Episode Description:

Many of the long-time listeners of The Optimist Daily’s podcast will recognize Kristy Jansen’s voice. She’s the former co-host and Executive Director of this show, and she’s back, joining Arielle and Karissa from Mérida, México, to catch them up on what happened in between: the clean energy industry from the inside, and what it’s like to start over somewhere new when you didn’t really pick the timing.

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Transcript:

Kristy: 

I’m living a slow life right now because I’m not working a nine to five job, so, uh, time is kind of squishy and I love that. 

Arielle (narration): 

That’s Kristy Jansen in Mérida, Mexico, feeding overripe bananas to a family of iguanas. 

Kristy: 

I’ve started taking a Tai chi class, which is on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I’m getting to meet other foreigners there.

Arielle (narration): 

If you’ve been listening to The Optimist Daily for a while, you already know her voice.

Kristy: 

I have this little cafe, which I love. There’s a wonderful shopkeeper named Mario, and he, he lets me practice my Spanish with him. 

Arielle (narration): 

She was one of the people who helped build this show, and she left about four and a half years ago to go back into the work she’d been writing about: renewable energy.

Kristy: 

I still get- try to get up early. The sound of the geckos will wake me up. They’re very loud. The birds are very loud here. There’s so many birds here. 

Arielle (narration):

A lot has happened since then. 

Kristy: 

This mix of indoor and outdoor living in, in my house, which I kind of love. So I make coffee in the main house and take Tucker for a little walk.

He’s enjoying it, although he does appreciate the air-conditioning, ’cause he’s not really a tropical dog. I read the news, The Optimist Daily and, and other things. I play my, my Wordle and my Connections. I’m cooking a lot more. I’m doing yoga. I’m swimming. We have a, we have a pool, so I’m enjoying that. I’m in the middle of nature.

There’s butterflies, there’s moths, there’s birds. We have a family of iguanas that live in our car shed, and we’ve started giving them our overripe bananas, and they love them like you wouldn’t believe.

Arielle (narration): 

What you’re about to hear is the story of how she went from the renewable energy industry to taking an unexpected transition into living the slow, tropical life.

Kristy: 

I needed this downtime, but I feel by the end of this year, I want to be back working again, doing something productive and positive for the world. 

Arielle (narration): 

Hi, everyone. It’s Arielle here, coming at you with the long-awaited catch-up with Kristy conversation here on The Optimist Daily’s weekly roundup. Today, Karissa, Kristy, and I are going to dive into what the renewable energy industry looks like from the inside, along with a more personal peek into Kristy’s life experiences lately that we think a lot of you listeners will be able to recognize your own stories in.

Kristy: 

I used to think of, what does it mean to be, like, an expat, somebody who’s not in their h- their country anymore? And that, that’s just, like, there’s a Facebook group that I’m a part of called Expats in Mexico or Expats, you know. But the thing that I realize is that really I’m an immigrant, just like my husband was in the United States.

I’m immigrating to this country, and I have to respect that and think about, like, why do I get a special global status? I know there’s some privilege there that I’m trying to, uh, examine and think about in a different way. I am not somebody who understands this society or culture fully yet. I’m trying to learn it.

I’m trying to learn Spanish so that I can communicate with the language that is the, the national language. I’m trying to learn idioms. I’m trying to understand the people that I’m working with and be grateful for what I, what I’m seeing here, and question the things that I think, “Why, why is it this way? Can we, can we make it better?” 

Arielle: 

Yeah, the expat or immigrant conversation, it’s really interesting. Kristy, you and I were talking before about how when my family immigrated to Canada from the Philippines, we were considered immigrants. But now that I have moved to the Netherlands from Canada- Mm-hmm … I am seen as an expat, and it is a really layered issue that a lot of us are contending with, considering that we are now living in, in the time of globalization.

In one way, you feel it’s wrong not to acknowledge the privilege that you do have, and it’s undeniable, and I say you as in me as well. But you don’t think it’s right to separate yourself from the immigrant experience. There’s a really textured conversation that a lot of people are having now, and it’s perhaps going to give our listeners something to reflect on and maybe even jump into the comments about.

