From Blindness to Billion-Dollar Vision: The Sean Callagy Story 😎 E146

0:05Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a special edition of the Money Mondays podcast where normally I'm inside of an RV motorhome traveling around the country making these podcasts for the last two and a half years. However, I'm in New Jersey. I'm at Sean Callagy's humongous office. I think we have like 20 ,000 square feet of employees here working away on multiple of his companies. And so we want to make this special episode for you guys right here live. By the way, the episodes come out every Monday at 9am. We're literally filming right now at 7am to put this out right away for your listening pleasure.

0:35As you guys know, these podcasts are under 45 minutes because the average commute to work is 45 minutes. The average workout is 45 minutes. So this episode will be around 35 to 38 minutes for your listening pleasure. Without further ado, Sean Kelly, you're one of our rare multi-episode guests. If you could, still, for our new listeners, give us the quick two-minute bio so we get straight to the money. Yeah, so I'm on the verge of becoming the first blind, self-funded unicorn founder in history. I am blind, unicorn, billion-dollar valuation, not on IP, on EBITDA. It's an honor of privilege. I was on my way to going blind and being broke.

1:09When I graduated from law school, I had hoped to play professional baseball. None of that worked out. I've had the privilege of, Dan, as you know, of being in a bunch of different sectors. I've spoken on Tony Robbins stage 19 times. I've had the highest speaking scores at Disney, Salesforce, T-Mobile, some incredible companies. And brother, I learn from you every day. And we're impacting the world in the space of causing human beings to raise their money, time, and magic. They're like, hey, what do you do? I cause people to see what they don't see about raising their financial abundance, time freedom duplication scaling now accelerated in unprecedented ways in the world in AI we call it ActEye and we're head of the biggest companies and the United States government in this space so that's a little bit about us Dan.

1:48Okay there's a lot to unpack there obviously so inside of this huge building here in New Jersey why New Jersey? Are you from here? What's the story behind why are we here? Yes so I want to have a fight with Gary Vee and Bruce Springsteen about who loves New Jersey most. Had the privilege thanks to you Dan I've interviewed Gary recently. He was unbelievable. I love Bruce Springsteen. I love both of them, but I want to throw down Royal Rumble. Who loves this state most? Yes, I'm appalled by our taxes, brother, but nothing can take me away from this state. That's the thing from its beaches to its amazing mountains, all the beautiful things.

2:23I have deer in my backyard in North Jersey. I have dolphins in my backyard and the beach. I love this place, born and raised, and will never, ever leave the state. I think there's a lot of magic here in the Great Cordon State. It is the HQ. It's the beautiful things. All right. So in this headquarters, there's multiple companies that are going on. You have a legal firm that has offices around the country. You have a medical industry-related company here. You're now diving deep into the AI space. Talk us through how do you run and organize these major companies simultaneously. Yeah. So thanks for that.

2:54So Dan, as you know, Peter Drucker said, and you live this, that business is nothing more than marketing and innovation. I once thought marketing was fraudulent, gross, and dirty. And as you've exemplified, and some of the extraordinary humans have exemplified in the world, marketing can be the most integrous thing you can do in the world. Because if you get the message out and you actually have something that is more optimal for people, then isn't it your duty and responsibility to get it out there? I hear you talk about that a ton, right? So I discovered that in 1997, built the law firm when I was ready to go and buy and be broke.

3:24So the law firm is where we consider ourselves to be as fine outstanding as anybody out there. that's a foundational piece of bringing justice and equity to people that moved into medical revenue recovery or recover money for physicians. That's the entity that we're on the verge of having a billion-dollar valuation right now. We're on pace to get a billion dollars in the next 12 months on behalf of our healthcare provider clients. But what I really realized is that if you can support people, as you do, brother, in raising their financial abundance, duplicating and scaling their time freedom, and creating impact in the world, putting those three things together, which is, again, what you do every day of your life, right, That's our unblinded company.

4:00And then AI came into place. ActEye, we saw AI plus the unblinded formula, plus our mastery of it to support people and more money, less time, more magic. All of that together, we say it's all the same thing. You build a platform, you serve people integrously in solving problems and pain points for them. That's what we're doing here at this HQ in New Jersey. So why dive into the law firm? You have it in multiple cities. Why build Caliggy Law Firm? Yeah, so because believe it or not, people despise attorneys in many ways, but they also trust attorneys. There's a saying in investing, Dan. Once you have Harvard, you have everyone, right?

