Blake: I’m glad that I can have a part in this and I’m just blessed that I’m able to be here this long. And the more I’m here now, the more excited about the mission and this thing that I never would have thought of before, how impactful it can be and how many lives are changed because of this place and because of NIB.

Welcome to the Heard & Empowered podcast presented by National Industries for the Blind. You’re not just a listener here, you’re a catalyst for change. Whether you’re blind, visually impaired or an ally, this is your ultimate resource for building a fulfilling career and an enriching life. We’re on a mission to shift perceptions, open hearts and minds and unlock unparalleled job opportunities for the BVI community. Ready to be heard and empowered? Let’s welcome our host, Dr. Hoby Wedler.

Hoby: Hello and welcome back to the Heard & Empowered Podcast. I am so thankful to all of you amazing listeners for your love and support and sharing all your passions with us and everything that you focus on as you listen, as you comment, as you review. Please share the podcast with anyone who you think can use it, anyone who it will be useful for. Please continue to give us those five-star reviews, they help us immensely.

And I just want to say my hat is off to the community that we’ve created and to the amazing listener base that we’ve created. You all have just made this so much fun and such an amazing opportunity for me, for National Industries of the Blind, for all of us to really come out here and tell the stories and talk about what it means to empower blind folks to live their best lives, be gainfully employed and love life to the fullest.

And today’s guest is someone I’ve been wanting to have on the show for months now and I am so excited to introduce someone who embodies everything I said about being gainfully employed, living life to the absolute fullest and just embracing every opportunity that awaits him. Blake Lindsay, welcome to the show.

Blake: Thank you so much, Hoby. It’s great to be on with you today. I love what you’re doing with NIB and just getting some good stuff out there. You know, the people need to know and thank you so much for having me on today.

Hoby: Well, Blake, it’s my absolute honor to have you on and to be able to have a conversation with you about your amazing journey through life and the amazing work you have done and are continuing to do as you move through life. It’s really, really an honor and just so good to get the word out there, get the good word out there about the great people doing the great work that you do.

So I like to get a bit of a glimpse of what I call “the person behind the mission” because it frames the whole story for us. So if you don’t mind just sharing with me a little bit about your childhood, a little bit about your upbringing and maybe when you lost your sight. And I can tell, you know, my parents were and still are incredible supporters of me and never lowered the bar. They always have very high expectations. I can tell the same was very likely true for you based on your outlook on life and your attitude.

Blake: You’re exactly right. Boy, parents make all the difference, don’t they?

Hoby: They do.

Blake: They just really do.

Hoby: They make it or break it.

Blake: Well, I’ll tell you about my life.

Hoby: Thank you.

Blake: It’s really been literally an out of sight life in a lot of ways. But when I was a baby, everything was okay. The first eight or nine months of my life I could see and I had all my senses. And my older brother was 15 months old when I was born and he had all of his senses. In fact, Brad’s even got common sense now, I’m pretty proud of him. My brother. He was a good brother.

But about eight, nine months into my life mom and dad began noticing that my eyes didn’t look healthy. And during feeding time, this was the most unusual thing, I wasn’t opening up my mouth on time. And they knew I had a tremendous appetite so that wasn’t the deal. And they knew that they needed to start going to doctors to find out what avenue they needed to go to correct things.

And so they went to the family doctor and the family doctor wasn’t certain, but they kept kind of escalating. And all the doctors were honest that they didn’t know and please go to an optometrist panel. So they finally did that and discovered the answer was cancer. And I had retinoblastoma and it was going to take my life pretty quickly if they didn’t do something about it.

So of course they did, they got right on it. And they had two surgeries, one for each eye, about a month apart from each other because I guess I caught a bad cold the first time they had my clothes off and the AC was turned on high or some kind of thing. So I caught a cold. That had to be a little scary for mom and dad. But they got it all out, all the cancer is out of me.

And when I was five years old, they decided, “let’s send Blake to the school for the blind, because we know that these teachers are going to be most effective in leading him to independence. They’re not going to give him unnecessary breaks as a public school would do with sympathy.” And it’s easy to be sympathetic when you don’t know about the disability. So it’s not the public school’s fault at all, but the blind school was so extremely equipped to be able to deal with me.

And the first guy I learned about, of course, and you probably did too, Hoby, is to learn about Louis Braille. And you talk about turning lemons into lemonade.

Hoby: Oh my God, he was a gem.

Blake: Three years old in his dad’s leather workshop, his dad probably wasn’t watching him for 10 seconds and he accidentally poked himself in the eye. And when that infection set in and spread to his other eye and he became blind, it really bothered him when he turned six or seven and started thinking, “I’m not going to be able to read or write.” And then here he is just a dozen years old and comes up with Braille for you and I. So that’s really been a blessing, you know, Braille to me.

And then I went to public school my junior and senior year. And I was very musical all through the blind school days and on into my junior and senior year as well. I played clarinet, saxophone and keyboard and just loved music and I also wanted to become a DJ. Always had the face for radio, so I decided to do something about that and went to a vocational career center when I was still at the school for the blind.

And they had a deal with the J. Everett Light Career Center, which was just two miles away, it was very close. And they had a radio station that got out 20 miles. It was top 40 and we handled the high school sports for a large high school. And it was an incredible experience because my mentor was so strict and he was really good and he prepared me for the real deal.

