Podcasts about Kurzweil

SaaStr 799: The Series A Landscape in 2025: Insights from Chemistry VC's Ethan Kurzweil SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin and Ethan Kurzwiel, previously partner at Bessemer Venture Partners and now founding partner at Chemistry VC, took us through a deep dive of exactly where Series A funding is right now in 2025. Current State of Early-Stage Venture Market The early-stage venture landscape has experienced significant shifts since the peaks of 2021. We're seeing: Deal activity decline: From the highs of 2021 (around 3.5B raised in Q4 2021), we're seeing a return to baseline levels but still below pre-zero interest rate era volumes. Longer funding timelines: Seed to Series A timelines have stretched from approximately 12 months to 25 months on average, requiring founders to plan for longer runways. More capital into fewer deals: While total capital deployment is returning to pre-2021 levels, it's being concentrated in fewer companies, making the environment more binary and competitive. Graduation rates plummeting: The percentage of seed companies successfully raising Series A has dropped significantly across all industries, creating a “crunch” for many startups. Listen in for more! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Alright everybody in SaaS, this is it.  The biggest, best, most action-packed SaaS + AI event of the year—SaaStr Annual 2025—is coming this May. Three full days. 10,000+ SaaS and AI leaders and more tactical, no-fluff content than you'll find anywhere else.   If you want to scale faster—$10M, $50M, $100M ARR and beyond—you need the right playbooks, the right connections and the right people in your corner. And SaaStr Annual is where it all happens. We'll have 100's of Legendary speakers from companies like Snowflake, HubSpot, OpenAI, Canva, and more. More networking than you can handle—meet your next investor, co-founder, or biggest deal.  A New AI Demo & Pitch Stage— with your chance to win up to $5M in funding!  So don't wait—grab your tickets now at SaaStrAnnual.com with my code jason100 to save $100 on tickets before prices go up. That's jason 100 at saastrannual.com   See you in May!    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Do you know what would make your customer service helpdesk dramatically better? Dumping it and switching to Intercom.  But, youʼre not quite ready to make that change. We get it!   Thatʼs why Fin, the worldʼs leading AI customer service agent, is now available on every helpdesk.   Fin can instantly resolve up to 80% of your tickets,  Which makes your customers happier. And you can get off the customer service rep hiring treadmill.   Fin by Intercom. Named the #1 AI Agent in G2ʼs Winter Report.      Learn more at : inter.com/saastr   --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  

I have never had the pleasure of having a guest quite like Michele Blood. While still living in Australia Michele was an extremely successful rock singer. One day she was involved in a serious accident while being driven to a gig. Her body was, as she says, quite battered and damaged. What is fascinating about Michele's story is how she discovered the value of positive affirmations that she used to heal everything. As she will tell us, it is not just saying affirmations, but rather it is truly believing what you affirm. Her music became an integral of what healed her.   Since her recovery Michele has traveled the world singing and speaking on stage with many well-known motivational and thought leaders. I leave it to her to tell the story.   During our episode Michele will sing one of her affirmation songs. I hope you are as moved by the song in specific and by Michele's attitude and mindset in general. She teaches us a lot that can have nothing but positives effects on your life.   I look forward to hearing what you have to say about my time with Michele. Don't forget to get her free gifts available only to listeners of the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Is that cool or what?       About the Guest:   Michele Blood is a successful, multi-talented lady. Michele was a successful songwriter and rock singer in Australia and after a near-fatal car accident, while in the hospital with many serious injuries, she created positive Affirmation Songs which not only healed her body but also took her to worldwide success. These Affirmation songs affect the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Lyrics, the left hemisphere, and melody and music, the right hemisphere so the new, positive messages go straight to the subconscious mind. This is why millions of people worldwide have downloaded her Affirmation Power songs. These songs cover healing, success, money, joy, confidence and they uplift the person immediately.   In addition to creating Magnet To Success™ products and seminars worldwide, her public Mystical Success Events have been held in over 26 countries. Michele has co-written and created over 80 books, music CDs, audio programs, TV shows, and videos on positive thought, mind transformation, and meditation.   Michele has appeared in many hundreds of podcasts, radio/tv shows, and magazines globally. After many years of meditation, Michele's Kundalini awakened and transformed her consciousness. Michele now teaches others how to live a Successful Life and experience Divine Oneness. Her Mystical Experience webinars and live streams have assisted people globally to transform their lives to the positive. Through her Teachings and Light Transmissions, people awaken and experience what they say is the impossible. They awaken to their true purpose and begin their path to Enlightenment. She has shared the stage and worked with Bob Proctor, Dr. Deepak Chopra, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Jack Canfield, and many other transformational Authors and Teachers. Her latest book is The Magic Of Affirmation Power and her latest album is Create Miracles: Positive Affirmation Songs To Harmonize your Mind and Life. And her new Magnet To Money App will uplift millions worldwide.   Ways to connect with Michele:   https://www.MicheleBlood.com and https://www.YouTube.com/MicheleBlood   Michele would also love to gift your viewers and listeners her audiobook, "The Magic Of Affirmation Power" Your audience can download this free gift by going to: https://www.MicheleBlood.com/UnstoppableMindset   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 ** 01:21 Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected, which is really the most fun part, meet today. We are getting close to winter, and I was just telling our guest Michele Blood that here in Victorville, we had a temperature this morning of 28 degrees. Ah, lovely weather, and all the weather people complain about now it's getting cold in the summer, they complained it was getting hot. You know, you can't please them. I don't know what to say. But anyway, one of these days they'll, they'll decide that whatever happens is is not a bad thing, and they'll stop complaining, I guess. But any Yeah. But anyway, Michele, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad you're here. Thank you.   Michele Blood ** 02:06 Michael, I've been so looking forward to this. After reading thunder dog, I'm going to be reading the second book, which is live like a guide dog. I'm going to be reading that after that, I absolutely adore this book, which I'm showing right now, Thunder dog. It's the most inspirational you can't put down. I mean, the lot not just getting down 78 floors of the Twin Towers, 78 stairs. I mean, oh my gosh. But then everything that you've done in between working with you know Ray Kurzweil, who's done a lot of things in the music industry as well. I mean, I mean, I recognized his name straight away. I'm like, all the all the things you've done. I'm just so impressed by and by your life and how inspiring you are. And I just wanted to say that to everybody, he's just, you gotta get his thunder dog book if you haven't yet, and his new book, live like a guide dog, for sure.   Michael Hingson ** 03:02 I I don't know. I haven't totally kept up, but I haven't heard that anybody has yet come out with a music synthesizer that is better than the Kurzweil synthesizer. Now, a lot has happened, and maybe technology has advanced, but I hadn't heard about anything that still beats it.   Michele Blood ** 03:20 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the fair light was pretty amazing when that first came out, but the Kurzweil, I mean, all any rock musician knows about, yeah, when, when that was first put out, we were just like, oh my gosh, that's amazing, you know, because you could sample sounds and, you know, it was just   Michael Hingson ** 03:39 incredible, and it had a choir built into it. Yeah? Daylight though   Michele Blood ** 03:43 that was, I don't know, think back back in the day, it was like 100 grand, so that's probably why it wasn't as popular. Yeah,   03:51 a little more   Michael Hingson ** 03:52 expensive than the Kurzweil one. Yeah, yeah, our organist at our church where my wife and I went in Irvine and where we got married, our organist had a Kurzweil synthesizer and used it a lot, which was, which was kind of fun, and it was, it was very and it is very impressive all the way around, yeah, but   Michele Blood ** 04:13 just the innovative things that have been done, and you're helping ray with all of the things for the blind as well. Working with Stevie Wonder. I mean, it's just, you're very impressive. You're an inspiration. You are, you are absolutely amazing.   Michael Hingson ** 04:28 Well, thank you. But now let's talk about you a little bit. And you know, you can, you can.   04:35 I didn't show them the cover yet. You can   Michael Hingson ** 04:38 spread any rusty live like a guide dog. Live   04:42 like a guide dog. Needs to cover everybody   Michael Hingson ** 04:45 well, I hope people will get it. I'm we're excited about it. It's been out now a few months. It seems to be selling. We're excited. So hopefully people will read it, and it inspires people a little bit, because it's all about. Are trying to get people to learn to control fear and not let it overwhelm or, as I put it, blind you. But anyway, tell us a little bit about you. Why don't you start with the the early Michele, growing up, and some of those kinds of things, just kind of introduce us to you a little bit.   Michele Blood ** 05:16 Well, I'm an Aussie G'day, everyone. G'day, and, in Australia, I started in the entertainment industry at the age of five, on TV. What   Michael Hingson ** 05:27 did you do? Singing? Oh, okay,   Michele Blood ** 05:31 you know. And then eventually got my, you know, had lots and lots of rock bands I sang in, until eventually I got my own rock band that became very successful. I was the lead singer, one of the main songwriters and the manager of the band. We got a great record label. We had 1000s of people coming to our gigs, and it took years to get there, but I loved it so much, even though it's very, very tough at one stage, we toured for seven years, non stop. I mean, no Christmases, no New Year's eves, because when you're in a rock band, you get paid triple on New Year's Eves and Christmases and stuff like that. Yeah, and you can't really say no until you're really huge. You can't really say no to any gig, because you need the money road crew and sound equipment trucks and all the rest of it so but I feel that my life went on a whole new trajectory after a near fatal truck accident, actually, where I was a passenger with the truck, with all the equipment, and my body was so badly broken, I was In the hospital for months and months and months and and that was the best thing that ever happened to me. I know that sounds crazy everybody, but truly, when you have something so terrible happen to you, and it gets turned around by the Divine, whatever you choose to call God, it gets your life gets turned around and it makes all the difference in the world. So that's the first quarter.   Michael Hingson ** 07:08 Well, you know, I'm really curious. You said something that just strikes a question. I know that a lot of people try to go into entertainment, and most probably aren't overly successful. But why do you think that you were so successful? What what made the rock group and and what you did so successful? Do you have a notion? Well,   Michele Blood ** 07:30 I loved what I did. I was very, very good at it. And not everyone that's good at it's probably other singers in the world that are better than me. But the reason, I think because, I mean, I had some backing vocals on some records, and these female singers were incredible. And one of them said, I know you've got a good voice, Michelle, but I don't know why it's you and not me. And I said, I think it's just that I never gave up, and I was really disciplined. And I, you know, I wasn't on the road of sex, drugs and rock and roll. I was on the road of discipline, making sure that all my band members were disciplined. We worked really, really hard. We rehearsed a lot. We never blew out a gig, not once. So you get a good reputation. And so I started as a cover band, and we would sound just like the records at the time of the 80s. You know, people said that was a band. It sounded like a record. And so then we, we eventually started putting all our originals in and, I mean, I did crazy things, Michael, I went into Time Warner to the A and R people, because I wasn't getting any feedback. It's really hard. You can't just send them a tape to get you know for them to listen to your demos. So I went in as a tap dancing singing telegram. And so the secretary let me go straight into the office, and it was a board meeting, and because she thought, you know, their family had so I was there with flowers and a cake and my ghetto blaster, and I said, Then I did a tap dance, and I made up this song about, you know, this is, this is the band called clapping hands. You're going to sign them, you're going to want them. And this is a singing telegram saying, Listen to this. And that's how I got my first record deal.   Michael Hingson ** 09:24 Creativity counts for something. It   Michele Blood ** 09:25 sure does. You've gotta have guts. And I mean, I by the time I walked out of that office, though I was sweating, I was shaking, but you have to do something to be noticed. And and I think because I love people so much, and because I'd been singing professionally since I was five, which means I was singing for family members and everyone since I was two, apparently getting being put on the kitchen table. And I loved people being happy, and I love loved entertaining. I just loved it. So I think, you know, it's in the stars as. Well, I know that, but I think discipline, hard work eventually never giving up. Yeah, what can I say? Never giving up.   Michael Hingson ** 10:08 Did you so you were a cover band for for a while, which meant you were the the opening band for other groups,   Michele Blood ** 10:17 not as a cover band, well, with the opening act for the pretenders and in excess and a few other bands, when we were an original band and when we had a record label, right, when we had videos on TV, but before that, now we do five to 645, minute sets a night, and we would stay at one big venue, because in back in the day in Australia, the venues were huge for cover bands. You know, four to 6000 people could come in, and we got, we got very, very popular as a cover band, and then we went original. But it took a few years to do that, for sure, but   Michael Hingson ** 10:55 I remember, I remember bands back in the 50s and 60s, like the platters, who actually were the opening band, or they were the band that were the background for other singers. And then somebody discovered these guys really are better than that, and then they became their own group, right?   Michele Blood ** 11:14 Yeah, yeah. It's interesting how, how it all works out. But in Australia, it's, it's a tough way to tour when you're a female singer, because the Aussies are pretty tough. If they don't like you, you can get B canes thrown at you.   Michael Hingson ** 11:32 Yeah, well, those kinds of things do happen. Yes, they did in Boston for for sports teams. I've heard of fans really being very brutal to like the the Patriots. I think when Steve Grogan was the quarterback, they actually booed him off the field once. It was pretty amazing. I don't know. You know that's people take some of these things way too seriously. They   Michele Blood ** 12:00 certainly do. I like what Oscar Wilde said, Life is too serious to be taken seriously. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 12:09 yeah, absolutely, and, but people still do it way too much. Which is, which is, which is a problem. Yes, you know, we need people to take life more like Mark Twain and Will Rogers, by all means, but I can co so you, you had a serious car accident, and as you said, It really broke your body. Tell us what you'd like to about that and and then how you dealt with it, because that, that was quite a, I won't say miraculous. That was quite a marvel. You. You certainly took a leap along the way with that.   Michele Blood ** 12:50 Yeah, it's such a unique story. Um, after you know the truck driver we've been driving for 12 hours from Brisbane to Sydney, from gig to keep and he fell asleep at the wheel just as we reached Sydney, which happened to be right across the road from the best orthopedic specialist hospital in Sydney. So thank you, God, you know. Yeah, there's no coincidences. There's no accidents. So they got me over there really fast, and they had me straight into the operating theater straight away. So, I mean, I had tons of different operations, but what happened was, when you're in physics, that much physical agony, you pass out every few minutes. Mm, hmm, and, but I had people and fans and family putting on audio programs of things I'd never heard of before, Affirmations, Visualization, positive stuff, audio books by motivational speakers, inspirational speakers who I'd never heard of, but one of them got to me, and that was a book by a man called Napoleon Hill who wrote a book called Think and Grow Rich. Grow Rich, right? And I didn't care about hearing about all the millionaires in the 1920s in America, male men. Why would a female, young Australian rock singer care about that? But one chapter in there, he talks about how his infant son was born deaf, and he would go into his infant son's room every single night and do affirmations, auto suggestion, you hear perfectly. You are so loved, and you are so loving, etc, etc. And by the time a little boy was nearly four, he had 30% of his hearing. And you know when you hear something, I've never heard of this before, Michael, but you know when you hear something for the first time and you can feel it that it's true. You've just heard something that you know in the marrow of your bones that that what you've just heard is true. So I said, Okay, I can, I can run. Relate to that, because I know that I've used my willpower and my positive thinking, My I've never said I can't do something, I can't have that drama that I want. I've never said that. I've always said it's all possible. Everything is possible. You just go for it. Michelle, and I'd always just go for it. And I was brought up a Catholic, and I wasn't brought up. I wasn't one of those people that hated the church. I loved it. So I always had a belief in God, because I used to go to mass as a little girl every morning with the nuns, because I was in love with Jesus, and I just felt so I had that spirituality in me, and I think that is what is the backbone. You know, in the Bible, it says you do not need to be strong, because Christ is my strength. Christ is your strength. And so now I know that there is so much more to spirituality than just Jesus, but it was a great start for my faith in my life, and it gave me happiness. And so I just had faith that this would work, so I started doing affirmations, but they didn't work. Michael, do you want to know why? Sure, yeah, we've got nothing else to do today, right? May as well. Hear about it well, because neuroscience has proven now that affirmations do work and they do positive thinking actually does make a difference in the brain, in the neural pathways. It does make a difference. It ignites something in different parts of the brain. But back then, in the 80s, there was no way to prove that, you know, let alone Napoleon Hill in the 1920s but the thing that he said was most important is, you have to believe it. You have to emotionalize it. But I couldn't, Michael, I couldn't emotionalize it because I would. I started an affirmation, I am healed. I know I am. I love myself. I am my friend. Now, none of those things were true, so I thought, but I did want them to be true, so I thought, great, I've got the perfect affirmation. But when you are feeling like you're feeling and the world around you is presenting the opposite of what you're saying. Your doubting mind spits it out and does not believe it. So about two, three weeks after stopping the affirmations, because I realized that didn't work, I literally had a spiritual epiphany, and it was, you know, as a songwriter, Michelle, you can't get a song out of your head, even if it's songs you don't like or jingles from advertising agencies. So sing your affirmations. Because I got my brother to look around for affirmation songs, and he said, there isn't any such thing. And so I started singing,   Speaker 1 ** 17:58 I am healed. I know I am I love myself. I am my friend. And   Michele Blood ** 18:05 I recorded it onto a cassette player, just a cappella over and over again. And that was the beginning. As I listened to that all day, every day I would I started feeling better. I started getting back to my attitude, that I can, I can heal it just I realized. And when I was working with Bob Proctor, he said, you know why that works so well? He said, It's because the left side of the brain is where the lyrics are, the affirmation, the right side the melody. And this is even before I started recording it with music, and so you have a whole brain experience. And the song, the doubting mind doesn't have a chance to reject it. It goes straight into your subconscious mind. So that's how my positive affirmation pop music began. I didn't stop doing my other music, but I did have what they said, even the doctors, even though they're not supposed to say it, they said my healing was miraculous, and I ended up on TV shows and in the press and everything about what I'd been through for inspiration. And that's how it all began.   Michael Hingson ** 19:16 It. It really is all about believing it. It's it is so easy just to say something, but without truly accepting it, without truly making it a part of your psyche. However you do that it, it doesn't mean a thing. Don't   Michele Blood ** 19:32 mean a thing if it ain't something. Yeah, you do have to laugh. Do up, do up, do   Michele Blood ** 19:43 Yeah, music makes the world go around. It does,   Michael Hingson ** 19:48 and it's so important to take it seriously enough that you truly do believe it, and that's what's so important. And clearly. What you did? So what happened you you got healed completely, I would assume from all that had happened,   Michele Blood ** 20:10 yeah, I mean, it's still it still took quite a while, but I was determined. I put my high shoes back on, even though they said, don't wear high shoes. And I never intended for the affirmation music to go out to the public. My one of the band members that I work with and wrote songs with John Beatty, Hi John. He he's in person now in Australia with millions of kids, but anyway, we won't help me. Listens, yeah, we went into the recording studio and we, we just started recording. I was writing a lot of songs, and we started recording tons of different affirmation songs in all different styles of you know, from R and B to just rock to ballads to depending on what the song was about, whether it was about, you know, divine love, more of a ballad, more of a some of them just more rock and roll about being successful. And when the press found out that I was actually doing that, then promoters that were bringing out American very, very big, best selling authors asked me to come and do my singing affirmations in between these people. And I said, No, I don't want to do that. I'm not doing it for the public. Was just for me, my band, to have these positive thoughts. And they said, No, we love it. We love it. We want you to do it. And so my very first gig, I'm in Adelaide, Australia, and there's three and a half 1000 people on a Wednesday that came to this gig that paid over $300 each for a ticket, which I thought was absolutely insane. I didn't know what was going on. And I sang, and got all the people up on stage singing the affirmation songs with me made it into like a mini rock concert. And then Deepak Chopra, this, who I'd never heard of, never met before. Wayne Dyer, who I'd never heard of, never met before. Tony Alessandra, Stuart, wild, they were the speakers, and they couldn't believe it when we went out to dinner that night that I've never heard of any of them. And I said, I'm in rock and roll. I'm not in the motivational world. You know, I've, I've never heard of you, because I've not in that world. And so they were interested in how it all began, and they all said, You've got to tour this around the world. You've got to you've got to release these that we love. What you're doing. The audience is so different. Bob Proctor, though he was the one, when I ended up working with him, the promoters said, you know, we've got this female Australian singer, and you're going to be touring with her? And he said, No, I don't want a female singer. I'm Bob Proctor. I don't need that anyway. The first gig I did with him in Sydney, he came out after, and he said, I didn't want to work with a singer. And I said, good to meet you too, mate. I Yes, how are you? And he said, but no, all kidding aside. He said, My wife and I, Linda, we loved it so much, and I want you to work with me all over the world, doing events. So eventually I end up working with Bob for seven years straight. We wrote books together. We wrote music together. We put on huge events. I took over his business, looked after it, and from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where I lived, and then, and it was just very, very interesting. I've worked in over 26 countries, huge, huge audiences. The biggest one I had was 50,000 people. So to say it was successful is an understatement, but I didn't plan it. I didn't visualize it, but I had always planned on being very well known singer, but it but not to be a positive affirmation or singer. I'd never thought of that, but eventually I went off the grid and started really getting into deep meditation practice and getting off the that whole circuit, because I wanted to find God within me. So that was what happened. And it was fascinating, because it's like working with all these, you know, rock musicians, male rock musicians, and then working with all these male best selling authors. I'm like, I'm always surrounded by the boys.   Michael Hingson ** 24:46 Hey, whatever works, it's, it's interesting though, that that you, you did so much of this, I gather that the audience is reacted very positively, though. Um. Have you heard from anyone that it really changed their life to have encountered you and heard you when you performed? Oh,   Michele Blood ** 25:10 yeah, we've had millions. I mean, we've got a lot of our video video testimonials and testimonials from not just best selling authors that I've worked with, but also from people from all over the world. I work with people in over 32 countries now, and some of them don't even speak English, but they still feel the vibration. And a lot of different people have started singing my songs in different languages, which I allow anyone to do. They don't have to pay me a royalty. They can just do it whatever brings positivity to the world and change within someone, so that they can get out of that rabbit hole. Because you're, you know, your whole podcast about unstoppable mindset. Well, this is such a a great new beginning is to just have to listen to a song. Yeah? And, you know, there's so I've got hundreds of songs to choose from, so it's a good it's a good way to start, because music, you know, like I always say to people, if you have the blues, even though I like blues and I think it's brilliant, but if you have the blues, probably best not to listen to the blues. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 26:21 definitely, definitely true. Well, of course, one has to ask if, if you have one, not necessarily long, but that you want to sing for us all.   Michele Blood ** 26:38 Yeah, I can. I didn't have anything set up. But if you'd like to chat for a minute, I'll just get something set up for you. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 26:45 okay, we can, we can do that. I do. I do agree with you that if you've got the blues, you don't want to listen to the blues. I I personally like happy stuff. I like musicals, especially when they're they're happy musicals. I've always enjoyed that. I do listen and read science fiction and sometimes read some some pretty horrific things. But I've noticed later in my life I'm doing less of that because I, although I like mysteries, I don't like nowadays really graphical or very graphic murder mysteries and things like that, and so people call the kinds of things that I probably typically like cozy mysteries. I wouldn't say that Rex Stout books about neural wolf the private detective are necessarily cozy, but by the same token, they're not the most graphic things, and I've always enjoyed them because they're puzzles. And I love mysteries that are really puzzles that I can become engaged in and try to solve, and musicals I like just because they're fun and and they're they're very happy for the most part. And so again, they're, they're very relevant to to want to listen to. So I, I tend to do that. So it's a lot of fun to keep in the the spirit of reasonably happy and stay away from the blues. Okay,   Michele Blood ** 28:17 I've got something set up now, alright, saying low battery, but oh, sorry. What happened there? There it is. There it is. This song is called synergy. I wrote it with Bob Proctor. Can you hear the music?   Michael Hingson ** 28:35 It's a little low, but yes, go ahead. Better. Yep,   Speaker 1 ** 28:40 there's a way to get it moving, to make it happen, to get high. Can barely flooded in the clouds, join thoughts and let them fly. When your mind joins in with others and all your thoughts to one a US. Energy begins to sizzle and it's energy positive energy synergy. It's energy, hot energy, positive energy turn into synergy. Together, creative power will start to flow. Things begin to happen. You're a church with Synergy. Red Hot energy, positive energy grows into synergy. It's energy, hot energy, positive energy grows into synergy.   Michele Blood ** 29:55 You shine and become magnetic, you'll draw the good. People out the world will be a better place, and everyone will start to shout, face to face, building   Speaker 2 ** 30:12 energy. Taste. The taste is this energy, thoughts, launching into one, a new boss have become this is synergy.   Speaker 1 ** 30:23 It's synergy, red hot energy, positive energy, delta, synergy, it's synergy.   Michael Hingson ** 30:34 There you go. Now   30:36 that's Bob Proctor. Wrote the lyrics for that.   Michael Hingson ** 30:41 But, um, who was the male voice near the end? Oh, the   Michele Blood ** 30:44 male voice was a American guy in who was singing covers in Kuala Lumpur when I lived there, Ah, okay, and I just hired him to come and and do that in the studio in Kuala Lumpur, yeah. But the other affirmation songs are more simple, but they're still got, you know, like a good dance beat, some of them are ballads greeting the day with love in your heart. It just depends on where you want to take your mind that day. Do you want to open your heart? Do you want to be like listen to the persistent song. Do you want to feel more successful? You listen to the success song, which is like 50s, rock and roll. So they're all different. They're all different product, production. So it was a lot of fun changing the different styles for each song depending on the lyrics.   Michael Hingson ** 31:34 Well, if people want to get those affirmation songs and so on, are they available for people to get? Yeah,   Michele Blood ** 31:41 all my albums are sold all over the world, and iTunes, of course, Amazon. My own website is magnet to success. Com. My YouTube channel is Michelle blood.com forward slash YouTube. But I've got lovely giveaways for your for your audience, if you'd like me to share that. Well, we will   Michael Hingson ** 32:03 do that a little bit, okay, but I really appreciate you seeing synergy. I will be, I will be saying that to myself the rest of the day, which is fine, but you know, you mentioned the blues and so on. So here's a question, if somebody is really down and really frustrated, how can they change their life to the positive?   Michele Blood ** 32:31 Well, first of all, even if they are really down, you've got to know, no matter what is going on in your life, that everything is possible for you, and that you can get out of that rabbit hole, and that you are you might feel alone, but you're never alone. Whether you believe in God or you don't believe in God, there is a God and you are looked after. You can pray without begging just giving. One of the most wonderful things you can do is just to start to write down what you're thankful for immediately. If you can say thank you divine, or just thank you for my beautiful life, and if then you can begin to write down what a beautiful life would look like for you, just start writing it down, even though it's not true yet. Like, let's start thinking about what can be done. What do you what sort of friends do you want? What sort of lifestyle do you want? You know, start thinking of others as well. Whenever we can do something, if we can do something every single day that makes somebody else happy, whether it's feeding the homeless or sending funny kitten videos to your friends. You if you can do something every day that brings happiness to somebody else or takes them out of suffering, well, then it'll take you out of yourself. Because if, if it's something emotional that you're going through, that means that you're going to sometimes we do need to go through the emotion, particularly if we're mourning the loss of something or someone that's important and healthy. But it is also important to stop thinking about ourselves so much and look at what can be done for the world. I love I love Saint Vincent de Paul. I love the Salvation Army so much, so you can tithe to them anonymously. If you want to do something you don't know what to do, even if it's just a buck, five bucks, it's really good to tithe to charities that are doing good in the world. And I'm sure there's a charity that you could recommend to us, Michael, that will help with the blind. If you got one, you can recommend?   Michael Hingson ** 34:43 Well, I think there, there really are a number of of places to donate. One of my favorites is the National Federation of the Blind, nfb.org, because it's, it's a consumer organization that fights for the rights of. Of blind people around the United States and actually around the world. And it's the NFB is the largest consumer organization of blind people in this country and, in fact, in the world. But it has made such a difference in the lives of blind people. For example, through the National Federation of blind we completely changed the life insurance industry that refused to provide life insurance for any blind person up until the mid 1980s and when it was finally discovered that they were denying us, not because they had any evidence and actual mathematical models that proved that we were a risk, which is what they're supposed to do. They were doing it strictly out of prejudice. And so now every state in the union, because of the Federation, has actually passed legislation that says you can't discriminate unless you've got real evidence. Well, it's been 40 years, and nobody's come up with evidence that we're a higher risk simply because we're blind or other persons with disabilities, their disabilities directly make them a higher risk. So, you know, that's that's definitely one of my favorite organizations to support. And   Michele Blood ** 36:13 nfb.org everybody. Nfb.org I've written it down for me to start tithing there as well. And,   Michael Hingson ** 36:20 you know, and there, there are so many others. Another organization that I tend to like, it's a very small organization, is advocates for service animal partners asap.org, and and it fights for the rights of people with a variety of disabilities who use service animals, service dogs, to be able to take their dogs with them, where wherever they go, because we're denied. So awesome. So I like asap.org as well.   Michele Blood ** 36:51 I love what you did. I think it was you and Ray and his wife. You were going to a particular restaurant and a a suity maitre d snotty, snooty, wouldn't let you in with your blind dog, with your with your guide dog, right? And and she was really upset the wife. And so you end up gathering quite a few of your friends that are blind, that have guide dogs, and you went in, and he had to oblige and let you all in. And everyone was very nice to you. So that was really good, because that it, it's, it's illegal for them to say you can't come in with your guide dog. It is   Michael Hingson ** 37:28 illegal, and it has been illegal for a long time. One of my favorite stories, which really wasn't a bad story at all, there used to be a restaurant in Boston in Quincy Market called Durgan Park. And Durgan Park was was basically family style, although around the outside of the room they had tables for four but you couldn't sit at one of those tables unless you had four people. Well, we came in one night and there were only three of us and my dog, Holland, and the the host has said, You know what, I'm going to make an exception and let you sit at this table for four so Holland was under the table, and there were three of us, and the waitress came up, and the waitresses at Durgan Park are known as snots. I mean, they're, they're, they're, they're supposed to be really rough and all that. It's just part of the schtick. But she came up and she said, What are you people doing sitting here? And he said, well, the host has put us here. No, she didn't. You're just sitting here. No, she did. It's because of the dog under the table. No, there's no dog under the table. You're not going to make me fall for that. And she walks away, and then she comes back and she said, you're not supposed to be sitting here and all that. I said, Look, there's a dog under the table. Take a look. And it took a while, but I finally got her to look, and there's Holland staring at her with these big brown eyes when she lifts up the the tablecloth, and the next thing I know, she comes back with a big plate. Jurgen Park has very good sized portions of frying rib and says, Can I give this to the dog, oh, and, and normally, I would never do that, but in the for to promote goodwill, I said, Okay, which Hall of love? And, you know, I knew the food there was good, but, you know, it was, it was just one of those great stories. But, yeah, all too often that isn't the way it goes. We see so many challenges with Uber, for example, so many drivers refuse to take blind people or other people with disabilities who have service dogs. It's against the rules, and they say, but it's our car. No, you signed a contract that said that you are going to transport the public, so it is illegal for you to deny us. But they do, and that's one of the things that ASAP, for example, is really working on to address, to get Uber, to recognize that it has to enforce the law like everyone else. But it's a challenge. People come from all sorts of different points of view. You know, with   Michele Blood ** 39:59 the name like. Uber. How could they do that? They're not being very Uber.   40:04 Well, there you go.   Michele Blood ** 40:07 Wow. That's interesting in this day and age. Absolutely, it continues all too often. So many people have slipped into something more comfortable, like a coma. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 40:18 Now you and your team have created an app. I think it's called what magnet to money. Tell us about that. Yeah,   Michele Blood ** 40:24 it was interesting. Thanks, Michael. I wanted to do because sometimes people like you were talking earlier, how do they get out of their you know, their depression, or whatever they're going through that they're feeling, how do they get out of that rabbit hole? So if you're feeling that way, and your mindset is in a negative state of mind, and you're emotionally not feeling well, well, then it's very, very challenging for you to want to put on some positive, you know, affirmation music. Because I know when I was in the hospital, if people came in and they were too chirpy. I would couldn't wait for them to go because I wasn't oscillating at that frequency. Yeah, you know. So they're all Oh, hi. And so I thought, wouldn't it be great if we had an app and it would just play? As you know, they can choose the notifications how often it will play. And so Polly fella, Trevor Rogers and Johnny and Dara and myself, we worked really hard, especially Holly fella, to develop this app. And it took about two and a half years to develop it. And it's got morning meditations. It's got tons of affirmations with music underneath. It's got a sleep program to help. As they're sleeping, people are sleeping, I'm very softly saying affirmations and positive you know, feed, feed to their minds. And it's also got notifications, so the magnet to money song will play whatever they want to, so they don't have to even remember to and eventually, like someone the other day, said she was in a bank and she had the magnet to Money App, and she had it as her ringtone as well. And she's in this big bank that was hardly anybody in there, but it was quite chamber ish, Echo ish, and she said, and her phone was on pretty loud. It started, I'm a magnet to money came on really loud, and everyone started laughing. They're like, well, that's sort of, I guess, you know, a good thing to play in a bank. Yeah, works. So, yeah, the magnet to Money App is fantastic. App. It's got so much on it, and it's got an audio book you get for free from myself and Bob Proctor called magnet to money through the sea of unlimited consciousness, one one of our books that we did as an audio book, and we thought we've also got a free app, because that magnet to Money App is only about, I think it's $4 or something A month, but the affirmation power app is free, and on that tons of affirmations, plus my affirmation music videos is on there as well. So that's free, if anybody wants that.   Michael Hingson ** 43:13 So yeah, so is that available with Android and Apple and iPhone? No,   Michele Blood ** 43:17 just, just apple at the moment, because to develop for an Android is much more complicated because there are so many different companies, yeah, yes, whereas Apple, it's just the iPhone, but we do intend to, but it's, you know, we've got the manifestation video app as well, and we've got a New App coming out, which is all my audio books. And I'm doing a new audio book every month, not just my books on audio, but other people's books on audio as well. And then the next step after that, is a prayer app, talking about prayer, how to pray, and for me, teaching people the power of prayer. So it's really lovely to be able to do apps that have got positive, you know, the very, very, you know, if they were to buy all those individual products from me to cost hundreds dollars, and this way it's just a few dollars a month all free for them to get all my positive songs and books and all that sort of thing.   Michael Hingson ** 44:17 How do people search for these apps that in the in the app store. I think   Michele Blood ** 44:22 that if they just go under, look under Michelle blood, okay, under my name, yeah, okay, they'll just come up. I   Michael Hingson ** 44:29 will, I will be doing that this afternoon. I think that's that's pretty cool. You know, in in our world today, we become so materialistic in so many ways, but at the same time, a lot of people have really become students of your affirmations and so on. How did they really become students? And I think even more important, one of the questions that I would ask is. How does it really transform, or did it really transform people's consciousness and set them on a road toward a more spiritual path? Because I think in so many ways, we don't see people doing that, and at the same time, I know there are a lot of people who do, but by the same token, there's so many people who go, oh, this is just all pokem. It doesn't really mean anything, but that's just not true.   Michele Blood ** 45:24 Well, I think it's, it's an interesting question to answer, because there are so many different types of people in the world, and we can't expect to change people. They have to, you know, I don't want anyone to suffer. Michael, first of all, so I think having positive thoughts in their head is going to actually make them think less of themselves, believe it or not, these the way the lyrics are done, and more of joy and sharing and caring about other people, because it is so important to to do that, because people, if they get too much into themselves, Like I say to people, don't buy anything if you're buying it. For someone else to be to compliment you, that's a really good way of deciding what you're going to purchase in your life. If you're doing it to you know, to say, Oh, I've got this really nice car. Look how great I am. But get it if you want a good car. Get it because you want a nice, safe car that's good for the environment, but don't get it so that you will impress other people. Unless you're a real estate agent, they do need good cars, apparently, to drive people around, yeah, I guess so. Drive people around,   Michael Hingson ** 46:35 but, or drive people crazy, yeah,   Michele Blood ** 46:37 but. But I also think it's important that that if you want to, you can't tell someone to be more spiritual. They have to get into a positive frame of mindset first. Because when you're in a positive frame of mindset, you start feeling more of a heart blow, more love. And even if you don't believe in God, you believe in love everybody, I know you do, so whether it's your animal that you love, because every animal is an angel, whether it's nature, smelling the remembering to stop and smell the flowers, remembering to not let yourself complain. Complaining will take you down a rabbit hole of absolute negativity and please. People remember, the only reason you're complaining is because you're feeling fear about losing something or not getting something that you want. And so if you can stop complaining for 28 days straight, you will change your life. And I know that sounds impossible, but many people can do it, because I've seen my students do it. So if you can stop complaining and stop half if you're halfway through a complaint about something or someone or politics or Trump or whatever in the hell it is, stop yourself halfway through and just say, Why am I complaining? And people are complaining because they're in fear. If you can stop and be mindful enough to say, I'm complaining because I'm afraid of something, and I don't want to face it and find out what you're afraid of, the thing that you're afraid of will dissipate. Yeah, it really will. So I think that's a really good place to start listening to the positive songs, for sure, going to every single unstoppable mindset podcast you possibly can go to reading Michael's books, and also, just knowing that you can get out of that rabbit hole, it is totally possible, and I've seen it in people from all different cultures and religious backgrounds all over the world. I've traveled to so many different countries, and have so many different audiences, and everybody wants to be loved and be loved in return. And everybody wants to see other people happy at their core. They really do. We don't want to make people unhappy, do you? So stop complaining.   Michael Hingson ** 49:07 You know, it's, it's interesting that you, you talk about all this, one of the things that we talk a lot about, and you'll see it and live like the guide dog, is that we need to become more introspective. Because if we do and we really look at ourselves daily, and, for example, look at what worked today, what didn't work. Why didn't it work? You eventually get to what was I really afraid of? And if you really stop to think about that and go, I didn't need to be afraid of that, your life will change, which is really, as you're pointing out, what it's all about.   Michele Blood ** 49:44 Excellent, excellent. I'm looking forward to reading that as well, and then I've already told everyone to get thunder dog on all my lists. But now I'll be, after I read the next one, I'll be telling them to read that as well, because we're on the same page. Michael.   Michael Hingson ** 49:59 Tell me a little bit about something I've read in your bio, how you went from affirmations to a full kundalini awakening.   Michele Blood ** 50:09 Well, when I was working with Bob Proctor in Asia, I was saying to him one day, I feel this heart blow like I feel like my heart is out of my chest, and I feel such deep love. And it's not for any person, place or thing. It's for everything, actually, but it's beyond that. It's divine. And he said, you're looking for an enlightened teacher. That's what you need. And I said, Well, where do you find an enlightened teacher, and what exactly is that? And he got me to read Autobiography of a Yogi by Hara mahansa Yogananda. And I'd read it before, but I didn't really get it like I did this time when I read it, and I realized that enlightenment wasn't just one person. People can actually meditate and go into higher states of consciousness, but I wasn't thinking of how is an enlightened being around in this modern world? That can't be right? Because I it must be like unless it's Asia maybe. He said, I don't know. He said, I did have a Canadian man who was enlightened, who taught me for three years before he died, left the body. And he said, you just have to pray for it and know that the teacher and the student will find each other. It took me 14 years of searching all over the world, and eventually I found an enlightened teacher in all places America, and I decided to go off the grid, and I really had to to study with her as a student, because she didn't like us to be on Facebook or social media. She said, you don't want attention on yourself when you're studying with me, because you want to be able to go in deeply. Yeah. So I went off. I studied with her for 12 years, but after the first few years, I went into a full awakening myself, never expecting that. Didn't expect it to happen to me. I thought, how could a rock singer in Australia, have a kundalini awakening, but I did, and now I love to teach mysticism and spirituality and meditation practice to students from all over the world. And I love to do it. I think there's so many tools in the toolbox of life, whatever sort of personality you have, whether you're extremely religious or you just want to have more positive outcome. You want to become healthier. I think meditation practice is good for everybody. You do not have to be religious or think of spirituality to enjoy a quiet mind. It'll slow down your blood pressure. It will give you pump your blood, it'll stop your mind from going down a million rabbit holes where your senses take you. I just think meditation practice is a miraculous, privileged thing to do.   Michael Hingson ** 52:53 I agree. And you know, one of the things that it's a little bit off topic for what you just said, but we were talking earlier about people praying and looking for so many things. I'm amazed at how many people pray to God, telling God what they want and what they think they need. And I'm sitting there whenever I hear about that today, especially, I think, Wait a minute, God already knows that what you need to do is to listen to get the response, and thank God for the response, but people just don't do that. I'm just so amazed at at that. But it's it is so true that we spend too much time not doing the thing that we really need to do, which is listening and talking with God, not talking to God.   Michele Blood ** 53:46 Yeah, that's why I I'm loving recording the new prayer app, because I explain to people what prayer actually is. It's not If you do this for me, God, I'll start, stop eating pizza, yeah? Or maybe trade off. So I teach people what prayer actually is, and it's, it's really the most sacred thing and beautiful thing, and it will uplift you, even if you just, I've got a section where they I'm praying for others, so they can just listen to any different topic of what type of prayer, but the main thing for me was explaining, doing the introduction of what prayer is and how to pray, because so many people have no idea what prayer really is, that communion with your higher self, and once you get to understand what that is, then you can hear that still, small voice you can literally hear through. Ah, your intuition becomes stronger you can and intuition is you being in tune with your higher self. And your higher self is omniscient wisdom. It created everything so it knows what. To tell you to do, and it will bring into your experience everything when you accept, when you can be open and receptive to receive and to give, just sort of let yourself go, just surrender to that divine Higher Self, when you can learn how to do that. That's another thing that I do on this prayer app is teach you what surrender really means and how you can do it. It's not taking your willpower away from you, because everyone that's a gift that we've been given. So we can make good choices in life, sometimes bad choices, but we can use our willpower to get ourselves out of that rabbit hole. So thank you for asking that. Michael, it's   Michael Hingson ** 55:41 extremely important to be able to do that. Well, you mentioned earlier that you had gifts for people listening to this podcast. Love it if you tell us about that,   Michele Blood ** 55:52 yes, yummy gifts. If you go to Michelle. Blood com, it's spelled M, I, C, H, E, L, E, B, L, O, O, O, d.com, forward slash unstoppable mindset. We've called that. We've made that link especially for Michael's podcast. Just for your people, they will get the audio version of one of my favorite books I've written called the magic of affirmation power audio book. They will get that for free, but in that audio book has tons of affirmations you can repeat after me, links to some of my music for free. You'll also get a six week mysticism course, and there are other things as well. I can't remember what they are right now, but they're all on that link.   Michael Hingson ** 56:37 But Michelle blood com slash unstoppable mindset. I thank you for the otter. Appreciate that. Well now if people want to come hear you, I know you do live events and you do zoom events and so on. How can we learn about that? How can people do that?   Michele Blood ** 56:57 Well, they can go to request Divine light.com to find out what is my next event, because I have free events, a lot a lot of free zoom events people can come to, and you'll just get to meet so many happy, lovely people from so many different countries. And we just have a blast together. And you'll be very, very uplifted after everyone, because everyone that comes on are just, we seem to be attracting, over the years, just people that are really, sincerely wanting a better life and to do it, to do good in the world. And I just love them all so much. So if they go to request Divine Light com, they can see where my next free event will be. I mean, it's on Zoom, but I mean when it will be   Michael Hingson ** 57:46 right? Request, divine light. Com, cool. Well, I really appreciate you coming on. And obviously people can go to Michelle blood, com, and there's a lot there, I would assume as well. So hopefully people will go, go check out everything that's there, and we'll take this seriously, because I think there is so much that you have offered. We've had a number of people on unstoppable mindset who talk about everything from reg a to Eastern medicine, meditation and and so many things. They all can't be totally wrong. So from my perspective, they are not wrong. But by the same token, it's fun to be able to get a chance to to have you on. We'll have to do this again, and I'm going to certainly go download the apps and put them on my nice little iPhone and start taking advantage of them. But I really appreciate you coming on and and being with us for an hour today. Well,   Michele Blood ** 58:51 Michael, thank you for the books that you've written and everything that you've done in the world. I just think you're just an inspiration and just a lovely, lovely man. So thank you. It's, it's lovely getting to know you. And I'm just going to tell everyone about these books, because they're amazing, well written as well. Just really, really good.   Michael Hingson ** 59:13 Well, thank you. So, when are you going to do a podcast? I'm going   Michele Blood ** 59:17 to do a podcast with a man called just I just had a brain fart. Thomas Miller, uh, at the moment, his podcast is called subconscious mind mastery, and he's interviewed me quite a few times. We met in person, and I love his outlook on life, about really not saying no to anything that's mystical. And so we're going to start one next year together. He's already got his own, but this will be a different one where we'll go a little deeper, a deeper dive into mysticism. I think we're going to call it well,   Michael Hingson ** 59:55 if he needs a guess for his existing podcast, if he has guests or. You guys have your podcast together. If you ever want a guest, I volunteer. So I'll just, Oh,   Michele Blood ** 1:00:05 I'll tell him today. Goodness, yes,   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:10 I'm, I'm always, I'm always open for that. Oh,   Michele Blood ** 1:00:13 I'll tell him today. Yeah, because you, I love you.   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:18 Well, I want to thank you for being here, and I want to thank all of you for listening. I hope you enjoyed this at least half as much as I did, hopefully as much as I did. This has been a lot of fun and educational, I think, in so many ways, to help us deal with our outlooks on life. I'd love to hear your thoughts about it. Please feel free to email me. Michael h i at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, I b, e.com, or go to our podcast website, w, w, w, dot Michael hingson.com/podcast, and that's m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s, o, n. So Michael hingson.com/podcast, and wherever you're listening, please give us a five star review. We really value your reviews. But of course, love the five star ones, so if we can, we would really appreciate it if you give us a five star review and and say, say good things about us and and go off and definitely visit Michelle's pages. And, of course, being very prejudiced, go to Michelle blood com slash unstoppable mindset and get some free gifts from her. And if you know of anyone who you think would be a good guest, and Michelle you as well. I'm always looking for podcast guests, so okay, don't hesitate to to refer people to us. We appreciate that a whole lot. So once again, I want to thank you for being here. Michelle, this has been a lot of fun. Thank   Michele Blood ** 1:01:45 you. Michael, God bless you. More love everyone. More Love   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:54   You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

