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Over the lifetime of Unstoppable Mindset, I have met many of our guests on LinkedIn. My guest this time, Wallace Pond, is by far one of the most fascinating and engaging people I have had the honor to talk with. Dr. Pond was born into a military family based at the time in Alabama. I do tease him about his not having an Alabama accent and he acknowledges that living on a military base is largely why he does not naturally possess a Southern way of speech.
Dr. Pond has lived, worked, and studied in North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. He has served as a teacher, a professor and within the corporate world he has held a number of positions including several within the C Suite arena. We get to explore his life journey including learning of a mental health crisis that led him to a career change a few years ago.
During my time with Wallace, we talk about many subjects including God and religion, Leadership and what makes a good and real leader. Wallace talks about diversity and how we are focusing so much on tribal issues within our culture that we are losing the art of conversation.
Dr. Pond will tell us about his project, the Transformation Collaborative which is an effort to promote real change in how we can become better versions of ourselves. I leave it to Wallace to explain.
At the end of our podcast episode Wallace and I agreed to record a second episode in the near future. I’d love your thoughts about what you hear on this episode. Any questions you want me to ask Dr. Pond next time? Please pass them on.
About the Guest:
Dr. Pond, founder, IdeaPathway, LLC, the Transformation Collaborative™, and Life Worth Living, LLC, has been a missiondriven educator and leader for over 30 years. For the last 20 years, Wallace has been a senior leader in higher education, holding both campus and system level positions overseeing single and large, multi-campus and online institutions of higher education in the US and internationally. He has served as chancellor, president, COO, CEO, CAO (Chief Academic Officer), and board member, bringing exceptional value as a strategic-servant leader through extensive experience and acumen in strategic planning, transformational change, change management, crisis management/turn around, organizational design and development, P&L, human capital development, innovation, new programs, and deep operational expertise among other areas of impact.
He has recently added psychotherapy to his practice and provides counseling services as an LPCC under supervision. You can see his counselor profile here. His many thought leadership articles are available at www.WallacekPond.com.
Wallace began his career as a high school teacher and adjunct professor and spent six years in the elementary and secondary classroom working primarily with at-risk youth. He was also a public-school administrator and spent another six years as a full-time professor and administrator in the not-for-profit higher education sector, working in both on campus and online education, bringing education to underserved students. Additionally, Wallace has over 15-years of executive, private sector experience, creating a unique and powerful combination of mission-driven and business focused leadership and insights.
Ways to connect with Wallace:
www.wallacekpond.com www.transformationcollaborative.net https://www.linkedin.com/in/wallace-pond-47b05512/ https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Real-World-Executive-Turbulent/dp/B08C49FQ6Q/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1UIJFVM71G3RZ&keywords=leadership+in+the+real+world&qid=1704824712&s=books&sprefix=leadership+in+the+real+worl%2Cstripbooks%2C159&sr=1-1
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/
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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, hi and welcome to unstoppable mindset. Welcome wherever you happen to be. I really am glad you're here with us. I'm Mike hingson, your host today. Our guest is Wallace Pond, a man of many talents. He's been very much involved in helping people and transforming he's got bachelor's, master's and PhDs all, well, I won't say all over the place, but, but he has a number of degrees. Yeah, we, we won't give them all away. I'll let you do that. And he's also now even becoming involved in more things relating to psychotherapy. So I'll have to have him talk to my cat and see if we can do something. Yeah, never, never sure that works. Is, does it? Wallace, but anyway, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here. Wallace Pond ** 02:08 Well, thank you so much, Mike. It's just a pleasure to be to be on the show with you. I appreciate what you got to be previously, and really appreciate also kind of the work that you do and what you've accomplished, and I think you have a really healthy and helpful perspective on a number of things, in particular diversity, but I think need to be that more people need to hear so I appreciate the opportunity to be with you well. Thank Michael Hingson ** 02:37 you. I appreciate that, and would love to work with you any way that we can. Why don't we start on your podcast episode by you telling us kind of maybe a little bit about the early Wallace growing up and all that sort of stuff. Wallace Pond ** 02:51 Yeah. So I was born in the deep south in the early 1960s very different time. My father was in the Air Force, so even though we were in Alabama, I was born into a desegregated military environment. This the in Montgomery, Alabama, the city was not desegregated. There were still separate bathrooms and water fountains for, quote, colored people, yeah, but on the Air Force Base, it was at least as desegregated as as the military could be at that time. But my folks and my family, both from Idaho, of all places, when my son was born there, about 30 years ago. He was the fifth generation from Idaho. My folks went back to Idaho when I was about, Gosh, nine years old. Michael Hingson ** 03:49 So was it the military, though that influenced you not to have an Alabama accent? Wallace Pond ** 03:54 Yeah. Probably parent, parents and military both. Okay, yeah, yeah. So my little sister and I, we were in Alabama and Georgia, Maryland before we went back to Idaho. But yeah, we sort of never got that southern accent, although given an opportunity, I can slip into it, and I certainly recognize it, yeah, Michael Hingson ** 04:17 well, and I love to use the words y'all and all y'all. And I know the difference between the two, which a lot of people don't, but it's Wallace Pond ** 04:25 a third. There's a third, which is the plural possessive, all, y'all. Oh, all, y'all, that's right, yeah, yeah, which, which, not everybody, which, you don't hear all the time. But no, you're in the South. Yeah. Michael Hingson ** 04:37 I love language. Anyway, so you were saying so, yeah. Wallace Pond ** 04:44 So moved out to Idaho, back to Idaho. That's where my folks were from. And kind of feel like I, you know, some really formative years, nine to probably 18 or so in Idaho, and just had. You know, the the great pleasure over both when I was a child, living with my parents, and then also once I was independent, out of the home. Probably lived in. I could, I could, you know, calculate it, but lived in probably a dozen states, half a dozen countries. Uh, visited 39 or 40 countries. So just one of those people, you know, some folks, one model is to kind of grow up somewhere and be from there, and that's, you know, kind of how you identify. And then there's other folks, like I who just, you know, it's a very different perspective, and it's, you know, a lot of moves, a lot of different experiences, I think my wife and I, we've been married 34 years, and we stopped moving quite so much in the last, oh, probably 15 but I think we've moved 11 times. And in fact, the last kind of big adventure was we spent a couple years over the United Arab Emirates. I was a CEO running a company over there, as well as a college president, at