Karin Weiser: Rewrite Your Story & Walk Your Talk

Meet Karin Weiser.  British by birth, global by choice. Karin has lived and worked in nine countries across four continents. Extensive travel, European roots and cultural savviness give her a license to operate globally.  Karin is an International Business Coach (ICF) and writer. She is ambitious in helping international professionals write the next chapter of their career story with 1-1 coaching. Her own story has been rewritten many times, which has led her to work with storytelling. Her fascination with the human mind and resilience shown in the face of adversity means she always has an inspiring story to share.

Take a listen to this episode of empowEAR Audiology as Karin shares how her cochlear implant journey has given her a powerful insight into the importance of why sharing stories matters. Karin’s own it, walk it, talk it story about getting her hearing back through the cochlear implant journey is a powerful example of how to look at the silver lining and be grateful for the possibilities that open up when we realize the power of taking small steps along the way to embrace imperfections. 

www.karinweiser.com

https://idainstitute.com/

For more information about Dr. Carrie Spangler- check out her LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/carrie-spangler/

For transcripts of this episode- visit the podcast website at: https://empowearaudiology.buzzsprout.com

Transcript

Announcer: Welcome to episode 20 of empowEAR Audiology with Dr. Carrie Spangler.
[00:00:15] Carrie Spangler: Welcome to the empowEAR Audiology Podcast, which is part of the 3C digital media network. My name is Dr. Carrie Spangler, and I am your host. I am a passionate audiologist with a lifelong journey of living with hearing challenges in this vibrant hearing world. This podcast is for professionals, parents, individuals, with your own challenges and those who want to be inspired.
[00:00:44] Thank you for listening, and I hope you will subscribe, invite others to listen and leave me a positive review. I also wanted to invite all of you to visit and engage in the conversation on the empowerEAR Audiology Facebook group transcripts for each episode can be found at www. 3, the number three, C digital media network.com under the empowerEAR podcast tab.
[00:01:17] Now let's get started with today's episode. All right. Let's get started with today's episode of empowerEAR Audiology. I want to share that one of the joys of doing a podcast is you never know what kind of connection you might make. So today I am really excited to have a guest who resided on the other side of the world and because of networking stories, I paths I'm connected in a personal way.
[00:01:43] Let me share an introduction about Karen. She is British by birth. Global by choice Karin has lived and worked in nine countries across four continents, extensive travel, European roots and cultural savviness. Give her a license to operate globally. 20 years of business experience spanning the pharmaceutical industry, executive search and market research in London, her passion for people and words has been uniquely combined during her career.
[00:02:16] She has taught English as a foreign language around the world and has more than a decade of experience in learning and development communications and people in change. Her own story has been rewritten many times, which has led her to work with storytelling. Her fascination with the human mind and resilience shown in the face of adversity means she always has an inspiring story to share.
[00:02:43] She started her journey as a coach and a mentor in 2008 after immersing, herself, and the world of neuro linguistic programming. She became ICF certified with coaching in 2017 and has not looked back. After hearing this internet introduction, you might think, what does Karen have to do with empowerEARed Audiology?
[00:03:07] Let me introduce Karen and we will find out so welcome to the podcast and thank you for being here.
[00:03:15] Karin Weiser: Well, thank you for inviting me, Carrie.
[00:03:18] Carrie Spangler: So do you want to share with all of my listeners a little bit of how we got connected?
[00:03:24] Karin Weiser: Yes. I'm happy to do so, so well. Let's just put it on the table. I'm also hearing impaired and I had quite a journey to get to where I am today as a successful cochlear implant user.
[00:03:41] Three years ago, I got my, my cochlear and I was activated and it's changed my life. And about a year ago, I started blogging for the IDA Institute, and I think I've done four blogs in total and the latest blog. Was published last month and you commented on it. And it was about my journey leading up to getting a cochlear implant, which I know that the Ida Institute has told me is, um, I don't think they've got many stories to share about it.
