Episode 182 – Unstoppable Executive Performance Coach with Elizabeth Louis

I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to meet so many interesting people who come from such a large and diverse background. Today we get to spend time with Elizabeth Louis. For much of her adult life, Elizabeth worked in the television and entertainment industry. What she didn’t realize until later was that her talents really came from coaching people. She did it as a child, and finally in 2016 she began to do it as a career by leaving all the politics and entertainment infighting behind.

Elizabeth and I have a wide-ranging conversation talking about everything from pessimism to optimism, why we all behave as we do and we talk about things like Trust and Teamwork.

I think you will find Elizabeth’s comments and observations to be quite poignant and relevant to life today.

About the Guest:

Elizabeth Louis is an executive performance coach who guides high performers, STEM executives, top athletes, and driven entrepreneurs who want to increase their impact, influence, and income.

Her work lies at the intersection of neuroscience and the psychology of high performance: She is a trained therapist with graduate degrees in Positive Psychology and education in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, and a decade of experience coaching top executives.

Through her 1:1 coaching for hundreds of clients, she creates personalized programs to help leaders eliminate the limiting mindsets holding them back — and upgrade their identities by leveraging the power of neuroplasticity, new thought patterns, effective communication, and influential leadership by creating psychological safety for teams.

For Elizabeth, the ultimate goal is both the tangible and the intangible. Her evidence-based approaches lead to business results backed by data, and the permanent changes are priceless: a champion mindset that creates meaning in your life and in the lives of others.

Ways to connect with Alexandra:

Website: ElizabethLouis.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethLouisCoaching

Instagram: instagram.com/elizabethlouiscoaching

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ElizabethLouis

Linkedin personal profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louiselizabeth/

Call to action:

What thinking trap is limiting your performance? elizabethlouis.com/thinkingtrapquiz

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, and welcome to an episode of unstoppable mindset. Today, we get to introduce to you and get to chat with an executive coach. She says she’s an executive performance coach, and she deals with a lot of people from athletes to high performers in a variety of environments. And I’m gonna really be interested to hear about all that. But that comes later. Now we got to start by saying hi to Elizabeth, and we really appreciate you being here. And welcome to unstoppable mindset.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 01:53
Thank you so much, Michael. I am so excited to be here.
 
Michael Hingson ** 01:56
Well, we’re we’re glad you’re here. Now. Where are you located?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 02:00
I’m in Virginia.
 
Michael Hingson ** 02:04
So is it hot?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 02:06
Oh, gosh, yes. It’s like a light switch flipped and all of a sudden the humidity came. But it was it was a we didn’t get that humidity until later. Which you know, you gotta take the winds. Yeah.
 
Michael Hingson ** 02:16
Well, for people who want to know, this is the summertime for all of us when we’re recording this. And right now, here. It’s 97 degrees in Southern California on the high desert. And it’s about 11:34am. So we’re gonna get to 100. Today once again, but we don’t have the humidity that you do.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 02:37
Know. And but you’re actually hotter than we are right now. Because it’s only 90 degrees here. But
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 02:44
the humidity only 45%. humid. Wow. For outside, though, so maybe you guys have it worse right now.
 
Michael Hingson ** 02:56
I don’t I don’t I’ve got an air conditioner. So I’m fine. Yes, we’ll live with that. Well, I’m really glad you’re here. Looking forward to learning all about being an executive performer, coach and all that. But why don’t we start with the early Elizabeth, you growing up? And tell us about you? And what where you came from why you do what you do? Or anything else that you want to say?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 03:21
Oh, yeah, so I got into this by accident. Actually, I have about I don’t know, 10 or 15 years and Television and Film Producing. I know right big twist or big shift to psychology. But long story short, I had a rough childhood, like a lot of people out there. And I was mentally tortured, and I wanted to be mentally free. And I ended up being diagnosed with complex PTSD when I was 26. And there was not a single therapist that I ran into that could help me get transformation. They just wanted me to cope. And I didn’t believe in coping, I believe mental freedom was possible. And so long story short, I got my first master’s in positive psychology with a subspecialty in coaching psychology to see if I could fix myself and that’s where I fell in love with neuroscience and neurobiology and neuro psychology especially. And I ended up getting mental freedom and then I just was good at it. The rest became history
 
Michael Hingson ** 04:19
without kind of going into a lot of detail when you say mentally tortured. What does that mean? Yeah,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 04:23
that’s a great question. I so my childhood was rough. My brother tried killing me my whole childhood. I didn’t know that was like, not normal until a few years ago to be completely honest. And so I just I was very hyper vigilant. I was very stressed. I was very just always on edge ready to freak out or feel like I was being attacked and I just felt so stressed and anxious all the time. And I just wanted healing from it. I also had a handful of experiences of where I was sexually abused by professionals in the medical world. And I just wanting healing and peace to come into my soul in my mind, if that makes sense. Yeah,
 
Michael Hingson ** 05:04
I understand. Well, that’s really kind of sad. Did he ever get over doing that or wanting to do that?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 05:10
Yes, he did. Thankfully, thank the Lord, right. He’s actually not that type of person anymore. And he and I are working on our relationship. So I forgive him. I’m actually grateful because it’s helped me become such a strong and mentally tough person, which has helped me excel in my career.
 
Michael Hingson ** 05:28
Yeah. And you’ve you, you’ve, well, you sound normal, whatever that means. Right? I had to say that. For a psychologist. I had to say that. Weird
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 05:39
though normal is boring.
 
Michael Hingson ** 05:43
Well, you sound like you have your head on straight then. Yes, I did it. And we could do we could do that. So did you grow up in Virginia, where you are now? Or where are you from? Originally?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 05:54
I did grew up in Virginia. And then I moved to Atlanta, and then Africa, and then back to Virginia. That’s kind of Yeah,
 
Michael Hingson ** 06:02
what took you to Africa? Well,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 06:04
um, my background is in television producing. And so I had the privilege of doing a wildlife documentary, documentary internship. And so I lived on a game reserve for about 40 days, and it was absolutely incredible.
 
Michael Hingson ** 06:20
Did you have any up close and personal conversation with lions?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 06:23
Oh, my God. It’s funny. You say that, because I actually almost got attacked by a lion. It’s kind of a funny story. I was, I think 2425 And I was on top of the Land Rover filming the lions. And there were cubs and cubs can be very curious. Yeah. And the cub was about to jump on the hood of the Land Rover, and I’m on the roof of the Land Rover. And all of a sudden in the background, you see mommy just booking it. And so we don’t worry about the cub. We worry about mama, mama lion. And at that moment, the Ranger screamed at me Liz freeze. And the funny part is I got the worst charley horse in my hip. And that moment, and I was like, great. 24 I’m gonna die. Luckily, the we use you carry pepper spray with you when you’re, and we wafted it towards them. And so that caused them to shift but had I lived? It would have been really cool to be like, Look, my lion scar. Just totally Trump’s your SharkBite.
 
