Podcasts about Braille

On this episode we talk Braille Bricks, LEGO Advent Calendars and also discuss a question from Hayden.Get your show merch here! Enjoying the show...give us a like and comment on all platforms. Help us make the LEGO world available to all!Find us everywhere through LinkTreeMusic: www.bensound.comLEGO, the LEGO logo, the Minifigure, and the Brick and Knob configurations are trademarks of the LEGO Group of Companies. ©2023 The LEGO Group.THE BRICKS KING PODCAST IS NOT ENDORSED BY THE LEGO GROUP OR AFFILIATED IN ANY WAY.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/4920139/advertisement

One of the hottest topics discussed in the U.S. today is “artificial intelligence”. Our guest this time, Shayne Halls, has founded a company that helps corporations and companies learn to embrace AI. Shayne teaches his clients that they need not fear AI and rather he shows them how to use it to improve processes and procedures throughout their organizations. After college Shayne ended up going into “talent acquisition” where he carved out a successful career. Being a black man fully supporting difference in all forms, he has helped companies find people not only of different races, sexual orientations, and genders but also he understands and helps companies find qualified persons with disabilities. For the past four years he has explored incorporating AI into his work and, earlier this year, he formed his own company, Manifested Dreams. We spent quite a bit of time during our conversation discussing many aspects of AI and how this revolutionary technology can benefit people throughout the workforce. Shayne is by any definition a visionary and I hope you will find what he has to say to be relevant, timely, and pertinent to you. About the Guest: As the President & CEO of Manifested Dreams, I am deeply committed to empowering corporate professionals and organizations to unlock the full potential of AI technology in their careers and business operations. With over 15 years of experience as a Sr. DEI Specialist, I have honed my expertise in the intersection of diversity, equity, inclusion, and now artificial intelligence, creating a unique vision that drives innovation and fosters an inclusive environment. Throughout my career, I have worked closely with professionals and organizations, providing personalized guidance and strategic insights that enable them to successfully integrate AI into their work processes. My passion for helping others navigate the complex world of AI has led to the founding of Manifested Dreams, where we offer exclusive one-on-one consultations and group sessions, ensuring our clients are equipped with the knowledge and tools to stay ahead of the curve. By joining hands with Manifested Dreams, clients embark on a transformative journey towards growth and success. Our mission is to create a future where AI not only enhances the professional landscape but also contributes to a more equitable and inclusive society. Together, we can shape a brighter tomorrow by leveraging AI responsibly and driving positive change across industries. Ways to connect with Kevin: Twitter - @MnifstdDreams Website - www.manifesteddreams.org About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, welcome once again to unstoppable mindset. Here we are doing another episode. And that is always a lot of fun. You know, I've been doing this now since August of 2021. And I get to enjoy meeting a lot of people and talking about a lot of different subjects. And today our guests, Shayne Halls and I are going to talk about manifested dreams, which is a company that he started dealing with corporations helping organizations grow and using AI which is of course not only a hot topic today, but a very relevant topic to talk about. I've been using AI ever since I actually got my first job working with the National Federation of blind and Ray Kurzweil, Dr. Kurzweil, who developed Omni font optical character recognition software, which included the ability for the machine that he put that on, to learn as it read and grow in confidence. And so this is not a new subject to me, and certainly one I support a lot and looking forward to chatting about it. So Shayne, definitely welcome to unstoppable mindset and glad you're here. And when we really do have you and not just an AI construct, right?   Shayne Halls ** 02:33 Well, you know, you wouldn't know if it was was because AI is that advanced now where you really don't know. No, it is me. For the most part,   Michael Hingson ** 02:44 I remember back in I think it was the 80s Maybe it goes back to the 70s. Even with cassettes. There were commercials that said, Is it live? Or is it Memorex because the audio they said was so good.   Shayne Halls ** 02:58 You listen back on here like yeah, I can hear the recording done. Yeah, that's funny.   Michael Hingson ** 03:03 Yeah. So anyway, well, I'm really glad that you're here and we really appreciate your time. Tell us a little bit about the early Shane growing up in some of that stuff to start the process.   Shayne Halls ** 03:15 Man early Shayne so early. Shayne grew up in the US Virgin Islands in St. Croix. My mother's crucian person born in St. Clair, my dad is Trini personally born in Trinidad. So I'm half crucian, half Trinidad in grew up, Sinclair moved to Charleston, South Carolina, when my mother remarried. And that was quite an experience coming in. So well, it was my first real experience with race in the sense of the constructs of what it is here in state. Because of course growing up in islands, the island is 80% 90% Black. And so everyone from your judges, politicians, police chiefs, store owners, homeless, homeless people, right? Like it doesn't matter, like everyone you see, looks like you and then being moved into Charleston. I was like, oh, it's not like this everywhere.   Michael Hingson ** 04:10 Right. So how old were you when you moved?   Shayne Halls ** 04:14 15 just, yeah, so entering high school or back into my sophomore year in high school. So it was, um, interesting, right, coming into my first bout with racism and, you know, being followed in stores being looked at, looked down upon being spoken to in a condescending manner, a manner in which you can feel what's being said without something being said, right. These are things I'd never experienced before. And I was just I was jarred, I think George's good word jarred by was just like, oh, okay, so this is life outside the island, whatnot. No. So that was that I I left Charleston when I went to college can with North Carolina go to college at St. Augustine University. It's an HBCU here in North Carolina wanted to first find the 1867 was once regarded as the Harvard of South is was a great four years. It's like just loved my experience, they're going to HBCU being able to partake in that life and that culture, you know, see, HBCU is a historically black college and university.   Michael Hingson ** 05:31 Oh, okay. HBCU. Okay, great.   Shayne Halls ** 05:33 And, you know, that was a good transition point for coming out to the real world, you got the chance to I got a chance to be surrounded by intellectuals and leaders of my same demographic background, and then have them prepare me to come into the world, the corporate world and be the best version of myself out here in the world.   Michael Hingson ** 05:53 How did they help you prepare, given the fact that so you're in a historically black college, but at the same time, you needed to prepare to be in a world that wasn't necessarily totally historically black? By any standard? How did they help? Well, they do.   Shayne Halls ** 06:11 The good and bad thing about HBCUs is that we don't get a lot of funding, because a lot of schools are private. But that means that everyone there, the professor's the leaders in school, are usually persons who are successful in their life, and have decided to come back and devote time to the next generation. So a lot of leaders and professionals on HBCU campuses are persons who've already had success in the corporate world had success in the career field, and they come back and they impute those lessons learned on to us. And they put us in situations to be, you know, to hone in on our leadership skills, I can't just count leadership camps I went to, I was a member of the Model UN. My modern school Model UN is a program that's designed for selective college students to participate in United Nations type delegations, and deliberations. And any sort of acts or constructs or contracts or anything that we actually proposed and passed and ratify in the Model UN actually get sent off to the real United Nations. And so participate in Monterey un, which is great, great experience, again, so many leadership, trainings and activities, you just, you get a chance to go out into different conferences across the world and learn and then come back home to your safe place and apply those lessons learned and hone in on what you should have learned, then you can come on to the corporate world and be successful,   Michael Hingson ** 07:48 what kinds of things did you learn doing the Model UN program and so on? I mean, I appreciate what you're saying. And I absolutely believe it. I did not ever participate in that. And maybe it was too early. I don't know. But I appreciate what you're saying. But what what kind of lessons did you learn whether you recognize them right then or after you went back home? Right,   Shayne Halls ** 08:09 exactly right, or when later on in the corporate world, right? When you get something adult, you look back, you're like, oh, okay, so that's what that taught me. I think you learn how to get your idea across without being forceful about it, right? Because in situations where you have to be able to, you got to believe in what you're saying, especially United Nation, right? So you represent a country, no matter you want to work where you are a country, no one knows you, no one knows your real name. No one knows what school you're from, we're soon as you enter the Model UN, you're given a country, that is country, you are for the entire week that you're there. So any thoughts, any ally ships, any sort of, you know, anything we bring to the table must be different perspective of what's best for that country. And so when doing that, you learn how to think about how your idea can benefit you, but then also can be beneficial to others, and then how to convey that to persons in a manner in which they feel like they're actually going to be the ones who are going to be benefiting most from the idea that you come up with, or whatnot. So it's really great in learning how to work in groups and group activities and learning what your strengths are. Because sometimes that people aren't who've that's not for them, like, you know, being group leaders or participating in group activities like that may not be something that is applicable to their future. And that's something they want to do that because it takes a lot of patience. It takes a lot of pacifying, anyone who's done any sort of project in any sort of aspect of corporate life, understands that there's going to be so many different attitudes and demeanors and agendas, that you really have to pacify some folks, you have to kind of pull some folks along. We have to, you know, hold some people's hand. It's just you learned a lot of lessons on just how to be a people person, how to enhance those interpersonal skills that people talk about so much.   Michael Hingson ** 10:05 So is it one person per country?   Shayne Halls ** 10:07 Yeah. Unless you are literally dependent on your delegates in the UN. So whatever your delegate number is that you haven't un, they'll get numbers that are available for that country in the Mario.   Michael Hingson ** 10:19 So like the United States might have more than one delegate, or China or whatever. Exactly. So what year did this take place?   Shayne Halls ** 10:27 Man when my model you when I was in school? So I think I didn't borrow you in? Oh, 203.   Michael Hingson ** 10:38 Okay. So a lot of events had happened. And so on what country were you   Shayne Halls ** 10:45 Venezuela, and one, one year number MacArthur   Michael Hingson ** 10:52 strike any good oil deals.   Shayne Halls ** 10:55 As actually came up with a great, this was one of the lessons I learned Matt came up with a great treaty. And I was working with the US, of course, as one of the allies, we work together came up with it, basically spearheaded by, you know, and kind of brought everybody along. And it was one of the best ones that that week. And as you're going through your delegations and your debates and such judges are moving about the room listening to conversations. And the judges were they're listening to us, and they can really like, Hey, was that you? Did you come up with that? And me stealing this? Like, you know, Dougie, man, I was like, No, it was a group effort between me and the United States or whatever. And then the United States got the award in the week more sustained audit. And that was one of the reasons why that bothered me to stay. Yeah, should have been my lessons learned.   Michael Hingson ** 11:52 Well, so. Yeah, things things happen. What did you learn from that? When that occurred,   Shayne Halls ** 11:58 it's okay to speak up for yourself, okay, it's okay to speak up for yourself. You know, you can't expect someone else to toot your horn, you can't expect someone else to praise you that you have to be comfortable with praising yourself and praising the work when you deserve it. When you do good work, when you have done something that's worthy of recognition and get an opportunity to talk about yourself, and not in a braggadocious manner, but in a matter of fact, man, this is what happens, whatever do so don't wait for somebody else to do.   Michael Hingson ** 12:25 There is there's a lot to be said for teamwork and giving team credit and so on. But at the same time, you're right, it's important that what you do gets acknowledged to especially in the context of a team effort.   Shayne Halls ** 12:41 Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's great, you know, when you can talk about the team and give all credit to the team. But if you're gonna be hit the game winning shot, you're not gonna be like, well, you know, I didn't think it was Wilson Wilson designed a great basketball and basketball had a great bounce to it, you know, just fit so well, in my hand, no, you shot the ball, you start winning. So take your credit when you've earned it.   Michael Hingson ** 13:04 Right? Which makes perfect sense. So you graduated What was your degree in   Shayne Halls ** 13:10 political science with a double minor in English and religion? Yes, and so I love to write and my mother was a pastor. And so church in religion was always a part of my life. And I wanted to kind of be more intellectual about religion. So my religion, English happened English, I tell people this, these are my double minors when English turned out to be an accidental minor, where I just took so many English courses and APA in like advanced English classes that by the time I graduated, I had acquired enough credits for it to be a minor, or whatnot. So it wasn't it wasn't an unintentional minor.   Michael Hingson ** 13:52 Well, but it works. Yeah, it   Shayne Halls ** 13:54 worked, right? I really enjoyed everything, writing in workplace, something that is very, you know, soothing to me, and so, never got my studies done everything that I was like working. It was always fun for him. So I did that with the full intention of becoming an attorney. And then my wife and I decided to get married my senior year of college and got married and about a year later, we had our first kid. And so then it was like, okay, at four years law school, but I need to take care of my family. So started working and got into talent acquisition, I was recruited into recruiting and had no idea what recruitment was, what recruiting is what time acquisition was, and jumped into it and it was a world women it was a whirlwind experience. And I started focusing in on di and wanting to be an advocate for persons who are looking to come into companies and persons looking to grow in companies in just made D Ei, the kind of the heartbeat of my town acquisition work, no matter what I was doing want to make sure that there was always equity. And there was equal representation for everyone across the board. And when we talk about diversity, not just talking about skin color, we're talking about cultural backgrounds, educational backgrounds, we're talking about persons with disabilities, non disabilities, talking about gender background, just about everything, and just diversity as a whole, the more diverse the organization is, the more successful successful they can be. So you know that that was an interesting journey, because you meet leaders who are like, Oh, well, everyone looked at my team, my team is so different, they have different races and women and men. I'm like, what you only recruit from the same college, like there's everyone on your team went to the same exact school has the same major, like, that's not diversity, need to have different people on it, right. And so even some of the most well intentioned persons accidentally show their bias, right. And so as my work grew in di, I started taking on more consultation work on helping organizations understand microaggressions biases, how to build cultural teams, how to find out what your your unintentional or your unconscious biases are. And so that's kind of all led me to opening up my own consultation firm manifested dreams in which we speak with organizations regarding their cultural issues and how to address them and how to have di trainings. And then we also do one on one consultation training for persons who are looking to grow their careers and need a little help in trying to integrate AI into it right. And I think that AI is such a part of our lives now that trying to ignore it is gonna turn you into the blockbuster in a world of Netflix, and you want to make sure that you are staying abreast as to how AI is impacting your particular field, your particular career, your particular journey, so that you don't get left behind, you're able to capitalize it and use it to be successful.   Michael Hingson ** 17:10 Yeah. And there's a lot to be said for for those concepts. And it's interesting that you developed a deep interest in that, why do you think that you were so attracted to developing that kind of an interest in really wanting to focus on this whole concept around diversity. And even more important, I think inclusion because one of the things that I tell people all the time is the difficulty with diversity is that it is left disabilities behind when you ask people what this what diversity means. They'll talk about race, gender, and sexual orientation and so on, but they don't mention disabilities. And so that led us to inclusion. And that's why I'm this podcast, we talk about inclusion, diversity in the unexpected where it meets. And the idea is that inclusion can't leave out disabilities, either you are inclusive, or you're not.   Shayne Halls ** 18:04 That's what got me here, I think just marry out events just being in ta having conversations, having leaders talk being in the room and understanding that people aren't aware, right, people in the rooms tend to look around to see themselves in the room, so they feel comfortable. And it's never an awareness, this, it's never something that they are aware of that there's not others in the room, right, because they just feel comfortable with everyone that's there. And to me always being one tunnel position is a field that is probably 7060 70% female one. And so being a male and then a male color. In this field, I am very rare. In this field, I think in my lifetime, my 14 year career, I've maybe come across 10 other black men who are in talent acquisition. And so being here, I'm always aware of the who's not in the room. And then I'm making my point as to not just talking about it, to always try to bounce it and fix it somehow. Try to be a voice for those who aren't represented and use my voice to try to help others get in the room as well.   Michael Hingson ** 19:27 For me personally, it's it's a strange world because having never seen color. It it's always strange to me that people intellectually I understand this, but that people tend to be prejudice and bias based on the color of someone's skin. A lot of that skin feels the same no matter what color you are. So I don't quite see the problem, but I do understand it intellectually. But for me, having never experienced it. I think I've been very fortunate and in reality is I don't care. But unfortunately also too many people do. And that's something that we really need to figure out how we're going to address. And the problem is we've got too many people who refuse to some of whom are supposedly very high up and on, I use the term in quotes, leadership positions. Yeah, and they still continue to be very privatizing.   Shayne Halls ** 20:28 That's one of the biggest things I tell people all the time is that when I'm starting a training, I was like, Look, if you look around the room, there's a couple people in here who don't want to be here, there's gonna be one who don't want change their idea that everyone wants everything to be happy go lucky. Google, it is a false theory that you need to do away with, you have to understand that in every organization, there are leaders who like it exactly the way it is, right? They don't want to have to make accommodations person with disabilities, they don't want to have to put Braille on the walls, they don't want to have to put ramps on and want to put ramps all over the build, they think it's it's not aesthetically pleasing to their eyes or whatever. They don't want wider doorways. They don't want other diverse persons around the leadership table like these people actually exist. And, you know, if you want to be an ally, for persons who aren't included, then you have to speak up when you have an opportunity for it.   Michael Hingson ** 21:21 We visited in San Francisco, a building that Frank Lloyd Wright, designed and built, it was fascinating because a lot of the building was a spiral ramp that took you from the bottom to the to the top or up to some level. I've spent a long time since I've been there now but but the point is that, that he he deliberately made it a ramp as opposed to stairs. And it was a very steep ramp and would not be something that would be condoned by the Americans with Disabilities Act. But I was able to push my wife up the stairs up the ramp, and get her back down. She was in a chair her whole life. So it still was a building we were able to go into and actually be a part of, and that was really pretty cool. Yeah. And this idea of ramps not being pleasing to the eye. As I understand it again, I understand that people again, are locked into well, it's got to be stairs, well, no, it doesn't.   Shayne Halls ** 22:26 It does not I don't know who came up with that answer, I would love for slides to be a thing go there has a slide somewhere, like I'd like to just be able to come down the slide. That'd be great.   Michael Hingson ** 22:36 Yeah, works for me, you know, to keep in mind, though, you gotta get back up. So what you do is you tip the slide, and you go back the other way, that's all there is to it. But I mean, there have to be ways to do that. But it's just the whole concept that we don't like things different than what we want, we have learned not to go out of our comfort zone very well. And we really need to get over that. And that's what it really comes down to is getting out of our comfort zone. And it's something that that we really should do a whole lot more than than we do. Well, I'm curious, you've been in this business now 14 years talent acquisition, you've been dealing a lot with dei and such, what would you say to your younger self just starting out that maybe they didn't know or that you'd want them to know to maybe make their world and as a result the world of other people better?   Shayne Halls ** 23:34 Um, I would think I would tell myself to stand stand be you know, just stand 10 toes down and who you are, right? I think that early in my career, I felt a need to quiet my voice in time who I should have spoken up. And it's living with nothing but regret later on in life like yeah, what if I spoken up on those situations during those opportunities and whatnot. And so my younger self, I would help him get to the idea sooner of just being unapologetically you and not quieting your voice to keep the status quo afloat.   Michael Hingson ** 24:23 I think it's interesting being unapologetically you but not arrogantly unapologetically, you? Right, exactly. Which is really the issue. And there's a lot to be said for that. I'm sorry. Go ahead.   Shayne Halls ** 24:34 No, you're totally right. Yeah, just be yourself. But don't be you know, arrogant. But I think arrogance stems from this belief of you being able to do things that you have not done or tempted to do confidence comes from the knowledge of having done things similar in the past in Concord those things right. And so it is a way to be confident without being arrogant and so you should always be on Patil. Unapologetically confident in who You are the person, but humble enough to know that there are things that you don't know. And your lessons you still got to learn in life.   Michael Hingson ** 25:06 And there's nothing wrong with exploring and learning and growing because of that   Shayne Halls ** 25:12 knowledge. I think that is one most great things that we have the ability doing, like especially now more than ever, we have these phones. And I think we take them for granted because they're just been a phone to us. But they're literally a gateway to the world. And that is not any sort of exaggeration of the truth. There is nothing you cannot learn that you don't have access to in your hand every day. And that language and the culture and background, you can learn anything you want. And the idea of being ignorant in today's society is a willful choice. If you don't know about a culture or background, you don't know how somebody's functioning with a disability. You don't know what type of activities to plan for your company to include the persons with disabilities. And you don't take a few minutes just to look it up on your phone. That's that's just willful ignorance at that point time.   Michael Hingson ** 26:01 Yeah. And it is a choice. It's willful. It's a choice. And it is the kinds of things that lead to what we talked about before, which are the people who just decide that they don't want to have any change. They don't care about anyone else other than what is in their specific comfort zone rather than recognizing the world's a whole lot broader place than that.   Shayne Halls ** 26:23 Exactly. Now, let me ask you a question. Do you feel that the school system teaching other languages as electives helps to contribute to that, because you've seen other countries where like learning another language like English or Spanish webinar is a requirement. Right. And so a lot of people in other countries graduate high school, already fluent in other languages. While here in America, Spanish is always just an elective or French is an elective. Once you get into high school, you're gonna take a couple of courses of it, whatnot. I think that if we taught our kids more about other cultures and demanded they learned other languages along the way, it would help people in general, understand that the world is bigger than your little part. I haven't studied Spanish for three years, four years now. And the more I learn, you can't learn a language without learning the culture of the country at which it's run. And the more you learn about that language, the more you learn about those cultures, it broadens your interest nationally broadens your horizon.   Michael Hingson ** 27:33 But to answer your question, I absolutely believe that we could do more to give everyone in our society, more of a cultural understanding of other people. And we really should do that. When I was in high school, I studied German for three years. And one of the things that we learned along the way was that in Germany, students in high school did take English as a as a course. And it was a requirement and they had to study it and demonstrate their proficiency in it. I think that English was the choice, but there were other languages that they could take, but they absolutely had to learn a second language. And also, of course, there, they were encouraged to study more about the people than just the language, which a lot of people did, because they had to practice it. When I was in college, I took a Euro Japanese, which was a totally different concept. Yeah, I don't remember a lot of it. But if I hear somebody talking, I know they're speaking Japanese or not. And I've also been to Japan twice and had an opportunity, even before going to learn a lot about the culture. And then of course, learned a lot more about the culture being over there. And I think that we should do that. It gets back to the whole issue of banned books and everything else that we deal with today, people are so insistent on, we want to done just our way, and they don't even know what they're really asking for, which is so unfortunate. I continue to be amazed at some of the books that people want to ban in libraries. And then when you get to the point of saying, Have you read it? Well, no, but somebody said that we should do that because it's racist well, but you don't know do you? And I am a firm believer in knowing not just listening to somebody and taking their opinion and just locking yourself into something because of it. We have to be the the people who rule our own fate and we should understand not just listen to other people and then don't do anything about it other than what they said that should be banned. So that's what we should do.   