How Mike Calvo Went From Miami Drug Hustler to Visionary Tech CEO Without Sight

Because today I'm in the studio with a guy named Mike Calvo.

A guy who adversity, you could say, has been his middle name, from being the child of immigrants from Cuba to being a kid who was born blind.

The guy has an incredible story of overcoming the odds.

But more than any of that, it's the insights that Mike has to share today that I hope, that I pray are going to mean something to you, that are going to transform your life from this day forward.

Because my friend, I want you to understand that you are more amazing, more spectacular than you could ever believe.

And I believe that if you have it in your heart, a dream, an idea, my friend, it's meant to come true.

And it's your turn to put in the work, to do the effort, to not be held back anymore by fears or lies that you've been told.

But no, it's time for you to chase your dreams with everything you've got.

And today, with the help of Mike Calvo, I hope we're gonna get you fired up to do just that.

So, my friend, if you're ready for it, well, it's all inside of today's 378th episode of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

Hey, I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, and you are listening to Grit Grace and Inspiration.

What's going on, and welcome back into the podcast.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, in the studio today with none other than the main man, Mike Calvo.

Mike, dude, a pleasure to have you here.

Welcome to the podcast.

What's up?

How are you, buddy?

I am doing amazing, man.

I am doing amazing and even better now that you're here.

SPEAKER_02: So oh, thanks, man.

Thank God for uh small miracles or technical miracles.

Finally got in here.

SPEAKER_04: Absolutely, absolutely.

I agree.

Well, well, Mike, I'm excited to get to dive into your story, getting to explore kind of all kinds of facets of your story from childhood up through adulthood and in career and all of that.

And what I would love to kind of start off though is when you were a kid growing up, did you ever think in a million years that you would be at where you are in life right now, doing what you do, whether professionally, personally, or maybe did everything follow through with maybe what you thought?

SPEAKER_02: Oh no.

Well, let's begin by saying I'm an old guy.

So I'll be like, I remember back in the day when I was playing with cassette layers and real to real tape recorders.

I mean, every blind kid I think wants to grow up to be a DJ.

Hey, how you doing?

And I did that, but no, I I didn't think I would end up here.

Actually, I wanted to be a lawyer when I was a kid.

I was I always admired lawyers.

And and I I always admired the law because the law has nothing to do with what's right and wrong morally.

It has to do with what's legal and illegal, you know, which is a a bit pet peeve of mine.

We we try and legislate morality sometimes and it just doesn't work.

So I always found the law interesting.

Unfortunately, as we'll we'll get to in in in in a few, my life took a number of different turns based on circumstances and uh decisions, uh rather immature decisions in in in my on my life at the time.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: Now, where did you grow up out?

Well, I grew up in the sunshine state of Florida in Miami.

I'm a good Cuban kid.

I don't sound like it.

I tell people I sound like a white guy from the Midwest, but I'm not.

No.

Hypothesis.

A lo español muy perfecto, muy bien.

So, you know, I speak perfect Spanish very well.

And I uh I learned while I was doing broadcasting stuff, because I used to do voiceovers, and I don't know why, but I have something caught in my throat today that has me a little raspy, so I forgive me.

I started, and at that time, it was like you need to just not sound regional, which meant sounding like a white guy from the Midwest.

So I was like, okay.

So that's what I because in Miami we're all like, hey dude, what's up?

You know, how you doing?

Chilling, you know, this and that.

And that's not the way you, you know, you can't walk into a corporate meeting and say, yo, what's up?

SPEAKER_04: Exactly.

Oh, wow.

Although I've tried.

Yes.

Yes.

Now, so did your parents come to America from Cuba?

SPEAKER_02: They did.

My parents came here in the 60s after the revolution in Cuba, after the uh the regime change in 1958.

My parents came to Florida and they met in Miami.

And I was born in 1967 in Atlanta.

They they they left Miami, went to Atlanta to go discover more riches, this and that and the other.

And I was born in Atlanta.

I have a brother and a sister.

I'm I'm the middle child, and and I have all the middle child trauma or the psychological trauma, which no one except my therapist, which I don't have, gives a damn about.

Um when my parents realized I was blind, as you can imagine, culturally, blindness is at very best, I think blindness is one of those things where you accept it as a parent, then you figure out you don't know what you're gonna do.

And and and I'll tell you, you know, I have five kids.

I've been busy, I I, you know, I don't like television.

And and and and my kids all came before descriptive video.

But um, you know, I don't know what I would have done if one of my kids would have been born blind, because as a blind adult, I realized that there is so much more to blindness than just my eyes don't work.

You know, there's a lot of social impact.

I mean, I was told literally from a very young age that you will never accomplish anything, you know, don't be a burden.

And my favorite one was to quote, act normal, end quote.

To which my question will always was, well, what the hell is normal?

SPEAKER_05: Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: You know, I I've yet to find the definition of normal.

If you do, send me an email, please.

My parents went on that quest, and unfortunately, because of cultural ignorance, they they didn't know what to do with this blind kid.

So they said, Go to Michigan.

In Michigan, there's the Michigan School for the Blind.

It's the best.

And I don't know if that was true, but they believed it was.

So I went to Michigan School for the Blind, which is no longer, and I got trained there uh to do all my stuff.

I could make my bed and I could, you know, do all kinds of stuff that they teach us to do, read braille and stuff all by the time I was in kindergarten.

And then uh, you know, ultimately the snow got to us, it got cold, man, in Michigan, and uh we came back uh to Cuba, I mean Miami, and uh and uh enjoyed uh grew up grew up there in the crazy 80s, and and we'll get there.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: Now, so you were born blind?

Yes, sir.

Born with detached retinas in both eyes, and then they were the the founder of Baskum Palmer Eye Institute in Miami was actually my my doctor, Dr.

Norton.

May he rest in peace.

And uh he uh he did a lot of operations on my eyes, so many that my left eye got blown out and just never worked again.

