Michael Glasky: The Earth is Where Everyone Is

Michael Glasky  is a marketing and sales consultant who specializes in working with climate tech startups. With over 10 years of experience, he pivoted from traditional tech to focus specifically on mission-driven companies tackling environmental challenges.

As a Climatebase fellowship graduate and mentor for the Cleantech Open accelerator, Mike has immersed himself in the climate innovation ecosystem. He combines his business acumen with a deep understanding of sustainability to help bridge the gap between technical founders and commercial success.

Transcript

The planet, we're big fans, and it needs some help. We're gonna skip the part where we convince you that humans have caused a tremendous change in the climate since roughly the 1700s. We're also going to skip over a bunch of terrifying statistics and doom and gloom stories.

We know you've heard all of that. We are regular people, you might say Climate Curious, that wanna help, and don't know where we can jump in yet. Welcome to Team Climate, a show about what it really looks like to do climate work.

This is real, and this is bigger than all of us, and it's gonna take all of us to change it. My name is Jeffrey Bryan Potter. I'm a Senior Product Designer in the FinTech space.

My co-host, Kristen Shaw, is the Head of Growth for a Consulting Agency and the National Marketing Chair for a Cleantech Accelerator. Each episode, we're gonna be talking with someone in the field doing the real work it takes to make change. We hope this inspires you to jump in, too, because we're going to need you.

Michael, hi. Hi.

Thank you. Thank you so much for hanging out with us for a little while.

How are you today?

I'm doing great. How about yourself, Jack?

I'm awesome. Yeah, well, my girlfriend had to leave town this morning, so we had that, we had our tearful good vibes this morning and stuff. So other than that, I'm good.

It's a beautiful day here.

So, and Kristen, how are you doing?

I'm doing great. Thank you.

So, Mike, tell us a little about what you do currently, how maybe how you got started in that journey.

Yeah, definitely. So, yeah, I'm Mike Glasky, and I've been working in Climate Tech for the last few years. I got connected to climate in late 2020 when I started working in electric vehicle infrastructure.

Prior to that, I'd been all over the place working for corporates, finance, startups, just really, really all over the place, typical Silicon Valley sort of thing. And I got connected with a small company based out of Toronto called Charge Lab, which was building software that managed EV chargers. And they wanted to get into the US market, build a sales team.

So a friend of mine brought me on to help him do that. And we started building up their sales, bringing on account executives, SDRs, really making everything cross ties, and helping them really bring on their first clients, their first large clients, and going from there. I was with them for probably a year and a half, and then switched over to another company doing the exact same thing, but based out of Taiwan called Nudo.

And it was the same story. They had a small sales team in North America, wanted to expand it. So I came on board and helped them with that.

And really enjoyed that. And around that time, I got started in doing some contract work on the side and got connected with a company that was in the carbon markets and rating carbon projects. So I helped them gain their first clients, raise their seed round, all of that stuff.

And since then, I've been doing a lot of consulting and work on the side in terms of helping newer companies and early stage start-ups that are focused on climate build themselves up and gain customers, investments, all of that stuff.

So how long have you been in your current position?

So that's actually a really good question and kind of an interesting story, because if you want to say as a consultant, I've been doing that for a couple of years now. But over the last few weeks, things have accelerated quite quickly. So I am the co-founder of two different ventures right now, one of them being New Leaf, which is focused on helping early stage climate startups, primarily run by scientists and academics, because we see a lot of that in the climate space, helping them get their business down, helping them with sales, marketing, operations, executive functions, all of that stuff.

The stuff that doesn't come naturally to most people, especially if they're coming out of the science and academic space. That way they can really focus on climate and doing what they do best. And then the other venture is working on connecting investors and funding with project developers in the global south who are focused on nature-based solutions.

So both of those things just came about within the last three, four weeks. So that's relatively new. But as a consultant, it's been a few years.

Wow, that's awesome. So if you can think of a recent challenge that you faced, and what did you do to overcome that?

Oh man, lots of challenges.

Sorry, this is not a job interview.

Yeah, I mean, lots of challenges though. I mean, when you're talking about starting new ventures, there's always a million challenges that go along with that, whether it's finding a team or building out how you're going to operate, or even just the branding that you want to approach it with. Those are challenges I think every company faces.

