Episode 140 – Unstoppable Viewer Of “The Big Picture” with Rie Algeo Gilsdorf

Our guest in this episode, Rie Algeo Gilsdorf, describes herself as someone who believes in “seeing and integrating the big picture”. She believes in the whole person and integrating us all.

She comes by this attitude honestly as you will hear. From attending a number of different schools while still living in the same house to how she learned through the years to live her life, Rie has made it her mission in life to help eliminate inequality in mind, body, and spirit.

One of the fascinating things Rie talks about is why she obtained master’s degrees in
Biology and Dance. As you will hear, it’s all about understanding the mind and body as part of the whole person picture.

We get to have an interesting discussion about making choices, or not. As Rie discusses she was told often while getting her Dance Master’s degree, “You have to make a choice of either being a dancer or a choreographer. Her response from the “big picture standpoint, “Why can’t I be both is I choose to?” As we discuss, often people tell us to make choices, but it is because of simply the other person’s point of view, not from a more general viewpoint or the point of view of the person who is thinking about what choice to make. I promise that our discussion will intrigue you.

One very important concept Rie discusses concerns leaning into what we don’t know. That is, when we do not know something or how to accomplish a task stop and look at the problem Learn from all your tools and sources how to deal with the issue. Most important, do not hesitate to ask others and especially don’t hesitate to ask those who will be affected by your decisions. Big picture mentality again.

My time with Rie is why Unstoppable Mindset is such a great podcast not only due to inclusion and Diversity but because we really do get to encounter the Unexpected in so many ways. As usual with our guests, Rie gives us all life lessons we can value and use. Enjoy, please.

About the Guest:

Rie Algeo Gilsdorf (She/Her) is passionate about seeing and integrating the big picture. Whether she’s connecting people across distance and difference, integrating mind and body, science and art, or healing and change-making, Rie is dedicated to restoring wholeness to our common culture that heals and upholds us all.

With Masters’ degrees in Biology and Dance, Rie has an appreciation for the perceptions of the mind, heart and body, and the critical thinking and creativity they can provoke. Rie integrates Systems Change and Embodiment with an understanding of the physiology of trauma and the history of dominant and marginalized groups, applying all of this to overcoming systemic racism on a personal, social and global level. She is a national leader in the use of Social Presencing Theater (SPT) in antiracism work. Throughout her career Rie has facilitated adult learning that develops capacity to achieve equity across race, gender, sexuality and ability as well as urban, suburban and rural cultures.Currently, she provides Cultural Ways of Being audits, facilitation, coaching and SPT practice groups to individuals, schools, organizations and faith communities via Embody Equity.

Ways to connect with Rie:

Links for my website, LinkedIn, Instagram, class registrations and more are all found on LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/embodyequity

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.

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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  01:20
Well, hello, once again, it is time for another episode of unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Oh, and our guest today is Rei Gilsdorf. And she’s going to yell at me because I didn’t include equity. I just said inclusion and diversity. But that’s okay. We’ll get to that. Rie is a big picture person. And she will tell you and she has master’s degrees in biology and dance, which is pretty unique, and a lot of other kinds of things to go along with that. So I think we’re gonna have a lot of fun today. I am certainly looking forward to it and looking forward to learning a lot and having a wonderful discussion. So Rie welcome to unstoppable mindset.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  02:05
Well, thank you so much, Michael. It’s good to be here.
 
Michael Hingson  02:09
I’ll it’s always a pleasure to have somebody who comes on and really does look at the big picture. So we’ll get there. But yes, let’s let’s talk about you growing up a little bit, your childhood and all that sort of how did you get somewhere and moving forward and all that? Yeah.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  02:27
Well, you know, the interesting thing is, I grew up in California in a small town, and my town at Santa Ynez, California, also also very close to solving that more people have put up right, with the cookies in the ABL fever.
 
Michael Hingson  02:44
But Zaca Mesa wine comes from Santa
 
Rei Gilsdorf  02:48
does, yes, it certainly does. And lots of other good ones. So when I was a child, my dad was in agriculture. He was an animal nutritionist, actually. And he worked mainly with large animals, cattle and horses. And so our fortunes were directly tied to those markets, which are very cyclical. And so what would happen for me is I started out my educational life in a private school, and then the bottom fell out of the Cadillac, and then I landed in a public school, and then I would be there for a couple of years until some egregious thing happened. Like, you know, they’re going to put 24 Children in one classroom, which, of course, by today’s standards, you know, there are teachers that would kill to have only 20. in their room, right. But back in the day, that was just unheard of. And so then,
 
Michael Hingson  03:40
when was that roughly?
 
Rei Gilsdorf  03:41
That was that would have been in the late 60s. Okay. So so you know, then I would move to a private school, and we’d be there for a few years, and then the market would fall, and then I’d go back to public school, and then some awful thing would happen, then I go back to private school. So even though I grew up my entire childhood in one house, I went to five different schools. So for me, I didn’t have language for it at the time, of course, but there were cultural differences between those programs, right? So I would say things like, as a seven year old, I said to my mom, when I first went to public school, mom, they were in their 20s to school, because at the private school, there was a uniform and you had to have leather shoes, and then you came home and you changed into your play clothes and your tennis shoes. Right. So so like, I didn’t understand what that meant. Or, you know, socioeconomically, that you know, not everybody has shoes for every occasion, you know, and that it’s funny to wear your tennis shoes to school. It was just different to me. And over the course of all my schooling, I think the message that I got was, there are more than one way to be. There’s one more than one way that is considered normal in different places. And so there’s a skill of figuring out what is called for, and how I need to be in different places.
 
Michael Hingson  05:11
When you were when you were growing up, and you made that comment to your mom, I’m curious if you remember, what did she say?
 
Rei Gilsdorf  05:18
You know, I don’t think she just said, Oh, honey, that’s just how, you know, that’s just a different school, and they just have different ways. And she started just minimize that she didn’t really talk about it much.
 
Michael Hingson  05:30
Anyway, go ahead.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  05:32
Yeah. So anyway, I think that that like looking back on it, I think that’s really, you know, how I first began to understand that there’s more than one way to be, right, and that, that things that seem perfectly normal in one environment are like really not normal in another environment. And, and that, you know, like, wow, there’s the way that we act in my home is not the way that everyone acts in their home. So then, you know, fast forward is that I go, and I get a degree in biology, and I get a degree, I get a degree in biology, because, you know, my dad, in agriculture thought that that would be great, because I could go to vet school, or I could go to med school, or I could go into research, or I could, you know, so I was, you know, didn’t really know what I wanted to do. And I did that. And then actually got a master’s in zoology and animal behavior. And, and it’s very interesting if you if you want to learn the skills about observing, and describing animal behavior is a great place to start, because you don’t know what that Sparrow is thinking. But you know, that he’s trying to get to the top of the dominance hierarchy. And he’s, he’s like, there’s a literal pecking order, and he’s picking on the next slightly smaller Sparrow. Right. So so there are, there are things I think I learned about describing that, as opposed to interpreting and laying my story on that have been really helpful, because as much as we are all humans, and we all share, you know, one physiology and, you know, there’s a lot of really lovely sentiments about, you know, we all smile on one language. And also, people have really different experiences. And it can feel like you’re being erased, if somebody who has more power or is little more dominant in that situation just sort of is like, Oh, we’re all alike, comma, you’re like me? Well, like Michael, you’re just like me, except for that. You’re blind. And I’m not, but I’m just gonna say we’re all alike. You know, so there’s something that’s just a little it again, it doesn’t capture the big picture, we have to go out to the big picture of people’s different experiences and needs, and then we can come back in to the immediate picture of okay, what does everybody need right now? And how are we like, and how are we going to be one group here today?
 
Michael Hingson  08:08
But what really got you to the point where you emotionally and intellectually understood the value or need for the big picture? Oh,
 
Rei Gilsdorf  08:18
you know, what? That’s? That’s an excellent question. Part of it is, I think that I have kind of always had a propensity for that when I was about 12, or 13, a pastor, actually, who was a friend of my older sisters said to me, you know, what, you’re a middle person, you can see both sides, and people are going to try to make you choose. And really your gift is see both sides. And it was one of those moments where I knew that he had said something profound, even though you don’t like it, well, I wasn’t quite ready for it to be that profound. But then, you know, then the other piece is, then I go, and I get a degree in dance. And you know, my mother is beside herself, because like, what are you going to do with these two things that are so do science degree and an art degree and how you know, but really, I can see that it’s all about the body. And there’s, you know, like, cognitively, understanding how the body works, and the systems and all of those kinds of things. And then there’s physically understanding what it is to inhabit your body and express something or understand body language or that sort of thing. So I think that I think it was probably in those years when I was, you know, getting my dance masters. So I would have been in my 20s when, you know, I began to really go Okay, wait, there’s a bigger picture here. And even in dance, people were saying, you know, you have to choose, you have to either be a teacher or a performer you have to either be a choreographer or a teacher, you know, and realizing like, Well, no, those aren’t, you know, what, why couldn’t a person do both of those things? Life is long.
 
Michael Hingson  10:04
Yeah. And everybody always wants you to make a choice according to their definitions. And of course, that’s the real issue is it’s their view, and they don’t look at other views that may cause them to stretch and grow, because they’re too comfortable with the one thing that they know.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  10:25
Yes, very well said, really well said, Yeah. And because, you know, for that person, making some drastic choice early in their life might have been a really smart decision for them, it might be the best choice they ever made. Right? But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right choice for me.
 
Michael Hingson  10:43
Yeah, it’s, it is an interesting world we live in. And it’s all too often that people just don’t see the value of a big picture. And I also think that it is important that although you see the big picture, it’s important to be able to bring it back down and focus in on whatever it is that you have to deal with the endeavor or whatever at the time.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  11:06
Absolutely. zooming out and zooming in. View, and then you’ve got because if you say the whole time with your head in the clouds really, then then you’re not practical. And that’s, you know, that there are people who use the big picture to kind of bypass that, you know, they get to that we all smile in the same language place, and then they, they don’t get to like it. Okay, well, how are we going to make that work? Right?
 
Michael Hingson  11:34
What Where did you go to college,
 
Rei Gilsdorf  11:36
I took my first degree at Occidental College in Los Angeles, which is a small liberal arts college, which was a good step for me coming from a very small town going through a smallish college, you know, I think if I had gone to Washington State, which was my next step, which had probably 30,000 students at the time, you know, that would have been a too big of a step for me at the time. But, but yeah, then I went to Washington State for my science degree, and then I was dancing all along. And I had in my head, this, this old trope about how you know, you don’t make it and dance by the time you’re 30 your career is over, you know, and so I didn’t allow myself to realize how much I love to dance and, and you know, how it could be a career path. Until, until I was almost done with my though ology masters. And so then I went to the University of Utah, because they have a great choreography program. And also, by the way, they have what’s called the kinesiology program, dance, kinesiology. So that’s the study of the body in motion. And so that was really kind of a sweet spot for me, you know, it really allowed me again, to develop both halves of that, although, you know, I was the first graduate student in their history, to write a thesis and produce a concert, you know, like, usually, if you’re a choreography major, you’re going to produce a concert. And if you’re a science major, you know, kinesiology major, you’re going to do a thesis. And I was like, No, I don’t really do both of these things.
 
Michael Hingson  13:11
So you had a lot of fun doing it. I should it. What made you pick combination of science and dance, though? They are very different in a lot of ways. Which isn’t to say, it’s a good idea or not, but what what made you do both of those,
 
Rei Gilsdorf  13:29
you know, well, like I said, my dad had a science background, he was an animal scientist to be exact. And so really, I got my biology degree just to be compliant, you know, and my, my mom said to me, don’t worry, if you don’t know what you want to major, and you’re like, Go start your biology major, and go, you’re going to a liberal arts school and take a lot of classes, and you’re going to meet some professor that just excites you and sees your potential, and you’re going to just want to hang out with them and learn from them. And then you’ll know like, that’s where you should go. And I got into my senior year of college, and then I was really disappointed because I thought, oh, my gosh, I never met that professor, like, what’s wrong with me? And then I realized that actually, it was my dance teacher. And because dance was an adjunct subject at that school, you know, she she wasn’t a professor, right. So. So then what happened was, I went up to Washington State because I’d gotten a teaching assistantship, and by the way, that’s where I fell in love with teaching because there were there were graduate students who had research assistantships, and teaching assistantship and the research assistant people were like, the people with the spotless transcript and the, you know, they were like that was that the you know, prize position. And other people like, well, I guess you’re gonna have to teach and then even amongst Teaching, I got assigned biology 101 basic basic class. And I loved those beginners, you know, and I realized that I actually had a gift for helping make things clear to beginners. So, so I went up there, and I was part of a dance group, you know, just as an extracurricular thing. And, you know, the, the poor fortune of my professor there was that she was going through a very messy divorce, and she was depressed, and she didn’t really have the wherewithal to run the group. So she turned it over to us. So then that was my good fortune, because that’s where I found choreography. And I was like, Oh, wow, you could keep choreographing. But you know, like, it wouldn’t matter if your viewer aging. So, so that’s where I really got turned on by, you know, that bit by the choreography bug. And then, you know, finished out my thesis and went went on down to Utah from there.
 
Michael Hingson  16:02
Wow. So then what did you do once you have these two degrees, and you had to go out into the workforce and do something with them all?
 
Rei Gilsdorf  16:13
Exactly. So for a long time, I had a day job.
 
Michael Hingson  16:18
To have one of those occasionally.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  16:20
Yeah, yes. Gotta have those. And, and then, interestingly, you know, some years later, well, what
 
Michael Hingson  16:28
was your day job?
 
Rei Gilsdorf  16:29
Oh, my gosh, I had a sequence of data ups. But I’ll tell you the most astounding one is I, I worked at a medical clinic, because growing up, I had worked in my dad’s office, so I knew how to do office things. And and I worked at a medical clinic in the collections department. Like, I’m not exactly who you would think of the collector, just not, you know, firm in that way. Like I am not someone you think is going to break your kneecaps at all, you know. And so, so that was a rough job. And then actually, when I first kind of Mind, Body Jobs was the last year we were living that we were living there, because my husband at the time was getting his degree at Cal Poly University in San Luis Obispo. Yeah. And so I actually got offered a job being the physical therapy assistant at a day program for disabled adult. And they mainly were folks who had mild cognitive impairment and significant mobility issues. So a lot of folks that had had head injuries or, you know, cerebral palsy, or those sorts of things. And I, part of how I got this was that in college, I had done a semester with a professor who was really a pioneer in dance for folks with disabilities. And so I remember calling her because I was so nervous that I’d been offered the job. And I said, and I just feel like, you know, how do I know if what I’m doing is hurting them? Are they? And she said, Oh, well, there’s a way to know. And I said, What is it? And she said, Why you ask them? They’ve been living in their body their whole life? Oh, God,
 
Michael Hingson  18:24
and how often we don’t in all seriousness, and how often we don’t we, we, and one end of the scale, we think we’re the experts. And so we don’t need to ask, and I’ve seen that so many times. The other end, we just don’t think about asking even though it’s the logical thing to do, and we don’t, we don’t work view ourselves as the expert.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  18:45
Exactly. Or there’s the scripts about how it’s not polite, you know, like when your mother has taught you that it’s not polite to look or point at someone who is different, right, who has a disability, then that gets internalized? Well, I’m certainly not going to talk about it, but you like they’ve been living in their body their whole life, they would certainly rather, you know, my clients would certainly rather have me ask them, then, like, try some idiotic thing that does hurt, right. Oh, anyway. So that was really one of my first places of combining, you know, because we were doing physical therapy. But it was so you know, such a sort of great outlet and then i i Of course put some dance in there. And, and then from there we we moved to Colorado and then I was able to work in both like a it was probably a for profit colleges called Denver Technical College. So I was able to teach you know, anatomy physiology, those things there and then there must have been a baby boom like three years earlier in Colorado Springs because There were so many preschool programs that wanted to have a creative dance thing. So I was teaching, you know, college kids at night and little four year olds, and three year olds in the daytime. So that was a little schizophrenic, but lots of fun. And and then we ended up moving to Portland, Oregon. And at that point, there was a, an arts high school being built. And I ended up getting hired into that program. And amazingly enough, you had to have an art and an academic to teach full time, because they put the academics in the morning, when people’s minds were fresh. And then they put the arts which are all things that you physically do in the afternoon, and which also are things that kids you know, tended to love. So they would like show up and focus and, you know, and all of that sort of thing. And because I had a background in biology and dance, I could teach full time there. And if the time was, when it opened, it was an alternative school. So it didn’t matter like that. I didn’t have the right licensure, and really, not very many states were licensing dance teachers in those days. And then along comes No Child Left Behind. And they had requirements for being a quote, unquote, highly qualified teacher. And even though by that point, I had been teaching dance and integrating, I mean, part of that program was that we integrated the art and the academics together, because we knew that children learn what we all learned, we don’t learn in a box, right? Like, I never really thought a whole lot about math until I had to replace the floor and a bathroom. And I had to figure out the foreign tile, right? There was a lot of math in that. So the learning by doing thing is is very important. So anyway, I, I was very happy, happy as a clam there for 10 years, then No Child Left Behind came along, and they were like, well, you’re gonna have to quit, and you’re gonna have to go get your teaching degree. And in fact, it means that you’re going to have to student teach in someone’s classroom, that probably has less experience than you. And I just couldn’t do I mean, a lot of my colleagues did it, bless their hearts. But at that point, then I got to principals license, and then shortly after that, I ended up moving to Minnesota, to be the principal of a different arts high school,
 
Michael Hingson  22:27
you certainly moved around a lot from California to Colorado to Oregon and then in a soda.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  22:35
Exactly, did a lot of moving.
 
Michael Hingson  22:40
So was was it all because of you or husband? Or was it job related? Or just you guys decided you wanted to see different kinds of snow?
 
Rei Gilsdorf  22:54
Well, you know, we did find that both Colorado and Oregon are the Birkenstocks was sock state. So um, so we moved to, we moved to Colorado for his job. And then he was really sort of burning out from that job. And he had gone on a trip to Portland, actually a whole bunch of West Coast cities and fell in love with Portland, he said, You have to come out here and see this. So we up and move to Portland, just because it felt really good. And managed to both get jobs there. And then move to Minnesota for my job. He has been the trailing spouse, as we say. So.
 