My parents were really my best mentors and they started really expecting me to get good grades when I could and to give it 100%. That was their thing. If I didn’t do well in something, they just wanted to know for certain that I was giving it all that I had to do the best that I could. And so they really created that atmosphere with all my family, my siblings. I’ve got three brothers and a sister, the older brother I mentioned, then I’ve got younger brothers, a younger sister, and they all accepted blindness very well. They grew up with it.

You know, they grew up with me. And so that enabled them to really be perfect siblings and they can all see just fine, they didn’t have retinoblastoma. So that’s kind of the beginning stages of my life. I got into broadcasting and that was my first opportunity to realize that blindness was actually a gift.

And the reason I say that, Hoby, is I got in this career center and they started admiring that I could run my own board. All of my equipment, I could do myself. And in my desire, I got an A in that class because I was so passionate about radio, I loved it. And that’s when passion and commitment fall in place is when you love something. Got into broadcasting and I just couldn’t get away from it. For 22 years that’s what I ended up doing following high school.

I went to a community college and got some basics, but I really just never pursued higher education. But I had lots of experience in communications. I ended up working with Bank of America for seven years. Incredible experience because I had to stretch my brain really outside of broadcasting. I was 29 years old and I had done radio fairly successfully for 12 years on a full-time basis.

Hoby: Wow. And hosting, I don’t mean to interrupt you, but talk shows, more music. Like, tell me a little bit about that radio career.

Blake: I was a top 40 DJ personality. I did a lot of phone bits, you know, lots of phone calls with listeners and really had a good time being a personality. We would typically talk about 10 times an hour and most of the breaks were only like 15 seconds really. But lots of listener personality. I was able to really engage with my listeners every day. And they knew what to expect and they wanted to have a conversation with me.

Hoby: And you got to know them.

Blake: I did. That was so fun. And that’s what got me in customer service at the bank because I thought, “you know what? I love talking to people. I like trying to at least solve their problems when they present them to me.” And so that was kind of an opportunity, it was a real door opener to get into customer service knowing that I could help people out sometimes. And I was very mathematical, so banking was something I was very interested in.

And I took five interviews. When I went to the bank they said, “we’ve had some people who are blind that have not worked out, to be honest with you. We’re not sure why that is, but you seem to have a real ambition about you that we believe you’re going to make it work.” And I did. I took two 100 question tests, it was the biggest test I ever took in my life. One was on systems, one was on products. And I thought, “man, I don’t know if I’m going to do well in systems.” But it turned out I got a 95 on systems and a 96 on the products. And you only had to have a 90% on both. So I got above that, thank goodness, and studied real hard.

But I got to give a former Nations Bank a lot of credit. Before they became Bank of America they were Nations Bank, and they really gave me a couple of their best trainers. And these guys were so enthusiastic about a person who’s totally blind being in that call center of about 380 people. It was a large call center. We handled checking and savings accounts, loans, mortgage, and we had a whole set up over there. And I got to inspire people and they inspired me, of course.

And we got on the ball with me being able to train my last two years of the seven-year tenure I was there. I got to train people who were excited. And I kind of teased them sometimes when they were having a little difficulty. I’d say, “look, if a blind guy can do this, I know you can.” And they would laugh.

Hoby: It’s that crutch of eyesight, isn’t it? They need lights and monitors and stuff, you know?

Blake: Sighted dependence.

Hoby: That’s right. That’s right.

Blake: But we had a good time together and joked around a lot, but got serious when we needed to. And it was just really a neat beginning for my communication expansion outside of broadcasting. And I really got excited because I worked at 106.1 KISS FM here in Dallas during the tenure that I was at the bank, but I mainly did weekends and I filled in for a morning guy on Christmas breaks.

And so I had two weeks of getting to do morning drive in Dallas, Fort Worth. That was a big deal. And so I really got my cake and ate it, too, in the sense of a seven day workweek, but the jobs were so very different from each other that I never got burned out. I’d do the bank five days, then I’d do the radio two days and I’d be ready to go back to the bank. And at the end of the week, I’d be ready to do radio and switch it out a little bit.

Hoby: So Blake, what I’m understanding here is that since you graduated from the community college, you’ve been employed full-time ever since then.

Blake: I’ve been employed full-time. There’s been six-month intervals here and there in my broadcasting career when I would have to do telemarketing to supplement my lack of work. Because with radio, and this is the only thing I didn’t like about it, Hoby, is the fact that it was a year here, a year there, everywhere, a year year, you know, pretty much.

Hoby: Yeah, I hear you.

Blake: I stayed at KISS for over seven years at KISS FM because I was doing part time and I was very valuable to them, but always a format change. And it wasn’t my lack of doing the duty, it was format changes and company ownerships.

Hoby: Company structure changes, all this stuff.

Blake: I stayed at a San Antonio station for four years full-time, and that was my longest tenure. But most of it was 12 to 18 months in a lot of cases. And so I got pretty tired of that. By the time I was 29, I said, “man, by the time I’m 30, I want to have a real job.” I used to tell people that I had a radio addiction that I wanted to support with a real job.

Hoby: Right. Right, right, right.

