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Today's guest is an insurance professional who has just completed forty years in the market. Over that time he has built a reputation as the consummate underwriter's underwriter. But by some strange coincidence our paths hadn't crossed – until now. We can complain about Monte Carlo all we want but it never fails to throw up wonderful opportunities to meet the most senior and prestigious figures in the global insurance and reinsurance industry. So it was that I finally met Jack Kuhn, President of Westfield Specialty at a meeting table in a conference hall in the bowels of the Fairmont Hotel. At Monte Carlo everyone is in talking mode and so what follows is the classic fast-paced kind of conversation you have ten times a day when down at the Rendez-Vous. But listening back in the cold light of day, it's Jack's underwriting leadership qualities that really stand out – even in such a frenetic environment. He is calm and focused and has a clear idea of what he wants to achieve. Like all the best underwriters, he is never dismissive of new ideas, but weighs them carefully and leaves you in no doubt where he stands. Westfield Specialty is in an enviable position, now writing around $2.4bn of gross premium, as part of a mutual group with a 178-year pedigree, it can evaluate and navigate the market on its merits, without pressure to grow. And that's where this conversation shines. It's liberating to talk to an underwriter with such a long and successful career, being given the chance to design an underwriting shop that is applying the full benefit of all that experience. Jack is clearly in his element and really enjoying this latest chapter in his career, and this conversation encompasses all the big themes: The challenges of a highly competitive insurance and reinsurance market, emerging automatic digital underwriting and AI as an emerging casualty peril, all have a strong showing, among many other themes. It's always great to finally meet someone you have heard a lot about, but it can sometimes be a little anticlimactic. I am pleased to report that this meeting exceeded all expectations and my only regret is not having met Jack twenty years earlier. LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo, now part of Sapiens: https://www.advantagego.com
Colts kicker Spencer Shrader joins us and discusses yesterday’s win, coming through in the clutch, his mentality lining up for that go-ahead kick, his Westfield roots, growing up and getting to the NFL, his 71-yard makes in practice, does he like the new touchback rule & more!Support the show: https://1075thefan.com/the-wake-up-call-1075-the-fan/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00 – 15:38 – The Colts snap their 9-game losing streak and a win over the Texans, what is this new and strange feeling?, IU survives a nailbiter against Northwestern, Notre Dame blasts Purdue, Aces rout the Fever and they are now one loss away from elimination 15:39 – 25:12 – Morning Checkdown 25:13 – 44:40 – Daniel Jones had three turnovers yesterday and the Colts still found a way to win ugly, Shane Steichen’s end of game playcalling is risky but it paid off yesterday, were we bracing for another loss?, field positioning 44:41 – 1:06:15 – Colts kicker Spencer Shrader joins us and discusses yesterday’s win, coming through in the clutch, his mentality lining up for that go-ahead kick, his Westfield roots, growing up and getting to the NFL, his 71-yard makes in practice, does he like the new touchback rule, Morning Checkdown 1:066 – 1:20:00 – DeForest Buckner’s big impact in the game, good vibes only today, our Outlaw Light Toast of the Game 1:20:01 – 1:26:58 – Spencer Shrader’s groin injury survived and came through, POSTGAME HEADLINES, mascots vs. peewees 1:26:59 – 1:50:43 – The Colts snap their skid against the Texans, Spencer Shrader’s kicking competition over training camp, the Colts weren’t on the wrong side of the “get right” game, GOATs of the Week, Morning Checkdown 1:50:44 – 1:58:47 – Kevin’s son said he hated the game yesterday, positive vibes only 1:58:48 – 2:08:06 – Keenan Allena and other Colts stepped up yesterday, The Crossover with Jake Query debate the open roof and window and the jerseys the Colts were rocking, Spencer Shrader’s importance to the Colts Support the show: https://1075thefan.com/the-wake-up-call-1075-the-fan/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00 – 18:09 – Kevin’s worried about the DJ Diesel (Shaq) and T-Pain concert in West Lafayette on Saturday night, the Colts haven’t beaten the Texans in LOS since 2021, why has this game become on the level of at Jacksonville, Shane Steichen still has confidence in Lou Anarumo and the defense, Colts work out some defensive ends yesterday 18:10 – 30:06 – ISC’s Greg Rakestraw joins us and discusses his Friday night plans, the opening at Westfield, who else is in the Mr. Football conversation, Colts thoughts 30:07 – 40:15 – New York Giants reporter of the NY Daily News Pat Leonard joins us and discusses the Colts brining in Darius Slayton, why he isn’t still a member of the Giants, why he thinks it’s a perfect fit for the Colts, the relationship between him and Daniel Jones, Lou Anarumo’s head coaching candidacy 40:16 – 50:18 - WIBC’s Jason Hammer joins us for some TNF bets, Colts/Texans, CFB slate, Texas vs. Tennessee, Cubs playoff hopesSupport the show: https://1075thefan.com/the-wake-up-call-1075-the-fan/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00 – 16:03 – Kevin’s disgusted about tonight’s Thursday Night Football matchup but more disgusted when he hears it’s the first of three straight primetime games for the Falcons, did the Colts rush Alec Pierce back?, will he even play again this season?, why 60 degrees in September feels different than 60 degrees in March 16:04 – 22:45 – Morning Checkdown 22:46 – 40:49 – Kevin’s worried about the DJ Diesel (Shaq) and T-Pain concert in West Lafayette on Saturday night, the Colts haven’t beaten the Texans in LOS since 2021, why has this game become on the level of at Jacksonville, Shane Steichen still has confidence in Lou Anarumo and the defense, Colts work out some defensive ends yesterday 40:50 – 1:05:48 – ISC’s Greg Rakestraw joins us and discusses his Friday night plans, the opening at Westfield, who else is in the Mr. Football conversation, Colts thoughts, caller says Steichen is catching way too much heat for Chris Ballard’s mess, Morning Checkdown 1:05:49 – 1:15:13– Curt Cignetti says IU needs to have a great crowd that stays the whole game on Friday night, James is mad Marc didn’t play T-Pain right away, Jonathan Taylor’s start to the season 1:15:14 – 1:22:22 – T-Pain, Tyler Warren’s lack of involvement through two games and Daniel Jones discusses the need to get him involved more in the offense, 1:22:23 – 1:45:50 – New York Giants reporter of the NY Daily News Pat Leonard joins us and discusses the Colts brining in Darius Slayton, why he isn’t still a member of the Giants, why he thinks it’s a perfect fit for the Colts, the relationship between him and Daniel Jones, Lou Anarumo’s head coaching candidacy, Stephen Daley and Kellan Wyatt get injunction to play for Hoosiers, Morning Checkdown 1:45:51 – 1:56:02 – WIBC’s Jason Hammer joins us for some TNF bets, Colts/Texans, CFB slate, Texas vs. Tennessee, Cubs playoff hopes 1:56:03 – 2:03:18 – The NCAA has already filed an emergency motion for Stephen Daley and Kellan Wyatt, the Crossover with Jake Query begins with Jake recalling a speeding ticket Support the show: https://1075thefan.com/the-wake-up-call-1075-the-fan/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Heute geht es um die Preiserhöhung, die der HVV plant. Weitere Themen: Gute Nachrichten für den Hamburger Norden, ein Erfolg für das Westfield Überseequartier - und HSV-Trainer Merlin Polzin war in einer besonderen Mission unterwegs.
Meg’s home sick so Lucy fills in as Clint and Dan tackle a packed Edge Breakfast: Easy Money attempts for $1,000, a proud dad moment when Clint’s son gives a Westfield voucher to a man in need, and a debate on what “I’m fine” really means. Scandal covers Ed Sheeran’s cousin calling him out, Taylor Swift set for a new VMA honor, and news of Presley Gerber’s death at 27. The team dives into Lucy’s Afterpay habits, bans in schools, wild birth-plan surprises, Hit The Spot for Bird of the Year, and investigates Christchurch’s $100 coffee with a live chat from Rook Cafe.00:00 Morning Roll Call 00:11 Meg Sick Update 00:50 Show Teasers Ahead 01:37 Proud Dad Moment 05:03 Decoding Im Fine 08:37 Scandal Headlines 10:29 Afterpay Confessions 22:23 Easy Money Challenge 24:56 Birth Plan Gone Wrong 35:25 Coffee Tasting Prank Reveal 38:14 Scandal Headlines Update 39:55 Bird of the Year Singalong 43:20 A Lister List Debate 53:37 Easy Money Letter 56:05 Taylor vs Verstappen 01:04:16 $100 Coffee Sting 01:12:25 Schools Ban Everything 01:20:41 Cleaning Confessional Cash
On today's episode, Jillian and Kyle catch up on the latest Union news, including the announcement that Cavan Sullivan, Frankie Westfield, and Neil Pierre have been called up to the U.S. Men's National Team roster. They recap Union II and the Philadelphia Union's recent matches. Finally, they look at college and academy matches and share their thoughts.Make sure to subscribe or follow, and please interact with us — we love hearing from you!• Twitter: @totwag• Facebook/Instagram: theoneteamweagreeon (all one word)• Available on all major podcast platforms and YouTube• Visit our website: www.theoneteamweagreeon.com#DOOP #Soccer #MLS #MLSSoccer #Philly #PhiladelphiaUnion #MLSNEXTPro
The Philadelphia Union are looming to extend their 10 game unbeaten streak as they face off against Sporting KC this Saturday on the road. Todd and José are joining by MLS play-by-play commentator Callum Williams to preview the upcoming game. They discuss the Union's current streak and the reliance on their homegrown talent, what are realistic expectations for a playoff spot, and Cavan Sullivan, Neil Pierre and Frankie Westfield called up to the United States Men's National Team. Todd and José also discuss Jovan Lukic's contract extension with the Union through 2028-2029. Philadelphia Union's season: Turnaround after Bradley Carnell was sacked: [7:13] Union's homegrown revelation: [13:53] Union trio called up to USMNT: [18:33] Sporting KC v Philadelphia Union preview: [22:40] Jovan Lukic extension: [30:50] Danley Jean Jacques call up to Haiti: [39:21] Philippe Ndinga call up to Gabon: [40:57] Cavan Sullivan, Frankie Westfield and Neil Pierre first call up to USMNT: [44:24] Photo Credit: Don Robson Social Media: Twitter: @FreeKickPod Instagram: @FreeKickPod Facebook: @FreeKickPod YouTube: The Free Kick https://thefreekick.substack.com/ Jose's Social Media: Twitter: @JoserNunez91 https://nunezj.substack.com/ Callum's Social Media: Twitter: @CalWilliamsComm Instagram: @calwilliamscomm
World Alzheimer's Day is Monday, Sept. 21. This week's guest is Joe Kohler, director of operations for Griswold of North Suburban Indianapolis, which serves Fishers, Carmel, Noblesville, Westfield and the northern suburbs. Dementia accounts for about 80% of his clients, and he joins me to talk about what the disease actually looks like day to day. We cover the early signs that go beyond ordinary forgetfulness, why that first phone call from a son or daughter is usually a request for respite, why families so often wait too long to ask for help, and what private-pay home care runs when there's no long-term care insurance. We also talk about where treatment stands — drugs like Leqembi and Kisunla can slow decline in early stages, and the FDA has cleared the first blood test to help diagnose the disease, but more than a century on there is still no cure. The Alzheimer's Association estimates 7.4 million Americans 65 and older are living with Alzheimer's dementia this year. In Indiana, more than 121,000 people have the disease and more than 221,000 friends and family members are providing unpaid care. The episode closes with a commentary on Canada — my weeks there in the 1980s, the people of Gander who took in stranded air passengers on Sept. 11, 2001, and what we risk losing in the current trade dispute. Fridays with Larry is sponsored by Citizens State Bank. Learn more about their business and personal banking at mycsb.in.com/larry, or stop by the Fishers branch inside the Thomas A. Weaver Municipal Complex, 9 Municipal Drive, Suite 5. Member FDIC and an equal housing lender. More local news at larryinfishers.com. Please like, subscribe and comment.
A man found guilty for his role in a Westfield overdose death....McCordsville woman to plead guilty to covid fraudSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Off the back of Cinnabon launching a flagship store at Auckland's Westfield Newmarket, two more American food chains will make their New Zealand debut later this month. Auntie Anne's and Carvel will open their first stores on September 26th - giving Kiwis the chance to try new hand-baked pretzels, ice cream, milkshakes and more. UOA marketing professor Mike Lee says it's expected there will be 'lines out the door' when these companies launch, with high demand expected for Auntie Anne's pretzels. "I just know the New Zealand palate - the mainstream New Zealand palate, I'm not talking about the carb-free health people, I'm just talking about the general mainstream New Zealand public . I think there'll be lines waiting to get a taste of these pretzels." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The lessons I carried away from September 11 did not begin that day, and they certainly did not end there. In this solo episode, I reflect on how my parents taught me not to accept the limits others placed on blindness, how my guide dogs taught me about trust and teamwork, and how September 11 confirmed so much of what I already believed about fear, leadership, change, and possibility. I share why I work hard not to worry about things I cannot control, why I believe we can never truly go back to “normal,” and why strong teams are built through trust rather than control. I also challenge some of the ways we think about blindness and disability, because different does not mean less capable. I hope these lessons help you think differently about fear, change, leadership, and what it really means to live with an unstoppable mindset. Highlights: 00:46 – Why the lessons of September 11 began long before that day. 08:56 – How Michael learned that blindness is not the real barrier. 17:13 – Why focusing on what you can control can reduce fear. 24:28 – Why getting back to “normal” is not always the answer. 32:30 – What guide dogs taught Michael about trust and teamwork. 1:01:37 – Why disability does not mean a lack of ability. About the Host: Michael Hingson, blind since birth, was born in Chicago to sighted parents who believed in raising their son with a can-do attitude. Treated like all other children in his family, Michael rode a bike did advanced math in his head and learn to read and write – Braille that is! Michael's family relocated to the warm Palmdale area of California when he was five years old. It is here that Hingson had his first adventure with Guide Dogs for the Blind and received his first guide dog. He later went to college receiving a bachelor's and master's degree in Physics along with a secondary teaching credential from the University of California at Irvine. Michael then enjoyed a nearly-30-year career working for high tech companies spending most of his time in management roles. Michael Hingson's life changed dramatically on September 11, 2001 when he and his guide dog, Roselle, escaped from the 78th floor of Tower One in the World Trade Center moments before it collapsed. Soon after, Michael and Roselle were thrust into the international limelight where Michael began to share his unique survival story and 9-11 lessons of trust, courage, heroism, and teamwork. Mike has served as The National Public Affairs Director for one of the largest Nonprofit organizations in the nation: Guide Dogs for the Blind; He has served as the vice president of the National Association of Guide Dog Users; Michael has held a seat on the Fort Worth Lighthouse for the Blind. He is the chair of the board of directors of the Earle Baum Center for the Blind and is the vice chair of the Colorado Center for the Blind; Michael is The National Ambassador for the Braille Literacy Campaign of the National Federation of the Blind. Until October 2019 he worked as the CEO of the Do More Foundation, the non-profit arm of Aira Tech Corp, a manufacturer of assistive technology which makes a revolutionary visual interpreter for blind people. In January 2021 Mike joined accessiBe as its Chief Vision Officer to help advance the company goal of making the entire internet fully inclusive. He held this position through June of 2026. He is the author of the #1 New York Times Best Seller: “Thunder dog –The True Story of a Blind Man, a Guide Dog & the Triumph of Trust” – selling over 2.5 million copies Worldwide. In 2013 Mr. Hingson published his 2 book “Running with Roselle”- which Is the first of its kind- A story for our youth shedding light on one of Americas Darkest Days. Mr. Hingson's third book, “Live Like A Guide Dog”, was released on August 20, 2024. This book shows readers how they can learn to control fear and not, as Mike would say, “become blinded by fear in the face of crisis”. Aside from his talents and advocacies, Mr. Hingson has traveled the Globe from Japan to New Zealand, the Netherlands to his hometown, Chicago. Speaking to some of the world's most elite: from former President, George W. Bush to Larry King, to Fortune 500 companies and colleges and Universities Nationwide. After sharing his story of survival on hundreds of TV and Radio programs, Michael is now an Expert hired by many of today's major corporations and organizations. Speaking and consulting on the importance of Teamwork and Trust, Moving from Diversity to Inclusion, as well as offering Adaptive Technology Training – spearheading innovation for ALL! - Thus, bringing organizations to the forefront of the ever-changing competitive modern world. In June, 2024 Mike was inducted as an alumni member into the honors Fraternity Phi Beta Kappa. Currently Michael lives in Victorville, California with Alamo, Michael's eighth guide dog and his rescue feline, Stitch. More information on Mr. Hingson is available on his website. Here also is a link to Mr. Hingson's press kit: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/q8uxu9u7pap4puj5de7rg/h?rlkey=22bziy0wmghf8111kad73685y&dl=0 http://www.michaelhingson.com/live-like-a-guide-dog www.michaelhingson.com www.michaelhingson.com/podcast Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/mhingson https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://www.facebook.com/Roselle911GuideDog/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/1568642850718948 https://www.facebook.com/?paipv=0&eav=AfZNi2VDR2R4nC6SveyCvZIyKtyi9VOLOzOKcG-v0Hk1glaVssEHwdR920w1_u-8B-k&_rdr https://www.facebook.com/?paipv=0&eav=AfZNi2VDR2R4nC6SveyCvZIyKtyi9VOLOzOKcG-v0Hk1glaVssEHwdR920w1_u-8B-k&_rdr Twitter, https://twitter.com/mhingson LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson Youtube channel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfCx2L9OVN38Dv4mX6udP8g Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson 00:04 What if the biggest thing holding you back isn't what's in front of you, but rather what you believe? Welcome to Unstoppable Mindset, where inclusion, diversity, and the unexpected meet. I'm your host, Michael Hingson, speaker, author, and advocate for inclusion and possibilities. This podcast explores how the beliefs we carry shape the way we live, lead, and connect with others. Each week, I talk with people who challenge assumptions, face adversity head-on, and show what's possible when we choose curiosity over fear. Together, we focus on mindset, resilience, and the small shifts that lead to meaningful change. Let's get started. Well, hello, everyone. I am Michael Hingson. I am your host on Unstoppable Mindset, and this happens to be episode 475. Yeah, we've done a lot of these, and most all of them have been conversations with people who said that they wanted to come on the podcast and talk about one thing or another. And I was really pleased to have them. This episode is going to be a little bit different, as the last few have been. Episode 472, which we published on September 4, was a talk I gave in April of 2024, which told my story of being in the World Trade Center on september 11, on episode 473 on the eighth of September, Michelle Abraham interviewed me, and we talked about a number of things around september 11 and so on. Episode 474, which was published on the 11th of September, 2026. was a conversation with Bob Ellis, who was in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, an escape, and we hear his story, and we got to chat and kind of talked about notes from both of us. Now it's episode 475, and it was suggested that I ought to talk about things that I learned from September 11th and how my life has changed, and I'm going to do the best I can to talk about all that. So you're just going to be hearing me today. I hope you won't go away. I hope that you'll enjoy it. I just returned from speaking all week from September 9th through September 11th in Kilgore, Texas, at Kilgore College, they did an incredible job of doing some things to help people become aware of September 11th. They actually had in the library and around the library at Kilgore College a monument to September 11th. They had some columns or portions of columns from the World Trade Center. They had a list of all of the names. They had flags in a in a in several rows with the names of all of the people who were lost on September 11th. They had a timeline from my book Thunderdog: The Story of a Blind man, his guide dog, and the triumph of trust at Ground Zero-a timeline of what I experienced, and they also had, I think, a timeline of just the World Trade Center events in in general. Well, okay, so all of that happened. I got back last night, and now here it is, Sunday. It is the 13th of September, and I'm recording this so that we can publish it on Tuesday, september 15. So that's a little bit of a long way to get to where we are. But as I said, people asked me to talk about what I learned that day, and how I proceeded and progressed from that day, but I have to go back to long before September 11th to really do everything justice and to put it all in context. So let me start this way. I believe that I have said a few times on this podcast, and certainly in some of the speeches that I've given, that I was born two months premature, and I was given a pure oxygen environment when I was born, because I was born early. Medical science had started to hear that even too much oxygen might not necessarily be a good thing, but the doctors in Chicago where I was born didn't buy into that concept yet, and so the result was I was given a pre-oxygen environment, and my retinas didn't develop as they should, and I became blind. So was I born blind? If you're very technical, no. But for all intents and purposes, yes. The doctors told my parents to send me to a home, to send me away, because no blind child could ever. Michael Hingson 04:59 Grow up to amount to anything, and all I would be would would end up being a drain on my family, sucking up all the love that my parents might have had for their older son, two years older than I, my brother Ellery. But the reality is, my parents said you're wrong. He can grow up to do whatever he chooses, and we're going to give him that opportunity. And I grew up with that idea. I grew up with that concept. My parents told me at some point when I was still fairly young about what the doctors had said, and they said, "You know, we think that you can do whatever you want. We want you to have that opportunity. Well, they did a number of things to help the process along. For example, we lived in Chicago until I was five, but at the age of four, typically children in in Illinois start or in Chicago start kindergarten, and I did as well. My parents worked with other parents and the school district to start a kindergarten class for children who were blind, and there were a number of preemies in the Chicago area. In that class, Miss Lapree, my teacher, taught me Braille. See, I remember her name. Taught me Braille. Taught me other skills. Taught the other blind kids because it was a kindergarten class for blind children. Taught us all a variety of different things that we could use, and then unfortunately, in a sense, I guess after kindergarten at the age of four, and it was over, my father had gotten an offer and took a job out in California, and we moved to California. Well, in California, kindergarten starts at five, and even though I had had a course in kindergarten already, I had to go through a second year of it, but we didn't have any kind of facilities to teach us or teach me about Braille going forward, getting me Braille books and so on. So kindergarten, first, second, and third grade, I didn't have access directly to textbook material. My parents helped me though. My father taught me math. He was an electronics and electrical engineer. I was doing algebra in my head by the time I was six. My mother read other assignments to me, taught me the spelling words because in first, second, and third grade you learned to spell, and in theory beyond third grade as well, of course. But what happened for me was that I learned about spelling by my mother teaching me how to spell the words, and then she would say the words, and then I would spell them. Well, that ended up going even further because typically in classrooms, what happened was that when it came time to take the actual spelling test, which happened on Fridays, the teacher would say the words. All of us or all the children in the class would write down the answers. Then we would exchange papers, and the teacher would then write the correct spellings on the board. Not in my class. I had to. Well, I got to get up. I. I don't want to say I had to. That's a lesson that I want to get to. wasn't that I had to get up. I got to get up, and actually spell the words out loud. I remember once missing a word, at least starting to miss a word, and somebody made a noise, and I realized, oh, that must be wrong, and I corrected it. But I learned how to spell words, and I learned to spell them out loud for the whole class, and not be afraid of them, and that way students could grade each other's papers. And so, in a sense, I could say that's where I started to learn how to be involved in doing public speaking, and I learned not to be afraid of standing up and and saying things as long as they were the right kinds of things. Well, between third and fourth grade, I got access to Braille books. Cora Hershberger was hired by the school district to come in. She was a resource teacher with training in dealing with blindness and blind kids and so on. Michael Hingson 08:56 And there were a number of us, and she she was able to get us books, she was able to work with each of us and prove our Braille skills and my Braille skills especially, and so on. So I tell you all of that because I want to put things in perspective, and I think that the most important thing is the doctors told my parents that I couldn't do anything. My parents said, "Of course he can, and they brought me up believing that I could. So I rode a bicycle to school. Everybody still thinks that's amazing. One of the important things that I have learned over the years, and I've learned to articulate it even more effectively. I hope, certainly, I believe better since the World Trade Center, and I became a full-time keynote public speaker, which I've been doing for 25 years, I have learned to discuss this whole concept of blindness and accept the fact that there are going to be a lot of people who have eyesight who get it wrong. They think that, like the doctor said, blind people really can't do anything. You can't absorb the same material, or at least you don't get the same. As sighted people do, so you really aren't going to be able to do the things that we can do. And I have learned that I can't be angry at that. I've learned that in reality, I need to articulate the fact that blindness isn't the problem. The problem happens to be the misconceptions and poor attitudes that people have about blindness. It would be so easy just to be upset every time I hear some comment that talks about what I can do and what I can't do. You can't really ride a bicycle. That's amazing that you could do that. I can't imagine anybody else doing it. I know lots of blind kids who rode bikes, and I'm sure that they still do. Blindness isn't the problem. The reality is the problem consists of the misconceptions and poor attitudes that sighted people have about blindness. Whether you like it or not, that's the way it is. Blindness isn't the problem. We can learn to do the same things pretty much that you can do, and we can learn to do things that you can't do, and we learn all of that and use that knowledge to help us move forward and be more effective. What can I do that you can't do? Try walking around in the dark. You can't do it. You don't know how to do it. You don't have the techniques to do it. One of the things that has cropped up over the past significant number of years is restaurants do something called dining in the dark. Dining in the dark, and there are organizations that promote that, and they say, "Oh, you get to learn how blind people eat and how much of a challenge it is. That is so disgusting that people do that because dying in the dark isn't going to teach you anything about blindness. You don't get the training that you need in order to function as a blind person. Just like I don't get the training to learn how to function as a sighted person. Although I've spent a lot of time observing sighted people, and I understand a lot about eyesight, and I understand what you can do, and I accept that. But I expect, and I think it is reasonable for you to understand and accept that I can do lots of things. That it's not about eyesight. I wrote a book in 20, and it was published by Thomas Nelson Publishing in 2011. I and Susie Florey wrote the book. It's called Thunderdog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dogs, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero. And there is a section near the end of the book called Guide Dog Wisdom. And number two in Guide Dog Wisdom includes a sentence