the same time doing both in Abu Dhabi, and that kind of a long arc where I am now. But there was through that. There was there was kind of like K 12 experience, university experience, corporate experience, so pretty kind of broad based, you know, personal and professional background. As you said, I more recently got into into the field of psychotherapy as an actual therapist. That was kind of an interesting career shift, but, but really timely and probably one of the most congruent decisions I've ever made in my life, in terms of, you know, making a life decision that turned out to align with what I wanted to be true and what was making sense for me at The time. So kind of a long arc, but here we are. Here Michael Hingson ** 07:03 we are. Where did you? Where did you go to college? Yeah, so Wallace Pond ** 07:07 initially, University of Utah, okay, and I, and I pursued a degree in Spanish and Hispanic literature, which also kind of was not purposeful, it wasn't part of a plan, but it really had a significant impact on some of the things I did in my life, and certainly some of the cultural experiences I had as a student, I lived in Spain and Mexico as well, and then as a professional and as an adult, I also lived in Puerto Rico for three years. So Spanish and Spanish culture kind of a big part, at least earlier in my career, up through probably, I think I was, I left Puerto Rico in 2013 after three years there. So that was, that was kind of the undergraduate. And then, as you mentioned, I have, I have multiple I have three different graduate degrees, two two masters and a PhD in the one at Boston University that was back in the 90s, and then a PhD in education. And then I went back to school for the fourth time, about, Gosh, three or four years ago, when I decided I wanted to go into the helping professions again and be a counselor, and so that was a master's in clinical mental health. And I've been practicing. I've been seeing clients for about three years. I've been I've been seeing clients post grad, in both private practice and in a community health setting. Now for geez, I graduated in July of last year, so I probably, oh, maybe little over 1200 1300 hours of counseling at this point. So that's the educational story. Well, Michael Hingson ** 09:05 I have to ask, since we talked about language and you spend some time at Boston University, yeah, and so on, did you ever learn to talk Bostonian? Wallace Pond ** 09:16 So kind of like my experience in the south, you can do it, yeah, I can slip into it. I actually kind of enjoy it. I yeah, I do too, you know. But no, it's not something that I that I ever, ever adopted for myself. Michael Hingson ** 09:33 I lived in Windsor mass for three years, so I spent some time in the Boston area, Wallace Pond ** 09:40 great town, you know, Boston. I did a lot of that work, actually overseas, in an overseas program in Germany, of all places. So it's kind of a long, winding road. I've Michael Hingson ** 09:52 heard that one of my favorite restaurants in Boston closed around or just before the time of the pandemic, Durkin park at uh. And near Fennell Hall, yeah, Quincy Market, I heard that Durgan closed, yeah? Wallace Pond ** 10:06 And, well, and that was not unique to them. I mean, yeah, the pandemic was pretty rough on restaurants, and a substantial number all over the country didn't, didn't make it through that? Yeah, Michael Hingson ** 10:20 yeah. It's kind of sad. Long before the pandemic, the Carnegie Deli in New York closed, which was one of my favorites, and I knew the owner, but I think, yeah, and I don't even think they can, I don't even think they mail order anymore. I Wallace Pond ** 10:36 don't know, but I do. I do remember, I do. I'm have some experience with the Carnegie Deli, because that's where I was introduced to pastrami. No better place, yes. And I didn't know I was a pastrami fan until then, Michael Hingson ** 10:55 and the sandwiches were so small, yeah? Wallace Pond ** 10:56 Well, right, yeah, it was a workout, like doing curls, lifting the sandwich. Yeah, I unfortunately, one of the things that happened being introduced to pastrami at the Carnegie Deli was I became kind of a pastrami snob. And so you know that my first introduction was as good as it gets. So yeah, it's hard for me to for pastrami to match up since then. Oh, gosh, that was a while ago. Michael Hingson ** 11:23 Oh, it is. It's really hard. I'm still spoiled by the first Caesar salad I ever had. When my wife and I got married, we spent part of our time in Palm Springs, and then we went and spent the rest of our honeymoon in Phoenix and went to a hotel and stayed at a hotel called the point Tapatio, which had a restaurant up on top of the mountain. On one side, you could see Phoenix. On the other side, you could see Scottsdale. And we ordered Caesar salads that they made at tableside. And back then, in 1982 it included the rig and everything else. And it's still the best Caesar salad I ever had. Wallace Pond ** 11:57 Yeah. Well, most people alive today are young with, oh, I would say most people born since maybe 819, 80 or so. Have you know, there used to be raw egg and a lot of stuff. Yeah, I don't know if you remember Orange Julius. Oh, yes, yeah, they used to get a raw egg. Was one of the ingredients you could get beat up in a in a smoothie. Yeah, those days are, sure. Guy, oh, Michael Hingson ** 12:23 the days. Well, Steven, so, so what did you I was going to say, what did you do after college? But that's really kind of hard, because there's a lot of, a lot of after colleges for you. But you said Spanish wasn't really part of the plan, but yet, that's what you you did for an undergraduate degree? How come? Yeah, Wallace Pond ** 12:43 so this is kind of a funny thing to even admit, but a lot of me back up a step. So my father, he had some kind of intuition, some kind of insight. He really believed it would be helpful for me, maybe really in terms of life experience, maybe in terms of just a skill set to be bilingual. And even back in high school, he started like, I'd come home and he put like, a pamphlet on my bed about, you know, Spanish language, or Spanish class or something like that, you know. And when I got to the University of Utah, I thought, you know, a little bit based upon his, you know, you know, suggestions and support. I i took a few Spanish I remember taking, you know, Spanish 101, then I kind of like that Spanish 102, I was a communications major at the time, and to be honest, I still don't know what that means, Mike, but I was a communications major, and at that time, it was the single largest major on campus, and you could not get courses you sent. You could not register for communications courses, and there were people who were being forced to spend an extra year or more at the U just to get the courses they needed to graduate. And in the meantime, I had said, Well, I'll get a minor. And I thought, well, if I'm gonna get a minor, I probably need to be able to speak it. So I decided to do a study abroad in Spain. Went to school at the University of Seville, four days a week, four hours a day, immersed in Spanish and subjects being taught in Spanish. And by the time I got back, I had, I had earned so many credits in Spanish that there was a pretty quick path to a degree in Spanish and and I didn't have to worry about the problem of not getting courses in in communication, communications, yeah, yeah. So when I got back to the and I also got a bunch more credit by passing some tests, some clap tests, and ended up, you know, with a degree. Did another study in Mexico, ended up with a degree in Spanish. Mentioned Hispanic literature. It just it was the path of least resistance, and something that I really enjoyed. So that's how that happened. I mean, there truly was no plan. Michael Hingson ** 15:12 Well, things work out, though may not have been part of the plan, but it certainly sounds like it worked out well for you, and it helped integrate into everything that followed, which is always a good thing. It absolutely did. Yeah, I know when I went to UC Irvine starting in the fall of 1968 I entered the year that they had their first graduating class. So the first graduation was for seniors. Was 69 but they also had graduate school, they had medical some medical schools and so on. And very quickly, the school had become known for science, and a lot of people wanted to go off and become doctors. So the year that I entered 1600 people enrolled in organic well or enrolled in biology, and they all wanted to go off and be doctors and all that. And the biosci people said, Okay, well, before you can really be serious about a bio sci major, you're going to have to take a year of organic chemistry Wallace Pond ** 16:24 that that that that weeded a few folks out, didn't it? From the Michael Hingson ** 16:29 beginning of my freshman year to the end of my sophomore year, the number of students in biology dropped from 1600 freshmen to 200 sophomores. Wallace Pond ** 16:38 Yeah, yeah. That's a, I think, a typical experience with I took organic chemistry much later in life. It's another kind of part of my minding journey. But I took an entire pre med curriculum after I finished my PhD, just for pure Self edification. And you know, I was always troubled by the fact that I got through three degrees without really having a good science Corps. And so while I was working as a professor at a college, I ended up taking, well, all but one course of a pre med curriculum. And I remember exec, I remember organic chemistry, and I remember just kind of that, that moment, that realization, where you cannot fake this, no you will put in the time, or you will not get out. Well, I did that. I Michael Hingson ** 17:29 got my master's degree, my bachelor's and master's in physics, so I did not take organic chemistry. But I know everybody was complaining about memorizing all the reactions and all that and and, you know, I respect it, but I'm glad I didn't have to take it. Wallace Pond ** 17:44 Yeah, I enjoyed it, but it was also something that, you know, it, like I said, it's not something you can fake, no, it's a completely different animal than than inorganic chemistry. Fascinating, really fascinating, actually, yeah, but definitely requires some mental effort. Michael Hingson ** 18:06 I enjoyed hearing people talk about it, and enjoyed listening to all of that, but it was different than what I enjoyed doing. And I loved physics, and was especially always interested in the philosophy of physics, the history and philosophy, and of course, one of the big debates about physics is, is it really a quantum and does God throw dice, or is it, is it in reality that there is really determinism and and that's a question that physics still hasn't answered yet. Some people think it has, but it hasn't yet well, Wallace Pond ** 18:38 and the answer to that question has huge implications for psychology and free will, sure Michael Hingson ** 18:42 it does all of that. Sure it does, sure, and I am sure that eventually it will all get realized. And you know, my belief is that there are basic laws of the universe and that there are laws that we have to obey to to really progress, but it's our choice. And I, and I am absolutely a firm believer in the fact that there is such a thing as free will and choice. Wallace Pond ** 19:09 Yeah, and I, I it may be, it may be that we at some point come to some kind of melding of the two, whereby there is some level of free choice or agency, but that that's highly influenced by underlying physics principles of some sort. Correct? Exactly? Yeah, yeah. Ray Kurzweil, the Michael Hingson ** 19:35 futurist and inventor and a man I worked for for a few years when he was developing the Kurzweil Reading Machine created a doc, or there is a documentary about him. And at the end, he said, you know, everybody keeps wondering if there is a God, and he said, there isn't yet, because we haven't invented it. And I do not buy into Ray's I don't buy into Ray's argument that I don't think that works. Yeah. Yeah, but it is interesting and but you're right, it all really does come down to in psychology, a question of free will, a question of so many different things, and I and eventually will understand it Wallace Pond ** 20:13 well. And there's an in there other related concepts, you know, for example, the notion of growth mindset, which is a really interesting concept, Carol Dweck, out of Stanford, was the one who kind of popularized this. But the idea that growth mindset, as opposed to fixed mindset, suggests that our futures are malleable, that that our ability to to learn, to grow to achieve objectives is at some significant level determined by whether or not we believe that we can grow and change and progress through new talents and perspectives, etc, versus the extent to which we believe it's more fixed, and that those limits are kind of innate, and there's a there's a potential physics element to that as well. Having said that, I do believe in mostly it's just observation that it absolutely is possible to to grow dramatically, intellectually, spiritually, academically, I'm Trying to some other examples might be things like emotionally, that we are, you know, capable. That's why we have neocortical functions, right, as human rights, right, even separate from other mammals, we have parts of our brain that do stuff, right, you know, that are that are pretty amazing, and that allow for pretty intense evolution. And I don't mean evolution in the historical sense, although that has its own place. I mean as individuals, right? You know, the ability to kind of evolve in the context of our environment. So it we probably won't have a final answer any of that before you and I are gone. But it is a, it is a topic that I find fascinating. Oh, Michael Hingson ** 22:30 I do too, and, and, of course, the the other part of the question is, you say we may not have an answer before we're gone. Will we really be gone or whatever? So there's, there's that too, right? Wallace Pond ** 22:45 Yeah, yeah. And I, you know, as part of my own mental health journey, you know, I'm a counselor, but I'm also, you know, in our field, we have this, this, this concept of wounded healer. And, you know, I didn't, you know, just randomly pop up one day in, you know, going from being a corporate executive or a university president to being a psychotherapist, I had my own journey as well mental health journey, and I put myself certainly in that category of of wounded healer. But when we think about, you know, the human experience, right? And as we think about the kinds of things that, just either by chance or by purpose, end up being part of that journey, for me, being exposed to Buddh principles and Buddhist thoughts, Buddhist ideas was really critical in my own healing and the whole notion of impermanence and afterlife. The Buddh take on that, I think, is really compelling. And this idea that there is an afterlife in the sense that we are all comprised of elements and molecules and atoms that will continue on in multiple forms, and that we're comprised of atoms and molecules that have been around, you know, that belonged, that were part of someone in the Roman Empire and part of someone in Greek times, and part of someone on the Savannah, or some animal on the savannah millions of years ago. And although it may not be sort of a Christian notion of an integrated afterlife as some version of yourself, right? I find that the Buddhist perspective really compelling. This idea that you know, the energy, the mass, the mole, the atoms that comprise us do continue on. And there may, in fact, be some integrated version of. That, who knows, you know, my father passed away a few years ago, and and one of the ways that I have, one of the ways that I have grieved that, and one of the ways I have dealt with that loss, is I frequently talk to him, and every you know, and every now and then I'll ask him, you know, you know, I'll tell him, gosh, I wish he could let me know what happened like. So what is it? You know, where are you? Are