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Play Episode Listen Later Jul 4, 2025 66:18

Sometime ago I had the pleasure to have as a guest a gentleman named Rob Wentz. Rob appeared in episode 212 on March 8, 2024. Recently Rob introduced me to a man he described as amazing and definitely unstoppable. That introduction led to me having the opportunity to have today, Ken Kunken, the man Rob introduced me to. Ken's story is atypical to most. He had a pretty normal childhood until he went to Cornell. Rob was pretty short, but he loved all things sports and active. In his junior year he participated in a lightweight football game against Columbia University. On a kickoff he tackled an opponent but broke his neck in the process. Immediately he became a quadriplegic from the shoulders down. As he tells us, his days of physical activity and sports came to an abrupt end. I asked Ken how he dealt with his injury. As he tells me, his family rallied around him and told him they were all there to help with whatever he needed to continue in school and to move on with his life. They were true to their word and Ken did continue to attend school after nine months of hospitalization. He secured a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering. He went on to get a Master's degree from Cornell in Industrial Engineering and then a second Master's degree this time from Columbia University in Psychology as he decided he really wanted to “help people especially those with serious disabilities” rather than continuing in the Civil Engineering arena. Ken then secured a job that led to him becoming a successful rehabilitation counselor in New York. Ken wasn't done growing nor exploring. After two years working in the rehabilitation field through circumstances and advice from others, he went to Hofstra school of law where he obtained a Juris Doctor degree in 1982. He then went to work in the office of a district attorney where, over 40 years he progressed and grew in stature and rank. Ken tells us how his life changed over time and through the many jobs and opportunities he decided to take. Twenty-two years ago, he married Anna. They ended up having triplet boys who now all are in school at the age of Twenty. Ken is as unstoppable as it gets. He refused to back down from challenges. He is now retired and loving the opportunity to be with his family and help others by telling his story. About the Guest: In 1970, while a junior in Cornell University's College of Engineering, Ken Kunken broke his neck making a tackle on a kick-off in a lightweight football game against Columbia University. Ken sustained a spinal cord injury at the C 4-5 level, rendering him a quadriplegic, almost totally paralyzed from the shoulders down. Ken spent more than 9 months in various hospitals and rehabilitation facilities. While still a patient, Ken testified before a United States Senate Sub-Committee on Health Care, chaired by Senator Edward Kennedy. In 1971, almost 20 years before the Americans with Disabilities Act, Ken returned to the Cornell campus, where he completed his undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering. Ken estimates that he had to be pulled up or bounced down close to 100 steps just to attend his first day of classes. Ken is the first quadriplegic to graduate from Cornell University. Upon graduation, Ken decided to change his career goal. He wanted to work with and help people, particularly those with disabilities. Ken went on to earn a Master of Arts degree at Cornell in education and a Master of Education degree at Columbia University in psychology. Ken is the first quadriplegic to earn a graduate degree from Cornell University. In 1977, Ken was hired by Abilities Inc. in Albertson, NY to be its College Work Orientation Program Coordinator. Ken coordinated a program which provided educationally related work experiences for severely disabled college students. He also maintained a vocational counseling caseload of more than 20 severely disabled individuals. While working at the Center, Ken became a nationally certified rehabilitation counselor and made numerous public presentations on non-discrimination, affirmative action and employment of the disabled. In 1977, Ken was named the Long Island Rehabilitation Associations “Rehabilitant of the Year” and in 1979 Ken was the subject of one of the Reverend Norman Vincent Peale's nationally syndicated radio broadcasts “The American Character”. Wanting to accomplish still more, Ken enrolled in Hofstra University's School of Law, where he earned a Juris Doctor degree in 1982. Ken then went to work as an assistant district attorney in Nassau County, Long Island. Ken was promoted a number of times during his more than 40 years with the District Attorney's Office, eventually becoming one of the Deputy Bureau Chiefs of the County Court Trial Bureau, where he helped supervise more than 20 other assistant district attorneys. In addition, over his years working in the Office, Ken supervised more than 50 student interns. In 1996 Ken received the Honorable Thomas E. Ryan, Jr. Award presented by the Court Officers Benevolent Association of Nassau County for outstanding and dedicated service as an Assistant District Attorney. In 1999, Ken was awarded the George M. Estabrook Distinguished Service Award presented by the Hofstra Alumni Association, Inc. Beginning in 2005, for nine consecutive years, “The Ken Kunken Most Valuable Player Award” was presented annually by The Adirondack Trust Allegiance Bowl in Saratoga Springs, NY, in recognition of Ken's personal accomplishments, contributions to society and extraordinary courage. In 2009, Ken became a member of the Board of Directors of Abilities Inc., and in 2017 he became a member of the Board of Directors for the parent company of Abilities Inc., the Viscardi Center. In 2020, Ken was inducted into “The Susan M. Daniels Disability Mentoring Hall of Fame,” as a member of the class of 2019. In December 2023, “The Kenneth J. Kunken Award” was presented by the Nassau County District Attorney's Office, for the first time, to an outstanding Nassau County Assistant District Attorney who personifies Ken's unique spirit and love of trial work, as well as his commitment and dedication, loyalty to his colleagues and his devotion to doing justice. The Award will be presented annually. In March 2024, Ken was named one of the Long Island Business News Influencers in Law. Ken retired from full-time employment in 2016, but continued to work with the District Attorney's Office for the next eight years in a part time capacity, providing continuing legal education lectures and litigation guidance. For years, Ken has tried to inspire people to do more with their lives. In October 2023, Ken's memoir “I Dream of Things That Never Were: The Ken Kunken Story” was published. In 2003 Ken married Anna and in 2005 they became the proud parents of triplet boys: Joey, Jimmy and Timmy. On June 23, 2023 the triplets graduated from Oceanside High School, fifty-five years after Ken had graduated from the same school. Ways to connect with Ken: https://www.facebook.com/ken.kunken https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61566473121422 https://www.instagram.com/ken.kunken/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenneth-j-kunken-b4b0a9a8/ https://www.youtube.com/@Ken.Kunken https://bsky.app/profile/kenkunken.bsky.social 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 ** 01:20 Well, hello once again, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. I am your host, Michael hingson, and today we have a fascinating guest, I believe. Anyway, his name is Ken. Kuan, kunken. Am I pronouncing that right? Yes, you are. Oh, good. And Ken, in 1970 underwent a problem when he was playing football and doing a tackle on a kickoff. Namely, he broke his neck and became a quadriplegic, basically from the shoulders down. I'm sort of familiar with the concept, because my wife, from birth was in a wheelchair. She was a paraplegic, paralyzed from the t3 vertebrae down, which was like right below the breast, so she was able to transfer and so on. So not quite the same, but a lot of the same issues, of course, and we're going to talk about that basically, because when you're in a wheelchair, like a lot of other kinds of disabilities, society doesn't tend to do all they should to accommodate. And I can, can make that case very well. Most people are light dependent, and we have provided reasonable accommodations for them by providing light bulbs and light on demand wherever they go, wherever they are, whatever they do, while at the same time for people who are blind, we don't get the same degree of access without pushing a lot harder. And people in wheelchairs, of course, have all sorts of physical issues as well, such as stairs and no ramps and other things like that. And I know that Ken's going to talk some about that from university days and my wife Karen face some of the same things. But anyway, we'll get to it all. Ken, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. And I think your wife, Anna is visiting with us also, right, right? Thank you. Michael, so Anna, welcome as well. Thank you so Ken. Why don't we start if we could by you telling us sort of about the early Ken, growing up and all that from being a child, and tell us a little bit about you. Ken Kunken ** 03:40 Okay, well, if you're going back to my childhood area, Yeah, it sure is. It's quite a while ago, but I was born in 1950 and that happened to be in the midst of the polio epidemic, and unfortunately, my mother contracted polio and died when I was less than one month old. So I have an older brother, Steve, who's two years older than me, and my father brother and I ended up moving in with my grandparents for a few years before my father remarried when I was four years old. A long shot. But what's your birth date? Right? My birth date is July 15, 1950 on Michael Hingson ** 04:23 February 24 1950 So, okay, was was just kind of hoping there was the possibility, right? Anyway, go ahead. Ken Kunken ** 04:30 So, um, during my father's second marriage, that's when my sister Merrill was born. She's 10 years younger than I am, but unfortunately, that was not a happy marriage, and it ended in a divorce. And when I was 18, my father married for the third time. So you know, growing up in a household with a number of individuals seemingly coming and going was a little different than most people's Michael Hingson ** 04:57 households when they were growing up. How. Was that for you? Ken Kunken ** 05:01 Well, you know, it was nice in the sense that I got involved with a lot of different family members in my extended family. I'm very close, growing up with my grandparents, with aunts, uncles, cousins, as well as my sister and brother. And you know, I had the opportunity to interact with a lot of different people. It was difficult during my father's second marriage, because it was not a happy marriage, and, you know, it worked out in everybody's best interest when that ended in divorce. But I look back at my childhood, and I just basically call it as a very happy childhood? Michael Hingson ** 05:42 Oh, good. Well, so no real major traumas, certainly differences, but no real harrowing kinds of things that just threw you into a complete topsy turvy at least as far as you're concerned, right? Yeah. Well, then you decided to go to Cornell, as I recall, and I know Cornell has a, I think it's a master's program, but an advanced program in hospitality. So did they feed you well at Cornell? Ken Kunken ** 06:13 Yes, they had a very good system and fed us very well. And they have a program in hotel management, right, which I was not involved in, but there was a lot of good food at Cornell when we were there. Michael Hingson ** 06:28 Well, that's that's always important, you know, you got to have good food at UC Irvine. We were okay. Food wise. I was on the food committee for the dorms, actually, and the food was all right, but when they had steak night that they always made a big deal about the steak was usually pretty tough, and so we we had sometimes that the food wasn't great, but they had a great soft serve ice cream machine, so lot of people took advantage of that. But anyway, so when you were at Cornell, you played football, Ken Kunken ** 07:01 right? I was on their lightweight football team. It's for people that were smaller than the heavyweight team. When I was playing, you had to weigh 154 pounds or less two days before the game. So most of the people had played on their high school teams was too small to play on the varsity college team, but it was a varsity sport. Most of the people were very good athletes and very fast, and it was very competitive sport. Michael Hingson ** 07:35 So tell us about that and what happened. Ken Kunken ** 07:38 Well, during my junior year, I was injured making a tackle on a kickoff in a game against Columbia University, and when I tackled the ball carrier, I broke my neck and damaged my spinal cord, and as a result, I'm a quadriplegic. I'm almost totally paralyzed from the shoulders down, Michael Hingson ** 08:01 and so, what kind of effect? Well, that clearly that that was pretty bad news and so on. So what kind of effect did that have on you, and how did that shape what you did going forward? Ken Kunken ** 08:15 Oh, it totally changed my perspective on everything about myself. I mean, growing up, my life seemed to center around sports. In high school, I played on the varsity football team. I wrestled on the varsity wrestling team. I played on four different intramural softball teams. I worked on the summer as a lifeguard. Everything in my life revolved around athletics and being physically active. Now, suddenly, I couldn't be physically active at all. In fact, I am totally sedentary, sitting in a wheelchair, and I need assistance with all my activities of daily living now. Michael Hingson ** 08:54 So what did you do when the injury happened and so on? So how did you deal with all of that? Ken Kunken ** 09:01 Well, it was a really difficult adjustment to make. I mean, suddenly I became dependent on everybody around me, because there was not one thing I could do for myself. So it was very difficult knowing that now not only was I dependent on others, but I had to be more outgoing to be able to have asked for help when I needed it, which was difficult for me, because I had always considered myself a bit of shy person, a bit of an introvert, and now I needed to be more vocal with respect to all of my needs. So I swear, go ahead. Well, I spent the next nine months and 20 days in various hospitals and rehabilitation centers, and it was really, really difficult getting used to my new physical condition. Michael Hingson ** 09:52 But at the same time, you could have taken the position that you just hated yourself and you just wanted to I. Make life end and so on. And it doesn't sound like that was the approach that you took. Ken Kunken ** 10:04 Mike, I was so fortunate that I had a very supportive family who were with me and helped me every step of the way. In fact, they basically assured me that they would act as my arms and legs to make sure I could still do everything I wanted to do in my life Michael Hingson ** 10:22 doesn't get much better than that, having a real supportive village, if you will. Ken Kunken ** 10:27 Right? I was so fortunate, and you know, I think that helped me be able to do many things in my life that most people thought would not be possible for someone in my condition, and I was able to do it because of the help I received from my family. Michael Hingson ** 10:44 So what did you major in at Cornell? Let's say, before the injury. Ken Kunken ** 10:50 I before my injury, I was majoring in industrial engineering, okay? And you know, after my injury, I went back to school and continued my studies in industrial engineering and actually obtained my degree, a Bachelor of Science in industrial engineering. Michael Hingson ** 11:08 Now, what primarily is industrial engineering? Ken Kunken ** 11:12 Well, you know, it's kind of a technical aspect of dealing with men, material, machines, and, you know, most likely working at a business where there are a lot of different people working there, where you would try and find out what the best way of people to operate, whether it be in a factory or just in a large business setting, when you're dealing with technical aspects of the job. But I never actually worked as an engineer, because, following my degree, based on the recommendation of one of my psychology professors, I stayed at Cornell and pursued a career in counseling. And I find that a lot more suitable to not only my physical condition, but what I really wanted to do. Because, following my injury, I knew that what I really wanted to do was to devote my life and career to helping others. Michael Hingson ** 12:08 So you very well could have made the same switch and made the same choices, even if you hadn't undergone the accident, Ken Kunken ** 12:17 absolutely and hopefully, I would have, because I found it a lot more enjoyable, and I believe it taught me a lot about dealing with people, and it made me feel very good about myself to know that I was still in a position, despite my disability, where I could help others. Michael Hingson ** 12:40 So you stayed at Cornell and got that master's degree in counseling, which, which really gave you that opportunity. What did you do after that? Ken Kunken ** 12:50 Well, to increase my counseling credentials, I then went to Columbia University, where I obtained my second degree. This one was also in counseling. That degree was in psychological counseling and rehabilitation, and I decided to look for a job in the rehabilitation counseling field. And now that I had two degrees from Cornell and one from Columbia, three prestigious Ivy League degrees, two master's degrees, I didn't think I'd have much difficulty securing employment, but to my dismay, no one would hire me. This was in the mid 70s, and everyone seemed to feel I was just too disabled to work. Michael Hingson ** 13:32 Now, why did you go to Columbia to get your second degree, your masters in rehabilitation, Ken Kunken ** 13:39 you know? And incidentally, it that was the school I actually was injured against during the football Michael Hingson ** 13:44 I know that's why I asked the enemy, right? Ken Kunken ** 13:47 Yeah, but I actually applied there for my doctorate, doctorate in counseling psychology. And initially I didn't get into that program, but they invited me to participate in their master's program, and said that they would reconsider my application when I finished that degree. Now, I thought that was a special letter that I got from them because of my injury, and I thought they just wanted to see me that I could do graduate work. As it turned out, virtually everybody that applied for that program got a similar letter, and when I first met with my advisor there at Columbia, he said, you know, if you didn't get in the first time, you're probably not going to get in even when you graduate. So since I had nothing else to do at that point, I enrolled in the master's program, and I completed my second master's degree. And you know, at the time, even my advisor was pessimistic about my work prospects, wow, just because of my ability, because of my disability, and despite. Fact that here they were training people to be rehabilitation counselors and encouraging people to go into that field, they felt that due to my disability, I would still have a very difficult time gaining employment, Michael Hingson ** 15:14 which is as ironic as it gets, Ken Kunken ** 15:17 absolutely, absolutely and I was just very fortunate that there was a facility on Long Island called abilities Incorporated, which was part of what was then called the Human Resources Center. Is now called the Viscardi Center, after its founder, Dr Henry Viscardi, Jr, and they hired me to work as a vocational rehabilitation counselor for other individuals who had severe disabilities. Michael Hingson ** 15:46 I'm a little bit familiar with the buscardi Center, and have found them to be very open minded in the way they operate. Ken Kunken ** 15:54 They were terrific, absolutely terrific. And I was so fortunate to get involved with them, to be hired, to work for them, and, you know, to be associated with all the fine work they were doing it on behalf of helping other individuals with disabilities. Michael Hingson ** 16:13 So was it primarily paraplegics and quadriplegics and so on, or did they do blind people and other disabilities as well. Ken Kunken ** 16:21 They did a lot of different disabilities, but they did not work with people that were visually impaired. For that in New York state, there was a special agency called the commission for the visually handicapped that helped people with visual impairments, but we dealt with all different types of disabilities, whether people were hearing impaired or had not just spinal cord injuries, but other disabilities, either from birth or disabilities that they developed through diseases. And as it turned out, I was probably one of the most severely disabled of the people that I dealt with. Michael Hingson ** 17:02 Well, but you were also, by any definition, a good role model. Ken Kunken ** 17:06 Well, I was fortunate that I was able to help a lot of different people, and I felt that when they looked at me and saw that I was able to work despite my disability, I know it encouraged them to do their best to go out and get a job themselves. Michael Hingson ** 17:24 And of course, it really ultimately comes down to attitude. And for you, having a positive attitude had to really help a great deal. Ken Kunken ** 17:34 I think it made all the difference in the world. And I was very fortunate that it was my family that instilled that positive attitude in me, and they gave me so much help that after a while, I thought I'd be letting them down if I didn't do everything I could do to make something out of my life. Michael Hingson ** 17:53 So what did you do? Well, not only Ken Kunken ** 17:57 did I go back to school and complete my education, but I went to work and, you know, got up early every day, and with the aid of a personal care attendant, I was able to go to work and function as a vocational counselor and help others in trying to achieve their goals. Michael Hingson ** 18:17 Now, were you going to school while you were doing some of this? Ken Kunken ** 18:20 No, I finished my second okay, and now was able to work full time. Michael Hingson ** 18:27 Okay, so you did that, and how long did you work there? Ken Kunken ** 18:32 Well, I worked there for a little over two years, and you know, my duties and responsibilities kept expanding while I was there, and one of my duties was to speak at conferences before groups and organizations concerning affirmative action and non discrimination for people with disabilities. And often after my talks, I would be asked questions, and while I would do my best to respond appropriately, I was always careful to caution the question is that they should really consult with a lawyer about their concerns. And I guess it didn't take long before I started to think, you know, there's no reason why I couldn't become that lawyer. So after a little over two years, I decided to leave the job, and I went to Hofstra University School of Law. Michael Hingson ** 19:20 So now what? What year was this? Ken Kunken ** 19:24 I left the job. I started the job in 77 I left in 79 when I started law school. Michael Hingson ** 19:32 Okay, so you went to Hofstra, Ken Kunken ** 19:35 right? And while I was at Hofstra through my brother's suggestion. My brother was working as a public defender at the time, he suggested I do an internship at the district attorney's office. So after my second year of law school, I did an internship there during the summer, and I found a new way. I could help people and serve the community as a whole, and I really enjoyed that work. So when I was in my third year of law school, I applied for a full time position with the district attorney's office, and I was very fortunate that the district attorney was a very progressive, self confident individual who based his hiring decision on my abilities rather than my disability. Michael Hingson ** 20:27 Wow, that had to be, especially back then, a fairly, as you said, progressive, but an amazing thing to do, because even today, there are so many times that we get challenges and too many things thrown in our way, but you had someone who really thought enough of you and obviously decided that your abilities were such on the job that you could do Ken Kunken ** 20:51 it. I was very fortunate to have come in contact with the district attorney at the time. His name was Dennis Dillon, and he seemed to know that when I'd go to court, a jury was not going to base its verdict on my inability to walk, but rather on my skill and competence as an attorney. And thanks to the training and guidance I received in the office, I became a very confident and competent, skilled trial attorney Michael Hingson ** 21:22 well, and it had to be the way you projected yourself that would convince a jury to decide cases in the right way. So again, kudos to you. Ken Kunken ** 21:33 Thank you. Well, I certainly did my best to do that, and at the time that I applied for this job, I didn't know of any quadriplegics that were trial attorneys. May have been some, but I didn't know of any. Certainly there were none on Long Island, and certainly no assistant district attorneys at the time that I knew of who were quadriplegics. Michael Hingson ** 21:59 Now, of course, the question that comes to mind is, so was the office accessible? Ken Kunken ** 22:05 No question. And you know, let me just go further by telling you that my first day in court, I couldn't even fit through the swinging doorways in the courtroom. They were too narrow to let me get through to get to the prosecutor's table, because my electric wheelchair was too wide. Michael Hingson ** 22:24 What did you do? Or what happened? Ken Kunken ** 22:27 Well, eventually they had to take off the swinging doorways and the screws and bolts that kept them in place, but usually I had to go very roundabout on a long way to get to the back of each courtroom and go through the back, which was really difficult. And one of my assignments happened to be to our traffic court Bureau, which was in a neighboring building on the second floor, and unfortunately, there the elevator was broken. So after three days, I was actually received my first promotion, because they didn't know when it would be fixed. But eventually I was able to get into court, and I did a lot of litigation while I was Michael Hingson ** 23:10 there. How did judges react to all of this? Ken Kunken ** 23:15 You know, it was very new to them as well. And you know, there are times when you needed to approach the bench and talk very quietly, you know, to so the jury wouldn't hear you, and it was very difficult, because benches are elevated, yeah. And I had difficulty approaching the bench or even turning my head side enough to look up at the judges and then for them to hear me. And sometimes they would have to get off the bench, and, you know, meet me on the side of the courtroom to have conferences and but for the most part, I thought they were very supportive. I thought they appreciated the hard work that I was doing, and I think they tried to be accommodating when they could. Michael Hingson ** 23:58 Did you ever encounter any that just were totally intolerant of all of it, Ken Kunken ** 24:02 sure, you know, many of them were very impatient. Some of them had difficulty hearing and when I was trying to look up and talk to them without the jury hearing, some of them had trouble hearing me because, you know, they were much higher up than I was in my wheelchair. So it was very challenging. Michael Hingson ** 24:23 I was involved in a lawsuit against an airline because they wouldn't allow me and my guide dog to sit where we wanted to sit on the airplane, which was in direct violation of even the rules of the airline. And when it went to court, the judge who was assigned it was a federal judge, and he was like 80, and he just couldn't hear anything at all. It was, it was really too bad. And of course, my and my wife was was with me, and of course, in her chair, so she wasn't sitting in a regular row. And he even grilled her, what are you doing? Why aren't you sitting in a row? And she said, I'm in a wheelchair. Oh, yeah, it's amazing that hopefully we are we have progressed a little bit from a lot of that the last thing. So, yeah, the lawsuit was 1985 so it was a long time ago, and hopefully we have progressed some. But still, there are way too many people who don't get it, and who don't understand nearly as much as they should, and don't internalize that maybe we're not all the same, and we can't necessarily do everything exactly the same every single time, Ken Kunken ** 25:35 right? And you know, I had the added misfortune of having my injury 20 years before the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, and that made an enormous difference for not just people in wheelchairs, but people with all different types of disabilities. Michael Hingson ** 25:53 So how did you, in general, learn to deal with people's perceptions of you, rather than the reality? Well, that is a lot. Yeah, there are lots of perceptions, right? Ken Kunken ** 26:07 You know, many people think that because you have a physical disability, that you must also have an intellectual disability. And people would often come into my room and wherever I was, whether it was when I was first in the hospital or later at the office and speak to the person next to me and ask them questions about me, as if I couldn't speak for myself, yeah, even as if I wasn't even there. And it took a while for me to be more outgoing and convince people that, yes, they can deal with me. You know, I can still talk and think. And I think whenever a jury came into the courtroom for the first time, I think they were very surprised to see the prosecutor as somebody with a disability who was sitting in an electric wheelchair. Michael Hingson ** 26:56 I know once we went to a restaurant, and of course, having a family with two people in two different disabilities, went to this restaurant, and we were waiting to be seated, and finally, Karen said the hostess is just staring at us. She doesn't know who to talk to, because I'm not making eye contact, necessarily. And Karen, sitting in her chair is way lower. And so Karen just said to me, Well, this lady doesn't know who to talk to. So I said, Well, maybe we can get her to just ask us what what we want and what help we need. Are carrying