that says, "Don't let your sight get in the way of your vision. You all strictly deal with eyesight, and if it's not something that you can see with your eyes, or you don't really separate eyesight from vision, you tend to really misunderstand so many things. But the reality is, don't let your sight get in the way of your vision. Recognize there's a whole lot more to life than eyesight. Michael Hingson 13:01 SEAL Team Six, other military teams, so many other people learn how to use those other senses, and that's the same thing that we as blind people do. We learn to use our other senses. They're not magically enhanced simply because we go blind, but rather we learn how to use those senses? I hope, or we try to, and by doing so, we improve them and we develop them. And those of us who truly do that are a lot more better off, and we're able to do so many things that people think are amazing, but they're not. They're not really amazing. They're certainly not amazing to me. Anyway, I grew up believing all of that, and of course, I was also very fortunate to have a number of jobs throughout my career. And the final result of all of that was I ended up getting the opportunity to open an office in the World Trade Center for Quantum ATL, the company that hired me to open an office in New York, and there we were on September 11th when everything happened. The night, as September 11th ended, was spent by me and my wife Karen. By the way, Karen was in a wheelchair her whole life. We got married in November of 1982, and we were married through into November of 2022. We were married 40 years. Karen was in a wheelchair her whole life. It was a great marriage, as I love to tell people. She read, I pushed, worked out well. How do I push a person in a wheelchair? Well, she used a manual chair, and when we got to curbs and so on, she would stop, and she would hold the wheels, and and I knew that she had stopped. And I would tip the chair back. She might say, "There's a curb. I would tip the chair back onto its back wheels. We'd roll down off the curb, put the chair down. We'd cross the street, tip the chair up. Front wheels go up on the curb on the other side, unless there was a ramp to go up. And we continued on our way. It's not that magical. It is just what I learned to do, and I enjoyed it. and And I enjoyed Karen's company and so on for 40 years. We were locked down during the pandemic and so on. We'll get to some of that in a bit. But I learned overall that in reality, what my parents taught me was true. Blindness wasn't going to be the problem; eyesight was going to be the problem. And that night after September 11th, we kind of tried to make sense of it. It was me and Karen and a friend of Karen's who I also got to know, and who became a friend of mine. Tom Painter had come down. Tom and Karen went to the same high school, but we all ended up in New Jersey. And Tom came to visit us, actually visit Karen after September 11th started. When he heard about the terrorist attacks, he just came down, not knowing whether I was in the office or not. But I was, and Karen and Tom, well, Tom stayed with Karen and and drove her to pick me up at the Westfield, New Jersey train station at about 7p.m. on september 11. We went home with my guide dog Roselle. When we got home, I took Roselle's harness off because I was going to take her outside. She would have none of it. She ran off. She grabbed her favorite tug bone and started playing tug of war with my retired guide dog Linnie. Well, that was kind of fun, and I didn't think a lot about it. But I went. That was interesting. The next day, I contacted Guide Dogs for the Blind because several people from there had visited us in the World Trade Center, and among others, I spoke to the head of the veterinary department, and I said, "So, tell me, how is all this going to affect Roselle? Because everybody's talking about how it's going to affect everyone and all that, and and he asked me, "Did anything threaten directly Roselle? Did anything really threaten her? And I said, No, not really. Nothing directly affected her. And he said, Well, there you go. Dogs don't do what if. They live in the moment. Michael Hingson 17:13 And when you took the harness off, it was over for her, and she was ready to go play. She wanted to relax. She wanted to play, and she did. Oh, and yes, we did eventually get her outside. But the bottom line is, I think that's one of the most important things that I learned coming out of September 11th, and I, I kind of knew it beforehand, but I really got to understand it afterward. We what if everything to death? We what if anything that comes into our lives, well, we're we're in a war with Iran. Well, what if Iran bombs us? What if Iran does this? What if the Hooties do that? What are we going to do? What if our government takes us to war in the first place? Well, they have. The bottom line is, though, we don't have control over all of that. We do have control over some things in our lives, and those are the things that we should worry about. We should stop worrying about everything else. And people say, "Well, it's natural to worry. No, it's not. Not any more natural to worry than it is not to worry. We learn to worry because we're taught that. But the bottom line is, if we learn only to focus on the things over which we truly have control, and be aware of the other things, but don't let them worry us. Don't let them cause fear in our lives. We will live much less fearful and much more stress-free lives than in any other way. If you want another example of why I believe this, on September 11th, David Frank, my colleague who had come in to be involved with the seminars, David had come in the night before, and he came to our office about 8o'clock in the morning on the 11th of September. When we were escaping from the towers, we ended up downstairs and outside. David saw fire in Tower Two, and the way we happened to walk took us very close to Tower Two. We were at Broadway and Vessi Street, maybe 100 yards away from Tower Two. And when David stopped, he said, "You know, there's fire in Tower Two. I want to take pictures of it. And and I also wanted to try to call my wife Karen to let her know that we had gotten out of the towers, I couldn't get through. The circuits were busy because, as we later learned, people were calling and talking to loved ones. But anyway, David had just started putting his camera away. I had put my phone away, and a police officer yelled, "Get out of here! It's coming down right now! And we heard this sound I describe as kind of a combination of a freight train and a waterfall. I could hear glass breaking, metal clattering, and then just the building collapsing straight down. We didn't necessarily know that it was going to do that, but it did. It did exactly what it was designed to do. Anyway, everyone turned and ran. David ran. I turned 180 degrees. With Roselle, and started running back the other way. And as soon as I started to run, I thought to myself, "God, I can't believe that you got us out of a building just to have it fall on us. And I heard in my head a voice as clearly as you hear me right now-a voice that said, "Don't worry about what you can't control, focus on running with Roselle, and the rest will take care of itself. And I had this absolute sense of conviction that if we worked together, we would be fine. Well, we were. Where'd that voice come from? It was God talking to me. I grew up with my father very seriously believing in the concept of God. If you don't, that's fine. That is your choice. I've had people on my podcast who don't necessarily have strong beliefs and convictions about God. I do, but it's not my job to force people or compel people to believe in God. I will tell my story, and people can accept it or reject it as they choose. But that's what happened to me, and I've realized from that time on: don't worry about what you can't control. And I really, truly work very hard to focus on not worrying about the things that I don't have any influence over. Michael Hingson 21:16 I like to be aware of them. I hear from people all the time today about don't watch the news. I don't like to watch the news because it just makes me so angry and so fearful. And my response is, I'm going to watch the news because I want to know what's going on. And sometimes I'll yell at politicians through the TV, but I won't really overall get angry at them. I will hear it. I will either accept it or decide I don't have any influence over it, so I'm not going to worry about it, and I don't because it isn't going to help me to worry about it. It isn't going to help anyone else to worry about any of those kinds of things. Don't worry about what you can't control. Focus on what you can and leave the rest alone, and that's one of the basic premises of the third book that I wrote, which was published in 2024, entitled "Live Like a Guide Dog: True Stories from a Blind Man and His Dogs About Being Brave, Overcoming Adversity, and Moving Forward in Faith. And that book was written by me and Carrie Wyatt Kent. The book was published by Tyndale House, and is out there for people to to read. The first book was published by Thomas Nelson Publishing, which is now part of Harper Collins, and a lady, Jeanette Hanscom, and I wrote the second book, which is called Running with Roselle, which is really a book more for children, teaching them about me growing up, Roselle growing up, and how we met. A little bit about the World Trade Center. That one was self-published, but all three books are available wherever you can find books, so you can get them always from Amazon, of course. And so I hope that that you'll get them and read them. They will help. Live Like a Guide Dog probably is the best book for me to talk about in terms of things that I learned over the years, but if I really summarize mostly what happened for me after September 11th, it is that what happened on that day validated everything that I've believed about me. Certainly, what I believe about God, but it validates everything that I've ever thought about blindness, blind people, what we can do, the challenges we face, some of the issues that other people have, and the validation is certainly something that helped what I learned. But I learned other things along the way, and you know I want to talk about some of those things. The first, as I said, is don't worry about what you can't control. Focus on what you can, and let the rest take care of itself. Speaker 1 23:56 If you enjoy Unstoppable Mindset and would like to help us continue bringing these conversations to you each week, we've created a way for you to support the show. Your contribution helps us cover production costs and continue sharing stories, insights, and ideas that inspire people to live with purpose and possibility. If supporting the podcast feels right for you, you'll find the link in the show notes, thank you for being part of the Unstoppable Mindset Community. One Michael Hingson 24:28 of the things that happened to me almost immediately after September 11th is I started hearing people say, "We got to get back to normal. If we don't get back to normal, that's a problem. We got to get back to normal. And I always reacted internally, at least pretty negatively to that. And I finally realized why I reacted to that statement about we got to get back to normal. The reason I reacted to that statement, and I still react to to myself to that statement, is normal will never be the same again. We can't get back to normal. If we get back to normal the way it was prior to September 11th, the same thing will happen again. We can't do that. We have to get back to a different normal, and and in fact, normal is probably going to be an ongoing, constant process of change. We ought to learn not to fear that either. Change is all around us. We always say that, but then we don't like change. It's kind of a paradox. But the reality is, change is all around us. And what we really need to do is to learn how to focus in change. And we need to learn that in reality, we can deal with change. And if we have any influence over it, then we should do something about that too. But the bottom line is, getting back to normal prior to September 11th isn't going to help any of us, and and it isn't going to happen. So that is an one thing that I will say definitely. I learned from September 11th: normal will never be the same again. As I said a lot earlier, I think I probably learned about public speaking at least the beginning of it by doing the spelling tests and so on. But after September 11th, the media got my story, and that happened because Joanne Ritter, the public and information services person at the time at Guide Dogs wanted to write a story, and I kind of agreed. And I said, "That's fine. And then she said, "I'll bet you'll be on TV. What television show do you want to be on first? So I kind of just sort of flippantly said, "Larry King Live. That was on the 12th of September when I talked with her. On the 13th, she called back and she said, "Larry King wants you on his show on september 14, which was a Friday, and they sent a car to pick me up, and and I recall Karen and and Tom one as well, and anyway, we went into the World Trade Center, not to the World Trade Center, but we went into New York, and I appeared on CNN, which was the first of five interviews with Larry. Larry also, by the way, at my request, wrote the foreword for Thunderdog. So when you read Thunderdog, you'll get to read Larry's words as well. But after being on Larry King, the media really got my story, and a lot of things happened after that. I started getting literally calls every day for interviews. People wanted to talk to me about September 11th and ask questions and so on. And one of the things that I learned was that talking to reporters could be a great therapy because they would ask virtually any kind of question you can imagine. And of course, a lot of people said things like, "Well, did you know what happened on September 11th when it was happening? And I said no. And they said, well, of course you didn't. You're blind, you know. And my response is, anybody who says that really needs to not let their sight get in their way or their vision to be polite about it. The fact of the matter is, as we were going down the stairs, no one knew anything about what was going on. When I got into the stairwell, I began smelling an odor, and it took me four floors to realize I was smelling the fumes from burning jet fuel. I did a lot of travel for my company, and so I was in airports a lot. So I recognized that smell. People were speculating about what they were smelling. People were speculating about what was going on. Nobody had a clue. Michael Hingson 28:20 When I realized I was smelling jet fuel, I observed it to everyone around me, and they said, "You're right. That's what we're smelling. It's burning jet fuel. We must have been hit by an airplane. You see, no one knew. We had no clue. Superman and X-ray vision just aren't real. And the bottom line is, nobody knew what was actually happening on September 11th. Blindness have nothing to do with it. People want to feel more comfortable by saying, "Well, most people probably did know, but you're blind. You didn't know. We've got to get away from these habits of thinking that just because somebody is different than we are, that they're less than we are. That's just not true. In any case, the bottom line is that we we really deal with those kinds of things, and that helped me as as time went by recognize and realize that normal would never be the same again, and it validated more my belief that blindness isn't the problem; it's the misconceptions and poor attitudes that people have about blindness that tends to truly be the problem that we face. So, as I began to talk with reporters, I didn't think about what was actually happening. But later, I realized when people started saying, "Well, did you ever get counseling or therapy, and I said no. And then it just popped into my head to say I probably had the best therapy around. I got interviewed by hundreds of reporters that asked basically any question that you can imagine, and I learned to answer those questions without being upset, especially when they were asking pretty derogatory questions or making derogatory comments. Your dog led you down the stairs. No, my dog did not lead me down the stairs. Guide dogs do not lead; they guide. And I understand the definition of lead, but it's a little bit different than what people were truly saying. What they were saying is you didn't know anything, and the dog took you all the way down the stairs because the dog could see. No, in fact, Roselle didn't lead me. Roselle's job wasn't, and no guide dog's job is to lead a person or to take charge. The dog's job is to make sure that we walk safely. I also have a job on the team. My job is to make sure that I know where we're going and how to get there. A lot easier now than it was 25 years ago, but the bottom line is that I'm the one that has to direct the dog and give the dog commands, and the dog needs to make sure that we carry out those commands safely. We are a team; we work together. I've always kind of known that guide dog schools didn't necessarily early in my guide dog career, express it that way, but it's it's a much stronger statement now. They recognize that truly we're a team. We each have a job to do on the team, and we have to work together to make the team work, which is true of any team. I've mentioned Seal Team Six earlier. They're a team. They work together. The firefighters in the World Trade Center and the other people who who were around there worked as a team, and they had to work as a team in order to develop a level of trust and a relationship where essentially each person knew what the others on their team were going to do, and it gave them more of a confidence to be able to function. Teamwork is so crucial in our world, and I learned, and and again on September 11th, it was totally validated how teamwork is so important. Roselle and I worked together well. The firefighters worked together well. Yes, we lost people, but the team really is so important, and we need to recognize that anyone listening to this ought to work in any of the things that they do to develop teams. Being alone makes no sense; it isn't going to work. You're going to have to and should learn to work with other people to make teams work better. I've seen companies where when they have award ceremonies, the leader of a team or the boss of a team gets an award, but the rest of the team doesn't really get the same recognition. Michael Hingson 32:30 If a leader is truly doing a good job at creating a team and being a part of a team, then that leader is really enhancing everyone else on the team, and that leader is the person who should help to make sure that when awards are given, that everyone on a team is recognized. We need to to learn and realize that a team is a bunch of people. It's not just one people, but they learn to work together, and that is also so important. And as I learned more and more about the events of the World Trade Center, I learned and realized more about the whole understanding of teamwork and trust and the value of it. I knew about it with me and Roselle, and I recognized the concept of teamwork. But certainly, September 11th again validated that a whole lot more effectively than anything else that I could think of, but I worked with eight dogs over the years, and working with eight dogs from my first guide dog Squire, who was a golden retriever, up through my current guide dog Alamo, I've learned probably I think more than I ever learned from experts and teamwork and sales and so on and motivation. I learned more from those dogs than I ever learned from the human experts because of the fact that one, I had to build a team with a creature who didn't think the same way I did, who didn't talk the same language that I did, and that expected things from me, and and as one of the things that I've learned is that dogs who are guide dogs really want the human to be the pack leader because it is the pack leader, it is the human who's supposed to tell the dog what they want the dog to do, and dogs take that so incredibly seriously. I mentioned Linny. Well, I didn't mention her, I think, by name. But Lenny was my fourth guide dog, and we were out in in San Diego at a company meeting one Friday in May of 1999, and we came home. It was a Saturday morning that we got home. I flew a red eye home, fed Lenny, and then rested and and all that. But Saturday night, when it came time to feed Linny, I called her. She wouldn't come. Karen even called her. She wouldn't come. We went. Upstairs and found her lying on her bed, kind of really not very responsive. We got her to a veterinarian, and it took a few days for the veterinarian to diagnose what she had as something called glomerular nephritis, which is a disease where the kidneys, the glomeria of the kidneys, which would normally pass out bad stuff from the kidneys but not the good stuff. They were passing out the good stuff as well, and Lenny was was not doing well. We were able to reverse that, but she had to retire from being a guide dog. In fact, we thought in late June of 1999 that we were going to lose her. We went off to a a meeting, not a meeting, but we went off to a hotel to say goodbye to Linny, if you will, on like the second of July. But Linny didn't pass away then, and she did get better. And then Roselle came into our lives, and Roselle and Linny became really good friends, but I mention all of it because I had no clue what was happening to Linny. Guide dogs love their jobs; they take them very seriously. And the fact of the matter is, as I learned, and especially after September 11th, I learned that these dogs will work till they drop. They will. They will do everything they can to please us, because they love what we do. They love us, and we need to bestow the same kind of love on them, which is all part of what teamwork is all about. Well, the bottom line was with Linny. She was with us for three more years, and she got to play with Roselle a lot, and so on. Michael Hingson 36:41 Of course, as I also mentioned after September 11th, but I again, especially because of what happened to Linny, but then afterward on September 11th, I realized how much it was important for me to do all I could to keep the team relationship a positive, strong one, to recognize that in reality these dogs work so hard on their own part to make the team's relationships work. They they deal with what they have to deal with. They get very stressed if we're upset. They take it very personally if we get upset, even if we're not necessarily upset at them; they still take it very personally. The more stress that a guide dog faces in their lives, the harder it's going to be for them, and frankly, the shorter their lives are going to be. So I learned, even before September 11th, but especially after September 11th, to do all I could to keep the stress away from the dog. As we were going down the stairs on September 11th, I constantly encouraged and praised Roselle. What a good dog! Keep going. What a good job! Good girl, Roselle. Even if I wasn't able to hold the harness because the stairs were so crowded that Roselle couldn't walk next to me and had to walk behind me at heel, and I would just hold the leash. I kept praising her because I wanted her to know for her I was okay, and I had to focus on not being afraid and letting that fear come out. Well, I was fearful like anyone was, and in fact, I love to tell people. Being a great fan of science fiction, I have a great imagination, and I was listening for the building to make creaks and groans, and you never knew what was going to happen. Fortunately, it didn't all the way down. But the bottom line for me was that doing so kept me focused. And I and I learned later that while I might have been afraid on September 11th, partly because I was encouraging Roselle and working to sound very calm and confident, I was able to also help other people, but help Roselle and keep Roselle from being afraid and and being stressed. And I work very hard to do that with my guide dogs that I've had since even more than prior to September 11th. My current guide dog Alamo and I travel the world speaking all over the place, if you will. We've been to Israel. We've been well, actually, Alamo didn't get to go to London, but we've been to Israel with my seventh guide dog, Africa. We went to the Netherlands, Alamo and I have been to Wisconsin. I've been to a variety of places, and of course, all around the the world, all around the United States, to Canada, everywhere. And again, I don't necessarily know a lot about where we're going in advance, but I ask a lot of questions so that I can learn where we're going to go, so that I can give the dogs the appropriate commands. I mentioned Wisconsin's. I've been all over the United States. It's been an honor, and I'm going to continue to do that. If anybody wants a public speaker to come and talk to their organization, please reach out to me. I'd love to hear from you. My email address is really simple. It's speaker@michaelhinkson.com. We'll put that in the show notes, and love to hear from you. So anyway, I learned a lot about teamwork from working with eight guide dogs, and I continue to learn every day. I think it's very important for me to learn and to focus all that I can to make sure that I do what it is that's necessary to make a team work, and I believe it is all about the team. I've mentioned that I've written three books, and each one was a collaboration with someone else: Susie Florey with Thunderdog, Jeanette Hanscom with Running with Roselle and Carrie Wyatt Kent with Live Like a Guide Dog, and and the fact of the matter is those collaborations I think were very important. Michael Hingson 40:49 They made the books come out a lot different than I might have imagined them coming out by themselves and the way I would have written them without having collaboration, and probably Live Like a guide dog more than more than the other two, just because of the way it all went. But with live like a guide dog, we focused on each of my my guide dogs and the lessons that we learned. So I mentioned Squire, who I worked with in high school and then went to college with Squire, and Squire was was all around where wherever I was. One night in a dorm, I was with a roommate. Well, actually, a person who lived in a room next door to mine, and I was in his room. We were dealing with a physics problem. By the way, my master's degree is in physics. I have a secondary teaching credential, but I was in with Richard dealing with a physics problem. When I went back into my room, there was no Squire. I didn't realize that a couple of the students decided to play a trick and kidnap him. I went looking around the dorm. I even went into the bathroom and opened the shower door and called Squire, and nothing was totally quiet, and finally, I was getting a little bit concerned. And one of the people said, "Oh well, look, we took the dog. We'll show you. They went into the bathroom, opened the shower door, and out comes Squire. He was in on it. He didn't do a thing when I opened the door, but when the other people did, then then he came out. I wasn't mad at him. Sneaky dog that he is, he had a great sense of humor. But I got vengeance because that that person didn't tell the other people that they showed him where showed me where Squire was. I went and hit Squire somewhere, and then I went back out into the main part of the dorm and I started going, "Who took my dog? What's going on? Where is he? And all the other people said, "Oh, come on, he's in the bathroom. And they went in and opened the door to the shower. No Squire, and they were starting to worry about what happened to him. And Squire, of course, was again not making noise. But eventually, I brought him out and I said, "Okay, I found him. I knew where he was. We're playing a trick on you just like you played a trick on me. That'll teach you. I learned that dogs have a sense of humor that day, but I also learned how much I valued having Squire around, and so Squire worked with me up until and through my first graduate year in physics at UC Irvine, and then Squire retired and went to live with my parents. And in 1973, I got my second guide dog, Holland. Holland was with me through 1986. He worked for almost 13 years, and in fact, was two weeks from retiring when he collapsed in our backyard one day, and we took him to the vet. And the vet said, "I could probably bring him out of whatever he's got, maybe a stroke or a heart attack or both, but he won't have a good quality of life. And so we said goodbye to to Holland. Holland and Squire were both golden retrievers, but again, Holland so strongly reinforced all the things that that I had felt about teamwork, and I learned so much more from him about what I needed to do in order to to function well, not just with a dog, but in my whole life. Then I got Klondike, who was my third guide dog, who was also a golden retriever. Soon after I got Klondike, well, about a year after I got Klondike, suddenly one day he had a very strong grand mal epileptic seizure, and we took him to the vet, and they put him on some medication that wasn't really helping that. And we then kept trying to to deal with it, and finally, and during that same time, I was looking for a job. I had owned my own company for four years, but decided I wanted to go back into the workforce, and and I finally got a job with a company. Michael Hingson 44:52 And on one of the first days that I worked there, Klondike had four grand mal seizures in the. Period of time, and we thought we were going to have to say goodbye to Klondike. But I talked to our veterinarian, and he said, "You know, before we do that, I want to send him to a neurologist who did an electroencephalograph. And he said, "I didn't see much, but he said one thing he did was to take some blood tests, and he said I noticed that his Klondike's thyroid level is low, and low thyroid levels in dogs like Klondike can make them more susceptible to have seizures, just like it can for children. Well, we put Klondike on synthroid, synthetic thyroid, as well as on phenobarbital to control the seizures. The synthroid had much more of an effect than the phenobarb did, Klondike actually became a much more active and playful and interactive dog, and did not have from that time on for the next seven years that he worked for me as a guide dog never had a single seizure. So the thyroid theory was a good one. Again, with with Klondike, it was about developing a team and recognizing that we had to work together. Well, then I got Linny, and again I mentioned Linny only worked for three years. Linny had glomerular nephritis that was really probably from a tick bite where the tick had Lyme's disease, and we didn't know any of that was happening until that night that Linny didn't wake up at all or didn't get up from her bed, and we finally got it diagnosed. And then I got Roselle. Now Roselle was a a wonderful dog. One of the things that I've always said is that when I get a new guide dog and I tell the trainers I want a dog with an on-off switch. That is, I want a dog that knows when the harness is on, it's time to work, and when the harness is off, then they can play. Clearly, Roselle had that when she was in harness. She was very focused. She did develop a phobia of thunderstorms, but there were a few times that we had thunderstorms, and she was able to continue to guide, even though she would shake and she would shiver a little bit. But she continued to guide. She focused. In fact, there was a thunderstorm the morning of September 11th, about 12:30 in the morning. But there was no thunder when we were going through what we did in the World Trade Center, so none of that caused her to be fearful. But again, Roselle was a dog that that taught me a lot about observation, learning what the dogs do, what what they fear, and how to help keep them focused and calm. And so I did that. My sixth guide dog was Meryl. Meryl only worked for about a year. Roselle retired in 2007. Merrill worked from 2007 to 2008, but Merrill became very fearful of guiding, and so ended up not being a guide dog very long. And I I'd never experienced that, although I had heard other people who had issues where dogs didn't work very long. Lenny only worked for three years, but a dog that didn't work for more than a year-that was unusual for me. However, poor Meryl wasn't able to do well as a guide, and so she retired. And then we got Africa. Now Africa was my seventh guide dog. Africa's mother was Fantasia. In January of 2006, we were working. I was working at Guide Dogs for the Blind, and we applied to be what were called breeder keepers. That is, they were the the people who would keep a breeder dog in their home because the guide dogs for the blind bred their own guide dogs and so on. And breeder keepers would keep dogs in their homes so that the dogs weren't just cooped up in kennels all day, and we volunteered to do that. And the director of breeding, Marina Hall, called us and said, "I've got four dogs for you to look at. I think one's better than the others for you, but I want you to come and meet these dogs. So we went down, and and she made the comment again. I think one dog is going to be better than the others. Michael Hingson 49:02 And and I said, well, if you think so strongly, but which one is it? Well, she finally sort of told us. She said, I didn't want to tell you, but I'll tell you. So she did. But anyway, the first dog who came in was a dog named Fantasia, and it works sort of the same way that when people get guide dogs, you're in a room. The dog is allowed to come in, and you see how the dog reacts to you. When I met Squire for the first time, I was sitting in a chair. They let Squire in. He came over and started sniffing me all over. Didn't leave me. He just started sniffing. And Bruce Benzler, who was the apprentice instructor at the time, later became director of Guide Dogs for the Blind, CEO anyway, anyway. Bruce then said, "Looks like you found a friend already, and we became friends. But anyway, when when Fantasia came into the room, she took one look at Karen and leaped into Karen's lap. She had no fear of the power wheelchair that Karen was using by that time. The other three dogs, we still looked at them, and they all expressed one level of fear or concern about being around this wheelchair. But Marina said Fantasia was the one that we thought you'd like best and would like you best, and she was. So anyway, in 2006, we got Fantasia in January, and later that year, she had a litter of puppies, and then in early or mid 2007, she Fantasia had her second litter. I guess it was late in 2006 she had the second litter, but anyway, by the middle of 2008, when we had to retire Meryl because she wasn't working out very well, we were notified that they found a dog that they thought would be a really good replacement for Meryl, and that's a dog named Africa. And Karen and I realized Africa was a name that we suggested as as breeder keepers that they could name one of their puppies if they had puppies who came from an A litter. And the way it works, by the way, is when a litter is born, they're assigned a letter of the alphabet, and they got a big book, and they go into that book and they get the next names that are available. They don't use names of current guide dogs, so when a dog retires, then they can start using that name again. But anyway, Africa was a name that we suggested, and as soon as we saw the email that said Africa, we knew Fantasia was Africa's mother. Well, Africa came and joined us, and mom and daughter did really well, and Roselle was still with us. So the three of them have a lot of fun together, but again with Africa, I learned about teamwork and doing the things that I needed to do. Every dog is different, and one of the things that I developed over the years was an understanding that to truly develop a relationship with a dog takes probably close to a year by the time we really are totally comfortable with each other, but I worked with Africa. We became good friends. Africa became good friends with Roselle. Of course, Africa liked her mom, and all worked out really well. Developing those teeming relationships is so important, and you can learn a lot more about them if you get live like a guide dog. I think you'll find them all very interesting to to read about. So in 2017, I noticed that Africa was starting to slow down and not do as well. She wasn't able to see as well at night. Sort of typical signs of a dog getting older, even though I work to to keep stress out as much as possible, but I applied and in 2018 on the 9th of February, Africa's puppy raisers, Bill and Peggy Sproul from San Francisco or San Diego rather, came to visit us in Victorville, and we had offered them the opportunity to take Africa because we had Fantasia, and we had Africa. And if we kept Africa and Fantasia, and I got a new guide dog, Karen would have a hard time taking care of two dogs when I traveled, because I was doing a great deal of travel by then as a keynote speaker, and so the Sprouls came and got Africa. Michael Hingson 53:26 Left our house, Africa didn't even look back. She was gone. We had visited her several times since then, and and in in the Sprouls home, Africa died in 2020. But we we got to visit Africa several times and it was a lot of fun and and she she loved us and all that and remembered us anyway on the 11th of February two days later I went to Guide Dogs for the Blind and I met Alamo who was my first black Labrador and I met him we we met in the room and he kind of sniffed me a little bit and walked around the room. But then came back and sniffed me, and then I took him on leash back to our our dorm room at Guide Dogs for the Blind, and I decided I'd sit on the floor to to visit with him. And the next thing I know, this big, huge, 60 pound Labrador is in my lap. Alamo was and is a lapdog, but he doesn't know a stranger, which is great. I mentioned earlier that I always said that when I get a guide dog, I want a guide dog that has an on and off switch. Another thing that I require is that guide dogs that I get be raised by cats. I have known of animals who of guide dogs who don't like cats, and I would not want that because we always have had cats. And by that time, when we got Alamo, we had Stitch, who we rescued in January of 2015. So now here it is, February of 2018. So I knew that we needed to have a dog that wasn't going to be. Be afraid of cats. Well, so Stitch and Alamo kind of walked around each other a little bit when we first went home, but they got to like each other pretty well pretty quickly, and they have been together ever since. Alamo has been on a number of aircraft, as I've mentioned over the years, he went to Israel with me. He didn't go to England when I spoke in 2024, but he's been to other places and will continue to travel with me. I work really hard to keep the stress out of his life. I don't want him to become any more stressed than he ever has to be, and he feeds off of how I behave, as as I've learned guide dogs do. So that's one of the most important things that I've learned is to keep that stress out of his life. I would point out that is just as much true for human teams. Don't stress out your team. If you are a leader, your job is to enhance what those leaders, what the team does. Your job isn't to boss them around. If you're doing that, you're only causing more stress, and you're going to find you're going to have a big job turnover, much more than you really should. I've always felt that my job isn't to boss people around when I hire them, my job is to enhance their abilities by using the skills that I have and learning to work with them to give them the benefit of what I know and to use the benefits of what they know to learn myself as well, so that we become more effective. And the people who really get that do very well. The people who didn't get that tend not to last very long at the company because they don't perform very well. Because I know that in reality, I add value to the team by working to add value, not bossing the team around. I think there's a big difference between leaders and bosses, and I've learned that over the years. That leaders are people who can enhance what other people do, who work to make the whole team effective and not just try to boss people around. In late 2020, I discovered a company called Accessibe, A C C E S S I capital B E. Website is accessibee.com. Was a company that made products to help make internet websites more inclusive, and at first, they had some challenges because they were using a lot of AI stuff to make their products work, and they sort of did. But there were there were challenges. But one day in January of 2021, the founder of the company, Sheer Eckerling. Michael Hingson 57:41 contacted me and said we're interested in you joining the company. I had been looking at possibly selling their products because the pandemic had hit, and I thought I could sell them from home because we were locked down. And and he said, well, you know, we we'd like you to not sell as a partner, just on your own, we'd like you to join the company. Well, he asked what I was doing, and by that time I had started to learn about podcasting because I couldn't travel and speak all over the world. So what I decided to do was to look at using podcast as a revenue source. And Shear said, "Well, you know, we we're really interested in having somebody do a podcast for us. And I said, "What do you want? And he said, "I want to just get somebody who will do a podcast to show that we're part of the world. And you join the company; you could do that in part. I joined the company, and he didn't have any specific agenda for the podcast. So, in August of 2021, I began Unstoppable Mindset, and soon it became unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity, and the unexpected meet. And I'll explain all of that in a moment. But the point is that we started the podcast. I created the title. I recreated the description, and I wanted the podcast to be conversations. And as anyone who has been on the podcast knows, we don't do interviews as such. We do conversations, and I ask people to send me materials to help me prepare to be able to do the conversation. And so a number of times we've had diversity experts on people from the DEI world, and when I ask them what they do, they say, you know, we focus a lot on diversity, and I say, what does that mean? And they say, well, we deal with race, gender, sexual orientation, and so on. And we chat for a little while, and then I say, but you haven't talked about disabilities. And they say, oh, disability is not a minority. And I say, what do you mean? He said, well, disability is a social justice thing. It's not like race, gender, or sexual orientation. And my response to that is balderdash. I like to use balderdash. I could go back and use what Colonel Sherman Potter did on Mash and say monkey muffins. But anyway, balderdash because diversity should include disability because it is a minority. Even the Center for Disease Control says that. Adversity, or that that people with disabilities are a minority of about 25% of people in the United States. Well, so the bottom line for me is that I would say to them, "What do you mean you're you're not including it? And they say, "Well, it's a it's a disability, but it's social justice. It's always about being a lack of ability, and as I have learned, especially since September 11th and and beyond, disability does not mean a lack of ability. You might want to think it does. You might want to try to make that fit, but it doesn't. And I learned that most effectively in March of 2023 when I went to something, by that time Karen had passed, and I was working with a person who had been Karen's caregiver, who decided to work for me. Very grateful for Josie doing that. Josie entered my name in the contest to be a guest at the Kelly and Ryan Oscar after party, which was going to be held the Monday after the Oscars at the Dolby Theater, well, I didn't even know she entered me, but I got a call the Tuesday before the Oscar after party and the Oscars, and I was and I picked up the phone and they said congratulations, and I said for what? Oh, you won an invitation to come to the Kelly and Ryan Oscar after party, and I went really well. Anyway, I went down with my niece and nephew, Tracy and Charlie Green. The there wasn't room for taking Josie, her husband, and her mother and her five kids. So it was just me, Tracy, and Charlie. Michael Hingson 1:01:37 We got up to our room about 3o'clock in the afternoon on the Saturday before the Oscars, the day before the Oscars, we put our luggage in our room and we were coming back down the main stairwell staircase actually from the third to the first floor in the Hollywood Roosevelt. It's a very open staircase, and all of a sudden I heard people screaming, and it took me a while to to try to understand what's going on, and finally I couldn't figure it out. I said, Tracy, what's going on? And she said, Oh, we just lost power and lighting on the stairs, and and power and lighting in and around the entire hotel. Now it didn't bother Tracy. Tracy had known me for a long time, but people were panicky because they weren't getting all the light they expected, even though the windows were open, the the shades were up on the first floor in the lobby, and so on. Lots of light, but it wasn't all that people expected. And I thought about that, and what I learned from that was, it proves that disability isn't a lack of ability; it proves that disability is a characteristic that we all have. Thomas Edison and others worked on the light bulb, and Thomas Edison is credited with developing the electric light bulb back in 1878. But in the 148 years since the light bulb was developed, all society has done in that regard is worked very hard on coming up with better ways of providing light on demand, so that you sighted people could have all the light you want when you want it. Nowadays, we have smartphones, we have flashlights, we have other ways of getting light on demand. But as the Americans with Disabilities Act would describe it. The light bulb is simply, or any piece of technology that produces light on demand, is simply a piece of technology that provides light on demand to light-dependent people who otherwise don't function well without it. The bottom line is, disability is not a lack of ability. We got words like discrete, discern, disciple. What is discern? Is it a lack of discern? What is it? What is disciple? A lack of viple? No. Disability is not a lack of ability. Disability is a character
00:00– 10:46- From Indiana Sports Talk, the legendary Bob Lovell makes his weekly Friday at 3:30 hit. One of the biggest games in the area is the Noblesville and Westfield, John and Bob point out the remarkable job Josh Miracle has done as head coach of the Shamrocks. They get into a conversation of how tough it can be to elevate as a program, especially at the higher levels of classes. Plus, the Evansville Memorial and Evansville Mater-Dei matchup with rivalry implications. 10:46 - 29:53 –Joel A. Erickson from the Indianapolis Star joins the show. Will Alec Pierce be full-go week 1, what Joel Erickson’s biggest concerns are, are the Colts getting the Ravens at the best time, can the Colts manufacture a pass rush and more. Combined with the pass rush, how will the secondary help that? Lastly, what is his prediction for the team this year? 29:53 – 51:49 – Andrew Catalon from CBS is on the call for Colts-Ravens Sunday afternoon. It’s his third straight week 1 Colts call. Andrew breaks down his conversations with Daniel Jones, Shane Steichen and others leading up to the game Sunday. He previews the Ravens side of things as well and why he doesn’t know what to expect from Baltimore. Andrew is a New Jersey native and reflects on the 25th anniversary of 9/11. Then, he details his preparation and some nuggets he’s picked up on throughout. Support the show: https://1075thefan.com/the-ride-with-jmv/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00 – 26:05 – Live from Hooters downtown, JMV opens the show by urging listeners to get down to the Georgia street location before touching on the 49ers 'de-pantsing of the Rams last night. He also sets up what the importance level is for the Colts to win their week 1 game against the Baltimore Ravens Sunday. Plus, previewing the college football slate, Cooper Rush is starting for the Falcons plus previewing what’s to come on the show. Also touching on his remembrance of 9/11 25 years ago today and Mark Patrick’s show he did that day while John was producing. 26:05– 40:54 – From Indiana Sports Talk, the legendary Bob Lovell makes his weekly Friday at 3:30 hit. One of the biggest games in the area is the Noblesville and Westfield, John and Bob point out the remarkable job Josh Miracle has done as head coach of the Shamrocks. They get into a conversation of how tough it can be to elevate as a program, especially at the higher levels of classes. Plus, the Evansville Memorial and Evansville Mater-Dei matchup with rivalry implications. 40:54– 44:03 – JMV wraps up the first hour of the show 44:03 - 1:06:09 – Risha from Hooters joins John to preview what the specials are for the football weekend before Joel A. Erickson from the Indianapolis Star joins the show. Will Alec Pierce be full-go week 1, what Joel Erickson’s biggest concerns are, are the Colts getting the Ravens at the best time, can the Colts manufacture a pass rush and more. Combined with the pass rush, how will the secondary help that? Lastly, what is his prediction for the team this year? 1:06:09 – 1:12:47 – Risha rejoins the show along with owner of the Georgia Street Hooters, Madison, joins to showcase the specials going on this weekend. 1:12:47 – 1:24:24 –. John and Caleb run through the most intriguing games around the NFL in week 1 1:24:24 – 1:46:47 – Andrew Catalon from CBS is on the call for Colts-Ravens Sunday afternoon. It’s his third straight week 1 Colts call. Andrew breaks down his conversations with Daniel Jones, Shane Steichen and others leading up to the game Sunday. He previews the Ravens side of things as well and why he doesn’t know what to expect from Baltimore. Andrew is a New Jersey native and reflects on the 25th anniversary of 9/11. Then, he details his preparation and some nuggets he’s picked up on throughout. 1:46:47 – 2:00:18 – The voice of the Hoosiers, Don Fischer, returns for his weekly Football Friday appearance. John asks him for some advice on his comedy club appearance before reviewing the week 1 win vs. North Texas and the areas where they can still improve. Plus, what it’s like to do the coaches shows each week with Curt Cignetti and who stood out in week 1. 2:00:18 – 2:03:33 – Wrapping up the show with the group and previewing Bud Light Blue Friday tomorrow!Support the show: https://1075thefan.com/the-ride-with-jmv/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
September 11, 2001, changed Bob Ellis's life, just as it changed mine. Bob was working at the Pentagon that morning and had walked out of the building only minutes before Flight 77 struck the area where his meeting had taken place. You will hear how he immediately became part of the response, helping organize emergency supplies and support for those working at the Pentagon. We also compare our experiences from two different locations that day, Bob at the Pentagon and me at the World Trade Center with my guide dog Roselle. Twenty-five years later, our conversation is about more than remembering 9/11. It is about leadership, teamwork, service, controlling fear, and deciding what we do with the life we have been given. I believe Bob's story offers lessons we can all use when the unexpected happens. Highlights: 05:29-Bob shares how his early life and military support career shaped his path. 23:53-He recalls realizing the first World Trade Center strike was not an accident. 32:59-Bob describes being just 300 yards away when the Pentagon was hit. 37:00-He explains how he helped organize emergency relief supplies within hours. 1:03:54-Michael reflects on survival, fear, and the responsibility to move forward. 1:06:55-Bob shares the lasting life lessons he took from September 11. About the Guest: Bob Ellis is the Vice President, American Logistics Association responsible for Exchange, MWR, Food Service Operations. The native of Fort Walton Beach, Florida began his career with AAFES in 1972. From 1972 through 1984, he held retail management positions as a Branch Manager, and Operations Manager Main Store. In 1985, Ellis began a string of assignments as an Exchange General Manager trainee at Fort Belvoir, VA, and Exchange General Manager, Fort Hamilton, NY and Carlisle Barrack PA, (Army War College). Assignments as Area Retail Manager and General Manager at the former Japan Area Exchange ran from 1989-1992. In 1992, Ellis was transferred to Travis AFB in California as Retail Manager, Main Store. In 1994, Ellis was selected for the General Manager's position at Travis and spent three years assisting in the design and new construction effort of the largest retail Main Store ever constructed by AAFES. From 1997 to 2002, Ellis held the position of Director of AAFES' Washington Office, serving as the principal representative of the Commander, AAFES to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Departments of the Army and the Air Force, Congressional offices and industry representatives. Notable among his accomplishments, Ellis was instrumental in spearheading AAFES support to the Pentagon after the attacks of September 11th. Within 48 hours of the event, AAFES established a mobile exchange in the shadow of the impact site to support rescue workers and investigators with critical need and personal comfort items. After Washington, Ellis moved to AAFES Headquarters' in Dallas to assume the Vice President Specialty and Consumables position. In this role, Ellis was responsible for the SD-C Category Team Managers/Buyers. In August 2003, Ellis took his a position as Vice President of Corporate Planning and Communications where he managed the development of AAFES long range and contingency planning programs, oversight of corporate public affairs and ensured compliance with Department of Defense policy guidance with the goal of preserving and protecting the exchange benefit for soldiers and airmen and their families around the globe. Bob joined the ALA on 31 July 2006 where he continues to serve a role in military resale supporting Exchange, MWR, and Food Service, operations still serving military resale over 51 years continuous service. Ways to connect with Bob**:** You can find more benefits how Branded Riches can help you build your Brand, Product, Business, and Yourself at https://www.BrandedRiches.com Connect: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neryk-davydov Branded Riches Audiobook by Neryk Davydov https://www.audible.com/pd/Branded-Riches-Audiobook/B0GCP9MMRB Branded Riches Book https://www.amazon.com/Branded-Riches-Increase-Income-Irresistible/dp/1987753836 $5 Free Gift for Creating A New Ovato Wallet www.ovatoCoin.com About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson 00:00 Everyone, I am Michael Hingson, the host of Unstoppable Mindset. You've heard my voice for the last 471 episodes, but I'm calling you all out today and asking you to listen to this because we're going to make a special announcement now regarding the next four episodes, starting with 472. We're going to help commemorate the historic events of September 11, 2001. Yes, they're definitely historic, although not necessarily the most positive things that have ever happened. But as many of you may know, I was in the World Trade Center working on September 11, 2001, on the 78th floor of Tower One, and escaped with my guide dog. I've delivered a speech about that, which we put in the first episode of this podcast series back in August of 2021. But this Friday, episode 472 is going to have an updated speech that I delivered just a few years ago at the Marshfield, Missouri Cherry Blossom Festival. That festival is a yearly event celebrating different kinds of things that have happened in American history, and I was invited to come and speak, which I did. I'm going to put that speech up for you as episode 472. I think you'll find it enlightening. It'll teach you something about blindness and blind people. It'll tell you my story, and it'll give you some inspiration that I hope you will find helpful. Next Tuesday, september 8, Michelle Abraham is going to interview me. Michelle is with Amplify You, the company that does all of our back office stuff and helps me with the editing and other things regarding the podcast. Michelle owns her own podcast, and she is going to interview me about September 11th and other kinds of things relating to what I've learned and things that have happened over the past 25 years. She's also going to be putting this up on her podcast Amplify You, so you can find us in a lot of different places. On September 11th, I'm going to chat with Bob Ellis. Bob was in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and had literally just walked out the door of the Pentagon when the plane crashed into the Pentagon and did the things and the damage that it did, and of course generated all the things that occurred at the Pentagon. On the 15th of September, I'm going to come back and have a conversation with all of you about lessons that I've learned over the past 25 years, and just reminisce a little bit about all of that. While the podcast is occurring on September 11th, I will be actually in Kilgore, Texas, doing a speech about September 11th. So lots of things going on, I hope you listen to these episodes. I hope that you'll tell everyone that you can about them. I really enjoy all of the support that you've given us over the years, and we're going to continue to do things with Unstoppable Mindset. And of course, as always, if you'd like to come on or know anyone who would, please let us know. We're always looking for guests. Thanks very much. We'll see you on Friday with the first of these four episodes. What if the biggest thing holding you back isn't what's in front of you, but rather what you believe? Welcome to Unstoppable Mindset, where inclusion, diversity, and the unexpected meet. I'm your host, Michael Hingston, speaker, author, and advocate for inclusion and possibilities. This podcast explores how the beliefs we carry shape the way we live, lead, and connect with others. Each week, I talk with people who challenge assumptions, face adversity head-on, and show what's possible when we choose curiosity over fear. Together, we focus on mindset, resilience, and the small shifts that lead to meaningful change. Let's get started. Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Unstoppable Mindset. You are listening to us today, or at least I'm assuming you're listening just when this came out. But whenever you're listening, it is today, September 11th, 2026, which is needless to say, a special day. If you have kept up with my podcast from the beginning, you know that I worked in the World Trade Center on September 11th, and ever since then I've been a public speaker, traveling the world, talking about trust, teamwork, leadership, the human-animal bond, and a variety of things. But recently, I met Bob Ellis. Michael Hingson 04:40 Now, Bob, as it turns out, on September 11th worked at the Pentagon, and I have not ever really had the opportunity to talk with someone who was at the Pentagon, especially on September 11th. But we get to chat about that today, and Bob knows our rules, which are basically. He sent me a series of questions that he wants to cover, but we are doing this as a conversation, so we'll probably talk about a lot of the things that he specifically sent. But we can go any old way that Bob wants to go, so that's what we'll we'll make this really fun. And I'm really looking forward to having the opportunity to talk with Bob. So again, welcome to September 11th, and Bob, I want to welcome you to Unstoppable Mindset. We're really glad you're here, Bob Ellis 05:28 Michael. Thank you for inviting me. I know you you've inquired several times, and I've debated it, and and I was just holding it for the right time, and this is the right time-the 25th anniversary of the event. Michael Hingson 05:40 Yeah, it is, and and and as as we've said, if you find anybody who needs a a speaker to come in and speak, let me know. But but for now, we get to chat about you and and hear your story, which I think is the important thing. I think we'll probably talk about both of our stories in the course of the day, no doubt about it. But I really am glad that you are here and that you are able to to talk with us today and and and talk about things. So let's start the way I love to start with people. Let's start at the beginning. Tell me kind of about the early Bob growing up and so on. Let's start with that. Bob Ellis 06:17 Well, I I grew up in let's say grew up until I was four years old. I lived. I was born in Pensacola, Florida. Lived in the Panhandle. Mother and father got divorced, and we moved to Norfolk, Virginia. And it was just my my mother and I until I was 14 years old. And I found out about my dad and found some letters from him and insisted to go see him. And so, between 14 and 15, I made a couple of unauthorized attempts to to make my way to Florida. On the third attempt, I made it, and it was quite a surprise for my father. Ended up living with him and being my closest friend up until I had he had grandkids, we had kids, and so I lived and grew up in the Destin, Fort Worth, Fort Walton area. Went to work, and this is where the story begins. I went to work at Eglin Air Force Base as a as a janitor in a gas station for the Army Air Force Exchange Service, so that I could continue to play high school football and practice, was a great job. It was an opportunity to work with the military, be around the military, and I took great pride in that feeling that that that that while I I wanted to go into the air force and I wanted to fly jets, that opportunity just never presented itself because the Vietnam War was going on and they were banking pilots instead of taking pilots. Anyway, I I ended up staying with the Army Air Force Exchange Service for 34 years. I moved all over the world. I've seen the every AOR and every combat scenario since the Vietnam War. Not in the Vietnam War, but I was in the refugee program, helping with the resettlement back in 1972, 1973. Spent the rest of my career going wherever they sent me, and and and that was from Tokyo, Japan, to to Tuli, Greenland, to California, and ultimately to to Texas. Michael Hingson 08:30 I remember during the Vietnam War, someone called me one day. I was a student at UC Irvine, and there was a refugee camp fairly close to the university, and someone said, and someone said, "There's a blind young man at the sent at the refugee center, and we should go see him. And so we we bought a transistor radio for him and went out to visit with him and spent some time with him, and I never got to see him after that. But I hope I hope he did well. He he seemed like he was doing okay, but he was a little bit lost, needless to say, because it's a whole bunch of people. There are no a lot of people who knew much about blindness and blind people, but I would presume he did reasonably okay. I hope so, but that was the only time I specifically had an involvement with him or anyone at the refugee camps. Later, when I met my wife Karen, she lived, I think, a door down, and she and her parents lived a door down from a Vietnamese couple, and he was a tailor and actually made her wedding dress, which was kind of cool, and so we got to spend a fair amount of time with the Voo's, which was was good, but what's. Interesting for me now, with with now being well so many years later. In November, I will be going to do a speech in Hanoi, so I'm really looking forward to to going over there and and experiencing it. At least it'll be a little bit cooler then than it probably is now. So we'll see, but it'll be it'll be pretty enjoyable to go and again see a different a different part of the world, and I I think we'll be fine. At least that's that's that's the plan. Bob Ellis 10:34 That that that that tour that I had at Eglin Air Force Base with the refugees, will come back to to to 911 2001 and the experiences that I had at that refugee camp replicated in the Pentagon park and lot there in 911. So we'll get to that. I'll explain it further. Michael Hingson 10:56 Yeah, I'm sure it was a a great a great lesson. Where did you do college, or did you Bob Ellis 11:03 went to went to Duke University and the University and the University of Maryland? Michael Hingson 11:10 Okay. Well, at Bob Ellis 11:12 least much of it was correspondence as well, only because I was deployed for for so many years back to back, 17 moves in 34 years. Michael Hingson 11:22 Wow, Duke University. At least you didn't go to one of those other schools in North Carolina. Boy, talk about talk about rivalries and basketball. What a what a group down there. Bob Ellis 11:35 Oh, I know, I know. Michael Hingson 11:38 I once spoke in Kentucky, and the Wildcats were in the NCAA championship that year, and I was asked to speak at an event on the night of the championship. But I was told I had to end by 630. I could not go one second past 630 because the gym I was speaking in was going to clear out. Well, I ended in time so that at 630, what they said was absolutely true. That gym cleared out. Everybody went home to watch the game. Bob Ellis 12:09 That's that's sports. Michael Hingson 12:11 Not sports. It is, but it's okay. I I learned a lot down there and got to meet a number of people, and so it was it was a lot of fun to to do it, and then years later I was in North Carolina when NC State and UNC were playing to see who was going to go into the championship. So again, pretty interesting world, and and sports ruled everything then, so it's okay. It Bob Ellis 12:43 hasn't it hasn't changed at all because my my my daughter I got her graduate studies done at NC State, and it hasn't changed a bit. It's just I'll bet it's just crazy as it's when was 20 3040 years ago, Michael Hingson 12:58 and it shall ever be, won't it? Bob Ellis 13:01 Yeah, yeah. Her undergraduate degree was at University of Texas. This was my son's, and she went on to NC State, and and he went on to medical school in in Houston. Michael Hingson 13:16 Okay. Well, UC Irvine, when I was there, had the championship water polo team, but that's what we had. But they started basketball while I was there, although it wasn't anything huge. But a couple of years ago, they made it to the Sweet 16, and that was kind of fun for UC Irvine. One of these days, it'll go all the way. Bob Ellis 13:40 Yep. Michael Hingson 13:41 Well, anyway, so you you went to college, and and what did you major in? Bob Ellis 13:45 Political science. Michael Hingson 13:47 Okay, political science Bob Ellis 13:48 and business management. With a with my two aspirations, I wanted to. I really wanted to major in in aviation science, but that that wasn't offered. So that's political science and business science, business law. Michael Hingson 14:06 But you were working for the Army Air Force Exchange Service. What is that exactly? Bob Ellis 14:11 Yeah, it's a it's it's it's a non-appropriated funded Service provided all goods. I think of it as the the Walmart or the Target of of the civilian sector, except the Army Air Force Exchange Service has stored everything from stores, every business that you can think of therein, from stores to convenience stores to gas stations to beauty shops and barber shops to dining facilities, franchise Burger Kings, anything that a soldier and his family needs at the base or overseas or in the combat arena, where we were there with it, providing it. It's been a great career. Michael Hingson 14:59 Did you? Do you have any involvement with, especially here in the U.S. the the Randolph Sheppard programs, the blind vending stand operations at any of the facilities? Bob Ellis 15:09 Yep, sure did many many times. We're still working with it. There's there's some issues present right now under the Randolph Shepherd that they're looking at. I don't know what what's going to change, but yes, sir, we were very, very close to that. Michael Hingson 15:24 Yeah, I know there. The current government's looking at it; they want to scale a lot of it back, which would, I think, not be a good thing. I think there's a lot of reasons to keep it, but we'll see. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. But I, the closest I ever came to dealing with anything from AAES was I was invited to speak once at an organizational meeting of the National Property Managers Association in the military. Are you familiar with that? Bob Ellis 15:56 I am. Yes. Michael Hingson 15:57 And when I was asked to come, the Speakers Bureau didn't do a good research job because they told me, "Oh, it's the people who rent apartments and all that. When I got down to the to the event, I will say that the National Property Managers Association certainly serves a nice breakfast. But anyway, the conversation just didn't seem like what I what I was expecting. So I asked somebody, and they told me that the organization was the organization that had complete jurisdiction over anything physical that the government owned, and Bob Ellis 16:30 absolutely Michael Hingson 16:31 that that changed my grass. Sorry, Bob Ellis 16:34 right down to the grass, right down to the grass and the concrete. Michael Hingson 16:37 There you go. Well, it also changed my speech in 10 minutes, but it was fun. They invited me back the next year, so that was good. But it's it's fun when you're you're planning to do a particular speech, and suddenly it turns out it's got to change. It's good to have the flexibility to do that. But I'm I'm glad I had the opportunity to do it, and hopefully we'll have opportunities to do it again, but you have served a lot of different kinds of of services within AAES, and and I assume that's all worked out pretty well. Bob Ellis 17:14 That that worked out very well. Yep, I had I started at the bottom and and climbed as close to the top as I possibly could, but Michael Hingson 17:23 you eventually got the the highest medal that was available for civilians when you retired or after you retired. Bob Ellis 17:31 No, the highest award that I ever received was from my man over the Pentagon 911 support program, which was a nice medoris civilian award. Michael Hingson 17:46 Okay, where is your favorite place to live in the world? Or is that really easy to say? I mean, you've been all over the place and seen a lot of different kinds of places. Don't know how much you got to two of them, but anyway, Bob Ellis 18:00 it wasn't the two places that I that I went overseas, which was Japan and Greenland. Those were the longest tours of my life. Beautiful country in Japan, and and great facilities and support in tuning Greenland. But I would I would guess throughout the United States, I had a great assignment at the Army War College, and I had a great assignment at Travis Air Force Base here in Michael Hingson 18:26 California. Yeah, Bob Ellis 18:28 yeah. Michael Hingson 18:30 I've spoken. Bob Ellis 18:30 My son was born in Japan. He's dual citizen as a result on the Air Force Base, and my daughter was born in California. So it was a great time, mainly because the kids were younger and and and and we were in great climate areas. Michael Hingson 18:48 When people ask me what my favorite place in the United States is, I say everywhere. I I just enjoy meeting people wherever I go in the U.S. It's so many different cultures and customs and ways of doing things. It is so fun to to see all the different places and see how they are. People ask what I like, where I like outside the U.S. And so far, it's been New Zealand. I would say is probably the best, but Japan has to be up there too. I've really enjoyed being in Japan. I've been there a couple times, and I thoroughly enjoyed Bob Ellis 19:23 it. I, I had, I think the most the the greatest thing about the assignments was some of the people I I got to to meet in in my in my tours. One of them would be the Crown Prince of of Thailand, who who is now the king of Thailand, King Rama, got to meet him when he was a pilot, and supported him when when I was at Yokota Air Base, and multiple other celebrities. I I had the opportunity as a kid to attend the funeral. For Douglas MacArthur, and and his his memorial was right across the street in North Virginia from where my mother worked. And 20 years later, I had the opportunity to to meet mrs. Mcarthur, Jean MacArthur, at Gracie Mansion in New York, and I I I wrote protocol. I when it came time for her to to meet me and meet meet her, I got down on one knee and I held her hand and I said, "I want to tell you a little story, ma'am. And she said, "Well, certainly, absolutely. And I told her the story how when the general had died in in 1964, I was required by my my mother to go to the funeral, and the most fascinating person I'd ever seen in my life was herself, and she just got she just turned red. Well, long story short, I was at an army command at Fort Hamilton. The next day, the the group the the installation commander called me over to his office, very angry, but he wanted me to know that I was going to be the first civilian aide for the old lady, which was mrs. Mcarthur, and he had to take one of his lieutenants off. And I got to know the family and and the Mcarthurs as a result of that. So lots of opportunities, just absolutely amazing. 911, and we'll get to it. I got to meet President Bush momentarily, but I I got to meet him and have a short conversation. Michael Hingson 21:32 I got to meet him in 2005. We went to the Oval Office, and we were supposed to have a two minute photo op, but he kept wanting to interact. We ended up talking for about 15 minutes. He kept the Italian ambassador or prime minister waiting, but it was a was a great conversation. I very much enjoyed having the opportunity to meet with him. Bob Ellis 21:53 Yeah, he was remarkable. Michael Hingson 21:54 Yeah, in in so many ways. If Speaker 1 22:00 you enjoy Unstoppable Mindset and would like to help us continue bringing these conversations to you each week, we've created a way for you to support the show. Your contribution helps us cover production costs and continue sharing stories, insights, and ideas that inspire people to live with purpose and possibility. If supporting the podcast feels right for you, you'll find the link in the show notes. Thank you for being part of the Unstoppable Mindset Community. Michael Hingson 22:33 So that's that's pretty cool. So as you were going around to all these different places, what would you say you were learning. Bob Ellis 22:41 I was learning business. I was learning relationships. I was learning marketing. Pretty much anything that you wanted to do as a general manager or a vice president, the exchanges let you do it. You know, until you got too far gone, and they they reel you back in. But I love being able to run multiple businesses on the installation, and and be accountable for them, and run them at a profit, and and at the end of the day, do great things for military families. Michael Hingson 23:16 Wow! So you um, you you've you've had a lot of challenges and and had to learn a lot of different things. Needless to say, but I would would think that you've you've been able to to keep a lot of that and use it. And you know we've referred to September 11 th, and so let's let's get to around that time. The first thing I would ask, and people have asked me, but you're in a better position in theory than I. Did you have any inkling that something like September 11th was going to happen? Bob Ellis 23:53 Well, actually, September 11th was was happening. I left for work about 4:30 in the morning. I lived out in the suburbs in Centerville, Virginia, and it was one of those days that you just wished you didn't have to go to work. It was the as the sun was coming up, it had a little cold breeze to it. The skies were blue. It was just one of those days that you just wanted to sit out in the yard and and relax or go bicycling, whatever. But I did my duty and I drove in to the Washington D.C. area and reported to my office on time, which was right around 5o'clock. My staff showed up around six and some at seven, and my secretary came in, and I don't know exactly what time it was, but it was shortly after, right around 9o'clock in Eastern Time, when the first airplane had hit the the trade center. Michael Hingson 24:49 Yeah, Bob Ellis 24:49 846-940-6846, Yes, right, 846. Yeah, and and so I I went in to look at the. The the television monitor standing there it was just her and I at the time and and and I said that's not an accident and she says how do you know that I said look at the skies that was an airliner they were talking about it was a little small private aviation well I'm a pilot I've been a pilot for 40 years 41 years I knew exactly, you know, that that where it was, what it was doing, and that wasn't a it wasn't an accident. And and my inkling was is that I was in a in rented space in Arlington, Virginia, because we had been moved out because the wedge that got attacked was the one that was still under construction. My office had not been completed there, and and I had a meeting in that wedge at 9o'clock that morning. And my secretary said to me, "You know, Bob, the Pentagon is next. And I paused for a minute and I looked at her and I said, "How in the world could you even imagine that, you know that that that's a fortress? Who would be crazy enough to attack the Pentagon? And she says, I I just I don't want you to go over, you know, just just just do it by phone, which I I probably could have done. And I said, No, I'm I'm going to go over there. If they're going if they're going to attack the Pentagon, I'm going to go down with it, and that was kind of my philosophy. So, in the back of my mind, seeing that airplane hit the Trade Center and her telling me that certainly made me wonder if it wasn't a possibility. Michael Hingson 26:33 So, you didn't. You don't think that anyone, and I've never heard of any such, but that anyone had any advance notice? There wasn't chatter. There wasn't anything that made people suspect what might be getting ready to happen. Bob Ellis 26:47 No, I I I think that is the the worst our country has ever been off guard. It reminds me of you know the the attack on Hawaii and that you know in in Pearl Harbor. We were completely unprepared, and I thought we were completely unprepared on 911. And in fact, after the attack, I knew we were unprepared when I saw the two jets fly over with no armament on the wings. So no, I don't think anybody had any idea. Michael Hingson 27:18 Well, the other side of it, and I've talked about this in in some talks I've given. I talk a lot about trust and teamwork, and like it or not, one of the things that I observe is you had 19 terrorists who functioned well enough as a team that they didn't talk about it. They didn't let anything come out. So no matter how much armament or whatever we might have had, I'm not sure whether we could have predicted that on September 11th, what occurred was going to happen. Bob Ellis 27:49 You know, all the indicators were there. You know, those those 19 trained at private airports, and they and during their training, it was it was reported multiple times that all they were interested in was taking off, not landing. I mean, first clue, you know. Okay. Why would you just be interested? He's taking off an airplane, and and I always found that very curious, and I'd heard it several times. That should have set alarm bells off. Should have. It didn't. Apparently, it did. Michael Hingson 28:20 Good point, and you know the the thing is though that, as as you pointed out, who would have thought that anybody would attack the Pentagon, the fortress that it was? Who Bob Ellis 28:33 yeah, Michael Hingson 28:33 who would have thought? So again, you can only go by what you got, and so nobody, I think, would have ever imagined that. Well, of course, the first plane hit the World Trade Center, and at first, people didn't really know what happened because there were really not very many people who who saw it. In fact, we only have the few photos that were taken by the French photographers who were there for something else, but then a little after nine, the second plane hit, and that changed the dynamic and changed the perspective a lot. Although a bunch of people who started seeing it on TV thought it was just a movie, and it wasn't true, but the second plane hitting changed the attitudes. I think for most people, and that's when people knew something was going on. Bob Ellis 29:24 Yeah, I didn't know anything about the second trade center. I had left my office in Crystal City, and I had headed to the Pentagon. And the meeting, the meeting that I had was with the Army Personnel Chief and several other folks. And as it turned out, that is exactly the window that the airplane flew into. That was ground zero for the for the for the target for the airplane going in just above the first floor for the Pentagon. So I didn't know anything. I was I was trapped at that point. I was trapped. Couldn't go um. Wouldn't go um. Didn't want to go um. And I had lived in New York City for five years, and I was my biggest. I was always impressed by the New York City Fire Department. I mean, they're they're just walking heroes if you've ever seen them. I mean, they were like they were like giants when you got next to them, and that they would they were just superhumans. And I always wondered upon the top floors how in the world you would get a fire put out at the top of the World Trade Center, and and I did not know until two days later when I made it home. That was my first question to my family: How did they get the the fire out at the top of the World Trade Center? And I and and it was repeated to me centers, and I said, What are you talking about? Centers in my family, and they said, "Bob, the World Trade Centers are gone. I said, "I don't understand. How could they be gone? And that was that. That was you know two days later that I found out about that. It was quite a shock to me to learn what it actually while I was on on the Pentagon mission. Michael Hingson 30:58 Well, when the first plane hit. Well, in the second plane, the firefighters were going up the stairs carrying all their equipment, and I had had had known about that and asked people, "Well, why are you or would you be carrying equipment? Because I met I I didn't meet the FDNY people ahead of the World Trade Center attacks, but I did meet with other people to learn about emergency preparedness and so on because I felt as the leader of an office, it was my job to know because I wasn't going to be able to read signs, and I love information, so I was trying to learn all I could, and they told me that where would if you if you had equipment stored in the in the towers, then people would go to it. Firefighters would go to it and get the the equipment. What floor do you put it on? Because no matter what floor you put it on, what if the fire broke out one floor below? You know, you can't get to the equipment. So the only way they could get up the stairs to fight the fires was to carry all of the equipment with them, yep, yep. Not enough is said about those guys in history. No, and I met a number of them coming up the stairs as we were going down, and they wanted to escort me down, and I didn't want them to do that because I knew they were a team, and I I pushed back pretty hard and said, no, you guys go up and we'll go down unless we can help you fight the fires, and they said no. The reason they eventually let me go down without any assistance was I had a friend with me who could see, and I said, "Look, David can see. Don't worry about us. And David and they turned to David and they said, "You're with him. And David said, "Yeah, leave him alone. He's fine. So we went on down, and they went up. I don't know whether the people we interacted with made it down or perished up above. It was about 10 after 10 after nine or so when we got to the 30th floor where we met them. So it was another hour and almost 20 minutes before the tower collapsed, but I don't know where the firefighters were, or how many people from the groups that we interacted with perished, or if they all made it out. I don't know, but Bob Ellis 33:12 yep, I I memorized all those numbers. You know, 189 between the airplane and the Pentagon, 200 injured, but 189. 189 total were 64 on the airplane, 125 in the Pentagon, and I'll never forget those numbers. Yeah, I'll never forget the time. I looked at my watch at 9:17, and and I have to tell you that on 9/11, I always sit very quietly until I get past 917, not 937. I'm sorry, 937. Michael Hingson 33:48 So Bob Ellis 33:48 in the morning. Michael Hingson 33:49 So, how close were you to where the plane came into the Pentagon? Bob Ellis 33:56 About 300 yards. When when it was clear that the meeting wasn't going to happen because the air traffic control system had been shut down. They released us to go back to our our offices, and I was going out the front door. I left about 930. It was supposed to start at nine 930. The generals said we'll just reconvene, and and I agreed. And from his office on on the south portico, I was walking out the front door. Literally, I heard the engines spool up. I had been in the AOR in rail combat munitions, and and I've heard cruise missiles, and and I could hear this one spinning up, and I thought it was a cruise missile, and so when it hit when it hit the building, it was just it was just a horrendous sound. But my first impression was to run to it to see what happened, what what what caused that, and there was nothing there. It was just four or five cars burning and smoke billowing out of the building. And and the the rest turned into a you know a rescue and a a recovery. Michael Hingson 35:08 AOR is what Bob Ellis 35:10 the area of responsibility. Michael Hingson 35:13 Okay, area of responsibility. Okay, Bob Ellis 35:16 yeah, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, wherever we are, it's it's N A O R, and that's your A O R. That's state. That's where you are. So that that's where I encountered first first and only live person coming out of the building, and which was a which was a really big surprise. But I knew that there was something that I I had to do, and and one of the things was to, if he needed assistance, getting him assistance. And there were several people. He was he was he was burned third degree burns over his whole body. He lived. I said one prayer was for him. And as it turned out, he became a a great ambassador. Turned out to be a great friend, and is actually back in the Pentagon to this day, just steps away from his old office as a civilian, went went back on a presidential appointment. Michael Hingson 36:09 So, you mentioned the general a while ago. Was did he survive? Bob Ellis 36:15 No, he was the he was the highest ranking person that we lost in in the entire encounter, and it was the entire office was just instantly vaporized. So he did not survive. Michael Hingson 36:33 Well, so you heard the engines revving up, and you went after you heard the explosion and so on. You went over to see what was going on, and then what did you do? Because it certainly had to be a major surprise and a shock by any standard. Bob Ellis 36:49 Yeah, I went that side of the building, saw the hole in the building, kind of convinced myself it was a cruise missile, but I never heard such a loud engine noise. As it turned out, it was it was two big engines off of a 757 200, and so I immediately tried to figure out you know what can I do? What should I do? Should I even be here? And that's when I saw the colonel coming out of the building, and I was able to walk with him and four others over to the the road, the Washington Boulevard that goes around the Pentagon, and and I sat down on the telephone pole, a light pole that the airplane hit going in. Now I'm a pilot, and and I have to tell you to take an airplane going at Mach point eight seven, and hit a target, hit the building, and not hitting the ground was just absolutely amazing to me. So as they got the colonel into an SUV and and and got him out of the the scene, I sat there. Just it was almost like a movie I was watching. The triage was being set up. The Pentagon was burning. The emergency services units were starting to show up, and we had very intermittent phone capability. And I had I had a a friend, my my the commander that I worked for in Dallas at the time. This secretary's husband was a bodyguard for Secretary Rumsfeld, and and Secretary Rumsfeld was actually carrying litter patients, carrying people out of the debris area and out of the offices. He was actually helping people, and he he realized that something needed to be done. So he gave Jerry a note, a piece of paper. We called them snowflakes, but it was a tablet, and he had listed what needed to be done and what needed to be done now. And Jerry found me sitting over there and gave me that that piece of paper, and it had everything listed on it. He wanted a a tactical field operation in place. He wanted it now, not yesterday. He wanted something in the interim, and it was to provide emergency relief supplies. So I I sat down on that telephone pole and I called our our local dist not local our largest distribution center in the world was down in Newport News, and I got the director on the phone and I said, I have an official order from you coming from the Secretary of Defense, and and don't override, don't just just follow my instructions until we can get to the commander at AFIS headquarters, and so I gave him the list. I just gave him the full list of things that we needed to get rolling, and I called another gentleman that was just across the river, the American Logistics Association, which owned all of the brokers and manufacturers, and I gave him a list of stuff that we needed now, like Gatorade boots. the The surface was over 2000 degrees, and the emergency service boots were melting almost upon contact. So I had I had 1000s, hundreds of 1000s of dollars of equipment. And supplies coming in, and we set up the USO tent, put everything in the USO tent. We raided all the stores in the in the Washington D.C. area. I was able to contact the region manager, and I told him, you know, what we needed to take it off the shelf, put it in the back seat of the cars, don't account for it, and get it to me. And that's what we did the entire first night was setting up the USO trailer, and the next morning I had two tactical field tractor trailers coming up the ramp just as the sun was coming up, and they were loaded with supplies, and that's what stayed in place for the next two months. Over $2 million worth of merchandise, emergency recovery type merchandise, everything from linens to the towels to eye wash, and and and we had to actually have some special boots made out of leather for the dogs because the dogs' feet were so it was it was quite an operation. We ended up well running within within 24 hours of the attack, Michael Hingson 41:04 why is it that you are able to stay pretty focused through all of this? Bob Ellis 41:08 I you know I you know I I've often asked that question. I wanted to go home. Alls I could think of is my kids, my wife. What what are they doing? What are they thinking? They're watching this on the news, and I had I had drifted over to which my car was very close, and it was taped off. The parking lot was taped off. It was a crime scene. There was no going anywhere. There was no transportation. If I wanted to walk 40 miles, I guess I could have, but because I couldn't go anywhere, I had to do something there on the scene, so that's that's that's what I did, and and it wasn't until the next day when the phone started working again, our two star in Dallas was able to get through to me on on my BlackBerry, and he wanted to know what the situation was, and and and I told him, and and he said, what what are we going to do? And I explained to him what we had done already, and he says, "How did you do all of that? I said, "I picked up the phone and I told him I was working for Secretary Rumsfeld, and this is the order. And and he says, "How are we going to pay for all of this? I said, "Sir, this is our finest hour. We're not. We're going to donate. These are all donating goods, and and it really was an interesting. I I just I just don't know. I was compelled. He he he ordered me on that second day to go home, and and I said I had no way to go home. And he said go to the motor pool. I'm going to call the motor pool. He had been the commander of the Air Force One Squadron, so he had a lot of connections in Washington, and he he got me a car, and I went home long enough to change clothes and and and to come back out. So it was it was just out of adrenaline, I think. Somebody had to do something, and and everything that I've told you here today is not written anywhere in history. I own every bit of what happened in in in that story, other than some of the people that were working there. Michael Hingson 43:07 What phone did you use that first day? You said you're you're it was the second day or the next day that you're phoned. So how were you able to communicate? Bob Ellis 43:17 We had Blackberries, and and until the networks got completely overrun, we were able to use it. And and so by the second third day, we we had pretty consistent communication, because the the the commander called me back that same morning, and and he said, you know, he said, how come you haven't been home? And I explained to him, and he says, "Will you do me one favor? And I said, "I would. He said, "Will you go back into the building? Said, "Sir, the building's on fire. He says, "Well, well, you get in the front, and I'm looking at it. He was looking at it on television, and the military clothing store was in the very front, within 100 feet, probably of that door that I went out of. And he says, "Would you see if our people survive, and if the store itself survived? It was sitting near the the area. I went in the store. I went into the building, into the burning building, and was able to look in the door, and I could see that the the room was full of smoke, and the door was locked. So I told him I would assume that our people made it out, alive and okay. And they say that was a, and they did, and they absolutely did. And in fact, everybody that that that that had any kind of supervisory capability around the Beltway, they volunteered to come over and work for me and and operating that facility for 2024 hours a day, seven days a week. Wow! So and not and not to shorten the the question, I wasn't there, but because of what I was doing in the in the Pentagon, my old homestead was at Fort Hamilton. Fort Hamilton picked up the same thing and went over to the Trade Center area, and they gave them a place to put a mobile. Food truck, and they brought supplies in and pretty much supported the firefighters and the and the and the police there. So so we had quite an operation going for a long time. Michael Hingson 45:11 Yeah, and and needed to, but it was interesting and commendable that in both places people were able to focus, and were able to carry out missions. I know at the World Trade Center when the two towers collapsed. Of course, it was it was unexpected, but we know now, of course, why they collapsed. It wasn't that the planes hit; it's that they were they were full of what 36,000 pounds of jet fuel each, and that exploding jet fuel is what damaged the infrastructure of the buildings to cause them to be able to collapse. But as well as at the Pentagon, but very quickly people were able to start to move and deal with issues and put procedures in place that were able to, I'm sure, keep more people from perishing and keep kept more people being able to focus throughout the whole the whole sequence of events. It it certainly was very scary, but it is something that that people like you were able to do. I know for me, the reason I was able to focus was because I had learned what to do in an emergency at the World Trade Center. I spent time with people and I learned how the whole building was structured, so I knew when the building tipped, why it tipped, and and things like that. You Bob Ellis 46:40 felt it. You you felt it. Michael Hingson 46:43 Oh yeah. Oh my god. We moved probably at least 20 feet, and then it came back, and oh my Speaker 2 46:48 god, it Michael Hingson 46:48 got vertical again. It got vertical again, and then a few seconds later, it dropped about six feet because the expansion joints went back to their normal configuration. But Bob Ellis 46:59 we uh we we knew from 937 till about 5o'clock that evening there would be no more survivors. It was over, and and and the dogs were getting depressed because they were they were they were not cadaver dogs. They were recovery dogs, and they were used to fight. And we we actually had ceremonies for the dogs every day, where we sewed flags onto their collars, and they had special water and special food. So they played a big, big role in morale, mine especially. Michael Hingson 47:33 And at the same time, I know people had to do drills to keep the dogs focused because they weren't able to find people, as you said, so they had to do things to give them something to find to keep them happy, which was was so important. Bob Ellis 47:50 Yeah, that we had two two tractor trailers lined up. It was just just two 300 feet from where you went into the damaged area of the Pentagon, and those dogs and their handlers would get up underneath those trailers and sleep, and they would play with the dogs. We actually had some carpets brought out, tarps brought out, and that's kind of where that was kind of their headquarters during 911. We had to make it up as we went along, and and the other interesting part of this story is in 1972 at the at the refugee camp, I was sleeping in the back of a van because there was just no way to go home. It was too it was too far to drive home to turn around and come back at 8o'clock the next morning, and I heard somebody knocking at the door, and and and I and I opened up the door, and it was a military colonel in uniform, and there was a civilian standing there with him. And he says, "Are you part of this operation? And I said, "Yes, sir, I am. He said, "Who are you with? And I said, "The Army Air Force Exchange Service. And and he says, "You're not provided any other facilities. This, I said, that was my choice. And as it turned out, I was speaking to Secretary Rumsfeld during his first administration as Secretary of Defense, and it was interesting that when he found out that what I did in in that program, I won the Indo Indo China Award for service, and then of course you you move ahead to to 2001, and we we knew each other. I had briefed him several times, and we we knew each other in the Pentagon. And that day, he knew that I would know what to do for the support role, and that's why he sent the letter up. And as it turned out, when he retired and and left the Pentagon, he was on a book tour, and and the the general secretary and myself got an invite to come to the book tour with him and and have lunch with him. And he handed me a book and he said, "I want you to have this, but I don't want you to open it up until you, Bob. I don't want you to open it up till you get home. I don't want you to give it to your wife. And and it was like this. Sure, I'm not not a problem, and so I got I got home. You know, this is this is 10 years later, and handed the book to her, and I said, "Open it up. I'm not wasn't allowed, and there's a nice thank you page on the front from Secretary Rums for allowing him to use me on 9/11, and you just you just that's the best reward that I could have ever ever expected. A guy that I just idolized to do that. Michael Hingson 50:26 When you got home, so you weren't able to talk to your wife before you got home, or did you ever get communication so you could call her? Bob Ellis 50:33 No, I didn't. I when I finally got the phone back up and running and got in the car. I had lost the battery, so I said, "I'm gonna be home in in an hour. I'll just be there. But General Wax called up, and she answered the phone. She went. She went sometime during that day and pulled the kids out of the private school, brought them home. She could see my car. It was a yellow SUV, and she could see it in the South parking lot in the news choppers going around. She said that was my car where my spot was, and General Wax got her on the phone and she and and she answered the phone and he said this is C J Wax and she thought that was the call. She thought that was it, and she alls I could do was drop to my knees and and and C J said and it's it's okay. I've ordered him to come home. He's all right. He's running. He's running a a program for us for for recovery. And if he's not there, he should be there shortly. And then by the time I got there, I got to the front step. I'm asking the question about the World Trade Center, how they got the fire out, and I was ordered that I could not go in the house because I smelled like smoke. So, so two minutes before that, I was the most important person in the world, and and then all of a sudden, I was I was back to Bob, and I wasn't going to wear that that suit in the house to to smoke it. So anyway, that's that's how she found out. He he called her up. I asked him. I think I asked him if he would get in touch with her at our last conversation, and he did. Michael Hingson 52:06 Soon after both towers collapsed, like a minute or so later, I called and got through to my wife Karen. I had talked with her before we left our office, and then when we got downstairs, I couldn't get through to her because the circuits were busy, and it was obvious that everyone we learned later was saying goodbye to loved ones, and so the circuits were busy. So after both towers collapsed, I was able to get through to her, and as I tell people, there were tears on both sides of the phone at the when that conversation started, but she was the first one who told us how two aircraft had been crashed into the World Trade Center towers, one to the Pentagon, and at that time, the fourth one was apparently still missing over Pennsylvania, and of course, then it crashed at Shanksville. Bob Ellis 52:52 I love it. Michael Hingson 52:54 Yeah, but we, you know, we talked, so she knew I was okay. Then a friend of ours, Tom Painter, who had been a friend of Karen's at high school out in California, but Tom, over the years, had ended up moving to New Jersey. He came down to stay with her, not knowing until he arrived whether I was in the office that day or out with a customer or what was going on. And of course, then she told him, and so he drove her to the train station to pick me up. When, when I got back out to Westfield, we went home. And you talk about with with dogs. We got in the house, and I took Roselle's harness off because I was going to take her out, and she would have none of it. She ran off, grabbed her favorite tug bone and started playing tug of war with my retired guide dog Linny, and I talked to the veterinarians at Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael the next day, and they said, "Did anything threaten her? And I said, "No, not directly. And they said, "That's why she ran off because it was over. Nothing threatened her. Bob Ellis 53:58 Comfortable. Michael Hingson 53:59 She, they don't. Dogs don't do what if like we do, and so she was comfortable. She was happy. She wanted to play, and then then she did go out. But by the same token, the the whole point was that she was able to deal with with all of it and was able to to focus. Then we got her outside and and came back in, and she ate and and all that. But the the the thing is that she focused all day, and and she did a a wonderful job. And the reason that she focused and did so well was mainly because I worked at keeping her focus by telling her every chance I got. You're a good girl. What a good dog! Good dog. You're doing a great job. Keep going. I did that all the way down the stairs in the World Trade Center, and I was very deliberate about that because I knew she had to sense the fear and what was going on, and I wanted her to know that I was okay and I was going to be there for. Her, which is of course what teamwork and support is all about. You understand that very well. You you proved it in so many ways. I kept working with Roselle and kept her focused, and you know it all it all really went well. I still think one of the most relevant things for me in the World Trade Center. I went down the stairs with a guy named David Frank. David was from our corporate office in California, and David and I were going to be conducting sales seminars that day, teaching some resellers how to sell our products. And we got down to about the 50th floor, so David was there to talk about the the pricing and so on. I was going to do the majority of the presentation because I was going to be their technical contact, anyway, and we got to about the 50th floor, going down, and suddenly David said, "Mike, we're going to die. We're not going to make it out of here. And as I tell people, since I got a teaching credential, I had learned all about the secrets of how to yell at students. So I just said, "Stop it, David. If Roselle and I can go down these stairs, so can you. And he then immediately said that I brought him out of his spunk, and he told me that later as well. But what he told me was that he wanted to walk a floor below me on the stairs and shout up to me everything that he was seeing. He had to take his mind off of what was going on, and so he asked if I cared, and I said, "No, go ahead. That's what you need to do. That's fine. So I got like down to the 48th floor, and he yelled, "47th floor, Mike. All's clear here. Going on down. So we went down several floors that way. Eventually, I got to 45, and he was 44th floor. This is where the Port Authority cafeteria is not stopping. And the reason I mention it is because I think what David did is one of the unsung things that is so important from September 11th. He kept shouting up to me everything that he saw, but the reality is, anyone in the sound of his voice heard that there was someone who was okay going down the stairs, and he had to keep panic out of people's senses for so many individuals, because they just heard him, Mike, 43rd floor, all's good here. Going on down the stairs, all the way down the stairs. He had to have been able to keep so many people focused because he was able to keep his mind off of what was going on by shouting to me, and I think that that's so important, and so I'm. I always tell that story. I've been telling it for many years now because I want people to know what he did to keep so many people focused going down the stairs, and he had to have done that. Bob Ellis 57:31 Well, you know, I have. That's that's the first I've heard that, and and and and I read everything that I followed your story very closely, as well as the colonel who I was so close to, but there there are a couple of stories that are just never mentioned, not talked about, and one of them where we had to do every day. There was an update that the military gave the families an update as to what is happening, what was found, what was recovered, what to expect, and they would bring the kids in to listen to these brutal military briefings. I mean, just you know, these were these were soldiers, these were these were combat folks, and this is the way they briefed. And the therapy dogs were brought in, and there wasn't but about a dozen of them, and I will never forget not only the kids on the floor with the arms around those dogs, but some of the adults were as well. And I thought, what what a moment! That was the most touching moment of my entire life witnessing that. I mean, I could have done without it, but it was it was a very special moment. And then the the other thing that the world doesn't know about is on the second day, I got a I got a phone call from Secretary Rumsfeld's office that the VA was completely out of coffin flags. We had nothing in inventory to to cover the remains or the caskets for burial, and what could I do? And and right right from the Pentagon parking lot, I I called one of the buyers that bought American flags in Dallas, and then I asked her who do you get flags from, and she says it's American Flag Company. I'll give them credit for that, and and I said you need you need to get their entire inventory. We need to get it flown in, whatever expenses cover it, and get them here. The Pentagon doesn't have them, and New York doesn't have them. And those flags came in. They were they were there about that midnight that that that night. Now boxed up, thrown in the bag box, whatever tape they were bound, but everybody that came out later, you know, the recoveries as we got deeper into the debris, that had a had a flag that that came that came from us in the as well as at the Pentagon, and they put two very big special flags in there. I mean, like you see flying over a car dealer. And they hung that on the side of the Pentagon. And if you look at any of the any of the news willers of that time, it was on day two that flag was hanging that that came in with the rest of the other flags. So it was it was quite impressive. You never know what the next moment was going to bring you on you know from my side and and and can I meet the challenge? That was what I constantly worry about. How could I let any of this down? And I've got to do something. And and we were making it up as we went along. Michael Hingson 1:00:33 Yeah, that's all you could do. And so when I go back to Bob Ellis 1:00:37 to to this to this day, you know, we go back. They've got 184 markers. I don't know how many people attend it, but it's it's right in that zone, right outside the building, in that grassy area where they they they've made that memorial. And 184 people, to include I think two infants, are are memorialized there forever, which is very touching. It was a that was a hard place to go back to. Still was New York City when I went to it because I'd never I had never been 20 years 20 years yet 18 years before I ever went to to New York City to see the recovery there. I've never I've not been to the to the to the Pennsylvania field. I plan to go. I want to go. Just hadn't been convenient to get there, but but if I do that, I will have seen all all the sites. Michael Hingson 1:01:26 Yeah, I haven't been to Pennsylvania either. In 2017, I did make it to the World Trade Center Museum. In well, so we moved out of Westfield, and I moved back to California in late January, beginning of February of 2002, to work for Guide Dogs for the Blind and and speak from there. And traveled around and speak. Karen was there for a couple more months selling our home, and then she came out. But in May of 2002, Roselle was going to be honored by Hart's Mountain, the pet food and pet supply company. So, so we went back to New York, and while we were there, I met one of the police officers with with one of the service with one of the rescue dogs that that had been around the World Trade Center, and he arranged for us to get in a vehicle and drive down into the pit that was where the World Trade Center was, and they had built an artificial, well, a temporary road, and they were bringing things up, but we got to go down to what would have been the seventh sublevel, the bottom of the tower, and it was just a for me just imagining it standing in that dirt area in a hole seven stories deep and remembering what what it was like, and then in 2017 I went to the World Trade Center Museum and got to spend a little bit of time there, and of course everything had been rebuilt. The reflecting pool was there, and so on. But it was nothing like what I remembered from having been in the World Trade Center, and I walked around with someone who was able to be aware and describe what was where we were and what was above us, or what part of the building we were in as we walked through the complex. But of course, it was totally different. So it was it was such a strange feeling to experience all of that. But we did it, you know. And so now I've been to the museum, and actually there is a there's an animal exhibit in the basement, and Roselle's collar is is part of that exhibit. We donated that to oh Bob Ellis 1:03:50 really, oh really, oh God, I I was I was thinking that when I asked you that question earlier today, and I was thinking about that that has got to be remarkable, you know that that that's what touched me so much at the period. That the fact that the two of you were such a team, and I read everything that newspapers printed and watched. I guess there was some there was some CBS specials and so forth too, where you were interviewed, and it was it was just it was just absolutely amazing. Michael Hingson 1:04:21 Well, it is. you know, it is a an awe-inspiring sort of thing. And you know, people always say, you know, don't you feel guilty about surviving when so many people didn't? And and I said, no, I I didn't have any control over that. But what I do have control over is having been a survivor. What am I going to do about it? It's my responsibility to decide how I'm going to deal with moving forward after something like that. And of course, the opportunity opened to travel and speak, and so I've been doing it ever since. And I believe my job is. Is to educate people about what happened on September 11th, and let them know t
Sebrina Spencer runs nine businesses with fourteen separate streams of income, is the former Windrush Ambassador for Croydon, and has written five books — including The Powerfuls, a superhero book series that puts Black children at the centre of the story. In this episode of Property Investments Blueprint, Rahim Bah sits down with Sebrina to talk about how a one-way ticket to Jamaica at fourteen years old became the turning point that shaped her entire life.This is a masterclass for anyone in the UK who wants to build multiple streams of income, start a business with almost no money, or simply needs to hear that relying on one income is one of the most dangerous financial positions you can be in. Sebrina walks through the moment nobody showed up to support her, how she built a glasses business across four locations in Westfield with no upfront stock cost, and the exact advice she gives people who only have a few hundred pounds to start with.If you're a first-time entrepreneur, a woman who's ever been told you're not enough, or someone thinking about writing a book, starting a side hustle, or leaving a stable career to build something of your own, this conversation is for you.About Sebrina SpencerSebrina Spencer is an award-winning entrepreneur, author, investor, former Windrush Ambassador for Croydon, and self-described "opportunity connector." She is the founder of I Am A Billionaire UK, Shades By Bre, Deep Addiction London, Women In Power UK, Rum Slide and Shades By Bre Consultant, and the author of five books including The Powerfuls series and Never Give Up.Sebrina's books:The Powerfuls: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53243686-the-powerfulsThe Powerfuls (Book 2): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57937487-the-powerfulsThe Powerfuls – Save The World: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/96853512-the-powerfuls---save-the-worldThe Powerfuls Go To Egypt: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/209748804-the-powerfuls-go-to-egyptNever Give Up: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/228953261-never-give-upFollow Sebrina Spencer:Instagram (personal): https://www.instagram.com/sebrina1uk/Instagram (show): https://www.instagram.com/thesebrinaspencershow/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebrina-spencer-7b7205223/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sebrinaspencerX: https://x.com/sebrina1ukThreads: https://www.threads.com/@sebrina1ukSebrina's businesses:I Am A Billionaire UK: https://www.iamabillionaire.comShades By Bre: https://www.shadesbybre.comDeep Addiction London: https://www.deepaddictionlondon.comAbout Rahim BahRahim Bah is a UK-based property investor, business mentor, public speaker and entrepreneur. Through Property Investments Blueprint, he teaches everyday people how to build wealth through UK property investing, personal development and entrepreneurship.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
For years, digital headlines insisted the American mall was dead. But step into a physical retail space today, and you will see Gen Z congregating for spontaneous hangouts, participating in viral TikTok trends such as "mall bingo" and seeking out real-world experiences. As AI-generated content crowds online spaces, human interaction and physical discovery have become premium commodities.In this episode of Campaign Chemistry, Emmy Liederman sits down with Kristen Jackman, SVP at Westfield Rise. Drawing on her career journey from Twitter to reinventing modern retail spaces, Jackman breaks down how experiential marketing is redefining brand activations and driving consumer engagement. She shares insights on how platforms such as Pinterest are championing offline interactions, why physical spaces serve as critical social hubs for younger generations and how brands can build lasting emotional connections through community-driven experiences. campaignlive.com Music - Take you Out by Lucid Tides, courtesy of Triple Scoop. What we know about advertising, you should know about advertising. Start your 1-month FREE trial to Campaign US. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
A school bus driver in Circleville, Ohio was told in block letters to end an affair or her husband would die, and he did. Decades later a New Jersey couple paid $1.3 million for 657 Boulevard and never spent a night there, because a stranger signing himself The Watcher kept writing to ask about the "young blood" in the house.EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/circlevilleREAD or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2ycj6492FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: Two stories of people living ordinary lives being terrorized by threatening, creepy letters in the mail. We'll begin in 1976 in Circleville, Ohio. Then I'll share a more modern story where a New Jersey family moves into a home and is terrorized for years by mail through 2017.CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00.00.000 = The Foreboding00:01:50.978 = Show Open00:03:06.569 = The Circleville Letters00:14:25.756 = The Westfield Watcher ***00:43:42.991 = Show Close*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad breakLISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*SOURCES and RESOURCES:“The Circleville Letters” by Les Hewitt for Historic Mysteries: https://tinyurl.com/y8hhhjnr“The Watcher of Westfield” by Les Hewitt for Historic Mysteries: https://tinyurl.com/yadngrqd(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.Originally aired: June 2021LIKE WHAT YOU'RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIALThis episode of Weird Darkness follows two unsolved campaigns of terror by mail: the Circleville Letters that tormented a small Ohio town beginning in 1976, and The Watcher, an anonymous writer who drove a family out of a $1.3 million house in Westfield, New Jersey.It opens in Circleville, Ohio, where school bus driver Mary Gillespie started receiving block-lettered letters postmarked from Columbus accusing her of an affair with the school superintendent and warning that her house was being watched. Her husband Ron Gillespie got one ordering him to end the affair or die, and on August 19, 1977, after a phone call whose contents Mary never learned, Ron grabbed his pistol, drove off, and struck a tree at a nearby intersection. Police found the gun had been fired once, the postmortem showed his blood alcohol at 1.5 times the legal limit despite friends describing him as a teetotaler, and the crash was ruled an accident. The letters resumed and spread to elected officials, and in 1983 Mary pulled over her bus to tear down a sign threatening her daughter and found a box rigged with a booby-trapped pistol that failed to fire. Police traced the gun to her brother-in-law Paul Freshour, who was convicted of attempted murder on the strength of a disputed handwriting test despite an alibi. The letters kept coming from Columbus for the entire decade Freshour sat in prison, one of them mailed to Freshour himself, and six months after his release, when Unsolved Mysteries aired the case, the network received its own note signed The Circleville Writer.From there the episode moves to Westfield, New Jersey, where Derek and Maria Broaddus paid $1.3 million for 657 Boulevard in June 2014 and found a letter in the mailbox before they'd moved in, addressed to the new owner and signed The Watcher. The writer claimed his grandfather had watched the house in the 1920s and his father in the 1960s, named the Honda minivan out front, knew the ages and nicknames of the couple's three children, and asked whether the house would be filled with "young blood." Later letters described which bedrooms faced the street and asked whether the children would be afraid to play alone in the basement. Westfield police questioned the Langford family next door, a private investigator and a former FBI agent named Robert Lenehan built profiles, and a DNA test on one envelope came back female but matched no suspect. The Broadduses never spent a night in the house, sued the previous owners John and Andrea Woods over a similar letter received days before closing, and were denied permission to subdivide the lot in 2017. Two weeks after renters moved in, a fourth letter arrived promising car accidents, fires, and dead pets, and the case remains unsolved with the house still in the family's hands.
