Episode 79 – Unstoppable Seagrams Special with Lynn Teatro

Posted November 29, 2022

In Uncategorized

Why Seagrams Special? Listen to a remarkable story about Lynn Teatro where she will tell you about not one, but two times she went to high school. During her second stint, she was given the name.

While Lynn was raised to be a farmer’s wife she always wanted more. After her marriage breakup, she chose to try school again as you will discover.

In college, Lynn studied Psychology. She completed a three-year program in 23 months even though her professors said not only that it couldn’t be done and that it was against the rules to get her degree in such a short time. Unstoppable or what?

Among other endeavors, today Lynn is a member of an organization that serves persons with disabilities. Her attitude is very refreshing and quite positive not only about those she serves but about life in general.

Today Lynn is developing a program to help encourage dropout students. As you will see, she is teaching others to be unstoppable.

About the Guest:

Lynn Teatro was raised to be a farmer’s wife and a mother. Rural Ontario, north of Hwy #7 expectation. She was married 2 weeks out of high school.
Lynn wasn’t able to graduate because she failed physics and was getting married, so it really didn’t matter. Or so she believed back then.
12 years later she was a single parent of two kids, back in class with the teens and completing her Grade 13 (Yes, she’s that old).
This time I got to hang out with the cool kids. My nickname was the Seagrams Special.
She applied to Trent University as a high school graduate and completed her 3- year undergrad in Psychology in 2 years. Lynn’s academic advisor told her that she couldn’t do that. It was against regulations or something.
Too late, Professor Earnest, she had already finished the work for her last credit.
Lynn had a varied career as a front-line social service worker. She worked in shelters for abused women and their children, with seniors, with sex offenders in prison, helping the homeless…She had a two-year stint pissing off landlords and pulling miracles out of her ass. Her daughter, Megan’s words, not the actual job description. But it’s close.

Now as a quasi-retiree, she has made it her mission to help dropouts and other struggling students find their zone of genius. She helps them boost their confidence with workshops, 1:1 counselling, and group coaching. She is also building a professional roster of like-minded people to help her help struggling students fly the nest and on to success. It’s a mighty task and Lynn has learned to ask for help the hard way.
She is proud of her rural roots. Lynn knows for sure that you can take a girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl.
And she also knows that sometimes our personal trail takes us where we weren’t expected to go.
She challenges all of us to enter that huge unknown world of possibility.
So, take her advice no matter who you are and where you are at in life. Surprise yourself.

How to connect with Lynn:

Website: www.MyVoiceCounts2.com
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/lynnteatro
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyVoiceCounts2 I broadcast my Facebook Live My Voice Counts, too: the parents’ edition from this page
Calendar link for promotion: https://calendly.com/lynn-teatro/20

About the Host:
Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.

Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards.

https://michaelhingson.com
https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/
https://twitter.com/mhingson
https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/

accessiBe Links
https://accessibe.com/
https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe
https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/

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Transcription Notes

Michael Hingson 00:00
Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I’m Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that’s a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we’re happy to meet you and to have you here with us.

Michael Hingson 01:20
Well, Hi, and welcome once again to unstoppable mindset. Today we get to interview Lynn Teatro. And I’m not going to tell you a lot about her. She’s got an incredible story. We’ll have to ask her about her nickname when she was in high school the second time around, but she has had a wide variety of experiences. And I think that we’re going to find just how unstoppable she is. We’ll see. Anyway, Lynn, welcome to unstoppable mindset. How are you? I’m great, Michael, how are you? Doing? Well. Good. Well tell me. Well, you’re welcome one. Thank you very much for being here. Lynn is another one of our victims who came from podapalooza. You all have heard about that before. We had another pot of Palooza event last month in June. And by the way, if anyone is interested, there will be another one coming up on October 19. And if you want information about that, please reach out to me at Michaelhi at accessibe.com. And I’ll get you all the information as soon as I have links. We’ll put those up as well. But anyway, here we are with Lynn and you’ll have to tell us all about why you were involved in podapalooza as we go through this, so let’s not forget to ask you that. But I’d like to start by you telling us just a little bit about you growing up and all that sort of stuff.

Lynn Teatro 02:40
Well, I was born in Peterborough, which is the place I’m living right now. And my dad was worked in a grocery store and my great ANP company and my mom was a homemaker and I had a brother born right after me and then another brother born the year later, and that was the time that my dad became ill with heart problems. And he was nursed at home and he died just before his 20/25 birthday. 25 seems to be a rough year for the men in my family. My older brother Dale had a diving accident just before his 24th birthday and broke his neck and he was a fully disabled quadriplegic for 19 years. And my other brother kept attractor over on himself and the throttle went up into his leg and barely missed the femoral artery. So he was luckier than what Dale was, and I had a sister that was okay, go ahead.

Michael Hingson 03:35
I was just gonna say, now tell us about the women in the family.

Lynn Teatro 03:39
Yes. My mom found it very difficult to cope and mental health issues run in my family. So she had a long period of depression after my father died. And my teenage uncle came and looked after us for a while. And after we moved to Cannington, about four or five months, it’s just a small village where my grandparents were close to. And we lived in a small town and I asked my mom for pink car when I was five. And she actually brought home a pink car. It was called buckskin Brown, but I was actually pinks. I was very, very pleased and the people in town got to know us because I have red hair and my brothers have been bright orange hair actually. We had a blonde German Shepherd shepherd that rode around in the trunk of the car with the lid up. And then it was a pink car. So when we drove down the street, people got to know us very quickly. They knew who you were. Yeah. So my mum ended up marrying about four years after my dad died and they had an incident and she was born with hydrocephalus. And for anybody who doesn’t know what Hydrocephalus is, it’s water on the brain. And we all have water on our brains. It goes around the brain to push up against the skull and it also goes down to up and down the spinal cord to keep it lubricated. And there was a blockage somewhere in that system that caused the fluid to build up around her brain before she was even born. So yeah, she was born prematurely. But it wasn’t soon enough to help her from becoming profoundly developmentally, developmentally delayed. And, yeah, I looked it up in the in YouTube or not YouTube on the internet the other day, my sister required $100 worth of medication to control her seizures. And that’s worth almost $800 Canadian, which is a lot of money, and my parents were paying for the farm. And they ended up having to my mom ended up having to go to work. And when she was at work, I was 12 years old, and I was responsible for profoundly, you know, high risk kids for two and a half years of my life when I was home on weekends and holidays, and that kind of thing. So I learned a lot about parenting, but not real parenting because Carrie was very much like a, an infant. She, like our like a doll. She was a living doll. She needed to be fed, she needed to be changed. But she never got that second reflex. She never cried, never laughed. The only real human response we got from her was when we were around. Like if it was just family, she would be awake more times than if we had strangers in the house with the exception of my aunt and uncle and their six kids. She seemed to have accepted them as family to and was quite used to them. So yeah, and yeah, and then yeah, so that that is where the women, women kind of lost it.

