BONUS: From Setback to Purpose: Kevin Lowe on Moving Through Adversity When Healing Feels Impossible

Bill Burke: How's that for a teaser?

Bill Burke: Who is this guest, you ask? His name is Kevin Lowe.

Bill Burke: And as we'll soon hear, he's someone who has endured some of life's toughest challenges, the most extreme being losing his eyesight at the age of 17.

Bill Burke: But he's managed to emerge with an optimistic and hopeful vision for his life and is using various platforms from coaching to podcasting to public speaking and more to spread his goodwill and infectious inspiration.

Bill Burke: I hope you enjoy this Blue Sky conversation with Kevin Lowe as much as I did.

Bill Burke: Kevin Lowe, welcome to the Blue Sky Podcast.

Kevin Lowe: Oh man, thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.

Bill Burke: It's great to have you on. You have a remarkable story. You're an incredible inspiration and we will get to some of the ways you inspire people.

Bill Burke: Well, let's start, if we could, with your early childhood.

Bill Burke: Where'd you grow up? Big family, small family, two parents. What was your upbringing?

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, so I was blessed to grow up back in like the 80s and 90s in East Central Florida.

Kevin Lowe: So I grew up in the town of Ormond Beach, right next to the more well-known neighbor of Daytona Beach.

Kevin Lowe: And so, you know, I say that now I realize how blessed I was to grow up in a childhood where we didn't have cell phones and computers were not really a thing.

Kevin Lowe: And, you know, and so childhood was really good.

Kevin Lowe: It was growing up outside, always playing outside with, especially with my best friend, which was my cousin, Josh, who he was five years older than me.

Kevin Lowe: He was the same age as my sister.

Kevin Lowe: And we were best friends. and I mean, we lived outside of the city and so we...

Kevin Lowe: We're always on the back of dirt bikes and three-wheelers and playing war.

Kevin Lowe: It was always me and Josh versus my sister Tiffany and Josh's sister Jessica, Where we had tree forts built in the woods.

Kevin Lowe: And so that was childhood.

Kevin Lowe: A big part of my childhood was dirt bikes. That was something that I did with my dad.

Kevin Lowe: And that was probably the one thing that kind of stayed consistent throughout my childhood was dirt bikes through all the different seasons of wanting to try different things, always came back to dirt bikes.

Kevin Lowe: And so me and my dad, we rode dirt bikes.

Kevin Lowe: We would go to a state park in Brooksville, Florida called Croom.

Kevin Lowe: And literally, that was second home for us. It was like a 2,000-acre state park for nothing but dirt bikes and four-wheelers.

Bill Burke: Oh, my gosh. So, it was you and an older sister?

Kevin Lowe: Yep, yep, me and my older sister. And then, you know, for the dirt bikes and stuff, that was me and my dad. It was basically the four.

Kevin Lowe: So, you know, my mom and dad, me and my older sister.

Kevin Lowe: And grew up. Now, my parents, they got divorced when I think I was in second grade. they would end up getting divorced.

Kevin Lowe: And so, you know, life would kind of take a little different direction.

Kevin Lowe: But still family, I mean, family was everything.

Kevin Lowe: Families stayed everything for me into my adulthood, especially, you know, around like my grandparents, my nana, especially my nana.

Kevin Lowe: I mean, she would later in life literally go from being my grandmother to becoming one of my best friends, which is just awesome.

Bill Burke: So your life changed dramatically sort of mid-late teenage years.

Bill Burke: You developed a tumor that needed to be removed. And can you just walk us through what that was all about and then the really difficult, shocking, some ways tragic outcome of that procedure.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, definitely. So this was later in childhood. So I was in my junior year of high school and had just turned 17 years old.

Kevin Lowe: And we finally found out the cause of some of these health issues I was having.

Kevin Lowe: And I'll put health issues in quotes because I don't know that we really thought of them as issues.

Kevin Lowe: They were just things that were off that we, that my mom was never getting an answer on.

Kevin Lowe: Kind of like, why was I not growing?

Kevin Lowe: Why had I not gone through puberty? Why did I have migraine headaches every day of my life?

Kevin Lowe: And the result to those questions would come with the result of an MRI.

Kevin Lowe: And the MRI would come back and show that I had a plum-sized brain tumor, basically right in the center of my head.

Kevin Lowe: Thank goodness it was non-cancerous. But literally, they said that if this tumor hadn't been found, they said I would have been dead in six months. Oh, wow.

Kevin Lowe: And it literally was something that was probably with me from the very beginning, constantly growing all through my childhood.

Kevin Lowe: And so, yeah, so as traumatic as it sounds, though, you know, luckily an hour away was, you know, Orlando, Florida.

Kevin Lowe: We had the leading pediatric neurosurgeon, and he assured us everything was going to be perfectly fine. He said, listen, we'll go in, we'll remove the tumor.

Kevin Lowe: It was going to be a big surgery. They would have to literally cut, basically kind of remove that front quadrant of the skull and go in and basically lift up the brain and grab out this tumor.

Kevin Lowe: Because the tumor was positioned, so it was right in the center of my head.

Kevin Lowe: So it had completely encased my pituitary gland.

Kevin Lowe: It was in the crosshairs of the optic nerve and was now pressing against the carotid artery.

Kevin Lowe: Wow. Yeah. And, but again, everything was going to be cool.

Kevin Lowe: You know, I mean, it sounded scary, but the doctor was like, listen, he's like, it's no big deal. He's like, you'll be out of school for about three weeks.

Kevin Lowe: The worst news to me was he said I had to stay off of my new four-wheeler that I just got for my 17th birthday. He said I had to stay off of it for like six months.

Kevin Lowe: And I remember thinking that was totally ridiculous.

Kevin Lowe: But, you know, for me, man, it was like, hallelujah.

Kevin Lowe: I was a junior in high school. I was in the middle of trigonometry, which sucked.

Kevin Lowe: And I was like, man, I can remember going back to school and telling all my buddies, like, hi, see you later, suckers. Like, I'm out of here.

Kevin Lowe: And, like, I'll see you guys in about a month. And so that was the mindset going into October 28th, 2003.

Bill Burke: And that was a day you have the surgery, you're coming.

Bill Burke: And even when they say everything's going to be fine, I mean, surgery can be traumatic. It's a big deal to get put under. And you come out of it.

Bill Burke: And you have no eyesight.

Kevin Lowe: Correct. Correct. So, basically, the surgeon comes out after very long surgery, tells my family.

Kevin Lowe: And, I mean, I had my entire family there from both my mom's side of the family, my dad's side of the family. Everyone was there.

Kevin Lowe: I mean, we're talking probably somewhere around 30 people or so were there.

Kevin Lowe: And the doctor came out to let them know that everything went great.

Kevin Lowe: Surgery was a total success. Tumor was removed.

Kevin Lowe: And that's what we thought, what they thought.

Kevin Lowe: And then kind of, you know, fast forwarding, when I finally started waking up, my mom was in the room with the nurse at the time.

Kevin Lowe: And apparently I kept yanking off one of those little pulse ox machines that they put on your finger.

Kevin Lowe: Well, apparently the nurse was trying to get my attention and trying to convince me to stop pulling off the pulse ox and so he pointed to the pulse ox apparently and he said, Kevin, do you see this?

Kevin Lowe: Like, I need you to stop pulling this off. Do you see this red light?

Kevin Lowe: And my mom said that I said, no, I don't see anything.

Kevin Lowe: And it was at that moment that he looked at my mom and my mom looked at him and he walked over and he turned the light switch on and off, on and off.

Kevin Lowe: And he's like, Kevin, do you see this light? And my mom said, I just kept saying, no, it's just, it's just dark. It's just gray. Okay.

Kevin Lowe: And so, yeah, so I was left completely blind in both eyes.

Kevin Lowe: So no light perception, no shape, shadows, nothing.

Kevin Lowe: We would find that I also would lose my ability to smell.

Kevin Lowe: I would end up having short-term memory loss for a good solid like six months.

Kevin Lowe: And then also the brain tumor completely killed off my pituitary gland.

Kevin Lowe: Which controls all of the body's hormones.

Kevin Lowe: And so I can tell you today, all these many years later, that condition is honestly more of a disability than even the blindness.

Kevin Lowe: And that is because, you know, I have to try to control all the stuff that the body should do naturally.

Kevin Lowe: I have to do with medications, which I say, thank goodness we have them.

Kevin Lowe: They keep me alive, but they are a very poor alternative to what the body should do naturally. 3rd.

Bill Burke: Incredible.

Bill Burke: It's hard to imagine what it would be like to experience what Kevin did following the removal of his tumor.

Bill Burke: His young life had certainly included some hardships, from his parents' divorce when he was young, and the health challenges that led his mother to have him checked out.

Bill Burke: But nothing could prepare him for coming out of surgery with complete loss of his sight.

Bill Burke: Kevin would go on to experience some extreme sadness, depression, and doubts before becoming the person he is today.

Bill Burke: And for more on that, let's get back to our conversation.

Bill Burke: You have such lightness in your voice and such positivity and enthusiasm, but I'm sure that you didn't snap right to that after this awful thing happened to you.

