May 24, 2024

Episode 234 – Unstoppable Bump in the Road Conqueror with Pat Wetzel

Episode 234 – Unstoppable Bump in the Road Conqueror with Pat Wetzel

Bump in the road? Indeed. Meet Pat Wetzel. Pat is a graduate from the University of Pennsylvania and Wharton Business School. She began her professional life working in the finance industry in New York City. We talk about some of that in this episode of Unstoppable Mindset and we even get Pat’s take on today’s economy.   Pat’s life changed dramatically when she was diagnosed with a serious neurological disease myasthenia gravis. She went through a divorce and eventually reassessed her entire life. Talk about being unstoppable, to sum it up, Pat decided to continue living. She is one of the relatively few who was diagnosed but fully survived and moved on from her disease.   Along the way she discovered soaring-flying high in motorless airplanes. Soaring she began to do not only in airplanes, but with the rest of her life.   I think you will be totally inspired by Pat’s story. Four years ago she began the Bump In The Road podcast and just this year she published her first book called, you guessed it, Bump In The Road. Check out Pat Wetzel’s story on our episode this time and I hope you will pick up her book as well as listening to her podcast, after you listen to this one of course.     About the Guest:   Pat Wetzel, a graduate from the University of Pennsylvania and Wharton Business School, embarked on her adult journey in the bustling city of New York. Little did she know that her path would take a dramatic turn, when she was diagnosed with a serious neurological disease myasthenia gravis.  A divorce and the resulting chaos forced her to reimagine her life. A chance encounter with the sport of soaring-flying high tech motorless airplanes cross country-became the portal to unexpected adventure, leading her to soar to new heights, both metaphorically and literally. Her adventures in the air became the back drop for conquering challenges, finding courage and connecting with a greater natural world. Through her experiences, Pat Wetzel has emerged not only as an individual who is wise, but as a podcaster and author with a profound message to share. In "Bump In the Road: 15 Stories of Courage, Hope, and Resilience," she channels her unique perspective, weaving together tales of human strength and triumph. The stories, based on her weekly podcast Bump In The Road, inspire others to navigate life's bumps with hope and to find courage in the face of uncertainty. In this book, Pat's story and the story of her 15 guests is a testament to the unwavering power of the human spirit and a reminder that even amidst the bumps in the road, our potential for growth knows no bounds. ** ** Ways to connect with Pat:   Website: BumpInTheRoad.us Instagram: Instagram.com/BumpInTheRoad.us Twitter: Twitter.com/CancerRoadTrip Facebook: Facebook.com/BumpInTheRD Linked in: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patwetzel/     About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes:

Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, Howdy, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. I am your host, Michael Hinkson. I really am glad that you're here with us today. And today, we're going to chat with Pat Wetzel. Pat is an interesting person by any standard. She is a graduate of University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton School of Business, I'm jealous, but that's okay. She then started out working in New York. And we'll have to have a discussion about best places to buy bagels in New York. But she had a diagnosis that changed her whole life and her whole career. I'm going to leave it to her to talk more about that. And everything that follows. She is also a podcaster. She has a podcast called a bump in the road. And we'll I'm sure talk about that in the course of the day. And she's an author of a book. And guess what the book is entitled bump in the road. Anyway, Pat, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad you're here. Thank you. Nice to be here. So tell me a little bit about the early Pat growing up and all that sort of stuff.   Pat Wetzel ** 02:28 Oh, early Pat. Let's see, I grew up in northern New Jersey in a town called Upper Saddle River. And it was just beautiful countryside as a kid, or as a teenager, of course, you hated it, because the only thing to do was play sports and go to school. But actually, it was really a very idyllic, my family settled deal is spent a lot of time in Europe, which gave me a rather different perspective on the world. From the time I was very young. I knew it was a big world, there were different people and cultures. And I really loved that. And I think that influence the remainder of my life in that I enjoy going into different places. And I think it also gave me a tolerance not just for differences in people and culture, but for a little bit of adventure and risk. Went to school started off in the bond market in New York back in the 80s, which was a very cool time to be in the bond market. But I received a diagnosis of myasthenia gravis, which is a very rare neurologic disease. And it causes weakness in voluntary muscles, which includes your eyes, your mouth, your tongue, the ability to breathe or walk. So it was pretty devastating. It really took my life in a direction I did not anticipate. Not a lot of upside there. But one of the good things that did come out of it was that it gave me a time to pause and get out of the rat race craze, super competitive business world. And I think I look at who I was, which really ended up more from my perspective, was kind of this from as opposed to the eat what you kill side of the spectrum, which is a little bit more market oriented.   Michael Hingson ** 04:14 So well tell me more about that. So what did you do?   Pat Wetzel ** 04:20 Really, it was survival, quite honestly. I was up in New Haven, in New Haven area. I had a thymectomy at Yale, which is where they remove your thymus, they think they're not even sure that it somehow influences the course of your disease. And indeed, there are some precancerous lesions there. So it was a it was a good move the whole way around. Initially, you're on all these drugs and you're having to titrate these drugs. And it's a matter of at first just not knowing if you're going to live about a third of the people die about a third of the people remain seriously disabled, and about a third go on in life and I was luckily in the latter group. Ah,So okay, we'll tired and things, but it's nothing major, and I'm no longer on any medication. But it um, it is quite life changing, to say the least. Yeah, I would, I would think that it would be   Michael Hingson ** 05:14 pulling, removing your thymus and just all of the various things that go along with that it has to be not a very fun thing, do you still go get checkups on any kind of regular basis?   