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:

Glenn and Bill tackle an audio series created by Michael Singer, author of the untethered soul, and use it as a springboard for their own Almost Awakened conversation. This is part 3 and the final part in this multipart series and the conversation in this part covers the actual process one needs to implement to deal with your internal disturbances, that are based on your lifetime of experiences, when they arise. The formula is to RELAX and RELEASE. That when a sensation begins within you because your expectations of what this present moment should look like, how others sghould interact with you or what the outside world should show up as, you just RELAX and RELEASE. We talk about what this looks like and what it means. But in the end it deeply involves you SURRENDERING your expectations of how the world outside of you shows up and you SURRENDER your need to coerce and manipulate the outside world into showing up differently.

RESOURCES:

Video Describing the “Relax and Release” Method

The Key to the “Relax and Release” Method

How to free yourself from negative thoughts

Michael Singer “The Great Breakthrough”

OTHER RESOURCES FOR FUTURE GROWTH:

https://www.amazon.com/Fifth-Agreement-Practical-Self-Mastery-Toltec/dp/1878424610

https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Dawn-Stray-Modern-Relationships-ebook/dp/B007679QTG

https://www.amazon.com/Waking-Up-Spirituality-Without-Religion/dp/1451636024

https://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Consciousness-Transcendence/dp/1594204225

https://www.amazon.com/Mating-Captivity-Unlocking-Erotic-Intelligence/dp/0060753641

Glenn and Bill tackle an audio series created by Michael Singer, author of the untethered soul, and use it as a springboard for their own Almost Awakened conversation. This is part 2 in a multipart series and the conversation in this part covers ideas such as the baggage we carry with us due to the good and bad experiences that have filled our life. How that baggage or “charges” are preventing us from living present and being at peace. That we are not our thoughts and we are not our feelings and we are not the world outside of us unfolding before us. And once we grasp these charges within us are deeply connected to how we react and respond within the world and often it happens in ways we are not happy with and which are not healthy. This episode is the bridge to the next conversation where we address how to show up in the world different so that we can release these charges and find more inner peace.

Today Bill monologues about human development and some of the human behaviors he notices in others. How we move back and forth between doing good by others and shitting on them. How we manipulate in order to calm our own disruptions. How we struggle to let others be them. And how when we tell stories about others we often do the universe an injustice.

Closing song was “Hallucinogenics” by Matt Maeson

Good Kisser on netflix

Letting others be themselves 1

Letting others be themselves 2

compersion