00:00– 12:38- From The Fan Morning Show, Kevin Bowen joins the show a little earlier this week. He explains why football season still gets him excited, his thoughts on Trey Kaufman-Renn getting a temporary restraining order to play a sixth-year. Plus, his prediction on what the Colts record will be. Plus, how will Alec Pierce fare in week 1? They also harp on how important the beginning of the schedule is. 12:38 - 36:03 – Pacers GM Chad Buchanan stops by Big Red Liquors in Westfield. After talking about the Bruno Mars concert he’s headed to tonight, he gets into what he’s seen during offseason workouts, John’s questions about the style of play remaining the same. John continues his conversation with Chad Buchanan and looks back at the New York Knicks run to the title and how the Pacers may or may not have changed New York’s approach. 36:03 – 53:57 – From the Baltimore Sun, Baltimore Ravens Reporter Sam Cohn joins the show. He explains how he expects their offense to change this year and what his opinion is on where they stand in the AFC compared to a national perspective. He also dives into what the Trey Hendrickson deal was like for the Ravens and why he’ll be under a lot of pressure, John Harbaugh not patrolling the sidelines any longer and what the Ravens will be concerned about against the Colts.Support the show: https://1075thefan.com/the-ride-with-jmv/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00 – 25:23 – JMV opens the show live from Big Red Liquors in Westfield for Cutwater Colts Legends and begins with Marlin Jackson joining the show. They begin with the feelings that are in the air as the NFL season gets started tonight with a Super Bowl rematch, Marlin’s feelings on his Michigan Wolverines, Trey Kaufman-Renn gets a temporary restraining order and they dive into Marlin’s expectations on the season for the Colts this year. Lastly, Marlin has the biggest play in the history of the Colts, but what’s the second? 25:23– 40:05 – From The Fan Morning Show, Kevin Bowen joins the show a little earlier this week. He explains why football season still gets him excited, his thoughts on Trey Kaufman-Renn getting a temporary restraining order to play a sixth-year. Plus, his prediction on what the Colts record will be. Plus, how will Alec Pierce fare in week 1? They also harp on how important the beginning of the schedule is. 40:05– 44:08 – JMV wraps up the hour by giving away some Bullseye passes and previewing the rest of the show! 44:08 - 1:06:25 – John talks to actor and musician Thomas Ian Nicholas about his upcoming screening of American Pie in Greenwood Friday night. We battle through phone issues and John reflects on the cult-classic film from years ago. Questions about the cast and how he fell into music. After phone issues interrupt the conversation, John talks to 1:06:25 – 1:20:30 – Pacers GM Chad Buchanan stops by Big Red Liquors in Westfield. After talking about the Bruno Mars concert he’s headed to tonight, he gets into what he’s seen during offseason workouts, John’s questions about the style of play remaining the same. 1:20:30 – 1:31:17 –. John continues his conversation with Chad Buchanan and looks back at the New York Knicks run to the title and how the Pacers may or may not have changed New York’s approach. 1:31:17 – 1:53:12 – From the Baltimore Sun, Baltimore Ravens Reporter Sam Cohn joins the show. He explains how he expects their offense to change this year and what his opinion is on where they stand in the AFC compared to a national perspective. He also dives into what the Trey Hendrickson deal was like for the Ravens and why he’ll be under a lot of pressure, John Harbaugh not patrolling the sidelines any longer and what the Ravens will be concerned about against the Colts. 1:53:12 – 2:06:57 – Indiana Hoosiers linebacker Rolijah Hardy joins the show. He reviews the opener vs. North Texas before diving into his journey from Florida all the way to Bloomington. Even after starting every game last year, he has shoes to fill due to Aiden Fischer’s absence. He explains what he learned from him and how he’s applying it to an expanded leadership role. Of course, John asks him about his rumored hooping abilities. 2:06:57 – 2:11:52 – Wrapping up the third hour of the show! 2:11:5-2:17:50 - JMV wraps up the show with he and Caleb giving their Colts predictions!Support the show: https://1075thefan.com/the-ride-with-jmv/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Pacers GM Chad Buchanan stops by Big Red Liquors in Westfield. After talking about the Bruno Mars concert he’s headed to tonight, he gets into what he’s seen during offseason workouts, John’s questions about the style of play remaining the same. Plus, John continues his conversation with Chad Buchanan and looks back at the New York Knicks run to the title and how the Pacers may or may not have changed New York’s approach.Support the show: https://1075thefan.com/the-ride-with-jmv/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this episode, Marti takes us to Australia and the devastating 2024 Bondi Junction shopping centre attack.We look at the story of Joel Cauchi, the 40-year-old man who killed six people and injured ten others in just a matter of minutes, and the questions that followed about his deteriorating mental health, missed opportunities for intervention and why the majority of his victims were women.We also head down the very dark rabbit hole of incel culture — where it came from, how online communities became increasingly misogynistic, and the violence that has been linked to the ideology.Was Cauchi's attack connected to misogyny or incel ideology, or was this the devastating result of severe mental illness and a system that failed to intervene? Sources for this episode are: 60 Minutes Australia looksmaxxing BBC News Incels - A new terror threat to the UK ABC News news.com.au Coroners court inquest of NSW doc inquest into the deaths at Westfield Bondi Junction volume one The Independent newspaperHosted & Researched by Marti Jeremiah-Shelley & Cheryl LesselsTheme Music Vampire Strut by Joybean @AudioJungleFollow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mumsmysteriesandmurder/You can also support the pod and buy us a coffee athttps://ko-fi.com/mumsmysteriesandmurderAnd we would love it if you could give us a cheeky review & subscribe to make sure you don't miss an episode. Send us a text - we'd love to hear your thoughts about this episode & if there are any cases youd like us to cover please get in touch
Twenty-five years after September 11, I still believe that day has important lessons to teach us about fear, preparation, and leadership. This time, Michelle Abraham from AmplifYou takes over the hosting seat and interviews me about my experience escaping the World Trade Center with my guide dog, Roselle. We talk about why knowing the building and its emergency procedures mattered, how I worked to keep fear from taking control, and why focusing on what I could control helped me keep moving. I also share how September 11 changed the direction of my life, led me into professional speaking, and helped shape the Unstoppable Mindset philosophy I continue to share today. Highlights: 02:30 – The ordinary morning that became September 11. 08:04 – How preparation shaped Michael's response when the tower was hit. 18:34 – How Michael and David helped keep panic from taking over. 27:15 – Why trusting Roselle mattered during the collapse. 31:38 – The lesson of focusing only on what you can control. 41:52 – How September 11 helped shape the Unstoppable Mindset philosophy. About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . 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 Everyone, I am Michael Hingson, the host of Unstoppable Mindset. You've heard my voice for the last 471 episodes, but I'm calling you all out today and asking you to listen to this because we're going to make a special announcement now regarding the next four episodes, starting with 472. We're going to help commemorate the historic events of September 11, 2001. Yes, they're definitely historic, although not necessarily the most positive things that have ever happened. But as many of you may know, I was in the World Trade Center working on September 11, 2001, on the 78th floor of Tower One, and escaped with my guide dog. I've delivered a speech about that, which we put in the first episode of this podcast series back in August of 2021. But this Friday, episode 472 is going to have an updated speech that I delivered just a few years ago at the Marshfield, Missouri Cherry Blossom Festival. That festival is a yearly event celebrating different kinds of things that have happened in American history, and I was invited to come and speak, which I did. I'm going to put that speech up for you as episode 472. I think you'll find it enlightening. It'll teach you something about blindness and blind people. It'll tell you my story, and it'll give you some inspiration that I hope you will find helpful. Next Tuesday, september 8, Michelle Abraham is going to interview me. Michelle is with Amplify You, the company that does all of our back office stuff and helps me with the editing and other things regarding the podcast. Michelle owns her own podcast, and she is going to interview me about September 11th and other kinds of things relating to what I've learned and things that have happened over the past 25 years. She's also going to be putting this up on her podcast Amplify You, so you can find us in a lot of different places. On September 11th, I'm going to chat with Bob Ellis. Bob was in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and had literally just walked out the door of the Pentagon when the plane crashed into the Pentagon and did the things and the damage that it did, and of course generated all the things that occurred at the Pentagon. On the 15th of September, I'm going to come back and have a conversation with all of you about lessons that I've learned over the past 25 years, and just reminisce a little bit about all of that. While the podcast is occurring on September 11th, I will be actually in Kilgore, Texas, doing a speech about September 11th. So lots of things going on, I hope you listen to these episodes. I hope that you'll tell everyone that you can about them. I really enjoy all of the support that you've given us over the years, and we're going to continue to do things with Unstoppable Mindset. And of course, as always, if you'd like to come on or know anyone who would, please let us know. We're always looking for guests. Thanks very much. We'll see you on Friday with the first of these four episodes. What if the biggest thing holding you back isn't what's in front of you, but rather what you believe? Welcome to Unstoppable Mindset, where inclusion, diversity, and the unexpected meet. I'm your host, Michael Hingson, speaker, author, and advocate for inclusion and possibilities. This podcast explores how the beliefs we carry shape the way we live, lead, and connect with others. Each week, I talk with people who challenge assumptions, face adversity head-on, and show what's possible when we choose curiosity over fear. Together, we focus on mindset, resilience, and the small shifts that lead to meaningful change. Let's get started. Hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Unstoppable Mindset. When and today is a little bit different than what we normally do because I'm going to be the guest on the podcast, Michelle Abraham from Amplify You, who is also putting this particular podcast episode on her podcast, but Michelle is going to mainly be interviewing me. As many of you should know, this is the 25th commemoration or remembrance of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and we thought it would be very relevant to to spend some time on a few podcast episodes talking about that a little bit. Michael Hingson 04:46 For those of you that listened to the last episode before this one, you heard me deliver my speech talking about what happened to me on september 11. I used. A speech that we we delivered just a couple of years ago. So it's a little bit different than the one that, if you listen to the initial episodes of Unstoppable Mindset, you heard way back 472, 473 episodes ago. But this one still tells the the same story, which is which is kind of cool, and so we're going to talk about that, and we'll talk about our next episode, which will be delivered on September 11th, and that one will be a conversation between me and Bob Ellis, who was in the Pentagon on September 11th, and so that'll be a little bit fun, and then we'll talk about some other stuff as well. But I'm going to turn this over to Michelle because she's the the interviewer, the the boss, and I'm just a guest today. So hi, Michelle. Amplifyou 05:50 Hey, Michael. Well, thanks for being a guest on your own show today for us. It's great to be here with you, and we've been with you all along the Instoppable Mindset Show. It's been really fun to work with you on this show, and so I know we've had we've recorded episodes around your story, and our listeners would have just listening to your keynote. But I would like to tap into Michael 25 years later. When you think back of the morning of September 11, 2001, what comes to your mind? It Michael Hingson 06:23 was a typical day. We we did have a thunderstorm about 1230 that morning, and Roselle, my fifth guide dog, who was my guide dog at the time, was afraid of thunder. She had developed this phobia. The theory, basically, about dogs being afraid of thunder is it's not just the thunder sounds, but it's also the fact that the dogs have a static charge that builds up on their fur, and that gives them a tingly and kind of a strange feeling, and between that and the thunder, they learn to equate the two, and that just causes a lot of angst. And in Roselle's case, at 1230 in the morning, we weren't even hearing a thunderstorm, but she started getting really nervous, and so I took her down to my office. And as I was going downstairs, we started hearing thunder, and the storm actually came right over our house. So I love to say God clearly has a sense of humor of some sort because the thunder-I had never heard thunder like I heard That morning, that is, literally, it came right over our house, so we heard what were explosion sounds. It was it was different than I had ever heard before, but I didn't have any message that said you shouldn't go into the World Trade Center or go to work that day, and I had been planning on going to work that day because we were going to be conducting some sales training seminars, teaching about 50 people from a bunch of resellers under the auspices of Ingram Micro, our major distributor. We were going to be teaching them how to sell our products, so I was going to be there. David Frank, a colleague from our corporate office, was going to be there. He was flying. He flew in to deal with the pricing and distribution models that the Ingram Micro salespeople and resellers would be dealing with, but I was going to be doing the majority of the seminar. Well, anyway, at 1230, I took Roselle down and we stayed there in my office at home until 2o'clock, and then the thunderstorm had passed away and Roselle had calmed down. So we went back up and got to sleep, and woke up at five in the morning, which is what I originally planned on doing. I'd actually planned on going in a little bit earlier than usual, just to be able to spend more time preparing. And I got to the New Jersey train station in Westfield, the New Jersey Transit train station, at somewhere around 615, and I had been planning on taking a 6:18 train into the city. And at about 6:20 or 6:21, train having not arrived, an announcement came over the PA system that there was a problem with the train, and another train would be coming. The next train would be there in a little bit, and we could get on it, and and all that. The day was a calm day. It was a nice autumn day. was great. No indication of of anything to worry about. And I didn't read anything into trains not working, much less the thunderstorm before. So when the train finally arrived, I got on the train and we went into Newark. Then I caught the train that takes me directly to the World Trade Center. It's called Path Train. Path stands for Port Authority Trans Hudson, and that train went straight in from Newark Penn Station with the well to the World Trade Center, and so I got there. And by the time all of a sudden done, I got there at the normal time I would get there rather than getting there 20 or 25 minutes earlier. Go figure, but I went upstairs and I went to the office and there was a person standing outside the door with a big cart. We had ordered breakfast for all the early arrivals, and so I took him in and showed him where to set up, and then I went in. And got my laptop projector and other things that I needed to be able to set up to do the presentations, and went in and set all that up. And then David Frank, my colleague from our corporate office, got there about 8o'clock and helped do the final things, like making sure the projector was totally appropriately aimed. His aim is better than than mine was, anyway. Michael Hingson 10:21 So again, everything was proceeding just as we expected it to do. David came with some early arrivals from Ingram Micro, and we put them in the in the conference room where we were going to be doing the presentations, and the the cart was all set up so they could have breakfast. As I love to tell people, best ham and cheese croissants in the city-they're still good, as far as I remember-but all was was going well, and so we we were getting prepared. And the last thing we had to do before the seminars were to start was to create a list of all the people who would be attending that day and put it on letterhead. We had a spreadsheet with all the names, but we had to put it on letterhead and then fax the list on letterhead to the Port Authority security people so that they would have a list that they would recognize was legitimate. And then when people came into the World Trade Center, they'd go up to the security counter, they'd show their ID, and their names would be compared with a list, and if their name was on the list, then they would just be given a badge with a a barcode where they could go to the appropriate elevator and come up to our floor. So that was kind of the last thing we had to do before the seminars were to start. Amplifyou 11:34 Kind of sounds like business as a norm and business as usual kind of morning for you. It Michael Hingson 11:40 was. It was a total business as usual morning, by every stretch of the imagination. No clue about anything else. Amplifyou 11:48 So, did you guys begun your seminar when the the troy towers were hit? Michael Hingson 11:55 No, the seminar was supposed to start at 9o'clock, and literally, I was reaching for letterhead to print the list at about 845, 846. When suddenly we heard a muffled kind of explosion, the building sort of shuddered. And then, if you imagine my hand as the tower, literally as I'm tipping my hand towards the camera, that's exactly what the tower did. It started tipping and tipping and tipping, and we moved maybe about 2025 feet before the building stopped. Now the thing is that I had spent time learning all I could know about the World Trade Center, learning what to do in an emergency, learning what the fire department did, learning what the police would do, learning where the emergency exits were, learning about all the emergency evacuation procedures, and the reason that I learned all of that was I had opened this office for Quantum Corporation, and I was the Mid-Atlantic region sales manager. I was the leader. I was going to be the person who would be running the office, and I knew that I needed to do what any other leader would do difference being I didn't see stuff, so I needed to learn rather than rely on signs and other things that most sighted people would do. I actually had to learn everything to be able to function. But the difference is that by doing that, what I didn't really realize was I was creating a mindset that says you know what's going on, you know what to do. I knew why the building tipped because tall buildings like that are built with expansion joints. They're made to be buffeted in windstorms, and I had felt that happen many times at the World Trade Center. If there were a wind, we could feel it sort of shake a little bit. But who would have ever thought that somebody would fly into the building with a plane load of jet fuel, 36,000 pounds of jet fuel? But nevertheless, I knew all that I could learn about everything. I learned where different offices and built and and organizations were in the World Trade Center. I had explored the kiosks on the first floor and the shopping mall, so I knew where all the phone kiosks were and where other things were. I knew where the restaurants were, so that if we ever had guests in and we were doing demonstrations and then we were going to be negotiating contracts, we decided to take a break for lunch. I could say, "What kind of lunch do you want? "Oh, you want a deli sandwich? There's this great restaurant downstairs called Fine and Shapiro. Let me take you there, and I would take them. I would lead the way because I couldn't very well say, "Oh, I don't know how to get anywhere. I'm blind. Someone's going to have to lead me. How's that going to work a couple of hours later if we're negotiating multi-million dollar contracts? I needed to literally work, and I don't mean this in a negative way, but from a position of strength. I needed to know all of this in order to be able to do my job as the appropriate leader of the office, and so I learned all of that and put all of that together for whatever was going. On in the World Trade Center at any given time, and so when the building was struck and and the building was tipping, I was standing in my doorway, the doorway between my office and the other parts of of our facility, and the building tipped. David was holding on to my desk as it was tipping. Roselle was asleep under my desk, and finally, David and I were speculating about what was going on. He thought maybe it was an earthquake, and I said no because the building's not shaking around; it's going in one direction. I thought maybe it was just some sort of an explosion, which in a sense it was. But he said it didn't sound like it, and it didn't. But the issue was that we were 18 floors on average below where the tower was hit and on the other side of the building, but that was a calculation that came later. But the bottom line is that the building tipped and then it stopped, and it came back the other way and got vertical again. Amplifyou 15:54 That's incredible! Wow. Michael Hingson 15:56 And as soon as it got vertical, I went back into my office. I met Roselle coming out from under my desk. I took her leash. I told her to heal, which meant to come around on my left side, which she did. She sat down, and about that time, the building dropped straight down about six feet. Amplifyou 16:10 Wow! Michael Hingson 16:10 Now, the reason it dropped is because tall buildings like that are constructed with expansion joints, which is why that it tipped in the first place, and the building didn't break off, but then when it got to be vertical again, after a few seconds, literally the expansion joints contracted and the building went back to its normal configuration, which is exactly what happened. Amplifyou 16:32 Gosh, interesting like technology that that's built in there. I know you you never really I would never known that. Had you not explain that in the story? That's very interesting. That expands like that, and then the six foot drop was then it contracting Michael Hingson 16:47 again. The expansion joints were going back to normal configuration. Amplifyou 16:50 Interesting. If Speaker 1 16:55 you enjoy unstoppable mindset and would like to help us continue bringing these conversations to you each week. We've created a way for you to support the show. Your contribution helps us cover production costs and continue sharing stories, insights, and ideas that inspire people to live with purpose and possibility. If supporting the podcast feels right for you, you'll find the link in the show notes. Thank you for being part of the Unstoppable Mindset Community. Amplifyou 17:28 And so there's so then what happened? So take us to the next steps. Michael Hingson 17:32 So the building dropped about six feet, and then David turned from holding onto my desk and looked out the window, looking south toward Battery Park, and he started shouting, "Oh my God, Mike! There's fire and smoke above us! There are millions of pieces of burning paper falling outside our window! And I could hear stuff going by our window, and I was wondering what it was because normally the sound was sort of like what window washers would do if they were on their tracks washing windows, but that wasn't what was going on. It was debris falling, and David was describing it: millions of pieces of burning paper falling outside our window, and he said, "We got to get out of here right now. And I said, "Slow down, David. We'll get out, but we're not going to rush. No, we got to get out of here right now. Slow down, David. We'll get out. Don't worry about it. And finally, I I said several times, "Slow down. He kept saying we got to get out of here right now, and then he used what I call the big line: "You don't understand. You can't see it. Well, first of all, I knew everything that David was seeing and saying because he was telling me about it. So I knew we had millions of pieces of burning paper. Clearly, he said, "There's fire and smoke above us, so the building's on fire. I had all that information, but the problem was that it wasn't what I wasn't seeing that was the issue; it was what David wasn't seeing. David wasn't seeing that sitting next to me was my guide dog Roselle, yawning and wagging her tail, going, "Who woke me up anyway? I was sleeping real good here, sports fans, and and Roselle was not reacting. I wasn't smelling anything that gave me an indication that we were in such peril that we had to run for our lives, and so I kept telling David to slow down. And finally, David did. He stopped. I said, "David, get our guests to the stairs. Do not let them take elevators, because I had learned, of course, that if the building's on fire anywhere, if fire gets into elevator shafts, then anybody in elevator cars is probably going to perish, which did happen. And so David took our guests out of our office, got them to the stairs, and I made it really clear: do not let them take elevators, because there could be fire in the elevator shafts. Well, he got them to the stairs, and then he came back. Meanwhile, I called my wife Karen to let her know that something had happened, or an explosion, or something. But we didn't know. People tell me all the time, even today. Well, of course you didn't know because you couldn't see it. You know, I think all these people who tell me I didn't know because I couldn't see it need to get a. The problem is they really don't know a whole lot about blind people. The airplane hit, on average, 18 floors above us. It hit between floors 93 and 99, so I just say 96, which is 18 floors above where we were in on the 78th floor. But it also hit on the other side of the building. It hit on the north side, and we were on the south side. The last time I checked, Superman and X-ray vision are fiction, and people can't really see through buildings, see through rebar and steel and concrete. The fact of the matter is that they no one knew what was going on. I didn't know, but other people did, and I'll prove that in a moment, but the fact of the matter is, you can't see through all that stuff. Blindness had nothing to do with it, but people keep saying, "Well, you didn't know because you couldn't see it. Well, yeah, well, we'll get to that. Anyway, David got our guest to the stairs. I called Karen. I told her that something had happened. We didn't know what. She wanted to know more, but there was nothing else I could tell her, and so we we parted. I just said, "I'll call you back as soon as I can, and by that, you know, the media hadn't even gotten the story yet. Michael Hingson 21:12 So I love to joke around and say that I beat Charlie Gibson in Good Morning America by eight minutes, but I still haven't gotten a Pulitzer Prize for it. But it's very disappointing. But anyway, so I disconnected with Karen. David came back. We swept the office. We went to the stairs, and we started down. Almost immediately, I began smelling an odor, and it was a familiar odor, but I couldn't quite place it. And it took me a while to realize I was smelling the fumes from burning jet fuel. I did a lot of traveling for my company, and so I was very used to what was in airports and the smells and the odors. But it took me like four floors to figure out that I was smelling burning jet fuel. Other people were speculating, wondering what happened, why were we evacuating, what was the building doing, why did it shake, and all that. And then I observed that I was smelling burning jet fuel, and other people said, "You're right. That's burning jet fuel. We must have been hit by an airplane. But you see, we didn't know. We had no clue. Eyesight had nothing to do with it. The fact is that we only figured out we were hit by an airplane because the blind guy realized he was smelling burning jet fuel, and