Bill Burke: Can you, I think all of us hearing your story would say, oh my God, what the heck would I do if I'm 17 years old and I come out of surgery and all these things have happened to me?

Bill Burke: And I know it was not a, you know, a finger snap change for you. It took time.

Bill Burke: How did you get from that awful situation and persevere into the person you are today?

Kevin Lowe: You know, it was, it was exactly what you said. It was a process.

Kevin Lowe: And there was a very long process of, of grieving, of disbelief, although wrapped around, though, constantly moving forward.

Kevin Lowe: Because I, um...

Kevin Lowe: Well, it was extremely difficult. Going blind was and is, to me, for me, what I've known in life so far, the closest thing to being trapped in hell and not being able to sleep.

Kevin Lowe: I always say that it's literally like being trapped in a nightmare and you can't wake up from it.

Kevin Lowe: And every night I would go to bed begging, pleading with God just to let me wake up and see again.

Kevin Lowe: I would literally just cry myself to sleep every single night just begging God.

Kevin Lowe: And yet every morning I'd wake up and open my eyes and see the same thing that I did when they were closed.

Kevin Lowe: And it was horrible. It was absolutely horrible because of the simple fact everything I ever knew, ever loved, was taken from me.

Kevin Lowe: I had a truck. It was a big, beautiful forest green Ford F-150, big mud tires.

Kevin Lowe: I got it when I turned 16. I loved that truck sitting in the driveway.

Kevin Lowe: Four-wheeler I just got when I turned 17 the month before.

Kevin Lowe: All of this, this entire life, this entire childhood was built around the ability for me to see.

Kevin Lowe: And it was now all taken from me. The way that I got through was two things.

Kevin Lowe: And it's still the two things that get me through life today.

Kevin Lowe: And that is my faith and my family.

Kevin Lowe: Um, and, and I say that there were so many nights, um, in those early, early years when I would literally just pray that God would give me the courage to kill myself because I knew if I could just go to heaven, all the pain would be gone.

Kevin Lowe: And you know what though? It never went further than that prayer sobbing into my pillow because every time as I'd be praying, I would think back to my family and I would think I can't do that to them.

Kevin Lowe: And I say, so literally I am here today because of my faith in my family.

Bill Burke: Amazing. And I'm sure for your family, I mean, I am a parent and when any parent will tell you when your children struggle with anything and mine, thankfully, have never gone through anything as severe as what you have.

Bill Burke: It's really hard in some ways. Some people compare it to it's one thing to play a sport. it's that much harder to watch your child do it.

Bill Burke: So I can only imagine how hard this was for your parents, but somehow they hung in there with you and your family hung in there with you.

Bill Burke: When did you start thinking about, okay, this is the hand I've been dealt.

Bill Burke: Here's how I'm going to play it. Here's what I'm going to do.

Bill Burke: Here's how I'm going to contribute. When did that happen?

Bill Burke: So I know you were into travel agency business for a while. Can you sort of explain how you said, Okay, here's what I've got. Here's what I'm going to do.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. So that would come way later.

Kevin Lowe: Honestly, it was probably the better part of about 10 years before I finally came to a point where I was finally really ready to move on with life, even if I couldn't see.

Kevin Lowe: And there were building blocks all along that way that helped me get to that point.

Kevin Lowe: One of the biggest that I would love to just mention is the fact that, you know, this happened at the beginning of my junior year of high school.

Kevin Lowe: I never returned to school the rest of my junior year.

Kevin Lowe: Um i ended up having a program called hospital homebound where we had teachers would come to my house and i had a teacher who taught me school subjects another teacher who started teaching me what i called blind stuff like how to read braille and and and how to use a talking computer and stuff like that.

Kevin Lowe: But it was funny, though, because I was a kid who hated school.

Kevin Lowe: Like I said, the coolest thing about having a brain tumor was it meant I got to get out of school for a bit.

Kevin Lowe: But what was ironic then was the fact that from the very beginning, I just kept saying that I had this goal that I just still want to be able to graduate with my class.

Kevin Lowe: And it was something that secretly my family didn't think would probably happen.

Kevin Lowe: But sure enough, I would catch up with my schoolwork.

Kevin Lowe: I would heal enough physically that I made it back to school for the start of my senior year.

Kevin Lowe: I went back just for one class a day.

Kevin Lowe: We were on a block schedule, so we had four classes a day. I went back for one class a day, and then I did the rest back at home with those same teachers.

Kevin Lowe: And ultimately, I walked across the stage of my high school graduation.

Bill Burke: The place must have gone bonkers, I imagine. That had to be a highlight of your high school graduation. I've sat through some high school graduations.

Bill Burke: Nothing quite that inspiring has happened at any to date. That's incredible.

Kevin Lowe: It really was. And so that, at the time, I didn't realize it, but I look back now and I realize that that moment was pivotal for a couple of reasons.

Kevin Lowe: And one of the biggest reasons was I believe that it was God who instilled that goal in me because God wanted to show me right off the bat that even in this new life, you are still capable of achieving great things.

Kevin Lowe: And that is what happened. And so after graduation, I dabbled in all kinds of things from going to blind services, from Division of Blind Services to the Center for the Visually Impaired.

Kevin Lowe: Some amazing organizations that I am grateful that were literally right in the city where I live.

Kevin Lowe: I mean, there's people who travel from all over the country to come here.

Kevin Lowe: And I had it in my own backyard, didn't even know it.

Kevin Lowe: And so I started working with them.

Kevin Lowe: And as the years passed, I would end up getting into a program that would really kind of be the catapult to launch me into a new chapter of life.

Kevin Lowe: And that was a program that set me up with an internship at business of my choosing, whatever I was interested in. And so two things that I was interested in Was travel and radio And so I ended up doing a six-month internship at a local travel agency.

Kevin Lowe: And then at the same time, I did a six-month internship at a local AM radio station.

Kevin Lowe: And I absolutely loved the radio deal.

Kevin Lowe: I mean, that was the coolest day in the world. I worked on the morning drive.

Kevin Lowe: And so it was an AM talk radio. And so I literally would go Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.

Kevin Lowe: And sat in the studio with the other hosts and our guests and got to participate in that whole thing. And so that was amazing.

Kevin Lowe: But that ended, and it didn't go anywhere.

Kevin Lowe: And the travel agency thing that I was doing, interning at that travel agency, amazing people, but again, internship ends, and it didn't go anywhere.

Kevin Lowe: And so I was back to square one. And that's when I started my own business.

Kevin Lowe: So I opened my own home-based travel agency that was called Better Days Travel.

Kevin Lowe: And it was around this time in my life that the pivotal thing happened for me.

Kevin Lowe: It was around that 10-year mark. and I was listening to an audio book and I remember one specific thing at the very end of this audio book.

Kevin Lowe: And it was actually an audio book about the blind adventure athlete, Eric Weinmayer.

Kevin Lowe: And he's famous for, for somebody Mount Everest.

Kevin Lowe: Well, this particular book was about him kayaking the Grand Canyon.

Kevin Lowe: And at the end of the book, it was actually the guide who had guided him down the river.

Kevin Lowe: There was a part of the book and this guide was waiting. Everybody was waiting on him for them to pack up, to leave.

Kevin Lowe: They'd been on this however long, week-long journey down the Grand Canyon.

Kevin Lowe: And this guide, he had walked out into the water by himself.

Kevin Lowe: And he stood in the middle of the water and he faced upstream and he had his arms outstretched and his fingers splayed and he let the current, the water was just running through his fingers.

Kevin Lowe: And he said something that completely changed my life.

Kevin Lowe: In the book, he said, I'll come back someday, but for now I got more life to live.

Kevin Lowe: For me, I heard that and I remember rewinding it, listening to it again, because I realized right then that I didn't have to give up on my dream of seeing again.

Kevin Lowe: But right now I got more life to live.

Kevin Lowe: And I would come to finally get to a point where I realized that I'm probably not going to see again, not until I'm in heaven, but that's okay because I got more life to live.

Kevin Lowe: And that was one of the most pivotal moments mindset-wise that really helped me tremendously.

Bill Burke: It's refreshing and instructive to hear Kevin speak so honestly about how he felt in those first days after losing his sight.

Bill Burke: He begged God to let him see again and later even prayed for the strength to take his own life.

Bill Burke: But in the end, he decided he couldn't do that to his family.

Bill Burke: His early and ambitious goal to graduate with his classmates was key.

Bill Burke: And in the spirit of Fred Rogers' look for the helper's encouragement, let's hear it for the hospital homebound program and the teachers who worked with Kevin to keep him up to speed with his peers.

Bill Burke: What an inspiring graduation ceremony that must have been.

Bill Burke: Also inspiring to Kevin was the example of Eric Weinmeier's guide who said in the audio book, I'll come back someday, but for now, I got more life to live.

Bill Burke: Now, back to my blue sky conversation with Kevin Lowe.

Bill Burke: You lost your sight in 2003, if I have it right.

Bill Burke: And so the world's changed quite a bit in that period of time in terms of technology.

Bill Burke: And you mentioned audio books.

Bill Burke: And now you are and we found each other through this crazy world of podcasting.

