Sometimes when people ask me what I do for a living I tell them my job is to Save the Planet. Yeah, it's a bit cheeky as far as a response goes, but whatever... and besides, shouldn't everybody's job be to save the planet. I mean after all, don't we all kind of need the planet to survive? I suppose my job is to find different ways to do things that ultimately help save the planet. Consequently, part of my everyday job is to try to walk the talk of sustainability. You would be surprised how little things mean a lot to many people. How the smallest thing can cascade into something huge, or how the simplest message can help inspire others to dream big. Earlier this month, my boss asked me to switch offices. The downside is I had to move, but the upshot was that I would have my very own office. My boss challenged me to try to make my new space as "paperless" as possible. He wanted me to try to model what a greener work space might look like. This was of c...

Very recently, my director has been talking to me about stretch goals. If you haven't heard of a stretch goal, it is essentially a goal that cannot be reached by incremental change. He tells me this story: "The emperor of Japan wanted the trains to go faster to move people around quicker. At the time, the trains were able to average about 60 mph and were limited to that speed because of the numerous mountains in the region... when a train goes around a corner at high speeds it tends to flip over. So the emperor asks for the trains to go quicker and his engineers and people in the Ministry of Transportation work on the problem and come up with a solution. Essentially they figured they could slant the tracks and help prevent the trains from flying off the track at higher speeds. They go back and tell the emperor that they can now get the trains to average 75 mph, which isn't too bad. But the emperor isn't exactly pleased. He says to his people that they don'...