But in the climate space, it's really interesting, because there are so many people who are eager to give their time and their expertise to advancing something that they believe in, which has been really, really just fantastic, especially with New Leaf. I mean, so many people are eager to work on it and be a part of it, because there are a lot of people like myself who are not scientists, who don't have an academic background, who don't know all the specifics about chemical engineering and material sciences, to really understand how a lot of this stuff works, who still say, hey, you know what, I've got marketing expertise or I've got sales expertise, and I want to contribute and I want to be a part of this. But the problem is usually around helping these scientists and these people who do understand that and are founding these companies and inventing new technologies, understand how important it is that you have to have this business acumen, and you have to be able to take something to market.

I do see a lot of, this is going to save the world or it's going to help us in the fight for climate change. So investors are going to fund it, people are going to buy it, and I wish the world worked that way, but it doesn't.

Something I've been saying a lot in my work is, I'm a product designer, by the way, for a fintech company. If it is not shared, it is not real. And really, the subtext is, if it's not shared about 10 times, then it's not real.

So why you could do this for any industry? Why this?

Why this cause for you?

There are a couple of different answers that go into that. I mean, the first, I think, just growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, in California, I've always been surrounded by nature. We have this really interesting fusion of urban life and nature, like you could be in the middle of San Francisco, and all of a sudden you're like on a trail in the middle of a bunch of trees.

And I'm in the East Bay, where that's even more so, where we have so many hiking trails. I mean, I think since I was like 12, 13 years old, I've been exploring trails by myself and getting lost on them and just loving it, because it feels good to be in nature. And so I've always kind of had this love affair there.

That sounds really cliche. I mean, if that sounds too cliche, edit that part out.

But... This means good, thank you.

Okay, okay. But yeah, it's just one of those things where I've always loved nature and I've always wanted to be close to nature. I mean, that was one of the things that my wife and I did when we first got together 12 years ago, where we would go camping all the time.

It became a tradition where every New Year's we'd be out in the middle of nowhere camping. And it's just a great experience. And I want to preserve that because I have kids now.

I want to do something that contributes to preserving the environment, preserving nature, so that they could experience the same thing I did. But on the other hand too, I think there's a lack of people working in climate. I think there's a lack of businesses focused on this.

Part of that is simply because it's not really super incentivized. And I think part of it is people just struggle to really get into it and understand it. So my goal is how do we make these businesses more successful?

How do we keep more of them in business and help them actually expand and grow so that they could implement their solutions? And how do we get more people who are not on the science side into working on climate? Because there's so many things you could do to contribute that aren't just about the science.

Like, yeah, myself as an example, like somebody experiencing sales and marketing and all that stuff. Like, I can't contribute to the science, but I could get money from point A to point B to help it.

Exactly. And that's what we keep saying. It's like, this needs everybody and every skill set.

And what does, you know, I think there's a stigma to, what does an environmentalist look like?

You know?

And that we're living in trees and eating rocks and grass or something. And that, you know, environmentalism is every day, and it's every one of us in a hundred different ways. And, you know, so like on that note, like you're obviously, unless you have a very, very nice tree house, you're obviously looks like, you know, you're making a living and things like that.

Quality of life has been has been good.

Yeah, yeah. Like, yes, I live in a house on the ground. I don't live in a tree.

Some people might say I eat grass because I am a vegan, but I don't usually eat grass. Yeah, I mean, I try to live in environmentalism in my day to day life as best as I can. I mean, obviously, there are going to be limits to that.

Like, I wish that I could avoid owning a vehicle, period, let alone one that uses gas. But luckily, like, we live in an area and we live lives that we don't have to use it that much. But like, as soon as we bought this house, I mean, we put solar on it, we converted to an electric heat pump, we got rid of a lot of the gas stuff.

So we do what we can in a day to day basis. And then again, it's also about how do we encourage people to join the climate fight? I mean, that was part of the reason I joined the Climatebase Fellowship was I felt like I had a good grasp on the sectors that I was working in, in terms of like carbon markets and electrification.

I wanted to learn a bit more, but the primary goal there was, okay, there are a lot of people who want to learn more. So how can I make myself a resource? How can I be a mentor?

