Isaac Lidsky (@isaaclidsky) is the only blind person to serve as a law clerk for the U.S. Supreme Court. He’s also an entrepreneur, he was once a child actor on a popular ’90s sitcom, and now he’s the bestselling author of Eyes Wide Open: Overcoming Obstacles and Recognizing Opportunities in a World That Can’t See Clearly.
“The world’s going to change a million times between A and Z. You will, as well.” -Isaac Lidsky
The Cheat Sheet:
- Understand why Isaac Lidsky considers going blind in his twenties a “blessing.”
- Learn how Isaac’s personal vision grew sharper even as his eyesight faded.
- Discover how our brains construct reality based on our own mental models — some of which we can control.
- Explore how to reframe luck and events that seem negative to work to our advantage.
- And so much more…
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According to Eyes Wide Open: Overcoming Obstacles and Recognizing Opportunities in a World That Can’t See Clearly author Isaac Lidsky, fear and circumstances don’t need to rule our reality; it’s how we respond to them that matters most.
As a former child actor who went blind from retinal pigmentosa by the time he was twenty-two, Isaac’s story didn’t end with the loss of his sight — which he says “began as a curse and ultimately proved to be a blessing.” Isaac shares what came next, which includes entrepreneurship, graduating from Harvard Law School magna cum laude, serving as the only blind law clerk (to date) for the U.S. Supreme Court, and becoming the CEO of Florida’s largest residential shell contractor. Listen, learn, and enjoy!
More About This Show
Jordan never thought he’d be interviewing Barton ‘Weasel’ Wyzell from ’90s sitcom Saved by the Bell: The New Class, yet here we are.
Diagnosed (along with his sister) with rare blinding disease retinal pigmentosa at the beginning of what seemed to be a promising Hollywood acting career, Isaac Lidsky was certain the gradual loss of sight over the next few years was going to ruin his life.
“I knew it was going to be the end of independence and achievement for me,” he says. “I knew it meant I was going to live this small, sad life. I didn’t think any woman would ever truly love or respect me because I couldn’t imagine loving or respecting myself. But these were lies. These were the fictions of my fear.”
Luckily, this negative line of thinking was pushed aside by an urgency to squeeze as much as he could from his life — to do as much and accomplish as much as he could — before losing his sight completely by the age of twenty-two.
Isaac skipped senior year of high school and completed his undergraduate studies at Harvard by nineteen. He hopped on the Internet boom and co-founded a tech startup that eventually sold for $230 million. He graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude to fulfill his lifelong dream to clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court — and to date remains the only blind person to do so.
“There’s absolutely no question that losing my sight the way that I did — this sort of bizarre, progressive way that I lost my sight — turned out to be among the best things that ever happened to me in my life,” Isaac says. “There’s no doubt about it.”
Listen to this episode of The Art of Charm in its entirety to learn more about how a blind student manages to pore over countless legal documents for law school coursework (and why Isaac wouldn’t change the way he now reads even if he regained his sight today), how reality is actively created and not just passively perceived, why you should make sure your focus is on understanding the perspective that matters without assuming it’s your own, how fear keeps us on the sidelines and what we can do to overcome them, why a blind father pitches in to raise triplets when he could easily let himself off the hook, and lots more.
THANKS, ISAAC LIDSKY!
If you enjoyed this session with Isaac Lidsky, let him know by clicking on the link below and sending him a quick shout out at Twitter:
Click here to thank Isaac Lidsky at Twitter!
Click here to let Jordan know about your number one takeaway from this episode!
Resources from This Episode:
- Transcript for Isaac Lidsky | Eyes Wide Open (Episode 615)
- Eyes Wide Open: Overcoming Obstacles and Recognizing Opportunities in a World That Can’t See Clearly by Isaac Lidsky
- Isaac Lidsky’s website
- Isaac Lidsky at Twitter
- ‘Saved by the Bell’ Star Goes Blind? via The Doctors
- The Invisible Gorilla
- The Forest People: A Study of the Pygmies of the Congo by Colin Turnbull
- Do We See Reality as It Is? by Donald Hoffman, TED Talks
- ODC Construction
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- The Art of Charm Challenge (click here or text 38470 in the US)
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- Find out more about the team who makes The Art of Charm podcast here!
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