Starting a Podcast at 16, Career Advice for Gen Z, and Junk Journaling with Heidi Pan

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick! 

On today’s episode, we talk with Heidi Pan, Founder of the 1.5 Degrees Podcast about Starting a Podcast at 16, Career Advice for Gen Z, and Junk Journaling.   Read her full bio below.

Help us continue to create great content! If you’d like to sponsor a future episode hit the support podcast button or visit www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com/sponsor-form 

Showtimes: 
4:06 - Let Them Theory
11:45 - Interview with Heidi Pan begins
18:50 - Who are you speaking to?
27:30 - Mental Health & Youths
32:58 - #FieldNotes with Heidi Pan!

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This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.

Connect with Heidi Pan https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidi-pan-037257219/

Guest Bio: 
At 16, to bridge the gap between aspiring environmentalists and established professionals Heidi Pan founded the 1.5 Degrees Podcast showcasing climate careers and involving the science, solutions, and stories in the fight against climate change. Her accessible intergenerational and intersectional climate conversations have since been featured by BBC Future Earth and the Smithsonian. In her free time she's teaching herself acoustic guitar, taking photos of birds, and junk journaling.  

Music Credits
Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa
Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to EPR with your favorite environmental nerds, Nic and Laura. On today's episode, Nic and I talk about the let them theory. 

We interview Heidi Pan about starting a podcast at 16, career advice for Gen Z and junk journaling. And finally, because Nic has only 1 more state to visit before he hits all 50, like I have, here's some fun facts about Montana to make him a little jealous. Montana has the wildest temperature swing ever recorded with 187 degrees change over 24 hours. That's insane. That's so wild. It has the largest snowflake on record with reaching 15 inches. Uh, yeah, it doesn't make sense either. Imagine that. I feel like that would fall and like hurt somebody, you know. Yeah, and last but not least, it has the largest population of grizzly bears in the continental US, which is what, 3? It's more than that. So yeah, something like that. Jealous, yet it's time to visit Montana. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, super. 

All right, we'll hit that music. We're getting closer. It's time to join NAEP for their annual conference and training symposium in Anchorage, Alaska from Monday, May 11th to Thursday, May 14th. Register now at www.NAEP.org.

Let's get to our segment. OK, so wait a minute. Yeah, I thought you were just went through all of the states, which I failed to ask you about. Why is Montana still on the list? Well, so I was gonna drive out to Montana. I thought that would be a really fun thing to do because I don't know, from DC, yeah, and it's kind of like always been like, like driving cross country has always been a thing, even when I was a younger, like my family, we did it. We just drove cross country. We camped the whole way out, the whole way back. Yeah, awesome, which is great, and it was such a wonderful experience. So, every now and then it's kind of like a nice thing to do, and I was like, well, I've got Michigan and Montana to go, and I just decided to root out, and could I do this, right? And it's like, yeah, you could do it. I mean, like you might run into some weather, but you know, it's worth a shot, and if you're doing it in, you know, winter, this is, these are the appropriate things I told you about the storm I ran into when I did that trip. Uh, and then like, you know, I got to Detroit, no problem. It was really fun. I got to eat really good food, and I was like, oh wow, there's a giant tire on the way into the city. Really fun memory. So, I was happy to knock Michigan out and then got everything was perfectly fine until right before getting to South Dakota, and there was a drive where there wasn't weather, there was no weather. It was just wind, but it also just snowed, so all that snow was powder. And it would be like 5 minutes of perfectly clear sky and then 2 minutes where it's so cloudy, full of snow that I couldn't see the lines on the road, period, let alone the cars in front of me, and it's terrifying. It ends up being wild, and I'm like, I've got to, we've got to pull off. This is crazy. I've got to, I'm not going to make it to Sioux Falls because that's another hour and a half to go. 