Arielle (narration): 

Before all of this, Kristy spent years at our parent company, the World Business Academy, and was the executive director here at The Optimist Daily, covering, among other uplifting topics, the clean energy transition that’s so close to her heart. But actually, I’ll let Kristy introduce herself. 

Kristy: 

I was the co-host of The Optimist Daily podcast.

Uh, I was instrumental in moving it to the current format on the web. I’ve worked with Summers McKay for many years to bring it into the digital world. Um, Karissa and Arielle are both folks that I hired, and I love working with them. I left about four and a half years ago because I got called back into the renewable energy industry where I worked before I worked for The Optimist Daily.

I was a developer in solar energy for several years before I came to work for the World Business Academy and The Optimist Daily in 2017. So with the optimistic sense that the United States was turning into a green energy transition, really taking that seriously, I was invited to come back into the industry by somebody I had worked with back in 2010, 2012, who had started a new company and needed strong developers on his team.

And I decided I was ready to get back into the field, where I was actually starting to build some of the things we had been writing a lot about. 

It was also after the whole COVID experience, and I was kind of ready to get back into the world and start building things. So that’s who I am, and it’s just a great opportunity to have a little reunion here.

I’m so proud of what they’ve continued to do, and I love being part of the family and The Optimist Daily story. 

Karissa: 

Lots of good times over the years and lots of great solutions that we’ve shared. Kristy, what drew you to the renewable energy world in general? 

Kristy: 

My background is anthropology. Studied that in college and graduate school.

I, I was working on getting my PhD, looking at the impact of media on young women in India. So that’s my media sort of orientation, why I was interested in digital media and, and the power, the influence that media has on our own identities and how… where we come from. But, um, I had the opportunity soon after I got back to Santa Barbara after graduate school to work in a– I was just trying to make some money, ’cause anthropology is not one of those things that pays you very well.

And I fell in love with renewable energy, and I fell in love with the idea of- Just energy systems. As an anthropologist, I’m interested in how human societies kind of organize themselves. Energy is one of those systems you don’t think very much about unless it’s broken. You plug something in, the lights turn on, your refrigerator’s working, your air conditioning is working.

It is when the power goes out that you start worrying about it, thinking about it. So I got fascinated by how, how that whole system works. What is that infrastructure? And going into a company that was designing, building solar farms, this is back in the early 2010s. That was sort of a, a different time, the beginning of, hey, this green energy transition’s gonna happen, and I just loved it.

It was a solution. I felt good when people asked me what I did. I’m developing solar farms. It helps everybody. And I was doing this on farms in California where they were running out of water, and so the farmers themselves, the growers, were trying to figure out what are they gonna do with this land that they can’t grow things on.

Yeah, and this is sort of in your neighborhood, Karissa, where you’re from, in the, in the, in the Central Valley. And solar was a fantastic solution 

Arielle (narration): 

That was the early 2010s. By 2022, the industry she’d walked into had become something else entirely. 

Kristy: 

In 2012, which is the first time I went to the big international annual conference that the solar industry does, it used to be called Solar Power International, it got rebranded as RE+, Renewable Energy Plus.

When I first went in 2012, it was this kind of small, sleepy conference. There was, like, a lot of Californians, maybe some East Coasters, a lot of Europeans, a couple of folks from China. I kind of didn’t go every year for a while. I was doing other things. So that was not a conference that I attended regularly, until 2022 again, which was right at the cusp of the I- IRA, Inflation Reduction Act, being passed.

It hadn’t quite passed yet, but everybody expected it to. The cost of solar panels had dropped so significantly that it was now the cheapest form of new energy you could build. Batteries were a game-changer in terms of being able to store that electricity. It’s just, like, the whole thing had really transformed and, and it was becoming the center of the energy industry.

So when I went back in 2022, it had gone from being a couple thousand people, maybe 3,000 or 4,000 people. There was 23,000, 25,000 people who came to this conference in Anaheim. It’s also the first year after COVID. It was, like, so many people. 