How can I bring my expertise and my knowledge to encourage more people to transition their career into climate? Because yeah, you can't be perfect, quote unquote, perfect. I forgot this is audio only, so nobody saw my air quotes there.

But you can do the best that you can, and you can do as much as you can. And it's an iterative process too. It's kind of like the saying that I've heard applied to politics in the past.

You're never going to get directly from point A to point B, because it's a lot like public transportation. There's no bus that gets you exactly where you want to go. There's no subway that goes exactly where you want to go.

But it's going to get you closer, and maybe you have to transfer to a new bus or a new train, or maybe you have to walk a little bit, but it's going to get you closer. It's not going to be perfect, but you're still going to try, and you'll make it there eventually.

I love that analogy a lot. I haven't heard that before.

Well, environmentalists, you have to work public transportation in there somehow.

We do, definitely.

It's the law.

You have to talk about public transit, at least once a day.

I don't make the rules. I just follow them.

So today, just as a snapshot, without saying anything that you can't share publicly.

But what are you up to today?

Looking at an inbox that has about 200 e-mails in it. That's what I'm doing. I don't quite have a typical day yet, especially with these new ventures that are coming forth.

But a lot of my day is very much about, okay, let's take a look at what's in the inbox right now. Have we heard from prospects? Have we heard from the contracts that we currently have, that we're working?

What can we do to push those forward? What work needs to be done on those contracts? How can we move prospects forward in the chain?

And who's out there working on new stuff that we could potentially talk to? And I guess I need to provide a little bit of context there for people who may not understand what I mean when I say prospects and contracts and stuff. Because I speak this language all day, I think a lot of my language is assumptive.

Essentially, I'm looking at these businesses that are working in climate tech and saying, okay, can we work with them? Can we help them? Where are they at in their journey?

Are they brand new? Are they just figuring out their product? Are they just coming to market?

Have they even done any investment fundraising yet? And do they need help with this stuff? Because you'll see that a lot.

I mean, I think the very first contract I took on that was climate related, the CEO reached out to me and he was just like, hey, I don't know how to talk to people for sales. Like, I understand the tech that we're using. I understand what we're trying to do.

I understand what we're trying to accomplish. But I don't know how to communicate that to somebody to get them to give me money for this. And it's like, yeah, I mean, you're in the same boat as 99.9% of every other founder in the world.

And so it's just like, it's just about taking what they're talking about and translating it. And I think that's where I provide a lot of value for founders. And that's what I try to do.

I try to look at what are they working on? How do I not dumb this down, because that sounds disrespectful, but how do I bring this into layman's terms and communicate the value of it to other people? And that's a lot of my day too, is how do you communicate value?

How do you take something that's a complex idea or a complex process and communicate the value behind it to someone who either won't understand the process because they don't have the background or doesn't need to understand the process because a lot of buyers too are just like, if it works, awesome. You don't need to tell me how it, yeah, you don't need to tell me how a tree takes carbon dioxide and turns it into carbon and keeps that for a hundred years. Like, I just need to know if it's gonna work and how you're gonna measure that over time.

And yeah.

What's an example, like how you've been demonstrating value?

It's very much dependent on who you're talking to because you got to understand your customer base too. And I know that Christine can talk to this really, really well. Probably better than Meghans, to be honest, but it's very much about understanding who's gonna be paying for this and understanding what's important to them because that's gonna differ across the board.

And it's like, I think a good example is I was working a contract for a company that was selling climate data, climate risk data. And a lot of that was being sold to Fortune 500s. And so larger companies where you have lots of different business groups and lots of different teams that are interested in this for different reasons.

So they'll all be taking the same data and looking at it in different ways. And you could have one group that is sustainability or they're focused on biodiversity. They say, okay, we're really interested in this.

We're super excited. You could give them the methodologies and they could read it and they could understand it and say, this is fantastic. And so that's easy for me because I just hand them a paper.

And I say, talk to our scientists. But then you work down the chain and maybe the person who's actually writing the check is in procurement or they're the CFO. And you have to take that value behind that and say, hey, look, this is what your team is going to be able to do.

This is what your business group in sustainability or your business group in risk assessment is going to be able to do with this data. And this is what that means for you as a company. And that's why you have to pay this money.

Like that's the reason behind it. You have to build that value and you have to understand who you're talking to, to really understand how you're going to position it.

So are you consulting with a wide variety of industries?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's one of those things where I just kind of fall into it, I think. I think I have the benefit of not having an academic background that allows me to kind of jump around industries a little bit. I think a lot of people think that when they gain expertise in a particular industry, and I've seen this in tech specifically, but I've also seen it within the climate space.

When they start to understand, they say, hey, you know what, I went to school for finance, or I went to school and I studied carbon, and the carbon cycle and all of that. So that's what I'm going to focus on. I'm going to focus on fintech because I was in finance.

I'm not like singling you out, Jeff, but I don't know if you went to school for finance. I just know you mentioned fintech.

I'm a graphic designer that figured out how to get into UX, but that's my world.

But that's the thing too. I see people stick with the same sort of industry over time. And I think it's just kind of like a mental block people impose on themselves where they think like, this is what I've been working in or this is what I've studied.

So this is what I'm going to stick with. And you see people kind of jump around to companies that are in the same sort of sector, same vertical. I dropped out of college early on just because of circumstances, like I wasn't able to finish.

I had to go to work right away. And I think that kind of freed me a little bit because I, this might sound self-deprecating. It is a little bit.

I was too dumb to know that like I couldn't jump around industries. And so it's just like, okay, well, I mean, yeah, this person reached out to me about carbon markets. Let me read as much as I can in the next three days before I meet with them and learn everything I possibly can so I don't sound like an idiot on this call.

And that's kind of what I've done for every industry I've consulted with.

It's a bit of that fear of imposter syndrome kind of kicking you in the butt.

Yeah, yeah, it's a great motivator.

Yeah, totally.

So yeah, what I have a question is, can you call out some of the major differences of like, what it's like working in climate, like building a sales team for a climate company versus a traditional tech company or another company like that? And what I'd like people to understand is there are some differences, but there are also some similarities.

Yeah, absolutely. I think I've seen more similarities than differences. But I think I also alluded to one of the main differences that I've witnessed over the years earlier in this conversation, is that working in climate, you see a lot more people who believe in the cause.

They have that belief behind it, and that feeling of like actually doing something that's going to have a positive impact. And it doesn't matter if they're working in carbon markets, or they're working in climate risk data, or electric vehicles, or any of that, whether it's a tech solution or a nature solution, there's drive to learn more and have an impact, because this is something that affects all of us. And so you see people who are a lot more eager to do the work and a lot more excited about it, without having to do that kind of phony rah-rah stuff, that I think a lot of companies were starting to get into for a while in the tech space.

In this with me over the last couple of weeks, as we've been spinning up New Leaf, where people are just eager to be a part of something that they think is going to have an impact, and is going to affect climate, because again, that impacts all of us. And so that's a huge difference. But otherwise, I mean, it's very much about understanding the value behind the product, understanding what the business is, and who you're selling to, how you're structuring things.

I think a lot of people think that they can't jump over to climate because you have to be an expert. And I just really don't think that's the case. I haven't seen that.

Yeah, I agree with you. And my recent transition to climate, I can say, I see this because it's really true. Like I haven't been this excited about my career since my 20s.

You know, when like you come in and it's hard and there's problems every single day and they're really challenging problems, but they don't feel insurmountable. It's collaborative. Like there's always someone willing to help you or do just think through it with you while you're trying to solve these problems.

And yeah, that's what I was hoping you would say, because the other work, like the other work is the same. You know, I'm doing muscle memory that I've built over the early part of my career is just being applied in a different situation.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it's a lot of the same stuff. It's a lot of the same motions, in a sense, just it's more impactful.

It actually sometimes makes the job a little bit easier because you can find friendlies within your prospect company a little bit easier if it's a larger company. And when I say friendlies just from the sales or marketing side, those are people who are going to champion your product or your service internally because they're like, oh yeah, I believe in this. I think this is something we could go for.

I mean, I was working with trying to sell into a Fortune 100 company last year in 2023. And yeah, the first person I got connected with was like, this is amazing. I need this.

