Episode 273 – Unstoppable Confidence Expert with DW Starr

Unstoppable Mindset

On Unstoppable Mindset I have rarely met someone who is as outgoing and, yes, as confident as our guest this time, DW Starr. DW’s childhood was by no means normal. Within his first six years of life, he suffered a broken leg as well as two traumatic brain injuries that came from automobile-related accidents. He even encountered a third traumatic brain injury at the age of forty, again from being hit by a car. Oh, make no mistake! None of these were the result of carelessness. No matter what, he persevered through all of these challenges. For nearly thirty years as an adult, he worked in sales for companies and was a top performer. Mostly after his last brain injury he began using mnemonics techniques to help remember things that, for him, were easy to forget. He had developed some techniques as a child, but didn’t resurrect them until his last accident. He also began learning more about confidence and how to use it in his own life. He also began working a bit as a performer giving shows to children and adults on how they could improve their own confidence and thus become better and stronger people. Now, his performances and talks are a full-time job. He tells us about his shows and gives us insights into what he does while performing. He even discusses some of the memory techniques he uses during his performances and how he teaches them to his audience. DW has visited and performed in forty states in America as well as fifteen countries. He is quite an inspiration we all should value and from whom we can learn much. He discusses, for example, the difference between confidence and arrogance and he discusses the difference between assertiveness and aggression. I think you will gain much from DW’s time with us. If you visit his website, www.dwstarr.net you can obtain a PDF copy of one of his books. About the Guest: DW STARR, confidence expert, performer, speaker and author empowers teens and adults to unleash their hidden confidence superpower to be the superhero in their own lives. DW draws from his multiple areas of expertise to help his teen and adult audiences reach peak performance success. He is uniquely qualified: started selling at 9 years old, endured and survived traumatic brain injury (TBI), over 25 years of corporate experience as a million-dollar sales executive excelling with the largest medical information analytics company on the planet, international award-winning U.S. Army movie/tv director, amateur magician, and author of 4 books with two more in the works. Using their favorite movie and his proprietary S.T.A.R.R. formula, DW empowers and connects with his audiences as he performs his audience-interactive one-man show DW LIVE! and through his transformational speaking presentations. They learn to re-direct the inner movie running in their minds. DW has performed and spoken in 15 countries and 40 U.S. States … His “Confidence Matters“ message speaks a universal language that resonates with people and organizations worldwide. He lives in Southern Florida with his wife and his dog. Ways to connect with DW: INSTAGRAM….. DW_STARR FACEBOOK…….. DW STARR YOUTUBE………. @CONFIDENCECRUSADER TIKTOK…………… @CONFIDENCECRUSADER LINKEDIN……….. DW STARR WEBSITE………… WWW.DWSTARR.NET WEBSITE………… WWW.WOWUNOW.COM/DWSTARR https://www.dropbox.com/s/q1x0v88barglevm/Teens%20Need%20Our%20Help.mp4?dl=0 MY MISSION TO HELP TEENS https://www.dropbox.com/s/ffj4d55iyfjwlm4/DW%20Promo%20On%20Site%2034%20seconds.mp4?dl=0 34 second DW Promo About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, hi everyone, wherever you happen to be, we want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset, once again, unstoppable mindset, where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet and unexpected gets to be a fun part of what we get to do today, by any standard. And I'm not going to tell you anymore, because I want it to be unexpected until it happens. We do have a wonderful guest today. I love people who are really animated and engage me in conversation and teach us a lot. And that's true of our guest today. DW Starr, and I'm not going to tell you anymore. I'm just going to say, dw, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. DW Starr ** 01:57 Hi, Michael, how are you? Michael Hingson ** 01:58 I'm doing lovely. And you, DW Starr ** 02:00 I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Did you know that late maybe you, or maybe even your audience? Don't know that Lady Gaga was fired after her first record album, after only three months that Michael Jordan didn't make his high school basketball team, the first time that Taylor Swift was told she was too young for the music industry. Get that and really that JK Rowling, the author the Harry Potter series, was turned down by 12 publishers. Was a single mother, and she was in poverty, and wrote her book in in a in a in a coffee shop. Now the reason I'm telling you that is because all those people figured out how to find the confidence to be the successes they became. Michael Hingson ** 02:57 And it really is about confidence, isn't it? It is confidence matters, and it's not arrogance, it's confidence. And there's a big difference, correct? DW Starr ** 03:06 Absolutely, the difference, to me, is authenticity. When someone is truly confident, they don't need to prove it to anybody, because it's internal, it's it's authentic, it's who they really are, and that comes with the good and the not so good sometimes, and the recognition of those things within ourselves. Good point. Well, how Michael Hingson ** 03:32 did you I'd love to learn more about your story of how you did all that, and maybe you can tell us a little about the early dw and kind of how you evolved over time, as it were, DW Starr ** 03:43 well, how far back to you? What we just Oh, go Michael Hingson ** 03:46 to the beginning. What this early memories you got to tell us about you? DW Starr ** 03:50 I'm two years old. I mean, there you go. I'm two years old. I'm in the backseat of my mother's car, and, damn, I fall out, smash my head on the ground and fracture my skull. Wow, yeah. Michael Hingson ** 04:06 Do you remember that? DW Starr ** 04:07 No, okay, I just know that. People told me what happened, and then I was lucky. I didn't get run over by a car or a truck. So then I'm six years old, I'm riding my bike, playing, follow the leader, my friend goes across the street. I follow my friend on my bike, and bam, I get hit by a truck. I fly 15 feet in the air, smash, smash my leg on the curb and break my femur, and I hit my head on the ground and go unconscious. Brain Injury number two, when I when I wake up, yeah, when I wake up, I don't mean to interrupt you. I No go ahead times. So if I do that, tell me to stop interrupting. Michael Hingson ** 04:56 I was just going to ask if you remember that one. Uh, DW Starr ** 04:58 no. Okay anyway, so you broke your leg, and you hit your head right, and when I woke up my I found out that I had a broken leg, and they had put and then eventually they put me in a cast from my stomach down to both my feet, with a bar in between. So I had a cast on both legs, connected at the stomach area all the way down to my toes, and then a bar in between, so I couldn't even move without being carried around the house as a six year old. Michael Hingson ** 05:33 Why was there a bar? Oh, so DW Starr ** 05:36 that the legs would grow evenly, got it, um, and so that I would and so the two, the two, the two legs would be stabilized, okay, otherwise, what I would have two separate casts. So it was