Michael Hingson ** 07:20
Yeah. Well, but still who wants to deal with the pain if you don’t have to?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 07:27
Exactly, especially in a second world? Country?
 
Michael Hingson ** 07:31
And what was the lion Mata you was the cub who was curious, but that’s the way lions are.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 07:36
Mama lions are very protective male lions don’t do a lot that look look scary.
 
Michael Hingson ** 07:41
Yeah, they’re not. It’s fair. So what other kinds of things did you do while doing television producing and so on?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 07:50
Well, I did on a range of things. I mean, I’ve worked with Turner entertainment B et. I did a lot of freelance stuff, working on small independent projects. I have done stuff in front of the camera behind the camera. I really liked line producing at the time, but then it just got very political and I don’t know I think television shows today are more dark than they’ve ever been. And I’m okay to not be in it anymore.
 
Michael Hingson ** 08:19
Yeah, it gets a little bit tiring to be involved in dark i I must admit, I like a lot of the older television shows even the the the ones that are more serious than the drag that’s in Perry Mason’s and other things of the world. But I like mash and Happy Days and other things like that. And the Twilight Zone, they’re just not as dark at all is a lot of what we see today. I would
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 08:43
agree. And the older stuff actually has a plot nowadays, it’s just action. And I’m like, this made no sense. And this is so unrealistic.
 
Michael Hingson ** 08:53
The the exceptions that you can make an excuse for things like we just went to see Indiana Jones and the dial of destiny. Oh, and there are inconsistencies like in one scene. One of the good guys ends up underwater and gets out of some handcuffs, his flashlight dies. But the next day, he’s got a flashlight again, and you’re going where did that come from? But that’s what makes that kind of movie fun. It’s just an action fun film. Not dark at all. In a lot of senses. It’s just good entertainment. It was a lot of fun. Awesome.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 09:29
Yeah, it’s nice to hear that. That stuff is coming back out. Because for a while there, it was just like oh my,
 
Michael Hingson ** 09:37
my niece and I went to see it. And I kept saying to her during and then after the movie, I kept saying, gee, I wish they have a little action in this movie. I mean, there was a chase scene every 10th of a second. It was great. It was fun. But but you know, we need some of that to get away from a lot of things. And it seems to me that all All too often people take life so seriously. And they worry about all sorts of things over which they don’t have any influence or control, but they still worry about them anyway. Right? So true. So how did you and when did you get into coaching?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 10:15
Um, it was a fluke, to be honest. So I went to graduate school to get my degree in positive psychology with a subspecialty and coaching psychology. And before I even graduated, I was naturally gifted at it, I guess you could say, and my professors started giving me their overflow of clientele. And I started pretty early on professionally at least, I will say, I realized I started doing this when I was eight years old, not knowing I was doing it because I was the therapist of the family. I kind of my because my dad died when I was seven. So my mom was stuck to raise with this rebellious child herself. And so a lot of times she would confide in me and students at school would confide in me, but professionally, it was in 2016 2015, when my professors were giving me their overflow. And it turned out I was just really good at getting people transformation quickly. And at that neurological level, which allows for permanency because that’s high performers want everything done, like you know, three years ago. Yeah.
 
Michael Hingson ** 11:18
Yeah. And get it done. Now, instant gratification, which doesn’t always work either. No,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 11:24
it doesn’t. And at the end of the day, rarely it does. But there’s things you can do to suffocate neurons and develop neurons.
 
Michael Hingson ** 11:34
Things like,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 11:36
well, it kind of depends on the situation. Like, for instance, if you struggle with PTSD, there is a technique that you can do, it’s a visualization technique, which is, every time you have that, that that that hurtful memory, I guess we could say reappear in your mind’s eye, if you ahead of time are really familiar with that area, you constantly take a step back in your mind’s eye, and the less you feed it, the more that neurons will suffocate in a different situation. Like let’s say you’re trying to create new synaptic nerve connections. This is where neuroplasticity at its finest works. And so you want to change your language, you want to change the way you talk about things, you want to really upgrade your identity. And then it’s walking and crew and thinking in that identity. It’s a lot like dress for the job you want. But it’s thinking, speaking and seeing that mentality. For instance, I at one point, had some health issues. And I didn’t want to have the health issues. And I went through this program that helps retrain your brain. And this is when I was got really obsessed with neuroscience. And one of the big fundamentals in getting out of sickness, if you will, is not talking about it, because the more you talk about it, the more you actually strengthen that normalcy. And we have proven in neuroscience that 98 to 75% of all mental and physical illnesses are due to your thoughts and your thinking, which means two to 25% is due to your genetics and environment. So there’s a lot to say about the power of the mind and how it operates.
 
Michael Hingson ** 13:06
Yeah, the mind is a very powerful and complex thing. Although I also think that if we would stop and think more about what we do, in our mind, we could probably learn a whole lot more about ourselves than we tend to do. Oh
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 13:23
my gosh, Michael, I love you. Yes. And you know, really what you’re saying there is people with a prefrontal cortex are amazing. But most people are living in their limbic system. It’s it’s like when you call in for so many are like, Can you Can I speak to someone with a brain and not just the automated answers you’ve been told to give me. But you know, we are, you know, the brain develops back to front. And so unfortunately, not a lot of people are taught how to think anymore.
 
Michael Hingson ** 13:49
No, and and I’m sure there was a lot of that that has always gone on. But certainly nowadays, I think that people are much less, not really encouraged to think we’re not encouraged to be curious, which is so disappointing. It
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 14:05
really is. I think curiosity is really a skill that can empower you to do so much.
 
Michael Hingson ** 14:14
Well, it certainly can. And one of my favorite books is a book by Richard Fineman, the physicist is entitled surely you’re joking Mr. Fineman adventures of a curious fellow in the first chapter. He talks about being curious, he said his father always encouraged him to be curious, like they were out in a park or something and there was a bird flying and his father said, why is that bird flying? You know, and just really encouraged and of course for a good physicist, a theoretical physicists but not just physicists, I think for anyone. Yeah, Curiosity is such an important thing. why things are as they are, how, how can they possibly be better or or what, what do I need to do from for me and for the world that will make it better. And being curious about stuff is just something we so strongly discourage. I remember once being in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. And typically, art museums don’t really do a lot for me, because everything’s behind glass. But my wife and I were there and there was a statue up on a pedestal. And she said, it’s a really tall pedestal, and I reached up and I could touch the top of the pedestal and the toe of this woman’s foot. And this guard shoots over don’t touch that you can’t touch that. Well, the reality is that, how am I going to know anything about it, and he had no sympathy or understanding, when in reality, there should be no reason why at least, people who can’t see sculptures and other things ought not to be able to feel them. They can create procedures in museums and so on to allow for that. But they don’t, because they operate under different principles like arts made to be seen. Well, it’s not just me to be seen sports fans. Exactly. Well said, you know, and we really don’t tend to encourage curiosity, my father and my mother did. My dad, especially I think, because my mom didn’t think about as much she, I won’t say, took me for granted in a negative way. Not at all. Both of them didn’t care that I happened to be growing up blind. The doctors told them early on that I should be put away in a home for handicapped children, because no blind child could ever go up to mount anything. And my parents said nuts to that. And so they that never was an issue. They didn’t deal with me in a in a negative way. I can’t say that they didn’t deal with me in a different way. Because there are things that you’re going to do differently. I learned braille instead of reading print. Right. But my dad especially encouraged curiosity. And I thought that was great. Yeah,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 17:00
I think that’s great, too. I’m someone that was naturally curious, like I’m most Social Learner, which means you deserve to learn at the end of the day, in your physicists example is perfect. Because as a as a psychologist, I’m constantly asking those questions, right? Especially when it comes to language. Like, why is that person using that word out of all the words that they could use? Or what does that word mean? Or what would it look like? Like this? Like, I can get to a point where it’s like, I don’t know if you ever saw Toy Story five, but I feel like I’m 40 sometimes where I’m just like, Oh, me, I could go into such a bunny trails.
 