This is great. And they talked to everybody about it. I was like, I don't have to do my job because this person is doing it for me.

And I think that's one of the really exciting things about climate.

Let's take a quick break.

Transitioning to a greener economy could create 24 million new jobs by 2030, according to the International Labor Organization. And about 30% of roles in the climate space don't require technical expertise. Skills in marketing, sales, policy, business, operations or communications are in high demand.

That means your experience might already be more relevant to you than you think. If you're curious about diving into climate work, here are a few ideas to get started. Research and apply for roles in rapidly growing sectors like renewable energy, EV infrastructure and carbon markets.

These areas are booming with opportunities for fresh talent. Volunteering with climate-focused nonprofits is a great way to build relevant experience, expand your network and see firsthand what climate work looks like. And remember, networking is key.

85% of jobs are filled through connections. Communities like My Climate Journey, Work on Climate and Terra.do are fantastic slack communities to meet like-minded individuals and learn from others already in the field. You can find the links in the episode notes.

Can you think of a tangible example of something you've had a positive impact on?

Yeah, I mean, one of the things I'm really excited about is when I was working for ChargeLab, I had to hire SDRs, Sales Development Representatives, for kind of like that front line sales activity stuff. And I had to hire account managers or customer success people who were gonna manage accounts after we sold them. And there were a lot of people who applied that had climate experience, but not necessarily like SDR or AM experience.

And there were a lot of people who obviously applied on a whim thinking they weren't gonna get the job because it was a climate job. And like even talking to them, they were like, well, I don't really have climate experience or I don't have this or I don't have that. And I was like, well, kind of going through their stuff and seeing how coachable some of these people were and how open they were to working on something.

I think the whole team that I hired had zero experience when it came to climate. And a couple of them even had no experience when it came to tech sales or account management. But they were so eager and open that it just felt really good to help people transition their careers into something they wanted to do that was going to honestly pay them more than what they were making prior.

And all those people are doing well. Last I checked, they're all still working in climate, just with different companies kind of scatter around and they're all, they're all happy with their careers, which makes me happy. It's like, cool, I had a positive impact on people and I got to transition more people into climate.

I got to help them progress their careers. They made more money. Like that's what I want to do.

I remember there was another company I was working for. And obviously I'm not going to say who. But when I was hiring and setting the pay scales for two people on the team, one of them was in the San Francisco Bay Area and he was a man and the other was in Virginia or something, I think, or maybe it was Florida and she was a woman.

And they were going to do the same job. And I was asked, why are we paying them the same? Because they're in two different regions.

And that was the thought process. It was regional. And I was like, well, OK, I understand that.

But do you really want to be the company that pays the woman less for the same job? Do you want that to come out? What if that comes out and that happens?

And immediately all pushback went away and we paid them the same. And so I was just like, cool. That felt good too, being able to push somebody forward and make sure they got paid what they're worth.

There it is. Which is, yeah, like, yeah, that's the thing. It's just like the small positive impacts.

I know that's not strictly climate related, but it's also really nice, like with some of the work that we've been doing recently, being able to help companies kind of move forward and find their first customers and push their product forward and be able to have a larger impact. And it's exciting too, like one of my contracts is raising money right now, and they're working on nature-based projects in Africa. And we've been working on a deck for a couple months now, and refining the investor pitch and going through everything.

And they set up their first investor meetings over the weekend. I think I saw four different invites come through over the weekend of investors saying, I want to talk to you and learn more. And it's just like, that's awesome because-

It's fantastic.

Yeah, it's like, they're most likely going to hit their goal, and they're going to be able to implement all these projects, and it's going to be fantastic. So it's like, yeah, that's a positive impact that I'm happy about.

What kind of unique to the field challenges do you feel like you face, and how do you find ways to push through that?

I kind of laugh, because I think this is something Christian and I bonded over when we first met. There's a thing that I've always called Founders Syndrome, especially being here in Silicon Valley, where it's like you have founders who they start a company, and usually they've helped develop the tech behind it and stuff like that. This is with tech companies, and they've put so much effort into it, so much like blood, sweat, tears, all that cliché stuff, that they're really married to the product and to the solution that they're providing.

