Tower One. 78th Floor. Sept 11.
Michael (Mike) Hingson. I am president of The Michael Hingson Group, Inc. and the chief vision officer for accessiBe
Blind since birth, Michael Hingson was born to sighted parents who raised him with a can-do attitude. Always a high achiever, Michael learned how to ride a bike, and was able to do advanced math in his head! He received a Master’s Degree in Physics, and a Secondary Teaching Credential.
Michael worked for high-tech companies in management until September 11, 2001 when he and his guide dog Roselle escaped from the 78th floor of Tower One in the WTC. Thrust into the international limelight, Michael began to share lessons of trust, courage, and teamwork based on this experience.
Mike is the author of the #1 NY Times Bestseller “Thunder dog,” selling over 2.5 million copies, and his 2nd book “Running with Roselle, A story for Our Youth.”
An international public speaker, Mike delivers inspiring and thought-provoking messages to the world’s elite, including President George W. Bush, and has appeared on hundreds of TV and Radio programs, including Larry King. Hired by major organizations, Michael speaks on perseverance, the importance of trust and teamwork, and moving from diversity to inclusion.
www.michaelhingson.com
www.marlanasemenza.com
Audio : Ariza Music Productions
Transcription : Vision In Word
Marlana:
Blind since birth, Michael Hingson is a high achiever whose parents raised him with a can-do attitude. He worked for high-tech companies and management until September 11th, 2001, when he and his guide dog Roselle escaped from the 78th floor of Tower one of the World Trade Center thrust into the international limelight, Michael began to share lessons of trust, courage, and teamwork based on his experience. Welcome Michael.
Michael:
Thank you. Good to be here.
Marlana:
So, I know that the events of 9/11 were a little bit ago. However, I know that any one of us that is old enough to remember them, they will be forever etched in our memory. So, walk us through a little bit of what it was like from your perspective.
Michael:
It's really interesting the way you phrased that because one of the things that we have experienced for me is that, as you say, we all remember it. And over the past 10 years especially, I've realized that we now have a whole generation of children now going into young adults who have no personal knowledge of September 11th at all. So, I think that it is absolutely important that we remember it. We still remember Pearl Harbor and rightly so. Some of us remember when JFK was shot, and all the things around that. I think it's important that we remember September 11th because there were a lot of lessons to be taken from that. Again, actually since September 11th, people have asked me if I will come and talk about September 11th, my experience and the lessons that we should learn.
I hope that continues cuz I'm glad to travel and speak and be keynote speakers and all that stuff. So anyway, for me, it was a day of validation because as a person who happens to be blind, the typical response for me and for other blind people who try to get a job is, well, you're blind. How could you do this job? Or you're blind, how could you get to work? I could go to a job interview and clearly get there on my own. And somebody says, well how you gonna get to work? Well, I got here, didn't I? Right. And you said you were interested in my resume. My resume demonstrates that I constantly overachieved goals and so on. What's the issue? The problem is we haven't taught people that blindness isn't the problem. It's our attitudes about blindness.
And the reason I say that is because in reality I was very fortunate in one way because what I was fortunate to be able to do is to get a job out of college and went from one job to another. At one point when I couldn't get a job, when a company was acquired by Xerox and phased all of us out, I had to start my own company just to get a job. Well, I did that and did that for four years and then went back into the workforce and I was able to get a job. And that's a story I'm gonna save for a little bit later. But the, the bottom line is I got a job and eventually that led me to being relocated to New Jersey and working in New York. And eventually that led to opening the office in the World Trade Center.
One of the things that I have always felt in my life is it's all about teamwork. People don't necessarily do things alone. Part of my team always is a guide dog. I've been using a guide dog since 1964. I'm currently on my eighth guide dog (Alamo.) And what I learned, and it took a while, even after September 11th to put it into real words, is it's a team. I am the team leader. It's up to me to give the dog commands. Well, how do you know when to turn? Why is that relevant? How do you know when to turn? You can see, but how do you know you read signs and other things? I have techniques and ways to do the same things that you do as a cited person. And a lot of those techniques are getting better because we now have G P s systems that talk or even using Google Maps, it talks and other kinds of things that give me the information that you get.
It's all about information. But in any case, I can move about from place to place. And working in the World Trade Center, one of the first things that I did was to decide as the team leader, the person who opened an office for a company, I needed to be able to do what anyone else would do to open that office. So I needed to know how to get around the World Trade Center. I didn't get the luxury of looking at signs and so on. So I did what I think everyone should do and most people don't. I learned the center, I learned the emergency evacuation procedures. I learned where the emergency exits were. I learned where a lot of offices were in the World Trade Center. Places that we might go visit, uh, that I might go to with one of my sales employees to sell products.
I learned how to do whatever a leader of an office had to do in order to function appropriately cuz how would it look if we had customers up visiting us and we decided we'd go to lunch, and then I said, well, I don't know how to get anywhere? Someone's gonna have to lead me around two hours later. We're back negotiating contracts. How is it gonna be for me? I'm behind the eight ball. It would be better if I could say, oh, you want to go to lunch? What kind of food do you want? Do you wanna say how much? Great, let's go to Finance Shapiro. It's a deli down in the lobby of the World Trade Center, I'll take you there. I needed to be able to do that stuff as well as anyone else. As I said, that also meant learning emergency evacuation procedures and so on.
And what I realized long after September 11th was by learning all of that, I developed a mindset that said, you know what to do. If there's ever a problem, it'll kick in. And every day I went to the World Trade Center, even before September 11th, I thought regularly about anything else I need to learn today. I met with fire prevention or fire authorities and police and so on so that I knew everything there was to know and so that they knew me. And the mindset kicked in on September 11th, we got to the office about seven 40. We were gonna be doing some sales meetings. When I got there, there was a guy outside with a food cart because we had ordered breakfast for the early arrivals best ham and cheese croissants in New York City. I will point out from the Port Authority cafeteria <laugh>.
And we took him in and told him where to set things up. And then I went and got a laptop projector that we were gonna use cuz I was gonna do a PowerPoint show. Yes. Blind people can do PowerPoint presentations. You don't have to see to do that stuff. You use slightly different techniques, but you could still do it. And the bottom line is we were all set up. Some people arrived about eight o'clock, including David Frank, who was a colleague from my corporate office. He was there to represent the marketing and sales department that was responsible for pricing for distributors or well, and for resellers. And we were going to be training resellers that day how to sell our products. So, David was there to talk about the pricing. I was going to be their technical and their onsite liaison that is the liaison between the resellers and Quantum, a TL that I worked for.
So, David and some other people arrived and while most of them were having breakfast, David and I completed a final list of all the people who were coming to the seminars that day. Because the only ways to get into the World Trade Center was either you were authorized in advance on a list that was faxed to the Port Authority security desk downstairs, or they would call up every time someone came and said, so-and-so says they're here to come to your seminar. Do we let them up? So, it was important for me to not have to take lots of phone calls. So we created the list and literally at 8 45 in the morning, I was reaching for stationary when suddenly the building lurched. And we heard a kind of a muffled thud and that's all we heard. And then the building started to tip as I'm now tipping my hand toward the camera.
And the reason the building tip was the airplane hit the building. Tall buildings like that are springs. That 110-story building was a big spring. It was made to be able to be buffeted in the breeze or literally hit by an airplane. It was not made however, to be hit by an airplane intentionally. One that had 26,000 pounds of jet fuel on board that exploded on impact. And that's what really took the building down. But nevertheless, the building tipped. I went over and stood in the doorway. I grew up in Southern California and at that time we were living on the San Andreas fault in Southern California. And I learned early on building shakes and moves, ghost stand in doorway. It's a little different now for earthquake stuff. But anyway, I, went and stood in the doorway a lot of good that does your 78 floors up if the building collapses.
But hey, still what you learn, what you know is what you do David. And how would you have known at that point what really happened? Well, it wouldn't have mattered. The building was moving anyway. And there was nothing you could do other than go for me, stand in the doorway. David was holding onto my desk and my guide dog Roselle was asleep under the desk. And the building tip so far that David and I literally said goodbye to each other because we thought we were about to take a 78 floor plunge to the street. Then the building slowed down, it stopped and it started coming back the other way. And it finally became vertical again. As soon as it did, I went into the office, I met Roselle coming out from under the desk. I told Roselle to heal, which meant to come around on my left side and sit.
I mentioned that working with a guy dog is a team. Each of us has a job on the team. And the total job combination of the two of us is to make sure that we walk safely. It is not never should be and never will be the job of the dog to know where I want to go. That's my job. And I give the dog directions as to where I want to go. When we get to a turn, I have to know which way to go. Again, I learned that like you do using different techniques, but I learned to know the buildings. Everyone who was cited looks for signs that works until you're in a smoke fill building, by the way. Now, we didn't have a smoke fill building at the time that we were going down and so on. But, nevertheless, the point still is anyone who really wants to make sure they're gonna stay safe needs to really know in advance what to do. Because that helps develop a mindset that says, I know what to do and it kicks in. And that's what kicked in for me.
So, I told Roselle to sit about the time she sat, the building dropped straight down about six feet. That's because the spring, if you will, went back to its normal configuration. And as soon as it stopped, David looked out the window and started shouting. Oh my God, Mike, there's fire and smoke above us. There are millions of pieces of burning paper falling outside the window. We gotta get outta here right now. And I said, slow down David. No, no, no. We gotta get outta here right now. And I heard noise outside the window. And when he said, there are millions of pieces of burning paper falling outside the window that told me what it was, our guests began to scream.
They started moving toward our exits. And I kept saying, slow down. So, they stopped. They were waiting to see what David and I were gonna do. And then finally David used, as I describe it, the big line, you don't understand, you can't see it. Oh, the problem wasn't what I couldn't see, the problem was what David wasn't seeing, Namely a dog sitting next to me wagging her tail, yawning going, who the heck woke me up and what's going on? I knew what Roselle was like when she was afraid and she wasn't indicating any fear. And her senses are much sharper than mine. And what she told me by her reactions was, okay, right now we can try to evacuate in an orderly way. So, I got David to focus. I said, get our guests to the stairs. You're seeing fire. Don't let them take the elevators because if fire gets into the elevator shafts, which it did, anyone in the cars could be burned and killed.
So, David got our guest to the stairs. I called my wife and told her that something had happened, an explosion or something we didn't know and we're gonna be evacuating. And this was before the news even got the story. So when we hung up and I hung up with her, David returned, we checked the office and then went to the stairs and started down. We smelled an odor. It took me about four floors to realize I was smelling burning jet fuel like you smell whenever you go to an airport. So I observed it to other people around us and they said, yeah, we were trying to figure out what that is. And I didn't figure it out right away cuz who would've thought we would've smelled burning jet fuel in the World Trade Center. But the bottom line is that's what I smelled.
I observed that to others and we all agreed an airplane must have hit the building. But we didn't know. And we didn't know what happened until we were all the way down and out. But we went down the stairs and there were times that people started to panic on the stairs. And several of us worked to keep people calm. We got to the bottom. It was now about 9 35. We went through the complex and finally got outside at 9 45 an hour after the plane hit Tower one. When we got outside, David saw that Tower two was on fire again, we didn't know, we didn't feel anything from Tower two being hit because we were in our own little cave or cocoon, if you will. That is the stairs going down. So, we were told to leave the complex. We went over to Broadway and walked north on Broadway and finally got to Vessy Street.
And David said, I see the fire really clearly up in Tower two. I wanna take some pictures. And you know, for our, for us we thought maybe Well's Tower one, when it was tipping tip toward Tower two, maybe it caught the building on fire. Who knew? So, we stopped. David took pictures. I tried to call my wife. The circuits were busy because as we learned later, people were saying goodbye to loved ones. I had just put my phone away and David was putting his camera away when a police officer yelled, get out of here, it's coming down right now. And suddenly we heard this rumble that became this deafening roar that I describe as kind of a combination of a freight train in a waterfall. You could hear glass breaking and metal clattering and so on. And the bottom line is, what was happening is the tower two was collapsing.