Pat Wetzel ** 05:26 No, interestingly, when I started flying, fast forward a decade or so, when I started flying,I was having full time trading my drugs, and one of the problems is having too much in your system gives you the same symptoms as having too little. So you never know you're ahead or behind. So I decided to start weaning myself off my drugs. I did this without medical supervision, I do not recommend anybody do it, no doctor would have taken the risk. But I decided to do it. And indeed, it worked. I might get a little tired or whatnot, I can manage that. And that was really the end of my interface with the medical establishment for that period of my life. Wow. Well, so. So let's go back. So you started in the bond market in the 1980s. Of course, we had the recession in the 1980s, and all the economic things. So typically, as interest rates, well, so as interest rates go up, does that mean that usually bonds go down or they go up, they go down in terms of value, the thing that was really interesting in the corporate market was that all the previous parameters for risk assessment were no longer viable, because the interest rate environment had changed so drastically. So there were new models being created, the rating rating agencies were just so far behind the curve, they weren't very useful in terms of assessing any risk. And it was a very interesting time in that.If you remember, Michael Milken, he really changed the face of corporate finance, in that he made capital accessible to mid tier companies, they never had access to this type of capital before. So it was a really interesting time period financially, but for the aberrations of these incredibly high interest rates, and for the fact that the access to capital was dramatically changing, for much of corporate America. So fast forward, out of curiosity, just to go off of the, the timeline to today. For the past few years, economists have been talking about how we're going to go through this incredibly high level of inflation and, and it's gonna it's gonna cause unemployment as we raise the interest rates to go up. And the reality is that and I was reading an article by Paul Krugman, this morning from the New York Times, a lot of what people predicted just didn't happen at all. What do you think about all that? I think the economy is proven to be a little more resilient than we thought. But I also think government numbers are pretty useless. Years ago, when the numbers made no sense to me, I found a website called Shadow stats.com, which is by math economist. His numbers made sense. The government has revamped their numbers. So many times there's no continuity in terms of trying to ascertain what's actually going on. I think you are starting to see more layoffs. I think that our economy personally is fairly brittle and fragile. i What's going to be the event that said something's off. But if you look at say, banking, everybody's underwater in their bond portfolio, commercial real estate market is plummeted. There was recently a building in San Francisco that I think assessed for 40 or 50% of its value just five years ago. And it's happening in numerous urban areas. The economy is really slow to react to these large changes. It's been slower than I thought it would be. Look at the housing market, for example, interest rates are at 8%. They weren't 3% A few years ago, that's a 5%. That's a 5% change. Typically, the rule of thumb is you see about a 1% 10% change in valuation for every 1% move in interest rates. Well, that would argue for close to a 50% change in market, the market value of real estate assets, but you're not seeing that in a lot of places. I think that we need to be a little patient. I think there are a few things impacting it. And it varies by locale, of course, the media usually oversimplifies so many things and I think they also tend to miss characterize a lot of things. So we were hearing about all this business of inflation. And people keep being told by a lot of politicians that inflation is really high and all that and the prices are really high. Krugman made an interesting observation this morning and which was just because inflation is going down, up there.   Michael Hingson ** 10:00 It's not something that directly and certainly immediately controls prices. So inflation may be going down, but we are paying more. And just because inflation drops, that doesn't mean that suddenly we're going to pay less for things.   Pat Wetzel ** 10:14 Well, I would argue that that, first of all, go back to the argument that the government numbers for mission are pretty useless. For example, I went into Trader Joe's the other day, and a chicken breast, that rather turkey breast that I bought a year ago ran about $25. It's $50. Now.And I think that the average person going out and having to pay for just the things that we need to I think we would all argue that interest rates have probably been more in the 15% up range. Rather, if price inflation has been 18 Plus, if not more in certain categories. Yeah. And I would also submit that again,   Michael Hingson ** 10:56 the numbers are are all over the place. And that's I'm agreeing with you, I think that we're not really seeing   Pat Wetzel ** 11:02 something yet, that's really consistent that that really tells us what is going on. But I also think that too many people are politicizing it, rather than trying to come up with a real solution. Nobody wants to do that. They want to just blame everyone else for it. Yeah, I agree with that. And you know, it always comes down in my mind, you said, you have to live within your means. It's okay to borrow with it. But you can't get over your head and debt. There's no free lunch here. I think even the Fed is now coming out and saying that the spending out of Washington is absolutely out of control. That's by the heart. It's not political. It's just reality. And I think that I think we need to return to a saner way of living in personally, I think this model of perpetual growth may not be sustainable, you can't grow forever. Right.   Michael Hingson ** 11:59 Not without something else changing in the process, we had a fair amount of credit card debt over a number of years. And my wife, once we moved down here really decided we need to, to not be so much in credit card debt, and literally over about a four or five year period. And she handled all the bills every day was in QuickBooks and quicken and everything else and looking at everything. But you know what, we now don't owe anything on credit cards, except for whatever is due in a given month. And she passed away this past November. And when I decided to do to make sure we don't get in trouble like that, again, was to set every credit card that we have that we use, and we're not even I'm not even using all the ones that we have available. But what I have done is to set them for automatic payment to pay off the entire balance every month. So it really forces me too. And I don't mind doing it at all stay within means and the main thing we do with credit cards, other than going to Costco and buying food every so often is it's all about business. So it's easy, because we have mechanisms to get reimbursed for a lot of the stuff I do for business. So we get to pay everything back and I agree with you, we need to live within our means. For a while we had some challenges and weren't able to do that. That's been a number of years. And so now we will I just make sure that we don't accrue any credit card debt because it's got to be paid off every month.   Pat Wetzel ** 13:38 And with you there isn't any material thing I have to have. I just don't need it.   