Michael Hingson  23:41
So when did you move to Minnesota? What What year was
 
Rei Gilsdorf  23:44
moved there? It moved here in 2004.
 
Michael Hingson  23:48
Okay. And then you put your principals license to work
 
Rei Gilsdorf  23:52
with the principals license to work. And as I got hired in that job, the superintendent who hired me, said he told me this little story about how the year before the prior principal, had had 11 openings for teachers, which I mean, I think there were only about 25 teachers in the school. So that’s, that’s a huge number of staff. And despite, you know, some pressure to diversify, the staff had managed to hire 100%, white able bodied folks, and even when those folks were, you know, like met each other for the first time, you know, I get the back to school, you know, welcome new teachers kind of event. They were kind of surprised and disappointed. And so this superintendent said to me, if you can’t hire at least 50% diverse staff staff of color in particular, you will lose the trust of your faculty. And so I thought, wow, okay, so he’s telling me to This is very important. And Hmm, I’m not sure I know how to do that. So at that point, I leaned into what I didn’t know and started, you know, started my educational journey. And, and really, it was probably about 10 years after that, that I ended up kind of really fully going into this work. But I think that’s another really important point is, you know, like this, this is the same thing as as asking people what their preferences are, or what what, you know, what they need, or whatever, that, you know, leaning into what we don’t know. Like, there is no shame in that none of us knows everything. And if you try to make like, you know, things, then you’re not really going to make progress. You’ve got to say, Well, okay, can I go to this conference? Can I pull together this learning group? Can I, you know, Can I try this? Can I try that? And that’s, that’s how we progress.
 
Michael Hingson  26:05
Did you happen to think of asking any of your faculty members for help and ideas about how to hire a more, at least racially diverse population and seizures?
 
Rei Gilsdorf  26:17
Yes, definitely. Good. Because the, you know, like, often the wisdom, a lot of the wisdom is in the room. Right. And there also are people that have networks of, you know, beyond I mean, certainly, especially as I was a brand new person in Minnesota, it’s not like I knew a lot of people here, you know, and other people did. So. Yeah.
 
Michael Hingson  26:39
Well, and you’d already had lessons in the value of asking, so that’s why I asked that question.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  26:46
Yes, definitely. Well, so
 
Michael Hingson  26:47
what do you do today? Exactly.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  26:50
So what I do at this point is, I have a little company, I’m a sole proprietor, it’s called embody equity, because, of course, I’m gonna bring the body into thing. And, and I kind of do this on two levels. So there’s the personal level, where people need to, myself included, you know, we need to learn how to listen to our bodies, which sometimes means quieting our minds in our mouths. And we need to overcome some of these fears and biases. I love that in one of your taglines, you talk about how, you know, we can’t be inclusive until we tackle what’s inside of ourselves. And I think that is so true. And very often, people will understand cognitively why it’s a good idea to be inclusive, and all those things, but they can’t quite, you know, when when a situation happens, things come out of their mouth, or they make decisions that they perhaps aren’t real proud of, or wouldn’t have if they’d had more time to think or whatever. And, and a lot of that is because a lot of these a lot of these fears and biases are things that we hold in our bodies. And again, if we’ve been trained that it’s like, it’s not polite to think about that or talk about that, it’s certainly not polite to feel a feeling that doesn’t feel good about another person. And so part of that is just like learning to feel into that feeling, allow it to come over, you understand what it’s coming from, and then you can get to like, oh, well, that’s a silly thing to be afraid of. I guess that’s nothing to beat. That’s nothing to worry about. Or, oh, wow, I guess, I guess that person might have a different perspective. And maybe I could listen to that. But if you, if you start from the body, then you can understand that, you know, a lot of wisdom and a lot of opening up can come out and a lot of letting go can come out of working with your body. So so really, you know, I also like to say the body’s like that person in the meeting that doesn’t speak up until the end of the meeting. And then they open their mouth and they just wow you that this amazing thought comes out that sums everything up. And clearly they’ve been paying attention the whole time. Your body’s like that person in the meaning of you, your mind and your body. Your body is the one who’s like very quiet they’re not going to assert themselves but they know a lot and a lot of it is getting the mind to be a little quiet so we can listen to the body now. So that’s one level. And you know, sometimes people even come to me for coaching on you know, gosh, I have a new daughter in law that’s a person of color or I have a new co worker or I’m supervising this group of people and I realized that I’m I’m acting nervous around people who are different than me. So those kinds of things you know, I can do coaching on on those kinds of things. And then the other thing is, whole organizations need to embody that, that the statement that they have, right or that that eloquent thing that they came out with, after some hideous situation was in the news. And they wanted to differentiate themselves. And they said, We stand with the cause. And yet, then they don’t actually know how to, as an organization, stand with the cause. So So really, what I do is I look for I have gotten in the habit of looking at people’s documents, like, personnel, manual job posting those sorts of things, and finding the language in there that is pushing for the status quo. Because it’s going to be in there because it’s it’s been written, like, you know, companies occur out of the status quo, companies, churches, schools. In fact, I thought it was fascinating. You had told a story about being in a church that was considering putting, I think, an elevator in place. And what was fascinating about that, Michael, is the pushback on that sounds exactly like the kind of pushback that I hear about other situations that are about race or gender or other other aspects of diversity. So see, that’s where, like, I’m so tempted to then like, oh, let’s come out to the big picture, what is this consciousness that people are inhabiting? That I’m only safe if things stay exactly like they are. And there’s something vaguely unsafe about us putting an elevator here, because someone different than me is going to come to this church, you know, and how, like, if you if you really just play that tape on out to the end, like the logical end of that statement, that’s, that’s ridiculous on the face. You know,
 
Michael Hingson  32:02
so isn’t it, and it’s, it totally violates the the doctrine and the precepts of the church to not be inclusive, and it happens a whole lot more than we would like to think some people just think they own the church, it’s theirs. It’s not theirs, the last time I checked, but you know, it is amazing. And there’s so many things, it’s not ours, we’re a part of a community. And the sooner we truly recognize that we’re part of a bigger community, the better it will be all the way around. But as much as we hear it takes a village, we, when it comes to us, we don’t like to think about that.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  32:42
Absolutely. You know, when I was at that first art school in Vancouver, Washington, where you know, you had to have an art and an academic to teach full time. That meant that we all shared classrooms, because I might be in a classroom in the morning that was suitable to do science in because it had sinks and counters and that sort of thing. Well, that’s also a great kind of room to do visual art in and mix paint is not a great room to dance in. So I was gonna go to a gym, or some other large room to teach dance and an art teacher was going to come in behind me. So we all shared not only the children, but also the rooms and the resources. And as we were planning the school, our principal actually instituted what she called the my jar, which is kind of like the swearing jar and put 25 cents in if you say a bad word. So if anybody said, my kids, my kid my room, we had to put 25 cents into my jar. And let me tell you, that was quite an education about this idea that it’s, it’s ours, it’s not mine. And it was hard was surprisingly hard again, even though on a cognitive level, I was all about this community. It took a couple of years to really learn how to live into that. Yeah.
 
