Podcasts about vision impaired

Subscribe to our newsletter, the Vulnerabilitea-mail - www.theimperfects.com.au As the title suggests, Nas Campanella is really cool (and accomplished and driven and resilient). You might recognise her voice from the Triple J cinematic universe or know her work as the Disability Affairs Reporter for the ABC. But what you might not know is that Nas is vision impaired, or that a neurological condition means that she can’t read braille either. In this episode of The Vulnerabilitea House, Nas answers the questions “what childhood challenges best prepared you for adulthood?” Chatting to Hugh, Ryan and Josh, Nas talks about her relationship with her disability, and how it shapes her identity. Nas also dives into a powerful conversation with the guys about the role agency and accessibility in the experience of discrimination, and shares why, if a magical operation could restore her sight, she wouldn’t change a thing. Nas, it has been an absolute joy.

Maxwell Ivey, The Blind Blogger, is an entrepreneur and accessibility advocate who has transformed personal adversity into purpose-driven work. Losing his vision to retinitis pigmentosa, Maxwell began his entrepreneurial journey brokering amusement park rides online, teaching himself code and navigating platforms that were not built with accessibility in mind. His lived experiences laid the groundwork for a deep understanding of the real-world barriers that people with disabilities face in digital spaces. Over time, Maxwell evolved into a respected accessibility consultant, helping businesses identify and address gaps in their digital design and user experience. He emphasizes that accessibility isn't just a compliance issue—it's a growth opportunity. Companies that invest in inclusive design often gain improved SEO, better customer engagement, and a broader audience reach. Maxwell also explores how emerging technologies like AI can support accessibility efforts, while warning that these tools must include representation from the disability community to be truly effective and trustworthy. If you're a business owner or content creator, Maxwell is offering a free accessibility review of your website's homepage. This is an excellent opportunity to gain expert insights from someone who not only understands accessibility theory but lives it every day. Reach out to Maxwell and take a step toward making your digital presence more inclusive, welcoming, and impactful for all users. We're happy you're here! Like the pod? Visit our website! Start your trial on Simplified. Schedule a consult, get on the mailing list, and learn more about my favorite tools and programs via https://www.yourbrandamplified.com

After her first appearance on the show five years ago, Daryl Lang is back! Daryl is a vision-impaired runner who races with a guide and completes her training miles with her guide dog. Daryl and I  love furry friends, so this episode ended up almost an ode to her two guide dogs, Jenny and Yasha.  Daryl takes us through Jenny's retirement, what it was like to change their relationship from working to companionship, and learning the ins and outs of her new coworker, Yasha (whom she trained with at Guiding Eyes for the Blind in New York).  Daryl also became published as a contributing author to the book Run for Your Life: Lessons Learned from Going the Distance, and she shares a bit about that process as well.  Yasha and Daryl may still be fine-tuning running together, but in the meantime, Daryl has entered a new space in her running era: nothing to prove to anyone (maybe the best journey yet). She may not be worried about how much she races or what her splits are anymore, but she still has some big goals on the horizon. I have my fingers crossed that I might get to greet her at the finish line sometime soon.    Find Daryl's blog at www.blindbeader.ca Buy a copy of Run For Your Life: Lessons Learned from Going the Distance  https://bit.ly/buyrunforyourlife Donate to Guiding Eyes for the Blind: https://donate.guidingeyes.org/    -- Episode Sponsor: Canada Running Series The Beneva Spring Run Off may have already sprung, but Canada Running Series still has a ton of exciting races to help you find your next start line. Next up: The Under Armour Toronto 10K. With a medal inspired by the city itself, this year's finish line prize features the iconic Toronto skyline—CN Tower and all—hung on waves of blue, a nod to the scenic waterfront route. Register to earn yours on June 15th: visit www.canadarunningseries.com    Theme music: Joseph McDade

A new show for young blind or low vision people, Sight Unseen,  about young blind or low vision people - is set to give the wider audience a taste of how they experience such programming. 

A new web series dropping this week is set to highlight the stories told by blind and low-vision youth - as well as the accessibility they have to our media. Created by media access services company Able, Sight Unseen showcases audio description, which allows the visually impaired to enjoy shows with an added layer of audio telling them what is happening on the screen. Co-director Sheldene Seth says the goal of the series is to raise awareness - and showcase the 'awesome' stories from New Zealand's blind community. "It does do two things, which is awesome. We did feature some fantastic talent for the series that are very passionate about the things that they do and engage with every day." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, in our first episode for 2025, we speak with Madeleine Popper. Madeleine started an art group for Blind and Vision Impaired people in Melbourne. Hear about the group, why she started it and what it's all about. Also, hear Madeleine's perspective on how vision loss changed her experience of art. The host this week, is Noora Remy.

The Sydney Curling Club is welcoming teams from across the country for the Canadian Vision Impaired Curling Championship in February. 

In episode 5 of our summer series, Graeme speaks with Christine Malec, a Canadian podcast producer. Christine's podcast is called "Talk Description To Me" and focuses on audio describing frequently everyday items, happenings or concepts which most people take for granted but are often poorly understood by Blind and Vision Impaired people.

In this third episode in our Summer Series, John speaks with Edwina Gustafson. Edwina describes her experience writing audio description scripts for SBS television as a vision impaired person. As well, her approach to providing meaningful detail, what must be included and what can be left out.

5th year student, Maura Moore-McCune representing The King's Hospital School, Palmerstown in Co. Dublin has won the title of SciFest STEM Champion 2024 with her project 'VIPMOD: Vision Impaired Person's Moving Object Detector'. Maura Moore-McCune will represent Ireland at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair 2025 in Columbus, Ohio. Now in its 19th year, SciFest is Ireland's largest, most-inclusive all-island STEM fair programme for second-level students. The National Final, held in Marino Conference Centre in Dublin today, was attended by students from every corner of the island, with 62 students qualifying to participate this year. Since 2006, the programme has continued to evolve and expand, reporting an average increase of over 20% year on year. This has been helped by the tremendous support offered by Intel Ireland, Boston Scientific, EirGrid and Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals. Maura Moore-McCune, who is vision impaired, developed an app to detect fast moving objects, so that vision impaired people can live safer and more independent lives. This project evolved through six prototypes. The first three prototypes used Micro:bits. Prototype 4 uses GPS technology. Prototype 5 is an app which uses TensorFlow.js Image Classification model to detect oncoming vehicles and other objects. The app displays the object's name, vibrates and issues a text-to-speech warning. Finally, Prototype 6 is an application that estimates the speed of oncoming objects. It uses a YOLOv8 model to analyse input footage. Prototype 5 was tested in a controlled setting, with 95% accuracy (316 trials). Vision Ireland will be testing VIPMOD in the WayFinding Centre - an indoor environment replicating the real-world experience of using public transport for vision impaired people. Maura was presented with the SciFest STEM Champion 2024 Award by Sheila Porter, SciFest Founder and CEO. Maura rose to win the top prize, following her success at the regional final in SciFest@TU Dublin Tallaght. Founded in 2006, the programme's primary aim is to encourage students' participation in STEM in an enjoyable and interactive way. SciFest is free to enter and open to everyone across the island of Ireland, no matter their background or circumstance. Speaking at this year's National Final, CEO and Founder of SciFest, Sheila Porter commented: "On behalf of everyone here at SciFest, I would like to extend a warm congratulations to all the winners, particularly to Maura for winning the title of SciFest STEM Champion 2024. SciFest has been providing opportunities in STEM for students for nearly two decades, and I am proud to have watched it evolve during that time. And while every year, we continue to grow, our core mission remains the same: to inspire and empower the next generation to engage with and explore the world of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This year saw a big uptake in projects focusing on the environment and sustainability - critical areas for shaping a better future. I want to sincerely thank everybody who has been involved - from our students, teachers, and parents to our wonderful sponsors - all of whom have contributed to this extraordinary event. Together, we continue to drive progress and spark the creativity that will lead us into the future." Other award winners at the SciFest 2024 National Final were: Lily Cahill who won the SciFest STEM Champion 2024 Runner-up Award for her project on 'Investigating Whether Childhood Imaginary Companions Impact Social Competence and Coping Skills in Teenage Years' Fionn Campbell who won the Berlin Long Night of Science Award for his project on 'A Crystal-Clear Way to Slow Down Ireland's Energy Crisis' Maura Moore-McCune who won the Boston Scientific Medical Devices Grand Award for her project on 'VIPMOD:Vision Impaired Person's Moving Object Detector' Gráinne Ní Chrónín who won the Boston Scientific Medical Devices Grand Award Runner Up for her project on 'No More Ice, Ice Baby!' ...

You ever felt, that if you could just finally get consistent with your fitness journey it would solve a lot of problems?

Lizzie Eastham and Sam Rickard present Studio 1 - Vision Australia Radio's weekly look at life from a low vision and blind point of view.  On this week's show:  "Techfest 2024”  The show that had so much material it needed to go for an hour!   Techfest was held in Adelaide 6th November. This expo brought together the leading brands in Adaptive Technology for Vision Impaired and Blind users, as well as some of the latest innovations from companies like Apple and Ray Ban.   Lizzie and Sam were there to check out the merchandise and talk to the vendors.   Studio 1 welcomes any input from our listeners. If you have any experience or thoughts about issues covered in this episode or believe there is something we should be talking about.  EMAIL: studio1@visionaustralia.org or leave comment on our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/VARadioNetwork   A big thank you to Andrew Davies and See Differently for allowing us to record at Techfest. During this show we spoke to the following:  Pacific Vision: https://au.1lowvision.com/  Big Purple Phone: https://bigpurplephone.com.au/  Quantum RLV: https://www.quantumrlv.com.au/  Humanware: https://www.humanware.com/  Ray Ban Meta: https://www.meta.com/au/smart-glasses/shop-all/?utm_source=gg&utm_medium=ps&utm_campaign=21791453447&utm_term=ray%20ban%20meta%20smart%20glasses&utm_content=716311100868&utm_funnel=dcap&&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA88a5BhDPARIsAFj595jERj76BF_u906s2WaUueTNYxy8B9bUdA8cwQSvIO229T2-g8qAV0UaAmUTEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds  Magnifiers Australia: https://www.magnifiersaustralia.com.au/?srsltid=AfmBOoopXEGX9VmAFxulCNLv8B4MSp0uaUpBS5f7aI2OMeEB0VGIIHiC  NV Access (NVDA): https://www.nvaccess.org/  Vision Australia gratefully acknowledges the support of the Community Broadcasting Foundation for Studio 1.  Photo Description: Lizzie modelling the Ray Ban Meta.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lizzie Eastham and Sam Rickard present Studio 1 - Vision Australia Radio's weekly look at life from a low vision and blind point of view.  On this week's show:  "Amar Litif”  Lizzie and Sam are joined by Amar Latif, the founder of Traveleyes, a travel company designed for Blind and Vision Impaired tourists.    Amar talks about losing his sight; and finding his way as a blind accountant; and establishing a successful travel company.     Studio 1 welcomes any input from our listeners. If you have any experience or thoughts about issues covered in this episode or believe there is something we should be talking about.  EMAIL: studio1@visionaustralia.org or leave comment on our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/VARadioNetwork   Thank you to Amar for a fun and enjoyable chat.    You can learn more about Traveleyes here: https://www.traveleyes-international.com/   Learn more about Amar here: https://www.amarlatif.com/   Vision Australia gratefully acknowledges the support of the Community Broadcasting Foundation for Studio 1. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week we hear from QLD Branch president, Adrian Watson. Adrian talks about the recent Branch AGM, and some information for Blind and Vision Impaired people in regard to the upcoming QLD state election.

This week, Margo Carwardine from the Queensland Braille Writers Association, also known as Braille House, discusses accessible tourism. The QBWA has been conducting a fascinating project to enable venues and other tourism-based businesses to be more accessible to Blind and Vision Impaired people. This project was made possible by a grant from the Queensland Government. This presentation was given to the Round Table on Information Access for People with Print Disability, and we thank the Round Table for the use of this recording. Find out more at https://new-horizons.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

In this week's episode, John Simpson speaks with Jonathan Craig, now Policy and Advocacy Manager with Vision 2020 Australia. Jonathan discusses the response from the Australian Government, to the 222 recommendations handed down in the final report of the Disability Royal Commission in September 2023. In particular, those recommendations most applicable to Blind and Vision Impaired people. Find out more at https://new-horizons.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

RECORDED VIA ZOOMJames Pittar, an open water swimmer from Sydney, was inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame as an Honor Swimmer in 2009. He became the first blind swimmer to complete the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming. Through his swims, he has raised over $100,000 for the Fred Hollows Foundation and is also associated with the Rainbow Club Foundation, teaching swimming to disabled children. He is listed on the Rottnest Channel Swim Honour Board and now serves as a mentor for marathon swimming.James released the print version of his autobiography, Blind Vision: A Blind Man's Courage in the Face of Loss Triumph and Love, in 2019 and has now recorded and produced the audiobook version with Brisbane Audiobook Production, narrated superbly by Les Horovitz.Join James and Les on The Simone Feiler Podcast, chatting about James' achievements, his book and a whole bunch more.Visit James' website hereConnect with James directly here.Subscribe to James' YouTube Channel here.What's your story?I'd love to chat!Contact me here.