Michael Hingson ** 17:38
Yeah. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Shouldn’t be, but unfortunately, all too often. We seem to think that it isn’t the right thing to do. Well, it’s exactly the right thing to do. Well, if I were an alien up in space, looking down at Earth, I wouldn’t want to come here, given the way people behave. If they’re at all peaceful, they would, would really encourage curiosity. But you know,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 18:00
that’s Yeah, well, you know, Curiosity is huge and empathy, too. It’s really hard to be empathetic if you can’t be curious. Yeah.
 
Michael Hingson ** 18:11
Yeah, it’s, it’s important to be able to do that. Yes,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 18:14
I mean, so important. And unfortunately, America has become more self absorbed and more AI centric. And that is a big downfall and curiosity because it just makes you consumed with yourself and not your community.
 
Michael Hingson ** 18:26
What do you think it’s that way? Why is that happening?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 18:30
Great question. Hi. I mean, I think a big part is social media. When I lived in South Africa, I will say I really saw the influence of Hollywood at a very different angle. And so I think we are just, I mean, we’ll also Anglo Saxons. I mean, if you if you trace it back to all the way to when we came when the English came here, that was one of the reasons why they wanted to come here was that independence and Anglo Saxons have always preached it’s Ay ay ay and not really a oui oui, oui, now it’s shifted drastically, I’d argue from when they first came. It’s gotten greater than the I’m mentality.
 
Michael Hingson ** 19:08
Yeah, we have forgotten what teamwork is really all about so much.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 19:13
Yeah. And you really see that in corporations.
 
Michael Hingson ** 19:17
I’ve heard of corporations, large corporations without mentioning any names where, at the end of the day, when a team does something great, who gets rewarded, who gets recognized the team leader, not necessarily the whole team, which is so unfortunate because the team leader is usually made to look good by the rest of the people on the team. And the reality is it should be a team effort.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 19:40
Agreed. I totally agree. And I think this is also why so many corporations are struggling to keep competent individuals. Yeah.
 
Michael Hingson ** 19:50
They forget what team is all about. I mean, there’s so much truth to the idea that there is no I in team. It
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 19:57
really is. It really is. I mean, Who knows what the next 30 years will bring?
 
Michael Hingson ** 20:04
Well, the other side of it is that I tend to be pretty optimistic and believe that in the long run, things will work themselves out. And I don’t know what it is necessarily going to take to make that happen. But I’ve got to believe that we can, we can learn and we can grow, and we can get better. Absolutely.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 20:22
And I think you’re going to see, I would agree with that. And I think we’re going to see those who are more humble, and considerate and we focused are going to be the ones that will probably propel forward because people People want to feel included. I mean, it’s in our wiring to have a community and to love our community and care for our community. We aren’t wired to be isolated.
 
Michael Hingson ** 20:47
How do we get back to that, though? Or how do we move forward to that?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 20:52
I think humility is going to be the biggest thing, right? But you have to desire that and you can’t force someone to want to get help if they don’t want help. But you can love people, even the most toxic people.
 
Michael Hingson ** 21:03
Right? But I think humility, or adopting a humble attitude is certainly something that makes a lot of sense. That’s a very good point. Because again, all too often it’s just I and me and not recognizing the the fact that it’s us. Yeah,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 21:21
I mean, because if you think about it, like we are, if you like it or not, we are connected. And it’s healthier to be interdependent versus codependent, or self dependent. And like if you decide intentionally or not intentionally to get in a car accident, you impact everyone around you. And so you have to remember and that’s that power of mindfulness. And mindfulness requires curiosity to to a degree, to remember that your actions do impact those around you regardless if you want to, believe it or not. Your opinion to that doesn’t matter.
 
Michael Hingson ** 21:52
Yeah, so what exactly would you say is mindfulness?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 21:56
Mindfulness is is, you know, the more I study it, the more I think it’s bigger than I’m able to articulate in this one will statement. But mindfulness is being open and observing with curiosity and being judgment free. So it’s having a non judgmental stance was tremendous curiosity, I think you have to have acceptance in it too, personally, meaning that you’re open to the sensations and the feelings that your experience without trying without trying to control them?
 
Michael Hingson ** 22:24
How do you teach somebody to be more mindful or adopt a more mindfulness attitude?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 22:30
There’s lots of techniques. I mean, I think this is where it really comes to being personalized to the individual. But you know, CBT is even one of them cognitive behavior therapy. And then there’s even branches of third wave, cognitive behavior therapy that is more explicit on mindfulness. One of the first things I tell people is you’ve got to grow your self awareness. And I like to tell people imagine being a fly on the wall in your own mental mind. Because we have to your point, right, it’s like, people aren’t always aware, you have to start paying attention to your thoughts. And this kind of freaked me out when I learned it, but you can have 6000 to 70,000 thoughts a day? And that’s a lot of thoughts, right? Thoughts. I know and 95% Double Down. Exactly, exactly, no. But 95% of those thoughts are the same every single day. And 190 9% can be negative on average is 80%. And so I think you have to learn what your thinking style is, I do have a fun free quiz that will score you in 17 of the most common thinking traps. And you find that on my website, Elizabeth lewis.com. But what I found for mindfulness is it’s it’s it’s shifting from that fixed mindset of I have to be perfect, or I have to be this way, or I should do this. And getting to know yourself. So many of us don’t know who we are as adults, we we’ve been frozen ourselves as who we were as children.
 
Michael Hingson ** 23:57
I think you sent me a link to that. And Ted, and we will include that in the notes. So hopefully people will will do that. And take the quiz. I haven’t had a chance yet. It’s been pretty hectic, but I do want to go take it. I’m going to be curious to see what it see. There we are back to curiosity again. Yes,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 24:16
I think, you know, I also think a lot of this is making up your mind and just doing it. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a situation in your life where you’re like, you know what, I’m just gonna make up my mind and this is what I’m gonna do burn the ships and move forward that can sometimes create a huge change in your life.
 
