Podcasts about Jernigan

What if some of the most powerful tools for controlling chronic bacterial infections are already living inside the human body? In this episode of the Tick Boot Camp Podcast, hosts Matt Sabatello and Rich Johannesen sit down with Dr. David A. Jernigan, DNM, DC, founder of the Biologix Center for Optimum Health, for a deep exploration of Lyme disease, bacteriophages, chronic infection, biological medicine, and his development of Induced Native Phage Therapy (INPT). Dr. Jernigan has worked with people experiencing Lyme disease and complex chronic illness since the 1990s. His journey into the Lyme world began unexpectedly when a mother and her twin sons came to his Kansas practice with Lyme disease. At a time when Lyme disease knowledge was far more limited, the experience pushed him into decades of clinical work, research, writing, and experimentation focused on understanding why some patients remain chronically ill. Today, one of the central areas of his work is bacteriophages—viruses that infect bacteria—and a therapeutic model he calls Induced Native Phage Therapy. What Are Bacteriophages? Bacteriophages, commonly called phages, are viruses that infect bacteria. They exist throughout nature and are also found in enormous numbers within the human body. Unlike broad-spectrum approaches that may affect many different microorganisms, phages can have highly specific relationships with particular bacteria. During the interview, Dr. Jernigan explains the relationship between bacteria and bacteriophages and introduces listeners to the phageome—the vast community of phages living in and around the human microbiome. He describes how certain phages can enter a lytic cycle, ultimately destroying their bacterial host, while others can exist in a more dormant or lysogenic relationship with bacteria before environmental conditions trigger a change in their behavior. This bacterial-phage relationship forms the foundation for Dr. Jernigan's work with INPT. What Is Induced Native Phage Therapy (INPT)? One of the most important distinctions in this conversation is the difference between conventional phage therapy and Induced Native Phage Therapy. Traditional phage therapy generally involves identifying phages capable of attacking a particular bacterium and introducing those phages into a patient. Dr. Jernigan's approach is fundamentally different. Rather than administering externally sourced bacteriophages, INPT is designed around the idea of influencing native phages that are already present within the body. Dr. Jernigan describes his approach as using electromagnetic or bioresonance-based information intended to influence phages associated with targeted microorganisms and encourage a shift toward bacterial destruction. He explains that development of the process took approximately five years and grew out of his earlier work with bioresonance and biological medicine. Matt and Rich push Dr. Jernigan throughout the conversation to explain exactly what he believes is happening biologically, how targeted phages are distinguished from the enormous number of phages within the body, and how this approach differs from simply attempting to kill microorganisms directly. Why Phages Could Matter in Lyme Disease The discussion then turns specifically to Borrelia burgdorferi, other Borrelia species, and Lyme disease. Dr. Jernigan argues that bacteria and their associated phages have coexisted for an extraordinarily long time and that bacteria entering the human body may already exist within complex relationships with bacteriophages. Instead of searching externally for a single phage capable of targeting Borrelia, his research asks a different question: Can the phages already present within a patient or associated with a microorganism be influenced to help control that organism? That question sits at the center of INPT. The conversation also explores monovalent versus polyvalent phages, bacterial specificity, intracellular microorganisms, and the potential ability of phages to interact with bacteria residing in difficult-to-reach environments. Lyme Disease Is More Than One Infection This episode extends far beyond phage therapy. Dr. Jernigan explains how his understanding of Lyme disease has evolved dramatically since he began treating patients in the 1990s. Early in his career, much of the Lyme community was focused primarily on finding and killing Borrelia burgdorferi. Over time, he became increasingly convinced that chronic illness could not be adequately explained by one microorganism alone. He describes what he calls Multi-Microbial Activation Syndrome, a model in which Lyme disease may occur alongside or contribute to changes involving numerous microorganisms and physiological systems. The conversation explores: Borrelia burgdorferi and other Borrelia species Bartonella and Babesia Other tick-borne infections Mold and environmental exposures Microbial interactions Toxins Metabolic dysfunction Immune dysregulation Mast cell activation Inflammation Individual biological terrain This leads to one of the central themes of the episode: two people can carry similar microorganisms yet experience dramatically different levels of illness. Dr. Jernigan therefore argues that treating a diagnosis alone can miss the larger biological picture of the person experiencing the disease. Treating the Infection vs. Repairing the Damage Dr. Jernigan uses a memorable termite analogy to explain chronic Lyme disease. If termites are discovered before they have caused significant structural damage, eliminating them may largely solve the problem. But if termites have been damaging a house for years, killing the termites does not rebuild the house. The same concept, he argues, may apply to chronic illness. Reducing microbial burden may be important, but a person may still be dealing with neurological, metabolic, inflammatory, structural, immune, or other dysfunction that developed during years of illness. That distinction becomes particularly important when evaluating whether a treatment has worked. A reduction in infection does not necessarily mean that years of physiological damage or dysregulation immediately disappear. Why Every Lyme Patient May Require a Different Approach Matt and Rich discuss Tick Boot Camp's view of Lyme disease as a polymicrobial, multisystemic, chronic infectious or post-infectious illness, and Dr. Jernigan explains why his clinical experience has led him toward a similarly individualized model. Every patient enters illness with a different history, microbiome, microbial exposures, environmental exposures, physiology, and accumulated biological stress. For that reason, Dr. Jernigan challenges what he describes as "cookbook" medicine—the idea that every patient carrying the same diagnosis should receive essentially the same protocol. Instead, his model attempts to identify what is dysfunctional in the individual patient while simultaneously reducing infectious burden and supporting the body's ability to repair itself. Phages, Biofilms, and Intracellular Bacteria Another major portion of the interview explores two difficult problems in chronic infection: biofilms and intracellular bacteria. Dr. Jernigan discusses research showing that certain bacteriophages can interact with or penetrate bacterial biofilms, potentially giving phage-based approaches characteristics that differ from conventional antimicrobial strategies. The discussion also examines whether phages can reach bacteria residing inside cells. These questions are particularly relevant to Lyme disease because persistence, bacterial morphology, biofilms, tissue environments, and intracellular localization are frequently discussed as possible contributors to treatment difficulty. Dr. Jernigan explains why he believes native phages may be capable of reaching microorganisms in environments that can present challenges for other therapeutic approaches. Herxheimer Reactions: Does Feeling Worse Mean Treatment Is Working? The episode also challenges one of the most familiar ideas in the Lyme community: Do patients have to feel worse before they feel better? Many Lyme patients are familiar with the Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction, often shortened to "Herxing," in which symptoms can temporarily intensify during antimicrobial treatment. Dr. Jernigan discusses his belief that effective treatment should not necessarily require significant suffering. He connects this idea to his model of phage-mediated bacterial destruction and explains why he believes INPT may behave differently from therapies that produce large amounts of inflammatory bacterial debris. Matt and Rich dig into this distinction and the potential relationship between microbial die-off, cytokines, inflammation, mast cells, and worsening symptoms. MCAS, Immune Activation, and Treatment Sensitivity The conversation also addresses why some people with chronic Lyme disease become extraordinarily sensitive to medications, supplements, foods, environmental exposures, and other treatments. Dr. Jernigan discusses macrophages, inflammatory cytokines, histamine, mast cell degranulation, and mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) as part of the larger chronic illness picture. Rather than viewing these problems as completely separate diagnoses, he encourages looking for the biological processes that may be driving multiple downstream symptoms. This reflects another recurring theme throughout the episode: identifying and addressing upstream contributors rather than continually treating individual symptoms in isolation. Antibiotics, Resistance, and the Search for New Approaches Matt, Rich, and Dr. Jernigan also have an extended discussion about antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance. Dr. Jernigan is strongly critical of long-term reliance on antibiotics and argues that bacterial adaptation and antibiotic resistance make alternative antimicrobial strategies increasingly important. The conversation examines doxycycline, broad-spectrum antibiotics, environmental antibiotic exposure, bacterial adaptation, and why phage research has regained scientific interest as antimicrobial resistance becomes an increasingly important global challenge. Dr. Jernigan also makes an important distinction between his approach and conventional phage therapy, which itself is an active area of scientific research. Dr. Jernigan's Published INPT Research Dr. Jernigan discusses several publications related to his work, including his 2021 retrospective review of Induced Native Phage Therapy for Lyme disease and relapsing fever and subsequent work expanding the concept into treatment-resistant illnesses involving multiple microorganisms. He intentionally made his peer-reviewed publications open access so patients, practitioners, and researchers could review the work without encountering a paywall. During the interview, he also acknowledges the importance of additional independent research and the challenges involved in funding and validating emerging therapeutic approaches. INPT remains an emerging and unconventional approach. The mechanisms and clinical claims discussed in this episode should therefore be understood as Dr. Jernigan's research, hypotheses, clinical observations, and interpretations rather than established standards of Lyme disease treatment. From "Chasing Bugs" to Biological Medicine Perhaps the most important evolution in Dr. Jernigan's career is his movement away from simply "chasing bugs." His earliest Lyme work focused heavily on identifying and addressing microorganisms. After decades of treating complex patients, his philosophy expanded toward simultaneously considering two questions: What microorganisms are creating a burden, and what is preventing this particular person's body from returning to healthy function? That means considering infections alongside neurological function, metabolism, immune regulation, inflammation, environmental exposures, structural problems, the microbiome, and other biological systems. For patients who have spent years moving from treatment to treatment, that broader question may be one of the most valuable takeaways from this conversation. Topics Discussed Dr. David Jernigan's introduction to Lyme disease in the 1990s Congenital and persistent Lyme disease Early Lyme disease testing Natural and biological medicine Borrelia burgdorferi Bartonella, Babesia, and other tick-borne infections Polymicrobial illness Multi-Microbial Activation Syndrome Bacteriophages and the human phageome How bacteriophages infect bacteria Lytic and lysogenic phage cycles Conventional phage therapy Induced Native Phage Therapy (INPT) Native versus externally administered phages Monovalent and polyvalent phages Bioresonance and electromagnetic signaling Phages and bacterial biofilms Intracellular bacteria Antibiotic resistance Doxycycline and antimicrobial treatment Jarisch-Herxheimer reactions Cytokines and inflammation Macrophages and immune dysfunction MCAS and treatment sensitivity Mold and environmental illness Microbial terrain Personalized Lyme disease treatment Treating infection versus repairing physiological damage Biological and bioregulatory medicine Emerging research into phage-based therapies About Dr. David Jernigan Dr. David A. Jernigan, DNM, DC, is an author, researcher, clinician, and founder of the Biologix Center for Optimum Health in Franklin, Tennessee. He has worked with people experiencing Lyme disease and complex chronic illness for decades and has written extensively about Lyme disease, biological medicine, natural approaches to chronic illness, bacteriophages, and related topics. His more recent research has focused on Induced Native Phage Therapy, an approach designed to influence naturally occurring bacteriophages within the body rather than administering externally sourced phages. Learn more about Dr. David Jernigan, INPT, his Lyme disease work, publications, and the Biologix Center. Work With Dr. David Jernigan Patients interested in learning more about Dr. Jernigan, the Biologix Center for Optimum Health, and opportunities to work with him can visit: Biologix Center for Optimum Health – Dr. David Jernigan INPT Information for Doctors and Healthcare Providers Healthcare professionals interested in learning more about Induced Native Phage Therapy or becoming an INPT provider can visit PhaGenCorp: PhaGenCorp – Induced Native Phage Therapy Learn More About Lyme Disease Explore more Tick Boot Camp conversations with physicians working with Lyme disease and complex tick-borne illness: Tick Boot Camp Doctors

In this episode, Justin and Greg analyze Cal's season opener against UCLA, discussing the game's key moments, player performances, and areas for improvement. They also preview the ACC opener on the road against Syracuse. Plus a conversation with Inside Linebacker Tristan Jernigan in his first year with the Bears.Audio transcript available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zLiP23H7s-2_Pt7F3-94-6fEAv4sQQuD/view?usp=share_linkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Meghan Jernigan spent her childhood in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma driving over an hour just to reach the nearest Indian Health Service hospital. That drive shaped everything that came after. Dr. Huntley talks with Meghan, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation, about the unlikely path from a theater degree at Oklahoma State to two decades of work in tribal epidemiology, research, and now federal relations for the Washington State Department of Health. They dig into why storytelling and relationship building matter as much as data when you're translating federal rulemaking into something communities can actually use. At the center of the conversation is a landmark data sharing agreement between Washington State and two federally recognized tribes, one that's reshaping who gets to hold and interpret their own health information. Meghan also talks wildfire season, measles outbreaks, and what it takes to keep a state health department steady while the ground keeps shifting beneath it. This one's about power, trust, and communities finally telling their own story with their own data.   Resources ▶️ Join the PHEC Podcast Community ▶️ Visit the PHEC Podcast Show Notes ▶️ DrCHHuntley, Public Health & Epidemiology Consulting  

Surviving September 11 took more than courage. It took preparation, trust, and the ability to manage fear. I share my experience escaping from the 78th floor of the World Trade Center with my guide dog, Roselle, and the lessons that shaped how I responded that morning. You'll hear how years of learning my surroundings, trusting my training, and understanding my role as a leader helped me stay focused during the evacuation. I also explore blindness, the limits society places on blind people, and the power of teamwork between a guide dog and handler. Most of all, this story is about focusing on what you can control, trusting the relationships you've built, and preparing yourself to act when fear shows up. Highlights: 00:10 – Why Michael is revisiting September 11, 25 years later. 11:45 – How Michael learned that blindness itself isn't the limitation. 32:50 – Why preparation inside the World Trade Center mattered when crisis hit. 36:40 – How staying calm helped Michael lead others toward safety. 44:46 – The lesson Michael heard while running from the collapsing tower. 51:59 – What Roselle taught Michael about fear, trust, and moving forward. 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/ 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 . Transcript: Michael Hingson  00:04 Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Unstoppable Mindset. I am your host, Mike Hingson, and today we're doing something a little bit different. This is Friday, september 4, 20/26, and this is the first of four episodes commemorating all of the events that happened in and around September 11, 2001. As many of you know, I was in the World Trade Center working for a company. I had opened an office for them on the 78th floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center, and on September 11th, I was in my office because we were going to be doing some special sales training for people, and I was there getting prepared to do all of that when the terrorists attacked the towers, and then later the Pentagon. And as you may know, a fourth aircraft was crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, because people on the aircraft took it over from the terrorists or tried to anyway, so one of the things that we thought would be helpful would be for me to give you again a taste of what I actually went through and what occurred on September 11, 2001, when we started this podcast back in August of 2021, I played a speech that talked about some of what happened to me in the World Trade Center. But today we're going to do a different speech. In April of 2024, I was invited to be a speaker at the Marshfield, Missouri Cherry Blossom Festival. Now that festival is a yearly event celebrating and commemorating different events in American history. In 2024, I was invited to come and speak and talk about my experience at the World Trade Center and to help put some of that into context. I thought it would be very relevant for all of you if we played that speech for you, so that you would again get a taste of what occurred with me, why I was able to survive and escape, and a little bit about the lessons that we should learn about not only September 11th, but frankly, from my perspective, being the fact that I have been blind since I was born in 1950, I want you to learn a little bit more about blindness. So we're going to present to you now my speech delivered in April on April 27, 2024, at the Marshfield, Missouri Cherry Blossom Festival. I hope that you'll enjoy it. I hope that it will teach you some things, and don't forget that we have other episodes coming up. We have another episode occurring on the eighth of September where I'm going to be interviewed by Michelle Abraham from Amplify You. Amplify You is the company that I work with to get these podcasts out twice a week, and Michelle has her own podcast, and she's going to interview me to talk about lessons we've learned, to talk a little bit about what happened on September 11th. But we won't give anything away for what's going to happen later in this series of episodes. On September 11th, I will be talking with Bob Ellis. Bob was at the Pentagon on September 11th and literally just walked out the door just before the aircraft hit the Pentagon. We're going to talk about that and again, hopefully, put some of things in perspective for you. Then on the 15th of September, I'm going to come back on episode 475 of our podcast, and talk a little bit more in detail about the lessons that I've learned, and talk about things that I hope people will take away and remember from september 11. I know many of you weren't even born when the World Trade Center terrorist attacks occurred, and so this episode 472, especially, I hope will give you a little bit better sense of what occurred, and from my perspective, why things occurred the way they did, and and how we proceed. So I hope you'll enjoy this episode. Hope that you'll enjoy what it brings, and we will definitely be moving forward to talk about some other things later on. Speaker 1  04:24 There are moments in American history that changed the national conscience. Yesterday, we heard about the assassination of President Kennedy. Some of you might be old enough to remember the attack of Pearl Harbor, and for most recently in American history, of course, the terrorist attacks September 11th. Today, you're going to hear a riveting account, a a heroic story of a man whose story I believe will really pull at your heartstrings. And to moderate that panel today, or that interview, to do is conduct our interview. Today is Mary Acher, who's no stranger to this stage, good friend, presidential historian, and a great interviewer. If you'll put your hands together for Miss Mary, Speaker 2  05:11 I just am so honored to met Michael Hinkson and Alamo. You know by what you see that he came down on the 78th floor of the North Tower with his guide dog Brosel, but I have a friend named Doug Weed who always told me, "You don't brag on yourself; you get somebody else to brag on you. And I want to brag on Michael before we start this. Before I ask him to tell this story, Michael was a premature baby, and at the time when he was born, they put the babies in pre in a the premature babies in a incubator sealed with 100% oxygen, and the doctors didn't know that then, but it blinded the children, and Michael was blinded at birth. So Michael was very fortunate that he had parents that refused to allow him to even think about being disabled. They mainstreamed him before mainstreaming was even known, and they taught him to ride a bicycle. They let him drive a car, and later in his life, he actually piloted an airplane. Is that amazing? He loved mathematics. He loved physics. He was taught geometry. He solved math problems in his head. He's got a master's degree in physics and another-not a master's, but a regular in in teaching. So that is why he is such an amazing man. He's never ever let this what enough people call a disability stop him at all? As a matter of fact, he has been such an amazing gift to the unsighted community in in the Braille and things that technology that blind people can utilize to be online and be all kinds of of things that they wouldn't ever have been allowed to do even 50 years ago. So anyway, I'm just so honored to have met you, Michael. It's just been amazing. I'm going to take him to Lambert's tomorrow. He says I have to catch the rolls, or somebody else will catch them and they'll eat them and he won't get it. I promised him I'd catch the rolls. All right, my dear Michael, would you start telling us about that horrendous day? I am Michael Hingson  08:00 going to not do what I said I was gonna do. I'm gonna stand up, and I'm gonna be very interested to go to Lambert's to see what they do with me, since normally they would throw the rolls, as I understand it. And I'm gonna point out that doesn't really work. So now, what are you gonna do? Because if they all fall on the floor and the dog gets them, and the dog gets sick, you guys are in trouble. So I'll be interested to see exactly what happens. No, I'm sure it will work out. Mary, thank you for those those kind words. I'd like to start by defining a couple things to help us in all of this. Mary is absolutely right about what my parents did in their position, the doctors told my parents when it was discovered I was blind at about four months of age that I should be sent to a home because no blind child could ever grow up to amount to anything or contribute to society. If you think that's bad, it was worse in other parts of the world where, when children were born who were blind, were just drowned in a bucket of water. So, in a sense, it wasn't as bad. Not every child who was born premature and put in an incubator did go blind, and it's unfortunate, in a sense, that at the time that I was born. Dr. Arnold Papps at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University had discovered that, in fact, oxygen could cause blindness, and even a few minutes a day of a non-oxygen environment would drop the incidence of blindness down to zero. But medical science didn't believe him because they said, "Well, too much oxygen can't be a problem. And what Dr. Arnold Pats essentially really proved is that too much of anything can be a problem. So it is it is an issue. I finally actually some time ago got to meet Dr. Pats. Before he passed, it was it was fascinating to talk with him about that. The condition at the time when I was born was called retroenterial fibroplasia. If you want to know how to spell that, I wrote a book called Thunderdog: The Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero, which we plan to have here, but the publisher messed up, so it wasn't. But you can go buy Thunderdog anywhere, and you can learn how to spell retrolateral fibroplegia. It is now called retinopathyoprematurity. I guess that's a little easier to spell. I don't know still why they changed the name, but they did. So fine, I don't care. I am blind. I don't care. Blindness isn't the problem. I've learned from my parents and growing up and being alive now for yep 74 years, blindness isn't the problem. The problem is our perception of blindness, what we believe blind people can and can't do, as opposed to what they truly can and can't do. If you want to really see a story or something about a blind person driving a car, there is a website www.blinddriverchallenge.org. Blinddriverchallenge.org. The president of the National Federation of the Blind in October of 2001 challenged private industry and universities to create a vehicle that a blind person could drive, not an autonomous vehicle, but truly a vehicle that would transmit to the blind person the information necessary for them to drive the vehicle. What you will see at blinddriverchallenge.org is a video of a gentleman named Mark Riccobono. Too many marks. Mark Riccobono driving a vehicle independently without any assistance around the Daytona Speedway, right before the 2011 Rolex 24 race, he will go through an obstacle course. He will pass boxes that are being thrown out of a van to try to block his way. He will pass the van and a number of things like that. The reality is, what is driving? It's all about you having the information necessary for you to control your vehicle, and as far as I'm concerned, given what Mark Riccobono did, and given the reality that the information is available to us, given the way most sighted drivers drive, I'll take me any day, especially where I live in Victorville. My gosh! But the the reality is, blindness isn't the problem. I grew up believing that I went to public school. I went to college. Michael Hingson  12:26 I did get a master's degree in physics. As I love to tell people, I'm as good as Doc Brown from Back to the Future in building reactors and nuclear bombs. The only difference between me and Doc Brown is I won't go steal fissionable material from some source that might come after me later. So you know, I think I was a little smarter than Doc Brown, but the fact is, again, it's not the problem. I was also the program director of the campus radio station for a while, and I worked at the campus radio station KUCI 89.9 on your FM dial for seven years. I did a show playing old radio shows every Sunday night from six to nine. Didn't even know what 60 minutes was. I heard about it, and one day finally somebody from the show or from the the Orange County Jail called and said, "We really got a situation. We want you to know about it here at the jail. People who heard about you, they've heard about 60 minutes, and on Sunday nights we have to divide the jail in half. Half of the people go up to a television room to watch 60 Minutes, and the other half, which is the bigger half, want to hear your show playing old radio shows on Sunday nights. So you know we must be doing something right. That even at the jail, they liked us. I went to work in 1976 for the National Federation of the Blind. It's the largest organization of blind consumers in the country. I was offered a position because I was in in the science world, one of the few at the time in that world. And the president of the federation, Dr. Jernigan, told me in late 74, early 75, we got a situation. There's a guy named Ray Kurzweil. You may have heard of Ray. He's a futurist. He's an inventor. He's invented the singularity. I'm not totally sure I agree with everything that Ray says. You know, Ray once said the only problem with God is we haven't invented it yet. I don't agree with that. And the other part about it is Ray says that we're really going to all become part of the world when chips are created that will allow us to directly interact with computers. Well, we'll see. I don't want to chip in my brain yet. But Ray at that time had developed a piece of technology that would actually look at a printed page. It actually had to build it up line by line, so it wasn't like snapping a picture. But it would learn to recognize all the characters on that page, no matter what their type styles or print styles were, and it would read it out loud, called the Kurzweil Reading Machine for the Blind. Just like with blindness and retro-entral fibroblasia, the government didn't believe he could do it because nobody else had been able to do it, and so they wouldn't help fund it. He came to the federation, and the federation said, "Tell you what we're going to do." Ray, I'm not sure they said it quite that way, but tell you what we're going to do, Ray. We're going to send somebody up there with a bunch of material, and if your machine reads what we bring up, not what you want to read, if it reads what we bring up, then we're going to help you get funding. And Ray, I'm sure again it wasn't quite the way he said it, but he said, "Bring it on. They did. It did, and a relationship began that exists to this day-a machine that literally would read print out loud. And Ray wanted the first application of omnivore optical character recognition to be a machine that would read print out loud for blind people. We created a project where we purchased several machines, and then for 18 months, from 1976, in October through June of 1978, I lived in suitcases or out of suitcases in hotels, traveling around the country where we put machines at places like the New York Public Library, the Iowa Commission for the Blind, the San Francisco Public Library, and some other agencies for the blind around the country. Michael Hingson  15:59 The idea being that we wanted blind people to come and use the machine, read whatever they wanted to read, and then give us information about what needed to go into a final production model of the machine. I wrote training curriculum. I wrote the the technical manuals for teaching people how to use the machine. I taught people to use it. I observed people using it. Sometimes grabbed my old soldering gun and fix things that broke on the machines. These were $50,000, 400 pound machines. They weren't little things like an app on an iPhone today, right? So anyway, we finally wrote the final recommendations, and then Ray said, "I want to hire you to come and do the same sort of thing within the company. So I went to work for Ray, moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Actually, I learned I moved to Winthrop, Massachusetts, learned how to go from Winthrop to Cambridge every day, and we began a relationship. And I worked at Kurzweil Computer Products, in and that started in again October of 1978. In May of 1978, I was called into the office of the VP of Marketing, and Andrew Parson said, "We're laying you off. What? We're laying you off. Why? Oh, it's not that you're doing a bad job or anything, but unfortunately, like a lot of engineering startup companies, we've hired too many people who aren't revenue producers, and we have to have more revenue producers. And so, as important as your job is, it's not as important as making money for the company. So we have to lay you off. Then he paused and he said, "Unless you'll go into sales. Now, I'm a science guy. However, I thought about it for a micro nanosecond, and I said, "Sure, I'll go into sales. As I love to tell people, I decided I would lower my standards and go from science to sales, and did. I said I don't know anything about sales. He said we'll send you to a Dale Carnegie sales course and all that. Well, I started selling, but not the reading machine for the blind. Instead, I sold a new product they had called the Kurzweil Data Entry Machine, and unlike the reading machine for the blind that sold for $50,000, if you want one, we might be able to find one of the old machines for you for 49 995. Instead, I sold a new product called the Kurzweil Data Entry Machine, which was only $125,000. I guess they had confidence in my ability, and I was very grateful for it. The real reason that I didn't want to refuse the sales position is I knew that at that time, and it's still somewhat today, the unemployment rate among employable blind people is close to 70. That is seven 0% It's not because we can't do the work; it's because people think we won't be able to do the work and don't give us the opportunity. So the bottom line is, I lowered my standards and went from science to sales, and did that for a while. And then in 1981, while Xerox was considering and actually working toward buying the product, I was asked by Ray and the VP of Sales to move back to California, where I was from, to help integrate Kurzweil into the Xerox West Coast environment, including their research center called Palo Alto Area Research Center Park, and I did. And my thanks for that was that after the the whole sale was consummated and Xerox completely took over. I was the last salesperson in June of 1984 to receive a FedEx letter saying thank you for your service, but we don't want you anymore. Goodbye, because all Xerox wanted was the technology. They didn't want the people. Now I was confronted with the situation. How am I going to find a job? What am I going to do? 70% unemployment. and I went out and I wrote lots of cover letters, sent out lots of resumes, and I even got a headhunter who called me and said, "Love your resume. We're going to have you interview with this company up in San Jose, California. We'll send you a ticket. They sent me the ticket the night before the flight. The guy called. Back and he says, "You know, I was just looking at your resume again. I see you do a lot of things with blind people. Michael Hingson  20:04 Is there somebody in your family who's blind? You notice that? And I said, "Yeah, I'm blind. You're blind? Well, I'm going to have to call them. They're not going to want to talk to you. I said, "Nothing has changed. My resume is still the same, but you're blind. It's all changed. No, it hasn't. There were no laws to stand on. The reservation was canceled, and I didn't do the interview. Their loss. If Speaker 3  20:30 you enjoy Unstoppable Mindset and would like to help us continue bringing these conversations to you each week, we've created a way for you to support the show. Your contribution helps us cover production costs and continue sharing stories, insights, and ideas that inspire people to live with purpose and possibility. If supporting the podcast feels right for you, you'll find the link in the show notes. Thank you for being part of the Unstoppable Mindset Community. Michael Hingson  21:02 Eventually, not finding a job, I started my own company selling computer-aided design systems to architects. A blind guy selling CAD systems? Why the heck not? I didn't need to work the machine. What I needed to know was how to work the machine, so I could describe it to architects, and I could sit them down in front of a machine and talk with them and talk them through it. We also hired people to demo CAD systems, and I did that for four years. And then I went back into the workforce. And when I went back into the workforce, my wife and I were talking one day, and she said, "You know, I got this great job I just discovered in the newspaper. It's selling high-end, new, revolutionary, hot, pluggable disc technology. It's perfect for you. You should apply. And I said to my wife Karen, who I had married in 1982. By the way, Karen also had a disability. She was in a wheelchair her whole life. She reads. I push. Worked out well. I said, so do I say in my cover letter I'm blind or not? Because typically, if you say you're blind, same thing will happen with the headhunter. You won't even get a call back if you don't say you're blind. You might get a callback, but then they're going to have all their defenses go up when you show up for the interview. And she said, "You're an idiot. Wives can do that, gentlemen, and it's fine. You're an idiot. Why? What's the most important thing you always said to every salesperson you ever hired, well, I wasn't quite sure which things she was thinking of. I had several things that I always said to salespeople I hired. She said, "You always told every salesperson you ever hired turn here's the operative word perceived liabilities into assets. You ever watch those little cartoons in the newspapers and all that, where the light bulb goes on over your head. Well, that's what happened, and I went and I wrote a cover letter to send with this resume to this company. And here are the last two paragraphs of the letter. The most important thing you need to know about me is that I am blind. As a blind person, I have had to sell all my life just to be able to function and survive. I've had to sell to take my guide dog on airplanes. I didn't tell them that we had to sue one airline because they violated their own policy because they wouldn't let me go on an airplane with my guide dog. I've had to sell to convince people to let me buy a house, move into apartments, sometimes take my guide dog into grocery stores, and do anything else because I was blind, I've always had to sell. So, second paragraph: When you're hiring someone for this job, do you want to hire somebody who comes in and works for eight or 10 hours a day, and then just goes home because the job is over, or do you want to truly hire somebody who understands sales for the science and art that it is, and who sells 24 hours a day as a way of life. Sent off the letter. Waited for two weeks, wondering if I'd get a call or an email. Well, no, not an email, not back then. But in late June 19 or May 1989, I got a call. This is Doug Cooper, head of marketing for Articon. We love your letter. Would you come for an interview? And I said sure. Next day we were down there. I was hired and started on july 2, 1989. Love to start on the second of July, or actually the third of July, because then I got the next day off. It was great. So I went to work for them, and we moved from where we were living in Mission Viejo down to Vista, California. The company was in Carlsbad. I began selling to the East Coast, selling our technologies and other technologies, Sun Microsystems products, and so on. And then in 1996, the owner of the company asked me to move to New York for them because we were selling to Wall Street. Michael Hingson  24:37 Wall Street was always good at getting and demanding and getting what they demanded, and they always said, "If you are a manufacturer and you're selling products to us, we want a representative, not an agent, but we want the company in Wall Street Arena to be able to to hold responsible and deal with. So we moved to New York. And I went to work on the 23rd floor of Tower Two of the World Trade Center, and was there for about a year, and then was recruited away by another company, and it wasn't hard because Articon did not figure out how to support a branch operation. So I was recruited away, and then in 1999 I was recruited away by Quantum Corporation, and now we're getting to what Mary asked about. But I needed to give you the background. Hope it was okay. So in 1999, I was hired to open an office for Quantum Corporation on well in New York City. Quantum was a company that made products called tape libraries. They were big boxes that consisted of tape drives and lots of tape cartridges, and you would attach them to computer networks, and then you would use software like one called Veritas, which is still used today. And what you would do is you would back up all of your data over the network into these tape libraries, onto tape cartridges, and then you would take the tape cartridges out and store them off-site. Now I gotta stop and be spiteful because in New Jersey they love to say that they stored them in a town called Mountainside Under a Mountain. You ever see a mountain in northern New Jersey? I came from California where we had mountains that were eight, 910, 1000 feet tall. They didn't even have decent hills, but they still called it a mountain. That was fine, whatever. They still were able to store the tapes in safe places. But the point is that all the data was backed up off-site, which is what they needed to do. We opened the actual office on august 1, 2000. I hired a staff, and we had a staff that came in and and sold, and we also worked with resellers. And in August of 2001, our main distributor Ingram Micro said, "You know, we got a lot of resellers who are selling your products, but they don't really know how to do it. Can we hold some seminars to teach our your reseller partners, our customers, the resellers, how to sell your product? I said, "You bet. We worked it out with the folks at Quantum. David Frank, who was in charge of pricing and distribution, said he wanted to come back to be a part of the seminars, and we set up doing the seminars. The idea was that we would teach them. I would be their main point of contact since I worked and lived there. David would be the person that I or they would contact without with any pricing issues, but I would be the technical point of contact contact. Master's degree in physics helps, and so we set up the seminars. And wouldn't you know it, we set them up to be held on september 11, 2001. The evening before, or the morning of September 11th, about 12:30, Roselle, my guide dog at the time, woke me up. She was very nervous and fidgety. I knew what it was like when she was fidgety. It was usually because it was a thunderstorm. She didn't like thunder, and we went down to my office. And of course, a thunderstorm did happen, and the storm literally came right over our house. I've never been in an environment where bombs went off around me, but I got to say that in this case, the thunder claps were, as I said, literally right over us, and it had to be like what a bomb sounds like going off. Anyway, it went on till about two, and then we went back up and got a couple more hours of sleep, three more hours of sleep. I got up. We went in and got to the office at about 7:40 in the morning on September 11th. As I came to the door, somebody came up with a cart. It turns out it was a guy from the Port Authority cafeteria. Michael Hingson  28:33 We were going to be providing breakfast and snacks for the first and second seminarians. We had seminars going all day, so we went in. I showed him where I wanted to set up everything in the conference room. I went in, got my laptop computer out of my backpack briefcase. I got my PowerPoint projector, and I went into the conference room and set everything up because I was going to be doing a PowerPoint show that day to give people all the information they needed about the ATLP 3000, the ATLP 1000, and so on. Yes, blind people can do PowerPoint, folks. It's not magic. You sighted bigots. So I had a script, and my wife and I had created the script, and I'd used it many times. The script was in Braille. I knew what was on every slide. We put a couple of things in addition on the script. We put all the wording from the slides on the script, and we also put on the script descriptions of the pictures, as well as where the picture would show up on the screen. So I would, for example, when we showed this to other customers around the city, I'd blow their minds because I would be doing the presentation. My sales guys loved it when I went out and did PowerPoint presentations because I could just point over my shoulder. On the left side of your screen, you'll see the ATLP 3000 with 16 cartridge, 16 drives, 326. Cartridges, and you see the label that says Prism Technology. We could hook five of them together. On the right side of your screen, you'll see the ATLP 1000, which was a single unit with 30 cartridges and one tape drive. And people would come up to me afterwards, and they say, "You know, we're ticked at you. I go, "Why? Well, first of all, your presentation was not boring, which usually they are. But second of all, you never turned and looked at the screen. You kept looking at us, even though you were pointing right to where everything was with your laser pointer. We didn't dare fall asleep. We forgot you were blind. And my response was, "You don't get it. My dog was down here taking notes. If you'd fallen asleep, we would have got you anyway. But that was what it was about. My responsibility was to be the leader of that office, and I had to do what anyone else would do. One of the main things that I did was spend hours, days walking around the World Trade Center, learning what the kiosks were in the shopping mall on the first floor, learning where different offices were, consulting with the Port Authority police and the fire prevention people learning what to do in case of an emergency because sometimes I might be in the office all by my little self. There would be nobody else around. I didn't want my staff in the office. I wanted them out selling and working and supporting customers. Not being in the office, of course, they did usually come in at least once a week. And and so I learned never watched The Sopranos, but I got to tell you, I learned more about the Sopranos from all the Italian Americans on my staff who talked about the Sopranos constantly. Bada bing, bada boom, and I learned a whole lot about Tony Soprano without ever watching the show. But the point is that I needed to know all that stuff. I needed to know where the restaurants were. Customers come into the office. Oh, you want to go out to lunch? What kind of food do you want? There's a great deli downstairs called Fine and Shapiro. Let me take you there. How would it have looked if I didn't know how to do that, and I had to say to someone, "You're going to have to let me take your arm and lead me there because I don't know how to get there, and two hours later we're supposed to be negotiating multi-million dollar contracts? No, I needed to know it. I didn't have the luxury, and I don't regard it as a luxury. I regard it as a disability of reading signs. I needed to know all of that stuff. What I didn't realize is that was creating a mindset in me, which I'll talk about in a moment. Michael Hingson  32:15 Anyway, got all the laptop projectors and everything set up. The only thing I knew I didn't know how to do extremely well is to get it exactly aimed right, but about 8o'clock, David Frank came in and I said, "Say, David, this is all set up, but let's aim the projector just exactly where you want it on the screen. And we did have to turn it just a little bit, but not too much. But anyway, at 845, I was in my office and David was with me. We were creating a final list of all the people who were going to be attending the seminars, because the Port Authority police, the security people, needed to know who was coming. There were two ways you could get into the building: either we faxed on letterhead a list of people who were coming on any given day, and then the people coming in would show their photo IDs, and it would be verified against the list. And if they were allowed in, then they would be given a badge that they would put over their neck, and they would carry that, and they could scan barcode and go into the appropriate elevator to come onto our floor, or they'd have to call us every time somebody came in. And I didn't want a lot of phone calls coming in, so we were faxing the list. I was reaching for Letterhead to fax to to print the list on Letterhead when suddenly I heard and felt kind of a muffled thump and a vibration. And then literally, if you any blind people in the room, well, I'll do it anyway. I'm holding up my hand, and what happened was that literally, as I'm now tipping my hand toward you, the building began to tip. We probably moved about 20 feet. The building kept tipping and tipping. David and I said together, "What's going on? I don't know. What's going on? What do you think? Was it an explosion? I said. David said, "Didn't sound like it. Is it an earthquake? David was from New York, and now he's living in California. He didn't know about earthquakes. I said, "No, the building wasn't shaking around. It was going in one direction. And finally, and I went over and I stood in the doorway between my office and the the outside lobby of our our offices, and I stood there. Roselle was asleep under my desk. David was just on the other side of my desk, holding it near our windows, looking out over Manhattan, the south side of Manhattan. And finally, David and I both said goodbye to each other because we thought we had moved so far that the building was going to take a 78 floor plunge to the street. And then the building slowed down, and it stopped, and it moved back. As soon as it got vertical, I started walking back into the office. I met Roselle coming around from under my desk. I took her leash. I said "heel, which meant to come around behind me to sit and lie down, which is what I would normally have Alamo do, but he's comfortable, so we'll just leave him there. Roselle sat down, and about that time. The building dropped straight down about six feet. Why did it drop down? Because tall buildings like that literally are springs. They're made to flex in windstorms and other things like that. An Empire, an airplane hit the Empire State Building in the 1940s because it got lost in a fog bank. Tall buildings are flexible. They have expansion joints, and when the building was hit, the expansion joints took up all of the the things that were going on. And then when the building got straight again, the expansion joints dropped back down to their normal configuration. I knew that because I had talked to people about stuff like that. I'd forgotten it until later, but I knew it. What I hadn't realized is that what was happening when I was learning so much stuff was that a mindset was being developed in me that said, "You know what to do in an emergency. And as soon as the building dropped, David turned and looked out the window and started shouting, "Oh my God, Mike! There's fire and smoke over us! There were millions of pieces of burning paper falling outside the windows. Michael Hingson  35:59 We got to get out of here right now! Slow down, David. No, we got to get out of here. The building's on fire. I could hear things rushing and brushing outside our windows, and now I knew what they were. David told me millions of pieces of burning paper, right? And I didn't smell any smoke. Roselle wasn't doing anything to indicate any concern, and David kept saying, "We got to get out of here. The building's on fire. And I kept saying, "Slow down. Our guests began to scream. We had like five or six who were in our conference room. Early arrivals. They started coming out, but then they heard me say, "Slow down, stop, David. Just wait. And they waited to see what was going to happen. And finally, David used the big line: "You don't understand. You can't see Speaker 4  36:37 it. The Michael Hingson  36:38 problem wasn't what I wasn't seeing, the problem was what David wasn't seeing-a dog sitting next to me, wagging her tail, yawning, going, "Who the heck woke me up? I was comfy, not giving any indication of fear. And I eventually got David to focus, and I said, "David, get our guests to the stairs. Don't let them take the elevators, because I knew if there's fire, especially because if there's fire, the elevators could become fire traps. The fire could get into the elevator shafts, which it did, and anybody in the cars would be burned. David left with our guests, got them to the stairs. Meanwhile, I called Karen and told her that there had been an explosion or something. We had no clue. There was no way to know. I love it. Reporters, even today, and other people say, "Well, of course you didn't know you couldn't see it. Excuse me, you numbskulls. The last time I checked, Superman and X-ray vision were fiction, and the airplane hit 18 floors above us on the other side of the building. No one knew. All the way down the stairs, we didn't know because no one saw it. No one knew. Anyway, I called and told Karen she wanted to know more. I said, "I don't know anything else. I've got to go because we're not staying here. We knew instantly that we had to leave, but we got our guests out. Then David came back. We swept the offices one last time. Went to the stairs and we started down. If I knew it was the last time I was going to be in the building, I would have taken a couple of things that I didn't take. Like I had a really neat talking scientific calculator that I couldn't replace. And if I had known that I wasn't coming back, I would have taken it. It would have been a little heavier, but I would have taken it anyway. We started down the stairs. There were other people, of course, on the stairs. We got down about four floors, and I was smelling an odor. I couldn't quite figure it out, and suddenly I realized I'm smelling the fumes from burning jet fuel. I traveled 100,000 miles a year for my company. I knew what the odor of jet fuel was like. I knew the kerosene smell, but it took a while to associate it with the World Trade Center because no one would have ever thought you would have smelled it there. When I realized what it was, I observed to the other people around me on the stairs, "I'm smelling the fumes from burning jet fuel. And they said, "Yeah, you're right. That's what it is. We must have been hit by an airplane. You understand? Nobody knew. We must have been hit because of what we're smelling, so we all accepted that that was what was going on, but we had no clue. We continued down the stairs, about 10 floors down. At one point, a woman stopped right behind me, and she said, "I can't go on. I can't breathe. We're not going to make it out. And I stopped and turned around and said, "Sure, we are. Come on, this is my guide dog Roselle. He's guiding me, and and she'll encourage you. Roselle gave her kisses, and this lady gave Roselle a few pets, and so on. And other people surrounded her, and we had a group hug, and the lady was able to keep going. A few burn victims passed us on the stairs as we went down. At about the 50th floor, David, who had gotten a little quiet. Suddenly said, "Mike, we're going to die. We're not going to make it out of here. Now you heard that I have a teaching credential. What you don't know, and teachers won't generally acknowledge it, but I'm going to tell you anyway. There's a secret class we take called Voice 101: How to Yell at Students. Didn't know that, did you? And anyway, as soon as David. Said Mike, "We're going to die. We're not going to make it out of here. I just said as sharply and with a snap into my voice that I could, "Stop it, David! If Rosella and I can go down these stairs, so can you. And David told me later that that brought him out of his funk. Michael Hingson  40:12 What he then said is, "I got to keep my mind off this. I want to walk a floor below you and shout up to you what I see on the stairs. Is that okay? And I said, sure. Did I really need him to do that? No. Did it matter? No, but it did to David. However, what I came to realize over time was, David doing that was one of the most important things that I experienced on that day. So I'm going down the stairs. I get to floor 49. David, I'm on the 48th floor. All's clear here, Mike. Going on down. I get to 48 floor, 47. We keep going down. Finally, I get to the 45th floor, David. I'm on the 44th floor. This is where the Port Authority cafeteria is. Not stopping. So David was obviously doing better, and he kept going down. Why do I say what I did about David and doing that? Because David became a focal point for anyone within the sound of his voice who could hear him say, "43rd floor, all's clear, everything is good. He had to have helped 1000s of people stay focused and not panic going down the stairs, and I think that was so cool that he did that all the way down 42nd floor, all good. We kept going down the stairs. We met firefighters on the 30th floor. They wanted to escort me down, and I finally convinced them that I was capable of going down without them. And I did it by playing the sight card. I said, "Look, my friend David is here. He can see we're good, and the firefighters let us go. I didn't want them to escort me. First of all, they don't know how to work with a blind guy and do sighted guide. But second of all, I didn't want to break up their team because I knew that each of those people were carrying the equipment that they had to use to fight the fire. You couldn't store it somewhere. Where would you store it? Oh, the 34th floor. And what happens if a fire broke out on the 33rd floor, you couldn't get to it. You had to carry the equipment, so we kept going down the stairs. Finally, got to the first floor. David got there, and I was at floor two. And he said, "Hey, there are water sprinklers running. You're going to have to run through a waterfall or a down torrent of water to get out of the stairwell. Why was there all that water? Because it wanted to keep fire either in or out of the stairs, if fire was around. David ran through. Then I got to the bottom. Roselle stood there, and I picked up her harness and said, "Rosel, forward, hop up, which is a command to speed up. We went through this torrential downpour. It was a waterfall, and we came out the other side, soaking. David was there, and there were voices. Hey, don't go outside! No, no, don't go that way. Go this way. A PA system, a guy on a bullhorn. No, no, no! Don't go outside. Don't go to the outside. Go this way. What we didn't know is, if they had let people go out, they might have been right below where people were jumping. And so that was one of the reasons they didn't want anyone out. They wanted people to go through the complex and get out at the far side, as far away from where everything was occurring that they could. This guy comes up to us and he goes, "I'm with the FBI. I'll get you where you need to go. And of course, I'm sitting there with my warped sense of humor, going, "I'm sorry, I only talked to McGarrett, and I didn't do it. I'm innocent. I just thought that I didn't say any of it out loud. Anyway, he got us through out to the outside of Tower One. We passed now the empty Ben and Jerry's ice cream kiosk that was there. Darn didn't get a chance for a scoop. Kept going. Finally, went up an escalator and got outside into the sunshine outside of Tower. Well, of the whole complex, as far away from the towers as we could be, we got outside. Michael Hingson  43:44 We were told to leave the area, but David looked around and he said, "Mike, I see fire in Tower Two. And I said, "What are you talking about? There's fire in Tower Two, really? What's that all about? We didn't feel a thing going down. We were in our own little cocoon, our own little cave. We had no clue. Anyway, we were told to leave, so we went to Broadway. We walked across the plaza to Broadway, turn left, going now north on Broadway. There was a building on my left. Broadway was on my right. We crossed several streets, crossed Fulton Street, finally got to Vetsy Street. David said, "I want to stop because I can see the fire in Tower Two really clearly from here, I want to take some pictures, and I said, "Great, I'll try to call my wife. I got out my phone. David was taking pictures, which I have today. I tried to call Karen. I couldn't get through. Later, of course, we learned that people were saying goodbye to loved ones, and that was why the circuits were busy. I had just put my phone away, and a police officer, and while David was putting his camera away, and a police officer yelled out of here! It's coming down now. We heard this rumble that became this deafening roar. I describe it as kind of a combination of a freight train and a waterfall. You could hear glass breaking and tinkling, and metal crashing down, and then this white noise sound as Tower Two, 100 yards away from. Pancake down. Everyone turned and ran. David ran. He was gone. I literally lifted Roselle by the harness, turned her 180 degrees, and started running back the way we came. And the first thing I remember saying in my mind was, "God, I cannot believe that you got us out of a building just to have it fall on us. And as soon as I thought that, I heard in my head as clearly as you hear me now, a voice that said, "Don't worry about what you can't control. Focus on running with Roselle, and the rest will take care of itself. Who is God? Absolutely no question. Don't worry about what you can't control. Focus on running with Roselle, and the rest will take care of itself. And so I also had this incredible sense of peace and calm that came over me. That said, you're okay if you work together. We kept running. We got back to Fulton Street, turned right on Fulton Street, and ran about 25 yards. And suddenly we caught up to David, who had apparently gone the same way. And David suddenly realized that he had left us behind and he was going to come back, but we caught up to him first, and he apologized. I said, "David, don't worry about it. Let's just keep going. The building's coming down, you know. And we both just started to run with Roselle, and suddenly we were engulfed in all the dirt and debris and the dust cloud from Tower Two. It was so thick that David said he couldn't see his hand six inches in front of his face, and all I can tell you is that every breath I took, I felt dirt and debris and junk going down my throat into my stomach, and we knew we had to get out of that. So I started telling Roselle, "Go right, right. There was a building on our right side, and I wanted her to find the nearest opening if she could even hear me, see my hand signals, or whatever. And I was also listening for openings. Yes, I can hear when I pass an opening, and I and I can tell it's there and deal with it accordingly. Like during a time when you're running away from a collapsing building, run into it. Suddenly, I heard an opening on the right, and Roselle must have known what I wanted. She must have been able to see my hand signals or something because she turned right, she took one step, she stopped, and she would not move. Come on, Roselle, keep going. She wouldn't move. Come on, Roselle. Nope, wouldn't do it. And I realized, focus on running with Roselle, and the rest will take care of itself. So I stuck out a foot. Michael Hingson  47:13 I trailed a hand along a wall, and realized that we were at the top of a flight of stairs. Roselle had done exactly what she was supposed to do, and I knew what I was supposed to do if I wanted to get her to move. But before I did that, I gave her a big hug, good girl, and then I said, "Roselle, forward! That's the command. And we went down the stairs into an arcade area that was the entrance to the Fulton Street subway station. There were a few other people down there. Then a guy came up from the subway system and saw about eight or nine of us there. He introduced himself as Lou, an employee of the subway system, and he took us down to an employee locker room where we could sit down and and kind of hack and cough and get the dust out of our lungs. There was a water fountain and there were fans. We were there about 10 minutes. Then a police officer came, and he said, "You got to get out of here right now. The air's clear up above. You can't stay here. And so we followed him. Of course, he probably had already been told that Tower One was going to collapse. the The officials knew that each building was going to collapse probably about a half hour before it actually did. At least that was their presumption, and that's what I've been told. Anyway, we followed him back up the stairs, through the arcade, up the last two flights of stairs. We got outside. David looked around and he goes, "Oh my God, Mike, there's no Tower Two anymore. And I said, "What do you see? And he said, "All I see are pillars of smoke, hundreds of feet tall. We stood there for a moment, and then we just turned, and we kept walking. Now west on Fulton Street, we walked about 10 minutes, and we were in this little plaza area when we heard that freight train waterfall sound again, and we knew it must be our tower collapsing. We saw a little retaining wall David did, and we got behind it and ducked down, and we waited until everything stopped, and then we stood back up. And David looked around and he said, "Oh my God, Mike, there's no World Trade Center anymore. And I said, "What do you see? And he said, "I just see fingers of fire and flame, hundreds of feet tall. We see, I see pillars of smoke. It's gone. Are you sure? Yeah, it's gone. It's not there. We stood there a moment, then I tried to call my wife Karen again. That was kind of my first thought. I need to tell her we're okay. This time I did get through because clearly the circuits were were free. And after some tears on both sides of the phone, she is the one who told us how two aircraft had deliberately been hijacked and crashed into the towers, one into the Pentagon, and a fourth at that time was still missing over Pennsylvania. Who would have thought? We spent the rest of that day getting up toward Midtown Manhattan, and eventually I got to Penn Station, learned that the trains were running, and went back. Out to New Jersey, David wanted to go back up to be with his sister, who he who he was staying with. She lived on the Upper East Side, so I got on trains and I went back over toward New Jersey. I called Karen and told her what was going on, and a friend of ours, a friend that Karen had known since high school out in California, Tom Painter, was also living in New Jersey, he had come down to be with her, not even knowing at the time whether I was in the World Trade Center or working from home that day or whatever. But he drove her to the station in our accessible van, and as I came off the train, I heard the van show up. I went downstairs, climbed and went up the ramp into the van, and got to hug Karen about 7o'clock that night, for the first time since leaving home, we got home. Tom drove us home. We all went inside. I was going to take Roselle outside because she hadn't been out since like five that morning. Michael Hingson  50:53 Well, I take that back about six that morning, and I took her harness off. But before I could do anything else, she was off like a shot. She went to her toy box, found her favorite tug bone, and started playing tug of war with my retired guide dog Linny. Why? Because it was over for her. And I talked to the guide dog people later, and I said, "Will any of this affect her? And they said, "Was she threatened? Did anything hit her or injure her in any way, and I said no. They said then no. It was over for her because dogs don't do what if. It was over. It was done. She was fine. Lesson to be learned. Lesson you will learn more about if you buy our new book, Live Like a Guide Dog: True Stories from a Blind Man and His Guide his dogs about being brave, overcoming adversity, and walking in faith. That that book is available for pre-order, and I've been signing bookmarks all day. I still even have a few with me. But the point is, you can pre-order it, and and it's about something that I learned later. I thought about during the pandemic. I've talked a lot about escaping and not being afraid because I developed a mindset that said you know what to do, but what I've not done is to teach others how they can learn to recognize that fear is not something that needs to blind or overwhelm you. You can use fear as a very powerful tool to guide you and steer you in the right direction if you know how to control it, and live like a guide dog is all about that. So I hope that you'll all get that when it comes out in August. But again, you can pre-order it now if you go to michaelhinkston.com. There's a link there where you can go to a web page to get information and to go to a link where you can pre-order it. And like I said, I have some bookmarked with a QR code on it, and and I'm and I yes I am plugging the book, but I'm also saying, look, folks, the bottom line is we operate in so many ways with misconceptions about things. I've talked about blindness. Anybody could have been in the World Trade Center, and and a lot of people were. The reality is, though, if you learn what to do and how to prepare for situations in general, when it becomes something specific, you'll know what to do. People have asked a number of times, "Well, wasn't your guide dog trained to operate in an emergency like the World Trade Center? How are we going to do that? No, the dog isn't trained to do that. The guide dog's job is not to lead. Guide dogs do not lead blind people. Guide dogs' jobs are to make sure that we walk safe. It's my job to know where to go and how to get there to give the dog direction. The dog depends and relies on me to give it direction. The dog's job, as I said, is to make sure we walk safely. It's a team effort. We each have a job to do, and we develop a trusting relationship when we learn to trust each other and respect the job the other member of the team is doing, which is what it's all about. Which is what happens on any team, trust is all around us. Trust is under attack in so many ways from our politicians, and in so many ways. But the reality is, trust is all around us. I think we all trust that the roof isn't going to fall in on the church. I think that we trust that the PA system is going to continue to work, and so on. Trust is all around us. The difference between dogs and people is that dogs, while they do love unconditionally, do not trust unconditionally. But dogs are open to trust unless some incredibly traumatic thing has happened to them where they lose that ability. But dogs are open to trust, dogs want humans to give them direction to establish rules, and all too often with our pets and so on, we don't do that. We don't really develop the relationship that we should and can with them. Michael Hingson  54:54 If we would, we would have so much stronger bond and relationships with them. It would be. Amazing for for all of us, but the bottom line is that's the relationship that I get with each guide dog. That's the relationship I have with Alamo. He trusts that I am going to feed him before too awfully long. He trusts that you guys are going to buy books, so he'll have kibbles for me to feed him. Just saying, but but seriously, the the trust has to be earned with a dog or with people or whatever, and if you find that you you discover you can't trust someone, don't wish them ill will, forgive them and move on. So you don't trust them, but you know what you have, and you go off and make new friends and learn other trusting relationships that you can develop. Focus on running with Roselle; the rest will take care of itself. The reality is, we worry so much about so many things. We are always doing what if we create most of the fears that we face in our lives, and we Don't need to do that. If we would focus on just the things that we have some control over and leave the rest alone, well, we might want to be aware of them, but we don't have to worry about them. We don't have control over them. Trust and deal with the things that you have to deal with, and let the rest take care of itself. And that was what I learned on September 11th, listening to the voice of God, absolutely, and that is something that I pass on to all of you, and I think that's the most important thing that I can leave you with. Hi again, everyone. This is Mike Hingson. I hope that you found that speech to be helpful and relevant and interesting. I hope that you learn some things from it. From a personal standpoint, I hope that you learn that blindness isn't really the big problem that I face. The challenge that I face really comes from the fact that people who have eyesight tend to believe that blind people are not capable of doing much because they can't see. Wrong thing to believe. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that because we did it during the speech, but I just wanted to thank you for being here today, for listening and watching this episode. I hope that you will also tune in for our episode on Tuesday, where I'm in conversation with Michelle Abraham on next Friday, the 11th of September, that you will tune in to hear the conversation with Bob Ellis, and then episode 475, which will occur on the 15th of September, where we will talk about lessons to be learned and and give you some things to hopefully take away that maybe you haven't thought about. Thanks very much for being here with us. I really very much appreciate all of your support. If any of you have any questions or want to reach out to me, you are welcome to do so. Please feel free to email me at speaker@michaelhinkson.com. That's s p e a k e r at m i c h a e l h i n g s o n.com speaker@michaelhingson.com hope to hear from you and as you gather I do speak I continue to speak publicly I've been a keynote speaker since September 11 if anybody knows of anyone that needs a keynote speaker or you can use us in events that you have please reach out to me at speaker@michaelhingson.com let's talk about it. Let's see how we can help. I'm always looking for ways to inspire, but also to teach and help. And I'd like to be part of your world in that regard. Thanks again for being here. Thanks for listening, and come back next time for another episode of Unstoppable Mindset.

New Cal linebacker Tristan Jernigan joins Cal HOF QB and color analyst Mike Pawlawski to discuss his journey from Tupelo, Mississippi, to Texas A&M and ultimately, to Cal

THE TIM JONES AND CHRIS ARPS SHOW 0:00 SEG 1: The Iran ceasefire is definitely off 16:17 SEGMENT 2: Colonel Mike Jernigan, Marine Corps. Retired, Visiting Fellow in the Allison Center for National Security at The Heritage Foundation || TOPIC: National defense headlines of the day || U.S. and Iran trade strikes for second day after Trump said ceasefire is over || ABC reporting the Secret Service urged Trump to use old Air Force One as a security precaution heritage.org 31:55 SEGMENT 3: CHRIS CORNER: Are we about to hand China the A.I. race? https://newstalkstl.com/ FOLLOW TIM - https://twitter.com/SpeakerTimJones FOLLOW CHRIS - https://twitter.com/chris_arps 24/7 LIVESTREAM - http://bit.ly/NEWSTALKSTLSTREAMS RUMBLE - https://rumble.com/NewsTalkSTL See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fresh off his appearance at Day of the Devs 2026, artist/filmmaker/developer Case Jernigan stops by at Pixel Pizza! Case's new game, Bub, is a heartfelt story of inspiration and identity told through real papercraft, watercolor, and other mixed media. We fittingly get vulnerable and discuss some heavy topics including anxiety, bullying, and multiple sclerosis. Plus some talk about real Italian pizza! With music from FluxDrive~LINKS:

Joe is joined by Mike Jernigan, a Visiting Fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a National Security Specialist. They discuss the memo of understanding between the United States and Iran as well as what we know about the deal and more.

Send us Fan MailWhat does it take to build a business known for excellence, trust, and an exceptional client experience?This week on The Renaissance Podcast, Sydney sits down with Megan Jernigan, Team Lead of The Jernigan Group at Compass, six-time Diamond Elite producer, and one of Middle Tennessee's top real estate professionals, for a conversation that goes far beyond real estate.Together, they explore what truly differentiates a brand in today's crowded market, the power of emotional connection in business, and why trust remains one of the most valuable currencies an entrepreneur can build.Megan shares the story behind growing her team, making her first hire before she felt ready, and betting on herself long before she had guarantees that the investment would pay off. She also opens up about leadership, delegation, building an intentional all-women team culture, and the lessons she's learned scaling a high-performing business while raising a family.Some of the topics discussed include:✨ Why being "good at what you do" is no longer enough to stand out ✨ Building a luxury experience at every price point ✨ Hiring before you're ready and trusting the money will follow ✨ The importance of delegation and finding the right people ✨ Mom guilt and Megan's refreshing perspective on why women should let it go ✨ Leadership lessons from growing a successful all-women team ✨ The sales mindset that has fueled her success ✨ Creating a business and life that feel meaningful and alignedWhether you're building a real estate business, leading a team, or simply trying to navigate entrepreneurship and motherhood with more intention, this episode is packed with wisdom from a woman who has done both at an exceptional level.✨ Looking for support in your business? Our podcast partner NexusPoint helps founders build incredible support systems through world-class virtual assistants and is waiving their $500 recruiting fee for Renaissance Podcast listeners.

Clip of the Week-"It is Time to Seek the Lord" Brother Ben Jernigan This invitation to a new life in Christ Jesus was preached on Saturday night at the Columbia Feast Meeting in 1993. With focus on Hosea 10:12 and Isaiah 55:6, Bro. Ben uses numerous Old and New Testament passages to press the need of lost hearers to turn to the Lord. Brother David Cosby

Jernigan Racing features a mom and two daughters who race each other and the rest of the competition on short track Saturday nights! Then, test your racing knowledge with Gary Did Ya Know. Finally, hear from Tyler Roahrig after a weekend with an average finish of 1.5.

The term "commod bod" is used with humor and affection. It also offers a critical way to describe bodies shaped by long-term reliance on U.S. federal commodity food programs. In Commod Bods: Embodied Heritage, Foodways, and Indigeneity (University of Arizona Press, 2026), Kasey Jernigan shares her ongoing collaborative research with Choctaw women and describes the ways that shifting patterns of participation in food and nutrition assistance programs (commodity foods) have shaped foodways; how these foodways are linked to bodies and health, particularly "obesity" and related conditions; and how foodways and bodies are intertwined with settler colonialism and experiences of structural violence, identity making, and heritage in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Organized thematically, the book moves from a critical history of obesity and health in Indian Country to narratives of Choctaw women navigating food, memory, and belonging. Chapters such as "Food and Fellowship" and "Heritage, Embodied" center personal stories that show how food is not only sustenance but also a site of connection, resistance, and meaning making. Food is critical to cultural survival and affirmation. For Choctaw people, the intentional demise of traditional foodways and dependence on federal food programs are specific experiences that inform part of what it means to be Choctaw today. Kasey Jernigan is an assistant professor of American studies and anthropology at the University of Virginia, where she also co-directs the Black and Indigenous Feminist Futures Institute. She is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Caleb Zakarin is the CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The term "commod bod" is used with humor and affection. It also offers a critical way to describe bodies shaped by long-term reliance on U.S. federal commodity food programs. In Commod Bods: Embodied Heritage, Foodways, and Indigeneity (University of Arizona Press, 2026), Kasey Jernigan shares her ongoing collaborative research with Choctaw women and describes the ways that shifting patterns of participation in food and nutrition assistance programs (commodity foods) have shaped foodways; how these foodways are linked to bodies and health, particularly "obesity" and related conditions; and how foodways and bodies are intertwined with settler colonialism and experiences of structural violence, identity making, and heritage in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Organized thematically, the book moves from a critical history of obesity and health in Indian Country to narratives of Choctaw women navigating food, memory, and belonging. Chapters such as "Food and Fellowship" and "Heritage, Embodied" center personal stories that show how food is not only sustenance but also a site of connection, resistance, and meaning making. Food is critical to cultural survival and affirmation. For Choctaw people, the intentional demise of traditional foodways and dependence on federal food programs are specific experiences that inform part of what it means to be Choctaw today. Kasey Jernigan is an assistant professor of American studies and anthropology at the University of Virginia, where she also co-directs the Black and Indigenous Feminist Futures Institute. She is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Caleb Zakarin is the CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/native-american-studies

The term "commod bod" is used with humor and affection. It also offers a critical way to describe bodies shaped by long-term reliance on U.S. federal commodity food programs. In Commod Bods: Embodied Heritage, Foodways, and Indigeneity (University of Arizona Press, 2026), Kasey Jernigan shares her ongoing collaborative research with Choctaw women and describes the ways that shifting patterns of participation in food and nutrition assistance programs (commodity foods) have shaped foodways; how these foodways are linked to bodies and health, particularly "obesity" and related conditions; and how foodways and bodies are intertwined with settler colonialism and experiences of structural violence, identity making, and heritage in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Organized thematically, the book moves from a critical history of obesity and health in Indian Country to narratives of Choctaw women navigating food, memory, and belonging. Chapters such as "Food and Fellowship" and "Heritage, Embodied" center personal stories that show how food is not only sustenance but also a site of connection, resistance, and meaning making. Food is critical to cultural survival and affirmation. For Choctaw people, the intentional demise of traditional foodways and dependence on federal food programs are specific experiences that inform part of what it means to be Choctaw today. Kasey Jernigan is an assistant professor of American studies and anthropology at the University of Virginia, where she also co-directs the Black and Indigenous Feminist Futures Institute. She is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Caleb Zakarin is the CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

The term "commod bod" is used with humor and affection. It also offers a critical way to describe bodies shaped by long-term reliance on U.S. federal commodity food programs. In Commod Bods: Embodied Heritage, Foodways, and Indigeneity (University of Arizona Press, 2026), Kasey Jernigan shares her ongoing collaborative research with Choctaw women and describes the ways that shifting patterns of participation in food and nutrition assistance programs (commodity foods) have shaped foodways; how these foodways are linked to bodies and health, particularly "obesity" and related conditions; and how foodways and bodies are intertwined with settler colonialism and experiences of structural violence, identity making, and heritage in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Organized thematically, the book moves from a critical history of obesity and health in Indian Country to narratives of Choctaw women navigating food, memory, and belonging. Chapters such as "Food and Fellowship" and "Heritage, Embodied" center personal stories that show how food is not only sustenance but also a site of connection, resistance, and meaning making. Food is critical to cultural survival and affirmation. For Choctaw people, the intentional demise of traditional foodways and dependence on federal food programs are specific experiences that inform part of what it means to be Choctaw today. Kasey Jernigan is an assistant professor of American studies and anthropology at the University of Virginia, where she also co-directs the Black and Indigenous Feminist Futures Institute. She is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Caleb Zakarin is the CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/food

The term "commod bod" is used with humor and affection. It also offers a critical way to describe bodies shaped by long-term reliance on U.S. federal commodity food programs. In Commod Bods: Embodied Heritage, Foodways, and Indigeneity (University of Arizona Press, 2026), Kasey Jernigan shares her ongoing collaborative research with Choctaw women and describes the ways that shifting patterns of participation in food and nutrition assistance programs (commodity foods) have shaped foodways; how these foodways are linked to bodies and health, particularly "obesity" and related conditions; and how foodways and bodies are intertwined with settler colonialism and experiences of structural violence, identity making, and heritage in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Organized thematically, the book moves from a critical history of obesity and health in Indian Country to narratives of Choctaw women navigating food, memory, and belonging. Chapters such as "Food and Fellowship" and "Heritage, Embodied" center personal stories that show how food is not only sustenance but also a site of connection, resistance, and meaning making. Food is critical to cultural survival and affirmation. For Choctaw people, the intentional demise of traditional foodways and dependence on federal food programs are specific experiences that inform part of what it means to be Choctaw today. Kasey Jernigan is an assistant professor of American studies and anthropology at the University of Virginia, where she also co-directs the Black and Indigenous Feminist Futures Institute. She is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Caleb Zakarin is the CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

The term "commod bod" is used with humor and affection. It also offers a critical way to describe bodies shaped by long-term reliance on U.S. federal commodity food programs. In Commod Bods: Embodied Heritage, Foodways, and Indigeneity (University of Arizona Press, 2026), Kasey Jernigan shares her ongoing collaborative research with Choctaw women and describes the ways that shifting patterns of participation in food and nutrition assistance programs (commodity foods) have shaped foodways; how these foodways are linked to bodies and health, particularly "obesity" and related conditions; and how foodways and bodies are intertwined with settler colonialism and experiences of structural violence, identity making, and heritage in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Organized thematically, the book moves from a critical history of obesity and health in Indian Country to narratives of Choctaw women navigating food, memory, and belonging. Chapters such as "Food and Fellowship" and "Heritage, Embodied" center personal stories that show how food is not only sustenance but also a site of connection, resistance, and meaning making. Food is critical to cultural survival and affirmation. For Choctaw people, the intentional demise of traditional foodways and dependence on federal food programs are specific experiences that inform part of what it means to be Choctaw today. Kasey Jernigan is an assistant professor of American studies and anthropology at the University of Virginia, where she also co-directs the Black and Indigenous Feminist Futures Institute. She is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Caleb Zakarin is the CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-south

In this episode, Nathan chats with WordPress educator Jonathan Jernigan about Cloudflare, what it is, how it works, and why it's valuable for website owners. Jonathan explains Cloudflare's role as both a firewall and content delivery network, enhancing security and performance by blocking threats and replicating sites globally. They discuss practical use cases like reducing spam, setting firewall rules, and leveraging free Cloudflare features. The conversation also touches on Cloudflare's business model, single points of failure, backups, and Jonathan's course for beginners looking to learn more about Cloudflare's capabilities.

Host Andrew Camp welcomes writer and fellow podcaster Jeremy Jernigan to The Biggest Table to discuss faith, hospitality, and wine while comparing two pinot noirs: California's Meiomi (engineered for consistent, fruit-forward sweetness) and Oregon's Lemelson single-vineyard pinot (limited production, terroir-driven complexity). Their tasting becomes an analogy for faith, contrasting mass-produced certainty with nuanced growth. Jernigan shares the story behind his book The Edge of the Inside: after two decades in ministry and a dream lead-pastor role, conflicts during 2020 over engaging COVID and George Floyd's murder led to an elder-board ultimatum, his resignation, loss of community, and years in “liminal space.” The book traces moving from the “center” to the “edge,” rethinking inherited theology, and imagining how to move forward, emphasizing curiosity, composting past faith, and finding new communities.Jeremy Jernigan is a writer, speaker, and recovering megachurch pastor. After two decades in full-time ministry, including serving as a Lead Pastor, he now focuses on helping people rebuild their faith after it breaks. He's the author of The Edge of the Inside, and he hosts the weekly Rebuilding Faith series and the biweekly Cabernet and Pray podcast. Jeremy lives in Arizona with his wife and five kids.Follow Jeremyjeremyjernigan.comEdge of the Inside bookThis episode of the Biggest Table is brought to you in part by Wild Goose Coffee. Since 2008, Wild Goose has sought to build better communities through coffee. For our listeners, Wild Goose is offering a special promotion of 20% off a one time order using the code TABLE at checkout. To learn more and to order coffee, please visit wildgoosecoffee.com. 

Catch an intriguing interview with Bryan Jernigan to learn about the magic behind his exhibit at Glen Echo Park in Washington, DC. https://www.bryanjernigan.com/abstraction

In a Statehouse Sit-down Greg visits with Pastor Scotty Jernigan of Government Street Baptist in Mobile about his experience in Wednesday with ALCAP at the statehouse.

Introduction What if the biggest friction point in insurance isn't underwriting or distribution, but the moment a policyholder actually gets paid? For an industry built on the promise of financial protection, the claims payout process remains stubbornly analog, slow, and vulnerable to fraud. In this episode of the Insurtech Leadership Podcast, host Joshua Hollander sits down with Andrew Jernigan, Head of Insurance, North America at Pliant, to dissect how card-based payout infrastructure is reshaping claims operations. From single-use virtual cards that eliminate fraud vectors to tokenized wallet payouts that meet policyholders where they already transact, Jernigan makes the case that modernizing the last mile of claims isn't just an ops upgrade, it's a revenue strategy. Guest Bio Andrew Jernigan is the Head of Insurance, North America at Pliant, a card-as-a-service platform modernizing claims and benefit payouts for insurers and payers. Prior to Pliant, he was the founder and CEO of Insured Nomads, a company built to serve globally mobile professionals with embedded insurance and financial wellness products. Jernigan brings a rare combination of carrier-side operating experience and fintech product instincts to the claims payout problem. Key Topics • Card-Based Claims Payouts - How single-use and virtual cards replace checks and ACH transfers, reducing settlement time from days to seconds • Fraud Reduction Through Card Infrastructure - Why single-use cards with merchant category restrictions eliminate common payout fraud vectors • Interchange as a Revenue Lever - The economics of card-based payouts: insurers can generate interchange revenue while reducing operational costs • Tokenized Wallet Payouts - The near-term future where claims land directly in Apple Pay or Google Wallet, removing the need for physical cards entirely • Branded Payout Experience - How carrier-branded payment cards turn the claims moment into a customer experience and retention touchpoint • Implementation Simplicity - Why modern card-as-a-service platforms can integrate in weeks rather than the months-long cycles of legacy payment systems • Communication as Retention Strategy - The hidden cost of poor claims communication and why payout speed alone doesn't solve the customer experience gap Notable Quotes "Use other people's money. That's literally the best advice in payments." • Andrew Jernigan, Head of Insurance, North America, Pliant "People are tired of believing that insurance is going to be like pulling teeth. They're waiting for innovation to happen." • Andrew Jernigan "It's not just speed. It's control. A single-use card means the money can only go where it's supposed to go." • Andrew Jernigan Resources Guest: • Pliant: https://www.pliant.io/ • Andrew Jernigan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjernigan/ Host & Organization: • Joshua R. Hollander on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuarhollander/ • Horton International (USA): https://www.horton-usa.com/ • Insurtech Leadership Podcast (LinkedIn Showcase): https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/insurtech-leadership-show Subscribe & Review If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe on your favorite platform and leave a review. The Insurtech Leadership Podcast is available on YouTube, Podbean, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

What happens when you stop chasing commissions and start obsessing over service, systems, and solving problems before they explode? In this episode of the Real Estate Excellence Podcast, Tracy Hayes sits down with Megan Jernigan shares how she built a high performing real estate business in Nashville by committing to service, discipline, and relentless follow through. She explains that strong vendor relationships are not about perks or kickbacks, but about responsiveness, trust, and doing what is best for the client every single time. She also opens up about leaving the security of a corporate path, betting on herself in real estate, and working with a failure is not an option mindset until the business gained momentum. The conversation goes deep into the systems behind her success. Megan talks about why year three is a make or break point for many agents, how her assistant became a true accountability partner, and why a team only works when the right people are on the bus. She also breaks down what she looks for in agents, why organization matters, how thoughtful prospecting beats box checking, and why the real payoff in this business comes from serving people so well that referrals become inevitable. If this episode challenged the way you think about growth, leadership, and client service, share it with another agent who needs to hear it, follow the show, and connect with Megan Jernigan through the show notes to keep the conversation going.   Highlights 00:00 - 08:20 Client First Vendor Relationships Why Megan avoids gifts and personal perks Passing savings directly to clients Choosing vendors based on trust and speed Why response time matters in a transaction Making sure everyone involved truly cares 08:21 - 27:20 From Corporate Work To Real Estate Her early career path before real estate Feeling boxed in by traditional roles Why she wanted more ownership and freedom Taking the risk to bet on herself Building confidence through hard work 27:21 - 40:59 The Year Three Breakthrough Why year three is a key test for agents Moving from survival mode to stability Building momentum through consistency Hiring help earlier than expected Creating accountability that drives growth 41:00 - 49:39 Building The Right Team Why adding people needs real purpose Creating systems that support service Finding people who can adapt and grow Protecting culture as the business expands Getting the right people on the bus 49:40 - 01:11:46 Prospecting And Market Strategy Using broker opens with intention Hosting open houses in target areas Building local knowledge and credibility Prospecting with purpose instead of habit Using marketing to attract more listings 01:11:47 - 01:15:34 Service As The Real Advantage Solving problems before they get bigger Looking ahead for clients at every step Reducing stress during the transaction Hiring people who care about service Why strong service creates long term success   Quotes: "I know I'm a great problem solver and I just thought if I can just work eight days a week. For 26 hours a day for long enough. And that's exactly what I did." – Megan Jernigan "Everybody has to care." – Megan Jernigan "If you can get to year three, you will quickly see if you are going to launch or you need to go find another job." – Megan Jernigan "I love fixing problems before their problems and having the right people and solution and making this like really stressful time looking ahead six steps to where it is no longer stressful." – Megan Jernigan   To contact Megan Jernigan, learn more about her business, and make her a part of your network, make sure to follow her Website, Podcast, X, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn.   Connect with Megan Jernigan! Website: https://thejernigangroup.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejernigangroupatcompass/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheJerniganGroup YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thejernigangroupatcompass   Connect with me! Website: toprealtorjacksonville.com   Website: toprealtorstaugustine.com    SUBSCRIBE & LEAVE A 5-STAR REVIEW as we discuss real estate excellence with the best of the best.   #RealEstateExcellence #MindsetInMotion #RealEstateExcellence #RealEstatePodcast #DebbiDiMaggio #MindsetMatters #Momentum #TakeAction #PeakPerformance #GoalSetting #HighPerformanceHabits #RealEstateAgentLife #RealtorMindset #AuthenticBrand #Networking #OneOnOnes #Accountability #BNI #MarathonMindset #Resilience #PersonalGrowth

Clip of the Week-"Let This Mind Be in You" Brother Samm Jernigan Reading from Philippians 2 Bro. Samm Jernigan delivered “Let this Mind be in You”. From Isaiah 48, he explains taking the Lord's name in vain is more than just language. The Lord is our only hope as the flesh profitteth nothing; it is the Spirit that quickeneth. From our birth we start an arc that increases for a while, but ultimately follows a path back all the way to where we start. Reading from Revelations 3, Bro. Samm applies the exhortation to the church at Laodicea to us today. Brother David Cosby

Sonja Rasmussen is a professor in the Department of Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Stephen Morrissey, the interviewer, is the Executive Managing Editor of the Journal. S.A. Rasmussen and D.B. Jernigan. Antigenic Drift and Antivaccine Shift in the 2025–2026 Influenza Season. N Engl J Med 2026;394:732-735.

