with Michael Hingson
June 28, 2024
I did this interview last fall when I just began. It just aired on Friday, June 28th… Read a brief description below about the host, blind from birth and survived 9/11 guiding people off his floor and out of the tower aided by his guide dog… Truly an inspirational man…
About the Interview written by the host Michael Hingson:
I find that people do not necessarily view themselves as “unstoppable”. It just happens with them although later they may truly adopt an unstoppable mindset. Such a person is our guest this time, Wendy Cole. Wendy and I are roughly the same age and, I suspect, for different reasons have many similar life values and observations.
At the age of ten Wendy announced that she was a girl although physically she was a boy. As she puts it, her brain was a girl and the rest of her was a boy. Even so, she moved forward with life. She spent 20 years working for Digital Equipment Corporation. After being laid off as DEC was failing, she decided not to work directly for one company but rather to accept contract work. She enjoyed doing this kind of work and living that existence for twenty years more.
In 2012 she retired, sort of. Wendy began looking more at her life and existence. She began researching transgender topics and discovered that medical science finally concluded that transgender was not a psychological or mental issue but rather it was, as Wendy says, a medical condition. In 2015 Wendy took the leap as she will tell us and became physically a woman.
She now not only coaches transgender people to help them navigate their uncertainties and concerns, but she is a recognized coach helping and mentoring anyone requiring aid in navigating life changes. As Wendy points out, we all are constantly dealing with change and thus transitions from one thing to another whether it be job-related or anything else you can think of.
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.
Michael’s Links:
https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson
