Inspiration to Action: How to Make a Difference for the Ocean

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do you ever just hear about something or see something online

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or maybe something that's in your day life where you're just like, Oh man, I

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am so inspired to do something for the ocean, but maybe

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I just don't know exactly what I want to do. This is

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the episode that you want to listen to because that happened to me just recently. I

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felt so inspired after I did an interview, it's gonna hopefully get

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published next week, we're just in review right now, with a company, an

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organization that is doing some great stuff

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all around the world, but it started off with just an idea, and

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people just acted on that idea. And there are times where I'm

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just like, hey, I'm doing all this communication, it's really great to see, how

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can I scale up, or how can I do something else that

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will make people be like, oh man, Like this is what I need to do. That's

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what we're going to be talking about on this episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast,

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how to act for the blue. Let's start the show.

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Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm

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your host Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how

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you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean

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by taking action. And on today's episode, we're going to be talking about

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taking action, acting for the blue. It's really funny, just

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to start off, When I first started this podcast, it

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used to be called Speak Up for Blue, and then I turned it to Speak Up

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for Ocean Blue for some SEO stuff. But

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it was Speak Up for Blue because I wanted to have like this speak up

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for blue, then I wanted to have act for the blue and kind

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of just bring it all about. And so to be like, hey, we can talk

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about the blue, but we can also act for the blue and do certain things. And

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I just never got around to doing that because I have

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to pay the bills and I had to get a job and I was working other jobs while

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I was doing this. And I just kind of continued to do that. But maybe, just

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maybe, this will happen sometime soon. But the goal for

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me was always to be around the ocean, was to do work, was

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to do research, was to do conservation. And more

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and more that I talk about conservation in science, the more and more I

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want to do it. Especially when I, you know, I interview

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somebody who's doing it as well. I have an interview coming

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up. I don't want to give it away. It's a pretty big interview for me. It's somebody

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who's never been on the podcast before in the 10 years that we've been around, but

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it's something big. It's a company and organization that went

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pretty much worldwide and viral almost instantly about just

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under 10 years now. I got the

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co-founder and CEO on the

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podcast to talk about it. We're just in review, so it's going to come out

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soon. When I

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talked to this gentleman, when I talked about this organization, I'm

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always just like, man, that is awesome.

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Like I wish I could get something like that done. I wish I

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could find the way to do that. And I think about his origin

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story and the company's origin story, and I'm just like, I'm they

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do some really cool stuff and they've been able to do some really cool

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stuff and like the numbers that they've been able to get, not

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in terms of revenue come in, but impact that they've been

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able to have is absolutely amazing. And the way they

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treat their employees is absolutely amazing. So it's

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just when you see a company like this and an organization like

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this, I always say company organization because they're a little bit of both. You

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used to be like, I need to do that. Like that's something I need to

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do before what I want to do, right? That's really what it

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comes down to. And a lot of times we don't really think

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that it can be done. And I think that's the problem a lot of

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times is, and this happens with business a lot of times when you're starting your

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own thing. And I get this fear all the time. It's like, I

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wanna go full scale, but I've got

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this fear that's keeping me from going full scale. Right.

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And that could be also like not just starting your own business or starting

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your own nonprofit organization. It could be just applying

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for that job. You might be worried that you might get rejected because

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you've been rejected before. You might be worried about what

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other people say. That's fine. You know, if

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you really want to get stuff done, it's not going to

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be easy and you got to push through it, but

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you can get it done. And but if you coast through

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life and you constantly second guess yourself, you'll never

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know what you're able to accomplish. And that's something that I have to tell myself all

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the time. In fact, as I'm saying this, I'm like, oh my gosh, like

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this happens in everything, not just. you

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know, ocean conservation, but it happens in everything. So this,

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this episode is a bit of a motivation for you. If you want to act

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for the blue in any capacity, whether it be starting your own business,

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starting your own organization or working for an organization or

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working for a business that does pretty cool things, sustainable things

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or eco-friendly things, this is your time to really think

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like push through, push through those barriers, push

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through that fear, push through that potential rejection and

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just go for it. put everything together and

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it's really interesting you know i'm talking about this night and i say this to my kids

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i've got i've got a hockey team that i coach we just started this season and

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it's a it's a u eighteen hockey girls so both of my

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kids both of my girl daughters are on the same team I've

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been waiting for this for 7 years. It's

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three years, so they're able to be on my youngest

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daughter's in her first year of U18, my oldest daughter's in her last year of U18,

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and they get to be on the same team. So I'm super excited about that. I'm going

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on a little bit of a tangent from my tension. But this analogy is really interesting

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because we just started playing hockey again. So we've had two

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games. We only play games. We don't have practices. We might have practices later,

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but we don't have practices. So during the game, I

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have to put out some coaching points. I'm the head coach, we have a great assistant coach,

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and we basically look at every game and we're saying, let's just build.