on the conversation. Got this, this nice lady to recognize. Oh, you know, I can talk with them. And so she said, Well, how can I help you? And we both kind of said we'd like to sit and have breakfast. Oh, okay, and it went well from there. But it is, it is a challenge, and people have crazy perceptions, I know, going down the stairs at the World Trade Center on September 11, when I encountered the firefighters coming up for a while, they blocked me from going because they decided that I needed help, and they would, they would ask me questions, like, we're going to help you. Is that okay? And I said, No, it's not. But they always talked loud, because if you're blind, you obviously can't hear either, right? And it was difficult to get them to deal with all of that. And finally, I had to just say, Look, I got my friend David over here, who can see we're working together. We're fine, and they let us go because I had a sighted person with me, not that I had the ability to go downstairs, even though I had to help keep David focused sometimes, and also, there's no magic for a blind person to go downstairs. You know, you go down the stairs, you hold the rail, you turn left there, in this case, and you go down the next batch of stairs. But people don't recognize that. Maybe there are techniques that we use to deal with the same things that they deal with, only in a different way. Ken Kunken ** 29:03 Absolutely, and that applies to work as well. I mean, people assume that if you can't do a job the way most people seem to do it, who don't have a disability, they automatically assume you're not going to be able to function at all at the job. Yeah, and a lot of times, it takes a lot of convincing to show people that there are other ways of approaching a problem and handling a work situation. Michael Hingson ** 29:27 One of the common things that we as blind people face, and it happens in schools and so on, is, Oh, you don't need to learn braille that's outmoded. You can listen to books that are computer generated or recorded and so on. And the reality is, no we need to learn braille for the same reason the sighted people learn to read print, and that is, it's all about learning to spell. It's learning about sentence structure and so on, and it's learning about having better ways to be able to truly enter. Interact with the text as I tell people, I don't care what anyone says, you will not learn physics as well from recordings as you can by truly having access to everything in a braille book, because you can refer back easier, and they've done some improvements in recording, but it's still not the same as what you get when you do Braille, which is the same thing for you reading print, or any other sighted person reading print. You read that print because there are various reasons why you need to do that, as opposed to learning how to just listen to books recorded anyway, Ken Kunken ** 30:36 right? Well, I had the added misfortune of being injured well before they had laptop Michael Hingson ** 30:41 computers. Yeah, me too. Well, I yeah, not. I wasn't injured, but yeah, Ken Kunken ** 30:46 right. So trying to do my schoolwork or later work at a job, you know, it posed even more challenges. Now, of course, having ebooks and being able to use a computer, it's made a big difference, not just for me, but for many individuals. Michael Hingson ** 31:04 Sure, do you use like programs like Dragon Naturally Speaking to interact with the computer? Ken Kunken ** 31:10 You know, I tried that, and I had a lot of difficulty with it. I know you need to train it. And when I first tried it, which was in its infancy, it just wasn't responding well to my voice, so I don't use that. I've been fortunate with that with advancements in wheelchairs, my wheelchair now has a Bluetooth device connected to my joystick, and I could actually move my left arm a little bit where I could work the joystick and move the mouse on my computer, moving my joystick. You Michael Hingson ** 31:45 really might want to look into dragon again. It is just so incredibly different than it was years ago. I remember when Dragon Dictate first came out, and all of the challenges of it, but they have done so much work in developing the language models that it's it's a whole lot better than it used to be, and, yeah, you have to train it. But training isn't all that hard nowadays, even by comparison to what it was, and it gives you a lot of flexibility. And I am absolutely certain it would recognize your voice without any difficulty? Ken Kunken ** 32:22 Well, it's good to hear that they've made those advancements, Michael Hingson ** 32:26 and it's not nearly as expensive as it used to be, either. Well, that's good Ken Kunken ** 32:30 to hear. I know when I first tried it, it was incredibly frustrating, yeah, because it wasn't responding well to my voice, and Michael Hingson ** 32:38 it was like $1,500 as I recall, it was pretty expensive right now, it's maybe two or $300 and there's also a legal version of it and other things like that. Yeah, you really ought to try it. You might find it makes a big difference. It's worth exploring Anyway, okay, but be that as it may, so you you dealt with people's perceptions, and how did you, as you continue to encounter how people behave towards you, how did you keep from allowing that to embitter you or driving you crazy? Ken Kunken ** 33:15 Well, you know, certainly at work, I needed to go in a jacket and tie, and I found that when you're wearing a jacket and tie, many people treated you differently than when you're just wearing street clothes. So I think that certainly helped that work. But I later became a supervisor in the district attorney's office, and people saw that, you know, not only could they talk with me on an intellectual level, but they saw I was supervising other assistant district attorneys, and I think that convinced a lot of people pretty quickly that I knew what I was doing and that they should treat me no different than they would any other lawyer, Assistant District Attorney. Michael Hingson ** 33:59 Yeah, well, and it is projecting that confidence in a in a positive way that does make such a big difference, Ken Kunken ** 34:08 absolutely. And I think when people saw me at work, one of the things that I appreciated was I never even needed to mention again that somebody with a disability could work, and not just at an entry level position, that a very responsible position. I was convinced them, just by showing them, without ever having to mention that somebody with a disability could do this kind of work. Michael Hingson ** 34:35 I never bring it up unless it comes up, and a lot of times, especially when talking on the phone and so on, it never comes up. I've had times when people eventually met me, and of course, were themselves, somewhat amazed. I'm a blind person and all that I said, nothing's changed here, folks. The reality is that the same guy I was when you were just talking to me on the phone. So let's move forward. Word. And mostly people got it and and dealt with it very well. Ken Kunken ** 35:08 Well, I used to have a lot of people, when they meet me for the first time, were very surprised to see that I was in a wheelchair. I never would say, Boy, you didn't sound like you were disabled. Yeah, right. And I think they were very surprised when they met me. Michael Hingson ** 35:23 I've had some people who've said that to me, Well, you didn't sound blind on the telephone. And so depending on how snarky I feel or not, I might say, Well, what does a blind person sound like? And that generally tends to stop them, because the reality is, what does a blind person sound like? It doesn't mean anything at all, and it's really their attitudes that need to change. And I know as a keynote speaker for the last 23 years, just by doing the things that I do, and talking and communicating with people, it is also all about helping to change attitudes, which is a lot of fun. Ken Kunken ** 36:03 You know, Michael, when I first went back to college, I was approached by a student on campus, and when he asked if I was Ken kunken, and I responded that I was, he asked, aren't you supposed to be in the hospital? Now, you know, I was very tempted to say yes, but I escaped. Please don't tell anyone. But you know, it even took a while to just show people, somebody with a disability does not need to be permanently in a rehab facility or a hospital or staying at home with their families, that there's an awful lot somebody could do and to be seen out in public and show people that you can work, you can go to school, you can do basically what everybody else does once you're given the opportunity. Michael Hingson ** 36:55 Of course, being spiteful, my response would have been, well, yeah, I should still be in the hospital doing brain surgery, but I decided that I didn't want to be a doctor because I didn't have any patients, so I decided to take a different career, right? Oh, people, yeah, what do you do? And we all face it, but the reality is, and I believe very firmly and have have thought this way for a long time, that like it or not, we're teachers, and we do need to teach people, and we need to take that role on, and it can be difficult sometimes, because you can lose patience, depending on what kind of questions people ask and so on. But the reality is, we are teachers, and our job is to teach, and we can make that a very fun thing to do as we move forward, too. Ken Kunken ** 37:44 You know, Michael, I found most people really want to be helpful. Yeah, a lot of times they don't know how to be helpful or how to go about it, or what to say or what to do, but most people are really good people that want to help. And you know, the more they come in contact with somebody with a disability, the more comfortable they will feel Michael Hingson ** 38:04 right, and they'll learn to ask if you want help, and they won't make the assumption, which is, of course, the whole point. Ken Kunken ** 38:14 You know, Michael, when you leave the job the district attorney's office, you would go through what they call an exit interview, where they would ask you what you thought was the best part of the job, what you thought could be improved. And I'm so happy and proud to say that I was told that a number of assistant district attorneys said that one of the best parts of their job was meeting and getting to know and working with me. And the reason why I wanted to highlight that was I know they weren't talking about me being Ken kunken, but me being somebody with a disability. Because unless they had a close relative with a disability, people rarely came in daily contact with somebody with a disability, and for them, it was often a revelation that they found helped motivate and inspire them to work harder in their job, and they were very appreciative of that, Michael Hingson ** 39:12 but they also learned that the disability wasn't what defined you. What defined you was you and your personality and what you did not necessarily exactly how you Ken Kunken ** 39:24 did it, absolutely. And I think it was also a revelation that working with me did not involve additional work for them, right? I was able to carry my own weight, and often was more productive than many of the people I was working with. Right? Michael Hingson ** 39:42 Well, and I think that's a very crucial point about the whole thing. When you became a lawyer, did that change your view of yourself? I mean, I know it was a kind of an evolution that got you to being a lawyer. But how did becoming a lawyer and when go. Answer, and getting the law degree and then working in a law office. How did that change your perceptions and your attitudes and outlook? Ken Kunken ** 40:06 You know, it really changed it a great deal, because I had people look at me with a very different eye when they were looking at me. You know, I enjoyed my work as a vocational rehabilitation counselor very much. And I encourage people to do that work. But I felt that there were people that looked at me and thought, you know, he has a disability. Maybe he could only work with other people had disabilities. And I was very proud of the fact that when I became a lawyer, I was working with very few people that had disabilities. Most of them were able bodied. And I wanted to show people that you're not limited in any way with who you're going to work with and what you could do. And I think it's so important for people to keep their perceptions high, their expectations high when they're dealing with individuals, because just because somebody has a disability does not mean they cannot perform and do as much as virtually anybody else on the job Michael Hingson ** 41:14 well, and you clearly continue to have high expectations of and for you, but also I would suspect that the result was you had high expectations for those around you as well. You helped them shape what they did, and by virtue of the way you functioned, you helped them become better people as well. Ken Kunken ** 41:38 Well, I certainly tried to and from the feedback that I've gotten from many of the people I worked with, that seemed to be the case, and I'm very proud of that. In fact, I might add Michael that two years ago, the district attorney, now her name is Ann Donnelly, actually started an award in the district attorney's office that's given out annually that they named the Kenneth J kunken award. They named it for me because they wanted to recognize and honor the outstanding Assistant District Attorney each year who displayed the work ethic and the loyalty and devotion to the office as well the person in the wheelchair, right? And I'm very proud of that, Michael Hingson ** 42:25 but I will bet, and I'm not trying to mitigate it, but I will bet that mostly that award came about because of the things that you did and your work ethic, and that the wheelchair aspect of it was really somewhat second nature. And far down the list, Ken Kunken ** 42:41 I'm very proud of the fact that that seems to be the case and and one of the aspects of that award was they talked about the effect that I had on my colleagues, and the beneficial effect that that was Yeah, Michael Hingson ** 42:56 because the reality is, it ultimately comes down to who you are and what you do and and I'm not, and again, I'm not mitigating being in a wheelchair or having any kind of disability, but I really, truly believe ultimately the disability isn't what is not what defines us, it's how we are and what we do and how we behave in society that really will be what helps us make a mark on whatever we're involved with, Ken Kunken ** 43:28 right? And I think for some, as I say, it was a revelation to see that somebody with a disability had the same needs, wants and desires as everybody else. We were certainly no different with respect to that right. Michael Hingson ** 43:43 So how long did you work as a lawyer and in the district attorney's office? Ken Kunken ** 43:49 Well, I worked there full time for more than 33 years, and then I worked there in a part time capacity for an additional eight years. So all told, more than 40 years I worked there, and in fact, I'm one of the longest serving Nassau County assistant district attorneys that they've ever had. Michael Hingson ** 44:09 Now, why did you go back to part time after 33 years? Ken Kunken ** 44:15 Well, there are a number of reasons. You know, I I thought that due to some health issues, I wanted to play it safe and make sure that I locked in my pension, because I thought there would be a bigger payout if I retired while I was still working than if I died while I was working on the job. As it turned out, my health issue seemed to resolve itself, but I decided that, you know, retiring, when I did, gave me some more time to spend at home with my family, and I really appreciated being able to do that. Michael Hingson ** 44:53 That's a very admirable thing. Can't complain about that. So what keeps you going? Ken Kunken ** 45:00 What keeps me going now is my family. Just so your listeners know, I'm married to the wonderful woman that's actually sitting to my right right now. My name is Anna, and we're actually the parents of triplet sons. We have three incredible boys, Joseph, James and Timothy. They're now 20 years old, and they're currently sophomores at three separate colleges in upstate New York, and they're the light of my life. I couldn't be more proud. And they're what keeps me going these days. Michael Hingson ** 45:33 What colleges? Ken Kunken ** 45:36 Well, James is going to the State University of New York at Morrisville, where he's studying renewable energy. Timothy is pursuing a dual major at the SI Newhouse School of Communications in the Maxwell School of Public Policy at Syracuse University. And my son Joseph is actually attending my alma mater, Cornell University, where he's majoring in mechanical engineering. Michael Hingson ** 46:06 And do they all go watch football games on the weekend? I mean, given the fact that least a couple of those are at schools with good football Ken Kunken ** 46:13 teams, right? But you know what? They never wanted anything to do with football. But they are all physically active, in great shape, and in fact, all of them have pursued the martial arts, and all three of them are second degree black belts in Taekwondo. And they've all even worked as instructors in the Taekwondo studio here in Long Island. Michael Hingson ** 46:35 So dad has to be careful, though they'll take you out, huh? Ken Kunken ** 46:39 You bet. In fact, I've got my own three personal bodyguards when Michael Hingson ** 46:43 I got right, you can't do better than that. And and Anna, which I'll bet is more formidable than all of them Ken Kunken ** 46:53 on, is incredible. I mean, she is just a force that is unstoppable. She's incredible. Michael Hingson ** 47:01 Well, that's cool all the way around, and it's, it's great that you, you have a good neighborhood around you to support you, and I think we all need that. That's that's pretty important to to deal with. So with your job and all that, now that you are retired, I don't know whether you have much stress in your life, but how do you deal with stress? And how does stress affect you and or does it make any difference with a disability? Ken Kunken ** 47:30 It sure does. It's an interesting question, because before my injury, one of the ways I would deal with stress would be out of the football field, yeah, you know, being physically active, running into an individual, you know, to tackle or block, that was a great way to relieve some of my stress. Once I had my injury, I no longer had that outlet, so I had to find different ways of dealing with it. One of my ways was, you know, trying to sit outside and sit in the garden or by water and, you know, just enjoy nature and try and relax and clear my mind. But now my best stress relievers are my three children. I'm spending time with them, watching all that they're doing. I find that the best way of me to be able to relax and relieve any anxieties that I have? Michael Hingson ** 48:23 Well, I think there's a lot of value in doing things that keep you calm and focused. I think that is the best way to deal with stress. All too often, we don't think or be introspective about ourselves and our lives, and we don't really step back and get rid of that stress mentally, and that's where it really all comes from. I mean, I know people have physical manifestations of stress and so on, but I would submit that typically, stress is so much more an emotional thing because we haven't learned how to deal with it, and you clearly have Ken Kunken ** 49:02 it took a while, but yeah, now I have my family to help every step of the way, and that includes relieving the stress that I've under. Michael Hingson ** 49:10 Yeah, and stress is important to get rid of and not have around. It will help you live a whole lot longer not to have stress I just went through a week ago and op was, you know, an operation to change a heart valve. And people keep asking me, well, Weren't you worried? Weren't you stressed over that? And my answer was, No, I had no control over it really happening to my knowledge, I don't think that I've been a very poor eater, and all of my arteries and everything were good. And so no, I wasn't stressed, even when I first learned that there was an issue and wasn't an emergency room for over 24 hours, mostly sitting around, I chose not to be stressed, and it was a choice. And so I just listened to things around me and became quite entertained at some of the people. People who were in the emergency room with me, but being stressed wasn't going to do anything to help the process at all. So I refuse to get stressed. Ken Kunken ** 50:09 That's great. And you know, I think this finally retiring has helped me deal with stress as well, because working as an assistant district attorney, there can be a lot of stressful situations in the office, and it's, it's nice to finally be retired and be able to enjoy all of my activities outside of the office. Michael Hingson ** 50:33 What would you say is probably the most stressful thing that you had to endure as an attorney? You were, I mean, you did this for 40 years, or almost 40 years? So what? Well, actually, yeah, for 40 years. So what would you say is the most stressful thing that you ever had to deal with? Ken Kunken ** 50:50 Well, I had to rely on, you know, my memory, because it was difficult for me even turning pages of a book or pulling, you know, pieces of paper out of a file, and there was a lot of paperwork that you get to be familiar with, whether they be grand jury testimony or prior witness statements. And I had to rely a lot of my memory and through the help of student interns or paralegals or secretaries, and it was very difficult. And I might add, you know, just to give you one anecdote, one day after I had convicted a defendant of, you know, felony, you know, he was a person with a lot of prior involvement with the criminal justice system, and I was about to go down for his sentencing, he jumped in the elevator with me, and now we're alone in the elevator riding down, and here I am with this person that I convicted of a serious case, and I'm about to recommend that he go to an upstate prison. And he approaches me and says, I have a proposition for you. If you don't send me to jail, I'll agree to work as your personal care attendant for a year, which really struck me as odd. I mean, he must have thought that working for me for a year would be the equivalent of going to prison for a few years. But fortunately, the elevator door opened and I politely turned down his request and went to court, and he was sentenced to two to four years in an upstate prison. Michael Hingson ** 52:28 Still was creative, 52:30 right? Michael Hingson ** 52:33 So in all of your life and all the things you've done, what are you most proud Ken Kunken ** 52:36 of, well, but definitely most proud of my family life? I mean, as I indicated, I'm married now, married for more than 21 years now, my three boys are sophomores in college and doing absolutely great, and make me proud every single day. But I'm proud of the fact that I was able to go back to school, complete my education and work at a job and earn a living where I was able to support myself and able to purchase a house and live now with my wife and children and lead as just about as normal a life as any other family would lead. Michael Hingson ** 53:18 Now being married to Ana is that your first marriage? It sure is. So there we go. Well, I hear you and but you guys met late, and I'm going to step out on a limb and say it proves something that I've always felt, which is, you'll get married when the right person comes along, especially if you're mature enough to recognize it, Ken Kunken ** 53:41 you're right. And I was very fortunate that the right person came along in my life, and we have a very happy marriage that I cannot picture life without him right now, Michael Hingson ** 53:56 my wife and I got married when I was 32 she was 33 but we knew what we wanted in a partner, and when we first met each other, it just sort of clicked right from the beginning. We met in January of 1982 and in July, I asked her to marry me, and we got married in November of 1982 and so we were married for 40 years before she passed. And you know, there are always challenges, but, but you deal with it. So it must have been really an interesting time and an interesting life, suddenly discovering you have three boy triplets. Ken Kunken ** 54:31 You know, it really was well, you know, when I decided to get married, she told me that she wanted to have my baby, and not just any baby my baby, she said she wanted to see a little pumpkin running around our home. And this really seemed impossible at the time. I had been paralyzed for more than 30 years, and I was already in my 50s, but we looked into various options, including in vitro fertilization and. And we're very excited, excited to learn we could still, I could still father a child. So we pursued it. And you know, through good fortune, good luck, and I guess somebody smiling on us from above, Anna became pregnant with triplets, and I couldn't be happier to have these three wonderful boys in my life. Michael Hingson ** 55:21 So did becoming a father change you? Or how did you evolve? When that all happened, Ken Kunken ** 55:26 it sure did. I mean, you know, it went from me being number one in honors life to suddenly being number four after all, three boys got the attention they needed, but it was wonderful for me to be able to help shape their lives and guide them so that they would develop the right character and values and learn the importance of helping others throughout their lives, which they do, and It's I think it's made me a better person, being able to help and guide them. That's cool. Michael Hingson ** 56:07 Well, the the other thing I would ask is, if you had a chance to go back and talk to a younger Ken, what would you say? What would you teach them so that they would maybe make mistakes that you made? Ken Kunken ** 56:18 Well, I'd say there's an awful lot you could still do in life, even without your physical movement, and sometimes it takes a lot of patience and a lot of self reflection, but to realize there's an awful lot you can do and that they need to keep their expectations high for themselves as well as for others, and to realize that just because something has not been done before doesn't mean they cannot do it now. They've got to find different ways of approaching problems and handling it and developing some self confidence in themselves and their ability to deal with difficult situations. Michael Hingson ** 57:03 How did the Americans with Disabilities Act improve all that you did and make your life, especially on the job, better? Ken Kunken ** 57:12 Well, it, you know, made facilities so much more accessible. When I first went back to college, there was not one ramp or curb cut on the entire campus. On my first day back in school, I had to be either pulled up or bounced down close to 100 steps just to attend my classes, and as I indicated, in the DAs office, I couldn't even fit through the swinging doorways to get in the courtroom. So it made it tremendously easier to not have to deal with all the physical challenges, but it also made it better for dealing with other people and their attitudes about dealing with people with disabilities, because thanks to the Americans with Disabilities Act, you see more people with disabilities out in public. So people are more used to seeing, dealing, interacting with people, and seeing what they can do and that they're just like everybody else. And as a result, people's attitudes have been changing, and I think that's helped me as well, in many different ways. Michael Hingson ** 58:20 Cool, well, you have written a book about all of this. Tell me about the book. Ken Kunken ** 58:27 Okay, I actually started writing a book when I was still in the rehab facility. Not long after I was hurt, a friend of my aunt Lorraine's by the name of Albert meglan visited me in the hospital and thought that one it may help me deal with my depression by talking about what I was going through, but also inform other individuals what a spinal cord injury was like and what's involved with rehabilitation. So he used to visit me in the rehab facility one day a week for a number of weeks for me to start writing a book about my experiences. And then when I went back to school, I started working on it on my own, but I would pick it up and stop and start and stop again over the course of 50 years. And then once I retired, I had more time to sit down with my wife, and I would dictate to her, and she would type it on her laptop computer until we finally finished my memoir, which is called I dream of things that never were, the Ken kunken story, and it's published by a company called 12 tables Press, and they could learn more about my book by going on my website, which is kenkunkin.com and I might add that where I got the title of my book was six months after my injury. I was asked to testify before a United States Health subcommittee chaired by Senate. Senator Edward Kennedy. And eight days after my testimony, Senator Kennedy sent me a glass paperweight in the mail that had an inscription on it that the senator said his late brother Robert Kennedy liked very much. And the inscription read, some men see things as they are and say, Why I dream of things that never were. And say, why not? And that's where I got the title of my book. I dream of things that never were. Michael Hingson ** 1:00:28 Yeah, that's cool. And where can people get the book? Ken Kunken ** 1:00:35 Well, it's available on Amazon. It's also available at the Cornell bookstore, and if they go on my website, Ken kunken.com spellkin For me, please. It's K U N, as in Nancy. K e n that tells of a number of ways that they could purchase the book, both the hardcover book, it's also available as a Kindle version as an e book, and just recently, we put it out as an audio book as well. And they could learn all about it by going to the website, but certainly it's available on Amazon. If they wanted to order in bulk, they could contact my publisher directly, and he could help them fulfill that type of order. Cool. Michael Hingson ** 1:01:22 That is great. So now the real question is, are there any more books in Ken to come out? Ken Kunken ** 1:01:28 Well, this book took me 50 years to I know you got to go a little bit faster. So no, I think I wrote down everything that I wanted to convey to people in that book, and now I'm actively just promoting the book like you. I've spoken at a number of different events as a motivational speaker, and you know, the book has given me a way to get m