It's a struggle for them to take input from others, because they're like, I know my product, I know the value behind it. But that also means they struggle to communicate that value to other people, because they make a lot of assumptions, and they don't remember what people don't know. So it's kind of like this Founders Syndrome of like, I don't, they don't know how to properly communicate the value, but then they don't understand why people aren't seeing the value in the product.

Yeah. I see that with climate, but it's kind of taken another level where it's that additional aspect of, this is going to save the planet, this is going to reverse climate change, or it's going to have a huge impact on climate change. So I don't understand why people aren't seeing the value in this.

And so that's a particular challenge, especially when you're consulting with early stage startups, because these founders are so invested and they're so passionate, and they're exceptionally passionate about their climate solutions. Understandably so, like, I've met a lot of extremely intelligent people, like people just so smart, it's almost incomprehensible to me. But they struggle to understand why other people don't see the value in this thing that they've built.

And it makes it hard for them to take input as well. And so that's a challenge that you kind of have to find a way to sell both sides. You have to sell internally to the founder, this is how we're going to approach this, and then sell their product or their service to their prospects or their potential clients.

So that's always an interesting challenge. I wouldn't call it fun all the time, but it's definitely a thing that you have to deal with.

Yeah, totally.

If I'm a person looking to get into climate action, climate, would you call it climate careers? Climate space is kind of the phrase people turn around.

What advice would you have to that person?

I mean, just reach out to people. I think that's all it really, but like that's a huge part of it. I think a lot of people have this sort of hesitation to reach out to others just because it's like, well, I don't want to impose on them or anything like that.

But again, going back to earlier in the conversation, there's so many people in the climate space that see the need for more people to be here that...

Yes.

I don't think I've ever experienced any real gatekeeping within this space, which is fantastic. So, I think just reaching out to people, like if you're reaching out on LinkedIn or through their company page or whatever it is, just try to make those connections. I also know there are a million and two different Slack community groups and things like that.

Yeah. It's funny. I think we're probably all old enough to remember the AOL chat rooms.

That's what Slack is starting to feel like. Yeah. I'm wondering how many of your listeners are going to remember AOL chat rooms.

But there are Slack communities for Climate. I mean, I know that there's the ones that a lot of people know, like Terra and Climatebase and work on Climate. But I know there are a lot of others.

There's the marketing-specific one, Tofu, I think it is, which I think is a funny name. And yeah, everybody in there is just really collaborative. They're really helpful.

They're open to discussions. And I think it's really just about trying to make those connections and talk to people. I know I personally try to, I try to take some time and talk to everybody that's reached out to me, or just take a couple of minutes to talk to them.

Just because, again, I think people need to understand it's not easy to transition, but it's not impossible. It's not as hard as most people think it is.

Yeah, it's really a very different mindset from like any other kind of industries or fields. It's like, you know, I scratched and scrambled up the hill to get what I have, like, I'm gonna close the door behind me, sort of attitude. It's no, no, no, we are hiring.

We need everybody on the bandwagon.

Yeah.

And so it's a real different mindset, I feel like. And, you know, through the terror community, we found like everybody's really on board and happy to talk to you and stuff.

And I imagine Climatebase is similar.

Very much.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think my call out is networking in the climate space is very different than networking in any other sector. And the best way I would describe it is that it's not transactional. You know, like you can get randomly reach out to someone, schedule a virtual coffee and have this amazing conversation where you both just talk about what you're passionate about, what you want to do, what you have done.

And almost every conversation ends in, well, how can I help you? You tell me how I can help you and I'll tell you, tell me how I can help you and how you can help me. And this is a marketing term, but like the response rate in cold outreach when you're networking in climate is incredibly high.

You can reach out to someone that you are not connected with at all, and very likely they will respond and make time for you.

A hundred percent. Yeah, I fully agree with that. I actually still have that block from my earlier days where it's like, you have to have some sort of transactional aspect to your outreach.

Where it's like, I have to actively tell myself, you don't necessarily need to do that. If you're just asking for help or you want to connect, just do it because, yeah.

I just want to talk about it. They love talking about it. I have that expression, I'm definitely that person at the party that sometimes people walk away from slowly or I'll get talking about climate and I get the eyeballs from my family.

