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Episode 264 – Unstoppable UK Business Strategist and Performance Coach with Will Polston

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内容由Michael Hingson提供。所有播客内容(包括剧集、图形和播客描述)均由 Michael Hingson 或其播客平台合作伙伴直接上传和提供。如果您认为有人在未经您许可的情况下使用您的受版权保护的作品,您可以按照此处概述的流程进行操作https://zh.player.fm/legal

A few months ago, I was invited to be a guest on a podcast hosted by my guest this time, Will Polston. I told Will at the time, of course, that I would be happy to appear, but that I also wanted to have him as a guest on Unstoppable Mindset. And here we are. Will started his career as a broker. Actually, he always wanted to make lots of money. As a child, long before he became a broker, he was living out his entrepreneur life selling things as a child. He was successful.

He was successful as a broker as well, but he felt that something was missing in his life. It wasn’t until he attended a Tony Robins event in England that he realized that there really was more to life than money.

Will changed direction after the Robins event. For several years now Will has dedicated his life to helping others transform their lives. Will tells us all about his journey in this episode and along the way he offers good insights and thoughts about adopting a mindset that offers a better and less fearful existence.

About the Guest:

Will Polston is a best-selling author, entrepreneur and one of the UK’s leading business strategists & performance coaches. Will works with ambitious people, rapidly transforming their lives by empowering them to solve their biggest challenges and holding them accountable on their journey towards their dream life. Wills achieved “traditional success” with a career as a broker, despite this he found himself feeling unfulfilled. It was only when a surprising turn of events led him to a personal development seminar, that he finally gained the clarity that deep down, his belief that “money equals happiness” was not true and what he really wanted to do was empower others to achieve their dreams. From that day onwards Will has dedicated his life to studying the art and science of behavioural change and performance coaching. Using a powerful combination of techniques across multiple disciplines, Will helps give people a unique insight into their behaviour, providing proven strategies that transform their lives. In 2023 Will’s first book was released ‘North Star Thinking: Master Your Mindset and Live a Life You Love’ and became a #1 Amazon best seller. As an entrepreneur himself, Will understands the struggles and challenges, highs and lows of being in business. His humble approach and unique coaching style puts everything on the table, making people feel comfortable digging deep into the depth of their vulnerabilities. Not only is he a Certified Master Coach, NLP Master Practitioner, Member of the International Coach Federation, and International Speaker but he’s spoken at TEDx, blogged for The Huffington Post, been a finalist for ‘Coach of the Year’ at the Association of Professional Coaches, Trainers, and Consultants, been awarded the prestigious ‘Expert Coach of Excellence’ accreditation, been a finalist for ‘Best Business Enabler’ at The National Entrepreneur Awards two years in a row and won the ‘Best Business Enabler’ awards at the Business Champion Awards in 2023. Whatever you want to achieve in life or business, Will really understands what it takes to help you master your mindset and live a life you love.

Ways to connect with Wallace:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/willpolston/ Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/will.polston Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/willpolstonmih/ Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/makeithappencommunity/ Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/c/WillPolstonMakeItHappen TEDx talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEHlSiFxmBI&t Website: willpolston.com Podcast: https://link.chtbl.com/mihwwp Book: http://northstarthinking.com/

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/

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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, wherever you happen to be, and welcome to unstoppable mindset. Today, we are going to have a chance to chat with someone that I met a little while ago, because he runs a podcast and invited me to come on, which we did, and it'll be out in the in a fairly short time. He is Will Polston, and will is a best selling author, an entrepreneur and a leading business strategist and coach in the United Kingdom. So we're really wow, that's a lot, a lot of things to live up to, so I got to be careful in what I say. But anyway, will welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here. Will Polston ** 02:07 Thank you for having me. I'm grateful to be here. Well, Michael Hingson ** 02:12 I look forward to having a lot of fun. Why don't we start as I love to do? Why don't you tell me something about the early will, growing up and all that? Wow, the I know that that could take an hour, right? Will Polston ** 02:25 We've got a long time. Yeah, something I've never said on a podcast, and I think this is really interesting, was that many years ago. So when I was a real when I was really young, I that we, there's a TV program that's over here called Fireman Sam, and I always wanted to be a finance when I was, like, four or five years old, I was forever dressed up in a fireman's outfit. Then I got a little bit older, and then I wanted to be an architect and and then I went on to be a paperboy. And I see why. I thought that was really interesting when I first realized that was because fireman was about fireman. It was about helping people. An architect was about designing things, and being a paperboy, was sharing information, and now I work as a coach. I think it's a combination of all those things. I help people design that design their life. I help them and I share information so but no, the that's kind of the that's something that was the case for me years ago. But there's an extended version, I suppose of what actually happened, which led me to to do what I do now, which, if you want me to share, I'm happy to, but, Michael Hingson ** 03:25 Oh, you're welcome to. Will Polston ** 03:27 So the short version is I grew up with a belief that money would happiness, and I went off on a tangent to make as much money as I could, as early as I could. And then it was and I become pretty good at that. And then it was 11 years ago I have what I call my lightning moment where I realized my real driver was nothing to do with money. Never really about money. It would too what to do with my dad and how my dad hadn't achieved certain things he was capable of, and the impact that had on him and my mum and me and my family, and I vowed I don't want anyone else to have to go through the pain that he went through, and we went through as a result, and from that moment on, I've just been obsessed with anything to do with human awareness, human potential, human potential and human behavior, to enable people to do exactly that, achieve what it is they're capable of, and benefit not only them, but their family, their friends, their community, society, humanity and the universe, which as a result of having an unstoppable Michael Hingson ** 04:22 mindset, when you talk about the pain that he had, what what do you mean by that? Will Polston ** 04:29 So the slightly more detailed version is my dad worked in London, and he hated his job, so he would get up at five o'clock in the morning, come home at seven, eight o'clock at night, and he'd bring the stress and frustration of work home with him. And I don't know if people listening to this can relate to this, but he had so much tension that when he would walk into the house, he could physically feel it. He was in it, okay? Head of it, head of it for a stock brokerage. And, yeah, that was a. And yeah, stressful for him back then, but I've always got two very wealthy uncles, one's a billionaire, one's a multi millionaire. And dad always used to say they just got lucky. That was his excuse. They got lucky. They got lucky. And what's interesting is, is even back then, I was at 1011, years old, I used to think that's all. I can't believe it's just luck. And even now, I don't believe in luck, but yeah, he used to say that. And one day I came home from school, and my dad had to quit his job to set up a business with one of my uncles. But that, long story short, that never got started. My dad fell into a depression, slept in a separate room. My mom curtain shut all day, didn't leave the house. All the stereotypical stuff, and what I observed as a 10 year old. 11 year old was there was Uncle Mark. He was a billionaire. He was really happy. My Uncle Steve, he was a multi millionaire. He was really happy. Then there was my dad, when he worked in London, all right, he was stressed and whatnot, but he had money. And there was now he had to work for months on end. He had no money and and that was what I witnessed. I witnessed the depression, the feelings of depression, the stress and all of that. That was the pain, essentially. Michael Hingson ** 06:05 What? Why did he hate his job? Will Polston ** 06:09 Well, I think it's, it's an interesting one, isn't it? What? Whether it was he hate where he hated it or not, whether he just didn't have the skills to handle the stress. So I think that for a lot of people, why is you can look at some one person doing one thing, and it's so easy for them and so difficult for somebody else, and they get stressed, yeah, yeah. I think it's having a skill set to be able to do what was required. Maybe it's that, but he likes computers. He's always liked computers, but maybe it was just not in the way we've been done. Michael Hingson ** 06:51 Yeah, now, is he still with us? Yeah, is he working now or Will Polston ** 06:58 he's working now? And yeah, he's, he's probably happier than he's ever been. I was gonna ask that, yeah, yeah, in a much better place. Michael Hingson ** 07:05 What does he do now? Will Polston ** 07:07 He's involved with architectural glazing, of all things. So he, he basically prints these stickers that go on windows that are required in construction, so that people don't walk into glass doors and whatnot. Michael Hingson ** 07:24 Well, that won't help me, but that's okay. But well, you know, so obviously all that had an impact on you. And so what? What was it that finally made you realize that, well, one you didn't want to live that that kind of life, but that you really recognized that there's a whole lot more to life than than money, and there is something to be said for having peace of mind. Will Polston ** 07:55 Well, what happened is, there's a chat that you may have heard of called Tony Robbins. He's from your side of the pond, and I was at one of his events, and he shared what's known as the Thanksgiving story, and it was like the perfect metaphor for my life. And it made me realize, wow, if, if that experience was able to shape that man that is in that man being Tony, to do everything he's done and the way he's helped people, then maybe that's, that's what it is for me too, you know, it's, it's that it's that catalyst to change and do things, and that was that moment. Michael Hingson ** 08:30 So up until that time, what were you doing? So, yeah, I assume you went to college and so on. Will Polston ** 08:36 No, not at all. No. I mean, I was just obsessed with making money, frankly, because we didn't have money, so I did anything that we could do to make money. So I was even when I was 1211, years old, I was buying stuff off the internet and selling it at school, and buying sweets and selling at school and and then i was running multiple paper rounds. And then I wanted to I was really when I was making lots of money as a teenager, I got quite into fashion, and I was buying clothes and whatnot. And then I decided, well, actually, what I want to do is own, my own designer clothes shop. So that was kind of what I thought I wanted to do. From about 14 years old, started working in a designer clothes shop, and this, this was sort of real high end designer clothes. And after a while, I thought, I mean, I own my own shop. And then I kind of had a moment where I realized actually that probably wouldn't be possible for me. I need to do something else. Now, a lot of the clientele of this shop basically fit into one of four categories. They were either professional footballers, property developers, stock brokers or drug dealers. So I just thought, right, well, I need to become one of them. I need to become one of them for what one can it be? And the first one I ruled out was being a professional footballer, because I'm rubbish at football. I'd play rugby all my life, but never football. The second one I ruled out was being a property developer because I didn't have loads of money to. Sell up properties, I was left with two options, become a stockbroker or or become a drug dealer. And to I would imagine, to my mother's delight, I didn't choose the drug dealer option, and I decided to start working in in financial services and and did that for many years. And what happened was, because at the time, my belief was money called happiness, the I was doing whatever I could to try and make more money. And that's where I stumbled across personal development. The more personal development I did, the more money I made. And that went on for some years, until I ended up at the Tony Robbins event. And that was when I had the, what I call my lightning moment, Michael Hingson ** 10:41 what, what got you to go to the Tony Robbins event? Because that certainly is a whole lot different than the mindset that you clearly had been living with. Will Polston ** 10:50 It was a friend, actually, a friend said to me, I'm thinking of going along to this event with this, this big American guy called Tony Robbins. Would you be up for coming? And I sort of checked him out, checked out few videos, and said, Sure, I'm up for that. That looks like that'll be looks like that'll be good. Michael Hingson ** 11:07 And so you went, and the world changed, Will Polston ** 11:11 yeah, and life was never the same again. Michael Hingson ** 11:13 So what did you do? Will Polston ** 11:17 Well, so this, this is where the story unfolds. So I did eventually leave the city and I set up a renewable energy business. So I set up that renewable energy business, we were growing rapidly. I mean, we went from a standing start to 85 staff within 18 months, growing, growing, growth, growing. I mean, government changed legislation, and it pretty much killed that business overnight. And it was when I was away on holiday. So I took the holiday with my ex girlfriend, girlfriend at the time, and just to have a bit of a break and work out what we were going to do next and what was going to happen. And it was when I was away on a holiday. It was a funny sort of event. So I'm a big believer that there are no coincidences, only for synchronicities. And my girlfriend, at the time, she was a dentist or dental nurse, should I say, and she's like, well, we're going to go on holiday. You need to go and get your teeth cleaned by the hygienist. So we went to the hygienist, and unfortunately, she clipped my gum with the tool that she was using, and it got infected two days before the holiday. She said, Well, I'm really sorry. You need to go on these particular antibiotics, and you're not going to be able to drink alcohol. Now I don't drink alcohol. Now I haven't drunk alcohol for coming up to probably six years. But back then, I was a big drinker. I was a big ginger drinker and and I was like, I can't believe you, I'm about to go to the land of tequila. We were going to Mexico, and I'm not going to I'm not going to be able to drink. This is crazy. So we ended up going on holiday, and I didn't drink, but we went to this, this, this night time entertainment venue called Coco bongos. And it's kind of like a cross between a circus, a West End Show and a musical, all mixed in together. There's midget sprying from the ceiling and drag ax and all sorts of stuff going on. And my girlfriend, at the time, was throwing back tequila like it was nobody's business anyway, early hours of the morning, I carry her over my shoulder, I put her to bed, and I wake up in the morning and she's got her head down the toilet and will. I can't go out in the pool, so I said, Well, look, my holiday, I haven't drunk a holiday. I'm definitely going to the pool. And I went to the pool with a book, and the book that I went with was a book called The Hero by Rhonda, Byrne. Anyway, I'm reading through the book, and it gets to a particular part of the book where Rhonda talks about a guy called masting Kip. Masting Kip used to have a like, maybe he still does have a website called the daily love and he used to post, uh, motivational quotes on Twitter every day. And one day he got retweeted by Kim Kardashian. And then he went from 1000 followers to 10,000 followers overnight. And I just started crying, because in that moment, what happened, Michael was I realized that I'd left London because I didn't want to chase the money I'd set up this year in your will and your business, and then all I was still doing was chasing the money. And the thing what I really wanted to do, the thing that was in my heart, was helping people in the form of coaching them and working with them in some capacity like that. And I kept saying, well, I'll do it when I'm successful. When I'm successful, I call it when men syndrome, you know, people get so caught up with when this happens, then I'll do that. And and I just decided what I need to do is just come home and start. And I can start by putting a motivational quote on Twitter every day and on social media. So I did. I started putting a motivational quote on Twitter and on Facebook and the platforms. I did one every day for a week. And I thought, will you idiot. Some people don't go on social media in the morning. You should put one in the afternoon as well. So I did that. A week after that, I set up my own website. A week after that, I wrote my first blog. Three months after that, I had 10,000 strong social media followings, so I. A very long winded way of sort of sharing how I then made that transition from leaving London and then ended up finally pursuing what it was that I wanted Michael Hingson ** 15:08 to do. And how long ago was that? Nine years. Okay, so you you finally really got to the point where you didn't worry as much about money, which, which certainly was a challenge to get to, but, but you you thought about it and, and I guess one of the questions that I have is, what, what made you really think about the fact that money didn't need to be the only thing that drove you. Did you do a lot of introspection in your life at night? Or did you think about it? Or did did it just sort of happen? Or what Will Polston ** 15:50 it was that it was the moment, it was the driver at the Tony Robbins event. So that lightning moment, as I referred to it, it just opened everything up. And I was like, No, my drive for money was actually linked to the fact that my dad didn't do certain things and we couldn't do certain things. So I thought, well, rather than me trying to just treat the symptom, which is just to pay for the things that dad couldn't sort for us, what about if he had been empowered? What if there'd been somebody that could have given him the mindset that he so that he could have done work that he loved. What if somebody gave him an abundance mindset so he didn't live in scarcity? What if there was somebody that could have been there for him so that he could have learned to handle his anger and it not impact the family in the way that it did? So everything that I do really now is kind of aimed at trying to help people that were once like my dad. What Michael Hingson ** 16:47 happened along the way that caused you to really go into to coaching as such? What What made you think about that as what you wanted to do, as opposed to thinking about the fact that you're only successful if you make money, and that that spiral just wasn't going anywhere. Well, if I, if I make more, if I do this, then I'll be successful. And what? What caused you to really well, I guess the Tony Robbins thing caused you to change that. But what made you decide to go into coaching, and how does that equate with the idea of success that you had? Will Polston ** 17:27 So in the moment, the Tony Robbins moment, I just instantly thought, No, my what I want to do is I want to I want to become the world's best life coach. That's what I said back then. But actually I then realized later on, I that that's what I said, but that's not what I meant. What I actually meant was that I just wanted to work with lots of people and lots of people and help them achieve their potential, so that that was what it was about. And I then saw, because I was literally standing in front of the guy, that, well, he's doing this. This is what he does for a living. So essentially, I modeled him and then I went on and trained in a whole array of different different mediums and modalities and and one of the things that I'd realized in my whole life that enabled me to have a sort of a decent amount of success, financial success, even at a young age as a teenager, was what I'd been doing my Whole life without knowing what it was called, was modeling other people. So I was essentially modeling Tony. I saw what he was doing. I saw that he could help he'd help me, and I wanted to look at doing things in a similar way. And that was what, yeah, what that came from. Michael Hingson ** 18:38 And we've ever come to the conclusion, though, that ultimately you can model people only so much or so long, and that ultimately you have to to do what, what you do, and maybe then people will will, although that's not a desire, necessarily, but then people will model you Will Polston ** 18:54 absolutely. Yeah, I believe that every single one of us on this planet, or 8 billion of us, or however many it is, have a completely unique fingerprint. Our fingerprints completely unique. But what also is that's completely unique to us as individuals is our own genius, and our own genius is derived from our values. And every single person the planet has a completely unique set of values, and they're unique in the sense that of the hierarchy that they're in. And it's it's from this when, when we live in alignment with our values, we operate from inspiration, versus when we operate from somebody else's values, we operate and we require motivation. And one of the ways that I'll know if people are living their values with somebody else's from the language they're using, so if they use, using. So if they're using language like I need to, I ought to. I should. I have to. It's an indication they live in somebody else's values. When they're saying things that I love to, I desire, I choose to, they're living their own values. And if you take the word inspiration, inspiration in spirit, what's another word for spirit? Energy? You're in your energy, and a lot of people think they burn out because they're working too hard. They don't they burn out because they're living somebody else's values. And that's now what I do myself, and what I help people do is identify what is their own unique hierarchy of values so they can live that and turn that into a mission that then becomes what I call their North Star, that they live and work towards every single day, that enables them to wake up every day and feel more fulfilled and grow and contribute in the areas that are most meaningful to them. Michael Hingson ** 20:34 So you are. You have written a book. I have indeed, if you would tell us about that Will Polston ** 20:41 absolutely, always Michael Hingson ** 20:42 good to write a book. I say Will Polston ** 20:45 the book's called North Star thinking, master your mindset