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David Jernigan 0:15Hello! Dr. Deb 0:16Hi there, sorry for all the confusion. David Jernigan 0:19Oh, no worries, you gotta love it, right? Dr. Deb 0:21Oh, I can’t hear you. David Jernigan 0:23No way, let’s see, my mic must be turned off? Dr. Deb 0:27Hang on, I think it’s me. Let’s see…Okay, let’s try now. David Jernigan 0:40Okay, can you hear me? Dr. Deb 0:42Yep, I can hear you now. David Jernigan 0:43Excellent, excellent. And, how are you today? Dr. Deb 0:48I am good, thank you. How about yourself? David Jernigan 0:50I’m good. Well, it’s good to finally meet you and get this thing rolling. Dr. Deb 0:56Yes, yes, I’m so sorry about that. David Jernigan 0:58That’s alright, that’s alright.So… Dr. Deb 1:01Yeah, go ahead. David Jernigan 1:03So, tell me about yourself before we get going. Dr. Deb 1:06Yeah, so I am a nurse practitioner. I’m also a naturopath. I have a practice here in Wisconsin. I’ve been treating Lyme for about 20 years, so I’m really excited to have this conversation and learn what you’re doing, because it’s so exciting and new. David Jernigan 1:21Well, thank you. Dr. Deb 1:22Yeah, so we treat a lot of chronic illness patients, do some anti-aging regenerative things as well, so… David Jernigan 1:30Yeah, I went to your website and saw you guys are killing it, looks like. Dr. Deb 1:35Yeah. David Jernigan 1:35Got a lot of good staff, it looks like. Dr. Deb 1:37Yeah, we’ve got great staff, great patients, busy practice. We have 5 practitioners, so we have about 15,000 patients in our practice right now. David Jernigan 1:46Well, excellent. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah, yeah.So, I’m excited for this discussion. Dr. Deb 1:53Good, me too. So I pre-recorded our intro, so we can just kind of dive right in, and I’ll just ask you to kind of introduce yourself a little bit, tell us a little bit about yourself, and, and then we can just dive right into it. David Jernigan 2:08All right. I’m Dr. David Jernigan, and I own the Biologic Center for Optimum Health in… Franklin, Tennessee, and I’ve been in practice for over 30 years. I shook Willie Bergdurfer’s hand, if anybody knows who that is. It’s kind of infamous now with some of the revelations that have happened about Lyme being a bioweapon and weaponized. But, you know, I’ve been doing this, probably longer than almost anybody that’s still in the business in the natural realm. It chose me. I did not choose Lyme. Matter of fact, there were many times in my career that I was like. You know, cancer’s easier because of the fact that everybody agrees, you know, what we’re dealing with. And in the 90s, it was a whole different reality, where nobody actually understood that you could have Lyme disease and not be coming from New England.You know, so I had actually the first documented case of a Lyme disease, CDC positive.Patient that had never left the state of Kansas before. So they couldn’t say that it wasn’t in Kansas, and so she had actually been, pregnant with… twin boys, and they were born CDC-positive as well, and so it is transmitted across the placenta we know.So, I, you know, the history of how I did all this was, in the 90s, probably 1996, probably, somewhere in there, 97. With this woman, you know, I… if you go into Robin’s pathology books from back then. Which we all used, medical doctors and everybody else studying. you know, there was basically a paragraph about Lyme disease, and on the national board tests, as you recall, it was probably like, what causes, or what is, bullseye rash associated with? And you’d had to guess Lyme disease, of course. Dr. Deb 4:07Female. David Jernigan 4:08But that was, you know, considered to be more a New England illness, and you would never see it anywhere else. But here was this woman. I knew… nothing about Lyme beyond what we had gotten taught in college, which was, like I say, next to nothing. And she would not let me stop feeding me information. I mean, you gotta remember, the internet wasn’t even hardly in existence in those years. I mean, it was brand new. It was supposed to be this information highway, and So I started purchasing, like a lot of doctors do even now, they start purchasing every kind of new supplement that’s supposed to work for bacteria. There was no product in those days that actually was Lyme-specific. I mean, nobody was really dealing with it naturally. It was always a pharmaceutical situation. Dr. Deb 5:04And a very short course at that. David Jernigan 5:06Yeah, 2 weeks of doxy and you’re cured, whether your symptoms are gone or not, which… she’d had the 2 weeks of doxy, and her symptoms and her son’s symptoms were not gone. And so, I absolutely just purchased everything I could find. Nothing would work. I mean, I could name names of products, and you would recognize them, because they’re still out there today. Dr. Deb 5:28Which is. David Jernigan 5:30Kind of a… A sad thing that natural medicine is still riding on these things that have the most marketing. Dr. Deb 5:37As opposed to sometimes the things that actually have the documented research. David Jernigan 5:42Behind it, and I am a doctor of chiropractic medicine, and I specialized all these years in chronic, incurable illnesses of all types. That may sound odd to a lot of people, but doctors of chiropractic medicine are trained just like a GP typically would be. The medical schools, as I understand it, got together, decades ago and said, wow, if all we did was… Crank out general practitioners for the next 10 years, we wouldn’t have still enough general practitioners to supply the demand. Dr. Deb 6:17Right. Everybody in medicine, in medical schools, wanted to be a specialist, because that’s where the money was, and it was… David Jernigan 6:24Easier, kind of, also, to… you know, just focus on one part of the body, and specialize in that. Dr. Deb 6:31Expert in that one area. David Jernigan 6:32So we all now have the same training. We all go through pre-med. We got a bachelor’s degree, I got my bachelor’s degree in nutrition, and through, Park University in Parkville, Missouri. And so, you know, when I ran out of options to purchase, I just used a technology that I developed, which was an advancement upon other technologies, but I called it bioresonance scanning. And I coined the term back in the 90s. It was a way to kind ofKind of like a sensitive test, you know, like you might. Dr. Deb 7:09I wouldn’t. David Jernigan 7:09Of applied kinesiology, then clinical kinesiology, then chiro plus kinesiology, then, you know, you can just keep going with all the advancements that were made. Well, this was an advancement upon those things, so… I developed… I was the first in… in… my known world of doctors to develop a way to detect adjunctively, obviously we can’t say it’s a primary diagnosis. Adjunctively detect the presence of a given specimen. So we could say, thus saith my test. It’s highly likely you have Borrelia burgdurferi. And, but I had to have the specimen on hand to be able to match what I call frequency matching to the specimen. Brand new concept in those days. And so I was able to detect whether or not my treatments were successful or not. This is something even now that’s really difficult for doctors, because antibody tests, even the most advanced ones, it’s still an antibody test. It’s still an immune response to an infection.And accurately, you know, some doctors will slam those tests, saying, well. That doesn’t mean you actually have the infection, that just means your body has seen it before, which is a correct statement, kind of. So being able to detect the presence, and even where in the body these infections are was a way huge advancement in the 90s, for sure it’s kind of funny, I think about a conference I went to, and cuz… I’m kind of jumping ahead. Because I ended up developing my own formula, just for this woman and her children, and it worked. And I was like, wow! Their symptoms were gone, all the blood tests came back negative. In those days, we were using the iGenX. Western blot, eventually. And the, what was called a Lyme urine antigen test. I don’t know if you remember that, because it… Only decades later did I meet, the owner of iGenX, Nick Harris. Dr. Deb 9:17Person. And I was like, whatever happened to the Luwat test? Because I took it off the market after a while. He said, honestly, we lost the antigen and couldn’t find it again. Oh, no. David Jernigan 9:27And so… but that was a brilliant test. It was the actual gold standard in those days. Again, the world… it can’t be understated how different the world was in the 90s. Dr. Deb 9:40Yeah. David Jernigan 9:41Towards natural medicine, even. Dr. Deb 9:44Oh, yeah. We think… we think it’s bad now, but, like, when I started, too, I started in the early 2000s, like, we were all hiding under the radar, like, you didn’t market, we would have never been on social media, we didn’t run ads, we didn’t do any. David Jernigan 10:00Right. Dr. Deb 10:01Because the medical boards were coming for us. David Jernigan 10:04Came after me. Dr. Deb 10:05Because I had the word Lime on my page, my website. David Jernigan 10:10You know, not saying that I treat Lyme. Dr. Deb 10:13Hmm? David Jernigan 10:13Yes Dr. Deb 10:15Just talking about mind. David Jernigan 10:16And it’s funny, because, once I had this formula, it was something… and I trained in Germany, in anthroposophical medicine, and they’ve been trained in herbal… making herbal extracts, making homeopathic remedies in the anthroposophical methodology, and I trained with the Hahnemann versions of homeopathy, which is just slightly different. Yeah. And, so I was well-versed with making some of my own formulas by that time. And so, it was really something that I wrote on the bottle, you know, and I had to call it something, so I called it Borreligin, which is still in existence, and it’s still a phenomenal herbal remedy right now. And to my knowledge, it’s the only frequency-matched herbal formula. Maybe still out there. Because unless you knew how to do my testing, the bioresonent scanning, there was no way to actually do frequency matching. Matter of fact, as a really famous herbalist attacked me online, saying, oh, none of these herbs will kill anything. And I’m like, that wasn’t what I was saying. I was saying, back in those days, I was saying, well, if… what would the body need to address these infections?You know, not, like, what’s gonna kill the infections for the body. Dr. Deb 11:38Right. David Jernigan 11:39Right? So it was a phenomenal way, but the LUAT test was amazing because what you’d do is you would give your treatment, like an MD would give an antibiotic for a week, ahead of time. Trying to increase the number of dead spirochetes showing up in your urine one day out of 3 days urine catch. So you’d wake up in the morning, you’d collect your urine 3 days in a row, and any one of those being positive is a positive. But it was a brilliant test because it wasn’t an antibody test. They were literally counting the number of dead pieces of Lyme bacteria in your urine. I mean, it was pretty irrefutable. So I had a grand slam on the… the Western blot on patients, and I’d also have a grand slam on the LUAT, and their medical doctors would say, oh, that doctor in the lab are probably in cahoots change some lab. Dr. Deb 12:38Of course. David Jernigan 12:39That come in. And I still see that today. You know, it’s like, oh my gosh, the better the tests are getting. There’s still a bias if you do your own research. Well, if you happen to be a doctor who loves research. And you’re a clinician, so you actually treat patients who’s gonna write the research study? Well, of course, the doctor who did the study, well, he’s biased, and I’m like, I still can’t influence lab tests. Well, lab tests aren’t everything. People scream over the internet at me. It’s like, well, a negative lab test doesn’t mean anything. I was like… I get that with the old Western blot testing. Dr. Deb 13:16Right. David Jernigan 13:16The more sensitive tests, which are very close to 100%, Sensitivity, and 100% specificity. So, meaning, like, they can… if you have the infection, they’re gonna find it. Dr. Deb 13:30They’ll find it, yeah. David Jernigan 13:31And if they… if you have the infection, they’re going to be able to tell you exactly 100% correctly what kind of infection it is. Back in those days, you couldn’t, you could just count the dead pieces, which was… Dr. Deb 13:43Yeah. David Jernigan 13:43Significant, but It’s funny, because when medicine does that, you know, mainstream medicine that’s backed by all the nice foundations who donate millions of dollars towards the research. Their negative tests are significant, but if you fund your own, Yours isn’t that significant. Dr. Deb 14:04Right, or what if we call something a seronegative autoimmune disease, like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, because none of the tests are positive, but you have all the symptoms. Here, let me give you this $100,000 a year drug. David Jernigan 14:19Yeah. Dr. Deb 14:19And instead of looking for what might actually be causing the symptoms. That’s all okay, but what we do is not okay. David Jernigan 14:27Right. Yeah, it’s a double standard, and it’s getting better. I want to do… tell the world it is getting better. Some of the dinosaurs are retiring. Dr. Deb 14:36No. David Jernigan 14:37Way for people who are… Are more open-minded to new ideas. But, getting back to that woman, she… that formula that I made just for her and her son, I… She went online. Dr. Deb 14:54Which, I had never been on a news group. David Jernigan 14:58Not even sure I knew what one was, you know? Imagine, I’m kind of that dinosaur that… Cell phones were, like, these really big things with a big antenna sticking out of it, and… Dr. Deb 15:09Nope. David Jernigan 15:10So I thought I was pretty hot stuff, just that I actually had a computer software program that was running my front desk. And even then, it was an Apple IIe computer. Dr. Deb 15:21Right. David Jernigan 15:22Probably be pretty valuable right now if I’d kept it, but… Dr. Deb 15:25Mmm… David Jernigan 15:26It being an antique. But, suddenly people were calling my clinic, because the lady with the twin boys that was well was telling people on these research, I mean, these Lyme disease forums and boards online. And, I started going, oh my gosh, you know, as a doctor, it’s one thing to treat a person in your clinic, it’s a different thing to have your clinic name on the label. Like, we all do, Even now, and you’re supposed to write everything that’s on the label, and… all these guidelines, and I’m like, wow, I need to split this off. I mean, I def… I definitely want to help people, and this is… I was pretty excited about the results we were getting. Pre-treat… Pre-treatment and post-treatment. And, so… that’s where I developed, my nutraceutical business in the 90s called Journey Good Nutraceuticals. My advice to anybody thinking about doing the same thing, don’t put your last name on it. Dr. Deb 16:25– David Jernigan 16:25You know, because anytime negative anything comes out, there goes the Jernigan name, you know, the herbal, you know, there’s just all these, and especially nowadays, with all the bots that are just designed to slam natural medicine. Dr. Deb 16:38Yeah. David Jernigan 16:39And that is out there in a… and just ugly people. Dr. Deb 16:42Or should we just say, people with a different opinion? How’s that? David Jernigan 16:46Yeah. That are being less than supportive. Dr. Deb 16:49But. David Jernigan 16:51It was amazing, because by 1999, I presented my research, my first research, I’d never done research. This is what I would… I would say to a lot of people who go, my doctor did… I don’t know, my doctor doesn’t know what you’re doing, my doctor… I was like going, you know, most doctors don’t do research. They don’t publish anything. Their opinion is their opinion, but they don’t back it up in peer review, right? And so that’s what I always tried to do, was back it up in peer review and publish. And so, in 1999, I presented at the International Tick-Borne Diseases Conference in New York City. I’m telling you, it was like the country boy going to the city, you know, I got my… I got my suit on, and I looked all right, and my booth was wonderful, and all these different things, and it was just a big wake-up call.Because what we had demonstrated… let’s get back to the… and this was what I demonstrated with that first study. was that… A positive LUAC test, that Lyme urine antigen test for my Gen X, was a score of 32. Meaning, one of those 3 mornings urine had 32 pieces in the amount of urine they checked of deadline bacteria spirochetes. Okay? Okay. With antibiotic challenges, a highly positive was a score of 45. Dr. Deb 18:19Wow when I would give one dropper 3 times a day for a week. David Jernigan 18:24Ahead of time, and then do the person’s LUAT test, We were getting scores 100, 200… And at that point, we only had a couple, but we had a couple that were greater than 400. Yeah, dead pieces, where the lab just quits counting. They just said, somewhere over 400, right? Dr. Deb 18:45Yeah. David Jernigan 18:46Which, when the medical system at the conference, you know, I was the only natural doctor in the world that was… had any kind of proof of anything naturally that could outperform antibiotics. Can you imagine? Dr. Deb 18:59Yeah. And… David Jernigan 19:01They were just, oh my gosh, incredulous. They’re like, I’ve given the most… one guy came up to me, and to my face, and he goes, I’ve given the most aggressive antibiotic protocols And I’ve only seen one patient over 100. I was like, that makes this pretty significant, doesn’t it? But, it didn’t just, like, make us take off, because guess what? In Lyme world, if a pharmaceutical antibiotic made you feel horrible. That meant it was working. Dr. Deb 19:28That’s right. We used to, back in the day, if you didn’t herx. And had that horrible die-off reaction, for those of you who don’t know what a herx is, but if we didn’t make you herx, we weren’t doing our job right. David Jernigan 19:40You’re looking for your patients to feel horrible, and sometimes to the level of committing suicide. Dr. Deb 19:46Yes. David Jernigan 19:47So bad. Dr. Deb 19:48Yes. David Jernigan 19:49And I was the first doctor, I think, in the world to start screaming and hollering and saying, stop using the worsening of your patient’s symptoms as a guide to good treatment, because they’re… I wasn’t seeing it with my formulas. Because I was doing a comprehensive program of care. I think I was also one of the first doctors to say, we need to detoxify these people as we’re doing this. And you would sit there and say, well, sure you were. I was like, well, remember, there wasn’t a lot of communication. There wasn’t anybody on the internet saying, do this, do that. And, It was, it was interesting in those days. It was, how do you… How do you help the world heal from these things? That they don’t know they have. So later, I actually had a beautiful booth at a health… a big health expo in Texas, I remember, and I was like, you know, you spend a lot of money on the booth, and… Dr. Deb 20:43Yup. David Jernigan 20:43And you’re thinking about it because you’re funding the whole thing, you say, wow, if I only sell one case, I’ll at least cover my cost. Dr. Deb 20:51Yep. Yeah, you’re great. David Jernigan 20:52And I had this beautiful banner of, like, a blown-up tick’s mouth under microscope. You know those beautiful pictures of, like, all the barbs sticking out, and how they anchor themselves in your skin, and… And, thousand people walking by my booth, and they’re just like, keep walking, because they didn’t know they had Lyme. There was, like, and they had MS, maybe, but they don’t have Lyme, and so they just would keep walking. Nobody even knew. Why would I go to a conference in Texas? And I’m trying to say, no, guys, it’s everywhere. Dr. Deb 21:24Yeah. David Jernigan 21:24And… and everybody, you know, yes, you probably have this, you know, kind of thing. If you’re… if you… are chronically ill, almost, of any kind of way. You know, kind of trying to tell people this was… Again, in Robin’s pathology textbooks, one of the few things that it did tell you about Lyme was that it was called the Great… the New Great Imitator. Because it would imitate up to 200 or more different illnesses. So, it’s been an interesting journey, of… educating people, writing articles, but it was interesting, the lady who I first fixed, Laboratory verified, everything like that, symptoms went away, all that kind of fun stuff. Her children were fine, they’ve been fine for years now. When she went on the newsboards in the Lyme disease support groups, It created a war. Oh my goodness, it was like, how dare you? And, say that something natural might actually help, right? Dr. Deb 22:30Right, exactly. David Jernigan 22:32And, I even had… A… one of those first calls to… with a marketing company at one point, way a long time ago. And the lady got on the phone, the owner of the marketing company goes, I would have blood on my hands if I actually took your clinic on. Yeah, you can’t treat Lyme disease, and… Even the big, big associations that are out there are still largely that way. I mean, they’re getting better, but it’s just like… you know, a lot of the times, it’s herbs are good. Herbs will help. Good, you know, but they’re safe. So, it’s still a challenge to… to… present in mainstream Lyme communities, even. Because there’s this… Fear of doing anything outside of antibiotics. Dr. Deb 23:32Yeah, so let me ask you this. From your perspective. Why do you think so many chronic infections exist these days, like Lyme and the co-infections, Babesia, Bartonella, mold illness? And we talked a little bit about herbs and why they, antibiotics and things like that fail, but let’s talk a little bit about that. David Jernigan 23:53So, it’s fascinating. When I trained in Germany, they said that we, as humanity, has moved away from what they called the inflammatory diseases. You know, in the old days, it was. Lots of high fevers, purulent, pus-generating bacterial infections. And I said, as a society, we have… Dr. Deb 24:14Have shifted from those to what they call cold sclerotic diseases, which are your… David Jernigan 24:21Cancers, your diabetes, your atherosclerosis, your… and they said, we’re starting to see what used to only be geriatric diseases in our children. That’s how bad it’s gotten. We have suppressed fevers, we don’t… we don’t respect the wisdom of the human body. So, you know, the doctors say, step aside, body, I will fix this infection for you with this antibiotic. And so, what we’ve done with the, overuse of antibiotics, and this isn’t me just talking from a natural perspective, this is… Right, it’s everybody around the world is acknowledging. I’ll show you… I could show you a, a presentation, if we can do a screen-sharing situation. Yeah. About the antibiotic situation in the world, because it’s really concerning. But what I would say, and kind of like an advancement forward, is we are seeing mutated bacteria. You know, they talked about… do you remember when they found the Iceman, you know, the… You know, the prehistoric guy that’s… In the eyes, and he had Lyme bacteria. I was like, he had spirochetes, maybe. Dr. Deb 25:33Yeah. David Jernigan 25:33That isn’t a modified, mutated version. That’s just maybe the… Lyme… you know, Borrelia… call it Borrelia something, you know, it’s a spirochete, but what we’re dealing with today. Even under strep or staph, as you know, you know, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, you name it, whatever kind of infection a person has is not the same bacteria that your grandparents dealt with. Dr. Deb 26:01That’s right. David Jernigan 26:32It’s a much mutated, stronger, more resistant to treatment type of thing. So, I think that’s one reason. I think the, It’s great that we’re seeing, you know, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. bringing awareness to things that Like it or not, yeah, seed oils do create inflammation, and everyone in the natural realm, as you know. Has been trying to say this for probably how long? Dr. Deb 26:35Yeah, 25, 30 years. 20 years each. David Jernigan 26:48Yes. You know, thank goodness for people like Sally Fallon and her beautiful book, Nourishing Traditions, that started you know, Dr. Bernard Jensen’s books way back in the day, Dr. Christopher’s books way back in the day. Dr. Deb 26:48Damn. David Jernigan 26:49You know, all of them were way ahead of their time, saying, by the way, your margarine is only missing one ingredient from being axle grease. Dr. Deb 26:58Yeah. David Jernigan 26:58I think that was Dr. Jensen saying that at one point, probably 50, 60 years ago, I don’t know. Dr. Deb 27:03Yep. David Jernigan 27:04So, we’ve created this monster. We, we live in a very controlled environment, you know, of 72, 74 degrees at all times, we don’t sweat, we don’t have to work that hard, typically. You know, most of us aren’t out there like our ancestors were, so that’s making us more and more… Move towards the cold sclerotic diseases, of which even Lyme disease is, you know, which… Yes, it has inflammation, yes, but as a presentation, it’s very often associated with some of these Cold sclerotic diseases of mankind that we see now. Dr. Deb 27:46You have it. David Jernigan 27:47Yeah. Dr. Deb 27:48So, tell me, what is phage therapy? David Jernigan 27:52Well, may I show you a cool video? Dr. Deb 27:55Yeah, I’d love that. David Jernigan 27:56I did not make this video, this is just one of my favorites, because it’s from the National Institute of Health. Let’s see if I can just… Click the share screen thing. And get that to pop up. That’s not what I’m looking for, but it’s gonna be soon. Let’s go here… Alright, can you see that? Dr. Deb 28:18Yeah. David Jernigan 28:19Okay. Modern medicine faces a serious problem. Thanks in part to overuse and misuse of antibiotics, many bacteria are gaining resistance to our most common cures. Researchers are probing possible alternatives to antibiotics, including phages. So, bacteriophages, or we like to call them phages for short, are naturally occurring viruses that infect and kill bacteria. The basic structure consists of a head, a sheath, and tail fibers. The tail fibers are what mediate attachment to the bacterial cell. The DNA stored in the head will then travel down the sheath and be injected inside the cell. Once inside the cell, the phage will hijack the cellular machinery to make many copies of itself. Lastly, the newly assembled phages burst forth from the bacterium, which resets their phage life cycle and kills the bacterium in the process. Someday, healthcare providers may be able to treat MRSA and other stubborn bacterial infections using a mixture of phages, or a phage cocktail process would be first to identify what the pathogen is that’s causing the infection. So the bacterium is isolated and is characterized. And then there’s a need to select a phage in a process known as screening of phage that are either present in a repository or in a so-called phage library. That allows for many of the phages to be evaluated for effectiveness against that isolated I don’t know, bacterium. Phages were first discovered over 100 years ago by a French-Canadian named Felice Derrell. They initially gained popularity in Eastern Europe, however, Western countries largely abandoned phages in favor of antibiotics, which were better understood and easier to produce in large quantities. Now, with bacteria like these gaining resistance to antibiotics, phage research is gaining momentum in the United States once again. NIAID recently partnered with other government agencies to host a phage workshop, where researchers from NIH, FTA, the commercial sector, and academia gathered to discuss recent progress. NIH… So… That is… That is what phage therapy in… is. in what I call conventional phage. Let’s see, how do I get out of the share screen? Hope you already don’t see it. Dr. Deb 30:58Yep, at the top, there should just be a button. David Jernigan 31:00I don’t. Dr. Deb 31:00Stop sharing, yeah. David Jernigan 31:01So… Conventional phage therapy, as you just saw, is a lot like what it is that we’re doing, only the difference is they’re taking wild phages from the environment. They’re finding phages anywhere there’s, like, a lot of bacteria. And then they isolate those phages, and like he said, the gentleman at the very end said we put them in a library, and so there are banks of phages that they can actually now use, and One of the largest banks that I know of has about 700 different bacteriophages, or phages. In their bank that they can pull from. Dr. Deb 31:43Wow. Do you want to take a guess? David Jernigan 31:46How many bacteriophages they’ve identified are in the human gut, on average? Dr. Deb 31:52Oh my god, there’s gotta be more… David Jernigan 31:53Kinds, different kinds of phages, how many? Dr. Deb 31:56There’s gotta be millions. David Jernigan 31:57Well… In population, there’s… humongous numbers, numbers probably well beyond the trillions, okay? Hundreds of trillions, quadrillions, maybe, even. But in the gut, a recent peer-reviewed journal article said that there were 32,242 different types of bacteriophages that live naturally in your intestines, your gut. Dr. Deb 32:25Boom. David Jernigan 32:2632,000. Okay, so… If you read any article on phage therapy that’s in peer review, almost every single one in the very first paragraph, they use the same sentence. They go, Phages are ubiquitous in nature. They’re ubiquitous in nature. So my brain, when I find… when all this finally clicked together, and when we clicked together 5 years into my research, I could not get it to work for 5 years. I just kept going. But that sentence really got me going. I was, like, going, you know. If you look at what ubiquitous means, it says if Phages were the size of grains of sand. Like sand on the beach. They