Podcasts about lynnae

It's our season 5 finale! And we're dealing with the sudden disappearance of the Queen of Crime in 1926...What happened to Agatha Christie for 11 days in December? Is it a conspiracy? Or was someone spreading nasty rumours?The secret ingredient is...Professor Plum in the Library with the Candlestick!Also as mentioned in the show here is the link if you'd like to support Lynnae's GoFundMe for her kittyGet cocktails, poisoning stories and historical true crime tales every week by following and subscribing to The Poisoners' Cabinet wherever you get your podcasts. Find us and our cocktails at www.thepoisonerscabinet.com Join us Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thepoisonerscabinet Find us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thepoisonerscabinet Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepoisonerscabinet/ Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThePoisonersCabinet Listen on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThePoisonersCabinet Sources this week include Agatha Christie by Lucy Worsley, The British Newspaper Archive, Breaking Character, the New York Times, The Daily Mail, The Independent, History Extra, Get Surrey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The RingerChef Lynnae Oxley is the owner and head pitmaster of Sugar's Barbecue in Portland, Oregon. She has earned numerous accolades, including 10 Grand Championships and 7 Reserve Grand Championships, and has appeared on television shows such as “BBQ Pitmasters.” Beyond competitions, Lynnae operates a seasonal catering business and teaches barbecue classes, sharing her expertise with enthusiasts and professionals alike.  And she decided to spend some of her visit to the boot hanging out with a few nerds with a podcast. Oh, and Jay Ducote is back again cuz he's the homie!Listen. Subscribe. Share.The Eat the Boot Podcast is sponsored by Cheba Hut Toasted Subs in Baton Rouge and features music from Louisiana based singer/songwriter, Adam Dale, from the album “Shadowtown”.  www.eattheboot.com

I am so excited for this weeks episode with Janelle Lynnae because even if you are in a healthy relationship, so many of the tips she shares can be helpful in strengthening your marriage, and if you're single this episode can help you focus on the right things for YOU to attract your dream partner and relationship. We also talk business and entrepreneurship in women while diving into the evolution of her journey and how she became a dating coach, doing what she is now! Key Takeaways: Self-awareness and personal growth are essential in attracting the right partner. Having a connection with God is important in a relationship, regardless of faith background. Maintaining a positive and loving marriage requires humility, communication, and speaking life over the relationship. It is important to have clarity about one's vision for life and find a partner who aligns with that vision. Surrendering control and expectations in dating and relationships allows for a more authentic and fulfilling connection. Self-work and healing are essential for attracting a healthy and compatible partner. Setting boundaries and not settling for less than what you deserve is crucial in finding a fulfilling relationship. Celibacy until marriage can provide clarity and emotional connection in relationships. Actively seeking love and being open to possibilities can lead to finding a compatible partner. Maintain hope and faith in finding love Keep your heart open and believe that your love story is coming Focus on personal growth and becoming the best version of yourself CONNECT WITH JANELLE HERE: Instagram @Janelle_Lynnae Attract Your Husband Academy HERE Next Level Confident Podcast HERE Magnetize Marriage Masterclass(3 steps to attract your dream husband) FREE HERE CONNECT WITH ME: INSTAGRAM - @CarlyPinchin TIKTOK - @CarlyPinchin YOUTUBE - @CarlyPinchin Become Empowered + Powerful as EFF by tapping into your feminine with this 6 week course I created to help women who feel they're constantly living in their mind tap back into the wisdom of their bodies and their hearts to attract their deepest desires toward them: Empowered Feminine Course.

I am so excited for this weeks episode with Janelle Lynnae because even if you are in a healthy relationship, so many of the tips she shares can be helpful in strengthening your marriage, and if you're single this episode can help you focus on the right things for YOU to attract your dream partner and relationship. We also talk business and entrepreneurship in women while diving into the evolution of her journey and how she became a dating coach, doing what she is now! Key Takeaways: Self-awareness and personal growth are essential in attracting the right partner. Having a connection with God is important in a relationship, regardless of faith background. Maintaining a positive and loving marriage requires humility, communication, and speaking life over the relationship. It is important to have clarity about one's vision for life and find a partner who aligns with that vision. Surrendering control and expectations in dating and relationships allows for a more authentic and fulfilling connection. Self-work and healing are essential for attracting a healthy and compatible partner. Setting boundaries and not settling for less than what you deserve is crucial in finding a fulfilling relationship. Celibacy until marriage can provide clarity and emotional connection in relationships. Actively seeking love and being open to possibilities can lead to finding a compatible partner. Maintain hope and faith in finding love Keep your heart open and believe that your love story is coming Focus on personal growth and becoming the best version of yourself CONNECT WITH JANELLE HERE: Instagram ⁠@Janelle_Lynnae⁠ Attract Your Husband Academy ⁠HERE⁠ Next Level Confident Podcast ⁠HERE⁠ Magnetize Marriage Masterclass(3 steps to attract your dream husband) FREE ⁠HERE⁠ CONNECT WITH ME: INSTAGRAM - ⁠@CarlyPinchin⁠ TIKTOK - ⁠@CarlyPinchin⁠ YOUTUBE - ⁠@CarlyPinchin⁠ Become Empowered + Powerful as EFF by tapping into your feminine with this 6 week course I created to help women who feel they're constantly living in their mind tap back into the wisdom of their bodies and their hearts to attract their deepest desires toward them: ⁠Empowered Feminine Course.⁠

Her doctoral thesis led to her becoming a member of the team behind yesterday's successful launch of NASA's Clipper mission to Jupiter's moon Europa. Her contribution could help find out if beneath its thick ice crust, Europa is friendly to life.

In this episode of Pain to Power, we chat with Janelle Lynnae, a Dating Confidence Coach and best-selling author of "Flex Your Confidence Muscle." Janelle shares her journey from coaching women on confidence to specializing in dating, offering valuable insights on how to attract the right partner. She discusses the importance of taking intentional action in dating, holding off on the physical aspects, and how dating can be a form of personal development. Through her own experiences with heartbreak, Janelle explains how to move on, spot red flags early, and date with eyes wide open. Janelle also provides advice on what to look for in a good Christian partner, the difference between healthy and toxic relationships, and the significance of being “equally yoked.” She emphasizes the impact of how you talk about dating and marriage on your love life and shares the number one struggle people face in dating. This episode is filled with practical tips and wisdom to help you confidently navigate the dating world and build a relationship that aligns with your values. ***If this episode helped you, or you think it will help someone else, please share and a 5 star review is much appreciated*** Subscribe and Watch this episode on YouTube: www.youtube.com/@mskaylacardona

Lynnae was young when she got sober and she describes hitting a physical bottom and being overly sensitive. Her recovery was being in those thoughts and emotions and grew into learning how not to feel so intensely. Her sons addition forced her to dig further into the tools of long-term sobriety. Lyannae shared that she had a wonder woman mentality that the bigger the problem she was dealing with and then overcome the better she was. Solving problems became a secondary addiction. She leaned into her knowledge of energy work for her healing that help her elevate her recovery.Lynnae and I talk about managing difficult emotions, boundaries and learning to “feel” the energy of things in our lives. She shares a practical tool for figuring out what belongs to you and what doesn't.You can connect with Lynnae on her website or on socials @lynnaeanncoachingSupport the showSupport the showOh, and by the way, if you didn't know, my program Sober Freedom Transformation is now open! It is for women who have been sober for a year to many and are ready to discover who they want to be in long term sobreity, develop confidence and improve their relationships.If you aren't part of the Confident Sober Women Facebook group, it's a great place to be. There are over a thousand other sober women there building lives they don't want to escape from. Come on over and join us.And if you haven't read my memoir, grab a copy today and maybe a second one for a friend. There is so much hope in recovery, and I shared my story so raw and vulnerably so that others would know they aren't alone and that there is a way to live well, manage relationships, parent your kids, and have a healthy body, all while staying sober. Grab a copy of Recovering in Recovery: The Life-Changing Joy of Sobriety wherever books are sold.

Today's episode is about a topic that all of us have struggled with. Feeling truly confident. None of us are born with confidence. Confidence is a muscle that we must constantly work at and it is built through repetition. This episode will equip you with the tools to help build your confidence muscle and help remove the things that chip away your confidence.  Janelle Lynnae, is a confidence coach, national speaker, author, thought leader, corporate workshop facilitator, and TikTok extraordinaire. She is the Founder of Next Level Confident and The Confidence Workshop, is a sought-after Corporate Facilitator and Keynote Speaker with years of experience coaching women how to break through psychological barriers unknowingly placed on self. She assists women in uncovering limiting beliefs, giving concrete tools to building confidence in the workplace, and initiates collaboration with methods proven to build authentic connections and build a network of support in order to take each woman to the next level. Also she is the best selling author of the book ‘FLEX YOUR CONFIDENCE MUSCLE – How to Overcome Your Limiting Beliefs and Finally Take Action'. This book is designed to help you slow down, to stop busying yourself with work and your never ending to do list… so you can get honest with yourself about what's holding you back from living your dream life. To give yourself permission to be the woman you were authentically. In this episode we talk about: Addressing our limiting beliefs Reframing your limitations Difference between true confidence and false version of confidence how to fast tracking your confidence Sharing your story Episode sponsor: The Podcast Playbook - Your Complete Step-By-Step Guide To Successfully Launch Your Podcast Without Overwhelm For full show notes and episode resources head to:https://ericalippy.com/janelle-lynnae/ Find our guest at: Janelle Lynnae | Website,  Instagram ,Facebook Listen to her podcast: Next Level Confident Podcast Buy her book: Flex Your Confidence Muscle Follow me on Social Media: Your Host: @ericalippy Podcast: @passionlovepursuit Facebook YouTube PASSION LOVE PURSUIT PODCASTS: https://ericalippy.com/the-podcast/

EPISODE SIX: Welcome to Last Looks Kit Essentials, A segment where we chat about industry tools and products, some we love and maybe some we don't.  We are your hosts, Makeup Artist Cassie Lyons and Hairstylist Lynnae Duley. Show Notes: PPI: High def Matting Spray: https://www.ppipremiereproducts.com/products/hidef-matting-spray Mehron: Touch Up Anti-Shine: https://www.mehron.com/touchup-matte-finishing-anti-shine-gel-treatment/ Alcone Company:Face-Matte Oil Absorbing Sheets: https://alconemakeup.com/products/alcone-company-face-matte-oil-absorbing-sheets?variant=41624530518213 Bioderma: H2o Micellar Water: https://www.bioderma.us/all-products/sensibio/h2o-micellar-water Visiora Sheer Powders: https://www.nigelbeauty.com/p-30188-compact-powder-15g.aspx Sam McNight: Cool Girl Texture Spray & Lazy Girl Dry Shampoo: https://sammcknight.com/collections/all-products Klorane: Dry Shampoo: https://www.kloraneusa.com/dry-shampoo Benefit Dr Feelgood Balm: Out of Stock! Cassie Lyons is a proud mom to a 7 year old son and Local 706 Journeyman Makeup Artist. Cassie graduated from Soka University of America focusing on diplomacy/International Studies, but for over 10 years has worked in TV/film as a self taught artist. Cassie has volunteered, doing disaster relief work abroad with All Hands and Hearts in the Philippines and has a passion for backpacking and international travel with her son. Recent TV/film projects include The Dropout, Top Gun: Maverick, Blonde, Babylon and the upcoming shows American Born Chinese and Platonic.  Lynnae Duley is a Hairstylist for Film & TV & Local 706 member.  Having been a long time salon stylist in Chicago, Lynnae decided to pack up her life and move to LA in 2014, in hopes to do hair for the big screen, and is so happy she did.  Lynnae especially loves collaborating to create the big and small details of the characters she's helping bring to life.  Recent tv/film work includes: Blonde, Never Have I Ever, Party Down & Pivoting. She loves cake, handstands, bike riding, yoga, traveling, cooking, failing at surfing, and havin' a laugh with friends. Lynnae lives on the east side of LA with her cat and dog who are the same size.   

Lynnae Brown (she/her) is the creator of the training “Social Service Survival Guide”, and she is an Unapologetically Black Unicorn. Lynnae shares her journey in the human service space and how the social service system can disempower its workers. They talk about being the person to help others in social services and the impact of tying your identity with your contributions rather than your job title. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is now: 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

Throughout the month of June, we are sharing the voices of our members in the form of advice they might give to their younger selves. Join us this Pride Month for a daily series of reflections to inspire, reaffirm and support pharmacy professionals at all stages of their career journeys. The information presented during the podcast reflects solely the opinions of the presenter. The information and materials are not, and are not intended as, a comprehensive source of drug information on this topic. The contents of the podcast have not been reviewed by ASHP, and should neither be interpreted as the official policies of ASHP, nor an endorsement of any product(s), nor should they be considered as a substitute for the professional judgment of the pharmacist or physician.