We were like a hundred yards away from it. Everyone turned and ran. David ran, he was gone. I turned Roselle around 180 degrees and we started running back the way we came. Then we got to the next street going now south on Broadway, Fulton Street. I turned right on Fulton, caught up to David. As it turns out he had gone the same way. And it stopped cuz he realized he had just run off and left me. And he was gonna come back and try to find me. And I said, look, when he saw me and all that, I'm sorry. He said, I'm sorry. I said, David, don't worry about it. Let's keep going. It's coming down. Right. So, we kept running. We got in the dust cloud that was so thick that David said he couldn't see his hand six inches in front of his nose.
It was so thick that with every breath I took, I could feel dirt and dust going down my throat into my lungs. We knew we had to get out of that, that wretched cloud. And I kept telling Roselle, go. Right, right, right. I don't know whether she could hear me or see my hand signals since I was just doing hand signals. But obviously she did because suddenly I heard an opening on the right and she obviously saw it cuz she turned right. Took one step and stopped and wouldn't move. Come on Roselle, keep going. She wouldn't move. And I realized, hey, maybe she's doing what she's supposed to do. Why is she stopped? So I stuck a hand out along the wall, felt a stair rail and I stuck a foot out, found the top of a flight of stairs. She did exactly what she was supposed to do.
She stopped at the stairs, and she was waiting for the command. So when I said, good girl, Roselle actually stooped down and gave her a hug and then said forward. And we went down the stairs into the subway system and a person came up the stairs and we were in a little arcade and found David and me and several other people. He introduced himself as Lou, an employee of the subway system. And then he took us down to an employee locker room where we stayed until a police officer came and said, the airs clearer up above, you gotta get outta here now. And we went upstairs and we started walking away from the complex more. And David said, oh my god, Mike, there's no tower too anymore. And I said, what are you seeing? And he said, oh, I see your pillars of smoke, hundreds of feet tall. Who would've thought? Yeah. So we kept walking away, we were going west on Fulton and we walked for a number of minutes, 10, 15 minutes. And then we heard that freight train, waterfall sound again. That's the best way I describe it. Cuz as I said, you hear the glass clattering and metal clashing and crashing. And then this, this white noise sound of the building collapsing. And we figured it was our tower coming down.
And so we, David just looked back and said, it's coming down and there's a dust cloud coming our way. We were able to get behind a, a low wall and hunkered down and waited until everything passed. And it got silent again and then stood up and David said, oh my God, there's no world trade center anymore. And I said, what do you see? And he said, all I see are fingers of fire in flame, hundreds of feet, tall pillars of smoke, hundreds of feet tall. It's gone. And it was only after that that I called my wife again and this time got through, it was now about 10 30, 10 31 in the morning. David and I were just standing there and I got through to her and she's the one who told us that terrorist attacked tower one and then tower two. And then it was those towers that collapsed because of hijacked aircraft.
Marlana:
Did that seem incredible to you?
Michael:
Absolutely, still seems incredible. So let me put it another way. I've talked about teamwork. Think of what a team of 19 people did that almost brought the world to its needs. Yeah. Teamwork is extremely powerful and it's important that we understand that. But the reality is teamwork is all around us. And we need to recognize the value of dealing with teamwork and dealing with what we need to do in order to accomplish tasks. And we do it better when we work with others. And when the leader of a team allows other people on the team to do their job. So for example, working with a guide dog, there are times that I need to take command and give directions. There are times that it's up to the dog. So for example, if we're walking down a sidewalk and suddenly the dog stops, there's a reason for it.
It's what we call intelligent disobedience. And it might be that I've walked that route a hundred times and I know that it should be clear, but if the dog stops, there's probably a reason. And if I reach out, I might find a car parked in a driveway going across the sidewalk, or if I listen, I might hear a car backing out or whatever the case happens to be. And that's what it's really all about, is working as a team in order to accomplish a task. And it doesn't matter whether it's a blind person with a guide dog, a cited person with a company cited and blind people working together, persons with a variety of disabilities or people who don't have disabilities working together to accomplish a task. Teamwork is teamwork. What I believe most, although important is people who supposedly don't have a disability really do.