would completely cover the earth and be 50 miles deep. How crazy is that? Dr. Deb 33:24Wow. David Jernigan 33:25That’s how many phages are on the planet. There’s so many… they outnumber every species collectively on the planet. So, it’s an impossibility in my mind. I went, huh, it’s an impossibility that… You catching a, a sterile Bacteria, it’s almost an impossibility. Since the beginning of time, phages have been needing to use a reproductive host. And it’s very specific, so every kind of bacteria has its own kind of phage it uses as a reproductive host. Because phages are… and this is a clarification I want to make for people. just like in the old days, we were talking about the 90s, I talked to a veterinarian that had gotten in trouble with the veterinary board in her state. Dr. Deb 34:14Back in the old days. David Jernigan 34:16Because she gave dogs probiotics. And the board thought she was giving the dogs an infection so that she could treat them and make money off of the subsequent infection. Dr. Deb 34:28Oh my god. David Jernigan 34:29Nobody actually had heard of good, friendly bacteria in the veterinary world, I guess she said she had gotten in trouble, and she had to defend herself, that, no, I’m giving friendly, benevolent, beneficial bacteria. Okay, to these animals, and getting good results.So, phages… Are friendly, benevolent, beneficial viruses. That live in your body, but they only will infect a certain type of bacteria. So… What that means is if you have staff.Aureus, you know, Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. That bacteria has its own kind of phage that infects it called a staph aureus phage. E. coli has an E. coli phage. Each type of E. coli has its own phage, so Borrelia burgdurferi has its own Borrelia burgdurferi type of phage, whereas Borrelia miyamotoi alright? Or any of the other Borrelia species, or the Bartonella species, or the… you just keep going, and Moses has its own type of phage that only will infect that type of bacteria. So that’s… You know, when you realize, wow, why are we going to the environment Was my thought. Dr. Deb 35:54Yeah. David Jernigan 34:55Trying to find wild phages and put them into your body, and hopefully they go and do what you want them to do. What if we could trigger the phages themselves that live in your body to, instead of just farming that bacteria that it uses as a host, because what I mean by farming is the phages will only kill 40% of that population of bacteria a day. Dr. Deb 36:20Wow. David Jernigan 36:20And then they send out a signal to all the other phages saying, stop killing! Dr. Deb 36:24It’s like. David Jernigan 36:2560% of the bacteria population left to be breeding stock. It’s kind of like the farmer, the rancher, who… he doesn’t send his whole herd to the butcher. Dr. Deb 36:35Right. David Jernigan 36:36Just to, you know, he keeps his breeding stock. He sends the rest, right? So, the phages will kill 40% of the population every day, just in their reproduction process. Because once there’s so many, as you saw in the video, once the phage lands on top of the bacteria, injects its genetic material into the bacteria, that bacteria genetic engine starts cranking out up to 5,200 phages per bacteria. Dr. Deb 37:06I don’t know who counted all those… David Jernigan 37:08Inside of a bacteria, but some scientists peer-reviewed it and put it out there. that ruptures, and it literally looks like a grenade goes off inside of the bacteria. I wish I’d remembered to bring that video of a phage killing a bacteria, but it just goes, oof. And it’s just a cloud of dust. So, you’re breaking apart a lot of those different toxins and things. So… That’s… That was the impetus to me creating what I did. That and the fact that I looked it up, and I found out that phages will sometimes go… Crazy. I don’t know how to say it. Wiping out 100% of their host. And it could be a trigger, like change in the body’s pH levels, it could be electromagnetically done, you know, like, there’s been documentation of… I think it was, 50 Hz, electricity. Triggering one kind of phage to go… Crazy and annihilate its host population. There’s other ways, but I was, like, going, none of those fit me, you know? It’s not like I’m gonna shock somebody with a… Jumper cable or something to try to get phages to… to do that kind of thing. But the fact that it could be done, they can be triggered, they can switch and suddenly go crazy against their population. But what happens when they kill 100% of their host? The phages themselves die within 4 days. Dr. Deb 38:45Hmm. Because they can’t keep reproducing. David Jernigan 38:47There’s nothing to reproduce them, yeah. Dr. Deb 38:49Yeah. Especially… unless they’re a polyvalent phage, that means a phage that can segue and use. David Jernigan 38:54One or two other kinds of bacteria. To, as a reproductive host. But a lot of phages, if not the majority, are monovalent, which means they have one host that they like to use. And so… Borrelia, so… my study that I ended up doing, and I published the results in 2021, And it’s a small study, but it’s right in there at the high end, believe it or not, of phage research. Most phage research is less than 30 people. In the study. But, we did 26 people.And after one month of doing the phage induction that I invented, which only… Appears to only, induce or stimulate the types of phages that will do the job in your body. I don’t care what kind of phage it is. I don’t care if it’s a Borrelia phage, it may be a polyvalent phage that normally doesn’t use the Borrelia burgdurferi as its number one. Host, but it can. To go and kill that infection. And the fascinating thing is, there was a brand new test that came out at the same time I came out with the idea, literally the same weekend they presented. Dr. Deb 40:1511. David Jernigan 40:15ILADS conference in Boston in 2019. It was called the Felix Borrelia phage Test. So the Felix Borrelia phage test. Because Borrelia are often intracellular, right, they’re buried down in the tissue, they’re not often in the blood that much. And therefore, doing a blood test isn’t really that accurate. But you remember how there’s, like, potentially as many as 5,200 phages of that type erupt from each bacteria when it breaks apart. It’s way easier to detect those phages, because they’re now circulating, those 52, as you saw in the video. 5,200 different phages are now seeking out another Borrelia that they can infect. And so, while they’re out in circulation, that’s easy to find in the bloodstream. So, 77% of the people, so 20 out of 26, were tested after a 2-week period. After only a 4-day round of treatment. Because according to my testing, remember, I can actually test adjunctively to see if I can find any signatures for those kinds of bacteria. And I couldn’t after 4 days, so we discontinued treatment and waited Beyond the 4 days that would allow the phages themselves to die, so we waited about a week and a half.And redid the test. And 77%, so that 20 out of 26 of the people, were completely negative. Dr. Deb 41:50Wow. David Jernigan 41:52Which, you go, well, it’s just a blood test. Well, no, we actually had people that were getting better, like, they’d never gotten better before. We had one woman who was wheelchair-bound, and in two weeks was able to walk, and even ultimately wanted to work for my clinic. I’m just, like, going… Dr. Deb 42:07I didn’t want to write about all that. I wanted to write about the phages. I was like… David Jernigan 42:12article, I probably should have put some of those stories, because, Critics would say, well, you got rid of the infection, maybe, but… Did you fix the Lyme disease? Well, that’s… there’s two factors here that every doctor needs to understand. There’s the infection in chronic illness, there’s the infection, and then there’s the damage that’s been done. Because sometimes I have these people that would come in and say, well, Dr. Jernigan, it didn’t work for me, I’m still in the wheelchair. And I’m like, no, it worked. Repeat lab test over months says it’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone. It’s like, we would follow, and 88% of the people we followed long-term were still negative, which is amazing to me. Dr. Deb 42:56And then they have to repair the damage. David Jernigan 42:59It’s the damages why you still have your symptoms. And that’s where the doctor has to get busy, right? Dr. Deb 43:06Right David Jernigan 43:06They were told erroneously by their doctor that originally treated them that they’d be well, they’d get out of the wheelchair, if he could actually kill all these infections. Dr. Deb 43:15It’s not true. David Jernigan 43:16Unless it’s caught early. So I love the analogy, and I’ve said it a thousand times.that Lyme disease and chronic infections are much like having termites in the wood of your house. If you find the termites early, then yeah, killing the infection, life goes back to normal, the storm comes and your house doesn’t fall down. But if it’s 20 years later. Killing the termites is still a grand idea. Right. But you have the damage in the wood that needs to be repaired as well. All the systems… when I talk about damage to the wood, I mean, like. All the bioregulatory aspects of the body, how it regulates itself, all the biochemical pathways, the metabolic pathways we all know about, getting the toxins that have been lodged in there for many years, stopping the inflammatory things that have been running crazy. Dealing with all those cytokines that are just running rampant through the body, creating this whole MCAS situation. Which are largely… Dr. Deb 44:21Coming from your body’s own immune cells called macrophages, which are not even… David Jernigan 44:26It’s not… a virus at all, it’s part of the immune system, it’s like a Pac-Man, and research shows that especially in spirochetes. There is no toxin. Now, I wrote 4 books. I think I wrote the very first book on the natural treatment of people with Lyme disease back in the 90s. Why did I write that? Not because I wanted to be famous, it’s a tiny book, actually, the first one was.I was just trying to help people get out of this idea that you will be well when you kill all the bugs. I was saying, it’s… you need to be doing this. If you can’t come to my clinic, at least do this. Try to find somebody that will do this for you. And that ultimately led to a bigger book.as I kept learning more, and I was like, going, well, okay, now at least do this amount of stuff. And you need to make sure your doctor is handling this, this, this, and this. And so, the third book was, like, 500 and something pages long. And then the fourth book was 500 and something pages long, and now they’re all obsolete with the whole phage thing, because this just rewrites everything. Dr. Deb 45:34Yeah. David Jernigan 45:34It’s pretty fascinating. Dr. Deb 45:37Do you think the war on bugs, mentality created more chronic illness than it solved? David Jernigan 45:44Because of the tools that doctors had to use, yes. We’re a minority, we’re still a minority, you and I. Dr. Deb 45:54Yep. Our doctoring… David Jernigan 45:56Methods I never had, and you’d never… maybe you did, but I’d never had the ability to grab a prescription pad and write out a prescription. I had to figure out, how do I get… and this was… and still my guiding thing, is like, how do I identify, number one, everything that can be found that’s gone wrong in the human body. And what do I need to provide that body? Like, the body is the carpenter. That has to do the repair, has to regenerate, has to do everything, has to get… everything fixed right? We can’t fix anything. If you have a paper cut, there isn’t a doctor on the planet that can make that go away. Dr. Deb 46:38Right. David Jernigan 46:39Of their own power, much less chronic illnesses. So, all the treatments are like the screws, saws, hammers, you know the carpenter must be able to use. So a lot of the time, doctors are just throwing an entire Home Depot on top of the carpenter. In the form of, like, bags of supplements, you know, hundreds of supplements, I’ve seen patients walk in my door with two suitcasefuls. And they were taking 70 bottles, 65 to 70 bottles of supplements, and I’d be just like, wow, your carpenter who’s been working for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He’s exhausted. There’s chaos everywhere, you don’t know where to. Dr. Deb 47:22Starting. David Jernigan 47:22He goes, you want me to do what with all this stuff? Dr. Deb 47:25Yep, I’ve seen the same thing. People… thousands, you know, several thousand dollars a month on supplements, and not any better. But they’re afraid to give up their supplements, too, because they don’t want to go backwards, either, and… there’s got to be a better way on both sides, the conventional side and the alternative side, although you and I don’t say it’s alternative, that’s the way medicine should be, but… David Jernigan 47:48Right. Dr. Deb 47:49We have to have a good balance on both sides. David Jernigan 47:52And I will say, too, in defense of doctors using a lot of supplements, I do use a lot of supplements. Dr. Deb 47:57Yeah, I do too. David Jernigan 47:58but I want to synergize what I’m giving the patient so that the carpenter isn’t overwhelmed and can actually get the job done. Like, everything has to work harmoniously together, so it’s not that… It’s not the number of supplements, and why would you need a lot of supplements? Well, because every system in your body is Messed up. My kind of clientele for 30 years. Our clientele, yours and mine. Dr. Deb 48:25Yeah. David Jernigan 48:26They have been sick, For decades, many of them. Dr. Deb 48:31Yeah. David Jernigan 48:31And if they went into a hospital, they honestly need every department. They need endocrinology, they need their kidney doctor, they need their… They’re a cardiologists, they need a neurologist, they need a rheumatologist. I mean, because none of those doctors are gonna deal with everything. They’re just gonna deal with one piece of the puzzle. And if they did get the benefit of all the different departments they need, yeah, they’d go out with a garbage bag full of stuff, too. Dr. Deb 48:57Hey, wood. David Jernigan 48:58Only, they’re not synergized. They don’t work together. You’re creating this chemistry set of who knows how much poison. And I want to tell your listeners, and I mean, you probably say this to your patients as well. There is a law of pharmacy that I learned eons ago, and it applies to natural medicine, too. Dr. Deb 49:21Yep. David Jernigan 49:22But the law says every drug’s primary side effect Is its primary action. So, if you listen to TV, you can see this on commercials. I love… I love listening to these commercials, because I’m like, wow. let’s… let’s… I don’t want to say I’ve named Brandon. I don’t know if that’s…Inappropriate to name a name brand, but let’s just say you have a pharmaceutical that is for sleep. After they show you this beautiful scene of the person restfully sleeping and everything like that, they tell you the truth. It’s like, this may cause sleepiness… I mean, sleeplessness. Dr. Deb 50:04Yeah. David Jernigan 50:04Found insomnia. Dr. Deb 50:06And headaches, and diarrhea. David Jernigan 50:08All the other things, and if it’s an antidepressant, what does the commercial do after it finishes showing you little bunny foo-foo, jumping through a green, happy people? They tell you, this may create depression, severe depression, and suicidal tendencies, which is the ultimate depression. So, I want everyone to understand you need to figure out what your doctor’s tools are that they’re asking you to take, and they’re wanting you to take it forever, generally in mainstream medicine, right? In the hospitals and everything. They don’t say, hey, your heart has this condition, take this medicine for 3 months, after which time you can get off. Dr. Deb 50:48Yep. David Jernigan 50:49not fixing it, right? So… That, on a timeline, there is a point, if it was truly even fixing anything. That you… it’s done what it should do, and you should get off, even if it’s a natural product. It’s just like. Dr. Deb 51:03Right David Jernigan 51:03It’s done what it should do, and you should get off, but instead. you go through the tree… the correction and out the other side, and that’s where it starts manifesting a lot of the same problems that it had. So, anti-inflammatories, painkillers, imagine the number one side effects are pain inflammation. So, the doctor says, well. If you say, hey, I’m having more pain, what does he do? He ups the dosage. And if he… if that doesn’t work, if you’re still in a lot of pain, which he would be, he changes it to a more powerful thing, right? But it starts the cycle all over again. So when you ask me, it’s like, why are we having so much chronic illness? It’s because of the whole philosophy. is the treatment philosophy of mainstream medicine that despises what you and I do. Because we’re… our philosophy from the start is the biggest thing. It’s like… We’re striving for cure. That dirty four-letter word, cure, we’re not even supposed to use it. And yet, if you look it up in Stedman’s Medical Dictionary, it just means a restoration of health. Remission. Everyone’s like, oh, I’m in remission. I’m like, remission is a drug term. It’s a medical term. Again, look it up in a medical dictionary. It is a pharmaceutical term for a temporary pause Or a reduction of your symptom, but because it’s just… symptom suppression, it will come back. It’s… remission is great, I suppose, in… At the end of, like, where you’ve exhausted everything, because I can’t fix everything, I don’t know about you. Dr. Deb 52:41No, I can’t either, yeah. David Jernigan 52:43you know, on my phone consults, I try to always remind people, as much as I get excited about my technologies gosh, I see so much opportunity to fix you. I always try to go, please understand, I’m gonna tell you what most doctors may not tell you on a phone consultation. I can’t fix everything. Dr. Deb 53:03Yeah. David Jernigan 53:03For all of my tricks, I can’t fix everything. Not tricks, but you know, all my technologies, and all my inventions. Phages, too. They are a tool. You know, antibiotics. I think I wrote a blog one time, it should be on my website somewhere, that says, Antibiotics do not… fix… neurological disease, or… I don’t know, something like that. You know, you’re using the wrong tool. I mean, it does what it does. Dr. Deb 53:32Yeah, you’re using a hammer to do what a screwdriver needs to. David Jernigan 53:35Yeah, you know, it’s like it’s… And yet, you can probably tell her… that you’ve had patients, too, that they go, Dr. Jernigan. My throat was so sore, and as soon as I swallowed that antibiotic. I felt better, and I’m, like, going… How long did it take? Oh, it was immediate! I was like, dude, the gel cap didn’t even have time to dissolve, I mean… Dr. Deb 53:58SIBO. David Jernigan 54:00But, it’s not going to repair the tissues that were all raw. kind of stuff. So, I mean, that ulceration of your throat that’s happening, the inflammation, there’s no anti-inflammatory effect of these things. So, I digress a little bit, but phages, too… I wrote an article that’s on the website, that’s setting healthy expectations for phages, because they want… we can see some amazing things happen, things that in my 30 years, I wish I had all my career to do over again, now having this tool. It’s just that much fun. I… when doctors around the country now are starting to use our inducent formulas, there’s, 13 of them now, formulas. For different broad-spectrum illness presentations. I tell them all the same thing, I was like, you are gonna have so much fun. Dr. Deb 54:53That’s exciting. Women. David Jernigan 54:54Winning is fun, you know? I was like. You know, mainstream medicine may never accept this, I don’t know. I feel a real huge burden, though, to do my best to follow a, very scientific methodology. I’ve published as much as I can publish at this time by myself. I never took money from the… the sources that are out there, because what do they do? They always come… money comes with strings. Dr. Deb 55:22Yes, it does. David Jernigan 55:23I don’t trust… I don’t trust… I mean, if you listen to the, roundtable that Our Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Dr. Deb 55:35Yeah. David Jernigan 55:36On Lyme disease last week the first couple of speakers were, like, pretty legit. I mean, all of them were legit, but I mean, they were, like, senators and congressmen or something like that, I think. And then you have… RFK Jr. himself, who’s legit. Yeah they were fessing up to the fact that, yes, they were suppressing anything to do with Lyme. Dr. Deb 56:00Yeah. David Jernigan 56:00Our… our highest levels of, marbled halls and pillars and… of medicine were doing everything the way I thought they were. They were suppressing me. I was like, how can you ignore the best formulas ever, and still, I think Borreligen, and now, induced native phage therapy are still, I believe, I don’t… I’ve never seen it, I could be wrong. The only natural things that have been documented in a medical methodology. Dr. Deb 56:34Hmm in the natural realm. I mean, all the herbs that we talk about. David Jernigan 56:39You know, there’s one that was really famous for a while, and it said, we gave… so many patients. This product, and other nutritional supplements. And at the end, X number of them were… dramatically better. That’s not research. Dr. Deb 56:57Right. That’s observation. David Jernigan 56:59The trick there was we gave this one thing, and then we gave high-dose proteolytic enzymes, we gave high dose this, we gave high dose that, but at the end of the study, we’re going to point back at the thing we’re trying to sell you as being what did it. Dr. Deb 57:12Which is what we do in all research, pretty much. David Jernigan 57:15Well… Dr. Deb 57:16tried to… David Jernigan 57:17Good guys, I hope. Dr. Deb 57:18Do the way we want, right? In… in conventional… David Jernigan 57:22Yeah. Dr. Deb 57:22Fantastic David Jernigan 57:23Very often, yeah, in conventional medicine, definitely. Yeah. And, it’s kind of scary, isn’t it, how many pharmaceuticals are slamming us with, because they’re… Dr. Deb 57:33Okay. David Jernigan 57:34There’s a new one on TV every day, and there’s. Dr. Deb 57:36Every day, yes. David Jernigan 57:37It’s like, who comes up with these names? They’re just horrible. Dr. Deb 57:40Yeah, you can’t pronounce them. David Jernigan 57:41I want to be a marketing company and come up with some Zimbabwehika, or something that actually they go with, and I’m like, I just made a million bucks coming up with it. I’ll be glad when that’s not on the TV anymore, which… Oh, me too. Me too. Dr. Deb 57:54Dr. Jaredgen, this was really wonderful. What do you want to leave our listeners with? David Jernigan 58:00Well, you know, everyone’s calling for a new treatment. Dr. Deb 58:05Yeah. You bet. David Jernigan 58:08I have done everything I can do to get it out there, scientifically, in peer review, so that if you want to look up my name. Dr. Deb 58:16I published an open access journal so that you didn’t have to buy the articles. Like, PubMed, you have to be a member. If you want to look at a lot of the research, you have to buy the articles. David Jernigan 58:26I’ve done everything open access so that people had access to the information. I honestly created induced native phage therapy to fix my own wife. I mean, I… I was… I used to think I could actually fix almost anything. Gave me enough time. And, I could not fix her. You know, the first 10 years, she was bedridden. Dr. Deb 58:49Wow. David Jernigan 58:50People go, oh, it’s easy for you, Dr. Jernigan, you’re a doctor. Dr. Deb 58:54Oh yeah, right? Yeah. David Jernigan 58:56Oh my gosh, how many tears have been shed, and how much heartache, and how much of this and that. I mean, 90% of our marriage, she was in, bed, just missing Christmas. All the horror stories you hear in the Lime world, that was her, and I could not get her completely well. And, she’s a very discerning woman. I say that in all my podcasts, because it’s. Dr. Deb 59:19Just… David Jernigan 59:16Amazing. It’s like, every husband, I think, should want a wife that’s… Always, right? Not that you surrender your own opinion, but it’s like, it’s… it was literally, I don’t know what, 6 months before the ILADS conference in Boston in 2029… in 2019 that She said, are you going to the ILADS conference this year? And I’m like, I’ve been going for, like, 15, 20 years, however long it’s been going on, and I was like, I’m not gonna go to this one. And, 3 days before the conference, she says, I think you should go. And I go, okay. Like I say, she’s generally right. And that… I bought a Scientific American magazine at the newsstand in the Nashville airport. Started reading a story about phages in that that copped that edition of the Scientific American, and It was a good article, but it wasn’t super meaty, you know. very deep on those, but I just was stimulated. Something about being at elevation. Dr. Deb 1:00:02Yeah. Your own mountains, I don’t know, I get all inspired. David Jernigan 1:00:25And I wrote in the margins and highlighted this and that until it was, like, ultimately, I spent the entire conference hammering this out. And it worked. And it’s been working, it’s just amazing. It’s… We’re over 200 different infections that we’ve… we’ve clinically or laboratory-wise documented. There’s a new test for my GenX called the CEPCR Lyme Panel. like, culture. 64 different types of infections, and I believe right now the latest count is something like 10 for 10 were completely negative. Dr. Deb 1:01:03Wow. David Jernigan 1:01:03These chronically infected people. And so, that hadn’t been published anywhere. So, in my published article, remember I was talking about that 20 out of the 26 were tested as negative for the infection? That doesn’t mean they’re cured, okay? Remember, they’re chronically damaged. That’s how we need to look at it. Dr. Deb 1:01:23funny David Jernigan 1:01:24damaged. You’re not just chronically infected. And, but with 30-day treatment.24 out of the 26 were tested as negative. Dr. Deb Muth 1:01:34That’s amazing. David Jernigan 1:01:35So 92% of the people were negative.Okay? The chances of that happening, when you run it through statistical analysis.The chances… when you compare the results to the sensitivity percentages, you know, the 100% specificity and 92% sensitivity of the…Of the lab testIt’s a 4.5 nonillion to 1 chance that it was a fluke. Isn’t that amazing? Now, nearly… I’m not even sure how many zeros that is, but it’s a lot. Dr. Deb Muth 1:02:08That’s is awesome. David Jernigan 1:02:09Like, if I just said, well, it’s a one in a million chance it was a fluke.Okay.So, lab tests don’t lie. You’re not done, necessarily, just because you got rid of the infections. Now that formula for Lyme has grown to be 90-plusmicrobes targeted in the one formula. So, we figured out we can actually target individually, but collectively, almost like an antibiotic that’s laser-guided to only go after the bad guys that we targeted.So, all the Borrelia types are targeted, all the Babesias, for,the Bartonellas, the anaplasmosis, you name it, mycoplasma types are all targeted in that one formula, because I said.Took my collective 30 years of experience and 15,000 patients.that I would typically see as co-infections and put them into that one formula, so…When we get these tests coming back that are testing for 64, it’s because of that.So, there’s a lot of coolnesses that I could actually keep going and going. Dr. Deb Muth 1:03:15That’s exciting. David Jernigan 1:03:15I love this topic, but I thank you for letting me come on. Dr. Deb Muth 1:03:18Thank you for joining us. How can people find you? David Jernigan 1:03:22Two ways. There’s the Phagen Corp company that is now manufacturing my formulas.That is P-H-A-G-E-N-C-O-R-P dot com. Practitioners can go there, and there’s a practitioner side of the website that’s very beefy with science, and… and all the formulas that were used, what’s inside of all the formulas, meaning what microbes are targeted by each one. Like, there’s a GI formula, there’s a UTI formula, there’s a SIRS formula, there’s a Lyme formula, there’s a central nervous system type infection formula, there’s… And we can keep going, you know, SIBO, SIFO formula, mold formula… I mean, we’ve discovered so many things that I could just keep going for hours, and… Dr. Deb Muth 1:04:05Yeah. David Jernigan 1:04:06About the discoveries, from where it started in its humble beginnings, To now, so… There’s another way, if you wanted to see our clinic website, is Biologics, with an X, so B-I-O-L-O-G-I-X, Center, C-E-N-T-E-R dot com. And, if somebody thinks they want to be a patient and experience this at our clinic, typically we don’t take just Easy stuff. All we see is chronic.Chronic cases from all over the world. Something like 96% of our patients come from other states and countries. And typically, I’ve been close to 90% for my whole career.About 30-something percent come from other countries in that, so… we’ve gotten really good and learned a lot in having to deal with what nobody else knows what to do with. But if you do want to do that, you can contact us. And, if you… If you don’t get the answers from my patient care staff, then I do free consultations. With the people that are thinking about, whether we can help them or not. Dr. Deb Muth 1:05:13Well, that’s excellent. For those of you who are driving or don’t have any way of writing things down, don’t worry about it, we’ve got you. We will have all of his contact information in our show notes, so you will be able to reach out to him. Thank you again for joining me. This has been an amazing conversation. David Jernigan 1:05:30Thank you, I appreciate you having me on. It was a lot of fun. The post Episode 252 – Induced Native Phage Therapy (INPT) & advanced natural therapies first appeared on Let's Talk Wellness Now.

