Podcasts about unstoppable coach

It is always fun to talk with and learn from executive coaches and those who help shape and train corporate and thought leaders. Today we get to hear from such a person, Lizzie Claesson. Lizzie grew up in Argentina, where she developed an interest in business. After college she joined a company that caused her to travel a fair amount. While working for her company she needed to spend some time in Ann Arbor, Michigan. While there she met a man from Sweden and within a year they were married. She and her husband decided to move to Sweden to see if living there would work out for them as a family. As she says, that was 25 years ago and they are still there.   Her story of how she became an executive coach of leaders is interesting and better told by her. Suffice it to say that now she is highly recognized including having received awards for her work.   Lizzie is the author of several books which are available to you on her website, www.brighterleaders.com.   Lizzie offers us many interesting and substantive insights into leaders, leadership and the challenges many in positions of leadership face. Her suggestions are worth your time to hear. I hope you enjoy our time with Lizzie and that you may find it relevant and helpful to reach out to her.   About the Guest:   Lizzie Claesson, the founder of Brighter Leaders, brings a deep understanding of the unique pressures faced by CEOs, HR professionals, and C-level executives. With a keen insight into the constraints of time and budget, Lizzie leverages her expertise to offer innovative solutions aimed at revolutionizing employee performance. Her goal is to not just meet but surpass company KPIs. With a background as a management consultant and 25 years of business experience, Lizzie has equipped numerous clients with the essential tools and knowledge for reaching their full potential, contributing significantly to both individual and organizational success. Her diverse qualifications include Swedish, Spanish, English, and Danish Coaching Certifications accredited by the European Mentoring and Coaching Council. (www.emccglobal.org) In December 2022, Lizzie's exceptional coaching abilities were acknowledged when she was named one of Stockholm's top coaches by Influence Digest. Additionally, Lizzie is an acclaimed author with impactful works like 'Stop Worrying About How To Level-Up Your Leadership' and 'From Suffering to Surfing,' the latter achieving the #1 spot on Amazon.   Ways to connect with Lizzie:   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coachingbrighterleaders/?show_switched_toast=0&show_invite_to_follow=0&show_switched_tooltip=0&show_podcast_settings=0&show_community_review_changes=0&show_community_rollback=0&show_follower_visibility_disclosure=0 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizzie-claesson-2926636/?originalSubdomain=se Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnx8B006LcMp1w8JM2MBKVw/videos Webpage: www.brighterleaders.com   About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can 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 once again to unstoppable mindset. Wow, we are in a new year. And we get to interview I think a very interesting person today, Lizzie Claesson, who is an author, she has a think a lot of interesting things to talk to us about. She has a unique understanding. She says about the pressures of CEOs and others. She's the founder of a company called brighter leaders. And we're gonna get to all of that. My gosh, has a lot to talk about today. But anyway, Lizzie, thanks very much for joining us on unstoppable mindset and for being here.   Lizzie Claesson ** 01:58 Thank you, Michael. I'm really thrilled to be a guest in your podcast. Thank you.   Michael Hingson ** 02:03 Well, I appreciate you being here and taking the time to talk with us. Let's start. I love to start this way. Let's start maybe by talking about the early Lizzie growing up and all that sort of stuff to give people a little bit of knowledge about you.   Lizzie Claesson ** 02:19 Absolutely. So I was born and raised in Buenos Aires in Argentina, where I still have my family except for my sister. I have just one sister two years younger, and she moved to California to Novato 15 years ago. And that's where she lives with her family.   Michael Hingson ** 02:38 So she lives in Novato, California.   Lizzie Claesson ** 02:40 Yeah, that's right.   Michael Hingson ** 02:42 Where do you know where she lives in Novato?   Lizzie Claesson ** 02:46 I don't know what the area's called. No, I   Michael Hingson ** 02:48 lived. I lived in Novato for 12 years. That's why I asked. Oh, yeah, I   Lizzie Claesson ** 02:53 remember you mentioned that. I think it was not far from where you live. When I looked in the, in the Maps and Google Maps, I think I recognize the area.   Michael Hingson ** 03:04 So she moved to the panel, it   Lizzie Claesson ** 03:07 didn't often matter. And both of us we had we had a kind of a little dip different kinds of education because we didn't go to like a typical Argentinian school, but we went to Scottish school in Argentina. So our education was was in English. And part of it in Spanish, of course, also. And that's what I got, like some kind of exposure to what Europe is anything that has to do with Europe. So to be honest, I really from from quite a young age, I was fantasizing of some time in my life living in Europe. And even though I was working for later on in life for companies that had offices all over the world, in the US and Europe, of course, the chance never arise through work. But it finally arrives through my husband, who is Swedish. And we met in in Michigan in an arbor in the States. And that was 26 years ago. And we got married like after a year. And then we decided that we would like to try to live in Sweden to start with, and if it worked, we will stay there otherwise we would move to another country. And here I've been for the last 25 years. So it has worked.   Michael Hingson ** 04:33 It's stuck. And there you are. Well, that's that's pretty cool. Well, what brought him to Ann Arbor?   Lizzie Claesson ** 04:41 Well, he was working for a company, Swedish company that had its headquarters near Michigan's University. They were working with very advanced statistical models to try to understand and improve customer satisfaction customer employee satisfaction. And at the time, I was working as a management consultant for an Argentine company before that I had been working for Accenture. And they thought that maybe what this Swedish company was doing could be interesting to look into and see if we could offer to our clients in Argentina. So they sent me to the states to see what could be offered in Argentina. And it turned out, but I came back a couple of months later, I told my, my boss, well, you know, I'm moving.   Michael Hingson ** 05:37 Well, so one of the things that that the company brought was your husband to you?   Lizzie Claesson ** 05:42 Yeah. See, there you go from the company?   Michael Hingson ** 05:46 Yeah. Well, that's cool. Well, yeah. So where did you go to college,   Lizzie Claesson ** 05:52 when I went to college in Argentina, so I have my business in my master in business. And then, during my career, I've been, I've been going different kinds of, of course, it's almost not every year, but for the last 15 years, almost one course per year, in different topics. Mainly what I'm specialized in now, which is leadership, leadership, and helping, helping leaders become the best version of themselves and giving them the right tools for that. So I'm doing a lot recently, I've been doing a lot within neuroscience, understanding how the brain works, and how we can use that knowledge in order to progress both as leaders and on a personal level.   Michael Hingson ** 06:41 You talk about understanding the unique pressures that leaders, CEOs, HR professionals, and so on interesting combination of, of people, but you talk about understanding and having a keen understanding of that. Tell me more about that. How did you get that understanding? Or why do you feel you have that? Yeah,   Lizzie Claesson ** 07:02 I could maybe start by telling you how I got the interest. Oh, God, I yeah, I would say it started early in the career because when I was working as a management consultant, still in Argentina, I met, of course, many leaders, I was also doing trainings for leaders and employees. And I started realizing that there were a couple of things, a couple of challenges that were brought up quite consistently, independently of the industry, or the size of the company, or what the company was doing, or, or what the manager or the leader was, the the actual role, what they were doing. And this couple of things I noticed later on in my career kept coming up. So that's why I developed this interest, I realized that, okay, I see that CEO, level executives and HR professionals are facing this kind of issues, challenges in their leadership and with their teams, what could be done to help them. And that's what I've been doing the last couple of years, especially with, with my company, brighter leaders, to try to give this professionals all the support and the tools and understanding so that when they feel a little bit unstuck, they feel stuck in their challenges, they might easily more easily get unstuck.   Michael Hingson ** 08:33 So tell me a little bit more about kind of what you noticed that was going across all industries in terms of the challenges they were having.   Lizzie Claesson ** 08:44 Yeah, one of the things was communication. Many times, leaders felt they were talking a lot with their employees and with their teams. Nevertheless, there was some kind of feedback from employees that leaders were not as clear as they wanted them to be, or that they didn't get as much feedback as they wanted them to give. When talking to these levers, they said, Well, I really don't know what else to do. I'm giving all the feedback I can, I'm being as clear as I can. So that's what I that's when I got the interest to learn more about communication. And I want I did a course to become extended this practitioner and extended this very shortly is understanding the different different communication and behavioral styles in order to better adapt communication to the receiver. And this doesn't mean that you need to become a different person. It only means that you can use the strengths you have in your wrong communication and apply them in at the right moment with the right person to have a better match in the communication. So this Just one of the challenges that keeps coming on even today in my meetings with with leaders. Another challenge that keeps coming up is the very old prolly issue of prioritization and time management. People complaining that time is not enough, there's so much to do. It's difficult to prioritize, everything is important, everything needs to be done. And especially in certain organizational cultures, where there is a tendency to change goals very fastly. Maybe the rest of the organization doesn't really hand hang along with the rapid changes in goals. And sometimes I hear teams mentioning that, you know, this is what we were working for last month, but this month, we don't know, because it changes all the time. So that is one another of the challenges that arises. I would say a third challenge. And this is also something that I've been working more and more in the last years is either leaders that themselves feel that they're not at the level of performance that they once were, or leaders that have someone in their team that are not at the level of performance, and they need, they need help. First of all, understanding why is this so what is the real cause of this underperformance because, as I've been doing in the series of underperformance, both on LinkedIn, in my articles, there might be many different causes, and how you best lead these people underperforming and how you help them get out of underperformance depends very much on what the cause is.   Michael Hingson ** 11:48 Do you find that sometimes there really isn't underperformance? It's a perception more than a reality.   Lizzie Claesson ** 11:58 Perceptions play a very big part in it. Because the truth is that the way we see things, the way we see the world has very much to do with what kind of mental filters we have, what kind of experiences we've had in the past that makes us frame things in a certain way, or give a certain meaning to the things we're seeing, observing. So I say that we have, we have two set of, of eyes, we have the physical eyes, which are the organs from which the images come in. But then we have the eyes of our mind. And what's coming in through our physical eyes is not always what's kind of into the eyes of, of our mind, because we might, it's like, you know, someone is looking at the scenery. And one may feel peacefulness and calmness and the person next to you is watching exactly the same scenery and might feel restless, and boredom. So this is what I mean to say that perception as you as you brought up, Michael is the very important part of it is important to understand. That's why neuroscience is so interesting to me to understand what meaning are we giving to things. So underperformance if we see it in a corporate scenario, if people are expected to achieve certain KPIs, key performance indicators, for instance, imagine a certain number of sales or a certain number in marketing a certain number of lead generations or in finance a certain number of cost efficiency, and they're not reaching them. That's very objective. So it's not perceptions, it's very objective. But what is causing that that might be affected by perception? Definitely.   Michael Hingson ** 13:42 About the whole concept of the key performance indicators, though, in terms of somebody says, These are the indicators, this is what has to be achieved? And do you find from time to time that perhaps the KPIs themselves are not realistic? And how do you deal with that?   Lizzie Claesson ** 14:01 Yeah, that's, that's an interesting question. Depending on what kind of industry it is, it could be an industry that normally has grown at a certain pace and then for different reasons, could be market reasons, there is a little bit of stagnation. But then of course, you have the the shareholders and different stakeholders that will be expecting that same rate of growth, but the market looks completely different. Or a new technology in the market that becomes a game changer, those that are not fast enough to to apply that new technology will not be able to grow as fast. So sometimes the the KPIs might be not in line with what is possible. However, what I notice is that much of the work I do for instance, I try to help leaders achieve those KPIs but not working directly, or firstly, for the KPIs in mind, are working more with themselves, seeing what kind of presumptions or assumptions they have, what kind of limiting beliefs they have, that might be in the way for them to be able to think out of the box. And no matter what the market situation is, find new ways of doing things so that they can reach those KPIs that have been set up by top management.   Michael Hingson ** 15:35 Yeah, and it's a challenge all the way around. And going back to the first thing you were talking about, people hearing and talking to, and my immediate thought was, you talk about leaders talking to the people who they work with, and so on. But what I hear you saying is, oftentimes, they're not really communicating. How do you address that? Well,   Lizzie Claesson ** 16:00 the first thing is helping whoever is in that situation to increase your level of awareness, because it's difficult to change, or what we are unaware of what we cannot see what we don't know. So working with awareness is, for me, always a first step. And once once the awareness is reached, okay, the eye aware is I work with an intention before going to move to an action, okay, we know this, let's act before acting, I like them finding an intention, which will motivate them for the third step, which is action taking. So So where's awareness, then creating the intention that will motivate them, and then finding an action. And that action, by no means needs to be something very big, it could be something really small, we talk about baby steps, and I like that, because rather have many small baby steps, that, you know, they're going to take in the right direction, but having big steps that might be too big for what you can handle, and then you have a setback, you need to redo, which takes more time or energy might be also a little bit demotivating.   Michael Hingson ** 17:20 Yeah, because you really don't know how to deal with it. Whereas if you're guided into it slowly, then that makes certainly a good amount of sense to, to help guide and so on. So tell me a little bit about your business and how that got started. And why you you left working for industry to start your own business? Yeah,   Lizzie Claesson ** 17:44 I never thought that I would be working in my own company. Because I've been working for big corporations almost the most of my career, and I really liked it, you know, whatever everyone says it's you have, you have all the all the strengths of being backed by by a big name, the process is being in place and the resources being there. The interactions with people, and especially if it's a company that that works with, with different markets across the globe, you know, it's it's an amazing experience traveling, as I did for many years, you know, to many, many different countries and learning a lot about different cultures. So so it was not really something that I was longing to. And it's not that I left recuperation because I was tired of it. It was mainly during the time I have four kids. So here in Sweden, we have amazing possibility to be at home with the kids for quite a long time. So I was at home with the first three kids for seven years. And it was a natural step for me because it's all you know, accepted in Sweden, you have a kid and then the social system supports that you may be at home for a long while. And it's in us very positive that small children should be at home with at least one of their parents. So during those seven years, I had enough time to reevaluate what was really important in my life. And I went from being someone that could wake up at five in the morning, drive to the airport, travel to another country work for two days, take the late plane at 10am be back at home very late on the next morning very early. Back in the office again, I went I went from that kind of life into a life where I was at the very slow pace of having you know small children at home. But even though it's demanding in a different way, you can very much set the pace yourself. And it gives me the possibility to reflect on what was really important for me in life. And I realized that being a mother and knowing that now I have children I mean other people Other individuals I'm responsible for, brought something new in my life. And as I was thinking, Now, it's, you know, after seven years now, now it's time to go back to work, I was not as thrilled to go back to that. You may call it the rat race. So, instead of going back to a big operation, I decided to start working for a very small company, not far from home, where I could do my job. And when the job was done, I could go home, and not worry about it. And that was a game changer for me, because it gave me the flexibility of being able to be very present with my children while they were small, and while they were growing, but at the same time, working and taking on responsibilities. And then I got pregnant again, with the fourth and the last child and I was at home again, two years. Once again, I had the chance to think what is it I want to do with my life, both professional and professional on a personal level. And the chance came for me to meet other parents, which is quite useful here in Sweden, you have all this, mums, mainly mums, okay? Mums, communities with more more children. And I, I was in this community where moms were talking about child education, very, very young ages, you know, like 334 years old. And we realized that we share, we have some values, some parenting values in common. And we decided to do something very crazy. And that was, we decided to start our own preschool for little children, without having any experience at all, in the industry. And I don't know, I think they liked my my leadership, style and my skills. So they put me as leader of this project. And we started a company, and then they wanted me to be the CEO. And then the preschool was up and running. And they wanted me to be the head of the preschool. And then I started going different pedagogical courses to understand more how we could give this little children the best possible start in life. And that's what I did for a couple of years. And my youngest son was in this preschool called the kids garden. And that preschool still exists not far from home. And he went there his all the years before starting school. So this was kind of very, very different. And once he started school again, and I apologize, I'm being very long about this, I hope it's not boring people with this story. But I hope they find it inspiring in terms of you know, that if you really want to do something, you can do it. And you don't need to do it alone, you can find help from other people who support you in order to do it. And when he started school, I realized, you know, my calling was not to be at the preschool with the little children, my calling was to do something different. And by chance through through LinkedIn, I met a leadership developer, and she asked me if I wanted to be part of their network. She said, in order to do that, then you will need to start your own company. And I thought, Okay, why not? I started a preschool why not start out quite young company, what can go wrong? What's the worst thing that can happen? And this is also something that I teach my clients, you know, don't be so afraid, sometimes and live, that's the way it is, you know, it has it can turn very, very fast. So don't assume that it's going to go wrong, assume it's gonna go right. And when it goes wrong, then you solve it. And I started my own company, and that was my way into being an entrepreneur.   Michael Hingson ** 24:03 So when did you actually start brighter leaders? And that was   Lizzie Claesson ** 24:07 six, seven years ago.   Michael Hingson ** 24:10 Wow. So you've you've been doing it for a while? How do you look for when so and the company primarily as a coaching company? Yeah.   Lizzie Claesson ** 24:20 primarily as a coaching company. Definitely.   Michael Hingson ** 24:24 How do you tailor and customize what you do, then for for each of the people who you have as clients who engage you and so on, how does all that work? Yeah,   Lizzie Claesson ** 24:37 I love that you asked this question because it definitely is a tailoring for each particular, not company, but individual, each person that I coach and even when I coach teams, each individual is coached in a different way. So what I do is that I have my process and it's all based from my trademark system called MSC and that stands for mindset, skills, and environment. So I have, I have this system, and then I have a process that I use, but what in how fast the process is moved and which parts of the process I use, and what tools are given an exactly what kind of conversations we're having, and how much I challenge or not, or at my understanding, or less understanding, not in the bad way, but more challenging. That depends very much on the person I have in front of me. And that is 100%. tailored.   Michael Hingson ** 25:39 Which makes a lot of sense, because different people have different needs different reactions and come from different perspectives.   Lizzie Claesson ** 25:47 Definitely. And I must say, I must say that I love it, because not one single person that I coach is like, for me, it's not like repetitive, you know, it's not Oh, no, I'm doing that again, or none of them are doing that, again, it's so inspiring. Because each person has you know, it's an all a whole different world. And their stories, even though even though the challenges might be the same, I always say your challenges are not unique, but you are unique. And for me, it's amazing to meet all these different amazing people, because to be honest, the people that come to me, they're not bad leaders, they're good leaders that want to be even better.   Michael Hingson ** 26:32 So if we were to define what a leader is, what is a leader,   Lizzie Claesson ** 26:36 for me, I literally is someone that's leading someone doesn't necessarily mean a manager, not someone that has like the format or the mandate to lead someone, but more is someone that's, that's leading another person helping another person develop, achieve their goals and dreams, be a part of a bigger picture and work together with other people collaborating with teamwork.   Michael Hingson ** 27:10 So it's probably fair to say that leaders may not necessarily be managers, or bosses and bosses, may or may not necessarily be good leaders. Very,   Lizzie Claesson ** 27:21 very well said. Yeah, it's, it   Michael Hingson ** 27:24 is a it is a challenge and probably good leaders who are bosses, also, at least this is my view, recognize when their leadership style needs to let go and let somebody else lead in a particular situation? And they're smart enough to know that. Yeah, exactly. Which, which kind of makes it Yeah, go ahead. Yeah,   Lizzie Claesson ** 27:50 no, I good leader is also there is a quite a big dose of humbleness. And that I like very much with the leaders I work with, that they can they have the humbleness of also admitting that, you know, I don't know this, or I would like to know more about this. And something I hear very often from, from the leaders I work with, is that I'm a good leader, but I'm not, I'm not done. I'm not complete, my journey isn't hasn't finished, you know, my journey is still to, to be developed. And I find this. So. So, so humble, so humble, and I like it very, very much. So I remind myself as well, you know, because as much as I teach my clients, different techniques, and how to use different tools I am learning all the time. So it's, it's very, it's very enriching, I would say, I think   Michael Hingson ** 28:44 that's a very important concept. And it's one that I embrace, which is, we're learning all the time, I really enjoy doing this podcast because I feel I get to learn from everyone who comes on. And as I've told a number of people, I feel I'm not doing my job well, if I'm not learning at least as much as, as anyone else who listens to the podcast, and I really enjoy hearing different perspectives. And it helps me to be able to synthesize all that and to, to be able to take the time to think about it. And I think that's extremely important for anyone who is involved in interacting with anyone else to recognize that we're all students all the time. Really.   Lizzie Claesson ** 29:27 Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 29:31 you have coached a number of people and so on. I'd be curious, do you have a story or can you talk about one particular instance where when you were really coaching you had a really memorable experience of where you helped people deal with key performance indicators or turnaround, whatever was occurring in what they were doing.   Lizzie Claesson ** 29:57 Yeah. Most of the clients I work with not all of them, but most of the clients I work with, come to me because they feel maybe stuck in the current situation. They need help to get unstuck. So for me, it's very gratifying to see someone that's struggling, that comes with low motivation, low energy that once has had, has been very motivated them have had high levels of energy, but they're now struggling. And it moves me deeply. I've always had in me, wanting to help people, I've been doing that completely for free, in my private environments, my whole life very much through church and other organizations. So what's what's beautiful to see, and I have so many cases, but let me mention two of them. And I won't say any names, because I want to respect the privacy of these people. But I can tell you what they were, you know, the role where they were working. So one of them was, was the CEO of a small retail company. And he felt completely stuck and was suffering so much. And I could also see it in the body language, how they were suffering. And we work together. And just in a couple of months, he managed to achieve the KPIs. And this was one of the companies that I was mentioning earlier, that changed their KPIs all the time. So one month is more important than next month, the others are important. But he decided, you know, he was smart enough to decide, I will work with this KPI, this particular KPI, I will work intensively, even if they change it, I will work intensively because this KPI can affect the profitability of the company. And I want this company to be very profitable. So that's what he did, while maybe trying to balance the rest of the KPIs. And in just a couple of months, his level of energy increase his motivation increase, he got unstuck, he was feeling happy, again, he was feeling and all the very, very self secured. And that's what helped him as well make very, very smart decisions and the right decisions for the company and his team. All of his employees turned around the company just a couple of months.   Michael Hingson ** 32:19 So that was all because he decided to just commit to doing work with one KPI or what did you do to make that success? Happy? Yeah.   Lizzie Claesson ** 32:29 Yeah, to make that's one of the things was on a business level he was he decided to go with one KPI. On the personal level, we worked a lot with his self self confidence with understanding that he had some limiting beliefs and identify them. So we work as I mentioned before, having awareness of what limiting beliefs, were finding an intention, what you want to do with that knowledge, and taking concrete action, small steps. And in that way, he started learning a lot of things about himself, and his certain finding, finding back that that guiding store that he had had within himself, but that was a little bit covered by fears and insecurities and assumptions and different limiting beliefs.   Michael Hingson ** 33:22 Okay, you said you had a second story?   Lizzie Claesson ** 33:25 Yeah, exactly. The second story, it's about a woman working as a marketing manager that she felt in, in an international company. And she she felt very frustrated, because she felt she was not being recognized for her hard work. And she felt she was not advancing in her career. And this was very demotivating for her. And she was also suffering from this. And we work together. And we did a lot of work in terms of communication. So that's why I believe that using the different kinds of models and tools, but the one that I that I work with, I like it very much, because it's very simple. It's easy to understand, and is very, very practical to use. And once you understanding and practice it, it's quite easy. And she did such a great work, which was very open to trying new things and testing. So she worked with, with learning more about this tool and how it worked in order to communicate better both with her direct boss, which was the marketing director of the company, but also with management team, and with her own team, and even with other colleagues within the company, and not only in the same country. This was both cases were in Swedish in Sweden. The first case was Swedish person. The second case, she was working in Sweden, but she was Italian. She was working cross culturally, which of course, makes communication a little bit more challenging. And as well in, in just a couple of months, she completely turned around her situation from being unhappy. feeling very frustrated about different things at work, she started feeling happiness again, and feeling that things at work were working well, she was communicating better, she was getting the the recognition that she, she she was lacking. And that was, that was so amazing to see. I was also happy for her and sealer.   Michael Hingson ** 35:38 If you can describe it, what was the basic tool? You said there was a simple tool you used? Yeah,   Lizzie Claesson ** 35:45 it's the tool I work with is called extended test. And there are, as I say, different tools to work with communication. But I find this one really easy because it it starts with you start diving into the tool, just seeing four different main communication styles. Understanding that there are no no bad or good styles, or styles have strengths and all styles. If they are overused, they have negative backsides. And also understanding that everyone is using all the sides all the time, but creating the awareness, where do I have my strengths, because even if one uses the four styles all the time, some styles might come easier easily to a certain person, because there are certain certain what would say core qualities that we are born with them. In terms of communication, of course, we can learn to develop some other styles that we don't normally use as much. So understanding as I say, they're not good about style. It's not about personality, it's about communication, we use all the styles. And then understanding, as I said, you start diving into the tool, looking at four styles, just to make it simple and easy. But then when you're using the tool in in all its its possibilities, when you're working with 14 different combinations of sites in a beautiful map, that's very, very visual. So it's easy to use. And it makes it easier to understand where if I have a challenge with someone, where can I place this person in the map at that certain point in that specific communication? So it's not about labeling people that there's some that is this way or the other, but just understanding in that specific situation, that specific conversation, what style were they using? What combination? And if this situation presents again, how could I need this kind of communication in a way that I match their level of, of action taking and energy and listening? And analyzing? Emotions, you know, what are the different aspects without becoming another person just being myself and using my strengths? So that I'm always in a position where having these conversations is not taking energy?   Michael Hingson ** 38:15 And the tool is called what extended? Disc?   Lizzie Claesson ** 38:18 Disc? di s? C? Yeah, got it.   Michael Hingson ** 38:21 Okay, cool. You've said something that really prompts me to be curious about an idea. You talk about the challenges that people have faced, that you help them overcome, and so on, and talk about humility and so on? Do you find that the challenges are pretty universal across countries? Or do you find that you find you, you observe different challenges from different countries and so on? And what prompted the question was you talked about your own life where you had the opportunity to be at home with children and so on, and you chose to do that. But I can see in places like even here in the US people are going well, I've got to really focus on my career. I don't have time to, to do this or that. Do you? Do you find that a lot of conditions are different from country to country? Or is it really pretty similar across borders?   Lizzie Claesson ** 39:22 My humble opinion, and some people might think differently, and I completely respect that. But from my life experience, I'm over 50 I see that it's not about countries. It's it's about a combination of values, priorities, vision, and the courage to do what needs to be done even when you're afraid even when you don't know. Because the truth is that I think the stakes is the biggest country where you have homeschooling. So people having homeschooling they're not thinking about professional career in that way. They're thinking about how can I give my children what they believe is the best schooling them at home. Now, I'm not saying homeschooling is the best, but I'm saying that being that sobic in the States, I don't remember how much I think it's 1 million families in the states doing this. So it's possible if someone wants not to focus on career or focus in, or you always say, What makes you what makes you happy? What makes you tick? What if you would look back into your life? What is it you don't want to regret? Don't wait until tomorrow. You know, maybe tomorrow doesn't come for you. Maybe things change is someone, someone close to you gets very sick. And suddenly your whole life changes around. So don't wait until tomorrow do today. What you what you can do? I think there, there might be a lot of fears going on, at a personal level. So they have nothing to do with companies. I mean, everyone we all have, I have fears as well, of course. But some, some people are not not willing, or they don't know or they don't have the tools to face those fears, seeing them in the eye and see if they are real. Or it was just our brain once again, because I I've taken these courses in neuroscience that I know that what a brain does is it uses fears from the past and extrapolates them and creates a future that might not at all. Be the future that will you will be faced with   Michael Hingson ** 41:35 and usually isn't know, how do you help people overcome or learn to control their fears? That's a subject that isn't fascinating for me. And I realized during the pandemic that I talked for years about escaping from the World Trade Center, and not being afraid, but never really taught anyone how to learn to control their fears and not be as I call it being blinded by fear or overwhelmed by fear. How do you how do you and and I've written a book, by the way that will be out next year about that. But how do you help people? Or how do you teach people? Or what do you teach people to overcome fears and learn more to control them and put them in perspective? Yeah,   Lizzie Claesson ** 42:25 well, firstly, I would like to say I would love to read your book when it comes out, because it's a very interesting subject. And I write about this in, in my book, from suffering to surfing, how successfully   Michael Hingson ** 42:39 lovely a title. Yeah,   Lizzie Claesson ** 42:41 thank you. This book was number one on Amazon, new release and leadership and management, and you have a chapter about using your fears to feel and your activity. So basically, it's about guiding clients. And this needs to be done in a professional way, and in a very safe way. Because fears, you know, it's like an iceberg, you first see the top of it, and then you start getting deeper, and it can be quite big. So you can never leave someone with opening, opening up and door a box and then just leaving them, you need to guide them all the way. So you make sure that they know what to do with whatever they find. And then we never pushing, never pushing to, for people to open up more that they desire or to talk about something more than they really want. Which is which is really important. Because being in a situation as I am and every coach in the world is that you create a lot of trust, that trust needs to be taken care of, in a very professional way, and always having the person the person's best interest. Number one, but having that said, the way I do it is I help people with with different NLP techniques. And B is Neuro Linguistic Programming, understanding how our brain is programmed, and how we see the world how we frame things, to first identify their fears. And then ask themselves, is this true? You're afraid about this? Is this true? This fear? What is the possibility of this happening? And then I do a very simple exercise when they put a number from one to five, where five is there's a very high possibility of this being true. And there's a very high possibility of this happening. That's a five. So we only focus on those kinds of fears. Anything that's a one, two or three, we say well, forget it. Forget it. And maybe we'll write them and then we I ask clients to break, tear or tear the paper apart and just throw it away in a symbolic way to say that fears you don't. You're not taking hold on me. anymore. And then the fears that are big fears for for the person, what we do is that we try to refrain them. Okay, what is it in this fear that can be used as fuel that can be used in a positive way. And this process, how long it takes depends very much on the kind of person that kind of fear, the kind of openness they have the kind of readiness they have. But I would say that, in not more than two months, people feel, this is what my clients tell me that they are not afraid of that anymore. And then, of course, it's something we need to keep working on, for instance, with affirmations, with vision boards, different tools in order to keep this working for them, because it's the programming in the brain. So fears, fears really don't exist, they don't exist, they're only a programming in the brain. And the only place fears live, it's in the mind.   Michael Hingson ** 46:06 Do you encourage people to take time every day to just introspect or just stop and let let things slow down, whether even it be for me, I like to do it at the end of the day. But I like to analyze what happened in the course of the day and try to put things in perspective that way. And even when things don't necessarily go well. Get to look at why didn't they go? Well, what do I learn from that? That kind of thing?   Lizzie Claesson ** 46:33 Yeah, I love what you're saying. And, yes, this is something that I encourage my clients to do as well I find it, it's very useful, just to slow down, reflect. And when they do, so I always tell them, do it from a neutral place, don't blame yourself, or shame yourself or, or judge yourself, just do it for a neutral place from a place of love.   Michael Hingson ** 46:57 Yeah. And it also sometimes gets back to this whole idea of humility. Recognize that you're not the only person and the only game in town. And I think it's, it's something that we we often don't think enough about that we are part of a community. And it's great to have a team as opposed to just saying it's all about me.   Lizzie Claesson ** 47:24 Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's something very powerful as well, to get past the fears is to focus more on the solutions than on the problem.   Michael Hingson ** 47:36 Right. And sometimes, you may not know the solution, but you can certainly let your brain work on it if you give your brain the opportunity to do that. And you can also, of course, and should ask other people's wisdom and knowledge to help.   Lizzie Claesson ** 47:56 Yes, the more you do this reflection exercises, as you say, if you do it daily, it's an amazing advantage. Because then you give your brain the necessary rest to because the brain is very creative, if you give the brain the time. So you give by doing this, you give the brain this pace, to think out of the box to be creative to find solutions. I remember once being coached, Mike, my coach asked me Okay, so what's the solution for that? And I said, I don't know. And then he asked me well, but if you didn't know, what would that be? Something happened in my brain. And suddenly I came up with a possible solution.   Michael Hingson ** 48:39 Yeah, you never know what's going to trigger. You're coming up with what you need at the right time. Yeah. Which is, which is pretty cool. Well, you have been coaching for a while now. What kind of advice would you give to people who are interested in coaching, maybe doing international coaching and so on? What kind of thoughts and advice and suggestions do you have to help people start down that path?   Lizzie Claesson ** 49:08 Yeah. From what I see in my clients, a lot of it is about the personal chemistry. So find, find someone have an exploratory exploratory call to start with and see if you feel that, that chemistry if you feel understood, if you feel that they are challenge you at the right level, because a little bit of challenging is important. I used to say to my clients, now I'm gonna give you some hard love. So it comes from a place of love, but it's, it's challenging, because without challenge, you know, there's not going to be any any change. So it's good to have someone that at certain point will be challenging you it will, it will feel a little bit uncomfortable, it will feel a little bit hard because change, change in itself implies you know, coming out of your comfort zone. So that's what I would say, it's good to have the chemistry. But make sure also that some of that will help you get out of the comfort zone, because that's where you will find growth in the comfort zone, you're not going to find the growth. And some people I heard was on a webinar during the pandemic, that that we're seeing some people are sitting on a nail, and they're very, very uncomfortable. But they're not uncomfortable enough to do something about it. That's why you need that coach to make you realize how uncomfortable that is so that you make that change.   Michael Hingson ** 50:35 Do you think that people inherently just don't like change and like comfort zones? Or do you think that's something that maybe as much as anything we're taught? We're taught by people not to like change? Well, I mean, we hear people say, all the time changes all around us and all that, but yet, we don't seem to like change. Is that something that we've learned? And we've grown up? Because people have taught us to think that way? Or do you think it's really more inbred in our brain? From birth? Yeah,   Lizzie Claesson ** 51:07 it's an it's a good question. And I'm not an expert in neuroscience, but I'm very interested in it. So as I said, I took a couple of courses, the the way the brain is wired, makes it difficult for us to change because the the brains, two basic functions are to keep us alive, and to save energy. And in order to save energy, what the brain does is that it tries to optimize as much as possible as it can. So maybe you don't think about it, but you probably already start brushing your teeth, starting the same way in the mouth, or you start putting on your shirt, it's always the same hand or you start with you walking or with with the same foot, you know, things like that, you're not thinking about it, but the brain has optimized it to save energy. So anything that means change means that you're going to do something that's going outside from that automatic equitisation. And the brain doesn't like that, because that would take energy. So our brains are wired like that. So it's not our fault in a certain way. That's why change is difficult. And what why the suggestion is that, whenever you want to create change, that's the reason also why have small baby steps is make it so small, so small that it comes like a little bit below the radar of the brain. So it's not going to put any, any difficulties in it. You know how many people go on diets, for instance, and they do it for a while after the while they fall back into their old habits? Because that's the way the brain is wired.   Michael Hingson ** 52:41 And also, though, it seems to me, because I've thought a lot about this whole idea of change. But it seems to me that what you say is true at the same time, when we deal with change. Part of our problem was we don't even want to think about change. And so for the people who do think about change, and who think about it, I realized my brain has made something pretty automatic. But might there be a better way? Would it be better if I brush my teeth a different way? Those people are maybe very unusual, but they're the ones who may be more open to the concept of change?   Lizzie Claesson ** 53:21 Yeah, for me, in business, what I see is visionary, visionary leaders are those kinds of leaders that are willing to change things all the time. They're not afraid of change, and they see change as something positive. On the contrary, if things don't change for a long while, they get bored, or they they try to create change, because no, that's the way they like it. And as you say it's a low percentage of the world's population. I   Michael Hingson ** 53:49 think the issue though, is not so much necessarily. You've got to change just to change. But you should at least think about change and change when it makes sense to do it. Because I know some people who talk about change, and are always changing something. Well, let's try this, rather than thinking it through and thinking about the ramifications of change. And so again, the people who think about change, and who really analyze it, and then create change, when it makes sense to do and their brains have thought it through that makes a lot more sense than just changing to change. Yeah, I agree. Which is, you know, something that's sensible. So you've written from suffering to surfing How did you come up with that title?   Lizzie Claesson ** 54:36 Well, because I serve myself and I realize I realize some sometimes when you're out there surfing in my field a bit like a suffering it's like you against the elements of nature, the wind and the water and the temperature. So, so I that's the way I felt, you know, I don't know when I came up with a name it just happened that I met made that association. And I realized that it's not only when I'm out in the water, but it's also in different situations in life. And you can go from suffering. Certainly when I say you know, your, you have your board there, and you have this huge waves and you're holding on to the board on Sunday, you're being turned around, by the way, particularly go from that, which is the suffering into suddenly, you're setting on the board, and everything is so smooth and beautiful. And you're surfing.   Michael Hingson ** 55:31 What other books have you written? Because I know you've written one. Yeah, I've   Lizzie Claesson ** 55:35 written two other books that are only on their ebooks there, they haven't been made as copy books. One is called Seven actionable strategies to manage underperformance, which is a book that includes the seven highest top top seven reasons for underperformance and concrete strategies of how you can can handle that a guide for managers. And this book is being offered for free. So if anyone listening would like a copy, just get in touch with me, I will, I will send you the PDF, the other book, it's not for free. But we can send you the two first chapters for free. And it's called Stop worrying about how to level up your leadership and be in the best shape of your career. And that's a book that's very, very practical with exercises to do and tips. If you want to develop your leadership a little bit like do it yourself.   Michael Hingson ** 56:42 Well, that brings up the question if people want to reach out to you, whether it's to get the books or material or to explore, maybe working with you and letting you be their coach, how do they do that? Well, the   Lizzie Claesson ** 56:57 the best thing would be just to go to a web page, which is www dot bright leaders.com. And then you can see all the different ways to get in touch with us. And there's a lot of material you can download completely for free. You have my email address or my phone number. So it will be really easy. Otherwise you can find me as Lizzie Claesson on all social medias. So just let me just spell that Facebook. Yeah, absolutely. That would be L I Z Z I E. On my last name is C L A E S S O N   Michael Hingson ** 57:33 Lizzie Claesson? Great. Well, I want to thank you for taking the time to be here. And I love the suggestions and thoughts that you've given us a lot to think about. And I hope people will download your books and that they will reach out to you and I assume that you do coach worldwide? Yes, I do. So hopefully people will reach out to you and, and and explore talking with you and learning from you. Clearly you have demonstrated that you are as unstoppable as can be been you've, you've dealt with a lot of things in very positive ways. And I love that, and you know how to do that.   Lizzie Claesson ** 58:13 It's it's been it's been amazing having this conversation with you. And I love the way you ask. You make it very easy to talk I can't believe we have been talking for for an hour. I know really, really fast. I   Michael Hingson ** 58:28 was just checking that out. And that's what I saw too. Well, I want to thank you. And I want to thank all of you for listening and I hope that the Time passes quickly for you. But go back and listen to this one again, it's think very relevant and worth doing. I really appreciate you taking the time to be with us today. Wherever you are listening to us. I'd appreciate your comments and your thoughts and we especially would love it if you'd give us a five star review. So please give an unstoppable mindset five star review to us. Also, you are welcome to reach out to me and contact me two ways to do that. One is you can email me at Michael m i c h a e l h i at accessibe A C C E S S I B E.com. Or go to our podcast page www dot Michael hingson.com/podcast. And Michael Hingson is m i c h a e l h i n g s o n.com/podcast. And I as I also love to ask him Lizzie, I'll say it to you as well. If you know if anyone knows of anyone who you think we ought to have as a guest on unstoppable mindset, please let us know we're always looking for more people to chat with and have conversations with. It's fun. I'm prejudiced, I get to learn from it. But I also enjoy having people on who are willing to show just how unstoppable we all really can be and really are. So once again, though, Lizzie, I really appreciate you being here and I want to thank you again for taking the time.   Lizzie Claesson ** 59:59 Thank you, Michael, thank you very much.   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:05 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.