And that really threw off the time that I had to do it, and it was funny. I have a clip of the snowstorm. While listening to a murder podcast, it couldn't have been, it was like I was doing it on extra hard mode, so I'm like super stressed, you know, trying to navigate through, but made it to Jackson, Minnesota, which I don't know if anyone's ever heard of before, but got Burger King and fell asleep. It's a howling wind. I mean, it was like 50 mile an hour gust. It was bad. It was bad, and it came out of nowhere. It was totally fine. Until, like, it just randomly showed up. It wasn't on the radar. It wasn't in like any of the weather reports, so everything looked really good for getting to where I needed to get to and just nope, couldn't do it. So still on the list. I still got one to go. The saga continues. It does. It does. But I don't know, we were talking earlier about the let-in theory, and I know I've heard you say this before, but I, what, what is it? What is the let in theory in a nutshell? Yeah, so this is a book written by Mel Robbins, which has just reached over 8 million copies, billion, probably a billion, uh, ridiculous number of copies sold around the world, making it the largest bestseller of nonfiction ever, like something great. I don't know, it could be one of those things where it's different on different scales, but that's what I'm, I'm hearing, and one of the reasons is it's practical, right? I It's one of those, you know, every nonfiction book is not unless it's like heavily researched science-based, Stephen Hawking or something. It's generally stuff that you have heard somewhere else or someone else has said or whatever. She didn't invent the let them theory, but she was able to package it in a way and put it together so that the examples make sense for everyday life and, and it's just reached so many people, including myself. I read it 4 times last year. Wow. 

It's just a playbook for dealing with people, and it doesn't do anything to label people or have to do any inner work to figure out who you are or do like, you know, there's no meditation part of it. It's just Nic said something that bothered me, Nic is mad at me for something, let him, let him be mad. You know but then let me do what I'm going to do. So, there's two parts to it. People, you know, on the surface, it's let them, which is kind of feels like a screw you, let you go do whatever you're gonna do. But the second part of it is let me. I have to do something myself. So it could be, let's say you have a disagreement with a friend and that friend just walks out on you. Boyfriend, spouse, whoever, like, you let them, and then you let me, so I can, I can let you be mad and then I can let me learn my lesson, figure out what I did wrong, figure out how I want to tackle this or change this, and she also mentions like it isn't something that you say once. I might have to say let them 1000 times, but I continue this mantra of just let him, let him have his own thoughts, let him have his own feelings, let him do this, but then let me. I have to do something. Let me learn from it. Let me also walk away. Let me, you know, apologize if I have decided that's what I need to do, but then let them do. So it's basically, it's really, it's about giving up control of the one thing that you cannot control, which is other people and their responses to things. Right. Oh man, that's just a great lesson as is. Yeah, OK. Yeah, I hear you. So even if you never read the book, and you just hear that, and you try to practice it, it can be helpful. Yeah, no, that makes total sense. And it's funny. It's like one of the things that I think took me the longest time in the world to learn. Like, I grew up in a place where duty and honor are super important. Like they're really like the number one drivers of how your household as a kid was drawn. That's kind of what it was for me. And somebody once told me, they were like, you know, duty and honor also apply to yourself, right? And I'm like, what do you mean? She's like, you've got to take care of yourself. You have a responsibility to yourself. It is not just to other people. It was like one of those like blew my mind kind of like, oh, they're right. And so that's what you made me think of when you're talking about, let me, you know, and that's very neat. That's a really unique thing. It's almost like you really want people to not be mad at you, right? It's the number one thing. It's like, I just don't want you to be mad, and it's like, well, you can't help how people feel. And I think it's a really important thing for you to say when you are upset. It's like, I'm upset right now. You can't make me un-upset. 

So I need some space. I need some time. Let me do that. Let me, and then if you're upset that I'm upset, be upset. Yes, but I need to go away, yeah, yeah, you nailed it. That's another, the book has many chapters, one about families, one about kids, and I think that's what makes the book so helpful is that there's really good examples to nail this down and tie it to your brain for the next time it happens to you, and one of them is let people be mad at me, let people not like me, let people, you know, like, let someone be mad at me. If I feel like I need to say something. And I've thought it through. I'm, so it's for me, I tie it to the four agreements. I'm impeccable with my word. The way I'm gonna say this to you is going to be the way, you know, empathetic and in a nice way. I'm not gonna yell at you or whatever, but like, if I feel like I have done that, I've said what I need to say in a respectful way. And you still get mad. I'm gonna have to let you get mad and let me either go about my business, you know, bake them a cake, whatever, whatever you feel like the appropriate response is, but you gotta let people not like you, otherwise you are fully in control of other people, other people's responses, which you don't have control over. Then you have no control over yourself. Right, exactly. Exactly, and you're trapped to the whims of other people. And if it's somebody who's, you know, has narcissistic tendencies, for example, then that becomes really dangerous because that's somebody who's not going to do what you want them to do because they can't, and that's where it can be quite wild. So very cool. 