And my right eye, and and that you know, people are like, don't you get mad about that?

I was like, no, the eyes didn't work to begin with.

All they were trying to do was fix them.

So, you know, I mean, as a computer guy today, I get it.

Sometimes you, you know, when you're trying to recover stuff from your hard drive, if it's blown, it's blown, man.

You know, you may be able to recover some information, but it's all gone.

And it's it's not it's not the the technician's fault.

Exactly.

So I I think I have a a very positive view on my blindness.

If they gave me the opportunity to get my eyes, my eyesight tomorrow, I wouldn't take it.

Now, that being said, being blind is a pain in the neck, you know, and as I'm fond of say, and a little lower.

But being blind is not the end of the world.

Being blind is a major, massive freaking inconvenience, you know.

But hey, you know, there are many other inconveniences in this world.

It could be worse.

I am floored when I hear people say they'd rather have cancer than be blind.

Um, that is uh such a minimization of cancer, first of all, and such a maximizing thing of blindness, which, you know, if you've got stage four cancer, your chances of surviving that are slim to none.

If you've got blindness, your chances of surviving that are pretty good.

You know, so I don't get it.

You know, so I think that our biggest challenge as blind folks is uh the social stigmas and uh and you know, and and that things aren't made for us and blah, blah, blah.

But you know, it isn't my attitude, but I I digress.

Um, my parents moved back to Miami.

I went to school in Miami, I got mainstreamed in the first grade, second grade, somewhere in there, and uh moved forward.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah.

Now, talking about kind of this idea of of blindness is, you know, I always say sometimes, you know, as people who were blind, we don't even think half the time that we're different than anybody else until somebody else reminds us that that we are blind because they have to bring it to your attention.

And I can't help but wonder, as a kid back in that day and age, you've now gone from the Michigan School for the Blind, where you're around everybody who either is blind, knows how to treat blind, to then go to quote unquote this real world.

What was school like for you?

SPEAKER_02: You know, it's interesting.

I was always told when I was, oh, everybody knows you're blind but you.

Well, it's like, no, I know I'm blind, but that's that's like saying everybody knows you have black hair or blonde hair but you.

No, I I mean that's just part of who I am.

It's not yes, I don't wake up every day, oh my God, I'm blind.

You know, I don't care.

This is the way that my creator created me.

You know, and for people who listen to that and don't like that, in the book of Exodus in the Bible, in chapter four, verse 11, I call it to 411 on blindness.

God actually takes uh credit for people's blindness.

It is not I that make the blind not see and the deaf not hear.

It is I the Lord that does these things.

And if you go back and you put that together with all things work for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose, then he did this.

SPEAKER_03: Yes.

SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?

So, in other words, you know, whatever you believe my quote unquote affliction is, no.

You know, we unfortunately, human beings, we become complacent and we we like to gripe and complain about a whole lot of stuff, you know.

So, but that doesn't, we're we're not gonna blame it on a deity, you know, because we're unhappy with our lot in life.

You know, be satisfied where you are, be content in all things and and and move forward because I may lack my sight, but I do not lack innovation, I don't lack creativity, I don't lack intelligence.

Well, it depends on who you ask.

I have so much to be thankful for that I don't, I, you know, the the the the ignorance of the world around me is a bigger challenge than my own personal view of blindness.

SPEAKER_04: Yes, yeah, absolutely.

Out of my own kind of curiosity, is for somebody who was born blind in the fact that this is the world that you've always known, as opposed to somebody like me who went blind later in life, did you still have to grieve the loss of of your sight?

If you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02: You just nailed something that I love to talk about.

It's what I call the blind crash.

SPEAKER_04: Okay, let's hear it.

SPEAKER_02: And it happens to every freaking one of us, every single one.

I've never talked to a blind person that I'm like, listen, come here, come here, come here, let's talk, let's talk.

I won't tell anybody, I promise.

Except for on Kevin's radio show.

Have you ever really come to terms?

Have you woken up one day and just and said, and you're probably gonna believe this, said, Oh shit, I'm blind and I'm gonna be this way for the rest of my freaking life.

My God, you know.

So, first of all, full disclosure, detached retinas entitled me to some sight for a while.

Okay, but never enough.

I mean, thank God, and uh thank God I had an honest doctor who always told my parents, you know, you need to raise him as a blind child.

And my parents, so I learned Braille, I learned mobility, I learned all my stuff.

So I was raised as a blind kid, but I had light perception, color perception, all that stuff until I was about 18.

So it's funny I tell people, yeah, I got to see a naked girl, you know, which was really important to me.

You know, in full living color.

So that's cool.

I don't remember what it looks like anymore.

But I went through the blind crash later in life, and I I wish we could schedule the blind crash.

We just don't know what the hell is going to set us off.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: I don't know what that triggering thing is.

I have a great deal of admiration for people like yourself that deal with sight loss.

You know, I hate that our brothers and sisters in uh other countries in Europe, especially, cover everybody with sight loss because, you know, people that I know that have been total since birth didn't lose their sight.

They never had it to begin with.

So they're not dealing with sight loss.

But a guy like you, you're dealing with sight loss.

And thumbs up to you, dude, because you guys are the ones that you have to reinvent your life, which is exactly why my lazy butt wouldn't want my vision tomorrow if I got my sight tomorrow if I got it.

Because I'm, dude, I'm perfectly happy where I'm at.

You know, if you know, people around me, oh yeah, you need it.

Yeah, so you don't have to leave me around or whatever anymore, huh?

Exactly.

But I'm I'm perfectly happy where I'm at and and you know, regaining my sight.

Again, full disclosure, blindness is a pain in the neck.

Yeah, you know, but I wouldn't do it any other way right now.

You know, I'm I'm I'm very content where I'm at and and I'm I'm happy here.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah.

And you know, I can't help but think to myself, listening to you, is that do you feel like having that faith aspect helps with that mindset?

Because I know for myself, I have been able to find great peace in the fact knowing that what happened to me, I believe, was all part of the plan and God's plan for my life.

And for myself, I find peace in knowing that.

SPEAKER_02: It's interesting.

I didn't become a a believer until later in life.

I grew up in Miami in the 80s.

Like I said, I was told to be normal.

I was told from the age of 12 that I, you know, didn't uh, you know, I needed to work three times as hard as everybody else.

And even then, chances are I wasn't gonna make it very well.

I had sleep issues because of non-24 and stuff, so I would fall asleep in class sometimes.

I had teachers that would call me a loafer and stuff.

Now, that was I'm I'm trying to, you know, I'm I'm I'm I'm making them all sound bad.

But at the same time, you know, I grew up, you know, selling drugs.

I grew up in gangs, I grew up working in nightclubs, you know, which I was exposed to very early.

You know, my parents didn't want to be helicopter parents.

So in their own ignorance, instead of keeping me home, they did nothing.

So I ran crazy on the streets and looked for leadership where I could find it.

And in the 80s, you know, the place where you found it was in the music industry and in the drug culture, and which is which I embraced fully at the time and uh and got heavily involved in that and ended up dropping out of high school and and and all of that, and and you know, but I became a believer in uh 1995.

I no longer classify myself or uh as a as a Christian, Kevin.

I more I think I've I've more leaned into deism because I'm just not happy with where the Christian community has gone of late.

And that doesn't, and and and there are, you know, believers in Jesus and all that that are deists.

I just I I refuse to be a part of today's religious system and its involvement with the political system.

That aside, I have a different view than you do on destiny and and and God's plan for us.

I think that God uses availability and then he gives us ability.

Or if we're gonna be 21st century about it, they give us ability, you know, because you know, God has no gender.

But um, but you know, so they give us ability.

And, you know, I don't buy into the well, God's got a plan for my life.

No, no, no, no, no.

God's got a plan.

And when you make yourself available and say, here I am, use me as you see fit, or show me where I can plug in.

But it isn't about you, dude.

It's not about me.

It's all about them, him, her, it, whatever you want to call God.

You know, and I I think that doesn't bother me.

It doesn't make me feel like I got a raw deal, but blindness just is.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

You know, blindness just is.

You know, listen, you know, before you this day I lay blessings and curses.

Which one will you choose?

You know, you never knew what good was until you saw evil.

You never knew what evil was until you knew what and understood what good was.

Same thing.

You know, the only reason that blindness is a problem to you or me is because we're the minority.

SPEAKER_03: Yes.

SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's funny.

Jonathan Mosin uh does another podcast, and he actually wrote a story about a blind leading world, you know, just a whole blind world that was that was dominated by blind people and cited people were the minority.

And it was a very interesting turnabout.

So, you know, our issues are social, our issues are not personal.

You know, I mean, everybody wants to fit in.

That's the nature of the human.

We want to fit in, we want to be a part of society, we want to be accepted.

And when somebody says you're different than me, or you're less than me, or you're incapable, you know, than me, it doesn't feel good.

Yeah.

And and people are shocked when I say this.

So I'm gonna shock you, ready?

Blind people don't need your empathy or your sympathy.

What we need is your understanding and your inquisitiveness.

What can I do, if anything, to help?

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: Yes.

SPEAKER_02: You know, I have sat in front of many a sighted person, and they've said, Well, you can't do that, or you can't do this, or you can't, and I'm like, but why?

Well, if I were, uh stop them right there.

I'm like, well, but see, that's the problem, dude.

You're not me, and I'm not you.

You know, I can go to the gym and I can bench 150 pounds.

You know, I know people that are my same stature that can't do it.

You understand?

So it has nothing to do, it has to do with your abilities.

You know, empathy is we're taught socially to empathize, but the reality is that a blind person needs comprehension.

We're all different.

We we need conversation, open communication, open dialogue.

The only stupid question is the one you don't ask.

SPEAKER_03: Yes.

SPEAKER_02: You know, because the reality is that, you know, and and when I was younger, I'm an old guy now.

I'm 57, but I call myself an old guy.

And I'm not angry anymore.

I used to be a really pissed-off person.

And I'm not angry anymore because I realized that anger gets you nowhere.

You know, that doesn't mean I don't bring passion.

I mean, I'm Cuban, man.

I'm, you know, we're passionate people, man.

You know, but but besides that, you know, I'm here to differentiate between the ignorant and the stupid.

You know, and ignorance is you truly don't know.

Stupid is you suspect you don't know, you know where you can go get the information, but you're too damn lazy or don't care enough to go figure it out.

And I got a cure for ignorance, and that's what I'm doing here today.

It's what I do when I speak publicly, it's what I do when I write articles.

That's a cure for ignorance.

My cure for stupidity will lend me in jail for the rest of my life and get my concealed weapons license taken away.

So, and yes, in Florida, they let blind people carry guns.

And we do.

So don't mess with me.

No, okay.

Um but you know, it it it it really is one of these things where you know blindness is really up to interpretation and the way that you handle it.

And I am so sorry.

I have probably derailed every question you have for me.

So that would be a good guest to get back in my place.

SPEAKER_04: No, I mean, but what I what I love about this, and and I think this is kind of the direction moving forward in our conversation, at least for for the next little bit, is this I understand.

That blindness is a part of you.

It's a part of me, but it does not define any of us.

It's just like the fact of you have black hair, I have brown hair.

It's a part of us.

And so, with that understanding that you being blind doesn't make you some type of crazy individual.

Well, I mean, you're already kind of crazy, but I think that was from other reasons.

SPEAKER_02: You're taking away one of my good points here.

And and by the way, I'll tell you a secret.

See, I could lie to you, but I'm bald.

SPEAKER_04: You're bald.