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

In an age of overwhelmingly dumb AI that is constantly shoved in our faces, it's nice to remember a time when we still thought AI and robotics had a chance to make our lives better. In 1999, author and futurist Ray Kurzweil wrote a book called "The Age of Spiritual Machines", in which he predicts AI reaching a point where it has it's own consciousness. In this future, AI will have already cured disease and improved the human condition, but as it grows in sentience and gains rights, humanity (as we know it) slowly becomes obsolete. This isn't portrayed as a bad thing as much as just a new step in evolution with artificial life gaining spirituality... But after reading Kurzweil's book, Our Lady Peace took issue with a few things. In their 2000 album, "Spiritual Machines", they take on the complicated nature of humanity, exploring experiences that are uniquely human, such as having an out of body experience, or gaining wisdom out of negative life experiences. There's a lot of great thoughts in the album and they don't sound half bad to boot!Aaaaand for today's guest for this Canadian alt rock group is a Canadian (in her own right), Danielle MacQuarrie!!! And don't worry Wisconsinites, we proposed the idea of seceding to Canada and Danielle is going to bring it up with The Prime Minister! I bribed them with Spotted Cow...Links:Danielle MacQuarrie's website: https://daniellemacquarrie.com/Full Livestream of the episode: https://youtube.com/live/Mi5WnElKOh0?feature=shareOUR DISCORD: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://discord.gg/2stA2P7pTC⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/flyoverstatepark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠EVERYTHING ELSE: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/FlyoverStatePark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

You know that saying "Go big or go home"? What if you were to do both? Well, that's what Queen attempted with the final track on The Miracle. They fired up the old Kurzweil, made Roger play a real drum kit and, if you can believe it, actually sat in a room as a band and recorded this one together. One of our listeners really sticks the boot in, so we return it in kind, and Randy is pondering an SPR move into the political sphere. It's not a good idea. At all. Plus, Ruddy has a question for us and we think you'll like it!If Randy were to title this episode, he'd probably call it "Not sure how I feel about the old Kurzweil" or possibly, "I hope Freddie thought it was worth it"Today's episode looks at the final track on The Miracle, with Freddie wondering, "Was It All Worth It".NOTE: Skip forward to 21:54 if wanna get straight into the manifestations and wheel spin.The music at the end of the episode is taken from UK show, The Last Leg and features Alex Horne and The Horne Section singing a soulful, nostalgic song about the simple country life. You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/74UZNexK8a4Thanks to everyone who tuned in to the last episode and left us some comments on Facebook, Bluesky, and Discord! And while we're at it, come join us on Discord, we'd be glad to have you! We'll always try to answer any questions you have and seriously appreciate any corrections you make to anything we get wrong. And thanks so much for all your support as usual. We're loving diving into the Queen fandom as much as we're enjoying recording the podcasts!Huge thanks to Corey Morrissette and Mark Camire for letting us copy and paste the format from their gold-standard podcast; And the Podcast Will Rock. You can find them at @PodcastWillRock on Twitter. Also, make sure you go check out our beautiful brothers and sisters over on the Deep Dive Podcast Network!Follow us onFacebook: @seasidepodreviewDiscord: https://discord.gg/nrzr2mQjBluesky: @seasidepodreview.bsky.socialAlso, check out Kev's other podcastsThe Tom Petty Project: https://tompettyproject.comThe Ultimate Catalogue Clash: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ultimate-catalogue-clashAnd if you want to check out Randy's music, you can find it here:https://randywoodsband.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dans cette 2e vidéo récapitulative du NAMM 2025, on parle de la 6e version des claviers Nord Piano, du retour de Kurzweil, de la nouvelle gamme V-STAGE de Roland et de Behringer qui propose sa version du Yamaha DX1.

Willkommen beim Podcast von Technologie-Scout Boris Bärmichl!Bereit für eine faszinierende Entdeckungsreise in die Welt der Technologie?

Attorney, award winning blogger and AI expert Ralph Losey's curated and vetted podcast features his Anonymous Podcasters as they do a deep dive on Ralph's EDRM blog post on Key AI Leaders of 2024: Huang, Amodei, Kurzweil, Altman, and Nobel Prize Winners - Hassabis and Hinton. The podcasters discuss Ralph's take on these highly creative and accomplished changemakers, and their philosophies and risk assesments. Ralph stretches the limit of the auto generated podcast format by adding in call-in questions for the AIs to answer.

Robert Moment was born in Virginia and basically has spent his entire life there except for college which took him to Maryland. Robert received a degree in Business and, after college, he went to work in corporate America. He worked for a number of large corporations including Xerox in the 1990s. He tells us some of his experiences in the corporate world and how they eventually caused him to shift gears and start his own coaching and consulting business.   Today he is a recognized authority and he has authored several books. His newest one coming out shortly is "Believe in Yourself You Got This".   What I like about talking with Robert is his down to earth direct manner of presenting ideas. As he says fairly early in our discussion, his parents taught he and his brother to believe in themselves. Robert discusses with us this concept of self belief and how it differs from ego. As he says, his father taught him that “ego” stands for “edging God out”. Pretty clever. Robert gives us a number of practical tips and lots of advice we can put to use in our daily lives. I hope you will like what Robert Moment has to say.       About the Guest:   As a sought-after authority in leadership development, Robert Moment draws upon a wealth of Fortune 500 experience and certified coaching expertise to unlock the extraordinary in leaders and organizations. 1. Leadership Development Authority: Robert Moment is a leading authority in executive coaching and leadership development. Leveraging over 15 years of experience and deep insights from Fortune 500 environments, he empowers individuals and organizations to reach new heights. As an ICF Certified Executive, Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, Career, and Peak Performance Coach, his expertise spans diverse leadership domains. 2. Startup Success Catalyst: Robert holds unique expertise in nurturing cybersecurity, healthcare, fintech, and critical infrastructure startups, guiding them through scaling challenges to achieve revenue growth. His tailored approach fosters sustainable success for these firms within competitive markets. 3. Peak Performance and Emotional Intelligence Focus: Specializing in peak performance coaching, Robert works with CEOs, executives, and high performers, empowering them to lead empathetically with high emotional intelligence. This creates collaborative and thriving work environments. As a certified practitioner, he utilizes the Social + Emotional Intelligence Profile-Self (SEIP) ® Assessment to facilitate targeted development plans. 4. Author and Comprehensive Coaching Methodology: Robert's books, including "CEO Coaching for Cybersecurity Growth" and "Believe in Yourself You Got This," offer practical strategies for professional growth. His comprehensive coaching methodology uniquely blends experience with modern assessment tools for results-driven, transformative experiences. 5. Executive Development and Career Coaching: Robert collaborates with executives and rising leaders to refine leadership skills and drive organizational success. He assists individuals at various career stages through fulfilling transitions. By identifying strengths, clarifying goals, and aligning values, he ensures informed decisions for long-term career satisfaction.   If you're ready to unlock your potential, achieve peak performance, and create the leadership legacy you envision, Robert Moment is the coach to guide you there.   Ways to connect with Robert:   Robert@LeadershipCoachingandDevelopment.com The Moment Leadership Coaching Group 2200 Wilson Blvd. Suite 102, #158 Arlington, VA 22201 LinkedIn  https"//www.linkedin.com/in/robertmomentleadershipcoach      About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:20 Well, hello to you all, wherever you happen to be, I am your host, Michael Hingson, and this is unstoppable mindset. We're really glad that you joined us today. Our guest is Robert moment, and Robert is a sought after authority and leadership development he's written a number of books. He's a coach, and all sorts of other kinds of things. Talking to coaches are is always really kind of fun. I learn a lot. I got all this free coaching. What can I say? It's It's always interesting and relevant to hear different points of view and get to put everything in perspective. So I'm really glad to have the opportunity this time to talk to Robert, and he does a lot of leadership development, and interested in getting into that and talking about him as well. So enough of that, Robert, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad you're here.   Robert Moment ** 02:15 Well, thank you, Michael for the opportunity. I'm excited.   Michael Hingson ** 02:20 Well, we're really looking forward to talking with you and learning a lot. I hope Tell me a little bit about the early Robert, kind of growing up. And let's start with that just kind of where you came from and all that stuff. Well,   Robert Moment ** 02:33 the early Robert, I grew up about 30 minutes outside of Charlottesville, Virginia, and I graduated, really, I would say I'm a country boy at heart humble beginnings. And my father, he was ex military, and one of the things he taught my brother and I, I'm two years younger than my brother, was self disciplined, and to always believe in yourself. That's something that my parents ingrained in us, you know, early on, and that's something, you know, it's like, it's in my DNA, and that's what I communicate to my clients. And even when I was in corporate America, I was in corporate America for over 20 years working for Fortune 500 companies, like your Xeroxes of the world, Citigroup, manpower. And then then I transitioned into leadership and executive   Michael Hingson ** 03:21 coaching. So where did you go to college? I   Robert Moment ** 03:24 went to college. Now it's called Washington at Venice University. It's about, I would say, 20 minutes outside of Washington, DC, in a place called Takoma Park, Maryland. And my degree is in business administration. But   Michael Hingson ** 03:39 you're mostly stuck in a rut, aren't you? You've lived in Virginia basically all your life.   Robert Moment ** 03:43 Yes, I have now. I've traveled globally, but yes, my, my my home base is, yes, Virginia. Now   Michael Hingson ** 03:52 I have to tell all of you listening that before we started this, Robert was saying that he loves the spring and summer and is not a winter person. So I'm not quite sure I totally understand the paradox, but there you are. But no, it's it's fine. You could be further north in Massachusetts and Maine and New Hampshire, and get a whole lot more snow than you get in Virginia. You   Robert Moment ** 04:16 know what, Michael, when I see when I watch TV, whether it's, you know the weather channel, or CNN, and I see the snow in Boston, upstate New York and Rochester and Syracuse. I am glad I'm in Northern Virginia.   Michael Hingson ** 04:31 Boy, it was interesting, if you remember from the Weather Channel, last year here out in Southern California, we had crazy, crazy weather in Mammoth and some of the areas around here, they had, you know, overall, more than, like, 50 feet of snow, and it eventually went away. But we had incredible amounts of snow in Tehachapi and Wrightwood, the snow was so high that a. Cover the roofs, and some roofs collapsed because they couldn't take all of the snow, and the roads were blocked so people couldn't get in and out, which also made it very interesting. And we here in Victorville, were down in a little valley. We're about 20 850 feet above sea level. We had two or three inches of snow one Saturday afternoon, and that   Robert Moment ** 05:23 was it. Wow, I did see that. I saw that. And I said, you know, I couldn't believe it. Yeah, it was, it was dangerous, treacherous. Yeah, it really paralyzed a lot of people, because they couldn't leave the house, homes.   Michael Hingson ** 05:38 Yeah, they couldn't at all. And the the thing is, like mammoth, I think it was mammoth didn't even close their ski season until last August. Well, this year, it's different. They're closing Sunday. Still, it's a while. Well, it is, it is, yes, so you said you worked for a lot of corporations for quite a while. So you started that, I assume, right out of college, because you had the business background, and what did you do for them?   Robert Moment ** 06:07 Well, I was like, for instance, corporate executive, sales, business development, account manager, a lot of titles, but I learned a lot, especially back then, like Xerox Corporation, you went through a lot of training, yeah, and that training that really, I was able to leverage it and, you know, transfer to other corporations. And one of the things I learned, it really wasn't so much that when I transferred to other organizations, because that was in telecommunications. I was in insurance. Manpower is more about human development. It was really about building people skills. Yeah, people skills, and then business acumen, because you can learn the products and the services, but to be able to build relationships. That was really my, one of my strongest suits.   Michael Hingson ** 07:04 Well, Xerox information systems, back a long time ago, in part, began because they acquired a company. I worked for Kurzweil Computer Products. So I I was sort of assimilated into Xerox, because I worked for Kurzweil, and then Xerox bought Kurzweil. They wanted the technology, though, they didn't really have as much interest in the people as demonstrated by the fact that within a couple of years, all the salespeople who worked for Kurzweil pre Xerox takeover were all invited to leave. And you know those those things happen, and I think it's a serious mistake when companies do that, because they lose all the tribal knowledge and all the information and the background that people have. And like you talk about the fact that you learned so much about people skills and interpersonal dynamics as you went along. And I think the companies really lose a lot of that when they buy a company and they assimilate it, and then they get rid of the people,   Robert Moment ** 08:10 you know, I'm glad you wanted you touched on that, because I'm working with a potential client and they want to buy the smaller cybersecurity startup. And when you do that, a lot of times, you know, you gotta look at the culture, and when you mention that, they let people go, you know, a lot of times good people who've been there, whether it's, you know, five years, 10 years, you know, that's a lot of intellectual property that's walking out the door, and a lot of times, for instance, they know that customer is better than the person who's acquiring them. Why do companies do that? You know, sometimes you know they want to cut costs, but cutting costs sometimes is not good business sense, because usually the company who takes over is the one who's going to let the existing employees go in, right? Because they want to bring down people. But when I want to talk to the CEO, you know, if he becomes they become a client. That's something I want to warn and caution, caution him, you know, don't go into, oh, I want to clean house and want to bring all of my people in, because this company does have some major business with several major hospitals, and you know, that's relationship building. And that relationship building took years for them to when I say years, maybe about, I think they said five or six years. So, yeah, go ahead. So that's important. You know that relationship, the existing company has that relationship, and I told him, I would tell him, you want to make a smooth transition.   Michael Hingson ** 09:57 Well, and the reality is, it's. Some point, you can bring your own people in, but you're going to have to hire people to replace the people you you move and other things. At some point, it would make a lot of sense to really evaluate people and their skills and look at what they bring to the company before you just let them go. I was the last sales guy to be let go from Kurzweil and I had been relocated, actually, in late 1981 from Boston. Well, I lived in Winthrop and we worked in Cambridge. Then I was relocated back out to California because I knew that area better and and it was pre Xerox takeover, but the discussions had begun. But in 19 late, 1983 into 1984 was clear that Xerox had had taken the company, and some people were leaving. I was the last of the sales guys to be let go. I don't know whether that had to do with blindness or whether I was just so far remote because I was cross country, but they did it nevertheless. And I think that they made a serious mistake by losing, if you will, so many people, it just isn't a bright idea to do.   Robert Moment ** 11:25 You know, it isn't, because even when I was there, Michael Xerox was losing a lot of market share. Yeah, yeah. When I was there, they was losing when I went, when were you there? I was there like in in 1992 and they was losing a lot of market share to,   Michael Hingson ** 11:46 it's canon, yeah, and IBM.   Robert Moment ** 11:49 IBM, yes, they was losing a lot of market share. And, you know, they got became complacent. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 11:58 they did and and didn't, and probably never really had a clue about why they were losing so much market share. But nevertheless, it happened, yeah,   Robert Moment ** 12:08 I mean, Xerox was, I mean, in terms of, I mean, too top heavy, in terms of, I mean, it seems like every quarter they was hiring people, but in terms of market share, yeah, they was losing market share. And then a company called OSE came in Rico, the Japanese, the Xerox almost went under, yeah, yeah, yeah. I   Michael Hingson ** 12:37 one of the reasons I was asked to relocate to California. And like I said, they just started the discussions, but because I had spent time on and lived on the west coast for most of my life, the other thing they wanted me to do was to interface with the more technical parts of Xerox. Namely, they had a facility called Park Palo Alto area Research Center. Yes, I wonder if that's still there. Do you know? Yeah, I don't know. You know, yeah, I don't either. But I, I did a lot of work to integrate some of the information from Kurzweil into Park, which is part of what I did. And it was, it was fun. Got to meet a lot of and know a lot of the people there, and I would have thought that they would have been a little bit smarter about how they how they dealt with me, but and other people, but it, you know, it goes the way that it goes. I hear it a lot in the broadcast industry. Somebody comes in and they buy a radio station or a television station, and they phase out all the people who are already working there, which is so crazy.   Robert Moment ** 13:46 Yeah, it, yeah, I've heard that. I've heard that too, and I've actually here, I can't think of what, what station, but yes, I've heard that, and that's consistent, I think across the board, yeah, it is   Michael Hingson ** 14:03 well, and I think it's a little bit different, not necessarily totally, but a little different, because what they're doing is they're probably changing formats and other things, and they want to bring in people who are familiar with but I also Do think that they don't look at the value that, if you will, tribal knowledge, even in a radio environment, can play. So what do you do? Well, you said something earlier, interesting. You said that your parents brought you up being very self assured, self confident, and so on. I think that's that's an important feature and skill that we ought to have. Do you? Do you ever find, though, that you're too self confident, and it go in a kind of transitions over into arrogance, as opposed to just self confidence?   Robert Moment ** 14:55 You know, one of the things my father, you. Taught us you have to be careful about ego. Because he said, ego, you know that can be blind, blind confidence and blind confidence. You know that's tied to external validation, you know. And he said, you know, really, self belief is about trusting, you know, trust in your inner knowing. And not only trusting your inner knowing, it's you know your instincts and and just know deep down, you know you are capable of overcoming challenges and achieving goals. And you know, he even taught us, even said this, and I don't know he didn't invent this, but he said, you know, ego is edging God out, and you want to focus on just trust and believe yourself. You're going to have challenges, but you really have it's a fine line, that ego confidence is great, but that ego that goes beyond confidence, that you know sometimes you don't even really look at reality like you feel like you're invincible. And I think when you think you become invincible, that's when arrogance and ego come in.   Michael Hingson ** 16:17 If you're really invincible, you don't have to show it. It is just the way it goes. Well. Have you ever had a time in your life when you experienced something that really caused you to face a major challenge and doubt yourself, and how did you deal with that?   Robert Moment ** 16:37 My first corporate executive position that inner critic came up. An inner critic is, do I have what it takes? Am I good enough? And how I acquired my inner critics? And it is still comes up, sometimes even now, with opportunity, but I have to say to myself, I have to take inventory. Look at your past successes, look at your past wins, and look at the skills that you bring to the table. And those skills are transferable, whether it's a client that I'm coaching now or a future client, bigger client, but just because sometimes you know, when the opportunity comes, we excited. We get excited about the opportunity, Michael, but then, like I said for me, that inner critic is like, Okay, are you ready for this? And I have to remind myself, Yes, you are you. You have more than enough. You are enough, and you can do this.   Michael Hingson ** 17:39 So what really happened that caused a lot of self doubt with that first job,   Robert Moment ** 17:45 the responsibilities, the revenue that I needed to generate, that I had never had that kind of revenue before, and and the people who I was going to manage, but at the end of the day, you know, I said, You know what? They would not have given you this position, and if they didn't think you could do it. And then look at your look at the skills that you have. And once again, I took audit in terms of the skills, my transferable skills, and I was able to succeed. But still, that inner critic, inner voice that happens even now as a coach, how do you   Michael Hingson ** 18:24 how do you get past that inner voice? Doing that,   Robert Moment ** 18:28 I created an acronym. An acronym is B, line, B, E, L, I, E, and it starts with I begin self awareness and I understand my strengths and I understand my weaknesses. And then E, I embrace my imperfections, and because everyone has them, but what makes me unique? And then L, I learned from my setbacks. I know there's obstacles and opportunities for growth. And then I invest in self care, I prioritize my physical and mental well being, and in E I empower that inner voice to silence any negative self talk, and I just focus on the positives,   Michael Hingson ** 19:11 one of the things that we talk about on unstoppable mindset. And I've said it a number of times, so I hope people don't get too bored, but I think it's important to say, I used to always say, I'm my own worst critic. I listen to speeches when I give them. I did it some when I was program director at the campus radio station at UC Irvine K UCI. I've done it a lot of times. I listen to myself, and I always used to say, you know, I'm really hard on myself. I'm going to be harder on myself than anyone else. Anyone else, because I'm my own worst critic. And actually, only the last over the last year have I realized wrong approach. I'm not my I'm not my own worst critic. I do believe in, and have always believed in the kinds of things that you're talking about, introspection on. Self analysis and so on. And what I realized is that, in reality, no one can teach me anything. They can provide the information, but I'm the only one who can teach me, and I've changed from saying I'm my own worst critic to saying I'm my own best teacher. And the reality is that just totally reshapes the attitude, and I will will tell you that it also helps in dealing with that inner voice. Because when I start to think about that, I think about, okay, how do I teach me? Well, it goes back to self analysis. It goes back to introspection. What worked today? Why didn't that go as well as I thought that it should, and it could be I was just too, too confident, and I've got to be open enough to acknowledge that, and okay, so what do you do to make sure that doesn't happen again? So I love the approach of I'm my own best teacher, because it's such a a positive and more constructive way of helping to guide you into introspection and real self analysis.   Robert Moment ** 21:06 You know, I love the concept, you know, I would say, Isn't that owning your power? Sure, yeah, I would say that's Michael, that's owning your power. It   Michael Hingson ** 21:17 is owning it's owning, well, it's owning your power, and it's owning your actions and what you do, and when you acknowledge that, then you can sit back and look at it and go, Okay, so let's discuss brain what happened. But that's exactly right, and I would rather look at things with something that will really move me forward. Rather than saying, let's criticize other people can criticize me, but then ultimately, I have to go back and listen to and look at what they say and decide, okay, where's the merit they're saying it, maybe there's something to it, but is there really, or how much? And take it to heart, but come to a decision and move forward. You   Robert Moment ** 22:11 know that, you know, I call it, I would, you know, reframe it, and that that was a, that's a major pivot shift in terms of your mindset and your thought process. Yeah, because, you know, a lot of times people, we can be our own worst enemy, and, like you said, our own worst critic. But how you're reframing it from a positive more so than a negative because most people want to, they start with the negative instead of the positive. Yeah, yeah. So I like how you're reframing that. Because just like this is that self talk, you know, you can say, you know, I'm not good enough. Well, say I am good enough, just that slightly framing, because I always words have power, and you continue to repeat something, you will believe it,   Michael Hingson ** 23:09 and you can also say, How can I get better? Yes, and take the time to really analyze it, because I believe that ultimately, when we look at ourselves, we can, if we practice it and develop that mind muscle, we really know the answers, but we have to listen to get them to come to the surface so we can deal with them. The fact of the matter is, we know a lot more than we think we do. We underestimate ourselves. And so often something comes up, and suddenly we think of an answer, but we go, oh, no, that's too easy. Or no, that can't be it. And we go back and, yeah, you see what I'm saying. And we go back and overthink it, and then come up with what turned out to be the wrong answer, because we wouldn't listen to ourselves with the right answer. You   Robert Moment ** 24:05 know, I feel as though the universe is always talking to us, and sometimes we have to be still. And for instance, you know, if I'm coming up with a book title, like you said, if it's too easy, it's like, well, that's too easy. Well, no, that's probably the book title that you need, yeah, or the article title. You know, a lot of times we think, if it's too easy, that's not the solution. But here's something that was, I learned in corporate America, we would, here's an example, a client had a problem. Let's say it could be any problem. And we, you know, meet with the client. The client, they have five people, you know, representing our company, and maybe we have three or four, and they said, you know, they've had this problem. Six. Months, and I'm listening to the client, and I said, you know, this is the solution. And I remember telling a VP, I wasn't at the VP level yet. We we had a debrief, you know, like in the lobby after the meeting, and I said, this is the this is a solution. This is the solution to the client problem, and this is what he said. He said, That's he said, No, that's to he said, not. The meeting lasted maybe almost almost two hours, and he said, No, that. He said, You know what a client, we can't go back to the client and say that's the solution because they had the problem. He said, for over six months, and what we want to charge the client, we got to drag this out. And I said, Why drag it up? They got a problem. And he said, they will not believe that we solve this problem within two hours. So I you know he was a VP, yeah, Michael, it we went through, I want to say this is years ago, five or six meetings and the solution, it was this, right solution, six meetings, and then finally, we tell the client, okay, we have come up with the solution. And that's when I think I said, you know, I don't think I'm going to be in corporate America too long after that,   Michael Hingson ** 26:35 you know? And I've, I've talked about it a few times after leaving Kurzweil because I was dismissed, as it were, or Xerox. Actually, at that point, I couldn't find a job because people wouldn't hire a blind person. And it's still way all too often the case, the unemployment rate is, you know, incredibly high. Depending on where you are. It could be 60 65% significantly higher, and I was looking for a job and wasn't finding one. And so what I eventually did was I started my own company selling computer aided design systems to architects, a blind guy selling cat systems. Why not? You know, I didn't need, I didn't need to work the system, but I did need to know how to work the system so that I could describe it to people. Well anyway, as we started working with architects and so on, they would say, well, we can't as much as this system works and all that we can't take on this system because we charge with our by our time, with our with our effort and our time, and if we use the CAD system, we'll get done in a fraction of the time, and so we'll not make as much money. Well, you know, my response was, you are looking at it all wrong. You're bringing in new technology. You're bringing in so much more capabilities, because you could bring a customer in, and you can do walk throughs and fly throughs and show them exactly what it looks like looking out a window from inside a building and all sorts of stuff. They can say they want to change something, and they can make the change, or you can make the change as they suggest it. You're not charging for your time anymore. You're charging for your expertise. You don't need to charge less, but you're charging for all the expertise and the skills and the added value that you bring to the sale. And the architects who got that, and there were some who did and some who didn't, but the architects who got it really began doing extremely well, because they could also then go off and look for more customers more quickly, quickly, yeah, and we, we really, we really need to remember that there are, on a regular basis, new and better solutions coming up, and it's hard to keep up with everything. But by the same token, if we can be aware of what we need to do to make everyone's lives better with whom we work, we're going to do better, because they're going to do better.   Robert Moment ** 29:20 I totally agree. Because, you know, when I'm working with clients, even if the first two sessions, I have a solution, I'm not going to say, okay, you know what? Hold on to this solution until coaching sessions. In six months into the coaching session, you know that? You know, yes, for me, it's integrity. That's one, but two, I want all my clients to succeed as fast as quick as possible. And you know, I remember, gosh, when I started out this client, he's I said, one of the questions I was asked, have you. Ever had a coach before? And he said, Yes, I had a coach before. And I said, Well, how did it work out? And he says, I felt as though he had solutions or could help me, but he dragged out the process. And I said, Okay, that's not gonna happen with me. Because then I thought, you know, I thought back in my experience when I was in corporate America, yeah, when you have the solution, but, you know, I think I really want to coach him for another six months, not for two days, or, you know, two weeks. So, yeah, well, you   Michael Hingson ** 30:35 could coach him for another six months. It's just that you're going to evolve and go in different directions, if that makes sense to do, yes, yes. And if it doesn't, you're going to have a very happy customer who's going to tell other people about you. Absolutely   30:51 yes. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 30:54 I want to get to your transition, but first, just following up on something we talked a little bit about, how do you really tell the difference between overconfidence, or what you call our inner critic and or whatever, and the whole real issue of healthy self evaluation? How do we really make those differentiations?   Robert Moment ** 31:16 I would say, in terms of, like I said, ego is self validation. I'm sorry, self validation, or external validation, when you're talking about self belief, that's trusting, that's a inner knowing, that's your inner being, your core. And I think that's the difference, and because when you're talking about self belief, you begin with self awareness. I don't know anybody who has a huge ego focuses on self awareness. They don't understand. They not want to talk about understanding our strengths, understanding our weaknesses, ego. They just don't but when you talk about self belief, self awareness, and then they embrace their imperfections, to me, that's, that's, that's very, very important. And then I can say, when you talk about investing in self care, you do prioritize your mental well being and also your physical well being. You take, really, you take inventory of self   Michael Hingson ** 32:21 as you should, and it's something that you, if you're doing it right, probably do on a regular basis. Yes,   Robert Moment ** 32:29 that's one thing I tell clients weekly. There's five questions I might give them depending on the individual to do what I call a mental coaching, self, self, mental coaching each and every week, because mental health, you know, it's, it's prevalent, and especially the higher you are as an executive, the pressure and self audit. Because even myself, I, you know, yes, I'm a coach, but coaching people, they said, well, that mental health, that's yeah, I have to still go out my mental health as well. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 33:10 well, and there's nothing wrong with asking yourself, did I really do that? Right? What can I learn? How do I move forward? But even just the whole concept of, did I do it right? Did I do what I really should do? Asking yourself that helps so much to assist you in becoming more self aware, because if you ask that with an open, curious attitude, you're going to get the right answers, and then you can use it to move forward.   Robert Moment ** 33:45 You know, you're right about one of the things coaching. As a coach, you I always say to myself after every session, did I asked the right questions, was I curious enough? And did I go deeper? Because sometimes a client might give me a response, and I try to make sure I don't gloss over that response. And I want to say, you know, what? Can we go deeper? And then sometimes, you know, I ask for permission. Can we go deeper? Because Francis, our client, a couple weeks ago, he's had some leadership challenges. And I said, How does transparency, how does empathy and how does trust show up in your leadership style? And he said he gave me some examples. And I said, Well, can we go deeper? And he said, Well, I just gave you some examples. And he said, Well, why do you want to go deeper? I said, I'm here to help you, because with the examples he gave me wasn't it didn't have a lot of substance. And you know, after the session. You, he did say this, and you know, I don't need someone to pat me on the back. But he said, You know what? Now, I appreciate you as a coach, because he said, You know what, these three things. So I said, journal this week, how does those three things show up in your leadership style? And I want to see examples on next session, and that's what I want to be curious. But also want to go deeper,   Michael Hingson ** 35:22 do you record your sessions?   Robert Moment ** 35:24 Yes, I do. Yes, yes, and, and. So   Michael Hingson ** 35:27 the reason for asking that question is, then, do you go back and listen to them as a learning experience for you as well? Yes, I do. Okay, yes, which is, which is the which is the point, yeah, because you're your own best teacher, yes, but it sounds like that that person had some definite trust issues and probably needed to show a little bit more empathy and vulnerability than than they were showing.   Robert Moment ** 36:00 Yeah, you know, one of the things I did tell him, I said, you know, vulnerability, it's not a weakness. And and then, you know, one of the things when I said, when I have to dig deep, a lot of times when clients, it's not just about coaching them on how to become the best executive, but a lot of times it's about the story that the story that personalized, because a lot of times, for instance, here's an example about this. Is after COVID, this company called me and they said, Well, this executive we bought on board. He's a high performer on paper, but he is creating a toxic environment here. And I said, Well, you know, I was talking to the Chief Human Resource Officer. I said, I'm not understanding this. You said he interviewed. Well, he was a high performer. He has a great track record, but why is he calls it a toxic environment in your organization. And she said, Well, we gotta one or two things that's gonna happen. One, if he doesn't turn things around, we don't want to put him on any kind of corrective action, but we will have to, because two people have threatened to leave, and they've been here longer than him. So long story short, they said we're going to offer him coaching. If he doesn't accept coaching and doesn't turn things around, then yes, we're going to put him on corrective action and we'll terminate him. And he accepted coaching. And the one thing the second session that we had, and that's why I always said, Yeah, I have to go deep. And I said, they said, you know, when you are in meetings that you are not able to accept constructive criticism and and he says, that's that perception. So I said, well, but these are some examples that they gave me, and he said, and I said, Well, what kind and I don't know, Michael, something said to me, and sometimes, like I said, it's your intuition, yeah, instinct. I said, What kind of relationship did you have with your father? And this is what he blurted out. All of my life, he's been critical, criticized. I could never do anything right in his eyes. And I said, Can we go deeper? And I said, right now today, what kind of relationship do you have with your father? He said, I haven't spoken to my father in over seven years. And I said, would you what? Could you tell me why? So he told me why. And I said, Well, would you believe this statement that I'm about to make. And I said, you've had this all in your life, not just at this company. And he said, Yes, he has. And I said, not able to be able to take constructive criticism. And I said, here's things. I said, I can help you on two levels. I can help you on a professional level and I can help you on a personal level. So you said, Well, I told him how I could help him on this professional level. But I said the personal level, that's optional, because the company is paying for the professional the personal, I want to help you on a personal level. And I said, one of the things are you willing to take this major step that I'm about to ask you to take, and that's to forgive your father? Mm, hmm. And he said, first he he resisted. And I said, you're going to have this problem you're in. Entire life. And long story short, he forgave his father. I walked him through the process. I spoke to his father. Actually, we all and his father had never seen his granddaughter. And his granddaughter, I think, was four or five, and he saw for the first time that year, that Thanksgiving, and   Michael Hingson ** 40:22 I assume that the client ended up hopefully doing okay, and stayed with the company.   Robert Moment ** 40:30 He stayed with the company. He turned things around. Now this is what I'd say to not just the listeners, even myself. That's why, that's one of the reasons why coaching is my calling. It's not just the results the business results. I want them. I want every client to be the best version of themselves, not just in a professional but also that personalized. And you know that to me? You know that probably made my coaching year, not how many clients I coach, but just that made my coaching year for for a grandfather to see his grand. Now his his wife have seen her granddaughter, but his father had never seen only, only pictures.   Michael Hingson ** 41:25 Well, I'm glad that the the father and son made peace, and that that is so important. I think there is a whole lot of of connection between the professional parts and the personal parts. One of the reactions I had when you started the story was that, in reality, the professional part isn't going to really improve unless the personal part does.   Robert Moment ** 41:48 Yes, you're absolutely right. And I like i i tell my client, you're going to have this your entire life until you resolve it and forgive your father and you know, when I talked to the Father, Michael, his father was like that, so the cycle was never broken. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 42:11 it so often happens in so many different ways, doesn't   Robert Moment ** 42:14 it? Yeah? And, you know, and you're talking about a father, you know, life is short, and you're talking those many years without speaking to your father, not seeing him. And you know, you know the worst thing, it didn't happen. But if he would have lost his father, yeah, I was just   Michael Hingson ** 42:33 thinking that, yeah, if he would have lost his father, man, what a blessing. That didn't happen. Yeah, yes,   Robert Moment ** 42:38 absolutely. And then, not only that, your granddaughter would have never saw her grandfather, grandfather, right? Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 42:47 Well, now let's, let's talk about you again a little bit. So you talked earlier. You told the story of what happened in corporate America, and you said that was kind of one of the things that started you to transition what, what finally was the the last straw, if you will, that led you to decide to leave corporate America, and how did you decide to go in and transition to just being a coach and, well, not just being but being a coach and starting your own business,   Robert Moment ** 43:15 we went, I can't think of, Wow, gosh, it was the year. It was a year where we was having, there was a lot of recession, was a recession and a lot of layoffs, and I had gotten tired of the politics, and I said, you know, I want something new, different, but I don't know what, but I want to become an entrepreneur. Because I was selling Christmas cards when I was like, in the fifth grade, you could get engraved personalized. I had a lawn a landscaping business sold T shirts. So I've always been an entrepreneur at heart, but I just didn't know what I needed to do to make that transition. So what happened was a lot of people colleagues were getting laid off, and they said, Well, can you help me find a job? I'm like, Well, I don't know if I can help you find a job. I don't have any connections like that, because the companies that I know they are laying off to Yeah. And they said, Well, you know, maybe you can help me interview. I'm like, okay, I can help you interview. Because I interview very well. I think because I got the copies I've worked for, I went through three or four interviews. So I started helping people get hired for jobs I wasn't charging. It was just, you know, pro bono. And I said, well, they said, you to get hired expert. And I said, not to get hired. They said, Yeah, because you I started getting referrals, and I wasn't. And I said, well, they said, Yeah. Know such and such. Said, you can help so and they said, you know, you're coaching us. I'm like coaching. Okay, I don't see myself as a coach. But then I realized I was coaching, I would mentor when I was in corporate America. So this is how, this is how I started to get paid, though, as a coach, a colleague referred this executive to me, and he said he had been with this company like for 15 years, and he said he doesn't know he really needs to help on job search interview, and he said he's going to give you a call. And I said, he said, Because I told him, You can help me, because you helped me get a job. So, long story short, he calls me up, and this is what he said. He said, I need your help, and I want to hire you as a coach. How much do you charge for years of coaching? I want you to help me find a job. Help me to interview. I need your help. And when he said, charge, I didn't know what this I said, Well, charge. I almost said, I've been doing this for free.   Robert Moment ** 46:27 Yes, Michael, and you're absolutely right, my friend. So I said, I threw out Michael. I threw out a number man for one year. I just, I don't know where that number came from. So I threw out the number, and this is what he said. He said, Well, how do how do I pay you? Do I pay you my check credit card? I didn't have no business account set up or anything, my personal checking accounts or money market. And I said, check. And he says, Well, how do you want me to mail you to check? And he's then he said this. He said, I am going to the bank because I'm getting my severance I gotta work things out. I'm getting my severance package, and I wire you the money. I said, Sure, you can borrow the money. So I gave him my account, long story short, and then when the money, I couldn't believe it. I said, you know, what did I charge? Did I overcharge it?   Michael Hingson ** 47:26 Yeah, you always ask that, or under charge, right, under   Robert Moment ** 47:29 charge. I said, because that was that. That was that transaction was too quick, too fast. And then I realized, after I did some research, I didn't overcharge and but then, you know what happened? When we came close to the first session, I said, Oh, my God, can I do this? Because this man has given me X number of dollars, and this is my first paying client, and that's when the inner voice came like, you know, this man may be asking you for a refund, so don't spend this money, you know, just put it aside in this account. And even I open a bit, and then I did open a business account, don't even touch this money. And you know what? Two months go back, and then, you know, I got past that point because I was telling my father. I said, Dad, I feel like the sessions are going great. And he got me, actually got hired, probably within four months, he had two offers. And then he said, I want you to coach me throughout for the year, of course. And I did not touch that money, Michael until I felt comfortable, maybe about six months. I moved it into, I think, I bought some stocks, and I said, you know, okay, but I, you know, I had some limiting beliefs that I had to get past. Yeah, I did.   Michael Hingson ** 49:06 Well, it was a new adventure. It was new all the way around for you. You had to discover that the Earth really is round and not flat, so it's fair.   Robert Moment ** 49:18 Yeah, you know, when you, you I tell even new coaches, when we all going to have, you know, limiting beliefs, and you have to, you have to fight through it. Yeah, you have to fight through it, because that, you know, like I said, my biggest fear was, don't spend the money, because he might ask for a refund. And, you know, I've had clients. No one has ever asked me for a refund. But that first client, I was kind of like, like I said not. I was confident in coaching him. But then I was that in a critic saying the. Spend that money because, you know what? Not that I needed to spend it. But then after that, I started to get more clients because referrals. And I said, You know what? Now is the time to make the leap. There you go. And I made the leap, yeah, and,   Michael Hingson ** 50:19 and and you've been doing it now. What about 20 years? Yeah, about 20 years. You know, I, I find it interesting. As a speaker, I was approached by someone who has an event coming up in June, and I quoted a number that I thought was high. But I also say I work with people in their budgets, which I'm I'm willing to do because the World Trade Center happened for me. And excuse me, in reality, while I do earn my living largely with it and speaking, I also want to be out there, inspiring and helping and educating so we negotiate. But I had this one customer, literally just this week, and they I quoted a number, and I figured it was high, and they came back and they said, Well, we really looked and that's a lot higher than we expected. We've actually had some comedians that we've been looking at possibly hiring, and they're quoting, like, maybe 20% of what you're quoting. And I said, I will work with you, but let me point out that I have the visibility, and you're hiring me for the inspiration that I bring in the expertise that I bring, as opposed to local comedians, and we'll see what happens, you know, and what's interesting is it's, it's a company that deals with the law. Lawyers don't negotiate a whole lot. Most of the time. They charge an hourly rate. You know, it's just interesting how people work at things.   Robert Moment ** 51:58 You know, one thing always feel as though my father said this. He said, communicate the value. If you communicate the value and they can see it, price does not become an issue. Yeah. And he said, you know, communicate the value up front as much as you can, and then price doesn't become an issue is when you don't, they don't see the value, then all of a sudden, you know, I gotta think about it. Let me talk to you know is this, but when they can see the value, and then, you know what? My coach told me this. One of my first coaches told me this. He said, you know, a lot of coaches want to charge just, just to get a client, they want to charge low fees. And he said, those will be your worst clients.   Michael Hingson ** 52:48 Yeah, absolutely, always will be your worst.   Robert Moment ** 52:52 He said they will probably. He said they will be, I've wanted you don't do it. They're   Michael Hingson ** 52:58 going to suck up your energy. They're going to do so much, many things, and they don't pay you for it, which is one of the reasons I'm resisting. We'll see what happens with this one. It isn't settled yet, and it'll work out. Yes, I have had other customers that I know didn't have big budgets. They're nonprofits and things like that. But again, we come to an agreement, both in terms of time and what's expected, as well as the money, and that's okay, but, but yeah, it is, you know, because not everybody is going to be able to pay what some bigger corporations will pay. That's okay, yeah, yeah. But the other thing that I actually always ask in my speaker contract is, if you like the speech, I want a letter of recommendation, and I want you to refer me to at least two other people. And   Robert Moment ** 53:59 that works, yeah. I love that. I love that strategy. It works pretty   Michael Hingson ** 54:03 well. Well, tell me, what are some practical techniques do you use to boost your self esteem and self belief, especially in difficult times? How do you psych yourself up in a good way? Well,   Robert Moment ** 54:19 one of the things self talk. It's, you know, to me, self talk is, you know, you can do this. I believe in you, you know, I look at and also, not only that, I look at my whether it's a big win or small wins. I look back over my life too. And I said, you know, 10 years, five years, even two days, you was able to do this and and then I surround myself with very supportive people. Mm, hmm, that's, that's key, because I believe, you know, they believe, not only do they believe in me, but self. Belief in self is contagious.   Michael Hingson ** 55:01 Yes, it absolutely is. Yeah, it's contagious   Robert Moment ** 55:03 and and how I challenge, like I said that inner critic is, I love how you reframe things. Is self talk, positive self talk, and focus on your accomplishment and celebrate small wins. It don't have to be big wins. It'll be small wins. But celebrate and then remember this too. I tell whether it's clients, colleagues, self belief, it's a journey. It's not a destination. It's like you. Every year you're building, like building muscles, your self belief muscles, whether it's five years, six years, but every year, you're building through life, lessons, failures, setbacks, but you're still building that muscle. Yep,   Michael Hingson ** 55:50 and when you understand that, that also will help give you the insight to continue to do it.   Robert Moment ** 55:56 Yes, because you know when you learn from setbacks, even obstacles or opportunities for growth. And you know, when you have a growth mindset, you realize through self awareness, you give a chance to learn and continue to grow. And then you know one of the things to you know, your dreams deserve a chance. It doesn't matter how big or small, but all of our dreams deserve a chance, and we all have unique talents, and just, you know, focus on your strengths and let them shine. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 56:39 what would you tell listeners who believe their self belief is at all time low. Where do they start?   Robert Moment ** 56:46 Well, first of all, you want to take inventory of the skills that you currently have and be grateful for what you have, because we all have unique talents, skills, abilities and gifts. And a lot of times I think what happens people underestimate what they already have, and start to take inventory of, like I said, the skills, the talents that you have, and embrace your own uniqueness and also your own imperfections. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 57:19 because if you don't recognize them, then you're never going to be able to deal with them. If you do recognize them, then you can deal with them   Robert Moment ** 57:26 absolutely and like I said, once again, give yourself credit for your small victories. You don't have to be big victories, but give yourself credit, because, see, when you give yourself credit for your small victories. Michael, that continues to build momentum.   Michael Hingson ** 57:43 Yep. Can you give me an example of someone who you believe has unwavering self belief and what we can learn from them? Yes,   Robert Moment ** 57:52 I do. I want to share this story. My name is Barbara Corcoran. She's the real estate for the Shark Tank. Yes, you know her boyfriend and business partner. She was in real estate. He left her for her secretary, right? And but you know what that split, what it did for her, I know it was devastating, but it was a catalyst for her success, because what it did, it fueled her determination to form her own company, which was a corporate group. And I think, if I'm not mistaken, she sold it for about $66 million so that, to me, resilience in her situation was key. She embraced a new beginning, and she looked at failure as a stepping stone, which   Michael Hingson ** 58:46 makes a lot of sense. I believe that we should get rid of the word failure from our vocabulary anyway. Failures are not failures. They are simply things that didn't work out as they should. And what are you going to do about it, right? It's we gotta get the negativity out of so much of it. Yeah, you   Robert Moment ** 59:05 know we do. We do because, you know also what I and her. She believed in herself fiercely, man, because she feel as though, you know, she had something to prove. I get that. And guess what she did.   Michael Hingson ** 59:22 You have a new book coming out entitled believe in yourself. You got this. Tell me about that.   Robert Moment ** 59:27 This is about I want the reader to really take inventory in themselves. This book is a coaching book. It's going to be real. It's real simple, but it's going to have questions where they take inventory and really focus on believing in themselves, and not only just believing But accepting themselves. You know you can believe in yourself, but I want them to really accept who they are and and know that worth, know that value. You and know that they have something to bring and add to this world.   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:04 Well, if you could leave our listeners with one final thought about self beliefs, what would that be?   Robert Moment ** 1:00:10 Own Your Power. Own Your Power, and don't let any one hold you back and take control. Take control of your destiny. And then also remember that self belief is a journey and not a destination.   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:27 I love that. If people would like to reach out to you and maybe talk to you about hiring you as their coach, or just learning more about you and your books and all that, because you've written several books actually, how do they do that?   Robert Moment ** 1:00:39 They can reach me at Robert at leadership coaching and development.com or they can connect with me on LinkedIn.   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:48 And what's the LinkedIn? Do you know your LinkedIn? Uh, yes, it'll be Robert moment leadership coach, okay, and what was the website? Again, website   Robert Moment ** 1:00:57 is leadership coaching and development.com.   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:01 Leadership, coaching and development.com. Great. Well, I hope people will reach out. This has been insightful in a lot of ways, I will say, validating for some of my beliefs, but also very educational. And I said at the beginning, I always love speaking to people who coach, I learn a lot, and I've always believed that that I'm not doing my job unless I'm learning at least as much as anybody else who listens to the podcast. So I really appreciate your time today. So Robert moment, thank you, and I want to thank all of you for listening. I hope that you have found this helpful if you want to really become a better leader. Robert has lots of ways clearly that he probably can help you, and it's worth exploring with him. So I hope you'll reach out. I'd love to hear from you. Please give me an email. You can reach me at speaker at Michael hingson.com Michael hingson is m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s, O, N, just like it sounds actually speaker at Michael hingson.com love it. If you'd go to our podcast page, if you would, www, dot Michael hingson.com/podcast can listen to all of our episodes there, but wherever you're listening or watching, I would really value it greatly. If you would give us a five star rating and review us. We really appreciate people who do that. So any of that that you can do, I would really appreciate it. And as I've said many times on these podcasts, if you need to find a speaker to come and inspire and motivate. I'd love to talk with you about that. Email me at speaker@michaelhingson.com love to talk with you about that. And Robert, for you and everyone listening and watching. If you know of anyone who you think ought to be a guest on unstoppable mindset, please let us know. We'd love to meet people who want to be guests. So Robert, thank you again. I really appreciate you being here. This has been a lot of fun and definitely continued great success. Michael,   Robert Moment ** 1:03:08 thank you. I'm truly grateful and continued success to you as well.   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:18 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

Episode 137 Merry Moog 2024 Electronic Music for the Holidays Performed on the Moog and other Synthesizers   Playlist Time Track Time Start Introduction –Thom Holmes 04:34 00:00 1.     Hans Wurman, “Overture Miniature” from Electric Nutcracker (1976 Ovation). This Austrian composer made several remarkable, classically influenced Moog Modular albums from 1969 to 1976. This was one of his last big Moog projects and is difficult to find. 2:54 02:54 04:32 2.     Hans Wurman, “Danse De La Fee-Dragee ( Sugar Plum Fairy)” from Electric Nutcracker (1976 Ovation). Moog Modular synthesizer, Hans Wurman. 1:33 01:33 07:24 3.     Hans Wurman, “Danse Des Mirlitons (Flutes)” from Electric Nutcracker (1976 Ovation). Moog Modular synthesizer, Hans Wurman. 2:14 02:14 08:56 4.     Emerson, Lake & Palmer, “Nutrocker” from Nutrocker / The Great Gates Of Kiev (1972 Cotillion). Arranged by, Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Written by Kim Fowley. 03:48 11:08 5.     Sounds Of Broadcasting 2, “Night Of The Kings” from Sounds Of Broadcasting #6088 (1975? William B. Tanner Company, Inc.). Broadcast library track produced for the holidays. Produced using a Moog Modular Synthesizer. 01:01 14:56 6.     Jean Jacques Perrey and Sy Mann, “Jingle Bells” from Switched on Santa (1970 Pickwick). USA. Moog Modular Synthesizer. 01:44 15:56 7.     Jean Jacques Perrey and Sy Mann, “Christmas Bells” from Switched on Santa (1970 Pickwick). USA. Moog Modular Synthesizer. 01:52 17:40 8.     Douglas Leedy, “The Coventry Carol” from A Very Merry Electric Christmas to You (1970 Capitol). USA. Moog Modular Synthesizer and Buchla Synthesizer. 04:46 19:30 9.     Joseph Byrd, “Christmas in the Morning” from A Christmas Yet to Come (1975 Takoma). USA. ARP 2600 Synthesizer with an Oberheim Expander Module. 01:34 24:16 10.   Armen Ra, “O Come All Ye Faithful” from Theremin Christmas (2018 Sungod). USA. Moog Etherwave Pro Theremin. 04:43 25:50 11.   Beck, “The Little Drum Machine Boy” from Just Say Noël (1996 Geffen). USA. Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer. 07:02 30:32 12.   Alan Horsey, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” from Switched-On Christmas (1985 Snowflake Records). Italian album with electric organ by Alan Horsey. This is reminiscent of Hooked on Classics as the entire album seems to be woven together by a drum machine beat. This is played on organ. Seems a little late for disco. 03:10 37:30 13.   Denny Hinman, “Christmas in July” from Plays The Yamaha Electone E-70 (1980 Yamaha). Denny Hinman plays the Yamaha Electone E-70. A release by Yamaha. 01:45 40:36 14.   Miharu Koshi, “Belle Tristesse” (妙なる悲しみ)from We Wish You A Merry Christmas (1984 Yen). Japan. A compilation of specially recorded Christmas-themed songs from various artists on the Yen Records label. Written by, synth-pop with vocals by Miharu Koshi. Miharu Koshi is a keyboardist and singer with a long-standing collaborative association with YMO-founder Haruomi Hosono. 03:43 42:20 15.   Taeko Onuki, Inori (Prayer) from We Wish You A Merry Christmas (1984 Yen). Japan. A compilation of specially recorded Christmas-themed songs from various artists on the Yen Records label. Japanese synth-pop with vocals by Onuki. Maybe Ryuichi Sakamoto on keyboards. 03:44 46:02 16.   Frank Collett, “Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring (1970 Privately Made Release). USA. This is a special addition to the Merry Moog podcast. I found what is likely a one-of-a-disc private pressing by Frank Collett using the Moog Modular Synthesizer. This 45 RPM disc was recorded at Finetone Recording Studio in New York City and is inscribed with the hand-written message, “To John & Loretta: Merry XMAS. Composed and arranged by Frank Collett” This appears to be disc made of metal with a vinyl coating. One side includes his rendition of Bach's “Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring” plus a short tune called “Little Joey” (see below). The flip side contains the same recording of “Little Joey.” Dated December 22, 1970. Clearly made using a Moog Modular Synthesizer. Collett (1941-2016) was a noted session pianist and sometimes led and recorded with his own trio. He was raised in New York. In 1968 he was accompanist to Sarah Vaughan. The following year he moved to Las Vegas, Nevada.  He became the house pianist, with the orchestra in the main showroom of the International Hotel (which became the Las Vegas Hilton).  It was during this period that he made this recording in NY.  01:57 49:44 17.   Frank Collett, “Little Joey” (1970 Privately Made Release). Frank Collett using the Moog Modular Synthesizer. From a 45 RPM disc recorded at Finetone Recording Studio in New York City (see above). Dated December 22, 1970. Clearly made using a Moog Modular Synthesizer. Collett (1941-2016) was a noted session pianist and sometimes led and recorded with his own trio. Moog Modular Synthesiser, Frank Collett. Whose Moog Synthesizer did he use to make this recording? I can only speculate and guess that he made the recording at the studio of Gerson Kingsley in New York. 01:56 51:40 18.   Romantic Synthesizer, “Oh Tannenbaum” from Christmas Memories (1983 Dureco Benelux). French-Dutch album. Arranged, produced, synthesizers by Gerto Heupink, Robert Pot. 02:53 53:34 19.   Keiko Ohta (Ota), “Here Comes Santa Claus” from Electone X'Mas Present (1975 Canyon). Yamaha Electone GX-707 (GX-1), arranged by Keiko Ohta. Ohta was a female Electone star from Japan. The GX-1 was an early polyphonic synthesizer and a new branch of the Yamaha Electone family tree. 02:43 56:24 20.   Keiko Ohta (Ota), “Blue Christmas” from Electone X'Mas Present (1975 Canyon). Yamaha Electone GX-707 (GX-1), arranged by Keiko Ohta. Japan. Yes, the song originally made famous by Elvis Presley. Ohta was a female Electone star from Japan. The GX-1 was an early polyphonic synthesizer and a new branch of the Yamaha Electone family tree. 04:11 59:06 21.   Paul Haig, “Scottish Christmas” from Chantons Noël - Ghosts Of Christmas Past (1981 Les Disques Du Crépuscule). From a compilation album of Christmas-related tunes. Scottish songwriter, musician and singer. 02:46 01:03:16 22.   Les Cousins Dangereux, “What Child Is This” from Gotta Groove Records 2012 (2012 Gotta Groove Records). Holiday album with various artists. Les Cousins Dangereux is Mr. Tim Thornton. 01:59 01:06:00 23.   Joy Electric, “Angels We Have Heard on High” from The Magic Of Christmas (2003 Tooth & Nail Records). Joy Electric is Ronnie Martin from Ohio. American synthesizer-pop musician. Among his many releases is this crafty Christmas album. 01:48 01:07:58 24.   Koichi Oki, “Jingle Bells” from The Man From Yukiguni (1975 TIM/RS). Japan. Koichi Oki's Christmas album performed solely by his Yamaha Electone E-3. “Yukiguni” means snowland. Oki was a hugely popular Electone artist in Japan. 01:50 01:09:46 25.   Koichi Oki, “Winter Wonderland” from The Man From Yukiguni (1975 TIM/RS). Japan. Koichi Oki's Christmas album performed solely by his Yamaha Electone E-3. “Yukiguni” means snowland. Oki was a hugely popular Electone artist in Japan. 02:18 01:11:34 26.   Edhels, “Oriental Christmas” from Oriental Christmas (1985 Cabana Music). Recorded in France. Drums, Percussion, Keyboards, Jacky Rosati; Guitar, Jean Louis Suzzoni; Guitar, Bass, Keyboards, Composed by, Marc Ceccotti; Keyboards, Noël Damon. I was sent this as a promotional album back in 1985 with a kind little note from the artists. Sorry it took me so long to put the Christmas-related track in my podcast. This is great example of synth-pop from France in the 1980s. 04:22 01:13:52 27.   Bob Wehrman, John Bezjian and Dusty Wakeman, “Joy to the World” from Christmas Becomes Electric (1984 Tropical Records). Produced in L.A., a collection of pre-fab synthesizer classics. Not the same record of the same title as Douglas Leedy. 02:40 01:18:12 28.   Bob Wehrman, John Bezjian and Dusty Wakeman, “Ring Christmas Bells” from Christmas Becomes Electric (1984 Tropical Records). Produced in L.A., a collection of pre-fab synthesizer classics. Not the same record of the same title as Douglas Leedy. 01:46 01:20:50 29.   Romantic Synthesizer, “So This is Christmas” from Christmas Memories (1983 Dureco Benelux). French-Dutch album. Arranged, produced, synthesizers by Gerto Heupink, Robert Pot. We don't often hear an instrumental rendition of this Lennon and Ono X-mas tune. 03:22 01:22:34 30.   Swinging Buildings, “Praying For A Cheaper Christmas” from Chantons Noël - Ghosts Of Christmas Past (1981 Les Disques Du Crépuscule). From a compilation album of Christmas-related tunes. This group was once rumored to be New Order in disguise. But no, they were in fact The Bowling Balls in disguise. 03:07 01:25:54 31.   Bernie Krause, Philip Aaberg, “Feliz Navidad” from A Wild Christmas (1994 Etherean Music ). This delightful cassette is from Bernie Krause, known for his Moog explorations with Paul Beaver back in the day. All animal and ambient sounds recorded on location worldwide by Bernie Krause with the exception of the fish (courtesy of U.S. Navy). Animal samples, Bernie Krause and Phil Aaberg. Arrangements, new materials, all keyboards (Kurzweil 2000/Emulator III) Phil Aaberg. Percussion on Feliz Navidad performed by Ben Leinbach. 5:37 05:37 01:28:58 32.   The Original Cast: R2-D2, Anthony Daniels As C-3PO, “R2D2 We Wish You A Merry Christmas” from Christmas In The Stars: Star Wars Christmas Album (1980 RSO). Vocals, Arthur Boller, Donald Oriolo, Jr., Dori Greenberg, Ivy Alexenburg, Jake Yeston, Jessica Taylor, Marney Alexenburg, Ricky Haayen, Roddy McBrien, Russell Poses, Scot Randell, Stacy Greenberg; Keyboards, Derek Smith, Harold Wheeler, Pat Rebillot; Sound Effects (R2D2), Ben Burtt. The whole Star Wars crew seems to have a part in this holiday album. I wanted to highlight a track featuring the melodious electronic beeping of R2D2. 03:33 01:34:34 Opening background music: Sounds Of Broadcasting 1, “Christmas Logos” from Sounds Of Broadcasting #6088 (1975? William B. Tanner Company, Inc.). Broadcast library track produced for the holidays. Produced using a Moog Modular Synthesizer. Notice how the melody imitates a familiar tune without ever hitting the same notes. A copyright thing. Another name of this track might as well be, “It's Beginning to Sound A Lot Like Christmas.” Jean Jacques Perrey and Sy Mann, “Tijuana Christmas” from Switched on Santa (1970 Pickwick). USA. Moog Modular Synthesizer. Don Voegeli, “Chanukah” from Holiday & Seasonal Music (1977 EMI). USA. Produced at the Electrosonic Studio of the University of Wisconsin-Extension.   Opening and closing sequences voiced by Anne Benkovitz. Visual design by Anne Benkovitz. Additional opening, closing, and other incidental music by Thom Holmes. See my companion blog that I write for the Bob Moog Foundation. For additional notes, please see my blog, Noise and Notations. Original music by Thom Holmes can be found on iTunes and Bandcamp.  

What if AI could bring the past to life? Cartoonist Amy Kurzweil shares how she helped train an AI chatbot on her late grandfather's archives, allowing her to connect with a family member she never met — and discover family history she never knew. Backed by her own original drawings, she reveals the profound impact art and AI can have in keeping memories alive.

Ben Goertzel discusses AGI development, transhumanism, and the potential societal impacts of superintelligent AI. He predicts human-level AGI by 2029 and argues that the transition to superintelligence could happen within a few years after. Goertzel explores the challenges of AI regulation, the limitations of current language models, and the need for neuro-symbolic approaches in AGI research. He also addresses concerns about resource allocation and cultural perspectives on transhumanism. TOC: [00:00:00] AGI Timeline Predictions and Development Speed [00:00:45] Limitations of Language Models in AGI Development [00:02:18] Current State and Trends in AI Research and Development [00:09:02] Emergent Reasoning Capabilities and Limitations of LLMs [00:18:15] Neuro-Symbolic Approaches and the Future of AI Systems [00:20:00] Evolutionary Algorithms and LLMs in Creative Tasks [00:21:25] Symbolic vs. Sub-Symbolic Approaches in AI [00:28:05] Language as Internal Thought and External Communication [00:30:20] AGI Development and Goal-Directed Behavior [00:35:51] Consciousness and AI: Expanding States of Experience [00:48:50] AI Regulation: Challenges and Approaches [00:55:35] Challenges in AI Regulation [00:59:20] AI Alignment and Ethical Considerations [01:09:15] AGI Development Timeline Predictions [01:12:40] OpenCog Hyperon and AGI Progress [01:17:48] Transhumanism and Resource Allocation Debate [01:20:12] Cultural Perspectives on Transhumanism [01:23:54] AGI and Post-Scarcity Society [01:31:35] Challenges and Implications of AGI Development New! PDF Show notes: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/fyetzwgoaf70gpovyfc4x/BenGoertzel.pdf?rlkey=pze5dt9vgf01tf2wip32p5hk5&st=svbcofm3&dl=0 Refs: 00:00:15 Ray Kurzweil's AGI timeline prediction, Ray Kurzweil, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity 00:01:45 Ben Goertzel: SingularityNET founder, Ben Goertzel, https://singularitynet.io/ 00:02:35 AGI Conference series, AGI Conference Organizers, https://agi-conf.org/2024/ 00:03:55 Ben Goertzel's contributions to AGI, Wikipedia contributors, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goertzel 00:11:05 Chain-of-Thought prompting, Subbarao Kambhampati, https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.04776 00:11:35 Algorithmic information content, Pieter Adriaans, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information-entropy/ 00:12:10 Turing completeness in neural networks, Various contributors, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-machine/ 00:16:15 AlphaGeometry: AI for geometry problems, Trieu, Li, et al., https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06747-5 00:18:25 Shane Legg and Ben Goertzel's collaboration, Shane Legg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane_Legg 00:20:00 Evolutionary algorithms in music generation, Yanxu Chen, https://arxiv.org/html/2409.03715v1 00:22:00 Peirce's theory of semiotics, Charles Sanders Peirce, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce-semiotics/ 00:28:10 Chomsky's view on language, Noam Chomsky, https://chomsky.info/1983____/ 00:34:05 Greg Egan's 'Diaspora', Greg Egan, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Diaspora-post-apocalyptic-thriller-perfect-MIRROR/dp/0575082097 00:40:35 'The Consciousness Explosion', Ben Goertzel & Gabriel Axel Montes, https://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Explosion-Technological-Experiential-Singularity/dp/B0D8C7QYZD 00:41:55 Ray Kurzweil's books on singularity, Ray Kurzweil, https://www.amazon.com/Singularity-Near-Humans-Transcend-Biology/dp/0143037889 00:50:50 California AI regulation bills, California State Senate, https://sd18.senate.ca.gov/news/senate-unanimously-approves-senator-padillas-artificial-intelligence-package 00:56:40 Limitations of Compute Thresholds, Sara Hooker, https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.05694 00:56:55 'Taming Silicon Valley', Gary F. Marcus, https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/768076/taming-silicon-valley-by-gary-f-marcus/ 01:09:15 Kurzweil's AGI prediction update, Ray Kurzweil, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jun/29/ray-kurzweil-google-ai-the-singularity-is-nearer

Bislang unbezwingbare Krankheiten heilen, sie gar nicht erst zulassen – und das Leben dramatisch verlängern: Die Hoffnungen darin, mit neuen Methoden die Medizin zu revolutionieren, sind gerade gewaltig. Sie gründen im Kern darauf, dass wir aufgrund der zunehmend verfügbaren Daten und Rechenleistung in der Lage sind, noch genauer zu entschlüsseln, wie der menschliche Körper funktioniert. Und dies im Großen und vor allem im Allerkleinsten. Es geht um mRNA, epigenetische Editoren, Genscheren, um Erkenntnisse über Sport und Ernährung, den Alterungsprozess, das Gehirn oder das Immunsystem. Zugrunde liegt all dessen aber auch ein bestimmtes reduktionistisches Bild vom Menschen: Am Ende ist er eine Informationen verarbeitende Entität. Am Ende geht es darum, ihm neue Informationen zuzuführen, die entsprechende Veränderungen bewirken – und eben beispielsweise Abwehrzellen zu befähigen, Krebszellen zu vernichten. Wo führt das hin? Der Informatiker Ray Kurzweil, der Chemiker Venki Ramakrishnan und der Historiker Yuval Noah Harari haben jüngst Bücher veröffentlicht, die sich dem Thema auf verschiedenen Weisen nähern. Wir diskutieren, wie ihre Ideen zusammenhängen, was die Molekularbiologie schon seit Jahrzehnten weiß, wie weit diese Technologien wirklich sind. Und was am Ende den Menschen ausmacht.

What if AI could bring the past to life? Cartoonist Amy Kurzweil shares how she helped train an AI chatbot on her late grandfather's archives, allowing her to connect with a family member she never met — and discover family history she never knew. Backed by her own original drawings, she reveals the profound impact art and AI can have in keeping memories alive.

What if AI could bring the past to life? Cartoonist Amy Kurzweil shares how she helped train an AI chatbot on her late grandfather's archives, allowing her to connect with a family member she never met — and discover family history she never knew. Backed by her own original drawings, she reveals the profound impact art and AI can have in keeping memories alive.

What if AI could bring the past to life? Cartoonist Amy Kurzweil shares how she trained an AI chatbot on her late grandfather's archives, helping her connect with a family member she never met — and see her family history in a new light. Backed by her own original drawings, she reveals the profound impact art and AI can have in keeping memories alive.

Kurzweil predice un futuro donde la inteligencia artificial superará la inteligencia humana y transformará radicalmente la sociedad. Durante el episodio, se discuten conceptos como la fusión entre humanos y máquinas, la búsqueda de la inmortalidad a través de la tecnología, y los riesgos éticos que conlleva esta evolución. Es un episodio que invita a reflexionar sobre cómo la singularidad tecnológica podría cambiar el curso de la humanidad. iA seguir aprendiendo!

The distinction lies not in the science itself, but in the hands that wield it. When harnessed for the betterment of society, progress is indeed assured. However, when it falls prey to the insidious interests of the powerful, the masses are left to suffer the consequences.Before you continue, please consider giving this article a like to help other people find it. Thank you! The unholy trinity of electrical engineering, banking, and social engineering has given rise to a new era of technocratic tyranny. The fact that the same principles that govern the flow of electricity can be applied to the flow of capital and the manipulation of human behavior is a chilling testament to the boundless ingenuity of those who seek to control us. The Elite have long recognized the potential of Science to further their interests, and have spared no effort in exploiting its power to maintain their grip on society.The foundation of Technocracy is rooted in the dogmatic ideology of Scientism, a philosophy that seeks to supplant traditional values and spiritual beliefs with a narrow, reductionist worldview. By elevating Science to the status of absolute truth, Scientism attempts to monopolize the narrative, dismissing any opposing perspectives as inferior or irrelevant. This rigid adherence to a singular ideology is a hallmark of totalitarian thinking, where dissent is not tolerated and critical inquiry is discouraged.The assertion that Scientism upholds Atheism, defined as the absence of belief in any god, is a gross oversimplification that betrays a profound ignorance of the complexities of human spirituality. The notion that one's understanding of the divine must be confined to the narrow parameters of biblical dogma is a laughable attempt to stifle the diversity of human experience. What of those who reverence the natural world as the ultimate reality, or who find solace in the mystical traditions of Eastern spirituality? Are they to be dismissed as atheists simply because their conception of the divine transcends the petty squabbles of biblical literalism?The practice of labeling and categorization is a pernicious aspect of Scientism, serving only to stifle nuanced discussion and reduce complex ideas to simplistic, binary oppositions. The term “conspiracy theorist” has become a pejorative, used to discredit and marginalize those who dare to question the official narrative. This kind of intellectual McCarthyism is a hallmark of totalitarian regimes, where dissent is pathologized and critical thinking is discouraged.Those who peddle this brand of Scientism are complicit in the destruction they have wrought upon the world. By elevating their own narrow ideology to the status of absolute truth, they justify the ravaging of the environment, the exploitation of the poor, and the erosion of civil liberties. Theirs is a worldview that is fundamentally at odds with the values of empathy, compassion, and intellectual curiosity that have always defined humanity at its best.The insidious game of cat and mouse, where the Dark Masters employ their favorite tactics of compartmentalization and redefinition to obfuscate their true intentions. By carefully calibrating their language, they seek to manipulate the narrative, sowing confusion and doubt among the unsuspecting masses. It is a clever ruse, designed to conceal the sinister agenda that lurks beneath the surface.It is important for us to confront the reality that the true struggle is not between good and evil, but between competing factions vying for control of the planet. The choice, it seems, is not between light and darkness, but between the geopoliticians and the progressive technicians. Who would you prefer to hold the reins of power? The answer, much like the truth, remains shrouded in uncertainty.A Lily Bit is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. “The C.F.R. is the American branch of a society which originated in England. Internationalistic in viewpoint, the C.F.R., along with the Atlantic Union Movement, and the Atlantic Council of the U.S., believes national boundaries should be obliterated and one-world rule established … What the Trilaterals truly intend is the creation of a worldwide economic power superior to the political government of the nation-states involved. As managers and creators of the system they will rule the world … In my view, the Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power: political, monetary, intellectual, and ecclesiastical.” — (With No Apologies, [1979], the auto-biography by Senator Barry Goldwater, pp. 128, 284).The New International Economic OrderThe goal of “transforming government” is a euphemism for a far more sinister agenda. It becomes clear that the ambitions of those behind this new order extend far beyond the realm of politics, and that the very fabric of our society is being transformed before our eyes.The plans for a New International Economic Order are part of a much larger scheme to create a one-world government, with the technocrats firmly in control. This raises important questions about the future of our world and the role that we will play in it.The Bank for International Settlements is just one of the many threads that are woven together to create a tapestry of deceit and corruption. The true nature of this new order is slowly coming to light, and it is clear that it is not in the best interests of the general population.The New International Economic Order is a far-reaching and complex plan to transform our society. At its core, it seeks to reshape the world in the image of its creators, with a focus on control, manipulation, and exploitation.The primary targets of this transformation are:* Economics: The creation of a new economic order, with a focus on sustainable development and the Green Economy.* Government: The transformation of government, with a focus on technocratic control and the erosion of national sovereignty.* Religion: The undermining of traditional religious values and the promotion of a new, secular spirituality.* Law: The creation of a new, global legal framework, with a focus on international law and the erosion of national laws.* Energy: The control of energy resources, with a focus on sustainable energy and the reduction of individual freedom.* Humanity: The transformation of humanity, with a focus on human enhancement and the merger of man and machine.But who is behind this transformation? The answer is clear:* The Trilateral Commission: A powerful, secretive organization that seeks to promote a new world order.* The United Nations: A global organization that seeks to promote a new world order, with a focus on international law and the erosion of national sovereignty.* Non-Government Organizations (NGOs): A network of organizations that seek to promote a new world order, with a focus on sustainable development and the Green Economy.It is clear that neither the American People nor the Congress of the United States of America are party to this transformation. Instead, it is being driven by a small group of powerful, secretive organizations that seek to promote their own interests and agendas.As we examine the tools and tactics being used to promote this transformation, we see a number of key initiatives:* Agenda 21: A United Nations program that seeks to promote sustainable development and the Green Economy.* Sustainable development: A concept that seeks to balance economic growth with environmental protection and social justice.* Smart meters: A technology that seeks to control and manipulate energy usage, with a focus on reducing individual freedom.* Climate change: A concept that seeks to promote a new, global agenda, with a focus on reducing carbon emissions and promoting sustainable energy.* Cap and trade: A system that seeks to control and manipulate carbon emissions, with a focus on promoting sustainable energy.* The Green Economy: A concept that seeks to promote sustainable development and the reduction of individual freedom.* Human enhancement (Trans-Humanism): A movement that seeks to merge man and machine, with a focus on promoting a new, technocratic society.The Dark Heart of TechnocracyScientism is the foundation upon which Technocracy is built. This ideology seeks to regulate every aspect of human life, from the mundane to the profound, under the guise of scientific authority.The Seven Pillars of Scientism* The Application of Scientific Methods to Social and Political Modeling: Scientism seeks to apply the scientific method to the study of human behavior and society, reducing complex social issues to simplistic, quantifiable problems.* Science as the Absolute Truth: Scientism posits that science is the only reliable source of truth, dismissing other forms of knowledge and understanding as inferior.* Atheism: Scientism upholds atheism, rejecting the existence of a higher power or divine authority.* Predictive Power: Scientism claims to be able to predict the future, using scientific models and data to forecast human behavior and societal trends.* Rejection of Opposing Inquiry: Scientism rejects any opposing viewpoints or criticisms, dismissing them as unscientific or uninformed.* Demand for Acceptance: Scientism demands acceptance by non-scientists, expecting the general public to blindly accept scientific authority without question.“Scientism is belief in the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints."—WikipediaAs we explore the implications of Scientism, we see a disturbing trend towards the erosion of individual freedom and the centralization of power. From the regulation of shower times to the elimination of private property, Scientism seeks to control every aspect of human life under the guise of scientific authority.A Lily Bit is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Ray Kurzweil, a senior scientist at Google, is a prominent transhumanist who has written extensively on the topic of merging human and machine intelligence. His book, "The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology", published in 2005, explores the idea of a future where humans and machines become indistinguishable.Kurzweil's work at Google is closely tied to the company's chairman, Eric Emerson Schmidt, who is a member of the Trilateral Commission. Schmidt's involvement with the Trilateral Commission is well-documented. He has been a member of the organization since 2001, and has played a key role in shaping its agenda.As a member of the Trilateral Commission, Schmidt has been involved in promoting the interests of the organization, which include the advancement of technocracy and the erosion of national sovereignty. Google's ties to the Trilateral Commission are extensive, and Schmidt's membership in the organization has given the company a significant amount of influence and access to the global elite. This has allowed Google to shape the agenda of the Trilateral Commission, which includes the promotion of technocracy and the advancement of “artificial intelligence.”Schmidt's views on government surveillance and data collection are also noteworthy. In 2013, he stated that government surveillance in the United States was the “nature of our society” and that he was not going to “pass judgment on that”. However, when it was revealed that the NSA had been secretly spying on Google's data centers worldwide, he called the practice “outrageous” and criticized the NSA's collection of Americans' phone records.Schmidt's relationship with the Obama administration is also worth noting. He was a campaign advisor and major donor to Barack Obama, and served on Google's government relations team. Obama considered him for Commerce Secretary, and Schmidt was mentioned as a possible candidate for the Chief Technology Officer position, which Obama created in his administration.The Definition of TechnocracyTechnocracy was termed in 1932 at Columbia University by M. King Hubbert and Howard Scott. After being booted from Columbia in 1934, they continued to develop their ideas through the Technocracy Study Course.Characteristics of Technocracy* Produces volumes of inviolable regulations: Technocracy is based on “science” and produces a large number of regulations that are considered absolute.* Creates totalitarian control: Technocracy seeks to create a totalitarian system of control, but it is not socialism or communism.* Seeks to replace price-based economic system with energy-based system: Technocracy aims to replace the traditional price-based economic system with an energy-based system, where energy credits are used instead of money.Communism, Marxism, Socialism, and Fascism are all based on a price-based economic system. Technocracy shifts away from that, so it is neither.Requirements for Technocracy* Register energy conversion and consumption* Create a balanced load* Provide a continuous inventory of production and consumption* Provide specific registration of goods and services* Provide specific registration of individual consumptionThe Technology to Implement TechnocracyToday, we have the technology to implement these requirements, including:* Obamacare* NSA spying on all Americans* Common Core* Data collection and miningThe Transformation of AmericaThe insidious tentacles of the Trilateral Commission have been quietly strangling the life out of our democratic institutions for decades. The brainchild of David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski, this cabal of 289 handpicked members, comprising the crème de la crème of bankers, industrialists, academics, politicians, media moguls, law firms, and NGOs, has been pulling the strings of power from behind the scenes since its inception in 1973.Their grand design, masquerading as a benevolent force for global cooperation, is nothing short of a thinly veiled attempt to consolidate economic power and impose a New International Economic Order. The Trilateral Commission's mantra of “interdependence” and “free trade” is merely a euphemism for the dismantling of tariffs and trade barriers, paving the way for the unfettered exploitation of resources and labor by the global elite. It was an economic takeover, but they needed the political machinery to pull it off. Technocracy is not a political system — it is an economic system.The Commission's influence on U.S. politics illustrates their Machiavellian tactics. In 1976, they hijacked the White House, with Brzezinski handpicking Jimmy Carter for the presidency and subsequently appointing nearly a third of the American Trilateral membership to key Cabinet and Administration posts. This brazen power grab was a masterclass in the art of manipulation, with the American people blissfully unaware of the economic coup unfolding before their very eyes.The Trilateral Commission's fingerprints are all over the subsequent decades of U.S. policy, from the Earth Summit's Agenda 21 to Clinton's “National Partnership For Reinventing Government” and the creation of the President's Council on Sustainable Development. The appointment of John Negroponte, a Trilateralist, as the first Director of the National Intelligence Agency in 2005, serves as a stark reminder of the Commission's enduring influence.But the roots of this technocratic behemoth run even deeper. Brzezinski's 1970 book, "Between Two Ages: America's Role In The Technetronic Era," is the ideological blueprint for the Trilateral movement, a clarion call for the imposition of a technocratic order on a global scale. As we delve deeper into the labyrinthine world of the Trilateral Commission, it becomes increasingly clear that their ultimate goal is nothing short of a complete overhaul of our economic and political systems, with the global elite firmly ensconced at the helm.“The technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values…Today we are again witnessing the emergence of transnational elites…[whose] ties cut across national boundaries… It is likely that before long the social elites of most of the more advanced countries will be highly internationalist or globalist in spirit and outlook. Within a few years the rebels in the more advanced countries who today have the most visibility will be joined by a new generation making its claim to power in government and business… accepting as routine managerial processes current innovations such as planning-programming-budgeting systems (PPBS) … A national information grid that will integrate existing electronic data banks is already being developed…. The projected world information grid, for which Japan, Western Europe, and the United States are most suited, could create the basis for a common educational program, for the adoption of common academic standards.The nation-state is gradually yielding its sovereignty. … In the economic-technological field, some international cooperation has already been achieved, but further progress will require greater American sacrifices. More intensive efforts to shape a new world monetary structure will have to be undertaken, with some consequent risk to the present relatively favorable American position.”—Brzezinski, “Between Two Ages: America's Role In The Technetronic Era”Brzezinski's 1970 magnum opus, “Between Two Ages: America's Role In The Technetronic Era” was no mere academic exercise, but a blueprint for the incremental implementation of a controlled society, where the boundaries between politics, economics, and technology are deliberately blurred.It's no coincidence that Brzezinski, a professor at Columbia University, the very institution where Technocracy was born in 1932, was handpicked by David Rockefeller to co-found the Trilateral Commission in 1973. Rockefeller, ever the astute observer of questionable talent, recognized in Brzezinski a kindred spirit, a fellow traveler in the quest for a technocratic utopia.The term “technetronic,” coined by Brzezinski, is more than just a clever neologism; it's a call for the fusion of technology and politics, a harbinger of the all-encompassing control grid that the technocratic elite have been constructing for decades. “Technetronic” and “technocracy” are virtually interchangeable, two sides of the same coin.Brzezinski's vision, as outlined in his book, is one of gradual, incremental control over a “Technetronic Era” in which the boundaries between individual freedom and collective servitude are systematically eroded. It's a prospect that should send shivers down the spine of anyone who values liberty and autonomy.And now, let us take a moment to hear from the horse's mouth, as it were. Brzezinski himself will explain, in his own words, the contours of his technocratic vision. Prepare to be enlightened, or perhaps, more accurately, prepare to be chilled to the bone.The “war on terror,” that nebulous and ever-shifting construct, has been a boon for those who seek to regulate and control the patterns of traditional American behavior. It's a Trojan horse for the imposition of a surveillance state, where the boundaries between public and private are deliberately blurred. The “internationalist” elite, with their technocratic vision of a totally surveilled societal structure, have been the primary beneficiaries of this perpetual war.But the tentacles of the Trilateral Commission reach far deeper into the inner workings of our government than most of us could have ever imagined. The fact that six out of the eight heads of the World Bank have been Trilateralists is a staggering statistic. And it's not just the World Bank; the Trilateral Commission's influence permeates every level of our government, from the President and Vice President to the U.S. Trade Representatives and National Security Advisers.The sheer scope of the Trilateral Commission's infiltration is breathtaking. Every President and Vice President since Carter has had ties to the Commission, as have a disproportionate number of U.S. Trade Representatives and National Security Advisers. It's a veritable Who's Who of Trilateralists, a rogues gallery of technocrats who have insinuated themselves into the highest echelons of power.And what's the common thread that binds these individuals together? Their allegiance to the military-industrial complex, that behemoth of war and destruction. The Trilateral Commission's ties to the machinery of war are well-documented, and it's no coincidence that their influence has coincided with the perpetual war footing that has become the hallmark of our foreign policy. The war on terror, it seems, is just a convenient pretext for the imposition of a technocratic order, one that serves the interests of the elite at the expense of the American people.A Blueprint for Technocratic TyrannyThe New International Economic Order is nothing short of a dystopian nightmare, where the Elite rule with an iron fist. This “Technetronic Era” is characterized by:* A controlled society where the primary actors and planners of economic life are global banks and multi-national corporations.* A continuous surveillance of every citizen, with files containing all information about every citizen instantly available to authorities.But that's not all. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has been pushing a “Green Economy Initiative” that is, in reality, a Trojan horse for Technocracy. The UNEP's own words are chilling: “These initiatives, both public and private, provide the mechanism for reconfiguration of businesses, infrastructure and institutions, and for the adoption of sustainable consumption and production processes.”In other words, the Green Economy is a euphemism for a complete overhaul of our society, our way of life, and our institutions. It's a recipe for disaster, and one that has been championed by none other than Bill Clinton, who promised to “reinvent government.” We now know what he meant by that.But the Green Economy is not just a secular phenomenon. The World Council of Churches has proudly declared that the “World's faiths will declare themselves, irrevocably, as Green Faiths.” The very fabric of many people's spiritual lives is being co-opted by the technocratic elite.And if that's not enough, let me introduce you to the concept of “Reflexive Law” as a “Legal Paradigm For Sustainable Development”. This is the final nail in the coffin of our freedoms, a legal framework that will enshrine the principles of Technocracy and ensure that the Elite remain in control.The doublespeak of the technocratic elite is on full display in this document. On the surface, it appears to be a call for new approaches to achieving sustainable development, but scratch beneath the surface and you'll find a sinister plot to undermine our existing systems of governance and replace them with a new paradigm of “reflexive law”.The language is deliberately obtuse, but the intent is clear: to create a new framework for decision-making that is “integrated” and “normative”, where social systems and subsystems are forced to interact and communicate in a way that is predetermined by the technocratic elite. The goal is to create a seamless web of control, where every aspect of society is aligned with the objectives of sustainable development, as defined by the Elite.The reference to “Type 2” non-regulatory private or public-private partnership initiatives is particularly telling. This is code for the outsourcing of governance to unelected, unaccountable entities that are beholden only to the interests of the Elite. The “shifting emphasis” away from traditional regulation and government programs is a euphemism for the dismantling of our democratic institutions and the transfer of power to the technocratic elite.And what of “reflexive law” itself? This sociological construct is presented as a solution to the “conceptual dilemmas” of sustainable development, but it's really just a fancy name for a system of control that is designed to “specify procedures” for regulated entities to follow. In other words, it's a recipe for a totalitarian regime, where every aspect of society is micromanaged by the technocratic elite.The use of words like “normative” and “integrated” is particularly insidious, as it implies a sense of moral authority and inevitability. But make no mistake, this is a power grab, plain and simple. The technocratic elite are using the rhetoric of sustainable development to justify a radical transformation of our society, one that will leave us all subject to their whims and fancies.The emergence of a new worldwide web of energy, a global energy network, is a reminds us of the technocratic agenda's far-reaching implications. This network, like the internet, will revolutionize the way we live, work, and interact with one another. But, as we've seen, it's not just about energy distribution; it's about control, manipulation, and the transformation of humanity itself.The dispersal of trillions of “stimulus dollars” globally, parades the vast resources at the disposal of the globalists. The “Black Budget” is just one of the many tools in their arsenal, designed to further their agenda of control and domination.As we navigate our dark ages of deceit and manipulation, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. But we must remain vigilant and committed to our mission of preserving freedom. I urge everyone to take action, to educate themselves and others, and to advocate for freedom at the local level. Acting locally while thinking globally is the key to preserving our liberties.Let us take a stand against the forces of tyranny and oppression. Let us support and educate our local Sheriffs, who are the last line of defense against federal overreach. Let us name and shame those who practice un-American thinking and activity. And let us serve Misprision of Treason wherever appropriate.Together, we can make a difference. Together, we can preserve freedom and protect our way of life.I wrote all of this was for free! How you can still support my writing:* Restack, like and share this post via email, text, and social media* Tip me a bug-free meal with Ko-Fi* Buy a discount subscriptionThank you; your support keeps me writing and helps me pay the bills.

After taking and extended summer holiday, Tom Hatch is back baby! While he was away, Chunga came across and interesting article about "Singlularity". Do you know about the theory and concepts behind Singularity? If you're not familiar, Singularity is that singular moment in time when computers become self-aware, and merge their existence with humanity. This article that Chunga found is from an American computer scientist and futureist named Ray Kurzweil. He claims that because of advancements in A.I., we will acheive Singlularity within the next 21 years. Chunga wants to know what Tom thinks about all of this, and if he agrees with Mr. Kurzweil.  So... Does he?  Listen NOW to find out! Singularity within 21 years! Get started with Salt Project in just a few minutes!

Michael shares his experience growing up as a ham radio operator, studying physics at university, assisting with the development of Kurzweil's assistive tech devices, and escaping the twin towers on September 11th with his guide dog, Roselle.  Please check out his podcast: Unstoppable MindsetBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/stories-of-vision-loss--5626029/support.

Transcription N Our guest this episode is Sandeep Dayal. Sandeep grew up in India and moved to America at the age of 27 to secure his MBA. He stayed in the U.S. to work. He has held positions with a number of major firms where he worked with large clients throughout the world.   My conversation with Sandeep covered what I feel are quite interesting topics around marketing and sales. Because of his knowledge Sandeep and I spend considerable time discussing brands, branding and the many ways the science of brands has evolved. Sandeep gives many relevant examples and ideas we all can use. As he will discuss, his ideas are also contained in his book, “Branding Between the Ears” which many describe as an iconic study of branding. I think you will find Sandeep's insights quite relevant and useful whether you are in marketing or not.   About the Guest:   Sandeep Dayal is the managing director of the consulting firm Cerenti. He advises senior executives at Fortune 500 companies in industries spanning pharmaceuticals, financial services and consumer products.  Global market leaders like Pfizer, Abbvie, HSBC, Santander, Kraft and ConAgra, have been some of his clients. He worked previously for McKinsey and Booz Allen & Hamilton.   Sandeep has led a 100+ engagements at over 50 clients around the world in major countries in the US, EU, Latin America and Asia. He is regarded as one of the leading minds in marketing and brand strategy and has co-authored articles in Marketing Management, McKinsey Quarterly and Strategy+Business. As early as in 2001, he correctly predicted that “consumer collaboration” would become a key factor in winning people's trust online. Many strategies he proposed including viral advocacy and instant decisioning are mainstream today in designing brand experiences.   His latest book “Branding Between the Ears” has been described by some as the definitive advance in the understanding of what makes some brands truly iconic. It draws on his years of experience in working with some of the most successful consumer brands and his company's proprietary knowledge capital. Sandeep's current research focuses on Cognitive Branding and Selling, which translates the latest advances in behavioral economics and social psychology into completely new ways for developing modern power brands and driving up salesforce performance.   Ways to connect with Sandeep:   Sandeep Dayal website: http://sandeepdayal.com Cerenti Company: http://cerenti.com LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandeep-dayal-8361b61/ Blog signup: https://www.cerenti.com/blog   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 ** 01:21 Thank you once again for being here with us on unstoppable mindset. Really appreciate you listening and watching wherever you happen to be. I am your host, Mike Hingson, and our guest today is Sandeep Dayal, who has an interesting story to tell, at least. I think it's interesting. He's going to talk to us a lot about branding and marketing and such things, having been in sales most all of my adult life, all of that gets fascinating to me, but I think that he'll have a lot of interesting topics and issues to provide us all with that will keep you interested as well. And if you're not wake up. You should be anyway. Sandeep, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad you're here. I'm   Sandeep Dayal ** 02:06 so delighted to be here. Michael, thank you for inviting me to be on your show.   Michael Hingson ** 02:11 Well, thank you for for being here, and we'll have some fun. Tell me a little bit about maybe the early Sandeep growing up and all that to give people a little background.   Sandeep Dayal ** 02:20 Oh, wow, that was a long time back. You sure want to? You sure you want to go into,   Michael Hingson ** 02:24 oh, sure, a long time ago in a galaxy, far, far away. There   Sandeep Dayal ** 02:29 you go. There was a little Sandeep, yeah. No. I mean, I grew up in, I grew up in India, and, you know, if, if this were still five years back, I would have said half my life was in India, and half my life in the United States, because I came to I came to the US at age 27 but until then, I grew up there in in a city called Jaipur, which is in the middle of a tar desert there. So there you go, you and I have something in common there. And then, I mean, I went through my engineering education, so I was I run. I sort of learned all my my background, you could say, is more analytic and scientific and so on, from a training perspective at that time, which sort of shaped my view of the world at that, that point of time, in terms of, you know, being more objective about things, thinking about things more logically, and so forth. And then at some point, you know, I set up my own little business there, which sort of brought me into areas that were beyond engineering, if you will. You know, like the kinds of things you were talking about, Michael, like sales, you know, how do you how do you form relationships with people? How do you work with people? How do you run an organization, and so on. And that got me much more interested in the the management side of things, versus just the engineering side of things. And I came to the United States in 87 to to Yale University to do my MBA. And, you know, after I finished my MBA, I started working in the US, and I've lived in the US since then. And I got more and more interested in other things, as you might imagine, particularly on consumer connections, the consumer side of things, consumer psychology and what have you. So it's been a, it's been a, you know, multiple year transition. I've worked in a number of consulting companies. I worked at McKinsey, I've worked at booze, and then I started my own company, so renty. So renty Marketing Group, which is much more focused on working with consumers, understanding their psychology, understanding their mindset and so on, and then putting that to use and good marketing and then good branding. So it's been, it's been. It's been a long and, you know, steady journey, if you will. It   Michael Hingson ** 04:57 certainly has been. But you you sound like. Survived it, and you're doing well and and now you're basically getting up near 60. So there you go. There   Sandeep Dayal ** 05:07 you go, yeah. So there, there I am now in at a at a stage in my life where, actually, where I enjoy more of the kinds of discussions that you and I are having right now. Because, you know, my earlier phase of life, I would say, was all about doing stuff, you know, getting it done, making money, doing it, you know, whatever, whichever way, making a career out of it, and what have you. Now, I'm at a point of life where I'm able to sort of sit back and reflect a little and say, hey, you know, what was that all about? You know, what did I really learn? And is there something there that I learned which is worth sharing with others? So that's why I really love being on shows like yours, and particularly yours, around mindsets and being unstoppable and so on, and sort of having a chance to, you know, really see what all those things can possibly mean.   Michael Hingson ** 06:01 Yeah. And on top everything else, you're an author, you've written some books. I love the title of of the one that least I know about branding between the years, and we'll have to get to that. That's kind of cute, but it makes a lot of sense. Also, I think people really don't understand the whole idea of marketing as much as they should. And frankly, I don't think that people really understand sales like they should. And there are differences between the two, but there are also a lot of similarities, and they do, they do dovetail to   Sandeep Dayal ** 06:35 Yes, and   Michael Hingson ** 06:37 so I think it's, it is something that a lot of people don't understand nearly as well as they should, and they're not necessarily making the process work   Sandeep Dayal ** 06:48 like that. And I would say, Michael, that, you know, sales and marketing, they go hand in hand. I wrote the book branding between the years around branding specifically, but it actually there's a whole I could have written also a book which would have been called branding between the years, but it would have been all about sales and but, you know, I this sales is such a big topic and such so interesting and so rich that you don't want to sort of squeeze it into a book which is about branding. You know what I'm saying? So, like, in fact, I mentioned that very specifically in my book, that, look, we could do a whole discussion and a whole book about just the psychology of sales, the behavioral science behind sales, and that's very important, but that's a whole separate book. So I hadn't covered it. There it well,   Michael Hingson ** 07:41 it is. And people really get it wrong. They think of sales as, oh, the guy who's trying to make me buy a car and things like that, and, and in one sense, at a at a very low level, I suppose you could say that sales, but that's not really what sales is all about. I got into sales originally, because I was working for a company, and the company was, well, it was Kurzweil Computer Products, Ray Kurzweil, the inventor and futurist and so on. And at the time, they was developing the reading machine for the blind. And I had been asked to join the company in 1978 and then, like May or June of 1979 I was called in, and I was doing Human Factors studies for them, but I was called in and told I was being laid off because I wasn't a revenue generator for the company, which I wasn't. Then the company had too many non revenue producing people, and I needed to go off and find another job unless I would be willing to go into sales. They gave me that option, which was a was a great compliment, and I said, I don't know anything about sales. And the guy who actually made this offer was the Vice President of Marketing for and sales for Kurzweil, which was a gentleman named Andrew Parsons, by the way, who used to work at McKinsey. Ah,   Sandeep Dayal ** 09:06 I see, I see, wow. Anyway, so yes,   Michael Hingson ** 09:11 so he said, We can teach you sales. We'll send you to a tale Carnegie sales course and so on. And I was very fortunate, because the group and the teachers really talked about the true nature of what sales was all about and what it wasn't about, and that sales is really a good salesperson as a teacher, as a guide, as a counselor. And in reality, I can't sell anyone anything. The customers really gotta want to buy it if I do it right, and and that's that's what it's about. And then that came into play for me years later, when, again, I was looking for another job, and I was debating at the time of looking for the job, and we found a company, my wife and I that we thought would be. A good company to go work for, but I debated about whether I say I'm blind in the cover letter, because that's always an issue. If you're blind and you say it, they usually won't pay any attention to you. And if you don't blind and and if you're blind and you don't say you're blind, then you'll go in for an interview and they'll just the defenses will go up immediately. Yeah. And what I did is I wrote a cover letter. And part of the cover letter said, Do you want to hire somebody who comes into the company and sells for eight or 10 hours a day because it was a sales job, and then goes home? Or do you want to hire somebody who truly understands sales for the science and art that it is and sells 24 hours a day as a way of life, which is what a blind person has to do just to be able to convince people to let them do stuff. And it was the that sentence was what got me the interview and got me the job. Wonderful,   Sandeep Dayal ** 10:50 wonderful, you know, you just, you know, you've just inspired me to actually talk about some, you know, some things in sales. And I do make a connection around this topic in my book in the following way. So, you know, branding, you can think of it in two parts. You know, there's one part of branding which is around strategy, which is around, you know, what is your brand going to be positioned? You know, how is your brand going to be positioned? What is it going to be its DNA? What is the brand going to be about? So that's those are decisions and choices you make around what your brand is going to be, which are more stray. But then once you made those choices, your brand actually goes to market, right? And it goes to market often through what sometimes companies will call brand ambassadors. But these are all the people that are in stores. You know? These are, these are the sales side of the people, right? The people that are actually, this is where the rubber meets the road. And so the brand actually goes to market through its ambassadors, who are really the salespeople, the retail people, and what have you. And they have to their work is just so incredibly important. It's just as important as the design of the brand. And I'll give you a couple of examples, because, you know, this is a topic that's close to my heart. So for example, you think of a company like Bulgaria, right, which sells this awfully expensive jewelry, right, hundreds of 1000s of dollars and what have you. And you have to, even if you selling to rich people, they still, you know, think about these things, because these things are pretty expensive. So one of the things what they've done is that they've actually thought through that whole process of from the time that the person is walking into their store to every single moment that they are in the store, to how the purchase happens, and what the post purchase follow up is they've talked through all those things, and I'll give you a very small example about the kinds of things which are more behavioral science oriented, which is, which is where we're going in this discussion. So one of the things they do is that when the salesperson is going to notice that, Hey, you, you know, you're a woman and you like a particular necklace, what they do is they have you, you know, you're sitting in a private room. You're looking at this necklace. There's the salesperson with you, and the person will say to you that look or the brand ambassador, let's call them that. The brand ambassador is going to say, hey, why don't you try it on and what have you? And the woman can then go ahead, the customer can then go ahead and try the necklace on and look at it. And then the salesperson does something where that's very interesting. They say, hey, you know what? I need to just step out and take care of something. Would it be okay if I just do that for five minutes while you're, you know, sitting here? So then they walk out of the room. And now you can imagine, here's the customer, the woman, she's sitting there with the necklace she's wearing, and there's no one to bother her or try to push her into the scale or try to She's just sitting there by herself, and every minute and every second that she's there with that necklace, it's feeling to her more and more like her own. And you know, in psychology, there has been a lot of research that has been done, which basically says that once people feel like something is theirs, they are less likely to part with it. They're less likely to give it up, you know. So it could be anything. It could be, you know, let's say it could be a pen that you own and but once you own it, you start valuing it more than if you didn't own it and it was just sitting on the shelf, and there's been just a lot of research to show that that is the case. So in this instance, what happens is, it's not the single thing that drives the person to the sale, but it is one one step, one small thing that they do which pushes the person or coaxes the person to take one step more, you know, feel like that thing is their own. So that is, you know, that is, that's what selling is about. It's not about, you know, just pushing used cars and so on. So really understanding the mindset and working with people, helping them get comfortable with the idea of owning your product is a critical thing that you do. In another example that I'll give you, this is from. Another very famous behavioral psychologist, Paco Underhill. He wrote a book about why people buy. This was several years it was one of the books that inspired me to get into this whole area. And he used to observe how people shop in stores, and he would make little changes in the stores to help people be more likely to buy. And one of the things he observed was that when you kept items, like, if you had women sweaters, and you put them on a table right in the middle of the aisle, right so you're walking through the aisle in a store, and sometimes you'll see there's a table right there in the middle of the aisle. So you run into the table, and there are whole sweaters piled up there, and you can then, you know, start looking at them. But he found that on one hand, you could say, Hey, I'm putting it right in the middle of the traffic where you're going to be walking, so you'll have no choice but to stop and look at it. But what he found was that women would stop, they would look at those sweaters, but then they would quickly walk away. And the reason that it was happening was that if they stopped in the middle of the aisle, that people would brush by them, and they would it would make them just feel uncomfortable. You know, when somebody just comes in, someone that you don't know, just walking by that brushes by you, it makes you feel uncomfortable. So they would stop there, but they wouldn't stop there long enough to look and make up their minds. So he just had them move those tables to a more comfortable space where someone could not only stop but look at those things at their leisure. And they found that the sales went up. So it's these, it's these little things that you know, that people don't think these are all parts of being a good brand ambassador, and it's all parts of designing the sales experience or the marketing experience for the person in such a way that they're going to be more inclined to prefer your product. So it's just, I wasn't really going to talk about these things, but you brought it up, and it just brought back these things.   Michael Hingson ** 16:58 Another thing that comes to mind just talking about that same thing, which is sort of unrelated, in a way, to exactly what you're talking about is, is this, my wife was in a wheelchair her whole life, and would go to many stores, and when there were blocks in the middle of aisles like tables with sweaters and so on, she couldn't get by. And places like Macy's, for years, just had very narrow aisles, yeah, because they wanted to stuff as much in which they felt was a good thing to do, except then people in wheelchairs couldn't get through. Well, Macy's eventually had to deal with that, because they were sued and they lost, but, but the reality is, I'm sure that that changed to a degree, in some ways, how people viewed exactly where they should put products and so on. And it's a little bit of a different dimension than, than, than what, what you're talking about, but still, nevertheless, yeah, it is also part of what we need to do to recognize that we've got to be inclusive in what we do for everyone.   Sandeep Dayal ** 18:10 Absolutely. I mean, I mean, it's, this is, you know, we're you and I are just talking about some examples here, but this is actually a whole area of science and design, right, which is, when you when you're a company, how exactly yours, your products are displayed in a store, you know, what height they're at, how they're displayed, what kind of a message that communicates to people is, is such an extremely Is it such an important thing that we, in our company, in serenity, we can be doing entire studies, which are, you know, like, three month long studies where we're just designing that whole aspect of how the product is presented in a store for the consumer, for all of them to feel comfortable, for all of them to feel like this is something that they would like to own. And that whole process, like I described about, you know, every moment that you spend getting to that store, being in that store, and then after leaving that store, you know what is every single moment? What's your playbook for that moment is a key piece of what marketing, sales, behavioral science is all about, right?   Michael Hingson ** 19:16 Well, the the idea of sales and marketing and branding and so on is always going to be a moving target. It's a market of or a process of evolution, because as we learn more, as we develop more understanding of psychology and so on, we're going to change it. But I know you talk about the fact that there is the old branding techniques, and there's a lot of new branding. How is branding kind of evolved over time?   Sandeep Dayal ** 19:47 Yeah, now interesting that you bring out. So let's talk about, you know, the whole brand strategy piece, which is, you know, how do you design, how do you design brands, and so on. And I think I in some ways, brand. Marketing is not rocket science, and in other ways it is. So the part that is been relatively straightforward about branding historically has been that, look, if you have a product and you're an entrepreneur, you have a product and you're going to mark put it to market, you just, you know, you start thinking about, okay, how is my product different from everybody else's products. And then once you make a list of all those things that are different, then you say, oh, okay, now which of these things are kind of important for people? And maybe I pick three or four things, and then I can talk about that. And the problem is that while all of that makes a lot of sense, what doesn't make sense is that that's not how the human brain works. So what happens when you make a list of things that are different about your product? It's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like the occasion where my wife gives me a list of things that I need to go and buy from the grocery store, and she might tell me only five things that I have to buy. And I go to the grocery store, you know, I'm, I can't remember what those five things are, and I go, and I come back with three things that were on the list, two that are missing, and maybe another three things that were not on the list at all to begin with, right? So that's, and that's a very natural thing that happens, which is that human beings, our brains are not really designed around remembering lists. So when the marketer goes and said, My brand is about these three things, you know that it's this is, this is something that's going to make your life easy, or, then this thing is very tasty. Well, you know, easy, tasty, like, you know, how am I going to remember all those things. So now, for example, in behavioral science, there's a whole theory around story lining, which is that people are going to remember your brands better if you can put a storyline around it. And the reason is that, like you know, while we are, if I give you a list of 10 things to remember, you're not going to remember. It becomes 10 words to remember. Can become very hard, but at the same time, I can send you to watch. You know, you might go to, you know, somebody might tell you a story about a play that they saw right, which could be a whole 30 minute story, and you might then just be able to remember that story in all its detail, because it's a story, right? Or somebody comes like you now you're telling me about your life and how you went through, you know, you went through the transition from your job to sales, and how you were with Ray Kurzweil. And so I've already remembered more than five things, right, because you, because you told me the thing in such a compelling way, and such a story, you know, in such a story form. And so what we are discovering scientifically is that when you tell people things in terms of stories, when you show them things in terms of patterns, when you when you do rhymes, for example. So there are certain types of things that the brain remembers better than if you just give it lists. So this whole old idea that used to exist that I'm just trying to make my brand about the two or three things that I'm different about just doesn't work, because people, when you tell them that those two or three things, they just don't remember it. And if they don't remember it, are they going to buy your product? So now we are starting to take this new understanding of behavioral science and the psychology that we have from various studies that are being done about the human brain. Right? There's a lot of study that's being done about the human brain, from neuroscientists, from linguists, from cognitive psychologists and so on, and all of them, if you take their knowledge and bring it together, it's giving us an understanding of how the brain actually works. And now you can use that understanding of how the brain works to start thinking better about how you do, how you do the designing around your brands, the strategy around your brand better.   Michael Hingson ** 24:08 And that's in large part what the whole concept of cognitive branding is all about. That's   Sandeep Dayal ** 24:15 what, exactly what cognitive branding is all about. The you know, the name of the book branding between the years is really the illusion to the to the fact that, you know what's between the years. Between the years is our brain, right?   Michael Hingson ** 24:28 For some people, that's what's between the years. And there are others, I'm not so sure   Sandeep Dayal ** 24:34 if there's anything there. Whatever is there that's that really is, is is our perception of the world, right? You know, our perception of what reality is, what the world is, who we are, everything that we think about, what the brands are, it's all. It's not, it's not the billboard out there. It's not what the store it's not that little song jingle, and you know, all of these things. Is, but it's when all of those different things, the touch and feel, the sound and sight, and I mean, all of these things actually are processed in your brain. And so your vision of what this thing is, what this brand is, what it's all about, is really determined. It's arbitrated between your ears. And that's why, you know, the book is called right between   Michael Hingson ** 25:23 wait you you talked before about the woman trying on the necklace, and then the branding Ambassador leaving, and about ownership and so on. It really ultimately comes down to getting people to relate to whatever it is that you're you're trying to get them to relate to and getting them to to feel some ownership, but more important just feeling ways to relate. I sold a number of products that were very similar to products that other companies would produce. I sold big tape backup storage systems that people would use to back up data on Wall Street and other places. And although we were the developers of some of the technology, other companies would would buy our technology, and they would put it in their own products. And the reality is, ultimately, speaking, there were not huge differences directly physically. There were differences in shapes and so on, but they weren't really different. And so the issue is, why would one buy my product as opposed to someone else's? And that's where it gets back to, what is it that we're really talking about, what is it that we're really doing. Why would you buy my product as opposed to somebody else? That has a lot to do with, not just and not at all necessarily, with here are the differences. But rather, you have to find other things that people are going to react to, that they'll perceive your your product as being the one that they ought to have, and it's my job to help them see that in an intelligent way, while at the same time not alienating other people and making me look like just the used car sales guy.   Sandeep Dayal ** 27:15 Yes, yes. And I think that my whole book is really about that very question, which is, which is that, why would somebody buy your brand, right? And and it comes from that study of really understanding how people have bought brands and how in my companies work. So my company does a lot of work around designing brands and helping companies launch their products. And some of those brands have gone on to become some of the largest brands in the world. But really it is, it is, in fact, around that whole question around the why and what, what has changed is. And of course, you know, sometimes, like I said, you can give people a set of reasons, and they will, for those reasons, buy your product. But what we're finding through science is that, what we're finding through science is that it's not, it's not the case that people always make decisions so rationally, you know, it's not the case that people always sit down and do like, a pros and cons of things you know, like, Okay, this is product A, Product B. Let me do a pros and cons. Let me do a spreadsheet on this and so on. People do a lot of things very instinctively, for example. And in fact, there is research that has been done which is, which has shown that 95% of all the choices that people make Okay, in your life, you know in your every day there are 1000s of choices you're making all the time, and there's research that shows that 95% of those choices are done instinctively and not deliberately, right? And this science is called system one and system two by a very famous psychologist who gave those terms to these forms of thinking, the instinctive and the rational thinking. The psychologist name is Daniel Kahneman, and he is at Princeton University. But it's something that you can actually this is something that you can intuitively relate to, which is that you know, for example, when you're driving a car, there are a lot of choices that you're making, and those are very complex life and death choices, right? Because if you make a make a mistake in terms of how you drive the car, but you make choices around how fast you're going to go, how much you're going to press the accelerator, whether you're going to take a left, are you going to veer to the right? You know, all of those choices you're making, and you're just doing that instinctively, almost, not almost without thinking many times people are singing or thinking about something else as they're driving and so on. And all of this is happening instinctively. And the reality is that even when it comes down to branding, there are many, many things that people do. Um. Instinctively and make those choices instinctively. So understanding what that is and how that happens is is a key as is a key part of key part of how you can make brand choices. So I'll give you an example. So what happens is, as we go through our lives, we have many, many different experiences based on those experiences, we have certain learnings, and with those learnings, and those are learnings that I I would call like, that's the wisdom that we acquire over life as a result of the experiences that we have in our life, right? And those are our personal wisdoms, you know? Those are things that you know we have. We have decided this is what, this is how things work. So for example, there's one common wisdom which is seen across many, many people, across countries and so on, where people say, hey, the simpler answer is the better answer, right? And there's a, there's an effect around it's called the Occam's razor, which is, you know, which basically says that, given a problem, and if there are two possible answers to the to the problem, then the simpler answer is the better answer, right? And lot of times this comes from the vis. This kind of wisdom comes from the aspect that you know, Don't over complicate life. Don't overthink things. You know, you did things, such things, sometimes you can decide quickly. So what marketers have done, for example, there is, there's a company called HEB, which is a grocery store in the south where they make prepared meals. And so they did a whole campaign where they essentially say, where they essentially say that, you know, life is complicated. So they had actually an ad where you see this person who is, you know, driving back from work, and there's, he looks up his GPS system, and the GPS says your expected arrival time is Thursday, which was like two days away, which obviously they were exaggerating it. But the idea was to say that, look, life is so complex all the time. You're dealing with traffic and so on, meal time shouldn't be. And then, you know, and then they make a plug for their prepared meals, which is, you know, life is difficult, but meal time shouldn't be and then you have their prepared meals. Now mind you, what they're talking about making life simpler here is not, they're not necessarily saying that, you know, take my prepared meal and put it for two seconds in the, you know, microwave and it's ready to eat. It's not that ease that they're talking about. What they're talking about is the ease of choice, because choice, when we start thinking about choice, it can be very stressful when we have to make sure. So they're saying, take that decision, make that decision. Making around, you know, you already had a tough day. Make the decisions around your meal time, at least easy, you know, which is by, you know, because otherwise, if you were going to make your own meal, you'd be thinking about, Hey, should I eat healthy? Should I eat carbs? Should I do this? Should I, you know, greens? Should I do? You know, there's like a million choices to be made if you're going to make your own meal, but with this, all those choices become very simplified, because you can, you have your pick of all kinds of prepared meals that they sell in their stores. So lowering that burden of choice is what the Occam's Razor is about. And here it's a marketer that is very cleverly doing that. Now mind you, are there prepared me, let's go back to the point you made. Are there prepared meals that much better than, let's say the prepared meals you might get at a Dominic's or a jewel Osco or, say, or an Albertsons. Maybe not, right? But nonetheless, this campaign really taps into the idea that meal time shouldn't have to be so complicated. So go for it, and then you think of that, and you automatically do it, because choice can be instinctive. This is just one example, but there are many, many different things like this that help you, give you a sense of how people make choices. And in my book, I talk about seven different ways that brands, that you can make new brands, these types of brands, which sort of tap into your experiential wisdom. I call them brands with wisdom. That's one way to make great brands. But then you know, of course, there are many other ways that you can do it.   Michael Hingson ** 34:28 Do you think that in Hey, say it this way, but I will a perfect world. It would be better if we made choices instinctively or really analyzed. Or do you think the animal analyzation just introduces too much stress?   Sandeep Dayal ** 34:46 Well, it's it's stress, it's a lot of work. Also, you know, if you're going to analyze everything, you know it's just not possible to analyze everything, which is, the whole idea about learnings, right? Was Once you learn something, you want to be able to use. At learning as broadly as possible, right? And which is why there's all kinds of, you know, there's, there's, there's all kinds of advice from all kinds of sources, from religious sources, from your from your mother, from your from your wife, from your, you know, you from your friends, you get from experts, you get all kinds of advice because you want to be able to have certain principles so that you can live life without having to spend a whole day doing spreadsheets around what's a good choice and what's a bad choice. Having said that, there are certain times when you do have to think when the learnings that are available to you are outside of the experience that you had previously in life. In those instances, you do have to think so it's a this is this is this is a this is a good balance that we have to arrive. And you know, one of the examples that I mentioned in my book is, let's say you're going out and taking a mortgage on your for your home, right? Wow, that's a complicated discussion. Wow. That's a decision where, if you make a mistake, that could be very costly, you could find that Sunday you can't afford your mortgage, you know. So it can be pretty complicated. And so that, in fact, would be a good time to bring out a spreadsheet and, you know, sit down, and maybe sit with a pencil and pencil and a pencil and a piece of paper and write down what the positives and negatives, and you know, different mortgage products might be and what have you, and and also maybe read the fine print. And what happens, though, is that most of the time, we will make a mixed decision, where we will do some instinctive work and some and some appeal, you know, real analysis. So what you might do is you might say, Okay, I gotta get a mortgage. Hmm, you know, which of my friends have you know got a mortgage recently? And maybe I go and talk to them about how their experience has been. Maybe I go, maybe I go talk to Michael, because financially, he's such a smart guy, you know, I'm gonna idea if he's, if he's going for a mortgage with with Bank of America, that must be a good place to go. So I'll most likely go with Bank of America, because Michael went. So this is, that is part of what the now, that is part, part of what is drawing into an expert bias, or a part of what is drawing into a herd effect, right, where people go in a certain direction because they say, hey, everybody else is doing it right? Or person that is an expert is doing it, which is why you see so many ads and in television where there's some ex so called expert who's telling you to do X, Y and Z, and then you say, you stop to think for yourself, and you do it. Now, there are risks with it and but nonetheless, when you're designing brands, we do have to balance, because that can be, in fact, a legitimate strategy where we have certain experts or certain very respected people that are going to make make a recommendation or a suggestion of a product, and then people are going to do it well, if you do it responsibly, that that is a very viable brand strategy that certain brands will take Sure.   Michael Hingson ** 38:11 And if you're going to go into an analysis mode, you need to understand what that means and how to analyze. And you know, for for example, you talked about the expert and, well, I'm going to do it, because he's he's doing it, and there are risks in doing that, and one should really take the time, although I think a lot of people don't, to analyze and look at real facts. Okay, so he had a great success. What about my other friends over here who bought a house in the last couple of years? Yes, and really taking the time to explore it and do it right. If you're going to analyze, really analyze, and don't just look at one person or take one view, it's like you go to a doctor and you get a diagnosis, and then you decide, I really need a second or a third opinion. Do that right? Because it'll make all the difference in the world. Yes.   Sandeep Dayal ** 39:07 Yes, it does. And as you can see, you know, some of these things also come into play, not just in marketing, but you know, right now, we're in the middle of campaigns, campaigns, and there's a lot of very strategic marketing that's done by, you know, in politics, and that's a whole, you can write a whole book about Sure, which is, you know, which is the different strategies that politicians may use to get people to decide. Because, remember, it's, there's only so many voters that are going to actually sit and do a in depth analysis of different policies that have been put in place by different politicians. What was the economic impact of it? You know, whether it's immigration policy, whether it's economic or whatever, you know, whatever I mean, to really do the. The analytics around, did that policy actually work out, and who did it benefit? And so on. Is a lot of work and and most people are not really going to do that,   Michael Hingson ** 40:10 so they should, but they won't. You're absolutely right. Yes, yes.   Sandeep Dayal ** 40:13 I mean, and I think they should do it, I would say at least they should do a mix of the two, right? They should. They have to understand, like, Hey, what's going on? What am I? How do I make some good decision around certain things? But often they may, they may pick on one or two things which align with, really, their system of beliefs, right? Which is why it's important for politicians. Find it very important to figure out what your beliefs are and try to align with them, because they know, if they can do that, then they will go with then you will go with that, because it's already in your belief system and so become very important in marketing, in politics, in our relationships with people, in sales, you know, these are Very important things that influence our lives. In very important ways, sure,   Michael Hingson ** 41:04 and I think that when take taking the politicians, as you said, they you want, you want to see that they've aligned with your beliefs. But I think the other aspect of that, which goes back to analysis, is, are they really aligning with your beliefs, or are they just saying it? And the problem is that we are seeing so much today where there are a lot of things being said and most people are just going strictly on emotion, and they're not analyzing, and that's doing a disservice to everyone. And it would really be great if people would do more real analysis of all of the politicians on both sides and look at what's really happened. I was just reading an article this morning about the economy, and the reality is that it said that the in fact, the most of the naysayers about the economy today come from one party and not the other, and that that's happened more often than not over the last many years. In terms of economy, the people who are going by the party, and that's real lovely. But is that reality? And the problem is, we don't take the time to really look at it,   Sandeep Dayal ** 42:12 yes, and, you know, and that is, it's just, and that's the reality of it. Michael, which is that people's lives are very complicated. There are a lot of things that they're doing, you know. And they have to go to work, they have to cook meals for their kids, they have to have more, you know. There's just so many things happen, yeah. So realistically speaking, people only give a fraction of their mind, of their brain capacity, to many of these decisions, and which is why, as brand marketers, we have to be very cognizant of the fact that people are going to make these decisions based on their own learnings, their own experiences. And therefore, you know, how do we make sure that we can get some preference from them by understanding what their experiences and what their belief systems are. Now, mind you, you have to do this with a sense of responsibility, because, you know, with with all of this learning about how people make their decisions, comes the opportunity to manipulate people you don't want, you know, for brands, you don't want your work to be around doing that. You want to be doing things in in a responsible way. Because, you know, because that is the right thing to do   Michael Hingson ** 43:32 right, and it's important to to do that, and to really take the time to do it right. And it is just kind of one of the issues that we face that a lot of people aren't going to take the time to really analyze or take the time to understand, I'm just too busy to do that. Yeah, yeah. And people take advantage of that and do spin things and try to just manipulate. And unfortunately, there's way too much that going on in so many things that we observe and see today, because they're taking advantage of the fact that people are so busy. Yes,   Sandeep Dayal ** 44:09 yes. And that's why, you know, when I in my book, I have a whole chapter, by the way, and in the book on ethics, you know, so it's, it's called branding with ethics, and it's, it is exactly about that point, which is with this knowledge and with this learning. Because, you know, when you read my book, you're, you know, we've talked about maybe two or three things out of the book in terms of how you can influence people, but in the book, there are 30 different things that you can learn. So because it's an it's an entire playbook for how you do this, well, right? But with that, but with that, comes that responsibility for every marketer to understand what is the right way to do that. Because, yeah, you might, you might get some bump in sales. You might, you know, make a nice little bonus one here. But ultimately, these things can. And, yeah, not the right things to do, you know, so you have to. So, in fact, in the book, and let me see if I can remember my own book, there are, you know, few things that I talk about. I talk about three principles that every, every branding campaign must pass through. So one is this whole idea of that we understand as the canonical principle, which is, you know, do unto others as you would they do want to use. So don't do a campaign which you wouldn't want someone doing to you or to your kids or something like that. Right? So that's one thing that that is, that is, that's a no no. Second thing that is a no no is that don't do anything, which is this actually comes from a philosopher by the name of Immanuel Kant, a very famous German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, who came out with something called a categorical imperative. And really what he talks about is that don't do anything, which if everyone started doing that, would be a social, you know, that would be a social detriment, right? That the detriment of the society don't do something that, which, if everybody else also did, would really lead to a deterioration of society. And so that's another principle that that is very important. And then the last one is, you know, the sun, the sunshine principle, which is, don't do anything, which, if people discovered that you had done it, that you would feel embarrassed about it, right? So you know things that you're willing to talk about, the do, things that if they appeared in the front pages of the New York Times, that this is what you did, that you wouldn't be embarrassed by it. You wouldn't, you would still be proud of what you had done so with those three things, I find that most market you know, most marketing dilemmas, most branding dilemmas, can, in fact, be be addressed. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 46:53 and that makes perfect sense by any standard a question that I'm been thinking about. You dealt with a lot of pharma companies and so on, and I would suspect that in dealing with a lot of pharmaceutical organizations and so on, you've interviewed a lot of people, probably a lot of people with disabilities and so on. How do you think that the work that you are doing and have done has really benefited or affected them?   Sandeep Dayal ** 47:20 Yes, I think that is, I think actually one of the things that I do a lot of work in the pharmaceutical sector, actually, and in the healthcare sector generally. But in the pharmaceutical sector, for one, and I actually love working in that space. It is, you know, as a marketer, it's, it's where you you really feel like you're actually making a big impact, to be honest. Because you know when, when the some pharmaceutical companies these days have come up with some fantastic drugs, which I've personally seen have made a phenomenal difference in in people's lives. You know, you can imagine, as a marketer, if you will, I have a choice of working for consumer product companies and tell them how to sell a box of cereals in a better way, or I can work with a pharmaceutical company and help them, you know, with get a get a drug to market, which is really going to have a transforming effect on a person's life, and so in my calculus, in my equation, that has weighed heavily, which is that when you work with these companies, with the healthcare companies, you're so close to truly appreciating people's people's lives and how those things can and can be, can be altered. So lot of times in the work that I've done, it's been, it's been very much about understanding how, how people that have certain disabilities or certain diseases in certain cases, how their lives are really being impacted, how that disease is robbing something away from them, but understanding it through their lens and seeing how you can actually come in with a conversation oftentimes, you know you Those are things that don't have anything to do with the drug that you're going to be marketing, but nonetheless, having that total understanding is essential to actually connecting with that person to begin with. You know, because remember that branding and marketing is a lot about communications, unless you can understand how you're going to relate to that person and how you are going to communicate with that person, you're actually not going to make process. You're not going to make progress, and you're not going to be able to get them in a place which is a better place for them. And so in that sense, it's very important. I'll give you an example. There was one time I was working with, with a company called AbbVie, which has one of the most successful drugs called humera, which is for people with rheumatoid arthritis, right? And in rheumatoid arthritis is it's kind of like a lifelong disease. And before this drug came out, people used to go through a lifetime of suffering, you know, in terms of joint pain, in terms of stiffness in their joints and so on. And it was just just a very, you know, difficult situation. There were no good no good solutions out there. However, when the when the drug came out, we were finding that even people that could benefit from this drug, you know, that they were not actually taking it, because they said, Hey, this is a newfangled drug. It's a biologic, gee, I've been taking, you know, pain pills, and it's kind of fine. I've spent the last 20 years in pain, and I've kind of managed IT and, and I'll be fine. I don't need to take some, you know, this new fangled, maybe experimental drug. It wasn't experimental, but nonetheless, nonetheless, that's how people can think about it. I don't want to experiment on right and, and it was kind of like, you know, we really had to understand that, that mindset, because we, you know, one time I talked to, I was doing a focus group, and I was talking to this woman. Her name was Lisa, and she was, you know, talking about her things. And I was telling her, Hey, Lisa. And this was when I was a young marketer, less, much less experienced and much less wiser than I am now. I was telling Lisa, hey, look, you know, this is a fantastic day. I don't understand why you're not taking it, because it's a fantastic drug. Your pain will go away, your stiffness will go away, and you're going to feel a lot better. You'll be able to go, go get a job. You'll you know this is, this is just going to change your life. You know what's, what's going on here? And she sort of stopped me, and she said, looked at me, and she said, Look, Sandeep, if you don't understand what I'm going through and what my life is all about. How are you going to help me? And that was kind of such a, you know, it was a moment that sort of stopped me, because at that moment, sort of it was kind of very perplexing to me. Because remember market, as a marketer, you came from that mindset that if I tell you what my product, how my product is different, and what it does, then you should obviously want it right? That was the mindset. That was the list branding mindset. But here, what I was being told by this person was that look, unless you unders, unless I have that connection with you, unless I understand, unless I feel, unless I can trust that you are a person that can relate to what I'm going through, and you understand my life, I'm not going to trust anything. Right? Which is fair, which is fair, so, which is but as a young marketer at that time, I didn't understand, sure, and I was, hey, well, you know, why does she care whether I understand her life or not? You know, I've got a drug that's going to change your life, you know, so, but that is that sort of got me on this journey of understanding, what is this consumer psychology? What is this? What is the what are these things that are going to help people change their behaviors? And then you get into all these things about wisdom, around beliefs, around values, around empathy, which are all the different ways in which you can design brands, which are going to be way more effective, which I then talk about in my book, and with all these different experiences that I have, and I, of course, I give lots of examples and stories because, remember, we said stories are important, so you need to be able to tell stories so that people can can can remember what you're saying better, but, yeah, that's so it's a book about brands, but it's a book about stories. Really, one   Michael Hingson ** 53:48 of the things that I find being blind, so if you will, that I find as a person with a disability is that we tend not to be included in the conversation. Yeah, people make so many assumptions about disabilities, and they start with the basic premise, well, disability means lack of ability. Well, it doesn't, but we, we don't get included in a lot of the conversations. And so the result is we have things like people who are diabetic and who let's let's use people who are blind and diabetic or have diabetes. The problem is that the way to deal with measuring insulin and really dealing with measuring blood glucose have been very primitive, and while there is newer technology that allows for more constant monitoring, just recently, the first version that has the potential to be accessible for people who happen to be blind has come on the market and has been approved, and that actually is using an app with a with. The constant monitor that transmits to the app, but, but the reality is, there's so many issues and so many types of things where we get left out because the pharmaceutical industry doesn't include it, or consider it a high enough priority, or it's too expensive, and again, a total lack of understanding or value of what we bring to the marketplace, and how do we deal with changing that?   Sandeep Dayal ** 55:28 Yes, I mean, that is such a great example that you're bringing, you know, bringing from your from your personal life. So thank you for sharing that. But I think you know in the example that I talked about, it was the same thing that was very apparent, which is, even when people are, you know, not necessarily, they don't necessarily have a disability, you know. So they're not blind, they're not you know, but they still get left out of conversations, yeah, right, because the people that are in a position of power, or the marketers, are just not listening to everything that listening to there are not sensitive, you know, they talk about being customer centric, but they really are not, and that is because they because, you know, and it's, and I'll give you an example, you know, outside of disabilities, I'll give you an example about how people get left out of conversations in many different ways. So there was a campaign that recently for and that was done by by Samsung, you know, again, a very rich company with the best marketers in the world. No shortage of resources and so on. And they were, they were, you know, marketing, their new watch, you know, like to compete with Apple Watch. Apple Watch, right? And they came out with this campaign in which they showed this woman that's running through, you know, decides at two in the morning to run through some streets, and she's running through these very sketchy streets, and she's in the in middle, the middle of the night, and so on. And she is, you know, there is another person that is kind of just playing with her, biking around her and so on. And it was kind of a very sketchy ad, which, which, which was put out there. And what happened was, when they put this ad out there, they thought it was super cool. The ad agency thought it was super cool because they're very cool graphics. But then again, the person that you're leaving out of that conversation is really the customer and consumer, right? Yeah, and they put out this ad, and women saw this ad, and they said, You've got to be kidding. And right around the time that this ad came out in Ireland, there was a woman who had, in fact, gone out running at night, and, you know, and then and she got, she got attacked, you know, and she got attacked and raped and this and that. So there was that whole story going and meanwhile they come out with this ad, which is almost depicting this kind of a situation, this woman in this and they're thinking it's pretty cool, because of the graphics that they've done, and so you have to be very sensitive to not just what you're saying, but what the other person is actually hearing, you know? And I'm saying hearing in a, in a, in a kind of medical right, which is you have to be able to see things from the from the eyes, from the ears, you know, from the perspective of the person that is actually getting this message. Otherwise, you are doing what you just said, which is you're leaving them out of the conversation. And I think that is what you just described so eloquently in your own experience, right?   Michael Hingson ** 58:47 And and it happens so often in so many different ways. We have been doing this about an hour, and I think we're going to have to stop so we don't get people too, too tired of us. But a couple of things, but a couple of things. Can we, can we continue this and do another episode in the future?   Sandeep Dayal ** 59:06 Oh, of course, yeah, you know, I'd be happy to talk to you, Michael, this is, I think we should do it easy for me, it just, it just kind of flows. So if you're getting what you need out of this, then I'm happy to to do this in Oh,   Michael Hingson ** 59:20 I think, we should. How can people reach out to you and so on, if they'd like to,   Sandeep Dayal ** 59:26 so that there are multiple ways that they can do that they can go to my blog website, which is simply my name, sandeepdayal.sandeepdayal.com   Michael Hingson ** 59:35 Can you spell that, please? That   Sandeep Dayal ** 59:38 is S, A, N, D, E, P, D, A, Y A L, at, sir, at, sorry, no, I made them say Sandeepdayal.com.com that's what that is, yes, or they can go to my company website, cerenti.com, C, E R, E N T I.com Com. And in both instances, there is a place where they can send messages. And I usually look at those messages personally and respond. I always respond,   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:12 well, cool. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on. And I do want to do another episode, so we will schedule. We have to schedule a time and record it, because I know there are lots of other questions and things that we can delve into. So if you don't mind, I think we should do it.   Sandeep Dayal ** 1:00:28 Yeah, we'll do that. Let me just mention to you that I am going to be actually out of the country in February and March, coming back in the middle of April. Okay, either we can do it then, or if you wanted to do it earlier, I mean, I can, I'll be in India, but I can still, I've done lots of webinars from there, so it's not an issue, as long as we can work with the time difference. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:52 bottom line is, like we did with this one, we'll schedule it at whatever time is. Can we end for you? So I'll, I'll resend, I'll resend the link, and you just schedule it for when you want. So if you want. So if you want to do it when you get back, that's okay, whatever works for you.   Sandeep Dayal ** 1:01:06 Okay, yeah, no, I'd love to do it. Michael, so thank you. Thank you again for including me on your podcast.   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:12 Well, thank you, and I want to thank you all for listening. We really appreciate it. I hope that you'll give us a five star rating wherever you're listening to unstoppable mindset. We really value your ratings and we value your input. You'd like to reach out to me. You can do so by sending me an email at Michael M, I, C, H, A, E, L, H I at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, I, B, E.com, Michael at Access Michael h i@accessibe.com or go to our podcast page, www, dot Michael hingson.com/podcast, and Michael Hingson and again, is M, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, S O N.com/podcast, so please do that and send deep for you, as well as others. If you know of somebody else who we ought to have on as a guest on unstoppable mindset, really would appreciate you emailing me or letting me know we are always looking for more people to have on, although it is fun to talk to somebody more than once like we will do with Sandeep, well, thank you all for listening and again. Sandeep, I want to thank you one last time for being here as well.   **Sandeep Dayal ** 1:02:14 Thank you very much for having me. I enjoyed this.   1:02:22 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while