Arielle (narration): 

And it wasn’t just the crowd of coastal progressives there, either.

People from all industries, including oil guys from Texas and Oklahoma, were there. 

Kristy: 

Everybody was there. Everything was so exciting, and I really felt like I was back in the mix of, like, cutting-edge industry. We were building the future. That was how it felt in 2022. 

Arielle: 

You mentioned some disillusionment with the renewable energy-

industry. So could you expand a little bit more on what was disappointing to you at that time? 

Kristy: 

Well, a couple things. I was working on the utility side, and transmission lines are harder to build than pipelines. And our transmission queues in the United States are broken. Just, they are. You put in a application to connect to the transmission grid.

Just the studies to find out what kind of a cost that might incur are taking five or six years, and you don’t have to kind of ti- now, it only takes you a year to build this project But it’s taken you five years waiting to find out what the cost might be to build that project. And as anybody who does business knows, time is money, and you want to also be certain.

The other thing that happened was we had a change in the administration at the federal level from the most pro-green energy- technology administration the United States has ever known. Sort of there’s this reactionary, so the, the, the, the folks who are setting federal policy are really not interested in supporting clean energy technologies.

And in fact, they’re throwing rocks at it. They’re not just not supporting it, they’re actually actively stopping projects, and I don’t understand that. Those are the kinds of things that have been very demoralizing. The other thing that I found in terms of utilities is that… investor-owned utilities in particular, there’s some perverse incentives going on because they’re governed by trying to make as much money as they can for their shareholders.

But the ratepayers aren’t their customers, actually. The cu- I mean, they’re not the ones who they’re trying to serve, it’s the investors that they’re trying to serve. So they get more from building new infrastructure, and they get a, a s- a fixed amount of return there than they do in investing in efficiencies or even in, like, the distribution grid.

So it’s just like, it’s very, it’s, it’s a little frustrating when you’re- A person who’s driven to help make things better, and you see that there are decisions being made, not because of what’s gonna be best for the most people… but rather what will make the most money for the people who own that company.

Arielle: 

Karissa, I think you put this, this article in our notes, right? 2025: The Year Renewables Finally Outpace Global Electricity Demand Growth. 

Karissa: 

Yeah. I wanted to ask Kristy about this headline that we shared this year, because, I mean, obviously, your work has centralized in the US throughout your career, and now that you’re kind of stepping back because physically you’re not in the United States anymore, could there be a future working in renewables that isn’t in the United States?

Kristy: 

The transition is happening no matter what. With all this new demand, the only thing that makes sense is to build renewable energy. Um, it’s just, it’s just a no-brainer. And the technologies have gotten so much less expensive. It’s much faster to build a solar farm than it is to build any other kind of energy farm.

Maybe wind is close to that, but just to build, like, a natural gas plant, not just the permitting, but the actual construction takes three to five years, the actual construction. And the gas turbines, there’s, there’s not enough people making them. Folks wanna put more natural gas onto the grid, it’s gonna be hard for them to do it in this, in the, in the timeframe that they are saying they need this energy.

The only thing that really solves that problem is solar with batteries. That’s really the only thing that we can, we can get to build enough energy for the, the demand that we see coming. Countries like China and India, they don’t have the embodied interests like we do in the United States. They’re not petro states, so they don’t need to continue to underwrite the fossil fuel industry.

Yeah. They’re, they don’t have really big ex- extensive existing grids that were built in last century. They can sort of go in a different direction. It’s, they have a lot more incentive to really build that renewable energy. There’s a place for centralized power plants as well. You need to get that base load.

You do need some natural gas. You do need some nuclear. You do need other things that can turn… That can just run sort of at that base load that, that are not intermit- intermittent. I’m not saying there’s not a place for that. There absolutely is a place for that. But you can do so much of it with renewable energy, and I think the rest of the world, especially if it doesn’t serve them to keep burning things, it’s just clearly not the, the right direction.

