. That's where environmental laws start. And look at all of your business expenses and resources and see where you can make all those things more local recycle. go paperless, and make a point to educate yourself about issues that impact your everyday life. We look forward to seeing you on Instagram and Twitter at hashtag being boss goes green.

Kathleen Shannon 55:32
Thank you for listening to being boss. Please be sure to visit our website at beam boss club where you can find Show Notes for this episode. Listen to past episodes and discover more of our content that will help you be boss in work and life. Did you like this episode, please share it with a friend and show some love by leaving a rating and review on

Unknown Speaker 55:51
iTunes.

Emily Thompson 55:52
And if you're looking for a community of bosses to help take your creative business to the next level. Be sure to check out our exclusive community at being boss clubs slash clubhouse, where you get access to our closed and very vibrant slack group monthly q&a calls with Kathleen and myself a book club and more. cultivate your tribe and find your Wolf Pack at being boss dot club slash clubhouse. Do the work. Be boss and we'll see you next week.

God I can only imagine what's going to happen in like, let's say 400 years when like some of our cities may be empty or something what's going to happen with like, giant mountain cats that are like from domesticated animals. I mean, just and here's like, here's one of the things that I want to like really put out there. I mean, think about where human and like animal culture were 150 years ago, like we didn't have smartphones or computers. I mean, like think about the changes that have happened in such a short period of time. And think about what can happen in the next 100 years.

Kathleen Shannon 57:08
Like I think it's going to be like Battlestar Galactica, where like what has happened? Is like all Yes,

Emily Thompson 57:16
yes. Well, I think I think that Game of Thrones is gonna become real life, like give it 1000 years from now. That's totally going to happen. I'm pretty sure. But regardless, like let's not get to sci fi on everyone.

Unknown Speaker 57:30
Nerves right?