Like, here she goes again. And so I'm just walking up and I'm welcome to anyone who wants to talk about it.

Yep.

Do you feel like you have joy in your work and where do you get that?

I do. Yeah, I mean, kind of like Kristen mentioned earlier, like I'm excited about my work, especially over the last couple of weeks with how eager people are to work on this stuff with me. And I think a lot of it comes from feeling like I have the potential for a huge impact, not just on climate work by helping these different startups and stuff like that, and helping scientists get their businesses up and running.

But I think it also comes from the community aspect and helping other people. Because the way I think about climate change and the way I think about it, we aren't fighting to save the earth when it comes to fighting climate change. Like if climate change progresses past the point of no return and we're quote unquote screwed, the earth is going to be okay.

Like nature will adapt, something will survive, it just won't be us. Like we're fighting for us at this point, and we're fighting for humanity. And I have this weird sort of internal contradiction.

I am an introvert, but I'm a salesperson. I like to spend a lot of time by myself in nature, but I also have this drive to help people. Like I don't know where it comes from, but I have this drive to help people and help people progress and do better and be better and just do whatever I can.

If I see somebody that needs help, I want to help them. And I think that's where a lot of my drive around climate comes from too, is I want to preserve nature for myself, for my kids, for others. But I also want to help people because this is who climate is going to impact.

It's going to impact communities and individuals and people, not just our neighbors, but people on the other side of the world and everybody. And I think that's a big drive for me. And knowing that I could have a positive impact on the solutions that are being implemented and developed and applied helps me realize and helps me really recognize that this is helping people, this is helping my community, this is helping the people I know, and that's a big driver for me.

That's awesome. If you could tell five years ago, self, what skills to develop, what would that be?

That's a good question. I think a big part of it is just recognizing the skills that you have and looking for different ways to apply them. I've always been a huge reader.

I've devoured every book I could possibly get my hands on since I knew how to read, and I just love learning new things. I mean, Wikipedia is the greatest invention ever because it just has links to 20,000 different pages and you could get lost in Wikipedia holes. Oh, yeah.

I mean, ADHD, like a surprise, it took me 30 years to figure out I had ADHD. But taking those skills of just having that voracious appetite for knowledge and learning new things and being interested in almost everything I come across, I never realized that that was like a marketable skill until I started consulting, when it's like, oh, I could read about carbon markets in three days and learn as much as I possibly can. And obviously, I was not an expert in three days, but I learned enough to jump on a sales call two days later and actually sell something.

Same thing with climate data and electric vehicle chargers and all this other stuff. It's like, yeah, I mean, everybody has these skills that I think that they probably think are not applicable, or they think they're just kind of like weird works that they have, looking for ways that that can be applied to what you do and finding new uses for it. It's almost like the whole circular economy thing, finding new uses for our waste products and stuff like that.

Yeah.

But I think that's probably what I would have told myself, because yeah, it took me a long time to realize, like yeah, you could use these things that you do already as just kind of like time wasters and apply them. Yeah. Apply them in different ways.

Well, it's this sort of thing you hear kind of in pop psychology, like finding your superpower, and what your superpower is, is the thing that you thought was wrong with you. You know, like for me, my big realization came is not being afraid to ask dumb questions. Turns out I'm very good at, and that's kind of my superpower, and I'll just like in meetings, like, can we go back, can we, what's that admin mean?

What, you know, what does that mean?

Like, I'm just, I'll just be that guy.

So yeah, I totally relate to that. So if you're comfortable, I wonder if you could tell us a story about like a mistake that you made that you kind of can laugh about now that you kind of learned from?

Just one. I think a big thing about it is just kind of realizing like, you're gonna mess up. I think a lot of my younger adulthood in my childhood was always thinking about how do you do this right the first time so that you don't have to go back and do it again?

How do you make this perfect? How do you wait until it's perfect before you launch sort of thought process? And what was it?

Maybe five or six years ago, somebody told me like, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. And I think that really helped me at least in like my professional life, not dwell on mistakes, to understand it's like, yeah, you're going to make mistakes. You're going to launch something before it's ready, or you're going to have something really dumb, like a typo in someone's name or a typo in your sequence.

