Awakin Calls

The founder of Love Heals Cancer based in Delhi, India, Dimple Parmar is a force to be reckoned with. Determined to serve humanity and bring a smile to everyone's face, she is a person who believes in letting the power of love and care engulf one’s life. After losing her loving partner and husband Nitesh Prajapat to the formidable disease at an extremely young age, Dimple has vowed to make it her life’s purpose to guide and support those battling cancer – as part of her ultimate goal of working to unite humanity under the umbrella of love. 

Dimple had nursed dreams of making a headway into the start-up business world through her innovative ideas. She was the proud co-founder of a customized footwear start-up enterprise during her student days. A promising student and remarkable sports woman, Dimple was consistently recognized for her academic excellence, all-around achievements, and bubbly personality. 

She met Nitesh while they were both students from 2015-2017 at the prestigious Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta. Eldest among his siblings, Nitesh was a simple man with determination and focus. Being the sole earning member of the family, he was working hard to improve his family's condition. As an alumnus of the highly selective Indian Institute of Technology and now studying at the Indian Institute of Management, he was on the way to a better life. In addition to his academic success, he had created the foundation for a successful start-up which he was working to flourish.

But a turn of fate brought it all to a halt. 

After a bout of ill health, a routine check-up in September 2016 revealed that Nitesh was suffering from Stage 3 colorectal cancer. At the age of 25, with his entire life to look forward to, news of this nature felt unreal and impossible. With his family's and friends’ support, Nitesh approached and started treatment in a logical, problem-solving way, determined to lick the disease. And Dimple supported him like his other faithful friends (they were not yet a couple).  But as she got to know him, she couldn’t help but fall in love. As Dimple was losing her heart on one side, Nitesh – who had no intention of pursuing a relationship and was focused on gaining his health back – also felt his heart softening.

A year-long struggle filled with interventions including surgery, radiation and chemotherapy followed, and the emerging couple thought the nightmare would near its end. But things got worse. In June 2017, Nitesh learned that the disease had metastasized throughout the body – to his lungs, abdomen and pelvic region – a total of 12 tumors, leading to a diagnosis of Stage IV cancer.

In the face of the dire news, Dimple and Nitesh didn’t pull back. Instead, they joined hands in marriage and swore to confront the storm together. This time around, the couple determined to alter their approach, incorporating lifestyle changes and natural healing modalities. When Nitesh was in the ICU for 23 days, Dimple with characteristic zeal started studying health and wellness from a holistic standpoint – how mind, body, and soul are connected. This was the start of her passion for wellness and the science behind treatments.

On March 14, 2018, cancer took the life of Nitesh. But Dimple transformed her love for Nitesh into a broader love. “Nitesh’s mission in life was to defeat cancer with love. It is now my goal to fulfill his purpose in life,” she wrote. “He continues to live through me.”  And to the departed Nitesh, she wrote a love letter recognizing that “our love has the power to give many others a second chance at life. My destiny was intertwined with yours because there was a greater purpose to it.”

Many people came to Dimple after Nitesh's death asking how they could serve.  So Dimple started an organization, Love Heals Cancer, to "empower the individual, the family, the community through addressing the cause of disease, to educate on natural self-care, better nutrition and how to grow/prepare foods and remedies within the continuum of what is custom, affordable, and available." The organization emphasizes the importance of getting back to the basics – healthy food, meditation, and exercise – to heal body, mind, and soul.

 “Our goal is to help patients live better and, where possible, longer lives. We address the unmet needs of people with cancer. These include finding balanced information on choices in healing, mainstream, and complementary therapies; exploring emotional and spiritual dimensions of cancer; discovering that illness can sometimes lead to a richer and fuller life; and experiencing genuine community with others facing a cancer diagnosis,” Dimple says. 

“Lifestyle changes really do add up,” Dimple says. “It's also about accepting whatever is offered, and loving and fighting irrespective of results. It's about expanding the life, not extending it. Inspiring and engaging them.” People with cancer diagnosis may be afraid, but Dimple, along with volunteers, offers love and caring to support them on that journey. 

Join us in conversation with this warrior of love!

“The bad news is that everything is broken. The good news is that we can fix it. And the ugly news is that it’s gonna get really messy.” – Mark Stevenson

 

Mark Stevenson has described himself as a “reluctant futurist” and “pragmatic optimist”. He has been described by others as a rare visionary, with “an ability to express even the most complex scientific problems in terms easily understood by a layperson.” An expert on global trends and innovation who is also a gifted story-teller, occasional comedy writer and former stand-up comedian, he has been noted as “one of those rare visionaries who fascinates an audience and makes them laugh in equal measure.”