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285 - ¿A qué citas culturales y de ocio he acudido en la primera semana de julio 2025?

Al Daily Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 4, 2025 12:32

Llevo dos semanas de no parar y me apetecía contarte algunos de los planes en los que he participado ;)- Jueves 26 de junio: Presentación de la cerveza de edición limitada Califato 3/4 en Cervezas Río Azul (Sevilla)- Viernes 27 de junio: Concierto Iván Ferreiro + Love of Lesbian en Icónica (Sevilla) desde la terraza del restaurante Lalola- Lunes 30 de junio: Grabación de la final del concurso “Doctorado Honoris Cádiz” de Radio Cádiz (Cadena Ser) en la sede gaditana de la Fundación Cajasol- Martes 1 de julio: Concierto de Antílopez en Icónica (Sevilla)- Miércoles 2 de julio: Presentación de la memoria de actividades 2024 de la fundación Cajasol, en la sede de la Plaza de San Francisco de Sevilla- Viernes 4 de julio: Ruta “La Llave de los Misterios” de Jesús Relinque en la Feria del Libro de CádizDime qué te ha parecido este capitulo y deja un comentario en ivoox o Spotify.Si lo prefieres, envíame un correo electrónico a la dirección de gmail almadailypodcast. En redes soy @almajefi y me encuentras en X / Twitter, Bluesky, Threads, Instagram y Telegram.

First Time Manager – Your Old Job Description Has Been Deleted

Nerd Journey Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 1, 2025 24:16

A manager's success isn't what they do, but how they help. Learn to swap your IC skills for the leadership tools you need to thrive in your new role.

