This conversation is held that involves the following 5 questions as well as other interesting places we take the conversation along the way.

1. What is more dangerous for the future of humanity, nihilism or dogmatism? What are the dangers of each?

2. What are the most important aspects of developing a spiritual life out of nothing?

3. How do you involve young children in a spiritual life outside of religion?

4. How do we transfer over spiritual institutions to a secular world (chaplains, churches, pastors, etc.). How do secular leaders make a living doing spiritual work in the world?

5. How do you build communities around secular morals? What are the new innovations in this field? How are people filling spiritual voids after religion?

RESOURCES:

Esther Perel Where Should We Begin

Jordan Peterson & Sam Harris Debates

The excitement surrounding the GME Gamestop Stock story for the last week has been palpable. So In today’s Episode of Almost Awakened I explain as simply as I can what the hell is going on with GME Gamestop stock. How did this train get going? What has potentially pumped the stock up, what potentially made it crash down, and what caused it to level off and where are we at today. And as we watch in upcoming days, what will happen to GME and the stocks such as AMC, BB, NOK right behind it? Its going to be fun to watch.

RESOURCES:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/business/gamestop-wall-street-bets.html

Reddit Wall Street Bets

https://www.thestreet.com/video/gme-stock-surge-reddit-change-stock-market-pyschology

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/28/robinhood-interactive-brokers-restrict-trading-in-gamestop-s.html

https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/wallstreetbets-reddit-vs-wall-street/index.html

100%+ short interest in GameStock stock (GME) – fundamental & technical deep value analysis

Today with sit down with Veronica Funess, Intimacy Coach in Training and we discuss sexual shame that exists within society. We discuss how healthy negotiation of sexuality can look. We discuss kinks, fantasies, and how to incorporate your most vulnerable and healthy self into a healthy relationship with your partner.

Veronica is a Graduate in Gender & Women’s studies with minors in Business Administration and Communication. She is passionate about helping others improve their relationships and honor their erotic selves. Veronica is training at the Somatica Institute and Studied Gender and Women’s Studies at The University of Arizona. Past experience includes providing and directing peer education and facilitation for sexual violence and healthy relationships programming, market research and PR internships, and client and customer service positions: boutique fitness membership advising, and serving and bartending at an elevated NYC Vegan comfort food bar. 

A reminder when it comes to negotiating sexuality

“Within ethical and legal constraints, we all have the right to push for what we want from our partner (and to suffer the consequences for pushing too hard). Similarly, we also have the right to deny our partner’s requests (and to suffer the consequences for shutting them down). But we need to remember that nothing in a relationship happens in a vacuum—it is influenced by what came before, as well as what else is going on in the relationship. So generosity can be rewarded (and bad behavior can be punished) in more ways than one. Therefore, we have to keep the bigger picture in mind—what price am I willing to pay for this? If it’s worth it, then it’s worth it, but since life and relationships involve compromise and sacrifice, we have to consider the potential ripple effects.”

RESOURCES:

Somatica Institute

The Erotic Mind

Coming Together

Sex At Dawn

Mating in Captivity

Veronica Funess Linked In

Veronica Funess Instagram Page

My friend Phil McLemore comes back on the podcast and this time to debate the question of “What is the life well lived”? We talk about societies and individuals and how freedom versus control makes or inhibits space to be a growing responsible healthy adult who is happy with their life and producing a positive wake through how they move through life. We touch on drugs and sex due to the strong sentiments felt about this two topics and their polarizing nature to set the stage for this deep conversation around what leads to a life well lived and what leads to a wake of trauma, destruction, and self deception. This is one of the best if not the best conversation I have ever been part of and I hope you the listener will benefit from the push and pull as the two of us debate from somewhat different perspectives (and at times extremely different positions) what it means to “Live a Life well lived”

Resources:

Phil Mclemore and some of his written work

Becoming the Beloved PDF

Hindering the Saints PDF

The Yoga of Christ PDF

Mormon Mantras PDF

I sit down with my friend, Professor, Podcaster, and Author Jon Westover and we discuss his new book, “The Alchemy of Truly Remarkable Leadership: Ordinary, Everyday Actions That Produce Extraordinary Results”. We talk about what makes a good leader. What toxic leadership looks like. How good leaders foster principles like trust, diversity, inclusivity, and belonging. and Most importantly, I think, how good leaders create an environment for people around them to achieve and succeed. Jon truly is a great leader and you can tell that his words are congruent with his internal character. The world is a better place with humans like Jon around.

RESOURCES:

Jon’s LinkedIn Profile

Jon’s Book

Jon’s articles on Forbes

Jon’s Podcast

Bill talks today about how each of us is quirky, how each of us is seeking validation and acceptance. How we each are weird and have strange thoughts and yet each of us is fighting to reveal our true selves

Holidays tend to bring up things within us and for Bill and his wife Amanda, this Thanksgiving was one of those. From Amanda’s emotional awareness of her daughter moving out of state to take the next step in their own lives, To Bill dealing with the one year anniversary of the loss of his mom, to sensing that life moves one and life doesn’t stop. Today is about how we all deal with life’s constant change.

Phizer just announced and two more companies right behind them announced they have arrived at a vaccine for Covid19. These Vaccines are showing a 95% effectiveness. And yet…. somehow 50% of the population has been turned off of seeing such as a positive. 50% of our population is skeptical about receiving these vaccines. Today on the Almost Awakened Podcast we talk about why people are scared of vaccines, why we perceive a link between vaccines and negative outcomes including Autism, and what Science has to say about Vaccines.  NOT: We humans often have emotional connection to topics like this and such stops us from communicating to each other in ways that we can all listen and learn from each other.  Please be aware of such as you engage the conversation regardless of where you stand.

RESOURCES:

https://www.historyofvaccines.org/timeline/all

https://www.immune.org.nz/vaccines/vaccine-development/brief-history-vaccination

https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.24.3.611

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/ensuringsafety/history/index.html

https://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-history/developments-by-year

https://www.livescience.com/57488-vaccine-safety-numbers.html

https://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-safety/are-vaccines-safe

https://www.vaccines.gov/basics/safety

https://apnews.com/article/us-news-coronavirus-pandemic-177b3ba382517392911c029ecbe74daa

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/11/19/covid-19-vaccines-who-gets-coronavirus-immunization-first/3778098001/

Today Bill discusses Mental Illness and specifically Schizophrenia. Bill uses as the back drop his uncle, who was the first case of mental illness he had ever encountered, a close person who Bill was responsible to help who had some showing of such disturbances, and a recent movie, “Words on Bathroom Walls”, he watched that deeply and honestly displayed the difficulties of Schizophrenia and mental disorder and challenges. Bill ends the discussion asking us all to sit with the challenge of such lives of those who live out these nightmares and those responsible for caring for them.

RESOURCES: