017 Personal Perspectives on Vision Loss with Maxwell Ivey
Today I am joined by Max Ivey, known online as the "Blind Blogger," who shares his remarkable journey from growing up in a family of carnival owners to becoming a successful entrepreneur and author. After losing his sight to what was recently re-diagnosed as Bardet-Biedl Syndrome, Max taught himself to code and build a digital presence long before web accessibility was a standard. We explore how the "make-opening" mentality of the carnival world fueled his resilience and how he uses "determined positivity" to navigate life's setbacks. Join us as we discuss the power of honest storytelling and the importance of treating every person with vision loss as a unique individual.
The Midway of the Mind
As a psychotherapist who works daily with the nuances of disability adjustment, I am often looking for the "bridge" between a person’s past life and their current reality with vision loss. In my recent conversation with Max Ivey, I found that bridge on a carnival midway in East Texas. Max, known to many as the "Blind Blogger," grew up in a world of Ferris wheels and cotton candy stands, but the lessons he took from that colorful environment were anything but superficial.
Conducting this interview was a reflective experience for me. As Max spoke about his family’s business, I was struck by the concept of "making opening". In the carnival world, it doesn’t matter if your truck broke down or your resources are low; success is defined by whether you are ready for the public when the gates open. As Max noted, "Your week was a failure" if you weren't open. This might sound harsh, but for Max, it became a foundational lesson in resilience. It’s a mentality that many of us in the low-vision community have to adopt: the world doesn't stop because our vision changes, and finding a way to "open" our lives each day—even when it's difficult—is an act of profound courage.
One of the most meaningful takeaways from our talk was Max’s insistence on the term "individuals with disabilities". In my practice, I see how often society tries to treat people with vision loss as a monolithic group. But Max correctly pointed out that even two people with the same diagnosis and the same technology will find different solutions to the same problems based on their unique personality and mood. He even admitted that his own orientation and mobility technique fluctuates based on his emotional state. This level of self-awareness is exactly what we strive for in the adjustment process—acknowledging that we aren't "robots" of independence, but humans navigating a spectrum of challenges.
We also explored the fine line between toxic positivity and what Max calls "determined positivity". As a counselor, I am wary of "positive vibes only" culture because it can lead to a dishonest suppression of grief. However, Max clarified that his approach is about building a habit of looking for the positive so that when the inevitable trauma hits, we have the mental infrastructure to recover. He calls this "honest storytelling"—telling ourselves the truth about our situation while also choosing to see the potential for growth.
I found Max’s story of teaching himself HTML particularly moving. Imagine going character-by-character with a screen reader to build a website in 2007, when accessibility was barely a consideration. He didn't have a choice; he needed a way to earn a living. That "no choice" moment is something many of us face after a diagnosis. It forces us to do things we never thought we could, eventually leading us to what Max’s mentor calls our "zone of genius". For Max, that genius isn't just selling carnival rides; it's inspiring others to move forward.
As we wrapped up, Max left us with a powerful question: "What is one small thing I can do today to move myself forward?". For some, that might be learning a new piece of technology; for others, it might be simply deciding to be more honest with themselves about their needs. My hope for our listeners is that they take Max’s carnival-bred resilience to heart. We may not have "literal clear eyes," as I mentioned during our chat, but we can certainly have "metaphorical clear eyes" by practicing the kind of honest storytelling Max exemplifies.
Living well with vision loss is a personal journey, and as Max says, everything we do is personal. Whether you are following someone’s shoulder or using a white cane, what matters is the quality of your life and your willingness to keep growing. Thank you, Max, for reminding us that even on the most difficult midways, there is always a way to find the light.
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In this episode of inSight Out, host Matthew Reeves sits down with Max Ivey, an author, speaker, and entrepreneur known as the "Blind Blogger". Max shares his unique upbringing in the East Texas carnival circuit, explaining how the high-stakes environment of the midway taught him creative problem-solving and the essential discipline of "making opening" regardless of life’s challenges. We delve into his transition to the digital world, where he taught himself HTML character-by-character to launch a business brokering carnival rides, eventually finding his "zone of genius" as a motivational storyteller and accessibility advocate.
Listeners will gain insight into Max’s philosophy of "honest storytelling" and why he prefers the term "individuals with disabilities" to emphasize our unique lived experiences. Max offers a candid look at the frustrations of inaccessible technology—from the early days of dial-up to the modern struggles with platform back-ends—while maintaining a grounded, "determined positivity" that avoids the pitfalls of toxic optimism. This conversation is a testament to the power of resilience and the importance of finding the "upsides" in any situation.
Whether you are navigating a new diagnosis or have been living with vision loss for years, Max’s perspective provides a practical roadmap for moving forward. He challenges the audience to identify one small thing they can do today to improve their mental or physical health, reminding us that success and failure are deeply personal definitions. This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking to build a rich, gratifying life by embracing their individual journey and the challenges that come with it.
Topics Covered: Retinitis Pigmentosa, Bardet-Biedl Syndrome, carnival culture and resilience, self-taught coding and accessibility, the Blind Blogger origin story, individual versus group identity in disability, determined positivity versus toxic positivity, honest storytelling, navigating digital inaccessibility, career transitions with vision loss.
Contact Max Ivey at theaccessibilityadvantage@gmail.com or 979-215-1770. View his site at https://www.theaccessibilityadvantage.com.
ABOUT THE PODCAST
inSight Out is your podcast home for living well with vision loss. Host Matthew Reeves (LPC CRC NCC) is a legally-blind psychotherapist and rehabilitation counselor specializing in helping people thrive while living with disability. Matthew is licensed in Georgia and is a nationally certified rehabilitation counselor.
Please be sure to subscribe to catch every episode. And remember to share the show with others in the blind and low-vision community!
CONNECT WITH US
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©Integral Mental Health Services, LLC
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The following transcript is AI generated and likely contains errors.
017 Personal Perspectives on Vision Loss with Maxwell Ivey
COLD OPEN
[00:00:00]
Max Ivey: What is one small thing I can do today to either make myself healthier, mentally, physically, emotionally, thing I can do to move myself forward? And, remember that everything we do is personal. Our decisions about, uh, our goals, how we view success, how we view failure, uh, how we choose to approach any, any given solution at any given situation is all very personal. And as you mentioned, uh, we are all, all individuals and sometimes that's difficult for others to remember.
Sometimes that's difficult for us to remember, and so I would say, uh, whatever, you know, whatever you can do to improve the quality of your life and your space with your, with your resources at the time would be a great thing to do today.
INTRO
Matthew Reeves: [00:01:00] You're listening to Insight Out a podcast about living well with low vision. Maybe you're feeling confused, scared, isolated, or disheartened about a recent vision loss diagnosis, or maybe you've been managing your vision loss for a while and now you want to hear from others about how to continue growing and thriving. Insight Out is your supportive space to find healthy and impactful tools to build and maintain a truly rich and gratifying life with low or no vision.
I'm Matthew Reeves. I'm a legally blind psychotherapist and rehabilitation counselor. I specialize in helping people adjust to disability through my practice, integral Mental Health Services in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm really glad you're listening.
Please subscribe so you don't miss an episode, and let others in the low vision community know about the podcast so the word can spread to those who might find it [00:02:00] helpful. And now on with today's discussion.
TOPIC INTRO
Alex: this is placeholder for generic voiceover.
INTERVIEW
Matthew Reeves: As is the case with every episode, I'm excited to talk about your story and, and learn from you and learn what you learned through your experience with vision loss. So thank you for being here. Why don't we get started by you introducing yourself, uh, and let our listeners know kind of who you are and what your story is.
Max Ivey: Sure. And thank you for having me on your podcast. Uh, I am Max Ivy. I'm known as the Blind Blogger. I grew up in a family of carnival owners in East Texas, in the Houston area. I also grew up knowing from a fairly early age that I would lose most, if not all, of my vision to retinitis pigmentosa. Recently found out that my RP diagnosis that I've lived with for, 40 years now or more, was incorrect. That, uh, genetics testing now tells me I [00:03:00] have bartle Beetles syndrome, which we can talk about if you wanna know any more about that.
Matthew Reeves: Sure.
Max Ivey: because of, uh, positive influences from fa, friends, family members, teachers, scoutmaster. People I've met along the way. I graduated from a traditional high school and college. one of the few blind Eagle Scouts, uh, participated in our family's carnival business until my dad passed away in 2003. And over that next three or four years, I started a business brokering, used amusement park and carnival rides on online.
And uh, the first thing I had to do was build a website. In the 2007, accessibility was even less a thing than it is now. So I had to teach myself the code, HTML to get that website online. I had to learn to do a lot of other things and people were inspired by my actions. They asked me to share more about being a blind entrepreneur, and that led to a second website as the Blind [00:04:00] Blogger, which was a name people were using for me online because back then most people with disabilities were hiding their disability. And since I wasn't, I stood out and was memorable and got a good nickname. Uh, I've written books, traveled the country solo, spoken at conferences, written in sung songs, uh. I working in accessibility as the founder of the Accessibility Advantage, focusing on the positive benefits of spending all the time focused on compliance, uh, negative publicity and legal actions. And just continuing to learn more about life and try to share what I've learned with other people, whether that's about motivation or accessibility. And I've been out here online for almost 20 years. And I feel like the fact that I'm just, that I'm still here and still growing and [00:05:00] still getting better and becoming more successful at the things I do is, uh, one of the best proofs I have that I'm doing it right.
Matthew Reeves: Well that is. Is a lot of story you tell it you.
Max Ivey: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: Well, there's a lot to unpack there.
Max Ivey: More than
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
Max Ivey: told, you know, max, uh, we've heard that in Texas that people, uh, have these characters that are larger than life that you, uh, sometimes stretch credulity, you know?
Matthew Reeves: Starting with, uh, your, your upbringing in the carnival space, that's such a storied, almost mythical. Uh, kind of upbringing and culture to live in. I gotta ask about that, even if, whether it's directly connected to vision loss or not. I'm just too curious to not ask what was that like?
Max Ivey: Right. So, um, I think it was connected to my vision loss in some way, and I also think it's connected to a lot of the lessons [00:06:00] that I have to share with people. Um, first off, I was part of a family that did that for a living, uh, out of my, my grandfather had six kids and out of those six, of them operated carnivals in the Houston area at one time.
Matthew Reeves: Wow.
Max Ivey: uh. And pretty much everybody in the family, even those who didn't end up working in the business full time, have worked in the business during the summers or the weekends or something. And, um, interestingly enough for me, there, there's only two parts of that six that are, that are what I would call, uh, wildly successful today. Um, one was a. Surveyor who married my aunt who was in the business, and the other, my uncle, his grandkids now operate one of the largest carnivals in America. I, I like to joke that the Wagner side of the [00:07:00] family won the Monopoly game because they got all the stuff, you know.
Matthew Reeves: And now they
Max Ivey: Well.
Matthew Reeves: carnival.
Max Ivey: Yes, yes. We're the rest of us are all out of the business, are working for them.
They're still going and they travel. They travel every week of the year from Corpus Christi to Minnesota and back. And they own millions upon millions of dollars of equipment. So they're very successful.
Matthew Reeves: Ah.
Max Ivey: um, as I started to lose my vision, gradually it was thought. The best place for Max would be to put him to work somewhere so that he isn't out on the midway, because it really doesn't take a lot on a carnival midway to start a brawl. It can, you know, if you just bump into somebody and cause 'em to spill their beer, it could be the beginning of a fight. So the idea was we need to put Max to work somewhere. Where he won't be, he won't get hurt, but he won't and won't be in the way. So [00:08:00] they, uh, at five years old, I was working in my grandmother's cotton candy stand, and then the equipment was really unsafe.
We had.
Matthew Reeves: Hmm.
Max Ivey: Uh, the snow cones and I, I don't even know if they sell snow cones on Midways anymore. I haven't been on one in so long. Um,
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
Max Ivey: you, back then, you bought ice in blocks and the blocks had to be chipped with an ice pick, so I wasn't allowed to pick, I wasn't allowed to break up the ice. And back then the Snow C machine had a huge wide mouth grinder that you fed the ice into.
Matthew Reeves: Hmm.
Max Ivey: I wasn't allowed to do that either, but I was allowed to scoop the ice and pour the syrup on the snow cones, and I was really good at that. And you make a lot more snow cones than you grind ice. So that worked. And uh, same thing with the popcorn. you know, it was a big, huge bucket thing. So I boxed the popcorn and I put the butter on it, and I did whatever other, uh, dirty grunt type cha uh, jobs that my [00:09:00] grandmother wanted me to do. And I got paid nothing or quarters occasionally. So, that was, and as I got older and my vision got worse, um, people don't like to, don't like seeing people using their hands, making their snow cones or, fixing their food.
So I then moved on to some games um. Went away to college. And when I came back from college, I went from running other people's games to running my own games when I was on the midway. But the thing about back then, and I, I really feel like my family's approach to my vision loss is different than a lot of people's because of the work we did.
Because see in the carnival business, there is really only one judge as to how successful you are. Yeah, you wanna make money at the end of the week, but the most important thing, and you earned this from a very early age, the most important thing is do you make opening? [00:10:00] Because if you're not open on Thursday or Friday night, if people can't ride the Ferris wheel, buy a P cake and try to win a stuffed animal.
Your week was a failure.
Matthew Reeves: Hmm.
Max Ivey: And along the way, you also learn. Nobody cares about what's going on in your life. They could really care less. If you have a sick child, a broken truck, a generator that needs thousands of dollars, they really don't care. You know, it's just, can you supply our needs? Get open. Let us have a good time at our once a year festival. you know, you realize you're not gonna have the resources. Things aren't gonna go the way you want 'em to do. So you have to find creative solutions. You have to be willing to do things you don't like, and you have to be really good at finding the positive and bad situations. And these are all things that have served me well through my life as an online entrepreneur.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah. Especially, and, and with a disability. Yeah. To, to say this is.
Max Ivey: know. [00:11:00] You know, it's important you said that because sometimes I forget and I under-emphasize the challenges of doing this with a disability, and then I do things like me and you were sitting here about to record and you're going through your checklist and we're trying to figure out why the audio is not the right. And these are all things that you're even, I mean, you know the old phrase, in the country of the blind, a man with one eye is the king. I'm almost totally blind. I depend on the screener. You have some vision, um, I'm
Matthew Reeves: Right.
Max Ivey: using screen magnifier. You actually were able to navigate the challenges of the technology, of recording this better than I would be able to.
So yeah, I sometimes gloss over because I've just gotten so used to finding a way to get. Things done, and I'm just not the kind of person who likes to complain and whine and moan about how bad things are. But here lately, um, I'm just finding more and more technological challenges, uh, [00:12:00] of software and other tools that I'm noticing.
I'm complaining or I'm pointing out shortcomings and other people's creations much more often.
Matthew Reeves: You know, I think to go, just to rewind a little bit, I think you're, you're raising a really valuable point about how we're. Uh, pretty much everybody listening to this podcast, I assume is, is dealing with disability in, in terms of vision loss and maybe multiple disabilities, maybe in multiple domains. But this is a, this is made for, for that community.
And we're all at different places. We're not monolithic. Um, we're not, everybody's story is unique. Um, and that means the different tools work well for different people. And, uh, and, and figuring out what's, what the right solution is for every individual is important. I think you even put that in, uh, something that you wrote to me, that you prefer the term individuals with disabilities, uh, as opposed to people with disabilities because it [00:13:00] emphasizes that unique, that unique story.
Max Ivey: And, you know, this is one of the things that I feel, uh, having to code my own website for five years before I switched to WordPress, I feel like really gave me. Empathy for just how challenging things are because people with disabilities, individuals with a disability, or people who are differently abled, however you wanna say it.
I like, I'm a writer and a storyteller at heart, so I don't like to use the same words over and over again. the point of it is, is we are, and I think the autism people nailed this, the whole idea of a spectrum.
Matthew Reeves: Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Max Ivey: are all different. We have different levels. We have different disabilities, multiple disabilities in some cases, like you said.
And the research is starting to show that the number of people with multiple di disabilities is much higher than we thought it was. Um, the number, uh, the, the, the level of, or of the. The effect of the disability on somebody, technology that's [00:14:00] available to them, their comfort level with the technology.
But here's the interesting thing, and you could have a, we could be identical. We could be twins with the exact same technology and, uh, education level with our technology. We would still most likely find different solutions for the same problem, given all the
Matthew Reeves: Yep.
Max Ivey: uh, things being equal.
Matthew Reeves: Yep. I couldn't agree more.
Max Ivey: yeah, because we're individuals
Matthew Reeves: Right.
Max Ivey: and we really have to start emphasizing that more.
The, the problem with that is the world at large wants to see us as a group so that they can deal with this easier.
Matthew Reeves: Yes. Uh, yeah, I, I absolutely agree with that. I even, I even notice how, um, to your point, I don't even have to be a twin with myself to run that experiment. I can see how. In different moments, in different moods. Sometimes I might use a screen reader and sometimes I might use a magnifier.
Max Ivey: [00:15:00] Yes, yes.
Matthew Reeves: yeah. Uh
Max Ivey: when I was in high school and I had been using a white cane since junior high, so we're talking five or six years, um, who knew me well would go, okay, max, you're having a bad day today. And I would go, how do you know I'm having a bad
Matthew Reeves: hmm.
Max Ivey: They would say, because I can tell.
I can tell you're having a bad day based on the quality of your cane technique.
Matthew Reeves: Wow.
Max Ivey: On
Matthew Reeves: How did, was that surprising to you that other people were noticing that?