you know, do you have consciousness? And you know, maybe some way, sometime he'll answer. But for me, right now, a big part of of of that healing in that, in that grieving has been to maintain that relationship with Him through conversation. Michael Hingson ** 25:45 And should I believe absolutely, I think there's a lot to be said for for the merits of what you were just describing. And the issue, I think, is that, if we also go back to what really is God, you've got the Christians who have tried to shape God in the sense in their image, more than the other way around, and others have done that too, but, but the reality is what really is God, and I think God is the underlying principle for all of us, and I think that we're all part of that God. And so when your father died, or my wife passed away in the end of 2022 there they are still there. I love to tell people that I am absolutely certain that Karen monitors me, and if I misbehave, I'm going to hear about it. So I have to behave, otherwise, I'm going to be in serious trouble. Wallace Pond ** 26:45 Yeah, you know, there's an interesting I just, I'm just about to finish an absolutely profound book by an author, physician, philosopher. His name is Gabor Mate. He was a survivor of the Holocaust. He was a child of an infant. Actually, the book is called The Myth of normal, absolutely seminal, fabulous, fabulous book, just in general, but also resonates with me on my own mental health journey and as a counselor. But he makes reference in the book to to the actress as Ashley Judd and and a quote of hers, a phrase of hers, which is, I want to, I don't want to mess up the the quote. It is, surrendering to a god you don't believe in the idea that you know, you don't have to believe in a deity in any sort of, you know, codified religious, you know, institutional way to still surrender to, to, to a sense of, of, of a higher power, yeah. And I just, I, you know, I just really appreciated that quote from Ashley Judd, and I think it's really applicable, this idea that we don't have to be dogmatic. We don't have to be it's, you know, an ethical, institutional approach to surrender to a god we don't believe in. You know, that that we can surrender to something bigger, something beyond our own physical existence Michael Hingson ** 28:24 well and in the Buddha oriented world, it is also, isn't even a matter of surrendering. It's a matter of believing you're a part of and being willing to progress and grow. And oh, I can't resist telling one of my favorite jokes, and I've not done it on here before, I used to listen to Hal Holbrook doing Mark Twain tonight. Oh, okay, we did a great imitation of Mark Twain. And I don't know if it was actually Mark Twain that said it, but I attribute it to Mark Twain. But I heard Hal Holbrook say it. He said, You know, when we die, we're going to go to heaven, and when we go to heaven, assuming we go to heaven, we're going to probably be up on a cloud, and we're going to have harp music in the background, and we're going to study, and the more we study, the more we progress, and the more we progress, the more we study. And we're just going to be up there. We're going to study and study and study and progress and progress and progress. And if that isn't hell, I don't know Wallace Pond ** 29:15 what is that that sounds like a Mark Twain. It Michael Hingson ** 29:17 does sound like a Mark Twain, and I would suspect that it really came from him somewhere. Oh, gosh, but, but, you know, the the reality is that I think we impose way too many limitations on God and our relationship with God, and it's and it doesn't help us to do it. And I, you know, I hear what Ashley Judd is saying, but again, I think it's not so much a surrender as it is recognizing you're a part of Wallace Pond ** 29:48 Yeah. That makes sense to me too. Michael, so what Michael Hingson ** 29:50 did you do when you graduated from college? Initially, I will, I'll tell you the first time, what did what kind of our career path did you go on to? Wallace Pond ** 29:58 Yeah? So in me. Immediately, I just went to work as a as a school teacher in a in a school for at risk youth in Salt Lake City. I taught Spanish, but I also taught English and introductory algebra and earth science. And, you know, a very common kind of thing in in small schools, you're a generalist, unlike, you know, in large districts, where you kind of, you just teach English all day or whatever. Michael Hingson ** 30:33 Yeah, I grew up in my teachers were generalists, Wallace Pond ** 30:36 yeah, yeah. And we also had an intense Outdoor Program in that school. So it was really interesting. We did, you know, we did, you know, snow camping, and we did survival, you know, hikes in southern Utah, you know, just what you could carry on your back. And, you know, through the desert for days, in addition to the, you know, the school work, or the classroom work, which itself was also not very traditional. So, you know, for example, we the classes were a mix of ages. You know, I taught classes with, you know, 1213, year olds and 17 year olds in the same class. It was just, it was dependent upon, you know, academic inclination, desire to be in a big, you know, particular course, you know, in that school was actually pre K, 12, so, you know, just some amazing, amazing experiences for me and for the and for the students, you know, 30 plus years later, whatever it was, 3435 years later, I still remember, you know, I have this, this image, and it's just such a poignant, touching image, particularly when we think about at risk youth and at Risk teenagers, I think we don't always have a very charitable view of kids that don't fit in, and adolescents and teens, you know, that that oftentimes are considered to be, you know, kind of unrefined or self centered or whatever. And I had this image. I still see it. We the this, the school had had a downstairs and an upstairs. And I remember one of my students, he was 18 years old. And, you know, this is back in, gosh, the 80s, and he, would, you know, black leather. You know studs on the leather. You know Jack boots. You know wallet on a chain. You know the kids about, you know, six two and about 190 pounds, the kind of kid that would scare the hell out a lot of people just looking at him, you know, but I had this mental image of of him walking down the stairs, and he's holding the hand of a four year old, helping the four year old down the stairs. I even get a little emotional thinking about it, 35 years later, you know the kind of kid that is so misunderstood, the kind of kid that you know has struggled so much to fit in, the kind of kid who you know is just constantly been battling between, you know, authenticity and acceptance. And here he is, you know, going down the stairs, holding the hand of a four year old preschooler to help him get down the stairs. And I just can't imagine a more poignant vision, yeah, and, and that was a, you know, those kinds of things were common experiences for me in those first couple of years teaching in that environment after my undergraduate work, I Michael Hingson ** 34:01 spent a number of years living in and around well, I lived in New Jersey and worked in New York, but even before living there, company I worked for allowed me to travel to sell because we were being so successful, we couldn't just do it all from the phone in Southern California. So I stayed at a hotel, oftentimes in the middle of New York, near Times Square. And when I went out at night, there were people, are you? Do you remember the old the guardian angels? Wallace Pond ** 34:34 Oh yeah. So Michael Hingson ** 34:36 this guy would come up to me and he said, I'm with the guardian angels. He said, I just want to walk with you, just to make sure you stay safe. And safe. And I said, you know, you don't really need to. I'm really good. We said, we're going to anyway. And when what I've always realized, though, and he was good company, he was great. But what I also realized is that, in general, if you treat people well and. So if you don't