Hello, good morning, it's me.
(upbeat music)
My name is Molly Burke.
I am a motivational speaker, commercial model,
and social media content creator
who happens to be blind.
And I live in Los Angeles.
When I was 14 years old,
I lost the majority of my vision
due to a rare genetic eye disease that I was born with,
which causes the progressive loss of vision.
It's called retinitis pigmentosa.
After losing the majority of my vision,
I noticed that people started treating me really differently
to how they treated me before.
People would talk to my family instead of talking to me.
They would ask my mom, like,
"What does she want to eat?" instead of just directing
their conversation to me.
Whether I'm blind or not, I'm Molly,
and I wish people would treat me that way.
(light music)
When I was five years old,
I started public speaking as a youth ambassador
for a charity that fundraised for vision research.
And that unlocked an absolute passion for me.
At 18, I started touring full-time
as a motivational speaker,
going all over the world, speaking to audiences
as large as 20,000 at a time.
But I had a very severe accident,
really bad blind girl moment.
I walked straight off a five-foot stage
and ended up injuring myself.
I had to quit my dream job,
and I was trying to figure out,
like what am I gonna do with the rest of my life?
And that's when I started my YouTube channel,
which has brought me to where I am today.
My YouTube channel is truly like an expression
of myself and my life that I just put on the internet
for everybody to see.
And sometimes it's really funny
and sometimes it's really sad.
If you have been on this channel for any number of months,
years, you know I love makeup.
One of the comments I always get,
"Who does your makeup and your hair
and puts you together every day?"
And I do it.
I do it all on my own.
A lot of people assume things like makeup and fashion
are purely visual,
but I can't see and every single day I pick out my outfits.
In fact, when I go shopping with my friends and family,
I usually pick out stuff for them to try on,
and that's what they end up taking home.
Come on in, oh, oh are you happy?
Elton John is my guide dog,
and he is the cutest, fluffiest Labernese you've ever seen.
He is my best friend, my baby.
He is on my left side making sure
that I navigate the world safely and with confidence.
I'm trying to play with my new guide dog in the hallways
at my guide dog school, come on.
The MIRA Foundation is the guide dog school
where I received all four of my guide dogs.
And they are the only guide dog school in the world
that provides guide dogs for children ages 11 and up,
which I think is absolutely incredible.
Starting the week strong with a full body workout.
There are so many misconceptions that I face
every single day as a blind person
and those in the community face.
Number one is that blindness is simply seeing nothing,
which isn't true.
An estimated 90% of blind people have some form
of remaining vision.
In my case, it's light and shadow perception,
but it differs for everybody.
There's also a huge misconception
that we can't use technology.
In fact, I would say we rely on technology
even more than the average person does.
So often, society thinks of disability as simply disability.
They forget to see the person behind that disability.
Oftentimes, people assume that being blind has limited
what I'm capable of doing or what I want to do in life,
and honestly, I feel like it's the absolute opposite.
I've actually accomplished more as a blind person
that I probably would've as a sighted person,
just because my blindness has driven me
to want to achieve more
than society believes I'm capable of doing.
Goodbye.
(Rachael applauding)
Brava, Molly, you are bad (beep). (laughing)
Thank you so much, Rachael.
It's so nice to meet you.
What's it like when you get to talk to people one-on-one
and you hear their feedback?
It honestly is the reason I do it.
When I lost my vision and I was struggling with depression
and I was being bullied and I felt so alone,
I felt so isolated every single day
when I would leave my house,
even though I was surrounded by people,
I felt like I was the only one going through
what I was going through.
And it means so much to me to be able to be the role model
for other people that I didn't have when I needed it.
And whether that's because you can relate to me
because you also live with vision loss
or with a disability or whether you can relate to me simply
because my story is one of overcoming challenge.
And that is something that everybody is gonna consistently
have to do in their life.
And bringing people hope that no matter what challenge
they're facing, they too can overcome it and move on
to a happy life is so fulfilling.
(chimes ringing)