Yes.

Okay.

There you go.

SPEAKER_02: And calvo, and calvo in Spanish means bald.

I tell people it's not just a last name, it is a prophecy.

SPEAKER_04: Fascinating.

I love it.

I love it.

Well, well, I want to get back to one aspect of your story because despite the fact of even being a blind teenager, you mentioned as a teenager, when most teenagers we think of are maybe doing schoolwork, uh, maybe hanging out with friends, you were DJing and selling drugs in Miami.

Yes, sir.

Talk to me a little bit more about that aspect of the story before we learn about how in the world maybe you got out of that world into a more professional uh role.

SPEAKER_02: So rewind, I was 12 years old, and I, like I said, every every blind kid wants to be a DJ.

So I, you know, I put together a little demo tape and I went to WDNA, which was a uh a radio station, a public access radio station in Miami, and wanted to do a radio show there.

And they were cool enough to let this 12-year-old blind kid go on the radio.

My voice hadn't even changed, and I was doing radio.

So I used to love to go to the skating rink, and I was enamored with disco and with mixing and all that stuff.

And there was a guy named Leo Vella, who may rest in peace, passed away a few years ago, a close and dear friend.

I wasn't he wasn't a close and dear friend then.

He was just the guy that this pain in the ass teenager would call, or and how do you do this?

And how do you backspan?

And how do you mix, and how do you beat match, and how do you get your levels right?

And you know, what kind of cartridge are you using on your turntable?

And, you know, how do you put your records in order?

And, you know, and and and Leo was so patient.

You know, I learned how to mix, DJ mix, uh, beat match, and that kind of thing that way.

And I went to my local skating rink and I I I went on and I said, hey, can I, you know, and they were like, here's this little blind kid.

Uh can I can I do a set?

And what the hell, why not?

Let the kid do it.

And I I impressed them, you know, they had a little teen disco.

And uh, you know, being Hispanic, we have a pretty strong work ethic.

So I come home and I and and they said, hey, if you want to work, you know, we'll give you Fridays and Saturdays so you can work Friday nights and and Saturday during the day, and then Saturday nights, you know, you certainly Saturday during the day.

They actually, I actually worked the skating rink side, and then Saturday nights I would go and work the disco again.

And um, I went to my dad and I'm like, hey dad, I want to get a job.

And he says, he says, Are you gonna keep going to school?

I'm like, yeah, of course.

And he said, okay.

He said, well, man that works is a man that pays rent.

And I said, okay.

And so from the time I was 13, my dad was charging me 50 bucks a week for rent.

You know, and I was making like 60 or 70 dollars at the time.

Oh, wow.

And I was like, Dad, I'm I'm making$70.

He said, work harder.

He said, work harder.

He said, he said, that's the rent.

He said, I'm not gonna, he said, what, I'm gonna lower it for you?

No.

He said, that's the rent here.

Figure it out.

Which is true, bro.

That's that's life.

Yeah, that's life, you know?

And so I, you know, I I I started working, and then the guy, Leo, that was my mentor, he actually got me into a club, a real adult club, under something called the Performers Act, which was basically I didn't go in there as a 13-year-old DJ, I went in there as an act.

SPEAKER_05: Okay.

SPEAKER_02: Kind of like a circuit.

Yeah.

You know, watch the blind guy spin records, you know.

I mean, and and and yes, it was that patronizing.

But what the hell?

You know, I went in, I started spinning records, I started going to clubs, I started working in clubs from the time I was 13, and I would do guest appearances.

And of course, it was 1980s, so you know, cocaine and you know, weed and all that stuff were in abundance in Miami at the time.

So, you know, I took the liberties of participating and the and indulging in all of the above.

Never got hooked.

Thank, thank you, God, you know, knock on the wood.

I don't have an addictive personality.

Uh, the only I tell people, the only thing I'm addicted to is my, you know, my female partner.

You know, it's the only addiction I I kind of foster.

But uh everything else, uh, you know, I I don't have an addictive personality.

So I did that.

And then in, you know, like I said, I I started, I got involved with uh some people of questionable background from Vegas, and you can read between the lines, and they taught me how to hustle.

And I became one hell of a hustler at 13, 14 years old.

Started selling payludes, which were a drug back in the day, and just got really involved in that culture, was making a truckload of money at that time.

My dad said I need to make more money, right?

I don't think it left for me to make it that way.

Um but uh but I made more money.

I mean, you know, I was making more money and and and and I would always laugh because getting my books in school was a pain in the neck.

Getting anything done in school was always this uphill battle.

And there was always for this carrot on the stick of you need to go to school and get your diploma so you can get a high-paying job.

And my principal would be very patronizing at school and be like, bitch, I make more money than you do in a month, in a week.

You know, and so it was just, you know, very, very rebellious teenager type of thing, and got involved in, you know, if you're involved in drugs and stuff, if you're involved with, you know, with hoodlums and that kind of thing.

And I had enough sight, you know, back then, you know, we wouldn't, we it wasn't big fights.

It would we called it rumbles, and you know, and people would fight or whatever, and somebody'd bring a chain or somebody bring some numb chucks or whatever.

Nobody bring guns or anything.

It wasn't like it is today, you know, um, at least in Miami at that time.

I mean, the Miami got ugly later with all the the cocaine cowboy fights and all that stuff, but but it it was just, you know, it was the way I grew up, man.

I uh, you know, I it naturally moved into from DJing, moved into music, started a mobile DJ business, grew that business.

By the time I was 16, we had eight or 10 mobiles.

I've always been a leader.

I think that leaders are born.

That doesn't mean that leaders are born knowing how to lead.

I think that leaders are born and then we get taught how to lead.

And as a great man once said, the master is no greater than his servant.

And I believe that strongly.

If you're going to lead, then you need to learn how to follow first.

And I have had on both sides of the law some amazing mentors in my life.

