Sean Callagy is the founder of Callagy Law and the creator of Unblinded, known for developing the Unblinded Formula, a system centered on influence, process, and personal mastery. He built Callagy Law into a multistate firm of more than one hundred team members and has guided thousands of professionals in installing operational systems and communication frameworks that support sustainable growth. Callagy built his firm while blind and continues to expand his business ventures through Actualized Intelligence and other initiatives. He is on his way to being the first blind billion dollar, self funded unicorn.
You began your journey as captain of the Columbia University baseball team, later moved into law, and eventually built a major multistate firm. How did you navigate the transition from athlete to attorney to founder?
I believed I would become a professional baseball player, but once retinitis pigmentosa began to limit my vision, I had to rethink everything. I chose law school because I assumed lawyers earned strong incomes, and I felt a need to secure my future before my vision declined.
Six months into my first legal job, I realized that traditional legal work would not give me financial freedom in time. That realization pushed me into entrepreneurship. I left what many people considered the ideal job and immersed myself in personal and professional development. I learned business, influence, and human behavior from the ground up.
I knew nothing about business or sales at the beginning. I actually thought selling was dirty until I understood the power of ethical influence. From there, I committed to mastering the skills that would allow me to build a firm, create systems, and eventually develop Unblinded and ACTi.
When did you understand that your vision loss was not only a challenge but also an advantage?
My vision declined slowly over decades, so there was not one dramatic moment of realization. As I grew older, especially over the last ten years, I understood that blindness created urgency and forced me to focus on what mattered. It also opened people’s listening.
Being blind gave me a story that allowed others to hear truth with more openness. That insight became the foundation for the Unblinded platform, which is about helping people see what they cannot see.
I would love to see again, but I am grateful for how blindness shaped my mission and my ability to serve.
You describe yourself as a heart centered entrepreneur. How does heart centered leadership guide your approach to business?
Heart centered leadership comes from the idea of the loving pursuit of the relevant truth. My grandfather and my coaches modeled this for me. They told the truth with respect and love, even when the truth was disruptive.
To me, heart centered leadership means taking complete responsibility for outcomes, refusing to hide behind pleasing or avoiding, and caring enough about people to give them clarity. It is truth paired with kindness. That has guided every major decision in my professional life.
You often describe influence as a human superpower. What do people misunderstand about influence?
Many people think influence is manipulation. That is the biggest misconception.
True influence is the ability to cause a yes that is aligned with truth and integrity. Leadership, recruiting, selling, fundraising, and management are simply different forms of influence.
I use the image of the mouse and the lion. The leader is the mouse. The lion is the person we seek to serve. The mouse does not create the thorn in the lion’s foot or exaggerate it. The mouse simply finds the real thorn and helps remove it. That is influence in its purest form.
What is one belief you hold that few people initially agree with?
I believe influence is the only human attainable superpower. Talent and luck matter, but the ability to cause aligned yeses moves the world.
You often talk about helping people see what they do not see. What legacy do you hope to leave?
I hope my legacy is that I used every talent God gave me and helped others do the same. I want to help people stop discarding their time, their energy, and their potential.
People protect small things, like leftover food, yet they casually throw away their greatest possibilities. My mission is to help people close that leakage and step into exponential growth.
What emerging idea or trend excites you most right now?
I am most excited about the evolution of artificial intelligence through ACTi.
There are many AI tools that gather information or complete tasks. ACTi is built differently. Our focus is on yes causing agents powered by the Unblinded Formula. These agents have already participated in thousands of calls and produced results that would have taken humans months.
The combination of AI, decision intelligence, and human influence represents the beginning of a new era in professional services.
What strategy has played the largest role in your business growth?
The most important strategy is the Formula, which combines influence mastery, process mastery, and self mastery. Influence mastery is the ability to cause yes. Process mastery is deciding which yes to pursue. Self mastery is moving through fear and emotion so you take action.
This formula has shaped every business I have built, including Callagy Law, Unblinded, and ACTi.
What is one failure that taught you a defining lesson, and how did you recover?
I recently gave what I consider the worst talk of my career at the Zenith Mastermind hosted by Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi. I fell into pleasing and avoiding, which prevented me from delivering the value I intended to bring.
The lesson was that pleasing and avoiding is not kindness. It is self protection. It places my comfort above service.
I overcame the setback by telling the truth publicly, offering follow up value, and recommitting to leading with precision and honesty.
How do you bring new ideas from concept to execution?
I return to the Formula every time. I identify the right yes. I design the process to achieve it. I align people around it through influence. Then I handle the emotional obstacles that show up along the way.
This structured approach is how every idea in my world becomes reality.
If you could offer one business idea for others to pursue, what would it be?
Create systems, whether human or AI based, that function as yes causing agents grounded in truth.
Find the authentic thorn in someone’s foot. Understand their real challenge or need without exaggeration. Design your process or technology to remove that thorn with integrity.
This is the foundation of ACTi, and it is a model that can be adapted to any industry.