This Blind Entrepreneur Built a Billion-Dollar Company | Sean Callagy 💵 EP137

0:05Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a very, very, very special edition of the Money Monday Today's podcast where we cover three core topics, how to make money, how to invest money, how to give it away to charity. This gentleman for our guest today has mastered all three of those things. So we're going to dive deep into each of those topics. What's cool is normally I do this podcast inside of an RV motorhome that I travel around the country with for the last 200 episodes. Today, the podcast is number 36 in the world, our highest ranking ever. And this episode is coming out extremely fast in a couple of days on my birthday.

0:36So when you're listening to this right now, it is my birthday, Monday, September 1st. And so because of that, I want to do a special episode. This guest is my most consistent and biggest donator to the toy drives. He's about to break a record, which we're going to get into for the toy drive coming up December 19th weekend. And yesterday he absolutely crushed it, filling up half of the room at Aspire Tour here in New Jersey, where his headquarters is. So we're inside of his 20 ,000 square foot office in New Jersey. and without further ado, I'm going to have Sean Callagy give a quick two-minute bio so we get straight to the money.

1:08Well, Dan, happy birthday first of all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So yes, I am a blind adventurer, visionary. I have the blessing and privilege of being on the verge of becoming the first self-funded blind unicorn founder, meaning a billion-dollar company, self-funded, and being a blind founder. We're waiting for valuation, but we've already crossed threshold already. And I was, I failed freshman high school geometry for the year. I was introverted and ate lunch in my car a lot of my sophomore year of college by myself. I've been out the blessing and privilege of speaking on Tony Robbins stage 19 times.

1:41Thank you, Aspire. That would never happen out, Dan. And I'm going to stand in the world for this. There's a formula that's controlling the money, the time, the magic, the impact that people create in the world. And I want to bring that forward in the world because I was petrified at 27 years old of going blind and being broke. I had no idea to make money. I was not from money. And it was a remarkable journey for me. And of course, Dan, all of it with heart and integrity at the core. Easy words to say, harder words to live, but with specific heart-centered definition. That's what I saw about. I'm the proud father of four.

2:18Super grateful for being in the space with you. I learned from Dan. I'm grateful to Dan and brother. I'm here to serve. All right. So this podcast will be under 40 minutes because the average workout is 45 minutes. The average commute to work is 45 minutes. So this episode will be under 40 minutes for your listening pleasure. And the reason I say that is we have a 93 % listen through rate because people know with intention how long this is going to be. So they know what they're in for and they're in for a very special treat today because of the special episode. So Sean, on the make money side, what do you think is holding people back from making more money?

2:50I think two things, Dan, pop for me. The first is their relationship with money, which I'll talk about second. But the first thing I'll talk about is the second point in fun energy. And that is the fact they don't know how to make money. And when people want to learn how to make money, they often think of it's the idea. It's not the idea. It's the mastery of causing yes there's endless simple powerful exponential ways to make money people need to understand and learn how to cause yes and then people say oh you mean sell i don't mean sell i mean integrously masterfully create value for people find out what they want and need and cause yes i mean the power of integrous influence and once people have that power of integrous influence then a recreation of their relationship with money which is nothing more or less than the exchange of value between people, which is the foundation of our relationship and so many beautiful relationships, the exchange of value with integrity.

3:44Once you've shifted your relationship with money to a value exchange between people, just like a hello, a door opening, a handshake, and you know how to create those yeses masterfully, it's not like yes I can or no I can, it's with great mastery from those two places people can control and exponentially grow the amount of financial abundance they enjoy and are privileged to share. So at what point did you decide you were capable of doing multiple companies? A lot of times people were like, you got to be laser focused and do this one thing for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, or you got to master this one thing.

4:17But you've created two very, very large companies, one with your law firm and one with medical revenue recovery. You have two very large paths going on. You probably have other companies that I can't even realize or think about. You probably got a bunch of investments. But these two main companies, just because I'm sitting in your headquarters, at what point you decide, you know what, I'm ready, go for it. I'm going to do two separate, very large companies. Yeah. So by learning how not to do it. Hiring operators, you mean? Yeah. Okay, good. I built my first law firm from late 1997, mid 1997 to 2002.

4:51And all I could think about was wanting to sell it, exit it, so I can go and build, bring the formula, the work to the world, how to do the things I do now with Unwinded. and I look back now and it was such a silly decision. I sold it for a couple million bucks. If I kept that law firm, I would have made an extra, as I've calculated this, $40 million more. What's 40 million bucks, friends? Exactly. And it was all because of what you said, brother, which was I felt like they were two different things. So the first way to do it is say it's all the same thing. And Einstein said, make it as simple as possible, but not simpler.

5:28So let's see things as the same, not different. And the part of that that makes that a reality is to be in the business that Dan, you're in, which I fancy myself in, I think everybody should be in, which is to build relationships with people that can masterfully and integrously cause yes. And if we realize that we're all in the business of creating relationships with masterful, integrous people that can cause yes, then it becomes very easy to see as all the same thing. You have platforms everywhere. You create relationships. You create all these different massive values. And I learned how to do that.

6:04I didn't learn how to do that from Dan. I learned how to optimize that from Dan. But I, and nobody ever told me it, but by watching Tony Robbins was, it became very apparent to me. Like he has a platform, he creates value, and it gives him the ability to create all these different companies with scaled leadership. So my simple answer is build companies, build relationships, and you have everything you need. if you relate to yourself as one business, the creation of relationships with incredible people like yourself, brother. So are you still in the law firm game? I am. So I actually own a law firm.

6:37Within that law firm is about eight different businesses. I have Calgary Recovery. I have Unblinded. I have Acti. I have Integris Financial. So if you count it, I mean, it's one LLC, the law firm, but it really is eight different business units. So if you count up, it's 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. It's actually 13 legitimate companies. Every one of those companies is a seven-figure plus a year company. One of them is an eight-figure company. Another is crossing the actual earnings to nine figures as it's a billion-dollar valuation. Yeah, so that's the current state of the union. So what is unblinded?

7:15What does that mean to you? Yes. So Unblinded is designed to bring forward the formula that I went in a quest to discover to help people in their financial abundance, their time freedom duplication scaling, and the impact and magic they create in the world, like you and toy drives and all these magical things that people want to create. So when I realized I didn't know how to do that, in 1997, I went in search of it. My first law firm was the test case of figuring all this good stuff out and then I codified it and unblinded is how I renamed it in 2020 because I didn't want to call it Sean Callagy I want to call it something magical critical and important that it was going to do with other remarkable humans I've got to do with my co-founders Adam Vagino Brandon Valencia Nicole Mello Master Gratitude and it's a platform that trains consults and coaches I see three different things actualizes people in their money time and magic through a dynamic paradigm of virtual and interactive experiences that occur believe it or not brother on a daily basis now leverage enhanced or actualized intelligence so a lot of people when they're watching online as you've been growing a lot on social media you finally decided you know what i'm going to go onto the social media platforms hopefully you're going to launch your podcast soon i'm going to keep pushing to do that.

8:33So I'm saying it publicly right now.

8:38But they're watching you and you're on stage in front of, you know, there's actually thousands of people and you're on your own stages with a thousand people in the room, but technically you're blind. How are you working these stages? Then you're going off and I'm watching you hear about you snowboarding and surfing. Like what gives? So thank you. A lot of people think I'm lying and they don't think I'm blind. Other people think i'm a psychic i'm not lying and i'm not psychic so first um i have the blessing and privilege of having developed a high amount of certainty and a high degree of body spatial awareness uh that's super helpful i do have a pin prick of peripheral vision on both sides so i can't see anything in front of me i have a little bit of peripheral and i've learned to use everything I have.

9:29And so that the, if I have the difference calculated, but let's say I have two or 3 % of vision, I use that two or 3 % with incredible skill and mastery. So it looks like, uh, I have site and I'll have all these context clues. I'll organize structures. So I'll be scanning, turning my head back and forth, picking up things peripherally. So to very directly answer question if i'm going uh on stage and i could have easily at aspire yesterday fallen off the stage me and the security was so ready you were so passionate you got 2 000 people screaming at you i'm like he's just gonna get two in the mode and i'm gonna do this diving catch i had it all planned out in my head you can see it on video i'm literally standing on the edge of the steps the whole time you and some other people like already catch me uh but was really no joke was so difficult yesterday is the lights were so bright it cut my peripheral to almost zero oh wow So I was struggling to see – usually I could see a context, contrast differential in the edge of the stage.

