Episode 415 – Unstoppable Resilience: From Performing Arts to Empowerment Coaching with Teresa Hill-Putnam
What happens when a thriving performing arts career collides with a rare autoimmune disease?
In this episode, I talk with Teresa Hill-Putnam about resilience, Myasthenia Gravis, positive thinking, and building an unstoppable mindset. Teresa owned a large performing arts school for 35 years before COVID and health risks forced her to pivot to virtual teaching. She shares how she was diagnosed after respiratory failure, how she learned to take life one day at a time, and why she believes in flipping the script when challenges hit. We also discuss empowerment coaching, motivational speaking, raising confident children, and her nonprofit, Performers with Purpose Foundation. Teresa’s story proves that setbacks can become stepping stones when you choose growth, purpose, and persistence. I believe you will find this conversation both practical and inspiring.
Highlights:
00:56 Learn how early dance training helped her overcome childhood shyness and build confidence.
05:03 Hear how a sudden health collapse led to a myasthenia gravis diagnosis.
12:33 Discover why taking one day at a time became her key to resilience.
20:05 Understand why she refused to quit despite being told to go on disability.
22:58 See how COVID forced a rapid shift to virtual teaching and musicals.
56:50 Learn how her nonprofit now provides thousands of Christmas gifts to children in need.
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
About the Guest:
After Owning and Directing a large performing Arts School for over 35 years, Teresa Hill-Putnam is now a Performance Coach & Empowerment CoachinLos Angeles, California. Teresa is also a published author, Motivational Speaker, and Special Events Coordinator.
Teresa has been teaching since 1985. She now coaches singers, actors, dancers, and performers from all around the world. She helps artists master their skills, materials, and mindset. Teresa has helped hundreds of artists develop their talents, follow their dreams, and successfully pursue their career goal.
In 1999, Teresa got very sick. In less than a week, she went from being able to dance and hold her leg above her head, to not being able to sit up, roll over, or even feed herself. She was in and out of the hospital for 18 months before she was finally diagnosed with a chronic neuro-muscular disease called Myasthenia Gravis.
Teresa has learned to take one day at a time and make the most out of every day. Today, Teresa is happy and healthy. Most people do not even know that she has Myasthenia Gravis. Teresa believes that everyone has a story. She hopes to inspire others by sharing hers. Teresa has published eight books and has a podcast called "Overcoming Obstacles Through Positive Thinking." She has even been featured in in several documentaries.
In 2018, Teresa helped to create non-profit called the Performers With Purpose Foundation. She directs performances year-round to help raise money for important community causes. Teresa’s favorite project is the PWP annual “Sub for Santa” project. Each year, the Performers With Purpose Foundation provides gifts, toys, and clothing to underprivileged children during the holiday season. After years of being a single, working mom living with a chronic illness, Teresa understands how difficult the holiday season can be for struggling families. Being able to “adopt” families that need help brings Teresa an immense amount of joy! Teresa’s most important accomplishment is being a Mom and a "Grammy." Teresa raised her own three children to become happy, healthy, and successful adults. Her oldest daughter owns a Performing Arts School in Denver and has two adorable little boys. Her son is in the United States Air Force and has two darling little boys and a beautiful baby girl. Teresa’s youngest daughter, Amber Mackenzie, is a professional actor, singer, dancer and screenwriter. Teresa currently works as Amber’s Performance Coach and Booking Manager.
Teresa uses her experiences as a mother, "Grammy," teacher, patient, coach, and entrepreneur to help inspire, guide, challenge, motivate, support, and encourage others toward success.
Ways to connect with Teresa**:**
Teresa’s website: www.spotlightperformers.com
Performers With Purpose Foundation website: www.performerswithpurposefoundation.com.
Teresa’s podcast,, can be found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, You Tube, or your favorite streaming platform.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAIx8SkZwXXPdNOkzPNHJZFwYne7yo3oG&si=d1yL7Sp4FNRLXdmS
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/teresa.hillputnam?mibextid=wwXIfr&mibextid=wwXIfr
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teresahillputnam?igsh=eTJwazg1enRkb3N2&utm_source=qr
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://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/
https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/
accessiBe Links
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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 01:17
Well, hello, once again, everyone, wherever you happen to be in the world, I appreciate you being here. You are listening to or watching or both. Unstoppable mindset. Our guest today, Teresa Hill Putnam, used to own a pretty good size performing arts school, but today she’s a performing arts coach, and she she does other things as well, and I’m going to let her tell you more about it, because it’s no fun. If I give everything away, then what is there to talk about? So, Teresa, you like that? Huh? Yeah, great. So, Teresa, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We’re glad you’re here.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 01:56
Well, thanks so much for having me. Well, why don’t
Michael Hingson 01:59
we start as I love to do all the time. Why don’t you tell us, kind of about the early Teresa growing up and all that?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 02:07
Well, I started dancing when I was about two and a half, three years old, and grew up as a dancer. And I was actually very, very shy as a child, and that’s why my parents put me into dance classes, I would hide behind my mom, and so put me into the performing arts, and that helped me gain some confidence, and I was a good student. And just love the performing arts. I started my first business teaching the neighborhood students when I was 14, and all of my cousins and and stuff so much enjoyed that, and that grew into, you know, my next love, which is owning a studio, which I for 35 years in Colorado.
Michael Hingson 02:57
Now, what did your mom do? Dude? Was she a dancer? Did she do any of that?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 03:02
My mom, yeah. My mom grew up dancing. She wasn’t really a dancer. She was a dance student growing up, my mom is an artist. My dad is a drummer. And, you know, I kind of just grew up in the in the arts world. And, you know, loved it from before I could even remember.
Michael Hingson 03:25
So, so your dad is a drummer. Yeah, he plays professionally.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 03:30
He did up until covid, and then things kind of shut everything down, and he hasn’t really picked it back up since then.
Michael Hingson 03:37
Unfortunately, that’s too bad we always need talent in the world, I know right, of course. Now, being a fan of old westerns like Gunsmoke, when you say he’s a drummer, I’d say, what kind of whiskey did he sell? But that’s a different story. Yeah, a little bit different. Yeah. Couldn’t resist though, that’s that’s cool. Well, so you, you come by, although you were shy, you come by performing pretty honestly from parents who both did and do it or did it correct. So where did you? Where did you grow up in Denver, or where,
Teresa Hill-Putnam 04:14
you know, I was kind of all over. My dad got transferred a lot. So I spent some time in Kansas. I spent some time in Oklahoma, Utah, even a little bit of time in Hawaii and Colorado, just kind of all over. Most of my time, I guess, was spent at the University of Utah with the training with the School of Ballet West there.
Michael Hingson 04:36
So what, what work did your dad do when you were growing up that transferred you around, or
Teresa Hill-Putnam 04:40
the mom he was with the American stores company, Skaggs, drugs, gags, alphabeta,
Michael Hingson 04:47
okay, so
Teresa Hill-Putnam 04:48
they transferred him around a lot, so we went wherever dad needed to be,
Michael Hingson 04:53
but they kept him, which meant he must be successful. He must have been successful.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 04:58
Yeah, he was. He was really great at. It.
Michael Hingson 05:00
That’s pretty cool. So you went to the University of Utah, and what degree did you get?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 05:06
Actually, I was in the dance department.
Michael Hingson 05:10
That makes sense, of course. What a silly thing to ask. So you graduated. What did you do after you graduated.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 05:21
Um, can just continued. I had my own school already.
Michael Hingson 05:24
Had your own school already. So you started out while you were in college, right?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 05:29
So you started out late high school, okay?
Michael Hingson 05:33
So you had the you had the entrepreneurial spirit, right from the
Teresa Hill-Putnam 05:37
outset, yes, sir.
Michael Hingson 05:41
Well, that’s pretty cool. Well, so you, you, you had that school for 35 years, and what made you decide not to do that anymore? Well, when
Teresa Hill-Putnam 05:54
covid hit it, I have a disease called myasthenia gravis, and I’ve been on prednisone for 25 years, and so when covid hit, I’m very high risk, and so I had to get out of the classroom. Couldn’t be around the kids very much because of the germs, not just covid, but the flu, and, yeah, strep and everything else. And so I decided to continue the virtual direction. And my daughter was doing the the in person, so I did all the online, and she did the in person. We did that for a little while. And then my youngest child, who was 17 at the time, needed to come to Los Angeles in order to pursue her career, which is film, television and music. And so I decided, you know, obviously a 17 year old is not coming to Los Angeles alone. So and I was teaching virtually anyway. So we put everything we owned in storage, sold the house, and moved to Los Angeles to follow a dream. Wow.
Michael Hingson 07:02
And how’s that going? It’s going great.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 07:05
That’s cool. Yeah, we just got off of a six week music tour with her that we went on for the summer, and that was fun. And now we’re back here, and she had a short film audition this morning. And you know, she just keeps, you know, between the the film, television and music, we’re staying pretty
Michael Hingson 07:25
busy all necessary things to have around in a good fun world, yes, by any standard. Well, so when did you discover you had Myasthenia grab us?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 07:36
Well, in 1999 I started getting super sick. I went from being able to dance and, you know, hold my leg above my head and, you know, I had all the strength and and everything, and then within about a week, I couldn’t even get out of bed. I just went downhill. So quickly I had no strength. Was struggling to breathe, was struggling to eat, swallow, I couldn’t lift my arms or my legs, couldn’t walk, couldn’t sit up. And then they they did a lot of tests on me. Nothing was coming back positive. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. It took about 18 months to figure that out, and finally, 2001 they diagnosed me with myasthenia gravis.
Michael Hingson 08:27
So, so what is that disease Exactly? I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know a lot about most
Teresa Hill-Putnam 08:31
people don’t know what it is, actually, so I’m I’m surprised you’ve even heard of it. It’s quite rare. It’s an it’s a neuromuscular disease. It’s autoimmune. And basically, my brain is telling my body what to do, but my muscles don’t always respond. It’s a disconnect between the nerve and the muscle. So I take medicine called mestinon. I take it about every four hours, and what it does is it acts like a television antenna, and it connects my muscles to my nerves and makes my muscles work.
Michael Hingson 09:05
It brings them back into line so they do what they’re told, right?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 09:09
Yeah, and without it, my muscles don’t work. And with it, my muscles work. So it the drug itself was created as an antidote for nerve gas, interestingly, and it works great for myasthenia gravis, um, you know, I’m still on prednisone, which will that helps with the autoimmune part of it, but then the mestanon helps with the symptoms. It’s, you know, there’s no cure, there’s just treatments. And luckily for me, you know, the treatments do work. I had my chest cut open in 2001 and had my thymus removed, which is a little tiny gland that’s next to your heart. And so anyway, they took it out. It’s supposed to be the size of a green pea, and they got mine out, and it was bigger than the doctor’s. Hand, wow. And they took they sent it away to do testing. They thought for sure, it must be cancer, because it was so big. Well, it wasn’t. It was healthy, luckily. But getting rid of the thymus, my body was attacking itself, and that helped a lot. But it, you know, like I said, there’s no cure it. There’s just treatments, and that was one of the treatments, and now I’m doing great. You know, I still have to take the medicine every day and whatnot, but most people don’t even know that I’m that I have anything that I’m sick at all.
Michael Hingson 10:33
Do you wake up during the night to take medicines? You said every four hours?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 10:37
Yep, usually I do. And if I don’t, I wake up real weak, and then it just it takes me about two hours to kind of get my body going again. Yeah.
