Episode 476 – How Better Questions Create an Unstoppable Attitude with Stephen Shaner
What if changing your attitude starts with changing the questions you ask yourself?
Stephen Shaner has taken a remarkable path through music, the military, firefighting, air traffic control, technology, leadership, magic, and public speaking. Along the way, he became fascinated with how people respond to life and why some people remain positive when things go wrong. Stephen and I explore how attitude becomes a choice, why focusing on what you can control can reduce fear and frustration, and how simple changes in vocabulary can shift your outlook. We also talk about gratitude, energy, service, leadership, passion, and discovering who you are beyond what you do for work. Stephen shares lessons from Stephen Covey, Toastmasters, his own leadership experiences, and everyday moments when one different question changed everything. I believe you will find some useful ideas here for building a more positive attitude and making choices that help you move forward.
Highlights:
02:58 – Follow Stephen’s unusual path from music and the military to leadership and speaking.
10:21 – Discover why knowing who you are matters more than defining yourself by your job.
13:44 – Learn why attitude is a choice, even when circumstances are difficult.
22:42 – See how changing your words can shift the way you experience everyday challenges.
30:21 – Hear how gratitude can quickly change your focus and mood.
52:30 – Learn how one different question can turn a negative situation into a positive one.
About the Guest:
Stephen Shaner has been studying the concept of “attitude” for more than 35 years. Specifically, his interest has focused on how attitude affects people, and the people around them.
He has incorporated learning experiences from a multitude of sources, research, and training relative to behavior, attitude, ethics, and business and personal relations. Stephen, as a facilitator of Stephen Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" for 15 years, was able to gain powerful insight. These opportunities led him to design informative and relevant presentations. Coupled with his contagious attitude, his extensive experience has made him a popular resource for keynotes, seminars, workshops, private sessions, newsletters and articles. He is a sought-after mentor for business professionals and individuals seeking for meaningful and lasting improvement.
In his professional life, after 20 years of employment with HealthPartners, Stephen recently retired as the Manager of the Regional Technology Center in Duluth, Minnesota. He has been an active member of Toastmasters International for over 23 years, where he has held many leadership positions, including District Director for a membership base of approximately 5,000, and Region IV Advisor, with responsibilities covering six U.S. states and four Canadian Provinces. Stephen currently lives with his wife in Tennessee.
Stephen continues to incorporate his leadership and communication skills to help professional and private entities meet their specific demands and goals. His success is based on delivering personalized training, guidance, and entertaining messages, and his passion for teaching and sharing his knowledge for the benefit of those around him. As an award-winning international speaker, his presentations have reached around the globe to businesses including England, Germany, Canada, the Philippines, and India.
Stephen is also building a successful podcast titled, “Are You Awesome Today?” He will soon be releasing his 200th episode, all featuring a truly international cache of professionals, covering a myriad of relevant, interesting and dynamic topics.
Stephen has developed presentations that reach to the core of what attitude is and how having the right one can dramatically change lives professionally and personally. You are invited to explore all Stephen has to offer, or contact him to discuss a presentation that fits your needs.
Ways to connect with Stephen:
Website: www.awesomeattitude.net
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenshaner/
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/
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Transcription Notes:
Michael Hingson 00:04
What if the biggest thing holding you back isn’t what’s in front of you, but rather what you believe? Welcome to Unstoppable Mindset, where inclusion, diversity, and the unexpected meet. I’m your host, Michael Hingson, speaker, author, and advocate for inclusion and possibilities. This podcast explores how the beliefs we carry shape the way we live, lead, and connect with others. Each week, I talk with people who challenge assumptions, face adversity head-on, and show what’s possible when we choose curiosity over fear. Together, we focus on mindset, resilience, and the small shifts that lead to meaningful change. Let’s get started. Hi there, everyone. Wherever you happen to be, welcome to another episode of Unstoppable Mindset. I am your host Michael Hingston, and today we get to chat with Stephen Shainer. And Stephen is a person who’s going to talk a lot about attitudes. So we ought to have a great discussion about cats. Then we’ll see. Anyway, Stephen, welcome to Unstoppable Mindset. We’re glad you’re here.
Stephen Shaner 01:23
Well, thank you so much, Michael. It’s an honor to be here. Thanks for having me.
Michael Hingson 01:26
Actually, my cat does does pretty well. My cat has developed this habit that she likes to be petted while she eats, and I’m the one that has to pet her since now I’m the only one in the house. But literally, she’ll yell and won’t eat until I go in and pet her while she’s eating, it’s it’s really funny.
Stephen Shaner 01:45
Ours was abused in two homes before we got her by both people and animals, and we got her from the shelter. She had very little fur from the anxiety. They told us she was a medium-haired tabby, and we got her home, and she just went poof, and just this giant fur ball. And it turns out she’s part Norwegian forest cat, but she’s just a little angel. She just her favorite place to be is on one of our laps, and she she doesn’t get into anything. She doesn’t scratch furniture. She has no interest in people, food. She just wants to be held and likes to purr.
Michael Hingson 02:14
Well, and that’s what counts. Well, we rescued this one. We rescued Stitch 11 years ago. Now it’s actually getting 11 years and almost a month. And people lived in the apartment next to us, and the the wife died, and it was the wife’s cat basically because the husband decided to go live in an assisted living facility and had absolutely no interest in the cat. Just told his caregiver and his sister who were moving out his furniture, take the cat to the pound. I don’t want anything to do with it. We learned about that, and we said, "Well, we’ll find it a home, because we didn’t want a cat at the time. We was all we were living in apartments and had two golden or two Labrador Retriever dogs, a guide dog, and the dog’s mother, who was also a service dog for my wife. And so we said, "We’ll find it a home, and as I love to say, I then made the mistake of asking what the cat’s name was, and they told me the cat’s name was Stitch, and I realized that this cat was going nowhere since my wife had been a quilter since 1994.
Stephen Shaner 03:15
That’s a great story,
Michael Hingson 03:16
and Stitch has been now with us for over 11 years, and it’s and it’s great. And my wife has passed away, but you know, Stitch and my current guide dog Alamo keep an eye on me. And I’m sure my wife is monitoring from somewhere, so I got to be a good kid, or I’m going to get in trouble.
Stephen Shaner 03:32
Yep, good.
Michael Hingson 03:33
So you know, it kind of works. Well, tell us about kind of maybe the early Stephen growing up. Let’s start there. It’s always great to start at the beginning.
Stephen Shaner 03:41
Wow, way back there. I know
Michael Hingson 03:43
a long time ago.
Stephen Shaner 03:45
Yeah, early. My my dad played guitar professionally for many years, and he’s done some other things as well. But that was his primary love, his passion. And growing up, I learned guitar a little bit, and then by the time I got to elementary school, I had picked up trumpet and did well with the trumpet. Had fun with it in high school. By my 10th grade, I was playing in the the college jazz band, and then when I graduated from high school, I joined the army and I went through the Navy School of Music and graduated from that. I played trumpet and guitar in the army for three and a half years. The
Michael Hingson 04:17
boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B
Stephen Shaner 04:20
did a lot of funerals. Yes, I did. I was a bugler and got out of the army and didn’t do much with music after that. But I I got a job at the mines, copper mines there in Arizona. Worked there two weeks and we had a cave in one night. And okay, that’s the end of that. Were you out near Bisbee
Michael Hingson 04:37
or where were you?
Stephen Shaner 04:38
I was out near Superior.
Michael Hingson 04:40
Superior. Okay. Yeah,
Stephen Shaner 04:41
that that area. So then I became a full time firefighter EMT, and did that for a couple years. I left that job through something less stressful. I became an air traffic controller.