10:31It usually has like some color, some metal that might show up differently. So I'll be tracking that in my peripheral. I have my body, spatial awareness, my skill. I wasn't tracking that. So I was in the beginning, if you would note, yesterday. I stayed within like five or six feet of a space. And then I saw a little bit peripherally. and that gave me just enough to believe i knew where the edge of the front was what i didn't know was there was like a hole in the side exactly yeah that was where i was worried yes easily could have gotten that so it's context clues peripheral vision same thing with skiing i use audio surfing same thing i can have a little bit of contrast i could see a wave forming against the horizon the background peripherally i mean and my pop-up i've worked with a lot of surf instructors They've never seen anybody pop up on a board.

11:19Professional surfers, I mean, I'm a very, very good surfer. I'm not a world-class surfer. But they said they've never seen anybody with a faster pop-up because it's a developed skill set based on all of this. So it's adapted using everything I have, which is really what life's about. So I'm going to ask you a blunt question. Yes, sir. There's a lot of people in our society that have different handicaps. They could be in a wheelchair. They could have lost an arm to being a veteran. Or maybe they're blind or deaf. Why do you think most people use that as a crutch to go through life and use it powerfully?

11:48And how can they change their mindset? Sure. Thank you, brother. I really appreciate that. And I couldn't agree with you more. So I've worked with a lot of charitable foundations, dynamics, including the American Foundation for the Mind. And a lot of these folks are really incredible advocates for something important, which is disruptive legal change, regulation, lawsuits. And yeah, there does need to be changes, regulations, and protections. but what I see is a massive disempowerment, Dan, and everybody, of human beings. So what I'm going to stand for is people realizing that every human being has massive challenges.

12:23Everyone does, whether it's mental, past trauma, all of it. And so many of the things that we have as physical limitations and disabilities, including my blindness, have created a massive benefit for me. I listen better. I have better body spatial awareness. I can sense energy differently. everything that's taken away from us creates an equal and even potentially if we position it this way in our mind and our heart greater opportunity for acceleration so i would say anybody who's blind in a wheelchair anybody who is struggling massively is to take all of this and realize there's a way a mechanism a formula to generate certainty to find and like if you relate to your disability as a disability, then other people relate to you as such.

13:09People don't believe I'm blind because of how I carry myself. Common thing, Dan, final, final, that people say to me is, you don't look blind, right? And I go, what does a blind person look like? I say, well, they usually, and what the answer really is, is they usually look more sad, less confident, less certain, less physically present. And it could be the same thing if you're in a wheelchair. I mean, set up straight if you can use your everything from your waist up, like whatever you have, use with love, heart and certainty. And people will forget very, very quickly that you have those disabilities and challenges.

13:45All right. So go to the investment side of the three main topics here. When do you go from, OK, I'm earning income, I'm making 80 grand a year. I've got to 100 grand. I got to 150, 200K. You start to make real money as being a lawyer or whatever profession someone's listening. when you decide I'm going to invest some of this money into something else, whether that's real estate, stock market, cashflow and businesses, whatever the other things are, when you decide I have enough capital to start investing in other things. I love it. So I talk about a principle called disposable income, which is the differential between your business income, I'm sorry, your business income, business expenses, and personal expenses.

14:20And so I'm a huge advocate of like people making more money. So I'll start there. But with what's left over from that, anything that's left over from that, I would recommend to people to start investing massive percentages of it immediately. So let's say that you create a disposable income of$1 ,000 a month, I would recommend to people not to start spending and change your lifestyle. I would put 90 % of that money away. So I wouldn't give everybody exact percentages of all the pieces, but I would take that initial piece, develop a tremendous habit of putting that money away, and then set super specific goals of when you can earn your way to a lifestyle change.

15:01So all of a sudden you say, Hey, I want to fly first class. So once you hit a certain savings outcome, you put that much money away. Now you could upgrade your lifestyle to start flying first class final final is I also believe, and I would be remiss if I didn't share this piece. Uh, and it may be more important than anything I say is people have a really big challenge of reinvesting all of their income from their business or their life. So if you have a business, they'll like to reinvest, reinvest, reinvest, reinvest. We've got to take money out and put it away meaningfully with an intentional plan.

15:33And we need to make massive reinvestment into ourselves, our identity, which you teach, you live, you've shown me even more massive ways to do it. I'm so grateful. So it's a balancing between putting the money away. And I would start with getting like very base goals, discipline, decision-making, not emotions making decisions, not opportunities making decisions, but an intentional structure, making those decisions of putting the money away, then increasing lifestyle and investing yourself. Those three pieces and intentional stare, step back and forth structure will be my heart and my recommendation.