Mark is author of the internationally best-selling An Optimist's Tour of the Future, which has been translated into 10 languages and was described by Wired magazine as “a very coherent and entertaining journey through the world of future technology. In his latest book, the award-winning We Do Things Differently: The Outsiders Rebooting Our World, Stevenson is on a mission to answer the question, “What’s next?” as he confronts the realities of the future we create for ourselves. “We’re all futurists really,” he says, “as human beings are the only creatures that can systematically imagine something that hasn’t happened yet.”

 

Stevenson’s life is dedicated to “future literacy” or understanding the questions that the future is asking us, and trying to create a culture that enables us to answer those questions in a way that makes the world more sustainable, equitable, humane, or just. He argues that many of the world’s most pressing dilemmas are a result of the use of old models that fail to keep up with modern challenges. “Everything is broken,” says Mark.

But instead of being depressed about the future, he says, we have an opportunity to fix it. “The idea of dreaming big dreams, that you can make the world better, is outside of culture right now.  It’s seen as naïve,” Mark says. By helping people become future literate, he wants to help them get “facts straight about what’s on offer, and then work out what [they’re] going to do to steer the world to a better outcome.” Believing that most people are basically good, he notes that history has a moral direction because “the more intertwined we are, the harder it is to hurt somebody else without hurting yourself. We’re a co-inspirational network, us humans, our fates are correlated.”

From education to energy supply, and healthcare to food production, Stevenson is one of the world’s most respected thinkers on the interplay of technology and society and has worked with a wide range of clients including government agencies, non-profits, and corporate and arts organizations on adapting their culture and polices to better respond to the questions the future is asking.

 

In his latest book, We Do Things Differently, Mark traveled the globe to meet with innovators who are challenging the status quo and changing the way we relate to the world to make it more stable, equitable, and humane. Mark has also written for The Times of London, The Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian, and is widely respected for his ability to translate complex issues into easily understood concepts.

 

His advisory roles include Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Earth Challenge, “an innovation incentive designed to award scalable and sustainable ways of removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere;” the policy and regulation division of the GSMA, representing the interests of mobile operators worldwide; future-literacy hub Atlas of the Future; music industry reboot The Rattle; and resident futurist at The National Theater of Scotland.

 

Stevenson is a cofounder of the cultural change agency, We Do Things Differently, where he dedicates his time to helping international organizations understand their role in creating a better future through big picture thinking, innovation, and engagement; and Flow Associates, a cultural consulting agency that works with different organizations to help them create effective and sustainable experiences and services.

 

He is also the founder of The League of Pragmatic Optimists, an organization “where people who want to make the world better can meet, generate ideas and projects, get inspiration and find collaborators.”

 

Mark’s comedy work has been performed on the BBC’s Radio 4, and his play, Octopus Soup, co-written with Jack Milner comes to London in 2018. In describing the role of his comedy background in his work as a futurist, Mark notes, “I was always fascinated by pop songs and good comedy. I love a sentence that is beautiful as well as useful. Stevie Wonder can distill an emotion that’s complex and difficult into three lines you can sing and dance along to – that’s extraordinary skill. I have always been interested in how great art, great writing, comedy and songs can communicate the truth in an engaging way without trivialising it.”

Join us in conversation with this entertaining and lucid thinker!

An intellectual shaman is an academic or other professional who takes on the three roles of the traditional indigenous shaman: healer, connector, and sense-maker -- or someone who makes sense of the world in the interest of the greater good. The intellectual shaman takes on this role to mediate between disciplines, ideas and theories and make sense of them all for others. This label thus not only describes those Sandra Waddock has interviewed for her book Intellectual Shamans: Management Academics Making a Difference, but is also an apt description of her own role as an academic.

Sandra Waddock is the Galligan Chair of Strategy, Carrol School Scholar of Corporate Responsibility, and Professor of Management at Boston College’s Carrol School of Management. With thirteen published books and nearly 150 papers, she is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award in Collaboration Research by the Cross Sector Social Interaction Symposium and Partnerships Resource Center in 2014, the 2005 Faculty Pioneer Award for External Impact by the Aspen Institute and World Resources Institute, and the Sumner Marcus Award for Outstanding Service from the Social Issues in Management Division of the Academy of Management in 2004.

Dr. Waddock’s inspiration comes from connecting ideas and writing about them; working with people who are committed to transforming the world so that there is dignity, well-being, and flourishing for all; and reading about all sorts of things with open curiosity. As an intellectual shaman, she sees things interesting in the world and goes about understanding and connecting them. This is no more evident than in her diverse body of work, which includes subjects such as macro-system change, intellectual shamanism, stewardship of the future, wisdom, corporate responsibility, management education, and multi-sector collaboration. She believes there is a hunger to have permission to do the work that each of us believes will have an impact in the world. Her research and writings give permission and show us the way.