Michael Hingson ** 13:45 If there's something I need to have that I've got to save for it. I have wanted a Sonos subwoofer to get bass on my audio system for years, and the son of subwoofers like 800 bucks. That's a fair amount of money. Yeah, but it does sound good, but I wanted it. But I wasn't going to spend the money for it. Until it suddenly I realized that for my business credit card. I accrue points, and I had like almost 1000 points. And so what it really meant was that the subwoofer, because I just suddenly one day on a whim, decided to look in the catalog of of items sold through this point system, and they had the Sonos subwoofer, and it was like 800 points. So I got my subwoofer and it didn't cost anything, which is great. Hey, that's wonderful. And I needed to use some of those points for something. And now they're they're growing again and probably what I'll do is wait and save up for an iPhone. Because for me like with iPhones, I don't need to have the latest and greatest one. And the reality is that the current iPhone On the iPhone 15 is good and has made some significant advances. But the thing that they publicize the most, of course, is the camera, which I don't really care as much about. So I'll probably wait for the 16 before I go off and make a purchase, no one has given me yet compelling reasons why, for my iPhone experience, it would be great to upgrade to the 15 from the 13. Somebody might come along and convince me and if that happens, great, but, you know, I do think we need to live within our means and being very conscious about it. It is certainly something I want to continue. And I and I know that for some people, it's hard, because they don't have the income. But we do have a lot of open jobs. And I wish we could figure out a way to convince people that maybe we need to take different jobs, and maybe we want to take but we can learn and we can at least earn an income. I think with any job you can always learn. And I think that learning is invaluable. Because you've learned something, you take that knowledge board with you, wherever you go, nobody can ever take it from you. Yeah. Well, so you went through challenges and that obviously had to help shape your, your view of things. So what happened after myasthenia gravis, and so on? And what did you What did you do to move forward? Well, I went through a very difficult and it was an interesting period of time, I call it my life wish death wish period.   Pat Wetzel ** 16:31 Obviously, I wanted to live, but I have lost everything that ever mattered to me. My in laws, who I loved dearly, my ex husband, who I loved, everybody was just on. And I really just didn't care about what happened. And the thing that's interesting about that, is I became somewhat fearless. And I started learning to fly sail planes. And I eventually ended up buying a high performance sail plane, which of course, I didn't know how to fly, I would have to figure that out since it was a single seat plane. But it was a very interesting period in my life. And I think that experience of being fairly fearless is something I want to take forward with me. So you went through a divorce and all that was because of the myasthenia gravis or other kinds of forces? You know, I'm not going to speak for my ex.   17:27 Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 17:29 It's, it's unfortunate, you know, things, things change. And sometimes we just aren't willing to change with it. But I don't know what what happened in your case. I know, for Karen and me, we live together, we were married for 40 years, she's always been in a wheelchair. And I've always been blind, we have undergone changes in our lives, a lot of economic challenges, job issues for a while. And of course, for me as a as a blind person, in fact, for her, but probably more for me.The difficulty in applying for a job is that so many people say well, you're blind, you can't do the job. And the prejudice is run really deep. And so for a while, the job I had was actually I ran my own company. And all of my employees were paid before I was paid. And so for actually three years, we mostly lived on credit cards. And that's all we could do. Because we had employees that we had to pay. And eventually, we did okay. And we sold the company and I went to work for other companies. And we came out of that. And again, eventually we were really able to pay off bills, but it really tests you. And it's a question of how much you're committed to staying with someone just because change has happened. And I think both Karen and I, at various times, had changes in our lives. But we made a strong commitment to stay with each other. And we did. So Karen got sick and 2014 we moved down here, which we never thought we were going to do. And she almost died. She was in the 40% that didn't pass away from double pneumonia with a 90% occlusion of her lungs. And she survived that. But still it it had a great toll on on both of us. But you make the decision to go forward. And she and I did. We talked about it a lot. And we we came through it. And it's all you can do. Well, I'm clapping for you. I think that's a difficult thing to do. And I think that it's the harder path but probably the path where you learn an awful lot. Well it is. I think you you learn a lot more if you are willing to do it and you go back to basic things. We made a commitment in November of 1982 to live with each other and stay married and in sickness and in health and and in money and not all that wasn't really part of the Vows but it was still there. And so we did. But you know, I can appreciate that there are always challenges that come up. And sometimes you have to deal with things. And in your case you you did lose a lot. But you've obviously worked and gone in other directions, right?   Pat Wetzel ** 20:16 Yeah, very interestingly, originally, way back when everybody thought I would write, and I'd love to read, I love to write. But I took the more practical path. Now, fast forward several decades, and I'm doing what I originally really wanted to do. You know, with a podcast, I'd have interesting, meaningful conversations every week. It's fabulous. And I'm working on my second book now bump in the road strong women. And it's, it's wonderful. It's a lot of work sometimes, but I really welcome it. And do you can always write another book called a bumpy road. But that's another story. There are no bumps in any one.   Michael Hingson ** 21:01 We need others. We could always talk about the pothole in the road. Just another thought, the pothole in the road instead of the bump in the road.   Pat Wetzel ** 21:12 Might zoom background, I have this curving road. And somebody said that I the curving road and the twists and turns just as not sufficient that I should actually blow the bridge up. Because that would give a much better sense of what is really like, well, you could have an automated background so every so often, it blows up.   Michael Hingson ** 21:34 That reminds me of the old original Addams Family, remember when Gomez Addams would always run the trains and would blow  all up? And so just saying that's another thought. Have an automated background and blow up the bridge every so often. I'll work on that. Yeah, there's something to consider. But you so so you have your own business now or what? Well, the the podcasts the book and I'm starting to do public speaking. Okay. And so does the podcast generate income for you, you must have a way of doing an income or have you done some of those suspicious bank robberies we don't know anything about.   Pat Wetzel ** 22:15 I bet they talk about my suspicious bank robberies, if you don't mind. But I'm the podcast is about breaks even. And obviously, the books in new revenue stream,   Michael Hingson ** 22:29 say that podcasting and writing books for most people is not a huge income stream, at least not individually. Right. How long have you been doing the podcast now? I'm going on my fourth year. Wow. That's pretty exciting. And yeah, I snuck out what's the average? What's the average failure rate or time to failure? For POCs? I think three or four months? Yeah, I think so. We're now two and a half. Well, almost two and a half years into unstoppable mindset. And we actually went from one episode a week to two episodes a week last year, because we were getting so much attention. And people said we want to be on the podcast. So we actually now do two episodes a day a week. And literally today this will tell people about when we're recording, we just upped uploaded and published episode 177. So we're having a lot of fun with it. And people are very kind and we have been getting great reviews and people say nice things. So I guess I can't complain too much.   