act like a jerk, then they're going to, most likely treat you well as as well. And yeah, I never did have a problem with anyone in New York. I had a couple people who would come up to me and say, Does your dog bite? Because I always had my guide dog right, right? And I never knew why they asked. And so my response was, Well, you know, he's not trained to do that, but I wouldn't want to be the person to try to find out. And actually, the reason I use that answer was right. My first guide dog was a golden retriever, and one day we were at UC Irvine on campus, and some students would bring their dogs to college, and then then just let them roam. And a bunch of them organized a pack, and they actually came after me and my guy dog, Squire, who was this wonderful, loving golden retriever, right? And so we were walking, and these dogs were coming up on us from the rear, and Squire jerked away from me. I still had his leash, but he jerked away. So I lost grip on the harness. He turned around and crouched down and growled at these dogs. I've never heard him do that. Oh, wow. And they all just stopped and backed up and somebody else was watching. And he told me later, they just walked away with their tails between their legs, wow. Yeah, and you know, so, like I said, it's all about love, but I think it goes both ways. That with a dog, I wouldn't want to be the person to try to find out whether if they attacked me, my dog would bite. But I think also it's just as true with people. I'm not quite as sure today with all the drug stuff going on, but you know, the reality is, I think for the most part, people really are going to treat you well if you treat them well. Yeah, Wallace Pond ** 36:47 I don't, I don't challenge that. Michael, I but what I would say is, I think one of the, one of the genuine sort of societal problems, manifestations, let's call it, of the kind of polarization and tribalism that's becoming more and more common. Yeah, is, you know, the deeper that people turn into their own tribe, right? You know, the the more that people insulate themselves from other people that you know don't share their views or their background or their culture. I think one of the real, potentially profound dangers of this tribalized tribalism, and whether it's, whether it's in social media or, you know, where we congregate, you know, face to face, and the deep polarization, not just you know you're wrong, but you're wrong and you're bad, is, is, I think, one of the things that we're really in danger of through that tribalism and isolation is that I think we are broadly use, losing the capacity to navigate conversations, relationships, conflict, agreed with, with people that aren't Like us, right? And I think that's potentially dangerous. Michael Hingson ** 38:22 I think it's absolutely dangerous, because Wallace Pond ** 38:25 that skill, that ability to survive to in the face of someone who has very different beliefs, and to get through that without unhealthy conflict, to get through that without casting, you know, aspersions, to get through that without personal attacks, I think is is critical to kind of a functioning society, because we are always going to have diverse perspectives, diverse religions, diverse cultures, diverse political perspectives. That's always going to be true. So the extent to which we are able to navigate that in a productive way is really critical, and I fear that we are because we turn towards what we know with tribalism that we're just losing the opportunity to engage other people who may be quite different than we are, and do that successfully, whereas The you know, turning inward to the tribe actually exacerbates? Well, Michael Hingson ** 39:44 yeah, there's a lot of truth to that. I guess I'm a little bit of an oddity, even in, I think, among some blind people in that having never seen to me, somebody with a. Skin color is simply a concept, and the it doesn't matter to me about about color, and I work very hard to make sure that I continue with that kind of attitude, because it doesn't really matter to me what a person's skin color is and have never seen it. Haven't ever seen different skin colors. And frankly, I know I can say with certainty I don't care. Now, not everybody necessarily knows me well enough to believe that, but it is still true, because having never seen it. You know intellectually, I know what red is, I know what blue is. I know what Black is. I know what white is, and we can talk about it in terms of wavelength of light too. But you know it's it's still not something that becomes an issue for me. And it amazes me when I hear people talking about and demonstrating prejudice about different skin colors and so on, because it's just not something that really is an issue for me, and I'm always amazed by it. Yeah, Wallace Pond ** 41:08 it's interesting point you make. I mean, just engaging the life, just engaging life in general, in the absence of visual stimuli, you obviously are have honed very finely other senses. But this idea, you know, and in our culture, in in Western and particularly American culture, it is profoundly visual, Michael Hingson ** 41:36 yeah, oh, it is, Oh, absolutely, you know. And look, I know blind people who are very prejudiced, and maybe some of them never saw but they've learned it. Fortunately, I'm blessed that I refuse to learn that concept. Wallace Pond ** 41:50 That's interesting thought, isn't it? You know, I know that we have learned to be incredibly judgmental based upon visual stimuli, right? Is someone short? Are they tall? Do they have acne? You know, are they overweight? What clothes are they wearing? You know, they have the right shoes. And you may be able to determine some of that through other senses at some point, but you would never initially engage someone based upon that perspective, because you wouldn't have it. Mm, hmm. So a very interesting thought, you know, and I, Michael Hingson ** 42:33 I know my wife and and I also believe my wife was, although she was cited, never really had that kind of prejudice, because she grew up with around people of different skin colors and different races and so on. But we would be talking about sometimes political debates, and she would say, well, so and so knows about that, because he's black. And I would sit there and go, huh? Because I if there was, you know, I couldn't tell that they were black, you know. And it amazed me, and it didn't change my opinion at all. Now, the fact that he was a politician, that's a different prejudice, but that's another story, right? But, but, you know, they're fun to pick on, but, but, you know, the bottom line is that that we've really got to get somehow over some of these things. And I agree with you that the art of conversation, the ability to converse, the ability to really interact with other people, is being lost because of so many things, and that is so unfortunate. Yeah, Wallace Pond ** 43:38 and I don't want to be Pollyannaish, I mean, or oversimplified a situation. I mean, like I said, I was born in Montgomery, Alabama in the 1960s and there was no need for social media, for people to make judgments, to isolate, you know, to to, I mean, it was legislated. It was it was policy. I mentioned, you know, the colored water fountains and bathrooms. So this is not new. It's, you know, that kind of thing was, has existed in many, many contexts. I think, I think what's qualitatively different today a couple things. One is the existence that the medium, you know, mass media and social media, have a kind of power that I that didn't exist before a platform and an anonymity. You know, you can, you can say things and do things today that wouldn't have been acceptable because you would have been accountable, yeah, in the past, right? It was attached to you individually. So I think that's, that's one change. I think another change is whether we call it, you know, civility, or whether we call it norms, you know, I'm. I'm, you know, I'll be 60 next year. So, you know, I've been around for a little while, but not that