transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] I'm on the verge of becoming the first blind, billion dollar founder in the history of Planet Earth.

Speaker 2:
[00:05] What do you wish people knew about making money?

Speaker 1:
[00:07] If nobody told me this truth, I'd be blind and broke. Value and money are all about ****, period.

Speaker 2:
[00:17] Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier and more healed. Today, I am joined by Sean Callagy, entrepreneur, speaker and the founder of Unblinded, a company that has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, leaders and professionals transform the way they communicate, influence and connect with others. Today, we're breaking down how to read people, build trust faster and develop the kind of presence that can change your career, your relationships and your life. Please welcome to On Purpose, Sean Callagy. Sean, it is so great to have you here in the studio. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 1:
[00:57] Well, Jay, you're too kind. It's an honor and privilege to be in your space, everything you've created. Thank you for having me here today.

Speaker 2:
[01:03] Sean, I feel like my audience and I have so much to learn from you. And I feel there are so many areas we could begin. And when I was preparing for this interview, I was thinking I could go in a million different ways. But where I want to start is simple, but I believe it's poignant. How do you define success?

Speaker 1:
[01:20] I define success from a place of freedom, unblindedness, with a lack of human constraint. So simply put, when people understand the truth, the relevant truth for their life journey, they make conscious, free decisions, not polluted by the limiting beliefs and fears of all the people who have been around them since birth. And they decide to pursue that and dynamically re-create it as life shifts and changes. And they live as close to what they decide to live as possible. That is how I define success.

Speaker 2:
[01:53] And your mission, you use the word there, your mission is to help the world become unblinded. What does that mean?

Speaker 1:
[02:00] To see what people don't see about the exponential acceleration of the more they desire. People would like more abundance, more abundance in their finances, more abundance in their time and scaling and leverage with integrity. And of course, more leverage in their magic. And I use magic for everything besides money and time. Purpose, fulfillment, gratitude, contribution, all the things that are higher vibrational ways that people can feel better about themselves and support others in doing the same.

Speaker 2:
[02:32] Do you really believe that the reason why people are not successful, happy, abundant, joyful, fill in the blank, is because they have limiting beliefs about what they can achieve?

Speaker 1:
[02:45] I do. People have enormous limiting beliefs. And they're often hidden. I think people don't know how to.

Speaker 2:
[02:53] What is that how to?

Speaker 1:
[02:54] The how to is always relevant to the outcome people desire, making that conscious, unblinded choice towards it. But if we're in a capitalist structure, like the United States of America, I know you have listeners from all around the world. But if people are in a place of capitalism, where money has some degree of relevance, right? To create purchasing power for food, for shelter, for the beautiful home you enjoy here, and so many of your listeners either have or desire to have, money has relevance, right? So what I tell people all the time is, I believe that there's a hierarchy of how we pursue the more we desire, if people get incredibly confused about that hierarchy. So I often talk to people about this first limiting belief, which is that money requires stress, friction, and suffering on an enduring basis. My discovery of all of this was because I was going to go blind and be broke, and I didn't know how to not be blind and broke like all the people in my family with this hereditary eye disease. Seventy-five percent of people like me are unemployed, blind people. To put into a simple headline, I believe that people first have to discover this truth, that to create their greatest degree of freedom is because you have lived this truth, you have achieved the only human attainable super power, and it's the ability to with integrity, influence other human beings to say yes. And yes is in a sound, it's not marketing, it's not just management or leadership. Everything is on the other side for human beings of yeses, but yeses that should happen, not yeses that we manipulate and pressure. And once human beings realize that this is the freedom of opportunity of creation from every spiritual leader to political leader, to business leader, to sports coach and every happy family, is because yeses happen together. And once people realize that the creation of yes and its mastery is at the center of all that will help us live on our greatest purpose and why, then we begin the journey.

Speaker 2:
[04:55] I want to talk about your journey, Sean, in a moment, because I can't even begin to tell you how moved I am learning about it, understanding it, me and you today. But what do you think is holding most people back from the life that you're talking about? What's restricting them? What are they getting wrong?

Speaker 1:
[05:11] It's first because we are provided so many conflicting messages from birth. I grew up in a household that didn't have resources. My parents were divorced when I was one year old. My mom pushed a hot dog cart in Jersey City, New Jersey for a while to make a living. And I was told by my beautiful grandparents, including my blind grandfather with my same eye condition, that someday I'd be a doctor. That was their placeholder for being successful, right? They didn't understand what success was, but doctors were successful because they had some money and resources. So I was told I would be a doctor someday. But at the same time, I was told by my grandparents to have money had to be a bad person. So I, like most people, were given conflicting messages continuously. I went to Catholic grammar school, and I was told children are seen, not heard, who were told to shut up and sit down. We were told so many things that would limit us over time, that couldn't help but play out into our future. Then, as a high school athlete, I was blessed and privileged with great leadership, and these were great leaders that taught us how to win and be a team. But what we weren't taught is how to translate those principles into our adult life of freedom, abundance, joy, and happiness. So why I believe, to answer your question directly, that so many people struggle, Jay, is because they're provided massive amounts of conflicting messages that are imprecise, generalized, and often false, that doesn't help them understand how to have a beautiful, abundant, happy, integrist life in a capitalist structure.

Speaker 2:
[06:50] It's fascinating how people from different walks of life can have very similar messages, even though those messages are very gated. So I, like you, I often joked that I had three options growing up, either to be a doctor, a lawyer, or a failure. That's what my parents and family had put before me. I chose the third option. I did not become a doctor or a lawyer. So you did better than me on that from my parents' perspective, building what you built. And then also on the other side of it, I was also told that people who have money are bad. And when we'd see someone who had money, whether it was a family friend or someone's home that we visited, it would always be that they did something dodgy to get that. Or that there was something, you know, on toward about how they processed money in their lives. And that planted some really deep seeds in me. And I think all of us have a relationship with money, success, value, purpose, mission, expectation that comes from that. How did you begin to unravel and pick those early definitions of success, wealth, value for yourself? And then how do you teach others to do that?

Speaker 1:
[08:01] Thank you for this question, because it brought tears to my eyes. Because I easily couldn't have found that truth. Because it was 1997, 27 years old. I didn't become an attorney to be rich. I became an attorney to not go blind and be broke. So I applaud your courage in resisting what your parents shared. I didn't have any type of leadership like that, or some thought, or some incredible speaker like you discovered who brought you down a different pathway. I just had, okay, doctor or lawyer, because they don't want to be broke. So I became an attorney, and I won the game of law school, because I discovered how to win it. I was very good at figuring out from my sports background, how is this game structured? And how do you play it? How do you win it with integrity? So I got a big job at a big law firm, and I realized this was not going to create financial abundance. In the first few months, I became incredibly depressed. I was unbelievably scared, and I discovered that it was those attorneys that marketed and generated business that had freedom, and had such a deep negative association to anything marketing and selling. So I was going to quit, I was going to become a high school baseball coach and football coach, do something my heart and soul knew could be good, because I couldn't see how marketing and selling could be good. I had a miracle happen. I went to my chiropractor, he was a mentor of mine, told him I was going to quit. He said, before you do, read Anthony Robbins' book, Awaken the Giant Within. I said, I don't know who that is. He said, go get this book. And what Tony's work did for me, is it permitted me to reframe meaning. It asked me the question, like, is that true? Is that always true? He taught me that question. And I start saying, is it really true that marketing is bad and evil? And I came to the conclusion, that's not true at all. Because, Jay, what I had done in law school is I had began to develop my influence skill sets. And I also began to think about injustice and inequity and the incredible complications with our legal system and real challenges. And what I began to think is, I'm being suppressed in this law firm of hundreds of attorneys built on a financial model that's non-integrous. Because they are not permitting me to create the value for clients I can create. They're using me to put me in a library. They're not bad people, but this is what the structure was. I said, and quite frankly, I'm better at influence than virtually anybody in this building. I was a two-time national moot court champion in law school. And I'm like, there's not anybody here that I'm finding that can be more persuasive and influential than I can. So I quit my job. I had no money. I was petrified. I knew nothing about business. So I began to look everywhere I possibly could, and I couldn't find answers and solutions. But I started on my credit card, my own law firm at 27 years old. They offered me psychological counseling at my job. My family was losing their mind. But I was committed to find out if there's a way to win the game of freedom with integrity and heart and love, in a capitalist structure. And I found that there was.

Speaker 2:
[11:11] Talk to me about when you first discovered your condition and learned about it, and how it slowly started to affect your life in such a deep way.