Chad Perris is a 100-metre Paralympic sprinter who calls Canberra home after years of training at the AIS in Bruce. He's a 2-x silver medallist at the World Para-Athletic Championships, bought home bronze from Rio in 2016, and is going for gold at the 2024 Paris Paralympics. Chad phones into Rod and Gabi live from France and explains what it's like to compete professionally with 5-8% of his vision. Listen to Chad's inspiring story.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Charlotte has revealed how share bikes left on the footpath are regularly impacting her ability to move around Sydney and has called on e-bike companies to do more to combat the issue.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Parents of Vision Impaired - Dr Rebekah Graham is National Executive Officer with Parents of Vision Impaired (PVI), a non-profit organisation providing support to parents of children who are blind or vision impaired. This show was broadcast on OAR 105.4FM Dunedin - oar.org.nz

Lizzie Eastham and Sam Rickard present Studio 1 - Vision Australia Radio's weekly look at life from a low vision and blind point of view.  In this special Podcast Presentation  Dating Blind 1 2 3  Thanks to the magic of AI software, we are now able to bring you some of the interviews from earlier on in the year in a much clearer form. We present four interviews that talk about love and romance from a Vision Impaired or Blind Point of view  Simon talks about being the third wheel when all your friends have paired off, and get St Patricks day mixed up with Valentines Day.   Tess tells us about her realisation that she was asexual, and how that affects, or does not affect, her view of love and romance.  Matt tells us how he met his wife through his church group, and how things took a strange twist.  And Vision Australia own Sarah Evans ties it all up in a neat bow as we talk about how dating is now looking more and more like looking for a job.  Studio 1 welcomes any input from our listeners. If you have any experience or thoughts about issues covered in this episode or believe there is something we should be talking about.  EMAIL: studio1@visionaustralia.org or leave comment on our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/VARadioNetwork   A big thank you to; Simon; Tess; Matt and Sarah.  Vision Australia gratefully acknowledges the support of the Community Broadcasting Foundation for Studio 1. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Be My Eyes app is now available for Windows, specifically for the AI feature. Be My Eyes is an app that allows users to create a video call with a sighted volunteer for assistance. It has evolved to include artificial intelligence (AI) functionality called Be My AI, which can provide descriptions of images. The Windows app offers four main options: describe the screen, describe a picture taken using the built-in camera, describe a picture from file explorer, and describe the clipboard. The AI provides detailed descriptions and can answer follow-up questions. The app is simple to use and can be beneficial for blind or partially-sighted individuals.ChaptersIntroduction (00:00)Be My AI: AI-Powered Image Descriptions (01:24)Describe My Screen (06:59)Take Picture Using Built-in Camera (13:47)Describe Picture from File Explorer (17:31)Final Thoughts on Benefits of Be My Eyes for Windows (20:03)Be My Eyes Download Links About Shaun of the ShedShaun of the Shed gives those new to the world of technology a helping hand with everything from using a screen reader or smart speakers to unboxing and starting up a new computer.Host Shaun Preece is an audio producer from Manchester who has a real passion for technology. Despite being born with a visual impairment, Shaun's sight has worsened over the years and as such he has depended more on assistive technology.You can also hear Shaun on AMI's Double Tap podcast, airing weekly at noon Eastern on AMI-audio or download it from your favourite podcast platform. About AMIAMI is a not-for-profit media company that entertains, informs and empowers Canadians who are blind or partially sighted. Operating three broadcast services, AMI-tv and AMI-audio in English and AMI-télé in French, AMI's vision is to establish and support a voice for Canadians with disabilities, representing their interests, concerns and values through inclusion, representation, accessible media, reflection, representation and portrayal.Learn more at AMI.caConnect on Twitter @AccessibleMediaOn Instagram @accessiblemediaincOn Facebook at @AccessibleMediaIncEmail feedback@ami.ca

John Simpson attended the Round Table on Information Access for People with Print Disabilities in Perth - and this week, we bring you the first in our series featuring presentations from this year's conference. Corey Crawford, Policy Officer with Blind Citizens Australia, discusses disaster management and preparation for people who are Blind or Vision Impaired. Our thanks to the Round Table and to John for this recording. Find out more at https://new-horizons.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Dana's trending stories include Morgan Wallen being arrested for throwing a chair off a balcony, a woman recounting how staring at the 2017 solar eclipse partially blinded her, AOC filing a bill to stop to crack down on deep-fake porn, and Beyonce reaching #1 on the Billboard Country Albums chart.

The Ministry of Disabled People yesterday announced new limits on what disabled people could purchase with their funding. It also said there would be changes to the way equipment such as wheelchairs and home modifications were prioritised. Its been described as a shock move. Under the new policy, families seeking respite care are likely to be limited to hiring a carer. Accommodation, travel and food costs for carers have also been removed. The Ministry says the funding is not being cut, but what it can be spent on has been cut significantly. National Executive Officer Parents of Vision Impaired, Dr Rebekah Graham speaks to the Panel.

Next to call in to the show this morning is GOP Director of Communications for the Virginia House of Delegates, Garren Shipley.  Recently, Democrats denied Garren a (volunteer) appointment to the state Board for the Blind.  John and Garren converse about the matter and about his passion to help those who are vision-impaired.  (Garren's own brother was born blind.) Garren wants our loyal listeners to know that they can donate to the blind by making a check out and sending it to the Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired. The address for mailing a check is: 397 Azalea Avenue, Richmond, Virginia 23227.  (The memo line on any check should read "Donation.")

With over half-a-million people in Australia living with blindness or impaired vision, one tour operator is helping them see the world. They've travelled to Perth for the first time, helping a small group of the low-vision community accomplish something they didn't think they could in life. - آسٹریلیا میں ڈھائی لاکھ سے زیادہ لوگ اندھے پن یا ناقص بینائی کا شکار ہیں مگر ایک ٹور آپریٹر دنیا کو دیکھنے میں ان کی مدد کر رہے ہیں۔ یہ ذکر ہے ایک ایسے منفرد ٹور آپریٹر کا جو گائیڈ ڈوگ یا راستہ دکھانے والے کتّوں کی مدد سے نابینا افراد کو سیاحت کے انوکھے تجربات سے روشناس کروا رہا ہے۔

With over half-a-million people in Australia living with blindness or impaired vision, one tour operator is helping them see the world. They've travelled to Perth for the first time, helping a small group of the low-vision community accomplish something they didn't think they could in life.

Paying by card is simple for most of us, but for some visually impaired people, newer, touch screen card readers can be a problem. RNIB's Dave Williams tells us about the challenges as well as the workarounds. And lawyer Chris Fry joins us to explain where we stand legally. We have Georgina Rose back with us, Strictly Come Dancing's first live audio describer. She shares all her behind-the-scenes secrets with us, from how she preps to commentate on the sequins and how to squeeze in a speedy bathroom break. And there's a new kids show in town, MixMups uses stop-motion animation to reframe disabled characters and stories for the next generation. Nikki and Emma catch up with the show's creator Rebecca Atkinson and get introduced to Pockets, Giggle and Spin. Presented by Nikki Fox and Emma Tracey. Mixed by Gareth Jones. Produced by Emma Tracey, Drew Hyndman, Bethan Ashmead, Beth Rose and Alix Pickles. The editor is Damon Rose and the senior editor is Jonathan Aspinwall. Subscribe on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts. Say "Alexa, ask the BBC for Access All". Email accessall@bbc.co.uk and on X we're @BBCAccessAll.

Are all men “blind”? Join us on 'Vision Impaired' as we explore the epic quest men embark on when trying to find ANYTHING! Tune in for practical advice and stories that many can relate to. Check out our website: https://msha.ke/mindsettalkspodcast/ Follow us on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindsettalkspodcast/ Facebook: https://business.facebook.com/mindsettalkspodcast/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClbF_x6M__df35rWE27BULA --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mindset-talks-podcast/support

Welcome to Friday 15! In episode 122 Steph chats with Keith Waldon, owner of Departure Lounge about travel business hierarchy, help with vision impaired IC, and travel agent testing. A list of helpful resources for today's episode: https://hostagencyreviews.com/friday15 (Submit questions, sign up for reminders for the F15, along with that week's questions we'll be covering!) https://hostagencyreviews.com/page/speakers (Call for Host Week event speakers is open! Submit your Eduspot idea!) https://hostagencyreviews.com/hostweek (Register for HAR's Host Week event!) https://hostagencyreviews.com/7DS-accelerator (HAR's Accelerator course to get your agency set up faster!) https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/what-is-a-host-agency (What is a host agency?) https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/what-is-travel-consortia-travel-coops (What are Travel consortia/coops?) https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/travel-preferred-supplier (What is a travel preferred supplier?) https://www.mindseyetravel.com/ (Mind's Eye Travel) https://www.traveleyes-international.com/ (Travel Eyes) https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/travel-agent-training-travel-agent-education (Travel advisor education options) https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/travel-agent-training-travel-agent-education#TravelAgentCertification (Travel advisor certification options) https://my.asta.org/ASTAVTA/Home/ASTAVTA/Default.aspx (ASTA's verified travel advisor (VTA) course) https://the1000.club/ (The 1000 travel advisor club) https://hostagencyreviews.com/hosts/departure-lounge (Departure Lounge's profile on HAR) kwaldon@departurelounge.com (Keith's email address) https://hostagencyreviews.com/friday15 (Sign up for e-reminders for the Friday 15 and submit your questions!) Submit your burning question here Har.News/Friday15 and join us this Friday (and every Friday!) at 12CT for travel agent tips! Join 30,000+ agents and subscribe to our newsletter: http://www.hostagencyreviews.com/newsletter