Max Ivey: It was at first, but then it made total sense, you know? Um, but it was basically, you know, your cane is just another tool. And so, you know, when you're a really good space, you may be more independent or you may be more dependent depending on the way you're built. And, uh, so days when I didn't feel, you know, real good, uh, my. My cane would, technique would be poorer and I would run into more people [00:16:00] or, uh, knock more things over. So, uh, you know, to your point, it's not even, it, it, it is, it's, it's our mood. It's the circumstances. know, I, I used to be really down on the fact that I am not a Uber independent blind person. Um, until the state of Texas assigned me an o and m instructor who after being around me a while, she said, max, I figured this out. You're what I like to call a problem solver.
Matthew Reeves: Hmm.
Max Ivey: she basically said, you really don't care how you get from point A to point B. You are just as happy. following somebody's shoulder as you are using your cane or using a travel app, said you're really more about your enjoyment or or ease of the experience to get there.
And, and I'm, and I was happy to finally find somebody who is in the educational [00:17:00] side of our, of our world say that because, you know, for the most part, we're taught to be very independent. Uh,
Matthew Reeves: Right, and, and. I feel like we're also taught very often, like there is a correct way to do it and an incorrect way to do it. And, and just, and just to take a little sidebar, I just want to clarify for the audience who may not know, o and M stands for orientation and mobility, and if you wanna learn more about that, we, we've got an earlier episode where we talk within o and m instructor, so just throw that out there if anybody's interested.
But yeah, there's that right way, wrong way. And this instructor was really saying, Hey Max, it's an asset to you that. What works for you?
Max Ivey: Yep. Yep. But you know, as well as I do there, because of the, because of the schools that teach the orientation and mobility instructors, or that teach the independent living skills instructors, there is a right way and a wrong way. And for, for [00:18:00] most of the people I've been exposed to in my lifetime, I was generally doing it the wrong way.
Matthew Reeves: I, I used to be in a position where I would be teaching young people, um, in a professional environment how to do certain things, kind of highly technical things and um, and sometimes artistic things. Um, and. What I would like to explain to them is, I'm gonna teach you the technical right way to do this, but you're going to see me violate this from time to time.
And that's 'cause I've got a lot of experience. So I know, uh, when it's okay and when I'm, when it's not gonna bite me. Uh, so it's really about, I think learning a foundational skill and then knowing how to adapt it for your own purposes. So that, that's what I'm hearing from you and I love it.
Max Ivey: Right, right. Kinda like a, kind of like a, an early musician. You have to learn the technical skills. You have to learn the scales. You have to learn other people's music before you get to the point where you can safely improv, improv.[00:19:00]
Matthew Reeves: Yeah. Yeah, that's a great metaphor. Uh, that's, that's fantastic. Thank you. So, uh, tell me about how you transitioned from, uh, living in other people's worlds professionally, whether it's the carnival or even academia, college. And then what came next and, and building your own and becoming the blind blogger, I guess, is that that part of the story?
Max Ivey: Yeah, so, um, a lot of people. Point to me as an example of somebody who has pivoted on his, his own, or somebody who has decided to do other things, somebody who has, um, taken, you know, has, um, decided to do and, I guess. In the, all the way down since I have decided, but most of what I've done over the last 20 years has started with somebody saying, you know, max, I think you'd be really good at this.
Or Max, um, I wonder if you would try this [00:20:00] or Max you, there's no way you could do this. It really all started with a moment where it was like, I didn't feel like I had another choice and I, I really feel like I should explain, uh, um, something my dad used to say. 'cause I feel like it applies here.
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
Max Ivey: Uh, we were, we were a small carnival, we were a small family, our individual show, a lot of times we would get to the next town, usually me and him bringing in the last piece of equipment. And somebody would ask us how we managed to do it. You know, how did y'all get that? 900 pound moonwalk on the truck by yourselves without any mechanical, uh, aids, you know, stuff like, my dad would always smile and say, what did we have a choice? So in 2007, um, my family's carnival was out of business.
My kids' games were not able to make me a living on my uncle's midway. 'cause after we sold our [00:21:00] stuff, we joined up with his show. Uh, I didn't have the money to invest in something newer that might compete with the games on a large midway. know, uh, my stuff worked fine on the show with seven rides, but not so good on a show with 25 rides at that time. And my credit was horrible, so nobody was gonna loan me the money to say, by a ski ball or, or, or something like that. And so I finally figured, I figured out, well there, I've gotta do something. What do I do? And the only thing that I felt like I knew how to do was to help other people sell their rides.
Because when my dad was alive, the only way we were able to buy newer stuff is we had to sell the older stuff and. This is before I discovered all this stuff about being online. I felt like, you know, we, me and him used to do this all the time. I can probably do that. And by the way, I don't know anything else I can do. This is how I was thinking at the time. [00:22:00] The really cool thing is 20 years later, I've realized I'm at the point now where I've done so many different things that I never thought I could do or would do that now I have to tell myself not to do stuff. You know, I have to get, now I have to focus, focus, focus as my business mentor likes to tell me because, um, you know, there are many things I've discovered I'm competent at.
And he sent me a great book last year that really changed my thinking on a lot of stuff. It's called The Zone of Genius. Uh, and he, and because he was trying to get me to understand that over the years, I have discovered many things that I am competent at. the only way you become successful long time is to focus on the things you are a genius at.
Matthew Reeves: Hmm.
Max Ivey: um, back, but back then, I really didn't feel like I had anything else I could do. So I, I started helping people sell their used rides. They thought I was going to quickly realized I was gonna have to have a website. And I joined some forums online and asked a bunch of questions and [00:23:00] eventually was told, you know, max, if you would just go somewhere and, and try to learn a little bit about coding a website, then you could come back and ask us some smart questions, which obviously implied the questions I was asking.
Were stupid ones, you know.
Matthew Reeves: That that is the implication.
Max Ivey: Yes.
Matthew Reeves: I dunno if it's true or not, but that's.
Max Ivey: and it didn't make me mad 'cause I could, I could see that they were right. So I, I then asked, well, where do I go to learn about coding my own website? And they told me to go to the W three C School, which recently learned has now transitioned from not just teaching people or having tutorials so people can teach themselves to build websites, but also tutorials so people can teach themselves to build accessible websites.
