319. Unlock Your Influence: Building a Powerful Leadership Platform with Andrea Learned

Welcome to episode 319 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy in today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Andrea Learned, host of the Living Change Podcast. Ready? Let's get started.

You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. In today's conversation, I'm joined by Andrea Learned. Andrea is the host of the podcast Living A Quest for Climate Leadership. She's also an author and strategic Advisor with a 25 year career in marketing, communications and thought leadership plan platform development. She's known for her climate influence insight and intuitive community engagement expertise advising clients in the clean energy, food systems, transportation and policy sectors. Her podcast Living Change highlights the stories of the surprising validator political, cultural and corporate leaders who are influencing scalable climate action in their lives and work. So how did we get put together today? Well, when I recently did a call out on LinkedIn asking for what people wanted to hear about on the show. Thank you to all the listeners who chimed in and nominated people and talked about concepts you were interested in. By the way, I'm so excited to go through and curate all this great content for you. So Andrea is someone who reached out to me with the idea of sharing about increasing climate influence. As we discussed the idea more, I knew it would resonate since, as I mentioned in Tuesday's episode, which was a refresh of my conversation with Vanessa Bonds about her book, you have more influence than you think. Almost a third of the episodes in the top 10 most downloaded of all time were on influence, so I knew that this was something you would enjoy. While Andrea is really focused on climate change, which is a very important topic, we also discuss how you can increase your influence around anything you care about without having to shout about it, especially because that usually doesn't work. So if you are looking for people to more naturally follow your influence and to be able to nudge people to change their behavior in ways that support great causes you believe in, you're in for a treat really quickly. Before we get into the conversation, I want to be sure you know that there are links in the show notes for everything, including related past episodes, links to articles and books, and so much more. It's all within the app you're listening to and at the grainy business.com 319 now let's jump right in. Andrea Learned. Welcome to the Brainy Business podcast.

Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here. Melina.

Yes. I'm excited to have you. We had a little bit of a pre chat, but this is a fun, fun sort of scenario where I put out a call out on LinkedIn saying, hey, who do you want to hear on the show next? What, what are we interested in? And we were not connected prior to this. And I believe it just sort of like you said, algorithm presented it to you and you're like, I don't know who this is or whatever. But, you know, we just sort of started a conversation from there. So I too know less about your background than I typically know with guests. So can you share, you know, a bit about yourself and, and the work that you do?

Sure, yeah. I think one of the things that excited me when I first saw your call was one, you're in the same state.

Yay.

And also I'm very interested in behavioral economics, so it was just this wonderful kind of match. But anyway, I am an expert and an advisor in what I call climate influence. And I'm also the host of the Living Change podcast, which is about unusual suspects in climate leadership. And we can go into that more. My deeper background has been corporate sustainability communication strategy. And then really deeply, that may be kind of of interest to your audience is that I was really deeply involved in marketing to women consulting and wrote a book about it way back when. So we can get into that later if you're interested. And I would say that my mission is really to help those with any sort of leadership platform. And I look a lot at corporate and political leaders to own their voice and leverage their power to nudge their peers, to act more boldly on climate. So it's like, how do you build climate influence? Why would you build it right? And then how can you really leverage it? And that seriously, like drives me internally. It's not this thing I made up. It just has been like in my soul for so long and finally I'm really out there yelling about it. So it's great to be here to share about that a little bit more.

Yeah, I know I had mentioned to you that the overall topic of influence is one that has really, really resonated with the audience here. So I recently celebrated the five year anniversary of the show. Hooray.

Congratulations.

Thank you. And yeah, over 300 episodes now and we just keep on keeping on with that. And so as part of that, I did the top 10, really top 20 most downloaded episodes of all time, of which Robert Cialdini, when he was on the show talking about influence, his amazing book with its new and expanded version that came out in 21, is in the top 10 downloaded episodes. As well as Zoe Chance with her book influences your superpower. I know her. I know her. Yes, yes, I love her. Amazing, wonderful person. So, okay, we'll talk about Zoe in a second. And then Vanessa Bonds and her book is called you'd have more influence than you think. Those were all in the top 10. Maybe one went a little bit beyond that, but really downloaded episodes of the show of all time. And so to have all those really great influence people be here, I know that it's something that's important to the audience. And I like this idea of, like you said, climate, influence and, or any aspect of something that you really care about that you're an advocate for, that you want others to be on board with. You're trying to get that buy in to. For the language that I like to use. And you don't want to just be, you know, the megaphone doesn't work. And so how can you be having that influence, especially when you have a platform, whether that's as a large brand or as a thought leader, you know, you always have. There's a little something you can do. And so thinking about that influence, I think is really, really important. So how do you know Zoe?