Michael Hingson 10:47
So is this a genetic disease?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 10:50
You know, they say it’s not. However, I have a cousin with Myasthenia. My mom has it, and so does my oldest daughter. And so even though they say it’s not genetic, I don’t know if they really know the genetic makeup of this. So, you know, yes, I say it is because, you know, obviously, in my family it is, but, you know, I don’t know,
Michael Hingson 11:14
yeah, well, it’s kind of one of those things that, over time, people will learn more about it. I mean, it’s like, like autism. I’ve talked to a number of people on this podcast who felt when they were growing up that they were different or or something wasn’t right, and when they were adults, they were diagnosed as being on the spectrum. And I subscribe to the to the theory that one of the biggest increases in autism has come about because we’re learning more about it and we measure it more Absolutely, measure it more accurately, right?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 11:52
So, and I think that myasthenia gravis has become a lot more well known, and it’s becoming a little bit easier to be diagnosed. I mean, like I said, it took them 18 months to diagnose me, but that was back in 1999 and I’m hearing, you know, I’m on a lot of different platforms with other patients with myasthenia gravis. And you know, some it takes them a long time to get diagnosed, but oftentimes the doctors are more familiar with it now, and people are getting diagnosed a little bit quicker. Thank goodness. Yeah, well, I was in respiratory failure before they figured out what was wrong with me
Michael Hingson 12:29
and those but those are the kinds of things that will come along and hopefully help people be more accurate in diagnosis in the future, as well as playing out, not figuring out what it is. And people, hopefully, over time, will spend more of their efforts learning how to actually cure it. But that’s, of course, another story.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 12:47
Yeah, well, and there are a lot of new treatments available. I haven’t tried anything else, only because what I’ve got is working. So why mess with it? Right? But I was in a documentary. Actually, we filmed during covid For this documentary. It’s called a mystery to me, and it’s all about myasthenia gravis. And, you know, it was a company that that that did the documentary, is a company that it now has other treatments available, which is fantastic.
Michael Hingson 13:25
So yeah, and once people start paying attention to these kinds of things, those are the the very concepts that help more and more people truly understand it, which is great, absolutely. Yeah, so since you became ill with this, what have you learned?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 13:44
Oh, I have learned so much. It’s amazing. You know, I wouldn’t wish illness on anybody, sure, however, because I got sick, I have learned to take one day at a time. I’ve learned to appreciate things a lot more than I ever used to. When I got sick, I was working, you know, like, 60 hours a week, you know, so stressed about, you know, being the best at everything and and doing doing everything. I was definitely a workaholic. And one thing that I’ve, what you know, learned over the years, especially after I got sick, was to just take one day at a time, do the best I can do every single day, and try to make the most of every day that I have. You know, you never know when life is going to
Michael Hingson 14:38
change, right? And you don’t know how it’s going to change Absolutely.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 14:44
And I’ve also learned to flip the script a lot. You know, if something is negative, I try to flip it and turn it into a positive, and try to learn from every setback. And, you know, look at it differently, like instead of, you know, oh, this is off. All this. You know, this is happening to me. This is terrible. I try to flip it and say, Why is this happening to me? What am I supposed to learn from this and becoming more positive and more mindful?
Michael Hingson 15:13
So what kind of answers have you gotten turning myasthenia gravis into a positive
Teresa Hill-Putnam 15:21
Well, I mean, just learning to take every day at a time. Yeah, you know, one day at a time. I mean, some days I wake up and I feel fantastic, and I can do everything that’s on my to do list for the day. And other days I, you know, wake up and I don’t feel so great, and so I just kind of have to do what is necessary and prioritize a little bit more. So yeah, I have a running to do list all the time. It’s on my phone. And you know, some things get checked off and some things don’t. And you know, what doesn’t happen today will happen tomorrow or next week, or whenever it gets done.
Michael Hingson 15:57
It does help you put a lot of things in perspective, doesn’t it? It sure does. And there’s a lot of value in that. And you know, some of these things you just didn’t have any control over happening, but you certainly do have control over how you decide to deal with it, absolutely. So that’s that kind of makes a lot of sense well. So you own this performing arts studio for 35 years. Tell me more about that. What does that entail? What what did you learn from doing that? It must have been obviously a school that that grew, and you had to learn a lot to go along with it. But tell me about all that.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 16:38
Well, I started out with just myself teaching, and then it grew and grew and grew, and at one point I had nine full time teachers and 700 students, and decided that that was more than I liked. I didn’t enjoy that so much because that put me out of the classroom and more in an administrative role, and I really missed teaching. So we slowly, kind of actually downsized the school rather, you know, you always hear about businesses trying to get bigger and bigger and bigger. Well, we got too big too fast. And so over time, we downsize the school a bit. And I got back into the classroom, which is where I so much, you know, much appreciated being in the classroom. I love teaching. And I just felt like when I was in the office all the time, I wasn’t making a big enough difference in the lives of the people that I was working with. And that’s, I mean, my purpose is in life is to make the world a better place. And I felt like I was just, you know, maneuvering people where they needed to be, but I wasn’t actually, you know, making that big of a difference when I had such a big school. So anyway, we taught ballet, jazz, tap, lyrical, musical theater, voice lessons. You know, everything was within our school, and I decided about 250 300 students was about where I really that that was the right number for us. So it worked out great.
Michael Hingson 18:23
Well, that’s how many people did you have in a class, typically at a
Teresa Hill-Putnam 18:26
time, usually, well, it depends on the class. I guess that’s true. You know, if it was a musical theater class, it might be 25 kids. If it was a ballet class with three and four year olds, it might be eight kids, so it just kind of all depends. We also offered private lessons, and you know, it, it just all depended upon the age group and the type of class being taught.
Michael Hingson 18:54
Yeah, that makes sense, but I hear exactly what you’re saying. I really love to teach. And when I was in college at UC Irvine, My desire was to graduate, get advanced degrees and then go into teaching. Well, that that changed, and I didn’t get to do that directly, but over time for me, I ended up getting back into teaching, in a sense, because after September 11, now I do a lot of teaching about not only disabilities, but about leadership and trust, and I realize that, in fact, we’re all teachers, and we all can can take advantage of being able to be teachers to help other people. One of the things that I always told every sales person that I ever hired was be a student for a year, ask questions. You’ll learn a lot more that way, and your customers want you to succeed. Your customers are generally not jerks, and they want you to succeed. So give them the opportunity.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 19:58
Well, and everybody has a story. Yeah, and it’s important that we all share our story. You never know. You know your story might be somebody else’s, you know, safety net, you you might help them figure out their solution to their own life just by sharing your story. So I think it’s very important that we, you know, get back to the basics and start, you know, talking to people and sharing our stories and helping each other out. Well.