16:08So I'm gonna say something very blunt to the audience that's listening, whether it's on the YouTubes, on social media, or right now here with the podcast. Your overhead is too high. The biggest killer of businesses and personal lives is your overhead is too high. you watch someone go from 40 grand 50 grand 60 grand they got a big raise they made some extra money to 80 grand 90 grand 100 grand and they wonder why they have the exact same savings in their savings account they went from a two-bedroom apartment to a three-bedroom to a four-bedroom to a five-bedroom and they've never even seen the fifth or fourth bedroom they've never gone there once they think their friends are coming over to stay over they're not coming they're not something there's no slumber parties happening they have a guest room that still has plastic in it like they don't use the fourth and fifth bedroom they're just getting it to keep up with the Joneses.

16:50They have a third car, they have a third watch, and all these things they're spending the extra money on instead of taking capital. Imagine if you make that 60 grand, 70 grand, 80 grand a year, but your overhead still stayed with a 2k apartment and you stayed with that one watch and that one car. All of a sudden you start to accumulate 20, 30, 40 grand a year. And after three or four years, you've now deployed$100 ,000 and now you're making 5, 10, 15 grand a year in interest and business and income and things like that. You can change the the whole entire course of your life by skipping a couple extra bedrooms, please.

17:20I've watched that happen way too many times. Someone has a third car and they have a third watch and they have the fancier clothes and the fancier clothes. That's very expensive too. And so like just watching people's overhead, it can literally change your life. And if you do the same thing with your office, you watch people go raise$2 million for their company and then go spend$200 ,000 on fancy TVs, laptops, couches, artwork for their office. And nobody goes to your office. outside of Sean Callaghan here because there's an event space. No one's going to your office and you don't need to spend 200 grand on the artwork and the freaking fancy 60 inch screens for your, like you don't.

17:54I've watched it happen too many times. People have this super high overhead on their rent, super high overhead on their office space, super high overhead on all these different things. And they take away from the core business or the core income that they had of why they got the money to begin with. Okay. With so many options of what to invest into because you are bombarded with people, you have hundreds and hundreds of employees here, hundreds of people come into your events, sometimes thousands of people at your events, you are bombarded with pitches. How do you decide what you're going to deploy your capital into when it could be real estate, Bitcoin, angel investing, your friend's 17th restaurant, this guy's got this deal, that deal.

18:30You have so many deals that you could be into. How do you decide? The only way I decide now, and I've made so many mistakes, I've lost millions of dollars in investments, right? is I now invest so I can't, I invest in two ways. I invest in one way so I can't lose and I invest in a second way where I can't lose. The second way that I can't lose is I'm a big fan of just index tracking. Like putting money in the market, leaving it alone and just doing that over and over. The first way I can't lose is I invest in incredibly speculative, risky, crazy investments, right? that have a strategic purpose that's going to create other value.

19:09And so I've had the blessing and privilege, and not that I'm saying that your investments are crazy and weird, but to mess with you in things because there's going to be a positive outcome by being a part of your ecosystem. And there's massive value that I've done this over and over throughout my life. It's changed me from being an obscure attorney who is financially well off to going into all these different spaces and building incredible relationships with remarkable people because you're investing what they're excited about right and there's and it's not like a tit for tat like oh if i do this then you'll do that you know you had given me a massive blessing of these opportunities you didn't say hey invest in this and then i'll do this for you right you did that i'm like dude i want to invest in what dan's doing i want to like do these things so the relationship capital identity that dan has there's access to it by being closer to him and being excited about it.

20:04And I've done that continuously. So unless you have a complete death wish, don't just take all of your money and invest speculatively. Like really invest in conservative investments. The rest, you're really investing in yourself and a relationship. And truth, I invested a million dollars with Dan. I believe it's going to be an incredible investment. And if I never get a dime back, I know that will be one of the greatest investments of my life if none of the principle ever returns because of all the other remarkable things that come as a byproduct to that. So one of the first things that he mentioned about the indexes is really interesting.

20:46A lot of times you're not sure what to invest into. There's a couple of things that are no risk or low risk. CDs at your bank are now offering 4 % to 5 % interest. It may not sound like a lot to you, 4 % to 5%, but you're just battling with inflation and you're doing it with a household named bank like Wells Fargo. Bank of America, Chase, etc. Where that capital, if you don't know what to invest into, at least you've got some interest happening. 4 % or 5 % on your 50 grand, 100 grand saved up, for example. It does compound over time. The other thing is the S &P 500. S &P 500 typically sounds like medium risk or high risk because it's the top 500 stocks on the stock market.

21:20But over the last 92 years, it's averaged 11 % a year. 11 % a year through depressions, recessions, wars, so many crazy things have happened and it's still over 11 % consistently over the last 92 years. Over the last 25 years, it's only had four losing years, and none of them were big. And so from a consistency perspective, the S &P 500 is very interesting. Can it have a losing year? Of course it can. Can it go down tonight? Sure. But over the course of time, you're betting on the household name companies like Apple, Google, Netflix, et cetera, that they should go from$1 trillion to$2 trillion,$2 trillion to$3 trillion.

21:51It's not guaranteed. But what we've seen over the last 92 years, it's a good bet to consider and do some research about. All right, for the last segment. Please, of course. So I couldn't agree with Dan more. And I've watched people, especially in the entrepreneur space, who make consistent, insane investments to super high risk vehicles, because they want to feel excited. Instead of feeling excited about massive high risk investments, what if instead you got excited about building your own platform? it's a lot easier to put money into things and kind of sit back and gamble versus taking the yeses the nos the cortisol the drips if you can tolerate that and put invest your energy your time your resources the platform building like dan did that's what will profoundly change your life don't change don't chase wealth through investing in high risk things invest only in high risk things if it's done strategically with people who are going to create a massive value in your life like that.

22:54So last segment is the charity part, the philanthropy part that Balsha and I are very passionate about. And I've watched Sean last year have 700 people come into his gala. But when I got there to his gala last year in New Jersey, and 700 people are all dressed up and there's this fancy party going on. And he doesn't tell me that outside in the valet was three U-Hauls full of toys in the snow and so i pull up to this thing i see three u-hauls which kind of stands out because everyone's in fancy suits and fancy fancy dresses and there's sean like in the snow in his fancy suit and he opens up the back of one of the u-hauls i'm like wait a minute are all three of these things full of toys and he'd already donated six figures right beforehand so it didn't make any sense why is there three u-hauls outside of his party which he's hosting inside by the way and he's outside in the snow with me why is philanthropy important to you i've watched you on random Zoom calls donate$50 ,000 to that charity last week.

23:47Like you're constantly donating, not just money, you're putting your time and energy. It's not easy to fill up U-Hauls and be outside in the snow when you've got 700 of your employees and staff inside. Why are you so passionate about charity? Yeah. So I believe, but for the grace of God, go I. I believe in God. I'm a Christian. I'm a nonjudgmental Christian. I believe in unconditional love of people. I hang out with the prostitutes and tax collectors. I don't use the prostitutes and tax collectors. I'm just kidding. But I am a huge advocate of loving people. And God has been good to me. And I'm committed to not bury or squander, but to exponentially multiply the talents and gifts I've been given as much as humanly possible in this world.

24:31And I believe in tithing. So all of the things we're talking about then that happen is I have tithing pool of resources from the abundance I have and in the same way I'm using my private capital to invest I'm using my tithing God's money as God's money to be a steward of it and by investing in causes that mean things to you and mean things to other people I love and care about very much I'm developing relationships with them it creates a cycle of abundance there's four components of value identity relationship capital monetary capital and unique skill sets those four things make everything happen.

25:08The building of the United States, the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, everything we have and don't have, dot, dot, dot. Right? So for me, I love people and I'm serving God. And so, and I said this this morning, actually, in speaking with a mutual friend of ours, and he said, like, hey, how do you decide about trying to invest? I said this, I decide that I'm building relationships with people. And if a cause is important to them, it's going to be important to me. I don't want to make a meaningful difference at it so i'm given 10 period like that's god's money and then how i move that 10 and what i do with it and where i put it is so more can come from it so as long as it's i call it sustainable giving so as long as it's a real charity as long as i believe the money meaning it's there's a cause right as long as there's going to be the money efficiently used then the deciding factor of where all goes for me is, is there things that are going to help us advance the mission of doing more good and more good and more good in the world?

26:09And that's why brother, I intend, we intend to break the Guinness book of world record toy drive. Now I'm locked in on the birthday podcast and the episode that I'm going to do whatever I need to do to make this a reality. Now, just in super fun energy, that means I'm either going to have to give all the money and all the toys myself because I don't raise my Calogie Christian Foundation. I don't take outside donations. It's all my tithing. So it's either I'm going to do all myself or I'm going to roll a whole bunch of people with me. But I'm telling you, on this podcast, we are breaking that record, period.