That's a really neat thing. So, I have to let myself be okay with missing out on Montana, is what you're telling me. Is that part of it? Cause I think it could be let it. Yes, so it can be let the universe, the weather, let the weather, we'll call it the weather, let the weather stop me from going to Montana, we'll just let it. But then let me try again next year, you know. Yeah, exactly. And maybe not in the winter because that's exactly. Let me learn my lesson, right, and go another time of the year, which was great because like my friends are like, it's the worst time to go. I'm like, that's why I want to do it. It's because it doesn't make sense. And you know, it's going to be a slice of that state I won't get to see in any other time, you know, so yeah, and the universe is like, no. Yeah, it reminds me of a perfect example. So my family was trying to plan a family trip, and so there's a chapter on families and the let them theory, which is really great. I get along great with my family, so it wasn't as applicable to me, but I could see for a lot of people, let them, let my mom be crazy, let my dad be overbearing. Let, you know, let them and let me be who I am, right? But my family was trying to plan this trip. They're all from Florida and they want to see snow. And they're all like, let's go to Colorado. Let's go to Montana. Let's go to, and I'm like, you guys, you have Crocs and flip flops as shoes. Like you're gonna spend $10,000 in gear. Just to go and you don't even wanna ski, like they, it's not like they were going to freeze to death. No, I'm like the kids are gonna like it for about an hour and then they're gonna be done. But I was like I had, I literally use the let them theory, let them, let them make the mistake, let them try to plan, let them whatever. They eventually came to their own conclusion that they're gonna do something in summer instead, and I didn't have to fight them. I didn't have to be right. I didn't have to any of that. It just worked itself out, you know, but I could have. 

Trying to control the uncontrollable and try to like tell them I'm wrong, but eventually they did their own research and all of that, and it, it just came to be, but that was an example of where the let them theory comes in helpful. Yeah, and you know, it's funny that you say that too, cause even for my trip, I, I was like, I knew what could happen, and I was happy with it. I was like, if that happens, um, then so be it. That means that I should try in summer, and I will, and yeah, I think you could literally like switch it, swap it out to let it, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, let it. Yeah, it felt ambitious. That's why I wanted to do it, cause it felt like taking a swing, you know, but it also means that the last stick is to be its own special trip, and that in a way is its own thing. So I'm excited about it. Like yours was Hawaii, right? Like that was your last one. It was its own special thing. And so, yeah, I'm gonna go see all of the grizzly bears, apparently, all three of them, all 3 of the grizzly bears that are in Montana. Yeah. All right, awesome. Well, let's get to our interview. Sounds good. 

Welcome back to EPR. Today we have Heidi Pan with us. Heidi is the founder of the 1.5 Degrees podcast and a climate communicator whose work has been featured in NASA, the Smithsonian, and BBC's Future Earth. Welcome, Heidi. Hi, Laura, thank you so much. It's an honor to be here. Awesome. So tell us a little bit about the 1.5-degree podcast and what inspired you to start it at just 16. Yeah, for sure. So, some people are kind of, there's an initial concern when I say that I started this at 16, and I'm surprise. Um, I remember when I first started interviewing people, people just assumed that I was already in college, now I am, but at the time I was a junior in high school, and it was during my spring break of high school that I kind of really decided to just do it with an idea that I've been having since 8th grade. I tend to be a person that has a lot of questions. 

