Joe Campbell - Why Asking Yourself “What Can I Do?” Is the Wrong Question

[00:00:00] Dominique: Hello. Welcome to another episode of Green Champions.

[00:00:13] Adam: Thanks for joining us in a conversation with real people, making real environmental change in the work that they do. I'm here with Dominique, the sustainability expert.

[00:00:20] Dominique: I'm so glad to be here alongside Adam, the social enterprise extraordinaire. We bring you guests who saw the potential for impact in their job or community and have done something pretty cool about it.

[00:00:30] Adam: From entrepreneurs to artists, scientists to activists, This podcast is a platform for the green champions to share their stories and plant new ideas.

[00:00:38] Dominique: All right. 

Today Adam and I are joined by Joe Campbell. Joe is a senior lecturer at Ohio State University's School of Environment and Natural Resources. Among other things, which are gonna be a lot, get ready. Joe's responsibilities include assembling in interdisciplinary faculty teams at Ohio State and other universities for the development of technical project proposals.

He identifies research opportunities and assembles teams to develop technical and financial proposals that relate to social, economic and environmental impacts of energy development. He teaches a course on leadership and community development, as well as a study abroad course on an international development in Ghana and I know you're like, "Wow, that's a lot of things for one person to do", joe is also the director of the Environmental Professionals Network, which oversees fundraising, partnerships, and resource development, manages the program staff that oversees what basically is Ohio State University's over 2000 members of professionals that come together to network, and this means that today we're chatting with Joe to dive into sustainability as it relates to community development, as well as quite a few other things. I'm sure we're gonna talk about international projects as well. So thanks for joining us, Joe.

[00:01:48] Joe: Thank you both so much. Really grateful.

[00:01:50] Dominique: You do a lot.

[00:01:52] Adam: Yeah, no kidding. I mean, if we're here to talk about community development, it sounds like you've done that in so many different ways.

I would love to know just a little bit, like what got you into the whole field of sustainability?

[00:02:04] Joe: Yeah, there, there's a few places I could start. I think, for me, my, my parents had a major influence on me. I, I think both literally, like seeing what they did with their days and their opportunities and their work life, their volunteer life, their friendship and family networks. and that continues to influence me.

So my mom is a nurse, she's a trained nurse, and she worked on the south side of Columbus for most of my childhood. And I would go and stay some time with her in the clinic and. She worked with, young children, like preschool age children, including children who had some developmental challenges or lacked the financial opportunity or medical coverage to go to, certain types of specialists.

So she was interfacing with a lot of families in, in their homes and their communities. And I think that, you know, you just kinda absorb that. I think as a kid and my dad, he worked for the state of Ohio in the, um, Ohio Department of Health, and he did disease surveillance and. I think, again, you don't really know this, I think consciously as a 6-year-old or an 8-year-old, or a 10-year-old, but I think he was working on some pretty hard public health challenges that Ohio has experienced and was experiencing then.

 I just think that some of that just percolated through and he worked on his PhD, he earned his PhD while I was a young kid, and I think one memory I have, probably going back to 1989 or 1990 is walking into what we called the den, which it's kind of an old school version of a home office kind of thing. And him being at like the original computer, or maybe even a, I, I don't wanna say a typewriter, but it looked my memory as a, like a 5, 6-year-old is of him at like, basically at the equivalent of a typewriter writing up his, his dissertation and growing a beard and just really investing into this academic achievement and I never thought, and maybe we'll get to this later in the story, but if you had asked me at age 18, age 20, age 22, if I would go on to have more of an academic line of work and work in a university, I would've said, "Absolutely not". 

 Wait, hold on here. I'm really curious, right. 

[00:04:05] Adam: So you said when you were in your twenties you had no inclination to go into academia. What changed?

[00:04:11] Joe: There are things that we think about that I think all of us are predisposed to being interested in some things more than others. And a great teacher, I think brings that to life. I did go to a university and, and pursued my bachelor's degree in part because I had a sense I wanted to study the environment and how humans shape their environment, how the environment shapes humans and frankly, how do we shape it to be better for all of us to work more interconnected more positively.

I remember I took an environmental sociology course in the fall of the autumn of my junior year of college and I literally started lying to my roommates because I didn't want them to know how much time I was actually spending at the library 'cause I was afraid they were gonna be, I played on an an athletic team and our, I lived with other members of the team 

And if they knew that I was disappearing for hours at a time to just read my books and you know, kind of nerd out on some of these like theories and stuff, I think if they actually knew what I was studying and doing, they would question me. 

