Podcasts about colorado center

In honor of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we have invited Jonathan Mosen, our executive director for accessibility excellence and Brittany Savage, an instructor at our Colorado Center for the Blind. They discuss the latest technology, efficient ways to use technology, and emphasize the importance of being tech-savvy with low tech skills.

This time we get to meet Jocelyn Sandstrom, my first podcast guest from Hawaii. Jocelyn was born and raised in Hawaii. Tt the urging of her mother, she took her first modeling job when she was sixteen. As she tells the story, she grew up quiet and pretty shy and she didn't have a great deal of confidence in herself. After high school, modeling became her full-time career. She says that the urging and support of her mother caused her to make some of the best decisions in her life. Modeling, she tells us, brought her out of herself. She traveled to 12 countries over a 20-year modeling career. She loved every minute of the experience.   In 2003 she began thinking that she wanted to help others deal with their confidence and career issues. By 2010 she decided that she was experiencing burnout as a model and changed to a coaching career that, in part, helped others to recognize burnout and deal with it. Jocelyn provides us with some good life pointers and lessons to help us change our mindset from the usual negative “I have to do this” to a more positive view “I get to do this”. I leave it to her to tell more.   Jocelyn does offer many insights I am sure you will appreciate. Over her 15-year coaching career she has become certified in several disciplines, and she uses them to teach her clients how to shift their careers to more positive and strong efforts going forward.       About the Guest:   Growing up in Hawaii, Jocelyn has lived and worked in 12 different countries. This experience has allowed her to realize that even though we may speak different languages or have different traditions, at our core, we are all the same. She has used this knowledge to help and support clients around the world in creating next-level success not just in their careers but in their personal lives as well.    Since 2010, she has been providing Quantum Energy Sessions and teaching Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Neurological Re-patterning, and the Millennium Method to clients globally. In 2022, she founded Wellness and Metaphysical, a community-driven platform that promotes a higher level of consciousness through expos and retreats.   Jocelyn's mindset and energy work have propelled her career, allowing her to work with leading global luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Fendi, Cartier, Tiffany & Co., Christian Louboutin, and Yves Saint Laurent, among others. She has been featured on the covers of Elle, Marie Claire, Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, and more. Alongside her husband, she has hosted two travel shows and appeared in various feature and short films. After creating a career beyond her wildest dreams through quantum manifestations, her passion is to now help others do the same, whether it's business, health, relationships, or any aspect of life.   Jocelyn specializes in helping clients release deep-rooted issues from their past that are holding them back. She supports clients in building not just success but also fulfillment at the same time because success without fulfillment is empty, leading to burnout and anxiety. She supports her clients to discover their authentic truth and share that with the world, magnetizing their energy to start attracting people and opportunities out of the blue, enabling them to fall in love with themselves and their life while creating more success than ever before!   Jocelyn is a certified:   Neuro-Linguistic Programing Advanced Practitioner + Teacher Neurological Re-patterning Practitioner + Teacher Ericksonian Hypnosis Practitioner + Teacher Millennium Method™ Practitioner + Teacher Yuen Method™ Practitioner Reiki Practitioner.   Ways to connect Jocelyn:   Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jocelynlukosandstrom/?hl=en Facebook https://www.facebook.com/jocelyn.lukosandstrom/ LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jocelyn-luko-sandstrom-4789882a/  Website www.jocelynsandstrom.com   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 subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   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.   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 01:56 Thank you so much, and I do hope you come back again. It's such an honor to be on your podcast. Well, it's   Michael Hingson ** 02:02 been a while. It's only been 15 years since I've been there, and it is time to come back, but my wife passed away, and so it's kind of not nearly as fun to come alone, unless, unless I come and people keep me busy over there, but we'll figure it out.   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 02:17 Yes, I'm so sorry about your wife, and if you want, I will show you around here.   Michael Hingson ** 02:24 Well, we'll have to make something happen. We'll just, we'll just do it. Yes, but I'm really glad that you're here. Um, Jocelyn is an interesting individual, and by any standard, she is a we're a neurological repatterning practitioner plus teacher. She has a lot of things. She does neuro linguistics. She is also a Reiki Master and practitioner, and just a number of things, and we're going to get to all of that, but I want to, again, welcome you and really glad that you're taking the time to be with us instead of being with clients, with all the things that you do.   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 03:11 Thank you so much for your time. I love your podcast and everything, all the messages that you're bringing out onto the world.   Michael Hingson ** 03:17 Well, thank you. It has been a lot of fun to be able to do it and continue to do it, and we're having a lot of fun doing it, so I can't complain a whole lot about that. It's just a lot of fun. And I as I tell people, if I'm not learning at least as much as everybody else, then I'm not doing my job right. So I'm really glad that I get to learn so much from from people as well. Well, why don't we start, as I love to do, with learning about the early Jocelyn, growing up and all that sort of stuff.   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 03:49 Well, I did grow up in Hawaii, and I, like every a lot of people, we went through a lot of growing pains. I had a lot that I did grow through, and it wasn't until I started my first contract overseas when I was 16 that life shifted for me, and I started to find my people and started to come into my own, get you know, transcending above the bullying and everything that happened in childhood. And then I lived overseas for about 20 years and moved home in 2016 to be with my family again.   Michael Hingson ** 04:29 So where did you live for those 20 years? I lived in   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 04:31 12 different countries around the world. Um, I absolutely for me, it was I just loved exploring different cultures. It wasn't like going on vacation, to me, is amazing, but going to a place, living there, working with the people, learning the culture, learning the different ways that they work in, you know, speaking like the languages I only you know, spoke a very little bit of each language, just like taxi language, right? Um. And then just immersing into the culture, just the food tastes different in every place as well. Like it could be the same thing, but it just tastes different. Life is so different. And for me, that was my passion, really, to just immerse into different cultures, different parts of the world, different parts of me as well. Because every time I went to another country, I became a different person. There was another side of me that got ignited that I didn't even know was there. And so I got to not only discover myself, but I got to discover the world.   Michael Hingson ** 05:30 What made you go to so many different countries? What started all that?   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 05:35 Well, I was modeling so I was able to do contracts in different countries. And so whenever I wanted to go to their country, I just contacted an agency there, and I got a contract and went and so basically, the world was my oyster. And I just said, Where do I desire to go next? And then Khan reached out. Instead of waiting for someone to come to me, I reached out to that, you know, to agencies over there and got a contract and went over. So I've never, once I started that. I've never been one to sit around and wait for things to kind of come to me. It's always been this is what I desire. So now let me go and create that to happen. And that's how I created my last career to be so successful. And there's so many things that I learned along the way that not only can you use that, but also to do it in a way that doesn't burn you out. And so that's my passion now, is to help people to build success and fulfillment, not just the success. Because I had burnt out pretty bad, and I in hindsight, if I had done it differently, I probably could have built it even bigger without the burnout. And so that's my passion now, and that's how I built this career, is through that fulfillment and success at the same time, so that it's so fulfilling, as well as creating next level results.   Michael Hingson ** 06:59 Did you go to college? Or did you go from high school into modeling?   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 07:03 I went straight in. What   Michael Hingson ** 07:06 started you with that? My   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 07:08 mom, of course, it's always your mom, right? Of course, because I was very shy, and like I said, I went through a lot growing up, through bullying and all of this. So for me, it was like the best blessing that's ever happened. For me, I was very scared, but I knew that I wanted to explore and try, and it brought me out of my shell. It brought me to my people. It was the first time that, you know, people like, wanted to hear what I had to say, really, like, they were fascinated. And I was like, what, you know, and again, again, what I realized, now after all this time, is I had a perception growing up here in Hawaii, so necessarily, I've been finding out that not people did not have that same perception that I had about myself. I realized I was almost the one that was not coming out of my shell fully, and therefore it was hard to connect, I think, and people have a different perception of me. So looking back on my childhood now, when I say bullying, yes, there was bullying and there was, you know, but overall, there were also things that I perceived in a way that wasn't necessarily true for other people, because I would run into them and they'd remember me, and they'd have remember a different version of me, and I'd be like, it's, you know? And so I realize now how much I actually also held my back, held myself back, and, yeah, well,   Michael Hingson ** 08:39 did that affect your modeling career, because I would think as a model, you'd have to be reasonably outgoing and be able to work in a variety of different kinds of situations.   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 08:49 I think it was what helped me to be resilient growing up through the hardships of what I went through, you know, with relationships and everything. That's what got me to be resilient, to stick it out. Because not everybody does stick it out. Because there is a ton of rejection, there is a ton there is a ton of things that you're going through at a very young age. My first contract was when I was 16 in high school during the summer, and so to be able to handle obviously, you know, there's a lot of not so nice things in the industry as well, too. So to be able to handle that, I think that came from everything that I grew through as a child, as well as my mom's support, because she was the one, the one thing that was stable throughout my life, where I would always call her, because I was living in so many different countries, I think you know, she was my best friend, and so that, and living in all those different countries helping me to be so resilient, is what Korea helped me to create this business to be so success, successful as well,   Michael Hingson ** 09:55 what some of the countries that you stayed in went to, well, some. Of   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 10:00 my favorite I started in Tokyo, and then I went to Korea, Sydney, Milan, Hamburg, London. I did live in New York for a little while, Taiwan, China, you know, like, there's so many different places. Like, some of my favorites definitely were Tokyo, because that was and Hong Kong was where I spent most of my time at the end. And I, of course, loved Milan and Sydney as well as London as well too. And of course, New York is just Memphis.   Michael Hingson ** 10:33 I enjoy Tokyo. I've been to Japan twice, not for long periods. Well, the second time, actually, I guess the third time I've been there three times, and the last time was when we did work with the Japanese publisher of my first book, Thunder dog. And we were there for almost two weeks. It was a lot of fun, but mostly I spent time around Tokyo until thunder dog, and then we were all over Japan. But it was very enjoyable. What I really remember the first time I went to Japan. We were over there about four days, I tried to eat very healthy, um, although I had ice cream with every meal, because they insisted, and all that, when I came back, I had lost my pal. I can't believe it. Wow. I know that didn't happen the second and third time, but I didn't gain weight either, so it's okay, but I really enjoyed Japan. I've been to Korea. Enjoyed that as well. Not been to Australia. I'm still want to go. I've been to New Zealand, but not Australia. Yeah.   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 11:36 Australia is an amazing place, the people, the food, just the lifestyle,   Michael Hingson ** 11:43 yeah, yeah. And it is, of course, so different because it's on the other side of the equator. So right now they're getting into their summer season.   Speaker 1 ** 11:52 Yes, yes, absolutely. So it's pretty   Michael Hingson ** 11:55 cool. Was your mama model? Is that what got you guys to get you into it or No, no, she just, she just thought it was good for you,   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 12:04 huh? Yeah, exactly. And thank goodness she did, because, honestly, it was the thing that got me out of my shell. It like for me to go and live in Tokyo when I was 16 during the summer. It showed me that high school wasn't everything, because I was so consumed by, you know, school kids and the cool kids and not being cool and all of those things. And when I went over there, I realized, wow, there is a whole other world outside of this. And it completely changed my life. And so when I came back, I didn't relate to everybody in the same way. I wasn't so consumed with everything, because I knew what was waiting for me. I knew that there was so much more to explore and to experience. So it really was the thing that completely changed my life, and I will always be grateful for that on how it allowed me to grow and through the years, I grew through that. Like each contract I did, I grew, I stretched myself, each country that I went to, where I didn't know anybody except for the agency, and lived, you know, with new people, and had a map that they would give you, and you'd have to go and find your castings on your own, before we had Google Maps, using a paper map, and just, you know, walking down the street and looking for the places like it just stretched me in so many beautiful ways. And I wish everyone could go through that experience. Because when you put yourself into places where you stretch, you just you access the strength that's actually within you. It's just compounding your resilience and your power and your knowing within yourself, and that's what makes you unstoppable. When you know you can do all those things and you've done all those things, the next step is that much easier because you've already done it.   Michael Hingson ** 13:56 Yeah, um, there's so many ways of stretching and growing. I was just reading an email from someone I'm the vice president on the board of directors of the Colorado Center for the Blind, which is a training center that teaches newly blinded people or people who are losing their eyesight, teaching them blindness techniques and teaching them that blindness isn't the problem. It's really our attitudes about it. And one of the things, if you go to the center and take advantage of the full residential program, one of the last things that you have to do is you are dropped off somewhere within some sort of walking distance of the agency itself. But that could be a couple miles Well, it may not even be just a couple miles away. It may be that you're further, but you have to figure out where you are and get back to the center. And you can only ask one question of the public, so it's all about you learning to use your wit, your wits, and people do it all the time, right? Awesome, and it's so cool me, and so I really relate very much to what you're talking about, as far as how you learned to stretch and grow with all the modeling and being in all those foreign countries and having to learn to live there.   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 15:13 Yeah, that's so powerful. That's so amazing. What you're what you've done, and your story is so inspiring and so powerful.   Michael Hingson ** 15:21 Well, I I never did go to that center, and so I never actually, directly was subjected to that. However, with all the traveling that I've done around the world, I've had to essentially do the same thing, so I know what you're talking about, and it's so exhilarating when you figure it out, right? Yes,   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 15:41 it is, and and that's why we're here. We're here to experience all those things, because if not, it would just be so boring. And so one of the things that I always, you know, remind myself and my clients, is that, you know, we may be in a place that's crunchy and doesn't feel great, but we're growing through it. And when we do grow through it, the feeling of getting on the other side is what why we why we do it. And once we get to the other side, or let's say you're climbing a mountain, and you get to the top of the mountain, you don't want to just sit at the top of the mountain. You want to climb another mountain, because it's the journey. That's the thing that we enjoy. And so when we embrace the journey, not only do we get to where we desire to go, to feel that feeling of like accomplishment, but also we get to enjoy the journey instead of just trying to rush through it to get there.   Michael Hingson ** 16:38 I somewhere in my life, probably when I was fairly young, decided, although I didn't articulate it for a while, but decided that life is an adventure, and wherever we go, we can find very positive things. And I have never found a place that I hated, that I didn't like to go to. I've been all over this country and and I have eaten some some pretty unhealthy food in places, very deep fried kinds of things and so on. But I've also found ways to enjoy some of it, although I tried to eat as little of the bad food, if you will, that's high in cholesterol and so on. I've tried to eat as little of that as possible. But I've enjoyed everywhere I have been. I've been been to all 50 states, had a lot of fun in every place where I've been, and wouldn't trade any of those experiences for anything, much less traveling to a variety of other countries. Mm hmm, so it's a lot of fun to, you know, to do, but life is an adventure, and we should approach it that way. Mm   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 17:40 hmm, yeah, absolutely. And when we do approach it that way, we enjoy it so much more, because I used to always avoid making a mistake or things going wrong or get so frustrated that it wasn't wrong or that it wasn't going well. But now I I lean into those things, and it's those things that make life interesting. It's those things like the mistakes that I make, I grow more from those mistakes than from anything else. And through the hardships that I've been through, I've grown so much from those as well, too. And so when we lean into the journey and just know that there is no good, bad, right, wrong, it's just the experience of what it is. We live in a completely different way, and we can like I was telling my clients in one of the webinars I was running the other day that my husband and I had read the book celestian prophecy. And so he goes on a journey, and he doesn't plan anything. He just shows up and he listens to, you know, synchronicities, and he kind of goes with that. And so when we went to Jordan, we did the same thing. We're like, you know what, let's just go play. Let's go play and have no plan, and just arrive and discover what we're gonna do. And so we did that. And then we ended up, you know, meeting this one tour company, and ended up booking them, but it ended up turning out that they weren't the best, and we kind of got ripped off. But the driver that they hired was amazing, and he gave us like these special tours and things because he felt bad that we did get ripped off. And so the thing that looked like it was something bad actually was a blessing, and ended up turning out into this most incredible trip. And so when we make these so called wrong decisions, and we realize that it's not wrong, that it's leading us to something better, we don't have to get upset about it, like we weren't upset that that happened. We were just on the journey and the adventure of it, and that actually turned out to be one of our most incredible trips.   Michael Hingson ** 19:38 One of the things that I have learned and talked about on this podcast occasionally is that there's no such thing as failure their learning experiences. And I like what you just said, because it isn't that they're something that goes wrong. It happened the way it did. And the question is, what did we learn from it? And I'll bet that that driver. I would never have done those special things for you if you had treated him differently and treated him in a in a negative way.   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 20:08 Mm, hmm, yeah, if we were grumpy and angry, he would have said, Okay, well, too bad for you guys. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 20:15 yeah, forget you guys. Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. Well. You modeled for you said 20 years, right? Yes. And what made you decided that you wanted to give that up.   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 20:29 So I actually started doing wellness in 2003 when my mom got sick, and that's when my whole world shifted. That's when I wanted to find a natural way to help her, to support her, and that's how I started doing neurological repatterning, neuro linguistic programming and Ericksonian hypnosis. Then I went into quantum physics based energy work, and was able to help her and the at the same time, I was working on my career and both her getting, you know, her recovering and getting stronger, and my career taking off, I thought, oh my gosh, like I want to help people do this. I don't want to just use it for myself. I want to help other people do this. So I actually started while I was still modeling, simultaneously teaching and doing sessions for clients, since 2010 and so I've been doing this since then, and now it's, I just want to do it full time. It's just, it's just so fulfilling to be able to support clients through shifts, to create things beyond their wildest dreams, to open up the ease and the flow, to remove the burnout to, you know, to know that anything is possible and that we create our reality, we get to create we, you know, like we're creating an abundance of things every single moment of every single day based on our thoughts. And so we can create an abundance of lack, or we can create an abundance of, you know, happiness and and it's really just not letting anything take our power. So one of the things that shifted in my life as well, too, was when I was able to not let anything ruin my day, not let anyone or anything ruin my day, not that things that weren't going my way ruin my day. I was just gonna say, Okay, well, this is going on. It's happening for me. So now what do I get to do with this? How do I get to transmute this? How do I turn it into something good, or turn it into my superpower? By practicing neutrality, practicing not reacting and creating more fallout that needs to happen. And so whenever things don't go my way. I don't get frustrated about it anymore. I know that it's an opportunity, opportunity for me to practice a new way of being or new way of thinking. And there was one day where everything was just going so wrong, like from the beginning, like big things too, and I didn't let it take my happiness away, and I didn't let myself get down by it. I was like, Well, what can I do instead? How can I transmute this? How can I like when I missed my yoga class, and I'm like, I'm just gonna go home and I'm gonna do it by myself. Nothing is gonna stop me. This is what I desire to do. And that was my, like, favorite day ever. I felt amazing. I got home after the day of all the things that didn't work out, like almost losing a $2,500 camera lens, and by the end of the day, just feeling so good about it. And my son was saying to me, Okay, I'm gonna go check the mailbox. And he went to go check the mailbox. And at the end of the day, after me not letting anything take my freedom. An electric bill came and we opened it up, but it wasn't a bill. It was a refund for $7,200 for some PV panels that we had purchased that we didn't know we were going to be getting a rebate for. And it just showed me that nothing can take my joy, and because of that, I'm not going to slow down the good things that are on their way to me, either. And so it just opens it up. And from that point on there I don't have bad days. I transmute them,   Michael Hingson ** 24:10 yeah? Which? Which is what we all can do, yeah. So how do you transmute them? Though? What? How do you really do that?   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 24:19 Well, the one thing that really helps me is realizing that everything is happening for me, everything like everything is happening for me, to help me to learn, to help me to grow, to help me to create my next level of success. And if I look at it that way, I'm not the victim. But if I look at it as the victim like it's happening to me, I have no power. I've given my power to the situation, but if I know that it's happening for me and that I'm unstoppable and I'm resilient and I'm always going to find a way, because I'm never going to give up. So for instance, with that camera lens, I ordered a camera lens that Best Buy was meant to ship me, and I called them because it was a. A week. And they said, Oh, it looks like you actually picked it up from the store. So no one shipping you anything. You got the product already. And I said, No, I didn't there. It was out of stock, and the person that I bought it from ordered it to be shipped to my house. And they said, well, there's nothing we can do on my end. On their end, I have to go to the shop, find the person who sold it to me and talked to them, and so the old me would have reacted, freaked out, created all this necessary Fallout, gone in angry, but now I was like, You know what? It's going to work out. Somehow it's going to work out. I don't know how it's going to work out, but the more calm and neutral I am, the more that I just let it flow, instead of react to this. Somehow it's just going to work out. And if it doesn't, it's just money. Like, it's not my life, it's not the end of the world, it's just money, and I can make more money. And so when I approached it that way, and I went in to talk to them, I wasn't guns blazing, I wasn't, you know, angry, I just came in and I was like, hey, you know, this is a situation. I was wondering if you could help me. And somehow, magically, they were just like, oh yeah, no problem. I can see it. There's an issue, and we'll send you a new one. And then it arrived in a couple days. And so a lot of times it's our reaction that causes the issues. But if you know, sorry, no, go ahead. I was just going to say, if we know that, it's going to work out somehow, because we're never going to give up, nothing is going to break us. Then somehow, magically, it always does.   Michael Hingson ** 26:25 Did they or you have to figure out exactly what really did happen?   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 26:31 Nope. And to me, it doesn't really matter, because as long as it works out, I'm just, I'm always taking the next step. I'm always, if something, you know, like I in the beginning, I would launch programs and no one would show up, and it wouldn't matter, I would just keep launching. Or, you know, I heard this one story that completely inspired me about Anthony Robbins, when he first started doing his programs, and he sold his first program out, he rented the the call for it, and not one person bought but it didn't stop him. He said to his four friends, Hey, can I pay you with pizza and soda so that you could sit here for four days so I could teach you my program? Because he knew where he was going, nothing was going to stop him. And so I do the same thing, like I sold a master class here in Hawaii, and most of my networks online. And so one person had showed up, signed up, and I was like, Okay, so maybe do I cancel this? But I just really felt like there was something that was going to happen. If I just teach it, it's going to stretch me, it's going to do something. I just kept showing up and selling it every single day, trying different ways of selling it, not out of scarcity, but out of okay, well, this is the universe or something giving me an opportunity to play, to practice, selling, to have fun with it. And so I did. And you know, the day of, there was still only two people that were going to be there, and I thought, maybe I should cancel it, because I'm going to look like a failure. But then I thought, I don't care what I don't care what people think. If I'm a failure or not, the only part of me that will be bruised is my ego, but I know that I'm so much more than that, and if Anthony Robbins can do that, I can do that. So I'm going to show up and I'm going to teach these people just as powerfully as if there was 100 people there. And so I showed up, and at first nobody was there, and I didn't care, because I didn't care anymore. I knew where I was going to build, but there is traffic and stuff, and then finally, by the end of it, nine people showed up out of the blue, and it was the one of the most amazing master classes that I taught, because I taught it in this new way of thinking, where I had I had overcome my fears of my ego, of failure and people what people Were going to think, because I knew where I was going. I was inspired by Anthony Robbins doing that. And if he can do that and build that, I can do that, you know what I mean. So   Michael Hingson ** 28:50 I do, yeah, I I'm a nosy person, and I would have wanted to try to find out what happened with the with the lens. And the reason I'd want to find out is not to fix blame or anything, but because I figured that's a learning experience too. And I have, I've had situations where it worked out whatever it was, but then I went back and asked, now, how come this happened? And when I and the other people involved figured it out, we all learned from it. But again, it's all about, as you said, not going in with guns blazing. It's not a fixing blame. Yeah, it's really all about understanding, and I think that's the most important thing. So this is all about the fact that you adopted a mindset and you decided that you're going to live that mindset, which makes a lot of sense. Mm, hmm,   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 29:50 yeah, it to me. It's all mindset, because nothing is real until you create a story around it, which is why eyewitness, eyewitnesses are. Not reliable sources, because you could have the same situation happen, and people will see different thing Bay things based on the reality that they're looking for. And you know, I've even talking to my brother about childhood memories that are completely different, and I'm like, no so and so didn't say it. This person said it, and this is what happened, and in and he fully has a real, real, real memory of it happening in a completely different way. And so it's just really something happens, and we put a meaning and we put a story on it. And so whatever meaning and story you put on it determines the outcome. And so only thing we can control is the meaning and story that we put on it. So do we want to put a meaning and story that empowers us, or do we want to put a meaning and story that makes us not feel so good? And that's also the other thing that shifted in my life.   Michael Hingson ** 30:51 Yeah, it's all about now, ultimately, you're your own best teacher, and you can empower yourself. Yes. Yes, yes, absolutely. So I am not familiar with but would love to learn what is Ericksonian hypnosis.   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 31:07 It's just a type of hypnosis, a different style of how you bring somebody down into the the hypnotic state screen, and then you, then you do programming while they're down in the hypnotic but, yeah, it's just a there's, there's multiple different types of hypnosis, and so that's just one of the types. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 31:31 I just never heard of of that particular one. I'm familiar with hypnosis and so on, but I wasn't familiar with Eric Sony, and didn't know whether there was something uniquely interesting about that.   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 31:42 No, I think it's just the the style got it well,   Michael Hingson ** 31:47 you know, one of the things that we deal with people in general, in general, is we put a lot of our own limitations on ourselves, especially where we don't need to do that. How do we transcend or overcome limitations. One   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 32:02 of the way to do that is to recognize how powerful we are and how powerful our minds are. So a lot of people say that they can't trust, but they trust that they can't trust. They say that they're not confident, but they're confident that they're not confident, a that they don't create their own reality, and so that belief creates the reality that they don't create that reality, right? And so it's just about looking at the beliefs and saying, Do I want to hold on to this story? So a lot of people will come and say, This always happens to me, and I'll ask them, and does it always happen? And they say, No, it doesn't always happen, but this happened, this happened. This happened, this happened. And we'll say, okay, great. You're really good at validating that story. Do you want to keep validating that story, or do you want to start validating the times that it didn't happen? And it goes back to that red car theory, like, if you're driving on the road, how many red cars do you notice that day, versus if you were driving on the road looking for the red cars? How many red cars would you actually notice? And so what are you looking for? Because we're bombarded with billions of bits of information every single second, but we can only take like plus or minus seven every single second based on what we're looking for. So if we're looking for a red car, in reality, we're going to find that red car. If we're looking for a blue car, we're going to find that blue car. So what story are you telling yourself that's no longer serving you, and what story would you desire to tell yourself instead? And I'll give you an example for me, I used to have this belief that I could make a lot of money, but I couldn't hold on to it, because every time I would make the big amount of money, I'd get hit with a bill, or a pipe would burst, or something would happen. And so I kept telling that story, and I recognized that doesn't always happen. Big money's come in and it didn't go out immediately, but I didn't think about those times because I was validating the other story. So once I recognized that, I said, Okay, I'm not going to validate that other story anymore. I'm going to validate the times when I make big money and more money comes in, so that I can then have this belief that I'm building generational wealth. And that's when my finances changed and I started building generational wealth, right? It it's what we're looking for that we are then going to compound over and over and over again.   Michael Hingson ** 34:28 Yeah, again, it's back to mindset. Yes,   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 34:32 it's always back to mindset.   Michael Hingson ** 34:36 That's fair. So you talked about, among other things, dealing with quantum physics and so on. Tell me about quantum leaps. So   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 34:43 quantum leaps to me a book. If you've never read this book, it's amazing. It's it's a really thin book called u squared, and the beginning of the book starts out with this fly that's beating its head against the window pane over and over and over again, trying to get out. So. When all it had to do was stop, fly back, look for the door, and fly out of the door. And so that's basically what I was doing. I was like beating my head, trying to force, trying to make these things work, pushing myself to do things that all the shoulds and the have tos, instead of taking a step back, listening to my own knowing my gut, my intuition, my truth, and then that truth being the door that's going to guide me to, you know, where I'm going. The other piece of that is I looked back on my last career, and I saw it from a whole other perspective. I thought it was from all of that pushing, forcing, all of those things, but in hindsight, when I look at it, it was the moments that I was in alignment, trusting my gut, following my intuition, doing the thing that then all of a sudden, out of the blue, this person dropped into my life, or this opportunity dropped into my life, which then quantum leads me into whole new reality. So the first time I ever wanted to teach bank like, corporate workshops, any type of corporate workshops. I knew that I wanted to teach corporate workshops, and so I started, you know, to develop a plan to figure out, like, what kind of corporations would I like to work with to help them to take everything to the next level, to help people to build success and fulfillment at the same time. And I started to think about it, and started to write a few things, and then all of a sudden, out of the blue, I met this CEO, and was starting to talk to him, and he said, Yeah, that would be awesome. Send me a proposal. So I wrote a proposal, and then they loved it, and I did my first corporate workshop. Now to me, that's a quantum leap. It was me being in alignment, knowing where I wanted to go, reprogramming my fears and my doubts. Because at first I'm like, why would a corporation take me seriously? Are they going to think that this stuff is too crazy, too out there? So I had to reprogram myself from those beliefs so that I could actually become the person that could teach the program. And once I reprogrammed all of that, then that person showed up. And because they showed up, I quantum leaped into that reality. Because otherwise I would have had to finish writing the proposal call all the corporate companies that I would want to work with, try and find the person that I wanted to speak with. You know, pitch my proposal to, who knows how many people to then hopefully get my first one. But for me, it was getting in alignment, reprogramming all the beliefs that I wasn't good enough for, then that person to drop in, and then all of a sudden, just start doing workshops. And that's basically how my career, my last career, and this career built. If you look back on your life, it's those moments that things happened, that dropped in, that ended up taking you into a different reality, like those chance encounters, or those chance things that would have happened, right? So it's how do we get in such alignment and reprogram the beliefs that are getting in the way so we could have more of those out of the blue opportunities dropping in faster.   Michael Hingson ** 38:01 It goes back to that same issue of looking for the red car. If you're looking for the red car, yes, you will see it. If you're looking to be able to do the corporate workshops, and you think about what you need to do to make it happen, recognizing that you're good enough, it will happen.   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 38:20 Yes, exactly. But most of us never think that. Like, my whole life, I never thought I was good enough, you know. So it was always so much proving pleasing. You know, there's the imposter syndrome of somebody that wants to write a book, but then they're saying, Well, you know, who am I to write a book? But all the people that wrote a book never wrote a book until they wrote their first book, yeah, and so it's just just like letting go of the pressure and the expectation and just, I desire to write a book, so I'm going to write a book and I'm going to put it out in there in the world like everybody else did, every single author like you and your book, you wrote the book. That's the only difference from the people that wrote the book and didn't write the book is that you wrote the book, and you put your passion into it, and then it became, you know, such a massive life changing thing for you and so many people that read that book to hear your story well.   Michael Hingson ** 39:12 And now there are three, which is, which is fun, and you know what? Live like a guide dog. It it really goes along very well with the kinds of things you're talking about, because one of the things that we we advise and try to teach and live like a guide dog, is all about doing self analysis, looking at your your day, every day, at the end of the day, what, what worked, what didn't work, even the stuff that worked, what way might we have done to make it better? And the stuff that didn't work again, not a failure, but rather, what happened, and how do we learn from it so that won't happen again? And the reality is that at the end of the day, when we're falling asleep, we're. We have the time to do that if we really do introspection and and choose to do it. But again, it's a choice, and it's adopting the mindset that says we can do that, and it will help to increase, if you will, the mind muscle. And ultimately, the more of it we do, the less we'll fear about life. Mm,   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 40:22 hmm, yes, yes. Because the fear comes from us thinking that we're not going to be able to get through it, that it's going to be so painful, that we're not going to be able to handle it, we're going to be so afraid of the disappointment. And so we don't take the leaps and we get and we just live in fear. But when we recognize our power through knowing that we get to harvest the learnings and that we're going to transmute it. We're going to get through it. We're going to turn it into our superpower. We're going to get stronger all the things we've done in the past, we've already we've gotten through so of course, we're going to get through the next thing. So when you know that you have that power to, like you said, go through the day and say what worked and what doesn't work, and how to make it better the next time, you don't have as much fear of the unknown, because you know you're going to get through it just like you did every other time. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 41:12 and you have to make the decision that it'll work,   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 41:20 and then you have to make the decision to not beat yourself up,   Michael Hingson ** 41:22 because then you have the decision to not beat yourself up, right? Yeah, because pain   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 41:27 is inevitable, but suffering is something we create by the story we tell ourselves over and over and over again about the pain. And so if we know that, we're not going to beat ourselves up and create it to be suffering, we're not going to be as scared to take that next leap, because we know we'll get through the pain, and we're not going to turn it into suffering, right?   Michael Hingson ** 41:48 And we know that the pain is there to send us a signal, and we need to learn from that signal. Yes, so much. Yes,   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 41:59 I love that.   Michael Hingson ** 42:02 So tell me, what is the difference between creating and achieving? Because I think that there, there really is a difference, and we're talking about both of those here in various ways.   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 42:14 Yes. So creating is this playfulness. It's like this is what I desire to create. I know where I want to go. I know this goal that I want to do, and I'm going to create on this journey. I'm going to climb this mountain, and I'm going to take this step every day, and I'm going to enjoy the process of it and look at the flowers, and, you know, maybe hang by the lake for a day and then continue to go up there. But achieving is just achieving is proving pleasing. Achieving, right? It's like, I gotta get to the top of this mountain to prove that I've done this to achieve this thing. And so you rush through the journey. And that's where burnout comes from. So I don't think burnout comes from doing burnout comes from who you are when you're doing it, if you're doing the things, like when I'm doing the things out of creation, and because I love doing it, and because I desire to help people and support people, and bring this into reality, I'm having so much fun doing it, but if I'm doing it to achieve these results, if I'm doing it, because if I don't achieve these results, there's something wrong with me, or I'm a failure, or I'm not good enough, my business isn't good enough, And I'm being judged, and I care about other people's judgments, I will be burnt out, because I'm going to push and I, you know, there's so much emotion and exhaustion around the achieving, and then you're constantly just chasing that carrot, and the carrot always moves, because every time you achieve it, you want to climb the next mountain. And so you don't ever get that fulfillment, because then you're just going to go on to the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing is what I did in my last career. I just kept chasing. Kept saying, I'm going to reach this goal, and I reached that goal, and I'm like, Oh no, I don't have this one. There was, there was no fulfillment on the inside, and it was exhausting.   Michael Hingson ** 43:56 Well, you know, I hear often that people who really like what they do have discovered that it's not a job because they just enjoy doing it so much and and that's ultimately what you're really saying, is it's not a job, and I agree with that. It's we need to decide that we like what we do, and if we truly don't like it, then we should be doing it, or we should look at why we don't like it and deal with that, because it is worth doing. Yes,   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 44:29 that is a great example, because when I was building this business, I did a lot of freelance work, and in the beginning I did I did the freelance work so I would have predictable money so that I could build this business the way that I desired to build it, so I wouldn't compromise myself. I wouldn't do it because I just need clients to pay the bills and all of these things. It was my passion project, and so I did the freelance work so I had predictable money to be able to pay my bills. And then this was pure creation of what i. Desired to bring to the world, and how I desired to help my clients. And at first, when I was doing these freelance jobs, I'd be so frustrated while I was there, because I'd be like, Oh, I'm here making this money. And I'm so frustrated because I could be working on my business right now, and I could be making the business grow, but I need this money, right? And my mindset turned it into, every time I did that work, you would just drain me. I'd be I'd leave so exhausted, and then I would go home and not have time to work on my other business because I didn't have energy. Until I recognized this is my choice. How lucky am I that I have this freelance job that I get to do that's bringing in this predictable money so that I get to build my dream business. How grateful I am for this freelance work, that I have this opportunity to work these amount of hours and get paid so well, so that I could build my dream business. So I showed up to those jobs in a different energy. I showed up with pure gratitude that I have that that I get to show up to this job and I'm and to do my best job, because they're giving me this opportunity to build this business. And when I did that, not only did I have more energy, that job started to become really easy, like so before, there was always fires to put out, and there was always drama and everything. But after, I shifted this mindset to gratitude. And I started to just say, How can I serve? How can I be here and be my best self, because I'm grateful for this job. Then all of a sudden I would come on shift, and everything would just work. And like, the dramas would go away, the fires would go away, things would be easy. And then some of the other people would say, I want to be on Jocelyn shift, because whenever she shows up, it's like easy, but that was from gratitude. That was from gratitude, from showing up, you know, wanting to serve. And it shifted my reality. And then I had all this energy, because I felt so good. And sometimes we'd finish early. A lot of times we'd finish early, or the job would be so easy that when I came home, I had energy to work on my business. And then that's how I shifted my business. So it's really the it's not what we do, it's who we are when we're doing it. What are we feeling on the inside that we're then projecting out, that people are then responding to   Michael Hingson ** 47:14 and and the reality is, some of the fires may have still been there, but they're not fires anymore,   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 47:21 yes, yes, exactly, exactly, because I perceive them in a different way,   Michael Hingson ** 47:27 right? Exactly, which is the whole point?   47:30 Yes, yes, I love that. So   Michael Hingson ** 47:33 how do we get people to recognize when they're experiencing burnout, much less. How do we get them to change their mindset, to eliminate the burnout process?   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 47:49 It just comes from their choice. It comes from their choice to to decide how they desire to see it. So, I mean, a lot of it, too comes from reprogramming. So, I mean, that's what I do in my programs, right? Is that if there are with burnout, we just discover where is it coming from? Like, is it coming from the pushing, the pleasing, achieving, the not being good enough, the worried what people are going to think, the failure, like all the stuff, the hoping that it's going to work out, afraid that it's not going to work out, because that's all the stuff that we leak our energy to. Once we discover what that is and we reprogram it so you don't have that you can just do it as a task. You show up and you do a task. One of my NLP teachers told me something that was so powerful, which was he said that the best, best basketball player in the world also has the highest amount of missed shots in the world, and that's why he's the best basketball player, because he just takes the shot. He doesn't beat himself up every single time he takes the shot. He's just taking a shot and a shot and a shot and a shot and a shot. He's playing to win. He's not playing not to lose. And so there's a difference in that energy. And so once you discover what that is, you get to then shift your mindset. So we it's very it's, it's quite easy to kind of find where the triggers are coming from. It's like, where are you getting pissed off? Where are you getting frustrated? Right? Like, those are the triggers. Then it's about, how do we then remove the triggers with whatever tool that you have, with mindset, with reprogramming, with hypnosis, with quantum physics, like whatever it's going to be, podcasts, listening to these things to come up with a new story, and then the resilience to create that new story to be your new story. So every time it doesn't go the way that you had planned, not getting caught up in saying, Oh, see it happened again, saying, okay, oh well, I'm not fully in that new programming yet, and so it's still showing up a little bit. But how do I harvest the learnings? And then how do I pivot? And then how do I do something different? And you just keep doing that until your reality eventually shifts. This   Michael Hingson ** 49:56 is so freaky. The other day, it was like yesterday, or. Monday or Sunday. I can't remember which day, but I was thinking about basketball players and some of the really famous, good basketball players, and thinking, why are they such horrible free throw shooters? And why are they in a in a sense, why is there a percentage what it is, and I came to the same conclusion that you talked about, but it's just kind of funny that the discussion in my brain was there and now, here it is again. But it's true. It's all about being willing to take the shot and   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 50:34 just taking the shot and not putting the meaning on it. It's when we put the meaning on it that it exhausts us. If you think about taking a shot, it's fine, but the minute you think about taking the shot, but hoping you're going to make it or not going to make it, because what are people going to think and what is that going to mean about you, and all that other stuff, all of a sudden it becomes a big ball of energy that you're leaking instead of I'm just taking the shot, because I know I'm going to get in, I'm going to get one in. So the more shots I take, you know, like Disney, he got rejected 33 times before the 34th time he got the loan. But if he just every single time, like, you know, gave up, we would not have what we have. But he just kept going in and doing it. And if you know that on the 34th time you're going to get accepted. How fast would you keep going back to banks and saying, Hey, until you get the loan right?   Michael Hingson ** 51:27 Well, and the issue with the shots, every time you take a shot and miss, if you're taking the shot, to continue to take the shot, as opposed to this one has to be the one to go in. You're also, I think, subconsciously, studying, well, why didn't that shot go in? What do I learn? Because this shot didn't go in, or the next one goes in, why did that one go in? What do I do to replicate that and become more effective?   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 52:00 Yeah. How do I harvest the learnings and pivot and do it better next time? Yeah? And if you just focus on the solution versus the problem, you'll get there, right? Yeah, okay, well, and the more that you get it in, you know what that feels like. So you get to replicate that again next time, right? And the more that you don't, then you find, like Edison said, he found 1000 he didn't fail. He found 1000 different ways how not to   Michael Hingson ** 52:28 do something right.   52:30 Exactly.   Michael Hingson ** 52:33 You know it is, it is so true, and it's all about that's why I continue to say there's no such thing as failure. The other thing I used to say about myself because I like to listen to my speeches. I record them and listen to them, and I do it because I want to learn what what worked, what didn't work. How can I do this better? And I always used to say, I'm my own worst critic. But I always thought that was a negative sort of thing, and literally only within about the last 14 or 15 months have I started to say, in reality, I'm my own best teacher. It's a much more positive and open way of doing it, and it makes listening all that much more fun and exciting. By the way,   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 53:14 I love that, and that's the creating versus achieving, right? Like, that's the different energy. Tweak that when you're doing it now you enjoy it versus before you were beating yourself up, right,   Michael Hingson ** 53:26 right? Very much. So yeah, and that's, of course, the issue. So you, you've you continue to celebrate the fact that you were a model, and now you've gone on to a different life, and you're continuing to create and enhance that life. How do you how do you deal with both of those lives? You You really have adopted this celebration right across the board? I think,   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 53:57 yeah, I don't see it as different parts of, I mean, I just see them all as different, like, it's just a different   Michael Hingson ** 54:04 chapter. It's progressing, right? Yeah, and that's what I thought after   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 54:07 was each chapter was exactly what it was, and it was so amazing, and I and, and the next chapter gets to be more amazing, and the next chapter gets to be more amazing, and because it's an evolution over your entire lifetime. And so you just keep evolving. You know, there's a post out there about, I can't remember the ages, but like all these people that open businesses in their 40s, their 50s, their 60s, Walmart and, you know, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and all these different companies that didn't actually like they didn't create it. They tried. They were creating things, but it didn't hit until later in the years. And most people think, Oh, we get to this age, we retire. We're done. But that's not true. We get to keep creating our entire life. We get to keep evolving our entire life. We get to keep climbing more mountains. I've climbed that mountain that was awesome. Now. Me climb this mountain, not because I have to, not because I need to prove myself, but because I get to, right. If you can shift your words from need, have, should to I get to that is the difference between creating and achieving. It's like I get to do this, like I get to show up. I used to when I was starting this new business. I used to not like social media at all, and I just wish that I could just have clients and coach and mentor, because that's all I love to do. I didn't like to, you know, do the marketing and do the social media and do all the rest of the stuff. I was just like, I wish I could just receive clients and coach and mentor, because that's what I love, and that's my passion. And then I realized I can't do that. I can go work for a corporate company, and I can do that, but I don't have time freedom to be with my child. I don't have I'm Max capped out about how much I can earn or create because I'm working for someone else, or I can go off on my own. And I get to get good at marketing. I get to get good at social media. I get to get good at all the other things, as well as getting good at getting better at coaching and mentoring, so that I can be my own boss, that so that I can be with my child and travel and take him and work from my computer around the world, so that I can do speaking engagements around the world, and that I can build this business as big as I desire, the way that I desire. So everything then became a get to so then when I showed up for social media, I was excited for it, versus like, Oh, this is so frustrating. I wish this wasn't part of my job. So you, once you shift the get oh, everything opens up, and then everything starts working as well, because your energy opens up and we get to learn, yes, exactly, we get to learn and now, now in a lot of different things, thanks to that,   Michael Hingson ** 56:51 there you are, right, exactly, which makes a whole lot of sense. Changing your belief really changes your life, changing your mindset and looking for that open way to allow you to deal with all the things that come along, can they get to, as opposed to have to way certainly just enhances your whole outlook.   Jocelyn Sandstrom ** 57:16 Yes, absolutely, yeah. And it can change overnight. If you can just look at everything in your life that you're grateful for, that you a younger version of you dreamed about, that you now have in your life, even your phone, your computer like you wanted that now you have it, but you take it for granted until you lose it, and then you don't appreciate it till you get it back. And you're like, Oh, I love it so much, right? Like, if we just shift from looking from everything that's wrong with our life to everything that's incredible, we get to be full of gratitude while we're creating our next level that frequency, gratitude is this most powerful frequency. It opens synchronicity. It helps you to become magnetized, so that people are then magnetized to you. If you think about going into a shop and there's like, this grumpy person who's complaining all the time, versus this, like charismatic, happy, loving life, loving life, salesperson, which one are you going to be attracted to working with, you're going to be attracted to working with the one that looks for the positive outcome, that doesn't see limitations, that sees ways to transcend them. You know, that's not complaining about all the things that are going wrong, but showing you what could go right instead. And so then your business opens up as well. Because you're magnetized, you start meeting people that want to come and talk to you, you know, like you could be in a restaurant, and you're just drawn to looking at someone that walks into the room and you don't know why, you don't know who they are, what they do, you just there something about their energy draws you to them, and it's that energy that becomes their calling card. And so when you are in this gratitude and this loving of life and not seeing limitations. You just see opportunities to grow. You become magnetized. People want to be around that. People are inspired by that. So now you start attracting opportunities into your life, instead of, you know, trying to force and push and chase them. And it goes back to the saying that I absolutely love, which is, instead of chasing butterflies, build your own garden, so the butterflies come to you. Yeah, so, and it's also like that other saying that the grass is always greener on the other side, until you start watering your own grass. Like those two sayings completely changed my life. Yeah?   Michael Hingson ** 59:38 Well, you know, I, when I was growing up, I lived about 55 miles west of here in a town called Palmdale, and I now live in Victorville. But when I was growing up, I described Victorville as compared to Palmdale that only had like about 2700 people. I described Victorville as not even a speck on a race. Our scope compared to Palmdale. I never imagined myself once I moved away, moving back to Victorville or to this whole area, but my wife became ill with double pneumonia in 2014 she recovered from that. Family started saying, you really ought to move down c