And especially when it came to my career, because, you know, people are always asking you, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I would always be like, I have no idea because, you know, there's this big thing of climate looming over me as a 16 year old at the time, and many of my peers, and even before that, you know, when we first learned about climate change, the only solutions that were really presented to me were, you know, recycle and go be a climate protester and miss school, which is not something that I could afford to do. And so, you know, I had questions about what a career in climate could look like as somebody who wanted to dedicate my career to that. That, you know, I could not find answers to in my immediate surroundings. And so I decided I would just bite the bullet and just reach out to random people on the internet who I thought were doing really cool things and just ask them a bunch of questions. And so it all began with a researcher on a paper that I just, you know, had real interest in. And it turns out this person was the executive director for NASA's Earth Sciences department. Like just the high stakes interview was the first interview and I was like, yeah, exactly. I had that conversation. I was like, oh God, this is a lot of really important information that I'm getting here that I think a lot of people could benefit from. And so, I've just, you know, ran with it. It's now a podcast that has, you know, it's taken a form of its own, and I'm really grateful that this has happened to me. Yeah, that's really awesome. I love it. I've been career coaching for 7 or 8 years now, and I'm always telling people. Like you have to stand out somehow, and one of the best things you can do is like, maybe somebody wants to start an Instagram feed, or they want to do a blog, but just interview people, ask them exactly the same thing. A lot of the approaches, you know, if you don't know what you want to do, and you start talking to people, or if you have an idea of one or two things that you might want to do, start talking to people. You don't have to go full blown podcasts, but I think it's amazing that you did. And so, how did you figure out how to do it? Was somebody helping you or you just looked it up, or how did that go? 

Yeah, I guess it was very much I just figured it out as I went. I had not done interviews in the past, but, you know, I used to listen to podcasts, so I kind of knew, you know, you have to have an intro, it's nice to have some fun graphics, it's good to have some sort of branding around you, it's good to be respectful to the person that you're interviewing at their time and, you know. Do a lot of research and as a demonstration of that respect, you know, for their time. So, I didn't really have anybody really teaching me how to interview. I just did a lot of research on how to do it properly and to the best of my ability. And then the rest of it was just stuff that I already had this microphone, this random big microphone, believe it or. Not, I had it before my podcasting for another project that I had done in middle school or whatnot, and then it was just a matter of my laptop. And then in terms of recording over Zoom, I didn't know if that was the best thing to do, but I mean, we're using Zoom right now. It just was the best thing that I, I knew how to use, and so we've been using that ever since. Yeah, I think it's a great solution. There's not a lot of options. There's surprisingly not a whole lot of options out there for recording podcasts, so that's really, that's so awesome. I'm curious of the people you've interviewed. Are there any, I mean, NASA was huge, so I'd love to hear more about what came of that, but other ones that stand out. Oh my God, it's like trying to pick a favorite child, I think whenever I'm asked that question, like, what is the conversation that you had the most fun with or like that stood out. There's obviously, you know, the, I guess, I don't know what the right word is for it, but I guess the value lies in the fact that, oh my God, how did you get to speak to this person? Like I've spoken with two people I believe. Now if I look back that I've worked, you know, within the White House, and I'm just like, how are these people giving me the time of day? But then I see that same, I react every time somebody says yes to an interview like with incredulity, like how, how are you agreeing to this conversation with me from almost everybody that's been on my podcast. So it's a bit of a cop out answer, but I have a difficult time picking a real person. 

If I were. To pick somebody, you know, like an instance that sticks out in my memory, most of them do. Like a recent interview was with somebody that reached out to me to be interviewed by them, or, you know, they reached out to me for me to interview them. Um, and I was like, oh, OK, uh, I guess I'm doing this now, and, you know, they wrote a book and they, I guess like the idea was to promote their book, but just the idea that I'm now in that environment where somebody thinks I. have the capability of being able to do justice and highlight their work. It was really, it was gratifying and, you know, that interview also sticks out because that conversation was about a topic that I otherwise would have had no knowledge of. It was a really interesting niche. The episode is not published out yet. And if you wanted to know more about the NASA, about the NASA incident, because I just remember it as like being super shocking initially. So, yeah, I'm super grateful to them because they were very kind when I told them that that was my first interview and like it gave me the kind of the motivation to keep going and the conversation itself was also very interesting because he really went into the physics of climate change and he was a very excellent communicator. And I guess like a final example that I think is important to highlight now is I did a series of interviews for one video that highlighted, you know, the effects of what NOAA cuts have had for the American public and just people everywhere because NOAA is such an incredible institution. 