ic job descriptions

Episode 349 – Unstoppable Coach For High-Achieving Leaders with Ashley Rudolph

Celebrate Muliebrity with Michelle Lyons

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 1, 2025 67:41

Today Ashley Rudolph is an executive coach working with high-achieving and executives who are at a “crossroad” as they look GREAT on paper, but tend to exhibit fears and have other problems that effect their confidence and performance. Ashley was not always a coach and, in fact, did not view herself as a coach during most of her career. She grew up in the Bronx in New York City. She attributes her high confidence level to the high bar her parents set for her as well as to the environment where she grew up. After high school Ashley enrolled in Babson College where she quickly had to learn much about business and working as a team. She will tell us that story. After graduation she secured a job, but was layed off and then went back to Babson to secure her Master's degree. Ashley began working and quickly rose through the corporate ranks of tech companies. She tells us how, while not really tech savy at first, she pushed herself to learn what she needed to know to work as part of a team and then eventually to lead high tech teams. In 2023 her high tech employment world took a change which she will describe. Bottom line is that she was laid off from her vice presidential position and after pondering what to do she realized that she had actually been coaching her employees for some time and so she began hirering herself out as an executive coach. We will get the benefit of receiving a number of her insights on leadership, confidence building and how to become better mentally with anything life throughs at us. What Ashley says during our episode time makes a great deal of sense and I believe you will gain a lot from what she has to say. You can reach out to Ashley through the contact information in the show notes for this Unstoppable Mindset episode. About the Guest: Ashley Rudolph is an executive coach for high-achieving leaders and executives at a crossroads—those who have built success on paper but are ready to step into something greater. Her work is grounded in a bold belief: true transformation isn't about doing more—it's about leading differently. A former tech executive, she scaled from IC to VP in just five years, leading $75M+ deals and teams of 250+ at high-growth companies. She knows what it takes to succeed in high-stakes environments—not just in execution, but in the deeper, often invisible work of leadership: making bold decisions, navigating uncertainty, and owning your impact. Her signature methodology, The Three Dimensions of Transformation, helps leaders unlock their full potential by focusing on: mindset, strategy, and elite execution. Whether guiding clients through reinvention, leadership evolution, or high-stakes career moves, Ashley helps them break free from outdated success metrics and create momentum that lasts. Her insights have been featured in Inc., U.S. News & World Report, The New York Post, Success Magazine, Apartment Therapy, and more. She also writes The Operator's Edge, a newsletter on the unseen shifts that drive real momentum in leadership and career growth. Because true leadership isn't about following a path. It's about defining your own. Ways to connect with Ashley: My website which has details about me, my programs, and insights about high achievers in the workplace: www.workwithashleyr.com My newsletter which gets published every single Monday morning with my expert advice for high achievers on how to succeed in the workplace. newsletter.workwithashleyr.com My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyrudolph/ 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 ** 01:20 Well, hello, everyone, wherever you happen to be today, I am Michael Hingson, and you are listening to or watching or both, unstoppable mindset today, our guest is Ashley Rudolph, who is a coach, and I like something Ashley put in her bio that I thought was really interesting, and that is that Ashley's work is grounded in the belief that true transportation is not really about doing more, but rather it's doing things differently. And I want, I'm going to want to learn about that. I think that's fascinating, and I also think it is correct, but we will, we will definitely get to that and talk about that. Ashley approached me a little while ago and said, I'd like to explore coming on your content, your podcast. And I said, Well, sure, except I told her the same thing that I tell everyone who comes on the podcast, there is one hard and fast rule you got to follow, and that is, you got to have fun, or you can't come on the podcast, so you got to have fun. Ashley, just Ashley Rudolph ** 02:26 reminding you, I'm ready. I am ready. I'm coming into the podcast today with all of my best jokes, all of my best tricks. Oh, good. Speaker 1 ** 02:35 Well, we want to hear them all. Well, thank you for being here, and it's a pleasure to have you on unstoppable mindset. Ashley Rudolph ** 02:42 Yes, thank you so much for having me. I was just really taken by your entire background story, and I took a risk and sent you a message. So thank you so much for having me on the podcast. Speaker 1 ** 02:55 Well, I have always been of the opinion that everyone has stories to tell, and a lot of people just don't believe they do, but that's because they don't think about it. And so what I tell people who say that to me when we talk about them coming on the podcast, my job is to help bring out the stories. Now, you didn't say that, and I'm not surprised, but still, a lot of people say that. And the reality is, I believe everyone is more unstoppable than they think they are, and that they undersell themselves, they underrate what they are and what they can do, Ashley Rudolph ** 03:28 yeah, and honestly, I 100% agree with you, and that's why, and maybe I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but you triggered a thought. That's why I spend every single one of my first coaching meetings with a client, having them talk me through either their professional history or their wins from the past year. And in those conversations, my feedback is also is always Hey, you're not giving yourself enough credit for the things that you're doing. Like, these are amazing stories, or like, repeating things back to them a little bit differently than they would have phrased it, but that's 100% accurate. We don't sell ourselves enough, Speaker 1 ** 04:08 even to ourselves. We don't sell ourselves enough, especially to ourselves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, tell me a little about kind of the early Ashley growing up and all that, and you know where you came from, and all that sort of stuff, Ashley Rudolph ** 04:23 yeah. So I grew up in New York. I'm from the Bronx. Oh and yeah, yeah. So, so is my Michael Hingson ** 04:30 mom Ashley Rudolph ** 04:31 Aqua? Oh my gosh, I had no idea. So I grew up in the Bronx and grew up with my mom. My dad was around too, and, oh, it's interesting, and I'm sure this will make sense, but I grew up going to Catholic schools from first grade to senior year of high school, and something about me, it was like I was always a very self assured. Determined person, and that carried through all the way through my adulthood. And maybe that comes from me being a New Yorker. Maybe that comes from my mom being a an immigrant. She's from the Caribbean. She's from the Bahamas, and she had a very high bar for what success looked like I don't know where it comes from, but yeah, yeah. So that's a little bit about me growing up and kind of who I was Speaker 1 ** 05:28 as a kid. So now, where are you living? Now? Ashley Rudolph ** 05:32 I am in New York again, so I moved back to New York in 2020, Speaker 1 ** 05:38 okay, wow, just in time for the pandemic. Lucky you? Ashley Rudolph ** 05:43 Yeah, I actually moved back to New York on election day in 2020 so I missed the early pandemic. But yeah, yeah, yeah, Speaker 1 ** 05:53 I was in New York speaking on March 5, and that night, I got back to the hotel, and my flight was supposed to go out at like, 415 in the afternoon, yeah. And I said, when I started hearing that they were talking about closing down the city, I think I better leave earlier. So I was on a 730 flight out the next day. Oh my gosh, Ashley Rudolph ** 06:18 wow. So you just made it out and that yeah, and at the time, I was living in Boston, and I actually was went on a vacation with a friend, and we flew back the day before they shut down the airports in Boston. So Speaker 1 ** 06:36 that was lucky. Yeah, did you live in Boston itself or a suburb? Ashley Rudolph ** 06:42 Yeah, I lived in Boston for two years, I think, yeah, I lived in the city, yeah. I Speaker 1 ** 06:50 lived in Winthrop for three years, and commuted across Boston to Cambridge every day, Ashley Rudolph ** 06:55 yeah, oh, my god, yeah. So I worked in Cambridge and I lived in the West End, right above TD Garden. Speaker 1 ** 07:03 Oh, okay, yeah, I hear that Durgan Park closed in, in near Faneuil Hall. Ashley Rudolph ** 07:13 Oh, yeah, well, I have to admit, I didn't go there that much. Was living in Boston. Speaker 1 ** 07:19 It was a fun place. It was a family style thing, and they had tables for four around the outer edges inside the restaurant. But you couldn't sit at one of those unless you had four people. And the serving staff was trained to be a little bit on the snotty side. And I went in fun. Oh, wait. Oh, absolutely. They made it fun. But I went in and the hostess, there were three of us, and my guide dog at the time, Holland, who was a wonderful, cute golden retriever, and she said, Oh, we're going to put you at one of the tables for four. And I said, Well, okay, we appreciate that. And Holland was under the table. This waitress comes up and she says, you're not supposed to be sitting here. This is a table for four, and there are only three of you. And I said, but they told us we could. No Nobody told you you could sit here. You got to go back over to the big tables. And I said, Look, we have a guide dog under the table, and he's really happy. And they told us we could be here because of the dog. And she's, I don't believe that at all. I'm, I'm gonna go check. I don't believe you. She goes away and she comes back a little bit later. No, you're not supposed to sit here. And I said, Look, lift up the tablecloth and look under the table. I'm not going to fall for that. Just do it. She finally did. And there's Holland staring out with these big brown eyes. And she just melted. She goes away and comes back. And one of the things about Durgan Park is they have big plates of prime rib. And she brought this plate of prime ribs somebody hadn't eaten at all, and she said, can I give this to the dog? And so, you know, normally, I would say no, but we were trying to make peace in our time, so I said, Oh, sure. And she and Holland had a great time. So it was fun. Ashley Rudolph ** 08:59 Oh, and Holland got prime rib. Holland Speaker 1 ** 09:03 got prime rib. What a treat. And so did and so did the rest of us, but, but we had to pay for ours. But I missed Durgin Park. It was a fun place to go, but I understand that it is closed, and I don't know whether it's oh, well, oh, that's unfortunate, but Quincy market's a wonderful place to go. It's not a lot of interesting things. So you, so you went through high school. So you went through high school in New York, went in in the Bronx tough neighborhood, and then what did you do? So Ashley Rudolph ** 09:34 I then went to college. So I went to Babson College, which is, well, it's in Massachusetts, it's in Wellesley, and it's actually right next door to Wellesley College. Yeah, yeah. So I went there and I studied business, and that was basically where I learned how to be successful in the workplace, which is kind. Funny, because I found that over the years, a lot of people will say, you know, I went to college, but by the end of it, maybe I didn't know what my transferable skills were, or I studied something that isn't related to what I was doing or what I did as a professional, and I always felt the opposite, like in freshman year at Babson, they gave us $3,000 to, like, start a company as a as a students. So all of us just had to start this company. We had our business ideas. There was a CEO, a CMO, a CFO. We had like rules assigned. And that was my first experience of what a workplace could be like, although it was with 18 year olds, so maybe not totally reflective, but we had performance reviews, we had a head of HR, we had like, company meetings, so we were doing things within a framework, and they all kind of translated into the workplace, different players. So Babson basically kind of turned me into the business person that I am Speaker 1 ** 11:09 today. Now, did each person get $3,000 and they started their own company? Ashley Rudolph ** 11:14 Oh, no. So there were, there were maybe 30 of us, and we started a company with that with $3,000 Okay? Exactly with that investment, it was managed quite tightly. There's not a lot that you can do with $3,000 right? So you can probably guess that a lot of the businesses turned out to be the same. So there was always a T Shirt Company or a company the when the LIVESTRONG wristbands were popular, then we were like, oh, let's customize these wristbands. So yeah, yeah. The the company ideas basically ended up being the same, because there's not that much that you could do with that, yeah, Speaker 1 ** 11:56 yeah, yeah. So much you can do unless you start making a bunch of money, Ashley Rudolph ** 12:00 yeah, yeah, yeah. And in today's landscape, I guess there's more that you can do with digital products and stuff like that. But yeah, yeah, we, we had to do physical so we were pretty limited, yeah, well, that's Speaker 1 ** 12:13 okay, but still, if the company is successful, and was it successful? Yeah, Ashley Rudolph ** 12:19 we, did turn a profit, and then for all of the businesses that did turn a profit, you had to donate the profits to a local charity. So we did. We donated ours to a local organization. We threw an event in partnership with the organization. It was just, it was nice. So, yeah, oh, Speaker 1 ** 12:43 cool. So, how, how long did the company last? Essentially, was it all four years? Ashley Rudolph ** 12:50 It was the first Speaker 2 ** 12:52 year, just the first year, okay, yeah, okay, yeah, that's still, that's pretty cool. Ashley Rudolph ** 12:58 Yeah, it is. I have to say that I learned a lot, Speaker 1 ** 13:02 yeah, well, you're you're kind of forced to or you don't succeed. So I was going to ask you why you felt that you learned how to be successful. But now it's pretty clear, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ashley Rudolph ** 13:13 So we started there in freshman year, and then sophomore, junior and senior year was kind of more of a deep dive on specific skills. So that you take our accounting classes, finance marketing, if you were into retail, there was like a retail management class at the core classes. So we had, you know, liberal arts courses, so art history, yeah, philosophy, things like that. But yeah, everything was mostly centered around business and cool, yeah, yeah. Well, that's Speaker 1 ** 13:47 pretty exciting. Did you did you go do any graduate work anywhere? Ashley Rudolph ** 13:52 It's funny, yes, I did. So I graduated from Babson, and my first job was in a creative agency, and I was doing media buying, and at the time it was 2008 and we were buying ads in school newspapers, which was dying like it was pretty much On on its last leg, and I just had this thought when I was doing it, and that I wasn't inspired by the work, because it wasn't growing, it was going away. And it was clear, yeah, and that. And actually my first job, I got laid off because it was a dying industry, and the team needed to be smaller, and at that point, it's my first job. So it was very devastating to me. I had never gone through anything like that before. So then I decided to go back to school. So I did my masters. I actually. Went back to Babson, but in an international program. So I spent my first semester in France, my second semester in China, and then my final semester at Babson. Ah, Speaker 1 ** 15:13 so why was the newspaper industry going away? Just because everything was going online? Ashley Rudolph ** 15:18 Exactly, yeah, things were shifting more digital. Yeah, it's exactly Speaker 1 ** 15:23 that, so they didn't need as many people selling and doing other things as they did before. Yeah, Ashley Rudolph ** 15:28 yeah, exactly. Or companies were figuring out different ways to reach college students that wasn't dependent on getting in the school newspaper. 15:39 Yeah? Yeah, yeah, Speaker 1 ** 15:42 yeah. So you got your master's degree from Babson, and then what did you Ashley Rudolph ** 15:47 do? I got my master's degree from Babson, and I'll fast forward a little bit, because what's funny is that after I graduated, I still didn't quite know what I wanted to do, but I figured it out. I ended up going back into marketing. But if you remember, what I described was, in that first job, I wasn't connected to the mission. I wasn't inspired by where the industry was going. So I ended up pivoting into nonprofits. And my first job after graduating from my masters was running digital media, so not physical media, so I shifted into social media and online marketing. Had a nonprofit, right? So I was connected to the mission. I felt like the work that I was doing was for a good cause, and it was an industry that was new and that was growing, and that was ever changing and exciting. So I did that for about three years, so first at a nonprofit, and then at an a charter school network that was in New York and New Jersey at the time, but has since expanded far beyond that. So, yeah, I went into mission driven work, and I went into digital marketing and digital media. And I think what I took away from that chapter of my career was that I want to be in an industry that is ever evolving. So, yeah, so after my experience in the nonprofit and education space, that's when I jumped into tech. So I jumped into tech after that, and spent a decade in the tech industry. And obviously, tech is ever changing. I had access to so many different opportunities. I grew really fast. I started at the first company, the first tech company that I worked for. I was a program manager, and five years later I was a vice president, right? So, like, I was able to seize opportunities and work really hard and get to the level that I wanted to get to I was very ambitious, so I think tech just kind of gave me everything I wanted. Career wise, how Speaker 1 ** 18:09 did you progress so fast to go from being a program manager to the level of Vice President in what generally would be defined as a pretty short time? Yeah, Ashley Rudolph ** 18:20 yeah, yeah. So some of it was hard work, and I think the other factor was luck, and the other factor was going after whatever it was that was in front of me. So taking risks. So I would say, with the hard work part, I worked a lot. See when I first, when I started that job, I was actually a Program Manager for Back End Web Development, which was Ruby on Rails, coding a coding language. And then I was also a program manager for data science. I had no experience in either I was not technical. I did not have the technical skills or technical aptitude to do this, but I did have the desire to learn. So my first month at that job, I worked seven days a week. I went to workshops on the weekend. I did coding workshops, I read through all of the documentation. I sat in all of the programs that I was managing. I just dug deep. And I think that first year of immersing myself in everything kind of set the foundation for me. Speaker 1 ** 19:38 So you made yourself pretty technical by the time it was all said and done, Ashley Rudolph ** 19:42 yeah, yes, yes, and not on the level of any of my instructors or the students that actually took the programs. But I cared about learning, and I cared about having a certain level of fluency in order to I had to hire instructors for the program so I couldn't fumble my. Words, right? So, yeah, yeah. So I taught myself, yeah, Speaker 1 ** 20:05 you learned. You learned enough. You You weren't trying to be the most technical person, but you learned enough to be able to interact with people and hold your own. Yeah, which, which is the important thing, I think. And for me, I know at one point, I had a job that was phased out when Xerox bought the company and I couldn't find another job. And it wasn't because of a lack of trying, and it wasn't because I didn't have the skills, but rather, as societal norms typically go, the belief is blind people can't work, as opposed to what we really can and can't do. So I eventually started my own company selling computer aided design systems, and for me, as a blind person, of course, I'm not going to sit in front of a CAD computer or even a PC based CAD system, which is what we sold. So I had to learn, however, all about how to operate the system. Learn about PCs. So I learned how to how to build PCs. I learned about CAD so I could actually walk someone through the process of drawing without actually having to do it, so I understand what, exactly what you're saying. Yeah, and it was important to do that. Yeah. Yeah, Ashley Rudolph ** 21:21 it was important, and no one told me to do that, right? And I'm sure that no one told you to do that too, but there was just something in me that knew that I was excited about this work, or I wanted opportunities, and this was the best way that I knew how to go after it. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 1 ** 21:43 Well, and, and it is the way you still have you do have to learn enough to be able to hold your own, but I Yeah, but I think it's also important in learning that that you're also not trying to threaten anyone else. You're just trying to be able to communicate with them Ashley Rudolph ** 22:00 exactly, exactly, yes, Speaker 1 ** 22:05 yeah. All too often, people view others as threats when they really shouldn't. But you know, Speaker 2 ** 22:12 that's Yeah, another story gonna do Yeah, right, right. Speaker 1 ** 22:16 Well, so for within five years, you became a vice president. What was the tech that y'all were really developing? Ashley Rudolph ** 22:22 Yeah, great question. So what's interesting about this is that it wasn't so the first company I worked for wasn't a tech company, and that they were building tech it's actually a coding boot camp. So they were teaching people either how to code or how to become a UX designer, or how to become a product manager. So that was the product after a while. And I think long after I left the company, they did develop their own tech. So they developed an online an LMS learning management system, and there was digital content. But when I started, it was really about the boot camp era and teaching people how to code, because there were all these engineering jobs and web development jobs that were available and not enough, not enough talent, not Speaker 2 ** 23:13 enough talent to go around. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ashley Rudolph ** 23:17 Which is when you think about today's market and where we're, where we are, that was only 10 years ago, and it's a completely different story. Now, the market is flooded with too many web developers. Yeah, Speaker 1 ** 23:29 it is, but I would say, from my standpoint of seeing what they produce in terms of making web content accessible, not nearly enough of them know how to do that, which is another story, Ashley Rudolph ** 23:41 yeah, yeah, yeah, which is so interesting. And yeah, unacceptable, unfortunate, because there were always teams that were in charge of accessibility at the companies that I worked for, but then having someone be in charge of it, and then properly resourcing the accessibility team is a whole other story. And I think so many companies view it as just oh yeah, I checked the box. My website is accessible. But did you really build with your end users in mind, and the answer is probably no, Speaker 1 ** 24:23 probably not, yeah, and all too often that ended up being the case. Well, so what did you do after you became vice president? Ashley Rudolph ** 24:32 Yeah, so that was tough. You said it, and you said, I climbed really fast. And that's true, I did, and because I climbed fast, there were a lot of lessons to learn. So after I became vice president, I really had to own that leadership seat, or that executive leadership seat, and recognize that what had got me there. Here is was not what was going to keep me there. So the thing that I did after I became a vice president was really understanding how to be an effective executive. So that means really understanding the business side, which I already knew I had been doing that I've been thinking about that since college, so that wasn't something that I was concerned about, but the biggest thing was forming executive level relationships and really understanding how to form allies, and understanding that at that level, it's less of I have the right answer, and listen to me, because I'm a vice president and more of a okay. How am I influencing the people around me to listen to my idea, accept my idea, champion and support my idea. And it's not enough to just have something that's right on paper. Speaker 1 ** 26:06 The others the other side of that, of course, could be that maybe you have an idea that may or may not be the right idea, which also means you need to learn to listen, Ashley Rudolph ** 26:13 yes, exactly, exactly, and that was absolutely the other side of it. So me coming into things and being like, I understand what needs to happen, and not having all the context either way, right? So, yeah, yeah, yeah, Speaker 1 ** 26:31 but you must have done pretty well at doing all that. Ashley Rudolph ** 26:34 I figured it out eventually. Yes, I did figure it out eventually, and it wasn't easy, but I was able to grow a team and scale a team, and I was able to move from maybe the business side of running operations to the product and technology side of it, so being able to see two different sides of the coin. And yeah, it did. It did work. Well, I was able to create my own department, which was a product project management office that oversaw all of the work of the entire product and design and technology teams, 250 people. I I'm not sure that I would have thought I was capable of doing something like that, and building something from the ground up, and hiring a team of, I think, 15 people, and leading that department. And, yeah, yeah, and it was great. I did learn a lot. And then 2023 happened. And that was the major turning point in Tech where I think the dominant story shifted from, or at least in education technology, which I think you know something a lot about, but the dominant story shifted from this is great. This is growing. Distance Learning is fueling growth. There's so much opportunity here to it's too big. We need to, you know, do layoffs. We need to find a way to right size the business. There's actually not a lot of growth happening. So 2023 happened, and I ended up getting laid off with my entire department that I built. And that was such a huge lesson, a huge leadership lesson for me, for sure. So I'll pause so that I'm not not talking at you, but hanger, yeah, yeah, Speaker 1 ** 28:46 well, so you got laid off. I've been there. I've had that happen. And, yeah, it isn't fun, but it's like anything else. You may not have been able to control it happening, but no, you are the one who has to deal with it. So you may not have control over it happening, but you always have control over how you deal with what happened. Ashley Rudolph ** 29:09 Yes, yes, 29:11 yes. And what did you do? Ashley Rudolph ** 29:14 And that's exactly what was so different about this time. So I will say I had two months notice. I had an amazing leader, such a technology officer. When the decision was made, he said, Okay, we can make this decision, but I have to tell Ashley immediately. So he told me, and it wasn't surprising, right? Because I saw how the business what direction the business was going in. So I can't say I was shocked, but the big question that I had was, Oh, my God, what am I going to do about my team? And I felt such immense responsibility because I had hired many of them I came to. Care about them and their careers and their livelihoods, and, yeah, I just felt responsible for it. So you said it, you said it beautifully, and that it was about what I decided to do. So from that moment, I shifted my focus, maybe, maybe to my own detriment, but whatever, I came out on the upside, but I shifted my focus to my team, and I thought the best thing that I could do in that moment was preparing them for their next chapters without going directly to the team and damaging the trust of the Chief Technology Officer and saying, in two months, we're all going to get laid off. That's also not reflective of the type of leader I wanted to be. So I figured out that, because we were a project management office and because there wasn't a lot of new work at the company, we had downtime. So I implemented a meeting on the calendar, which was a project review, and every single week, someone on my team had the opportunity to present their projects and talk about what they learned, what was challenging for them, and what their successes were, right, some combination of those things, and they all did it, and that was my way of helping to start prepare them for the interview process, because now you know your work, you know what your impact was, and you've gotten my feedback as someone who's a leader, who knows what hiring managers are looking for, you got my feedback on the best ways to present yourself, and they were able to ask questions. There were some people who approached me or the director on my team privately and asked us to review their resumes, because they kind of saw the writings on the wall without me ever having to say it, and I did. And what ended up happening is, at that two month mark, or whenever, when the layoffs did happen, no one on my team was shocked, and there were people who actually within a month after the layoff happened, they had found new jobs because they had that time to prepare and felt confident in their job search and the stories that they were telling about themselves. So I all that to say that I did exactly that. I chose the type of leader that I wanted to be, and the thing that felt important to me was preparing my team for their next chapter, Michael Hingson ** 32:32 which I would say is the right thing to do, Ashley Rudolph ** 32:34 yeah, yes, exactly, because it Speaker 1 ** 32:37 isn't, no matter what a lot of people might think, it isn't about you, it's about the team. It's about you and the rest of the team, because you're all a team, Ashley Rudolph ** 32:45 yeah? Except Yes, yes. And I very much viewed my team as an extension of myself, an extension of them. I you know, it wasn't just about them doing a job for me, quote, unquote, like that's not the type of leader that I am. We are a team, Speaker 1 ** 33:04 right? So meanwhile, while you were doing that and helping the team, what were you also doing for you? And Ashley Rudolph ** 33:12 that's why I said to my detriment, I didn't do a lot of thought. I put no thought into what I wanted to do. Okay? At all. I just And you know what? It's not to my detriment. I think what I needed at that time was a distraction, and this was a really good distraction for me, from sorting through what I wanted to do next, but also in navigating that with my team and supporting them through that, I think the answer became very clear once I was ready to ask my question, I just coached my team. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaker 1 ** 33:51 And so you sort of, as you would say, pivoted to being a coach, Ashley Rudolph ** 33:57 yes, yes. And I want to be clear that this wasn't a decision that was like, you know, that I just fell into coaching, you know, I I made the decision to so I took some time to think about what were the pieces of my work that I really loved when I was a VP at multi, you know, at multiple companies, and the answer was clear, and that I really loved coaching and helping people become better at their work, and I really loved mentorship. And those were the parts of the work that if I could just do that all day, that's what I would want to do. And I was like, Well, I have the I can make a decision to do that all day, every day now, because I'm not doing anything, I just got laid off. So I can choose to do this work. So that's exactly how I ended up being a coach. Speaker 1 ** 34:58 Well, so you. Ever originally planned on being a coach. So was it that work with your team that really was the sort of pivotal decision for you, that although you never thought you were going to be a coach, that led you to coaching, or was there something else that really helped move you there? There was something else. Okay, yeah, more to the story. Ashley Rudolph ** 35:21 There is always you're peeling all the layers so, so initially, what I thought I would do, because I was an operations person, I was like, I'll just be an operations consultant. I'll go out on my own, and people will hire me to be their ops person. So let me, you know, run with that as an idea. And I started having conversations with former colleagues. And what was funny in that so many of their conversations were kind of like, oh yeah, I want to support you. And that sounds nice. I understand why you would want to be an operations consultant. But there's something more interesting about you being a coach. Or I want to hire you to be a coach for my team. Or, Hey, you did really amazing things in your career. You should help other people do those things. And that was the theme that people kept telling me, so I finally decided, decided to listen. That's how I landed on coaching. And instead of it being like, oh my god, I'm trying to sell the value of myself as an operations consultant, once I just owned the coach title, people just started saying, okay, yep, Sign me up. Or I'll refer you to someone who needs a coach right now. Or, hey, you coach just one person on my team, and they're great. Here's more. So it just became easy, and it became less of a I'm trying to sell people, and I'm trying to, like, convince them that they need me in this role, it was just easy. Speaker 1 ** 37:04 So do you think you talked about being ambitious when you were in college and starting that business at Babson and so on? Do you think you've always continued to try to be, if you will, ambitious, or did you sort of shift in terms of mindsets over time? Ashley Rudolph ** 37:22 Yeah, that's a really good question. I do think I have always been ambitious, and when I visited my mom last year or the year before last for Thanksgiving, I found a fake report card that I wrote myself, that I wrote for myself in fourth grade. And there was a prompt that said, what would you want your teacher to write on your report card at the end of this year? And I wrote, Ashley is excelling at excellence. Well, there you go, fourth grade. So I think it's always been there. Speaker 1 ** 38:02 So is it, but is it ambition? Is it ambition, or is it being industrious and being being confident? You know? Ashley Rudolph ** 38:10 Yeah, yeah. Oh, that is such a good question, right? So there was a version of me when I was in the corporate world where I would have just said, yeah, it's ambition, right? Because I'm always motivated to, you know, go after the next level, and that's what's driving me. And now, now that you put that question out there, it is, it is that confidence, because I'm not chasing a thing or the next level right now, in this phase, I'm chasing quote, unquote impact like the thing that drives me is helping people, helping people probably achieve things for themselves that They also didn't think that they could in their careers, and I'm just helping them get there, yeah, Speaker 1 ** 39:06 and that's why I asked the question, because ambition, the way you normally would think of it, yeah, can be construed as being negative, but clearly what you're doing is is different than that. Yeah, you know, at this at the same time for you, now that you're coaching and so on, and you shifted to doing something different, yeah, did you have to let something go to allow you to be open to deciding to be a coach? Yeah, Ashley Rudolph ** 39:38 and the thing that I had to let go was exactly what you just pointed out. So you are very intuitive. The thing I had to let go was that the traditional construct of what success looks like. So it looks like, okay, I'm a VP, so I next need to be an SVP. And then after that I need to be at the sea level. And no, and I guess there could have always been questions about, was that what I really wanted, or was it just the next level that I was after? Yeah, yeah. And there was that, I think it was just the next level for quite some time, but now, like I said, the thing that I let go of was that and wanting to grasp for what the next level is. And now for me, it looks like, okay, well, I only have so many hours in the day, so I can't coach unlimited people, but I still want to impact many people. So what does that mean? Okay, well, I'm writing a newsletter, and I put out a newsletter every week with my thoughts, and that can reach many more people than I can one to one or podcast. I'm talking to you on this podcast, and maybe me sharing more of my story will inspire someone else, or I'll learn from you and your community, Michael, but yeah, I think the thing, the thing that determines what success looks like for me is my ability to impact Speaker 1 ** 41:14 and and the result of that is what happens with the people that you're working with, and so you, you do get feedback because of that, Ashley Rudolph ** 41:25 yes, yes, I do get, I get lots of feedback, and it is, it's transformational feedback. And I think one of the things that I love, and I do this for every client that I work with, is on day one, we established a baseline, which I don't necessarily have to always say that to them like we're establishing the baseline, it's understood. And then in our last session, I put a presentation together, and I talked to them about where they were when we started, and what they wanted for themselves, and over the course of us coaching together, what they were able to accomplish, so what their wins were, and then where they land, and just me taking them on that journey every single or when they work with me, is eye opening, because they don't even see the change as it's happening. And I'm like, Hey, you did this. You're not that person that you walked into this room as on day one, and maybe by the end, you have a new job, or you got promoted, or you feel more confident and assured in your role. But whatever it is, you've changed, and you should be proud of yourself for that. Speaker 1 ** 42:43 Yeah, yeah. And it's, I am sure, pretty cool when you get to point that out to people and they realize it, they realize how far they've come. Ashley Rudolph ** 42:55 Yeah, yeah, it is. It's, it's really awesome to be able to share that with people and to also be on the journey with them, and when they think that maybe they're not ready to do something just gently reminding them that they are. And sometimes I think about what, you know, what managers have done for me, because I've, I had the privilege of working with really great managers some in my career, and yeah, they did that to me, and that that's how I was able to accomplish the things that I did. So yeah, Speaker 1 ** 43:34 well, it's great that you're able to carry those lessons forward and help other people. That's pretty cool. Ashley Rudolph ** 43:38 Yeah, yeah. And honestly, I hope that my clients can do the same. So if there are things that they learn in coaching, any frameworks or things like that, if they're able to help people, then that's great. And the cycle continues, you know? So, yeah, yeah. Speaker 1 ** 43:57 You know, a question that comes to mind is that when we talk about leadership, there are certainly times that leaders face uncertainty, especially when there are transitions going on and you've experienced a lot of transitions. What would you say is the unconventional truth about leadership in times of change and transition? Ashley Rudolph ** 44:20 Yeah, yeah. So I think the thing that I see the most is that in times of transition, especially if it's a transition that maybe you have no control over, right? You're not choosing to leave your job, for example, the the inclination is to over control, right, and try to assert control over the situation in any way that you can, and in more cases than not, that backfires to some degree. So the thing that I try to focus on with my clients is getting to a point where you accept the fact that what is happening is happening. I'm kind of like my layoff, right? I didn't fight the decision or try to change the decision. I just had to accept it for what it was. And then the thing that we focus on is now that we know the thing is happening, whatever the transition or change is, it doesn't have to be as extreme as a layoff, but now that we know that it's happening, what can you control and what can you focus on? And that's what we need to spend our time on. And it can be anything, you know, sometimes people are put on performance improvement plan, and you kind of just if, if this is a situation where you're like, Oh yeah, I could see where this came from, and I wish that I was not in this situation. Okay, well, you kind of have to accept that you are, and what can you do about it now, it's really, yeah, Speaker 1 ** 45:58 what's the hardest lesson you've learned about leadership and being a leader, not just being an executive, but coaching people. Ashley Rudolph ** 46:10 Yeah, and I get this all the time as a coach too. It's it's in me, but the lesson that I've learned is I don't have to know everything. That's Michael Hingson ** 46:21 a hard lesson. To learn, isn't Ashley Rudolph ** 46:25 it? It is, especially when you feel like as a leader, like people are relying on you, or you think they are, they're relying on you to know the answers or to know what to do next, or as a coach, they're relying on you to ask the right questions or to guide them in the right direction, right? And sometimes you just don't know, and that's okay, and it's also okay to say that. And I was just going to say that, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. It took me a long time to get comfortable with that, but now, now I am more comfortable with it, for sure. Do you feel like you struggled with that too? Or Yeah? Speaker 1 ** 47:06 Well, I have, but I was blessed early on, when I was a student teacher in getting my secondary teaching credential, I was a student teacher in an algebra one class in high school, and one of the students came in one day, and he asked a question in the course of the day, and it should have been a question I knew the answer to, but I didn't. But when I when I realized I didn't, I also, and I guess this is my makeup, thought to myself, but I can't blow smoke about it, so I just said, you know, I don't know the answer, but I'm going to look it up and I will bring you the answer tomorrow. Is that okay? And he said, Yeah. And my master teacher after class cornered me, and he said, That was absolutely the best thing you could do, because if you try to psych out these kids and fake them out, they're going to see through you, and you're never going to get their trust. Yeah, and of course, he was absolutely right. So I did the right thing, but I also learned the value of doing the right thing. And Mr. Redman, my master teacher, certainly put it in perspective. And I think that's so important. We don't have to necessarily have all the right answers. And even if we do have the right answer, the question is, Is it our job to just say the right answer or try to guide people to get to the right answer? Ashley Rudolph ** 48:41 Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's another leadership lesson, right? It's and it's so much more powerful when people do get to the answers themselves, yeah. And I think that kind of helps with them being less dependent on coming to you for the answers moving forward, right? If they're able to go on that path of discovery Speaker 1 ** 49:04 well, and if they are able to do that and you encouraged it, they're going to sense it, and when they get the right answer, they're going to be as high as a kite, and they're going to come and tell you that they did it. So, yeah, Ashley Rudolph ** 49:15 exactly. Yeah, yeah. What a good feeling. Speaker 1 ** 49:19 Yeah, it is, what do you do? Or what are your thoughts about somebody who just comes to you and says, I'm stuck? Ashley Rudolph ** 49:27 Ooh, that happens all the time. Michael, it happens all the time. And I'll tell you, there's two things. So if someone says I'm stuck, they either don't have the confidence to pursue the thing that they know they want to do, but they're just saying they're stuck, which is it is being stuck, right? If you can't take action, then you're stuck. But sometimes they frame that as I don't know where what I want to do or where I want to go, and then I ask. Couple of questions, and it's like, oh, well, you actually do know what you want to do and where you want to go. You just don't have the confidence yet to pursue that path. So part of the time, it's a confidence issue, or the other time, the thing that they're grappling with, or the other cases, what they're grappling with is, I haven't connected with like my values or the things that motivate me or my strengths even right? So maybe they're the ambitious person who was compelled to just chase the next level and the next level and the next level, but now they're asking, Is this really important to me, or do I really want this? As I spoke to another coach, and she ended up leaving what she thought was a dream job at Google, because every day she was kind of like, I still want to be here, and it wasn't her dream job, and she left to become a coach. So it's either one of those two things, most times, for the clients that I work with, and I ask a lot of questions, so I get to the answers, or I help them get to the answers by asking them the right questions. Yeah, Speaker 1 ** 51:14 and that's the issue. And sometimes you may not know the right question right off the bat, but by the same token, you can search for it by asking other questions. Ashley Rudolph ** 51:23 Exactly, exactly, exactly, yeah, yeah, that's it. Speaker 1 ** 51:27 So what is, what is a transformation of a client that you experienced and kind of what really shifted, that changed everything to them, something that just really gave you chills, and was an AHA kind of thing. Yeah, Ashley Rudolph ** 51:44 there are. There's so many one, okay, so one that I want to share is and basically the client went from, this isn't the job for me. I don't like the role I'm in. I don't think I can be successful, and I don't think my work is valued here. And I would say, over the course of eight months, she went from that to getting one of few perfect performance reviews in the company like it's a company that doesn't give a perfect performance review, right? So, right, going from that and being like, I need to find a new job. I've got to get out to I am excelling at this job, and it wasn't just anyone that gave her the perfect performance review. It was one of the co founders of the company. So like, top person is saying, Yeah, this is great. You're doing amazing work. There is value, and I think you're incredible. So in that transformation, the thing that she had to connect to, or reconnect to, was her values and understanding what are the things that she enjoys about her work and what are the things that she really didn't enjoy, and understanding the why behind that, and then the other two things for her, or developing her confidence, which sounds very fluffy, because it's like, How do you help someone do that? And I help people do that by helping them feel really good about their work product. So with her, with her, what we ended up doing was focusing on helping her prepare for some presentations. Me giving her feedback on her decks, or her talking to me about how she wanted to prepare for a meeting and the points that she wanted to make, and me helping her, you know, craft really compelling talking points, and having that feedback loop with me of being like, Okay, here's how the meeting went, and this was the feedback I got, and also being like, Oh, wow, the meeting went really well. And like feeling her confidence build over time by helping her get better at her work, and gradually over time, it just built to that amazing end point for her. But that's that's a transformation for me that will always stick out, because I just remember that first meeting and me just being like, okay, you know this, this might end up being a journey where we help her find a role that is better suited for her. And, you know, just kind of thinking about that, and it just didn't end up being that at all. Speaker 1 ** 54:35 Well, the other thing that, in one way or another, probably plays into some of that is the people her bosses, the people who she worked for, probably sensed that something was going on, yeah, and she had to be honest enough to to deal with that. But as she progressed, they had to sense the improvement, and that. Had to help a lot. Ashley Rudolph ** 55:01 Yes, for sure. And I think maybe there is confusion from her boss and in him thinking that she was ready to take on the work that he knew that she could take on, but she didn't quite feel ready yet. Yeah, so there was something she had to sort through, and she finally, not finally, that wasn't a lot of time at all, but she got there, and yeah, yeah. Speaker 1 ** 55:26 And I'll bet they were better. I'll bet they were better communicators with each other by the time it was all said and done, too Ashley Rudolph ** 55:31 Exactly, yes, yeah, yeah. They developed a shorthand, you know? And, yeah, yep. Speaker 1 ** 55:39 So there are a lot of leaders who look great on paper, but when it really comes down to it, they just aren't really doing all that they ought to be doing. They feel restless or whatever. What's the real reason that they need to deal with to find momentum and move forward? Ashley Rudolph ** 55:58 Yeah, so I'm going to take a I'm going to take a different approach to answering this question. And because of the people that I work with, again, they're high achievers. Yeah, right. And sometimes I see that what happens is maybe people have described them as restless, or people have said, Why aren't you happy? You have this amazing career, you should be happy. And I think, like that projection, they end up taking that on and feeling guilty about the fact that they want more. But at the core of it, when I talk to them or get to the level of, you know, Hey, what is happening here? What's causing this sense of restlessness? Surprisingly, the answer is, yeah, I have this great job or this great title, but I feel like I could be doing so much more. So it's an impact. It's an impact thing that is driving the people that I work with. So what we end up doing is trying to figure out, to some degree, like I have no control over what happens at work, so I don't want to pretend that I do, but if it is an impact question, then what we get to the core of is, okay, well, how do you increase your impact? And that's what I work with them on? Speaker 1 ** 57:24 Well, here's a question. So I have been in sales for a long time, and of course, as far as I'm concerned, I still am being a public speaker. I sell more life and philosophy than anything else. But one thing a lot of people face is rejection. A lot that was redundant, but a lot of people face rejection. How do you get people to understand that rejection isn't a bad thing, and that it actually is a sign of success more often than not? And I agree with it. And you had given me this question, I think it's a great question and relevant to answer. Ashley Rudolph ** 57:58 Yeah, so I just try to flip the thinking. So I make it less about the person rejecting you, or you receiving a rejection. And to me, if you get rejected, it's a signal that you try, and that's what we focus on, right? So if you're not getting rejected and you're in the same place that you were, it's probably an indication that you're not trying, or you're not taking big enough swings, or you're not pushing yourself. So, yeah, I just try to help my clients. You know, think about the fact that, hey, you got rejected because you tried and you put yourself out there, and that's great. And then the other thing I like to think about with rejection is really just like rejection is someone placing a bet, and if you know about bets, you know that they're not 100% right, and sometimes the person just decided they weren't going to place their bet on you. And it's not that you're not capable, or it's not that it wasn't a great idea, maybe it wasn't the right time, maybe whatever, you don't know what the why is, but it's just a bet, and someone could take a different bet, and it can be on you, or you can bet on yourself even, right? So once you start to think about rejection as just the choice that someone made on a day, and that person isn't all people, and they're certainly not representative of, you know, the person who could decide to take a chance on you and your idea or your initiative, then I think the rejection stings a lot less. Speaker 1 ** 59:31 Yeah, one of the expressions I've heard regularly is the selling really begins. And I and I think whether it's selling a product or whatever you're doing, but the selling really begins when the objections begin or the rejection. Yeah, and I think there's, there's so much truth to that one of the things, one of the things that I used to do when I was selling products, is I would play a game with myself. Is this person. Going to give me a new objection or a new reason for rejection that I haven't heard before, and I always loved it when somebody came up with something that truly I hadn't heard before, and that was absolutely relevant to bring up, because then it's my job to go off and deal with that, but it was fun to put my own mindset in that sort of framework, because it's all about it's it's not me, unless I really am screwing up, it's other things. And no matter whether it's me screwing up or not, it's my job to figure out how to deal with whatever the other person has on their mind. Yeah, and when the new things come up, those are so much fun to deal with. And I even praised people, you know, I've never heard that one before. That's really good. Let's talk about it. Ashley Rudolph ** 1:00:50 So great, yeah, yeah. They were probably like, oh, okay, wow. Well, yeah, let's talk about it, yeah. Speaker 1 ** 1:01:00 But I didn't show fear, and didn't need to, because I I went into a learning mode. I want to learn what's on their mind and what's going on, Ashley Rudolph ** 1:01:09 yeah, and that's what it's about. It's about understanding what's important to the other person, or understanding their concerns. And I think if you come at it like you did, from a place of really wanting to understand them and find common ground, then sometimes you can even shift the rejection right often. Speaker 1 ** 1:01:27 If you do it right often you can. Yeah, you can. You can reverse it, because most rejections and objections are really based on perception and not necessarily reality Ashley Rudolph ** 1:01:41 at all? Yes, exactly yes, yes, which is Speaker 1 ** 1:01:45 important? Well, if you could go back and talk to a younger version of yourself, what moment would you choose and who? What would you say that they should learn? Oh, Ashley Rudolph ** 1:01:54 this is so this is such a Speaker 1 ** 1:01:57 great fun question. Yeah, Ashley Rudolph ** 1:02:03 if I could go back, I would probably tell myself that you you don't necessarily have to run away to find the things that you're looking for in your career, right? And I think in life too. Sometimes you think, Oh, I just have to move to a different city, or I just have to buy a new outfit, or I just have to, I have to, I have to, I have to change this thing. And sometimes you just don't have to. Sometimes you can have a conversation about thing that you want or the thing that you're not getting. So if this is a boss right, talking about the thing that you want or that you're not getting, and coming up with a solution together, and I think for quite some time, I was too afraid to do that, and if I wasn't getting what I needed or what I wanted, I just thought the best thing to do was to find it elsewhere, and I would just go back and tell myself to ask for what I wanted first, and then get the information and then leave if I had to. But leaving doesn't have to be the default. Speaker 1 ** 1:03:21 Yeah. Cool. Well, Ashley, this has been a lot of fun. We've been doing this an hour. Can you believe Ashley Rudolph ** 1:03:29 it? We have, we have the time flew by. Fun. Yeah, I could have kept going. Michael Hingson ** 1:03:36 Well, then we'll just have to do another one. Yeah, Ashley Rudolph ** 1:03:39 we do. It, I will always come back. You are amazing. Michael, Speaker 1 ** 1:03:43 well, this has been fun, and maybe one of the things that you could do to help spread the word about what you do and so on is do your own podcast. Ashley Rudolph ** 1:03:50 Yes, something else to think about, yeah, yeah, that's a great idea. And then if I do then I will invite you on there. I'd Speaker 1 ** 1:04:00 love it, I'll come absolutely well. I want to thank you again, and I want to thank all of you for listening and watching today. This has been very enjoyable and a lot of fun, and I appreciate you taking the time to be with us. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please feel free to email me at Michael H i@accessibe.com so accessibi is spelled A, C, C, E, S, S i, B, E, so Michael M, I C H, A, E, L, H i@accessibe.com or go to our podcast page, www, dot Michael hingson.com/podcast and Michael hingson is m, I C H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s o n.com/podcast, love to hear from you, and certainly I hope that whenever you're listening or watching, give us a five star rating. We value your reviews, and we really want to know that we're doing good by you, so please give us good reviews, and if you have thoughts or things that you want us to know about, don't hesitate to reach out. It. And for all of you, and Ashley, including you, if you know of other people who ought to be guests on our podcast, it's so much fun to meet more people from those who have been on before. But for anyone, if you know someone who ought to be a guest, please let me know. Reach out, and we will honor your interest and we will bring them on, because I think everyone has, as I told Ashley earlier, stories to tell. So hope that you will do that and that we'll get to see you on our next episode. And again, Ashley, I just want to thank you for being here. This has been so much fun. All Ashley Rudolph ** 1:05:37 right, thank you, Michael. **Michael Hingson ** 1:05:42 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.