one giant cast right now when they took the cast off with, you know, with a buzzsaw, and they took off the cast. My leg had atrophied because it had been in the cast for so long, both of them, actually, and the strength of my leg, the broken leg was still in a healing process. So I had to, I slept on a cow a mattress in my living room, rolled off the mattress and crawled on my hands and knees into the kitchen and taught myself Pediatric Physical Therapy, because it didn't exist back then, and I taught myself how to walk again. Wow, at six, that wasn't really good for my self confidence. When I was crawling around on my hands and knees, I felt, I do remember feeling a little bit like a loser, you know, because I'm six years old, I'm supposed to be able to run and jump. And here I am crawling in my house, and then I go about living my life and different things. And at 40 years old, yep, it happened one more time. I'm in a car on the way to a Billy Joel concert listening to the music of Billy Joel, and I get hit at 55 miles an hour in a car. My wife breaks three ribs, and I hit my head in the inside of the car, so hard I dent the inside of the car with my head, and I don't know it, because what happened was, after that happened, my wife was complaining about these broken ribs. So what? She didn't know they were broken. She just knew she had pain. And so I crawled over the back seat of the car, went out the passenger side. I didn't realize what I was doing. I was on an adrenaline rush, obviously, and I just told her to sit still and everything be fine. The emergency people came. They took us to the hospital. They asked me if I was okay. I said, Sure, I just have a little cut in my in my leg, on my ankle. They said, well, we'll take care of that the hospital. I said, Sure. Went there. She got tested. She was okay, except for the broken ribs, and the way broken ribs heal is just time. So she was okay. We came home, I went to work the next day, and I was in corporate I was in corporate America, working with one of the largest medical informatics companies on the planet. It's one of the top 1000 companies in the world, and I was in sales management, and so anyway, what happened was, a couple days later, I started screaming at her, and that's not my personality at all. So I thought, something's not right. And so we ended up, I ended up going to a couple doctors, and the neuropsychiatrist said to me, I know what your problem is. I went, Oh, good, good, Doc. Tell me what my problem is. He said, Oh, you've had a traumatic brain injury. I said, That's not possible. He goes, Well, why is that? I said, because I've already had two. He said, Well, now you've had three. Michael Hingson ** 09:14 You know, you just don't know how to keep your head out of the way DW Starr ** 09:17 you think. And people say you should stay away from cars. Michael Hingson ** 09:24 You got to mind your head better is what it is. It is so he told you he had a traumatic brain injury, yeah. And DW Starr ** 09:30 he explained to me that it's a very unique kind of a thing. When you get a traumatic brain injury, you never really know what the long range effects are. He had me read an article about a female steeple jumper, someone who rides a horse and jumps over those, those railings, you know, the steeple jumper, right? And he said she fell off her horse, hit her head, and she had trouble the rest of her life addressing envelopes. Mm. And probably just like you. I said, What? What? What, what, how, what's it doesn't make sense addressing he said, Well, the way it works is that our brain is very, very, very unique, and different pieces do different things, so we never know what your long term effects are going to be. So I was out of work for three months because somebody would say, I want to buy one of these, one of these, and one of these, and I couldn't remember the first thing the person pointed to within, within a split second at the time they pointed to it. So I couldn't work because I couldn't remember. And I was really scared. I was scared that I wasn't going to be able to be a good provider for my family, be a good father to my sons, be a good husband to my wife, and just be okay. But after about three months, things really started to get better, and at that's the time when I remembered, when I was a kid, how I remembered things. Because even as a kid now, remember I had two head injuries by the time I was six. I don't know if the reason I had trouble remembering things when I was six was because of that or not, but I do remember my teacher telling me how to spell arithmetic. I'm doing all the talking here. That's okay, it's funny. It's your story. All right, all right. Michael Hingson ** 11:30 People have heard mine. DW Starr ** 11:32 Okay, cool. I gotcha. All right, so arithmetic, a rat in the house might eat the ice cream, A, R, I T, H, M, E, T, I C, a rat in the house might eat the ice cream. And I I love that as a kid, and I remembered that as an adult. And I said, Wait a minute, maybe I can start remembering things by using that kind of a technique, and that's what I did. I started creating memory hacks for myself in different arenas in my life, and that's how I remember remember things, to the point where even today, I use the some of those memory hacks for my own presentations, my own performances. I use my last name star as a memory hack to remember my own stuff. Yeah, Michael Hingson ** 12:34 how long ago? So you had the last accident at 40? And how many years ago was that? DW Starr ** 12:40 Well, that's going to give away my age. Oh, well, that's up to you. Let's just say I'm somewhere around 60. Okay, Michael Hingson ** 12:51 so it's been a while, and so you've been using the memory hack, if you will, techniques for for quite a while, and you still use them DW Starr ** 12:59 to people too. Sometimes, yeah, yeah. Do you ever forget? Let me ask you a question. Michael, do you? Do you ever forget something that you want to remember when you are going from one place to another? I do okay. Do you? Do you? Um? Do you have things that you always like to carry with you when you go from one place to another, like a phone or a notebook or or something like that. I do so do you ever forget them? Michael Hingson ** 13:33 The things that I carry, typically not. I've gotten into the habit of carrying them and I don't DW Starr ** 13:38 Okay. We find that that many people do forget things like their their glasses or their phone or their or their keys or whatever. So what I did for myself is I created an mnemonic device called, please bring a kazoo guide. Now, a kazoo is that thing that you play, that you humid like that? Yep. So please, I have one. Oh, you have one. I Michael Hingson ** 14:07 do not right here, but I have one. DW Starr ** 14:11 So do I? I got it as a kid? Yeah. So I used to use that in my performances sometimes. So I said, All right, I'll create a mnemonic device. Please bring a kazoo guide, phone, briefcase, attitude, keys and glasses. I never want to forget my good attitude, but I also don't want to forget my phone or my briefcase or my keys or my glasses. So that's the kind of mnemonic device, memory hack that I'm talking about, that I've used for myself to help me be confident and stay confident in my memory portion of my my life. Michael Hingson ** 14:51 And I use mnemonics for some things from time to time or not so much mnemonics, but something I. Um, oftentimes, when I'm creating something that I want to remember, I will convert print characters to Braille dots, and I will create combinations that for whatever reason I