So I really need to go back and. some of that stuff. Thankfully, I depend on WordPress and other site building tools now, so I don't have to know coding anymore. But, uh, so I did and I went to the W three C and I, um, I, you know, [00:24:00] I, I, I basically. Uh, went character by character on my screener to see what, uh, you were supposed to do.
And then I did that. I did that thousands, if not millions of times to build pages and links and add images and later embed video. And, um. You know, create texts. I did, you know, all the basic stuff that makes a website go. My website was not accessible, I don't think still out there because the Midway marketplace where I used to spend all my time helping people sell used rides is part of my origin story.
So I can't bring myself to close it, but I don't do a lot with it. Um, I've actually had a couple people ask me if I would sell it and I had to tell 'em, no, I'm not going to sell it. So, um. There was one interesting thing that happened. Uh, that's one of, it's one of my favorite stories to tell because when I was building that first website, uh, I got to the point where I needed to choose the colors for my [00:25:00] website.
Now, I didn't have the, the vision to look and see what the colors would look like on the screen. Um, and I didn't have any way of knowing what the, there's a, there's a, each color has a number. It's called a hexa decimal. Number for each color, and I had no way of knowing what those numbers meant. So I decided to just use the color names, which is an option in building a website. And since, and I decided to go with yellow from my background because back when I could still see the toys on the midway, I always look better on yellow than white.
Matthew Reeves: Okay.
Max Ivey: I decided to go. I decided to go with Blue with my text and red for my link text and orange for previously clicked link text and
Matthew Reeves: This is getting very colorful.
Max Ivey: Yes. Well, hey was, uh, it was a amusement, it was a, it was a website for the amusement industry. And so I
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
Max Ivey: let's go bowl. Um, but
Matthew Reeves: Right, right.
Max Ivey: So later on I would [00:26:00] find out that the yellow was a ice creaming yellow. The blue was a dark navy. The red was a dark brick. orange was a fluorescent orange, like something you'd see on the side of a NASCAR vehicle. And basically my website was very bright. More than once I've been told, you know, max Ray, Charles and Stevie Wonder could argue over your website. You know, it was, it was, bad. I've just recently gotten to where I can tell that joke and with, with other people who are visually impaired. I used to be, I used to shy away from telling that joke.
Um, spoke at a conference where I don't usually use slides when I speak because I like to focus on my message in my audience. But, I was having a conversation in the green room before a talk at Ward Camp New York in 2018, and, and woman said. A woman looked up my, my website on uh, archive.org, which is, you know, they call it the way back machine.
You can look and see what things were years ago. And she looked it up and she said, max, this is [00:27:00] hilarious. She said, it's, I said, I said, she said, would you like me to put it up during your talk? I said, I don't usually use slides, but Sure, go for it. And when I introduced the slide, I said, look, this is very bright. You probably don't wanna look directly into the screen and you might wanna put on your sunglasses. You know, it's. It
Matthew Reeves: Uh, well, in the early days of the web, a lot of sites looked like that.
Max Ivey: yes, yes. But if anybody wants to look at the midway@midwaymarketplace.com from 2008, you know, uh, and so, uh, but, but here's the thing. It did what it needed to do, which was display equipment so people could see it, decide they wanted it, and they'd contact me about buying it. And as a result, I sold, uh, thousands of dollars of rides on five continents before realizing that I had more to offer the world than selling used rides.
Matthew Reeves: Hmm. Can I ask you a question? I wanna rewind a little bit. Uh, you were talking about learning to code and the, the challenge of basically going character by [00:28:00] character with a screen reader trying to find. Minutia. I mean, really any, any typo will break a code
Max Ivey: yes.
Matthew Reeves: that sounds like, uh, you know, with that level of detail and that tedious of a process, there had to be some moments where that was discouraging or you had a bad day.
How did you handle that?
Max Ivey: Actually, my worst days were not caused by the code. My worst days were caused by, um, by the fact that back then the internet was not what it is now. You know, I, I, for the first couple years I ran my website from a 56 K mode.
Matthew Reeves: Mm-hmm.
Max Ivey: And, uh, and sometimes, uh, I would have, I would occasionally, I'd have to, I'd still have to travel with the show and sometimes I ran my website from a 300 bo, uh, wireless, uh, modem from Sprint that, you know, they're no longer sprint, if that tells you
Matthew Reeves: Right. Yeah.
Max Ivey: And, and the, [00:29:00] so here's the thing. Um, if you upload a website and the speed drops or the connection drops, can temporarily remove the page you were working from, from your website. And if you're uploading your homepage, entire site could be offline because, um. Your, your internet, uh, speed prevented it from being properly updated.
And so that was very aggravating. as far as the code, you know, you get. You know, you get so good at like, uh, I'm sure you've, you've probably met people who crochet or, uh, cross stitch or needle point.
Matthew Reeves: Sure.
Max Ivey: of those people just get so good at it that, um, they can feel they're making a mistake even before they see that they've made a mistake.
And you, you get to that point with code when you write, know, as many lines of it as I wrote. You get to the point where you can almost feel when you've made a mistake or you can sense it and. [00:30:00] After you do it long enough, once you've uploaded the page, you can go, you can, you can often judge by what's not working as to where on the page you have to look for that error. Um, images used to be a bigger problem than they are now, and, uh, adding files used to be a bigger problem because the early days of the internet, the file name had to be exactly right. It couldn't have spaces in it, it couldn't have certain, uh, special characters as they call 'em now. And when
Matthew Reeves: Right.
Max Ivey: passwords and the. Whatever. Say for example, if you were embedding an image, whatever the, the actual file name was for that image, had to be the exact same as what you put in to the uh, uh, put into your HTML code. And if it differed by even one character, as you say, then you wouldn't have an image or. [00:31:00] Um, you would have a, a blank space in your image or where the
Matthew Reeves: Right.
Max Ivey: be.
Or as friends of mine on, on social media would call 'em, I actually, you did something wrong. You got another one that had black holes in your page. So,
Matthew Reeves: They were just very fiddly, very finicky,
Max Ivey: yes,
Matthew Reeves: is, yeah.