Michael Hingson 06:41
So everyone in the family definitely had some challenges. How long did Carrie live? I know that she no longer does.

Lynn Teatro 06:49
Yeah, she was two and a half years old. Two and a half. Yeah, yeah.

Michael Hingson 06:54
Well, you’re still here.

Lynn Teatro 06:55
I’m still here.

Michael Hingson 06:57
That’s a good thing. It is. It is. So tell me about as you were growing up you in school and so on?

Lynn Teatro 07:04
Well, in school, I did. Okay. I was one of those that was able to get marks without working very hard for them. And but as I got older, my marks started slipping, I started losing my confidence and developed anxiety around public speaking. And I was raised to be a farmer’s wife and the mother of farm children. So I went to grade 13, which was popular, you know, was in in place in Ontario at that time.

Michael Hingson 07:36
Now, what is grade 13? Grade 13

Lynn Teatro 07:38
was the final program for going into university. So if you were on the university track, you took grade 13. Well, I just decided to take group three team because otherwise I wouldn’t have anything to do. And then I got engaged in the middle of my grade 13 and was married two weeks out of high school. And technically I didn’t graduate from grade 13 Because I failed physics.

Michael Hingson 08:05
Physics isn’t that hard? Having my master’s in physics, I had to say that anyway, go yeah, yes. I’m just defending the honor of science anyway, going well,

Lynn Teatro 08:17
and you know, I’m very interested in science. It’s just that that was the one that I had, I had to work out a little bit. And, you know, I had a boyfriend. I was working at the house for doing chores and things. So you know, doing homework was just not one of my priorities.

Michael Hingson 08:32
So you got married two weeks out of high school,

Lynn Teatro 08:35
two weeks I’ve taught in school. And then two years later, I had my first daughter. And two years after that, I had the second my second daughter. And even though I was living the life that my parents wanted me to have, my husband wasn’t a farmer, he was a mechanic. So still working with his hands within got dirty. So that was an honorable profession as far as my family was concerned. But I wasn’t happy. I was not happy and my marriage deteriorated. Actually, I had applied to college and was accepted. And the day I was supposed to go down and register. Alright, the night before I was supposed to be down on a register. My husband and I had we argued all night because I was adamant that I was going and he said that we didn’t have the money even though I had worked hard to to claim that money. But it was it was irrelevant, because my stepfather came up and said that my brothers had an accident and had broken his neck. So the family made a pledge that they would there would be somebody with my brother every day that he was in the hospital in Toronto. So every day one person, at least one person would drive down and spend the day with him. And I don’t regret that at all. It was it was a rough time for him. But once he got moved back to our community and he ended up living in the hospital for most of those 19 years, but after he got back to the community I figured that, you know, that wasn’t required. It was just you know back to, to being brother sister. And that’s when I applied to university. And my marriage had broken up by that time too. And actually, before I applied to university, I decided I was going back to high school, I just on a whim, drove into the laneway of the high school that I went to earlier, and asked how I got into university. And they sent me to the guidance counselor, and he said, Oh, we’re doing this semester system now. You can start, you can start high school tomorrow, upgrade your third grade 13 and apply as a graduate. So I did that. And that’s where I got the nickname The secret was special. And it was really funny. Funny, because that was one of the outside ones the first time in high school. But I was one of the cool chicks in the in the second time around.

Michael Hingson 10:49
Well, how did you get this name Seagram special?

Lynn Teatro 10:52
Pierre Burton, one of our here’s a host historian and an announcer with CBC had written about a book called The Bronfman dynasty dynasty. And when America had the prohibition against alcohol on the Bronfman, were doing Run, run, running down to the states, and making a small fortune and they are millionaires and the Bronfman dynasty continues, and they continue to make alcohol. And their alcohol is called Seagrams. And there’s a special one that’s always put in a crown, and it’s called the Seagram special. So that’s where I got my nickname.

Michael Hingson 11:27
There you are. Yeah. And cgroups is very visible down here in the United States today. Yes. So you finish grade 13, I got

Lynn Teatro 11:36
to finish grade 13. And then went to move to Peterborough and went to university. And I did a few things, right. I selected my courses. So that I was, I would be out the door when my daughters went to just go grab the bus for school, and I would be at home when they got back from school. I

Michael Hingson 11:59
before we go further. So you passed physics in grade 13?

Lynn Teatro 12:02
I didn’t take physics. I did a math course. Okay. And I did well, the teacher said afterwards, when she heard that I was coming into the class that she thought that she would have to spend a lot of time with me, because textbooks had changed in that 12 years. Yeah. When I was in grade 13, the first time around calculators, calculators had just become affordable. And we weren’t allowed to use them in doing our homework and doing exams and things. When I came back, the textbooks were written to be used with calculators. So there was a bit of an adjustment to make. But I did fairly well, I got 73 wasn’t as good as the young woman behind me. She happened to be the, the daughter of the teacher that taught me the first time around in math. And she got 100 She graduated with 105%.