and live a life you love. Michael Hingson ** 20:52 Wow. What a title. Thank you. And so is it? Is it published? Is it out? It's Will Polston ** 21:00 out. It's out. It's available. We get it in on Amazon and Waterstones, Barnes and Noble. It's on Audible as well, so it can be listened to on Spotify Premium, yeah, so pretty much anywhere where you you would normally get your books. Michael Hingson ** 21:18 So what? How long has it been out? Will Polston ** 21:21 It came out last year. Okay, Michael Hingson ** 21:24 so what was the inspiration for writing it? What? What caused you to decide that you wanted to write a book to share your knowledge that way? Well, Will Polston ** 21:33 there's a there's a few things, I suppose. One of them was, it was a book that I read that that was the, the first personal development book that I ever read, which was such a great catalyst for me, and I thought, well, there's a lot of stuff that I've done, and there's one of the things Michael that I've tried to do over the years is I've learned and consumed a huge amount of different resources and modalities, and I've got my own spin on things. One of the things that I try and do is take complex stuff and simplify it. So I took a range of different things, and there's four main pillars to the book. So Northside thinking is about essentially getting people to have a mission in life. That's the equivalent of trying to empty the sea with a spoon. It's a mission in life that you continue to work towards, that you're fulfilled, that fulfills you every single day you're working towards it, but the essence of the book is sort of North Star thinking, which is all around goal, setting and purpose. Then it's around master your time, which is around essentially well time. Then there's cultivating an attitude of gratitude and evolving your thinking, so using your thinking to gain different perspectives and the smart way to do that, and then finally, habit creation. So they're the four main pillars of the book, and I think that the most people, if they can nail those four things, they've got the clarity of where they're going. They're taking the intelligent action in the sense that they are mastering their time. They're evolving their thinking, and they're doing things not just in terms of action, actual external action, but internal action. And then finally, they're creating the habits that create the lasting change then then that puts a lot of people in good split. Michael Hingson ** 23:14 Why do you call it North Star thinking? Will Polston ** 23:17 Well, there's a famous story you've probably heard of. It involves a baby born in a stable a couple of 1000 years ago, and there were three men, supposedly wise, all carrying presents. And they they followed the North Star, and they followed the North Star, and they found this baby. Now, when I was reflecting on that story, I thought, well, that's really interesting. They never actually went to the North Star, or at least they didn't in the story that I heard. And it dawned on me that these the in their story, they use the North Star they got to their goal. But so many people in life, what happens is they they fall into what I call when, then syndrome, as I mentioned before, which is they set their sights on a goal, they achieve the goal, and then they just set another goal, and then they might achieve that goal, and then they achieve that. So they set another goal and they achieve that. And after they've done that four or five times, if they're short term goals, they find themselves actually becoming really quite unfulfilled. Like, wow, they keep doing all these short term goals, and I'm just unfulfilled. It's because they're generally attached a feeling of happiness or fulfillment or accomplishment to having got the goal. But the problem is, is that whenever you set a goal, if you've got that way of thinking all the time that the goal hasn't been achieved, then you're perceived to you're perceiving that you're not where you want to be, as opposed to so you so most people are focusing on the gap rather than the gain of the progress that they're making. So this way, it enables people to over, sort of stop that way of short term thinking. I think of it like a pinball, you know, they're from one side of the table to the left, never really progressing forward. And then they can just, they can. Focus on this overarching piece, and it enables people to become a lot more fulfilled and energized and accomplished as a result. Michael Hingson ** 25:09 Well, yeah, and you know, there, there is nothing wrong with setting goals and achieving a goal and going on. But you also kind of have to look at the overall Where do you want to, where do you want to end up at some point? And maybe you don't, what do you what do you think about that? Do you really want to have an ultimate goal? And you short goals to get there, or is that going too far? Will Polston ** 25:35 Absolutely. That's the whole part of the process. So I call that a component the North Star trajectory. So we start with where we are. We create the ultimate goal. That's the guiding light, and then we just reverse engineer that 10, year five, year 20. Year 10, year five, year three, year one, year 90, day 30 day we break the whole thing down. But of course, if you can imagine it, it's it's far wiser. If you're here now and the North Stars directly in front of you, it's far wiser to go in a dead straight line? Now, look, I'm a realist. It's never a dead straight line. But if you jump in an aircraft to fly from London to New York or from New York to London, the pilot knows where he's going. He's going to set a trajectory. Now, sure, he may have to alter because of the wind, the weather, the flock of birds, or whatever it is that's coming towards them, but they're still going to follow that trajectory. Rather than go, Hey, we're just going to take off south of London, and then we're just going to kind of make it up as we go along. That's not going to be very good in terms of fuel efficiency. It's going to take far longer to get there. It can actually be lot more dangerous, because you might end up being somewhere where you run out of fuel, or run out of energy and you can't carry on. So it's far wiser to do exactly what you've said, which is kind of know where you're going long term, but then break that down so you've got the milestones to work towards. Michael Hingson ** 26:53 You talk about aligning your decisions with values and purpose. I'm assuming you do that in the book. And what, what does alvat really mean when you talk about aligning your your decisions? I'm assuming in part, that that means that you do have values. You do have the things that you are made up from, and you really need to make your decisions go along with those, or you change your values and purpose? Yeah, Will Polston ** 27:27 yeah, absolutely. So it's about congruence. You know, it's about congruence. So for example, if somebody's goal is, I'm just going to use a very apt one at this time of year, if somebody's goal is that they want to lose weight, and they want to lose weight and they want to get fitter, then a decision and action in terms of what they want to eat, if that's their goal and that's what they really want, then it's probably not going to be best that they have McDonald's breakfast for breakfast, they have Burger King for lunch and and Domino's pizza for dinner, that making those food decisions would be, one would argue, would be incongruent with somebody's health and fitness goals if they were to eat lat every day, if their goal is that they want to lose weight body fat and get fitter over The course of a four to six week period, Michael Hingson ** 28:23 I was watching something on the news. I think just last week over here, we have Costco. Do you have Costco in London? We do, yeah. And somebody went into Costco and spent a whole week only eating Costco hot dog meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and actually lost a little bit of weight, but he only did it for a week. Was inexpensive, but yeah, I gotta believe that that's not something I would want to do. Yeah, for sure, there is something to be said for trying to align your eating habits with giving you the maximum amount of energy and eating healthy. But people do strange things sometimes, you know, it got him on the news. So, whatever. Well, well, what about you know, you so your idea of success has changed over time. What do you define success as today? What does it mean to be successful? Will Polston ** 29:18 Well, it's a really great question, and I've even contemplated even changing that in recent weeks, because so I will say that for me, my definition of success is people being doing and having what they desire. You know that for me, and of course, success is subjective, so people being doing and having what they desire is completely unique to them. But then I was re listening to something called The Strangest Secret by old Nightingale a couple of weeks ago. I've listened to it many, many times before, but it shared his definition of success, which I really, really like, which is success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal, and that that I really like, and I think it's very aligned. With the whole concept of more Star thinking, because if somebody is, somebody is a success because they're doing the work. So rather than having the end part, which is the having in be do and have they are doing the work. And I really like that, because when we're when we're taking on work, whatever that might be, whether it's health goals, relationship goals, business goals, financial goals, is that compounding can can often have a big impact. Now, Albert Einstein called compounding the eighth wonder of the world, and there's a huge amount of work that has to go into building the foundation. You look at houses that get built, you know, if you've got a new house that's being built for six months, there might look like it's just a building site, but there's all of the infrastructure that's going in, the sewage and the the water pipes and all those things. And then one day, all of a sudden, almost out of nowhere, you're going six months, nine months of it looking like a building site, look like they're not doing anything, and then the space of, like, three days, three weeks, a whole house has been built. Well, it all been happening the whole time, but it just looked slower, and then you only see the end goal part, and that, that's the thing, I think, is really important. There's so many people in today's day and age due to, I guess, social media having an impact, and so many of us want an instant gratification is that they get frustrated with the process, and it's so it's easier now than ever to compare your Chapter Two to somebody else's chapter 20, and that's what happens so often. Michael Hingson ** 31:37 Yeah, and it's so interesting to hear people talk about success, and to just ask people about it, and they talk about, well, I gotta make a lot of money. I've got to be independently wealthy, and things like that. And I admit some of that would be nice, but it's not the ultimate thing that's going to make me happy, at least, I think, for me, and I think about the things that you've been saying for the last half hour, I grew up wanting to teach, and I always thought I wanted to be a teacher, and then along the way, I got very interested in science, so I wanted to be a physics teacher. Well, as things settled down and progressed, I ended up not being a physics teacher. But I do believe that in a lot of ways, there's no question that, that I get the opportunity to teach as a salesperson. For many years, I learned from the Dale Carnegie sales course that the best salespeople are really counselors. They're teachers. They guide people to look at products. And I'm not above telling somebody that a product I'm selling may not fit their specific need, but if I'm honest enough to do that, I believe that comes back to affect me in a very positive way. And there are several instances where I and my staff would tell people our product isn't going to work for you, but then later we get a call from the company saying, you know, we really like what you had to say. We've got another project, and we really appreciate all you taught us. We know your product will work. Just give us price, and we'll order it right today. I'm not sure that'll happen today in the world where we're so stuck in doing things by committee, but it works 20 years ago, 25 years ago? Will Polston ** 33:23 Yeah, yeah. I think there's, there's a there's a lot to be said. I mean, sales, when I think, let's face it, sales, there's nothing that's ever really been accomplished at great scale without salespeople. And yeah, salespeople get a bad rap in a lot of instances, but if they've got integrity, then then they can do a lot of good for a lot of people. Michael Hingson ** 33:51 Yeah, well, there is the other side of it, and sometimes salespeople deserve a bad rap for what they do and they don't really understand the true science and art that sales is and what it gives you the opportunity to do. But when, when it's done well, and it's done right, it really will make, and does make a big difference in the lives of so many people, because you provide what it is that somebody needs. And you know, you do that, and that's a wonderful tribute to accomplishment, which is also part of success. Yeah, you get paid and all that, and that's great, but there's a whole lot more to it than just money. Yeah, for sure, I do like money. I think there's a lot of merit to having that. That's okay. But by the same token, it's not the only thing in the world, but it's part of what we have to deal with. So you talk about resilience, tell me a little bit more about your thoughts about resilience, and how that plays into the book and and how it plays into you and your life. So Will Polston ** 34:57 I have a an. An interesting stance on resilience. So first of all, I think that anybody that has an ability to go through tough times, when, when they when they have to resilience is a phenomenal attribute to have. I really, really do. My concern that I see now is that people are aware of resilience, almost like a badge. And it's a bit like, busy, you know, people were busy like a badge. I'm so busy, like thinking it's a good thing. They're proud of it. Or I'm so resilient, you know, I've handled this and this and this, and it's the whole like, what would you rather? Would you rather work smarter? Would you rather work hard? Would you rather not have to be resilient because you were wise enough to overcome the challenge before it happened? Now knowing me wrong, having certain skill sets to be resilient is so important. I've had some really challenging times in my life, but I'm a big believer that if something is chronically happening, so it's happening and over and over and over again, and you're constantly having to find yourself being resilient if it's the same problem showing up, then let's just treat the cause so the symptoms go so you don't have to be resilient in if it's if it's the same problem coming up over and over again. But yeah, look, I think resilience is a combination of a mindset. I also think it's a combination of a skill set that enables people to deal with various things. And a huge amount of that mindset is down to perspective, whether somebody believes that something is happening to them, either the victim, or whether they believe it's happening for them. And I think that the moment you change your perspective on life, that this life isn't happening to me. It's happening for me, and it's not in the way, it's on the way that can completely alter your life by having that perspective, and in the same way that the moment you change your I've got twos to I get to life changes. It does. There are people, there are people today that haven't had the privilege of experiencing today because they didn't wake up this morning. Yet. There's still people that have woken up and went, Oh, I've got to go to work today. Oh, I've got to do this. But there are people that would have done anything to have had today to be able to do that. And I think sometimes we all get can get carried away with, with not, not sort of maximizing the things that we can get grateful for, especially the privileges that we have on a daily basis. I Michael Hingson ** 37:37 have had jobs in my life that I didn't really like for one reason or another, and when things got to the point where it seemed like it was intolerable, then I had to make some choices and decisions about whether to stay or go find another job, which could be difficult for blind people, especially because the unemployment rate is so high, because People think we can't work, but I would very have been very blessed to be able to find jobs, but I think that's in part because my choice was to live life and get to live life and not have to live life, which is what you're saying. And so when there got to be enough of a challenge, then my job was to go deal with it. And I think that's part of the whole issue of resilience. We really get ourselves locked into a mindset so much as a as a people, that we don't look for options, we don't look for opportunities, and sometimes we don't look for the good parts of a job that we have. Will Polston ** 38:44 Yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. Michael Hingson ** 38:46 And that's that's also part of what we have to do. And I think that we all can make life better for ourselves. I remember after September 11 and everything that happened that day, within a very short time, like just a few days, we were getting a lot of requests for interviews, and my wife and I talked about it, and she said, Do you really want to do these interviews? And I said, here's my thought, if I can help people move on from September 11, if I can teach people about blindness and guide dogs, and if I can help people see, maybe things in a different sense, then maybe it's worth doing. And we agreed, and it had to be both of us agreeing that we would do that. And then people started calling and saying, Would you come and talk to us? And as I love to tell people, I made the decision that selling computer hardware wasn't nearly as much fun and wasn't as rewarding as selling life and philosophy. And I and I think that now, what 22 and a half years later, I still believe that, I think that it's so very important that we, we. Look at outlooks, and I've I've learned a lot. I've got to the opportunity with this podcast to learn so much in talking to people. It's such a blessing to hear from so many people and be able to synthesize all the things that they say. It's really a lot of fun. Yeah, absolutely you know that firsthand. Absolutely I do. Indeed. I'm sorry I Will Polston ** 40:23 do indeed. Yeah. Michael Hingson ** 40:25 Tell me your thoughts about self respect, reflection and introspection and so on. You know, from my perspective, I think it's important that we take time every day to do that. Tell me what your thoughts are about that Will Polston ** 40:38 I can. Couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. I have a practice that I use on a daily basis, and old journal. So old journal what time I wake up, I'll journal how I feel when I wake up, and anything obvious that I might think of why I feel that way. So if I've woken up like a really groggy it's like, Well, it's because you went to bed late last night, or you'd eaten loads of sugar, or whatever it might be. Then I'll write out 10 things I'm grateful for, and what I do when I'm doing the 10 things I'm grateful I actually think of the previous 24 hours, and I look from a couple of each of these areas. So I think of the people that I'm grateful for, and I think of the experiences that I had. Then I think of my belongings. What belongings am I grateful for? Example, my I'm grateful for my laptop because it enabled me to do this interview with you, Michael, as an example. Then I think of the these. These are the two areas are the big ones, which is expectations and privileges. So what my expectations? Well, I had an expectation that the internet was going to work today for me to be able to do this interview, but I'm glad that it worked a privilege that I've got, a privilege that I've got today. Right now, as I sit in this house, it's warm, you know, I've got heating. I'm privileged. There are people right now that are sleeping out on the streets. There are people that have not got heating. So, yeah, there's a whole array of different things that I look at and reflect on daily basis to keep me focused on what's going well. Because no matter what's going on in my day, no matter how bad it is, there are always at least 10 things that I can find to be able to count my blessings, that count my blessings and where focus goes, energy flows. So I'm constantly giving myself the reinforcement that there's some great stuff going on to keep me in a great state and keep that level of perspective. So Michael Hingson ** 42:29 you know, you you bring up things like the fact that there are people in the world who are cold, who don't have a lot of heat, and so on, but you also know that you alone aren't going to solve all those problems, and but I assume that you think about it and it kind of kind of weighs on you. How do you how do you really address that, because you can't solve everybody's problems? What? What do you do without sounding cold, if you will, or unfeeling, to deal with that? Will Polston ** 43:01 Um, there's, there's a great story. And it was a man who was walking along a beach. I'm going to paraphrase it slightly, but he was walking along a beach, and as he was walking down the beach, he saw a small there was, he saw a small boy, and as he got closer, he saw the small boy was was throwing starfish back into the sea, and there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these starfish all washed up on the ocean. And the man said to the little boy, what are you doing? He said, Well, I'm throwing the starfish back in the sea. Said, there's so many of them, you can't make a difference. And he picked up another starfish and he threw it into the scene. Said, Well, I made a difference to that one. And I think that people in general are doing the best they can with the resources they have. And yeah, sure, there's lots of things I would love to be able to do more of, but when I sit back and I reflect at the end of the day, did I do the best I could with the resources I had? And if I can honestly answer yes to that, then I'm okay with that. Michael Hingson ** 44:09 And that's the real key. Is that, are you doing the best that you can do? And if you think about that every day, and then you think about, what else can I do to make the best better, if anything. And you can either say, Well, I can do this, or I really am doing the best that I can do. That's as good as it gets. But the key is to really look at it and to think about it and to consciously make that decision, which is something that all too often we just don't do. Collectively, we don't really take that step back, or too many of us don't, don't take that step back. How do we teach people to be more introspective in their lives? A Will Polston ** 44:50 daily reflection exercise, I think, is a good one. Just even asking that question, Did I do the best I can with the resources I had today? And. And I also think, I mean, this is, this is really getting on my soapbox, is that I think a huge part of this comes down to how we've been conditioned from schooling, because we are graded in school on achievement, not effort. So for example, if you had an a star student that gets a B because they didn't put any effort in. But then you have a D grade student who does everything they can, and they get to they may get a D. Why is the person that got a B still classes better? Quote, unquote. So I think that if we condition people on effort, and we train people and educated people on the effort that they put in, then even asking that simple question, did I do everything I could? Was there any more that I possibly could have done? If the answer is yes, then great, do that thing. If the answer is no, then great, be at peace with whatever the outcome is. And Michael Hingson ** 45:56 that's really it. And we each have to answer that for ourselves. I love to say, I used to say I'm my own worst critic when I always love to talk about the fact that when I give a speech, I record it and I go listen to it. And I used to say, I do that because I'm my own worst critic. And I realized last year, actually wrong way to put it, wrong way to think about it. And I've realized that the best thing for me to say is I'm my own best teacher, because ultimately, only I can teach me to do stuff, but it's so much more positive. And it also makes it a lot easier to go listen to the speeches and so on that I record, because I know that if there's something to learn, I'll pick it up. Absolutely, Will Polston ** 46:36 yeah, for sure. And also, I would argue that a critique generally is going to look at the what the negative stuff is, but a teacher is going to acknowledge the things that work well and the things that could be improved. So that's that subtle nuance can make such a difference. Michael Hingson ** 46:54 Yeah, we often just talk about failure, and I, I'm not of the opinion that failure is a good word anyway, I do think that failure is an opportunity to do better. Alright, so it didn't go right today. Why? And what do we do to address it in the future? Not it's a failure. I screwed up, and that's all there is to it. Yeah. Does that make sense? Will Polston ** 47:20 Yeah? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Failure definitely is. Well, the biggest thing with failure is that people make it an identity, don't they rather, okay, yeah, I failed. It didn't work out. What I've learned and, and, but people, they found, they go, Well, I have that failure with too much powerful words the English language I am yet, what I think people are better to do is sort of think more like a scientist. Because what a scientist do? They do experiments and they go, right, well, I've experimented with this. I don't go, Oh no, my experiment failed. They go, Oh, that's interesting. That one didn't work. Let's try this this time. Yeah, so if we took more of a scientific approach and it was everything as an experiment, then we would look at it in a very different line. Michael Hingson ** 48:08 And the experiment didn't necessarily fail. It well, it didn't fail. It really is an issue of what went wrong in terms of what were my assumptions? What do I need to change? Absolutely, Will Polston ** 48:21 it's the whole famous Thomas Edison quote, isn't it? I I've never failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that didn't work, or whatever, whatever it is, Michael Hingson ** 48:30 right? You were talking before about how people just always do the same thing over and over again, which goes back to Einstein's, if we believe that definition of insanity, which is you expect something different, even though you do the same thing every time. Yeah, and it just isn't that way. We have to hold more than anything else, it seems to me, we have to hold ourselves accountable for what we do, and we should always deal with accountability. I've been a great believer in teamwork, and even in a team where you have a number of people, it's the greatest value if the team members feel empowered to be able to hold each other accountable for whatever their commitments are, whatever they contribute to the team. There's nothing wrong with accountability. Yeah, absolutely, yeah and and especially within ourselves, we need to hold ourselves accountable to ourselves, and we need to define that and think about it so that we do the right things to improve. 49:36 Completely agree. Michael Hingson ** 49:39 So how have you approached, especially since you started being an entrepreneur and a coach and so on. How do you approach the whole idea of goal setting and what people should do for creating goals? Will Polston ** 49:50 So I believe that the most effective thing that people can do is they create their North Star, which is identifying this mission in life. That's the equivalent of from empty the spoon is the one. Thing they drive towards, strive towards, every single day. Then they reverse engineer it so 20, year 10, year five, year three, year one, year 90, day 30, day goals. So then they've got that full milestone that, for me, is what I found to be the most effective way of doing it that gives people clarity and confidence and what it is that they're working towards. Michael Hingson ** 50:22 Well, yeah, goal setting is such a ubiquitous, ambiguous thing sometimes, well, I gotta set different goals. Well, really, what does that really mean? And all too often, again, we really don't understand what the nature of goal setting is about, and it is Will Polston ** 50:44 go ahead. I can say, ultimately, any goal that anyone ever sets is to do one thing, change the way they feel. That's it. Ultimately, any goal is about people wanting to change the way they feel. Now, what's great is that you have an ability to really do that in any given moment. But that's the first thing. The second thing was that one of the most amazing things about setting goals, well, set goals is the person you become as a result of working towards it. Michael Hingson ** 51:23 Interesting way to put it, and i i By that, I accept that, because ultimately, when you set a goal and you achieve it, there, there are feelings that go along with it. There are things that affect you, and that's the way it should be. How about self limiting beliefs? We all often limit our own selves because we think we can't do something or that this is impossible to do. But you know, self limiting beliefs, it seems to me, is is a whole concept that we need to to address and change our own thinking about because it is, it is what limits us, it is what holds us back all too often, absolutely, Will Polston ** 52:09 yeah, um, well, first of all, a belief is just a feeling of certainty about what something means. And if you take the word belief, you know there's another big word that sits inside it, which is lie, and most beliefs are liars. And what's happened is that people have created the reinforcement to a belief which is their their way, their their evidence, if you like, of why that belief is so. And what it sometimes takes is a different perspective to see that that isn't the case. So the way that we do that is by introducing doubt. And that's the beauty of working with a coach when you've got these beliefs. Because some people don't even realize that they're limiting them. They don't see it. They physically can't see it in the same way that, I think of like the fish doesn't see the water. They're just in the water. And it's the same when it when it comes to these things. So you can't see the whole picture when you're in the frame. And one of the the key metrics of identifying well, have I got limiting beliefs and whatnot? Is a from Yes, the language you use. But also, are we actually achieving what it is that we want to be achieving, what it is that we want to be working towards? So if we're not, and we're coming up with all the reasons or excuses as to why that isn't done, then that's a way of uncovering what some of those limiting beliefs are as well. Michael Hingson ** 53:29 Yeah, and I had never actually heard that, but I love it. Belief has lie in it, and that makes a lot of sense. And we we need to always examine our beliefs and our perceptions. I know I talk a lot to various people about blindness, and the society we live in has such limiting beliefs about what a blind person can and can't do, and that results, in large part, to the unemployment rate of between 65 and 70% of employable blind people in this country because not that they are not able to or that they're unable to do things, but people think they are. And so we never get the opportunity when we have to ourselves push through that. And it does start with us to recognize all right, so I don't see, but the problem is that sighted people do see, and then there are a lot of challenges with eyesight. But you know, the the bottom line is that we we shouldn't buy into the beliefs that that tend to try to limit us. Either, Will Polston ** 54:40 absolutely not Michael Hingson ** 54:42 you. You talk about gratitude, and I think that's an extremely important thing. I believe we all ought to be a whole lot more grateful and live a life of gratitude. Tell me more about that. Will Polston ** 54:55 Yeah. So for me, gratitude is something that most of us have been brought. Up, and when you think of the word, what's the word gratitude that people associate most of the time, well, they're going to say thank you. You know, you guys on the other side of the pond, you of course, have Thanksgiving every year, an opportunity to give thanks. But where most people get gratitude wrong is they only ever think about being grateful for what's going well, they don't find the blessings when things aren't going so obviously, the famous Yin Yang symbol. So you got the little black.in the white side and the white.in the black side. And it's about creating balance and seeing that in any given moment no matter what's happening. It's perfect, but it's having an ability to see the divine perfection in any given moment, no matter how bad we may perceive it in the initial stages. And that's the part where gratitude really becomes powerful, because most people, they live in a state of either moving away from something out of desperation or moving towards something in sorts of pain or pleasure. You know, it's that's kind of how they're operating. And both of those are essentially lower forms of lower level living. Essentially you're moving pain and pleasure. Pain and Pleasure is born out of the amygdala, the reptilian part of the brain, whereas what we can do is we can use our higher level thinking. We can use our prefrontal cortex, which is the thinking part of the brain, where we can create perspective, where we can choose to see a different side, and that can bring us back into balance. And that's that's really where, that's really where we can find gratitude. In fact, there's a part of the brain called the corpus callosum. It sits in between the left and right hand it right and left hand hemispheres of the brain, and what they do is they balance out the brain the left and right hand hemispheres. Now the when it's doing that, and it's creating that balance in the brain, it's it's creating equilibrium. And the Latin translation of Corpus Callison means human tough, and that's what gratitude does. It enables you to become a tough human when you can see the good and the bad and the bad and the good. Because let's face it, nothing is good and nothing is bad. Nothing is hot, nothing is cold, nothing is positive and nothing is negative. It's all a matter of perspective, and when we can choose to see that, we can completely alter how we feel about any situation, no matter how bad. Michael Hingson ** 57:32 What do you teach people about dealing with fear? Fear is something that's all around us, and everybody talks so much about being afraid, and I know a lot of that has to do with not stepping out of or stepping out of your comfort zone and being afraid to do it. But tell me a little bit about fear and your thoughts about that. Will Polston ** 57:51 Yeah, look, let's face it, fear is there to serve a purpose, and I don't think fear is all bad. You know, so many people put fear in this category is, oh, you should never be fear. You should net. You should be completely fearless, and whatever, sometimes fear is there to serve us. You know, otherwise we would have it, would have we would evolved out of it, and we haven't, because fear is basically what's kept the human race alive for however many 1000s of years. So I don't think fear is all bad, but I do think we're wise to question it from time to time. And there will be times when we are fearing things because we again, we're in our amygdala. We're not using the rational part of the brain to think. And that that a lot of that can come down to people getting caught up in the possibility of something. So I talk about the distinction between possibility and probability. And a lot of people might get fearful, because they fear something that could possibly happen. Well, yeah, it might possibly happen, but there's a big difference between the possibility of it happening the probability of it happening and and when you make that distinction, you open them, you open your mind up to be able to look at other things. And Michael Hingson ** 59:06 usually what we're afraid of that might happen doesn't, and when it doesn't, and that's the big problem, is that we create a lot of our own fears. And the fact is, I think we can learn to control fear and use fear in the very positive sense that you just talked about, because all too often we just let fear, as I put it, blind us or paralyze us, and we can't decide we can't move forward. But the reality is, we can learn to move forward and use that fear in a very positive way, if we would absolutely so it's it is part of the challenge that we face. But I believe that the fear is something that that God gave us, that we need to learn to use and not fear, which goes back to Franklin Roosevelt. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. What a very profound statement i. Will Polston ** 1:00:00 Yeah, absolutely. Michael Hingson ** 1:00:01 Well, I want to thank you for being here. We've been doing this an hour. Can you believe Michael Hingson ** 1:00:05 it? Wow, time flies when you're having fun. I know this Michael Hingson ** 1:00:09 has been great, and I really appreciate you being here with us. And I want to thank you for it all. Um, if people want to reach out and contact you and maybe use your coaching services and so one, how do they do that? Will Polston ** 1:00:23 I mean, if you Google me or look on social media anywhere, Will Polston, that's, that's kind of the best place. You know, on Google or social media anywhere, feel free, please, please do reach out if you found this. Because Michael Hingson ** 1:00:32 Will Palston, Will Polston is spelled Will Polston ** 1:00:36 W, I, double, L, T, o, l, to Papa. Oscar Lima, P, o, l, s, t, O, N, Sierra, Tango, oscar, November, Michael Hingson ** 1:00:45 Ah, he's using the latest version of the phonetic alphabet. That's a good thing. Well, I want to thank you for being here, and I want to thank you all for listening to us today. This has been fun. Hope that you found it enjoyable. Love to hear your thoughts, and I would really appreciate it if you'd give us a five star rating wherever you're listening to us or watching us podcast wise, we value your thoughts and we value your ratings. If you'd like to reach out to me, feel free to do so. You can reach me at Michael H, i@accessibe.com that's m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I at, A, C, C, E, S, S, I, B, e.com, or go to our podcast page, www.michaelson.com/podcast and Michael hingson is m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s, o, n, but we really value your involvement and input in the podcast. We do this so that we get the opportunity to provide you with information and help, which is what will and I have been talking about for the last hour. So please give us your thoughts whenever you can, and we appreciate if you be back next time to hear another episode of unstoppable mindset and will once again. Thank you for being here. My pleasure. Will Polston ** 1:02:00 Thank you for having me. **Michael Hingson ** 1:02:05 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. Please come back and visit us again next week.