In this episode, I get real and raw about the personal struggles I've faced while building my business & how life has been LIFE -ING this year! I dive into the importance of creating a flexible business that adapts to life's unpredictable moments and the power of seeking support and coaching to overcome challenges. From balancing motherhood and professional responsibilities to scaling my business through high-ticket coaching programs, this episode is packed with insights on embracing simplicity, authenticity, and vulnerability in both life and business. Key Takeaways: Personal Journey and Flexibility: I share my experiences of navigating business growth while dealing with personal and professional challenges. Emphasizing the importance of a flexible business model that allows for life's ups and downs, prioritizing self-care and family. Overcoming OCD and Embracing Therapy: I open up about my struggles with OCD, specifically my fear of germs and sickness, and how it has affected my life and business. Discussing my journey through exposure therapy and the hope for resolution to these intense fears. Scaling with High-Ticket Coaching: My journey from inconsistent $5k months to consistently hitting $10k months by embodying my next-level self and making confident business decisions. Highlighting the success of my high-ticket group coaching programs and the simplicity of selling high-ticket services without complicated systems. Authenticity and Vulnerability: The power of being authentic and vulnerable in coaching, sharing my own struggles and successes to connect with clients. Encouraging coaches to show up as their true selves, sharing personal stories to create a powerful and trustworthy narrative. Event and Program Announcements: Announcing my free 3-day live event, “The Wish List Coach,” where I'll teach you how to embody your IT factor and create content that attracts clients. Introducing my new program, The Unstoppable Coach, offering lifetime access and one-on-one coaching to help you build a high-ticket group coaching business. Next Steps: Join the Free Event: Grab your spot for my free 3-day live event, “The Wish List Coach,” to learn how to become a successful coach by embracing your unique strengths and personality. Join here Consider Joining The Unstoppable Coach: For lifetime access to my coaching and resources to help you grow your high-ticket group coaching programs. Join now for $1,500 Join Group Coach School: If you're ready to build and scale your high-ticket group coaching programs with my proven methods. Learn more here Summary: In this episode, I share my personal journey of overcoming challenges and building a successful business. From my struggles with OCD and exposure therapy to balancing motherhood and professional growth, I emphasize the importance of authenticity, vulnerability, and simplicity in both life and business. Learn how to scale your business through high-ticket coaching programs, make confident business decisions, and embody your next-level self. Join me for my free live event, “The Wish List Coach,” and consider joining my programs, The Unstoppable Coach and Group Coach School, to take your business to the next level. Connect with Me: Instagram Website

