[00:00:28] Jay: Hi everyone. Welcome to the First Customer Podcast. My name's Jay Aigner Today I am lucky enough to be joined by Calvin Hendryx Parker. He is the CTO and co-founder of Six Feet Up 2023. Indianapolis Tech Executive of the Year 2025 Press. Any key award winner, AWS Hero. He's been nominated for Tech Educator Award, year. he's got so many awards I can't even get through all of them. Calvin. Hello. How are you? The coolest guy I've ever met. What's up?

[00:00:51] Calvin: Oh, thanks. Thanks, Jay. No, I'm excited to be here. I, you're maybe the coolest guy I ever met. 

[00:00:55] Jay: No, I don't think so. I don't think, no, I 

[00:00:57] Calvin: no. 

[00:00:57] Jay: I don't think I am, but I do, I did get hungry when I saw you because we're used to eating

every time that we see each other. for everybody who wasn't in the Denver conference, me and Calvin the first day ate breakfast, lunch and dinner together, and it was fantastic.

So. It, was great. Calvin, I'm gonna give you the opportunity because, you know, I'm gonna, I was gonna do it, but I'm let you say, where did the name come from? Gimme the background. I want hear it from you, hear it from the horse's mouth.

[00:01:21] Calvin: Sure. So, we started the company back in 1999, but we didn't have the name. We had now about 2000. Figured we should get a real name and a real domain name for the company. And we started searching through all the domain names. Year 2000. It felt like all of 'em were taken. Like, I can't imagine what it's like trying to find a domain name today.

Gabrielle, my wife and co-founder, who was right behind me, said, why don't you do a plan on words for the family's business? My, family had been in the mortuary business since 1888, and instead of putting people six feet under, we thought we should try and get 'em a little more alive and kicking. And so we searched and six feet up.com was available and all of its incantations.

And so we, we gave it a little test run and people seemed to respond well to it.

[00:02:01] Jay: I love it so much. Lemme ask you a question. what would you say is the biggest similarity between, your family, business and your, business today?

[00:02:10] Calvin: Probably relationships,the being in the mortuary business. It's funny, I've never had to like talk much about it. But the, you know, it's a small town and you can't upset too many apple carts and expect people to come to you and take care of your, you know, your needs in that kind of a time. So, my grandfather, who I knew growing up, who was running the mortuary, he was such a relationship based person, like everything going on in the community, he was like the, you know, master of ceremonies for all the very.

Festivals. He was always volunteering his time. So I think there was like a bit of like servant leadership to the mortuary that I think definitely have carried. Hopefully I've carried over, making him proud, on the software development agency side.

[00:02:50] Jay: I'm sure you have. I mean, and one thing I've noticed, you know, about you is the strength of, or, you know, how much community means to you, right? and like how you connect with different groups and communities. And obviously you have your own and you're part of some, and, where did that. Love for community come from and like, how do you see, your place, in communities? Is it to lead them, to run them, to support them, contribute to 'em? Is it different for each one? just tell me how, you know, your background in communities and what you think your role is in.

[00:03:20] Calvin: that definitely goes back to my grandfather. He was definitely involved in the community where I grew up, and so I kind of felt like it was, I don't know, like I, I, if I could fall in his footsteps, that would really make me happy and hopefully make, makes him happy so. Part of community for me has been bringing people together.

I think that's one of my superpowers. I enjoy the power that comes from like multiple people collaborating and talking and sharing and just making everyone like a better person. So I run the local Indianapolis Python user group here. I've done that since 2007. And when we moved back to Indianapolis in oh three, and I was looking for that Python community, that developer community, like these folks must be here someplace.

And I wanted, well, I couldn't find that community, so I made that community happen and it's, we're still running it today. It's been, it's a really successful, large, you know, community of Python enthusiasts. I also did the same thing for the cloud community here in Indianapolis, putting together N-D-A-W-S.

That's what earned me the, AWS Hero. honor from those folks, but it, I definitely have, galvanize as a working genius. If you've ever read the Patrick Lencioni working Genius book, that's probably one of my top ones. the other one's discernment, but Galvanize, it's just like pe people need to be together and we all need to grow by together.

Like, it's a multiplier for sure. It's not a one plus one equals two. I think when you bring people together, you get way more than that.