Michael Hingson 12:52
How did textbooks change? To accommodate calculators and so on? So what was different?

Lynn Teatro 12:59
I think that they, it wasn’t that you it was the process that they wanted you to go through to go through the process and get the right answer. So rather than doing the, you know, the adding and subtracting and the multiplying, they acknowledged that calculators existed and they could be a good tool.

Michael Hingson 13:16
So what did they make you do instead of doing a lot of calculations to show that you knew what you were doing? Well,

Lynn Teatro 13:23
we still had to do the calculations, we still had to break it down. But it wasn’t we didn’t, we didn’t have to do the math. Mentally. We didn’t do figure them out each thought it was, you know, complicated formulas.

Michael Hingson 13:34
And was. Yeah, and what I’m really getting to is, of course, what it’s really all about, is it isn’t just enough to get the right numbers. But if you’re dealing with units and other things, you have to prove that the units and the other aspects of the exercise all come out as well. So it becomes more than just numbers. And that’s of course the real issue. And that’s true in physics as well, to the unit’s come out, it isn’t just getting a number.

Lynn Teatro 14:04
No, it’s the process. It’s the process and the results

Michael Hingson 14:08
and showing that you know that process Exactly. Let’s say you passed and you went into college and what did you study as major or did you

Lynn Teatro 14:16
have my major was was psychology, and I took all the requisites so that I get couldn’t get my degree as a science, in science rather than arts. My backups were sociology and English. Always loved to read. So that was a good course for me. But at the end of the first year, I decided that I’m on a roll and applied to go to summer school. So I took two courses in the summer. And then I kind of looked at my year again and took six courses are the equivalent of six courses in the winter, two more in the summer and I ended up completing my undergrad degree in two years instead of the three year program. Wow. Which was really lucky. Like it was it was instinct that I did it. It wasn’t thought out thoroughly. It was instinct. And that summer or that fall, my son was born because I was kind of a fiancee at that time. And the day my son was born, my beloved grandma Teatro had a stroke. And she didn’t even know that the first redhead in the Family Grant great grandchild had in the family had been born. Because when my daughters are born, and I phoned her, I said, she she’d always tell them what it was a girl and healthy. She does actually have red hair, because my grandmother had red hair, and my other grandmother had had red hair. So yeah, she missed it on that. And it was, it was a really tough year, and I got married out here to fall.

Michael Hingson 15:48
How old were your daughters? At that time? My daughters were 10 and 12. Okay, so you did graduate at least high school before they?

Lynn Teatro 15:56
Yeah. Yeah. and got my degree and got my Honours Degree in the next two years, and spent most of my working life in the social services.

Michael Hingson 16:09
So did you did you get a master’s degree or just?

Lynn Teatro 16:12
No, I didn’t get anxious. Just a bachelor’s honours, but it’s just a bachelor’s. In retrospect, I should have gone on. But

Michael Hingson 16:23
yeah, only so many hours in the day.

Lynn Teatro 16:26
Well, and I was the first person in my mom’s family, my father’s family and my stepfather’s family to graduate from high school, let alone go on to post secondary school education. So that was that was huge.

Michael Hingson 16:40
Well, given the background from what your family or your family’s expectations were, how did they take you go into college? And how were they when you graduated?

Lynn Teatro 16:51
Oh, when I was in high school, my sister in law had a tubal pregnancy. And she had one daughter at home, and my mom phoned up to insist that I participate in helping with my sister in law, and I said, I’m in school. And her immediate response is, Oh, you want to be you want to have a career, and it was really dripping with sarcasm. So that was pretty much sums up the support that I was getting from my family about later, still not, you know, it’s still not the acceptance that I would have liked. And they did attend my graduation. But they were more impressed with Peters AUSkey, who was a well known radio announcer here in Canada, that he was the getting the honorary degree and doing the keynote speech at my graduation then, than the fact that you know, I was the first person in the family to graduate high school,

Michael Hingson 17:47
let alone University. Now how old are your daughters? Now?

Lynn Teatro 17:50
My daughters are 48 and

Michael Hingson 17:54

And they went to college, or did they? My

Lynn Teatro 17:59
younger daughter just finished. She just graduated from university this year. She got married fairly young. She tried college and ended up dropping out and got married and no, got had two kids. And then she got married, and ended up leaving that marriage and moving to Peterborough, and going to university. And she’s studying psychology, too. And I’m urging her to go on to get her Master’s.

Michael Hingson 18:23
Good for her and good for you. It usually will help some,

Lynn Teatro 18:27
huh? Well, I think that’s a degree now is the same thing as what a diploma was when we were young. That’s the starting out that says if you don’t have a degree, we’re just going to put your resume aside because there’s other people that may be more qualified. So it’s easy weeding, weeding them out. My other daughter didn’t do that route. She’s, she’s was on she’s on the edge of genius like her. Her IQ is around 129. And she chose to go someplace where she could learn and, and earn at the same time. So she got really good at helping computer companies make educational systems and then translating them into French because my children were all bilingual. So they came out of high school fully fluent in French.

Michael Hingson 19:23
You’re close enough to Quebec. That makes sense. Well,

Lynn Teatro 19:27
French is our our other official or other official language, right. And when my daughter was young, one of her best friends had decided to go to to French immersion because French immersion had just been developed them. And since her dad worked in the town that the French immersion was being offered. We agreed to let her go and she was she missed the kindergarten portion. So her and Lindsay her her good friends had to sort of start a little bit behind there. peers in that class, but they very quickly caught up. And then my younger daughter just went along with them.

Michael Hingson 20:06
So you graduated from college? And then what did you start to do?