That does important work that's now been compromised, and so I guess that the kind of stakes in that were memorable to me, like this is an interview that has real-time value for people that have no idea what's going on, because it's not something that's really been talked about. Even though the repercussions are still being felt even after that dramatic cut, you know. Of course, absolutely, and that's, I think it's great that you're sharing it because I know that younger people sometimes want to hear this more from other younger people than they want to hear from a stuffy old person, which I may be borderline, but so I think it's great that you're out here doing this, but speaking of that, like, in terms of your audience. Are you doing this for others in Gen Z, or are you doing it for everyone who doesn't know about climate, or who are you speaking to when you do this? Yeah, I think the thing about podcasts is, I think with my format, which is super vague and general and just it's me, I'm somebody who has questions as a young person about, you know, the climate career space or not even just limited to the career space, maybe like just, you know. People who are entrepreneurs, there's something to be gained from talking to them, from somebody who's maybe being an entrepreneur in another field entirely, that's not climate related. I think people can interpret what they want from the conversations and so my target audience, I guess, was initially I was crafting this with somebody like me in mind. I don't know what I want to do in my career, but I want to know how people got to where they are, what they're currently doing, what makes them, you know, fulfilled. In their careers and keeps them going in a space that is so demotivating and difficult. 

And so if I had to give you an answer, it would be people in my position who want to know more about the career and get involved. I think most importantly. And I, I say young people because the accessibility threshold is really crazy. When I was doing this at 16, you know, I, I was also looking around me. There are those few climate activists or people in this space. I don't like to call myself an activist because I'm not actually on the front lines or anything, but there are people my age who should be focusing on school, not worrying about these big questions, you know, we should be like there are kids who should be playing in the grass, but then they have to worry about the fact that their grasses, just to give an example, is polluted, and they can't do that without like having a peace of mind. So I want to be able to help people who feel like they cannot get a voice into this space, get a voice into this by proxy of me, and then, you know, like I feel a little bit like a spy sometimes, like I'm getting to have conversations that a young person typically probably would not be able to have, but I am also getting to a position where I'm encouraging other people to do what I'm doing exactly, like I'm about to speak at a conference in front of around like 600+ young people my age, just to be able to be like, you know, this is something that Anybody can do, like you just have to, you know, have the courage and the balls to be able to do something that, you know, it is scary, and I think that anybody can listen to the to these podcasts, like people my parents' age have, you know, written to me saying that they found a conversation really important. Sometimes there's some discourse in the comment section on the YouTube video, and, you know, like, I find that really rewarding. Anybody can really listen to this. I don't have a limit, you know, yeah. Yeah, I think it's really, it's really great, and I, I don't think there's enough of the conversations, you know, Nic and I have similar types of conversations with people, and I occasionally do people for my career coaching, but again, hearing it from you and the questions that you have, I can only guess at the questions that you have and from the ones I hear from people, but to hear You speak from that, and a lot of people are too afraid or don't have the courage, like you said, to do it, and so it's great for you to be that voice for them, and I think it would be great if more people, more people have the courage and more people like the guests that you've had on your show would say yes, you know, this, I'm too busy or I'm too important or high level or whatever. I think this is important work, just having conversations to bridge that gap.

 So that's really great that you're doing that. And tell us more about the conference. What conference is coming up? This is set to happen in February. It's a youth environmental summit. This is entirely student run, you know, with, with a few adult advisors, which, you know, I think is incredible, the kind of generational collaboration in that aspect. But no, they invited me to speak on my experience as somebody who kind of somehow managed to be able to tap into, you know, conversations that generally. young people are kind of demotivated from participating in, or they are encouraged to be participating in, but then are not helped in any way, or maybe they're just, all the responsibilities are shouldered on them, you know, like that kind of group of people I think is important to reach out to. So, I'm grateful that they gave me this opportunity to be there. Yeah. Yeah, that's really awesome. Have to report back to us how it goes. Yes. So, you ended up interning at NASA twice. That first time was from your interview with the podcast. Um, no, so, yeah, it's kind of wild still when I think about it. One of my experiences was with the internship’s social media group. So, I was an intern within the internships department at NASA, um, and yes, and the other instance was I was with NASA's gene lab, so that was like, you know, biology, yay. They're like the people that said. And frogs and fruit flies into space and then, you know, study the effects of space radiation on a fruit fly. 