[00:04:43] Jay: I totally agree. with the plethora of options today, if somebody saw a need for. like this in their local community. how do they get started? How would you suggest, you know, in 2025 if there's some obscure language or some, you know, thing and people wanna start like a little group around it and just, you know, try to build it up from there?

[00:05:02] Calvin: how would you suggest they get started today? I would go find some of the bigger language communities in your area, and. Go ask them how they started it. most likely it's gonna be using tools like meetup.com. that's how we started, with things. But there's other great options other than Meetup now there, like Luma for example. So it's finding like-minded people who are, have similar interest in bringing people together, but maybe in a different language or different domain.

they're gonna give you a ton of great tips. Like maybe anybody who comes to me and asks for those kinds of things, I'm happy to share all the ways we, you know. All the sharp edges we hit and all the things we did to try and get the community off the ground. 'cause it's important to get your people, your tribe together.

That's actually one of the things I love about, groups like Seven CTOs for example. it's a group of peers who, you know, have similar struggles, even if they're in different situations and different kinds of sizes of organizations.

[00:05:55] Jay: Yeah, and I mean, the question I have next is, how do you do it in a genuine way where like, you know, I'm sure you've gotten business leads from. These events, right? 

the seven CTO stuff and your indie pie stuff in a lot of events or things you go up to, you feel that like background tension of like it being a group to serve as a lead funnel or for some other thing, or, you know, it's not just a community group to get people together.

How do you balance like, you know, making it a tool for business? Also keeping it genuine or you just keep 'em separate entirely and it just, business just happens. Once you've created relationships in this community, how do you do in a, you know, a genuine way, but while also getting leads

[00:06:41] Calvin: Yeah, that's a good question. Kind of, kind of relevant. recently, given all the travel I've been doing. I've approached these as for myself to grow as a leader. For example, like seven CTOs or I'm in Strategic Coach. I'm also involved obviously in building like the Indie PI local community. For me, if I can be a servant or an advocate or somehow represent these people, or, and also then learn myself from all the people who are coming in the door, I, that's what it's about first.

I don't, I would never like push an agenda at any of these places. And I think that's why a lot of people welcome me in the door is 'cause I genuinely come to try and help when I can. If there's some way I can step up, I try to, if there's some way I can just make people's lives a little more enjoyable or pleasant or in some way serve them to help them find an opportunity that they just aren't seeing.

A lot of people haven't done enough like. A personal introspection to know maybe what they, what, where the whole or the gap might be. And that's something I've actually focused on. I guess it's kind of a combo. It's like building communities and then also learning about myself and then helping others learn about themselves too.

Doing that through various assessments. Like I mentioned one already though, the Working Genius, that's something we use at six feet Up to make sure we've got the right people in the right seats. And then we've combined the right kind of sets of superpowers to get again, kind of exponential, Optimizations out of the team, put people where they enjoy being, put people where it's easy for them to express their unique abilities and you get magic that happens. And so that's something I really try to do when I'm in these organizations is try and make the magic happen. The, if there's somebody who wants to talk to me about Python or has, you know, a deal or wants to talk about that type a deal, I'm happy to sit and just jam about Python projects or how we deploy or how we do data and.

If they're, if they need help with it, then so be it. If not, then it was a great conversation and hopefully they got what they needed out of it.

[00:08:38] Jay: How do, so how do you manage the time around all that? And because I mean, it's,

[00:08:43] Calvin: Yeah.

[00:08:43] Jay: I, I'm sure it's a work in pro, but I'm curious. 'cause like, you know, it's, you speak of the introspection and I think as a business owner, I think we get the opportunity to be introspective more than maybe some other folks do.

'cause like we're in charge of, you know, charge of our time, whatever that means.

But just, like how. You know, you could sit there and talk to somebody for a couple hours and it's a great conversation and you're doing whatever, but like as a business owner, as the, you know, the main sales guy and the partnership guy, and all the stuff that you do for

the business. How do you make, do you ever feel like you're not doing enough of that? Or is there like an internal struggle of like, Hey, I should maybe spend more time here, like, you know, for the community or less time with the community and more time trying to kind of cultivate, you know, business. Like, is there this push and pull when you're scheduling all this crazy stuff, when we're talking before the show about, 

all the stuff you've been through the year already and all the stuff you're going to and all, and it, like, how do you, and then like what do you do when you get back?

Like, do you, is it just like a constant. You know, cycle of, you know, debriefing the stuff you did and then kind of prepping for the next thing. Just gimme a little bit of a

insight into how you manage all this stuff.

[00:09:52] Calvin: Yeah. Most people would be horrified by my calendar, like the craziness that ensues there now. Now I am trying, I'm working. This is definitely a work in progress toward. Having a more sane, reasonable calendar. But the events I go to, like, for example, I was at. GenCon this year. PyCon this year, Py Ohio this year, KubeCon just got back.

I hit the XPRIZE event. I mean, it, I don't have, and again, there's no agenda running into those events. Usually I'm trying to speak. So if I can provide some level of knowledge and sharing to those various groups, that makes me happy, that, that helps me contribute into those communities in a meaningful way.

And if I'm, again, making connections with those folks, I had to prioritize. that's definitely something I've been learning over the years is that I gotta pick and choose a little bit now where I spend my time. But if someone came to me and said, I really need to talk to you, it would help me beneficially in my career or in a, at an open source project or in some fashion, I'll, we'll make some time and we'll sit down and chat.

But I'm not, I don't, and I think, again, I don't have an agenda running into these. These meetings of like sales. that's, I think we're a bit different as you know, so I'm CTO and co-founder of Six Feet Up. We are not, we know we don't cold call people. We rarely get kind of inbound leads.

They're typically people I've met through the community. And it could be a decade before you realize or recognize that there's a need. But if you recognize and realize there's a need and we're the company to help you out. That's when like the magic happens. It's not because I've been emailing you once a month saying, Hey, can I sell you some IP space?

Or, you know, I get a call every month from a certain vendor and I've asked them to take me off lists and I'm like, I don't understand. I don't have a color anymore. What you're selling doesn't even 

like. It. There's people, there's definitely organizations who have a different mentality about this.

For us, it's about the relationships. It's about who we know, how we can help, how we can help solve those hard problems. we love our team is a very senior team of people who love solving these hard problems. And so that's how I approach these events is, I go in helping other people solve hard problems.

Brainstorming with them about the problems, talking about how we approach certain things, and if they need help after that, that's up to them usually to talk to me. I mean, I may ping 'em and be like, Hey, well, how'd that problem go? but I'm not expecting, I'm not doing a hard sell. I.

[00:12:15] Jay: I appreciate that very much. you and I. Approach business, develop development in a very similar way. I don't pitch it anybody. Rarely do people even know what I do until they ask or something comes up that's relevant. But, kind of asking this because it's so close to what I deal with, is like, do you feel like, you know, when the, we all have the pipeline and you know, it's, we have what's in our pipe and it's up and it's down and it's whatever.

Do you

ever feel the stress. Of like, you know, Hey, our pipeline's a little tighter than it, you know, it should be right now. Or there's not enough stuff in the pipeline. And the way that I sell is very long tail sales. So like, it's not really gonna like, solve that problem immediately. Like what do you guys run into that period where you're like, okay, all this community building stuff and long tail, you know, sales is great, but like we need to get some business in the

[00:13:06] Calvin: Right. I would say not in the last two years, like there, there was a change, a shift. For me and my role and what I did in about two and a half years ago. Prior to that, yes. I mean, there would definitely be ups and downs. You know, we would, relationship sales would come in, things would be great, and then we'd get full of business, and then I'd probably stop kind of being a little more active in the community because I'm like, we've got enough stuff right now.

I'm busy. I was actually doing implementation work, like I was, you know, knee deep and rolled the sleeves up and was working on projects. Well, that, that changed. they, they said, we, I think it's best for you to continue on the relationship. path, be active in the community, share stories, you know, share expertise, go out and kind of be the face.

And since then the pipeline has stayed a lot more consistent. Not as that they all sign, but there's definitely enough stuff always kind of constantly coming in. That's more than keeping me busy.

[00:13:56] Jay: Yeah, that's a good answer. I like that. All right, well, let's get into some actual questions here that I have. I mean, 

this is just us being pals, like I haven't even got to really ask you anything. But, where did you grow up? And I'm gonna, I know the answer to this, I'm gonna ask anyway. What impact did that have on you being an entrepreneur?

[00:14:12] Calvin: So I grew up in New Palestine, Indiana, so a small town just outside of Indianapolis. and all my family had been in that town for a couple generations, so that definitely impacted my sense of community. And we already heard about the mortuary and my grandfather's role in the community. but it wasn't just him.

I mean, my grandmother played a huge role also in the community. You know, I think she was in the p she had the held the award for like the longest standing tenure in the PTO, that she was in it for like 40 years. because of the, there were four kids, there was a big gap in between. I mean, I know you, you may know a little bit about that.

And so she was very involved in the community. I mean, she was very involved in the business. And so I saw a husband and wife that were my grandparents, and then my parents did the same. they were also entrepreneurs. they were school teachers by university training, but then in ultimately they founded a bicycle shop in the town.

And when that kind of wore down and didn't, you know. Meet the needs. They started a woodworking shop. And so they were also entrepreneurs. I can't say they were like super successful entrepreneurs, but I saw again, husband and wife, my mom, mother and father, my grandmother and my grandfather in business together.

And I guess the message just clicked. 'cause I was like, that must be how you do this. 'cause I, so, so I went into business with my wife, back in like, say 99, 2000. We've been in business 26 years together. We've been married 25. so yeah.

[00:15:32] Jay: so is, was, and I know what the business used to do. But was six feet up the first business you guys started in general? Like, I

know it started as a hosting thing and a bunch of different stuff,

but is that Yeah. 

[00:15:44] Calvin: Yep. Yeah, we, Gabrielle and I met working together at a software company in San Francisco that was doing like shrink wrap. Actually I have a box somewhere on here, like literally like photo project software. So if you remember comp, I'm dating myself now if you remember like Comp SA and Best Buy, and you'd go in and like buy an off the shelf piece of software.

Like we, we worked on a couple projects around. Soft software that shipped on, you know, CD ROMs and Floppies and things like that. And, I guess we just liked working together. And so we, decided, you know, slowly over time, we started building up, I had a hobby, which was, I had a server in our apartment.

This is a one bedroom, 600 square foot San Francisco apartment. I had a four U rack mount server that was sitting on the ground in our living room acting as a coffee table, but it was also hosting friends' websites. And so I, I. Someday told them I would someday charge you, whatever. We'll figure it out later.

And then at some point, Gabrielle's company closed the doors during the.com bust and she back invoiced everybody. And they all paid. And that was actually our fir, those were our first customers E ever where the people who were my friends on this server. And then she started making flyers and marketing and.

Growing this hosting business, over the years that, I mean, probably over the first 10 years, that was a main source of revenue for six feet up. And then we've moved more, a hundred percent over into application development, big data pipelines, machine learning training, and LLM projects, those kinds of things.

[00:17:11] Jay: I love that story. I've heard that story a couple times and I love it every time I hear it. especially the coffee table server. I, you also answered my, who is your first customer, question in that business? What I do, what I'm, I am interested in is like that, that major pivot there to, you know, completely different stuff.

I mean, you built a business doing one thing and then you're like, just kidding, we're gonna do other stuff. So it's like.

[00:17:37] Calvin: There, there were adjacent,

[00:17:38] Jay: I like adjacent, but like, you know, we both know they're completely

different skill sets, you know, to build and host and run a server versus like to build custom, you know, enterprise grade software or whatever you wanna call it. what was that time like? Did you, were you guys just like, okay, this is spun down enough, like, we have to do something else, or we like, we just wanna try something. Like, why did you guys make that pivot and like, what was that time period like for you guys?

[00:18:02] Calvin: Initially we like probably for the first year or two of six feet up, it was just. Straight basic hosting. This is pre-public cloud. This is before Amazon's S3, which was the first cloud service really they ever launched. So there was a need, there was people who were co-locating servers or people who were looking for just basic web hosting.

And that made sense. And then we had someone approach us for building, their, our first website that we did. But it ended up being an application because it was a organization that had quite a catalog. it was actually a group that did, like frying fine french stone, like marble and limestone and things like that.

And so they had a catalog of portfolio, like pictures of the projects, pictures of the product, and I was like, this, this'll be hard to build as a static website. We should really put a database behind it and start building an application around it for them. And that was actually where I got involved in the Python and Zope community.

