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Speaker 1: He is pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Animal Rights on pet Life Radio. This's your host,

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Tim Link, and I'm so glad you're joining us today.

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We have a real great show, really intriguing. We get

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New York Times best selling author Michael hankson coming on

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and Mayne Michael from his best selling book Thunderdog. His

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latest books called Live Like a Guide Dog. So we're

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going to pick his brain a little bit, tell us

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a little bit about what the book's about, how he

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learned great things from dogs like we always do. And

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then obviously we'll talk to him about his writing writing styles.

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So everybody, Hank Tight welcome back to write for this

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commercial break. You're listening to Animal Rights on pet Life Radio.

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Speaker 1: Let's Talk pets on Petlife Radio dot com.

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Speaker 2: Welcome back to animal Rights on pet Life Radio. Join

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this now is New York Times bestselling author Michael Hankson. Michael,

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welcome to the show.

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Speaker 4: Thank you good to be here.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we're excited to have you on the show. Definitely

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excited about the Uh, what I call is sort of

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the Thunderdog Part two, what you've learned from all of this,

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but the new book, Live Like a Guide Dog. So

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tell us a little bit about the book and how

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it came about, and then we'll talk about the lessons learned.

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Speaker 5: I love to collaborate, and so when we wrote Thunderdog originally,

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and actually it kind of got started because a woman

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called me named Susie Florey who wanted to do an

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interview with me, and she was writing a book about

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various things with dogs. Anyway, I told the story to

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her and she said, no, I want to help you

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write a book, and so Thunderdog was the result. And

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then when we did Live like a Guide Dog, which

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came out last August. Carrie why at Kent, who was

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a friend of Susie's, collaborated with me on it, and

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Carrie described it very well. She said, Thunderdog really is

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what happened at the World Trade Center for me and

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for those who don't know, I worked in the World

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Trade Center and escape with my fifth guide dog, Roselle,

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on September eleventh, two thousand and one, which is what

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Thunderdog is about. So Carrie said, Thunderdog is all about

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what happened. Live Like a Guide Dog is why what

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happened to me happened. I thought that was an interesting

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way to describe it, and so Live Like a Guide

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Dog is really a book that I started to write

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because I knew at the beginning of the pandemic there

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are going to be a lot of fearful people, and

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we had a lot of things going on with government

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and all that was foamating fear all over the place.

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So I wanted to write a book to teach people

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some of the things that I had put into practice

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on September eleventh, and I had realized I had never

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taught people. So I wanted to do is to teach

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people how to learn to control fear, because in reality,

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we fear so many things, most of which over which

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we have no control, or we just go crazy worrying

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about things that make no sense to worry about. So

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I wanted to have an opportunity to teach people how

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to control fear. And that's what Lived Like a Guide

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Dog from my perspective, is all about. Because on September eleventh,

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I had known what to do in the case of

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an emergency because I learned it by consulting with the

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port authority, police, the security people, the fire people, and

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so on. And on September eleventh, when everything went down

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as it were for me, a mindset kicked in and

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so I was able to focus. Roselle helped with that

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by giving me something to praise and encourage her to

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keep doing what she was doing, which was working very well.

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But the bottom line is that I learned that in reality,

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we all could do that, and so Live like a

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Guy Dog is all about trying to teach people to

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learn to control fear not be afraid of everything that

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goes on in the world.

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Speaker 2: Very nice, and I love the concept and I love

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the approach on it as well, because you know, I

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always find, at least in my opinion, there's two. I

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hate to categorize two types of people, but I will

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for this purpose. One is the one that lives in

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constant fear, fear what will happen or could happen, and

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usually more fearful when things are going well, waiting for

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the other shoe to drop. And then the other is

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sort of the one that goes through life oblivious, without

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a plan, without a strategy, without what if something were

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to happen, not to worry about it, but what you

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do in those situations. And I think that you did

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a great job in the book Live like a Guide Dog,

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sort of broaching both of those right.

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Speaker 5: The fact of the matter is that over ninety percent

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of the things that we worry about are things over

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which we have absolutely no control. Well, what if this happens?

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What am I going to do? We worry about that

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so much that we become fearful of all of it.

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And we're really taught from a young age how to

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be more afraid than how to learn to control fear.

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Speaker 4: But in reality we can learn to and I.

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Speaker 5: Think you put it very well, deal with the what

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if stuff, all that stuff that comes along but we

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don't have to worry about it. We don't have to

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worry about the things over which we don't have control.

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We had no control over the World Trade Center happening,

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the events of September eleventh occurring. What we all, each

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and every one of us have, however, is total control

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over how we decide to deal with it. And that's

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the part that we need to deal with. And you know,

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we can worry from now until the end of time

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about what it's going to happen the next time there's

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a terrorist attack. Well, you don't worry about those things.

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You can be aware, as you pointed out, and you

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can learn what to do when there's an emergency, and

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you can put a lot of things into practice. But

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the most important thing is to learn how to control

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fear and not let it, as I would put it,

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blind you or overwhelm you.

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Speaker 2: Very good, Yeah, absolutely, And I love one that the

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comments that was made in the book about this whole

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being afraid actually can be a positive thing.

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Speaker 5: Well, and the reality is there's nothing wrong with fear

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if you will what the problem isn't fear, The problem

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is how you deal with it. And you're right, the

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reality is that we can learn to control fear and

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use it as a very powerful tool to help us

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stay focused and do the things that we need to do.

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And that's what we should use fear to help us do.

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But not to make us paralyzed, not to make us

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totally incapable of dealing with making this dec because all

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we are is afraid of everything.

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Speaker 4: Love it.

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Speaker 2: I love it. And as the old saying goes, you know,

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what you put out there is what you get. So

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if you put fear out there, you're going to get

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fear back.

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Speaker 4: So you've got to.

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Speaker 2: Know how to deal with it when it occurs. And

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then but don't worry about it. Put out positive energy,

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positive thoughts, and you're going to get that back in return.

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Speaker 5: There's a group of people. There's a concept called business continuity.

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Business continuity, and the people who deal with it are

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those people whose job it is to, if, you will,

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what if something happens in business? In other words, they

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plan for different emergencies, and they call themselves the what

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if people, And as they point out, nobody pays any

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attention to them until there's an emergency, and of course

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then they're in serious demand. But they would tell you

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that what they do is they plan, but they don't fear,

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and they put things in place. They put procedures in

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place so that if something happens in a particular business,

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it will continue to run. But they don't live in fear.

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They instead live in creativity and they live to make

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plans to make sure that things go well.

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Speaker 4: There's nothing wrong with that.

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Speaker 2: Nice.

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Speaker 4: I like that. I like that.

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Speaker 2: One of the things when I was reading through the

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book and reading the highlights, I was trying to get

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a fill for how many of these things you know,

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sort of the steps and the guides and the things

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that you put together in the book, how many of

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those did you or percentage wise did you know ahead

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of time by being prepared and like you said, having

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all the talking to the poort authority, getting everything in

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place for if something did happen, which you did, compared

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to what you learned afterwards after it did happen, did

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you feel a higher percentage afterwards you realized you didn't

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have as much under the plan as you thought you did.

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Or is it did they sort of go hand in hand.

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Speaker 4: All they start to go hand in hand.

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Speaker 5: I knew most all the things that I talked about,

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and live like a guide dog ahead of time, but

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you know, you always learn more, and I learned some

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interesting concepts. For example, this doesn't directly relate to fear,

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but it sort of does. I began speaking, and I

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like to record every talk that I give so I

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can go back and listen to it. And for the

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longest time I said I do that because I'm my

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own worst critic, and nobody's going to criticize me any

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heavier or harder than I am. And only over the

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last year actually, in thinking about it, as we wrote

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Live like a guide Dog, that I realize that's the

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wrong thing to say, because that's just promoting fear. In reality,

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I learned that no one can teach me anything. They

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can provide me with information, but I'm the only one

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who can truly teach me and accept it and move forward.

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And so I've changed my philosophy. And rather than saying

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I'm my own worst critic, I say I want to

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hear all this because I'm my own best teacher. It's

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a much more positive approach. It's a less fearful approach,

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and it's also truer.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, very good. I like it. I like it. I

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like that approach. When putting together the book, did you

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use mostly a reference back to Thunderdog and then extend

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it from there or was it a whole new structure

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for you is putting everything on paper as far as

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the steps and things to do.