Pat Wetzel ** 23:34 No, I think podcasting is just fabulous. I really do. I am so grateful for the people I meet, I meet the most interesting people. And because we're talking about their bumps in the road, we have meaningful conversations. And that means a great deal to me. Yeah, well, and with unstoppable mindset, as you know, I asked people to tell me what they want to talk about. And that's what we talk about, which is perfectly sensible. Because you don't want you want to talk about and can talk about a whole heck of a lot more than I do. And I think it's important to have conversations and not just do an interview. So this is a lot of fun to do. And, you know, having been on bump in the road, it's a lot of fun to thanks, I I'm very thankful for bump, it really came out of a bump in the road. And it has been, I think one of the most interesting paths I have taken in my life.   Michael Hingson ** 24:31 So why did you do it? What what really prompted you to start doing the podcast?   Pat Wetzel ** 24:37 I had lined up about a million dollars for a project I was working on called cancer road trip, where every quarter we would give seven people who've been impacted by cancer and amazing bucket list trip. The first trip was Tanzania. So we were looking at you know, Kilimanjaro, the metaphor of a mountain Safari and the metaphor of survival, Tanzania and the spice of life. that type of thing to tell stories against these iconic backups, but COVID hit. So everything shut down everything. Two years, and all the money I put into it were gone. So after being fairly depressed for about two weeks, I needed to do something, yeah, you can only eat so many potato chips, you know. So I decided I need to do something, and if nothing else, just to keep my social media audience that I had developed in place. So I decided to do a podcast, and the idea of a bump in the road came to me. And I didn't know if it would work. I didn't know if I could get anybody. I had no idea what would happen. I knew nothing about podcasting. But I dove in. And here I am, you know, three plus years later going into my fourth year. You do in addition to this, and the fact that you wrote a book and you're writing a new book, do you do any kind of coaching or consulting? Or do you strictly do the podcast and the book, right now I'm working on keynote, a keynote speech, speech, that can be adapted for a variety of environments, I really want to if I prepare enough, I actually enjoy public speaking. And I'm looking forward to combining some fun travel and some speaking over the next year and a half or so. Yeah, home speaking is starting to pick up again, since Karen passed, I now have the time to do it again as well. And now I don't have to worry about leaving her up. So I've started to work on trying to find more speaking engagements and to be able to inspire people. And the reality is there's a lot that we can inspire people about and we can certainly set a tone and a trend. So I look forward to to doing more public speaking again, and we're working on it, it's coming up.   Michael Hingson ** 26:54 I actually had an email correspondence with someone yesterday about possibly speaking at an event for them next year, and it was not a person I knew. But I wrote a letter. And it turns out that she read it almost immediately. And she wrote back and I was was humorous in the letter to a degree because apparently she was in a building for a while that burned down. And I said, a building that your building burned down. What a way to force people to work remotely rather than being in the office. Pretty clever way to do it. And she wrote back actually saw it this morning, she said, your letter came right at the right time. It was a down day yesterday, and you really brighten my day. But you know, I think that that's kind of the part of me. I love humor. Not in a negative way. But I love humor. And I love to try to get people to smile and laugh. Every time I go through a TSA kiosk and meet the TSA people. They always say, Where's your I need your boarding pass and your ID and I'll give him the boarding pass. I say but I need your ID and I said what did you do lose yours? You know, things like that. And they say, Oh, they have they have? Or during COVID When it was at a time when I would be wearing a mask? And I still do. But I would also say What do you mean, you want my ID? I'm wearing a mask? How are you going to be able to tell who I am? Oh, we're going to ask you to take your mask off. And I said, Well, I'm still just going to look like this piece of paper. What does that do for you? Yeah, but it's it's all about making them laugh. And I think it's important. Humor, in a good way has to be part of what we do. Because like with those people, it's such a thankless job, you know? Well, I think humor is important a lot. It gives you a little perspective. And life is short, enjoy it, enjoy the ride. And I think part of enjoying it is having a sense of humor. Otherwise, how do you survive? Yeah, it's important to be able to laugh at things and laugh at yourself, and help other people laugh because it is so hard to do. And we live in such a serious world. Today, with so many things going on. We need to find ways to lighten up and smile. So you know, I think it is really important. Can you tell us anything about what your keynote is, is looking like it will be about   Pat Wetzel ** 29:23 your strong women. My next book is a bump in the road strong women. I've interviewed some amazing women. And that's what I'm going to focus on.   29:33 Well,   Pat Wetzel ** 29:35 I'm really looking forward to it. Do you have a publisher? Or are you self publishing? Or how are you doing the books, self published and I've looked at the publishing options. So the reality is to get a top notch publisher, you have to be famous, essentially, I have about 80,000 people on my social media following and frankly, that doesn't even turn anybody's head anymore. If you go the hybrid route I interviewed and now   Pat Wetzel ** 29:59 number of well known publishers for the hybrid route. And reality is I'm doing more than they would do to market my books right now.   Michael Hingson ** 30:11 So I don't think that they bring a lot of value to the equation. So for the moment, I think self publishing looks like a way for me to go, Well, yeah, publishing in general, doesn't do the marketing in the stuff that it used to do. And they do want you to be a major contributor to the marketing effort if they publish your book at all. And I think it's possible to get books published, and there's value in using a publisher, if you can get them to read your book.   Michael Hingson ** 30:41 But at the same time, not everyone can do that, or wants to put that time into the marketing effort, which, which is part of the challenge. I think there are a lot of great books out there. My belief is everyone has a story to tell. And I wish more people would tell their stories, which is why we have unstoppable mindset. And you have   Pat Wetzel ** 31:00 likewise bump in the road? Absolutely. I, I think people's stories are amazing. I think we can learn so much each other. And it can really expedite our own learning curves, if we will just stop and really listen and feel. Because when you feel that wisdom seeps into you, it permeates you in a way that just a superficial story won't. Will Tell me a little bit more about bump in the road, when when did you publish it? And what's it about? Published in us just a September, so it's fairly new, we did hit Amazon Best Selling status, which was great. But I a bump in the road really came about because after about a little over a year, maybe years of doing the podcast, I was so moved, and so taken by the stories of my guests, that this wisdom just had a share. And I had a fairly unique perspective on all these stories. Because I have a 30,000 foot view, I hear everybody's story. And across all these stories, I see all these common elements that permeate them. And I thought, there's just so much to learn here from all these people. So that was the the orig origin of bump in the road, the initial book was twice as long as it is now. I had to cut it down. I probably have material for about 10 books, I just have to find the time to write them at this point. Yeah, well, you know, it's only so much one could do in a day, or you just have to work faster.   