So Zope was an application framework from way back. it later morphed into us doing. Content management work using the technology called Plone, which we got very involved for the first 15 years of our company's existence in that open source project. And that's definitely, we were focusing on building and deploying and hosting those sites for our customers.

So it was almost a natural progression from basic hosting to building applications to bigger, more enterprise-like applications that required special knowledge about how to host them. And then as the public cloud became a reality, we. We dove in and actually, you know, stopped hosting our own servers, you know, buying, you know, hardware and putting it into colos and racks and things like that.

I mean, I love the idea of gadgets and blinky lights and servers and hardware. Obviously, look at the hardware behind me. I've got all my video game 

systems, but that was a great day, when we shut off the last physical pieces of hardware that were part of our, you know, hosting infrastructure.

[00:19:54] Jay: No, that's cool. I like that. do you remember who the first customer was after you guys made that, you know, the one for the French stone site? Do you remember? Like, 'cause at that point you'd made the switch, I would guess. Right? You started to go like,

[00:20:09] Calvin: Well, I wouldn't say there was a definite switch. there was definitely a trend towards, yeah, we can build, you know, software applications and websites and so that, the first one was Mar and, I can't remember the name of the San Francisco company, but it was through a friend. A friend contacted us and said, Hey, we need a site built.

You guys seem savvy. I guess, and it's away we go. the next, I mean the first few small sites, you know, that we did back, this is 2003, 2004 timeframe. were very small. I mean, like we, we came back to Indiana and we're living in Hancock County, which is, one of the donut counties around Indianapolis.

And the visitors bureau for that county was putting out like a. Pitch for building the next version of the, or maybe the first version of the Visitor's Bureau's website. And we won that contract and we were so happy it was $8,000. I couldn't believe it. You know, like now, I, it's hard to open my computer for $8,000 these days.

[00:21:07] Jay: Yeah. Wow. what's the most Indiana thing about your company?

[00:21:16] Calvin: Well, there's definitely Midwest, nice. You've probably heard that. I don't know if it really applies though. 'cause a lot of the folks who are in the company aren't from Indiana. my co-founder's French, like, so. she was not from, or born and raised in Indiana. Even though the area of France she was from is very Midwestern.

You're just as likely to get stuck behind a tractor on a back roads of diesel, as you would here in Indiana. So the, I don't know if there's a super Midwestern thing. I mean, other than I think people we, you know, that Hoosier hospitality, I guess there's that Midwest, nice Hoosier hospitality. All that I think plays into my community building, like the things I grew up with.

And, you know, being a leader of an organization, you lead from the top, you lead by example. It's just like raising kids. they are listening and watching even if you don't think they are. so you gotta always, I'm always being me genuinely. Who I am, because it'd be hard to put on an act, at the right moments.

Otherwise,

[00:22:10] Jay: I love that. Do you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert?

[00:22:14] Calvin: I'm definitely an extrovert.

[00:22:16] Jay: An extrovert.

[00:22:17] Calvin: Yeah,

[00:22:18] Jay: I feel like the definition as I've gotten older has just gotten so blurry and mixed because I come home and I'm exhausted from every conference. Like

I, you know, and they say that's the definition, right?

That's how you can tell, like if you come home and you're energized and like you and I am to some degree, but like. I don't wanna see anybody. I wanna come home and just like not talk to anybody. You know? I'm like, I'm ready. do you feel, is that how you are in these? Do you come home from the conference and you're just like, jazzed on like all the stuff you just did and all the people you just met and you're like

super excited 

[00:22:48] Calvin: I am. I am, I'm, I get excited. I may come home and be tired because I've spent too many late nights hanging with these great people who are at the conference, but that's just a physical tiredness like the. The excitement I have of every day, at a conference like that, or with our community, I mean, I try and call back home at least once a day, sometimes twice, and just, you know, with enthusiasm, you're not gonna get who I talk to today, like, check this out.

Like they're doing some really cool stuff and like, I'd love to get involved somehow and engage and like, that's just kind of part of who I am. And. I think definitely extrovert. I, because I've heard that too. Like if you, if your battery gets discharged by being around people, that's more a sign of like an introversion.