And it's going to send out your template without filling in anybody's name and it's going to look like garbage. And your name will be all over it, which I have done before. I think I sent like 200 e-mails out over a week where like, yeah, I didn't realize the sequence was messed up and it was super generic and it looked terrible.

And my name was all over and I'm sure those people were like, wow, this guy was not paying attention. And messed up, like it happens. But not dwelling on it and just being like, well, now we know that we need to triple check the sequence.

And just kind of going forward with it, I think a lot of people think that a mistake is going to mess up their career or mess up their business or whatever. I think as long as you're not losing the company, like hundreds of thousands of dollars, you're going to be fine.

Yeah, totally.

And one more kind of from the hip question.

If you cast, if your job were a sitcom, who would you cast to play you?

That's an interesting question. I mean, I definitely play the dumb guy a lot. Like I like to joke around and be self-deprecating.

And so like, my immediate thought is thinking of someone like Andy Samberg in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, where he's just like, yeah, the dummy. Like he gets things done most of the time, but he also messes up a lot. But yeah.

Right? But it's just like, yeah, you want to think of like somebody cool or something. It's like, no, like who's the dumb?

I'm probably more like, I don't know the guy's name that plays, Boyle in that one. But like, I'm definitely Boyle sometimes too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, Joe Lattrullio, I believe his name is.

Yes, yeah, thank you.

Yeah, okay.

That's great. That's perfect. Thank you.

Thanks for being a good sport about that. Yeah. So is there anything you wanted to make sure you wanted to mention?

And also, Kristen, please jump in if you have other questions.

No, no, I don't have any other questions. I think I like the way that you packaged it up. Like, I think it's very, your description of what it's like to work on climate is very real, or it's very close to experience that I've been having myself.

Yeah. And I think that's the thing is a lot of people think that you have to be technical, you have to know all this stuff about climate or whatever sector you're in. And that's not necessarily true, as long as you're not like a scientist or somebody.

But you still have to know some stuff. But yeah, I just think that, I mean, I would leave it off on, yeah, reach out to people, talk to people. If you're interested in working in climate, like just send them a message on LinkedIn.

Or if you find their email, send them an email. Don't send me an email. I have too many emails.

Send me a message on LinkedIn if you want to talk to me. And I'm happy to talk more about my experience and make connections if need be because, yeah, I just want more people working on this because I like trees. I like nature.

I want this around for a lot longer.

And we like people. We want people around for a lot longer.

Yeah. And we want people around. Yeah.

Some of them, anyway.

Yeah.

I mean, that's what it comes down to is I think that we need to refocus and really emphasize connections between people and their connections to nature and just really understand we're all here for the same thing. I mean, like, again, cliché, but Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot is like the one that everybody references, but it really is just so apt and so pertinent these days, where it's just like, that's one of the things I go back to every once in a while in Brain Reap, because we're all here. This is where everybody is.

Let's just take care of each other. Does that sound too hippie? But like, let's take care of each other.

I like the hippie. I like the hippie. And I like that now there's a there's an actual market for this, where you can feel that way and also apply your, like, for-profit money-making skills to it as well.

So we, you don't have to, like, give up. You can still function well in our current capitalistic society, but also make a really positive contribution.

You don't have to live in a tree house. It might help, but you don't have to do it.

Oh, I love that. Like, it's like the cool club. Like, it's where everybody is.

Yes.

The earth. We're all, we've all agreed. That's, that's the spot.

Yeah. Well, except for Elon Musk. I think he's trying to leave, but...

I think, I think that's what I have.

Kristen, do you have anything else?

No, I think we're good. Thank you, Michael. Thank you so much.

Of course. Yeah, this was, this was awesome. I really appreciate you guys having me on.

I'm excited for you guys to launch this and to listen to all the episodes except for mine. So I don't have to listen to my own voice.

I'm the same way. We did a test recording yesterday, and Jeff sent it to me to listen to. I did like a minute and a half.

I'm like, it's good. It's good.

I'll do the same thing. But thank you so much. It was, it was a pleasure to be here.

I really appreciate you two having me on.

Thank you guys.

All right. Take care.

Bye, Michael.

Bye.

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