DO WE NEED ANOTHER PODCAST…ON THE PLANET?
God yes. And that’s official, because this is my blog. Actually, it’s Verda’s too but I think she’ll agree. A podcast is a voice. It’s a perspective, an opinion and a lever to create some movement. Verda and I had breakfast together one morning in New York City and Verda told me about her new passion. She was upset about what we are doing to our planet and she wanted to start doing something more than wring her hands. More importantly, she felt that the interior design industry needed to do more. And Verda had already started. She wrote an article for Fast Company back in July of 2019. She even titled it “I’ve Been Designing Offices for Decades. Here’s What I Got Wrong.” What?? She didn’t get it all right? And now she’s gonna tell everyone this? Yes, this is perhaps the first step. A little bit of self-deprecation, open mindedness and the public announcement that you’re, in fact, still learning. That’s significant because Verda’s been a big part of a very successful design firm. Are we shocked and appalled to hear Verda say she got some of it wrong? Absolutely not! But I digress.
I explained to Verda that I too was passionate about our planet and wanted to do more. I had the opportunity to do a lot of public speaking on our impact on planet Earth, and what that meant. In fact, I had traveled to some far away places to do this, such as Bali, Hong Kong, Tokyo and the UK. This time had given me the opportunity to learn more and share what I learned. I realized that what this movement needed was, not another angry environmentalist wagging their finger in our faces, but rather a layman…a non-expert talking about this crisis. This non-expert could be anybody. Anybody who cared should be yelling from the rooftops “C’mon people! You don’t have to be a scientist to know we’re doing some pretty bad things! You don’t have to be a scientist to change what you do!!” As a “layman” you must first get past the fear of hypocrisy. It’s okay to say “I’m not perfect. I use too much plastic too. I also have a big carbon footprint. But I’m trying, and I need you to try too. You should not have to be a subject matter expert who has created a carbon neutral lifestyle to share good ideas and talk about some real problems we’ve got. You also must put your Imposter Syndrome in the back seat for a while. We all sometimes suffer from this syndrome. Regardless of what we’ve accomplished, we always fear that we are going to be “exposed” as some kind of fraud. Maybe this just comes during those low moments when we’re battling with some self-doubt, but this “Imposter Syndrome” is a thing. So, let’s get past that as well.
And so Verda and I decided to team up. An artist and creative who wants to challenge her industry and a self-appointed activist who’ll talk to anyone. We decided to be the non-experts who would find unique voices and bring them into our industry. We wanted to find outlier individuals, with really cool and inspiring stories, and bring them to the interior design industry to help us all re-boot, re-align and re-imagine better ways of doing things. Sometimes, to get things done, you’ve got to break some dishes. And so, that’s the name of our podcast-Break Some Dishes. We’re excited to bring a voice, to bring a perspective, to bring a point of view. We’re hoping to challenge the status quo and embrace the bombers who are out there blowing things up. Join us! Talk with us. Talk at us. Shout with us and celebrate really good change with us! Just don’t ignore us…
