Unstoppable Mindset

I love the opportunity to have had Dr. Christin Roberson as a guest on Unstoppable Mindset. Christin, like others who we all have met, was born into a military family and spent much of her youth traveling from one place to another. Christin loved the travels and the experiences. Her youth gave her a broad view of people which helped her later as she began a career in higher education. More important, as she will tell us, she learned over the past seven years, that she had strengths that not only served her well in her original career, but that also caused her to “pivot” into a coaching and entrepreneurial business.

Today she uses her strengths to help others who are considering a career change. She also uses her skills and knowledge to help her clients learn about and better utilize their own strengths. Often, as she will describe, people may not even recognize their individual strengths and gifts, but once they do and embrace them these people really can move on and advance.

Christin is just completing a course about strengths and how you can use your gifts. We have information about the course in the notes.

I hope you find this episode timely and valuable.

About the Guest: Dr. Christin L. Roberson, EdD, is a Gallup Certified Strengths Coach who employs her top five strengths—Relator, Learner, Achiever, Developer, and Deliberative—by developing genuine relationships with others, learning about their talents, helping them reach new levels of productivity, and teaching others how to utilize their strengths to make sound decisions in their personal and professional pursuits. She recently pivoted from a 15+ years career in higher education into recruiting in the tech industry and now provides full-time career services. Her educational background includes a Doctorate in Higher Education Leadership from Azusa Pacific University, a Master’s in Education in Educational Organization and Leadership with a concentration in Higher Education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Alverno College.  Dr. Roberson has also been featured as a guest on Gallup’s podcast, Called to Coach, presented at the 2017 CliftonStrengths Summit, and completed Strengths Certification Training in Higher Education at Azusa Pacific University.

Ways to connect with Rob:

The Career Doc Website,  Instagram,  LinkedIn,  Facebook

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

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

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

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

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Transcription Notes

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

**Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, hi, welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset where inclusion diversity in the unexpected meet. I love that unexpected part. It makes it so much fun. Then today, we get to chat with Christin Roberson. She is a certified Gallup strengths coach, we're going to learn about that. She's spent a lot of time in higher education. And now we'll she'll tell you what she does now as we get to it. And obviously is had what I would say is a fascinating life, and a life we're talking about, which is how we got her to come on unstoppable mindset. So, Kristen, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here.

**Christin Roberson ** 01:58 Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.

**Michael Hingson ** 02:01 Well, why don't we start? It's always fun to why don't you tell us a little about kind of the early Christin, you know, where, where you came from growing up, and any of those good kinds of things that you think would be relevant for us to know?

**Christin Roberson ** 02:16 Well, I was born on November 8, no, I won't go that far.

**Michael Hingson ** 02:20 And you had to walk 12 miles when you were 12 years old, just to return three cents to someone. Right? Yeah. Yeah, that was me. That was me. Yeah. It wasn't like and it was you? Yeah.

**Christin Roberson ** 02:32 I think probably the best way to start is that I'm an Army brat. So life was very different. And of growing up. My dad was in the army for 2020 plus years or so. And so my whole life was basically moving every three years. And so change was constant. Change was constant, friends were always new. So I learned how to be pretty resilient and adjust fairly quickly. At an early age, it got harder as I got older, but early Christin moved a lot. And so I think it probably characterizes why I moved so much when I was younger, because I enjoyed it. I think a lot of my earlier experiences too, were around education, I always wanted to be in the field of education wanted to be a teacher initially. And then a counselor and I started working in higher education and got the bug and started working in housing and thought it would be a good idea to live and work with college students. Which is can be good and bad. But it was a wonderful experience that really taught me a lot about building community, you know, handling a lot of tough decisions and problem solving and really helping others grow because college students are, you know, very much in a developmental phase in their life, and to be kind of a part of them figuring themselves out through the good and the bad, was something that I feel like I really enjoyed. And I think kind of followed me on to my further career is to always be in some type of helping profession, where I'm helping other people kind of figure things out, and kind of shaped what they want their life to be. So I hope that answers your question.

**Michael Hingson ** 04:13 My wife was a teacher for 10 years, she loved elementary school. And she said she really loved third grade, because the kids in third grade were still really developing attitudes and so on. And she said, by the time they got to even sixth and seventh grade, much less than high school, it was harder to teach them and to really have an influence on their lives. Yet at the same time, I hear a number of people say exactly what you said about college that and I think we all of us who've been to college would would mostly agree that even when you go to college, you're you're still really looking for yourself. So how does that correlate with like what my wife felt about third graders?

**Christin Roberson ** 04:50 Yeah, well, there's from our own kind of study from higher ed like there's these different phases. And so I think there's different phases in life up to development. And you know, thinking about your wife, a lot of that development is not just kind of figuring out who you are figuring out how to walk, how to do very basic foundational things to learn as just being a person, but I think when you get to college, they formed a lot of that already. So it's kind of helping them figure out, or at least in my experience, a lot of what's right and what's wrong. And how to exist in a world where there are a lot of temptations and making the best decisions for yourself. So it's kind of some of those more moral, maybe foundational pieces that you kind of get to, you help them shape, maybe some other, you know, foundational things, too, if that's something that they didn't get growing up, which was the case with a lot of students, depending on how they grew up. But a lot of times, a lot of the morality issue will just like, Okay, why did why did you think it was a good idea to do that much drinking, and I found you on the grass outside of my building passed out? Let's talk about making good decisions. So it helped with a lot of a lot of that. Those are a lot of the conversation.

**Michael Hingson ** 06:04 Did anybody ever say to you, though, well, you know, I feel sorry for people who don't drink because then they get up in the morning. That's as good as they're gonna feel for the rest of the day. I listen to too much Dean Martin, what can I tell?

**Christin Roberson ** 06:18 Two great lines ever said that before I've gotten cussed out before by students who weren't drunk, but nobody ever said that before.