Michael Hingson 04:53
Yeah, that was less stressful, right?
Stephen Shaner 04:55
It was, yeah. Good job. So that was in San Diego, and did not like. The job and ended up going out to Florida, Daytona Beach, Florida, and it was in San Diego. I started picking up Magic a little bit, and went to Florida and went to Embry-Riddle Air Natical University for a year. Didn’t care for that. I got hired by GE to do some computer type stuff and worked with them for a little bit. Then I was accepted to Magic College, and they only take so many students a year, and I was accepted. They were in Los Angeles, you know. So I went San Diego, Florida, then went back to L.A. I went to Magic College, spent some time
Michael Hingson 05:31
at the Magic Castle, of course. I
Stephen Shaner 05:32
worked the Magic Castle for a few years while I was out there, and just had a good time and left L.A. Went up to Washington State and got back into computers, and continued to do the magic, and then I ended up getting a job at the Nevada Tuss Site. So I worked there for five and a half years, along with Area 51, a little bit, and then. So, are there are
Michael Hingson 05:52
there any aliens out there? No,
Stephen Shaner 05:53
it’s it’s a great subterfuge, though. I know people think that’s it. They don’t know what’s really going on out there. So, I was out at
Michael Hingson 06:03
Roswell several years ago speaking somewhere, and it was fun to to make jokes about the the aliens. And I’m sure that they stored them out there somewhere.
Stephen Shaner 06:12
Yeah. So, and then when I when that job, they stopped doing nuclear testing about three four months after I got there, and so my company went from a little over 10,000 employees, and over the next five and a half years, they were doing, you know, reduction in forces every six months, and we got down to about 1800. And I was like, you know, there’s no future here. So we went to Minnesota, and I took a little time off, figure out what I wanted to do. When I grew up, at that point, I had I had two Oracle certifications, Oracle programming language, and so I got to Minneapolis then and got a job with the U.S. Postal Service as a contractor and helped them develop a national training database. And then I went to work for a healthcare company when that project was done, and I was with them for 20 years.
Michael Hingson 06:58
Wow!
Stephen Shaner 06:59
And they eventually moved me up to Duluth. They asked me to go relocate up there. They’re going to open a new IT facility up in Duluth, Minnesota, and they asked me to consider relocating up there and managing this new facility. So did that, and I ran that place for about 14 years before I retired in 2019. Now I’m down here in Tennessee, speaking and doing magic, and I’ve got the podcast. I just published my third book and doing a lot of emergency communications on radio and that type of stuff and having a good time.
Michael Hingson 07:27
I, when I was doing computer sales, especially the last few years, worked for Quantum Corporation, so we were the manufacturers of a lot of the digital linear tape technology and tape libraries and so on, and it was fascinating to to see all the things that the companies were doing. Wall Street used a lot of Sybase much more than Oracle, and I guess it all had to do with the fact that they were not formatted fields so much in Sybase. And I’m not quite sure what the advantage of that was, but people seemed to like Sybase at least for a while.
Stephen Shaner 08:02
Yeah, I I knew some people that did both at at I don’t remember what companies were at, but they were doing both Oracle and Sidebase, and there were some you know pros and cons for both.
Michael Hingson 08:13
Yeah, is Sybase still around today?
Stephen Shaner 08:16
That I don’t know.
Michael Hingson 08:17
Yeah, I don’t either. I mean, Oracle certainly is, but yeah,
Stephen Shaner 08:20
Oracle. It’s been
Michael Hingson 08:20
a long time since since I was involved with it all. It kind of really ended a few months after September 11th for me, so I’ve never really checked. I should go back and check and see if Sybase is around. I know it it was it would it would definitely be a problem for for blind people to do a lot with with Sybase when they were not formatted fields, but there are some technologies that even can handle that today, which which is kind of cool. Yes, but Oracle definitely certainly made life great for Larry Ellison anyway.
Stephen Shaner 08:52
Yeah, it did. I met him. We were at a. It was a different company. It was a company that manufactured the computerized maintenance management software that we use at the Nevada test site. We was having a user group meeting in Dallas, and he came in during the last day and talked to us for a few minutes. It was when they were promoting Oracle Personal Seven, ah, and so he came in. So I did get to beat Larry Ellison. He’s a he’s a different guy.
Michael Hingson 09:18
Well, that’s cool. So so now today, what do you do exactly?
Stephen Shaner 09:23
Well, along the way, along through all of those travels, I really became a people watcher. I just loved watching people and and how they acted, how they reacted, how they proacted, and the vocabulary they use, and just how they how they interacted with other people, I was fascinated by that, and that’s how I kind of got caught up into this this attitude stuff, and learned quite a bit along the way just by watching people. I got involved in Toastmasters about 24 years ago, and kind of went up through the ranks there, and and was a what they every club is in an area. Are in a dis in a division. Every division is in a district, and the districts are pretty large. And the top three people in in the district are what they call the district trio. And I ended up serving in those three positions. First, I was the what they called the lieutenant governor of marketing. So I spent a year marketing Toastmasters. I created 16 clubs, new clubs for our district. Our district was most of Minnesota, North Central Ontario. It was big, and had over 5000 members, almost 300 clubs at that point. And then the next year, I was Lieutenant Governor of Education training, so I was working on you know training district leaders and club officers and those those programs. And then I was elected district governor. As district governor, I had 10 division governors, 58 area governors, and a leadership team of about 30. Did that for a year, and just loved it. What a great experience! And then I was immediate past district governor for a year, and then the board of directors, Toastmasters, appointed me to be a region advisor, and I did that for a year. And I had I had Minnesota, Iowa, North and South Dakota, part of Wyoming, part of Nebraska. I had Montana, I had Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Western Ontario.
Michael Hingson 11:06
Wow!
Stephen Shaner 11:07
Yeah, so and that was a fabulous experience. Yeah, then after that, done a lot of mentoring. Been mentored by a lot of people. I served as a past region advisor on the past region advisor council, where we looked at the past the Regent Advisor program, then I spent two years serving on the International Disciplinary Committee. So I’ve done done a lot of things in that organization, but my whole focus has been you know speaking on attitude and and those types of topics. I I do I have a real passion for helping people find their passions. Too often you know, ask somebody who are you, and they’ll say things like, "Well, I’m a computer programmer. I’m a lawyer. No, that’s what you do. Are you? And they don’t know how to answer that question. Or, or you ask them, "What are you passionate about? And you get a blank stare. So, I I developed a program called Find Your Peace, which is your passion, your purpose, your potential, and your personal mission. And it’s a month long, and it just takes these people through a exercise of self discovery, and they discover really who they are and why they do the things they do and think the way they think. And it’s just it’s really a lot of fun watching them go through that that transformation.
Michael Hingson 12:10
Stephen Covey been a pretty significant influence for you.