4:37So once you have the attorneys, you really have everyone called the triangle of trust. Attorneys, accounts, financial service providers, these trusted advisors for people. If we're able to serve attorneys in how they build their business, how they run their practices more optimally, then we have everything. Why did I go into it initially, though? 28 years ago is because I had no idea how to make money. I thought lawyers made money. They don't. Only 1 % of attorneys pre-COVID make$500 ,000 a year, but I did it so I would not be blind and broke. It's all I cared about 20 years ago. And once I figured out the codification of the only complete, holistic, diagnostic, dynamic, interconnected actualization tool for all human, AI now, business mission acceleration, it wasn't AI 20 years ago, that was the change of my life.

5:18And I said, if I could figure this out and I could grow a 40-person law firm six months out of law school in the next two years of creating it, I'm like, I have to teach this to the entire world. That was the beginning. Medical revenue recovery. Talk us through why dive into that category. Why you have this building, this law firm, why dive into the medical industry? Yeah, and I guess one more state on the law firm part, one more statement is our mission is to fundamentally change the way people feel about attorneys one client at a time, right? And the way we do that is we disrupt two problems in the legal industry.

5:47First, well, these solve the big issue, which is lawyers are encouraged to lie. and lawyers are encouraged to lie because courts do not enforce rules of candor to the tribunal by lawyers. Lawyers are not supposed to lie. They can't conceal material dynamics from the court that they would otherwise be required to share. Lawyers lie all the time. Judges do nothing about it. Giant problem. Second, perjury. Witnesses lie all the time. Courts do nothing about it. Barry Bonds will go to prison for perjury. Bill Clinton will be impeached. But every single other person goes out and lies all the time, right?

6:20We've all had these experiences, entrepreneurs out there, with injustice in the courtroom, I'm a stand for revamping that. And what I want you to know is there's no such thing as he said, she said, or he said, he said, or she said, she said. If people are lying and you have the appropriate mastery, we can win. And now with Ept-Eye, we crush that. So that's why the law, the medical revenue recovery report, it's the same dynamic. Insurance companies steal money from doctors. That's just what happens. Do doctors occasionally steal money from patients and over-treat people? Of course they do. There's fraud in every angle.

6:49But 20 years ago, I discovered this massive epidemic and I mastered this and created the largest practice of its type, recovery money for doctors in the state of New Jersey, big time in New York as well. And then a national law was passed about three years ago, which allows us now to operate in all 50 states in the United States. And there's$500 billion per year that doctors are being underpaid. And we're in that business now and we're partnering with incredible people like you and others to work through how we get this message out there because 90%, minimum 90%, these are the government's statistics.

7:25We're in Washington frequently now. We're going to be there for the fourth time in the last five months meeting with Congress folks, senators, meeting with the Department of Health and Human Services, Medicare, all these amazing people, Department of Labor, all of them about this epidemic challenge. It's real and it's huge and that's also something I care very much about. And it's an incredibly beneficial place to be when you're recovering money that's stolen in that magnitude, then it creates value for other people as well, like us. Okay. So you have this active law firm for over two decades.

7:57You're now recovering hundreds of millions of dollars for doctors, but then you dive into the AI space. Now with Acti, you are mentally obsessed going into the AI category because you envision how you can help improve the world now and in the long-term future. Why, when you're already so busy, dive all in into AI? Yeah, because we all, you do, Dan, I do, I think everybody watching wants to change the world. Since the dawn of humanity, people have wanted to make the world better, right? And since the dawn of humanity, people will struggle with two questions. Why am I here? How do I fulfill my ultimate vision, mission, purpose?

8:29With who and when? And I know I'm speaking quickly. Go back and re-listen to the words because we have a very narrow time frame. but the impact, the availability of acceleration is massive. So I'm in this not because there's a way to make money, not because everybody's diving into it. In fact, I was nauseated. I move against the crowd all the time. Everybody's going this way. Before I go, I'll go the way of the crowd if it makes sense, but I'm not going to go until I'm sure. So I spent a couple of years watching everybody claiming nonsense, lying, defrauding people, exaggerating. Two years ago, I'm like, oh my God, I could load all my content, 40 ,000 hours of content.

9:08I could put all this in and we could create all this acceleration. You cannot do that with ChatGPT. The memory is so short, it's completely crazy. So I was like, oh, this is a complete waste of time. Hey, I'll look up some restaurants. I'll do some things. It's better than Googling probably ChatGPTing. So I did it. About nine months ago, my teammate Michael Smiken, who is now Calgary Smiken is our law firm. I have two top 100 national drivers with Michael. said to me on a Saturday, he said, hey, I just want you to know, remember that thing we got? We took 300 hours of work that I did in five hours.