**Michael Hingson ** 06:25 I was at the University of California, Irvine, and I think it was in my senior year I was living on campus apartment, because I kind of outgrew living in a dorm. by that. I mean, I had too many Braille books wouldn't all fit in a dorm room. So they let me live in a campus apartment. I had two roommates, who actually moved with me from my dorm. And one of them decided one night to drink. He hadn't done it before. We had those 12 or 16 ounce wienerschnitzel glasses, Coke glasses, and he started drinking screwdrivers. And the first one was maybe about a quarter to a third full of vodka and the rest was orange juice. Then the next one was half vodka. And the next was basically all vodka by five in the morning. He was ill horrible, convinced me never to want to get drunk and I never have I don't never had a desire to do that. So no, yeah, I I have had a couple of times that I did drink something that someone gave me and said it's very strong. Drink it slow. I did over about an hour and I still had a little bit of a lightheadedness and I said if that's the way drinkin starts, forget it. So I wasn't imperative to the point where I couldn't move around and walk and all that but I understand what what alcohol can do. And I saw it with with my roommate and what happened to him. He was bad for a while he was just not not doing well in the bathroom. It was one of those horrible things.

**Christin Roberson ** 08:10 There was some caution tape over that door.

**Michael Hingson ** 08:12 Well, it was all about. Yeah. And you could hear you know, and we were all helping him. We supported him. But he was just doing a lot of throwing up to get it all out of his system. But it's no fun. Not at all. Drink it up. 1216 ounce glass of pure vodka. Yeah. So that's bound to happen. Yeah, it's bound to happen. But I hear what you're saying. I think there's a there's a it's like anything College offers so many opportunities to learn, and as also a matter of being open enough to take advantage of them and really learn too, isn't it?

**Christin Roberson ** 08:50 Absolutely.

**Michael Hingson ** 08:52 So people just can grow. I really enjoyed college life. I enjoyed dorm life. And then when we moved to the apartment, which we as I say we had to do, because I needed the space for Braille books. Getting a master's in physics, Braille takes up a lot of space and physics. But nevertheless, it was it was fun and still participated in campus activity. So it was very enjoyable. So you what was your Bachelor's in

**Christin Roberson ** 09:21 my bachelor's in psychology? The plan was to be a clinical psychologist, mainly working with with young people. And then that went away. When I started working in higher ed, I realized I enjoy working with college students and still got to use that psychology degree every single

**Michael Hingson ** 09:39 day. So what were you doing? What was your job in higher ed when you started? How long ago was that, by the way?

**Christin Roberson ** 09:45 Um, well, I probably have about 15 years of experience working in higher education. It started in housing. So in the dormitories most people will call it so it was basically running a bit building building manager of sorts. And so anything that was happening, you know, with the building of like, anywhere from two to 400 students packed in the building. I would oversee, you know, the resident, you know, the RAS and supervise them and plant programs and all that. And then most recently, it was working in what did I do? First year programs. So a lot of it was around programs and work that we were doing with incoming freshmen. So I oversaw a course the introductory course that every freshman basically had to take, and kind of the design of it hiring, you know, of staff and managing it. So yeah, it was a lot of work. But it was, it was very enjoyable to kind of see the results and the fruit of your labor to see students growing and kind of learning from it.

**Michael Hingson ** 10:51 I started as a freshman at UC Irvine in the fall of 1968. I sure wonder, and I'm sure that there is a lot that's changed. But I just wonder how it's all changed and how the student programs go. I've had the pleasure of being invited to speak at various colleges, including it some freshman orientation programs over the past several years and see a lot of the difference. But it's, it certainly has to have changed a lot in well for me now. 55 years.

**Christin Roberson ** 11:21 Oh, gosh, it's very different. It's so different.

**Michael Hingson ** 11:27 But but it's important to keep up with that.

**Christin Roberson ** 11:30 It is and but some of it is just scary, because there's so much to keep up with. But yeah, me and a friend of mine, we always kind of talk about, you know, some of those things where we're like, did we have to deal with this when we were younger, you know, with some of the online bullying and having to keep up with social social media so big and we're like, we didn't have that. I didn't have a cell phone in high school. I didn't get one till I was maybe like, I don't know, a sophomore in college. So Right. My life did not revolve around social media or technology. It was like, Okay, here's my phone book that has the numbers, and it's a call people. But it's so so different now. And everything is so out there and live, you know everything kind of instantly. And it's just like, that is a lot.

**Michael Hingson ** 12:16 Yeah, I'm not totally sure. It's all a good thing to have such interesting gratification and have such ready communications, especially when a lot of times, factually changes by the time the real truth comes out. I mean, I've watched the news and I see a news headline about one thing or another. And within a day or two, it changes because it really wasn't quite the way it was originally reported. And nobody does anything to regulate that or, or at least do some fact checking before they put the news out. And I don't mean that in a negative political way. I just mean in a, in a factual way about everything that comes out. Oh,

**Christin Roberson ** 12:52 my goodness, I completely agree. It's like, can we wait until we get all the information? Before we say that this is what happened? Or what they did? Yeah. You know,

**Michael Hingson ** 13:02 you hear about a plane crash, and you hear some things and oh, well, it changes in a day or so well, updated information. Well, you didn't really have information before you had what, what were rumors or what one person said. And we're teaching ourselves that we got to have this information all the time, and that we don't really look at getting accurate information, necessarily. It's more important just to have something and that's crazy.

**Christin Roberson ** 13:30 Yeah, it's the breaking news, like CNN effect was breaking news. Something happened, we're not sure what it is. But we're gonna keep saying that for the next hour, or

**Michael Hingson ** 13:38 two or three. Right? And, and I remember, well, one example that comes to mind is I was here in July of 2019. And I was about to go to the convention of the National Federation of the Blind, I was gonna go over on a Friday. And the day before, on Thursday, we had an earthquake, and it was a pretty substantive earthquake, it was six point something which, and it was on a fault that really we hadn't had much stuff on before. The epicenter was about 100 miles north and east of us. But the media came on and started talking about it. And every five minutes, they say the same old thing over and over again, rather than you said it, don't keep focusing on this because you're not adding any value. Until you get more information. Of course, then they eventually did. Dr. Lucy Jones at Cal Tech came on and started discussing more about it and that's great, but for an hour or more, they just had all of the same old stuff time and time again, it's just crazy. No,

**Christin Roberson ** 14:49 a lot of times like they're, you know, forecast and like I feel like because I lived in California for a time and so, you know, we get an earthquake and then that would be the discussion of the big one. That's kind of the norm Ridge, it's coming in, here's what it could look like. And it's like this doomsday prophecy. And it's just like, Okay, this happens all the time in California. We know something's coming. But do you have to talk about it now? And we're still trying to recover from one? Yeah.