Lynn Teatro 20:11
I went into I started with an outreach center in the middle of low income housing project. And we served two projects, we did, and I was in part of the health care team. So I worked with the children around health and food and exercise and that kind of thing. And then in conjunction with a woman who taught mothers mostly about health and food, we would you charge a small fee and and teach them how to use fires for shopping so that they could get the best value for their dollar and try to avoid buying at the end of the month when everybody got their money, because that’s when the flyers had less nutritious food. And then once once they decided to close the shelter, or the the Outreach Center, I started working in women’s shelters, and did that for many years. But I also got a contract at a medium security prison here in Ontario, and work with sex, sex offenders. I did a stint with the CAS the Children’s Aid Society and in schools. So my my career was very, very varied. And but like my daughter, I would get, yeah, I needed to to learn. It wasn’t just about getting the money I had to learn. That was one of my the way I operate in the world. That’s not learning. It’s not enough fun. For me.

Michael Hingson 21:33
That’s pretty obvious from the way you, you tend to behave. And from all the things that I’m hearing. And going back to your college experience, as I recall, you finishing in two years was something that cause some angst with your advisor. And so

Lynn Teatro 21:51
yes, yes, I had my final meeting with my, my professor who was my teacher’s advisor. And she said, you know, where are you going from here? And I says, Well, I graduate, and she says, Well, how can you do that? And I told her how? And she says, Well, you’re not allowed to do that. And I said, Well, I just had my last class last week, it’s a little late to tell me now.

Michael Hingson 22:15
Did she ever decided that was really okay?

Lynn Teatro 22:18
I never had contact with her after that.

Michael Hingson 22:22
Don’t you love it when people have these rules, fixed or otherwise are real or otherwise, and they have to go by them. And when you come along and you do something different? They just tell you, it can’t be done? Well, it’s too late. It’s already done.

Lynn Teatro 22:37
Yes, I think that people filter experiences to their own abilities, rather than looking at the abilities of the person sitting in front of them. And sometimes, yeah, not nobody, nobody fits those little cubes that they want to push through students through. Some of them need to take time. Some of them aren’t on the fast track. Some of them are great in the sciences, some of them are great, they’re great in the humanities, what you do, and how they tackle that is very different. There’s been a lot of research on cognitive learning, or cognitive intelligence, which is the way you choose to operate in the world, how you choose to solve problems. And then we’ve got the IQ. And then there’s the emotional quotient. And then there’s the personality theory. And so when you start looking at all those pieces, and although none of them are absolutely perfect bang on, they do give us a place to start and looking at those aspects. And when you look at these, like 716 different personalities, and there’s 1212 pairs or modus operandi is in the Colby system. They haven’t really defined for emotional intelligence. And then of course, for general intelligence, we’ve got the good old IQ. So when you know that people don’t fit into that, there’s so many options and you start figuring out in probability theory, you get to appreciate that people are really unique, and how they look at the world and how they act in the world can be very different from yours. So they’re going to do differently.

Michael Hingson 24:17
How do we get people to start to understand that each of us has gifts, we don’t all have the same gifts, and that’s okay. Yeah. How do we get people to start to think more about that that’s a reasonable premise to have. Well, certainly

Lynn Teatro 24:34
advocating within the the Council for persons with disabilities, I’m on the board of directors there and helping people understand that people can live rich full lives, and have a disability, and also comparing and being. I’m very vocal about how I act in the world now that I know how I act in the world. And I’m one of those that you know, I make a decision and it’s zoom. Let’s get into it. And so I’m an instigator. I think I take initiative fairly quickly. But I’m also a researcher. The follow through part, the follow through part, completing things is not my forte. Since grade one, my report card said, Lin does not complete her homework. And even in university, I was sliding, resurrect projects and essays under the professor’s door date, the next morning, rather than on the day it was, it was expected. I’m getting better at that challenging kid, a challenging kid. And I think that’s another thing too, is that a lot of parents want their kids to behave. But don’t realize that the things that drive the parents crazy are the things that do them in most they’re going to need as adults. I mean, I’m, I’m was stubborn. My mom tried to teach me with the hairbrush, the flyswatter on my there, but with her bare hands to get, you know, I wasn’t supposed to be stubborn I was supposed to do as I was told. And she didn’t beat that out of me. That’s still there, I am still stubborn. I choose my battles now. But when I get my toes dug in, I’m there. I’m not budging. Unless you give me a really good reason to. I wasn’t one of those kids that that took, because I said so as a reason. I’d like to know why.

Michael Hingson 26:34
We you have obviously pushed the envelope in a lot of ways. And there isn’t anything wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with exploring and doing things differently. If it works, and if it makes sense. At the same time, obviously, you need to sort of analyze what’s happening and decide whether you really made the right choice, I would assume. And then that’s what sort of leads you to continue on whatever path you’re on.

Lynn Teatro 27:02
So I want to pause right now, working with CPD. And one of the things that we’re doing it come fall is talk to people with disabilities, about their lives that are rich and fulfilling. Despite their disability. I worked with a young woman a couple of years ago, in, in teaching her public speaking. And she went on to university and because she was visually impaired, she got so many people telling Well, it’s going to take take longer, don’t be hard on yourself. And she just graduated this year, she and she got Miss personality and couple of other distinguished awards. So she she went through with flying colors, like there was just no holding her back. And I was just upset with people who try to you know, they thought they were doing or good by saying you know, don’t, don’t set your expectations too high. But mi. And they you know, if you only make it to the seventh rung on the ladder, you aim for the fifth one, you’re still up there. They’re still up there. It’s a success.

Michael Hingson 28:23
And then you can decide if you want to try to go for the eighth run more than that’s run. Yep. Well, how did you get back into being comfortable with public speaking, you said earlier that you were not very comfortable speaking publicly. How did you fix that?

Lynn Teatro 28:36
Oh, when I left my sexist at my second husband, he was very abusive and controlling. And when he threatened to punch my daughter, my 13 year old daughter, shoved up against the kitchen counter and had his fist raised and was, you know, the angry red face? And I said, Nope, that’s enough. So I made plans for them to move out. And so when I left him, I joined Toastmasters shortly after we moved and the first speech I did with Toastmasters was I was hiding behind the lectern. And I had it all written out and I read it word for word. And two years later, I was doing impromptu speaking contests and there’s a trophy in Toronto with my name on it for impromptu speaking. So I went up the four levels for for table topics. And I’m quite proud of that

Michael Hingson 29:24
reaction. What kind of reaction did you get to that first speech since you were reading it all? What? What sorts of things did they say to you?