so anyway, we went down the stairs. A couple of burn victims passed us along the way, and a woman, when we got down about 10 floors, stopped and she said, "I can't go on, and we're not going to make it out of here. And I literally just stopped and turned around and gave her a hug right there on the stairs. Roselle gave her some kisses, and other people stopped and joined us. And we all said, "Come on, you can keep going. You can do it. Let's go. And she was able to keep going as we went down the stairs. But we knew instinctively we had to make sure that panic didn't ensue on the stairs. Amplifyou 22:56 Right. Michael Hingson 22:57 We got to about the 50th floor, and then David suddenly said, and he had been getting quieter, but suddenly he said, "Mike, we're going to die. We're not going to make it out of here. And I said, in my best sharp voice, "Stop it, David. If Roselle and I can go down these stairs, so can you. And he told me that that brought him out of the funk that he was singing into. And he said, "I want to walk a floor below you, if it's okay, and I'll tell you whatever I see on the stairs. But I got to do something to get my mind off of worrying about all this stuff. Is that okay? And I said, sure. If that's what you need to do, go ahead. Did it really matter? Well, you know, it did to David, and that's all that really counted. But anyway, David walked a floor below us, and so when I got to the 48th floor, for example, I heard, "Hey, Mike, I'm on the 47th floor. All's good here. Going on down the stairs. We went down, and finally I got to the 45th floor. And David said, '44th floor is where I am. This is where the Port Authority cafeteria is. Not stopping. Going on down the stairs, and he did that all the way down the stairs. Why is that important? And why do I even mention it? Because we all did everything we could to keep panic from taking over on the stairs, and by definition, because David was just speaking up, "Hey, Mike, 42nd floor, all's good here, and just shouting up to me what he saw on the stairs and sounding confident. By definition, anyone who was in the sound within the sound of his voice heard someone who was sounding okay and just able to go down the stairs and wasn't seeing any problem, and so they focused on him, and that certainly had to help keep panic from ensuing on the stairs as we went down, and it's so often not even mentioned, but David had to do that for maybe hundreds or 1000s of people who could hear him all the way up and down the stairwell, and I think that's just one of the most important things that I remember about the day that David had to, by definition, help keep panic from going on on the stairs. Now, meanwhile, I was up. Encouraging Roselle, what a good dog, good girl, Roselle. Keep going, let's go, good dog, doing that all the way down the stairs. And I've had people come up to me at speeches that I've given ever since. For example, one in Kansas City, and a woman came up afterward, and she said, "I came into the stairwell on the 54th floor just as you passed by, and I heard you praising your dog and encouraging your dog and sounding very confident, I and other people just followed you because you sounded really good and you didn't sound like you had a problem at all and weren't afraid. We just followed you, so you know that's why I also know that what David was doing was so important because people focused on his voice. Amplifyou 25:42 How fascinating! Someone that was right behind you that day in the stairwell, too. Michael Hingson 25:46 Yeah, yeah. So we continued down. We got to the 30th floor, and that's where we met firefighters coming up. They wanted to help me go down the stairs, and I didn't want their help. I didn't need their help, first of all, but I didn't want their help because that would have meant we were always walking at least two abreast, and they were going to grab my arm and try to lift me as we were going downstairs and do other things that sighted people think you got to do if you're helping a quote a blind person go down the stairs. But there was a more important reason that I didn't want their help, and you know when the firefighter, the first guy, came up and he said, "We're going to send somebody with you. I kept saying, "No, don't do that. We don't need that. What I knew because of all that I had learned was that they were a team. They had to carry all their equipment up the stairs with them. Why? Where would you store it? Let's say you decided to store it on the 34th floor, and fire broke out on the 33rd floor. You'd never get to the equipment. They had to carry all their equipment up with them. They were a team, all 50 of those firefighters, and so I was not about to want to break up the team when, especially, I didn't need it anyway. And I I worked at getting them finally to focus, and I said, look, I got my guide dog here, and they started petting Roselle, and it wasn't the time to give them a lecture about don't pet a guide dog in harness. And by the way, don't pet a guide dog in harness. If you see a guide dog in harness, you can ask me if you can pet the dog, and if I have time, I will stop and I'll take the harness off because Roselle likes to relax, Alamo, my current guide dog, likes to relax. The dogs all love to relax, but if I don't have time, I'll say, "Look, we're kind of in a hurry, so sorry, but we just don't have time. But the firefighters were petting her, and it wasn't the time to give him a lecture about don't pet the guide dog and harness, and it wasn't the time to give him a lecture about don't worry about the blind guy just because he can't see and you can. The reality is that blindness isn't the problem; it's your attitudes about blindness that are more of the problem. But anyway, they finally agreed. When I finally said, "Look, I got my friend David over here who can see, and David and I are going down the stairs together, and they turn to David and they go, "You're with him. And David said, "Yeah, Lee Malone, he's fine. And mention all the hundreds Amplifyou 28:06 of people that are following you. Michael Hingson 28:08 Yeah, and and they all had to stop as we're talking to the firefighters. But anyway, so they eventually started going up the stairs, and I continued down. David reassumed his scouting position, and we followed David by a floor down the stairs, and and did what we needed to do, and then we we finally got to the first floor. Well, David did, and he said the water sprinklers are on. You're going to have to run through a curtain of water to get out of the stairwell, and the the reason there were sprinklers on is if there was fire in the stairwell, the water sprinklers would be keeping the fire from getting into the lobby. But if it were in the lobby, the sprinklers would be keeping the fire from getting into the stairwell. That's part of what was supposed to happen. Well, it it all worked perfectly. So David went through the curtain of water, and I got down to the first floor, and I took Roselle's harness and said forward and hop up and let's go. And we went through this curtain of water and came out the other side into the lobby of Tower One. There was a guy with a bullhorn going, "Go this way, no, no, don't go over that way, go this way, go to the central part of the building, don't go outside, no, no, don't go that way, go this way. And that was because that if they had gone outside, they would have been below where people were jumping, and you know who knows what else, so they didn't, and and they went to the central part of the building. We got out, and I was hearing the guy with the bullhorn. This guy comes up to David and me, and he said he's with the FBI, and he'll take us where we need to go. And I asked him what's going on. He said, "There's no time to tell you. I wish he had, but he didn't know me. He didn't know that information was what I really valued more than anything else, and I wasn't going to panic just because I heard information. But he took us through the complex and eventually up an escalator by the borders books, as far away from the towers as we could be, and then we got out. And as soon as we got out, David saw fire in Tower Two. We had no idea where that came from. We speculated that maybe our building, which had been tipping toward Tower Two, had its fire sort of jump across, maybe somehow. But we didn't know what was going on, and so we were told to leave the area, which we did. We went over to Broadway, which is again what we were told to do and told to get away from the complex, so we went over to Broadway and started walking north on Broadway. So as we were walking north, on my left side was the building, on my right side was Broadway. We're on the west side of Broadway as we're going north, and we passed several streets, and then after we passed all the well, we passed a number of streets, and we finally got to Vessi Street. And David said, "You know, we're very close to Tower Two. I want to take pictures of this fire I see in Tower Two. I said, "Okay. I took out my phone. I tried to call Karen. I couldn't get through. The circuits were busy, as we now know. Of course, people were saying goodbye to loved ones, but for me, I couldn't get through, so I put my phone away. And David was putting his camera away when a police officer yelled, "Get out of here! It's coming down now! And we heard this sound, as I describe it, as kind of a combination of a freight train and a waterfall. What we heard was Tower Two collapsing like 100 yards away from us. You could hear glass breaking and shattering, you could hear metal clattering, and then the white noise of Tower Two just collapsing straight down, which is exactly what it was supposed to do. David and everyone turned and ran. I lifted Roselle by the harness, turned her 180 degrees, and started running back the way I came. David was long gone. Michael Hingson 31:36 I got to the next street back that we had crossed a little while before, and that was Fulton Street. Turned right on Fulton to get more of a building between us and what was collapsing, and we ran about 25 yards and caught up to David. It turns out that we had gone the same way he went, but he had stopped realizing that he had left me and was going to come back and find me. But I found him first, and he apologized. I said, "Don't worry about it, David. Let's keep going. And we kept running. We got caught in all the dirt and the dust and the debris from Tower Two's collapse. As David said, he couldn't see his hand six inches in front of his nose. For my part, I couldn't. With every breath I took, I could feel debris going down my throat into my lungs and settling. It was crazy, and we ran, and eventually, I decided we got to get out of this. So I started telling Roselle right, right, giving her hand signals. I don't know whether she could hear me over the noise of the building collapsing, or whether she could see my hand signals. But I kept telling her to turn right because I wanted her to, because there was a building on my right. Now that we were going the other way, I wanted her to go into the nearest opening that she could find. As we ran, I suddenly heard an opening, and Roselle obviously knew what I wanted because she turned right. She took one step. She stopped. She wouldn't move. Come on, Roselle, keep going. She wouldn't move. Come on, Roselle, you can do it. Keep going. She wouldn't move, and I realized, wait a minute, she's a guide dog. She's doing what she's supposed to do. She stopped for a reason, which she had. I checked. I stuck out my foot, stuck a hand out along the wall, discovered we were at the top of a flight of stairs. Roselle had done her job perfectly. She stopped. So when I gave her the command to go forward, she went down the stairs, and we went down into what was the Fulton Street subway station, and we were there for about 15 minutes or so. Then a police officer found a bunch of us together and said, "The air is clear up above. You need to leave now. And didn't wait for a response; just turned, and we all followed him back to the stairwell, up the stairs, through the little arcade that we had we had passed through part way down the stairs before, up the rest of the stairs and got outside. David looked around and he said, "Oh my God, Mike, there's no Tower Two anymore. And I said, "What do you mean? He said, "All I see are pillars of smoke, hundreds of feet tall. There's no Tower Two. It's gone. Are you sure, David? "Yeah, it's gone. It's not here. We stood there for a moment, and then we continued to walk west on Fulton Street. And we walked for about 10 minutes, and then we were in this little plaza area when suddenly we heard that freight train waterfall sound again, and we figured it was probably our tower collapsing. David looked back and he saw another dust cloud coming our way, and in this plaza where we were, there was a small retaining wall, probably a planter or something, but anyway, there was a retaining wall. We got behind it, we ducked down, and we just waited till everything passed us by and stopped. And then we got up, and David looked around and he said, "Oh my God, Mike, there's no World Trade Center anymore. And I said, "What do you see? And he said, "All I see are fingers of fire and flames, hundreds of feet tall, and pillars of smoke. It's gone. The towers and everything are gone. And we stood there a moment, not able to fathom it. Then I tried to call Karen again, and this time I got through because all the circuits freed up from all the loved ones saying goodbye. Needless to say, and after, as I put it, tears on both sides of the phone line. Michael Hingson 34:59 Karen was finally the first one who told us how two aircraft had been crashed deliberately into the towers of the Pentagon, hijacked aircraft towers at the World Trade Center. That is, one into the Pentagon, and a fourth was still missing over Pennsylvania at that moment. And so that's kind of what happened. The rest of the day we spent getting up toward Midtown Manhattan, and eventually was able to get trains back to New Jersey and so on. And David walked up to where he was staying with his sister, who lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Amplifyou 35:30 What an experience, Sue! Thank you for going through that with us again. And you know, there's there's a lot of things that I want to well, there's something I want to ask you. It's like we often talk about preparation of that day, like all the things you did to prepare for what what you actually were able to do during that day. What mattered on that day from all that preparation? Michael Hingson 35:55 That I knew what to do in an emergency. Also, although I really started learning to verbalize it more later, what I learned was how to control the things that I could and not worry about everything else. We what if everything to death as human beings? Yeah. And we what? Well, what if what if you were in the build in the World Trade Center and it collapsed? Well, okay. What could I have done about that? So it's no sense worrying about it, because I, you know, I didn't have access to something to hold the building up, you know, and so many different things. Well, what if Roselle had panicked? Well, that's why I encouraged her and praised her so she wouldn't. But the bottom line is, I didn't have control over that, other than the fact that I encouraged her and and worked with her so well. Well, what if other people panicked on the stairs? I didn't have control over that, other than doing all I could to try to keep panic from happening. And you know, I and other people did a number of things like what David did to keep people from panicking on the stairs. But the bottom line is, there was no sense worrying about those things because we had no control over them. And when we got home that night, I took Roselle's harness off and I was going to take her outside. She ran off. She wouldn't. She wouldn't go outside right away. She grabbed her favorite tug botobone and started playing tug of war with my retired guide dog Linnie. And they were having a good old time just playing. When I talked to the veterinarians of Guide Dogs for the Blind the next day, I asked them, "What's it going to be like for Roselle going forward? And they asked, "Did Roselle have anything that specifically threatened her? And I said, "No, not really, because nothing hit her, nothing threatened her in any way, shape, or form, and the veterinarian who I spoke with said, "Well, there you are. She wasn't threatened. Dogs don't do what if about everything. They live in the moment. It was over for her. She wanted to play, and that's what she did, which was great anyway. But we what if everything to death, and we need to learn how to stop doing that and worry about just the 5% over which we really have control, and not worry about the rest. That's one of the lessons that I learned. I learned about don't worry about what you can't control. Focus on what you can and leave the rest alone. I learned about what if you know and things like that. Amplifyou 38:18 You and Roselle really understood each other in those moments. So what she realized what her job was, and you you were a leader in keeping everyone else under under control from you know reacting. Did you ever? You seem to have been very positive right from the beginning. Were there other moments that you were not sure that you or guys were going to get out of there. Michael Hingson 38:44 No, and my response is there wasn't time to worry about that for me. I was focused on Roselle. I was focused on listening because if people started to panic, I wanted to deal with it. There was a time on the 37th floor where people just started not talking. They were getting very quiet, and I went, "Oh, they're going to be like David was, and so I said, "Hey, everybody, whether you can see me or not, my name is Mike, and I've got my guide dog Roselle here. I'm blind, but I don't want anybody to worry, because if the power and lights go out in the World Trade Center, we're offering a half-price special to get you out today only. You know, and and that's exactly what I wanted them to do was to laugh, and I got people to laugh, which, which I'm sure helped. But those are the kinds of things that that I could focus on dealing with. But I I didn't worry about what I couldn't control, even though that was sort of an instinctive thing. But the mindset kicked in. All the things that I had learned that led up to September 11th kicked in that day, that allowed me to be able to function and and also help other people, and that's the the important part about it is that they all did kick in the mindset kicked in and it all worked well. Amplifyou 39:54 You've told this story so many times. Has the meaning of the story ever changed for you over 25 years? Michael Hingson 40:00 No, I got to say that it hasn't. Well, in some, yeah, I guess in some senses it has. Maybe some of the reasoning has changed. For example, speaking today, I'm speaking to oftentimes a generation of people who have absolutely no memory of the World Trade Center because they weren't even born yet, or they were too young to remember it. Probably, if you're under 30 years old, you really don't have any memory of it. And if you're under 25, you weren't even born at the time. My job, I believe, and so I've expressed this more lately than I have in the past. But my job is to take people in as I speak to the building with me, and take them down the stairs. Take them through the experiences that I had and went through, and why I went through those experiences, and the lessons to be learned from those. And then bring them out when we get to the bottom and outside. Take them all the way through and out, so that they get the full sense of what I experienced. And I've had so many people tell me we were with you every step you took down the stairs. You tell the story so vividly and so well, and and you just you just had us with you all the way down the stairs, which is exactly what I wanted, because I want them to understand that in reality you can learn to deal with things that come along, there are going to be things that you can't deal with because you don't have the skill or whatever. But we all have a lot of skills that we don't think we do, and one of them is that we can learn to control fear. We can learn that fear is around us, but we don't have to let it overwhelm, blind, or paralyze us. We can learn to use fear in a very positive, constructive way to keep us focused and going down the stairs. Amplifyou 41:45 What made you to decide to keep using your experiences each other's? Michael Hingson 41:49 Well, after September 11th, we and and the media got the story, and then people started calling because we got very visible in the media, and people started calling and saying we'd like to hire you to come and talk to us about what we should learn from September 11th. Learn about teamwork. Learn about what happened that day. Learn the lessons of World Trade Center, and so I decided that I would would do that and teach people what they could remember and and take away from it, and people started calling and saying, "Gee, would you come and let us hire you to tell the lessons of September 11th? And by the beginning of 2002, I had so many of those kinds of requests that Karen and I decided that selling life and philosophy was a whole lot more fun than selling computer hardware and being a computer hardware sales manager, and so that's what I turned to doing full time, and learning to help people understand that the reality is that you are a lot better than you think you are, and you need to learn that. But you really can do in a more strong way what you think you can do than than a typical way. Amplifyou 43:02 That's what I was just going to ask you: is if September 11th changed the direction of your life, and it did, from the career you had into now being a professional speaker. Interesting. Michael Hingson 43:13 Oh, yeah, it's helped a lot. And you know, I I also there are other things that that helped me in terms of dealing with public speaking, I love to tell the story that when I was growing up, before I had access to braille, I had braille in kindergarten in Chicago, but then I didn't have braille in California until the fourth grade, and my parents helped me learn things, and I learned all the spelling words that you know you had every every week you had to learn words, and then on Friday you the teacher would tell you the words, and you had to write them down, and you change papers, and the teacher would write the words on the board. Except in my class, in my class the teacher didn't write the words on the board. The teacher would say, "Mike, you have to spell the words out loud for everybody. So I learned how not to fear crowds and learned that I could spell the words. I know one time I messed up a word, and I don't even remember what the word was, but I heard somebody go, "Uh-uh, and I and I went, "Oh, I must have got it wrong, and I figured it out, and then I spelled it right. But that that only happened one time that I can recall. But clearly, that helped me learn not to be afraid of audiences. And today, I don't even understand why people are afraid to speak publicly. The fact of the matter is, audiences don't come to hear you so they can joke at you, make fun of you, yell at you, and so on. They come because they value what you're you're going to talk with them about, and they want to hear it. They want you to be successful, and they'll help you be successful if you let them, Amplifyou 44:41 I think you were always destined to be a public speaker, but it seems like the September 11th really just the universe conspired to make that happen. Maybe sooner than it would have. Did you ever see yourself before that becoming a public speaker? Michael Hingson 44:57 I never thought of being a public speaker before that. Neither had I ever thought of being an author. I I was used to it because working at Quantum on any given day I could be speaking to anybody from the board of directors of a Wall Street firm to IT people to other management people and so on. So I got used to doing it, and I and I learned all about selling and being articulate in sales, so I kind of learned a lot about public speaking from that. But I never really thought I would just be speaking for a living. But given what happened on September 11th, and that I get the opportunity to talk with people and help them see that in reality, what happened on September 11th is a day of lessons that taught us, or can teach us about resilience, can teach us about dealing with things that we don't expect to happen, and that we can learn how to control fear and so on, rather than letting it overwhelm us. So it it is it's really been pretty good. Amplifyou 45:57 Yeah, and when you hear the phrase "unstoppable mindset, how much of that philosophy do you think was shaped on that day, september 11? Michael Hingson 46:05 Oh, I think a lot of it came from from that day and and beyond. You know, the mindset kicked in on september 11 because of what I knew. But I think also that when it came time to start this podcast, which someone asked me to do as part of being involved with the company. I heard a lot of people talking about resilience and so on, and I just thought of unstoppability, unstoppable mindset, because the reality is we all are more unstoppable than we think we are, and so the podcast is literally an opportunity to converse with anyone who wants to come on, and it is a conversation more, much more than an interview, but it's a conversation about them, their lives, what they've done, and including what did you do that made you realize that you're more unstoppable than you think you are, and maybe you didn't realize that, but you are, and here's let's talk about this, and so those are those are things that I talk about. But I believe that everyone has a story to tell, so I'm always looking for people to come on the podcast and tell their stories and talk with with me about their experiences and so on, and that's how you know we found Bob Ellis, who's going to be with us on the Pentagon. I had actually contacted him about speaking to his organization, and I always mentioned the World Trade Center in initial introductory letters. And he wrote back and said that he would love to help, but he also wrote back and said, you know, I was in the Pentagon on September 11th, and that opened our dialog. And the result was that we finally set up for him to come on Unstoppable Mindset. And when when we did our conversation, I learned, for example, that he walked out the door, and it just he was supposed to be in a meeting that was right near where the plane actually came through the window, and in Bob's case, he had literally just left because the meeting ended up not happening, and he had just walked outside the door when he heard the plane, and he didn't really understand what was happening. But the plane sped up, and then it just crashed right into the tower, into the Pentagon, and he ran from the area, but he was very much involved with with talents that allowed him to help acquire things to help other people survive and so on, and did that for a couple of days or four days. But Bob will tell his story on September 11th. But he was literally just out the door when the plane hit. Amplifyou 48:42 Wow! Well, your guests can look forward to that interview. Will be the next up after this one. And I want to thank you, Michael, for sitting down with me today. I oh, it's always a pleasure, and thanks for allowing me to take over the hosting seat for today on your show, so we can hear more of your story, and thank you for sharing all the lessons you've learned from this experience. Michael Hingson 49:07 Well, well, thank you, and and I hope people will take them to heart. And I would say, if anyone wants to be on the podcast, we would love to have you send me an email at speaker s p e a k e r at michael hingson m i c h a e l h i n g s o n.com. If you know of any speaking opportunities that need a keynote speaker to come in, not only to tell an inspiring story, but I want to make it very clear, but to teach also lessons about resilience, business continuity, and other things like that, email me at speaker@michaelhingson.com. Would love to talk with you about that. My website is www.michaelhinkson.com, or you can go to www.michaelhinkson.com/podcast. But we'd love to hear from you in in any way and and get to know you better and you know go from there. Amplifyou 49:57 Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Michael, for today. We'll take care and see you soon. Michael Hingson 50:02 Sounds good. Thank you for being here with me on Unstoppable Mindset. I hope today's conversation left you with a fresh perspective, a new insight, or at least something worth thinking about. If you're ready to go deeper into the ideas that shape how we see ourselves and others, I have a free gift for you. Head over to michaelhingson.com and download my free ebook, Blinded by Fear. It explores the invisible beliefs that hold us back and shows you how to reframe them so you can move forward with clarity and confidence. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast, leave a review, and share this show with someone who can use a reminder that growth starts with mindset. When people think differently, we all move forward together. Thanks again for listening. Keep learning, keep questioning, and keep choosing to live with an unstoppable mindset.