Speaker 1:
[11:21] Yeah. Seventeen years old, I'm going to get my license. All I care about is getting my driver's license. My mom knows I'm going blind since I'm five. She tells me at 17, so she kept this a secret for 12 years. And I was, again, a peak performance athlete in high school in baseball, football, wrestling. I had no idea. And truth, she didn't want me to get my driver's license. So she couldn't have gifted me with a better time to tell me, because I wasn't devastated. All I wanted was my license. So I wasn't focused on the fact that I'm going to eventually go blind. I was focused on how do I convince my mother and prove to her that I'm safe enough to get my license. I did. So I got my license at 17. And it wasn't anything that serious yet. And as I went through the next decade of my life, it took my baseball career from me. It didn't allow me to go on to play professionally. And it slowly eroded. But it was a slow thief. They say retinitis pigmentosa is this thief that almost apologizes for what it's taking of your vision. I had the ability to read pretty finely until my mid-30s. I stopped driving around 40. I stopped and I read around 42. I'm 56 now. So I was really functionally blind, unable to watch television by 43, 45. But each of these were just slowly being taken over time, so it gave me this unbelievable privilege of adjusting at each stage and also gave me the gift of massive urgency to get ahead of this so I could be sitting somewhere like I am right now with you using my voice and my influence, my communication skillsets and having built a team. So I wouldn't be dependent upon things I could no longer do.

Speaker 2:
[13:05] When I hear you, I hear so much gratitude and positivity and optimism when I see you on stage. If anyone's not seen Sean on stage, go on YouTube right now and literally type in Sean Callagy. Watching you on stage is incredible. Like the energy that you command and the interaction you have with the audience and the engagement you have. Like it's unbelievable. I just feel like the natural inkling, if I was told that at 17, would be to go inward and feel more depressed and lost and confused and stuck. And I think a lot of our listeners would agree that their natural gut reaction would be to decompose as opposed to go in the direction you did. Were there moments of despair and stress and pain where you just said, I wish this wasn't happening to me. I hate what's happening to me. Like if you could kindly go there, I know it's vulnerable and it's personal, but I want to hear about what was going through your head when you first were told about the condition that obviously you said was in your family.

Speaker 1:
[14:06] So when I was first told it wasn't a challenge, but when it really was brutal was during my college baseball career. I was runner up for Ivy League Rookie of the Year. I was a starting player as a freshman. I had an incredible career. I knew, I didn't think I knew I was going to go on to play professional baseball. I didn't know I'd make the major leagues, but I know I'd get drafted. And college baseball became this incredible dichotomy of immense success batting and greater fear building in the field. So my first experience with the reality of my eye condition was when I started to struggle seeing fly balls in the outfield and couldn't get the jump I got. So I would be out there as this immense leader, and I'm very humbly, I'm uniquely athletic. I worked very hard, I was blessed with great speed, professional speed. I had major league baseball speed and athletic ability. And I'd be sitting there, Jay, praying the ball wouldn't be hit to me. And it was this horrible, horrible feeling. And several times, including as a unanimous senior captain, returning, allegedly, one of the best players in America, coming into my senior year, certainly in the East Coast. And I'm out there praying the ball doesn't get hit to me. We're playing at West Point, Army, so it was the Ivy League plus Army and Navy. Fly ball gets hit to me. I don't see it. Three runs score, we lose the game. And I'm the captain, I'm the leader. Jay, in my life, I had never felt more selfish. I said, you're selfish. You don't belong on this field. You're not capable of doing this anymore. You could be a designated hitter, not in the outfield. And I walked into my coach crying and said, I'm a horrible leader. I have failed you. I failed this team. Do not ever put me in the outfield again. I can't do this anymore. I don't deserve to be here. And I would say that, and a little while later, the Major League Baseball draft occurs. I don't get drafted. I knew by that point I wasn't going to be. I still had this like, you know, miracle hope for it. And those three days, I'd say were the only three days in my life, I felt sorry for myself and gave myself that permission, almost mourning the dream that was. And it was brutal. And it was painful because I had no desire to be a business person. I want to play sports. That's all I want to do. I want to teach sports. I want to play sports. I want to coach sports. And it was taken. And I had to let that dream die at 22 years old and then begin to recreate my life.

Speaker 2:
[16:36] How do you let your dream die when you can't see what's next?

Speaker 1:
[16:41] It was, 1992 was the worst year of my life. I've never had a problem with drinking. I've, you know, I've had alcoholism in my family. So I've really been blessed by, I don't drink coffee. I'm not a drinker. I've never done a drug in my life. And I don't judge at all. I have great empathy for people. You know, in those spaces. But 1992, I worked for one year after not getting drafted, before figuring out I would go to law school. And I went out after work every day. And I go to happy hour. And, you know, I was in New York City, and I was working in a bank on Park Avenue. I was making no money, but I looked like I was doing something, meaning if I wear a suit to work every day and carry a briefcase, and my family was proud of me. And I was so lost. I was so scared. I was so unfulfilled. And I could easily see how people could begin to drink and could begin to womanize and could begin to do drugs. And I didn't do drugs. I didn't womanize, but I drank more than I would like. And I just began to see how lower vibrational activity could suck us in if you don't find your purpose and live your life on purpose. So I began to recreate what that purpose was. And I didn't know what I would ultimately do. I definitely did not want to be a lawyer. Like, I knew that. But I saw law school as a way to hopefully be able to support a future family and at least the next right step. So for anybody struggling out there, I would say, I don't think it's knowing, we live a world where high school teachers or college professors or graduate school professors are always telling us about our future and our life. I always said, just take the next step. So for me, law school was just the next step. I was in the beginning of recreation. I didn't know what it would ultimately be. I knew it was dead, but I also had heroes like Batman and James Bond and the miracle on ice as a child. And Rocky and Muhammad Ali. And I knew that people who believed found a way. So I believed I would find a way, and I saw law school as the next best step. I wasn't certain it was, but I didn't have a better choice. So I always share with people, make an aggressive decision, make a commitment, take the next step, do it as successfully as you can, as things dynamically unfold for the next door.

Speaker 2:
[19:00] I love the idea of the next best step. I couldn't agree with you more. I think in my life, all I've ever tried to do is take the next best step. And I think the mistake is, we don't take enough next best steps, and we forget that it's a staircase and we start treating it like our home. So that step becomes your home, and then eventually becomes your prison. And then you live on that step. And if you saw someone standing on a staircase and they were just stuck on the same step, you'd be like, hey, why don't you take the next step? And so talk to me about that idea. I want, actually, there's so many things I want to unpack with you here. You just, truly just sitting here with you gets me so inspired and excited for the potential for people to listen to this episode. When you're learning about your condition, you're feeling the effects of it. It's starting, it's taking away your baseball career. Your, you know, the blindness is getting worse. This is hereditary. It's in your family. Are you able to take inspiration from how they've dealt with it? Does that help? Do they have insight? Is it valuable or are you really having to search for it externally?

Speaker 1:
[20:03] Most people in my family who had my eye condition were blind, relatively broke, and alcoholic. Except my grandfather, my mother's father, but he did not achieve meaningful financial abundance. But they made incredibly strategic decisions. My grandmother and my grandfather with his condition. So I didn't learn about business from my grandparents. I learned a lot about family, incredible things about love, caring, empathy was driven into my soul. And my grandfather was powerful. He was strong. When you think of blind people, you think weak, timid, and capable. My grandfather would yell at drug dealers and pimps in Jersey City, that as their neighborhood decayed, to stop taking advantage of people, to stop hurting people. He was a fearless, Zeus energy, powerful human being that stood for women, underdogs, the oppressed, the challenged. And my grandfather taught me respectfully to take S from no one, and to love everyone. He was a protector. People said to my grandfather, he would love you to death, and sometimes scare you to death. And this became a framework that I learned from him and my high school athletic coaches to be a stand for people, to be a protector, to be a guardian and a guide. So yes, my grandfather taught me a lot about that, which sent me searching for the truth of how to make business finances work for me. And then if I could, then to teach others the same.

Speaker 2:
[21:45] If someone's listening right now and they feel stuck because their dream just ended, or maybe they don't even know what their dream is, what can they do in the next 24 hours to get unstuck?

Speaker 1:
[21:56] Most important thing I would share with people, and this feels so trite to say, but I will, and I'll give two inches, that's okay, Jay.

Speaker 2:
[22:03] Yeah, please.

Speaker 1:
[22:03] Is to put endorphins in your body 12 times a day. The greatest drug people can take, and I just finished reading Charlie Sheen's book, I had the privilege of interviewing Charlie, and I understand that in the book, he talked about crack and the feeling, I've never done drugs and cocaine and testosterone and steroids and all sorts of stimulants that can do things in your body. I believe the greatest super drug that provides love, a feeling of love, gratitude, abundance, power, strength, aspirational vision are endorphins. And I also believe that people understand this at some level for people who get a runner's high or go out and lift. But what I've never heard anyone talk about until recently, and I've been talking about this for years now, is microdosing endorphins all day. So if somebody is stuck 12 times today for 60 seconds or less, put endorphins in your body. Do push-ups, bodyweight squats, crunches, not walking, not jumping jacks, it doesn't get you there in 60 seconds. But put endorphins in your body. And if you're disabled, you're quadriplegic, blink your eyes, make muscles with your face, do anything that will release endorphins for 60 seconds. If you don't have that challenge, get on the ground and do this, it's gonna create a completely different reality. Our biochemistry is a filter for a reality. So I always tell people start with your biochemistry. But then second, realize that you're a mastery at influencing yes causing. That I am right on the cusp of being an introvert and extrovert. So I wasn't a person, Jay and everybody out there, who was charismatic growing up. In fact, I was very shy. I wasn't the guy asking girls out. I wasn't the person who was the cool guy. I ran for class president in seventh grade. I got two votes. True story of my 115 person class, because my speech was so god awful because it wasn't my words. It was so inauthentic, right? So what I tell people is put endorphins in your body 12 times today, and begin to study influence. Not how you pitch hook or close horrible words, lose those words, not how you funnel, not how you objectify anyone or anything, but how you cause other human beings to be seen and heard and understood. It's what Oprah Winfrey said is why she held a microphone for 30,000 people. And it's not a soft skill, it's the skill set. Begin to learn it and master it today with absolute love and integrity, and everything will become unstuck.

Speaker 2:
[24:34] The release of endorphins and the physical movement is such a huge one, I feel, for, like you're saying, everyone who possibly can can make a shift in their lives. When you're talking about quitting your job, quitting law, realizing that it wasn't what you were gonna do, I think there are so many of our listeners today who would say they're in a job right now that they've potentially thought about quitting at least more than once. And maybe they've even got close, but then they've caved. If someone's in that position right now, thinking about quitting their job or doesn't like their job or isn't enjoying their job, isn't engaged, we know that nearly 50% of US workers are disengaged in the workplace. People are not feeling a sense of meaning and purpose. What's the first thing that person should do before making that decision?

Speaker 1:
[25:36] Before making that decision, again, I reemphasize 12 times a day, endorphins, do for 30 days. Don't quit your job yet, right? And second, begin to master influence and accept this reality, that if you're unwilling to face the greatest fear people have, which is that of rejection, people say people fear death more than public speaking, but people also fear the rejection of others. There's a way and a mechanism that doesn't feel aggressive, harmful, pushy, salesy, to cause integrist yeses with human beings. This is the pathway to freedom. If you refuse to accept that reality, then what I would tell people is begin to find, make peace with the job you have, the life you have, and gain your purpose and fulfillment outside of those working hours. I often tell people, become a police officer, become a teacher, do something that doesn't require you to face that fear. But for the greatest degree of freedom, what I would share with people Jay, is to find your way forward to facing that fear. It will be 12 of the most challenging, grueling months. It will be like Daniel and the karate kid with Mr. Miyagi. It will be like Luke with Yoda. There'll be so many moments of or Michael Ruzioni with Herb Brooks and the Miracle and Ice team. So many moments of doubt, of fear because you're recreating your nervous system and how it primarily shares rejection as death. And you can begin to reframe your reality that rejection doesn't exist. And we're the only people that can ever possibly reject ourselves, right? The only people can reject us as us. The reality, very simply, is 30 days of beginning to recreate this reality, but realizing that it's on the outside of what is currently comfortable for us today, that we'll find that freedom. And Jay, when I quit my job in that law firm, it was the most grueling, brutal, scary, horrifying 12 months of my life. I didn't have a single person around me who told me I should be doing this. And I had to find it in books and places, and people would find their work with you, Jay. And that piece, Find It With Jay. Listen to him every day as you recreate this reality, put endorphins in your body, and realize there's a path to freedom, like somebody like Jay has created. And humbly, somebody like myself has created. And that's what I would tell people to do today. And if you could find your way to this absolute commitment and realize that the causing of yes, leadership yeses, management, marketing or selling, recruitment yeses, on the other side of yes, is a higher compensation level, is a greater degree of economic freedom. If you can make peace with this, and you could pursue the how to of mastering that, then and only then would you be in a position where you should quit your job. Until then, find your way to a decision of either making peace with being an employee, or making peace with yes causing, which will be, and I hold no judgment, but it will create the absolute freedom that somebody like Jay Shetty has. If you want that, like him, you have to master the causing of yes with humans.

Speaker 2:
[28:51] Yeah, you took me back to the first 12 months after I quit my job too, and I've done it a few times. And so I could, I can totally relate to that. I fully agree. And I appreciate that you don't make it sound easy, or fantasy, or aspirational. It's tough and it's hard work. You talked about mastering influence as being the core piece there. If someone wants to start their journey of mastering influence in the next 30 days, what should they do for the first seven, the second seven, the third and the fourth for the next four weeks? What do they do?

Speaker 1:
[29:26] So what would you do in the first week? Is in every conversation you're in, 90% of the conversation be doing the listening. The 10% in which you're speaking would only be you asking open-ended questions, not closed-ended to people. Who, what, when, where, why, how, not, is, are, was, were, none of that. Wow, how, when, why. Then pause and say this. What I'm hearing you say, Jay, is you love people. You do this from your home when you don't have to do it anymore, because you want people to be free. You want their hearts to be fulfilled, that you want them to live the life that you've discovered, which is a purpose-filled life. And even if people will false frame you or criticize you as they have, every incredible leader from the Dawn of Time, from Christ to Buddha, from everyone, you will do this because you love people enough not to remove yourself from the world, but continue to expand in this world. Jay, am I hearing you correctly?

Speaker 2:
[30:33] Yes, very accurate.

Speaker 1:
[30:34] Yeah. So do that, folks, for next week. And master the depth of hearing people by listening to what they're saying, what they're not saying, and don't ever do this. Don't do this for seven days. Hey, Jay, I heard you like the Lakers. I like the Knicks. That's called level one listening, where you turn it back to yourself. Don't talk about yourself for seven days and watch how people begin to relate to you and become drawn to you. Second week is begin to transition after you've reduced from 90 percent to two-thirds listening. Listen to people if you have 30 minutes with somebody, listen for 20. In the end, say something like, hey, so what I'm hearing you say is dot, dot, dot, am I hearing you correctly? Don't reflect the surface, reflect the heart and the soul, and say, it would be okay if I share a couple of things that may or may not resonate with you. Then, in that final third, 10 minutes if it's a 30-minute meeting, if it's an hour, the final 20 minutes, begin to share some things that are about who you are. But after you spent the first week practicing the depth of listening, and now watch how you receive with people after you've created this reciprocity with them from the listening. Those final two weeks for a month, then begin to propose to people how you might do some things ongoingly. Maybe you're going to spend some time speaking together, maybe you're going to go to some programs. And in no way am I trying to be self-serving. This is what I do for a living, so if it's interesting, it resonates. We have plenty of things to support you with. But that's what I would do in that first month. Week one, 90 percent listening, week two, two-thirds listening, where you're in deep reflection and acknowledgement. And that final two weeks, you begin to propose doing some things and co-creating value people. But there, and I say this, Jay, and this could be easily misinterpreted, this may be the most controversial thing I say all day. I believe all people are created equal under God. They're equally worthy of love. They're equally worthy of respect. Everyone, I love homeless people. I love people who've stolen two million dollars from me, and someone has, and I got my money back. I love everyone unconditionally with boundaries. Right? I do. And I'm clear that not all humans are currently able to create equal value, and all actions are not created equally. So in those final two weeks, begin to think about who you want to add value to, who you want to be, the mouse that takes the thorn out of the lion's foot. And Jay, I joined Tony Robbins Platinum Partnership because I thought someday I'd speak on this stage. And I immediately got there, realized everybody thought that. And in one night, my dreams died. And the next morning, they were reborn. Because I remembered what I teach, that every human being has pain. Every human being, the most influential humans in the world. I do, Jay does, everyone does. Everyone does. And if we could learn that final two weeks, how do we begin to become the mouse that removes the thorn from the lion's foot? That's what put me on Tony Robbins stage the very first day I got there. And I believe it was a miracle from God, a blessing. It kept me there 19 more times. Because I figured out how to create value, not the value I thought they needed, the value they believed they needed. And when you do that in those final two weeks with people, watch how your life changes when you are the mouse, not the lion, finding the lion with the thorn in their foot.

Speaker 2:
[34:00] From a business perspective, if you had to start from scratch again today, how would you start?

Speaker 1:
[34:05] Only take advice from people who are living the type of life you want to. I am divorced twice. I have no horrors in my divorces. There was no legal battles. I have a fine relationship in both situations, including an outstanding relationship with my first wife, the mother of my three oldest children. We spend every Christmas morning together, et cetera. However, you would not want to learn from me how to stay married, because I'm not married. You would want to learn how to get divorced, have no controversy, and have an incredible relationship when you have children. That I'm masterful at, right? So only learn from the people who have that which you want to have and do not listen to anyone else. That was the most foundationally critically important piece, because everybody wanted to give me advice when I was fearful in my law firm job. So if I went back in time, I would live that edict and then I would learn from the people who had the type of life I wanted, but not just the money. You know, I wouldn't be studying God rest his soul, Ozzy Osbourne, for how he became wealthy and successful. I would find people with financial abundance who were respected, who love their life, who lived the type of life that I wanted to live that didn't require work to be continuous. That went from an arduous place to an abundant place in financial abundance, time abundance, who were massively contributing value to other people in money, in wisdom, in love, in possibility. And PS., it doesn't always have to be money. My grandparents were very successful people. They gave massively an abundance of love and safety and family and they never had any financial resources. So I would study people in every area, health, surfing, to have the things you want to, and then begin to reconcile those things. That's what I did, and that's what I would do over again.

Speaker 2:
[36:04] And what was the piece of advice you received at that time from someone who had already done what you wanted to do that was such a game changer?

Speaker 1:
[36:12] The game changer for me, Jay, was loving or respecting my grandmother, Nani, and going to a garage sale with her, having already begun to study Tony Robbins' work and Jay Abraham's work. But I was still missing pieces and I was still not understanding. And this is one of the things I would always say about Tony. I love him, I honor him, I respect him, I can never repay him in a thousand lifetimes for what he's brought. But I would say to Tony is, teach what you do truly in business. And he didn't, and he doesn't. But a miracle happened for me, honoring and loving my grandmother, is we went to a garage sale. I don't like garage sales, Jay, but my grandmother did. So as being a good grandson, I'm 28 years old, I'm petrified trying to figure it out. I quit my job, I started my own business, my own law firm, and there was a row of books. And one of the books, the row of dollar, was How to Make a Fortune from Public Speaking. My grandmother told me, don't buy the book unless they'll give it to you for a quarter. I said, Nani, I don't think so. I think I'll pay the dollar. And the book, How to Make a Fortune of Public Speaking, was life-altering because it helped crystallize for me this concept that influences the only attainable superpower. And it taught me what you live, the power of the stage and the microphone. And once I realized the power of the stage and the microphone, it didn't have to be like you have, Jay, millions and millions and millions. That's incredible. But you can also have a stage and a microphone with 15 of the right potential clients, 15 of the right potential partners. It could be in a small restaurant in the middle of Tuscaloosa, right? But the power of the stage and the microphone in gaining not only individual influence, but group influence. Once I saw that book and consumed it, it then contextualized Tony Robbins for me. It contextualized Oprah Winfrey for me. It contextualized George Washington, founding fathers, Walt Disney, the NFL. It gave me an understanding of a reality that nothing ever had before. So I would say to master influence individually and in group dynamics and to let go of all fear and turn your attention to that.

Speaker 2:
[38:17] What did you do with that? What was the first step you took in business?

Speaker 1:
[38:21] The first step I took once I learned this was booking my first speaking engagement. It was a free speaking engagement at a university hospital in New Jersey. For 30 inner city children in Newark, New Jersey, I spent three days preparing a 15-minute talk. And at best, I was okay. I had a quotes from Greek philosophers and these things for 15-minute talk. And when I was done, I got in my car and I cried. I said, I can't do this. I'm not good at this. Those kids needed somebody better and something better. And that was my lower self speaking and my selfish lower self that wanted to protect me. And my higher self said, that's a lie. That's just like baseball. Just like when you were 10 years old and you didn't start in a Little League All-Star team. Just like every moment, it's a journey. And I recommitted and I began to find my way. And so for people, what I would say to folks is do what I just said for these 30 days and try to book a speaking engagement and be horrible. Go speak to people in old age home. Go see if they'll let you come in and talk to eight people who you can shine up their memories and get in front of them and listen to them and talk to them and try to facilitate something in front of them and be horrible. Come into your car and cry when you're done and then go back and see if they'll have you back and do it again. That's what I tell people to do.

Speaker 2:
[39:38] I love that story, but I also love the way you worded it as your selfish lower self that was telling you you weren't the right person, you didn't do a great job. Talk to me how that's a selfish thought for anyone who's wondering how does that make sense.

Speaker 1:
[39:52] Yeah. So I know this to be true. Our survival brain wants to keep us safe. It wants to give us certainty. It wants to give us some level of significance. It wants to destroy any concept of the growth mindset or higher self work that Dr. Dweck would talk about at Stanford in the growth mindset. So the most selfish thing I believe we could do is to be engaged in false modesty. I believe in humility. I am not better. We're all equal under our higher power, called the universe, called God, called whatever you like. I know that to be true. But we're not able to create equal value. Tom Brady is not the same as the center of the New England Patriots, who is not the same as the center on a high school football team. So when we have the capacity to do more, and we become unblinded to that reality, and we hide from it, and we pretend, ah, Shucks, I'm just Jay Shetty, and I'm nothing different, special, and valuable. That's just not true. You have millions of people that you, because of your influence, have been able to cultivate as an audience. You have power in this world that is unique and valuable, and you earned it. You had blessings, and you had doors that opened, but you earned it through your skill sets, your mastery, right? If you would have said all these times, I'm not worthy of interviewing Michelle Obama, or I'm not capable of interviewing Oprah, aw shucks, I'm nobody to do that, you would have deprived the world of all the value and power you've created. So for everybody out there, don't do that. And the greatest moment that I learned about this was in my senior year of high school football, and we were playing the championship game. And I knew that our best chance to win that game on an impossible situation, fourth and goal from the 20-yard line in a tie game, I knew our best chance was to throw a pass to me. I also knew that the great likelihood was that it wasn't going to work. So I knew our best chance was for that to happen, and I knew it probably wasn't going to work. So what every part of my being told me is to do what I've done for four years of high school athletics, we're told to do, to shut my mouth, to say nothing, and let the coach call the play. But I knew that I had a great chance to beat this guy, and I knew what had happened during the game. I didn't know if the coaches knew. So we called the timeout. I jogged over to the sideline with our quarterback, which nobody ever does. I said, Coach, I swear to God on everything, on my reputation, that our best chance to throw this pass to me. I swear to God, if you call this play, I will catch it and we'll win the championship. And I knew I was telling the truth and lying, because I knew the coach may not run that play, but it was our best chance. We ran the play, I caught the ball. That was a blessing. It was good fortune, right? But if I didn't do that, Jay, I would have been selfish to protect myself from being the goat forever, ever and ever, to be told, oh, this guy walked the sideline. He said he called for the ball. What an ego-driven a-hole that person was. That would have been my legacy. But my teammates, my coaches, my high school, everything they had given me, they deserved me to do that. That's the same thing I did in Tony Robbins' world when I first took the stage. I told them, I will cause more people to join Platinum Partnership than anybody ever has. I will break every sales record imaginable, except the truth was, I knew I would in that situation, and it was scary, and I knew people would judge me for it. So what I would encourage people to do is to engage in absolute humility, because none of those things make me anything, except the person that produced that result, and don't make me better than anybody else in the world. Except they make me uniquely capable of doing certain things that I'm more capable of doing than others, so I don't engage in false modesty, and I encourage others to do the same.

Speaker 2:
[43:50] You've made multi-generational wealth in your life, abundance, value. What do you wish people knew about making money that they don't?

Speaker 1:
[43:59] How easy it is, how hard it is for the first year, and how easy it becomes from there, because of how afraid people are, and how the value hierarchy of money is created. Value and money are all about replacement cost, period. So, and the hardest skill set to develop for people is the ability to cause yes in group dynamics of people. It's why you're Jay, it's why Oprah is Oprah, or run down the line of names we've said, it's why presidents are presidents, right? It's the hardest value to create in group influence. The next hardest value is individual influence to cause yes. Once you realize that, and you realize this, to be an NBA player, MLB player, the things I dreamt of, things many people dream of, that is a very fixed, limited game, where very few human beings are ever going to be Mike Tyson, or a home run champion, or the Los Angeles Laker. But in business, so many people can become multi-millionaires. So many people, so many more people, and what I would offer to people is to realize it's easy if you will spend the one year, heck, you spent 12 years of under, you know, of secondary education and graduate, you used to do 20 years in your education. One year of building that influence and realizing that then people want to work with you and for you, if you could teach them that pathway, and Jay, this is the craziest thing. I tell everyone the truth. Nobody told me the truth when I came out of law school. Nobody in that law firm told people that work for me and all of my businesses. I tell people how this hierarchy works. I tell people you can work here forever and not be a yes causer. As long as you're loyal to the stated mission, don't ever be loyal to me, if you ever see me breach integrity, tell the world, but be loyal to the things we agree to. You do your job, you're going to be here forever and ever and ever. But if you really want to make unique amounts of money and be financially free generationally, then here's what you need to become masterful at. And I tell people that, and still with them watching it, them watching people accelerate, still most people with everything right in front of their face, they still don't make that choice and I don't judge it. But I am telling people the truth right now, and I'm telling people to make an informed decision and to realize how powerful your fear is, how powerful that fear is, and that you can be free enough to overcome it. But if you're, if you feel any resistance right now, listeners out there to what I'm sharing, it's because your fear is telling you that you're hoping what I'm saying isn't true. And I'm leaning in this directly because I love you. And maybe some of you won't like me for sharing from my heart the truth. But if nobody told me this truth, I'd be blind and broke and maybe just maybe an alcoholic. And not only that, but I wouldn't have had the privilege of giving away 120,000 toys for kids this Christmas. Not from things I raised from what I was able to give directly. And the ability to cause that for people is something I would have stolen from kids who would not have had Christmas this year. And I wouldn't feel the way I want to feel about myself if I didn't do that. And that isn't manipulation, that's not reverse psychology, it's the truth. You will someday face your deathbed. Who will you be on it is different from who you were before this moment, in this conversation, where you could intentionally try to forget this truth. But I encourage people to live in your greatest degree of love and freedom for people and never feel ashamed, guilty, pressured, but to be free and free from the fear that other people have installed in you.

