We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Michael Hingson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Michael, appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

On September 11, 2001 I held the position of MidAtlantic Regional Sales Manager for a Fortune 500 computer company. I was in my office on the 78th floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center when the terrorists attacked the WTC. I have been blind my entire life. Because of this, not reading signs and knowing that, as the leader of a staff and office, I needed to know what to do should an emergency ever occurred as it did in 1993 when the bombing of the WTC parking lot took place. I spent considerable time learning all I could learn about the WTC complex including all emergency and evacuation procedures. What I did not realize until much later was that I created within me a mindset that took over when the attacks took place in 2001. That mindset was that I KNEW WHAT TO DO. I didn’t rely on signs and other visual items which most people would basically ignore until something happened that caused them to take notice. For me, reading signs under my mindset wouldn’t have been an option anyway since smoke and debris might have blocked the view of the typical written evacuation information. Knowledge is ALWAYS better.

As I said, my mindset went into operation. This kept me and my fears focused first on getting others in my office out and then getting me and my guide dog, Roselle, out and down the stairs. On September 11 I and a colleague from our corporate office, David Frank, were going to conduct sales seminars to teach our reseller partners how to sell our products. After the aircraft hit the building and eventually it stopped swaying, David looked out my office window and saw fire above us. It took a bit of time to get David to focus, but when I did so I instructed him to get our early arrival guests to the stairs, NOT to the elevators.

After David did this, he and I went to the stairs and began our descent. We eventually reached the first floor and then left the complex. We were within 100 yards of Tower Two when it collapsed. We ran for our lives. Here is a video that tells the story, https://youtu.be/Bhsc9ArWRHQ.

The next day I reached out to the staff of Guide Dogs for the Blind where Roselle was trained. Among others I spoke with the Public Information director, Joanne Ritter, who put out a story about our escape. That story lead to the media picking up my story.

Soon I began receiving requests to speak at company meetings, corporate events and nonprofit functions. In November of 2001 my wife, Karen, and I decided that “selling life and philosophy was better than selling computer technology and managing a computer sales force”. So, I began speaking. In January, 2002 I also was hired by Guide Dogs for the Blind to become the public spokesperson for the organization. I held that position until 2008. During that time I continued to speak when invited as well as representing GDB.

The Guide Dogs job ended in June, 2008. I then formed The Michael Hingson Group, Inc. as the entity that would represent me as a speaker. In 2011, my first book, “Thunder Dog: the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust” was published. It immediately became a NY Times Bestselling book.

I continued to speak until the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Since, at that time, travel dropped off I began exploring other income options. In January, 2021 I was hired by accessiBe, an Israeli company to help advance its efforts to market and promote its products that help make the internet more accessible and inclusive for persons with disabilities.

As the pandemic ceased I also began traveling again to speak. Also during that time I began writing my new 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”. I and my colleague, Keri Wyatt Kent, created this new book because I realized that while speaking I talked about being able to focus and not letting fear show, but I have not worked to help others to learn how to control fear. This new book is intended to be the vehicle to teach people that they can learn to control fear and not let it “blind or overwhelm them”.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Much of this is discussed above. However, I want people to understand that they can control fear. People can learn toface unexpected and emergency situations without going into panic mode.

I want people to understand that “disability” does not me a lack of ability. Instead, actually we all have a disability. Sighted people, have the disability that they are light dependent and while “light on demand” is prevalent in society it can fail. I have seen this when buildings in which I was happened to lose power.

I have been a speaker now for 23 years. Here is a link to what I call my “Electronic Press Kit” which contains many references as well as other useful information,https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/q8uxu9u7pap4puj5de7rg/h?rlkey=22bziy0wmghf8111kad73685y&dl=0 .

One particular reference is an article created in late 2022 by someone who heard me speak at an emergency preparedness conference in 2014. How often do you hear of someone who wrote positively about a speaker that they heard eight years before? That article can be found here, https://www.signalsaz.com/articles/assistant-chiefs-desk-dec-9th/.,

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

In early 2001 my best salesperson came to me and informed me that he had been asked to visit one of the major financial firms on Wall Street to discuss our products. He was asked to bring his manager. As he told me, he accepted, but “I didn’t tell them you were blind”. One of the most important things I explained to every salesperson I hired was that while I am their boss I did not hire them so I could “boss them around”. I hired my people because I became convinced by them during their job interviews that they could sell. What I also said to each person was that my job was to add value to them in their sales efforts. I explained that each salesperson and I needed to work together to discover as a team how I could best enhance their efforts.

Some hires got that concept better than others. When this salesperson told me that he didn’t tell his inviters that I was blind I knew immediately that he realized that by bring me with him without any blindness warning from him he would be providing to them something, or some person, who was different which would make his audience pay more attention. He also knew how I sold and managed and that I would be best at engaging these people.

We deliberately showed up 1 minute late for the meeting. The people who invited us were assembled and talking until we entered. The room became totally quiet. We went to the front of the room and began setting up our computer and PowerPoint projector. While doing all this I turned to the person we passed in the upper right-hand seat. I asked his name. It took three times asking to get him to answer. I finally had to say that in reality I heard him fidgeting as we passed his seat.

Once he introduced himself I asked him to tell me what he and the others expected and how we could best help. It took an effort with this first person, but he did answer.

I then went around the room asking open ended questions and working to get everyone to relax. This did occur.

By the end of introductions and my initial Q&A I knew we did not have the product that would best meet the needs of this particular project. Even so, I conducted the PowerPoint presentation. My script was in Braille. I had even practiced pointing to the proper location on the screen when certain pictures appeared. The value of me doing the presentation was that I didn’t even have to turn to look at the screen, but rather continued to focus on facing the audience during the entire event.

At the end, I said something like “and by now you may recognized that our product won’t fit the specific need you have outlined”. “Instead, here are some other products that will work for you.”

After the presentation was over one of the attendees came up to me and sait that they were all mad at me. When I asked why explained, “typically these presentations are boring”. “Oh, yours was not. We found what you had to say interesting and invaluable. We are mad because you never looked away and so we, having forgotten that you were blind, didn’t dare fall asleep or looked bored.”

I explained that in fact, my guide dog Roselle also wasn’t sleeping and that if anyone of the audience members did sleep Roselle was taking notes and we would have gotten them.

Two weeks after this presentation, the same team manager reached out to say that they really appreciated my honesty and information. This person went on to say that another project had come their way and that because of all that I had told them they knew that our product would be perfect for this situation. The order would be larger than the previous one was and that they were not going to put it out for bid. Instead my salesperson was asked for a price and we had the order the next day.

By the time of this order I had been in sales and management for 22 years. I knew that trying to “sell” something that wouldn’t have met a customer’s needs, especially on Wall Street, would have meant a horrible future for my company. Honesty always pays in the end.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

My best story would be the World Trade Center story I provided above.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.michaelhingson.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/, https://www.facebook.com/mhingson
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/mhingson
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfCx2L9OVN38Dv4mX6udP8g
• Other: https://www.facebook.com/Roselle911GuideDog/

Image Credits

Michael Hingson