Shayne Halls ** 29:53 I think that you hit the nail on the head. I think one cool things about Japan that was love is that as they make their school kids clean up, at the end of the school days, like they spent, like the last 15 or 20 minutes in school day, cleaning school, that is such like that is like a lesson that just sits in your soul like you, no one's going to come clean up behind the message you make, like you got to clean up your own thing. You got to be responsible for yourself. I think that in itself, I love that about Japanese culture. And then when talking about person banning books, I've seen so many videos of people where they ask them, What is CRT? What does it stand for? Like, what is the lettering stand for? That you're so passionately against? And no one even though I think can even tell you? Like how are you so angry about something that you don't even know what the acronym stands for us. We   Michael Hingson ** 30:39 all know the CRT stands for cathode ray tube. But that's another story. That's exactly what it is. But you know, the whole concept of of critical race and so on. I don't know that I totally understand the theory, although I believe I do. And certainly not opposed to it. But I'm amazed when I hear people talking about banning a book like To Kill a Mockingbird, which was recognized as such a powerful depiction of how black people were treated, even back in the in the 50s, and into the 60s and so on. And it wasn't racist at all, at all. But I've heard people talk about how that has to be taken on libraries because it's racist. And I actually heard a reporter ask someone who said that, have you ever read it? Well, no. Well, then how do you know, you know,   Shayne Halls ** 31:32 I think that, you know, I know who I blame Michael, I blame the participation, trophy generation, right? Because there was a generation where we decided that everyone needed to feel good. Everyone needed to be like, Okay, so we gave everyone participation trophies. And I think that is, if you've ever listened to people talk about their opposing CRT, it is always well, I don't want my kids to feel bad about what happened in the past.   Michael Hingson ** 31:59 And teach them what happened.   Shayne Halls ** 32:02 Like what like, where you want to get rid of books, because you don't want your kid to know that persons with similar cultural backgrounds are themselves performing the most heinous acts ever in history. But what not, but what was interesting is that when it was just about teaching slavery, and having little persons little kids of color, learn that their history was stemmed in being enslaved, that was fine for everyone. But when the history books started to talk more about the person's doing, the enslaving, and the heinousness of those acts, then it was like, well, we can't talk about this part. This person I, like we talked about anymore, let's   Michael Hingson ** 32:57 check the answer is Sure you can. You can teach kids what happened. And then you have the discussions about how do we make sure it never happens? Again,   Shayne Halls ** 33:08 come on, it seems it seems simple. I think we just saw it. But therefore, there's PTA meetings all across this country that obviously show that they that we're not thinking the way they do because they are staunchly against banning it left and right. I mean, states governors, they're just on a rolling, banning this stuff.   Michael Hingson ** 33:28 Yeah, that and all the other things that they're doing the the governors who decide to ship people who come in across the border, who legally are allowed in, and then they ship them somewhere. When is that going to stop? When are we going to recognize that intolerable treatment? And how can we ever elect someone who does that, and of course, there gonna be some people who will disagree with me. But the bottom line is, you don't treat human beings that way.   Shayne Halls ** 33:57 My mind is blown at the idea that we have persons in power positions, who are so arrogant to feel like someone doesn't belong in this country, because they came across an imaginary line that doesn't exist anywhere, except on your piece of paper, and that they don't have the right beer. And then once they get here, we're going to treat them like pawns, and move them about the country. As if they're like games that you're playing on this big political chessboard, whatnot, it is the way we treat immigrants, as if this country was not founded on immigrants is the most hypocritical thing I've seen. In many years of my life. It is it is staunchly mind blowing, how we stand 1010 toes down on the fact that we can't have anyone tonight. Well, how do you think this country was founded? None of us were born here. Like people came here. Like you landed on Plymouth Rock I like that is the story we tell the children like. So immigration is how this country started, let's not do let's not take away the opportunities that were given to our ancestors to somebody else's ancestors. Right. Right.   Michael Hingson ** 35:13 One of the things I think that you are doing in terms of now having found when did you found manifested dream, by the way,   Shayne Halls ** 35:22 this year, January of this year is when I made it special. I've been doing my own thing. I've been doing it doing the work for probably four years now. But I made it official. And we're kind of just operating under a 1099 guideline for last few years. And I was like, model incorporate? Actually, no, do it in to make it real. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 35:43 Make it real. Yeah. Well, and I know that you when we talked about it earlier deal with using artificial intelligence is as a significant part of that. So tell me a little bit about what is AI in terms of what you do?   Shayne Halls ** 35:57 And so AI in terms of just what AI is, in general, is a great question. Because a lot of people don't even understand the idea of, I guess what artificial intelligence really is, you know. So artificial intelligence is basically the idea that it was a field of computer science that kind of focused on just creating systems that are capable of performing repetitive task, right? systems or tasks that don't require extreme amounts of human intelligence. And so we're talking about things from know But same thing on the administrative umbrella. But anyway, so AI has now been able, using machine learning in which these systems recognize speech patterns, they recognize, you know, patterns in the data that has been inputted into the systems, and they were able to perform, you know, human like tasks, these human like, repetitive tasks with large bit of autonomy, right can kind of like, let it go, and let it do its thing. And it's basically the driving force behind many of the digital tools and services that we use today, and we don't even know like, Siri, is a very basic AI, you know, you ask it to do something, and it does like it, that he asked me to make a notation yes can send to me like that AI. That is what artificial intelligence is on its most basic sense. Google itself is AI, right, being able to go into Google asked a question, and spits back a measure. That is a we've all been using a version of machine learning or version of artificial intelligence. But now it's basically like going through puberty, right. And it's become a lot more conscious and a lot more interactive. And it has a deeper understanding of sentiment and emotions and feelings and sarcasm. And so now machine learning and AI has led to another level. And with the growth of AI, it's now become so effective that you can have one person who is proficient within AI, that can do the job of three or four people, right, because if you know the right prompts, or questions or direction to give AI, you can have aI generate code for you. You can have AI, you know, generate reports, you can have aI put to PowerPoint, and AI can do so much if you know what you're doing. So companies are at this point where they are hiring what's called prompt engineers. And these prompt engineers, one company needs replacing three or four people. And so what's happening with that is that diversity numbers are going to be impacted in every aspect, because many administrative jobs are held by women. And so now we're gonna eliminate many admin jobs. We're talking about your most basic entry level jobs on line two manufacturing lines are going to be completely automated at some point in time, so companies are going to be less diverse. And so I want to make sure that as companies start to integrate AI, they do so in a very meaningful manner, that they understand that they still need to care about what diversity looks like in their organizations, even though they may be now upgrading or changing what that organization looks like.   Michael Hingson ** 39:40 Given what you just described, how do you deal with the people who say well AI is going to take away all of our jobs?   Shayne Halls ** 39:47 Well, I mean, is gonna take away a lot of jobs seeing this not would be crazy. I mean, that that I tell everyone, that's like when blockbuster said no Netflix is gonna go But it's just a personal thing. It's not, it's here. Now what you can do is learn AI and how to use AI in your job that you're doing. Right, you don't want to be the person who put your head in the sand, and you never took the time to understand what AI is, and how you can use AI to make your job more proficient, you have access to a system that you can use, that can basically eliminate any sort of repetitive tasks that you do in your day to day. And then you can spend the rest of your time doing and work on the more intellectual side of your job, the more creative side of your job, you can connect, you can use your, you can use your free time, quote, unquote, to better yourself in the company to grow in the company to be more impactful in your company, right. So yes, AI may replace jobs as we see it today. But that does not mean that you cannot use AI, to elevate yourself to another job or to another place within an organization.   Michael Hingson ** 40:56 And the more AI and all of that entails comes into our lives. While it may replace or take away jobs in some senses, the other aspect of it is that there will always be more jobs that are being created. So isn't like jobs are going to go away, it's gonna be different, they will be different. And that gets back to what we talked about before, which is there are a lot of people who don't like difference. But the reality is, that's what it is. And so there will be differences. And we're going to have to recognize that and ought to recognize that and then use that to grow in everything that we do, which makes perfect sense to do.   Shayne Halls ** 41:42 Most definitely, like 30 years ago, there was no IoT jobs, right. So Internet of Things is a job title in corporate America, that Job didn't exist, because the profession as it is now. But that is a very high paying job to just like it is very high thing. And so you just have to understand what's going on, you had a great place in this wave of AI, there was no college degree of AI, prompt engineering right now. Right, this is just like the beginning of the internet, like everything is just the wide open. So you can literally get a system and learn it. And perfect those skills and hone those skills. And yes, no one's going to be able to, you don't have to pay to learn right now it is free, get it use it in master, right? Eventually, schools are gonna start to regulate how you learn these things, and how you master AI. And corporate America is gonna get their hands on AI. And we're not going to have as easy access to it as we do. Now, in some fashion, it's going to be limited, how things tend to go into in, you know, capitalistic societies. So while it's wide open, while anyone has access to while everyone has access to it, embrace it, learn it, learn how to integrate it into your daily life, so you don't get passed over. So you don't, you know, lose your job. But you can transition to a different job with AI.   Michael Hingson ** 43:05 Well, and as AI exists today, it's not yet grossly intelligent at truly being able to learn on its own. And that's one of the things that people have to be able to do is to take the role of teaching. And that's why things improve as well as people enhance AI and so on. And the time will come when even learning oops, be somewhat simulated or stimulated by the actual software. But even so, it still doesn't mean that that's the end of the road in terms of us. What it means is that we need to recognize that there are different things in different applications that that we need to do. I think it's going to be a long time before the intelligence and the ability to have an intellect through a machine is going to grow to the point where it can do what the human brain does.   Shayne Halls ** 44:00 Right? Yeah. Ai learned from us, our input into systems. And it learns very quickly from what we put, it doesn't learn by itself, but it doesn't take long to learn. And once you start typing into your system and asking questions, talking to it, it's learning every second every input you put into it, it's learning. But again, it's only learning because you're putting information into it. And I think that's one of the things that as corporations are instituting AI into their workforces in their environments that they have to make sure they have a set team there whose job is to monitor the inputs going into their AI systems, right the algorithms that are being used, the searches that are being done, because the AI while can be a great unbiased tool to use and performance evaluations, promotions, hiring, recruiting, it can also be taught by it can be taught to, to exclude person because of someone else's Have no preconceived notions or whatnot. So you got to have teams monitoring the AI between you so that it's not being used for nefarious activities.   Michael Hingson ** 45:09 Right, then the other side of it is, is that because it has such rapid and full access to a lot of information, it by definition is going to teach us things as well. And, and that's as it should be. As you know, and as people here know, I work for excessive B, which is a company that makes products to help make the internet more inclusive for persons with disabilities and a accessories. main product that most people know about is an AI widget that sits up in the cloud, and it can look at anyone's website, and it can do a lot to remediate those websites. And people can learn about it by going to access a B ACCE ssip.com. But as enhancements are made to the widget, because somebody says, you know, I tried to use it on this website, but this didn't happen. And what's the problem? If the people had access to be discovered that you right, it's, it's an issue, it should work, they fix it. And then it rolls out to anyone who is using excessive be so that the new thing that the AI, which it has been taught, goes to everyone, and it will continue to grow. And it learns based on looking at all the websites that it deals with. And now they're well over 190,000 websites that use excessively, which is cool, but AI is going to continue to grow. And it will get better. There are things that on my website, excessive B still can't totally do by itself. And there are reasons why like it doesn't necessarily interpret pictures and describe them the way I want them describe. But But I am amazed at how well they can look at a picture like there's a picture of me holding or hugging a yellow Labrador Retriever on my website. And the way I want that branded is it's my kingsun hugging, Roselle excessively doesn't know my Kingston excessively doesn't know Roselle because they're the the restrictions under which you could go off and identify a picture are still in existence. So it can't, for example, just go to Facebook and realize that's my Kingston and then that's Roselle. So it can't do that. But what excessive B does do when it sees that picture is it says man and white dress shirt hugging yellow Labrador Retriever. I'm amazed that it can do that. But it can and and then I can deal with that and and put an alt tag or my web guy can put an alt tag in. And so that's fine. But by the same token, it's amazing how far it has already come and how far it will continue to go. And that's the way it ought to be if it makes our lives more efficient. And we take advantage of it. Why shouldn't we?   Shayne Halls ** 48:03 Why shouldn't die? I think it's fair that people don't like this. We fear what we don't know. You know, and I think a lot of people hear stories of AI. They see movies, you know, they see Terminator they see iRobot you know, they see all these movies and oh my gosh, AI this evil thing. Yeah, it's not. It's not it's here. We're in such infancy stages of AI, that, well, I'm not taking granted this doing yourself a disservice in some capacity. And yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 48:37 exactly right. Of course, you mentioned iRobot and being a little bit prejudiced. I don't think the movie does the original book and stories by Isaac Asimov justice talking about AI. But there, there's a lot that we can learn. And we really need to broaden our horizons and recognize that this is a world where there are so many adventures and you talked about the Internet of Things. You talked about the internet and so on. What a treasure trove. And you talked about the iPhone being a way that we can get to so many things. The internet in general is such a treasure trove of information. And yes, there's a dark side to it, which we don't need to deal with. And we ought to help not happen. But by the same token, there is so much more that the internet has available to us it is just fascinating to go look at sites on the Internet and learn things which I get to do every day and aim a lot of fun doing it.   Shayne Halls ** 49:36 What's crazy is that I remember being a kid and having the Encyclopedia Britannica and just having all these encyclopedias there to use my mom thought I was gonna go look it up. I was gonna go look at it. Got a second please go look it up. My children have encyclopedias in their phones on their tablets. Like there was no more Encyclopedia Britannica like it doesn't They will have like, I don't know, anyone who still has, like those kits that they used to sell on TV on the infomercials or whatnot, right? Yeah, it changes, it changes things, you have all this information that went to a stockpile. And so hundreds of books, it is at the tip of your fingers to find out anything you want to know, you literally can pop up any question in your mind? And you can find the answer for there and on some page somewhere.   Michael Hingson ** 50:27 And the the comment, go look it up, however, is still valid, very valid. And it absolutely makes sense to go look it up.   Shayne Halls ** 50:37 So which is submit really quickly, what used to take me, you know, 20 minutes to look up the answer, like it's fine to me. So I got that don't worry, I know.   Michael Hingson ** 50:46 I, when I'm visiting relatives and all that, and we're talking about anything from sports to whatever. And there's a question, within just seconds people have the answer. They haven't a lot faster than I do, because they're able to manipulate the phone a lot faster than than I can. And so they get the information. But the fact is, it's there, which is so cool.   Shayne Halls ** 51:09 Yeah, there's no more telling those stories off. There was that game two years ago, where NC State scored 90 points against like, no, let's look it up. And states never scored nine points in any game anytime. You can't find stories in what you can't you can't exaggerate things. Yeah, it's there to fact check everyone.   Michael Hingson ** 51:29 Yeah, which is, which is okay. Again, that's dealing with arrogance. And not you don't want to beat people over the head with it when they're wrong. By the same token, you can still say now, let's really go back and look at that. And you know, what really happened, which is so fun.   Shayne Halls ** 51:47 So finally, just sit back and let people tell their stories, you know, you know what, go ahead, but you're not hurt nobody tell your story. Tell your story.   Michael Hingson ** 51:55 Tell your story, your story. So I know that for me, using iPhones, and so on and doing so much. It's still slower than other people. But I believe the AI is going to enhance my experience at doing a lot of the things that I want to do on an iPhone or whatever. Well, what do you what do you see as ways that AI is going to help persons with disabilities   Shayne Halls ** 52:21 think that the AI levels the playing field, right AI, is now able to take away many of the advantages that persons may have had in the past and much easier now. AIS can be your ears, if you are deaf, they ask can be your eyes, if you are blind eye takes away the need to be in the office for those who may be you know, movement disabled, where they can't get to a location every day, you know, you now have remote jobs where you can log in remotely. So using AI in various aspects is allowing more inclusion into the workforce, right. So even when a person may not be able to go to an outing, because of a disability, movement disability, they can use AI, they can use, you know software like zoom or software in which they can log in and interact and still be a part of the team still can feel that level of belonging as if they're there. With AI, being as accessible as it is, it is now in a place to where no one has to feel like they are at a severe disadvantage in trying to participate or be a part of everyone else because of their disability.   Michael Hingson ** 54:00 I would like to see AI and technology in general progress, to allow me to be able to interact and look up information as fast as you can on your iPhone. And that doesn't exist yet. And that's a whole interface issue. The the ideal way to do it is if my brain could talk directly to the phone. Because you can type a whole lot faster by virtue of the fact that even with the gestures that Apple and the Android folks have put into the phone to allow me to interact with it, it's still going to be slower. And it's a little bit more. I don't want to say obtrusive, but it is a little bit more visible to the world. Because when I'm talking with people, they're looking stuff up on their phone while we're talking and that's a little bit harder for me to do it would be fun to be able to have that level of interface access. And I am sure it's coming.   Shayne Halls ** 54:57 I think that that level of interface that Since is not as big and as far as way as we think it, I think we're just like right around the corner. It's weird when you hear stories about people testing our brain implants. Yeah. And so while that sounds scary, until you know that in the past people had brain implants that helped them here now, right like, like, you know, these things are vastly open and very close, we're on the precipice of really having full AI interactions to where even when you've seen stuff, you've seen companies advertise or preview, persons with movement disabilities, getting AI limbs, and the limbs are reading the nerves from the brain and are able to reflect the movement that the brain is triggering, right? Like these things are happening like these, like this. We're like, we're like right there. And it's very cool. And so I think that it's not going to be very much longer, weird disabilities are more of a momentary discomfort rather than a lifetime. sentence, right? Because we've seen so many ocular transplants are happening now, where people who are blind into our lives are being given the ability to see, again, question somebody offered that to you, Mike, would you take it?   Michael Hingson ** 56:46 To actually gain eyesight? It'd be an adventure, I have to think about it, it isn't. It isn't the most crucial thing in my world. And people who can see, well, how could you not? Well, you know, how, and why should I? That's not the issue. The issue is, will it really enhance my life, if I could truly get that back? It's an adventure. And I would probably do it as an adventure, but not as a desperate need, that overwhelms everything. And I think that's the real issue. You know, with with the whole issue of AI, we will continue to see growth. Ray Kurzweil says it's going to be what 920 45, when computers and brains, basically are connected. And so we'll have direct access to all this computer stuff. And we'll see whether that happens in 22 years or not. He believes it will. That's the singularity, and I think time will tell. But we still have a ways to go to get to the point where we've developed that interface. One of the things about sighted people is, you all have spent a lot of time developing technology to help you. Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb, which really covers up your disability if not being able to see in the dark. And since 1879, people have spent a lot of time developing lighting technologies, and stable lighting technologies that make it possible for you to pretty much cover up the disability, of not being able to see in the dark until there's some major power failure, and then you nowadays can run off and try to find your phone and activate a flashlight or whatever. But it still doesn't mean that the disability isn't there. And we haven't progressed to the point of making that level of technological enhancement and advancement available to persons with disabilities, the priority is going to have to be to change that to truly create inclusion. And I think it will at some point, but it's it's still a ways off because it's still not really the priority. But the other side of it is a lot of the technology that would help us and enhance our lives, could also be something that would help other people as well. You know, I'm still amazed that while Apple built voice over the screen reader into the iPhone, that Apple isn't doing more to promote it in things like driving cars. If you get a Tesla, you still have to look at the screen to do so much stuff. Now. Of course, Elon Musk would say yeah, but with the with the ability of the Tesla to cruise down the road and yes, you have to be behind the wheel and so on but you can afford that time to look away. Why should you have to? Why not be able to just consistently stay off of her stay on looking at the road and looking what's going on around you and let a voice and vocal technologies help you more enhance your world. We haven't gotten to the point where we totally deal with that yet.   Shayne Halls ** 59:57 Yeah, I think that is a With a non disabled problem of being able to understand how to use technology, we have to enhance the lives of those who are disabled. Think Like, people tend to pay attention to words relevant to their life, and it takes special people to think about how other people's lives are being impacted. That has nothing to do with them at all. That's the more special people there are in the world, the better we all will be. I think that's definitely a thing where persons with disabilities are going to have to be the ones to make sure that they are not overlooked. And those of persons without disabilities have to be allies to go through our and use our voices to make sure that everyone's getting the equal amount of attention for the things that they need to enhance their lives.   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:07 Yeah. So what exactly does manifested dreams do?   Shayne Halls ** 1:01:13 What I was necessary to help you manifest your dreams, right. So if a company wants to be more inclusive, we can come in there and we perform cultural evaluations, we can help you put together various sort of cultural groups, employee resource groups, we can also sit down with persons who are on a on a one on one basis and help them understand their career and what they're doing and how to use AI to help their career growth.   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:41 How does AI factor into that?   Shayne Halls ** 1:01:45 AI can be used to make an admin assistant be super proficient her job. And then she can also then use the other time to volunteer for other program projects is going on at work, and be proficient at that too, by using integrating AI into the tasks that she's given. So he or she can grow and excel, and be better the organization, I can help a leader understand where the gaps are within the company who's not really promoting people properly, who has bias in their hiring. AI can be used for someone who is looking to grow as a writer, you can use AI to, to literally, you know, proofread your stuff. If you're a writing user, certainly I program live and proofread. Let it give you suggestions on how to change the tone. AIS AI can be used in many different capacities for whatever your aspect of work life is.   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:38 And so what I am assuming manifests and dreams does is it comes in and you teach people how to use these tools, and you get them hopefully comfortable using the tools but you teach them how to use the tools and incorporate them into their processes to make the whole company much more effective and efficient. I'm presuming that that's essentially what you do. Right?   Shayne Halls ** 1:03:02 On. Yeah, but that's exactly what I did. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:05 I'm with you. And I think it's it's cool that that you're doing that it's a great service. If people want to reach out to you and learn more about it and learn more about you and so on. How do they do that?   Shayne Halls ** 1:03:16 You can reach me on med so email address would be my name Shayne. So Shayne  D H S H A Y N E D H. At manifesting dreams that org. I'm on Twitter at MNIFSTD dream to manifest your dreams on Twitter. I G manifested dream manifested underscore dreams and see we're everywhere. So please reach out. Let us come in let us help you unless you know show you how to really take things to the next level.   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:52 Well, that is cool. And I think you can help a lot of people realize that this whole concept of artificial intelligence and all the things that we're seeing being developed today can really be an enhancement if we allow that to happen, which is what it's really should be about. Right?   Shayne Halls ** 1:04:13 Exactly. Don't be scared of it. Embrace it.   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:16 Yeah. Well, thanks again for being here. And I want to thank you for listening to us today. This has been a fun discussion. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please give us a five star rating wherever you're listening to our podcast, unstoppable mindset. Love it if you would do that. If you'd like to reach out and comment, I would appreciate that you can reach me at Michaelhi m i c h a e l h i at accessibe A C C E S S I B E.com. And as I said, go off to www.accessibe.com and learn about the products and learn how to maybe make your internet website more usable and inclusive. If you want to We'll explore more podcast episodes. Do that wherever you're listening to us or go to www dot Michaelhingson m i  c h a e l h i n g s o n.com/podcast. And check out all the podcasts. Of course, again, as you're listening, we certainly would appreciate a five star rating wherever you're listening to us. And Shane, both for you and for all of you listening out there if you have any thoughts of anyone else who ought to be a guest on unstoppable mindset. Love to hear that. Please reach out to me, please make introductions. We're always looking for more people to come on and have some more stimulating conversations. So again, Shayne, for you. Thanks very much. We really appreciate you being here. This has been great, hasn't it?   Shayne Halls ** 1:05:44 It has. It's been wonderful. I appreciate the experience and I look forward to talking to you again my friend.   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:53 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much.