Michael Hingson 20:27
And I believe, well, I believe absolutely that’s what the whole purpose of unstoppable mindset is all about. This podcast is all about giving people the opportunity to tell their stories. Because, in fact, I think everyone has a story or stories to tell, and some of those stories are going to be about challenges they faced, and maybe nobody else has faced them, but they did, and so it’s important to tell those stories to help them, but also because we’re showing anyone who is involved in observing this podcast that they’re more unstoppable than they think they are, and I think we really way too much undersell what we can do and what we should be doing. So I’m really glad to have that possibility and opportunity here
Teresa Hill-Putnam 21:16
well, and I don’t know how many times my doctors told me over the years to quit my job and go on disability because it was just too much and I wasn’t physically going to be able to do it. And, you know, I didn’t do that, and I’m so glad I didn’t do that. You know, I just kept going and and hopefully that experience taught my my own children, for one, but also my students and their families, hopefully it taught them, you know, endurance, yeah, and the importance of, you know, the show must go on, you just keep going.
Michael Hingson 21:50
So when you when you had the studio and so on, people were aware that you had
Teresa Hill-Putnam 21:58
myasthenia gravis. Yes, there were several years that I was very sick, I would come in when I was well, and otherwise I would have to, you know, when I was well enough. Otherwise I would have to rely on my employees,
Michael Hingson 22:10
yeah, so they were run, Oh,
Teresa Hill-Putnam 22:12
yeah. Everybody was very aware of it.
Michael Hingson 22:15
And and the point is, though, that that is why, by any definition, you were able to teach them about endurance and and resilience.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 22:24
Yes, you know, there, there were several years there that, you know, I didn’t know if I was going to make it. Yeah, so, you know, but I, but we kept, we kept on going. I didn’t close the doors. So you, you made the choice. Yes, well, and over the 35 years, we had a we had a fire in the building, which wiped us out. We had to go to a temporary facility while they fixed the fire. And then we also a dam broke above where the studio was, and it completely flooded the whole shopping center where the studio was, and we had like, six inches of mud throughout the entire studio. So we had to go to a temporary facility for that. And then, of course, you know, well, well, we got, actually, we got robbed. At one point, they broke in and broke all the windows and, like, ransacked the office and stuff. Luckily, we didn’t lose a whole lot there, other than the windows and, you know, sense of security, yeah. But nobody was hurt, so that that was good. It happened in the middle of the night. And then, of course, covid, you know, which shut us all down for a while, and we had to go. We shut down on a Friday and Monday morning, we opened virtual. And I didn’t even know that that was a thing at the time. To be honest with you, I had never done anything virtually. And look at me now. I mean, that’s pretty much all I do is virtual teaching, which, you know, everything happens for a reason. And you know, I I’m not thrilled that covid happened. However, it didn’t teach me a lot about what is possible.
Michael Hingson 24:09
When did you actually close the the the studio? Um, or when did you switch ownership?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 24:15
I we switched in July of 2021 Oh, okay, when my daughter took over and and turned it into her own school. Her school is called amplified arts. Our school together was spotlight Performing Arts Center, and then she bought the school. It’s all hers and it hers is now amplified arts. And then I run my company, which is now called Spotlight performers. Which, like I said, I do, I do coaching for children, you know, in the performing arts, vocal acting and dance, and then I work as a performance and empowerment coach for professional entertainers, any
Michael Hingson 24:58
professional entertainers. Trainers we would would have heard of.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 25:02
You know, I can’t really tell that information because of confidentiality. Yeah, I got it, but I do work with my own daughter. I can tell you that her name is Anthony Mackenzie, and she’s pretty amazing.
Michael Hingson 25:16
Let me rephrase the question, just for fun, any any performers that we would have heard of, not mentioning names. But have you worked with them other besides you famous people?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 25:28
Yes, okay, yeah, I’m very confidential with my students only you know they’re in the public eye. So yeah.
Michael Hingson 25:42
Well, no, that’s fine, but it’s neat that you’re well recognized, and you you get to continue to to do that sort of thing, which is really pretty cool. Tell me more about how you do this virtually, because I I took dance when I was growing up, although I’ve forgotten a lot of of the steps and so on and but I remember, you know, some of what I did, but still, I appreciate the whole concept of virtual but how do you do that?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 26:13
Well, we have a little area set up in our home that, you know, that I teach. But when during covid, we actually turned the entire master bedroom of my house into a dance studio, and had, you know, we moved the bars, and we moved, you know, everything. We ripped out the carpet and put in the dance floors and did all of that, and just teach like a normal class, yeah, yeah. And we now for dance, I just do private lessons at this point. So, you know, it’s a lot easier, you know, space wise, to only do one on one, but it worked out during covid as well.
Michael Hingson 26:53
So, so when you’re when you’re teaching dance, how many cameras do you have that you you have running in the virtual environment like that, usually just the one, really, and it can, and it can show everything from footwork to whatever else you need.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 27:08
Yep, cool. Well, and we adjust the distance from the camera based on what it is that that needs to be observed, right? Well, so, yeah,
Michael Hingson 27:20
I have done some speaking virtually. I can do it. I don’t like virtual for me, as well as performing live,
Teresa Hill-Putnam 27:30
no And mainly, well for
Michael Hingson 27:33
me, especially, I don’t get any feedback from the audience. So when I’m speaking and I’m in front of an audience there, when I’m when I’m speaking, I know what to expect, or I know what kind of reactions, having done this for 23 and a half years, I know what kind of reactions I should be getting based on whatever I’m saying, but I don’t get that same information in a virtual environment. So it’s a little bit more of a challenge, but I’ve done it long enough that I know I can. Can do it virtually if I need to,
Teresa Hill-Putnam 28:07
well, and it’s kind of hard to read the room when you’re in a virtual setting, you can’t hear them, you can’t, you know, I can’t see them, you know, as much. So it’s kind of hard to read the room as well. You don’t get the the feedback from the audience as much in a virtual setting, but I do also motivational speaking events, and I do love having an audience.
Michael Hingson 28:30
Yeah, one of the things that fascinated me during covid was how different groups put on virtual concerts, and they were able to to figure out how to time it so that it sounded just as natural as if they were all there together. That that’s gotta be a challenge.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 28:51
Well, it is a challenge. You know, I do a lot of Voice Lessons like, you know, singing lessons with my students on on Zoom, and there’s a setting on zoom that you have to switch to be original sound for musicians. If you don’t switch that, then the sound is kind of funny, and there is a little bit of a time delay, so it’s, you know, it is harder to do things as a group, you know, and for, like, music, concerts and stuff like that, because there is a time delay, and everybody’s Internet is a little bit different with speed. And so, yeah, it is a challenge. Luckily, most of what I do with the the music is one on one, and so it makes it much easier. They play their music from their home, or, you know, their office, or wherever they are. So you know, there’s no time delay with the music and their voice. It’s the same. But when I’m playing the piano and they’re singing to the piano, I just have to go slower, because then I realize that there is a little bit of a time delay. Or.
Michael Hingson 30:00
Once, once they start singing, you can then customize your playing to that. It is a lot easier with one i It seems to me that I recall news broadcast during covid Where whole Philharmonic orchestras figured out ways to perform virtual school.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 30:20
Yeah, you have to figure it all out when we when we were doing virtual learning, and we were doing classes, we were doing entire musicals virtually, and we performed several musicals with our classes completely virtual, and it was definitely different, yeah, but we made it work. The show must go on. We made it work.
Michael Hingson 30:44
What did you learn from that,
Teresa Hill-Putnam 30:47
that we can do it? There you go. So cool to learn that we could do anything we were scheduled, or I was scheduled to record this documentary, a mystery to me, and that was, you know, before covid hit, they were supposed to start filming in April, but we had been working on it for months and months and months prior to that. And then everything got shut down. And so they, the production company, sent out all of the cameras and the sound equipment and the lighting and everything to us and computers and everything, they send it all out to us. And my daughters helped the production company. We got everything set up in our home, and then somehow the production company was able to take over the computers and run everything virtually. It was the first time it ever happened, and because of it, they won lots of awards for this documentary, because we still filmed it. It that we still did it, and it was really super fun and educational for all of us. That’s when my daughter really decided she had to come to LA that was it. She just, she really had the bug, then she really wanted to come to LA when she was seven. And I told her, you know, I’m a single mom, I’ve got a chronic illness. I’m running a business. I can’t take you to LA when you’re seven. If you still want to do it when you graduate from high school, then I’ll take you to LA at that point. So she worked her tail off and graduated when she was 16 so that we could go to LA but it was filming that documentary that she was determined that was the end of it. She knew that was where she was going.
Michael Hingson 32:32
And I understand conceptually, and probably even a little bit more technically, how the documentary company was able to take control over the computers and so on. But the neat thing about that, from their standpoint, is, because they were able to control the computers, they were also able to help deal with the timing for what you were doing as well, which is pretty cool.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 32:56
It was amazing that it happened. Yeah, you know, I was just so, so pleased with how it all was put together. They did a great job, and it turned into a very nice piece.
Michael Hingson 33:08
So that’s great. That is, that is really exciting. Well, so you, you eventually left the performing arts school. But why did you decide to become a performance and empowerment coach?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 33:27
Well, I started writing books in in 2010 and my goal was to always become a motivational speaker and to share my story and to empower people. But I had, you know, a little kid I at the time, my youngest was six. My two older kids were older. They’re 10 and 14 years older than my my youngest, and because I got sick between my second and my third child, and couldn’t have kids for a while because I was so sick. But anyway, I decided that in 2010 I really wanted to share my story and become a motivational speaker, and that kind of empowered me to become more of an empowerment coach. I mean, that was kind of what I wanted to do all along. And when I came to LA I didn’t want to run a big school anymore. It was time for me to retire from that and, you know, teach virtually, one on one, students or clients. But I also wanted to help entertainers. I wanted to work with. There’s a lot of entertainers that they get really frustrated with themself, or they get really down on themselves. You know, you hear about kids that you know were child actors, and then they got into drugs, or they got into, you know, a different direction, where it wasn’t healthy. And so I really wanted to use, you know, my experience of working with kids over the. Years. I mean, I’ve worked with 1000s of kids over the years, and they’ve all had their own set of of problems and and abilities, I should say, not, certainly not all problems, but we’ve, we’ve overcome a lot, and I wanted to be able to share that, and be able to share that knowledge with the people that really needed it the most, and so, yeah, that’s why I became a performance coach and an empowerment coach. I not only work with performers, but I also work with patients different types of chronic illnesses. One of my keynotes is the show must go on, and it’s patient empowerment. And that would be the empowerment coaching, the step into your spotlight keynote that I do. It’s the kind of it’s called, create the life you want to live that’s more for performance, you know, coaching that’s more for singers, dancers, actors, performers, so that they can follow their dreams. But you know, then I also do, for just everybody, flip the script, which, again, we talked about how overcoming obstacles, just figuring out how to turn the negative to the positive, you know. So that’s another one of the speeches that I give. And also, we live in a kind of a crazy world right now, right? Yeah. And I think it’s really important that we all work to, you know, be the change that needs to happen in the world. So that’s something that I also talk to, you know, different groups about, not only groups of like women’s conferences and stuff, but also children, you know, teaching kids Dare to be different. You know, they don’t have to follow the crowd, and adults don’t have to follow the crowd. We can be the change. So, you know, empowerment coaching is goes hand in hand with performance coaching. When I’m working with entertainers, I have to empower them a lot to overcome the obstacles that they have. Might be imposter syndrome. It might be anxiety or, you know, believe it or not, even superstars have performance anxiety, or they get chased, right? So there’s a lot of empowerment coaching that goes along with the performance coaching.
Michael Hingson 37:24
And it’s it’s so unfortunate that in our world, we don’t really see enough where children are taught to have the confidence that they should have or that they can have. We, we don’t really as much as we should encourage people to think about the impossible and how to make it possible, or, as I like to say it, what’s wrong with saying, why not? You know, and then in going from there, we just don’t teach that. We don’t teach curiosity nearly as much as we should.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 38:04
That is true, and we got to remember that the kids are, you know, these little kids that are growing up now are our future leaders of tomorrow. You know, it’s very important that we teach them how to handle these things.
Michael Hingson 38:16
Yeah, and we should be teaching people to be more curious. I keep hearing all the time about helicopter parents and so on, and they just really smother their kids so much, and the kids never get a chance to really explore, which is unfortunate, because that’s the time to really explore, is when you’re a kid. This is true. I do appreciate that there are a lot of other scary things that go on in the world, but you can still allow your child to be curious and explore without stifling all that creativity and saying, Well, you can’t go outside because somebody might shoot you or something like that, right?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 38:57
Well, and you can keep your children safe, but also keep them involved, you know, you just have to be very aware of what your children are doing and you know, and and put them in activities that they’re going to gain the confidence that they need and the skills that they need to be successful.
Michael Hingson 39:15
So I remember when I was growing up and the doctors, when it was discovered I was blind, told my parents to send me off to a home, because no blind child could ever grow up to do anything. And my parents said, You guys are wrong. Of course he can. And my father at the time, yeah, scary. I’m still trying to figure out what to do, aren’t we, all right, yeah, well, there is that we grow up? Yeah, yeah, I’ll never grow up, as Mary Martin said in Peter Pan, true, but, but my father owned in Chicago a television repair shop. Of course, you don’t have those sorts of things anymore for TV to hide. You just go get a new one. But back then you replace to. You replaced resistors and capacitors and so on. And occasionally he took me on calls with him, and he said, Now, don’t put your hand inside the TV, because it’s plugged in, right? And you get shocked. I don’t remember the circumstances. I don’t know that I deliberately stuck my hand in the TV to see what would happen. But I did touch a TV in the wrong spot, and I did get a shock, and my dad saw it, and he said, see what happens. But as I recall, I wasn’t trying to stick my hand in the TV, I was just trying to put my hand somewhere. Just ended up in the TV. But I did learn what electricity felt like which was a cool thing. Quite a shock. Yeah, quite a shock. I can’t say whether that really led me to decide that I wanted to get a master’s degree in physics, but still a lot of fun
Teresa Hill-Putnam 40:55
that we teach kids. You know that when they make a mistake, that they learn from it and they move on, and that mistakes are part of learning.
Michael Hingson 41:03
Yeah, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Well. And I always tell my vocal
Teresa Hill-Putnam 41:06
students, for example, if you don’t squeak, you’re not working hard enough. Yeah, you got to get to a point where you squeak sometimes, or that you hit a wrong note, or, you know, whatever, if you always stay in a safety zone, you’re not going to learn from it. So stretch and grow well, and there’s certain safe places to stretch and grow. Yeah.
Michael Hingson 41:26
Mm, hmm, absolutely, which made perfect sense, yeah. Well, so as what’s the difference between a performance coach and an empowerment coach? Well, a
Teresa Hill-Putnam 41:38
performance coach is a skills coach, so I teach kids to or clients, not just kids, adults as well, to sing, to dance, to act, to perform. Okay, we do? We work on the skills also we work on their career. So there’s, you know, resume writing, there’s headshot development, there’s different profiles that you have to have. There’s a lot with it. Career wise, that’s not just skills, but in order to be an entertainer, there’s certain things that you have to have, career wise, and then the last part of it is empowerment coaching. So Performance Coaching is a combination of all three. Empowerment coaching, on the other hand, is kind of something within itself. It’s the motivational speaking. It’s empowering people to, you know, overcome obstacles, to set goals, to to, like, create the lives that they want to live, to to dream. Yeah, yeah, okay.
Michael Hingson 42:43
And that makes sense, because that’s what really empowerment is all about. And I think all too many of us could use a lot more empowerment coaching, because we underrate ourselves, which is, of course, what I said earlier, talking about unstoppable mindset. We, we underrate ourselves. We, we don’t think we’re nearly as unstoppable as we really are, because we sell ourselves short, right?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 43:06
Well, and people think that to be positive, to be a positive person, that you have to be positive all the time. But even positive people are not positive all the time. They have bad days they you know, they have days where they have a lot of anxiety, they have, they may have days where they really start to doubt themselves. It doesn’t mean that you know you’re not a positive person if you doubt yourself. It just means that you know being positive or being healthy is is a journey. It’s, you know, it’s not a destination. Life is a journey. And you know, there’s highs and lows of every everyday life for everybody.
Michael Hingson 43:47
The idea, though, is that if you’re a positive person, you are able to get to the point when you’re not feeling positive. You recognize that, and you work to overcome that. Which is, yes, which is what a lot of people have to learn to do, which they haven’t learned to do, but it would make sense if more people would focus on, alright, this happened. Why did it happen? What can I do about it? How do I learn from it? And that’s the thing we don’t teach ourselves nearly as much as we should about introspection and self analysis.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 44:22
Absolutely well, and I call it flip the script, because you know things are going to happen. You know life, life happens, and it’s just a matter of how you deal with it. For example, the other night, I was picking my daughter up from work, and we noticed that we had a nail in our tire, and we were on our way home, and we noticed it was like 637 o’clock at night, and we had a nail in the tire, and there was no way we were going to get home without having a flat tire. So I turned around, and we went over to Costco, and we got the tire fixed. And rather than being all frustrated about it, we just went in. They said that they’d fix the tire, and we went to the the snack bar and
Michael Hingson 45:05
got some snack bar ice
Teresa Hill-Putnam 45:08
cream fixes everything, right? You know, when all else fails, eat chocolate, that’s right, or chocolate ice cream, that’s even better.
Michael Hingson 45:16
Sure, then you have a double whammy that fixes everything.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 45:19
Oh, I know, right? So, you know, it’s just a matter of life happens, and not everything in life, even for positive people, is going to be positive. So you just have to figure out how to make things be the best. You know, I, I always say, you have to find the joy. You know, we go for walks every day, and I try to find smiley faces wherever I can, like with rocks and sticks. You know, they’re smiley faces. Sometimes you’ll find them on the sidewalk or whatever. And if we can’t find them, we make them, you know, I find leaks and sticks, and we make smiley faces for other people to find. And you know, you just have to make your own fun and make your own happiness
Michael Hingson 46:03
for it, and things come up, as you said, and the fact of the matter is that you can decide how to deal with it. You didn’t, apparently, have any control over that nail getting into that tire, but you had absolute control over how you decided to deal with it. Right? Happens all the time, and and we do have control over how we decide to deal with whatever comes along in life, but I agree, chocolate ice cream is the number one fix, right?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 46:30
Well, everything happens for a reason. Maybe we just need a chocolate ice cream that night, right? But you never know
Michael Hingson 46:36
what else might happen. You know. You never know who you might meet or what else might happen. So it’s life is an adventure, and if we don’t treat it as an adventure,
Teresa Hill-Putnam 46:45
what good are we? Absolutely, I agree.