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《不具名消息》EP22：618盛況不再？剁手族去哪了

IC之音｜科技聽IC

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 30, 2025 14:06

消費者對頻繁促銷已感「疲勞」，且中國舊換新補貼高峰已過。本集將深入剖析為何市場消費模式已從衝動轉為理性。

Pudendal Neuralgia (or IS it?): Episode 82 with Bill Taylor

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 29, 2025 70:51

He's Back! I had the pleasure of interviewing Bill Taylor a little while ago - ostensibly to talk about pudendal neuralgia...except we got sidetracked into an extensive discussion about male pelvic health. However, we did promise to re-convene and discuss Pudendal Neuralgia and here we are!In this conversation we talked about all the angles and our joint consensus is that most of the problems that are attributed to pudendal neuralgia are actually...not thatIn this conversation:we talked about the potential for misdiagnosis (and gaslighting)how the other nerves in the pelvis are often overlooked the importance of considering the whole person, including an assessment of their movement, their sciatic mobility, nutrition and sleep; we also explored the importance of a nuanced pelvic floor approach, taking things like constipation, breathing and inflammation into accountwe paid respects to the complexity of persistent pelvic pain, and how systems are dynamic and interconnected - and the importance of listening to what's really important to the person in front of us, and giving them knowledge, agency and support This is NOT a short conversation - but no apologies as we really wanted to give a comprehensive overview of assessment and treatment strategies for this often intimidating diagnosis - hopefully you'll think we did a good job!Bill is an absolute superstar and one of my favourite colleagues and friends - I love the way he thinks and his openness to lateral thinking and exploration - Bill is doing a post-con at Pelvicon and you can find all his info at billtaylor.com

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#37 - Iniciação Científica dos Petianos

Fala, Coruja!

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 29, 2025 49:51

Preparem-se para mergulhar em mais um episódio envolvente do nosso Fala, Coruja!, onde desvendamos os mistérios e desafios da vida universitária em Sistemas de Informação com a nossa rainha Giovanna Arana e a nossa querida Rafaela Oliveira. Neste episódio, temos o prazer de receber duas convidadas veteranas que já realizaram Iniciações Científicas nas suas vidas universitárias: Giovanna Arana, rainha do PET-SI e a Rafaela Oliveira, duas queridas lendas de Sistemas de Informação. Elas trazem informações valiosas, experiências e dicas de como conseguir uma Iniciação Científica durante a graduação em Sistemas de Informação. Se você está querendo entender melhor como funciona uma Iniciação Científica, o que você faz/aprende durante uma IC, quais oportunidades existem dentro da universidade ou está em busca de começar a sua IC (pra ontem!), este episódio é para você.FICHA TÉCNICA:Apresentação: Lizandro e Felippe VipConvidados: Giovanna Arana e Rafaela OliveiraEdição: João Victor

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The DX Mentor - Episode 70 - NY0V

The DX Mentor

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 28, 2025 130:56

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173. MicroGenDX with Rick Martin

Delivering Health

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 27, 2025 37:02

The lack of precision in identifying the infections that cause interstitial cystitis (IC), chronic bladder infections, prostate infections, chronic sinus infections, and more has led to mistreatment, ongoing suffering, and ineffective care. But that's changing thanks to MicroGenDX, a leader in molecular diagnostics. Key Takeaways To Tune In For: (01:09) Introducing MicroGen DX (06:11) The Importance of Evidence-Based Medicine (10:30) Real-World Impact of MicroGen Testing (18:05) Antibiotic Resistance and Its Consequences (24:06) Genotypic vs. Phenotypic Sensitivity (30:30) Navigating the Healthcare System Resources talked about in this episode: Website: microgendx.com View and sign the petition to get the testing covered by insurance.

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How to Organize a Student-led Changemaker Conference

Empathy to Impact

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 27, 2025 35:20 Transcription Available

Guiding Question:How might we empower students to organize an event to share, celebrate, inspire and BE changemakers in your region?Key Takeaways:A behind-the-scenes look at hosting a student-led conferenceMaking a conference more sustainableDeveloping a “Changemaker Mindset” to unlock the potential in our school communitiesTransitioning from advocacy to actionIf you have enjoyed the podcast please take a moment to subscribe, and also please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. The way the algorithm works, this helps our podcast reach more listeners. Thanks from IC for your support. Learn more about how Inspire Citizens co-designs customized student leadership and changemakers programsConnect with more stories from the Inspire Citizens network in our vignettesMeasuring the IMPACT of Service Learning projects and initiatives Access free resources for global citizenship educationYou can book a discovery call with Inspire Citizens at this linkShare on social media using #EmpathytoImpactEpisode Summary On this episode, after having the privilege of attending the Changemaker Conference at the American International School of Budapest in March 2025, I had the opportunity to reconnect with 3 student leaders from that school, Alex, Shuo, and Aranya, who each played a pivotal role in the organization and resounding success of this conference. Join us as we take a behind-the-scenes look at all of the components and work that goes on behind the scenes to host an impactful and inspirational event like this. Maybe this is the spark that you need to start an event like this in your region.Discover a transformative podcast on education and learning from a student perspective and student voice, exploring media, media literacy, and media production to inspire citizens in schools through a media lab focused on 21st-century learning, empathy to impact, Global citizenship, collaboration, systems thinking, service learning, PBL, CAS, MYP, PYP, DP, Service as Action, futures thinking, project-based learning, sustainability, well-being, harmony with nature, community engagement, experiential learning, and the role of teachers and teaching in fostering well-being and a better future.

La Ventana de 18 a 20h | La Ventana de la Música. La Ventana de los Viajes. Cartagrafias

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 27, 2025 72:06

En la música nos visita Antílopez, José Félix López y Miguel Ángel Márquez, dicen adiós con una gira que pasa por el "Icónica Santalucía Fest" de Sevilla y un último trabajo discográfico: “VIDA Y OBRA”. Paco Nadal viaja hasta Egipto para meterse en un barco y bucear durante una semana en el mar Rojo. Terminamos con Cartagrafias

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La Ventana de la Música | Antílopez

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 27, 2025 41:00

Abrimos La Ventana de la Música para recibir a Antílopez, José Félix López y Miguel Ángel Márquez, que dicen adiós con una gira que pasa por el "Icónica Santalucía Fest" de Sevilla con su último trabajo discográfico: “VIDA Y OBRA”.

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La Ventana de 18 a 20h | La Ventana de la Música. La Ventana de los Viajes. Cartagrafias

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 27, 2025 72:06

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La Ventana de la Música | Antílopez

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Play Episode Listen Later Jun 27, 2025 41:00

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Javier Esteban, balance en el ecuador del Icónica Santalucía Sevilla Fest

Radio Sevilla

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 26, 2025 2:41

Javier Esteban, balance en el ecuador del Icónica Santalucía Sevilla Fest

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Noon Dish: Commitments, Visits and the Latest UNC FB Recruiting News

Inside Carolina Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 25, 2025 64:39

Inside Carolina football recruiting expert Don Callahan joins host Tommy Ashley to provide insight on the recent run of commitments for Bill Belichick and his North Carolina staff. From Burgess to Woods, Callahan dishes on the June commits as well as the massive scoop posted on IC's Tar Pit Premium message board and more on this edition. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Clarity: Software and Data Innovations

Security Cleared Jobs: Who's Hiring & How

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 25, 2025 18:04 Transcription Available

Clarity Innovations is a rapidly growing software and data innovations firm working in the DoD, IC and federal sectors, shares Director of Recruiting, Brett Willie. Listen for details on why the company values unapologetic transparency and hiring team players who are ready to help those around them succeed. With hiring spanning all security clearance levels, Clarity offers employees real opportunities for growth and advancement from within.4:26 Goal is to increase their workforce by 50% in the next year.6:57 Clarity is hiring across all security clearance levels. Infrastructure gives their employee base the opportunity to move internally without having to look for growth externally.8:34 Platform Engineer is a new code word for DevOps. The government is using this labor category to encompass a lot of new opportunities.Find show notes and additional links at: https://clearedjobs.net/clarity-software-and-data-innovations-podcast/_ This show is brought to you by ClearedJobs.Net. Have feedback or questions for us? Email us at rriggins@clearedjobs.net. Sign up for our cleared job seeker newsletter. Create a cleared job seeker profile on ClearedJobs.Net. Engage with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X, or YouTube. _

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Episode 121 – The story behind Bupa's elephant

The Internal Comms Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 25, 2025 49:18

In this episode of The Internal Comms Podcast, Katie Macaulay is joined by Jo Hudson, Group Director of Internal Communication at Bupa. Jo has spent the past 16 years at Bupa, one of the world's largest healthcare organisations. She's worked across internal and external comms, PR, media relations, brand and engagement. Now, she's leading IC in a complex, global business, with 100,000 colleagues speaking multiple languages. So how do you keep people connected, aligned and inspired? Jo shares what she's learned about building trust, creating clarity and cutting through the noise to give people space to connect. She talks about what really matters during the rollout of new and disruptive tech (Bupa rolled out Workvivo to their 100,000 employees in less than a year), why leaders need to show up and how storytelling helps people make sense of strategy. And yes – there's an elephant. Not in the room, but on the move. Part metaphor, part mascot – all comms magic. Intrigued? Tune in and share your thoughts. Use #TheICPodcast to join the conversation.

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Episode 347 – Unstoppable Smart Girl with Barbara Leigh