Well, I mean, it's funny because maybe this is true for your listeners too. I didn't realize that influence was so important to me before I got into the space. And then I read Robert Cialdini's book back in the bazillion years ago. Right. And then I read Nudge, you know, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. And then I came across Zoe's book recently and I think I heard her on a podcast. Yay, podcasts, Yay. And I got in touch with her really quickly because it really spoke to me, related to my topic. So it was almost like until you start to get a little bit of a niggling about influence, you don't realize then once you learn anything about influence, whether it is, as you say, an advocate or you're, you've got a message or a business that you're pitching, etc. It is fascinating, right? And because it can be so subtle, I think knowing more about it really helps you differentiate from all the loud head banging competitors you have or the noise of other issues that are coming up. So I think influence is fascinating. And that's why when I sort of pieced together what I was doing with my work, I thought, oh, my gosh. The greatest way to describe it is that I am advising and helping people understand how to build and leverage climate influence.

Yeah, definitely. I love that. One other book slash episode I'm going to be linking to in the show notes is David McRaney when he was on the show talking about how minds change. So one, if you have not read this book yet, I'm in top of the list.

Okay. Yay.

Super, super amazing book. So share a little bit about then what you found when it comes to influence and how that ties in with, you know, this idea of, you know, climate influence.

Well, the people that I've worked with for over, like 15 years have long been corporate sustainability leaders or kind of NGO executive directors on nonprofit directors. And the thing that I've been watching is who gets the most engagement and understanding of how to use, say, LinkedIn. Right. Looking at the B2B platforms and watching that and then comparing it with if the brand says X on a stage or in some messaging or marketing, and then the leader, the sustainability leader or the CEO is doing why over on LinkedIn one, how are those comparing? And then in the corporate sustainability space, I was watching and just several key people kept coming up and I was like, that person really knows what they're doing. They're engaging. Right. So they'll not only post, but they'll be going back and forth in comments and actually really adding value. So the whole idea of social media was. And me being able to watch it right in real time has helped me identify leaders who understand how to use social platforms. And then you can just watch their influence and you can watch them then be picked up to be on stage at the next conference, or you watch their career go that way. And so piecing that together, I just thought this is brilliant because I can, in a way, build a bench of leaders who are ready for media to see them. One of the things I'm always talking about in my work is, you know, and your brand knows that what they want is media coverage ultimately, right in the climate space. And one of the things that you need to be doing is to be visible and accessible for media. And so if they see that you're engaged on LinkedIn or wherever now, people are going to go, probably not Twitter.

They will go now. Exactly.

Right? Excuse me.

Yes, Right. Yeah. Just for the context of the day that we're recording for the, like, peek behind the curtain, because this will come out later that brand change happened like four hours ago on the website. So.

Yeah, so we don't even know how to say when they're tweeting because when they're xing.

I don't know. That's weird. Yeah.

So. So the, so the influence and the other thing that I see from a brand perspective is they're really hyper aware of their communications and their messaging, but they're not often smart enough to really leverage their leader.

Right.

And help their leader gain their own influence, which only aligns and amplifies. So as you can see, I can get kind of nerdy about this, but there's huge opportunity in sustainability and climate.

Hey, good news. You're in the right place to be super nerdy. That's you're with your tribe. Right. For that. And what I think is really interesting about just taking this down this kind of behavior path. Right. So if we think about so you as a business person and you think about the thing that we really hate having to do, which is pitching. Pitching sucks. I've talked about it. I have another of the top most downloaded episodes on is on how to pitch your business successfully. So we'll link to that in the show notes too. But like even when, so when you think about pitching the media, you need to be super, make it easy, easy, easy, easy, easy, easy, easy for them because they have so much that they're dealing with. You talk about being like, oh, overloaded, like low cognitive bandwidth, trying to just grab and like churn as quickly as you can. If there's any friction or difficulty in that process, they will move along. And so when you think about your company and a piece of friction being as the person in the media, like, who will I even pitch for this? Who could talk about it? Who could. Who's going to be eloquent enough? Are they saying the thing that I want them to say and like trying to track down the right person in your organization to pitch. You're asking them to do a lot of work and heavy lifting to where they'll just keep going, you know, to the same people that they we've known and seen a lot. Because it's easy. Right. That's that kind of default heuristic there. And so if your leader is more visible, people that can talk about this to where you can see, oh, Andrea is the, you know, XYZ of this company. They are already talking about this. I've been able to see it. I know who to pitch. I know who to ask for.