[00:04:16] I think it's still relatively new, even though they've been doing cochlear implants since the early nineties, I believe you might know more than more about that than me and I reached out to you and we got connected. We had a dialogue and I offered my story to share via this podcast. And we jumped on the opportunity and here we are.
[00:04:40] Carrie Spangler: I'm so excited that you're here. And then just for our listeners, if anybody's interested in the Ida Institute, it is located in Denmark and they are an independent nonprofit organization that works on building a community that embraces person centered care. So with clinicians and academics and people with hearing loss around the world, um, they help to develop knowledge.
[00:05:03] Skills and confidence to better manage hearing loss. So you can always get onto the website and find the many tools that they have to offer, um, for professionals and for families and individuals who do have hearing loss. So just a little plug in there, but for them. And I had told Karen that I actually.
[00:05:23] Was over in Denmark, um, several years ago, working on a project with the Ida Institute. So our paths have crossed, a different time because of a common connection. Um, but I was exploring your website and I love your motto of helping professionals and organizations to rewrite this stories and walk their talk.
[00:05:45] So can you tell me more about why you believe storytelling is so important?
[00:05:52] Karin Weiser: Well, basically the human brain is wired for stories. We tell stories all the time in our casual conversations without actually realizing it. And I've used storytelling in my corporate days and learning and development, or as in encouraging my subject matter experts to start their training with a story.
[00:06:13] And why, because that's how we learn stories, open up for emotions and make facts and figures colorful and make it stick. Then there's the stories we tell about ourselves and we're unaware of them less. Sometimes other people will point them out to you. And that's my, I'm going to say expertise as a coach, sometimes holding up the mirror to let the other person know.
[00:06:42] Do you hear what you're saying about yourself? Um, do you know, storytelling is an effective tool that's used in communication to influence and change behavior? But, you know, the stories that we tell about ourselves can really influence our beliefs and whether we think something's possible for us as well as affect the outcomes.
[00:07:07] So we need different stories for different situations. And, you know, we also need to be aware that we always have a choice about what story do we want to tell this? Let's give a global example. What story are we all going to be telling about the pandemic? I'll leave that one with a question, mark, but going back to hearing loss, what story do you want to tell about your hearing loss?
[00:07:32] Are you a victim or a survivor? And you know, just to highlight again, you can change your outcomes by changing the story.
[00:07:44] Carrie Spangler: I love that. I think storytelling is so powerful and you just put it, those words in such a way that makes us realize the importance of storytelling from many different angles. And I think after reading your blog that you did, um, I.
[00:08:05] Um, it seemed that you had to rewrite your own story as it comes to your hearing journey. So can you share a little bit more about that? How you read about your own story, about your hearing journey?
[00:08:17] Karin Weiser: I, um, yes, so I found out about my own hearing loss when I was 15 and, uh, that's going back more than 30 years and I was basically told to go away and get on with it because there's nothing we can do.
[00:08:34] Um, neither my parents, or I challenged that now, given that what I know today and when it was not that I'm that old, but it was in the late eighties. And I have an unusual hearing loss where half of it is pretty normal and the other half is pretty bad. And I actually believed that there was probably nothing around at that time technology wise that could help me.
[00:09:02] So I did just go away and get on with it and spent the next decade, living my life, studying languages, traveling, living abroad, teaching English around the world and getting a degree in, in languages, Danish and German, and I have had in France. So I, I speak three European languages. And when I started my first.
[00:09:28] Permanent full-time job, mid, mid twenties. It was in London and that was in the late nineties. And I experienced discrimination in the workplace. I had never been introduced to any information about what hearing loss meant. I had no tools. So my initial reaction just brought up all the feelings of.
[00:09:56] Embarrassment, not feeling whole, I didn't know what to do. Although I knew some of the things I couldn't do. And this was related to the particular job I couldn't transcribe from recorded conversations because I would not get it all. And I struggled with a role as a kind of switchboard taking telephones and passing them on to the consultants.