But what we really need to recognize is that disability does not mean a lack of ability. It's a characteristic. So, you have a disability, what's your disability? At one general high level, it's the ear light dependent. You don't do well when the lights go out or there was a power failure. First thing you do is go look for cannels or flashlights or whatever. Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb to allow you to see in the dark. But make no mistake, you still have a disability except it's mostly covered up because technology's pretty reliable. Don't sell me short. Just because I use other kinds of technologies and things to accomplish tasks. Disability does not mean a lack of ability. And we need to get away from that concept.
Marlana:
Absolutely. And you know, another thing in listening to your story that struck me is the leadership. Because as a leader in the space that you were in as a leader with Roselle, first of all it seems like there, there really is no place for panic or fear in moments where leadership is required. Um, but let me also ask you, as in a leadership position, how do you develop that trust in your teammates?
Michael:
It's a decision, it's a mindset to develop that trust. Look, I hear what you're saying is there's no room for panic and fear. Absolutely. Though, there's nothing wrong with fear. The question is how we deal with fear. The question is what we allow fear to do. If we allow fear to blind us, as I describe it, and this blinding fear overwhelms us. So, we can't make decisions. That's a problem. We can learn to use fear as a very positive item and characteristic in our lives. In fact, right now I am in the middle of writing with a colleague book working title is A Guide Dog's Guide to Being Brave. But one of the things that I learned over time in the world and after the World Trade Center is it was my mindset that allowed me to continue to function.
And it partly was the mindset that I and my guide dog absolutely must trust each other. If my dog does something I don't expect there is a reason for it. And I shouldn't yell at the dog, punish the dog, get scared because of what the dog does, I should immediately assume that there's a reason that the dog does what the dog does. Now there's always that 0.00001% chance that what actually happened was the dog saw a dog and wanted to go visit <laugh>. That is so rare though. I mean, they might look and then they go on. But if it happens, I guarantee you there will be a meeting of the team and we'll have a discussion about the behavior of one of the teammates. But it doesn't happen often because the trust is so deep. The other side of that though is that the truss is so easily damaged.
If, for example, we're walking down the street and somebody's pit bull is allowed to run loose and comes and attacks my dog cuz it thinks that my dog is invading its territory. Or if I go on an airplane and somebody brings what they say as an emotional support dog, which is no longer allowed on an airplane, and I've seen this many times and that dog lunges at my dog or growls at my dog, that's why they're not allowed on airplanes because they're not trained. People don't do that. And the reality is, the difference between my dog and other dogs who are classified as service dogs, including guide dogs and so-called emotional support dogs or emotional support animals, is my dog's trained to provide a service to pre perform a job. And that's why my dog can go on an airplane. And that's why a lot of other people can't take their dog.
And they've lost that because they don't control their dogs, they don't control their animals. If every animal that went on an airplane was truly behaved, behaved the way they should be, nobody would notice. But that's not what happens. So it's all about developing that trust, and that's a mindset. That's one of the things we talk a lot about in the Guide Dog's Guide to Being Brave. So it'll be published in a while and hopefully people will keep an eye for it and we'll let you know when it comes out. But it will help people understand that fear is something that we can use to our advantage. I mean, I was worried and concerned when I went down the stairs with Roselle, but I encouraged her to let her know we're okay. Right. By saying, good girl, good dog. Keep going. What a good dog doesn't mean I wasn't afraid. Yeah. Could I guarantee you I was listening every step of the way waiting for that creek would tell me that the building's collapsing around me. Sure. And there's nothing I could do. But that was the real point. There's nothing I could do. Yeah. So I refused to let it worry me to the point that it took away my decision making capabilities and options.
Marlana:
Yeah. And I should say, when I said No place for fear, what I really meant is no place for panic. So let me ask you this, do you believe yourself to be brave?
Michael:
I never really think about that a lot, I suppose, but I don't think I'm braver than anyone else has to be. I also believe, um, I don't just do things arbitrarily without thinking about them. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I think it's good to be cautious. Um, if, if I know I'm hiking up in a mountain somewhere and I'm using my dog and the dog stops, I'm gonna figure there's something that's keeping that dog from going. And it might not be a step down, it might be a cliff, but I'm going to explore probably if I'm hiking in the mountains, I'll also carry a cane so that I can also make sure that I have the opportunity to look at what's ahead of me and, um, see if there's something that's bigger than a step down. Um, so I think probably a better thing to say is that I understand the value and the need to take risks. Mm-hmm. And I think that all of us should feel comfortable taking some level of risk. I don't mind going to a strange place I've never been before because I'm used to doing that. I know the techniques that I can use to function wherever I go. And so, I can take risks. I don't take stupid risks mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but I'm perfectly willing to take risks and evaluate them in my mind to decide that this is worth doing or not doing.