David Jernigan '00 delivered a SEVEN Talk at the 2025 Alumni Forum in Chapel Hill on October 18. David is the former CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta. About SEVEN TalksEvery class of Morehead-Cain Scholars connects with seven others: the three classes ahead, its own, and the three that follow. The idea of SEVEN is to strengthen connections across generations of Morehead-Cains.The Alumni Forum embodies this spirit through SEVEN Talks—seven alumni and scholars on Saturday, and seven more on Sunday—each sharing seven minutes of wisdom with the Morehead-Cain community.How to listenOn your mobile device, you can listen and subscribe to Catalyze on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For any other podcast app, you can find the show using our RSS feed. You can let us know what you thought of the episode by finding us on social media @moreheadcain or you can email us at communications@moreheadcain.org.   

Allison Jernigan, Chief Content Officer of BINGE Networks, an award-winning global streaming platform that helps filmmakers, content creators, and media companies distribute and monetize their work worldwide.Through strategic licensing and turnkey distribution solutions, Allison guides independent creators to place their content on over 150 top streaming platforms, making professional distribution accessible without waiting for Hollywood gatekeepers.Now, Allison's commitment to giving creators real ownership and global reach demonstrates the power of disrupting a closed industry and empowering storytellers everywhere.And while navigating shifting algorithms, platform demands, and the hustle of staying ahead, she remains dedicated to helping creators transform their vision into success they can see and spend.Here's where to find more:www.bingenetworks.tvLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonjernigan________________________________________________Welcome to The Unforget Yourself Show where we use the power of woo and the proof of science to help you identify your blind spots, and get over your own bullshit so that you can do the fucking thing you ACTUALLY want to do!We're Mark and Katie, the founders of Unforget Yourself and the creators of the Unforget Yourself System and on this podcast, we're here to share REAL conversations about what goes on inside the heart and minds of those brave and crazy enough to start their own business. From the accidental entrepreneur to the laser-focused CEO, we find out how they got to where they are today, not by hearing the go-to story of their success, but talking about how we all have our own BS to deal with and it's through facing ourselves that we find a way to do the fucking thing.Along the way, we hope to show you that YOU are the most important asset in your business (and your life - duh!). Being a business owner is tough! With vulnerability and humor, we get to the real story behind their success and show you that you're not alone._____________________Find all our links to all the things like the socials, how to work with us and how to apply to be on the podcast here: https://linktr.ee/unforgetyourself

In this episode, Nathan Wrigley chats with Jonathan Jernigan about Pie Calendar, a simple-yet-powerful WordPress event calendar plugin. They discuss the plugin's evolution, including major new features like Eventbrite and ICS calendar integration for easy ticketing and syncing with external calendars. Jonathan also shares insights into his WordPress-focused community and YouTube channel. The conversation highlights Pie Calendar's user-friendly setup, flexibility for different organisations, and the team's focus on simplicity. Future plans for additional integrations are teased, as well as stories of how a wide range of clients, from breweries to city councils, use the plugin. Go listen...

Did you know soil microorganisms of all sizes and shapes need water, air, shelter, and care to function and thrive? Dr. Ashley Jernigan, assistant professor and director of Virginia Tech's Sustainable and Organic Vegetable Crops Production Lab, returns to talk with Jeff and Mary about what farmers and gardeners can do to encourage a hospitable habitat for soil microorganisms.As a soil ecologist, Ashley recommends keeping track of your soil organic matter level and its aggregate stability, and how these soil health indicators compare to native biological systems. Soils, like people, need quality food in diverse and complex forms (compost, green manures, plant roots, etc.). Similarly, farmers and gardeners should avoid leaving the soil naked and bare. Being gentle and reducing the intensity of tillage is also key to maintaining a comfortable environment for soil critters and not disrupting the structures and networks that soil organisms establish.   We would encourage our listeners to visit Andy Murray's A Chaos of Delight: Exploring Life in the Soil website and tour the gallery of photos of different soil microorganisms. As always, we encourage you to cooperate with other farmers, graziers, and gardeners for peer-to-peer learning and to follow the four core soil health principles: 1) Keep the soil covered -- Cover crops are our friends and allies; avoid bare fallows;2) Minimize soil disturbance -- Practice no-till or gentle tillage as much as possible in your field or garden ;3) Maximize living roots year-round -- to improve biodiversity, soil structure, and life in the soil; and4) Energize with diversity -- through crop rotation, high-quality food, farm enterprises,  and livestock integration. To enjoy recent 4 The Soil blog posts and additional soil health resources, please visit https://www.4thesoil.org/blog and https://www.virginiasoilhealth.org/. For questions about soil and water conservation practices, natural resource concerns, and soil health principles and practices to restore the life in your soil, call or visit a USDA Service Center, a Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District office, or your local Virginia Cooperative Extension office.  4 the Soil: A Conversation is made possible with funding support from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and The Agua Fund. Other partners include the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service; Virginia Cooperative Extension; Virginia State University; Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation; and partners of the Virginia Soil Health Coalition.Disclaimer: Views expressed on this podcast are those of each individual guest.To download a copy of this, or any other show, visit the website 4thesoil.org. Music used during today's program is courtesy of the Flip Charts. All rights reserved. 4 the Soil: A Conversation is produced by On the Farm Radio in collaboration with Virginia Tech. The host and co-hosts are Jeff Ishee, Mary Sketch Bryant, and Eric Bendfeldt.

How do you regenerate and bring back life to worn-out soils? Does your garden soil just fall apart in your hands? Dr. Ashley Jernigan, assistant professor and director of Virginia Tech's Sustainable and Organic Vegetable Crops Production Lab, in visiting with Jeff and Mary, advises doing your own test in your garden or crop field with a shovel.As someone who enjoyed digging soil pits as a seven-year-old, Ashley recommends sampling to a six-inch depth to get a sense of your soil's tilth and aggregate stability. If the soil does not have a good, varied crumbly structure, the soil's organic matter content and aggregate stability may be low. Therefore, feed your soil and soil animals to feed your plants to start the biological journey and bring back the life in the soil.If you have ever wondered what soil animals like springtails and soil mites look like, Dr. Jernigan developed a Soil Mesofauna: Who are They? resource guide to help. Ashley also highly recommends Andy Murray's Chaos of Delight: Exploring Life in the Soil website for wonderful photos and videos. As always, we encourage you to cooperate with other farmers, graziers, and gardeners for peer-to-peer learning and to follow the four core soil health principles: 1) Keep the soil covered -- Cover crops are our friends and allies;2) Minimize soil disturbance -- Practice no-till or gentle tillage in your field or garden as much as possible;3) Maximize living roots year-round -- to improve biodiversity, soil structure, and life in the soil; and4) Energize with diversity -- through crop rotation, farm enterprises, and/or livestock integration.More details about the Virginia Farm-to-Table Feast and Harvest Celebration scheduled for Saturday, October 25, 2025, from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. at On Sunny Slope Farm in Rockingham, Virginia, can be found at https://virginiafarmtotable.org/2025vaf2tharvestcelebration/To enjoy recent 4 The Soil blog posts and additional soil health resources, please visit https://www.4thesoil.org/blog and https://www.virginiasoilhealth.org/. For questions about soil and water conservation practices, natural resource concerns, and soil health principles and practices to restore the life in your soil, call or visit a USDA Service Center, a Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District office, or your local Virginia Cooperative Extension office.  4 the Soil: A Conversation is made possible with funding support from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and The Agua Fund. Other partners include the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service; Virginia Cooperative Extension; Virginia State University; Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation; and partners of the Virginia Soil Health Coalition.Disclaimer: Views expressed on this podcast are those of each individual guest.To download a copy of this, or any other show, visit the website 4thesoil.org. Music used during today's program is courtesy of the Flip Charts. All rights reserved. 4 the Soil: A Conversation is produced by On the Farm Radio in collaboration with Virginia Tech. The host and co-hosts are Jeff Ishee, Mary Sketch Bryant, and Eric Bendfeldt.

CTL Script/ Top Stories of September 5th Publish Date: September 5th   Pre-Roll: From the Ingles Studio Welcome to the Award-Winning Cherokee Tribune Ledger Podcast  Today is Friday, September 5th and Happy Birthday to Freddie Mercury I’m Peyton Spurlock and here are the stories Cherokee is talking about, presented by Times Journal Transportation SPLOST will be on the ballot in Cherokee County Holly Springs breaks ground on Town Center amphitheater Waleska to hold special election next year for council seat Plus, Leah McGrath from Ingles Markets on apples We’ll have all this and more coming up on the Cherokee Tribune-Ledger Podcast, and if you’re looking for Community news, we encourage you to listen and subscribe!  Commercial: Ingles Markets 2 STORY 1: Transportation SPLOST will be on the ballot in Cherokee County  Cherokee County voters will decide in November whether to approve a 1% sales tax—T-SPLOST—to fund road improvements. If passed, it could generate $445 million over six years, with funds split between the county and its cities. The projects? Everything from road widening and resurfacing to new sidewalks, multi-use trails, and roundabouts. Think smoother commutes, safer intersections, and maybe even a pedestrian plaza in Woodstock. The vote happens Nov. 4. STORY 2: Holly Springs breaks ground on Town Center amphitheater  Shovels hit the dirt Wednesday as Holly Springs broke ground on its long-awaited amphitheater, a centerpiece for the growing Town Center. Set near the railroad tracks, the amphitheater will host concerts, festivals, and community events—like the Holly Springs Harmonies summer series. Construction is expected to wrap up in nine months. The $2.3 million project is part of a larger vision: restaurants, shops, homes, and more. STORY 3: Waleska to hold special election next year for council seat A special election is on the horizon after no one stepped up to run for a city council seat set to expire Dec. 31. Councilman Logan Patrick, who’s not seeking re-election, is moving outside city limits. With no candidates qualifying for his seat, the city will hold a special election sometime after Jan. 1, according to City Clerk Kim Kirsch. Meanwhile, council members Kristi Bosch and Michael Green will return, running unopposed. Patrick’s final council meeting is Dec. 15, wrapping up 12 years in the community he’s called home. We have opportunities for sponsors to get great engagement on these shows. Call 770.874.3200 for more info.    We’ll be right back. Break: COBB MAKE A WISH STORY 4: Former CDC leaders worry about the agency’s direction, impact on public health  Former CDC leaders gathered at the Georgia Capitol Tuesday, invited by Democratic lawmakers, to voice concerns about the agency’s future and its impact on public health. The meeting came days after President Trump fired CDC Director Susan Monarez, just a month into her role. Her dismissal followed Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s controversial shake-up of the vaccine advisory committee, raising questions about long-standing immunization policies. Dr. Debra Houry, who resigned after Monarez’s firing, warned of growing vaccine skepticism. The event also highlighted public mistrust. Atlanta resident Melinda Hicks confronted Houry and Jernigan, blaming a friend’s death on the COVID-19 vaccine. Democrats urged Gov. Brian Kemp to back the CDC, but he declined to comment. STORY 5: Cherokee County considering $438 million 2026 budget  Cherokee County is hashing out a $438 million budget for the next fiscal year, and they want to hear from you. A public hearing is set for Sept. 16, with a final vote planned for Oct. 7. The proposed budget is $20.5 million higher than last year’s, with big chunks going to public safety ($176.5 million for the sheriff’s office, fire, and EMS), parks, transportation, and judicial services. Employees are set for a 3% cost-of-living raise, though healthcare contributions will rise 10% starting Jan. 1. SPLOST funds will cover projects like road improvements near Macedonia Elementary and expanding the airport runway. Want details? The full 511-page budget is online. And now here is Leah McGrath from Ingles Markets on apples Commercial: We’ll have closing comments after this.   COMMERCIAL: Ingles Markets 2   SIGN OFF –   Thanks again for hanging out with us on today’s Cherokee Tribune Ledger Podcast. If you enjoy these shows, we encourage you to check out our other offerings, like the Cherokee Tribune Ledger Podcast, the Marietta Daily Journal, or the Community Podcast for Rockdale Newton and Morgan Counties. Read more about all our stories and get other great content at www.tribuneledgernews.com Did you know over 50% of Americans listen to podcasts weekly? Giving you important news about our community and telling great stories are what we do. Make sure you join us for our next episode and be sure to share this podcast on social media with your friends and family. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home Briefing and be sure to like, follow, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Produced by the BG Podcast Network Show Sponsors: www.ingles-markets.com #NewsPodcast #CurrentEvents #TopHeadlines #BreakingNews #PodcastDiscussion #PodcastNews #InDepthAnalysis #NewsAnalysis #PodcastTrending #WorldNews #LocalNews #GlobalNews #PodcastInsights #NewsBrief #PodcastUpdate #NewsRoundup #WeeklyNews #DailyNews #PodcastInterviews #HotTopics #PodcastOpinions #InvestigativeJournalism #BehindTheHeadlines #PodcastMedia #NewsStories #PodcastReports #JournalismMatters #PodcastPerspectives #NewsCommentary #PodcastListeners #NewsPodcastCommunity #NewsSource #PodcastCuration #WorldAffairs #PodcastUpdates #AudioNews #PodcastJournalism #EmergingStories #NewsFlash #PodcastConversations See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What does it take to move from working insurance claims to running one of Texas' most trusted restoration companies while also launching a platform to educate the entire industry?In this episode of Restoration Pros Unplugged, host Clinton James sits down with Ben Jernigan, owner of WTR Restoration and founder of DrMoisture.com, a new educational hub for homeowners, agents, and adjusters.With over 18 years of experience in public adjusting, restoration, and disaster response, Ben shares his journey of rebuilding after Tropical Storm Allison, scaling WTR into a nationwide operation, and why he believes education is the next frontier for the industry.Listeners will walk away with powerful lessons on business growth, leadership, and the future of restoration.Key Topics Covered in This Episode:The pivotal career moment after Tropical Storm Allison that led Ben into restoration work.Transitioning from public adjuster to restoration owner—and the unexpected hurdles along the way.Scaling WTR Restoration to handle over 50 major disaster events nationwide.Technology's role in improving efficiency and customer satisfaction (Matterport 3D, remote moisture tracking, Encircle, and more).Core business values—how transparency and owner involvement set WTR apart.Lessons from setbacks and surprising wins that shaped his leadership philosophy.Introducing Dr. Moisture—an educational initiative for homeowners, adjusters, and agents.Future of restoration—climate-driven disasters, tech innovations, and where the industry is heading next.Rapid-fire insights—Ben's daily routine, favorite tools, and one takeaway for listeners.Tune in for an inspiring conversation that blends hands-on restoration experience with a vision for educating and empowering the next generation of professionals.Visit: https://drmoisture.com/ Your trusted educator for water damage prevention, restoration knowledge, and peace of mind.Want to grow your restoration brand and generate more water jobs with expert marketing?Book a free strategy session with our team at Water Restoration Marketing:https://www.waterrestorationmarketing.net/schedule

In this week's episode, Dennis Jernigan shares the story behind his song,  “Like Lightniing and Thunder” from the recording, Forty Days and Forty Nights - Songs of Contemplation and Intimacy Vol. 1." That mp3 is available at https://www.dennisjernigan.com/store/product.php?c=24&p=2353 The lyrics can be found below. You can join Dennis and the people of All In All Church for live-stream worship on the first Wednesday evening of each month. Just go to https://www.facebook.com/therealdennisjernigan at 7 PM CST. Mark it in your calendar. Worship with All in All Church - First Wednesday of each month. Daily Devotions for Kingdom Seekers, Vol. 3 is available at https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Devotions-Kingdom-Seekers-Vol-ebook/dp/B081K8TZLX Check out my Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/DennisJernigan and read through the various tiers of support and discover the myriad of benefits you will receive based on the level of support you choose. If you're willing, go ahead and sign up! You will find the show notes and lyrics below: Hello and welcome to The Dennis Jernigan Podcast. Here in Oklahoma we have more than our fair share of storms - especially in the springtime. More than our fair share of tornadoes. I know. I know. We live right in the smack dab middle of Tornado Alley so what should we expect? This week's song is called Like Lightning and Thunder and the story behind it is probably not one you might expect. I was on a 40 day fast in May and June of 2010 and I was experiencing many major storms of life. Let's just say that I was feeling somewhat overwhelmed by life. The storms seemed to be raging out of control and I did not know what to do. I then began to meditate on Psalm 40 along with Isaiah 40 as a means of helping me stay focused on the fast and my need for the Lord to intervene and restore me physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. On may 10, 2010 - day 8 of the fast - I happened to be meditating on Psalm 40 verse 5a which says: Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders which You have done, And Your thoughts toward us [plans for us]. Psalm 40:5a NASB As I began to meditate on this passage of Scripture - began to just mull it over in my mind - I kept getting stuck on the phrase ‘many are the wonders which you have done' and for some reason, I was reminded of something I did quite a few times when my children were still at home. During some of those springtime tornado storms I mentioned earlier, I would often load my children into our 15 passenger van and we would go storm chasing. Don't bother calling child protective services. They are all grown and out of the house now and actively seeking therapy for these episodes. Seriously, I wanted the children to have a healthy fear of the power of those storms, but I also wanted them to develop a sense of wonder and awe at the beauty and creativity and power of God's love being demonstrated right before our eyes. With every bolt of lightning, we oohed and aahed about how massive or how beautiful the display was…at how creative God was in the way no two lightning bolts were ever the same…at how some would flare out into dozens of streams streaking across the sky while still others seemed to crash directly into the earth with one incredibly intense impact. We marveled at the way in which some thunder seemed to all along as if it were bouncing off of the clouds seeming to echo for several seconds while still other claps of thunder would sound as if a bomb had just exploded very near the van. I taught them how to estimate how near the lightning strike actually was by teaching them that if you count five seconds between a lightning strike and the thunder that follows it, that means lightning is just one mile away. I thoroughly enjoyed these storm chases and enjoyed watching my children overcome their fears and begin to see with eyes of wonder - even in a storm. And then it dawned on me. I needed to learn to see the spiritual and mental and emotional storms of life in much the same way as I saw a physical storm. Rather than being overwhelmed and overcome by the storms of life, I could step back while in the midst of these storms and see them from God's point of view. The song Like Lightning and Thunder was born that day and I recorded it just as you will hear it. I added the storm sounds later from a recording of a storm I sat through while on the front porch of our house. This song gives me a much greater appreciation of the magnitude of God's power and creativity…and it does something very healing in my soul. SONG [Psa 135:6-7 NIV] 6 The LORD does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths. 7 He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth; he sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses. I love that passage from the Psalms. It brings a strange kind of calm to my soul. I know I share quite a bit about one of the storms that I am now encountering in my life. Parkinson's. I am honestly feeling my body and my mind losing ground at times, but I feel somehow sustained by the fierceness and the fury of this storm because it causes me to lift my wings of faith and rather than being blown about by these relentless and strong winds, I spread my wings of faith and use those very same winds to help me rise above the pain and suffering and see the beauty of the storm.  I see the beauty in the way my children help me find the humor and joy in this storm. I see beauty in the way my grandchildren take it in stride and argue about which one gets to hold my party hand - the one that tremors almost constantly. I see beauty in the way my wife cares for me even when I feel like I am a burden to her. I see beauty in the way people treat me with kindness and patience when they notice me tremoring or having a difficult time getting my words out. I see beauty knowing my God is walking through this storm with me. Heck, I find beauty in the fact that I still have the capacity to be creative and write and that my writing still sounds coherent and seems helpful to people.  I encourage you to take the time to watch a storm  as it passes over you and around you - from the safety of your home, of course - and look for God's handiwork. I honestly find storms to be amazing and beautiful. Why not live our lives with that sense of wonder? Why not look for something to be grateful for when we go through such storms? I guarantee you and are never alone - even in the most  devastating storms of life - and that does my soul good. Before I say goodbye for this week, I would humbly ask you to consider getting a copy of my brand new book titled Parkinson's & Recreation 2 - No Walk in the Parkinson's. I bare my soul in this book as to how I am dealing with Parkinson's and I believe it will encourage you whether you have Parkinson's or not. I really do. It's available in paperback, e-book, and audiobook. And if you wouldn't mind doing this for me: once you have read the book, would you consider going back to the place you purchased it online and leaving me a five star review? I have to share a couple of quick reviews from those it has already received reviews from on Amazon.com. GO writes: Inspirational and encouraging book. This is a wonderful uplifting book. I highly recommend it. You won't be disappointed. CR writes: 5.0 out of 5 stars It is life stories and Jernigan history mixed with how they deal with Parkinsons. I have read both of these and love his sense of humor and steadfast faith in God's love no matter what happens. The second book recalls events from his life in the public eye, again remembering humorous episodes.” Please consider reading the book,Parkinson's & Recreation 2 - No Walk in the Parkinson's, and please consider telling others about it, if you don't mind. That would help me out tremendously. Thank you for tuning in to The Dennis Jernigan Podcast! For more about my journey, music, and updates, visit dennisjernigan.com. Stay connected by following me on Facebook, Instagram, and enjoy my music on various streaming platforms. If you'd like to support this podcast's creation or the many various ways I still seek to minister the life and love of Jesus to others, consider joining my team at www.patreon.com/dennisjernigan. If you're looking for the mp3 of the song “Like Lightning and Thunder" from the album "Forty Days and Forty Nights - Songs of Contemplation and Intimacy Vol. 1," head over to the store at dennisjernigan.com or find it on your favorite streaming service. Remember this from today's episode: we can either be overwhelmed by the storms of life or we can use them to tap into the rich beauty and amazing power of God's love in our lives - even with a storm like  Parkinson's thrown into the mix. My plan? To minister to the needs of others in spite of Parkinson's by continuing to trust in the Lord. Now, go and be who your heavenly Father says you are. Vol. I – Song Eight – Day Eight Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders which You have done, And Your thoughts toward us [plans for us]. Psalm 40:5a NASB   Like Lightning & Thunder Words & Music by Dennis Jernigan Received on May 10, 2010 Psalm 40:5a ©2010 Shepherd's Heart Music, Inc./Dennis Jernigan   Verse Many are the wonders you have done Many are the thoughts you have toward us Great and awesome are your works   Many are the wonders you perform Many are the cold hearts you have warned Great and awesome are your works   Pre Chorus 1 Like lightning in the storm, a mother and a child, A lion and its roar, a river running wild, Like courage facing fear, a tender loving kiss, Two faces drawing near, the joy of being missed   Chorus Like lightning and thunder, life is resounding Like lightning and thunder, your love is astounding Like lightning and thunder, in power and glory Like lightning and thunder, your love wrote my story   Like lightning and thunder, the fact that you love me Like lightning and thunder, constantly thinking of me Like lightning and thunder, Your blood washed me and cleaned me Like lightning and thunder, in love You redeemed me How great you are How great your wonders are to me   Verse Many are your wonders great and small Oceans running deep or mountains tall Great and awesome are your works Many are the wonders of your love There is nothing greater I know of Great and awesome are your works   Pre Chorus 2 Like laughter in the rain, stars across the night A kiss to ease the pain, the twinkle of a night Like blooming of a rose, a true and faithful friend Like watching children grow, like love that never ends   Chorus Like lightning and thunder, life is resounding Like lightning and thunder, your love is astounding Like lightning and thunder, in power and glory Like lightning and thunder, your love wrote my story   Like lightning and thunder, the fact that you love me Like lightning and thunder, constantly thinking of me Like lightning and thunder, Your blood washed me and cleaned me Like lightning and thunder, in love You redeemed me How great you are How great your wonders are to me                         
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As debates over worker rights ripple across the country, one message continues to echo from state to state: workers deserve the freedom to choose the work arrangements that fit their lives best. But how should lawmakers turn that principle into policy? To help answer that, ALEC Commerce, Insurance, and Economic Development Task Force Manager Alan Jernigan and Institute for the American Worker President Vincent Vernuccio sat down on a recent ALEC TV Breakdown to spotlight the third edition of States That Work: A Labor Policy Roadmap Across America. The publication, they explained, is more than a report—it's a call to action. Special Guest: F. Vincent Vernuccio.