Michael Hingson 46:50
So as a motivational speaker, who is your audience?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 46:53
Well, I work with a lot of women’s groups, a lot of retirement communities will bring me in to to empower their residents, Girl Scout troops, schools, universities. You know, it just kind of depends on which, you know, which message that I’m I’m giving at the time. I also work with businesses and at different conventions and luncheons,
Michael Hingson 47:27
just kind of depends. And do you charge for speaking?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 47:32
Usually, yes, yeah, yes.
Michael Hingson 47:35
Girl Scout troops probably don’t have nearly as much to pay, but that’s okay
Teresa Hill-Putnam 47:40
well, and it just kind of depends on the organization that I’m working with. And, yeah, I’m involved in the distance, and there’s a lot of factors in it.
Michael Hingson 47:48
I agree, and that’s what I find as well. You know, there are some places that don’t pay Rotary Clubs, typically don’t pay for speakers, but you never know what else you might get out of it. So that’s okay, absolutely.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 48:02
And you know what you get out of every every job that I ever do, every event, I always learn as much as I give, yeah, or I meet somebody amazing
Michael Hingson 48:16
well, and my and my belief actually goes a little bit further if I don’t learn at least as much as anyone else. I’m not doing my job right? Absolutely, I think that is so true. So what? What made you decide to start public speaking?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 48:30
Um, like I said, in in 2010 I wrote my first book because I wanted to share my story. Okay? I started public speaking way back then, wow.
Michael Hingson 48:42
And I love to teach. So go they go together, don’t they go together? Yeah. Well, tell us about the books that you’ve published. You’ve done, what? Eight books now,
Teresa Hill-Putnam 48:52
I’ve done eight books. I have, I actually have three of them right here. Unfortunately, I’m out of stock of the last one, but here’s one. This is my they’re all my story. This one is called The show must go on, and that was the first one that I that I published, and that one really is more my myasthenia gravis story. And then the second one is called from one stage to the next, and that one is just kind of a continuation of that, of my myasthenia gravis story, and kind of what, what the next step was, the script of life here. There’s kind of a glare, sorry about that. The script of life is what I’ve learned, you know, over the years, behind the scenes. It’s it says here, director’s notes, descriptive life, things I have learned behind the scenes, but it’s all part of the overcoming obstacles through positive thinking. And then the last one that I did, it’s called Life is not a dress rehearsal. Yeah. And which is, again, just the things that I have learned. They’re part of some of the the lessons that I’ve learned, which is all kind of part of my podcast as well.
Michael Hingson 50:11
Now, do you self publish, or do you have a publisher?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 50:15
Right now, I’m self publishing, but I’m actually looking for a literary agent so that we can go in the in a different direction.
Michael Hingson 50:24
I asked because you said you were out of some of your books. So I was just
Teresa Hill-Putnam 50:27
kind of actually out of the new one. The life is life is not a dress rehearsal book. I’m out of that one right now. Then I also have two goal setting workbooks, one for adults and one for children. And then I have one book that it’s called my daily pep talk, which is just a bunch of positive sayings and quotes. So whenever I’m having a bad day, I actually use mine. I just open it to a page, and that’s my positive thought for the day. And then, using my performing arts background, I wrote a handbook for dancers and dance teachers and and that one is actually going worldwide. Studios are buying that one to use it for teaching. And it’s my my curriculum.
Michael Hingson 51:17
Well, if you can’t practice what you what you preach. What good are you? Right? Yeah, I mean, it’s Talk is cheap, but it’s it’s a lot harder to talk and then actually follow through and support what you teach. But that’s what really people look for. And I’m of the opinion that, in reality, people know when you’re blowing smoke and when you’re really serious and when you’re serious, you do put serious, you do practice what you preach, and that’s the way it ought to be. That is right. I agree. Yeah. So tell me about your podcast. It’s called overcoming obstacles through positive thinking, which is what you also mentioned about one of your books. But tell me about the podcast a little bit well,
Teresa Hill-Putnam 51:59
it’s on Spotify Apple podcasts. It’s on YouTube, and we’ll put a link to the YouTube podcast as well. Basically, I just take a topic and then I just talk about it, and they’re very short. I did that on purpose so that people can listen, you know, on their way to work. You know, they’re like, five to 10 minutes long each, so that they can quickly listen and hopefully be empowered through the day by listening to the different topics. Yeah, I’ve got 50 episodes I guess, right now on the podcast, you know, and hopefully I can inspire somebody through that.
Michael Hingson 52:45
We’ve done unstoppable mindset, typically for an hour. But of course, it is a conversation which is, which is a little bit different than what you do, right? But it seems to be going pretty well. People like it. We are. We’re continuing to publish it, and no one is has come and said, don’t do it anymore. So we’re having a lot of fun,
Teresa Hill-Putnam 53:05
quite a few of yours, and you do a great job. You do it, yeah, it’s fun, and it’s it’s very positive.
Michael Hingson 53:12
It all started out doing radio at kuci, at UC Irvine, when I played old radio shows for almost seven years. I love, I collect old shows, and so we would play them and talk between them and so on. So I learned a lot about radio doing that, and so that helped in getting the podcast started as well. When, when I was asked to do one, it just seemed like the right thing to do.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 53:38
You know, I think it’s a really good way to educate the public. I have another podcast that I do with the performers with purpose Foundation, which is my nonprofit that we started back in 2018 and with that one, we do more interviews like this, so you know, and it’s to bring education to people that want to go into the entertainment industry. You know, we have different artists on people that have been in Broadway shows, people who are music artists, you know, actors, singers, dancers, performers, agents, managers, that kind of thing, and then we do like, a conversation, like, what you’re doing here, which is fun.
Michael Hingson 54:27
I am of the opinion there is nothing in the world like doing seeing a live show. Of course, I’ve had the opportunity to see several on Broadway, but also elsewhere, and there’s just nothing like doing that. It’s so powerful.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 54:43
It is very powerful.
