S5 EP217 | Michael Hingson, NYT Bestselling Author of Thunder Dog and Live Like a Guide Dog

Two bleeped words: b0mb!ng, T3rror!sts

Hello My happy People,

Michael Hingson has spent his life proving that limitations are often more about perception than reality. Blind since birth, he was raised by sighted parents who believed strongly in independence and encouraged him to live life fully. He grew up doing many of the same things as other kids, riding bikes, mastering math in his head, and learning to read and write in Braille. He later earned both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in physics from the University of California, Irvine, and spent nearly thirty years working in the high-tech industry.

His life changed dramatically on September 11, 2001, when he and his guide dog Roselle safely evacuated the 78th floor of Tower One in the World Trade Center moments before it collapsed. Their story of trust, courage, and teamwork captured international attention and later became the #1 New York Times bestselling book Thunder Dog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust.

Since that day, Hingson has traveled the world sharing his experiences and the lessons he learned about courage, teamwork, and perseverance. Our conversation explores what it means to face fear without letting it control you and learn how to move forward with confidence.

His latest book, Live Like a Guide Dog: True Stories from a Blind Man and His Dogs about Being Brave, Overcoming Adversity, and Moving Forward in Faith, shares the principles he has learned from decades of working with guide dogs and how those lessons can help anyone overcome challenges, trust themselves, and live their lives with purpose.

For speaking engagements email: Speaker@michaelhingson.com

Michael's Website

Michael's Podcast

Buy His Books

Buy Running with Roselle

Transcript

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Dianne Burckhardt 0:01

You're listening to BookBanter with Diane Burkhart, your Book Talk podcast. Join me every Wednesday for real conversations with authors and publishing insiders, where you get to connect with the humans behind the books you love. Let's get on with our show today. Hello, my happy people. Today is April 8th, 2026, and have we got an inspirational guest for you today? This episode is all about what it really means to face fear and keep moving forward, even in the most impossible situations. We're talking about trust, mindset, and how the way you experience the world can change how you survive it. So let's get right to our amazing guest. Please welcome to BookBanter with Diane Burkhart, number one New York Times best-selling author, Michael Hingson. The way that I like to start things out is just by asking my guests to please tell everyone who you are and what you do.

SPEAKER_03 1:03

I'm Michael Hingson, and I am blind, first and foremost, although whether that's relevant or not, I am. Anyway, I was born in Chicago and I grew up believing that I was capable of doing whatever I chose to do, because when I was four months old, it was discovered I was blind. I was born two months premature and put in a pure oxygen environment, and that can cause retinas to not develop properly, which is what happened to me. When it was discovered that I was blind, the doctors told my parents to send me off to a home because no blind child could ever amount to anything.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:38

And my parents said, You're wrong. He can do whatever he chooses, and we're going to give him that opportunity. So I grew up with that kind of attitude, knowing that in reality, just because I couldn't see with eye, that doesn't mean that I couldn't do stuff. So I grew up, joined the Boy Scouts. I was an Eagle Scout with two extra palms, Vigil in the Order of the Ear, which is the Boy Scout Honor Society, and that's the highest rank you can get. Went to high school, well, went to all schools with uh with everyone else. Got my first guide dog when I was 14, went to the University of California at Irvine, and got a master's degree in physics and a secondary teaching credential, worked at the campus radio station, and just did what other students did, and then was able to go out and get work in the workforce. And that was a little bit of a blessing and a little bit unusual because the unemployment rate has been and still is roughly in the neighborhood of about 70% among employable blind people because not that people can't work, but because people who have eyesight think you can't work. So after a time, I had a job where I was asked to open an office, which I did on the 78th floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center. And after that office was opened, I spent a lot of time doing all I could to learn everything I could about the World Trade Center, including emergency evacuation procedures, where emergency exits were, and so on, because I was the leader of an office and I knew that I needed to know that stuff, unlike sighted people who just read signs and tend not to pay attention to really learning the details. So for me, I had to know it. And what happened on September 11th was a mindset kicked in that allowed me to focus and do the things necessary to get out, get other people out and help going down the stairs. So I did that. And after that, people started hearing about my story. And in reality, they started calling and asking if I would come and talk about teamwork and leadership and lessons to learn from the World Trade Center. So literally for the last 24 plus years now, I've been a public speaker instead of working in computer hardware sales and managing a hardware sales team. And as my wife and I decided right around the beginning of 2002, selling life and philosophy is a whole lot more fun and rewarding than managing a hardware sales team and selling computer hardware. So that's what I do.