Stephen Shaner 12:14
I met him, and that that was yeah. I I was a facilitator of Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits when I got to the healthcare company I worked, they that was a mandatory class for all new employees, and I had been using it for years before that, and had taught some of it to a few people here and there. Nothing formal, but after I took the class, they had they had six certified instructors there at the company, and the head guy came to me and he says, "You know this stuff better than we do. Would you be willing to help us teach this stuff? I said, "Sure. Shortly after that, four of the other instructors left the company, so it was him, me, and one other person. Then the other person left, so it was just him and me. And then he said, "I’m just too busy take it over. So, so I was running that program for a while until the company dropped it. But in I don’t remember what year it was was when Stephen Covey released the Eighth Habit. He was doing a seminar in Minneapolis, and I and I went to that, and there was about 250 of us in attendance, and they brought in box lunches for us. And so I ate lunch, and I walked out to the lobby. This was at the Minneapolis Convention Center, and I walked out to the lobby, and was throwing my lunch stuff away, and I turned around and he was walking up. So I stuck my hand out and I shook his hand. I said, "Thank you. And he smiled. He says, "What are you thanking me for? I says, "Your seven habits have changed my life in so many ways. And I thought that would be the end of the conversation. It wasn’t. He put his arm around me and he pulled me over to the corner, and he said, "Tell me your story. And so I told him, you know, about my life, pre-seven habits, and some things I’ve been doing since. Then he asked me a question I wasn’t expecting. He says, "Which habit do you think is most important? I says, "Well, for me, habit one, be proactive. He said, "Really? Why one? I says, "Well, I think if you master habit one, you’ll have huge successes with the other six habits. I says, and if you don’t, you may have some successes, but nowhere near the level, you know, that you could. And he he smiled and he says, "You get it. Then he then he says, "What’s your name? I says, "Stephen. He goes, "Oh, great name. But the the lesson for me was, if somebody like Stephen Covey can make me the most important person in his life for 10 minutes, you know, how should we be treating the people we that we interact with.
Michael Hingson 14:23
Yeah, where does attitude come from?
Stephen Shaner 14:25
You know, this is a this is this is a thing that when I when I talk about it, I get a lot of you know people looking at me like no, no, no. So, but here’s here’s here’s the way we feel, and I felt this way for a long time too. It’s okay. I’m this way because of my parents or because of my grandparents. Okay, I have a negative attitude because it’s Monday, or because it’s you know the sun isn’t shining, or because so and so is in the White House, or whatever. So many people feel like attitude is placed upon us. I’m this way because of what’s going on around me. When the fact is, attitude is a choice that we can make. And that’s the whole habit. One be proactive, you know. He, Stephen Covey, teaches us that between stimulus and our response, there is a space, you know, where we can choose what our response is going to be, and we’re the only animal that can do that. I mean, if I if I’m hiking through the woods and I accidentally walk between Mama Bear and her cub, she’s not going to be proactive. She’s she’s going to react, and so so those those or she or
Michael Hingson 15:25
you can say she’s going to be proactive and get you out of the world. But yeah, I hear you. Maybe
Stephen Shaner 15:29
yeah. So but and I was working for a guy when I when I first started looking at some of the stuff. I was working for a guy who took credit for everything I did, and he wasn’t shy about it. We’d be sitting in a meeting, and I’d be sitting next to him. He’d go, "Yep, I did this, and I did this, and I did this, and I just sit there quietly. And one day, he, the whole day long, is over there typing on his computer. Finally, he’s the printer, and he he comes over and he hands me. He had just he had just redone his resume, and he handed it to me. And I’m I’m looking at this, and I’m thinking, you know, I could put my name at the top of this resume. It would be perfect, and it got to the point. So you imagine the emotions. I mean, those negative emotions come in-the frustration, the anger, and those types of things. And I decided it was time to move on. But before I did, I took some time. I went out into the wilderness, and I took Seven Habits book. I took Tony Robbins’ Awaken the giant within. I took my scriptures and I took my journal and I took some food and water and I just went out there and and so I’m reading Stephen Covey and he’s telling me that if I’m having a bad day, it’s because I decided to, not what I wanted to hear. Then I’m reading Tony Robbins and he’s telling me frustration is a good thing and it’s also not what I wanted to hear. But then as I read my scriptures and and was writing my journal, I kind of came back to this concept of being of service, and I came out of that weekend with a huge breakthrough. And it was like, so what? So what if he’s taking credit for what I do? Is it my job to make him look good? You know. And so my attitude completely changed because I asked different questions, and I and I decided that, you know, I can have good attitude anyway. Went back to work. He continued to do that. Didn’t matter. I I had a better attitude. I was more energetic. I had fun at the job, and it was because you know it was all on me. I had to make a decision and decide. So so I’ve learned, and I’ve helped a lot of other people realize that you know if you’re having this, and Stephen was right, if you’re having a bad day, it’s because you decided to, and yeah, bad things do happen, okay, to us. But it’s still, if we decide to be in a negative mood, that is because we decided to. I know people have gone through divorce, have been thrilled, you know, and it’s just it’s it’s how you look at it. The questions you ask are so important.
Michael Hingson 17:38
Well, I know everybody talks about September 11th. What a horrible time it was! How stressful it was, and so on. And yeah, it was a bad thing. On the other hand, as as I point out to people, people ask me all the time, "Well, you survived. What do you think about that? And I said, "Well, I know there were people who who did not, and I am I’m sad about that. But by the same token, the very fact that I survived really means what I need to do is decide how I’m going to live my life and what I’m going to do with that. And we were very blessed. I think almost immediately the media got a hold of of my story. That happened because we we started by talking with the person who was in charge of information at Guide Dogs for the Blind, where I’ve gotten all of my dogs, and she wanted to put out a story, and that got to the media, and I chose to start to answer questions that people wanted to ask from the media. What I learned was that was much more therapeutic than in going to any kind of counseling sessions would be because you never knew what they were going to ask. Some people asked really good questions. Some people asked really dumb questions. But the point is that that allowing myself to be subjected to all of that taught me how to how to think and deal with all of it. And and the reality is, what I learned was ultimately for me, it’s what am I going to do with my life because I survived, and then phone calls started coming in from people saying we’d love to have you come and speak and talk to us about what we should learn from the World Trade Center, which over the years has evolved to a lot more than what happened on September 11th, but why I got to the World Trade Center in the first place, and the the lessons to be learned from all of that, and the bottom line is that that I learned, as as you pointed out, how much of it is really choice, and I could be negative about the World Trade Center or not. Certainly, it was a not a very very positive thing, but how I deal with it is really the issue as far as my personal life is concerned.
Stephen Shaner 19:47
Yeah, you get it. That’s that’s exactly it. We have we have that opportunity to make that choice. I
Michael Hingson 19:53
met someone who had a brother who was a police officer. And died at the World Trade Center. He was a fireman, and he switched and decided he wanted to become a police officer because he wanted to go kill terrorists and he wanted to capture them and put them in jail and maybe get a chance to kill them. That was his choice, and that always struck me as that’s not going to help. On the other hand, I can certainly talk to to people here and anywhere about the World Trade Center and how we deal with our lives, and we can talk about God and where God is in all of it. People always ask me if you know if I think that God just really blew it that day, and and again, my my point is, why do you think that? You know, the reality is, everyone has a choice in the world that they can make at any given time, and and we need to make those choices, and we need to live by the choices that we make.
Stephen Shaner 20:54
Yes, absolutely. And there’s some other things we can do when we find ourselves in those negative places. Number one is ask different questions. Sometimes negative things happen, and we’re asking the wrong questions. You know, why me? You know, those those types of questions. And guess what? We’ll get the answers. So, and it seems a funny one. I had a when I was working up in Duluth. My my direct report manager was down in Minneapolis, so we were about 160 miles away, and every now and then my team would make a mistake of some kind, and there was a senior director down there that every time that happened, he would immediately go to my boss, you know, and and question this, and then I get pulled in later, and I just I would get so frustrated that he wouldn’t come to me with this stuff, you know, and this went on for a long time, and one day we had we’d made a mistake, and so he sent an email to my boss. Look what they did this time. So my boss forwarded to me, and he just simply typed in Stephen question mark. You know, of course, as soon as I saw it, you know, I was like, I was so frustrated, and I kept asking, does he go to my boss? Why doesn’t he come to me? Why did you know? And it was just these negative anger, frustration. And finally, I calmed down. I said, "Okay, why am I really upset here? Am I upset because my team made a mistake? No, they make mistakes. They’re exceptional at fixing problems and making sure they don’t happen again. That wasn’t. Was I upset that my boss knew? No, I’d already told him, you know, he needed to know. Okay, so that wasn’t it, and I kept coming back to this. Why does he go to him? Why did he come to me? And then finally, I changed a little bit, and I said, Why would he go to my boss? And I thought, I was, well, they’ve known each other for years, they have a relationship, they have trust, and I said, maybe he doesn’t even know he can come to me. I was just thinking that.