Bill Burke: So when did you, because I believe your first podcast was related to your travel business. Is that right? Or related to travel?

Kevin Lowe: Yes, it was. It was. So I started, I entered the world of podcasting in 2020, When I say everybody and their dear Aunt Sally started a podcast.

Kevin Lowe: And so I say the only difference between me and them is the fact that I'm still podcasting.

Bill Burke: Yes, right. It's harder than it looks.

Kevin Lowe: Exactly. And so, yes, you are right. So like you said, so I have been a travel agent. I had my own travel agency for seven years coming up into 2020.

Kevin Lowe: And, you know, wouldn't you know, that was going to be my best year ever.

Kevin Lowe: And I mean, I even had a group cruise lined up.

Kevin Lowe: There was nearly 50 of us going on a cruise that October to celebrate the 17th anniversary of when I went blind.

Kevin Lowe: Because here was the big thing was, you know, me, I mean, I'm always looking for a reason to celebrate.

Kevin Lowe: And so I was like, guys, I'm like, this is monumental.

Kevin Lowe: I'm like, this anniversary in particular is big. I said, because it's happening in the year 2020.

Kevin Lowe: A number, of course, synonymous with vision.

Kevin Lowe: I said, and the fact is, is that at that moment, I would have been blind for as long as I had been able to see.

Bill Burke: 17 and 17.

Kevin Lowe: Yep. Wow. And so I had planned out, I had this huge group cruise for all of us, you know, along with all these other trips on the books.

Kevin Lowe: And then, of course, we all know inside of a month, come March 2020, it all disappeared.

Kevin Lowe: And so that leads into the podcast. And so while we were all stuck in quarantine and looking for things to do, I had decided it was finally time for me to start the YouTube channel I had been thinking about.

Kevin Lowe: And so I went on Amazon and I started ordering all my equipment.

Kevin Lowe: And then the realization hit me. Was, Kev, what are you doing?

Kevin Lowe: You've ordered all this video stuff.

Kevin Lowe: And you are the last person who needs to be doing video you you're too subconscious about whether or not you're looking directly at the camera you don't know if the lighting is right and so i was just like this isn't gonna work and at that moment i'm like my youtube dreams are dashed and then my sister says why don't you do a podcast i said I, of course, responded to Tiffany and said, what the heck is a podcast?

Kevin Lowe: And that would be my entrance into the world of audio, which I said once I realized, I said, oh, my gosh, I was designed for podcasting.

Bill Burke: Amazing. Well, and you also have that radio experience is basically the same thing.

Kevin Lowe: Exactly. Exactly. So it all kind of comes back full circle. And so, yes, you are right.

Kevin Lowe: It started off about travel because I laugh and I say that God hadn't really cued me in on his plans yet.

Kevin Lowe: I thought I was still going to be a travel agent. So I was talking all about travel. And then the podcast took over my life and led me in a totally different direction.

Bill Burke: So it's had a few iterations. The title today is Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

Bill Burke: And you embody all three. You've been described, by the way, as having contagious optimism and genuine positivity.

Bill Burke: And I think at this point of the conversation that has already come through.

Bill Burke: But tell us how you settled on that as your as your format and what kind of guests do you have? How do you tell us about the podcast?

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. So the podcast is literally what the name says.

Kevin Lowe: It's all about sharing the stories of those overcoming life's challenges, all with this hope and desire to inspire others to do the same.

Kevin Lowe: I always say that my mission, whether I'm recording a solo episode or I'm recording an interview with a guest, my whole goal is that there's somebody on the other side of the world who I'll never meet, I'll never even hear from.

Kevin Lowe: I'll never even know that they've ever listened to my podcast.

Kevin Lowe: And yet they hear something I say or my guest says, and it gives them that inspiration to keep going just one more day.

Kevin Lowe: Just like that one line in that audio book did for me.

Kevin Lowe: And, um, and so that, that is the podcast. I mean, gosh, I've been going now for what over, over five years or coming up on six years.

Kevin Lowe: And, um, and, and I love it. I love it. I love the, the opportunity to get to, to meet people, um, for the fact of inspiring me, um, while getting to share their story with the world, um, is just been truly amazing.

Bill Burke: Incredible. And your tagline is turning setbacks into stages.

Bill Burke: We all know what a setback is. What do you mean when you say to stages?

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. So I got into the world of public speaking.

Kevin Lowe: And so through the podcast, again, the podcast has led me down a road.

Kevin Lowe: I entered the world of coaching. I did coaching for a while, which I still do on occasion. But I really was like, I really love just inspiring and motivating people.

Kevin Lowe: And so it led me into the world of public speaking.

