Alright,
welcome to the Adapt X Podcast where we have conversations with individuals
building accessible businesses,
advocating for inclusion or excelling in adaptive sports.
Our intention is never to speak on behalf of those with disabilities,
but to provide a platform to amplify their voice and share their ideas to a more
accessible world. Today I am joined by Aaron Gob. Thank you for joining me.
Yeah.
Excited to be here with you.
Aaron. So maybe let's start in childhood and adolescence.
You're most notably known for your collegiate athletic career,
but maybe let's take it back to childhood.
What initially got you into sports and what were the biggest barriers that you
faced as an individual who's legally blind?
Yeah, growing up I tried every sport out there.
I was always interested in sports, I always loved sports,
from baseball to basketball, to, I tried lacrosse, I tried soccer,
hockey, everything that you can imagine. And I wasn't very good at them.
I did individual sports and things of that I snowboard and that type of stuff,
but I wanted to play a team sport and be able to actually compete and
wasn't very good at those, didn't find the right position, the right fit.
And in seventh grade is when I really started playing football and was able to
compete. Wasn't necessarily good. I wasn't athletic at the time, wasn't big,
fast or strong,
but I was able to be on the team and actually have a position where I could play
and contribute a little bit.
We know that blindness exists along a continuum.
So what is your usable degree of vision like?
Yeah, so my right eye is totally blind. My left eye seat of a really tiny hole.
And that has been the case since you were born or was it acquired?
Correct. I was born with it.
So you were trying out different sports.
Did you gravitate towards any of the para or adaptive sports or were you always
adamant on participating among your peers? I.
Didn't gravitate towards them.
I mean there's nothing wrong with them by any means,
but I wanted to play more of team sport. I wanted to play,
I guess it sounds bad depending on the context,
but I wanted to play one of more of the mainstream sports and that was my kind
of goal and vision at the time.
Yeah, I wouldn't say it sounds bad,
it just sounds ambitious and that you want to participate among your peers,
which feels perfectly realistic to me.
But I would imagine obviously with minimal usable vision,
something like baseball becomes next to impossible.
Yeah, I mean I definitely played baseball as a kid,
but at a certain age when parents are no longer pitching,
I knew that I'd never going to be able to hit a 90 mile an hour fastball.
You learn that pretty early on.
So at what age,
I guess did you gravitate towards football and then find your specialty?
I started playing football in seventh grade, so I dunno, 11,
12 years old is when I started playing football.
And then I at the time was an offensive defensive lineman for a few years.
I wasn't very big, fast or strong, wasn't athletic, wasn't really playing much.
And sophomore year of high school I was a third string junior varsity athlete,
never really touching the field and I decided to switch to long snapping,
but not even just switching positions was good enough and I'm sure we'll get
into it,
but I had to do a lot of other things to work harder and smarter to be able to
actually start playing.
How did that idea
become something that you wanted to pursue? This idea of long snapping?
Was there someone else that influenced you in any way or did you just determine
that you thought that was your best path forward?
Look, I wanted to find a way to get in the field.
I knew I couldn't be a quarterback or receiver. I also knew I wasn't 300 pounds,
I wasn't going to be a successful offensive tackle or defensive tackle in the
long run.
And so I had to figure out what position would be a good fit and I found
long snapping and realized that this niche position might give an opportunity
for me to play and then play at a high level if I got good enough.
Yeah, and what was the process like of getting good enough I guess?
Yeah,
so I realized that my skill level was down here and everyone else's was up here.
And so going to practice every day and doing what everyone else was doing was
not going to cut it. And so for me, for the next several years in high school,
I woke up 5:00 AM every day, went to school, got there at five 30,
started practicing long snapping for an hour in the mornings before school,
went to school, went to practice with the team, lifted weights for an hour,
hour and a half every evening. And that was my focus,
my routine most of the time. No one was there in the mornings,
no one was there in the evenings with me. It was lifting weights,
practicing long snapping,
doing that maybe one person was there to catch my snaps or something,
but no one was around. And understanding that didn't matter if it was dark,
didn't matter if it was cold,
if you want to get a result that nobody else is able to get,
you need to do the work nobody else is able to do and nobody else is willing to
do and there's no way around it.
And at what point did you start realizing that you had a future in this and you
start seeing success?
My senior year of high school I was ranked,
not only was I starting obviously in high school,
but I was ranked as one of the top long snappers in the country and one of the
top overall football players of any position in Massachusetts.
Okay. What's the metric for determining the efficacy of long snapping.
Going to camps and being judged and compared based on competitions and those
types of things based on how fast, how accurate the snaps are,
those types of things. And for football players in Massachusetts,
I don't know how they come up with that stuff.
That's based on 2 47 or ESPN rankings.
I don't know the criteria, but I dunno, I was in the top 20 in the state.
I knew that. Yeah.
Absolutely. And were your coaches in high school receptive?
I guess obviously it was a foreign experience for them having an athlete who was
blind. So I guess what made your coaches effective
and I guess what was that experience like?
They were nervous for sure, and they didn't know what to think in the beginning.
They had never worked with someone like me,
someone who had disability playing football.
But even though they were concerned,
I think that they looked at it as they're willing to give me a shot.
I think in the beginning,
and they probably treated me a little different in the sense of being more
cautious, but the second they saw that I was going to outwork everyone,
I was going to do whatever it took,
they started to be harder on me and be tough on me and that's what I wanted.
One of my favorite things, I know we're not at college yet,
but in college whenever we needed a scout team, wide receiver,
a quarterback or a linebacker, I was all for it.
I was always having fun doing that stuff. I mean,
obviously I wouldn't be a receiver, a linebacker in games,
it wouldn't go well for us, but in practice, if we're having fun,
of course I wanted to do that stuff. I wanted to compete,
I wanted to push myself and try new things.
When you were reaching out to colleges and publishing tape,
do you think they knew that you were blind?
Were you discreet with that at all or?
I think some knew, some didn't. Any coaches that I got serious talking to about,
I told if someone,
there's no way that someone could give me an offer and an opportunity without
knowing it would've been unfair to them.
They had to know it's something that you can't just hide in that sense.
And I think I'm sure a lot of them did know from stuff online.
Once I was getting fairly good,
I think it was definitely out there in different websites and stuff like that.
And so obviously once I committed to Tula it was all over the place,
but coaches definitely knew and the ones that I was actually talking with,
I always told.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I just wonder if the not element of surprise,
but kind of keeping that initial
characteristic hidden to a degree would allow you at least to have those
conversations. Whereas if you led with that,
whether people would automatically dismiss your ability without giving you a
fair chance.
I mean definitely people did dismiss it,
but at the end of the day I knew that someone would give me a shot. I mean,
I have recruiting visits at Penn State, at Rutgers, at Maryland,
tons of big schools like that, and I had opportunities to talk to coaches.
Now don't get me wrong,
most of them obviously didn't give me offers and the chances and maybe some of
them didn't know in the beginning and once I told them,
maybe lost a little bit more entry of their interests.
But I definitely had a lot of opportunities in the beginning and
whether it was because of my vision or some other reason,
obviously started to lose some of them,
but I was able to eventually find a place at.
Tulane. And how'd you land on Tulane and what attracted you to that school?
Yeah, so I had a few offers,
but the offers were mostly you can walk on the school, you can come try out,
and that wasn't something I wanted. Tulane was obviously a guaranteed spot,
a guaranteed opportunity, and that's the number one thing I wanted. Number two,
and it just happened to work out with Tulane,
is I got really good advice from a coach that God forbid you get hurt or you
can't play, go to a school that you'd enjoy being at.
And Chile was a perfect fit for me. It was size wise, like 8,000 students,
which was phenomenal. Not too small, not 40,000 kids either.
Like some of the schools I was talking to, incredible city,
incredible culture in New Orleans, food, nightlife, everything is amazing there.
And so I just had a perfect fit there between the campus, the football team,
the school, the city,
and I really think it was a phenomenal fit because if something had happened,
if I couldn't have played anymore,
I would've still enjoyed being a student there.
And what was student life like? I know we'll talk about athletics,
but what did you study?
What were you interested in and how was it navigating campus as a student
who was blind?
It was fun. I studied finance. I mean, looking back I can't believe I passed.
All my classes came well on all my classes.
If you live in New Orleans and you're 18 to 22, you graduated school there,
good for you. You deserve some props, let's be honest.
But I did well in school. I did fairly good. I enjoyed it.
I learned a lot from that. I enjoyed the campus, I enjoyed the classmates,
the teammates,
everyone there both in classes on the field and going out and hanging out with
friends and doing different things. So overall it was really a good experience.
Again, I think it was definitely for me personally, in great size campus,
it wasn't too small,
which I didn't want and it wasn't this huge massive campus that was spread
across the entire city, so it was a really nice.
Yeah. Yeah.
We talk on the show a bit about assisted technology and modifications and
what did you find to be most useful in your academic experience?
Taking classes and studying and really.
Just my laptop,
I mean I get my laptop and phone are the two things that allow me to succeed in
everything. Professors would send me all the PowerPoints before class.
I would take tests,
a separate room on my laptop or on a computer and things of that nature.
My laptop obviously reads things out loud to me if it's long or I can zoom in if
it's not as long,
and so my laptop is what allowed me to do school and participate and
be successful in that. But I think 10 years ago, well yeah,
I mean I graduated college in 2018, so let's just say 15 years ago maybe.
The technology was different and I think people had to have more different
assisted devices and you are more ingrained in that world,
so maybe you know better than me, but to be completely honest with you,
at least someone with my level of vision. If you have a laptop and a phone,
maybe you need something else, but that's 98% of it in my opinion.
Yeah, well that's great.
Those technology pieces of technology are obviously so accessible and readily
used by everyone. It's great that it doesn't always require a complex solution.
We had a focus group with a group of individuals with varying levels of visual
impairment just about how they navigate gyms a couple of weeks ago and it
was great just to hear 'em talk about the technology that they use on their
iPhone. It makes it complex. Solutions are harder to adopt,
so when they're simple and when they're already part of your everyday fabric
of life,
then it's a lot easier to integrate them within businesses and within recreation
and stuff.
So that's great to hear that there weren't complex solutions needed for you to
experience those things,
but what gave you the confidence to I guess pursue something that
no one had ever done before? Being a division one football player who was blind.
My focus wasn't pursuing something that no one had done before.
My focus was I want to be really good at football,
I want to be really good at football.
I want to play because I love playing football.
And I think that was really important to me, especially in the beginning.
I didn't want to do interviews, I didn't want to go on TV shows.
I didn't want to do things like that and be known as this legally blind football
player.
I wanted to play and I wanted to play at the highest level possible because I
was good enough and I was athletic enough and I could compete with anyone in the
country. It wasn't about me being legally blind.
And so I think my passion was how I could be the best possible football player
and play at the highest possible level I could,
and that's what I always looked at. My vision had nothing to do with it. I mean,
yes, that was part of me and who I am,
but my focus was being an incredible football player,
not being the first legally blind athlete.
Yeah. How do you balance, I guess that juxtaposition between
your disability garnering a lot of attention and press and
opportunities for you,
but at the same time articulating that that's not how you want to be
known, that you don't want preferential treatment,
you don't want to be known as the long snapper who's blind,
you just want to be known as Aaron Gob who's a division one football player.
I guess how do you balance leaning into your diagnosis but also directing
people towards you as an individual?
Yeah, look, I mean I think I'll answer that in two ways.
The first way is when I was senior in high school, I committed play at Tulane.
I got an opportunity to go on Good Morning America.
I didn't want to do it in the beginning.
One of my coaches talked to me and he said, look, Aaron, it's your choice,
but if you can go on, you can help one other person, you should do it.
And that kind of convinced me to do that and then do other engagements where my
coaches or whoever would ask me to do it. And now using my vision is phenomenal.
It helps me. I've run a couple businesses,
but it helps me in one of them obviously land speaking engagements and get my
foot in the door at different places.
Now how you personally get treated is also how you represent yourself. My
coaches knew pretty early on in the beginning,
they might treat me a little different,
but they learned pretty early on that I was trying to run with what provide
receivers. I was trying to lift with the lineman,
if you're yelling at someone else, you better be yelling at me.
It was how you present yourself in the attitude and are you going to
toughen up and figure it out or are you going to sit there and ask for help with
everything and there's no harm in asking for help.
I don't want to make it seem like you can't ask for help because in a lot of
circumstances I need to ask for help and others do.
And asking for help isn't a sign of weaknesses, a sign of strength,
it shows you know what you need. It shows your confident in yourself.
It shows you know what you need help with, but also in some situations,
especially in football,
you need to sometimes just toughen up and do what you don't want to do and
figure it out. We talked about gyms and we'll probably get into that.
My coaches understood I'm going to trip on things,
I'm going to trip on dumbbells, I'm going to trip on things, but guess what,
they're not going to walk me around the gym the whole time. If I trip,
I better get up and figure it out.
And that was my mentality and to get from station to station when we were
lifting as a team.
Yeah,
the first part of that answer I guess was the first thing that came to mind.
You didn't have someone to emulate,
but by you having a public facing persona,
then there's other people who might have needed that,
I guess to have the confidence to pursue a goal like this.
So for you to be an influential figure,
I believe is obviously the right way to approach that so you can influence the
next generation of people.
Have you had conversations with people with a similar condition or a similar
diagnosis that saw your publicity and kind of reached out?
Definitely. There's definitely been a handful.
I remember one time my sophomore year, a mother reached out to my coaches.
Her son I think had something he was going blind and we brought them in and we
walked him around the stadium in the locker room and in the weight room,
and I spent some time with him and talk to them,
and that was a phenomenal experience,
being able to give back and help someone and use my position on the football
team of where someone might look up to me to be able to share that and help
someone else. And so definitely had some experiences like that,
which is always great to be able to help others.
Yeah. I've read a bit
that you've shared online about this idea of inspirational, motivational,
et cetera.
I think it's easy to say that your story is inspirational and rightfully,
but less so because of your diagnosis and more so because of the habits and the
work that you put in to get there and the fact that it had to be 10 times more
than your peers.
But we talk about the inspiration narrative with a lot of our guests here.
Do you want to be considered inspirational?
Of course, my story is inspirational. I'm not oblivious to that.
Of course I am as a human being,
but at the end of the day,
I think that inspiration only gets you so far. I think, yeah,
I'm happy to have my story be inspirational and help you,
but I think that a lot of people look at these external people,
these external things.
I talk sometimes about what I consider the difference between internal and
external motivation.
External is when you look at someone else for that motivation or when you look
at what someone says you can or can't do, and don't get me wrong,
that might help you for a certain time period. If I'm going to go to the gym,
I'm going to go squat.
I'm going to the gym later today when I have a set heavy set of squats,
I am going to think of something that pisses me off or something that will
motivate me for that one minute,
but that's not going to get me very far. If you want to have internal
motivation, if you want to succeed about finding that internal motivation,
that internal why of why do you want to do something?
Going back to why I wanted to play football, I wanted to play because I love it.
I wanted to play because I wanted to be good at it.
Why do I want to succeed in business and what I use today? Because I enjoy it,
because I have a passion for it, because I want to be successful.
It's not focusing on anyone else,
and I think that that's the biggest shift that people have to make.
It's not that you can't look at other people for inspiration.
You absolutely can, but if you want to be successful long-term yourself,
you need to find that within yourself of why do you want to do something?
Because that is the thing that's going to drive you forever.
I didn't want to wait with five M every day and practice,
but I had that why within inside me that pushed me to do it.
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offers leading brand health club equipment and accessories for residential and
commercial use. In addition to traditional exercise equipment.
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visit www.resolutionfitness.ca or the link in the show notes below.
Yeah, that's well articulated and it segues nicely into one of the other talking
points I was hoping to address. Is your business, educational speaking,
motivational speaking, however you want to label it,
how can you ensure that the effects of your speaking aren't
transient? Like you said,
motivation or external motivators might be temporary.
It needs to come from within and within your own goals. I sometimes wonder,
with motivational speaking, it might have an impact for several hours,
but how can it have an impact for several months and into perpetuity, I guess.
So I guess how do you approach that knowing that you want to leave Elastic
Impact?
So let's start here. I don't consider myself a motivational speaker.
I'm a professional keynote speaker,
and the biggest difference is a motivational speaker is, in my opinion,
the biggest waste of money you can ever spend. They don't live give results.
They motivate you for an hour, and then there's nothing. Also,
if you are trying to get into speaking,
if you brand yourself as a motivational speaker,
you're going to get capped out in fees.
If a company's going to spend a lot of money,
they want someone who's going to give results and long lasting results.
And so there's a whole process to it.
When I go in to speak at a company or an association or a sports team,
it's doing a needs assessment,
understanding what they're looking to get out of it, what their goals are,
what their challenges are,
how I can help bridge that gap and curate and customize a portion of my speeches
to help ensure I'm hitting their goals, setting up pre-event calls,
post-event calls, taking them through this process.
And sometimes that also leads to longer term consulting,
but how they can actually implement what I'm talking about.
Because when they can do that, that's when they see long lasting results. Now,
don't get me wrong, if someone's like, Hey, we just want a motivational speaker,
we want you to come and share your story, we will pay you for that. Sure,
not a problem at all. That's totally fine.
But most of the time I brand myself as a professional keynote speaker because
those are the individuals that can actually help transform and leave long
lasting results.
And you're not just speaking about DEI topics for the audience who aren't
familiar with your presentations, I guess,
what are the main learning objectives?
So there's three kind of main topics.
The first one is around overcoming adversity and perseverance.
Talking a lot about my background, my story,
talking about gratitude and how I'm thankful and grateful I was born legally
blind, but also how you can overcome challenges and obstacles.
The second one is around leadership,
leadership development and teamwork and how you can develop yourself and the
people around you into better leaders, better teammates.
And the third is what I call thinking differently about disabilities.
And so I'm very clear I do not talk on DE,
I know nothing about DEI except for disabilities, disability awareness,
perception of disabilities, accessibility, those types of stuff.
I only fall into that bucket and I'm very clear about that because I don't want
anyone to mix it up and hire me and then not get what they were looking for.
And so it's how we can work with individuals with disabilities to succeed,
what we can do as companies to allow them to succeed,
how people with disabilities can do things themselves to succeed,
what we can do to create a better perception or a more accessible environment.
And I think all of that's really important.
And so those are kind of the three main topics. Of course,
they're always shifts and changes, and that's why I do those needs assessments.
Sometimes people will say, can you combine two of them? Sometimes people,
we also want to talk somewhat on goal setting. Totally fine,
and that's why I go through that needs assessment process to make sure I'm
actually delivering what the client or the company wants when I'm being broadly
to speak.
Yeah, yeah, that's a good point.
I was hoping to learn a little bit about how you prepare for a speech just as I
have the opportunity to do a few more later this fall and want to make sure that
I really, I guess deliver, like you said,
what they want out of it and having a very clear vision of what their
expectation is and how their employees can benefit from the presentation,
I guess is the first and most important step.
And one of the things I'll just say there for you and for anyone else listening
is the biggest thing that I think one of the biggest things that sets good and
great speakers apart is a great speaker goes into bunch of needs assessment,
pre-event calls, really listens,
comes to them with a handful of questions of identifying what they're looking
for and then integrates that into their speech.
You're never going to write a new speech from scratch unless someone's paying
you an absurd amount of money. However, you can tailor 30% of it,
you can make sure that it is relevant to their audience and you understand what
they're looking for.
If you go into a speech and you don't understand who's attending it,
what the audience looks like, what their goals are, what their challenges are,
what's worked well in the past, what hasn't worked well in the past for them,
you're doing yourself and the company a disservice.
If you prepare and you go through all of that,
the chances of you getting testimonials, referrals,
more business and ongoing business out of it
dramatically increases.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's a great framework. You had mentioned
the three criteria and the second one you talked about leadership.
What do you think makes an effective leader and how can every employee
within a company exhibit leadership qualities,
even if they aren't in a higher position?
Someone who shows through their actions instead of tells someone who helps and
supports the people around them, I think are some of the biggest ones.
So many people say they're going to do something, you don't follow through.
When you do that, you're not only lying to yourself,
but you're lying to your team and your team, your company,
your organization is going to start to lose trust in you.
There's very few people in this world, unfortunately,
that keep the commitments and keep the word that they say they're going to do,
and the people that do are the ones who set themselves apart and actually make
an impact and people remember them.
I also think the people who are focused on the greater good of the team and not
always just the success on themselves,
the people who are willing to help and support and pick people up when they're
down is so important because a leader isn't always focused on themselves.
So often you've seen high school, the star quarterback, they're the captain,
but they might be a terrible leader, they might be a great leader,
you never know,
but what I'm saying is the best leaders are the ones who are able to communicate
well, be a good teammate and help the people around them.
Absolutely. And then in your first outcome, you mentioned gratitude,
and I've read that you've said that you're grateful for your blindness and that
if you had the opportunity to change it,
you wouldn't because it's molded you into the person that you are today.
So if a medical breakthrough or technology was developed that gave
you your site back, are you saying that you wouldn't?
Of course I would.
Of course, of course I would.
It's more of the lived experiences that it's given me up till this point.
I wouldn't change the fact that 28 years ago,
legally I would keep that the same,
but if there was some medical breakthrough tomorrow, of course I would do it,
and then I would probably go back and try and redo my career and become a
professional athlete again and whether it be football or a different sport,
because it would change a lot for me, but I absolutely
would take that opportunity if that ever presents.
Itself. I understand the premise,
I guess the idea that your blindness has been a key contributor towards molding
you into the person that you are today and the qualities that you developed,
but it's an interesting, I guess,
idea of being grateful for something that most people would assume that you
resent,
or have there been periods of time where you think your diagnosis
has created challenges for you that have been hard to cope with or deal with?
I guess, can you reflect on any periods of time when it was most frustrating?
I mean, definitely when I was younger,
things like not being able to get my license and drive that was challenging and
hard when everyone else was. But looking at it today,
I was actually just talking to a driver this morning in Boston who was taking me
to the speaking engagement and bringing me home, and I was like, look,
I built a good relationship with the guy,
and I was saying sewing people look at it, it's like, oh,
you can't drive them as fuck. Well look, at the end of the day,
I can take calls, I can do work, I can make more money,
I can build a relationship, I can do so many other things while I'm in the car.
Well, I can't be on a Zoom call if I'm driving,
and it gives me the opportunity to be more productive and do other things,
which is really great because I can't drive.
Yeah, absolutely.
Let's talk a bit about your experience with fitness because that's a
main area of our podcast as a whole.
So can you recall the first time you went into a gym
and maybe what the biggest challenges were,
what the emotions you felt were and what made it more
successful over time?
Middle school definitely was the first time,
and I think it was the same challenge as every other middle school boys learning
how to get stronger, put on muscle, those types of things.
It wasn't any different,
and I'm sure we'll talk about navigating a gym in a bit, but at that time,
starting it was just the same things as everybody else is,
how do I actually do this? How do you lift weights? How do you not get hurt?
How do you build muscle and get stronger?
Yeah, and
I guess what were the biggest challenges that you initially faced?
I guess navigating the gym for someone who maybe can't envision how someone
without sight would have to difficulty in the gym,
what were the challenges that you faced there?
So kind of two sides to that. The first one is anytime ever in a new gym,
it's always challenging in the beginning, I need to walk around,
I need to know where different things are,
otherwise I won't be able to find my way to the bench or the squat or the leg
press or whatever I'm doing that day.
And so understanding where the equipment is kind of the first thing.
Once I'm familiar with a gym,
I understand where everything is and I can navigate it pretty easily in that
sense. That said, one of the biggest things that,
and I know you talk a lot about gym accessibilities, not even the biggest thing.
I think the number one thing that would make gyms accessible for people who are
visually impaired is not making the dumbbells block and the floor block and
99.9% of gyms in the world are floors are black and the dumbbells are black.
If the gyms that have a gray floor or the gyms that have a red dumbbells or
whatever and there's different colors, make it a lot easier.
I trip on dumbbells, barbells, all that stuff all the time.
I've gone really good at catching myself. It's not the end of the world,
but I think that is growing up and to this day,
probably the biggest challenge I face when I'm in the gym, when I'm working out.
In the focus group,
we did talk about the contrast of black on black and everything with dumbbells
and even maybe painting the numbers on a dumbbell white just so
there's a more distinct contrast between the rubber and
the numbers that are on it. So those are low hanging fruit,
I guess, to making a space more accessible. You think low hanging fruit.
But if most gyms in the country don't do that, then it's clearly not.
Right.
I guess I say low hanging fruit in the sense that it's not a very expensive
accessibility renovation.
I think a lot of people think that becoming accessible or becoming a more
adaptive fitness center comes with a significant price tag.
They compare it to a physical therapy rehabilitation center when in reality
there's some small steps that could be made that have a low cost,
but a high impact.
So I guess that's how I categorize it as low hanging fruit where it wouldn't be
a significant burden for the gym owner to make that adjustment and it wouldn't
affect the experience for anyone else.
Can you think, I guess,
of any modifications that you make for common exercises to account
for your vision when you're squatting or benching or doing pull-ups?
Yeah, the biggest thing for me is checking the weights every time.
I had one instance in college where we'd load the bar and then we were supposed
to check it. I think I had 1 45 pound plate on one side and two on the other.
I didn't notice spotter wasn't paying attention.
He got ripped a new one by my strength coach, but which he rightfully,
but I noticed the second I took the weight off the bar,
and so now it's just a habit in me. Anytime I load the bar, I check it then,
and then right before I go and lift,
I also check it one more time and feel it and understand, okay,
I have this many plates on or I have this going on here to make sure that I know
it. Whereas most people,
they put the weights up and they just look at it and they can tell that way.
And so that's probably the number one.
The first thing that comes to mind is I always double check a squat or a bench
because I don't want to unrack something and then have it be unbalanced.
Yeah.
Do you think there's any exercises that you would deem safer than others or do
you gravitate towards any specific machines versus free weights?
I don't think anything is necessarily safer than others.
I think it's learning how to do the right form and stuff.
And I'll give you an example. When I was younger in the beginning,
I think I veered away from exercises like squatting because I think then the
beginning I was concerned about the balance issue, but you know what?
Learning how to get better balance is really important.
Learning how to squat is really important.
Squatting is probably the number one best exercise in the gym, in my opinion,
for any athlete out there.
And being able to squat effectively and do that is important.
And so I had to figure it out and learn it. I think that's really important.
Now there's a time and place for free weights.
There's time and place for machines,
but I think having a mix of both is really important,
and being able to use them in the right and effective ways
can be very beneficial because if you only said, Hey,
I'm only going to bench press on a Smith machine, which don't get me wrong,
there's times and places right now, one of my days in my workout,
use a Smith machine, but if you don't ever use a barbell,
you're not going to build those muscles that stabilize it.
Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned even that tripping over dumbbells,
barbells are able to catch yourself and recover,
and I would assume that lower body strength,
things like that are really important for your ability to do so.
I shouldn't say assume.
I know that decreasing fall risk often comes from
being stronger, being a more explosive athlete. And I mean,
falls are a common issue for people with visual impairment. Absolutely.
So having the bone mineral density to tolerate a fall or the strength
to catch yourself and the balance to catch yourself is essential. Yeah.
It's important.
When you engage, so say you were walking into a gym for the first time,
would you ask someone at the front desk to show you around the gym?
Oftentimes, if I'm going to a new one, yeah,
it obviously depends if I'm with someone else or not,
but if I'm walking to a new gym for the first time, yeah, absolutely.
I live in Los Angeles now, and so when I went to the gym I go to often now,
the first time it was went there and asked if, Hey,
could you get someone or the manager to walk me around for 10 minutes?
I just want visually impaired.
I need to know where the different machines and stuff are.
And we walked around the gym, we talked for 10 minutes. It was great.
So you might not have a personal trainer now,
but maybe even thinking back to your collegiate strength coaches,
what would you want a trainer to ask you about your diagnosis?
I think
understanding, the first thing is everyone's different.
And so understanding if there are certain exercise that someone can't do or
can't do as well, and so everyone's different. Everyone's goals are different.
When I lift, I lift for size and for strength. And so it's funny you say that.
I do a friend of mine who's a very successful trainer here in Boston,
and whenever I'm in town, I do go lift with him.
It's more a day where I go push myself very heavy and I'll squat very heavy
where I don't trust most people to spot me when I squat.
I think that's a whole other can of worms.
People know how to spot when they bench. Actually, that's not really true.
A lot of people in the gym don't know how to do that either,
but most people don't know how to spot a squat. And I think one of the things
that we do is we make sure we design the workout effectively for me when we're
together.
Or sometimes I'll write a workout and I'll pay him and I'll send it to him to
look at,
but maybe it's him grouping things together where there's certain machines,
certain stuff nearby versus doing something.
If I have a super set and then something across the gym,
that might be a pain for me. And so finding someone from doing a super set,
how can I super set two things that are right near each other so I don't need to
run back and forth across the gym,
and it might be a little bit easier and more accessible for myself.
The logistics of supersets are incredibly important,
both for our athletes here at the gym who are blind,
as well as our athletes who use mobility devices like wheelchairs and crutches,
so they're not transferring their chair transferring back into the chair.
And if you just think of how much work you want to get done and within an hour
within a given workout,
the logistical pairing of super sets becomes really important for coaches
to acknowledge and be aware of.
Definitely.
Yeah.
So that's all good insight into how gyms can take small steps
towards being more accessible. Have you had any negative experiences in the gym,
I guess to maybe give people the foresight to avoid those things?
From an accessibility standpoint, I don't really think so.
I think that obviously there's times that I trip on things and that's going to
happen in every gym, but I don't think there's ever been really
negative experiences, at least from a accessibility standpoint.
Definitely a negative experiences in different gyms for different reasons,
but I don't think from an accessibility standpoint.
And you're a little bit of a fringe case in that you're an elite athlete and
that you really want to be in the gym as opposed to,
I think a lot of people with visual impairment might have more hesitancy to go
to a gym, and it's a completely different social emotional consideration,
I guess.
Oh, a hundred percent.
Yeah. So I guess creating a welcoming space,
you're going to seek out a gym, but a lot of people aren't. So inviting them,
demonstrating how you're going to make it a more inclusive and accessible
experience for people,
I would imagine is important for people at visual impairment.
The other thing I'll say,
and I think it's important whether you have a visual impairment disability or
not,
is I think a lot of people are afraid in the gym to go up to ask someone for
help,
especially if you see someone who maybe they're lifting heavy weight and you
want to ask them about that and learn how to do it.
Whereas the people I find who lift heavy weight, I'll look at myself.
I'm not the strongest person in the gym, but I'm pretty strong in the gym.
If someone comes up to me and I'm dead lifting a lot of weight,
I'm always happy to talk. I've been in the gym for a long time.
I'm always there to help if someone wants to come and ask.
And I think people don't realize that if someone's lifting really heavy weight,
they've probably asked tons of people for help,
and people have helped them over time, and they honestly,
I find most of the time are the people who are more willing to help people.
But people get intimidated because it looks like they have a lot of weight on
the bar.
And so if someone from this ever sees me in the gym and sees 'em squatting or
benching or whatever, you have a question come up and ask.
I'm always happy to help.
Yeah,
that's great insight and definitely I think I can relate to that idea,
just that people that have been in the gym for a long time,
obviously people who are very strong have been in the gym for a long time,
and they can kind of appreciate that everyone starts at a different point
for sure.
So what are you most excited about that you're working on over the next few
years, maybe any projects specifically that excite you the most?
I think just, I love the world of business.
I love the world of entrepreneurship, and so everything I do is always fun.
I think if I'm not enjoying it, it's not necessarily worth doing,
but my goals are to help a lot of people, make a lot of money,
have a lot of fun. It's a great time.
I really enjoy what I do and being able to travel to different places,
do a lot of work with some really cool organizations and companies,
and I think just right now,
I'm pretty happy with the trajectory of where my business is going and what I've
been able to accomplish, and I have a lot more to do.
I have a lot more to accomplish. I have very high goals,
but it's been a really fun ride to go through a lot of periods of
not knowing what to do of getting punched in the face in business.
I still get punched in the face in business every single day,
but learning from those scenarios and figuring out how you can get better,
it's a lot of fun.
I can appreciate that for sure. After starring a couple companies,
what type of companies or organizations should reach out to you or what is your
target market there in case anyone's listening?
I run two businesses. I'll explain. The first one is my speaking engagements.
I work with large companies like Deloitte, Pepsi. I work with sports teams.
I've worked with, actually can't say it, I almost slipped up.
I've worked with a major league baseball team,
so I worked with different sports teams. I've worked with colleges,
universities, I've worked with schools, conferences, associations.
It's all across the board.
I also run a business where I do lead generation and we help grow and scale
other businesses. Sometimes it's speakers, sometimes it's other organizations.
I've gotten really good at lead generation and the marketing side of things from
my business,
and so it's fun to be able to do that and do that into other businesses as well.
I would assume those two,
those two are definitely synergistic in that I'm sure you refined your lead gen
and your marketing through your own publicizing yourself as a speaker.
Absolutely.
Yeah. But it's not exclusive to speaking.
That has applicability to other industries too, right?
Yeah, and definitely it's a handful of speakers we work with,
but I have someone right now who runs a conversion rate optimization company and
works with e-commerce brands and stuff,
and so it definitely is a mix of different people.
Yeah. That's great to know. If you were speaking,
I guess to yourself as a child who might be concerned about how you're going to
fit in and how you're going to excel at sports and how you're going to develop a
career, I guess, what would you tell yourself or what would you do differently?
I think just try things. Try things. It's okay to fail.
So many people are afraid of failing, and they don't want to look bad.
They don't want to fail, I mean, transparently.
And so understanding that failure, it's not a bad thing. It's a good thing.
If you learn from it, it can teach you how to succeed.
I think the earlier you try,
the earlier you can learn and the earlier you can grow,
and I think that's the biggest thing is understanding that things will work out
how they're supposed to. And if you work hard, if you work smart,
if you just try and it's okay to fail, I think it'll work out in your favor.
Awesome.
We'll include the links to your websites and the show notes as well as social
media channels that people can find you. But Aaron,
thanks so much for joining me today,
sharing your insights into a more accessible world and the projects that you're
working on. Really looking forward to sharing this.
Yeah, thank you for having me.
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