Jody Hudson was born in Michigan but has moved a number of times since graduating high school. She spent 15 years in the retail industry. She then spent five years being a stay-at-home mom before finding new employment in the nonprofit sector. Her story sounds somewhat typical, right? Not really. Jody has a much different story to tell which you will get to hear on this episode of Unstoppable Mindset. Jody is the penultimate unstoppable person. Jody's second child, Alex, was born in 1995. Alex was a very active child and worked hard at everything she did. While in the fifth grade, Alex began exhibiting physical symptoms which eventually lead to her no longer being able to be an athlete and active person. In high school, she began losing weight. No doctor could diagnose what was happening. It wasn't until college that happenstance lead Jody and Alex to a doctor who correctly diagnosed Alex's condition as Lyme's Disease. Listen as Jody tells hers and Alex's story. She will tell you about the book she wrote as well as about the Alex Hudson Lyme Foundation. This episode is very powerful, and Jody leaves us with strong advice we all can take to heart when we are presented with life challenges. About the Guest: Jody Hudson, Grants and Philanthropy Director for California CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), is a fundraising professional with over 15 years of nonprofit leadership experience. She is the CEO and founder of the Alex Hudson Lyme Foundation, an organization that seeks to increase research efforts and patient support for Lyme disease and MCAS. Before joining California CASA in 2021, she served as Vice President of Development and Communications for Girls Scouts of Central California South and, before that, led the Catholic Charities Diocese of Fresno as Director of Operations. In 2018, Jody was honored with the Marjaree Mason Center Top Ten Professional Women Award. Hudson is also an author and speaker. Her book, My Promise to Alex: Through Pain Comes Purpose, is a memoir about her daughter's journey with Lyme disease and her passing at the age of twenty-two on March 24, 2018. For more information on Alex's foundation, please visit www.alexhudsonlymefoundation.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 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 w w w dot Michael hinkson.com/podcast. Michael Hinkson is spelled mi ch AE 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 anyone or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hangsen.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 accessibility and is sponsored by accessibility. Please visit w w w dot excessive b.com excessively is spelled ACC e ss IBE. 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 ne Michael Hingson  00:00 Access cast and accessibly initiative presents unstoppable mindset, the podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet Hi, I'm Michael Hinkson, Chief mission officer for accessibility and the author of the number one New York Times best selling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion, and acceptance 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 accessibility, that's a cc e ss I, capital B II. Visit www.to. Access a b.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, Hi, and welcome to unstoppable mindset. Today we get to interview Jody Hudson and Jody has got a very good and strong and compelling story to tell. She is a person who has worked in the world for a while. She is the Director of of grants right for California casa.   Jody Hudson  01:43 That's correct. The advanced philanthropy director,   Michael Hingson  01:46 advanced philanthropy director Wow. And, and, and again, but there's a lot more to Jodi than that. So we're gonna get to it. So Jodi, welcome to unstoppable mindset. Now, where are you? Exactly.   Jody Hudson  01:58 So I'm in Fresno, California. And we have just been getting hit with these recent rains. It's really sad to see what's going on out there. But in fact, before I jumped on, we just had another big downpour. So we're, we're right now good, but you never know when a next one is going to hit us.   Michael Hingson  02:18 Yeah, we don't get that level of rain in Victorville. I don't think it's rained here today. We had a little bit of rain Tuesday, but we just don't get that kind of rain here. And as I mentioned earlier, I heard on the news that there are a few places in the Sierras that have had something over 670 inches of snow, and they've gotten more snow this week. So how will this affect the drought it will, at least in the short term, but whether this is really going to have enough of an effect on the aquifers to really give us long term aid remains to be seen. But the way it's going, I think we're going to see more years of a lot of rain and other things happening. So we'll we'll kind of see how it goes.   Jody Hudson  03:05 I yeah, I agree. It was crazy. Last week, the 99 was shut down because of flooding. So you just never know what's going to happen. Right?   Michael Hingson  03:15 Go figure I know. Well, so let's start a little bit by you maybe telling us some of your background. As a younger God, what you did when going to school and all that give us all the highlights from an earlier time.   Jody Hudson  03:33 Oh my goodness. Okay, we could be here a long time because I'm not a young man. You know, I'm in my early 60s here now. But now I'm teasing.   Michael Hingson  03:41 So just talk about the early parts.   Jody Hudson  03:44 So I'm a Michigander born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, went to school at Central Michigan University where I graduated with a degree in retail. I've always loved fashion clothing. And so that's what I did for quite some time. Worked at Marshall Field's Lord and Taylor made my way west to Los Angeles. My claim to fame was that I was the manager of the Chanel boutique on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. I felt like I had arrived, so to speak. Then got married and made my way to Fresno where I currently reside. Two children, Garrett and Alice, my son's 29 My daughter's 22 And I stayed at home for about five years just to be a stay at home mom. And then when I decided to get back into the work environment, I got into the nonprofit world which I absolutely love. I have a servant's heart and it really spoke to that worked at Catholic Charities for about 1314 years. I worked at Girl Scouts for a little bit until I couldn't eat any more cookies. It was not good for my waistline and at all. And then I've been with California, Casa for two years, and we oversee all of the 44 Casa programs throughout the state of California. I am a product of foster care, I was born to a single mother who put me up for adoption. So I was in the foster care system for the first six months of my life until I was adopted. So I've kind of come full circle in that whole realm. But so that's what I'm currently doing. And then we'll get more into my true purpose and mission, which is the Alex Hudson line foundation.   Michael Hingson  05:46 So Marshall Fields, so did you get good deals on Franco mints?   Jody Hudson  05:50 Oh, my gosh. I know, Chris, and at Christmas time, because I worked out in Chicago at State Street at their flagship store. And during Christmas time, they'd have like the big pyramids of frango mints and I just devoured those. Like there was no tomorrow I have a weakness for sweets. I could not have sweets in my home, because they will be gone. I don't have willpower. I don't know what the word means.   Michael Hingson  06:17 No. Have you ever had mint? Meltaways? Yes. Which do you like better? Franco mints? Yeah. I like them both. But I do have to admit that there is something about Franco mints.   Jody Hudson  06:29 Oh my gosh, that just brought me back. I love that brought me back in time for sure. Yeah, and I miss them. I do too. I do too. I love those Frank moments. So good. It's kind of like melt in your mouth.   Michael Hingson  06:42 Yeah, really tasty stuff.   Jody Hudson  06:44 I think that's probably why girls with the Girl Scout cookies, then men's is my favorite. Because I was born and raised with the kids go mess with men. Go into the cooking mode. Then minutes. So what's your favorite Girl Scout cookie?   Michael Hingson  07:00 And Miss? Then Miss? Yeah. Although I've also enjoyed venture foals, which is one of the newer Well,   Jody Hudson  07:06 that's yeah, that's one of the the newer ones.   Michael Hingson  07:09 A new one rasberry one that I haven't tried yet. Yeah, you   Jody Hudson  07:12 know what I'm not a big fan of of the data, kind of like to keep my my the fruit and the chocolate all separate love them both, but really like the the combination together, but anything with chocolate, mint, peanut butter, I'm down for all of that stuff.   Michael Hingson  07:31 So I bought a case of Thin Mints. Well, actually, last year, I guess, I bought a case of Thin Mints. But somebody misunderstood and they made the order for two cases. Oh, and so I accepted that and I took them all. But even with the one case, what I did with two would have been the same with one which is they all mostly get put away mostly in the freezer. And for me, especially out of sight out of mind. And so most of them are still there. And they will be eaten over time. Which makes it a little bit frustrating for the Girl Scouts every year because I don't buy a case every year. It'll take me three years sometimes to eat those two cases, as I said, out of sight out of mind. But I do know where they are now having thought about them. This may cause a open so   Jody Hudson  08:26 I think I know where you're going after this little conversation here.   Michael Hingson  08:31 Yeah, I promise I won't get up and go do that while we're talking. Okay, but still. So So you got into this whole idea of the nonprofit Well, I actually another memory going back to Chicago and Marshall Fields. Do you remember Robert Hall? I do. Where the values go up, up, up and the prices go down? Down? Down?   Jody Hudson  08:52 Yep, yep.   Michael Hingson  08:55 Ah, those were the days having been born in Chicago and live there for five years and been back occasionally. But still. Great stories, great stories.   Jody Hudson  09:05 Yeah, I just don't like Chicago when it's December, January. It's like 80 degrees below with the windchill factor and you're trying to make your way from where you live in Lincoln Park down to State Street a little bit.   Michael Hingson  09:18 A little bit tough. And even with the L it could be tough. Oh yeah.   Jody Hudson  09:23 Oh, yeah. But boy, I had good good times there. I just graduated from college. So I was making a little bit of money hanging out and living with my sorority sisters. So it was just like an extension of of college. But when you have a little bit of money, it's a little bit more fun. Yeah.   Michael Hingson  09:41 Well, you were you bring back memories for me also, a few years ago, I was in Chicago for a speech or I was there for a convention I don't recall which now, but they were doing the event where you Um, to raise money for something, they did the Polar Plunge so everybody would go and jump in Lake Michigan. And I think Rahm Emanuel was the mayor. And Jimmy Fallon was there and they decided they were going to go do the plunge. And I was watching it with my cousins on TV. And they went in the water. It was zero or colder. Oh, we were very happy to be in a heated house. And the reporter said, these guys are doing it all wrong, because they went in in their suits, you know. And as soon as you get out of the water, you can go into a tent that was warm, where you could dry off. But just before they got out, a woman got out who was just wearing a bathing suit. And the reporter said, How much smarter she is because it'll dry right off and she won't be cold very long. And they were right, you know, but Well, that's the difference between intelligent people and politicians sometimes, I guess. I don't know.   Jody Hudson  11:01 My gosh, when my dad had a summer camp in Grand Haven, Michigan, and that brings me back to those memories that summertime with like the Polar Bear Plunge, we had that with the kiddos getting up early in the morning, like at six o'clock and going down. And if you if you did it every day, then you got like a special award. But yeah, I never did it. I watched my campers go in. But I'm like, Yeah, that's too cool for me.   Michael Hingson  11:29 Yeah. But you know, it's part of our country. And it's always fun to go to, to different places. And of course, go into Chicago go always for me at least. There I'm sure better places. But I like to go to UNO's and get a nice good deep dish pizza to   Jody Hudson  11:46 deep dish pizza. And it's a fun place to be in Chicago on St. Patty's day too. So Oh, yeah. That's always a blast. Dine the river green and drinking green beer and all that good stuff. Yeah, Chicago. Chicago is a fun fun city.   Michael Hingson  12:02 Yeah. Memories will tell us about California casa a little bit. So you've been doing that for now? What two or three years? Yeah,   Jody Hudson  12:10 for two years. And as the grants and philanthropy director, I helped to raise money not only for California, casa, but for our network. So California, CASA is the the parent, the umbrella so to speak, over the 44 Casa programs throughout the state of California. And we our initiatives, our mission, our you know, philanthropy, everything is in support of foster children. And there's 80,000 foster kids in the state of California. And what a casa does is they are that one person that link to help these kiddos to navigate through the court systems to be that voice for them, to help them where maybe they don't have a mom, dad and adult anybody to help guide them through life. And it can be transformational for these children to have a casa appointed, watching over them, it really makes a big difference.   Michael Hingson  13:24 Do foster parents help with any of that? Or is this really kind of pre them or our in spite of them? Sometimes,   Jody Hudson  13:31 you know what I mean, it's kind of done in conjunction with them as well as a CASA is a volunteer, they go through a training which I went through a training as well, just to kind of better understand what a CASA volunteer does, it's about a 3040 hour training commitment. Once you go through, you actually get sworn in as a casa and the in the court system. And then you are assigned a child and you could be assigned a child for maybe a year, two years, some people have had classes for, you know, even greater longer periods of time. It just depends upon, you know, the the cases. But it really is such a great meaningful program. And we definitely, you know, right now, we have probably 12,000 classes, but as I said earlier, there's 80,000 foster kids, you know, in the state of California, so there's definitely a gap. And that's what we try and do is you know, raise money raise funds to recruit classes, to train them to help the local network, you know, really pouring into the hearts of these foster kids.   Michael Hingson  14:51 So are their centers that these people are based out of or how does it work?   Jody Hudson  14:55 The classes themselves? They Yeah, so There's, you know, like I said, 44 class of programs throughout the state of California. So there's like a casa in Kern County, there's a casa and Fresno County. It's all, you know, based upon that the counties, each county is really supposed to have a CASA program. And, you know, there's what 51 counties, I think, in the state of California, so, yeah, 58 So we're, we're missing obviously, a couple of Casa programs, but each CASA program is you know, their own 501 C three, they, you know, raise their own funds money, they have their own board, executive directors, own staff, and we come alongside them to support them, and to give them you know, additional training, additional resources, and help where we can, we were lucky enough California casa, to be working with a lobbyist team who petitioned and we did receive a state appropriation in Governor Newsom budget for $60 million. And that is, you know, going to be funneled out to our Casa programs. However, as we know, the state of California is a little messed up right now with with budgets, and we only received the first wave of that $60 million, we received $20 million, and we were able to pump out that money to our network. But the other two bases are in jeopardy right now. And we are petitioning and trying to get that money back. So we will see   Michael Hingson  16:39 is that because of the legislature in some way or what? Yeah,   Jody Hudson  16:45 we are very grateful for what we did receive, and that was a blessing, we didn't even think that we were going to get that. And it really is to help our, our programs with infrastructure, it's to help them with, you know, recruiting, it's to help them just really build upon their their programs. So yeah, we're hopeful though, the, you know, legislators and other government officials and senators and people in the Capitol, they were not happy that our funding was was cut, because they really have become aware of our programs and the impact on the foster children. So we do have some really good people in our corner. So we'll, we'll see what happens.   Michael Hingson  17:30 He cut it. Who cut the funding, if the governor had it in his budget, and so on what happened,   Jody Hudson  17:37 it was in the legislative portion of the budget. So I don't know all the details. Yeah, in our inner workings of how all that happens. And, you know, with politics, things can be moved around, things can be cut, because maybe they're negotiating and looking for something else. Who knows what goes into all of those discussions. But like I said, we've got a lot of good champions and people in our corner, and it wasn't just cost of that was cut, there was a lot that was cut. So yeah, we're just hoping that we're gonna get that back.   Michael Hingson  18:14 I remember. Now, a number of years ago, the national level, there was a major discussion about the government. And what it had been doing through what was called the Talking Book program, which later became the National Library Service of the Blind and Physically Handicapped. And they, the Congress decided that they wanted to cut a bunch of the funding. They said, we can get things from other ways. And one of the magazines that was produced under the program was playboy. And the Congress people's fee with a conservative said, Well, that's ridiculous to publish Playboy, that blind people can take advantage of all the pictures and stuff. And the answer to that was, that's correct. But go read Playboy read the articles, because there were there were many, well written articles. And mostly, they are really good articles in Playboy. The original story, the short story, the fly came out of Playboy among other things, and eventually it got dealt with, but people do get some very strange ideas about things from time to time, don't they?   Jody Hudson  19:26 They sure do. And, you know, I've never seen a playboy, but I did hear that. There are some really great, great articles in there. So but yeah, so you know, well, we'll just have to kind of wait it out. I mean, we're so full speed ahead. And we are, you know, implementing what we can with the the funding that was awarded to us in our in our programs and and we're grateful for that.   Michael Hingson  19:49 We are a 501 C three, right. So you do you obviously do a lot of soliciting outside of what the government provides.   Jody Hudson  19:55 Oh, absolutely. I mean, we have, you know, government money. We've got you no private funding. So, yes, we have different pockets that we definitely, you know, reach out to. But, you know, from the pandemic, it's it's tough. Yeah, for for fundraising for nonprofits, I mean, everyone, you know, that was was losing out because they weren't able to have fundraising events and other things. And people were really tightening up their belt. So, yeah, well, we'll have to see how how things work out. But the nonprofit world is definitely definitely hurting.   Michael Hingson  20:37 Yeah, and it's gonna be a process. Well, for you, though, what made you go into the whole idea of doing nonprofit stuff? So it's different than what you've done in the past?   Jody Hudson  20:49 Oh, absolutely. Retail and nonprofit, very, very different. But   Michael Hingson  20:54 although you, you can tribute it to the nonprofit of Marshall Field's with Franco mints, but that's okay.   Jody Hudson  21:00 That's right. So, so I had my son in 93, I had my daughter and 95. And then I stayed home for for five years. And then when I was deciding to you know, get back into the workforce, one of my girlfriends, became a development director over at Catholic Charities, and she called me up. And she said that she was going to be starting this position at Catholic Charities, and she was going to be forming a women's Guild and that she wanted me to be on it, there was gonna be about 12 of us that were going to, you know, be the the pioneers of this Guild, and a common, you know, take a tour of the facility and see what I think, see what I thought so sad to say, I mean, I'm Catholic, but I had never heard of Catholic Charities before. So got my car went and down and opened up the doors, took a tour, I saw the clientele, I saw the people there that were, you know, waiting for services. And I just had this aha moment where this was where I was supposed to be, I was supposed to be giving back. I was supposed to be helping those, you know, less fortunate. And I told my girlfriend Kelly at that time, I said, Yes, I go, I want to be part of this guild. But even more importantly, I want to see if there's employment here, I would love to work at Catholic Charities. And as luck would have it, there was a position open. And it was for in the food pantry overseeing the food pantry. And check this out, overseeing the thrift store. Well, I think with my degree in retail, and working on Chanel boutique, I qualified to oversee the Catholic Charities thrift store. So the joke was always, you know, hidden, here's Jody from Rodeo Drive to Fulton Street, where Catholic Charities was and yeah, the price tags are just, you know, a couple of zeros off, but hey, she's, she can handle those. So, I fell in love with it. And it was so good as my kids were getting older, you know, to bring them to these, like food drive events, and, you know, the the farmers market that we would have, and they would see what the face of poverty looked like. And they fell in love with it. And you know, they were always there supporting my fundraising efforts. And and, you know, just supporting, giving back. So it was it was wonderful. It was really good. It must   Michael Hingson  23:45 get pretty emotional. Because you see so many people who are facing challenges and so on. How are you able to just move forward and not take it so emotionally personal, if you will?   Jody Hudson  23:59 You know, that's an excellent question. And it was very hard for me in the beginning, I wanted to take home these children that I saw, I wanted to fix everything I wanted to be the Savior. I wanted to be the knight in shining armor and I realized that I couldn't do it right. I mean, there I was limited in what I could do, but I could go out and raise money so that the pantry would be full of food so these families could eat so these families could you know go into the thrift store and purchase clothing or be given clothing, clothing and hygiene every so often so I can I can do you know what I can do in my in my wheelhouse. But you're right, it was tough. The first six months, I took it home with me there was no separation of my work and my life. But it just became more of a driving force for me in my job, more motivation to really get out there. and get the community involved with our mission and what we were doing. And even though the names of Catholic Charities, we never asked what people's religion was, hey, if you have a need, then we're going to be there. And we're going to meet that need.   Michael Hingson  25:18 Yeah. And it's, it is a an issue and a challenge for, for I know a number of people to get beyond the being so emotionally involved that you can't separate it, while at the same time developing a greater empathy. And I in fact, I think it's, it makes sense to develop the empathy and the understanding. But you can't take it personally because you didn't cause it all. And all you can do is try to work to fix it.   Jody Hudson  25:45 Right? And, you know, I said about my children going down there and being exposed to that, to this day, my my son, he'll tell me, Mom, he goes, it's a blessing and a curse, this empathy that has been passed on to me because he wants to be now that fixer, and he wants to, you know, when people come to him and share their problems, I mean, he wants to, you know, help them and he's going through that process right now realizing that he can't fix everyone's problems, right? He can, he can only do so much. But yeah, it's definitely tough. What does he do? So he used to work at Merrill Lynch. He graduated from ASU in 2008. Teen got a job right out of college, I mean, super smart, young man. And he worked at Merrill Lynch for over a year. And that just wasn't him. Like I said, he has that empathy, that very sensitive heart. And we also had a, you know, family crisis during that time. And I'll get into that later. But he just really, and then we had, you know, the pandemic hits. So he left Arizona, came home to Fresno to try and figure out what it was that he wanted to do. And now he's been with his current job for over a year. And really, really excelling in it and doing well. And I think he has found his niche. And he works for this organization called behavioral stars. And they are assigned troubled children from the school system. And he meets with these kids one on one, he has about 12 kids right now in his caseload, and he really tries to work with them on behavior modification, trying to work with them on just, you know, being a positive influence in their lives, because so many of these kids come from such troubled homes that they don't have that. And so Garrett is kind of trying to fill that void. And he's done very, very well, just this morning, he sent me over a text and he had to present to his team on some like motivational, inspirational messages. And it was like a 2030 minute presentation. And I love the two YouTube clips that he shared, and one of them spoke about how, you know, you can't let your past you know, dictate what you're doing today. It's like the overcoming and, you know, we're all going to have challenges, but how it's how you rise above from it. And I love it, because as he is administering to these kids, and helping them with their life challenges is also healing for him.   Michael Hingson  28:44 And it's clear, you've passed on a wonderful legacy that that he is taking advantage of, and he'll he'll expand out and I suspect,   Jody Hudson  28:58 Oh, absolutely. And, you know, I wrote a book, and I keep telling my son, I go get, your story is going to be even far greater than mine. And I can't wait to read your book one of these days, because it's going to be so inspirational with everything that you have gone through. I mean, I'm just really, really proud of him for climbing Klein, and just, you know, making it happen.   Michael Hingson  29:25 Well, we've talked about Garrett, and we should get to Alex, I know you want to talk about all of that. So you said that Alex was born in 1995. Correct. And, and a lot of things have happened. So tell us a little bit about Alex, if you will.   Jody Hudson  29:42 Sure. So Alex was supposed to be a Christmas baby. Her original due date was December 25. But she came a little bit early and she was just a sweet, sweet baby. She and her first five years I mean just a very sweet, shy, innocent little girl. And then she discovered sports and the tomboy in her really came out along with the the big brother that was right by her side helping her. So she was very active. She played soccer, she played softball, she ran track, she did cheerleading, volleyball, you name it, and she was very, she was a very good scholar to her brother definitely had more of the smarts. But he didn't apply himself out, worked much, much harder for her grades, and did very well with that. And then in the fifth grade, she started developing joint pain, inflammation, and we thought it was all related to her sports. And that's what the doctors thought as well that she was just an overworked you know, athlete. And so she would suck it up. She would like tape up her legs, ankles, do the ibuprofen. Well, that went on for several years, and nothing really changed. In fact, it just kept getting worse. To the point where her freshman year in high school, she was playing basketball running on the court, and her knees ballooned up to be like the size of grapefruit. And she dropped to the ground. And she was carried off by her teammates and coach. And they ran some X rays. And they discovered that she needed to have knee surgery that she had some issues with with her knees. So she had one knee surgery done on her right knee and they said if that took and did well, and it was successful, then they would do the left knee. Well, it didn't help but it didn't change anything. So basically from her freshman year in high school on Chica never run again. She it was the beginning of the the end for her because she couldn't play sports any longer. Everything that she had identified with was gone. And in high school, that's especially hard when you lose your your peer group. And so she really went through a dark period for a while only had maybe a friend or two, started losing weight started developing digestive issues. Then we, you know, started thinking, well, maybe he's got anorexia or an eating disorder. I mean, we just really went through hell and back. And she graduated from high school went to a junior college because we were still trying to figure out what was going on with her health. And she did well at junior college and applied to several colleges and ended up getting a full ride at UCLA. But she wasn't able to carry that out because she was losing weight. And she was down to about 87 pounds. And we were going from doctor to doctor probably 40 Plus doctors, and Alex on her own just by going on the internet, found this doctor down in LA who specialized in digestive issues. And she said mom goes I think I found a doctor that might be able to help me. And at that point, I'm like, Sure. What's what's another doctor? I mean, we we've been, you know, striking out with all of our local doctors and everybody at this point, just that she and I both were crazy, right? Because they would run tests and they couldn't find anything wrong with her. So we got in the car went down to LA. And within a half hour of talking with this doctor, he asked me Mrs. Hudson, has anybody test tested Alex for Lyme disease. And I innocently said, What is Lyme disease. And then he told me what it was and this was in 2017. And I'd really had never heard about it. And here I am from Michigan, you know, thinking that maybe I would have heard about it growing up. But we consented to her getting tested for Lyme disease and a couple of weeks later, sure enough, came back with a diagnosis that she she had Lyme disease. So now test, what's the test the test. If you go to a regular doctor, most of them are still testing with an outdated western blot test, which will give you false reads on it. This doctor was smart enough to have outs tested through iGenex and iGenex is out San Jose area. And they are very detailed. I mean, it's everyone sends people to iGenex just to because they know that testing that's part of the problem with Lyme disease. testing can be so. So what's the word I'm looking for? Not not reliable, inaccurate, inaccurate? Yeah. So tested her with the iGenex. And that's what it came back with. So in that moment, you know, I had to first of all, as a parent, figure out what this diagnosis was. And then second of all, how do I treat it, because I'm disease, you just can't go to any doctors, so many of them don't know about Lyme disease and how to treat it. And therein lies the problem trying to find proper doctors that know about this disease. And also, you know, the the treatment, because it's not like cancer, where there's a tried and true path. With Lyme disease. It's almost like, here's your buffet, you can do antibiotics, you can do this, you can do that. Or maybe you can do a combination. And it's a trial and error. But Alex didn't have have time to go through a trial and error. You know, she was at 80 pounds and 2017, down to a handful of foods that she could eat without reacting. And I had to get her better quick, like,   Michael Hingson  36:17 do you before going on? Do you have any sense of how she got Lyme disease?   Jody Hudson  36:25 No. And that's the thing. 35% of people that get Lyme disease will have what's called the classic bullseye rash, where it's a circular little red ring on your body of the point of impact where people are a bit, the majority of people don't know they have Lyme disease, until maybe they've been sick for a while. And by then it's hard to treat, because it's you know, once it gets into your bloodstream, and in your system, it can wreak havoc on every part of your organ. I mean, people have died from Lyme disease, because of, of, you know, getting into their heart, people have died from it from, you know, getting into their brain. It's, it's really quite horrific. And I mean, that can be adopted at this point from everything that I had to get schooled on real quick like in 2017. Till she passed away in 2018. But yeah, the majority of people when when you first have Lyme symptoms, it's like a summer flu. So you, you know, might have just being you know, feeling lethargic, joint pain, inflammation. And it's not until other symptoms appear when it can really become quite critical, like an Alex's case where it affected her whole digestive system.   Michael Hingson  37:53 You How did you how did you end up handling it? What did you do, because you certainly had to do something in a hurry.   Jody Hudson  38:01 So what I did was, you know, social media can work for you or against you. And in this situation, it definitely worked for me two things happen once I got Alex's diagnosis. Interestingly enough, she was diagnosed in May, which may is Lyme Disease Awareness Month, and our local TV station, KC 24 had just done a episode a segment on Lyme disease. And I knew these people very well through all of my fundraising efforts at Catholic Charities. So I called them up and said, Hey, you guys just did a episode. You guys just did an episode on on Lyme disease. My daughter has just been diagnosed with Lyme disease. I need to know these three women that you spoke with because I need to find out how to treat my daughter. So that was number one. Number two, was I took to Facebook with Alex's consent. And I basically made a play saying, you know, my daughter has just been diagnosed with Lyme disease. I'm still trying to figure out what Lyme disease is. If anybody has any resources, know of any doctors locally, can put me in touch with people, please, you know, DM me, and you'd be surprised at how many people that I didn't realize had Lyme disease in the central valley that reached out to me. And Jessica Devine was one of them that lived right in Clovis, a couple of you know, Fresno, who had been diagnosed with Lyme disease had been battling it for a couple years. And she gave us the name of her doctor in Pismo Beach, and that's where we started. So it definitely helped by, you know, getting the message out there. And when you're a parent, parent and your child is struggling and you need answers, you do what it takes. aches. Right?   Michael Hingson  40:00 Right. So you reached out to that doctor.   Jody Hudson  40:04 So we reached out to that doctor. And then at the same time, we googled best Lyme facilities, best line treatment, because, you know, I'm a mama bear. I single mom at that time, Alex's dad wasn't in the picture at all, financially, emotionally, any of that. And I was working parents. And I thought, Okay, I need to tackle this, right. I'm going to roll up my sleeves, we've got a diagnosis, we're gonna get the doctor treatment, she's going to be better in a couple of months time, I was so naive. I had no idea what I was facing. And so we had this appointment with, you know, this doctor in Pismo in June. So Alex had been diagnosed in May that this appointment for June. But then I started researching best Lyme clinics. Sofia Health Institute was one, there was a couple others and I basically got on the phone. And I begged and pleaded to get into these facilities. And insurance doesn't cover a lot of this. In fact, it didn't cover most of it. In a year's time, I spent over $100,000 Trying to get Alex better, I sold cars. I had people give me money. I mean, it was crazy what I did. But again, any of us would do that in our situation with a sick child. So we went to the doctor in Pismo, we also went to Sofia Health Institute. And with every doctor that we saw, it was a whole new protocol. Everybody, you know, had their own opinions. And it was just, it was just really tough. Like I said, you know, with cancer, it's tried and true. These are the treatments that you go through. But with Lyme disease, because there's so many different co infections. You have to figure out who you know what symptoms are the most troublesome, you start there, and it's like, okay, eliminate that. So that symptom, and then let's move on to the next. And that's what we were trying to do with Alice. But at the same time, she kept losing weight, and she couldn't be strong and healthy enough with her treatments. Because she was so malnourished, so it was just, it was a mess.   Michael Hingson  42:35 And no matter what happened, nobody was able to come up with any solution that seemed to help.   Jody Hudson  42:41 We had a team of about 12 doctors we had, because as I said, once Lyme disease is in your blood system, which for Alex, it had been since. You know, if you go back when her symptoms first started, which we thought was just that overworked athletic body. It was in fifth grade. Now here she is in college, right? So I mean, it'd been 10 years that this had been living in her her system. So she had cardiologists she had a gastro doctor. She had, you know, a doctor, the doctor in Pismo that was kind of like the the lead on this. But we had so many other people that we had to bring onto the team. And then not to mention, just she was in and out of hospitals, just trying to get IVs and other stuff in her system to keep her healthy.   Michael Hingson  43:42 When did you get to the point where you realize that you weren't going to be able to fix her and how did you reconcile that?   Jody Hudson  43:52 So May of 2017 She got the diagnosis by December after going through a whirlwind of in and out of hospitals, different doctors. I knew in December that I was losing her she was we just we couldn't get a leg up. And from June until December, we literally had gone cross country Now mind you, I was still trying to hold down a job at this time, right? So I was just going back and forth and people were giving me their their sick time and vacation time. And I was just trying to uncover anything that I could to get her her better. But we realized that not only did she have Lyme disease, she had something else called mast cell activation syndrome, which she basically was allergic to almost every type of food she was down to like four or five safe foods. She could eat. And I detail all this in my book because I mean, it could take hours and days to go into all of this because it's just such a crazy, crazy disease. But   Michael Hingson  45:12 was that caused by the limes? Disease?   Jody Hudson  45:15 Correct? Yeah. When your immune system is compromised, it creates havoc in your in your system. And so everything gets Miss wired. And her histamine levels, everything we're, we're off. So you know, her treatments, she would try and have different types of treatments. And her supplements things that normally she could take before now, it was as if it was an enemy entering, you know, a danger zone here, she would try and swallow these supplements and take her, you know, treatment. And her histamine levels would just start attacking, thinking that was, you know, something bad that was coming into her system. Just horrific the pain that she was going through, but it was December. And I remember, you asked me, How did I reconcile with this, I remember getting in my car, and just driving. And I pulled over and I found it on the dashboard. And I had the serious conversation with God. And I was in tears. And I basically said, listen, here's the deal. Like I'm telling God what to do, right? I said, here's the deal. I go, you either take her right now, because I can't deal with this anymore, or you heal her. But this purgatory is not working for me, I cannot do this any longer. And that says, you know, and so that's what he did a couple of months later.   Michael Hingson  46:47 So you had so hard and I have some associations with Lyme disease in a different way. First of all, when I was living in New Jersey and the selling some products, I knew a couple guys who had accompany the turns out they they did have Lyme disease, it was apparently somewhat controlled, but they did have it. And I only know that because they told me but my fourth guide dog was bit by a tick relatively soon after we moved to New Jersey and we knew she was bitten we, we got the tick and we got it out of her and and the vet said there's nothing you know, we can do to analyze it or anything. And you know, as long as she's okay, she's okay. Well. One of the things I've learned about guide dogs is that they are and a lot of dogs, especially when there's a lot of love, and they want to please, they're incredibly stoic. We never detected any illness in her until May 1 of 1999 When I called her to dinner, and she didn't come and we found her on her bed, almost unresponsive. And through getting her to an emergency vet and then going elsewhere and so on. And finally meeting a woman who we regard as a very dear friend, although I haven't talked with her for a while Tracy Gillespie, who is in the University of Penn system. And working for emergency vet in Toms River, New Jersey, as I recall. She said Lynnae has glomerular nephritis. And it is morphed from Lyme disease. So she wouldn't keep the good stuff in her system, the kidneys would pass it out along with the bad stuff because the Lumeria went bad. So she had to retire. And we were able to keep her for three more years. But still, we we knew that there was was something there but it was just one of those things. So I appreciate all you are saying that's my closest brush, fortunately, or whatever with Lyme disease, but it's it is a very insidious thing.   Jody Hudson  49:04 It really is and you know, that's can be carriers of Lyme disease and, you know, with with the ticks and that's why I always when I'm you know talking make make sure that I recognize that it's not just humans. I'm glad that you shared that story. I mean, it is, you know, as we do tick checks from head to toe on our body, we need to do that as our animals come in from the outside because they are just as susceptible to it as as we are.   Michael Hingson  49:38 Well I'm being a guide dog. We kept a close eye on her so we found it right. Still it occurred. Well so. So Alex past, God listened to you and and did take her then what did you do?   Jody Hudson  49:57 So, what I did was yes, she she passed on March 24. In fact, tomorrow's her five year anniversary, I cannot believe. Yeah, I can't believe it's been five years and some aspects of it, I feel like it was just five, five minutes, five days and other times. So I feel like maybe it's been longer. But she and I were very close, we were just with everything that I'd gone through being divorced. And being a single mom, I mean, the mother daughter bond is very strong. To begin with, and ours was especially strong just with our our life experiences and challenges. And when Alex was, I mean, she was bedridden for for several months before she passed away. And she was always so positive. And she kept, you know, thinking that she was going to be this Lyme warrior, she was going to, you know, get to UCLA, finish that degree and start her own nine nonprofit. And when we knew that, God, you know, had other plans for her, I made a pact with her and said that I was going to basically carry her torch for her. And so after she passed, money started just flooding in. There was a GoFundMe account that someone had set up for me and I started receiving quite a bit of money. And I knew that was going to be my my seed money to start the outsets in line Foundation. And here again, I was working for a nonprofit, I was still working at Catholic Charities. And I thought, Okay, I'm gonna, you know, petition, I'll get someone to help me to, you know, see what that looks like. And, you know, people have told me, it's going to take about a year to get a nonprofit up and running. So that okay, good, that will give me time to adjust and make the transition. Well, I received status that I had been awarded 501, C, three for the outsets, in line foundation in 30 days. And in my classic CPA, comment, my CPA when I got the letter, I said, Okay, roll in, tell me that this is like a joke. Like, this isn't true, right? Like, I really didn't get this approved so quickly. And he said, God, sometimes the good Lord does things that there are no explanations for Congratulations. You have a 501 C three. Yeah. And so yeah, we were up and running in June, we started our first fundraiser, we were able to work with global Lyme Alliance and do a research grant with them, we were able to award some financial grants to lyme patients. So we, you know, we're doing everything according to Alex's wishes, and five years later, we're still doing that. So it definitely, like I said, before this mother daughter bond, I know I'm not doing it alone, I know that she, you know, is helping me every step of the way. And you wrote a book. And I wrote a book. And that was something that I did not expect at all, like I am a business woman, I write reports. I don't journal I don't write for fun. But this was something that was just laid on my heart. And I was a member of the Fresno State book club. And there was a gallon there who had just written a book, and I started talking to her. And I said, you know, I feel like I need to get this stuff out of my head and onto print. Because just as I'm chatting with you, there's so much that people didn't realize of the journey that Alex and I went on, especially that last year, even my closest group of friends, you know, when they read my book, they're like, God, God, we just didn't realize everything that you had gone through, we thought we did. And I said, No, I, I feel bad. I wasn't able to catch everybody up on this, I said that I was running so fast to get my daughter better, that I didn't have time to bring my team along with me. So this book was written for so many different reasons. Just to let people know how amazing my daughter was and what she went through, also to, you know, give people hope, inspiration. And also just to, you know, give validity to this horrible disease that so many people's still in the medical community don't recognize, or, you know, give it such a stigma. So the book came out. Last February, I self published it and Uh, you know, it's, it's done pretty well, I mean, I've received over 100 plus five star reviews on Amazon, which, to me, if I just, you know, was able to impact one or two people at that, wow, that would be great, you know, people would really understand what I'm trying to convey. But you know, just the, the impact, and what I'm getting back from it that people, you know, write to me or call me. It's just so overwhelming, you know, and for them to appreciate my daughter and love my daughter, with what she went through, it's pretty, pretty touching.   Michael Hingson  55:42 What a blessing. Well, tell me, what would you like people to take away from listening to you today.   Jody Hudson  55:51 So what I want people to take away from listening to meet today is, no matter what challenges you have going on in life, it's how you show up that people are going to remember. And for me, in that moment, when Alex passed away, it could have been so easy just to throw the covers over my head, and give up and be, you know, this grief girl, but I didn't want to be defined by that I wanted to, you know, have people look at me, and be that example, for others be that example for my son, be that example for my friends, that no matter what I had gone through, that I can still show up every day, and that there's still like to be lived. And to do that, also, you know, in honor of my daughter, right, with everything that she went through, how could I just lay it in bet. And I mean, she's suffered far greater than, than I did, and, and I just, I couldn't do that. So I needed to make some, you know, purpose out of what she went through. And that's what I'm I'm trying to do and I'm trying to accomplish?   Michael Hingson  57:05 Well, how can people reach out to you and communicate, correspond or learn more? And   Jody Hudson  57:11 yeah, so we have a website alexhudsonlymefoundation, website, www dot alexhudsonlymefoundation.org, there's ways that you can get a hold of me on the website, you can also go into Amazon, and look for my book, my promise to Alex written by me, Jody Hudson, I would love it if you know, people would, you know, by the, by the book, and, you know, support me through that, because all the proceeds from that book, go right back into the foundation. And, you know, if people are out there, struggling right now with, you know, medical mysteries, you know, check out Lyme disease, check out and see maybe if that's something that you might have in the doctors just haven't been able to diagnose. You know, be your own advocate, never, never give up. And that's one of the things that Alex and I never did, no matter how many times that door was slammed in our faces from the medical community. We still kept opening it up and trying to get to answers.   Michael Hingson  58:22 Never giving up is extremely important. We do it all too quickly. And we, we don't realize that we can do a lot more than we think we can.   Jody Hudson  58:33 Amen. Amen. You don't know you know how strong you need to be until you are in those moments where strength is all you got?   58:42 Well, I want to thank you, Jody, for being with us today. And for telling your story and having the courage to do it and to continue doing, what you're doing and anything that we can do to help through this podcast and so on, please let me know. And we met through accessibility, which I'm really happy about. And I appreciate your desire to help in dealing with inclusion and website accessibility but more important, anything that we can do to continue to promote what you're doing. We're in so I want to thank you for that. And I want to thank you for listening to us. We really appreciate it reach out to Alex through Jodi reach out to Jodi especially and Alex will know and we want to hear from you please email me at Michaelhi at accessibe.com. Accessibe is A C C E S S I B E.com. Or go to www dot Michael hingson h i n g s o n.com/podcast. Please give us a five star rating wherever you're listening and like especially if you're on iTunes, please give us a five star rating. Those tend to show up a lot and we appreciate it. But Jody most of all, once more. I want to thank you for being here and for not only inspiring us but I hope educating a lot of people about Lyme disease and just being stronger and more unstoppable than we think.   Jody Hudson  1:00:00 Thank you so much for having me and listening to my story and Alex's story It really means a lot to me   Michael Hingson  1:00:11

Lynnae, a Pediatric Occupational Therapist, joins Nikki and Chad for episode 44 and shares what Sensory Processing Disorders are, what they can look like in children, and how and when to ask for professional help. 

EPISODE FIVE: Welcome to Last Looks Kit Essentials, A segment where we chat about industry tools and products, some we love and maybe some we don't.  We are your hosts, Makeup Artist Cassie Lyons and Hairstylist Lynnae Duley. Show Notes: Sunscreen Neutrogena ultra sheer spf 100 Coola Face Mist Black Girl Sunscreen  Murad oil control mattifier spf 15 Colorescience - Unforgettable Total Protection Brush-on Shield  Supergoop (Re)setting Refreshing Mist SPF 40 Eminence No.0 - Translucent Sun Defence Minerals Cassie Lyons is a proud mom to a 7 year old son and Local 706 Journeyman Makeup Artist. Cassie graduated from Soka University of America focusing on diplomacy/International Studies, but for over 10 years has worked in TV/film as a self taught artist. Cassie has volunteered, doing disaster relief work abroad with All Hands and Hearts in the Philippines and has a passion for backpacking and international travel with her son. Recent TV/film projects include The Dropout, Top Gun: Maverick, Blonde, Babylon and the upcoming shows American Born Chinese and Platonic.  Lynnae Duley is a Hairstylist for Film & TV & Local 706 member.  Having been a long time salon stylist in Chicago, Lynnae decided to pack up her life and move to LA in 2014, in hopes to do hair for the big screen, and is so happy she did.  Lynnae especially loves collaborating to create the big and small details of the characters she's helping bring to life.  Recent tv/film work includes: Blonde, Never Have I Ever, Party Down & Pivoting. She loves cake, handstands, bike riding, yoga, traveling, cooking, failing at surfing, and havin' a laugh with friends. Lynnae lives on the east side of LA with her cat and dog who are the same size.   

"If you think that being perfect is going to allow people to connect with you, you're wrong"Author of Flex Your Confidence Muscle: How to Overcome Your Limiting Beliefs and Finally Take Action, Confidence Coach and Public Speaker joins us on today's episode! Today we're diving in on overcoming your limiting beliefs, embracing imperfection,  positive self talk and so much more!Connect with Janelle on InstagramFlex Your Confidence Muscle BookConfident Life Academy••••••••••••••••••••••••••••ASK US A QUESTIONKnowYourPowerPodcast@gmail.comLISTEN & WATCH ON✦ YouTube ✦ Apple Podcast ✦ Google PodcastPROGRAMS✦ Quad Queen Leg Program✦ Buff Babe Academy CoachingSPONSORS✦ Gym Reapers ✦ Code:  JuliareneCONNECT WITH US✦ Facebook Group✦ Podcast Instagram✦ Julia's Instagram✦ Kendall's Instagram✦ Julia's Personal YouTube

Janelle Lynnae is a woman of faith, best-selling author, entrepreneur, and public speaker. She has lived in Kansas, Belarus New York, Colorado and California in her 30 years of life. Janelle is the Founder of Next Level Confident and helps you see yourself as the valuable badass you are in your career and in life. She also makes it a point to include men as well.Janelle shares her story about how being home-schooled and moving around a lot when she was younger has helped her in entrepreneurship today.In this motivational episode, you'll learn to look at what you believe and think is possible first, if you're not having the result you want in a certain area of life.Break free of your nasty self-talk so you can show up confidently at work & in life.CONNECT WITH JANELLEINSTAGRAM | @janelle_lynnaeWEBSITE | http://nextlevelconfident.com

EPISODE FOUR: Welcome to Last Looks Kit Essentials, A segment where we chat about industry tools and products, some we love and maybe some we don't.  We are your hosts, Makeup Artist Cassie Lyons and Hairstylist Lynnae Duley. Show Notes: Andis: T Edger and Shaver  https://andis.com/Shop/Detail?ID=66&I=T-Outliner-T-Blade-Trimmer   https://andis.com/Shop/Detail?ID=727&I=ProFoil-Foil-Shaver   Norelco: One Blade  https://www.usa.philips.com/c-m-pe/oneblade-trim-edge-and-shave#triggername=options_2b6m   Visiora: Translucent Powder (they are online at Alcone, Nigel's, Frends, Naimies) https://www.nigelbeauty.com/m-228-visiora.aspx   EBA: Hair Palettes  https://performancemakeup.com/shop/palettes/alcohol-palettes/encore-palettes/encorehairbeard/   Phyto: Phytopolléine Botanical Scalp Treatment https://us.phyto.com/products/phytopolleine-botanical-scalp-treatment Phyto: Phytoapaisant Soothing treatment Shampoo https://us.phyto.com/products/phytoapaisant-soothing-treatment-shampoo   Cassie Lyons is a proud mom to a 7 year old son and Local 706 Journeyman Makeup Artist. Cassie graduated from Soka University of America focusing on diplomacy/International Studies, but for over 10 years has worked in TV/film as a self taught artist. Cassie has volunteered, doing disaster relief work abroad with All Hands and Hearts in the Philippines and has a passion for backpacking and international travel with her son. Recent TV/film projects include The Dropout, Top Gun: Maverick, Blonde, Babylon and the upcoming shows American Born Chinese and Platonic.  Chicago, Lynnae decided to pack up her life and move to LA in 2014, in hopes to do hair for the big screen, and is so happy she did.  Lynnae especially loves collaborating to create the big and small details of the characters she's helping bring to life.  Recent tv/film work includes: Blonde, Never Have I Ever, Party Down & Pivoting. She loves cake, handstands, bike riding, yoga, traveling, cooking, failing at surfing, and havin' a laugh with friends. Lynnae lives on the east side of LA with her cat and dog who are the same size.   

This week we are in for a real treat: a fresh perspective on environmental science from a high school senior in Iowa. Our guest is Ria Tomar from Valley High School in West Des Moines. Ria joined our host, Lynnae, to discuss her research project on air quality, her research study on individuals' perceptions of open spaces like parks and other natural areas, and her pursuit of trying to get environmental science as required curriculum for graduation in high schools. https://kfmg.org www.yourgreenportal.com

EPISODE THREE: Welcome to Last Looks Kit Essentials, A segment where we chat about industry tools and products, some we love and maybe some we don't.  We are your hosts, Makeup Artist Cassie Lyons and Hairstylist Lynnae Duley. Show Notes: Mickey Mouse Sunglasses: shorturl.at/asuwQ Kevin Murphy - Free Hold: Flexible Medium Hold Styling Paste https://kevinmurphy.com.au/product/free-hold/?location=usa YS Park - Tail Comb https://ysparkusa.com/products/ys-park-tail-comb-105 Maya Chia:  Hydrating Brightening Essence  https://mayachia.com/collections/all/products/the-optimist-hydrating-brightening-essence?variant=32237291077728   Mac: Prolong Wear Liquid Lipstick  https://m.maccosmetics.com/product/13854/37620/products/makeup/lips/lipstick/retro-matte-liquid-lipcolour?shade=High_Drama   Cassie Lyons is a proud mom to a 7 year old son and Local 706 Journeyman Makeup Artist. Cassie graduated from Soka University of America focusing on diplomacy/International Studies, but for over 10 years has worked in TV/film as a self taught artist. Cassie has volunteered, doing disaster relief work abroad with All Hands and Hearts in the Philippines and has a passion for backpacking and international travel with her son. Recent TV/film projects include The Dropout, Top Gun: Maverick, Blonde, Babylon and the upcoming shows American Born Chinese and Platonic.    Lynnae Duley is a Hairstylist for Film & TV & Local 706 member.  Having been a long time salon stylist in Chicago, Lynnae decided to pack up her life and move to LA in 2014, in hopes to do hair for the big screen, and is so happy she did.  Lynnae especially loves collaborating to create the big and small details of the characters she's helping bring to life.  Recent tv/film work includes: Blonde, Never Have I Ever, Party Down & Pivoting. She loves cake, handstands, bike riding, yoga, traveling, cooking, failing at surfing, and havin' a laugh with friends. Lynnae lives on the east side of LA with her cat and dog who are the same size.     

In today's episode, Emily interviews Confidence Coach & Best selling author Janelle Lynnae. Janelle shares how she went from living a life of mediocrity, believing her life didn't matter, to realizing that she was meant for more & that she could literally co-create the life she desired. In today's episode you will hear about: How to overcome fear & be confident in what you have to offer the world Vulnerability is inspiring because it's real Trusting your gut What are the ways you're telling yourself your life doesn't matter?  What is the intention behind your healthy “outlets”? Retraining your mind to an empowering truth Natural Strengths vs. “Lesser” strengths What changed when Janelle adopted abundant mentality  The practice of receiving  Asking for help Connect with Janelle Lynnae here: IG: www.instagram.com/Janelle_lynnae Get Janelle's Book here: https://www.nextlevelconfident.com/book   Emily's links:  All links: https://linktr.ee/evolvewithemilypodcast https://linktr.ee/emilyhayden   Connect with Emily here: Instagram | YouTube | TikTok  

EPISODE TWO: Welcome to Last Looks Kit Essentials, A segment where we chat about industry tools and products, some we love and maybe some we don't.  We are your hosts, Makeup Artist Cassie Lyons and Hairstylist Lynnae Duley. Show Notes: Plano small double sided Tackle box / pin box shorturl.at/bfH68 Blunstone Boots https://www.blundstone.com/dark-olive-suede-leather-pull-on-boots-womens-style-1615 Mabelline: Fit Me Matte Foundation https://www.maybelline.com/face-makeup/foundation-makeup/fit-me-matte-poreless-foundation   Temptu Airbrush  https://temptu.com/air.html?sku1=86000   EBA Endura tattoo cover  https://performancemakeup.com/shop/liquids/endura-alcohol-makeup/skin-packs/   Cassie Lyons is a proud mom to a 7 year old son and Local 706 Journeyman Makeup Artist. Cassie graduated from Soka University of America focusing on diplomacy/International Studies, but for over 10 years has worked in TV/film as a self taught artist. Cassie has volunteered, doing disaster relief work abroad with All Hands and Hearts in the Philippines and has a passion for backpacking and international travel with her son. Recent TV/film projects include The Dropout, Top Gun: Maverick, Blonde, Babylon and the upcoming shows American Born Chinese and Platonic.    Lynnae Duley is a Hairstylist for Film & TV & Local 706 member.  Having been a long time salon stylist in Chicago, Lynnae decided to pack up her life and move to LA in 2014, in hopes to do hair for the big screen, and is so happy she did.  Lynnae especially loves collaborating to create the big and small details of the characters she's helping bring to life.  Recent tv/film work includes: Blonde, Never Have I Ever, Party Down & Pivoting. She loves cake, handstands, bike riding, yoga, traveling, cooking, failing at surfing, and havin' a laugh with friends. Lynnae lives on the east side of LA with her cat and dog who are the same size.   

EPISODE ONE: Welcome to Last Looks Kit Essentials, A segment where we chat about industry tools and products, some we love and maybe some we don't.  We are your hosts, Makeup Artist Cassie Lyons and Hairstylist Lynnae Duley. Show Notes: Graftobian: Glamour Crème™ Ultra HD Foundation Super Palettes. Sheila Stotts: Untangle Brush aka the Removal Brush  Viseart Paris: Neutral Mattes Slimpro Reverie: Milk Anti-Frizz Leave-in Nourishing Treatment  IG: @the.lastlooks.podcast   Cassie Lyons is a proud mom to a 7 year old son and Local 706 Journeyman Makeup Artist. Cassie graduated from Soka University of America focusing on diplomacy/International Studies, but for over 10 years has worked in TV/film as a self taught artist. Cassie has volunteered, doing disaster relief work abroad with All Hands and Hearts in the Philippines and has a passion for backpacking and international travel with her son. Recent TV/film projects include The Dropout, Top Gun: Maverick, Blonde, Babylon and the upcoming shows American Born Chinese and Platonic.  Lynnae Duley is a Hairstylist for Film & TV & Local 706 member.  Having been a long time salon stylist in Chicago, Lynnae decided to pack up her life and move to LA in 2014, in hopes to do hair for the big screen, and is so happy she did.  Lynnae especially loves collaborating to create the big and small details of the characters she's helping bring to life.  Recent tv/film work includes: Blonde, Never Have I Ever, Party Down & Pivoting. She loves cake, handstands, bike riding, yoga, traveling, cooking, failing at surfing, and havin' a laugh with friends. Lynnae lives on the east side of LA with her cat and dog who are the same size.   

Mom Stomp stomps into 2023 ready for reflecting, resetting and refreshing. The gals talk "Winter Renaissance," people coming for the dicks (specifically Sam Asghari's), Brit taping porn in Mexico, Ben Bolling's spidey sense, some Mom Stomp vocab, couple's massages (WHAT IS NORMAL?!), 3-5years old being a special time, getting all the teens to wizard island, a VM from Lynnae, and an Andy-Junk Minute. #winterrenaissance #jan1isthemother #BeysPRisfromthesea

Today's podcast guest, Janelle Lynnae, is a Confidence Coach, Speaker, and Author of the Best-Selling Book “Flex Your Confidence Muscle”!We are talking about confidence building, overcoming dark (even suicidal) thoughts, ending the comparison and self-criticism game, contributing to humanity, and so much more.If you've ever struggled with some deep, dark thoughts, felt that you didn't deserve to (or want to) exist, or simply lack confidence in your life, this episode is for you!Download Janelle's Free workbook for working through limiting beliefs: https://www.nextlevelconfident.com/workbookJanelle's Website: nextlevelconfident.comFlex Your Confidence Muscle Book: https://www.nextlevelconfident.com/bookConnect with Janelle on Social: @janelle_lynnaeGift some inspirational books for the holidays!My Pocket Guide to Manifestation Book: https://amzn.to/3UmKRYYLetters to the Universe Scripting Journal: https://amzn.to/3VxNwjfAffirmations for Happiness Book: https://amzn.to/3BbB4yaSPONSORS AND PERKS:Join our Patreon to support the show and get access to extended episodes and more: patreon.com/highvibeFind a local doctor quickly and painlessly with ZocDoc (It's free!): zocdoc.com/vibinJoin Lynnsey's AYM membership: https://bit.ly/alignmembershipWork with Kelsey: https://www.kelseyaida.com/coaching

This is the story of how Janelle Lynnae went from believing she was going to die in a car accident to being a best-selling author, social media thought leader, confidence coach, and highly sought-after public speaker.    We cover: How to deal with dark inner dialogue  Steps to finding healing your dark and suicidal thought patterns Working through limiting beliefs  Recreating neural pathways Dialing in your self-talk  Building confidence from deep within    This episode will get you to analyze your inner dialogue on a whole new level.   Music credit: @earthto7ky   Resources: Suicide Hotline    To Connect With Janelle Lynnae Further: Instagram | TikTok | nextlevelconfident.com | Get Jannelle's Book | Download Janelle's FREE Workbook!   To Connect With Chelann Watt Further: Instagram | chelannagain.com   Music Credit: Chelann Again Intro by 7ky Prosper by 7ky  

In this season finale episode of the Women in DeFi Podcast sponsored by Bridges, our host Breanne Delgado, founder of the Women's March and web3 activist is joined by Lynnae Sauer, COO of Bridges Exchange. We'll be celebrating the 1 year anniversary of officially launching Bridges, and taking a look back at all that's happened since. Plus, stick around for a few teasers on what's yet to come. This is one episode you won't want to miss! Join us next season with more incredible Women in DeFi.What To Listen ForWhat's changed since launchingNew features and how they benefit youHow the new aggregator works and how it adds to our vision of accessibility All about on and off rampsCrypto for the holidaysUsing the Bridges Knowledgebase to learn cryptoThe really big back end update and why it's epicIssues that Bridges Exchange resolves for the userA brief history of BridgesHow the team has handled hiccupsFeatures, features, and more featuresThe team's humble beginningsThe mission and visionWhy we do what we doThe benefits of a borderless currencyAbout Lynnae SauerBefore co-founding Bridges, Lynnae developed a career as a product manager in FinTech and travel technology startups. She has worked in many different agile teams with frontend, backend, and fullstack solutions for both B2C and B2B products. Her core belief is that digital products should be ethically built first and foremost for the people using that product. Lynnae also holds an M.S. in Political Economy, interned in a nonprofit entrepreneurial support organization, and studied in four different countries.ResourcesSwap now on Bridges Exchange: https://app.bridges.exchange/ Join our community: https://discord.com/invite/bridges Learn about Web3 (Beginner Friendly!): https://learn.bridges.exchange/ 

We're taking the week off so enjoy this re-airing of our episode with Lynnae .Lynnae Brown is a storycoach and the director of Howie the Harp Advocacy Center at Community Access and she is an Unapologetically Black Unicorn. Lynnae shares her journey on how she became the director at Howie the Harp and how they have extensive training programs to teach people in mental health recovery to become peer support workers. They talk about the stories we tell ourselves that make a difference in our lives, the backstory and influence of Howie the Harp and getting people in mental health recovery prepared for a workplace environment. If you or someone you know is in a mental or substance use disorder crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255.  

This week we catch up with Lynnae Oxley.  She has had her food trailer for over a year, and we drop in and see how that is going.  So if you have ever considered a food business, hopefully, this episode will help you decide to run far away.

Beyond 120 is a program housed at the University of Florida. Our guest on this episode, Brittany Grubbs-Hodges is a part of this program designed to help college students look beyond the minimum of 120 units of college credits required to graduate. Brittany helps students look at their possible career choices and helps them learn more than they ever thought they could discover about what really goes into whatever they are looking to do with their lives.   Brittany is clearly a teacher at heart. As you will learn, even an immune disability does not stop her.   You will learn how Brittany is advancing her own life goals as she moves toward securing a PHD and how she wishes to continue to help students expand their horizons. Brittany is by any definition unstoppable. I am sure you will enjoy what she has to say and that you will be inspired by her.   About the Guest: Brittany Grubbs-Hodges works at the University of Florida as part of the Beyond120 program. She assists undergraduate students by connecting them to internships and other experiential learning activities. Brittany also works as an adjunct professor in the UF College of Journalism and is graduating with her PhD in December of this year. In her spare time, Brittany enjoys spending time with family and friends, and she is looking forward to adopting her new puppy in the next few weeks!       About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:20 Hi, and welcome back once again to unstoppable mindset. Glad to have you with us wherever you may be. And however you're listening to us. Brittany Grubbs Hodges as our guest this week. We have lots of fun things to talk about. We've been spending the last few minutes kind of reacquainting ourselves after chatting and also talking about all the things we could talk about. She is getting a PhD in higher education. She has a master's degree in journalism. But she wouldn't even let me talk about fake news. I don't know What's all that about. But anyway. But we we can talk about everything. And as people on this podcast know, I'm an equal opportunity political abuser, so it doesn't matter. And so there's real news too. And I haven't seen much of that lately, because it's all fake news, as everybody tells us right away. Brittany, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  02:12 Thank you so much, Michael, thank you for having me today.   Michael Hingson  02:15 And now that we've picked on fake news, we can get to more real stuff. You just got back, you said from DC. How was it up there?   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  02:21 It was great. Yeah, I just got back I took about 20 students. I'm a professor at UF. And I think about 20 undergraduate students to DC mainly to just expose them to the world of work. You know, they like to say the real world but the students are in the world or, but I just want them to get an idea of the world of work. Specifically, I work for a department it's called Beyond 120. At the University of Florida, it's our experiential learning program. So we encouraged them to get outside of the classroom through things like internships through mentorship through excursions or study abroad. So this was one of our career excursions, we took them to various places around DC, USA Today, the Capitol building all kinds of places, and hopefully, you know, some of those opportunities will really come to fruition. I know a couple of my students have interviews already. So I'm excited to see what comes from that. And   Michael Hingson  03:15 how did they come up with the name beyond 120?   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  03:18 So that's a great question. So 120 is the number of academic credits needed to graduate with a baccalaureate degree. So it's kind of a metaphorical and that we're not asking you to take more credits. We're just asking you to go beyond what's required by really exploring outside of the classroom.   Michael Hingson  03:35 Yeah, that is so much fun and important. I remember being in college years ago, getting a master's degree in physics, and there was no real discussion of either extracurricular activities, although there were a number of things available and so on. But there weren't programs like a beyond 120, I did end up getting very involved on campus at the campus radio station, and I got involved in being in a consumer group of blind people, the National Federation of the Blind, in my senior year, and then continued with it ever since. But it makes a lot of sense to get people to really explore additional sorts of things. And if you will, as you said, look at a little bit of the real world, doesn't it?   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  04:17 Yeah, absolutely. And especially in the world of COVID, everything has really changed. You know, you have hybrid workforce, you know, offices now, and that people only come in on Tuesdays or you know, every other day, some some folks we were working with, they have teams so Team A will come in one day, and then Team B will come in the next day. So it's really certainly changed since we last took our excursion. So we've, we've taken four excursions this semester, but prior to that, we our last excursion was February of 2020. So it's been a full two years and a lot of students have had their experiences canceled. A lot of their internships went virtual, a lot of study abroad experiences were canceled. So we're really trying to kind of make up for that and try and get some Students access and exposure to some of the jobs and some of the just the industries out there.   Michael Hingson  05:05 Not trying to be political or anything, but what was it like COVID wise up in DC was masking encouraged or, you know, what are the kinds of things did you see?   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  05:15 Yeah, so it really depends on the individual place. So we went to Georgetown University to get our students who are interested in graduate school wanted to get them some exposure to what law school was like in graduate school, and they have a mandate, not only for the vaccine, but also for the booster, and of course masks as well. And then some folks, which, of course, private companies, it's up to them, it's up their discretion. But I did have to have the students bring their COVID cards, because for some of the entities, they were not allowed in without it. So it certainly was not a University of Florida regulation. But it was up to the individual and to T that was hosting us. And they all had very different regulations, depending on, you know, how many people were visiting with social distancing versus masking versus vaccinations, all that fun stuff?   Michael Hingson  06:05 Did you go to Congress or the White House or any of those at all?   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  06:09 So we went to the Capitol building, which was a blast, we went to our local Congresswoman, and she took us around, I believe were with her for about two hours. She took us around and showed us a few of the different offices in different areas of the Capitol building, we weren't able to go in because Congress was in session. We weren't able to go in and actually see in the main room there. But we did see some of the areas on the outskirts of those rooms, who was your congressperson? Cat Kammok   Michael Hingson  06:42 haven't met her. I spent a fair amount of time in DC over the years dealing with Congress, I went with the National Federation of blind a number of times, to invade Congress and talk all about the issues regarding blind people, and so on. And I've been there some other times as well. So I've met a number of people that don't think I've met her.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  07:02 So she is our local representative. But we also met with Congressman, Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz, she's also a US alumni. So we made sure to meet with a variety of folks throughout the trip on both sides of the aisle.   Michael Hingson  07:18 And I and I have met her and she has sponsored legislation. So she's a cool lady as well.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  07:24 Yes, it's always great to meet us alums that can share their stories with students and really mentor some of the students   Michael Hingson  07:30 makes perfect sense and go into Washington is an experience that I would encourage anyone to do. But of course, there's so much history there. It makes perfect sense to do.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  07:42 Yes, absolutely. And I wanted the students to get some in history, as well as we gave them some free time, one of the days to go and explore all the museums nearby some of the Smithsonian's that are now open. So they were able to see most of those and really get some time exploring to see their history.   Michael Hingson  07:58 Have you been there before?   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  08:00 I have, we did a excursion there in 2019. That was actually our pilot excursion. So beyond 120 was not created until 2018. So myself and one of my co workers are one of the first hired in, in the department. And we kind of met and said, Okay, what is it that we want to do what's going to help students out and so we did an excursion to DC with eight students in 2019, just to see if this would work if it's a good concept at all. And it did, it worked well. So we were able to go to DC and 2019. And then in London in February of 2020. And funny story there. We were at the economist, the Thursday, before the play shut down, they shut down on a Friday. So we were there the day before they shut down. So we've just barely got out of the UK. And thankfully, no one tested positive it was we just made it by the skin of our teeth.   Michael Hingson  08:57 I escaped from New York in March of 2020. On the day they shut down the city, I knew that it was coming because they were talking about it. And I had had a flight later in the day. I decided I better get out of here. And so I was able to and I put it that way escape, before it was all shut down. And I understand why and it made perfect sense to do but it's just so unfortunate that all this is going on and we got to deal with it though it is part of life now.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  09:28 Absolutely.   Michael Hingson  09:29 Well tell me a little bit about you, where you you came from and how you got into the University of Florida and ended up in the programs that you did.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  09:39 Yes, absolutely. So when it comes to my story, I had a very non traditional journey. And so I'd love to go over with you later on in this podcast. Some of the folks that really influenced me, but I had a non traditional journey I actually had an immune deficiency. Whenever I you know, well it is a genetic thing. but I'll say it really made a huge impact on my career and my college trajectory. Because I eventually going into adulthood, I had to have plasma infusions twice a week. So I spent my first two years local, and my second two years, about two hours away at the University of Central Florida. But every weekend, I had to come back and get a plasma infusion twice a week. And it definitely altered my career trajectory. And it altered the opportunities that were available. But I will say while I was there, my first semester at UCF, which was the first semester of my junior year, I said, you know, I've kind of missed out on the first two years, but I need to make up for that, how can I do that. And there was an office of experiential learning to UCF. And I was able to find an internship really saw the power of internships ended up working, it was at a hospital system called Orlando health. And I worked there for about two and a half years, before switching over to the education side. And I initially switched to a K through 12. So I taught grades six through 12 at a private school, but found that that wasn't really my my niche, I love teaching. But that particular age group wasn't really my niche. So I switched to higher education, worked in admissions for about five years, working with students in that college transition. But then when the opportunity came to join beyond 120, I remembered my days as an intern and thought this is going to be perfect for me, I'm so excited to be able to kind of pay it forward to have future students connected with internships and job opportunities, because my internship was so influential for me. So that's kind of how I got into higher education.   Michael Hingson  11:48 I was teaching lower grades different or how did you find them different than teaching upper grades and getting into juniors and seniors in high school and I asked that, in part because my wife was a teacher for many years and loved teaching younger grades more than older grades, because she felt she had a little bit more of an opportunity to help shape the way behave. They behave later, because by the time they were in high school, they were a lot more fixed in less interested in and exploring a lot of things that maybe they should have.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  12:20 Mm hmm. Well, I guess for me, I mean, I was raised on a on a ranch, and I had a very strict upbringing. And so whenever I went to, to teach, a lot of my students did not have that strict upbringing. And I would hear them say things like, he's touching me, he's looking at me weird. He's breathing on me. He's, and it was just, it drove me absolutely crazy. Sounds terrible. But, um, but no, I just, I was definitely wanting to be able to see, I'm not even quite sure the best way to say it, but be able to see the difference that I was making. And that, you know, with a student that I was able to admit, at least with admissions with a student, I was able to admit into college, I can see that transition. And a lot of times those students would come back to me and say, Hey, this is what I've done while I'm here and moving towards beyond 120. I can see, for example, one of the students that I've been working with, for several semesters, we were able to get her an interview at NASA last week, and she said, Oh, my gosh, all of my efforts that I've done, have paid off, she's taken my classes she did the excursion, she's doing the internship. And now the full time job and so to to know that I've had a part in that is incredibly rewarding. And I'm just humbled and honored by the fact that I can be a part of students journeys, and really, truly have an impact and where they go in life. And I'm so thankful and grateful for that.   Michael Hingson  13:47 So it sounds like what I'm hearing you say is that you're helping to teach people that and students that life is an adventure, which is something that conceptually is probably a little bit easier for them to think about and assimilate in later grades, because how do you tell a kindergartener that life's an adventure?   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  14:08 Well, and even sometimes students who let's just say a student has a degree in philosophy, the student will come to me and say, What do I What can I do with a degree in philosophy? And my answer is anything you want to do with a degree in philosophy? Let's see. What do you love doing? What are you passionate about? What do you enjoy, you know, and just trying to figure out and really dig deeper into what that student may or may not realize they even want to do and kind of expose them to all these different opportunities out there to see what resonates. So yeah, I love thing. Life is an adventure. Let's explore that together and see, you know, what's going to be the best fit for you. And even if they   Michael Hingson  14:47 start on a career, or they decide to go down one road, you never know when you might have to change and being flexible, being a little bit more broader and thinking really can help people We deal with things that come along and may change their pathways over time.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  15:04 Absolutely. And that's one of the biggest lessons that we teach students is that career paths are not linear. You know, they might be for some students who have a degree in accounting, they might want to be an accountant. And you know, that's that's a linear thing. But for a lot of our students, their journeys aren't linear. And I know my journey in particular was not linear. But But yeah, we're super excited to be able to impact those students. And you know, even my non traditional students love that love that love that we have a program called the University of Florida online program, which is fully 100% online degrees. And a lot of my non traditional students are still enrolled in my classes and take the excursions and do the internships. So, you know, that's oftentimes even more rewarding. I know I had a student about a year ago, who had an immune deficiency, just like I did, and she, because of her condition, she was homebound and she could not leave to participate in some of our activities. And so I said, You know what, let's, let's see what you can participate in. And we were able to organize a few virtual internships for her. So it's certainly very rewarding and love seeing the impact on students.   Michael Hingson  16:12 So in your case, what happened in terms of the immune situation, you were taking transfusions, I gather that has been able to be stopped?   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  16:23 Yes. Oh, we're so thankful. So thankful, um, I took plasma infusions for about five years. And thankfully, my body reacted to the infusions and was able to develop immunity on its own. So very thankful to my immunologist for all of his hard work. And it certainly took a while for us to figure out, you know, the dosage and whatnot, there were times that I had six needles in me at one time trying to infuse all of this plasma, because it was done subcutaneously instead of intravenously. So there was there were several obstacles. And I certainly got discouraged at some points. And that's why I want to help to make those impacts on students because I see them often getting discouraged, not necessarily because of a physical condition like mine, but because, you know, they might have financial obstacles, they might have had students who, because of COVID, became homeless, you know, so trying to say, okay, what can we do to make your situation better?   Michael Hingson  17:21 So in your case, though, as you, as you pointed out, you got discouraged, and so on. How did you move past that? How did you pump yourself up, if you will, to keep going?   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  17:31 Well, I think my family had a big part in that. My mother, she was with me through every single infusion. And I think she could see how challenging it was at 20 years old to have to come home every single weekend for two years straight, to have to do infusions. And so she truly encouraged me, but also the the power of prayer, me personally, I'm a very strong believer in Christ. And that was, that was my thing. And I know, not everyone has a particular face or a person to lean on. But for me, that was instrumental in my journey,   Michael Hingson  18:05 but there is merit to leaning on something, whoever you are, as, as long as it's a positive thing, and you can use it to help yourself move forward, right. And   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  18:15 I want to be that that person that helps motivate my students in whatever capacity I want to be that that person that is their biggest cheerleader, you know, to try and get students wherever it is that they're looking to go.   Michael Hingson  18:27 So you were able to get beyond that. Do you need to do anything still to kind of monitor your immune system to make sure it doesn't repeat? Or are we beyond that now?   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  18:36 Well, I actually had an appointment with my immunologist a couple of weeks ago, my husband and I are hoping to start a family soon. And I said, well, will this impact my child and my immunologist said probably not. But you know what, let's just monitor it. We'll take it day by day, and kind of go from there. So as of now I'm doing good. Very thankful. But yeah, doing doing okay, so far.   Michael Hingson  18:59 Well, jumping forward a little bit. Also, I understand that you're about to get a new addition, you're adopting a puppy. I am I'm very excited to tell us about the puppy.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  19:10 So so this is a mix between a Rhodesian Ridgeback and a lab. We basically got this dog from our my parents set groomers and so we're excited about getting this dog but I mentioned that I grew up on a on a ranch and we had cows and horses and turkeys and you know, all of the the animals and so this will be my first time since my parents sold our farm. About seven years ago. This will be my first time getting a dog and other dogs so I'm very excited about it.   Michael Hingson  19:42 Wow, Rhodesian Ridgeback and lab so it will probably be a fairly good sized puppy dog by the time it's full grown.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  19:50 Oh, yes, absolutely. But if you can take care of a horse, you can take care of anything.   Michael Hingson  19:53 Well, yeah, I wasn't so concerned about that. It'll be a big dog. And are we going to allow it on the bed? probably a good idea.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  20:04 Probably not it, but we'll see, well, we'll cross that bridge. And when we come to it will probably be another four to six weeks before the puppies weaned. But But yeah, I've done that discussion. My husband and I,   Michael Hingson  20:15 my wife always wants to let our dogs on the bed. Right now the only dog we have is Alamo who is my guide dog, a black lab, and I will not let him get on the bed because I know if that happens once it's all over. Yeah. Once it happens one time, he's going to stay on the bed. And it's kind of one of those things that you you do have to monitor. On the other hand, she had a dog that was a breeder for Guide Dogs for the Blind that became her service dog. She's in a wheelchair, she's used to chair her whole life. And this dog who is very intelligent, picked up providing services for her like fetching things, which she had originally not been trained to do. But Karen always would encourage her to be on the bed. And as I love to tell people, Fantasia always took her half out of the middle of the bed. So I can think that it would be tough with a dog that will most likely be even larger than a lab.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  21:13 Yes, yes. But fingers crossed, she'll have a good personality and we're excited.   Michael Hingson  21:20 Yeah, that's the thing. Well, you'll have some control over that, unless it's just a very strange dog. Dogs oftentimes do take on some of the personality of of their people, as long as the people are working really hard to make the home a good one and establish a good relationship. So my money is on you to be able to deal with that.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  21:41 Thank you. I'm, I'm going to try my hardest. You'll have   Michael Hingson  21:44 to keep us posted. We'll do. So you, you were able to deal with the immune deficiency and you're able to then graduate. So did you go to UCS for for the rest of your undergraduate career or what?   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  22:00 Yeah, so I went to a community college called SSC je in Jacksonville, Florida for my first two years, went to UCF for my last two years, and I continued on doing plasma infusions until I was probably about a year post graduation. And I had them I mean, because they have to be refrigerated. Most plasmas have to be refrigerated, they delivered it to my work, I had a refrigerator there, and they just kind of made some accommodations for me. But yeah, I went all the way through graduation, with those plasma infusions and continued on into the workforce. And ironically enough, I worked at a hospital for my internship and part of my first job, so it didn't weird anyone out whenever I was getting plasma delivered to me.   Michael Hingson  22:51 How did that work when you were getting infusions, at work, and so on? Did Did someone actually do the infusions? Or was it something you could do?   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  23:00 Yeah, actually, every single infusion that I ever had passed, the first three weeks were all me. And it because it's done subcutaneously, you end up getting, I don't know the best way to say it, I guess it's like little fat pockets. Where your stomach is, or your legs are, wherever it is that you're getting your infusions, because you're putting essentially liquid right underneath the skin. And so it would kind of be bloated, I guess, wherever that earring is. And so I would just have to wear loose fitting clothing. And I had, because the infusions took anywhere from one to two hours to do and so whenever I graduated, and there were times when I had to have an extra infusion, so I do that at work. And I would just kind of take my little carrying case with me and people would see tubes kind of going inside my clothes. And I would just say, Oh, I'm having a plasma infusion. No one really felt comfortable asking, like more details. I did have a friend of mine who I worked with who who knew what was going on. And so if there was any emergency, she was able to call someone but thankfully that never happened. Everything was okay. And you know, I was I was comfortable. Eventually just kind of living a couple hours away from home and not going back on weekends after I graduated from college and just kind of doing that myself. But I do have a funny story. We kind of got tired of having the infusions done in the stomach, it began to hurt really, really bad once you do it over and over. And so one of the sites that you can do a plasma infusion is in the back of your arm and like the fatty part of your arm. And so my dad had to do those because I couldn't reach you could reach Yeah, you couldn't reach correctly. So so my dad had do those. And I mentioned I grew up on a on a ranch and my dad is used to giving our cows like you know the vaccinations, right so or their annual shots or whatever it is. And of course the cowhide is extremely thick and so he would jam that Have needle into the cows. And so then it wouldn't came time for me. You pretty much do the same motion. And I remember screaming so hard. You don't need to do it that hard, because he would jam that thing in cowhide. I was like tad. No. And so I never let him do that again. I learned my lesson.   Michael Hingson  25:19 My fourth guide dog Lynnae was a yellow lab and contracted glomerular nephritis, which is a kidney disease, it actually was a morphing of limes disease. But what happened is that the kidney would let out the good stuff, in addition to the waist, so it wasn't really doing the filter that it was supposed to do. But one of the things that we needed to do with her was to give her subcutaneous fluids every other day, and had to put a liter of lactated ringers, saline solution in her just to really keep her very hydrated. So very familiar with the process. And we did that usually on her back right up near her shoulder. So there was always this big bump. She didn't mind, mostly for her it was at least she got attention. And it worked out really well.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  26:12 Well, I'm glad that it helps at least for a little while. Yeah, did for   Michael Hingson  26:15 a while. And eventually she? Well, she lived three more years after the diagnosis. She guided for three years and then live for three more years with us. So we we had her company for quite a while, which was really good. Yeah. So you went off and you graduated, and then you started doing the things that you're doing now. So what exactly do you do you do now? And how are your studies going and all that?   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  26:38 Well, I, I've been told that you are not supposed to do your PhD topic on your work, but I completely disregarded that role. So doing my dissertation on what I'm doing at work, because it is a little challenging to kind of juggle everything. So I'm just kind of had to pray that it all worked out. And thankfully it has but what I'm doing now I created a course it's called Industry Insights. And this is a variable 123 credit class. And I basically connect with various UF alumni in different industries. And we co teach a class together. And at the end of that class, the students while some of the students those that want to an internship or a full time position, they will let our alumni co instructor know and potentially interview for a full time position or internship, as of I believe, screen 21 Spring 2021, which is when we piloted the class, there was a student who got a full time position in Dubai. enlistees fall of 2021, there are two new different students who received positions, spring of 2022, there were three students. So so far, it's been pretty consistent, say the top two to four students each semester are getting internships or jobs. But honestly, in some cases, this has done the opposite. And that students think, oh, I want to work in marketing, or I want to go to law school or whatever the case may be. And after they take this class, they say, Oh, my goodness, I don't want anything to do with law school, or I don't want anything to do with this. Which in my case, I think it's just as valuable for people to kind of cross things off the list. And to say, this is what I want to do, because I can say, in my own experience, my internship helped me solidify what I wanted to do. But I also had a second internship. And I won't say where, because it was not a great experience. But I had a second internship that was very closely related to my major, I thought I wanted to work in news broadcasting. And so I did an internship at a station. And it was the worst experience, it was absolutely terrible. And it helped me solidify that this is not what I want to do. And so I tell students, you know, you don't want to get to law school, spend 200 grand getting into debt and getting your law degree to justify it out. You really don't want to be a lawyer or practice any type of law. So in my experience, I think it's just as valuable for students to just be exposed to the industry, and be able to cross something off the list as to be exposed to it and realize that this is what they want to do. So whether it's yes or no, I think it's pretty valuable.   Michael Hingson  29:18 The station you worked at was that TV or radio? It was television, television. So yeah, I'll bet it was awfully political. And there are a lot of challenges. And in doing that,   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  29:29 well hey, this is it wasn't something that I was willing to do at the time that there's there you have to work your way up in, in news and in broadcasting, you start off, you know, as an editor reporter or whatnot, and you have the graveyard shift. And there's just other politics that kind of go into it. And it was just some things that I just wasn't willing to do. And I you know, I really love the corporate side of it, being able to market our hospital services. It's a it's a place that I was working at, and I was like, this is really it. This is what I want to do. And to be honest, I would have been Been there for, oh my goodness, I don't even know how many years if it weren't for the fact that Medicaid reimbursement hit, and my entire department was eliminated. And so it kind of forced me into education. But I found out that I really love teaching. And it ended up being just as great of a fit. And   Michael Hingson  30:17 I was just about to ask what got you from all of that into education. On the other hand, your marketing background, certainly would have a positive effect on you, and education and teaching and so on, because you learned how to communicate with people.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  30:34 I did, I did. And I'll say, when you're initially growing a department, it's crucial to have some of those marketing materials, things like your flyers, your website that and I've had some web design skills, so I was able to design our website. So there were a lot of those skills that I learned throughout my time and communications, that really helps me build beyond 120, along with my other co workers.   Michael Hingson  30:59 So in dealing originally in marketing, and then going on into education, and even some dealing in news and so on, off the off the wall sub question, did anything ever come up in terms of making sure that the information that you produced or the things that you were doing, or now, even with 120, or classes at University of Florida, anything ever come up with making sure that that sort of stuff is accessible for people with disabilities?   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  31:26 So, yeah, yes, and no. So I was, at least for my first five years, I worked in the office of admissions, like I mentioned, undergraduate admissions, so I was actually the disability coordinator for the Office of Admissions. And I had anywhere between probably three to 500 students every year, who would apply for disability consideration. And so I worked really closely with the Disability Resource Center at UF, I worked really closely with them to make sure that our students received the disability accommodation that they requested. And so that I mean, you know, of course, we talked about my own disability. And so that really gave me a sense of empathy. And I wanted to make sure that the students were getting what they needed. So So then moving into beyond 120, that was already at the forethought of forethought of what I was doing and saying I want to make this accessible for everyone. So COVID, kind of, in a way forced us to be accessible. However, we already kind of weren't accessible in some senses. So it really, if anything, it just made us be even more conscious about that. And so, for example, we have a class I teach a class called strategic self marketing, I developed the class myself based on some of my own experiences, and some of the things that that students are facing right now things like, you know, the Great Recession and Generation Z needs, and you just some of the things that students are facing. And so I said, How are we going to make this accessible to everyone? Because like I mentioned, I had a student who, you know, had an immune deficiency could not leave. And you know, there are students who are non traditional, perhaps they're a single parent trying to take classes, perhaps they're, they're working a full time job trying to take care of, of their own parents, right. So how do we make this accessible, so we had what's called hybrid classes, so students have the option of either coming in person to learn because I know students tend to who have like ADHD have a tendency to do better based on research in person classes. So we had in person section and at the same time, we would live stream that class. So for those who were at home and couldn't leave, or you know, we're experiencing some type of hardship and whatever case that might be, both sections at the same time could learn and we could all interact with one another and learn from one another. So we didn't necessarily have hybrid classes before zoom, we had a synchronous online classes for our UF Online folks. And then we had traditional sections for our residential folks. But through COVID, it kind of gave us the technology needed to have these hybrid classes. And that's something that I still continue to this day, and I have plans to continue until I leave the University of Florida. So So yes, and no, we did meet with some students who needed accommodations, any specific accommodations? And so we met with them individually and said, what are some things that we can do to make this more accessible for you? So as a department, we kind of worked with all populations myself, as the internship coordinator, I worked with all populations and you know, so so it's, it's been an interesting journey, trying to create a more accessible options. Is there more that we could do? Absolutely. And my goal is to eventually have someone that we can hire or to work with more non traditional populations. And that's kind of been in the works. But But yeah, ultimately just trying to make sure that we're listening to you to everyone and trying to be as accessible as possible.   Michael Hingson  35:10 Access gets to be quite a challenge. Whether it's a hybrid class and virtual class or totally online, for example, professors may create a lot of graphs and images, or professors may write on a board or do something that is visual, not verbalizing it. And the result is that anyone who's in the class who happens to be blind or low vision, won't get that information. And that's one of the access areas, I think, especially in colleges, but not just colleges, where there is a lot of challenge, and sometimes the requirement for a lot of advocacy because the information isn't made available. And it isn't something that technology in and of itself is gonna fix. It's an attitudinal choice that one has to make.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  36:00 Right? I agree with that 100%. And I will say it does get easier with technology. So So for example, I will make sure that closed captioning is on all of the videos that I record. So if anybody, you know needs closed captioning services, we have those available now at no charge. And then we have also transcripts that come along with our zoom recordings. So if a student needs a transcript, to be able to use with one of the services that Disability Resource Center offers, to be able to read those transcripts out to the students, we have those as well. So there certainly have been improvements, but it's up to the individual faculty on whether or not to utilize them. So I agree, it's certainly an attitude thing, as well, trying to make sure everybody's on board. I mean, I can't speak to anybody else. But I'm hoping that my classes are accessible as possible.   Michael Hingson  36:52 Well, here's another, here's another example. So you create a video, or let's say you, you create some sort of video where there's music, or there are a lot of images that are put on the video, what kind of audio description do you create, in order to make sure that a person who can see the images in the video part of it is able to access it and and that's the kind of thing that I'm talking about that we're a lot less a well, I'm able to run word, but we're a lot less likely to include those things, even though they may be just as important to be able to do or you create a document or you scan a document and create a PDF of it. The problem is that's a graphic. And so it is totally unavailable to a person who uses a screen reader to verbalize or to to be able to interpret the document, unless the optical character recognition process is doable. And again, it is a result of becomes inaccessible. And those are the kinds of things that we haven't done a lot with yet. And it's not something that you can easily automate. It is a process that somebody has to put time into one of my favorite things that I that I love to complain about, I love to complain about it, but that I complain about is television advertising, how many ads today just have music, or just have sound but no verbalizations So that unless you can see it, you have no clue what's going on. And the reality is, what you what you do by not having words is leave out not only people who are blind or who can't see it, but you're missing the opportunity to market to all those people who get up during commercials and go do something else, like get a snack or a beer or whatever. Because all they hear is music, and they don't hear anything that helps the commercial continue to keep their focus on the product.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  38:52 Right. Great. No, that makes total sense. I mean, I try and think you know, based on the materials that I teach, whether it be closed captioning service for those who are who are hearing impaired, or whatever the case may be, you kind of try and think of those things. But you're right. There's some things that I've never even thought about that I hope I would be empathetic to if a student needed those. Those that assistance, but yeah, it's it is certainly there's a lot of barriers there.   Michael Hingson  39:21 Well, here's the other part of it. It isn't just the student who may come in and need it. You archive classes.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  39:28 The student, yes, the students do you have access to previous classes? Right, but you have to be enrolled in the class in order to the material. Yeah,   Michael Hingson  39:37 but if that's the case, then without having that information accessible in the archive classes, they're just as unavailable as anything because they weren't made accessible from the outset. So it is a it's a process. I know it's not inexpensive. But if we truly are dealing with accessibility, that is kind of one of the things that we need to explore and maybe the day We'll come when there are better ways to automate a lot of that it's not here yet. I don't know whether you checked out excessive be the company that I work for and help. But it is begun the process of, in part, at least creating an automated process to make websites accessible by analyzing the content of the websites with an artificial, intelligent widget. And it can do a lot to make websites more accessible. But it won't be able to do everything. It's it's amazing what it can do. Because you can oftentimes using the widget, analyze an image and get a description of it. Like on my website, if you go to Michael henson.com, there is a picture of me hugging my guide dog Roselle, the dog who was with me in the World Trade Center, when the image was first encountered by excessive B, before we did anything with it. It analyzed the image and embedded a description that said, Man and black suit hugging yellow Labrador retriever, which is incredible in of itself. But the reality is it doesn't do what we really wanted it to do was to say, which is to say, Michael Hinkson, hugging Roselle. So we embedded code and excessive B, we'll leave it alone. But already we're seeing the the machine process, do a lot to analyze images. And over time, it will get better. But we can't automate videos and put in video or audio descriptions yet and things like that. And maybe the time will come to do it. But in the short term, it means that that people have to make the effort to do that. Right and should make the effort to do that. Absolutely. It's a process. And you know, we're not there. And a lot of people don't think about you mentioned that COVID was something that helped bring a lot of this to the forefront. And it did but not always in a positive way. Like the Kaiser Health Foundation did a survey in 2020 of COVID-19 websites for registering to get when it started vaccines, but before then to get tests and get tested. And out of the 94 websites that the Foundation research 10 had made some effort to include accessibility and the reality is most hadn't, which is unfortunate. It is a process and I only bring it all up. It's it's interesting to discuss it. But hopefully it will help people think about more accessibility kinds of things in the future as we go forward.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  42:30 Absolutely, absolutely. I was hoping. I mean, there's little things that I've learned over the years things like you know, when it comes to folks who need certain services, I don't remember exactly which which disability this was. But there was one particular condition where folks, it was hard for them to read color, it was easier if it was 100%, black and white versus on a grayscale. So So, so yeah, I made sure okay, this is in black instead of in a gray or blue or whatever. Because at University of Florida, our colors or colors are orange and blue. And so a lot of the stuff that I was making was in orange and blue. However, somebody was like, you know, it's actually really hard for me to be able to see this I'm visually impaired and having you know, I again, I don't remember what condition it was. But it was easier for her to to read in black and white. And I was like, Sure, absolutely. Let's do this. So hopefully, I mean, it's the more that we learn and more we're exposed to different things, the more accessible hopefully that we can make the material.   Michael Hingson  43:31 And when we're talking about vision impairments, the reality is what you just described is a lot easier to do today than it used to be because so much is stored electronically, you can quickly go in and change the colors and reprint or whatever. And even the student might be able to do that. But the fact is that you can do it. And that really helps a great deal. Yeah,   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  43:51 I'm absolutely I'm hoping that as as time goes on, of course, I'll be exposed to different things and be able to make those accommodations for my students, but hoping that, you know, everyone around the country will be able to recognize some of the things that we can do as a population to be able to make things more accessible.   Michael Hingson  44:09 Yeah, we need to become a lot more inclusive than we tend to be today. And we're working on it. Diversity doesn't tend to include disabilities, but you can't very well leave us out of inclusion. Otherwise you're not inclusive rights. It's it's a it's a challenge. But you know, we're working on it collectively as a society and I am sure that we will eventually get there. But it is an effort and it's always about awareness to get people to think about it. Well, so you have had a lot of experiences and they're doing a lot of fun things. So what are you going to do in your future? What are your future goals?   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  44:48 So, my goal is to keep on building beyond 120 and hopefully to scale. We have had in like I said beyond 120 was just launched in 2018, we had two years where we were just completely cut off in certain areas. But at least in excursions, we've had about 250 students participate in excursions, but our college serves 11,000 students. So I want to be able to scale that up. We want to give more scholarships to students in various populations. I know one of my students, I won't say her name, but she is absolutely precious. She's a single mom, her child is about two or three, I believe now, she started off in her freshman year in one of my classes, we were able to get her a scholarship to participate in an internship and that scholarship went to babysitting costs, you know, because a lot of times those non traditional populations have different challenges than our traditional 1822 population. So I would love to provide more scholarships to students of any population. And we would love to, to really help students get to where they need to go. So I mean, we're actually our excursion is entirely donor funded. And so we're just reaching out to various UF alumni and saying, Hey, come give back. And whatever capacity you can, whether that's money, whether it's time, investing in a student simply through giving them a mentorship consultation, so I would love to be able to reach a larger population within our college and make an impact. And I ultimately, I can only impact this the folks that are here at the University of Florida, however, I would love to share what we've done with other universities, and and really encourage other universities to, to support students in those non traditional ways through experiential learning. I presented at a Duke University online pedagogy conference last Wednesday, and was able to share that with a few people. So any impact that we can make on any other schools, I would certainly love to be able to see that happen.   Michael Hingson  46:57 That is exciting. It'd be great if you could do something with all 11,000 students at University of Florida what?   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  47:05 Well, 11,000 students times $2,000 per scholarship is a lot of money. We have a long way to go.   Michael Hingson  47:13 Yeah, well, that's okay. It's, it's something that's still doable. I've seen colleges receive a whole lot larger donations, but it is a process. So once you get your PhD, what will you do? Are you to continue to work at University of Florida? Well, you have the opportunity to do that, or what Yes,   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  47:31 I mean, my, well, I'll say this, my husband is in the Air Force. He is a surgical resident right now at UF and which is why I'm able to stay here, and it will be here for the next six years. And then kind of depending on where he goes, I will be following him and the University of Florida is expect expressed interest in keeping me here in more of a remote position if the if the situation calls for it. So potentially just kind of traveling to help facilitate some of these opportunities. But I would really love to scale the program up and be able to share with other universities, the impact of this program. And of course, to continue impacting students would be my ultimate goal in the future,   Michael Hingson  48:16 interesting idea to figure out a way to expand it to other universities, and whether you do it through the University of Florida, or there's a way to start a company to do beyond 120. Worldwide right beyond beyond when 20 Inc.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  48:32 Yes, exactly. I will say, though, that I will do I have marketing and communication skills, I do not have as much business skill. So I would need somebody to help me with that. I   Michael Hingson  48:42 bet you could find someone at UF to help with that.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  48:46 Yes. Well, I'm excited. I'm excited. Well, we'll see what happens. But But no, it's a great start. We're excited to see now that COVID We've gotten a bit of a handle on it, I certainly have a long way to go with that. But certainly happy to see now that things have kind of calmed down a little bit what opportunities are going to be open for us in the future. I'll say I'm presenting at the National Association of Colleges and Employers next month to share our model with other schools. So hopefully that will go well and we'll be able to to impact other universities there.   Michael Hingson  49:21 That's exciting too. You'll be able to do that. And of course, that's the kind of teaching but you're going to continue to teach.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  49:27 Oh, absolutely. That's the bread and butter of our program. We have the coolest classes of course I have to brag on Brent Industry Insights because that's my class that I created but we have other really cool courses we have a course called The Art of adulting you know, kind of teach students what does it mean to be an adult you know, and just have that interesting? open discussion. We have a Global Pathways course we have a professional pathways just expose students to various industries and particularly the skills correlation to say you know, If you're going to be a lawyer, great, but what are the skills that go into being a lawyer? What do you need things like problem solving, critical thinking, communications, teamwork, all of those skills that go into any profession. And we laugh, we provide students in the internship course what's called the SDS assessment. And it will basically ask you a bunch of questions and then tell you based on your skills, some of the top career choices that align with those particular skills, and it cracks the students up a lot of time, I know it cracked me up, because one of my top job matches was a tattoo artist, and I'm going what on earth? I cannot draw for anything in the world. But but we just kind of had to dig deeper and say, you know, what are the skills that I have, that perhaps a tattoo artists would have, or a marketing manager would have or whatever. So, you know, really teaching the students the value of having some of those transferable skills that you can have in any any job.   Michael Hingson  51:03 You mentioned earlier about people who had an influence on your life, I gather, you have some people that that really have made a great impact on you would love to hear about that?   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  51:13 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So well, Isaac, I don't know if if she'll ever hear this, but she was the internship coordinator who, you know, I walked into her office, and I had a rainbow colored resume, it literally had every color in the rainbow on it. And she looked at me and said, Brittany, what on earth is this, you do not need a rainbow colored resume. And so we kind of work together over the course of this semester. And she was the one that that got me the job at Orlando health that got me that internship that launched the rest of my career. And so I want to be the hula Isaac for for all of my students, so she was definitely an influence. My immunologist was a huge influence. He's the one that worked with me in the midst of having an immune deficiency. And I'll say, I didn't mention this earlier, but I've had four very significant surgeries, three of which were open heart surgeries. So you know, he's, he's been there in the midst of all of that, and just my family to you know, as, as my husband, and I talk about starting our own family saying, you know, what type of influence do I want to be on my kids, just as I am on my students, so that that's kind of my goal is to really make a positive impact on others through their various capacities.   Michael Hingson  52:35 Well, and you're certainly working toward it by any standard. And that's, that's as good as it gets, you know, you're making every effort that you can. So in 10 years, you're going to be doing the same thing.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  52:48 Hopefully, I'll have more of a leadership role. And we'll be able to have grown, I mean, hey, let's say we get 1,000,010 million 100 million dollar donation for the program, hopefully, we'll be able to hire lots of me, and not literally, but lots of people in my role, and be able to scale up and influence 1000s of more students. And ultimately, I would love to travel and be able to share with other colleges, some of the things that we've learned and see how we can help impact those students as well. I mean, you see, me even even going along the employer side, you see a lot of employers saying, Oh, we're going to pay our interns $8 an hour, or we're going to pay our interns nine or $10 an hour. And the reality is Amazon and, you know, Starbucks, and a lot of other employees, they're saying, hey, we'll pay you $15 an hour. And so students don't feel as much of a need to do internships anymore, because they can go work at a part time position for a lot more money. And so we're encouraging employers listen, you want to make sure that you are offering our students a competitive rates, because we want to make sure the students are getting access to internships and for especially for our students who have significant financial barriers, this is something that we strongly encourage employers listen, you need to meet that growing rate, because we want students to have access to whatever it is that you're teaching them, because they're so so so valuable. And I know, the federal folks up in DC are just starting to pay interns. So encouraging employers, encouraging students and really making those those connections. So yeah, so eventually kind of be doing the same thing. I hope it's at a broader scale, though.   Michael Hingson  54:33 Well, hope you can hopefully you can work with companies to get them to fund the internships and pay appropriate wages and so on. And, you know, maybe it would be to their interest because some of those people then will join those companies and move forward but as far as having lots of you doing it, you know, we're not cloning people and that's a good thing. So it's you, but it is really exciting what you're doing I mean, if people want to learn more about it or reach out to you, how can they do that?   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  55:05 So I find that the easiest way and I tell this to my students as well, the easiest way is just to Google UFL beyond 120. And, and that'll bring you to our websites. And it's actually held through the Academic Advising Center. So when students go to get their advising services, a lot of times they'll Fordham to us. If they're saying, Hey, I'm not quite sure what classes to take based on my career interest, or hey, I want to participate in internship, I don't know where to go. So we're held within the Academic Advising Center. So if you see academic advising, you're in the right place. So hear us beyond 120. And then I can certainly send my my email to you as well. It's Brittnay Grubbs@ufl.edu. And so happy to chat with anybody who's interested and you know, replicating the program for their own college or, or maybe donating some time to helping the students we certainly appreciate that.   Michael Hingson  56:01 So do the email one more time and spell it if you would? Absolutely. It's   56:05 B r i t t a y G r u b b s@ufl.edu, UFL for University of Florida. edu for education.   Michael Hingson  56:15 There you go. So people who are interested, maybe you'll hear from some other schools and colleges and universities, or companies that might be willing to contribute to the program. We're certainly willing to advocate so anything we can do to help them hopefully this will raise awareness and that some people will reach out to you and I would love to hear what you what you encounter as you're going forward.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  56:38 I would love that. I would love that it went regardless of what anyone has to know today, whether it's money time or anything else that people are interested in. We are certainly appreciative of anything that people have to offer.   56:50 Well, Brittany, thanks very much for being here. With unstoppable mindset this hour has gone by in a hurry hasn't absolutely having me which is why this is always fun. As always, any of you listening, I'd love to hear what you think. Please reach out to us you can reach me Michaelhi  m i c h a e l h i  at accessibe  A C C E S S I B E.com. I'd love to hear your thoughts. You can also go to our podcast page, which is www dot Michael hingson.com m i  c h a e l  h i n g s o n.com/podcast. Wherever you go, wherever you're listening to this podcast, please give us a five star rating. We really appreciate that a lot. I do want to hear your comments. If you know of other people and Britney you as well. If you know of other people who ought to be guests on unstoppable mindset, please let us know we're always open to hearing about more people. And I appreciate those of you who even over the last week have emailed us about that or reached out. Anytime people want to talk to us about guests or just thoughts about the podcast. We want to hear them and we will respond. So again, Brittany, thanks very much for being here.   Brittany Grubbs Hodges  58:06 Thank you, Michael. Really appreciate it.   Michael Hingson  58:08 And we look forward to all of you joining us next time on unstoppable mindset.  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.

This week we welcome Justin Glisan, the state climatologist of Iowa. He joins our host, Lynnae, to discuss the future of Iowa's climate.

Jesse Sternberg is a man who unexpectedly began experiencing pain that eventually arose to the level of being completely debilitating for him. Don't stop thinking that this is just another story about suffering and possibly overcoming a problem. You will never guess how Jesse worked through his pain and how it led to a fascinating career as a dog trainer.   Jesse will provide us with some interesting insights about being a leader through his dog training business. He also will show how what he learned helped him in his personal life as well and how the leadership principles he now teaches can assist you as well.     About the Guest: Jesse Sternberg is an author, meditation instructor, and dog trainer. He has been working with animals for more than 30 years.  He lives in Toronto with his two kids and his pup, Jimmy.     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 an 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 to 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 UM Intro/Outro  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  01:16  Hi, and welcome to unstoppable mindset. Glad you're here with us wherever you happen to be. If you've listened to a number of these episodes, and have learned my story, you know that I've been working with Guide Dogs for quite a number of years, actually, it will be 58 years in July. And one of the things that I have learned about working with guide dogs is that every time I go to get a new one, what I'm truly learning is only in part, how to work with that dog, what I'm learning are new and advanced and more innovative dog training techniques. And, of course, what that really means is human training techniques, which we're going to get to Jesse Sternberg is our guest today. And he's very much involved in doing a lot of work with dog training, meditation, mindfulness, and you're gonna see how all that comes together, as well as learning his unstoppable story. So Jessie, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Jesse Sternberg  01:20 Thank you, Michael, what a great introduction.   Michael Hingson  01:47 Wow, there's not a great introduction. It just popped out. Well, so tell me a little about you about your life and in what you where you came from, and all that sort of stuff.   Jesse Sternberg  02:38 Oh, man, okay, let's get the can of worms out of the way. I had a lot of personal things that I've had to work through, just like everybody. But I was fortunate to take lessons from all of them, and not let any of the situations knock me down. for about 10 years, I owned a dog daycare, dog grooming dog training business. And I was already having some spiritual awakening experiences that had me hungry for just figuring out what those things meant. So I was studying spirituality and esoteric stuff and whatever, I could get my hands on mindfulness based material and learning about looking after dogs and also running a business. That was sort of the fertile ground for which all of my knock downs came from. And also the ground where I learned how to connect with up to 3040 50 new different dogs who didn't know me on a daily basis, six, six and a half days a week for a decade and go beyond traditional training techniques. Asking one dog to sit with a with some treats in your pocket is different than needing 48 dogs to be quiet and then you know, put a timeout to some playtime because, you know, you're a one man shop at the moment and you're answering a phone call. So I had a different set of requirements, and that I brought to the idea of training dogs.   Michael Hingson  04:33  Well, tell me about some of the Musa you had a number of knock downs and so on. What do you mean by that?   Jesse Sternberg  04:39 Wow, okay. I would say the first significant thing that happened to me was I had some hip pain after a golf swing one day, and then slowly, slowly over a year I had that pain drip as if it was poisoning To my hip, and down my thigh, I had full blown sciatica and could no longer put my socks on, I could no longer run my business. I couldn't pick up my children. I went into deep depression. My business started tanking, my marriage started tanking, and my mental state tanked to the point where I got suicidal, very depressed, bottom, bottom of the barrel. And so, you know, rallying back to full health, from that, and healing the relationships and, and growing, growing up is a significant thing.   Michael Hingson  05:50 How did you overcome all of the pain and deal with the hip issue?   Jesse Sternberg  05:59 Pain is a really good teacher, Michael. Pain brings you right into the present moment, and it puts in front of you. Something that you can't take your attention off. Now sometimes that's a good skill to have. And sometimes you want to have the skill of pivoting away from that and being able to juggle your balls and function. The other thing that Payne taught me was emotional intelligence, because we're talking about a mind body type of the illness the sciatica thing, and I had to really start to get present with how I was feeling because on a moment to moment basis, something in the environment could stress me out and just shut my hip down. And then the opposite was how do I find healing from this? And of course, love is the answer to everything so. So actually, when I didn't know what I felt like, my heart was black. I didn't know what living without anxiety felt like. That's why I was so into mindfulness. I tried so many things, Michael, doctors physio, Cairo, literally everything. What ended up working was Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca is a shamanic brew. It's like a to plants it's made into a tea can its root, it comes from the Amazon rainforest. And so it's very strong, psychedelic. Hallucinogenic. Basically, what it did was it just revealed to me the root causes of my PTSD. I didn't know what PTSD even was. And it allowed me to get the wisdom from what that PTSD really was about. And it was a big is a big can of worms. And ultimately, it led to me, learning how to open up my heart, learn how to feel more connected to the intelligence that the human organism has, with its emotional moment to moment, indicators. And that's a huge tie in to dog training. And we'll get into that later. I'm sure.   Michael Hingson  08:19 So you, you, you do trace it back to some sort of PTSD, which, which tells me I would think that somewhere as you worked through becoming more aware, you discovered what the causes of the PTSD were.   Jesse Sternberg  08:38 Yeah, yeah. And you know, what's crazy about that, is, science can explain that this is multigenerational. No, I, I'll share an interesting story I'm so I, I immediately went back to being six years old and a very traumatic physical accident, and replayed for me, in my mind, but with a totally different flavor. And I was able to have a much broader perspective of, you know, how my caregivers were reacting in those moments, and I was able to instantly find forgiveness for something I didn't even know that I wasn't allowing forgiveness to. So that was epic. And I also hallucinated that I went way, way, way, way back many, many generations in the bloodline and saw some things there too. And that kind of messed my head up a little bit. Because you know, when you see things, even if, you know, are they real, are they not real and they feel certain way. You can't unsee you can't and feel things and so I went through a little bit of psychosis after drinking this stuff because I I needed some time to make sense of some new things. probation that just seems so bizarre.   Michael Hingson  10:04 But you work through it, and you got rid of the pain. Absolutely. Which is ultimately the bottom line, that is all the other things that the traditional medicine arena couldn't do, you were able to work through, which is, which demonstrates, as many times we hear, even from traditional medicine today that a lot of what occurs is in your, well in your mental psyche to be psyche to be able to address.   Jesse Sternberg  10:41 It is the bottom line and, and that's part of the the drum that I'm beating. And part of the essence of the book here is like, I don't think I'm a unique man, I think I'm undigested pain, emotional pain is something that our species is just discovering is important to deal with. And that we didn't have the information growing up about how important it was, is a skill that needs to be developed. And it's something that can't be seen. So it's not easy to talk about, you know, feeling sad, the roots of the feeling sad how to let sadness flow through. And then also the workings of the mind, which is why is my mind always focusing on the sad or on the pain? Why can't I take my mind off of this? Why can't I be happy? It's all threaded together. And it that's the secret of life, right? When we when we, when we figure this stuff out. What we're left with is a better version of us were calmer or more peaceful, wiser. It's like we have a better sense. The pain taught us when we got through it. What really matters, what really matters in life.   Michael Hingson  12:07 A number of episodes ago, we had the opportunity to talk with Dr. Gabe Roberts, who is a psychologist, a doctor who discusses the concept of holographic memory. And what he describes our minds our memory is really a hologram. Which means that inside the hologram, every single thing that is ever made up, part of our being is stored in some little piece of this hologram. And it's it's a way to describe it. Because if you go back and look at holograms that that are created today, every hologram is actually composed of all sorts of little pieces, all of which basically are the same thing that still make up the bigger hologram. But the doctrine is the template. Yeah. But Dr. Roberts talks about helping people work through their issues of pain and illness, by going back and literally opening the pieces of that hologram and finding out what's stored. And getting to that one thing that needs to be addressed or changed. Because everything that you've ever experienced or has ever been a part of your life is stored and just as vibrant as ever, whether you remember it or not. And so opening and getting into that hologram and getting to the various components of it is extremely important, which is really what you're saying as well.   Jesse Sternberg  13:40 It is it's also an element that I bring into the dog training world because they have their anxieties and neuroses too. And that's usually the result of their bad behaviors. The reason why I'm getting called over to clients, how do I stop my dog from barking, lunging, jumping? Well, you know, your dog's got some fears.   Michael Hingson  14:01 Well, you went through this whole experience of pain and so on how did that lead to, to dog training?   Jesse Sternberg  14:10 You know, they were happening at the same time. You know, my path, my path of acquiring the wisdom and going through the pain. I was the temple that I was quote unquote, was working in and living in at the time was my business. So I was I was functioning, I was functioning through it. Actually cannabis and small amounts helped me open up a little bit and keep moving in a very non recreational way.   Michael Hingson  14:53 Yes, in a number of ways where, where cannabis and CBD oil and other things medically do help. So anyway, Go ahead.   Jesse Sternberg  15:02 Yeah, so actually I was learning who I really was, is what was happening while this was going on and who I am is very sensitive empath is I've always liked being alone with lots of dogs I liked, I liked being able to feel what they were feeling. And I liked being able to get a big group of them into a tranquil state. There was something about that communal vibration that was just so therapeutic is well, people who have dogs, no dogs are therapeutic. Obviously, it's not, it's their presence, right? They have a presence is a presence of benevolence, of joy, of love. These are flavors of love, by the way, and earlier I said Love is the answer to everything. And love is like a higher law, learning about it, what it really is, what its vibration feels like what his vibration does to ourselves, getting connected to that vibration, and what that allows you to do go into the hologram and reprogram and these things happen organically with the frequency of love flowing through you. It's called Heart coherence going into a state of heart coherence. And I like to say in the book, what I'm what I'm basically saying is, you have no idea what happens to your dog, when you go into heart coherence. And Vaser. Some experiments that I was accidentally running was I would get into these very elevated, meditative, highly lucid conscious states, while looking after these large packs, animals and what I started to see was okay, dog training is really just about communicating. The more effective I can get at communicating with the dogs, the faster I train them, obviously, I'm in the business of train them as fast as possible, but according to some like, and the fastest way is to connect with them at their own level. And in order to connect with them at their own level, you do it from a place of peacefulness, with mindfulness, with the wisdom of how their body language system works with the wisdom of how they frame reality for themselves, which is from a pack, mammal based reality was a non language, non verbal, non manmade language constructs, very much natural element construct. So there's an element of self growth that has to happen because you have to strip away so much conditioning to get into this kind of state to connect with your dog at the level that I'm talking about. But it's not difficult to do, there's a path to do it. They have signals that they make their signals that are good, and their signals that are bad. They are never not paying attention. They are highly present. So you know, adjusting to their way of being is really what mindfulness is, though the same lessons.   Michael Hingson  18:18 Interests, you bring up a really good point, and I'll go back to guide dog training. I believe that. As I said earlier, the most important thing that I learned when beginning to work and continuing to work with guide dogs is the most important thing is learning how to be a dog trainer and using your terminology. That really means that I'm learning how to become aware of my partner, my teammate, my guide dog, I'm learning how to communicate with them and to work with them. And as I described to people, my job is to be the pack leader. And to be the coach to the cheerleader, the teacher, the the Confessio, the person that they communicate with,   Jesse Sternberg  19:19 there were a lot of hats, you got to wear all the hats.   Michael Hingson  19:23 You got to wear all the hats and wear them with poise. I've seen so many people who use guide dogs who with the slightest little bit of unexpected interaction or unexpected things that that go on while they're working become very stressed. And that of course, gets passed right to the dog.   Jesse Sternberg  19:50 Interesting to just to color that in. It's just imagine being the dog and you know a series of moments. Your, your coach, your teammate, your, you know, your buddy who's in charge is calm. Well, that means everything's kosher. And all of a sudden, they get strict big spike with stress. Well, that's alerting, right. That's really alerting and unnecessary. It scans scary. And so now who's the one triggering that actual behavior?   Michael Hingson  20:26 Interesting, right? Right. It's not the dog.   Jesse Sternberg  20:29 It's not the dog. And I want to just so that the guests get back to the hats, right? Knowing which hat to wear. And when isn't a reflection of self? Yeah.   Michael Hingson  20:44 Well, or which hats or number of hats to wear, because I think that in reality, I have to wear a number of hats all the time, it's an awesome responsibility.   Jesse Sternberg  20:56 It is. And when you go ahead, actually, that's meeting them at their level, right. And that's the fastest way to make a leader the fastest way, I think a leader can make a connection, and earn respect, and earn influence in a non dominating way. And like a Yo, this is just aligning, it's good attraction is to meet at their level, not to make them meet at your level, it's true for every relationship, if you can meet that any relationship at their level. And then there's the least amount of resistance and communication from there.   Michael Hingson  21:40 You, you may want to get them to work at it, whoever at a different level. But you still have to begin by knowing where they are understanding where they are. And that's also in part what is called establishing a rapport, but you can't do it unless you truly understand and are aware of   Jesse Sternberg  22:03 exactly. yourself, you have to get there first, and then off. So with dogs, you know, with healing dogs, behaviors or feelings, you have to come in with that mindset. First, that's the beginning. Because a feeling of fear, if I'm feeling scared, I'm wanting calm reassurance from my leader. That's gonna fix it, from wanting encouragement, give me the courage.   Michael Hingson  22:34 But I can reverse that. And also say, as the leader, I may very well from time to time, be looking to my colleague, my partner, to see how they're behaving, because that will tell me things. And I think that is not just true of Guide Dogs. But my my story around that. First and foremost is, of course, what happened on September 11, because when I had a colleague in the office, who was saying there's fire smoke above us, we got to get out of here right now. I was well aware, even then, that dogs senses are so heightened that if there were something that was an immediate crisis, I'm going to be able to sense that in the dog.   Jesse Sternberg  23:22 Yes, well, and you really aren't.   Michael Hingson  23:26 And the fact is that, what happened? Well, so there was fire and smoke. I wasn't smelling it. But I also knew that I worked 24 hours a day with someone who would probably detect that stuff before me. And I knew her reactions to different things so that if something changed, I would sense it from her first. Well, I didn't sense it. And that told me a lot of how to behave. So it does go both ways. But that only comes when you establish a true real two way, trust. Zack, recognize that there are times that your partner also must take the lead.   Jesse Sternberg  24:14 Exactly. Being a leader doesn't mean you're always leading. It means you're attuned. Actually, the best leaders are so you don't even know they're there.   Michael Hingson  24:25 Yeah, they're so soft. If you're truly being a good leader, then as I tell every sales person I've ever hired, my job isn't to be your boss and tell you what to do. My job is to add value to what you do. And if you can't find ways to do that, and if you decide you're not going to be successful, then you won't be able to work here but the smart people always recognize that there were ways that I could add value because my experience rinses were totally different than theirs. And there were ways to combine our experiences to greatly enhance what we do. And then, for me to add in the fact that I'm working with a dog that gives me information, that I don't care what anyone says you won't get from eyesight all day long, is important, too. So I think that there is a real key advantage to having that kind of a relationship that you're discussing and describing.   Jesse Sternberg  25:35 Yeah, agreed. And actually, you know, this is not new. Okay? This is the way this is what dogs gave humanity. This was technology for us.   Michael Hingson  25:44 Sure.   Jesse Sternberg  25:46 And when you think about that train of thought, you take that just back a little bit more, but the dog is capable of doing and how they want to be on your team and what they want to be stimulated and challenged to do. We're not even taking them out of kindergarten. No wonder you know that they're not fulfilled.   Michael Hingson  26:10 I've maintained for years, that, in reality, I am I am able to communicate with, with my dogs, and learn so much from them, I submit that I've learned a lot more about team building, and trust, from working now with a guide dogs. And they've changed my behavior. Because of that. I've learned more than I ever learned from all the management theory books, and all of the other kinds of things that people write about how to live better lives and be better team builders, and so on, because working with the dog puts it into practice.   Jesse Sternberg  26:57 Right? And if they clearly show you when you're not a good leader,   Michael Hingson  27:05 yeah, they really do. It's just part of their nature.   Jesse Sternberg  27:09 And they clearly reinforce when you are a good leader, you   Michael Hingson  27:12 are a good leader. Yeah, absolutely. And the fact is that they do want you to be their leader. I believe, when people say that dogs love unconditionally, I believe that, yes, unless, unless they unless they're taught in some horrible way not to brag, in which case, they go into their shell. But I believe that dogs love unconditionally, but I don't think that they trust unconditionally, but they're open to trust unconditionally, unless somebody destroys that. So being open to trust is really the first part of it. And that's what they bring to humans and humans should learn that concept of being open to trust, a lot more than love to talk about   Jesse Sternberg  27:57 this, let's take this thread somewhere. Because trust is so important. Here's what and and it's the not trusting your dog vibe, operates below consciousness. Okay, so let me give you an example. You're walking your dog. So when you see someone's walking their dog, and they are sensing their dog is going to react in a couple of seconds in the future, because maybe they see the squirrel that their dog hasn't seen yet. Or maybe they see somebody or a scooter or a skateboarder coming by, okay, so what do they do in that moment, when they don't really recognize that they're not trusting their dog, they feel stress. And then when they feel that stress, they act in a way where they're going to manage that stress, okay? And so they'll wrap the coil the leash up tighter on their hand, or they'll change direction, or now they've got a feeling that is stressful, that they're emitting. And now they've got an action that they're using to communicate. And all of this is happening unconsciously. They're not thinking about doing this. They're not the same as, but the dog is taking these as conscious communications. Often what they're saying is, okay, I'm scared about what's approaching us. Well, what, what would you expect a good teammate to do? You offer a little protection, which is obviously bad behavior. And so how do you untrain that thing or how do you grow in that thing? The question is, how do you earn How do you create trust? How do you test trust in the relationship? How do you practice giving opportunities for the pet to show you you can trust them, and when those and when you can figure out how to do that and when you can let them rise to the occasion. That's training your dog.   Michael Hingson  30:03 So let's go back to your example of you're walking along, and you see a squirrel and you think the dog doesn't see it yet. What do you do? You, you, first of all need to trust the dog. Okay, you may very well know that your dog wants to chase that squirrel. But until the dog chases the squirrel, or starts to chase the squirrel, you got nothing to talk about, you have nothing to talk about. Now, when the dog starts to chase the squirrel, you got a conversation you have to have, then you can deal with it. But even before then, so you see the squirrel first, you can start talking to your dog, and you can say, you know, you're doing a great job, what a good dog. And try to keep the the dog's attention on you. And it may very well help or or lessen the reaction. But you should be doing that anyway. So if   Jesse Sternberg  31:00 you can, if you can do that, in a calm way, I know when you're where the dog is going to stay focused on you. And you can do that to get past the distraction. That's a band aid solution. You're managing it, and it's effective. And it works, right if you want the conversation to be Hey, buddy. Anytime you see a squirrel, I want you to just be close to me as if it's no big deal. I just want it to be, yeah, it's just us. We're chillin, I don't want you to tag me. And I don't want you to think that I have to, you know, do this whole thing rigmarole I want, then what you have to do is you have to, so that's the conversation when I say you have to know what the boundary is, in your mind, you have to know what is very clear boundaries, I just painted that picture. And then you have to spend some time and some energy and some calmness around that around the excitable item and rewire that programming. Because what you're really saying is, hey, hey, Doc, I know you can handle this strong impulse. Okay, let's get you there. Good   Michael Hingson  32:05 job. You can't do anything until there's something to do something about. And so you've got to wait for the dog to react. And by the way, you might well be surprised because you think the dogs gonna go after the squirrel zactly. But you may have the relationship with the dog such that the dog won't go after the squirrel.   Jesse Sternberg  32:31 Exactly. And what's cool about what you're talking about is self growth. Right? I just, I just got a strong thought it's it's stressful thought. How do I cope with it? How do I manage with it there, what you're saying is, be patient. Alright, see how let's see what's actually happening in the moment. Let's see how it actually plays out.   Michael Hingson  32:52 Now, I have been working with all of my guide dogs. Dogs are are bred at the schools, and are really taught well not to deal with distractions. But even so I can tell when the dog notes something. So let's say I'm to do the easy example. I'm walking with someone using my guide dog. And they they they say there's a squirrel coming up. I'm going to be alert to see what my dog does. Exactly. And when my dog doesn't go after that squirrel, I know the dog's got a look. And I can tell that the dog looks because the dog, you can feel it turn its head you can feel it. And so the dog looks goes and goes on. I will stop and praise and reward the dog for not being distracted. Which brings our relationship closer. But I'll do that. Once we get past the distraction, but that's okay. It's all about recognizing, yeah, I know what you're talking about dog. I know what you were you were looking at. But you did a great job. You didn't do it. You didn't go after   Jesse Sternberg  34:11 that squirrel. Yeah, good example.   Michael Hingson  34:15 And you got to you've got to have that level of trust, which is why dog training today with most people is really about training the person and not the dog.   Jesse Sternberg  34:28 Yes, yes. Well, because a calm dog doesn't need to be trained. A dog that's a dog that just stays in calmness. And you've, I'm sure everyone has seen these. They just follow you around calmly. And they have wisdom those pets. Those pets have a lot more wisdom about how the human world operates. That's why they're able to stay calm. So in other words, those dogs have higher consciousness and their owners gave it to them. Just state that you're in when you're walking your dog is very cool, because you're describing levels of connection to your dog without seeing your dog. And that's an advantage. Because your body language has much more mammal based leadership. You You never see an animal a mammal in nature staring at the other mammals. Usually when that and we do that to our dogs, in a in nature, the angle of making eye contact. The reason you never see it as it's almost unwritten, it's forbidden. I call it the forbidden angle. Making eye contact and holding eye contact generates contrast, strong contrast in the nervous system. It feels uncomfortable. Have you ever had? Can you ever sense that? Can you sense when someone's staring at you?   Michael Hingson  36:02 Yeah, sometimes I can sense when they're staring at me now making eye contact is a different story. But staring Yeah.   Jesse Sternberg  36:10 Okay, but when people are walking their dog, they're staring at their dog. When people are not trusting their dog, they shift into body language with it, which is staring at the dog. And so actually what they're doing is your current using the body language of the mammals by accident, and they are generating stress. Now, here's a little secret, a mindfulness Secret. Secret Sauce, say it that way. Sounds cheesy, but strong feelings equals need to act them out. at an unconscious level, very, very heightened energy, heightened feelings. You know, you're going up a roller coaster, that's a strong feeling. People are screaming, people are waving their hands. So when you're using that, anytime there's a strong feeling in the dog, they're going to act it out. And acting it out is always going to be bad. It's always going to be barking, whining, scratching, jumping, it's always one of those major ones. Okay, so that's not a calm dog. So the answer is get the dog calm. The biggest secret to getting the dog calm is understand how their language works. And understand when you're making them stress when you want them to be calm. And you're doing it by accident. That's a huge way of meeting them at their at their level. And it gives results faster than anything I've ever tried.   Michael Hingson  37:36 Most of the time, I still submit when they're not calm. It's true that you are part of the root cause of that. And so your behavior needs to change. And you need to communicate with this person who's looking to you in such a way that you can deal with creating the calmness again,   Jesse Sternberg  38:00 agree on that. And I'm also going to say the way that you communicate, do it with an action. Do it communicate with a well timed calm action and no need to flavor it in with your with your language. Right because that language is probably not going to be is not going to soothe them the way you think it is. It's actually a self soothing technique I find as too much flavor in the airwaves.   Michael Hingson  38:28 And maybe and maybe not it's really soothing even to you but right, it's how we get conditioned. Now I will say that our cat stares at our dog a lot. But   Jesse Sternberg  38:40 on purpose, okay, there's a power play happening when   Michael Hingson  38:43 there's a power play happening. That's absolutely right. And that's okay because he stares back at her and just ignores her. So she knows so she thinks she has the power. It's okay. Yeah. Yeah, they get along really well together though. It's, it's it's fine. They don't even steal each other's food much. So it's good. Yeah. Much. I would never want a dog and I've seen some dogs that are just absolute cat haters, and I don't know what what happened in their lives to make that happen or whatever. But I would never want a dog that can't get along with other creatures in the house.   Jesse Sternberg  39:29 Yeah, yeah, that's it's too intense.   Michael Hingson  39:32 Yeah. And sometimes it's very difficult to break into to deal with it. But still, I would never want that. At one time, we had a cat, a dog and a desert tortoise living with us and we had to take them all to the vet to be boarded for an afternoon because we were going to be doing some spraying and some Walking around the yard or having some spring done,   Jesse Sternberg  40:02 you turn the cat, the dog and the tortoise to the vet for the day. All   Michael Hingson  40:06 three. Yeah. And the dog and the tortoise. We unfortunately never got a picture of this, the vet regretted not having a camera, but the cat was in one cage. And the dog in the tortoise, we're in the other. The tortoise walked around the cage a little bit, came back over and got prone. The dog walked around the cage a little bit and then got prone, putting his paw over the tortoise, and last lap that way for about three hours. I love it. I love. So when we encourage that kind of relationship, and it works really well. We've been very happy with that. But the reality is, it's more our training that needs to happen, then what happens with the dog, or any training? And yeah, there are, there are things that you, you train a dog to do you train a dog to do specific things that you want the dog to do, but you train different commands, but again, how you train makes a big difference, the schools have become much more active in using clicker training. And I'm a fan of them too. Yeah, clickers are great, because it's a, it's an absolute instantaneous demarcation of what you did, right? You don't use it to point out a negative behavior, it's, you did it right click, and then you do a food reward. And it is so incredible, as to how much it is improved by dog training to do with that   Jesse Sternberg  41:40 way. But you know, as as as a lifetime dog trainer, and as a balance dog trainer, Mindfulness Based dog trainer, I view my profession as like, I'm an artist, you know. And the clicker is just a, a new, awesome tool, and learning how to use it in all of its creative ways. Very high potential, rehabbing fear base dogs, very high potential giving confidence as Mark has, you can mark those moments. But, you know, I just want people to appreciate it's a modality of communication, you it's not the it's not exactly meeting the dog at their level. It's not communicating to them moment to moment to moment with your body language. But when they're about to get conditioned out of being neurotic, or scared or anxious, then it becomes an awesome tool. Or we are reinforcing Poppy behaviors. Awesome tool, new training behaviors. Yes.   Michael Hingson  42:54 Right. And and that's probably the most powerful way it's used at the schools is reinforcing behavior.   Jesse Sternberg  43:01 And it's also difficult to use, I have to say, Michael, it's difficult you fumble with it. You have to have it ready. You have to have the treats, right? You have to really plan ahead for it.   Michael Hingson  43:12 Oh, absolutely. And the trainers keep the clickers in their hands. Even when we start working with the dogs, the trainers are the team leaders that the dogs are most used to. So for example, when I first started my first walk with Alamo, my current guide dog was a black lab. We were walking down the street, we got to a corner. The dog stopped appropriately. But even then, instantly, the trainer clicked. Yeah. And I gave the dog a food reward. And what we asked for time was to translate that to I carried the clicker and clicked just to reinforce the behavior, even though it was very clear that the dog knew   Jesse Sternberg  44:00 what yeah, great feedback. You're doing great.   Michael Hingson  44:03 You're doing great. And I recognize you're doing great. I want you to know it. We actually taught the dog to stop at a muzzle kind of a driveway. It was it was almost like an alleyway between two buildings. But there was no curb to really tell you it was coming. But between the trainer and I and clicking, we taught the dog to stop at that alleyway. And I submit that if we went back up to Gresham, Oregon today, he would still stop there. Of course, because behavior was so ingrained and clickers can do that. And if people want to learn about clicking behavior, they really should go study it. Karen Pryor was the one who brought it back to dogs. It actually started with dogs BEFORE HORSES and then they started using it with horses and it kind of fell away from dogs and then it came back and what around 2000 or so when has become a much better tool with dogs as well. And it just makes perfect sense to do. But clicking is a wonderful tool, but it is a tool and it's a it's a positive tool. It should not be used in a negative way. By but I find even today if I haven't been out for months, I can click the clicker and the dog's head will pop up. Yeah,   Jesse Sternberg  45:27 yeah. Yeah. So when you anytime you have a lot of power, you got to be responsible with that. It's a responsibility. Yeah, you can't. You can't misfire. No, you lose. You lose. What what happens when you misfires you lose trust.   Michael Hingson  45:44 So trust and you lose credibility.   Jesse Sternberg  45:46 You lose respect, you lose respect, which is one thing. I remember thinking, but I didn't get a chance to say is, yeah, dogs, you said this talks about the dogs love you. Yeah, you know what, you know, I thought, respect deserved.   Michael Hingson  46:02 Respect is absolutely earned. And people need to understand that most pet owners just have no real clue about integrating their pet into their family and making them a true family member and making them a true family member. It doesn't mean you let them just jump up on the bed or all those other sorts of things. It's a relationship issue.   Jesse Sternberg  46:26 Yeah, yeah. And they're just gonna reflect where you are, personally, you know, and just how you how you approach self love and your own boundaries, and you know, your own relationships with people, your dog is going to mimic that. And the reason why they mimic that is because they're never not watching your emotional frequencies. So when when you come home, from work, and no one's home, the dogs home and the dogs will be watching you Be who you really are watching how you behave, when you're talking on the phone, when the pizza guy comes everything. And when your dog then goes into life and is in being social in social aspect, either either new people or new dogs or new environments. If they're feeling free, if their frequency of their feelings matches up yours, when you're home alone, in those moments, they're gonna behave the same way. Yep. So you know, if you've got a hot temper, your dogs gonna have a hot temper. If your wedding, whatever it is, they match that. And what's cool is, when your dog's doing that you usually don't like how their dogs behaving, it will give you clues on how to heal it. That's just going to fix things in your life to without even thinking about without even trying it. My fourth, but you're talking about it. I mean,   Michael Hingson  47:53 I know what you're saying. My fourth guide dog Lynnie was one of the most empathetic creatures I ever knew we would go to parties. And our pastor of our church was a good friend of Lynnie, my fourth guide dog and observed her at various places. And she said one day when we would when people would come and visit us, or we would go somewhere and they said you can let her go loose and won't wouldn't do it unless they, they allowed it. I knew she'd be well behaved. But our pastor said, she always goes to the person who needs her the most first, because they're the most in pain. And then she goes around the room to see other people. And of course, she wasn't talking about physical pain.   Jesse Sternberg  48:38 Only the pain a pastor would know right after Congress and the pastor would know.   Michael Hingson  48:43 Yeah. As we observe as we observe Lynnae, that's exactly what we saw. And she would go over the   Jesse Sternberg  48:52 truth. She's a true healer, a true. True vessel of light.   Michael Hingson  48:57 An old soul. Yeah. Lovely. So tell me is people keep talking about the alpha dog and the Alpha creature in a team? And yeah, tell me about that concept of what you think of that.   Jesse Sternberg  49:12 I intentionally write about this quality called that I call peaceful out. And I say intentionally because I actually alpha is a trigger word for our present times, mainly because it's associated with toxic dominance, toxic masculinity. So I wanted to bring healing to that. Now, the idea of this peaceful alpha is that the way a dog the way you behave, if you behave in a certain way from your dog's perspective, as the calm leader, as the calm watcher, as being in The same level of attunement with the dogs feelings like you are when you're walking past a squirrel, knowing how to interact and bring it emotional peace, providing for it in a way that challenges and stimulates and grows them expands their consciousness, well, they end up giving you a certain kind of respect, they end up, give it they end up, you earn it, they end up showing you different quality behaviors. When I go to client's homes, even years after training the dog as a puppy, the dog gets up from their side and it comes to my side and it lays down by my side. I don't even talk to it. I haven't even looked at it yet. And I haven't even really touched it yet. So the dogs have a sense of presence, and a way of relating to presence and so peaceful alpha is a state of consciousness. It's there's a lot of wisdom, a lot of calmness, a lot of Swift acting, and a lot of recognition of you know, your dog's feelings. What could spike your dog's feelings? And, well, well, grooved boundaries, non challenged boundaries, fair, fair boundaries, no need to get excited at the door. No need to get excited, you know, by the squirrels. Mostly just the ability of keeping the dog calm.   Michael Hingson  51:50 The plan? Go ahead.   Jesse Sternberg  51:52 Well, yeah, I think I think you're gonna guess it say, No, go ahead. The point is, is that you're providing a richer quality of inner life for them and outer life for them. And that's why they respect you. And you can't do that, who's the one that's doing that, that's the leader. That's the position of the alpha. And that's what they're looking for in that. So I'm trying to say, Guys, you can get that all the power. You can get it through wisdom and love and self restraint and self discipline and emotional intelligence, and presence.   Michael Hingson  52:31 It goes back to the alpha position, doesn't need to be the boss position. It's not about bossing, it's not about dominating in exactly a way that is intimidating. It's all about spirit. And that's true. Yes, it's as true in the human human interaction as with the human dog interaction. And it's exactly   Jesse Sternberg  53:01 because of humans. If you behave this way. Humans gravitate to you. Because your word has wisdom in it doesn't let them down. You, you end up giving them what they already know they need, it's just a little bit of a boost, and there's no ego, you're not trying to get something in return for it. It's because you want to do it. And so this notion of being a peaceful alpha is like, you know, I just wanted to find a cheeky, clever way to take humanity on a journey of bettering themselves. And, you know, I worked with what I had with what I do my tool was I knew dogs. And so that was my mission and writing my book.   Michael Hingson  53:49 Well, we've been talking about dogs can you use the same behavior with other animals like cats and so on?   Jesse Sternberg  53:55 Actually, Michael any mammal, because if you understand the language, you understand that their body language is coming from emotions, and most of their so anything a calming sick, Google calming signals, Turid Rubis talks about calming signals for a long time now. That's the essence of the body language. But I also talked about that confrontational angle. All of the body language is around de escalating emotions. And so you're sitting at the poker table and somebody gets a good hand. They get excited. Yeah, they're acting out impulses, but those are calming signals, mammals happen. So you know, it's just about getting attuned to the fidgety the subtle, the, the inner workings of your own self. How do you behave? Do you bite your fingernails when you get anxious, you have an expression of your energy. So learning about how you move your body through space and mastering that in a way so like you're playing the angles with your dogs is going to show up, when you walk into a room full of people, you're gonna walk into a room full of people with a different posture with a different, more broadband consciousness, your eyes are going to pick up when other people are getting stressed around you. And if you're empathetic, if you're calm, you can bring a little attention to that. And that does wonders. So that becomes reinforcing. So this is just a skill at becoming a better human being.   Michael Hingson  55:33 But here's the real question. Does it work with training politicians? Just just tonight, check that out. It doesn't work against you go? No, it's it's a real challenge   Jesse Sternberg  55:50 for Iowa. If we could get politicians to drink Ayahuasca, Michael, that's totally   Michael Hingson  55:55 they would get a an interesting experience, wouldn't they? Tell me about your book?   Jesse Sternberg  56:03 Okay, my book is called enlightened dog training, how to become the peaceful Alpha your dog needs and respects. The first few chapters are examples of how the body language works with the dogs and what they're saying and how they're saying, and there's diagrams and there's pictures. And it also shows how humans accidentally tap into this. The rest of the book is really interesting, because each chapter is a unique case study of a human with their dog with the dogs problems with the humans characteristics, their neuroses, their anxieties, and these are all common, these are all common with every pet owner. And so the case study has a solution to it. And the solution is a mindfulness based solution that incorporates the dogs feelings, and some advanced but simple dog training techniques. And people the idea is that people read it and they go, Oh, my God, that makes so much sense. I see that. And I see how it works on my dog, and I see how I can grow from that. And then there's a, you know, at the end of each chapter, there's also a training tips, summary, bullet points, what exactly to do in these types of problems. And then there's a meditation, how to get yourself into that kind of calm state when such and such is happening. And just, you know, like a consciousness expanding, wrap up of each chapter. So that's the essence of how my book works.   Michael Hingson  57:32 So you, one of the things that people will ask is, but my dogs always afraid of thunder, you can fix that too.   Jesse Sternberg  57:41 Yeah, because we're just talking about fixing the relationship of fear. Yeah. There's actually every example is either example of working with a fear or working with an excitement. And that's what's cool is it doesn't start with that it starts with the behaviors, right? Why does my dog because, you know, let's go to Thunder, why does my dog run around hide under the howl and hide under the bed? When there's a thunderstorm? Well, lying down on the belly is what I described as the fourth stage of the fourth stage in the posture of surrendering maximizing the surface area on the earth. That's grounding. That's calm. That's wise. That's wisdom. When was last time you did that, when you were scared? What would happen if you did it? Okay, interesting. So there's a hint there, if your dog trusts you, and if the environment is safe, if you can get your dog to go into a lie down, and if you can get them to stay there, you can actually watch them restrain themselves from leaving. And you can watch them breathe, because they'll have you know, they'll have a rapid breath working, and you can time it. You can encourage them, give them courage, while they're breathing that out, while they're facing their fear. They're confronting it. And then what's left is experiential wisdom on their part. Wow, I got through that. Wow, you helped me get through that. Wow. Thank you. I appreciate you. And as you end up, you know, as you learned how to do that with your dog. You need patience. You need connection, you need calmness, but boys and rewarding the rewards from that never stop copying. Nope.   Michael Hingson  59:36 It all goes back to trust.   Jesse Sternberg  59:40 Exactly. And trust just so people will get this like trust is an expanding asset. It doesn't just you don't just flip it on and that's what you got. It never ends. It can do it.   Michael Hingson  59:54 And it's an ongoing process to evolve it and improve it and enhance it.   Jesse Sternberg  1:00:00 It's an expression of love, it's a virtue of love and love can keep expanding.   Michael Hingson  1:00:07 Well, this has been a lot of fun. And I've enjoyed it very much. But I want you to tell people how they can get your book and learn more about what you do and maybe reach out to you and, and engage in conversations,   Jesse Sternberg  1:00:24 all of those things they can do directly from my website, which is peaceful alpha.com. And you know, the book, it tells you where to get the book from there. But you know, if you just want the book, you can get it from Amazon or Books a Million, or it's a published book by intern press, which is owned by Simon and Schuster. So any bookstore can just order it for you.   Michael Hingson  1:00:52 Well, Jesse, this has been absolutely enjoyable. And I am really grateful that You have given us so much of your time and your insights and I hope people will reach out to you and I hope that everyone listening will take to heart what you have told us about learning to establish better relationships with our dogs and our pets and each other for that matter.   Jesse Sternberg  1:01:22 I really appreciate being on your show, Michael Time flew for me and I had a great time and really great energy and then just enjoyed our conversation. So thank you for having me and, and for your interest in in helping me share my story.   Michael Hingson  1:01:43 Well, thanks for for being here. And for all of you. Peaceful alpha.com is Jesse's website. Go there. And please check it out. I want to tell you I very much appreciate you being here today and listening to us. Talk. I think it's been fun. I hope you do believe the same and that you learn from it. Reach out if you have any comments or would like to make any suggestions about this or any of our episodes or have thoughts of people who you think ought to become guests on our podcast, you can contact me through email at Michaelhi M I C H A E L H I at accessiBE at A C C E S S I B E.com. Or go to www dot Michael hingson.com M I C H A E L H I N G S O N.com/podcast. And wherever you're listening to this, please give us a five star rating. We appreciate it. Your ratings are invaluable to us. So thank you very much again, and we hope that she'll be back next time for another episode of unstoppable mindset. Jesse again. Thank you, Michael.   UM Intro/Outro  1:03:01 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.

Janelle Lynnae was trying to think of her “fitness transformation” story to post on her social media account as a budding online personal trainer, when she realized..she didn't have one, and that's not where her TRUE transformation was. When she dug deeper, she wrote her real story, bawling over a pen and paper, for the first time ever. She'd never admitted to anyone, or even herself really, that she'd been suicidal for years, and had overcome the limiting beliefs that led her to those dark thoughts. Janelle shares her heart wrenching, super relatable story with us, and we talk about how we all can dig to find our true transformation stories and overcome our limiting beliefs, so we can step into the most confident woman we're meant to be. We cover: Janelle's personal transformation story from suicidal to thriving How Janelle maintained calm and composure while having technical issues during a presentation with her biggest corporate client Breathwork practices for calming the fight or flight response How Janelle helps her clients uncover their limiting beliefs and rewire their brains for confidence Becoming aware of how we numb ourselves out to avoid dark thoughts You don't have to find ONE purpose and it's always evolving Links from Today's Episode: Website Get Janelle's Book Follow Janelle on Tik Tok Resources mentioned: You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay and Janelle's free eBook Links You May Want to Check Out: Grab your copy of Rachel's best-selling book, Chasing Perfection: A Journey to Healing, Fitness, and Self-Love AND get a FREE gift with your purchase Be sure to check out the limited-time, Fit From Within: 60 Days to Finding Freedom journal and start creating healthy habits and a balanced lifestyle from the inside out. Check out our newest obsession, I Am Athletics - a lifestyle and activewear apparel brand for The Confident Woman. Order Today & Save 20% - Promo Code: TCW20 Download your FREE Confidence Booster Guide Join The Confident Woman Community on Facebook here! Rachel Brooks Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamrachelbrooks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iamrachelbrooks The Confident Woman Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theconfidentwomanpodcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theconfidentwomanpodcast --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/theconfidentwoman/message

In this pilot episode of the Women in DeFi Podcast sponsored by Bridges, our host Breanne Delgado, founder of the Women's March and web3 activist is joined by Bridges COO, Lynnae Sauer. We'll be discussing the future of women in web3, what sets Bridges apart from other exchanges, and how we're leveraging technology to improve lives. Lynnae will also be sharing her personal experiences in male-dominated environments, and how those experiences have helped to shape the vision for Bridges. If you're even slightly interested in decentralized finance, you'll want to listen in as we explain some web3 lingo and discuss achieving financial equality. What To Listen ForGetting to know your hostThe future of women in web3 and why it's importantBridges COO and her vision for DeFiWhat is Bridges and how is it different from other exchangesWhat is farming in web3 lingoLiquidity pools explainedThe passive income potential of BridgesHow Bridges is ensuring investors feel safeHow Bridges is working to attract high-quality developers and projectsLynnae's experience with male-dominated environmentsA consistent track record of fighting for the end userLeveraging technology to improve livesThe many ways that women can be a part of the blockchain ecosystemA look forward to the future of BridgesLynnae's vision for women in web3 by 2025About Lynnae SauerBefore co-founding Bridges, Lynnae developed a career as a product manager in FinTech and travel technology startups. She has worked in many different agile teams with frontend, backend, and fullstack solutions for both B2C and B2B products. Her core belief is that digital products should be ethically built first and foremost for the people using that product. Lynnae also holds an M.S. in Political Economy, interned in a nonprofit entrepreneurial support organization, and studied in four different countries.ResourcesSwap now on Bridges Exchange: https://app.bridges.exchange/ Join our community: https://discord.com/invite/bridges Learn about Web3 (Beginner Friendly!): https://learn.bridges.exchange/ 

Do you feel like an outsider, unqualified, or not worthy at times? #1 New Release author Janelle Lynnae joins to discuss how to master your confidence! Lynnae (@janelle_lynnae) just released her first book titled Flex Your Confidence Muscle: How to Overcome Your Limiting Beliefs and Finally Take Action available on Amazon.

Lisa Thee is a consultant to some of the world's most innovative healthcare and global technology companies including Microsoft and UCSF's Center for Digital Healthcare Innovation. She is the co-Founder of Minor Guard, an Artificial Intelligence software company focused on making people safer online and in real life. A staunch advocate for the protection of children Lisa is unstoppable in her efforts in protecting children, and in fact families, from online bullies and criminals.   You will get to hear this week about this incredible and unstoppable woman. We will get to share many of her experiences including how she has been forced to deal with the effects of Covid-19 and how she continues to move forward today. She will even tell us about how her registered emotional support dog helps her continue to do the work she began many years ago. You can't help but be inspired and motivated by what Lisa does and how she lives her life. About the Guest:   Lisa Thee is a Top 50 Global Thought Leader for AI, Privacy, and Safety with demonstrated experience in delivering revenue and solving complex business technology, governance, privacy and risk challenges at scale.   Ms. Thee is a consultant to some of the world's most innovative healthcare, and global technology companies including Microsoft and UCSF's Center for Digital Healthcare Innovation to accelerate FDA approval for AI use in clinical settings. She is the CEO and Co-Founder of Minor Guard, an Artificial Intelligence software company focused on making people safer online and in real life.  She is a keynote speaker including her TEDx talk “Bringing Light to Dark Places Online: Disrupting Human Trafficking Using AI.” She hosts the Navigating Forward Podcast. She has been named to the 2021 Top Health and Safety, Privacy, and AI Thought Leaders and Influencers and Women in Business you should follow by Thinkers 360. She was recently named to the 2022 “Top 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics” global list.   https://lisathee.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisathee/     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  01:22 Hi, and welcome once again to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here, wherever you are. And we hope that you will enjoy us this week, we have a kind of a really interesting person, kind of she absolutely is an interesting person and some good stories to tell. And I'm sure we're going to have a lot of fun in our discussions. Today we'll talk about AI, we're going to talk about a lot of things related to health care and disabilities and other things. So I'd like you all to meet Lisa v. And I assume you want me to refer to you that way.   Lisa Thee  01:54 Yes, that's great. Hi, everyone. My name is Lisa Thi and I am the data for good practice sector lead at launch Consulting Group.   Michael Hingson  02:04 And so why don't you tell us a little bit about kind of you younger and bring us up to date and how you got where you are today.   Lisa Thee  02:14 Yeah, I grew up in the Midwest. And kind of what people might consider the dress, the Rust Belt these days of Detroit, and studied engineering in school, and came out west to California after graduation and worked in the tech industry for 18 years before I retired as a director at Intel, and their hybrid cloud group and went off to do my own company for as AI software startup, called minor guard and have been working in the entrepreneurship innovation space, in consulting, Keynote, speaking and advising for the past few years now.   Michael Hingson  02:53 So what did you exactly do it Intel?   Lisa Thee  02:56 Oh, goodness, and also one of those awesome places where you get to try a lot of things. So in the decade that I worked there, I worked in different groups, from supply chain planning, to marketing to it to business development, and ultimately leading their AI solution group working on new applications for AI to improve things in society.   Michael Hingson  03:18 So Intel being very much a chip manufacturer and so on. How does AI get into that in terms of why why did they do that?   Lisa Thee  03:29 Yeah. So when you have a chip manufacturing company, the way that you increase your available market is to increase increased consumption of compute. So that could be through cloud providers that could be through personal computers, it can be through gaming, lots of different applications. So one of the ways that AI really benefits Intel as a company is by increasing utilization and solving bigger and hear your problems. So whether you're buying compute space in Google, or Amazon, or Microsoft, all of those, all those roads lead back to Intel, because they're providing the chips for the cloud infrastructure.   Michael Hingson  04:07 So at some point, maybe we'll find a significant amount of AI on chips. And of course, you've got people like Ray Kurzweil who talk about the singularity, and discuss the time when, well, what we're calling AI or computer intelligence, and human intelligence, Mary and M become all part of the same brain.   Lisa Thee  04:28 Absolutely. And in fact, it was hard to wear enabled AI solutions that launched me from being a corporate citizen, to an entrepreneur in my 40s when the iPhone 10 launched, I got a call from a colleague of mine from Apple, and he shared with me that he was no longer under NDA. And he thought we could do a lot in terms of prevention of child abuse online by identifying issues on the chip itself on the phone before they got saved to the cloud. And so that's what launched our company minor guard where we go Because on improving online safety for kids, online and in real life together by leveraging AI and nudity detection, to make sure that they weren't making 30 site decisions that were ruining the rest of their lives.   Michael Hingson  05:15 So I'd love to learn more about that. What? What did you all create? And what how does it work? And what does it do?   Lisa Thee  05:22 Yeah, so today, our technology inspired some of the changes that Apple made and iOS, when we started our journey, it took 130 unique decisions to block your child from taking a nudey kitty photo, that is illegal content and technically a felony. Today, it only takes a single choice, if you have a family iOS account, and you identify your child is using that device. So we help them to see the opportunity to really focus on safety in a way that was frictionless and allowed kids to be kids and make mistakes, but hopefully not the kinds of mistakes that will follow them for decades to come.   Michael Hingson  06:04 How does AI enter into that? I mean, if you would think I can just push a button and my child won't be able to access the site anymore. Where do they I get into that?   Lisa Thee  06:15 Yeah, so most apps today are end to end encrypted. So there's not a lot of visibility on the device, once you're in App if you're on a tic tac, or you're on a Snapchat or any of those popular social apps. And so we knew we needed to do it at a device level. Because once it was in the app and software, there was no way to make sure what what was happening. So when Apple you got to the generation with the iPhone 10. And beyond, they had an AI accelerator chip in the phone that allowed for facial recognition to unlock the phone. And by having that AI accelerator on the device that opened up the window to be able to do some detection on the device before you saved, saved it to the cloud. To make sure that before it got into an encrypted vault, you can make sure that a child isn't doing something that's illegal, and will possibly honeypot them for perpetrators.   Michael Hingson  07:08 So what does so let's say somebody takes a kiddie porn picture. What does ai do?   Lisa Thee  07:17 It identifies that the device is registered to a child through iOS, and identifies that image is explicit, and it blocks that image from ever being saved to the device. And secondly, to check what somebody sends them, it's going to prevent your child from taking their own content, because we learned through the process of working through this challenge with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children who is the nationwide clearinghouse for all reports of child sexual abuse material online. For tech companies, the public and law enforcement, that 40% of these images are actually taken by children themselves. They're often groomed or influenced by others to make a bad choice. And they don't really realize the stakes that they're entering when they move from being a regular kid to being somebody that has now created and distributed Child Sexual Abuse material, which is a felony.   Michael Hingson  08:15 And we're making any kind of progress on going the other way, which is people sending pictures to a child.   Lisa Thee  08:22 Yes, I think safety, that is harder. It is. So in my day job, I work with some of the leading thought leaders at the big tech companies in this space. I think there's a very large desire to make sure that the policy groups and the legal teams that are setting the terms of service to align with all the regulations internationally, have better tools were the operators that are trying to moderate that content, to be able to identify it and get it off of platforms. It is definitely a threat to every business owner to be hosting illegal content. I don't think anybody wants it there. It's an industry wide challenge. But unfortunately, criminals don't usually play by the rules, they intentionally find the places where they can break them. And so that's where I think AI comes in as a great complement to the humans, where AI can do what it does particularly well with just pattern recognition, tactical reordering of things to make it easier to process extremely large volumes of data. And make sure that the right things are in front of the moderators at the right time to get the most egregious acts off of the internet as fast as possible.   Michael Hingson  09:30 So they're they're always pictures and things like that. But what about bullying and those sorts of things where it's perhaps a lot more textual and so on, does aI have yet any real influence on dealing with that kind of situation bullying and such?   Lisa Thee  09:46 Absolutely as as much advancement as we saw on the video and photo side of AI. In the last 10 years, there's a whole new renaissance around natural language processing speeds typically around being able to use AI to detect things in context. So one of the companies that I advice for that I'm really passionate about is spectrum labs, because they are taking over 40 international languages and being able to apply models that are uniquely trained to identify 40 Different abuse types. So whether that be cyber bullying, whether that be Daxing, whether that be human trafficking, they can pick up the signals in the noise, and help moderators to take action on accounts that are problematic and creating harm across the platforms. So I'm really excited about their tech because I've been under the hood of most of these solutions. And I do know that they're able to do things in multi language that are unprecedented. And so that's why I chose to back behind them. I also have some experience working at a business to consumer products called bark technologies. And bark is really focused on parents being able to moderate their own children's communications on social media applications, I know that when mine get old enough, I will definitely be using their product. Because there is a big difference between somebody saying, I just tripped in front of that girl, I like I want to kill myself, and my life is meaningless. I want to kill myself, and having AI help bring the right alert at the right time can change the trajectory of a person's life. And I've seen that many times over. Because it's really connection and humans that help to intervene when things get dark. It's not going to be technology, but sometimes you don't know until you get an alert that they need special attention.   Michael Hingson  11:44 Course Gaia, somebody trips in front of a girl that he really likes, what we need to do is to send a message saying you got to call this guy he's really embarrassed.   Lisa Thee  11:55 Yeah, that one is recoverable. But when you are mentioning things like time, and your conflict that we know that they're significantly more likely to take action on that feeling, because they've been researching how to do it. And so you know, I am, I am definitely somebody who learned a lot of mistakes the hard way through hard knocks. And I'm grateful that I grew up in a generation where you could make a lot of mistakes, and it wasn't in the public domain for the rest of your lives. But unfortunately, for this generation, that's just not the case. And so they do a lot more typing than talking. And so when you can use technology to that, and especially AI to make sure that you can give them as much privacy as humanly possible. Well, getting the signal from the noise of something is really going from an affordable mistake to a life altering one. I'm really passionate about that. So I think Burke on the consumer side spectrum on the business side are really the leading folks that I see that can really help with this problem.   Michael Hingson  12:53 I think you bring up a really interesting issue, which is, as you said, there's a lot more typing than talking today, and I go back generations before you. And I remember growing up, I'm sure I was an oddity, but I wasn't really bullied, we didn't have internet at all, in the time that I was growing up. And I don't I don't think that we had nearly as much bullying as is appeared later. Or at least if we did, it wasn't talked about very much. And there was no social media. But But you are right people type today a whole lot more. How do we get people back to interacting with each other? I read an article, I think last year in the New York Times about the art of conversation has has died or is is not much in existence anymore. And that was all at that time discussing how politicians were treating things, but still, it also involved how they were treating and how other people started treating each other and not conversing, not talking and not sharing ideas and trying to find commonality. How do we deal with that?   Lisa Thee  14:11 It's a really good question. I wish I I wish I knew the full answer, there's a few things that come to mind. The first is that empathy is a very slow dobro skill that requires a lot of face to face communication. And in a lot of cases, this generation just isn't having as much opportunity to see the impact of their words, and how they can affect other people. So I think it allows them under the veil of anonymity online to speak to people in ways they wouldn't in real life. And I think that extends to adults as well. So I think a lot of it is really seeing the impact of your words and connecting back with that humanity piece. And the second piece I wanted to mention was really around the areas of cyber bullying and what does that like versus maybe what some of us who are in older generations experienced bullying is not new. No I do think that the 24 by seven never able to get away from it is. So you may 20 years ago, when I was graduating from college, you, you may have had a bad experience. And people may have been really mean to you when you're at school, for example, but you could come back to your apartment and just be separated from it, and have a little bit of a break and a respite and to be around people that were maybe more positive in your life, maybe that's your family, and maybe it's your friends. But you could you could get a break from it. Today's generations, they are scared to go to sleep, because they want to know what's being said about them at two in the morning. And I can relate in a small way. I mean, when I made a mistake, when I make a mistake at work, for example. I know I'm looking for that email from my manager or my client saying that it's okay. And we'll be alright. And this is how we're going to fix it. And when I have, I don't have that reassurance or that connection that it's going to be okay, and people are bombarding me with messages about what a problem this is. Now, I certainly feel anxious, I don't think there's any solution for that human condition. So I actually have a lot of empathy for growing up these days, they don't have a lot of room to make mistakes and, and grow from them. And realistically, I don't think humans are much different than computers, they learn much more from their mistakes on their successes. And that's how we advance AI is all the failures. And I think that's how humans learn as well.   Michael Hingson  16:34 Well, I think that's right. It's not just you learn from your failures in ai, ai, you learn from your challenges, your failures, as you said, much more than your successes in real life, just because the mistakes and the frustrations stay with your consciousness longer. Oh, I did that really? Well. Great. And then you move on, oh, my gosh, I screwed up. What? What is that going to do to me, and it's not anything new to have those kinds of feelings. But we do have today, such a much easier advice environment, on the parts of so many of us to ignore dealing with it, like you said, you wait for that email, and somebody doesn't take the time to say it to you to send you the email because they're off now doing other things. Whereas in the past, things were done much more face to face.   Lisa Thee  17:28 Yeah, you have much more real time feedback. And yet, you didn't have an eyes on culture, like work ended at a certain time. And I think there's been a lot of studies post pandemic that as we've shifted to a more virtual work environment, people aren't really having a hard time guarding their time at both ends of the day. Now in a way that wasn't as big of a problem when we had commutes. And when we had a lot more face time.   Michael Hingson  17:52 I have heard many times the joke about people, kids in the back of of cars, parents are driving in two kids sitting next to each other. And they're texting back and forth rather than talking. And I've actually seen that I've been in vehicles where they do that. And to me, it's just hard to fathom. Why don't you just talk to each other?   Lisa Thee  18:15 Privacy? They don't want the adults to hear it. Right? Yeah, that's true. Yeah. When you, when you put yourselves in the shoes of a digital native, they just they've had so much more access to information than we did so much younger, they have a lot more complexities to manage through in terms of social structures and growing up, and everything's public. So I can understand wanting to keep something between a couple of people because it's not so easy to do anywhere else in their lives.   Michael Hingson  18:47 Right. The other side of it is that I think to some degree in the past, when a family was in a car, and people were sort of forced to talk to each other, it did help invoke a better and higher level of trust than just keeping things private. Oh, I don't want them to know, because I can't trust them. So we've we've lost some of that trust that we used to have, it seems to me, I may be misinterpreting. But that's kind of what it seems.   Lisa Thee  19:16 Yeah. For me, what I've observed is we're making trust a problem for families and consumers and individuals versus looking at it at a societal and platform level. And I'm really hopeful as we come out of 2022 that we start to get more regulation around was expected from platforms to keep kids and families safer. I don't think this should be a consumer problem. I think this is a legacy of, you know, the growth of social and mobile and cloud that we've seen over the last 20 years. When we looked at regulating this industry 20 years ago. We just couldn't have envisioned the law So we live today. And you know, going into this whole Metaverse of web app three dot O generation, I think we have a lot more people online, we have a lot more opportunities for harm, as they're interacting with each other as building community has gotten so much easier. And it's time for us to be thinking through policies like we do with cybersecurity. On the digital safety side, that's where I'd like to see trust grow by having a level playing field for all the innovative startups all the way through to the large, multinational corporations. What we all agree is just off limits. I think today, there's just too much gray zone,   Michael Hingson  20:39 it seems to me that a lot of that is going to have to be done within the industry, because the politicians are so divided. They won't agree or do anything with it you had for four years, one party in power, who was just from their political stance against regulation doesn't matter what it is. And now we have a different party in power. But still, the people who don't want regulation or who say they don't want regulation, that's part of the interesting thing. It seems to be part of the time, what we're seeing are people just oppose each other just to oppose each other, rather than dealing with doing the right thing.   Lisa Thee  21:20 Yeah, for me, what I can say about this is I don't usually get the call until it got pretty bad. And trust me, the things that I get involved in, these are not tweener situations, right when the victim is six, or under which by the way, 56% of victims of child sexual abuse material are whose privacy is more important, the adult that's trying to consume that for entertainment value, or the crime scene victim who's having their images consumed for the pleasure of adults, I think the privacy in the regulation needs to fall a lot more on protecting our legacy and our next generations and protecting people's rights. And if people really understood the level of severity of what's being searched for and how an invasive the technology has to do it, it's very lightweight, just like a spam filter, I think there would be a lot less opposed to regulations. I think I wish that we could get better at helping people understand that if you really want privacy fully, you need to make sure that you turn off all of your spam filters to right like we're willing to make trade offs for privacy to not get attacked by criminals. Why would children not deserve the right to be able to use very labor? Wait hash matching technology that is not invasive? It's not going through your emails, personally, it's looking for picture matches for reported crimes, things like that. without even opening your stuff. I think if people really understood what we were talking about at that level, there would be a lot less gerrymandering happening in politics.   Michael Hingson  22:56 How do we deal with that? How do we make that happen? How do we get people to understand? And I guess that's really getting back to the whole issue of we're so polarized today. How do we break this logjam?   Lisa Thee  23:09 I would love to say that I have an answer. In 2021, I did a TED talk on the topic and started a petition to try to get some of the Department of Justice recommendations into the regulatory bodies for communication Decency Act 230 revisions, they, they did interviews with industry leaders and advocates for victims and the NGOs that do best in breed and came up with some very comprehensive and very rational guardrails that we could be adhering to. And I really hope that as Europe and the US are looking at some of these new bills, we don't get pulled to the to either side of all the things we disagree about, but we've had something we can all come together on. Unfortunately, I don't think that that helps people get reelected by being agreeable. So we'd love to see more pressure from people writing to their local representatives that they expect movement on this. And if you want to learn more about the bill that the petition and support that it's on my website, Lisa v.com/ted. Talk.   Michael Hingson  24:27 th, Lisa v th e,   Lisa Thee  24:30 right. Yes. And I I've been working with my California representatives to try to get some legislation brought forward because this is far overdue. We're gambling with things that are just the stakes are too high for kids.   Michael Hingson  24:47 Is the industry moving toward doing more to truly and not only intellectually but emotionally regulating itself on this It doesn't have to be left to the politics to do it and the politicians to do it.   Lisa Thee  25:04 I think that anytime you need to clean up technical debt and be looking for criminals abusing your systems, there has to be some kind of incentive or policy in place to make sure that you get the appropriate amount of funding. I have never met anybody that works in the industry, whether it be at Google or Microsoft, or all the other places that doesn't do this work, because they care. There's a lot easier ways to make a paycheck with a data science background, trust me. But unfortunately, a lot of times the boards in the C suite executives don't fully understand what it takes to do this, right. And it's grossly underfunded. So I think regulation will be the place where it allows them to make better trade offs for shareholders and better trade offs for their leadership to understand why the investment is absolutely mandated. And I think the other challenge you get into so you get a lot of hero complexes here and you get people that will just work themselves to the absolute core like to the bone. And it's because how do you ever measure someone else's suffering against your own? I gave myself PTSD, in 2017, from working every night, every weekend, on morphine drips in the hospital after injuries, because I had a really hard time turning it off, when you know, what's really going on. And I think that's why regulation really matters. We need to make this everyone's priority, that actually gets done. And I think we wouldn't see privacy and cybersecurity come to the forefront for a long time until regulation GDPR allowed people to make those investments, I think we're gonna have to see something similar in the digital safety front to help companies come along. I don't think there's a lack of talented smart people that can innovate and do what needs to be done. But there needs to be an impetus to act. And that's going to come from regulatory bodies.   Michael Hingson  27:08 We live in an era where it's not new, but people say, Well, we've got to do what we do. And we're all about just getting money for the shareholders. And personally, I understand why people say that. But companies were also originally formed many times from an entrepreneurial standpoint, to do something good. But we lose that along the way. And we get to the point of well, we're just all about making money for our stockholders.   Lisa Thee  27:39 I think this one is a little bit trickier. I think there's a lot of unintended consequences going on. When you build a platform to connect the world and have all these visions and wonderful ways it can happen, you're probably not thinking about the creepy guy in Estonia, that's going to start targeting sixth grade girls and Columbus, Ohio. When the nefarious actors typically are, innovate faster than these companies can keep up with. In terms of the ways they're misapplying their technology. So I think a lot of it's going to always be a balance of pushing a ball. I do think that the same way that privacy has really gotten much more regulated, I think we're gonna see online safety going that direction as well. And looking forward to that day, I don't anticipate by the time that Gen Z is parenting, that they're going to have the same struggles that I do with a nine year old and a 10 year old in the world. And I look forward to that, because they've grown up with this stuff. And they know how people use it. And they're not naive. I think right now we have a huge education gap, with our lawmakers, with our citizens, on really the ways that people are taking advantage of access to young people.   Michael Hingson  28:59 The kinds of things you're saying, to me, it seems, are things I've heard before. So what I'm saying is, I don't think they're necessarily new. So I think there's a little bit more to it, then people are just totally uneducated or uneducated. We're also not seeing the will to change and you're right with the Gen Z environment. hopefully over time, the these kids growing up, will recognize that we've got to change the world. But I hope that it happens before then because it's not like the concepts are new. It's more that we're not yet emotionally accepting it as such a reality in all of our lives unless we're specifically hit by it with a with a specific or concrete example for our child.   Lisa Thee  29:53 I have to have some tough talks with friends and family at least a couple of times a year and it's usually the somebody comes to me because something's happening in their family with one of their kids on safety. And I tell them what I know and what they can do. And then oftentimes, they don't want to do that, because it's a lot of work and who the heck has extra time for anything right now, or they don't want to make their child feel like their privacy is being invaded or a whole host of reasons. And then I get a call six to nine months later with law enforcement involved when people are missing when you know, things have gotten really off the rails. And I got to the place where I had to tell people look, I am happy to help you. If you are willing to take multiple hours to get things set up properly. And if you're not willing to commit that in the next 48 hours, I can't help you. Because I can't sit here and just wait to watch the train wreck. And I think that that's where the policy piece comes in where platforms have to design in safety by design. And parents don't need to be investing hours and hours and hours to set things up properly. Because frankly, I have an engineering degree, I founded an AI startup, I consult for some of the biggest thought leaders in this area. I don't know how to set their crap up. I don't I don't think this should be a consumer problem.   Michael Hingson  31:16 Oh, I hear you. And that's what I'm getting at. It's not like this information is new. And it's not like these people don't have the the industry doesn't have access to the information, and probably has heard it. But they under strict   Lisa Thee  31:32 chair, they don't lose market share. If they don't do it. That's the problem. We vote with our feet.   Michael Hingson  31:37 Yeah, that's that's the problem, we're still back to. It doesn't matter how important it is to do. From a reality standpoint, emotionally and intellectually. We're not there yet.   Lisa Thee  31:50 I mean, I tried to hold myself to a different standard, because I do have more access to information. And frankly, nothing the Facebook whistleblower service is new to me, but it to her being, you know, testifying to Congress before it kicked my Facebook habit, again, for like the fourth or fifth time. It's hard to stay away from some of these platforms, because they are a way for us to connect. They are a way for us to educate ourselves. They're fun. And I think if adults have a hard time staying away from things that aren't necessarily good for them, I think we have no right to expect the next generation to do better.   Michael Hingson  32:28 Not until they get older and hopefully become wiser.   Lisa Thee  32:31 I mean, your brain doesn't develop to anticipate long term impacts of your decisions fully until you're 24 years old. What are we expecting out of 1415 year olds? It's nonsense.   Michael Hingson  32:42 Yeah, much less six year olds?   Lisa Thee  32:44 Absolutely. No question. The age of my first phone, globally is estimated to be 10 years old these days. first smartphone,   Michael Hingson  32:52 I like actually, I got my first iPhone in 2009. It was the iPhone three, three, 3g. And so we've been using them ever since. And they're a wonderful tool. That's also part of it is that we've got to recognize it's a tool. But we also need to develop in our own minds much less in a regulatory way. What it really means to be able to positively use the tool and cut out some of the negative stuff. And it is just so easy to do that today to have all the negative stuff. It's so frustrating.   Lisa Thee  33:28 It is I think we'll continue to improve and innovate. I think there's too much more awareness of what really can happen. I think that some some of the places where I'm seeing a lot of innovation in terms of regulation and safety by design are coming out of places like Australia, huge superfan of the Safety Commissioner over there. Julie and Julie came from the tech industry and kind of knows where some of the popples are, and is starting to bring regulation that really can bring us forward in terms of hate speech in terms of cyber bullying in terms of protecting children. So I I feel like we will get there. I just wish we have gotten there already. I'm impatient at this point. I've been working in this field since 2015. And I'm ready to see some real movement   Michael Hingson  34:21 Yeah, it's it's got to be very frustrating for you because you're very close to it and you have children of your own and all you can do is do your best to bring them up and teach them how to make the right decisions and hopefully they'll do that but it is easy to to make a mistake and there's such a fine line today.   Lisa Thee  34:38 And it's not the parents negligence, it's we're not You're not set up to win. And even if you keep your kid off of it, they go to school and totally on unsupervised and have older siblings that you know it. We need. We need help. We need help.   Michael Hingson  35:03 Personally, I'm gonna start to worry when I get an email from someone that says that your dog just complained on Facebook that you weren't giving him enough bones, then I'm gonna worry.   Lisa Thee  35:14 There you go. I think AI to translate animal language would be a very interesting application, I only has to say about me,   Michael Hingson  35:25 it would be a whale out but not too many negative things. I think that there's a lot more positivity going on than we think. But they're very strategic. Some of these dogs are very intelligent. We had we had a dog. She was a breeder for Guide Dogs for the Blind. One day she was on the bed chewing on a bone but the bone kept slipping. Do you know what do you know what a doughnut is? I'm not sure I do. It's a it's a rubber doughnut. Very tough. It's really hard to to chew up. And in fact, I think they come with a warranty that if your dog happens to do it, which is very rare. They'll replace it for free. But it's it looks like a doughnut. Well, anyway, so our dog Fantasia was chewing on this bone and kept slipping away. She just deliberately left the bone on the bed, jumped down, went and grabbed a doughnut brought it back up on the bed. But she then picked up the bone, put the bone in the hole of the go nuts, so she could chew it and it wouldn't slide around. tool users tool users all the way   Lisa Thee  36:30 up. Absolutely. I also love their attunement. I feel like my dog knows the emotions and feelings of everybody in the family and knows who needs to snuggle and who needs a lick and who needs cuddle. At all times. They're they're really wonderful complements to our lives.   Michael Hingson  36:46 My fourth guide dog was named Linnaeus, she was a yellow lab. We were at a party and I, I took the harness off because everyone knew Lynnie. And so we let Lynnae wander around and visit people. And our pastor was there. She came up and she said, You know, it's interesting, Lynnae clearly is empathic and intuitive. She goes to the first person who's the most in pain, and then she'll visit the rest of the crowd. And you know, she said I don't mean physical pain. And when we started observing Lynnie that was absolutely true. And because Sheree had seen her at several parties, and so new Lynnie well, but it's absolutely true. They do have a lot of empathy and they know what's going on. You know, I've talked about that with me and the World Trade Center. The decisions that I made on September 11 came in large part because of what I saw Roselle doing and not doing. Because I've been working with dogs so long, Roselle there was a colleague who started shouting, there was fire and smoke above us. And there were millions of pieces of paper falling outside the window, and I could hear the stuff falling by the window, but I didn't know what it was at the time. But you know, David said millions of pieces of burning paper, I believed him. But with all of that Roselle is just sitting next to me wagging your tail going woke me up. i What are we doing here? And so that told me that whatever was going on wasn't such an imminent issue for her that she was even the slightest bit nervous.   Lisa Thee  38:22 Interesting, and then forgive my lack of awareness. How did you proceed out of that building with her guidance   Michael Hingson  38:30 downstairs. I mean, that was the only way to go. I was the Mid Atlantic region Sales Manager for Quantum. So I ran that office, and I spent a lot of time learning about emergency preparedness, what to do in emergencies and so on. And part of that actually led to why we're calling the podcast unstoppable mindset, because what I actually develop that day was a mindset. Well, not that day, but before that day of what to do if there's an emergency. And I really got to the point of knowing that whatever happened, if there were ever an emergency, I was as prepared as I could be, to deal with it. Now, of course, there are things that could have happened, that would have changed all of that, like the building just collapsed, and in which case, we wouldn't be here. But it was truly all about developing a mindset. And I think that gets back to what you're talking about here. We've got to change our mindset. And that's what what I did on the days before in the months before September 11th was develop that mindset. So I always observe what my guide dogs are doing anyway. And so it was a natural part of things to go oh Roselle is not acting nervous at all. So I believed everything that David said about what he was seeing paper falling burning paper falling fire above us and so on. But whatever was happening was in such an imminent issue, that we had to panic and just run out of the office, which wouldn't have done any good anyway.   Lisa Thee  39:58 Wow. Wow. Yeah, and I think that's exactly a great lead in to some of the things that I learned about in digital safety for the other folks that are maybe listening to this and a little bit nervous about what their kids are doing online, after hearing me, and that is, you know, teach your kids to do emergency drills, we teach them for tornadoes, we teach them for fires, we teach them for all sorts of natural disasters, that oftentimes will never happen in their lifetime. But coming across something on the internet, that's inappropriate, or makes you uncomfortable, is probably going to happen to 99.99% of kids, before they turn 18. And so I think one of the tricks that I've learned through being in the industry is really, you know, teaching your kids what to do when they do have that moment. So it's the stop, walk and talk method. And I'm sure my kids are sick of hearing it from me, but it's when you see something that makes you feel uncomfortable, you need to stop what you're doing, walk away from your computer, and come talk to a trusted adult, and know that I'm not going to freak out, I am here to support you. And that secrets can't live in the dark.   Michael Hingson  41:10 That is, of course, the other part of it, which is that you have to react appropriately and help even stronger, encourage and emphasize and enhance the trust, which is what you're really implying. And it's important that kids understand that parents really mostly do want to have that trusting relationship, there are some who give up those responsibilities, which is unfortunate. But that's not generally what happens.   Lisa Thee  41:41 And that's why I don't say talk to a parent, maybe it's talk to a trusted adult, maybe it's his uncle, maybe it's a teacher, maybe it's my market research was the majority of times that kids come in contact with the adult world online. It has come into being pushed towards them. And it's not something they're actively seeking out. And shame is a huge deterrent from getting help. And kids are not equipped to be able to handle the coordinated behavior and malicious adults is just not a fair fight. So I, I tried to remind that myself and them that I have the mindset that I'm here to be a resource for you and not to make this about my shame triggers not to freak out and overreact. I'm teaching you how to be in the world. And the world sometimes can be a little messy. And I know that criminals are looking for easy targets. They're looking for the people that don't have somebody that has their back. Yeah. And I don't ever want to put my kids in the position of not having somebody behind them.   Michael Hingson  42:48 Did you have any of these kinds of experiences growing up bullying or those sorts of things?   Lisa Thee  42:53 Nope. Um, my drought of this came mostly from my travels in my 20s as a global IT manager and until I hit 36 countries before the age of 30. Seeing in the business hotels, I was often mistaken for a flight attendant. So people acted really comfortable in their own environment. And I saw a lot of the business travelers taking advantage of human trafficking victims, it was very blatant. And it was something that really cemented in me that when I was in a position where I could have the authority to do something about this crime that I would, and that came later in my 30s. But it was my it was the fuel and AI engine, so to speak, to say, what's the point of being a woman with any kind of power in the world, if you're not advocating for marginalized women and children, I, there's, that's the only reason to keep doing what I do every day.   Michael Hingson  43:53 I think I said earlier was fortunate and not having any real bullying or anything like that. Now I faced discrimination as a blind person. I've had a number of examples of people who discriminated or treated me inappropriately because of being blind. And I think the first example of that was when a high school superintendent in our district decided that my guide dog wouldn't be allowed to ride on the school bus because there was a rule in the district that said, no live animals allowed on the bus, which was well, which it was contrary, contrary to state law, also at the time, and he was a bully. And so he was really trying to just make his position, the only one that mattered to them and disregarded everything else. And it actually took getting the governor of California involved to fix it. But the Governor did. As I tell people I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when the superintendent was summoned to say perminova over it. But the next week I was back on the bus.   Lisa Thee  45:05 I love that. It's awesome. It is so nice to see people that are abusing positions of power and authority to have some kind of accountability. I'm glad you didn't just advocate for yourself, you advocate for everyone that comes after you, right?   Michael Hingson  45:20 Sure. The The interesting thing about it is we first took it to the school board. And the board voted, even though we pointed out the state law, we pointed out case law my father did that demonstrated that the penal code in California took precedence over a rule in the school district, the board voted three to two to support the superintendent. That's how cowed several of the people were, or just took the position. Well, the superintendents, the boss, and we got to go along with what he says. And that's why it eventually went to the governor. But it was my first lesson in the fact that because I happen to not be able to see, I would be treated differently than than other people.   Lisa Thee  46:02 Wow, that's really powerful.   Michael Hingson  46:07 But it happens. And, you know,   Lisa Thee  46:09 I'm glad that you have a family that supports you, not everybody has the luxury of a functional family, to advocate for them. And that's why I do what I do. I'm not really worried about this happening to my kids to be honest, I they have a lot of advantages. But there's a lot of kids in foster care, there's a lot of kids that are maybe from families that maybe the LGBT community or other reasons are not under the protections that are. And I want to make sure that we we rise as a society for our most vulnerable, not only the privileged,   Michael Hingson  46:48 well, and you are taking the steps that you need to take with your children so that they grow up aware they grew up, hopefully wiser for it. And they grew up trusting their mom,   Lisa Thee  47:02 we'll see the jury's out time will tell the talks about Stranger Danger online and drives him nuts. Who knows?   Michael Hingson  47:13 That's right. I mean, you know, who knows what will happen, but all you can do is your best. And ultimately, you've got to live with that, that you can only do your best. And, and so you just kind of move forward as best you can. I'd like to read because you brought it up, you've experienced COVID, and so on, and which brings up the whole issue of, of disabilities, which is, of course another whole subject about people and how they treat people and so on. So I'd love to learn a little bit more about kind of, if you will, what happened to you and where you feel you fit now on the spectrum of people with disabilities and what where you feel society isn't all   Lisa Thee  47:52 that great question. So I was early to being exposed to COVID. I got sick in June of 2020. Well, before testing was readily available. And we knew what the possible long term effects of this disease were. My husband got it at the same time, unfortunately. And thank goodness my kids didn't. So very interesting all living in the same environment. But the adults were susceptible and the children weren't. I didn't have a lot of the classic symptoms they were looking for at the time, I never had a fever from COVID. I had pretty mild symptoms, according to the classifications, but unfortunately, it awoke at something in my immune system, that it's still having a hard time turning off. So since having COVID, and being diagnosed with long COVID with neurologic mild neurological impairment, I've lost half my hearing in my left ear, I have the hearing of a 60 something in my 40s I have a lot of Gi challenges that take a lot of medication to keep under control. And I get a lot of brain fog and insomnia because sleep apnea, so I have to be treated for that. And now I'm in the process of physical therapy and occupational therapy to recover some of my processing time and my brain when I'm trying to use my executive functioning skills. So as somebody that was labeled gifted before I started kindergarten, it is really, really hard to manage through the world. At the bottom 2% of the population, it's very foreign from what I've known before now, and I get lost picking my kids up from school. I sometimes am in a room and I don't know why I'm there. It is really hard for me to learn new things. Fortunately, I have a lot of things I learned before I got sick, but I still have a lot of access to. But new things are really, really tough for me, logistics names, things that I would just do without ever thinking about it. And I'm on disability from work right now I'm on a reduced schedule, I have been for a year and a half. I don't want to be put out to pasture I want to be part of the world. But unfortunately, that's as much as my body can handle at this point in time.   Michael Hingson  50:33 I have a friend who has brain cancer, and she's had it for several years, and she has gone through several brain surgeries and has had to work totally from home and not able to an infant back home is right now across country from where she works and so on. So it's it's a challenge. But the fact is that sometimes things occur, and she's, she's going through it pretty well. And she is able to, to move forward, although sometimes there are setbacks, and then those occur, but but she's really, she's really learned to be as strong as she can be at addressing it. So for you, what are they what are you doing, or what what can be done to kind of help some of the issues of the brain fog or the mental activities and so on?   Lisa Thee  51:26 No, I'm the results of my full diagnosis are only about a week old. So I'm sitting with a lot of acceptance right now, that's a big part of the game is just accepting that this is medical, it's not something I will be able to will myself thought of, or practice crossword puzzles and be done with. So I think part of it is reducing my stress around expecting more for myself and what I'm capable of today. I think secondarily is learning to how to have boundaries with friends, family and employers, what is possible for me, my doctor has been a really great partner in all these believing me and helping me get the right resources, make sure that I can, you know, keep my hours down, because I function very well, when I'm not fatigued, I just get fatigued much quicker than most people do post post injury. And I think also, you know, we've seen the impacts of the pandemic, disproportionately pushing women out of the workplace, or back to the 1980s levels of representation. So I feel really grateful that I have an entrepreneurial background to fall back on. I don't think I could keep up in a full corporate environment today. And I'm really grateful for advocates that I have within Funch consulting, that allow me to work and do what I do particularly well, in the times that I can do it so that I can still be part of society and make those accommodations. I'm really grateful for that. But I must admit, it's so really painful. When people clearly are expecting me to do things that I'm just not capable of, because I don't look disabled examples. So Girl Scout cookies for the last five years, totally not a big deal. I couldn't reconcile the number of boxes and what we ordered this year, I just simply couldn't do it. Or, you know, my kid forgot to I drop my kid off late to school this week. And they're like, Okay, you just need to go here into the attendance person and write this email and do this and do that. And I had to be like, I'm sorry, I have brain damage. I am not going to have the wherewithal to do that. On top of everything else I'm doing today, like, Can this be enough? You're seeing me right now seeing that my kid is here with me? Can you make an exception? And I found that unless I'm more vulnerable and actually say I have a disability, can you please? People are really kind of condescending, to be honest. And so I'm still tinkering with it. I haven't really come up with the way to protect my dignity and get the accommodations I need. Do you have any suggestions? Because honestly, I'm a little newer to this.   Michael Hingson  54:24 What did the attendance person do with a fine with that?   Lisa Thee  54:27 They argued with me three times until I said I have brain damage and then they stopped.   Michael Hingson  54:33 Yeah. The The problem is we haven't taught each other how to be inclusive and we haven't taught ourselves to address difference. So you're right people expect you just because you look quote normal and have quotation to be normal, even though in fact you might not be dyslexic. He is a perfect example of that kind of thing where it's an invisible disability, but it affects many people. And people have learned ways to address the issue, and sometimes hide the issue. But they've, they've learned to be able to be successful. And I think the biggest thing is, is what you're saying and doing right now you accept it, you accept the fact that there is this, this change in your life, which classifies you as a person with a disability. And there's nothing wrong with that. If you can address some of the issues medically or, or in some way, and your physical and occupational therapists and others can help you address some of that. And it may be creating new neural paths and of some sort, or it may just be that some things won't totally go back the way they were. But if you accept that, and figure out how to deal with it, that's the best that you can do.   Lisa Thee  56:04 Yeah, I think I'm early in that journey. But I know that that's where I need to go next. And it's funny, I've technically been on disability, because I've worked part time instead of full time for almost a year and a half. But it wasn't until I got that final doctor's diagnosis, that I able to accept that that it's real. And even though I'm living with it, like they didn't say anything in that report that I couldn't tell you what's happening all the time, seeing it validated in writing, with specific tests that they don't know anything about me, and they can detect, it really helped me come to at least say, Okay, I don't need to blame myself anymore for this. And I don't need to hide all the places that are hard for me. And maybe this is as good as I'll be. Or maybe I'll improve over time with new learning new ways. Like you mentioned with dyslexic people. I mean, how CEOs are dyslexic Creative Learning. Well,   Michael Hingson  57:06 that's exactly right. You know, Malcolm Gladwell wrote the book, David and Goliath, and he talks in there about CEOs who are dyslexic, they didn't say anything, but they learned to deal with it. And the fact is, I still take the position that there is not one person on this earth who doesn't have a disability. For most people. It's you depend on light. And I sometimes say that facetiously. But it is absolutely true. You don't have access to electric lights, or candles, or whatever power goes out, and you're not in a room with a window, you're most likely in a world of hurt. We've developed accommodations for that, because we've invented the electric lights, they, yes, Thomas Edison and others invented the electric light. And, and we have done a number of things to allow light to be around whenever we want it. It doesn't change the fact that in reality, physically speaking, most of us still have that same disability.   Lisa Thee  58:12 I mean, at the end of the day, 2021 was tough, I was getting scanned for brain tumors, I was getting many, many medical tests, I probably didn't go two weeks without some kind of doctor's appointment the entire calendar year. And I still had to deliver a TED talk that I get selected for before I got disabled. And when it's really hard for you to learn new things, it's really hard to memorize, even if you wrote the speech. And I mean, until the week I was on that stage, I really wasn't sure, really until the morning of if I was going to stand up there like a deer in headlights and not be able to deliver it because they don't allow any visual aids in the TED family.   Michael Hingson  58:58 And he's they're smart. They're smart. Who needs visual aids? That's what I say,   Lisa Thee  59:03 You know what, you know, who needs them? People with neurological damage?   Michael Hingson  59:07 Yeah, no, I understand. Yeah.   Lisa Thee  59:11 You know, I don't think many people that would follow me on social media on LinkedIn or such would envision that I have a disability. And so I just encourage everyone to be generous with their kindness for people you never really know what people are managing through. Most of 2021 Even though I was named a top 50, global thought leader in AI, privacy and health and safety and they did a TED talk. I was in bed by two o'clock because I couldn't physically hold my head up. Yeah. So   Michael Hingson  59:47 and, and the reality is we we don't need to and shouldn't pity ourselves. Sometimes. Yeah, you have to have a little pity. But ultimately, what we have to recognize is We are who we are, with whatever gifts we have, sometimes those gifts change, but we we have the gifts that we have. And what we need to do is to maximize our ability to use them. And sometimes that also helps us grow and improve our ability to use gifts. But it is ultimately a mindset. And it is a mindset that we need to adopt to basically get ourselves to recognize that we can probably be better than we think we are.   Lisa Thee  1:00:31 And that's actually what's inspired me now to write my book, the 90 day career cleanse, how to go from burnout to sustainability, sustainable living, because I had to learn a new way, it wasn't an option. And I see a lot of people suffering right now with feeling like they can't keep up. And they can't keep doing this. And I want to give some lived experience and some hope and some frameworks to people to be able to make that transition more gracefully. Because it's a lonely road when you're in the middle of it.   Michael Hingson  1:01:01 Well, how is your puppy dog helped you in terms of dealing with all the things that have happened to you.   Lisa Thee  1:01:09 Um, I think one of the strongest ways he helps me as accountability. He doesn't care how I feeling he expects a walk every day. And that gets me out in the sunshine and helps me see the tops of the trees and the blue skies of California and be reminded at how little anything I'm doing matters in the scheme of the world and not to be so hard on myself or others. I think the other ways that he helps is, you know, the, the cuddles and snuggles and the attunement. I mean, you can't be in your head and not be present in the moment when the warm cuddly puppy in your lap, that you're heading, it just brings you back into your body. And I find so much of what needs to happen to get through the stressors of life and mental health, whether that be mental health or medical, or, you know, just the the wear and tear of adulting is getting out of your brain and into your body. And I think that's where animals really help.   Michael Hingson  1:02:11 We have been talking for some time about writing a book, of course, I wrote thunder dog, which has been a number one New York Times bestseller, and it's actually called Thunder dog the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. And if you out there who are listening to this have read it hope you will. Alamo says that it would be really great Elmo being my guide dog. It'd be great if you buy books, because we need to get money for kibbles. So you know, just keep that in mind.   Lisa Thee  1:02:38 More of those donut toys, right?   Michael Hingson  1:02:40 And go nuts. Yeah, well, he's got a couple of he plays with them. But, but the thing about it is that in there, of course, I talked about being in the World Trade Center. And we talked earlier about the mindset that I developed, that kept me from being afraid or allowed me or helped me use the fear, if you will, that I had to help me focus. But I've never taught people how to do that. So we're actually writing a new book, The working title right now is a guide dogs Guide to Being brave, awesome. And we're going to we're talking with people about fear and the things that that they have accomplished and overcoming fears and so on. And of course, we're emphasizing a lot with animals. So if you don't mind, we're going to probably see if we can draft you to be interviewed for the book.   Lisa Thee  1:03:26 Oh, it will be an absolute honor. Thank you.   Michael Hingson  1:03:30 And, you know, we're really excited about it. Because there's so many things that and we've talked about it here that we talked about in our lives, that are creating so much fear, we've got to be able to move beyond the fear. Because if we allow fear to just overtake us, then we are no longer in a good position to make decisions and think the way we ought to about how to deal with whatever problems we're facing.   Lisa Thee  1:03:57 I can't say that I bring my dog most places because I do still have a lot of triggers for my PTSD. I was in a school when they went into lockdown for an active shooter in 2016. And I came out okay, but we didn't know that for those three hours, we were hiding in the dark under a desk, wondering if I would ever see my family again. And then going into Child Safety Online. I I know what can go wrong and a level of detail that most people will never ever have to deal with. And so I get a lot of judgment a lot of times when I bring my dog because he's he isn't an emotional support animal. He has been registered as one but a lot of people think that's a joke and not a real thing. And, you know, I just hope that people can remain a little bit more open that not not everything on the surface is all the story and he really does help me and I'm sure there's other people that maybe take advantage of that system and you know, have fun do all sorts of crazy animals are traveling with or whatnot, but I just, I just encourage people to judge less than accept more.   Michael Hingson  1:05:09 Well, the the issue with emotional support animals in part is even ones that are registered are not necessarily trained to deal with the public and so on. And of course, a service dog or assistance dog is an animal that's been trained to provide a service. And so one of the things I'm immediately thinking of is that you ought to explore the scene, what else you could do or how someone could help you even better train him to help you with PTSD, because that is recognized as a service.   Lisa Thee  1:05:43 Oh, that's wonderful. I'll, I'll talk to you after this. Learn a bit more. I would not put myself it's an amazing drug dog trainer that is not in my skill set of things that I can   Michael Hingson  1:05:54 use. Okay. That's okay. Well, listen, we've been doing this a while. So we should we should end I think, unless you've got something else you want to talk about?   Lisa Thee  1:06:03 No, this was, this was wonderful. Thank you, Michael. How can how can people   Michael Hingson  1:06:07 reach out to

We're pausing The Armor Study today for a very special sneak peak into our virtual Christmas Eve Service which will debut on December 24, 2021 on RCC's social sites. Jim Weaver, Foundation Stone's host, is also the Worship Pastor for Refuge City Church. This year, he and his family are hosting a Christmas Eve Service, and we wanted to give you a little taste of what is coming! Join Jim, his wife Jaime, and kids Lynnae, Joshua and Grace, as they share some timeless songs of the season. And don't forget to set a reminder to join in for the whole service on Christmas Eve! You can find the service on RCC's Facebook and YouTube pages as well as on the website: www.refugecity.church/watchSupport the show

Lynnae Brown (she/her/hers) is a storycoach and the director of Howie the Harp Advocacy Center at Community Access and she is an Unapologetically Black Unicorn. Lynnae shares her journey on how she became the director at Howie the Harp and how they have extensive training programs to teach people in mental health recovery to become peer support workers. They talk about the stories we tell ourselves that make a difference in our lives, the backstory and influence of Howie the Harp and getting people in mental health recovery prepared for a workplace environment. If you or someone you know is in a mental or substance use disorder crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255.

Makani Tabura is joined by the President of ONNO, Dr. Lynnae Lawrence. In Culutrised Episode #3 Makani and Dr. Lawrence connect culture and social issues for both Hawaiian and Native American people. From the past to the present they cover history not known to most. Full Interview Video: https://culturised.com/ #Culture #NativeAmerican #Culturised

In this episode, Madison and Keidyfer interview Janelle Lynnae.   Janelle is the CEO and Confidence Coach at Next Level Confident.NOTE:  Mature Audience; content may not be appropriate for audiences 13 years of age and younger.Content touches on depression and thoughts of deathMild language

Join Samara, Yelena, and Emma as they welcome special guest Lynnae Self to discuss how to uncover the mystery behind why plants can nourish, inspire and encourage!

Join your host Ashley Nicole as she sits down with the CEO and Founder of Next Level Confident, Janelle Lynnae!  This week, Janelle shares 5 tools for building self-confidence along with tips for a good morning routine, she shares her personal story and how she's struggled with dark thoughts, and talks about she overcame a really difficult season in her life.   The girls get DEEP this week! About Janelle: I'm Janelle Lynnae, Founder of Next Level Confident. I help self-conscious women become self- assured.  I understand how frustrating it is to feel like you're not enough.So I started this movement to help women overcome limitations unknowingly placed on self become clear on her purpose & take the risks necessary to live a life she's proud of.  Personally, I am a woman of faith, wife, badass business woman, friend, podcast host, and public speaker.I love weight lifting, boxing, yoga, hanging out on the beach, donuts, petting puppies, reading personal development books & dancing with my husband in the kitchen.Where to find Janelle: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janelle_lynnae/Website: https://www.nextlevelconfident.comWhere to find Ashley: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realashleymora/Website: https://www.prettyhappypodcast.com​

Wholeness, Confidence, and Taking Action is what Janelle Lynnae helps women all over the world unlock in their lives. She started the NEXT LEVEL Confident Movement to help women overcome limitations unknowingly placed on self become clear on her purpose & take the risks necessary to live a life she's proud of. She and her husband Frankie sit down for a very candid and energetic convo with me! It was so awesome! Tune IN! Follow Janelle: https://www.nextlevelconfident.com/ Follow Mike HUEY on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michaeldavidhuey Connect with Mike: https://www.hefluence.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/michael-huey/message

Episode 12 features keynote speaker, confidence coach, and world changer Janelle Lynnae! Janelle and Karina talk about the importance of confidence, tips for boosting your own self-confidence, and how to really become "next level confident." This episode is super engaging and relevant to every person out there-- the goal is to inspire you to break free from those limiting beliefs and take on those risks! Janelle is the Founder of Next Level Confident. She is a Workshop Facilitator and Confidence Coach with years of experience teaching women how to break through psychological barriers unknowingly placed on self. She assists women in STEM industries like Cisco, Madwire, and non-profits like STEMblazers, giving concrete tools to building confidence in the workplace, and initiates collaboration with methods proven to build authentic connections and build a network of support in order to take each woman to the next level. Janelle lives in San Diego, CA, and loves boxing, yoga, hanging out on the beach, reading personal development books & dancing with her husband in the kitchen. To learn more about her mission, head to www.nextlevelconfident.com Thank you so much for tuning in! Here is the link to the feedback form! I would absolutely love if you could fill it out. I am open to any and all feedback that you may have, so feel free to fill it out honestly: https://forms.gle/5Dwy7R2V6tjVA9wt6 Do you want to be a guest on the podcast or do you have a guest recommendation? Fill out this form. Make sure to follow @stick2you_ on Instagram for more updates and announcements! Check out our new website https://stick2youbusiness.wixsite.com/stick2you!!

(September 29, 2020 – Hour Two) In the 2nd hour, I will be joined by the runner-up in the American BBQ Showdown, currently airing on Netflix, Rasheed Philips. As I mentioned last week, while I am not a fan of these styles of…

(September 29, 2020 - Hour Two) In the 2nd hour, I will be joined by the runner-up in the American BBQ Showdown, currently airing on Netflix, Rasheed Philips. As I mentioned last week, while I am not a fan of these styles of competition shows, I have become a huge fan of Rasheed. We will talk about the show, how he got on and how it has affected him over the past few weeks. We will also talk about the Philips Barbeque Company and how that business is going for him. Closing it out tonight is the pitmaster of Sugars Barbecue and 2020 BBQ Central Show Guest Hall of Fame inductee, Lynna Oxley-Loupe. Tonight I will ask Lynnae how this incredibly valuable life achievement has changed her life, how she plans to leverage her new HOF status to her advantage in life and, more importantly, talk about here recent competition steak success recently earning her golden ticket to Fort Worth next Mark for the world championship! BBQ Central Show Sponsors! The BBQ Guru Big Poppa Smokers Butchers BBQ Green Mountain Grills Cookin Pellets Fireboard Smithfield Southside Market & Barbecue - 10% off with code "bbqcentral" The Pit Barrel Cooker Pitts & Spitts The Butcher Shoppe - Save 10% When You Mention "The BBQ Central Show" Smoke Sheet Newsletter - Sign Up Here