Stephen Shaner 22:42
Yeah, all of a sudden, I was like, "Okay, I’m in control again. So I called or I replied to the email. Here’s what happened. Here’s what we’ve done to fix it. It won’t happen again. And I said, "If anything like this happens in the future, please let me know. Okay. I set that off. I then called this this gentleman and I and I set up a one-on-one with him that we could meet every two weeks, and I could start building that relationship with him, build the trust. And after a while, he didn’t go to my boss anymore. He came to me. But by changing the questions,
Michael Hingson 23:10
yeah,
Stephen Shaner 23:10
you know, we’ll get different answers. If
Speaker 1 23:16
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Stephen Shaner 23:48
Well, and and then there’s you know the vocabulary we’re using too.
Michael Hingson 23:52
I was
Stephen Shaner 23:52
sitting at a Toastmasters conference one night, Friday night dinner, the round table. There’s I think eight of us at the table. So it was me, my wife Nancy was next to me, and my former boss was next to her. He he and I joined Toastmasters at the same time, and and this was right when I was getting ready to become the district governor. And I and I looked over at at my former boss. I says, "Are you going to be an area governor next year? And him being him and his sense of hearing, he says, "Well, why would I want to do that? So I replied, "It’s the best job in the district. You get to visit clubs, you get to give presentations, you get to organize speech contests. It’s a lot of fun. And at the same time, then a lady across the table I just met, she she piped up. She says, "Well, a lady in my club is an area governor, and she hates it. And I said, "Really? Why? She says, "Well, she has to go visit clubs, and she has to organize speech contests, and she has to give presentations. And you see the difference. I was saying you get to do these things. She was saying you have to have to do these things. Yeah. How do you feel when you have to do something? You know, versus get to, and we can change our vocabulary just that simple, and it it makes a. Huge difference. If I say, "Oh, this is devastating, what am I going to experience? Devastation, whatever that means to me, you know. And I used the words like that. There’s something bad happening. I’d use those negative words, and now I’ve just I’ve switched it up. So something like that happens. I just I just go, okay, this is entertaining because that changes me instantly because being entertained is a completely different experience than being devastated. Okay, so I can look at whatever is going on completely differently from an entertaining standpoint, and it takes me in a completely different direction. So vocabulary is huge. The the words we use, and I and I always tell people: take if you’re in a negative place, what do you what are you watching? What are you listening to? What are you reading? You know what were you with? You know, take a look at those things. For years, I would watch the news programs on Sunday, you know, and I just scream at the TV. And I haven’t watched news on on television now probably in going on 20 years. You know, I don’t need that because most of it is negative, you know. And I can get my news into, you know, as much as I need where I want to get it from, and and do it that way. So I watch
Michael Hingson 26:11
I watch the news, but I also recognize something, and you’re you’re alluding to it certainly, which is it’s it’s all about how you choose to deal with what you see. When I was running from the collapse of Tower Two, the first thing I thought of when I started to run was God, I can’t believe that you got us out of a building just to have it fall on us. And as soon as I thought that, I heard a voice in my head as clearly as you hear me that said, don’t worry about what you can’t control. Focus on running with Roselle, and the rest will take care of itself. And I also had this absolute perfect sense of conviction that if I and my guide dog Roselle worked together, we would be fine. And I have lived by that concept for now the last 24 and a half years, which really is one of things happen. There are a lot of things that we don’t have control over. It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t necessarily be aware of them, but it does mean that we don’t need to let those things be things that we worry about because we’re not going to have any control over them anyway. And that’s 90 to 95% of what comes across in our lives, so it’s it’s for me. I don’t mind watching the news. I I expect not very much from all of it, and I know they’re going to come through every time. So it works out really well. But but the fact is that it’s one of the ways that I have to get the news since I don’t read newspapers directly. I can read. I can get the L.A. or the New York Times online, but still the news is is there, and I’ll take what I can learn from it and move forward. But it is it gets back to again. It’s a choice, right?
Stephen Shaner 27:53
Yes. And you just you just nailed habit one. Be proactive. Yeah. There’s a lot of things going on in the world. Okay. All the things of all the things we want in the world, some things we don’t care about. Okay, but there are some things that concern us. Okay, so we we we pay more attention to those. There are a lot of things out there. They have no concern about that. And then inside all those things that concern us, there are things that we can influence and things that we can’t. Okay, so proactive people focus on the things they can influence, the things they can control primarily themselves, okay, right? And yeah, reactive people. Where do they focus? They focus on the things they have no influence over, and they yell and scream and gripe and and do all those things like I used to do, and and that’s the difference. That’s really habit one in the nutshell. Yeah, focus on the things you control, and I and I work with people all the time, and I had one here recently. The guy was very frustrated about some things other people were doing, and and was just you know upset and frustrated. And I said, "Look, I says you have no control over those people. Don’t worry about them. Focus on the wonderful things that you do every day for people, you know. And immediately his demeanor changed, his attitude changed, and and it really can be that simple, you know, just by changing, you know, asking different questions, using different vocabulary, and and especially if you focus on the things you can control, primarily yourself, it’s huge.
Michael Hingson 29:13
Yeah. Well, and and the reality is that just so many people just seem to enjoy worrying about all these things, and all they’re doing is creating fear in their lives, which is which is so unfortunate, and we fear so many things, and and there’s nothing that we’re going to be able to do about most all of them because they’re not really affecting us, or are touching us in any way. So it doesn’t do us any good to to go off and continue to fret, but we do, and we we need to learn not to do that. And it’s one of the the things I talk about in my my latest book, "Live Like a Guide Dog, which is all about learning lessons from dogs. You know, dogs don’t do what ifs when something happens and it’s over. It’s over for the dog. They don’t they don’t go back. Well, what if. This had happened instead. They don’t do that, and and it makes such a big difference. There’s so much we could learn from observing our dogs. I don’t know about cats. No, I do. Cats are good too, but but you know we we can learn so much from the way dogs behave. Dogs are are open to trust. I’m not going to say they’re trusting all the time. I do think that dogs love unconditionally, but I don’t think that they necessarily trust unconditionally. But they’re open to trust, and that’s the thing that we have forgotten how to do: is to be open to trust.
Stephen Shaner 30:33
Very true, very true.
Michael Hingson 30:35
And it is something that we really need to learn to deal with it, and hopefully, over time we will we will do more to catch on. I mean we’ve got all the stuff going on with politics today, and yeah, it doesn’t matter what side of the the spectrum that you’re on with with all of that. The bottom line is deal with what you can control, and don’t worry about the rest. It makes such a big difference. So the problem is negativity is so much all around us. How do we get ourselves out of a negative mood? I think I kind of know where you’re going to go with this, but I think it’s a relevant question. How do we how do we get ourselves out of feeling negative all the time?
Stephen Shaner 31:15
Touch on some of them. You know, change your vocabulary. You know, take a look at what’s going on around you. See if you can eliminate what’s causing that negativity, gratitude is huge.