remember to help me not forget the things that I don't want to forget when when I do that so I hear what you're saying, and I appreciate it a great deal. And I think that there's a lot of value in everyone finding ways to remember things. One of the things that I've always been good at remembering are phone numbers, and I work really hard, even today, when I have a smartphone that is very accessible that I can put contacts in and do I still want to remember the phone numbers, because I think that keeps me sharper by remembering things. So I remember a lot of phone numbers, and I've made it a conscious effort to do that so that, and it's worked for me specifically to be able to do that. I remember the phone number that we had when I grew up in Palmdale, California, and I even remember the phone number that I had in them in my dorm at UC Irvine and and some of the other phone numbers like that. DW Starr ** 16:26 And any of them start with 213, Michael Hingson ** 16:30 huh? No, mine started with 805, and then 714, because I went to UC Irvine. So it was 714, and I have a friend who, and I still remember it his phone number at UC Irvine, actually, he, yeah, he was a PhD candidate at UC Irvine, but he lived off campus, and his number was 714, Om, war, 1o, H, M, W, A, r1, and I always thought that was a clever way to remember it. Yeah, and I had one, I'm trying to remember. I know the last I've got to think about it. One of the phone numbers that I worked with at UC Irvine ended with jet one, and I don't remember right off. I'll think about it the first three digits, but it's good to have the little acronyms, or not acronyms, but mnemonics and memory devices, and they're very valuable to use, and more people should probably use them, they might remember things better. So DW Starr ** 17:33 what I figured out, Michael is I figured out why we forget some of these things, and that has helped me help people understand more about building their own confidence, and the reason that we forget these things is because we're already where we're going instead of where we are. We're already thinking about getting in the car, walking into the other room, leaving the hotel, getting off an airplane, we're already thinking about those things as if they're already starting to happen, instead of paying attention to where we actually are at the moment. So this, this memory hack, actually creates something that we all call mindfulness, which is pretty wild, because I never knew that was going to be one of the outcomes. But because of that, I'm able to stay in the present a lot more often, and I like that feeling, yeah, and, and it, it's that's all part of about being confident, is being confident with who you are in the moment Michael Hingson ** 18:42 you you asked earlier if I have a phone, and remember my phone and other things I know I've stayed in many hotels, and one of the things, again, it's a discipline that I've developed, is that I never leave A hotel key laying on a table, it stays in the pocket, and my phone will either be in my pocket, or if I'm in a hotel room, I will make sure that it is plugged in by the head of the bed, so that when I get up in the morning, it is one of the first things that I touch, and I'm very deliberate about that. But the hotel key, especially, I just have always developed this habit, this technique of never leave it laying around. And for me, there are several reasons. One, I am too much an out of sight, out of mind kind of guy, and so the bottom line is, not seeing the hotel key, if I put it down somewhere, that's going to be a problem. So the better thing is to keep it in a pocket. DW Starr ** 19:45 Makes sense to me. It works, yep, but, Michael Hingson ** 19:52 but people really do allow their minds to I think you pointed out very well. Uh, move to, um, away from where we are to where we're going to be, and we lose that control, and we never seem to learn from our mistakes. Or we think, Oh, well, I can just see the hotel key so I won't forget it. Yeah, that works really well. DW Starr ** 20:19 Well, if you think of if the people in your audience were to think of people who they have in their life, who they feel are confident and would like to have some of that confidence, or somebody in a movie or TV or in a book they read that has has a really good, solid hold on confidence. They'll see that those characters or those people live in the present moment. And so that's a really important piece of the puzzle of confidence. It's not the only thing. Obviously, there's lots of other pieces of the puzzle, but that, like, I say that's, that's an important piece. So, yeah, it Michael Hingson ** 21:07 is. Well, so you weren't doing any of this coaching, I presume, or hadn't really thought through as much about confidence and so on, before you had your accident at 40, DW Starr ** 21:25 I was dabbling, dabbling. I I, I was inspired through many different people. In fact, I use a mnemonic memory hack, to even remember who inspired me. It's to rise t, w o r, I, instead of an S, it's a Z, Z e, t, w o r, I, z e, to rise to rise above, to rise ahead, and it stands for Tony Robbins, Wayne, Dyer, Oprah Winfrey, Ronald Reagan, Indira Gandhi, zig zigular, and Eleanor Roosevelt. So I use my name like I said. I use these memory hacks all the time, but those those people, along with Nelson Mandela and his life, were an inspiration to me that I decided that I needed to share my message with the world, and I so I studied these people and saw all the different roadblocks and the different the different things that stopped them, that held them back. And I said, if all these different people, I mean, Nelson Mandela was in jail for 20 years, yeah. And he was put there by the country that he eventually became president of, yeah. So if these people could rise above, to rise above their own circumstances. I certainly could teach myself how to do that too. And so that's what I did. And once I did that, then I said, I want to share this message with the world. And so I I did that for many, many years with adults. And then there's this thing that happened called covid. Yeah, all the speakers, right? It just shut down, yep. And during that time, some of the speakers and performers realized they could use this concept called Zoom. And I did a program in Ethiopia on Zoom, and I saw how successful it was. And this program was with college students and their professors. And up until that time, I had only been working with corporate America and adults, you know, big, big fortune, 500 companies that's all on my website, if somebody wants to look me up, and all the different companies I work for, worked with. But anyway, so during covid, and I did that, and I said, You know what, when I come out of this, I want, I want to make an, a really strong effort to make a big focus on teens and young adults, because I figured something out while I was, you know, while we were in this covid coma, almost at times, it felt like is that young adults and teens were going to their older mentors, whether it was their parents or whether it was their boss, and saying, I don't understand this covid thing. Can you please help me understand this? And their boss and their parents and their grandparents had no clue what to tell them, because they didn't know what to do either. Right, yeah. So what happens is all these young people who have these people on a pedestal, the pedestal starts to drop, and this hurts their the teens and young adults self confidence, to the point where you start seeing all kinds of major issues going on with it, with young people, and