Max Ivey: You know, but I, um, I have a brother who also learned to code about the same time I was, 'cause he wanted to be able to help me if he could. And plus he's just one of those people. He likes to learn stuff about anything technical, mechanical, electrical. You know, he, like to tell people he has an additional gene that the rest of us don't have. 'cause he can almost talk to this stuff, you know.
Matthew Reeves: Right.
Max Ivey: he said, you know, max, it's, it's really a push.
And I go, what do you mean? He said, well, I'm sure you get tired of listening for, you know, of to go one character at a time with your screen reader. He said, but man, if you're [00:32:00] looking at the screen with your eyes, sometimes those less than and greater than start looking like rhombus. So,
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
Max Ivey: know, like, like a lot of things with, with vision loss and, and doing things with screeners.
You know, a lot of times it is a 50 50 proposition. It's things are harder, but then some things may be easier. Um, of my favorite examples of this is, um, a person who has almost no vision like I do. Okay? If I go to the beach, I can't appreciate the men or women wearing swimsuits, but. I can't be exposed to pe to the men and women who shouldn't be wearing a swimsuit.
Matthew Reeves: So you're finding the upsides.
Max Ivey: Yeah. Yeah. that's one of those things my dad and others around me taught me to do is to find the, find the upsides, to find the positive. Um, you know, I didn't realize until I started working for myself in a field where you're pretty much isolated a lot of the time that. And where there's a lot of [00:33:00] challenges that you just mentioned. I didn't realize how much I would need this, uh, this training that I had been through over, you know, 15 years in the Carnival Carnival business to find the positive. And I often say that most people who are really, really good at resilience are usually people who have experienced a lot of challenges and setbacks, and they have. as, as I like to say, I've spent a lot of time on my backside looking up at where the sky is or where it should be, then having to get myself up again, you know?
Matthew Reeves: Yeah. Yeah, I, it's absolutely in my experience. A hundred percent true that we just don't grow without challenges. Uh, and so the challenges are essential for, for resilience. And that being said, you know, we find, we, I, I love the, the positive message. I also know there's such a thing as toxic positivity.
'cause sometimes we get so positive that we become dishonest about the bad days and about the challenges and the struggles. How [00:34:00] do you reconcile that emotional honesty and the, the, and looking for the positive?
Max Ivey: So, um, I like to talk about something I call determined positivity, which I don't feel is toxic because I always start off by saying I'm not telling people to ignore. Um, negative situations when they actually exist. I'm not telling people to ignore trauma, I'm just saying that if they cultivate a habit of finding the positive, then when they do suffer a real setback, they can recover from it more quickly and hopefully avoid the deep depression that sometimes afflicts people. often rightfully so, but. As people, we, we live in a world where we don't have the luxury of spending a lifetime recovering from those setbacks. So I, I, and I also talk a lot about honest storytelling. I hate to use the word authentic because it's been [00:35:00] overused to the point that it's about as meaningless as woke anymore. just my opinion. Authentic is a word that generally coaches use more than real people. I feel like all honest storytelling. To yourself as well as to others. And I feel like if you, if you build a habit of honest storytelling, then you are going to be more likely to tell yourself stories that are real, that are exist in, in the actuality of your life.
So when I talk about finding the positive, I'm talking about creating a habit of looking for, looking for positive things. People experiences that happened throughout the course of your day or that have happened in the past? Um, and it
Matthew Reeves: of, of honest storytelling that you can, uh, give us to make it practical in your life?
Max Ivey: sure. So like, um, honest storytelling would be a [00:36:00] few years ago when. I decided to book three speaking events in other cities, after the first one, uh, found myself, uh, broke and about to be homeless in New York City and realized, you know, max, the story you're telling yourself is that you are, um, much more. and loved online, and that that will translate to in person, and that that will translate to, uh, to selling books or getting hired. And then in the future you really can't, uh, depend on that. So from now on, you really need to make sure somebody is covering your expenses that there's a set amount of income that's been generated before you ever even leave the house, you know?
So I realized that. I was being overly optimistic about my potential had to, to revise [00:37:00] my opinion by telling myself some honest stories,
Matthew Reeves: I think it's worth pointing out that that's a situation where the honest storytelling would serve anybody. Vision impairment or not. The, that's just a question of having. Clear, metaphorical, clear eyes, whether or not you have literal clear eyes or not.
Max Ivey: Well that's, and that's something I I wanna ask you about. Um, I quite often people talk to me about how, um, being somebody with vision loss that I spend more time in contemplation than the average person. And then I'm probably more self-aware because of my vision loss. And that's one of those things where. Uh, and some days I'm like, yeah, you're right. And on other days I'm like, I don't know. I'll have to ask my blind friends if that's ableism.
Matthew Reeves: You know the first thing that comes. In my mind when you say that is, I, I don't know that it's about vision loss. I think it's about what we were talking about before, that [00:38:00] challenges build growth, but that the bridge between the challenge and the growth is insight and, and taking, taking it slow enough to figure out what you, what lesson you need to learn, uh, from the challenge.
So whether that challenge is vision loss or. A thousand other things. Uh, I think it's, I think that's, that's, that is the platform that we stand on. That's the experience that we go through to, to either look inside of ourselves and, and figure out what lesson we can learn or choose not to and ignore it and, and have that less honest storytelling.
But if the honest storytelling happens, then we can turn that into resilience and strength. So I think that's a great point.
Max Ivey: Yeah, so it could just be that. Um, the lifestyle that many of us with vision loss or other disabilities leads lead. My engli, my, my, uh, my book editor will help me figure out, which I should have said there later, [00:39:00] um, that, uh, because of our lifestyles, that we tend to either have or give ourselves more time for contemplation to better understand these things when they happen.
Matthew Reeves: Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I don't wanna lose track of the, the thread, the storytelling part of it. Tell me how you became the, the, uh, the blind blogger. Tell me how did it go from this carnival website into the next phase?