Kevin Lowe: And so that is turning setbacks into stages. Exactly that, turning, using what I've been through, which, you know, what happened to me was horrible.

Kevin Lowe: And I wouldn't wish what happened to me on my worst enemy.

Kevin Lowe: And yet at the same time, I have to be so grateful that God chose me to be the one to go through this for the simple fact of if me having gone through what I did, being able to share my insights that I've gained, if it can help somebody else, then for me, it makes all of it worth it.

Kevin Lowe: Because at the end of the day, that's all I want out of my life anymore is I just want to be able to help somebody else who's struggling, who needs somebody to remind them that tomorrow's a new day and to not give up on the hope and to not give up on what might lie ahead when that sun rises tomorrow morning.

Bill Burke: Amazing. And I think such an important part of your story is you do make it clear that this was not an easy thing for you to pull out of.

Bill Burke: And I imagine you still have those nights when you, I don't know if you cry into the pillow, but you still, I imagine, have those.

Bill Burke: It's not all this linear progression towards everything's great.

Bill Burke: And I'm sure that's part of what inspires people who are going through similar challenges.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it's a loss. It's a loss that I still deal with. It's a grief. Yeah. Yep.

Bill Burke: Just as Kevin Lowe was developing his new interest in the travel business and planning to mark the 17th anniversary of losing his sight, perhaps the worst thing that could ever happen to his chosen business occurred.

Bill Burke: A global pandemic.

Bill Burke: Fortunately, he had tried his hand at radio and his sister gave him the idea of starting a podcast.

Bill Burke: This has been a perfect outlet for Kevin to work to inspire others through audio and public speaking, just as he was inspired by that book he listened to many years prior.

Bill Burke: Speaking of audio, don't forget that musical surprise I mentioned earlier.

Bill Burke: It's coming soon after this final section of our conversation.

Bill Burke: Here you and I are, you know, a thousand miles apart, talking to each other through this amazing technology. I mentioned before that these terrible things happened to you more than 20 years ago.

Bill Burke: Can you share with us, because I do think it can be inspiring to folks to realize how far technology has come.

Bill Burke: Are there technological advancements that have made your life at least a little bit easier since the time you lost your sight?

Kevin Lowe: Maybe like a whole, whole, whole lot easier. Yeah. Um, the, the biggest thing was the invention of the iPhone, especially, especially when it came out with the iPhone 3GS was the first iPhone to introduce voiceover, a built-in screen reader.

Kevin Lowe: And so the iPhone is not only completely a hundred percent accessible to somebody like me who's completely blind, but it has different apps that I download onto my iPhone, like an app called Be My Eyes, which allows me to open up the app.

Kevin Lowe: I can then literally just take a picture and it instantly describes whatever is in front of me.

Kevin Lowe: Or I can hit the option to connect with the volunteer and literally they have a, it works on like a network, almost like a social media type community of people who've signed up as helpers.

Kevin Lowe: And so literally 365 days out of the year, 24 hours a day, I can be in live video feed with something almost like FaceTime with somebody through that app within like 30 seconds.

Bill Burke: Really?

Kevin Lowe: It's absolutely incredible. And so that is one example of just technology that has been incredible.

Kevin Lowe: I also have the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.

Bill Burke: Really? Okay.

Kevin Lowe: They work the same way. Um, literally I can, you know, ask it, you know, to describe whatever's in front of me or to tell me what is on this menu at a restaurant.

Kevin Lowe: Um, it's, it's fascinating. Technology is, is absolutely incredible.

Kevin Lowe: Um, and, and to see the advancements in technology, even just over the time period, since I went blind is remarkable.

Bill Burke: So, Kevin, speaking of technology and the way you've been able to somehow, somewhat see again, can we talk about echolocation? Describe that to us?

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely. So this is probably the coolest thing, and it doesn't involve tech at all.

Kevin Lowe: There's no iPhone or apps involved. It's literally just the power of the human brain.

Kevin Lowe: And so I, back in 2017, had the opportunity to learn that humans can see just like bats or dolphins do using echolocation.

Kevin Lowe: Um, and so there was a guy, um, a friend of mine had shared a YouTube video of this guy named Brian Bushway, who was riding a bicycle and doing all these things by making this clicking noise.

Kevin Lowe: And so I remember she had sent me the YouTube video and I had watched the video.

Kevin Lowe: Now I remember, I remember honestly getting super sad because all I remember thinking was, God, why, why won't you give me that ability?

Kevin Lowe: Well, lo and behold, at the time, he worked with an organization where they literally traveled around the world teaching blind people how to see with echolocation.

Kevin Lowe: And so I ended up going out to his home in Los Angeles, California.

