October 2015. I’m sitting in our makeshift Turtle Talks studio on Turtle Island, Fiji, preparing for a Skype call with a 15-year-old who’s suing the United States government.
The irony isn’t lost on me: Here I am on an island paradise my uncle spent 40 years protecting, about to interview someone fighting to protect the larger Turtle Island—what many Indigenous peoples call North America.
Two Turtle Islands. Two protectors. One lesson about the kind of conviction that changes everything.
The Boy Who Couldn’t Wait
“How can I not act? How can I not do something?”
Xiuhtezcatl Martinez’s words crackle through the Skype connection, but his intensity fills the room like he’s sitting right here. He’s explaining why, at 15, he’s one of 21 youth plaintiffs taking on the federal government.
I think about my uncle Richard, who bought this Fijian island in 1972 when everyone said he was crazy. Who planted 300,000 trees when tourism meant bulldozing. Who protected reefs when profits meant exploitation.
Both of them—the teenage activist and the maverick entrepreneur—shared something: They saw what needed protection and couldn’t NOT act.
The Origin of Conviction
Xiuhtezcatl tells me his story. At six, he watched “The 11th Hour.” Where most kids would see scary images, he saw his calling. Raised in the matriarchal Mexica tradition, where Earth is sacred and seven generations ahead matters more than seven quarters, he didn’t question whether he could make a difference.
He questioned how he could not.
By 12, he’d helped ban pesticides from Boulder parks. By 15, he was standing before federal judges arguing that a livable climate was a constitutional right.
“A renewable energy future is possible,” he tells me, his voice carrying the certainty of someone triple his age. “It’s up to us. The people need it. The people want it.”
I look out at Turtle Island’s solar panels, at the reef my uncle spent decades protecting, at this proof that one person’s conviction can create an entirely different reality.
When Passion Meets Resistance
Here’s what struck me most about our conversation: Xiuhtezcatl never once mentioned being taken seriously despite his age. He simply acted as if his age was irrelevant—and eventually, it was.
This is the entrepreneur’s secret, isn’t it? You don’t wait for permission. You don’t wait to be “ready.” You act from such deep conviction that the world reorganizes around your vision.
The lawsuit would wind through courts for years. Technical losses. Procedural dismissals. But while lawyers debated standing, Xiuhtezcatl’s conviction was creating a different kind of precedent. Youth climate cases started winning—in the Netherlands, Montana, Hawaii. The “failed” lawsuit became a blueprint for global change.
From Turtle Island to TONATIUH
Fast forward to 2025. Xiuhtezcatl just released TONATIUH—an album in English, Spanish, and Nahuatl. The activist became an artist, but the mission never wavered. He’s still protecting Turtle Island, just with beats instead of briefs.
This evolution reminds me why we created Turtle Talks in the first place. Not to capture single moments but to document how conviction compounds over time. How someone who starts by protecting a city park might end up protecting a planet. How someone who buys one island might inspire protection of thousands.
The Entrepreneurial Thread
As entrepreneurs, we often think we need elaborate business plans, perfect timing, extensive resources. But watching Xiuhtezcatl’s journey—from that first documentary viewing to federal courtrooms to global stages—I see a different pattern:
Conviction creates its own resources.
Passion generates its own timing.
Acting from deep belief makes the impossible inevitable.
My uncle didn’t have a 40-year plan when he bought Turtle Island. He just knew it needed protection. Xiuhtezcatl didn’t have a legal strategy at six. He just knew he had to act.
Both built from that same entrepreneurial foundation: seeing what others miss and being unable to unsee it.
Your Turtle Island
Ten years after that Skype call, I understand what Xiuhtezcatl was really teaching me. It’s not about age or resources or permission. It’s about finding your own Turtle Island—that thing you must protect, build, or create—and acting from such conviction that not doing it becomes impossible.
The Mexica people have a saying: “We are the Earth and the Earth is us.” Xiuhtezcatl lives this. My uncle lived this. Every entrepreneur who’s ever changed anything lives this—so connected to their vision that acting on it isn’t a choice but a necessity.
What’s your Turtle Island? What calls to you so strongly that “How can I not?” becomes your only question?