**Michael Hingson ** 15:15 Yeah. And the big one. Yeah, that's, well, if it comes, it comes. But you know, so So just go ahead and continue to scare people. Right? Yeah. It makes for an interesting world. But for college students, that is the world that they live in now. And it I, I've got to believe, especially even more than college kids being a little kid, it's gotta be tough, because there's so much stuff that's being thrown at you all the time. And probably a lot of parents don't know how to really filter that or deal with it. Yeah,

**Christin Roberson ** 15:50 I cannot imagine being a parent. You know, right. Now, I know, it wasn't easy, you know, necessarily for anybody's parents growing up, because things were changing and growing all the time. But things move at a super fast pace now of learning and having to figure things out. And just as a parent trying to be aware of like, okay, what are these words mean? Or if I see this, what does this mean? Oh, that's a code for this. Okay. That's the code for dress. Oh, oh, my gosh, it's so overwhelming.

**Michael Hingson ** 16:22 Yeah. And, and it's just thrown at you all the time, because we have such instant communications or instant gratification about communications. And I don't mind instant communications. But again, gee, let's make sure we have it right a little bit part of the at least part of the time.

**Christin Roberson ** 16:43 And I think a lot of young people like, you know, especially in college is kind of this invincibility, like they haven't yet grappled with the fact that you know, something can happen to you, you're not invincible, because you're young. And a lot of them make really poor decisions and kind of put it out there for everybody to see. And don't remember when you put it out there, it's there forever. So I ended up talking to those students from a career perspective to say you might want to do a little research on the internet of what pops up when you type in your name, because that party that you went to, and 97 is still out there, and an employer can see that. So those are always fun conversations.

**Michael Hingson ** 17:22 Well, and we see it even with with politicians who get bombed by something that happened 20 and 25 years ago, and they're being held responsible, just like it happened yesterday. And it's that really relevant. We have interesting standards we live by, don't we?

**Christin Roberson ** 17:40 Oh, my goodness, yeah, that happened 20 years ago, they were a completely different person.

**Michael Hingson ** 17:45 Yeah. And it's crazy that, that you still have to, but you're right, it's there. And you have to deal with it at some point and, and address it, because everything goes out on the web today. And a lot of things are dredged up, just because there were somewhere and so somebody digitized it, and it's out there on the web again.

**Christin Roberson ** 18:07 Just like, you know, entertainment, it can blow up into something else, I could have made a statement that, you know, I don't eat burgers anymore, I'm trying to look into my oh my gosh, she hates animals. She thinks like, she's this and this and that. And it's like, that's not what I said, I just said, I made the personal decision not to eat meat, you know, beef or something. And they can blow it up into something where it's like, that's, that's not at all what I was trying to communicate. When

**Michael Hingson ** 18:31 I worked at Guide Dogs for the Blind. One day, I went in and delivered a speech. And I was describing what a guide dog does, as opposed to what a person does. And I've said that a guide dog doesn't guide doesn't lead the guide. Their job is to make sure that we walk safely. And my job is to give commands and say where we want to go. And I said another way you could look at it is that I'm the brains of the outfit, not the dog and someone called Guide Dogs for the Blind the next day. And they said they heard about this speech that Mike Hanson gave, and he said that dogs don't have brains. Oh, my goodness. Which is not what I said at all,

**Christin Roberson ** 19:12 at all. But you know, they wanted to they

**Michael Hingson ** 19:16 heard what they wanted to hear, which is unfortunate. How do students react when you have those conversations with them about Be careful about what you put out there and stuff?

**Christin Roberson ** 19:26 You know, some of them will kind of just give the lip service, you know, yeah, kind of know what you mean. And then it's not until they they're in my office for like the second or third time which just happened. And we're like, okay, I remember when I told you you've done this a couple of times. how's this working out with you hanging out with this group of people because you're trying to be, you know, popular, but you are. You're pre med. How do you think that's really going to work out for you? When they you know, look at your record, your grades are poor because you've done these other you have to kind of give them like the big picture from the small steaming Really minut detail to them. The consequences of that can be far, you know, long lasting than you just being in my office and me giving you, you know, a task to do or whatever or you being on probation. So I think that there comes like, some surprised, but also, there's still a lot of times the invincibility piece like, Oh, it'll be fine. Nobody cares about that. So they don't really get it until it happens. It happens. Yeah, unfortunately.

**Michael Hingson ** 20:29 Yeah. It's like, so many things, people fear, the whole concept of blindness, partly because we emphasize eyesight so much. But there's also that thing in the back of their mind, this could happen to me what a horrible thing that would be rather than recognizing is just another way of learning to use the gifts that you have eyesight is not the only game in town. But that's not what people want to hear and what they want to believe. So it also makes for a great challenge.

**Christin Roberson ** 21:00 Whoo. Yeah, there's definitely a focus on a very specific kind of person or lifestyle. And anything outside of that. It's just like, oh, my gosh, life must be so hard for you. And I'm like, it's probably hard for you to.

**Michael Hingson ** 21:15 Yeah, we all have. We all have things that we deal with. And people today say, well, you're differently abled. And I say how? Well you're blind. How does that make me differently abled, the ability is the same. It's the tools that I may use to get there. But you know, I feel sorry for you. Because you have to turn the lights on tonight, you're screwing up the whole carbon footprint by having to run all this electricity, I don't need to do that.

**Christin Roberson ** 21:40 I never thought of it in that way.

**Michael Hingson ** 21:43 Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb is a reasonable accommodation for light dependent people who can't function in the dark. Which is another way of saying you have a disability too. It's just that technology has mostly covered it up. But seriously, it doesn't change the fact that it's there. It's true.

**Christin Roberson ** 22:00 I could not agree more.

**Michael Hingson ** 22:02 So well. So you at some point decided to move away from doing higher education college stuff, and you had been doing it 15 years? What? What caused you to go off and go in a different direction?

**Christin Roberson ** 22:15 Yeah, well, I think, one, I really had no desire to move up in the field, because I had seen what kind of the C suite looked like, at several different institutions. And a lot of times they have far less contact with students. And I really liked working one on one. But I always chose positions that were student facing where I was planning programs, or supervising them or doing something that was very much focused on the student experience. And I realized, like, okay, we can stay in this kind of, you know, assistant director or coordinator position, forever, or we can decide that maybe we want to try and do something else. I think, you know, higher ed is also very slow to change. And a lot of ways and I think that's why so many have closed and not even just because of COVID was because I think higher education thinks it's invincible to everybody's always going to go to college. And it's like, no, the price tag gets higher and higher every year, people are finding something different to do that is more economical, and advantageous to them than spending four years where you can learn that maybe in like 18 months and an online program and be out working. And so I think that's been a reckoning for higher ed. And so knowing that information, in addition to just a lot of the toxicity that I experienced, made it made it that I'm like, Okay, let's, let's look at something else. Let's look at our strengths. Let's look at what we actually enjoy about this work and how it applies to other industries. And so I took a look at it, and started just looking for jobs. And I'm like, what jobs are interesting to me, that aren't higher at focus. And that's where I kind of started seeing the pattern around things like, you know, human resources, or, you know, people management and things of that nature, which I had done before a long time ago. But I think it was really assessing the current situation, whether it aligned with my values and what I want it and I discovered that it wasn't and it was time to do something different.

**Michael Hingson ** 24:24 So what did you end up pivoting to? As you would put it, and how long ago was that? Yeah,

**Christin Roberson ** 24:32 so it actually wasn't long ago. And it felt like a very quick pivot. So I learned that sometimes you have to So I left my institution, I ended up taking a contract job, which was not the plan to not have health insurance immediately. But the pay was good enough that I could afford you know my own. So I ended up taking a position in the tech industry where Working in recruiting for a program that oversaw apprenticeships, for the organization, and then some kind of early career programming so long ago. Oh, gosh, that was maybe just like, a year or two ago. Oh, gosh. So

**Michael Hingson ** 25:15 coming out of COVID.

**Christin Roberson ** 25:17 Yeah, coming out of COVID. And so I worked remotely, you know, it was based in, you know, the Bay Area. And so every now and then I got to travel, you know, and the tech, the tech sector, which a lot of my friends also pivoted into, and they were kind of the inspiration before me, I saw them pivoting into that area, and they were, you know, making way more money than any of us could have ever dreamed and education. The place that I worked at had like, unlimited vacation, and it was just like, how does that work? Do you never have to work? Like, do you? I'm taking off six months, and I'll be back, you know, in the fall. But it became this really interesting concept that there was more out there. And so sadly, I was a contract for six months. And then they converted me to full time. And then I want to say the day after my birthday, I got laid off. It was a quick process. It was like makes a lot of sense. And so well. But I think again, like nobody saw what was coming, or was maybe not as prepared as they thought they were for, you know what happened economically. And even a company like mine that had never done layoffs, had to deal with kind of that harsh reality. And I knew it was coming, you know, I was one of the you know, let you know, a newer hire and sounds like I get it. I'm low on the totem pole. But the day after my birthday.

**Michael Hingson ** 26:45 Yes, a little rude. Yeah, I

**Christin Roberson ** 26:47 was on vacation at the time. It was, it was difficult. It was a rough vacation.

**Michael Hingson ** 26:54 Yeah, I, I've been there and and had similar kinds of situations not right after my birthday. But I've been in situations where I was working for a company, actually in 2019. And I was going to go deliver a speech in Northern California, and then we were going to take a week off. But the morning that I was to travel, I was notified that well, we've spent too much money, we have to lay some people off, and you're one of them. Well, thanks, wow, which ended the vacation idea, but we still went up into the speech because I had made that commitment and it brought in some money. But still, it is it is never fun. So if your plans change, and sometimes you just don't have control over those changes happening.

**Christin Roberson ** 27:48 It's unfortunate, like you have to have a plan B through Z is especially in this day and age where it's like really, and truly anything can happen. I've, I've worked with a couple clients now where they're on like their third layoff. And it's just like, wow, and you just kind of keep going out there. Because you don't, you don't know you have to work you have to provide for your family, you know, you have a specialization in that area. And you just have to kind of keep going out and trying. But I think that it's it's, it's heavy, it's heavy to kind of deal with that. And you start to, you know, maybe doubt your abilities and your strengths in that. And so a lot of my work with with folks has been kind of encouraging and affirming them in their abilities that you've been laid off has nothing to do with you as a person or your skill set. This is a business decision.

**Michael Hingson ** 28:39 Which may or may not be right, but still it is true.

**Christin Roberson ** 28:41 Right? But reframing it I think sometimes kind of helps and kind of helping them focus on okay, but you still have this set of skills. You know, Liam Neeson style have a specific set of skills to do a certain thing. And kind of helping them, you know, point that in the right direction.

**Michael Hingson ** 29:01 So, it happened to you and then what did you do?

**Christin Roberson ** 29:05 Yeah, so I had already had like, a lot of travel plans. So I ended up doing a lot of traveling probably because it was also basically December, so it was holidays, too. So I was traveling, so I decided I'm gonna keep my travel, I'm gonna still go ahead and have fun and enjoy it. And then we'll come back to the reality when the holidays are over. And so I started again, kind of looking at jobs and seeing like, what is interesting to me, do I want to go back into higher education because that is where, you know, my skill set is predominant, or do we want to give this a go and it's something else? Now while I was working the job in tech, I was getting a lot of people reaching out to me that worked in higher education. And they were like, Well, how did you do that? How did you pivot? And so I started having conversations with people people started asking for help with their resumes. And, you know, okay, how do you what's the interview process? Like? How do you negotiate? And so I started having these conversations, it started kind of a very beta test of a coaching of a coaching job. And so I didn't charge anything at the time, I just asked people to give me a LinkedIn recommendation, if they, you know, were happy with my work. And so after the layoff, I, you know, I had an interview somewhere, it didn't, you know, turn out the way that I hoped, and I decided, okay, all roads seem to point towards this career coaching, because that is what I'm getting the most attention for. And it's something that I actually really enjoyed. So I just started fine tuning what that looked like, and okay, I need a website, I need this and this and that. And started kind of formulating, what would be, you know, the career doc?