Michael Hingson 31:24
Yeah,
Stephen Shaner 31:25
and in any given situation, there have been times when I’ve you know been okay, I’ve been down or there. But if I just take a breath and say, okay, what am I grateful for right now? You know that that can turn you around instantly. And in my workshops, I’ll I’ll ask that question. We’ll go around the room, and people say, "Well, I’m grateful for you know my health, or my family, or my wife, or my creator, or whatever it may be. There’s all these different things, but I take it a step further, and I say, "Okay, all of those things that you said you’re grateful for have a relationship associated with it. Okay, so if you say you’re you’re grateful for your health, well, that’s a relationship with yourself, perhaps your doctor, perhaps your creator. If you’re grateful for your family, that’s a relationship. Your employees, there’s these relationships behind that. And then the next question I ask: Okay, so all those things that you’re grateful for, all those relationships you’re grateful for, do they know? And we miss that part sometimes. We miss
Michael Hingson 32:19
that part.
Stephen Shaner 32:19
Yeah, and if we if we are truly grateful for a certain thing in our life, and there’s that relationship with it, let that person know, and that includes you know being grateful for yourself. You know, give yourself a pat on the back from time to time, and be grateful for that. In my book, I have the line, you know, every day above ground is a great day. Yeah, and and I was at a seminar, and there was a the guy in attendance that was you know three piece suit, Italian suit, you know the fancy shoes, and and the seminar leader asked him. He says, you know, do you consider yourself to be successful? He says, well, no. He says, well, how do you know when you’re successful? The guy says, well, when I have a you know four and a half million dollar home and a and you know a $200,000 car and and all this stuff he listed off he says well how much or and he made and he he wanted to make an income of you know it was like you know 5 million a year or something he says well how much you make now he says well I’m at about 3 million a year you know and how much is your house well it’s only about 2 million you know but he didn’t consider himself successful and then there was another guy there in jeans, cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, and and the the some earlier asked him. He says, "Are you successful? He says, "Absolutely. And he asked him. He says, "How do you know you’re successful? He says, "Every day above ground is a great day. And there you
Michael Hingson 33:33
go.
Stephen Shaner 33:33
And it’s just and it’s so true. But gratitude is huge. Just taking, like I said, take a step back, take a breath, and okay, what am I grateful for right now? And you can always be grateful for something, and that can change your attitude instantly.
Michael Hingson 33:48
Well, and I think there’s a lot of merit to that. I know for me, I’m grateful because I get to do what I think I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. I didn’t get to teach for the longest time directly, but since September 11th, that’s really what I do. I teach about life and philosophy. I get to teach about disabilities and help try to educate people. And most of the time, I think it probably goes over most people’s heads. But every so often, you just never know when you might strike a nerve or you might say something that somebody just goes off and thinks about, and you’ve you’ve scored points and you’ve helped, and so I think that’s that’s extremely important. I I hear what you’re saying. Every day above ground is a is a good day. There’s no question about that.
Stephen Shaner 34:32
And I don’t want to make light of people that you know life through any illnesses and stuff like that. But again, in those situations,
Michael Hingson 34:38
if
Stephen Shaner 34:38
you if you think about what you are grateful for and have a positive attitude, you’ll get through those situations a lot easier. That’s for sure.
Michael Hingson 34:46
I had a situation last year. Actually, it started in 2023, but I had a a or 2024. I had a a pain in my left arm, and it turns out when we finally. Dealt with it, and and and I had to take some blood tests, and discovered that we had a very elevated heart enzyme called troponin. I had a bad heart valve, and I knew immediately I have two ways to deal with this. I can be scared, fretful, why me? Or I can say, okay, we’re going to fix it. And for me personally, I choose the positive way. I’m going to we’re going to deal with it and all that. And and we did. I went into the the hospital for an operation to to replace the valve, which they did, And so this operation was supposed to take like two hours or two and a half hours, and it actually only took about an hour for me because, as I love to tell people, I have good veins and good arteries, so no problem. So they they went in, they replaced the the valve, and I wake up and I’ve had colonoscopies before, so I had some experience with this. I wake up, I’m listening to them, and so I I figure I had to to deal with these guys a little bit. So I started kind of moaning, and I said, "Gee, Doc, do you ever think I’ll be able to play the violin? Unfortunately, somebody knew that one, and they said, "Probably. I said that’s good because I never play it before. But but then I said, but you know what the doctor said is he sewed himself up, right? Suit yourself, and and you know they said you came right out of that anesthetic, didn’t you? And I said, yeah, I told you I was going to come right out of it. But but you know it’s been great ever since the valve got replaced, and and I was told that if I hadn’t done it, I would have lived anywhere from six months to at most two years. But the valve was replaced, and I still get to to be around my guide dog Alamo and and my cat Stitch. So you know,
Stephen Shaner 36:54
yeah, my wife Nancy here is a little over a year ago now. She had an episode where her her blood pressure was going up, but then it would come back down. So we’re about there. There’s a hospital about a half hour from us, but they don’t have all the the fancy facilities and stuff. the The nearest big hospital is is about an hour from here. So I called the paramedics, and they came in and they got her hooked up the KG and were kind of monitoring everything. He says we’re going to take her down to Cookville because they’ve got a good cardiology cardiology department at that hospital where they don’t have one here locally. So halfway there, her blood pressure just dropped, and she went unconscious.
Michael Hingson 37:40
So
Stephen Shaner 37:41
they got her stable license, sirens rest the way in. So she was in that hospital for four days, had every heart test known to man, and you know I would go visit her and and spend a little time with her. And one of the visits, one of the nurses cornered me in the hallway, and she says, "Can I ask you a question? I said, "Sure. She says, "How can you be so positive during all this? And Alex Troy says, "Okay. I says, "Suppose I was very negative and very grumpy about all this. How would that help the situation, right? And I says, "Or if I was grumpy and in a negative mood, how would that help Nancy? And she just said, "You know, I never thought about it that way. And when they were checking her out, the the doctors and all the nurses came in and thanked both of us for for being so positive and friendly and nice with everything that was going on. So little things. And what did they finally decide? Nothing was wrong with her heart. So she has since now this year she had some more heart problems. She started having AFib issues, so they put a watchman in, and that kind of you know plugged that hole in the left ventricle so that she won’t get the blood clots. So she doesn’t have to be in a blood thinner. And about six days after that, her heart was kind of not working so well with it, so they put a pacemaker in. So she had two heart surgeries in about six days. But now, sounds like what what’s going on is all of these problems are being caused by the COVID shots. Ah, and so because her heart was fine, you know, before, but now all of a sudden she’s got these. But right now she’s doing great. In fact, she had an appointment last two weeks ago, right before the ice storm, and the Cardia says everything’s looking good. We’ll see you in a year, so so things are going well now.
Michael Hingson 39:32
Interesting. Well, you know, I’ve I’ve heard that some people have had reactions to the COVID shots, son, but I’ve never bought into the concept that they’re just injecting you with a bunch of trackers to follow you wherever you go. I remember the first few times we had vaccinations, they did it in our in our cars, and so we drove up, and they would come out and they gave injections, and after they gave the injections, I’d reach over with my left hand. I go wait a minute, and I’d hit my right shoulder where they did the injection. I said I was just getting one of them little things that tried to get away, and you know, and the and the nurses finally say, "You don’t really believe in those trackers, do you? And I said, "Heck no, I’m having too much fun, you know.
Stephen Shaner 40:15
No, it’s a Frank Stein monster you stuck in there that scares me. That’s right. Yeah,
Michael Hingson 40:20
but but you know, and you know, I I I do get vaccinations. I get the COVID vaccinations, and I asked someone when I I think it was November that we went in and had one. I travel enough that I’m always going to take no chances, so it’s better to get vaccinated, and I don’t have any reactions to them. But I asked if people still come in and talk about the trackers and all the the horrible things, and she said, "You just wouldn’t believe how many people still buy into that. It’s crazy.
Stephen Shaner 40:49
Yes, indeed.
Michael Hingson 40:50
If you really want to scare them, then you can tell them that AI helped develop the vaccinations and see what they do with that because it’s true. But yeah, I
Stephen Shaner 40:58
know everybody’s loving AI. I said, yeah. Just go back on what 2001 of Space Odyssey and see how you feel about it. Yeah, right.
Michael Hingson 41:05
Open the Pod Bay doors, Dave. You know what are you doing, Dave? Oh gosh, people are amazing, aren’t they?
Stephen Shaner 41:13
Yep. Yes, they are. But that’s what makes life fun. You know, it’s just the fact that people are different. It makes life fun because if everybody was the same, it’d be a boring place. It
Michael Hingson 41:23
would be a boring place, so it’s more fun to have people who are different and people who are not necessarily thinking the same way you are and intend to be negative. And maybe sometimes you can change some of those people, which is good. And it’s always fun to to try. That’s the
Stephen Shaner 41:38
goal. Yeah, that’s the goal. You know, be an example and show there’s a different way.
Michael Hingson 41:42
So, do questions matter? Asking questions matter.
Stephen Shaner 41:44
Absolutely. Like I shared, you know, with the questions I was asking about this this this manager that was going to my boss, you know, just by asking different questions. And another thing is is I’ve had a lot of fun with this word, awesome. My company is awesome attitude, and I’m the bottom of all my emails, you’ll see a "You are awesome, and I type that in every time.
Michael Hingson 42:07
It’s
Stephen Shaner 42:07
not part of my signature, so I might say, "You know, thanks, you are awesome, or you know, you know, whatever message. I’ve gotten
Michael Hingson 42:12
those.
Stephen Shaner 42:13
Yeah, you are awesome, and people don’t realize I type. In fact, I misspelled "awesome" one time when I sent the email, and the guy, the guy wrote back says you need to fix your signature. Awesome is misspelled, and I replied, "Oh, I says that’s not part of my signature. I typed there time. And he was like, "Wow, personalized awesome messages. But it’s amazing because people will respond to those emails, go, "Well, thank you so much. I wasn’t expecting that. And barely a week goes by where somebody doesn’t send me a text or something that they saw the word "awesome" somewhere, like recently, the guy was walking his dog, and he came across on the sidewalk where kids with chalk had had written "You are awesome" on the sidewalk, and he took a picture and he said, "Thought of you, and this happens all the time, and is another one of those vocabulary things, and and I’ll share how the question changed that. In my first book, I talk about you know how are you today, and you think about all the different responses you can get to that question, and some are like I’m fine, you know I’m or I’m good. They’re just pretty routine answers. I had one guy ignore me completely, just walked past me, you know. Then I had a guy one time. I was like, "Well, I’m alive, you know. So you get this variety of answers. And I had a guy one time. He asked me, "How are you today? And I said, "I’m awesome, thanks. And I kid you not, he looked at me and says, "That’s too bad. I’m sorry to hear that. And and I smiled, and and he realized what he had done, and he says, and he apologized again. I was not sorry. He says, "I’m so used to hearing negative responses. I automatically assumed you said awful.
Michael Hingson 43:47
Oh, okay. So,
Stephen Shaner 43:48
so, and again, we asked that same question over and over. How are you today in this video? How are you? How’s it going? What’s up? You know, what’s new? We we asked that same question. So I changed the question. The question is, "Are you awesome today?
Michael Hingson 44:05
I know, and that’s oh yeah,
Stephen Shaner 44:07
that’s it’s unexpected. People don’t expect that, and they think, "Oh, you know, yeah, I am awesome. That’s the the title of my podcast: "Are you awesome today? And when I answer the phone, you know, it’s, "Are you awesome today? Or if I call somebody and they answer the phone, I’ll say, "Are you awesome today? And it’s completely different. It gets them thinking differently, and it gets them. Yeah, I am awesome today. You know. So rather than the the same old, how are you today? I’m fine. It’s yeah, I’m awesome. Thanks for asking. You know. So questions do matter.
Michael Hingson 44:35
When people ask me how I am, I just say I’m lovely, and I learned that from a friend, and I love it. It’s great, you know. And and I’ve had some people who go, "What? But but you know, awesome. Yes, absolutely. But I do love to say I’m lovely, and I love
Stephen Shaner 44:52
that. And it’s different. People don’t expect it, and no, it’ll make their day. Believe it. It has an effect. Had a young lady on ham radio, teenager. And I’d always, whenever I talked to her on the radio, they said, "How are you today? Or this was, you know, this back when I was asking that question, and she would reply, "Dandy, thanks. You know, there you go. Yeah, and it was just, it was so much fun. It was like that’s the kind of things we like to hear.
Michael Hingson 45:14
You still a ham operator?
Stephen Shaner 45:15
Oh yeah, yeah. I’ve I’m the emergency coordinator for Macon County, and I’m the district emergency coordinator for 13 counties here in Middle Tennessee for Aries Amateur Emergency Services, and president of our local club, and so very active. I just did some some Poda before I got on on here with you. Parks on the air got three contacts: a guy at Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Michigan.
Michael Hingson 45:39
If I got industrious, I would get an antenna and connect my Kenwood back up. It’s been a while since we moved down here, and I haven’t had this running at all down here. And I really need to get it get it back up on the air. I’ve been a ham operator since 1964. I got my novice license in ’64. My dad could have gotten his at any time. He wanted to wait until I could get mine, so we got them at the same time. Nice. And then in ’65, got technician, and then soon after that, general class. Nice. And we we set up rigs at opposite ends of the house, and we would talk to each other and drive people around the whole town crazy because we would be talking about the weather. You know, I’d say, "How’s the weather over there? And he’d say, "Oh, it’s raining over here, and people knew that we were at opposite ends of the same house. I say, well, it’s really nice and sunny here, and just drove people crazy.
Stephen Shaner 46:27
I bet, but yeah, Nancy’s got her. She’s a she’s an extra amateur extra, and we’ve got our VE credential, so we give the tests, and we just have a blast with the hobby. It’s a fun hobby, and then when you can do the committee service too, it’s it’s great.
Michael Hingson 46:39
I used to do things with races and also with Mars.
Stephen Shaner 46:42
Yeah,
Michael Hingson 46:43
and it’s been a while, but I really need to get the antenna up and get an antenna in here and get back on the air. I think it’d be a lot of fun to do.
Stephen Shaner 46:53
Contact a local club. I’m sure some people help you get that. Yeah,
Michael Hingson 46:55
I just really need to do that. Yeah. So, how does energy affect attitude, and how do I get more energy?
Stephen Shaner 47:02
Ah, boy, you know that’s such a great question. That’s a that’s
Michael Hingson 47:05
a that’s a detailed one, isn’t
Stephen Shaner 47:07
it? It is, and I awesome
Michael Hingson 47:09
question. It
Stephen Shaner 47:10
is. I watch people; those people that are positive all the time. You you know, we meet them. They’re just no matter what’s going on, they’re always positive. They always seem to have a lot of energy, and and I found that if we we want more energy, what we need to do is give energy. What I mean by that is is movement. Okay, if we find ourselves kind of low on energy, the battery is a little low. Just get up and move. And it doesn’t have to be anything, you know, strenuous. Just in my office, I had a sit stand station, which meant I could take my whole computer and to monitor everything, raise them up. I could stand for you know, and I would stand for hours during the day. They gave me energy. Take a five minute walk, you know. And music is huge. If you know, play some music, dance in your cube. You know, sell tickets, have a little concert in your cube, fight your coworkers, and have a good time. But but just get up, move. That’s really all it is. I get up at four a.m. every day, and I do an exercise program called the Five Tibetans, and then I do Tai Chi, and then you know read or work on the computer, whatever, and do until Nancy gets up around seven. And but that those two things give me energy throughout the day. And if I find myself in a slump, just getting up and taking a short walk will boost my energy level up
Michael Hingson 48:18
every time.
