Michael Hingson

Michael Hingson Speaking Topics

• Turning The Tails On Terror In Our Uncertain And Scary World; Labrador Lessons from September 11, 2001

  As a survivor of the 9/11 tragedy as well as a person who happens to be blind, Mike captivates and enthralls audiences worldwide with his unique perspective on life and relationships. He guides us to explore how we may sabotage our own efforts, and how fear, courage, denial, trust, beliefs and philosophies have a tremendous impact on our personal lives, on our organizations and our world. Mike weaves the life lessons he has learned into an enthralling story of survival and perseverance that can help us all see that we can be much more than we are. Not only will he discuss his escape from the World Trade Center on 9-11, 2001, but he will also describe his life journey, including partnering with eight guide dogs, and how he came to be in the Twin Towers on that fateful day. Your audience will learn how to keep fear in check and survive even under the most adverse circumstances possible.

  TAKEAWAYS:

  • We do not need to be blinded by fear when facing unexpected situations.
  • Disability does not mean lack of ability.
  • We all face situations outside our control. While we can’t always control what happens to us, we always have control over how we react.

• Moving From Diversity To Inclusion; Accessibility And Inclusion For All

  In this talk, Mike, who happens to be blind, a survivor of the September 11, 2001 WTC attacks, a subject matter expert on inclusion and a number one New York Times best-selling author, shows us that Diversity is not enough. He illustrates why it is time to move from Diversity to real Inclusion on the job and in our lives. Mike uses stories and lessons from his own life growing up as a blind person, successfully working in professional sales, management, and leadership positions, living as an entrepreneur, and surviving the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 to teach his audiences how a few simple attitude adjustments can open the minds and hearts of all of us as well as including persons with disabilities when filling jobs. Your audience will take away ideas about how to gain loyal and hard-working employees as well as how to help make the existing workforce more welcoming to those who are different than they. People will leave their time with Mike Hingson with a different perspective of diversity and how to create full inclusion of all people in their lives. Mike will use a mixture of humor and serious talk to help audiences realize the value of inclusion and how any one of us could in an instant unexpectedly join the ranks of persons with disabilities. Mike will use stories from his own life to show how developing accessible technologies have helped him moved all of us toward a more inclusive existence. He will illustrate how easy it can be to make jobs more accessible to all simply by changing our mindset and by incorporating a few simple rules when designing websites and choosing what devices we use on the job and in our lives. Mike reminds us that we are all walking down the same road of life and that if we work together we can create a smoother path for everyone.

  TAKEAWAYS:

  • Disability does not mean a lack of ability.
  • Diversity generally does not include persons with disabilities.
  • In reality, everyone has a disability, but some disabilities have been mostly covered up by technology.
  • Some of the best employees and partners are persons with disabilities because we know that with a %65 unemployment rate finding and keeping a job is invaluable.
  • Inclusion is not hard to accomplish. All that is required is a mindset modification we all can make.

Thriving in the Corporate World Through Understanding & The Power of Trust & Teamwork

Michael Hingson uses his personal experiences of over 40 years in high technology sales and management, 59 years with guide dog partners, and his survival of the twin towers terrorist attacks on 9/11, to address the issue of building a team based on trust. He captivates his audiences with stories and lessons about how he has created successful and high functioning teams wherever he goes and how they can do the same. “The power of trust and teamwork is all around us if we but learn how to harness it and use its strengths wisely” Mike says. Mike’s audiences discover first-hand how he lived through the terrorist attacks by forming teams to keep everyone around him focused and to successfully work toward the common goal of escape from Tower One.

Mike’s thoughtful insights inspire his audiences to change the way they think about the way they work and relate to each other. Listeners learn about skills and methods Mike uses daily to create teams and how Trust and Teamwork enriches his life as well as the lives of those around him.

What Would You Do When?: How to Survive Life Emergencies & Unexpected Situations

Meet Mike Hingson and his eighth guide dog Alamo. Alamo has been with Mike only five years, but as Mike says, 'Alamo has learned a lot from me about how to live and work through emergency situations in our lives'.

Mike Hingson will tell your audience how he and his former guide dog, Roselle, worked in and survived escaping from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. As Hingson says, 'it was no accident nor luck that helped Roselle and me get out of the Twin Towers that day'. Learn how Hingson used life skills to prepare for the most unexpected emergency imaginable.

Audiences will learn that they can control fear. You can develop a mindset that will help you handle emergency and unexpected situations as well as survive them.

TAKEAWAYS:

• Anyone can better prepare to face an emergency.
• Fear is our biggest enemy when facing uncertain and unexpected situations, but fear can be controlled.

Audience members will learn how to better prepare for emergencies. Sometimes the best person to lead in an emergency is not the boss. The best person is the one prepared and who has developed the mindset to control their fear.

Thinking Outside The Box Isn’t Always The Best Approach Preparing Your Life-skills Toolbox

What tools do we already possess that when used creatively in tandem with the strengths of others make us more effective? Most of us seldom take the time to look at ourselves to analyze the gifts we bring to our lives and to the world around us.

Drawing on a lifetime of experience developing the skills needed to navigate through a vision-centric world, Mike compels his listeners to believe teamwork is so easy to make happen. He shows us that each one of us can turn our strengths and weaknesses into opportunities for creative adaptation and team-building partnerships and success. He demonstrates how to look at our actions and learn how to better ourselves through a bit of critical thinking and self-evaluation. As Hingson says, 'it is hard for each of us to look at ourselves especially in the way that others see us, but through a willingness to open our minds to self-evaluation with input from the outside we will become stronger and better'.

Hingson describes how the choices he and his parents made directly affected and enhanced his life skills and his world. He tells his audiences how he learned to use the tools he learned as a blind person to have a positive impact on his life and the lives of those around him. Mike shows how his own on-going self-examinations helped him survive the terrorist attacks on 9-11 and how he was able to move on and become a successful international lecturer and a #1 New York Times Bestselling author.

TAKEAWAYS:

• People usually underrate their own creativity.
• Audience members can learn to analyze what goes on around them to better make informed life and proactive decisions.
• Audience members will learn that there is no shame in asking for help and advice to clarify thinking.

The Invaluable Power Of The Human-Animal Bond Lessons from a Guide Dog Team

Millions of Americans enjoy the love and companionship of their pets. Medical research is proving that the human/animal bond can also have a measurable effect on our physical well-being. As the human half of a guide dog team, Mike Hingson describes his own experiences growing and learning from eight guide dogs, and explores our responsibilities for socializing and caring for our wonderful animal friends. He shows us how to establish closer relationships with our pets and how those relationships can grow into human-animal teams that can even save our lives.

Audiences learn from Michael how love and commitment to our animal friends will take each of us further than we ever thought possible. Hingson’s successful experiences with guide dogs span more than 55 years. In this talk he uses the joys, sadness, successes and challenges of his own journey with guide dogs to teach us all how to enrich our lives by learning to understand and work with creatures who live, think, and communicate in different ways than we do.

Mike challenges his audiences to reevaluate the relationships they have with their pets in order to forge stronger and more relevant bonds.

People will leave this talk with a different perspective about their 'animal friends' and they may even discover that animals can be more important and contributing members of their families than they ever thought possible.

TAKEAWAYS:

• There is a lot to be said for thinking more like a dog to put things into perspective.
• Adopting a teamwork-oriented mindset with our pets may well help us live better and more peaceful lives.
• Dogs love rules and look to their human team leaders for direction.
• While dogs offer unconditional love, they do not offer unconditional trust. Even with dogs, trust must be earned.