Pat Wetzel ** 32:32 Well, actually, you were talking about doing publishing twice a week in your podcast. But podcast is bumped through the spring of 2024 At this point, and I'm beginning to feel as though that's rude. I don't want people to wait because their stories are great. And I've been thinking that maybe what I need to do is, if possible, work harder to open up some time actually to write more.   32:54 Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 32:56 it is. It's valuable. We we wrote thunder dog and Susie flora and I did thunder dog. And it was published in 2011. And we were very blessed that Thomas Nelson publishing, took it on. They're the largest   Michael Hingson ** 33:11 Christian publisher in the world. Now they're part of HarperCollins.   Michael Hingson ** 33:15 And that has been a great relationship that has now gone on for 12 years. And I can't complain very much about any of that. They've been very supportive, and it continues to go well. Then we did self published running with Roselle. That was the second book. And that was more for kids, talking about what it's like to be a blind child growing up and a guide dog growing up, and then we meet and we ended up in the World Trade Center. But it wasn't nearly as much about the World Trade Center. But I've experienced both. We're writing a new book about learning to control fear. And we do have a publisher for that. And I expect we'll get some good things out of that. So it's it's pretty cool.   Pat Wetzel ** 33:58 That's interesting learning to control fear. What are some of the key factors in that?   Michael Hingson ** 34:05 I think the biggest thing is that we need to recognize that most of what we're afraid of is stuff that we can't control. And we just talk ourselves into a being afraid. And we've never learned how to stop fearing things. unexpected things happen are happening in our lives. And yes, there are physiological things that occur. But at the same time, what what we can do   Michael Hingson ** 34:29 is learn that fear is a very powerful tool. So I learned all that I could about what to do in the World Trade Center and how to function in the World Trade Center, what the emergency evacuation procedures were, and so on. And the result of all that was when an emergency actually did happen. I knew what to do. And I knew and I didn't even think about the fact that I was creating a mindset for that. As I was studying everything I could have   Michael Hingson ** 34:59 At the World Trade Center where things were, I love to tell people you could drug me in the World Trade Center and take me anywhere and drop me off. And when I woke up, I would know where I was within like about five seconds, because I knew the complex, I didn't need to read signs. And I think that's something that everyone needs to do is I create ppreciate eyesight, I value it.   Michael Hingson ** 35:21 But I also think that we spend too much time relying just on eyesight, and not our other senses. And the fact of the matter is that fear is something that often comes up because we think that things are unknown, that don't need to be unknown. So we don't really look at why we're afraid of things, we don't tend to be introspective, we don't tend to analyze. And those are all things that we should do, and learn, most important of all, only to worry about the things that we really can control and not worry about the rest, because it's not going to do us any good. That's true. I don't What do you think? How do you feel after you've moved through fear? What do you think some of the lessons are from overcoming fear? Well, I think of course, it depends on exactly what the situation is. But I think the important thing is that when you're afraid of something, or something happens, that causes you to be afraid, there will come a time when you're going to as you just pointed out, move through the fear, right? And what you need to do is to then stop and take the time, even if it's before you go to sleep at night, but take the time to look at why was I afraid? What was really going on? Did I really need to be afraid of this? And yes, there are certainly times where that is an issue when something happens that is is what would would cause a fear reaction. But most of the time, the things that we're afraid are going to happen, never do. But we tend to build up this fear. And we never then go back and look at why was I really afraid of that what what really is the motivator that I need to look at and re address so that I'm not afraid of that in the future. So I think it is an issue that, you know, that we do need to look at. But we we also have grown up so much not learning about how to deal with fear. And we live in a society today where people are learning not to trust each other or anyone. And that's why it's our third book is being called Live like a guide dog. Dogs love unconditionally. But dogs do not trust unconditionally. But the difference between dogs and people are, is that dogs are unless something really horrible has happened to them. Dogs are open to trust. And we should find better ways to be open to trust. If somebody doesn't earn our trust, that's fine, then you don't deal with that. But we we are even open to dealing with trust, and the possibility that we can trust someone because we figure everybody has their own agendas. I think trust is really important. My favorite trust story actually comes from Mary Neal, who's in my book. She's an orthopedic surgeon, she ran the Spine Center at USC. And she and her husband were kayaking and Chile, as she went over a waterfall was well within her ability range, but she got trapped underneath it and she died. Her story is this is a near death experience story.   Pat Wetzel ** 38:27 Once she finally made it back to Jackson Hole through a remarkable series of coincidences, she was very badly hurt, she had to heal. And she's studying or trying to convince herself that her near death experience did not happen. Because she was a linear tangible scientist, who could if you see measure it, surely it doesn't exist. And at the end of that, she realized that her spiritual experience was indeed very real. And she as she says, and I just love this, she moved from hope to trust.   Pat Wetzel ** 39:01 What an incredible paradigm shift in how you view the world, and how you view your spirituality.   Michael Hingson ** 39:09 Yeah. And, and it makes perfect sense that the problem with science, to some degree, is as you said, if you can't measure it, it can't be so even though now we've learned to measure or observe things that we never did before. And we've learned that maybe things aren't quite as we think. But But science also tends to,   Michael Hingson ** 39:36 as you said, be very linear and linear. And the reality is the world isn't linear. Now, I think the world is has many mysteries to show us yet. Yeah. And that's what makes it fun. I've always loved the internet, because the internet is such a treasure trove of information. And it's fun to just go exploring and learning about different things in the internet and for me how   Michael Hingson ** 39:59 Be not seen my entire life,   Michael Hingson ** 40:03 I find the internet a really fun place to go and experience a lot of things that I never otherwise probably would have been able to experience. It is an alternative that makes data available to me.   