Be Reasonable: with Your Moderator, Chris Paul

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 24, 2025 65:38

The title fits, but not necessarily for the reasons you imagine. Barbara Leigh grew up in Wisconsin where she attended college and had a successful career. She tells us about her life and discusses getting married, having two children and over time watching her life choices basically and totally destroy her self esteem. Barbara tells us how she, while growing up, was constantly described as a “smart girl”. She helped many figure out answers and learned along the way how to observe and research to learn whatever she needed to know. In 1995 when the internet was just coming into our sphere of experience, Barbara learned about it and created web pages and websites for the nonprofit for which she worked. Even with all the technical knowledge she amassed it took many years before she realized that even with all her smarts she was becoming a person who was being reshaped by a partner with his own low esteem and who constantly blamed her for everything that went wrong. Eventually Barbara realized that something was wrong and began to look in ernest at her life and behavior. She realized that she had to make choices and regain her own self confidence and constructive view of herself. She changed her life and outlook and began growing again emotionally. Barbara tells us about her journey and even includes lessons she learned and wants to pass on to others. In 2024 Barbara wrote and published her book, “Why Smart Girls Get Into Bad Relationships and How Not To Do It Again”. She is quick to point out that the book is not just for women. It is for anyone who may be facing a “bad relationship”. Barbara shares nine conclusions and thoughts from the book that illustrate why her writings can be so important for so many. This episode is full of many great life lessons and observations. I do hope you not only enjoy it, but that you also gain some positive life choice ideas from it. About the Guest: Barbara Leigh grew up on a small dairy farm in Wisconsin and was considered in school to be a smart girl. She was not the type to get in trouble or make bad decisions. She was involved in lots of activities and did well in school. She went off to Ripon College where she majored in Speech Communication and worked in the library. After graduation, she got a job in a library at a nonprofit. While working toward a Masters in Library and Information Science at UW-Milwaukee in 1995, she was taking an online searching class and was recruited to build a web site for her employer, being one of only a few employees that had even heard of the World Wide Web. From there, Barbara built a career as a web developer and eventually moved to online learning and LMS integrations. In each career step she moved toward content, but eventually was directed back to the technical. In the midst of all that, Barbara got married and had two children. She entered and contributed to bad relationships in her marriage, career and family until one day she decided to just stop. She has spent the last twenty years figuring out what it means to stop, how to continue living, and how to do it better. In 2024, she published a book, Why Smart Girls Get Into Bad Relationships and How Not To Do It Again, and in 2025, she took early retirement to get fully into content and do more writing. She currently writes the Helpfulmess blog which posts weekly. Ways to connect with Barbara: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barbaraleighauthor/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/barbaraleighauthor Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/barbaraleighauthor.bsky.social Website: https://www.barbaraleighauthor.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 ** 01:20 Well, hello, everyone, wherever you happen to be today, around the world or in space, whatever the case happens to be, we're all in space anyway, so I guess that counts for something. But I'm really glad that you are here, and we're really going to have, I think, an interesting conversation today, because we, we have a person who has written an interesting book, at least. I think it's an interesting book. The title of the book is, why do smart girls get into bad relationships, and how to and how not to do it again. I think that's an interesting title. Smart Girls, I gotta say, though, Barbara, who is our guest, Barbara Leigh, I don't know. I think they're more than smart girls that get into bad relationships or just do dumb things. I don't know. Why is it that most people do dumb things, but that's a different story, and probably not what we're really going to cover today. But anyway, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset, and we're glad you're Barbara Leigh ** 02:19 here. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Appreciate Michael Hingson ** 02:23 it. Yeah, well, it is probably true. Why do, why do so many people get into challenges? Ah, but we cope with what we have to right? Yes, we do. Well. Well, I'm glad you're here. Thanks for for being here and being on unstoppable mindset. Really looking forward to having a chance to really chat. Why don't we start? If we can by you telling us a little bit about kind of the early Barbara growing up and all that. Alright, well, I grew up. How's that for a great way to start. Barbara Leigh ** 02:52 That's a great, great way to start. I grew up on a small dairy farm in Wisconsin. I had two brothers and a sister, mom and dad and, you know, cats and a dog and cows. I lived in a small community. Everybody knew each other. Nothing really exciting about my childhood. I was in 4h and I was in lots of activities in school. I did great in school, and I was wildly shy as a small child, but I managed to get comfortable enough with that by being a 4h officer and being in in leadership positions in the activities that I was in. I went to off to college in Ripon, and I been busy working on being me ever since, Michael Hingson ** 03:56 well, so you, you, you don't sound like you're very shy today, Barbara Leigh ** 04:06 like I said, I tried to get past that. I'm still wildly introverted, but I'm at least, you know, able to speak in public. That's a Michael Hingson ** 04:15 start. Well, that's a good you know, I'm I've always been amazed, and I hear it so often that the top fear today is public speaking. And I've never really, I know it's me, but I've never understood why it is, because I've always been somewhat used to doing it, but I think that people approach public speaking oftentimes with kind of the wrong idea, because I find that if people fear it, what they're really saying is they're afraid of the audience and what the audience might do. But I find that audiences generally don't tend to really want to view a speaker as being bad. They want speaker. To succeed. So it's always been a puzzlement to be as to why people are afraid of public speaking. Barbara Leigh ** 05:07 Yeah, that is true. I was a Speech Communication major in college, and had to take public speaking as a course, and we had a guy in there that was just shook. His whole body. Shook it when he started out, and he by the end of the course, he was the best speaker there. I think he just needed to practice doing it and find out it's not so bad. Michael Hingson ** 05:34 Well, what did he do? What do you have any notion of what what really eliminated his fear? Barbara Leigh ** 05:41 I think he just got better each time. I think it really was just just getting up in front of people and finding out, yeah, they aren't gonna do anything. They're trying to do the same thing as me. They're trying to learn public speaking, and they're fine. Michael Hingson ** 05:56 That's cool. Well, I know when I was a program director at our campus radio station at UC Irvine, I wanted everyone to listen to their their own shows. So we we wanted them to record the shows which they wouldn't do. So the engineer and I arranged for that to get done, and we made people listen to their shows, take the cassettes home and listen to them. And as I think about it, I think that probably more often than not, some of these people were in radio because they didn't have to stand up in front of an audience, and they didn't think about being in front of an audience and speaking so much. And so they did what they did, but when they were compelled, if you will, to listen to themselves, they got better. And they got better because they then heard what everybody else is hearing, and they taught themselves that they could really do better than than they thought they were doing, and that they thought that they could do. And I think that really makes a lot of difference. And some of those people actually ended up going into broadcasting as a as a career, Barbara Leigh ** 07:01 that's great. Yeah, it really is. It's just a matter of getting used to your own voice. I mean, some people just really got annoyed, I guess is the word at their own voice, and they were like, I don't sound like that. Well, you don't sound like yourself inside your head. Yeah, Michael Hingson ** 07:27 yeah. I know that when I hear myself talk, I do know that I sound different than I think I sound. And so again, that's part of what I work on. When I listen to recorded speeches, and I listen to what I say and how I say it, because I know what audiences like when they hear a speaker, so it gives me something to work toward. And that's a good thing. Yeah. So it is kind of fun. So you went off to school, you were in high school and all that and and did what? What people do in high school, I assume, Barbara Leigh ** 08:07 yep, lots of groups. I was in library club and let's see Spanish club and music, musical and choir and various things. Yeah, normal stuff, yeah, Michael Hingson ** 08:23 yeah. I did some of that. I was in the science club, and there was a math club. Wasn't in too many clubs, but I was in those two and and had a lot of fun with that. So it's, it's a good thing. And then, of course, as many of us do, then you went on to college. Where did you go to college? Ripping College. I've never heard of that college, Barbara Leigh ** 08:49 very small liberal arts college, Michael Hingson ** 08:52 which is all the better I am. I'm a fan of smaller colleges. I read in the book David and Goliath, the guy who invented the tipping point, wrote this book, and he talks about the fact that if more people would go to small colleges, they would discover that they could actually be kind of a larger fish in a small pond, rather than being a fish that isn't necessarily as large a fish in a very large pond. So the value of people going to to places that are smaller adds a lot of value, and you do get a lot more attention. And that's why, one of the reasons I think I went to UC Irvine, we had 2200 excuse me, 2700 students when I went there. Now there are 32,000 freshmen. My gosh, I can't believe how large it is. No, it's University California, Irvine UCI, which they always say lovingly, really, truly means under construction indefinitely. They're always building new things on the college. So. Barbara Leigh ** 10:01 Yeah, ripen is, is under 1000 students total. And Michael Hingson ** 10:07 what did you major in? I knew all my professors. It 10:09 was great. And Michael Hingson ** 10:10 that's, that's cool. And I did as well. I and I got to know some of them very well. Actually, a couple, one of them even came to my wedding when my wife and I got married. Some, seven or eight, well, eight years after I graduated, or, well, six years after I graduated, but he, we invited him, and he came to the wedding. So that was kind of cool. What did you major in Barbara Leigh ** 10:33 speech communication with a religion minor? All right. Michael Hingson ** 10:37 Wow, that's an interesting combination. Why? Why a religion minor with with that religion Barbara Leigh ** 10:43 has always intrigued me. I guess it's I am interested in people, and religion has such a strong effect on people, and so I really just wanted to learn more about various religions and and how they work. Michael Hingson ** 11:01 So what do you what do you think about religion and our world today, and how much of an effect it it has? Barbara Leigh ** 11:11 It's probably very big question. Yes, yes, I have that's like, one of the ideas for one of my next books is to dig into that I'm I have several ideas of things I want to cover, and that's one of them. But, yeah, it just it floors me that there can be so much variation in people who seem to believe the same things. Michael Hingson ** 11:44 Yeah, yeah. It is. It is fascinating. I I've said ever since escaping from the World Trade Center on September 11, that what happened, no matter what those terrorists say, was not a reflection on the whole world of Islam and the Muslim faith, those were thugs who decided that they wanted to try to make the world bend to their will, if you will, and and they they did a pretty good job for a little while, but it wasn't a religious war, because I think most Muslims are not that way. That's true, and we shouldn't demonize that religion as such, especially since we could always go back and talk about the crusades in, you know what, 1066, and so on. And if we want to talk about Christianity and what it did, yeah, the reality is, everybody tries to do things in the name of religion, and it just doesn't make sense at all. It doesn't. But people try to justify anyway, which is, which is truly unfortunate. Well, so what did you do after you got a degree? Barbara Leigh ** 12:47 Oh, let's see. I went off to Well, I got married. There you go, after graduation, and moved to the town where my my husband was living, and we I started working at K Mart, and from there, I went to outlet mall. I was the retail store manager, and then I got my job at a nonprofit, and I've been at that nonprofit for 34 years, until I retired, just not too long ago. Michael Hingson ** 13:24 Wow. What's the nonprofit? Or can you say Barbara Leigh ** 13:28 it's the international foundation of employee benefit plans? Okay, Michael Hingson ** 13:33 well, that sounds pretty useful. You were there a long time, huh? I was wow. Barbara Leigh ** 13:39 I moved around to multiple departments, but I was able to keep growing later, so I stayed Michael Hingson ** 13:46 so you you were there 34 years. Wow, that is a long time. What? What did you What did you learn about life being there for so long? Wow, I was out for a general question, yeah. Barbara Leigh ** 14:06 Well, I learned, boy, so many things I have. The foundation is an Educational Association. So I learned the actual benefits. Part of it, I have a Certified Employee Benefit Specialist designation, but also I learned a lot about people and work environments and and getting along with people, and I learned a lot about technology when I started at the foundation the the World Wide Web was not public yet, and while I was there, I was going to graduate school at UW Milwaukee. I. For library and information science. And while I was doing that, I was taking a an online searching course. And my boss, well, I worked in the library, so my boss asked me if I would create a website for the foundation, because nobody else in the building really had even heard of the World Wide Web yet. Yeah. So I learned all about web development and programming and all of that, just because I happened to be the only one that Michael Hingson ** 15:40 knew, and using tools like Netscape, remember Netscape? Oh, yes, absolutely, Barbara Leigh ** 15:50 yeah, wow. So yeah, I learned a lot of that, and then from from the library, I went to it, and was in a web developer for many years, and then from it, I went to educational programs where I was working with our learning management system and the integration with with our association management system. So I was, I was doing integrations, basically and but the things that I learned in technology careers that have helped me thus far have been I was doing a lot of troubleshooting. So I would, you know, a lot of times, you know, if you're in technology, no garbage in, garbage out. So when I get to a problem, I say, you know, there's this, there's garbage coming out, or there's nothing coming out at all. And I work back word through the process to get to the source data. And learning that you finding the source data and making sure that the source data is correct is really important. So I learned about a lot about working my way through systems to find that and also making sure that the systems work. So that has helped me a lot in in my life, because when I got into the situation where I needed to write this book about I managed to work my way back to the source of of the problem. And so the the source of the problem was my beliefs about me, about relationships, about other people. And so it was really helpful for me to have that process already in place in my brain, that I could just work my way back to that and Okay, now I can start from better data. Michael Hingson ** 18:13 Yeah, do you think that working a lot in technology and perhaps some of the other areas where you worked. Do you think that that taught you more about how to observe and look at things and better be able to analyze them and and remembering them? I just find that so often people don't observe things. And I think learning to observe is extremely important to do Barbara Leigh ** 18:45 absolutely yes, yes, when that's that's like all of my career was observing and and like you said, analyzing, being able to put what I've observed into what I want to happen, or what I would I need to communicate with other people. I think a lot of my career was, was connecting the right people to the right either technology or the or the other people, or just get making those connections. Michael Hingson ** 19:30 But you had to learn how to observe people and draw conclusions and get that information to make that happen. Barbara Leigh ** 19:38 Oh yes. And, you know, it's a process, just in growing up and watching people in general. Like I said, you know, religion was, was my thing, because people fascinate me. So I I've always been a people watcher, not like, go sit at the mall and watch people, but, I mean, yeah. I just really try to understand where people are coming from. And I think once I was in a technology career, it was even more important, because a lot of times in those careers people don't expect the technology person to be able to do that, and for me, that was the most important part with understanding the people, understanding what they wanted, what they were actually saying was not exactly what they wanted, and to try to get it get to what they wanted, and then to work with the system to be able to get what they wanted to come out correctly. Michael Hingson ** 20:53 How did you discover that? How did you discover that people weren't necessarily saying what they really wanted, or that somehow it wasn't being articulated on it. And I understand that's a really tricky sort of thing. I know in asking myself that I just kind of respond by saying, it's just something you gain from a lot of experience, but you have to think about it. But you know, what do you think Barbara Leigh ** 21:21 exactly? It's trial and error. You keep having people ask you for one thing and then expecting something else, until you figure out that you know what that's really not what they want, and to get them to verbalize, okay, what is it you want coming out of this? Is it? It's tricky. Michael Hingson ** 21:47 Yeah, yeah, it is and, and it is something where you got to be pretty careful about how you do it and, and to whom you you focus your attentions to make that happen. Or if you've got some people who are difficult to deal with, and again, I guess that that helps you stretch and grow and you learn how to even deal with those people a little bit better, so that they're comfortable in interacting with you. Barbara Leigh ** 22:14 Yeah, absolutely. But a big part of my job is making people feel comfortable enough to talk to me and, you know, and a lot of times when I would get a project, I would go to the person that that's using, whatever it is, and ask them, okay, you know, where are you getting this data? What do you want it to look like? And, you know, and ask them deeper questions. And, and these are often the people who are, you know, low man on the totem pole, and don't ever get asked, but those are the people that I needed to get to to find out what you know, where things were coming from, to actually give them what was going to work for them. Michael Hingson ** 23:10 And that's interesting. You're saying, like, the low person on the totem pole doesn't get asked, and they're the ones that would love to be asked to be able to offer their opinions, so that that opens up whole new opportunities when you convey that you're you're willing to listen, and of course, that also then deals with the whole issue of trust. Because if they tell you something and say, Well, I want this incompetence, and you have to keep it that way. Yes, absolutely, trust is, is such a fleeting thing today, even though it's all around us, everywhere we go And everywhere we look. I mean, we trust that the roofs on our houses aren't going to collapse while we're doing this interview, this well, this conversation, and we trust that the internet is going to continue to work. It might, we'll see. But, but we trust in so many ways, but yet, unfortunately, we also confront, or are confronted by situations that try to teach us not to trust and to be close to trust, which is too bad. Yeah, one of the things that, that, that I talk about, actually, in my latest book, live like a guide dog, is trust. I talk about the fact that, in general, the difference between a dog and a person is while dogs love unconditionally, and I think that's true, although they can be taught not to, obviously, but while dogs love unconditionally, they don't trust unconditionally. But the difference between a dog and a person is that dogs are much more open to trust because we have just learned, or we've drawn the conclusion that we can't trust people, and so we lose that skill of being open to trust and trust. Truly learning how to determine whether we can trust any individual or not, rather than just saying we're not going to trust Barbara Leigh ** 25:07 Right, absolutely, yeah, Michael Hingson ** 25:10 which is, you know, which is so unfortunate? Well, I'm sure you've, you've encountered that a lot. Barbara Leigh ** 25:17 I have, indeed, and you know that's that was part of my process, was learning how to trust again. And that's a slow, slow, hard process. Michael Hingson ** 25:31 What, what caused you to start to learn not to trust? What? What happened in your life? Barbara Leigh ** 25:38 Okay? Well, I want to talk about it, but, well, I won't go into too deep a detail, but yeah, I I was in a relationship where, you know, I was with a very a person has low self esteem, and because of that, I would get told that things were my fault, or things were if I hadn't done this, or if anything That happened really was was somehow brought back to me and as a person with higher self esteem, I took that as my personal responsibility, rather than looking at it as no, that's really Your choice, not, not something that I could cause, and that just kept eroding away at my confidence, and it ended up with me having no self esteem whatsoever. Wow. And then we, you know, I hit a point where an event happened, and I, you know, my brain went, nope, I don't deserve that. And that's where the light switch flipped, and I was to, you know, then I started looking around and going, you know what? I didn't deserve that, either or that, and that was not about me. And so then I started to measure against that, and go, Okay, I can set up boundaries now, because this is behavior that I won't accept anymore. And I was able to start making boundaries, and I was able to start standing up for myself. And, you know, as as that process went on, I was able to, I guess, it was motivate myself just by connecting, reconnecting with that higher self esteem person that I had been earlier. And so I would, you know, it honestly took a very long time, because I was at nothing, and at that point, I made a conscious effort to be gentle with myself and to be patient with myself and to accept myself and so with those being kind to myself thoughts, that's how I was able to move forward. And like I said, moving forward started motivating me, and I was able to bring myself back up to a higher self confidence. Michael Hingson ** 29:02 Did you get? Oh, go ahead. Oh, Barbara Leigh ** 29:04 but yeah. The the trust being gone was a trust for not just the person I was in a relationship with, but for so many things around me because I didn't trust myself. I didn't trust what I was believing about myself. Michael Hingson ** 29:28 Did you hate yourself? Barbara Leigh ** 29:31 I would not say that. I would say I just didn't understand myself. I would like I said, when I got to the bottom, I was able to say, I don't deserve that, so I wouldn't say hated myself. Yeah, Michael Hingson ** 29:48 that's why I asked the question, because that was my impression of what from what you were saying. It wasn't a hate or a dislike, it was a recognition of what should be and what. And then how to deal with it? Barbara Leigh ** 30:02 Yep, I was, you know, because I got there and, you know, the light switch went on, and I was like, how did I get here? How did this even happen? You know, it just, I couldn't understand. Michael Hingson ** 30:18 But as you, as you progressed and as you learned about yourself, and that, of course, was part of it, is that you were learning about yourself and bringing yourself back the person you had a relationship with you weren't able to to, I gather, make positive steps to get them to to be a lot better than they were. Barbara Leigh ** 30:43 That was not my focus. My focus was no boundaries, so that they couldn't hurt me anymore, Michael Hingson ** 30:52 right, right? It wasn't a matter of you're trying to heal them, but setting boundaries and it would have it would have been nice if they had recognized what was going on. But that was the difference, is that you recognized and they did not right. Barbara Leigh ** 31:06 And honestly, once I got to a place where I was back to being who I felt like me, he was able to look at that and take some motivation from that, and he actually went and got help through therapy as well. So it actually turned out way better than than expected, but Michael Hingson ** 31:41 yeah, so are you guys still married? Yes, we are. Well, there you go. Okay, and that was what I was curious about. So he he did. It wasn't you can't, you can't fix everything because people have to fix themselves. But he was able to recognize that which was, which is so cool, Barbara Leigh ** 32:02 yeah, honestly, I moved out twice. So, I mean, like I said, I set boundaries, yeah, but we made it work. I mean, like, like I said, when I first made the change I did. I was not strong enough to move to be on my own. I just wasn't. And so, you know, I just tried to be as patient with myself as possible, and and I just kept, kept those boundaries and okay, you can't talk to me like that. That's just not going to work. And as I moved forward, he kind of came along with me Michael Hingson ** 32:47 well, and it sounds like you're both the better for it today. Barbara Leigh ** 32:54 Oh, absolutely, yes, we've come a long way. I wouldn't say we're perfect for sure, but Michael Hingson ** 33:01 it's a it's a process. Yes, it is. So what does he do for work or for a living? Barbara Leigh ** 33:08 He is a sales person for a home improvement company. Michael Hingson ** 33:11 Ah, ah, Home Improvement. Tim, the tool man, Taylor, but that's another story. Oh, gosh. Well, that's pretty cool. And does he do well at selling? Barbara Leigh ** 33:25 Yes, he does that. He had his own business for for many years, and so it just comes pretty naturally to him. Michael Hingson ** 33:34 Well, at the same time, if you're going to be good at sales, you have to learn to observe and and not take things too personally sometimes as well. I learned a lot about sales when I was confronted by needing to go into sales or finding another job, and then I took a Dale Carnegie sales course, and one of my favorite observations about sales is that the best salespeople are really counselors. They're teachers. They guide you in and help you make the right decision, rather than just trying to force something on you, which doesn't mean that they're not trying to make $1 and sell products, but you can also find that your product might not be what somebody wants, and if you push them into buying it, that's going to cost to cost you in the end anyway, Barbara Leigh ** 34:24 right? And that's why he makes a good salesman, because he was he, he did the work for for 15 years, and at at his own company, and then he went, moved to sales, and just because his body was wearing out, and for because he knows how the product works, how it goes on the house or whatever, he can explain that to the customer, and that makes it so much easier for them to understand, you know, why they need what they need, and how it works. Michael Hingson ** 34:59 Yeah. Yeah, and I have found that the better sales people really do understand how the product works, and they take the time to keep up with things, because that's going to make them better at what they do. Yes. So now you have children. How many children? Barbara Leigh ** 35:16 Two, girl and a boy, and how old are they? 29 and 25 Michael Hingson ** 35:23 oh, they're just kids. 35:24 They're just kids Michael Hingson ** 35:28 and and I know if they've gone into sales just checking no okay, Barbara Leigh ** 35:36 and have no interest in doing that, what do they do? My daughter works in customer service, and my son is Air National Guard Michael Hingson ** 35:47 member. Oh, okay, so it's hopefully it sounds like both of them have some really decent self esteem. Yes, they they learned that along the way from the two of you, which is good, which is a positive thing, which is, which is pretty cool, yeah. So you have retired from being with a nonprofit. You said you were there for 34 years, and what caused you to retire Barbara Leigh ** 36:17 writing this book, I was, I'm looking at writing more and, you know, doing marketing and doing all the things book has been a lot to do and work full time, yeah, so I decided to give, give it my all. Michael Hingson ** 36:35 Did you self publish or does the publisher publish it? Okay, yeah, which makes even more of a marketing responsibility for you. Although I think publishers are pushing more for most authors to do more to market their own books, rather than the publishers helping as much as perhaps they could. But nevertheless, well, tell us about the book. Then tell us, if you would tell us about that. Barbara Leigh ** 37:01 Oh, it's why smart girls get into bad relationships, and how not to do it again. I started out with, well, basically the book is for people who want better relationships, not just women, but I. I started out with a smart girl title, because that is something I identify with. I think of it as an identity, because a lot of books on relationships are books written from the perspective of therapists or the perspective of people who have been abused or some kind of trauma or have addictions or something like that, and that's not, that's not who I am. And so I was trying to give a voice to, you know, average people have these problems too. So the smart girl identity is more about, really, like in high school, people would you know, who didn't know me? Well, what time I yearbook? You're so smart. Or people at work, thank you for fixing that. You're so smart, right? And I believed that. And what I believed was that reasonable humans make reasonable choices, and that's not always true, and so when I wrote the book here, or actually when I when I hit the bottom and I started looking back, I was like, I don't know how I got here. So how did I get here? I went through the process. I figured out that my beliefs weren't quite right, and they sounded good, but when I actually put them to action. They really didn't work. So the book is my process of of getting from bottom of the barrel self esteem back up to high self esteem, and looking at those beliefs and rewriting them. Michael Hingson ** 39:23 So, um, how so like some of your beliefs that that didn't work. For example, Barbara Leigh ** 39:28 I will read you a few of them if you don't mind. Okay, so, so you get the idea of where, where this goes. So Belief number there's nine of them. Belief number one, I can trust myself became, I can trust myself when I am being honest with myself, because I was lying to myself quite a bit of the time. It turns out, number two, I am a good helpful person became, I am a good helpful person, but that is not where I find my. Value, and that kind of blew me out of the water when I figured that one out. Number three, I'm smart, but I can't appear smarter than my partner. And that's where the focus on women comes in. It's kind of looks at the social oppression of women and how that affects your beliefs. You know, if you believe that stuff so, number three, became, I am smart and I don't have to hide it. Number four, I must guard my relationship, not only from outside, but from inside to became, I must guard my own boundaries to maintain my mental health and stay true to me. Number five, it is important to keep things steady and stable became keeping things steady and stable doesn't allow me to grow. Fear blocks my growth. Embracing the uncomfortable for a time helps me become better. That one was a hard one to learn how bad number six, self care is indulgent and not a priority. Became, self care is a high priority if I don't care take care of me, I can't be good at caring for anyone else. Numbers seven, I have emotional muscle, and I can muscle through anything became I have emotional muscle and I can use it to pull out of negative thoughts. I don't need to deny my emotions or wallow in them. Just recognize them, feel them, and continue to move all the way through them, and this one kind of hits home for my daughter. My daughter was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 20 months, and she used her emotional muscle to muscle through her pain, because she didn't want to see the reaction of people feeling sorry for her, and so she had a lot of of using that emotional muscle to just not show people her pain and and that has been something that we've had to work on for a long time. Michael Hingson ** 42:33 What did she discover? What did she finally do? Barbara Leigh ** 42:37 Well, it's been a process, but she's finally actually showing her pain. She because, like she's had a cyst that burst in it. It wrapped around some things, and she couldn't tell the doctor in charge that that she was having that much pain. She she didn't make it a 10 on the pain scale. So the doctor didn't think that she was that, that these complications had happened, because most people couldn't even walk with this pain, but she could, because she's super high pain tolerance. Yeah, and, you know, she learned that she doesn't need to hide her pain, which was, which was pretty life shaking for her, and she's learned that, you know, she can actually tell her doctors, yes, I'm, I'm actually having some pain, and I I really need to have you work on this or or give me medication for this, or whatever. But, yeah, she's she's really come a long way as far as being honest with herself and with other people. Yeah, let's see. Number eight, I can rely on my smartness to figure it out became I can rely on my smartness and problem solving ability. But life isn't always logical. Sometimes I'm starting starting from a faulty belief I don't have to be perfect. It's okay to ask for help when I don't understand and get stuck. And that one it, it seems very obvious, but that one was really ingrained and kept coming up in different ways. Number nine, partial is enough, I can and should fill in. The rest became I am a whole person with my own thoughts, emotions, talents, hopes, dreams and goals. So if I want to be in a relationship, my significant other should see me as a whole person and should be a whole person themselves. Michael Hingson ** 45:10 Wow, some pretty deep concepts, needless to say, Yeah, but by the same but by the same token, you were willing to step back and observe and think about yourself, so you were able to to create these conclusions and make these changes, which is what it's really all about? Barbara Leigh ** 45:36 Yeah, I think that's what's different about my book, is that it's not written by a therapist or somebody who's at the other side. It's somebody who's actually in it, um, digging through it and and feeling it and it makes the, you know, it. I pulled apart the process and was, you know, you have to hit all of the things that the you know, the mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, social, all, all of the things to hold those beliefs out of all of the different places in your life where they stuck. Michael Hingson ** 46:23 You think that people really have to, how do I say this? Go to the bottom or hit rock bottom before they can really start to learn? Barbara Leigh ** 46:33 I hope not. Michael Hingson ** 46:38 You did and I but I hear it a lot you really don't know until you hit rock bottom. And I'm not sure I totally buy that. It really depends on what you're able to learn and what you're able what conclusions you're able to draw. But a lot of times hitting rock bottom, if you will, maybe emotionally at least, brings people to where they need to be. But I am with you. I hope that it isn't always that way, and it doesn't need to always be that way, Barbara Leigh ** 47:06 right? I think there's, there's different rock bottoms, you know? It's I got to the point where I needed to learn, and I learned, and that may not be what you and I would view as rock bottom to someone else, you know, but it's, you know, I finally, I finally flip the switch. And that's, you know, somebody else may have a switch at a different level than Michael Hingson ** 47:40 or they may not see that there's a switch to flip which is, which is all about choice, yep. So what got you started down the road of writing the book? Barbara Leigh ** 47:54 To be honest, I never thought I would write a book that was never, you know, a big goal in life for me, and I think it's totally a God thing, because I was, you know, my my daughter's been telling me, you need to write a book. You need to write a book for, you know, years. And I was like, yeah, yeah, sure, no product. And then all of a sudden it was time to write the book. And I was like, I don't know why it's time to write the book, but it's time to write the book. And honestly, it it flowed. I mean, I had all these great ideas for a book, and they went poof out the window when I wanted to start writing. I I just kind of sketched out an outline that was terrible, and showed it to a few people, and they're like, sure, you go. And I threw it away and just started writing. And once I started writing, it, it flowed. It actually just came out. And once I was in it a little, you know, a few chapters in, then I was able to organize it and figure out what I wanted to say and make an outline. But I couldn't do any of that until I just started writing. So I don't know, it was odd. And then I gave it to my son. I gave, like, the first two, two chapters, probably, to my son, and he read it, and he pushed it back over the table at me, and said big words. And I was like, okay, so I took it and I took out all the big words, and I made it more conversational. And now everybody who who has read it and and talk to me is like, you know, it just feels like a conversation with a good friend over a cup of Michael Hingson ** 49:57 coffee. There you go for Barbara Leigh ** 49:59 a glass of. Wine. So that's where it Michael Hingson ** 50:03 got, yeah, it's, it's about not preaching, but presenting and teaching in a in a non confrontive way, which is what it's really about, which is what sales is about, Yeah, but that was very observant on his part to say that, yeah, Barbara Leigh ** 50:24 you made it so much better. Michael Hingson ** 50:28 When I wrote thunder dog, my first book I was I wrote it with someone. We collaborated. I had worked on it for a long time, or at least worked on ideas. And then Susie Flory called one day and she wanted, she was writing her own book, and she said, Tell me your story. And after I did, she said, You should write your own book, and I'll help you do it. And she did, one of the things that we had was that the book is about being in the World Trade Center, but it's also a lot about my life. And when we got it to the editor, because her agent, who became my agent, Chip McGregor, was able to sell it to Thomas Nelson publishing, which is now part of HarperCollins. But the editor said, My problem with this book is the transitions. And kind of said, well, what do you mean? He said, Well, you talk at the beginning of each chapter about an event on September 11, and then you you go back in your life, but you don't transition between the two. And then when you come back, you don't transition. And I get lost. And when he described that, it just immediately clicked what he was saying. And I actually then spent a weekend putting transitions in every chapter at the right places. And when he read that, he said, this is perfect. This is exactly what I was talking about. And when one of the major reviewers of the book, Kirkus, which reviews books for publishers and libraries and so on, when they reviewed it, they said one of the most powerful parts about it were the transitions. And so I appreciate what your son said, because sometimes the unexpected thing that someone says is what sends you down a road to make it a much better thought process and a much better book or a much better whatever than it would have been otherwise. Barbara Leigh ** 52:22 Yeah, absolutely. I had a friend from college read it from an author perspective. So she's, she's written five books, and she gave me just, you know, really, she wrote fiction books so they weren't the same, but she gave me just really good authoring advice. As far as you know, you were used this word too many times, you know, things like that. And that was really, really helpful too to just, oh, okay, I get it. That would make it much more smooth. And you know, that was really helpful for me too, and it's just just to get feedback in any capacity is so helpful, I think, Michael Hingson ** 53:12 well, and all of those comments that people give you help teach you how to write better. Yeah, absolutely. How has writing the book changed your perspective? Barbara Leigh ** 53:24 Wow. Well, first thing, I had no idea about writing books or publishing or marketing or any of that, so that's been a whole big learning curve. But as far as you know, even even writing through the book helped teach me some things about the process as well. Just as far as relationships go, and talking through it with I had about a dozen people reading it at chapter by chapter as I got them done and and having getting that feedback from them, as far as you know, how it how it affected them, and it was really just so, I guess, helpful for me to learn what other people were were thinking when they're reading it. Because, you know, some of the things had never occurred to me, some of the things were for from friends who had been through some kind of childhood trauma. And I was kind of looking at, okay, I get what you're saying, and I think this that what you're telling me is you. This part is coming from your childhood trauma, but this other part is definitely something that I could add to my book, and I didn't want to make my book about trauma, because it really in my mind, was for the person that was just an average person, living an average life, having average relationship. However, my friends who have had childhood trauma have actually been the most affected by my book, which I find fascinating. Michael Hingson ** 55:42 That's that's interesting, but it does make sense, because clearly you're trying to help people be more open about themselves, to themselves. And the people that that do that are the people that have been in situations where maybe they haven't, and they maybe intellectually realize that they need to grow and change, but they hadn't totally emotionally adopted that stance, and so you help them with that, which is cool. Barbara Leigh ** 56:11 Yep, that's something I was expecting for sure. Michael Hingson ** 56:15 No, understand. Now you have a blog also right, called helpfulness. Why is why is it called helpfulness? And what is it about? Barbara Leigh ** 56:24 It is called helpful mess because when I was writing this book, I was writing about helpfulness and how that kind of steered me in the wrong direction, because that's where I was finding my value, and I had a typo that made it helpful. Mess, mess. Yeah, I said related to that mess. Yeah, it's like, that messy part. That's me. I So related to that that I ground onto that word. I was like, Okay, this word is mine, Michael Hingson ** 56:56 well, and it really goes right along with the book and everything we've talked about today. Needless to say, Have you thought about doing things like starting a coaching program? Or do you do any of that? Barbara Leigh ** 57:12 I do not. My daughter is, she is a life coach, and she has started a holistic nutrition program. So she's kind of doing that, that thing and, and I've never really been interested in doing that kind of thing. So I like you go. I will help you. Michael Hingson ** 57:33 Okay, well, that's fair. I think we, we all do what we we feel we're best at, and it may come to the time where you'll suddenly discover that you're really better at it than you think, and that you could, you could coach people, or maybe not, but that's really something to look at. Barbara Leigh ** 57:55 Yeah, I do want to focus on my writing for a while, but you know, when she's done with her program, maybe we'll get something Michael Hingson ** 58:01 together. Well, there you go, and she lives close to you. Yeah, Barbara Leigh ** 58:08 she's a half hour early, all right, so Michael Hingson ** 58:10 Wisconsin home to everywhere, which is pretty cool. Well, so what would you advise? What kind of advice would you give to someone who's going through a lot of the things that you've gone through and so on? What would be the first thing that you would say to them to hopefully get them started down a different path of of life, rather than thinking so little of themselves and not really wanting to move forward, Barbara Leigh ** 58:39 I would tell them they have options. You can leave your your value is not in how helpful you are, and be gentle and be kind to yourself and accept that you may not be coming from a belief that is true. And look, you know, try to see when you feel something that right, kind of off. Kind of look at your beliefs and you know, where is this coming from? Because a lot of times you can find it if you look hard enough, yeah, Michael Hingson ** 59:31 it's about teaching people to truly develop the skill of self analysis, if you will. Yeah, which is something that we, we all ought to do more of we, we tend not to really look at ourselves. And it goes back to the same thing as the whole concept of the fear of public speaking, if we, if we step out of ourselves and look at what happened, we beat up on ourselves rather than recognize. Amazing. This is a teaching moment, and we can learn from it, rather than allowing it to just be something that beats us Barbara Leigh ** 1:00:07 up. Yes, absolutely, Michael Hingson ** 1:00:10 which makes a lot of sense. Well, I want to thank you for doing this. We've been we've been at this about an hour. Can you believe it? But I really enjoyed having you talk about it. Do you have any kind of last minute thoughts that you want to convey to people? Barbara Leigh ** 1:00:30 Well, let's see. I guess if you think reasonable humans make reasonable choices, maybe rethink that. If you want to find my book, you can find it at my website. Let's see Michael Hingson ** 1:00:48 and what's your website? Barbara Leigh ** 1:00:51 Barbara Lee, author.com and Lee is l, e, i, G, H, Michael Hingson ** 1:00:56 so it's Barbara Lee, author.com, yeah, cool. Well, I hope people will find it, and we'll, we'll read it. Is it's available? Is it a hard copy or ebook, or both, or both? Okay, Barbara Leigh ** 1:01:16 and available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble Ingram, Apple, Google, not all the places Michael Hingson ** 1:01:24 they're they're an audible version or an audio version, Barbara Leigh ** 1:01:27 not yet something to work on asking, yeah, absolutely. I know I have two people that have been asking, and I well, I have to start making money before I can spend money on that. Michael Hingson ** 1:01:43 Yeah, I hear you well, unless you read it yourself, which cuts the cost way down. Barbara Leigh ** 1:01:49 Yeah, try that. I have no idea how to do that either, so that, you know, has added to my my pile of things I need to learn. Michael Hingson ** 1:01:56 There you go. It's an adventure. Barbara Leigh ** 1:01:57 Yes, absolutely, it's on the list. Well, Michael Hingson ** 1:02:00 Barbara, thank you for being here. I really appreciate it, and I want to thank all of you for listening. I hope that this has been not only enjoyable, but educational and worth your time. Love to hear your thoughts. Love to get your your thoughts about this. So any of you who would we'd love to hear from you, please email me at Michael H, i@accessibe.com that's m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, wherever you're listening, please give us a five star review. We really appreciate those reviews, and especially we love five star reviews. We want positive reviews, but you give us your honest thoughts. We love that. We appreciate it, and we value your comments very highly. If you know anyone who you think ought to be a guest on unstoppable mindset, please let us know. And if, by the way, you aren't sure how to review or whatever, or you want to find another place to hear more podcasts in addition to wherever you're listening to it, today, you can go to Michael hingson.com/podcast that's m, I C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s, o n.com/podcast, and all of our episodes are there, but we really value your time. We value that you like what we're doing. We'll always love to hear from people, so please let us know and keep the emails coming and again. Barbara, I just want to thank you. We really appreciate your time and are so glad that you came and spent this time with us. Barbara Leigh ** 1:03:32 Thank you, Michael, it's been great. I appreciate Michael Hingson ** 1:03:40 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.