Daniel Jenkins, President of Lutheran Braille Workers, and  Nate Paredes, CFO of Lutheran Braille Workers, join Andy to talk about how many people are blind or visually impaired worldwide and in the US, what resources like Bibles are available to the blind and visually impaired, some roadblocks to resources like these being widely available, how LBW is meeting the needs of these people, and stories of lives who have been impacted by Lutheran Braille Workers. Learn more about Lutheran Braille Workers at lbwloveworks.org.

Today on the show, Steven and Shaun talk about the subjects you've been chatting about following the last week of Double Tap episodes. First up, it was all about the SoundCurtain, and Shaun's apparent dismissiveness of the feature. However, they were both corrected that it is a feature for people who use Braille displays, and also for those who are Deaf-blind and don't want their audio to be blasting out in public while they are unaware. There was much discussion on the use of iPads. Some prefer it as a secondary device, due to the battery implications features like GPS can have on their smartphone. Listener Lena gets back in touch to share an update on the Weatherology app following a listener's concerns, and Camille tells us why the episode of Double Tap hosted by Michael Babcock and Shaun Preece was the "best one ever!" However, it is first-time contributor Jackie's emails that almost get the tears flowing as she tells the guys what Double Tap means to her. Get in touch with the Double Tappers and join the conversation: Email: feedback@doubletaponair.com Call: 1-877-803-4567 (Canada and USA) / 0204 571 3354 (UK) X (formerly Twitter): @BlindGuyTech / @ShaunShed Mastodon: @DoubleTap

From time to time, in addition to having stimulating conversations here on Unstoppable Mindset, I am asked to appear on podcasts created by others. One such podcast, Grit, Grace, and Inspiration is based out of Florida and has as its host, Kevin Lowe. I knew little about Kevin's story until he and I talked on his podcast. I knew I had to invite him to be a guest here. He graciously accepted.   Kevin is in his 30s. At the age of 17, he was diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumor. When the tumor was removed Kevin lost his eyesight.   What makes Kevin's story somewhat unique and certainly inspiring is that he chose not to give up, but to live. He will tell us about his challenges, not only related to blindness but also from other issues, and how he overcame everything.   Kevin is as unstoppable as anyone can be. He lives, thrives, and grows as you will see. I hope you enjoy our episode.     About the Guest:   In his 30s, Kevin Lowe has become a shining example of strength, resilience, and optimism. Despite losing his sight after a life-saving brain tumor surgery in 2003 at just 17 years of age, Kevin has blossomed into a Life & Business Coach and the engaging host of the popular podcast, Grit, Grace, & Inspiration. His passion for positivity, growth, and connection has touched countless lives, leaving a profound impact on all who encounter him. Embracing his new reality, Kevin found solace in his faith and the love of his family. Their unwavering support and his strong belief in the goodness of people have helped him navigate life's challenges with grace. Today, Kevin is a beacon of hope and encouragement, always acknowledging the role his faith and family have played in his journey. As a coach, Kevin's unique perspective helps him to empower his clients to overcome their own challenges and achieve their fullest potential. With a knack for forging deep connections and fostering transformative growth, he has made a lasting impression in the personal development world. Grit, Grace, & Inspiration, Kevin's podcast, is a treasure trove of motivation and personal growth. Through captivating interviews and heartfelt discussions, he shares valuable insights on resilience, perseverance, and embracing the beauty of life's challenges. Kevin's dedication to making a positive impact and uplifting others in the face of adversity truly embodies the spirit of a true leader. With his inspiring story and contagious optimism, Kevin Lowe is redefining what it means to live a life well lived – one where leaving an impact and making a difference matters more than anything else.   Ways to connect with Kevin: Website: https://GritGraceInspiration.com Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/grit-grace-inspiration-keeping-a-positive-mindset/id1511704034 Single Promo Link: (1 Page with links to my podcast on all platforms) http://ListenAnywhere.today     About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes     Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:20 Hi there, and we're glad that you decided to join us today on unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet and whatever else comes along. But that's probably in the unexpected part. I want to really thank you for being here. Really glad that you're with us. And hoping that you're having a good day, our guest today. My colleague in crime and conversation today is Kevin Lowe. And I was on a podcast that Kevin did. And I told him that the cost for me being on his podcast was that he had to come on unstoppable mindset. And he bought into that so we suckered him. So you know, what more can you ask for Kevin? Welcome. How are you?   Kevin Lowe ** 02:02 I am glad to be here, man. I'm glad to be here. And then to be honest, for a minute, I thought, oh, my gosh, I have to cancel this interview right away. But then now I guess I can afford the cost of having to be on your show as well.   Michael Hingson ** 02:16 You'll suffer through it. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Well, we're we're really glad that you're here. And it's always fun. And I understand that where you are down in Florida. You're having typical summer Florida sunshine. Yeah, yeah. California sunshine, right.   Kevin Lowe ** 02:33 Yeah, sunshine with a mix of thunderstorms. So yes, it never   Michael Hingson ** 02:38 rains in Southern California. But here we are. Well, let's start with the way I love to start. Tell us a little bit about you growing up what life was like and just all about Kevin, and we'll go from there.   Kevin Lowe ** 02:54 Yeah. So you know, I really have a really blessed childhood. Honestly. You know, I grew up I was born and raised here in Ormond Beach, Florida. Which for those who are a little bit more familiar with Daytona Beach, Florida, which is about an hour east of Orlando grew up right here in this little beachside town and had a great childhood grew up riding dirt bikes, and four wheelers hunting and fishing and, and all the things you know, my biggest loves was was riding dirt bikes. And literally on my fourth birthday, I got my first dirt bike and it was so little that it even have training wheels on it. And my my my parents and stuff, they would get a kick out of it, because I'd be riding around the yard and the training wheel would hit a pile and I topple over.   Michael Hingson ** 03:50 And button to the ends. Of course, yeah.   Kevin Lowe ** 03:54 Well, what Well, of course, you know, but, you know, it was it was really good. And that really, you know, the dirt bike, I don't think they had any clue what that birthday present would do. But really that would become my life for my childhood was was riding dirt bikes. It was something I did with my dad. And so we would go camping in the woods for a week at a time doing nothing but writing every single day. And and coming up in my teenage years when I turned 16 Of course the the love for dirt bikes turned to the love of the idea of getting a track you know, when I turned 16 And and I had that I did indeed I got a it was a Ford. What was it was a 96 Ford F 154 by four so was was lifted with big mud tires. And it was it was literally a 16 year old boy's dream truck and you know fuel economy out the window You know, practicality, not a bit of it. It was just big, loud and could go in the mud and, you know, have some fun.   Michael Hingson ** 05:10 And the other side of that, of course, is though, with a truck like that, and being in high school didn't impress the girls.   Kevin Lowe ** 05:17 Well, well, of course it impresses. Yeah. Why, of course it especially when, when you'd give anybody a ride in the tract, of course, they would get scared to death. Because when you chuck that high, as you're making turns, they think you're gonna topple over. And you know, and so, it gives that gives everybody a whole lot of fun, you know, but, so that was life, you know, was was great. Now, I did have, you know, some different issues, I would, I started to call them health issues, but we didn't even really know that they were, quote, unquote, health issues. It was just problems I had had like headaches, I always had headaches, literally, from the time I was a toddler, and they were horrible migraine headaches. around kindergarten, I think it was I failed the eye test at school. And so I had to get glasses. And so I started wearing glasses and had the headaches and, and going up through those like middle school years and stuff, my mom would always tell my pediatrician, you know, you don't understand he drinks more than any human you'll ever see. You know, I mean, I can remember my grandmother, my Nana, she'd picked me up from school, I'd come home, and I would down an entire picture of tea, you know, and then go on to you know, glasses of water could never drink enough. And all of these were signs of something that we had no idea about. And coming up in my junior year of high school. So So now I've been driving for a year I work at Publix as a bag, boy, you know, things are going good. But here I am 17 years old, turned 17, about two months after the start of school. And yeah, I'm still this little kid, I hadn't started growing. I'm only five foot three, still having these headaches. And finally my mom and my grandmother had enough and they're like, listen, something has to be done. And so they got me switched to a new doctor. And that new doctor, he was just another family doctor, but he took one look at me will look at my chart and was like there's something not right. And so that would kind of put forth this kind of just whirlwind of an adventure we would embark on. And that was discovering that I had a brain tumor. And my mom got the call from from the endocrinologist on a Friday evening to tell her that the results of the MRI came in, and that it was worse than he ever expected that it was indeed a brain tumor. It was a cranial Ferengi Oma. So thankfully, it was non cancerous. But literally, they said that I had six months to live if this tumor was not removed. And so it had completely encased my pituitary gland, which your pituitary controls all of your body's hormones. That's why it wasn't growing. You know, that's why I wasn't going through puberty, all of those things. It was also in the crosshairs of my optic nerve, and had begun pressing against my carotid artery. And so it was horrible news, it was devastating. But we were assured by the leading pediatric neurosurgeon in the country, we were assured by him that it's no problem. He's like, we're gonna go in, we're going to remove the tumor, you'll be back to school in about three to four weeks, and you'll continue on with life. And, you know, I often joke and say that at that time, the most upsetting part of it was that he told me I would not be able to ride my four wheeler for six months. And so, you know, but life continued, you know, life was going to continue and I had fun with it. I named my tumor Bob Bob the tumor. And so we had a going away Bob party with me and my whole family.   Michael Hingson ** 09:35 And did you have siblings?   Kevin Lowe ** 09:38 I did a sister. Okay. Yeah, I have a sister My sister is five years older than me. And so yeah, so I mean it was was really set up to be okay and then you know, I'm, I'm back in high school telling all my buddies you know, haha, see you later suckers. Enjoy trigonometry. I'm out of here, you know, and we go in The surgery was October 28 2003 was surgery day. And I tell people that on that day my, my life stopped. And a new life began. Um, nothing went right from that point forward. I had the surgery, they, the doctor came out, told my family that everything, you know, went great that the surgery was a success. And that it was I mean, the tumor was removed, it saved my life. But I believe it was maybe the second day or third day after surgery. I'm still in intensive care unit. You know, I have no memory of any time after being wheeled into the operating room. My memory doesn't pick up until months later. So all I know about this time is the stories that have been told by my family and, and my mom is the one who always tells the story that she was in the room at this particular moment. And the doctor, the neurosurgeon had made his rounds. And he's in the room with my mom. And he was was talking to me, and apparently I was very combative. And apparently I had one of those pulse ox machines on my toe. Well, apparently I kept ripping the thing off. So the doctor, he was pointing to the pulse ox machine, and apparently it had a baby a little blinking red light on it. And he said to me, he's like, Kevin, do you see this light? You don't touch this? Do you see the light? Well, my mom said that I said, No, I don't see anything. At that moment, he looked at my mom, my mom was at him. And he walked over and he flipped on the light switch. And he started flipping it on and off on orphans like Kevin, do you see the light? And I said, No, no, it's just black. It's just black. And it was at that moment that they found out that I couldn't see. So I came out of that surgery to be left completely blind. So I have no light perception, no shapes or shadows, nothing of the sort. I also lost my ability to smell had short term memory loss for oh gosh, at least a good like six months after surgery. And literally just began this this whole new life. And, you know, for a long, long time, you know, I thought it was really the blindness that was my greatest disability. Well, I came to realize over the years that it's really more than the blindness, it's the effects that the tumor had on my my endocrine system or with my pituitary gland. Being now paying hypo pit where I have to take all these medications to try to replace and do what the body's supposed to do naturally, which is always a very poor alternative. And, you know, it leaves me kind of struggling a lot of times, but I learned to to continue, you learn to adapt, you keep moving forward. And even though things were hard, I kept pushing forward. And I never went back to school, the rest of that junior year. Instead, I would have my mom would drop me off at my, my Nana's house in the morning, she would go on to work. And I had a group of teachers who would come it was part of a program called hospital homebound. And I had Mrs. Scott who taught me my school subjects. I had Mrs. David who taught me how to read Braille and how to use a talking computer. And then I had Mrs. Toth who taught me how to start getting around with a cane. And those three women were literally like three angels who entered our lives. And they were amazing. And they were so good with me now. Luckily, I was really good in school, I was already pretty much set up to graduate. So that was made life easier. Especially because, you know, like I said I had short term memory loss. So, you know, here I would be learning about school subjects. They would leave and I'd say to my Nana, when is Muscat coming? Every round and I was like, wow, I can tell that that just really sank in real well what we just learned. But ultimately what happened is is through it all. I was able to make it back to school for the start of my senior year. And I just Just went back for one class a day, we had a block scheduling. So it was four classes a day instead of the normal six or seven. And so I went back for just one class a day. And the rest I did back at home with the same same teachers. Ultimately, I did what I had a goal to do. Now, I hated school, never liked it would rather be sick with the with the flu and get to stay home, they go to school, yet, for some reason, from the time I became blind, I kept telling everybody that I just want to be able to graduate with my class, I just want to be able to graduate with with my class. And I did it. I literally walked across the stage of my high school graduation. And I think that was a pivotal moment for me. I don't think that I, I know I didn't realize that at the time. And matter of fact, I didn't realize it till years and years later. I think how impactful that moment was, but for myself, my faith is a big part of my my story. And, and I believe in all of my heart that God was the one who put that desire to graduate on my heart. And that God wanted to show me that even in this new life, even though things are different, even though things may be difficult, you can still do great things.   Michael Hingson ** 16:31 I'll bet you got lots of cheers when you walked across that stage.   Kevin Lowe ** 16:35 I did. I did. It was pretty darn awesome.   Michael Hingson ** 16:39 Yeah, because you obviously went through a lot and people were aware of it and sensitive enough to it that when you walked across that stage, it must have been a wonderful thing.   Kevin Lowe ** 16:49 Yeah, yeah, it was it was. It was pretty cool. It was it was pretty cool. I must admit,   Michael Hingson ** 16:55 yeah. What kind of a grade point average did you have? Um, I   Kevin Lowe ** 16:59 can't remember what I graduated with. But I was always on a roll. I mean, I was always right up there. And like the, you know, 3.8 You know, your GPA. So? Yeah, well,   Michael Hingson ** 17:11 so you graduated. So? That must have been? What in like, 88   Kevin Lowe ** 17:18 Oh, goodness, no, that was not 85 2005   Michael Hingson ** 17:20 I miscalculated. Sorry about that. How old are you? That's right. You had a tumor surgery in 2000. Late 2003. So yeah, okay. Yeah. I was just listening to the story. All right. So you're an old fellow. So when 85 You graduated? And, obviously, well, what happened to the truck?   Kevin Lowe ** 17:48 So so my dad, my dad kept my truck for, for a while, I can't remember how long he kept it. And he, you know, it was so unexpected. No one ever expected this to happen. I mean, it wasn't even in the cards. And so, I mean, it took it took a toll on on not just me, but my whole family. And for a long time. I wasn't the only one who kept thinking that this was temporary, that there's going to be a doctor, there's going to be a surgery or procedure, a medicine, something somewhere in the world that's going to fix me that I'm gonna get my sight back. And my dad, he, he kept my truck for a while and, and he would drive it and pick me up in it. And he always told me that he was keeping it for me. And finally, the one day I, I told him, I said, Dad, I said, Listen, I said, if the day comes that I can see again, I want a brand new truck. I said, get rid of this thing, sell it, let somebody else get to enjoy it. And then, you know, I told him, I said, You don't gotta keep it from me. Because I told him I said, trust me, five, get the marillac miraculous recovery that I'm looking for. I'm going down to Ford and getting a brand new one. So there you go.   Michael Hingson ** 19:20 What did they decide actually happened that caused your blindness? So you had the surgery and they felt it was successful? I would think that they were a little bit surprised that you suddenly couldn't see or were they?   Kevin Lowe ** 19:35 So yes, um, so apparently, I guess my optic nerve had already begun to atrophy. And there's a consensus that what happened is when the tumor was removed, that it caused a trauma shock to the optic nerve. Another thing that is And I've been told about was that they feel as though the optic nerve had been tunneling blood through the tumor, it had basically become, you know, part of it. And so again, when that tumor was removed, it kind of cut off that blood supply, it caused trauma to the nerve, causing it, causing it to atrophy, causing it to die. As I said, my Oh, go ahead, go ahead. Um, you know, the biggest thing has always just been is I remember in all the, the after MRIs that I kept having, because when they took the tumor out, there had to be this one little piece left. And so I kept having MRIs afterwards to be sure that that wasn't growing back. And it didn't, it continued to die off. And, and I can remember in every office visit, I go into the, the pediatric endocrinology or the pediatric neurosurgeons office, and if I can remember that man, he always just said he, he would sit there, and he would literally cry with being my mom, this man who's just at the top of the top in terms of the medical system, this leading, leading pediatric neurosurgeon to the country. And yet he would sit there and cry, and he would say, everything is there, everything is intact. I see from the results, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to see. And I always told him, it was a God's plan. I don't know why either. But I came to realize that, for whatever reason, it was a God's plan. And that's, that's what I truly believe.   Michael Hingson ** 21:52 So you graduated high school, which clearly was also part of God's plan. And then what did you do?   Kevin Lowe ** 22:01 So the years after graduating, where a lot of just honestly learning to kind of live again, you know, I tell people that, you know, I was, in an essence, almost, I felt like I was brought back down to a child, you know, here I was, you know, a quote unquote, child when it happened, but I had independence, you know, I had my own car could come and go as I wanted to do what I wanted, I was independent. And, you know, I lost that. And, again, just the health issues that I was dealing with, with, with the surgery and everything, it was a lot. And so a lot of those years after were spent at my Nana's house, like I said, my mom, you know, my dad, they'd be working and, and I would stay at Nana's. And while they are, though, I did some classes, thank goodness, where I live, right near Daytona Beach, is we have a huge blind center there, have a division of Blind Services Center for the visually impaired, have, I believe the world's largest braille book library, all these resources that before this happened, never even knew existed. And so I was so fortunate that I mean, it was so easy for me to go in and take classes and get help. And so, so I started doing some different classes, learning more about technology, doing stuff, I would end up going to our local community college. And that, that was short lived. As I said, I wasn't a fan of school to begin with now make it a little bit more difficult. And have me trying to line up aims to be in class with me, as notetakers was a total just train wreck. The aides wouldn't show up, or if they didn't show up. They were talking in class and doing everything other than than actually helping me. And so, you know, I would end up having to literally do classes with, with my family members. I mean, thank goodness, I had a cousin my same age who was in college, so I made sure to sign up for some of the same classes she was in, so that she could be my aide. And it was just, it was crazy. And finally, I just I'd had enough and so I'm like, Okay, I don't leave this is the route for me. And, and, and so I can't remember what really much happened like after that, but I just kept trying to live and not really sure what I was going to do. Like I said, I mean, it was such a blow because everything that I had ever thought that I might have wanted to do as a career with my life was was now out no more. Every, every just bit of me was just torn down. As I tell people that the only two things that I had, were were my faith and my family. And literally everything else I felt like was taken from me for a long time. And then finally, one day, I got asked to take part in a job readiness program that was offered through the local center for the visually impaired. And it was said that at the end of this job readiness program, they would set you up with an internship at you know, whatever business that you know, maybe interested you. So I'm like, Okay, I was a little apprehensive, but what I had signed up to do it, what the heck, yeah, exactly what the heck, let's give it a shot. So I was in there. To be quite honest, the job readiness program was a little silly. I felt like some of the stuff was a little Elementary. But I had a good time, because I made friend with two old guy who were in there. One of them, which was a guy from Puerto Rico, I think is where he originally was from, was living here in Florida as a plumber. So we talked all about, you know, handyman stuff. And another guy was in there was like a former gangster out of New York. And he was a total character. And so the three of us would just kind of sit in the classroom and have a good time together. And at the end of it, though, and this job readiness program, I had the opportunity to get an internship at a job. And so sitting down with them, you know, trying to figure out what my interests were, I had an interest in travel, and radio. And so traveling was something that I did all growing up into love to travel. And I realized that even after becoming blind, that I still love to travel, maybe even more so because, you know, no longer can I just watch the TV and see the sights. Now I actually have to go places and experience though. And so, lo and behold, they set me up with an internship at a local travel agency, and an internship at a local am a radio station. And in so I began those internships and oh, my gosh, I love them both. Both at the travel agency, I got to literally gotten to start working, helping the owners of this company, you know, we were booking cruises and working with, with, you know, all their clients, which they specialized in seniors, they had their, what was it called sensational senior socials. So, so it's all these old people coming in, and they were so sweet. And, and so I was doing that. But at the same time, I'm working at the am radio station. So I would have to be there from 6am to 9am. I worked on the morning drive, and they didn't really, they didn't really know what to do with me. Because at first they put me in a little side booth and, and I'm on my computer, and I'm supposed to find like local news stories for us to talk about, well, soon enough, they realized, let's just bring Kevin in the studio. So I literally sat in the studio on the morning drive with the host of the show, the guy Dave who worked the controls, and then a co host. And literally, I got to be part of the show. And so, you know, they'd be talking about mostly political issues and stuff and and I always had an opinion on something and and I can remember the the host he would he'd see me over the corner kind of chuckle and laugh at and you Kevin you got some input on this and you know, I'm so I pipe in and be on the radio show. And I loved it. Absolutely loved it. And so though react Yeah, it was great. It was great. But into the internship are both places. They went nowhere.   Michael Hingson ** 29:11 They went nowhere. Nowhere before we go on how was your your Braille so you did learn braille and so on. How How did you end do you do it Braille because you know, you didn't learn it as a very young child.   Kevin Lowe ** 29:24 So I learned braille really quick, really fast. My my teacher even told me that I learned braille faster than anyone she had ever had. And so I did really good with Braille. But then, of course, if you don't use it, you lose it. And so welcome technology, good or bad. I stopped using braille. And I mean, today I know my grade one Braille but the contracted form, you know, headache, so   Michael Hingson ** 29:56 yes,   Kevin Lowe ** 29:57 yeah, of course.   Michael Hingson ** 29:59 But you did travel? Um, well, you you were able to get around and and how did you get like to the travel agency into the radio station every day?   Kevin Lowe ** 30:07 Yeah, those were primarily I did primarily, you know, a family member. Generally, it was one of my grandparents, either my grandfather, the radio station was right near his work. So he would drop me off in the morning. And then my grandma would pick me up, or I would also use transport, like service like, I don't know, we didn't even have like, Uber and stuff back then. But we had some different transport. Yeah, yeah. But so those internships ended in. I'm back at square one. I'm like, What the heck do I do. And so I come to find out about this idea of starting a home based travel agency. And so that's what I did. So January of 2013, I opened my own home based business, it was called better days travel. And I grew and operated my own home based travel agency. And I did that up until 2020. And I loved it. Now, I won't say that I felt like it was probably what I was, you know, maybe say, quote unquote, meant to do. But I didn't know what else I was supposed to do. And I knew that I enjoyed it. And I enjoyed getting to, for one thing, get to grow a business. You know, I grew up with, with my parents, both being entrepreneurs owning their own businesses. And so to have this opportunity to get to be an owner of my own business as well, operating right out of my home was amazing for me, what kind of businesses did they have. So my, my dad, he had when I was was really young, he had a big massive construction company with all kinds of employees and stuff, he then downsized had a bearing shops, and so the ball bearings, bolt saw that the hoses and, and you know, all kinds of different stuff like that. And then he ended up switching over to just operating himself with a bulldozer, so he's a heavy equipment operator. Then my mom, my mom is had had the whole time as a, as I was a teenager, she had her own property management company. And so, so I grew up with him, you know, he said with having their own businesses, and so getting to start my own business was was really something that was amazing for me, and I got to build this brand, build this company. And like I said, I saw I really did really well with that rockin and rollin up until 2020. And, you know, of course, you know, the story hasn't 2020 was going to be my best year on record. And then, of course, March of 2020 came, and everything fell apart.   Michael Hingson ** 33:06 So I'm curious as a travel agent, not so my wife was a travel agent for a number of years. She was a travel agent when we got married. So while you are a travel agent, and I don't know whether it happened as an intern, but certainly once you built your own home business, were you ever able to go on any fam trips and go to look at places?   Kevin Lowe ** 33:26 Yes, yes, I did. I did. Yes. Probably one of the most impactful trips that I've ever been on was was one of these trips that you're talking about, that was with another guy who I had been working with in the in the travel industry, and he invited me to go with him on a fam trip to Jamaica. And so it was my first time traveling out of the country. I had been on cruises before, but this was my first time like actually flying somewhere out of the country. And it was my first time traveling without a family member with me. And so, you know, but I I you know, had a really great relationship with this with this guy. And so I jumped on the opportunity. And so we went to Jamaica, and oh my gosh, we got to tour the whole island. We went to all the different resorts. The resort we stayed It was absolutely incredible. Which one Had we stayed at? We were at. Oh, my goodness. What is the name of Moon Moon Palace? Yeah, yeah, it was a Yeah, what is it? Yeah, Moon Moon Grand Palace, something like that. So I know that they have a they have a same kind of property over in Mexico. And I think that's called like moon and I think the one in Jamaica has maybe called a moon grant or something.   Michael Hingson ** 34:51 My my wife took a fam trip to hedonism, which is I think, in Jamaica was yeah, some sandals invited me along. But we did go on some some fam trips together she let me come on. Yeah, a few of them, which was really great. And then we we did do cruising. Yeah had some opera she actually went to cruise because she had booked a number of cruises on what was at that time sit Mar, which became part of princess but she had some limited options because being in a wheelchair the early days of well, and I wouldn't say early days of cruising, but back in the 80s, and so on. There weren't a lot of accessibility options on ships. And that did change over time. But you know, we did go even on a ship that was inaccessible, the fare sky was a Sigmar ship. And there were like six inch sills, you had to go over to get into the cabins and so on. But again, since I was with her, then I could wheel her over those. And then the next ship we we were on was, I think called the Fair sea. And that one actually had an accessible room. And so that was one of the reasons we got to be on that ship. And to do the fam trip on that, because it was totally accessible. It was great. Yeah,   Kevin Lowe ** 36:12 yeah, absolutely. And I tell you, I mean, cruising, I fell in love with cruising, you know, with my family, and then, but it's just traveling in general. Experiencing just the world, the people, that's what made me fall in love with Jamaica, was the people. And I'm the person who, who I remember the day on that trip to Jamaica, where we were touring, all these different resorts we are out, like, all day long, well, well, there was a couple of them that I really didn't have any interest in, you know, for one reason or another. And so, I had made friends with our driver that day. And so I, you know, told a couple of times, I'm like, Hey, I'm just gonna sit in here, you know, and me and him, and we would talk and I learned all about, you know, their culture and how they pressure cook, go, and, you know, all this stuff. And, and, you know, that's what did when, when I would book travel is that is I tried to get through to my clients was booking travel to experience a destination and not just going to see it. You know, and so yeah, that was   Michael Hingson ** 37:22 why I asked the question about taking a fam trip, because yes, that way, you really had the experience.   Kevin Lowe ** 37:28 Exactly, absolutely.   Michael Hingson ** 37:31 So 2020 came, March of 2020 came, and those little things from wherever they came from, came along and invaded all of our world. Yes, so what? So what happened to you, then what, what did you do? Because that clearly had an impact on you? And what you were doing?   Kevin Lowe ** 37:55 Yes, yes,   Michael Hingson ** 37:56 unless you can sell a lot of virtual travel. But   Kevin Lowe ** 38:00 exactly, well, well, it didn't need so. So as I had said, that was gonna be my best year on record. And yet, inside of one week, everything disappeared. All the bookings cancelled. And it was at that point, you know, we're all now in lockdown, were in quarantine. And I didn't know what I was going to do. You know, of course, none of us did. We didn't know how long it was going to last we thought it was temporary. And so you know, luckily, I had built you know, this amazing, you know, community in the travel industry. And, and so we're just all trying to rally each other together. Well, finally, I decided, You know what, it's, you know, what, this is the perfect opportunity for me to finally start that YouTube channel I've been thinking about. And so I get my sister together, and Mike. And so start going on Amazon and start ordering equipment to start, you know, being able to film YouTube videos. Well, finally, the one day it kind of hits me as I'm starting to order stuff, I'm starting to get stuff in the mail. Is it just kind of had that that light bulb moment was, Kevin, if Tiffany is not here to help you. You can't do this on your own. You're not going to be good filming yourself walking around doing whatever. And so I kind of had that moment like, Oh, crap, what am I going to do? And, and my YouTube, you know, stardom, you know, is just dashed. And so I'm telling my sister about it. And she says, you know, why don't you do a podcast and I'm like, What is a podcast? So she tells me and I'm like, Tiffany, that sounds like a really lame alternative to a YouTube channel.   Michael Hingson ** 39:47 You know, little did I   Kevin Lowe ** 39:49 know, I start listening to podcasts. And it didn't take long for me to realize, Kevin, you just found your space the world of Audio, where everybody who listens to podcasts gets to be blind. So now I will see the podcast about how to start a podcast. And so low Behold, May of 2020, I launched a podcast. And I called, it was called the lowdown on life and travel. Because at the time, I still thought that I was going to be a travel agent. And so the podcast was going to talk about me, as a blind travel agent, it also just focusing on travel, keeping the dream alive for people is what my intention was. And so I kept running with that. And I'm starting to release episodes. And you know, I mean, if you go back and you listen to any of your beginning ones, now, you cringe like nobody's business, and you think to yourself, how did I ever think that was any good? Yeah, at the time you thought, Man, this is this is how to really good? Well, I kept getting really good feedback. And as I was going along, I kept getting really great feedback, especially the interviews I was doing. And so 2020 is marching along. And we're coming into, I guess, probably like the fall of 2020. And I'm starting to get people inquiring about travel again. And I didn't know what this podcasting journey was going to do, where it was going to leave. But all I knew was at this moment, I didn't want to book another trip, to then have to cancel it. And so I found myself kind of turning people away. And then I realized, you know what, I have to have to do something different. I don't want to do travel. And so the podcast, I kept having these interviews with people, and I was having these really in depth interviews. And I think by this point, I had rebranded the podcast for the first time. So it went from the lowdown on life and travel to the lowdown with Kevin Allah. And I was focusing on just, you know, inspiring stories and, and, you know, personal growth, development, stuff like that. And so, I'm having these interviews with people. And I keep having people tell me, at the end of our interview, that I asked them questions that no one ever asked them, or that I see part to their story that no one else ever sees before, or all these different little things like that I even had one lady told me, she said, the only person who's ever fit those two pieces together before, you know, was my psychiatrist. And I kept having people talk to me about, you know, you should really think about being your coach. Well, again, kind of like podcasting. I had no idea what coaching even once, and only coaching, I never heard of what's the PE coach. And so I started kind of learning about that. And times marching on, we're now obviously, on moving down the months. And I don't even know what year it was, I guess, now 2021, I started exploring some different options, didn't really know the coaching thing, was doing some different little work with the computer and didn't really sure what was happening. And then then things finally kind of came together. And I finally realized what I loved. And it was being able to work with people talk with people, just like I do on the podcast. But now I actually really get to help them, not just interview them. And so it led to me being a transformation coach, which is what I do today.   Michael Hingson ** 43:59 So tell me a little bit more about what it means to be a transformation coach.   Kevin Lowe ** 44:04 Yeah, so being transformation. Yeah, of course. So the biggest thing would be being a transformation coach is working with people who are kind of at that point in their life when when they want something more, they want to make a change, but they're scared to do it. They're maybe thinking about what lies on the other side of turning that page, starting a new chapter in life, and they're just haven't done it yet. And so I get to work with my clients. They're mostly women, who I work with. And, you know, as I say, I helped them to, to create, to embrace and ultimately step into their next best chapter of life, helping them to transform into this new life that they're wanting this new just stage of life. And that's that's what I do as a coach   Michael Hingson ** 45:02 And so have you have you seen some great successes at having done that love to learn, you know more about it and kind of hear some stories if you can about what, what you've been able to accomplish and so on with it.   Kevin Lowe ** 45:16 Yeah, absolutely. So, so I have had some really great experiences with clients, I developed a coaching program. So I don't just do like, say, one off sessions or whatever, because I did that at first. And then I realized that it really just doesn't serve the client to work with them one time, and then you know, them go on about life. So I do a three month coaching program, with each each client. And yeah, I've had some great success. As I said, most of my clients, if not, I think all of my clients so far have all been women, all women who are kind of later in life who are wanting to maybe explore a career change, that's most of them who they're in this season of life where they've, they've been through some stuff that has kind of opened their eyes, and where they just kind of want more out of life. And so helping them to realize that recognize it, and to see what needs to change in their life, for them to find that fulfillment. And a lot of times that is a career change. Or sometimes it doesn't have to be, it's just adding something to their life, that fulfills them, they have their work that you know, brings in the money and that they enjoy. But now adding on maybe it's a hobby, or maybe it's starting a you know, organization or taking up a craft making a side business. Something though that draws on their own experience. And you know, and that's, that's the biggest thing is helping them to really find fulfillment in this kind of new chapter of life that they're creating.   Michael Hingson ** 47:03 And one of the beauties of doing what you do, I assume is that you can do it virtually they don't need to come to where you are. Exactly, which clearly has to help. So what what kind of, you know, you're a blind guy, which is great. And so I'll ask this sort of principle, but what kind of technology do you use? How is technology helping you to do your job better?   Kevin Lowe ** 47:30 Yeah, so I, I'm a JAWS user. So I have   Michael Hingson ** 47:34 people who don't know, JAWS is what's called a screen reader. It's a piece of software that verbalizes whatever comes across the screen,   Kevin Lowe ** 47:41 exactly. So I rely on Jaws, which is installed on on my just normal Lenovo laptop. And then and then between that, and my iPhone, you know, with VoiceOver, literally, I feel like you can take on the world with with those two, two combined, you know, and so I mean, literally, can run my full business right from between my phone and my computer, the entire podcast that I produce, which, you know, I mean, I have a habit that goes out twice a week, every week, is literally what used to be a walk in closet is now a full blown recording studio. And, and that's the technology I use, you know, it's funny, after I went blind, I remember getting all different kinds of equipment, stuff that we would order or stuff that we would get through, you know, Blind Services, all these different things. Well, now with like the iPhone, oh my gosh, like, I just have a couple of apps on my phone, and it can do all kinds of stuff. And it just It blows my mind. Technology, as it advances is really, really incredible how, how now literally, with one app on my phone, you know, I can tell what color my shirt is, or I can, you know, read a barcode off the, you know, cat of soup to see what kind of soup it is. I mean, it's really fascinating. And, you know, technology is one of those things that you know, I I was never a big fan of say technology, you know, growing up, which I mean, I think I was blessed to the fact that there really wasn't, quote unquote, technology when I grew up. But you know, I never saw myself as somebody who, who would be so into technology, but becoming blind in with the advancements of technology. It's literally kind of a lifeline where it makes such a world of difference. And I mean, you know, it's it's just really awesome.   Michael Hingson ** 49:43 Well, I love to talk with people about technology, you bring up a very interesting thing. And one of the things that we talk about a lot on this podcast and that I do with people in general is that we have such a wrong concept of the term disability because Disability should not anymore mean a lack of ability. Disability is a characteristic. And I think you would probably agree with me if we discuss sighted people that they have a disability to, namely, that their disability is light dependence, they gotta have like affection. Yes. And Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb in 1879. That was, as the Americans with Disabilities Act would say, a reasonable accommodation to help light dependent people be able to see in the dark. And the reality is that there is so much technology around lighting and so on, that disability is mostly covered up, but it doesn't change the fact that it's there. And so, I try to help people put blindness in perspective, because we don't have that problem. And so we don't worry about that. We use other kinds of technologies. But the fact is, we all use technologies to mitigate the disabilities or carry some of the characteristics that we have. And so it's no different for you than anyone else. And I do love the fact. And I agree with you that the more you can simplify and not use too many things, the better it is, there are several blind people who I know will talk about going to school into college in the 80s, and well into the 90s and early 2000s. And we're Braille readers, but also use technologies for other things. And it was almost like you had to carry this, at least this big, huge rolling suitcase, to carry all the technology around with you. And now, of course, as you said, an iPhone with VoiceOver, which is the screen reader that Apple builds into it, unless you use an Android phone. And then there are a couple of options for that. But the fact is that the technology is going to get simpler, and there are things that we can do that we never thought that we could do before. But the reality is that technology is making that more possible to do. Yeah. And that's what we really want. So we we continue to grow with that. And we do what we have to do. So what is your podcast today?   Kevin Lowe ** 52:22 Yeah, so the podcast is called Grit, grace and inspiration. And basically, the whole point of the podcast is to be that place of of inspiration, of encouragement of empowerment, trying to remind people that you're not the only one who's going through stuff, that we're all going through stuff, and we can all get through it. And so I get to feature interviews with, with as I call them, the real the real superheroes of the world, the people who are overcoming life's challenges to keep living life. And I just find so much pleasure, so much joy and getting to share their stories with the world. And you know, and so so I do that. So, every week on Tuesday, I released an interview, and then every Thursday, I released a solo episode, in which, you know, it's just just be talking to just you. And both of those are related to a lot of just mindset stuff, or some different tactics to help somebody overcome some problems. Or it might be something that was kind of related to that week's interview, something that I wanted to expand on. So yeah, yeah, like so the podcast is called a grit, grace and inspiration. And I mean, I'm getting ready. At the time of this recording, I'm getting ready to release my 200th episode. So   Michael Hingson ** 53:55 that's pretty exciting. When did you start it?   Kevin Lowe ** 53:57 So this is the same podcast, I started back in May of 2020. So so it's been three years, and it was rebranded twice.   Michael Hingson ** 54:06 But it's 200. From back in 2020. Yes, yeah. Cool. Yeah. So do you do all your own behind the scenes work, like editing and all that sort of stuff with it?   Kevin Lowe ** 54:15 No, sir. No, I, I, when I started the podcast, the editing thing was, was something at first that I was trying to figure out, and I kept trying some different, you know, programs. And I'm like, This is so frustrating. I'm not going to do it. And so I went on to Fiverr Have you ever used Fiverr? I have. Okay, so I went on Fiverr. And I searched for, you know, podcast editor. I found podcast editor. And I still wish to work with her today. It's so so as I say that, you know, I record the podcast, and then she makes it sound good. So   Michael Hingson ** 54:55 we got to meet through a company called amplify you and Debbie who Is there their support person, and they also do podcasts work, so I actually work with them. But I started out when we began unstoppable mindset. They did the hosting, and so on. But I tried to edit the podcasts. And I use a digital audio workstation or editor called Reaper, which actually is very accessible. But as you would attest, it's time consuming. And I decided it really didn't make sense. And so using their services anyway, they did the editing and all that makes it a whole lot better. And so I don't have to worry about it. I do rely on using decent equipment for doing the recording. What kind of microphone do you use?   Kevin Lowe ** 55:47 Yeah, so I use a with the Rode RODE Procaster Oh, okay. Yeah. And then that goes into I have the interface of the Focusrite vo caster as my interface, which I mentioned it specifically because I can't remember what the what the interface I was using before it because this is an XLR microphone. So can't plug right into the computer. So I have the interface? Well, I have to say that the focus right vo caster is so amazing. Because it has tactile buttons on the device that are super easy to use nice tactile knobs. And then it's app that installs on your computer works with JAWS. And so I'm able to easily navigate through it and change the different settings. Be sure that my mic level was all set, which literally just means like, it's like hallelujah, it's accessible. And it works. And   Michael Hingson ** 56:46 it has gotten more accessible over this past year. They've done a lot of work to improve the interface, which is great.   Kevin Lowe ** 56:52 Yes, yeah. So yeah. And like you said, Man, I just I the podcasting thing yet, you know, I just fell in love with it. And I fell in love with it. For the simple fact that I'm like, if it wasn't for having a podcast, I never even would have known that all of these amazing people exist in the world. Yeah, you know, and I feel like I feel like in the world today, we're so inundated with, with drama with trauma with everything we hear is the doom and gloom. And to be quite honest, it's easy to feel like the world is falling apart, and there's no hope anymore. And so when you instead get to fill your day, by talking to people who are amazing, it just reminds you that there is hope in the world, that everybody is not out to get you that everybody's not killing one another, that there's some amazing people in this world. And you know, and I say, you know, the, when I knew that this was the right thing for me to do was what I kept finding myself being in different interviews. And I kept finding myself, just pray in thanking God for putting me in this position. That's what I knew. I'm like, Kevin, I don't know where this path is gonna lead. But you're on the right path. So keep following it.   Michael Hingson ** 58:14 So there are a lot of coaches in the world, what makes you different and a coach that people should relate to and use?   Kevin Lowe ** 58:23 Yeah, so you know, I think my biggest thing is the fact of, I just, I'm just a human, I'm just a friend. And that's the kind of people who I like to work with is the people who don't view me as a coach view me as the best friend who doesn't know you isn't judging you. It's just there for you, to help you to be your guide. And, you know, I mentioned that, you know, I work primarily with women. Well, you know, a lot of people asked me, Well, why is that? And they said, Well, I feel like I finally figured out what the purpose was of me growing up with a older sister and, and a single mom for a lot of the time and, and watching nothing but chick flicks and Ella men movies and hanging out with all of their girlfriends. Obviously, it was for something and I came to realize it's because it may be a guy who realizes that I'm able to just work with women better than I am with it. And, and my style of coaching I think does lends its hand better to you know, working with women where we're able to just kind of really go deep and figure out the underlying issues of what's going on what they really want, and, you know, work together to get them to where they want to be.   Michael Hingson ** 59:42 So do you have a significant other in your life?   Kevin Lowe ** 59:45 I don't, I don't, the closest thing I have is my 10 pound Shibu named Sophia.   Michael Hingson ** 59:52 Well, that's something to work toward. That's   Kevin Lowe ** 59:54 a yes. Oh, trust me. Yes, yes, yes. Yes. And that would be that would be amazing. Yeah. us   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:01 that too shall come at the appropriate time, I   Kevin Lowe ** 1:00:03 am sure exactly, exactly. Well, if people want to   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:07 reach out to you would like to talk to you about working with you, and so on. How do they do that?   Kevin Lowe ** 1:00:13 Yeah, the the best place to go is my website that will have all my contact information. And that is literally just grit, Grace inspiration.com. And so if you go to that website, grit, Grace inspiration.com There, you can check out the podcast, but you can also easily get in touch with me, there's a contact form, find my contact information. So that's probably the easiest place to start.   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:38 Grit Great Grace inspiration.com, I will tell you, he is also a great interviewer. And you can tell he is quite a good talker, which is good. So I urge you all to seek Kevin out. I think that, that there's a lot that he has to offer. And I am so glad that we got to do this today. Because there's a lot of life lessons to learn from everything that Kevin has talked about and talk about having an unstoppable mindset, no question that that Kevin has that now we do have to find them a girl or a woman actually. But you know, that's, that's a process we'll get there. But But definitely, I really appreciate you being here. And I am glad that we had to do this. And I hope that you listening also enjoyed this. And I would love it and appreciate it if you would give us a five star rating wherever you're listening to our podcast. I would also love it and appreciate it if you would reach out to me with any thoughts or if you happen to know of anyone who might be a good guest for our podcast, Kevin, you as well. You can reach me at Michaelhi at accessibe.com. That's m i c h a e l h i at a c c e s s i b e.com. and would love to hear from you. Also, you can go to our podcast page, which is www dot Michael hingson m i c h a e l h i n g s o n.com/podcast. Where you can just go to the website, Michael hingson.com. We'd love to hear from you. We have a contact form there. And by the way, if you ever need a speaker and Kevin, if you know anyone who needs a speaker, we do that traveling has started to pick up and so we're back to talking about September 11, and teamwork and trust and other things and would appreciate any any opportunity. So I want to thank you all for considering that. But mostly today. Kevin, I want to thank you one last time for being here. We really appreciate your time, and all the insights that you brought us.   Kevin Lowe ** 1:02:37 Well, thank you so much. It was a pleasure to be here.   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:44 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

