Molly: Great to have you. How are you doing today?

Molly: Good. Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to chatting.

Molly: I want to start off our conversation uh with a quote from your book. It reads, "Just because I was aware this would happen someday doesn't mean I was ready for it or ever could be." And let's face it, there's no easy time to go blind, but I argue that doing it in the midst of puberty is quite possibly one of the worst. The universe was doing me no favors. What was it like as a teenager going through this lifealtering change?

Molly: As I said uh in that quote, like it's probably one of the worst times I could have picked. You know, being a teenager is so hard. We don't give teenagers enough grace. It's really hard going from that transition of kid to pre-teen to teen. And I was just in the midst of that, that time in your life when you're starting to discover your own sense of style, uh not just what your mom puts you in. You're starting to listen to your own music, not just what's playing in the on the radio. You're starting to maybe figure out dating and sexuality. You're full of acne and hormones erasing. Uh and and then to lose your vision, it's like my whole world was just flipped upside down and it was so difficult for my peers to understand because a lot of them felt like they were going through stuff and it was hard for them to empathize and understand blindness.

Molly: You were talking about your peers. I want to talk about them. In your childhood, you not only faced a lot of bullying from some of them, but you also faced some from adults in your life where you would expect that would be sort of a safe space, a place that if you needed help, you can go to. How did you navigate those complex relationships?

Molly: When I look back, I often think one of the hardest parts about going blind was not that I could no longer see. It was that society treated me so differently when inside I felt like the same person. My passions, my interests, my intelligence, my humor, all of that was still the same. But all of a sudden, my classmates are treating me differently. My teachers are treating me differently. Strangers on the street are treating me differently because they're seeing me using a guide dog or a cane or reading Braille. And they're realizing she's blind. And all of a sudden, it was like they couldn't see me. It wasn't just that I couldn't see them, they couldn't see me, the real me. And that was incredibly difficult to navigate. And I think if that barrier had been removed, my journey uh to self-acceptance, to healing, my mental health journey would have been a whole lot easier. Which is why I now do the work that I do. Because I know so much of the judgment I've experienced from society, so much of the ableism that I've faced is not out of hatred. It's out of ignorance. People have not historically been given accurate access to learning about disability, about blindness. And I want to change that in the hopes of changing societal perceptions.

Molly: You talk about your book, there's this saying you use called cure culture. Uh help us understand what do you mean by that?

Molly: In society, we kind of run under what's called the medical model of disability. And I more so lean on the social model of disability. So the medical model is the idea that everybody with a disability needs to be cured. They need to be changed, fixed, healed, made whole to fit into our society. And I believe that that is extremely damaging rhetoric. The reality is most people with disabilities will never be cured within their lifetime. And so to to work under the assumption that everybody in the world thinks you need to change and you're powerless to do anything about that. How can you be confident? How can you feel whole? How can you feel good enough? So I really run under the social model of disability, which is the idea that the cure for disability is accessibility. The cure for disability is changing societal attitudes. The cure for disability is building a world that allows everybody who's currently living in it to thrive. And what that does is it not only unlocks my own capabilities, for example, if I'm given a braille menu at a restaurant, I'm perfectly capable of picking what I want, but if I'm not, now my partner or my family or friends have to read it to me. All of a sudden, I am disabled. What am I What am I disabled by? My vision loss? No. Because if I have braille, I could read it. I'm disabled by the inaccessibility. And so if we change that, it benefits me, but equally it benefits everybody else. Every single day, non-disabled people are benefiting from innovations that were originally created for disabled people. Like the straw that you drink out of, like the slope in the curb when you cross the street with your stroller that makes it so much easier. Those were innovations for disabled people.

Molly: I want to talk uh a little bit about what your book reflects on is the experiences that um unfortunat that organizations sort of took advantage exploited you um and and prayed on your eagerness to help others. It is very clear that uh you have come on the other side of that and you were still doing what you've always wanted to do but was there a moment where it sort of clicked for you? you know, you I think it was you were four years old when you first did your first sort of public speaking. So, you've been doing this for quite a while, but was there a moment when it clicked uh in terms of the organizations and what they were looking for maybe didn't match with what you wanted?

Molly: I think it was really like a slow unraveling and I think even just in sitting down and writing my book, it was connecting some of those dots. Uh, writing a book is a very big emotional experience because you're forced to be so incredibly reflective and you're looking at your life as a whole in a way that we don't usually sit down and do. And it kind of made me have some of those like final realizations that were honestly extremely healing. Writing this book was very difficult to drudge up a lot of those memories, but it was equally something I feel like I needed to do to unbburden myself of these memories, these stories, and and really draw those connections that created healing for me.

