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Climate Coaching: A Path to Environmental Action with guest, Don Maruska

• Garry Schleifer

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What if addressing climate change could be joyful rather than overwhelming? Master Certified Coach Don Maruska reveals a revolutionary approach that transforms climate action from a fear-driven burden into an energizing opportunity aligned with what people naturally love doing.

Drawing from his book "Solve Climate Change Now: Do What You Love for a Healthy Planet," Maruska explains why traditional climate messaging often fails: fear works only as a short-term motivator before leading to burnout. Instead, he offers a coach-centered "attraction model" that helps clients identify their unique "climate sweet spot" – where personal passion meets meaningful environmental impact.

The conversation explores Maruska's Triple A framework (Awareness, Action, and Advocacy) that accommodates different personality types and preferences. Some individuals thrive in direct action like community gardening, while others excel at boosting awareness or advocating for policy change. The beauty lies in starting anywhere within this circle – one engagement naturally leads to expanding interests across all three domains.

Maruska directly addresses a common coaching dilemma: should we bring up climate issues if clients don't explicitly request them? He makes a compelling case that raising climate consciousness serves clients' best interests by helping them meet growing consumer expectations, boost employee engagement, and align with younger generations' values. Far from imposing an agenda, climate coaching represents a strategic advantage worth exploring.

Most encouraging is Maruska's emphasis on how individual actions multiply. Research shows social movements need only 3.5-25% participation to create tipping points, and simple daily choices around food waste and transportation can collectively save billions of pounds of greenhouse gases. As he wisely notes, "We can't wait for leaders to start the parade – we need to start marching so they'll run to the front."

Ready to transform how you approach climate conversations with clients? Connect with Maruska at solveclimatechangenow.com or through the Climate Coaching Alliance to discover how coaching skills are precisely what our planet needs right now.

Watch the full interview by clicking here.

Find the full article here.

Learn more about Don Maruska here.

Free resources to help you get started are at SolveClimateChangeNow.com

Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/

Garry Schleifer:

Welcome to Beyond the Page, the official podcast of choice, the magazine of professional coaching, where we bring you amazing insights and in-depth features that you just won't find anywhere else. I'm your host, Garry Schleifer, and I'm excited to expand your learning as we delve into the latest articles, have a chat with this brilliant author here and uncover the learnings that are transforming the coaching world. When you get a chance, join our vibrant community of coaching professionals as we explore groundbreaking ideas, share tips, techniques and make a real difference in our clients' lives, which is what we're up to. Remember, this is your go-to resource for all things coaching, and let's dive in.

Garry Schleifer:

In today's episode, I'm speaking with Master Certified Coach Don Maruska, who is the author of an article in our latest issue Climate Consciousness and Coaching ~ Making the Connection. The article is entitled Climate Change Needs Coaching ~ An Attraction Model for Effective Climate Conversation with Clients. A little bit about Don. He has an MBA, JD and, as I mentioned, is a Master Certified Coach. He's the author of at least one book, the one we know of called Solve Climate Change ~ Now Do What You Love for a Healthy Planet. He uses a proven attraction model to help people match what they love to do with what's needed for a healthy climate. Previously, Don created and led a nationwide coaching program serving 10,000 professionals a year. Prior to his coaching career, Don was founder and CEO of three Silicon Valley companies, earning a National Innovator Award. Wow, that's a lot, Don.

Garry Schleifer:

Thank you for joining me today.

Don Maruska:

Pleasure to be with you and your audience.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, you know, normally I ask you authors like why would you write for choice, why did you choose to? And I think I chose you a little bit based on your previous book and the steps that you have in there. So why don't you just tell us a little bit more about the book and the action steps that you have in there, the three A's.

Don Maruska:

Sure.

Don Maruska:

Well, the book came about because people were increasingly asking what could they do for a healthy climate? What's the role of coaches and how can people take action? And what I realized is that many of the approaches that were being applied for climate action were really becoming counterproductive. People were burning out about climate issues because they were really fear-driven approaches, and fear works as a short-term motivator for people. It'll get them going. They'll do something. Most people, if a friend asks them, will do something once, but whether they do it on an ongoing basis and carry it forward is really dependent upon their own self-motivation. So there was a gap in approach about how to address climate, and the gap is we really need to shift from that fear-driven model into a more hopeful model, into an attraction model, and coaches know that really attraction is the way to work with clients. Not sort of making them feel bummed out and terrible about their life and the world and wanting to do what you tell them.