Michael Hingson  34:00
And it is one of those things that all too often we don’t learn very fast, and we should learn it more quickly. It isn’t, there’s no I in team, that’s what it really comes down to. And there’s a lot to be said for that. Exactly. So when did you actually give up being a principal?
 
Rei Gilsdorf  34:20
Um, you know, I did that job. I will tell you that that job. The thing about the State Arts High School is that it is a line item in the governor’s budget. It’s not a regular school district, and the governor appoints your school board. So I was politically over my head almost immediately. You know, came from out of state didn’t really get Minnesota politics to begin with, and then had these board members who may or may not have really been interested in being a board member may have donated to a governor’s campaign, you know, and so, so I left there after three years, but I went to another school to be they had a brand new position opening up, that was an arts department chair. So that was lovely, because then I got to really do a lot of coaching of teachers, which is one of my favorite things, you know, watching teachers teach. And coaching them was really a lot of fun. And then though, that was a private school, and I and I missed, oddly enough, the public school environment of like, really, you know, in a public school, you you accept the children that come to your doorstep. And in a private school, you have to go looking for diversity. And so it’s, it’s just a slightly different mindset there. So I went back to that school. And then that’s where I really met the folks from courageous conversation, because that school was what was called an integration district. It’s something that there had been a number of I wouldn’t want to say in the late 1990s and early 2000s. And so it was a joint powers district of Minneapolis in the 11 surrounding suburbs, because what was found was that, that different suburbs were able to segregate themselves by having their own school district. And so this was a way that all of those districts had to submit an integration plan, you know, it got very wonky, but yeah, what we did, one of the things that we realized was, okay, so, so different kinds of children are going to these different districts and these teachers, it’s not like normal, neighborhood change has happened, and you have, you know, a few kids who are different than you when you’re in and then a few more, a few more, and you gradually learn your way into it, it’s like, suddenly, now they’ve got a busload of children coming from this other part of town. And then they would do these things that just, you know, like, sometimes just getting out of yourself, and seeing, you know, having a set of outside eyes is really important. So for instance, there was a suburban school district here that was majority white. And they started getting a busload of mostly black children in and those children like that bus was arriving, like at a slightly earlier or later time, there was something weird about like, the timing and what was going on at the front entrance. And so they they just decided that they would have that bus come to the back door, you know, not thinking what does it look like when the black children have to come through the back door? Like what’s, what’s the inclusion message there? Yeah. Oh, and and given our shared history in this country, what’s the message there? You know, so, so? Yeah, so we put together this thing that was called the cultural collaborative, that was a learning exchange for teachers, and, you know, at school administrators, and one year, my boss said to me, because at that point, and I was a, I was like, the curriculum integration specialists. So I was helping people pull the arts into the academics and, and by the way, look at how we can have different kinds of kids work together on arts projects, and learn from each other, and just have the experience of being together. So, so when you’re my boss said to me, you know, we have this one company called courageous conversation that’s coming in, and they’re doing a lot of our classes, and then we have a whole bunch of other people. And I would like you to take as many of these classes as you can report back to me just as a quality control. And so in one year, I think I took 36 different one and two day courses. I mean, I really, I probably should have written up another Master’s degree for that, but having to I didn’t feel like getting a third. But at that point, you know, I learned a lot more of the technical pieces of it. And then there was a huge budget issue and all the people who were teachers on special assignment, in other words, who didn’t have a classroom like B got laid off. And so after that, I ended up going to work for courageous conversation, which was the consultancy that was providing a lot of that. So I worked there for about six years. And then, at the beginning of the pandemic, by that time, I had really I discovered social presencing Theatre, which is the physical discipline that I’m working in now. And, and of course, when you work for someone that has conversation in the name of the business. And you say, Hey, I think we should do some movement seminars that aren’t so heavily talk oriented, that you said, you know, our brand is conversation
 
Michael Hingson  40:15
comes in many forms.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  40:17
Exactly. So, you know, at the beginning of the pandemic, you know, of course, conversation was not a good idea in person. And so they laid off almost all of us. And at that point, I just knew like, oh, okay, right. So now’s the time for me to really pull this together and figure out how this works. How do I work together with people to, to really embody equity. So that’s, that’s how I got there.
 
Michael Hingson  40:44
So you, you started your company, then somewhere in the early 2020? Yes, that’s about three years old, which is, which is good. But you talk about equity, and you don’t talk about or you don’t have in your name, inclusion or diversity. Now, why is that?
 
Rei Gilsdorf  41:07
Yeah, so that’s. So here’s the thing. I think that diversity and inclusion are weak T compared to equity. And I’ll tell you why. Diversity is the easiest thing to measure, because you can measure diversity just by counting and there are many categories that people disclose or, or are just visible. And so that, you know, in a way, that’s the easiest your hat, what is what is the C suite look like who’s in there who’s not in inclusion is, there’s a great book called The person you mean to be by Dolly too, and she talks about the metric of inclusion is how did your last meeting go? Like, who was talking, who was not talking? Who was even allowed in the meeting, you know, so so. So that’s one way to think of it, I first really heard about inclusion when I was working at a school, and the parent association of the elementary part of the school had decided that if birthday invitations are going to be handed out at school, then you’d have to invite everyone in your class. And so I decided that that’s a really fitting metaphor for inclusion, because I’m going to invite everyone to my party. And you know, of course, we’re, we’re all offered the same cake in the same punch and whatever, but it’s still my party. And I might not be playing music that you like, and I might not have a cake that you like, or that you’re even allowed to eat. And by the way, you have to bring me a present. So in a corporate sense, or in a school sense. Inclusion means I’m gonna make some overtures to make you minimally comfortable, you know, I’m going to acknowledge that you’re here. And that you might have a couple of different needs, I might make a few accommodations, as I’m required to by law. But the program was designed for me, and for people like me. And so equity is about requires you to pull back and look at the big picture and say, Okay, if you have a diversity problem, what’s the pipeline? Why aren’t people finding their way to your business, or organization or church or whatever it is? What’s going on, that is off putting, or that is disqualifying for people. And in the inclusion realm, equity is going to say, Okay, well, what are the cultural things that you are doing that, you know, you’re like a fish in the water, you don’t see your own culture, but people from outside your culture for sure can see it? And so what are the tools that you know, how can we expand your tool belt for equity, so that you can respond to multiple kinds of people, and so that it doesn’t feel like a little weird exception has been made for this one person?
 