Michael Hingson 54:45
My my favorite one, still, from a powerful standpoint, is, I’m trying to remember exactly when it was. It had to be in 1979 I think, no, it was early. Other than that, it was 1977 I think, or early 78 anyway, I was invited to go with a friend to a Broadway show. It was a Shakespeare play, Othello and the two stars. I cannot remember who played Desdemona, but James Earl Jones played Othello and Christopher Plummer played Ergo. What a show. Oh, that’s fabulous. What a show. It was. As powerful as I have ever seen. It was amazing, you know, and you know what’s going to happen at the end. But even so, when people are falling on their swords, the whole audience would go, I mean, it was like they didn’t even see it coming. Well, of course they knew. I mean, it’s not like Othello was brand new, but that’s how powerful it was. It was great. I love that’s awesome. I love live theater. Never have
Teresa Hill-Putnam 55:50
had it’s cool that live shows can really do that to you. Yeah, right. Bring so much emotion,
Michael Hingson 55:59
and that’s part of what you teach
Teresa Hill-Putnam 56:01
absolutely if you, if you can make them laugh or you can make them cry, you’ve done your job, yeah, yeah.
Michael Hingson 56:10
And, and then they can go out, and if they remember it so much the better.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 56:15
Well, they’ll remember it more if you make them laugh or make them cry, right, right, absolutely, right.
Michael Hingson 56:20
So you have three children and five grandchildren. That’s a growing so,
Teresa Hill-Putnam 56:25
so blessed with that. Yeah, my oldest just turned 35 a few days ago. And then I have a son who’s 31 and I have a daughter who’s 21 and then I have four grandsons and one little grand baby girl. Wow.
Michael Hingson 56:42
Well, you have more males overall, well, except you got two daughters and one son, but still more males than mcfeemes. Well, that’s, that’s,
Teresa Hill-Putnam 56:49
yeah, more male grand babies.
Michael Hingson 56:52
Yeah, and more coming.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 56:56
Well, not from my two oldest, I think they’re both done, but my little, my, my little, my young little girl. She’s not little anymore. She’s 21 my youngest will eventually have children. And, and then I get to enjoy it all over again.
Michael Hingson 57:09
There you go. Yeah, it’s part of what makes it fun. And, and, and grandmama will get them all into performing arts.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 57:19
Well, you know, I’m called Grammy, because it’s kind of like the music award,
Speaker 1 57:23
only they are, yeah,
Teresa Hill-Putnam 57:26
yeah, that’ll be fun. And, you know, I don’t know if they will all be actors, singers, dancers, performers, or just whatever wonderful thing they come up with. I think my oldest grandson’s probably going to be a scientist, and I think I’m not really sure about the others, maybe comedians. They’re all pretty funny, so we’ll
Michael Hingson 57:51
see nothing like having a lot of laughter around.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 57:54
Is there? You know, they bring so much joy? Yeah, yeah. Well, tell us
Michael Hingson 57:58
about your your nonprofit, your foundation.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 58:01
It’s called the performers with purpose Foundation, and we started it well, 34 years ago, I guess. Okay, well, 35 years ago, I had my daughter, and then shortly after she was born, when she was 10 days old, I left my abusive husband and and we ended up getting a divorce, and that first Christmas was really, really, really hard for me, because I was a single mom, didn’t have any money. I had, you know, a brand new baby that was couple months old, and it just broke my heart, because I did. I wanted to give her the world, but I couldn’t give her the world because I was a single, broke mom, and decided at that point that I was never going to be in that position again. And started doing a program called sub for Santa the following year. So when she was a year old, started providing Christmas. I owned a performing arts school at that point still, and started doing performances around Christmas time to raise money to provide for other families who needed help. And so hence, performers with purpose. We did performances to, you know, provide Christmas for these families. And that started 34 years ago. And so and we and we’ve done it ever since. So all of my kids grew up knowing sub for Santa. That’s what we did for Christmas every year. But in 2018 we decided to go ahead and form a non profit organization called the performance with purpose Foundation, and get our 501, c3, status so that we could be tax exempt and and do it right? You know, do it on a bigger scale, I guess. And so now we raise money year round by doing performances, and the money goes to provide Christmas for underprivileged children that need it. So last year, I think we donated like 25 100 gifts for children, both my my daughter in Colorado, works her program, and then we work a program here in in California as well. So we have two different divisions that we provide. You know, toys, gifts, clothing and necessities to the families that need them.
Michael Hingson 1:00:21
So if you had one thing you wanted to say to everyone that they should remember or take away from today, what would it be?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 1:00:30
Huh, let’s see, maybe work to find your purpose and try to make the world a better place. There you go. By whatever that purpose is. What’s your purpose? Um, to teach everything that I have been so lucky to learn.
Michael Hingson 1:00:56
You know, as profound as it gets, yeah,
Teresa Hill-Putnam 1:01:00
you know, if people want anything to yourself,
Michael Hingson 1:01:04
yeah, yeah, share, share. People want to reach out to you and so on. How do they do that?
Teresa Hill-Putnam 1:01:09
My website is, is performers with, I’m sorry, spotlight performers.com or we can, you can reach out to performers with purpose foundation.com
Michael Hingson 1:01:21
and we’ll have everything in show notes as well. But it’s always good to ask and and get that Well, I want to thank you for being here today. This has been a lot of fun. I’m glad that we had the opportunity to, you know, to do this and to, I think, provide a lot of information. I learned a lot. I appreciate it, and I hope other people who are out there monitoring us also learned a lot. If, if you liked our podcast wherever you are, please give us a five star rating wherever you’re listening, or YouTubing us or whatever. But we would appreciate your rating. We love five star ratings, especially, of course, and also, if you’d like to reach out to me, it’s easy. It’s Michael H, i@accessibe.com that’s m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, and for all of you out there, including you Theresa, if you know anyone who you think ought to be a guest on unstoppable mindset. I’d love to get an introduction, because we always want to have more people on and be inspired and learn a lot more. And as I said earlier, and I’ll say again, if I’m not learning at least as much as anyone else, I’m not doing my job, and so I need the opportunity to learn. So bring on the learning experiences. It’s a lot of fun. But again, Theresa, I want to thank you for being here. This has been cool.
Teresa Hill-Putnam 1:02:42
Well, thank you so much for having me. It’s been such a pleasure.
Michael Hingson 1:02:50
You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you’ll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you’re on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you’re there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.
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