Blake: And that’s precisely what took place because when I went to Bank of America, I was able to support that radio addiction all right by doing weekends and morning drive during Christmas time. But essentially, I had a full-time gig doing the banking thing and helping people retain their accounts. And I got commendation letters from people that I least expected it and I did not get commendation letters from the people that I really expected it. But some of the angriest customers were the ones that sent me the commendations. The fires that I was able to put out.

And the last two years I was there, I ended up training people who were excited. But also, I took the real bad calls. They would transfer them to me. And I was on a “gate,” they called it, I was on an expanded customer service gate that they would transfer the real negative calls. And it’s funny there was, I never will forget this, but there was a guy, Mr. Anger, A-N-G-E-R, I believe is how he did spell his last name. And sure enough somebody said, “Mr. Anger is on the phone with you.” And I thought, “yeah, they’re all Mr. Anger. What are you talking about?” And I looked at his name and sure enough, there was Mr. Anger on my phone.

Hoby: Oh my gosh.

Blake: And he was.

Hoby: He lived up to his name, didn’t he?

Blake: He served his name well.

Hoby: When I was at school at UC Davis, I worked pretty closely with an entomologist, the guys that study insects named Bob Bugg, B-U-G-G. So I think that’s a pretty fitting name for a gentleman who’s angry or for an entomologist that spends their life studying bugs. You know, it’s the same thing.

Blake: Very much so.

Hoby: Now, let me ask you a little bit about accommodations, just because I’m nerdy and curious. How at the radio station did you make your board accessible?

Blake: Well, all I would do at the beginning, and this is before technology. You know, when technology came in in 2001, it was a step backward for me because I couldn’t operate a lot of the touchscreens until we came up with a system, which I’ll tell you in a minute. But at the beginning, of course, when I got into it, I’m an old guy, I’m in my fifties. Not old, but you know, I was doing stuff back when technology was just coming around.

And so I was able to put Braille labels on some things. But really as far as the console was concerned, I would just put just a couple of Dymo tape labels on that were clear and out of the way of everybody else. And they loved it, you know, feeling that Braille, but I would just put it on a couple of the potentiometers, you know, the faders. And at first they started out as round faders. Actually they were round knobs and nice, big, you know, you could grab ahold of them. And then in the mid-eighties, they became faders, you know, “slide pots,” they called them. And so I just put a couple of Braille labels there, but I would just count over, and I knew where everything was.

I’m not great with technology, I have to learn it. But for whatever reason, with the radio consoles, that was an easy thing for me always. And I would get producers to fill out the logs though.

Hoby: Right. The logs of what? Being not someone from radio, when you say the log, you mean the like specification of what songs you played and that sort of thing?

Blake: The program log. Yep, checking off the commercials and that kind of thing. But now technology has advanced so much for you and me, Hoby, that it’s really easy. Like even with contests, with winners now, I would just have a little template on a computer that I could do myself and I could put the name, telephone number, address, age, whatever was required. And I could get that set up then for the receptionist at the desk at this point in time to be able to just take it.

I really would not need a sighted person anymore like I did most of my career, but I befriended a lot of people by having them there. They would do 20% of the work and I’d do the other 80. And a lot of times they could leave the room for 25 minutes and go study if they were a college student. But I had a lot of good friendships that were initiated through them being my producer, filling out the logs, the contest sheets, taking transmitter readings at that time, making sure the tower lights were on so that nobody would hit us.

Hoby: Right. And the tower is basically a tall transmitter, if you will, that you want to make sure is illuminated so aircraft and whatnot don’t hit it.

Blake: Yep. We were up there at 1,667 feet at KISS FM.

Hoby: Wow!

Blake: It was a real tall tower near DFW because there’s so much territory to cover.

Hoby: Did you ever climb to the top of it?

Blake: No, I never did. You know, I always kind of wanted to, but I didn’t want to really be around all that radiation either.

Hoby: No, I get it. And the radiation from a transmitter like that is pretty significant.

Blake: Yep. It was the full class C. They had 100,000 watts here in 1,667. We got out really about 100 miles each direction. That’s all you got with FM unless the trop was up, and that’s something that happens in the summertime when it’s a hundred degrees outside a lot of times you can really get out. I got out to Milwaukee, Wisconsin from Texas one time. And that was incredible. They offered me a job in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And I thought, “what in the world? Is somebody listening to me up there?”

But it was a program director and he wrote me a letter. He said, “hey, I heard you in Milwaukee and, and here’s what you sound like up here.” I was up in the hills. But it was in the middle of the summer and that’s when FM really does a dance around the universe. It’s pretty interesting how that is.

Hoby: This is just fascinating to me. This is an industry that I have had deep, deep fascination for, but never really delved into. You know, I’ve studied ham radio and all that before, but talking to you about DJing is just absolutely fascinating to me.

Blake: You could do talk radio so well, you got such a talent for communicating, asking the right questions. So you ought to do it.

Hoby: Thank you, you do too. Okay. You know, I think you’re inspiring me to inspire me to jump in there.

Now, the other question I have, and sorry, I don’t usually spend this much time on the background, but I’m really fascinated by you and your story. In the 80s and 90s and when you were in the call center at Bank of America, or I guess formerly Nations, how did you make that accessible?

Blake: That was really something. So what I did before I went to Bank of America in 94 is I asked my friends who were techies, I said, “what do you think I’ll need?” And they suggested a power braille, which I’d never heard of. That’s an 80-character display that I can see each line and I can quickly arrow around people’s accounts. And so I would memorize how many lines to arrow up or down to see certain things. And it was a beautiful braille display. And I really got my hands on this thing.

Hoby: Not cheap, as I recall.

Blake: They were not cheap. They were 6K at the time, back when minimum wage was like $3.35, I think they were $6,000.

Hoby: Right, exactly.

Blake: And so Bank of America, former Nations Bank, bought this stuff. And they got a tax break. The time that I went to work for them, March 28th of 94, I never will forget that date.

Hoby: Coming right up here.

Blake: Yeah, I’m coming up on the anniversary. 30, wow.

Hoby: You are. You are.

Blake: So 30 years ago is when technology started really kicking. And I was so excited that the power braille was available. Jaws had just come out and wasn’t very good yet, but it was okay. So I got DECtalk instead because DECtalk was for automated telephone systems and it worked beautifully. And the speech was really clear, clean on it. I liked it. And so I would read emails with DECtalk so that I could fly through real quick when company emails would come over and memos. So I used that, but I used the power braille.

But the people at the bank were so accommodating and when they saw this equipment they said, man, let’s make this work together. And so it was a team effort. And that’s when I really experienced some of the best leadership, like I’ve got here at Envision Dallas. It’s just, you know, I work with some incredible leaders that wanted a win-win partnership and they knew it was going to make them look good to make me look good and vice versa. So we really had a winning effort there that made me happy for seven years.

Now the banking center is consolidated and it’s funny, my parent company, Envision, is up in Wichita. Well, I got a job offer then in Wichita in 2001. They wanted me to go there because of the consolidation or Rio Rancho, California. But at that time, Hoby, I had just started dating who is now my wife, back in 2000 is when I met her. I met Jennifer because she sent me a letter to the radio station I worked at. And she was a six-year listener. She said, “I wanted to write you a letter instead of call you so you know I’m serious about you. I’m putting effort into this.”

So she wrote me a really nice letter, I’ve still got it today. And I wrote Jennifer back and I said, “I know my handwriting looks a little feminine because the person that I’m translating to is a female, my friend Heather, actually.” And so Heather took delight, I mean, she was just so excited to be able to help me to get this letter back to Jennifer.

And I said, “Jennifer, I work at Bank of America full-time and doing this radio gig part-time. So if you want to call me, if you’ve got insomnia, I’m doing the evening shift because it paid more.” At that time there was a 10% increase differential.

Hoby: So you actually worked nights at the bank?

Blake: Yeah. Yeah, I started out days and that’s when I became a morning person because I really was never a morning guy, but I sure am now. I get up early and I exercise and have a decent breakfast every day and exercise some and it gets me in a good mood. I start thinking about what I get to do for Envision. And it just pleases me to get to have this job where I’ve been almost 15 years now.

But when I met Jennifer it was really exciting. And that was about the time I started getting job offers in Wichita through the bank.

Hoby: Oh my gosh.

Blake: And so I thought I better stay. So they gave me a nice severance and they said, “you’ve done such good work, we hate to lose you, but understand that you don’t want to move to Rio Rancho or Wichita”. Anyway, it’s kind of a hoot that I’m working for a company in Wichita once again.

Hoby: It’s so crazy. Yeah. And I love that story. And this is something that I think is so important for our listeners to understand, is just the story of how you met Jennifer and this whole idea of never turn down a connection. Never say no or avoid just reaching out and making that contact when someone genuinely reaches out to you.

Blake: Relationships are so significant and a lot of my best friends I’ve actually lost through death. And I’m so glad for my memories with them. And I thought I would be terribly sad, which I am initially. I had a good friend that passed away a week ago today, but we got to talk in length a day and a half before he passed. And we really got to share our positive feelings about our 40-year friendship. And that’s what we’ve got to do with every relationship, no matter what. You’re right, Hoby. You’re exactly right.

Hoby: Well, and I’m always the one that says it just takes one accident with a car or a bus and we have to live, I don’t mean to be negative, but we have to live every day like it’s our last because this gift of life that we have and relationships that we have is such an incredible gift.

Blake: Yeah. And I think if we laser focus on this might be my last day, that’s a correct way to look at things, because we never do know. And you might as well stay as positive as you can do the best work that you’re able to and just serve well. If we serve each other, we’re all helping each other hop over hurdles every day.

Hoby: Boy, is that true. Is that true. So I want to take a minute here and focus on your transition from the bank to Envision. Was that immediate or was there a bit of a hiatus there where you did other work? How did that happen?

Blake: Well, when I left Bank of America, I went over to Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART). I had some good friends there that knew that I was a leader when it came to communications and customer service, that I’d had a good seven year run there. They knew that. And so they hired me at DART to do public relations. And then I ended up doing customer service. I went to the main DART call center. They had about 50 people over there, much smaller.