[00:05:06] Adam: I love how you're like deep, dark secret is like, I was spending too much time in the library. 

[00:05:11] Dominique: Joe was like, "Well, I a cool kid and was also smart, but I didn't want my friends know." Wait, what did you want to be before? Maybe like what, what kind of career did you think you were going to when you thought you would not go to academia? 

[00:05:26] Joe: Well, there's another story 

When I was 14 or 15, I got in a really bad accident. I broke my leg in a pretty severe way and, and it required some reconstructive surgery and things like that to my lower right leg. And in doing so, there were some surgeries required and, and in that time, one of the surgical tools, pieces of equipment became contaminated. 

And I had MRSA or whatever that, I think the staph aureus or streptococcus, I can't remember the strain of, you know, really hardened battle ready bacteria that kind of infiltrated my body and through my leg and it turned to be pretty severe. So I was hospitalized for over a week, probably longer than that.

 It's all a bit blurry, my recollection, but probably seven to 10 days, something like that. And in that time, my temperature got to a point where I'll never forget learning that it was at 105.7 because that was a radio station that I listened to when I was that age here in Central Ohio. 

 I remember just thinking, "105.7, that's pretty high on the dial" and I was kind of in and outta consciousness by grandmother who was spending some time with me. She was devout Roman Catholic and she had a priest come in and deliver me my last rites. And there were some, some heavy stuff going on. 'cause you're in and outta consciousness. 

 That really overwhelmed me a little bit at that time.

And I think it sort of pushed me to be in a place to think a little more consciously, intentionally about you don't always have, you don't have control over where we're gonna go, and that's outside of our control in many ways. And so what we can control is maybe what we prioritize.

And I think taking those influences, those early influences I mentioned earlier, where I lived and where we lived as a family was near, if you know where Antrim Park is, Antrim Lake, that's an old quarry. It was still being mined, I think at about the time my family moved into the area and that was given to the city and is now I think, a really great public asset that we all, you know, any of us can access. 

[00:07:18] Dominique: A beautiful lake with a beautiful trail running around it and it connects to the Olentangy Trail.

[00:07:23] Joe: Yeah, it's a multi-use trail and I mean, I've watched it evolve over the last 30 some years or whatever, and it's a great thing that we can all enjoy and that was very close to where I lived. So I found, I think there was a seed planted around age 14 or 15 that like life is unpredictable, you don't have control over a lot of things. So what can I do to give more opportunities to not only myself and the people around me, but to people I don't even know for things like Antrim Lake? Like how do we take things that really had a single solitary purpose, like extracting minerals from the ground or resources from the surface of the earth and for sale and for exchange.

And that adds some financial value to some players, but how can a broader set of our public and, and people in our communities enjoy our environmental assets? Because we've done so much to manipulate our planet for certain benefits, how do we broaden that and maybe even increasingly just make it better and more functional?

[00:08:21] Adam: I love that.

[00:08:22] Dominique: How do you think now about the work that you do? If someone was to ask you, "Hey, Joe, what is your role in the world of sustainability?" 

 it took me like 17 breaths to go through all the things that you do, and I'm really curious what maybe stands out the most to you and, and what feels impactful or just like, resonates with your identity of things that, you know, the impact you are wanting to have in sustainability.

[00:08:44] Joe: Well, I think the forum like you're creating right now, like I feel so valued, I feel so appreciated, and I feel like those 17 breaths or whatever worth of background information, 

[00:08:55] Dominique: great breaths, by the way. Well worth it.

[00:08:58] Joe: a Good breaths.. All right, 

[00:09:00] Dominique: I'm glad it's positive, 

[00:09:01] Joe: They're, positive breaths. Um, that's a good example I think of making people feel seen, heard, and valued for what they do and I hope that I create those opportunities for others and I do social science right at the university, and part of my mission is to maybe help it's not only the process of like letting others be heard, like right now, you're making me feel validated for what I do and that I think is actually really important for people in this society.

So if I can create channels for that too in different ways, in the classroom or between peers, like I really value when I'm teaching to have students really try to listen to other students, like really listen and try to add a little more knowledge and understanding to each other because if we're talking about sustainability or you know, the trying to be more green, so much of it, so much of it is our patterns of thinking previously, currently, and into the future.