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Speaker 4: It was really a whole new structure.

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Speaker 5: We didn't really refer back to Thunderdog a lot for

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a lot of reasons. It was a completely different book.

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It was intended to do different things, and so we

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really worked with the idea that every chapter was named

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with the name of one of my guide dogs, and

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the question is what lessons did I learn from that

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dog that helped enrich and deal with my life, and

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starting with Squire and going through all of of the

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guy dogs and Fantasia, my wife's service dog as well.

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That's exactly what we did. So it really is totally

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different than Thunderdog. It totally compliments Thunderdog, however, and so

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when people say, well, which should I read first or

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which book should I get? If I'm only going to

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get one, and I try to just get people to understand, no,

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get both. You want to sell them, but that's but

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the reality is they're different, and you can't you can't

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really do it that way. They're really totally different from

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each other in so many respects.

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Speaker 2: Right, and also the lessons learned. That's that's the nice thing,

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you know, how you put each chapter. You sort of

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gave each of the guide Dog service dogs a platform

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and you put it together saying, okay, here's why I

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learned from each one of them. And each one was

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unique and different. They had some things that I'm sure

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they characteristics and traits and things that each had but

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and jobs to do. But each one had their own

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take and brought a different philosophy. I'll say to you.

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Speaker 5: Absolutely, they all have different personalities and so yeah, that's

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exactly what happened, and so each one was different.

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Speaker 4: I love it.

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Speaker 2: Learn from all your dogs one at a time and

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apply them to life, and you're going to be in

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pretty good shape when you say.

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Speaker 5: And the reality is learn from them. The fact is

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dogs like humans, you know, unless they're really taught horribly

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not to. But the reality dogs want us to set

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the rules. Dogs look up to us, and it's our

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job to set the rules. We don't have to do

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it by beating up on dogs in any way, shape

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or format. It's not a good thing to do. But

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what is important to be able to do is to

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have a process to train the dogs. And you know,

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one of the things I learned when I was living

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in Northern California I learned from the Marine Humane Society

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is that in reality, when they have people go through

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a dog training or an animal training course, the creature

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that gets most of the training is the human, not

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the dog or the animal, because they're the ones that

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really need to learn what to do. And the fact

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of the matter is that working with now a guide dogs,

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I've learned that they really want me to set the

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rules and they want me to be consistent, and they're

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much happier when I do that, and there's a whole

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lot less stress. Guiding is a very stressful thing, and

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my job is to keep that stress as minimal as

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possible by doing things like a lot of praising of

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the dog, a lot of encouraging of the dog, and

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so on. As we're doing what we do, and if

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we get lost, I have to work not to get

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stressed out, because getting stressed out is only going to

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cause the dog to feel stressed that they don't need

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to feel. So it is a synergistic relationship. But I'm

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the one that has to set the tone. And that's

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just as true with families and pets. You know, people

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need to really integrate their dogs more into their lives.

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If they would, it'd be a whole lot better world.

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Speaker 2: I heard that. All right, We're going to take a

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quick commercial break. We'll come back and container conversation with

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a New York Times bestselling author, Michael hankson and talk

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to Micha a little bit about writing in general. So

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everybody hang tight. You're listening to Animal Rights on pet

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Life Radio. Hi, this is Tim Blink, animal communicator and

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pet expert and host of Animal Rights on Pet Life Radio.

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Have you ever wanted to know what your pet is

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really thinking? You want to find out they truly understand

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what you're trying to tell them, or wish you could

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build a utter understanding and closer relationship with your pet,

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Well now you can. Learning to Communicate with Animals is

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a four part on demand workshop. In the workshop, you'll

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learn the essential techniques that are necessary to communicate with animals,

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including what is animal communication, breathing correctly to achieve the

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perfect state to communicate with your animals at a deeper level,

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using guided meditation, exercises and method to communicate with animals

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and how to send and receive information from your animals. So,

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if you're wanting to learn how to communicate and connect

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with your animals at a deeper level, visit petlifradio dot

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com or slash workshop and purchase and download Learning to

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Communicate with Animals. You'll be glad you did.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk past, Let's done pet at about Life Radio,

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Headline Radio atline radio dot com.

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Speaker 2: Welcome back to animal rights on pet Life Radio. Tenure

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our conversation with New York Times bestselling author Michael Hankson

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and his lady's book Liveloe Like a Guide Dog. Now,

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when Michael, when everybody picks up a copy of the

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book and the copy of Thunderdog, gotta have both, what

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do you hope people gain from it? What was there

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a centralized goal that you had when writing the book

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and then afterwards did it hit that or did it shift?

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And do you hope there's a main theme that they're

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getting from it.

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Speaker 5: A couple if we combine the two books together, I

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want people to learn a lot more about blindness and

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blind people and understand that the reality is that eyesight

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is not the only game in town and that sighted people,

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or as I refer to all y'all light dependent people,

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have just as much a disability as blind people do.

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Your disability is that you don't do well in the dark.

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If the power goes out, you scramble around looking for

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a smartphone or a flashlight or a candle or something,

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because you don't function in the dark very well. You

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could learn to, but you don't. And the fact of

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the matter is that that is your disability. You have

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as much a disability as I do. But the fact

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also is disability isn't the lack of ability. People say, well,

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of course it is, because it starts with dis and

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my response is, well, if that's the case, then what

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is discrete? Is it a lack of crete? What is

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discern Is it a lack of cern? What is disciple?

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Is it a lack of eyepul You know, the bottom

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line is that dis is not relevant, and disability is

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not relevant. We all have some sort of disability. We

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all have gifts. And one of the things I want

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both books to accomplish is to teach people that we

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all have gifts and don't think that just because you

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have a gift that somebody else doesn't have that that

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makes you better than they are, because they probably have

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gifts that you don't have. I doubt there are too

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many people listening to the show who understands anything about well,

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not only the laws of physics, but things like confluent

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hypergeometric equations. You know, there you go figure that one out.

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The bottom line is that we all have things that

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we can do, and so I want both books together

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to show people that in reality, blindness isn't the problem.

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It's our views about blindness and our stitudes about eyesight

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or lack of it that are the problems. But in

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addition to that, I wanted Thunderdog really to go into

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some detail about me growing up and things that I knew,

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but also again that any of us could at any

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time suddenly find ourselves in a situation that we didn't expect.

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Are we prepared to deal with it? And then I

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live like a guide dog. I teach us how to

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become more prepared, how to do things like take time

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at the end of every day to think about what

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happened today, what worked, what didn't work. I won't use

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failure because I think that's a negative and appropriate term

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when you don't do something the way you expected to go,

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or it doesn't go the way you expect it to go.

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It's not a failure learning experience. And the question is

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are you going to take the time at the end

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of the day to figure out what didn't work, why

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didn't it work, what was I afraid of? What could

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I have done differently? And even the things that really

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do go well, why did it go well? What could

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I have done to even make it better? Then again,

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go back and analyze how you feel from a fear standpoint,

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because you've got to learn not to be afraid of

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things and to use fear is a powerful tool to

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keep you focused and motivated and so live like a

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guide dog. Is intent is to do that, but also

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to continue the education about blindness.

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Speaker 4: Nice, I like it.

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Speaker 2: I like it well writing the book or writing both books?

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Will just say how are you as a writer? What

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is your structure? Are you X number like two thousand

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words a day type structure? Or you a story boarder?

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Or you get up at five am every day or

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like me, wait till the deadline hits and do it

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the day before.

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Speaker 4: I don't wait till the day before.

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Speaker 5: I do feel urgencies to get things done. But I

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also don't have a specific structure. So when Carrie whyat

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Kent and I were writing Live like a Guide Dog,

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we met every Friday on Zoom for an hour. In

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between we would send emails back and forth. We strategized

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she would write things, I would write things. We generally

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came up with a combination of what all we both

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wrote to make it work. I think I have a

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good editing sense, so I played editor a lot, but

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I was as much a writer as Carrie was, and

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that was the case with Thunderdog as well. One of

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the things when it was sent to Thomas Nelson for

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their editor to review, he said, my big problem with

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this book is that every chapter has something that happened

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in the World Trade Center, and then you go back

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and talk about your life, but you leave me that is,

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there's no transition to go from one event to the

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other and then back again. And that's a problem. And

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I realized it as soon as he said it. I

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understood what he was saying, and I said, I will

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take this weekend. I will create transitions for all the

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chapters and then we'll send it back. Well I did.

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He loved what we did. When I was able to accomplish.

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And then when the book was getting ready to be published.

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There's a magazine for publishers and libraries and so on

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called Kirkus and Kirkus. Actually, when they reviewed Thunderdog said

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one of the things that they liked the best were

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the transitions, because no one got lost and we were

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guided right through everything in the book, so it was perfect.

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Speaker 2: I love it. I love it and guided through it.

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That makes perfect sense, So yeah, I love that.

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Speaker 4: Well.

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Speaker 2: I'm always curious with writers. I asked that question every episode,

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because there's no right or wrong reason to it. There's

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no super strategy or secret sauce to writing and put

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together a great book. I just think you have to

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capture the reader and try to get your message out

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there and hopefully they enjoyed it well.

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Speaker 5: And I spent a lot of time thinking about it.

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What is somebody going to be interested in? I've got

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a lot of experience and observing people and been in

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sales most of my adult life and things like that,

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so I have good senses in those regards. But I

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also think that writing it. I spend a lot more

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time writing it in my head than I do putting

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anything down on paper. Or in my keyboard, So I

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write when it seems like it's the right time to

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write something, and that's what we do. And it worked

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out very.

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Speaker 2: Well, absolutely absolutely well. Mike, Where can people find out

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more about you? All the great things you've got going on,

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and any events or anything happening.

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Speaker 5: Well, So after September eleventh, I started getting phone calls

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asking me to be to come and talk to their

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organizations about lessons to learn from September eleventh and other

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things that I thought people should know about. And we

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got enough calls that my wife and I decided by

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the beginning of two thousand and two that's selling life

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00:21:45,559 --> 00:21:48,720
in philosophy was a whole lot more rewarding and satisfying

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than selling computer hardware and for me managing a computer

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hardware sales team. So I became a public speaker and

435
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I've been doing it ever since. So I'm always looking

436
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for speaking opportunities literally around the world. And if people

437
00:22:02,240 --> 00:22:04,480
want to learn more about me and all of that,

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00:22:04,480 --> 00:22:06,799
they can go to Michael hinkson dot com. That's m

439
00:22:06,839 --> 00:22:09,519
I C H A E L HI N G s

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O N dot com. There's a page with a lot

441
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of speaking topics suggestions, but I work with people because

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00:22:15,640 --> 00:22:17,359
I customize every talk that I give.

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Speaker 4: But people can go there.

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Speaker 5: They can contact me through the website or they can

445
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just email me at speaker at Michael hinkson dot com.

446
00:22:26,079 --> 00:22:29,279
I mentioned earlier we do a podcast called Unstoppable Mindset

447
00:22:29,279 --> 00:22:32,960
where inclusion, diversity, and the unexpected meat and it's wordered

448
00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:35,440
that way very deliberately because most of the so called

449
00:22:35,440 --> 00:22:39,480
diversity experts never talk about disabilities. And my position is

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00:22:39,519 --> 00:22:42,519
you are inclusive or you're not. There's no middle ground,

451
00:22:43,160 --> 00:22:46,160
so it's like Yoda yoa, there's no try do or

452
00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:50,599
do not anyway. So inclusion, diversity and the unexpected is

453
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anything that doesn't have anything to do with inclusion or diversity,

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which is both things. We're always looking for people to

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come on the podcast. It's a conversation. We talk about

456
00:22:59,559 --> 00:23:01,519
things that they want to talk about. So if anybody

457
00:23:01,559 --> 00:23:03,960
would love to be a guest, we're always looking for guests,

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and you can email me again at speaker at Michael

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00:23:06,519 --> 00:23:09,279
hinkson dot com or go to Michael hinkson dot com

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00:23:09,319 --> 00:23:14,279
slash podcast. But love to meet folks. We always looking

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for speaking engagements and I hope people will find opportunities

462
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and bring us in. Like I said, I customize every

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talk and I work with people to make sure that

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we deliver the messages that they need us to deliver,

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which is my goal.