long, compared to some people, but in terms of norms, just in the last call it 510, years, maybe even less than 10. I've been just stunned, frankly, by the things that it's now kind of okay to say and do. Yeah, you know that that we just sort of blown through the guard rails? You know that I think, used to kind of exist. It wasn't that you couldn't think it. It wasn't that it didn't exist. It was that there were some sort of norms about what it was sort of okay or acceptable to say or do, kind of in a in a civil society. And I think we've really blown through those guardrails. Social media has helped that politics. Michael Hingson ** 45:54 What's one example of that? Wallace Pond ** 45:59 Yeah, so something that comes to mind is, you know, people flaming other people online and social media, right? Personal attacks, yeah, particularly when people are vulnerable. You know, if you're face to face, or if you're in a, you know, a group that's co located with other people if you are on the phone, even, right? It was much, much harder, yeah, to launch those sort of personal, corrosive attacks on people than it is now. You know, I think in politics, you know, there are politicians now who say things, oh yeah, that you couldn't say and survive as a politician, Michael Hingson ** 46:51 and still shouldn't, but do, yeah, Wallace Pond ** 46:55 even 10 years ago, let alone 2030 Yeah, it's not that politicians didn't think it, or weren't capable, you know, of it. It's just, you know, I think of like criticism of families, of of war heroes, yeah, you know. Or just weird stuff, like, when did that become? Okay? Yeah? Michael Hingson ** 47:18 Oh, I hear you. And social media has certainly not helped the process. No, Wallace Pond ** 47:24 I think what it's done is it's anonymized, least in your mind, if not literally, Michael Hingson ** 47:30 yeah, which is so scary. I hope we grow up and learn, but you know, we'll see. So what you taught for a while, then what did you go do? Wallace Pond ** 47:43 Yeah, so again, I never really had a plan. And I know for some people, plans are helpful, important. They provide security. I truly, Michael, never had a quote plan for anything that happened in my life. You know, I've done everything from Teach bilingual kindergarten to run large corporations domestically and internationally, and I've just never had a plan. I've taken advantage of opportunities, and I've kind of pursued things that felt exciting or right, but I I've never really had a plan. So, you know, after my initial teaching experience, I ended up marrying someone who said, Look, I'm going to go work in Germany. I have a job over there. And if you want to come, you can come. If you're not, I'm leaving. So we ended up getting married and going over there together, and we're over there for a few years working for the Department of Defense and Education roles. And then came back to the US, did some more K 12 work, then went full time into higher education, as a as a professor, teaching people to be teachers, as well as Spanish and linguistics. Then moved into the corporate world for a while, came back into higher education, did some senior roles, including President, CEO at a few different institutions of higher education, some in the US, some abroad, and been in the C suite several times in corporate settings, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Executive Officer, the last kind of formal thing I did, working for someone else and or working for a board, I guess I would say, was in the Middle East, United Arab Emirates, and fascinating, wonderful experience. Just so glad I did it. Yeah, for. A cultural perspective, from a growth perspective, the hardest job ever done as a CEO. Never experienced quite that combination of challenges as a CEO, but just a fabulous experience in my wife and younger daughter, who's now off away at college. They lived there in the winter and were able to escape in the summer. I was not, you know, 120 degrees in 85% humidity. Yeah, yeah. Winter's stunning, beautiful, but summer is really hard, yeah. And they would come back to the mountains, you know, Colorado in the summer. But, and something's really interesting to happen when I came back from that. You know, this is kind of interesting. It helps explain, sort of, how did I go from that to working as a psychotherapist, and I still do consulting work and support organizations with transformational change and leadership and things like that. But So how does one go from the CEO of a of a company in Abu Dhabi and the president of a college system to going back to school for the fourth time and becoming a mental health counselor? And the short version to that is when I got back from the UAE, I asked myself a very different question for the first time than I would have in the past. So in the past, the question would have been something to the effect of, you know, what's the next job? And I was in a position to have some time off and kind of decompress. And I didn't ask that question. I asked a very, very different question, which was, what do I want to be true in my life? And I had some support with a counselor for that question, and kind of how I kind of fleshed the answer out and and when I was when I had come up with the answer of what I want to be true in my life, it became very clear that I could not do what I'd always been doing and achieve what I wanted to be true in my life, Those didn't align anymore, and so I had to think very differently about what I was going to do going forward. And that was not so ironically, the same time, but I began to really, really experience some pretty intense mental health challenges, which I had never experienced before. I mean, I had never even really experienced anxiety before like that. I I was my experience was so different for so long, 50 plus years. But when it changed, it point. It changed pretty rapidly and pretty dramatically, and I found myself in a situation where mental health and mental health challenges were now, were kind of Central, and I really had to figure some stuff out. And so that happened at the same time I was kind of pursuing that question of what I want to be different in my life, or two in my life. And what came out of that, in addition to my own kind of healing journey, was this idea that one of the ways that I could achieve, one of the things that I wanted to be true in my life, was to be in the helping professions and to and to leverage my own mental health journey to help others, to be, as I mentioned earlier on, the call A wounded healer, which, by the way, is the case for a lot of counselors. A lot of therapists are wounded healers. And so that's how I kind of got to the place of going back to school and being a counselor, and how that decision had kind of the most congruence, the most alignment of probably any life decision I've ever made, personal or professional, in terms of a decision that supported what I wanted to be true. And that started, gosh, a little over three years ago, is when I went back to school, and now, as I mentioned, I've been seeing clients for, gosh, since December 21 still as a student. And then now I have a private practice. I also work for a community health operation and agency, and I made that choice because I want I didn't want to be in a situation where a client was that could ever I don't want to be in a situation where someone couldn't see me because they couldn't pay and so that's what community health is. It is a. Um, it is a very different environment than private practice. I do both. It is people, you know, court mandated, lot of alcohol and drug substance abuse issues, domestic violence, really, really intense challenges. And I love the work. Sometimes it's overwhelming, but it allows me to really contribute in the ways I've wanted to contribute to people who really desperately need it and may not have the means to pursue that otherwise. Michael Hingson ** 55:37 Well, you certainly set your your mind and your goals on a on a lofty, although I don't think an impossible task, but