Welcome back to another episode of Snooze & Booze! Currently at number 245, we got another old-school episode for you. We catch up on movies, shows and why they should release a Braille version of the Kama Sutra. Tune in and enjoy! 

This week Rob and Ryan welcome Daniel Lubiner and Matthew Bullis from The TouchPad Pro Foundation to talk about their innovative braille teaching tool, The Braille Doodle. They discuss The Braille Doodle's origin, how it works, and the importance of Braille literacy world-wide. Show Transcript https://atbanter.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/at-banter-podcast-episode-350-the-braille-doodle-and-touchpad-pro-foundation-.pdf Show Notes TouchPad Pro Foundation https://www.touchpadprofoundation.org/ Pre-Order A Braille Doodle https://www.touchpadprofoundation.org/preorder-now/ AT Banter is brought to you by Canadian Assistive Technology, providing sales and training in Assistive Technology and Accessibility with over 30 years of knowledge and experience. Visit them online at www.canasstech.com or call toll-free 1-844-795-8324. Need repairs on your device? Chaos Technical Services offers service and support on almost any piece of Assistive Technology, while also providing parts and batteries. Visit them online at www.chaostechnicalservices.com or call 778-847-6840.

Presenter Contact Info Email: RMiller@Vispero.com

En este nuevo episodio seguimos charlando con Venkatesh Chari, Consejero Delegado de la empresa Orbit Research, y conocemos un nuevo producto que será lanzado en breveal mercado por Orbit. Se trata del Orbit Speak, un Braille Hablado moderno, con la tecnología y las características de nuestros días. Si queréis poneros en contacto conmigo podéis escribirme a la dirección de correo electrónico mariagarciagarmendia@gmail.com

This is a recap, from the perspective of the characters as well as a recap "in character." It is a game called "Elemental", which is a D6 game, which fits many genres. The publisher will send you an accessible format, upon purchase and request. Go here to get the pdf from Gildor Games: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/242198/ELEMENTAL-Complete-Guide Thank you to our very own Pepper the Vixen for the Intro and Outro music: Intro/Outro Credit: Thank You Pepper the Vixen https://twitter.com/PepperTheVixenhttps://www.twitch.tv/pepperthevixen The Knights of the Braille: www.knightsofthebraille.com KOTB Patron(even $1 helps): https://www.patreon.com/knightsofthebraille Contact us: Richard's info Email: knightsofthebraille@gmail.com X/Twitter: @brailleknights

Joanne Eason, President of Five Wishes, knows it's important to document our end-of-life wishes so our voices are heard when we can't speak for ourselves.   Five Wishes was established over 25 years ago through a series of listening tours, asking people what was important to them.  From those results, the Five Wishes document was formed with guidance from the American Bar Association and other palliative care providers across the U.S.  It's designed for individuals to use when sitting down with their families, a tool for talking about what's important to the person.    Five Wishes has incorporated three questions into their Five Wishes document: How comfortable do you want to be? How do you want to be treated? What do you want those around you to know about you?  Those answers are the voice of the patient.  Where health systems use certain forms to document decision-makers and specific medical directives, Five Wishes is about not just the wishes of the person, but who they are. It can be used like a workbook and comes in both digital and paper forms.  The workbook is a living document and should be revisited as healthcare status changes or your spokesperson changes.   Five Wishes can also be utilized by hospice agencies, healthcare organizations, and businesses. It's legal in almost every state in the U.S. so it's a very flexible document.  If you live in one of only four states (New Hampshire, Kansas, Ohio, or Texas) you can still use the Five Wishes Paper but may need to take an extra step.  Five Wishes is available in 30 languages, as well as Braille. Find out more about Five Wishes at fivewishes.org.  Follow Five Wishes on Facebook, YouTube, IG, and Twitter.    Check out Five Wishes for your personal use here. Get information about utilizing Five Wishes for your patients or employees by clicking here. Visit the Five Wishes store here. Check out the free webinars from Five Wishes here. Looking for a copy of the Odonata Care Plan?  Click here to purchase it for yourself or your care agency.   NEW** - the Odonata Care Plan is now available in SPANISH - purchase it here!!  Check out the free Care Video tutorials from Odonata founders and hospice nurses Nancy Heyerman and Brenda Kizzire here.   Partner with National HME to provide medical equipment for your patients at nationalhme.com. Find more podcast episodes from The Heart of Hospice at The Heart of Hospice Podcast (theheartofhospice.com)  Book podcast host Helen Bauer to speak at your event or conference by sending an email to helen@theheartofhospice.com.  Follow The Heart of Hospice on Facebook,  Instagram, and LinkedIn.  Connect with The Heart of Hospice podcast on The Whole Care Network, along with a host of other caregiving podcasts by clicking here.  