Molly: You probably work with more brands now than you ever done in your career. So, I'm curious, how did you ensure that you're not in that position uh you know, in the future or even now? Prior to running my own business, you know, when I worked for for other organizations and charities, I was there essentially as a puppet. I was there as a talking head. I was being paid to do what they wanted me to do. And now, nobody can do that. the amount of times that I will walk away from a deal if I don't feel like I am being listened to, if I feel like tokenism is at play, um, if I don't feel respected, I have complete autonomy now to to work with brands, organizations, companies who completely align with my values, who respect me, who are coming to me because they want my opinion, my voice. They're not coming to me saying we want you to dance monkey dance the way I felt like so much of my childhood and early 20s was.

Molly: I am curious, does that still happen uh to this day where brands approach you but still don't understand who Molly Burke is?

Molly: Of course. I you know I was just recently in one of those situations where I did everything in my power to to advocate for myself to explain my stance why it was important to me and eventually I realized that as much as the the the client was kind of saying in words yes we agree with you their actions were showing otherwise and I had to very politely say like I respect your mission but it differs from my values and my mission. And so I think it's best that you find a different partner to pursue the project that you're really looking to do so that I can do the work that I need to do. And you know, at the end of the day, yes, I need to pay bills. I run a business. The world costs money, but also I will never sacrifice my morals or my values. My my work is not a job. I'm not here telling you to buy a lip gloss. I'm here telling you to change your perspective on disability, to change the way we think of design and marketing, uh to change the way we speak and think. And that holds so much weight and I don't take that lightly because I know that I can only share my perspective and my experience as a blind person. I can't speak for a whole community, but also I am representing a community and I take that extremely seriously.

Molly: You had mentioned bills, so I'm going to ask a little bit about money. Uh, in terms of financial independence, uh, that's something you talk about throughout your book and you're quite open about, you know, living with your parents in the early parts and how supportive they've been. But why is that so important for you?

Molly: Being a blind woman, I lack so much freedom. I lack so much independence. I lack so much autonomy. My body doesn't do what our bodies are, you know, supposed to do. And so living in a world that hasn't considered that and hasn't been designed for that, it just puts all these roadblocks in my way. And finance is a huge roadblock for so many with disabilities. You know, 80% of blind people in Canada are unemployed. 70 to 80% of blind people in the United States where I live now are unemployed. This is a massive issue and majority of disabled people are forced to live on government assistance which to be very clear is is not livable.

Interviewer: Does not pay the bills. Yeah.

Molly: It's not livable and nobody I guarantee you nobody who's on it wants to be on it. I know because I've been on it and I have many friends who are still on it who are trying so hard to get off. And it's it's a vicious cycle. It's it's a systemic issue that fails us and that keeps us in that oppressed position as disabled people. And I feared that so greatly. And I was really dedicated from a very young age to try to figure out how can I not fall under that cycle and continue it. And I want to recognize that it's an extreme privilege that I've been able to do that and that disabled people who are not able to do that, it is not a failing of themselves. It is a failing of society.

Molly: From one people pleaser to another, I have to ask, uh, how have you learned to push, you know, aside and stand up for yourself even when it's uncomfortable?

Molly: I'm going to be honest, it's still a battle and it's it's a it's one of those things where sometimes I win and sometimes I lose. I would say that I find it much easier in work environments to stand up for myself because in my mind it's like you see my content, you know my stance, you hired me or we're in this room because we all are on the same page. I'm willing to kind of like put people in their place a little or stand up for myself and say it as it is. But in like real day-to-day life, I honestly still find it much more difficult. And I think it comes from a position of doing it so many times and people just standing firm in their ignorance or their hatred or negativity towards me. Um, you know, stand when when I get denied access with my guide dog and I stand up for myself and I tell them the law and why I have my dog there and they still say no. Every single time that happens over and over and over again, it compounds and it becomes harder to keep doing that. You know, you get worn down. And so it's something I'm still constantly navigating, but I'm navigating it knowing and with intention. And at the end of the day, pick your battles. I can't stand up for myself every single time all the time, it gets exhausting. But when I do it and I win, that feels really good and it feels like I'm moving in the right direction.