Speaker 2:
[47:40] You've talked about this idea of cultivating a group yes and an individual yes, and that being the quarter, business, sales, this mastering of influence. Talk to us about how we can learn to do that. If someone's listening right now, they've started a new business, maybe they're selling something on Amazon, maybe they have a new AI business that they're launching. Ultimately, they have to convince businesses or individuals, consumers, to say yes to purchasing their product. Maybe they're a public speaker, they want people to come to their events, maybe they're a musician, they want people to listen to their songs. How do we learn to be someone who creates a yes in groups and individuals?

Speaker 1:
[48:18] First two things I would say is make sure your business has a margin and a residual that's gonna work for your life, right? A margin or residual. I'll leave that there, study what that means, do that. Second, to make sure you believe in what you're selling. I can't sell anything I don't believe in. And it crushes my heart and my soul to see people running around the world selling things they don't believe in just to make money, and that destroys human beings. So make sure you truly believe in what you're selling, right? The first two things. Once that's true, you have the margin and residual, and you believe in what your offer is into the world, what you're sharing with the world, the value you're creating and giving, right? Then from that place, there's only four steps, 12 indispensable elements and four energies of influence. I certainly won't deep dive into them all, but the first is you have to build emotional rapport with people. You have to open the listening, because if you don't, then you're Charlie Brown's teacher saying wah, wah, wah, wah. And the most powerful disruptive way to do that is to lean in to truth with people. So for example, right, so let's say Jay said, hey, do that right now with the folks that are here. I would say every single person listening, and this is called Level Five Listening, we spoke about it earlier, right? This is the discernment of patterns of humans. You're all listening to this because you want more. Maybe you want more money, maybe you want more time freedom, maybe you just want to be happier today, more hopeful, more proud, more confident, more worthy. But you desire to pull inside of you for something more, and you believe Jay Shetty can provide that for you. And you're right, by the way, so congratulations. And what I'm here now to offer you is that solution. That will be called a disruptive opening in truth, where you're acknowledging the audience wants more, and you're speaking, I always say, into three different things, Jay, the most at least, maybe you want money, maybe you just want more joy and happiness, maybe you want both or something in between. That would be called speaking into all listening, right? Some people it's money, some people it's happiness, or something in between. Now you've spoken into all listening from a frame of truth. They all want more, and I said it with a great degree of congruence and certainty. What that causes is the building of rapport with the audience. I call it the opening of listening. It's only for a very short period of time, listening can close very quickly, but now you've opened the listening of the people in the audience. And that will be your beginning.

Speaker 2:
[50:59] Sean, what you're talking to me about is integrity-based human influence, right? It's this idea that we can do things with integrity, ethically, appropriately, and still make an impact and influence on people. And I think that's what most of us want to do in life. We want to create value for people, and we want to create value for ourselves. Talk to me about how people can be better at selling and marketing by having this value proposition.

Speaker 1:
[51:29] We have specific definitions of integrity, like the start, really simple, three parts. First, it's being transparent to the relevant truth. So if, for example, I was here and I had not created unique financial success and I'm saying all these things, right? So that would be a relevant truth that I am, or if I lost all my money yesterday, right? That will be relevant truth to be sharing with you here today. So be transparent to the relevant truth. The color of my underwear is not particularly relevant unless I was an underwear salesperson, right? So transparent is the relevant truth. Second, that our desire is to add more value than we're going to receive. My desire is to add more value for your listeners, for you, than anything I'm going to receive that is always my absolute express intention. It is not just expressed, it's implicit, it's conditioned inside of me that I want to create more value for everything I do for others than I'm going to receive myself. Second, third, that the thing that we say does something does the thing we say it does. So if we say, hey, this pen writes well and it will last one year, if the pen writes well and lasts a year, then you and the pen are in integrity. Three parts, relevant truth, more value, it does what we say. So from that place, I think we begin this journey into integrity-based human influence and this concept I was mentioning a moment ago about rapport and leaning into truth. Where this goes haywire is when people realize, Jay, that they can make a lot of money doing something. So for example, I have lots of colleagues that are in this space, and it's a wonderful industry and it's also like every industry, it's full of all kinds of problems for people that are heavily in real estate investing, right? And people tell people to start flipping houses and they sell programs online about this. And this is a really wonderful potential way to make a living. And it's also a very long, arduous, complex journey that takes an incredible amount of time and is more about longer-term financial stability than it would be in a shorter run of financial abundance. If people are selling that and they're not disclosing it, then they're really harming people, right? So what I would share with people is, think about what you're sharing, what's relevant, how do you create more value, and if it does what we say, if a lot of those people selling those programs, they should be selling them to people who are not 25 years old and looking by the time of 27 to be having financial abundance. Instead, they should be selling those programs to people who are 40, have some money, and want to build a diversified portfolio. So my point is with anything we're sharing, if it's integrists, make sure you're selling it to the right audience for those people before you even decide how to begin to set these offers and constructs. So the next thing I would share for those that are out there, is to make sure you're creating structures in integrity that are going to create an exponential increase in the amount of potential sales meetings you're going to have. And a sales meeting is where somebody can purchase your services. So if you're selling solar, if you're selling real estate, if you're selling accounting, if you're selling pens, if you're selling whatever you're selling, then I talk about this concept of ecosystem merging, where you're speaking to audiences of your potential ideal grouping of people, and then you're creating value for those audiences. What did I do? I went out and started speaking to chiropractors in 1997, late, about being underpaid by insurance companies. I wasn't going one at a time. I wasn't randomly networking. And I do JT against random networking. I teach about intentionality and transparency. So I went to this incredible group of people, and what was the value I was going to create for the Northern New Jersey Chiropractic Society almost 30 years ago? It was to inspire them. They felt defeated by the insurance companies. So I wasn't there to do an infomercial on my services. I was there to tell them, you're at war and you don't even know it. And I blew the roof off the building with these people about taking back their power and how understandable it was if they had given up, if they were letting the insurance companies steal their money. But it was a mindset shift. And the footnote was, and hey, by the way, I may be able to help you with this if you want to talk to me more. But the value I gave them was inspiration. The value I gave them is if they work with me or not, they were able to take away massive value going forward in their practice. That's what I believe in group influence and individual influence is integrist. How can you make an offering of your services when you're complete with an individual or with a grouping of people, and whether or not they use your services, they have left with value? And I'll pause there.

Speaker 2:
[56:30] So I've said, and I feel like it's such a great reminder because it really makes, I think sometimes you can even build a product with the best of intentions. But if you took it through your filtering system, you'd be much clearer about what the offering is and who it serves, even if it was already built as something to help other people. And the intention that drives, I mean, I think about this all the time whenever we're talking about a partnership or working with someone else, I always ask my team, I'm like, how does this become a win-win? How does this truly serve the other person? And I loved what you said about wanting to over deliver almost so that you're giving more than you could ever possibly receive. And it's like, it's such an important part. My whole team knows that we're always functioning from that place. We're never trying to take advantage of anyone. And at the same time, we never want to be taken advantage of either, right? It's important to have self-respect as much as it is to have respect for everyone else that we're working for. When you do this, and I think there'll be a lot of people listening, saying, I'm a good person. I'm doing good work. I'm creating good work. I just don't know how to scale a business. What's the difference between someone who creates something that solves a problem for a couple of people, but then can solve a problem for a lot of people?

Speaker 1:
[57:44] So first, my grandfather was a wonderful person and never made any money. My grandma Rose, I would never be here without her. This is my father's mother, and she gave me so much presence and so much love as a child. In her railroad apartment where you walked into the bedroom, when you walked into the apartment, a bullet hole was there one morning when I went there, dropped off by my mom as she was going off to work. And my grandma Rose never made any money in her life. So being nice and making money have nothing to do with each other. I wish the world was different. I wish the world was different in a million different ways. But I relate to the world as it is, as I look to help shape the world into what I hope it will become. So that's part of my thing, right? So from that said, when people think, hey, I work really hard, I do a great job. I go, oh, so you're a terrible marketer. And I'll laugh and I'll smile and I'll break their pattern. I go, well, okay, how many sales made you have last month? Well, a lot. How many? Well, right. And you'll find they have virtually no sales meetings. Listen, this is okay. You do an incredible job. People need your accounting services. They need your real estate services. You seem like a wonderful, wonderful, masterful person at delivering these services. You just don't realize that marketing is foundational. So to build a scale business, it's one sentence, exponentially grow the quantity and quality of your sales meetings, period. There's no comma. Because once you do that, then you could easily duplicate yourself with other service providers. It is very easy to find people to do the service of what you do. Lawyer, accountant, financial service provider, chiropractor, medical doctor, it is easy to find people. Much easier to find people masterful at service delivery than it is in marketing mastery, marketing and sales mastery. So to be the scale business owner, you must become, and this is what I wanted to resist like crazy, why I almost quit the law and became a person who was not in financial abundance at all and went into high school athletic coaching 30 years ago. What I had to reframe was my reality that I'm going to become not only a masterful attorney, which I was, but I'm going to become the most masterful marketer the world has ever seen. And that decision is what permitted me to go from having no employees to 40 employees in two years. And I've never heard of a person, Jay, to this day. I didn't build Google, I didn't build Facebook. I don't have the size of following you do. Congratulations. Amazing, right? But I did something I've never heard of anybody else doing. Well, first, I'm on the verge of becoming the first blind, self-funded unicorn, billion-dollar corporate value founder in the history of planet Earth. Never a blind, self-funded unicorn creator ever before. But long before I was that, 30 years ago, I did something to this day I've never heard of anybody doing. Two years out of law school, I built a 40-person law firm. I had 40 employees onshore, employed, not contractors. I've never heard of anybody doing that. People, how did you do that? I just told you. I became a marketer that created enough quantity of quality sales meetings through mastering influence, going in front of people like the chiropractors in northern New Jersey, then the entire state chiropractic society that allowed me to have 40 employees working for me. And if I wanted, I would have been able to do it with 100 people, which I soon did in the second building of my law firm, because I created the highest quantity of quality sales meetings through the superpower of integrist group influence with messaging that resonated in value with the audience, that made everybody want to have a conversation, not everybody, but made lots of people want to have conversations for us to provide services, integrist services to them.