And so if we can be more, I think, prepared to listen and to listen and to listen and allow that to shape our thought process and then the actions that we then take, I think that will help us undo maybe some of the damage but also build upon the good things that we have going and the strengths that we have.

It's interesting, right before this, Dominic and I were, were talking a little bit about our own, figuring out our careers in college, right? Which were very crooked paths where we didn't know what we were doing. We started off in one direction, we ended up in another. And think that's just very common. 

[00:10:38] Adam: What do you think helps the most for students that come to you in terms of figuring out their place in the world 

There's a piece of advice that I receive from a lifetime mentor. His name is Tony Duke. He lives in Australia, and he has a saying where he says, "Your greatest strength is your greatest weakness" and the inverse of that. And I think when you're hospitalized and dependent upon the medical system and nurses and doctors and the whole team, custodial staff to essentially keep you alive, it's extreme.

[00:11:11] Joe: One could interpret that situation as like, "How vulnerable am I?" And I think that's how we are actually in our daily lives. It's easy to take it for granted in 2024, the years that we're in now because so much of our engineered and organized systems allow us to safely more or less move from place to place and ingest the foods or drink the beverages, whatever that we have.

But we are highly vulnerable creatures and we definitely need each other, we definitely need other humans. 

So I think that's an opportunity that can crystallize for some, and for me it crystallized and it taught me that we are interrelated. Not to be corny and cliche, but like we are. And I think the influence of my parents and how I saw that they, not only because I talked about their careers, but also how they just supported people in their own network, their own peer relationship.

Like you'd see that like it's 6:00 PM and they've just put in a full day and they've done what they had to do to kind of keep our family going, and then they're out helping someone, I think my, my line that I've taken from Tony of your greatest strength is your greatest weakness and vice versa, 

 what it means to me is that we can, in our own psychology, harp on too much our weaknesses. Like I think many of us do have insecurities that we carry with us and sometimes we don't address them and instead we create some protection or some armor around that thinking that that's the problem. And if someone finds my vulnerability or my weakness, then it's over. But I think our human psyches work better if we are intentional about unpacking what some of those weaknesses are and those insecurities, because then you're now free if you know how or not you're never free, but you're able to withstand pressures and other things that that come better, so.

I try to get students to focus on something that inspires them. Inspiration, I think is really important. I trywithout being too abstract and wonky and weird, like what are some of those inner strengths that they feel, and then after four or five months, once they've really hopefully expressed that and build upon that, I do wanna bring up this weaknesses thing because to be working in sustainability professionally or as a volunteer in different ways is always gonna be presented with barriers. 

Well, one of the reasons that you're here today is on, on your strength of building community, and I think this is a very relevant component of like, "How do we connect with each other when tackling these problems and do that more effectively?"

[00:13:43] Dominique: Yeah, definitely. And I think that shows how much you understand what really works in that space. And even earlier it's still sticking with me that you just really focused on like listening. It's so easy to be like, "Here's what I do in this space and here's how like my superpowers create positivity and like, you know, creates change."

And you're like, "I listen. Like other people know what they're doing. Other people have things to share and I am there to be an asset to those around me." And I think that just speaks a lot to your deep understanding and care for the idea of really knowing who is around you to work with. 

[00:14:21] Joe: So one reason I bring it back to like, why I'm so grateful for what you've created together in this partnership and this podcast and the literal setup you have of two chairs listening to one person on a couch.

It's like you really making me feel heard and valued. If everybody had a chance to be on the couch and be asked to share their story. Regardless if it's 17 breaths or 4 breaths or 26 breaths, whatever it takes to introduce them, that doesn't really matter. It's the fact that they know that there's others in their community that actually think what they have done, and they do and they have to say is actually important. Like there's no price for that. I think we need to find more ways, whether it's a podcast, it's probably not always feasible, but we have to societally, we just gotta figure out more ways to let people be heard.

And I think in community development settings, we're getting sort of like really strong cross signals that like, "Yes, there are people who act inappropriately, who act in ways to basically, to use the expression, blow out every candle in the room." So theirs is the brightest, right? There are people like that. I have found in my only 40 years on the planet, that's probably 1 out of 10 people like, and regardless of where they are on the planet, how old they are, gender, educational background or lack of educational background, whatever.

I've worked in so many places with so many people. 9 out of 10 people I really believe will support many candles in the room. 