I won't, for example, go out to Central Park in the middle of the night and walk around the park. I've heard enough stories about why that's probably not a good idea to do. I'll walk around Central Park during the day. I will walk all around New York City. I don't mind going to Harlem or any of those kinds of things because first of all, I don't have any dislike for anybody who lives there. And I think I can engage lots of people and conversations, but I'm also tend not to do some of that too late at night. I will take what I regard as educated risks.
Marlana:
Were you prepared to be thrust into the spotlight after all these events happened?
Michael:
Well, in one sense, I suppose yes, because I've done through church programs and so on, I've talked before to people. I didn't expect the reaction that we got on September 12th. I contacted Guide Dogs for the Blind where Roselle was from out here in California. Karen suggested that I should and I thought it was right to do that, especially since a number of people from Guide Dogs had visited us in the World Trade Center. But I ended up speaking among other things to the public information officer Joanne Ritter and Joanne um, said, can we write a story about you? And, and I said, oh, I guess. And she said, you know, I'll bet somebody will want you on tv. What show do you want to go on first? And I wasn't thinking so I just flippantly said Larry King Live. And on September 14th we had the first of five interviews with Larry King and in fact Larry wrote the Forward for our book Underdog, which is about my story growing up and what happened in the World Trade Center. And he, as I said, wrote the forward for that book. It became a number one New York Times bestseller and it's still available wherever books are made available. Hmm. So it's on Audible and it's available in a variety of languages and it's still very much out there.
Marlana:
So let me ask you a two part question. What did you learn through this whole experience that may have surprised you about yourself? And if nobody else gets anything out of this episode, what would you like them to learn?
Michael:
I suppose what you would say surprised me is that we are more capable than we think we are. And we shouldn't underestimate ourselves because we usually do that way too much. We demean ourselves. We don't think we can do the things that we can do. Oh, my dog could never behave like your guide dog. Yes. Your dog could if you would learn to do proper training. Oh, I could never do the things that you did in the World Trade Center. Yes, you could if you worked at it and you understood how to train yourself to do that. So, for me it wasn't so much a surprise, but a validation, as I said, because I did all those things. It's what I learned about growing up, but never thought that it would culminate in what happened on September 11th. As such, if there's one thing that I believe that people need to learn is don't underestimate yourself.
Don't get arrogant, but don't underestimate yourself. We are all a lot more unstoppable than we think we are. If we use the tools that God gave us, we can do a lot more and accomplish a lot more than we think we can. That's one of the reasons why that I am now operating Unstoppable Mindset podcast where inclusion, diversity in the unexpected meat, it's mainly to show people they can be more unstoppable than they think they can. And so, the idea is we're really better than we think we are. Don't sell ourselves short, don't sell yourself short.
Marlana:
Love that. And with that, Michael, I just have four final questions for you.
Michael:
A, B, C, and d.
Marlana:
Yes Sir. The first one is, what is the best piece of advice you were ever given?
Michael:
Now we get to get my story that I mentioned earlier. My first, well my second job out of college was working for Ksw Computer Products. The company that made the original machine that would read print out loud to blind people. Ray Kurzweil created Omni font Optical Character Recognition. And I was doing human factor studies. Hey, I'm a master's in physics science guy. Right? And so I was doing that for about eight months when I was called into the office of the VP of Marketing and said, we're laying you off. Not cuz you're doing a bad job, but we've hired too many non-revenue producers and we have to let you go unless you'll go into sales. And I knew that, especially with the unemployment rate among employable blind people being around 70% and it hasn't changed much.
Marlana:
Wow.