My father couldn't handle my blindness for a long time.

I lacked a good, deep relationship with my father because, you know, and and we'll rewind for a second.

In 1953, my father went to his mom's house.

His parents were divorced and they were in Cuba, and he ran to his mom's house in 1953 to go see her, and she had a blind guy sitting there playing guitar.

And like I said, in in Cuba, there was a great deal of ignorance.

Pre-revolution, post-revolution, believe it or not, the main people that that gained from the Cuban Revolution were people with disabilities.

Because for whatever reason, Castro had it, you know, he believed that, you know, if you made a way, everybody could work.

You know, so you've got blind people in Cuba, you know, that that that have college degrees.

I met a blind MD in Cuba.

Wow.

It wouldn't let you or me near a freaking stethoscope, you know, but I met a blind MD in Cuba.

Wow.

And his explanation was, hey, all I lack are the eyes.

He said, I got the education.

I just tell somebody with eyes, look in their, you know, if you've got a throat ache, what you hear?

Does that hurt?

Yeah, that look in their mouth.

Is it red here?

Is it red there?

Yes.

Okay.

Well, then you're sick, you know.

But uh when in 1953, my dad ran to his mom's house and there's a blind guy there.

And she's like, Oh, Carlos, come and listen to the blind guy play the guitar.

He's like, What?

What are you doing with this piece of crap in your house?

If I ever had a blind child, I'd drown it like a cat.

You know, and this poor man, in that was in 53.

I was born in 67, and my father for years just thought he was being punished by God for saying that.

Oh, wow.

You know, and my father's not a religious man, you know, so I can't even imagine, bro, the burden of that.

You know what I'm saying?

I mean, and you know, my heart goes out to him, you know, because that was I I'm a dad and I can't even imagine living with that level of guilt.

You know, if I get into an argument with one of my kids and I'm wrong, I'm guilty for you know freaking 10 years.

So it's it's, you know, I it was, it was, it was pretty intense, but I digress.

I did the DJing thing, eventually built up a mobile business.

I've always been a leader.

What the way I built the mobile business was I didn't buy a bunch of DJ equipment.

I built my name and I ended up doing mixes on the radio and all this stuff.

I built my name up and said to other kids who had DJ equipment, listen, I've got more parties than I can handle.

So I'll take 20% and you'll get 80%, and you will walk, work under my label.

And that's exactly what they did.

And uh by the time I was, you know, 16, I was doing that.

Ended up selling that to my business partner at the time.

I just because I wanted to go into producing music and did that.

And I was DJing at clubs and stuff, so I was making enough money.

Didn't want to do the D, you know, the the mobile DJ thing anymore.

So went forward and and then ultimately ended up with a recording studio by the time I was 18, a little recording studio, not a big deal, you know, midi thing.

You know, but as you see, school was just never, it was just never important to me.

And listen, it was never important to me because I wasn't important to it.

You know, I met one or two teachers that ever had the nerve to tell me, you know, Calvo, I believe in you.

You know, I met more teachers that were intent on telling me the realities of life.

That's bullshit.

You don't tell people the reality.

You don't tell a 13-year-old kid you can't do this, you can't do that, you can't do that.

If a 12-year-old or 13-year-old kid, I don't care if he's blind or if he's in a wheelchair or if he don't have any arms and legs, I don't give a damn.

You know, if he says I want to be an astronaut and a police chief and a mail carrier all at the same time, damn it, you tell him you can do anything you freaking please to do.

Anything your mind says you can do, you do it.

Because if God gave you the ability to conceive it, God will figure out a way for you to achieve it.

Amen.

You know, and I feel, you know, no, I I feel that very strongly.

We have an amazing creator that gave us the ability to dream.

And man, what a piece of crap that creator would be if it did not give us the ability to achieve what we conceive.

I and I bring to you the picture of Abraham.

Abraham never saw what God gave him the ability to conceive, but it did achieve.

It did happen.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: You know, write the vision, for it will surely come to pass, you know, and I believe very strongly in the power of self-motivation.

I believe very strongly in the power of faith.

I don't mean faith in a being, I mean faith in oneself, faith in what you do, faith in what that creator has given you the ability to do.

Like I said, I don't think God is up there like a big puppet master moving the strings.

God gives us the ability.

He gives us, you know, the framework and he gives us the opportunities.

You know, what you do with them is your business.

If you make crap out of it, well, it's your thing.

Don't worry.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: Creator's vision will be done in spite of you.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: I'm not naive enough to believe, oh, you know, I'm God's little messenger, and you know, it's not gonna happen if I don't do it.

Hey, if I don't do it, if God needs to make a donkey do it, and he's done it before.

God needs to get his message across to humans through a donkey, he will.

You know what I'm saying?

And and and and this donkey right here has actually spread some messages for God.

So, you know, so to me, you know, there I have so much to say, dude, and I don't know how to fit it into this, into what we're doing, because normally when I do podcasts, it's kind of a just a Q ⁇ A.

So, how did you make it where you are?

How did you do this?

And what technologies do you have?

But this is like you're opening me up and asking me to share my soul.

And I love doing that because I believe, I believe that I have something to say.

Yes, you know, there's a little narcissist in all of us, and I believe I have something to contribute.

Yeah, you know, and some people may think I'm full of crap, and that's fine.

You you have the right to do that.

Yeah.

I'm tired of being angry, I'm tired of being upset.

You know, I really want to share my life experiences.

I want to share my the wisdom I think that I've earned throughout the years, because I don't ever want a child to go through what I've gone through because of the world's ignorance.

Yes, you know, and I have really dedicated my life to doing that, to helping our community grow and believe in itself.

The power of us, man, power of us.

That's the internet gave us a huge amount of power.

SPEAKER_03: Yes.

SPEAKER_02: And I leverage it every day of my life.

I'm not gonna lie, there's a number of social challenges.

There's still an 85% unemployment rate in our community.