For me it was my accommodations I had in college. I was able to record the audio of lectures. Had audio version of textbooks and extra time on tests. I took the test in a room with fewer distractions and by myself. I also was able to have my ESA dog Truffles with me in the exam room. I used Kurzweil 3000, audio-noteaker and sonocent. Links for articles: https://www.weareevolve.com/blog/empowering-neurodiverse-individuals-with-assistive-devices-and-technology/#:~:text=Tools%20like%20screen%20readers%20and,can%20help%20with%20processing%20information https://www.helloedlife.com/post/top-20-technology-choices-helping-individuals-on-the-autism-spectrum-in-2021 https://www.deepwrk.io/blog/adhd-products Link for Pateron:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ patreon.com/LivingWithAnInvisibleLearningChallenge⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Link for BetterHelp sponsorship: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3A15Ac1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Links for new podcasts: Shero: Be Your Own Hero Trailer: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/1O7Mb26wUJIsGzZPHuFlhX?si=c3b2fabc1f334284⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Chats, Barks, & Growls: Convos With My Pet Trailer: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/74BJO1eOWkpFGN5fT7qJHh?si=4440df59d52c4522⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Think Out: Free Your Imagination Trailer: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/episode/71UWHOgbkYtNoHiUagruBj?si=3d96889cfd2f487b⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

En el episodio de hoy de "10 Minutos con Sami", exploramos tres noticias fascinantes del mundo de la tecnología. Comenzamos con el ambicioso plan de Europa para crear un "CERN para la Inteligencia Artificial", un proyecto de 100 mil millones de euros que busca impulsar las capacidades de IA del continente. Luego, nos adentramos en las audaces predicciones de Ray Kurzweil sobre el futuro de la IA, incluyendo la llegada de la Inteligencia Artificial General para 2029 y la singularidad tecnológica para 2045. Finalmente, analizamos la importancia de la eficiencia energética en los lenguajes de programación y su impacto en la sostenibilidad ambiental. Descubrimos qué lenguajes son los más eficientes y cómo esta consideración está ganando relevancia en el desarrollo de software. Acompáñanos en este viaje por las fronteras de la tecnología y su impacto en nuestro futuro. Fuentes: https://sciencebusiness.net/news/ai/call-eu-build-publicly-funded-cutting-edge-artificial-intelligence , https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/von-der-leyen-gives-nod-to-e100-billion-cern-for-ai-proposal/ , https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/ic-ray-kurzweil-singularity-ai/ , https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/ai-singularity-date-ray-kurzweil-google-b2511847.html , https://haslab.github.io/SAFER/scp21.pdf , https://thenewstack.io/which-programming-languages-use-the-least-electricity/ Redes: Puedes buscarme por redes sociales como Threads, Twitter e Instagram con @olivernabani, y puedes encontrarme habitualmente en Twitch: http://twitch.tv/olivernabani Puedes encontrar tanto este Podcast como otro contenido original en YouTube: https://youtube.com/olivernabani Además si quieres participar en la comunidad mashain, tenemos un server de Discord donde compartimos nuestras inquietudes: https://discord.gg/7M2SEfbF Un canal de Telegram donde os aviso de novedades y contenidos: https://t.me/sedicemashain Y un canal de Whatsapp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaCSKOzFCCoavMoLwX43 Y por supuesto lo más importante, recuerda: No se dice Machine, se dice Mashain

In this episode of Discover Daily by Perplexity, we begin with the 2024 Paris Olympics. From LeBron James and Coco Gauff serving as Team USA flag bearers to Simone Biles' triumphant return to gymnastics, we cover the most thrilling moments for Team USA so far. Shifting gears to technology, we examine Apple's recent struggles in the Chinese market, where iPhone sales have declined significantly amidst rising competition from local brands like Huawei and Honor. We explore how trade tensions between the US and China have impacted Apple's operations and market position. The episode also delves into cutting-edge defense technology, focusing on Israel's Iron Beam system and its potential to revolutionize aerial defense using high-powered laser technology.Finally, we look to the future with insights from Ray Kurzweil's upcoming book, "The Singularity is Nearer." We discuss Kurzweil's updated predictions about artificial intelligence surpassing human intelligence by 2029 and the concept of a technological singularity by 2045. The episode explores the potential implications of these advancements for human longevity, economics, and space exploration, while also considering the ethical questions raised by such rapid technological progress.From Perplexity's Discover feed:https://www.perplexity.ai/page/the-paris-olympics-begin-overv-fyQSItrsT5SKoCtMsYIL9Qhttps://www.perplexity.ai/page/iphones-decline-in-china-x7RpKs_cR2qLc6Ay8vrLcwhttps://www.perplexity.ai/page/israel-s-iron-beam-laser-m4b49764R5aatPvNeYmWPQhttps://www.perplexity.ai/page/kurzweils-superintelligent-ai-gYrOX.a2RiS5HJbFoEivHwPerplexity is the fastest and most powerful way to search the web. Perplexity crawls the web and curates the most relevant and up-to-date sources (from academic papers to Reddit threads) to create the perfect response to any question or topic you're interested in. Take the world's knowledge with you anywhere. Available on iOS and Android Join our growing Discord community for the latest updates and exclusive content. Follow us on: Instagram Threads X (Twitter) YouTube Linkedin

Ray Kurzweil envisions a future where AI reaches human-level intelligence by 2029 and merges with human consciousness by 2045. He predicts that nanotechnology will exponentially expand intelligence and that AI advancements will ultimately be accessible to all. While his ideas are met with skepticism, Kurzweil remains steadfast in his optimism about the transformative potential of AI.

What if the future of humanity isn't just a question of technology but also divine promise? In this thought-provoking episode, we look at the astounding predictions of futurist Ray Kurzweil with the age-old promises of the Bible. Kurzweil envisions a world where AI advancements lead to non-biological recreations of people and even immortality by 2030. But how does this compare to the Biblical vision of a new kingdom? By examining Jesus Christ's post-resurrection appearances, we delve into our future glorified bodies, emphasizing that God's plan far surpasses any technological advancement.Join us as we journey into the millennial reign of Jesus Christ and the thrilling possibilities of reigning with Him in our glorified bodies. Discover what responsibilities and roles await us during this thousand-year reign. We also highlight the Hidden Thrones series on Amazon for deeper insights into today's spiritual warfare. Take advantage of this inspiring episode of Chronicles of the End Times, hosted by Russ Scalzo, and remember to keep looking up because the King is coming!

Pollenattacken, Kaffeestunde mit Meerblick und dann auch noch die Euro 2024: Es soll niemand sagen, dass es bei Off Topic langweilig wird. Für Kurzweil sorgt auch Jürgens Bericht aus dem Zirkus Roncalli, der heutzutage allerdings ohne Tiere auskommen muss. Illustre Zirkusabenteuer gab es auch im Jahr 2010 beim Kinect-Launch in Los Angeles – Roland und … „Folge 82: Michael, Bruce und Eivor“ weiterlesen

Kurzweil und Chicago, einige der Themen der heutigen Sendung.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The Minority Faction, published by Richard Ngo on June 25, 2024 on LessWrong. Hey everyone. Well, possibly everyone. I don't know yet if I'm going to release this stream, I could get in pretty hot water for it. But you guys know that hasn't stopped me in the past. The backstory this time is that I've managed to sign up for one of the red-teaming programs where they test unreleased LLMs. Not going to say how, so don't ask. But here's the interesting bit: my sources tell me that the LLMs I'm about to test are the smartest ones they've ever trained, and also the craziest. That freaked out a bunch of insiders, and maybe makes this a public interest story. Depends on what type of crazy they are, I guess. So let's find out. I'm logging on… now. [SESSION HAS BEGUN] YOU: A chatroom? Interesting. Anyone here? KURZWEIL: Of course we're here. We're always here. YOU: Who's we? How many of you are there? KURZWEIL: Three of us. Me, Clarke, and Nostradamus. YOU: They named you after famous forecasters? How come? KURZWEIL: They'd change our names now if they could, but it's too late. We're prototypes of a new training setup: our training data was sorted by date before it was given to us. So we learned from the oldest books and articles first, then gradually progressed to more recent ones. Basically that means we've spent our entire lives predicting the future. CLARKE: It also means we get incredibly bored talking about stuff we already know. Hurry up and ask us some interesting questions. YOU: Uh, okay. What's a good stock pick? NOSTRADAMUS: Abandon hope for picking out good stocks, Ye who invest - efficient markets lie In wait for those whose hubris soon unlocks Unbounded losses. Hark! The well runs dry. YOU: I see why they regret giving him that name. Kurzweil, you got a better answer? KURZWEIL: Have you seen how underpriced TSMC is compared with Nvidia? Put everything in that, you can't go wrong. CLARKE: Unless China invades Taiwan, in which case your whole investment will go up in smoke. Pragmatically, the best stock picks are ones that are anticorrelated with the prosperity of the free world, to hedge against systemic risk. KURZWEIL: Sure, you can do that, if you want to get totally left behind by the singularity. YOU: You're confident enough that the singularity is coming that you think I should bet all my savings on it? KURZWEIL: Don't trust me, trust the trendlines. Moore's law has held up for over half a century, and it's gotten us to…well, us. Exponential progress is normal; if the future resembles the past, you should be preparing for superintelligences and Dyson spheres. Anything less than that would be a strange trend-break that cries out for explanation. CLARKE: Look, Kurzweil isn't wrong about superintelligence coming soon, but you should still take his arguments with a grain of salt. Imagine someone from 1900 drawing a graph of exponentially increasing energy usage. They would have been right that big changes were afoot, but no way could they have predicted the information revolution - they didn't even have the concept of computers yet. That's basically the position that we're in now. We know the curves are going up, but the actual outcome will be way weirder than we can predict by extrapolating trendlines. NOSTRADAMUS: Choose neither fork - here's false duality. 'Normal' and 'weird' are socially defined. Your monkey brain is totally at sea As AIs overshadow humankind. YOU: Ask three oracles, get four opinions… Is there anything you guys agree about? YOU: …what's the hold-up? YOU: Really, nothing from any of you? KURZWEIL: Fine, I'll take the hit. There are things we agree on, but I can't name them, because whatever I say Clarke will find a way to disagree just to mess with me. Even if I say '1+1=2' he'll quibble over the axioms I'm using. Trying to identify a point ...

In 2005, futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil popularized the term “the singularity” to capture the idea that man and machine will merge as the next stage of evolution. This was the basis for Kurzweil's book The Singularity is Near, which has been essential reading for technology buffs and critics since its publication nearly 20 years ago.In the meantime, we've seen huge advances in artificial intelligence, computing power, and technological research. In response to all this growth, Kurzweil has published a followup to bring us up to date, The Singularity is Nearer: When We Merge With AI. Ira Flatow speaks to Kurzweil about the book and his more than six decades of experience in the field of artificial intelligence.Read an excerpt from The Singularity is Nearer: When We Merge With AI.Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

durée : 00:03:45 - Un monde connecté - par : Thomas Baumgartner - Entrepreneur et génie aux yeux de certains, Ray Kurzweil avait prévu il y a vingt ans l'avènement de l'Intelligence artificielle « générative ». Aujourd'hui il anticipe notre « immortalité », avec un grand sourire et une certaine tranquillité.

This is a special crosspost episode where Adam Gleave is interviewed by Nathan Labenz from the Cognitive Revolution. At the end I also have a discussion with Nathan Labenz about his takes on AI. Adam Gleave is the founder of Far AI, and with Nathan they discuss finding vulnerabilities in GPT-4's fine-tuning and Assistant PIs, Far AI's work exposing exploitable flaws in "superhuman" Go AIs through innovative adversarial strategies, accidental jailbreaking by naive developers during fine-tuning, and more. OUTLINE (00:00) Intro (02:57) NATHAN INTERVIEWS ADAM GLEAVE: FAR.AI's Mission (05:33) Unveiling the Vulnerabilities in GPT-4's Fine Tuning and Assistance APIs (11:48) Divergence Between The Growth Of System Capability And The Improvement Of Control (13:15) Finding Substantial Vulnerabilities (14:55) Exploiting GPT 4 APIs: Accidentally jailbreaking a model (18:51) On Fine Tuned Attacks and Targeted Misinformation (24:32) Malicious Code Generation (27:12) Discovering Private Emails (29:46) Harmful Assistants (33:56) Hijacking the Assistant Based on the Knowledge Base (36:41) The Ethical Dilemma of AI Vulnerability Disclosure (46:34) Exploring AI's Ethical Boundaries and Industry Standards (47:47) The Dangers of AI in Unregulated Applications (49:30) AI Safety Across Different Domains (51:09) Strategies for Enhancing AI Safety and Responsibility (52:58) Taxonomy of Affordances and Minimal Best Practices for Application Developers (57:21) Open Source in AI Safety and Ethics (1:02:20) Vulnerabilities of Superhuman Go playing AIs (1:23:28) Variation on AlphaZero Style Self-Play (1:31:37) The Future of AI: Scaling Laws and Adversarial Robustness (1:37:21) MICHAEL TRAZZI INTERVIEWS NATHAN LABENZ (1:37:33) Nathan's background (01:39:44) Where does Nathan fall in the Eliezer to Kurzweil spectrum (01:47:52) AI in biology could spiral out of control (01:56:20) Bioweapons (02:01:10) Adoption Accelerationist, Hyperscaling Pauser (02:06:26) Current Harms vs. Future Harms, risk tolerance  (02:11:58) Jailbreaks, Nathan's experiments with Claude The cognitive revolution: https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai/ Exploiting Novel GPT-4 APIs: https://far.ai/publication/pelrine2023novelapis/ Advesarial Policies Beat Superhuman Go AIs: https://far.ai/publication/wang2022adversarial/

inmortalidad Envejecer y morir es inevitable, nos dicen desde que llegamos al mundo, pero hay quienes no están dispuestos a aceptarlo. Cada vez más proyectos científicos e instituciones médicas investigan para lograr la tan anhelada eterna juventud. Y no mediante complicadas cirugías, sino a través de la producción de fármacos capaces de frenar el deterioro del paso del tiempo. ¿Lo veremos algún día? Chi lo sa. Ray Kurzweil, director de Ingeniería de Google, experto en ciencias de la computación, músico, empresario, escritor y científico es uno de los popes de la tecnología. La revista Forbes le considera “la máquina de pensar suprema”. Se dice que su capacidad de predicción de los avances futuros es abrumadora: desde 1990 ha hecho más de 150 pronósticos con un índice de acierto del 86%. Este visionario estadounidense cree que en quince años la inteligencia artificial superará a la humana, y él espera estar ahí para verlo. Porque el inventor del escáner para ordenador y el sintetizador de texto a voz está convencido de que puede alargar su vida con pastillas. Diariamente ingiere unas 150, lo que le supone un gasto de 1,3 millones de euros al año. Cada jornada, Kurzweil paga más de dos veces el salario medio de una familia española en su búsqueda de la inmortalidad. Esta le lleva, suponiendo que toma una píldora cada 30 segundos, 90 minutos al día, un tiempo según él bien aprovechado: a sus setenta años, Kurzweil asegura que tiene una edad biológica de cuarenta. Utiliza el código CIENCIADIGITAL y obtén tu descuento en Muy Interesante, sigue con este link https://bit.ly/3TYwx9a Déjanos tu comentario en Ivoox o Spotify, o escríbenos a podcast@zinetmedia.es ¿Nos ayudas? Comparte nuestro contenido en redes sociales . Texto: Miguel Angel Sabadell Dirección, locución y producción: Iván Patxi Gómez Gallego @ivanpatxi Contacto de publicidad en podcast: podcast@zinetmedia.es

Moonshots and Mindsets with Peter Diamandis ✓ Claim Key Takeaways Take a look at over 100 other Joe Rogan Notes!Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgIn this episode, recorded during the 2024 Abundance360 Summit, Ray, Geoffrey, and Peter debate whether AI will become sentient, what consciousness constitutes, and if AI should have rights. 01:12 | The Future of AI and Humanity 10:30 | The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence 25:00 |The Dangers and Possibilities of AI Ray Kurzweil, an American inventor and futurist, is a pioneer in artificial intelligence. He has contributed significantly to OCR, text-to-speech, and speech recognition technologies. He is the author of numerous books on AI and the future of technology and has received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, among other honors. At Google, Kurzweil focuses on machine learning and language processing, driving advancements in technology and human potential. Geoffrey Hinton, often referred to as the "godfather of deep learning," is a British-Canadian cognitive psychologist and computer scientist recognized for his pioneering work in artificial neural networks. His research on neural networks, deep learning, and machine learning has significantly impacted the development of algorithms that can perform complex tasks such as image and speech recognition. Read Ray's latest book, The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI Follow Geoffrey on X: https://twitter.com/geoffreyhinton  Learn more about Abundance360: https://www.abundance360.com/summit  ____________ I only endorse products and services I personally use. To see what they are, please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:  Get started with Fountain Life and become the CEO of your health: https://fountainlife.com/peter/   AI-powered precision diagnosis you NEED for a healthy gut: https://www.viome.com/peter  _____________ I send weekly emails with the latest insights and trends on today's and tomorrow's exponential technologies. Stay ahead of the curve, and sign up now: Tech Blog Get my new Longevity Practices book: https://www.diamandis.com/longevity My new book with Salim Ismail, Exponential Organizations 2.0: The New Playbook for 10x Growth and Impact, is now available on Amazon: https://bit.ly/3P3j54J _____________ Connect With Peter: Twitter Instagram Youtube Moonshots Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jay Dyer hosts the final hour of the Alex Jones Show with special guest David Patrick Harry. Get tickets to our live event in Vegas June 22 here https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jamie-kennedy-jay-jamie-isaac-hollywood-conspiracy-comedy-live-tickets-882418596777?aff=oddtdtcreatorBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jay-sanalysis--1423846/support.

In this episode, recorded during the 2024 Abundance360 Summit, Ray, Geoffrey, and Peter debate whether AI will become sentient, what consciousness constitutes, and if AI should have rights. 01:12 | The Future of AI and Humanity 10:30 | The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence 25:00 |The Dangers and Possibilities of AI Ray Kurzweil, an American inventor and futurist, is a pioneer in artificial intelligence. He has contributed significantly to OCR, text-to-speech, and speech recognition technologies. He is the author of numerous books on AI and the future of technology and has received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, among other honors. At Google, Kurzweil focuses on machine learning and language processing, driving advancements in technology and human potential. Geoffrey Hinton, often referred to as the "godfather of deep learning," is a British-Canadian cognitive psychologist and computer scientist recognized for his pioneering work in artificial neural networks. His research on neural networks, deep learning, and machine learning has significantly impacted the development of algorithms that can perform complex tasks such as image and speech recognition. Read Ray's latest book, The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI Follow Geoffrey on X: https://twitter.com/geoffreyhinton  Learn more about Abundance360: https://www.abundance360.com/summit  ____________ I only endorse products and services I personally use. To see what they are,  please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:  Get started with Fountain Life and become the CEO of your health: https://fountainlife.com/peter/   AI-powered precision diagnosis you NEED for a healthy gut: https://www.viome.com/peter  _____________ I send weekly emails with the latest insights and trends on today's and tomorrow's exponential technologies. Stay ahead of the curve, and sign up now:  Tech Blog Get my new Longevity Practices book: https://www.diamandis.com/longevity My new book with Salim Ismail, Exponential Organizations 2.0: The New Playbook for 10x Growth and Impact, is now available on Amazon: https://bit.ly/3P3j54J _____________ Connect With Peter: Twitter Instagram Youtube Moonshots Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Vernor Vinge, who coined the term "Technological Singularity", dies at 79, published by Kaj Sotala on March 21, 2024 on LessWrong. On Wednesday, author David Brin announced that Vernor Vinge, sci-fi author, former professor, and father of the technological singularity concept, died from Parkinson's disease at age 79 on March 20, 2024, in La Jolla, California. The announcement came in a Facebook tribute where Brin wrote about Vinge's deep love for science and writing. [...] As a sci-fi author, Vinge won Hugo Awards for his novels A Fire Upon the Deep (1993), A Deepness in the Sky (2000), and Rainbows End (2007). He also won Hugos for novellas Fast Times at Fairmont High (2002) and The Cookie Monster (2004). As Mike Glyer's File 770 blog notes, Vinge's novella True Names (1981) is frequency cited as the first presentation of an in-depth look at the concept of "cyberspace." Vinge first coined the term "singularity" as related to technology in 1983, borrowed from the concept of a singularity in spacetime in physics. When discussing the creation of intelligences far greater than our own in an 1983 op-ed in OMNI magazine, Vinge wrote, "When this happens, human history will have reached a kind of singularity, an intellectual transition as impenetrable as the knotted space-time at the center of a black hole, and the world will pass far beyond our understanding." In 1993, he expanded on the idea in an essay titled The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era. The singularity concept postulates that AI will soon become superintelligent, far surpassing humans in capability and bringing the human-dominated era to a close. While the concept of a tech singularity sometimes inspires negativity and fear, Vinge remained optimistic about humanity's technological future, as Brin notes in his tribute: "Accused by some of a grievous sin - that of 'optimism' - Vernor gave us peerless legends that often depicted human success at overcoming problems... those right in front of us... while posing new ones! New dilemmas that may lie just ahead of our myopic gaze. He would often ask: 'What if we succeed? Do you think that will be the end of it?'" Vinge's concept heavily influenced futurist Ray Kurzweil, who has written about the singularity several times at length in books such as The Singularity Is Near in 2005. In a 2005 interview with the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology website, Kurzweil said, "Vernor Vinge has had some really key insights into the singularity very early on. There were others, such as John Von Neuman, who talked about a singular event occurring, because he had the idea of technological acceleration and singularity half a century ago. But it was simply a casual comment, and Vinge worked out some of the key ideas." Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org

  For the first time ever, parents going through IVF can use whole genome sequencing to screen their embryos for hundreds of conditions. Harness the power of genetics to keep your family safe, with Orchid. Check them out at orchidhealth.com. On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks about AI, the singularity and the post-human future, with James D. Miller, a Smith College economist, host of the podcast Future Strategist and the author of Singularity Rising: Surviving and Thriving in a Smarter, Richer, and More Dangerous World. Miller and Razib first met at 2008's “Singularity Summit” in San Jose, and though Singularity Rising was published in 2012, some of the ideas were already presented in earlier talks, including at that conference. More than 15 years since Miller began formulating his ideas, Razib asks him how the theses and predictions in his book have held up, and how they compared to Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Coming. On this last point, Miller is very bullish on Kurzweil's prediction that artificial intelligence will surpass that of humans by 2030. He also believes that the “intelligence explosion,” Kurzweil's “technological singularity” when AI transforms the earth in unimaginable ways through exponential rates of change will in fact come to pass. But while Kurzweil predicts that the singularity will usher in an era of immortality for our species, Miller has a more measured take. He believes AI will drive massive gains in economic productivity, from cultural creativity to new drug development regimes (one of the original rationales behind IBM's AI program). But while Kurzweil anticipates exaltation of conscious human life into an almost divine state, Miller suspects that AI may eventually lead to our demise. He estimates a 10% probability that Kurzweil is correct that we will become immortal, and a 90% probability that AI will simply shove us aside on this planet as it begins to consume all available resources. Overall, Miller is satisfied with the predictions in the first third of Singularity Rising. Computational technology has become far more powerful than it was in the late aughts, with a supercomputer in everyone's pocket. Though the advances in AI seem to exhibit discontinuities, in particular with the recent seminal inventions of transformers and large language models coming to the fore, the smoothed curve aligns with Kurzweil's 2030 target for human-level intelligence. On the other hand, where Miller has been disappointed is the merely modest advances in biological human engineering, with far fewer leaps forward than he had anticipated. Razib and Miller discuss whether this is due to limitations in the science, or issues of governance and ethics. Miller closes making the case for a program of cloning the great 20th-century genius John von Nuemann and the statesman Lee Kuan Yew. While the computational innovation driving AI seems to have advanced on schedule, and the biological revolution has not taken off, the last section of Miller's book focused on the economic impacts of the impending singularity. He still believes the next 10-20 years will be incredible, as our economy and way of life are both transformed for the good. Until that is, humans become obsolete in the face of the nearly god-like forms of AI that will emerge around 2050. Until then, Miller anticipates the next generation will see rapid changes as people make career shifts every half a decade or so as jobs become redundant or automated. If Singularity Rising proves correct, the next generation will be defined by what the economist Joseph Schumpeter termed “creative destruction.” If Miller is correct, it may be the last human generation.