Michael Hingson  44:16
Yeah, it’s interesting. I have to think about that. And what you said, my, my general experience is, certainly diversity does not include disabilities. Because as a society, we still believe disability means a lack of ability. And I think that in reality, we can change words. We can change definitions, we don’t need to create necessarily new words. So diversity doesn’t mean disabilities anymore, because that’s what everyone has allowed to happen. So from my perspective, I I won’t accept and I encourage people not to accept that inclusion doesn’t include disabilities, either you are inclusive or you not it is a quantum, one way or the other, there is no partial inclusion, you either fully include all or you don’t include anyone. And that disabilities are not things that mean a lack of ability, but rather, disability is a characteristic. And in some my point of saying that is, you are a person with a disability because you’re light dependent. And, and the reality is, if the lights go out, power goes out, you run to find a smartphone, or a flashlight or a candle or something to keep light. Because mostly, the world has invented technologies to continue to allow you to have light all the time. And so for some of us, that’s a catching up, and technology is getting better. But still intellectually, society doesn’t accept that. So they don’t include, for example, my need for a screen reader software package, as opposed to using a computer monitor like you use, although inclusion ought to be part of the cost of doing business, period.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  46:14
Okay, so the big picture, I’m fascinated, because what what just came to me when you’re talking is, one could think of the desk lamp that I have in my office as an assistive device, it allows him to work past 5pm Yep. Whereas you would not need that assistive device. And and the thing is, none of us thinks of my desk lamp as an assistive device, whereas it is pretty early reader, it is an in in, you know, in the in the kind of historical equity work that I do often. There’s this, there’s a lot of talk about affirmative action, and who does that benefit and so on. But we don’t think back to, you know, the 40 acres and a mule thing that actually, after the Civil War, the idea was that, that the enslaved people who had been freed, were going to get this little land grant so they could start their own farm and do their own work. And then that was actually reversed after a while into that administration. But meanwhile, the what would they call the Sooners and the boomers who like went through Oklahoma and everything they were given, like, more acres, a mule and several sacks of grain, right. So that was affirmative action for white people, white and indentured, you could get that. So there are these things where we don’t think of it as affirmative action for the dominant group. But that is how the dominant group got dominant. And then I would say, we also don’t think of assistive devices for the dominant group. But that’s part of what keeps us dominant.
 
Michael Hingson  47:57
But the reality is that assistive technology was mostly first invented for the dominant people. Yeah, the dominant, the dominant. I won’t say race, because it’s different races, but the the dominant force. And what happened as a result is that that occurred, and those who were not classified by the dominant people as part of the dominant group, were left behind. And, and it has become worse, which is very unfortunate. But that is the reality of it that in fact, assistive technology was invented for you, long before it really was invented for me. Now, we can take it the other way. So Apple, for example, has put assistive technology in every one of its devices. If you go buy an iPhone, you can take any iPhone and Acrobat, activate a screen reader called VoiceOver. And it will verbalize whatever is coming up on the screen. Except that they haven’t mandated that app developers make sure that they accommodate voiceover necessarily as they’re creating their apps. So an app can be accessible one day and not the next, but leave that alone for them. But leave that alone for the moment. What I don’t see Apple doing still is saying, you know, we’ve got this great verbal technology, audio technology, and creating new and better ways for you like dependent people to be able to use it. For example, when you’re driving a car, you don’t turn on VoiceOver so that it will tell you who’s calling. And so you have to still look at the phone to see or you have to look at the phone to answer it. And we as much as we talk about safe driving and all that. We encourage people to look elsewhere other than just the road look at Tesla. Tesla uses touchscreens to control most What goes on in his cars? That means, yeah, you do have copilot, and so on, which in theory work to some degree. But why is it that we discourage people from continuing to look at the road, and not use the other technologies that in reality benefit me, but would also benefit you? And would benefit me more if we did it? Right. So the the Tesla, for example, it’s all touchscreen. So I can’t turn on the radio, I can’t change a radio station. I can’t do anything with it, because it’s all touchscreen. And we don’t we don’t accommodate that stuff. We don’t recognize the value of things like audio output, and, and using even audio input more, because we still have the dominant group that doesn’t recognize that in reality, alternatives might improve their lives as well. Oh, wow.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  50:51
Yeah. Oh, for sure. For sure. And you know, what you’re saying about it being because it’s visual, it’s, it’s distracting. You know, my son has an electric car, not a Tesla. But it is like, it’s, it’s difficult for me, like I have to set things and adjust them before I start moving in the car, because it’s too distracting for me, you know, so interesting.
 
Michael Hingson  51:14
Yeah. And it would be very easy to make the world much more inclusive for all, but it is a mindset change that we have not developed yet. But we need to have that conversation. And really encourage it because it would make life better. In 2010, the National Federation of the Blind were to get a law passed, called the pedestrian enhancement Safety Act, more and more cars were going hybrid or totally silent or becoming very quiet. So we don’t hear that when they’re coming down the road a lot of times, yeah. And a law was eventually passed, saying that cars needed to make a noise. Now, they’re still working on citing white noise to us 12 years later, which is unfortunate. But leave that alone for the moment. The law didn’t really get traction at being passed until NITSA, the National Institute for Highway or transportation, safety and so on, until NITSA, discovered that there were 1.5 times as many accidents that would happen to pedestrians, as a result of encountering a quiet car or hybrid vehicle, then would be encountering just a regular internal combustion engine. So when they discovered that other people, then people who happen to be blind, also were affected by my cars, then people’s attitude started to change. You know, we’re still not dealing with the inclusive mindset. And we need to well, you started your company. And so what exactly do you do today?
 