Yep.

And which is why I decided to build my own.

If there's a 90% failure rate in first-time businesses and an 85% unemployment rate in the blindness community, well then hell, I'd, you know, it's about a 50-50 shot if I'm gonna make it or not.

Exactly.

You know, so I might as well go do it my way and not have a, you know, a stop on the gas pedal.

Have I become a millionaire?

No.

But riches are measured much more than the zeros in your bank account.

Yeah.

You know, I am a motivational speaker, you know, but I'm not gonna tell you how much money I'm gonna make you.

I will tell you that I'm going to change your life.

Yeah.

I'm going to change your life because mine was changed.

You know, and the defining point, ironically enough, in 1995, I found myself with a broken marriage.

I found myself with looking at the possibility of having to murder someone who did a great wrong to me.

And I, you know, as as crazy as things got for me, you know, back in the day, I never had to pop anybody.

Beat a few people up, maybe, have somebody beat somebody up for me, you know, or whatever, sure.

But never pop anybody, never kill anybody.

I that I draw the line at that.

I don't I don't have the right to take anyone's life unless they intend to take mine.

Yeah.

You know, however, besides that, I had this experience that to this day I can't explain.

It was uh to the Christian people, it would be a Damascus Road experience, but I knew nothing of the Damascus Road at the time, and I knew nothing about any of that.

And I had an encounter with this thing that said to me, look at what you've done with the life I've given you.

Look at what a mess you've made of it.

And I gave you so much talent, the ability to lead people and look what you've done.

And all my life I'd been, you know, leading people into debauchery, you know, leading people selling weed in school and doing things for like I said, I've always been a leader.

You know, my father used to tell me, oh, you know, I feel bad, you know, people have taken you.

I'm like, no, dad, I was the one selling everybody the drugs.

Nobody sold me the drugs except for my bosses.

You know, so you know, it was a, you know, I take full responsibility for my behavior.

And in 1995, although, like I said before, I do not classify myself as a Christian today in the conventional religious sense of the word, Jesus changed my life.

That's it.

There, there's there's no other way to put it, no religious BS, no, that's just that is the line, dude.

And I've never sold another drug.

Never, you know, I'm not gonna lie, full disclosure, I use cannabis medically frequently, but that's about it.

You know, don't do drugs, have a drink from time to time.

But my life was changed.

And from that time to now, I've had the honor and the privilege of leading two companies that have changed the world for hundreds of thousands of blind people.

From an uneducated, drugged out, gang banging, nobody's ever gonna look at you.

You need to be normal, bullshit kid from Miami.

God is freaking amazing.

God is amazing.

Yes.

And I'm I'm I'm honored to be a disciple.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, absolutely, man.

Well, Mike, what what I'm curious about is how does that transition happen in in your life to go from the kid we're hearing about to this entrepreneur in the tech space, and in how does how do you even get involved in technology aspects and and make this transition into creating the life that you have today?

SPEAKER_02: So in 1989, in 1989, I found I had a studio, a recording studio, and I got my girlfriend pregnant.

And uh we we were engaged, we had gotten engaged, we decided to, you know, to uh to speed it up so that she wouldn't be walking down the the aisle with a bed, you know.

So, you know, so all this time, I'm like thinking, oh my goodness, I gotta, I gotta change my life, man.

I gotta do something different.

I can't imagine my kid being in kindergarten going, you know, what's your daddy?

My daddy a drug dealer, you know.

So where's the studio?

Like, that's bullshit.

No, I'm not gonna do that.

So I went and and and you gotta picture this, Kevin.

I'm you know, wearing a pinky ring.

I'm in a suit with hair past my shoulders in a perm.

This is 1980, not my bank to get a job doing collections.

And I I I got a job doing working at a bank and realized that after a few months, my one of my beautiful mentors, a guy named Greg Luther in the state of Florida, he took me under his wing and he was the one who set up my computer originally.

I'd been using computers because back early on, I worked with a group of hackers that we were breaking into long distance uh services.

Oh wow.

And selling and selling codes to like MCI and Sprint and all that stuff.

So started doing music using Voyatra and all that stuff.

So I had gotten exposed to computers from a very young age, but hadn't started using them until I was like 21.

I got training on how to use uh Vert plus at the time, you know, which was a telesensory thing in DOS.

Went to go work at this bank, and Greg, Greg was just like, you know, once you learn this, you're gonna take to it like a duck to water.

He was from Iowa.

And and he was right.

And I, you know, I brought productivity at that time.

This is pre-ADA, we had a blind employee productivity rate and a normal employee productivity rate, cringe worthy in today's world.

And I said, Well, if I'm gonna be abnormal, then I'm gonna be abnormal for a purpose.

And and we, you know, started using an auto-dialer and stuff like that.

I brought my my calls per hour from 16 to 37.

And they were like, oh man, we want another blind guy, you know, because you're doing such a good job.

And by the way, you get to train him.

I'm like, oh shit, I don't know what to do.

I don't know how to do that.

I'm gonna freaking drop out of high school.

Dude, give me this freaking blind guy to train.

I didn't train one, I trained two.

Oh, wow.

Ironically enough, I remember I used to lug this IBM PS2 model 3286 with monitor home every day after 12 hours of work and put it in the back of my car and learn and learn and learn because behind that computer I was a freaking equal, dude.

And that was that's all I ever wanted.

I mean, I worked, you know, you say, how did I get there?

If if I had to write a book tomorrow about how to make it in life and how to do it, there would be two words, trust God, because that's all I had.

That's it.

And that was it.

Even before I knew God, God knew me.

And it was just trust God because to this day, I don't know where my paycheck is coming from next month.

I truly don't.

You know, and with the current political situation, with the DEIA crap that they're doing now, and both administrations are guilty of that, the previous administration for including accessibility as part of DEI, and the current administration for keeping it that way and throwing us out with the rest of that whole situation.

SPEAKER_05: Yep.

SPEAKER_02: Our community has taken a 30 year step backwards because of stupid ideologies that have their place, but they don't have a place to blindness.

And to me, so I don't know where my Patreon.

Check is coming from, but I do know one thing that I am not my provider.

So, you know, one way or the other, I'll survive, but I digress.

So back to the bank, after a few months, one day Greg says to me, Hey, I can't go.

Uh, we got a presentation at Rider Trucks that we need somebody to do.

Would you go over there and connect to their mainframe?

And this is how advanced I got.

And I went from like knowing nothing.

It's like, could you go there and connect to their mainframe and uh demonstrate to them how screen reader works and answer some questions for, and I'm still like long hair, dude.

You know, and I went, I'll never forget the first day I walked into rider trucks and I'm sitting there with all these suits.

And I say to them, you know, we're here to talk about hiring the blind person.

I said, but the first thing that I'm gonna answer is what everybody here is wondering is who dressed him this morning?

And everybody started laughing.

And I said, You want to know the truth?

I said, Any guy who denies in this room that his wife helps him get stressed is a liar.

And that's how I got dressed this morning as well.

So blindness has nothing to do with me being able to get dressed or not.

And I realized that I love talking to people because I'm the kind of speaker that goes into an organization and says, let's take away the political correctness.

Political correctness has been the enemy of our community because we don't need.

I saw the movie on television.

Damn it, you don't need to worry about if you ask me if I heard it.

That's BS.

That's stupid.

Kevin, did you hear that movie the other day?

You know, so it's stupid.

You know, but four-sighted people, they're trying to empathize.

Again, don't empathize.

And I've gone into a number of organizations to just do talking to their executives, their leadership.

And if a blind person's late all the time, fire their ass.

They're not worth it.

You know, but they're blind, so they can read a clock, dude.

If not, they got a talking clock.

You know, if they take special, you know, if you got a job, protect it.

God knows you're part of the specialized 15%.

Yep.

You know, and if you don't appreciate what you got, then you don't deserve it.

So to me, I went in and I realized that I loved talking to leadership and companies and stuff.

And I like that environment.

So this guy, I can't say his name because of the hip hop, but he went and he got a job at writer.

And Greg says, I can't go down there and program that thing.

I'm sure he could.

He said, You're gonna need to do it.

I'm like, Greg, I can't do that.

He said, Yes, you can.

I said, Greg, are you kidding?

And he's like, I'll pay you 75 bucks a day, which is crap money, but okay.

I said, Okay, considering I was making 13.5 at the bank.

You gotta remember, dude, I come from drugs and all that crap.

So I'm making tons of money when I was a kid.

Yes.

And went down to 13.13,500 a year at the bank.

Yes.

With, you know, and the reason I left was because they literally told me, I said, so when am I gonna be the president of this bitch?

You know.

And they were like, they were like, hey, you know, we don't know what to do with you people.

Like, you people?

Really?

Yeah.

Some guy came in, he set up the he set up your computer and said you could do this and then the other.

And I said, so then what you're telling me is that I'll never grow in the ranks.

So after 20 years here, if I do really good, I get a 5% annual raise.

So I'll be from 13.5, I'll be at about$40,000.

I'll get a roadmap, a sandwich, and maybe a watch that I can never read.

And a thanks for 30 years of service, Calvo.

Hell no, that's not what I'm going to aspire to.

So I'm going to give you the first time, I'm going to give you a ray, a statistic.

It's called blind fucking turnover, you know, and I walked out.

I'd left them with two other blind people that were doing really well.

And ironically enough, with which both are dead, which is so sad.

That they were older than me.

You know, I went and I did this stuff for Ryder.

Ryder ended up being one of my customers for 15 years while this guy worked there.

And I opened up a consulting company and started working with the state of Florida and grew from there.

And what I did was I would go into an organization with the Division of Blind Services at first and with other vocational rehabilitative services later.

And I would define a career path for a blind person from entry level all the way up as high as they would let me go to executive or managerial or middle management or whatever.

And with that, we put together Pizza Hut, which is still in work today, Sunbank, Sun Trust, Southeast Bank, American Airlines, Eastern Airlines, Marriott, American Express, Federal Express.

I've worked at all these companies setting up their systems when I was younger.

SPEAKER_05: Wow.

SPEAKER_02: And over this over a four-year period, we placed over 500 blind people to work.

I'm honored and humbled to say that my God gave me the the ability to do that in spite of my background.

And understand if I've done anything, it's all in spite of me.

It's not because of me.

If left to my own devices, all I know how to do is, you know, write a good dance track and sell you some good weed, you know, and that's it.

But when I'm being directed by my greater purpose, I've changed the world, man.

And I'm I'm humbled and honored, you know, because the world changing isn't done.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah.

Wow.

Well, you know what I love about you is the passion and heart that comes through in everything that you say.

I'm Cuban.

You you you are Cuban, but but it it is it's truly humbling to just listen to you speak about about a a passion, honestly, when I listen to you, of just helping someone else in whatever way that looks like, whether they needed a drug, they needed some music, or they needed a helping hand.

I listened to you, man, and you know, dude, we we a lot of times can talk about success.

What does success look like in life?

Is if it's money in the bank, is it awards, you know, in the office?

To me, success, in my opinion, is looking at the person that you can become in life.

A person like I look at you here today, and you talk with such passion and conviction of just wanting to make a difference.

And I think, man, that to me is success.

SPEAKER_02: I appreciate that.

And thank you.

I'll tell you the why.

I've always been a believer in working the system.

You know what I'm saying?

I mean a great mentor once said, Mikey, if you're gonna break the law, you better learn it first.

And that has served me well, not for breaking laws, but for understanding that we need to work within the confines of the system.

So as much as I love to help people, I'm a self-centered son of a bitch when it comes to certain things.