But once again, I noticed that being blind inspired them to put away their obstacles or to try to eliminate excuses, I should say. And they would give it their all. And so that was a really cool thing. And I got to do a different type of customer service, it was trip planning for people that were taking the regular buses and light rails and the TRE. We have a lot of light rail and we have a train here in the Dallas Fort Worth area. And so it’s quite an extensive transportation system. Not quite as good as Chicago and LA, but it’s pretty good. It’s a top 10 situation.

So I got to do that kind of customer service and that was good. But then I got to work for my hero. One of them, Louis Braille is one of them for sure. We talked about him. But Zig Ziglar is a guy who was a master motivator. He wrote 30 books in his life. He lived to be around 86 and passed away like 10 years ago or so.

But I got to know Zig when I was 16 years old and his son was five months younger than me. So we were like brothers, really. I never had worked with Zig, but I sure followed him and knew how motivational he walked the walk like somebody I’ve never met before. And he took my parents, you know, my parents were excellent mentors, but sometimes it takes another person to be able to hit you with a lot of the same truth that your parents are. And so Zig was that guy for me. Big, booming voice. This guy just accelerated every great point that there is.

And so I got to work for Zig after Dallas Area Rapid Transit, and I was with Zig Ziglar Corporation for two and a half years.

Hoby: And what did you do for Zig?

Blake: Well, I did sales and I got to speak a lot. Zig wanted me out there speaking. And so I got to speak to, you know, the 9-1-1 had a national conference, that was one that I remember really well. But it was a lot of businesses that were small, small fish so that I could become a good speaker and they were lower pay. And so they couldn’t get Zig Ziglar, but they could get Blazin’ Blake, alive and awake.

Hoby: And what an amazing opportunity to learn.

Blake: It was so fun. It was so fun.

Hoby: Oh, I just love that. And you’re hitting on so many high points here, but one of the ones that is so important to me is we find folks who we admire in the world and getting eventually to come back and work for these people and really learn from these folks who we admire so deeply is incredibly special.

Blake: It was an experience I never anticipated. And when it came along, I was just delighted to do sales. And so I made a lot of phone calls and I would talk to business owners and CEOs as well, start at the top and trickle down when I needed to, but I would always start at the top. And it just really was an incredible opportunity for me to polish up my communication skills from every aspect. And I did quite a bit of speaking.

And then when I left Ziglar Corporation, I wanted to rewrite a book. I’d already written a book called Out of Sight Living. What was my subtitle? A blind person with pure vision or something like that. I need to get out that book and see what my subtitle was. But I wanted to write a book called Blind for a Purpose because I really found that being blind turned out to be very purposeful for me. It turned out to be the gift that I never thought that it could be. But what an easy way, here I’ve got one of what I consider the easiest disabilities, but yet it inspires people so much because it scares them to death when they think of not having sight. And you can use that to an advantage to really encourage, inspire, and lead them to be their best.

Hoby: Oh my gosh. And Blake, it’s so true for me, too. And I’m just so inspired to chat with someone else who shares my view of blindness so deeply and profoundly, which is that it’s the greatest gift you and I could have ever had.

Blake: It’s turned out to really be that way.

Hoby: For me as a blind guy, I fell in love with organic chemistry. God, that’s the most visual type of chemistry one could study. Why did I fall in love with it? And I realized I was using the same skills as an organic chemist that I’ve used for my entire life to survive as a blind traveler. When you think about how we navigate, everything’s in our mind. We just imagine things.

So the difference between a street that goes from your house down to an intersection that you navigate to get to your local bus stop doesn’t have to be that different from a little bond connecting two carbon atoms. And the way that I said, “hey, wait a minute. I think about organic chemistry just like I think about traveling the streets on my college campus or in my hometown where the bonds are streets and the atoms where they come together are intersections.” It’s just as simple as that.

Blake: How about that?

Hoby: It’s just fun. Blindness is a gift.

Blake: It really is. I never will forget when Ed Too Tall Jones was over here at Envision and he said, “Blake, what do you think I need to tell people?” Because we had an opportunity for him to speak and he’s been such a good guy to be involved with us and really likes Envision a lot. And I said, “Ed, I want you to tell these people that their blindness can be a gift if they allow it to be.” And I bet he thought, “Blake, what are you talking about, man?” But you know what? He got out there and delivered that. And I thought it’s one thing for me to say it, everybody’s like, “yeah, whatever, Blake,” you know?

And I think a lot of people around here believe it anyway on their own. But I think when Ed brought that home for me, it really made a lot of people really think about that. And very few people are feeling sorry for their blindness other than those who lose their sight, obviously, temporarily you’re going through such a shock. Like you and I would if we got our sight back today. We’d say, “what in the world? What are we supposed to do now?”

Hoby: I don’t want it. I don’t want it. I’ve learned life as a blind guy, the last thing I want is to be able to see again.

Blake: That’s how I feel about it, too. When I was in my 20s I might have wanted it back just for the fun of it, just for knowing what it’s like.

Hoby: Just for a day. I think being sighted for a day would be pretty cool.

Blake: Yeah. Yeah, I guess it would just so we could imagine things and we would really know.

Hoby: I’d want to make sure I had the right car in my driveway that I could just go take for a spin.

Blake: I can hardly wait for self-driving cars.

Hoby: My neither.

Blake: I just hope that they let us partake solo.