[00:10:19] In an attic, what was working in an attic? Five people, fax machines, you name it. Background noise is a killer. As you know, Carrie and I was demoted to shredding paper. I was deeply unhappy. I found another job and again, shied away from. Dealing with it. Although I did see a consultant in Harley street, but again, in those days, hearing aids were super expensive.
[00:10:50] I didn't have the money for it. And I considered myself living in a really noisy city and I just thought, but you know, there were many hours in my life where it was okay. I wasn't struggling. And. Cutting long story Short time when worked abroad again a bit more. And I ended up moving to Denmark in my late twenties and I was told, Hey, hearing aids are free here.
[00:11:14] I did explore getting two. And within a couple of years, they ended up in a drawer. I did not use them. I later understood more. What had happened. I had not received the emotional support that I needed. I have not received the patient centered care that I know that Ida Institute. Is promoting. And a few years later.
[00:11:40] Another story short, I decided I kind of pulled myself together and went back, go, right. I need to get some help. By then there was such a long waiting list in the public sector that I went private. I was in my late thirties at this point and I got my first hearing aid and this audiologist became my guardian angel in disguise.
[00:12:04] And that was my first experience of patient-centered care. And she dealt with the emotional side of getting a hearing aid and supported me almost for the next decade before I had got. Bad or that bad that I needed a cochlear implant and had to go back into the public sector. I know it was different from country to country by that because a cochlear implant belongs to the hospital sector, here in Denmark.
[00:12:32] And, um, yeah, so I struggled for many years, but a lot of it, I, I did innately, I developed my own, know how of what to do, but from. Just for example, in meeting rooms, making sure I sat with the window behind me so that I didn't have bright light coming into someone's face and asking people not to chew and speak at the same time.
[00:13:04] I mean, or to face me, but people forget, even though they know you have to keep repeating it, that becomes tiring and itself. Um, yes, it's been quite a journey. Do you have anything else to sort of add here before I go off on a tangent,
[00:13:23] Carrie Spangler: I kind of wanted to think back what you said, that the one doctor told you when you were 15 and your family, that there's nothing we can do and go home and get on with it.
[00:13:36] Did those words impact you at all?
[00:13:40] Karin Weiser: To be honest, not really. Only to the extent that that was what I used as my guiding star on that point though is not until we can do. I just have to go in and get on with it. And honestly, in the next decade, there was nothing that stopped me doing what I did. Yes. I had some situations when I struggled.
[00:13:59] Yes, I was no good. I couldn't have a proper conversation with me when I was at a disco, but most of my friends would remind me, nobody came, you know, you ended up sometimes building up little things of all the things you can't do, but people remind you, this is difficult for us as well. So it's even more difficult for you.
[00:14:16] And I have the kind of personality that's pretty determined and I persevere. And I kind of rolled my sleeves up and decided I decide what I can do, but obviously wind forward 20 years. Some of the things that I, or the list of things that I couldn't do was getting longer. And that's when I realized. My hearing was getting down and because I had moved around and lived in so many different places and switched from different or a couple of different audiologists, I didn't have somebody who had my hearing curves for the whole time.
[00:14:56] I didn't have that evidence but. You don't really need that to make that decision at the end. When you, when you know that you are a cochlear implant candidate.
[00:15:07] Carrie Spangler: Yeah, which I think kind of gets to my next question. Could you just share more about that journey to the cochlear implant?
[00:15:16] Karin Weiser: So it's something I didn't really know much about and you just, you just see the device on people's heads.
[00:15:22] Um, but I had, it was during the autumn of 2016, I had experienced that. Sometimes some of my colleagues were actually quite near, but I was saying, come closer. I can't hear you. And usually I wouldn't have an issue with their voice because there were some, as, you know, two pitches that are more challenging than others.
[00:15:46] Um, so I went to see my audiologist and, um, we did a hearing test and she said, I think it might be time for you to explore a cochlear implant. And I had to push myself back into The public sector and it took a few months to get an appointment. And then I went through various tests and that was a bit of a slow journey to get to those appointments, those initial appointments.