What exactly is bánh mì? New versions of the classic Vietnamese sandwich with all kinds of surprising fillings are popping up on menus across the metro area, and our new food correspondent Helen Xu says a Denver-style could even be emerging. So producer Paul Karolyi is sitting down with Helen to talk everything bánh mì. Plus, we've got the latest twists and turns in the debate over some local restaurants' proposal to lower the tipped minimum wage, and Helen did her own deep dive into the hotly contested data on restaurant closures. The important question may not be how many, but which? Check out Helen's spreadsheet on restaurant closures since January 2023 and let us know what you see in the data! Text or leave us a voicemail with your name and neighborhood, and you might hear your take on the show: 720-500-5418‬ The Colorado Center on Law and Policy published its own analysis of the restaurant closure data on Tuesday. Their analysis also challenges the narrative that a rising tipped minimum wage has been the culprit for an increase in recent closures.  Paul talked about the One Fair Wage movement. Helen was on the pod a few weeks ago to talk about other ways to look at the tipped minimum wage debate. For more, you can hear Paul's interview with Culinary Creative Group CEO Juan Padró and former Bell Policy Center president Scott Wasserman on why they think lowering the tipped minimum wage is the best way to address restaurant closures.  For even more news from around the city, subscribe to our morning newsletter Hey Denver at denver.citycast.fm. Follow us on Instagram: @citycastdenver Chat with other listeners on reddit: r/CityCastDenver Support City Cast Denver by becoming a member: membership.citycast.fm Learn more about the sponsors of this March 13th episode: Arvada Center Port Aransas 5280 Magazine Looking to advertise on City Cast Denver? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads at citycast.fm/advertise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    What if you could transform military medicine to better serve those who risk their lives to protect us? Join us as we uncover the inspiring journey of Air Force Colonel Dr. Vik Bebarta, a leading figure in emergency medicine and medical toxicology. From his early days at the Air Force Academy to his pivotal role in founding the University of Colorado Center for Combat Research, Dr. Bebarta shares how his experiences on deployments have shaped his perspective on the critical role of research in advancing medical practices. Explore his insights into the evolving landscape of trauma care and brain health, where balancing immediate battlefield needs with long-term innovation is paramount.       Listen in to the fascinating story of how the Center for Combat Research stands at the forefront of military medical innovation, acting as a beacon of collaboration with academia and industry. Discover how the center is tackling pressing challenges like prolonged casualty care and offering mental health resources for military personnel and first responders. By drawing parallels with rural civilian healthcare, we emphasize the importance of readiness and psychological support for those operating in high-stress environments. The conversation dives deep into the complexities of diagnosing and treating traumatic brain injuries, shedding light on innovative diagnostic and therapeutic approaches being pioneered for our military and veteran communities.       This episode explores leadership principles and the strategic balance required for future medical innovation in military healthcare. Dr. Bebarta shares key advice on taking calculated risks, ensuring accountability, and maintaining agility amidst evolving challenges. Through examples of partnerships among military units, academic institutions, and industry, we highlight the power of a collaborative ecosystem in advancing military medical capabilities. Join us for a compelling discussion that not only celebrates innovation but also offers valuable career advice for those aspiring to make a difference in the field of military medicine.   Chapters: (00:04) Journey Into Military Medicine (12:44) Enhancing Military Medicine Through Research (22:18) Advancing Military Medical Care Through Innovation (31:20) Strategic Balancing for Future Medical Innovation (43:43) Leadership and Military Medicine Advice   Chapter Summaries: (00:04) Journey Into Military Medicine Air Force Colonel Dr. Vik Bebarta shares his journey into military medicine, discussing impactful cases, research, and future challenges.   (12:44) Enhancing Military Medicine Through Research Nature's military medical innovation center collaborates with academia and industry to improve pre-hospital care and support first responders.   (22:18) Advancing Military Medical Care Through Innovation Advancements in trauma care and brain health for military and veterans, including oxygen levels, TBI diagnosis, and digital therapies.   (31:20) Strategic Balancing for Future Medical Innovation Collaboration and agility are crucial in advancing military medicine, with a focus on prolonged care, blood solutions, and AI integration.   (43:43) Leadership and Military Medicine Advice Leadership principles, career advice, and goals in military medicine, emphasizing risk-taking, accountability, agility, and collaboration.   Take Home Messages: The Evolution of Military Medicine: This episode explores the journey of a military medical professional from training to deployment, highlighting the importance of research and innovation in advancing medical practices. It emphasizes the need for continuous learning and adaptation in military medicine to meet both immediate battlefield needs and long-term healthcare goals. Collaboration as a Catalyst for Innovation: A significant theme is the critical role of collaboration between military units, academic institutions, and industry partners in driving innovation in military medicine. This collaborative approach is essential for addressing complex challenges like prolonged casualty care and mental health, ensuring readiness and resilience among first responders. Advancements in Trauma and Brain Health: The episode delves into cutting-edge developments in trauma care and brain health, particularly in the context of military and veteran healthcare. Innovative trials and therapies are discussed, highlighting their potential to improve outcomes for those with traumatic brain injuries and other critical conditions. Strategic Resource Allocation: The balance between addressing immediate medical needs on the battlefield and investing in future research is a key focus. The podcast discusses the importance of strategic resource allocation to ensure agility and rigor in military medical advancements, with a particular emphasis on the integration of AI and scalable solutions. Leadership and Resilience in Military Medicine: The episode offers valuable insights into leadership within the military medical field, encouraging future professionals to embrace challenges, take calculated risks, and maintain a focus on the mission and its people. It underscores the importance of mental health support and training for military and civilian first responders to sustain their psychological well-being and effectiveness.   Episode Keywords: Military medicine, Dr. Vik Bebarta, Air Force Colonel, innovation in healthcare, emergency medicine, medical toxicology, University of Colorado Center for Combat Research, trauma care, brain health, PTSD prevention, SAVE-02 trial, Marcus Institute for Brain Health, mental health, military research, leadership in military medicine, combat and civilian healthcare, prolonged casualty care, War Docs Podcast   Hashtags: #MilitaryMedicine #InnovationInHealthcare #DrVicBebarta #CombatResearch #EmergencyMedicine #TraumaticBrainInjury #LeadershipInMedicine #PTSDPrevention #ProlongedCasualtyCare #WarDocsPodcast   Honoring the Legacy and Preserving the History of Military Medicine The WarDocs Mission is to honor the legacy, preserve the oral history, and showcase career opportunities, unique expeditionary experiences, and achievements of Military Medicine. We foster patriotism and pride in Who we are, What we do, and, most importantly, How we serve Our Patients, the DoD, and Our Nation.   Find out more and join Team WarDocs at https://www.wardocspodcast.com/ Check our list of previous guest episodes at https://www.wardocspodcast.com/our-guests Subscribe and Like our Videos on our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@wardocspodcast Listen to the “What We Are For” Episode 47. https://bit.ly/3r87Afm   WarDocs- The Military Medicine Podcast is a Non-Profit, Tax-exempt-501(c)(3) Veteran Run Organization run by volunteers. All donations are tax-deductible and go to honoring and preserving the history, experiences, successes, and lessons learned in Military Medicine. A tax receipt will be sent to you. WARDOCS documents the experiences, contributions, and innovations of all military medicine Services, ranks, and Corps who are affectionately called "Docs" as a sign of respect, trust, and confidence on and off the battlefield,demonstrating dedication to the medical care of fellow comrades in arms.     Follow Us on Social Media Twitter: @wardocspodcast Facebook: WarDocs Podcast Instagram: @wardocspodcast LinkedIn: WarDocs-The Military Medicine Podcast YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@wardocspodcast

In this episode of the Nation's Blind Podcast, Anil and Melissa are joined by Cameron Loehr, a blind Chef and instructor at the Louisiana Center for the Blind. They're also joined by Elizabeth Rouse, a former student of the Louisiana Center, and Delfina Rodriguez, an instructor at the Colorado Center for the Blind. They discuss how they became successful in cooking and preparing meals for over forty people.

#278: How well do you understand fertility?In this bonus episode, I sit down with Dr. Amanda Adeleye of Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine (CCRM) to break down the biggest myths about reproductive health, from egg quality to the male factor in fertility. We explore how aging, social stigmas, and today's political landscape impact fertility choices from our 20s to our 40s.Whether you're considering egg freezing or just want to take charge of your reproductive health, this conversation is packed with essential insights!We Also Talk About…The difference between fertility and infertility—and the signs to look for.Common reasons why some people struggle to conceive.How egg quality impacts fertility.The effects of endometriosis on fertility and reproductive health.How to determine if egg-freezing is right for you.What to expect from fertility treatments like IVF.Resources:Check out my new brand Spacious Rituals and get your virtual planner for 2025!Subscribe to my Substack, Balance with LesLearn more about CCRM's offerings and find a clinic near youFollow Dr. Amanda on InstagramFor more information on fertility, treatment, and reproductive health visit www.ccrmivf.comKeep in touch with Balanced Black Girl:Shop limited-edition Balanced Black Girl merchWatch on YouTube @BalancedBlackGirlFollow on IG: @balancedles @balancedblackgirlpodcastFollow on TikTok @balancedlesVisit our website at balancedblackgirl.comSponsors:CCRM | Visit CCRMivf.com to learn more about fertility preservation.Produced by Dear Media.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

 Michael Hingson, blind since birth, was born in Chicago to sighted parents who believed in raising their son with a can-do attitude. Treated like all other children in his family, Michael rode a bike did advanced math in his head and learn to read and write – Braille that is! Michael's family relocated to the warm Palmdale area of California when he was five years old. It is here that Hingson had his first adventure with Guide Dogs for the Blind and received his first guide dog. He later went to college receiving a bachelor's and master's degree in Physics along with a secondary teaching credential from the University of California at Irvine. Michael then enjoyed a nearly-30-year career working for high tech companies spending most of his time in management roles. Michael Hingson's life changed dramatically on September 11, 2001 when he and his guide dog, Roselle, escaped from the 78th floor of Tower One in the World Trade Center moments before it collapsed. Soon after, Michael and Roselle were thrust into the international limelight where Michael began to share his unique survival story and 9-11 lessons of trust, courage, heroism, and teamwork. Mike has served as The National Public Affairs Director for one of the largest Nonprofit organizations in the nation: Guide Dogs for the Blind; He has served as the vice president of the National Association of Guide Dog Users; Michael has held a seat on the Fort Worth Lighthouse for the Blind. He is the chair of the board of directors of the Earle Baum Center for the Blind and is the vice chair of the Colorado Center for the Blind; Michael is The National Ambassador for the Braille Literacy Campaign of the National Federation of the Blind. Until October 2019 he worked as the CEO of the Do More Foundation, the non-profit arm of Aira Tech Corp, a manufacturer of assistive technology which makes a revolutionary visual interpreter for blind people. In January 2021 Mike joined accessiBe as its Chief Vision Officer to help advance the company goal of making the entire internet fully inclusive. AccessiBe provides an artificial intelligence-based product that makes web sites accessible to many persons with disabilities. He is the author of the #1 New York Times Best Seller: “Thunder dog –The True Story of a Blind Man, a Guide Dog & the Triumph of Trust” – selling over 2.5 million copies Worldwide. In 2014 Mr. Hingson published his 2 nd book “Running with Roselle”- which Is the first of its kind- A story for our youth shedding light on one of Americas Darkest Days. Mr. Hingson's third book, “Live Like A Guide Dog”, was released on August 20, 2024. This book shows readers how they can learn to control fear and not, as Mike would say, “become blinded by fear in the face of crisis”. Aside from his talents and advocacies, Mr. Hingson has traveled the Globe from Japan to New Zealand, the Netherlands to his hometown, Chicago. Speaking to some of the world's most elite: from former President, George W. Bush to Larry King, to Fortune 500 companies and colleges and Universities Nationwide. After sharing his story of survival on hundreds of TV and Radio programs, Michael is now an Expert hired by many of today's major corporations and organizations. Speaking and consulting on the importance of Teamwork and Trust, Moving from Diversity to Inclusion, as well as offering Adaptive Technology Training – spearheading innovation for ALL! - Thus, bringing organizations to the forefront of the ever-changing competitive modern world. Body Transformation System!https://modere.io/NbOyU2https://calendly.com/rebeccaelizabethwhitman/breakthroughTo learn more about Rebecca…https://www.rebeccaelizabethwhitman.com/#homehttps://everydaywomantv.com/tv_shows/the-balanced-beautiful-and-abundant-show/

Balancing business growth with personal fulfillment is essential; sometimes, the best path forward is to scale back rather than push for continuous expansion. In this episode, Dr. Jeremy Sharp, founder of the Colorado Center for Assessment and Counseling and host of The Testing Psychology Podcast, shares insights from his journey of founding a successful private practice and discusses the unique challenges psychologists face when running their own businesses. He talks about his passion for sharing business wisdom with other psychologists through his podcast. Reflecting on recent changes to "right-size" his practice, Jeremy provides a candid look at balancing business growth with personal fulfillment. Tune in to learn insights on managing growth while scaling back and maintaining mental well-being while leading a thriving practice. Resources: Connect with and follow Dr. Jeremy Sharp on LinkedIn. Follow the Colorado Center for Assessment and Counseling on LinkedIn and explore their website. Listen to The Testing Psychologist Podcast and visit their website. Explore the Reverb Reports AI website.