Travis Michael is all of what the title says. As he says he “played jump rope his entire life over the Mason-Dixon line spending time between the mountains of Johnstown Pennsylvania, and the city bay life of Baltimore”. As I spoke with Travis during our initial call as well as during our episode he is an incredibly curious person who also wants to do good in the world.   He will tell us a great deal about his new app called “Bridgd” which you can learn about at www.bridgd.com.   In addition to app development, he and his company help other companies and nonprofits improve their efficiency by streamlining and enhancing what they do and how they do it.   Now, Travis is completing work on his book, “Honor Thy Father” which he expects to have published in the August 2023 timeframe.   I think you will enjoy Travis and his wisdom. I know I did.     About the Guest:   Founder of Trav Media Group, Travis Michael played jump rope his entire life over the Mason-Dixon line spending time between the mountains of Johnstown Pennsylvania and the city bay life of Baltimore Maryland before traveling the United States helping companies as their one-stop Chief Marketing Officer. In his spare time, he's spending time with his family and friends while donating time to his church and community.     Ways to connect with Travis:   Website - https://trav.media Email - travis@trav.media Bridg'd App - https://bridgdcom.com Instagram & TikTok - @travismichael.official @trav.media      About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:20 Greetings, everyone, I am Michael Hingson. And you are listening to unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Today we get to talk with Travis Michael. That's his pen name and what He wants us to use, which is great. And it's his pen name because Travis is about to come out with a new book. And we will definitely talk about that in the course of the next hour or so. But Travis, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad you're here.   Travis Michael ** 01:50 Michael, it's a pleasure being here. We have had so many amazing conversations that I'm excited to see where this one goes.   Michael Hingson ** 01:59 Well, let's start. Let's start with something that I love to do, which is learn a little bit about you as a younger Travis, where you started from what you did, and and kind of how you got where you are. I know you talked about jumping rope over the Mason Dixon Line going from Pennsylvania to Baltimore. See, I know how to say that. Right? Yeah. And I lived there for six months. So And anyway, so tell us a little bit about Travis.   Travis Michael ** 02:32 Yeah. So you know, I, I love to like preface this with like book recommendations. There's a really good book. It's called outliers. And it's basically about people that have had access to unique things in their lives, right, you know, what really defined your childhood and what drove you. And I was fortunate to be able to go to what's called a magnet school. So magnet schools, they had a four big professional focuses. And that was environmental science, Applied Engineering, visual, graphic art, and mass communication. And so by sixth grade, you're taking a two period class with that specialty and you transition every quarter, by seventh grade, you narrowed it down to two. And by eighth grade, you're taking that specialty class the entire year through. And so, you know, people, you know, kids that go through those types of experiences and have access to more tools, as laid out in outliers. I Bill Gates, people realize that he worked at a college that had a supercomputer. So he he actually worked in the lab of the supercomputer to have access and access to it. And then he was able to understand the different problems because he was there, troubleshooting. He was there helpdesk, essentially. And, you know, he took that knowledge and that knowledge base and was able to expand upon it. So you know, I love talking to people and finding out like, what really drives them and being able to expand upon that as well. So yeah, that was kind of me growing up, right, you know, the I try to like take in as much as I could. From a media standpoint, my focus was visual graphic art that has really driven me and my helping take people's visions and use my skills to drive their visions as well.   Michael Hingson ** 04:45 But you talk about really wanting to help people interact with people and help them I'm not trying to put words in your mouth as such but become better than they are what what caused you to have that kind of a wide scope and wide view of what you wanted to do, because that's far beyond graphics?   Travis Michael ** 05:03 Well, you know, right as a kid, you know, you're like, I want to, I want to change, I want to, I want to make a change, there's something that's not right. There's something that's off. And I just, I needed to I wanted to, there's a lot of blocks in communication, right there in and how people communicate and the ability to communicate. You know, and I, in middle school, I was, I think it was in the early 90s, when American Sign Language came into play. And whenever I moved up to Pennsylvania, in eighth grade, I had access to a, there was a young young girl in my grade, that she, she was deaf, and they offer sign language classes, and I took some sign language classes. I know very little, I think I know, the ABCs up to like, G. And that's where it stops. But I also knew that like, obviously, there was there's a huge disconnect there. Right, Mike? You know, there's, there's having the ability that there's, there's some sort of even social block right, in being able to communicate,   Michael Hingson ** 06:23 and that's something that has fascinated you, and that you've wanted to kind of address and you do that primarily through dealing with graphic arts, or do you go beyond that?   Travis Michael ** 06:34 Well, I like to go beyond that, right. And I just just got back from Chicago, and I ended up there is a stop at the Wonder Museum, and I would highly recommend if you have the opportunity to go to Chicago, definitely check it out. But it offered experiences and, you know, anytime any type of social engagement is an experience, and I want to be able to help those that have communication blocks, be able to communicate, in general, you know, being able to not be a fly on the wall, not just, you know, a person in the back, doing their best to read lips. And so, whenever I was in Chicago, there, I'm, I think I'm very approachable, Mike. And next thing I know, I'm being a tourist, I'm taking videos and pictures. And this gentleman approaches me. And he starts is puts up one thing, he starts signing, and you could hear just in his voice is I'm deaf. Just like that's like all he was able to get out of his voice at a very low get Gatsby. And then I, I he was trying to show no sign to me. I said hold on one second. It just so happens that I'm developing an app for deaf people. And I pulled the app out. And it started transcribing my voice as I was talking. And I was able to communicate. And we had a wonderful conversation about it, even whenever we were kind of walking and talking. That I was I had my chin down. I was kind of, you know, looking down and talking. And he's like, he's like, Hey, I'm up here. I can't read your lips. If your chin is down.   Michael Hingson ** 08:54 And I was gonna ask how did he understand you? It wasn't mainly lip reading, or I definitely want to learn more about the app. But did he read your lips? Is that how you he understood you?   Travis Michael ** 09:04 Yes, that's how he understood me, you know, as his education revolved around, being able to read my lips, you know, being able to read lips, period, not just my lips, anyone's lips. And you know, they can hear low tones. Yeah. And it's, it's very interesting. I had a we really didn't miss a beat in our conversations as I was able to use the app. And if there was something that he was trying to communicate communicate with me that wasn't getting through. He could just use my phone and type in whatever you type it in, and then hit play and it played out the speaker.   Michael Hingson ** 09:53 I when I was in elementary school, and I don't remember what grade I was in In but it probably was third grade. Or earlier, I'm going to say the third grade. We were at a Halloween party at the school. And I ended up sitting across a table from a gentleman who was one of the janitors at the school. And we talked for a while. And occasionally I looked away. And he didn't necessarily respond. But then he volunteered that he had been deaf since Pearl Harbor. And that he communicated, he did not, his voice was as natural as someone who was a full hearing person. But he understood people by reading lips. And it's the first time I ever had exposure to that. And he was very kind and very generous with his time telling me about it, because I became, of course, very curious being blind. And we had a wonderful conversation than in several since when when I was still at that school, but it is it is fascinating. And he was as good as a body could be at reading lips, he certainly understood me.   Travis Michael ** 11:14 So he was able to speak back to   Michael Hingson ** 11:18 Yes, he absolutely could speak back to me. And I had no clue that he was death, because he served in the military. So this was like, What 1958 or so. And he had been in the military and served at Pearl Harbor, and which is when he became deaf, so he continued to be able to speak very well.   Travis Michael ** 11:40 Ah, gotcha. That makes a lot of sense. And I   Michael Hingson ** 11:43 had no idea that he was deaf or, or anything other than just a person who could talk to me and I could talk to him. And then he told me about being deaf. And that was, I'm sure, in a sense, brave of him. But for me, it was fascinating. And I haven't thought about him very much since then. But this brought it up. And just as fascinating that you're having success, how's the app doing?   Travis Michael ** 12:11 Oh, it's wonderful, we're getting ready to launch the new the new user interface, it's a lot brighter cleaner. And you know, from there, because that's going to be the base base design that we have, we're going to be pushing out a lot more demos and videos, because now this is okay, we've proved out the model, it works. We've got approval from Apple and Google for the model. And now we're getting ready to do a full launch with some really neat upgrades, including voice segmentation. So if you're interested, you can find that app over to read br idgd.com. So that's bridged with no E. It's no e.com. And you can download and be a test user right now, we're, we're really excited to roll out the next version with some really cool updates, and ultimately expand out into other markets, including translations. And so stay tuned for some really awesome upgrades that are going to be incremental in connecting people not only of speaking and non speaking and hearing and non hearing, but languages all across the globe, as we build this thing out. So head over to bridged.com with no E, and sign up as a test user, and where we're really super stoked about getting this thing out here, Mike,   Michael Hingson ** 14:02 when will the next upgrades and so on come out?   Travis Michael ** 14:06 Yeah. So we're ready, getting ready for phase one be new upgrades will be coming early fall. So I think August, we're going to be really pushing it out. But we were probably going to have some short term upgrades, including the new UI, maybe not with the full scope. But we're, we're really close to full implementation. I think we're, you know, just to keep this moving. I think there's just gonna be I think it's gonna be like dollar 99 a month, very minimal, just to be a being able to support the technology. So it's not a whole lot, but it's something that we can put into a humanitarian effort to be able to connect with Many people have many different languages Have you   Michael Hingson ** 15:05 have you tested it with VoiceOver and so on to see that it's accessible from that standpoint.   Travis Michael ** 15:13 Really, we're just focusing on the, in real life, engage engagements, you can customize what's really beautiful about this, this app is the ability to then speak back, there's a lot of platforms where you can just, it just transcribes. But then the user has the ability to, to then type in a quick reply, or selective select from a series of quick replies that are already loaded, kind of like your emojis that you pull up another, it's like another keyboard, and you can have, you can actually program your quick reply keyboard, based on, you know, maybe you have, you're going to the doctor's office, and you have some, quote, some questions that need to be answered. And rather than picking them on the fly, you can add them into the keyboard under your favorites, you tap it, if you add it to the keyboard, and then it plays through the phone speaker. And you can go down and you've talked to actually talk to your doctor about these things. And being able to maybe have questions for you, just in general, just being able to converse, you know, pick the conversation type, it's going to help them be able to communicate better.   Michael Hingson ** 16:45 Well, the question I was asking what I was getting at is that with like iPhones and with the Google Android phones, there are what are called screen readers, there are software packages that will that will verbalize whatever comes across the screen. And in this case, you're going deeper than that, because you're also dealing with providing input by other means. And my question really was, have you explored making sure that the app is accessible using screen readers, for people who may not be able to necessarily see everything that comes across the screen, but needs to hear it. And that's a little bit different set of gestures, it is all part of what Apple provides. And, and the Google Android phones do, although I think Apple still does a little bit better job of it. But what what VoiceOver is, is a software package that will verbalize whatever comes across the screen. It also means that if I needed to, I could type messages. If somebody isn't a lip reader, for example, I'm assuming that this is part of what the app would allow one to do would be for me to be able to type and then it would appear on the screen. And voiceover would allow me as a blind person to be able to do that. So my question really was, are you looking at accessibility for the product across the board?   Travis Michael ** 18:20 Oh, absolutely. I think that it's going to be critical for for those types of conversations. And you know, and being able to last time we talked being able to add that. Well, I've also had some very interesting conversations with with Google. And I look forward to having more about exactly that. Being able to provide accessibility in improve their accessibility, that   Michael Hingson ** 18:54 I will have to download the app and and experiment and can give you some feedback regarding that. Because a lot of app developers don't really understand what they can really do to make visual and non visual, well, visual apps more usable by people who may not see what's on the screen. And so Apple provides a lot of information about that, but there are no requirements for any of that. So a lot of people don't necessarily see it, or they may make their app work. And then the next time a new update comes out, something gets broken because it doesn't become part of their process to keep that going. But I'll be glad to download it and take a look at it and see what it looks like. It sounds like it would be a lot of fun to do.   Travis Michael ** 19:46 Yeah, yeah, that's, you know, and we're gonna be, you know, constantly working on improvements. This is a definitely a new space that we're looking to help people explore And upon, and being able to have the ability to remove social norms, where, where social norms aren't necessarily good, where Deaf people are not communicating, they're typically standing in the back and being a wallflower. And because you don't know, or most people in that contact group, don't have don't have don't have the ability to communicate, whether it be ASL, or what have you, soy, or even, you know, having someone there that that knows ASL that can translate. And then it's, there's still that barrier, there's still that extra person. Whereas, you know, now you can kind of have that freedom to go to the store, go walk down the street taught, you know, talk to someone randomly. And it really helps clear that that pathway, right, right.   Michael Hingson ** 21:10 What What got you started doing this app?   Travis Michael ** 21:14 Well, so the president of the company is deaf. So this is I'm doing this, I'm creating this app for my client. And his dad, and I had been working together. Now his dad's the CFO of the company. And his dad, Todd Trichur, pulled me aside after one of our meetings that we had been working together on his HFC, one quick question. Can you build apps? I see. Well, yeah, absolutely. You know, I just developed an app for client out of Los Angeles, like an Uber like app that people can just book trips to and from the airports just right from their website. I said, Yeah, sure. Got it. Got a team, you know, we're really starting to roll on some big projects. He says, Well, my son was born deaf. And I've always had in my head that when the technology was there, we would build this app together. And being able to help deaf people communicate in real time, using this technology. And he's, you know, done a lot of market research. And I think it's time to just start pulling the trigger on this and move forward. So we go through many conversations. I built I personally built the user interface user experience that I've laid out for my developers, wonderful team that put this put what we have to get put the kind of the, the engine behind the machine. Well, I kind of just had the, the brick and mortar, right. So it's, it's been a wonderful experience. And we're picking up steam, and some other really, really cool projects that we're looking to take some of these industries by storm, with our creativity, and how we have how we start building markets in a positive way.   Michael Hingson ** 23:38 What's the name of your company?   Travis Michael ** 23:39 So my company is travel Media Group. You can find me online at if you just type in travel dot media. There's no.com It's just https colon forward slash forward slash Trev. Tr AV dot media, I think if you look down here, yeah, right there. Under my Zoom picture here, you can see my my website. I work with companies doing you know, it's great, because I have the ability to flex. And you know, I can be doing these wonderful mobile apps. And then I can also kind of switch into for marketing training, and working with different teams. On You know, I'm able to kind of be more budget friendly for nonprofits, where I can instead of doing it, I can train people, and then they can kind of work the plan. So, but I'm also doing, I still enjoy doing logos. I still want to, you know, doing custom websites, I build a custom website for a client out of Georgia, that does. Jet parks for private jets, build a custom, ecommerce quoting system for their website. And there, it's been just steamrolling, or our SEO has been wonderful. The ability to add parts to their, to their quoting system is, is pretty seamless. And then they can just quote out the prod the product and get people into their, their funnel a lot quicker. So it's, you know, a lot of this is is just problem, problem versus solution, finding the solution to, you know, unique problems and identify the market. You know, again, I do my own market research and with search engine marketing, and I try to understand the entire funnel. And, you know, a comp a company may have different a few different demographics that they're partnering to. Right. You know, I could be working with marketers, you know, and I can also be working with CEOs, you know, so many different parts and understanding supply chain as well. That's a big help.   Michael Hingson ** 26:20 Yeah, yeah. There's, there's a lot to that, isn't there?   Travis Michael ** 26:23 Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 26:24 How long have you been doing this? How long has the company been around?   Travis Michael ** 26:28 Yeah, so I started traveling media in 2017. I was just out as bootstraps in a computer, right? And just just talking, I saw one of my first clients that they dealt and drones, they they actually built drones. That got me into some really cool spaces. Gave a handful of clients in the aviation sector, one of one of them, does the, the drone light shows. So you know, if you're in the aviation world, the trade show booths, done, you know, even like, instructional instructional design. So on the back of all those drones that for those light shows, I there's a sticker that they put on him. And that sticker just happens to be my designed, very kind of Honeycomb like, so it's really cool.   Michael Hingson ** 27:29 What did you do before you started travel media?   Travis Michael ** 27:33 So same kind of space? Like I, right out of college, I was doing animation boards and malls, and then they go, can you do business cards? Can you do logo design? And can you do brochures? Next, you know, I'm doing billboards, I'm animation for commercials. I was then, you know, really getting into animation with After Effects. And you have some 3d stuff. And then I might, I would give designs to web developers, and they were just butchering my designs. And I was like, stop it, stop, quit, quit screwing up my design, they already approved this, this design, and you're not giving them anything remotely close. So I went in started teaching myself CSS and HTML, and it kind of I, I can understand JavaScript and PHP, but I can't really write it. But But now with with Chet GPT. You know, I'm, I'm also building unique plugins for that. That helped me with my technology. So we, for instance, we have the we have the the website for the for the bridge app. And then we have the app, right? And so there are two different, different things, but how do you get them to communicate with one another. So anytime someone registers on the app, a signal is then sent back to the website that actually has a database that can house that information. So that's so we're reusing that they're developing a REST API that gives them the ability to communicate with each other. So that's been, you know, just the evolution of technology and   Michael Hingson ** 29:40 explain that just a little bit more for me. I'm not quite sure I follow what yeah, what that's doing.   Travis Michael ** 29:45 Absolutely. So it, basically it's handling the user registration. So if you when you register on the mobile app, right, so Michael Pinkston, at my I go hangsen.com. And it goes to all that information is then. So your your profile is then created on our website, in our in our database, right? That database doesn't necessarily have to be on the website, it can be on an entirely different shooter. But for the kind of being able to control the two, we're able to create that that communication gap worried. So the app can then talk to the website. Does that make sense?   Michael Hingson ** 30:44 Yeah, I think I, I follow it. So and so by the app talking to the website, it and obviously keeps the profile up to date. What does it do for the user, in terms of communicating with others and so on?   Travis Michael ** 31:00 Well, all it does is, you know, if you lost your password, maybe you switch apps. Okay. So that's all it really handles. Right? Got it.   Michael Hingson ** 31:11 Okay. What do you think about this whole discussion of AI Artificial Intelligence, which well, not widgets, but artificial intelligence products, like, chat, GPT, and so on, you know, they've become so sensational, sensationalized? What do you what do you think about all of the furor around all of that?   Travis Michael ** 31:33 Well, it was coming. It's I mean, we it's been, you know, we've been working with autocomplete now for how long? Right? So like, that was just a form of AI. Yeah. And now we know, it's expanding into more of a user interface where the end user can dictate what the outcome should be. And so you really have to be able to figure out, it's your best use cases, for what you need. Right. I, people are afraid of the maliciousness behind it. I'm sure that there's some sort of kill switch. There, there would have to be.   Michael Hingson ** 32:33 The other aspect of it is that we keep hearing about all this potentially bad stuff with it. But look, we haven't eliminated the dark web. And we have the internet and the internet is is a way to get a lot of information to people and has been since the early 1990s. So it's always going to be dependent on what we use it for and how we use it for and hopefully, we have enough fried people who will use it. And that will hopefully set some of the tone about don't do bad things with it, because that's not appropriate. But the other part of it is, if you said, a kill switch, or we will have to probably put some governors on it because too many people are going to misuse it. When they don't need to they're gonna go down a rabbit hole, they don't need to go down.   Travis Michael ** 33:28 But Potentially, yes, potentially, potentially, I, you know, I'm not the I'm not the all things on this. But, you know, my, my theory is, you know, use your powers for good. Yeah. And, you know, we're getting ready to our next version. With with working closely with Google, hopefully, we're gonna get an early release of their new language model, that also includes the includes AI. So being able to better provide a better trans transcription experience, your voice to text is actually going to be more accurate. And also working on being able to segment people's voices, and ultimately using that as a security model. So as we identify, this is Michael Hinkson speaking, and in the back end, it creates a digital thumbprint that every time you're you're now you're now speaking, that it actually authenticates that it's you. Right. And it will also provide security from Ai duplication. You know, that's a one of the big focuses that we Been looking at these different different programs duplicate, you know, Morgan Freeman, like, obviously it's not Morgan Freeman speaking, it was the AI speaking like Morgan Freeman. And that's what we want to, you know, basically safeguard. We want to safeguard your voice, there's been too many incidents that I've come across where voice has been captured, manipulated and used for malicious.   Michael Hingson ** 35:43 Although I've said to, to a few people, jokingly, I know I'll really have arrived when I can hear John Wayne read The Hobbit. You even imagine that? Yeah, but you know, and, and the reality is, it's ultimately going to come down to how we use it and how we treat it. And it's going to be up to us. And that all comes down to moral compasses, and so on. Here's a question regarding your app, have you thought of, or is the capability coming are there where a person who's deaf or hard of hearing can sign the phone can pick it up and translate that into text or to voice that is spoken out by the phone,   Travis Michael ** 36:34 there is technology, I have even seen gloves that have been developed. And, you know, a lot of that is, you know, they're already using some of that movement stuff with, with robots, you know, as they've been, you know, focusing on you know, wrote a hand robotic hand going in acting like a human hand, you know, maybe even like, creating bionic hands for people that maybe we've lost a hand and the transfer of energy and those types of things. So, that's a little bit further outside of our scope. For this, we really wanted to start small.   Michael Hingson ** 37:18 Sure, no, I appreciate that. But the reason I asked the question probably is reasonably obvious. If I'm communicating with a person who is deaf and who doesn't speak, I can't see their signing. And so the question is, how will I communicate with him now, there are some technologies, for example, there is a device that a person can type on, and it will produce Braille at the other end, and obviously, you can type on a computer. And with voice technology, it can be heard, but it just seemed like it would be intriguing and interesting to think about the concept of the app, being able to take advantage of the camera on a smartphone, to see the person signing and verbalize that, but I don't know, all the ins and outs of the pluses and minuses of how hard that would be. My first job out of college was actually working with Ray Kurzweil, the developer of Omni font OCR. And that's when I also first got introduced to artificial intelligence because his first machines would reprint and the more they read, the higher the competence they gained of being able to read material, especially when characters were somewhat degraded, and it actually learned. But it just seemed like an illogical interesting idea might be for this. If signing is uniform enough, where a software package could be taught to interpret signing, if that could be the case, it would be trivial to then output it to voice because the phones already have the ability to talk anyway.   Travis Michael ** 39:02 Is there anything that like, would you know, I'm thinking I'm thinking of like hardware is there is like a, like a Bluetooth. Maybe, like a Bluetooth device where maybe as it would be typing, or as it would play out of the phone speaker. It could also be like felt, you know?   Michael Hingson ** 39:29 Oh, yeah, I mean, there are ways that there are refreshable braille displays that I can connect to my iPhone so that I can turn the speech off completely and use just the Braille display, to read whatever's coming across the phone, but I'm thinking of the other end of it is the person inputting information. And so I was thinking that if a person who was deaf signed how II See, would it be for that signing to be interpreted? Because if you said, you know, A through G, well, if somebody signs an A, can the phone be taught to recognize that a? If it can, then it doesn't matter what the output is, it could be outputted directly to the phone speaker or it could go to a Braille display or whatever. It's the recognition of the sign. That's the issue. Yeah.   Travis Michael ** 40:28 I think that might be something we tackle. As we start looking down the line. Whatever we get, we won't really want to get into AR augmented reality, like the Google Glasses and those types of things. Yeah. Because then as the person is speaking, you can then do like real life closed captioning. You could also do what you're talking about. So if I'm, I can actually, you know, sign. And then the AR, could then close caption the sign language, essentially? Well,   Michael Hingson ** 41:07 yeah. Well, yeah, I could close caption it. But the idea is that if it recognize the signing, then the output part today is very straightforward. Yes, it could close caption it and put it on a screen. Or since it's recognized it, it could just as easily go through the voiceover screen reader on the phone to verbalize it. Yeah, none of that's the problem. The issue is recognizing what is being signed from the signer. And so as you said, og augmented reality, if that's the way to do it. But anyway, it's an intriguing idea. And it would open up some interesting vehicles for communication, which, which would be kind of cool. So in addition to developing apps you work with, with other companies, and I know you're kind of almost a global chief marketing officer in a lot of ways, aren't you?   Travis Michael ** 42:05 Yeah, absolutely. You know, the companies bring me in to kind of turn their brand around, and not just turn their brand around, but, you know, help them embrace technology for for operational purposes, you know, that there's like, for instance, this new website has kind of acted as they're another sales tool, they website doesn't take a day off, it's there, you know, so being a collection hub for the for that business, and, you know, finding unique problems, and you're getting them getting their teams to kind of cheerlead the path forward. So working, I'll typically come in, I'll work very closely with the president CEO, to understand where they're where their mindset and leadership is, and help them prepare for the next steps, what their teams can be expecting time that their teams need to be allocating to these different projects, right? It's not just me, I don't just come in and wave a wand, and tada, here it is, their teams, your things will change dynamics will shift, you know, how do a step that you once did, or maybe three steps that you once did, are now done in one step? Because something system was optimized. So that's where I come in, but I also have to make sure that, you know, you know, maybe they what was done, what was once done was was wasn't done in vain. Like it was there. It was it some things are grandfathered in, that maybe aren't necessary, and a new system can be put in place. So,   Michael Hingson ** 44:14 companies are are always looking for or should be looking for ways to improve their processes. And I've talked to a couple of people on unstoppable mindset who were very much involved in trying to help companies really reorganize their basically their way of doing business, their, their way of getting things done inside the company, and so on. And so I appreciate exactly what you're saying, which is it's all about trying to become more efficient, and trying to have the best processes possible.   Travis Michael ** 44:49 Yeah, and I've there's a really good John Maxwell book. He's John Maxwell. If you read anything of his you'll be better for reading it. He's just one of those guys that has a very, very deep message. And I just read his book as good Leaders Ask Great Questions. And you really have to start asking great questions, if you're in this in a position of leadership. And, you know, I ask questions to prepare my, the companies that I work with, I don't ask questions to be nosy, or judgmental, I ask questions because I need to understand what their starting points are, what have they done? Where are they at? And how can they move forward? And that's a lot. And then I provide training around different aspects around that model. And they've, they've been proven to be very helpful and healthy and business's understanding their why why are they doing this? Who are they talking to? And what is the message behind what they're doing? And I'll take all of that, run it through my marketing machines, my branding, machines, design, technology, audits, all of that. Understand your industry, and, you know, what your, what your end goal is. And some of the companies, you know, I work with companies that are our profit, nonprofit, and defense, and they they all have many different hats in many different industries. And one industry does this, this, but not this, and then another company will go, Oh, I do not this, this and this, but we work together, and it's their partnerships. And there's something to be said about partnerships. That can really be beneficial, especially when you find people that are moving in the same direction as you.   Michael Hingson ** 47:11 Well, and, you know, one of the most important things that we can do as human creatures is to ask questions, it's it is curiosity, it is trying to learn, and when you're asking questions of company leaders, to help focus them in is clearly also helping you.   Travis Michael ** 47:33 Yeah. You know, and one of the great questions is, what books are you reading? Yeah. What books are you reading? Because I need to know that, that they have, if there's a point that I'm trying to get across, it's going to be better if I can, if I have a client read a book, or read a chapter, and then he can go, Okay, I see what you're saying. Now, here's how they overcame that. And, for me, it's a wonderful thing. It's a, you know, diagnose prescribe model, that hell helps me from the, you know, just giving book recommendations as and that has even even reading for me has been a huge shift. That was never me. That was never me. I was Bye, bye. Your kids are my little cousin graduated the other day. And my grandma was like, Oh, my goodness, she's on the Dean's list or the you know, the high dean's list and you know, forgetting being on the Dean's list for so long. I was like, that's wonderful. And I just kind of snickered I got you know, that was never May.   Michael Hingson ** 48:57 I love to read a lot of fiction, which I do for relaxing. But I also do like to read nonfiction. One of my favorite books, and I quoted often in one way or another in speeches is The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, which is really, I think, the best short book that I found that describes what a good team should be and how to get there and I also love some of the Malcolm Gladwell books. I really enjoyed reading David and Goliath. Again, he puts a lot of things in perspective.   Travis Michael ** 49:35 Yeah. It's seeing the Go Giver. The Go Giver is wonderful. Yeah. Being able to get yourself into a, a mindset. And this person is struggling in sales. And he's like, there's this guy in the back that I swear I maybe see once every week and he's never We're here and all whenever he's here, he's just kind of feet up and kick back and everybody seems to love him. And if he's like, how does this guy do it? He's kind of getting the same sales. He's like, sales professional, he's, but he's, it's such like, what's the difference between sales and business development? Right. And so that was that's when things really changed and he was able to get understand mentorship. So if you're trying to understand mentorship, and that's a really good one as well. Let's see, Jocko willing and feel like Jocko is if I like I, my I I'm not I'm not really much of a reader, I audio books. I'm writing and I'm reading all day long. So by the end of the day, my eyes read Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 50:55 I love audiobooks. And they're becoming more prevalent. audio book sales continue to be on the rise, which is great. Even as print, sales have gone down some. And I think ebook sales are going up, but audio books are great. And even for people who are blind and so on the Library of Congress has a number of programs. And they're they're coming out with new programs to make access more easy and usable on things like smart speakers like the Echo, and so on, which is great. So I can turn a book on an echo now and listen to it while I'm either cooking or maybe not even doing anything else. But I can do it from any echo device in the house. Once the the app while the skill was activated, then every echo knows about it. So I can stop reading in one room and come back tomorrow and be in another room and tell it to pick up right where we left off. And it does, which is great. makes reading a lot more convenient.   Travis Michael ** 52:03 So for those who aren't familiar with how the echo work is it just you have like a main hub. And then like speakers in like multiple rooms,   Michael Hingson ** 52:11 no. Um, so the Echo is what they call a smart speaker. So there are echoes or echo dots. And Echo shows a lot of different ones, some have screens on them, and so on. But you connect it to your network. And then it communicates with, I assume the Amazon server that coordinates whatever goes on with echoes. And so you can have four or five echoes around the house. And I can go to one and I can say what's the temperature outside and it will tell me and so on. But there is the skill that actually the Library of Congress, the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped is, is creating, it's called My Talking books. And it's a skill that runs on the echo. So I can tell an a device to open the app, my talking books, and then I can say, let's say I'm starting from scratch, I could say open or find the Go get the Go Giver. And assuming it's in the collection, which is not a given at all. But assuming it's in the collection, it will find it from my voice input. And then it can start reading it. So I can read for an hour and then quit and come back. And if I have several echo devices around the house, I can go to any one of them because they all communicate with the same Amazon server somewhere in the world. And I can pick up right where I left off. But I find the Echo to be a really handy device for a lot of different things, whether it's even just doing whether I use it to control my home security system. Even turning the lights on and off and making sure they're off because I don't see them. And when my wife was alive, she was used a wheelchair. So it was also a lot easier if she were on the bed to just tell the system to turn on light. So it's really handy.   Travis Michael ** 54:15 So do you typically walk around the house with the lights off? Or?   Michael Hingson ** 54:20 Yeah, mostly I do I don't need to have them on. So my wife has passed so I you know we have solar so it doesn't really matter a lot but   Travis Michael ** 54:28 but that helps you with your electricity bill. Hmm, yeah, it   Michael Hingson ** 54:31 does a lot anyway, but I but I don't turn the lights on at night. So far it hasn't bothered the dog or the cat a whole lot. So it's just the three of us. There we go. But if they're sighted people in the house, I do like to help my light dependent friends by turning the lights on for they   Travis Michael ** 54:51 defended friends. I love it. You know?   Michael Hingson ** 54:55 Well, light dependency is a disability. It's just that technology is covered it up by Thomas Edison. and inventing the electric light bulb, but it doesn't mean that it isn't there. Well, above it, tell us about your book that you're writing. Yeah. So   Travis Michael ** 55:10 writing a book that it's really kind of about my my background, and, you know, really challenging family dynamics and being able to help break generational curses, and the through some of the events that I've experienced, that have kind of shaped me into who I am as a person, and you know, how I've developed some understandings about myself and kind of some really funny, really crazy, very serious events, you know, and I really wanted to share this because it the show was that a lot of the struggles that I went through, I went through myself, because if they've they've challenged a lot of my trust issues. And so if I understood that I went through it myself, and I'm sure that many others out there are going through challenging family dynamics as well. And I want to be able to help them, give them my share my perspective, and maybe maybe it helps them to, you know, kind of get over the some of some of their hurdles that they're having. And, you know, I'll kind of leave leave it with this. It's, it's forgiveness isn't always about, you know, forgiving. Let, it's not, it's not for the other person. Yeah. Forgiveness is for you. Yes. And you have, it's also about building a forgiving heart. Because we're human. And if all we can just be better humans, and develop forgiving hearts, I feel like this, this world would be in such a better place, and being able to move forward, and even build, build boundaries, you know, sometimes you just because you forgive, doesn't mean, you know, it's I, sometimes it's, it's good to kind of create that, that space to allow yourself to grow. But, you know, but having those spaces and you're still holding on to that, that old junk. It's,   Michael Hingson ** 57:27 it haven't really forgiven yet. Haven't really forgiven yet. And I, one of the things I talk about a lot are dogs, needless to say, and I talk about the difference between dogs and people in the dogs do love unconditionally, I believe that I watched a 60 minutes show the other day that talked about the difference between dogs and wolves. And there are actually physiological genetic differences, that they've been able to pinpoint, basically, what they call the friendly gene and a dog, and then we'll stone house. But I think dogs love unconditionally, but they don't trust unconditionally, what they are, however, unless they are, had they've truly been overly traumatized by something. Dogs are open to trust. And that's the difference between them and us. We're always into what if what if this person really is not interested in gaining my trust? Or what if they're going to abuse, the trust and all that, and we, we have become so mistrustful that we tend not to recognize any more the value and being open to the idea of trust. Now, if somebody doesn't earn our trust, okay, then we recognize that and we move on. But if somebody can, and we're open to that, what a wonderful thing.   Travis Michael ** 58:48 Yeah, it's being able to, you know, create that kind of space for yourself. It's, you have to be able to, you know, trust yourself a that, that you've gotten this far. And, and being able to continue to push forward. And, and build, build things, create things, you know, in love you loving what you're doing. And if you're not loving what you're doing, then you need to take the time outside of what you're doing, and figure out what it is and push towards what you want to do.   Michael Hingson ** 59:26 Yeah. And recognize that there are probably lots of people out there who would be really happy to support you. You'd be shocked. Yeah, absolutely would be shocked at the number of people who, if they really understood we'd be willing to support you. Well, so what's the name of the new book and when can we see it?   59:47 So the new book is called Honor thy father's and it really pushes towards the you know, the father dynamics and push towards you know, mentorship and Understanding how important it is to seek mentorship and being a good mentee. And, you know, I first discovered mentorship in Toastmasters, and Toastmasters is a an international public speaking organization. Wherever you're at in the world, I'm sure there's one nearby you, if you're trying to get better at public speaking, and really shed, that skin that has kind of kept you in this box. You know, Toastmasters is a wonderful organization, to be able to stretch your speaking skills in front of a supportive group of people who are trying to achieve similar results. So within that group, I, you know, that's something that I had to really sink in it within that group. They gave me a mentor. And I didn't know what a mentor was. And, you know, at some points, I was probably not a really good mentee, if I'm being honest, because I was kind of in my own head doing my own thing. And I've graduated from that. And we're wonderful friends and hate you. So he, he's my public speaking mentor, well, he's not he's he's in he's, we've also done develop great relationships and in sales and talking to people in systems and in growth, and he has a wonderful mindset. And but then, then there's other things and I've learned about mentorship, and so many other places that have provided me wealth and growth. So the the book is, we're we're looking to come out with it in the fall. But we are going to launch the marketing for it on Father's Day, ironically, so you can catch Honor thy father's. And I'll be promoting that. You can follow travel media, online and travel media group on Facebook, travis media, or I think it's Travis dot media, on Instagram, on tick tock, travis media as well. So you   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:13 have a picture of the book cover.   Travis Michael ** 1:02:17 design that right now. So as soon as we we get that out, I'll be sending it over to Mike,   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:23 please, because we will put that in the show notes, by all means.   Travis Michael ** 1:02:27 Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm sure. But I think by the time that we published this, I'll have the show. I'll have the graphic ready for you.   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:35 Perfect. And any other pictures and other things that you want us to have? Well, I want to thank you, Travis once again for being with us today. This has been enjoyable and fun. We spend a lot of time talking about the app and I'm gonna have to go play with it and, and maybe give you some feedback, or at least learn a little bit myself, which will be kind of cool. Absolutely. Absolutely.   Travis Michael ** 1:02:58 Looking forward to hearing and hearing your feedback, Mike.   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:01 But I really enjoyed today and I hope you did as well. And I hope all of you listening did we appreciate you doing so? So, enjoy it and get a hold of Travis let him know but I would appreciate hearing from you as well. We would love a five star rating from you wherever you're listening to unstoppable mindset. Five Star Ratings are greatly appreciated. You can also email me at Michaelhi M I C H A E L H I at accessibe A C C E S S I B E.com. Love to hear any thoughts you have, as well as suggestions for others that you think we ought to have an unstoppable mindset. We're always looking to make new friends. You can also go to our podcast page www dot Michael hinkson.com/podcast Michael Hanson is m i c h a e l h i n g s o n.com/podcast. We'd love for you to go there. And you can leave comments there as well. But either way, please keep us posted. Let us know and trap us likewise, if you know anyone who want to come on love to to get your thoughts and you know we'll have to do this again. Especially once the book is out and you start getting comments and all that we'd love to catch up with you again on this.   Travis Michael ** 1:04:13 Absolutely. Thank you for your time, Michael, I greatly appreciate it.   **Michael Hingson ** 1:04:21 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