Lynn Teatro 29:31
Well, Toastmasters is a very supportive environment. Yeah, they that first speech is just tell us about yourself. And you know, with my colorful past, I didn’t want to do a dump on you know, my life’s been rough. So it took me a long time to figure out exactly what I would talk about. And but they were very supportive and talked about the things that were good and I’m a good writer, so I had had good language in my speech. And they pointed out a few other things that I did. But at least, you know, they got me out there and trying. And so the next speech was a little errand easier. And the next one after that was easier and and now I have to go back and learn how to prepare a speech properly rather than winging it. Most of the time,

Michael Hingson 30:17
I have found that I do a lot better at speaking, when I’m not reading a prepared speech, as such, oh, notes are one thing, having an outline is one thing. But reading a prepared speech. When I first started, people told me, that’s what I needed to do. And I did it once. And one of the things that I always have done is to record my speeches, because I want to listen to how I sound. And I do that with these podcasts as well, because I want to look for habits that I need to break and so on. I think that I analyze myself pretty well, as well as listening to what others say. But I think that I have enough experience that I do get to do great analysis, I don’t want to say I’m my own worst critic, because I don’t think that that’s really accurate. you’re analyzing and looking for what’s good and what’s not. And it doesn’t need to be a criticism. But anyway, I listened to that speech that I read, and I went, Oh, my gosh, this guy sounds horrible. And it was, it’s, it doesn’t sound the same. So I have learned to give speeches without reading it and writing everything down. And there have been times that that’s actually been extremely invaluable, as you say, doing extemporaneous or impromptu speeches or prepared speeches, where you’re still delivering something where you’re talking with the audience, if you well, as opposed to reading it, so that you’re making eye contact and communicating because that way, you are much more directly connected with your audience.

Lynn Teatro 31:59
And I hope you get to use your hands. I’m a person who uses my hands a lot when I’m talking. So if I’m holding a paper, I don’t get the same. I don’t deliver the same energy.

Michael Hingson 32:09
Yeah, I don’t use my hands a lot. I recognize that I work on it some. But I do tend to want to make sure that I am communicating. And oftentimes will say things to get audience reactions. And I know when I’m connecting to an audience based on how they react to different things that I might say, and that’s good, because I really want the audience to be engaged. I’m I’m a firm believer, and you don’t talk to an audience. You talk with an audience.

Lynn Teatro 32:40
Yes, it’s a it’s a conversation. And even though there’s not a lot of words coming from the audience, you still can get responses from them by asking questions and making them laugh. Get your responses that way,

Michael Hingson 32:55
among other things. Yeah, absolutely. So you went off and you learn to speak publicly, which is really cool. And I’m sure that that helped in raising your children. Yeah. Because you became more confident?

Lynn Teatro 33:10
Yes. Public speaking ability is certainly, certainly connected to confidence. And when you have confidence, you’re gonna be able to public speak without a lot of prompting. And if you have, if you’re not comfortable public speaking, then you’re not always confident either. So there’s a direct relationship between the two of them.

Michael Hingson 33:32
Right. Now, again, what’s the organization that you’re working with now that deals with disabilities?

Lynn Teatro 33:38
It’s called the Council for persons with disabilities. I’m on the board of directors. We did actually, I was on a on a little cruise today on our little lake here in Peterborough. And we went up part of the Trent Severn waterway, and we’d have lunch before and we had about six people in wheelchairs and about seven people who are visually impaired, and we had friends and we had a blast.

Michael Hingson 34:03
Yeah, and I liked and I gotta say, I liked the way you say vision impaired because visually, it doesn’t really matter whether you’re blind or sighted, you’re you’re not visually different, but visually impaired or low vision is a lot more accurate. I think that low vision is probably even a more accurate thing. When you talk to people who are deaf. They like deaf or hard of hearing, they don’t really like even hearing impaired. So blind and low vision. And the reality is it’s all part of the same thing. And it gets back to what we talked about before, which is recognizing that everyone has gifts. Mm hmm. How did you get connected with CPD at the

Lynn Teatro 34:42
Chamber of Commerce? Oh, actually, yeah, actually. Yeah, it was the Chamber of Commerce because Jason who is the heart and soul of CPD, came to business meetings that I attended. And he invited me to participate. The only people who can participate in CPD has to have lived experience with disability. So if you’re completely able bodied, then you can’t join. Unless, unless you would like me, you’ve had somebody in your family that’s been disabled.

Michael Hingson 35:13
And I love to have fun saying the reality is whether people like it or not every sighted person has a disability because you’re light dependent. You don’t do well on the dark. But we cover that with technology. It doesn’t change the reality, though, that you still have the disability. But that’s okay.

Lynn Teatro 35:29
Yeah, yeah, we’re just we’re just people, people with different skills and abilities, different weaknesses, and superpowers were just made different. And I love differences. I think the world doesn’t want to have me in it. I think they’re very happy that there’s just one of me.

Michael Hingson 35:49
Yeah. And there’s one of each of us. And it’s important that we look at that and recognize that. So are you still working in, in a job somewhere or what?