it's all over the news, and even even the Surgeon General talked about it, depression, higher rates of suicide, anxiety, heavy social anxiety, and on top of that, social media. So the teens and young adults sometimes can't even talk to each other because they only know how to do it on this machine. Michael Hingson ** 25:45 Yeah. Or, or with text, DW Starr ** 25:49 yeah, yeah. Well, that's actually yeah, both computer and text. And like, I'm holding up a phone right now and it says, Bs, Oh, I better tell people what that stands for, or they're going to get freaked out. That reminds me, me, that's my memory hack that stands for belief system. Okay? It says BS, but it stands for belief system. It reminds me that the way I perceive my life is all based on what I believe. If I change my beliefs, I can change my perception, yep. And Michael Hingson ** 26:28 the other part of that is, if you need to change your beliefs, that is, we should always look to grow. We have a belief system. We have what we believe in. And I'm not saying that people need to question what they believe in, but they should always be open to learning new things and letting that augment their belief system. DW Starr ** 26:46 Absolutely. Yeah, so that's designed, that BS is designed every time I pick up my phone to remind me if what I believe is in my best interest, if it's healthy for me, and if it's not, then I need to do something about it, you Michael Hingson ** 27:02 know, during covid. And I'm not trying to brag or sound arrogant or anything, but I know, and I think I can connect it up here. I didn't have a lot of social anxiety. My wife didn't even have a lot of social anxiety. We We went through it, but we also felt we lived in a in a house, the two of us, we live, where we where I live. Now, she passed away in 2022 but, but just she was in a wheelchair. Well, she was in a chair her whole life, and her body just started slowing down. So we lost her in November of 2022 and it's just kind of one of those things, as her physical medicine doctor once told her, you know, the body doesn't come with a lifetime warranty. So it happened, DW Starr ** 27:46 no, no, just get out of here alive. Well, Michael Hingson ** 27:48 not in that sense. And you know, but the thing is that we we felt okay. We got a lockdown, we'll lock down. And we did, but we were much more oriented toward, as you would say, living in the moment and not worrying about all the things that we couldn't control. And I can think about that very intellectually and say that's how we reacted to life. We didn't worry about what we couldn't control. We focused mainly on what we could Oh, occasionally we worried about one thing or another, but mostly we just didn't worry about what we couldn't control and focused on the things that we had control over. And we had control over things mail comes in, spray it with a little bit of Lysol, just to play safe. And neither of us ever got ever got covid, but we we always wore masks when we went out. And I still, when I fly, wear a mask, just because you never know. But I also had a lot of fun with masks, because I've told this story a couple times on on unstoppable mindset. We went to a bank one day, and I went into the bank wearing a mask. I was carrying my white K and I didn't use my guide dog. It was a quick trip, so he stayed home, and I walked. We walked. I walked in. Karen stayed in the car because she also had an autoimmune situation with rheumatoid arthritis, so she drove me to the bank, but she felt she shouldn't go in, and I agreed. Anyway, I went in wearing a mask. Go up to the teller, and they all know me there, but I go up and I say, when we when we greet each other? And I said, Hello. And they said, Hello. And then I said, Don't you think it's funny how today somebody wearing a mask can walk into a bank, and then I held my cane up and say, This is a stick up, right? And the manager came over and he said, you know, we haven't had such a good laugh all day, which is exactly why I did it. But you know, we all have choices to how we deal with things and and how we react to things. And I think so often I heard so many people being so anxious about. Using Zoom Zoom fatigue and everything else. And I realized the fact of the matter is that covid offered and still offers us a great opportunity to deal with a lot of things in a different way, and that, rather than having zoom fatigue, use it to your advantage, and unfortunately, we just don't worry about that, because we are so used to doing it one way, we don't get innovative anymore. DW Starr ** 30:31 Yeah, so it's, if you look at the people, typically, that are most happy in life, it's because they're continually looking for a way to to grow. And it doesn't necessarily have to be financially, it can be spiritually, it can be emotionally, it can be psychologically, it can be financially, it can be educationally, but if that's even a word, educationally, but it works okay today anyway, yeah. But the key I guess, is that if you're continually growing, you're firing this. And trust me, I've studied the brain a lot. You can only imagine after three head injury, Michael Hingson ** 31:15 have you discovered that you do you need to mind your head and keep it out of the way. DW Starr ** 31:20 Absolutely, okay, absolutely away from Michael Hingson ** 31:24 cars, cars. Yeah, please. DW Starr ** 31:28 So, so what happens is, is that we're, we're, we're continually reassessing our ourselves, that those are, seem to be the people who are the most happiest. Michael Hingson ** 31:46 I think there's a lot of truth to that they don't worry about the things that they don't have a lot of control over, because all that's going to do is drive you crazy, exactly, and it does. It just drives too many people way too crazy, which is too bad. DW Starr ** 32:04 I think another thing for me, though that's really important that I want to share, is that that your life doesn't happen by chance. It happens by choice. Yes, and, and, and. So, you know, we, we've all heard this, but, but it's so true that by not making a decision, you're still making a decision. So if you're in a situation, you go, Oh, I don't really know what I want to do about this. Well, you're making the decision not to make a decision. And that, in itself, is a choice. And you always have a choice. Always say, you know, in Viktor frankl's book, A Man's Search for Meaning, which is quite an amazing book, if anyone in your audience hasn't read it and they want to really understand the deep psychological meaning for how people survive the concentration camps, is in his book, he talks, he talks about the the importance of of of recognizing that it's a choice, that it's a choice that they it's your choice to search for meaning. It's, you know, I made a post. I did a post just the other day. I said, it's not what happens to you, it's how you perceive what happens to you. It's not what happens to you, it's what you it's what you feel and think about what happens to you. It's not the actual occurrence itself, it's how you deal with it. And I think that's really important when it comes to confidence, because you can look at failure as failure, or you can look at failure as a stepping stone. I mean, we've all heard this stuff for years, but it's true. That's why we keep hearing it, because it's true, Michael Hingson ** 33:57 September 11 happened, and I believe that we didn't have any control over it happening. I still don't think that, no matter what happened, we for could have foreseen it coming, but it happened, and that's not something we have any