From all of us here at A Sense of Texas we'd like to welcome you back from a relaxing summer. To kick off the new season we're trying something different with a fresh new format. Lucky for us, our friends over at the Braille Institute were more than happy to enable our new ideas by letting us capture audio from the Braille Challenge Finals held in Los Angeles this June. Braille Challenge is a great chance for our students and families to learn from each other and compete for a common goal. And hopefully with this episode you can learn a little bit too.  For more information on Braille Challenge and all things Braille, visit their website at https://brailleinstitute.org/

You can WATCH today's podcast HERE Apparently, Google Flights can tell you the best times to book your flights! Lego is releasing sets that include Braille! Now seeing impaired children can join in on the fun too! Coffee Mate is releasing a PB & J flavored creamer! Check it out! A...

An update to a story from the archive- LEGO braille bricks are getting a wider release for families all over. Check out https://legobraillebricks.com/ for more info and to check out activity ideas!  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Sue has your Sue's News on Fred's many folders, a baby walrus in Alaska, and the Random Fact of the Day on the Bar Exam.

On this episode we discuss the new Brialle Bricks available for purchase in September and also the 5 finalists for the BrickLink Designer Program.Get your show merch here! Enjoying the show...give us a like and comment on all platforms. Help us make the LEGO world available to all!Find us everywhere through LinkTreeMusic: www.bensound.comLEGO, the LEGO logo, the Minifigure, and the Brick and Knob configurations are trademarks of the LEGO Group of Companies. ©2023 The LEGO Group.THE BRICKS KING PODCAST IS NOT ENDORSED BY THE LEGO GROUP OR AFFILIATED IN ANY WAY.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/4920139/advertisement

This is a recap, from the perspective of the characters as well as a recap "in character." It is a game called "Elemental", which is a D6 game, which fits many genres. The publisher will send you an accessible format, upon purchase and request. Go here to get the pdf from Gildor Games: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/242198/ELEMENTAL-Complete-Guide Thank you to our very own Pepper the Vixen for the Intro and Outro music: Intro/Outro Credit: Thank You Pepper the Vixen https://twitter.com/PepperTheVixenhttps://www.twitch.tv/pepperthevixen The Knights of the Braille: www.knightsofthebraille.com KOTB Patron(even $1 helps): https://www.patreon.com/knightsofthebraille Contact us: Richard's info Email: knightsofthebraille@gmail.com X/Twitter: @brailleknights

Applied Design's Brad Scott joins the Marketer's Brief podcast to talk about the challenges and benefits of including accessible elements in design

The below is a direct quote from Adi's email: “It has been a long time dream for many of us to change the landscape of assistive technologies produced for blind and visually impaired people. We want to get products that are truly innovative, match the 21st century, always connected, and upgradable. Products that really return the best value for the prices we all pay as consumers, instead of having products that rely on legacy technology, which are not driven by us, the users, they are mostly driven by various business decisions that do not always match our expectations. Some of this technology, in its current form, limits us when we want to grow further, to get a job, to have a professional degree, etc. It has been a long time issue that was bothering Adi Kushnir, an Israeli blind assistive technology user and developer, since he couldn't find the best device for him to use for his personal and professional life. Adi approached Venkatesh Chari, and together, with Orbit Research's strong engineering capabilities and Adi's knowledge of the industry and strong product vision, the duo have decided to build AccessMind, a company that will re-define the assistive technology landscape by producing products that combine the latest mainstream approaches, while keeping our specialized accessibility needs, strongly in mind. IN this presentation, we will learn about the companies first product, the Optima Braille laptop computer, that is going to introduce something new and fresh to the all-in-one Braille device industry, currently dominated by products that are traditionally called notetakers.” Presenter Contact Info 1. Adi Kushnir, co-founder and director of product development, AccessMind LLC. Email: adi@accessmind.net 2. Venkatesh Chari, co-founder and CEO, AccessMind LLC, and president and CEO, Orbit Research. Email: v.chari@orbitresearch.com and v.chari@accessmind.net 3. Andre Polykanine, CTO, AccessMind LLC. Email: andre@accessmind.net

En este nuevo episodio entrevistamos a Annika Flaake, de la empresa alemana Helptech, y conoceremos todas las líneas Braille que comercializa esta empresa, asícomo las últimas novedades introducidas en su dispositivo más reciente, el Activator. Si queréis poneros en contacto conmigo podéis escribirme a la dirección de correo electrónico mariagarciagarmendia@gmail.com Si queréis poneros en contacto conmigo podéis escribirme a la dirección de correo electrónico mariagarciagarmenia@gmail.com

Here are the topics covered in this episode, and the time in the file for each. Welcome to 243 0:30 We got a ticket to ride 2:12 The Be My AI test is expanding 5:05 HIMS releases version 2.0 of the SensePlayer firmware 6:39 Critical Braille bugs remain as iOS 17 release looms 8:25 Home Dialysis changed my life 17:46 Hearing in noisy places 27:25 Typing and Braille reading speeds according to ChatGPT 46:58 Portable VoiceOver for Mac preferences explained 52:10 Does anyone know anything about guide horses? 56:43 Orbit and Access Mind discuss Optima, OrbitSpeak and more 1:05:48 Remembering old iOS apps that no longer exist 1:45:52 Closing and contact info 1:56:08

Today on the show, Steven and Shaun continue the theme of this week and read through more of your emails and messages, but not before chatting about the challenges of losing weight all thanks to an office chair Steven sat on. Listeners James and Gary weigh in on the subject of Braille and literacy and challenge what some consider to be the meaning of literacy. And Grace Scoffield joins us with the week's news in accessible technology, including details of a new smartphone from Kapsys, approval of a new accessible app for Reddit users who are blind, and a campaign by San Fransisco's Lighthouse for the Blind to get more driverless cars on the road. Get in touch with the Double Tappers and join the conversation: Email: feedback@doubletaponair.com Call: 1-877-803-4567 (Canada and USA) / 0204 571 3354 (UK) Twitter: @BlindGuyTech / @ShaunShed / @DoubleTapOnAir Mastodon: @DoubleTap YouTube: DoubleTapOnAir