We had Peggy Chong as a guest in episode five of Unstoppable Mindset back in October of 2021. Peggy spends a great deal of her time researching blind people, she calls them her blind ancestors, to learn and write about their histories. For example, did you know that five blind people in the 1930s served as congressmen or U.S. senators? True. Did you know that the typewriter was invented for a blind countess? Did you know that it was a blind person who invented automobile cruise control?   Peggy will talk about all these stories and others. Recently she spent two weeks at the library of Congress researching one project that she will discuss. Spoiler alert: we don't get to hear the end of the story as Peggy has more research to do and more documents to uncover. However, the story she tells us this time is intriguing and spellbinding. So join me on a journey to learn more about the history of blind people and learn why you should even thank blind people for some of the inventions you take for granted today.       About the Guest:   Peggy Chong's first book in print, Don Mahoney: Blind Television Star is on the shelves at many book sellers.  She writes and lectures as The Blind History Lady.  Her infatuation with stories she heard of those she now calls her “Blind Ancestors” surprised and inspired her to learn more, for herself at first and then bring their light to the world.  Peggy researches their stories and brings to life the REAL struggles of what it was and is still, to be a blind person in the United States.   Her works have been published in _The Iowa History Journal, Dialogue Magazine, The Farmington Daily Times, The Braille Monitor and Future Reflections. _ Each month she sends to her email followers another story of a blind ancestor to inspire blind and sighted alike.   Currently, Peggy Chong chairs the Preservation of Historical Documents for the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado, to save the single-source files, records, news clippings and correspondence of the blind of Colorado dating back to 1915.   She has been an active part of the blind community for more than forty years.  Determined to imbue the service delivery system for the blind with a more positive and forward-looking philosophy, Peggy joined with other blind people in Minneapolis, Minnesota to establish Blindness: Learning in New Dimensions (BLIND, Inc.), a training center for the blind designed to encourage its students to achieve self-sufficient and productive lives.  In 1985, Peggy Chong accepted the position of President of the Board of BLIND, Inc., a position she held for ten years.  During that time, she worked with many students of all ages and varying levels of vision, encouraging them to learn the alternative nonvisual techniques of blindness and fueling their imaginations to dream of a life where each of them could live and work in their communities on a basis of equality with their sighted peers.  She also helped many of them to make intelligent decisions about their vision--when it would be helpful and when it would hinder progress toward independence.   After moving to Baltimore Maryland in 1997, Peggy secured a position with BISM as an outreach/instructor.  In 1998, Peggy left BISM accepting a position with the Job Opportunities for the Blind program at the National Center for the Blind in Baltimore, Maryland.  For more than a year, she led a succession of intensive two-week training sessions designed to teach computer and other important job-readiness skills to blind individuals seeking employment.  She also worked individually with each job candidate to refine the job search according to the unique needs of each, and she worked with numerous employers to ensure that the characteristic of blindness was accurately perceived and the blind job applicant treated fairly.  When a job was offered to any of her students, she provided assistance before  and after securing the job to ensure that each of them had the tools needed to succeed in the new position.  Sometimes this involved connecting her student with other blind persons doing that same job somewhere in the United States.  At other times, she provided information and advice about new, non-traditional techniques that could be used to perform the job successfully.   Later, Peggy served for three years as the National Program Manager for NFB-NEWSLINE®, out of the Baltimore MD offices.  In this position, she formed valuable relationships with national and local newspapers, community-based service delivery organizations and rehabilitation programs, and literally thousands of blind men and women--many of them newly-blind--across the country.   After moving to Iowa in 2002, she became a private contractor providing consulting services and employment training to governmental agencies and nonprofit organizations.  Her work involved the dissemination of job-search, résumé creation and distribution services designed to help individuals--with or without disabilities--to secure competitive employment.  She also taught independent travel to the Blind.  She also served as the NFB-NEWSLINE Coordinator for the state of Iowa for several years.   For more than forty years, Peggy has been active in a variety of community organizations: the National Federation of the Blind, the American Cancer society, the Hawthorn Area Community Council, the Cooperating Fund Drive, Iowa and Albuquerque Genealogical Societies, Friends of the Iowa Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, The Friends of the Colorado Talking Book Library, State Rehabilitation Council for the Commission for the Blind of New Mexico, board member-ADA Advisory Committee for the City of Albuquerque Iowa Shares and Oasis of Albuquerque.    Ways to connect with Peggy:   Website: theblindhistorylady.com   Email: theblindhistorylady@gmail.com       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 subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   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 ** 00:16 Hi. I'm Michael Hinkson, Chief vision Officer for accessibe and the author of the number one New York Times best selling 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. Well, hello and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. We get to do a lot of all of that today. So it's kind of fun. In October of 2021 I had the honor and pleasure to interview well, let me rephrase that, talk with Peggy Chong, known as the blind history lady. Maybe it was a little bit more of an interview then, but we have really reshaped unstoppable mindset to be a conversation and not an interview. So it does get to be something where we get to talk with each other and ask each other questions and whatever else makes sense to do. Well, Peggy wrote a story about blind lady, and the story was published recently, and she did what she always does, she sends it to anyone on her mailing list. And I'm fortunate enough to be on it and read it, and I suddenly realized it has been two and a half years since we had Peggy on, and that has to change. So Peggy, welcome on to unstoppable mindset. Welcome   Michael Hingson ** 01:20 Well, hello and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. We get to do a lot of all of that today. So it's kind of fun. In October of 2021 I had the honor and pleasure to interview well, let me rephrase that, talk with Peggy Chong, known as the blind history lady. Maybe it was a little bit more of an interview then, but we have really reshaped unstoppable mindset to be a conversation and not an interview. So it does get to be something where we get to talk with each other and ask each other questions and whatever else makes sense to do. Well, Peggy wrote a story about blind lady, and the story was published recently, and she did what she always does, she sends it to anyone on her mailing list. And I'm fortunate enough to be on it and read it, and I suddenly realized it has been two and a half years since we had Peggy on, and that has to change. So Peggy, welcome on to unstoppable mindset. Welcome   Peggy Chong ** 02:22 to me. Yes, that's I was really surprised it had been two and a half years. So thanks for having me back.   Michael Hingson ** 02:29 Well anytime. So Peggy is known as the blind history lady because she specifically researches information about blind people, and she really researches their lives and then tells people about them, and we'll dig into a lot of that, but why don't we start? Maybe it'll be a little bit of redoing of what we did. Tell us about the early Peggy growing up.   Peggy Chong ** 02:52 Well, I grew up in a family where my mother was blind, and I have three blind siblings out of a family of five kids. So there's four of us, and my mother had gone to the North Dakota School for the Blind, so she was not eager to send her children to the School for the Blind at all. She wanted us to go to public school. So we well. She did not like the idea of being so far away from her family. She felt that it really there were some family dynamics that go in to that as well. But basically, she went up there in the end of August, early September, many times came home for Christmas, but not always, and then she went home the end of May. So she was really only with her family, mostly in the summers.   Michael Hingson ** 03:53 I remember when I was growing up and we moved to California from Chicago, and my parents had really heated arguments with the school district in Palmdale because they said I shouldn't go to school there. I should go to the school for the blind, which at that point was in well, and still is in Northern California. It hadn't relocated to Fremont, I don't think, yet, but they wanted me to go there, and my parents said, No, he's going to grow up and go to regular public schools. And it was a huge battle. Well, my parents won, but I suspect it was for probably a lot of the same reasons why your mom didn't want you guys to go.   Peggy Chong ** 04:35 Well, my mom came from a town of 400 people, so the public school there. First of all, if she had gone to public school, most kids didn't get past the eighth grade, you know, they went to work on the farms, and I think she would have not been able to get a lot of material in any kind of a format at a. All her ophthalmologist when she was six years old, wrote in her record that she needed to go to the school for the blind and to learn to read and write in braille, which I thought was amazing, yeah, for a doctor to say that at that time,   Michael Hingson ** 05:17 yeah, the doctors told my parents to send me off to a home, because no blind child could ever grow up to amount to anything or be useful at all, and all I would do would be to destroy the family dynamic and but you know, the other side of it is, as we know, you and I, places like the School for the Blind in California really did teach a lot. They were at that time. I think Newell Perry was, was still, still there. You know, Tim Brook had been one of his students, and they did teach a lot of the right stuff, along with providing the right material. But still, was a question of whether that's where you really wanted to be sent to or have your child sent to.   Peggy Chong ** 06:01 You know, one of the interesting things that has changed a lot of my thinking, doing this whole history dive that I have been doing, when I graduated from public school, I didn't really feel like a part of my class, but I thought I had gotten a better education, and at that time, the schools for the blind were changing. More kids were getting into the public schools who were more academic, and the schools for the blind were receiving more of the students who were not academic. So the kids that were graduating from the school for the blind about the same time, I were not always, you know, job ready. They weren't going to do much afterwards. And so my impression at that time was that that's what happens when you go to the school for the blind, not understanding the dynamics that the whole education system was going through and so on. But I look back at some of these people that I've researched, and they talk about how in the farming communities, which many of them came from, because our communities were fairly small, they went to the School of the blind, and they they fit in. They had they had peers at their level. Everything was in enough format. They could read mostly, or it the accommodations were being made for them. They competed in sports. They got involved in some of the community activities in the towns where the schools for the blind were so that they were connected with the community, and they seem to have not all of them. Of course, you you don't always want to tire everybody with the same brush, so to speak, but you don't you see more of a population of kids who had more self confidence, who had more of an idea of what they were going to do as a blind person after leaving the school, as opposed to the public school kids who were exposed to a lot of things, but if they didn't get in with the group, if they didn't get a chance to really participate if they were just sitting on the sidelines. They left the public school system, and they didn't go to college, necessarily. They didn't go to work, they went back to the family home. So when I graduated from high school, I thought a public school education was the best thing for a blind child. I'm not at that time, but I'm not so sure that that's really the case. I think you have to look at the child, the family situation, the school situation. Is the public school gonna provide a good, positive, supportive, learning structure and of course, always happen.   Michael Hingson ** 09:05 Of course, yeah, it still doesn't always happen, although, of course, there is a lot more material and there are a lot of tools available now that even when you and I graduated, were not available and students should be able to get a better public education, but the other part about it is the whole social acceptance and like you, I think I was really mostly on the sidelines. I was active in the science club and a couple things, but really not involved in a lot of the social organization of the schools, and that went all the way through high school, but I did at least have access to Braille books and Braille material, and I had parents who were vehemently in favor of me working to be a. A good student in the school, and they gave me every opportunity that I could. And outside of school, I was in the boy scouts, and so I did have other activities, and again, that was encouraged, and I was very fortunate for the most part. We dealt with scout leaders who encouraged it as well, probably because they had conversations from my parents, or with my parents, who said, look and and gave them an education so but it worked out pretty well. My dad was involved in Scouting as well. But I hear what you're saying, and I think that the schools for the blind, as near as I can tell today, have receded even further and are not really as much focused on the academics of students who are blind, but now they're dealing with multi handicap situations and other things that make it even more of a challenge for them.   Peggy Chong ** 10:50 Yeah, but I do think that you're right. Parents make a big difference. Family Support makes a huge difference. Yes,   Michael Hingson ** 10:59 yeah. Yeah. And the parents really do make all the difference, if they're willing to, as I describe it, be risk takers in that they let us explore, they let us do things. I'm sure they monitor us, but they allowed us to explore. They allowed us to learn about the world, and they knew instinctively that's what they needed to do, just like they would do it with any other kid.   Peggy Chong ** 11:26 Yeah, my parents let us ride bicycles. Yep, which I know that my mother, she did not feel confident enough to ride a bicycle, but as kids, wanted to and and she was, she was gonna just let it happen. And we had a few bike accidents. But, yeah, so does my sighted sister,   Michael Hingson ** 11:49 yeah. I mean, everybody does. So there's nothing, nothing new there. And eventually we bought a tandem bike so my brother and I could deliver newspapers together, and then that worked out pretty well, but I had my own bike and rode it around the neighborhood, wrote it to school for the first three years, and then transferred to a school across town, because there was a resource teacher at who was based at that school, and the resource teacher was the teacher who would work with the blind kids, so I had a period with her every day. And I learned braille in kindergarten in Chicago, but after Chicago, I didn't have access to it for three years, so I had to relearn it, which I did. But you know, things happen. Yeah, they do. So what'd you do after high school?   Peggy Chong ** 12:45 Well, after high school, I met this guy and got married. I thought about going to college, but I was I wasn't quite ready for college. I didn't really think that I was academically ready, so I went to work, and worked as a librarian assistant for two years, and then when our daughter came along, then I quit, became a stay at home mom, and got active in the National Federation of the Blind. I got active in tiny tots, you know, because my daughter went to tiny tots and US mom sat around and exchanged coupons and everything like that. While they were in there.   Michael Hingson ** 13:27 Did you exchange your share of coupons? Oh, yeah,   Peggy Chong ** 13:31 I tried to call my dog food coupons for the things that I needed, like milk or diapers or whatever. And   Michael Hingson ** 13:39 we should say that this guy you got married to, I'm sorry you have to put up with him all these years, but, but his name is Curtis Chung and Curtis has also appeared on unstoppable mindset, but we probably have to get him back on too, because there's lots to discuss.   Peggy Chong ** 13:55 Yeah, we were just discussing actually riding bikes when he was a kid, because his father let him explore and get hurt. His mother was not inclined to do that, and so his dad took a lot of heat, because Curtis would ride around on his three wheeler and crash into the wall or roll out in the street or whatever, but   Michael Hingson ** 14:21 Curtis has to learn to listen.   Peggy Chong ** 14:24 I don't think that's gonna happen.   Michael Hingson ** 14:29 He's not nearby, is he? Oh,   Peggy Chong ** 14:35 catch it on the podcast. Oh, he   Michael Hingson ** 14:36 will. But, but still, but, but even so, he did get to explore, which is, you know, what's really important? And I think that the blind people who have the most confidence or who are the most outgoing are the ones who were really given those opportunities by their parents. I believe. So, yeah, sure. So you didn't go to college, you You did other things, which is cool, and exchanged coupons. I've never been much of a coupon collector, and even with online coupons, I don't do nearly as much of that as I probably should.   Peggy Chong ** 15:14 Well, I don't do that anymore either,   Michael Hingson ** 15:15 but Instacart is our friend. Yeah, that's true. I did   Peggy Chong ** 15:19 go back to college for a while, and it actually was a really big boost in my self esteem, because I went back to college thinking, I've got to start over. Got to start from scratch. And so I took the basic courses that you take when you're a freshman, and I aced them, and I was, I was quite surprised at myself, so it gave me, it gave me a lot more confidence in myself to go ahead and try new things. I got out more into the community, joined the neighborhood group. I wrote letters, wrote articles for newsletters, and really start to come into myself, probably when my daughter was about 10.   Michael Hingson ** 16:10 And she's surprised how much you've learned over the years, right?   Peggy Chong ** 16:13 Well, I was pretty dumb there between her 18th and 21st year, but I got pretty smart after that. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. And since she's 45 now, you know, I've been smart for a while. What a relief. No kidding, I feel very lucky when I look at the relationships that I read about in all these families that I research, and the dynamics of the families and how kids don't get along, and they never spoke to their parents after they were 22 or whatever. And I think, gee, you know, I got my fighting with my daughter all done by the time she was 21 now we're friends, so that's good,   Michael Hingson ** 16:52 yeah, which works out. So when did you start getting interested in this whole business of researching blind ancestors and learning about the history of blind people.   Peggy Chong ** 17:05 Well, that actually started in my 20s. The NFB of Minnesota owned a home for the blind, and we decided that it was it was past its time. We did not need segregated housing for blind people, so we were going to sell the property. That meant you had to clean out the building. And there was a lot of stuff in there, and they had kept the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota, started as the Minnesota State organization of the blind, and in 1920 so they had some correspondence going back to 1919 and they kept everything. I mean, it was really cool. I was given the job of going through all of the boxes and file cabinets and getting rid of stuff, because we were going from this three story building to 1000 square feet office, and has to all fit, so everything had to go into one file cabinet, and I'm and they gave me the job because I had grown up in The blank community, and as a kid, I had known the people from North Dakota and Minnesota who were the blind newspaper dealers, the blind rug weavers, the blind door to door salesmen, the blind janitors. And they thought I would recognize people more than the rest of them would. So I'm going through stuff and pitching and pitching and pitching all this stuff into the trash. Every so often I stopped to read something, and one of the letters that I read was from the early 20s, from one of the board members to another one, describing their meeting with our blind state congressman, our blind US congressman, excuse me, and of course, they don't tell who it is. I didn't know there was a blind congressman, so I put that aside, and I started to pay more and more attention, so that blind Congressman became my first, what I call ancestor. I kept information that I had found here and there, kept those letters and put them in a box, and I went after who, what turned out to be Thomas David Shaw, who was the blind congressman who was working on a bill called the Robbins bill that would have been kind of a rehabilitation bill, putting some things together that would be similar to what our Randolph Shepherd vendor program is today. That bill didn't go anywhere. Um. But he then became a US senator, and he was one of two blind senators in the US Senate in the 1930s the other being Thomas prior gore. Thomas Shaw was killed by a hit and run driver just before Christmas of 1935 and he's a great ancestor to start with, because he had all this mystery around him, and you just had to know. So the driver of the car got out after he driven about a half a block and yelled back, well, he shouldn't have been in the street anyway. Now he was with his cited aid him one of his legislative aides, who was also hit and seriously hurt but but did survive that aid wrote a book about 20 some years later, as did the daughter of a newspaper man from Minneapolis who was killed in the very same way two weeks before Shaw was killed, and that newspaper reporter moved into this apartment a couple of weeks before he was hit by a car out of Thomas Shaw's house in Minneapolis because he was being harassed for the article He was working on about the mafia infiltrating the Democratic Party, and Shaw was helping him with this article. And so Shaw's family believed, as did the daughter who wrote the book about her dad, the reporter, as did the person who was with him that day, they all said that, you know, it was a he was deliberately hit, a man who hit him, he was deliberately hit because, if you talk to his grandson or his daughter in law, that they they believe it was a contract hit. But the man who hit him, who was unemployed. This was, you know, the middle of the Depression. He was unemployed, and all of a sudden, couple of years later, he has a brand new house that's paid for. He has no job. His children are in private school. They go on to college. He has no job. Where'd the money come from? Everybody wanted to know, and it was so he was somebody who I researched a lot, and that's before computers, and that was before you had an opportunity to go online, and before things were digitized. So you had to always go someplace and have somebody look it up for you. And a lot of times I would call and I would say, Well, can you read it to me over the phone? I didn't tell them I couldn't read it myself. I just asked them to read it. And I was surprised how many times people did read it, read articles to me, read them, the collection information to me, and so on. So he was my first ancestor. And because he was probably somebody I researched for good 30 years, I kind of got that in my blood, and then in about 2000 I decided I was going to do my family tree ancestry.com. Had just gotten started, and I thought, well, you know, why not? Keeps me busy for the winter. That is, it's it is worse addiction than chocolate or coke. I am here to tell you. I have been a subscriber of ancestor.com for a long time, and by and large, things are fairly accessible with that, unless you want to read the original document, because things were mostly handwritten, and these are scanned images, pictures of the originals and so on. But I'm surprised how many people are transcribing for their family trees, the information, the articles, the pieces from the books. So sometimes I get into things and it's already transcribed for me, I'm really kind of impressed   Michael Hingson ** 24:17 that works out very well.   Peggy Chong ** 24:18 I think so. So I was one who didn't like history in school because it didn't apply to me. And the few things that I had saved from Minnesota, you know, that applied to me because that was an organization I belonged to, and some of the people I had known. So I started with some of them because it applied to me. But once I really got into the family history, I just really got the bug. And when I would stall out on my family, I'd reach into now this collection that was more than a box or two of stuff that I have been collecting. And. Say, Well, I wonder what I can find about this person. Wonder what I can find about that person. And I took all these classes on how to research through the genealogical societies, several of them, and because it was when computers were not really used for genealogical research, they gave me a lot of information on the techniques that they use so they don't have to travel. And I used all of those techniques, and a lot of them are very great techniques that a blind person can use because for a $15 donation to this Genealogical Society, or this History Society, or this public library, there's some volunteer that's just willing to dig into something and find out what it is I want to know, and then they'll send me a nice email back, or a bunch of papers in the mail that I'll have to scan. But it's been really interesting to find out how easy it has been to dig into a lot of these old documents with the help of other people who have no idea that I'm blind at all,   Michael Hingson ** 26:13 which, which is, of course, part of the issue. They don't even know you're blind.   Peggy Chong ** 26:18 No, they have no clue. But they would do that for someone else. Yeah? So, yeah, I just take advantage of the opportunities that are already there and maximize them to my benefit.   Michael Hingson ** 26:31 So what are some of the early stories that you found that really fascinated you and that you found interesting that you've published?   Peggy Chong ** 26:41 Well, the one that just came out this month about Helen may Martin, the blind and deaf woman who was a concert pianist, is a fascinating story to me. And here's another example of this. Is a blind and deaf person who was born in 1895 the schools for the blind didn't take a blind and deaf student, and the schools for the deaf didn't take a deaf and blind student. In many parts of the country to get in as a deaf blind student, you either had to have a lot of money, or there just happened to have, happened to be somebody who was donating extra money at the time. You just happened to have a teacher that was skilled in working with one on one with a deafblind student. So Helen may didn't have that. She was born in Nebraska. The Nebraska school for the blind and deaf didn't want or the Kansas School for the blind and deaf didn't one of the Missouri School for the Blind in the School for the Deaf didn't want her, so her mother decided Helen is going to grow up and she is going to be the best of whatever she can be.   Michael Hingson ** 27:53 There's mom again. There's the family again. Well, mom   Peggy Chong ** 27:56 was a music teacher. Dad was a salesman who was on the road a lot, but he was also musically inclined, and they had a piano in the house. Mom taught music, and she kept Helen with her a lot. And Helen thought this was a game on the piano the keys and doing it, so she wanted to learn the game too. Mom, had her put her hand on the piano to feel the vibrations. Later on, it was the heel of her foot to feel the vibrations and how she would press the key harder and the vibrations of the piano were more full. When Helen started to really learn how to play the pieces, her mother would teach her with one hand, then the other, and they would put it together. And then her mother started to explain musical notes by using beans. A whole note was one bean. A half a note was two Beans. Quarter note was four beans. And explained how that worked to Helen. Then they would play these pieces, and the mother would say, Well, this is a song about the flowers, or this is a song about someone's life. And so Helen needed to know the story, and then the music had feeling her emotions. She understood the music better, and she learned to play with feeling as well. And when she was about 18, she wrote to the schools for the blind, asking again to have somebody come and teach her. Now, her mother was a smart woman. She knew there were magazines for the blind, and so she wrote and got everything she could find. Well, somewhere in New York point, somewhere in Braille,   Michael Hingson ** 29:56 Moon type and all of this. Hmm. And   Peggy Chong ** 30:01 so Helen learned several different ways to read. Her mother learned some of it and taught Helen. And then Helen, through reading these magazines, learned to read much better.   Michael Hingson ** 30:16 Let me stop you for a second, because I think it's important that listeners understand. You know, Braille was developed by Louis Braille in 1824, but it was quite a while before Braille itself was adopted. And one of the things that a lot of schools and people did early on, if you will, was assume that blind students could learn to feel raised regular characters, and then when they discovered that wasn't working as well as it could, other kind of languages were developed. Says Peggy said New York point and I said Moon type, which are two different languages, if you will, of raised characters that are somewhat different from Braille than it was a while before people realized finally that there were advantages to what Braille offered, because it was a very simple in a sense, dot configuration, but people could learn to read it and learn to read it well and read fast with it.   Peggy Chong ** 31:18 New York point was two dots high and four dots wide, right. And the New York point was started in New York, of course, with the schools there, Perkins, the Perkins School for the Blind, which began in the 1930 in the 1830s used the raise print system. They had their own printing press and everything. So they had all of the equipment to print their own books. Therefore they were invested in more ways than one into that raised system. The first school that actually taught Braille in this country was the Missouri School for the Blind in 1860 so Braille didn't quite catch on here. New York point had caught on, and what had spread across, especially New England and the East Coast, far more than Braille, the Braille did, which is why the Matilda Ziegler, what magazine was in Braille. Some of the religious magazines were Matilda Ziegler, I'm sorry, was in New York point at first, before it went into Braille. So   Michael Hingson ** 32:33 why do you think Braille finally caught on?   Peggy Chong ** 32:36 Well, it had a lot to do with money, but it also had to do with the fact that, you know, the schools for the blind, up until probably about the 1860s did more lecture and answer, question and answer, and that's how you learn they're just they didn't have either the money or the printing press or the access to actual tactile books for the kids. So the teachers themselves would lecture, and they would memorize and recite a lot more than than the sighted children did in the schools, although my dad tells stories about how they didn't have school a lot of school books, either in his school when he was growing up. I don't know, maybe that wasn't so different. But when Helen was reading things, she was getting some magazines from France, because Europe, England had publications in braille, and they would they could be received here in the United States. So her mother signed her up for those signed her up for newsletters coming out of California. California was quite a literate state in that the school for the blind, the school in Berkeley, the Institute for the Blind, they all had printing presses so that they could manufacture their books and share them. So Ohio was another place that her mother got her books Helen's books from as well. So she got all this material encouraged Helen to read and read and read, and she also taught Helen to type at the age of six, because her mother knew how to type. So her mother taught her how to type again. It was kind of a game. The keyboard was a game, and she learned to type quite well, so she kept a diary in print, and she wrote articles her mother would read to her, and they developed, at first, their own sign language, and then her mother and her sister. Her learned sign language, and they would spell into Helen's hand. Now, her dad died when she was about 1220, her sister was about 12 at the time, and so the mother had to go back to work. She became a seamstress. She had her own shop. She sewed dresses for people in town, and Helen learned how to do that. Helen had learned how to cook. She was constantly by her mother's side, so when her mother went to work, she was in charge of the house. Her mother got her classes at conservatories of music. Her mother went with her and translated into Helen's hand what was being said for the class. She never graduated from a conservatory, but because of her exposure, people were like this. She's deaf and she's blind and she's playing the piano. This is so amazing. She plays it with feeling. And so she would get a little concert here, and a little concert there. And pretty soon it expanded, and her mother thought, well, let's see where it goes, you know? So she started promoting her daughter, getting her all these concerts. There were all these professionals musicians, educators, even from the schools for the blind, who would come and watch Helen perform, because they just couldn't believe a deafblind person could do this. And when Helen would travel, she had the same experience. Her mother would send ahead all this information about Helen may Martin, the deafblind piano pianist who is going to perform, and there would be the announcement in the paper. But many times, the reporters didn't believe that Helen was deafblind, so they didn't put the article in. They would wait till after the performance, and then there would be the article about Ellen Mae Martin, and I went to see her, and she really is deaf and she really is blind, and she plays beautifully. Ripley's, believe it or not, had a program on the radio. He also had a Ripley's, believe it or not, theater in New York, and he sent someone out to check out Helen and see if she really was a deafblind pianist. And discovered that she was, and he brought her on her show. She was well received in New York, and got a multi week contract to perform at his, believe it or not, theater in New York. So she was in New York for quite a while, several months, performing for many concerts and many theaters in New York. Helen died in 1947 so she was like about 5252 years old, so she wasn't really that old. And her sister died in 1939 who was much younger than she was. So Mrs. Martin ended up out living all of her children, neither of Helen or her sister ever married or had children. So her mother ended up, not in poverty, but she certainly was not a wealthy woman when she passed away. But before she passed away, she supposedly gave all of Helen's diaries to some historical society, of which no one can find, which I'm hoping they're in a back box behind the furnace somewhere, and someday they'll be unearthed, because that would be fascinating, the little bits of her journal that were recorded in newspapers. She wrote very well. She had a very strong vocabulary. Some people equate deaf people with having a smaller vocabulary. That was certainly not the case with Helen, and Helen has been somebody that has really touched a lot of people. When you think about what you can and cannot do, nobody told Helen she couldn't. Nobody said, you know, as a deaf person, probably the piano is not something you should try to take up. But encouraged her because she had an interest, and worked with Helen's interests, and worked with what Helen knew, and her mother did that and encouraged her, made sure she was literate because she was a lot older when she went to school, really, when she went to school, she. Took about five years to complete the academic courses at the School for the Blind, and she did get a certificate of graduation she was older than the rest of the students. Her mother had blind pianists come and work with Helen while Helen was growing up, so she had music teachers, and she found some deaf students, graduates from the schools for the deaf, from other states, sometimes Kansas, who would come and work with the family. That's how they learn sign languages. So Helen's mother was extremely important with making Helen who she was I wonder   Michael Hingson ** 40:40 if she ever met Helen Keller. Yes, she did.   Peggy Chong ** 40:44 They both met when they were adults. Helen may Martin had written to Helen Keller, and Helen Keller had heard about the blind woman who was the pianist, the blind and deaf woman. So when Helen Keller went on one of her tours. She went to Nebraska, and Helen and her mother went and stayed with a relative and got an audience with Helen Keller. The Of course, Helen Keller was always followed by reporters, and so they reported on the meeting of the two Helens, and they called Helen may Martin, the second Helen Keller, well, Helen Keller was not happy with that. She said, Are you kidding? She is not the second Helen Keller, she has far exceeded everything I could have ever done.   Michael Hingson ** 41:38 I can see her say that, yes, it   Peggy Chong ** 41:40 was just, it was really wonderful. She scolded the reporter, and that reporter didn't report on the scolding, but another reporter reported on Helen Keller scolding the reporter for saying that she was the second. Helen Keller, and don't you call her at the second? Helen Keller, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 41:59 you know, it's interesting that you, you clearly worked at this pretty hard and found a lot of information about her, even so. And you're you're right. It would be nice to find her journals and the other things, and I bet you will at some point, they're somewhere.   Peggy Chong ** 42:15 I think so I think they're somewhere.   Michael Hingson ** 42:20 Now I have to go back to a story that you talked about a little bit on our first unstoppable mindset episode, because you said something here that brought it up, and that is that Helen may Martin learn to type, tell us about the history of the typewriter. Will you? Oh, I love to I know it's a great story.   Peggy Chong ** 42:42 When I go to talk to the students who are at agencies for the blind learning to be blind people when they're in their adjustment to blindness, training, a lot of them, oh, talk about how difficult the computer is because it's so difficult you can't see the keys. And I love to tell the story of the invention of the typewriter, because it was an invention for blind people. And we have forgotten that as a society, the typewriter was the invention of a man who was overly friendly with this Countess, married to this count. The Count wasn't attentive enough for the Countess, so she had to find other interests, friends, but they would write back and forth. Now the problem was the ladies in waiting who wrote the letters to her friend, her special friend, showed them to the count, and that just, you know, wasn't a good thing. So, and they also didn't get delivered either, because if the count didn't like it, he had the letters tried, so he invented this device where she could type out the letters and then send them to him without having a ladies maid between them. And it caught on the schools for the blind in New York, especially the schools for the blind taught typing at the school and their students by the late 1880s and early 1890s were going to state fairs and the World's Fair demonstrating the typewriter for the Remington company as something that really would help the gentlemen who were secretaries in the office. Lady secretaries were not quite yet the thing and   Michael Hingson ** 44:42 would have helped Bob Cratchit Anyway, go ahead,   Peggy Chong ** 44:46 you never know. Do you humbug? I love that story. Yeah, but yes. So their students graduated, were really good typists and. They saw to him that they got put into insurance companies, law firms, and highlighted their students as typists. And the typewriter was also catching on really well in the business community, because now you didn't have to decipher some of that handwriting. And believe me, that handwriting that still exists from back then is very difficult, always doing to figure out just   Michael Hingson ** 45:27 handwriting of old days or days of your that is hard to understand. So I'm told,   Peggy Chong ** 45:33 No, it's today's but yes, well, and they're actually teaching handwriting again in school. A little side note is that I have a lot of volunteers that have been transcribing documents for me from about 1915 to about 1980 from the collection of old files at the Colorado Center for the Blind that we unearthed and we found we could not use high school students and some younger college students because they couldn't read handwriting. We had to, we had to go into the retirement communities to find our volunteers who were very good, by the way. But anyway, so the typewriter has was really the communication material, tool that was used by so many blind people for a long time, and I think we got away from that now, where we have to have special keyboards for the blind. Some places are really insistent on that. Some blind people are insistent on that when you were meant not to look at the keys. That's why the two little bumps on the F and the H are there is so that you could orient yourself and continue typing looking at the paper. The sighted ladies would look at the paper and type their material and not have to look at their keys. So something that we have forgotten, and you know, like the scanner, is, you know, a product that was originally designed for blind people. We forgotten that, I think, in our society as well. But I like the inventions that blind people have contributed, such as cruise control. That was an invention by a blind man to make the cars in his lot stand out from the other car dealers in his small town. There was a man in Minnesota who had lost his hand as well as his eyesight and part of his hearing. He went to the summer programs for adult blind people at the School for the Blind in the 19 late 20s, early 30s. There were no programs for adult blind in the in the state, really at that point, unless you wanted to make brooms. They suggested that he become a piano tuner. And he said, Well, you know, I really wasn't very musical when I had my sight and my hearing, I don't really see how I can be a piano tuner if I can't hear it and I only have one hand. So what he got out of those summer programs, though, was he met other blind people who gave him job leads, and they told him to go to this broom factory in Minneapolis, because it was owned by a blind guy. And he employed some blind guys and sighted guys as well. So he went up there, and this is during the Depression, and the guy said, you know, I really love to help you. I don't need anybody in the factory. I have all the blind salesmen. Most of his salesmen were blind. I have all the salesmen that I can use for this area, but you know, if you want to branch out and head out to like, say, North Dakota or South Dakota, I'd be glad to hire you. And probably thought he'd never heard from the guy again, but the guy came back and says, Well, I found another guy. He doesn't have a job, he doesn't have a home, but he's got a pickup. So the two of them bought as many brooms as they could put into the pickup, and they headed out. Sold all the brooms. They came back. The two men, in a couple of years, earned enough money where they both bought property, and this guy, he bought the property, and what we would call today flipped. It bought a duplex and got renters in. It continued to sell brooms until he really became pretty handy at flipping houses, buying and selling property. So he got kind of tired, though, because, you know, he's now, like, close to 50 years old. Wild, and he has to change the storm windows on the house in Minnesota. Have to put on the screens in the summer and the storms in the winter. And he's climbing up the ladder. He's only got one hand trying to change the windows on the second story. And thought, There has got to be a better way to do this. I really don't want to keep climbing up this ladder. So I talked to this other guy, a blind guy, who was a furniture builder, had his own furniture shop. And he told the guy, this is my idea. I want to design a window where it comes in on a hinge, and then I can just reach in, pull in the storm, clean it, put it back, and they invented this window. He built a few of them on his own, demonstrated that it worked, put it in his house. This window company came along, bought the patent and the blank, I never worked again. He didn't have to work again. The neat thing though, was when he went blind, his wife had passed away a couple of years before, and he became very depressed, lost his job, lost his house that he had paid for his relatives, and the county came and took his three children away. When he sold his patent, he got two of his children back. His oldest child was now in the service and serving in World War Two. But he got his children back. He provided a home for his mother. He actually remarried again, you know, a man who just came back from nothing, and then out of his own need, created this window that many houses in the Midwest, the older houses built in the late 40s and 50s, have those windows that you pull in on a hinge and open up, clean them and close them   Michael Hingson ** 52:03 back out. Now, of course, we have dual pane windows and other things like that. But, yeah, yeah, so, so who invented the scanner?   Peggy Chong ** 52:12 Well, that was Ray Kurzweil. I   Michael Hingson ** 52:14 just wanted to see if you'd say that it's interesting. Kurzweil   Peggy Chong ** 52:19 is an interesting guy, you know, he is still alive and still very concerned about blind people, and active in the blind community, providing funds for scholarships and so on. We correspond, yeah, and he had this wonderful idea in the 70s to provide a scanner that would read to the blind, and it was as huge. I mean, it was bigger than my washing machine.   Michael Hingson ** 52:48 Yeah, the whole thing weighed 400 pounds, not too gosh, yeah,   Peggy Chong ** 52:51 the library, the public library in Minneapolis, bought one. Unfortunately, not a lot of people used it because they locked it up because they were afraid it was going to get broken.   Michael Hingson ** 53:03 That makes sense somehow. Yeah, right. It's, it's interesting, though, also to try to describe how the scanner worked, because you, you can't really say it took a picture like you would do today with a phone. No, because the way it worked was there was a piece of technology called a charge couple device. Won't go into the theory of that, but basically, the scanner would move up and down the page, like an inch at a time, scanning across, then dropping down, scanning back, dropping down, and so on, building up an image that took almost a minute to do. And then the computer would take probably anywhere from depending on the complexity, 20 seconds, to 30 or 45 seconds, to process it. And then it would read out loud.   Peggy Chong ** 53:52 But it worked, and you had access to that book right, and   Michael Hingson ** 53:58 you had access to that book right away, and it worked. And of course, it did get better over time. And then Ray was also very much involved in unlimited vocabulary, voice input and other things. So you mentioned two blind senators. Were there any other blind national politicians.   Peggy Chong ** 54:22 There were five blind congressmen all together. There was Thomas Shaw and there was Matthew Dunn. He served from 1935 to 1940 he was the last of any of our national representatives as blind people. And Matthew Dunn came from Pennsylvania. He was an interesting person because he did really he was interested in politics, but it was not what he wanted as a career, but he did it because he was a part of the. The Pennsylvania Association for the Blind, which was one of the original affiliates of the National Federation of the Blind. They were very concerned that the welfare system in the country was going federal, which was a good thing and a bad thing, a good thing if it was done right, a bad thing if it was not. And they knew from just Pennsylvania alone, how a charity system, a welfare system, a poor house system, they had all these different types of programs to serve blind people, as far as financial was concerned, and they had many situations in their state where if you lived on one side of the street as a blind person, you could get maybe $8 a month if you lived on the Other side, maybe only two, because you crossed a county line or you crossed out of the sea. And so they wanted to have some input on a federal level to all this, these pieces of legislation, Social Security, the rehabilitation legislation that was being bandied about, they wanted to have some input into it, to make sure that it wasn't a charity, that it wasn't for the poor, that it was something that would make you have A step up, that you could get out of poverty, that you wouldn't be stuck there, that you would have an opportunity to get a job, that you would have an opportunity to go to school and still get some financial support, that you could own your own home and maybe still get some financial support, because if you were a blind person in Pennsylvania, in some parts of the state, and you went blind at, say, 40 years old, your house was paid for. You had to sell that house or that asset in order to get financial support. And they wanted people to have a right to protect what they have so they can get a step up and get back to work. And Matthew Dunn was sent there by the blind people, and he campaigned on those issues, about wanting to go to Washington to make sure that the new laws regarding social security rehabilitation would provide people an opportunity to progress, rather than stay at home, remain in poor farms, remain in nursing homes. So he was, it was an interesting sort   Michael Hingson ** 58:01 and it's a battle that still goes on today. For   Peggy Chong ** 58:06 you know, as much as we look at history, you know, if you don't know your history, you're bound to repeat it. And you just look at things, and they just cycle through and cycle through. I remember in the 1920 minutes of the NFB of Minnesota. Back then, it was called the Minnesota State organization the blind. There were three resolutions that were just about the same as three of the resolutions at the 1995 convention. We haven't gone very far have we   Michael Hingson ** 58:40 not in some ways, you know, we have been doing this mostly an hour. But I can't end this without saying two things. One, we'll have to do another one, but, but the other one is, tell me a little bit about your recent trip to Washington. That had to be fascinating. It was   Peggy Chong ** 58:59 fascinating. I went to Washington knowing very little. What I thought I knew turned out not to be what I should have known. I came across a newspaper article about, oh, four years five years ago, five years ago, I guess, now, about a blind guy, a broom maker, who had gotten an award from the Harmon Foundation, and I couldn't understand why he got the award, because it didn't really say why he got the award. He just got an award. Well, I didn't find out much about the broom maker, so I decided to look in the Harmon Foundation, and what I had learned online was that the Harmon Foundation had given a lot of support, financial awards, loans to the black community who were into art. And I couldn't figure out how this broom maker, this white guy, Bloom. Broom maker fit in, and there was nothing online about it, until I got into the Library of Congress and found the Harmon foundation collection. And I looked at that and went, Oh my gosh, there must be a lot of data there, because the Harmon foundation collection goes from 1913 to 1965 there's 122 boxes. 14 of them are for this one program. Now there's about, oh, maybe 20, 3040, programs that the Harmon Foundation also has in this collection, none of them have that many boxes connected with it. So I thought I had hit a gold mine, and then way I did just not what I anticipated. The first two days, I spent 11 days in the Library of Congress. The first two days, I took the boxes chronologically and could not figure out what the heck was going on, because it none of it made sense. None of it fit into the stuff I knew about the program and the strangest stuff were coming up. People were writing on behalf of a school for the blind, or a public school area wanting a playground for the School for the Blind, and I'm thinking now in an awards a literary award program, why would you write and ask that? And then there were all these letters from blind people wanting to go to college and asking for a loan. And again, I thought, what? That just doesn't fit. So it took me till the third day before I got an understanding of exactly what was going on the Harmon foundation. William Harmon was the chair. He decided in 1927 he wanted a new program that would provide awards to blind people, much like their literary program that was providing scholarships for college students. They had a essay contest for farmers down in the south, and they would award them money to beautify their their property. They also had this program once I saw their newsletters where they had provided within like a five year period, over 50 playgrounds to schools or Communities for Children. And so it's starting to dawn on me that there's this group of people who've done their research on the Harmon Foundation, and there's a group of people that haven't done their research. And then there's what's going on with the award the Harmon foundation knew they had to reach out to the blind community. Part of their structure, when they were doing new awards, and they did many, was to reach out, put an advisory committee together with sewn from the Harmon foundation and those in that community in which they were trying to enhance so they wanted to reach out to the blind community. They found the Matilda Ziegler magazine, and they had the editor as one of their advisory committees, and they reached out to the American Foundation for the Blind, and ended up with a few of their representatives on that advisory committee, their normal process, the Harmon Foundation's normal process was then to take this advisory committee and then reach down into the community and have all these nominators who would take the applications for the awards and seek out applicants. Get the applications filled out, get the supporting documents filled out. For example, in their their farm and land beautification, one photographs needed to be taken sometimes, or they needed to get the names of some of the plants they were using. Sometimes, fruits and vegetables were sent to the Harmon foundation to show, hey, look how good my garden went, that kind of thing. So the nominators were to make sure that all of that was completed before the application was then sent in. That didn't work the application process. The Harmon Foundation put the application together, much like their other programs, and sent it to the advisory committee, and there were about 12 different versions of it after I went to the advisory committee in the Harmon. Original version that they had asked for award. They were going to give out 100 awards in total, and there were about eight categories, and they were going to have an award for the person who submits this great work of literary work, they were going to have an award for people who wrote essays about how they have made a difference in their life, how they made a difference in other people's lives, as blind people, and especially in that one, there's a little sub noted, and it says, when it's talking about what you might include in the essay, which is usually only about a paragraph it mentioned, and talk about how, as you progressed, your posture got better, your became more involved in the community. Well, the advisory committee ended up pulling all of that out. So the final application had a page of, is this person neat? Is this person polite? What is the posture of this person? All these personal things that when the blind people who were reading the Matilda Ziegler magazine, because Matilda Ziegler put all this information about the awards, they did a lot of promotion about the awards. They sent in essays from their previous editions of their Matilda magazine to the Harmon foundation to say these are the kind of essays that blind people can write, and they can tell you about how they have made a difference in their lives. They've made a success of this career. They have been instrumental in building their community school or their community church. But the Matilda Ziegler magazine people got the application and filled out what they thought was important, the the references and so on. And they get to all this stuff about their personal behavior, and one lady writes in and says, you know, I'm submitting my essay, but I'm not going to fill out these pieces because I don't think it has any bearing on whether or not my essay should be, should be judged on that. So I'm, I'm getting the drift here that the people that were sending in essays were not completing their application. The deadline the applications were sent out on April 15 of 1928 the deadline was August 15 of 1928 AFB provided a list of all of the organizations, the mailing list of all the names, organizations, schools, workshops for the blind, and the Harmon foundation sent out letters asking all of their these agency people to be the nominators. The AFB did not do that. They didn't write separate cover, hey, we're participating in this Harmon Foundation award, and we want you to support this award, be a nominator, and we want you to help fill out these applications and send them back so these principals at the schools for the blind or in the public schools who oversaw the program for public schools or the director of a workshop,   Peggy Chong ** 1:08:51 they they would either totally ignore it, or they would write back, well, sure, I'll be a nominator. I don't know what it involves, but you can use my name. So come August 15, the Harmon foundation doesn't have enough accepted applications to fill the awards, so they they're contacting AFB and Matilda Ziegler, what do we do? They extend the award for children and for been blind for two years. How has how have you progressed in two years to November 1, they still don't get enough because what happened is, especially with a lot of these schools, they saw it as a charity award, not a literary award. And so they would send the application in, partially filled out, and say, this student deserves this award because they came to the school and they only had one set of clothing, and we have been needing to support the student, or you need to gi

Sign up for my FREE 3 Day Live Course - How to Build a 7 Figure Group Practice That Runs Without You → https://mccancemethod.com/free-3-day-live-course/ In this episode, Licensed Psychologist Dr. Jeremy Sharp discusses how to grow your practice with assessments! Jeremy shares his personal journey in growing, how he eventually scaled back and lessons he's learned along the way.Make sure to bring your paper and pen because this episode is full of actionable tips!Here are some key points in this episode: [5:04] Getting referrals  [8:15] What sets Jeremy's reports apart [13:34] How Jeremy scaled back [16:50] Managing 3 companies [18:52] Jeremy's biggest mistake Links From the Episode:Complimentary 30-minute consulting call: https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=13476033&appointmentType=18089765 The Testing Psychologist Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-testing-psychologist-podcast/id1200313948 More about Jeremy:I'm a licensed psychologist and Director at the Colorado Center for Assessment & Counseling, a private practice that I founded in 2009 and grew to nearly $3M in revenue. I earned my undergraduate degree in Experimental Psychology from the University of South Carolina before getting my Master's and PhD in Counseling Psychology from Colorado State University. These days, I specialize in psychological and neuropsychological evaluation with kids and adolescents.As the host of the Testing Psychologist Podcast, I provide private practice consulting for psychologists and other mental health professionals who want to start or grow psychological testing services in their practices. I live in Fort Collins, Colorado with my wife (also a therapist) and two tweens.Websites:  The Testing Psychologist- www.thetestingpsychologist.com Social Media Links: Facebook -  https://www.facebook.com/thetestingpsychologist How We Can Work Together:Book a Practice Growth Audit Call - https://mccancemethod.com/practice-growth-audit/Here is How to Subscribe & Leave a Review (pretty-please): Want to get notifications when I release new episodes so you don't miss out on anything?Follow my show on Apple Follow me on Instagram, @nicole.mccanncemethod. If this episode provided you with value and inspiration, please leave a review and DM to let me know. Click here: https://www.instagram.com/nicole.mccancemethod Join the FREE private community for therapists: Expand your Psychotherapy Practice → https://www.facebook.com/groups/947689352498639 Sign up for the FREE Masterclass- How to Build a 7-Figure Group Practice→ https://mccancemethod.com/webinar-free-masterclass-from-solo-to-superteam/