Don Maruska:

We really have to engage them. And so the question then became okay, how to do that effectively? And humans are not very good at solving chronic problems. We're good at acute problems because, as humans, we want to like swat at that problem and get it out and have it over with. It shows up in our medical world. People are much more willing to have acute interventions than they are to make long-term behavioral and diet improvements, for example, on obesity or other things. So we're not good at that and we have to be very conscious if we're going to be effective in it.

Don Maruska:

And this is really where coaches make the most sense, because coaches are really about attracting their clients into the better future that awaits them. And that really starts with okay, what do they love doing? How does that match up with what's needed out there? And get them on their own sweet spot. Well, this is about how to help clients get on their climate sweet spot. What they love to do matches up with what's needed, and that's the climate sweet spot. So that's what the book is all about. It's organized in three main parts. The first part is helping people really reflect on what it is that they love to do, what's really important to them. You know so many people I mean I encounter this in my coaching activity. Our clients are chasing things. I'm chasing things from time to time. That bright, shiny object I'm going to go in and do it before someone is doing it.

Garry Schleifer:

FOMO.

Don Maruska:

Yeah. And so the whole idea is to help people get really grounded in what's truly important to them and what do they really love about enough to make change and to be part of the solution versus just contributing to the problem. So, you know, what we have loved in many respects has gotten us into the difficulties we have. Our love for convenience, our love for driving our cars anytime we want, anywhere we want, you know, flying around the world, all those kinds of things. We've created this climate problem that we have because we love doing those things in the ways that they've been presented to us by the fossil fuel industries and so on, and we have to switch. And so the first step is okay, what do I love more than that convenience? What do I love more than that plastic bottle? Am I motivated to try something different and to do something different? So that's the first part. The second part is ok, so if you're grounded on what you love to do, and people love to do all different things. We have in the article the example of Seth, a coach, who loves to garden and cook and invite friends together, you know. So that's kind of what he loves to do.

Don Maruska:

The second part of the book talks about what are the different ways that people can make a difference. A lot of people think, oh, what can I do as an individual? Will it make a difference? And yes, it will. And that's how all great social movements happen is through individuals taking action, not waiting for something to come from the top down and solve it for us. So there's what I call the triple A of healthy climate. That's awareness, action and advocacy. And some people like one form or another. Some people just love, like Seth did in the article, he just wanted to do something. He wanted to create a community garden and get people involved and learn about how that could help draw carbon out of the atmosphere and all the good things like that. But other people want to boost awareness. They're sort of science like and want to explore what the underpinnings are of climate science and share them with others. Other people are advocates. They want to go and, you know, get the big wheels of Congress somehow turning in a positive direction, we hope.

Don Maruska:

And so you know people choose something out of that. Like I mentioned, Seth went for the direct action option. But anywhere that someone joins in that circle, they start to learn other things. Like Seth started, he went into action on creating a community garden and then he learned about okay, how much carbon is that going to sequester? What are the other things that could be done with commercial agriculture to make that work more efficiently? You know they start to get into the other spheres once they get in the cycle in the place.

Don Maruska:

And then the third is okay, where's my sweet spot going to be? How am I going to put this together for myself? And so the whole thing is set up to guide people in how to go about doing that. And it really all culminates around what we highlighted in the article in choice Magazine about a climate action conversation, which is a simple way to have, in 20 minutes, a conversation that you can guide a client, a fellow coach or family member, whomever, in some simple questions that will get them to find what that climate sweet spot is and to get going.

Garry Schleifer:

Right, well and interesting. It's a great article. Thank you very much for that example too, because it really does bring it to light. And it still leaves that question that a lot of coaches have is they're reluctant to bring up climate issues because that's their agenda, not their clients. How can coaches handle this in service to their clients?