**Michael Hingson ** 30:54 So you started your own business?

**Christin Roberson ** 30:57 I did. I did. Great. Are you?

**Michael Hingson ** 31:00 And are you having fun? Sunday's

**Christin Roberson ** 31:06 you know, overwhelmingly, it's what's fun is I absolutely love the work of coach, I love coaching. What is not so fun is a lot of the logistics around it, it's very expensive. And a lot of the advice they say and you know, in the beginning is to spend as little amount, you know, money, but the more you do spend, the better. Things kind of get, and the more attractive people might be to your to your product. And there were just some things I couldn't handle. So I think that's the part that kind of gets this isn't fun to have to, you know, buy another thing or this rate is going up. But I'd love, love, love just the one on one nature of helping people kind of figuring out what to do next, or what to do different.

**Michael Hingson ** 31:49 Do you get support? Do you get people to help you with some of the logistical things and things that you don't really like to do? So do you have any kind of staffer help to do any of that?

**Christin Roberson ** 32:00 I do. Probably like in the last month or two? Yeah. Someone I actually knew from my higher ed days had a side business of basically doing administrative work. And so I reached out to her, and we kind of did a trial run of sorts. And so she handles all the admin stuff, kind of going through my overflowing inbox and making sure you know, people get rescheduled. And then I ended up hiring somebody to do marketing, because marketing is everything. And I just did not have time or capacity or really allowed the expertise to do the things that she can do. So, and then also, I'm going to be launching a course soon on Route Career Discovery. And I hired a course designer to help with that. And so because I realized, like, I can't do this on my own. Because one, it's overwhelming, but there's also people who have strengths in these areas that I don't have, and I think I need their help.

**Michael Hingson ** 33:00 Well, as you go toward doing your course and so on, I, I would assume you've had enough time at doing this, that you realize that it's okay to charge not overly so but to charge and charge a decent fee for what you do because you're worth it. Yeah, it's,

**Christin Roberson ** 33:19 it's difficult. But you do have to do it. A lot

**Michael Hingson ** 33:24 of people will say, well, but how do I know people will pay $1,000 for a course or something like that, or for whatever it is that I'm doing. And the reality is we mostly underrate our gifts, our abilities, and our worth. And sometimes you've got to start by not charging or not charging much to get people to to come. But if they really want to continue with you, then you've got to make it really clear and get them to acknowledge you're worth it. Yeah,

**Christin Roberson ** 33:58 I think the difficult thing about that is like a lot of my population are folks that have maybe worked in education. And as someone who's worked in education, I know how much we don't make. Right. Right. That becomes a struggle of like, I don't want to price out, you know, my prime audience.

**Michael Hingson ** 34:16 But you know what to do in that situation, though? And yeah, that's the point. Yeah.

**Christin Roberson ** 34:21 So you know, you work through some of that stuff. And then you have different price points for different things and kind of go forth. But I think I'm just now getting into that space of just like, Okay, we've been doing this for a while, you know, we we've made a profit, we've had to hire some people. It might be time to kind of raise our prices, like everybody says, to do that every kind of expert. Yeah, you're like, Oh, you're charging way lower. And I'm like, I don't want people to not be able to do this. But

**Michael Hingson ** 34:50 the other side. The other side of that, though, is that if they really want to do this, and I know you don't want to price yourself out of the market, but if they really want Do it, they will find ways to come up with funds to to make it happen. And you may have to adjust exactly how you charge like, maybe you don't do it all at once you charged for payment schedule or something. I mean, who knows, but people can always find ways to do things, if they really value what it is that they want to do.

**Christin Roberson ** 35:21 Yeah. And that, honestly, what you just said is exactly what I did. I started looking into kind of those, you know, you know, what is it pay per service, or, you know, PayPal has a program paying for, you know, installments, and so I started looking at installment payments. And that helped quite a bit where you don't have to pay it all at once. Like, I'll get it all at once. But then you're paying it slower. And that was something that helped. And that took research and just kind of is that something I could do? Yeah, I could do that. And it still allows me to charge you know, what I think is, you know, necessary and values need but also allows them to have a little bit more flexibility with how long it takes them to pay for something.

**Michael Hingson ** 36:06 There's a course I needed to take a few years ago, and they wanted a bunch of money upfront. And I said, I really value the course I want to do it. I know what I'll get out of it. But I can't pay you all that money, can we work out a schedule, and God bless them they did. And what Normally people would pay in one lump sum of I don't even remember what the total was, but it was significant. They let me pay it over two years. Oh, wow. But we had a we had a schedule, we had it set up so that the money automatically came out. So they were confident in it, and it worked out. So there are a lot of ways to do it. If people want to make something happen, they can. And when you're willing to really help make it happen, then so much the better, because then you establish a more meaningful relationship. Yeah,

**Christin Roberson ** 36:52 I think that's true. Because at the heart of the matter, I just, I really have a passion for kind of helping people, you know, especially in their career, because of what I, you know, experience through a lot of hard lessons to learn about, you know, not only just valuing myself, but also just kind of recognizing that there is more out there, you don't have to be, you know, chained to a desk and always working, you know, at night pass work on the weekends. That's not really live in life. And some people love that. But it wasn't for me, and it was something worse, like I can do something different. And I want to help other people do the same to work at home.

**Michael Hingson ** 37:29 And I like my weekends. But also there are some things that I maybe didn't get done during the weekend, I'll do them on the weekends. But I can also spread things out and do them when I want. There's a lot of fun, I'm used to doing a lot of work at home, not necessarily going into an office, although I also value, the time when I can go into an office, but still working at home is a lot of fun. And you can schedule your times now, my life changed because my wife of 40 years passed away this last November. So now I can be up at 530 in the morning without worrying about waking her up. Which is a good thing. And as I tell people though, she's she's monitoring me if I misbehave, I'm going to hear about it. So but but she doesn't have to worry about waking up at 530 in the morning. She's going to monitor all the time anyway. So I can do that. But at the same time if I decide I want to go to bed at eight or 830 I can do that too.

**Christin Roberson ** 38:25 Yeah, yeah, I definitely caught the stay at home. But during the pandemic, I was Yeah, working in education, and they sent us you know, home or whatever. And I was like, I think I actually thrive a little bit better being at home. I'm an introvert also. So I don't necessarily always need the the interaction and I could get it you know, if I wanted to, you know, through different chats or meet offline. But overwhelmingly I was like, I think I function better being at home. And just being able to do what I need to it was a part of what I needed to thrive. Some people Oh, you're so lazy. You don't want to go into the office? And I'm like, No, actually, it's just a preference. I didn't know it was the option we ever had. And now that we do, I don't want to let it go.

**Michael Hingson ** 39:13 And the reality is the pandemic has taught us that there's a lot of value in people being able to work in a hybrid environment and spending some of that time working at home. Yeah,

**Christin Roberson ** 39:23 and you get to use your own toilet. I'm just saying. It's just like you can make your own lunch, you can take a nap if you want to, like you can do things that actually make work not feel quite as daunting by kind of like, okay, I'm going to shape what my day looks like. Yeah.

**Michael Hingson ** 39:44 And, and it works. And I think a lot of companies are starting to recognize that which hopefully will lead to a little bit more common sense in terms of who work environment will tell me about this whole concept of being a Gallup certified string. Just coach, I've never heard of somebody who was certified by Gallup. Yeah. So

**Christin Roberson ** 40:06 they probably found is that I was working in higher education, because that's where, you know, a lot of the Clifton Strengths Assessment is administered is in higher education with students. And I had taken, you know, the assessment, you know, maybe one or two times. And then in one particular job, I worked at an online university that was connected to a larger university that was strengths based. And I was like, what is that? What does that mean? And so I ended up taking the assessment again, and then I got coaching from someone who was certified. And I was like, Oh, wow, this, this makes quite a difference. And there's like 5 million different assessments, you know, what color is your balloon? Right foot left foot, you know, you know, that tells you about what you do best. But this one gave language to the things that I did well, and how I approached kind of situations and problems. And so it made more sense to me. So I started looking into, like, how can I get more training on this. And so they had, at the larger institution I was connected to, you know, they had a training that was more focused on higher education, students success, so I took that. But I really wanted to get a larger Foundation. And so I ended up going to the very first Clifton Strengths summit that they had, I couldn't even tell you what year maybe 2016 or so. And it was there that they started talking about the certification piece. And here's what you get out of it, this is what it is. And I decided, like, I think I want to do this, because this is something I feel like I would integrate into every job that I had. And I really believe in this. So I spent the money, I definitely use student loan money, because I was still in school at the time. And I went to Omaha, Nebraska for a week and did an intense start of our strengths kind of training process, because you take the classes, and then you have to get a number of people to I guess, recommend you or give you a rating on your coaching. And then you take an exam, and then that's when you kind of find out whether you're you're going to be certified or not. So it's a lengthy process, but it was well worth it.

**Michael Hingson ** 42:23 And it's it's run by or ultimately Gallup is involved.

**Christin Roberson ** 42:27 Yes, yeah. Yeah. So when you're certified, you're certified through Gallup.

**Michael Hingson ** 42:33 So you can start going off and doing polls now. Well, so and you are certified as a strength coach, what does that mean? Yeah.

**Christin Roberson ** 42:45 So what it means is that there's a level of expertise that I have, and being able to talk about strengths and help other people kind of develop, and train. So a lot of my early work was around, kind of working with teams, and helping teams to kind of work better together. And to kind of discuss, like, you know, you work better together as a team, because everybody has different strengths. And here's the best practices on how you can kind of work together better, because some folks are butting heads, or there's something called kind of the shadow side of strengths. It sounds very ominous. But essentially, it's kind of the the side of your strength where you're not maybe using it correctly, it's not matured, or it's causing problems for you. And so we talk about kind of the how you kind of manage that piece of it. So it's, it's honestly learning how to work better with people from a place of your strengths and using them in a way that benefits you and the other people that you work with.

**Michael Hingson ** 43:48 So how did you determine what your strengths were?

**Christin Roberson ** 43:52 Yeah, well, I took the assessment. Yeah, took the assessment. And, you know, gave me my top five, I've taken all 34, which is always interesting, because you look at the bottom of the list, naturally. But my top five ended up being a relator, learner, achiever, developer and deliberative. And so then became kind of what what does this all mean, and how does it impact my work? A lot of my work with clients now, especially in the business is around value alignment. That's the framework that I've kind of created. And I look at strengths as values. So for example relator is used is generally about kind of close relationships, folks that are relators generally haven't had people in their life that have been there forever. You've had the same friend since kindergarten. I don't because I moved around all the time. I knew who I am. But most of the people in my life had been there for a very long time. So I really value close relationships, community like that I can be connected to. So it taught me a lot about a lot about those things. And it helped me actually figure out even job wise, like, if I'm going to work somewhere, I want to work somewhere where I can actually build community, and be connected to other individuals who enjoy what they're doing. I don't want to work in like a singular space where it's me and only me. And I don't have a chance to interact with anybody, I actually want to build community. So yeah.

**Michael Hingson ** 45:33 So how do you feel you use your five key strings to help support people in building their personal and professional worlds?

**Christin Roberson ** 45:42 Yeah. So it also starts with that relator piece, the one on one, because that's most of the coaching that I do now is one on one versus group. And so it centers around kind of building the relationship and building that place of trust. Because a lot of times people will tell you, you know, some deeply personal things that relate to work or their personal life, because your personal life doesn't sit at the door, when you go to work, it comes with you and affects your work. And so, you know, we end up kind of talking about, you know, what is it that you, you know, why did you even want to come to coaching, why is this important to you? What do you want to get out of it? But a lot of the questions that I kind of end up asking are kind of from that learner perspective. So it's the building of the relationship through the learning about the other person. And really kind of getting to the heart of of who they are, and what they're really looking to do. Because some of them have maybe never asked been asked that question or haven't thought about it in a long time. Because, you know, I've done the same job forever, I never thought that there'd be other options. So those two work pretty pretty instinct. achiever is generally focused around productivity, that's more of a, I call it an internal strength, there's like, internal things that are more so for you versus external, that are for other people like responsibility that she was really focused on other people. So for me, it's the constant need to kind of stay busy. And to always be learning and doing new things. And feeling like I'm being productive in the help that I'm giving other people like I'm doing things that are going to help them be successful. developer is probably the biggest one because it's around potential. And so seeing the potential in people, places and things. And so that's a lot of the work, that's probably the most utilized strength, because people really don't always can always see some of the things that everybody else knows about them. And being a stranger than I generally am to a lot of people. And, you know, after a couple of conversations, you look at their resume, gather some information. And you just start saying some of these things. They're like, yeah, yeah, that is me. Yeah, I never, you know, I never thought about that. Yeah, so being able to just point out the potential that people have to do something different, or differently, I'll say, has been huge. Yeah. Well, so there's a fifth one. Oh. Last one is just deliberative. And that's generally circled around decision making. So it's a lot of pros and cons, which is a lot of what I do with clients, where the pros and cons, okay, if you stay at your job another year, if you do something as like a side role if you decide to leave, and just trying to help them make the best decision possible.