[00:16:09] But I remember the doctor sitting there and saying to me, we think you'd be a candidate and it would have a high. How can I put it? There's a really good reason, um, risk or opportunity for this to work for you. And he gave me the reasons is that you're, you're a linguist. You do something the rest of us don't do.
[00:16:39] And. Everything just, I mean, I was tested in Danish and English is my mother tongue. So I was obviously probably a scoring a lot less than in another foreign language, which is a bit of a mumbly language. Um, I don't know. I think it was like he held up a mirror to me and I didn't see that. I, I didn't want to wear the label that he gave me.
[00:17:00] You gave me a label as you're severely hearing impaired, and I'd always just sort of worn a label. That was, oh, I don't hear so well, you know, um, if you look at the meaning of those words, there's quite a bit different. So that was a shock in itself to actually acknowledge that I'm severely hearing impaired.
[00:17:20] But that is this sort of label. You have to have to be a candidate for the process. And I went through the various tests, brain scan balance you name it. And I think when the, the letter came through in the post and I saw it in black and white, that I was officially cause his estimate. It was only an estimate that 4bmonths later, I'd done various tests.
[00:17:48] Then that made me realize I've got to do this.
[00:17:54] Carrie Spangler: Yeah. I think one of the things that you said in your blog, um, you have a quote by Tony Robbins that states it is in the moments of decision that your destiny is shaped. Can you share, it sounds like that was kind of one of those moments. Can you share more about how your mind shifted and that impacted you?
[00:18:16] Karin Weiser: And, you know, it was seeing it in black and white. And I had obviously read that quote about the same time I realized I've come to the end of a road where I had nothing to lose. Of course, I didn't know what was waiting for me, but I had reached out to the international cochlear implant Facebook group a few months earlier, just as I had started these tests.
[00:18:40] And I remember two Comments really stick with me today. And I have written about them in the blog. One of them was somebody had said,
[00:18:54] expect nothing hope for everything. And I thought, great. And another lady had written make sure you're 100% ready. Don't don't. Do anything you don't want to do, make sure you, and I know she was talking emotionally, make sure it works a hundred percent ready. And that's the one thing I'm going to say about the diagnosis to not once.
[00:19:18] Did I feel any pressure I was told I could complete all these tests and then once you get the letter in black and white, if I didn't want to do it, I could put it on hold and these tests would still be valid. And it could be six months or two years before I have to, I could make the decision. And, and that was it really.
[00:19:40] I know there's another thing that I had told you. I told myself during the, the journey of studying my hearing loss and coming to terms with it, I had often said to myself, what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. And yes, there is a risk and any operation that you might not wake up. I mean, that's just like, well, you know that one, but it's minimal.
[00:20:01] If you're a healthy person and you're going in for something that's not life-threatening. So I've kind of just decided to do it. And that was at the end of September. By the end of October, I had a date with a surgeon and I made the operation date with him for after Christmas. And I chosen the color of my device and which device we could choose between four different products.
[00:20:27] And I just sort of did it
[00:20:30] Carrie Spangler: . So once the ball got rolling and you made that decision, but I think your point. Yes, we have to be a candidate just from, you know, the hearing test itself. But that emotional part and being ready is important too. And I don't know if whatever, a hundred percent, but we have to be at least more ready than less ready in that kind of a situation.
[00:20:56] I know for me, it took me a while and I'm an audiologist to get to the point where I was mentally ready to make the decision too. So more
[00:21:06] Karin Weiser: than I did, you know, you probably have more information about hearing loss tools, you name it. So, so that, that, like you say, I think when you are emotionally ready, it increases your outcomes.
[00:21:19] Or gives you a higher chance of being open to all the different things. So I knew some facts and figures of what I would experience with the Mickey mouse noise to start with, because I still had some natural hearing and a hearing aid in the other ear. It was just funny to start with. And I must admit that phase when disappeared quite quickly for me, I still have to go back and think of some funny situations.