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A few months ago, I was invited to be a guest on a podcast hosted by my guest this time, Will Polston. I told Will at the time, of course, that I would be happy to appear, but that I also wanted to have him as a guest on Unstoppable Mindset. And here we are. Will started his career as a broker. Actually, he always wanted to make lots of money. As a child, long before he became a broker, he was living out his entrepreneur life selling things as a child. He was successful.

He was successful as a broker as well, but he felt that something was missing in his life. It wasn’t until he attended a Tony Robins event in England that he realized that there really was more to life than money.

Will changed direction after the Robins event. For several years now Will has dedicated his life to helping others transform their lives. Will tells us all about his journey in this episode and along the way he offers good insights and thoughts about adopting a mindset that offers a better and less fearful existence.

About the Guest:

Will Polston is a best-selling author, entrepreneur and one of the UK’s leading business strategists & performance coaches. Will works with ambitious people, rapidly transforming their lives by empowering them to solve their biggest challenges and holding them accountable on their journey towards their dream life. Wills achieved “traditional success” with a career as a broker, despite this he found himself feeling unfulfilled. It was only when a surprising turn of events led him to a personal development seminar, that he finally gained the clarity that deep down, his belief that “money equals happiness” was not true and what he really wanted to do was empower others to achieve their dreams. From that day onwards Will has dedicated his life to studying the art and science of behavioural change and performance coaching. Using a powerful combination of techniques across multiple disciplines, Will helps give people a unique insight into their behaviour, providing proven strategies that transform their lives. In 2023 Will’s first book was released ‘North Star Thinking: Master Your Mindset and Live a Life You Love’ and became a #1 Amazon best seller. As an entrepreneur himself, Will understands the struggles and challenges, highs and lows of being in business. His humble approach and unique coaching style puts everything on the table, making people feel comfortable digging deep into the depth of their vulnerabilities. Not only is he a Certified Master Coach, NLP Master Practitioner, Member of the International Coach Federation, and International Speaker but he’s spoken at TEDx, blogged for The Huffington Post, been a finalist for ‘Coach of the Year’ at the Association of Professional Coaches, Trainers, and Consultants, been awarded the prestigious ‘Expert Coach of Excellence’ accreditation, been a finalist for ‘Best Business Enabler’ at The National Entrepreneur Awards two years in a row and won the ‘Best Business Enabler’ awards at the Business Champion Awards in 2023. Whatever you want to achieve in life or business, Will really understands what it takes to help you master your mindset and live a life you love.

Ways to connect with Wallace:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/willpolston/ Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/will.polston Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/willpolstonmih/ Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/makeithappencommunity/ Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/c/WillPolstonMakeItHappen TEDx talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEHlSiFxmBI&t Website: willpolston.com Podcast: https://link.chtbl.com/mihwwp Book: http://northstarthinking.com/

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!