Speaker 2:
[61:43] What's the hardest thing about building a company with multiple people, multiple leaders, leading teams? Like talk to me about the leadership aspect of someone who's scaling from a company of two to a company of ten to a company of twenty.

Speaker 1:
[61:58] Yeah. The most challenging thing for people to realize is the triangle, that I say is essential for that. Three things. One, we need people who are loyal to the stated mission. I mentioned that before. Second, we need people who are masterfully competent at whatever job function it is. The hardest masterful competence to find is marketers and salespeople. By far not close. Third, we need to be in aligned empowerment, which means we're going to run the play, we say that we're going to run. So if the idea is we're going to book X number of speaking engagements in front of Y number of organizations, with Z value to be created, that's what we're going to do. And if I go out and do that, and you're aligned empowerment is you're going to be a service provider, then you're going to make sure that you call clients back within six hours, if that's the standard we set. Like you're going to do the things we say we're going to do. And the hardest thing to do with people, Jay, is to not permit them to recreate their job. And if you permit people to recreate their job, because you like them, you think you're being nice, then you will destroy your company. You will cause those people to eventually resent you, dislike you, and if you ever think you could take them back to the original job that you both agreed to, and this concept of loyalty to state admission, as soon as you let them change their job, you've had them become disloyal, you've endorsed it, you've permitted everybody else in your organization to do the same, and you've permitted them to destroy a line of empowerment. So do not let any human being recreate their job, and the three things, loyalty to state admission, set it, create it, and live it, second, masterfully competent, third, align the empowerment, do not let anybody recreate their job.

Speaker 2:
[63:50] Sean, we had some of our audience write in some of their scenarios for this that I want to read out to you. For you, Kit, so you can tell them what would be a good thing to think about. It could be mindset advice, practical tips, things to reflect on, I want you to feel as open as you can. This is fun. I'm reading out scenarios of where they are. Sound good?

Speaker 1:
[64:10] I love it.

Speaker 2:
[64:11] Awesome. Our first person is a 24-year-old recent grad working her first corporate job. She feels underpaid, overwhelmed, and already questioning if she chose the wrong path. Where should she start?

Speaker 1:
[64:24] Start by doing what we spoke about earlier, is beginning to master influence because you may be underpaid, but you may be overpaid. I wouldn't think of how many hours you're working in this beginning of your journey. I begin to think about how much value you can create for this organization and whether or not they will appropriately recognize it. And I would say to this kind and wonderful soul, it's critically important that you don't decide what value is, that in being loyal to state admission with this organization, you come into an integrist agreement about what that is and looks like. Right? Number one. Number two, I will begin to master influence. I'd be on the side, doing what we said over the next 30 days, first week, talk 10% of the time, then one-third of the time, and be creating value with people because the most valuable thing you could do is to master this ability to become magnetic with humans. And you become magnetic with humans when they believe, you see them, hear them, and authentically care about them, and you know how to help them grow, one personally, two professionally, three financially, if you want to have people glued to you forever, then authentically become that.

Speaker 2:
[65:37] The second one is, a 40-year-old woman who has worked in marketing for 15 years and has done very well for herself. She wants to branch off and start her own marketing firm, but feels too late and is afraid of starting over.

Speaker 1:
[65:51] Yeah, definitely not too late. I don't know your personal circumstances. So make sure you've anchored and taken care of your responsibilities financially, to whomever you love and care about. And if there's nobody that close that your response for taking care of financially, then quit and start today. Quit and start today because if it's only you, then you could deal with it all. It's not too late. And to realize this, if you're in marketing, master AI and become the greatest master possible because that is about to eviscerate the entire world of marketing at an extinction level event that as a marketer, if you could master the leverage of AI and the duplication scaling of it, you will be riding that tsunami wave that's about to create extinction for many who are not.

Speaker 2:
[66:41] Let's talk about marketing and AI for a moment. What are you seeing that we might not even have comprehended yet? Who's doing it well? What are the tools that are being used? What's been created already that you're fascinated by?

Speaker 1:
[66:54] Yes. So again, not to be self-serving, I believe we're sitting in my company, Acti, at the literal cutting edge of everything, in the space of marketing acceleration. So what have I seen that isn't happening, that I stepped into the void, it's to realize that when people say, well, AI is not here to replace humans, like that just isn't true. And it isn't that I, again, I didn't do this, I didn't create AI, I didn't build this. But I don't think that my grandmother who worked at the American Cannes factory in Jersey City, those jobs went away too. I love Bruce Springsteen, I am nostalgic, I am loving. I miss the way things were, and I embrace the way things are, and I even look more forward to the things, way things will be. AI is going to eliminate massive amounts of jobs at everything in white collar, and that includes marketing. And to think differently is absolutely, fundamentally incorrect. We've created agents and beings that can cause yes with human beings better than 99.9% of salespeople right now. Shocking, mind-blowing, disruptive for what we build. And it's the same thing in marketing. And think about this for Second Jay and everybody. The human constraint factor. We've all heard the term in marketing, split testing. So you hire a digital marketing firm, and I've hired many in my life. I've spent millions. Jay, I can't even imagine what you've spent, right? I'm sure we've all spent millions and millions of dollars in marketing in our lives. And we hire a marketing agency, and what they're there to do is, quote, split test. Okay, how many? Split tests. How often? How many humans? That's constrained by human beings. Split testing costs money. It requires human beings to make decisions, and what you typically get is a very suboptimal work. It's the same thing in accounting and law, especially in litigation cases. There's this fundamental friction point where we can no longer afford to create the true value that's possible. That's the human constraint. AI completely eviscerates that human constraint. And to share with you what's possible, I created in 48 hours 27,000 acti beings that are competing within coliseums, like we would have in the days of gladiators, where they're competing against each other to become more and more integrists and more and more masterful. And in 48 hours, I would put their work against any digital marketing agency I've ever hired, and that's in two days. We're three weeks in at this point. I'm going to create a million acti beings, a million beings that are doing things that human beings would normally do. The causing of yes to working with people, the outreach is cold, the digital marketing split testing. We have a goal of creating this year in one day a thousand webinars running simultaneously, all created through acti beings, all which is now fully possible. So to answer your question like hyper directly, Jay, is the seismic exponential scale what's possible through AI? And the fact that people often think that AI can't be as emotionally intelligent as people, I think AI is now more what we've created, we're dealing with, is more emotionally intelligent than 99.99 percent of people I know. And so for people to realize that this is here and that we can masterfully step into it, powerfully step into it, but if we think this isn't real, I mean, that's what the farmers thought, that's what the factory workers thought. It is here and it's going to move at an exponentially faster rate than anything that's ever happened. Lawyers, buckle up, because 90 percent of associate legal jobs will not exist, I believe, in 36 months to 60 months. So it's that level of change, which for somebody who is growth-driven, could be the most exciting time in human history. For somebody who wants it to stay the same, I didn't do it, please don't kill the messenger, but it's not going to stay the same. It's changing at rates that are only going to increase at faster and faster levels.

Speaker 2:
[71:02] What should we be focusing on knowing what we know now from hearing from you and what we're hearing across the world?

Speaker 1:
[71:09] Yes. Scale your marketing. Leverage it through AI. Do not take anybody who claims to be an AI expert who is going to train you. Look to surpass their mastery as rapidly as humanly possible. You cannot delegate AI to an outside person or being. Master for yourself. Implement it into your marketing, into your yes causing, and remember that integrity, mastery, ethics, emotional intelligence are fully achievable through AI right now, not tomorrow, and I stake my reputation on it, and I live it every day. And Jay, I spent six hours preparing with my AI. For you, I asked my AI, where do we conflict? Where are we aligned? Where are the greatest synergies? What might Jay's audience misunderstand if I say it, not say it? I role play it. I prepared. I know about your family. I know about your wife. I know about your parents. All of this, I couldn't have done with a team of 10, and I did it at such an unbelievable level of preparation, and then we role played it out, where my AI was you, and I was me, and then I reversed all of this happening over the course of the last couple of days.