Pastor Jeremy Cole

Martine was born in what is now Zaire although at the time of her birth the country's government was different. When the government changed, so did the name of the country. When Martine and her parents immigrated to America Martine did not know that she was undocumented and thus had no status. After the death of her parents by the time she was 15, she was on her own. Only years later did she discover how tenuous her status was in the U.S. She will tell us her story.   Because of her life's experience she became interested in DEI, and for her especially, Equity. You will get to hear how she went from being “stateless” to being a U.S. Citizen.   During our interview we get to have quite a discussion about DEI including, as you might imagine, some discussions around the topic of disabilities. Martine's viewpoint and observations are quite refreshing and worth hearing.     About the Guest: DEI thought leader, TedX speaker, and author, with over 10 years of Learning & Development experience, Martine Kalaw understands the challenges that organizations face in driving DEI in the workplace. Her book, _The ABCs Of Diversity, A Manager's Guide to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the New Workplace _makes DEI accessible to everyone in the workforce, including managers.     Through her company, Martine Kalaw Enterprises, Kalaw incorporates DEI into cornerstone manager development programs. Martine works with Human Resources professionals by helping them save time, reduce burden and drive ROI, with their DEI efforts. Martine Kalaw Enterprises also offers consulting and training directly to HR professionals. She's single-handedly built and executed onboarding solutions, management and leadership programs, global mentorship programs and designed and customized training for Macy's, Xaxis, Wheels Up, and Education First.     Martine's additionally conducted work on diversity, inclusion, and leadership at companies such as LinkedIn, Tiffany & Co. , Hogan Lovells USA, LLP, Howard Hughes Corporation, and Cornell University. She partners with global professionals to implement learning and workforce development strategies and solutions aligned with race and biases, manager training, and inter/intra department communication.     Martine has written for Huffington Post and appeared on syndicated networks like C-span.     Martine holds a Master's in Public Administration with a focus on Immigration Law. She spent her early career in the public sector working in budgeting for The New York City Mayor's Office of Management and Budget.    How to connect with Martine : Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/martinekalaw/?hl=en  Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/martinekalaw  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MartineKalawEnterprisesLLC/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/35649968/admin/  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQTb6zI5m4jehE-czyT8SvQ      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 You are listening to unstoppable mindset where inclusion diversity and the unexpected meet. I'm your host Mike Hingson, and our guest today is Martine Kalaw I made sure I pronounced that right because I even asked her. She is a she Yeah, how are you?   Martine Kalaw  01:39 I'm good. Thank you, Michael   Michael Hingson  01:41 Martine's, an author, she has written a book entitled The ABCs of diversity. And she'll tell us more about what that's all about. She has been involved in diversity, inclusion and equity for some time, and has a lot of stories to tell. So we'll get right to it, Martine. Thanks very much again for being here.   Martine Kalaw  02:04 Thank you so much for having me, Michael to pledge.   Michael Hingson  02:07 Tell me a little bit about you growing up sort of how, how you got started and all that kind of stuff. That's always a fun place to start.   Martine Kalaw  02:14 Yeah, absolutely. You know, I'll start by I just, you know, I was unpacking some boxes, and I found my college senior thesis. And the topic was looking at, I conducted comparative analysis between Bosnian refugees and Sudanese refugees to see if there was preferential treatment in their assimilation acculturation process in the local community. So that just goes to show where my the background of di where it first came from, where my interest lies. So when I was in college, I was undocumented, I was stateless. And, you know, so part of my interest in the immigrant refugee community was also to see if there was preferential treatment based on race, but based on ethnicity, etc. So that just kind of illustrates, you know, this is dei has always been the, like the framework of a lot of the things I did, so immigration is a subset of Di. But then even within immigration, there are other subsets of diversity, equity and inclusion and categories of diversity. And then I'll just kind of circle back around and you know, and it also highlight that my interest in dei and in the topic of diversity, equity and inclusion really stems from, like I said, Being undocumented, being stateless, and being orphaned and having to immerse myself in various in different communities. Right. So I had to learn to acclimate in different communities, whether I went to a predominantly white prep school in Charlottesville, Virginia, or I lived in the dorms with mostly other international students, or being undocumented and stateless. And being part of that subset, you know, that that community just gave me exposure to different communities, different subsets. And what that did was it allowed me to learn how to to navigate and speak their language or at least understand things and pivot my lens and understand their perspective. And my goal has always been to kind of be a bridge builder, where there's lack of understanding or misunderstanding, what I can do is sort of help to liaise that so that's really where the interest around dei really stemmed from and like I said it continued on to college And and it's resulted in the work that I've been doing for the last five plus years. So   Michael Hingson  05:07 one has to ask, what did you conclude in your college paper about preferential treatment for one of the cultures or   Martine Kalaw  05:15 the other? There was, so that I actually did conduct field study, which was just absolutely riveting. For anyone who may have known, both of these countries were had gone through civil wars, experienced, were impacted by genocide. So the local upstate community that I was a part of, because I went to Hamilton College, you know, had, you know, in brought in refugees from these two communities, and help them in terms of, you know, I wouldn't say rehabilitation, but settling into the communities. But there was there was bias, right, that the bias existed in, you know, their access to housing, access to ESL English as a second, second language, access for job two jobs. Right. And it had a lot to do there were some racial undertone current tied to that. So absolutely. That's what I understood. And I learned and also really understood the distinction between when we talk about inclusion, what does that mean? does it really mean multiculturalism? Or does that really mean assimilation, US expecting someone else to assimilate to our, you know, our culture, our beliefs, our standards?   Michael Hingson  06:42 So when you say there was preferential treatment? And was that in a negative sense that they were not given the treatment that they really needed to have? Or they got too much or what?   Martine Kalaw  06:52 Yeah, so the the Sudanese refugees did not get the same adequate treatment as the Bosnian refugees in the local community in upstate New York.   Michael Hingson  07:02 And why what why was that?   Martine Kalaw  07:05 Well, I mean, one would say that there were a lot of biases related to race. Because when you looked at it, a lot of the Sudanese, the Sudanese refugees, actually there, it could have been raised, but then also religion, perhaps was an undercurrent ethnicity could have been another element of it. But most likely, it was driven by race.   Michael Hingson  07:30 primarily black, as opposed to, to white and so on.   Martine Kalaw  07:34 Absolutely. Yeah.   Michael Hingson  07:37 Now, you mentioned that you are orphaned. And stateless as it were, tell me more about all of that.   Martine Kalaw  07:44 Yeah, um, you know, I was born in Zambia, my family's from the Dr. Congo, came to the US when I was very young with my mother. And, you know, she and my stepfather passed away by the time I was 15 years old. And, you know, my stepfather was American born US citizen, my mother was a green card holder. Unfortunately, as she was in the process of securing her US citizenship, she passed away. And then, you know, I fell out of status. And there I was trying to navigate, just securing having a home having place to live. And little did I know that I was without status, and did not learn that until many years later, when I was when there was very little recourse that I could take in terms of establishing or reestablishing my staff and my status. So my so and then at that point is when I learned that I was also stateless. The country that I was born in Zambia didn't recognize me as a citizen, because because I needed to claim citizenship of the country. By the time I was 18, which I would, I didn't know that the country that my birth mother and birth father were, were born in the Dr. Congo was Zaire when my mother and father left. So the the government change the country, the name, everything changed, the sovereignty change. And so there was there I couldn't establish my status there either, and the US didn't want me. So in that, in those regards. I was not a citizen of any country. And there are a myriad of people who are stateless. To this day, I mean, they're talking about over 10 million according to you, UNHCR, there are over 10 million stateless persons in the world. In the US there are over 200,000 plus stateless people. These aren't needed visuals that, you know, don't have any recourse, they generally, they're more likely to be human traffic because there are no laws written for them. And also, according to UNHCR, the statistic is that every 10 minutes, a stateless child is born, right? With climate change all of these different wars that occur, people are displaced. There are certain laws, where you can only obtain citizenship through your paternal connection, various reasons and laws and regulations that can lead someone to becoming stateless.   Michael Hingson  10:44 So, have you been able to resolve that in your particular case?   Martine Kalaw  10:50 Yes, absolutely. I am a US citizen. And I haven't I have been since 2013. So I'm one of the very fortunate ones. It's very rare for, for the outcome for someone from my background, being stateless, and just my, you know, my background, my history where I come from, to be in this position where I am now running a, you know, a DI business and I have you US citizenship, I have a US passport, and so forth. So that is a privilege in itself,   Michael Hingson  11:26 how are you able to deal with it, since there's so many that aren't or can't? What were you able to do? That proves successful?   Martine Kalaw  11:35 You know, there isn't a particular you know, one of the reasons I hesitated in the past to speak publicly and give and mentor others was because there isn't a prescription to this. The immigration system is broken in a lot of countries, particularly in the US, and it's not designed for people to succeed, it's designed for people to get stuck in this quagmire and fail, quite honestly. And so there isn't, I cannot tell someone to if they do this XYZ, if they follow the exact process that I follow, it will guarantee the same outcome, because it's, it's almost as random as the roll of the dice the outcome that can occur. So what I do say is that, you know, it's important to maintain your dignity, because this is the space this is a, this is an institution, or an ecosystem where one can lose their dignity. So it's important to maintain your dignity. And one of the ways to maintain your dignity is to remember your source of power, it's very easy to feel powerless, to not feel like you have any, any influence to not feel like you have a country to not feel like you have a home. But to remember that your voice is your source of power, that your intelligence that you can educate yourself about this policies, about the process, you can be your own advocate, even working with an attorney. So these are the things that I you know, I like to remind people, and also allowing others to understand and see and humanize individuals who are undocumented or stateless. And to see them as an asset and to see them as not charity, but as human beings who can actually be a great investment to our society, to our economy. And really, when you think about that, that translates into the work that I do within di right, it's getting, you know, the work around that I do around dei and supporting organizations and companies and especially human resources professionals, is getting them to understand and see the value, the impact that diversity, equity inclusion can have on on the company, on the bottom line on revenue. You know, it's not just the right thing to right thing to do. It's a smart thing to do. And there's an added there's a benefit for everyone, right? It's not charity work, and it shouldn't be seen as charity work where we're just giving back through this RDI efforts.   Michael Hingson  14:27 So let me let me make this observation about what what you were saying before, I think that the whole issue of being stateless the whole issue that you faced and that you saw with two different countries that you compared treatments of people about really plays right into the whole area of diversity and inclusion and in reality, I know I and other persons with this disabilities tend to experience that concept a lot. And I liked what you said about keeping your dignity because it is something that we all face. Blind people, for example, when we talk about diversity, blind and other persons with disabilities generally tend to be left out, we're not included. When you talk about diversity, when most people talk about diversity, they'll talk about race and culture, and gender and so on. And you rarely hear disabilities mentioned, which is unfortunate. And it's really difficult to get people to start to talk about that in the conversation.   Martine Kalaw  15:38 You know, Michael, I absolutely agree. And I think that when we talk about, you know, blindness or any other types of disabilities, physical disabilities, you know, um, you know, neurodiversity, various other categories of diversity. I think that the overarching challenge, even when it comes to race, is that people don't want to say the wrong thing, right. And so they say nothing at all, which they don't realize is more can be more harmful and hurtful, and can mute people, right? And make them feel invisible. It's like, you know, you hear, I hear when I lead conversations on race relations and leading workshops, people say, Well, I don't want to say the wrong thing. So I'm not going to say anything at all. You know, sometimes CEOs who happened to be white males will say, you know, I don't want to get involved. I don't want to offend anyone, I don't want to say the wrong thing. I'm sure. My opinion doesn't matter in this conversation. And I say quite the opposite. Your opinion does matter. We want everyone's voice in this conversation. And to me, diversity, equity. Inclusion means creating a safe space where people can engage in discussion, can share their stories, and can ask the questions without fearing saying the wrong thing. And the listener, the recipient can also when they they win, when they're asked a question, or someone makes a statement, that doesn't sit right with them, they can first consider that, perhaps the person's intentions are good, they just don't know it's coming from ignorance rather than malice. And that's really not, that hasn't really been established, you know, in this space of di and that's what I think is important for companies to do is to establish that, so that therefore no one, no one's on the sidelines, no one if you're if you have a disability, you're not on the sidelines, because the conversation is solely about race, right? Everyone should be included. It shouldn't be just focusing on you know, sexual orientation, or race or gender or ethnicity, or what have you, or nationality issue, it should include every, every category of, of diversity.   Michael Hingson  18:20 And so I'm sorry, go ahead.   Martine Kalaw  18:23 No, I was gonna say, I do agree with you. I do agree that when we think diversity, when the conversation around diversity, equity inclusion begins, oftentimes, the focus the central focus are gender, race, and ethnicity. And the others are kind of like, you know, become a byproduct of those three overarching diversity categories. Now, even though   Michael Hingson  18:53 even though when we really look at it, the category of persons with disabilities is 25% of all Americans. It's a very large group. And the fact is, it doesn't tend to get included, which is why like, people like me, for example, I tend to define diversity as different from inclusion because if you're truly going to be inclusive than you are or you're not, there's no middle ground. Well, we include some people, you're not inclusive, then we have to change that attitude. And I think you sort of hit on part of it, which is mostly when it comes to disabilities. I think we're dealing with fear. Yeah, we are dealing with people who are different and we tend to be uncomfortable with difference. But I think we also have been so conditioned, especially with physical disabilities, because non physical disabilities are less visible. Nevertheless, they're still part of the process, but we deal with fear. Oh my gosh, I don't want to become like them. I could become like them and I we can't we can't have that, you know, those are the kinds of things that we see all the time.   Martine Kalaw  20:05 Wow, I appreciate the honesty in that. Because I think that if we want to get to the root of the conversation on di, we've got to get real. And I do think that that is real. I will say, just to kind of backtrack a little bit. One of the reasons I agree with you that there's a fear, but another reason why the the, the conversation around diversity starts with race and gender, ethnicity, is because it's sometimes the most obvious, right? It's not always so obvious, because sometimes our perception of somebody's race or gender is not actually what how they self identify, however, it's, it has their more physical attributes that we can pinpoint that tie back to race, gender, ethnicity, right. And so that is the reason I believe that's one of the reasons why that's a prevalent, you know, you know, that's the prevalent prevalent conversation, but also, because there there is a gap, right? I mean, we know, and we we can acknowledge that, you know, race, race relations, is has been an issue in our country for hundreds of years, and it hasn't really changed. And it's showing up and structural racism in you know, different spaces in our society. So that's one of the reasons right. But at the same time, I also agree with you that diversity in the realm of disability or abled onus has been overlooked. And I do agree that there are two elements of fear. One is fear of saying the wrong thing. And offending someone, right. I don't want to say, am I using the right term? Right? Because di like the way that it's been presented in the last couple of years, it's like, it puts people on guard where they feel like they have to be politically correct. They have to say the right thing. They don't know what to say. So they don't want to say anything at all right. That's why my book is called the ABCs. of diversity, because we, we make it too complicated. So that's one of the reasons one fear is they people don't want to say the wrong thing. They don't want to they think back, right, we all think back, many of us can think back to when we were children, if we saw someone in a wheelchair, we pointed our parents would say don't do that, like, like, the acknowledgement of the person in the wheelchair was a bad thing. There was nothing wrong with acknowledging that someone's in a wheelchair, like, that's actually good. But our parents didn't want to, you know, would would, you know, try to, like, suppress us because they didn't want us to offend the person. So we carry that into our adult life. And you don't want to say the wrong thing. But in addition to that, what you're saying I agree with, is there is that fear of, well, if I focus on this thing, or this person, or this aspect of this person, then it makes it more real, and then it could be me, right. And I think that's very honest. And I haven't heard that before. But I think if we want to be really honest with ourselves, that is part of the that's the truth.   Michael Hingson  23:32 The kind of fear that I think is also typified by a lot of what you're saying is, let's look at blindness, for example. And this started with teachers with educators and a lot of the professionals in the field of if you will work for the blind, and with the blind, you generally hear people say blind or visually impaired. And there are two problems with it visually. I don't think so we don't look different because we're blind. So visually, is a problem. Vision Impaired is a little bit more of an acceptable term, but the reality is, then you get to impaired. Why do we have to be viewed as less than other people, which is, deaf people have realized this because they would shoot you if you said deaf or hard of hearing or deaf or hearing impaired. They prefer deaf or hard of hearing. And I think that it is more appropriate to say blind or low vision, but get the impaired out because that is a buzzword that creates fear right off the bat.   Martine Kalaw  24:39 And my question is, thank you for sharing my question, Michael is, is there a space for people to make those mistakes and learn because I think that's part of the fear, right? The fear is, I don't know, what's the right terminology. And it's similar to someone asking me or not knowing whether they can refer to me as Black or African American. So then they just try to avoid eye color. And it's I'm okay with them saying, I'm not really sure what the right terminology is. And I can say, You know what? I'm not either, because someone who looks like me standing next to me the same skin tone as me might say, they're, they're African American. And I say, I'm black. So it's okay to ask. And I'm okay with someone making that mistake, because I know that I expect everyone to know. And I think so that's where we got to. That's, that's the crux of the challenge that we have run on di is just that example itself. I did not know that saying visually impaired is not appropriate. Right? Well, no.   Michael Hingson  25:46 And let me let me be real clear. Most people still say that, including blind people, I'm saying, think about the concepts of visually impaired visually, visually, what does that have to do with it? Because I don't look different because I'm blind. Impaired. That means that I'm generally in the fear world considered less, because I'm not impaired, but you're visually impaired. And so the issue is, I think blind people are still learning that words matter. So to answer your question, yes, there is always space. And some people might be offended, just like there are people of different races, who may be offended if you call them one thing or another. But there certainly should be space to deal with it. I was in a   martine  26:36 position to educate and to learn. Sure,   Michael Hingson  26:38 absolutely. And that is really what it's all about. I was in a shopping mall, or actually at a store and an IKEA store. And this young man came up to me and he said, I'm sorry. And I said, Why are you sorry? And he said, I'm sorry, you can't see. And my immediate reaction, and I said it was well, I'm really sorry that you can Why are you sorry? Well, you can't see. I love that. Yeah, yeah. And I said, Look, I say really doesn't have anything to do with it. And by that time, his mother came over and dragged him away, which goes back to what you said before, so we didn't get to continue the discussion. But the reality is, I think on all sides, we need to recognize that words matter. And we do need to change and have the conversation. So it is something that is extremely important to do, because the reality is I'm not impaired. If we want to deal with it that way, then you are blind impaired. And I'm just as correct to say that, as you are saying that I'm vision are visually or sight impaired. And and both of those are not the way we should really deal with it.   Martine Kalaw  27:50 Yeah, and I, I, you know, something you said, around words matter. I was actually doing work with a client a few maybe last year, and, you know, with this company, and basically helping them to define their, what their di corporate statement was, you know, their, yeah, their philosophy. And as I was interviewing and speaking to different leaders, what I learned one of them said, you know, we should just wipe away the words that we're using, like the, all this terminology that we use, and just come up with our own. And that's really, you know, what, what I'm hearing you say, I feel like, in a space of Dei, in the history in the last couple of years, we're just collecting a bunch of lingo for hearing right? In the media, coming from the academic space, and then we we don't really know what it means. And we just use it because it sounds good, it sounds right. Whereas what we can do, what what probably would make more sense, is engage in discussion with people but asking permission, right? It's one thing to just start to, you know, start asking someone to explain, you know, someone who's blind, whether they prefer to be you know, called referred to as visually impaired or blind or what have you, rather than first asking, you know, is it okay for me to ask them ask you some more questions right about your idea? And then if the person says yes, then you can engage in that discussion. And that's where the learning happens, right? And one your your interpretation, your feelings, your how you want to self identify might look different from somebody else who also happens to be blind, right? And that's okay, too. But we can't learn. We can't we can never navigate that until we start to undo this. These terminologies that we we learned because we were so caught up in being politically correct and Using the right jargon, but in the end, we're really not right. Like, when we talk about it's interesting Latin X, you know, or Latina x is, you know, is a common terminology now that is used for individuals who are from, you know, our Latin American or Hispanic, but I'm learning that it's generational, right? Someone who is in their 60s might not respond to being to being called Latinx, who's from the Dominican Republic, they might just say, hey, refer to me as Dominican or no, I'm I'm Latina, or Latino. So I think it's just about getting in a space where we can have discussion, ask questions, and not be immediately offended, because we know that your intentions are to learn, and something else that you said around inclusion, you said something around, like what real, real inclusion doesn't necessarily what real inclusion looks like. And I actually, you know, as I mentioned earlier, in my my, my senior thesis in college, what I realized is that, you know, inclusion has different definitions. So you almost have to ask people, What do you mean by inclusion, right? Because inclusion can mean, hey, let's all come as we are, and be in this space together. And we're all equal in this space, or inclusion can look like, Come and join us and be part of us. So become like us. And that's more of like a simulation acculturation, right. And so when organizations when clients say, we really want to foster inclusion, the next best question that I ask is, what does that mean? What do you mean by inclusion? Tell me what that actually looks like.   Michael Hingson  31:58 Yeah, but if we look at the definitions that existed, that exists today, there are definitions of inclusion. And so I still submit that in reality in the long run, if we don't force people to adhere to a definition of inclusion, that doesn't leave anyone out, then we're doing a disservice that we've already done that with diversity. And diversity doesn't really necessarily allow for inclusion, it recognizes difference. But we don't recognize all differences as equal anyway. But when you get to the concept of inclusion, you are either going to recognize that in some way. All of us are part of the same world, or you're not truly inclusive. And that's part of what we, we do need to deal with. And so, for example, when you talk about companies that are making statements and creating diversity and inclusion statements, I think one of the things that the industry has to start doing more of is making sure that disabilities are included in the statements because if we don't start pushing the conversation, we're not going to ever really be able to have the conversation because we will continue to be left out. attitude about blindness, for example, people constantly say to me, or I read when people write about me, leaving the World Trade Center, Michael Hinkson, was led down the stairs by his guide, dog Roselle, which is absolutely the worst and most atrocious thing people can say, because it implies I don't really have anything to do with the process. And Guide Dogs don't guide or lead they guide. It's my job to give the dog directions command by command and the dog's job to make sure that we walk safely, but people don't get that. And we need to start creating conversations in general, that hopefully will lead people to an idea that maybe our view is not really what it ought to be.   Martine Kalaw  34:18 Yeah. I couldn't agree more. And I think it does, partly, it needs to also I mean, inclusion is one element, but diversity is another. And diversity is about representation. And if you think about, you know, a lot of organizations and companies, they they have not established a space where they're inviting more individuals who have disabilities, sometimes the challenge right they there there needs to be an opportunity to, to, to to Have a broader reach, right? And find candidates who can work. First of all, they've got to create positions and jobs where someone with a particular disability can actually, you know, be able to fully, you know, do the job and has the equipment and, you know, all of that do the job. But then, in addition to that, we've got to have a broader reach, right? Organizations have not really in general, done a lot of that enough of that yet. So therefore, right? That voice is it reinforced in the conversation around inclusion in need.   Michael Hingson  35:42 And hence, we have the unemployment rate among persons with disabilities in this country today, being between 65 and 70%. And it's not because people who happen to have a disability can't do the job. It's the others.   Martine Kalaw  35:58 Yeah, others think you can't, and they're not looking, they're not searching. Their pools are so limited, right? Their pools are limited, the pools are out there. But companies aren't reaching far, far enough, far out enough or far enough out to identify those candidates. And the thing about it that I always emphasize is that, you know, it's not, you know, when you're searching and you're broadening your reach, it's not what you're reducing, or watering down the quality, the qualifications of the applicant, because the applicant is going to apply in the same pool, as, you know, other applicants, the ones that you the pool that you typically look at. So for example, if you start to broaden your reach, and you happen to have a candidate, you know, who is blind and can do the job, and they apply for the position and they're qualified, and they're competing with other candidates that are not blind, they get the position of what difference does it make, right? Because   Michael Hingson  37:05 that's not usually what happens. Of course, what happens is in a job interview, the first question to the SAS is, how are you even going to get to work, it doesn't matter that we got there to for the interview. And it doesn't matter what the resume says. And most all of us can tell you horror stories about how recruiters and others if teach have have treated us when we get to an interview. And for the most part, people tend to not even say in advance that they're blind, of course, it's a double edged sword. Because if you don't say you're blind, and you get the interview, then the defenses go up when you get there. But if you do, say you're blind before the interview, it's a it's a difficult way to it's difficult process to deal with. But there's a way to deal with to address that. But if you do say you're blind, you won't generally even get a letter back acknowledging that you send in a resume. And so that's why I'm saying I think that the DEI industry, the professionals in the industry, need to start to really help push the conversation, because it's not that we're not trying. But it's it's that we're, we're being ignored. You know, we've got where this is National Disability Awareness Month, and national blindness Employment Awareness Month, October 15, is National white cane day, none of that gets mentioned in the media. None of that gets mentioned in the general conversation, and that's what we really need to change. So, you know, those are those are things that that do have to be addressed. But I know your time is short. Tell me about your books. You said, You we talked about one, but tell me about your books. Yeah, absolutely.   Martine Kalaw  38:53 I mean, I, you know, Michael, we should absolutely circle back because this is something that, you know, I I definitely agree that dei practitioners in house out, out, you know, those who have their own businesses and work alongside companies, we can do more we can are, that's, that's one of the things we can do. And I'd love to learn about more organizations that, you know, that, you know, I can connect with, so that, you know, I can, you know, if I'm working with a company and they're looking to recruit more applicants, they're looking for interns, they're looking, right, I can redirect them to an organization where they can find applicants who are from an underrepresented group, you know, one disability, a particular disability. So, I do think that there's more effort that we can all do. And so I appreciate you sharing that. And then I so back to, you know, to your question, my book, my first book is my it's called a legal On us a stateless woman's quest for citizenship. And that was my memoir, which just gives you it's kind of a guide on how I went from where I was as an undocumented stateless person to where I am today and how I navigated through broken immigration system. And the second book, which is also available on Amazon, and is also a an audio book is The ABCs of diversity of managers guide to diversity, equity and inclusion in the new workplace. So it's really meant to read to to be like a primer on diversity, breaking it down, and how managers specifically can incorporate this into their everyday practices. So when we think about foundational Manager Development, diversity falls and reinforces that because managers are involved in hiring and recruiting in promotions and compensation, all of those elements of foundational Manager Development have an element of diversity, equity and inclusion within them. And so this book becomes a primer. Each chapter has an application that way you can, you know, self reflect and then a piece where you can apply it to your, to your, to your everyday job, and to your direct reports. And so, I encourage everyone to, you know, tune in, get a copy on Amazon and also, I have a masterclass every month, you can go on my website, Martinekalaw.com, and sign up. It's a complimentary masterclass on Dei, its main mainly focused on it's targeted to human resources professionals who are trying to implement DEI effectively in your organization's so they can join in for an hour, I will give them the top seven things that they can do in the next 90 days to really move dei forward. The next section session is October 18. And then there's another one November and then so forth.   Michael Hingson  42:10 Spell your your name and the website. Again, you're not spell it all out if you would.   Martine Kalaw  42:17 Yes, absolutely. It's Martine M A R T I N E K A L A W.com. So www dot Martinekalaw.com. And when you go there, you'll be able to find a link to both of my books, as well as the masterclass.   Michael Hingson  42:39 Well, I hope people will reach out. I think this is a fascinating discussion, and I think we should continue it. I think what I believe it will be great to do that. And I think we between us have a lot to offer people. I'd love to hear how you who are listening to this feel about this, please shoot us an email, you can reach me Michaelhi at accessibe A C C E S S I B E.com. And you can go to our podcast page if you're getting this elsewhere, Michaelhingson.com/podcast. But either way, we hope you'll give this a five star rating when you review it. And I hope that you will email Martine and me with your thoughts. We'd love to hear what you think. And maybe you'd like to come on the podcast and talk about it. So Martine again. Thanks very much. I really appreciate your time and the chance to be here.   Martine Kalaw  43:29 Thank you, Michael. It's been a pleasure.   Michael Hingson  43:36 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.