control over, but we all have control over how we choose to deal with it, which is exactly what you're saying. DW Starr ** 34:21 Yeah, absolutely. And you know, for me, my parents were very dysfunctional. Okay, so I had a choice. I could, I could use that as an excuse not to be happy, not, you know, to be dysfunctional as a parent when I had kids, although, but, but I, I choose to look at those things as as lessons for me to grow from, to become who I want to be, you know. And that's I, you know, there's one thing I want to make sure I say in this podcast, and that's that, you know, somebody once said to me, well, dw, if I could just like, learn how to do. What you're talking about like in five minutes. Five just five minutes because everybody's in a hurry. Everybody wants to right? So five, I say, Well, here's the key. The key is figure out what you want. Figure out why you want it. Keep showing up. Don't let go of that desire. Don't let go of that dream, and then find somebody either in the real world or in the make believe world, meaning movies, TV, books, whatever, or in the real world, a mother, a father, an uncle, a boss, a librarian that you know a school teacher, whatever, find somebody who has the kind of confidence that you want to strive for, and then let them mentor you. And if you don't have a direct connection to them, use what I call a virtual mentor. And that's what I did. Ronald Reagan, Indira Gandhi, Zig Ziglar, Ellen Ro I didn't have any connection with those people, but what I did was I let them virtually mentor me, and that's what I would suggest the person do, and then for two minutes every morning and every night, imagine yourself being like that person, and then for two minutes during the day. Take a situation in your life, whatever it is, and for two minutes be like that person's confidence would be. Act as if you were that confident for just two minutes. You can do it for two for two minutes in the morning and two minutes in the evening, you just imagine you have that kind of confidence. What would that person do in the situation you're trying to be more confident about and then during the day, for two minutes, simply like, let's say you're nervous about making phone calls as a salesperson a cold call, or, let's say that you don't have the confidence you want to have for playing the guitar in front of five friends for two minutes. Just pretend like you're you have the confidence of that mentor, and just act as if you have it. And that's what I did, and over time, eventually I became DW star. That's not my legal name. That's my professional name. Michael Hingson ** 37:31 I'm curious why Indira Gandhi? Well, DW Starr ** 37:34 if you look at how big that country is and how populated it is and how, how she was one of the first females to be in charge of a I think she might have been the first female to be in charge of a country that big. And her, her, her personality, her her, her, her graciousness, her, her tenderness was an important piece of what I wanted for my life. Yeah, Michael Hingson ** 38:07 yeah. I was just curious, because I figured some people might ask that question if they were here, so I thought it was probably relevant to ask, and I I agree with the answer. Well, so you, you went off and you, you had all these brain injuries. And so was, you were 40. Did you go back to work eventually, for the company that you? DW Starr ** 38:31 Yeah, after three months, I went back to work. And slowly, well, I went back to work. I, if I were, I'm not sure I remember this, but I went back to work, I think, a few days a week, and then eventually I went back to work full time, and I was fortunate enough to be one of the top sales producers in that company for many, many years, And I worked for that company for, wow, about 30 years, Michael Hingson ** 39:04 but then you decided to switch what caused. While I DW Starr ** 39:08 was doing that, I started doing what I'm doing now in a smaller way, and then eventually it just grew and grew to where I was working. So I was selling to some of these corporations, and eventually I ended up doing programs for these corporations through my other act. And oh, by the way, people want to know why I'm dressed like this. You can't see it, but I'm wearing leather pants and leather boots. And that's because, if you go to my website, or you look at the front cover of my book, one of my books, I got, like five books. It's I'm wearing what looks like a movie director's outfit, because I play an old fashioned movie director. And what I do is I help people rewrite the script that's running inside. Their mind that isn't always so positive. So I'm an inner movie director, helping them rewrite the inner script that runs the inner movie in their mind. So I'm dressed as an inner movie director, and that's why I've got the megaphone in the box, Michael Hingson ** 40:16 just gonna say. And hence the megaphone. And if anybody wants to know how I know about it, because DW told me, yeah, DW Starr ** 40:22 yeah, and I, and I, and I use that in my presentation, because my presentation is oftentimes also a performance. Oh, I forgot to tell you this. I was in the US Army for three years. I wrote, produced, directed, acted in commercial. Commercials for the US Army stationed in Korea for one year. Cool. Now that's probably some other things I forgot to tell you, too. That's okay. Amber emulet, you know, Michael Hingson ** 40:54 that's fine, but you so you you became a speaker, you became a performer. You're also a writer. And tell me. Tell me about your books, if you would. Okay, DW Starr ** 41:07 well, I wrote two books on change, and as I what happens is, just like we're talking about recognizing how to be better, how to evolve. I wrote two books on change, and as I was working with corporations and doing some personal coaching and consulting, I realized that the reason people are having so much trouble with change is because they didn't have enough confidence. So I said, Why don't I help them with their confidence? And that way that'll automatically help them change. And so I shifted from change to confidence, and I'm really glad I did that. So the first two books are on change. The third book was written to be a very easy this is, this is the one I was talking about. And by the way, if they go to my website, they can get a free PDF for that book. What's Michael Hingson ** 42:03 your website? By the way? Well, we'll do it again later. But what is, since you've mentioned it so many times, sure, DW Starr ** 42:08 it's D, like dog, W, like wagon, S, T, A, R, r.net, D, W, star, with two R's, dot net. Okay, now what's really crazy, I have to tell you this. I tell this to people, and every time I say it, I think to myself, that's crazy. If you Google me, dw, star, right now, anyone in your audience Googles me, I am fortunate enough to have the entire page with no advertising. It's crazy to me that that that has happened, but it's because I've been able to be prolific in many ways. I mean, I have a song, I have a poem, I have my books, I present I you know, I do some personal coaching consulting. So I'm doing all these different things. So obviously, that's why Google finds all those different things. So anyway about my books? So first two books was change your size and when change means business. This book is be self confident anywhere, anytime and with anyone. It's a 30 page book so that every day, you can be a little more confident in a particular arena of interest in your life, and it lists 30 different ones, and I'll read to you really quickly off the back of the book. In