Don Maruska:

Right. Well, that's a really great question and one that I encounter and one that I'm glad to address, and we talk about that in the Climate Coaching Alliance. So there's an organization if coaches want to get more involved in this. There's a nonprofit called climatecoachingalliance. org, and a lot of coaches have this question because, yeah, I'm not supposed to have my agenda, I'm supposed to just have my client's agenda.

Don Maruska:

I think and I know from my client experience, clients appreciate us bringing up things that are truly in their interest that they may not have seen or thought about. That's one of the roles of a coach. It's not just to ask questions and have the client come up with their own answers, uninformed by other things that we might know about. So I don't think it's the role of the coach to sit there with their hands tied behind their back or their hand in front of their mouth saying Oh I can't say anything about anything that I know. That is why I put in the article the case for bringing climate coaching to the attention of our clients, even if we weren't hired for that at all.

Don Maruska:

The reasons are pretty straightforward. The first is that increasingly, customers in the marketplace are looking for and expecting producers of goods and services to be attuned to environmental issues. I shared in the article there's something like 81% of people think that's an important value. So you're going with very good odds of bringing up this as something that's going to enhance the business. The second thing is that every business that I know about is really looking at, especially after COVID, how do they strengthen the engagement of their employees with the organization? And, of course, a great way to do that is with one another.

Don Maruska:

Well, that's a great opportunity for employees to voluntarily get together and work together on some climate action opportunity that they could do, or some advocacy thing or some awareness building in their community. And then the underlying aspect of that is that you look at the statistics and the millennials and Gen Zs are asking for that. They're evaluating companies on do they line up with my values? So you know we're not asking the companies to impose things on the employees, but unleash the employees, enable them to be engaged around that, and that's going to be then good for the environment as well. So it's a win-win-win and on that basis, people can bring it up. But, in fact, in the book, I share an exa mple and write out a script on how you can bring this up to your client in a way that would be seen as being in service to the client versus oh, I got an agenda and I want to push it on you.

Garry Schleifer:

And be in service of, as we all want to be.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, well said, well said. And I've been interviewing a few other people from this issue and some of them are climate coaches, so they're marketing themselves as climate coaches which obviously makes it an easier opportunity to bring up the conversation. Interestingly, Renee, who hooked a lot of us up for this issue, really blew me away with the idea that it didn't have to be parallel paths, that they can be intertwined coaching and climate consciousness so I'm really thrilled that you're a part of this issue, Don.

Don Maruska:

Oh great. And we have to do that because people bemoan that more isn't being done for a healthy climate. And I know, in early stages of my career I worked in the US Senate and I know how the place works. Rarely does an elected official start a parade. Usually they look for a parade that's already happening and they run around to the front to join it, and so we can't wait for our leaders to do this work for us.

Don Maruska:

They're going to respond to the number and intensity of interest and bottom line the level of activity of their constituents on a particular issue. Those are the things that they calibrate their own advocacy on in terms of their legislative work. So if you want to make big wheels turn, you got to get the smaller ones going, and that's what makes the difference.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, no, well said, thank you. I'm going to refer to the actual title because it really struck me again today. Climate Change Needs Coaches. Why does climate change need coaches?

Don Maruska:

Well, because of this fundamental nature of it took us about 170 years of the Industrial Revolution to accumulate the one and a half trillion tons of greenhouse gases that are sitting up in the atmosphere. And when I was doing the research for the book Solve Climate Change Now, I was struck that, you know I was thinking but what happens with all those greenhouse gases? You know they just blow away or whatever. No, they sit up there for like 300 to a thousand years. That's why this is such a big and cumulative problem.

Don Maruska:

Now, their difficulty is we are a visually oriented species. If we don't see something, we don't solve it typically, or we avoid it or we ignore it, and so we don't see greenhouse gases. We saw smog in the 70s, and so we got the Clean Air Act in the 70s, but we haven't gotten the greenhouse gases because they're invisible to us. So one of the things that's really critical here is, if it took us that long to get into the problem, it's going to take us a couple decades to get through it, and that means that this is a chronic problem. This is a human change problem. This is not just simply oh, we're going to give umpty, ump gazillion dollars to Elon Musk or Bill Gates and they're going to solve it for us. Because what are they going to solve it with? They're going to solve it with more technology.