given everything that you've done, it's probably reasonable to say you're going to, going to do a pretty good job of helping to to accomplish some of that, or at least make the world better because of it. And you know that's that's hard to argue with. I'm really impressed, and look forward to seeing how the progress goes. Tell me about the transformation collaborative you founded that you also have a couple of LLCs that you've created along the way. Yeah. So the transformation Wallace Pond ** 56:16 collaborative that was also in that same period of time where I had asked that question, what do I want to be true in my life, versus just what's the next job? And it was a really interesting process. It was about nine months, 12 months, kind of a rotating group of people just kind of brainstorming, noodling on, you know, if we were going to build a consultancy from scratch based on what we know as professionals, based upon our experience, you know, engaging with consultants as as consumers of consultancy, what would it look like? And we came up with it was kind of two, it turned out, you know, through that process, the sort of two driving elements came out of that. One was, we probably have to reinvent the consultancy itself. Because one of the things that kept coming up in the in that brainstorming conversation stuff, was that, you know, the traditional, particularly, you know, the big consultancies, that traditional model is just woefully inadequate. Much of the time. It's overpriced, you know, it's it's superficial, it's on the outside. I won't go into details about all the things that are broken with it, but, but basically, you know what happens is an agency, you know, has a couple of meetings, you know, they put together a report, they throw it over the wall, they have a celebration dinner, they go on to the next client. You know, there's no sense of accountability. There's no role in execution. I'm not talking ever, just broadly. That's yeah, so we the first thing we decide is, you know, what, if we're going to do this, we're not going to do it that way. In fact, we refer to ourselves as embedded partners. We don't call ourselves consultants. Our goal is to, really, you know, to play a role in getting the client from A to B, you know, including actually providing labor, bandwidth, accountability, execution. So that's the first thing that was very different, and also different in terms of how we operate. I told you previously, before we were on the air, you know, we don't have non disclosure agreements with our partners. We don't have, you know, non competes. It's very different. We don't skim out the top, we don't take commissions, but none of that stuff. You know, it's a very different model. The second thing that we determined as part of that process was, you know, if we're going to bring, really bring value, and we're going to be doing what we want to do, you know, we want congruence between what we're doing what we want to do? It really can't be about incremental stuff. It can't be transactional. It can't be, you know, help with a computer program, or, you know, help with a compliance issue. There are lots of folks that do that, lots of agencies that do that. They do it really well, but if we were going to be embedded partners, and if we were going to be doing what we wanted to do, it had to be transformational. It had to be supporting organizations to reinvent themselves for the world they're in, not the one they were founded in. And so those two things came out of that process, and that's what the transformation collaborative. Transformation collaborative is. There's two main things we do. One is supporting organizations through some version of reinvention, transformation, innovation, and the other is leadership. You know, we. We take, we are pretty kind of harsh in our assessment of what we view as leadership deficiencies, even leadership crisis in many organizations today. And so we've developed a model for kind of the competencies and traits that we believe are required for leaders to be effective today, and more importantly, we've developed a program to support that, and we don't call it leadership development, because we feel like that's also not what this is. That's a buzzword. It's a buzzword, and I think it's also a little bit even tainted, because so much leadership development is about the wrong stuff. We refer to it as leadership discovery. And the way the program operates is we support leaders in discovering themselves, as people, as leaders, as identifying elements of of that skill set and traits that they can gravitate towards and really develop or not develop, but can really leverage. Let's use that word to be more effective. And you know, just give you just a really quick example. You know, where of the mind that leadership is rarely, rarely anymore about technical skills. It's rarely about, you know, a leader's own labor, all the stuff that's been traditional leadership stuff is just price of entry. Now, you know, if you aren't, you know, skilled with PNL, if you, you know, can't work well with a board, if you don't have basic management skills, then that's a very different problem. And you know, we see kind of the primary role of leaders today, in addition to facilitating change and transformation, is human capital. The idea being that everything else is a commodity financing, technology, you name it. That's all has a very short shelf life, shelf life, but as a leader, if you can develop powerful, powerful human capital in your organization, that's not a commodity, that's a deep competitive advantage, and it's about ensuring that Your organization is successful, because you make other people successful, yeah, not because you are an individual rock star with your technical skills or business savvy Michael Hingson ** 1:02:48 interesting. One of the things that I used to do when I managed and led sales teams and people in companies is I always would say to them, you know, I hired you because I know you can do the job, but at least you sold me on the fact that you can do the job. Some people did a better job of selling and didn't necessarily be as successful as I would have liked, but that's okay, but, but my job isn't to boss you around. My job is to work with you to figure out how I can add value to make you more successful. And the people who got that and who were willing to work on that with me were successful, and we figured out what each other's skills were, and sometimes I taught them things that they didn't know. And went both ways, but we worked together and they were more successful. It's all about collaboration. Yeah, Wallace Pond ** 1:03:41 it's collaboration. And, you know, in a big element, and the collaboration is part of that, in our view, in our view, just at the transmission collaborative, a big chunk of that human capital piece. It's not just, it's not just leveraging labor. In fact, the last thing, right, that's the last thing it is. What it's about is in you know, in fact, we, we like eschew terms like employees, labor, workforce, workers, because we feel like that commoditizes The people who can potentially bring value in the organization. Yeah, it's our belief that if leaders can engage the people in their organization as human beings, if they see the workforce as humanity, and that's and that's, you know, as simple as that is, you will not hear leadership development organizations say that. We'll say it that way, no. But if leaders can see people in their organization as humanity and can address. As such, and can see them as human beings who don't stop being human at the office door. It's not easy. It's hard to put on a spreadsheet. It's a long term proposition, but if an organization truly wants to be sustainable, if they truly want to outgrow or grow at a rate greater than the competition, it is not going to come from commodities like their next technology or even their access to capital. It's going to be do they have, do they have people in the organization that are fully engaged, that are committed