The Future of B2B Marketing: AI, Execution, and Craft with Kieran Flanagan

DGMG Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 23, 2025 56:46

#257 AI Strategy | Dave is joined by Kieran Flanagan, SVP of Marketing at HubSpot and former CMO at Zapier. Kieran is a rare blend of technical operator, creative strategist, and team builder. He's spent his career pushing the edges of B2B marketing, most recently through his work leading AI transformation initiatives at scale.Dave and Kieran cover:How AI is reshaping B2B marketing workflows, content creation, and team structureWhy the best marketers will specialize at the “outer edges” of creativity or technical execution (and what happens if you stay stuck in the middle)Kieran's leadership philosophy: how he manages 300+ people while staying deeply involved in creative executionWhether you're leading a marketing team or sharpening your own skills, this episode offers a clear look at how AI is changing the game and how B2B marketers can stay creative, strategic, and indispensable in the process.Timestamps(00:00) - – Intro (02:08) - – Kieran's marketing journey (04:08) - – His 2-year mission framework (06:08) - – Advice for early-career marketers (07:38) - – Why the grind still matters (09:08) - – Ireland's SaaS and startup scene (10:08) - – Balancing operator vs. manager (12:08) - – AI-generated “How to work with me” (14:38) - – Kieran's push-and-pull leadership style (16:08) - – Giving direct creative feedback (18:08) - – Why “collaborative brainstorms” fail (19:08) - – The value of strong opinions (20:08) - – Learning through tough feedback (21:08) - – ChatGPT as a creative partner (23:08) - – Claude vs. ChatGPT vs. Gemini (25:08) - – Prompting differences in GPT-3.5 vs. 4.0 (28:19) - – Decision fatigue and AI loyalty (29:19) - – Where AI is taking B2B marketing (30:19) - – From answers to actions (32:19) - – Micro-audiences and personalization (34:19) - – The return of branded traffic (35:19) - – Why AI reignited Kieran's spark (37:19) - – Avoiding AI-induced multitasking burnout (38:49) - – Deep work vs. whack-a-mole (39:49) - – Don Draper meets ChatGPT (40:49) - – Picking a lane: tech vs. creative (42:19) - – The value of podcasting practice (43:19) - – Building a prompt muscle (45:19) - – How Kieran trains GPTs (47:19) - – Prompting tips for marketers (48:19) - – The future CMO: part IC, part leader (49:19) - – How agencies will evolve with AI (50:19) - – In-person is back (51:19) - – Overrated AI use cases (52:19) - – Favorite tool: GenSpark (54:19) - – Mistakes marketers make with AI (55:19) - – Does anyone care if it's AI? (56:19) - – Lessons from fatherhood (57:19) - – Final thoughts and wrap-up Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today's episode is brought to you by Knak. Email (in my humble opinion) is the still the greatest marketing channel of all-time.It's the only way you can truly “own” your audience.But when it comes to building the emails - if you've ever tried building an email in an enterprise marketing automation platform, you know how painful it can be. Templates are too rigid, editing code can break things and the whole process just takes forever. That's why we love Knak here at Exit Five. Knak a no-code email platform that makes it easy to create on-brand, high-performing emails - without the bottlenecks.Frustrated by clunky email builders? You need Knak.Tired of ‘hoping' the email you sent looks good across all devices? Just test in Knak first.Big team making it hard to collaborate and get approvals? Definitely Knak.And the best part? Everything takes a fraction of the time.See Knak in action at knak.com/exit-five. Or just let them know you heard about Knak on Exit Five.***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more

The Endgame 061825 - Durable Ends

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 22, 2025 197:07

In today's episode:Trump plants his flags at the White House, something he did at the Winter White House in 2006, controversiallySteve Bannon on the Republican Party as Controlled Opposition and the need to unmask the RINOsTulsi Gabbard and the IC's assessment of NOOKSBari Weiss (of Marc Andreesens-sponsored The Free Press) and her guests want warTucker Carlson permanently ruins Ted CruzTed Cruz identifies as a Christian and America First but is a globalist who doesn't seem to know much about ChristianityBibi calls on Iranians to 'rise up' and Lindsay Graham pushed regime changeBibi suggests that the Bible is the basis for preemptive war by quoting the TalmudBibi says Israel is acting to protect themselves and the whole world from the threats Israeli intel made upIsraeli Defense Minister Katz takes credit on behalf of Israel for taking out SaddamTrump pushes for a dealScott Jennings gets caught in the RINO huntDouglas Murray has been begging for preemptive war since 2012Just Say No to NeoconsDurable ends to forever warsThe Russians warn the US about attacking IranThe apparently low value of the element of surpriseControl over Iran's skies and what that meansTrump demands SURRENDER, but from whom?The Ayatollah says there will be no surrender at goes hard after the "Zionist regime"Trump wants total and complete victorySteve Bannon reminds us that all of these people turned on MAGA in 2021.Connect with Be Reasonable: https://linktr.ee/imyourmoderatorLinks, articles, ideas - follow the info stream at t.me/veryreasonableHear the show when it's released. Become a paid subscriber at imyourmoderator.substack.comVisit the show's sponsors:Diversify your assets into Bitcoin: https://partner.river.com/reasonableDiversify your assets into precious metals: reasonablegold.comJoin the new information infrastructure - get Starlink: https://www.starlink.com/residential?referral=RC-1975306-67744-74Other ways to support the work:ko-fi.com/imyourmoderatorDonate btc via coinbase: 3MEh9J5sRvMfkWd4EWczrFr1iP3DBMcKk5Make life more comfortable: mypillow.com/reasonableMerch site:https://cancelcouture.myspreadshop.com/https://cancelcouture.comFollow the podcast info stream: t.me/veryreasonableYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@imyourmoderatorOther social platforms: Truth Social, Gab, Rumble, or Gettr - @imyourmoderator Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2025 Eurail Travel Planning Guide and sinus relief

Dr Mary Travelbest Guide

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 20, 2025 11:40

Where in the world am I? Eurail Travel planning Hi there, I'm Dr. Mary Travelbest. I'm in San Diego now, sharing my best travel ideas and working on another book for you to enjoy: 5 Steps to Solo Travel, Part C. I'm about to launch on a 90-day trip around the world. Listener Story Spotlight I want to tell you about a listener named Kristen. Kristen loves to travel. She recently received a Fullbright Scholarship and took a trip with her husband and sons to a foreign country, Portugal, for several months. She's full of great travel ideas and will be helpful as I continue to travel and make my adventures more mobile. She's encouraging me to keep going in my travels and is a professor in Southern California. Quick fire FAQ: The FAQ for today is: Do you find that air travel dries your sinuses? Do you get dry and scratchy throats afterward? Yes, it happens. Let's talk about how to rid yourself of this in advance. How to avoid the dryness of airline flights? The answer: My solution is Saline Nasal Spray. I bought the 1.5-oz size for $4.00, which will last my entire trip. Before you get dry sinuses, squirt some in each nostril and then relax as it goes to work. What are the ingredients? Water, sodium chloride, disodium phosphate, benzyl alcohol, sodium phosphate, and benzalkonium chloride. Water and salt. There are three ways to use it: Squeeze twice in each nostril, and it delivers a spray, a stream, and a drop upside down. Take your pick. 60-second confidence challenge Advice for Active Seniors : “There is no shame in prioritizing and slowing down vs. overdoing. Most injuries happen when people are rushing. “Go slower, arrive sooner” is a helpful mantra.” (Ellen McCabe) If you like today's Confidence Challenge, Chapter 2 of my book dives deeper buy it on Amazon or https://www.5stepstosolotravel.com See Book A for addressing all of these items. Today's destination is Eurail Travel Planning I said: You are traveling in Europe in the Summer of 2025. You arrive in Athens, Greece, then go to Krakow, Warsaw, Poland, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and end in Edinburgh, Scotland, where you leave the EU. You will travel for five weeks. How many days will you want to use the Eurail pass for trains and ferries? Plan the trip, including seat fees and senior discounts with these countries, and suggest other places that would be a good stopping point or worth seeing. I am a solo woman in my prime. Include a mention of the low-cost airlines that I should take when not on the train or ferry. Answer: 1  Where a Eurail day genuinely saves you money Below is every leg: (a) scenic or pricey at full fare and (b) covered or discounted by the pass if the trip is a low-fare train, like under $10.regional hop, we skip the past day and just pay cash—why burn powder you might need later?  1  Day 3 Athens → Kalabaka  €3 IC seat  Sunset over Meteora cliffs—worth the four-hour train.  2  Day 5 Kalabaka → Thessaloníki  free (regional) No supplement, but one more travel day.  3  Day 9 Krakow → Oświęcim (return) free (regional) Auschwitz day trip; counts once.  4  Day 11 Krakow → Warsaw (EIP)  ~PLN 35 ≈ €8  High‑speed, mandatory seat.  5  Day 13 Warsaw → Gdańsk or Toruń (optional)  PLN 3 ≈ €0.70 Use if you “dive” north.  6  Day 16 Tallinn → Helsinki ferry  deck = free; cabin = ‑20 %  Tallink Silja It counts oas ne travel day.  7  Day 17 Helsinki → Tampere & back  €0–€6 VR seat  Eurail Pendolino; book in app.  8  Day 19 Helsinki o/night ferry → Stockholm  deck = free; cabin –20 % Same Tallink perk.  9  Day 21 Stockholm → Uppsala (return)  €0 (regional) Same‑day out‑and‑back.  10  Day 22 Stockholm → Gothenburg  ≈ €7 SJ seat  Eurail Community 3 h X2000.  11  Day 23 Gothenburg → Oslo  free No reservations.  12  Day 25 Oslo → Bergen  ≈ NOK 50 ≈ €4 seat Bergensbanen panorama.  13  Day 26 Bergen → Flåm train + Nærøyfjord boat  boat covered A rail‑and‑fjord combo.  14  Day 30 Copenhagen → Roskilde day‑trip  ≈ €9 seat  Eurail Vikings have & an easy return.  15  Day 32 Edinburgh → Inverness  £0–£5 seat UK still in the Eurail network. * Fees are 2ᵈ ‑class, summer 2025 published rates. Total Eurail travel days = 15 – the cap of the 15‑days‑in‑2‑months Senior Global Pass 2  What about the long, awkward gaps? Why wrestle with two‑day rail marathons when a 90‑minute hop costs less than your hostel? Segment Suggested airline(s) Typical July fare if bought 3 mo ahead Thessaloníki ✈ Krakow Ryanair, Aegean €55–€85 Warsaw ✈ Tallinn airBaltic, LOT, Ryanair €45–€90 Bergen ✈ Copenhagen Norwegian, SAS €65–€110 Copenhagen ✈ Edinburgh easyJet, Ryanair, Norwegian €40–€80 Question: could you train Thessaloníki→Krakow via Budapest? Yes—but it burns 2‑3 pass days plus €30‑€45 in night‑train supplements. The low‑cost flight is simply cheaper and quicker. 3  Five‑week skeleton itinerary Week Base & ideas Safety‑first extras for a 65‑yr‑old solo traveler  1 Athens 3 d – dawn Acropolis, Plaka food walk → train to Meteora 2 d (monastery sunsets) → Thessaloníki 2 d for Byzantine walls & waterfront. Central hotels near Syntagma & Aristotelous squares; use the eat taxi app after dark.  2 Fly to Krakow 3 d (+ Auschwitz) → Warsaw 2 d → optional day to Toruń or Gdańsk. Women‑only dorms at Greg & Tom (Krakow) and OkiDoki (Warsaw); trains arrive before dusk.  3 Fly to Tallinn 2 d → ferry to Helsinki 3 d with day‑trip to Tampere—Telliskivi creative city, Suomenlinna flat walks; Bolt taxis for late returns.  4 Night ferry to Stockholm 3 d (+ Uppsala) → train to Gothenburg 2 d → rail to Oslo 2 d. Stockholm hostel “City Backpackers” has curtained bunks; carry Rail Planner live‑trip link to share location.  5 Oslo‑Bergen rail & fjords 3 d → Fly to Copenhagen 3 d (+ Roskilde) → Fly to Edinburgh; finish with Highlands loop 4 d (Inverness, Aviemore hikes) before departure. Fjord cruise boats have good handrails; Scottish B&Bs offer single rooms beside stations. 4  Is the pass still worth it? That's $200-250 saved, plus the flexibility to reroute if wildfires, strikes, or your whims intervene. 5  Quick checklist before you lock it in Buy the Senior Global Pass (15 days/2 months) before prices rise. Book the four trains with limited seats (EIP Poland, X2000 Sweden, Bergensbanen, Copenhagen reservations) as soon as reservations open—usually 60–90 days in advance. Use the Rail Planner app to activate travel days on the morning you board; keep two blanks until the very end in case you shuffle plans. Flights: watch Friday flash sales on Ryanair/Norwegian; they routinely drop