Molly: I want to talk about a battle that you uh talk about in your book and it has to do with a shoot that happened in your house uh Allure Magazine. Can you tell us a little bit about that shoot and why it was important to to stand up and the change that came out of that?

Molly: I'm really passionate about using the privilege that I've built with my career for good for other people. That means so much to me because I felt like so much of my life nobody was standing up for me or my community and I can't do that. I can't perpetuate that cycle. And so when I got the opportunity to do an Allure shoot, I'm a I'm a makeup and fashion girl. I love all things beauty and fashion and I talk a lot about it. I do a lot of consulting in the beauty space and when Allure reached out to do the shoot, I was so excited and then a crew of all men showed up

Molly: and they didn't even know what to ask me. They none of them wore makeup. None of them knew anything about makeup. I think one of the first questions was, "What's an eyebrow pencil?" And I was like, "This is not good." And I knew after doing so many interviews in my life that they did not get the sound bites they needed to make that a good video. And that really frustrated me because to me that felt like such a huge opportunity to talk about the intersectionality of accessibility and beauty of universal design and makeup. How do you do your makeup when you can't see and what barriers are there to doing that and how can we change that? And they asked none of those. They asked what's an eyebrow pencil? And so I immediately called my manager and I was like squash it. Like I don't feel proud of that interview. I don't feel like that interview moved the needle forward

Molly: because they sent a group of people to shoot something that they know nothing about and that makes no sense. There should have been at bare minimum one woman in that room or one makeupwearing male um if not a whole crew, a full crew of them. And Allore to their credit was so incredible. They sent me a huge gift basket of makeup and said, "You're right." And I got this call from the the producer. They set up a new shoot. It was a woman and she said, "I just want you to know that we as women have been pushing for this for so long internally, but it took one of our external talent saying something to actually push people higher up to make a change. And I want to assure you that every single person on set is going to be a woman who wears makeup and knows about makeup and is passionate about this subject." And that just meant the world to me. And it just goes to show that standing up for what you believe in has the power to have such a ripple effect that you might not even know about, but it's worth taking that chance.

Molly: That's a fantastic story. We have a couple minutes left. I have two questions I want to squeeze in. The first one is you were very intentional intentional about the design choices for this book. The first thing that I'll say is green is one of my favorite colors and this is the right perfect beautiful shade of green. But more importantly, not only do you have braille on on the cover, but you were intentional with the font choices and how you you didn't italicize, you you bolded uh particular fonts and stuff. And I was wondering um how did you make Unseen more accessible to the public?

Molly: As somebody who consults businesses on universal design, I obviously had to put all of the efforts into designing my book with accessibility in mind to show people to show companies and the world that you can make something look beautiful and aesthetic and be accessible. So, I use the Braille Institute hyperledible font, increased sizing and spacing between letters and words, bolding instead of italics. All of these things make it easier for low vision readers as well as those with disabilities like dyslexia or language processing disorders. My cover photo was shot entirely by disabled women. My makeup artist was quadriplegic. My hair stylist is legally blind. My photographer was an amputee. If I'm telling people to hire disabled people, I sure as hell I'm going to hire disabled people and show you that it's possible. Um, so all of those things were really, really important to me.

Molly: One last question for you. You talk about the vision board uh throughout your your book as well, and I am curious uh what's on that vision board for the future? What does it look like?

Molly: That's a great question. You know, 2026, I want to manifest all these new opportunities. And for me, something I've realized is, you know, I've done I've done what I can on social media. And I'm not going to stop social media by any means. I still love it. But I've realized as somebody who's been talent my whole life, on camera talent, that talent has the least power in the room. And I really want to go behind the scenes because we need representation at every level in entertainment. And so I'm really hoping to start being more of a producer and director, creating my own documentaries perhaps. I also hope to continue writing. Uh, writing Unseen was such an incredible experience and the feedback I've received has been amazing. So, I hope to continue to bring more representation to the literary world. And I do have, speaking of that, a second book coming out that is a children's book teaching kids about blindness and guide dogs. So, that will be coming out in fall 2026, which I'm really excited about because in all media, disabled people have the least representation of all minority communities, and the least within that is children's media. And I really believe we need to get to children when they're young to really create understanding and empathy and compassion from the start and never build that fear or that ignorance. So, I'm really excited about that.

Molly: Molly, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us on the rundown and uh it's fantastic as one Ontarian to another. It's great to see you kicking butt. I don't know if I can say that, but really doing great stuff. Really appreciate your time.

Molly: Thank you so much for allowing me to come on.