As you soon will discover when you listen to this week's episode, this episode with Lorna was recorded in September of 2022. As usual, we get to have a fun and inspiring conversation.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson to date has published 49 books with more on the way. As you will hear, she believes that everyone has stories to tell. She has published books on various subjects including disabilities.   A good portion of our episode discusses blindness, eyesight, and how the world views and/or should view people's whose eyesight is less than most persons. Lorna provides some fascinating and valuable observations about this.   Regular listeners to Unstoppable Mindset will hear some discussions touch on in previous episodes. However, Lorna's ways of discussing issues and her personal insights are relevant and come strictly from her own observations. You can't but be inspired and enthralled by all she has to say about writing and her life.     About the Guest: Lorna Schultz Nicholson has published over 46 books with three more coming out in September 2022. Her books include children's picture books, middle-grade fiction, YA fiction, and non-fiction. Although many of her books are about sports (not all mind you) they are also about family and friendships and include diverse casts of characters. Her books have been nominated for many different awards. Lorna loves traveling and presents about writing at libraries, schools, and conferences to inspire people to love reading and writing as much as she does.  Lorna lives in Edmonton, Alberta with her husband (Go Oilers Go) and a dog that she rescued from Mexico.    Ways to connect with Lorna:   Website: www.lornaschultznicholson.com  Facebook: Lorna Schultz Nicholson Instagram: Lornasn Twitter: Lornasn          About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is an Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe 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, hi there, wherever you happen to be today. This is Mike Hingson and you are listening to unstoppable mindset. Really glad you're here. We are going to have fun again today as usual, and get inspired and do all those things that we do on unstoppable mindset. And again, I really appreciate you being here and hope you enjoy what we have to talk about today. We have Lorna on with us. And I'm going to let her introduce herself pretty much except to tell you that she is an author who has written a whole bunch of books when I met her she had written 46 books. And since we last talked she said she was going to be publishing three more by September so one of course the big questions of the day is did you get to do that but first, learn a welcome to unstoppable mindset. Thanks for being here.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  02:09 Thank you, Michael. Yes, it's Lorna Schultz Nicholson, and that is a long name three names and nobody ever spell Schultz. Right. That's okay.   Michael Hingson  02:18 Well, how do you spell it?   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  02:20 S C H U L T Z,   Michael Hingson  02:23 that's, that's the way I've always spelled it.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  02:26 Good for you. Because you have no idea how many people either forget to see or they forget the the yell or the T at the end screen or?   Michael Hingson  02:35 Or they make it or they make it an S instead of a Z?   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  02:38 Well, I think they get the Z right. Because of Charles Schultz. Right. They get that right. Because of the   Michael Hingson  02:44 parents. Schultz from Hogan's Heroes. Yes, but   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  02:48 that's spelled the same way as mine.   Michael Hingson  02:51 S C H U L T Z. Yeah,   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  02:53 exactly. Oh, yes. Zee, sir. In Canada, we say Zed   Michael Hingson  02:58 was said Yeah, yeah, S C H U L T Zed. Well, it is a it is a British oriented or whatever thing or, or some sort of an empire thing. Yeah. That's it.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  03:13 Coming to you from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. That's the that's the other thing. I guess I'll say when I introduce myself,   Michael Hingson  03:18 and of course, go Oilers. I know I saw that in your bio. Yes. And how and how did we do?   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  03:27 Well, the season I did fine. I've got those three books coming out. So I'm now on my 49 published book. And I do have a spring book in the docket. So it says it's a picture book. So that will be my 50th book in the spring. But right now I'm sitting at 49. Wow. 49th. One was just released today.   Michael Hingson  03:49 And our hockey and how did our hockey season go?   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  03:55 Season was great. Last year. It hasn't started this year, they'll be starting their training camp right now. Players and training camp they will be starting up mid October sort of beginning of October, mid October, the first games will happen. They'll go into some preseason games here. You know, we all have to watch baseball for a little while. Because, of course they're wrapping up the end of their season. So we all get excited about that too to watch the World Series.   Michael Hingson  04:24 And in addition to hockey and baseball, do you ever watch basketball?   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  04:28 I do actually because I'm a Toronto Raptors fans. So there you go. Okay. Yep, Yep, absolutely. I like watching basketball to   Michael Hingson  04:37 football, and football. We love college football. And right now we're very happy because my wife Karen is a graduate of USC. Okay. And well, she did her graduate studies there and the team is doing really well this year. We have no major complaints. First time in a long time. So we're very pleased about that.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  04:58 That's exciting. That's it. I think very exciting. There   Michael Hingson  05:01 are three and oh, and all three games, they scored more than 40 points per game. Oh,   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  05:07 I have a brother in law who always fights with this USC and UCLA. There's always a big rivalry between those two, right? Oh, there is? Oh, yeah. Yeah, that happens in my family because they live down in California. So there's always this rivalry that goes on in the family between the two. And which one does he like? You know, that you knew you're gonna ask me that. And I think he's the UCLA.   Michael Hingson  05:32 Well, you know, we we understand that there are those people in the world who who are less fortunate than we, and that's okay. Well, let's see. See, my story is that on the day, we got married, our wedding was supposed to start at four o'clock. And it didn't start until a quarter after four because at four, the church was less than half full. And at 12, after four, suddenly the doors opened, and this whole throng of people came in. And so we finally were able to start when we asked somebody later, what the heck was the deal? Why was everybody late getting there? And they said, No, nobody was late. They were sitting out in their cars waiting for the end of the USC Notre Dame game. So one that tells you where we were in the priority of things, but but SC want Notre Dame, so we knew the marriage was gonna last?   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  06:29 Oh, I love to hear that. That's a lovely story. That's a good story.   Michael Hingson  06:33 Well, tell us a little bit about you kind of where you came from your life, your life a little bit, and we'll go from there.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  06:40 Well, um, I actually grew up in Ontario, St. Catharines, Ontario, which is really, really close to Niagara Falls, and Niagara Falls, New York, Niagara Falls, Canada. And then I did a lot of moving around and all that, you know, that we all do, and going to university and that kind of thing. And I wasn't always a writer. I mean, you know, I should go back and say that that's not exactly true. But I didn't always think that I was going to be a writer, like, I never grew up thinking that I was going to be an author, like I have some friends off their friends who grew up saying, I knew I was going to be an author, I wanted to be a writer, I wanted to do that when I was little. And I didn't have that. I wanted to be an athlete. Like, if you had asked me when I was a child, they'd say what you want to be when you grew up, I'd say an athlete, my mom and dad would say, because in my era, of course, my parents said, that's not really a profession, you can relate to that. So you know, I went into other things that had to do with sports, like I got a science degree in kinesiology and, you know, worked in the fitness industry. And then when my children were little I came, I decided to take a writing course. And I, I discovered how much I loved writing. And then it brought me back to my childhood, of how much I love to read, and how I love to write stories when I was a kid, that I just never pursued the writing Avenue, but I did actually love writing stories. So it was a bit of a full circle for me, and it didn't happen. You know, in my 20s, I didn't get my first book published until I was in my 40s. And I worked really hard in those late 30s. After that course, I sort of got like, jazzed up. And I, I wanted to write and I wanted to be a writer, and I wanted to be published. And of course, that takes years to happen, you know, you have to keep trying and trying and trying, and keep submitting and keep writing another story. And then finally, I got a book published in 2004. So I mean, I was in my early 40s, when that actually happened. And so for anybody who's listening out there, who wants to write and you think, Well, I didn't do this in my 20s, and I didn't go to university for it, and I didn't get an English degree. You know, you can keep trying, just keep trying.   Michael Hingson  09:02 Well, it's always about trying and I and I take the tact also that if you don't happen to want to write a book or whatever, you do, at least have stories to tell.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  09:13 Everybody has a story to tell everybody who and I and I do a lot of writing classes as well. I teach a lot of writing classes I teach a lot to kids, like because I I write mostly children's I do write some adult but I write a lot of children's literature. And so I'm often in schools, you know, or workshops, writing workshops for children and, and you know, they're keen keen writers or they're not But and if they're not, I like to tell everybody you have a story to tell everybody has a story to tell. And out in the world. There are lots of stories. So I think that that's the most important part about writing is the story part of it.   Michael Hingson  09:53 One of the things that I find and I love to tell people is if you Don't think that you would be a good guest on the podcast because you don't necessarily talk about whatever our mission is. What I tell people as well, our mission is to inspire people more than anything else. We do talk about disabilities, we do talk about inclusion, and of course, being blind and wanting to get people to have a little bit different view of what blindness and disabilities are all about. I'm always glad to do that. But at the same time, the general purpose of this podcast is really to show people that can be more unstoppable than they think. And so as I go out, and I look for guests, and we searched in a number of different ways, but people often say, Well, I don't know that I would really be good for your mission. And then I say, well, but our mission is to inspire. But I don't really know what to talk about. And I say the same thing that you just said, everyone has a story to tell. And so my job is to help people really find or remember what their story is, and talk about it. And there's no formal way or anything else to do that. It's more an issue of you have a story and we want to hear it. Yeah, I   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  11:09 agree with you. I do think that people, everybody has a story. And I mean, Michael, you have a story, because were you blind at birth? Yes. Yes. Okay, so you have a story. And, and you're doing a great job with this podcast by getting people you know, to tell their unstoppable story, but also to inspire people to do other things. And, and I do write a lot about different disabilities I, I am I have a series that I've written that's called the One to One series, a book has just been published in the series, it's called behind the label. And in that series, I've looked at first book had a character with autism, high functioning autism, the second book was a character that was born with Down syndrome, I have featured fetal alcohol spectrum disorder in it. And I think it's really important that, you know, I'm going to say, behind the label is the latest book that came out, but that we do look behind that label too. So we look behind your label of your disability of being blind. And then we find your your true story and, and how you can help others as well. You know, maybe maybe go through what they're going through.   Michael Hingson  12:28 Of course, one of the things that I have pointed out a number of times on this podcast, and I love to tell people is if we're going to really talk about people with disabilities, then we really have to recognize that everyone has a disability specifically for most of you, your disability is that you are light dependent, you don't do well if the lights aren't on. And electric lighting is a relatively new invention, it came around in the mid 1800s. But the reality is, you guys don't do well, without lights. And in the workplace. Companies and builders provide lights and the ceilings and all sorts of lights so people can see to get around and so on. But that's your problem. And not mine. I don't happen to have that disability. And we need to recognize that everyone does have a challenge people take it for granted. Well, I'm not really disabled, because I can get around. Yeah, let's see how you do in a dark room. And let's see how well you read in a dark room. Or let's see how well you function in other ways when lighting conditions aren't great, because we're always looking for the best lighting conditions. So the reality is we all have disabilities. And we should recognize that. So we don't try to say that we're better because we're not of the of the scope where our disability if you want to call it that is really less than yours, because it's not there. We all have them. And it's an equalizing thing, I think among all of us in society in general.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  13:59 I totally agree with that. And that's a very, very interesting concept. I never, you know, thank you for saying that, because I never really thought of it that way. Like, I'm thinking now of course, when I turned my computer on the first thing I thought of was, oh, no, I forgot my, my ring light in. in Penticton. I have I have a summer place that I go to by the lake. And so I was coming back yesterday, I drove back yesterday and I forgot my ring light. My ring light is there. I'm thinking I don't have my ring light. Oh my goodness. So that's not something that you even thought of before this podcast, you didn't think to yourself, oh, gosh, I don't have my ring light. You didn't think of that. And that's that's very, very interesting for you to say that. And I thank you for that. Because I think that that's that's something that you know, we people who have our vision, we don't even think about and it's true. We don't know how to walk in the dark. We don't know how to turn off our Lights and feel around and try to find our way to our bed. Like, you know, we keep our little nightlight on so that we can get there. So that's a really interesting, a really interesting comment. And I do agree with that, that I think that the more that we we look at the world as a whole, and look at all the individuals who are in our world, and look at the fact that we are each and every one of us different. And I'm not sure why, why we have to put everybody into into sort of so many boxes, like why can't we all just live together and sort of understand that we're all different. And we all have a different makeup, like even identical twins are different. Sure, they have small differences. And they, you know, they're not, they're not exactly the same in their personalities.   Michael Hingson  15:57 So maybe we should work together and write a book, or you write a book, and I'm glad to help on blindness. And we bring out some of these concepts that might be kind of fun to explore.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  16:09 Very fun to explore. I mean, a friend of mine actually did write one where she had a visually impaired runner, and you know how they're then they tether them together. And I was just watching that running race the other day with this gal who was just running like the wind. And she was she had a runner beside her. And she was visually impaired. And it was really incredible. I was just like, wow, that's that's impressive. That's good, really good.   Michael Hingson  16:37 But of course, the question is, why should it be viewed as being so incredible? And the answer is, of course, most people can't imagine doing it without eyesight. And the reality is eyesight has not a lot to do with it. If you look at it a different way. It's all about information gathering and having the information that you need. And certainly eyesight is one way to get information. But it's by no means the only way that we get data. And nor should it be the only way we get data. And the difficulty is that so often, people who can see really think is the only real game in town. And oh, for a number of years, the Gallup polling organization, classified blindness specifically, is one of the top five fears that people felt they faced. And it shouldn't be that way. But we really don't look at the reality that blindness isn't the problem. It's our perceptions. And there are a lot of ways to get information, far and away, even in some sense of superior to eyesight, but we just don't look at it that way. Because we're used to seeing and we think that's the only way to do it.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  17:55 Do you think that your other senses have been heightened? That perhaps I mean, we are very people that have eyesight are very visual, like visual, the won't be the word for it. That's probably their top choice.   Michael Hingson  18:14 Because that's what they're used to. I do not think that senses are heightened simply because we don't see, I think they're heightened if we use them. That's why some of the examples that I use are military teams like SEAL Team Six, or any of the high functioning very specialized military teams that have learned to use their eyesight they see better than anyone else, because they've learned to use that sight. They've learned to process the information more effectively, because of what they see. But they've also learned to use their other senses. And so those senses are also heightened because they've learned to use them. And so the result is that they're not heightened simply because you lose one or not. They're heightened because you make use of them. And you recognize that they are as valuable, as eyesight, for getting as much information about your environment or whatever it is that you need to deal with.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  19:22 So it's kind of like, in a way, people that have vision are a bit lazy with their other senses. We could You could say that we allow our vision to be our strong strong sense. It's like you know, in your body like if you work out your you know, your your hamstrings and your glutes, you always use your quads you don't necessarily you know, there's certain muscle groups that take over so maybe we just let our vision take over and we become a bit lazy and we don't use all our senses and you know, getting Back To Me teaching classes. This is one of the things that I try to teach students is that use all your senses when you're writing, because it's very, very easy as a writer to just write with the visual. And so you write what somebody looks like you write that they were this, they were that they did this, they, you know, it's all visual. And I try to tell students and I try to do it with my own writing, sometimes I'll write something and then I'll take a look at it. And I'll say, well, Lorna, you didn't use your senses in this. Now, how can you add this in? What did the person smell when they walked in? Did a feather you know, did they walk into a barn and a feather hit their nose, and then they sneezed. So what was the sense of touch? So, and hearing, I mean, it's all really important to put those senses in, in writing, it's super important. And it is very, very easy just to write with the visual, and a lot of kids will do that. So then it's up to me to say, You know what, let's look at everything else here. Let's look at all your other senses when you're writing this. So that's something that's interesting, too, is that I think that it's even more important. Now that I've chatted with you. I'm thinking wow, like, this is really interesting. I mean, this is, this is something that, you know, I, you know, I can talk to kids about that we need to do this more.   