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This is house league, this is not rep, but let's just build on the last game and

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let's just see what we can do. And a lot of the times what I

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see, and this is not just girls, this is boys in

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any sports, this is like any sport that you see, is you

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see a lack of confidence out there. you'll see someone

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go for the puck but not fully go for the puck, be a

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little hesitant and not come out with the puck. And then just be

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like, oh well. And they're worried that one, they won't get the puck and

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two, they'll either fall or they'll get hit or there's a number

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of different reasons but they don't wanna look bad, right? They don't wanna look bad

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in front of everybody. And I think that's the difference sometimes

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is when you have to put yourself out there and you have to be vulnerable and

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you have to go for something, Oftentimes we start to

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hesitate a little bit and we don't get what we want because the timing's not

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there or the other person didn't hesitate or something

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else didn't hesitate or just kept moving on. So if you don't apply

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for a job, right away, it's going to go. I've

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done that a couple of times. I've thought about how to approach, how do I approach this

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job? How do I approach this job? Next thing you know, I didn't realize it, but the

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deadline date was a past due and I couldn't get that job. It

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was closed, right? The people who applied for it on time are

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the people who had a chance for the job. But going back to hockey, if you don't go

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for that puck, You're not going to get it, right? If

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you go, if you take the puck even and you go through the

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entire team and you get all the way to the other end of the, of the rink and

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you shoot the puck, but you barely shoot it. You don't, you don't get down, bend

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your knees, pull back and move your weight forward and

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shift your weight forward and then shoot as hard as you can. It's probably

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not going to go in. In fact, it probably won't go very far or

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won't go very hard. But when you start to pull back all

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the way and you start to fire it like you mean it because you're like, hey, I

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went all this way. I went from one end to the other, went

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through the entire team. I'm not going to waste this

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opportunity because I'm probably going to get, what, four or five shots a

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game. So I'm going to make sure that these four or five shots, I'm

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going to do the best I can. I'm going to put everything into

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it. And a lot of the times we don't do that. A

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lot of the times we hesitate, or a lot of times we're like, well, what if I

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don't get it? Or what if I'm not good enough? Or

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what if I look bad? What if I fall? We

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let those fears creep into our brain and it stops

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us dead. And we either lose the opportunity or

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we just let it go by. And

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that is like, when I see kids on

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the ice do that, I get frustrated, and

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I tell them when they come back, I'm like, the next time you go all the way through the

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team, shoot hard. Spend all that time to

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shoot hard. And then the next time you go for the puck

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and somebody else is coming, get down, put your weight in,

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right, and lean into it and go get that puck. Or

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the next time you have the puck and you carry it and someone comes close to

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you, don't just let it go because you think they're going to take it away. Bend

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your knees, get down, and go straight, or deke around

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them, or do something with the puck. If you lose it, you lose it, but you're gonna lose it

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anyway, because you're gonna flip it down the ice, and it's not gonna go anywhere. It's

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all about confidence. It's all about letting, like

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getting over your fears, and not letting your fears creep into your mind, and

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then let them do everything, right? Like you lose those opportunities. Stop

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that thought process. And I have to say it to

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myself, we all have to say it, because it's scary. When you

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start to take chances, you start to take risks, you start to

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be vulnerable depending on what you're doing, there's

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a risk involved. Sometimes they're higher than others, but you

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got to go for that. You got to go for that opportunity. So when you

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start to see other people do great stuff with

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the ocean, going to meetings, spending

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money and doing something, Start to think about how

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can you set yourself up to succeed like they

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look like they're succeeding. Because I bet you they're going through the same fears

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that you're going through, except they're pushing through it. That's the difference.