Speaker 2:
[72:25] I love that. I need to take a look at that interview.

Speaker 1:
[72:28] Yes. I'd be happy to share it.

Speaker 2:
[72:30] Yes, I'd love to see that. I'd love to see that. What should someone do if they're the person now afraid of losing their job? Whether it's in marketing, whether it's in law, whether it's in accounting, wherever it may be, what should they be focusing on when that feels uncomfortable, when they've been doing this thing, they've graduated in it, they've spent years learning it?

Speaker 1:
[73:04] Here's what I would propose. One of the things that I share from my heart is there are seven things that can destroy or liberate our self-mastery. We talked about how we relate to chemicals in our body and adorphins, certainly purpose and why, foundation of your incredible work in the world, Jay. The next one, the third one is our identities. We will live, we will die for our identities. It's why people run into gunfire as police officers or soldiers, or people went into the Twin Towers as first responders, because their identity was that. They weren't thinking about their child, they weren't thinking about their wife. I mean, they were, I'm sure, at some level, but not at a level that would stop them, because their identity said, I will be a coward if I don't run into this burning building and try to save these people. I couldn't look at my daughter, my son, my wife, my husband the same unless I do this, the power of identity. So what I offer to people is to become present to the power of your own choice of identity. And 30 years ago, I learned to re-choose my identity. I thought becoming a marketer or salesperson was evil, horrible, and awful. I realized that wasn't true. And since then, I've been able to set and reset, create and recreate my identity very rapidly. I would develop the skill set. And the skill set that I would develop for anyone right now is to lose any sense that you're a lawyer, you're a doctor, you're a realtor, you're anything, you're a coach, a trainer, a speaker. No, what you are is whatever you choose to be, and I would offer you this, you're a person who has values to other human beings, that loves people unconditionally, and masters whatever you must master within the bounds of love, law, and integrity to deliver the value you're going to deliver. And right now, there's nothing like AI. So I would commit this very second to reset your identity to mastering AI in the space of marketing and selling. That will be your pathway to be the most masterful person anywhere you are. What I'm teaching this to is everyone in my programs, to my children. I am teaching this to every single person who works for me. I'm telling them, your job is to master replacing yourself with AI, to trust my integrity that I'll never replace you. And my goal, Jay, for one of my companies right now that we're saying is valued over a billion dollars, is we'll never hire another human. I'll hire humans to do other things. But my goal is to exit this company in the next 36 months for multiple billions and to never hire another human and have this be the core of our exit multiple, which I'm also gonna share with the people who helped to produce it inside of my companies, including people who've worked for me for 25 years that could not think of themself of being less technologically driven. And we're opening this pathway to everyone because you don't have to be a computer expert, a data programmer, a computer scientist to master AI. You just have to be a growth-minded person.

Speaker 2:
[76:08] I really love the idea of an identity reset, especially at this time. I feel like titles have always been so limiting for people. And when we introduce ourselves as our job title, it's nowhere near as abundant as who we are as individuals. And I always struggle when people are like, what's your title? I'm like, I don't have one. Like, titles feel so, you know, I am an author. I do have a podcast. I do, you know, it's, but those are things I do. They're all vehicles. And I think helping people recognize that they have so much more value than their title is an absolutely huge, huge accomplishment. All right. A few more of these scenarios that we have, because we've got a few more different ones that were sent through. Let's do this one. A 45-year-old newly empty nester whose kids are older and he realizes they don't know who they are outside of being a parent.

Speaker 1:
[77:01] My first would be this identity question, who do you want to be? And you could be as small or as impactful as you desire to be. And I would really think about if there was no limits, because we've never lived in a time of less limits in human history, nothing even close. Three years ago, the freedom we had as people was an ant to Godzilla of the freedom we experienced today to the power of AI, right? So I'd say, who do you want to be if there were no limits? Do you want to be Wonder Woman? Do you want to be Batman? Do you want to be Oprah Winfrey? Do you want to be Tony Robbins? Do you want to be Barack Obama or Donald Trump? Who and what do you want to be in the world if there were no limits? And I would begin there, I wouldn't think of how to, I wouldn't think of what would that mean to my children and maybe my grandchildren. I wouldn't think of any of that yet. I would first think about who do you want to be and why in this world? And for most people, you're going to come back with is, yeah, I want to be a person like an Oprah Winfrey or Tony Robbins or Jay Shetty. I want to be a person that's creating massive, valuable, positive impact. I want to end sex trafficking. I want to bring clean water. You're going to think of very large things you want to do, because I believe that's the heart and soul of people. I would start there. And then I would begin to think about, well, in the end, would I want to be far away from my grandkids? Like, how much would I travel or not? Then I start to create some reasonableness into what you'd see your future being over the next five years, 10 years, 20 years of your life. And then finally, I decide, how do I want to begin this journey? And I think, well, do I want to create more financial abundance? Do I want to create more philanthropic outcome? And it always comes back to mastering influence. And I would begin to do it just like we said earlier. But first, decide who you will be in the end, if there was no limits, no constraints. And own the fact that it's entirely possible, because if a blind guy like me, who was born defective, and Jay and this person, incredible person with this scenario, when my children were gonna be born, they asked me if I wanted genetic counseling. And my son Tyler, my first child, I was like, what do you mean genetic counseling? What's that? They're like, well, you know, let's see if they have the same eye condition. I'm like, there's no cure. I mean, I don't really care at this point. So well, but maybe you'd want to make a different decision. Oh, you mean a defective person like me wouldn't want to have a defective child because they might be like me? So if a defective person that doctors were counseling to make an informed decision to terminate my potential child, if I could be living this life blind, what can you do? And the answer is anything you decide to, but it begins with that choice of identity, and I get to having fun with it, be inspired by it, feel the magic of it, and don't talk to anybody else about it, because they'll bring all their own stuff to it. That's what I would do.

Speaker 2:
[79:56] I love that one. I mean, just literally listening to you just gave me chills. That was like, you know, it's such a, it's so wonderful to see you living such an abundant. I know you went surfing this morning. You told me when you went, when you got here and I'm thinking like, wait, you went surfing, your friend just told us, sorry, that you taught his family how to ski.

Speaker 1:
[80:15] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[80:16] And I'm like, talk to me about like, how were you, like, talk to me, did you learn how to ski and surf before you became blind? Like, talk to me about how's that's even possible? I can't do those things properly, even when I can see fully. Like, how does that work?

Speaker 1:
[80:30] I learned to surf after I became blind. You know, and to put it in appropriate context, I was always a water person. You know, I wanna, I'm always very transparent. I am very athletic. I have great body spatial awareness, and I trained as an athlete. I was a great body surfer before I went blind. So I understood the water. I understood waves. I understood the feel of the ocean at an incredibly high level. But I had never surfed on a surfboard. And so I began that journey after I became blind. And skiing, I skied before I was losing my vision. I was not an effective mogul skier. I'm now a really masterful mogul skier. So to answer your question, yes, I developed double black diamond skiing mastery and surfing in really extreme conditions and big waves after going blind. And what I would offer to people is, you wouldn't believe what's possible, what you're truly capable of, because I'm not that special. I'm just not. But what I learned to do and how specifically is by feel. So I ski double black diamonds 100% by feel. I'm 56 years old, I'm able to relax my body, relax my core, and I'm able to go over the mountains feeling, just literally feeling the mountain and having enough flex in my knees, my hips, my core, which I hope to maintain, Jay, for a long time. We'll see what genetics tells me, you know, in aging. But that's how I'm able to do it. And I am a much better skier than when I had sight. I tried to see the moguls and think through the moguls. And I've done a lot of repetition. And the same thing with surfing. I could feel the pull of the wave. And in full disclosure, I have a teeny bit of peripheral vision, right? And so, like, I'm able to use this, you know, I probably have 10% of what people have in peripheral vision, no central vision whatsoever, zero. I can't see anything whatsoever in front of me at all. I could see a number one right here, you know, next to my eye right now. So if the lighting's right, I could see a little bit of contrast in the wave of the background coming and I'll start paddling and then I'll feel the wave taking off, right? And I'll know when to pop. It's all by feel. But I think the point of the story is, we can do so much more than we ever believe we're capable of. And part of my personal development journey, you know, I learned long ago about being an example of possibility. Like I heard that term. I'm like, I want to be that. I want to be that for my kids first. And it keeps expanding. I just want to be an example of possibility. Thank you, Jay. And it's so fun. I just love life. I love teaching. And listen, I'm intense, right? And I love people and I'm intense, you know? And I definitely am disruptive. And the lightning bolt of Unblinded is there for a reason. I believe in lightning bolt and creating disruption for sure. But it comes from this beautiful place of love. And when I went skiing with Mike, you know, my French children, I was talking about it. I've taught more than 100 people to surf, 100 people to ski that couldn't before. I love it. I love freeing people. And I'd encourage people to decide to be that. Like Jay, you are that. And so many people who are listening are that in certain ways. And I realize you could be it in so many more ways. And how fun it is to live that way. I just got over being sick. I've, you know, I don't feel 100%. I was like, there's no way I'm coming to LA and not going surfing this morning. We were like super late. We got in and I'm like, maybe I should sleep more. I'm like, no, I'm gonna show up better for Jay Shetty and this audience if I go surfing this morning. I'll feel more like myself. I'll feel more in my body. I'll sleep four hours. There's no way I'm not doing this. And so what if we just chose to love people enough, love ourselves enough to do these things to be an example of possibility?