**Michael Hingson ** 48:40 What are some of the common challenges and misconceptions that people have about their own strengths?

**Christin Roberson ** 48:47 Yeah, one, they don't always feel like they have them. The things that they do so naturally, they never really thought of as strength. So I always use kind of the example around like math. And I'll do like our raise your hand if you really love math. And it came very easy to you, you know, in school, and you know, you know, there'll be a couple of people that I raised their hands. And then who else who struggled with math, and you never liked it, and that was me raising my hand as well. And, you know, when you talk to both groups, you kind of get a sense of, you know, oh, well, this particular I didn't think that was a strength. I just like numbers. And it's like, that's, that's a strength of yours. That's an ability to be probably analytical. One of the strengths and you maybe just never thought of it that way, but that's maybe how your brain functions. So if you are approaching, you know, a problem, you might do it from an analytical perspective versus something that's more around well, how are the people versus someone who's going to ask like, can I see, you know, the strategic plan for the company that would give me the insight that I kind of want a little bit more. And so I think a lot of People don't consider the things they do naturally strengths. I think that they, when they get their top five, they kind of feel like, Oh, well, I, I kind of stink. They're only in one leadership area. And so I had a friend and all hers were in, like the relationship development leadership domain. And she was like, well, this stinks. And I said, No, it doesn't. You, you are the heart of this team, you can always tell me what's going on with everybody. I don't always see it, because I'm rushing, and I'm doing supervisory things. And I might miss it. But she will be the one to be like, Kristin, you really need to check in with so and so because they're going through this. She was the heart and I really had to talk to her about seeing that, you know, as a strength. But also not feeling like just because you don't have one in every leadership domain doesn't mean like you're, you're not okay, or that you won't do well, it simply means that your strengths are very concentrated in one area. And it's something that you do well. So those are probably the two, I think biggest ones or challenges kind of help people see and kind of get through. Do

**Michael Hingson ** 51:06 you encourage people to take time at the end of the day, or at some time during the day just stop and chill and maybe do a little bit of introspection, and so on and to think about what's going on in their lives? Because we're so much on the go all the time, as we've talked about so often already on this episode.

**Christin Roberson ** 51:25 Yeah. And I think that's kind of what happens in a lot of my conversations with them is that kind of what we ended up doing, they started thinking about things that they had never really, you know, considered before, or, Oh, okay, that's, oh, it's a lot of the Oh, the AHA lightbulb moment of them figuring out that's why I do that particular thing, or that's maybe why I'm struggling with this job so much is because it's actually not aligned with my strengths and the things that I really value. And so there's a lot of those little lightbulb moments that happen, or we're just really able to make some connections between their strengths. And the areas where they are doing well in the areas where they are experiencing challenges. I generally tend to think the areas where we're experiencing challenges, it could be for a number of reasons. But a lot of times, I think it's around the fact that it may be out of sync with our strengths, which is one of the things that I did in my pivoting is I started, I looked at my strengths and kind of did a bit of an assessment. And I said, you know, how, how often do I actually get to use my strengths in my job. And it was very low. And there was maybe one that I use all the time, which was productivity, because it was about kind of getting work out very quickly. But I wasn't learning anything new. I wasn't building community, I wasn't really able to make decisions they were made for me. Yeah, and it was like, Okay, I think it's time to think about this in a different way, or to figure something else out. Because this is not in alignment with who I am or what I want. And we

**Michael Hingson ** 53:01 get so much in the habit of just going one way and doing whatever it is we're doing that we don't tend to look at going about what's going on. And is this really what I want. And our brain is usually our heart is usually telling us, maybe there's an issue here. And it becomes a process of learning to listen to that. And then going back and stepping back to see what's really happening.

**Christin Roberson ** 53:27 And oftentimes, as it was for me, and a lot of other people that I know, maybe didn't realize it, but it was showing up physically where I was, I had migraines way more often I was getting sick, you know a lot more often, like there were physical ailments that I was experiencing that were in response to the strength or the stress I was experiencing. And even, you know, depression, anxiety was happening. And I'm like, I don't know what's going on. And I had to take a look what's working in my life that I love. And where am I seeing like the most, you know, the more difficult difficulty in trying to manage it. And it always came back to my job. So it wasn't that I didn't like to work with the particular environment. And what I was tasked to do became more difficult by the day that it was showing up as a physical ailment. And this hadn't been the first time that I had experienced it. And I had heard it from many other people who had also left higher ed, who experienced the same thing. And they're like, I don't know if I'm going to make it another year and not have be found in my chair and had a heart attack or something, you know, because of the weight of the stress of what you're trying to do. And so I would rather people figure it out through coaching than being in the hospital. Yeah.

**Michael Hingson ** 54:42 What's up being a sales guy loving stories? Do you have a story of one particular time that maybe you really had a great success that helping people understand their strengths and how they were able to use that to improve and enhance

**Christin Roberson ** 54:57 Yeah, When I first started the business, I wasn't charging anything, I was just asking for LinkedIn recommendations. And there was a group of about five individuals that I was working with at the time, they all worked in higher education, they had been doing it for a long time. Some of them had chord experiences and the way that they were being treated, and being able to kind of talk them through what they were experiencing was, first, it was phenomenal, because it was an opportunity for people to connect with someone who understood the field, what they were going through, you didn't have to explain you know, acronyms, or what this thing was, I already knew. And so I love that they enjoy connecting with someone who knew. And so with one particular individual, like, we would have extensive conversations about her experiences, but also at what she was good at. And we worked together for quite a few months, along with all the other individuals. But one of the things that I always deem is success is not just that they find a job, it's like they're thriving in that job. So the conversation and the coaching became something that was like, excellent, because I could see the results of it, I could see the result of it, and it's what they wanted. And now they were living a life where there you can see them going on vacation, you see them going to a conference, and they're happy. And I check in with them, I'm like, Oh, my gosh, you look like you're having a great time works going well. And they'll they'll let me know. And so I don't always get to see that. But a lot of times I do. And so for me, those moments are always key and seeing people happy, thriving and enjoying themselves. And knowing that there were other options, because many of them were like, I'm never going to get off this field, which is how I felt I don't have any options, especially having a terminal degree, like me and so many others had where it was not my intention to leave the field with a doctorate in higher education, that's an investment you make that you're going to stay in the industry. So talking to other individuals who felt the same way with their degrees, and giving them hope, was just paramount to what I always deemed as success was the hope that you felt them staying at the end of the call I oh my gosh, Chris, I feel so much better about this. Okay, I think about this differently now. So it's hard to pinpoint specific examples. But it's more so kind of the moments of aha of happiness and seeing the end result of the coaching and how they have progressed afterwards.