Derek Healy was born in Ireland where he grew up, went to school and, as he would point out, learned a lot about life. After college he entered the world of finance by selling credit card serves for Bank Of America in Ireland. He honestly talks about his mindset and inner attitudes which, as you will hear, were not so good for some time. He later sold other financial products. After the world financial collapse, as he calls it, of 2008 he traveled around Europe for a bit until he finally decided to make a bold move in 2010. Derek moved to Australia where his brother was living. Again, he worked in finance. Now, he owns his own businesses and has started the hummingbird sales academy. He teaches not only sales, but he also teaches mental attitudes and he shows/leads his clients and students by example to develop better mindsets and life perceptions. Derek also is the creator of the S.T.O.I.C code, a transformative framework, empowering individuals and entrepreneurs, to achieve unparalleled success. You will get to learn all about both the academy and this innovative code by the time our time ends. By any standard, Derek is unstoppable, and he will tell you why this is so. My time with Derek flew by, for me, surprisingly fast. I hope you will treasure Derek's words and lessons as much as I. About the Guest: Derek Healy is a business development expert, investor, speaking and coach. Derek is an Irish Australian immigrant, who has travelled the world trying to find his purpose, He is the founder of the hummingbird sales academy and creator of the S.T.O.I.C code, a transformative framework, empowering individuals and entrepreneurs, to achieve unparalleled success. He is involved in many exciting start ups and is soon to be wed. Derek philosophy centres around core values of integrity, empathy, neuroscience, stoicism and a commitment to lifelong learning. His message if infused with inspiring stories, positivity, gratitude and overcoming adversity Ways to connect with Derek: Instagram: d_real_derekhealy Website: hummingbirdsalesacademy.com About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can 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 Well, hello, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. Today, we get to chat with Derek Healy. Derek has an interesting story to tell a wicked sense of humor. But if we were to really talk about there, he's a business development expert, investor, speaker and coach, my gosh, yeah. But you know, I don't know what he does in his spare time. We're really glad to have him though to be with us today. He's got I know a lot of interesting and relevant things to talk about. So we're gonna get to all of it. So let me just say, Derek, welcome to unstoppable mindset. How are you? **Derek Healy ** 01:57 I am wonderful, Michael. And thank you very much. What a warm introduction. And I really appreciate your time looking forward to having a conversation. Me **Michael Hingson ** 02:06 to will tell me a little bit about maybe the early. Derek, let's start out and get the early part out of the way so we can find out all your early secrets. Absolutely. **Derek Healy ** 02:15 Well, I'll try and keep this as clean as possible. I know that I want to keep this kid friendly. So I will. What Irish, Irish originally, I'm not you can I'm sure you can hear that in the accent. I've been over here in Australia for 1314 years. And as the locks are fading, it seems the accent is getting slightly, slightly stronger again. But started off in Ireland. Relative relatively simple Irish upbringing, surrounded by sport, surrounded by humor, surrounded by bad weather. And then obviously, a pint or two in between. And it brought me over to this wonderful land traveled all over the world. Of course, like most Irish, like most Irish, we invade many countries, but we do it with a sleeping bag and a lunchbox. **Michael Hingson ** 03:08 Did the bad weather get better when you had a pint? Say again? Say again? Did the bad weather get better when you had a pint? **Derek Healy ** 03:17 Well, I think I honestly think that's nearly Irish. The Irish are known for the weather, and they're known for their drink. And I think if it weren't disappeared, Ireland would disappear. They come hand in hand. It's a package deal. So yeah, it's a package deal. But one of my first football teams is down that down the country football teams. And our dressing room was in the back of a pub. It was the old storehouse of a pub. So that's how integrated alcohol and into the Irish community if you like, **Michael Hingson ** 03:51 understand, I've been to Ireland. I've only been once but I was there for about 12 days. As I recall, we were promoting my book vendor dog. And so I was invited over by the Irish guide dog school. And so we did a number of speeches that they had planned for us thoroughly enjoyed the time love the music, of course. Needless to say, as we talked about earlier on the way over on our flight, I was tuning around the various airplane music channels and I heard this Irish music and I was listening to it and heard it was a group called the Mary plough boys. And I learned about them they performed at the castle rockin we were in Dublin a bit and I was hoping to go hear them but unfortunately the one night we had available they weren't performing that that night so I didn't get to go hear them so I have to contend myself with my CDs. **Derek Healy ** 04:45 There you go. What I'm sure that it the door is not closed, the door is not closed, it will be open and they will present themselves soon enough I presume. One **Michael Hingson ** 04:55 way or another we will definitely work it out. So II. So you you were in Ireland, Ireland for a long time. When did you leave Ireland? I **Derek Healy ** 05:05 left Ireland. It. It must have been around it actually it was it was around the global financial crisis, the global financial crisis. And that hit everyone, as you know. And it's interesting. When I look back at it the similarities to now, if you like, from an economic standpoint, and especially in Australia, right now, there's a lot of how would you say, there's a lot of talk in the corridors about how bad things are. And if I think back in Ireland, I don't even think the global financial crisis was as bad for everyone. I think it was more. Everyone was saying it. So people would just get on board and say, yeah, things really are bad. Like, so **Michael Hingson ** 05:46 what mindset what year was that? **Derek Healy ** 05:48 That was 2008 to 2010. So we were we were in Ireland, and the usual stuff, a lot of employers would make their would use that, that opportunity to get rid of a lot of people called Cass. But then obviously, at the same time, a lot of those people would increase the crisis price of living. So things were different things were relatively hard on the surface for a lot of Irish people. But to be honest with you, that that year, that two years that are all that was happening, myself and my friends have never traveled as much we traveled all over Europe. Again, none of us were working. But we found a way to do it. So as you can sort of adjust to the way of life even though things are tough. You actually can do more, when you have less than when you have more than you're doing appreciate us. **Michael Hingson ** 06:36 Yeah. There. There are, of course, lots of hostels and other things around Europe that made it a little bit easier for people who didn't have a lot of money to be able to travel hostels, **Derek Healy ** 06:46 and we weren't quite one thing about the Irish, we're able to talk our way into trouble and out of it at the same time, there you go. So there was times that we were over there traveling Europe, we weren't going to stay, we had no money, myself and a friend of mine, we were nearly going to have to sleep at a train station in Romania somewhere. And then we found these two ladies. And they said right, you can come back with us. And they they let us stay with them for a while like it was it was just an adventure. It was beautiful. But all all all good things must come to an end. So I needed to get my foot down and start earning some money, build a bit of a life. And here Australia opened the opportunity for me. How did **Michael Hingson ** 07:24 that happen? So what brought you to Australia? What made that all happen? **Derek Healy ** 07:28 It's interesting. I've never really been in my younger years, I was never really a planner. Like I never looked at a book and said, I'm interested in going here, here, here, here here. I suppose if I if I take a back step, I think one of the worst things that you can have is almost talent. Because if you're talented, it doesn't push you to the next level, you sort of rest on your laurels a bit. And that was the same with all my travel adventures. I've traveled all over the world. And it was never worth planning. It was always worth let's see where this takes me. And with Australia was much the same. I had a brother out here. And he was doing quite well. That was all the invitation I needed. And I said I wasn't going out necessarily to be with him. But I said, Australia that will do. It was like Tron it was like throwing a dart at a dartboard. And I said, Australia, but I could have very well ended up in Arizona or Nevada, or even California and I could be having this live with you if the if the if the star is aligned differently. But I'm in Australia, **Michael Hingson ** 08:26 what were you doing before you encountered the world financial crisis in 2008? Well, **Derek Healy ** 08:34 funnily enough, I was in the financial industry. So I was with my first ever, how would you say a job out of college was with Bank of America, which was an amazing learning experience water company to work for, I have to say, I don't know what it's like now. But when I was there in Ireland, it was an amazing adventure. Sober was always corporate sales, whether it be property recruitment, or even the financial side of things. **Michael Hingson ** 09:04 Right. Right. **Derek Healy ** 09:05 So a good solid background in corporate selling, if you like, How long were you there? In Bank of America. It was my fault. That was my first. That was my first real job if you like, and it was I accom I had just left college. And through a number of bad decisions in college, I had my mind almost went snap and that was from drug or alcohol or just over enjoyment. So about three or four years of just over enjoying oneself. My mind had gone snap so I was suffering from a little bit of depression. And my mother, I remember my mother had promised the interview and I was driving across country. This is only about 20 years old. 1920 years old. I was driving across country 7am Ice called winter's morning in Ireland. And I pulled up I didn't even know what Bank of America was I pulled up to this complex housing nearly 1000 people. And it was quite intimidating. But look before it before I was about to leave the car I was there, I looked back at her looking for some sympathy, please don't make me come in here, I got the raise of an Irish mother's hand was like, Get get in there. So I went. So I went, I went in, had initial training with the guys. It was my first you're in this environment, you're coming from college and Bank of America is very corporate, you've got the suit, you've got the tie, you've got all of that. So I learned from that, even dressing up. It's like getting into it getting ready for a football game, you get in you get involved, you get ready. And it's like gore time. So even that was a beautiful learning experience. For me just even entering that building for the first time. What year was that? That would have been maybe 2004 2005 something. So **Michael Hingson ** 11:03 yeah, I understand exactly what you're saying it's a whole different environment, then we're, you know, we tend to be used to when we're students, and suddenly you're, you're thrown into this whole different thing that unfortunately, college doesn't help prepare you for necessarily. **Derek Healy ** 11:22 No, it doesn't. It doesn't, it doesn't. And it's it's folly. If you look at leadership's the beauty of mentorship or leadership is you're being mentored or you're being led by people that have done it before. And they can give you real life examples of what to look out for and what to expect. And perhaps the people in certain universities, they're training you for something that isn't real, if that makes sense in training you from from books or from other people's experiences, and they're not able to articulate it or paint the picture correctly. And that, that opens up a lot of uncertainty when people enter the working world. So yeah, it is quite a big culture shock. I'm yet to find someone actually, that can say that college or university prepared them for the real world, I'm yet to meet someone, I'm not sure if you can actually introduce me to someone that can that can attest that. Well, I **Michael Hingson ** 12:22 think something a little different. I think with light here, I went to the University of California at Irvine, which is a research institution, it was a it was a new campus at the time when I went there, but one of the things that generally, we were told was that the junior college or community colleges, and even the Cal State system, which were four year colleges tended to be much more teaching oriented, and I think tended to probably have more people who were a little bit closer to what you would find in a lot of industry and so on. And some of the people came from there, as opposed to most people at the universities, and it isn't a criticism, it's a different world. But most people from the universities are in a much more theoretical world, or maybe in a scientific environment experimental but still, you're right. They don't come from an environment where they think about teaching people to be prepared with for what comes outside of the university, and all those other kinds of things. **Derek Healy ** 13:40 And I think, again, I'm not sure of the university systems right now. But there's a lot of talk about, like safe places, if you like or even even censoring the way people talk or the way people debate. And I think debate is such a beautiful, beautiful thing. And in the years that I've worked 20 years in the corporate space, and I've trained and mentored hundreds of people. But the one thing I've learned with the people that are unsuccessful is the people that are unable to deal with adversity, and they're unable to bounce back from disappointment, or they're unwilling to push themselves into uncomfortable states situations and stay there. That's the difference between success and failure. I think and, unfortunately, what seems to me the trend is universities are sheltering people specifically from those areas of growth. **Michael Hingson ** 14:36 And even there's probably some merit to that. Yeah. **Derek Healy ** 14:40 Which is, so it'll be interesting to see. It's all a big experiment. It's all a big game. So we'll see in 1015 years, what the what the results are, **Michael Hingson ** 14:48 and whether anyone makes a real change. Or the other side of it is the universities do what they do and that's okay. For one one group of people, but still I hear what you We're saying that If college is really supposed to prepare us for life, then there are certainly other things that need to be brought into the curriculum somehow **Derek Healy ** 15:09 into it. That's so true. That's so true. But another thing actually did Jesus on the university side of things. In Ireland, we've got relatively free education system, which is an amazing that we are doing that because education is so so important. But the problem with that is it becomes it, whether it be an industry or not. The problem with that is, when you're unsure of what to do, you're nearly pushed towards University. So even when a lot of my friends were going to university, no one knew what they wanted to do, and very few are doing what they went to university for. But it seems like it's like the next logical step to go towards. And that's not always right, either. It's more following. I don't think university should be going where you don't know what you want to do, you should you should, you should need to have a vision you should need to have because as we know, if you make a decision, whether it be right or wrong, at least you've made a decision. So when you make a bad decision, you can recollect and then turn that into a good decision. And that's even a learning process. But if you're just literally going to university, because everyone else is I don't think that's necessarily your decision. And therefore I don't think the results can be achieved. **Michael Hingson ** 16:21 I think, I think there are too many people probably who, putting it in quotes, go to find themselves. And that's unfortunate if they really feel that they have to do that. They haven't been prepared or maybe haven't gotten what they need from their parents. And I will say there are some who do find themselves. But there are a lot of people who still come out with with a lot of challenges. And it's very unfortunate that it isn't just the academic knowledge, I would like to see people get from college university, but rather some of the other life knowledge that people could bring. And I wish there were more of that. I think you're right. **Derek Healy ** 17:03 I think so too. I think so. But the problem is, though, Michael, if you are lost, you might, you're going to find yourself. But sometimes someone might find you and then you are literally, they'll find you before you find yourself and then you just become their train of thoughts. We're all programmed at the end of the day, but we need to make sure the programming is correct. And it's in our best interest. **Michael Hingson ** 17:26 I know that when I went to university, I wanted to be a teacher, I always wanted to teach, I wanted to do something in the science world. But the other side of all of this discussion is that something happened along the way that caused me to need to shift well not need to but shift exactly what I was doing instead of going toward teaching and I had a secondary teaching credential. But I had been offered an opportunity to work to help make a new piece of technology available to blind people. And I was hired to coordinate a project for 18 months where literally, we put product around the country for people to use. So I was the person who would literally live out of suitcases in hotels for 18 months writing curriculum, writing procedures, teaching people to use the technology and eventually writing a final report. And I suppose you could say that as a result of that like writing training curriculum, I really did start to teach, although it was a little different than what I thought. And then it's and then I went to work for that same company. And after about eight months, I instead of doing the kind of work that I had been doing, was told that I had to be laid off because I wasn't a revenue producer, unless I was willing to go into sales. And what I what I learned, so you'll appreciate this. What I learned though, I took a Dale Carnegie sales course, and what I learned and still believe absolutely firmly today that the best real salespeople are teachers. You're teaching people about your product, you don't you, you can't force somebody to buy unless they really want to, and you might be able to break down their will. But that isn't the best way to sell. The best way to sell is to teach advice and counsel. And when you do that, it will reward you in so many ways. And I saw so many examples of that over time. So I ended up teaching anyway. **Derek Healy ** 19:30 That was Wow. Wow. And you hit the nail on the head the best. When I went into leadership first similar story it was it forced me I was always able to do bring in generate revenue. But when I had to teach people how to generate revenue, it made me a better revenue generator. Yep. Because you need to articulate in a different way you need to influence the people that you're surrounded by. It's a different cell if you like it But yeah, Michael, I hit the data, you are in sales. In the end, you are in sales. You so there you go. Well, **Michael Hingson ** 20:07 the other. The other side of it is that the more you teach people, and you leave it open for them to be able to ask questions and explore with you, the more you're forced to learn, because invariably, they're going to ask you questions you hadn't thought of Exactly. Which is so much fun. And I learned early on when I was getting my teaching credential, that when people ask you questions that you don't know the answer to, don't try to fake them out. Be honest, be honest answer. I don't know. And then go find the answer. I had that happen to me when I was teaching a freshman algebra class, and there was an eighth grader who was accelerated and he was in the class. And he asked the question, I don't even remember what it was. But it was a simple question. I just couldn't think of the answer. And I thought for a second, I said, you know, Marty, I don't know. But I'm gonna go find out and we will get the answer all up on the board tomorrow, and you're gonna write it on the blackboard? Well, when I came in, and he came in, he said, Mr. Hanson, I got the answer. I said, I do too. Let's compare notes. And we did. And he wrote it up on the board. And, and 10 years later, I met him at a fair, and his, now he wasn't an eighth grader anymore. He had this deep bass voice. And he said, Hey, Mr. Harrison, do you know me? And I said, No, I'm Marty, that guy with the question. 810 years ago, this just amazing. But isn't that amazing? It's such a lesson. **Derek Healy ** 21:42 Wow, that that's it's amazing. The things that make such a big difference is small things that, yeah, it's the small things, but it makes a big difference. **Michael Hingson ** 21:51 They make such a big difference. And after I did that, and told him, I didn't know my master teacher, who was also the football coach for the high school came up and Mr. Redmond said, you know, you told him Do you didn't know. And that was the best thing you could do. Because if you tried to blow smoke, they would have caught you. They would never have respect for you, you're gonna have their respect from now on. And you know, that was so true. And it's the only way to do it. **Derek Healy ** 22:17 Absolutely. But I think apart from the fact that you went on the journey with him to find the answer, and you, you didn't, as you said, try and blow smoke, but you're shown vulnerability. And by showing some sort of vulnerability, we can nearly make a connection to that. Even it was funny, I was in a meeting there recently with a another friend, a business partner of mine, if you like, and we bought at the meeting. And I came in, had the meeting. And in my opinion, everything was perfect. Like the appearance was perfect. The way I spoke, nothing was out a turn, every answer was given perfectly coherently, etc. And my friend, his body language was a little bit off, he was slightly slumped. He wasn't looking at the person I was looking dead in the eyes. He was when I observed what he was doing. It didn't look perfect. But before the end of the meeting, the two guys that were sitting across the room, the question came up like what what's your thoughts? The guys directed to my friend? And they said, I'm feeling exactly he's, it's like he's inside my mind. They totally resonated with him. And I had to assess it. At the end of it. I was there. I was perfect in that meeting. Why were they why did they resonate with my friend who wasn't perfect, and they resonated with it, that didn't resonate with me. And I assessed it was that the guys we were talking to Warren perfect. And the fact that I was trying to be perfect, it not annuity alienated them. And they connected on an emotional level with my friend because he wasn't trying to be perfect. Nothing about him was perfect, but they resonated better with them. So sometimes, when we try to be that perfect individual, it's almost create a suspicion to the counterpart. And Shawn vulnerability is more human. **Michael Hingson ** 24:08 And it shows you for what you really are not trying to be something that you're not necessarily at all. I when I speak. I love to speak in person when I can, I will speak virtually, but when I speak in person, I get to hear the audience. And I know there there are a lot of people who say, Well, you can't see the audience. I don't need see the audience. I can hear the audience. And one of the things that I have learned to do when I speak is to put different phrases or different things in sometimes a joke, sometimes just a comment, or sometimes a question that I want people to just somehow respond to. And I listened for the reactions and that has taught me over the years and now tells me how well I'm doing really connecting with the audience. And if I decide that I'm not really connecting, I will change something to connect, because I want to be with them. And I want them to be with me. I believe that as a speaker, I never talk to an audience, I talk with an audience. And it has to be that way, for the best speeches. And so I don't read speeches I customize. And sometimes I've had to do it as I go, I've got great stories about that. But the bottom line is that it's all about connecting. And when you can connect, it makes a whole huge difference. **Derek Healy ** 25:36 That's amazing. So you're putting out little feelers if you like, just get the energy from the audience. And you, you can almost gauge that what type of audience you are going to be speaking to just by the prompts that you put out, if you're like, oh, **Michael Hingson ** 25:51 absolutely can Yes, that's it. Now, having said that, they're all going to try to fool me from now on, but nevertheless, you know, **Derek Healy ** 26:00 the, I recently heard a story, something about I can't remember that term, but it's you may have even heard of us. It was many, about 100 years ago, there used to be a horse, and it was a job as a German trainer, and he had a horse. And he used to go around to fairs. And the whole thing was that he claimed that the horse could speak could understand language. So he used to bring the horse into the fair, and they'd be surrounded by people. And then he would, he would get the horse to spell out certain names, certain words. So he'd asked the question to the audience. And the question could be, what color is this apple, and then the horse would go over and eat spell out red apple, like going over to the thing, he was able to do multiplication tables, he was able to do division. He was it was world famous this horse. So then a couple of scientists came over and they were they're trying to find obviously, some holes in the story. And they wanted to see if it was, if the horse could actually do that. So they went to the guy, they got the guy out of the room, so that they thought that was it. They whispered to the horse, what they need, what they need, what they go to multiply seven by seven as an example. And all the stadium was there, the guy would whisper into his ear, and then the horse, walk over and do 49. But then, by the end of it, they were there. How could it be? So what they did is they got rid of the audience. And then the horse was no longer able to spell multiply or divide. And it turned out that the horse when that question was presented to the audience, and the horse would be going over to the number or the letter, the audience anticipation, the horse would feel the anticipation, the horse would anticipate, he would anticipate, and it was by the feeling that the audience was given that the horse was able to hone in on this. So Michael, you are that horse? So you are a bit better than that is that is what you're doing. You're and you're getting the full feeling from the audience. **Michael Hingson ** 28:05 Yeah, I hear a lot of information which makes which makes it amazing. That is amazing. So what was your first job with Bank of America? What did you start doing? **Derek Healy ** 28:16 Oh, my word. So we went in no **Michael Hingson ** 28:18 keeping besides being a closed model. **Derek Healy ** 28:20 Yeah. The keep in mind, when I got my first job in Bank of America, I was I was leaving college and I was suffering severely from depression severity from depression. Now, if anyone is whether it be yourself or anyone else that knows anything about depression, it doesn't just remove all of your confidence, but it literally shakes you to the core. It's it's a terrible affliction, or anyone. And my first job was actually working in Bank of America in the credit card division. So when I had just finished my train, and I walked into that sales floor, there was about 300 Absolute lunatics. There was I walked in there, the energy in that place. There was over on the left hand side when I walked in, there was two girls running down the full length of the corridor having an egg and spoon race for money. There was someone over the other side throwing darts at balloons that were filled with money like it was, this place was just insanity. It was it was craziness. And there was so much confidence in the place and that was my first job with those and I remember being brought straight to my cubicle. And just so I didn't have to make eye contact with anyone and speak to anyone over straight on the phone, making making cold calls cold call cold call and push that as pushed out as literally banging out 100 Maybe 150 calls a day and that's no joke. This is I hear you 15 years ago is a lot different than it is now in terms of outposts in terms of whatever on a dialer. But as I started as the skill started developing, and as the conversations I started having with these individually was every conversation every sale I made. It was like it was rebuilding a stone wall of confidence that I had knocked down through the years before. And it was an amazing just almost metamorphosis of someone that came in with the most own confidence on the shell, I probably looked okay. But internally, I was broken. But through that through dealing with that adversity, and through learning those new skills, it, it changed who I was, it changed who I was. And I still have those same skills today. But and learned a lot from that experience. But call center finance, called credit card, the hardest thing you could ever do in the situation I was in, and I loved every second of it, loved every second of it, **Michael Hingson ** 30:48 I worked my first job. Well wasn't my first job. But in late 1980s into 1990, I went to work for a company. And they're the ones that eventually asked me to go to New York to open an office because I was selling from the west coast to the financial markets, Wall Street. And we were doing it all by phone. So I think my record was about 120 calls a day. Normally, it wasn't that high because I spent time with customers explaining things about products. So for me, when I had 120 calls a day, I knew that in some senses, maybe I planted seeds, but wasn't as productive at getting sales as I was when I had fewer calls because fewer calls meant I was actually interacting more with customers, which is the way I looked at it. Our bosses wanted as many calls a day as possible. And that wasn't as practical as it should have been. But we over achieve goals. So it was okay. **Derek Healy ** 31:47 Yeah, and I think that, that that is a train of thought in sales is it's a numbers game. And to a certain extent that is true, but it's about the value you're having with the customers. That's where the true change can happen. Yeah, **Michael Hingson ** 32:02 a lot of people didn't have anywhere near the number of calls, even on a good day, if you will, from a sales standpoint. Because people tended to be way too distracted. spend too much time talking and, and not on the phone. And I love being on the phone. It was a lot of fun. Yep, exactly, **Derek Healy ** 32:21 exactly. I wonder. You say that's a lot of fun, you can easily convince yourself that it's a lot of fun. And that's that's the trick as well, you need to it's a lot of people avoid getting on the phone, because they're, I don't know, it's it's their mindset of I don't want to get on the phone. So I **Michael Hingson ** 32:39 don't want to talk to people, I'm afraid to talk to people, they might ask me something to show me up, which is of course getting back then to our whole discussion. From before, it's okay, if you get a question you don't know. And that happened to me a number of times, which also helped me learn a lot, technically. But when people ask questions, if I didn't know, I would just say, Look, you know, I am not sure. Let's finish this conversation and with other things that we have to do. Tell me when I can call you back, I'll have an answer. And I worked always to have an answer that was so important. And I do that today. **Derek Healy ** 33:16 I like yeah, it's important. **Michael Hingson ** 33:20 So how long would you do credit card stuff, **Derek Healy ** 33:24 did it for two years, you know, a year, give or take, give or take, give or take two years, which is it can be a long time. But I found while I was there. Obviously you've you've I went from severely depressed, a broken individual to be one of the top performing executives right across Europe for Bank of America in terms of the outputs and the close rate, revenue I was generating. So I was riding high. But I always wanted that success. But I didn't even know what what really was successful. What I found during that whole, I suppose year and a half, two years that I was doing that I was still displaying the same sort of habits that brought me Depression years before, the only difference was, now I had a lot more money to partake in certain things. So you've you've you've still got the same How would you put them internal behaviors that bring you back down. And even though used on a on a on a conscious or an intellectual level, you may want that success, so to speak. But on an emotional level, you begin and continue to display behaviors that just brings you straight back down. You're not so Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And that's another thing I suppose in universities what they could teach you. They teach you skills, they teach you skills, but they don't teach you correct habits. And if a day to day and a life style in a lifetime, in a day to day, and even in an hour, your life is just made up of tiny little miniscule habits and thoughts. And people focus on the big things, I'm gonna have this house, or I'm gonna have this money, or I'm gonna have this life, but they take their eye off the ball on the tiny little miniscule things. And that's what makes all the difference. And I did that for two years. But again, all my tiny little decisions were combinated to poor outcomes. Whereas, and I think that's, that's something I learned, it took me a long time to implement certain changes that removed bad habits. Because again, talent sometimes is, is a man or a woman's biggest curse. And you can learn that no matter how bad things are, I can bounce back from us. And that nearly is one of your worst enemies. Whereas if you focus on just the small things you can control and the small habits, it allows for long lasting success. **Michael Hingson ** 36:01 So what did you do after credit cards, property, **Derek Healy ** 36:04 there's a bit of property. It was, this was pre GFC. So property was all the rage, and it was all where the revenue was. That was fun as well. That's when I first moved to the fine city of Dublin, Ireland. So I spent a number of years up there. And we were selling property in Spain. So it was all golf course, beautiful properties. I don't think many of them survived the global financial crisis. So there's a lot of green open land over there. I don't think many survived. But it's, yeah, it's funny. There's, there's always, if you want to go, if you want to make money, just just that money is raining everywhere. And if you want to make it, you just have to go and stand under where it's raining most. And at that time, it was property. But the rain eventually stops. So you need to know when to get out. So yeah, it was it was an interesting, great learning experience there as well. **Michael Hingson ** 37:08 Well, you have, but you have been doing work in the financial industry. And yeah, I'd love to hear more of the other things that you've done since but you've been in this business for almost 20 years. How? Let's say you've dealt with chinzy, you've done with millennials and Gen X and even baby boomers. What are the different groups? Like? How are how is how's all that evolved? And has it evolved in a good way from Boomers to Gen Zers? **Derek Healy ** 37:37 Yeah, wow. The like, in Australia now, when we first came to Australia, how we integrated so well, was our commitment to just and it wasn't even our commitment, how we generate, how we integrated so well, much like most immigrants, you just get stuck in, you just try and do your best. Sometimes it's just a poor food on your table. So you've got that mindset of pushing, pushing forward, that allows you immediately just one of the laws of the universe by pushing forward and doing your very best as much as you can, you're gonna get certain results from it. And we're, we were greeted with open arms by the Australians, what seems to happen with a lot of the younger generation that's coming through, they don't have that hunger to succeed, it's more of a they're entering a safe place. And it's, they're not prepared to step outside that safe place to to succeed. That's why I do I do believe travel does implement certain behaviors that can be so valuable to people. As long as you're not supported by your parents on your trip, you need to be there needs to be an opportunity for you to go very, very hungry. And that's going to be a lot of learning from that. So with that with a lot of the Gen z's. For the last 10 years, when I've been working in this industry in Australia, the feedback from the market is these people are a jellyfish generation, there's not as much they just no one just wants to get stuck in no one wants to do this. And I've heard that so often. But why doesn't someone do something about it then? Like why do we accept those certain things by people? Or why do we? Why? Yeah, why do we accept those certain behaviors from individuals? And a lot of times people will. People will do what they see. I think as leaders, we're leading Gen Z if you like, we need to be living a life that inspires those individuals that they want to follow. So if you've got a lot of people that aren't, you know, will say that jellyfish generation Gen Z's aren't, they don't want to make us well perhaps that we need to as leaders, we need to be living lives that they want to emulate. They want to follow because there is a lot of people that they just don't dare look, no one wants To do nothing, people want to be inspired, once they're inspired, they will push true. And I think what's lacking with Gen Z is inspiration, there is not enough people to inspire them to on a path that they want to follow, or they need to follow. So with Gen z's, I've worked a lot with them. It is challenging, because as I said, a lot of them don't want to step outside their comfort zone. And what I found to help them with that was for me to live from, from a leader and from a mentor, to live the best possible life I can with the best possible habits with the best possible mindset. And, and, but And of course, by leading from the front, and if you can do all of those things, no, you're not going to get 100% of the Gen Z's if you like. But what you are going to get, you're going to get the people that want to change, and you can't change people that don't want to change. But when you've got the opportunity to inspire certain individuals, you need to do it right. So do you think that **Michael Hingson ** 40:59 a lot of them feel more entitled, or they want to feel that they're entitled as opposed to have to earn? **Derek Healy ** 41:07 Well, there is that of course, like, yes, there's a certain level of entitlement that is a really entitlement, because again, a lot of times, they'll want to fool, okay, well, this is what it is to change yourself. Okay. So as an example, from a diet standpoint, it's not hard to have the perfect physique. To eat perfect to do things as close to perfect as you can. That's not hard. Conceptually, that's not hard. But to implement that, and to actually stand by your diet, to stand by your exercise routine, something as simple as this. It's a lot easier to not do that. The simple things are easy to do. But the simple things are easy not to do. That's the problem. And it's a lot easier to focus on external matters, as opposed to internal matters. And I think that's what it is, a lot of the Gen Z's if you like, it's easier to focus on things that are outside their control, and focus all their attention on that or even use that as a leverage than it is to focus on the simple things of the internal because that's, that's the easiest to do. And it's the easiest to not to do. And I think that's where the thing is, but I think that comes back to inspiration. When I've worked with individuals. They see the work ethic, they see the true desire to help these individuals. And that can inspire people. So I think as leaders, I think the Gen Z's yes, there might be entitled, but what about the leaders? What are the leaders do about that? **Michael Hingson ** 42:43 So course always the question, Well, what about the millennials and the Gen X's? **Derek Healy ** 42:49 The millennials, the Gen X's? Yeah. But again, they're the leaders that came before. They're the leaders that came before. And if I hear a lot of them, like I speak with them, I hope none of them are gonna listen to this after but I speak to them every day from a consultancy standpoint. And a lot of those individuals will complain about the people that are in their organization. But what are they doing about it? And exactly? What are they doing about it? How are you making a difference, you can ask, push people to change, you need to lead people to change. And I'll be speaking to these business owners, these millionaire business owners, they'll be able to shape their business will be rolling to a certain extent. But there'll be big holes in their business and in their own personal life. If that's the case, how are you meant to be inspired these individuals? So a lot of people even with from a business owner, they were looked at the Gen Z's or the or the Gen Y's or they looked at other individuals and say they are not doing what they're supposed to be doing. But that's deflecting from themselves. Are they truly doing what they are supposed to do to inspire? **Michael Hingson ** 43:53 Yeah, a lot of it has to absolutely do with inspiration, because people are going to relate to people they can look up to or that they can admire. And if leaders aren't doing that, then that's a problem. And one of the things that I've said many times is that bosses are not necessarily leaders and leaders are not necessarily bosses. One of the things that I did whenever I hired a salesperson, in our initial meetings after they joined, I would say, let me explain what are our roles here are, you're here to sell. I'm not here to tell you how to sell because I hired you assuming that assuming that you know how to sell. What you and I need to figure out is what I can best do to help you and add value to what you do to make you as successful as possible. And that's going to be different for every single person who I hire because they all have different talents and the people who got that leveraged me in many different ways and it worked out really well the people who didn't do Just plodding along as they usually do. And they didn't last very long. But the people who got it really put it to use. And we talked about, like what I thought I could add in a way of value to what they do in terms of being a sales guy, but also being technical and a physicist and being blind, I learned to listen very well, most of the time, my wife didn't always agree, but when, anyway, but but the bottom line is that the fact is, I would be able to add value to them. And they took great advantage of it, which I loved. Because they were more successful. That just we worked as a team, we created a team and it worked. **Derek Healy ** 45:44 That is it. We are very aligned with our concepts there. We are very, very, very aligned with our concepts. And yeah, I think, yeah, that too much of it's too much, too many people are being pushed from the back, as opposed to being led from the front. And you as a leader did the right thing there by finding how can I make you better, that's all I'm here to do is make you better. So that's beautiful. And look, **Michael Hingson ** 46:11 if we made mistakes along the way, admit it and fix it. There you go. But most of the time, it's easy. I think that's **Derek Healy ** 46:20 what a lot of times, that's an interesting one actually. Even getting back to school, like in school. I even remember for myself, you get asked a question. And sometimes you'd be afraid to try and answer the question because you could be wrong. So you nearly get this PTSD of being wrong. And perfection shouldn't. When you're afraid of being wrong, then you're afraid of making decisions. And if you're afraid of making decisions, you're going to welcome procrastination. making the wrong decision is in theory, it can be the right decision. Because once you make a wrong decision, it's easy to rectify your path and get on the right course. But you just need to make a decision, you need to make a choice. Yeah. So if you if you can harbor, that environment, where mistakes are good, as long as you rectify them very, very fast. Decisions are good. If you can, if you can harbor that type of environment. That's an environment where people are willing to learn. And that's that's where I've had success, I suppose in any of the any of the roles that I've been in. **Michael Hingson ** 47:31 Yeah. And I think it's important that we always learn. The best teachers are also good learners. **Derek Healy ** 47:38 Yes, yes. Some of the best, some of the mesh, which makes a **Michael Hingson ** 47:43 lot of sense. How do you measure your impact or the impact of what you do? **Derek Healy ** 47:49 The Well, look, if even if you just look at it from a from a sales standpoint, it's always numbers, you'll always just chase. KPIs are numbers, but it was funny. achieving certain numbers has never been, it's never been a hard thing. And you will achieve certain numbers, get achieve certain goals, but it gets to the stage where even those certain things there's not as much not adrenaline, but not enough dopamine that comes from achieving the goals. And I think when I assessed I assessed that a while back, why did I not feel? Okay, were after achieving this amazing goal, why do I not feel happy, it's just like you've achieved that now move on. And it wasn't till I started till I was mentored by actually, it was a former prisoner. And he introduced me to so much philosophy and learnings. And it wasn't about achieving these bigger goals or measuring certain success. We took a backer step, and we just focused on our internal so we, when I look at measuring success, I don't look at the bigger picture, I look at the smaller little things. So to build confidence. That's where success success is meant to give you give you confidence. But I like to do it the other way. I like to build confidence to gain success. So I'll start off by trying to be a measure of success and myself. Now what I mean by that is, I'll be up at 4am I'll be up at 4am I'll drink two liters of water. After two liters of water, I'll do a small bit of stretching and I'll read and I'll journal a small bit, then I'll go into a hard workout. Then I'll go in and I'll have a coffee after that. Then I'll go in and I'll try and inch out ensure that I've got no negative thoughts during that whole two hour process. So by the time that 630 comes or seven, I'll have achieved six to seven things that very very few people will have achieved. I will consider that success. I will consider and that will that success that I got by within two hours. Most people want to achieve in most people won't even achieve that simple thing in a week. By achieving that success, I'll consider that success. So I suppose if I, if I take it back, where I used to always go wrong, where a lot of people go wrong, they'll look at this big goal as a measure of success. And then when they don't achieve us, they feel inferior, or they feel whatever. Whereas I'll take it back. And I'll look at every moment of my day as an opportunity to be successful. And that pushes me forward, like a Concorde plane throughout the entire day. And then the bigger things don't matter, because I've achieved all the smaller things, and then just happened so that the bigger things present themselves, **Michael Hingson ** 50:46 and you've cleared your mind **Derek Healy ** 50:48 completely, completely. **Michael Hingson ** 50:50 So what is it you do today? What work do you do now? **Derek Healy ** 50:54 I do a number of different things. I'm involved in a number of different startups, Mike, well, one of the things that I've always I suppose nowadays, you'd call it ADHD, or you could call it something, but I love looking at shiny things. And I'm always over, over stimulated by opportunities. So I work with a number of different startups in the AI space. I coach people, I mentor people. And I'm one of the founding directors of the hummingbird sales Academy, which is a sales Academy specifically to instill confidence, values, and ambition in in individuals. So it's, it's sales, yes. And sales is something that we focus on and skills and communication that we focus on. But really, our sales Academy is focused on habits, and instilling mindset and habits and individual. And that's where we're getting success from our academy. **Michael Hingson ** 51:54 So is it a virtual academy? Or is it in person or? **Derek Healy ** 52:02 Right now? It's, it's, it's how would you call a blended learning if you like? So what we find is, obviously, if you go to a sales training or any sort, of course, immediately you come back from it, you're highly motivated. And this is the problem. Motivation can dip. So what we find is, even during our two day bootcamp, there's huge growth, huge motivation. There's people nearly doing push ups at the end of it, you don't I mean, just You're, you're ready for action, and that motivation can wane. Yeah, so we blend it in with with weekly coaching calls and conversations to go through things. We we have regular meetups. And of course, then there's the online training, and you need to follow the code for our coaching to work. It's all about mindset. So there is a lot of fitness that's blended in those diets that's blended in those, how would you put it, some people would look at it, and they'd say, Well, that doesn't sound too enjoyable. But the idea is you need to change your mindset and focus on things that aren't that enjoyable. Because once you focus on them, and you master them, and you trick your mind into thinking this isn't that enjoyable. But then you trick your mind into thinking, I love this. This is the best thing ever, exactly what I do on the phone, Michael, you totally enjoyed being on the phone. There's people that don't enjoy something as simple as that. But when you trick your mind, and you consistently do it in your mind tells you eventually that you love this. That's what our program is about. It's about looking at things that you that may not be enjoyable on paper. And it's doing them to a level that suddenly you begin to love the uncomfortable if you like. **Michael Hingson ** 53:43 And of course, a lot of the times that we don't enjoy something or we think it's not enjoyable. There's usually fear or something behind it, that we have to break through and recognize maybe it's not really what we thought. So **Derek Healy ** 53:56 well. There's two voices, there's two voices in our heads, the king and the queen. I could use other other terms, but we'll just use the king and the queen for the moment. And the king or the king wants to do was conquer. You know the king wants to do is conquer. He wants to go out there. He wants to eat only when he needs to eat. He wants to conquer. He wants to build he wants to grow. He wants to mentor. And then there's the Queen, and the Queen wants to relax. The Queen wants to lounge the Queen wants to enjoy the spoils of war, enjoy the spoils of the day. And every single morning, every single hour almost, you're encountered with the king and the queen. And you get to listen, who do you choose to listen to? And that's going to define your day. So when I'm up at 4am and it's pitch dark out and it's raining, and I'm doing pull ups, or I'm doing certain things that and I know there's very few people up. I'm listening to the king. But as soon as that alarm goes off at 4am and I I want to go back to sleep and live beside my beautiful lady. That's the Queen telling me to just sit back, relax, you, you've been working out, you've been doing it too hard, relax, have a little break. So you get to choose to listen to the two voices. So part of our academy is identifying those voices, and working on strategies on how to only listen to the person that's congruent with where you want to end up. **Michael Hingson ** 55:24 At any given time, at any given time, and get the two of them to communicate with each other, the King and Queen should be communicating. But you know, what do you do? That's **Derek Healy ** 55:32 it. And, and our idea was, I went on a couple of years ago, I went to Cambodia and I did a retreat, a silent retreat and meditations and all the rest of it. And it was one of the guys that I worked with. She had said, Derek, you're too Yang. You need to find your Yeah, your your find your Yang, man, your your your to Yang. So you're right, the king and the queen need to speak together. Maybe I don't listen enough. And that's that's also a detriment. So you're right. Maybe there needs to be the two of them need to speak together as well. **Michael Hingson ** 56:04 Yeah. Well, tell me what is you invented the STOIC code? Tell me about that. Yeah, 56:04 the STOIC code as I said, What am I one of my mentors, and even one of my mindset coaches to this day, he was an individual that spent over 10 years in the penitentiary system in America. And he, he identified he, he spoke so much on removing your future self, and purely focusing on your, your, your this very moment in time, and only focusing on this very moment in time. And when I, when I reflected on the success I've had and what pushed me back, I realized there was never really any framework, I had all the skills in the world. But there wasn't really a framework that I followed. Everything was pushing forward, but there wasn't enough. How would you say, the foundation I was building foundations, I was building beautiful, beautiful houses, beautiful lives, but on a foundation of sand. So the story, the story code, it's, it's a framework, it's a framework for communication, it's a framework for influence. And that influence is also on yourself. But it's essentially it's a, it's a it's a way to sell, it's a way to communicate, and it's a way to influence yourself. So the STOIC code, it's built on five principles of story tenacity, objective integrity, and community, our communication sorry. So we've all got a story to tell. And as humans, we only resonate with story. We don't resonate with facts, we don't resonate with features, we don't resonate with benefits, we resonate with story. So when we're communicating with our clients or with ourselves, we need to have a relevant story that is going to be able to have that metaphor that people can connect with. So in our framework, we work a lot on our own internal stories, and being able to identify our clients, external or internal stories that will help influence the communication channels, if you like, the tenacity and our framework is purely centered on unfortunately, it's it's hard work, it's welcoming, uncomfortable. Our objective in the story is understanding this, and this is where a lot of people fall down, they focus too much on the outcome, they will from a sales standpoint, they'll focus too much on closing the deal or reaching their commission or they focus too much on on getting the deal if you like and that certain behavior, that mindset is going to it's going to protect you from a position of weakness in my opinion. So the objective in our in our framework is you only focus on what you can achieve. Now you can focus on your activity, your mindset, your attitude, and you remove yourself from the end outcome of the of the deal if you like and it's fully even put in and then of course integrity goes without saying and the communication side of things is purely based on the communication standpoint your your body language or tone and everything every form of communication that's that's centered around influence. **Michael Hingson ** 59:28 Wow. And it's an incredible code and it makes perfect sense all the way around. Well, I have to ask one thing, there's a rumor about a wedding coming up. Hmm. **Derek Healy ** 59:41 I can't believe you got the invitation already. I only sent that out here the other day. You got it in the post. **Michael Hingson ** 59:49 I haven't gotten to it yet. But I heard a rumor from from a little hummingbird. **Derek Healy ** 59:53 Oh yeah. Yeah, I am. I am to be weird. This coming in this coming December I'm actually to be read. So yeah, it's it's going to be an exciting one. So we're doing it doing it in Malaysia. We're based in Australia here, but my partner is she's originally from Malaysia. So we'll do it on on home soil. In the olden days, perhaps we do a Home and Away leg. Boris? Well, I think I'll settle just for the home leg in Malaysia for this one. So, yeah, so it should be it should be an interest in an affair. It's my first wedding. And I can guarantee you, Michael, it'll be my last **Michael Hingson ** 1:00:36 one in my life. And it lasted 40 years, my wife passed away last November, which you're sad about. But I've got 40 years of marriage, and she's monitoring me from somewhere. So if I misbehave, I'm going to hear about it. **Derek Healy ** 1:00:49 And keep in mind, she is monitoring you. I've no doubt about it. There is no doubt about it. She's monitoring. Yes. So yeah. Well, **Michael Hingson ** 1:00:56 if people want to reach out to you learn more about the the hummingbird sales academy or just maybe seek your counsel and advice or just learn about you. How do they do that? 1:01:08 Absolutely. So you'll be able to get us at the hummingbirdsalesacademy.com Get us at the website, you'll get me on socials, we'll leave them in the links in description. Whether this be from a business standpoint and advice standpoint or just to connect, reach out, we can share a lot of value with each other. And I think connections making a human connection is so important. So anytime, if you're if you're listening to this, feel free to reach out and connect. Laughter. **Michael Hingson ** 1:01:37 Cool. Well, I appreciate it. I appreciate you. And I really appreciate the time that you have spent it's early in the day there. So it's what now about 10 o'clock in the morning. 1:01:49 It's just 10 o'clock. And I've it's been a pleasure sharing a coffee with you, Michael. I'm sorry. I couldn't put the kettle on for you here. My coffee with you. It's been a pleasure. Well, **Michael Hingson ** 1:01:59 I've enjoyed it very much. I hope that you've enjoyed it listening to us. To to Derek and we talk. We'd love to hear your comments. Please feel free to reach out to me Michaelhi at accessiBe A c c e s s i b e.com Or go to our podcast page www dot MichaelHingson m i  c h a el h i n g s o n.com/podcast. Love to hear your thoughts love to hear your opinions. I know that Derek would love it if you'd reach out to him. And wherever you're listening, please give us a five star rating. We value those very highly. And we hope that you'll be kind enough to give us a rating like that. And one last time. Derek, I really appreciate you being here. And this has been a lot of fun. **Derek Healy ** 1:02:44 Absolutely, Michael, absolute pleasure. Enjoy. Thank you again and speak to you very very soon. **Michael Hingson ** 1:02:54 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

The title is only the start of Isis Fabian. As with a lot of people who go through self-discovery, Isis, along the way learned that she was neurodivergent and could be classed as somewhere on the Autism Spectrum. She also learned that she had gifts, some of which made her different than some of her peers, but gifts that helped her function well in society. I am always fascinated to meet so many different people on Unstoppable Mindset especially those who recognize how to learn about themselves and who put their knowledge into practice to better themselves and the world. Isis fits that by any standard. After leaving College Isis worked at a London think tank for several years. While there, she began seeing patterns concerning how people interacted with and treated each other. She finally decided to leave her job at the think tank and joined a tech company where she still works today. Now, she gets to work much more closely with people as a subject matter expert concentrating a great deal on DEI, (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion). I will leave it to Isis to tell her story. It is an intriguing story and worth your hearing and pondering. As I often have said in these notes, and I truly mean it, Isis as an introspective and thoughtful person offers many life lessons that can be valuable for all of us. About the Guest: Isis Fabian is a coach, writer, and speaker focused on expanding awareness, decolonizing thought patterns, and helping people understand and express themselves in order to be forces for positive societal change. Fabian is an expert on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) with nearly a decade of DEI experience, having spent most of that time conducting primary research on the US professional workforce and several global markets (Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the UK, Germany, Poland, India, Hong Kong, and Japan). Fabian's work in research has included nationally representative mixed methodology projects on a broad range of talent cohorts and concepts to develop a deep intersectional understanding of inequity and marginalization in the workplace and beyond. Fabian's areas of expertise include belonging, microaggressions, unconscious bias, intersectionality, equity, White dominant culture, engaging advantaged groups in social justice, women's advancement, mentorship and sponsorship, sexual misconduct, and generational diversity. Fabian has also spent over a year each with professionals in the following talent cohorts, interpreting quantitative data and understanding the common themes in their workplace experiences: professionals with disabilities, Black professionals, Latine professionals, LGBTQIA+ professionals, Millennials, women in STEM, and veterans. This foundation of nuanced intersectional awareness across identity groups and industries, along with Fabian's own experience being agender and neurodivergent, guides how they build accessible content on complex topics, coach leaders from advantaged groups, facilitate conversations about identity and allyship, and envision systems and cultural norms that create equity and abundance for all. Links for Isis: www.isisfabian.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isis-fabian/ About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:21 Unstoppable mindset is on the air once again, my gosh, that's how it used to sound in radio right on the air. I guess we're in the ether or whatever, which is pretty close to being on the air. I am your host, Mike Hingson. We are glad you're here. And today we get to chat with Isis Fabian, who is an author, a coach, a speaker and has a lot of knowledge not only about diversity, equity and inclusion, but interacting with people and a lot of topics that will be fun to go into over the next hour or so. So Isis Welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Isis Fabian  01:57 Thank you so much. Right? Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.   Michael Hingson  02:00 We're, we're glad you're here really appreciate you being here and giving us a chance to chat and help teach us one thing or another. And I think that'll be a lot of fun. Absolutely. Well tell me let's start with you. As as a little Isis growing up or whatever, tell me kind of how things started or more by you going to school and some of the early parts of your life.   Isis Fabian  02:25 Yeah, well, I was, um, you know, I was born two weeks late. So it was my brother I was I was a very big baby. I was always mistaken as being a boy. When I was young. My parents actually started dressing me like a boy because people would come up to them in the street and be like, hey, get get that dress off of it. That's not right.   Michael Hingson  02:45 Where were you born? Where are you from?   Isis Fabian  02:46 Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Philadelphia.   Michael Hingson  02:47 Okay, yeah, that's a dress off that boy. Okay, yeah.   Isis Fabian  02:52 Yeah. And then my parents had a brother who was two years younger than me. And then they're like, oh, we'll just keep buying her boy clothes, because you know, he'll wear them next. And that works out. And yeah, I definitely as a child had a very different relationship to gender, it was so much more fluid, I really thought I could grow up to be a father, I just, I didn't realize kind of all the ways that I would be perceived, growing up into being a woman, a female, and what that would entail. But I didn't realize there was something weird about me until I was maybe in fourth grade is the moment I really want to point to because we had to vote on school uniforms. And it was a huge elementary school. And I was the only kid in the whole school who voted yes, on school boards. And that's when I started to realize that that was when I started collecting facts about myself things I said, or did, they got a negative kind of reaction and started to realize there's something different about me, I don't know what it is, but it's not normal. And there's something about my brain that is different from most of my peers. And that was when I started to collect that information and start really manually observing other kids and people and putting together how one is supposed to act and behave in this particular society. Despite all its absurd norms. I have   Michael Hingson  04:11 to ask, what did you discover and what did you conclude about yourself?   Isis Fabian  04:15 Well, for a while, I just thought I woke when I thought I might be like a psychopath. That was before I finished my psychology degree and realize that it's not accurate at all. But I did eventually discover that I was on some form of neuro divergence, but definitely on the autism spectrum, although by the time I discovered that I was so good at masking that it would be so expensive and impossible to get a diagnosis. And I am so I really just identify as neurodivergent but what it's meant is I see patterns and very complex things right. There's a lot of positives that come with it. I was always extremely good in school. I got the best SATs score in my grade, even though I didn't really prepare my parents never helped me with my homework. They know anything. I remember giving them an algebra question for the first time. And the question he would ask, I was like, Oh God, you know, once tonight I do on my own here with school, but it's still all came very naturally to me. But the social side of things did not so facial expressions, and what they mean and where they come from, I had to learn all of that manually and adapt all of that manually.   Michael Hingson  05:20 But you, you seem to have survived all that discovery? Are you still discovering about yourself?   Isis Fabian  05:26 Yeah, I survived it, I think I would say the trajectory was realizing something is weird, realizing kind of the shape of what was weird. I collecting a ton of data, so that I can act not weird in most situations, appear to be a kind of successful social person. And then finally get to the point where I'm now discovering the superpowers that come with this very active, fast processing pad pattern recognizing brain that are now you know, additive and beyond what I feel like I I noticed my peers and other people can do, especially in the workplace, and things like that. So that's the phase that I'm now definitely still discovering.   Michael Hingson  06:08 So what kind of superpowers?   Isis Fabian  06:11 Oh, wow, well, for one, I never have difficulty understanding kind of complex systems. I'll give an example like systemic racism, for instance, right. From the moment I learned that, that that people who looked like me enslaved people who looked like my best friend, when I was a kid living in West Philly, I knew that I lived in a society where being white was the easiest thing to be. And I didn't have to have that explained to me. And a lot of neurodivergent people, including people with ADHD will describe this very easy ability to kind of recognize and understand systemic issues because of that ability for pattern recognition. The other piece is being able to encode a lot of information very quickly. So in a conversation or in a debate or something like that, I could hear a lot, connect a bunch of dots, formulate a response and give a kind of coherent, put together synthesized reaction, very quickly to the point that I was told it was a problem at my last job, and I sort of figured out how to shut up in meetings, and just just just bite my tongue for a few minutes. So everyone felt like they kind of kind of equal opportunity to participate.   Michael Hingson  07:26 Just because you, you got it, and you're able to move forward. But yeah, I can understand people don't people would think you're a show off, and you're not trying to be a show off. It's just the way you are. But nevertheless, that's how they react, isn't it?   Isis Fabian  07:39 Yeah, I just get excited. You know, and I got that feedback. You're too intimidating. And you really need to work on that. And that was really hard to hear, because I felt like that said more about the other person than it did about me. Yeah, years later, I finally you know, I've tried to think more in terms of impact rather than intent. Part of my problem growing up was I was seen as as very rude because I would just say things that I considered objectively true. Like if someone said, this is such a good picture of me, and I said, that picture looks nothing like you, you know, that kind of thing. Very bad. You don't get good reactions for that. But I was confused. I was like, Why does someone say it's a good picture doesn't a good picture mean it, it looks like you. So I finally learned that it didn't matter what my intention was, it didn't matter if I was right. What mattered was the impact I was having on other people. And if that impact is making them feel bad about themselves or feel inadequate, I finally decided that that was not something I wanted to be doing, and really shifted my perspective from there,   Michael Hingson  08:38 you and Hermione from the Harry Potter series.   Isis Fabian  08:42 That's, that's such a compliment. Thank you.   Michael Hingson  08:46 Did you face a lot or any real discrimination growing up? Or can you can you point to anything that gave you that impression?   Isis Fabian  08:56 I mean, certainly not as much as a lot of other people, but I was certainly you know, other than and marginalized for my my weirdness at times, I think being a white girl is one of the most difficult things you can be as an autistic child, because the automatic kind of communication style is passive aggression. You know, and it's so complicated for someone who has a literal mind and hears, interprets everything literally. Honestly, I was probably spared quite a bit of bullying, just because it was happening. And I probably didn't even realize it was happening. Like I didn't get invited to the birthday party that everyone else got invited to, even though I was closest to the birthday girl compared to a bunch of other people. And I would be like, Oh, it was just an oversight. You know, and I would really believe that and like when someone tells me Yeah, like, she must have just forgot like, even though everyone's trying to like, insult me or push me out. Like I truly would just take everything very literally and take everyone's words at face value. And so I probably was bullied more than I realized I had a lot of moments of girls trying to be mean to me or trying to say something to put me down and I just didn't under Stand what they were saying. I just couldn't process it. And I've just filed away for later than look back years later and be like, Oh, okay, that's now that I've learned the language of passive aggression. That's what that was.   Michael Hingson  10:11 And that probably frustrated them more than anything else because you didn't react.   Isis Fabian  10:16 Yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely.   Michael Hingson  10:19 And of course, the other societal attitude that girls aren't supposed to really be that bright. Right?   Isis Fabian  10:25 Well, it's interesting, because I went to a pretty liberal public school, and I had a lot of teachers, including men who would say, you know, girls go to college, get more knowledge, boys go to Jupiter to get more stupid, or like, it was very in vogue at that time for teachers to call boys stupid and be like, Oh, he doesn't know. He's a boy. And like, especially male teachers, it was weird. I feel like it was a weird kind of brief moment in time. And that's when I was going through school. So I really, until I got to college in New York, and I started to, you know, really come up against sexual assault and that kind of thing. I had no idea I was at such a societal disadvantage for being a woman to be honest.   Michael Hingson  11:05 So you went through school, though, and you certainly seem to survive and sound like an intelligent, normal person to me, somebody who's very enthusiastic, like Hermione, so there we go. But but you know, so you went on, and where did you go to college, or how did all that work out?   Isis Fabian  11:24 I went to New York University. And it was amazing, because I had felt like an adult and a little child's body for so long. And I was just so excited. I was also six foot one, by the time I was going to college and eventually got to six, two, so I was treated like an adult. And I had to exist in the world as an adult, when I felt like an adult for the first time, I still had a lot of those social shortcomings in college. But I had learned enough from my high school experience about how to be a popular girl, you know, and so all the popular girls from the other high schools that came to NYU, all gravitated to me and we all became like this group of popular girls that it was such a weird time, because I had never been in that in that population before. And it was so looking back, I mean, it's very kind of cutthroat, place to be in. And it's, it's a little bit scary. But again, a lot of it what over went over my head. And that was really just the point of time where I kind of became an adult and then eventually really found the people that I wanted to be close to and have as lifelong friends.   Michael Hingson  12:29 Did you find from an intellectual standpoint, though, the college challenged you a lot more than although you are good at detecting patterns and figuring those kinds of things out. Did college challenge you more with that?   Isis Fabian  12:43 A little bit. Some of my classes, yes. Others I was like shocked at how much harder they were for some of my classmates than they were for me. But classes, like in economics college is where I discovered economics. And that was just a huge thing for me to learn, you know, micro economics, the way like tax incidence is calculated and how price elasticity works like these were all these new concepts that helped explain the world around me. And, you know, I took money in banking, I took econometrics, I finally had language and math with which to look at the economy in which we all live and participate. And that that was hugely exciting. It was challenging, because I took pretty challenging classes, but really, really exciting.   Michael Hingson  13:26 What did you want to major in and be when you got out of college when you when you first started, at least?   Isis Fabian  13:33 When I started, I was thinking psychology because I took AP Psychology in high school. That was pretty much the only reason and it was also one of those things where I had this inkling like I might figure out what it is about my brain. If I stick with this, and keep learning more about this. And I if anyone who's majored in psychology probably has had the same discovery that a lot of people with a wide range of neuroses and mental health conditions are psychology majors. So yeah, I was certainly among quite a hodgepodge of people. I did end up doing a double major in psychology and economics. And I came one class short of a minor in Spanish as well.   Michael Hingson  14:13 Wow. So you're you're a pretty busy person.   Isis Fabian  14:17 I guess so I'd love to learn still do.   Michael Hingson  14:20 Yeah, there's nothing better than learning which is one of the reasons I love unstoppable mindset. I get to learn from so many people even though they're short hour long courses. Every little bit helps. Yeah, well, what did you do after you graduated?   Isis Fabian  14:34 So after I graduated, I kind of fell into working at this think tank. I'd worked a little bit at a at a nonprofit in London before that just as like an internship. And so because I had that nonprofit experience, I guess I had and I've done a lot of research for that role as qualified for this role at a research think tank that was focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. I never heard of that before. It was just called Diversity and Inclusion at the time. And it was such a bizarre world because it was this company that had its own, you know, political hierarchy. And it was dominated by white women. So it was that same population that I had struggled with so much earlier. And I barely had the means to deal with at the adult, elite level of adult white women passive aggression, but I, I liked that it had a, you know, social equity component. I liked what we were helping companies do, we putting out research about these topics and consulting with companies to make leaders more inclusive and things like that, but a lot of what was happening inside the company, like a lot of nonprofits, we were not practicing what we preach. I think that's the case for a lot of people who have nonprofit experience, but that's where I was at being there for seven years. And that's where I really got the basis for my research foundation. Now, you said you worked in London for a little while. Not long at all. I was there. When I studied abroad, I had an internship that was one of those brutal parts of my life. I was doing my double major living in London, which I did not like, I did not like London one bit. And doing that internship. So it was very brief.   Michael Hingson  16:09 Big Ben kept you awake at night? Hmm.   Isis Fabian  16:13 It was just not I felt like someone I lived in New York for a while that point, right. So it was like it felt like someone saw London. And then they're like, I could do better. They made New York, they felt like taking a step backward.   Michael Hingson  16:24 Well, still, I'll pop it you gain some things from the experience over there. I mean, you couldn't help it, I'm sure.   Isis Fabian  16:31 Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's my first real professional experience, it was exciting to actually be like working on something that had nothing to do with school and nothing to do with an assignment, right? Like I was researching for larger projects and contributing something, it was a totally different mindset.   Michael Hingson  16:48 So you went off, and you worked for this company for seven years. And then you left or what happened?   Isis Fabian  16:57 Well, while I was there, I by the time I left, I was doing three different jobs. And you could not put everything I was doing in the job description. And that was one of the reasons I left I felt like, you know, I was really being taken for granted. And I was really being worked to the bone, I was having a hard time. But the bigger reason was after seven years, and you know, most of those years spent doing qualitative research, in addition to interpreting a lot of quantitative data on the, you know, white collar knowledge worker workforce, I was seeing because of this pattern based mind, I was seeing these tremendous commonalities across groups, you know, I was interviewing, between the interviews I did, the focus groups I did, and the big online virtual focus groups I did, I must have talked to 1000s of people around the globe, about their experiences. And I started to see these commonalities. But it just wasn't clicking for the people above me at this research organization, I felt like they were always trying to take the qualitative quotes or something and shove it into a pre existing storyline or pre existing story, whether the project was about black professionals or about women in STEM. And I felt like I was having this like mind blowing discovery experience with every conversation I had, because I was able to take all the information from that conversation and kind of aggregated, synthesize it but also file every story away in my mind to come back to for later. And it was a really incredible experience. And after enough time, I just felt like I'm not serving, I'm not doing justice to the people who are taking the time out of their lives to tell me these stories, by staying at this organization and continuing to try to put people into these big data, buckets and warp those stories to fit a narrative. So that was why I left I wanted to go work with real people and support people directly and be a resource for them.   Michael Hingson  18:46 So what did you do?   Isis Fabian  18:48 So I came to a tech company, where I am at currently working kind of as a just an internal subject matter expert, I do a lot of presentations, like I told you, before we started I was just in San Francisco doing an external presentation for our community of lawyers in our ecosystem on implicit bias. I just tried to make that content as accessible as possible for people, I really make it clear that I do not subscribe to 95% of what the diversity and inclusion industry does, because it hasn't worked or it has backfired. And I'm like when I see you know, the scared white men on my Zoom screen. I'm like, we're not here to shame and blame people. We're all here to learn and grow together. Because making someone feel bad has never helped them learn. Right? Like that's that's never been the case. Shame has never served to do that guilt has ever served to do that. And so I really tried to help people look inside themselves, their own intersection of identity, their own set of lived experiences, their own preconceptions, and to interrogate that in ourselves, I think it's really important to reframe, you know, the Diversity and Inclusion and Social Justice conversation is often said To shut up and learn, right? Like you have so much to learn, you have so much to learn. I really think it's a lot more to unlearn, there's so much to unlearn. And we're capable of doing a lot of that by just really interrogating our own kind of beliefs.   Michael Hingson  20:12 It's interesting to hear you say what you did, the way you do that the dis, the diversity and inclusion in history hasn't worked. I mean, that's a very relevant way to put it, because it hasn't diversity, for example. And it's my pet peeve, which I talk about here occasionally. So hopefully, people don't get too bored. But disabilities are not included in diversity at all, it's been completely thrown out. We hear about gender, race, sexual orientation, and so on. But people don't even deal with disabilities. And my position is, that is so unrealistic, because every single person on the planet has a disability. And for most of you, it's that your light dependent, you don't do well when there's not light around, and your disability gets covered up by the fact that a light bulb was invented. And it's a very low tech solution, although we're doing better at making more efficient light bulbs, but still, power goes out, you're in a world of hurt, you know, for me, it doesn't matter at all. But nobody pays attention to the technology that that deals with your disability. At the same time, nobody wants to spend money when looking when I look for a job to give me alternatives that will allow me to do the same thing that you can do. Or people think it's so amazing how a blind person can use a computer. Why? You know, we we really just don't deal with true inclusion at all. And I will let people get away with saying, Well, we're inclusive, because we deal with women and race and so on, but you don't deal with disabilities, you're not inclusive, all right, diversities been changed. But disability does not mean a lack of ability. And it is a characteristic that in one way or another we all have,   Isis Fabian  21:59 right. And people who wear glasses too, right? It's like great solutions there for you. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to see either. And I think you know, when it comes to race and gender and sexual orientation, all these other categories that hasn't been solved for either these organizations aren't inclusive, to anyone if they were then anyone from any background would have that experience of belonging and an equal opportunity to reach their full potential and an equal opportunity to demonstrate that potential. And that is just not the situation that we're in, we actually did do a project while I was at that organization on professionals with disabilities, that was a global project. So I got to talk to people in Brazil and the UK across the US. And these are people like companies, you know, who have I don't know, if you I'm sure you're familiar with the federal government mandates, you must have 2% of people in your workforce have to have a disability if you're going to contract the federal government, and those are the companies right, once they get that requirement. They're like begging all their employees to disclose their disability, but they're not an environment often where it's safe to end for people with visible disabilities. You know, they're not even coming to work to that at that company in the first place. Because it doesn't have those, those inclusive practices.   Michael Hingson  23:08 What's ironic about that is that 25% of all persons, according to the Center for Disease Control, have a disability. Why isn't a 25% ought to have have a disability, or they don't, but they don't deal with that. It's also like, when you're going off and dealing with government contracts, they've got this thing called set asides for women owned businesses, veterans and so on. Nothing for persons with disabilities. And it's it's it's ironic, and we've had mandates, we've had requirements, regulations, and so on regarding internet and website access from the federal government about the federal government since 2010. Yet, overall, the number of or the percentage of websites within the government that are truly accessible, it's not all that high. Right? Right. It's,   Isis Fabian  24:02 yeah, and I always point to that, like, I, when I have these diversity conversations, there's so many people who feel like hyper competent on diversity or whatever now. And I always bring in like, where's your ableism? At work that when was the last time you looked at that, right? We're all at different places on these different journeys. And if you really commit to it, you get to that place where you see the intersection of all of these groups and those shared experiences and disability is one of the most important ones to talk about. Because even with the Americans with Disabilities Act, I mean, we go back not that long ago, we had the ugly laws. And now today, we have, well, we have a lot of people getting long COVID Right and realizing how difficult it is to be someone with a disability in this country. We also have restrictions on how much money someone who is on disability can have in their bank account and you can still pay people disabilities below minimum wage, like we're clearly a country and a government that wants to devalue and marginalize the lives of people with disabilities despite the fact that to your point, so many people have Have them in a study we did actually found that 30% of knowledge workers have disabilities.   Michael Hingson  25:05 Fortunately, like some of the minimum wage things are are getting better like sheltered workshops that were required under Section 14 C of the Javits, Wagner eau de Act are. One, we're allowed to pay less than minimum wage, and a lot of that is fortunately, getting to not be so acceptable anymore. But it's just such a long process. And it shouldn't have to be that way.   Isis Fabian  25:31 Yeah, I love the example you gave about light bulbs, the way I, the one that I give it, I'm sure you've heard this one before, is imagine if you woke up tomorrow, when everyone could fly, except for you. You'd be like, Oh, well, you know, I can still use the stairs or use the escalator or use the elevator, I'll get ready to go. But what about when they start taking those things away, and I build new buildings that don't have escalators that don't have stairs don't have elevators, because you're the only person who can't fly. Now you don't feel like there's nothing wrong with you, right? You just have been made to have a disability by your environment, it's this, our culture, all of us contribute to it. That's why I find it so fascinating people like oh, I've never even thought about ableism and disability before when every person participates in it to such a great extent, just by existing in this society and going about our lives the way we do.   Michael Hingson  26:18 Well, it's really fascinating the way we look at a lot of things, you go into many places of business. And you can go into the break room. And there's this nice fancy coffee machine where you can get hot chocolate tea, 500 million different kinds of coffee, and all you got to do is touch the screen and you're in good shape. But they don't even much make machines anymore, with buttons that would allow me to have the same level of access. And there are some alternatives I can use, if I can afford them, or if the company would pay for them. Like there's a service called IRA, a IRA, which is an app that uses a we uses the phone's camera, and a Kinect with an agent and the agents are specially trained to describe. And they're very well trusted. So you can even use them to go over tax information and banking information and all that because the agents know how to read it and give you what you want. They're trained to do that. And they signed confidentiality and non disclosure agreements. So it's a really sophisticated operation. But at the same time, it costs money. And a lot of companies won't even pay for it. I know a lawyer in Canada, who wanted to use IRA, and she was a lawyer dealing with colleges and so on and at a campus. And fortunately, she and we helped was able to demonstrate why it was valuable for her to have access to IRA to be able to read documents, Ford disclosure and and for dealing with discovery for for court trials and so on. So she more than paid for itself. But it still took more work than it should have to make that happen.   Isis Fabian  28:10 Yeah, absolutely. And there's so many people who just, they can't advocate for themselves to that level, they shouldn't be expected to, they don't want to put themselves in that position. Or they're told, you know, not to rock the boat. And it's just so many so many people who do not get what they deserve and what they are entitled to just to do their job.   Michael Hingson  28:28 So for you, how does your neuro divergence intersect and deal with your advocacy and your your goal of dealing with social justice?   Isis Fabian  28:40 Well, I think like I said, a lot of neurodivergent people or maybe I didn't mention this, you don't really have a passion for fairness. You know, we're very obsessed with fairness, a lot of us and I think part of that comes with having to learn all the rules of this society, right? You learn through trial and error. It's very manual kind of process. We don't kind of, or at least speaking for myself, I didn't learn these things automatically. And so then when I see injustice, unfairness, I just can't I can't just accept it and not want to participate in doing something about it. That's kind of where it started. For me. I was like, I can't What am I going to do go get a job in wealth management or something and what just exist in this completely unfair world where it's all going to be on my mind, I did think about trying to get maybe you get into senior positions somewhere else and you can advocate from there but it's just all I ever wanted to put my passion into and I see how our collective liberation is tied up into this right like ableism is another great example we are all suffering for living in an ableist society every person whether they consider themselves to have a disability or not the ways that we are expected and acculturated to hide. You know, the ways that we need help for instance, the ways that we marginalize and dismiss people in our lives when they fall ill and they need needs support. We've just normalized this, this marginalizing of anyone with any kind of infirmity, or disability of any kind. And now we have all these people with long COVID. And this huge population who are joining the ranks of people who are not served by this environment. I mean, it's just all of this affects all of us. And I use that also talking about like, white supremacy culture, and the way that shows up for white women. One of those ways is perfectionism. You know, perfectionism is killing us. It's such a big part of our culture among white women. And it's, it causes a lot of suffering. These are all interrelated concepts, if we could liberate ourselves from all the things that prevent us from just living as our full, authentic selves, able to participate, fully able to actualize our unique potential fully, we would all every single one of us be better off right men would be better off without patriarchy. And the foreman exists all the pressure that puts on men to be a breadwinner to, to not show you know, vulnerability and certain emotions, to not enjoy certain things or hobbies. Like there's so many ways that that that patriarchy obviously hurts women, but it's also hurting men. And so rich men as well. Yeah, a lot in herds, especially boys today, you know, I I'm worried about how easily radicalized they can be by someone like Andrew Tate, I don't know if you've heard of him, but there's a lot of these podcasters and the Insell world? And no, it's because they have none of these role models, because visible role models of positive masculinity, and there's just proliferate writing, you know, role models of negative masculinity. But yeah, I think once I've really discovered, I have a talent for explaining some of these things to people, I have a talent for creating space for people to explore these things and move along in their understanding and their own passion and activism. And all I care about is, you know, being able to bring that freedom and joy to other people that comes with being able to actualize your own potential. So that's, that's why I guess, you know, if I wasn't neurodivergent, I'm not sure I ever would have gotten to that place.   Michael Hingson  32:05 Well, but you are who you are, and you do work to be yourself. And it's, it's unfortunate that sometimes we we are so discouraged from being ourselves where we're, well, people try to fit us into a particular mold and particular way of, of thinking or they want to think about us in a certain way. And when we aren't that way, they get pretty upset.   Isis Fabian  32:31 Yeah, yeah. And my brothers. Oh, sorry. Good. No, go ahead. Yeah, I just the other, I guess, big pieces, my brother and his journey with bipolar and some really difficult, you know, life experiences has also been the other big catalyst for me. It forced me to let go of everything that was superficial and not important in life, and recognize how much of all these social rules and social success and whatever that I had learned how to perform, was meaningless and not useful, and not who I was not who I actually was. And so it took the kind of safety of that successful, you know, social existence for me to discover that it started shedding those things. But my brother's own difficulty, you know, with psychosis, he disappeared at one point, right, the beginning of the pandemic, we came this close to dying. And between that and the pandemic, it was really the trigger to journey inward to recognize what's really most important to me and to find who I really am. And the joy that has come with that is just something I want to bring to as many people as possible.   Michael Hingson  33:42 I was going to ask you about your brother and what's what's going on with him and just learn a little bit more about him because you guys have in, if you consider what what's going on with him to be a disability, you both have different kinds of disabilities. So how does that interact? And how does, how does your journeys together been?   Isis Fabian  34:01 Yeah, yeah, we definitely both have disabilities. And, you know, at some point he's diagnosed with bipolar is that in different diagnoses, maybe they'll change at a certain point, when it comes to mental health conditions like that. You're you just get to know the person and the conditions so thoroughly that no diagnosis is gonna give you more information than what you have, from your experience with that person. He's doing extremely well. Now. I mean, after this last episode, and April 2020, he went through this like a dark night of the soul in the middle of this, they had like an ego death experience. It sounds like what people have experienced on you know, extreme psychedelics, you know, and he came out of it and almost Jesus like version of who he was before. I mean, he used to be someone who was very antagonizing, very grandiose, very difficult just in a lot of ways. He made my childhood very difficult. At home, just he could just push me to this day, no one can get me to raise my voice except for my brother. And he still doesn't know he doesn't do it. And so now I just now I have a new superpower that no one can get me angry no one on earth. He's just undergone this complete transformation. And I'm so grateful. I mean, it's a miracle that he is the man he is today, given what a tyrant and a demon he was as a child. But he also has suffered so much. And all of that behavior, as it often does, you know, came out of suffering. And so, you know, going on that journey with him having to recognize that someone experiencing psychosis, right, which is literally you're experiencing a reality that is different from the consensus reality that everybody else is experiencing, or that everybody else would agree to. Going through that with someone and really digging deep to figure out where they're coming from and what's happening to them and not coming from this paternalistic, patronizing, you know, silencing approach that is so normalized in our society, unfortunately, as a way of reacting to mental illness and people with mental health conditions. I'm so grateful that our family has never stigmatized taking medication for anything. And he's been able to do so well, I think because he's had just the unconditional love and support of every person in his family. But at the beginning of this, when things really started getting bad, I was not helpful. I was very ableist, you know, I was very much looking down my nose at him and be like, Oh, I can't believe this is happening to me, you know, now I have a crazy brother, you know, like that was, I'm just being honest. Like, I have to be honest, in this work like that is where I was at. And through him, I transformed from that person, to the person that I am now and have a lot more humility, and I'm just very grateful for everything he is taught me whether intentionally or not, I've learned so much from him. Well, I   Michael Hingson  36:45 don't want to give him ideas if he ever listened to the podcast, but now that he is the way he is, does he have a sense of humor? Oh, he's always sensitive. So So has he. So now when is he going to get you to raise your voice just to spite you?   Isis Fabian  36:58 Oh, man.   Michael Hingson  37:02 I told you so don't let him listen to the podcast.   Isis Fabian  37:04 No, no. Honestly, he I can't even tell him about some of the things he said and didn't when he was younger, because it devastates him so much. He doesn't even remember you know, when he's when you're a kid, you're just and you're looking for someone's buttons, you know, you'll say whatever you'll do, whatever. Now He's so sensitive and so sweet. He's devastated to hear about these things is like, oh my god, I can't believe I said that to my own sister. I'm so sorry. I'll never make it up to you, you know? And I'm like, listen, listen. I don't need any apology. Right? Like who you are today is better than I ever hoped that tyrannical little boy could become. So please, I was very we're all good. There's nothing that you said or today does as a child that could possibly taint my experience. So if you heard the podcast, he probably wouldn't. I hope he probably.   Michael Hingson  37:46 At least I'll make him. At least we can make him smile. Yeah. So you're six to how tall is he? He is six, five. Okay, so the two of you got to do great at volleyball. I won't go to basketball but you guys got to do great if   Isis Fabian  38:01 you would think I did get recruited by our high school volleyball coach at a school dance when I was a sophomore. He was angry. I remember anger from the six foot seven man saying why don't I know who you are. But he made me come to a volleyball practice. It did not go well. It didn't go well. Well, it's just not. I'm not that coordinated, unfortunately.   Michael Hingson  38:20 Well, nevertheless. It's another goal.   Isis Fabian  38:25 Oh, yeah. I mean, now I'm married to a six foot eight man who played basketball, you know really well. And he's come back from a basketball game last night. He still plays it intramural and I'm like you better pray. We have kids, they get your your athleticism and not mine. They'll just become another six foot two theater kid.   Michael Hingson  38:43 No kids yet? No, not yet. We actually just got married in September. We'll see there you go. Well, things to shoot for? Start your own team. But you know, I'm, I'm really glad to hear about your brother. And that's great that he's he's really become a person who's a lot more aware of himself and that you guys have a much better relationship. I would think now than you have in the past, which is so cool.   Isis Fabian  39:09 It's awesome. And when you have a sibling you know, they all you went there all you have at the end of the day when you lose your parents like it's so incredible to have that relationship with a sibling and it's so devastating. It would be so devastating to me if I didn't have it. So I am grateful for him and you know, innumerable ways   Michael Hingson  39:27 so you don't have your parents anymore. Now we do we do.   Isis Fabian  39:31 They're getting old though. My dad's about to turn 70 Just you know, they were older significantly older than us and you know, they won't they just won't be around forever. So I just lucky to have a sibling at all, but especially one that I have such a close relationship with   Michael Hingson  39:44 unless they spied you and decide if they're gonna stay around no matter what you think.   Isis Fabian  39:48 Oh, listen, I actually love my parents and hanging out with them a lot. I hope they stick around to 120 that's that's good with me.   Michael Hingson  39:57 Yeah, well I won't be 73 next month, I figure I'm gonna stay around for quite a while yet.   Isis Fabian  40:04 Great, you're probably in better health of identity.   Michael Hingson  40:08 I've been working with that, though, I will admit. So that's true. Well, so in terms of all that you're doing, with with all the learning and so on that you've had, and I know that you obviously love to learn and continue to learn. How is all that impacting or helping you in what you actually do today? And so, you, you, I know, you just got back from talking to lawyers, and so on. So what, what do you do? And in terms of your job, and how has everything made that possible?   Isis Fabian  40:44 Yeah, well, I think spending seven years getting to do this research and talking to people from so many different identity groups has definitely given me more of a bird's eye view of these systems of oppression and things like that, and having to observe my own thought patterns from such a young age. And really, notice the way my brain works and reacts to things has given me I've now learned in the work I've been doing more recently, the ability to kind of bring thought processes into conscious awareness. So for example, one of the things I teach about a lot is implicit bias, right. And most unconscious bias trainings are not impactful. In fact, many of them backfire. And they often consist of listing stereotypes about different groups and how you shouldn't believe these things. But what I do is not just explain the different types of implicit bias, but really explain how they work and how they feel when they show up in our minds, and how we can deconstruct our use of biases and our use of mental shortcuts in our own thinking in our own minds. And I always give examples, right? Like I I'll give like 10 examples in a given presentation. One off the top of my head is like, I noticed one day as I was on a crowded subway platform going up the stairs that I didn't get out of the way for a black man. But I did get out of the way for a white guy. And I just noticed that it happened, kind of back to Mac. And then I realized like, oh, wait, what was that? Like, I had noticed that. And that's part of my neuro divergence is I noticed a lot, I noticed so many things in my environment, I noticed. And I just collect information. And so now I have the skill set to actually look at that information. And identify Is there a bias there? So for most people, you know, they don't even notice moments like that, but I use those examples, because then people might look for those moments in their own lives. And then I'll use others of you know, say, I'm interacting with a new colleague, and I leave the interaction with a negative feeling about them, or a negative feeling about myself, you know, we have the capacity to go back and, and reflect on that interaction, reflect on where that feeling came from, what was the triggering moment, what was the impression that I had of that person. And then to realize, maybe the person that I thought was arrogant, right is actually someone that I feel intimidated by, or I feel threatened by. And if they had been a different gender, or if they had been older than me instead of younger, or if they had been the from the same group as me or anything like that, I might not have had that reaction. But we have to take the time to actually reflect on those things to recognize where we might be relying on a bias or a mental shortcut. Instead of just assuming this, this false notion of objectivity. Nobody can be objective, even our visual world, and it's so hard for sighted people to understand, but the visual world is not an objective reality, right? I'm also an avid lucid dreamer. And so I wake up in dreams all the time. I'm like, this looks exactly the same, you know, it's the same. And I'm being you know, my brain thinks it's the same everything's it's real, right? I just in the middle of this book, The Case Against reality by a Donald D. Hoffman that deconstructs how, essentially, the visual world is just like a computer screen, it's just a way of interacting with a more complex system than we could possibly comprehend. And so we have this belief and objectivity you see with optical illusions and things that can trick you and show you like, actually, this is not objective at all. And so if our visual field isn't objective, certainly our thoughts and beliefs about other people are not objective.   Michael Hingson  44:21 Something that comes to mind is when you notice something, like are you reacted to someone or are you You moved out of the way for the white guy and you didn't find the black guy? Do you learn from those things and you you have enough of an introspection in your in your body and your soul that you can then learn from those things and not do it more in the future? Do you have to analyze it a lot and then make a decision or how does all that work for you?   Isis Fabian  44:55 Yeah, so it does, again, as someone who has been in constant self reference my whole On life to to recalibrate my behavior to be normal, I've just taken that system and applied it to recalibrating my behavior to be not racist and not ableist. And these other things, right. But what I've noticed is, in anyone who does this work on themselves, we'll get to this place as well, you just lose interest in more homogenous media and things like that. And you start developing more of an interest in different stories, and you start developing an interest in film and TV shows and books that are being written and produced by people from groups that you're not familiar with, because that's what changes in your mind this kind of implicit hierarchy that we already have there, right? For instance, there are so many people who don't know someone with a disability. And so where are they getting their information about people disabilities from? Right, they know they exist, so you must be getting them from somewhere. And it's not, it's usually from a very biased source. If you think about it, right, the more they make it up, or they or they make it up, but it's still, I would argue, coming from a seed of ableism, that is planted in our society, right? They see the handicap parking spots, and they see, you know, the way people are depicted in the media, they see the way their parents tell them, like don't look at that person in a wheelchair, don't do that, you know, like they that's, that's all data that we're taking in. And it leads us to have these these views. So once you realize that you have those views, and you're behaving that way, then you automatically start seeking out a much different world of media and entertainment and influencers that you're following, and voices and pod tests and, you know, spaces you go to and people you hang out with. And all of that starts to evolve and that on its own will also do a lot to deconstruct those automatic behaviors that we aren't as aware of,   Michael Hingson  46:50 can we all learn to be more introspective and more self analytical than we tend to be?   Isis Fabian  46:56 I think so I'm hopeful that we can take more notice of our choices, and ask ourselves why I made the choice why I felt that way. Another example I gave was, um, you know, and a lot of it has to do with coming into the present to so people who meditate or who work on that if you're already living in the present, you're gonna be much better at noticing these things. Another example I gave was, I was just in Mexico for my honeymoon. And when I was choosing a place to sit on the beach, or by the pool, if there was a Mexican family right next to that area, I didn't really think about the way that I might be taking up space or if I was intruding on their space, because you know, I have my own space of this cabana. Right. But if there's a white family or another white couple, especially, God forbid, attractive, like, from God knows what country right there, right, I would have that more conscious like that trepidation, but just making sure they don't feel like I'm encroaching on their space, I might approach from the other side like, and we just do these things automatically. If we don't bring ourselves into the moment and start reflecting on our own behaviors sitting down at the end of the day, and reflecting on the conversations we've had the ways we reacted to different people, the times that we felt, you know, defensive, the times that we felt irritated, and really look at what triggered those feelings and where they came from, then we're not going to change these behaviors. And unfortunately, I think a lot of people today when it comes to social justice, diversity and inclusion, they think, Oh, I have no power, I can't do anything, I can't change anything. The reality is that we are all part of the fabric of oppression that other people are experiencing.   Michael Hingson  48:32 Do you think that if you were to go back down to Mexico and go to a beach and discover that you were coming up to an attractive white couple now that you would react differently now that you've noticed that?   Isis Fabian  48:43 I think I just wouldn't Yeah, I think I wouldn't have I wouldn't rather be right. It's not that it would it bothered me, it's more just as being more thoughtful about being more quiet as we approach giving them more space. Right. I think it's more that I would apply that same thinking to the Mexican family, but in the moment, and that is exactly what I did. Because I noticed myself having those thoughts and feelings as I approached the situation. And so I didn't modify my behavior in either situation. And I was the same in both, right? But if I hadn't brought those things into conscious awareness, I might have acted differently. Between and that's   Michael Hingson  49:16 that's the point. You have this wonderful gift of built in introspection that happens a lot more than I think it probably happens for most of us, although we can learn introspection, you talked about meditation and so on, and I do that and I love quiet time to think and look at what happened today. What went well, why did it go well, and could I have even made it better? What What can I learn from this other thing that happened today? And why does that still bother me? And I think that we all need to do more of that than we do. I I used to say I'm my own worst critic. You know, I love to listen to my talks when I give speeches and travel and do a lot of that. And I've learned, that's the wrong thing to say, actually, I'm my own best teacher. Because if I really look at what I'm saying, or what I'm doing, or what worked or not, no one else can truly teach me they can point things out. But if I don't choose to learn it, if I don't accept it, and allow myself to be the best teacher that I can be to myself, I'm not really going to fix anything.   Isis Fabian  50:26 Absolutely, exactly. And I think that comment about being my own worst critic speaks to one of the mental traps that we often fall into. And this is one of the other pieces to this puzzle, right. As a perfectionism, I talk a lot about about individualism, the illusion of objectivity, which I mentioned before, the good, bad binary, and perfectionism. And I think the good bad binary and perfectionism really work hand in hand, in our inability to change our behavior a lot of the time, this is why for a lot of us when we're told we've made a mistake, right? Or we someone calls out a mistake, and our heart starts racing, or they say, that's a microaggression, or something like that. Because we have this binary, our culture puts everything in a binary, you're good, or you're bad. And it's, you know, it's black, or it's white, you know, it's right, or it's wrong. And the reality is that things exist on a much wider grayer spectrum than that with a ton of nuance. And so, if you're dealing with perfectionism, and someone's essentially telling you even a small thing, tells you well, if I'm not perfect, I'm failure. If it's not perfect, it's nothing like that's kind of our reaction. But we're perfectionists and we're deep into that thinking. And it's hard for us to be corrected or to learn, especially when someone's opening up something as big as ableism, or racism, or misogyny in our thinking, it's so big, our reaction instead is to deny, deflect, get angry, get defensive, because we'd rather maintain the reality we're currently living in and the story that we're telling ourselves. But if we can notice the good, bad binary, in our own thoughts, in our own assessments of situations, we can start to decolonize our minds remove these thought patterns from our minds. You know, in my old job, I had a boss, who I thought was just out to torture me, there was a while where I was like, I'm trying to figure this person out, because I don't understand why I have to suffer so much under this person. Is she evil? Malicious? Like, why is this happening? And eventually, when I learned about the good, bad binary, that was the first situation that came to mind. I was like, I'm constantly trying to figure out is she good? Or Is she bad? The reality is that she's a person. And it's, there's a lot more nuanced than that. And it's somewhere in between, and she might not be as competent as she should be for her job. And that might be leading to all these negative downstream effects for me, and maybe she should be held accountable for my suffering, but it's not this good, bad thing. And we often because of the good bad binary attribute much more negativity to certain people, and much more positivity to other people than they really deserve in their actions when there's actually much more nuanced than that. And the perfectionism plays into that, as well. I think even people who had don't identify as perfectionist, you know, it's such a scourge on our society when we noticed that negative self talk. That's the perfectionism, right? And when we noticed that we're not giving ourselves credit for everything we got done today, right? You spent all day being nervous for the big meeting. And then once it's over and it went, Well, you forget about it on to the next thing to worry about, instead of be like, Oh, my God, I really did an awesome job in that meeting that one as well or better than I ever could have hoped for. Most of us don't do that we do not give ourselves that. And that's the perfectionism piece too. So if we can notice those things, in our own minds, we will stop thinking that way as much. And then when we have a learning opportunity, it's not going to feel nearly as threatening, you know, getting feedback doesn't feel like an attack anymore. It's all, you know, these are all the things we can work out on our own without having to have any big influence in the world or taking any other kind of action. It just prepares us to be able to learn when the opportunity arises.   Michael Hingson  54:01 And you know, I go back to my own worst critic. It's such a negative thing. And there's so much more to be gained by looking at it from the positive standpoint. I'm my own best teacher. All right. So somebody said something about me today. Great. I have that. Now, let's look at what they said. I'm trying to understand why they said it. And what does it really mean for me, right? That whole idea of going within yourself and analyzing it is what's so important, because you can you can find out, Oh, maybe, oh, they really thought that because of and it wasn't really true. But then you can go back and deal with it or you can go back and address it and how you deal with them in the future. But you can do so much more. If you look at things in a in a more positive way rather than running yourself down. We're all as capable as we want to be.   Isis Fabian  54:59 Mm hmm. and building that, that then builds self awareness that allows you when you get that negative moment or comment or whatever it is, you are then able to understand the difference between this is valid feedback that I need to understand versus that person saying a lot more about themselves than they are about me.   Michael Hingson  55:17 That's right. Because you can look at everything that happens in your life. You look at what what people say about you. And it doesn't need to be a criticism. It's what they say, Now, what are you going to do with it? And you have to make a decision. And it has to be a volitional, conscious decision. Was that the right thing? What were they right? Or are they just trying to be obnoxious or whatever the case happens to be, but we're the ones that can learn from our own best teaching efforts. Right,   Isis Fabian  55:51 exactly. And or are they responding to something, maybe in the wrong way or through many, many layers have their own bias, but if I can peel all that back, I might find a kernel of truth that is useful for me, like, that's what I finally realized with that, that quote, unquote, feedback, you're too intimidating. And you might work on that. And I went and asked everyone on my team, I was like, what does this mean? And they said, you know, oh, you're just really quick on your feet, you know, you really someone asked a question, or there's a thorny issue that we have to solve, and you just immediately have an answer, you immediately connect all the dots, and it just, it makes it um, you know, it's not a bad thing, you know, it's very impressive. It's just, you're, it's, it's, it can be hard to be in the presence of someone like that, right. As they were explaining that to me, then years later, I can reflect on and be like, there is something here, there was something useful here. For me, even though for such a long time, I rejected that feedback. And it was bad feedback it is. And it was not on to the point. And it was not actionable, either. But at the end of the day, there was impact I was having on people. And I was finally able to recognize the importance of what that impact was,   Michael Hingson  56:51 right. And if people are giving improper feedback, and so on

My goodness, what a fun and revealing conversation with Kindergarten Teacher Morgan and Software Navy Contractor and Business Consultant Adam Ray, who share in this episode.. ...how they found love in Charleston through a dating app ...what meal made Adam say yes (hint: marrymechicken) ...when and how they first started talking about their past sexual experiences and what communication looks like now ...how sexual abuse in high school had a big impact on premarital relationships ...how shame can stop you from becoming you were meant to be ...how to overcome shame by sharing your story and how that painful story can be a blessing to others ...how living truthfully can really set you free ...what the 90 Day Unstoppable coaching experience did for them individually and their marriage ...what a vision board is and how their evening prep went way off track ...why writing their individual WHY statements was so challenging and rewarding at the same time ...how a WHY statement has empowered them you to say YES to the right things and NO to others ...how becoming an Unstoppable Coach has made them so intentional ...how processing the past builds a great foundation for the future You'll LOVE this episode, Enjoy! Rebecca and Tim TheUnstoppableDuo.com

Vice President of Operations Lynden and Squadron Commander Alex Pelbath share how they met at a Circle K gas station, got engaged 4 months thereafter and 9 months after that got married. Their transparency is so encouraging as they open up about the dysfunctional families they grew up in and the challenges they needed to overcome in order to experience the abundant life God had prepared for them. We learn... ...how to not depend on getting other people's approval, but knowing that we are already approved ...how to experience God's supernatural work in your marriage ...how to lean in, when you want to give up ...how to accept how God made you individually so that you come to become an unstoppable couple ...where to find role models when your environment doesn't give you any ...how to become a faith leader not just a business leader ...how becoming an Unstoppable Coach strengthened their leadership and marriage We loved how practical this interview was, we trust you will too! To sign up for our next 90 Day Breakthrough Coaching Experience go to www.theunstoppableduo.com

Are you feeling stuck and unsure how to move forward during this time of sheltering in place as COVID:19 makes its way around the globe. This episode will help you to put a positive twist on the time we are living in at the moment. You will come away encouraged and with some ideas of what you can do to keep yourself moving forward too!Blessings,If you want the pdf of the 19 things from Terrance - please send a message to Cyndilu on her Facebook page facebook.com/beboldyouTo find Terrance head on over to Unstoppable Coaching's Facebook PageUntil we meet again be blessed... keep living your life out loud and beBOLDyou™!Sponsored by www.beboldyou.com/bbybook Get your own copy today. "becoming BOLD you" See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Like to boost your confidence? Want to understand how NLP can help you become a competent and confident Coach? Fancy running a successful Coaching business? In this episode our guest Colita Dainton (Master Coach) shares 3 top tips on how you can improve your confidence (including an exercise called the ‘Circle of Confidence’). She'll also share her journey to becoming an Unstoppable Coach getting great results for her clients!

In this episode, I'm joined by Millette Jones, a coach, speaker, and host of the Unstoppable Coach podcast. If you're an expert, thought leader or coach who really wants to get out there and make a huge impact in the world, how do you get more exposure? How do you get interviewed podcasts? How do you generate leads, nurture connections and more? Millette Jones is a coach, speaker, and host of the Unstoppable Coach podcast. She guides entrepreneurs to be recognised as experts in their field and steadily grow their business by telling their unique story on podcasts. She achieves this through her private coaching, online course - Podguesting for Profits, and her new membership site: DIY PodGuesting. In this episode, we discuss: Why podcasting is a great way to get visibility as a coach or expert Keys to being a great podcast guest The potential for affiliate and partnerships with podcasts Finding out where your ideal clients are listening Serving the audience massive value Being memorable and making a connection Turning listeners into leads Promoting your interview when it comes out And more Find out more head to www.shareyourpassion.com.au/podcast

My guest today it Millette Jones. Millette has a burning desire to help entrepreneurs believe their story is important & understand how sharing it can propel their business to success.Millette’s own story has its share of ups and downs and she believes too many entrepreneurs allow the inevitable setbacks to derail their goals and push them back into the 9-to-5 grind.Millette supports entrepreneurs with her Unstoppable Coach podcast, podcast publicity coaching, membership site for DIY podcast interview marketing and her signature program: Podguesting for Profits which guides entrepreneurs to be recognized as experts in their field, easily reach new audiences, and steadily grow their business through building trust and genuine connections with their ideal clients.We cover the following topics and more:Position Yourself as an Expert with Podcast GuestingUse Your Story to be Relatable, Gain Trust & Rise above the CrowdOvercoming Broken Business RelationshipsYou can reach out to Millette on her website: https://millettejones.com/sidehustlerage

Terrance “The Unstoppable Coach” Leftridge has had a desire to help people, empower people and entertain them his whole life. Terrance is at his best in front of an audience. His intent is to always leave people better off than before they met him. Terrance is a Certified Life Accountability Coach. He is the founder of UNSTOPPABLE Coaching Services Inc. where the #1 Goal is to help his clients Live Life on the Next Level by partnering with them on their journey to creating, implementing and achieving their visions.

In episode 100 we go through the top 10 ways to grow your coaching business from the successful coaches that have been featured on the Unstoppable Coach podcast. Season 1 ends and I'm making a couple of exciting announcements. Season 2 begins 01-01-18. Join us for more coaches, more value, and more ideas on how to start or grow your coaching business.

Learn all about the Unstoppable Coach podcast in this inaugural episode. Start or grow your coaching business with the Unstoppable Coach podcast. Join Millette Jones as she interviews successful coaches in every niche imaginable about how they built a thriving coaching business. Unstoppable Coach is a 5-day a week podcast created just for coaches, no matter what niche you are in you will find actionable advice on growing your coaching business from coaches who have taken their business from its infancy to unstoppable. Each episode covers both inspiration and action. You will learn about the coach's journey to build a successful business: how they got started, disappointments along the way, and their vision for the future of their business. Finally, you will get their best advice on what is working right now in coaching, how they generate revenue, how they get new clients, and their #1 suggestion for new coaches just starting out.

Interview with Frankie Picasso, the Unstoppable Coach, known as a world-class actionary. Join us for a high-powered 30 minutes where Frankie will share her thoughts on igniting your own purpose, passion, and self-esteem. She is THE coach to help you create your vision and take the actionable steps you'll need to make your dreams come true. If you want to make changes and move forward with your life, be sure and catch this one!

According to this weeks guest Tsufit, All business is SHOW BUSINESS and her runaway book Step into the Spotlight will show you how to get seen, how to get heard and how to catapult your brand or yourself into a starring role on the business stage. Tsufit is a lawyer come comedian come marketing coach with a twist, and you will meet her tonight on Mission Unstoppable radio with your host, The Unstoppable Coach, Frankie Picasso!

If you are really concerned about the global environmental and energy problems you need to listen to our show tonight. We have the solutions and My guest Bruce Mcburney will give them to you. Engines could be getting 5 times the fuel mileage and practically no pollution by converting gasoline into natural gas and methanol at the engine, but this technology has been suppressed for the last 80 years or so by oil companies Bruce McBurney, researcher and electrical engineer is concerned about our planet,the depletion of oxygen and how this relates to Cancer and other life threatening diseases. His research led him to Vapor Carburators and much more.Why were the inventions and inventors silenced?? next on Mission Unstoppable..

Author,lecturer and Near Death Expert,Dr.PMH Atwater continues her UNPLUGGED interview with Frankie Picasso this week. Dr. Atwater is a pioneer and world expert on NDE's and has written 10 books on the topic including, Coming back to Life,The BIG BOOK of Near Death Experiences and WE LIVE Forever.If you are a NDE experiencer or you want to know what happens when you die, you will not want to miss this show.