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Speaker 2: There, you go, great, Well, we'll make sure we get

467
00:23:30,319 --> 00:23:33,079
that posted Michael hinkson dot com and you guys can

468
00:23:33,160 --> 00:23:35,799
check all that out. See if Michael can come and

469
00:23:35,880 --> 00:23:39,519
speak and share his wisdom with you. More importantly, the

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wisdom of all his guide dogs. That's the most important

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thing we need.

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Speaker 5: And when I go somewhere, Alimo comes along. And when

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we're done speaking, we usually sell books. And what I

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do because there's a hard and fast rule dog and harness.

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Do not touch, interact with, or talk to the dog

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because the harness is the signal that the dog is working.

477
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A few people have ignored that and they get in

478
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trouble for it. But when we're selling books, I always

479
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take the harness off attached Alamo to a table leg

480
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and he's the best book salesperson in the world and

481
00:24:11,359 --> 00:24:13,720
people love to pet him and he'll take that all

482
00:24:13,799 --> 00:24:14,400
day long.

483
00:24:14,319 --> 00:24:15,000
Speaker 4: So it's great.

484
00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:18,519
Speaker 2: So it's a win win. It is all right. Well,

485
00:24:18,559 --> 00:24:20,799
everybody keep track of what's going on at Michael hinkson

486
00:24:20,839 --> 00:24:24,000
dot com. Pick up copies of both Thunderdog and the

487
00:24:24,079 --> 00:24:27,759
latest Live Like a Guide Dog and Learn lessons.

488
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:29,720
Speaker 5: We also have a book for youth called Running with

489
00:24:29,799 --> 00:24:32,039
rosel that was published in late twenty thirteen, and it's

490
00:24:32,079 --> 00:24:34,200
kind of more about me growing up and Roselle growing

491
00:24:34,279 --> 00:24:36,640
up and how we met, so it's not nearly as

492
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:38,759
much about the World Trade Center. But it is also

493
00:24:38,799 --> 00:24:41,519
available through Amazon, so Running with Roselle is out there

494
00:24:41,559 --> 00:24:41,960
as well.

495
00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:45,759
Speaker 2: Nice, nice, all right, Well, everybody pick up copies of

496
00:24:45,799 --> 00:24:49,039
those books, Live and Learn from Michael as well as

497
00:24:49,079 --> 00:24:52,920
all his wonderful guide dogs for sure, and catch hopefully

498
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:56,519
Michael at your event or an event somewhere close to you.

499
00:24:56,559 --> 00:24:58,519
And more importantly, you get to spend some time with Alamo.

500
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:03,200
That's the big win, absolutely So well, thank you for

501
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:05,400
coming on the show, Michael. I appreciate it, and we'll

502
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:07,960
look forward to chatting with you again sometime real soon.

503
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:11,160
Speaker 4: Thank you my pleasure anytime. Why well, we're coming in.

504
00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:13,599
Speaker 2: The show today. I want to thank everyone for listening

505
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:16,640
to Animal Rights on pet Life Radio. I want to

506
00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:19,480
thank the producers and sponsors for making this show possible.

507
00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:20,519
Speaker 5: If you have any.

508
00:25:20,759 --> 00:25:24,359
Speaker 2: Questions, comments, ideas for the show, or people you want

509
00:25:24,400 --> 00:25:26,559
to hear from most. Drop us a line. You can

510
00:25:26,559 --> 00:25:28,759
go to petlife radio dot com and we'll be glad

511
00:25:28,799 --> 00:25:32,000
to answer your questions, entertain your comments, and bring on

512
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:33,880
the people you want to hear from most. And while

513
00:25:33,920 --> 00:25:37,839
you're there, check out all the other wonderful shows and hosts.

514
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:42,359
It's a great marketing cornicopia fun. So until next time,

515
00:25:42,599 --> 00:25:44,599
write a great story about the animals in your life,

516
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:46,920
and who knows, you may be the next guest on

517
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:50,200
animal rights on pet Life Radio. Have a great day.

518
00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:55,759
Speaker 1: Let's talk pets every week on demand only on petlife

519
00:25:55,839 --> 00:25:59,880
Radio dot com.

520
00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:05,720
Speaker 3: Both Sport Potent, Both port Bastant, Turnround, tap on the

521
00:26:06,079 --> 00:26:06,759
Baktown