Lynn Teatro 36:00
Actually, my mom passed away last year at the age of 88. And given that our family doesn’t tend to live long. I think, well, I thought this is this is this is something to aspire to, my mum was going to be 88 or was 88 when she died? And I decided, Okay, I’ve got 22 years, what am I going to do with those 22 years. So I’m developing a program for dropout students, I was appalled when I was University. I, I knew what it was like for me to get there. So when I heard that there was a 30% dropout rate. for first year students, I was appalled. So I decided that I’m going to do something about that. So I’ve developed a program to help build confidence. It’s got some public speaking elements, but it’s also about getting to know yourself better to find those superpowers. We all know our weaknesses, because we’ve been told what our weaknesses are, yeah, whether they’re real or not, whether they’re real or not. And some sometimes the weaknesses aren’t really weaknesses, it’s just people present our superpowers because it doesn’t fit for them, like my stubbornness. So yeah, to help them learn to understand themselves better. So that’s what I’m doing right now. And I’m also doing a program called My voice counts to for focusing on adults. And I have people who come in, and the nine broad areas that I’ve identified as where students can become, become, start to struggle, the nine different reasons. So I’ve inviting people who have experienced in those nine different reasons and doing interviews with them, and they’re sort of semi educational. And if somebody comes to me with a problem, I want to be able to send them to it, because I know that I’m working on the confidentiality and or confidence, confidence and and class engagement part.

Michael Hingson 37:50
How do you? How did you transition to that from what you were doing before?

Lynn Teatro 37:55
Um, well, my background in public speaking certainly helps. But again, I like to learn so taking my learning and putting it to practical use on my own. My own way, is is mine Urbana. I like to I like to be independent. So yeah, it was it was an easy transition is, well, not an easy one. It’s doing it is easy, but making it profitable. And getting the word out there is a bit of a challenge.

Michael Hingson 38:26
Is it basically now your own business as opposed to working then for someone else?

Lynn Teatro 38:32
Exactly.

Michael Hingson 38:35
So when did you leave working for other people to do this full time?

Lynn Teatro 38:39
Actually, the partner, my last partner, yes, I’ve been married three times. My last partner had Crohn’s disease. And he wasn’t very good at cooking. And so it ended up that I stayed at home and did the domestic stuff. And we renovated the house too. So I helped with that. And I did the meal portion and supported him so that and he was making the better money. So that’s how it worked out. For him to retire early because of his illness wasn’t the best financial thing and he needed to be out of the house. Anyway. He’s a very, very much an extrovert. Uh huh. So yeah, I quit working for social services at that time.

Michael Hingson 39:18
How long ago was that?

Lynn Teatro 39:20
That was about 15 years ago.

Michael Hingson 39:22
Okay. So you left working and stayed at home? When did you when are you still with that partners? He

Lynn Teatro 39:32
No, I’m not. No. Unfortunately, see, became a very angry man as his illness progressed, and he was becoming very, very abusive verbally. So I left and moved to Peterborough and what did some contract work I’ve with Toastmasters. I’ve helped develop conferences. So I took those skills and did some, some contract work for a couple of agencies here and social services agencies here in town.

Michael Hingson 39:59
How long To go to start the business then

40:01
was certainly after I moved into Peterborough. So 10 years ago.

40:06
Okay. All right. So you’ve been doing it for a while and becoming successful? Have you written any books or created? I gather, you’ve created some courses and so on around it. Have you written any books or done anything that’s been published yet?

Lynn Teatro 40:21
I have been doing a lot of writing. You got a taste of that when you asked for those eight questions. Your vote Yeah,

Michael Hingson 40:31
the bio you sent me definitely does sound like three chapters of your autobiography.

Lynn Teatro 40:38
So yeah, I’m keeping on to everything I write, sometimes I just need to get it down and let it go. So that I can focus on what really needs to happen. So I’m not throwing that stuff away. I’m keeping it. And it will go into probably two books, one a, an autobiography, and another one about college confidence and what students need to succeed and why we need to support the current generation because our world is in turmoil. We, most of us, who are educated, recognizing is recognized that there is climate change, and it’s causing devastating problems around the world. We’ve got, we’ve got we’ve still got war happening, why do we have wars, and then we’ve got poverty, we’ve got poverty here. In first world countries, it’s the minority, but there’s still there are conceptions around mental health, it’s still you know, give them a pill and send them home. Yeah, people haven’t learned to adopt. So we need well educated, passionate people taking over this world. And the only way we do can do that is for them to know who they are, that they are confident in what they’re doing, and that they learn as much as they possibly can so that they can bring their skills and knowledge and superpowers into the next generation.

Michael Hingson 41:59
So how does what you do? Work? Exactly? Do you have an office? And do you bring people in? Is it online?

Lynn Teatro 42:09
I do I do. I do small group coaching, six to eight participants, because we’re dealing with people who are not confidence. And so I want to I want to keep it to small groups, I will I also do one on one coaching. I’m developing some webinars for parents so that they will have some insights as to how to prepare their children for later for, for leaving the nest. And doing and I’m going to be doing my My voice counts too, for students so that I can bring in people who can help them directly. If they feel they need it. Do you

Michael Hingson 42:50
do it online or in person online? Do you just work mainly with people near where you are? Or do you have people all over?

Lynn Teatro 43:00
I am calling people from all over the place. One of the people that I like to refer people to people to lives in the state, but actually two of them live in the States. The one that I that I send to for parenting advice into how to communicate with your child is a speech language pathologist. And then I’ve got someone who does the Colby the cognitive assessments to help children under them understand themselves and to help parents understand their students. And she also works within the schools to help teachers understand their students so that they can recognize that no, just because children don’t do something, the way that they think it should be done. It doesn’t mean it’s the wrong way. The important thing is getting it done.