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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, wherever you happen to be, and welcome to unstoppable mindset. Today, we are going to have a chance to chat with someone that I met a little while ago, because he runs a podcast and invited me to come on, which we did, and it'll be out in the in a fairly short time. He is Will Polston, and will is a best selling author, an entrepreneur and a leading business strategist and coach in the United Kingdom. So we're really wow, that's a lot, a lot of things to live up to, so I got to be careful in what I say. But anyway, will welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here. Will Polston ** 02:07 Thank you for having me. I'm grateful to be here. Well, Michael Hingson ** 02:12 I look forward to having a lot of fun. Why don't we start as I love to do? Why don't you tell me something about the early will, growing up and all that? Wow, the I know that that could take an hour, right? Will Polston ** 02:25 We've got a long time. Yeah, something I've never said on a podcast, and I think this is really interesting, was that many years ago. So when I was a real when I was really young, I that we, there's a TV program that's over here called Fireman Sam, and I always wanted to be a finance when I was, like, four or five years old, I was forever dressed up in a fireman's outfit. Then I got a little bit older, and then I wanted to be an architect and and then I went on to be a paperboy. And I see why. I thought that was really interesting when I first realized that was because fireman was about fireman. It was about helping people. An architect was about designing things, and being a paperboy, was sharing information, and now I work as a coach. I think it's a combination of all those things. I help people design that design their life. I help them and I share information so but no, the that's kind of the that's something that was the case for me years ago. But there's an extended version, I suppose of what actually happened, which led me to to do what I do now, which, if you want me to share, I'm happy to, but, Michael Hingson ** 03:25 Oh, you're welcome to. Will Polston ** 03:27 So the short version is I grew up with a belief that money would happiness, and I went off on a tangent to make as much money as I could, as early as I could. And then it was and I become pretty good at that. And then it was 11 years ago I have what I call my lightning moment where I realized my real driver was nothing to do with money. Never really about money. It would too what to do with my dad and how my dad hadn't achieved certain things he was capable of, and the impact that had on him and my mum and me and my family, and I vowed I don't want anyone else to have to go through the pain that he went through, and we went through as a result, and from that moment on, I've just been obsessed with anything to do with human awareness, human potential, human potential and human behavior, to enable people to do exactly that, achieve what it is they're capable of, and benefit not only them, but their family, their friends, their community, society, humanity and the universe, which as a result of having an unstoppable Michael Hingson ** 04:22 mindset, when you talk about the pain that he had, what what do you mean by that? Will Polston ** 04:29 So the slightly more detailed version is my dad worked in London, and he hated his job, so he would get up at five o'clock in the morning, come home at seven, eight o'clock at night, and he'd bring the stress and frustration of work home with him. And I don't know if people listening to this can relate to this, but he had so much tension that when he would walk into the house, he could physically feel it. He was in it, okay? Head of it, head of it for a stock brokerage. And, yeah, that was a. And yeah, stressful for him back then, but I've always got two very wealthy uncles, one's a billionaire, one's a multi millionaire. And dad always used to say they just got lucky. That was his excuse. They got lucky. They got lucky. And what's interesting is, is even back then, I was at 1011, years old, I used to think that's all. I can't believe it's just luck. And even now, I don't believe in luck, but yeah, he used to say that. And one day I came home from school, and my dad had to quit his job to set up a business with one of my uncles. But that, long story short, that never got started. My dad fell into a depression, slept in a separate room. My mom curtain shut all day, didn't leave the house. All the stereotypical stuff, and what I observed as a 10 year old. 11 year old was there was Uncle Mark. He was a billionaire. He was really happy. My Uncle Steve, he was a multi millionaire. He was really happy. Then there was my dad, when he worked in London, all right, he was stressed and whatnot, but he had money. And there was now he had to work for months on end. He had no money and and that was what I witnessed. I witnessed the depression, the feelings of depression, the stress and all of that. That was the pain, essentially. Michael Hingson ** 06:05 What? Why did he hate his job? Will Polston ** 06:09 Well, I think it's, it's an interesting one, isn't it? What? Whether it was he hate where he hated it or not, whether he just didn't have the skills to handle the stress. So I think that for a lot of people, why is you can look at some one person doing one thing, and it's so easy for them and so difficult for somebody else, and they get stressed, yeah, yeah. I think it's having a skill set to be able to do what was required. Maybe it's that, but he likes computers. He's always liked computers, but maybe it was just not in the way we've been done. Michael Hingson ** 06:51 Yeah, now, is he still with us? Yeah, is he working now or Will Polston ** 06:58 he's working now? And yeah, he's, he's probably happier than he's ever been. I was gonna ask that, yeah, yeah, in a much better place. Michael Hingson ** 07:05 What does he do now? Will Polston ** 07:07 He's involved with architectural glazing, of all things. So he, he basically prints these stickers that go on windows that are required in construction, so that people don't walk into glass doors and whatnot. Michael Hingson ** 07:24 Well, that won't help me, but that's okay. But well, you know, so obviously all that had an impact on you. And so what? What was it that finally made you realize that, well, one you didn't want to live that that kind of life, but that you really recognized that there's a whole lot more to life than than money, and there is something to be said for having peace of mind. Will Polston ** 07:55 Well, what happened is, there's a chat that you may have heard of called Tony Robbins. He's from your side of the pond, and I was at one of his events, and he shared what's known as the Thanksgiving story, and it was like the perfect metaphor for my life. And it made me realize, wow, if, if that experience was able to shape that man that is in that man being Tony, to do everything he's done and the way he's helped people, then maybe that's, that's what it is for me too, you know, it's, it's that it's that catalyst to change and do things, and that was that moment. Michael Hingson ** 08:30 So up until that time, what were you doing? So, yeah, I assume you went to college and so on. Will Polston ** 08:36 No, not at all. No. I mean, I was just obsessed with making money, frankly, because we didn't have money, so I did anything that we could do to make money. So I was even when I was 1211, years old, I was buying stuff off the internet and selling it at school, and buying sweets and selling at school and and then i was running multiple paper rounds. And then I wanted to I was really when I was making lots of money as a teenager, I got quite into fashion, and I was buying clothes and whatnot. And then I decided, well, actually, what I want to do is own, my own designer clothes shop. So that was kind of what I thought I wanted to do. From about 14 years old, started working in a designer clothes shop, and this, this was sort of real high end designer clothes. And after a while, I thought, I mean, I own my own shop. And then I kind of had a moment where I realized actually that probably wouldn't be possible for me. I need to do something else. Now, a lot of the clientele of this shop basically fit into one of four categories. They were either professional footballers, property developers, stock brokers or drug dealers. So I just thought, right, well, I need to become one of them. I need to become one of them for what one can it be? And the first one I ruled out was being a professional footballer, because I'm rubbish at football. I'd play rugby all my life, but never football. The second one I ruled out was being a property developer because I didn't have loads of money to. Sell up properties, I was left with two options, become a stockbroker or or become a drug dealer. And to I would imagine, to my mother's delight, I didn't choose the drug dealer option, and I decided to start working in in financial services and and did that for many years. And what happened was, because at the time, my belief was money called happiness, the I was doing whatever I could to try and make more money. And that's where I stumbled across personal development. The more personal development I did, the more money I made. And that went on for some years, until I ended up at the Tony Robbins event. And that was when I had the, what I call my lightning moment, Michael Hingson ** 10:41 what, what got you to go to the Tony Robbins event? Because that certainly is a whole lot different than the mindset that you clearly had been living with. Will Polston ** 10:50 It was a friend, actually, a friend said to me, I'm thinking of going along to this event with this, this big American guy called Tony Robbins. Would you be up for coming? And I sort of checked him out, checked out few videos, and said, Sure, I'm up for that. That looks like that'll be looks like that'll be good. Michael Hingson ** 11:07 And so you went, and the world changed, Will Polston ** 11:11 yeah, and life was never the same again. Michael Hingson ** 11:13 So what did you do? Will Polston ** 11:17 Well, so this, this is where the story unfolds. So I did eventually leave the city and I set up a renewable energy business. So I set up that renewable energy business, we were growing rapidly. I mean, we went from a standing start to 85 staff within 18 months, growing, growing, growth, growing. I mean, government changed legislation, and it pretty much killed that business overnight. And it was when I was away on holiday. So I took the holiday with my ex girlfriend, girlfriend at the time, and just to have a bit of a break and work out what we were going to do next and what was going to happen. And it was when I was away on a holiday. It was a funny sort of event. So I'm a big believer that there are no coincidences, only for synchronicities. And my girlfriend, at the time, she was a dentist or dental nurse, should I say, and she's like, well, we're going to go on holiday. You need to go and get your teeth cleaned by the hygienist. So we went to the hygienist, and unfortunately, she clipped my gum with the tool that she was using, and it got infected two days before the holiday. She said, Well, I'm really sorry. You need to go on these particular antibiotics, and you're not going to be able to drink alcohol. Now I don't drink alcohol. Now I haven't drunk alcohol for coming up to probably six years. But back then, I was a big drinker. I was a big ginger drinker and and I was like, I can't believe you, I'm about to go to the land of tequila. We were going to Mexico, and I'm not going to I'm not going to be able to drink. This is crazy. So we ended up going on holiday, and I didn't drink, but we went to this, this, this night time entertainment venue called Coco bongos. And it's kind of like a cross between a circus, a West End Show and a musical, all mixed in together. There's midget sprying from the ceiling and drag ax and all sorts of stuff going on. And my girlfriend, at the time, was throwing back tequila like it was nobody's business anyway, early hours of the morning, I carry her over my shoulder, I put her to bed, and I wake up in the morning and she's got her head down the toilet and will. I can't go out in the pool, so I said, Well, look, my holiday, I haven't drunk a holiday. I'm definitely going to the pool. And I went to the pool with a book, and the book that I went with was a book called The Hero by Rhonda, Byrne. Anyway, I'm reading through the book, and it gets to a particular part of the book where Rhonda talks about a guy called masting Kip. Masting Kip used to have a like, maybe he still does have a website called the daily love and he used to post, uh, motivational quotes on Twitter every day. And one day he got retweeted by Kim Kardashian. And then he went from 1000 followers to 10,000 followers overnight. And I just started crying, because in that moment, what happened, Michael was I realized that I'd left London because I didn't want to chase the money I'd set up this year in your will and your business, and then all I was still doing was chasing the money. And the thing what I really wanted to do, the thing that was in my heart, was helping people in the form of coaching them and working with them in some capacity like that. And I kept saying, well, I'll do it when I'm successful. When I'm successful, I call it when men syndrome, you know, people get so caught up with when this happens, then I'll do that. And and I just decided what I need to do is just come home and start. And I can start by putting a motivational quote on Twitter every day and on social media. So I did. I started putting a motivational quote on Twitter and on Facebook and the platforms. I did one every day for a week. And I thought, will you idiot. Some people don't go on social media in the morning. You should put one in the afternoon as well. So I did that. A week after that, I set up my own website. A week after that, I wrote my first blog. Three months after that, I had 10,000 strong social media followings, so I. A very long winded way of sort of sharing how I then made that transition from leaving London and then ended up finally pursuing what it was that I wanted Michael Hingson ** 15:08 to do. And how long ago was that? Nine years. Okay, so you you finally really got to the point where you didn't worry as much about money, which, which certainly was a challenge to get to, but, but you you thought about it and, and I guess one of the questions that I have is, what, what made you really think about the fact that money didn't need to be the only thing that drove you. Did you do a lot of introspection in your life at night? Or did you think about it? Or did did it just sort of happen? Or what Will Polston ** 15:50 it was that it was the moment, it was the driver at the Tony Robbins event. So that lightning moment, as I referred to it, it just opened everything up. And I was like, No, my drive for money was actually linked to the fact that my dad didn't do certain things and we couldn't do certain things. So I thought, well, rather than me trying to just treat the symptom, which is just to pay for the things that dad couldn't sort for us, what about if he had been empowered? What if there'd been somebody that could have given him the mindset that he so that he could have done work that he loved. What if somebody gave him an abundance mindset so he didn't live in scarcity? What if there was somebody that could have been there for him so that he could have learned to handle his anger and it not impact the family in the way that it did? So everything that I do really now is kind of aimed at trying to help people that were once like my dad. What Michael Hingson ** 16:47 happened along the way that caused you to really go into to coaching as such? What What made you think about that as what you wanted to do, as opposed to thinking about the fact that you're only successful if you make money, and that that spiral just wasn't going anywhere. Well, if I, if I make more, if I do this, then I'll be successful. And what? What caused you to really well, I guess the Tony Robbins thing caused you to change that. But what made you decide to go into coaching, and how does that equate with the idea of success that you had? Will Polston ** 17:27 So in the moment, the Tony Robbins moment, I just instantly thought, No, my what I want to do is I want to I want to become the world's best life coach. That's what I said back then. But actually I then realized later on, I that that's what I said, but that's not what I meant. What I actually meant was that I just wanted to work with lots of people and lots of people and help them achieve their potential, so that that was what it was about. And I then saw, because I was literally standing in front of the guy, that, well, he's doing this. This is what he does for a living. So essentially, I modeled him and then I went on and trained in a whole array of different different mediums and modalities and and one of the things that I'd realized in my whole life that enabled me to have a sort of a decent amount of success, financial success, even at a young age as a teenager, was what I'd been doing my Whole life without knowing what it was called, was modeling other people. So I was essentially modeling Tony. I saw what he was doing. I saw that he could help he'd help me, and I wanted to look at doing things in a similar way. And that was what, yeah, what that came from. Michael Hingson ** 18:38 And we've ever come to the conclusion, though, that ultimately you can model people only so much or so long, and that ultimately you have to to do what, what you do, and maybe then people will will, although that's not a desire, necessarily, but then people will model you Will Polston ** 18:54 absolutely. Yeah, I believe that every single one of us on this planet, or 8 billion of us, or however many it is, have a completely unique fingerprint. Our fingerprints completely unique. But what also is that's completely unique to us as individuals is our own genius, and our own genius is derived from our values. And every single person the planet has a completely unique set of values, and they're unique in the sense that of the hierarchy that they're in. And it's it's from this when, when we live in alignment with our values, we operate from inspiration, versus when we operate from somebody else's values, we operate and we require motivation. And one of the ways that I'll know if people are living their values with somebody else's from the language they're using, so if they use, using. So if they're using language like I need to, I ought to. I should. I have to. It's an indication they live in somebody else's values. When they're saying things that I love to, I desire, I choose to, they're living their own values. And if you take the word inspiration, inspiration in spirit, what's another word for spirit? Energy? You're in your energy, and a lot of people think they burn out because they're working too hard. They don't they burn out because they're living somebody else's values. And that's now what I do myself, and what I help people do is identify what is their own unique hierarchy of values so they can live that and turn that into a mission that then becomes what I call their North Star, that they live and work towards every single day, that enables them to wake up every day and feel more fulfilled and grow and contribute in the areas that are most meaningful to them. Michael Hingson ** 20:34 So you are. You have written a book. I have indeed, if you would tell us about that Will Polston ** 20:41 absolutely, always Michael Hingson ** 20:42 good to write a book. I say Will Polston ** 20:45 the book's called North Star thinking, master your mindset and live a life you love. Michael Hingson ** 20:52 