Today - it's once again time for a look at Colorado's literary scene. This week Sun writer and SunLit editor Kevin Simpson chats with the organizer of the Colorado Book Awards, taking a look behind the scenes of the contest that each year recognizes the best works in a variety of categories.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You may or may not be aware of ARC. This is an organization that for many years has championed the lives, rights and welfare of persons with Intellectual and developmental disabilities. One of the main funding sources for ARC is its thrift stores. Not only do these stores provide a revenue source, but they also provide employment for many persons with all kinds of disabilities.   Our guest, Lloyd Lewis is the CEO of the ARC Colorado Thrift Stores. For the past 18 years he has grown the Colorado network from approximately $2 million to a large operation employing several hundred persons and greatly helping to financially support the activities of ARC.   My conversation with Lloyd is far ranging and quite informative. We talk a lot about the broad subjects of disabilities including the myths and fears promulgated within society. Lloyd offers some keen observations on how we can and should work to make society more inclusive. Lloyd's education and earlier business and legal background afford him a unique and strong skill set for the job he does today. I think you will find our conversation well worth your time.     About the Guest:   Lloyd Lewis is the CEO of the Arc Thrift Stores of Colorado, one of Colorado's largest nonprofits, employers of persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and relief organizations. Under Lewis' tenure, Arc Thrift has funded over $250 million to nonprofit causes and charities since 2005.   Lewis is a passionate champion on a crusade to promote a new way to think about inclusion and diversity.   Lewis the recipient of a Civil Rights Award and received the World Citizenship Award from the International Civitans, an honor that has included such noted past winners as England's Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Eunice Shriver, the founder of Special Olympics.   Lewis sits on the board of The Arc of the United States Foundation and is treasurer of Inclusion International, a worldwide organization advocating for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, with members in over 100 countries.   Lewis has a 19-year-old son with Down syndrome.   He is the author of Why Not Them? a book about how his life was transformed by the birth of his son. In it, Lewis hopes to change the way our communities think about, connect with, and employee people with disabilities.   Why Not Them? is about a purpose-driven organization, arc Thrift Stores, whose mission is the success and inclusion of all of its employees, regardless of their abilities. It's about opening doors, challenging the way we do business, and touching hearts and minds.   Written from the perspective of a father and a businessman, it asks us all to join in the fight for inclusion and understanding. It is educational and moving and challenges us – as individuals and as a community – to perhaps look at the world just a little bit differently. ** ** Ways to connect with Dr.Jonathan :    https://lloydlewis.net/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lewislloyd/     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, hi, everyone, and welcome to another edition of unstoppable mindset where inclusion and diversity in the unexpected meet. And we get to talk today about inclusion and diversity. And if we're not, we may hit the unexpected as well, which is anything except inclusion and diversity. But our guest today is Lloyd Lewis, who is the CEO of the ark, Colorado thrift stores. And we're going to talk about ark and the thrift stores and everything else under the sun and why he's doing it and all that. So I'm not going to talk much, because that's his job. So Lloyd, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here, Michael.   Lloyd Lewis ** 02:00 It's great to be with you. And I really appreciate our opportunity to get to know each other and have a conversation. Looking   Michael Hingson ** 02:06 forward to it. Now we're in Colorado, are you?   Lloyd Lewis ** 02:10 We're actually I have stores across Colorado, from Fort Collins in the North Pole in the south across what we call our front range. And also on our western slope. My company is headquartered in Lakewood, Colorado, which is just a little bit southeast of Denver. Okay, we are all across the state. I   Michael Hingson ** 02:31 get to be in Littleton in May for the board meeting of the Colorado Center for the Blind and Littleton.   Lloyd Lewis ** 02:37 Oh, nice. Very cool. Yeah, Littleton is isn't as the city very near to us where we have a store and a very successful operation. And it's a wonderful city. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 02:49 I'm going to have to make sure that when we're going to be there that maybe we can at least meet in person. That   Lloyd Lewis ** 02:58 would be great. Please let me know when you're here.   Michael Hingson ** 03:01 I will. I don't remember the date. But I think it's around the ninth of may. But I'll let you know.   Lloyd Lewis ** 03:06 Maybe we could meet at my warehouse. We have a lot of wonderful blind call center agents there with adapted software. They do an amazing job for us. And I think they would appreciate getting an opportunity to meet you and and get to know you a little bit.   Michael Hingson ** 03:22 I may just stay an extra day or come in a day early to do that.   Lloyd Lewis ** 03:26 That'd be very cool. Very well. In any case, why   Michael Hingson ** 03:29 don't we start with you if you would tell us maybe about kind of the early Lloyd growing up and all that. Yeah, the   Lloyd Lewis ** 03:36 early Lloyd grew up in Tacoma, Washington. And I have a lot of family there. And the early Lloyd moved around a bit. California bit Bakersfield, high point North Carolina and Oklahoma City. And I had a stepfather who was doing transfers as a FAA controller. And I grew up, you know, doing well in school and playing sports. And really appreciate where I grew up, where we can see Mount Rainier from my backyard. And we had covered playgrounds because it rained all the time. Not like the kind of rain you're getting now. But it rained a lot in Washington and I actually like rain if it's the appropriate level. Not the LA rain you got right now but I've always found it refreshing. You had some snow this year. We've had a lot of snow this year. And we had that this past weekend. We were expecting a couple inches we got eight or nine inches. And we're having better weather right now as we're speaking. But this weekend, we could get even more so it's you know, I just wish we weren't getting so much of this because it interferes with my stores. If the roads aren't drivable people aren't likely to be out On the road, visiting my stores. So hopefully it'll be milder than what they're predicting right now.   Michael Hingson ** 05:08 Just for a point of reference, we're recording this on February 6 2024. So that's why we're talking about rain and snow and everything else. And typically, a lot of the weather that starts out in California does go East and elsewhere. So it's probably going to be a follow up to the storm that we have here that that you get. But it's a very slow moving storm. And that's why it's been so crazy out here, because we've had so much rain since it's just stayed over us and dumped a lot of moisture.   Lloyd Lewis ** 05:40 We see it on the news media, and it's very, you know, concerning. It's a lot of damage there. And power outages. And, you know, we in Colorado, we are, you know, sorry, this is the experience that you are having. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 05:56 well, and we will we will deal with it, which is cool. But at least we can and the cities and the government is doing their best to try to keep up with it all.   Lloyd Lewis ** 06:06 Well, I hope they can.   Michael Hingson ** 06:07 I hope. So. You did you go to college in in Colorado, or   Lloyd Lewis ** 06:13 I did not I ended up going to undergrad at the University of Oklahoma, in Norman, Oklahoma, and got a degree in political science.   Michael Hingson ** 06:23 Now, why did you go there as opposed to sign close? And I was   Lloyd Lewis ** 06:27 I was in high school at the time there. My stepfather had transferred Oklahoma City because he was teaching at the FAA Academy which is located. Yes. And then when it came time to do my undergrad. I had some counselors who thought I should attend an IV instead, I followed my friends to Norman, Oklahoma. And that was my undergraduate education.   Michael Hingson ** 06:53 Then what did you do? Then   Lloyd Lewis ** 06:55 I followed a girlfriend out to Massachusetts. From there, I did a paralegal training program in Atlanta, then hired at the Tennessee Valley Authority in Knoxville, where I spent a few years as a paralegal and applying for a paralegal job with an investment firm in Philadelphia, because I'd never been in the big city in the Northeast. And I ended up prior to grad school, being a municipal investment banker working on municipal financing projects, ultimately with Smith Barney, which Wow, fairly prominent firm at the time. Yes.   Michael Hingson ** 07:33 Did girlfriend follow you around or?   Lloyd Lewis ** 07:36 No, she that didn't work. He did her own thing. She actually she's done quite well. She went to do a PhD at Princeton and English, and became a professor at the University of Mississippi in a very successful career.   Michael Hingson ** 07:51 That's great. So did you ever find another girlfriend that took?   Lloyd Lewis ** 07:57 I did? Oh, good. Okay, I found a few. And then from Philadelphia, we thought the 1986 tax bill would disrupt our industry. So I took the Graduate Management Admission Test the GMAT application test for business school, I got admitted to Duke to Michigan to some other schools and Oh, my word and versity of Chicago. Which is, you know, considered, I guess, the best business school in America, per US News rankings. And I did an MBA graduate in 88, with a specialty in finance. It came out to Colorado in Boulder with IBM, as a senior financial analyst in their executive training program, and from there did a series of companies. I was director of finance for publicly traded medical equipment company. I was a CFO for high tech ultimately sold to micron. And then in 2003, my world changed. I had a little boy born with Down syndrome, whose name   Michael Hingson ** 09:07 I'm sorry, his name again. Kennedy.   Lloyd Lewis ** 09:11 Okay, and I got involved in scientific research advocacy. I met a neuroscientist at the University of Colorado working in that arena. And we partnered up and advocated at CU University Colorado across the country to try to get more funding for Down syndrome research at the time. It really didn't receive much funding and met a philanthropist daughter, whose father had founded stars encore she has a little girl my son's age with Down syndrome. We partnered up and ultimately that family created what's now the largest world's largest Down Syndrome research facility. The Linda cernik Institute named for the neuroscientist that I met and worked with initially on advocacy. My whole world changed with the birth of my son candidate What?   Michael Hingson ** 10:00 What caused you to really decide to make that change and go away from being a financial analyst and being very successful in the corporate world to clearly something else, just just because of his birth? Or did things happen that changed your life or when   Lloyd Lewis ** 10:17 he was born? You know, a lot of parents if they have a child with Down syndrome, you know, surprise them at birth, they might get anxious or depressed or angry or concerned. For whatever reason, none of that occurred to me, I just thought he was great would always be great. And I immediately thought about trying to help Kennedy, because people with Down Syndrome and intellectual disabilities have a lot of challenges and obstacles. So I went to a personal development seminar. I announced my goal in life was to raise $25 million in Down Syndrome research and Everyone applauded. And when I got down from the podium with that, holy smokes, I don't have money, I don't know anybody with money. And ultimately, the philanthropist daughter that I met, that family created the world's largest Down Syndrome Research Institute gifted with 32 million from that family believer in pointing the bat to centerfield, and, you know, shooting for the moon during the moon shot. And a few years later, unfortunately, the neuroscientist who was my friend and partner passed away from an aneurysm I took was my best friend at the time, I took a hiatus from Down Syndrome research, and was recruited to our by a friend that I had at IBM, and I joined arc, Mio five as CFO. Why? Well, I thought I could take my business skills and help create funding programs that would help people like my son.   Michael Hingson ** 11:56 So tell me more about Ark. So where it came from, what it is, and so on, if you would. Ark   Lloyd Lewis ** 12:03 thrift stores was created in 1968. To find Ark advocate chapters, who helped people with intellectual disabilities by jobs, housing, medical services, services and schools, affiliated with the Ark United States, the ark in the United States was the first parent organization during the 1940s, to advocate for humane treatment in large institutions where people like my son were being abused. And had my son been born in the 1940s. We would have been told, send him to Tunis, and forget about him, he won't walk or talk, tell people he died, don't tell people about him. But the Ark United States set about trying to create more humane conditions in these large institutions followed by deinstitutionalization advocacy, mainstreaming inclusion, public education, people like my son now live with their families, they participate in their communities. And the arcade United States with chapters all across the country, one of the top 10 charities in America does direct services and advocacy all across the United States, including advocacy in DC, with Congress and people, you know, important departments of the US government. So the art chapters of Colorado, all across Colorado, 15 art chapters, work with 1000s and 1000s of families and kids and adults. And again, try to help them achieve goals that, you know, a lot of us take for granted. How to find this job, how to find a place to live, you know, how to get your medical needs cared for, you know, how to be treated with respect in schools. And in our world, as as much progress has been made. You know, just through inclusion, people like my son have gained, on average 20 IQ points going from severe to mild impairment, moderate impairment to moderate to mild impairment. But still, there are tremendous challenges. 80% of people with intellectual dis 80% of women with intellectual disabilities will be abused. 40% multiple times 40% of men. There's an 80% unemployment rate for people with intellectual disabilities, the highest in the country. There's extreme shortage of housing and supports, there's a higher need for medical care. schools still have segregated classrooms for people with intellectual disabilities. So a lot of progress has been made, but there's a lot of progress yet to be made that the arcs are working.   Michael Hingson ** 14:54 Now is arc today an acronym for something. Now   Lloyd Lewis ** 14:57 it's no longer an acronym. Back in a Yeah, the word retarded, which is never used was actually an improvement over previous descriptions like Mongoloid ism, etc. It's no longer acceptable, right? It's just our it is just art today legally things are name as did the United States as have all the art chapters across the country, which   Michael Hingson ** 15:19 is, which is great and which makes perfect sense. And I kind of always wondered that whether and I sort of thought that that was the case. Well, my experience of being blind going back to when I was born in 1950, doctors told my parents the same thing, send him off to a home because no blind child can ever grow up to be a contributor to society. And he's just going to be a drain on your family. And that was the the tent the tone and the trend at the time, it was even worse than the other countries where they would just dispose of kids with disabilities when they were born.   Lloyd Lewis ** 15:57 Right, you know, we have many blind friends in Colorado, and they've all had similar experiences growing up, and challenges and obstacles. And, and, you know, our deep belief is that people with all disabilities, whether it's mental health, blindness, intellectual disabilities, physical disabilities, should be treated equally and afforded the same opportunities through education or employment as anyone else in society. And that's what we endeavored to do.   Michael Hingson ** 16:31 Being a little bit of a rabble rouser and troublemaker, of course, my position is, every person in society has a disability. And for most all of you, it's the fact that you're like, dependent. And if the lights go out, and you don't, well, if the lights go out, and you don't have a smartphone, or a flashlight nearby, you're in a world of trouble. Yeah,   Lloyd Lewis ** 16:51 I mean, everyone has issues of some type, whether it's, they have, you know, physical, physical issues, or, you know, they have hearing issues, or issues related to aging, or mental health. Or for some people, it's alcohol, some people, it's drugs, sure,   Michael Hingson ** 17:14 but I really, but I really do seriously choose to believe that life dependence is a disability, the only thing is that Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, and now light on demand has become so ubiquitous, that your disability is covered up, but it doesn't change the fact that it is one of the things that most people have to contend with in some way or another. Well,   Lloyd Lewis ** 17:36 you know, thank you for sharing that, you know, and you are absolutely correct if to do anything in our household, before we go to sleep depended on light. And without light. And without vision, I would be completely immobilized.   Michael Hingson ** 17:57 So and and the reality is, of course, you don't have to be but that's the way we're, we mostly are brought up. And the result is that we keep talking about blind people as being visually impaired, which is so wrong on so many levels, because visually, we're not now we look, we don't look different, simply because we're blind, necessarily. And impaired, is what some of the professionals in the field have made it but impaired or not. And it's it's really wrong for people to ever accuse anyone who has a so called traditional disability, physical or intellectual, of being impaired, because that means you're really just comparing us to someone else. And that's so unfortunate.   Lloyd Lewis ** 18:45 Well, thank you for sharing that. That's, that's very profound. And that's very meaningful and impactful. So thank you for sharing that. But   Michael Hingson ** 18:54 it is, it is something that we, we all deal with, in one way or another, and it's just kind of the way it is. So if we, you know, in looking at a lot of all of this, what about EI and people who are dealing with intellectual disabilities and so on.   Lloyd Lewis ** 19:18 But really, I just came to this conversation, from a meeting with my dei director, who happens to be African American, and our senior staff of 10 plus individuals, talking about the importance of Dei, with respect to people who have intellectual disabilities, with respect to broadening the tent as much as possible across the company for people with various various challenges in their own lives. They might be homeless, or they might be, you know, from poor economic or backgrounds, or they might be immigrants or refugees or veterans or formerly incarcerated or black or Latino, female, or we just, you know, every, every part of our society, we like to reach out to as much as we can to offer opportunities to be involved with us. We're very diverse company, which is pervert produced our latest EDI report. And we believe that diversity makes us all stronger, that everyone's different in some way. How   Michael Hingson ** 20:41 did we get most people in society, however, to recognize that we're not including disabilities in the diversity discussion, if you talk to most experts about diversity, they'll talk to you about sexual orientation, and race and gender and so on. And they won't deal with disabilities at all physical or intellectual or developmental. I   Lloyd Lewis ** 21:07 think it's a matter of awareness. I think it's a matter of reaching out and having these discussions, I presented to a group of two or 300 CEOs last year about the importance of including people with intellectual disabilities in their dei programs. I've spoken to national organizations. I've written a book, I'm at work on a movie with a film producer. And to me, I think it's a matter of, we need to reach out, we need to bring this to people's attention. And we need to advocate for our communities. And make sure we're included in DDI programs and discussions, I mean, that the ones that people talk about are more than deserving they're really deserving. But we are no less or no more deserving than other parts of dei programs, right need to be speaking out on behalf of people with disabilities to make sure that we're included in these conversations and in these programs.   Michael Hingson ** 22:15 Well, and we need to teach and help people with disabilities speak out as well, because the reality is that we tend to be ignored. And it's it's so unfortunate, you know, we're talking this month in February, about Black History Month, and so on. In October, it will be in Disability Employment Awareness Month and Disability Awareness Month. But you won't see anywhere near the visibility and the publicity and the talk about it. Even though it's a larger minority than black history, or blacks or African Americans or any of the other minorities who get recognized at one time or another during the year.   Lloyd Lewis ** 22:55 I think it's on us, I think it's on us to really speak out. And, you know, make sure we're represented, make sure we're included, make sure we're part of these conversations. And we need to bring this to people's attention and advocate, just like other groups have that advocated. And they're no less deserving of more than us. But it's really on us, it's on you and me and, and others disability leaders and people with disabilities to make sure that we have seats at the table.   Michael Hingson ** 23:33 Yeah. And I think that, that is a lot of it. We've we've got to get Congress and the states to do more to stiffen the laws and give us more of the laws that we need to have. Even though it should be a no brainer to do so. We don't find that legislators work nearly as fast as they ought to on some of these things. For example, we're just seeing reasonable movement on a bill that would require medical devices to be accessible. We still have debates regularly in the states and even in Congress about the fact that while the Americans with Disabilities Act should cover the internet, and the Department of Justice finally said, so there's still a lot of argument about it. And the result is a lot of places say well, I don't need to really make my website accessible because the Internet didn't come until long after the the ADEA. So the ADEA can't add in any way involve the internet, which is a ridiculous argument. But yet it is what we encounter.   Lloyd Lewis ** 24:52 Well, that is a problem. And you know if we could turn out 50 to 100 people to go talk to our legislators Talk to them session after session, day after day, week after week, we will get their attention. And we will make sure that we get these kinds of issues. You know, I chair five disabilities in Colorado, one of which is a Colorado cross disability coalition representing people with all kinds of disabilities. And the leader of that organization has become very prominent as an advocate, we have a policy aide for the lieutenant governor, who is my co chair for that organization. And we are making big strides in Colorado, getting lots of good legislation, but there's still there's still advocacy to be done. And we're talking about creating a permanent disability office as part of the governor's cabinet. But it again, it's on us to go after these issues. To get the attention of the decision makers, the legislators, the corporation's to make sure that we're not ignored to make sure that we're not back to the bus.   Michael Hingson ** 26:07 Yeah, it's it is a process and there's been growth, there's been movement, but there still is so much more that that does need to be done. And we also have to be proud of our own history and, and recognize that we've made a lot of progress. But there is a lot you have to do.   Lloyd Lewis ** 26:28 I am chair of something called the Atlanta Community Foundation, which is was a sister organization of Atlanta's community Inc, which was the nation's second created Independent Living Center initially on it, or it's helping people move out of nursing homes and get independent living skills. And we manage 200 affordable apartments for people with cross disabilities. And part of the history of this organization is the formation of an organization called adapt, which you're probably familiar with, which does all kinds of advocacy, nationally, nationally has annual sins and protests. Famously, in the 1980s. A gentleman Wade Blank, would march with Dr. King was in Denver, and he was Associate Director for a nursing home where he tried to create, you know, fuller lives, more enjoyable lives are some of the residents, his reward was getting fired. When he got fired. He started suing, you know, the nursing home, getting people removed from the nursing home and creating this independent living center. And one of the more notable actions he organized was something called the gang of 1919 people in wheelchairs, went out to a Denver bus stop as the bus rolled up, they rolled in front, some roll behind another bus rolled up, they roll behind that one. And that led to the first accessible buses in the country here in Denver, that spread out across the country. But they're you know, Berkeley and Denver are two prominent centers of disability history in America.   Michael Hingson ** 28:41 A couple of years ago, I read an article that said that New York City Manhattan specifically made a commitment that they're going to make, I think it was 95%. But it may have been even higher of all subway stations accessible, which meant wheelchair accessible, and so on. And I and I know, having lived in the area and been on a lot of those subway platforms. That is a monumental task, because some of them   Michael Hingson ** 29:20 I'll be interested to see how they create the space to put an elevator in to get people down, which is not that it shouldn't be done. But it was a pretty major commitment. And I gather it's moving forward because I'm not hearing anything that saying that people aren't moving forward with it.   Lloyd Lewis ** 29:35 Well, that hopefully they fulfill that commitment. Yeah. It's again, as you say, it's very important to listen to our community. And make sure that we are included to make sure that we have accessible means to live just like everybody else. How   Michael Hingson ** 29:54 does this whole lack of in some senses regarding disabilities dei I affect the civil liberties of people with disabilities.   Lloyd Lewis ** 30:06 Well, you know, if you're discriminated against in employment, you know, that is a financial impact that is unequal and unfair in very disturbing, there's a very high rate of poverty in our community, which is, needs to be addressed. And those are things that we are working on. And people need the ability to have equal opportunities employment. Similarly, in housing, housing needs to be accessible, it needs to be affordable, needs to be available to people with disabilities, medical care, there's higher needs of medical care. Yeah, there needs to be more attention in Medicaid and other insurance programs to make sure that our community get the kind of medical care that that that they deserve, as human beings, as citizens who should be treated equally with everyone else, you shouldn't have to be rich to get medical care. Yeah, you shouldn't have to be without the disability and the way we think of disability to get appropriate medical care, similarly, in schools, there's still segregated classrooms and school. Yeah, in the world of abuse. People with disabilities, extreme experience higher rates of abuse than others, just in every aspect of society. We are we are hurting people with disabilities if they're not treated fairly and equally with equal opportunities. We   Michael Hingson ** 31:52 were talking earlier about the whole issue of becoming more involved in the conversation and what you were just talking about reminded me of something. My wife, when she was alive, was in a wheelchair her whole life, we were married for two years, and she passed in November of 2022. One of the things that she loved to do and so she got me to watching it as well was television shows like The Property Brothers on HGTV, or they call Property Brothers. Okay. And it's to get two twins, twins, who will go renovate homes for people and, and so on. And they, they do build some, but the thing about it, and there are so many shows like it, that are all involved on Home and Garden Television, with renovating homes, fixing up homes and so on. I don't even even though it would make sense to do, especially since we have an aging population, what I don't see is any of these people making a part of their vernacular or vocabulary or modus operandi, putting in appropriate things to consider the fact that somebody in the future who may get that home will have a disability. And, and so the result is we don't, you know, they don't do it. I think I saw one Property Brothers show where it was a wheelchair issue, or there was a person in a chair. But they don't do it as a matter of course, and it would make sense to do. And some architects will point out why it's sensible to do.   Lloyd Lewis ** 33:36 That's a very important point. Again, we need to be reaching out to the cable show producers, we need to be reaching out to the media, we need to be reaching out the networks, the streamers, Netflix, Amazon, we need to be reaching out to the builders, the builders associations, they can't ignore accessibility. Accessibility needs to be able to be built in everywhere, everywhere. And it's unacceptable to gloss over our community and not really listened to our requests for accessibility and inclusion is just not acceptable.   Michael Hingson ** 34:21 I suppose. And I hear what you're saying. And I don't argue with with that at all. But I do suppose on the one hand, where where should people focus most of their attention? I know in the National Federation of the Blind, for example. Well, the whole issue of access in the way we're talking about for people in chairs and other people isn't quite the issue. It really is. But at the same time, how do you decide where to focus your efforts?   Lloyd Lewis ** 34:57 Well, you know, I I'm very involved in cross disability advocacy. I'm very involved in affordable housing integrated for people with disabilities. I'm very involved in a state disability funding committee funding innovative disability projects on the ark of us Foundation Board, working in the arena, trying to assist them expand their funding capacity. I'm on an international board with members in 100 countries because as much challenge as we have in America, in some parts of the world, it's even Oh, yeah, extremely challenging, and concerning and troubling. And I'm very involved in my own company, and providing relief to our community and food, food insecure, employment opportunities to marginalized populations. And we've hired hundreds of employees with disabilities to my company. You know, where one focuses, it is really dependent on one's primary concerns. And one's bandwidth. I am fortunate to be blessed with an ability to sort of, you know, do a lot of things all at once. And so I try to do as much as I can as much as many different arenas as I can. But, you know, whatever the primary issues are for the National Federation of the Blind. If that's one's main concern, you know, go for it, you know, start reaching out to as many people as you can,   Michael Hingson ** 36:53 yeah. Well, and, and they do. But I, but I think that the, the challenge is, is for all of us so overwhelming, but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be dealing with it. And one of the reasons that is overwhelming is that there are so many myths and so many poor attitudes and misconceptions about things like employing persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities, or any kind of a disability, you know, what are some of the kind of myths that you encounter every day? And how do you? How do you deal with some of those?   Lloyd Lewis ** 37:30 Well, in my company, it's relatively easy to deal with the myths because I'm at the top of the company. So we don't have the same kinds of barriers and challenges that employees face in other companies. We are completely accessible, we are completely responsible, responsive to the needs of people with disabilities who work for us. With other companies, you know, it becomes more difficult because there are miss that it's going to be too costly, or there's going to be too many accommodations, or they're going to be safety issues, or legal issues or what have you. My response to all of that is, you know, we have to be provide accessibility to our employees, well make accommodations for all our employees. Well, so it's no no different than making accommodation for a person with disability than it is for someone who, who needs some time away with their kids or time away with an illness. Or they need a flexible schedule, or they need some kind of medical support. We need to think about providing accessibility and accommodations for everybody, regardless of ability or disability. Well, here's   Michael Hingson ** 38:51 another example. And one of the reasons I brought it up is to get to this point. So take the average employee who doesn't supposedly have a disability, right? What does any company provide them with? We provide them and I tell me this in a facetious way, but we provide them with lights so that they can see to walk down the hall and go to the restroom, and so on. We provide them with monitors and computers, and especially the monitors so they can see what it is that they have to do on the computer. We provide them with rooms that have coffee machines, so they can get coffee and other things like that. You know, we provide so many reasonable accommodations to the average employee period, that why should it be difficult to provide specific accommodations for maybe a subgroup of those people? And the answer is, of course, it shouldn't be a problem. If I go to work for a company, I instead have a monitor because I'm not going to use a monitor, although typically, computers come with monitors, but I need a screen reader to verbalize the the information that comes across the screen. But I'll get the argument well, but we didn't budget for that. And my response is, yes, you did. You provide what it is that people need in order to be able to access the information on the computer, just because what I use is a little bit different. We, a part of the conversation needs to be that we're providing lots of accommodations for everyone already.   Lloyd Lewis ** 40:35 Yeah, I completely agree. And in my own experience, it's no more costly to provide accommodations to people with disabilities and people who supposedly don't have disabilities. And it's just there's not really an expense differential anyway. And they were even if there were, we need to treat people humanely. People opportunities, well, where are we at as a society with our morality? Yeah, if we don't help everyone who can use our support? What what does that say about our society, even   Michael Hingson ** 41:11 if there were significant differences in expenses, which we know there are not. But even if there were, the bottom line is that any company that is doing anything, can figure out ways to offset those costs. But, but the reality is, there aren't significant differences at all. We   Lloyd Lewis ** 41:32 now live in this world of artificial intelligence. We now live in this world of the cloud. We now live in this world of extreme technical advances, medical advances. There's really no excuse not to support everyone in society, and give them reasonable accommodations. There's just no excuse. And that's   Michael Hingson ** 41:57 one of the reasons is that I object to the concept of being called visually impaired, because impaired is such a negative term, when you start to say anyone is impaired compared to anyone else. Everyone has impairments of one sort or another. And the reality is that we need to get that kind of concept out of our vocabularies, and least out of our mindsets. Well, I   Lloyd Lewis ** 42:23 again, I totally agree. Yeah. They totally agree.   Michael Hingson ** 42:27 So this is probably a little redundant, but what are some of the, the myths and fears that and this gets back to the whole conversation about disabilities? And I think why we're not so much included, but what are some of the myths and fears that people typically have about all of us, and especially I think, even more so with intellectual and developmental disabilities,   Lloyd Lewis ** 42:49 safety cost, legal accommodations, but we experience No, in my company, we have 450 employees with intellectual develop developmental disabilities, 450, Down syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy, all forms of types of developmental disability, my company has never been more successful. I got the company near 37. When we were doing all of 2 million in earnings, we have had 17 of 18 record years only interrupted by the COVID. year, we're now doing 20 million. And I've hired 450 employees with developmental disabilities.   Michael Hingson ** 43:34 How old is the company today?   Lloyd Lewis ** 43:36 is 55 years old? All right, so   Michael Hingson ** 43:39 in 18 years, look what you've done. Yeah, and,   Lloyd Lewis ** 43:42 you know, I attribute a lot of that to employ people with disabilities, love to contribute, love to work in teams are very, you know, positive and inspirational to their fellow employees. And they just appreciate being able to be part of the workforce, and do what the rest of us do. And, you know, to me, I would do it in any company. If I were the head of IBM or the head of Facebook or Apple, I would do the same thing.   Michael Hingson ** 44:20 I would, I would submit that one of the advantages of hiring a person with any kind of a disability who thinks at all would tell you I'm going to be more loyal to you because I know how hard it was for me to get a job and the very fact that you gave me a job is going to want me to stay there because you made me an offer and in theory, you made me feel welcome. Why would I ever want to   Lloyd Lewis ** 44:50 leave boys with with disabilities are extremely low in the hate to miss work? We get to three feet of snow on the road and they want to come into work. I have to order them not to. Yeah, I believe all of our employees with disabilities are our blind agents or employees with intellectual disabilities or wheelchair users. They are extremely loyal, the Colorado's, and they can benefit from employment period that the Colorado   Michael Hingson ** 45:21 Center for the Blind in Littleton has actually purchased an apartment complex where all the students reside. And they have to learn independent living skills, learn how to keep up the apartments and so on. But they go every day to the Senator. So it usually means taking a bus, I think it's close enough that you can walk but not during the snow. But again, people do the same thing. They're very committed to being there to learning the skills that that need to be learned. And they do whatever is necessary to make it work out. And that's what it should be.   Lloyd Lewis ** 46:02 Yeah, again, total agreement you did acquire,   Michael Hingson ** 46:05 I would add one fear that you didn't mention. And I'll, I'll say it and then I'll fall aside a little bit. The fear is, I could become like you, I could get a disability, it could happen to me in a moment's notice. Having said that, the response is, how often when we start to deal with fear, do we just worry about things to death? That will never happen? The reality is most people won't get a dis become a person with a disability in any way. Why are you worrying about it?   Lloyd Lewis ** 46:46 Well, in the employment world, I agree with you. But as we age, more often than not, people eventually acquire some kind of disability, physical mental, cancer, Alzheimer's, you know, as we age, more or less well, true herb as well, not everybody. But I think part of it is not realizing that, you know, at, at the end of our lives, most people are dealing with issues that they didn't deal with earlier now. Sure.   Michael Hingson ** 47:25 And so they also weren't prepared for that either, which is part of what society really needs to do.   Lloyd Lewis ** 47:32 So I think people need a deeper empathy and understanding of, you know, people like my son are born with Down syndrome. And, you know, they have typically cognitive issues, resulting in IQs, less than 76. And, you know, it's not like they chose that live. It's not like, you know, they didn't do things in their life to prevent that happening. My son was born with an extra chromosome 21. But he's, he's a wonderful human being. And he deserves the same kind of opportunities, and treatment as everyone else in society,   Michael Hingson ** 48:19 will he have a job somewhere?   Lloyd Lewis ** 48:21 He, he's already working part time at one of my stores. And he's finishing his last year of high school transition. Cool. But I think people need to understand that a lot of people don't choose their so called disability. They're born with it. And people don't understand that later in life. Most people will probably have some kind of issue they deal with, and how would they like to be treated later in life? Right? What kind of respect they deserve later in life? What kind of treatment do they deserve later in life.   Michael Hingson ** 49:03 One of the wonderful things that happens at the Colorado Center, and that I've talked about before is that if you enroll there, and become a student, if you are low vision, as opposed to blind, that is totally blind. But if you have some eyesight, you will still do most of your work, your travel training and so on, under sleep shades. And you will learn to do that as a totally blind person. And the reason   Lloyd Lewis ** 49:33 pardon me but describe sleep shades for me. Sleep shades are   Michael Hingson ** 49:37 the things that some people put on at night when their lights so basically, covering your eyes or got it. Yeah, I forget the other terms that people use for them, but that's basically just so that you don't see any light. Okay? And the reason for it is many people who enroll or matriculate into the center with and have who have low vision are people who have retinitis pigmentosa or something else has occurred with them. And they will probably lose the rest of their vision. And the philosophy of the center is. This is the time for you to learn all about blindness. And really what blindness means. And by doing so, when you lose the rest of your eyesight, which is not to say you shouldn't use the ICU half, but when you lose the rest of it, which very well could happen, you'll already know what to do. And you don't have to go through a second psychological trauma, and learn things all over again, which I think is so important, because we teach people that blindness isn't the problem. And I think it's true with other disabilities as well. It's not the problem. It's our attitudes and our perceptions that are the real issue that we face.   Lloyd Lewis ** 50:56 Yeah, I very much appreciate that kind of thought process. It's,   Michael Hingson ** 51:01 it's pretty cool. One of the things that you have to do if you're going to graduate from the Senator, is you have to cook a lunch yourselves, for staff and all the students, which means you're usually cooking for between 70 and 80 people, and you get to do the whole lunch plan, the menu and everything. It's really excited on graduation day for anyone when that happens, because they've learned Linus has been gonna keep me from doing stuff.   Lloyd Lewis ** 51:32 Do you know Brenda Mosby does that name ring a bell? No. She's my co chair for the Colorado processability coalition. And she has low vision, I believe. And that's a person that is you remind me, I will email intro I think you would really enjoy me with Brenda, who has a lot of your experiences and philosophies. And I think she would be an important person for you to get connected with in Colorado.   Michael Hingson ** 51:59 Sure. And on top of everything else, we can get her on the podcast.   Lloyd Lewis ** 52:03 She would she would be great on the podcast,   Michael Hingson ** 52:08 always looking for guests. So anybody who has a person you think we I   Lloyd Lewis ** 52:13 guess be at work? Yes.   Michael Hingson ** 52:15 We're always looking. So anybody listening, if you've got a thought for a guest, we want to hear from you. But that's great. I'd love to meet her. And, and again, we're going to be in Colorado, we'll we'll work that out. I think it'll be a lot of fun to do. But I think that for the most part, we really do need to recognize that what people think about us and not necessarily the way reality really is.   Lloyd Lewis ** 52:47 Here, I mean people's misperceptions that people have intellectual disabilities as an example. If they're not connected to someone, they don't realize the full value and contribution someone like my son can make. What I'd say get to know him, and his personality, and his sense of humor. And you know, the things he enjoys? Yeah, his ability to verbal communication is a little tough for him because of some, you know, physical features. Yeah, sometimes a company down syndrome. But you can miss estimate what his real intelligence level is, because the verbal thing, but   Michael Hingson ** 53:33 I will bet he's not shy about voicing his opinion or articulating where he can.   Lloyd Lewis ** 53:37 He's not shy at all. In fact, he's kind of like the life of the party. And he loves to give speeches. And he is not embarrassed at all, to be in front of 1000s of people and get the microphone and express his opinions.   Michael Hingson ** 53:55 What's the difference between an intellectual and a developmental disability?   Lloyd Lewis ** 54:02 Well, they describe two things intellectual is around IQ and developmental as around the various stages of development, you know, crawling, walking, the typical developmental phases of early childhood.   Michael Hingson ** 54:24 What are would you say some of the best industries? I'll be interested to hear your answer to this some of the best industries that are suited to support or employ persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities.   Lloyd Lewis ** 54:37 I would say every industry there you go. That's what we tend to think of certain industries that Yeah, look, but I'm telling you, every industry can have people with IDD work in that industry and be productive contributing members every year. I don't care whether it's tech aerospace, or the military, or every single and energy, retail groceries, every single industry can have seductive employees who have IDD and productive employees who have any form of so called disability.   Michael Hingson ** 55:24 Yeah, I think that's really the right answer. Why should we be limited?   Lloyd Lewis ** 55:32 Well, we're limited due to misperception. Yeah, that's my point, he went to lack of understanding, lack of awareness, lack of connection. And it's not always particularly the fault of these industries. Because unless you have a personal connection, you may not have had the opportunity to become aware of who people really are. This is same experience African Americans had back in the day and still have today that women have had and still have today, that gays have had and still have today. That there, there's a lack of understanding of so called, you know, diverse communities, that with understanding and connection, all of that goes away. All of that goes away   Michael Hingson ** 56:16 with all of the things that are going on today in society. And I think in so many ways, we are losing the art of conversation, and so on. Do you think that's making the opportunities and the whole potential for having the conversations that we're talking about tougher?   Lloyd Lewis ** 56:40 Yeah, these kinds of conversations can be tough, because people aren't familiar with them. And these are new concepts. And one has to set aside some biases, in a lot of cases unconscious biases, that again, with personal connections and awareness and direct contact. A lot of this stuff goes away. Yeah, you get to know who they are, she   Michael Hingson ** 57:03 got to know. Yeah. You discovered for   Lloyd Lewis ** 57:08 literally being in a room with somebody, or on the phone with somebody and getting to know,   Michael Hingson ** 57:12 you discovered that what you thought isn't really the way it is.   Lloyd Lewis ** 57:16 That is correct. That's absolutely correct. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 57:19 I want to thank you for being here with us and taking the time to chat with us about art about disabilities in general. Of course, needless to say, it's a topic that's near and dear to my heart. If people want to reach out to you and and talk with you more or or learn more about our How do they do that?   Lloyd Lewis ** 57:42 They can email me a Lewis l e w i s at ARC thrift.com, A R C thrift.com. On my cell phone 720-206-7047 Just say you heard this on this program. There   Michael Hingson ** 57:55 you go. Well, I hope people will do it, I hope people will reach out and the people will be more now stimulated and more knowledgeable about disabilities than they were before they came. I think that it's extremely important, and that they will help promote the conversation. And we'll have to work on getting the Property Brothers to come on to unstoppable mindset. These days. I think that'll be fun as less contact those guys. Yeah, Jonathan and drew Scott.   Lloyd Lewis ** 58:26 Wonderful conversation, really enjoyed getting to know you and have this conversation. And I think I learned a hell of a lot more from you than you learn from me.   Michael Hingson ** 58:35 Ah, not sure about that. I always love to   Lloyd Lewis ** 58:38 add a lot of wisdom in what you said.   Michael Hingson ** 58:41 Well, thank you. I appreciate it. I think we both learned a lot, which is the way it should be. I feel that if I'm not learning on these podcasts, and I'm not doing a good job, and I always find ways to learn so   Lloyd Lewis ** 58:52 this podcast is gonna be one of my favorite podcasts, you   58:55 will definitely get it. Well thank you and I want to thank you all for being here and listening to us. Love to hear your thoughts. Please feel free to 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. Or go to our podcast page at WWW dot Michael hingson.com/podcast. Michael Hingson is m i c h a e l h i n g s o n.com. And I should have said and will now say that we met Lloyd through Sheldon Lewis at accessiBe you know, Sheldon.   Lloyd Lewis ** 59:29 Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Michael. I very much enjoyed this.   Michael Hingson ** 59:32 Well, thank you for being here. We really appreciate it. And let's do it again.   Lloyd Lewis ** 59:38 Please do it again. More to learn. Let's do it again.   Michael Hingson ** 59:45 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.