She describes the shaman as looking beyond the problem, so we can do the healing work that we are meant to do. These lovers of knowledge help us to gain wisdom and knowledge and to apply them to our work in order to better the world. They show us how to heal relationships with self, others and the world. They tell us not to wait for leaders, but to act on behalf of ourselves, others and the Earth. Shamans mediate reality in a way that effects change in boundaries. They heal the narrative, also known as the cultural myth, that surrounds the community. They show us how to change that myth by bringing in information from other realms, and how to create a story that expands all boundaries. Finally, they help us make sense of the world as we navigate the myriad crises facing us.

Sandra’s latest books all reflect those traits: Managing Mindfully (with Lawrence Lad and Judith Clair, Global Jesuit Case Series, 2018), Healing the World (2017), Intellectual Shamans (Cambridge, 2014), and Building the Responsible Enterprise (with Andreas Rasche; Stanford, 2012). Other books that see through problems into possible, hopeful solutions and futures are SEE Change: Making the Transition to a Sustainable Enterprise Economy (with Malcom McIntosh; Routledge, 2011) and The Difference Makers:  How Social and Institutional Entrepreneurs Built the Corporate Responsibility Movement (Greenleaf, 2008). As would be true for a shaman, not only does doing the work inspire her, but so also does seeing people’s eyes light up as they ‘get’ an idea or concept.

Sandra has also been drawn into writing and performing music. One of her significant life events was going to Summer Acoustic Music Week (camp) for the first time and singing on stage. She has since released two CD’s -- Full Moon Over Boston Tonight (2010) and That Girl Will Always Be Trouble (2011) -- and she now performs at local open mikes singing her country-flavored original ‘folk’ songs. Her singles can be found at Reverbnation.

Dr. Waddock received her BA from Northeastern University, an MA degree in English Literature from Boston College, and the MBA (1979) and DBA (1985) from Boston University.   Her current teaching includes the Social Issues in Management (graduate business in society) course.  She has also taught Strategic Management, and a senior Capstone course entitled Leadership and Mindfulness.

Dr. Waddock lives as a shaman, an intellectual who shares her gift to push an agenda of change, responsibility and sustainability. Rather than throw our hands up in despair, she advises us to be ordinary difference-makers and actors for our common good. Through her music, stories, writings, and research, she is showing us the way through problems, helping us heal old narratives, and make sense of our world so there is dignity in all. 

“As much as I’ve been blessed with, what I expect of myself is to focus on health disparities and have it be my life’s work.” -- Dr. Phuoc Le

Dr. Phuoc Le has long been an advocate for equitable healthcare worldwide. These days, Dr. Le wears many hats, from physician to professor to researcher to director to co-founder of the HEAL (Health, Equity, Action, and Leadership) Initiative, which trains front-line health professionals in order to build a community dedicated to serving the underserved.  No matter where his work takes him, he approaches it with commitment and devotion.

Dr. Phuoc Le, whose name means “blessing” or “good fortune” in both Vietnamese and Chinese, was born a year after the end of the Vietnam War, and at the age of 5, fled the country with his family by boat to seek asylum in Hong Kong. “I was among the refugees, known as the boat people, escaping Communism in the late 70s, early 80s, after the Viet Nam war,” he recalls. “I remember being about four or five, clinging onto my mother’s back as she moved from one part of the boat we were on to another; a huge wave hit and we fell into the South China Sea. My uncle dove in and pulled us out otherwise it would have been certain death. After that, we were in a Chinese refugee camp, in Hong Kong, for about a year and my mom worked in a factory sewing Jordache jeans.”

It was there, within a refugee camp in Hong Kong, that young Phuoc had his first contact with a functional public health system, and was cured within days of the parasitic disease that had ailed him since he was a toddler. Later, as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., he realized he had been one of the health disparity victims described by medical anthropologist Paul E. Farmer, PhD, MD, in his books.  And so Phuoc committed his life to addressing such disparities for other underserved populations around the globe.

After growing up in Kansas and California, Phuoc went on to graduate from Dartmouth with a double major in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures. He then attended medical school at Stanford University where he earned his M.D. While at Stanford, Dr. Le also obtained a Master’s of Public Health from UC Berkeley with a focus on global health. He completed his residency at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Global Health Equity. During this time, he worked with the NGO Partners in Health (PIH) to provide equitable health care in Rwanda, Lesotho, Malawi, and post-earthquake Haiti. Dr. Le also participated in community health and anthropological research in Tibet, Shanghai, and Qinghai, PRC, and Geneva, Switzerland.

“I was a resident at Harvard [University in Cambridge, Mass.] in 2007 when I went to Haiti with Paul Farmer and a few other residents involved in the [nonprofit] Partners in Health,” he recalls. “I’ll never forget that the trip from Port-au-Prince to the hospital was only about 120 miles, and it took eight hours in a four-wheel drive vehicle to get there. They didn’t want us residents to suffer that trip, so they got a bunch of volunteer pilots to fly us in a single-engine plane, which took about 20 minutes. We got there, had lunch and dinner, and it was during dinner that the group coming by vehicle finally arrived. It just dawned on me. These are things you don’t have a visceral feeling for until you see them. These people were tired because they had driven all day. What if I had been a patient and had to travel 120 miles and was sick? Would I have lasted eight hours to go that small distance? This is just one example of many structural problems that need to be addressed.”