Construction stocks, XPS & medtech: The Companies and Markets Show

Investors Chronicle

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 20, 2025 38:42

The show starts unpacking the latest results from equipment hire company Ashtead (AHT). Mark Robinson analyses the outlook for US construction spending, the company's sensitivity to tariffs and its valuation. It's then on to Ashtead's smaller rival Speedy Hire (SDY), which is closing some of its depots due to rising staff costs. Listen to find out everything investors need to know. Next up is one of the IC's Ideas of the Year, which are putting in a strong performance again in 2025. Pensions consultancy XPS Pensions (XPS) reported full-year figures earlier this week – Julian Hofmann asks if its booming business can continue.Lastly, our Big Read on the medical technology sector. Mark Robinson covers the issues facing the industry, the options for investors and a potential tariff winner.Timestamps 1:50 Ashtead9:20 Speedy Hire18:29 XPS Pensions27:36 MedtechRead more on these topics:Ashtead stymied by falling used equipment salesSpeedy Hire attempts to boost efficiencies as HMRC loads costsThe cutting-edge medtech stocks worth owningListen to more podcasts from Investors' Chronicle on Apple, Spotify and YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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La Duchesse de Berry, une rebelle chez les Bourbons ! (1/3)

Secrets d'Histoire

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 19, 2025 34:50

Icône du romantisme français, la duchesse de Berry incarne la grâce et la résilience. Belle-fille du roi Charles X, elle devient une figure centrale de la monarchie restaurée grâce à son charme et son esprit. Mais c'est après l'abdication de son beau-père, en 1830, qu'elle s'illustre véritablement. Déterminée à défendre les droits de son fils, le comte de Chambord, elle mène une insurrection audacieuse pour tenter de restaurer la dynastie légitime. Si son épopée se termine par un emprisonnement, son courage et son engagement font d'elle une héroïne fascinante de l'histoire française."Secrets d'Histoire" est un podcast d'Initial Studio, adapté de l'émission de télévision éponyme produite par la Société Européenne de Production ©2024 SEP / France Télévisions. Cet épisode a été écrit et réalisé par Baptiste Mathon. Un podcast présenté par Stéphane Bern. Avec la voix d'Isabelle Benhadj.Vous pouvez retrouver Secrets d'Histoire sur France 3 ou en replay sur France.tv, et suivre l'émission sur Instagram et Facebook.Crédits du podcastProduction exécutive du podcast : Initial StudioProduction éditoriale : Sarah Koskievic et Mandy Lebourg, assistées de Marine BoudalierMontage : Johanna Lalonde Hébergé par Audion. Visitez https://www.audion.fm/fr/privacy-policy pour plus d'informations.

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Episode 79: Westfair Communications 40 Under Forty with host Joan Franzino, and featuring Natalie Holland, Events Director, Westfair Business Journal

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Play Episode Listen Later Jun 17, 2025 6:37

Leadership. Heart. Grit. And all under the age of 40. Those are just some of the defining traits of the 2025 Class of Westfair Business Journal's 40 Under Forty honorees. Nearly 200 guests gathered on Thursday, June 12, 2025, at Serafresca at The IC in Stamford, Connecticut, to celebrate these rising stars, recognized for their resilience, innovation, and community impact. The event, launched in 2006 by Westfair Communications, shines a spotlight on young leaders making a difference across Fairfield County. Westchester Talk Radio was on site, with host Joan Franzino speaking with 40 Under Forty event coordinator Natalie Holland, Events Director at Westfair Business Journal, about the planning that goes into creating a meaningful and inspiring evening for honorees and attendees alike.

Episode 74: Westfair Communications 40 Under Forty with host Joan Franzino, and featuring Jarred Barnes, Major Gift Strategist, Connecticut Humane Society

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Play Episode Listen Later Jun 17, 2025 5:47

Leadership. Heart. Grit. And all under the age of 40. Those are just some of the defining traits of the 2025 Class of Westfair Business Journal's 40 Under Forty honorees. Nearly 200 guests gathered on Thursday, June 12, 2025, at Serafresca at The IC in Stamford, Connecticut, to celebrate these rising stars, recognized for their resilience, innovation, and community impact. The event, launched in 2006 by Westfair Communications, shines a spotlight on young leaders making a difference across Fairfield County. Westchester Talk Radio was on site, with host Joan Franzino speaking with 40 Under Forty honoree Jarred Barnes, Major Gift Strategist with the Connecticut Humane Society, about his work and what the recognition means to him.

Episode 75: Westfair Communications 40 Under Forty with host Joan Franzino, and featuring Alex Cross, Business Development Manager, City of Norwalk

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Play Episode Listen Later Jun 17, 2025 3:42

Leadership. Heart. Grit. And all under the age of 40. Those are just some of the defining traits of the 2025 Class of Westfair Business Journal's 40 Under Forty honorees. Nearly 200 guests gathered on Thursday, June 12, 2025, at Serafresca at The IC in Stamford, Connecticut, to celebrate these rising stars, recognized for their resilience, innovation, and community impact. The event, launched in 2006 by Westfair Communications, shines a spotlight on young leaders making a difference across Fairfield County. Westchester Talk Radio was on site, with host Joan Franzino speaking with 40 Under Forty honoree Alex Cross, Business Development Manager for the City of Norwalk, about his professional journey and commitment to community growth.

Episode 76: Westfair Communications 40 Under Forty with host Joan Franzino, and featuring Elizabeth Esposito, Community & Government Relations Specialist, United Illuminating

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Play Episode Listen Later Jun 17, 2025 5:52

Leadership. Heart. Grit. And all under the age of 40. Those are just some of the defining traits of the 2025 Class of Westfair Business Journal's 40 Under Forty honorees. Nearly 200 guests gathered on Thursday, June 12, 2025, at Serafresca at The IC in Stamford, Connecticut, to celebrate these rising stars, recognized for their resilience, innovation, and community impact. The event, launched in 2006 by Westfair Communications, shines a spotlight on young leaders making a difference across Fairfield County. Westchester Talk Radio was on site, with host Joan Franzino speaking with 40 Under Forty honoree Elizabeth Esposito, Community & Government Relations Specialist with United Illuminating, about her role in strengthening community ties and advancing public engagement efforts.

Episode 77: Westfair Communications 40 Under Forty with host Joan Franzino, and featuring Jaclyn Gartner, Founder and President, Happily Furever After Rescue

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Play Episode Listen Later Jun 17, 2025 5:43

Leadership. Heart. Grit. And all under the age of 40. Those are just some of the defining traits of the 2025 Class of Westfair Business Journal's 40 Under Forty honorees. Nearly 200 guests gathered on Thursday, June 12, 2025, at Serafresca at The IC in Stamford, Connecticut, to celebrate these rising stars, recognized for their resilience, innovation, and community impact. The event, launched in 2006 by Westfair Communications, shines a spotlight on young leaders making a difference across Fairfield County. Westchester Talk Radio was on site, with host Joan Franzino speaking with 40 Under Forty honoree Jaclyn Gartner, Founder and President of Happily Furever After Rescue, about her mission to save animals and inspire compassion through her nonprofit organization.

Episode 78: Westfair Communications 40 Under Forty with host Joan Franzino, and featuring Ryan Wenke, CEO, The Prospector

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Play Episode Listen Later Jun 17, 2025 4:44

Leadership. Heart. Grit. And all under the age of 40. Those are just some of the defining traits of the 2025 Class of Westfair Business Journal's 40 Under Forty honorees. Nearly 200 guests gathered on Thursday, June 12, 2025, at Serafresca at The IC in Stamford, Connecticut, to celebrate these rising stars, recognized for their resilience, innovation, and community impact. The event, launched in 2006 by Westfair Communications, shines a spotlight on young leaders making a difference across Fairfield County. Westchester Talk Radio was on site, with host Joan Franzino speaking with 40 Under Forty honoree Ryan Wenke, CEO of The Prospector, about his leadership and the organization's mission to create meaningful employment for people with disabilities.

Episode 465: Talking to your report's previous manager and how to replace a 30-year-old ticketing system

Soft Skills Engineering

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 16, 2025 29:44

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: A listener named Mike says, To what degree do you think it's appropriate to talk with your peer managers about people that have moved from their team to yours? How much weight do you give their criticisms of an IC that they used to manage that is working out just fine under your leadership? How do you know if it was mostly due to a conflict in their relationship, or if there's a nugget of truth you need to look out for? Hi, thanks for a great show. I've listened to 400 episodes in a year - thanks for making my commute fun! I've been at my current job as a software developer for a year. It's a great company overall, but we rely on a 30-year-old in-house ticket system that also doubles as a time reporting tool. It lacks many basic features, and project managers often resort to SQL and Excel just to get an overview. As you can imagine, things get forgotten and lost easily. Everyone dislikes it, but the old-timers are used to it. They want any replacement to be cheap and also handle time reporting, which really limits our options. I suggested to keep using the old system for time reporting only for now, but the reaction made me feel like I'd suggested going back to pen and paper. While the company is old and set in its ways in some areas, it has made big changes in others, so I'm not ready to give up hope just yet. How can I at least nudge the company toward adopting a more modern ticket system to improve visibility and planning? I've shown examples that save time and offer better overviews, but it hasn't made much impact. Where should I focus my efforts—or do I just have to learn to live with it? Some more context: This is in Europe and the culture at the company is generally open to feedback and discussions from anyone. I have 10+ years experience and a relatively good influence. My manager is driving change successfully to make the company more modern but I suspect he might have given up on this one.

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Premier IC Workforce Event in Arlington, Virginia This Month

Security Clearance Careers Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 16, 2025 17:35

Since its founding, The New IC has been the Intelligence and National Security Alliance's (INSA) premier workforce event—dedicated to supporting early- and mid-career professionals across the cleared community. Whether you're just getting your start or looking to take your next big step, this program is designed to help you build your skills, broaden your network, and thrive in the IC and national security spaceThis year's program is bigger than ever. We're kicking off with Career Conversations, a dynamic job fair and networking event where attendees can meet top IC employers, learn about in-demand skills, and forge career-making connections. And that's just the beginning.Learn more about the vital networking opportunities available at this event on Wednesday, June 25, from 1:00-6:00 pm at the Army Navy Country Club in Arlington, VA. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Review phim: BÍ KÍP LUYỆN RỒNG, TRẠNG QUỲNH NHÍ: TRUYỀN THUYẾT KIM NGƯU, BỘ 5 SIÊU ĐẲNG CẤP,...

Tám Sài Gòn

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 16, 2025 31:24

Review các phim ra rạp từ ngày 13/06/2025BÍ KÍP LUYỆN RỒNG - KĐạo diễn: Dean DeBloisDiễn viên: Mason Thames, Nico Parker, Gerard ButlerThể loại: Hài, Hành Động, Phiêu Lưu, Thần thoạiCâu chuyện về một chàng trai trẻ với ước mơ trở thành thợ săn rồng, nhưng định mệnh lại đưa đẩy anh đến tình bạn bất ngờ với một chú rồng.TRẠNG QUỲNH NHÍ: TRUYỀN THUYẾT KIM NGƯUĐạo diễn: Trịnh Lâm TùngDiễn viên: Hoạt HìnhĐược phát triển từ series hoạt hình ăn khách trên nền tảng YouTube Trạng Quỳnh thời nhí nhố, thuộc thể loại phiêu lưu, kỳ ảo, hài hước, xoay quanh cuộc phiêu lưu đầy nhí nhố của nhóm bạn vốn không ưa gì nhau nhưng lại buộc phải đồng hành trên hành trình thực hiện mục tiêu riêng của mỗi người và giải cứu thế giới.BỘ 5 SIÊU ĐẲNG CẤP – T16Đạo diễn: Kang Hyung CheolDiễn viên: Yoo Ah In, Ahn Jae Hong, Park Jin Young, Ra Mi Ran,...Thể loại: Hài, Hành Động, Thần thoạiThể loại: Siêu Hài, Siêu Lòng, Siêu Hài Lòng HI.FIVE – bộ phim bom tấn siêu anh hùng châu Á, pha trộn hành động mãn nhãn và tiếng cười bùng nổ. Năm người bình thường bỗng dưng "trúng số" — bất ngờ sở hữu siêu năng lực bá đạo sau một ca ghép tạng... kỳ quặc! DAN DAN DAN: TÀ NHÃN – T16Đạo diễn: Fuga Yamashiro, AbelDiễn viên: Momo (Momo Ayase): Shion Wakayama; Thể loại: Hoạt HìnhMomo và Okarun đã tới nhà của Jiji ở khu suối nước nóng để điều tra vụ việc liên quan tới gia đình Jiji. Trên đường đi, Okarun luôn phiền muộn vì bầu không khí giữa Momo và Jiji nhưng bắt đầu cảm mến Jiji vì bản tính tốt đẹp của cậu ấy. Sau khi leo lên ngôi nhà trên núi của Jiji, cả ba ngay lập tức vào điều tra. Ở phía xa, thấp thoáng bóng người quan sát họ...Cuộn Băng Quỷ Ám - T13Thể loại: Kinh dị13 năm sau sự biến mất bí ẩn của em trai, Keita vẫn sống trong dằn vặt và hy vọng. Một cuộn băng VHS từ mẹ hé lộ hình ảnh cuối cùng của Hinata trước khi cậu bé mất tích trong căn nhà hoang trên núi Mushiro. Bất chấp lời cảnh báo từ người bạn cùng phòng có khả năng ngoại cảm, Keita cùng một phóng viên và người bạn đặc biệt bước vào hành trình tìm sự thật. Nhưng càng đi sâu, họ càng bị cuốn vào những bí ẩn siêu nhiên và nỗi đau bị chôn giấu. Liệu sự thật về Hinata là điều nên được phơi bày, hay là cánh cửa dẫn đến một cơn ác mộng chưa từng kết thúc?QUỶ THA MA BẮT – T18Đạo diễn: David MidellDiễn viên: Al Pacino, Dan Stevens, Ashley Greene,...Thể loại: Kinh DịEmma Schmidt, một phụ nữ 46 tuổi, đã phải chịu đựng suốt nhiều năm với các triệu chứng đáng sợ như mất ý thức, sợ hãi các vật thánh và nhiều biểu hiện kỳ lạ khác. Sau khi điều trị tâm thần không mang lại hiệu quả, một buổi trừ tà trang nghiêm đã được sắp xếp tại một tu viện hẻo lánh, do Cha Theophilus Riesinger thực hiện và Cha Steiger giám sát. QUỶ RẠCH MẶT – T16Đạo diễn: Sueb Boonsong NakphooDiễn viên: Kwan Usamanee Vaithayanon,...Thể loại: Kinh DịMay quyết định chuyển về căn nhà ngoại ô cùng với bạn trai, Gun. Ở đây, May bất ngờ nhận được tin dữ, mẹ kế của cô, bà Po đã qua đời, bị nghi là sát hại. May dang tay cưu mang người em gái, Noon, thế nhưng nào ngờ cô ã dẫn quỷ về nhà. Liên tục trải qua những cú sốc, May hầu như không còn tin vào chính mình khi thực thể tà ác đang muốn nuốt chửng cô và gia đình. Liệu cái kết nào sẽ giành cho những bi kịch đẫm máu tiếp theo?COLORFUL STAGE! MỘT MIKU KHÔNG THỂ HÁT - KĐạo diễn: Hiroyuki HataThể loại: Hoạt HìnhChuyển thể anime do hãng phim PA Works sản xuất do Hiroyuki Hata đạo diễn và Yoko Yonaiyama viết kịch bản. Bộ anime đã được khởi chiếu tại Nhật Bản vào ngày 17 tháng 1 năm nay, và thu về 230.000 vé tương đương 300 triệu yên trong ba ngày đầu tiên (17–19 tháng 1), đứng #2 phòng vé Nhật Bản lúc bấy giờ. Phim xoay quanh Ichika Hoshino, người nghe được một bài hát của Miku mà cô chưa bao giờ được nghe cũng như nhìn thấy một Hatsune Miku mà cô chưa từng được thấy.

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Episode 68 - VU2RS

The DX Mentor

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 15, 2025 64:05

This is The DX Mentor podcast. I hope to help those hams trying to move up the DXCC ladder as well as those that at on the DXCC Honor Roll. As fast as technology is moving, no one can keep up on it all. I am here to help. #DX #HamradioWelcome to episode 68 of The DX Mentor –All About DX. Thank you for joining us..I'm Bill, AJ8B.If this is the first time you are joining us, Welcome! We have a back catalog covering many aspects of DX in both podcast and YouTube format. Please check us out. If you like what you find, please subscribe, like, and share to always be notified about upcoming events!   Another way to keep in touch and to see what we are up to is via the DX Mentor Facebook page. I will be posting aboutupcoming podcasts as well as other DX events so please follow us.  Our guests today are Sarath, VU2RS, and Joe, W8GEX. Sarath & Joe are experienced, passionate DXers and the conversation should be lively and informative. This text is what grabbed my attention and made me realize that VU2RS would be a great guest. “In celebration of World DX Day, DX India Foundation is proud to announce its commitment to promoting DXing activities from India. Following the resounding success of previous IOTA activations, such as Sacrifice Rock, Kanika Island, Sagar Island, and Nachugunta IOTA, the foundation is gearing up for more exciting adventures. DX India Foundation's primary objective is to activate rare IOTAs, organize DXpeditions, and foster a vibrant DXing culture in the region. To achieve this goal, thefoundation is seeking support from manufacturers, individuals, and organizations to acquire essential equipment, including: – HF radios and amplifiers. – Band-pass filters and power supplies. – Tents and generators. – Coax cables and all necessary accessories. The foundation plans to establish a self-sufficient setup, comprising three stations, which can be easily transported in a container to various locations. This will enable DX India Foundation to activate rare IOTAs and provide DXers and IOTA chasers with exciting opportunities to log new entities. By promoting DXing activities and providing support to IOTA enthusiasts, DX India Foundation hopes to elevate the region's profile in the global amateur radio community. Join us in celebrating World DX Day and stay tuned for updates on DX India Foundation's initiatives and activities! for more details: sara@vu2rs.com 73, Sarath,VU2RS - DX India Foundation” Here is some information about our guest:Sarath was born and raised in Hyderabad, India. He developed an interest in amateur radio at the age of 15, inspired by Bharathi, VU2RBI, and his family of hams. This early exposure sparked a lifelong passion for amateur radio. In recognition of his family's remarkable achievement, they were featured in the Guinness Book of Records for having the largest number of amateur radio operators in a single family - an impressive 60 hams! Sarath has received several awards and recognition for his contributions to amateur radio and public service, including: - Rajiv Gandhi Award for Amateur Radio(1996-97 and 1997-98) - International Humanitarian Award - Honorary citizenship of Florida State, USA All of this and contest work, DXpeditions, Fox Hunting and EMCOMM will be discussed. Let's get started!Resources mentioned include:VU2RS https://vu2rs.com/Amateur Radio Society of Indiahttps://arsi.info/Southwest Ohio DX Assoc. https://www.swodxa.orgDaily DX https://www.dailydx.com/DX Engineering https://www.dxengineering.com/Icom https://www.icomamerica.com/ IC-905 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-905/ IC-9700 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-9700/ IC-7610 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-7610/ IC-7300 https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-7300/

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Banned From Ringside #416: MITB; WWE; AEW; Worlds Collide; NXT

Visionaries Global Media

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 13, 2025 136:26

This week the boys discuss some graps from the week that was. The 1 count is WWE with Money In The Bank winners Naomi and Seth Rollins. John Cena gets a receipt handed to him by R Truth. Becky Lynch wins the women's IC title. On RAW CM Punk challenges Cena for the Undisputed WWE title. Gunther wins back the World title from Jey Uso and the King/Queen of the Ring tournament begins. The 2 count is AEW with another 4 hour show. Will Ospreay vs Swerve Strickland ends in a draw and a post match attack by the Young Bucks and the Death Riders. Okada joins forces with Don Callis to attack Kenny Omega. Mercedes Mones attacks Toni Storm. MJF challenges Mistico for Grand Slam Mexico. The 3 count is a recap of NXT where Mariah May gets her new name and Worlds Collide. Some odds and ends to close the pod! Available on all audio podcast platforms. Listen Share Subscribe Repeat! Rate and review on Apple and Spotify! WWE AEW 1:06:08 NXT 2:01:15

Episode 344 – Unstoppable Retired Silicon Valley Leader and Man of Faith with Skip Vaccarello