Michael Hingson ** 24:33
Yeah, I mean, making up your mind making a decision. And again, I think it’s important to do it for the right reason. So you make up your mind to do something and it doesn’t necessarily work out just as you thought it would. Even that’s okay. I I used to say all the time, I’m my own worst critic. Everybody does, right. They say I’m my own worst critic. I I’m gonna I don’t want to look at this because I’m my own worst critic. What I’ve learned is, I’m my own best teacher, because I read somewhere, no one can teach you anything. You have to teach yourself. They can provide you the opportunity, they can tide you provide you the way, but you have to teach yourself. And I’ve learned that when I talk about listening to speeches, whenever I give a speech or listening to podcasts, when I do these, I love to go back and listen, because I want to hear me and see how I can make it better. But I’ve learned that it’s not I’m my own worst critic, which is negative. It’s I’m my own best teacher, which clearly is positive, and I can learn from even the best podcasts, or the best. I have the best of whatever I do, I can learn from that.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 25:40
Spoken like a true optimist.
 
Michael Hingson ** 25:44
I love it. Oh, I’ve tended to be pretty optimistic in the world. Well, what you talk a lot about tough minded optimists. What is a tough minded optimist?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 25:53
A tough minded optimist is an individual who is usually faith driven, courageous, they’re strong minded, they’re positive, decisive, confident and intentional. And they value treating people with that unconditional love, that kindness, that compassion and that encouragement, I think a lot of people forget that. You can be a tough individual, right? You can be strong, determined able to face while also creating a framework of unconditional love or kindness. A lot of times I’m learning with some of my clients that they think it’s one or the other is that all or nothing thinking, which is a dangerous trap to fall in. But you can you can have two opposing truths, if you will coexist. And it’s it’s learning how to rely on your resilience. And that optimism that something it really expecting something good to happen in the future is going to be your reward and whatever you’re pursuing.
 
Michael Hingson ** 26:49
Yeah, I think we oftentimes belt develop the wrong idea of what tough and tough mindedness needs to mean, I think it’s resilient. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re single minded to the point that you can’t be open to other things and learn and grow from what you’re doing. But you have to start somewhere.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 27:08
Agree it and I also don’t think it means being aggressive, like, negatively aggressive, you can be assertive and still loving. And so it’s again that that it’s coming from that intentionality of kindness. Yeah,
 
Michael Hingson ** 27:21
and love is something that is all around us and ought to be, I think, is Henry Drummond, who wrote the book, Love is the greatest thing in the world. It’s a very short book, but it’s a very relevant book, I think everyone should read because it, it talks about the fact that at the root of everything, love is really there.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 27:39
It really it really is, you just have to look for it. And unfortunately, not a lot of people have been given love. They know performance, love, but they don’t know the type of love that humans really require. Which is unfortunate, but true.
 
Michael Hingson ** 27:56
I talk about dogs a lot and talk about the fact that I do believe what people say that dogs love unconditionally. I don’t think there’s a question of that. I think that’s in their makeup. They don’t trust unconditionally, however. But the difference between dogs and what people have learned is that dogs are more open to developing a trusting relationship. And we tend to be, we could learn a lot from dogs in that, in that sense. Absolutely.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 28:24
And we could take it a little bit further to you know, dogs don’t have the best memory, obviously, their prefrontal cortex is only 7% of their brain, whereas humans are 25% Not that our prefrontal cortex is where our memories are stored. But you know, the one thing about memories and the way our brain works is, you can’t your memories not accurate at the end of the day. And so so many people get so locked in their past, when they’re remembering their memories different every single time they remember them. And so you have to learn how to just let him go, my friend and I have a saying that every time our dogs blink, it’s a new day, because their memory is so short. And it’s like that’s kind of the attitude you have to take you have to learn how to forgive and move forward. Not to say you need to enable people who hurt you. I mean, there’s boundaries, right? But it’s really learning how to like let go and move forward and hope for the best your past does not define your future.
 
Michael Hingson ** 29:17
And that’s really the issue your past can help you shape your future but that depends on how you choose to deal with it. Exactly.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 29:24
And your overall I would say identity which is your you know your mindset, your lens and your and your language and how you see the world. Yeah.
 
Michael Hingson ** 29:34
And I think that all too often I think you’re right we we allow our memories to surface and sometimes some pretty strange ways. I think that we can learn to look at our memories and we can learn to learn from our memories, but again, we don’t tend to very easily go into a mode of at the end of the day. Do some introspection in our worlds
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 30:01
agree. And whenever I tell my whenever I have to do like trauma therapy with my clients, I remind them that you know how you’re going to recall this traumatic memory is 100% Based on your self confidence, in your opinion of yourself today and the relations of these people. I mean, you cannot trust your memories, you can take insights and fine wisdoms and seeds in it. But you cannot accurately say that this memory is exactly what happened because your brain distorts it.
 
Michael Hingson ** 30:31
Oh, can you learn? Or can you learn to? And can you help your brain developed to be more accurate and really relaying memories to you?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 30:40
There’s things you can do to improve memory like, you know, older adults, it’s really important for them to exercise at least three times a week. That is it has been proven to grow the hippocampus. But when it comes to like, accurate event memories, there’s been a lot of interesting studies, you’re not going to remember it effectively. There was this one study, and I can’t remember who did it. But they they asked 14 year olds, what their life was like they asked him a series of questions about the quality of their life, the parenting, and were they faith based where they grown. And then they tracked them down in their 50s. And they asked them the same questions. And their answers completely contradicted. You know, the person who said they had a great childhood as an adult that they had a horrible childhood, the person who said I was raised as a Christian, as a child said, I was not raised as a Christian as an adult. And so your memories are really going to change based off of your perspective of life. So you really, you can’t trust them. And really, the human brain was designed to not hold on to memories like that. But to be more Ford Focus, it’s almost like a car, right? Like your windshield is the biggest window, you can see where the side side mirrors and the back mirror is very small for a reason, because we’re supposed to be going forward, not backwards, right?
 
Michael Hingson ** 31:59
Well, I know that when I think about my childhood, personally, and I have always, I think had pretty vivid memories of growing up. I don’t view my childhood differently than I used to. But I do think that I sometimes express it differently. Like, I learned braille when I was in kindergarten in Chicago, and then the next year, we moved to California, and I didn’t have a Braille teacher, or any kind of blindness related kind of teachings, until I went into the fourth grade, because we moved to a pretty rural area. And there were no teachers around to teach any of those skills. I would say today that I was probably more bored during, especially kindergarten, and not necessarily as active as other people in the class because I couldn’t read books out loud or be part of a lot of those activities. But I also know deep down, I wasn’t really bored. I listened. Right. So I, I think about that. So I’m sure in some senses, I could say I was probably more bored. But I don’t recall being bored. But I do recall that, you know, I didn’t have the opportunity to participate just like anyone else did, until I got to the fourth grade. And that was exciting, because then Braille books started arriving, which helped. But I’ve always really tried to keep memories and work. And I as a speaker for the last 22 years, I love to go back and listen even to some of the earlier presentations that I’ve given. Because I think they’re also closer to September 11, having worked in the World Trade Center on that day. And I think that the earlier experiences are closer to it. But I like to go back and listen and make sure that I’m not changing a story. Unless there’s some reason to add value. And I’ve had a few of those were there, there was a reason to, to change part of the story and add some value to it. But the memories are still the same.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 34:07
And some of those memories kind of more so border on facts of the overview, but when it comes to details of stuff, most of the time, you’re inaccurate, and depending on you know what you’ve endured, you’ll shift things. Memories. I mean, it’s just not it’s we’re not supposed to spend that much time in our past. Right. Bringing your future into Your presence,
 
Michael Hingson ** 34:25
right. Yeah. And so when I think of the past, it’s all about what did I learn that I can use and one of the things that I have fun doing is I talk to people often about making choices, and one of the speeches that I give is all about making choices and that your choices are water going to in large part determine the direction you go, and I can trace back a long way to choices that I made that got me to the World Trade Center and got me to where I am today. And I can also then look at those and say If I make a good choice was the bad choice. And at the end of the day, did it really matter? Because it was still the choice that I made? It
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 35:08
is true, right? Your choices are so important. It’s it’s definitely important to be intentional with a lot of choices.
 
Michael Hingson ** 35:18
Yeah. And I think it’s, I think it’s important to look at, again, yourself at the end of every day and see how you can grow and improve from it. Like I said, we’re our own best teachers. Well, I have brain
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 35:31
Oh, sorry, no, go ahead. I was gonna say, well, the brain works best by reflection, discussion and movements. So one of the most powerful things you can do is intentionally reflect. I agree with that. I always reflect on my day at the end of the day, and I asked myself, Where can I? Where can I have been better? What did I learn? And how was I a champion today? Just to just to learn, right? I think reflection is so so powerful, because you, we’re always learning, we’re never gonna get life perfect.
 
Michael Hingson ** 36:01
What’s the other side of it is not only what could I have done better, but in the things that really went, well, anything else I could have done to enhance it? And I don’t mind asking myself that question. And hopefully, sometimes get an answer that says, yeah, here’s something else you could have done.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 36:16
Yeah. Or that awareness piece, right? Like, I think yesterday, I was slightly neurotic. And I like took a timeout and reflected like, Hey, why am I being neurotic and figured out the answer and move forward and re reoriented? And just, yeah, back to work?
 
Michael Hingson ** 36:31
How do you help teach somebody to be a tough minded optimist,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 36:38
that’s very much depends on where they are, and a little bit of their natural psychology. So one of the first things I do when I enroll a new client is I do a needs analysis. And it’s where I get them to take four assessments. And I study and aggregate their data pretty aggressively to really have a thorough concept of who they are and how their mind thinks. And also the best way for me to teach them since that’s so customizable, and one of the first things I look at as a psychometric assessment that scores them in 23, psychometrics, and there’s actually a personality trait of tough mindedness that I look at as well as recognition and trust. And then their their ambition scores. And then from there, I kind of have to identify what’s most impactful. For instance, if someone comes in and they have a very low score and trust, that tells me they’re a pessimist, because trust and optimism are directly connected, just like low trust and pessimism are directly connected. So first, I have to increase their positive thinking, and usually their self efficacy. You’ve worked with a lot of high performers, maybe you’ve had this experience too, but some of them have very poor interpersonal traits. So they have low self esteem, they’ve got low self confidence, they’re not very tough minded. They don’t have the best ability at controlling their emotions and their temperament. And so first, you have to make sure the groundwork is done before we start building that first or second storey house. And then once we have the self efficacy and self confidence, and trust, strong, and we have their thinking more positive and their awareness grown, then it’s teaching them how not to personalize things. And this is going to be very dependent on that thinking trap assessment. For instance, there is a thinking trap, that is called personalization, or discounting the positives. I want to know how quickly are they taking things to heart? Because let’s be honest, Michael, like everyone has an opinion. And they’re they all stink. They all say like, you don’t have to agree with someone just because they say it. And that’s why I look at that recognition score. Because I’ve learned high recognition, and sometimes even high nurturance can be a result of fear of man, meaning, you really see humans have the ability to affirm your worth, and you see them bigger than God or you might struggle codependency or peer pressure or people pleasing. And so we want to like take back power where power was never meant to be, if that makes sense. Yeah,
 
Michael Hingson ** 39:07
it does. It’s interesting. It’s interesting that you say that, that an optimist is usually a person that that tends to be very trusting or has a lot of trust. The other side of that, though, is oftentimes don’t people misplaced trust? And is that is that a skill that we need to better learn? Well,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 39:30
usually people who are misplacing their trust also have really high nurturance. And so they are that borderline codependent person that really is out of touch with their own emotions and wants to see the good in everything. So you have to have boundaries at the end of the day. I mean, I believe respecting people and always giving people the benefit of the doubt, but it’s very easy to misplace your trust, especially if you come from trauma, I think, not to single out women but I just have seen it more in women Men, sometimes when there’s been a woman who’s had a traumatic past, they overshare. And it’s like, stop, stop overly trusting people with your personal life, you have to learn some boundaries and learn that some of getting to know you is earned. You can’t just blindly trust people and be foolish, there is a strategy, I guess we could argue to it.
 
Michael Hingson ** 40:21
Yeah, I think that’s probably make some sense that, that it’s all about boundaries. Again, it gets back to like with the dog being open to trust. And I probably tend to be a little bit more trusting than I should. But I also have learned that while that’s the case, I also say, okay, ultimately, I’m going to be open to trusting this individual, and I want them to trust me. But I’m going to look at everything that happens between us and so on, in order to decide whether I can put my trust in this individual. And I should do that to learn whether I trust them, I’m going to trust them, or do they have some other agenda? And and that’s a problem.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 41:08
Exactly. And, you know, it’s always important to reevaluate your relationships and who you’re interacting with. Because sometimes you just gotta let people go, because it’s not worth the energy. It’s not worth the enabling them, right. And that’s why you have to look at that high nurturance. Because those with high nurturance are more prone to enabling right there’s a difference between forgiving and enabling. If someone keeps hitting you stop going back to them. You can forgive them from a distance. Yeah.
 
Michael Hingson ** 41:37
And that’s the point you can forgive them. But you can do that from a distance. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Yeah, just like you don’t have to, you don’t have to go back and say, I forgive you just so they can punch you in the mouth. Exactly.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 41:47
Like sometimes you have to learn how to love people from afar. Yeah,
 
Michael Hingson ** 41:52
but still, love is the important part. Yeah,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 41:55
yeah. And you have to remember to and I think we don’t do a good job, really in the world with this. But I think especially in America, love doesn’t take away love freely gives. Whereas lust takes away. I always kind of chuckle when I get a client. They’re like, they they’re dating. Some of them like I’m so in love. I’m like, it’s three months, it’s three months, come on, you don’t really know him that well, that last phase can last for about 24 months is what research this.
 