Michael:
It was hard to find a job. So I excited to go lower my standards as I love to say and go into sales. The first thing I did was to take a Dale Carnegie sales course. And one of the things that I learned in that sales course was a concept that I think everyone should remember and use, turn perceived liabilities into assets. Why is that really important to me? Because about 10 years after taking that course, after I've been running my own company for four years, I decided to go back into the workforce and my wife and I were looking through newspapers and we found a job that looked really interesting and I said, so do I tell them in my cover letter, I'm blind or not? And as wives can do, she said, you're an idiot. And I said, why? She said, what's the most important thing you ever tell your salespeople when you're hiring people today?
Well, she was ahead of me. And finally she said, turn perceive liabilities into assets. So I went off and I wrote my cover letter for the resume and the last two paragraphs of the cover letter went something like this. The most important thing that you need to know about me when considering me for this job is that I'm blind because as a blind person, I've had to sell all my life just to survive. I've had to sell to convince, to let people feel convinced that they could rent me an apartment or sell me a house, that I could do it or go to a grocery store and take my dog in that my dog's gonna be controlled or whatever. Cuz we didn't have all the laws that we have today. So when you're looking to hire somebody, do you wanna hire somebody who just comes in for eight or 10 hours a day, it's a job and they go home and it's over? Or do you wanna hire somebody who truly understands sales for the science and art that it is and sells for 24 hours a day every day as a way of life? Do you know what? I got the job because of that letter, and I was told it was because of that letter. So, turn perceived liabilities into assets and that's what blindness is. It's not a real liability, it's a perceived liability. And for blind people, it's only a liability if you allow it to be.
Marlana:
Share with us one thing on your bucket list.
Michael:
Oh, one of the things I'd love to do, and I haven't really had total opportunity to do it, but I'd love to go up since I think it's gonna be probably not practical to go up and walk on the moon for a while. I'd love to go up in the aircraft that NASA runs. I think NASA runs it that allows us to be weightless for a while. They call it the vomit comet because a lot of people get, get sick when they go up in it. You can deal with that drama means a beautiful thing. I'd love to do that. That's on my bucket list. I now work for a company called AccessiBe, that makes products to help make websites accessible. I've yet to be able to go over to Israel where AccessiBe’s located and spend some time there and I'd like to do that as well.
Marlana:
When the toy companies finally get around to making action figure view, what two accessories will it come with?
Michael:
First of all, it has to come with an instruction manual in braille.
Marlana:
Love that.
Michael:
That's an absolute must. And, I would like it to come with, if it's an action figure, especially if it does various things, with some way for the action figure to talk. So, I know what it's doing. It's like video games. It would be relatively easy for most video games to be made accessible, but we don't do it today because we don't think about it. So, maybe Mario Brothers is something I can play one of these days, but they have to make it accessible and it technologically is simple if people would just do it.
Marlana:
And the last one, how do people find you? If they want to hire you as a speaker, if they wanna read your book, any of those kinds of things?
Michael:
They can always go to michaelhingson.com, and if they go to michaelhingson.com/podcast, they can learn all about Unstoppable Mindset. Although podcast is available wherever people listen to podcasts, they can also learn about me through AccessiBe, www.accessibe.com. And by the way, if anyone goes there, there's a link where you can plug in your website and it will do an audit accessible will do an audit and tell you how accessible your website is. In the US and in a growing number of companies, it's the law to make your website accessible. AccessiBe got formed in Israel because three guys were making websites when in 2017 Israel said all websites need to be accessible. And they created technology that make websites usable to persons with a variety of disabilities. So I'm available at either of those places, probably the quickest is michaelhingson.com and they can go to michaelhingson.com/speaker and I would love to hear from people. Glad to come and speak wherever it is. I've been all over the world and enjoy it. Talking about being brave, going to New Zealand is something that I had never done before until 2003. I was invited to come down and spend three weeks there and had a lot of fun. So, I hope that people will take me up on that and let me come and speak and inspire talking about September 11th, talking about guide dogs, blindness and other things like that. And hopefully we'll have that opportunity.
Marlana:
Thank you so very much for being here, Michael. You are absolutely a delight.
Michael:
Well, thank you. It's my pleasure and its an honor to be here and I really appreciate you.