this book, you will learn improve the inner movie and self talk running in your mind. Use actions and thoughts that will propel your success, gain a greater self confidence mindset day by day, and that's what it's designed to do. And like I said, they can get a free PDF copy if they want, if they want to buy the actual book, they can just shoot me an email and we'll take care of that later. It's 10 bucks, and anybody on on your program that they'll get a 20% discount, so we'll send it to him for eight bucks, plus shipping Michael Hingson ** 44:03 if they if they just say that they heard about it here. Yeah. Okay, great. DW Starr ** 44:07 And then another book I recently wrote with the partner is is on memory and AI working with AI, and I'm working on another book with that partner now about imagination and AI. And then I'm also working on a book called Confidence matters. I have about two thirds of that book written now, cool. Michael Hingson ** 44:35 So lots going on. Yeah, DW Starr ** 44:38 I like to stay busy. Michael Hingson ** 44:40 Well, tell us about your show, your one man show, DW live, and maybe tell us a story about it, or something that happened in it, a memory you have of it recently and so on. Sure, DW Starr ** 44:54 sure. Well, you know, I do it with adults, but the ones that really offer. Touch my heart or the younger, yeah, because there are future leaders, and also they're really struggling. I was in, I did, I did a my dwive Live show for the Police Athletic League, and the was Boys and Girls Club after school program at a recreation center here in Florida, in southern Florida, and when I was done, well, like I said, I played old fashioned movie director. I actually teach them very specific techniques that they can do in depth, like what I talked about real quick in the five minutes I go into depth in my program, where they can actually teach themselves how to be more confident, and within 30 days they are. It just happens. If they do it, you have to do the work, but if you're willing to do the work. So I was done with this one presentation, actually was the performance. And people were coming up and getting, you know, the school had the recreation center had bought copies of the books for all the kids. So I was doing some autographing, and one came up to me, and he goes, I really enjoyed that. Well, he didn't say, I really he's I really like that. And I said, Oh, great. And then I always ask people to be more specific so I can know what they like or don't like. And she and he said, I said, So what's, what did you really like about it? And he said, I liked everything. I went, Whoa, that's really cool. And then I said, you want to take a selfie? And he goes, Yeah, yeah. And I said, Okay, give me your phone. And he goes, Mr. DW, I don't have a phone. I don't have a phone. And I said, You, I think I actually was in disbelief. And so I said, Oh, you mean you left it in the class? He goes, No, no, no, I don't own a phone. And I said to myself, that's why I'm here. I'm here to help that son, that of a mother and father who can't financially afford to buy a phone for their son help him still feel like he has value and hope. And so I said, I'll tell you what. We're going to take a selfie with my phone, and then I'm going to make sure the selfie picture gets to your your I think he was called a coach, your coach, and he'll make sure you get to see it. And so they did that. But that was that was an awakening for me, because I knew why. I knew that some of these teenagers, were in situations that weren't ideal, in their family life and in their home life and in their economics and all but it for some reason, it it finally dawned on me that they can't their parents can't even afford to get them a phone when it's so prolific, everywhere, you can forget that. So that was a great that made me feel good, that I was giving back like that well, and that is, that's really cool story. I got plenty more, but, you know, I don't want to inundate people with stories. Michael Hingson ** 48:37 No, that's fine. So, so tell me, what are the key qualities and skills that people need to learn or that you use to help people become engrossed in the STAR method, the STA RR method, and what does STARR stand for? DW Starr ** 49:01 Okay, so S, T, A, R, R stands for something that I can remember by using that memory hack. I figured, yeah, and it does it three different times in my program, it stands for three different things, but I always use the same mnemonic so I can remember it. So let's try this. Michael, what, what's one of your favorite movies? Michael Hingson ** 49:28 Et, perfect. DW Starr ** 49:31 Who is the star in that movie? ET, okay, so the s, the s in Star stands for the star or the superhero of that movie. Okay, now the T stands for Task. What is the task of that character? Michael Hingson ** 49:56 Well, in his case, of course, ultimately, it's to get home. DW Starr ** 49:59 Exactly to get home. Okay? And who is ETS arch villain, the A in Star arch villain, Michael Hingson ** 50:13 the law enforcement, the military. Okay? DW Starr ** 50:17 Now the first R stands for reach coach. Now I could have said mentor, but mentor doesn't fit the formula of S, T, A, R, R, so I had to come up with a word, and I came up with Reach, reach coach. That's clever. Who, who in the movie helps the star attain the task by reaching deep and down, deep down inside themselves and finding the confidence they need to find. Michael Hingson ** 50:44 And I don't remember the actor's name, but the young man, right? You don't need to DW Starr ** 50:48 know the name. You just need to know the character. Perfect, the boy, the little boy, right? And the final r, what was the reason that et wanted to get home. Michael Hingson ** 51:04 Well, he wanted to be back with his people, right, DW Starr ** 51:07 right? He wanted to feel like he was with people he belonged with, right? Or extraterrestrials in this case, right? Well, so, so that's the start, so that's the STARR method, right, right? So what that is, now you take that and you have the audience. I take that and I have the audience take their favorite movie and apply the same formula, so each one of the people in that audience is connected to my concept through something that makes them happy and feel good. Okay? Then I say, Okay, now that you've done that, now what we're going to do is we're going to make your inner movie. We're going to help you rewrite the script to your inner movie. So guess what formula we're going to use, S, T, A, R, R, of course. Yeah, the S stands for star. Well, who's the star they are? What tasks do they want to achieve? So I asked them in the audience, what do they want to have more confidence in? And they and they think about that to themselves, while I have one person up front be the example. And so I bring a student or an adult up front, and I have them be the example and explain their favorite movie, just like I did with you, right? But I'm having the audience do it at the same time. Does that make sense? It does okay. So, so this is an interactive presentation and interactive performance all at the same time. So then the then, who is the arch villain? I have them figure out who the arch villain is in their life. It could be a friend, a so called friend. It could be a brother, it could be a it could be a school teacher. It could be an uncle. It could be, you know, be a number of different people in different roles, but somebody is their arch villain that is holding them back. And if it's themselves, it's the arch villain. And oftentimes I hear that people