Michael Hingson 43:45
Do some of the measuring technologies and systems that we use today, like IQ, for example, do those get in the way,

Lynn Teatro 43:54
I wish I’d had my data, I knew what my IQ was. Because, you know, my marks didn’t reflect my intelligence. And my intelligence certainly wasn’t cultivated. I mean, I think we had about 12 books in our home library, and black and white TV. I remember, when I was five, my grandmother took me through zip cellars in the toy department. And there was all these white dolls. And then there was one black one and I was that shocked me. Because I had never seen a person of color in my whole life didn’t know they existed. So that was my first experience with you know, racism, because I was shocked. So I didn’t have any experience i The the role models I had in my life for teachers and nurses and farmer’s wives and was taught to bake and cook and do all those sorts of things. And that’s what I was praised on not my intellect and my ability to write write reports. And so yeah, I wish I’d known They asked,

Michael Hingson 45:01
I asked the question, because I’ve heard from some people, I think we’ve interviewed a couple people here on the podcast that have said, The problem is that IQ isn’t necessarily the best way, or the way we measure intelligence is necessarily the best way to really determine how intelligent a person is, I think

Lynn Teatro 45:21
one of the problems with being identified as intelligent is that those who are relying more on their strengths, and don’t it’s they don’t recognize that process. It’s not just the intellect, but you have to do the process, you have to start doing the research, you have to compile your papers, and you have to, to be able to spew that you have learned the knowledge and why it’s important. So IQ, knowing that you’ve got good intelligence can get in the way. And there is some research being done that suggests that intelligence is fluid that we can actually build our, on our intelligence, and I’m going to be incorporating that those notions into my group work from now on. So that, yeah, starting to look at that part. And it’s keep in the college confidence part. So it’s, it’s going to be, yeah, get to know yourself, be aware of your weaknesses and fight through them. And you will succeed.

Michael Hingson 46:19
Definitely learn what your perceived weaknesses are, and and see what you can do to change them. Yeah, we all have perceived liabilities. And I put it that way, because I think that is really the case, we often talk about what it is we can’t do. The question is, how real is it or how much of a perception is it the whole concept of, as I say, in sales turn perceived liabilities into assets, I learned that from the Dale Carnegie sales course, when I first learned to sell back in 1979. The kind of idea of turning those perceived liabilities into assets, whether it’s in selling, or just in our mindset, is extremely important. Because most of the time, the things that we think we can’t do our our perceptions, and there may very well be things that we can’t do a person who happens to be who lives in a wheelchair. And if they’re a quadriplegic, they’re not going to be able to walk upstairs. Now technology is changing some of that by introducing some mechanisms that can help do that. And that is perfectly okay. But that’s still why it’s a perceived liability, turn it into an asset, well, I don’t want to walk up the stairs, I’ve got this great technology. And look, it just brings me up the stairs in a very effective way. Isn’t that what you want is someone who’s open to looking at alternatives to help you in terms of what it is that is going on in your company, or a blind person who applies for a sales job. And it’s kind of one of my favorite examples of saying, well, you’re blind, you can’t really sell. What do you mean, I sell all the time just to be able to get things done and to live in the world? So do you really want to hire somebody who just sells a little bit every day? Or do you want to hire somebody who truly understands that we sell all the time just as a way of life, turning perceived liabilities into assets is something that we really ought to do a lot more of than we do collectively. And individually?

Lynn Teatro 48:24
I like to say, I try not to use the word can’t I choose to or use the word I choose not to? For because for me that change changes perception. It’s like okay, why do I choose not to? Is it just because I don’t want to? Or is it because I’d have to work harder to do it. You know, what’s, what’s my reasoning for choosing not to?

Michael Hingson 48:45
I’m a Star Wars and Yoda fan? There is no try do or do not do not? Do or do not? There is no try. And I think that’s extremely important to take to heart actually. So it is always a matter of choice. The the can’t only is maybe we haven’t invented something yet. Or maybe we don’t know of what’s already been invented. But that’s not so much a can’t as we don’t have what we need yet. But that doesn’t mean we can’t go create it.

Lynn Teatro 49:21
Exactly. And it turns out, you know, rather than immutable facts, it’s just we haven’t we haven’t found a solution yet. It turns it into a problem. Right problems have have solutions.

Michael Hingson 49:37
Problems always have solutions. We have to find them. What are some of your biggest successes you feel from what you’ve been doing then with with your teachings and so on for the past several years.

Lynn Teatro 49:52
My biggest success was the young woman who went on to university despite and did well, too. didn’t let other people hold her back. She she went through my program,

Michael Hingson 50:05
what is she doing today?

50:06
She just graduated and it’s in a childcare. That’s when she got her degree. And so she’s now working, working. She’s looking for a job right now, just like everybody else. But hopefully now that COVID have over and done with your almost over and done with that. Child care facilities, they’ll be open up, and she’ll find something that’s makes her happy.

50:31
It’s still exciting that she has progressed so far, and won’t hopefully lose any of that spirit will be able to take it to the job.

50:40
Well, she won’t lose that spirit, as long as I’m in is connected with her

50:45
good for you? Well, it is important to get that support system and there’s nothing wrong with having a good support system to help one, especially when one gets to feel a little frustrated.

51:00
Yeah, and support systems encourage and suggest they don’t take over.

51:06
Right. It is called support for a reason. And, and having discussions working together. You never know what you’re going to create to

51:17
Oh, yes, yes. I’m a good brainstorm. But if I’ve got other people in the room talking again, it’s like I can take one other ideas and find offshoots from that and other people can do that too. So, the more people you have involved the the ideas and solutions exponentially rise.

51:39
What brought you to attend podapalooza, this last time,

Lynn Teatro 51:42
I’m doing my facebook live program. And I thought that a lot of the application ideas, a lot of the things that we would learn for that I can apply to Facebook as easily as I can for PATA Palooza, and also, I’m going to be taking my Facebook Lives and editing them and and probably making a broadcast out of them.

Michael Hingson 52:01
Tell us about tell us about the Facebook Live program.

Lynn Teatro 52:05
It’s it’s being rekindled, I’ve moved three times in the last seven months. So it kind of got lost in the shuffle there. But it’s being rekindled. And I’m inviting people off on who have experience in and helping students thrive. In the end the various areas that I that the nine areas. You know, life skills is huge. Being independent and surviving is huge financing. Money control is huge, good stuff. Exercise, one of the things that I did right was get into the swimming pool once a day and do 100 likes. So I went into the campus during the day spent the whole day there did my work. But my noon hour was spent in the pool doing 100 lengths, and I totally avoided the freshman 15 pound gain and and exercise is so good for the for the body and mind. And it’s also an opportunity for my mind to shut down and sort of do a meditation, a swimming, counting meditation, right? And swimming isn’t everybody’s, but you’ve got to have something that just gets you out of that. That homework studying overwhelms mode.