[00:21:47] They're actually five days after coming back to work after my activation. So I'd had five days of double up Mickey mouse noise. I did a presentation in front of 150 people, but I chose to take my. Device off because it was too confusing and I had. Um, my boss has already questions. You're going to repeat it.
[00:22:10] Cause she was sitting right in front of me because I was really worried about not hearing the questions from a big auditorium, but those are the kinds of things. And I just thought I've got to do this because it was holding on to who I was and what I could do, but I took it up. I didn't wear it because I didn't want that noise to, it was confusing.
[00:22:29] Carrie Spangler: Yeah. So I'm five days out. You're still, your brain is. Trying to figure out a lot of different information at that point in time. So there's not enough experience at that point. So is there anything that you've learned through this whole process
[00:22:47] Karin Weiser: to share with others who the going through it, but tell you what, going back to the stories, you know, when I think back to my journey, I did not have access to success stories. I did. This was three years ago. Podcasts only just starting then they were not the norm. They're becoming more and more readily available.
[00:23:10] I lacked information. I lacked, I lacked information with people who are living in a foreign country and dealing with two or more languages other than the mother tongue. And I think what's nice is to share a success story, to give people hope. Why can't my story or my journey happen to other people. I know it's very different depending on your starting point.
[00:23:39] And you know, more about that one than may with the types of hearing loss there are, and there are even people who are profoundly deaf, who are getting cochlear implants and hearing things for the first time in their lives for you. And I it's, it's recognizing sounds that we've lost from our past because.
[00:23:58] I've always been part of the hearing world. Um, as I suppose, just like getting hope, but hope also in the way the work you have to do on yourself to be emotionally ready. And for some people that might be researching technicalities and for other people that might be recruiting people to be part of your support group, whether that's both in the workplace, as well as in your private life.
[00:24:26] And, and for others, it might just be building up that trust and you,
[00:24:34] Carrie Spangler: no, those are all good. And I think you have a point of view. Finding that support network is so important. Um, and your point of sharing your story is so important too, so that others can learn and, um, started their journey wherever they might be. Um, everybody has a different starting point, but those stories that we're able to share.
[00:24:58] It impacts people in different ways. And I think your whole point of storytelling is so critical, but other people, um, to understand as well. So going back to your, um, profession of coaching, um, and coaching others professionally, you talk about own it, walk it and talk it. Do you have an own it, walk, talk it story that you want to share about, um, recent and bad events and your cochlear implant journey either personally or professionally.
[00:25:31] Karin Weiser: You know what I'm going to say? Uh, everyone talks about owning your own story and that everybody we've got, everyone's got flaws. And some people are really afraid of sharing them, go through life, feeling embarrassed by them. I've been there with my hearing loss and I've got to the point where. I'm using it.
[00:25:52] I've turned it around as a strength and the opportunity to blog for the Ida Institute has been out there to share. Hey it's okay. Yes. I've got a bit of a silver lining story in terms of that, the cochlear gave me some hearing back that I never thought would be possible, but it's as wish I'd known. I know you've got your own one.
[00:26:14] It's not been an easy one to get there, but everybody's got something, whether it's a. And, uh, handicap that you can see or perhaps a health issue that makes them operate under par. Um, but it's part of your story. So I don't hide hide anymore. And even though I can hear some amazing things, I still have some limitations and I'm now armed with tools and better at communicating what I need to make me function in society.
[00:26:50] I'm putting up my boundaries for saying no. Um, I'm actually really super grateful to technology. I mean, I just think about the pandemic and the amount of online communication I've had to do in the virtual space with videos. And I've been able to hear without the video where, before it was always a needed the video and the podcasts and audio books and TEDx talks that I've been able to.