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They're pushing through their fears. And I think

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that's what we need to do as a community of

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ocean goers. Think about this. Think about how many politicians

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are in office right now that don't deserve to be there. Think

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about that. And there's a lot of people, a lot of you that are listening to

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this audience who would be great politicians who would not only act

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for the ocean and act for the environment, but you'd probably be pretty good

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at acting for your people and representing your people. But

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you don't go for it either because like, I don't want to deal with politics. It

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looks scary. It looks awful. But some of you probably really good politicians,

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but we let those fears of what like the

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whole politics can do because we don't

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want to do it. But with that said, with that

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happening, you're not in office, so you can't go

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out and make laws that will protect the ocean, that will protect the environment, that will

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protect the economy. We let other people do it,

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oftentimes not as intelligent, not

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as thoughtful, greedy, and often corrupt. And

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when we let that happen, We

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let other people make decisions for us and we get into the positions that we're

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at now. I'm not blaming anybody. I'm not blaming you. If you've had thoughts about going

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into politics or you've had thoughts about acting for the blue in any kind

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of way, then you stop. This is not a, Hey, like, what are you doing?

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You're an idiot. No, this is like talking to myself too. I'm looking right into

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the camera right now and I'm talking, by the way, you can check me out

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on YouTube and Spotify with the video podcast. But

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it's the same talk, right? It's the same talk that

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we let fears get in our way. And we don't take

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risks, even though we have to take risks. Going

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back to the hockey analogy, you have to go that extra

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mile to win. You have

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to be better than the other team and the other team has to be better than

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you and you're both trying your best, but you have your,

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sometimes your best is not good enough and you have to do better. You

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have to push that extra little bit. You have to hold onto that puck

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a little bit longer and lean into it a little bit longer in case

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someone's trying to push you over or trying to get the puck away and make that extra

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move. Sometimes you need to practice that little extra

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bit. just so you can get that

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move down and you can use that move in a game, right?

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Same thing with all of you who had to do math to get into university to

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be a marine biologist or to be a scientist or to be anywhere that

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you had to deal with math. Math was hard. Math is hard. But

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you practice at it. I'm going through that with my girls right now. They practice at it.

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And as they practice on it, they build their confidence. So when the test or

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quiz come up, or even exam, they know, they've

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seen it all. So when the teacher throws a question that might

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be a little bit of a curveball, they've seen it. They've seen it not only once, they've

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seen it multiple times. You have to practice and

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it sucks and you're going to

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struggle and you're not going to get everything you want right off the bat, but

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you have to continue to do this. So putting in that extra work, putting

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in that practice and giving it that extra little effort at the end

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when it counts can set you on the path to act for

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the blue. And that's what we oftentimes we

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lose. We see other people doing great things, wonderful things.

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They're like, oh man, I wish I was them. You could be them. You

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could be doing more than that or something different that can compliment what they're doing.

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You just haven't done it yet because that fear is just creeping into

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your mind. And that negative self-talk is just happening

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all the time. I'm telling you that you can do

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it. If you put your mind to it, you can actually do what you want. Now,

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you may not have a control over external factors, like

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having money to start a business or having the time to put it together, but

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you can find, you can figure out a way. People have figured out ways before.

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That's why you see a lot of businesses that start out being Amazon, although, you

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know, that's huge as it is and monopoly as it is, it

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started off in a little office. You know, Apple

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started off in a little office making a computer, one little computer, and

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it went through its trials and tribulations. If you watch any of the documentaries

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on Apple or Macintosh, as it used to be called, but

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it survived, right? It

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fought, it did what it had to do, and it went through its

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up and downs, and now it's one of the biggest companies, tech companies in

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the world. Now, there's a lot of questionable

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practices by some of these companies, but they survived.

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There are some companies out there who are doing great impact, just like

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this one I interviewed, and they are doing fantastic work

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and they work off of impact. They pay their people livable

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wages and they work off of impact. And that's how they

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measure the success of their business. Can we

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sell a product that allow us to do this great thing that we want to

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do and take care of all of our people? Yes. Okay.

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Great. Now they've had some trouble. They've had some trials

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and tribulations here in the interview, but they've been

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able to overcome it and they're going to continue to get trials

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and tribulations and they will be able to overcome it. It's

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just a matter of how will they fight through it?

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to get through and how much will they fall at the time and how

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fast will it take to get back up? That's the effort level.

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That's the decision-making level. That's the practice of decision-making. But we can't get

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into that practice without doing it. Man, I need to

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listen to myself. I really do. But I think

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that's what it really comes down to. It comes down to your motivation. Can you

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motivate yourself to act? Can you motivate yourself to act for

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the blue? And we see this every single time. When

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we see negative things about the ocean, when we see the consequences of

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climate change, the consequences of plastic pollution, the consequences

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of overfishing, and we're always hearing that doom and gloom around the ocean, we're

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just like, man, that sucks. The ocean is screwed. We're

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done. And then we just give up. But

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there are some of us who are just like, no, no, no, no, we're not going to give up. We see this happening.