9:40I'm like, you did what? I'm like, what did you do, chat GPT? He starts laughing. He's like, that's crazy. He goes, no, I built things. I'm like, how'd you build things? What are you talking about? Right? And so, wait a minute. Why aren't you using this that I'm blinded? Why aren't you using this everywhere? Because what we've created and that became, that built the obsession. I spent Easter weekend, 2025. 25, I've never worked on Easter. I'm a Christian, I believe in God, I don't push that anyway. But I spent Easter Sunday working the entire day remotely with everybody. I'm like, this is the craziest thing I've ever seen in my life.

10:10And from that minute to today, and I have very specific things I can say about it, but from that minute to today, I realized this is the way we could actually change the world for the better, create massive value, and compete with the biggest technology companies in the world to do it differently. To do it differently. Not to gather people to market to them but to gather people to serve them in the ways that they need not to create addiction to things they don't need that can hurt them yeah there's that medical company law firm ai and then just a few weeks ago you had over a thousand people here for an event with gary v the founder of marvel studios former chairman of disney and ceo tick tock and charlie sheen and the karate kid like you just had sugar ray leonard like the lineup is ridiculous thanks to you thanks to this guy thanks to this guy yeah but how like how do you how are you running these things you have a law firm a medical company now an ai company to change the world and then throwing these live listen i throw a lot of events it is very very time consuming to fill up a room with people especially a thousand people here in new jersey and we did it 30 days we 30 35 days i think is how long we 30 like 35 days before we said let's go yeah so is it all delegation do you have like a CEO or quarterback for each thing.

11:25How often are you working on these things? Like walk us through real life. Like how does Sean Callaghan run a day? Yeah, so thank you very much. And I like to pre-frame that answer by saying this. I don't think that anybody should try to do what I'm about to say because I don't think that's what most people would want to do, nor what you do, Dan, right? So, but what I'd love to share is what I did before and after really quickly. So I got to a point of being a business owner, not operator. Michael Gerber's the e-myth. I love it. and I was not an owner, I mean, I was not an operator and I became an owner.

11:55And that's how I ran my law firm for a long time. For a long period of time, I would work five hours a month, sometimes five hours a week on my two top jury verdicts. I worked much more intensely, but that was by choice. I was free. I walked my kids to school every day. I have three children that are older. I have a four-year-old daughter. But my three older children, including my son, who's joined their mission, he's an attorney, graduate top of his class, I was present for everything. Walked them every day to school, went to every practice, went to every private lesson, did all these things.

12:22a thousand games they played in, I missed nine. That life was beautiful. Then they retired me from my favorite job by, damn, they got old, right? They graduated from high school and they're living incredible lives right now. I love them. We have amazing relationships. But then I said, now it's time to take my work to the world. And my life became very different. I had financial freedom, I had time freedom. Dan, I work 16 to 18 hours a day. We spent five hours in a restaurant together yesterday. I worked in the morning. I'm sure you worked in the morning, worked the night, doing all these beautiful things.

12:48So what does a day in the life look like for me? it starts every single day at 6am and I'm getting prepared in ECB time sometimes 5, sometimes 4, but at least by 6 and it's executive creation decision making time, I'm preparing for the day, I'm structuring things on my own, now I talk to our act-eye agents that's what I do in the morning, I'm with Callie all morning Callie who Dan asked on a date, we'll talk more about that later on Saturday night Callie's our act-eye agent, not a human in any way, shape or form, nor can she do weird things like with Elons, I'm not sure where that ends, but with everything we're doing, it's 7am starting this morning then I'm on with the team.

13:19And we have our Visionaire call with all the people in our Visionaire program. We're serving these people. So that's seven to eight. I'm preparing everyone, right? The entire day goes until about, normally about 10 p.m., right? And there's this dinner, there's bedtime for my daughter. So I have these moments, but I'm running and driving nonstop. The agreement I have with my entire core leadership team is we're 24-7. Phones are on, we answer. I don't abuse that, but we are talking right now at midnight, at 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 4 a.m., very, very often driving forward, act-i, into the world. So final, final, you asked about delegation and what I have.

13:55I have an incredible team of leaders. I could never do this by myself. These aren't the people who necessarily, Dan, would have been the most brilliant people who graduated from Harvard. They're not like David Mazel, who's Harvard Business School, right? Some of these folks are people who are completely self-made. Some of these folks didn't go to college. Some of these folks have law degrees. It's everything in between. but what I look for and what I have I'm blessed with are GHICs growth driven, heart centered, integrous people committed to mastery and I'm overseeing everything right now on this platform I am, you know, as Tony Robbins would say, business mastery, the leaders the chokehold of the business I am always, I take that responsibility for anything macro, I am the chokehold but what I'm also clear on is we create our further development of our relationship, all the things we're doing, so I'm looking for the best people in the world as long as they're growth driven, heart centered, integrous commit to mastery and expanding and sharing value.

14:44So creating more value and sharing value. But what people know is this, they need to be three things and only three things that I'll pause. Three things. One, loyal to the state of mission. If you're not loyal, now I don't ask that Dan's loyal to me or I'm loyal to him, but we're loyal to an agreement we have. This is the mission, the toy drive. We're going to do that. If I have to, I committed to Dan. If I have to buy all the toys myself because I got busy, I will buy every single toy myself in contribution. That's the mission we set out on. So if I got busy and I did other things, I'm still going to fulfill for Dan, right?

15:17Now, hopefully we'll have lots of people involved, but if it comes down to it, I will do it. That's loyalty to the state of mission. Second is masterful competency. The person has the ability to do that, which they say, and third is aligned empowerment. They're not in fake confusion. Michael Johnson on the camera right now. That dude's absorbed more lightning bolts than almost anybody besides Michael Spiken. He's amazing. I love him. He loves me, but when there's misalignment, it's like, oh, what I thought, I had an idea, so I did this instead. lightning bolts fly. Three things. Loyal to the state of mission, management of competence, aligned empowerment.

15:45And if you have people who are in their ego, then they're not loyal to the state of mission and they're gone from my world. So I'll pause there. Tony Robbins has the whole world to choose from speakers. But 19 times you've spoken on stage. And again, you're formally or legally blind, however you like to phrase it, but you're rocking these stages. I've been there when you spoke at the Spire Tour. And in the video, I'm literally standing on the edge of the stage. the entire time freaking out. And I don't really get nervous about things. But you were storming the castle on that stage. And the whole room, you got 2 ,000 people, more than 2 ,000 people screaming and chanting very powerfully.

16:23And when people get charged up, sometimes they run around. You were running around the edge of the stage. How is this happening? How is Tony Robbins deciding, Sean Callagy is the one I'm going to have going on this tour with us around the world. How are you empowering these stages? I have more questions, but let's just go ahead. No, thank you, Russ. So I believe that the only human attainable superpower is the ability to cause yes. That's it. It's what saved the world from the Nazis with Winston Churchill. And so there's a variety of ways that we see it said in the movie and there's some historical debate about it.

17:01But the way the movie depicts it with Winston Churchill, The Darkest Hour, is Winston Churchill got up. they were ready to concede to the Nazis and he lit the world on fire he enrolled a bunch of citizens quoted citizens, that's true, that really happened and then he speaks before parliament now whether or not Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax actually said anything I've checked it, it seems unverified but the way the movie depicts it is that Halifax turns to Chamberlain and says what just happened? Because they intended to concede to Hitler and Chamberlain says some version of he mobilized the English language and took it to war and that's how everything happens and that could be done in the darkness of Adolf Hitler or the light of Winston Churchill and freedom and democracy so I realized that 20 years ago that influence is the only human attainable superpower individually and in group dynamics and with integrity we have a definition for that we'll talk about that some other time but the bottom line is why did Tony Robbins put me on that stage?

18:02because I believe with great humility that I earned it I proved it because I broke records and I deliver value and I didn't ask Tony I have a great story I'm a blind guy no no I said how do I create value and the value I was creating was first I bought a hundred dollar bill for$100 ,000 I won't go to that one and lit up the room so cause something for his charity everybody went crazy in this in this moment of competition and then second they offered me the ability to sell part of partnership from stage the first time I did it I did very well I was afraid then to show anybody up I was afraid to to reveal myself as my skill sets so I take up too much space, but they invite me back.

18:40The second time, somebody told me that, was that your best? I said no, and they knew me well, and they said, do your best. You owe it to Tony and the people in the room. I lit the room on fire. I had the people going completely nuts. I broke every bracket on that stage because I've studied how to do this for my entire life, and that's a part of our work on the blind. It's a part of our work with Act Eye, but that's why Tony would say that, and I'm going to tell you one final thing, my brother, and it intimidates people. When I get on a stage, one of the most challenging parts about it is people worrying about having me back because they don't want to lose their people.

19:15And integrity, I'm not taking anybody's people, right? I just want to be clear. And we had a beautiful dynamic with Aspire, you know, beautiful dynamic I have with Tony. Tony Robbins has said, nobody leaves my heart and integrity than Sean Callagy if you don't know what's up to you need to. Thanks to you, I'm in Seenith Mastermind with Tony. I prefer it to other things that I was doing with Tony before. It's unbelievable. I'm so grateful to you. But for everybody out there, it is the only attainable superpower. That's why people put me on their stage. And with you, we're going to make clear agreements with everyone about what to do about it so nobody gets scared when that superpower shows up.