Coach Lovell resumes his conversation with Coach Tippmann of Ft. Wanye Snider as the first full hour of the show kicks off! Rick Johnston from the ISC Sports Network calls in to discuss Lawrence North beating Lawrence Central. Bill Peebles from Cathedral talks his teams 30-21 win over St. Xavier. Coach Josh Miracle dives into his Westfield team beating Zionsville 42-7. Chris Waldridge from WITT also provides some insight into Westfield’s win. Mike Kirschner, coach of Mount Vernon, calls in to go over their win over Greenfield! Greg Rakestraw from the ISC Sports Network talks Center Grove beating Carmel 26-24! Blake Burris from WQKZ talks Forest Park beating Washington! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Join us for our Westfield vs Randle WATCH PARTY and react to Landen Williams-Callis! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
00:00 – 23:49 – JMV is out at Mystic Waters Campground in Pendleton for another edition of Football Friday! He opens the show by previewing what’s in store for this weekend’s college football slate. He also teases his upcoming interview with Joel A. Erickson of the Indy Star and brings on WISH-TV’s Gina Glaros, WTHR’s Lindsey Monroe, Brent Holverson, and others at Mystic Waters. 23:50 – 36:00 – Bob Lovell, the legendary host of Network Indiana’s Indiana Sports Talk joins JMV to preview week three of high school football action across the state. Two weeks into the season, Bob has seen some teams start to separate themselves from the field. He also talks about tonight’s exciting tilt between Zionsville and Westfield, the return of the Copper Kettle game between Carmel and Center Grove, and more! 36:01 – 49:50 - Joel A. Erickson of the Indianapolis Star joins JMV, and their conversation begins with the rumors of an extension for left guard Quenton Nelson. Does it make sense if the Colts enter a rebuild? What matters more, a consistent home or winning? Joel also gives his thoughts on the Colts not using Anthony Richardson as a gadget player outside of his role as a quarterback the kicking battle between Spencer Shrader and Blake Grupe, and more!Support the show: https://1075thefan.com/the-ride-with-jmv/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00 – 23:49 – JMV is out at Mystic Waters Campground in Pendleton for Football Friday! He opens the show by previewing what’s in store for this weekend’s college football slate. He also teases his upcoming interview with Joel A. Erickson of the Indy Star and brings on WISH-TV’s Gina Glaros, WTHR’s Lindsey Monroe, Brent Holverson, and others at Mystic Waters. 23:50 – 40:04 – Bob Lovell, the legendary host of Network Indiana’s Indiana Sports Talk, joins JMV to preview week three of high school football action across the state. Two weeks into the season, Bob has seen some teams start to separate themselves from the field. He also talks about tonight’s exciting tilt between Zionsville and Westfield, the return of the Copper Kettle game between Carmel and Center Grove, and more! 40:05 – 46:38 – AAA President Matt Goins joins JMV to talk about AAA’s partnership with IU Athletics and give away tickets to IU football’s season opener against North Texas! 46:39 – 1:07:24 - Joel A. Erickson of the Indianapolis Star joins JMV, and their conversation begins with the rumors of an extension for left guard Quenton Nelson. Does it make sense if the Colts enter a rebuild? What matters more, a consistent home or winning? Joel also gives his thoughts on the Colts not using Anthony Richardson as a gadget player outside of his role as a quarterback, the kicking battle between Spencer Shrader and Blake Grupe, and more! 1:07:25 – 1:20:47 - Pat Sullivan of Sullivan Hardware and Garden joins the show for #AskPat, sharing how listeners can help with local flood relief efforts. 1:20:48 – 1:26:20 - JMV wraps up hour two with Pat, Gina, Lindsey, and Brent. 1:26:21 – 1:52:02 - Hour three of the show begins with everyone on the show extending their condolences to WISH-TV’s Anthony Calhoun, who recently lost his father. JMV also continues bantering with Gina, Lindsey, and Brent, including a lively discussion about the difference between local and national media as well as the differences between radio and TV. 1:52:03 – 2:02:38: JMV previews IU season-opener against North Texas, which features former Hoosier quarterback Tayven Jackson leading the Mean Green into Bloomington. He also brings on producer Nick to break down IU’s running back room and what a Josh Hoover-led offense may look like. 2:02:39 – 2:05:19 - JMV wraps up the show from Mystic Waters!Support the show: https://1075thefan.com/the-ride-with-jmv/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In today's episode, I sit down with Kelly Bennett, co-owner of Valencia School of Music in Westfield, New Jersey, to talk about something a lot of school owners get wrong about their youngest students. Kelly has been running her Kidzrock program since 2019, and right now she has around 40 kids enrolled with another 15 to 20 sitting on a waitlist. We dig into exactly how she built that, and honestly, about ten minutes into this conversation I was taking notes on my own program. Here's what we cover: Why Kelly stopped selling music lessons and started selling something completely different The phone script her staff uses to redirect private lesson calls toward the right program Her "1000 eyes" approach to marketing without a big ad budget Why time never stops in a group class, and what that teaches kids that private lessons cannot The real reason classes stay empty, and it's rarely the program itself In this episode, you'll learn: The exact reframe that changes how parents respond to your pitch, and why "we sell lessons" is the wrong message A simple phone tactic to guide families toward the program that actually fits their kid's age How to build guerrilla marketing that costs nothing but consistency The teacher training timeline Kelly swears by, and why three months beats three days One phrase Kelly has every class memorize that changes how kids handle mistakes Why the real fix for empty classes is rarely the curriculum davesimonsmusic.com
Westfield man arrested for shooting at a stranger... An inmate has died in Boone CountySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
This episode of the John Phillips Show is a must-listen for anyone who's ever been approached by a high-pressure salesperson at the mall. A consumer investigative reporter shares a shocking story about a company that's been scamming seniors out of thousands of dollars with its coercive sales tactics.The company, B & Co., has been operating under various names at malls across the country, including the Topanga Mall in Los Angeles. A developmentally disabled man, Victor Chisholm, was lured into spending tens of thousands of dollars on skincare products, leaving him with almost nothing. The reporter, Christine Lazar, went undercover to the store and experienced the same high-pressure sales pitch firsthand, paying $1,200 for a serum that promised to make her look decades younger.The conversation also touches on the responsibility of malls and corporations that rent space to these types of companies. The reporter believes that Westfield, the mall that hosts the B & Co. store, should be held accountable for allowing this predatory behavior to continue. The episode also explores the importance of consumer protection and the need for accountability in business practices.If you or a loved one has been a victim of this type of scam, the reporter wants to hear from you. Tune in to this episode to learn more about the story and the efforts to hold B & Co. accountable.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hysteria over data centers is not rational. It's us our China. The mines in the Strait? Psy op of the Iranians. Brandon Johnson racism. EVERYONE is considering a run for president in 2028. Costco in Westfield?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hysteria over data centers is not rational. It's us our China. The mines in the Strait? Psy op of the Iranians. Brandon Johnson racism. EVERYONE is considering a run for president in 2028. Costco in Westfield? JMV talking about the upcoming Colts season, and the of WR Keenan Allen. Today’s Popcorn Moment: Trump: ‘The Oil Is Going to Go Down Like a Rocket ... as Soon as We Win that War’. Cyclists protest Flock cameras in Indianapolis. How the war against Iran against needs to be won Get your tickets for Trivia night. Gerry joins to talk about Data Center moratoriums and the latest with NIPSCO. Markets react after latest hostilities. TV Theme Song: The Naked TruthSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This episode of the John Phillips Show is a must-listen for anyone who's ever been approached by a high-pressure salesperson at the mall. A consumer investigative reporter shares a shocking story about a company that's been scamming seniors out of thousands of dollars with its coercive sales tactics.The company, B & Co., has been operating under various names at malls across the country, including the Topanga Mall in Los Angeles. A developmentally disabled man, Victor Chisholm, was lured into spending tens of thousands of dollars on skincare products, leaving him with almost nothing. The reporter, Christine Lazar, went undercover to the store and experienced the same high-pressure sales pitch firsthand, paying $1,200 for a serum that promised to make her look decades younger.The conversation also touches on the responsibility of malls and corporations that rent space to these types of companies. The reporter believes that Westfield, the mall that hosts the B & Co. store, should be held accountable for allowing this predatory behavior to continue. The episode also explores the importance of consumer protection and the need for accountability in business practices.If you or a loved one has been a victim of this type of scam, the reporter wants to hear from you. Tune in to this episode to learn more about the story and the efforts to hold B & Co. accountable.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Speaker: Joseph Antley
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00 – 22:24 – John opens the show live from Mucky Duck and announces the giveaways he has for the Colts game tomorrow. He also previews the Football Friday show, including how now the expectations are high for Alec Pierce now that he has returned from his injury. Plus, how important it is for the Fever to take care of business tonight, there might be week 1 tickets to give away at Mucky Duck, an update on the lions that are rumored to be loose in Indiana. 22:24– 39:52 – The host of the history making, legendary Indiana Sports Talk, Bob Lovell, joins the show. They review week 1 of the high school football season before diving into the Westfield vs. Carmel matchup and the job Josh Miracle has done at the helm for the Shamrocks. JMV shouts out his Eastern Greene team before the Roncalli Royals bounceback opportunity tonight against Franklin Central. 39:52 – 44:16 – JMV gives away a pair of tickets to the Colts game tomorrow and a Ride with JMV YETI. 44:16 - 1:05:34 – Making his weekly Friday 4 o’clock appearance, Joel A. Erickson of the Indianapolis Star joins the show. What does he expect to see tomorrow, how big is the game tomorrow on the kicking battle, how dire is the pass rush situation and will Caden Curry make the team? Plus, what surprises will we see when roster cut downs begin? 1:05:34 – 1:21:36 – Chris Hagan of CBS4/FOX59 joins JMV and Pat Sullivan on location at Mucky Duck’s. John recaps his “I didn’t know I was on the air” moment from Wednesday, Pat is pledging money for flood relief victims Saturday, P1 listener Fulton breaks the news that he has a girlfriend and reveals what his favorite Dolly Parton song is, which leads to a discussion on her life. 1:21:36 – 1:28:39 –. JMV wraps up the second hour of the show! 1:28:39 – 1:53:16 – The voice of the Hoosiers, Don Fischer, has a documentary premiering this evening on WTIU. He saw a screening of the documentary and comments on all the hard work that went into it. Plus, John references his conversation to a Raiders reporter yesterday on Fernando Mendoza and asks how Josh Hoover compares. Chris Hagan asks how the roster still fits, Tayven Jackson starting against IU and more. 1:53:16 – 2:02:26 – Chris and JMV pick some more winners out at Mucky Duck before Hagan gives his take on the Fever and their long layoff coming up. 2:02:26 – 2:06:05 – John and Chris preview the weekend of sports ahead and the Colts game tomorrow afternoon.Support the show: https://1075thefan.com/the-ride-with-jmv/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00– 13:00 – The host of the history making, legendary Indiana Sports Talk, Bob Lovell, joins the show. They review week 1 of the high school football season before diving into the Westfield vs. Carmel matchup and the job Josh Miracle has done at the helm for the Shamrocks. JMV shouts out his Eastern Greene team before the Roncalli Royals bounceback opportunity tonight against Franklin Central. 13:05 - 27:54 – . Making his weekly Friday 4 o’clock appearance, Joel A. Erickson of the Indianapolis Star joins the show. What does he expect to see tomorrow, how big is the game tomorrow on the kicking battle, how dire is the pass rush situation and will Caden Curry make the team? Plus, what surprises will we see when roster cut downs begin? 27:54 – 48:46 – The voice of the Hoosiers, Don Fischer, has a documentary premiering this evening on WTIU. He saw a screening of the documentary and comments on all the hard work that went into it. Plus, John references his conversation to a Raiders reporter yesterday on Fernando Mendoza and asks how Josh Hoover compares. Chris Hagan asks how the roster still fits, Tayven Jackson starting against IU and more.Support the show: https://1075thefan.com/the-ride-with-jmv/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00 – 23:37 – JMV begins with his thoughts on the Colts shellacking in their second preseason game. He starts to discuss if it even matters, and why it’s okay to say it was disinteresting. He then gets to what happened at the Fever game yesterday with Enes Kanter-Freedom. Then, Jason Hammer from WIBC joins to share news that Traffic reporter and friend, Matt Bair, passed away. They reflect on his impact and share their favorite memories of him. 23:37– 43:28 – JMV touches on the LIV event in Westfield, NBA power rankings that have the Pacers 9th in the eastern conference, which sparks a discussion on what we should expect from the team in the first few months of the season. Then, circles back to the passing of Matt Bair. 43:28 – 48:15 – JMV wraps up the first hour of the show. 48:15 - 1:16:36 – From the Fever TV play-by-play, Pat Boylan joins the show. He recaps the Fever’s split over the weekend and why the game yesterday was extremely important. How good was Caitlin Clark's performance against the Sky, how has Makayla Timpson’s starting lineup insertion raised the ceiling for the team, and how Pat feels about the Pacers being on DAZN. 1:16:36 – 1:28:06 – JMV let’s listeners know he will be at the Noblesville Kroger on Wednesday and the first Bud Light Blue Friday of the season. Then, he tells the story of teaching his mom where the Pacers will be streamed this year. 1:28:06 – 1:31:10 – Wrapping up the second hour of the show with thoughts on the Garth Brooks matinee show over the weekend. 1:31:10 – 2:02:49 – ESPN’s Stephen Holder makes his weekly hit on the show with what he took away from a largely uneventful preseason game, JT Tuimoloau’s status on the roster, Caden Curry and the backup QB battle. He explains how Anthony Richardson’s versatility is his biggest asset. Plus, will Charvarius Ward be back for week 1 and what is the status of the linebacker room and what he’s interested to see in the preseason finale against the Detroit Lions. Also, Stephen is on his way to Tyrese Haliburton’s charity softball game. John and Stephen share stories 2:02:49 – 2:11:13 – Caleb and JMV discuss the state of college sports before John gets back to remembering Matt Bair. 2:11:13 – 2:17:28 – JMV wraps up the show by wondering if the Fever will be affected by their hiatus.Support the show: https://1075thefan.com/the-ride-with-jmv/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Speaker: Derek Irvin
After killing his family in the winter of 1971, John List went on the run, initiating a worldwide manhunt that would last nearly twenty years before he was finally apprehended. In that time, the List case would become one of the largest and most notorious investigations since the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. References Associated Press. 1972. "John List is still missing and local police are baffled." Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), February 22: 9. —. 1972. "Highjack-slaying ties denied." Press of Atlantic City, January 15: 4. Bailey, Bruce. 1972. "Worldwide hunt fails to find Wrstfield exec." The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), June 11: 1. Balog, Kathy. 1990. "The confession to his pastor was the most damning of all." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), April 13: 1. Benford, Timothy, and James Johnson. 1991. Righteous Carnage: The List Murders in Westfield. New York, NY: Scribner. Bullock, Marilyn, and Bruce Bailey. 1971. "The Lists were a neighborhood mystery." The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), December 9: 11. Chung, Connie. 2002. 1971 family killer breaks silence. February 20. Accessed August 1, 2026. https://abcnews.com/2020/story?id=132646&page=1. Cohen, Robert. 1971. "'Daddy, you're all I have left...'." The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), December 12: 1. —. 1971. "Husband hunted in mass slaying." The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), December 9: 1. Douthat, Strat. 1989. "The fugitive." Los Angeles Times, June 18: 2. Fiedler, Lore. 1973. "John List disappearance still unsolved." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), December 3: 11. —. 1971. "Westfielder sought in slaying of 5." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), December 8: 1. Hampton, Pat. 1980. "After 9 years, John List still a suspect-and still a mystery." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), December 6: 5. Hann, Christopher. 1989. "For stunned neighbors, news of arrest hits home." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), June 2: 7. LA Times Wire Service. 1989. "Suspect in family-slaying may be famed D.B. Cooper." Los Angeles Times, June 30. McNeel, John M. 1976. "What ever happened to John List." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), October 15: 11. Romano, Mary. 1989. "For the family, a chapter closes, a wound reopens." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), June 2: 1. Stout, David. 2008. "John E. List, 82, killer of 5 family members." New York Times, March 25. Sullivan, Joseph. 1990. "Slaying suspect saw 2 choices, doctor testifies." New York Times, April 7: 30. —. 1990. "Suspect wrote about killing family in '71." New York Times, March 29. Talmont, Tek, and Jill Vejnoska. 1990. "Attorney admits client is John List." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), February 15: 1. The Courier-News. 1990. "Two specialists describe List." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), April 10: 1. The Courier-Times. 1976. "Psychic gleaned varied impressions of List." The Courier-Times (Bridgewater, NJ), October 15: 11. Thompson, Robert. 1972. "List case unsoved after seven months." The Courier-News (Bidgewater, NJ), June 28: 1. Vejnoska, Jill. 1990. "Defense: List killed with love in his heart." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), April 3: 1. —. 1990. "Doctor recounts List's getaway." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), April 11: 1. —. 1990. "Doctor: Stressed List just snapped." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), April 7: 1. —. 1989. "FBI nabs John List." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), June 2: 1. —. 1990. "Letter: List shot family, prayed." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), March 29: 1. —. 1990. "List 'didn't trust God' to help him." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), April 6: 1. —. 1990. "List guilty." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), April 13: 1. —. 1989. "Prime-time spotlight focuses on long-time fugitve John Lisr." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), May 22: 1. —. 1989. "Westfield cops hope TV can help catch John List." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), April 14: 1. Wirt, George. 1977. "5-Year hunt: Cops 'haven't forgotten' slaughter of famil." The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), May 30: 10. Yates, Terry, and Robert Thompson. 1971. "'Nobody knew them too well'." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), December 8: 1. Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In early December 1971, after a month of watching the lightbulbs in the List house slowly burn out one after another, neighbors finally became concerned about the List family and called the Westfield, NJ police to report their suspicions. Acting on the calls, officers arrived at house on the morning of December 7 to perform a wellbeing check, and when no one answered the door, they managed to gain access to the house through a basement window. When they reached the first floor, the officers found the bodies of the List family—including the couple's three children—dead from gunshot wounds to the head they'd suffered a month earlier. Noticeably absent from the remains in the house were those of the family patriarch, John List. In his office, investigators discovered a letter List had written to the pastor of his local church, in which he claimed to have murdered his family in order to spare them the pain of living in a world he believed had become corrupt and morally bankrupt. References Associated Press. 1972. "John List is still missing and local police are baffled." Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), February 22: 9. —. 1972. "Highjack-slaying ties denied." Press of Atlantic City, January 15: 4. Bailey, Bruce. 1972. "Worldwide hunt fails to find Wrstfield exec." The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), June 11: 1. Balog, Kathy. 1990. "The confession to his pastor was the most damning of all." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), April 13: 1. Benford, Timothy, and James Johnson. 1991. Righteous Carnage: The List Murders in Westfield. New York, NY: Scribner. Bullock, Marilyn, and Bruce Bailey. 1971. "The Lists were a neighborhood mystery." The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), December 9: 11. Chung, Connie. 2002. 1971 family killer breaks silence. February 20. Accessed August 1, 2026. https://abcnews.com/2020/story?id=132646&page=1. Cohen, Robert. 1971. "'Daddy, you're all I have left...'." The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), December 12: 1. —. 1971. "Husband hunted in mass slaying." The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), December 9: 1. Douthat, Strat. 1989. "The fugitive." Los Angeles Times, June 18: 2. Fiedler, Lore. 1973. "John List disappearance still unsolved." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), December 3: 11. —. 1971. "Westfielder sought in slaying of 5." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), December 8: 1. Hampton, Pat. 1980. "After 9 years, John List still a suspect-and still a mystery." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), December 6: 5. Hann, Christopher. 1989. "For stunned neighbors, news of arrest hits home." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), June 2: 7. LA Times Wire Service. 1989. "Suspect in family-slaying may be famed D.B. Cooper." Los Angeles Times, June 30. McNeel, John M. 1976. "What ever happened to John List." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), October 15: 11. Romano, Mary. 1989. "For the family, a chapter closes, a wound reopens." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), June 2: 1. Stout, David. 2008. "John E. List, 82, killer of 5 family members." New York Times, March 25. Sullivan, Joseph. 1990. "Slaying suspect saw 2 choices, doctor testifies." New York Times, April 7: 30. —. 1990. "Suspect wrote about killing family in '71." New York Times, March 29. Talmont, Tek, and Jill Vejnoska. 1990. "Attorney admits client is John List." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), February 15: 1. The Courier-News. 1990. "Two specialists describe List." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), April 10: 1. The Courier-Times. 1976. "Psychic gleaned varied impressions of List." The Courier-Times (Bridgewater, NJ), October 15: 11. Thompson, Robert. 1972. "List case unsoved after seven months." The Courier-News (Bidgewater, NJ), June 28: 1. Vejnoska, Jill. 1990. "Defense: List killed with love in his heart." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), April 3: 1. —. 1990. "Doctor recounts List's getaway." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), April 11: 1. —. 1990. "Doctor: Stressed List just snapped." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), April 7: 1. —. 1989. "FBI nabs John List." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), June 2: 1. —. 1990. "Letter: List shot family, prayed." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), March 29: 1. —. 1990. "List 'didn't trust God' to help him." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), April 6: 1. —. 1990. "List guilty." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), April 13: 1. —. 1989. "Prime-time spotlight focuses on long-time fugitve John Lisr." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), May 22: 1. —. 1989. "Westfield cops hope TV can help catch John List." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), April 14: 1. Wirt, George. 1977. "5-Year hunt: Cops 'haven't forgotten' slaughter of famil." The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), May 30: 10. Yates, Terry, and Robert Thompson. 1971. "'Nobody knew them too well'." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), December 8: 1. Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
00:00 – 31:20 – The Ride starts the week with John reviewing the Fever’s overtime win over the Atlanta Dream yesterday. Plus, he sends his thoughts out to all of those affected by the flooding across Indiana. Alec Pierce isn’t practicing, Tyrese Haliburton is upset that his opening game isn’t at home or on national tv, LIV golf event in Indianapolis to be last one of season and Indiana ranked sixth in AP Poll, remembering Tommy John. 31:20– 42:37 – JMV continues to remember Tommy John before resuming the Colts conversation and the recent tryouts they had at wide receiver. Are they really all in? 42:37 – 45:28 – JMV takes a caller that wonders if Daniel Jones should play in the preseason. 45:28 - 1:15:35 – We get a caller discussing the Colts wide receiver room before Ted Bishop joins. He was the 38th PGA of America President and Pro at the Legends Golf Club in Franklin. JMV first asks him his thoughts on the LIV announcement that the event in Westfield will be the last one of this season. John and Ted’s friend Don Fischer earned an award over the weekend. Ted was close with Tommy John, and they got to reflecting on the Terre Haute native. Plus, his athleticism in basketball, and other stories remembering the legend. 1:15:35 – 1:26:15 – JMV tells some Greene county stories before explaining how the IU offensive line is in Odin's meat locker. John also gets to the textline. 1:26:15 – 1:30:53 – What are the songs that people think they can sing better than the original? Makayla Timpson’s performance yesterday, going zone. 1:30:53 – 2:01:28 – Before Stephen Holder joins, John talks to Caleb about his trip to watch Cincinnati to watch tennis yesterday. What are the best US Open moments ever? Then, the Colts conversation begins and Stephen is still thinking Alec Pierce will play in the opener. What does “close” mean? He also comments on if Keenan Allen has real interest to be with the team. Anthony Richardson’s path to playing time, could he be used in a Taysom Hill role, also what is happening with Charvarius Ward’s injury? 2:01:28 – 2:10:41 – JMV recounts his rough day at hoops yesterday that included a bloody nose and a fall. 2:10:41 – 2:16:45 – Giving away tickets to see Deep Purple with Kansas!Support the show: https://1075thefan.com/the-ride-with-jmv/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
“MK Confidential” begins with a man who is actively getting away with murder. John List arrives in Denver and politely applies for a new Social Security card, under a new name. Robert P. Clark. The people of Denver will never suspect that the quiet, fastidious man who drifted into town aboard a train is a wanted fugitive. For weeks, while the bodies of his wife, mother, and three children lie on the floor of their family home, John builds a new life around his new name. He picks up work as a night cook line, then in a country club kitchen. Eventually, he reenters the accounting world, telling a series of half-truths about his past. He finds a Lutheran church in Denver, and meets the lovely Delores Miller, a divorcée who finds Bob Clark faithful and trustworthy. They marry in Maryland, where her parents live, and where John married the wife he would later kill. The image of John List haunts the people of Westfield, and the legend only grows with time. Many on the police force take the case personally; two detectives take it to the TV show, “America's Most Wanted.” After 18 years on the run, even the missing man's face is a mystery — until now. This is Episode 4 of the John List story. Lean: Discover why LEAN is becoming the choice for real weight‑loss results—shop now at https://TAKELEAN.com use code KELLY AquaTru: Head to https://AquaTru.com & use code MKC for 20% off your purifier and a 30-day best-tasting water guarantee. Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKelly Twitter: https://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShow Instagram: https://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShow Facebook: https://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
“MK Confidential” finds a fugitive at work, balancing books at an accounting firm in Richmond, Virginia. It's Thursday, June 9, 1989, around midday. Three federal men in suits approach the receptionist's desk and ask to speak with Bob Clark. They search the compliant accountant and ask plainly, “Are you John List?” The man denies it, but his fingerprints say otherwise. After 18 years on the run, the Westfield annihilator is found, and now in custody. The trial of John List begins nearly a year later, in April of 1990. His defense does not dispute that he murdered his wife, mother, and children in 1971 — though List will not use the word “murder” himself. The lawyer claims his religious fervor did not allow him to consider any alternative to saving their souls. Once List decided he could send his family to heaven by shooting them to death, the defense argues, there was no turning back. The leaders who mentored List, under whose teaching he sat on Sunday mornings and taught in Sunday School, take the stand. They demonstrate how the very faith List claims as a fortress is built on shifting sand. The jury will decide his fate. This is Episode 5 of the John List story. AquaTru: Head to https://AquaTru.com & use code MKC for 20% off your purifier and a 30-day best-tasting water guarantee. Lean: Discover why LEAN is becoming the choice for real weight‑loss results—shop now at https://TAKELEAN.com use code KELLY Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKelly Twitter: https://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShow Instagram: https://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShow Facebook: https://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Tonight's “MK Confidential” begins at the police station in Westfield, New Jersey, in the wee hours of the morning. It is the summer of 1971, and officers have brought in two teenage girls for smoking cigarettes. Both girls' fathers arrive to claim them; one looks like he came straight from bed, and the other sports a coat and tie. John List has come to pick up his daughter, Patricia. He is furious, afraid that she is slipping away from the life and the faith he wants for her. He doesn't tell her to “Go to Hell,” but that she is already going there on her own. Megyn Kelly traces the story of John List back to its beginning, in a cold, small Michigan town off of Lake Huron. From his German Lutheran upbringing to service in the Army to accounting degrees in Ann Arbor, List becomes the forgettable face atop the ever-present coat and tie. He meets and marries Helen and sets out to build the life he thinks he should have, and fails. His failures push him from city to city and state to state, until the Lists reach for a beautiful, dilapidated house on a hill in Westfield. There, his beautiful life falls apart entirely. John List sees his wife succumb to disease, his prospects evaporate, his daughter drift from the church, and his bank account dry up. From there, he decides there is only one way to save his family: to remove their chance to stray further from the life they were meant to live. This is Episode 2 of the John List story. Home Title Lock: Go to https://hometitlelock.com/megyn and use promo code MEGYN to get a FREE title history report and a FREE TRIAL of their Triple Lock Protection. Lean: Discover why LEAN is becoming the choice for real weight‑loss results—shop now at https://TAKELEAN.com use code KELLY Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKelly Twitter: https://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShow Instagram: https://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShow Facebook: https://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
"MK Confidential" opens on December 7th, 1971, as a car turns up a dark driveway in Westfield, New Jersey. A drama teacher named Ed Illiano leaves his headlights pointed at a nineteen-room Victorian mansion called Breeze Knoll. One of his students has shared a secret he cannot shake. Days before she vanished, sixteen-year-old Patricia List said her father was going to kill her and her two brothers. She said it the way a person reports a fact. The drama teacher and a patrolman climb through an unlocked window. The first thing they notice is the smell. The second is the music: Wagner, piped into every room over the home intercom. Behind a drape in the ballroom, a flashlight settles on a child's face. Four bodies lie side by side on Boy Scout sleeping bags, arranged in the shape of a cross. A fifth is upstairs. Everyone who lives here is accounted for, except the father, the accountant who wore a coat and tie to mow his lawn. His name is John List. Megyn Kelly goes inside a town of thirty-three thousand that has not seen a murder in eight years, and inside the family the neighbors thought they knew. Police find two fired handguns and a five-page letter. It tells them exactly who did this, and exactly why. It does not tell them where he went. This is Episode 1 of the John List story. Home Title Lock: Go to https://hometitlelock.com/megyn and use promo code MEGYN to get a FREE title history report and a FREE TRIAL of their Triple Lock Protection. Lean: Discover why LEAN is becoming the choice for real weight‑loss results—shop now at https://TAKELEAN.com use code KELLY Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKelly Twitter: https://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShow Instagram: https://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShow Facebook: https://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
On today's show Pat and the boys are live from the NFL Flag Championships in Westfield, Indiana. Pat spotlights flag footballs growth over the last few years and now being a division one scholarship sport. Shams joins the progrum to discuss the breaking news of LeBron James decision to sign with the Philadelphia 76ers for his 24th NBA season. After Shams, Pat brings on Indianapolis Colts owner Kalen (Irsay) Jackson to talk about Westfield being the host of the NFL Flag Championships and the upcoming Colts season. After Kalen (Irsay) Jackson, Brandon Beane general manager of the Buffalo Bills joins the progrum to talk about the Bills season expectations and catch up on their golf respective golf games. After Beane, NFL Legend Tedy Bruschi comes on and explains what we can expect from NFL Flag in the future and share stories from his playing career. Make sure to subscribe to youtube.com/thepatmcafeeshow or watch on ESPN (12-2 EDT), ESPN's Youtube (12-3 EDT), or ESPN+. We appreciate the hell out of all of you, and will be back Monday. Cheers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices