Sustainable living isn't just about the materials and products we choose to use. It's about lifestyle and how we navigate and live life every day. Joining Stephen Jaye on this episode are guests from Simply Tiny Development, Founder/CEO Dr. Sean Dixon and Sustainability Coordinator Megan Blythe. They define sustainability and what inspired their mission and work in helping individuals convert to tiny living. Housing is a big part of creating a sustainable future, and knowing how to discern between short-term versus long-term sustainability is critical. Sean and Megan also share how they inject sustainability not only in their products but also in their culture. Listen in and learn more about how you can start living for the future!
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Simply Tiny Homes: How Innovative Sustainable Housing Impacts Our Lives With Dr. Sean Dixon And Megan Blythe
One of the things that keeps us sequestered and stuck in lifestyles that we don't want is this idea of a one size fits all solution that is supposed to be applied to everyone. I think that this solution, in my view, as the traditional solution of you get your job, you get your paycheck every two weeks and you buy a big house and you fill it with lots of stuff that may or may not be bringing people happiness. I'm not here to rag on any particular lifestyle. My object here is to open people up to more possibilities that there are other options and other ways in which we can orient our lives. One other way is this movement toward tiny homes. My guests here are Dr. Sean Dixon and Megan Blythe from the company Simply Tiny Development. Welcome to the show.

Thanks, Stephen. Thanks for having us.

Thank you very much. Dr. Dixon you are the one who started this company. Can you tell me a little bit about what prompted you, what inspired you to decide to start developing more tiny homes and also camper vans?

It all started in my doctoral studies and looking at the ways of the world and where we're going globally. I finished up my studies in Organization Development and Leadership with a concentration in Change Management. A lot of that was looking at large-scale patterns and where we're going especially in the workforce and burnout. Those types of management paradigms are prevalent under those types of studies. I'm also very passionate about the environment. I live in Colorado, Megan formerly lived in Colorado, she's from North Carolina, with very outdoorsy style people.

I looked at some things and said, "How can we make a large-scale impact on what we want to do especially with pressing global paradigms, like climate change and things like that?" I looked at real estate, had a little bit of a background in that and then said, "Here's an opportunity that we can start changing some larger scale things that could have major impacts." Construction is wasteful. Everything we're seeing with the population increases and the way that the housing market is going, the up-and-coming generations are starting to think differently about what is important.

One of his major topics is housing. Providing some alternative solutions that can help the planet and saw a large-scale social problem the exact same time was the way I took this angle for the company, Simply Tiny Development. Launched and brought Meg on as a full-time sustainability coordinator. That is the center of the business model and how everything's guided. Her focus is just to look at all things from a very unique perspective and see how we can be more efficient. How can we use less? How can we do more with better materials? How do we sustain ourselves as people and the environment and then our communities?

That's a broader way of looking at sustainability. When a lot of people think of sustainability, they tend to think of environmental sustainability but the word has a broader definition. It means anything that a system that you can sustain over time.