Garry Schleifer:

That's going to take more resources and cause more greenhouse gases.

Don Maruska:

Right, exactly, exactly. We're kind of chasing our tail. So that's why this is fine turf for coaches. Coaches are great at helping people find their own self-motivation to make a difference. Yeah, and we all know that when we find that in our clients, that's the quickest path to change. That's the quickest path to what they want to have. So if we can just help them A. get clear about what's really important to them and B. encourage them to see what the different options are, to make a difference and support them in choosing. I always love my clients having choice, even about whether or not they hire me.

Garry Schleifer:

I like my readers having choice.

Don Maruska:

Yes, exactly, I'm with you there, Garry. I even tell the clients that have asked me to coach them, well, I want to be sure that you've talked to some other coaches, because I want you to have the right choice for you and the right chemistry, and they kind of look at it well, that's kind of strange. And I have to assure them well no, it's not that I don't want to coach you, it's just want you to have the experience of choice, because choice is so powerful and just in and of itself.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, well, that's how we came up with the name way back 22 years ago, 23 now.

Don Maruska:

Wow, long run.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah exactly

Don Maruska:

So you know what it takes to kind of stick in there and hang with that and how that requires self-motivation of the people.

Garry Schleifer:

Well, it requires self-motivation. It requires shared vision, commitment to the vision to the successful outcome. It kind of goes back to the distinction you made about acute versus chronic. When you said that you know the greenhouse gases. You can't see it. It's like the issue that people have with mental health in a way, like I mean, they get it but they can't see it, they can't fix it, they can't touch it right. So how do we help people get their mind around that the greenhouse gases are, you know, are there, they're still there and they'll be there until we do something about them? Or can we do something about them?

Garry Schleifer:

I don't know the answer to that one is but yeah, no, thank you so much. So anything else you couldn't fit into the article that you wanted to advise us coaches on in our climate conscious lives.

Don Maruska:

Well, I just think it's very important, first and foremost, for coaches to embody this themselves. This is not something to do to our clients. This is something that we need to experience and live ourselves. The old adage when I was among the first to become a master certified coach the thing we always share with one another is that coaches coach on what they need to learn themselves.

Garry Schleifer:

Yes.

Don Maruska:

And so one of the things for us to do as coaches is to have our own climate action conversations and have that with one another, so that we can have the experience of what's that like. How does that feel, how do those questions hit us? How might they hit and engage and spark something in our clients? And the best way to do that is to do that oneself, and I think that's a great way to introduce these ideas to a client is to say hey, clients I've found always are kind of curious about us coaches.

Don Maruska:

You, know, like what's up, what are we looking at, what's interesting to us, what are we learning from other people that they might pick up on? So it opens lots of doors. You can say well you know, at the end of a coaching conversation about some other topic, the person in front of us say you know, would you be interested in hearing something that I'm working on currently that I think might have possibilities for you and your team?

Garry Schleifer:

That's true. I've done that many times and it wasn't on climate consciousness. It was on other stuff.

Don Maruska:

Right, and it has the effect that you just identified. You know, you just raised your eyebrows, you know and, that's an indication that, oh, there's interest. Yeah, you know that that's sparking something. And then you go from there and say, well, you know, I'm part of a group that, if you're part of the Climate Coaching Alliance or if you're not, I read this article in in our professional magazine about the opportunities for clients and serving them. I did one of these conversations myself. I think there's a lot there and if you have 20 minutes, I'd like to just run through that conversation with you and see how it sticks with you.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, what a great opening and, along with the conversation that you put in the article as well, the title of your book got me. So I thought I want to see what I can do and of course that was over a year ago and I've kept motivated on my reduce, reuse, recycle mission. That's my big thing.

Don Maruska:

Uh-huh.

Don Maruska:

That's great.

Don Maruska:

You cut it off at the start? Yeah, if you don't get the plastics to begin with, you don't have to worry about the recycling.

Garry Schleifer:

Exactly, and if I do end up with plastics, I take them with me and and use them again a couple of times. I've become like my mother. I wash the ziploc bags and reuse them.