Yep. And to your point, you are delivering if you're on social media or more visible and engaged, you are delivering like almost not a blueprint but you're, it's a path or it's a journey where these media are just following you going, oh, that person tends to add good comments or really value about XYZ topic. I'm going to take a note right when I'm covering that industry, Bob Smith from whatever company is the one to talk to. The other thing I'll say a lot of times when people are thinking about media or pitching they immediately go to well I've got a good press release and I'm going to pitch them the story in two weeks and whatever. No, no, no, no. My point is to build that kind of influence. You have to be warming the relationship the whole time. So the point about being out there and being visible and engaging and even sharing and loving up as I call it media, like if there's a great story on your topic and the media, somebody in the media has written about it, think you know Steve Jones, who wrote that piece and add a teeny bit of value and walk away. What you're doing is you're building it and, and six months from now Steve Jones will come back and go, you made a comment once and then I started following you. And then this is what we're building. We want a warm relationships and that's the key to this influence stuff, right?

Yeah. In that pitching your business episode and in all the feel like everything I've ever talked about but is is really in this like, you know, business is a long game. Relationships are a long game and if you are waiting until you want and need something and making it about it's going to be so much more difficult to get anything to happen. And so just sprinkling and putting goodness out there, you know, it's going to come back around.

The other thing I wanted to mention related to what you just said about the corporation needing to have a couple of good spokespeople to kind of, you know, out there telling the story. One of the things that happened that I've watched in both corporate and NGO and non profit kind of worlds is that they media train and they script people to a high degree. And so when media out there looking for comments, they don't necessarily want to know that they're going to get the scripted message. They kind of want to know the human. And so by building a platform and thinking about your own leadership influence, two things, it gives media a kind of a warmer or more interesting conversation to potentially have the Other thing that people don't really think about is it's if you're building a leadership platform for your sector, you carry that thing with you wherever you go next. So the point is that you're building this leadership platform, it doesn't stay necessarily with your brand. And I think a lot of us know now that we aren't necessarily living with our brand or organization forever. In fact, I think people are turning over much more quickly. And so you build the leadership in your sector, you can carry that, and that's social capital that you carry with you wherever you go. So influence is a super smart thing for you to build as an individual. Well. And not keep tying it so directly to your organization.

For sure, yeah. And just knowing that, like you're saying, if you are this sort of unknown, faceless thing, you know, within an organization, and then you're back, you. It's time to be out in the world, you're an unknown, faceless entity. It's a lot harder to stand out in that way. And so it is, of course, important to make sure that if you are at an organization, you want to align whatever you're sharing on your own in a way that it meets all those media standards and the training and things that you're talking about. And I think the other side of that too is media does also like to know that someone's going to be able to be polished, to speak in good sound bites, to be able to give a really solid interview. And if you don't already have that media training, being able to show that in the video, in the whatever you're putting out there, that it's cohesive, that it's not this, like, rambling, never ending, like sort of like, what are we talking about? To be able to show that you would be a good resource is. Is valuable, right?

It is valuable for sure. Good point.

Yeah. So with some of the. What have you found? Do you have any great stories as far as where someone has been able to leverage their influence in a way that may be surprising or kind of looking at leaning on, you know, tips you've given based on what you've learned about, you know, influence research that the audience can learn from?