to the organization because they feel valued and taken care of. That's, you know, again, it sounds very simple. That's not language you typically hear in a conversation like this, no, Michael Hingson ** 1:05:59 and it's not necessarily easy to make happen, but if you do it and you learn how to do it, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. You know, I have heard many people say that they really love their job to the point where it's not a job anymore. It says it's a labor of love. It is what they love to do. And I think as a leader, part of my responsibility is to help people explore that opportunity with whatever they're doing, and the ones who truly discover that they love what they do will will do the very kinds of things that you're talking about. Wallace Pond ** 1:06:41 Yeah, and you know, one of the things that kind of is frustrating to us, if not even confusing to us at the transformation collaborative, is the extent to which, I mean, again, sometimes we take kind of a harsh position, but the extent to which people should kind of know better are, are, you know, either just doing the wrong thing or clueless, yeah, you know. And one of the big organizations, one of the big consultancies that we still have a lot of faith in, is Gallup, and that's because they're, you know, they have such massive data sets, and they really get it in terms of the people piece. They really, really get it in terms of, you know, the human piece. And, you know, employee engagement detachment continues to decline, you know, from four years ago, they continue. The data is just in for 2023 you know, and they continue to feel lower levels of satisfaction and less connection to mission and purpose. And as a result, they are more and more disengaged. And that's just profoundly expensive to organizations, yeah, to have these huge payrolls of people that are disengaged and and they don't get it. And yeah, get it, yeah, and the data is there, right? And the and folks are are communicating what's not working for them. Yeah, Michael Hingson ** 1:08:23 it's pretty straightforward, but people are listening Exactly, Wallace Pond ** 1:08:26 yeah, and you know, people, they don't feel like they have authority in what's expected. Their managers are not giving them good feedback and coaching. You know, they might be managing time and resources, but they're not developing their people. No one asks anyone's opinion about contributing to goal setting or improvement or innovation. They don't feel like the organization gives a rat's ass about their well being, you know, their sense of purpose being part of a team, I said in a recent LinkedIn post just a few days ago. You know, this is not rocket science. I put it all caps, which I almost never do. This is not rocket science. And yet, there are so many leaders that just seem baffled by what's going on. And kind of, one of our goals at the at the transmission collaborative with our leadership Discovery Program, is to really, really get leaders over that hump, you know, and help them develop a completely different perspective. Now, you said it's not easy to do, and that's true, but it's not just because it's an it's a new approach, new skill set, right, new way of thinking, not just because, you know, organizational structures and compensation and culture doesn't necessarily support it, but it's also really hard because. Is, even if you're that kind of leader, that behavior is not traditionally rewarded for you as a leader, right? Like it, you know, it doesn't fit well into the you know, performance, you know, reports to the board and you know, on the fourth slide of the PowerPoint, it's, you know, it doesn't fit well into short term results. And so to do that as a leader, takes a tremendous amount of courage, and it's a really big risk, because you will be speaking a language that many people around you do not speak, that people you report to do not speak, and that has not been traditionally rewarded. So it's, it's, you're right. It is very hard to do for multiple reasons. Michael Hingson ** 1:10:52 I hear you, you know what? We have been going almost 70 minutes, and I'm going to have to end because, because we have been going almost 70 minutes, yeah, but I think we should do another one of these. Wallace Pond ** 1:11:06 I'd love to. In fact, I know that a whole bunch of the questions we kind of talked about before, I know we didn't even get Michael Hingson ** 1:11:13 to, even get to so I would like to, yeah, I'm Wallace Pond ** 1:11:16 totally fine. I love that. You know, these are the kinds of conversations I really, really enjoy Michael. I, you know, I don't think we do enough. You know, one of the things that I talked about, what I want to be true in my life, and what have I changed, and whatever, I dedicate a lot of time now to engagement, interactions, connections that I can't monetize, that, you know, that aren't about deliverables, that don't connect to some performance goal, but just are nourishing. Yeah, you know, just, and that's worth a lot, yeah? And I feel that's kind of what today's been. So I really appreciate that opportunity. Michael Hingson ** 1:12:01 Well, if people want to reach out to you, maybe talk with you further, or consult or are use your your efforts and so on. How do they do that? Wallace Pond ** 1:12:11 Yeah, so there's a couple ways to do that. If they want to go poke around on the transformation collaborative website, website, then they'll see a lot of stuff about, you know, research. We've done things, we've published trends, services. We provide both with transformation and leadership, discovery. They can just go to transformation, collaborative.net, it's all one word, transformation, collaborative.net, they can see the team, all the affiliates, just kind of poke around and see what's there. And they can reach out to us. There's a contact form, phone number, email, all that stuff. And that's the transmission collaborative piece. I also have a personal website where I do a lot of writing. That's where also the information is, for me as a counselor, as a mental health counselor is, and that's just Wallace K pond, all one word. Wallace K pond.com so either one of those places people can go and mess around, and if you want to reach out and talk to someone, fire away. And we'd be happy to talk to you, Michael Hingson ** 1:13:16 cool. Well, I hope people will reach out. I definitely want to do another one of these, and we will. We will set that up forthwith. But I want to thank you again for being here, and I want to thank all of you for listening. This has been fun, which is the rule of unstoppable mindset, you got to have fun if we're going to do it. And and I think Wallace and I have had fun, and I hope you had fun listening to us. If you'd like to reach out to me, I would sure appreciate it. One thing I'll ask is please give us a five star rating wherever you're listening. We love those ratings, especially when they're five stars. And we'd also just love to hear any thoughts that you have about today. You can reach out to me. At Michael M, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I, at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, I b, e.com, or go to my podcast page, www, dot Michael hingson.com/podcast, and Michael hingson is spelled M, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s, O N. Love to hear from you. If you know anyone who ought to be a guest on unstoppable mindset, I would appreciate hearing about that. And Wallace, of course, you as well. If you know other people that we ought to have on then I really would love your your help in finding them. But I want to thank you all again for being here and being a part of our podcast today and Wallace one last time, thank you very much for being here. Wallace Pond ** 1:14:37 You're more than welcome. Thank you so much, Michael. I've enjoyed it, and look forward to doing it again. Michael Hingson ** 1:14:46 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. 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