Meet our guest this episode, Cori Fonville Foster. Cori is a market at heart although she didn't start out by founding her own company. However, after experiencing a rare eye disease she left a career in the medical industry and started her own marketing firm. Her story by any definition shows why I call her “unstoppable” and I think you will too. Cori had a wide variety of experiences while growing up since her mother was in the military and, like many, served in places around the world. Yes, Cori got to go along and experience many places and peoples. We have had a number of guests on Unstoppable Mindset who had a relationship with military parents. Pretty much all of them seem to want to learn and grow from their childhood experiences and often end up in fields where they get to serve others. Cori spends time discussing with me her story of losing most of her eyesight and how she came to discover that she was still as normal as anyone. I had no idea when I first met her on LinkedIn that Cori was blind, and again, blindness does not necessarily mean a complete lack of eyesight. Cori's story shows us all just how unstoppable she is. Near the end of this episode Cori and I discussed an organization called Bookshare. This is a nonprofit established to provide a method of providing any book to persons who cannot use print to read. Its services are covered under current copyright laws as you will learn if you visit www.bookshare.org. About the Guest: Cori Fonville Foster is the CEO of IROC Marketable Business Solutions, a small business marketing firm that supports coaches, consultants, speakers, and authors as they learn to unlock their full potential and monetize their passions. Cori has always had a desire for helping others, which led her to pursue a career in the medical field early on. However, after complications from a rare, disabling eye condition, Cori decided to pivot and start her own business. As an entrepreneur herself, Cori quickly realized the gaps in services and support for small business owners with great products and services, who lacked the knowledge and funds to scale like larger businesses. In response, she founded IROC MBS to help small business owners across the U.S. and Canada start, run, and scale their businesses. Through her work with IROC MBS, Cori has helped countless entrepreneurs feel empowered to live life on their own terms. Her expertise in marketing and business strategy, combined with her passion for helping others succeed, has made her a sought-after speaker and consultant. Whether she's delivering a keynote speech or working one-on-one with clients, Cori is dedicated to empowering others to achieve their full potential. Ways to connect with Cori: Website: https://www.irocmarketablebusinesssolutions.com/ https://www.tiktok.com/@iroc.mbs https://www.facebook.com/IROCMBS https://www.instagram.com/irocmbs/ https://twitter.com/Cori_Iroc88 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoH8-TfdC7rIkwCPjCUk3LQ https://www.linkedin.com/in/cori-fonville-foster-72750ba8/ About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Welcome once again to unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. It's fun when we get to do all three of those in one podcast. You know, sometimes we have people who come on who happened to have a disability, which means we can deal with inclusion because a lot of times diversity doesn't. But of course diversity is relevant. And then the unexpected comes along, which is always fun. Today, Cori Fonville Foster our guest, I think can represent all three of those. She can make her own comments about that if she would like. So Cori, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 01:58 I am so excited to be here for our conversation today.   Michael Hingson ** 02:02 So it's okay to say that you represent all three of those. Yes. safe assumption. Cool. Well, why don't we start by you telling us a little bit about you, kind of where you were born your younger life and the the early quarry and we'll go from there. Oh, my God   Cori Fonville Foster ** 02:22 is the early quarry Well, I'm a native to Virginia. But I only stayed here till I was about seven. My mother was in the army. And so I was lucky enough to get to travel to Texas, we were stationed in Germany, Hawaii, and then back here to Virginia. So we just made a big circle. And I really enjoyed just traveling as a child and exploring other people's cultures and getting to know you know what people wanted to do in life, just hearing the different stories that individuals had. But I did go to high school here in Virginia. And then I went to Virginia Commonwealth University, where I thought I wanted to be a psych major, and then and then found out that was not for me. But even through all that I kind of figured that what I found to be a common theme throughout all of my years was this idea of like of wanting to help people. And so while didn't finish it, VCU, I did find kind of a new passion in the medical field with helping people in that way.   Michael Hingson ** 03:29 What was school like in other countries and so on? How did you cope with all that? Because it must have been a little bit of a challenge moving around.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 03:38 Actually, I really liked it. I was never afraid to be the new kid. Especially because I went to a lot of areas where there was a lot of military. So I was definitely not the only new kid there. Texas Killeen, Texas. People are familiar deep in the heart of Texas. Lots of military there. And the only thing I had to realize that I was I thought I was country being from Virginia, but I was very country. Once I left Texas, Germany, I went to school on base but I did have to take German classes and Hawaii we actually had to take Japanese classes and hula dancing classes. That was part of the curriculum, but all in all school to school. I did. I didn't really like going to school, but school was school. Do you   Michael Hingson ** 04:21 remember any of your Japanese   Cori Fonville Foster ** 04:23 and not not even   Michael Hingson ** 04:26 about hula dancing? Oh,   Cori Fonville Foster ** 04:29 yes, actually, I do remember a little bit of hula dancing. That was fun. But ya know, the language just kind of fell off. I have like a little bit of German last, but not much not even enough to have a whole conversation.   Michael Hingson ** 04:42 Yeah. If you don't use it, it does kind of go away. But I'll bet if you really got put back in that situation again, some of it would come back.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 04:51 Yeah, probably so.   Michael Hingson ** 04:54 So you went to college and tell us then about going into the medical profession.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 05:00 Yeah, so I went to college, like I said, trying to be a psych major. I don't know how I ended up. Getting in there. I was early decision, I knew exactly what I wanted to do got in there my first semester, and found out how long psychologists actually go to school. And I realized, that is not what I wanted to do, I didn't want to spend all this time in school. And so after a year and a half, I left, but I ended up kind of landing myself in a nursing home. As not not as a as a, as a person living there. But as a worker. And I really fell in love with, you know, helping individuals that needed more support that you know, physically needed more support, so needed people to help possibly feed them, help them move around, bathed them, that kind of stuff. I was like, Okay, this is cool, not so much mental concerns, but even physical needs, like everyday needs. And I found that that was a lot more rewarding for me.   Michael Hingson ** 05:54 Ah, so then what did you do with that? So you, you didn't stay in college? Did you go back to college ever? Or?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 06:01 Yeah, I did. I went back to school. I did. I did a lot of home health work for a while. And I realized that I wanted to have more education in the medical field. So I went back to school, I have a associate's degree as a medical assistant. And then I was actually in school to become a registered nurse when my condition flared up. And unfortunately, I wasn't able to complete that degree, I was three credits away from graduating as a registered nurse. But unfortunately, but I guess fortunately, too, I found my true calling after that. But I did have to leave school and leave work, and basically go out on disability. Very, very close to the finish line of becoming a registered nurse.   Michael Hingson ** 06:43 Well, what was the eye condition? What happened?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 06:46 Yeah, so I have a rare condition called UV itis, it's a inflammatory condition. It's very rare. And the kind I have is even more rare, because usually, they can find out like what makes you you know, have this condition. But in my case, they call it idiopathic, meaning they basically don't know why I have it, I just do. So they treat the symptoms. And so I actually got diagnosed in high school, and lost all the vision in my left eye, my first year in college, but then nothing else. It just like, got calm, I had no issues, until I was about 20 to 23, somewhere in there. And that's when it flared up again. And it was just so bad that the doctors couldn't kind of get ahead of it. And they basically sat me down and said that they thought I was gonna go completely blind. From the condition. I did not go completely blind. That's that's a little longer story. But I did have to, like I said, discontinue my studies, and leave the job that I had been working at for quite a while. What did   Michael Hingson ** 07:51 you then go and do them move. So as a result, you you weren't a nurse, you weren't going to be able to be a nurse, although you'd worked at that, but you obviously gained a lot of knowledge and so on. So what did you then go off and do?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 08:02 Yeah, so after I had to go out on disability for about six months, I actually did nothing. I had, I had no coping skills as as a person that was visually impaired. Because before the flare up, that flare up that sent me out, I had 2020 of my right eye. So I was still kind of living life as a very able to visually abled person. And so when my vision quickly dissipated, I didn't really know what to do. I didn't know how to read Braille, I didn't know how to use a cane. I didn't know anything. So I just kind of was sad and depressed for about six months didn't do anything. Didn't know that there was lots of support out there. Unfortunately, I didn't have really great doctors at the time. And now I do thankfully, but I didn't have I didn't know that I could reach out and ask for help and get resources. So I did nothing for six months. And then after the six months, I decided to start a business. Why not? Where you're in the in the pits of despair, I started a business because I wanted something to do. I didn't want to be in the house and I wanted to make income. And again, I didn't know that. At the time. I didn't know that people who couldn't see could work. Now I've learned a lot that we are just as capable as everyone else. But then I back then I didn't know so I started my first business it was called Iraq marketable. I'm sorry, Iraq, my buddy. And so that's what it was called. And I sold like handmade soaps and bath bombs and body butters and you know, just a lot of handmade things for women to take like bubble baths, basically. But it was a cool business and I got to talk to a lot of small business owners, which was really cool to hear all their amazing stories and that kind of led me into starting the business that I run now.   Michael Hingson ** 09:46 So how did you learn how to make soaps and, and all those sorts of things that was totally different than the kinds of things that you had been studying for?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 09:56 Yeah, it was definitely like a complete one ad I like to learn period, like, I just like to learn things. And I needed to find something that I could do with the vision that I had. And so I was just YouTubing different things. And I would see people make, you know, different little bars of soap or make their own body butter, which can be used like a lotion on their skin. I was like, that seems cool. Let me try that. And it wasn't a lot of money to invest, because I didn't have any because I was unemployed. And at that time, I hadn't gotten my first disability check. So I was like, Okay, this seems, you know, easy enough. And my mother was a crafter. So I knew that she knew about like vending events. And I was like, okay, I can do this, I can do it at my own pace, I can do it with the vision that I have. And I just a lot of trial and error. But I got real good at it. I made I made some good money doing it, though. So I'm kind of proud of myself. While it was a little business that kind of came out of nowhere. It definitely was a lucrative business, that game gave me a lot of confidence. Because like I said, before, that I didn't think that, like I had a future because I was like, I can't see, like, this is it for me that you know, I just, it was like the world came crashing down, I really felt like, there was nothing that I was going to be able to accomplish, because I couldn't see. And so that gave me just a little bit of confidence to say, Okay, you're not, you know, helpless, you can do something, you can be productive. And that kind of gave me the confidence also to advocate for myself, I ended up firing my doctors getting a new team of doctors that helped me finding that organizations were out there that can support me, I actually connected with your organization, someone who was completely blind, that was like, girl, you can work you can do different stuff. And I was like, Really, she was like, yeah, she had written a book. And it really opened my eyes that this was not something that was going to limit my capabilities.   Michael Hingson ** 11:47 So what did the doctors tell you? I should have asked that earlier, I suppose. But what did the doctors tell you when they decided that you weren't going to be able to see again,   Cori Fonville Foster ** 11:57 I'm telling you, I had a really bad doctor, she literally just sat me down, it was very matter of fact. And she said, your eyes are angry. That's the words you use. And she says there's nothing we can do about it, we can't do surgery, there's no drop, she said, You need to just go ahead and quit your job, go home and collect disability. That's what that's literally what she told me. And because I didn't know any better, I did believe that for a long while, like a good. I said six months to a year I thought okay, the only thing I have the choice I have was to go home and go blind. And that's it. But like, so once I got a little confidence, and I found new doctors, they told me that, you know, while there was no cure, they could fight. And if I was willing to fight, they would try to preserve the vision I had, and they got me connected with people that can teach me how to live in my new normal.   Michael Hingson ** 12:46 Yeah, and that's exactly what it is, is a new normal. You know, I had a similar experience with a doctor a number of years ago, in that I was dealing with a lot of eye pain, which turned out to be glaucoma, eye pressure, and so on. But the doctor, by the way, I had already secured many years before a master's degree in physics. So I had a little bit of knowledge about one thing or another. And this doctor would only say to me, your eyes are mad at you. They're angry. And, you know, I said, What do you mean, they're, my eyes are mad at me. But they are and there's nothing we can do. And I said, What do you mean by mad at me, he wouldn't deal with the issue. And he couldn't take eye pressure. Because being having been blind since birth, I didn't know anything about controlling my eyes and looking up and looking down. And when he was trying to take high pressure, he kept saying look up and I said, When are you going to understand, I don't know how to do that. You know, when I said if you're going to treat me this way, I'm leaving, I'm not going to pay you a sin. And I'm going to make sure other people know how you treat blind people. And, you know, and that's exactly what I did. My wife was in the room at the time and heard the whole thing. And she agreed. It was it was not a good experience. And there's no need for that. And it's unfortunate that the Optima logical world doesn't get some of the training that they need to recognize that they're not failures just because the person can't see. And that it is high time that we stop preaching here now talking about blind and visually impaired and equating us to vision. You know, blind and low vision is one thing, but when we hear things like visually impaired, why do I need to be creative, equated to how much vision I have or don't have. And blindness is a characteristic and low vision is a characteristic. But doctors don't learn those things and the schools don't teach them that which is so unfortunate.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 14:55 Yeah, I agree. And I've had so many instances where people don't get The condition and they don't, they don't treat us with care I ended up in where you say God call me triggered me. Because I remember I my pressure got really high one time. I mean, it was like at 40. It was crazy. I felt like a giant was squeezing my head.   Michael Hingson ** 15:13 I was 70 Once I know what it is. And yeah,   Cori Fonville Foster ** 15:17 and so for people listening who are not visually impaired, like right now I'm in like the single digits. So So you know, you're not supposed to be in the doubles. But yeah, I went to the emergency room. And the nurse practitioner on call, didn't know how to use the pressure machine, she sat next to me on the bed, I'm in tears. And she pulls out the instructions to the machine that she was about to poke in my eye. And she's like reading it. And I was like, Can you please go out the room, read what you got to read, get yourself together and come back confidently, because you're about to touch my eyeball, which is already in pain, I ended up having to have emergency surgery the next day to get my pressure lowered. And it's just like, that kind of stuff just drives me crazy. Because I again, I was on the other side of that I was in the medical field. I was you know, we're helping doctors see patients and I'm like, why would you do that when somebody is in such need, right? They need you to support them, calm them down, give them reassurance and instead, they make us more scared, or less confident in not only their abilities, but our outcomes. And it's just a horrible place to be because I've had several eye surgeries. Now I've gone through several doctors and different prognosis. And it's just, you know, you want people that at least believe that, you know, they're gonna give you the best care and the best options for you. And sometimes, oftentimes, that's not what we get.   Michael Hingson ** 16:37 Well, and you want people who believe that you're a person. And that eyesight isn't the only thing in town. And that's what's so unfortunate is that so much of our society thinks that without eyesight, you're not really a whole person at all. And that's just not true.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 16:54 Yeah, you're right.   Michael Hingson ** 16:56 And that's one of the reasons that I tend to, when I'm talking with people and hear the term get away from visually impaired, it's like deaf people who will tell you that they don't like the word hearing impaired because they don't want to be acquainted with or compared with its deaf or hard of hearing. And that's really the way it ought to be with blindness. It isn't all about eyesight. And unfortunately, there are too many people who have no vision anyway, that is to say, they may see really well, but they don't have any vision. And that's a different story. But we won't worry   Cori Fonville Foster ** 17:31 about that today. Just a bar right there. I like that one.   Michael Hingson ** 17:35 Yeah. And in my book center dog, one of the phrases is don't let your sight get in the way your vision and it happens all too often. Definitely, it is one one of the major things, it's an issue. So you, you are black women, women woman living with or working with a disability, which you obviously have learned to recognize is not really the disability at all. It's more what the public views it as but how does all that work in your business? And now that you've got IROC up and running, are you still doing Soper? What is IROC morphed into?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 18:14 Yes, IROC is no longer doing so we have grown up at there doing my first business, I found that there was a gap in the market for small business owners trying to market their businesses and get them out to the world. And so now I own IROC markable business solutions. We are a small business marketing, and coaching firm, where we've actually been able to help hundreds of entrepreneurs all over the US and into Canada, market their small businesses and get in front of their target audience. So it's been a definite big change. But like you said, I don't see my quote unquote, disability as a disability, I just consider myself to be differently abled, there are things that I do, and I just have to do them differently than quote unquote, the norm. But that doesn't mean I'm incapable. Very few things have stumped me. And usually, once I'm stumped, I go and find a way to get around it. But it's just like anybody else. Nobody's gonna be good at everything. Nobody's going to get something, you know, done amazingly, their first time through. And so I learned and even since my diagnosis, I've done makeup for people. I've done photos for people. Right before this podcast, I was editing video content for a client. I am not my disability. I really, I definitely use my story to inspire others, because I want people to realize that they're capable of doing amazing things, but I am not consumed or defined by my condition. It's just a part of, you know, the who I am. It's, it's just one little piece. It's not even a big piece. It's one little piece of who Cori is, but it doesn't stop the show.   Michael Hingson ** 19:56 And it shouldn't. On the other hand, Cory Let's get really serious here, Bed Bath and Beyond has just announced that they're going to be going bankrupt, there might be a great soap market out there.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 20:10 I don't know. I'm not gonna lie to you. Because I tried to go back and do it. It's a lot of hands on work. Our team now to help me, I don't want to go back to just being by myself. That's a lot.   Michael Hingson ** 20:23 Yeah, no, I understand. And, and so you're doing that all over the country? Well, tell us a little bit more about what you do.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 20:31 Yeah, so I always tell people, I got into business very untraditionally. Because like I said, I didn't know what I wanted to be, when I grew up at the time, I was just trying to kind of find myself in my new world of, of having this condition and finding a way to still help people because that's always been my mission in life, is to help people in some way. And so through that, and through the business, we're able to do coaching, right, we talk to individuals, and help them identify their goals, figure out who their clientele is, we also help them turn their passion into profit. Meaning that they find something that they're really good at really passionate about, and we help them monetize that thing. And then we offer them marketing services, like building their websites, working on email campaigns, working on their social media management, those types of things to kind of help them along. And I mentioned me being in the business, not traditionally, because that's our target audience, people who didn't come into business with a business degree or come into business with tons of investors and capital, there are people who really just genuinely want to help other people through the thing that is their gift. And so that's really the people that we really enjoy working with them. It has been just an amazing ride thus far.   Michael Hingson ** 21:51 Do you focus a lot on businesses with persons with disabilities? Is that an issue? Do you focus in more on the broad market or what?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 22:03 So we have had many individuals who identify as people with disabilities, seen and unseen. So we've had people with MS, we've had people that just have really bad anxiety, who have come from a lot of trauma, have physical conditions. I mean, the list goes on and on. But again, my disability is just one little aspect of me. So I don't go out searching for individuals that that identify as having disability, but we do definitely welcome them. And I feel that I am uniquely positioned in the fact that I understand there their worries, and their sometimes lack of confidence as they build up their business, because they're worried that people will see them as less than I know, I definitely did. When I started, I said, I used to not even tell people I was legally blind, I would say, you know, I'm just kind of keep going on unless they asked me, because I thought that they would be like, Well, how is she going to get this done? But now that I've been in business, and people have seen my work, I'm like, Look, this is who I am. And guess what, I'm going to be amazing. And I just happen to be legally blind as well. So yeah, don't go on my way looking for but we definitely do attract people who can can resonate with my story for sure.   Michael Hingson ** 23:22 So what specific kinds of things do you actually then do to help companies? Maybe a better way to put it is, what kind of problems do people bring to you? And how do you solve them.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 23:34 So the majority of people who come to us are really struggling with solidifying their marketing plan, they have an idea, they think it's going to work, or maybe they've even been doing it for people for free. Like I work with service based businesses, mostly. So these are coaches and consultants. That's why I said they like to help other people, because they are working with different target audiences trying to solve their problems. So they come to me, they say, Hey, I have this idea, or I've been doing this thing. And I really want to take it to the next level. So through our coaching program, we really work kind of hand in hand, I call it a white glove service. And we help them identify what their goals are, we put times behind it, we keep them accountable. And then we give them tools, techniques, guides, scripts, all the things they need to actually achieve that. So basically, we're a business coaching service, but then we also provide those tangible, practical elements they need to do the thing that is called business.   Michael Hingson ** 24:33 So do you oftentimes end up having to help people maybe even restructure their business, do things more efficiently change their operation to to become better at what they do?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 24:47 Absolutely. A lot of what we do is kind of go in and look at the systems or lack thereof with their systems. We do something called a brand audit, where we go in and kind of look like how are you doing this? How are you structuring it? Because usually a lot of new entrepreneurs are having issues with burnout. They're trying to do all the things themselves, and in the most tiresome ways, and so we teach them about outsourcing, we teach them about working with their CEO mindset. And then of course, building confidence to sell because that is something that a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with as well.   Michael Hingson ** 25:22 Yeah. And we're also afraid of failing, what do you what do you say to somebody who says I'm afraid of failing?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 25:30 That is, that's a great question only because I almost want to laugh. I talked to my clients about this all the time, who say they're afraid to fail, I always tell people, you're not afraid to fail. Because when you know that you have a gift, and that you have a talent or you have a product that people need, and you don't act on it, you're already failing, you're doing it every day that you don't work towards your goal, that you don't strive for greatness. And so you're not afraid to fail, because you're already doing it, what you're afraid of is success. Because if you weren't afraid of success, you wouldn't worry about the what ifs, you would just keep going until you hit that hit that success, and really make that mark that you're trying to make. So I always say people aren't really afraid of fit failure at all. They're definitely afraid of what success will look like on them.   Michael Hingson ** 26:16 Very good point. And the other part about it is that oftentimes people don't recognize that failure is in what they define as failure is probably one of the best learning experiences around because what does failure really means? Alright, something didn't work. So hopefully, you're smart enough to realize I won't do that again, and you start to think about other things to do that may make it more successful.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 26:43 Absolutely. They call it faultless. And failing forward, you take every failure as a learning experience, and you move forward.   Michael Hingson ** 26:51 Exactly what should happen. And all too often, we don't tend to teach people about that, you know, a very strange example of that is guide dogs. For years, even the guide dog schools would say that the dogs that didn't make it as guide dogs failed, and they just didn't measure up. And so they had to go do other things, they finally realized that that was the wrong terminology, because they weren't failures. The reality is that not every dog is meant to be a guide dog. And it's like with people, not everyone can do every particular job, which is what you said before. So the guide dog school started saying their career changed. Some of them have gone on to be cancer, detecting dogs or diabetic detecting dogs or in so insulin reactions and issues, seizure, detections, any number of different things. But they're not failures. And that's one of the things that we really need to get over is recognizing or not recognizing that a failure or our expectation of something that goes a particular way that doesn't go that way, is really the opportunity to explore something different. Absolutely. And you know, all too often, we really need to do some of that. Well, so for a person with a disability and putting it in air quotes, what are some of the challenges that you and others with disabilities have had in starting businesses and moving forward with them?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 28:27 I think for me, I struggled. One was confidence, because I didn't know how others were going to perceive me. Like I said, as someone who, I guess, in my eyes visibly looks like, there's something going on. I think some people don't know that like is like something's off with their face. I'm not sure what it what it is. Because people don't know what blindness looks like. And sometimes I and sometimes people actually will get mad at me because I didn't think I was legally blind. And they were to think I was making it up. And it's, it's been both ways. So I was kind of lost comp will not lost confidence. But I lacked confidence early on, and just that fear of what people were going to think. But then also the practical things of like how I was going to get things done, my eyes get really tired. I've had a lot of surgeries on my eyes and eyes are just like any other muscle where they get fatigued. And now I have really bad light sensitivity. And so I can't sit in front of the computer for a long time. I can't go outside a lot without shades and even with shaved, my eyes get really sensitive. And so I have to be really cautious about the types of activities I do the places I go. So that I can still work. I have to take lots of breaks. And so sometimes that impedes on work. And I have to find a way to make a schedule that allows for those breaks. And that's why one of the reasons why I actually stayed working for myself because I did later find out that yes, people who are blind can work and do work and are amazing workers. But because of my light sensitivity In my fatigue, I decided that it would be best for me and less frustrating if I work from home and work for myself so that I could take breaks and didn't have to worry about explaining myself to others because I'm the boss, and I take a break when I need to. And if my eyes get too much sun exposure, I can go lay down and close my eyes or put a mask over my eyes or whatever I need to do to take care of me. So some of the things I've had to learn a business are definitely how to do everything, how to what computer devices you use, what apps will help, some websites do not allow me to zoom in, it's the most stressful thing ever, different apps will allow me to zoom in. So I can't see how to do things I've had to learn how to do workarounds for that, when I have surgeries and can't see it all, I have to quickly figure out how to listen well, because they have a lot of apps out there that will talk to you. And my condition is a little different than some people who are consistently blind. And that I feel like they get the skills because they use it all the time. But I can go from being able to drive to not being able to see my face really quickly, like within three days time. And so I have to quickly pick up those skills of listening well, so I can use all those amazing apps to help me navigate the TV, my phone, the computer, all kinds of things. And luckily, there are amazing software's out there. But I have had those challenges and just navigating that as I build my business. And as I just live my day to day life.   Michael Hingson ** 31:34 Have you learned to use things like screen readers, such as JAWS, and so on to verbalize what comes across the computer? So you don't have to necessarily strain your eyes as much can I recognize that you can go from not seeing well to seeing fairly well. But have you thought about the concept of maybe using a screen reader regularly might ease some of the eye strain and and make for an easier process and use it to augment what you do get to be able to do when you can see.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 32:04 Yeah, I've been playing more with that lately, since I had a I had an emergency eye surgery a couple of months ago, and I've been trying to use the technology more, I'm just really, I'm really impatient. I'm not gonna lie to you, I am very impatient. And so sometimes I'm like, Ah, it takes forever because a lot of times it'll it'll read. So I've used apps where it'll read to me, like where a button is like when I pass over it. But then I have to hit the button like twice. And this is like ah, so oftentimes I get frustrated and take it off. But I have been getting better at trying out different apps and different software's and trying to use them more consistently. Even like using my walking cane, I try to remember to go back and use it more often. Because what tends to happen is when I really need it, I haven't used it in a month. And then I'm like, oh my god, I gotta learn this fast. And then I have all the anxiety around kind of getting back acclimated. So yeah, I have been trying to use them more consistently, because with consistency comes confidence and the tool. But like I said, I just I'm really impatient. So it's been a struggle, that is definitely something that I continue to struggle with.   Michael Hingson ** 33:12 Well, but the other side of it is that you, you may find that it helps another way. So for example is talking about using a cane. If you're using a cane, and you use it regularly. One of the things is that people will know you're blind, and that may or may not build barriers, but for a lot of people, hopefully it won't, because you're already doing what you do. And worst case had opens up the opportunity to have a conversation about it. Well, the same thing with different technologies you talked about when you find a button and you have to tap it twice. That's when you're using a touchscreen. But on the other hand with your computer, you can use a program such as JAWS, or NVDA, or Microsoft Narrator which is built into Windows and actually verbalize whatever comes across the screen and still use your keyboard the way you normally do. And then the point of doing that consistently, is that you use your your eyesight to complement and enhance what you get with a screen reader or using the technology as opposed to just using one or the other. Because you have the ability and the opportunity to use both. Does that make sense?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 34:23 Well, absolutely. And as I said, I'm just I'm just now trying to do it more often. But I definitely see the benefits and doing it for sure. And I said I I like to be really honest about the fact that I've had this condition now for many years. But over the last, I don't know, four or five years. I've had the harder time because I've had the biggest changes in my vision really fast. And so I've had to get over. People are looking at me and again what did the people think? And I had one lady who was helping me with my came and learning how to do that. And she was like, Why do you care so much? What people? What are people what people are thinking that are looking at you, you can't see them anyway. And I was like, Well, that's true. Because I just felt like they're looking at me. And she was like, but you can't see them. So don't worry about it. And I was like, well, she is right. So it's a it's an emotional and like a mental block that I'm I'm fighting to overcome. And I don't want people to think that, you know, none of us go through that, because I definitely do. Because I do care what people think, and I shouldn't. And that has definitely kind of guided some of the choices I've made in my accessibility. But like you said, it's kind of limiting me sometimes. And so I definitely, like I said, I'm coming to a place now more of acceptance. And now I am learning more and trying to utilize, like you said, all these different things that are available to me so that I can do even more and do it for longer, because they don't know how long I'll have vision and how much vision I'll have. So I definitely will probably forever be using these tools. And I need to get pretty good at them pretty quick really quickly.   Michael Hingson ** 36:11 Yeah, that's the of course major issue that, that especially if your eye condition, or any eye condition deteriorates more consistently, then you need to, or get to depending on how you want to view it utilize those technologies? And isn't it better to really become familiar with them, while you still have access to both worlds rather than waiting until suddenly now you're in a different position? It's it's adopting a different mindset. And you said something interesting when you worry about what people think it caused me to think about something that I hadn't ever really expressed or thought of and that is, should we worry about what people think or worry about what they know. And that's really the issue the problem with most people and what they think is, the reality is they don't know. And they're thinking based on erroneous information and wrong assumptions. And so, like it or not, we all get to be teachers. But that's really it right? It's matter of what they really know, not what they think. So I think your friend was right, it shouldn't really matter to you what they think it's more a matter of what they know. And you know, like you and me in and are and others, there are things that are acceptable in society to do, you don't wear two different colored shoes, or you're not supposed to anyway, or any number of things like that, and you develop develop techniques. So you don't have to do that. But those are our different issues, then you're using a cane to travel around, which should certainly be okay. And even if you do it every day consistently, you get more comfortable with it. But the other part about it is that other people start to recognize maybe it's not such a bad thing after all.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 38:12 Yeah, I agree. It definitely is a mindset shift. And I think most people go through some type of confidence hit when they are seeing or feel that they're different than I hate using the word normal, because nobody's normal, but then what people expect to be the normal thing. But like I said, I am every day, every day, and I'm excited because this is a different feeling. I'm everyday, getting more and more comfortable with me. Right? Like, I'm great at certain things already. Like I've known one amazing business person, I know my grades, I'm a great mom and a great wife. But being a visibly disabled person, I wasn't always the greatest at out of like I said, fear, you know, self doubt, whatever the case may be. And now I'm just like, hey, this is me, you like it or not. And I'm gonna do what I need to do to be amazing and everything. So I love that, you know, I'm getting to meet people like you and others who are out here rocking it, regardless of what people perceive as issues or you know, different things that make life tougher, everybody's life is gonna be different. And this is my life. And I'm excited that I now feel more capable of, you know, doing it on my own terms.   Michael Hingson ** 39:27 The biggest problem, I think, with blindness is that more people haven't tried it. Now, the problem with saying that is, you can't just put a blindfold on and suddenly you're an expert at being blind. You know, that's one of the reasons that a number of us don't like this concept that some organizations and restaurants have started dining in the dark. Because if you go into a restaurant, and it's totally dark, and they take you to a table and they sit you down, and you get your food and things fall off your fork and all that. What have you really learned you certainly haven't learned How to eat like a blind person. You haven't learned the techniques, it doesn't train you, which continues to reinforce misconceptions and the wrong stereotypes. And that's what we really need to get over somehow is dealing with those stereotypes. And so it is important that we all do work toward helping others recognize that blindness isn't what they think it is, and that in reality, it's just another characteristic, like being male or female or being left handed or anything like that.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 40:36 Yeah, definitely. Even though the left handed people are weirdos. Oh,   Michael Hingson ** 40:41 you tell them? Yeah, well, some of them are. But there are some pretty weirdo right handed people too. So I won't go there. But But I hear what you're I hear you know, it's an issue. And you know, that's an interesting question. If you're left handed, is your brain so different that you don't work in function in the world like the rest of us, and I'm not ready to go there. I don't buy that. But I hear what you're saying. And you're picking on your mom, that's what you're doing?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 41:10 Definitely. She's a lefty.   Michael Hingson ** 41:12 She's a lefty. Hey, there's some good lefty baseball pitchers. So be nice. Okay. Well, when you're doing your work, and you're you're working with businesses, and so on, what do you do in general to make sure that as they go forward, they tend to be more inclusive of people with disabilities. And so when do you educate them? Do you have the opportunity to educate them? Does that ever enter into what you do?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 41:43 Yeah, when I have the opportunity, I definitely do. So something that a lot of coaches have right now, our courses, like on demand courses, they're just the thing everybody wants, because it's great passive income. And I do talk to them about that, because people will have courses where there are, there's no way for people who have trouble hearing to access it. Like they're just they have a video with just them talking. So I'll say Well, hey, you know, maybe if you had the the the transcripts available as a form of the course that would be great because it can read it. And then also having maybe captions for those who need captions, making sure they're using technology that like I said, zoom for people like me who struggle to see that you people can zoom in some are more friendly than others. And then just thinking about in general people's learning styles, because again, I work with people who also have that are autistic, have ADD ADHD etc. And so I also talked about that, like making sure that you're thinking about how people learn, some people cannot sit for long periods of time. And so they need quick bites, some people lose focus easily. And so we talked about, just think about who your audience is, and what their needs are, oftentimes, as entrepreneurs, we think about ourselves and what we would like, but you really have to be cognizant of what your audience needs and what they like. And so we talk about accessibility from all the viewpoints, not just, oh, people can go like the most common ones people can't see or they can't hear. It's like, No, how do people think, how do they access information? How do they learn, and make sure that you are addressing those things as well. But we definitely have those conversations about just you know, different things, especially when it comes to websites, like how do people access your website? I'm still updating mine as I learn more things as well. So yeah, when the opportunity presents itself, we definitely have those conversations. But I'll be honest, I'm still learning as well. And I think that if people go into life in general, saying that they're open to learning and growing, that's just where we need to all be because nobody knows everything. Like you said, people go to that dinner and the document like, okay, now I know, but you don't. And it takes really being open to understand listening, and then adjusting as needed. And so I tell my clients just be open to changing and adjusting, just like I'm open to changing and adjusting as I grow as well.   Michael Hingson ** 44:12 One of the things that I've encouraged people to do is instead of doing things like dining in the dark, is get a white cane, and a pair of glasses, since that's part of the typical stereotype. But the whole point is for you to continue to be able to see what's going on around you and walk down the street using a cane and look at how people react to you. That's going to teach you more about the issues that we face as blind people rather than dealing with things that are going to continue to reinforce stereotypes because people will look at you weird people will move away from you and so on. And those are the barriers that we really need to address and deal with and in society and all of us who are born blind or my wife who was in a wheelchair for her whole life or other people in terms of things that they have that are so called disabilities when, especially when they're visible. You see firsthand how people react to you. And that is where the real story is.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 45:17 Yeah, definitely. That's what I said that was one of my biggest issues is like, yeah, people looking at you. Because when I was going through cane training, I could see I wasn't in a flare. And like I said, when people's when I first started, people's head would turn, like you said, they jump out the way or, or they will be mean and not get out the way. It's like, why would you do that? I told you, in our previous conversation about when I traveled by myself, I was treated so horribly, I was lost at the airport, the people forgot about me that were supposed to get me from point A to point B, people were making comments to each other about me, and it's just not nice. Like we should all strive to be good humans. And when in doubt, you don't know what to say Just don't say anything at all. Because we can hear like people will like ants can hear. I don't know why people think we can't. But it's like, Don't talk about me like I'm a child or less van. Because you see that I am moving throughout the world, definitely, then you might assume I should.   Michael Hingson ** 46:17 My wife and I and my inlaws went to Spain in 1992. And I remember, we got to Madrid, I think it was, and the people decided I had to sit somewhere special being blind, not even my wife, and I was separated from them, the rest of the family, and they wouldn't even tell the rest of the family where I was. And finally, we got connected again. But I can tell you that the airline personnel heard a great deal about it, from me and from other people, because it is inappropriate for them to make a lot of the assumptions that they do. And now, of course, part of the problem was that, it would have been a major challenge for me to go wander around and try to find them because even finding people who would speak English that I could communicate with to say, Help me find a lady in a wheelchair or whatever. That tends to be part of the issue. But the bottom line is that you're right, people just don't think. And again, they make assumptions. And so oftentimes, we do have to take stance, I would react differently today, if I were put in the same situation, because I wouldn't even allow us to get separated. And if people didn't like that, then fine. Let them call the police or whoever, and we'll have a discussion about it. But absolutely.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 47:50 And I think that's the thing, too. The more confidence you get, the more you're capable of advocating for yourself, because you're right stuff that happened in the beginning. Even like with doctors, I let them for years, treat me any kind of way. And now it's like, oh, Nah, you can quickly be fired. If you don't believe real easy. You're not gonna try for me good day. For sure, I will not be disrespected anymore.   Michael Hingson ** 48:15 Well, in addition to your business, you I think you do a lot of speaking.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 48:20 Yes, I do. I do a lot of speaking on building your confidence. Because I really think that that's a major cornerstone and being able to achieve anything that you want whether you want to be an entrepreneur, whether you want to be a writer, whether you want to be I don't know, Baker, whatever you want to do. Confidence plays a big role. And so I use something called the aarC framework when I talk and when I teach and train and work with my clients, and it's all about taking small actions to build your confidence now, I don't like people to get stuck in the mindset and the what is the woulda, coulda shoulda us of things. I say, You know what, figure out what your goal is and take action. And those actions will feed your confidence. Because if you never tried that you only are working around the assumption that you won't succeed, right? I was like, Oh, I can't have a business. I can't make money. I can't. I got there was so many things I thought I couldn't do and it wasn't until I started trying to do those things that I was like, okay, all right, I can't do this. And now I can do more. And I can do even more. And so when I do speaking engagements, I'm always talking about building confidence, basically to unlock your full potential as a person in general.   Michael Hingson ** 49:30 Yeah. And it's, it's, of course, still all about education more than anything else. So how do you how do you find speaking engagements and how does all that work for you?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 49:44 It's always a constant battle. Like I don't have a cool story like you do. I was like, Wow, man, your story's amazing. But I do I use my network. And I also pitch to different conferences and apply to different conferences and I also host my own events. I do a lot of podcasting. Like I'm on your podcast today. But I do a lot of podcasting. And I talk about some entrepreneur things. Some does mom things because I'm a mom, I'm a homeschooling mom, too. But like I said, the overall theme for me is always about confidence.   Michael Hingson ** 50:17 You have your own podcast,   Cori Fonville Foster ** 50:19 I do have my own podcast. Yes, it's called I run business with confidence, podcast, let's Sorry, no cute name. But I wanted people to understand the premise. It's about business owners building their confidence. And we have experts that come on weekly, and talk about their business journey hurdles, they've overcome their unique perspective. And then of course, giving people some real tangible things to implement in their business, to move them forward so that we can all have amazing businesses and rock them with confidence.   Michael Hingson ** 50:51 So as a speaker who's been out there, and who's been all over the place, what advice do you have for other speakers, much less other speakers with disabilities? What What kind of advice do you offer for people? Or would you suggest   Cori Fonville Foster ** 51:05 authentically you, I think for any speaker that identifies a have a disability or not, you seen a lot of times you fall into the trap of trying to imitate, or copy or duplicate somebody else's personality or their style, do you and do what you need to get the job done. I, I always worry about what I shouldn't say worried, but I'm always concerned about things like am I going to be able to see time clock since the end of stages and make eye contact or are a little like I'm making eye contact, I should say, with the audience and different things like that, guys, just be you show up people like my personality, I don't think they care if I'm actually looking at them or not. Which is great. Because that used to be a thing like, oh, you know, I have to do this and that, but no, I'm me. I show up as my goofy self. I tell my stories, I I laugh with everybody, you know, I make them feel something, I give them my strategies, my techniques, and then people go away with something that's amazing. And so I would just encourage anyone out there, if you're going to do speaking, be you use your stories, your frameworks and get your point across in your own very special way.   Michael Hingson ** 52:18 And I absolutely agree with you, the most important thing that we as speakers can do is be ourselves. I once was encouraged when I was first starting out, I was encouraged to write speeches and read them. And I didn't like that idea, because I didn't think that that was necessarily my style. But I tried it a couple of times, and then listen to myself and heard how horrible it really was. But more important. What I noticed is that when I talked with an audience that is, as a speaker, I don't talk to an audience, I want to talk with them, they may not be saying anything. But it is important that I connect with them. And that really means talking with them talking at whatever levels that they are at and trying to strike a chord by talking about things they want to hear about, in addition to the things that I would like them to understand. That's all part of being authentic. And that's what's really necessary for any speaker to be truly effective.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 53:23 Absolutely. And it's funny that you mentioned writing down I actually, I don't know if you've heard of Toastmasters, but I was in leadership with their organization for a while and they do a lot of public speaking. So I will work with a lot of new public speakers. And some people were very much like, I must write this down. And some people did bullets. And some people like to speak from the cuff. And I'll just say do what works for you try out different methods for sure. For all our listeners out there, try what works for you. I do have people that really cannot do speeches, if they don't write them down word for word, they won't read them in public, of course, but they really like they want to make sure that they hit all the words that they planned. And they prefer to kind of work off of that. And then I'm a bullet girl, I like to outline my speeches, and then just talk through them. Like I'm talking with the audience. And every time I do a speech, even if it's on the same topic, it's gonna always be a little differently different. Even if there's a like a slide deck that goes with it, I'm going to speak based on the topic, but then kind of change it depending on my mood for the day. And then I like I said, I have some clients that I've worked with who just off the cuff. They know how much time they have, and they just go and I more power to them. I would ramble on forever. And so I prefer to have a little bit of structure, but with a lot of freedom. Well, and   Michael Hingson ** 54:41 you can do that no matter how you speak and there's nothing wrong with that. I will use notes, especially when I'm speaking to an audience and I've interacted with the event sponsors and they talk about certain things they want in the messaging and so on. I will make sure I have notes of that I deal with those issues, but I also believe that again, a speech that is the most effective is one that you're truly having a conversation with the audience over. And so the notes are important. And there's nothing wrong with that. But reading a speech, I've heard some people do that it just doesn't really go over very well. Sounds really nice way to do. Yeah, well, have you written any books.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 55:28 So I haven't, but I'm in the process of writing a book, I'm super excited, it should launch depending on when this podcast comes out. It may or may not be out, but it's gonna be summer 2023. And it's about monetizing your passion with confidence. So same same lines as what I do, but I wanted it available for individuals who want it, to read it on their own and pass it in and you know, do like that first step before they went into like a course or a coaching program. So I'm really excited. My very first book, but it's been a long time coming. So it'll be on the shelves, summer 2023,   Michael Hingson ** 56:03 you have a publisher, are you publishing it yourself?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 56:07 I have a self publishing I am a do it yourself kind of girl. I'm actually trying to figure out how to do the audio part of the book myself. But we're still in the research phases of that, but it'll happen.   Michael Hingson ** 56:18 Well, an audible has a way to do that, where you can actually, if you choose to and can do it. Well, you can read your own book, but you can certainly go to audible and learn about how to do an audio version of your book. So there's a lot of value in doing that. And of course, having an audio copy of it makes it accessible for other people. And the other thing that you could consider Have you ever heard of bookshare.org? I have not Bookshare as there used to be a company called Napster. Are you familiar with Napster? So Napster was the thing where you could go off and share records and all that, and it got to the issue and the point where the problem was people were violating copyrights and so on. Well, Bookshare in a sense, is is the Napster of books for people who have a need to have alternative ways of getting books that are normally in print, the difference is that an organization like Bookshare is covered under the copyright laws. So doing it is legal. And you can take any book provide an electronic version of it, and they will put it out in their system. And it is something that's available, they can also even do on demand, converting it to Braille. So something to look at. But I would also suggest so that you can make some money, looking at if you want to read it or get someone else to read it. Look at doing that on Audible, because you may find that that's another revenue source.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 57:45 Absolutely. That's one of my main things I wanted to build on Audible, because that is how I read books. My eyes do not like trying to read paper books. And there are some there are many times I would say actually 50% of the time, if not more, where I cannot read the print and a book. So it's the only way that I can really enjoy book is through an audible audio version. And so I wanted to make sure that others can read listen to my book as well. I would hate to have a book out that I can't read that would be awful.   Michael Hingson ** 58:15 Have you have you learned any Braille? Or have you tried to do I have   Cori Fonville Foster ** 58:20 not? And it is not even on my to do list? Because yes, that is just it's an undertaking, maybe in the next five to 10 years, but right now I'm just like, I cannot put another thing on my plate. Just kind of be honest. I don't even read regular we'll just like I I get tired fast. So yeah, I'm like, it's definitely something that I know I will have to do eventually. Not yet.   Michael Hingson ** 58:47 Have you become a patron of using the Library of Congress National Library Service and getting books that way? Okay. Yeah, gotten that. That's, and by the way, although that isn't a revenue source, once your print book is out, that is something that you could submit, and they may or may not make that book available through National Library Service, but Audible is a better revenue source anyway.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 59:13 Yeah. And I didn't even know that that existed until I connected with the organization was like, oh, you know, are you able to read books? And I was like, No, I haven't read a book in a year. Like, I'm just sitting around, not doing anything. And they're like, hey, this, this is available, they'll send it to you for free. I was like, Really, I even had a newspaper. It was like a, like a radio station or newspaper that they gave us free echo dots. And so they would read the paper and everything in it that like opened up my world to because yeah, I just didn't have a lot of access. And I shouldn't know when all this was happening in the beginning. I definitely was in a different financial place. You guys can read through the line. So there wa