Join us for a special bonus episode featuring Celiac dietitian Sadie Nagle and psychologist Dr. Monique Germone as they delve into their collaborative approach to addressing behavioral health in celiac disease and gluten-related disorders. From their unique perspectives, Sadie and Dr. Germone share insights from their work at the Colorado Center for Celiac Disease, offering valuable strategies and support for those navigating the intersection of diet and mental health in managing these conditions.Nutrition Pearls is supported by an educational grant from Reckitt Mead Johnson Nutrition.Produced by: Corey Irwin NASPGHAN - Council for Pediatric Nutrition Professionalscpnp@naspghan.org Provider Resources: Celiac Disease Behavioral Science Consortium: https://www.cdbsc.org (free for RDs to join)

In this episode of Nutrition Pearls: the Podcast, co-hosts Bailey Koch and Megan Murphy speak with Sadie Nagle, MS, RD, LD about the ins and outs of Celiac Disease. Sadie is a registered dietitian at Children's Hospital Colorado and the Colorado Center for Celiac Disease and specializes in pediatric celiac disease and the gluten-free diet. She is passionate about the partnership of psychologists in the clinical management of celiac disease and dietary adherence as well as in all other aspects of gastroenterology and hepatology diseases and disorders. Additionally, one of Sadie's main research interests is in the development of dietary adherence assessment tools for dietitians to utilize.Nutrition Pearls is supported by an educational grant from Reckitt Mead Johnson Nutrition.Produced by: Corey Irwin NASPGHAN - Council for Pediatric Nutrition Professionalscpnp@naspghan.org RD/Provider/Patient Resources:Beyond Celiac's Gluten-Free Diet Resources: https://www.beyondceliac.org/gluten-free-diet/Celiac Foundation Find a Healthcare Practitioner: https://celiac.org/about-celiac-disease/find-a-healthcare-practitioner/GiG's Resources for dietitians: https://gluten.org/dietitian-resource-page/Food Insecurity Resource: https://www.gigcares.orgAmerican Gastroenterological Association's Celiac Disease handouts/resources: https://patient.gastro.org/celiac-disease/

Many EFT Therapists have become interested in doing Intensives for their couples but aren't sure how to dive in. In a more focused format, therapists can help their couples on a journey of connection, healing, and growth with our Couples Intensive Retreat featuring Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). Many couples are longing to deepen their bond, communicate more effectively, and rediscover the love that brought them together. Join We Heart Therapy host Dr. Belle and special guest Jim Thomas, EFT Trainer Emeritus for a wonderful discussion where you'll delve into applying principles of EFT, a proven approach renowned for its effectiveness in strengthening relationships, in a couples intensives/retreat weekend format. For more information on EFT, please visit: https://www.iceeft.com and https://www.drsuejohnson.com Jim Thomas is the former Executive Director of the Colorado Center for EFT in the Denver area. Find more information on Jim Thomas, visit his website: https://jimthomas.care/ or https://www.coloradoeft.com/ For more information on your host Dr. Belle, or to schedule and intensive with Dr. Belle, please visit: https://www.lasvegasmarriagecounselin... https://www.drbelle.com https://www.wehearttherapy.com https://www.snveft.com

Heather of the Hot Mess Espresso podcast joins The Shakedown to discuss Mental Health and Criminal Justice. We get into addiction, toxic masculinity, coping strategies, and even...Ben David? Heather and the Hot Mess Espresso podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hotmess.espresso The Hot Mess Espresso Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@hotmessespresso https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZtgmIbVyIHMa914qzni3A https://tr.ee/QiSv9zWB8P About the Colorado Center for Dependency, Addiction, and Rehabilitation: https://www.cedarcolorado.org/ Support The Shakedown at: https://www.patreon.com/TheShakedown More about The Shakedown at: https://shakedown.show Find Shakedown merch and support us at: https://wayword.press The Shakedown on IG, Threads, FB, or TikTok: @gettheshakedown More about Nina the Pitbull at: @nina_is_a_pitbull Ryan/Rainforest on IG: @lorax4life Malone on IG: @they_call_me_malone Dave on IG: @sociallydistorted1 00:00 - About The Shakedown 01:02 - Meet Heather and the Hot Mess Espresso 01:53 - Mental Health and Incarceration 04:04 - Lightbulb's Story 05:32 - Mental Health and Recidivism 07:09 - Asking for help with mental health issues 09:27 - The cost of living and mental health 10:08 - Mental health "services" in prison 13:07 - The advantages of addiction treatment 17:48 - Mentally being prepared for release from prison 20:04 - More about addiction

Morag Barrett was born and grew up in England where she had what she would say is a “normal childhood”. She climbed trees, rode her bike and did all those things kids do. After high school., she went into the workforce at a bank. Although she did advance in her jobs, she grew more interested in professional development and human resources issues. She received a Master's degree in human resources and changed careers from banking and finance to a more human resource arena. In 2005 she, her husband moved from England to Colorado, both for job opportunities. In 2007 Morag founded SkyeTeam where, at last count, she and her team have supported the development of more than 10,000 leaders from 20 countries and on 6 continents. She focuses on professional development and relationships. Morag is the author of three books as you will learn. As you will see elsewhere in these notes, Morag offers free books to the first 50 people who request them. I found the many lessons and observations Morag offers during our conversation to be sensible and practical tidbits we all can use. I hope you find them to be the same. About the Guest: Morag Barrett is a sought-out executive coach and leadership expert who helps leaders achieve outstanding results through the power of their professional relationships. At last count Morag and her company SkyeTeam have supported the development of more than 10,000 leaders from 20 countries and on 6 continents. She's the award-winning author of three books: Cultivate: The Power of Winning Relationships; The Future-Proof Workplace; and her latest book You, Me, We: Why we all need a friend at work (and how to show up as one!). She's been recognized by Thinkers360 and PeopleHum as an HR Thought Leader to Watch. Learn more at skyeteam.com Ways to connect with Morag: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/moragbarrett/ Website: SkyeTeam.com Ally Mindset Profile: skyeteam.cloud/youmewe 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 Welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset, where inclusion diversity in the unexpected meet and we'll find ways to involve a lot of that stuff. today. Our guest is Morag Barrett. And she is a sought out executive coach. And she is also an expert on leadership and more important being prejudiced about such things. She is an author of three books and I know we're going to hear about those as we go through it. But I'm gonna let her talk about that rather than me spending all of our time doing it. It's kind of more fun to hear it some more anyway, so Morag welcome to unstoppable mindset. Glad you're here.   Morag Barrett ** 02:03 Michael meet who I know we're gonna have a fun conversation.   Michael Hingson ** 02:08 Well, that's the plan anyway, that's what we got to work on. Well, I'm really glad that you're here. Morag is in Colorado we're in Colorado. Where are you?   Morag Barrett ** 02:18 I live in a town called Broomfield so I'm down in the burbs just north of Denver and on the way to Boulder so I can see the Rocky Mountains when I leave my house, but not from the room I'm sitting in right now. But it's a beautiful part of the country.   Michael Hingson ** 02:32 It is I've been to Littleton I'm vice president on the board of the Colorado Center for the Blind which is a little tin so know the area pretty well. Huh? Well, why don't we start by maybe you telling us a little about sort of the earlier more ag growing up and all that stuff and where you came from and anything else that you think is relevant for us to know.   Morag Barrett ** 02:57 So what when I was a wee last? Well, you are the eagle IED listeners they will have gathered I have a bit of a an accent for those who are reading the transcript. It may not yet come through. But I am told that I have the hint of an accent. I was born in the UK grew just the hint just a weekend. But I was born in the UK and grew up in and around East Anglia, which is about 50 miles northeast of London. And I learnt childhood I remember climbing trees falling out into nettle patches getting into mischief. But halcyon days of just go out on your bike and don't come back until dusk. So that was that was the early days anyway, the first season of Morag Barret or Morag McLeod as I was then   Michael Hingson ** 03:52 Garrett came later. The asset It did indeed. Well, so you you grew up like it sounds like kind of a normal kid. And any any challenges or relevant things to think about growing up that kind of helped shaped where you are today? Or does all that come later as well? Yeah, I   Morag Barrett ** 04:11 think? Well, no, I think it all blends in. I think the reality is, though, when we tell it when we're asked about our own story, I know it is easy for me to dismiss it of that's boring. You don't want to hear it. Nothing. Nothing exciting happened to me. But in reality, I think more happens to us then we may recognize in the moment. And so I think the biggest impact as I look back on my life now is a woman of a certain age with my own sons who are now all six foot tall. So you can imagine where I am in my life cycle and a career that is 30 years old. Just to date myself. The biggest thing growing up that I didn't appreciate the time was my mom and what had happened to her because in the early 70s She had a brain tumor and was told that she wasn't going to live. And then the diagnosis changed to where you're going to live, but you may not be able to see you may not be able to walk, you may not be able to it was a full list of may not be able to use. And she did live. She did see she did walk a little unsteadily. But the the hindsight as an adult is that we never talked about it as a family, not once. And that whole stereotype British sweep it under the carpet, nothing to see here, maintain appearances in the house and outside the house. In fact, let's remember this, let's allow others to assume my mother might have a drinking problem, versus her speech and balance was impacted because of a brain tumor problem. The fact that we might allow the former over the latter just blew blows my mind now as I look back at it, but it also I can see how it shaped my somewhat risk adverse, maintain the professional image, keep everything buttoned up early in my career, whether that was in banking, or when I moved into leadership and executive development.   Michael Hingson ** 06:18 So do you think that's different in Britain, you then hear in terms of sweeping it under the carpet and, and not wanting to talk about it?   Morag Barrett ** 06:28 So it depends on what the it is. And I don't know that it's any different I think the reality is we all have, it's things that we sweep under the carpet or don't acknowledge, for fear of how others might react, maybe even for healthier of how I might react. I know it was very emotional. When I started to process this. Back 10 years or so ago, my mom passed away 23 years ago, from a brain tumor. But all of this, we have this inbuilt we're conditioned we're raised to Don't rock the boat fit into societal norms. Don't be different, don't mention uncomfortable things, because you'll make other people feel uncomfortable. And so that it varies whether you're in the US or in the in the UK varies from person to person. But what I've learned in the last decade is those fears of what others may think or how they may judge us are invariably inflated. And in some cases, in my case, imaginary. And I wish I just dealt with them sooner. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 07:39 and I would say the other part about that is an inflated or not. Maybe people often do feel really uncomfortable. I know there are any number of people, even some who are blind, but yeah, a number of people who are uncomfortable and very fearful about blindness, because they're afraid Well, I could become blind right on somebody who's blind. They don't do well. When whether it's blindness or or any other thing we have learned to fear the things we don't know a lot about. And that's so unfortunate that we don't learn that maybe we are looking at things a different way.   Morag Barrett ** 08:20 I couldn't agree more. I mean, it's that not seeking to understand that the curiosity that keeps us all trapped or separate. Because should I lose my sight? How do I learn to adapt? The fact that I think we know by now that blindness is not contagious, it's not something you're going to catch by hanging out with and socializing with people who may have. And that goes with many of the challenges that people bring. I mean, Eric shares my business partner in our book, you may worry about his struggle with depression throughout his life and mental health. And he is now way more open with us as to when he needs assistance when he's having a tough day or an up day. And as a result, we have grown stronger as a team because we and we understand we may not experience his lived life, but we have a better perspective from which to ask, and for us all to be better together.   Michael Hingson ** 09:22 And I would change something that you said a little bit. I think curiosity is great if we would only but be curious. Yes, rather than treating us as curiosities, whoever we are. Curious, be open. And the other side of that is that I'll use me as a blind person. We need to be open and be prepared to be teachers and it's easy for a lot of people. I just don't want to do that. I'm tired of doing that. But that's what we are and who we are. And we can shut down which doesn't help or or we can choose to be open and answer questions and help people better understand, which hopefully will help people move on and not fear things so much.   Morag Barrett ** 10:11 I think that ultimately is a two way street, you can't do all of the education. From your perspective, it'd be exhausting, it's unfair. It's just unmanageable. But so I have to step in and come closer to you, in the same way as you have to then be willing to accept maybe my inelegant questions or my, at this point, I didn't know better questions. But I will know after you've responded and clarified for me a different approach or a different perspective.   Michael Hingson ** 10:43 One of the things that I have the honor and pleasure of doing as I work with a company, our company called Accessibility in Israel, and excessively makes products that helped make the internet more accessible and more usable for a lot of different kinds of disabilities and persons with different disabilities. And I spent a week over there my first time in Israel, we were there two weeks ago. And there were a lot of questions about dealing with disabilities. And what to do well, not so much what to do and what not to do, but how do we approach different issues and so on. And ultimately, if I were to summarize, the week, it is, how great it was that people were willing to ask questions and even acknowledged that maybe they were making assumptions that weren't true. We were able to move through a lot of that. And it was so wonderful to experience that and have the opportunity. And I knew going in that I was there in part to do that very thing. So I chose to and I agree, we can't always be teachers, and we shouldn't necessarily try to go force ourselves into a teaching role. But when it comes along, we do need to recognize and deal with it. Hmm. That's kind of more of what I'm thinking. That's the that's the only way we're going to address the issue.   Morag Barrett ** 12:10 Yeah, one conversation, one interaction at a time. Yeah. It's   Michael Hingson ** 12:15 like you do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? Why don't want me to. Okay. But I hear you it is one conversation, one interaction at a time. So you went, you grew up, you rode a bike, you climbed trees, and did all those things that people do and probably spied on the neighbors and all that sort of stuff. Did you? Did you go to college in England? Or what did you do? Actually, I   Morag Barrett ** 12:41 chose not too. That was a pivot point. For me, when I graduated high school, I actually chose to go straight into work. And originally I was going to be an engineer. I did applied mathematics, physics and economics at high school. So in preparation for going I was the only girl in the class, you know, that sort of thing. And then the class was five people. I mean, it was tiny, but we would hang out. And I was going to be an engineer, I like puzzles. I used to do jigsaw puzzles upside down, Michael, you know, with the image, the wrong side, just because of the spatial awareness, which I don't know, don't necessarily have carried forward. But in economics, there was a chapter on how banks create money. And I thought this is fascinating. And I decided to go straight into banking. And I worked in the branch in might the town I grew up, and I did my degree at night school, because I decided by the time I graduated, I would have a have the work experience and the degree, or I could go to university and have a fun time and an OK degree, but I would lose the work experience. And so that was the decision I made and it worked out. And then subsequently, I went back to school and did a master's degree in HR and move from numbers into the leadership and executive development executive coaching that I do now.   Michael Hingson ** 13:59 Why did you go back to school and get a degree in HR? So you got one new stop? You got a bachelor's degree, but you never did get a bachelor's degree?   Morag Barrett ** 14:07 Well, no. Yes. I got the associate's degree got the associates to finance? Yes, yeah. And I again, at the time, I was not really paying attention to the difference between an associate's degree and a bachelor's degree. And to be honest, 35 years later, nobody asks anyway, other than today, which is lovely. So why did I do that? Well, because I thought I was going to be on that career path of the numbers side of what makes for successful organizations. And certainly, I can find my way around a cash flow forecast, analyze a balance sheet profit loss, or I used to be able to until the cows come home, but in the work that I was doing with businesses, the ones who'd come and say, Well, we're all going to be rich. We have this product or service lend me a million pounds. The ones that were successful and could pay us back were the ones I realized that didn't just have that great idea. They also invested as much cart time and attention in how business gets done, the people side, whether that's the people working in the company, the vendor relationships, or the customer relationships. But in the 90s, that was still the soft, fluffy stuff, it was still only just starting to emerge really as, as important as the numbers. And I went back to do my master's degree, knowing I was going to make that pivot into the people side, all while being a bank manager. So I had the pragmatic experience of running a business, whilst also now getting the book smarts around what does it take to to be a successful leader in what is now the 21st century?   Michael Hingson ** 15:45 So you decided volitionally, if you will, what you wanted to migrate some of the number side to the people side? Yes. What fascinates you about the people side, what made you really want to do that?   Morag Barrett ** 16:01 That despite however many billions of us there are on this planet, and how different people may assume we are from the get go, we're actually very much the same. And certainly in the NOW 20 plus years that I've been doing leadership and executive development with leaders around the world, it doesn't matter where on the planet you are, whether you're north slope, Alaska, working on an oil and gas drilling site, maybe down in Peru, working with a gold mining company, or working across Europe, with health care, clients, etc. It's the people issues, our the ability to push each other's buttons, the misunderstandings and miscommunications that get in the way of success, whether that's for me as a person or team or our company, every single day. And that's what I love is that the variety but the consistency of the problems that I'm helping others to solve,   Michael Hingson ** 17:00 no. And I would think certainly, it's a field and a world that by any standard is not as fixed as dealing with numbers, because with numbers you calculate, you can interpret. But then, when you start to go look at different economic trends, you get back to the whole people issue again, which is really what's the adventure?   Morag Barrett ** 17:28 Yeah, there's poetry in numbers, because there is, in theory, a right answer, or there is a style of algebra, you know, when you're doing resolving all of the equations, I love chemistry for the same reason and, and all of that. So I do love that. However, when it comes to the people piece, there is no one right answer. And everybody has to find a way that suits their, we use the word authentic too much, but their authentic self, their style, and bring it to bear in the context in which they're leading. So again, if I think about the leadership in North Slope, Alaska, where it literally is life or death, if I fall, it is a flight out to get to the nearest hospital. And of course, if the weather's closed in, it could be days, it could be weeks before that flight can happen. So there, it is very strict, you know, three points of contact to feet on the ground one hand on the handrail, amongst other rules that are designed to keep not just me safe, but the people who would have to take care of me if I have an accident. So it's much more directive much more strict. And this is how you will show up. But leadership and management pay in Littleton, maybe, for accessory or any other organization that you might be part of, it may be a little bit more hands off a bit more relaxed, or hey, you'll work it out. And it's just finding that right balance and knowing when to turn the dial up or turn the dial down, that differentiates the leaders we want to work for. And the ones where we just grown every time we see their name or email come in. The   Michael Hingson ** 19:10 other part about that I would say though, is take North Slope Alaska, most people would say, well, a person who's blind can't really work there. And that's the other part though, about people. We tend to lock ourselves into mindsets to ways of thinking without recognizing maybe there are other alternatives that may totally change or affect what we always start with so Oh, absolutely.   Morag Barrett ** 19:40 I mean, there's two sides to that. Michael, there's the I might typecast you as the finance person who happens to be blind, maybe we'll have seeing issues whatever. But it's only because I know you now and I don't know your backstory and your past career, etc. So being typecast by others, and therefore limited is frustrating. It's wrong. We need to break that model. But I think we also do it to ourselves. And I know only recently as I've started to regain my fitness, I went back on the treadmill telling myself, I'm only a power Walker. And now it turns out, I'm a jogger. And as of yesterday, I couldn't run on the treadmill. And I texted a girlfriend, I said, I ran at 7.3 miles an hour. And she came back going, Oh, my goodness, that's amazing. And I said, Well, yes, except it's context, I ran at 7.3 miles an hour, 30 seconds. So there is these limiting beliefs that are AI couldn't run. Now I am believing I can only run for 30 seconds at a time. So we'll see how I work on that. But then there are the beliefs that hold us back that others know you're no good with numbers. You can't be an engineer or you can't because you're a woman or you can't because you don't have full sight. And sometimes that's true, but more often it is. It's not true. There's a workaround, there's an adaption that we can do. That gives everybody an opportunity to thrive and flourish.   Michael Hingson ** 21:16 Worse. The other part of that is that sometimes it may be true because of the technology or the tools that we have developed today. I mean, for so far, yes. So far. So Roger Bannister, Roger Bannister broke the mold when he ran a mile in less than four minutes. And people said up until he did it, that it was a physical impossibility to run a mile in less than four minutes. And if anyone did, they would die. And then what 1966 I believe it was, he did.   Morag Barrett ** 21:54 And then about eight people followed, it's like when trains were first invented, and women couldn't possibly ride on a train because they would pass out. And if we go over 25 miles an hour, there won't be enough oxygen. So every time we push the envelope, I mean, you look at what's happening with AI and technology right now, it is both exhilarating and exciting, and terrifying. I was reading an article recently where electrodes had been implanted in a woman's brain who is paralyzed, and she was able to communicate, I think it turned out 70 words a minute, if you read that one, she could articulate words by thinking them at 70 words a minute, versus the eye flickering approach that she'd had to use, which was much, much slower. So the quality of life for I assume for her because the article didn't go into that must be better, because she can interact with those around her in a different way. And who knows how that will evolve. In the next few months, years, decades.   Michael Hingson ** 23:00 By recall, it's the first time that her husband heard her voice and it was her voice, which is the other part about it. And 18 years, I actually saw a news report, so I did hear her speak. And, and, and hear her complete sentences. And and of course, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, maybe even five years ago, we wouldn't have been able to see that happen. So there's no Rathod technology brings a lot to bear to make improvements. I mean, I love to talk about Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb in 1878. Right? So what was the electric light bulb is its is I use it in terms of the Americans with Disabilities Act, it's a reasonable accommodation for light dependent people who need to be able to see in the dark. But now, some 145 years later, what we have is technology that makes light on demand available, basically whenever we want. Now, it doesn't mean although people would deny it, it doesn't mean that the disability of light dependents isn't still there. Because we can still have situations where there's a power failure and suddenly you you lose light until you go find a smartphone or a flashlight or a candle   Morag Barrett ** 24:21 to bring with the oil lamp or the oil   Michael Hingson ** 24:25 lamp. Right. But but the reality is that it still is something that's there. So I love to point out that everyone has some sort of disability and we need to recognize that and stop limiting some just because what they need is different than what we need. Yes, but we make assumptions and it's unfortunate that we do so often. It is something that we we need to deal with and grow beyond and you know, how do we do that? I it's it's so difficult and frustrating because so many people don't seem to want to change from whatever their particular belief system is. They've never learned to really think about maybe we need to grow and look at things in a different way. How do we change that? Well, it   Morag Barrett ** 25:13 goes back to what we said earlier on one conversation and one interaction at a time. And I think it's easy to find the naysayers. And the blockers. I mean, just this week, a friend of mine shared, there was an event here in Colorado, and our whole group of people turned up with the opposing view t shirt and stood up and disrupted the whole event. And it's just, we're gonna find those people. They're easy to find they're right, you just step out your front door. However, there are also the hidden gems and the people who are ready and willing to listen and do different and let's start there. Yeah. But also, I wish for many of these conversations that we could move more quickly from conversation to action. And start getting that momentum   Michael Hingson ** 26:01 is one of my favorite things to talk about in speeches that I give. And you may know, I'm a keynote speaker, in addition to doing this, and I love to travel and speak, and a lot of people want to hear my September 11 story. But I also do a talk called moving from diversity to inclusion. And I titled it that, because when we talk about diversity and ask people to define it, what invariably they talk about is, well, diversity means something to do with race or sexual orientation or gender. They never talked about disabilities. And so some of us take the position. Well, all right. So diversity is left out disabilities. But if you're going to talk about being inclusive, and you say, but we include people with different races, but you don't include disability, so you're not inclusive, you know, you can't have it both ways. But one of the things that I love to do when I'm giving those talks is to start out, but I'm gonna ask you tell me what you think a blind person can't do. And that's not a trick question. It's not a trick.   Morag Barrett ** 27:07 It's not a trick question. Because I thought, Well, okay, maybe not a brain surgeon. But then again, with robotics, you know, you're actually listened to it being there actually, is what he's blind.   Michael Hingson ** 27:21 He's out, there you go. It's out. But that wouldn't be the number one answer that you get.   Morag Barrett ** 27:26 Oh, tell me a joke that you can't do. Oh, they're not do like, Family Fortunes or whatever. We have to pick the of our survey 100 People said, I don't know. Tell me Michael then. So what are they go to because I'm still have the well, you drive a car. And most things if you can do that now, because most cars can drive themselves   Michael Hingson ** 27:47 well, but that's different than driving a car. autonomous vehicle. So that's true for everyone. But the reality is that there is a video of a blind person driving a car, with technology that was put on the car to transmit to him the information of whatever is in front of him and around him or her. So that literally a blind person can learn to drive a car, literally, like you do. And there's a video it's up, you can go to a website, it's www dot Blind Driver Challenge dot Ford. And you can actually see a gentleman driving a car around the Daytona Speedway, right before the 2011 Rolex 24 race in January of 2011. And again, the the technology was was there. So it's not ready for primetime. But the point is that people make assumptions. And I love to ask that question, because invariably, the first answer, and if not the first, it's got to be one of the first few but typically, the first answer is can't drive a car. And then you go to all sorts of other things from there. And the fact of the matter is that nowadays, technology has advanced to the point where there is a way to do some of those things that we didn't think we could do before and you talked about it with the woman who had the brain implant that allows her to speak, which is pretty cool. Yes, it is, indeed. So you know, we we really need to find ways to deal with getting over our limiting thoughts. And we do limit ourselves all too often. And I think we're taught to do that. And it's to unfortunate that that's the case.   Morag Barrett ** 29:36 I have a section in my first book cultivate where I talk about the trash talk roller coaster, which I think is symptomatic of this self limiting belief. And I know I still ride what I call the trash talk roller coaster regularly, and it starts like this. This is awesome. And then something will happen to the project or the job or the relationship or the something that kind of moves it off the rails a bit which point we go to, oh, this is harder than I thought. And then we get to the, if it keeps on that route of this sucks, and then very quickly it goes from this sucks to, I suck, I must suck, because why can I do this? Why can I get this person to whatever? Why can't I get this project back on track? And then maybe the hopeful is that you come around the other side to well, it's not as bad as I thought it was. And you're fat. This is okay to back to this is awesome. And for me, it's the catching myself in the oh, this is harder of God, this sucks and trying to break my precondition patterns before it gets to the I suck, to differentiate the two to differentiate from the system that might be sucky. Or the yes, I'm bits because I'm new. I'm the beginner, I haven't learned how to do it yet, as opposed to I will never learn to do it. It   Michael Hingson ** 30:56 may very well be that your gift set is such that it whatever it might be isn't something that you specifically might do well. But you might be the person who can find someone who can help you do it well, which gets back to creativity.   Morag Barrett ** 31:17 Yes, definitely better together again, why keep going after if it's not something you enjoy doing? It's not something you aspire to, you've put in a few of the 10,000 hours and you know, you're not going to really be a what ready and willing to invest the time to get further then delegate subcontracted out find somebody else. I love that suggestion.   Michael Hingson ** 31:38 So you went off and you got your master's degree? And what was the degree in human resource management, human resource management? So it's your Yeah, you do that in England?   Morag Barrett ** 31:49 Yes, I did. And that was also coincide with the birth of my twins and moving into leadership development properly within the bank. And within a couple of years of that actually leaving the bank the safety of what would have been a career for life, if I had continued on the path of head down, work hard, and it will be okay. And taking a risk and joining an American company that ultimately ended up bringing us to Colorado. And there I went from a very UK England centric career in life and life experience, to now working with leaders around the world and living in a foreign country with a very similar but different language. And it was the first of the baby steps that really accelerated my transformation.   Michael Hingson ** 32:44 Well, talking about human resource management, too, with with twins, there's good human resource management there too.   Morag Barrett ** 32:54 A lot of refereeing. And so there's three of them now, because we had an another one as well. All boys. So the usual wrestling and hiking that goes on.   Michael Hingson ** 33:04 Yeah. And how old are all of them today?   Morag Barrett ** 33:08 Oh, 25 and 21. So dependent young men now who are off making their own pads and their own decisions. And   Michael Hingson ** 33:17 Mom has to be smarter about human resource management to get them to do things that she might want them to do because they've learned to think for themselves I bet   Morag Barrett ** 33:27 Oh, it's smarter in that I have to do it myself. Now Michael or out, outsource it. So now as an empty nester, I'm on my own. It's down to me if I want it to happen, I'd better get the YouTube video out and work it out. You   Michael Hingson ** 33:41 can't outsource it to them. Or news not as easy.   Morag Barrett ** 33:45 Not as easily. And to be honest, they can learn their own journey. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 33:52 but I bet they they still love mom. I bet.   Morag Barrett ** 33:58 I hope so. You'd have to ask them. I'm gonna go with Yes. Okay, ultimately, yes.   Michael Hingson ** 34:04 We'll buy that. Yeah. Yeah. So you moved. So why did you leave the bank and join a different company?   Morag Barrett ** 34:14 Because I saw an opportunity to, to learn and it goes back it's curiosity, to see what might happen if and I knew I wanted to be in leadership development. And if I stayed in the bank, it was always waiting for the next opportunity and time will get you there. But when you choose to take control of your own career and make those deliberate choices to move, you can accelerate that transition and so the opportunity to learn and work globally. Even that decision to move to the states was a big one. My mum had just passed away. We've moved house to be closer to family because family is important. And now we were being asked to move 5000 miles away to a different and country. And we thought about it long and hard. We talked with the family and we decided it was an adventure that was too good to miss. And even if it only lasted a couple of years, we should do that. In the end, it's now lasted. Where are we at? 2023 years to 2005 we came. So, you know, it's lasted a lifetime and actually, is now our home of choice. Yeah. Well, it's time flower and you're having fun. Hard   Michael Hingson ** 35:26 to Be Colorado. Now, is there anger? Yes, it is. Is there a husband in the picture?   35:34 Yes, there is. Yeah. So   Michael Hingson ** 35:36 he moved as well without too much muss or fuss, or?   Morag Barrett ** 35:40 Yeah, it was all as a combined unit. And then, as ever, life changes and moves on. So Colorado is definitely home with the boys being here. And I'm going back to visit my brother back in the UK in November. So I'm looking forward to that trip and seeing some of the old buildings and history. But also remembering why I like the blue sky and mountains of Colorado.   Michael Hingson ** 36:04 Yeah, needless to say, Well, you've so So do you still work for that company? Are you now totally on your own? Or what?   Morag Barrett ** 36:12 No, I'm totally on my own. So sky team is my company. I formed that in 2007. So for 16 years, we've been working in three ways with our clients, either one on one as executive coaches, with a intact teams on how do we ensure that this group of people is aligned around what does it take to be successful in their roles on the team through to broader leadership and executive development programs and had the opportunity now to work with leaders from 20 countries on six continents? All looking to? How do we solve the business challenges together, especially now in a 21st century in an in a hybrid environment where some people may be on site, some are working from home, and that additional complexity that may be factored in?   Michael Hingson ** 37:06 What do you think about the whole idea today of a hybrid environment, it's clearly the pandemic was one of the main causes for us to shift our thinking from just being in the office all day every day.   Morag Barrett ** 37:20 So I wish it hadn't been a global pandemic, with so many desks that was the catalyst for change. But my second book, The Future Proof workplace, really preempted the fact that many of our working processes and attitudes to career and work and office were rooted back in the 18th century in the industrial revolution, they had not morphed to keep up with the reality of what was now a knowledge work base in many cases versus a manufacturing work base. And the fact that as the pandemic showed, and work from home, work can be done from almost anywhere with the right tools and equipment. The challenge we saw Michael, though, was that people grab their bags and emergency evacuated the offices, assuming it was going to be two weeks, maybe a month, maybe three months, not expecting two years. And so the old leadership and management habits from in person, were force fitted, to working through the camera, and even now have not flexed to meet the needs of a hybrid workforce. And I think that's the biggest opportunity for us as individuals. And as teams and organizations continue to adapt and look forward.   Michael Hingson ** 38:43 Well, and we, we all need to grow. And, of course, my experience goes back to September 11, when something happened that we didn't expect, that affected a lot of the world. But I think the pandemic even more was an event that affects the world. And it forced more people to be directly involved in needing to change because what happened on September 11, affected a lot of us in a lot of different ways going through airport security is different and so on. But the pandemic really made major changes for all of us, including this whole hybrid idea. And I hear from so many people that in reality, it's probably a good thing overall because we we learned that that there is value in letting people work from home. And a lot of the times when people are opposed to it, it tends to be a trust issue rather than really an issue that is a true Yes.   Morag Barrett ** 39:48 Now, it is a trust issue. And I also agree that there is value in coming together in three dimensions. But it has to have a purpose and needs to be seen. Trucks should it needs to be thoughtful and deliberate. And why again, as I remember commuting into London, why would I want to spend an hour and a half going into the office to then spend the day there spend an hour and a half going home is 6am to 7pm. Schedule again, when I don't get to see the family unconditionally tired. Surely it's better to have those options to use technology. Like you and I are talking right now. We're having a powerful conversation, but we don't need to be in the same room. And yet, I know that if you and I were in the same room, depending on the nature of the discussion, and the decisions that had to be made, or the problem we're solving, it would be an even richer experience. So I think that's part of what we need to do individually and collectively is start making deliberate choices about how and when work happens. How and when team at work happens, how and when collaboration happens. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 40:57 And we need to recognize that there are a number of ways to make that happen. You know, for me, I'm used to talking with people, how do I say this, and not seeing them even being in the same room. So for me, one of the things I learned early when I started selling major accounting products, and doing it by phone, was that I use the same techniques to sell on the telephone that I would use if I were selling to a person sitting across the desk from them. Because Because the reality is that I communicate in the same way, which also means that I have to describe in the same way, now the value is changed, because we have things like zoom. So I can bring up a picture. Or I can show people things that I might not have been able to do in the past. So I can create a pretty rich experience. I think that all too often, when we talk about virtual as opposed to in person experiences, we do tend to limit ourselves a little bit with virtual experiences, we can make them richer than we think we can.   Morag Barrett ** 42:18 Hmm, yeah. So it's funny before the pandemic, my team and I were all leadership development, but it was if you want to be a better human, you need to do it in a room with other humans. And we rarely use Zoom or any sort of virtual facilitation, like everybody else, we had to learn quick, and I will I've eaten my words, because done well, this virtual environment can deliver many things. And I think about some of the friends that I've made during the pandemic never met them in three dimensions only met them through the camera. And yet, I would describe them as some of my trusted colleagues and life friends. In spite of that, or because of that, maybe, but again, it's being forced, and it's being thoughtful and deliberate versus just coming on the call hanging up at the end, getting on the next call, hanging up the end, we miss the subtleties and the cues of when we're in person. For example, your spidey sense might go off and say something about more eggs, voice sounds different words. And you may then follow me into the break room say hey, Maura, you okay, what's going on? And I might go with a British, nothing, Michael, it's fine. And then you're gonna know there's something and you'd keep going by and we don't get that, that you're not buying it. But we don't get those as easily as the thing to see through the camera. Again, unless as leaders and managers we are being thoughtful and deliberate in creating space for Scott to schedule spontaneity, creating space for small talk, creating space for just how are you doing, Michael? Versus the Okay, it's two o'clock, what are you doing, Michael, get on the Zoom call, show me a project plan.   Michael Hingson ** 44:06 Right. And I think that so using your example, if I detected that, from you during a zoom presentation, as soon as it was done, I would be halfway through dialing you on the phone to say what's going on. And   Morag Barrett ** 44:23 that, to me is an ally behavior. That's what being a friend at work is is I may be imagining it but are you okay? And I'm just checking in and the more we do that, the more we build trust, the more I build trust, the more I'm going to be willing to ask for an offer help or give you the tough feedback you need to hear. And ultimately then we are all better together.   Michael Hingson ** 44:45 Why should we care about our professional relationships? What's what's the value and really doing that? I think I know how you're going to answer that but me ready.   Morag Barrett ** 44:56 Maybe I should ask you and then we'll compare. So here's Just go ahead. No, no. All right. So why should we care because all of the research shows that it has a direct impact on our happiness, our health, and our success, whether that's measured in productivity by the corporate overlords, or in terms of success for our own career aspirations. Everything that we do, is impacted by the health and quality of the relationships that we build, whether it's on our team, across the industry, and so on, it matters.   Michael Hingson ** 45:33 And to me, it goes back to trust. Because we value our relationships, and we cultivate our relationships, we create more of a trusting relationship, which I think is so crucial. That's why I love talking about dogs, dogs don't trust unconditionally, they love unconditionally, but they don't trust unconditionally, but what dogs do is be open to trust, which is where we tend to. And so I very much value the relationship I have with my guide dogs. And I know that in reality, the trust is truly earned on both sides when we do. It is all about making that trusting relationship happen. And   Morag Barrett ** 46:21 also, it's the how you both respond to each other when the inevitable mistakes will happen. Yep. And how do you come back from that? And I've seen too many leaders who will either say, Well, Michael, welcome to my team, you know, and subtext is two years prove prove that you're worthy of my trust? Well, at the pace of change, right now, two years, you don't have two years, you have six months at best, maybe three. So why don't we talk through? What does success look like? What am I hot buttons? What do you need from me? What do I expect from you. And then we can accelerate that whole process.   Michael Hingson ** 46:58 As a sales leader, whenever I hired people. I've talked about it before on this podcast, one of the first discussions I have with people is I'm not here to boss you around, I hired you because I believe you can sell, but I have gifts, you have gifts. What I need to do, as your leader is to work with you to find out how I can add value to what you do to make you more successful. And the people who get that word, the people who didn't did the last one. Yeah, but but it's so true. I think any good leader needs to see how they can add value to the work, and the work ethic and the work experience of the people who work for them, and how they can enhance those people. And that's what it's really about. That's not easy to do for a lot of people, but it's what we really need to do.   Morag Barrett ** 47:54 Well, the challenge is we get promoted for doing something I mean, I think about banking, and you get promoted for processing your in Tray really well. Well, now I've got this unconscious bias, maybe that success is equivalent to how many widgets I made by Morag. But once you start moving through the organization, to your point, it's not about how many widgets can I make is how many widgets can I inspire and engage the team to make is getting results through others. And if we aren't amongst all of the other changes, and transitions, if we aren't aware of it, then we become that micromanager that's trying to control instead of somebody who coaches feedback delegation. And that's where we start to stifle ourselves and others and then maybe coming back full circle, it triggers those limiting beliefs of will maybe I'm not a good boss, or a leader, because look, my team isn't delivering. And we get into that trash talk cycle again, all for the sake of a little perspective and unlearning the habits that made us successful at this leadership level, and relearning or learning the new habits in a different way that will help us in that new environment or new context,   Michael Hingson ** 49:03 we will biggest mistakes or what are the common mistakes that people make in nurturing their professional relationships.   Morag Barrett ** 49:11 So I'm gonna go with it's a dichotomy. One is assuming that it's going to take a lot of time. And the reality is not necessarily. So if I ask listeners now to think about a best boss, best colleague, somebody who jumped at the chance to work with again, and what makes them special. So Michael, for you, who comes to mind, somebody you would love to work with, again, if you had the opportunity. Sure.   Michael Hingson ** 49:37 And there are a few. One is a guy I've talked about on the podcast before Kevin, who I hired and who really got the whole sales presentation, the whole sales pitch that I gave about how we add value. And yeah, I have some wonderful stories about that. But I think we all have that and, you know, I thought about My comment that I made earlier about trust, I think more of us want to have trust in your relationships than then have them. But we've not learned or we've forgotten how to develop those relationships.   Morag Barrett ** 50:12 Yeah, well, we talked about it in you, me, we, we talked about the fact that if you want trust, if you want more relationships, strong, powerful relationships in your network, then you have to go first and show up as that person for others and for you. So if I close the loop on this, and it not taking long, everybody's now thinking about their equivalent of Kevin. So my challenge my double dog dare challenge to everybody is to the extent you can send your Kevin, your best boss or colleague a message after this podcast that says, Hey, I was listening to Michael. And they asked about best colleagues and I thought of you and here's why. And in that nanosecond, whether it's a LinkedIn message, an email, a text message to the universe, you have made a deposit into that relationship bank account, and it took you two minutes less than that. That's how easy it is. But we think it's going to be complicated. So it's, it's making it a choice, making it a habit, I have a Friday 30 minute slot that comes up on my calendar that reminds me to send text messages and messages to people who are important to me, that says, hey, thinking of you, I even had one on a Saturday to text my sons. And it's not cheating. And it's not, because I'm a bad mother that I need the reminder. But it is the prompt, that make sure that I follow through more often than not, that means that we are more connected. And so do that. Find your 30 minutes, spend 15 minutes at the beginning of your next staff meeting, asking how people are what they did for fun over the holiday weekend, and start bringing the human to work, not just the work?   Michael Hingson ** 51:54 Well, there's nothing wrong with that prompt, we all tend to get diverted no matter how seriously or how firmly we have something in mind. So I have Trump's I, you know, when we have on our calendars and like, I use Outlook, there's a Birthday Calendar, there are so many different calendars. And I put notes just to make sure that I remember different things throughout the year. I think it's a very useful thing to do.   Morag Barrett ** 52:24 We do it with our passwords. Now most of us have a password manager, why not have a human and a relationship manager to that can help us and for those who see every day, it's easy for those who might be living in the next state or you only see once a quarter, then again, it's just about repetition and making those choices, but the benefits, health, happiness and success. Are you the team and the organization.   Michael Hingson ** 52:53 So what are the four? Yes? Is that you identifying having building relationships? Oh, wow. So   Morag Barrett ** 53:01 the four yeses are four questions that we are asking ourselves consciously or subconsciously in every interaction. You and I were asking about each other, your listeners are asking, or we're asking it about me and this conversation. And question number one is, Can I count on you? Can I count on Michael and Morag to have an engaging conversation and get it done within you know, the 30 minutes to 45 minutes? That's as advertised? it's table stakes is do your job. Question two is can I depend on them? Can I depend on them not just to go wow, are each other and fill the time? But can you turn depend on us to go the extra mile to make it fun and engaging to make you stop and listen and go? Hmm, that was interesting. So at work that might be can you depend on me to go the extra miles spot the typo in a document to fix the formula in the spreadsheet? But either way, these are my finance career people these two questions Can I count on you? Can I depend on you? Transactional, you do your stuff? I'll do mine will be fine. questions three and four, however, move from transactional to transformational. Question number three is do I care about you? Do I care about you as a human being? Do I understand your backstory? Do I understand a little about your lived experience and what's happening in your world right now? And then ultimately, question number four. We've touched on it when we talked about your dog when we talked about working relationships. Do I trust you? And if we don't get to a heck yes on all four of these, if we don't make the implicit explicit on those, then you're never going to get to what I call an ally relationship, your friend at work the person who has your back, or the person that you can go to in the time of need,   Michael Hingson ** 54:49 and we don't emphasize that nearly as much as we should. In our in our world with all the things going on in our in our world today. All the sound bites on The news and all the different political things and everything else. We we don't get to that. Which is so unfortunate. And   Morag Barrett ** 55:08 it is. And then we worry why wonder why people don't want to stay the extra hour to help you out of a pickle, that when you find yourself on the job market looking for the next opportunity, people aren't returning your calls. So the time to invest in your relationships is now before you need other people. And the time to be abundant and generous with your own time and expertise is now when others need you. So it's a balance. And it's two sides of the same coin.   Michael Hingson ** 55:39 Yeah, exactly. So you have written three books, when did you write your first one? And what are each of them about?   Morag Barrett ** 55:47 So there is a theme. So the first book is cultivate the Power of Winning Relationships. And that was published in 2014. And it introduces the relationship dynamics that we experience in the workplace from allies, our best friends at work, unconditional have my back, give me the tough love, and the kick in the pants when I need it. Supporters, more like fairweather friends, you know, when it goes and gets tough and you ask for help, it's crickets. They'll give me the feedback, they want to hear, Oh, you're fine, but not the feedback I need to hear. Then we have rivals a little bit more elbow jockeying one day, they might be all for me. And the next day, they're against me and uncertainty. So like Jekyll and Hyde, and then adversaries, the continually tense relationships that just fill me with dread. And so cultivate introduced that ecosystem and was very powerful, and still is in helping to transform team and organizational cultures. But we were consistently asked, Yeah, but how do I show up as an ally? What does that mean? And that was the genesis, I was just pointing Michael to the third book on behind me as a picture of the cover, which is called you, me we, why we all need a friend at work and how to show up as one, which is how do we show up as an ally for others, but also for ourselves and not become a doormat? And that was published last year. And in between the two, I have a book called The Future Proof workplace, which I mentioned earlier in our conversation.   Michael Hingson ** 57:22 So do you think everyone should have allies? You should have at least one otherwise?   Morag Barrett ** 57:26 Oh, my goodness, what a lonely place the world of work. Yeah. So it's, it's not like Facebook, this is not about converting every relationship. It's quality, not quantity. But yes, having at least one person on your team or in your organization that you can go to when you are having a good day and celebrate your wins, but also go to and say oh my goodness, I just messed up that podcast interview with Michael and they'll listen, but then they'll coach me through it. Or they'll perhaps come to me and say, Hey, I listened to that conversation with Michael. And here's what you did well, and here's what you could do differently next time. That's the power of an ally, they help us to be better, and reduce the fear of failure.   Michael Hingson ** 58:12 And they do it out of love. They don't do it out of spite. And they do it because they truly want to be supportive. And they trust yes, that you're going to accept that they're doing it for the right reasons.   Morag Barrett ** 58:27 Indeed, so doing it out of love, which, again, in an HR appropriate way in the workplace. And it may mean that we are best friends that work for this project. But when I leave, if I move back to the UK, we may lose touch, that's fine. It isn't necessarily that we are going to be best buddies forever or that I need to take you home to meet my mother and we're going to hang out after work. But definitely when we talk about psychological safety building a high trust team, than having an Ally Mindset and the ally behaviors, that mean we are working together and not against each other. That is the secret to success.   Michael Hingson ** 59:07 What's one thing that anyone can do to become a better ally?   Morag Barrett ** 59:12 Well, the first thing I'm going to suggest is to complete our Ally Mindset Profile because then you'll get your personal insights as to the five practices and where you might want to invest some care and attention. So you can do that at Skye team S k y e, Team dot cloud, forward slash youmewe, and all by the book and bounce the first thing and there is that but in the book we talk about the first step in becoming an ally is to look up to assess the relationship health around you. So simply by asking, How do I want others to feel in my presence? How do I feel in my presence? And the answer to that question will help to inform how you may need to show up, and what behaviors you may need to step up and do differently in order to shift your leadership influence and reputation.   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:12 And I think one of the important things about how to become a better ally is to also start by deciding that you want to be   Morag Barrett ** 1:00:23 yes. Now, if you want to be seen as the brilliant jerk at work, the pain at the end of the misunderstood genius, fine, go wild. Thankfully, there aren't many people most of us are getting up because we want to do a good job to feel like our voice and our opinion matters. And to feel like we belong, we started in the green room earlier talking about diversity and inclusion. Those are the three things and having being an ally. And having an Ally Mindset. Being an ally means that maybe that feeling of belonging is just between you and I to start with. But then it's you and I and to others, and then it's the four of us and another team. And before you know it, you've got a culture within your organization that truly does tap into the talents   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:09 of everybody. And that's what you really want is to build that kind of a real close team. Yes. Well, this has been fun. And I guess I would ask if people want to reach out to you and learn more about you maybe engaged some of your services or whatever, and also buy your books. How do they do that? Well, first   Morag Barrett ** 1:01:36 of all, please do connect with me on LinkedIn, and you'll get to see some of the newsletters and showcase some of our work there. Feel free to message me via LinkedIn, it's me the answers, not a bot. And then you can also check out some of our work at Skye team S k y e Team at.com, our comm corporate website and the books. They're available from all retailers and currently in Paperback or hardback, Kindle, and audio with the audio of cultivate being available next spring.   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:09 So Did did you self publish or did the publishing company publish?   Morag Barrett ** 1:02:16 I've done all versions of publishing but we chose to self published you may we it gave us more creative license over what we wanted to do. And the three of us my best friends at work are expensive and Ruby Vasily. Not only did we write the book together, but we also recorded the audio book together. So now that you've heard the accent, if you wish to continue that theme, then you will hear more of it on the audio version of Umi. We   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:42 will There you go. That's enough to have to work on that. And I really very much not work on the accent work on getting the books. Oh, yeah, I   Morag Barrett ** 1:02:53 understood. But I   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:55 really have enjoyed this. Well, what's your, your name on LinkedIn? How do people find you on LinkedIn,   1:03:01 Morag, M o r a g. It's a Scottish name means great. So Morag Barrett B a, double r e double T. And you will see my picture there and find me.   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:12 There you go. So I hope people will do that. I hope people will reach out I hope people will buy the books. I think you gave us information about a free book also.   Morag Barrett ** 1:03:22 I did. Yes. So I think we have a code for you don't we that too, or download an audiobook. So I'll leave that with Michael to put into the show notes. But we have a number of copies available. For the first come first served folks who choose to sign up. So please do and you can get a free copy. In fact, now I'm rereading my notes if they message me through LinkedIn. So we'll redo that. If you message me through LinkedIn saying that you heard our conversation, then let me know whether you would like an audio version or an ebook version. I have 25 copies of each available to those first up to 50 folks who messaged me that I would happily share.   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:11 Well, that is so cool. I appreciate you doing that. And I hope people will take advantage of that. And thank you, you lots of lots of things from people will Morag Thank you very much for being here. And I want to thank you for listening to us today. We appreciate it. And for all of you who couldn't be more actress, you know of anyone else who want to be a guest on unstoppable mindset, please let me know. You can reach me in a number of different ways. We're on LinkedIn and so on and it's Michael Hingson and sign double, both to reach out to and to explore me coming in being a speaker for you wherever you need someone to come and speak and talk about anything from September 11 to whatever makes sense to discuss inclusion and diversity and so on. But also We'd love to hear your thoughts you can email me Michael hingson and you can email Michaelhi at accessibe A c c e s s i b e.com. Or go to our podcast page www dot Michael hingson h i n g s o n.com/podcast. And wherever you're listening, please give us a five star rating. We value those, we appreciate it. But most of all, I really want to get your thoughts, your comments we really want to hear and I know Morag will agree that we want to hear whatever you think and whatever you'd have to say about us today. So reach out to any of us and we will all make sure that everyone gets the message. So thank you for doing that. And giving us a five star rating as I said, and just thank you for being here with us, and they will be back with us again next week. And Morag I want to thank you one last time for being here with us as well.   Morag Barrett ** 1:05:52 Thank you Michael and good luck.   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:59 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