Hoby: Oh, me neither.

Blake: It may be years down the road, but I think it’s going to happen.

Hoby: It’ll happen for sure. And then once you worked with Zig and came back and wrote that book, worked on that book, is that when you ended up with Envision?

Blake: Yeah. What happened then was I was doing a whole lot of speaking. And a buddy of mine at Dallas Area Rapid Transit, one of the vice presidents there over mobility management, said, “Blake, I want you to meet somebody.” And it turned out to be Nancy Perkins, who was our president and CEO of the former Dallas Lighthouse for the Blind. And she was there and I said, “Nancy, it sure is good to meet you. Wow, what a nice bracelet.” I remember I felt her bracelet. And she said, “you’re the first person to mention that today.” And I said, “really?” It really stuck out to me. It was a very nice quality feeling bracelet.

But anyway, I told her what I was doing and that I had written a book. She said, “Blake, I want you to come speak to my employees. They need some motivation and I’ve got a couple of opportunities for you. One of them is speaking to all of my employees, we’ll have a gathering. And then I want you to speak to the bingo group that we have on the third Friday night of the month.” They’ve been doing that now since 1978. We would have about 70 to 80 people that would show up for bingo who were not employees. Most of them were not employees here.

Yeah, so she wanted me to encourage both groups. I thought, “well, boy, that’s interesting.” I made it quick with bingo. I did a 20-minute thing during an intermission between bingo games while they were eating because we have a meal here as well. It turned out that I really began falling in love with the mission when I met a lot of the people that had been here for years. And they said, “Blake, I lost my sight later in life. I came over here to Lighthouse at that time. And I got a new vision.” When I got to be around people who were blind, I learned how to do things in a brand new way. I got to realize that I was going to be able to work again, something I didn’t think I was going to be able to do. And it turned out that being blind might have been one of the best things that ever happened to me.

I never will forget when this lady, Mary Cabay, told me that. That’s her name. And she was a lady that went blind at age 31 because somebody thought she was somebody else and they threw chemicals in her face. That’s the most horrible way you can lose your sight. But yet, years later, years later, Hoby, she said, “Blake, I believe now looking back, and I didn’t think so at the time that it happened of course, but it was one of the best things that ever could have happened so that I could see things more clearly in various other ways.”

And she worked for FDIC for 20 years and then she came to work in our call center with former Lighthouse. And then we became Envision Dallas here back May 1st of 2018. We were acquired, thankfully, by Envision up in Wichita, who had a lot of things going that we did not that now we’re able to gain.

Hoby: And it was really between the time when you spoke for Nancy’s employees and the bingo class that you decided, “hey, this position makes sense for me.” It felt right.

Blake: Yep, I fell in love with the mission, which was very easy to do after talking to several people. And Nancy and I got to talking and she said, “Blake, I want you to be a consultant for me. I’ll pay you to consult.” I said, “Nancy, I got one up on that. How about me being on your workforce and I could be your communications director?” Because she didn’t have any at that time.

Communications was nothing, that slot was not filled by anyone. I said, “what I’ll do, Nancy, is I’ll go around, to interview many of your employees and get their whole story,” which was phenomenal. It’s kind of like what you’re doing with me now. I would get their story, a lot of them, how they lost their sight later in life and they came over here and got a new life, but Envision has made it that much better.

Nancy said, “Blake, come on board. I want you to also help me to rebrand. I’ve got a lot of assignments I want you to do.” And she started laying them out, but they all fit my skill set. And I said, “sure, Nancy, I’ll come on board.” So back in 2009, I can’t believe I’m going on my 15th anniversary here soon. I thought I’d be here three or five years and I got a little bit burned out after my seventh year. And lo and behold, actually, I met Michael Monteferrante nine years ago because he had a radio station that was owned by Envision. And he said, “I want you to help with the radio.”

Hoby: Who is the CEO of Envision, Wichita. Just want to make that clear.

Blake: Yeah, KKGQ. They had cool call letters. KKGQ was 92.3 FM and they were kind of an adult contemporary dance. It was very upbeat. I said, “wow, this format is perfect.” And they had professionals doing it, but their goal was to make money with this, to have it become a cash maker and to be able to train people who are blind to be able to have a career in broadcasting since that was such a fond thing that people would talk about that they wanted to do.

Anyway, that’s when I got to know Michael nine years ago. And I told my then-CEO, his name was Hugh McElroy, I said, “Hugh, you got to meet this amazing Michael Monteferrante. They’re doing some stuff over there that I wish we were, and I know we could. I just want you all to meet up.” Anyway, I knew they were like-minded. As soon as they met, they started talking about opportunities of partnering, and then it all came around.

Hoby: So you’re responsible for the merger?

Blake: Only for the introduction, just the intro.

Hoby: I love it. I love it, Blake. That is so cool.

Blake: It never turned out like I thought. I thought, “well, there will be a partnership, I hope, in some way.” But it turned out that they wanted to acquire us and make us what they are, only in the DFW, you know, the Dallas area is huge. It’s a big marketplace and so they knew that they could really have an impact on North Texas, which we are, and cover 11 counties in our territory. So it’s been incredible, and it was all because I spoke here. I talked to enough people that I thought, “man, this is a good mission. This is really a good mission.” Getting people who are blind employed, getting them rehabilitation, education, we do research. It really turned out to be phenomenal.