Michael Hingson  21:28 Well, the issue is that, of course, your expertise is in eyesight. And that's why I suggested we ought to explore doing a book. And that's something that we can talk about, but but the reality is your expertise is in eyesight, you can gain more expertise in other senses. But the odds are because the world has been shaped around eyesight, that's what you're going to use. And I appreciate that, and understand that. And we love you anyway. But thank you, but but the bottom line is, it is the way the world is shaped. And and so as a result, we don't really look at our other senses in the way that we can. Which isn't to say that if you're writing a book about a blind person that you so emphasize the other senses that you don't talk in the vernacular that people are used to. So for example, I watch TV, I go to watch and see movies. And the reason that I say that is not because of an eyesight issue, but rather, the Webster's Dictionary defined, see in one of his definitions as to perceive. So why shouldn't I use See, as well as anyone else does, we've got to get away from the concept that that's the only game in town that is eyesight, which and I don't know whether you've read my book, Thunder dog, which is a book that we wrote about not only me growing up as a blind person, but my story of being involved in the World Trade Center on September 11 2001. But in center dog, one of the things that I say is don't let your sight get in the way of your vision. And it's absolutely important that people start to realize that because we talk about vision, I think I've got tons of vision, I just don't see so good as I love to say to people, but vision is there. And I don't object to people using the word vision relating to eyesight, but it is not the only way and not the only definition of the word.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  23:32 I really liked that comment. Don't let it don't let your sight get in the way of your vision.   Michael Hingson  23:38 Don't let your sight get in the way of your vision.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  23:42 That's it. That's a very, very good comment. That's, that's a good line. That's a very good one. Um, no, I haven't read your book. But now I'm going to I hope you will. Yeah, for sure. Like   Michael Hingson  23:51 it sounds really interesting. And it was a it was a number one New York Times bestseller. He brags and, you know, but it it is intended to teach people more about blindness of blind people, and I hope you and others who haven't read it will read it. Also being a poor, starving author, you know, we need people to buy books anyway. So it's important, but But here's another one. And then we I've got lots of questions for you. But here's another one. People say that I and other people who happen to be blind or visually impaired, look at the wording visually impaired. Now the last time I checked when you talk about something visual, and you talk about something that's visually oriented, it's about how it looks. And I don't think that I'm impaired simply because I'm blind from a visual standpoint. I don't even like low vision, because then you're still making it all about degrees of eyesight. I think that the fact is that low vision is probably better than certainly a lot better than visually impaired or Vision Impaired because again, I think I've got lots of vision and to say that we're impaired with our vision or our eyesight is really a serious problem because you're still then promulgating the class difference between people who happen to be blind or who don't see, as well as most people, and people who have better eyesight. So blind and low vision is probably at this point, the best that we can do. It's sort of like deaf and hard of hearing. If you say to most Deaf people, you are hearing impaired, you're apt to be executed on the spot because they recognize the value of words.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  25:38 Right. So what what are the words that we should use?   Michael Hingson  25:42 I would say right now the best words that I can give you are blind and visit low, low vision.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  25:48 Okay. Okay. I mean, because you know, what, sometimes we don't know sometimes. I don't know what I'm supposed to say. And, and the last thing that I want to do is say the wrong thing. But but you know, I mean, things go out there. And, and we're told, you know, you can't say that. So it is nice to hear it from you, that this is what, you know, what we what we should say, and well, vision. And   Michael Hingson  26:19 the other part about it is, of course, what you're welcome. But the other part about it is you can't say that, you know, that concept and that comment is a problem. The fact that we worry so much about political correctness is is a problem. I think that, that if somebody says that I'm visually impaired, I'm not going to get too offended by that. But I am going to try to correct the concepts that No, I don't think I'm visually impaired, don't I look the same as most anyone else. You go back and look at what visually means. And I don't think that I'm more any more visually impaired than you are. But I happen to be blind or I can be considered low vision. But even most low vision, people really ought to look at themselves as blind. And what do I mean by that? I subscribe to a different definition of blindness that Kenneth's Jernigan, a past president of the National Federation of the Blind created. And his definition was you are blind if your eyesight has decreased to the point where you have to use alternatives to full eyesight in order to accomplish tasks. So if you've got to use large print, or a closed circuit television or a magnifier, the odds are you will probably lose more, if not all of your eyesight at some point in your life. So now is the time to start to learn blindness techniques and to accept the fact that blindness isn't the problem. And that you can function as a blind person, in a world where most people don't happen to be blind. And if we would start to do that, we would learn that blindness, again, isn't really the issue that we face. It's more of the misconceptions that people have   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  28:04 very interesting. And I mean, I think there are a lot of misconceptions with everything. I mean, you know, every single difference in somebody, often there are misconceptions about it. And and I think that, you know, sometimes when I was writing, I remember writing the book about autism, that I had a character that had autism and high functioning autism, and I, I remember being in a lineup in the grocery store, and all of a sudden, I thought somebody was in front of me. And then I thought, you know, what, maybe, you know, I don't want to be impatient here. Because it's that person may be, you know, their name may have maybe they do have autism, or maybe they do have something that is just creating them to be a little slower is that my, that's not my deal. That's who they are. And I should respect who they are. And I think that that's really important in our world is that we just respect who everybody is, and what everybody is all about. And look for the insight of the person instead of that sort of outside that we're always looking at which I use the word looking,   Michael Hingson  29:13 which is fine. That's the word right? Sure. And it's fine to use that word.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  29:19 We're looking like because we, we do look like you know, we do look and but you look in a different way.   Michael Hingson  29:26 But look doesn't necessarily need to be defined as with your eyes. And that's the real issue, right? We're so oriented in our mindset, overall, are thinking about looking, you have to do it with your eyes. And that's where the breakdown comes, rather than recognizing that look, means really to examine or explore in a number of different ways and it doesn't necessarily need to be with eyesight.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  29:56 And that's an that's a very interesting concept, right? We can look I guess we can look with our ears or we can look with our senses, other senses, correct?   Michael Hingson  30:06 Well look as a general sort of a thing. You know, we listen with our ears, but it's part of looking around.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  30:14 Right? Yeah. Interesting. Very, very interesting. I like to use of your words, I like the use of how you're taking certain words that I may think are only visually, I'm 50. Courts. I love words, right? I'm a writer. I love words. So you're taking words, and you're you're spinning them a little bit for me?   Michael Hingson  30:36 I'm taking. I'm taking site orientation out of it. Right. Yeah. Which, which is important. And so you see why our podcast unstoppable mindset can go off in all sorts of different directions that we never thought about when we started this.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  30:54 Yeah, we're going off in a totally different direction. But, you know, it's fun, really enlightening. It's really enlightening to me, I'm really actually learning a lot today. So this is really   Michael Hingson  31:04 good. Well, you know, it's, it's part of what makes life fun going off and having adventures and adventures and words are always important to have and learning new concepts. And and every time I have these conversations, I get to learn things and sort of even more effectively, and hopefully, efficiently define what I do and say, and so, yeah, I love it. It's it's enjoyable to do this, but I do have a question for you. You have written a lot of books now, relating to sports and how come?   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  31:38 Because I love sports. And I love sports as a child, as I said, when my parents would ask me what I wanted to be when I, you know, people would ask what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always said, I want to be an athlete. Everybody looked at me like, Okay, well, that's not really a profession. What are you talking about? I love sports. As a child, I played everything you can possibly imagine everything I possibly, you know, was was there for me. And it was something that was really big in my life. So sometimes there's that old saying that write what you know, and especially when you're starting off writing it makes makes it a little bit easier. I mean, you know, blindness, you could write about blindness. So it's like, write what you know, and I and I knew about sports. So I wrote a tremendous amount about sports. And really interesting. Just a little side note here. I wrote a book called when you least expect it, and it's about a rower. And I was a rower in high school, I grew up in St. Catharines, Ontario, which is, as I said, close to negra falls, was a really big growing community. And I got into a boat and I rode and I, you know, went on and was on the national team and you know, won the Canadian championship and I was down, we went down to Philadelphia, we went down to Princeton, we went down to all kinds of places to row. And I really, really loved it. And the book ended up winning an award this year, it won the R rasa network for the Writers Guild of Alberta. And so I want some money for that. And I decided that I would give back and I would give a little scholarship, you know, give half of the money away to somebody who was finishing rowing at the St. Catharines rowing club where I grew up, and they were going to go into university. I ended up giving it to an I don't want to say visually impaired   Michael Hingson  33:26 A Low vision person.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  33:30 Yeah, because she sent me this letter. So I asked the, for the criteria, they had to send me their admission letter and tell me that they were going to continue on with the sport. And then they had to write a letter to me about, you know, something to do with my main protagonist and how, you know, they related and she just, she sent me this lovely letter about how, you know, she really wanted to be in sports, but she found it hard, difficult for some of the sports but then she found rowing. And as somebody with low vision, this was something that she could be very successful at. And she actually went in a single and in the Paralympic race at the Henley and she won the gold medal. So very interesting. And she wrote it a four but I think to get her bearings, she was able to sit on the floor, and then you know, a Coxy would, you know, steer the boat down and all she just had to hear for the sounds of the water to put the to put the orange in the water. So I just I just thought I'd share that thing as I'm talking to you today. So that was the letter that inspired me. I was like, this is this is this is good. This is inspirational and that's what this show is about. Because she was unstoppable she she wasn't going to say no like no I can't do this. She just went out and found some somewhere where she could be an athlete and, and be successful and go on to university and follow her dream and follow her passion.   Michael Hingson  34:59 A friend of mine, Ariel Gilbert, who I've known for a long time I met her when I was working at Guide Dogs for the Blind. And she was working there as well is an inner is an international rower, and also was involved in the Paralympics. And actually when the Olympics were held. Last, I think in California, she was one of the people who carried the torch for a mile. And so has been very involved in the Olympics and very, very heavily involved in rowing and has done it for a number of years. She had to stop for a while because of some kidney issues. But that all got straightened out. And she's started again. Oh, so she's been rowing for for quite a while. And the reality is, it's a very doable sport. And she tells the story about how people didn't think that she could do it. And she said, Of course I can. Let me at least have a shot at it. And it didn't take very long during the shot at it for people to recognize that she was going to be as good as anyone else. Which makes perfect sense.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  36:05 Yeah, I was so impressed with the letter to be really, and she was the one who got the scholarship or the bursary. She got the bursary. I emailed her and I said, you know your letter, I loved your letter, I thought that, you know, you explained everything to me quite well. And, you know, here's your money and go forth, and go to university and, and join your crew and keep going at it. And, you know, she just said it was a place where she felt that she could make some friends. And, you know, she just found success, and it is doable. It's a very, very doable sport for that. So, I mean, when I wrote the book, when do we expect it, it's not what I expected. So I mean, you know, it was when he least expected that I would, you know, donate the money back, and then get these letters in, and then all of a sudden end up on your show, to tie all of this together. And I kind of liked when things like that do happen, because as I said, everybody has a story to tell. And it was a really, really interesting story. So thank you for sharing with me about that other woman who? What was her name again?   Michael Hingson  37:13 Ariel Gilbert, she lives up in the Bay Area in California.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  37:17 I'll look that up. Because very interesting. I mean, she this other gal said, yeah, it was a very doable, doable sport for her.   Michael Hingson  37:24 As with, as with a lot of things, the biggest problem is again, people's perceptions. Well, the belief is you've got to see to do it. And the question is why? Even even driving a car today technologically can be done. Although the technology isn't in wide use and isn't really in ready for primetime use. But and I'm not talking about an autonomous vehicle, but rather, a person truly being able to drive. Why should we view that is only something that a person with full eyesight can do with the amount of information that is truly available to us with technology today. And there has been demonstrations of a blind person truly driving a car, getting information from the vehicle that allows them to be on the road, or the one thing I'm thinking of, and I've talked about it here before, is the now president of the National Federation of the Blind Mark Riccobono drove a Ford Escape around the Daytona Speedway right before the 2011 Rolex 24 race, driving through an obstacle course passing a vehicle, and a number of other things because the car was transmitting through some additional instrumentation on the car information to mark that allowed him to safely be on that course, and drive around the course successfully. Again, eyesight is not the only game in town. And yeah, will that technology be something that gets built into cars, so more blind people can use it, hopefully in some way, at least, if nothing else, when we start to deal more with autonomous vehicles. And until we get to the point where there are 100% foolproof, which is going to be a ways away. It's going to be probably mandated that someone needs to be behind the steering wheel and be able to take control of the vehicle if something breaks down or drops out during the autonomous vehicles driving of technology driving the vehicle. I want to have the same opportunity to do that. Does anyone else at least to be able to safely pull the car to the side of the road? And the fact is the technology exists to do that?   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  39:42 Mm hmm. You know, it's typical sports to a friend of mine wrote a book with a it was a children's book, but it was a hockey book. Right? A lot of hockey books because I live in Canada. But they had a puck that had a puck that has like, like a rock or something in it. And the puck, you know, so when they stick handle down the ice, they could hear the puck. Yeah, yeah, it's it's, it's something that's used with people that are blind can play hockey, because they can actually hear the puck. And so then they can pass it over and they can hear it.   Michael Hingson  40:22 And then they, there are some interesting and extremely active sports that blind people are are involved with. And of course, the whole concept of physical fitness is becoming more of an issue that a lot of us are paying attention to. And again, even exercise programs can be very accessible, if we verbalize rather than just showing things on a screen or through a camera lens, or whatever. And the fact is that there are a lot of ways to make it possible for more people to be included in what people think are otherwise not accessible or not any kind of activities that people without eyesight can do. Because eyesight is not the only game in town. There are many blind scientists and blind people who have participated in other things. For many years, it was assumed that no blind person could teach. And that eventually was addressed. And now it's fairly commonplace, although there are many school districts that still won't hire a person. Because the belief is that you have to see to be able to do it. And you don't. And so it's it is a it is a constant thing to explore and to hopefully do more to educate people about which is really what it is. It's an educational process.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  41:44 Oh, 100% it 100% I think that it's all the more that someone like you, you know, with your podcast, you're today you're educating people, you've educated me even a little bit like hear like a lot, actually. And, you know, I think that that's that's important as well. And I think that technology has probably, perhaps helped the blind out tremendously.   Michael Hingson  42:11 Well, it's helped all of us I mean, I we talked about the electric light bulb, right? That made it possible for us to do so many things after dark. Because before the light bulb, we had to go have used candles are light torches, technology is is helping all of us. And it has only in a relatively shorter time been recognized that we can use technology to further advance the inclusion that we all want. But you know, things like insulin pumps for people who have diabetes who happen to be blind, those insulin pumps use touchscreens and other things. And only recently, I believe in the US, at least as the FDA finally approved one that uses an app on a phone that is accessible so that a blind person can actually as a diabetic use an insulin pump. And the fact is that we've so got ourselves locked into touchscreens now that we find that more and more things are becoming inaccessible to us who happen to be blind or low vision, especially blind because we can't see the icons on the screen. And it's ironic that there's no need for that. Because today, we know that there are ways to make touchscreens accessible. Apple was very clever about doing that when they finally made the iPhone accessible. They had to do that because they would have been sued if they hadn't. But they got creative and they did it. So now every iPhone and Android phones, although that's still not quite progressed to the same level, but every iPhone and Android phones have built in to the software, the things to make them more usable for people who don't happen to see or see well. Right.