How can self-regulation strategies support ourselves and our work as healthcare professionals? Join us as we speak with Julie Tourigny, founder and Director of the Colorado Center for Pediatric Learning and Development, and author of Calm and In Control: Simple and Effective Strategies to Support Young Children's Self-Regulation.

Notes and Links to Andrew Leland's Work        For Episode 222, Pete welcomes Andrew Leland, and the two discuss, among other topics, his early balance of technology and art and creativity that continues to govern his writing and careers, early formative reading, the philosophy of “going blind” versus “becoming blind,” the spectrum of blindness, and salient themes in his book like intersectionality, ableism, and differing ideas of how society sees the blind and disabled, and how this affects Andrew and others in similar situations.      Andrew Leland is a writer, audio producer, editor, and teacher living in Western Massachusetts. His first book, The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight, about the world of blindness (and figuring out his place in it), was published in July 2023 by Penguin Press. He has produced audio for a range of entities, including an interview with the DeafBlind poet John Lee Clark for the New Yorker Radio Hour; a story about disabled astronauts for Radiolab; and a story about reading technologies for the blind for 99 Percent Invisible. From 2013–2019, he hosted and produced the Organist, an arts-and-culture podcast, for KCRW. He has taught nonfiction writing, radio, and “digital storytelling” (?) at Smith College, UMass-Amherst, and the University of Missouri, he's been an editor at the Believer since 2003, and he's edited books for McSweeney's and Chronicle Books.   Buy The Country of the Blind   Andrew's Website   New York Times Review of The Country of the Blind   NPR Article on The Country of the Blind     At about 3:15, Andrew details his background with reading and writing, including how he was influenced by his parents in different ways, as well as how he was indirectly influenced by his uncle, the playwright Neil Simon At about 6:25, Andrew talks about a towering gift from his aunt that really energized his reading and writing journeys At about 9:30, Pete and Andrew discuss David Foster Wallace, his lasting literary legacy, and his marred legacy outside of writing At about 11:15, Andrew responds to Pete's questions about how his background in audio engineering, and how it has affected his writing At about 15:15, Pete reflects on the reading experience and Andrew reflects on how the book moved along due to his audio background, and Andrew shouts out Rachel Cunningham at Penguin Random House as being extremely helpful with structuring his book At about 17:10, Andrew discusses seeds for his book At about 21:00, The two lay out some exposition of the book and discuss the book's opening lines and contradictions; Andrew expands upon Will Butler's ideas of “going blind” vs. “becoming blind” At about 25:20, Andrew gives background on the book's title, and how it's based on a HG Wells' book At about 27:30, Andrew talks about long-held ideas or stereotypes of blind people and the consequences of same At about 30:05, Andrew discusses the myriad ways in which blindness has been used as metaphor, and shouts out a book that explores these tropes, There Plant Eyes, by M. Leona Godin At about 32:45, Andrew explains the difficulties he had with a meetup in Missouri that is featured in the book, as well as some immediate and later revelations that came from this At about 37:30, Andrew delves into his travels and conventions attended that adjusted his mindset and provided many beautiful moments and learning moments  At about 41:55, Andrew discusses genetic testing for his medical condition, and how he and his wife decided whether or not to have their son tested At about 44:00, The two discuss ideas of intersectionality and in Andrew's research and reporting and what he found regarding racism and the strong work put forth by queer women of color in disabled communities At about 48:10, Andrew and Pete reflect on the history of the Bay Area in the fight for disability justice At about 51:00, The two discuss the medical advancements and artificial sight that are coming to the forefront and the ways in which Andrew writes and thinks about them At about 54:20, Andrew details the importance of Ben McFall, the legendary bookseller, and how his obituary connects to how Andrew feels as he started to use a screen reader   At about 58:25, Andrew juxtaposes the Carroll Center for the Blind's philosophy versus that of other organizations that work for and with the blind At about 1:01:10, Pete and Andrew analyze an important set of encounters with a fellow guest at The Colorado Center for the Blind and the implications of their attitudes and philosophies and experiences At about 1:05:30, Andrew talks about exciting new projects      You can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, and leave me a five-star review. You can also ask for the podcast by name using Alexa, and find the pod on Stitcher, Spotify, and on Amazon Music. Follow me on IG, where I'm @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where I'm @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch this and other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both my YouTube Channel and my podcast while you're checking out this episode.    I am very excited that starting in February with Episode 220 with Neef Ekpoudom and this episode, I will have one or two podcast episodes per month featured on the website of Chicago Review of Books. The audio will be posted, along with a written interview culled from the audio. A big thanks to Rachel León and Michael Welch at Chicago Review-I'm looking forward to the partnership!    Sign up now for The Chills at Will Podcast Patreon: it can be found at patreon.com/chillsatwillpodcastpeterriehl     Check out the page that describes the benefits of a Patreon membership, including cool swag and bonus episodes. Thanks in advance for supporting my one-man show, my DIY podcast and my extensive reading, research, editing, and promoting to keep this independent podcast pumping out high-quality content!    NEW MERCH! You can browse and buy here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ChillsatWillPodcast    This is a passion project of mine, a DIY operation, and I'd love for your help in promoting what I'm convinced is a unique and spirited look at an often-ignored art form.    The intro song for The Chills at Will Podcast is “Wind Down” (Instrumental Version), and the other song played on this episode was “Hoops” (Instrumental)” by Matt Weidauer, and both songs are used through ArchesAudio.com.     Please tune in for Episode 224 with Sarah Rose Etter, the author of 2023's Ripe, and The Book of X, which was the winner of the 2019 Shirley Jackson Award. Her short fiction collection, Tongue Party, was selected by Deb Olin Unferth to be published as the winner of the 2011 Caketrain Award.    The episode will air on February 13.

Mike and Cam welcome Clinical Psychologist, Monique Germone, PhD to the podcast. Monique is a Pediatric Psychologist at the Colorado Center for Celiac Disease, Digestive Health Institute at Children's Hospital Colorado and an Associate Professor at University of Colorado School of Medicine. Monique discusses some of the unique psychological and emotional challenges facing kids and families with celiac disease and gluten issues. They also talk about how the holidays can add extra stress around food and social gatherings plus some strategies to make sure the holidays are joyful for everyone.

On today's Celiac Project Podcast:Mike and Cam welcome Clinical Psychologist, Monique Germone, PhD to the podcast. Monique is a Pediatric Psychologist at the Colorado Center for Celiac Disease, Digestive Health Institute at Children's Hospital Colorado and an Associate Professor at University of Colorado School of Medicine. Monique discusses some of the unique psychological and emotional challenges facing kids and families with celiac disease and gluten issues. They also talk about how the holidays can add extra stress around food and social gatherings plus some strategies to make sure the holidays are joyful for everyone.Listen to the full episode here: https://celiacprojectpodcast.libsyn.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As I have always told our guests, our time together is a conversation, not an interview. This was never truer than with our guest this time, Andrew Leland. Andrew grew up with what most people would call a pretty normal childhood. However, as he discovered he was encountering night blindness that gradually grew worse. Back in the 1980s and early 90s, he was not getting much support for determining what was happening with his eyes. He did his own research and decided that he was experiencing retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease that first affects peripheral vision and eventually leads to total blindness. I won't spend time discussing Andrew's journey toward how finally doctors verified his personal diagnosis.   Andrew was and is an incredible researcher and thinker. He comes by it naturally. In addition, he is quite a writer and has had material published by The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, McSweeney's Quarterly, and The San Francisco Chronicle, among other outlets. He comes by his talents honestly through family members who have been screenwriters and playwrights. Example? His grandfather was Marvin Neal Simon, better known to all of us as Neal Simon.   This year Andrew's first book was published. It is entitled, The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight. I urge you to get and read it.   Our conversation goes into detail about blindness in so many different ways. I am sure you will find that your own views of blindness will probably change as you hear our discussion. Andrew has already agreed to come on again so we can continue our discussions. I hope you enjoy our time together.     About the Guest:   Andrew Leland's first book is The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight. His_ writing has appeared in _The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, McSweeney's Quarterly, and The San Francisco Chronicle, among other outlets. From 2013-2019, he hosted and produced The Organist, an arts and culture podcast, for KCRW; he has also produced pieces for Radiolab and 99 Percent Invisible. He has been an editor at The Believer since 2003. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife and son.     Ways to connect with Andrew:   Website: https://www.andrewleland.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 Welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset where inclusion diversity in the unexpected meet. And we're gonna get to have a little bit of all of that today. I get to interview someone who I've talked to a couple of times and met a couple of months ago for the first time, I think the first time at a meeting, Andrew Leland is the author of the country of the blind. And he will tell us about that. And we will have lots of fun things to talk about. I am sure he's been a podcaster. He's an author. Needless to say, he's written things. And I don't know what else we'll see what other kinds of secrets we can uncover. Fair warning, right. So Andrew, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Andrew Leland ** 02:01 Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here.   Michael Hingson ** 02:04 Well, I really appreciate you coming. Why don't you start by telling us a little about kind of the early Andrew growing up in some of that kind of stuff? Oh, sure. A lot of times go in a galaxy far, far away. Yeah. Right.   Andrew Leland ** 02:18 planet called the Los Angeles. I was born in LA. Yeah. And my parents moved to New York pretty quickly. And they split when I was two. So for most of my childhood, I was kind of bouncing in between, I live with my mom. But then I would go visit my dad on holidays. And my mom moved around a lot. So we were in New York, just outside the city. And then we moved to Toronto for two years, and then back to New York, and then to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and then to California, Southern California. So I lived a lot of places. And that was all before college. And yeah, what can I tell you about young Andrew, I, you know, I always was interested in writing and reading. And I come from a family of writers. My mom is a screenwriter, my grandfather was a playwright. My aunt is a novelist. And so and my dad, you know, remember when I was a kid, he had a column for videography magazine, and has always been super interested in digital technology, you know, from the earliest days of desktop publishing. And he worked for, like early days of USA Network, you know, so like this kind of shared interest that I inherited from my parents of, you know, creativity and media, I guess was one way you could put it, you know, storytelling and sort of like playing around with electronic media. And, you know, I grew up I was born in 1980. So by the time I was an adolescent, the internet was just starting to reach its tendrils into our lives. And I remember my dad bought me a modem. And when I was like, I don't know 14 or something. And I was definitely one of the first kids in my class to have a modem and you know, messing around on message boards and stuff. So that was very influential for me. You know, when it was around that time that I started to notice that I had night blindness, and I kind of diagnosed myself with retinitis pigmentosa on that early web, you know, before the days of WebMD or anything like that, but it just there didn't seem to be a lot of causes for adolescent night blindness. And so I kind of figured it out and then sort of just compartmentalized it like kick that information to the side somewhere dusty corner of my brain and just went about my life and then it wasn't until later my teenage years I'd already done a year in college I think in Ohio where I said you know what, this is getting a little more intrusive and then I've that my mom finally booked me an appointment at a at a real deal, you know, medical retinal Research Center and at UCLA. And then, you know, an actual retinal specialist said, Yep, you've got retina is pigmentosa. You'll you Will, you know, maintain decent vision into middle age and then it'll fall off a cliff. Once again, I just carried that information around for, you know, the next 20 years or so. And I'm 4040 How old am I? Mike? 22 years old? Right? Well, I actually I'm a December baby. So we gotta go, Okay, you got a couple of months to go a 42 year old medicine me. You know, and at this point in my life, you know, I had the, you know, I read about all this in the book, but I have a feeling that, like that part of his diagnosis way back when is coming true, you know, and I feel like, okay, it's all finally happening, and like, it's happening more quickly, but then my current doctor is kind of careful to reassure me that that's not actually happening. And that RP, you know, their understanding of it has evolved since then. And there's like, you know, different genetic profiles, and that, in fact, maybe I might have some residual useful vision for many years to come. But one of the things that I really wrestled with, both in the book and just in my life is the question of, you know, how much to claim to that site and how useful that site really is. And, and, and trying to figure out what, what it means to be blind, if I'm blind, you know, certainly legally blind, you know, I've half got about five or six degrees of, of central vision. You know, and so, so, so my so So, I've left your question behind at this point. But I wrote, I wrote this book, in some ways to answer that question of, like, where I, where I fit into this world of blindness? And am I an outsider, or am I an insider? like at what point do I get to be part of the club and all those really tricky questions that were really bothering me as a person, I got to kind of explore in the form of a book.   Michael Hingson ** 06:52 The interesting thing about what you said in the book, however, concerning Are you an outsider or an insider, Am I blind? Or am I not? is, of course a question that everyone wrestles with. And I personally like the Jernigan definition, have you ever read his article, a definition of blindness?   Andrew Leland ** 07:11 Oh, maybe tell me what he says. So what he says   Michael Hingson ** 07:15 is that you should consider yourself blind from a functional standpoint, when your eyesight decreases to the point where you have to use alternatives to vision to be able to perform tasks. Now, having said that, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't use the residual vision that you have. But what you should do is learn blindness techniques, and learn to psychologically accept that from a blindness standpoint, or from a from a functional standpoint, you are blind, but you do also have eyesight, then there's no reason not to use that. But you still can consider yourself a blind person, because you are using alternatives to eyesight in order to function and do things.   Andrew Leland ** 08:00 Yeah, no, I have heard that from the NFB I didn't realize its source was Jernigan. But I really aspire to live my life that way. You know, I think it's, there are some days when it's easier than others. But, you know, I'm here, learning, you know, practicing Braille, using my white cane every day, you know, like learning jaws and trying to try to keep my screen reader on my phone as much as possible. And it's funny how it becomes almost like a moral mind game that I play with myself where I'm like, okay, like, Wow, it's so much easier to use my phone with a screen reader. Like, why don't I just leave it on all the time, but then inevitably, I get to like a inaccessible website, or like, I'm trying to write and write a text message. And I'm like, Oh, am I really going to like use the rotor to like, go back up, you know, to these words, and so then I turn it back off, and then I leave it off. And I'm just like, constantly messing with my own head and this way, and I've heard from, from folks with ARPI, who are more blind than I am, who have less vision. And there is the sense that like, one relief of even though it's, you know, incontrovertibly, incontrovertibly inconvenient to have less vision, right? Like there's there's certain affordances that vision gives you that shouldn't make life easier. But But one thing that I've heard from these folks is that, you know, that kind of constant obsessing and agonizing over like, how much vision do I have? How much vision am I going to have tomorrow? How am I going to do this, with this much vision versus that much vision? Like when that goes away? It is a bit of a relief I've heard.   Michael Hingson ** 09:28 Yeah, I mean, if it ultimately comes down to you can obsess over it, you can stress about it. What can I do if I lose this extra vision or not? Is is a question but the other side of it is why assume that just because you lose vision, you can't do X or Y. And that's the thing that I think so many people tend to not really deal with. I believe that we have totally an inconsistent and wrong definition of disability. Anyway, I believe that everyone on the planet has a disability. And for most people, the disability is like dependents. And my case from then my way from making that is look at what Thomas Edison did in 1878. He invented the electric light bulb, which allowed people to have light on demand. So they could function in the dark, because they couldn't really function in the dark until they had light on demand, or unless they had a burning stick or something that gave us light. But the reality is, they still had a disability. And no matter how much today we offer light on demand, and light on demand is a fine thing. No, no problem with it. But recognize that still, without that light on demand, if a if a power failure happens or something and the lights go out, sighted people are at least in a world of hurt until they get another source for light on demand. Mm hmm. I was I was invited to actually Kelly and Ryan's Oscar after party to be in the audience this year. So we went to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, which is fun. I used to go there for NFB of California conventions, a great hotel, man. So we got there about three o'clock on Thursday, on Saturday afternoon, and it was my niece and nephew and I and we were all there. And we just dropped our luggage off. And we're going downstairs when suddenly I heard screaming, and I asked my niece, what's going on. And she said, there's been a power failure in and around the hotel. And I'd love to try to spread the rumor that it was all Jimmy Kimmel trying to get attention. But no one's bought that. But but the but the point is that suddenly people didn't know what to do. And I said, doesn't seem like a problem to me. And you know, it's all a matter of perspective. But we really have to get to this idea that it doesn't matter whether you can see or not. And you pointed out very well, in your book that blindness is not nearly so much the issue psychologically, as is our attitude about blindness? Absolutely.   Andrew Leland ** 11:58 Yeah, I remember I interviewed Mark Riccobono, the current president of the National Federation of the Blind, and he made a very similar point, when we were talking about the nature of accommodations, which is something that I still I'm thinking a lot about is I think it's a very tricky idea. And a very important idea, which I think your your your idea of light dependency gets at, you know, in America, Bono's point was, you know, look, we have the the BR headquarters here in Baltimore, and we pay a pretty hefty electricity bill, to keep the lights on every month, and that, you know, the blind folks who work there, it's not for them, right? It's for all the sighted people who come and visit or work at the at the center. And in some ways, that's a reasonable accommodation, that the NFB is making for the sighted people that they want to be inclusive of right. And so that just even that idea of like, what is a reasonable accommodation? I think you're right, that we think of it as like the poor, unfortunate disabled people who need to be brought back to some kind of norm that's at the center. And there's the kind of reframing that you're doing when you talk about light dependency or that Riccobono is doing when he talks about, you know, his electricity bill, you know, it kind of gives the lie to puts the lie to that, that idea that, that the norm takes precedence. And the reality is that, you know, that we all need accommodations, like you say, and so what's reasonable, is really based on what, what humans deserve, which is which is to be included, and to be, you know, to have access equal access, that   Michael Hingson ** 13:38 ought to be the norm. Jacobus timbre wrote a speech called the pros and cons of preferential treatment that was then paired down to a shorter article called a preference for equality. And I haven't, I've been trying to find it, it's at the NFB center, but it isn't as readily available as I would like to see it. And he talks about what equality is, and he said, equality isn't that you do things exactly the same way it is that you have access and with whatever way you need to the same information. So you can't just say, Okay, well, here's a printed textbook, blind persons that's equal under the law, it's not. And he talks about the fact that we all really should be seeking equality and looking for what will give people an equal opportunity in the world. And that's really the issue that we so often just don't face, like we should. The fact of the matter is, it's a part of the cost of business, in general to provide electricity and lights. It's a part of the cost of business to provide for companies a coffee machine, although it's usually a touchscreen machine, but it's there. It's a cost of doing business to provide desks and computers with monitors and so on. But no one views provide Seeing a screen reader as part of the cost of business and nobody views providing a refreshable Braille display or other tools that might give me an equal opportunity to be a part of society, we don't view those as part of the cost of doing business, which we should, because that's what inclusion is really all about. You know, we don't, we don't deal with the fact or sometimes we do that some people are a whole lot shorter than others. And so we provide ladders or step stools, or whatever. But we don't provide cost of doing business concepts to a lot of the tools that say, I might need or you might need. Yeah,   Andrew Leland ** 15:37 yeah, it's one thing that I've been thinking about lately is, is really even just the challenge of understanding what those accommodations are. Because, you know, I think I think, practically speaking in the world, you know, you'll, you'll call up a blind person and say, What do you need, you know, like, we're trying to make this art exhibit or this, you know, business or this, you know, HR software accessible, what do you need, you know, and that one blind person might be like, well, I use NVDA, you know, or that one blind person might be low vision, right. And they might be like, I use a screen magnifier. And it's so difficult to understand, like, what the accommodations are, that would be, that would be adequate to cover, like a reasonable sample. And so just like, it's just so much more complicated than it originally seems, you know, when you have a really well meaning person saying, like, we really value diversity, equity and inclusion and accessibility. And but then like, the distance between that well meeting gesture, and then actually pulling off something that's fully accessible to a wide swath of the whatever the users are, is just, it's just unfair, quickly, huge. So that's something that I'm thinking about a lot lately is like how to how do you approach that problem?   Michael Hingson ** 16:46 Well, and I think, though, the at least as far as I can tell, I think about it a lot, as well, as I think any of us should. The fact is that one solution doesn't fit everyone, I'm sure that there are people, although I'm sure it's a minority, but there are people who don't like fluorescent lights as well as incandescent lights, and neither of them like other kinds of lighting as compared to whatever. And then you have people epilepsy, epilepsy who can't deal as well, with blinking lights are blinking elements on a webpage, there's there isn't ever going to be least as near as I can tell, one size that truly fits all, until we all become perfect in our bodies. And that's got a ways to go. So the reality is, I don't think there is one solution that fits everyone. And I think that you, you pointed it out, the best thing to do is to keep an open mind and say, Yeah, I want to hire a person who's qualified. And if that person is blind, I'll do it. And I will ask them what they need. You know, an example I could give you is, was it three years ago, I guess, four years ago, now actually, I was called by someone up in Canada, who is a lawyer who went to work for a college. And we were talking about IRA, artificial intelligent, remote assistance, a IRA, you know about IRA, you wrote about it. And she said, you know, a lot of the discovery and a lot of the documentation that I need to use is not accessible through even OCR to be overly accurate, because there will be deep degradations and print and so and so I can't rely on that. And certainly, Adobe's OCR isn't necessarily going to deal with all the things that I need. So I'd like to use IRA is that a reasonable accommodation? And I said, sure it is, if that's what you need in order to be able to have access to the information, then it should be provided. Now the laws are a little different up there. But nevertheless, she went to the college and made the case and they gave her iris so she could read on demand all day, any document that she needed, and she was able to do her job. And not everyone necessarily needs to do that. And hear in probably some quarters, maybe there are other accommodations that people could use instead of using IRA. But still, Ira opened up a VISTA for her and gave her access to being able to do a job and I think that we really need to recognize that one solution doesn't fit everything. And the best way to address it is to ask somebody, what do you need in order to do your job, and we will provide it or work it out. And here in the US, of course, given although they try to renege on it so much, but given the definition of what rehabilitation is supposed to do, they're supposed to be able to and help make people employable. They should be providing a lot of these tools and sometimes getting counselors to do that. Just like pulling teeth, I'm sure you know about that. Yeah,   Andrew Leland ** 20:02 I do. I do. I mean, it's interesting because I think in the face of that complexity of saying, like, Okay, we like interviewed a dozen blind people, and we like have this we know, our website is it's compatible with all the screen readers. And, you know, this event, like, you know, let's say you're doing an event, and the website is compatible with every screen reader, and it's got dynamic types. So the low vision users are happy, you know, and then the event starts and you're like, oh, wait, we forgot about the existence of deafblind people, and there's no cart, or captioners. Here. And, you know, and then the question for me another another thing I've been thinking about lately is like, how do you respond to that, you know, like, what is the? What is the response? And even just like on a kind of, like, a social level, like, is it scathing indictment, like you, you terrible people, you know, you have you have like, you don't care about deaf blind people. And so I hereby cancel you, and I'm going to, like, tweet about how terrible you are? Or is there like a more benign approach, but then you don't get what you need. And like, sort of, and I think, I think a lot of this is a function of my having grown up without a disability, really, you know, I mean, like, growing up, my I went through my, my full education, without ever having to ask for an accommodation, you know, maybe I had to sit a little closer to the board a little bit. But you know, nothing, nothing like what I'm dealing with now. And I think as a result, I am just now starting to wrap my head around, like, how when self advocates and what styles are most effective. And I think that's another really important piece of this conversation, because it's easy, I think, to walk into, you know, cafe x, or, you know, I just did it the other day, yesterday, last night, I saw this really cool looking new magazine about radio, which was an interest of mine, like great for radio producers. And it was print only, you know, and I wrote like, Hey, how can I get an accessible copy of this cool look in new magazine? And they're like, Oh, actually, we're, we're putting our resources all it were kind of a shoestring operation, all our resources are going into the print edition right now. You know, and then, so then I had a question before me, right? Like, do I say, like, Hey, everybody, like, we must not rest until you agitate for these people to make their accessible thing, or I just sort of wrote a friendly note. And I was like, there's a lot of like, blind radio makers out there who might find your stuff interesting. And I like, affectionately urge you to make this accessible. And then, you know, their hearts seems to be in the right place. And they seem to be working on making it happen. So I don't know what's your what's your thinking about that? Like how to respond to those situations.   Michael Hingson ** 22:34 So my belief is whether we like it or not, every one of us needs to be a teacher. And the fact is to deal with with what you just said, let's take the radio magazine, which magazine is it by the way? Oh, I   Andrew Leland ** 22:51 didn't want to call them out by name. Oh, I'm   Michael Hingson ** 22:52 sorry. I was asking for my own curiosity, being very interested in radio myself. So we   Andrew Leland ** 22:57 give them some good and bad press simultaneously. It's called good tape. Okay, it's brand new. And at the moment, it's as of this recording, it's print only. And,   Michael Hingson ** 23:06 and tape is on the way up a good tape. No, that's okay. Anyway, but no, the reason I asked it was mainly out of curiosity. But look, you you kind of answered the question, their heart is in the right place. And it is probably true that they never thought of it. I don't know. But probably, yeah, they didn't think of it. I've seen other magazines like diversity magazine several years ago, I talked with them about the fact that their online version is totally inaccessible. And they have a print version. But none of its accessible. And I haven't seen it change yet, even though we've talked about it. And so they can talk about diversity all they want, and they talk a lot about disabilities, but they don't deal with it. I think that it comes down to what's the organization willing to do I've, I've dealt with a number of organizations that never thought about making a digital presence, accessible or having some sort of alternative way of people getting to the magazine, and I don't expect everybody to produce the magazine and Braille. And nowadays, you don't need to produce a braille version, but you need to produce an accessible version. And if people are willing to work toward that, I don't think that we should grind them into the ground at all if their hearts in the right place. And I can appreciate how this magazine started with print, which is natural. Yeah, but one of the things that you can do when others can do is to help them see maybe how easy it is to create a version that other people can can use for example, I don't know how they produce their magazine, but I will bet you virtual Anything that it starts with some sort of an electronic copy. If it does that, then they could certainly make that electronic copy a version that would be usable and accessible to the end. And then they could still provide it through a subscription process, there's no reason to give it away if they're not giving it away to other people, but they could still make it available. And I also think something else, which is, as you point out in the book, and the country of the blind, so often, things that are done for us, will help other people as well. So great tape is wonderful. But how is a person with dyslexia going to be able to read it? Yeah, so it isn't just blind people who could benefit from having a more accessible version of it. And probably, it would be worth exploring, even discussing with him about finding places to get funding to help make that happen. But if somebody's got their heart in the right place, then I think by all means, we shouldn't bless them. We should be teachers, and we should help them because they won't know how to do that stuff.   Andrew Leland ** 26:10 Ya know, I love that answer to be a teacher. And I think there was I think there was a teacher Lee vibe in my, in my response to them, you know, like, this is a thing that is actually important and useful. And you ought to really seriously consider doing it. You know, I mean, I think if you think about the how people act in the classroom, you know, it's those kinds of teachers who, you know, who, who correct you, but they correct you in a way that makes you want to follow their correction, instead of just ruining your day and making you feel like you're a terrible person. But it's interesting, because if you, you know, I mean, part of a lot of this is the function of the internet. You know, I see a lot of disabled people out there calling out people for doing things and accessibly. And, you know, I feel I'm really split about this, because I really empathize with the frustration that that one feels like, there's an amazing film called, I didn't see you there by a filmmaker named Reed Davenport, who's a wheelchair user. And the film is really just, like, he kind of he mounts a camera to his wheelchair, and a lot of it is like, he almost like turns his wheelchair into a dolly. And there's these these, like, wonderful, like tracking shots of Oakland, where he lived at the time. And there's this there's this incredible scene where it's really just his daily life, like, you know, and it's very similar to the experience of a blind person, like, he'll just be on a street corner hanging out, you know, in somebody's, like, the light screen, you know, like, what do you what are you trying to do, man, and he's like, I'm just here waiting for my car, my ride, you know, like, leave me alone. You don't need to intervene. But there's this incredible scene where there are some workers in his building are like, in the sort of just sort of unclear like they're working. And there's an extension cord, completely blocking the path, the visible entrance to his apartment, and he can't get into his house. And he's just this, like, the, the depth of his anger is so visceral in that moment. You know, and he yells at them, and they're like, oh, sorry, you know, they kind of don't care, you know, but they like, they're like, just give us a second. And he's like, I don't have a second, like, I need to get into my house. Now. You know, he just has no patience for them. And it's understandable, right? Like, imagine you're trying to get home. And as a matter of course, regularly every week, there's something that's preventing you. And then and then and then you see him when he finally gets back into his apartment. He's just like, screaming and rage. And it's, you know, so that rage I think, is entirely earned. You know, like, I don't I don't think that one one should have to mute one's rage and how and be a kindly teacher in that moment. Right. But, so So yeah, so So I kind of see it both ways. Like, there are moments for the rage. And then I guess there are moments for the mortar teacher like because obviously, like the stakes of me, getting access to good tape magazine are very different than the stakes for read like getting into his apartment. Right?   Michael Hingson ** 28:53 Well, yes and no, it's still access. But the other part about it is the next time, that group of people in whatever they're doing to repair or whatever, if they do the same thing, then they clearly haven't learned. Whereas if they go, Oh, we got to make sure we don't block an entrance. Yeah, then they've learned a lesson and so I can understand the rage. I felt it many times myself, and we all have and, and it's understandable. But ultimately, hopefully, we can come down. And depending on how much time there is to do it, go pick out and say, Look, do you see what the problem is here? Yeah. And please, anytime don't block an entrance or raise it way up or do something because a person in a wheelchair can't get in. And that's a problem. I so my wife always was in a wheelchair, and we were married for two years she passed last November. Just the bye He didn't keep up with the spirit is what I tell people is really true. But I remember we were places like Disneyland. And people would just jump over her foot rests, how rude, you know, and other things like that. But we, we faced a lot of it. And we faced it from the double whammy of one person being in a wheelchair and one person being blind. One day, we went to a restaurant. And we walked in, and we were standing at the counter and the hostess behind the counter was just staring at us. And finally, Karen said to me, well, the hostess is here, I don't think she knows who to talk to, you know, because I'm not making necessarily eye contact, and Karen is down below, in in a wheelchair. And so fine. I said, maybe if she would just ask us if we would like to sit down, it would be okay. And you know, it was friendly, and it broke the ice and then it went, went from there. But unfortunately, we, we, we bring up children and we bring up people not recognizing the whole concept of inclusion. And we we really don't teach people how to have the conversation. And I think that that's the real big issue. We don't get drawn into the conversation, which is why diversity is a problem because it doesn't include disabilities.   Andrew Leland ** 31:16 Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, that seems to be changing. You know, I mean, you have you know, you have a lot more experience in this realm than I do. But But But haven't you felt like a real cultural shift over the last, you know, 2030 years about disability being more front of mind in that conversation?   Michael Hingson ** 31:36 I think it's, it's shifted some. The unemployment rate among employable blind people, though, for example, hasn't changed a lot. A lot of things regarding blindness hasn't really, or haven't really changed a lot. And we still have to fight for things like the National Federation of the Blind finally took the American Bar Association, all the way to the Supreme Court, because they wouldn't allow people to use their technology to take the LSAT. Yeah, lawyers of all people and you know, so things like that. There's, there's so many ways that it continues to happen. And I realized we're a low incidence disability. But still, I think, I think the best way to really equate it. You mentioned in Goldstein in the book, Dan, who I saw, I think, is a great lawyer spoke to the NFB in 2008. And one of the things he talked about was Henry, mayor's book all on fire. And it's about William Lloyd Garrison, the abolitionist and he was looking for allies. And he heard about these, these two, I think, two ladies, the Grimm case, sisters who were women's suffragettes, and they and he said, Look, we should get them involved. And people said, no, they're dealing with women's things. We're dealing with abolition, it's two different things. And Garrison said, No, it's all the same thing. And we've got to get people to recognize that it really is all the same thing. The you mentioned, well, you mentioned Fred Schroeder and the American Association of Persons with Disabilities at various points in the book. And in 1997. Fred, when he was RSA Commissioner, went to speak to the AAPD talking about the fact that we should be mandating Braille be taught in schools to all blind and low vision kids. And the way he tells me the story, they said, Well, that's a blindness issue. That's not our issue, because most of those people weren't blind. And that's unfortunate, because the reality is, it's all the same thing.   Andrew Leland ** 33:41 Yeah, no, that's something, uh, Dan Goldstein was a really important person for me to meet very early on in the process of writing the book, because I mean, just because he's, he's brilliant. And yeah, such a long history of, of arguing in a very, you know, legalistic, which is to say, very precise, and, you know, method, methodical way. A lot of these questions about what constitutes a reasonable accommodation, you know, as in like, his, his, the lawsuits that he's brought on behalf of the NFB have really broken ground have been incredibly important. So he's, he was a wonderful resource for me. You know, one of the things that he and I talked about, I remember at the beginning, and then, you know, I had lunch with him earlier this week, you know, we still are talking about it. And it's exactly that that question of, you know, the thing that the thing that really dogged me as I pursued, writing this book, and one of the kinds of questions that hung over it was this question of identity. And, you know, like, the sense that like the NFB argues that blindness is not what defines you. And yet, there it is, in their name, the National Federation of the Blind by and like, Where does where does this identity fit? And, you know, and I think that when you talk about other identities like Like the African American civil rights movement, or, you know, you mentioned the suffragette movement, you know, the feminist movement. You know, and it's interesting to compare these other identity based civil rights movements, and the organized by movement and the disability rights movement. And think about the parallels, but then there's also I think, disconnects as well. And so that was one of the things that I was it was really, really challenging for me to, to write about, but I think it's a really important question. And one that's, that's really evolving right now. You know, one of the things that I discovered was that, you know, in addition to the sort of blind or disability rights movement, that's very much modeled on the civil rights model of like, you know, my the first time I went to the NFB convention in 2018, you know, the banquet speech that Mark Riccobono gave was all about the speech of women and the women in the Federation, you know, which, which someone told me afterwards like, this is all new territory for the NFB, like, you know, they don't, there, there hasn't traditionally been this sort of emphasis on, including other identities, you know, and I found that was, I found that interesting, but then also, I was so struck by a line in that speech, where Riccobono said, you know, the fact that they were women is not as important as the fact that they were blind people fighting for, you know, whatever was like the liberation of blindness. And, you know, so it's, there's still always this emphasis on blindness as, like, the most important organizing characteristic of somebody is a part of that movement. And it makes total sense, right, it's the National Federation of the Blind, and they're fighting that 70% unemployment rate. And, you know, I think by their lights, you don't get there by you know, taking your eyes off the prize in some ways. And, and so I was really struck by some of these other groups that I encountered, particularly in 2020, when a lot of the sort of identity right questions came to the fore with the murder of George Floyd, right. You know, and then I was attending, you know, because it was 2020 it was that the convention was online, and I you know, I read it, this is all in the book, I, I went to the LGBT queue meet up, and which, which is also like a shockingly recent development at the NFB, you know, there's this notorious story where President Maher, you know, ostentatiously tears up a card, at a at an NFB convention where there are LGBT. NFB is trying to organize and have an LGBTQ meet up and he sort of ostentatiously tears it up as soon as he reads what's on the card. You know, a lot of still raw pain among NF beers who I talked to about that incident, anyway, like that this this LGBTQ meetup, you know, there's, there's a speaker who's not part of the NFB named justice, shorter, who works in DC, she's, she's blind, you know, and she's part of what is called the, you know, the Disability Justice Movement, which is very much about decentering whiteness, from the disability rights struggle and centering, black, queer, you know, people of color, who are also disabled, and and in some ways, I've found the NFB struggling to, to connect with with that model. You know, I talked to a Neil Lewis, who's the highest ranking black member of the NFV, you know, and he wrote this really fascinating Braille monitor article in the wake of, of George Floyd's death, where he's sort of really explicitly trying to reconcile, like Black Lives Matter movement with live the life you want, you know, with with NFB slogans, and it's, it's a tough thing to do, he has a tough job and trying to do that, because because of the thing, you know, that that I'm saying about Riccobono, right, it's like he is blind is the most important characteristic, or where do these other qualities fit? So it's a very contemporary argument. And it's one that I think the the organized blind movement is still very actively wrestling with.   Michael Hingson ** 39:02 I think it's a real tough thing. I think that blindness shouldn't be what defines me, but it's part of what defines me, and it shouldn't be that way. It is one of the characteristics that I happen to have, which is why I prefer that we start recognizing that disability doesn't mean lack of ability. Disability is a characteristic that manifests itself in different ways to people and in our case, blindness as part of that. For Women. Women is being a woman as part of it for men being a man as part of it for being short or tall, or black or whatever. Those are all part of what defines us. I do think that the National Federation of the Blind was an organization that evolved because, as I said earlier, we're not being included in the conversation and I think that for the Federation and blindness is the most important thing and ought to be the most important thing. And I think that we need to be very careful as an organization about that. Because if we get too bogged down in every other kind of characteristic that defines people, and move away too much from dealing with blindness, we will weaken what the message and the goals of the National Federation of the Blind are. But we do need to recognize that blindness isn't the only game in town, like eyesight isn't the only game in town. But for us, blindness is the main game in town, because it's what we deal with as an organization. Well,   Andrew Leland ** 40:40 how do you reconcile that with the idea that you were talking about before with with, you know, with the argument that like, you know, with the historical example of, you know, it's the same fight the suffragettes and like it because it doesn't that kind of, isn't that kind of contradicting that idea that like, having the intersection of identities, you know, and these movements all being linked by some kind of grand or systemic oppression, you know, so it is it is relevant? Well,   Michael Hingson ** 41:06 it is, yeah, and I'm not saying it any way that it's not relevant. What I am saying, though, is the case of the Grimm case, sisters, he wanted their support and support of other supportive other people, Garrison did in terms of dealing with abolition, which was appropriate, their main focus was women's suffrage, but it doesn't mean that they can't be involved in and recognize that we all are facing discrimination, and that we can start shaping more of our messages to be more inclusive. And that's the thing that that I don't think is happening nearly as much as it ought to. The fact is that, it doesn't mean that blind people shouldn't be concerned about or dealing with LGBTQ or color, or gender or whatever. Yeah. But our main common binding characteristic is that we're all blind men. So for us, as an organization, that should be what we mostly focus on. It also doesn't mean that we shouldn't be aware of and advocate for and fight for other things as well. But as an organization, collectively, the goal really needs to be dealing with blindness, because if you dilute it too much, then you're not dealing with blindness. And the problem with blindness as being a low incidence disability, that's all too easy to make happen. Right?   Andrew Leland ** 42:35 Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, it's interesting, just thinking about that question of dilution versus strengthening, you know, because I think I think if you ask somebody in the Disability Justice Movement, the dilution happens precisely, with an overemphasis on a single disability, right, and then you lose these like broader coalition's that you can build to, you know, I think I think it comes down to maybe like the way that you are our analysts analyzing the structures of oppression, right, like, right, what is it that's creating that 70% unemployment? Is it something specifically about blindness? Or is it like a broader ableist structure that is connected to a broader racist structure? You know, that's connected to a broader misogynist structure? You know, and I think if you start thinking in those structural terms, then like, coalition building makes a lot more sense, because it's like, I mean, you know, I don't know what kind of political affiliation or what but political orientation to take with us, you know, but certainly the Disability Justice Movement is pretty radically to the left, right. And I think traditionally, the NFB, for instance, has had a lot more socially conservative members and leaders. And so it's, you know, that reconciliation feels almost impossibly vast to to think of like an organization like the NFB taking the kind of like, abolitionist stance that a lot of these disability justice groups take to say, like, actually, capitalism is the problem, right. So yeah, so I mean, the thought experiment only goes so far, like, what like a Disability Justice oriented NFP would look like. But you know, that I think there are young members, you know, and I do think it's a generational thing too. Like, I think there are NF beers in their 20s and 30s, who are really wrestling with those questions right now. And I'm really interested to see what they come up with.   Michael Hingson ** 44:29 I think that the biggest value that the NFB brings overall, and I've actually heard this from some ACB people as well, is that the ENFP has a consistent philosophy about what blindness is and what blindness is. And and that is probably the most important thing that the NFP needs to ensure that it that it doesn't lose. But I think that the whole and the NFP used to be totally As coalition building that goes back to Jernigan and Mauer, although Mauer started to change some of that, and I think it will evolve. But you know, the NFB. And blind people in general have another issue that you sort of brought up in the book, you talk about people who are deaf and hard of hearing, that they form into communities and that they, they have a culture. And we don't see nearly as much of that in the blindness world. And so as a result, we still have blind people or sighted people referring to us and and not ever being called out as blind or visually impaired. But you don't find in the deaf community that people are talking about deaf or hearing impaired, you're liable to be shot. It's deaf or hard of hearing. And yeah, the reality is, it ought to be blind or low vision, because visually impaired is ridiculous on several levels visually, we're not different and impaired. What that's that's a horrible thing to say. But as a as an as a group. I was going to use community, but I but I guess the community isn't, as well formed to deal with it yet. We're not there. And so all too often, we talk about or hear about visually impaired or visual impairment. And that continues to promote the problem that we're trying to eliminate. Mm   Andrew Leland ** 46:22 hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that question of blank community is fascinating. And yeah. And I do think that I mean, you know, from my reading the book, I certainly have found blank community. But, you know, if I really think about it, if I'm really being honest, I think it's more that I've met, it's, you know, my work on the book has given me access to really cool blind people that I have gotten to become friends with, you know, that feels different than, like, welcome to this club, where we meet, you know, on Tuesdays and have our cool like, blind, you know, paragliding meetups, you know, not that not that people aren't doing that, like, then they're a really, you know, I would like to get more if I lived in a more urban center, I'm sure it would be involved in like, you know, the blind running club or whatever, willing to hang out with blind people more regularly, but it doesn't feel like a big community in that way. And it's interesting to think about why. You know, I think one big reason is that it's not, it's not familial, in the same way, you know, Andrew Solomon wrote a really interesting book called far from the tree that gets at this where, you know, like, the when, when, when a child has a different identity than a parent, like, you know, deaf children of hearing adults, you know, there doesn't, there isn't a culture that builds up around that, you know, and it's really like these big deaf families that you have with inherited forms of deafness, or, you know, and then schools for the deaf, that, you know, and with deaf culture in particular, you know, really what we're talking about is language, you know, in sign language, right, creates a whole rich culture around it. Whereas, with hearing blind people, you know, they're more isolated, they're not necessarily automatically you have to, you have to really work to find the other blind people, you know, with, with travel being difficult, it's a lot easier to just like, Get get to the public library to meet up in the first place, and so on. So, yeah, it feels a lot more fractured. And so I think you do see groups more like the NFB or the ACB, who are organizing around political action, rather than, you know, like a culture of folks hanging out going to a movie with open audio description, although, I will say that the weeks that I spent at the Colorado Center for the Blind, you know, which is, you know, you can think of it as like a, you know, it's a training center, but in some ways, it's like an intentional blind community do right where you're like, that's like a blind commune or something. I mean, that is just a beautiful experience, that it's not for everyone in terms of their their training method. But if it is for you, like, wow, like for just such a powerful experience to be in a community, because that is a real community. And it nothing will radically change your sense of what it means to be blind and what it means to be in a black community than then living for a while at a place like that. It was a really transformative experience for me.   Michael Hingson ** 49:11 Do you think that especially as the younger generations are evolving and coming up, that we may see more of a development of a community in the blindness in the blindness world? Or do you think that the other forces are just going to keep that from happening? Well,   Andrew Leland ** 49:30 you know, one of the things that I discovered in writing the book was that, you know, and this is sort of contradicting what I just said, because there there is a blind community. And, you know, I read in the book like, at first I thought that blind techies were another subculture of blindness, like blind birders are blind skateboarders, right. But then the more I looked into it, the more I realized that like being a techie is actually like a kind of a basic feature of being a blind person in the world. You know, and I don't hear if it's 2023 or 1823, you know, because if you think about the problem of blindness, which is access to information, by and large, you know, you basically have to become a self styled information technologist, right? To, to get what you need, whether it's the newspaper, or textbooks or signs, road signs, or whatever else. So. So I do and I do think that like, you know, when my dad was living in the Bay Area in the 90s, you know, when I would go visit him, you know, he was a techie, a sighted techie. And, you know, he would always be part of like, the Berkeley Macintosh user group, just be like, these nerds emailing each other, or, you know, I don't even know if email was around, it was like, late 80s. You know, but people who have like the Mac 512, KS, and they would, they would connect with each other about like, Well, how did you deal with this problem? And like, what kind of serial port blah, blah, blah? And that's a community, right? I mean, those people hang out, they get rise together. And if there's anything like a blind community, it's the blind techie community, you know, and I like to tell the story about Jonathan mosun. I'm sure you've encountered him in your trailer. I know Jonathan. Yeah. You know, so I, when I discovered his podcast, which is now called Living blind, fully blind, fully, yeah. Yeah. I, I was like, oh, okay, here are the conversations I've been looking for, because he will very regularly cover the kind of like social identity questions that I'm interested in, like, you know, is Braille like, is the only way for a blind person to have true literacy through Braille? Or is using a screen reader literacy, you know? Or like, is there such a thing as blind pride? And if so, what is it? I was like? These are the kinds of questions I was asking. And so I was so delighted to find it. But then in order to, in order to get to those conversations, you have to sit through like 20 minutes of like, one password on Windows 11 stopped working when I upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11. And so like, what, you know, if you what Jaws command, can I use in and I was like, why is this? Why is there like 20 minutes of Jaws chat in between these, like, really interesting philosophical conversations. And eventually, I realized, like, oh, because that's like, what this community needs and what it's interested in. And so in some ways, like the real blind community is like the user group, which I think is actually a beautiful thing. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 52:14 Well, it is definitely a part of it. And we do have to be information technologists, in a lot of ways. Have you met? And do you know, Curtis Chang,   Andrew Leland ** 52:23 I've met him very briefly at an NFB convention. So Curtis,   Michael Hingson ** 52:28 and I have known each other Gosh, since the 1970s. And we both are very deeply involved in a lot of things with technology. He worked in various aspects of assistive technology worked at the NFB center for a while and things like that, but he always talks about how blind people and and I've heard this and other presentations around the NFB, where blind people as Curtis would put it, have to muddle through and figure out websites. And, and the fact is, we do it, because there are so many that are inaccessible. I joined accessibe two years ago, two and a half years ago. And there are a lot of people that don't like the artificial, intelligent process that accessibe uses. It works however, and people don't really look far enough that we're not, I think, being as visionary as we ought to be. We're not doing what we did with Ray Kurzweil. And look, when the Kurzweil project started with the NFB Jernigan had to be dragged kicking and screaming into it, but Ray was so emphatic. And Jim Gasol at the Washington office, finally convinced kindred again to let him go see, raised machine, but the rules were that it didn't matter what Ray would put on the machine to read it and had to read what Gasol brought up. Well, he brought it did and the relationship began, and it's been going ever since and, and I worked, running the project and the sense on a day to day basis, I traveled I lived out of hotels and suitcases for 18 months as we put machines all over and then I went to work for Ray. And then I ended up having to go into sales selling not the reading machine, but the data entry machine, but I guess I kept to consistently see the vision that Ray was bringing, and I think he helped drag, in some ways the NFB as an organization, more into technology than it was willing to do before. Interesting.   Andrew Leland ** 54:27 Yeah, I heard a similar comment. The one thing I got wrong in the first edition of the book that I'm correcting for subsequent reprints, but I really bungled the description of the Opticon. And my friend, Robert Engel Britton, who's a linguist at Rice University, who collects opera cones. I think he has got probably like a dozen of them in his house. You know, he helped me you know, because I didn't have a chance to use one. Right he helped me get a better version of it. But he also sent me a quote, I think it was from Jernigan was similar thing where like, I think they were trying to get the public I'm included with, you know, voc rehab, so that that students could not voc rehab or whatever like so that students could get blind students could use them. And it was the same thing of like, you know, this newfangled gizmo is not going to help, you know, Braille is what kids need. So I do that, that's all to say that that makes sense to me that resistance to technology, you know, and it's like, it's a, it's a, it's a sort of conservative stance of like, we understand that what blind people need are is Braille and access to, you know, equal access. And don't don't try to give us any anything else. And you know, and I think, to be fair, like, even though the Opticon sounded like an incredibly useful tool, as is, of course, the Kurzweil Reading Machine and everything that followed from it. There. There is, you know, talking, I talked to Josh Meili, for the book, who's who now works at Amazon, you know, he had this great story about his mentor, Bill, Gary, who, who would, who would basically get a phone call, like once a week from a well, very well meaning like retired sighted engineer, who would say like, oh, you know, what the blind need? It's like the laser cane, right? Or the Yeah, it's like, basically like a sippy cup for blind people like so that they don't spill juice all over themselves. And, you know, and Gary would very patiently be like, Oh, actually, they don't think that that would be helpful to do probably, yeah. Talk to a blind person first, maybe before you spend any more time trying to invent something that blind people don't need. So I think that resistance to like newfangled technology, there's a good reason for it. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 56:26 there is but the willingness to take the Opticon. Look, I think the fastest I ever heard of anybody reading with an optical was like 70 or 80 words a minute, and there are only a few people who did that. Yeah. You know, Candy Lynnville, the daughter of the engineer who invented it, could and Sue Mel Rose, who was someone I knew, was able to and a few people were but what the Opticon did do even if it was slow, yeah, it was it still gave you access to information that you otherwise didn't get access to. And, and I had an optic on for a while. And the point was, you could learn to read and learn printed letters and learn to read them. It wasn't fast. But you could still do it. Yeah. And so it, it did help. But it wasn't going to be the panacea. I think that tele sensory systems wanted it to be you know, and then you talked about Harvey Lauer who also develop and was involved in developing the stereo toner, which was the audience since the audio version of the optic comm where everything was represented audio wise, and, and I spent a lot of time with Harvey Harvey at Heinz a long time ago. But the the fact is, I think the question is valid is listening, and so on literacy is literacy, like Braille. And I think there is a difference there is, are you illiterate, if you can't read Braille, you point out the issues about grammar, the issues about spelling and so on. And I think that there is a valid reason for people learning Braille at the Colorado Center, they would tell you, for senior blind people, you may not learn much Braille, but you can learn enough to be able to take notes and things like that, or, or put labels on your, your soup cans, and so on. So it's again, going to be different for different people. But we are in a society where Braille has been so de emphasized. And that's the fault of the educational system for not urging and insisting that more people be able to use Braille. And that's something that we do have to deal with. So I think there is a literacy problem when people don't learn braille. But I also think that, again, there are a lot of things that Braille would be good for, but using audio makes it go faster. It doesn't mean you shouldn't learn braille, though, right? Yeah,   Andrew Leland ** 58:51 no, it's another I think it's interesting. And it's a related idea, this, this sense that technology, you know, this like, just sort of wave your hands and say the word technology as a sort of panacea, where I think, you know, it's, it's a tragic story where, where people will say, Oh, well, you know, little Johnny has, you know, some vision. So like, he could just use technology, like he doesn't need Braille. And it's fascinating to me, because I never really felt it. And maybe it's because I encountered Braille at a point in my development as a blind person that I really was hungry for it. But, you know, people talk about Braille the way they talked about the white cane, like the white cane, I felt so much shame about using in public, and it's such, it's just so stigmatized, whereas Braille, I just always thought it was kind of cool. But you know, you hear it so much from parents where they it's just like their heartbreak seeing their child reading with their fingers, which is, you know, and so as a result, they're like, why don't I just buy like a gigantic magnifier, that maybe in five years, you're not gonna be able to use anyway, but like, at least you're reading the same type of book that   Michael Hingson ** 59:56 half hour or 45 minutes until you start getting headaches. Exactly. And that, you know, I worked on a proposal once. I was an evaluator for it. We were in a school in Chicago, and one of the teachers talked about Sally who could see and Johnny, who was totally blind, literally, it was Sally and Johnny. And she said, Sally gets to read print, Johnny has to read Braille. Sally couldn't read print very fast. her eyesight wasn't good. Yeah, she got to read print. And Johnny had to read Braille. Yeah, it's the kind of thing that we we see all the time. And it's so unfortunate. So yeah, I, I do understand a lot of the technology resistance. But again, people like Ray helped us vision a little differently. But unfortunately, getting that conversation to other people, outside of the NFB community, like teachers and so on, is so hard because so many people are looking at it from a science point of view and not recognizing it as it should be. The the NFB did a video that did it. Several, they have had a whole series of things regarding Braille. But they interviewed a number of people who had some residual vision, who were never allowed to learn to read Braille. And invariably, these people say how horrible it was that they didn't get to learn to read Braille, they learned it later. And they're, they're reading slower than they really should. But they see the value of it. And it's important that we hopefully work to change some of those conversations. Yeah,   Andrew Leland ** 1:01:33 I mean, it gets back to our earlier in our conversation a

I met Rishika Kartik through her father while at a board meeting of the Colorado Center for the Blind. Rishika currently is a sophomore at Brown University.   As you will hear during our conversation, Rishika is extremely articulate. More importantly, she is very curious about almost everything and she loves to learn. She came by these traits honestly through the guidance of her parents. As a Freshman at Brown last year, she taught a course, started her own company/initiative and she has delivered a TEDx talk.   It was quite stimulating to hear Rishika talk about the life experiences she already has had and what she has learned about herself and others. She has some great insights that I am certain will agree with you. Already she has plans for activities for this year that she will talk about. I can hardly wait for her plans to become real activities we all can experience.     About the Guest:   Rishika Kartik is a creative activist and disability advocate. She works to improve holistic community health and make spaces, products, and experiences more accessible to those with disabilities. As the founder of “Touch and Create Studios” and the “Vision of the Artist's Soul” project, she has worked to make museums more inclusive and increase artistic and educational opportunities for blind people nationwide. As a sighted member of the National Federation of the Blind, she has collaborated with mentors to advocate for legislation at the Capitol and teach blind children STEM, braille literacy, and independent living skills training. Rishika is a TEDx speaker, a 2022 U.S. Presidential Scholar, a Coca-Cola Scholar, a Live Más Scholar, and the recipient of the 2021 INSITE Grant, the 2020 Arts In Society Grant, and the 2021 Dairy Arts Center Micro-Grant . She also explores youth advocacy as a board member of Mirror Image Arts, a nonprofit that disrupts the school-to-prison pipeline through participatory theater. A current undergraduate student at Brown University, Rishika is creating her own major in “Disability and Design.” In her free time, Rishika is the 2023-2024 Co-Studio Lead for Brown/RISD Design for America, 2023 President of Brown Arts and Politics, a Student Associate for the Conference for Research on Choreographic Interfaces, and a proud supporter of Disability Justice at Brown. Rishika's greatest joy lies in teaching, learning, and relationship-building. In the past, she has done social science research at the Bedny Neuroplasticity Lab at Johns Hopkins and the American Foundation for the Blind, as well as medical research for the Department of Obstetrics and Reconstructive Pelvic Surgery at CU Anschutz Medical Campus. She is currently conducting independent research as a 2023 Royce Fellowship Recipient analyzing the importance of "tactile fluency" for rehabilitation in blind communities. In Spring of 2023, Rishika partnered with 2 blind peers to create and teach a new course at Brown: "Blindness, Arts, and Media," and her writing has been published in papers such as Future Reflections Magazine and the Braille Monitor. In the future, she hopes to continue advocacy work through public speaking, artwork, design, and blogs on my website, rishikastudio.com.     Ways to connect with Rishika:   Website: https://www.rishikastudio.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rishika-kartik/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rishikakstudio/ Tedx Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jiTWP0lCls     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

Emotionally Focused Therapy is an attachment-based model working in the zone of live emotions to help create second-order change. Join We Heart Therapy Host Dr. Belle, PhD, LMFT and Jim Thomas, ICEEFT Certified EFT Trainer & Therapist as they discuss how to get unstuck from intellectualizing emotions to going deeper into connecting to real live emotion in session. For more information on EFT and Sue Johnson, click below: http://drsuejohnson.com or http://www.iceeft.com Jim Thomas is one of the founders of the Colorado Center for EFT in Denver. Find more information on Jim Thomas, visit his website: https://jimthomas.care/ or https://www.coloradoeft.com/ For more information on your host visit: http://www.LasVegasMarriageCounseling... http://www.WeHeartTherapy.com https://www.drbelle.com

Thinking about returning to work, “working in retirement,” or launching an encore career? Ever experienced ageism in the workplace, felt pressured to leave a job before you're ready, or overwhelmed at the thought of trying to rejoin the workforce?The last week of September is National Employ Older Workers Week. Join Jan M. Flynn in conversation with Janine Vanderburg, founder of Changing the Narrative, a leading  initiative working to increase awareness of ageism and change how people think, talk, and act about aging and ageism.Leading Changing the Narrative, is Janine's encore career. She's led media and social media campaigns about the value of older folks, advocated for age-friendly public policies and stronger anti-discrimination laws, launched an anti-ageist birthday card campaign, and trained over 10,000 people in research-based messaging to counter negative stereotypes of older people and advocate the adoption of age-friendly policies. Janine has been recognized by the City of Denver, Denver Regional Council of Governments and the Colorado Center for Aging for her innovation and advocacy for older adults. Her favorite saying: “We are the leaders we are looking for.”Links To ResourcesChanging the Narrative website: https://changingthenarrativeco.org/Anti-ageist birthday card campaign page (that also links to artist cards):https://changingthenarrativeco.org/anti-ageist-birthday-cards/Resources on age-friendly workplaces:https://changingthenarrativeco.org/resources-2023/age-friendly-workplace-resources/Support the show