And that is, I want my life to be better, and you're gonna benefit from it.

SPEAKER_03: Yes.

SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?

Yes, I I have, I mean, I love people, sure.

But there's a lot of things I don't like about people too.

SPEAKER_03: Yes.

SPEAKER_02: You know, me included.

You know, I understand my own humanity, I understand my own frailty and my own fickleness, you know, my own pigheadedness.

You know, and the thing is that I've had to work it out.

And I don't think that's fair because I've seen other people that have had to work it out and have worked.

I know Harvard freaking graduates, okay, that have done it all right and still can't buy and find a flipping job.

That's just dead ass wrong, bro.

That's dead ass wrong.

You know, and to me, the only way to cure that is to cure the ignorance, is to help corporate America, Europe, corporate world, corporate anybody, educators, people in leadership to understand that damn it, we're people and we've got abilities.

And if you simply learn to think outside of your own little dumbass box, you might learn something.

You know what I mean?

And and and that's the way I am.

You know, if I died tomorrow, and I hope I don't, but if I died tomorrow, the one thing that I will not do is die with regrets.

I refuse to die with a regret.

Have I done some crappy things in my life?

You betcha.

Am I guilty?

Absolutely not.

No, I'm not guilty.

I don't feel guilty.

I don't feel bad.

I've done what I had to do, and I will continue to do what I have to do to make my world a better place.

And I will not apologize for doing what I have to do.

Obviously, if I chose to do something against the law, if I know the law, I gotta break it.

If I I better learn the law before I break it.

And I have no intention of, you know, I got too much to lose now.

Understand that most people who break the law is because they got nothing to lose.

It's because what the hell, why not?

And for many years, I go to jail for a couple million bucks.

I wouldn't do that today because I got five beautiful children.

And my wife's got two.

So I got seven beautiful children, you know, five of which are girls.

You want to talk about karma?

So I appreciate you know your words, but to me, I'd be a liar if I told you, yeah, I just have this love for humanity.

No, man.

No.

I'm just a survivor.

I'm a survivor, and I don't ever want if and and I've been given a purpose.

A guy named Jim Stovell, who founded the American narrative, the narrative television network, which was the first, the predecessor to DVS, said something one time at a university and it stuck with me for life.

He says, if you wake up one day and said somebody should do something about this and you know exactly what to do about it, name your problem.

And you don't, you've probably missed a calling in your life.

Very profound statement.

You know, and that's I live my life that way.

If if I've got a dream, then somebody gave it to me.

And if it's to better the world, well, if Christianity's right and we've got an enemy, well, that ain't that dude.

SPEAKER_05: Yep.

SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna do my best to follow the lead and say, I want to make the world a better place.

For me first, then for you.

No, not necessarily for me first, but but I really I mean, I love our community.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: I love I love the passion in our community.

And it breaks my heart to see that our community is suffering unnecessarily.

You know, being blind is a pain in the neck, and we suffer from that.

That's enough.

Yeah.

But without having to feel, you know, I mean, just even if the world were perfectly braille than everything else, we still do everything slower than everybody else, you know?

SPEAKER_04: Exactly.

SPEAKER_02: But when you add the social stigmas, when you add the work stigmas, when you add the financial challenges, when you add all of these things that we as bonding people deal with every day, it's not fair.

I mean, it's life.

And I'm certainly not gonna sit here and you know throw a temper tantrum.

It's not fair.

But it's not.

So if we can help, if we can change the world, if we can, if we can make the world just a little bit better.

And better than that, if we can die and leave it that way, my goodness, what a great legacy, dude.

What an amazing thing, you know, and that's that's what I'm here to do.

You know, I don't know how well I'm gonna do it.

And as uh as uh Kenny Rogers said, they'll be said one time in a great song, there'll be time enough for counting when the dealing's done and the dealing ain't done.

SPEAKER_04: Yep.

Such an absolute joy to get to sit down with you today, to get to hear your story, but more so than just your story, just your insights that you had to share about nothing more than life.

For somebody who would love to stay connected with you, whether through service you offer, business, social media, anywhere, is there anywhere that we can uh send them?

SPEAKER_02: Yep, I am Mike Calvo everywhere on Facebook, on Twitter or X, uh, which I don't deal with anymore.

On uh LinkedIn, of course, Mike Calvo.

MikeCalvo.com is my personal website, Numa Solutions, P-N-E-U-M-A Solutions.com.

We put the P in there to frustrate blind people.

That's really the way Numa is spelled.

Is uh my assistive technology company, and we we uh we produce uh accessible cloud solutions for the visually impaired uh product that you may or may not have used called Remote Incident Manager RIM and other products, uh document uh remediation products and and that kind of thing.

That's a whole different hat I wear.

The Accessibility is a Right Foundation, the Air Foundation.

Uh we've done work in uh Colombia, uh changing the world there for blind children, worked in Cuba uh with their blind, worked in Africa, uh in Kazakhstan, changing the world for blind people, you know, any of those places, or just write me Mike at mycalvo.com.

I'd be honored to hear from anybody.

SPEAKER_04: Well, fantastic.

Well, I will be positive that all of that is in the show notes for anybody interested for easy access.

Mike, dude, you're absolutely freaking awesome, man.

And uh I truly you don't know me.

I I truly, I truly can't say what a pleasure it's been, even if you basically kind of describe yourself as a really awesome, selfish asshole, you know?

Hey, I'm gonna get a t-shirt with my oh man.

Yes, yes, man.

Well, thank you so much for you listening today.

I hope you have enjoyed today's conversation as much as I have.

Hopefully you're smiling as big as I am.

And hey, if there's anybody in your life that you think of that you think, you know what, there was at least something said today that they need to hear.

Well, hey, be an awesome friend and share today's episode with them.

And hey, until next time, I'm your host, Kevin Lowell.

And this, of course, was Britt Grace and it's great.

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