Kevin Lowe: I went out there with my mom and sister. And my mom and sister, they would drop me off at his house every morning.

Kevin Lowe: They would go off and do tourist stuff. And I would train with Brian Who ironically is right around my same age He went blind kind of around the same point He was I think about 14 when he went blind And he had learned this skill by somebody else And so literally he taught me how to retrain the brain's visual cortex To see through sound rather than sight And so by literally making a clicking noise with just my tongue against the roof of my mouth, I threw time, and it took exactly three days for my brain

Kevin Lowe: to finally, it all to click together.

Kevin Lowe: And we were literally training inside of the apartment we had rented through Airbnb.

Kevin Lowe: And he was teaching me how to identify corners of a room.

Kevin Lowe: And so I would stand face-to-face at the corner, and I'd make this little click with my tongue, and nothing's happening.

Kevin Lowe: And then I'd take a step back, and I'd make the click.

Kevin Lowe: Nothing happens. And then all of a sudden, it was like somebody turned on a light switch.

Kevin Lowe: All of a sudden, the wall in front of me, I could see it.

Kevin Lowe: Literally, all of a sudden, the wall turned to a fuzzy gray.

Bill Burke: Oh, my gosh.

Kevin Lowe: And I could literally, from across the room, I could walk up to the wall and stop without ever hitting it, without ever touching it.

Kevin Lowe: And then I can remember walking down alongside the wall, following the wall.

Kevin Lowe: And all of a sudden though, it went from this fuzzy gray to like a deep, dark, like cavern.

Kevin Lowe: Well, it was the doorway into the kitchen.

Bill Burke: Whoa. Yeah.

Bill Burke: That's amazing. So you use that today. If you walked into a strange room, you could click and.

Kevin Lowe: So I use that all the time, everywhere, anywhere.

Kevin Lowe: And what's amazing is, is it's just like a muscle. So the more you use it, the stronger it gets.

Kevin Lowe: And so now there are times when I'm not even actively trying to use it, but maybe I'm standing in the kitchen, cooking in the kitchen with my mom and my sister, it may be something with the faucet.

Kevin Lowe: The water hits a dish a certain way, and it's like a light switch turns on.

Kevin Lowe: And I can look over, and I can see the figure of my mom standing there.

Bill Burke: So you don't have, you're not always having to put out a sound like the clicking.

Kevin Lowe: Correct, correct. Wow. I mean, that is the most precise way.

Kevin Lowe: And like when I'm, you know, the biggest obstacle typically is you go into a public restroom trying to find your way.

Kevin Lowe: Well, now I go in a couple of clicks and I'll get a, I call it a ping off of maybe like the metal faucet of the sink.

Kevin Lowe: And I tried to describe it as like, think of a commercial for glassware.

Kevin Lowe: And you know how they'll show the visible spark coming off to show that it's super sparkly and clean?

Kevin Lowe: That's how it will ping off of the metal faucet When I make that little click with my tongue That's incredible It completely and utterly changed my entire world For the simple fact that No longer can I only see what I can touch But now I can preview my world around me The world literally now has shaped And I tell everybody No, it's not like I used to see But it's another tool that I now have that has literally been the biggest life-changing thing, not technology-related.

Kevin Lowe: It was just tapping into something that our brain is capable of that I had no idea about.

Bill Burke: Fascinating. Okay. So, and I wonder too, if you've been born blind versus losing your sight when you did, if because you had almost 17 years of sight, if that helps you sort of fill in the blanks when the iPhone is describing a scene?

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, 100%. Okay. Yeah.

Kevin Lowe: I think, well, you know, we, the biggest joke in that regard is, is regarding color.

Kevin Lowe: Now I've heard some people say that, that when you go blind, you, you forget what color is.

Kevin Lowe: That didn't happen for me. So I remember color, um, which, which my family, like my mom and sister can tell you it makes, that means that I'm the pickiest damn blind person you've ever met.

Kevin Lowe: So when, when, when, when shopping and they tell me, oh yeah, like this shirt's, you know, a nice blue, I'm like, okay, well what shade of blue?

Kevin Lowe: Okay. No, I, no, I don't like that shade.

Kevin Lowe: That's funny. But, um, but yeah, no, I, I mean, I think the whole idea of somebody who's never seen before versus somebody in my perspective, it's a totally different way.

Kevin Lowe: I would imagine of the way in which you, you interpret the world.

Kevin Lowe: Um, and, And I am extremely grateful for the fact that I did have 17 years of sight to be able to understand better what things look like.

Bill Burke: It's amazing. Yeah. And all these years later, Kevin, it's amazing to hear you say that you're grateful for that because you have so much that many of us just would feel down about and pity ourselves.