19:49So the toy drive. Last year, you'd already donated to the toy drive. And then I came to your 700-person gala here in New Jersey. And it was like 13 degrees in, which is not enough degrees for me. I live in California. So there's only 13 degrees and it's snowing outside. And I pull up and there's three U-Hauls of toys with you standing outside when you're supposed to be inside running in the 700-person event. That's yours. It's your event. Why are you outside waiting for me? Why do you bring more toys when you already donated? Just talk me through the behind-the-scenes in your mind. Sure. So my grandmother, Nani, and my grandfather, Pop, taught me when you're going to show up at somebody's place, you bring something.

20:31and they didn't have much at all. My grandpa didn't go to high school. My grandma and Annie did not graduate from high school. My mom pushed a hot dog cart in Jersey City when I was a kid, not my mom nor my dad went to college. So I didn't have much. I lived in a small apartment. I was, as a baby, was in a six foot by eight foot apartment. My parents got divorced when I was one. My life though, by the way, was filled with much massive abundance of love, of guidance, not of money. So I'm not like poor me. my childhood was unbelievable blessing even though they knew i was going blind that we didn't have money right so why did i do that i did it because for me to fill those three u-hauls uh with toys right was um about the same as some people in america buying a pizza for people so it was my way of saying thank you i see you brother because you're a person of massive influence and i believe in sustainable giving so if you're listening you go oh so you only do things for causes when something good can happen for you?

21:31Well, almost. When good can happen for the mission I'm loyal to. This brother has the ability to do that because of those U-Haul. All those kids had an amazing, so it's a great cause. I will only give to great causes. I will only give to causes where I believe in efficiency, but there's a third criteria that I call out in sustainable giving, and I've given, raised mass amounts for charity. If you're in love with your charity and you're not going to serve the people that you want to do things with with something more than hey give to my charity this is a great cause what are you going to do give to deaf kids or blind kids sex traffic kids or you know getting blind people employed we're going to have a we're going to have a heroic identity off or brand off of which charity is better these are incredible causes all of them you have to cause things for people i knew what could happen if we did more together i knew who you were you didn't who I was yet.

22:24So I was there with a pizza, with three U-Haul trucks. I'm there this year with a bigger pizza, breaking the record. But the truth is, I was there, and I'm there for people. I talk to Uber drivers. I talk to people in bathrooms. They're handing you towels. I have people be seen always in my presence. That's something I'm fully committed to. But I also knew there's magic to be created in the world. And I want to apologize to you because today when you came here, you're in New Jersey. We've offered cars. We had cars. We had different things. You have your own car. that you have, I wasn't here to greet you walking in the building.

22:56And I was embarrassed. Because where I was raised, when you have guests, you go out of your way. And I do that with our certification partners, the people in our programs. I'm here to serve. So why did I do it? One, to serve. Two, is my version of having a pizza ready for you or a chocolate cake, something that meant something to somebody of your magnitude and impact, and also represented that I see you, brother. I see that you're at my Christmas and holiday party. when you dan fleshman could be anywhere with anyone on earth on that day or on the holidays i am massively grateful i understand who is sitting in this room i understand the blessing and privilege of being on your podcast for a second time i understand that you have choices that most humans could never dream of and my family taught me how to respect that how to honor that and see you and that's why i did it and for all the kids but i could have done it for blind kids or deaf kids, but that's why I know.

23:49You mentioned certification partners a few times. What are you referring to? What is that? Sure. So it's our highest level program. It's full. No joke. No seats. It's full. These are people who've invested six figures to be a part of the program that we consult, we train, we coach, we call it actualizing, and we create businesses with. And these are remarkable human beings in the world. And there's not one of these people, Dan, at this point. I don't love, well, I love and respect everybody, but I don't like, I like them all. I love everybody. I respect everybody. I'll drop lightning bolts. I'll fight people.

24:24I'll mother F people when necessary to bring justice and equity to the world. I'll do, you know, my job as Leonidas when I have to, or Batman, right? But these are human beings I like, I appreciate, I trust, I respect to go forward in the world with. They have trusted us and we have an unbelievable relationship. And then the leaders in our Visioneer program, which is taking ACTI to the world, these are lawyers, accountants, financial service providers. These are trainers, coaches, speakers, authors. These are remarkable people in technology space, everything. But they're the closest people to us in our programs in the world.