And I would say I get jazzed like so much so that, for example, when I would run the Indie Py, we still run the indie Py meetings and the, in, doing it in person, I would come home from an indie Py meeting, you know, maybe like 10 o'clock, 11:00 PM I'd have such a hard time going to sleep right away.

'cause I was just like, the energy is exciting. is excitement.

[00:23:47] Jay: I will second that for you because I saw you give a very, technical and detailed, slideshow, karaoke, pre presentation on AI after a full day at the conference, and you were just as excited and just as like, you know, whatever, at nine or 10 o'clock at night, giving a speech on some. Pretty technical stuff, you know, so I could see how that

[00:24:14] Calvin: Yeah,

[00:24:14] Jay: you.

[00:24:15] Calvin: that's probably the few times I've ever given two presentations in one day. 'cause I was, the la I was the last pre, yeah, I was the last presentation of the official day and then did the after presentation, which was fun. I really enjoy that. I,

[00:24:27] Jay: It was impressive. It

was very cool. you know, at least you didn't have to combat the Kenny G soundcheck, from the second I told so many people about that. It was just like,it was so funny watching, you know, Katie and all these other people like trying to talk while they have like the sexiest background, you know, music playing, like, it's like, felt like,

[00:24:45] Calvin: It was def it was definitely the S 

[00:24:47] Jay: Oh God, it was great. Like nobody, yeah. You can't make a bunch of nerds, you know, sound sexy, but Kenny G can, so, that was cool. If you had to start everything over tomorrow, square one, you get to keep all your knowledge, you start the same business

tomorrow. What is step one for Calvin tomorrow?

[00:25:04] Calvin: I think it'd be founding the communities, again, doing things like Indie pi. I mean, you mentioned earlier like the sales aspect of it, but Indie PI for example, like the communities I run here in Indianapolis, haven't never first have been about sales. Actually, if anything, we benefited most from running those communities.

By getting talent, like the folks who would show up are the kind of people you want in your organization. they're excited about technology, they love, you know, coming in and talking about it nonstop. Like this is their hobby. So much so that they come after hours to those kinds of things. Those are the people you're looking for to join your team and build a great organization.

So that was like, you know, kind of second priority after like building a community was talent. so I would look for great people to build what we're building here. and I think that now that I know more about. I was never a salesperson. Like, that was not like my goal in life. And, you know, as a kid I didn't grow up thinking this is gonna be great.

I'm gonna be a, you know, go out and sell technology. I'd still a problem solver and I, so I still would go out and give presentations and give talks about the kind of technology that are interesting to me. I mean, the best way to learn some technology is to go give a presentation about it. 'cause you gotta be the expert.

I mean, there's gonna be questions and it's gonna be freeform and you can't control all the variables that are going on there. And I love that. that's probably one of my favorite things to do.

[00:26:22] Jay: I, I, that's a great, I love that advice. And the only question I would have is that a luxury style strategy, right? Where like you have, like, you know, you have the lights on and you have some, like for people 

[00:26:35] Calvin: like, don't you know, they need business, right? They need leads, they need whatever, like that approach. May not work for them because it's longer tail kind of sales stuff. is there, 

[00:26:44] Jay: is there an in-between? Is there, like, you know, if you were gonna start tomorrow and go build a community, would you be able to keep the lights on if you know you were at ground

zero? what would you do if you're like, oh shit, this is great that we're doing all this cool stuff, but we don't have any leads in the pipeline.

It's like, what's your first move to go get, you know that first client, if you started

again tomorrow. 

[00:27:05] Calvin: Still, 

[00:27:06] Jay: still 

[00:27:06] Calvin: I would,I would still be going out there and if it wasn't a community that I was founding and running, I would be joining many of these other communities to get to know who the people are. Because those are, that's. You gotta get some foundational relationships.

they're gonna become friends. They're, you're gonna become an advocate. They're gonna be an advocate for you. they're gonna be talking about what you do if you're the real deal and you know what you're talking about, this is much more natural and easy if you are. I dunno, fake it till you make it.

It's just not my style. Like that's not how this rolls. And it's hard to explain that, I think to some folks 'cause I think people think that there's a shortcut and I don't know if there is. I think that there, if you're passionate about things, you probably need to also figure out. Who you are and what makes you tick and what you, again, what your unique ability is.

What are you bringing to the table that really almost nobody else has? and people are gonna recognize it. People are gonna wanna work with you. People are gonna get excited. People will again, smile when you walk in the door. they're excited to see you. 'cause they know things are gonna be okay.

That's a great answer. I have two more questions. Are you ever in a bad mood? Very, very, very, very rarely.

[00:28:12] Jay: legitimately mean that. Like if I walked in the room and you didn't have that face on right now, the one you have that you always have on, which is it's a genuine smile. I think I would be terrified. do you do what makes you have a bad day?

Like what I mean, do you ever wake up and do just, you woke up in the wrong side of the pillow or are you just always,

[00:28:30] Calvin: I mean, I.

[00:28:31] Jay: guy on earth.

[00:28:32] Calvin: generally, yes. I try to be a happy human being 'cause what's the point of being otherwise? but I could get a little down around injustice if folks are being mistreated and I feel a little bit of a need to stand up for 'em, that's when things get a little serious.

And maybe I might have to wipe the smile off the face to. To do it. But luckily now there's a lot of people out there who are not having the easiest time. I mean, it's just the realities of the worlds we live in. but if there's ways I can help those people, I would wanna do so. And if I, if it's right in front of me, then we're gonna get down to business and we're gonna hopefully help make it right.

I've, I have other stories I could probably tell you over, cocktails one night. 

[00:29:09] Jay: Yeah, no, yeah, we won't do that here. But I mean, I just had to ask, I mean, I, I could, I only imagine that like, you know, your wife and kids see like a bad day when Calvin, they're like, oh my God, what happened? The house burned down. Like, what hap like something crazy must have happened for,

[00:29:24] Calvin: it's interesting 'cause the E, even when we were at the Con, you and I were at a conference just a couple weeks ago and during one of the first presenters. Talk. They asked someone if they'd be willing to come up and give a three minute introduction of themselves. And I, and he asked if anybody who would be willing to do that.

I raised my hand 

yeah, I'd be willing to do that. No one else raised my hand. I'm looking around the room, I'm 

I know I was one of the ones that didn't raise their hand. I know. I'm surprised. So I get up there and one of the questions he asked me as part of the critique, which I really appreciated, like I truly, did get something out of that critique was, well, what's a moment of adversity?

That you've had in your life that you could use as a relatable moment to others. And, oh boy, you saw my answer to that was I kind of blanked. I said, you and I told my wife this too. I, the words I said, were, I think you're, you. I'm the wrong person to ask about a bad moment in my life. And I told my wife the situation, first words outta her mouth were, you're the wrong person to ask about that.

Because it's true. Like she responded exactly the same way I would, and I actually met up with the speaker later that night, and I approached him. I said, listen, I wanted to kind of explain myself a little bit about that response. It's hard to have a bad moment when. All the obstacles are actually learning.

And you, I enjoy learning and I love becoming a better human being. And so I look back on those things actually fondly because it gave me a moment like, I get to learn about myself and learn some new capability or some new way I react. So it wasn't, I don't see them as bad, and I guess that's maybe why there's always a smile on the face.

[00:30:54] Jay: Always, I mean, they say that, you know, you light, the room up when you walk in and like it is very true. it's a weird. Thing that some people just have like this ability that like you see Calvin and you're like, oh God, this is gonna be so much nicer when he is over here. It's just like, every time I don't know what it is or why, like you just like attract people to you.

It's definitely the Midwest nice, but also just like, you know, you're your own dude and you know, you're doing your thing and you've kind of etched your own path and it's been. It's impressive in the short amount of time, the amount of respect that I've accrued for you. and I love everything that you have going on and like, you know, the fact you work with your wife and you just do the community stuff and it's just all, it's all stuff that I, you know, I think I share similar values, which is why I appreciate

[00:31:40] Calvin: that's why we get along.

[00:31:41] Jay: it's why we get along. So, I have one more question for you, non-business related at all. I don't wanna hear about the Python communities or anything else. I wanna hear about Calvin being Calvin, if you could do anything on earth. And you knew you wouldn't fail, what would it be?