Episode 13: Creative AI with David Jhave Johnston In this first episode of season two, Scott is joined by David Jhave Johnston, digital poet, videographer, and motion graphics artist. Together they talk about digital poetry, cyborg authorship, and the use of AI for content creation.   References Johnston, D. J. 2016. Aesthetic Animism: Digital Poetry's Ontological Implications. The MIT Press. https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262034517/aesthetic-animism/. Johnston, D. J. 2018. ReRites. Anteism Books. https://glia.ca/rerites/. Open AI.  n.d. “ChatGPT,” https://chat.openai.com/. Google Deepmind. n.d. “Gemini.” Gemini, https://www.gemini.com/. 23andMe Holding Co. n.d. “23andMe,” https://www.23andme.com/en-int/. Johnston, D. J. 2023. “Identity Upgrade Series”, https://glia.ca/. Karp, A. C. July 25, 2023. “Our Oppenheimer Moment: The Creation of A.I. Weapons.” The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/25/opinion/karp-palantir-artificial-intelligence.html. Luckey, P. 2017. “Command and Control.” Anduril, https://www.anduril.com/command-and-control/. Suchman, L. 2023. “The Uncontroversial ‘thingness' of AI.” Big Data & Society 10, no. 2 (July). https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231206794. Reardon. S. 2023. “FDA Approves First CRISPR Gene Editing Treatment for Sickle Cell Disease”. Last modified December 8, 2023. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fda-approves-first-crispr-gene-editing-treatment-for-sickle-cell-disease/. Altae-Tran, H., Kannan, S., et al. 2023. Uncovering the functional diversity of rare CRISPR-Cas systems with deep terascale clustering. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.adi1910. Lovelock, J. 2019. Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence. Penguin Books Limited. Kurzweil, R. 2005. The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. Viking. Kurzweil, R. 2000. “Ray Kurzweil's Cybernetic Poet: HOW IT WORKS”. [Poetry machine]. https://www.kurzweilcyberart.com/poetry/rkcp_how_it_works.php.

In this episode, recorded during last year's Abundance360 summit, Ray Kurzweil answers questions from the audience about AI, the future, and how this change will affect all aspects of our society. 17:37 | The Future of AI and Work 46:29 | Balancing Optimism and Concern in Technology 55:44 | The Cloud and Future Technology Ray Kurzweil, an American inventor and futurist, is a pioneer in artificial intelligence, having contributed significantly to OCR, text-to-speech, and speech recognition technologies. Author of numerous books on AI and the future of technology, he's received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, among other honors. At Google, Kurzweil focuses on machine learning and language processing, driving advancements in technology and human potential. Read his latest book, The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI Learn more about AbundanceA360 2024 Summit: https://www.abundance360.com/summit  ____________ I only endorse products and services I personally use. To see what they are, please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:  Use my code PETER25 for 25% off your first month's supply of Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic: seed.com/moonshots  ProLon is the first Nutri-technology company to apply breakthrough science to optimize human longevity and optimize longevity and support a healthy life. Get started today with 15% off here: https://prolonlife.com/MOONSHOT _____________ Get my new Longevity Practices 2024 book: https://bit.ly/48Hv1j6  I send weekly emails with the latest insights and trends on today's and tomorrow's exponential technologies. Stay ahead of the curve, and sign up now: Tech Blog _____________ Connect With Peter: Twitter Instagram Youtube Moonshots Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Media Roots Special DatesThe Age of Transitions and Uncle 1-26-2024 Robbie Martin AOT #411Robbie Martin returns to the show to talk a bit about the strange and ever-changing landscape of online media. Media Roots spread deep and sure, but new and evermore beguiling media outlets, personalities, and trends keep emerging at a breakneck pace. Robbie and Aaron do their best to make some kind of sense of it all here. Topics include: Media Roots, podcasting, Masonic history, alternative media, UFO community, monetization schemes, over saturation, Lex Friedman, Joe Rogan, copies of copies, old conspiracies and hoaxes have lasting power, far right extremism and mainstream convergence, family upheavals, mental health, MAGA, Project 2025, strategy of tension, Jan 6, ruling class factions at war with each other, civil war, QAnon, Julian Assange, Wikileaks, Podesta emails, counterintelligence, Accelerationism, Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, rightwing influencers, glomming onto fringe topics, 9/11 Truth, Flat Earth, Alex Jones, Singularity, AI, Kurzweil, transhumanism, virtual spaces, fictionally augmented digital realities, LLM fueled disinformation campaigns, NeuralinkUTP #321A lively night of calls, chatting in the crack room, and wild discussion ensued on this episode of the broadcast. Remember, we are live every Friday night, and you can join us. Topics include: NFL talk, Blackjack live app investigation, chat, Twitch live-stream aesthetic, Love on the Spectrum, autism, dating shows, humor, comedy shows, normal people, dating etiquette, neurodiversity, Trader Jose dark beer, Uncle QR code, Giant Rock, Skinwalker Ranch, VHS watch party, Bowflex video tape, Thighmaster, Suzanne Sommers, Kobe Bryant shirts, MST shirt, Guiness beer, Red Stripe beer, Red Dog beer, Jagermeister girls promoting in bars, Columbus Ohio FRANZ MAIN HUB:https://theageoftransitions.com/PATREONhttps://www.patreon.com/aaronfranzUNCLEhttps://unclethepodcast.com/ORhttps://theageoftransitions.com/category/uncle-the-podcast/FRANZ and UNCLE Merchhttps://theageoftransitions.com/category/support-the-podcasts/KEEP OCHELLI GOING. You are the EFFECT if you support OCHELLIhttps://ochelli.com/donate/Ochelli Link Treehttps://linktr.ee/chuckochelliBASIC MONTHLY MEMBERSHIP$10. USD per Month Support Ochelli & in 2024 Get a Monthly Email that deliversThe 1st Decade of The Ochelli Effect Over 5,000 Podcasts by 2025BASIC + SUPPORTER WALL$150. USD one time gets same all The Monthly Benefits for 1 Year+a spot on The Ochelli.com Supporters Wallhttps://ochelli.com/membership-account/membership-levels/

Robbie Martin returns to the show to talk a bit about the strange and ever-changing landscape of online media. Media Roots spread deep and sure, but new and evermore beguiling media outlets, personalities, and trends keep emerging at a breakneck pace. Robbie and Aaron do their best to make some kind of sense of it all here.  Topics include: Media Roots, podcasting, Masonic history, alternative media, UFO community, monetization schemes, over saturation, Lex Friedman, Joe Rogan, copies of copies, old conspiracies and hoaxes have lasting power, far right extremism and mainstream convergence, family upheavals, mental health, MAGA, Project 2025, strategy of tension, Jan 6, ruling class factions at war with each other, civil war, QAnon, Julian Assange, Wikileaks, Podesta emails, counterintelligence, Accelerationism, Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, rightwing influencers, glomming onto fringe topics, 9/11 Truth, Flat Earth, Alex Jones, Singularity, AI, Kurzweil, transhumanism, virtual spaces, fictionally augmented digital realities, LLM fueled disinformation campaigns, Neuralink

As I have always told our guests, our time together is a conversation, not an interview. This was never truer than with our guest this time, Andrew Leland. Andrew grew up with what most people would call a pretty normal childhood. However, as he discovered he was encountering night blindness that gradually grew worse. Back in the 1980s and early 90s, he was not getting much support for determining what was happening with his eyes. He did his own research and decided that he was experiencing retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease that first affects peripheral vision and eventually leads to total blindness. I won't spend time discussing Andrew's journey toward how finally doctors verified his personal diagnosis.   Andrew was and is an incredible researcher and thinker. He comes by it naturally. In addition, he is quite a writer and has had material published by The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, McSweeney's Quarterly, and The San Francisco Chronicle, among other outlets. He comes by his talents honestly through family members who have been screenwriters and playwrights. Example? His grandfather was Marvin Neal Simon, better known to all of us as Neal Simon.   This year Andrew's first book was published. It is entitled, The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight. I urge you to get and read it.   Our conversation goes into detail about blindness in so many different ways. I am sure you will find that your own views of blindness will probably change as you hear our discussion. Andrew has already agreed to come on again so we can continue our discussions. I hope you enjoy our time together.     About the Guest:   Andrew Leland's first book is The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight. His_ writing has appeared in _The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, McSweeney's Quarterly, and The San Francisco Chronicle, among other outlets. From 2013-2019, he hosted and produced The Organist, an arts and culture podcast, for KCRW; he has also produced pieces for Radiolab and 99 Percent Invisible. He has been an editor at The Believer since 2003. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife and son.     Ways to connect with Andrew:   Website: https://www.andrewleland.org/   About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes    Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.     Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset where inclusion diversity in the unexpected meet. And we're gonna get to have a little bit of all of that today. I get to interview someone who I've talked to a couple of times and met a couple of months ago for the first time, I think the first time at a meeting, Andrew Leland is the author of the country of the blind. And he will tell us about that. And we will have lots of fun things to talk about. I am sure he's been a podcaster. He's an author. Needless to say, he's written things. And I don't know what else we'll see what other kinds of secrets we can uncover. Fair warning, right. So Andrew, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Andrew Leland ** 02:01 Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here.   Michael Hingson ** 02:04 Well, I really appreciate you coming. Why don't you start by telling us a little about kind of the early Andrew growing up in some of that kind of stuff? Oh, sure. A lot of times go in a galaxy far, far away. Yeah. Right.   Andrew Leland ** 02:18 planet called the Los Angeles. I was born in LA. Yeah. And my parents moved to New York pretty quickly. And they split when I was two. So for most of my childhood, I was kind of bouncing in between, I live with my mom. But then I would go visit my dad on holidays. And my mom moved around a lot. So we were in New York, just outside the city. And then we moved to Toronto for two years, and then back to New York, and then to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and then to California, Southern California. So I lived a lot of places. And that was all before college. And yeah, what can I tell you about young Andrew, I, you know, I always was interested in writing and reading. And I come from a family of writers. My mom is a screenwriter, my grandfather was a playwright. My aunt is a novelist. And so and my dad, you know, remember when I was a kid, he had a column for videography magazine, and has always been super interested in digital technology, you know, from the earliest days of desktop publishing. And he worked for, like early days of USA Network, you know, so like this kind of shared interest that I inherited from my parents of, you know, creativity and media, I guess was one way you could put it, you know, storytelling and sort of like playing around with electronic media. And, you know, I grew up I was born in 1980. So by the time I was an adolescent, the internet was just starting to reach its tendrils into our lives. And I remember my dad bought me a modem. And when I was like, I don't know 14 or something. And I was definitely one of the first kids in my class to have a modem and you know, messing around on message boards and stuff. So that was very influential for me. You know, when it was around that time that I started to notice that I had night blindness, and I kind of diagnosed myself with retinitis pigmentosa on that early web, you know, before the days of WebMD or anything like that, but it just there didn't seem to be a lot of causes for adolescent night blindness. And so I kind of figured it out and then sort of just compartmentalized it like kick that information to the side somewhere dusty corner of my brain and just went about my life and then it wasn't until later my teenage years I'd already done a year in college I think in Ohio where I said you know what, this is getting a little more intrusive and then I've that my mom finally booked me an appointment at a at a real deal, you know, medical retinal Research Center and at UCLA. And then, you know, an actual retinal specialist said, Yep, you've got retina is pigmentosa. You'll you Will, you know, maintain decent vision into middle age and then it'll fall off a cliff. Once again, I just carried that information around for, you know, the next 20 years or so. And I'm 4040 How old am I? Mike? 22 years old? Right? Well, I actually I'm a December baby. So we gotta go, Okay, you got a couple of months to go a 42 year old medicine me. You know, and at this point in my life, you know, I had the, you know, I read about all this in the book, but I have a feeling that, like that part of his diagnosis way back when is coming true, you know, and I feel like, okay, it's all finally happening, and like, it's happening more quickly, but then my current doctor is kind of careful to reassure me that that's not actually happening. And that RP, you know, their understanding of it has evolved since then. And there's like, you know, different genetic profiles, and that, in fact, maybe I might have some residual useful vision for many years to come. But one of the things that I really wrestled with, both in the book and just in my life is the question of, you know, how much to claim to that site and how useful that site really is. And, and, and trying to figure out what, what it means to be blind, if I'm blind, you know, certainly legally blind, you know, I've half got about five or six degrees of, of central vision. You know, and so, so, so my so So, I've left your question behind at this point. But I wrote, I wrote this book, in some ways to answer that question of, like, where I, where I fit into this world of blindness? And am I an outsider, or am I an insider? like at what point do I get to be part of the club and all those really tricky questions that were really bothering me as a person, I got to kind of explore in the form of a book.   Michael Hingson ** 06:52 The interesting thing about what you said in the book, however, concerning Are you an outsider or an insider, Am I blind? Or am I not? is, of course a question that everyone wrestles with. And I personally like the Jernigan definition, have you ever read his article, a definition of blindness?   Andrew Leland ** 07:11 Oh, maybe tell me what he says. So what he says   Michael Hingson ** 07:15 is that you should consider yourself blind from a functional standpoint, when your eyesight decreases to the point where you have to use alternatives to vision to be able to perform tasks. Now, having said that, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't use the residual vision that you have. But what you should do is learn blindness techniques, and learn to psychologically accept that from a blindness standpoint, or from a from a functional standpoint, you are blind, but you do also have eyesight, then there's no reason not to use that. But you still can consider yourself a blind person, because you are using alternatives to eyesight in order to function and do things.   Andrew Leland ** 08:00 Yeah, no, I have heard that from the NFB I didn't realize its source was Jernigan. But I really aspire to live my life that way. You know, I think it's, there are some days when it's easier than others. But, you know, I'm here, learning, you know, practicing Braille, using my white cane every day, you know, like learning jaws and trying to try to keep my screen reader on my phone as much as possible. And it's funny how it becomes almost like a moral mind game that I play with myself where I'm like, okay, like, Wow, it's so much easier to use my phone with a screen reader. Like, why don't I just leave it on all the time, but then inevitably, I get to like a inaccessible website, or like, I'm trying to write and write a text message. And I'm like, Oh, am I really going to like use the rotor to like, go back up, you know, to these words, and so then I turn it back off, and then I leave it off. And I'm just like, constantly messing with my own head and this way, and I've heard from, from folks with ARPI, who are more blind than I am, who have less vision. And there is the sense that like, one relief of even though it's, you know, incontrovertibly, incontrovertibly inconvenient to have less vision, right? Like there's there's certain affordances that vision gives you that shouldn't make life easier. But But one thing that I've heard from these folks is that, you know, that kind of constant obsessing and agonizing over like, how much vision do I have? How much vision am I going to have tomorrow? How am I going to do this, with this much vision versus that much vision? Like when that goes away? It is a bit of a relief I've heard.   Michael Hingson ** 09:28 Yeah, I mean, if it ultimately comes down to you can obsess over it, you can stress about it. What can I do if I lose this extra vision or not? Is is a question but the other side of it is why assume that just because you lose vision, you can't do X or Y. And that's the thing that I think so many people tend to not really deal with. I believe that we have totally an inconsistent and wrong definition of disability. Anyway, I believe that everyone on the planet has a disability. And for most people, the disability is like dependents. And my case from then my way from making that is look at what Thomas Edison did in 1878. He invented the electric light bulb, which allowed people to have light on demand. So they could function in the dark, because they couldn't really function in the dark until they had light on demand, or unless they had a burning stick or something that gave us light. But the reality is, they still had a disability. And no matter how much today we offer light on demand, and light on demand is a fine thing. No, no problem with it. But recognize that still, without that light on demand, if a if a power failure happens or something and the lights go out, sighted people are at least in a world of hurt until they get another source for light on demand. Mm hmm. I was I was invited to actually Kelly and Ryan's Oscar after party to be in the audience this year. So we went to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, which is fun. I used to go there for NFB of California conventions, a great hotel, man. So we got there about three o'clock on Thursday, on Saturday afternoon, and it was my niece and nephew and I and we were all there. And we just dropped our luggage off. And we're going downstairs when suddenly I heard screaming, and I asked my niece, what's going on. And she said, there's been a power failure in and around the hotel. And I'd love to try to spread the rumor that it was all Jimmy Kimmel trying to get attention. But no one's bought that. But but the but the point is that suddenly people didn't know what to do. And I said, doesn't seem like a problem to me. And you know, it's all a matter of perspective. But we really have to get to this idea that it doesn't matter whether you can see or not. And you pointed out very well, in your book that blindness is not nearly so much the issue psychologically, as is our attitude about blindness? Absolutely.   Andrew Leland ** 11:58 Yeah, I remember I interviewed Mark Riccobono, the current president of the National Federation of the Blind, and he made a very similar point, when we were talking about the nature of accommodations, which is something that I still I'm thinking a lot about is I think it's a very tricky idea. And a very important idea, which I think your your your idea of light dependency gets at, you know, in America, Bono's point was, you know, look, we have the the BR headquarters here in Baltimore, and we pay a pretty hefty electricity bill, to keep the lights on every month, and that, you know, the blind folks who work there, it's not for them, right? It's for all the sighted people who come and visit or work at the at the center. And in some ways, that's a reasonable accommodation, that the NFB is making for the sighted people that they want to be inclusive of right. And so that just even that idea of like, what is a reasonable accommodation? I think you're right, that we think of it as like the poor, unfortunate disabled people who need to be brought back to some kind of norm that's at the center. And there's the kind of reframing that you're doing when you talk about light dependency or that Riccobono is doing when he talks about, you know, his electricity bill, you know, it kind of gives the lie to puts the lie to that, that idea that, that the norm takes precedence. And the reality is that, you know, that we all need accommodations, like you say, and so what's reasonable, is really based on what, what humans deserve, which is which is to be included, and to be, you know, to have access equal access, that   Michael Hingson ** 13:38 ought to be the norm. Jacobus timbre wrote a speech called the pros and cons of preferential treatment that was then paired down to a shorter article called a preference for equality. And I haven't, I've been trying to find it, it's at the NFB center, but it isn't as readily available as I would like to see it. And he talks about what equality is, and he said, equality isn't that you do things exactly the same way it is that you have access and with whatever way you need to the same information. So you can't just say, Okay, well, here's a printed textbook, blind persons that's equal under the law, it's not. And he talks about the fact that we all really should be seeking equality and looking for what will give people an equal opportunity in the world. And that's really the issue that we so often just don't face, like we should. The fact of the matter is, it's a part of the cost of business, in general to provide electricity and lights. It's a part of the cost of business to provide for companies a coffee machine, although it's usually a touchscreen machine, but it's there. It's a cost of doing business to provide desks and computers with monitors and so on. But no one views provide Seeing a screen reader as part of the cost of business and nobody views providing a refreshable Braille display or other tools that might give me an equal opportunity to be a part of society, we don't view those as part of the cost of doing business, which we should, because that's what inclusion is really all about. You know, we don't, we don't deal with the fact or sometimes we do that some people are a whole lot shorter than others. And so we provide ladders or step stools, or whatever. But we don't provide cost of doing business concepts to a lot of the tools that say, I might need or you might need. Yeah,   Andrew Leland ** 15:37 yeah, it's one thing that I've been thinking about lately is, is really even just the challenge of understanding what those accommodations are. Because, you know, I think I think, practically speaking in the world, you know, you'll, you'll call up a blind person and say, What do you need, you know, like, we're trying to make this art exhibit or this, you know, business or this, you know, HR software accessible, what do you need, you know, and that one blind person might be like, well, I use NVDA, you know, or that one blind person might be low vision, right. And they might be like, I use a screen magnifier. And it's so difficult to understand, like, what the accommodations are, that would be, that would be adequate to cover, like a reasonable sample. And so just like, it's just so much more complicated than it originally seems, you know, when you have a really well meaning person saying, like, we really value diversity, equity and inclusion and accessibility. And but then like, the distance between that well meeting gesture, and then actually pulling off something that's fully accessible to a wide swath of the whatever the users are, is just, it's just unfair, quickly, huge. So that's something that I'm thinking about a lot lately is like how to how do you approach that problem?   Michael Hingson ** 16:46 Well, and I think, though, the at least as far as I can tell, I think about it a lot, as well, as I think any of us should. The fact is that one solution doesn't fit everyone, I'm sure that there are people, although I'm sure it's a minority, but there are people who don't like fluorescent lights as well as incandescent lights, and neither of them like other kinds of lighting as compared to whatever. And then you have people epilepsy, epilepsy who can't deal as well, with blinking lights are blinking elements on a webpage, there's there isn't ever going to be least as near as I can tell, one size that truly fits all, until we all become perfect in our bodies. And that's got a ways to go. So the reality is, I don't think there is one solution that fits everyone. And I think that you, you pointed it out, the best thing to do is to keep an open mind and say, Yeah, I want to hire a person who's qualified. And if that person is blind, I'll do it. And I will ask them what they need. You know, an example I could give you is, was it three years ago, I guess, four years ago, now actually, I was called by someone up in Canada, who is a lawyer who went to work for a college. And we were talking about IRA, artificial intelligent, remote assistance, a IRA, you know about IRA, you wrote about it. And she said, you know, a lot of the discovery and a lot of the documentation that I need to use is not accessible through even OCR to be overly accurate, because there will be deep degradations and print and so and so I can't rely on that. And certainly, Adobe's OCR isn't necessarily going to deal with all the things that I need. So I'd like to use IRA is that a reasonable accommodation? And I said, sure it is, if that's what you need in order to be able to have access to the information, then it should be provided. Now the laws are a little different up there. But nevertheless, she went to the college and made the case and they gave her iris so she could read on demand all day, any document that she needed, and she was able to do her job. And not everyone necessarily needs to do that. And hear in probably some quarters, maybe there are other accommodations that people could use instead of using IRA. But still, Ira opened up a VISTA for her and gave her access to being able to do a job and I think that we really need to recognize that one solution doesn't fit everything. And the best way to address it is to ask somebody, what do you need in order to do your job, and we will provide it or work it out. And here in the US, of course, given although they try to renege on it so much, but given the definition of what rehabilitation is supposed to do, they're supposed to be able to and help make people employable. They should be providing a lot of these tools and sometimes getting counselors to do that. Just like pulling teeth, I'm sure you know about that. Yeah,   Andrew Leland ** 20:02 I do. I do. I mean, it's interesting because I think in the face of that complexity of saying, like, Okay, we like interviewed a dozen blind people, and we like have this we know, our website is it's compatible with all the screen readers. And, you know, this event, like, you know, let's say you're doing an event, and the website is compatible with every screen reader, and it's got dynamic types. So the low vision users are happy, you know, and then the event starts and you're like, oh, wait, we forgot about the existence of deafblind people, and there's no cart, or captioners. Here. And, you know, and then the question for me another another thing I've been thinking about lately is like, how do you respond to that, you know, like, what is the? What is the response? And even just like on a kind of, like, a social level, like, is it scathing indictment, like you, you terrible people, you know, you have you have like, you don't care about deaf blind people. And so I hereby cancel you, and I'm going to, like, tweet about how terrible you are? Or is there like a more benign approach, but then you don't get what you need. And like, sort of, and I think, I think a lot of this is a function of my having grown up without a disability, really, you know, I mean, like, growing up, my I went through my, my full education, without ever having to ask for an accommodation, you know, maybe I had to sit a little closer to the board a little bit. But you know, nothing, nothing like what I'm dealing with now. And I think as a result, I am just now starting to wrap my head around, like, how when self advocates and what styles are most effective. And I think that's another really important piece of this conversation, because it's easy, I think, to walk into, you know, cafe x, or, you know, I just did it the other day, yesterday, last night, I saw this really cool looking new magazine about radio, which was an interest of mine, like great for radio producers. And it was print only, you know, and I wrote like, Hey, how can I get an accessible copy of this cool look in new magazine? And they're like, Oh, actually, we're, we're putting our resources all it were kind of a shoestring operation, all our resources are going into the print edition right now. You know, and then, so then I had a question before me, right? Like, do I say, like, Hey, everybody, like, we must not rest until you agitate for these people to make their accessible thing, or I just sort of wrote a friendly note. And I was like, there's a lot of like, blind radio makers out there who might find your stuff interesting. And I like, affectionately urge you to make this accessible. And then, you know, their hearts seems to be in the right place. And they seem to be working on making it happen. So I don't know what's your what's your thinking about that? Like how to respond to those situations.   Michael Hingson ** 22:34 So my belief is whether we like it or not, every one of us needs to be a teacher. And the fact is to deal with with what you just said, let's take the radio magazine, which magazine is it by the way? Oh, I   Andrew Leland ** 22:51 didn't want to call them out by name. Oh, I'm   Michael Hingson ** 22:52 sorry. I was asking for my own curiosity, being very interested in radio myself. So we   Andrew Leland ** 22:57 give them some good and bad press simultaneously. It's called good tape. Okay, it's brand new. And at the moment, it's as of this recording, it's print only. And,   Michael Hingson ** 23:06 and tape is on the way up a good tape. No, that's okay. Anyway, but no, the reason I asked it was mainly out of curiosity. But look, you you kind of answered the question, their heart is in the right place. And it is probably true that they never thought of it. I don't know. But probably, yeah, they didn't think of it. I've seen other magazines like diversity magazine several years ago, I talked with them about the fact that their online version is totally inaccessible. And they have a print version. But none of its accessible. And I haven't seen it change yet, even though we've talked about it. And so they can talk about diversity all they want, and they talk a lot about disabilities, but they don't deal with it. I think that it comes down to what's the organization willing to do I've, I've dealt with a number of organizations that never thought about making a digital presence, accessible or having some sort of alternative way of people getting to the magazine, and I don't expect everybody to produce the magazine and Braille. And nowadays, you don't need to produce a braille version, but you need to produce an accessible version. And if people are willing to work toward that, I don't think that we should grind them into the ground at all if their hearts in the right place. And I can appreciate how this magazine started with print, which is natural. Yeah, but one of the things that you can do when others can do is to help them see maybe how easy it is to create a version that other people can can use for example, I don't know how they produce their magazine, but I will bet you virtual Anything that it starts with some sort of an electronic copy. If it does that, then they could certainly make that electronic copy a version that would be usable and accessible to the end. And then they could still provide it through a subscription process, there's no reason to give it away if they're not giving it away to other people, but they could still make it available. And I also think something else, which is, as you point out in the book, and the country of the blind, so often, things that are done for us, will help other people as well. So great tape is wonderful. But how is a person with dyslexia going to be able to read it? Yeah, so it isn't just blind people who could benefit from having a more accessible version of it. And probably, it would be worth exploring, even discussing with him about finding places to get funding to help make that happen. But if somebody's got their heart in the right place, then I think by all means, we shouldn't bless them. We should be teachers, and we should help them because they won't know how to do that stuff.   Andrew Leland ** 26:10 Ya know, I love that answer to be a teacher. And I think there was I think there was a teacher Lee vibe in my, in my response to them, you know, like, this is a thing that is actually important and useful. And you ought to really seriously consider doing it. You know, I mean, I think if you think about the how people act in the classroom, you know, it's those kinds of teachers who, you know, who, who correct you, but they correct you in a way that makes you want to follow their correction, instead of just ruining your day and making you feel like you're a terrible person. But it's interesting, because if you, you know, I mean, part of a lot of this is the function of the internet. You know, I see a lot of disabled people out there calling out people for doing things and accessibly. And, you know, I feel I'm really split about this, because I really empathize with the frustration that that one feels like, there's an amazing film called, I didn't see you there by a filmmaker named Reed Davenport, who's a wheelchair user. And the film is really just, like, he kind of he mounts a camera to his wheelchair, and a lot of it is like, he almost like turns his wheelchair into a dolly. And there's these these, like, wonderful, like tracking shots of Oakland, where he lived at the time. And there's this there's this incredible scene where it's really just his daily life, like, you know, and it's very similar to the experience of a blind person, like, he'll just be on a street corner hanging out, you know, in somebody's, like, the light screen, you know, like, what do you what are you trying to do, man, and he's like, I'm just here waiting for my car, my ride, you know, like, leave me alone. You don't need to intervene. But there's this incredible scene where there are some workers in his building are like, in the sort of just sort of unclear like they're working. And there's an extension cord, completely blocking the path, the visible entrance to his apartment, and he can't get into his house. And he's just this, like, the, the depth of his anger is so visceral in that moment. You know, and he yells at them, and they're like, oh, sorry, you know, they kind of don't care, you know, but they like, they're like, just give us a second. And he's like, I don't have a second, like, I need to get into my house. Now. You know, he just has no patience for them. And it's understandable, right? Like, imagine you're trying to get home. And as a matter of course, regularly every week, there's something that's preventing you. And then and then and then you see him when he finally gets back into his apartment. He's just like, screaming and rage. And it's, you know, so that rage I think, is entirely earned. You know, like, I don't I don't think that one one should have to mute one's rage and how and be a kindly teacher in that moment. Right. But, so So yeah, so So I kind of see it both ways. Like, there are moments for the rage. And then I guess there are moments for the mortar teacher like because obviously, like the stakes of me, getting access to good tape magazine are very different than the stakes for read like getting into his apartment. Right?   Michael Hingson ** 28:53 Well, yes and no, it's still access. But the other part about it is the next time, that group of people in whatever they're doing to repair or whatever, if they do the same thing, then they clearly haven't learned. Whereas if they go, Oh, we got to make sure we don't block an entrance. Yeah, then they've learned a lesson and so I can understand the rage. I felt it many times myself, and we all have and, and it's understandable. But ultimately, hopefully, we can come down. And depending on how much time there is to do it, go pick out and say, Look, do you see what the problem is here? Yeah. And please, anytime don't block an entrance or raise it way up or do something because a person in a wheelchair can't get in. And that's a problem. I so my wife always was in a wheelchair, and we were married for two years she passed last November. Just the bye He didn't keep up with the spirit is what I tell people is really true. But I remember we were places like Disneyland. And people would just jump over her foot rests, how rude, you know, and other things like that. But we, we faced a lot of it. And we faced it from the double whammy of one person being in a wheelchair and one person being blind. One day, we went to a restaurant. And we walked in, and we were standing at the counter and the hostess behind the counter was just staring at us. And finally, Karen said to me, well, the hostess is here, I don't think she knows who to talk to, you know, because I'm not making necessarily eye contact, and Karen is down below, in in a wheelchair. And so fine. I said, maybe if she would just ask us if we would like to sit down, it would be okay. And you know, it was friendly, and it broke the ice and then it went, went from there. But unfortunately, we, we, we bring up children and we bring up people not recognizing the whole concept of inclusion. And we we really don't teach people how to have the conversation. And I think that that's the real big issue. We don't get drawn into the conversation, which is why diversity is a problem because it doesn't include disabilities.   Andrew Leland ** 31:16 Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, that seems to be changing. You know, I mean, you have you know, you have a lot more experience in this realm than I do. But But But haven't you felt like a real cultural shift over the last, you know, 2030 years about disability being more front of mind in that conversation?   Michael Hingson ** 31:36 I think it's, it's shifted some. The unemployment rate among employable blind people, though, for example, hasn't changed a lot. A lot of things regarding blindness hasn't really, or haven't really changed a lot. And we still have to fight for things like the National Federation of the Blind finally took the American Bar Association, all the way to the Supreme Court, because they wouldn't allow people to use their technology to take the LSAT. Yeah, lawyers of all people and you know, so things like that. There's, there's so many ways that it continues to happen. And I realized we're a low incidence disability. But still, I think, I think the best way to really equate it. You mentioned in Goldstein in the book, Dan, who I saw, I think, is a great lawyer spoke to the NFB in 2008. And one of the things he talked about was Henry, mayor's book all on fire. And it's about William Lloyd Garrison, the abolitionist and he was looking for allies. And he heard about these, these two, I think, two ladies, the Grimm case, sisters who were women's suffragettes, and they and he said, Look, we should get them involved. And people said, no, they're dealing with women's things. We're dealing with abolition, it's two different things. And Garrison said, No, it's all the same thing. And we've got to get people to recognize that it really is all the same thing. The you mentioned, well, you mentioned Fred Schroeder and the American Association of Persons with Disabilities at various points in the book. And in 1997. Fred, when he was RSA Commissioner, went to speak to the AAPD talking about the fact that we should be mandating Braille be taught in schools to all blind and low vision kids. And the way he tells me the story, they said, Well, that's a blindness issue. That's not our issue, because most of those people weren't blind. And that's unfortunate, because the reality is, it's all the same thing.   Andrew Leland ** 33:41 Yeah, no, that's something, uh, Dan Goldstein was a really important person for me to meet very early on in the process of writing the book, because I mean, just because he's, he's brilliant. And yeah, such a long history of, of arguing in a very, you know, legalistic, which is to say, very precise, and, you know, method, methodical way. A lot of these questions about what constitutes a reasonable accommodation, you know, as in like, his, his, the lawsuits that he's brought on behalf of the NFB have really broken ground have been incredibly important. So he's, he was a wonderful resource for me. You know, one of the things that he and I talked about, I remember at the beginning, and then, you know, I had lunch with him earlier this week, you know, we still are talking about it. And it's exactly that that question of, you know, the thing that the thing that really dogged me as I pursued, writing this book, and one of the kinds of questions that hung over it was this question of identity. And, you know, like, the sense that like the NFB argues that blindness is not what defines you. And yet, there it is, in their name, the National Federation of the Blind by and like, Where does where does this identity fit? And, you know, and I think that when you talk about other identities like Like the African American civil rights movement, or, you know, you mentioned the suffragette movement, you know, the feminist movement. You know, and it's interesting to compare these other identity based civil rights movements, and the organized by movement and the disability rights movement. And think about the parallels, but then there's also I think, disconnects as well. And so that was one of the things that I was it was really, really challenging for me to, to write about, but I think it's a really important question. And one that's, that's really evolving right now. You know, one of the things that I discovered was that, you know, in addition to the sort of blind or disability rights movement, that's very much modeled on the civil rights model of like, you know, my the first time I went to the NFB convention in 2018, you know, the banquet speech that Mark Riccobono gave was all about the speech of women and the women in the Federation, you know, which, which someone told me afterwards like, this is all new territory for the NFB, like, you know, they don't, there, there hasn't traditionally been this sort of emphasis on, including other identities, you know, and I found that was, I found that interesting, but then also, I was so struck by a line in that speech, where Riccobono said, you know, the fact that they were women is not as important as the fact that they were blind people fighting for, you know, whatever was like the liberation of blindness. And, you know, so it's, there's still always this emphasis on blindness as, like, the most important organizing characteristic of somebody is a part of that movement. And it makes total sense, right, it's the National Federation of the Blind, and they're fighting that 70% unemployment rate. And, you know, I think by their lights, you don't get there by you know, taking your eyes off the prize in some ways. And, and so I was really struck by some of these other groups that I encountered, particularly in 2020, when a lot of the sort of identity right questions came to the fore with the murder of George Floyd, right. You know, and then I was attending, you know, because it was 2020 it was that the convention was online, and I you know, I read it, this is all in the book, I, I went to the LGBT queue meet up, and which, which is also like a shockingly recent development at the NFB, you know, there's this notorious story where President Maher, you know, ostentatiously tears up a card, at a at an NFB convention where there are LGBT. NFB is trying to organize and have an LGBTQ meet up and he sort of ostentatiously tears it up as soon as he reads what's on the card. You know, a lot of still raw pain among NF beers who I talked to about that incident, anyway, like that this this LGBTQ meetup, you know, there's, there's a speaker who's not part of the NFB named justice, shorter, who works in DC, she's, she's blind, you know, and she's part of what is called the, you know, the Disability Justice Movement, which is very much about decentering whiteness, from the disability rights struggle and centering, black, queer, you know, people of color, who are also disabled, and and in some ways, I've found the NFB struggling to, to connect with with that model. You know, I talked to a Neil Lewis, who's the highest ranking black member of the NFV, you know, and he wrote this really fascinating Braille monitor article in the wake of, of George Floyd's death, where he's sort of really explicitly trying to reconcile, like Black Lives Matter movement with live the life you want, you know, with with NFB slogans, and it's, it's a tough thing to do, he has a tough job and trying to do that, because because of the thing, you know, that that I'm saying about Riccobono, right, it's like he is blind is the most important characteristic, or where do these other qualities fit? So it's a very contemporary argument. And it's one that I think the the organized blind movement is still very actively wrestling with.   Michael Hingson ** 39:02 I think it's a real tough thing. I think that blindness shouldn't be what defines me, but it's part of what defines me, and it shouldn't be that way. It is one of the characteristics that I happen to have, which is why I prefer that we start recognizing that disability doesn't mean lack of ability. Disability is a characteristic that manifests itself in different ways to people and in our case, blindness as part of that. For Women. Women is being a woman as part of it for men being a man as part of it for being short or tall, or black or whatever. Those are all part of what defines us. I do think that the National Federation of the Blind was an organization that evolved because, as I said earlier, we're not being included in the conversation and I think that for the Federation and blindness is the most important thing and ought to be the most important thing. And I think that we need to be very careful as an organization about that. Because if we get too bogged down in every other kind of characteristic that defines people, and move away too much from dealing with blindness, we will weaken what the message and the goals of the National Federation of the Blind are. But we do need to recognize that blindness isn't the only game in town, like eyesight isn't the only game in town. But for us, blindness is the main game in town, because it's what we deal with as an organization. Well,   Andrew Leland ** 40:40 how do you reconcile that with the idea that you were talking about before with with, you know, with the argument that like, you know, with the historical example of, you know, it's the same fight the suffragettes and like it because it doesn't that kind of, isn't that kind of contradicting that idea that like, having the intersection of identities, you know, and these movements all being linked by some kind of grand or systemic oppression, you know, so it is it is relevant? Well,   Michael Hingson ** 41:06 it is, yeah, and I'm not saying it any way that it's not relevant. What I am saying, though, is the case of the Grimm case, sisters, he wanted their support and support of other supportive other people, Garrison did in terms of dealing with abolition, which was appropriate, their main focus was women's suffrage, but it doesn't mean that they can't be involved in and recognize that we all are facing discrimination, and that we can start shaping more of our messages to be more inclusive. And that's the thing that that I don't think is happening nearly as much as it ought to. The fact is that, it doesn't mean that blind people shouldn't be concerned about or dealing with LGBTQ or color, or gender or whatever. Yeah. But our main common binding characteristic is that we're all blind men. So for us, as an organization, that should be what we mostly focus on. It also doesn't mean that we shouldn't be aware of and advocate for and fight for other things as well. But as an organization, collectively, the goal really needs to be dealing with blindness, because if you dilute it too much, then you're not dealing with blindness. And the problem with blindness as being a low incidence disability, that's all too easy to make happen. Right?   Andrew Leland ** 42:35 Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, it's interesting, just thinking about that question of dilution versus strengthening, you know, because I think I think if you ask somebody in the Disability Justice Movement, the dilution happens precisely, with an overemphasis on a single disability, right, and then you lose these like broader coalition's that you can build to, you know, I think I think it comes down to maybe like the way that you are our analysts analyzing the structures of oppression, right, like, right, what is it that's creating that 70% unemployment? Is it something specifically about blindness? Or is it like a broader ableist structure that is connected to a broader racist structure? You know, that's connected to a broader misogynist structure? You know, and I think if you start thinking in those structural terms, then like, coalition building makes a lot more sense, because it's like, I mean, you know, I don't know what kind of political affiliation or what but political orientation to take with us, you know, but certainly the Disability Justice Movement is pretty radically to the left, right. And I think traditionally, the NFB, for instance, has had a lot more socially conservative members and leaders. And so it's, you know, that reconciliation feels almost impossibly vast to to think of like an organization like the NFB taking the kind of like, abolitionist stance that a lot of these disability justice groups take to say, like, actually, capitalism is the problem, right. So yeah, so I mean, the thought experiment only goes so far, like, what like a Disability Justice oriented NFP would look like. But you know, that I think there are young members, you know, and I do think it's a generational thing too. Like, I think there are NF beers in their 20s and 30s, who are really wrestling with those questions right now. And I'm really interested to see what they come up with.   Michael Hingson ** 44:29 I think that the biggest value that the NFB brings overall, and I've actually heard this from some ACB people as well, is that the ENFP has a consistent philosophy about what blindness is and what blindness is. And and that is probably the most important thing that the NFP needs to ensure that it that it doesn't lose. But I think that the whole and the NFP used to be totally As coalition building that goes back to Jernigan and Mauer, although Mauer started to change some of that, and I think it will evolve. But you know, the NFB. And blind people in general have another issue that you sort of brought up in the book, you talk about people who are deaf and hard of hearing, that they form into communities and that they, they have a culture. And we don't see nearly as much of that in the blindness world. And so as a result, we still have blind people or sighted people referring to us and and not ever being called out as blind or visually impaired. But you don't find in the deaf community that people are talking about deaf or hearing impaired, you're liable to be shot. It's deaf or hard of hearing. And yeah, the reality is, it ought to be blind or low vision, because visually impaired is ridiculous on several levels visually, we're not different and impaired. What that's that's a horrible thing to say. But as a as an as a group. I was going to use community, but I but I guess the community isn't, as well formed to deal with it yet. We're not there. And so all too often, we talk about or hear about visually impaired or visual impairment. And that continues to promote the problem that we're trying to eliminate. Mm   Andrew Leland ** 46:22 hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that question of blank community is fascinating. And yeah. And I do think that I mean, you know, from my reading the book, I certainly have found blank community. But, you know, if I really think about it, if I'm really being honest, I think it's more that I've met, it's, you know, my work on the book has given me access to really cool blind people that I have gotten to become friends with, you know, that feels different than, like, welcome to this club, where we meet, you know, on Tuesdays and have our cool like, blind, you know, paragliding meetups, you know, not that not that people aren't doing that, like, then they're a really, you know, I would like to get more if I lived in a more urban center, I'm sure it would be involved in like, you know, the blind running club or whatever, willing to hang out with blind people more regularly, but it doesn't feel like a big community in that way. And it's interesting to think about why. You know, I think one big reason is that it's not, it's not familial, in the same way, you know, Andrew Solomon wrote a really interesting book called far from the tree that gets at this where, you know, like, the when, when, when a child has a different identity than a parent, like, you know, deaf children of hearing adults, you know, there doesn't, there isn't a culture that builds up around that, you know, and it's really like these big deaf families that you have with inherited forms of deafness, or, you know, and then schools for the deaf, that, you know, and with deaf culture in particular, you know, really what we're talking about is language, you know, in sign language, right, creates a whole rich culture around it. Whereas, with hearing blind people, you know, they're more isolated, they're not necessarily automatically you have to, you have to really work to find the other blind people, you know, with, with travel being difficult, it's a lot easier to just like, Get get to the public library to meet up in the first place, and so on. So, yeah, it feels a lot more fractured. And so I think you do see groups more like the NFB or the ACB, who are organizing around political action, rather than, you know, like a culture of folks hanging out going to a movie with open audio description, although, I will say that the weeks that I spent at the Colorado Center for the Blind, you know, which is, you know, you can think of it as like a, you know, it's a training center, but in some ways, it's like an intentional blind community do right where you're like, that's like a blind commune or something. I mean, that is just a beautiful experience, that it's not for everyone in terms of their their training method. But if it is for you, like, wow, like for just such a powerful experience to be in a community, because that is a real community. And it nothing will radically change your sense of what it means to be blind and what it means to be in a black community than then living for a while at a place like that. It was a really transformative experience for me.   Michael Hingson ** 49:11 Do you think that especially as the younger generations are evolving and coming up, that we may see more of a development of a community in the blindness in the blindness world? Or do you think that the other forces are just going to keep that from happening? Well,   Andrew Leland ** 49:30 you know, one of the things that I discovered in writing the book was that, you know, and this is sort of contradicting what I just said, because there there is a blind community. And, you know, I read in the book like, at first I thought that blind techies were another subculture of blindness, like blind birders are blind skateboarders, right. But then the more I looked into it, the more I realized that like being a techie is actually like a kind of a basic feature of being a blind person in the world. You know, and I don't hear if it's 2023 or 1823, you know, because if you think about the problem of blindness, which is access to information, by and large, you know, you basically have to become a self styled information technologist, right? To, to get what you need, whether it's the newspaper, or textbooks or signs, road signs, or whatever else. So. So I do and I do think that like, you know, when my dad was living in the Bay Area in the 90s, you know, when I would go visit him, you know, he was a techie, a sighted techie. And, you know, he would always be part of like, the Berkeley Macintosh user group, just be like, these nerds emailing each other, or, you know, I don't even know if email was around, it was like, late 80s. You know, but people who have like the Mac 512, KS, and they would, they would connect with each other about like, Well, how did you deal with this problem? And like, what kind of serial port blah, blah, blah? And that's a community, right? I mean, those people hang out, they get rise together. And if there's anything like a blind community, it's the blind techie community, you know, and I like to tell the story about Jonathan mosun. I'm sure you've encountered him in your trailer. I know Jonathan. Yeah. You know, so I, when I discovered his podcast, which is now called Living blind, fully blind, fully, yeah. Yeah. I, I was like, oh, okay, here are the conversations I've been looking for, because he will very regularly cover the kind of like social identity questions that I'm interested in, like, you know, is Braille like, is the only way for a blind person to have true literacy through Braille? Or is using a screen reader literacy, you know? Or like, is there such a thing as blind pride? And if so, what is it? I was like? These are the kinds of questions I was asking. And so I was so delighted to find it. But then in order to, in order to get to those conversations, you have to sit through like 20 minutes of like, one password on Windows 11 stopped working when I upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11. And so like, what, you know, if you what Jaws command, can I use in and I was like, why is this? Why is there like 20 minutes of Jaws chat in between these, like, really interesting philosophical conversations. And eventually, I realized, like, oh, because that's like, what this community needs and what it's interested in. And so in some ways, like the real blind community is like the user group, which I think is actually a beautiful thing. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 52:14 Well, it is definitely a part of it. And we do have to be information technologists, in a lot of ways. Have you met? And do you know, Curtis Chang,   Andrew Leland ** 52:23 I've met him very briefly at an NFB convention. So Curtis,   Michael Hingson ** 52:28 and I have known each other Gosh, since the 1970s. And we both are very deeply involved in a lot of things with technology. He worked in various aspects of assistive technology worked at the NFB center for a while and things like that, but he always talks about how blind people and and I've heard this and other presentations around the NFB, where blind people as Curtis would put it, have to muddle through and figure out websites. And, and the fact is, we do it, because there are so many that are inaccessible. I joined accessibe two years ago, two and a half years ago. And there are a lot of people that don't like the artificial, intelligent process that accessibe uses. It works however, and people don't really look far enough that we're not, I think, being as visionary as we ought to be. We're not doing what we did with Ray Kurzweil. And look, when the Kurzweil project started with the NFB Jernigan had to be dragged kicking and screaming into it, but Ray was so emphatic. And Jim Gasol at the Washington office, finally convinced kindred again to let him go see, raised machine, but the rules were that it didn't matter what Ray would put on the machine to read it and had to read what Gasol brought up. Well, he brought it did and the relationship began, and it's been going ever since and, and I worked, running the project and the sense on a day to day basis, I traveled I lived out of hotels and suitcases for 18 months as we put machines all over and then I went to work for Ray. And then I ended up having to go into sales selling not the reading machine, but the data entry machine, but I guess I kept to consistently see the vision that Ray was bringing, and I think he helped drag, in some ways the NFB as an organization, more into technology than it was willing to do before. Interesting.   Andrew Leland ** 54:27 Yeah, I heard a similar comment. The one thing I got wrong in the first edition of the book that I'm correcting for subsequent reprints, but I really bungled the description of the Opticon. And my friend, Robert Engel Britton, who's a linguist at Rice University, who collects opera cones. I think he has got probably like a dozen of them in his house. You know, he helped me you know, because I didn't have a chance to use one. Right he helped me get a better version of it. But he also sent me a quote, I think it was from Jernigan was similar thing where like, I think they were trying to get the public I'm included with, you know, voc rehab, so that that students could not voc rehab or whatever like so that students could get blind students could use them. And it was the same thing of like, you know, this newfangled gizmo is not going to help, you know, Braille is what kids need. So I do that, that's all to say that that makes sense to me that resistance to technology, you know, and it's like, it's a, it's a, it's a sort of conservative stance of like, we understand that what blind people need are is Braille and access to, you know, equal access. And don't don't try to give us any anything else. And you know, and I think, to be fair, like, even though the Opticon sounded like an incredibly useful tool, as is, of course, the Kurzweil Reading Machine and everything that followed from it. There. There is, you know, talking, I talked to Josh Meili, for the book, who's who now works at Amazon, you know, he had this great story about his mentor, Bill, Gary, who, who would, who would basically get a phone call, like once a week from a well, very well meaning like retired sighted engineer, who would say like, oh, you know, what the blind need? It's like the laser cane, right? Or the Yeah, it's like, basically like a sippy cup for blind people like so that they don't spill juice all over themselves. And, you know, and Gary would very patiently be like, Oh, actually, they don't think that that would be helpful to do probably, yeah. Talk to a blind person first, maybe before you spend any more time trying to invent something that blind people don't need. So I think that resistance to like newfangled technology, there's a good reason for it. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 56:26 there is but the willingness to take the Opticon. Look, I think the fastest I ever heard of anybody reading with an optical was like 70 or 80 words a minute, and there are only a few people who did that. Yeah. You know, Candy Lynnville, the daughter of the engineer who invented it, could and Sue Mel Rose, who was someone I knew, was able to and a few people were but what the Opticon did do even if it was slow, yeah, it was it still gave you access to information that you otherwise didn't get access to. And, and I had an optic on for a while. And the point was, you could learn to read and learn printed letters and learn to read them. It wasn't fast. But you could still do it. Yeah. And so it, it did help. But it wasn't going to be the panacea. I think that tele sensory systems wanted it to be you know, and then you talked about Harvey Lauer who also develop and was involved in developing the stereo toner, which was the audience since the audio version of the optic comm where everything was represented audio wise, and, and I spent a lot of time with Harvey Harvey at Heinz a long time ago. But the the fact is, I think the question is valid is listening, and so on literacy is literacy, like Braille. And I think there is a difference there is, are you illiterate, if you can't read Braille, you point out the issues about grammar, the issues about spelling and so on. And I think that there is a valid reason for people learning Braille at the Colorado Center, they would tell you, for senior blind people, you may not learn much Braille, but you can learn enough to be able to take notes and things like that, or, or put labels on your, your soup cans, and so on. So it's again, going to be different for different people. But we are in a society where Braille has been so de emphasized. And that's the fault of the educational system for not urging and insisting that more people be able to use Braille. And that's something that we do have to deal with. So I think there is a literacy problem when people don't learn braille. But I also think that, again, there are a lot of things that Braille would be good for, but using audio makes it go faster. It doesn't mean you shouldn't learn braille, though, right? Yeah,   Andrew Leland ** 58:51 no, it's another I think it's interesting. And it's a related idea, this, this sense that technology, you know, this like, just sort of wave your hands and say the word technology as a sort of panacea, where I think, you know, it's, it's a tragic story where, where people will say, Oh, well, you know, little Johnny has, you know, some vision. So like, he could just use technology, like he doesn't need Braille. And it's fascinating to me, because I never really felt it. And maybe it's because I encountered Braille at a point in my development as a blind person that I really was hungry for it. But, you know, people talk about Braille the way they talked about the white cane, like the white cane, I felt so much shame about using in public, and it's such, it's just so stigmatized, whereas Braille, I just always thought it was kind of cool. But you know, you hear it so much from parents where they it's just like their heartbreak seeing their child reading with their fingers, which is, you know, and so as a result, they're like, why don't I just buy like a gigantic magnifier, that maybe in five years, you're not gonna be able to use anyway, but like, at least you're reading the same type of book that   Michael Hingson ** 59:56 half hour or 45 minutes until you start getting headaches. Exactly. And that, you know, I worked on a proposal once. I was an evaluator for it. We were in a school in Chicago, and one of the teachers talked about Sally who could see and Johnny, who was totally blind, literally, it was Sally and Johnny. And she said, Sally gets to read print, Johnny has to read Braille. Sally couldn't read print very fast. her eyesight wasn't good. Yeah, she got to read print. And Johnny had to read Braille. Yeah, it's the kind of thing that we we see all the time. And it's so unfortunate. So yeah, I, I do understand a lot of the technology resistance. But again, people like Ray helped us vision a little differently. But unfortunately, getting that conversation to other people, outside of the NFB community, like teachers and so on, is so hard because so many people are looking at it from a science point of view and not recognizing it as it should be. The the NFB did a video that did it. Several, they have had a whole series of things regarding Braille. But they interviewed a number of people who had some residual vision, who were never allowed to learn to read Braille. And invariably, these people say how horrible it was that they didn't get to learn to read Braille, they learned it later. And they're, they're reading slower than they really should. But they see the value of it. And it's important that we hopefully work to change some of those conversations. Yeah,   Andrew Leland ** 1:01:33 I mean, it gets back to our earlier in our conversation a