That’s why I f- still feel optimistic about the clean energy transition. It just, it just makes too much sense. It, it, you can’t stop it. It’s already happening. It’s happening. 

Arielle (narration): 

But her career wasn’t the only thing changing. At the same time the industry was shifting under Kristy’s feet, her home life was also going through a bit of a transition.

Arielle:

But you did say, Kristy, here in the US, but you are in fact not here in the US. Could you tell us more about where you are now and the decision to leave California? 

Kristy: 

Well, the thing about the current federal government is they’re really not big fans of open immigration or really much immigration. And my husband is actually a Mexican citizen, and he had an insecure immigration status in the United States.

It’s not as simple. It’s not like you can just come to the United States and… The right way, kind of like the transmission grid, it’s kind of broken. It’s a broken system. For certain people who don’t have a tremendous amount of resources, it’s like a lifetime of applications before you actually can get approved to be in the United States.

Um, it’s just not, it’s not easy. A lot of people come without full authorization, and it’s… that’s part of what drives our economy. I think today or tomorrow, at the time of this recording, um, late July, is when TPS or temporary protected status is gonna end for a, a couple hundred thousand Haitian immigrants who’ve been working in the United States.

A lot of them are working in industries that there’s a tremendous demand for their type of labor. I’m thinking about people in old age homes who require that kind of hands-on care, and it’s really hard to find good people who are willing to do that kind of work. It’s really hard work. My husband, he’s an electrician, which is another very high-demand job.

He’s a master electrician. But because he was getting anxious to be out in the world, he didn’t wanna be caught up in some sort of an ICE raid. He has diabetes. He has high blood pressure. I was not comfortable with him being out on the streets. Last summer we saw people dying because they were afraid and running for their lives in California.

Just the other week, a construction worker got shot on his way to work while he was being, um, stopped by immigration enforcement, and he didn’t have full authorization, but he wasn’t a bad person and he ended up losing his life.

So my husband and I decided that it made more sense to leave on our own terms. And so we moved to Mérida in the state of Yucatán. Not a place I had ever been before, not a place I had ever expected to find myself. This March is when I generally made this move. My husband moved at the end of last year, November.

We sold everything. We boxed up everything we wanted to take. I found a truck company that would transport our things and our dog, ’cause we have a 90-pound dog, so getting him across the border was another big journey. I went with the truck for most of it. My husband wasn’t comfortable with me driving across Mexico, ’cause there are still worries of, of different kinds of violence, especially on the road.

So just drove with them through southern United States. I got to know all of the Love’s trucker stops and all the different, the whole… That’s another network, which is interesting to get a little up close and personal with 

Arielle (narration): 

At a time when nothing seems certain and life has changed in so many ways, how is Kristy really doing, and what is her life like?

Kristy: 

I keep talking about here, here, here as if I’m still in the United States, but I’m actually not. So I’m looking at what’s happening in the United States a little bit afar, and it’s interesting being in a new place- Yeah … where we don’t have some of the, the, that intensity on the media in terms of the political situation.

We have a house that’s a little bit… out in the big city, so we’re kind of in the jungle. Takes a lot of maintenance. I’m experiencing thunderstorms, which is not something that I had a lot of experience with. 

Karissa: 

Yeah. 

Kristy: 

I’m experiencing power outages. Looking at installing solar on our house. We haven’t done that yet, but next time we can afford to do a big outlay of money, I think that’ll be our, our next big thing.

Arielle: 

Well, thank you so much, Kristy, for getting personal with us. I know it’s not necessarily an easy or comfortable story to tell, but it is real, and I think a lot of people will be able to relate to that in one way or another.

Arielle (narration): 

This brings us full circle, back to what the, quote-unquote, “new normal” looks like for Kristy, what she fills her days with, how she stays resilient in the face of so much change, the brunt of which she didn’t necessarily opt for on her own, and what her goals are for this specific phase in her life.

Kristy: 

I read the news, The Optimist Daily and, and other things… which I probably shouldn’t be starting my day with, but I do anyway. I play my, my Wordle and my Connections, which I’m addicted to. And then I get ready to do whatever it is I’m gonna do that day- … whether it’s going downtown and, or to the beach.