[00:27:17] Listen to and, and grow from. Um, you know, I just wanted to say, coming to terms with a disability is a bit like eat, eating a big cake and not every bite tastes nice. And sometimes, you know, you can't eat it all at once, so we need to digest and then move on to the next phase. And I know for many years leading up to getting the cochlear, but not realizing that that was part of my journey at the time, but just living with hearing loss.
[00:27:54] I was fed up of going to the, you know, another bit of technology that I needed to try out and another appointment. And I just wanted to get on with my life, but I realized it's because I couldn't do won't anymore. And I didn't want the attention. I just wanted to do what I wanted to do, you know, enjoy my life.
[00:28:12] So it's about that one bite at a time. And not everybody is tasty, but. Once you accept yourself. And I suppose a little bit of self compassion and self love coming through here because when you embrace your imperfections, life becomes a bit easier and I'll have to say. I don't really think about my hearing loss on a daily basis.
[00:28:37] I do in terms of just basic care for my device. And, um, I have moments that I really enjoy my quiet time, so I don't put my device on too early in the morning. And there are some advantages, but it's just a, it's not the elephant in the room anymore. And I'm so grateful for that. I put it in perspective, put it that way.
[00:29:01] Carrie Spangler: Yes. I like that. The cake analogy it's it does put things in perspective. So, and it isn't, you know, it isn't always tasty and other times it, it tastes really good. Right. And it just kind of, um, accepting all of those points along that journey. And I love your point about sharing. Sharing the silver lining, but also sharing like some of the struggles and challenges along the way so that other people realize, Hey, this not every person has a walk in the park, right.
[00:29:36] I'm experienced with it. So I think knowing that other people have these challenges along the way makes your journey a little more, you're able to self accept it a little bit more when you hear those stories from other people.
[00:29:52] Karin Weiser: As well as remembering not to have that victim story, but the survivor and, you know, I'm reading Glennon Doyle Untamed book at the moment. And I just, the other evening I dip in and out, and there was a quote that she went past on her lunch break to want to reread on her fellow teachers wall or something that said we can do hard things. And I've been saying that to myself too. And it's actually helped me when I think of what we've gone through on the pandemic.
[00:30:23] I thought, Hey, I've actually gone through something. That's a bit harder on a different level of personal level. And just before we opened up for the podcast, we talked about another quote that I love to share about Steve jobs. And this I think is really relevant for anyone on a journey, a hearing loss journey.
[00:30:44] No, you, you can only connect the dots Looking back, but you have to trust forward and yeah, you don't know what the future is going to bring, but we are so lucky to be living in such a society that is full of technology and things are changing all the time. New gadgets new everything. So it's all to our advantage.
[00:31:09] Carrie Spangler: It really is. I love that quote too. So is there anything else that you want to share that I didn't ask you?
[00:31:20] Karin Weiser: Um, so I work with international professionals who are ready to write the next chapter of their career story, but I also have a dream of actually working with other hearing impaired people. Who needs support to get to grips with their hearing loss journey or to prepare for the cochlear implant, or just actually deal with a hearing loss while they discover what their next career chapter is going to be.
[00:31:53] And perhaps they are fully, you know, there's no issues there, but they're sort of still exploring. I'd really love to work with people like that who might needs support from someone like me, where they can see, Hey, anything is possible because that's what coaching does for you. It removes your barriers and your obstacles and helped you see possibilities that you didn't think were open to you.
[00:32:16] And I think as a hearing loss individual, we we've had to change that perception of ourselves because there was a point when there were many things we couldn't do.
[00:32:27] Carrie Spangler: I love that. And then you have that vision from a personal perspective of going through that process and taking your professional expertise of coaching and just kind of putting that into perspective, but other people too, helping them put that into perspective for themselves.
[00:32:46] Karin Weiser: Definitely. And you know, I will be the biggest cheerleader. And accountability buddy, because I do have this belief that anything is possible. And I know that can be used to be put into the perspective. You know, we're not all going to fly to the moon, but do you know what I mean? And, and we are the ones that are getting in our own way.