Pat Wetzel ** 40:17 I agree as it was interesting, I was having a conversation earlier with somebody who asked me how I found the guests for my podcast. And I'm very fortunate now that people contact me all the time. And I don't have to look as I did. But I really enjoy the process of looking for guests. Because it takes me off on these explorations, I would never think of   Pat Wetzel ** 40:41 people whose paths otherwise I would never crossed. And it can just be from going down a rabbit hole on the internet, you run an interesting person, and they're just somebody you have to meet. I find the web just fascinating in that regard. Yeah, well, and I have found that with LinkedIn, and the Internet and and other things as well. And it's so fun when you get to meet somebody whose experiences are different than you. I tell people all the time, as far as I'm concerned, if I'm not learning as much, from my guess, as anyone else, that I'm not doing my job? Well, I think meeting people is a learning experience. And I think part of the key to learning is learning to listen, I've been on a little bit of a rant about this lately, on my side trips, which are super short podcasts under five minutes.   Pat Wetzel ** 41:32 I, I one of the things I would love to convey to people is learn to tell a good story.   Pat Wetzel ** 41:40 Telling a story is making it experiential. I mean, if you go on a trip, don't bore me with a litany of I do this, I did that I saw this, I saw that I did like this. Instead, tell me about an experience. Tell me about a fabulous meal, an incredible location. Tell me something experiential. You know, the best salespeople in the world are people who tell stories, and who get you to relate to their product and what they want to talk with you about by telling stories. Now, it still may be that what they have, isn't going to do the best for you. And they should be honest about that as well. But good salespeople tell stories, and that always enhances what they do, and what you learn from it. I think stories are incredibly powerful. And our personal stories are powerful, they're inspiring. I think that they are so full of wisdom, that it it puts all of us to stop and listen to each other because we just might learn something. And we might just find some real empathy for other people's.   Michael Hingson ** 42:50 The other thing that I would say is and you're talking about creating a keynote address, put stories in it. I'm sure that's not magic to you. But I think that it's important for people to relate to you. And they'll do that best with stories. I have always believed that I don't talk to an audience. When I go speak, I talk with an audience. And I look to see how they react to different things that I say. And I've learned how things that I talk about when I'm talking about them, affect people. And I've learned how much of relationship and rapport I've been able to establish with audiences by how they react to different things that I say it takes a breath or whatever. And I think that that's so important. I heard a speech once by someone who was talking about one subject relating to September 11. And they just went down this list of people. And they talked for 20 minutes, but there was no story. It was one of the one of the most boring things that I've ever heard.   Michael Hingson ** 44:01 And I've heard some people I've attended some speeches, where people are talking about financial things, people in the financial industry, and how boring they are because they're just reciting facts and figures. And don't do anything to relate to the average audience. I think that's very true. I was listening to somebody talk about a financial book they wrote recently. Oh my god, I just had to get the combination. It was so boring. I just   Pat Wetzel ** 44:30 and there were no stories just as you're saying.   Michael Hingson ** 44:34 So   Michael Hingson ** 44:36 what's the the format or what is what is the book bump in the road?   Pat Wetzel ** 44:41 The format are it's 15 stories about remarkable people. And each of those people represent a theme there some some of the themes would certainly be courage. Hers take a different path.   Pat Wetzel ** 44:56 Oh, they're just a travel is a theme in it   44:59 today   Pat Wetzel ** 45:00 is a big theme. I think authenticity actually is a theme that shows up in each and every story. I think each person after hitting a bump in the road, really pause to search for what is the right path forward for them. And each person finds a unique way to do that. Authenticity is a really interesting thing. And you have said that quieting your mind is a very important thing to deal with. When you're addressing personal authenticity. Why is that? I think learning to quiet your mind is first a totally learnable skill, found the most profound skills you can ever learn, and you need it in your arsenal. Because until you can learn to quiet your mind, still in peace internally, you can't learn to listen or observe your thoughts. Otherwise, your your mind just runs and runs and runs. And often the thoughts that occur to you may really be thoughts that are planted by you know, your societal surroundings, your parents, your employer, the expectations of life around you. But when you can learn to be still you can learn to observe your, your thoughts, and when ability comes awareness. Now you can consciously choose your thoughts. And that awareness is astonishing, it really gives you choice, at least a reflection. Personally, I'm a big fan of meditation to achieve that. And an hour of meditation is that it's experiential. That's where it really changes your life. And that's where learning occurs. There's joy and magic in endless silence, and there's profound peace. And once you experience that peace, it's not a no, it's not an intellectual thing. It's a heartfelt knowing that there is this piece that is always there, and always accessible. And you bring that all of a sudden into your everyday life, you know, road rage, who needs it, who cares, you have peace with you. It's really life changing. And there's so many different ways to meditate. You can use sound, it might be in sport, it could be in walking, it could be in gardening, it can be in sitting, I really fan, I really urge everybody to explore how meditation might be been might be beneficial for your life. And there, you've answered the question about controlling fear to a very large degree. If you stop and listen to yourself, and really are willing to take that step back, you'll learn so much that you'll never learn any other way. I've been a very great fan the last few months of saying Not that I'm my own worst critic when I think about things, but I'm my own best teacher. Because really, I'm the only one who can teach me other people can offer information. But I'm the only one that can really teach it to me. And I much prefer the positivity of I'm my own best teacher. And if people would really take the time to silence and step back, and listen. It's amazing how much you'll learn.   Pat Wetzel ** 48:04 And I think ultimately, the this road trip called Life is ideally a trip towards ever greater authenticity. And that demands that you stop and listen and make conscious choices about how you react, how you see things, and then ultimately be open to a broader world, and open to new experiences that can also help change and mold you.   Michael Hingson ** 48:29 Who are some of your favorite guests from a bump in the road.   Pat Wetzel ** 48:35 Every single one of them, I really can't pick a favorite.   Pat Wetzel ** 48:39 One that I thought was really very powerful was Effie Parks's story. She's a mom, and she was pregnant and happy and excited for the perfect child who's going to grow up and be a star and be an astronaut and whatnot. And our child was born with some very nice genetic defects. It was a tremendously isolating experience for her because as her friend's children grew, her her son, person the same way, and she had a 24/7 responsibility with a very disabled child. And her story really changed when she just found love in her situation. And finding that love just changed everything about her outlook and her perspective. And I love that story. Because I think it's a story for all of us. And I think it's a very profound story about how our perspective really shapes the way we view the world and how we have choice in how we view the world. So   Michael Hingson ** 49:41 in thinking about that, she found meaning in what she was doing, why is it really important to find the meaning of life for you? I think everybody needs to have meaning. Otherwise, what is the point   Pat Wetzel ** 49:55 are really just floating through through life and then we die. I think that   Pat Wetzel ** 50:00 You need meaning to motivate you, to help you get up every morning to rest, to learn to achieve capabilities in different areas, I think meaning is one of the critical pieces of a well lived life, though a bump in the road is all about a bump in the road of life.   Michael Hingson ** 50:21 And how do you navigate? What are some of the keys to navigating bumps in the road? Now? That's a great question.   Pat Wetzel ** 50:30 I think one of the themes, there are numerous themes. Certainly one is courage, we talked about fear earlier, be willing to face your fear and move through it. I think authenticity is a very an identity are very strong themes. I think these people had to look at their lives, strip away the pieces of them that no longer worked, and find a new person underneath it, find their most authentic person, and move forward with that. And generally, they were committed to really continuing that type of internal dialogue and practice as life went on.   Pat Wetzel ** 51:08 I think that one of the reasons I am fascinated by the idea of a bump in the road is What does teach us to navigate this, we all have to figure it out for ourselves. And that's a little crazy, there really are certain things that we can do, such as having courage, such as being willing to strip away these false identities that we all have, as a result of just moving through this side.   Pat Wetzel ** 51:32 I think that as we listen to each other stories, we can just learn so much, so much about these bumps. And I think it all comes down to willing to be open to change. A lot of people don't really change, they like the status quo, they like the comfort of being in their comfort zone. But the reality is the magic outside your comfort zone that the magic is. And the magic is in the present moment. Because in that moment, you can make a change. And you can then sculpt that the next moment, and the next. And that means getting out of your mind, getting into your heart getting into the present. And I think that's a lesson about how to blow these bumps. And the reality is, so what does that really do? It widens your comfort zone, and you learn to be more comfortable than you were before with a with a broader perspective, which makes perfect sense.   Pat Wetzel ** 52:29 And I think, as you bought in your comfort zone, and as you go through that type of activity again and again, you become more and more open to this amazing world we live in.   Michael Hingson ** 52:40 And it really is an amazing world. It's an incredible place where there is so much that we get to explore and so much that we get to do.   Michael Hingson ** 52:50 I, I get very frustrated so often because people are so I'm curious.   Michael Hingson ** 52:58 After September 11, I thought this was an amazing story. One of the things that I did the next month was I went to British Columbia to speak to a guided group. And they arranged for me to do some different interviews on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, television. And I was on one show, but before the show, I was in the green room with several people, including somebody from a major Think Tank, who was a past Prime Minister of Canada.   Michael Hingson ** 53:28 And this was just after we, in the United States invaded Afghanistan. And so I asked this person, what do you think of George W. Bush? And they paused for a second and then said,   Michael Hingson ** 53:45 the real thing about him is he's the most uncurious person that I've ever met and ever knew. He relies on everyone and doesn't ever really explore for himself. I never expected that kind of an answer, but I can appreciate it. And it's so true for so many of us. We just don't explore for ourselves. We just take what people tell us and then we go on. I think that's very true. And I think cultivating curiosity should be high on everyone's list. Because it opens opens doors you would never expect. Oh, absolutely.   Michael Hingson ** 54:23 I remember my father when we lived in Chicago was a TV repairman. He and my uncle owned a shop. And he said to me a few times when I was there and they were working on TVs he said no, don't stick your hands inside the TV because you'll get a shock. And I don't think I ever deliberately did it. But I got close enough a couple of times that I did get a shock.   Michael Hingson ** 54:45 I only used one hand   Michael Hingson ** 54:48 and and he said you know what did I tell you? And I said Well, I I didn't say anything I said yeah. He said let me unplug it and then you can look inside and he unplugged it and made sure things were discharged. I got to look   Michael Hingson ** 55:00 inside of a television, which back in those days was all about vacuum tubes and other things. So as before, as they say TV went dark, and it was all transistors, but he encouraged curiosity. And I think that that's so important that we all need to encourage curiosity. And also, I realize it's gotta be a real tough world for kids right now. And parents need to recognize you can't helicopter your kids, you can't shelter your kids, you can watch. But you got to let kids grow up. I read an article a couple of weeks ago, that was talking about what's the most important thing that we can do for children today? And the answer basically, was let kids explore, it doesn't mean that you don't monitor them. But we have to find ways to let children explore and learn more about the world. And I understand there's a lot of terrifying things out there. But if we don't let children explore, they're never going to learn. And this article pointed out that all they do is they grew up being afraid.   Pat Wetzel ** 56:00 You know, I think that's true, we're probably close to the same age. And when we were growing up, nobody wore helmets, we rolled in the dirt. You know, we just didn't have this fear, that seems to be bred into a lot of young people today. And I would wish for anybody who's young, to please pursue whatever interests you. And you have so much at your disposal, at this disposable. Everything on the web, my gosh, you can learn almost any these days, it's it's just remarkable. And you as a young person, your mind is so agile and open, quit, pursue whatever it is that spins your wheels. I do think that in reality, things like wearing a helmet that you mentioned, and other things are important. Because if you are in an accident, and they will help protect you, but you shouldn't do it out of fear. You should do it because we've learned how to advance and use tools and technology to help us be better and stay safer. It. It shouldn't be done out of fear, though. And that's the problem.   Pat Wetzel ** 57:12 Oh, I agree with but I'll also throw in one other thing. There's nothing like the wind moving through your hair. Yep. As your race down a hill. It's fun. It's exhilarating. It connects you to the world around you. So I think that there's a place for safety. And I think there's a place for risks. Oh, absolutely. No question about that. But But I think that one, they're not mutually exclusive. And one doesn't preclude the other and you just need to, to be wise about what you do. Tell me a little bit more about you and sail planning. That is a lot of fun.   