Today on the show, Steven and Shaun really do make it all about you, with a read through your emails and a listen to your voicemails. All of this of course comes after a healthy dose of banter about Shaun looking like an upside-down camel. Full details within! We hear from listener Debbie from Toronto, who is wondering how to join the OpenScape beat. Details to join are here: https://testflight.apple.com/join/yAwt6vYy Plus there are comments from Aaron on using the new OpenFit earbuds from Shokz, and a question about the role of Braille notetakers. And Grammy gets in touch to ask us to be less technical in our discussions! Get in touch with the Double Tappers and join the conversation: Email: feedback@doubletaponair.com Call: 1-877-803-4567 (Canada and USA) / 0204 571 3354 (UK) Twitter: @BlindGuyTech / @ShaunShed / @DoubleTapOnAir Mastodon: @DoubleTap YouTube: DoubleTapOnAir

While attending the 2023 NFB Convention in Houston Texas, Blind Abilities podcast host Simon Bonenfant sat down with Dave Williams. Dave works on the Inclusive Design Team at RNIB, Royal National Institute for Blind People. Dave also serves as chair of the Braillists Foundation, a United Kingdom based charity with the mission of promoting the advancement of Braille.   Dave speaks with Simon about his journey of his denial to acceptance of blindness. He discusses how technology, Braille, and mobility skills have not only empowered him but helped him to empower others to make their dreams come true. As a member of the Inclusive Design team, Dave works with existing technology companies to make sure their emerging products are inclusive for all, regardless of disability. Read More

Getting braille onto food labelling is the subject of an ongoing campaign by a number of disability groups in Scotland. Oban and District Access Panel, Disability Equality Scotland and Sight Scotland have taken their campaign to the Scottish Government and are currently seeking visually impaired people's experiences and preferences when it comes to accessible food packaging. If you'd like to submit your experiences, visit: http://inclusivecommunication.scot/braille-campaign Or call Disability Equality Scotland on 0141 370 0968 Day Al-Mohamed may not be a household name here in the UK, but she is certainly making waves in the United States. As well as being an author, a broadcaster, a documentary film maker and co-founder of a company that helps disabled people get into film making, she also spent a year working at the White House. There, she was Director of Disability Policy and would review new legislation and current policies to ensure the rights and needs of disabled people were being met. Presenter: Peter White Producer: Beth Hemmings Production Coordinator: Liz Poole Website image description: Peter White sits smiling in the centre of the image, wearing a dark green jumper. Above Peter's head is the BBC logo (three individual white squares house each of the three letters). Bottom centre and overlaying the image are the words "In Touch" and the Radio 4 logo (the word Radio in a bold white font, with the number 4 inside a white circle). The background is a bright mid-blue with two rectangles angled diagonally to the right. Both are behind Peter, one of a darker blue and the other is a lighter blue.

En este episodio, Manolo hace una demostración de BrailleBuzz, un app sencilla para el iPhone y para Android, para complementar y apoyar el proceso inicial del aprendizaje del Braille por los estudiantes ciegos. El app es gratuita y es desarrollada por APH, American Printing House. El episodio se divide en las siguientes partes: 00:00:00 – […]

At the 2023 NFB Convention in Houston, Texas, Blind Abilities podcast host Simon Bonenfant sat down with Nimer Jaber, Accessibility Analyst at Google, Inc. Nimer discusses his love for, and advocacy of, the Android operating system. He recounts his own path of blindness and his views about technology. We hear Nimer's journey from resisting a smartphone, to becoming a tech trainer, to his current work helping the blind community through the Google corporation. Our topics include:   ·      Improvements to the Talkback program, a built-in screen reader for all Android devices, including improvements when using a Braille display. Will be released in July 2023 ·      The new Bard application, Google's AI chatbot ·      The Lookout application, an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) service helping blind people with everyday tasks such as reading documents, currencies, bar codes, etc. Updates released in later half of 2023 ·      Android 14 operating system, scheduled to be released later in 2023 ·      Updates to Chrome OS and Chrome Vox screen reader. Read More

In this inspiring podcast episode, we have the pleasure of hosting Roberta Becker and Tamara Black, the authors of innovative books about Braille reading. Join us as we sit down with the creative minds behind this unique publication, exploring the motivation and vision that led to its creation. Discover the authors' personal journey and experiences in the world of Braille, along with the impact they hope to make with this educational resource. Register and save your slot today for the Online TVI Symposium! https://tvisymposium.com Don't forget to follow us on social: ⁠Instagram⁠ ⁠Facebook⁠ ⁠LinkedIn

Welcome to Episode 44 of The Tactile Traveler Podcast! Join us as we explore the Vietnam War Memorial Wall, learn how to become a delegate to the next Democratic or Republican National Convention, and discover Braille Beer in Japan.

Today on the Express Steven and Shaun wrap up another week of tech news with the latest headlines from Grace Scoffield including news of a new device to aid communication for deaf blind people. Also there's news of a new Android version of ChatGPT and Samsung's latest products announced at their Unpacked event. Also there's an update on the Braille laptop called the Optima from Ali Kushner from AccessMind, and details of new enhancements to Siri from disability advocate Colin Hughes. And following listener Darren's message this week we bring you more on the Canute Console from Bristol Braille Technology that is due to be launched soon. Get in touch with the Double Tappers and join the conversation: Email: feedback@doubletaponair.com Call: 1-877-803-4567 (Canada and USA) / 0204 571 3354 (UK) Twitter: @BlindGuyTech / @ShaunShed / @DoubleTapOnAir Mastodon: @DoubleTap YouTube: DoubleTapOnAir

From the 2023 NFB Convention in Houston Texas, Blind Abilities podcast host Simon Bonenfant spoke with Greg Stilson, Head of Global Innovation at American Printing House for the Blind (APH). Greg first takes listeners through the new Monarch Tactile Display. This braille display is a partnership between APH, Humanware, and the NFB. Greg also gives an overview of APH's other offerings such as the Mantis and Chameleon braille displays, and the low-vision magnification devices such as the Juno and Jupiter  as well as the Matt Connect Android Tablet.   Additionally, Greg discusses the recently released Code Jumper, and Road to Code a set of tools designed to help blind people learn how to code. Greg closes the interview by talking about his personal journey through blindness and technology and how his experience is an asset to his current work at APH.   Read More

Today on the show Steven and Shaun find out more about the upcoming Optima braille laptop device from one of the partners involved in its creation. Add Kushner from AccessMind joins the guys to talk about feedback they have been receiving that they intend to implement into the device and also what feedback they have been getting from competitors in the braille tech space. Also there's more feedback from you, in particular on the subjects of audio description, braille and literacy and also comments on the new Victor Reader Stream 3rd generation. Get in touch with the Double Tappers and join the conversation: Email: feedback@doubletaponair.com Call: 1-877-803-4567 (Canada and USA) / 0204 571 3354 (UK) Twitter: @BlindGuyTech / @ShaunShed / @DoubleTapOnAir Mastodon: @DoubleTap YouTube: DoubleTapOnAir