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  44:01 What about books in braille? Do you find that there's still not enough books in braille?   Michael Hingson  44:07 Oh, I think there's still not enough books in braille. But ironically, again, the issue is that many books are being published electronically, but what they are, are photos saved in some sort of format of printed pages of books. And so those are not accessible. And so when books are made electronically, it's important that there be some sort of text version of the book so that they can be made available for people who happen to be blind again, or who could listen to them. Braille. Braille is still the means of reading and writing that I have available to me and a lot of teachers talk about Braille as being something that we we really don't need anymore because blind people can listen to books and so on. Well, if that's the case of why to be allow, why don't we allow sighted kids to just watch cartoons when Why do we want to teach them print? You know, the concept is still the same. We haven't progressed to really understand that there are true alternatives to eyesight. So a lot of people think a blind person can't right. Now I happen to collaborate with people when I write my find that helpful for me. But by the same token, the the issue is that the technology exists for me to be able to write I use a standard keyboard, you have a process that you use to write, you use a computer and a keyboard, but what's your what's your whole writing process? You written a lot of books, you have to have a process for that.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  45:41 Yeah, I have a process. I generally start with an outline like I mean, there's a lot of thinking that goes on before a book gets published, right, or before you even start a book, start writing a book, not even before it gets published, you think a lot about what you're going to write, you think about how the story should start where the story should end. I mean, there's a lot of that that goes on, before you even start. Sometimes you can think about a book for a year. And then, and then you finally start it. And I often do an outline before I start, not everybody does, I'm not somebody who says Oh, you have to do this, you have to do that everybody has to follow their own process. And my process, it tends to be a bit of an outline, because I'd like to know the ending before we start, just because it saves me time, once I do begin. And then once I begin, I just I go at it, I go at it until I finish the first draft. And then once I finished the first draft, then I can sit back because the first draft is the bones, it's never very good. It's always not very good. And I have to edit it. And I have to revise it and work on it and mold it and make it make it what it's going to be even before I send it to like my agent, even before it gets out. I mean, and she'll give me notes, or I'll give it to friends even to take a look at to give me notes to tell me stuff that's not right with it. And then of course, when it goes to an editor, so yeah, I'm a sort of beginning to end finish. And then, you know, then I go back, and I revise. And I revise. And I revise. That's sort of my process. I have a novel that I have to work on here soon. And I've got the outline done. And I need to I thought a lot about it. And I did write the first chapter. And now I need to just dive back in and, and get the book, you know, get the book finished. But I do have an ending insight and an outline for it. So that's generally my process. Have you have you ever   Michael Hingson  47:39 had a book that has really taken on a life of its own? And maybe even though you wrote an ending, that by the time it was done the whole ending? And everything changed about the book?   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  47:50 Oh, yeah, I mean, that does happen. And sometimes, you know, for instance, with this series that I was telling you about, one to one, yeah, the one to one series. I was in I think the third book, and Harrison was my autistic character in the first book, and I'm in the third book, and I'm riding away and I've got Madeline, and she has this brain injury. And I have a really good girlfriend who has a brain injury. So I kind of took a lot of and I spent a lot of time with her over the years and and so I'm riding away and all of a sudden, Harrison sort of comes back into the story because the kids sort of the teens sort of come in and out of the stories. And they all go the same high school together. And this character came back in and I was like really excited to see him. I was like, Oh, he's back I spoke. So like, and I had not planned that at all that that was simply came out of the blue. And his voice just came right back to me. And I was right back into writing about him. And, you know, he wanted to ask Madeline to dance was really fun. I was like, This is so fun. So yes, it does happen that sometimes it just goes off on a tangent and something appears and then you just think you just go with it. I just went with it. And I was you know, thrilled to have him back in my story. So it was really, really fun. And I you know, that was one of those days where I pushed my chair back at the end of my writing session and went oh, gosh, that was so incredibly fun to do so. Yeah. I mean, that does happen for sure. Yeah. So   Michael Hingson  49:24 did Harrison and Madeline hit it off?   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  49:26 Well, they did. Thank you for asking. I love their interaction. I was like, This is so good.   Michael Hingson  49:35 Well, maybe they will become a thing, or did they become a thing?   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  49:39 Maybe they'll become a high school thing. Who knows? Yeah, it's not up to them.   Michael Hingson  49:44 There's nothing wrong with that.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  49:46 Oh, gosh, no, that's okay. That's good. Anyway, yeah. So that does happen for sure. And that makes it really fun. When it does. That's cool. I allow that to happen. I do allow the book to go off Want to attention to and maybe finish somewhere else that it's never finished before? So   Michael Hingson  50:04 well your characters are part of you, and then in a lot of different ways, and so it's interesting that they can come back and say, No, we think we should go this way.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  50:13 Exactly, exactly. And that's okay. And that's cool, because that's who they are. And they're just telling me something. So, and I enjoy that process. And I enjoy that part of it, for sure.   Michael Hingson  50:25 Do you have yet a favorite book from all the ones that you've written? That that you would identify as kind of your favorite so far?   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  50:33 Oh, no, I gotta say no to that. I think every book is a different process. It's a different book. Some books write themselves, some books, you know, are harder. Sometimes it's harder to, you know, I have to figure out the character. I mean, of course, the rolling book was, you know, based a little bit on me as a teenager. So that has a really special place in my heart, but it doesn't mean it's my favorites. I mean, I know I'm going to say no. Well, that's,   Michael Hingson  51:09 um, that's, that's fine. You just have a lot of fun with all of them, which is, which is great. So what does your husband   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  51:16 do? Oh, my husband works for the Edmonton Oilers.   Michael Hingson  51:20 He works for the Oilers. That's why you said go wireless. I got it. What does he do?   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  51:27 I gotta wear the jersey. I gotta wear the gear. No,   Michael Hingson  51:30 you're not gonna go off and root for the flames and then embarrass him.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  51:36 Never happened? No, no, no, no, no, no. No, he works with me to do either so yeah, I'm an oiler span through what does he do? Pretty good job with them. He's like their vice president. I think they   Michael Hingson  51:49 are cool. I, I tried ice skating once. And it was a challenge for me. And I eventually, as we were actually going off the ice, I finally fell and sprained my ankle. But so I've not ice skated since. But it's one of those those kinds of things that I never really caught on to. And I admire so much people who are able to do it much less the figure skaters and so on, and all the things that they can do.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  52:17 Well, it's amazing. It's, you know, sometimes I look at photos of like, a figure skater or hockey player. And you can see them over on their edge on that one like line. It's a really, really fine line. And it's pretty incredible that they can actually balance on that.   Michael Hingson  52:36 Yeah. And, and the hockey players who can just do that for so long, so fast, and so well. And   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  52:44 so Well, absolutely, yeah, it's, it's actually, you know, it's a really fun sport to write. And I've got I've written a lot of hockey novels because of the speed that I can I and you know, the speed the sounds the throwing off the board's the scraping of the ice. So there's a lot there that I'm allowed to use my words. And so it's fun because it's fast. So I get I can get going into like a scene where it's fast and furious. And they're, they're moving and scraping and doing all kinds of fun things. So yeah, it's it's like,   Michael Hingson  53:22 I think for my part, I could probably learn to drive a Zamboni.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  53:25 Oh everybody, that's it.   Michael Hingson  53:34 But that's a that's a lot of fun to, to be able to do the things that they do. And I admire not only hockey, but all all sports people because they hone some skills so well and so much that it makes it a lot of fun. And the reason we really love college football is although is still becoming more of a money thing. Still, college sports tend to be a lot more fun and still somewhat less commercial than professional sports, which makes them a lot more enjoyable. Oh, for   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  54:07 sure. Yeah, for sure. I think it's very fun, especially down in the states to be my son went to the University of Arizona and that was one of the biggest things that he really wanted to participate in was going to the football games. I mean, for him. That was just such an experience to participate in, in college football and be like a fan. He really enjoyed that. That was kind of a i something he'll never forget.   Michael Hingson  54:35 It's a whole different culture being I think a college sports fan than a professional sports fan. Just it's a it's a whole different environment.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  54:44 He really enjoyed it. And he did mentor the basketball games. He really really enjoyed that part of his college experience. So   Michael Hingson  54:50 yeah, even though as I said, we love USC and we enjoy that, you know, just watching the games are a lot more fun. So of course this Here we'll get to see our two major rivalries, it'll be SC against UCLA. And then we'll also be SC against Notre Dame. And, and those are the two big ones that we tend to, to watch. But we're really enjoying college football. And one of the things that we've really seen an eye I've become much more convinced of over time is how much the coach really does impact the team. I mean, look at what's happening at SC this year, they're three in Oh, and they've been playing so poorly in previous years. And I think their coach in the past, just wasn't really ready to be in the same kind of environment that a USC team is, because he's a winning coach. He's gone off elsewhere now, and he's winning. So I think he's found a better niche. And the person who came in to coach, the USC team is doing really well.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  55:57 Well, the gel to the gel of the people with the coach and all that sort of stuff. I mean, there's so much that goes into a team that actually ends up winning and so much, so much of it is more than just the skill. It's the psychological and the mental game that the team has. Yeah, it's huge.   Michael Hingson  56:20 And it's interesting listening to the announcers, talk about what's happening again, at SC this year, how Lincoln Riley the coach is getting all the people on the team to really interact outside the games and, and feel like more of a team. And that's pretty impressive. And in there's a lot to be learned there about teamwork, and the value of what, in a sense, the coach does, and people talk about the quarterback and football being the leader. But in some ways, the coach brings a different dimension to it. And if the coach is doing a good job, then that's going to help the rest of the team, by any definition. For sure, do you get a lot of coaching from people when you write?   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  57:03 Oh 100% I always I always attribute because I was an athlete, I always attribute my editors as my coaches, editors are so valuable, like in a good editor is huge. And and I look forward to their comments. And they're, you know, this didn't work for this character isn't quite resonating with me, I think you need to go a little deeper into this or you need to, you need to look at the depth of the emotions with this. I didn't quite get it. And I think oh, okay, I thought that I'd done it. But maybe I haven't, when the reader actually takes the book over when the editor takes the book over. So a good editor is worth an author is so worth it to an author. And it's because, oh, it's huge, huge.   Michael Hingson  57:48 A good editor isn't going to change the book unless it just is horrible. What's the purpose of a good editor is is to help you flesh out the book.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  57:56 Yes. And a good editor. I mean, by the time you get the publication, though, I mean, it's been accepted because it is a book that's got something right or else rejected. So you finally get there. And then you know, but then you still have to work with that editor. And that editor will have some thoughts, but you're 100% correct in saying that a good editor doesn't want to change the book. They just want to make it better.   Michael Hingson  58:24 Yeah. And they've learned how to do that. 100 Yeah, yes. So what kind of tips I love to ask this question, what kind of tips do you have for people who want to write or for other writers?   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  58:36 A couple of tips. I would say number one be reader. I think that it's huge. If you know, I've taught lots of courses, and if I get somebody who says oh, I don't like to read, I think how are you going to be a writer like reading is super important. I also think, just write, don't, don't try to edit yourself as you begin to write like, think of your story. You remember what the very, very beginning we talked about story and story is hugely important. So just think about what your story is what it is you want to tell, and how you want to tell it, and who do you want to tell it. And that's that's important too, because the voice of the story is really important. So if you look at it that way, and then you think of story first, and then think of the writing you know, as your as you get the story down, then you can write and then don't be afraid to edit. Don't be afraid to go back over and over and over it and just make it better. Don't think it's done after the first draft. And persistence and perseverance is really important.   Michael Hingson  59:42 Do you when you're writing or once you've written a draft? Do you share it with a cadre of people to get their thoughts and reviews?   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  59:52 Yeah, I have depending on what I'm doing, like, if it's a book that I have signed a contract before I've written the book which I I do have some publishers that I work that way with. But recently, I just wrote a thriller novel, which is an adult novel, which hasn't been published yet, was just a COVID experience because I was bored. You know, I was tired of watching Tiger King. All those shows. So I wrote this book, and I needed some guidance with it. So I asked some friends to read it like, you know, and then we would have a zoom call, and I would get their their take on it. You know, did you get this? Did you get that? Did you understand this? Maybe it needed more. So yeah, I will. I will, it depends on the book. Yeah. And what I'm doing? Yeah. So for sure. I think it's a good, I think it's really good advice for new authors is to is to help flush the story 100%. But make sure you're going with people that you trust. Because you don't want to get it. Like if you get bombarded with feedback. And it's conflicting feedback, then that can be really difficult to so you want to get the feed, but you want to go to people you trust. So maybe people that are in a writers group, if they're in like three or four or five people that can work really well.   Michael Hingson  1:01:14 For sure. Yeah, it's important to be able to get input, but be able to sift through it. Because you're right, it can be very overwhelming. And you have to develop a little bit of a thick skin, not because you shouldn't be afraid of criticism, if you will, although people get worried about that. But rather, it's a thicker skin that helps you be able to sift through it and look for the nuggets that each person brings to suggestions that may be valuable for you.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  1:01:47 Yeah, thick skin is super important in this business.   Michael Hingson  1:01:50 Yeah. Always. Always is.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  1:01:53 Yeah. It's a very important part of the business.   Michael Hingson  1:01:56 Well, this has been really fun. We've been doing this now for a little over an hour, and I really appreciate   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  1:02:02 it take my dog to the vet.   Michael Hingson  1:02:03 Oh my gosh. Or is the horse the dog taking you?   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  1:02:08 Well, probably the dog take you home. There   Michael Hingson  1:02:10 you go. What kind of dog? Oh,   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  1:02:12 I brought him home from Mexico. He's a rescue dog. I picked him up as a little puppy off the street. And I brought him home. Oh, nine and a half now though. He's older now. So I've had him for a lot of years. See doing okay. Oh, he's great. He just has to go for his checkup and get his shots and whatever. You know,   Michael Hingson  1:02:27 Alamo my guide dog goes tomorrow we're taking dog and cat to the vet. Alaba is just going to get his shots and a physical and stitch the cat goes in for a pedicure to trim toenails, and so on because they're getting way too long. And it hurts when she grabs a hold of you now, so we're gonna do that. I'm gonna go   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  1:02:47 get their shots, too. So. So anyway, it's been great. This,   Michael Hingson  1:02:51 this has been fun.   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  1:02:53 Yeah, really fun.   Michael Hingson  1:02:54 Well, we should do it some more. And definitely, we could talk about that book if you'd like. But I want to think I want to thank you again for being here. We'll connect by email. Well, we have to do that. And I want to thank everyone. I want to thank you all for listening. We really appreciate you being here. We'd love to hear your comments. Send an email to me. I would love to hear from you, Michaelhi at accessibe A C C E S S I B E.com. Or go to Michael hingson.com/podcast. And you can find contact information there. But also learn a how can people reach out to you they'd like to talk with you or learn more about you. Oh, my   Lorna Schultz Nicholson  1:03:33 email is Lornasn L O R N A S N at TELUS te l u s.net. That one's pretty easy. Yeah,   Michael Hingson  1:03:44 that one is Lorenasn@telus.net.net. Yeah, that's so there you go. If you want to talk to learn a please hit if you don't want to talk to Lorna, email her and tell her you love the podcast anyway. And of course. And of course, we would appreciate you giving us a five star review whoever you are, wherev