Yeah, the thing that I really emphasize is being seen being doing the thing that you're trying to forward. And the folks, the political leaders especially that I interview for my Living Change podcast are people who themselves ride a bike for local transportation. And so John Bowders, for example, the mayor of Emeryville, he rides his bike for everything. And so you see the Mayor pull up on his bike, right? Then you see the mayor, you hear the mayor talking about affordable housing, you hear him talking about homeless people and building relationships with them. It all lines because he's out on the streets riding his bike. So it's being seen doing the thing. And that's really my point. The other group of people that I interview are people that have gone plant based. And I talk about to your point, not loudly banging a drum about it or putting a neon sign in, hi, I rode my bike here. Let me tell you about my bike, right? It's not that at all. You, it's, oh, just arrived to my city council meeting and you just take a selfie and there's a bike in the background, right? Quiet little hints, you know, that you're sprinkling out like you said of, oh, I ate at this great restaurant, happens to be plant based, stuff like that. And so I'm actually curious how that in your world kind of ties into behavioral, economic stuff. I will say that that nudge book really got me thinking. Now, I can't say that I know every detail and everything I'm talking about completely, completely aligns, but the idea of that, of making it really easy for constituents and stakeholders to see that you are branded in a way next to your bike. I also interviewed a mayor. He used to be the mayor of Milwaukee, Oregon, near us down the street a little bit. And now he is in the Oregon State House of Representatives. Now, he originally got into being mayor because he's a photographer for National Geographic. His name is Mark Gamba. He's a photographer for National Geographic and saw climate change in action all over the world and was just like, oh my goodness, how can I affect change? And then he was like, I'll become a local mayor. Key part and parcel of being a mayor was him riding a bike, because that's the way he got around, but being seen doing it. And so that became part of even media coverage of him. Or he'd get to a city council meeting and plop his wet bike pannier down and his helmet, right? So these are the little. This is how you influence your peers. And what I would say about that is that your peers are watching that you're not yelling at them about it and then they're seeing that you seem to have a lot of people that are cheering you on or you seem to have an easier time presenting safe infrastructure in your streets. Why is that? Right? So you're kind of nudging your peers to think and act like you a little bit.

More. Yeah, I mean, definitely the personal brand and how that aligns with whatever initiatives and things you're, you're working on. And this definitely, you know, walk the walk slash ride the ride, paddle the fog. Right, right, right, right. Instead of just saying you care about sustainability and climate and then you, you know, drive a. What's the big crazy thing these days? Is it a Hummer still? I don't know, some sort of gas guzzling truck or whatever it is where people go disconnect really. Right. And you don't have to be at the full extreme of everything to be able to fit and make a difference. And I think it really comes to. There's a really great quote that, that is from Peter Steidle in his book Neuro Branding and he says how a brand is a memory. And as we build on the psychology of how all relationships, our entire existence is based on things that have already happened. And you know, there's a different article from, you know, Psychology Today that's talking about how it's like everything is, it's like Lego, right? That we're building all these different things to create an impression of how we feel about others, how we feel about companies and how this all comes together. And so aligning your Lego plural being Lego and not Legos. But you get what I write and where we don't just have a big like mess of pieces on the floor, but we're able to make sure that things are lining up and building an image that we want people to have of us and how we exist to where you can look at me and see, oh, you're, you're this type of person, you care about these things, this shows with this and you're getting traction. So how are you doing that? And it's easy to make those connections that those are building a clearer picture is going to help when we think about all of our existence and how people interact with us are based on those memories and getting as many of them to line up as possible and is I think a way that helps us to really make that be a really abstract idea, feel more concrete.

Oh yes. And I hadn't heard that and I appreciate that and I'm looking forward to following up and reading that book. One of the things about sort of making sure that all these little impressions add up, it goes back to your point of how this is, all of this is a long term game. Like you can't do any of this overnight. You can't get the story on the COVID of the New York Times overnight. You know, you can't get everyone to start riding their bike overnight. So it is this long term game. The other thing is, to your point, sometimes leaders especially are afraid or shy to come out because people will say, well, you're not perfect in every way. Right. So why should we trust you on this? You need to, as a leader or someone who's trying to kind of make this new impression part of your package, you need to be brave to be seen on the journey and be honest about. I, you know, I'm not doing everything right, but wow. Starting to ride my bike, to take my kid to school rather than drive my SUV a mile has just brought me joy. It's da, da, da, da, Right. So you're talking personally about how you're on this journey like everybody else. And I think that's huge.

Yeah, I think it ties into. I did an episode on vulnerability loops and talk about that in my second book and how you. It's this, you know, opening up to, for trust and whatnot and being willing to be seen helps people like. And I, I always forget the exact quote in the, you know, original, some of the paper and research that talks about vulnerability loops, but it's something along the lines of that you have. So it's this sort of like jumping, taking the step and know that people will like build the, the bridge underneath you, but you have to be the one to take that first step. Step. And it feels uncomfortable. But people want, not everybody, but most people will want to like reach out underneath and like help that to build the bridge of trust underneath you. If you're willing to go out there first.

Yeah. And I, I think that's something that every time one more of us takes this leap, we encourage the next person who's just on the fence about coming out. Right. About what they do to go, ooh, that person did it. I can be braver, which is part of my, like, I want a lot more corporate leaders and political leaders to be braver. And so I want them to see that one or two people have gone before them. It can be done. It has been done. They did it safely, you know, they landed softly. And this is how we kind of tell the story of like, the more of us express that we're on a journey, the better. Because right now we live in a world where it's either or you're on this side or you're on that side. You did right. That's not where it's not working. And so it's like everyone's on this journey. How are these Little impressions that we're putting out there, continuing to reflect that. That's really inviting people in.

