[This is the first in a series of posts about how we sustain ourselves, based upon ideas presented in “Sustainable You, 8 First Steps to Lasting Change in Business and in Life,” available from Fisherblue Press.]

Say you want to drive cross-country to visit your college roommate, whose house you’ve never been to. Here are some scenarios for achieving that goal:

Jeff Clark, writing on TechCrunch.com, talks about "The Real Reason We Should Be Thinking About Sustainability," and we clearly speak each other's language. 

I did an interview with Business Innovators Magazine a while back, and they recently posted it. Good questions, I thought, and I am pleased with the result. I hope you'll check it out to render your opinion.

I’m very excited to share that I’ll be speaking twice, on back-to-back days, at Canyon Ranch in Lenox, Mass., in September.

These events are not open to the public, though if you really want to attend, you can always check in as guest. Or, perhaps, if you live locally, an accommodation could be reached.

Well, I'm excited, anyway. I just filed the "final" changes on the manuscript of my second book, and if my editor has no further direction, we'll move into production mode.

We're still up in the air about the title. I've been working on it under the heading "Personal Sustainability/What good is sustaining the planet if we're not sustaining ourselves?" But recently, I've wondered if "Sustain Yourself" with a similar subhead, might be better. Your thoughts are welcome. 

Meanwhile, please raise a virutal glass of celebratory beverage with me!

We've just updated one of my promo videos, and I'd love to know what you think. Please share it with your communities, especially if you like it.

When I recently interviewed Carol Sanford, author of “The Responsible Business” and “The Responsible Entrepreneur,” I was a little taken aback when she stated flatly that “I want the word ’sustainability’ to go away.”

Her contention is that “it limits what people think they can take on,” which I’m not sure I agree with.

I do have sympathy with those who deride it as a buzzword, but I’m heading the opposite way. Instead of hoping the word will go away, I’m trying to restore its full meaning, before it became a stand-in for green technology or corporate PR obligation.

A central part of the message I deliver to audiences is that nature is the only teacher of sustainability we will ever need. It’s been sustaining life on earth for 3.8 billion years, while humans have been upright only for about 200,000 years; the experience gap is obvious.

 I am not, of course, the originator of this idea, that humans are part of nature, not apart and certainly not above it, and the most prudent direction for all of us is to follow nature’s lead. I wouldn’t cast that as an absolute, but only because absolutes are bad every time.

Immediately after I completed my presentation to about 50 students at Middletown High School in Connecticut Tuesday, someone I was working alongside offered, “Tough crowd. It’s hard to get through to teenagers,” and that may sometimes be. But when my wife asked how it went (she called special, in the middle of day; ain’t she sweet?), I said I just didn’t know.

But now I do, thanks to scans of student-feedback forms sent to me by the organizer, and it’s better than my evenhanded skepticism would have surmised. 

This is the last in a series of eight posts detailing concepts and attitudes for sustainable personal change. As one would expect of someone maintaining a 155-pound loss for more than 20 years, my examples have to do with food and weight, but their point is to illustrate how anyone can achieve and maintain healthy change. Today’s concept:  “Change is a choice.”