Welby Broaddus was born vision impaired and is legally blind. Too many times, he was told that he couldn't do certain things because of his impairment and yet today, he is a business owner and someone who gives back. His book "Leading Blind Without Vision: The Benefits of Hiring the Blind and Vision Impaired" guides us to a community that is talented and all too often overlooked. To continue the conversation with Welby , check out his website, where you can fill out the contact form or connect with him on LinkedIn. To learn more about Francesca, checkout her website. Drop a DM on Instagram and say hello! Thank you for listening! I'll see you next time. Like this episode? Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Spotify or your favorite podcasting app. Share this with your friends on Instagram or Twitter. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/francesca-zampaglione/support

Journalists Nas Campanella and Tom Oriti live and breathe the news, in fact, it's what brought them together. They chat to Cam and Ali about how they keep the grimness of current events out of their relationship, the surprising issues Nas had with getting a wedding dress that accommodated for her disabilities, and the opportunity she saw to change the narrative in our society about people with disabilities. LINKS  Follow Nas on Instagram @nascampanella. Follow Tom Oriti on Instagram @toriti. Follow Tom on Twitter @ThomasOriti. Follow Cam on Instagram @camerondaddo.  Follow Ali on Instagram @alidaddo.  Follow Nova Podcasts @novapodcastsofficial.  Got a question for Cam & Ali? You can email them at separatebathrooms@novapodcasts.com.au.  CREDITS  Hosts: Cameron Daddo and Alison Brahe-Daddo. Guests: Nas Campanella and Tom Oriti. Managing Producer: Elle Beattie. Producer and Editor: Amy Kimball.  Find more great podcasts like this at novapodcasts.com.au.  Nova Entertainment acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land on which we recorded this podcast, the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation. We pay our respect to Elders past and present. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Food insecurity impacts thousands of New Zealand families every week. However, the myth that people aren't making the right life choices still exists. David spoke to Rebekah Graham from Parents of Vision Impaired about the issue.