Bill Burke: So if people want to engage with you as public speaking, tell us about the different ways. So there's, There's your podcast, there's your public speaking and your coaching.

Bill Burke: Is this all available in sort of one place where people can find this and you?

Kevin Lowe: Yes, absolutely. So it's all right there on my website.

Kevin Lowe: So they can easily go to gritgraceinspiration.com.

Kevin Lowe: If for any reason that's too hard to remember, you can also just go to kevinspeaks.org.

Kevin Lowe: Both of those will take you to the same place. Um, like you said, my website's basically the central hub. I'm not real big on social media.

Kevin Lowe: And so it's basically through the podcast and, uh, they're on the website that you can get in touch with me.

Bill Burke: So if, if there's somebody listening today who's had a setback recently or has a loved one who has, and they're just, they're having those thoughts that you had, what, what sort of, what are the simplest words of encouragement you could offer people in addition to going to your podcast and your website?

Bill Burke: But if someone's been having a tough stretch based on something like that, what are the words of encouragement that you could provide as our time's running out?

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. The biggest thing is to give yourself grace.

Kevin Lowe: What you've been through, what you're going through, whether it's you personally or somebody you love or a friend, just give yourself a break.

Kevin Lowe: There's going to be so many people who are going to voice their opinions about what you should be doing.

Kevin Lowe: Don't listen. I can tell you that's about the worst thing you could possibly do because, yes, seek advice from those who you trust, who you know, know you and know what's right for you.

Kevin Lowe: But the biggest thing is just to listen to yourself, to give yourself the grace to understand that it's okay to not be okay.

Kevin Lowe: And at some point, though, you're going to reach the time when you're going to finally be ready to move forward.

Kevin Lowe: That might be in a month. It might be in 10 years.

Kevin Lowe: In the big picture, it's just a little time period of life.

Kevin Lowe: Just realize that it's going to get easier. It's going to get better.

Kevin Lowe: But in the meantime, just give yourself grace.

Bill Burke: Well, on that note, Kevin, I am going to thank you for this time.

Bill Burke: And thank you just for all the positivity and optimism and grit and resilience that you're putting out in the world.

Bill Burke: You are a true inspiration. That's an overused term, but in your case, it really fits.

Bill Burke: And I really appreciate you coming on the show and everything that you do.

Kevin Lowe: Oh, man, well, I appreciate it so much. And it's been an honor getting to be here. So thank you.

Bill Burke: Take care.

Bill Burke: I'm glad I asked Kevin to talk about how technological advancements might have helped him on his journey.

Bill Burke: I was not aware of Apple's Be My Eyes app or any of the other advances he described.

Bill Burke: And how about echolocation?

Bill Burke: That's something else I didn't realize was possible for humans, and it was pretty inspiring to learn more about it from Kevin.

Bill Burke: And to learn more about Kevin and his many product offerings, do check out the website, gritgraceinspiration.com.

Bill Burke: When you go there, you'll learn about something Kevin has branched into that we didn't discuss on our show.

Bill Burke: K-Lowe Music is a new venture he's launched where you can have a one-on-one conversation with Kevin.

Bill Burke: And from there, he'll produce a professional quality song or even an album based on you.

Bill Burke: As Kevin says on his site, this isn't just music. This is your life set to sound.

Bill Burke: I learned about all of this shortly after our interview when Kevin sent me a new song he produced for me as a thank you gift.

Bill Burke: I clicked on the file and was blown away.

Bill Burke: The title of the song is Blue Sky Above, and it's terrific.

Bill Burke: This is the musical payoff I've promised, and right now you will be among the first to hear this brand new song courtesy of Kevin Lowe and K-Lowe Music.

Bill Burke: Here's Blue Sky Above.

Bill Burke: How about that? My huge thanks to Kevin for putting this together.

Bill Burke: Not only the catchy tune, but also the lyrics that are so consistent with the work we're doing here at the Optimism Institute and the Blue Sky Podcast. Just amazing.

Bill Burke: I hope you enjoyed this Blue Sky conversation with and new Blue Sky Above song from Kevin Love. My thanks also go out to SoundOnSoundOff for their amazing help putting this special episode together.

Bill Burke: Check out more of their incredible work at SoundOnSoundOff.com.

Bill Burke: And to Crush Graphics, creator of all graphics and cover art at Blue Sky and the Optimism Institute.

Bill Burke: Find more of their terrific work at CrushGraphics.com. Remember to spell crush with a K.

Bill Burke: Until next time, I'm the founder of the Optimism Institute and host of Blue Sky, Bill Burke, and I thank you for listening.