[00:33:08] Carrie Spangler: Right. We are unique and that's what makes us our individual. And we all have different dreams that we want to achieve. So I love that you want to kind of put both your personal journey with your coaching perspective. I think that could be very helpful for people. So if people are interested, individuals who are deaf and hard of hearing or other individuals who want to, um, have some coaching experience, how can they connect with you?
[00:33:37] Karin Weiser: So you can look at my contact details and more about me and, um, on blogs and everything on my webpage, which was my name which is Karin Wiese.com. And you'll put that in the podcast notes and I'm also very active on LinkedIn and, um, yes, so email contacts from my website, and I'll be happy to, to have an initial chat with people and see if there's some chemistry there, but also if they just need to.
[00:34:05] Share that perspective and need some support.
[00:34:10] Carrie Spangler: Thank you. I really enjoyed this opportunity to connect with you and I think your. Ideas or your passion for storytelling is so important for other individuals and listeners to recognize that their story holds a lot of meaning and what we choose to tell is so important for others to hear.
[00:34:33] And it does carry a lot of passion and weight and influence when we are willing to share. I share stories with others. So thank you for sharing that. And thank you for sharing about your cochlear implant journey, because I know that is so important for others to hear who might be thinking about it or in the middle of the journey and want to have that support with others.
[00:34:57] Um, but again, I want to thank you so much for coming on the empowEAR Audiology Podcast. Is there anything else you want to share before we wrap up today?
[00:35:08] Karin Weiser: Yes. Just one last thing. That's come to my mind now about our own stories and what we choose to tell about ourselves. You know, life's a journey and we are constantly changing.
[00:35:18] So your story needs to change as well. So don't think that you've ever going to have a story and that's going to be static and that's it. You know, it needs to be changed as you go along and as you evolve, because we are different people from what we were 10 years ago.
[00:35:36] Carrie Spangler: Right. So there's different chapters that can make you keep adding on to your story.
[00:35:46] So that's a good thing. Change is a good thing. Uh, well, thank you so much for being a part of the podcast. And, um, I will put all of your information in the show notes so that our listeners will be able to reach out to you. Uh, if they want to connect.
[00:36:04] Karin Weiser: Thank you so much, Carrie. And I look forward to keeping in touch and, um, wish you all the best as well.
[00:36:09] And thank you again for this opportunity.
[00:36:12] Carrie Spangler: Thank you.
What did you think of that interview with Karen today? For me, this conversation validates why storytelling is a critical piece of the cochlear implant journey, the hearing loss journey. Whatever journey you might be on whether you are a parent, a patient or a professional. Own it Walk it talk it that's what Karen quotes parents own it. Walk it, talk it story about getting her hearing back through the cochlear implant journey is a powerful example of how to look at the silver lining and be grateful for the possibilities that open up. When we realized the power of taking small steps along the way to embrace imperfections.
[00:37:03] Karen, in this interview, she quotes Steve jobs, his quote, saying you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in the future. She compares this powerful quote to her own cochlear implant journey. After this episode.
[00:37:28] Karin offered me a one hour personal coaching session. And it was just an amazing experience for me. Karin's personal experience of having a cochlear implant and her professional experience shines through and in a unique way that provided a positive coaching session. During this session, Karin asked just the right question and allowed me to have.
[00:37:56] Some aha moments about refining my own vision and how courageous storytelling with the words create a positive ripple effect for others who are willing to listen. She also challenged me to start a gratitude journal, which I challenge all of you to do as well to refocus my vision and achieve small and long term goals.
[00:38:19] I just wanted to say a huge shout out to Karin, but her storytelling and coaching experience. If you want to learn more about Karin, look it up in the show notes and you can click on a website and get in touch. Thanks again for listening to the empowerEAR Podcast, and I hope all of you will leave me a positive review, write a positive comment, and please share this podcast with all of your friends.
[00:38:50] Thank you. And enjoy.
This has been a production of the 3C Digital Media Network.