Michael Hingson ** 42:21
When my wife and I decided to get married, we met in January of 1982. And in July, I proposed we, we we didn’t talk a whole lot from January to probably the middle of March. And then we started talking more. She was a travel agent and I traveled I needed to travel to Hawaii, I needed to travel to Hawaii for some sales work that I needed to do in May. So I took my parents along. Karen was a travel agent. So she did our tickets and all that. And I just made the decision kind of on the way over I wanted to keep in touch with her and I called her twice a day from Hawaii. And that was fun. But in July, we propose I proposed and we got married in November. But we both have talked about that a lot since and what we decided was, we really knew from our own points of view what we wanted in a person. She was 33. I was 32. I would love to say I taught her everything. But you know, but but we were old enough that we approached it from the standpoint and we really knew what we wanted in a person. And it worked out for 40 years. Unfortunately, she passed this past November, but we were married 40 years. That’s
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 43:36
amazing. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s a big difference. You know, when I was saying that comment I was moreso thinking of, yeah, like clients who are serial daters who fall in love very quickly, in their mind’s eye, right? You know, every girl or man they they get, it’s like I’m in love. And I’m like, we need to maybe get you really clear on what she wants. Yeah.
 
Michael Hingson ** 43:58
And I know some people who are near my age who are and even and even, like 10 years younger, and they just decide they don’t want to be alone, and they’re off dating other people and all that. And that’s fine. I think for me, I’m not sure that there would be a lot of relevance in in dating. And besides that, I know my wife is keeping an eye on me if I misbehave, I’m going to hear about it.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 44:24
Yeah. Well, and I think really what we’re saying without saying it is the intention is so different, right? You know, it sounds like you and your late wife wanted to really create a partnership, whereas these people who are dating because they don’t want to be alone. That’s really a selfish reason of dating at the end of the day, you really stop and think about it.
 
Michael Hingson ** 44:43
Yeah, it is. And the reality is, that’s going back to you instead of a Wii. And maybe sometimes it sort of works, but is it really working? Because if you’re doing it just because you want to be you don’t want to be alone. That’s the problem. Blum,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 45:00
it really is. And it’s I’m going to also say it’s not going to last, which is enforced right now. Yeah.
 
Michael Hingson ** 45:08
And it won’t something is going to happen. Or if it if it lasts, it’s going to be tumultuous. Oh,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 45:16
gosh, yes. Yeah. I mean, you were married for quite a bit time. I mean, it takes selflessness to be in a successful relationship.
 
Michael Hingson ** 45:23
Yeah. But it is so much fun. Yeah,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 45:27
yes, it really is. When you meet the right person and you yourself are healthy, it can be so rewarding.
 
Michael Hingson ** 45:33
Yeah. works out really well. Well, talking about the whole business of tough minded optimist, and so on again. The reality is we’ve we’ve discussed a lot about adversity and things that are a challenge in life. How does a tough minded optimists deal with adversity as opposed to other people? I gather, we’re saying that the tough minded optimist is the way to go. I
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 45:57
think so I might, you might be biased to that.
 
Michael Hingson ** 46:03
Maybe we shouldn’t talk about it. Just kidding. Yeah, what the heck it makes for a good podcast. Right?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 46:08
You know, most of the time. pessimist are just so easily defeated by adversity. And they fall into a huge spiral of self pity and even depression, which is, you know, a big, big umbrella. But what I’ve learned is the tough minded optimist, sees adversity as an opportunity to increase their character, their endurance, endurance, to grow, their faith, their hope, their belief, you know, they see these negative events as minor setbacks to be easily overcome and view positive events as evidence of further good things to come. Right. So it’s not about like, pursuing the materialism. It’s, it’s about sharpening their skills in developing their character developing their endurance more, so that they can have just a better outcome, right? It’s just it’s an opera. It’s like a trial right here. It’s like, here’s your opportunity to fight like a gladiator. Are you going to win? Are you going to lose? Are you going to be tough? You’re going to do it? Are you going to sit there and complain? It’s kind of am I allowed to cuss? Because I don’t like to cuss but it’s kind of like shit or get off the pie. Right? This is what you’re facing. Let’s make the best of it and see it as a challenge, not as a problem.
 
Michael Hingson ** 47:20
Yeah. And, of course, that gets back to the whole issue of optimism. If you regard everything as a problem. You’re never going to grow. Oh,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 47:30
and you’re gonna have a crappy life. Because let’s be real, you’re gonna go from one problem to one problem. Life is rarely smooth sailing. Yeah.
 
Michael Hingson ** 47:39
So what does that get you? There’s nothing wrong with challenges. It’s all a question of how we deal with it and how we decide to approach life. I’ve always regarded life as an adventure. Like I regard the internet as a treasure trove of adventure. It’s, it’s, you know, there’s the dark web and all that I appreciate that and have no interested in ever accessing it. If I have, I don’t know what, and that’s fine. But it’s such an adventurous process to be able to deal with so much information. Rather than I have to have all of this information at my fingertips. I like the adventure.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 48:15
Yeah, and you know, what I love you, you shared there, this kind of goes back to curiosity, you know, that have to is such a perfectionistic mindset, right? You know, you desire to know all the knowledge versus that growth mindset of curiosity, and what’s out there. I mean, I don’t know how I don’t know how people found information in the olden days. Now, I love encyclopedias. But you can just do it so much faster on the internet, and I will spend hours just researching and being curious and just learning because it’s just so fascinating. All the things out there. Yeah,
 
Michael Hingson ** 48:49
and there’s so much and it’s growing every day. Now, the unfortunate part is that most of the websites that are out there are not very accessible to people who are blind or who have a lot of other disabilities. It’s like 98% of all websites, which is what accessibility helps to eliminate. But that also is an area of growth, where I think over time, we will recognize that we need to be more inclusive in presenting information so everyone has access to it. But it does tend to be a problem because again, we deal with the eye instead of the US. I
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 49:20
would agree. And in fact, Michael I didn’t even think about that, which I feel horrible, but I’m gonna admit it until I met you and then I was like, Oh my gosh, I need to fix my website so that it’s more accessible to everyone because that was something I had never even it was like out of sight out of mind as much as I don’t want to admit that.
 
Michael Hingson ** 49:36
Well. I use out of sight out of mind all the time. I have a whole bunch of boxes a thin mints here at the house. I support the Girl Scouts, but a lot of them are in the freezer and a lot of them are up on a shelf and unless I happen to think about it, or happen to touch one of the boxes out of sight out of mind and they will be up there so I have a stash
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 50:02
I’m going to come to your house.
 
Michael Hingson ** 50:04
We have plenty of Thin Mints, and and venture fools and they’re available. Like I said, supporting the Girl Scouts is an important thing to do, but they don’t get eaten very fast. And so I’ve worked at keeping a decent weight. Oh, that’s
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 50:18
good. Because excuse. That’s your, that’s your excuse for sticking to it like it. Yeah,
 
Michael Hingson ** 50:23
that’s it. That’s it. But it’s but you know, but it’s, but it’s interesting that we really look at things in such interesting ways. And I and I hope that we’ll all grow to be a little bit more open to the the weak concept, but it is a it is a challenge and it’s in it’s a skill that we need to learn. And I love your whole concept of tough minded optimist, because it’s a skill. And it is something that anyone can develop if we work at it,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 50:53
when it’s actually easier to be optimistic than pessimistic. Because let’s be real, if fear felt good. Like we would do it more but feel fear, like we’re not wired for fear. That’s why it feels horrible. Whereas Love feels amazing. And so many of the pessimists out there are just bringing so much stress and anxiety onto their beings, when they don’t have to like at some point, you have to learn how to focus on what’s in your control and let go of everything else. Yeah,
 
Michael Hingson ** 51:26
absolutely. The most important thing, and I think the most important concept that any of us could learn in today’s world is don’t worry about what you can’t control focus on what you can’t because it’ll not drive you crazy to do that.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 51:40
I would agree. Last year, I went to a nurse psychotherapy training with some elite Ivy League professors and I was so excited to like nerd out with them because I specialize in neuro psychotherapy. So as a neuropsychologist conference, I apologize. And I was really excited to hear the like technicality and the jargon. And the biggest takeaway from one of the professor’s was just like you have to learn how to control what you can control and let go of everything else. That is the biggest skill and the biggest freedom and I was just like, I’m so in agreement to that. But I was really expecting more nerdiness but I’ll take it.
 
Michael Hingson ** 52:16
Picky, picky, picky, right
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 52:18
to write but it but that’s the thing. Life is so much more simpler, then so many humans want to realize,
 
Michael Hingson ** 52:26
yeah, it is just not that complicated. Now, I understand that it isn’t necessarily easy to do. I have groused on this podcast a few times about weather prognosticators. So we had such rain and snow. even close to me, we live in a valley. So we got two inches of snow one Saturday afternoon. And that was the biggest snowstorm we had. So the kids didn’t even get a snow day. But ski resorts within 30 miles of us that were five and six and 7000 feet higher than than we were. And they got a lot of snow. Okay, I appreciate that. And it was so much though that the some buildings collapsed and all that. And people were complaining about that. Then we got into May and all I kept hearing from all the weather people was May gray and June Gloom, it’s gonna be cloudy and and you know, when are we going to get the sunshine and I’m sitting there going. You don’t want to talk about the rest of what happens when we get all that sunshine, which is like 100 plus degrees and wildfires. Now we have 100 plus degrees of wildfires. And they’re complaining that we’re going to have to put up with his heat for so long. You can’t ever
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 53:36
please. No. But you know what, those people are pessimistic at the end of the day. Look at their focus. It’s negative.
 
Michael Hingson ** 53:42
Yeah, that’s exactly the point is it’s all negative. And it isn’t doing any good. They have forgotten how to report and they want to put all this pessimism into it, which is so frustrating. Yeah, I hope people who are listening to happen to do the weather and you’ll think about doing it differently in the future. Right? You’re gonna say,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 54:01
Oh, I don’t even remember anymore. I would agree. I stopped watching the news and especially the weather. Now I just like look at the radar. And I still have the same beliefs with the radar, as I do with the people because I mean, they’re given it their best guess they could they could verbalize it with with optimism. But you know what the Newton. I mean, you’ve been around when the news went off. You know where it wasn’t 24/7 the tone of the news has become more and more negative. And obviously, sensationalism sells, but like, I guess I’m still baffled that people are willing to accept it when it’s like we know that this is their tone is negative. It’s you’re not going to hear great things.
 
Michael Hingson ** 54:48
Once again, we’re lowering our standards.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 54:50
Yeah, very well said my drop.
 
Michael Hingson ** 54:54
It’s It’s pretty amazing. And it’s so unfortunate that that it has to be that way. And you’re right I do Do appreciate that sensationalism sells. But there are ways to present it. And then there are ways that maybe it shouldn’t be presented. And I think that the media has an obligation to teach. And it’s just unfortunate that they’ve not learned about how to teach. I
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 55:17
used to work in the news, it’s, it’s it’s such a business as it’s gone. 24/7 And it used to be there, they would, they would teach, and they would share objectively and allow you to draw your own conclusions. Now, it’s like, this is what you have to think. And if you don’t think with it, if you don’t agree, then you’re wrong. You know, we don’t have the ability to hold opposing truths anymore, like we used to, it’s the lack of respect has decreased, I think we’ve
 
Michael Hingson ** 55:48
forgotten how to have conversations to
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 55:52
or like the fact that we could be friends, even if we have opposing opinions. Yeah. It’s possible, the
 
Michael Hingson ** 56:01
founder of the National Federation of the Blind, Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, and his wife were from opposite political parties. Yet, they never divorced. You know, the you can disagree. And you know, there were things that my wife and I disagreed about. And I know other people who have have long running marriages, and they, they can disagree, and that’s part of what really makes a neat marriage is that you can disagree, you know, you can disagree. And it’s okay. Because back to what teamwork and Teaming is all about?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 56:38
Well, and, and I think, too, one of the reasons I believe that so many people who are my age are struggling with staying married or staying in committed relationships is because a lot of us weren’t taught how to regulate our emotions, or how to suck it up butterfly, right. We were allowed to just quit when the going got hard. And to think that you’re going to fully agree with someone 100% of the time, it’s just foolishness. I mean, your perspective is different than everyone else’s. So to think you’ll agree all the time is silly. But I think if we could teach kids how to regulate their emotions, and maybe not coddle them so much, we might have some different outcomes. Yeah.
 
Michael Hingson ** 57:20
And the other part about it is if if you agreed all the time, it’d be pretty boring. Right? It’d be a challenge. Right? I would agree. So it’s okay to differ a little. I
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 57:34
would agree, you know, and, I mean, also, most of what we talked about is opinions. Even science is a theory and for whatever, you know, first aid for theory, a theory B contradicts it. Yeah.
 
Michael Hingson ** 57:48
And then when something comes along, and we really can prove it, what a joy. Right, exactly. So what do you do when you’re not being a high performance coach?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 58:01
Oh, I love learning. Learning is something that I find so enjoyable. I love teaching, and I love exercising. My faith is really important to me. My puppy is really important to me. He’s not a puppy, but he’s a puppy.
 
Michael Hingson ** 58:17
What kind?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 58:18
He’s a Shih Tzu mix with a poodle. It’s called a sheep.
 
Michael Hingson ** 58:21
A sheep. Ooh, yeah. Yeah. They
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 58:24
are apparently popular now. But he’s, he’s about 13. He’s, he’s the apple of my life.
 