go, Oh, I'm my own worst enemy, or something like that. I say, okay, but isn't it possible that maybe you heard that from somebody else when you were growing up, that you're no good at you're, you're not a good singer, or you're never going to amount to anything. That's what my father actually said to me, you're never going to amount to anything. That's another story. I don't want to take the time to do that now, but that's part of what I had to overcome, along with the head injuries. Michael Hingson ** 53:55 Did he say that because of the did he say that because of the head injuries? Or no in DW Starr ** 53:59 in addition to the head injury, wow, I had to overcome my father's attitude that I would never amount to anything. And also, just as a sideline, my mom had a stroke when she was 15 years old, and was a very angry person as an adult, so I had to deal with a lot of that junk. But anyway, that's another story. So back to what I'm telling you. A stands for Arch villain, then the R stands for reach coach. Who can you create if you don't have a mentor in your life, who can you make a mentor? Or who can you make a virtual mentor? So if you don't have anybody that you really feel comfortable as a 15 year old making your mentor, you know, maybe it's Superman, or maybe it's Barbie, it somebody who has or something that has a kind of confidence you want to gain more of, and you use that virtually. You. To help. And then I walk them through these steps, step by step, which we don't have time for now, and then the final hours, reason. What's the real reason you want to do this? Why is it a burning desire? And I talk about that earlier in the presentation. The importance of it's not, it's not how to do something that's most important. What's most important is why? Because when you know the why, you'll figure out that how. So that's that. So now I've got all that, but that's just a formula. It's not a strategy. So then I walk them through the strategy, and the strategy is S, T, A, R, R, what a surprise. S stands for self assess. Well, that's what they've just done, they've assessed themselves. T stands for take a risk. What risks do they need to take in order to achieve the results they want? And I talk about some of the risks I had. One of the risks is this stuff, notes. Performers don't use notes typically when they're doing a performance, and I was told, don't use notes. It doesn't look good. I said, Well, I have to. I have no choice, but my memory won't be able to remember all my stuff, and I want to make sure I remember. So a couple of those phrases I said to you throughout this program were written down so I remember to say them. So and then the other risk was, of course, that I was told I wasn't going to amount to anything. So who do I think I am? Yeah, I'm nobody special, so I had to get over that hump. So those are my those are my risks and that so the T and star take a risk. I asked them what their risks are, and then the A stands for act as if. And that's where I have them do, where they're where they're at home. And the two minute thing that I talked about earlier, and I go into more depth about that in the presentation too. And then the first star is reassess. See how it's going after a month, see if there's been some major changes. If there have do the final R, repeat, repeat. But if it's not working, you got to go back to the original S, T, A, R, R, and see if you're really clear on what task you really want to you really want to achieve it, who really is your arch villain? And if you your reason is a burning desire, because it has to be in order for you to make the shift to have the confidence you want to have, right? Does that make sense? It does. It Michael Hingson ** 57:28 makes absolute sense. DW Starr ** 57:29 And the teens are like, Wow, no one's ever taught me this before. Yeah, Michael Hingson ** 57:36 I'm sure that's true. Yeah. DW Starr ** 57:38 And the and the college kids and the adults. There's plenty of adults that go, afterwards, they go, dw, no one's ever like, broken it down like that. So it's like concrete. I can actually follow this step by step. I give them a handout they take with them at the end that they can follow step by step. Wow. Michael Hingson ** 57:59 All right, I have to ask, since we got the star part, what? What is dw? DW Starr ** 58:03 Oh, man, I don't usually put this out on on the airwaves. Okay, well, I guess I will. 58:12 I'll leave it to you. No, no, DW Starr ** 58:14 I'll do it. I'll do it. So when somebody meets me, and they go, Hi, and I go, Hi, I'm dw, and they go, Oh, what's that stand for? And I go, Oh, well, most of my friends call me dw, so you can call me DW too. And that usually works. That's fair, okay, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna say it here. Yeah, I'm gonna say, why not? Okay, so I say, once somebody gets to know me and understand me more, then it'll make more sense what DW stands for. If I tell them right up front, it's weird, okay, but now that people have heard me and they've listened a little bit about my story and how you know my personality and my my attitude about life, it'll make more sense. So Ringo Starr had a great last name. I loved it. So when it was time for me to become a writer at nine years old, because at nine years old, I started writing little short stories, I called myself my legal first name and star as my last name that became my pen name when I got to be an adult and decided I was going to be this character that helps people with their confidence. I said, Okay, I don't even want to use any part of my legal name. I want a completely different professional name. So I said, Okay, well, what is it that I do. I help people weave their dreams into their life on a daily basis. I'm a dream weaver, dw, and so every time I introduce myself to somebody and say, I'm dw, I'm. Myself that that's where my focus is. Yeah, people to do that, yeah. Michael Hingson ** 1:00:06 And I appreciate you telling us that story. And I, I thank you for doing that. Tell me what are some of the common misconceptions about confidence? DW Starr ** 1:00:18 Well, let's look at politics for five seconds. Michael Hingson ** 1:00:21 No, there's confidence or lack of it or something. But anyway, sure, DW Starr ** 1:00:24 I'm not, I'm not going to get specific about anything about politics. Oh, I understand. I'm going to be totally generalized. The reality is that if you are truly confident, you don't need to tell anybody or prove it. So if you see any of that in politics, you'll know that there's a possibility that there's some low self esteem floating underneath Yeah. And that's true not just in politics. That's true when you talk to somebody at a party who is using the most sophisticated words they can come up with to try to prove to you that they are smart, that they know their stuff, the most confident people can explain what they believe like you're Five years old, not talking down, but making it their complicated wisdom in a way that it's understandable to people who don't have that education in that particular arena or training. Einstein even talked about that make it as simple as you can, but not too simple. And that's a paraphrase of one of his Michael Hingson ** 1:01:42 quotes, right? And then there's the common phrase of, keep it simple, stupid, DW Starr ** 1:01:50 but you know Exactly, yeah. So overconfidence is usually a camouflage for low self esteem, yeah? So what true confidence is is, like I said earlier in the show, it's authenticity. It's being who you are with all your good parts and your not so good parts, whether it's your physical nature, whether it's your emotional nature, whether it's your psychological nature, whether it's your educational background, you're if you're truly confident, then you accept it all, and then you build from there. Yeah, that's my belief, that one ain't changing, nope. And I buy it. I Michael Hingson ** 1:02:41 think you're absolutely right. I think that we all too often. I think there's a difference. We all too often just don't project the confidence that that we can we I think there's a lot of difference between a lack of confidence and humility. And there's nothing wrong with being confident. There is something wrong with being arrogant, but, but confidence doesn't mean arrogance. Confidence means that you have convictions, you have things that you know and you're certain about them, which is a fine thing. DW Starr ** 1:03:18 Yeah, absolutely. In fact, some people get confused with aggressive and assertive. It's the same thing. It's that same concept. You want to be assertive. You just don't want to be aggressive, because if you're assertive, it shows your confidence. So if you're in an interview for a job, you want to show that you're assertive in that interview. You don't want to just have that interviewer feel like they're not, that they're not running the whole show, but that the the that you count in the interview, you're just not another number where they're just going checking off the list. You show you show your confidence by being assertive, and it's the same. You know people, you know they get a meal at a restaurant. You see this a lot, in a lack of self confidence. They get a meal at a restaurant, and it's either something they didn't order, period, or it's just not done correctly, and because they lack the confidence, they're not assertive to take a step to correct it, and and that's not aggressive, and that's not a complainer, that's someone who's valuing their their own self worth. So there's these fine lines sometimes that are important to recognize the Michael Hingson ** 1:04:44 aggression comes in. How you if you decide you're going to deal with the incorrectness of the meal, how you deal with it exactly, and, and, and I know I'm I actually had a situation just last week. I went with someone to a restaurant. I. Yeah, and my food came, and it was cold, and it wasn't supposed to be was supposed to be a hot meal. So when the when the server came back, I just said, Hey, this is cold. Touch it and you can see. And she said, No, I won't touch it. I said, I guarantee you, it's cold. If they could heat it up, I'd sure appreciate it. I wouldn't ever be rude to a person and be obnoxious and say, You dummy, you brought me a lousy meal and all that. You know. Well, what happened was that it came back nice and hot, but it also came back being brought back by someone who I think was the manager. He heard that we had sent it back, and he actually had come over and said, What's the problem? And we explained. And then he was the one who actually brought the meal back, and it was, it was nice and hot, and it was so much better. So but I know I have, DW Starr ** 1:05:54 I have something I call personal gratitude program, and I've taught that to in corporate America, and I've taught it to my my now adult sons, and that's that when somebody gives me over the top great service, I recognize it, yep, by going to their boss, either personally, in person or by phone or by email or by a form of some kind, and letting them know that I don't take for granted the exceptional service I got. I do that too. It's, it's, it's such an amazing feeling, because when you do that, I'm sure you know when you do that, it's a win win all across the board. Of course, it is the employee feels good, the person who hired the employee feels good, and the next person that employee sees is going to get some of that good, that good vibes to them. And you feel good Absolutely. Michael Hingson ** 1:07:00 Well, tell me so you do some coaching. You said, in addition to doing the one man show, DW Starr ** 1:07:05 very it's, it's very limited, uh huh, Michael Hingson ** 1:07:09 how do you how do you choose to or who you coach? Or how does that work? DW Starr ** 1:07:14 It works with, working with, with a client that is clear about their why, and they are passionate about their why, and they just need some guardrails or guideposts to help them figure out how they can find the how got it. So it's very it's very limited, and it's, it's at a it's at a very high level, economically and corporately, Michael Hingson ** 1:07:54 but mostly you travel and you do your show, and you've clearly been to a lot of states, and I know that because everyone DW told me about the map behind him. So he's been to a lot of states, and he's been to a number of countries, DW Starr ** 1:08:09 40 states, and I think it's nine countries, Michael Hingson ** 1:08:13 which is cool. No, it's DW Starr ** 1:08:15 15 countries. Okay, sorry, 15, yeah. Michael Hingson ** 1:08:20 Well, you know, I want to thank you for being here. So tell us once again, if people want to reach out, learn more about you, maybe even contact you. How do they do that? DW Starr ** 1:08:31 So there's a there's a few ways. One is then go to my website, which is D, w, s, t, a, r, r.net they can find me on Instagram, on at DW star, on LinkedIn, at DW star, they can find me on YouTube and Tiktok at confidence Crusader, confidence Crusader. And, yeah, I think, I think that's good. I mean, if you want to give my email address out, we'll just use the info at DW star.net, that's cool. Certainly shoot me so they can feel free to follow me, or, you know, get a free copy of my a PDF copy of my book, and they can Google me. Like I said, I'm all over there. That's just still crazy to me, that I, I have the I'm I'm lucky enough to have all of that without any advertising. Michael Hingson ** 1:09:37 It's a great blessing. Well, I want to thank you for being here and being with us, and taking all this time, I've enjoyed it, and I've learned a lot, and I would think and hope that that everyone listening has as well, and that if you, if you like what you heard, let DW know, and I certainly would appreciate it if you'd let us know, you can reach me easily enough by emailing. At Michael M, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, I, B, e.com, or you can go to our podcast page, which is w, w, w.michaelhingson.com/podcast, and Michael Hinkson is m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s, O, N, yes. And we're on LinkedIn and Facebook and a number of the social media pages too, but love to get emails, and whenever you are thinking about this, would certainly appreciate it if you give us a five star rating wherever you're listening to us and listening to the podcast, and as DW does the one man show and travels and speaks and so on. So do I, if you ever need to Speaker, would love to hear from you. [e-mail] we appreciate it. But most of all, once again, I want to thank you, dw, for being here with us today. I think this has been a lot of fun, and we ought to do it again sometime, absolutely, DW Starr ** 1:10:56 you know. And just just a shout out to some of your other your other podcast videos. I had an opportunity to watch you do a fantastic job, Michael, and keep up the good work. Michael Hingson ** 1:11:10 Thank you. I appreciate it. Well, let's let's do it again. Let's do it again, right? Sounds great. DW Starr ** 1:11:16 Take care, buddy. **Michael Hingson ** 1:11:21 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. 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