I do that sometimes, too. I’m cooking a lot more. I’m doing yoga. I’m swimming. We have a, we have a pool, so I’m enjoying that. I’ve made friends with a couple of different folks, both local and immigrants. I have a, a dog-walking friend. She has a little dog, and so I, I meet her a couple mornings a week to walk Tucker with her and her dog, Max.

We have a, a great friend that my husband made, um, who’s been instrumental in, in helping us acclimate here. So yeah. 

Arielle: 

Sounds like you are making the most out of what the slow life can offer you in a new place. Karissa, do you want to go ahead and lead the closing questions? 

Karissa: 

Yeah. Kristy, in the spot of life you’re in right now, what do you know now that you wish you would’ve known at the very beginning 

Kristy: 

of- What do I wish I knew

Hmm. I wish that I knew that- It’s okay to not know what’s gonna happen next. Sometimes you just have to let go of the plan- 

Karissa: 

Mm-hmm … 

Kristy: 

and that’s okay. You should slow down and appreciate where you are. That’s what I’m trying to do right now, is to appreciate what I have… and the chance to be free in this moment when I’m not overly committed to a job or a movement or anything.

I’m just trying to see what’s next. 

Arielle (narration): 

Karissa and I hope you Optimists out there really enjoyed getting to catch up with Kristy and learn from her experiences, professional and personal alike. Sadly, we are almost at the end of our conversation for now, but there is another important shift happening in Kristy’s life that many of us are grappling with, too.

So we think it deserves its own episode. 

Kristy: 

My mother has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. In the COVID era, in the lockdown, it became clearer that she was losing her cognitive function. And then it, it, it’s continued to accelerate, so at the end of last year, my sister and I and our close friends and family, we made a decision it was time for my mother to move into a, a full-time memory care facility, ’cause she could no longer care for herself.

So that’s been a huge shift. Being a caregiver for someone who’s dealing with dementia has been… That’s a really big life change. What does it mean to be a caregiver to an aging parent? Or an aging, just anybody in your life who requires intense levels of caregiving. It’s, it’s a, it’s a second job. 

Arielle (narration): 

If you can relate to Kristy’s situation in any way, shape, or form, or know of anyone who would, you’re going to want to keep an eye, or I guess an ear out, for the second Catch Up With Kristy conversation, which will be out soon.

Don’t worry, though, Kristy isn’t done dropping wisdom on us today. 

Karissa: 

Before we leave today, I want to know what is the best advice you’ve ever received? 

Kristy: 

I guess the best advice I’ve ever received was from the man who, who raised me, who wasn’t my actual father, but who was my father. He passed away in 2024, and this is gonna make me cry a little bit.

But I used to have a lot of body shame. Also, I love swimming. I love the ocean. I love being in the water. 

Karissa: 

Mm-hmm. 

Kristy: 

The best advice I ever received was, “Go in the damn water, even if you’re embarrassed about wearing a bathing suit in front of people. It doesn’t matter what it looks like to other people, but you get to then experience your body floating in the ocean.”

And that is something that I never want to forget. It’s not about what it looks like to other people. It’s how it feels to you.

Arielle (narration): 

If you made it this far, then thank you so much for being here. And of course, a huge thank you to Kristy once again for being so vulnerable and raw with us, and for being willing to come back. Karissa and I loved having you here, and if you loved hearing from Kristy too, you’re in luck because like we mentioned before, she will be back with us soon

Karissa (narration): 

Before we wrap up, if you haven’t already, head to optimistdaily.com to sign up for the free daily or weekly newsletter. Both are completely cost-free and definitely worth it. The link is in the show notes. You can find us on all social platforms. We are @OptimistDaily on everything except for X, where we are @OdeToOptimism.

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Arielle (narration): 

Karissa and I will be back next week with our usual weekly roundup. Until then, have a wonderful restorative weekend, and maybe, just maybe, jump into the damn water