We continue our Nashville guest series with Meg Jernigan, Realtor®, Affiliate Broker, GRI, and owner of The Jernigan Group.In this episode, David, Carson, and Jeri Anne sit down with Meg to unpack what's really happening in the local real estate market. From affordability shifts to the future of short-term rentals, Meg shares her on-the-ground perspective as both an agent and business owner.Topics covered include:Where the Nashville market is headed into 2026The impact of rising rates on buyers and sellersKey things to know before making a moveThe latest trends in short-term and mid-term rentalsWhether it's truly a buyer's or seller's market right now

In this episode, Lorenzo Gonzalez speaks with Mara Jernigan, a chef, culinary consultant, and educator who has worked in kitchens across Canada, Europe, and the Caribbean. In Belize, she's led culinary operations at Copal Tree Lodge and supported teams at Mahogany Bay, Victoria House, and Blancaneaux. Mara shares why a well-run kitchen is essential to guest satisfaction—and how kitchen systems, staff morale, and food waste all connect to the bigger picture of tourism success.

Alan Jernigan, manager for the Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force at American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Michigan's Decline in Worker Freedom

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Our guest this time, Kane Brolin, will quickly and gladly tell you that as a blind person born in Iowa in 1965 he was mightily blessed to be born in that state as it had the best programs for blind people in the nation. Kane was born prematurely and, because of being given too much oxygen he became blind due to a condition known as retinopathy O. Prematurity. In fact I am blind due to the same circumstance. As it turns out, Kane and I share a great many life experiences especially because of the attitudes of our parents who all thought we could do whatever we put our minds to doing. Kane attended public school and then went to Iowa State University. He wanted to be a DJ and had a bit of an opportunity to live his dream. However, jobs were scarce and eventually he decided to go back to school at Northwestern University in Illinois. He formed his own financial and investment company which has been in business since 2002. He is a certified financial planner and has earned the Chartered Special Needs Consultant® designation.   We talk quite a bit about financial matters and he gives some sage advice about what people may realize are good investment ideas. He talks about investing in the stock market and urges investing for the long term. I leave it to him to discuss this in more depth.   Kane is quite committed to “pay it forward” insofar as dealing with blind people is concerned. He is currently the president of the National Federation of the Blind of Indiana. He also serves as a member of the Board of Directors for Penny Forward, Inc., a not-for-profit founded and run by blind people which strives to build a diverse and aspirationally-focused community of blind people who help one another achieve financial fitness, gainful employment, and overall fulfilment in life.   I find Kane quite inspirational and I hope you will do so as well. He has much to offer and he provided many good life lessons not only about financial matters, but also about blindness and blind people.       About the Guest:   Born in 1965, Kane Brolin spent his formative years in the state of Iowa and later went on to earn a Master's degree from the JL Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, which is near Chicago.  Since the year 2002, he has owned and operated a financial planning and investment management business based in Mishawaka, Indiana, located not far from The University of Notre Dame.  Over the years, he has become a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Professional and has earned the Chartered Special Needs Consultant® designation.  When doing business with his clients, securities and Advisory Services are offered through Commonwealth Financial Network, a Registered Investment Advisor which is a Member of FINRA and SIPC,.   Having been totally blind for all his life, Kane feels indebted to many people who selflessly gave of their time, talent, and resources to help him acquire the education, skills, and confidence that enable him to lead a busy and productive life in service to others.  Many of those who made the biggest impact when Kane was growing up, also happened to be members of the National Federation of the Blind.  So after getting established on his current career path, he increasingly felt the impulse to give back to the organized blind movement which had served his needs from an early age.   Kane co-founded the Michiana Chapter in the National Federation of the Blind in 2012 and subsequently was elected to serve a two-year term as president of the Indiana State Affiliate of the NFB in October, 2022.  He is thankful for the early introduction of Braille, as well as for the consistent drumbeat from parents, peers, and professors which set and reinforced continuously high expectations.     In addition to his work with the NFB, Kane serves as a member of the Board of Directors for Penny Forward, Inc., a not-for-profit founded and run by blind people which strives to build a diverse and aspirationally-focused community of blind people who help one another achieve financial fitness, gainful employment, and overall fulfilment in life.   Kane lives in Mishawaka with Danika, his wife of 27 years, and their four children.  Kane and Danika were active foster parents for 11 years.  The Brolin family have been committed to numerous civic organizations; they and their family are active in their place of worship.  Giving back to the world is a continuously high priority.  They endeavor to teach their children by example, and they impart to them the wisdom of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “You can all be great, because you can all serve.”   Ways to connect with Rob:   BrolinWealth.com LinkedIn public profile nfb-in.org pennyforward.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 Hi, everyone. I am your host, Michael Hingson, or you can call me Mike. It's okay. And this is unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity in the unexpected. Meet today. We're going to do a little bit of all. We're inclusive because my guest Kane Brolin, or if you're from Sweden, it's Brolin, and it's pronounced Brolin, not Brolin, but Kane bralin, or broline, is in Indiana, and Kane also happens to be blind, and has been blind his entire life. We'll get into that. He is very much involved in investing and dealing with money matters that I'm interested to get a chance to really chat about it's always fun to talk to people about how they're helping people with finances and money and getting insights. And I'm sure that he has some to to offer. So we'll get to that. Kane also happens to be the president of the National Federation of the Blind of Indiana, and so that keeps him busy, so he deals with money, and he's a politician to boot. So what else can you ask for? I pick on Kane by doing that, but nevertheless, Kane, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here. Thank   Kane Brolin ** 02:34 you. And there are there are times when the politics and the money issues can be a dream. There are other times it can be an absolute nightmare, either one, either one or both and and the thing that ties those together in common ground is that I walk in in the morning, and sometimes they have no idea what I'm about to walk into. So it does make for an adventure. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 02:57 the Fed has lowered interest rates. What do you think about that?   Kane Brolin ** 03:01 Well, there is some ramification for what happens in the consumer marketplace. The main thing that I've been hearing today is that even with those lowering of short term interest rates, you're seeing some long term interest rates go down the mortgage rates, especially, and those two are not necessarily always related. You don't always see the long term interest rates that the market determines through supply and demand. They don't always go in sync with the short term baseline rate that the Federal Reserve banking system sets, but in this particular case, they are, and what I've been reading this morning is that that may be at least good news in the short run for consumers, because they'll be paying Lower interest for new mortgages and also perhaps lower credit card rates or credit card payments. Of course, the downside is that if one invests and is lending money instead of borrowing it, that means sometimes lower rates of income that you can get from things like a certificate of deposit or an annuity. So there's always two sides of the same coin, and then it depends on which side you happen to be looking at. At the moment, right now, the market seems to like this convergence of interest rate activities, and the stock market has generally been up today. So by the time people hear this, that won't matter because it's a whole different day, but, but right now, the early returns coming in are pretty good for the the common human being out there trying to just manage their money.   Michael Hingson ** 04:54 Well, that's not really surprising, in a sense, because rates have been high for a while. Yeah, and things have been tough. So it's not surprising that people have made, and I would put it this way, to a degree, the marketing decision to respond favorably to the rates going down, and I know there's been a lot of pressure for the thread to lower its rate, and so they did. And I think that a lot of different entities kind of had to respond in a reasonably positive way, because they kept saying that it's time that the rates go down. So they had to respond. So we'll see how it it all goes. I   Kane Brolin ** 05:33 think, you know, and there's an issue I think that's salient to people with disabilities, blind people, included, if it's less expensive for the consumer to borrow money, it should follow that in the coming weeks, it should be less expensive for businesses to borrow money if they need some, and they may be more inclined to open up more jobs to people or to not shrink the jobs or The hiring that they have done by laying people off so and that's what I was just about. No one is a recession, and so it may mean that there are openings, there's room in the job market for more of us, because the thing I'm most passionate about in this whole game of helping blind people is getting us access to money and getting us access to gainful permanent work.   Michael Hingson ** 06:24 And that's what I was actually going to going to talk about, or not talk about a long time, but, but mention was that the real test will be how it affects the job market and the unemployment rate and so on. And I hope that that that will go down. I know it's been sort of ticking up a little bit, although in reality, of course, for persons with disabilities, the unemployment rate is a whole lot higher than around 4% so it'll be interesting to see how all that goes all the way around. But even just the national unemployment rate, I would hope that if that has been an excuse because the rates have been high, that now we'll see that start to drop, and, you know, so we'll see. But I think it's a it's going to be one of those waiting games to see how the world responds. Of course, we have a whole political thing going on with the election and I'm sure that some people on the political side like the the drop better than people on the other side do, but again, we'll see how it all goes. So it's it makes life fun. Well, tell me a little bit about you, if you would, sort of maybe the early cane growing up and all that sort of stuff. You were born, according to your bio, back in 1965 so I was 15 at the time, so I remember the year. So you've, you've been around a little while, though, however, so tell us a little bit about the early cane.   Kane Brolin ** 07:54 Yeah, I don't remember too many years, or any years, really, prior to about maybe 1971 or 72 with any degree of real clarity. You know, I would say that my early years were a mixed bag, but in the main they were good, of course, being immediately confronted with rLf, or retinopathy of prematurity, as they call it these days, and being blind from the very beginning, most people would probably out there consider it a tragedy. But if I if I knew that it was my fate to be a blind person, which I suppose it is, then I won the lottery as being a blind person, I think. And that might be a controversial statement, but the truth is that there is no place in the United States, and probably no place in the world that would have been better for me to grow up in in the late 1960s and 1970s than in Iowa, because now there was, there was no other blindness in my family. It's not hereditary. My parents had no idea how to deal with it in the very beginning.   Michael Hingson ** 09:12 Were you born prematurely? I was, yeah, which is why I weigh you have that   Kane Brolin ** 09:16 something like two pounds, 10 ounces at birth. So there is a part of me that realizes that I am very fortunate to be alive, and I'm very fortunate that my brain has functioned pretty well for most of my life. You can't always count on that either, you know, and when you get when you get older, my my father was a very bright person, and yet he lived during the last 10 years of his life, he struggled with dementia and some other problems so but I can say that I've had a good run so far, and you know what they what they didn't know. At least my parents and others in my family knew what they didn't know. And I. But when you don't know what you don't know, you flounder and and settle for almost anything, including fear. But when you know what you don't know, then you understand you need to research things. And I happened to be in a state that had been graced by the presence of Dr Kenneth Jernigan, principally. And of course, other people that I had no idea who they were at that time. You know, folks like James gaschell and James on VIG right, and and others. I think Joanne Wilson came out of that mix. I didn't know her either, but I've read about all these people in the past, but, but first and foremost, my parents found out that Dr Jernigan was number one, very brilliant. Number two did not settle for low expectations. And number three had the advantage of being both the head of the Iowa Commission for the Blind, which was a state sanctioned Agency, and the National Federation of the Blind, which is, or, you know, has been for most of the last 84 years, the leading advocacy organization and civil rights organization of the Blind in in the United States. Now, I'm not here to make a political point about that, but in Iowa, they were definitely more well known than anyone was, and because he could pull strings which influence things like educational budgets, and he also had very much a civil rights mindset and an aggressive mindset of going forward and breaking down barriers, this is a rare combo platter of traits and possibilities that I very much benefited from. And when I say that, I mean that from the very beginning, at five or six years old, I had Braille. I didn't have Braille in the beginning, but, but my parents did and and my dad actually knew enough about it to construct a set of blocks with print lettering on one side, Braille on the other side. And so not only did I have a really good teacher in my first couple of years of public school education named Doris Willoughby, some may be familiar with her. I know Doris will rip she has passed on in the past couple years, but she made a great impact in in my life, and a very deep impact in others lives too. But because of her influence and like minded people, I had access to books. I had access to mostly mainstreamed integrated education, where I was in the classroom with other sighted students, except for certain parts of certain days, you know, I had access to a great big wall mounted tactile map that was like a puzzle. And I understand Dr Jernigan designed that one too, where I could actually feel and take apart the states of the Union. And so I could tell where Oklahoma was, where Massachusetts was, where Indiana is. I could tell the shapes of the various states. I thought it was kind of curious that California, where you are from, Michael, is shaped very much like a banana, or at least that's what occurred to me at that time. I had recorded books. I had talking books. And you know, while there are things I did not get out of a mainstream public education that I kind of wish I had gotten out of it, from a social standpoint, from an athletic standpoint, the academics were on point, and I had access to resources, and I kind of just was living in a in a dream world, in a way, because even through my college days, I thought, Well, gee, it's great that we have all this now. Why is there all this blind civil rights stuff going on now? Because this was solved from the beginning of my childhood. Little did I realize that that is not the case in most other parts of the country or the world, but I got what I needed to at least have a shot on goal at success, and I'm very grateful for that, and it's one of the reasons that I have chosen to dedicate a portion of my life, during my prime working years, even to the National Federation of the Blind, because I want to pay this forward and help out some people that may not have had all the advantages that I had, even, even in the bygone days that I was growing up,   Michael Hingson ** 14:23 sure? So tell me, because I went through some of the same experiences you did in terms of being born premature and becoming blind due to rLf, which stands for retro enteral fibroplasia. And if people want to know how to spell that, they can go by thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog, and the triumph of trust at ground zero. And you can learn how to spell it there, because I don't remember how to spell it. We put it in the book, but that's what I remember. But so when you be when it was discovered that you were blind, how did your parents handle that? What did they say? Right? What did the doctors say to them? Because my experience was and, you know, of course, I didn't know it at the time, but my parents told me later that the doctor said, send him off to a home because he could never amount to anything, because no blind child could ever contribute to society. What was, if, from your understanding from your parents, what was what happened to you? If any   Kane Brolin ** 15:21 doctor ever said that to them? They never told me about it. What I what I do know is that there is an eye doctor that was a part of their lives, who I saw a couple of times, probably in my childhood, who was a a female optometrist or maybe an ophthalmologist in the area, and they really had a lot of respect for her. I never felt marginalized or dismissed. Yeah, as a part of my childhood, part of it is that I don't think my parents would have tolerated that, and my   Michael Hingson ** 15:55 parents didn't, either my parents and my parents didn't either they said, No, you're wrong. He can grow up to do whatever he wants, and we're going we're going to give him that opportunity. And they brought me up that way, which is, of course, part of what led to my psyche being what it is. And I too, believe in paying it forward and doing work to try to educate people about blindness and so on, and supporting and and I've been involved with the National Federation of the Blind since 1972 so it's been a while. Yeah, I would say,   Kane Brolin ** 16:27 I know I remember. I have a very, very fuzzy memory of being four, maybe five years old, and I know that they considered putting me into the Iowa Braille and sight saving School, which was a school for the blind in Iowa no longer exists, by the way, but they did consider it and decided against it. I don't think they wanted me to just go off to boarding school I was five. I know that that does work for some people, and I know that in later years, I've read that in some cases, even Dr Jernigan believed that schools for the blind were better, especially in places where there wasn't a truly sincere effort by public school systems to integrate and set high expectations for blind students. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 17:13 of course, here in California, for example, in the 50s and so on, as the California School for the Blind we had and and earlier, Dr Newell Perry, among others, who was a blind mathematician. Of course, Dr tembrech was was out here, and there were values and reasons why the schools could make a difference. My parents were pushed really hard by my elementary school principal to send me off to that school, and I actually remember hearing shouting matches between them, because parents said ah and and I didn't go to the school. I don't know what it was like by the time we moved out here and we were putting me in kindergarten, first and second grade. So like in 5657 I'm not sure what the school was like, but my parents didn't want me to not have a real home environment. So, you know,   Kane Brolin ** 18:12 yeah, and so, you know, I remember my childhood is, well, it wasn't like everybody else's childhood. One of the the issues happened to be that my the neighborhood that my family lived in, did not have a lot of kids in it that were my age for most of the time I was there, the schools in the early to mid 70s at least that admitted blind students in the town that I grew up in, which was Cedar Rapids, Iowa, there was only one set of schools on the opposite side of town where they were sending blind kids for those resources. Now that later changed and the decision was made. I guess I made the decision to stay out there. So one of the differences was that I was bussed from the southeast side of town to the southwest side of town. So there were kids I got to know through school, but I didn't have any kind of social life with most of them, with a couple different exceptions, through my childhood. So it was a lot of academics, it wasn't a lot of play time, right? That certainly informed how I grew up, and it's made me a little bit struggle to understand and and be a really sensitive, playful, patient type parent, because my my kids and I'll, we'll go there when we get there, but my, my children, I have four, they're all still in home right now, are very normal kind of rambunctious kids that enjoy and struggle with the same things that any other kids do. They are all sighted, but, but my parents were. Was pretty strict. They set high expectations, but some of that was high expectations for behavior as well. So I really wasn't ramming around and causing trouble and getting into mischief and, you know, getting on my bike and riding for miles outside the way kids did in the 70s. So there there were limitations in my childhood, but, but, you know, my parents, too, expected me to utilize and to have the resources that would lead me to be anything I wanted to be. And I honestly think that if I had said, I want to be the President of the United States, they would not have ruled it out. Now, the only thing I've really been president of is several different civic organizations and the Indiana branch of the NFB. You know, that's something not everyone does. I've interviewed a governor before when I was a journalism student. That was fun, and I've met congress people, but they did not set the limitations. You know, sometimes maybe I did, but but they didn't. And so I'm really grateful for that, that as long as I knew what I wanted, they made sure that I had the tools and access to whatever training they knew about that could help me to   Michael Hingson ** 21:18 get there. So you you went through school. And I think our our younger lives were fairly similar, because I also, when I went into fourth grade, and we finally had a resource teacher in the area, I was bused to the other side of town for that. And all of that kind of came together when I started high school, because everyone in Palmdale went to the same high school, so anyone I knew prior to going across town, I got to know again, and still knew as as friends growing up, but we all went to high school together. But you know, I hear exactly what you're saying, and my parents did not impose limitations either, and I'm very blessed for that. But you went through school and then you went to college. Tell me about college.   Kane Brolin ** 22:19 It was a fun experience. Glad that I went through it. I attended Iowa State University for my bachelor's degree. I know that you've never, ever heard this before, but I really dreamed about being a radio personality. And I say that sarcastically. It's what I wanted to be, because I had a cousin that was in the business. But of course, since then, as I've gotten more into blind blindness culture and met many other people that I never knew growing up, I know that that the media and especially radio as a gift, is really fascinating to many of us, and a lot of us have had rotations in different parts of that, especially with the advent of the internet, but this was back during the 70s and 80s, and what I wanted to be at first was a DJ. Used to pretend to be one at home all the time and then, but I also knew where the library was, and I developed a great love of books and information and data. To some degree, I wasn't really a math guy, more of a word guy, but I then developed a deep interest in journalism and investigation and research, and so by the middle to late 80s, what I wanted to be was, let's just call it the next Peter Jennings, if one can remember who that is, right. And I'm sure that there are probably, you know, facsimiles of him today,   Michael Hingson ** 23:50 but it's hard to be a facsimile of Peter Jennings. But yeah, he really is,   Kane Brolin ** 23:55 and that he was great and but you know the disadvantage, the advantage and the disadvantage of going to Iowa State University. I Why did I go there? Because any of my few relatives that had gone to college, including my dad, had had gone there. My dad was very loyal to his alma mater, and he told both myself and my sister, who is a very different person and not blind at all. If it was good enough for me, it's good enough for you, and if you want me to pay for it, here's where you're going to go. Now, Iowa State is mostly an engineering and agricultural school. It's a land grant institution. And I know that land grant institutions are a little controversial in today's climate where there is more of an emphasis on diversity, equity, inclusion and making up for some past societal wrongs, but these are deeply respected institutions that mainly turned out people that ended up well, doing things like building. Bridges and being mechanical engineers and developing new seed corn hybrids and things of this nature. It did have a telecommunicative arts program, and I was in it, but there were very few of us in it, and I did get a chance to get my hands on the equipment. I was a broadcaster, first on a student radio station at Iowa State called K usr. Then I actually did work for pay, sort of for a number of years for w, O I am and FM, which were flagship stations of what we would now call the the NPR network. You know, these were around since the 20s, and I actually did work for them. I was on air a little bit. I ran the control board a lot, and I worked for those two stations on a part time basis, probably about a three quarter time basis, for several years after leaving college, and it was really a student job, but I had trouble finding any other more meaningful work in the industry. What I gradually came to find out is that I loved radio, but radio really didn't love me, and I wasn't really thinking strategically. At that time, I graduated in 1988 it is that very same year that a little known figure from Kansas City named Rush Limbaugh hit the American airwaves like a ton of bricks. And because of him and some other people like him, all of a sudden, local stations realized that they could drop their news and information programming, stop hiring so many people, and because Mr. Limbaugh was as popular as he was, they could basically run a lot of satellite based programming, have somebody sort of halfway monitor the board and hire somebody else to program computer systems that would put automated commercial breaks on and things like this, and they wouldn't really have to produce local content. We also saw the elimination of the equal time standard and the Fairness Doctrine, which required local stations to put on a variety of viewpoints and air programming every week that was in the public interest, that didn't necessarily have commercial value. And so the things I wanted to do became a lot harder to do, because by the time I was ready to get hired to do them, not a lot of radio stations were hiring people to do it, even in the even in the television world, and so strategically, I was buying into a sinking market, and That wasn't a great place to be at that time. And so with some reluctance, after a lot of fruitless job searching, I chose another path, not necessarily knowing where that path would lead. And so the last time I ever got paid to run a shift for a radio station was in late June of 1993 I've been a guest on a couple of different shows and some podcasts like this one. I greatly enjoy it. I've even thought about doing some internet broadcasting. I don't have the time, really to do that now, but, but, and I miss it, but I have found out there are ways of diverting the skill sets I have to another path.   Michael Hingson ** 28:25 And what path did you choose?   Kane Brolin ** 28:28 Initially, the path I chose was graduate school. I was fortunate enough to have gotten good enough grades that I was able to get approved by a number of different business schools. You know, the first path I really wanted to do is be a Foreign Service Officer for the diplomatic corps. I applied for the US Department of State. And I had some hopes in doing that, because around 1990 a gentleman named Rami Rabbi. You may know him, I do did became the first blind person ever to be a Foreign Service Officer. Now, he had advantages. He had traveled the world. I had traveled to Mexico and Costa Rica, and I spoke Spanish, and I was pretty fluent, but he was a little bit more qualified in different ways that they were looking for. So I wanted some international experience. I applied for the Peace Corps, and I had no real shot at that. What they were looking for was something very different from what I was then. But I did apply to the Foreign Service, and I made it almost all the way down the hiring process. I made the final 3% cut among the class they were looking at in 1990 and 91 I went to Virginia to, I think Alexandria and I sat for the last round of interviews and simulations that they did. Unfortunately, I was in the top 3% and they wanted the top 1% so I had a really fun few days out there at the government's expense. But I also found that I was not going to be hired to be the second blind. Foreign Service officer. I later found out that Mr. Robbie had to actually file a lawsuit and win that lawsuit to get his opportunity. So I know that the system were not exactly bought in to blame people doing this on a regular basis. I know there's others that have gotten there since that, and I've met one of them, but but that that wasn't for me, but they also said what I really needed was more management experience. I'd never done anything in management, so I decided to go to management school or business school as graduate school. I got accepted by a few different places. I chose Northwestern University in Chicago. My sister had gone through that program. I guess that's maybe one of the reasons I selected that one. I could have gone to a couple of others that also had accepted me, and sometimes I wonder what would have happened had I done that. But I did spend two years in Chicago land met some of the most impressive people that I've ever met in my life. Figured out train systems and pace bus systems, and went all over the place and had friends in the city, not just in the school. I made the most of that time, and that's what I did from 1993 to 1995 unfortunately, I found out you can get a an MBA or a master of management, but they still, still weren't hiring a lot of blind people out there. And so while my associates were getting jobs at McKinsey and Company, and Booz Allen Hamilton, as it was known at that time, and they were working for Bank of America, doing all kinds of interesting things and and also brand management companies like disco and Kellogg and all that. I got all of one job offer coming out of one of the top 5b schools in the country, and I took that job offer, which led me to Midland, Michigan, where I knew nobody at that time, but I spent about three and a half years doing various types of business research for the Dow Chemical Company, and that did not last as a career, but I got a chance to make the first real money I had ever earned. At that time through another connection that wasn't related to Dow, I happened to meet the woman that I eventually married and am with now, and have had four kids with, and so that was a whole different kettle of fish. But at the end of 98 I was downsized, along with several others in my department, and we decided at that time that entrepreneurship was probably not a bad way to go, or, you know, something that wasn't just strictly speaking corporate. In 2000 I landed in the South Bend, Indiana area, which is where she is from. I had never lived here before. This is where I am now. And while struggling to find a place here, I realized that I could get hired on as what is called a financial advisor. I had no idea what that was. Well, you know, with a business degree, I could probably be a credible hire as a financial advisor. Little did I know that that involved tele sales. In the very beginning, never thought I was a salesperson either. Since then, I have found out that I have more selling ability than I had ever thought that I might and that that is an honorable profession if you're convincing people to do what is right for themselves. And so I've found that over the years, being what I am enables me to, well, in a way, keep my own hours. We've chosen the small business, sort of independent contracting route, rather than the employee channel, working for a bank or for somebody else's brokerage. I get to be a researcher, I get to be a public speaker now and then, and I get to help people problem solve, which is something I would not have had a chance to do on the radio. And when someone comes up to you, as a few people have and have, said, you know, thank you for making it possible for me to retire and to do what I want to do, and to spend time with grandkids and to live where I want to live. You know, that's a that's definitely a hit. That's a great feeling to have someone say, Thank you for helping me to do and to be what I didn't know I could do or be. So   Michael Hingson ** 34:38 investing isn't what you had originally planned to do with your life. So I can't say that it was necessarily a lifelong goal from the beginning, but you evolved into it, and it seems to be going pretty well for you.   Kane Brolin ** 34:51 Well, yeah, I think it has. It's investing means different things to different. People, to some clients, the goal is, I just don't want to lose money. Please put me in something that earns a little bit, but I don't want the chance for anything I'm in to go down for others. What investing means is, I want to be more aggressive. I want to build what I have. What do you think about this or that opportunity? What stock should I be in? Because I really want to grab onto an opportunity and seize the day and have as much as I can have at the end of the day. And you know, For still others, it means, it means giving. It means building something up so I can pass it along, either to a charity, to the kids, to the grandkids, to to my religious institution of choice, whatever that is. So I find that investing is not just investing, the the at the root, at the heart of investing, the heartbeat of it, is really the people that I serve. And you know, I was told early on, hey, you don't have a practice. All you're doing is practicing, unless you have people to be in front of. And so in my mind, you know, and I'm not that much of a quantitative guy. I'm I'm not the person out there working as an actuary for Symmetra Life Insurance Company figuring out how much money has to go in and how much it must earn to be able to give 50,000 people the payouts they want from an annuity till the end of their projected lifespans. That's that's not where I am. I'm not designing a mutual fund that's more like what a certified financial analyst would be. I am a Certified Financial Planner practitioner, and what a CFP does is takes numbers that you see and translates those into action steps that I can explain in plain English terms to a client I'm in front of that can give that individual person, family or small business the kinds of outcomes that they want. So I'm on the retail end of the food chain, and my job is to try to take the numbers that others are generating and boil that down into something that is digestible to the common man and woman, that allows them to, we hope, live the way they want. So   Michael Hingson ** 37:29 I gather from listening to you though, that you enjoy what you do.   Kane Brolin ** 37:36 I do particularly when it works.   Michael Hingson ** 37:39 Well, there's times.   Kane Brolin ** 37:40 There are times it gets a little tricky. 2001 2002 I know that you had a very personal experience that vaulted you, Michael, into this, into the realm of the famous, or the Almost Famous, on 911 I remember what 911 was like as a very small time retail investment person working out of a field office. I was somebody's employee at that point. I was working for American Express financial advisors, and I remember my life was never in danger in 911 but there were a lot of clients that thought their money and their data were in danger, and then the country that the country itself, might even be in danger. And so I morphed during that week from being a telemarketing person trying to set appointments with people I'd never met to being a person who was trying to dole out comfort and a feeling of security and solace to people I had met who the few that I was managing their accounts at that time, calling them and saying, You know what, your money and your data are safe. I'm here. The company that you have your stuff invested with is based in Minneapolis. It's not based in the Twin Towers, the markets are shut down. There will be volatility, but you're not crashing today, just so   Michael Hingson ** 39:08 the other the other side of it, the other side of that, was that during that week after September 11, there were a lot of people who were working and moving, literally Heaven and Earth, if you will, to bring Wall Street back. And I know I'm working with some of those companies and providing them with the backup equipment, or not so much at the time, backup equipment, but the equipment that would be able to read existing tape backups and put that back on computers. And I know, I think it was Morgan Stanley had found an office space sometime during the week after September 11. Then, as they describe it, it was the building with a floor the size of a foot. Football field, and they scrounged and scavenged and got their providers of equipment, like IBM to provide them with computers, even taking them from IBM employees desks to provide enough equipment to be able to set up what was the equivalent to the trading floor that had been in the world trade center that was destroyed on September 11, and literally from Friday afternoon that would have been the 14th to the 16th in 36 hours. They not only reconstructed physically what the trading floor was but because of what we provided them with, they were able to completely reconstruct what everything looked like on their computers. So when Wall Street reopened on the 17th, everything was like it was when everything shut down on the 11th now, I think there's some blessings to the fact that the towers were struck before Wall Street opened. I don't know how much easier that made it maybe some, but the reality is that data is backed up regularly, so they would have been able to to survive, but the fact that the markets hadn't opened in the US certainly had to help. But by Monday, the 17th, they brought Wall Street back, just as if nothing had happened. It was a monumental feat to be able to do that. That is a story   Kane Brolin ** 41:37 that I would love to read, because I've never heard that story before, and that makes me feel very unintelligent. Michael, you know, I can't even imagine the logistics and the people and just even the imagination that it would take to reconstruct that. I'm sure it was 1000s. I'm sure it was 1000s of people. And I'm sure that probably that's something that somebody had thought about even before the 911 incident happened. I don't think that was invented out of whole cloth on Friday the 14th, but that's a story that would be a very captivating book, and if no one's written it, then, gosh, would that be a fun thing to research and write.   Michael Hingson ** 42:21 Well, you know, the reality is, the SEC required that all data from financial institutions had to be backed up and kept available off site for seven years. So first of all, the data was all around and that's why I think it was an especially great blessing that the markets hadn't opened, because all the backups from the previous night, and probably from all the not only the futures, but the sales from foreign markets, were pretty much all backed up as well. So everything was backed up. That, of course, was the real key, because getting the hardware, yes, that was a logistical nightmare that they were able to address, getting the computers, getting everything where they needed it. Then companies like ours providing them with the wherewithal to be able to pull the data from the tapes and put it back onto the computers. It had to be quite a feat, but it all worked. And when Wall Street opened, it opened as if nothing had happened, even though some of the the offices were now in completely different places across the river. But it all worked, incredible. Yeah, I was, it was, it was pretty amazing. I knew people from the firms. And of course, we helped them by providing them with equipment. But at the same time, hearing about the story later was was really quite amazing, and and they did a wonderful job to bring all that back. So it was pretty, pretty amazing that that all that occurred. So that was pretty cool all the way. And   Kane Brolin ** 44:00 of course, the other struggle was in 2007 2008 I remember when I would be sitting at my desk and I'm not a day trader, I'm, I'm, I'm a long term investor. That's what most of my clients want. I'm not in there, you know, trading, trading daily options. I'm not doing inverse leveraged products that have to be bought in the morning and then sold in the afternoon under most cases. But I remember sitting at my desk in 2008 when the great recession was going on with the financial crisis happened and and when banks and huge investment banks, brokerage institutions were, in some cases, completely failing, that's a whole other story that was chronicled in books like The Big Short as an example, but I remember sitting at my desk and timing it and watching in a five minute period of time. As the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which was back in in those days, was, was what maybe 6000 or so as a benchmark. It was going up and down by a margin of error of 800 points in five minutes, it would be 400 up one minute, and then 400 down from that level. In other words, an 800 point swing within a five minute period of time. There was one day I went to take a test, because I have continuing education on a pretty regular basis, had to go to a testing center and take a test that lasted maybe three hours. I got back, and I think the market for at least the Dow Jones had dropped by 800 points during the time that I was in the testing center. And that gives you some stomach acid when that sort of thing happens, because even though it it's, you know, things always bounce back, and they always bounce up and down. Clients call and they say, oh my gosh, what happens if I lose it all? Because people really think that they could lose it all. Now, if you're in a mutual fund with 100 different positions, it's very unlikely, right? All of those positions go to zero. What I found out is that when people's money is concerned, it's emotional. Yeah, it's all rational. They're not looking at the empirical data. They're thinking fight or flight, and they really are concerned with what in the world am I going to do if I go to zero? And   Michael Hingson ** 46:38 it's so hard to get people to understand, if you're going to invest in the market, it has to be a long term approach, because if you don't do that, you can, you can disappoint yourself, but the reality is, over the long term, you're going to be okay. And you know now, today, once again, we're seeing the evidence of that with what the Fed did yesterday, lowering by a half a point, and how that's going to affect everything. But even over the last five or six years, so many people have been worried about inflation and worried about so many things, because some of our politicians have just tried to scare us rather than dealing with reality. But the fact of the matter is that it all will work out if we're patient and and allow things to to work. And what we need to do is to try to make wise decisions to minimize, perhaps our risk. But still, things will work out.   Kane Brolin ** 47:43 Yeah, I remember, I think, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is what always used to get quoted, at least on the radio and the television. It was somewhere in the somewhere in the 11,000 range, before the 2008 debacle. And it fell to, I think, 6400 right was the low that it reached. Now it's over 41,000   Michael Hingson ** 48:11 closed up above 42 yesterday. I'm not   Kane Brolin ** 48:13 sure it very well may have so you know when you when you really think about it, if you just stayed in and it's more complicated than that. One of course people have with the market is that when the market crashes, they also may need to get their money out for different, unrelated reasons. What if I lost my job as a result of the market crashing? Right? What if? What if there is a need that I have to fulfill and that money has to come out for me to make a house payment. You don't know that. And so that's the unfortunate part, is that a lot of the academic missions don't take into account the real human factor of real people that need to use their money. But if you could stand to hang on and leave it in, it would be worth you know, what would that be like six or seven times more than it was in 2008 but that's not what what clients often do. They they often want to sell out of fear when things are down, and then wait too long to buy back in when the elevator has already made its way quite a ways up, right?   Michael Hingson ** 49:25 I remember once, and I don't remember what the cause was, but Rolls Royce dropped to $3 a share. And there were some people saying, this is the time to buy. It is it's not going to go away. And those who did have done pretty well. Bank   Kane Brolin ** 49:44 of America was $3 a share for quite some time. It was, it was technically a penny stock. This is Bank of America, you know, one of the leading financial institutions in the in the country, which, incidentally, has a very interesting. History. It wasn't born in New York, it was born in the south, right? But, yeah, if you only knew what those trough opportunities were and knew exactly when to buy in and and I'm constantly telling people, look my my goal is, is not so much to figure out what to buy but when to buy in. We're trying to buy low and sell high, and just because something did well last year doesn't mean you have to hang on to it. It might mean we want to trim that position a little bit, take some profit and and pick something that doesn't look as attractive or sexy because of last year's lackluster returns, but maybe this year. It will just due to changing conditions. Financial markets run in cycles. And it's not that some things are inherently good or bad. Some things are in favor now. They were not in favor last year, and they might not be in favor, you know, two years from now, but they are now. So that's the hard part. You're not supposed to really time the market. We can't predict all these things, but that's why you encourage people to diversify and to have some things that are not correlated with each other in terms of doing well or badly at the same time. So you can always sometimes be gaining with in with your left hand, while your right hand is is struggling a bit. Hence,   Michael Hingson ** 51:25 the need for people who are certified financial planners, right? So there you go. So you, you got married, what, 27 years ago, and you married someone who was fully sighted, who probably didn't have a whole lot of exposure to blindness and blind people before. How did all that work out? Obviously, it's worked out because you're still married. But what was it like, and was it ever kind of an uncomfortable situation for you guys?   Kane Brolin ** 51:58 I don't think blindness. Surprisingly enough, I don't think it was super uncomfortable for her. Now, she had not encountered lots of blind people before, maybe not even any before. She met me, but I met her, and this is where I had it easy. She didn't have it easy, but I met her through her family. I knew my wife's name is Danica. I knew her brother before I knew her, because he and I had been buddies. We for a little while. We ended up living in the same town up in Michigan, and it was not here in the South Bend area where she is, but I went home and had a chance to be to tag along as he was doing some some family things and some things with his friends so but, but my wife is a very interesting father. She has a very interesting dad who is no longer with us. May he rest in peace? No, no. Hello. Sorry. My nine year old just made a brief appearance, and she's incorrigible.   Michael Hingson ** 53:00 You wouldn't have it any other way. No, there   Kane Brolin ** 53:03 are days when I would, but I don't. So anyway, the I found out some interesting things raising kids as a blind parent too, but you know, her dad did not see really any kind of limitations when the world around him was racist he really wasn't. When the world around him was ableist. He really didn't. And one of the things he encouraged me to do, they had a little acreage Danika parents did. And he actually asked me one time when it was a leaf blowing or leaf storing season, it was in the fall, lots of oak trees, different things there to drive the garden tractor, as there was a Baleful leaves behind that he was taken to an area where they would eventually be burned up or composted or something. And I did that. He had an old garden tractor with a, you know, his gas powered, and it had pedals and steering wheel, and he would literally run around alongside it, didn't go very fast, and tell me kind of when and where to turn. I'm told that I almost crashed into the pit where the basement of the home was one time, but I didn't. So he was one of these people that like saw virtually no limitations. Encouraged his kids and others to do great things. He didn't have a great feel for people. He would have been an anti politician. He had trouble remembering your name, but if you were a decent person and treated him right, it didn't matter if you were black, purple, green, blind, deaf, whatever. He saw it as an interesting challenge to teach me how to do things. He taught me how to kayak. He taught me how to cross country ski. Back in those days before climate change, we actually got quite a bit of snow in the area where I live, even as early as Thanksgiving to. I'm in November. And so the first couple of winters that we lived here, and we would go to a local park, or, you know, even just out in the in the backyard of where his property was, and, and, and ski, Nordic ski, not downhill ski, really, but it was, it was an amazing exercise. It's an amazing feel to be able to do that, and I have no memory, and I had no relatives that that were in touch with the true Scandinavian heritage, that ancestry.com says that I have, but the act of doing a little bit of Nordic skiing with him gave me a real feel for what some people go through. Because traditionally, skiing was a form of transportation in those countries. In the Larry P you skied to work, you skied to somebody else's house. So, you know, I thought that that was fun and interesting. Now, the last few winters, we haven't gotten enough snow to amount to anything like that, but I do have, I still have a pair of skis. So no, that may be something that we do at some point when given the opportunity, or some other place where we have a bit more of a snow base.   Michael Hingson ** 56:10 Well, I'm sure that some people would be curious to to know this being blind and doing the work that you do, you probably do. Well, you do the same things, but you probably do them in different ways, or have different technologies that you use. What's some of the equipment and kind of technologies that you use to perform your job?   Kane Brolin ** 56:32 Well, you know, I wouldn't say that. I'm cutting edge. I'm sure there are people who do differently and better than I do, but I do most of my work in a PC based environment. It's a Windows based environment at the present time, because the broker dealers and the other firms that I work through, you know, I'm independent, in a way, meaning I pay my own bills and operate out of my own space and have my name of Berlin wealth management as a shingle on my door, so to speak. But you never walk alone in this business. And so I chose, ultimately, a company called the Commonwealth financial network to serve as my investment platform and my source of technology, and my source of what is called compliance, which means, you know, they are the police walking alongside what I do to make sure that I've documented the advice I've given to people, to make sure that that advice is suitable and that I'm operating according to the law and in the best interest of my clients, and not Not taking money from them, or, you know, doing phony baloney things to trade into a stock before I recommend that to somebody else. You know, there's a lot of malfeasance that can happen in this type of industry, but all these securities that I sell and all the advice that I given are done so with the blessing of the Commonwealth Financial Network, which is a member of FINRA and SIPC, I just need to point that out here. But they also provide technology, and most of their technology is designed to work in a Windows environment, and so that's typically what I have used. So I use JAWS.   Michael Hingson ** 58:23 And JAWS is a screen reader that verbalizes what comes across the screen for people who don't know it right, or puts   Kane Brolin ** 58:28 it into Braille, or puts it into Braille in the in the in the early days of my doing the business, many of the programs that we had to use to design an insurance policy or to pick investments, or to even monitor investments were standalone programs that were not based on a web architecture that would be recognizable. And so I was very fortunate that there was money available from the vocational rehab system to bring somebody in from Easter Seals Crossroads here in Indiana, to actually write Jaws script workarounds, that is, that could help jaws to know what to pull from the graphics card on the screen or in the system, to be able to help me interact. Because otherwise, I would have opened up a program and to me, it would have just been like a blank screen. I wouldn't be able to see or interact with data on the screen. Now, with more things being web based, it's a little easier to do those things. Not always. There are still some programs that are inaccessible, but most of what I do is through the use of Windows 10 or 11, and and with the use of Jaws, I do have, I devices. I like Apple devices, the smaller ones. I'm actually speaking to you using an iPad right now, a sixth generation iPad I've had for a while. I have an iPhone so I can still, you know, look up stock tickers. I can send 10. Text messages or emails, if I have to using that. But in general, I find that for efficiency sake, that a computer, a full on computer, tends to work best and and then I use that more rapidly and with more facility than anything else, right? I use the Kurzweil 1000 system to scan PDFs, or sometimes printed documents or books, things like that, into a readable form where I'm trying to, trying to just kind of anticipate what other things you may ask about. But you know, I use office 365, just like anybody else might. You know, I I have to use a lot of commonly available programs, because the people monitoring my work, and even the clients that I interact with still need to, even if they have sight, they need to read an email right after I send it. You know, they've my assistant has to be able to proof and manipulate a document in a form that she can read, as well as one that I can listen to or use Braille with. I'm a fluent Braille reader and writer. So there are some gizmos that I use, some braille displays and Braille keyboards and things of that nature. But, you know, most people seem to be under the misconception that a blind guy has to use a special blind computer, which must cost a king's ransom, not true, if anybody's listening to the program that isn't familiar with 2024 era blindness technology, it's mostly the same as anybody else's except with the modifications that are needed to make stuff accessible in a non visual format, and   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:45 the reality is, that's what it's all about. It's not like it's magically expensive. There are some things that are more expensive that do help. But the reality is that we use the same stuff everyone else uses. Just have some things that are a little bit different so that we are able to have the same access that other people do, but at the same time, that's no different than anyone else. Like I point out to people all the time, the electric light bulb is just a reasonable accommodation for light dependent people. Anyway, it's just that there are a whole lot more people who use it, and so we spend a whole lot more time and money making it available that is light on demand to people. But it doesn't change the fact that the issue is still there, that you need that accommodation in order to function. And you know that that, of course, leads to and, well, we won't spend a lot of time on it, but you are are very involved in the National Federation of the Blind, especially the NFB of Indiana, and you continue to pay it forward. And the NFB has been all about helping people to understand that we're not defined by blindness. We're defined by what we are and who we are, and blindness is happens to be a particular characteristic that we share   Kane Brolin ** 1:03:09 well, and there's a lot of other characteristics that we might not share. As an example, somebody, I don't know that he is involved in the NFB as such, but you know blind, if you're involved in American Blind culture and and that you've probably heard of a man named George Wurtzel. He is the brother of the guy that used to be president of the NFB of Michigan affiliate. But I understand that George is very good at things that I am not at all good at. He, you know? He understand that he almost built his own house from the ground up. His skill is not with computers and email and all this electronic communication that they do today, but he's a master woodworker. He's an artisan. You know, I I'm also involved, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it, I'm also involved with an organization called Penny forward, which is, you know, it could be the direction that I ultimately head in even more because it dovetails with my career. It's financial, education and fitness by the blind, for the blind, and it was started by a young man named Chris Peterson, who's based in the Twin Cities, who is not an NFB guy. He's actually an ACB guy, but his values are not that much different, and he's been a computer programmer. He's worked for big organizations, and now he started his own and has made a full time business out of financial fitness, educational curricula, podcasting, other things that you can subscribe to and buy into. And he's trying to build a community of the varied blind people that do all kinds of things and come from all sorts of backgrounds. And in one of the later editions of his podcast, he interviewed a man who's originally from Florida, who. Founded a company called Cerro tech that some might be familiar with, Mike Calvo, and Mike came to some of the same conclusions about blindness that you and I have, except that he's much younger. He's from Florida, and he's a Cuban American. He's a Latino whose first language growing up probably was Spanish, and who actually came out of, out of the streets. I mean, he was, he was in gangs, and did all kinds of things that were very different from anything I was ever exposed to as a young person. So I think in a lot of ways, we as blind people face the same types of issues, but we don't. None of us comes at it from the same vantage point. And, you know, we're, we're all dealing with maybe some of the same circumstances, but many, many, we've gotten there in very many different ways. And so I try to also impose on people. We are all different. We're a cross section. We don't all tie our shoes or cook our meals the same way. We don't want to live in the same environment. We don't want to do the same hobbies. And we don't all have better other senses than sighted people do. I don't know how many times you've heard it. I'd be a very rich man if I had $1 for every time someone said, Well, yeah, but you know, being blind, your hearing must be so much better, your sense of smell must be so much more acute. Well, no, the the divine forces in the universe have not just compensated me by making everything else better. What do you do with someone like Helen Keller, who was blind and deaf. There are people with plenty of people with blindness, and also other morbidities or disabilities, or I don't even like disabilities, different different abilities, different strengths and weaknesses. Along with blindness, there are blind people who also happen to be autistic, which could be an advantage to them, in some ways a disadvantage to others. I would like to go beyond the discussion of disability and think of these things, and think of me and others as just simply being differently able, because, you know, what kinds of jobs and roles in life with people that have the characteristic of autism, maybe they are actually better at certain things than a non autistic person would be. Maybe overall, people who live with the characteristic of bl