Dr. Le currently is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he splits his time between both departments as a hospitalist. With Dr. Sriram Shamasunder, he co-founded and co-directs the nation’s first Global Health-Hospital Medicine Fellowship at UCSF, which aims to train hospitalists to work in resource-poor settings, and also co-founded the HEAL Initiative in 2014.  He also directs the Global Health Pathway for the Pediatric Residency; serves as director of international rotations for the Internal Medicine Residency; and is a visiting Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health, where he directs the Interdisciplinary Masters of Public Health Program.

In 2015 Phuoc’s medical team was given the Humanitarian Service award by the Society of Hospital Medicine and Phuoc was named a “Top Doc” by the magazine ACP Hospitalist.

Dr. Le continues to work with PIH several months a year, whose mission is to provide healthcare to the world's poor in their homes and communities, and collaborate with local government officials and the world’s leading medical and academic institutions to strengthen health systems.

“For the vast majority of people, it doesn’t turn out the way it did for me,” says Dr. Le. “As much as I’ve been blessed with, what I expect of myself is to focus on health disparities and have it be my life’s work.”

Join us in conversation with this gifted humanitarian and healer!

Ron Epstein, Ph.D., is a Buddhist scholar and practitioner who has spent decades as a professor of Buddhist studies.  A prolific writer, translator, ethicist and activist who has authored countless pieces on the modern application of Buddhism and Buddhist ethics, he is a trustee, chancellor emeritus and professor emeritus at Dharma Realm Buddhist University, and a lecturer emeritus at San Francisco State University. He is author of the recent book, Responsible Living: Explorations in Applied Buddhist Ethics--Environment, Animals, GMOs, and Digital Media (March 2018), which applies Buddhist texts and academic references to contemporary ethical issues.

Dr. Epstein is a graduate of Harvard University, holds a Master's degree in Chinese language and literature from the University of Washington, and a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from University of California, Berkeley.  Born in Kentucky to a Jewish family, Ron’s father was a physician who served in World War II, during which time Ron was raised by his mother at his father’s parents’ home in what he termed to be a “rather unfriendly and materialistic upper middle class” suburb of Cleveland – waiting for his father to return from the war. He was first introduced to Buddhism while a freshman at Harvard, where he audited courses by well-known Christian theologian Paul Tillich. Later he felt a deep connection to Buddhist art. This led to an interest in meditation.

In the mid-60s, Ron Epstein moved to San Francisco to study Chinese.  “At my first glimpse of San Francisco Bay, I intuitively knew that I had finally found my home,” he recalled. “The following year I went to Taiwan to continue my studies and met my wife, Ocean, there. My initial academic plans changed when I got progressively more interested in studying and practicing Buddhism.”

Shortly after moving to San Francisco, Epstein rented a room in a run-down apartment building near the Japantown section. On the first floor lived a Chinese monk who held open meditation in his apartment every night. After attending these meditation sessions for several months, Epstein realized what a great teacher and human being this man was. His name was Master Hsuan Hua, who turned out to be a contributing figure in bringing Chinese Buddhism to the United States in the 20th century. Of him Epstein wrote, "My meditation experience while sitting with him was progressively transcendent, and after about 6 months I came to realize what a truly great teacher he was. During the many years I studied Buddhism with him, I never saw him perform a selfish act, either great or small, or put his own welfare before that of others."

And so at the age of 24, Epstein commenced his life-long study and practice of Buddhism with the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua (Xuanhua) – even as he continued his higher education and advanced degrees.  Around ten years later, shortly after Epstein obtained his doctorate degree in Buddhist Studies, Master Hua founded the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Ukiah, California, the administrative center of the international Dharma Realm Buddhist Association. A year later, Epstein moved there with his family to help found Dharma Realm Buddhist University, then later purchased a home nearby, and never left. 

Master Hua awarded Epstein the title Fojiao Jiaoshou (“Professor of Buddhism”) in 1978 and appointed him a chancellor of Dharma Realm Buddhist University in 1988.  In addition to teaching and offering educational resources on Buddhism and religion, Dr. Epstein has been a translator of Buddhist texts and has written extensively on a wide range of subjects. Among his book-length publications are The Surangama Sutra: A New Translation with Excerpts from the Commentary by the Venerable Master Hsüan Hua (co-chair, translation committee); Buddhist Text Translation Society’s Buddhism A to Z (compiler); and The Heart of Prajna Paramita Sutra with the No Stand Gatha Explanation and Prose Commentary of Gold Mountain Tripitaka Master, Sramana Hsuan hua (principal translator).