Hello everybody!   Welcome to our September 2023 monthly Digest: a monthly newsletter of the National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania!   The events and information listed below will be within the National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania as well as any pertinent information from the National Federation of the Blind and the Pennsylvania blind community.   If you or anyone you know have any upcoming events or information that can pertain to the blind community in Pennsylvania, please send them to Stacie Leap at nfb.stacie@gmail.com  by the 27th of the month so it an be added to our calendar for the following month.       For those using screen readers, you can use your heading navigations to skip around the email.     A Message from our State Affiliate President   Happy September Federation Family!   It is hard to believe that State Convention is 2 months away.  Our National Representative this year is Pam Allen, 1st Vice President of the NFB. There is only a short time to register for the Convention at the Early Bird price.  On September 15, the registration increases to $25.  Register early and save!   Looking forward to speaking with you on Coffee with The President on Wednesday, September 6 at 7:30PM!       - Lynn Heitz   President, National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania   president@NFBOfPA.org      Google Calendar Links    The National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania also has a Google Calendar that can be viewed either through the web or subscribed to your calendar apps.   You can view the calendar without subscribing to it and view it on your web browser by going to NFBofPA.org/calendar/.  However, if you wish to subscribe to the calendar and get the events on your calendar apps, please click Subscribe link in the show notes and go through the steps to subscribe:     Member Spotlight: Angelina Angelcyk    Each month, we will highlight someone within our affiliate. The goal is to allow other members to learn about other members within the affiliate. We hope you enjoy this little spotlight!       Angelina Angelcyk serves as one of our board members for the National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania. Serving as the youngest board member, she is the student representative. Angelina is a senior of her high school in the Greater Pittsburgh area. You might recognize her name and voice at many NFB events, both nationally and locally. She showcases her piano skills and singing ability at the annual Piano Bar that is hosted by the student division. She is a part of a band, Spectrum, and recently performed alongside Pittsburgh musician Norman Mardini. A woman of many talents, she performed as Rafiki from the Lion King at the Geyer Performing Arts Center in July 2023. She also sings at many events and sells Sachets during our state convention. If you ever get a chance to meet Angelina, do not forget to say, “Hello!”      Calendar of Events    The following events are also on our Google calendar with the Zoom information or meeting location. If anyone within a chapter, division, or group see any errors or misinformation, please contact Stacie Leap at nfb.stacie@gmail.com       The below information is correct as of the first week of the month. The information is most up-to-date on the Google Calendar so please check back periodically to ensure the right information.      Jigsaw Chapter monthly Meeting    a monthly meeting for those who do not have a local chapter in their geographical area. This is our at-large chapter Meetings This meeting is typically held on the 1st Saturday of the month.   Saturday, September 2, 2023 at 10 AM      Coffee with the State President and Board   This monthly discussion meeting brings everybody together to get to know the state affiliate board members and the happenings within the state's divisions, chapters, and advocacy efforts. This meeting is typically held the 1st Wednesday of the month.   Wednesday, September 6, 2023 at 7:30 PM      Greater Berks Chapter Monthly Meeting    A monthly meeting for those who live in the Greater Berks County of Pennsylvania This meeting is typically held on the 2nd Friday of the month.   Friday, September 8, 2023 at 10 AM       Greater Lehigh Valley Chapter Monthly Meeting    A monthly meeting for those who live in the Greater Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania.  This includes Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton, and the surrounding areas. This meeting is typically held on the 2nd Saturday of the month.   Saturday, September 9, 2023 at 10 AM       Keystone Chapter Monthly Meeting    a monthly meeting for those who live in the Philadelphia area. This is one of two local chapters in the Philadelphia area. The other chapter is the Greater Philadelphia Chapter. This meeting is typically held on the 2nd Saturday of the month.   Saturday, September 9, 2023 at 10:15 AM      Happy Valley Chapter Monthly Meeting     A monthly meeting for those who live in or surrounding State College, Pennsylvania.  This meeting is typically held on the 2nd Saturday of the month.   Saturday, September 9, 2023 at 1:00 PM     Board of Directors Quarterly Meeting   This meeting is the quarterly meeting for the board of directors. Only those in the board can make motions and vote but all are invited to be a part of the meeting.   Sunday, September 10, 2023 at 7:30 PM      Deaf Blind Division Monthly Meeting    a monthly meeting for those who consider themselves to be Deaf Blind and their supporters. This meeting is typically held on the 2nd Monday of the month.   Monday, September 11, 2023 at 6:00 PM       Pennsylvania Association of Blind Merchants (PABM) Monthly Meeting    a monthly meeting for those who are or wish to be involved with the Business Enterprise Program, entrepreneurship, and their supporters. This meeting is typically held on the 2nd Wednesday of the month.   Wednesday, September 13, 2023 at 6:00 PM       Capital Area Chapter Monthly Meeting    a monthly meeting for those who live in the Greater Harrisburg area. This meeting is typically held on the 3rd Saturday of the month.   Saturday, September 16, 2023 at 10:00 AM       Erie County Chapter Monthly Meeting    a monthly meeting for those who live in Erie County Pennsylvania. This meeting is typically held on the 3rd Saturday of the month.   Saturday, September 16, 2023 at 2:00 PM       Blind Parents Group Monthly Meeting    a monthly meeting for blind parents, grandparents, and their supporters This meeting is typically held on the 3rd Saturday of the month.   Saturday, September 16, 2023 at 7:00 PM      Pennsylvania Organization of Parents of Blind Children (PAOPBC) Monthly Meeting    a monthly meeting for parents of blind children and their supporters This meeting is typically held on the 3rd Tuesday of the month.   Tuesday, September 19, 2023 at 1:00 PM       Pittsburgh Chapter Monthly Meeting    A monthly meeting for those who live in the Greater Pittsburgh area. This meeting is typically held on the 3rd Wednesday of the month.   Wednesday, September 20, 2023 at 6:00 PM      Greater Philadelphia Chapter Monthly Meeting    a monthly meeting for those who live in the Philadelphia area. This is one of two local chapters in the Philadelphia area.  The other chapter is the Keystone Chapter. This meeting is typically held on the 4th Saturday of the month.   Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 10:00 AM      Brandywine Valley Chapter Monthly Meeting    a monthly meeting for those who live in the Brandywine Valley area of PA. This meeting is typically held on the 4th Saturday of the month.   Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 10:00 AM      Pennsylvania Association of Guide Dog Users (PAGDU) Monthly Meeting    a monthly meeting for those who have or are considering getting a guide dog as well as their supporters. This meeting is typically held on the 4th Saturday of the month.   Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 4:00 PM      Pennsylvania Association of Blind Students (PABS) Monthly Meeting    a monthly meeting for blind students of all ages and their supporters. This meeting is typically held on the 4th Monday of the month.   Monday, September 25, 2023 at 7:00 PM      Blind Seniors Group Monthly Meeting    a monthly meeting for those who are seniors or almost seniors as well as their supporters. This meeting is typically held on the 4th Wednesday of the month.   Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 7:30 PM      White Canes Connect Podcast    Did you know that the National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania has a podcast? It is hosted by members David Goldstein and Lisa Bryant as well as some guest hosts. It features interviews with our PA members as well as interviews and resources for the blind community. The monthly digest is also on the podcast for those who wish to hear a human's voice instead of a screen reader. You can listen to it wherever you listen to podcasts.   Listen on  Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, IHeartRadio, and on YouTube @PABlindPodcast. Contact White Canes Connect at whitecanesconnect@gmail.com if you have any show ideas or wish to be on the podcast.      State Convention 2023     Our State Convention is coming up soon! Mark your calendar! Clear your agendas! We will be convening from November 9 to 12, 2023 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Harrisburg, PA!   Please see the links below to register for the convention as well to reserve your hotel rooms! Room rates are $99 a night. We will have a Senior Possibilities Fair, Technology Seminars, Talent Showcase/Live Auction, special interest groups and division meetings and so much more! We hope to hang out with you at the convention!   Attendee Registration for State Convention:   https://nfbofpa.org/2023-state-convention-registration/   Info on making hotel reservations at the Crowne Plaza Harrisburg:   https://nfbofpa.org/reservations-for-crowne-plaza-hotel/     Senior Possibilities Fair 2023   We will also have a senior possibilities fair on the morning of Thursday, November 9, 2023. There is a separate registration form for this event and can be found at the following link:  https://nfbofpa.org/senior-possibilities-fair/     Talent Showcase   For those who will be attending the convention in-person, we are looking for performers of all talents to showcase them at the talent show which will take place on the evening of Friday, November 10, 2023. If you are interested in performing, please contact Stacie Leap at Stacie.leap@gmail.com      Shout-Outs and Announcements!  Birthday Wishes    The National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania would like to wish all those who were born in September a very happy birthday!     Rest in Peace Tom Anderson   Tom Anderson served as the Chair of the Blind Christians Group after it was changed from the Communities of Faith division. This email was from Dan Burke:   "Dear friends and Federation family -       Julie and I are heart-broken to tell you that Tom Anderson, the beloved first-Braille teacher at CCB and one of the two staff members who opened the doors of the Colorado Center for the Blind in 1988 with Diane McGeorge, died Tuesday afternoon. Tom had been in the hospital for about two weeks in Kansas where he and his wife, Linda returned after tom's retirement from CCB in 2015. He passed quietly from this life with his dear Linda holding one of his hands and his twin sister Toni holding the other.       Tom had cancer nearly 20 years ago, but was cancer free until about two years ago. He entered treatments and finished them early this year. He and Linda came to the national convention in Houston, and it was wonderful for all of us to see him. He was so obviously excited to be back at the convention again. But he became ill after they returned home and eventually was hospitalized.       Tom was a man of faith and a minister, having his own small church in Littleton for a number of years. He was also a staunch, life-long Federationist, holding many offices  at the chapter, state and  national levels, including the Denver Chapter President, the NFB of Kansas state board, and the long-time President of the NFB in Communities of Faith.       Tom was such a good man, a dedicated and patient teacher of Braille to hundreds of blind students over the 27 years he taught at the Center, if also exacting and sometimes stern. He embraced his nickname, “Dr.  Dots,” loved to page students late for his class with, “Henrietta, the dots await your fingers,” and had one of the most endearing and genuine laughs ever heard in the halls of CCB. No one had a laugh like Tom's, and he laughed often and easily.        Julie spoke with Linda this afternoon. At this time, there is no public memorial scheduled. Please send Linda and the family your prayers and positive thoughts.   Rest in peace, dear, kind and loving friend and teacher to so many.”      Fundraisers  Blind Parents Group T-Shirts Fundraiser    The t-shirts come in either black with white letterings or white with black letterings. Both shirts say “I Support #BlindParents” with the NFB of PA Logo and “Blind Parents Group” at the bottom. Funds raised will start a scholarship fund to assist blind or visually impaired parents and their family through financial life hardships. To purchase a t-shirt, please contact Stacie Leap at nfb.stacie@gmail.com     Dancing in the Dark   The Greater Lehigh Valley Chapter will be hosting their annual Dancing in the Dark event on Friday October 13, 2023.   On Friday October 13th we Joyously invite you to enjoy a night of fun and enlightenment to celebrate ational Meet the Blind Month and White Cane Day. This is a semi-formal evening of dinner, music and dancing.   Cocktails begin @ 6:00 PM   .  Tickets are $75 and the deadline to purchase ticket is September 15, 2023.   This event will be held at: Blue Grillhouse   . (4431 Easton Avenue. Bethlehem, PA 18020)   There are four menu selections:   1. Flounder stuffed with jumbo crab in lemon cream sauce   2. Chicken breast marsala   3. Slow roasted prime rib of beef - traditional or horseradish crusted   4. Roasted Zucchini with Quinoa   Contact the Event Chair Jemmie Jones for more info and to purchase tickets: 908-391-8375      Believe You Can! Talent Show     SAVE THE DATE: The Keystone Chapter will be having their annual talent show fundraiser on Saturday, October 14, 2023 at 8 PM ET. If you wish to be a performer, please complete the Google Form: BelieveYouCan.live/talent.   Tickets are on sale now at BelieveYouCan.live/tickets.    For more information, please visit their website: believeYouCan.live or contact David Goldstein at david@iCantCU.com If you wish to be a performer or have any questions, please contact BelieveYouCanShow@gmail.com      Other External Events    These events are not hosted or sponsored by the NFB or the NFB of PA. However, we think these might be good resources for those living in Pennsylvania. If you have any events that you wish to be in our monthly digest, please email Stacie Leap at nfb.stacie@gmail.com      Liberty Resources' Blind/Low Vision Support Group    Our members Karen Rose and Simone Cooper partner up with Liberty Resources to hold a weekly virtual support group at Liberty Resources. The aim is to share resources and provide support to those experiencing blindness or low vision. Meetings are weekly on Tuesdays from 1pm to 2pm ET via Zoom. You do not need to live in Philadelphia to attend these meetings, this is open to all in Pennsylvania! For more information or to sign-up, please email Latoya Maddox at LatoyaMaddox@libertyresources.org       Purple Path Awareness Walk   Purple Path is an awareness walk about domestic violence. It will be a day filled with testimonials, live entertainment, raffles, food, resources/information tables and much more! The event will be on October 7, 2023 from 12PM to 4PM at 800 Macdade Blvd.Collingdale, PA 19023. More information including volunteering, sponsorships, and registering can be found on their website: www.purplehouseporjectpa.org      Women Healed For a Purpose 2023 Conference!    Our member Lyvette Byrd is hosting her 2nd Annual Women Healed For a Purpose Conference under her business, For the Byrds Consulting, LLC. The mission of the conference is to equip and restore the community through a faith-based initiative that we hope will strengthen women holistically; mind, body, and spirit.   We are women Living Interdependently in support of Family, Friends, and our Fellow neighbors to Educate and Empower our community. The event will be on Saturday, October 28, 2023.  There will be guest speakers, and live entertainment. There will be an in-person option as well as a Zoom option. For more information including vending opportunities, volunteering, or to register, please visit the For The Byrds Consulting website .      NFB Pledge    I pledge to participate actively in the efforts of the National Federation of the Blind; to achieve equality, opportunity, and security for the blind; to support the policies and programs of the Federation; and to abide by its constitution.      NFB Message    The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise the expectations of blind people, because low expectations create obstacles between blind people and our dreams.       Many thanks to everybody for all they do within the Federation!       Thanks!   the National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania team   www.NFBofPA.org

How do individuals move from being homeless to finding safe, stable, and secure places to live? Can we recreate the conditions that helped them most? What policies are needed to support what worked―and to remove common obstacles? Addressing these questions, Jamie Rife and Donald Burnes start from the premise that the most important voices in efforts to end homelessness are the ones most often missing from the discussion: the voices of those with lived experience. In Journeys Out of Homelessness: The Voices of Lived Experience (Lynne Rienner, 2020), they gather the first-person stories of some who have not only survived, but thrived, going on to find positive home situations. Highlighting what we can learn from these personal stories, Rife and Burnes combine them with in-depth discussions of key themes and issues and point to the shifts necessary in current policy and practice that are essential if we are to effectively respond to a problem that has reached epic proportions. Jamie Rife is executive director of the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative. Donald W. Burnes is founder of and senior adviser to the Burnes Center on Poverty and Homelessness at the Colorado Center on Law and Poverty. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

How do individuals move from being homeless to finding safe, stable, and secure places to live? Can we recreate the conditions that helped them most? What policies are needed to support what worked―and to remove common obstacles? Addressing these questions, Jamie Rife and Donald Burnes start from the premise that the most important voices in efforts to end homelessness are the ones most often missing from the discussion: the voices of those with lived experience. In Journeys Out of Homelessness: The Voices of Lived Experience (Lynne Rienner, 2020), they gather the first-person stories of some who have not only survived, but thrived, going on to find positive home situations. Highlighting what we can learn from these personal stories, Rife and Burnes combine them with in-depth discussions of key themes and issues and point to the shifts necessary in current policy and practice that are essential if we are to effectively respond to a problem that has reached epic proportions. Jamie Rife is executive director of the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative. Donald W. Burnes is founder of and senior adviser to the Burnes Center on Poverty and Homelessness at the Colorado Center on Law and Poverty. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

How do individuals move from being homeless to finding safe, stable, and secure places to live? Can we recreate the conditions that helped them most? What policies are needed to support what worked―and to remove common obstacles? Addressing these questions, Jamie Rife and Donald Burnes start from the premise that the most important voices in efforts to end homelessness are the ones most often missing from the discussion: the voices of those with lived experience. In Journeys Out of Homelessness: The Voices of Lived Experience (Lynne Rienner, 2020), they gather the first-person stories of some who have not only survived, but thrived, going on to find positive home situations. Highlighting what we can learn from these personal stories, Rife and Burnes combine them with in-depth discussions of key themes and issues and point to the shifts necessary in current policy and practice that are essential if we are to effectively respond to a problem that has reached epic proportions. Jamie Rife is executive director of the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative. Donald W. Burnes is founder of and senior adviser to the Burnes Center on Poverty and Homelessness at the Colorado Center on Law and Poverty. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

In this episode, we delve into the critical issue of housing instability faced by hardworking individuals who are often overlooked in our community. Many individuals work diligently, both salaried and waged jobs, yet find themselves unable to make ends meet in an increasingly unaffordable housing market. We explore the concept of self-sufficiency and the income levels needed to maintain stable living conditions. Unfortunately, the reality is that income levels rarely match the actual need, causing severe disparities in housing affordability for countless individuals in our city. We also bring hope through our discussion of programs that are making a difference. One such program is the Elevation Community Land Trust (ECLT), which aims to provide permanent affordable homeownership opportunities. We sit down with Stefka Fanchi, the Executive Director of ECLT, to learn more about this innovative approach to housing stability and how it helps families build generational stability. We also hear from Charlie Brennan from the Colorado Center for Law & Policy (CCLP) to talk about the Self-Sufficiency Standard. We hope it inspires compassion and empathy towards those struggling to find a place they can truly call home, and highlights the urgent need for solutions that bridge the gap between income levels and housing affordability, creating opportunities for individuals and families to thrive.If you like it, please leave us a rating and share the episode!We also need funding to finish Season 2. Continue donating here: https://www.coloradogives.org/story/Elevateddenver.

Rachel Kapp, M.Ed., BCET, and Stephanie Pitts, M.Ed., BCET welcome back friend of the podcast, Dr. Jeremy Sharp. Dr. Sharp is a licensed psychologist who owns and operates The Colorado Center for Assessment & Psychology. He also hosts the Testing Psychologist podcast, which has featured Rachel and Stephanie before. They dig into assessments and when and why you should reassess your learner.  He talks about changes in functioning and changes in circumstances and environment as being two reasons to have your learner reassessed. They discuss under which circumstances under which a reassessment would be required. They talk about what happens if parents disagree and accessibility of reports from a non-educator reader. Connecting with Jeremy Sharp: www.coloradocac.com www.thetestingpsychologist.com   Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/learnsmarterpodcast   How to connect with us: Join our e-mail list Rachel's Kapp Educational Therapy Group website Steph's My Ed Therapist website  @learnsmarterpodcast, @kappedtherapy, @myedtherapist Other episodes mentioned: Ep 133:  What Your Assessor Wants You to Know with Dr. Jeremy Sharp (Professionals Series) The Testing Psychologist  Ep 145: Learning at Home The Testing Psychologist Ep 102: Educational Therapy and Executive Functioning  

In this episode of White Canes Connect, Stacie and David talk with Ann Cunningham from Sensational Books and the creator of the Sensational Blackboard. Ann shares her personal story and discusses the powerful impact of the Sensational Blackboard on the blind community. The device allows individuals to create raised line drawings using regular paper and a ballpoint pen, making it accessible. The interview highlights the emotional experience of using the Sensational Blackboard and its potential for enhancing communication and creativity. Ann discusses the size of the Sensational Blackboard, which is slightly larger than an 8.5 by 11-inch sheet of paper. There is also a smaller travel-sized version available. She also tells us of her 24 years as an instructor at the Colorado Center teaching art. Ann will be in the exhibit hall of #NFB23, so stop by her table, say hello, and check out the Sensational Blackboard. Show notes at https://www.whitecanesconnect.com/077    Connect With Ann Cunningham Contact Ann via email at ann@sensationalbooks.com. Learn more about the Sensational Blackboard and Sensational Books at https://sensationalbooks.com/.  Connect with Ann on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/artacunningham/. Support the NFB of PA & White Cane Coffee Support the NFB of PA with every purchase at White Cane Coffee Company by going to https://www.whitecanecoffee.com/ref/nfbp. When you use that link to purchase from White Cane Coffee, the NFB of PA earns a 10% commission! Share the link with your family and friends! Listen to Erin and Bob Willman from White Cane Coffee on episode 072 of White Canes Connect. Give Us A Call We'd love to hear from you! We've got a phone number for you to call, ask us questions, give us feedback, or say, "Hi!" Call us at (267) 338-4495. You have up to three minutes for your message, and we might use it on an upcoming episode. Please leave your name and town as part of your message.  Follow White Canes Connect Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon | IHeartRadio  Connect With Us If you've got questions, comments, or show ideas, reach out on Twitter. We are @PABlindPodcast. You can also email us at WhiteCanesConnect@gmail.com.   Braille Crayon coding system at NYPL @artacunningham on Instagram ann@sensationalbooks.com

Michael Hingson, blind since birth, was born in Chicago to sighted parents who believed in raising their son with a can-do attitude. Treated like all other children in his family, Michael rode a bike did advanced math in his head and learn to read and write - Braille that is! Michael's family relocated to the warm Palmdale area of California when he was five years old. It is here that Hingson had his first adventure with Guide Dogs for the Blind and received his first guide dog. He later went to college receiving a bachelor's and master's degree in Physics along with a secondary teaching credential from the University of California at Irvine. Michael then enjoyed a nearly-30-year career working for high tech companies spending most of his time in management roles. Michael Hingson's life changed dramatically on September 11, 2001 when he and his guide dog, Roselle, escaped from the 78th floor of Tower One in the World Trade Center moments before it collapsed. Soon after, Michael and Roselle were thrust into the international limelight where Michael began to share his unique survival story and 9-11 lessons of trust, courage, heroism, and teamwork. Mike has served as The National Public Affairs Director for one of the largest Nonprofit organizations in the nation: Guide Dogs for the Blind; He serves as the vice president of the National Association of Guide Dog Users; Michael holds seats on other agency boards including the Fort Worth Lighthouse for the Blind, the Earle Baum Center for the Blind and the Colorado Center for the Blind; Michael is The National Ambassador for the Braille Literacy Campaign of the National Federation of the Blind. He is the Founder of the Roselle's Dream Foundation - helping the blind obtain the technology they need to not only excel in school and at work, but to live out their dreams! Until October 2019 he worked as the CEO of the Do More Foundation, the non-profit arm of Aira Tech Corp, a manufacturer of assistive technology which makes a revolutionary visual interpreter for blind people. He is the author of the #1 New York Times Best Seller: "Thunder dog -The True Story of a Blind Man, a Guide Dog & the Triumph of Trust" - selling over 2.5 million copies Worldwide. In 2014 Mr. Hingson published his 2nd book "Running with Roselle"- which Is the first of its kind- A story for our youth shedding light on one of Americas Darkest Days. Aside from his talents and advocacies, Mr. Hingson has traveled the Globe from Japan to New Zealand, the Netherlands to his hometown, Chicago. Speaking to some of the world's most elite: from former President, George W. Bush to Larry King, to Fortune 500 companies and colleges and Universities Nationwide. After sharing his story of survival on hundreds of TV and Radio programs, Michael is now an Expert hired by many of today's major corporations and organizations. Speaking and consulting on the importance of Teamwork and Trust, Moving from Diversity to Inclusion, as well as offering Adaptive Technology Training - spearheading innovation for ALL! - Thus, bringing organizations to the forefront of the ever-changing competitive modern world. Currently, Michael lives in Victorville, California with his wife, Karen, a professional quilter, Alamo, Michael's eighth guide dog and their rescue feline, Stitch. https://michaelhingson.com/books/

In this episode of iCantCU, I share my experience completing JAWS training and the challenges I faced with distractions during the last day. I also discuss an interview with Ann Cunningham, an artist who taught art to blind individuals at the Colorado Center. Ann created the Sensational Blackboard device, allowing blind children to draw and feel their creations. I mention the upcoming convention in Houston and a convenient skyway between the central and spillover hotels. I plan to bring my computer to the convention and discuss the differences between a Windows machine and a Mac. I also talk about my recent work on a mail appeal for the National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania and the use of keyboard shortcuts. Show notes at https://www.iCantCU.com/232  Learn More About Descript The transcript from this episode is done using Descript. Try out Descript for free at https://www.descript.com/?lmref=Yw2dhQ. This is an affiliate link, so I'll earn a commission if you pay for the app. Thanks! Support iCantCU When shopping at Amazon, I would appreciate it if you clicked on this link to make your purchases: https://www.iCantCU.com/amazon. I participate in the Amazon Associate Program and earn commissions on qualifying purchases. The best part is, you don't pay extra for doing this! White Canes Connect Podcast Episodes 074 and 075 Episode 074 of White Canes Connect is the June Monthly Digest of events in the blind community in Pennsylvania. In episode 075, Lisa and I talk to Vicki Landers and Esther Gillyard about the Disability Pride Parade in Philadelphia on June 10. Find the podcast on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/white-canes-connect/id1592248709 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/1YDQSJqpoteGb1UMPwRSuI IHeartRadio https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-white-canes-connect-89603482/ YouTube Https://www.youtube.com/@pablindpodcast White Canes Connect On Twitter Https://www.twitter.com/PABlindPodcast My Podcast Gear Here is all my gear and links to it on Amazon. I participate in the Amazon Associates Program and earn a commission on qualifying purchases. Zoom Podtrak P4: https://amzn.to/33Ymjkt Zoom ZDM Mic & Headphone Pack: https://amzn.to/33vLn2s Zoom H1n Recorder: https://amzn.to/3zBxJ9O  Gator Frameworks Desk Mounted Boom Arm: https://amzn.to/3AjJuBK Shure SM58 S Mic: https://amzn.to/3JOzofg  Sennheiser Headset (1st 162 episodes): https://amzn.to/3fM0Hu0  Follow iCantCU On Your Favorite Podcast Directory! Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon | Google | IHeartRadio Reach Out On Social Media Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn Are You Or Do You Know A Blind Boss? If you or someone you know is crushing it in their field and is also blind, I want to hear from you! Call me at (646) 926-6350 and leave a message. Include your name and town, and tell me who the Blind Boss is and why I need to have them on an upcoming episode. You can also email the show at iCantCUPodcast@gmail.com.  In this episode of iCantCU, I share my experience completing JAWS training and the challenges I faced with distractions during the last day. I also discuss an interview with Ann Cunningham, an artist who taught art to blind individuals at the Colorado Center. Ann created the Sensational Blackboard device, allowing blind children to draw and feel their creations. I mention the upcoming convention in Houston and a convenient skyway between the central and spillover hotels. I plan to bring my computer to the convention and discuss the differences between a Windows machine and a Mac. I also talk about my recent work on a mail appeal for the National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania and the use of keyboard shortcuts.

What if you knew you were quickly losing your sight? That's something reporter Jason Strother has thought a lot about. In this episode, Jason takes a crash course at the Colorado Center for the Blind to navigate what cooking or grocery shopping might be like while blind. (Jason's reporting was supported by the 11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship at UC Berkeley. This episode was previously called "Cooking School for the Blind.")See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode, Dr. Temara Hajjat and Dr. Jennifer Lee talk to Dr. Edwin Liu about managing challenging celiac disease cases. Dr. Liu is the Director of the Colorado Center for Celiac Disease, the Taplin Endowed Chair for Celiac Disease, and a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of the Colorado School of Medicine. Learning Objectives:Understand how to manage patients with normal TTG IgA and elevated other celiac serologies.Discuss different challenging scenarios in managing patients with suspected celiac disease.Discuss new potential therapies for celiac disease Resources:N/AThis episode is eligible for CME credit!  Once you have listened to the episode, click this link to claim your credit.  Credit is available to NASPGHAN members (if you are not a member, you should probably sign up).  And thank you to the NASPGHAN Professional Education Committee for their review!Support the showAs always, the discussion, views, and recommendations in this podcast are the sole responsibility of the hosts and guests and are subject to change over time with advances in the field.Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for all the latest news and upcoming episodes!

In this episode we sit down and dialog with Tiffani Lennon, the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida. Tiffani highlights how important it is to stand together to change systems and fight for equality. She also shares the impact that living in areas that do not emulate belonging and safety have on our students. Tiffany says that letting teachers be teachers is so important and holds such power. Tiffani Lennon, is Executive Director of the ACLU of Florida. Prior to this position, she served as executive director of the Colorado Center on Law and Policy, a state-wide advocacy organization that advances an anti-poverty movement through research, legal and legislative advocacy. Tiffani also held leadership positions at the University of Denver including chair and faculty in the Law and Society and Community-Based Research programs. Tiffani developed and led internationalization efforts where she served as a visiting lecturer in southeast Asia and southern Africa, teaching in the areas of law and economic development. Before her academic career, Tiffani was a community-based lawyer and helped to frame strategic litigation to systematically address rights violations. Intro song: Poet's Row, Young Bones

Dr. H sits down with Dr. Jeremy Sharp, Director of the Colorado Center for Assessment and Counseling and host of The Testing Psychologist podcast,  for an exploration of  the psychological and psychiatric aspects of ADD/ADHD.Dr. Jeremy Sharphttps://www.coloradocac.com/about/dr-jeremy-sharp/The Testing Psychologist podcasthttps://www.thetestingpsychologist.comBFTA on Instagram. @backfromtheabysspodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/backfromtheabysspodcast/BFTA/ Dr. Hhttps://www.craigheacockmd.com/podcast-page/

As therapists, we often have clients that come to therapy that engage in habits and behaviors that are consistent with addiction, but because their behaviors don't fit into the stereotypical societal definition of addiction, they may struggle to see the problem with their behavior or even recognize their behavior as a part of problematic substance use. Join We Heart Therapy Host Dr. Belle Ph.D., LMFT (Certified EFT Supervisor & Therapist), and Jim Thomas, ICEEFT Certified EFT Trainer, Supervisor & Therapist, and Addiction Specialist as they discuss the EFT techniques and interventions to work with clients with problematic substance use. For more information on EFT and getting trained in EFT or to find an EFT therapist in your area, visit: https://www.iceeft.com https://www.DrSueJohnson.com Jim Thomas is the Executive Director of the Colorado Center for EFT in the Denver area. Find more information on Jim Thomas, visit his website: https://jimthomas.care/ or https://www.coloradoeft.com/ To get your copy of Dr. Belle's book for mental health workers, visit: https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin... For more information on your host Dr. Belle, PhD, LMFT visit: http://www.DrBelle.com http://www.WeHeartTherapy.com or http://www.snveft.com

Michael Pipich has always been interested in the field of psychology. As long as he can remember, he has found people fascinating and always wondered about their personalities, quirks, and the how and why behind their behaviors and interactions with others. He recalls one weekend when his older brother came home from college with a psych 101 book, and he spent the whole weekend looking through his book and admitted that was his first “act of academic nerdiness.” Like his older brother, he applied for admission to Loyola Marymount University and when he got accepted, he declared psychology as his major right away. Michael has been in the field of psychology for over 30 years and has treated patients with a wide range of mental disorders and relationship problems. Michael currently works as a marriage and family therapist at the Colorado Center for Clinical Excellence which has two locations in Colorado (one in Denver and the other in DTC/Greenwood Village). He has been featured on television, radio, and in print media on a variety of topics and has become a national speaker and writer on bipolar disorder. He book, “Owning Bipolar: How Patients and Families Can Take Control of Bipolar Disorder” (Citadel Press, 2018) has become an important book and reference in the field of bipolar treatment. In this podcast interview, Michael opens up about why he wrote the book and recalls his academic and professional journey in hopes that others will benefit from his advice and suggestions regarding selecting psychology graduate schools and programs. Michael also discusses the licensure requirements in the state of California regarding getting your Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) license (which used to be called the Marriage Family Child Care [MFCC] license). He explains that it really starts with the graduate school you select and attend. In his case, the program at California State, Fullerton provided the classes necessary for the MFCC (now LMFT license). Beyond that, he had to accrue over 3,000 plus supervised hours for which any licensed clinician (PhD, LCSW, MD, etc.) could sign off on. Then, he had to pass a written examination and then pass an oral examination. To learn more about his experience getting his LMFT in California, tune in to our discussion around 22 minutes into the podcast interview. Michael enjoys music, playing guitar, and has even dabbled in music composition. He also enjoys the outdoors (hiking, skiing, water sports) and believes staying active is important for a healthy life, especially if you are in a profession where you are helping people. He has been married for 32 years and has two adult children who he really loves and admires. Connect with Michael Pipich, LMFT: LinkedIn | TwitterConnect with the Show: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn https://vimeo.com/739569482 Interests and Specializations Michael Pipich treats a wide range of mental disorders and has been working with families, adults, and adolescents for over 30 years in office and via online teletherapy. His therapy style is highly interactive, and his background involves using psychodynamic, psychoanalytic, and existential theories to better understand and discuss presenting concerns with his patients. He has become known for his work with bipolar disorder and has written a well-known book on the topic. Education Bachelor of Science (BS), Psychology (1983); Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA.Master of Science (MS), Clinical/Community Psychology (1986); California State University, Fullerton, Fullerton, CA. Other Sources and Links of Interest Michael Pipich, LMFT at the Colorado Center for Clinical ExcellenceMichael Pipich, LMFT at Psychology TodayOwning Bipolar: Psychology Today Blog Breakthrough with Michael Pipich (Podcast)Owning Bipolar Disorder with Michael Pipich, LMFT (Podcast) Podcast Transcription 00:00:13 BradleyWelcome to the Master's in Psychology Podcast where psychology stu...

While many may view the governor signing a bill into law as the final step in the legislative process, this is not the case. In fact, a recently signed bill is barely halfway through the extensive journey a policy must take on its way to implementation. Why? After a bill is signed, the critical rulemaking phase beings. This process establishes in greater detail how the legislation will be implemented, ensuring that a law operates in the way in which it was originally intended. By advocating for equitable rulemaking, we can ensure policies have positive outcomes on those who face the most barriers to opportunity.  Season 4 of The West Steps continues! This week, we are once again featuring a first-ever topic on the podcast: the rulemaking process. Erin Miller, VP of Health Initiatives at the Colorado Children's Campaign; Shoshi Preuss, Policy Analyst at Covering Kids and Families; and Bethany Pray, Legal Director at Colorado Center on Law and Policy join us for an overview of this critical component of policymaking. Our guests discuss what exactly rulemaking entails, how state agencies guide the process in different ways, and provide examples of recent rulemaking successes that have had a positive impact on Colorado kids and families. While this work may seem more complicated than engaging with the legislative process, advocacy is still just as important. To learn about how you can advocate for laws in the rulemaking process, visit the Colorado Secretary of State, where you can sign up to receive rules and notices of rulemaking. Support the show (https://www.coloradokids.org/)

Ann Cunningham is a consultant for the Colorado Center for the Blind, a world-renowned rehabilitation training center located south of Denver in Littleton, Colorado. She is also a tactile author/illustrator, artist, and innovator recognized by the Independent Book Publishers Association (The Benjamin Franklin Award - gold); the Denver Botanic Gardens (Sydney Parkinson Award); and the National Federation of the Blind (The Jacob Bolotin Award for significant contributions through innovation). Her work spans these diverse areas as she develops connections for people to experience fine art through touch. Her tactile artwork can be seen in public works of art across the United States and into Canada or on her websites at and .   Intro and Outro music "Vicious Pen" courtesy of Moby Gratis https://mobygratis.com/  

In this episode of Monogam-ish Podcast, Justina and Kenji talk to Duane Allen, Director of Colorado Center of Alternative Lifestyles (COCAL); Duane is a retired, disabled veteran and a self-described "hedonist." He has participated in alternative lifestyle communities for the last two decades. Duane tells us how he got curious about kink from when he saw Hellraiser the first time and when a friend dared him to go to a stranger's house for a naughty engagement. He also speaks about how he navigates the lifestyle as a single man and how he's been successful at it. Check out more Colorado Center for Alternative Lifestyles at these links. Website, Fetlife, Facebook Groups Want more Monogam-ish Podcast: https://linktr.ee/monogamishpodcast

We talk with pulmonologist Anuj Mehta about the state's work to track the omicron variant, and to get grounding about the concern. Then, Colorado Sun reporter David Gilbert investigated sexual misconduct and abuse allegations at the Colorado Center for the Blind. Also, restoring the Air Force Academy chapel.

In this very special episode of the ROAMD Podcast we invite our listeners into the 2021 ROAMD Annual Meeting. Here we feature segments from a panel presentation with three very unique membership-based medicine practices addressing questions around Annual Exams follow-through and how their practices are utilizing nutritionists and dieticians. Our panelists are Dr. Amanda Wulfstat with Private Medical, Dr. Ari Levy with Shift, and Dr. Cari Dawson with the Colorado Center for Medical Excellence.This panel was very well complimented by a presentation from the CEO of Companion Health Nathalie Jorge. Nathalie shares her related experience in employing health coaches to extend the reach of their practice and enhance the quality of their patient care. You are certain to enjoy this special episode of the ROAMD Podcast.

The field of MedTech uses the latest technology to address medical challenges and find new ways to transform patient care. The industry is filled with groundbreaking experts paving the way to a better and healthier future— transforming patient care and saving countless lives. In this exciting new podcast, Andrew Cleeland invites listeners to tune in as he interviews MedTech professionals about their journeys to success and how their innovative contributions are disrupting and transforming the industry.    Andrew Cleeland welcomes Ginger Graham as the guest in this pilot episode. Ginger Graham is the owner of Ginger & Baker, and Chairman at Clovis Oncology, Inc. She is the former President and CEO of Amylin Pharmaceuticals and also serves on the boards of directors for Walgreen Co., Walgreens Boots Alliance, and several other biotech companies. She joins Andrew Cleeland to share her story - her successes, her failures, her mistakes, and the challenges she overcame. Additionally, she shares lessons she learned along the way and impactful advice that she applied to her personal and professional life.    One such lesson is about maximizing your full potential. We all have a gift in life that is uniquely ours, and the onus is on us to use it to our full ability. We have a responsibility to ourselves and everyone who has supported us to be our best selves.   Resources Ginger and Baker Fogarty Innovation Youtube   Biography: Ginger began her healthcare career at Eli Lilly, the starting point for many pivotal leaders in our industry. Her career highlights include roles as CEO of Advanced Cardiovascular Systems (ACS); group chairman for the Office of the President at Guidant Corporation as the company launched the world's leading stent platform; and president and CEO of Amylin Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company that she took public.   She currently serves on numerous boards, including Walgreens Boots Alliance, Genomic Health and Elcelyx Therapeutics; and she co-chairs the Scientific Council of the University of Colorado Center for Women's Health Research. She has come full circle as a faculty member at Harvard Business School; an accomplished writer, she has written for the Harvard Business Review and serves on the University of Arkansas Chancellor's Board of Advisors. Ginger is the recipient of numerous awards, including being listed in Pharma VOICE's “100 of the Most Inspiring People,” among many others. True to her philanthropic spirit, in her spare time she coaches first-time CEOs in leadership strategy and organization building.   SHOW LESS    

The U.S spends more on maternal care than any other country in the world, and yet, we have worse outcomes than any other developed nation. Racism and structural issues within our health care system are just two of the many contributing factors to the rising maternal mortality rate in our country. The longstanding dehumanization experienced by Black and indigenous women when giving birth has led to mortality rates that are 2-3 times higher than white women. Additionally, the many stigmas surrounding women of color and women with low incomes continue to significantly impact the overall quality of care they receive throughout the perinatal period. Not only do these issues demand a deeper look at the structure of our health care systems, but they also call for a dismantling of the systemic racism that continues to have a detrimental impact on the lives of kids and families across the country.  In episode 12 of The West Steps, we are joined by Christina Yebuah, Research and Policy Analyst at Colorado Center on Law and Policy; Heather Thompson, Deputy Director of Elephant Circle; and Vita Malama, a writer and researcher for Elephant Circle, for the podcast's first-ever discussion of birth equity in Colorado. Our guests explain some of the alarming maternal health inequities that exist in our state, as well as the way racism directly impacts outcomes in the perinatal period. These issues demand multifaceted solutions from our policymakers, health care providers, and advocates in order to help combat the increasing rate of maternal mortality. The small steps we take today can lead to more equitable solutions in the future.  Reach out to your elected officials and urge them to prioritize birth equity this legislative session. Visit Elephant Circle for more information on advocacy, updates on birth equity bills, and to engage with their upcoming virtual event on May 13. Support the show (https://www.coloradokids.org/)

My outstanding guest on this episode is Dr. Cari Dawson, co-founder of the Colorado Center of Medical Excellence in Denver, Colorado. Here we discuss the many impacts COVID-19 had on membership-based medicine practices. Dr. Dawson concisely unpacks the ways membership-based medicine practices were better prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic, how they rallied the power of their physician community, and kept the steady course of being the ultimate advocate for their patients at every possible turn. Don't miss Dr. Dawson's thoughts on the things she would do differently regarding the pandemic if given the chance.

In this episode, the Moms welcome a returning guest to the podcast.  Anika Pepper, mama of two boys, tells the story of how her babies arrived in her life.  Anika begins her motherhood story with her use of fertility treatments through the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine.  She then describes the stressful events of her first induction, labor, birth, and postpartum experience, followed by a much more positive experience with her second-born.  Anika's story is simultaneously vulnerable, empowering, and healing.The Book Blurb in this episode is from Yes, Please by Amy Poehler.