Yeah. Yesterday I was on a long walk with my. I know I had mentioned to you. I haven't really talked about. I haven't mentioned this at all on the show because I haven't done an interview since it happened. And it'll. Hopefully this comes out after. Anyway, my 2 year old, so the brainy baby, little Hudson, he broke his leg and it's very sad. And he's in a big old cast and we have to keep him immobilized for five to six weeks, hopefully not longer. And that means lots and lots of time on walks during the day so that he can nap. And so I was on a very long walk, like a three hour walk with him yesterday while he was sleeping. And I was listening to the Time to Walk series from Apple. I really like the stuff they have in the Apple Fitness. Yeah, they have time to run, time to walk. And I ended up listening to Jane Goodall and Malala. Not even gonna attempt.

I know who you're talking about.

Yes. Yeah, she is Malala. We know. You know, youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize, if you're not familiar for people that are listening. But they were both talking about their causes and the same. I was just struck by how much it lines up with the conversation we were planning to have today. And I actually didn't choose them for that reason. I just thought that they looked like interesting conversations because a lot of who they have are actors and things. But I grabbed some of these ones. And so of course, Malala is really caring a lot about girls being educated from around the world and making sure they have access to education and how you can be showcasing, you know, that, that women deserve a voice that, you know, that's really what. And to, to be heard, to be able to learn that is what she cares about and aligning it in everything that she's doing and the conversations she's having in the way that she's seen and the. All these things. Right. And then, you know, with Jane Goodall and talking about her work with chimpanzees and how she was like, you know, putting this out into the world, but then seeing how she has now become such a big advocate for the climate because of what it's been doing for chimpanzee populations and saying also it has to do it's, you know, digging in deeper and seeing that this is a, a lot of the problems where the habitats for chimpanzees are going away is actually having to do with poverty and lack of access to other things because people are then having to go cut down trees and try to sell them or to be, you know, poaching or whatever it is, because they don't have another option. And so, like, she has where she was saying she's incredibly shy. Like, never wanted to be this advocate and voice, but it was like something that you couldn't not do once you see what's happening. And then how do you line everything else up? Whatever your cause is, whatever you care about, I think it just was interesting timing for me.

Well, I really appreciate that because the other thing that happens is people will say I'm not far enough along in my career or I'm not a big enough deal, right. For my quote, unquote leadership platform to be worth whatever. Right. And my point is always, like, you probably have a couple hundred followers on Instagram that you better believe, like, they like you, they're following you, they believe that you have value. You could start to influence those people. And that's huge because I don't. I'm old enough that I remember this very old Faberge organics shampoo commercial, right. Which was you tell two people and they tell two people and it just became this. Right. And it was just anyone who's, like, older than, I don't know, 45 would probably remember it, but you have to trust and believe that you have more influence than you think you do.

Yeah. Vanessa Bonds, you have more influence than you think.

And that's the thing that I think a lot of people related to climate should be really realizing.

Right? And every, every little drop, every pebble matters, right. As far as the ripples that happen there. Like you say, the, you know, if you get one or two people to go, huh, right, and. And stop a little bit, you know, disrupt that pattern, it can make a difference. And then they go to investigate a little bit more. I think I saw when I was kind of looking at your. Across your profiles and things, you know, before we scheduled the interview that you had a video on, you know, Instagram, whatnot, might have started as a TikTok, I'm not really sure. But it was saying, you know, be aware of if you say you care about the planet and then you're talking about high consumption or looking at the items you're recommending or what you show that you use or where you know that that all just has an impact on what people see and what they'll do. And if they want to emulate what you're doing those things that we think, oh, it doesn't matter that I have this and that no one will notice, but what if they did? You know, they might later. And is it really the thing you want to be having out in the world? I guess in that way.

Right. And that goes back to just also making sure that you're very kind of aware of you're on a journey. Right. So you can't be expressing something about emissions or climate or whatever and then get really excited about, you know, the brand new SUV you bought and how you drive everywhere or whatever. Like, not that you couldn't have done the SUV before you were converted. Right. So one of the things that I have online is a workshop I did for an organization called 50 by 40 talking about conversion storytelling. And that is that you don't. The most powerful stories are of the people that used to. Right. I'll just give this example, right. Eat a whole bunch of meat and then all of a sudden one day they realized that they needed to go plant based. That person, that experience that that person had is going to be more. And you can tell me the influence level of a story that's that extreme from one to the other. My understanding is that's going to be pretty powerful. And I've seen that in my work. You know, so and so used to drive a big truck and now they've decided that for all the five mile round trip, you know, radius trips in their city, they're going to ride a bike. Conversion stories, the moment of, oh my goodness, I gotta change my way telling that story over and over again is hugely powerful.

Yeah, for sure. I think with that. And I've been doing a kind of a series on storytelling this summer. So this lines up with a lot of what people have been hearing on the show recently. But the aspect of being able to see yourself in the story, right. It's really easy to say, yeah, that person is vegan. But right. Where we say like, but they. You can write like fill in the blank to why it doesn't apply to you and why you couldn't do that to make the change that you don't feel like you want to make because you really like bacon or whatever it is.

Right, right, right.

And it's easy to explain it away without having those other details or facts and. Or to feel like it would be too hard or it's not worth it or whatever it is. You can again just say, well, I'll deal with that later. Because our brains get overwhelmed. They like the status quo. Want to stay where they are. And so if you see though someone who is more extreme than you and you know, it's also easy to say like, ah, change is hard. And like, I'll deal with that later. There's a little bit of time discounting in there where we say, tomorrow, I'll do better. And then tomorrow comes in the cheeseburger is your option again. You go, well, maybe, you know, tomorrow again. Right. And so with that, if you though, see that someone who was way more extreme than you or similar to you and they found this joy or this value or they've had this uplift in whatever way, you go, huh? Right. It just is gonna hit a little bit different. And you go, well, maybe, maybe I could do that. Right? And maybe then you see that they started with Meatless Monday and they have some recipes that they posted that help them along their journey where it feels like I could try one of those. And then they, they just share like, hey, you know, today I'm making, you know, whatever, this plant based curry for Meatless Monday and here's the recipe, like, oh, it's so delicious. And then we get mirror neurons going and we're like feeling the vibe of it and feels like it's super unnecessary or unrelated or like, who would want to watch that? But people watch that sort of stuff constantly and if it comes with a story, it just is that much more powerful.

Well, and I think the other thing is that you are seeing this more on Instagram and TikTok and all of the platforms. It's not going, this is my amazing vegan recipe. Right. You're saying. And I think that that kind of draws people in. So not leading with the point, you know, not leading with the like vegan or bikes or I hate your car or whatever, but kind of going at it from a really accessible. I mean, we're talking about accessibility a lot, like making these stories accessible. There's a. I did a great interview with John Richards of kexp. It's the first episode of Living Change and at one point we're talking about being vegan and, and his friends and his community know that he's vegan and so they feel kind of weird talking to him about it. He had, I think there's a story in there where he talks about having a friend who's like, I'd really like to go vegan, but I really, I just can't see giving up cheese on pizza, you know, and going on and on. And I think John's like, so go vegan. But for you just eat pizza if you want to.

Right?

Like so we, we inform. It's just like. And I hear that a lot. I'd really like to go vegan. But to your point, it's just like, you know what if that's the one thing holding you back, eat that thing and sort of veer plant based. That's amazing, right?

Yeah, I, I also think it's funny that so it, that just reminded me. So I have celiac disease and people and I actually, I've always sort of said that it feel I'm thankful that I have this diagnosis and not just people saying oh you probably should know eat gluten. Because if that were the case, I mean I'd be eating it all the time because it's really hard when you don't have to do something and knowing like hey, your intestines are going to die if you eat that. Do not do it. Like cool, right? It's really, it's a lot easier to be firm and I have to care about prep and all these things that it's kind of a pain to make sure that staff changes their gloves and there are places I can't eat and I travel a lot for work and there are a lot of times where I'm just having to eat protein bars and that's okay, right? Because that's, that's, it's. It's very a similar journey to what I know that a lot of people who are vegan are on and you know, you tell people oh I have celiac disease and go oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I couldn't possibly, I could never not have whatever the thing is. And like, well if you could just like eat the one thing like if it's your last meal or like you get the one splurge, what would you have? And it's like ah, you know, there's just enough stuff like I don't need my last meal to make it so I feel miserable afterward. I guess, you know, it's just not, it's not worth it. But you know, for those sorts of things, if you. There is. If you have to go all the way and be extreme about it, you can. Those are kind of extreme diets to see like okay, if I do go, what if I do vegan or plant based for 30 days? Like I'm going to be, I'm going to do that. And then you could, if you wanted to be more extreme and have the story somebody could do their like I tried this for a month and like what happened? Follow your journey. I've actually seen, I saw someone did that and they were like the most.

I'll.

I'll find this in the search of YouTube world where it was a guy who was like the most like eating out hamburgers for every single meal sort of thing and then went totally plant based for like 30 days. And it was this like journey of how he was more energized and on all these things. But he went into it was like, no way it's going to happen and whatever. But that again, the story is relatable.

And that story is amazing. And I will kind of share kind of related. And it's funny that we keep pointing to podcasts because I guess now we're in that world. But there's a, I don't know how many of your listeners know. Well, I guess a lot of people listen to WTF podcast, the Marc Maron podcast, amazing interviews, et cetera, et cetera. Well, if you've been listening to him over time, you've heard him talking about brisket, he can't wait to cook his brisket and all this, you know, so and so dropped off this meat or whatever and he's all excited. Well, recently, within the past couple of months, I think his doctor said, you know, you might want to try going plant based. And so he's been doing it and he's been very publicly talking about it and I think he's doing a great job. One it seems to me that it's working for him. But also he's very conscious to say that I'm currently plant based. So that doesn't also doesn't make anyone listening feel like again, the extreme of I'm plant based. It is what it is, but just sort of acknowledging that you're in your life right now at this moment, you're currently whatever. And I think that lends itself to a lot more accessibility for other people. And then again to this person who's got a lot of influence in a big platform, just sort of sharing parts of his day. Right. And he's sharing that. And one of the reasons he's. He's trying plant based is health. But also he's very aware of climate. And so he just mentions that he sprinkles that around and I think that's gonna, I think that will have a lot of influence for sure.

And that's where again he's like, oh, the brisket guy is trying it. Like maybe I will too. Like his taste aligns with I also enjoy brisket. So like he found a plant based one. I guess I'll try it or whatever. Right?

You know, Exactly.

And I think there is a little bit of a, you know, we like the little bit of a challenge or a timeline on something too. So if it's to say, like, for this week, I'm gonna do this or I'm gonna do Meatless Mondays for three months and see what happens, or like you can make a rule of something that you're gonna try just to see what would it even look like to not have meat for 24 hours? How would I even handle that?

Yeah, And I think in terms of sort of being a person who might influence others. Right. Thinking of how you're expressing that. And so not to go too deep on the vegan thing, because it can also work with the bike thing. Right. You can also say for the month of May, which I think is bike month all the time, but. Or for the month of whatever, I'm going to ride my bike for short trips for three days a week. Just do that. And I think what most people who ride their bike regularly know is once you get started, you're pretty likely to do it as regularly as you can. And so to your point, trusting the process, get started and you'll be amazed at kind of the interesting directions your life might take.

Yeah, I'm forgetting whose book this is in. But like, I know someone makes, I know the point of this. You know, you just have to start. And we know, like, we hear this advice all the time, but you, if you give yourself, it's in this sort of like tiny habits world. But I know it's not in that book that you want to just do the first little thing and give yourself the permission that if you don't do anything more than that, you don't have to. And they were talking about how it was like their sister who was trying to walk more or to run or whatever that it was. You just have to walk to the end of the driveway and then you can be done if you want, but you have to put on your running clothes, you have to like put on the shoes and you get out there. And if you choose to walk back, fine, you're done. But most of the time you may choose to go do something a little bit beyond whatever that thing is. And just like that first little step that overcoming that feeling of discomfort can be enough to then keep going. And once you see, oh, that was easy, and now I've done it. I'm the type of person that does this. This becomes a self Hurting piece that we can do it again and again for whatever it is. And I would just suggest too, if you are looking to try something like that, it feels a little bit scary. Assume whether it's related to climate change or anything else, if you don't be scared to ask a question. So that piece of being vulnerable again, right. So I keep going to the vegan piece because it's. Or plant based or whatever, because it's an easy example for people, I think, because we eat a lot more than we do a lot of other things. And so if you were to say, hey, like I'm considering doing Meatless Monday again, just like a random thing I've been talking about here, does anybody have a great recipe? Like, what are some recipes I should really try for anybody that does this? And then what's cool about that is you end up getting more social proof than for people that comment that say, oh, when I started meatless Monday, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, like I really, this was my go to, or I tried this thing or I don't like that, but do this. And then more people see, like, hey, there are a lot of people that have more of a plant based diet option in some way and are not eating meat for every single meal that we think that they are. You know, and then you get to see, oh, I wonder what that rate. Then people see even just the chain of responses and people wanting to support you on that journey. People are more supportive than we think they are. And seeing, you know, that more people are doing it, I think is just valuable even, even asking the question. And if you don't do anything with it, like hopefully you do. But if you go out there and just say, hey, I've been considering this, what do you think that could be your little contribution to, to the world too?

100%. Because you can either do that as somebody who's curious about it, or it could be a strategy as a climate thinking leader. Like the people I'm talking about who have influence and just say, listen, I love riding my bike. Ooh, I think I'll post right. Hey, I decided to ride my bike today to take the kids to school. Anybody else do that? Like posing things as questions? I think that they've learned on LinkedIn. Right. That's one of the things they say about if you really want to leverage LinkedIn, well, you know, write something and then pose a question. You're inviting people in. So whether you're just trying it or you're a kind of a person leading and wanting to leverage Some influence asking questions and kind of opening that up is a really good way to start to pull a little bit more people in. I so and the social proof, that concept is just so powerful for sure.

Well, I will expand and note that on my three hour walk that I did with, with Hudson yesterday, I walked to the farmer's market that is a few miles from our house and bought some flowers from a local provider that we like down there and then, you know, walked my way back after that and my husband and I have started doing that fairly often. It's like, how much further can we go? And like we walked to lunch which, you know, a couple weekends ago we walked and did like 15 miles, which was a bit much, but it was still.

Yeah, but you'd be surprised what you can end up doing, right?

Yep. Yeah, it's a, it's, it's something we enjoy. You know, walking is our thing that we like to do. We like to stroll and, and talk and. But you know, you get to run some errands or walk some errands while you're in the mix of that, which is, is nice and just showing, you know, what you can do if you kind of plan accordingly and whatnot. So. Well, thank you for coming to talk with me about climate influence for everyone. Do you have one? You know, as we go here, like top tip for people, maybe something we didn't talk about yet today that you think is really important for people that are looking to have more of that subtle influence in their lives and careers.

Yeah, I think the topic is, I mean, we can't sort of skirt it at this whole time and that is be brave enough. You may not post or make a big deal about what you're doing as a broadcast message, say, but get more conscious of contributing and adding value and maybe that's in your social media comments or whatever. That's one way to get kind of braver with feeling out whether you have influence. And if people are listening to you, that will start to make you braver then also to post and to do things a little bit more boldly. So I think the influence starts small and start by engaging, not pointing any fingers or highlights at yourself and then you'll see and you'll slowly get comfortable being more of kind of someone a little bit more on a platform kind of forwarding climate influence. So yeah, this has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much, Valena.

Yeah, of course. Thanks for joining me. And for everyone who now wants to learn more about you, to follow you, to get more of your tips and tidbits. Where should they go? What's the best route for them to do that?

I think the very, very easiest thing because I would love for them to listen to my podcast and I've got websites and I've got all this other stuff. The easiest way to find all of that is maybe to go to living change podcast.com which will bring them to my site which then they can find my social platforms, etc. Etc.

Perfect. Well we will definitely link to living change podcast.com in the show notes for everyone to make that real easy as well as your, you know, LinkedIn and some of those top channels and everything. So again Andrea, thank you for taking the time to join me today. It was a lot of fun, fun to chat with you.

It was wonderful. Thanks so much Molina.

Thank you again to Andrea Learned for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation? For me, I always love talking about invisible ish influence and how alignment and authenticity makes it easier for people to follow you and whatever it is you're championing, be it climate change initiatives or anything else that's important to you. As we talked about in the episode, leaving a comment on a post or asking a question on your social media can start the conversation and help leverage social proof in a really cool way. What causes do you care about? What have you done to increase your influence and what are you going to try? After listening to this conversation, I would love to hear about it and I'm sure Andrea would too. Come let us know on social media. A great time to test this out. You can find me as the Brainy Biz, but pretty much everywhere. And as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn, I will definitely be asking this question, so you should have a way to go ahead and respond, especially if you listen to this episode right when it comes out. Which is why it's a good idea to subscribe so you always get the episodes right when they are released. There are links to my handles and ways to connect with myself and Andrea all waiting for you in the show notes for this episode, along with links to related past episodes, books and more. Those are all within the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 319 and thank you again to Andrea Learned for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me Tuesday for another brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. It's going to be a lot of fun. You won't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me, and remember to be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.