Max Ivey: Right, right. So basically as I am building the Midway marketplace, I'm having to do difficult things on a daily basis or regular basis as a blind person. And as I said back then, many people with disabilities were hiding their challenges online because they were afraid of being stigmatized and having the internet just be one more place that they weren't going to be accepted or successful. Because of their disability and me being the son of Carnival owners and a promoter at heart, I just really thought about not being [00:40:00] open online and letting people see who I was, the things I was trying to do, the experiences I was having, the the positive and the negatives, and. Also in during the course of selling a particular piece of equipment, I shared about that on the Midway Marketplace blog and was reminded that people in the amusement industry are not really all that open as a community We. Are territorial because we're all as a community, and I guess I shouldn't say we anymore 'cause I am not really an active carnival operator or even a fairly active broker. Um, there is always the belief that information is dangerous to you because it can be used against you by your competitors. So. Um, that kind of made me think I need to have another website where I can share about the experiences and people have been asking me to do it. But I'd say the most important thing [00:41:00] that really caused that to happen was, um, a friend of mine named Harlene Singh was starting a new community-based website at Aha Now, which I think is now.com, and I'm pretty sure it's still out there as c. Well starting this new website, she wanted to make sure the community worked and she also wanted to generate traffic to it in the first month. So she said anybody that who, whoever get, whoever did the most stuff on the community based site during the first month would get a free guest post on her website. And being a blind person using a screen reader, I tried out everything to see if it was gonna work at all, much less if I would enjoy using it. At the end of the month, I won the guest post, and me and her, um, she's in Indiana, I'm in Houston. So we're, we're sending emails back and forth, coming up with this blog post in the middle of the night. My time. And it comes, it eventually gets [00:42:00] published. It's titled, uh, life Lessons from a Blind Blogger. And that post, very honest post got, uh, over a hundred comments. And when I say it got over a hundred comments, not saying it got a hundred comments, like, post, very inspirational. You know, the usual stuff you see in most, saying it got. A hundred comments and I would say 75 or 80 of them were, detailed, thoughtful comments
Matthew Reeves: en engaged comments. Yeah.
Max Ivey: comments.
Exactly. And, you know, reading the comments, um, seeing the amount of traffic that the post generated and realizing this is something I've been talking about in internally for a while. Um, that was what caused me to PO finally launch the website, and the first post on the website is titled, think I'm ready to be an inspiration.
Matthew Reeves: Hmm.[00:43:00]
Max Ivey: Yeah. And finally started The Blind Blogger. And as from from there, you know, that's when I started writing the books. the first book I wrote is called Leading You Out of The Darkness Into the Light. That book started somebody dared me to write a book in 30 days for a virtual summit to promote my website. And the summit fell through, but I kept writing the book and eventually it got published. And of course it's self-published with the help of my editor because for anybody who's visually impaired, that's publishing, if you don't already know what you should. Amazon website is a nightmare that should be sued out of business.
No, I didn't say that. I'm a former carnival owner and we, we hate suing people, but it is, it is a very inaccessible website on the back end to the point that I don't even look at my sales on their website as wait to get my check, you know?
Matthew Reeves: It's that difficult.
Max Ivey: is that bad. Yeah. [00:44:00] But,
Matthew Reeves: Yeah.
Max Ivey: so we, like I say, the fir the website started because of the blog post.
I finally was put, finally pushed myself to start the website, and it's been, I've been really happy that I did it. the book started on a dare and it's turned out to be a, a really good book. Um. I think I should probably do a second edition of it. The, the only thing that I, that I'm disappointed with by that first book I didn't submit it to the, any of the libraries for the blind during the period, because I don't know about outside the us but I know in the US I, uh, I was told at the time that. If it didn't get selected in its first year, it wasn't eligible to be selected unless I did a, a later edition of the same book. So, so far I've published four books and I feel like my New York City book was, was an excellent book and none of them have been recorded in audio, uh, by any of the libraries for the bond.[00:45:00]
I did pay to have my first book recorded. So at least I have one of my books available on audio, which is, which is good. 'cause as a blind writer, I get asked all the time if my books are available on audio, and I usually have to tell 'em, no they're not.
Matthew Reeves: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's, it's an extra burden, uh, financial burden to get, to get things. Uh, narrated AI might reduce that a bit, but I'm also a little skeptical about AI becoming a narrator. 'cause I, 'cause I think as a, as a, a reader of audio books, I really appreciate a talented narrator. So I don't really want that to go away.
Uh,
Max Ivey: I,
Matthew Reeves: but yeah.
Max Ivey: with you completely. There's a reason why we have rating systems for the narrators, for the library services for the blind. You know, there's,
Matthew Reeves: Right.
Max Ivey: there's a reason why there's now a website to rate the audio describers for movies and television shows, because it does matter. And, know, that's the really cool thing we're finding out about a, about ai.
AI doesn't. At least from what I'm seeing, [00:46:00] AI is not going to do away with storytellers. In fact, it's gonna make those of us who can generate real emotion, whether that's a narrator
Matthew Reeves: Hmm.
Max Ivey: writer, or an actor, going to make us even more valuable. 'cause there are some things AI just can't do.
Matthew Reeves: AI doesn't know the difference between honest storytelling and dishonest storytelling. It does. Has no sense of authenticity
Max Ivey: This is true.
Matthew Reeves: in.
Max Ivey: is true. This is true. And as an accessibility person, I recently, uh, I was doing a podcast recently, and when I read the dis the show notes, I, I was like, man, this host really nailed it. He said, Mr. Ivy says AI currently does nothing but AI is, AI currently isn't creating accessibility.
It's creating inaccessibility at scale.
Matthew Reeves: Oh, inaccessibility at scale. Wow. Yeah, that's it. That really resonates with. The word slop, that it's, it's just a [00:47:00] whole lot of slop. Yeah. Um, I think it's, I use it as a tool, full disclosure, no question. I use it as a tool, but I never, without reviewing it, uh, just to make sure it's, it's getting it right,
Max Ivey: Hey, I'm gonna
Matthew Reeves: but yeah.