Michael Hingson ** 58:32
I have a seven year old black lab guide dog and a 13 and a half year old cat who runs the house? Yes. Yes,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 58:40
I bet. I bet. I bet it’s um, it’s funny. My I went to church this last Sunday, and there was this little short moment about cats and dogs and cats believe they are God. And dogs see their owner as God. Yeah. That’s so accurate. It
 
Michael Hingson ** 59:00
is absolutely so true. And you know, that’s okay. My cat loves to get petted while she eats. She’s developed this, and she’ll yell at me until I come and pet her while she’s eating less. And most of the time, it’s okay. But she has also developed a little bit of a nap to try to get me to come in when I’m eating and I have started to push back a little bit and say stitch I’m eating. I’ll be there when I’m done.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 59:27
Good for you.
 
Michael Hingson ** 59:30
We got it. But you know, if she really wants me that badly, then she can come out and tell me rather than yelling from the bedroom.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 59:36
It’s so my dog is like a husky in the sense of he’s very talkative like that, too. And he has to have the last word and he and I will do a little bit of what it sounds like you and your cat do and I’m like, my dog’s name some movement when I’m like, Man, we’ll just chill buddy.
 
Michael Hingson ** 59:53
Alamo the lab is absolutely wonderful and tends to just put up with anything and doesn’t complain A bit. I have yet to hear him bark. And we’ve been together since February of 2018. But but he loves attention and he thinks he’s a lap dog. If you sit on the floor, he’s going to be in your lap and he’s not going to be subtle about it. Oh,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 1:00:13
yeah, I had to buy a chair and office chair. That is for a six foot 300 pound plus man so that we could both sit together because he didn’t like the fact that he couldn’t sit with me. Now Shih Tzus are technically truly lap dogs. So you are living up to your duties. I won’t get too mad at you. But he ends up taking over the whole chair and I just give you like a little little bit of it.
 
Michael Hingson ** 1:00:36
We adopted a breeder dog from Guide Dogs for the Blind when we lived up in the Bay Area. And so the breeder dogs are the ones who create all the puppies for guide dogs. And so we we decided we wanted to be breeder keepers and we got introduced to Fantasia early in 2006. My wife has always been in a wheelchair and we knew Fantasia was the dog because when Fantasia came in the room, they were introducing dogs to us one at a time, and there were four dogs, but they thought Fantasia was going to be the one because she came right over and was up in Karen’s lap in the wheelchair. Oh, no fear of a power wheelchair whatsoever. And, and so, she, she was she was always part of the family as well, and slept on the bed. Karen let her sleep on the bed. And I had no say in the matter. What we did realize and I finally got Karen to recognize is Fantasia took her half out of the middle. Mm hmm. So maybe there was enough room for the two of us. Yeah,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 1:01:42
yeah, it’s it’s funny. I I joke with my fiance that like we should just go get an Alaskan king. Or no. What is it? The? Yeah, Alaskan King, right. It’s that huge. It’s huge. I think it’s like 12 by 10 or 10. I don’t know. It’s a ridiculously large mattress. Because our dogs just even though it’s a sheep who and a Chihuahua. Just somehow take up the whole bed. Yeah.
 
Michael Hingson ** 1:02:05
It’s a fun world. Nothing like having animals around is there? They
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 1:02:11
are amazing, right? I wish they live longer.
 
Michael Hingson ** 1:02:15
Do you have any other family? Do you have other family besides a dog?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 1:02:19
Um, no, not. I mean, I have my mom that I’m very close to and I have some good friends. But I don’t have any kids. So I just got my puppy.
 
Michael Hingson ** 1:02:27
Well, you cope.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 1:02:30
I am I do not want kids. God bless those who want kids. I have been a caretaker since I was eight years old. And it’s what I do for a living. I it’s not it’s I’ve never wanted to have kids. So I’m good with it. And I started I started nannying when I was 13, too. So I feel like I’ve gone through so many of the age groups. I’m good.
 
Michael Hingson ** 1:02:51
Well, we didn’t have kids either. We figured we just spoiled nieces and nephews because at the end of the day, we could kick them out. Exactly.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 1:02:58
That’s my thought process. My brother has two kids, two girls, and I love getting to know them. But I am though, my youngest niece just turned one and when she gets, you know, temperamental or hangry. It’s like Mom, mom, she’s yours. Okay, have a great one. I’m gonna go now.
 
Michael Hingson ** 1:03:19
If you don’t come and get them, I’m going to sell them to the gypsies, gypsies.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 1:03:22
There you go, there you go. Well,
 
Michael Hingson ** 1:03:25
I want to thank you for being here. This has absolutely been a lot of fun. And I’m glad that we had a chance to do this. And we’d love to do more of it. If you want to do it in the future, we can figure it out. But if people want to reach out to you maybe explore becoming a client and so on. How do they do that?
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 1:03:43
Um, you can reach out to me at Elizabethlouis.com You can email me at Elizabeth at Elizabeth louis.com. And it’s L O U I S I’m the weirdo Yes, I gotta call myself weird. Since you call me normal podcast. You can reach out that way. You can also follow my LinkedIn account and reach out to me on that as well.
 
Michael Hingson ** 1:04:04
Well, cool. Well, I want to thank you Elizabeth, for being here. And for spending so much time with us. I love the insights and it was absolutely every bit as fun as I hoped it would be. And I hope you listening out there feel the same way. I hope you enjoyed it. Reach out to Elizabeth I know she’d love to hear from you. And we will be putting in the notes the link to the to the free quiz that you mentioned. So people can take that and and explore what that brings. Yeah,
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 1:04:31
thank you and Michael, it has been such a delight. I would love to come back. This has been so so enjoyable. And I love conversation man like it’s it’s, it’s I feel like it’s rare these days to have such stimulating conversations because everyone’s so I focused. Yeah,
 
Michael Hingson ** 1:04:46
well it has definitely been fun. Well, I want to thank you and thanks for listening out there. Please give us a five star rating wherever you’re listening to us. We appreciate that and leave your comments. We love them as well. I would like to personally get your comments Please feel free to email me at Michaelhi, m i c h a e l h i  at accessibe A C C E S S I B E.com. Or go to our podcast page www dot Michaelhingson.com/podcast. And Michael hingson is m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. And by the way, Elizabeth and for anyone who’s listening, we were talking about website accessibility. If you go to accessibe.com, there’s a place where you can actually go do an audit of your website. And it will tell you what’s accessible about it and what’s not accessible about it. And there are a lot of options you can choose to use excessively, which is pretty inexpensive for fixing a lot of the issues. And depending on how complicated the site is, there may be other things to do. But you can get a free audit of the site. And for any of you go to accessibe.com and go to access scan and learn about web accessibility and see how accessible your own site is. So, again, Elizabeth, I want to thank you for being here. This has been absolutely a lot of fun.
 
Elizabeth Louis ** 1:06:02
Yes, thank you.
 
**Michael Hingson ** 1:06:08
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.