Speaker 2:
[84:21] Sean, it has been such a joy talking to you today. And I feel like I've been personally getting a motivational session from you, which I feel so lucky to have. And my audience has questions, and you've been incredible for the community. Here are the final five. These questions have to be answered in one sentence maximum. I will probably break my own rule because you're fascinating, but we'll try and stick to the rules. So Sean Callagy, these are your final five. Question number one, what is the best advice you've ever heard or received?

Speaker 1:
[84:50] That influence is the only human attainable superpower.

Speaker 2:
[84:53] Question number two, what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received?

Speaker 1:
[84:57] You should listen to anyone who hasn't produced the results you want.

Speaker 2:
[85:03] Question number three, what is the hardest thing you believe you've accomplished?

Speaker 1:
[85:08] To build a scaled business that permitted me to only miss nine of the 1,000 plus sporting events that my children played in.

Speaker 2:
[85:18] That made you emotional.

Speaker 1:
[85:20] It is the thing I'm most proud of that I've ever accomplished in my life. Because people say, Jay, that you have to trade money for time. And I believe that lie. And it almost caused me to not pursue building and scaling business and creating financial freedom. And I lived with nobody knowing I had money. I had no social media. And I would take my son to go ice climbing in Switzerland for the weekend. And, you know, my daughters do whatever they wanted to do. And we lived in a middle class environment where nobody knew the secret life we had. And I was there present for all their games and all their sporting events and all their things. And it is something that I'm much more proud of that than anything I've ever done in my life, by far not close.

Speaker 2:
[86:05] Talk to me about how you managed to do that. Because I think people talk a lot about work-life balance. I'm not sure that's the direction you're going to go in. So how did you manage to show up for your kids, be so present? Sounds like you have a great relationship with them.

Speaker 1:
[86:20] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[86:21] How was that possible while also building this incredible empire that you built?

Speaker 1:
[86:26] No, thank you. Well, my son just finished law school. He works with us.

Speaker 2:
[86:29] Congratulations.

Speaker 1:
[86:30] And my daughter's boyfriend, who's amazing, works for my AI company. And my other daughter is pursuing her acting career and doing incredibly. And yes, thank you. We have incredible relationships. And I have a four and a half year old daughter that was the hardest thing in coming out here, was just not being with her for a single day. And my theme song of leaving it come out here, Jay, was listening to Let It Go from Frozen, which is her favorite song. So that's what I left to. But the how to do that is to make a decision to become a business owner, not a business operator. And again, it comes back to what we shared by creating enough of a quantity of quality sales meetings and having people who don't want to do that, but do want to service those clients masterfully. And once we realized that's possible and we set on a course to re-identify, create a new identity for ourselves and deal with our fears, we can become a business owner, not operator, and we can be completely time free. I built a business that permitted me to my company that is a billion dollar company. I could work at that company for two hours a month right now. Me being here is not working for that company. Me being here is to expand this mission to the world. But you can build a scaled business and be an owner, not an operator, it's entirely possible, and then do all the things you want to do in the world.

Speaker 2:
[87:48] I mean, yeah, it's so interesting, isn't it? Because you're thinking like, oh, there's a client in the early days who's calling you and saying, I need you there on a Saturday, I need you there on a Sunday, or I need you to fix this. And you're like, no, I'm at the game. And at that time, now I understand it because you've achieved something. But you did it in those days where it would have been easy to be like, all right, kids, I'm not going to come to this game. How did you decide the nine that you missed?

Speaker 1:
[88:13] Incredible question. Five of them were late in the game. Five of them were my son's sophomore year in high school, when he achieved something that was far outside his genetic capability, became a start on varsity. It was so hard. But I made a commitment five years before that to save somebody's life in a legal case. That I did not take for money, I took for justice. And my children were very enrolled in that case. And they were old enough to understand it. And it was the trial. And it became Arizona's top jury verdict for about an eight year period. It was this unwinnable case that we had in a business context for somebody whose business was stolen from them. And my children were very much involved. That was five of them. The others were sort of random events where they were okay. It was a regular game, it was a big speaking engagement. Couple for my daughters, and that's what it was. But I trained and developed leaders in my businesses that could provide services that I believed were at an higher level of mastery than any competitive mind could provide. It would be non-integrist to say that these people had my skill set. It's some things I do, I believe I'm one of one in the world, couple things I do. But I was very much in integrity because I had people hire our firm, said, you're not gonna get me. You're gonna get the systems and processes and things that I have created, right? And that's what I would tell people when I was out doing speak engagements and like. So I was fully in integrity with my life and my children. And when I built what I built, my desire was to show up as that type of father. And in certain ways, Jay, it was selfish. Cause I think my kids didn't even need me there that much, but it was my favorite job in the entire world to do, the greatest thing I ever did. And tomorrow, my daughter, Selena, as I'm rushing back and there's a lot of beautiful people to see out here in California that I know, but I'll be with her, with Coach Roberto, and her private soccer train that she loves at 4:30 p.m. tomorrow, because these are choices that I made in my life.

Speaker 2:
[90:13] I love that. I'm so glad you told me about The Nine. I'm glad I asked that question. I love also the meaning made for the trial that you had to attend and your kids being a part of that journey. I think that's such a beautiful thing that we miss out on, is that they actually get to be a part of that story.

Speaker 1:
[90:30] I told them that I'm going to prove to you our legal system works. In this case, I was already, I'll go with, post-economic. I didn't practice law anymore. In 2011, when I took on this case, I didn't want to. It was in Arizona. I knew it was going to create a ton, but this person was suicidal. His entire business stolen from him, and I wanted to be a savior, and I wanted to prove to him the world looked different than he thought it did. He's a very lost person, and I wanted to prove to my kids that our justice system worked. And I told them that from the start. So thank you.

Speaker 2:
[91:03] So powerful. Question number four. What's something that you used to value, that you don't value anymore?

Speaker 1:
[91:10] I overvalued the approval of people. And the greatest pains of my life, Jay, have been from making really horrible choices. My second marriage, and this is a wonderful person. I got married for the second time because I wanted to prove that when I said, yeah, I get married again, and I was being questioned, well, you told me you get married again. And I'm like, I don't know this is working. I made a pleasing decision and my children were opposed to it. Again, I honor my second wife. She's a wonderful human being. She's got an incredible story of her own, but it just didn't make sense. And that decision, many others, I made to please people. So if you say, hey Sean, what's the worst things you've ever done in your life? It will be to make decisions to please people. So what I don't value anymore in the same way is the opinions and judgments of others. Which I often know are very self-serving and contrived. So I really look for, I receive feedback, but I don't value the opinions and judgment of others, particularly when it's not masterful and misinformed.

Speaker 2:
[92:13] And fifth and final question, we ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

Speaker 1:
[92:22] To never claim to be a realist when you're actually a cynic. I would make that illegal.

Speaker 2:
[92:29] Why is that so important to you?

Speaker 1:
[92:31] Because it destroys the hearts and souls of humans. And I believe that so many people who believe they're doing right, are actually cynical people who have been hurt and traumatized and have such empathy for them. But they're giving horrific life and business advice to people that are destroying those people. And we punish people as we should for committing crimes of physical violence against people. But people are free to destroy hearts and souls generationally. And we have no laws to protect that.

Speaker 2:
[93:09] Sean Callagy, thank you so much for your time, your energy, your presence. Everyone who's been listening or watching, I hope that you will go and subscribe to Sean's Instagram, YouTube, across all of his social media so you can really connect more deeply with his thoughts, ideas, his principles and his work and events. I highly recommend you go and do that right now. And Sean, I hope you'll be back very soon with more insight for all of us. Thank you so much for showing up today. Thank you for sharing your story so vulnerably and so truthfully. And I am deeply, deeply grateful that our paths crossed and I'm very thankful that I got to spend this time with you. So thank you. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:
[93:47] My honor, my gratitude. I hope this is the beginning, Jay. Thank you. And to everybody out there, God bless.

Speaker 2:
[93:52] Thank you. If you loved this episode, you love my conversation with Simon Sinek, where we dive into the real key to create meaningful connection and influence beyond numbers or followers.

Speaker 3:
[94:03] Disney, all of the characters are trained that when a little kid hugs you, you may not let go until the kid lets go first. You hug the kid as long as the kid wants to hug you.