Michael Hingson 53:22
I enjoy even doing just home chores around here, whether it’s doing the washing, which is easier for me to do doing a lot of the cooking, which has become easier for me to do and harder for Karen to do and so on. Because I can do those without having to concentrate and apply a lot of mental pressure. So I can, as you say, relax and meditate or listen to a book or read a book and do other things to take my mind off what normally goes on during the day. And that is so helpful to do. We don’t spend enough time just cutting back our mental activity and thinking about what’s going on, or at the end of the day doing self analysis to really let ourselves think about what happened that day. And how did it all go? And what can I learn from it really is something that we need to do more of,

Lynn Teatro 54:15
and count our successes for the day. Yeah, we all say most of us look at what what didn’t get done, or instead of what did I get done. Because sometimes the reasons why you didn’t get something done was because something else came up and you did a really good job of supporting a friend or, or taking out a client that really needed you or however it worked. So you have to count those successes.

Michael Hingson 54:38
The other part about it is though, that even if you have something that you didn’t do well that day, going back and looking at it and saying what could I have done better about this? Because we focus so much on the failure that we don’t look about what we don’t look at what we did learn or what we could learn until we analyze it and that’s why I am a major proponent of analyze at the end of the day, and do self analysis of all aspects of your day. Because it really does make a big difference. Well, anyway. So does your Facebook Live program have a name?

55:16
It’s called My voice counts to the parents edition. And it’s on my Facebook page page called My voice counts too

Michael Hingson 55:23
too as in too?

Lynn Teatro 55:26
the page is called to Oh, yeah, my hashtag is hashtag MVC. And the number two,

Michael Hingson 55:33
the number two. Well, that’s, that leads me to my next question, which is if people would like to reach out to you and learn more about you and all that, how do they do that?

Lynn Teatro 55:44
Well, they can find me on Facebook. I think there’s about five of us. But if I’m the one with red hair, probably not too many Lynne teatros with red hair, and I’m based in Peterborough. And yeah, I think can find me on Facebook. You can also email me at Lynn.teatro@gmail.com.

Michael Hingson 56:04
Can you spell that please?

Lynn Teatro 56:05
It’s l y n n dot? T isn’t Tom? E an echo A is an alpha T is and Tom, R and Romeo. O, as an Oscar at@gmail.com gmail.com again.

Michael Hingson 56:19
Okay. So if people are interested in your question, other ways, or other things that you want people to be able to have in the way of accessing you.

Lynn Teatro 56:28
My website isn’t up yet. I’m having glitches with glitches with the male. So otherwise, I’d be talking about that. But when it is up, it’s my voice.counts two with the number two.com. And Lynn at, My voice counts to the number two.com. But give me a,

Michael Hingson 56:46
we, if we can help you make it accessible, we’d love to explore that. And you probably have some familiarity with that. But with accessibe, we can probably make that a lot easier and a lot less expensive to

Lynn Teatro 56:57
that’s certainly something that I want it to be is accessible. My I’m pretty good with technology. But I’m finding that I’m getting bogged down in it right now. And and I’m sort of setting it aside for pursuits that that come a little bit easier to me.

Michael Hingson 57:13
There are still only so many hours in the day. Yep, I want to thank you again for being here. I want to definitely, in the future, hear more about how things are going as you get everything up and running your website and so on. And if there is any way that we can be supportive that I’d like to do that. I know you asked me about being on the Facebook Live program, and I am looking forward to that when you’re ready to do that.

Lynn Teatro 57:40
Well, I talked you up today at the CPD adventure and people know you few of them have read your book and are quite excited to know that you’re going to be on

Michael Hingson 57:51
well in a way that we can help them be supportive, whether it’s through that program or whatever, let me know. And I hope that you’ll tell them all about unstoppable mindset, they can listen to it. And of course, when yours comes up, that’ll motivate them more but if they’d like to go listen to it now, as most people here know, you can find it wherever you can find podcasts and they can also visit Michael hingson.com/podcast Michael Hanson has m i c h a e l h i n g s o n.com/podcast. But it’s available wherever podcasts are, which is really cool. So they can binge listen. As of today. Actually, no tomorrow, it’ll be 43 episodes that are up. So we’re really excited and we really appreciate you being on today. And again, just if people would like to reach out to me, I’d love to hear from you. We want to know what you think. Please feel free to email me Michaelhi, m i c h a e l h i at accessibe a c c e s s i b e.com. Let us know your thoughts and please give us a five star rating give Lynn a five star rating for being on the podcast and being very unstoppable. And her stubbornness and everything else. But we really do want to thank you for being here again.

Lynn Teatro 59:12
Well, thank you so much, Michael.

Lynn Teatro 59:14
It’s an honor. deines.

Michael Hingson 59:15
Great.

Michael Hingson 59:17
It’s been fun. Well, we’ll have to do some more of it. Right. That sounds like an excellent plan. Yeah. And I’m sure you have other people that maybe we should be talking with as well. Don’t hesitate to have them reach out. We’d love to chat with other people. So I’ve

Lynn Teatro 59:30
got a couple of in mind. I’ve a friend of mine as a blind artist, blind visual artist. And then there’s there’s Jason King who’s just Yeah, love them to bits. He’s just the Miracle Worker fruit and the heart and soul of CPD. He just knows I love to

Michael Hingson 59:48
meet him. Yeah. Well, we’d love to meet him and have a chance to chat as well. Well, thank you again. And we hope that you and everyone else will join us again next week for another episode of unstoppable mindset. Again thanks very much,

Lynn Teatro 1:00:03
Thanks Michael.

Michael Hingson 1:00:09
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.