Watch This Episode On YouTubeCase Jernigan wins at so many things -- animation, gamemaking, filmmaking, and having without a doubt the best setting for recording a podcast episode. Normally, I edit out all background noise but with the birds chirping, I just could. not. do. it. His sound is such a mood.And I created special podcast animation art to celebrate such a fantastic artist.Case is a true Renaissance man who, not surprisingly, has found himself in Italy, and our discussion demonstrates the sheer breadth of talents that he brings to his art.His film, NOGGIN, now available to watch as a Vimeo Staff Pick, offers the same extraordinarily uplifting experience as this conversation with Case.In this conversation, we discuss:how the Slamdance screenings went;does he see himself as a filmmaker, in light of so many other artistic talents? "to me, they are all linked";on his website, Case talks about making art about "masculinity and illness." We talk about the rise of performative masculinity and how he views it relative to the art he creates.what we should know before watching NOGGIN and the thought process behind making the film;was it a way for him to work through his MS diagnosis, through his art? and how did he get from his diagnosis to where he is now?why Slamdance?; it must take a special film festival to get on a plane from Florence, Italy;what's next for him?Case's Indie Film Highlights: STOLEN KINGDOM (2025) dir. by Joshua Bailey; FISHMONGER (2023) dir. by Neil FerronLinks:Watch NOGGIN As A Vimeo Staff PickFollow Case On InstagramVisit Case Jernigan's WebsiteSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/first-time-go/exclusive-content

It's MS Awareness Week, and the National MS Society is asking everyone in the MS community to tell MS exactly what they think of it. We're kicking off MS Awareness Week by introducing you to two difference-makers in the MS community who have each found their own way of talking back to MS.   Case Jernigan is an experimental animator, narrative gamemaker, and educator. His short animated documentary, Noggin, is currently making the rounds of the film festival circuit, raising awareness of how Case reacted and responded to his early symptoms of MS. Suni Conway is an MS activist who has lived with MS for nearly 13 years. Suni uses her social media platform to raise awareness about MS diagnosis and treatment, and the need for healthcare reform.  Be sure to follow RealTalk MS all week long, as we celebrate MS Awareness Week with bonus episodes featuring conversations with leading MS experts from the 2025 ACTRIMS Forum! We have a lot to talk about! Are you ready for RealTalk MS??!   This Week: It's MS Awareness Week!  :22 Case Jernigan explains how his short animated documentary, Noggin, reflects the early parts of his MS journey  1:02 Suni Conway discusses the motivation behind her social media efforts and why advocacy is so important     12:05 Share this episode  35:52 Don't miss RealTalk MS bonus episodes all week long during MS Awareness Week!  36:12 Have you downloaded the free RealTalk MS app?  36:32 SHARE THIS EPISODE OF REALTALK MS Just copy this link & paste it into your text or email: https://realtalkms.com/393 ADD YOUR VOICE TO THE CONVERSATION I've always thought about the RealTalk MS podcast as a conversation. And this is your opportunity to join the conversation by sharing your feedback, questions, and suggestions for topics that we can discuss in future podcast episodes. Please shoot me an email or call the RealTalk MS Listener Hotline and share your thoughts! Email: jon@realtalkms.com Phone: (310) 526-2283 And don't forget to join us in the RealTalk MS Facebook group! LINKS If your podcast app doesn't allow you to click on these links, you'll find them in the show notes in the RealTalk MS app or at www.RealTalkMS.com RealTalk MS on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@RealTalkMS VIDEO: Noggin https://vimeo.com/casejernigan/noggin Suni Conway on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sunisideupproject Join the RealTalk MS Facebook Group https://facebook.com/groups/realtalkms Download the RealTalk MS App for iOS Devices https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/realtalk-ms/id1436917200 Download the RealTalk MS App for Android Deviceshttps://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tv.wizzard.android.realtalk Give RealTalk MS a rating and review http://www.realtalkms.com/review Follow RealTalk MS on Twitter, @RealTalkMS_jon, and subscribe to our newsletter at our website, RealTalkMS.com. RealTalk MS Episode 393 Guests: Case Jernigan and Suni Conway Privacy Policy

This week on the Hunt Lift Eat Podcast, Carter and Kerri are back in the recording dungeon with a guest who defines perseverance—Scott Jernigan. From battling kidney disease since birth to carrying his dialysis machine into the woods just to chase whitetails, Scott's journey is nothing short of incredible.We talk about the power of hunting as a healing force, the importance of mindset, and the drive to help others—whether it's youth hunters, special needs hunts, or fellow outdoorsmen finding purpose through the pursuit. Scott shares how his passion for the outdoors helped him push through some of life's toughest moments and why he's now focused on giving back.We also get into bow setups, arrow builds, and a shared dream of chasing elk in the western backcountry. If you need a dose of motivation and a reminder to get after it—no excuses—this episode is for you.

11262 - Jesse Jernigan - 9 - 25 - 2024 by Mr. Shannon Ray Davis

Sam Jernigan, the “Unofficial ETH Maxi of Wall Street”, has been evangelizing Ethereum to institutional funds and billionaires from inside the house for the past five years. Having the perfect blend of deep Ethereum knowledge and the full Wall Street experience, Sam guides us through how he became an ETH Maxi, why the lack of understanding of ETH in TradFi is the most bullish case for the asset and what the future holds for ETH institutional adoption. ------ ✨ Mint the episode on Zora ✨ https://zora.co/collect/zora:0x0c294913a7596b427add7dcbd6d7bbfc7338d53f/17  ------