Rei Gilsdorf  53:05
Well, I do a couple of things I do, what I call equity audits, I’m beginning to to switch that name around to cultural ways of being audits. Because there are, you know, 18, different things that people do that are called equity audit, like sometimes it has to do with going in, and having focus groups of people of color and seeing what’s working, what’s not working. And so what that when I hear that I refer to that as a functional audit, like what is going on what’s working, what’s not working. And what I do is more structural, and it has to do with really looking at those, you know, hiring documents, policy manuals, I and I’ve done audits for, you know, churches and, like larger Diocese of churches. I did one, I’ve done a couple that have to do with what’s the route to becoming a clergy member? And how is that like? What’s the application? What’s the selection process? What are the criteria, because if your organization was founded by people in the dominant, the, you know, the words are going to express that and they’re going to express it in a way that is, you know, it’s it’s hidden in plain sight. It’s just absolutely hidden in plain sight. So one of the one of the main ones, boy, let me back up and say, What I love about this approach is, you know, where I used to work, they would just come in, and they would do a seminar that was about, you know, Equity and Diversity, right? And it’s very easy for people to launch that into the abstract realm and not bring it down to earth, right, like, oh, well, theoretically, that could happen. But surely we don’t do that. Like I don’t, you know, and so it’s really lovely to come back with a report that says, Here are these things things that are in your documents. And can you see why, then when you go to hire someone who is different on any axis, that there’s this conversation among the hiring committee afterwards, and they say, you know, what, just don’t know if they’re a good fit. And they’re not a good fit. You know, your your your hiring document hasn’t captured. You know, what, what do you hope to gain from this more inclusive atmosphere that’s more inclusive, higher? And if all you can say is, well, we want more people who are different than you need to think more about, like, what are the unique perspectives that people could be bringing to you, and you write those into the job description, and then magically guess what more different kinds of people apply? And they answer the questions in such a way that shows what they have to offer. And at the end, the conversation is not about like, Hmm, they don’t quite fit. It’s like, wow, they’ve got some perspectives we really need. Right? So. So anyway, one of one of the things that comes up often is this idea of professionalism. Word, you know, I’m not advocating that we go away from being professional. And you know, each profession has some standards, they need to do tap, right. But if you don’t define it, then it falls back to what is the dominant group do? Right, and, and all the other things are considered unprofessional. And so one of my favorite things that I love to do is if I’m talking, for instance, to a white group, I say, what was the consequence in your childhood home for showing up to supper late? Or? Another way to think of that is, what was the vibe in your house when you had to get the whole family bundled into the car at the same time to go somewhere to be at a place on time? And, you know, I don’t know, Mike, what was what was it? What consequences in your house for showing up late to dinner was that a bad thing
 
Michael Hingson  57:05
was a bad thing, unless unless you had let mom and or dad know in advance, then there was a reason for it, which is a different animal. But if you just showed up late, or even getting everyone in the car, well, there were only four of us mom, dad, brother in me. So it was pretty easy, because we had afford our cars. Everybody had their own door, but But still, there were expectations that you you abide by rules, and the rules could change. And the rules were created to accommodate everyone. And I think that’s part of the issue is that when you’re making rules, if you have rules that don’t work for some people, then that’s a different animal to
 
Rei Gilsdorf  57:54
write well, and then the other piece is, over time, we attach values. So Punctuality is a good thing. When I go to the doctor, I like that, you know, they haven’t slipped me down 18th in line when I had an appointment, right. But I’m sure you have been in a meeting, because I think we all have where somebody said, we’re going to respect everyone by starting and ending on time, right. And of course, like today, you and I have an appointment, we’re going to try and start it in on time. But if one of us had to leave, because there was a family emergency, you know, if you had to run out of the room right now, I wouldn’t feel disrespected. You know, I don’t have to feel this perspective. That’s just a story, a cultural story that’s been told. And another story to just like, tie this one up in a bow is that I recently had a hip surgery. And I was in the hospital. And one of my excellent nurses was this black woman who was an African immigrant. And she, you know, she was very charming and hospitable. And trying to get my mind off of the pain and all that stuff. She would chat me up and everything. She asked me what I did. And so I was telling her about this. And I asked her, like, what’s the consequence in your child at home, growing up for not getting to supper on time, and she was like, she couldn’t get her head around the idea that there would be a consequence for that. She was like, What are you kidding? It’s like where, you know, our value is hospitality. And whenever you show up, we’re going to try to show you the most hospitality. We grew up in a different culture. And it’s not that they don’t have values, it’s that they’re pulling out a different thing to value more highly than the actual punctuality. Right. So, so, you know, I had to appreciate that. And the other thing that I love about this story is and karma I appreciated that she was punctual in checking in on me to see if my payments had worn off or not right, so that she can help me man Just paying by not letting it get like way too bad and having to take an extra dose and all that sort of thing. So the reason I’m saying that is that often, you know, time is a great example, because we all have some experience with time. But what will happen if people don’t want to understand this, and I honestly think it’s a willful thing, they’ll say, your thing that black people can’t tell pride. And I’m not saying that at all, I’m saying that there are different tools to have in our arsenal in our tool belts. And one of them is when to be sticking to the agenda and getting people through, through so that we can leave here on time, and when to like, bend the agenda to attend to somebody’s needs, and when to just straight up, be hospitable and say, hey, it’s a party show up when you need to, you know, so all of those are possibilities. And it’s about becoming aware of what the water that you and your fish are swimming it.
 