Don Maruska:

I do too.

Don Maruska:

I do too and you know, it's because the awareness that you and others are gaining, that you know, if we don't, those plastics stay with us forever, they become microplastics. They're finding them in our hearts and across the blood brain barrier and they get into our brains even, and goodness knows what they're doing up there. I don't think they've totally figured out You know what that is, but it doesn't sound I would really I'd in my like. So yeah, so yeah, there's simple things we can there and. The yeah, the choices that we make every day and people don't realize how many choices making and until they step back and take a look at it. So that's wonderful that you're doing Project Drawdown has drawdown. Has the experts from around the world, the scientists, say okay, what are the you know consumers and people in their households could do over a 30-year period that would make the most difference? Number one, at the top of the list, is reduce food waste. Second one is have a plant-rich diet, you know, and you go on down the road, but those things are even above, you know, shelling out money to get solar panels, which is also a very good thing to do, but these other things actually, because we do them every day, multiple times a day, actually have a bigger impact. So there's lots opportunities and and one of the things that the book you know some statistics that I generated from the scientists about how much difference these individual actions can make for us. So you know, if each of know, shared a ride with somebody, a 30 mile round trip ride uh, once a month and we just did that across the country, we would save 80 billion pounds of greenhouse gases. So little things add up. I think people need to know that there's a basis. there's also.

Don Maruska:

research on. Well, people do you have to get in a social change movement to actually get the tipping point? Some people say, oh, we're never going to get to 50%. We can't get to 50% on what day of the week it is in this country at the present time. But that's not really true. If you get a core group of sometimes as low as 3.5% up to maybe 25%, you can make a difference. That'll get the tipping point rolling in your favor.

Don Maruska:

So we're not hopeless.

Garry Schleifer:

We're still here.

Don Maruska:

Great things they can do, and they're sorely needed at this point in time.

Garry Schleifer:

Very much so. Wow. Thank you so much. What would you like our audience to do, other than what we've just said, as a result of the article in this conversation? I can suggest one. Join the Climate Coaching Initiative, you fellow coaches. Number two is Solve The Climate Crisis Now. Buy Don's book, preferably digitally.

Don Maruska:

There you go, yeah, yeah. So those are big things, yeah, so climatecoachingalliance. org, you can get some free resources at my website, solveclimatechangenow. com, and get more information and more things that you can do to make a difference yourself. And then I think fundamentally, it's having conversations, it's having try the conversation out, read the article. It gives you enough in there to figure out how to do it and start having some fun. It's actually fun.

Garry Schleifer:

Xlimate consciousness can be fun?

Don Maruska:

Exactly.

Don Maruska:

The amazing thing is when people combine what they love to do. They talk with you about what they love to do. Immediately you get energy from them, right, because they're talking about something they love to do. And then you combine that with things that they can do and they see and they choose something they'd like to do. They get excited, they get energy.

Don Maruska:

Yeah, you know they see opportunity and that's what we need is that kind of joyfulness to be energizing us in what's really a very challenging set of issues. The challenge of them doesn't diminish the importance of our impact.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, no kidding. Thank you very much. Thanks for everything, Don, for your book, for your commitment, for your coaching, for this article, for this conversation.

Don Maruska:

My pleasure. Well, thank you for giving people and making people aware of how important their choices are by the good work of your magazine.

Garry Schleifer:

So I like to say you always have the power of choice.

Don Maruska:

You do.

Garry Schleifer:

What's the best way to reach you, Don? through Solve Climate Change Now?

Don Maruska:

Yeah, if you go to SolveC limateC hangeN ow. com or I'm on LinkedIn, Don Maruska on LinkedIn is a great way. You also see, I put my blog pieces up there about things that I'm thinking about and working on and invite commentary and interaction there. It seems to be a good audience for that.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, thank you so much. That's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe to your favorite podcast app. If you're not a subscriber to choice Magazine and you're watching this, you can sign up for your free digital issue by scanning the QR code in the top right-hand corner of our screen. Or, if you're listening by audio, go to choice-online. com and click the Sign Up Now button. I'm Garry Schleifer. Enjoy the journey of mastery.