Dianne Burckhardt 4:02

Now I do want to back up a little bit. What was it that made you decide to study physics?

SPEAKER_03 4:07

I have always been interested, for whatever reason, in science. My father worked in electronics, he was an electronics and electrical engineer, and eventually we lived close enough to, and he worked at Edwards Air Force Base. He was the supervisor in charge of the precision measurements equipment lab that calibrated all the test equipment used around Edwards. And Edwards was where astronauts trained and a lot of different kinds of things happened. He knew, for example, Neil Armstrong and other people. Um, and I just was always interested in science. So my father wanted to get a ham radio, amateur radio license, but he waited until I could because he wanted to share that with me and wanted me to be able to share that with him. So we both got our licenses when I was 14. Then he kept his and I kept mine, still have mine. I renewed it last year. And, you know, the idea is that I've always been interested in science. And so it was just kind of one of those things that I decided to do was to go off and get a degree in physics. Maybe one of the things that helped was in high school in my freshman year, I was in the general science typical freshman course, but Mr. Dills, my science teacher, came to me before the last quarter of the school year started and he said, You're pretty bored with all this, aren't you? And I said, Well, that's okay. And he said, Well, I know you like a lot of electricity and magnetism. We're gonna move you for the last quarter of the year down to the senior physics course, and you're gonna go meet Mr. McGregor and you're gonna take electricity and magnetism with him. And so I did that in my freshman year, and then of course I had a full year of physics in my senior year. I've always had an interest in doing that. And it's just my brain and and my psyche. I pay attention to details in college. Most every professor always said to all of us, you gotta pay attention to the details. It isn't enough to get the right mathematical answer. That is, you can calculate and you can come up with the right number, but it doesn't work unless you also get the right units. So, for example, talking about 9.8 as the acceleration factor due to gravity when you drop something from a height, it isn't enough to get 9.8. You have to get 9.8 meters per second squared. Otherwise, the answer isn't totally correct. And if you can't make the units match, then you're doing something wrong. And teachers talked a lot about paying attention to details. So that's always stuck with me.

Dianne Burckhardt 6:29

How did your course studies transition into your career in the technology industry?

SPEAKER_03 6:34

Well, they didn't necessarily, other than paying attention to details. When I was in college, I was in graduate school, I also was a member of the National Federation of the Blind, which is the largest consumer organization of blind people in the world, actually, and certainly in this country. And I was called into the office of the president one day at our national convention, and he said, I have a job that I think is perfect for you that's going to be coming up next year. And he said, The job is based on the fact that we have been approached by a guy named Ray Kurzweil. Now, Ray Kurzweil, you may have heard of. He's invented this concept of the singularity, and he's been an inventor for years and so on. And in 1975, he had developed a machine that literally could look at printed pages, not like we do today, where it just snaps a picture. It had to develop the picture line by line, but it was able to develop uh an image of a page and recognize the characters on that page no matter what their type styles. And heretofore that had never been done. If you had a page with several types of print on it, you had to reprogram your computer for each print style in order to eventually get the whole page. So it was kind of not a practical thing. But Ray developed Omnifont Optical Character Recognition. And people didn't believe that he could do it. People didn't believe that it worked. He approached the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, couldn't get funding. He finally came to the Federation at the Washington, D.C. office, and he was so adamant that finally they agreed that somebody would go up to his lab and they would look at his machine. And the guy that went up, a guy named Jim Gashel, who was the director of government affairs at the Washington office, said, But here's the deal, Ray. We're going to bring up our stuff because anything you put on the machine, of course it's going to read because you got it so that it will. But we're going to bring up what we want to read. And if it reads what we bring up, then we'll talk to you. Well, they did bring it up. He put it on the machine. It read what they brought up, and that developed a relationship that actually exists to this very day. And what they decided to do was to create a program where several of these machines would be purchased by the National Federation of the Blind and put around the country for blind people to be able to use them and make recommendations back to Ray. So they needed to hire someone who literally would be willing to live out of suitcases in hotels for a period of time to go to wherever machines were put to teach people how to use the machine, to train trainers, to teach other people how to use the machine, fix them when they broke, help set them up and all that stuff. And the president of the Federation, Ken Jernigan, wanted me to do that. Well, I agreed to do that. And so in October of 1976, I flew to Boston, me and my second guy dog Holland, and we started that relationship. And that's why I said I was kind of blessed getting a job because that one came along. That project lasted 18 months, which is what it was supposed to do. And then Ray hired me to come into the company and do the same thing, which I did for about eight or nine months. But then something happened. I was called into the office of the VP of marketing. He said, We're laying you off. And I said, Why? Oh, it's not that you're doing a bad job or anything, it's just that we've hired way too many non-revenue producers, like a lot of engineering startups, and we have to get people in who can sell and bring money into the company. And so since you don't do that, then we're gonna have to lay you off. And he paused for a second and then he said, Unless you're willing to go into sales, they probably knew what I would do, but anyway, as I say, I took a micro nanosecond to decide to do it. The middle of 1984, when Xerox had purchased the company and laid off all of the salespeople. And so then I did have to go look for a job. And I searched for six months and and wasn't able to find one. I had one opportunity where an executive recruiter said, We like your resume. We're gonna send you a ticket to come up to San Jose, California. We were living in the southern part of the state at the time. The night before the day I was to fly up, he called and he said, I was just looking at your resume. And he said, I noticed that you do a lot of things with blind people. Is there somebody who's blind in your family? And I said, Yeah, I'm blind. And he said, You're blind? I said, Yeah. He said, Well, we're gonna have to call them, they're not gonna want to talk with you. I said, Why? Nothing's changed. Well, it has. You're blind. I was blind before. You liked my resume, you know, but the interview was canceled because that's what people do. Wow. The perception is that if you're blind, you can't do stuff. The reality is that just because we're blind, it doesn't mean we can't do stuff. And the reality is that blindness isn't the problem, it's societal attitudes, but it is what we face. But I was able to, along the way, find jobs. Probably one of the interesting things about going back into the workforce in 1989, which I chose to do, was my wife and I were looking at newspapers. And I should also explain, my wife Karen, who passed away in November of 2022. Karen was in a wheelchair her whole life, and the body eventually slows down and things happen. Anyway, she was looking at the newspaper in 1989 and she said, I've got this job I think that would be perfect for you. And she read it to me. I said, I think it would be. So do I say on my cover letter I'm blind or do I'm not? And she said, as wives can do, you're a dummy. And I said, Why? She said, Well, what is it that you say that you always tell every salesperson that you hired? And I said, Well, you're ahead of me. What are you thinking of? And she said, You always tell people one of the most important things they need to do is turn perceived liabilities into assets. What's blindness? It's a perceived liability. Well, as I tell people now when I speak, I've been a keynote public speaker for the last 24 years. As I tell people, this light went on and suddenly I knew what I had to do. I went off and I wrote a cover letter. And here are roughly are the last two paragraphs of the cover letter because I think it'll illustrate a lot of what we're talking about.

unknown 12:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 12:50

I wrote the most important thing you need to understand about me when you're considering me for this job is that I'm blind. As a blind person, I've had to sell all my life just to be able to take my guide dog on airplanes to grocery stores to rent a house, to buy a house, rent an apartment, because we didn't have the laws back then that we do now.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:09

So, second paragraph, when you're considering someone for this job, do you want to hire somebody who comes in for eight or 10 hours a day and then goes home because the job is over? Or do you want to hire somebody who truly understands sales for the science and art that it is and sells 24 hours a day as a way of life? That's what I sent off. Good answer. Two weeks later, we got a call from the company saying we liked your letter. Come down, we want to talk with you. We went down and on the third of July 1989, I was hired. And as I love to tell people, if you're going to get hired, do it on the third of July since the next day is a holiday. But but the bottom line is that I've been pretty blessed to be able to have jobs along the way, because a lot of blind people don't necessarily get that opportunity. So it's it's worked out well, but I now talk a lot about teamwork and trust and leadership as a public speaker, literally traveling the world speaking, talk about blindness and disabilities, and try to get people to understand that it's our perceptions that are generally the things that hold us back, and we need to really change that.

Dianne Burckhardt 14:18

And what was the job that took you to the World Trade Center?

SPEAKER_03 14:22

The job that I took in 1989, at the end of 1995, they said that Wall Street insisted that since the company I was working for was a manufacturer, that they actually had to have a physical presence in the city. So, although my wife didn't want to move back to New York, but she did. So we moved to New Jersey, we built an accessible house for her, and we opened an office on the 23rd floor of Tower Two of the World Trade Center. But I only had that job for about a year, and for a variety of reasons, I allowed myself to be recruited away. I've been working for a reseller, and we sold products from a variety of other companies, one of which was Quantum Corporation. They had purchased a company called ATL, and ATL became a division of Quantum. And I had sold a number of the ATL products, which were big tape libraries that people would use to back up all their computer data. And ATL had to open an office in New York, and they asked me if I would do it, and I said I would. So I allowed myself to be recruited away again in 1999, went to work for Quantum ATL. And in August of 2000, we opened our office on the 78th floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center. There had been a lot of companies that moved out of the World Trade Center after the warming in 1993. The occupancy went way down. So we negotiated a really great rental amount. And so we moved into the World Trade Center in August of 2000, set up the office, had a complete set of demo equipment and so on. And that's how I got into the World Trade Center again. And as I said, I spent a lot of time learning all I could about everything I could about the World Trade Center, how it worked, what was there, where the different offices were. Because I also knew as the leader of the office, if we had people coming in to negotiate contracts and say, in the middle of things, we decided we all go out to lunch. I needed to be able to say, where do you want to go? What kind of food do you want? Oh, there's a great place downstairs. Let's go there and take them there rather than saying I'm blind. I don't know how to get anywhere. Someone's going to have to lead me. Because how would that work a couple of hours later if we're negotiating contracts? So I needed to know that stuff to be the leader of the office that anyone else would be if they had eyesight. And so on September 11th, a mindset kicked in and I was able to do the things that needed to be done to help others out. We had some guests in the office, get them going to the right way and then actually escaping.

Dianne Burckhardt 16:54

Now I know you and your guide dog, Roselle, your life changed dramatically after the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center. What was it like going from living a fairly anonymous life to suddenly being thrust into the spotlight as a survivor of 9-11?

SPEAKER_03 17:10

Well, it was interesting because one of the things that I thought was very important for me was not to change the kind of person that I am and was. That is to say, yeah, we started getting very visible. Lots of different representatives from the media wanted to interview us. And Karen, my wife, and I talked about it. And we decided that if we could help educate people, if we could help people better understand the whole issue of the World Trade Center, and if we could help people understand more about blindness, then the interviews were were worth doing. So I started allowing myself to be interviewed. But the other thing that I didn't figure out until a little bit later was, and I didn't have any kind of psychological counseling after September 11th. But by letting all those reporters ask everything from the dumbest questions to the smartest questions and intuitive questions, it made me talk about it. And of course, that's what you oftentimes do when you're when you're really going through therapy and so on, anyway. So the the press was a was a great therapy for me, and and I did talk about it. I tolerated all of the questions. I knew I needed to do that, but the media got the story, especially because the first show that we were on after September 11th was Larry King Live on the 14th of September. And that's what really started the incredibly huge number of different media outlets and wanted to interview. But then also people started to call and say, We'd love you to come and talk to us and tell us what we should learn about the lessons from the World Trade Center and other things like that. And that's what started Karen and me deciding that if selling life and philosophy were possible, that's a whole lot better thing than selling computer hardware. And so I also became a public speaker. And I realized really quickly that as a speaker, it's not about me. Yeah, a lot of people want to hear the story. I've actually had some places that said, you can tell the story, we'd like you to do that, but we really want you to talk about other kinds of things. And I've learned over the last 24 years how to go in in a variety of different kinds of directions. But usually people do want the September 11th story as part of it. But what I've also recognized and learned is it's not so much about escaping from the World Trade Center, it's how I got there and all the lessons that I learned that allowed me to be able to function in the World Trade Center and function after that. So I talk a lot about life lessons and so on, both that led me to be there and then moving on from that. I love to go and speak. I've talked to companies all over the world, and I spoke at the Business Continuity Institute in London, their hybrid conference on resilience and business continuity and emergency preparedness in 2014. I was in Nevada speaking at an event in Washoe County. I was there to talk about emergency preparedness and so on. Nine years later, one of the members of the audience of that conference wrote an article specifically about my talk and said a lot of nice things about me and about the talk. And as I point out to people, how many times do you hear about a speaker who was so moving that they wrote about him nine years later? But again, when I go to speak, I know it's not about me, it's about the event. And my job is to try to be as constructive and as useful and as positive as I can to help the event in any way that I can. And I expect the event sponsors to tell me how best I can help make the event as meaningful as possible wherever I go.

Dianne Burckhardt 20:51

One of the things, since you were talking about that you had never gone through therapy with this, many people who survive events like 9-11, where so many people lost their lives, sometimes they deal with survivor's guilt. Was that ever anything that you struggled with?

SPEAKER_03 21:06

No. If you read Thunder Dog, there is a chapter where we talk about Tower 2 collapsing and how I started to run to get away from the collapse of tower two. There was a colleague from our corporate office who was in for the day to talk about pricing because we were going to do seminars on September 11th, teaching our reseller partners how to sell our products. So David Frank from our corporate office was going to do the pricing stuff. And of course, I was going to do all the technical stuff. My staff was out, they didn't need to be there for this. And as Tower 2 was collapsing, David turned and ran and was gone. I turned and ran, and it turns out we ran in the same direction, but I didn't know that at first. But as soon as I started to run, I started thinking to myself, God, I can't believe that you got us out of a building just to have one fall on us. And as soon as I thought that, I heard in my head as clearly as you hear me now a voice that said, Don't worry about what you can't control. Focus on running with Roselle, and the rest will take care of itself. And I had this absolute sense of certainty that if we work together, we would be fine. So after September 11th, and today still, one of my major mantras in life is don't worry about what you can control. It's only going to drive you crazy. Just focus on the things that you can. And for me, one of the things that I didn't have a lot of control over was the terrorists attacking the towers. So my belief is that for all of us who were there, for all of us who survived that or anything else, the issue is what are we going to do with our lives? For me, the opportunity came up to be a speaker, which I do and I enjoy doing it. I enjoy educating people. I don't tend to have survivor skill because I believe that I was given the opportunity to speak and travel and talk about September 11th, talk about life lessons, talk about blindness, talk about teamwork and emergency preparedness and so on, and literally move on from the events of that day and hopefully help other people do the same thing. How long after this did it take you to decide to write Thunder Dog? Well, in I believe December of 2002, Roselle was going to be honored as a hero dog by the American Kennel Club at the AKC Yukano Championship Dog Show in Orlando. And so Karen and I went to Orlando with Roselle. But while I was there, I met George Berger, who was the publisher of the AKC Gazette. And he made the comment, you ought to write a book. And I said, Well, I haven't thought about that. He said, But you should. You've got a story that people should hear. So I thought about a little bit and then I started to take notes. I didn't know anything about writing a book. He said that he would help and he had an agent who could help. Well, his agent wanted me to write a business book, but I had decided fairly early on that if I'm going to write something, it's going to be a book for everyone because I wanted to teach people about blindness. I wanted people to understand why and how I got where I was and why things went the way they did. And so I kept taking notes. And as I tell people, I had like over a megabyte worth of notes by 2010. When one day on a Sunday afternoon, a woman called, and her name was Susie Flory, and Susie said, I'm writing a book called Dog Tales. It's going to be 17 chapters about different dogs and things they did, and I want to include Roselle. Would you tell me your story? So I said, sure. And I spent about 45 minutes telling her the whole story. And then as soon as I was done, there was kind of a pause, and then she said, You know, I'm going to write my book, but you ought to write a book. And so I told her the same things that I just told you. And she said, Well, I'm going to help you write it if you'd like. I'm a professional writer. And I am sure that my agent would be interested in helping us with this. So she and I got on the phone and talked to her agent, Chip McGregor, who became my agent. Chip said, Well, I don't want a 9-11 book. There are way too many of those. And I said, Good, I don't want to write a 9-11 book because this is what I'm interested in. And he said, Well, then get us a proposal and we'll take it from there. Well, Susie and I wrote a proposal. We sent it to Chip. And then we got on the phone with him the next day and he was bouncing off the walls. He said, This is perfect. I can sell this. And literally within a week, we had a contract with Thomas Nelson Publishing, which was the largest Christian publisher. It's now part of HarperCollins. And in August of 2011, Underdog was published. And the week after it was published, I was sitting at home with Karen, and we got a phone call, it was from the people at Thomas Nelson, and they said, We got to tell you something. And uh we we need you to sit down because we we don't want you to be standing up when we hear this. And they were sounding all sad and all that. I said, Well, Karen's sitting down. Does that count? And they knew she was in a wheelchair. They said, Yeah, but you have to as well. So I so I finally said, Okay, I'm sitting down. And the next words out of their mouth was, and it's first week out, Thunder Dog is on the New York Times bestseller list. And eventually it became number one for a week, and it's done very well. And then two years later, we wrote a book for younger people called Running with Roselle, which was kind of more about me and Roselle growing up. And a friend of Suzy's who was more involved with writing children's books, Jeanette Hanscom, helped us write that. And then when the pandemic occurred and I couldn't travel and speak anymore, I decided that I really ought to do some things. And so I started learning about podcasting, but I also decided maybe I need to write a book, learning to control fear, because I realized I'd been talking for 19 years by that time about how I was able to focus and get out. I'm not going to say I wasn't afraid, but I could control that. And I realized I'd never taught people how to do that. So we decided to write a book that would help people hopefully learn more about controlling fear, learn how to use it as a powerful tool rather than letting it, as I put it, overwhelm or blind them. And so we started writing Live Like a Guide Dog. And again, Susie wasn't able to help, but she uh had another friend, Carrie Wyatt Kent, who we spoke with. And Carrie and I wrote Live Like a Guide Dog: True Stories from a Blind Man and His Dogs about being brave, overcoming adversity, and moving forward in faith. And that was published by Tyndall House in August of 2024. So we have three books out there, and Live Like a Guy Dog is written and titled The Way It Is because what I decided to do was to use lessons I learned from my eight guide dogs and Karen Service Dog about life and dealing with fears. So, for example, after September 11th, I happened to be speaking to the head veterinarian at Guy Dogs for the Blind, where I've gotten all of my dogs. And I said, you know, is this going to affect Roselle? Is September 11th going to be an issue for her? And he said, Well, the question is, did anything directly threaten her? And I said, No, nothing directly threatened her. And he said, Well, there you are. Dogs don't do what if. We what if everything to death. Dogs live in the moment. And that is very true. So it was all over for her. As soon as we got home, she wanted to play and did. But the reality is there's so many lessons like that to learn from dogs that are so important that could teach us so many things. As I love to say, I've learned a lot more about trust and teamwork and leadership and so many other lessons from all of my guide dogs. And I've learned so much more from them than I ever learned from all the experts on the subject in the world.

Dianne Burckhardt 28:49

Your first book, Thunder Dog, was not only just a New York Times number one bestseller, it sold 2.5 million copies. How was it for you to go forward with other books after your first book out of the gate is a huge success like that? Do you hold your other books up to that same kind of a benchmark?

SPEAKER_03 29:10

I'd love to, but no, I would love them all to be bestsellers. But Live Like a Guy Dog hasn't been yet, and Running with Roselle hasn't. But they all serve purposes, and so I I accept them as they are. And I think that's the thing to do.

Dianne Burckhardt 29:25

So now seems like the perfect time to do our five quick questions that never turn out to be quick, but they're just too fun to stop doing.

SPEAKER_03 29:33

Okay, so the answers are yes, no, maybe possibly, could be.

Dianne Burckhardt 29:37

Could be.

unknown 29:38

Could be.

Dianne Burckhardt 29:40

So question one. You've worked with several guide dogs in your life. When you have a guide dog in the home, do you also just keep pets around, or does the working dog rule the household?

SPEAKER_03 29:51

Oh, listen, we have a cat. Who do you think rules the house? It's always a cat. If there's a cat in the house. Of course it is. Um, no, we've had other pets. When I mentioned Karen's service dog a while ago, my second my seventh guide dog was Africa. And actually in 2002, we moved back to California. Guy Dogs for the Blind asked if I would come up and be their public spokesperson. And I did that for about six years or six and a half. But in 2006, I decided that, and Karen decided we wanted to have one of the breeder dogs because guy dogs breed their own guy dogs. And so we decided we care for one of the breeder dogs because they don't want the breeder dogs in kennels all day. So they keep them at family homes until they go do their puppy things. So we went in in January of 2006, and the head of breeding, Marina Hall, at the time said, I've got four dogs. I think there's one that's gonna be the one that you're gonna take. But we we talked to all four dogs, and three of the four were very afraid of Karen's wheelchair. The fourth was so unafraid that as soon as she saw Karen, she jumped up in Karen's lap in the wheelchair. And and Marina said, That's the one I think you're gonna take anyway. Well, we took Fantasia, and in 2008, she had her second litter of puppies, and one of those puppies was named Africa, and Africa became my seventh guide dog. So we had Africa and Fantasia for a while, and a cat. So no, I have no problem having other other animals around the house.

Dianne Burckhardt 31:24

I love having animals around too. I'm such a big animal person. Oh yeah. Now, question two. I know you enjoy cooking. What is your best dish? Chocolate chip cookies? Ooh, good answer.

SPEAKER_03 31:41

Yeah, I love to make chocolate chip cookies and I and I do other things. I've never been great with a lot of different kinds of sauces, but now I'm only cooking for one, so I don't do as much really basic from scratch cooking as I used to, because it's just me. And when Karen was alive, we kind of shared the cooking. I did the desserts, I did the grilling and so on, and she did other cooking. So we we both were involved, but now it's just me.

Dianne Burckhardt 32:07

Have you ever put like a little bit of sea salt on top of your chocolate chip cookies before?

SPEAKER_03 32:12

I haven't, um, but I should try that. Yeah, you should. It's really good. Do you put it on before you bake them? I usually do it just after. Just after, okay.

Dianne Burckhardt 32:23

Like as soon as you take it out of the oven, just put just a little bit on there, and it really brings out the chocolate.