I could go into the weeds with that, but like both of the experiences was like, I never thought in my lifetime I'd be able to do these things. I'm still super grateful for that opportunity and I learned a lot. I think with both of them, you know, one of them was with a program that was intended for high school students to, you know, get them into the field of space biology because it's so niche. But then the other one. I had applied to a position that was intended for a college student, and at the time I think I was like 1716, I forget. So just the fact that my mentor, his name is Evan, and he, I like, I think he took a chance on a high school student, even though when I told him that he was like, no, I didn't. I was like, you took a chance on a high school student and showed me, you know, that I could do really cool things because I literally made NASA post a cat meme. And that had garnered like the most views at the time for that account, and I was like, OK, I think I could do some things with this, you know, these random weird thoughts of mine. I guess like, I don't know, like just it was fun to have NASA post a cat me. And then for it to go viral. Yeah, I think that's a, that's a great example of why it's so important to have young people on your team, or at least in your sphere that are providing you some kind of influence because it might not be that someone else doesn't want to do that. They just might just not think of it, you know. Yeah, I guess I mean I know that's what I spent half of my time looking at on social media is cat memes and rails. So what's the future of your podcasts and your journey look like? Yeah, honestly, where you're catching me now, I'm in a bit of a limbo because I have other personal projects that I'm really excited about in addition to this podcast, and I have a bit of a team kind of forming to work on a second season of the podcast, but in terms of how that actually looks, is something that I'm working on with my, you know, I guess it's great that they my team to really envision. So, the future is it's a little. 

Uncertain, but as I'm wrapping up this first season, I think I've got like 8 episodes recorded going back a couple months that I still have to produce. And you know, it's a process balancing the podcast with college student responsibilities and I can imagine. Yeah, I don't think looking back I realize how much work a professional podcast is. Yes, yeah, no, for sure. And I mean, I'm sure you know, you know, working full time as well as doing this project. It's a juggle. It's a gratifying one. So, you have to be passionate about it or it's not going to keep going because it's not the kind of thing that stays on your priority list unless you really want to do it. Yes. So, that's very cool. And you're at UPenn now. What are you going for? Yeah, I guess that question pertains to my studies. I have been dead set on doing environmental studies. Even when I was applying, I made sure Penn had an environmental studies major and so I will. Most likely be doing either major or minor environmental studies, but recently art history has also cropped up on my radar. I've always been interested in art, but as I'm also thinking of like potentially going to law school and being, I guess like a pre-law student, and so that's currently where I am, but I'm a freshman in college. Things change, as I've been told many, many times, including by guests on the show. So this is where you're catching me right now. That's where my interest is. Yeah, yeah, that's exciting. I feel like I went to school for biology because I wanted to be a park ranger, and then I volunteered to be a park ranger, and I hated it. So then I took a wetlands class and I was in love again. And so, you know, you'll find different things that you get exposed to that, you know, and, and sometimes you're like, oh, this is my thing, and then you get exposed to something else. You're like, oh, wait a minute, this is my thing. Yeah, no, really, truly. And I think with your curious mind, you're gonna find that a lot. So it's, it's very exciting. I also would like to touch on this mental health thing and youth. So you are working somewhat in that space as well. Yeah, for sure. 

So, before kind of going into climate things, I, you know, I entered high school from the pandemic. My first year of high school was mostly remote, second year as well, and, you know, that definitely took a toll on mental health. Health for my own experience and also the experiences of everybody around me. Yeah. And so, the issue of mental health was a very big thing and you know, I felt like I could do something and so I started a nonprofit chapter related to mental health destigmatization and resource access ability, you know, in my high school and kind of went down the route of mental health activism for a bit. And then I interviewed Sarah Newman, who's the executive director of the Climate Mental Health Network, in one of my early interviews, as well as Georgia Wilford to it, who was a Gen Z advisor on the board at the time, and it was like, oh wait, yes, I feel eco anxiety, and that's that suddenly there was a label and a space that I've stumbled upon that put words and validation towards the feelings that I was having. As I was entering the climate space. That aspect of climate plus mental health, I guess then was an organic result of, you know, my experiences being in mental health activism and then now going into climate, and I can't speak on behalf of all the youth. I'm very, very careful about doing that, but in my own experience, I'm a young person who's very anxious about the climate. It's not something that can be pathologized, you know, because it's a normal response that everybody's having. To an existential risk that is happening in real time every day. And so the people that are constantly exposed to it in this space are naturally going to have the consequences of it are going to weigh on their minds. And so, the fact that there was this space, you know, I was then invited to be a Gen Z advisor.

I did that for about a year with Climb the Mental Health Network, and mostly my work with that looked like, you know, like it's being on panels, intergenerational conversations specific. Specifically, and also, I think I also did some like a review of a guide for how to address climate anxiety, but for educators, and that was also a gratifying experience. So I guess that's my long-winded answer to your question there, yeah. Yeah, no, that's great, and I, it touches everyone, but I think the experience that Gen Z has had with COVID. And lockdown and all of that, that, I mean, that has to have lasting ramifications and something that I can't relate to as a Gen Z, I was the opposite. Free as a bird, go do what you like until it gets dark, you know, like, yeah, yeah, ride your bike, go out, do whatever, and the high school experience for me was a big deal, so. I don't feel like the same way. I don't want to talk for an entire generation of people or whatever, but there's definitely generalities, because we have these shared experiences. But I definitely would prefer to hear from Gen Z themselves on what you think the solution should be or how someone from my era should relate to you because I can't understand it. So I, in terms of, you know, engaging with intergenerational conversations, I like, I was invited on a panel to speak about this for one of the advisory boards I was doing in high school. So, this is about 2 years ago, let me do the math. I was like maybe 16 or 17 at the time, and I, this was building off of an existing acronym, and I believe it's also been. 

Featured within a guide made by Harry Waters, who I just want to shout out as well, but the acronym goes, listen, encourage, amplify, respect, and nurture, and I think that was my, my kind of guiding principle for people, you know, from older generations and generations before mine on how to engage with young people who are wanting to get into the space, you know, it's important to actively listen to what they're saying. It's important to encourage them to try things that are new and challenging for them, and then if you are from older generations, there's a good chance that you have a platform that is already kind of established, you know, you have a network of your own potentially, so you can amplify that young person's voice and, you know, be kind of their support in that aspect and get their message across. There's also that aspect of respect. There's an inherent power dynamic when you're somebody who's Younger and, you know, engaging with people that are older than you, and there's also that aspect of nurturing, I think, because, especially, like, for example, if I'm someone who's in middle school or elementary school, like, I should also be worrying about my school and going out to play and, you know, gossiping with my friends and, you know, those quintessential childhood experiences that are kind of being put to the wayside now because we're being forced into a world where we have to grapple with. Crazy issues that should be dealt by quote unquote adults but are not. Um, so I guess like that that's my answer to you. Listen, encourage, amplify, respect and nurture and just learn. I think this since developing that acronym felt that it goes both ways because there's also, you know, generations that are older that are also being silenced in a similar way that youth are, and there's important things to be learned mutually. Across generations. Yeah, that's great. I don't think I could have said that better. 

And so we have a part of our show called #Field Notes, and it is a part of our show where we talk to our guests about memorable moments doing the work. You've have a short professional life so far, but it sounds like you're getting out there. So maybe you have a funny, scary or awkward, quote unquote field story to share with us. We encourage others to share them with us at info@enviromentalprofessionalsradio.com. So does anything come to mind? Yes, I think my immediate answer goes back again to my first experience doing this because I won't say traumatizing because that's not the appropriate word and that, you know, kind of diminishes actual trauma, but it was a little bit traumatizing just because I was like not expecting to be getting any responses and so I guess in my short stint as a Quote unquote climate communicator, that first interview just still sticks out in my mind, and obviously there's been like the yeses that have been really, really surprising, like all of them are surprising, but there's a like the yeses for guests that are like, whoa, to finish off what I was rambling about earlier, the anecdote with the first interview is just I was so not expecting this person. 

Oh, actually I didn't touch on this. They had emailed me back and then they were like, I'm free tomorrow morning and I, I was like, oh my goodness, I had not written out my script for my introduction. I had never done an interview in my life before and all of a sudden I felt I had to scramble to really give this opportunity that I thought would never happen and like it's still crazy that that was my first experience with interviewing somebody cause right before that somebody had rejected me like in a honestly in hindsight pretty. rude way. They were like, you know, I don't know who you are and along those lines. I don't know who you are. I don't think it's worth my time to be speaking to you and, you know, I need to be speaking to people that have thousands of listeners every month, like they kind of that attitude. And so then for this person, who's as a researcher, and then it turns out the deputy director, I was like, yeah, just that quick turnaround and the pressure that I put on myself to really do well in the interview kind of allowed. Me to take things a little easier as, you know, interviews gone on. I have already been through that experience of like, oh my God, like this is, you know, like the rest of them, I'm just like, I still get incredibly nervous before every interview, and I think that's important to be nervous cause that means you care, but like, you know, in the back of my mind I'm like, OK, you managed to pull off an interview with somebody like that, that, you know, yeah, and then some memorable experiences afterwards have just. The people that are reaching out for me to interview them, cause I'm like, oh, I guess I'm doing that now, like, you know, um, yeah, that's one of my experiences. OK, awesome. Well, you've had, you know, both the, what's the best that could happen and what's the worst that could happen. 

So anything in between, it's fair game now. Yeah, you know, people always say like, when I'm telling them about networking, they're, oh, what's the worst that can happen, they can say no, and I'm like, that's not the worst thing that can happen. People should be nasty, right? But you have to recognize that. It's not about you. That is, that is a horrible trait on their behalf, you know, cause even if they don't want to do it, you could just say no thank you. You don't have to be rude about it like that. That's that to me, when people do that to me, my response is, thank you for telling me who you are, and I, I don't want to find people that I actually like. Thank you, um. So, we do like to talk about personal interests because we are more than just who we are as environmental professionals. And so, you mentioned that you leaf and junk journal as environmental practice. What is that? Yes, perhaps I can show you what I mean, and I guess listeners won't be able to see this, but I don't know. This would give you a better idea of what on earth I'm talking about. Um, when I got to campus, I started to collect leaves from everywhere that I went. And so, I've been documenting my life and my experiences through leaves that I find on campus and call it some sort of amateur botanical undertaking or just somebody who's really sentimental and likes to appreciate art as made by nature, but that's been something I've been doing. You know, like I go on a field trip, I will remember to grab a leaf and then, you know, press that in my book and write down where I got it from, the day that I got it from, you know, maybe the people that I was with at the time. And then as for junk journaling, this is an established thing. I'm not the only person doing this, which is kind of crazy to say, but it sounds that way because it's quite literally saving things like receipts and clothing tags and just like pieces of my life junk that you would ordinarily toss and using that to document my days and I would, you know, make like a little scrapbook collage of the things that I collected. And actually for one of my classes recently, my final project was, you know, to do a research project on anything related to collecting, and I genuinely my talk was why you should keep your trash history through the eyes of ephemera, uh, and I looked at people that were doing the same thing as I was, you know, saving leaves, saving ticket stubs, and magazines that by now are just are just vintage, you know, and have value to them, but that at the time. You know, they would have tossed these things without a second thought, except they were just sentimental and kept these pieces of now important history. 

I found myself connecting to a Victorian mother who was grieving for her child 100 years ago. We were both collecting the same leaves and, like, you know, so that's my ramble about this, these hobbies of mine. Yeah. That's very cool, and I think, you know, the, the fact that you're sharing them is what's adding value to the experience, right? Yeah. Well, good for you. I think everything you're doing is amazing and look forward to watching where you go. Is there anything else that you'd like to talk about before we let you go today? I think I really appreciated these questions. I got to do a walk down memory lane for better or for worse, uh, because of them, and, you know, just thank you again for having me on. Awesome. Well, this was great, and we look forward to see where you go. Thank you, yeah, and um I guess if you wanted to contact me from here.

 You know, look up Heidi Pan and my LinkedIn will be somewhere in the list. There's actually somebody else in this climate mental health space as well with my same name, which is crazy to think about, like, but yeah, I guess you can keep up with the work that I'm doing best there. But yeah, thank you, thank you again. Awesome. Well, thank you for being here. That's our show. Thank you, Heidi, for joining us today. 

Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. See you, everybody. Bye!