Pat Wetzel ** 57:51 I kind of stumbled into it. To tell you the truth. I never expected to fly. But I was on a cross country trip. And I stopped at the Calistoga This was back Oh around 89 or so. And back then we'll country was still. It wasn't as polished as it is now. And Cal Stoeger was kind of a dumpy little town at the north end Valley. And I noticed that there was a runway and airport runway that intersected the Main Street. And I thought this is so strange. And so I went over to check it out. They had glider rides. So I took the ride in really well me that it was okay, but didn't allow me. Went back got back. And I heard about some lawyers of poor flying South Plains on weekends. And I invited myself out for a three day weekend. And I was hooked. And that was just the beginning of the end. I went on to move to another club. That was very competitive. Everybody had these beautiful high tech planes. I got it a plane. And I learned to I really learned to soar. It's a metaphor, and it's a sport. How far have you sort? That is? What's the longest flight you've been able to take? Oh, gosh, I'll say about 500 kilometers. Wow. And what do you do with the end of it? Do you? Do you turn around or do somebody come pick you up? Or what hope you land at the same airport? Oh, all right. So you go in a circle, you're not going in a straight line? Well, you can somebody a lot of people do straight out flights. I mean, there's it's it becomes a sport after a point where you're going for time you're going for distance you might go for altitude.   Pat Wetzel ** 59:35 And the other challenges in them I think in general with cross country soaring. Part of the challenge and the risk is getting back to your home airport. Because if you land out when I was flying, I started playing in the 90s before cellphones. So when you landed out, you didn't have GPS, you didn't know exactly where you were. You didn't have a phone. You had to make sure your plane was you know   Pat Wetzel ** 1:00:00 saved, then you had a hike out, find a phone somewhere. Hopefully they knew where you were, call back to the airport hope somebody picked up the phone and hope that some people would come and get you and help disassemble the plane and get it out of what field he lived in.   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:19 Landed in. So it was really been an adventure on a number of levels. I remember when I was growing up in Palmdale, my father worked at Edwards Air Force Base, we went to the air shows every year. And I don't know what it was one year, there were a large number of gliders that were participating in the airshow. And this one pilot got in his plane. And he fluid not up in the air. But literally, he was able to just get it up on his wheels are on one wheel. And he flew the plane on the ground just in one position, but it didn't tip over. And he did it for like about a half hour, which was kind of fascinating. Wow, that is interesting. No, I think   Pat Wetzel ** 1:01:04 I think soaring is just an amazing sport on so many levels. And I think it's most amazing, because you're glitched to be able to do this, you work hard to get the skills. I mean, they're not given they don't come overnight. But the idea of wearing down a mountain lion or being up at over 30,000 feet. And just having this incredible view of the Earth from above. In a craft that is Island. Barron Hilton once wrote, Barron Hilton, founded Hilton Hotels and had a ranch in Nevada. And he sponsored an international soaring competition every year. And he has a book where he wrote, There was a foreword in the book by Baron Hill. The book is called silence in the wind. And he noted that a sail plane was a craft fueled only by the mind of the pilot.   Pat Wetzel ** 1:01:56 I can see why. And I think that's a great metaphor again for life. The decisions you make the peace, you find your work with the invisible energy around. And that's how you got your life. Now, do you still sore? No, I still be playing a number of years ago, I think I risk parameters were changing, hanging out 100 miles from the middle of nowhere, hoping somebody would come get you was getting old.   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:22 You just needed to turn around sooner. There you go.   1:02:28 Well,   Pat Wetzel ** 1:02:30 another question about bumps in the road, the book, you have an online companion to it. Tell me about that. Yeah. I, I wanted it to be a multimedia experience and allow people to delve deeper into the stories, I have some very edited excerpts from some of the key parts of the cast each of my guests, but you can listen to the full podcast, which is in some cases only available as a subscriber. It's free for everybody buys the book, there's video, there are pictures so you can get a more comprehensive view of the guest. And I also have a workbook, because I think that the wisdom in all these stories is something we can explore within ourselves. And I give people some prompts and some ideas for how to take this wisdom and how to take these stories and apply them to their own lives for their own benefit. Is there an audio version of bump in the road?   Pat Wetzel ** 1:03:25 The audio version is actually being recorded right now as we speak. And I think it should be available in two or three weeks. Oh, good, because then I can buy the book and get the full subscription to the podcast. Absolutely. That's super. Where can people get bumps in the road? Amazon, of course.   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:45 Makes sense. Well, that's, that is really cool. Well, I really am grateful that you came on and spend some time with us today, talking about all of the things that we got to talk about. If people want to reach out to you. How do they do that?   Pat Wetzel ** 1:04:00 They're the website bump in the road.us. The mail is talk t a l k @thebumpintheroad.us. There's a ton of information on the website interviews, audio visual components, it's a great website quite honestly, please come and explore it.   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:19 Well, I hope people will.   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:22 You are fascinating. You've got a lot of good stories and you've offered a lot of really great information and wisdom that I think we should all take advantage of and I really value and appreciate you being here and if you hadn't sold your plane I would save that someday I'll be back there  we could go soaring. I've never done it. We'd love to but we'll figure something   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:43 that sounds good. But thank you for for being here. I want to thank you for listening we value your thoughts so as always, please feel free to send me an email at Michaelhi at accessibe.com That's m i c h a e I h i at accessibe A c c e s s i b e.com, or go visit our podcast page, www dot Michael hingson.com/podcast. So that's www.michaelhingson.com/podcast. And we would love to get your thoughts. Wherever you're listening, please give us a five star rating we value your readings. But most important of all, we really value hearing from you we value your your thoughts, and input. And if you know of somebody who should be a guest on unstoppable mindset, please let us know please introduce us. Same for you pad if you know someone who ought to be a good guest, we would really appreciate it. And sounds like you know a number of people because you've written about them. So hopefully we'll have the chance to meet some of those people and get them on unstoppable mindset as well. But again, I want to thank you for being with us and being a part of unstoppable mindset today.   Pat Wetzel ** 1:05:51 Thank you very much that a wonderful conversation. And I'm very grateful to be here.   Michael Hingson ** 1:06:01 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. 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