Stephen Shaner 48:20
Yeah. So I
Michael Hingson 48:21
we didn’t design our house this way, but we have a long island, but separating the family room living room area from the kitchen. And now, since it’s just me, I will do I will put an audio book on and just do laps around the island, and I can get up to 15,000 steps without any great difficulty, just reading a book and and doing it, and it’s a great way to get energy. And to I
Stephen Shaner 48:45
bought Nancy a walk pad. These are these are fairly new. It’s like a little miniature treadmill. There doesn’t have the big handle thing sticking up. It’s just a flat treadmill for walking. They’re designed so you can like sit it under your desk and you can you know take some steps while you’re at your computer or something. Yeah. But but because it’s you know a little rough for her. It’s pretty hilly out here to to get us up. So she’s got a nice level place that she can just you know walk for 2030 minutes every day in the house. Where especially when it was our ice storm going on a couple weeks ago, you know, stay in and stay warm and not slip and fall. And but there’s there’s ways to do that. And like I said, even just standing up, I did a presentation at the local chamber of commerce this morning, and when I was in my presentation, rather than go back and sit down, I went to the back and stood the whole time. And at church on Sunday, I stand through the entire service in the back and just keeps my energy up. So
Michael Hingson 49:36
I don’t always do that, but I oftentimes stand, and I’ve been to to many meetings, and I’ll just stand in the back of the room. And frankly, given some of the speakers, it’s better to stand and get a little bit more energy. But but a lot of times, it’s just good for me anyway to to do that, which is cool.
Stephen Shaner 49:54
Yeah.
Michael Hingson 49:56
So, do you think? People generally tend to truly understand gratitude, or is that still a hurdle that a lot of people need to work to get through?
Stephen Shaner 50:09
I think they, like I said, I think they say the word, you know, and I say, you know, I’m grateful for this. But what does that mean exactly? I don’t think they take it down to the the detail. Okay, and like I said that there’s relationships there. So if I say you know I’m grateful for my health, what does that mean? Okay, well you know I’m I’m grateful that and and I come from a every male on my dad’s side and every male on my mom’s side has had heart disease, died of heart disease. My dad had his first bypass surgery at 48. He had a second. He died of a heart attack. You know so I’m 67 and I take no medications. Okay, so I’m grateful for my health. You know, so and the relationship there, me, my family is affected by my health. You know, my friends, my coworker, everybody that is is in my life is affected by my health. I’m grateful for. I don’t go to the doctors very often because I don’t need to, but I’m grateful that you know you had a heart valve problem, and our medical system for those types of things is second to none.
Michael Hingson 51:11
Yeah,
Stephen Shaner 51:12
you know. So and even though I’m an hour away from a big hospital, I’m grateful that that is there if I do need it in in some way. You know, exactly, exactly right.
Michael Hingson 51:21
Same thing for me.
Stephen Shaner 51:23
Yeah. So we don’t. I don’t think we say, "Yeah, I’m grateful for that. But what does that really mean? And I think you’re right. We don’t. We don’t take it deep enough and really think about. Okay, what does this really mean? And and again, with those relationships, okay, I’m grateful for my wife. Does she know? I hope so. You know, because I I do tell her frequently. I say
Michael Hingson 51:42
telling her helps.
Stephen Shaner 51:43
Yeah, it does. It really really does. So,
Michael Hingson 51:48
and likewise, I’ll bet she’s grateful for you.
Stephen Shaner 51:51
I think so. I hope so. So we’ve been we’ve been married. It’ll be 45 years in July. So
Michael Hingson 51:56
we were married 40 years before Karen passed. Karen was in a wheelchair her whole life, and the body just eventually slows down. I I learned from her sister that I’ve I’ve never heard this from my wife, but her sister told me, oh, they never thought she was going to live live past 30. Well, she lived to be 73, and the reality is, I I’m not sure. I totally buy that that that what her sister said was true because I’ve never been able to to verify it anywhere else. But Karen Karen lived a good life, but as I said, the body eventually does slow down, especially dealing with a wheelchair and all that, and things happen. But I know that we have 40 years of wonderful marriage memories, and as I said, she’s out there monitoring. And if I misbehave, I’m going to hear about it. So I don’t even chase the girls.
Stephen Shaner 52:48
Yeah, I would
Michael Hingson 52:49
point out they don’t seem to be chasing me either. No, no reference to anything on the podcast, folks. Just saying. So,
Stephen Shaner 52:56
and I think attitude plays a huge role in your health too. And I know there’s a lot of literature out there that would back that up.
Michael Hingson 53:04
So clearly, a positive attitude is a wonderful thing, and I’m sure that that given all that you do with a positive attitude, you you by definition affect a lot of other people as well.
Stephen Shaner 53:16
It’s it’s amazing how many people just make comments. You know, comment I’ll make. Oh, I wasn’t expecting that. Thank you so much, or anything like that. I was in a, I was out running errands one day for work at lunchtime, and as I was heading back to the office, I got rear-ended, and pretty substantially. And so I got to the side of the road and and kind of shut everything off. I took inventory. I was okay, but those negative emotions, you know, the frustration, the anger, and those things started to creep in, and I finally just I took a breath and I said, and I asked a question. The question was, can I make this a positive experience for everybody involved? And so I got out of the van, I went back. The car that hit me was there were two teenage girls, two sisters. The driver was 18. I think her sister was 16, and first thing I asked, "Are you guys okay? And they said, "Yep. So I called 911, said accident. Here’s location. No injuries, and I had to really work to pry the door open on the car because the front end of the car was smashing. But I got him out, and she just she the fear that she had was you know just evident, and she’s. I’m so sorry. I I just got distracted for a sec. I didn’t mean to hit you, and I looked at her and I just I just said, I’m pretty sure when you got up this morning, you didn’t tell yourself that you were going to go hit some old man on the highway today, and she didn’t expect him. Then I just kind of smiled, and then then she smiled, and then her sister kind of smiled. The atmosphere completely changed. Yeah, and so we were having fun, you know, talking and laughing and everything. So the police car pulls up, and this lady police officer gets out. She walks up. Now I was wearing a bright orange Hawaiian shirt. I had on tan pants, and I had on orange Crocs. And this police officer walks up, and she goes, "What happened? The girl says, "I got distracted, and I hit him. And this police officer looked at me, and she said, "You deserve to get hit dressed like that. I’m good now. Yeah. Now four of us were having a good time. Now, if I had not made that decision, asked that question made that decision, if I’d gone into this situation with the negativity, anger, and the frustration. I guarantee you that cop would have never said something like that, because it was it would have been a completely different atmosphere. But that’s just a simple example. We we have that ability to choose.
Michael Hingson 55:35
Yeah,
Stephen Shaner 55:36
and when we do, wonderful things will happen. Look at your vocabulary. Change some of the words. Start telling people you’re awesome. I tell you what, you do this stuff for 30 days. You know, every time you find yourself negative, look at what you’re doing, what you’re reading, what you’re listening to. Make some changes, simple changes. You, your life will change. And the great part is, it’ll have a very profound effect on those people around you-the people that you love, your kids, your spouses, you know your cowork, your boss, whoever it is, you know the community. People notice, and and they will they will want to be around you, and they want to be like you.
Michael Hingson 56:10
Yeah, and and that’s the way it it really ought to be. And I just really wish more people would be more positive. But again, we we need to work on not fearing so many things, among other things, and there are probably so many things that one could point out. But all we can do is is our best, and all we can do is is live our lives, and then either people will catch on or they won’t.
Stephen Shaner 56:35
Yes,
Michael Hingson 56:36
which is which is really, you know, the way the way it works. But so you read a lot of success literature.
Stephen Shaner 56:45
I do. I I read a lot. I’m an avid reader. I read books like crazy. But like in the morning, you know, I get up, I do my train of stuff, and and I’ll read. You know, it doesn’t have to be a lot. It’s not like you have to 24/7 read success literature. But even 10 minutes a day, read an article, read a paragraph out of a book. You know, watch a TED talk, watch a YouTube video, listen to a podcast. There’s so many sources for positive positivity out there. Take advantage of that and and let that kind of you know information feed into your brain every day. And wow,
Michael Hingson 57:18
yeah, it’s as we’ve talked about so often during the last hour. It’s all about choice. Tell us about your books.
Stephen Shaner 57:29
My first book is called The Art of Being Awesome, and it’s proven techniques to add to your attitude palette. And it’s mostly a lot of the things we talked about here today. You know, your vocabulary, questions, gratitude, success literature, energy. You know those types of things. All of my books are are small. You can read them in about you know 45 minutes or so. The second book is called An Attitude of Service, exploring the attitudes of servant leadership, and where I define what the difference between management leadership is, proper vocabulary for both. You know situational leadership. You know those different types of things, and then the third book I just released in November is called The Perfect Gift, and it’s mastering the art of effective feedback. My my title that I have been given is the Attitude Chiropractor, and I give pain-free attitude adjustments, and that’s kind of what that book is about. We there’s way too much contention out there in the world, and we can all learn to, me included, can learn to to give feedback. You know, better that’s not so negative all the time.
Michael Hingson 58:30
Yeah. Well, by the way, while I am thinking of it, not to chastise you too much, but I would appreciate it if you would send me pictures of your book covers so that we can put them in the show notes.
Stephen Shaner 58:41
Yeah, I can. I can do that very easily.
Michael Hingson 58:43
I was just just checking to see if you had sent them and you didn’t. And yeah, I always love to promote the books. That’s okay. You know, they’re in print, so I’m not going to read the print anyway. But other people will. But that’s okay. But no, seriously, I’d love it if you send the pictures to the book covers because we’ll put them in into the show notes.
Stephen Shaner 59:00
I can do that.
Michael Hingson 59:01
So, if somebody comes up to you and says, "I’m frustrated with life, and so on, what’s your call to action?
Stephen Shaner 59:10
Call to action is let’s take a look at what’s going on in your life. Let’s find out where that negativity is coming from, and then let’s figure out what things that you can control that you can focus on instead. And and you said it. That’s that’s really the key is focus on the things you control, and that’s where we start. But you can do that on your own too. Like I said, you know, look at what’s going on in your life when you’re in that negative mood, and say okay. And guess what? 99% of the time that you’re in one of those moods, you’re focused on something you have no control over. Yeah.
Michael Hingson 59:42
So, which is the point?
Stephen Shaner 59:44
Yeah, which is the point. So, the call to action is take a look at that. Say, okay, what can I control here? And when, and then you get you you you you really get control back, and the negativity will go away. And it may take a time or two.
Michael Hingson 59:58
Yeah, takes practice.
Stephen Shaner 59:59
Yeah, it takes practice. Yes, and that’s okay. But have fun with it, and and believe me, your life will change in ways you can’t imagine. But the answer,
Michael Hingson 1:00:06
I’m sorry, go ahead.
Stephen Shaner 1:00:07
I was going to say is just I have a little sign up here says one day or day one you decide.
Michael Hingson 1:00:14
Yeah,
Stephen Shaner 1:00:14
and I just love that because we sometimes well, I’ll do that tomorrow or I’ll do that next month. No, do it now.
Michael Hingson 1:00:21
Do it now.
Stephen Shaner 1:00:22
Yeah. So take advantage of the sort of the same con
Michael Hingson 1:00:26
sort of same concept of when you come to a fork in the road, take
Stephen Shaner 1:00:30
it. Yeah. And you just talk about unstoppable mindset. You know, that’s it. And for me, it’s it’s the passion that I have that gets me out of bed every every morning at four and doing the things I do, and and my number one passion and is to add value every day. That’s what that’s what gets me up at four a.m. is is the opportunity to add value.
Michael Hingson 1:00:49
So, do people reach out to you from all over the country or all over the world to to learn from what you have to say and think about?
Stephen Shaner 1:00:56
Yeah, I’ve worked with people in India. I’ve worked in people in Asia, England, a lot around the U.S. I’m doing a lot more local stuff here too, which has been kind of nice in these small communities out here where I live.
Michael Hingson 1:01:10
Well, I am with you. I get up at about four to 420 in the morning as well, and I do it very deliberately because I don’t have to rush through breakfast, and I can can think about things, and it’s a great way to start the morning and really put positive spins on the day. And and I do, and and I think that’s just so important to do. So I really am glad that that there are other people that do that as well. And if people want to reach out to you, how do they do that?
Stephen Shaner 1:01:40
My website is awesomeattitude.net, so you can go there. You’ll there’s a podcast tab. You can see all the podcast episodes, the guests, links. When is our when is
Michael Hingson 1:01:50
our episode coming out, or did it all? It’s already out. Yep, it
Stephen Shaner 1:01:53
came out two Mondays ago. Okay, yeah. So yep, I’ve been on this
Michael Hingson 1:01:57
podcast, everyone. Yeah, it was
Stephen Shaner 1:01:58
wonderful conversation. It was an awesome
Michael Hingson 1:02:00
content, awesome podcast episode.
Stephen Shaner 1:02:02
So, and then there’s information about my books. You can contact me, and my my email address and everything is there. So, yeah, just go to awesomeattitude.net, and you can get a hold of me there.
Michael Hingson 1:02:12
Great. Well, I hope people will do that. I think it’s absolutely relevant to do, and I think it is important to have an awesome attitude, and everyone should feel awesome and forget all the negativity. It doesn’t do you any good. So thanks very much, Stephen, for being here. I want to thank all of you for listening today and watching, whichever you happen to do or both. I’d love to hear from you. Love to hear your thoughts about our episode today. Please feel free to reach out to me. I’m easy to reach. It’s speaker at Michael Hinkson M I C H A E L H I N G S O n.com. Love to hear from you. Would appreciate it if you give us a five star rating. But even more important, give us a great review. People who are interested in listening or watching our podcasts want to know what other people are thinking about it, so we appreciate reviews. It’s always an important thing to do. So thanks for doing it in advance, and for all of you, Stephen, including you. If you know anyone else who ought to be a guest on Unstoppable Mindset who has a story to tell, love to hear it. Please introduce us. We’re always looking for more folks to chat with. And with that, Stephen, once again, I want to thank you for being here. This has been absolutely fun.
Stephen Shaner 1:03:23
Thanks for having me. This has been fun. Have an awesome day.
Michael Hingson 1:03:28
Thank you for being here with me on Unstoppable Mindset. I hope today’s conversation left you with a fresh perspective, a new insight, or at least something worth thinking about. If you’re ready to go deeper into the ideas that shape how we see ourselves and others, I have a free gift for you. Head over to michaelhingson.com and download my free ebook, Blinded by Fear. It explores the invisible beliefs that hold us back and shows you how to reframe them so you can move forward with clarity and confidence. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast, leave a review, and share this show with someone who can use a reminder that growth starts with mindset. When people think differently, we all move forward together. Thanks again for listening. Keep learning, keep questioning, and keep choosing to live with an unstoppable mindset.