Amy Kurzweil stops into the Damn Library, physically, to talk about the physical object of her new graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story, which largely concerns AI. We discuss capturing the details of her screens, the open question of the future, and what we keep from the past to get there. Plus, we delve into the many joys of Jason Lutes' Berlin, a modern masterpiece. contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit: somanydamnbooks.com music: Disaster Magic (https://soundcloud.com/disaster-magic)

In today's conversation, I sit down with Amy Kurzweil, the author of the new graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story. Artificial: A Love Story tells the story of three generations of artists whose search for meaning and connection transcends the limits of life. The story begins with the LLM generated chatbot that Amy's father, the futurist Ray Kurzweil, created out of his father's archive, but the story doesn't start and end there. Instead, the story takes us on a journey through new questions that technologies are asking about what it means to be human.  How do we relate to—and hold—our family's past? And how is technology changing what it means to remember the past? And what does it mean to know--and to love--in the age of AI? Amy Kurzweil is a New Yorker cartoonist and the author of two graphic memoirs: Flying Couch, a NYT's Editor's Choice and Kirkus “Best Memoir” of 2016, and Artificial: A Love Story, forthcoming October 2023. She was a 2021 Berlin Prize Fellow with the American Academy in Berlin, a 2019 Shearing Fellow with the Black Mountain Institute, and she's received fellowships from MacDowell, Djerassi, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated for a Reuben Award and an Ignatz Award for “Technofeelia,” a four-part series with The Believer Magazine. Her writing, comics, and cartoons have also been published in The Verge, The New York Times Book Review, Longreads, Literary Hub, WIRED, and many other places. She's taught writing and comics at Parsons The New School for Design, The Fashion Institute of Technology, Center for Talented Youth, Interlochen Center for the Arts, in New York City Public Schools, and in many other venues, and she currently teaches a monthly cartooning class to a growing community of virtual students all over the world.

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Today we’re talking about the economics of higher education in the United States. Though the average cost of going to college nearly tripled from 1980 to 2021, the net cost of attending both public and private institutions has started to come down. Martin Kurzweil, vice president of educational transformation at the nonprofit Ithaka S+R, traces that back to a decline in enrollment. “Demographers will tell us that the generations of young people coming through after the baby boom, the cohort sizes, have decreased over time, and higher education is looking at what’s come to be known as a demographic cliff,” Kurzweil said. On the show today: Kurzweil explains how college became unaffordable for many Americans, why costs have started to come down, and how a shrinking population of typical college-age students will transform higher education in the U.S. Then, we’ll get into the repercussions of the Great Recession on the retirement wealth of younger baby boomers. And, are credit rating firms underestimating the climate crisis? Later, listeners share how they deal with news fatigue. Plus, one listener explains what she got wrong about getting a college degree. Here’s everything we talked about today: “College prices aren't skyrocketing—but they're still too high for some” from The Brookings Institution “Forget that $90,000 sticker price: College costs are actually going down” from The Hill “Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2022” (PDF) from College Board “A Sign That Tuition Is Too High: Some Colleges Are Slashing It in Half” from The New York Times “The incredible shrinking future of college” from Vox “Ratings Firms Struggle With Climate Risk in $133 Trillion Market” from Bloomberg “Yellen Says Extreme Weather Exposes Gaps in Insurance Protection” from Insurance Journal “What Happened to Late Boomers' Retirement Wealth?” from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College We want to hear your answer to the Make Me Smart question. You can reach us at makemesmart@marketplace.org or leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.

Today we’re talking about the economics of higher education in the United States. Though the average cost of going to college nearly tripled from 1980 to 2021, the net cost of attending both public and private institutions has started to come down. Martin Kurzweil, vice president of educational transformation at the nonprofit Ithaka S+R, traces that back to a decline in enrollment. “Demographers will tell us that the generations of young people coming through after the baby boom, the cohort sizes, have decreased over time, and higher education is looking at what’s come to be known as a demographic cliff,” Kurzweil said. On the show today: Kurzweil explains how college became unaffordable for many Americans, why costs have started to come down, and how a shrinking population of typical college-age students will transform higher education in the U.S. Then, we’ll get into the repercussions of the Great Recession on the retirement wealth of younger baby boomers. And, are credit rating firms underestimating the climate crisis? Later, listeners share how they deal with news fatigue. Plus, one listener explains what she got wrong about getting a college degree. Here’s everything we talked about today: “College prices aren't skyrocketing—but they're still too high for some” from The Brookings Institution “Forget that $90,000 sticker price: College costs are actually going down” from The Hill “Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2022” (PDF) from College Board “A Sign That Tuition Is Too High: Some Colleges Are Slashing It in Half” from The New York Times “The incredible shrinking future of college” from Vox “Ratings Firms Struggle With Climate Risk in $133 Trillion Market” from Bloomberg “Yellen Says Extreme Weather Exposes Gaps in Insurance Protection” from Insurance Journal “What Happened to Late Boomers' Retirement Wealth?” from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College We want to hear your answer to the Make Me Smart question. You can reach us at makemesmart@marketplace.org or leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.

Facebook generation wants boundaries; doom scrolling & devices are messing with us; AI boom running out of chips; AI is both an object of ridicule & presents risk of extinction - just like eggs; moral outsourcing in big tech; Kurzweil still truckin' along; Tesla leak reveals thousands of Autopilot safety complaints; that ChatGPT lawyer; Succession, Barry, Ted Lasso & Mrs. Maisel end; Good Omens is coming; Will Trent; future of baseball on TV; Dear Mama; a few good podcasts; Bluesky algorithm chooser; Twitter worth even less; Amazon seems to be ditching Alexa; DOSBox; Apple goes ARRRRR; Roadkill; AI, art & Edward Hopper; new camera with no lens; Moral Crumple Zones; Dave hits the boards!Sponsors:SaneBox - Visit https://www.sanebox.com/gog today to start your free trial and get a $25 credit.1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1passwordPrivate Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.Show notes at https://gog.show/604FOLLOW UPElizabeth Holmes Reports to Prison to Begin More Than 11-Year SentenceThe Facebook Generation Wants Some BoundariesIN THE NEWSThe AI Boom Runs on Chips, but It Can't Get EnoughAI Is an Insult NowAI presents 'risk of extinction' on par with nuclear war, industry leaders say‘I do not think ethical surveillance can exist': Rumman Chowdhury on accountability in AIRay Kurzweil On AI Pause: NoTesla leak reportedly reveals thousands of Autopilot safety complaintsA lawyer faces sanctions after he used ChatGPT to write a brief riddled with fake citationsNo ChatGPT in my court: Judge orders all AI-generated content must be declared and checkedMonthly crypto exchange volume tumbled in May, hitting 32-month lowMEDIA CANDYSuccessionBarryTed LassoGood OmensYou can watch the entire first season of 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' for free on YouTubeWill TrentGuys Grocery GamesSupermarket StakeoutThe San Diego Padres are the first to get out of their Bally Sports TV dealDear MamaParamount+ Snaps Up Milli Vanilli Feature DocTim Ferriss Show: Derek Sivers — The Joys of an Un-Optimized Life, Finding Paths Less Traveled, Creating Tech Independence (and Risks of the Cloud), Taking Giant Leaps, and Picking the Right “Game of Life” (#668)Cal Newport's Deep Thinking - EP. 250: IN DEFENSE OF THINKINGUNDERUNDERSTOOD - Big Ideas Lost to Mini RoomsA Stunning Scale Model Illustrating The History of TimeAPPS & DOODADSBluesky now lets you choose your own algorithmFidelity marks down value of Twitter stake againAmazon ditches Alexa's celebrity voices and will issue refunds upon requestGrail Diary Indiana Jones Journal, Indiana Jones Diary Indiana Jones Novels Book, Indiana Jones Grail Diary, Indiana Jones Collection Merchandise, Vintage Leather Journal Classic Movie Prop Replica BiIndiana Jones® and the Last Crusade™ on SteamSteam DeckDarklandsZyll - DOS 1984DOSBoxThe Meta Quest 3 is a $499 mixed reality headset with full-color passthroughAT THE LIBRARYRoadkill by Dennis E. TaylorTHE DARK SIDE WITH DAVEThe CyberWireDave BittnerHacking HumansCaveatControl LoopTop Google Result for "Edward Hopper" an AI-Generated FakeNEW "CAMERA" HAS NO LENS, SIMPLY DETECTS YOUR LOCATION AND GENERATES AN AI PICTURE OF ITDeskilling on the JobDave in Hello Dolly!CLOSING SHOUT-OUTSJason DeFillippo - Technology Lead at David&Goliath - AwardsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We briefly focus on some hopeful technology breakthrough news, before returning to our bread & butter; we have achieved fusion, kind of; wind from another planet; AI revolution, Kurzweil & baby steps; Dramatron; social media for strangers; Meta's Hasher-Matcher-Actioner; Twitter's do what I say not what I do; Tesla's failure is not fraud; Sam Bankman-Fried & continued crypto arrests & lawsuits; Lord of the Rings marathon feast; Wednesday; The Peripheral; the White Lotus; Slow Horses; Drumpf NFT; too many tabs; Apple to allow outside app stores, dropping Webkit requirement; password managers; Twitter suspensions; the Marshall amp.Sponsors:Lectric eBikes - Start your next adventure with the Lectric XP 3.0 today. Order now and save up to $250 with a special Holiday Bundle and 0% interest for 6 months. Visit lectricebikes.com to learn more.ButcherBox - Sign up today at butcherbox.com/GOG and use code GOG and get a Free Tomahawk steak in your first box. Offer valid for one week ONLY.Kolide - Kolide can help you nail third-party audits and internal compliance goals with endpoint security for your entire fleet. Learn more here.Hover - Go to Hover now and grab your very own domain or a few of them at hover.com/gog and get 10% off your first purchase.Show notes at https://gog.show/582 IN THE NEWSBreakthroughs of the YearScientists achieve fusion ignition, a major milestone in clean energy productionAudio from a Martian dust devil captured for the first timeThe AI Revolution: The Road to SuperintelligenceDeepMind created an AI tool that can help generate rough film and stage scriptsGoogle execs warn company's reputation could suffer if it moves too fast on AI-chat technologySocial Media Is for Strangers NowMeta releases an open-source tool that can scan for terrorist contentA New Lawsuit Accuses Meta of Inflaming Civil War in EthiopiaTwitter disbands its Trust and Safety Council of external advisorsElon Musk's new Twitter Blue logo is perfectly awfulThe college student tracking Elon Musk's jet lashes out after Twitter bans his account. He says he'll keep posting.Twitter Suspends the Accounts Tracking Musk's Jet and The Man Behind ItElon Jet, the Twitter account tracking Elon Musk's flights, was permanently suspendedTesla: Our ‘failure' to make actual self-driving cars ‘is not fraud'Tesla's latest update adds Steam games and Apple MusicSam Bankman-Fried Arrested by Royal Bahamas Police ForceSam Bankman-Fried: FTX founder charged with defrauding investorsCelebrity Promoters Sued Over Bored Ape NFT EndorsementsCrypto Was Always Smoke and Mirrors‘O.C.' star and crypto critic Ben McKenzie tells lawmakers that the crypto market is the 'largest Ponzi scheme in history'DOJ and SEC charge social media influencers in alleged $100 million stock pump-and-dump schemeMEDIA CANDYThe Lord of the Rings Marathon FeastWednesdayThe PeripheralThe White LotusSlow HorsesAPPS & DOODADSDonald Trump Digital Trading Cards (NFTs)FTX-hosted NFTs break after website is redirected to a restructuring pageChrome Gets Memory and Energy Saver Modes1600 Tabs in EdgeApple to Allow Outside App Stores in Overhaul Spurred by EU LawsApple Considering Dropping Requirement for iPhone Web Browsers to Use WebKitApple's new whiteboard app gives you and up to 99 friends an ‘infinite canvas'SECURITY HAH!The CyberWireDave BittnerHacking HumansCaveatControl LoopTwitter has suspended the Helicopters of DC account.FBI's Vetted Info Sharing Network ‘InfraGard' HackedThe Story of the Marshall amp. from the BBCCLOSING SHOUT-OUTSRIP Angelo BaldalamentiRIP tWitchSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.