That's interesting. I sat and thought about this for a little bit 'cause I've listened to some of your past episodes. I knew this, I knew that, I knew this question was coming and that, that's hard. I'm doing what I love. everybody says that, but I still, 

I always challenge that. I mean, I let people get away with it sometimes. 'cause it's been a long challenge. I'm like, all right, it's been enough. But like, I do challenge that because. There has to be some things that you are still afraid

of death or

of whatever, of doing this really crazy, fun, wild, or maybe not wild.

Maybe it's just a thing, or maybe it's some, you know, altruistic thing that you wanna see in the world. But I always push back and go, yeah, I get it. But we're all still living in our own

[00:32:36] Calvin: Yeah, that's true. That's true. Well, I thought about what could be a possible moonshot type project for me. I mean, there's things I would love to go do that are. You know, fun, like I, I love motorcycles and cars and those kinds of things. I love, you know, playing with computers and obviously retro video games, but I would love to help affect the world in some positive manner, and I think a key to growing empathy.

Where we are in, maybe the United States specifically, would be around enabling more people to see how the rest of the world lives. Could there be travel grants, scholarships, a requirement in high school that people get outta their comfort zone and get outta their bubble? And could I somehow. You know, get more people to see the rest of the world because I don't think they would treat others the way they do some, and this again, general bit of a generalization, but everyone can benefit from travel and seeing the rest of the world and seeing how others treat other people.

Seeing the beauty in places that don't look like yours. I think there's a lot of magic there.

[00:33:40] Jay: It's a great answer. And I also think it's not as far

outta reach because 

[00:33:47] Calvin: I think it could be possible. I'm not sure what that looks like. I'll need a few moments where I'm actually at home and not 

[00:33:51] Jay: yeah. Well, 

[00:33:52] Calvin: to, think about it.

[00:33:53] Jay: Good luck with that. But, no, I, and I like that, you know, maybe even more localized where it's like, there's probably

that. You know, epiphany moment or just that, that, you know, window into other people's lives that aren't the

same as yours, like 30 minutes from you. Right? Like, I mean, the

city, you know, so it's like, there's always this, and I've always tried like, you know, you don't wanna go drop your kids off, you know, downtown when they're four years old to like learn how to world. But you 

that, 

[00:34:19] Calvin: you'd be surprised. I've sent my kid to downtown Paris, basically nearly by himself when he was 10. 

[00:34:24] Jay: okay, well 10 is fine, but I, you know, I, you can't. I always wonder as a dad, like, is there a way for me, you know, to expose them to more stuff, even local? So

I love that. I really love that, sentiment. And I think, you know, it's actually doable. It's probably the most doable one that

anybody's given 

[00:34:40] Calvin: Yeah. my, two boys are very well traveled. they've seen numerous countries, lots of different ways of life. 'cause the area we live in, I Indiana's got some, you know, obviously more rural areas, but the area we live in is very 

it's very comfortable. there's lots of people who look like us and have, you know, resources to do whatever they want, but they need to see that's not the norm.

And that's by far in the world.

[00:35:04] Jay: I love

[00:35:04] Calvin: And so we've taken them. That was hopefully one of the biggest gifts we've given them, has been that, that ability to see other places like this, like see other places. Not like this actually.

[00:35:14] Jay: No,I, you were a great dad and I love that answer.

And, you know, Calvin, you're the man. I could probably spend another 45 minutes just talking about how great you are.

but we, we'll just do 45 minutes, Justin, how great you are. we did 37 minutes on it, so we could do another 45 on it. if people wanna reach out to you directly about

something they heard today, how do they do that?

[00:35:34] Calvin: email me, calvin@sixfeetup.com or you can follow me on LinkedIn, and direct message me there. I'm very open on LinkedIn. I try to share a lot on there. Those are kind of the two main ones. I don't participate much anymore on X or Blue Sky or any of those kind of other networks. Yeah, but email's easy.

I'm a globally unique name. If you can't find me, then that's on you.

[00:35:58] Jay: Yeah. No, I agree. all right, well, Calvin, you're fantastic. everybody go check out six feet up, and

Calvin, I'll see you.

at the next conference, which I, you'll probably be at next week. So I'll see you again soon, buddy. All right. Thanks Calvin.

[00:36:09] Calvin: Thanks, Jay.

[00:36:10] Jay: See you man. 

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