Today on the Friday Wire: Liam spoke to Pippa Coom on their regular City Counselling Segment, chatting about her final report of this council term and the upcoming local elections.  David spoke to Rebekah Graham from Parents of Vision Impaired about food insecurity amongst some of our country's poorest people. Liam also had a chat with Steve Thomas from Arts on Tour about arts funding in Aotearoa New Zealand. David talked to Corrine Sales from Victoria University of Wellington about the Ukrainian language. And finally Liam had a chat with the University of Canterbury's Michelle LaRue about her research using satellites to understand wendell seal populations.

Today we welcome Dr. Rick Mitchell to the podcast. Rick is not only a member of Cool Spring, but serves as Commissioner for the Virginia Dept. for the Blind and Vision Impaired, and has been with the agency for 36 years in a variety  of roles. Rick is married for 41 years to Melinda, and has two daughters and four grandchildren.  Rick has a Doctorate in counseling and a Doctorate in Ministry and has served as bi-vocation al pastor in Bristol Va. Visit the Virginia Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired.

How would our lives change if we were blind?In Episode #320 of 'Meanderings' Juan and I discuss: how many blind and vision impaired people there are in Australia, whether we would be able to live on our own and continue certain activities, why travelling without sight would still be desirable, why handstands/weightlifting/learning languages would remain mostly unchanged, A big thanks to Dave Jones, Petar the Slav, Liam F, Joey Broadshoulders, fabi_araujo, granizo22 and rrcedb for supporting the show. Sexy mofo's for sure. #boostagram #boostagramsAs always, we hope you enjoy. Mere Mortals out!Timeline:(0:00) - We're not just audio, we have video!(0:55) - Why I picked this topic(1:55) - Australian statistics of blind people(4:05) - General lifestyle changes(13:46) - Would you want to travel?(20:52) - How would our hobbies change?(29:21) - Live chat comments(32:57) - Boostagram Lounge(49:23) - Would the sexual attractiveness of your partner still matter?(55:07) - Is it worth practicing going blind?(1:01:01) - General sumup(1:02:58) - Value For ValueIntro Music by 'Signs Of New Growth':https://podcastindex.social/@SignsOfNewGrowthConnect with Mere Mortals:Website: https://www.meremortalspodcast.com/Discord: https://discord.gg/jjfq9eGReUInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/meremortalspodcast/

We hear from Reese as she shares her thoughts on virtual learning, typing, jumping on trampolines and narrating herself. 

As the COVID-19 pandemic hit, schools were adjusting and strategizing to figure out how to accommodate their students. During a two-week layoff from school, Reese is introduced to Typio, a typing tutor. Reese is enthralled and teaches Courtney a lesson about how she perceives herself. 

Family vacations are often filled with memories, adventures and experiences. But sightseeing doesn't draw much interest when you are blind. In an effort to put herself in Reese's shoes, Courtney decides on a trip to a lighthouse that she is going to take in the experience without using her vision. 

F2F Academy student, Clair, talks to School Administrator, Darius, and teacher, Bryan, about her experience as a visually impaired student. She discusses some of the obstacles she's had to face, the importance of maintaining a positive attitude, and much more!(Outro music by Dave Boquist)Check out more great episodes at f2fpodcastnetwork.com

In today's show I talk about growing up vision impaired in the sighted world here is a link from one of my friends who has a podcast of his own you should go listen to that I mentioned in the show if you would like to listen here's the link https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marijuana-minutes/id1556357332?i=1000563343033 also here is the YouTube channel that I got this idea from https://youtu.be/Q2MW5Gc4jkA --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Hello and thank you for joining us on today's episode!This week we have a great discussion about why we felt it was important to offer “Audio Only” workouts for the visually impaired. This is a new feature on our website which you can find here that focuses on workouts that are meant for those who may have limited sight or are possibly blind. We felt it was important to try and offer a way for people who cannot see to still have access to fitness routines that are safe, reliable and designed specifically for them.In This Episode You Will Learn:1). What our audio workout feature is and why we decided to set up a page on our website dedicated to releasing this type of content for the visually impaired.2). Why we feel that this type of health and fitness content needs to be created and how the fitness industry has been lacking in catering to the visually impaired.3). Meredith's unique approach to exercise routines that are in an audio format only and how she carefully designs and implements them so that are safe for those who have limited or no vision at all.4). Why getting feedback about these audio workouts will help us improve on them and hopefully help provide a better way for the visually impaired to stay active and healthy as well.5). How Meredith records her audio only workouts and her reasoning for doing them while recording to make sure they are safe for those who are listening and following along.///Thank you again for joining us for this important episode. Making sure health and fitness content is available for all people is very important to us which is why decided to try this new feature. We're excited being able to share exercising routines for people who may be visually impaired and allowing all of us maintain a healthy lifestyle no matter what the limitation is. We hope you agree as well.Til the next episode!Team MeredithSupport the show

Ever wonder what a conductor is doing at the front of an orchestra? Or grow curious about those hisses and sputters when you're waiting in line for your morning espresso? Today, Christine and JJ break down the routines, gestures, equipment and actions of people who work in silence.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/TalkDescriptionToMe)

Artist Pete Eckert began to lose his sight at age twenty-seven. That's the time he began to study photography. In a few years, Eckert would be completely blind, but his photography practice continued, and numerous exhibitions and high-profile assignments later, he is still creating unique and personal images―and we are fortunate to welcome him to the B&H Photography Podcast.   We start our conversation learning a bit about how Eckert lost his sight and then dive right into discussing the ways he learned photography, the modifications he made to his gear, including his Mamiya medium format camera, and the manner in which he works, whether in studio, streets, or nature.  Eckert is clear that his photography is not meant to pass for or mimic photography by a sighted person but to create images that tell his story and communicate his perceptions. One glance at his long-exposure, impressionistic images should make that clear.   After a break, we talk with Eckert about his commercial photography assignments, and we learn how he created work for Volkswagen, Swarovski, and Playboy magazine, and how he produces commercial assignments compared to his personal work. We also discuss the value of photography competitions, the groundbreaking “Sight Unseen” photography exhibit, and why Eckert's photography was featured on an episode of the television police drama NCIS. Join us for this fascinating conversation.   Guest: Pete Eckert   Above photograph © Pete Eckert https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/podcasts  

  In this week's episode I chat to Ebony, a mother of four under four who is vision impaired with less than five percent vision. Undeterred by her disability, she is an avid researcher and has created practical methods for making things as easy as possible in the home. She talks at length about her mental health issues, the decision to accept a disability support worker and the challenges of her condition as a mother. Her fraternal twin pregnancy was her easiest and she used hypnobirthing, meditation and affirmations to prepare for a successful vaginal birth.  

Michael Curran met his friend Jamie at a music camp for blind children. Within a few years they had invented a free software to give more than 100,000 blind people around the world the power to use the internet