Michael Hingson  1:00:55
And that’s exactly the point is that there is something to be said for all of those things. And there is something to be said for if someone is late, before you condemn, understand. And that is just something that we don’t see nearly as often as we should, which brings up the point of there are so many people today who are afraid, afraid of saying the wrong thing, you know, and how do you deal with that? Because what really is the wrong thing. And I think that we can define and we do define the wrong thing, if you will, in terms of like how we deal with people who are different than us and so on. But we also don’t really know how to deal with that. Yes.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  1:01:36
So so there’s this, there’s a there’s a whole lot about this. Because there’s, you know, am I overhearing someone say the right thing, did somebody say the wrong thing to me, and I say the wrong thing and realize it when it was halfway up my mouth, but I couldn’t call it back. Right? So let’s start with that one, because that’s the easiest one to me is, you know, if you’re just genuine and say, oh, that didn’t come out at all, like I wanted it to, I’m so sorry. And can we talk about how that landed on you? And just own it, you know, because things come out of our mouth, right. And I think most people understand when you do that. So again, just like at being honest with it. I am a big follower of a woman named Loretta Ross, who is all about what she calls calling in, instead of calling out and her whole thing is, you know, you need to admit that other people’s interior lives could be as complicated as yours. Right? So if somebody has said something, you know, who knows what was going on in their mind, we, a lot of times we make an assumption, we jumped to a conclusion about like, oh, my gosh, how mean they’re being or how racist or biased or whatever it is. And, you know, her idea is, first of all, if it’s happening online, you need to take it offline, you need to have a private conversation, because a conversation about something that has harmed someone or, you know, really touched a nerve that does not benefit from having an audience, you know, that just doesn’t. So taking it offline, talking about it, and listening to the other person to see like, what did you mean, when you said this thing? What did you mean? Like, because that is the thing that we don’t know, like, we might, you know, we might assume, and sometimes they really did mean to be mean.
 
Michael Hingson  1:03:40
Always that,
 
Rei Gilsdorf  1:03:41
there’s always that. And if that’s the case, you can do what’s called calling it off, which means you say, wow, you know, I’m starting to get kind of upset in this conversation. And I feel like I’m not very grounded. And so I’m gonna end this conversation, and then it’s up to you whether you want to come back to me like if it’s a relative of yours that you care about, maybe you come back when you’re both cooler, right? If it’s a random person who was trolling you online, that you just just block them, block them and move on.
 
Michael Hingson  1:04:13
Or if you’re somebody who may be a stranger or not a friend, but you decide, well, maybe I handled that wrong, or whatever. And it wasn’t intended to be mean, but it’s not either, or the first two things you described, then you figure out a way to go back and deal with it.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  1:04:30
Yes, exactly. And there’s even another possibility that there’s a woman named Sonya, Renee Taylor that has has suggested is that like, if you’re just too exhausted by the situation, and you don’t use it, you’re gonna call someone in. That’s probably even a series of conversations. Just take them some investment of your time and emotional energy. But you could also say, you know, Michael, I have heard many of your podcasts and You are such a compassionate human being. And that just doesn’t square with that last thing that you said whatever it was. And I would just like you to think about that.
 
Michael Hingson  1:05:12
And help me understand it, or help me understand. Right?
 
Rei Gilsdorf  1:05:15
I would just like, yeah. So so you can put the work on the other person as well. You know, and that’s
 
Michael Hingson  1:05:21
fine. If you do it in a constructive way, that should always be a reasonable thing to do.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  1:05:30
Yes, yes, absolutely. And then the only other thing is, if you’re, for instance, a university presidents, like someone with a significant amount of power, and a group of students is protesting a thing, and they’ve called you out. One of the things that Loretta Ross says about that is, you have just gotten 1000s of dollars worth of consulting feedback for free. So the thing again, is to Job, listen, ask, engage, understand what they’re trying to tell you. Because a, an actual call out from a group of people who really are less powerful like that. That is them saying Ouch, in the only way they can get it to register. And so if you can find another way to listen, that doesn’t have to be so dramatic. And if you’re actually willing to make some kind of change, then then often that’s the way to defuse the situation. But again, it’s leaning into it, you know, and it’s valuing the other person’s experience and what they’re telling you.
 
Michael Hingson  1:06:41
Yes, absolutely. And it gets back to the gift that you just said, but those are very important. If and, yes, we all need to be more open, positive intentions aren’t enough. It’s the actions that come outside of the positive intentions, you can say, well, I really did want to do that. But what do you really do? And the positive intentions don’t mean a thing, unless you add more substance behind them? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Which is extremely important. And we should do? Well, I have to tell you, this has been fun. And we went over our hour, but I’m not complaining. It was fun to do. But, you know, we’ve got to let you go get ready for dinner. It’s getting closer to five o’clock there. And it’ll be five o’clock soon enough. And then you can go off and decide if you’re going to drink alone or with someone. Or whatever.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  1:07:38
Yeah, thank you so much, Michael, this has been great. How do people
 
Michael Hingson  1:07:42
reach out to you and learn about your program? I assume that you consult and coach with people all over the place?
 
Rei Gilsdorf  1:07:48
I do indeed. And I have a website that’s embodyequity.com.
 
Michael Hingson  1:07:53
There you go. And they can they can contact you through that and have a discussion.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  1:08:00
Yep, absolutely. I have a calendar link there or there’s an email. I’m also on Instagram at embody equity. And, and I also, you know, like I have articles about a bunch of these kinds of things on both on my website, and then also on LinkedIn, so you can find real stories on LinkedIn.
 
Michael Hingson  1:08:20
Well, anything you want us to include in show notes, please bring along and send over. And we would be glad to make sure that they get included. But I do really want to thank you re for being with us today. This has been a lot of fun. And I hope that you listening out there will also agree, please let us know we’d love to hear hear your comments. You can tell us were great or not or that you disagree and that’s perfectly okay. And we will respect that. And hopefully open more discussions. And by the way, that also means if anyone re including you knows of anyone who might make a good guest on unstoppable mindset, please let us know we’re always looking for more guests than ways to have discussions. And if you want to continue this one re we can have another discussion about it and do more of this. It would be kind of fun to do. Fabulous. But I’d like to again, thank you. If you’d like to reach out to me, wherever you are, please do so you can email me Michaelhi at accessiBe.com A C C S S I B E.com. Or go to our podcast page www dot Michael hingson H i n g s o n.com/podcast. Definitely want to hear from you and please, wherever you’re listening give us a five star rating. We really value those ratings and when we see those then we we know that somebody must like what we say which is always a good thing. But again, Rie thank you for being here with us and for taking so much time with us on unstoppable mindset.
 
Rei Gilsdorf  1:09:58
All right, thank you
 
Michael Hingson  1:10:04
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.