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We understand that the ocean's in trouble. But we're going to

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do our best to work at it. And it might just be in this one little corner of the world,

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or this one little area that we need to do, whether it be restoration,

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whether it be protection, whether it be policy, whether

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it be in the field, whether it be in a lab, whether it be through

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a business. We all pick our own little ways, but

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once we combine them all and all those efforts, we

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end up having a pretty big impact. And not only that, our impact

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of what we're doing at that moment can inspire others to

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pick up the slack and just be like, yeah, you know what? This person is doing some great

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things. I'm going to do some great things too. It's

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really what it comes down to. Protecting the ocean, acting

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for the blue, comes down to how much effort we want to put in to

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act for the blue. And it could be menial. It doesn't mean you have to change your entire culture

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or your entire career. It means you start to

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do a little bit more work. You start to lessen your single-use

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plastics. You start to vote for people who

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are talking about the environment. By the way, climate change wasn't

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really mentioned in any of the debates. I think it was mentioned once or twice

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in each debate. Not enough. considering the ramifications.

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But we need to be there. We need

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to do this type of work. We need to motivate ourselves to

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do this. If we don't, who's going to

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do it? Because right now, there are not many. There

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are a lot of people, but not as many as we need. We need more people to act for the

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blue. And you need to get that self-talk, including myself, and

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get off our butts and start doing something. Right,

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whether it be create things that will inspire others or

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do some impact that will inspire others. Doesn't

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matter. Act for the blue, whatever that might be. I just

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saw a young woman on TikTok. She's a

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marine biologist. And she decided

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that one day, you know, she looked at the plastic pollution problem, and she started

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to say, you know what? Like, I may not live around the coast, or I may not have

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a full-time job in marine biology at this point, but

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there's something that I need to do. And she went on this mission to

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start picking up plastic pollution throughout Europe

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as she backpacked across Europe. And then she filmed it,

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and she documented it. And so now on social media, you

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see her go to Sweden, go to France, go

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to Italy, go to Greece, you know,

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go to the Czech Republic, and she's all over the place, and she's picking up plastic pollution. And

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she's showing the plastic pollution. She's educating people

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about the plastic pollution through her TikTok. And

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she's got like over 100,000 followers, I think. It's ridiculous.

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Like, it's crazy. It's awesome. Those are the people that inspired

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me to be like, she just picked up and decided to

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backpack across Europe, which many people do. But then while she's doing

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that, she's like, no, I'm actually going to show that there's plastic pollution in

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each and every country in Europe or the countries that she's traveled

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to. And then I'm going to document that. And hopefully

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people will start to realize how much stuff not only comes up from

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the shore or comes up from the ocean onto the shore, but

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it's like just distributed on land as well. Some

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places are cleaner than others, but not all. And when they dispose of

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things and how much waste goes on, you just don't realize it

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within each country. And even within each region

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or city within a country. So when

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you start to go through social media, you start to come across people like

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this young marine biologist woman, or

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this massive company that goes viral every once in a while and

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is huge around the world. Then you

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start to like, hey, I can do this. I

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can act for the blue as well. You just have to figure out how to get paid while

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you do it, right? You just gotta be able to survive life while you

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do it. And there's ways, there's always ways. I started this 10 years

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ago, right? Almost 10 years ago I

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launched, actually 10 years ago I launched. I don't

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know, almost 10 years ago I launched. And I've

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been doing this while having a job ever since. It's

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a lot of work. There's some sacrifice that to make, but

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I love doing this and it keeps me connected to the ocean and allows me

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to get a job where I could support my family and

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pay for the bills. And that's important. That's

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hugely important. So if you want to act for

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the blue, you got to act with the inspiration. You

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got to go through those fears, fight through the fears. and

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you can act for the blue as well. I'd love to hear your idea for acting for the

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blue. Let me know. You can put a comment on Spotify on

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this video or audio, whatever you'd like to do, or you can go to our YouTube

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channel. It's in the link below or you and leave

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a comment or you can just hit me up on Instagram at

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how to protect the ocean. That's at how to protect the ocean. But

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I hope you feel inspired by this episode or other episodes

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in the upcoming episode. And I can't wait to

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see what you're up to. So thank you so much for joining me on today's episode

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of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time. And