I would have never thought, if you would have said, “Blake, you’re going to be there 15 years,” I would have just chuckled at you 15 years ago. I would have never thought.

Hoby: But here you are. And I just want to highlight what you do personally, because as the director of communications and outreach, you are extending and promoting the vision and the mission of Envision so much. So you are the one who is, in many ways, responsible for the lives that are changed, if you think about it that way.

Blake: Well, I’ll tell you, we’re all teaming together. That’s what I love. When you fall in love with a mission, you really become passionate and committed. It all falls in place, it completely does. What I like is Michael Monteferrante, even though he can see completely, he’s as passionate as we are, as people who are blind, about this mission. And it comes through in all of his communications and everything that he does for this organization. And I’ll tell you what, I used to think that CEOs could be lazy. Not Michael, man. He’s out here.

Hoby: Oh, he’s always moving.

Blake: He is doing his thing, and I’ve learned a lot from him. I’m glad that I can have a part in this, and I’m just blessed that I’m able to be here this long. And the more I’m here now, the more excited about the mission and this thing that I never would have thought of before, how impactful it can be and how many lives are changed because of this place and because of NIB.

Hoby: It’s so true. And in 1938, when NIB was created, look at how many lives, I mean if you look back at those 85 years, now verging on 86 years of existence, how many thousands of lives have been changed?

Blake: Lots and lots. I think we’d be amazed to know. So one thing that really helped me to excite myself about the mission even more was when I wrote those stories that we talked about. When I first got here, I wrote probably 60 stories in pretty short order. I was doing a couple of weeks. So after 30 weeks I’d put 60 stories in the bank, and then I would highlight the employee of the week.

And they loved that. They’d take it home to their spouse or their parents or whoever. I would highlight them, and they would bring it home, and I’d get their photo, and I’d just make a printed copy for them to be able to take home to take some pride in. And so I learned how much we were improving people’s lives. I would have never known had I not written so many stories. And that’s where the proof in the pudding is, it’s not the administrators talking about what they do, but when you hear the actuality from these people who are actually here, and also with our services, people that were recipients of assistive technology training with computers and iOS products, people that took orientation and mobility who did not know how to get around prior. And so when you interview these people, it makes you realize, “man, we’re doing what we say we’re going to do.”

Hoby: We’re putting our money where our mouth is, quite literally.

Blake: I can go to sleep at night knowing that the funds that I get to raise are going where they’re supposed to. And I can go to sleep with confidence that we’re improving lives every day around here.

Hoby: We need to talk offline sometime about fundraising. I’d love to help in whatever way I can.

Blake: As a matter of fact, I was going to hit you up for $100.

Hoby: There you go. No, we’ll have a chat, I’ve got some really fun ideas there.

Our time is running a little bit short, but there’s something you’ve done that is really clearly outlined on your website, if you don’t mind me sharing, BlakeLindsay.com, which is this amazing book that you wrote. Can you tell us a little bit about the book and about the inspiration behind it and what promoted the book?

Blake: I sure can. When I wrote Blind for a Purpose, there were about 10 stories in there that I really liked the most because they were true stories about win-win partnerships that I had with managers and leaders. I talked a lot about Zig Ziglar and Bank of America, different opportunities that there was an open door for me and how much I was able to gain from that.

So I wanted a good book about quality leadership, about servant leadership that makes a difference in people’s lives and caring. You’ve heard people don’t know how much you care, they don’t care how much you know until you know how much they care. Anyway, I wrote this book about the leaders who’d made a difference in my life and how much Envision, for example, has been an inspiration to me on how these leaders around here are good listeners, they care, and they want to make a difference in our lives.

And that’s when you’re going to get the most productivity out of any employee, is when you’re caring about them. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And that’s just the high quality that we’ve gotten around here. I wanted this to be an opportunity for upcoming leaders to read it and to kind of reinforce to them where they need to go. Sometimes, people need to get back on track a little bit who are leaders. They need to be reminded, you know, maybe I need to care a little bit more about my employees. I need to ask them how their life is going.

And I care about my directors, too, and my bosses. I like to know how they’re doing because if we care about each other, you’re just going to get more productivity and more quality assurance. You’re really going to get more excited about your gig when you know your boss cares about you.

So that’s what the book’s about. I’ve sold it to junior colleges, and the students have gotten a lot out of it as well. I also give it to donors. Just an opportunity to talk about some people here at Envision Dallas who have inspired me as well. A couple of stories about Envision in the book. And it’s called Overcoming Obstacles and Getting Extraordinary Results. That’s when I talk about the leaders, getting those extraordinary results that they can get out of us when they care and they listen and they’re able to really help us to grow.

Hoby: Wow, it’s so inspiring to hear about that. How can our listeners get access to that book?

Blake: Well, if you go to BlakeLindsay.com, L-I-N-D-S-A-Y I’ve got a free download on the audio side. There’s also an Envision link here, but I pretty much give it away to people that really want a good audio book. And there’s also a free download, a PDF version, the e-book. And so that e-book is really good. As far as a hard copy, I sell those for just $10 each. I wanted it to be inexpensive for people to be able to enjoy it. But really, I mainly give it to people who make any donation for any amount to Envision Dallas. And I’m glad to give that book away. Envision has enabled me to do that.