Wow. What a title. Thank you. And so is it? Is it published? Is it out? It's Will Polston ** 21:00 out. It's out. It's available. We get it in on Amazon and Waterstones, Barnes and Noble. It's on Audible as well, so it can be listened to on Spotify Premium, yeah, so pretty much anywhere where you you would normally get your books. Michael Hingson ** 21:18 So what? How long has it been out? Will Polston ** 21:21 It came out last year. Okay, Michael Hingson ** 21:24 so what was the inspiration for writing it? What? What caused you to decide that you wanted to write a book to share your knowledge that way? Well, Will Polston ** 21:33 there's a there's a few things, I suppose. One of them was, it was a book that I read that that was the, the first personal development book that I ever read, which was such a great catalyst for me, and I thought, well, there's a lot of stuff that I've done, and there's one of the things Michael that I've tried to do over the years is I've learned and consumed a huge amount of different resources and modalities, and I've got my own spin on things. One of the things that I try and do is take complex stuff and simplify it. So I took a range of different things, and there's four main pillars to the book. So Northside thinking is about essentially getting people to have a mission in life. That's the equivalent of trying to empty the sea with a spoon. It's a mission in life that you continue to work towards, that you're fulfilled, that fulfills you every single day you're working towards it, but the essence of the book is sort of North Star thinking, which is all around goal, setting and purpose. Then it's around master your time, which is around essentially well time. Then there's cultivating an attitude of gratitude and evolving your thinking, so using your thinking to gain different perspectives and the smart way to do that, and then finally, habit creation. So they're the four main pillars of the book, and I think that the most people, if they can nail those four things, they've got the clarity of where they're going. They're taking the intelligent action in the sense that they are mastering their time. They're evolving their thinking, and they're doing things not just in terms of action, actual external action, but internal action. And then finally, they're creating the habits that create the lasting change then then that puts a lot of people in good split. Michael Hingson ** 23:14 Why do you call it North Star thinking? Will Polston ** 23:17 Well, there's a famous story you've probably heard of. It involves a baby born in a stable a couple of 1000 years ago, and there were three men, supposedly wise, all carrying presents. And they they followed the North Star, and they followed the North Star, and they found this baby. Now, when I was reflecting on that story, I thought, well, that's really interesting. They never actually went to the North Star, or at least they didn't in the story that I heard. And it dawned on me that these the in their story, they use the North Star they got to their goal. But so many people in life, what happens is they they fall into what I call when, then syndrome, as I mentioned before, which is they set their sights on a goal, they achieve the goal, and then they just set another goal, and then they might achieve that goal, and then they achieve that. So they set another goal and they achieve that. And after they've done that four or five times, if they're short term goals, they find themselves actually becoming really quite unfulfilled. Like, wow, they keep doing all these short term goals, and I'm just unfulfilled. It's because they're generally attached a feeling of happiness or fulfillment or accomplishment to having got the goal. But the problem is, is that whenever you set a goal, if you've got that way of thinking all the time that the goal hasn't been achieved, then you're perceived to you're perceiving that you're not where you want to be, as opposed to so you so most people are focusing on the gap rather than the gain of the progress that they're making. So this way, it enables people to over, sort of stop that way of short term thinking. I think of it like a pinball, you know, they're from one side of the table to the left, never really progressing forward. And then they can just, they can. Focus on this overarching piece, and it enables people to become a lot more fulfilled and energized and accomplished as a result. Michael Hingson ** 25:09 Well, yeah, and you know, there, there is nothing wrong with setting goals and achieving a goal and going on. But you also kind of have to look at the overall Where do you want to, where do you want to end up at some point? And maybe you don't, what do you what do you think about that? Do you really want to have an ultimate goal? And you short goals to get there, or is that going too far? Will Polston ** 25:35 Absolutely. That's the whole part of the process. So I call that a component the North Star trajectory. So we start with where we are. We create the ultimate goal. That's the guiding light, and then we just reverse engineer that 10, year five, year 20. Year 10, year five, year three, year one, year 90, day 30 day we break the whole thing down. But of course, if you can imagine it, it's it's far wiser. If you're here now and the North Stars directly in front of you, it's far wiser to go in a dead straight line? Now, look, I'm a realist. It's never a dead straight line. But if you jump in an aircraft to fly from London to New York or from New York to London, the pilot knows where he's going. He's going to set a trajectory. Now, sure, he may have to alter because of the wind, the weather, the flock of birds, or whatever it is that's coming towards them, but they're still going to follow that trajectory. Rather than go, Hey, we're just going to take off south of London, and then we're just going to kind of make it up as we go along. That's not going to be very good in terms of fuel efficiency. It's going to take far longer to get there. It can actually be lot more dangerous, because you might end up being somewhere where you run out of fuel, or run out of energy and you can't carry on. So it's far wiser to do exactly what you've said, which is kind of know where you're going long term, but then break that down so you've got the milestones to work towards. Michael Hingson ** 26:53 You talk about aligning your decisions with values and purpose. I'm assuming you do that in the book. And what, what does alvat really mean when you talk about aligning your your decisions? I'm assuming in part, that that means that you do have values. You do have the things that you are made up from, and you really need to make your decisions go along with those, or you change your values and purpose? Yeah, Will Polston ** 27:27 yeah, absolutely. So it's about congruence. You know, it's about congruence. So for example, if somebody's goal is, I'm just going to use a very apt one at this time of year, if somebody's goal is that they want to lose weight, and they want to lose weight and they want to get fitter, then a decision and action in terms of what they want to eat, if that's their goal and that's what they really want, then it's probably not going to be best that they have McDonald's breakfast for breakfast, they have Burger King for lunch and and Domino's pizza for dinner, that making those food decisions would be, one would argue, would be incongruent with somebody's health and fitness goals if they were to eat lat every day, if their goal is that they want to lose weight body fat and get fitter over The course of a four to six week period, Michael Hingson ** 28:23 I was watching something on the news. I think just last week over here, we have Costco. Do you have Costco in London? We do, yeah. And somebody went into Costco and spent a whole week only eating Costco hot dog meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and actually lost a little bit of weight, but he only did it for a week. Was inexpensive, but yeah, I gotta believe that that's not something I would want to do. Yeah, for sure, there is something to be said for trying to align your eating habits with giving you the maximum amount of energy and eating healthy. But people do strange things sometimes, you know, it got him on the news. So, whatever. Well, well, what about you know, you so your idea of success has changed over time. What do you define success as today? What does it mean to be successful? Will Polston ** 29:18 Well, it's a really great question, and I've even contemplated even changing that in recent weeks, because so I will say that for me, my definition of success is people being doing and having what they desire. You know that for me, and of course, success is subjective, so people being doing and having what they desire is completely unique to them. But then I was re listening to something called The Strangest Secret by old Nightingale a couple of weeks ago. I've listened to it many, many times before, but it shared his definition of success, which I really, really like, which is success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal, and that that I really like, and I think it's very aligned. With the whole concept of more Star thinking, because if somebody is, somebody is a success because they're doing the work. So rather than having the end part, which is the having in be do and have they are doing the work. And I really like that, because when we're when we're taking on work, whatever that might be, whether it's health goals, relationship goals, business goals, financial goals, is that compounding can can often have a big impact. Now, Albert Einstein called compounding the eighth wonder of the world, and there's a huge amount of work that has to go into building the foundation. You look at houses that get built, you know, if you've got a new house that's being built for six months, there might look like it's just a building site, but there's all of the infrastructure that's going in, the sewage and the the water pipes and all those things. And then one day, all of a sudden, almost out of nowhere, you're going six months, nine months of it looking like a building site, look like they're not doing anything, and then the space of, like, three days, three weeks, a whole house has been built. Well, it all been happening the whole time, but it just looked slower, and then you only see the end goal part, and that, that's the thing, I think, is really important. There's so many people in today's day and age due to, I guess, social media having an impact, and so many of us want an instant gratification is that they get frustrated with the process, and it's so it's easier now than ever to compare your Chapter Two to somebody else's chapter 20, and that's what happens so often. Michael Hingson ** 31:37 Yeah, and it's so interesting to hear people talk about success, and to just ask people about it, and they talk about, well, I gotta make a lot of money. I've got to be independently wealthy, and things like that. And I admit some of that would be nice, but it's not the ultimate thing that's going to make me happy, at least, I think, for me, and I think about the things that you've been saying for the last half hour, I grew up wanting to teach, and I always thought I wanted to be a teacher, and then along the way, I got very interested in science, so I wanted to be a physics teacher. Well, as things settled down and progressed, I ended up not being a physics teacher. But I do believe that in a lot of ways, there's no question that, that I get the opportunity to teach as a salesperson. For many years, I learned from the Dale Carnegie sales course that the best salespeople are really counselors. They're teachers. They guide people to look at products. And I'm not above telling somebody that a product I'm selling may not fit their specific need, but if I'm honest enough to do that, I believe that comes back to affect me in a very positive way. And there are several instances where I and my staff would tell people our product isn't going to work for you, but then later we get a call from the company saying, you know, we really like what you had to say. We've got another project, and we really appreciate all you taught us. We know your product will work. Just give us price, and we'll order it right today. I'm not sure that'll happen today in the world where we're so stuck in doing things by committee, but it works 20 years ago, 25 years ago? Will Polston ** 33:23 Yeah, yeah. I think there's, there's a there's a lot to be said. I mean, sales, when I think, let's face it, sales, there's nothing that's ever really been accomplished at great scale without salespeople. And yeah, salespeople get a bad rap in a lot of instances, but if they've got integrity, then then they can do a lot of good for a lot of people. Michael Hingson ** 33:51 Yeah, well, there is the other side of it, and sometimes salespeople deserve a bad rap for what they do and they don't really understand the true science and art that sales is and what it gives you the opportunity to do. But when, when it's done well, and it's done right, it really will make, and does make a big difference in the lives of so many people, because you provide what it is that somebody needs. And you know, you do that, and that's a wonderful tribute to accomplishment, which is also part of success. Yeah, you get paid and all that, and that's great, but there's a whole lot more to it than just money. Yeah, for sure, I do like money. I think there's a lot of merit to having that. That's okay. But by the same token, it's not the only thing in the world, but it's part of what we have to deal with. So you talk about resilience, tell me a little bit more about your thoughts about resilience, and how that plays into the book and and how it plays into you and your life. So Will Polston ** 34:57 I have a an. An interesting stance on resilience. So first of all, I think that anybody that has an ability to go through tough times, when, when they when they have to resilience is a phenomenal attribute to have. I really, really do. My concern that I see now is that people are aware of resilience, almost like a badge. And it's a bit like, busy, you know, people were busy like a badge. I'm so busy, like thinking it's a good thing. They're proud of it. Or I'm so resilient, you know, I've handled this and this and this, and it's the whole like, what would you rather? Would you rather work smarter? Would you rather work hard? Would you rather not have to be resilient because you were wise enough to overcome the challenge before it happened? Now knowing me wrong, having certain skill sets to be resilient is so important. I've had some really challenging times in my life, but I'm a big believer that if something is chronically happening, so it's happening and over and over and over again, and you're constantly having to find yourself being resilient if it's the same problem showing up, then let's just treat the cause so the symptoms go so you don't have to be resilient in if it's if it's the same problem coming up over and over again. But yeah, look, I think resilience is a combination of a mindset. I also think it's a combination of a skill set that enables people to deal with various things. And a huge amount of that mindset is down to perspective, whether somebody believes that something is happening to them, either the victim, or whether they believe it's happening for them. And I think that the moment you change your perspective on life, that this life isn't happening to me. It's happening for me, and it's not in the way, it's on the way that can completely alter your life by having that perspective, and in the same way that the moment you change your I've got twos to I get to life changes. It does. There are people, there are people today that haven't had the privilege of experiencing today because they didn't wake up this morning. Yet. There's still people that have woken up and went, Oh, I've got to go to work today. Oh, I've got to do this. But there are people that would have done anything to have had today to be able to do that. And I think sometimes we all get can get carried away with, with not, not sort of maximizing the things that we can get grateful for, especially the privileges that we have on a daily basis. I Michael Hingson ** 37:37 have had jobs in my life that I didn't really like for one reason or another, and when things got to the point where it seemed like it was intolerable, then I had to make some choices and decisions about whether to stay or go find another job, which could be difficult for blind people, especially because the unemployment rate is so high, because People think we can't work, but I would very have been very blessed to be able to find jobs, but I think that's in part because my choice was to live life and get to live life and not have to live life, which is what you're saying. And so when there got to be enough of a challenge, then my job was to go deal with it. And I think that's part of the whole issue of resilience. We really get ourselves locked into a mindset so much as a as a people, that we don't look for options, we don't look for opportunities, and sometimes we don't look for the good parts of a job that we have. Will Polston ** 38:44 Yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. Michael Hingson ** 38:46 And that's that's also part of what we have to do. And I think that we all can make life better for ourselves. I remember after September 11 and everything that happened that day, within a very short time, like just a few days, we were getting a lot of requests for interviews, and my wife and I talked about it, and she said, Do you really want to do these interviews? And I said, here's my thought, if I can help people move on from September 11, if I can teach people about blindness and guide dogs, and if I can help people see, maybe things in a different sense, then maybe it's worth doing. And we agreed, and it had to be both of us agreeing that we would do that. And then people started calling and saying, Would you come and talk to us? And as I love to tell people, I made the decision that selling computer hardware wasn't nearly as much fun and wasn't as rewarding as selling life and philosophy. And I and I think that now, what 22 and a half years later, I still believe that, I think that it's so very important that we, we. Look at outlooks, and I've I've learned a lot. I've got to the opportunity with this podcast to learn so much in talking to people. It's such a blessing to hear from so many people and be able to synthesize all the things that they say. It's really a lot of fun. Yeah, absolutely you know that firsthand. Absolutely I do. Indeed. I'm sorry I Will Polston ** 40:23 do indeed. Yeah. Michael Hingson ** 40:25 Tell me your thoughts about self respect, reflection and introspection and so on. You know, from my perspective, I think it's important that we take time every day to do that. Tell me what your thoughts are about that Will Polston ** 40:38 I can. Couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. I have a practice that I use on a daily basis, and old journal. So old journal what time I wake up, I'll journal how I feel when I wake up, and anything obvious that I might think of why I feel that way. So if I've woken up like a really groggy it's like, Well, it's because you went to bed late last night, or you'd eaten loads of sugar, or whatever it might be. Then I'll write out 10 things I'm grateful for, and what I do when I'm doing the 10 things I'm grateful I actually think of the previous 24 hours, and I look from a couple of each of these areas. So I think of the people that I'm grateful for, and I think of the experiences that I had. Then I think of my belongings. What belongings am I grateful for? Example, my I'm grateful for my laptop because it enabled me to do this interview with you, Michael, as an