SPEAKER_03 32:28

I'll bet it does. I should try that. That's a good idea.

Dianne Burckhardt 32:32

So, question three. I know you've met many celebrities and influential political figures over the years. Who has been your favorite person to meet? Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_03 32:43

That's hard. I mean, certainly met Larry King several times, but my favorite, I guess, that I have to mention, and this was when I had my fourth guy dog Linny. It was in 1996 or 1997. So as pre-World Trade Center, I walked into the Admirals Club at LAX Los Angeles Airport, and I heard this guy talking. He was talking like this. You know, he was saying, Look, I gotta get this paperwork all done. Can you help me get this done? And I went, I know that voice. And I thought about it for a while and I realized Peter Falk. Now I knew that Peter Falk didn't like people to ask for autographs, and I've never asked anyone for their autograph. But I walked up to the desk where he was because I had to get some stuff. And the the person who he was talking to said, I will go work on this and I'll be right back. And so I turned to him and I said, Don't you hate paper paperwork? And he goes, Yeah, but you got to deal with it. It's got to come out and they got to do what they got to do. What's your dog's name? And I said, Her name is Linny. Now, the thing about Linny is if you mentioned her name or if you looked at her, Linny would flip over on her back, waiting for attention. And she did that, and suddenly Peter Falk's down there on the floor and talking to Linny for about three or four minutes, and even before the person came back with everything all fixed, he goes, Linny, I can't stay down here and scratch you all night. And I said, Yes, you can, just ask her. We had a great conversation.

Dianne Burckhardt 34:06

That is so cool.

SPEAKER_03 34:07

Yeah.

Dianne Burckhardt 34:08

See now, I I half expected you to answer Betty White.

SPEAKER_03 34:12

Well, Betty White was another one, and I've met Betty a a couple different times. And you know, Richas and Kelly, I was on their show, and that was was fun. But yeah, I enjoyed I enjoyed Betty White, and one of my favorite instances with Betty was when Roselle was given the Hero Dog Award by the American Humane Association. Betty was reading the information to introduce me, and suddenly the teleprompter froze. She said, I can't read this. The teleprompter froze. And I just spoke up and I said, Yeah, Betty, but I don't get to use a teleprompter at all. You can do it. That's good.

unknown 34:49

Yeah.

Dianne Burckhardt 34:51

So now question four. What is one question that you wish people would ask you in interviews like this?

SPEAKER_03 34:58

Well, I guess in general, what's it like to be blind? And the answer is the same as it is to be sighted. One of the things that I've learned over the years is that in reality, we need to change our definition of disability. My diversity friends always say, Well, you know, disability is a lack of ability. I say, No, it's not. And they say, Yes, it is, because it starts with diss. And I say, Well, what about discrete, disciple, and discern? Is disciple a lack of Eiffel? No, just because it starts with dis, it doesn't mean anything. And in 2023, I actually had the opportunity to attend the Kelly and Ryan after party. I won one of the sets of tickets to it. And so we went down on Saturday afternoon before the Oscars. And then on Monday morning, we were going to go to the after party show at the Dolby Theater. My niece and nephew and I were all there. I took them. We were coming down after putting our luggage in our room on the third floor. We were coming down the main stairwell. And suddenly I heard a whole bunch of screaming. And when I heard it, I asked my niece, what's going on? And she said, Oh, well, we just lost power in and around the hotel because she could see all the way down the stairs and all that it was the main stairwell. But people were screaming. And I realized, why are they screaming? Because it's three in the afternoon, plenty of light coming in through the windows, but people were screaming because suddenly it wasn't what they expected. It wasn't what they thought. They weren't getting the light that they really thought they should have. And I realized from that, if we're going to talk about disabilities, we have to talk about the disabilities that the majority of people on the planet have, which is light dependence. Yeah. All you guys are light dependent. If the lights go out, unless you have a smartphone or a flashlight or something around, you're in a world of hurt. Thomas Edison and others invented the electric light bulb back in 1878. And for the last 148 years, all we've done is work to make light on demand more available to you so that it covers up your disability, but it doesn't change the fact that the disability is there. So disability really has to have a change in definition to be it's a characteristic that we all experience and that we all have in one way or another. It's just different for different people.

Dianne Burckhardt 37:16

Yeah. So now we have your last question. And I did adapt this one just a little bit for you, because the question that we've been asking everybody is what book to movie adaptation do you think has been the best one? But for you, it's like what would be the best book to movie adaptation that has been accessible for people who are blind or visually impaired?

SPEAKER_03 37:39

Well, we're not visually impaired, first of all, which is a term that got created by the professionals in the field. But the problem is visually we're not different because we're blind, and impaired, we're not because we're blind. But unfortunately, it's like hearing impaired. If you say hearing impaired to a deaf person, they're likely to flatten you because they've recognized that's not an appropriate term. Art of hearing is a whole lot different because we shouldn't be compared with other people based on how much hearing we have or don't have. And the same for blind people, it isn't an issue of how much eyesight we have or don't have. So blind and low vision is a lot more relevant and a lot more appropriate. And slowly people are getting in the habit of saying that as opposed to visually impaired. So blind and low vision. But the book that has been adapted, wow, that is a real tough one because for me, it's also a matter of being real picky when I'm watching a TV show or or whatever, and having read the book, I'm always making comparisons. How much did they really stick to the plot? So even so, kind of one of my favorites, even though they they did not necessarily totally follow the plot, but is 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the Disney movie. I still think that's a great one. Um, and Disney Channel has done something pretty great all the way down the line. They've pretty much put audio descriptions in all of the stuff on the Disney Channel and the Disney Channel Plus. Now, I watched 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea long before I had access to audio descriptions, but it was also fun listening to it being audio described. And for those who don't know what that is, someone creates a script of the movie describing all the action, and then between different words that that well, and when there's just action going on, which is most of the time in movies anyway, there is a voice on a separate track that's describing what the action is. So we get a lot of that. So it's fun. But I've always liked 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but mostly and even though it it didn't totally follow the book, it was good. It was fun.

Dianne Burckhardt 39:47

Yeah, that was a good movie.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

Yeah, I think that's a very good answer. Yeah, it's a good movie.

Dianne Burckhardt 39:54

So now remind all of our listeners who you are and tell them where they can find your books.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

Well, I'm Mike Hingson, and as I said earlier, I've been a speaker for the last 24 years. My books are available wherever books are are sold. You can learn more about me at Michael Hinkson, M-I-C-H-A-E-L-H-I-N-G-S-O-N.com. If you'd like to be on our podcast, love to explore it because I believe everyone has a story to tell. And I want to give people the opportunities to tell their story. So if you'd like to come on the podcast, it's real easy. Or if you just want to reach out to me, especially if you might be interested in having me come as a speaker to an event you have, email me at speaker at michaelhinkson.com and would love to uh to talk with you. I believe everyone has a story to tell, so we're always looking for people who want to come on the podcast. It's so much fun.

Dianne Burckhardt 40:50

And as always, we're going to have all of this information in the description of today's podcast with live links so everyone can just click and go and find you, your books, your podcast, and everything. Right. Thank you so much for doing this with me today. I was so looking forward to this. After I saw your interview with Mickey Mickelson on your podcast, I knew we grilled him. I love Mickey. Yeah, I'm always talking about him on the podcast. I get such great authors from him. Yeah, he's he's he does good work. He's a good publicist. Well thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. Mm-hmm. Well, thank you. It's my pleasure. So there you have it, folks. My conversation with best-selling author Michael Hankson. Be sure to check out the description of today's podcast to find the links to his website and to buy his books, including Live Like a Guide Dog. Learn more about his work and explore his podcast, Unstoppable Mindset. You'll also find contact information for you if you would like to hire him for a speaking engagement. Now, next week we're shifting gears into music, culture, and history with Lady Dr. Diana Ziegler, author of Midnight Train from Georgia. We'll be taking an in-depth look into her book about her family connection to Gladys Knight and the Pips and the incredible story behind one of the most iconic musical journeys in history. And I have to tell you, I could have talked to her all day long. She was incredible and so much fun, and you're really going to enjoy this interview. Also, don't forget to check out everything we've got going on at Burkhart Books and BookBand Productions. We've recently added new pages to our website, including our upcoming media and marketing courses, which are currently in development and will be launching very soon. Our swag shop is also on the way with previews of a few of the items already available to view now. We are putting the final touches on these things and more. You can also find back issues of BookBanter magazine available again on our website as we continue getting everything reloaded into our new system. We've got a lot more coming, so be sure to join the newsletter to stay up to date on new releases, upcoming projects, and everything we're building behind the scenes. Just go to BurkhartBooks.com slash subscribe to join today. Or click and go with the link in the description of today's podcast and sign up. So there you have it, folks. I think that's enough for today. So you know what that means. It's that time. It's time for you all to go forth and be really happy. We have so many great things coming up for you. Thank you for joining us today. Be sure to subscribe to BookBanter with Diane Burkhart on your favorite podcast streaming service. Because if you love books like we do, you do not want to miss a single episode of this podcast.