Although his main area of expertise is Buddhist studies, Dr. Epstein also taught about environmental and animal ethics. In his local community, he co-sponsored legislation which harnessed local voices to take on industry and successfully ban for the first time on the county level the growing and raising of GMOs. He has also been an advocate of local campaign reform, having worked to craft successful city and county proposals to enact contribution limits and tighten up the reporting beyond the requirements of the state, and he is a co-founder of Mendocino County CARE (Compassion for Animals Respect for the Earth).

Join us in conversation with this compassionate, clear ethicist and scholar!

How does a jet-setting financial analyst from London end up a Buddhist nun in Bhutan?

Emma Slade (ordained as Ani Pema Deki) is a yoga and meditation teacher and author who left a successful career in finance in her thirties to find peace and meaning in the mountains of Bhutan.  Unusual for a mother of a now 12-year-old boy, she was ordained a Buddhist nun in Bhutan in 2014 after rigorous training – the first (and in 2018 still the only) Western woman to have achieved this in Bhutan.  Her book and memoir, Set Free: A Life-Changing Journey from Banking to Buddhism in Bhutan, captures her life journey.  She currently divides her time between Bhutan and England, where she runs a charity, Opening Your Heart to Bhutan, to benefit special needs children in rural Bhutan, and she teaches yoga and meditation.

Slade grew up in Kent, England, studied fine arts at the University of London and Cambridge University, with the intention of becoming an artist or curator – until the death of her father from lung cancer when she was 26.  She then switched tracks, based on her father’s belief since her childhood that she could be an investment banker.  She worked in finance managing accounts worth upward of $1 billion for many years in New York, London and Hong Kong – with all the accoutrements of the successful life. She wore fine clothing, stayed in fancy hotels, “ate balance sheets for breakfast, and walked with a wiggle.”  She lived a seemingly charmed life.

But in 1997, while traveling for business in Jakarta, Indonesia, she was held hostage at gunpoint by armed men in her five-star hotel room – a harrowing experience from which she somehow managed to escape alive, but was affected very deeply. On the evening of the attack, Emma was asked by police to identify the perpetrators.  She saw in front of her a “man in underwear slumped against the hotel wall – with blood around him.  I felt such sorrow for this man, for this situation.  This moment is the one I don’t forget.”

As she later recounted in a TEDx talk, her body escaped the incident, but her mind was changed forever.  She suffered post-traumatic stress disorder.  “The past and the present know no difference,” so that while engaged in ordinary tasks such as reviewing balance sheets, she could recall and feel her perpetrator’s skin against her body.  Referring to the image of a lotus flower, she said that “Jakarta was my mud, but it was also the seed of my future development.”  A seed of compassion had been laid when she saw her perpetrator.  "Once I had recovered enough to see my life clearly, I felt that I'd been treating it very superficially, and that after this experience, I really needed to inquire more deeply into what it is to be a human being."

After receiving therapy for PTSD, Slade found that making money and having a career – two things she had equated with success and happiness – were a very small part of who she actually was. So Slade resigned from her banker job, and came across and deepened in yoga, a practice which helped her gain trust in herself and the world again.  At the same time, she began to look into her long-held interest in the nature of the mind, particularly as described in Buddhist practice (she recalls having seen a reclining Buddha in the home of her grandfather).  She heard the great mantra of compassion, which touched something deep in her.  She formally converted to Buddhism in 2003 after attending various retreats in Scotland, and continued to teach yoga and meditation for many years.

In 2011 she visited Bhutan. "Spirituality is embedded in daily life here,” she discovered. “I came because I wanted to meet monks and serious retreatants, and witness first-hand what it might mean to dedicate your life to spiritual practice as a Buddhist." During this visit, she met her lama (teacher) by chance, went home to England, then returned to Bhutan to find him. He taught her about Buddhism and suggested she become a Buddhist nun, which she did in 2012.  She was ordained Ani (meaning “nun”) Pema (Lotus) Deki (Blissful) in a naming ceremony in 2013.

Eventually “all that compassion practice had affected me.”  Directing the energy into compassion in action, Slade in 2015 founded Opening Your Heart to Bhutan, a UK-based nonprofit organization that transforms lives of children and young people with disabilities or special needs living in rural Bhutan.  In 2017, Slade published her memoir with all proceeds going to her charity, and uses her tremendous financial acumen for the benefit of the children of Bhutan. “The [financial] skills of old have been very useful in bringing me now a very meaningful and happy life.”

Her charity has received acclaim in a few short years. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge met with children benefited by her charity and then discussed her work with Slade at a reception with the King and Queen of Bhutan in April 2016. Slade received the British Prime Minister’s Points Of Light Award in January 2017.  She was also short-listed for the Asian Voice Charity Award for "Most Inspiring Individual in Charity" in January 2018.  And she is the subject of a short film called "Happiness" that is part of a schools education project set up by the Dalai Lama Centre for Compassion in Oxford.

When asked what she recommends for people who want to live a more meaningful life, Slade offered to Time Magazine: "Mindfulness makes you calmer. Compassion makes you happier. I'm always going to encourage people to help others as a route to happiness. I believe in the transformative power of compassion."

Join us to hear more from this compassionate and courageous spirit!

“I could see a universal, human story unfolding in the extreme example that was Pine Ridge.”  

Kevin Hancock is the CEO of one of America’s oldest companies, Hancock Lumber, a 6th generation family-run lumber company in Maine founded in 1848.  Standing before a rapt public audience, he begins the story of re-finding his individual voice and strengthening the voices of others.  He recalls a moment that a car pulled up to him as he stood, alone, on the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Continuing, he describes the car window rolling down and an old Native American jewelry maker asking him, “What brings you here?” “That,” recalls Hancock saying as he reached out to shake the old woman’s hand, “is a good question.”

That question, it turns out, had been one to which he had begun to listen with heightened awareness in 2012, after a series of trying circumstances both personal and professional. With the onset of the economic crisis and the collapse of the national housing and mortgage markets, Hancock faced with the necessity of layoffs and the responsibility of leading a struggling company. Several years later, in 2010, with the economic crisis at its height, Hancock was diagnosed with spasmodic dysphonia, a rare neurological disorder that makes speech extremely difficult. “My voice got very weak, broken, or difficult to hear or understand,” says Hancock, “and for me, it felt like it took a major athletic feat to push out just a few sentences.”

With speech being difficult and the necessity of being at the helm ever present, Hancock began to shift his attention to listening, asking questions, and answering them. Leadership, to Hancock, became a shared responsibility. “When I first acquired this, I wondered whether I would be able to do my job,” Kevin said in a New York Times profile. “Now I can see that it actually makes me better at my job.”  He had to reinvent the way he worked. At meetings he once led, he now sat in the second row, jotting down notes. As he spoke less and listened more, he discovered how many managers and front-line employees had ideas for changes and wanted to take responsibility for them. He began delegating more. “You see the passion and ideas coming from others,” he said. “People are smart, and they know what needs to happen and they want to do a good job.”

Hancock Lumber made it through the economic crisis and Kevin then sensed the need to attend to his own wellbeing and life. His search and his intuition ended up taking him to one of the most isolated and disenfranchised communities of Sioux Indians, Pine Ridge. There, in coming to know the history, the ways of life, and the beliefs of the Sioux, Hancock learned about a ritual called the Vision Quest, upon which young men or adults in a period of transformation would embark, alone, into the wilderness to seek answers: “[T]he concept [of the Quest] was that by seeking to gain a deeper understanding of one’s individual connection with all living things and with the Great Spirit, that we could also gain a deeper insight into the whisper of our own soul, that which makes you, you—special, powerful, inspired. And then, you are expected to return to your tribe, share the vision that you had received, and live your life in accordance with that message.” 

Through a series of successive, solo trips to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Kevin learned powerful lessons: We all come from a tribe, and while the pull of the past is strong, the soul is here to individuate. Leadership in the new Aquarian Age is about doing less, not more. Those who hold the power often overreach; they go too far. Busyness is not living, and personal growth lies in looking inward, not outward. The boundaries that have been set to divide people are not real. In the end, we’re all one tribe.

Kevin came to be thankful for the partial loss of his own speaking voice as he learned it was his soul’s way of getting him to stop working, stop leading, stop caretaking. In losing consistent access to his voice, Kevin discovered a pathway, a calling, to strengthening the voices of others, which he uses to think differently about the future of Pine Ridge, the future of Hancock Lumber, and the future of tribes everywhere.

“In 2010 I acquired a rare voice disorder called spasmodic dysphonia that often makes speaking difficult,” Kevin recalls. “In 2012 I began traveling to the remote Pine Ridge Indian Reservation where I met an entire community that felt as if it had no voice. The two events helped me realize that there are lots of ways to lose your voice in this world. The traditional leadership model often quiets the authentic voices of others. But the Aquarian Age is dawning and this is an invitation to redefine leadership and followership. My work is geared to creating organizations where everyone leads and power is dispersed. My work helps leaders learn how to say less and share the stage more broadly. My work also helps those who feel they follow to realize that there is a leader that dwells within us all.”

Inspired by his experiences in Indian country, he founded The Seventh Power, a nonprofit whose mission it is to raise awareness of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the plight of other Native American tribes today and to contribute to the wellbeing of the Sioux of Pine Ridge via various housing, health, and education projects. Kevin also has become active as a public speaker, sharing his belief that finding one’s own voice also means allowing other voices in in the process.

He is the author of Not for Sale: Finding Center in the Land of Crazy Horse (2015), a memoir that traces his journey deep into Indian country, and even deeper into his own soul.  The book won the 2015 National Indie Excellence Award, the 2016 Independent Authors Network Award, and the 2016 New York Book Festival Award. He is also writing the forthcoming The Seventh Power. Some of his lectures and his blog can be found on his website.

Hancock Lumber, which operates ten retail stores and three sawmills that are led by 475 employees and also grows trees on 12,000 acres of timberland in Southern Maine, is a multi-year recipient of the “Best Places to Work in Maine” award. The company is also a past recipient of the Maine Family Business of the Year Award and the Governor’s Award for Business Excellence. Kevin, a graduate of Lake Region High School and Bowdoin College, is a recipient of the Ed Muskie “Access to Justice” Award, the Habitat For Humanity “Spirit of Humanity” Award, the Boy Scouts of America “Distinguished Citizen” Award, and Timber Processing Magazine’s “Man of the Year” Award.  Kevin also spent 15 years coaching middle school basketball for the Lake Region school district.

 

Sharing his belief that “everybody leads by sharing their voice,” he responds to the question that he shows us, as both a human being and a storyteller, is one that we all hold in common—the question of what brings us here.

“We are here to learn from each other, to share our various neurotic life strategies in a safe space, so we can then laugh uproariously at them together, in a spirit of dumbfounded incredulity.” – Jeff Warren

 

Jeff Warren came to meditation by chance, while working as a journalist and writing a book about consciousness, The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness (2007), which went on to be named one of the Top 10 Books about Consciousness in The Guardian. Seeking to connect the neuroscience of consciousness with individual, inner experience, Warren decided to become his own guinea pig. So, he packed his bags and headed to a one-week meditation retreat in Scotland with the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order. Little did he realize the life journey on which he would be embarking.

There at the retreat, as he recalls in his recent interview with Robert Wright, he found himself to be “a terrible meditator.” Encountering his own distractible, worry-prone mind and facing an ambiguous territory of jargon that was different from one meditation teacher to the next yet always seemed to posit itself as definitive, Jeff felt the need for a fundamental approach to the practice. Yet in keeping with his practice, he felt himself becoming more attuned to his own mind’s unique habits and the ways in which those habits led him to disconnect from others.

In 2008, he met his teacher Shinzen Young, who eventually urged him to become a teacher as well. Three years later, The Consciousness Explorers Club (CEC), a local and global community of individuals seeking to explore and gain greater understanding of their own minds and bodies, was born. As he describes it, the CEC is meant “to make meditation and personal growth practices fun and relevant and accessible to all.” Drawing upon a variety of traditions and therapeutic modalities, members of the CEC embark upon mini-journeys of self-discovery on which, as Jeff puts it, “everything human can be a theme.” From this pluralistic, creative approach to crafting one’s own practice grows a community of student-teachers—both their own and one another’s.

 

With a hearty, heart-warming, eccentric (and perhaps, as he would call it, nerdy) peppering of humor, Jeff Warren always reminds us of our humanity. His most recent book, Meditation for Skeptics: A 10% Happier How-to-Book (2017), co-authored with ABC News Correspondent Dan Harris and Carley Adler, is there to help anyone begin to meditate. Warren also provides courses and leads online guided meditations, which can be found on his website and on 10% happier. Whoever we are and whatever it may be, Warren believes that there’s a practice out there for everyone—including the initially most incredulous. 

Join us in conversation with this lively guide and catalyst!

 

"Wherever there is injustice, there is anger, and anger is like gasoline -- if you spray it around and somebody lights a matchstick, you have an inferno. But anger inside an engine is powerful: it can drive us forward and can get us through dreadful moments and give us power. I learnt this with my discussions with nuclear policy makers." -- Scilla Elworthy

At the age of 13, Dr. Scilla Elworthy was horrified and catalyzed by the violence she witnessed as Soviet tanks invaded Budapest to quell the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. At age 16 her mother sent her to work at a holiday home for concentration camp survivors. Ever since then, she has devoted her life to promoting peaceful alternatives to conflict and to developing nonviolent means of resolution, and has become one of the guiding visionaries of our time.

A native of Scotland, Dr. Elworthy earned degrees in the social sciences as well as political science. On college vacations she worked in refugee camps in both France and Algiers. Her varied early background -- preparing her for her later place on a world stage -- included chairing Kupugani, a South African nutrition education organization; organizing the building and launch of the Market Theatre, South Africa's first multiracial theater; serving as a consultant to UNESCO on women's issues; and establishing the Minority Rights Group in France. In 1978 she researched and delivered the Group's report on female genital mutilation, leading to the World Health Organization campaign to eradicate the practice.

Dr. Elworthy translated these early experiences and commitment to peacemaking into her current roles as a visionary, path-breaking changemaker operating at the highest levels of the world stage.  In 1982, she founded the Oxford Research Group, an organization that independently researched decision-making on security in the five major nuclear nations during and after the Cold War and brought together policy-makers, academics, the military and civil society to engage in dialogue with their critics. For this work she was nominated three times for the Novel Peace Prize. In 2002, she founded Peace Direct, dedicated to supporting peacebuilders and stopping war in some of the world’s most vulnerable regions -- in connection with which she was awarded the Niwano Peace Prize in 2003.  And Dr. Elworthy co-founded FemmeQ, built on the feminine qualities of compassion, listening, inclusivity, interconnectedness, and intuition.

Drawing on her extensive work as a world peacemaker, Dr. Elworthy then served from 2005 to 2009 as advisor to Peter Gabriel, Desmond Tutu and Richard Branson in setting up The Elders, "an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by Nelson Mandela, who offer their collective influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity."  Her work for the World Peace Festival in 2011 included building seven achievable goals for the Global Peace Building Strategy, adopted by the World Peace Partnership. Dr. Elworthy designed the program for an international two-day conference on peacebuilding, the first day entitled "Peace is your business!" 

Dr. Elworthy is a member of the World Future Council and in 2012 co-founded Rising Women Rising World, a growing, vibrant community of women on all continents who draw on feminine wisdom to take responsibility for building a world that works for all. She has written, edited and contributed to a wide array of articles, reports and books. Her latest book, Pioneering the Possible: Awakened Leadership for a World That Works, is on sacred activism, and her TEDx talk on nonviolence has well over a million views. Her life has been dedicated to promoting wisdom in action and collective "waking up" through the development of inner awareness, and by changing the way we relate to one another on a global scale. 

Join us in conversation with this remarkable visionary and peace-builder!

Rev. Daya Devi-Doolin is known as a “Doctor of Thought." She is the co-founder, with her husband Chris, of The Doolin Healing Sanctuary International, a center established in in Deltona, Florida in 1989 that offers alternative modalities of healing and Gentle Hatha Yoga, including free yoga classes to the community. She is a Registered Yoga Teacher and a Certified Reiki Master Teacher who trains students in the Usui Reiki method of self-healing and healing of others.

Rev. Doolin is an Ordained Minister, certified BodyTalk practitioner, spiritual healer & counselor, speaker, TV/Radio personality, and award-winning author. She has assisted thousands of clients through workshops, lectures, radio shows, books, interviews, personal coaching and healings globally for 30 plus years. Rev. Doolin is the author of eight books, including Yoga, Meditation and Spiritual Growth for the African American Community: If You Can Breathe, You Can Do Yoga and Find Inner and Outer Peace (a yoga book for beginners and the young at heart), and The Only Way Out Is In: The Secrets of the 14 Realms to Love, Happiness and Success!.

Rev. Doolin draws on her rich personal background and inner journey in helping people to see a better, healthier life for themselves.  Having suffered under a physically abusive marriage for 10 years, she learned about the power of yoga.  “During the time I was married I found out about Yoga through my first Yoga teacher Bharat J. Gajjar in Wilmington, DE.  He founded the Sivananda Yoga Center there.  I found out that Yoga was more than physical postures and I grew strong within by studying it.”

Her practice of yoga has been instrumental in giving her both strength in life, and in opening her up to the serendipitous giving of the universe.  One night, when her former husband started strangling her from behind while their first young child of 5 years old was watching, she describes that “somehow his hold around my neck was broken by an angel.…. The next morning while in the bathroom getting ready to go teach school and take my oldest Ty to kindergarten, I started singing a song that was being made up as I went on. It asked, Am I ready Lord?  The answer was I am ready Lord – then let it BE.  I walked out of the bathroom, got my clothes on didn’t say a word to ex – got my little boy and started walking down the steps to head out the front door.  I had no place in mind I was going to live in with Ty. When I got to the bottom step, the phone rang. I answered it. It was a yoga friend of mine. He asked me if I knew of anyone who needed a place to live in return for babysitting and buying groceries for this family he knew.  Of course I was taken aback about at how quickly my ‘problem’ was solved. My little boy and I ended up living there in a huge apartment with our own bedroom.  I didn’t take clothes or furniture.  I left everything behind.  In a dream shown to me months prior, I saw all the perfume bottles, hair brushes and other toiletries I had on the dresser and night stand were cleared off – empty.  I didn’t understand until later what that was showing me.”

Rev. Doolin currently is a wife and musician partner with husband Chris under the name aka Level Seven and the mother of two beautiful adult sons, Tyler and Joseph.

“My Guru taught me everything about Yoga and I am still learning – that was more than 50 years ago. Now I am teaching Hatha Yoga and have been for 50 plus years. I have taught my current husband of 39 years and my two sons, and we stay healthy happy and whole. We help the planet by instilling the Yogic Lifestyle of living and loving. There have been many, many mentors in my life that have kept me stayed on the path of Truth without wavering.”

Join us in conversation with this gifted teacher!