example. Then I think of the these. These are the two areas are the big ones, which is expectations and privileges. So what my expectations? Well, I had an expectation that the internet was going to work today for me to be able to do this interview, but I'm glad that it worked a privilege that I've got, a privilege that I've got today. Right now, as I sit in this house, it's warm, you know, I've got heating. I'm privileged. There are people right now that are sleeping out on the streets. There are people that have not got heating. So, yeah, there's a whole array of different things that I look at and reflect on daily basis to keep me focused on what's going well. Because no matter what's going on in my day, no matter how bad it is, there are always at least 10 things that I can find to be able to count my blessings, that count my blessings and where focus goes, energy flows. So I'm constantly giving myself the reinforcement that there's some great stuff going on to keep me in a great state and keep that level of perspective. So Michael Hingson ** 42:29 you know, you you bring up things like the fact that there are people in the world who are cold, who don't have a lot of heat, and so on, but you also know that you alone aren't going to solve all those problems, and but I assume that you think about it and it kind of kind of weighs on you. How do you how do you really address that, because you can't solve everybody's problems? What? What do you do without sounding cold, if you will, or unfeeling, to deal with that? Will Polston ** 43:01 Um, there's, there's a great story. And it was a man who was walking along a beach. I'm going to paraphrase it slightly, but he was walking along a beach, and as he was walking down the beach, he saw a small there was, he saw a small boy, and as he got closer, he saw the small boy was was throwing starfish back into the sea, and there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these starfish all washed up on the ocean. And the man said to the little boy, what are you doing? He said, Well, I'm throwing the starfish back in the sea. Said, there's so many of them, you can't make a difference. And he picked up another starfish and he threw it into the scene. Said, Well, I made a difference to that one. And I think that people in general are doing the best they can with the resources they have. And yeah, sure, there's lots of things I would love to be able to do more of, but when I sit back and I reflect at the end of the day, did I do the best I could with the resources I had? And if I can honestly answer yes to that, then I'm okay with that. Michael Hingson ** 44:09 And that's the real key. Is that, are you doing the best that you can do? And if you think about that every day, and then you think about, what else can I do to make the best better, if anything. And you can either say, Well, I can do this, or I really am doing the best that I can do. That's as good as it gets. But the key is to really look at it and to think about it and to consciously make that decision, which is something that all too often we just don't do. Collectively, we don't really take that step back, or too many of us don't, don't take that step back. How do we teach people to be more introspective in their lives? A Will Polston ** 44:50 daily reflection exercise, I think, is a good one. Just even asking that question, Did I do the best I can with the resources I had today? And. And I also think, I mean, this is, this is really getting on my soapbox, is that I think a huge part of this comes down to how we've been conditioned from schooling, because we are graded in school on achievement, not effort. So for example, if you had an a star student that gets a B because they didn't put any effort in. But then you have a D grade student who does everything they can, and they get to they may get a D. Why is the person that got a B still classes better? Quote, unquote. So I think that if we condition people on effort, and we train people and educated people on the effort that they put in, then even asking that simple question, did I do everything I could? Was there any more that I possibly could have done? If the answer is yes, then great, do that thing. If the answer is no, then great, be at peace with whatever the outcome is. And Michael Hingson ** 45:56 that's really it. And we each have to answer that for ourselves. I love to say, I used to say I'm my own worst critic when I always love to talk about the fact that when I give a speech, I record it and I go listen to it. And I used to say, I do that because I'm my own worst critic. And I realized last year, actually wrong way to put it, wrong way to think about it. And I've realized that the best thing for me to say is I'm my own best teacher, because ultimately, only I can teach me to do stuff, but it's so much more positive. And it also makes it a lot easier to go listen to the speeches and so on that I record, because I know that if there's something to learn, I'll pick it up. Absolutely, Will Polston ** 46:36 yeah, for sure. And also, I would argue that a critique generally is going to look at the what the negative stuff is, but a teacher is going to acknowledge the things that work well and the things that could be improved. So that's that subtle nuance can make such a difference. Michael Hingson ** 46:54 Yeah, we often just talk about failure, and I, I'm not of the opinion that failure is a good word anyway, I do think that failure is an opportunity to do better. Alright, so it didn't go right today. Why? And what do we do to address it in the future? Not it's a failure. I screwed up, and that's all there is to it. Yeah. Does that make sense? Will Polston ** 47:20 Yeah? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Failure definitely is. Well, the biggest thing with failure is that people make it an identity, don't they rather, okay, yeah, I failed. It didn't work out. What I've learned and, and, but people, they found, they go, Well, I have that failure with too much powerful words the English language I am yet, what I think people are better to do is sort of think more like a scientist. Because what a scientist do? They do experiments and they go, right, well, I've experimented with this. I don't go, Oh no, my experiment failed. They go, Oh, that's interesting. That one didn't work. Let's try this this time. Yeah, so if we took more of a scientific approach and it was everything as an experiment, then we would look at it in a very different line. Michael Hingson ** 48:08 And the experiment didn't necessarily fail. It well, it didn't fail. It really is an issue of what went wrong in terms of what were my assumptions? What do I need to change? Absolutely, Will Polston ** 48:21 it's the whole famous Thomas Edison quote, isn't it? I I've never failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that didn't work, or whatever, whatever it is, Michael Hingson ** 48:30 right? You were talking before about how people just always do the same thing over and over again, which goes back to Einstein's, if we believe that definition of insanity, which is you expect something different, even though you do the same thing every time. Yeah, and it just isn't that way. We have to hold more than anything else, it seems to me, we have to hold ourselves accountable for what we do, and we should always deal with accountability. I've been a great believer in teamwork, and even in a team where you have a number of people, it's the greatest value if the team members feel empowered to be able to hold each other accountable for whatever their commitments are, whatever they contribute to the team. There's nothing wrong with accountability. Yeah, absolutely, yeah and and especially within ourselves, we need to hold ourselves accountable to ourselves, and we need to define that and think about it so that we do the right things to improve. 49:36 Completely agree. Michael Hingson ** 49:39 So how have you approached, especially since you started being an entrepreneur and a coach and so on. How do you approach the whole idea of goal setting and what people should do for creating goals? Will Polston ** 49:50 So I believe that the most effective thing that people can do is they create their North Star, which is identifying this mission in life. That's the equivalent of from empty the spoon is the one. Thing they drive towards, strive towards, every single day. Then they reverse engineer it so 20, year 10, year five, year three, year one, year 90, day 30, day goals. So then they've got that full milestone that, for me, is what I found to be the most effective way of doing it that gives people clarity and confidence and what it is that they're working towards. Michael Hingson ** 50:22 Well, yeah, goal setting is such a ubiquitous, ambiguous thing sometimes, well, I gotta set different goals. Well, really, what does that really mean? And all too often, again, we really don't understand what the nature of goal setting is about, and it is Will Polston ** 50:44 go ahead. I can say, ultimately, any goal that anyone ever sets is to do one thing, change the way they feel. That's it. Ultimately, any goal is about people wanting to change the way they feel. Now, what's great is that you have an ability to really do that in any given moment. But that's the first thing. The second thing was that one of the most amazing things about setting goals, well, set goals is the person you become as a result of working towards it. Michael Hingson ** 51:23 Interesting way to put it, and i i By that, I accept that, because ultimately, when you set a goal and you achieve it, there, there are feelings that go along with it. There are things that affect you, and that's the way it should be. How about self limiting beliefs? We all often limit our own selves because we think we can't do something or that this is impossible to do. But you know, self limiting beliefs, it seems to me, is is a whole concept that we need to to address and change our own thinking about because it is, it is what limits us, it is what holds us back all too often, absolutely, Will Polston ** 52:09 yeah, um, well, first of all, a belief is just a feeling of certainty about what something means. And if you take the word belief, you know there's another big word that sits inside it, which is lie, and most beliefs are liars. And what's happened is that people have created the reinforcement to a belief which is their their way, their their evidence, if you like, of why that belief is so. And what it sometimes takes is a different perspective to see that that isn't the case. So the way that we do that is by introducing doubt. And that's the beauty of working with a coach when you've got these beliefs. Because some people don't even realize that they're limiting them. They don't see it. They physically can't see it in the same way that, I think of like the fish doesn't see the water. They're just in the water. And it's the same when it when it comes to these things. So you can't see the whole picture when you're in the frame. And one of the the key metrics of identifying well, have I got limiting beliefs and whatnot? Is a from Yes, the language you use. But also, are we actually achieving what it is that we want to be achieving, what it is that we want to be working towards? So if we're not, and we're coming up with all the reasons or excuses as to why that isn't done, then that's a way of uncovering what some of those limiting beliefs are as well. Michael Hingson ** 53:29 Yeah, and I had never actually heard that, but I love it. Belief has lie in it, and that makes a lot of sense. And we we need to always examine our beliefs and our perceptions. I know I talk a lot to various people about blindness, and the society we live in has such limiting beliefs about what a blind person can and can't do, and that results, in large part, to the unemployment rate of between 65 and 70% of employable blind people in this country because not that they are not able to or that they're unable to do things, but people think they are. And so we never get the opportunity when we have to ourselves push through that. And it does start with us to recognize all right, so I don't see, but the problem is that sighted people do see, and then there are a lot of challenges with eyesight. But you know, the the bottom line is that we we shouldn't buy into the beliefs that that tend to try to limit us. Either, Will Polston ** 54:40 absolutely not Michael Hingson ** 54:42 you. You talk about gratitude, and I think that's an extremely important thing. I believe we all ought to be a whole lot more grateful and live a life of gratitude. Tell me more about that. Will Polston ** 54:55 Yeah. So for me, gratitude is something that most of us have been brought. Up, and when you think of the word, what's the word gratitude that people associate most of the time, well, they're going to say thank you. You know, you guys on the other side of the pond, you of course, have Thanksgiving every year, an opportunity to give thanks. But where most people get gratitude wrong is they only ever think about being grateful for what's going well, they don't find the blessings when things aren't going so obviously, the famous Yin Yang symbol. So you got the little black.in the white side and the white.in the black side. And it's about creating balance and seeing that in any given moment no matter what's happening. It's perfect, but it's having an ability to see the divine perfection in any given moment, no matter how bad we may perceive it in the initial stages. And that's the part where gratitude really becomes powerful, because most people, they live in a state of either moving away from something out of desperation or moving towards something in sorts of pain or pleasure. You know, it's that's kind of how they're operating. And both of those are essentially lower forms of lower level living. Essentially you're moving pain and pleasure. Pain and Pleasure is born out of the amygdala, the reptilian part of the brain, whereas what we can do is we can use our higher level thinking. We can use our prefrontal cortex, which is the thinking part of the brain, where we can create perspective, where we can choose to see a different side, and that can bring us back into balance. And that's that's really where, that's really where we can find gratitude. In fact, there's a part of the brain called the corpus callosum. It sits in between the left and right hand it right and left hand hemispheres of the brain, and what they do is they balance out the brain the left and right hand hemispheres. Now the when it's doing that, and it's creating that balance in the brain, it's it's creating equilibrium. And the Latin translation of Corpus Callison means human tough, and that's what gratitude does. It enables you to become a tough human when you can see the good and the bad and the bad and the good. Because let's face it, nothing is good and nothing is bad. Nothing is hot, nothing is cold, nothing is positive and nothing is negative. It's all a matter of perspective, and when we can choose to see that, we can completely alter how we feel about any situation, no matter how bad. Michael Hingson ** 57:32 What do you teach people about dealing with fear? Fear is something that's all around us, and everybody talks so much about being afraid, and I know a lot of that has to do with not stepping out of or stepping out of your comfort zone and being afraid to do it. But tell me a little bit about fear and your thoughts about that. Will Polston ** 57:51 Yeah, look, let's face it, fear is there to serve a purpose, and I don't think fear is all bad. You know, so many people put fear in this category is, oh, you should never be fear. You should net. You should be completely fearless, and whatever, sometimes fear is there to serve us. You know, otherwise we would have it, would have we would evolved out of it, and we haven't, because fear is basically what's kept the human race alive for however many 1000s of years. So I don't think fear is all bad, but I do think we're wise to question it from time to time. And there will be times when we are fearing things because we again, we're in our amygdala. We're not using the rational part of the brain to think. And that that a lot of that can come down to people getting caught up in the possibility of something. So I talk about the distinction between possibility and probability. And a lot of people might get fearful, because they fear something that could possibly happen. Well, yeah, it might possibly happen, but there's a big difference between the possibility of it happening the probability of it happening and and when you make that distinction, you open them, you open your mind up to be able to look at other things. And Michael Hingson ** 59:06 usually what we're afraid of that might happen doesn't, and when it doesn't, and that's the big problem, is that we create a lot of our own fears. And the fact is, I think we can learn to control fear and use fear in the very positive sense that you just talked about, because all too often we just let fear, as I put it, blind us or paralyze us, and we can't decide we can't move forward. But the reality is, we can learn to move forward and use that fear in a very positive way, if we would absolutely so it's it is part of the challenge that we face. But I believe that the fear is something that that God gave us, that we need to learn to use and not fear, which goes back to Franklin Roosevelt. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. What a very profound statement i. Will Polston ** 1:00:00 Yeah, absolutely. Michael Hingson ** 1:00:01 Well, I want to thank you for being here. We've been doing this an hour. Can you believe Michael Hingson ** 1:00:05 it? Wow, time flies when you're having fun. I know this Michael Hingson ** 1:00:09 has been great, and I really appreciate you being here with us. And I want to thank you for it all. Um, if people want to reach out and contact you and maybe use your coaching services and so one, how do they do that? Will Polston ** 1:00:23 I mean, if you Google me or look on social media anywhere, Will Polston, that's, that's kind of the best place. You know, on Google or social media anywhere, feel free, please, please do reach out if you found this. Because Michael Hingson ** 1:00:32 Will Palston, Will Polston is spelled Will Polston ** 1:00:36 W, I, double, L, T, o, l, to Papa. Oscar Lima, P, o, l, s, t, O, N, Sierra, Tango, oscar, November, Michael Hingson ** 1:00:45 Ah, he's using the latest version of the phonetic alphabet. That's a good thing. Well, I want to thank you for being here, and I want to thank you all for listening to us today. This has been fun. Hope that you found it enjoyable. Love to hear your thoughts, and I would really appreciate it if you'd give us a five star rating wherever you're listening to us or watching us podcast wise, we value your thoughts and we value your ratings. If you'd like to reach out to me, feel free to do so. You can reach me at Michael H, i@accessibe.com that's m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I at, A, C, C, E, S, S, I, B, e.com, or go to our podcast page, www.michaelson.com/podcast and Michael hingson is m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s, o, n, but we really value your involvement and input in the podcast. We do this so that we get the opportunity to provide you with information and help, which is what will and I have been talking about for the last hour. So please give us your thoughts whenever you can, and we appreciate if you be back next time to hear another episode of unstoppable mindset and will once again. Thank you for being here. My pleasure. Will Polston ** 1:02:00 Thank you for having me. **Michael Hingson ** 1:02:05 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. Please come back and visit us again next week.

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