Monday, July 16, 2012

Interview by Allen Cardoza

A business expert on leadership and a community leader, Dr. John Izzo has written thought-provoking books on taking responsibility for your life and contributing to the world. His latest book, “Stepping Up: How Taking Responsibility Changes Everything,” follows after four other successful books on business principles, values, and creating optimal workplace environments.

Talking to Allen Cardoza, host of Answers for the Family Blog radio program on L.A. Talk Radio, Dr. Izzo described how anyone can easily step up to the issues in our world to effect change. Practically every problem, he said, varying from ecological pollution to addressing bad political choices could be altered if more people agreed to make a positive change.

What Is Personal Responsibility?

Challenges in our world can be resolved when we stop blaming others and feeling victimized. Dr. Izzo illustrated his point about empowerment by sharing a story about how two boys stopped bullying in a school. After a bully picked on a boy with a pink shirt two boys encouraged others in the school to wear pink shirts until almost the entire student population wore pink shirts. This dramatic visual protest created an international ripple — and students in hundreds of schools across the world began wearing pink shirts to protest against bullying.

Will You Take The Plastic Pledge?

Dr. Izzo also described his project of asking people to take a pledge against plastic products like plastic shopping bags, plastic water bottles, and plastic straws that are creating an ecological disaster on our planet. His website, noplasticpledge.com, encourages people to take a pledge and stand up against global plastic pollution.

One of the biggest environmental problems we have in the world today is the proliferation of plastic. Americans, for example, use 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour, and most of those bottles end up as litter that will take 700 years to decompose. The result of industrial overproduction of plastic has created global plastic pollution, including the prevalence of a plastic island as large as the state of Texas in the North Pacific, baby birds fed on plastic-laced food dying, and toxins in the ocean contaminating fishing.

Final Thoughts

Instead of depending on others to come up with options, change can be precipitated by just one individual setting an example. Change ripples from one individual to another, a phenomena Dr. Izzo called creating an “aggregate impact.” When one person does something noteworthy to stand up against a wrong anywhere on the planet, others are inspired to follow and make a positive change.

Want to find out more about “How Taking Responsibility Changes Everything,” , then visit Allen Cardoza’s site to listen to the complete interview with Dr. John Izzo.