Just a couple of weeks ago, we talked to Corza, they’re one of our wonderful relationships that we currently have. They’re into ophthalmology and they do an incredible job at technology. We gave away 60 books to them because they’ve given us so much and they care about us so very much. And so that was an opportunity to really light those guys up about what people who are blind can accomplish as they’re reading these stories about Envision people and my experiences.

Hoby: What an incredible thing and what an incredible thing to be able to just give to the world and pay forward. I love it.

Blake, you have totally made my day. You’ve inspired me. You and I both live lives as really excited and happy and inspired people who just happen to be blind. I just can’t thank you enough for the inspiration you offer the world. And the way that you interact with the world is so, the word that I want to use for what I’ve heard over the past interview is you interact with the world with a sense of amazing patience, but you also are so incredibly positive. You’re just happy for what you have and it is such an important breath of fresh air to hear what you have to say.

I really cannot wait to have you back on because there’s another whole area that I know you’re very involved with that we haven’t talked enough about, which is art and audio description. Those are two things that I really want to talk to you about.

Blake: That sounds good, Hoby. You’re such a good interviewer and you bring out the best in everybody, man.

Hoby: Oh, you’re so kind to say that. Are you still doing any radio?

Blake: Well, I do a lot of imaging now. I’ve got an imaging company called Blazin’ Blake Productions because Blazin’ Blake was my radio handle.

Hoby: I love it.

Blake: Blazin’ and Blake, alive and awake.

Hoby: I love it.

Blake: So I got to be on Q92 for a moment and that was a lot of fun to get to work. That’s how I met Michael. We never know how relationships are going to initiate, but that was how I got to know him and Envision, because of that opportunity. I love doing, from my home studio a lot of production for TV and radio both, a lot of television stuff now as well. And it’s branding, a lot of branding and a lot of commercials, but stations, you know, continuous hit music, that kind of thing.

Hoby: Send me some of your stuff. I can’t wait to hear it.

Blake: Okay.

Hoby: I’d love to.

Blake: I’ve got a lot of stuff on the website that you can hear.

Hoby: Oh, good, I’ll check it out. Anyone can check it out.

Blake: Intros and outros for people’s podcasts, I do a lot of that kind of thing as well.

Hoby: Yeah.

Blake: Just all kinds of stuff. It’s been fun to be creative. I never thought I’d be interested in that because I loved the DJ side of it so much for so many years, but then when I got out of radio as a DJ because of the consolidation of the stations and all that, things that have happened since 1996 really was kind of the start of the last of radio, the good radio. And so I kind of wanted to get out of it so I could have a stable job. But I thought, “you know what? I can still do production and imaging and commercials.” And so I’ve stayed very active with that over the years.

Hoby: I just love that. And when you say imaging, you essentially mean?

Blake: They’re usually 10 to 20 seconds. It’s just called, it’s branding. It’s another word for branding. And Radio and TV stations use it all the time. I really enjoy popping that out too. It used to be that we had to mail everything out on a reel-to-reel tape back in the day, but starting around 20 years ago, we could just email our work to people and have it done. I mean I can email it to them in a minute once I’m done with it and they’ve got it. Don’t have to UPS or FedEx it or any of that. And that made it a lot more blind-friendly.

Hoby: Well, Blake, thank you so, so much for your time. It has been an absolute pleasure chatting with you today. Thank you so much for your words of wisdom, your words of inspiration and for making my day great and I’m sure all of our listeners’ day is absolutely fantastic. I can’t thank you enough. The question that I want to ask you, you are so inspiring, how can folks get ahold of you?

Blake: Well, I can give you my telephone number or I can give you my website.

Hoby: Give us the website.

Blake: I’m going to be here at Envision the rest of my life, so I can give you – My work phone number is actually pretty easy to remember for people. It’s 214-420-9411. Again, it’s 214-420-9411. And you can call me in the daytime and if I’ve got a minute to talk with you, I will. I’m going to be at Envisionus.com, hopefully for most of the rest of my life here. I’m hoping that you can find me there at Envisionus.com and they’ll have contacts for me. I really like working as an NIB advocate. I get to go to Capitol Hill pretty often and advocate for NIB. I’ve gotten to know Kevin Lynch over the years. He’s going to retire finally and has done such a good job for so many years now.

Hoby: He has. Am I going to see you on the Hill this May?

Blake: Well, I don’t know if I’m going to make it to the Hill until October coming up this fall. I may do that, but we do a lot of things virtually now. That’s one door that Covid kind of opened up. I did go two years ago, but I can do so many things virtually and save time and expense now and still do the same amount of communicating the right stuff that needs to be received by our legislators.

Hoby: Blake, thank you. And people also can reach you at, of course, your website, BlakeLindsay.com, B-L-A-K-E-L-I-N-D-S-A-Y.com. Thank you so much for a great interview and we cannot wait till the opportunity in a couple of months when we can have you back on.

Blake: Well, you’re welcome, Hoby, and thank you as well. Keep up the great work.

Hoby: Thanks, Blake. Cheers.

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