**Michael Hingson ** 57:39 I had always planned on going into teaching when I got a bachelor's and a master's degree. But then things changed. And what I discovered, which I think is a pretty important thing is that, although I didn't go into formal teaching, in fact, mostly what I do is teach and in fact that the training I got in the the world of science, and attitudes and philosophies are tools that I can use wherever I go in whatever I do. So I I would not regret my time in physics at all.

**Christin Roberson ** 58:17 I agree, it's taken me some time to kind of get over that mostly looking at my student loan balances. Sometimes they're like, my gosh, maybe we should go back and make it work. But when I remember what that life was like, and that yes, I have this degree, but ultimately, this degree led me to be know about strengths. And to be certified and to meet, you know, other people who are interested in it and folks that I've now known forever, then yeah, it was worth it. It's tough sometimes, because there's still some moments where I think about it, but it's never that I can't go back. I'll say that. And I always remind myself, I can always be an adjunct instructor or go and do something else. This may not be forever. But it definitely is what I want to do now and for as long as I possibly can.

**Michael Hingson ** 59:00 So, you know, you pivoted, you went from one kind of career in a sense to another, although I'm not sure that totally they're different, the environments different, but what you're doing to a great degree is the same. What kind of advice would you give to other people who may be thinking about or who ought to think about looking at an alternative to what they're doing today?

**Christin Roberson ** 59:22 Yeah. And I'm totally not sponsored by Simon Sinek. But start with why. I, that is one of the one of like five books I recommend that people who are thinking about it is to start with why that's probably the most important book to me outside of pivot by Jenny Blake. And it's basically starting with Why do you want to do this? Why do you feel like you need to do this? And there's not any right or wrong answers. A lot of mine were Yeah, I want to be happy. I want to be fulfilled. I'd also like to buy a house someday and I can't do that. On my salary, I can't pay off the debt, you know, from student loans on this salary can't necessarily live the way that I want to. And I, I had hoped, with the investment that I made in my, you know, particular education. And so a lot of that is just asking, why not just why you want to do coaching? Or why are you thinking about changing fields? I think beyond that, it's also just like, doing doing the research into the job. You know, the thing about strengths is, a lot of people may fit like they have a strength in a particular area. But it's maybe not. And we have people in our lives that are probably working in profession where you're like, that's probably not the best route for you. You're, you're, you have strengths in other areas that this, isn't it. And so being able to kind of do the work, or kind of, you know, what I call it as the skills gap, you know, what am I missing? So doing the research, discovering what actually are my skills, not just my top five strengths that are a great foundation, a great place to start, but like, what else am I like, really good at? How do I, you know, extend this, but starting with just the reason why unpacks a lot, because a lot of in the even in my unpacking was like, Oh, my gosh, I've been terribly unhappy for the past five years, working in the field, I really haven't been able to do the work that I want to, I'm always working, I've missed things, because I'm always working. So it wasn't just, you know, I'm not using my why was yes, you know, I'm not using my strengths. But also, there were basic foundational things that I wanted for my life, and that I valued that I wasn't getting, and being able to kind of start with the why was really important. So I usually say, Start With Why and do your research and start discovering some things about yourself.

**Michael Hingson ** 1:01:56 Well, if people want to reach out to you, and maybe seek coaching, and so on, or just learn more about some of the things that you talked about today, how do they do that? Yeah,

**Christin Roberson ** 1:02:05 so they can do it. One of two ways they can go to the website, which is career Doc llc.com. Or they can email me directly at Dr. Chris, at career Doc llc.com.

**Michael Hingson ** 1:02:20 And you do do you do mostly group coaching, one on one coaching or some or both.

**Christin Roberson ** 1:02:24 So I mostly do one on one coaching. But I am. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm developing a course right now, that should launch later in August, if not early September, that will actually be more cohort based. So there's an option to do one on one and then to also do it more in a cohort. But I do still do training every now and then for folks that requested. Well,

**Michael Hingson ** 1:02:47 if you will send us information about the course when it's available, we'll make sure that goes in the cover notes, and so on, because I'm sure that people will be interested in that. And I certainly want to learn more about what it's going to be and so on. So please make sure we get that data, and we will share it and help promote the course.

**Christin Roberson ** 1:03:04 I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Well, I

**Michael Hingson ** 1:03:07 want to thank you for allowing us to take an hour of your time and we really appreciate all that you've talked about I value very greatly all the lessons I think that you've imparted and I look forward to hearing more from you. I think we should do more of these and certainly if there's ever any way I can assist I want you to not hesitate to reach out but I really am grateful for the opportunity to spend an hour with you and for all of you listening I hope that you enjoyed this as well. Love to hear your thoughts. Please email me at Michaelhi M i c h e a l h i at accessibe a c c e s s i b e.com want to definitely hear your comments. You can also visit us at Michael hingson H i n g s o n.com/podcast. And wherever you're listening, please give us a five star rating and share your comments and your thoughts. Especially if you're on iTunes because they seem to really be the ones that disseminate most reviews and so on. So we really value any comments that you can make and and we really appreciate all that you're able to give us and Christin, I really am glad that you had the chance to be here with us today. I want to thank you one more time that for being here and for all that you have advised us on and hopefully people will continue to to reach out to you.

**Christin Roberson ** 1:04:26 Thank you. I really appreciate it. And thank you so much for the opportunity to speak from my heart today.

**Michael Hingson ** 1:04:38 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