 I really appreciate how you've shared that you're really, your advice is focusing on the why of why we're networking and connecting is like just seeking to understand. There is no motive you bring to that table. You don't have to share that new idea you have or the thing you came to the chat ready to say. You also can just listen. And respond to what someone else is saying. Can I make one point about selfishness? So I'm very fortunate. My, my wife is really good at accurately reminding me when I'm operating with a high degree of selfishness. I think it's almost like in the water here. So she's not from the US originally. She's been here now four or five years. But this is a cultural thing and a personal thing. So culturally, it is interesting to see how individually oriented, and we might even call that selfish, we can often operate here in the United States and it might vary from one part of the country more to another, but I think generally speaking, it's almost built into our fabric and DNA, that to be successful on this continent or in these United States, you have to put the individual freedom and liberty like at the base of our country's ideals. And it's not necessarily that way a lot of places around the world and our our species and the sort of the dominant patterns that we see that have been introduced from the European or African or Asian, like these continents where humans have lived and created place and meaning. 

 over the last 500 years, there is this kind of like pressure here and I feel it when I've been out of the US for a long time.

Especially, we talked before the interview about being, spending time in Africa, like different parts of the African content, which is massively diverse and complex and great place. When you fly into New York or Washington DC or the airports. Maybe I'm just overly sensitive or something, but I can feel the pressure, it just kind of like amplifies as you go through customs and you start walking through the corridors of an international airport in the United States. It's just the way people look at each other, the tension, the individual pacing and movement. It's like a, it's a different culture and I wouldn't know that if I hadn't spent time outside and then come back in.

And so when I say I'm very fortunate to be reminded like directly of my selfishness. 

 I think that's also a challenge here is because we're trying to encourage green champions, we're trying to encourage young people to wanna engage in sustainable development. They're often me too. It's like, "What can I as an individual do?" And just that thought exercise of like what I, as an individual, the thought, the preface there of the I statement, that's not always how we as homo sapiens like evolve to think.

We're talking about sustainable development. We're talking about trying to balance 9 billion or 10, 12 billion people with the planetary boundaries that we have. And I'm not even gonna talk about trying to leave earth and inhabit other planets. I just like, "Whatever", 

[00:18:54] Dominique: A future guest could get to that topic.

[00:18:56] Joe: Yeah. Or yachts on the ocean. 

[00:18:58] Adam: And so shifting more to this perspective of what's the 'we' here that we can uplift? And kind of my, my takeaway from listening to you is that, "Hey, one thing that we can do is just ask ourselves, Hey, how can we light more candles for those around us in order to lift up the whole?"

[00:19:13] Joe: Well, thank you so much today for coming out and giving us a masterclass on how do we build these connections to actually create change that benefits all of us when it's not clear.

[00:19:21] Dominique: Yeah, and you got me thinking about the purpose of this podcast in a different way. And I think we didn't necessarily come into it with that vantage point, we're really just excited to have the conversations. And all of our listeners are getting to do what you told them to do, which is listen. And I think it's also really notable that you began all this saying that you didn't think you wanted to go into academia and you are clearly born to be doing this.

[00:19:47] Joe: So how can people connect with you and support the work that you're doing in this? 

I encourage everyone listening, especially those that are working in the state of Ohio, wherever that may be from Lake Erie down to the Ohio River and everything in between to go to epn.osu.edu. That's epn.osu.edu. That's the Environmental Professionals Network, which is hosted at Ohio State, but is open to all natural resource enthusiasts.

Those working in various environmental sectors and those that might just be interested in getting into this type of work or just wanna learn more. All of our programs, they're open to all, we host them most of the year in Columbus, though occasionally we travel around the state and all of our events are live streamed so people can tune in from wherever they are.

[00:20:31] Dominique: Thanks for chatting us today. I'm excited for part two. We'll get into the success stories too. 

[00:20:35] Joe: Cool.

[00:20:35] Dominique: As always, our guests have found a unique way to champion sustainability. We're here to put real names and stories like Joe's, behind the idea that no matter your background, career or interests, you really can contribute in the fight against climate 

[00:20:48] Adam: You can find our episodes@thegreenchampions.com. If you want to stay in the loop, give us a review and follow us on your favorite podcast platform. If you have questions about climate change or sustainability, you can reach us on our website at thegreenchampions.com. Our music is by Zane Dweik 

Thanks for listening to Green Champions. We'll dig into another sustainability success story in our next episode.

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