Max Ivey: All right. So I recently, I, I tried chat GPT last year. I did not like it. I don't consider the use of it accessible, but, um, because of, you know, I was recently, somebody said, max, you know, you didn't like chat, GPT, you, you it's like ice cream. If you don't like vanilla, try chocolate.
So. taught me to try and Claude, and I've been using Claude now for a few days and I'm really enjoying it. But Claude said, has said two things to me in the last couple of days that really fit into what we're talking about here. One was, um, it, I asked it to create an email or to give me a suggestion for an email to a, to a company.
I was gonna pitch as a potential client. And after it gave it to me, I replied [00:48:00] back. I said, I appreciate this, but I had to adjust this to be, to make it fit in, in with my voice, how I speak and write. his response was, that's exactly the way you're supposed to do it. And later on I asked it, I said, well, this web, this website that we've just been working on, is it accessible right now?
And it, and, and Claude said, well, I can tell you if it meets the current WCAG, uh, guidelines, but you are an active, adaptive technology user who's been using screen readers for over 20 years. You would know far better than I would, whether this is actually.
Matthew Reeves: Hmm.
Max Ivey: Something that would be enjoyable or usable based on how somebody with vision loss actually navigates the internet.
And I was like, these are two very important things that I did not expect to hear from Claude or any of
Matthew Reeves: Yeah. Yeah. To, to its credit. It, it did seem to nail those two [00:49:00] responses.
Max Ivey: Yeah.
Matthew Reeves: Well, that's, that's very cool. And, and so the Blind Blogger took you into the world that, that you've touched on. I don't think we have time to fully unpack it as a speaker and as a published author and, and all of that. But you are now, so you are now kind of your presence online is.
Exactly what you've been talking about here, kind of talking to people and letting 'em know what the experience of low vision is and how it fits into who you are as a whole person. Uh, and hopefully letting other people see that they are whole people too, and not defined just by vision loss. So I'm grateful for that.
Max Ivey: Right. And I appreciate that and I, and I'm, and I, I feel better about, um, what I've done after we've been talking together. Because when you're, when you accept the name, like the Blind Blogger, um, you know, some people are gonna feel like the vision loss is more of who I am than who I am or what I [00:50:00] do.
But as you've mentioned, there's a lot to max and. Uh, the other thing about the blind blogger is, is knowing that over time, my being open about my vision loss so many more people to become comfortable about being open with their disability online, to the point where nowadays can't go five minutes online without running across a website, a social media profile, a post, a text message, whatever that references somebody's disability.
Either in text or in images like emojis, stickers, you know, it's, it's, uh, gratifying to see that accepting a name that I really didn't understand at the time has, uh, benefited so many other people. If, even if in a very small level.
Matthew Reeves: Well, we're grateful. Grateful for your contribution to the community, both the community of people with vision loss and the people outside of that who need to learn about who we are [00:51:00] and not make free, not make, uh, uh, assumptions. So that's great. Is there, or
Max Ivey: and you know,
Matthew Reeves: I'm sorry, go ahead.
Max Ivey: and you know, you said, appreciate my contribution to the community. That's one of those phrases, even now when I hear that, I'm like, um, there must be somebody sitting behind me or something. You know what I mean? It's
Matthew Reeves: we all make, we all make a contribution. It is hard to see the forest for the trees from time to time, but, uh, we're, we're, we are all making a contribution, whether it is. Toxic or healthy is a separate question. Uh, but you're making a, a dis a concerted effort to be healthy for our community and I I do appreciate that.
Uh, before we wrap up, is there anything else that, that you'd like to share with, with anybody who might be listening?
Max Ivey: Um, I would say that. They're really, I've done what I've done because I continue to move forward. I've taken on new challenges. I've found solutions either of my own or by asking [00:52:00] other people for help. I would say if there's something in your life you've been thinking about doing, then hopefully listening to us for a little while has encouraged you the. This 20 year journey that I've been on started by making one decision of following for a domain name, even though I didn't know how I was gonna build the website to go along with it. So I just really, I just really hope people will ask themselves is what is one small thing I can do today to either make myself healthier? Mentally, physically, emotionally, thing I can do to move myself forward. And, remember that everything we do is personal. Our decisions about, uh, our goals, how we view success, how we view failure. Uh, how we choose to approach any, any given solution at any given situation is all very personal. And as you mentioned, uh, we are all, all individuals and [00:53:00] sometimes that's difficult for others to remember.
Sometimes that's difficult for us to remember, and so I would say, uh, whatever, you know, whatever you can do. To improve the quality of your life and your space with your, with your resources at the time. would be a great thing to do today.
Matthew Reeves: Hmm. What a great message to end on. I will wrap it up there and leave. Leave it there for today. I'm really grateful for the conversation. Thanks so much.
Max Ivey: Well, thanks so much for having me, and I apologize for being so long-winded that you didn't get to
Matthew Reeves: Not
Max Ivey: get to.
Matthew Reeves: Oh, not at all. Not at all. It was a great conversation. Thank you.
Max Ivey: Thank you.
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Alex: This is placeholder for generic voiceover.
OUTRO
Matthew Reeves: Thanks for joining us for this episode of Insight Out. You are the reason this podcast exists and we'd love to hear from you. You can leave us a voice message at [00:54:00] speakpipe.com/insightoutpod. That's speakpipe.com/insightoutpod. There, you can share your thoughts about today's conversation, suggest a topic for a future episode, or tell us about your experience living with vision loss. Again, that's speakpipe.com/insightoutpod.
Insight Out is produced by Integral Mental Health Services, my private practice that offers psychotherapy for adults in Georgia and disability adjustment and chronic illness counseling nationwide. Visit us at integralmhs.com and you can visit insightoutpod.com to catch up on all the episodes and to find links for subscribing in all the major podcast apps. A video version of this podcast is available on YouTube. Search for the channel, using the handle @inSightOutPod. You can also [00:55:00] find us on social media using that same handle. I hope you'll join us for the next episode of inSight Out. Subscribe now in your favorite podcast app to stay connected. Thanks again for listening.