Vision Beyond Sight: How the Two Blind Brothers Turned a Diagnosis into a Mission of Hope and Impact

Summary

Power Hour Optometry Episode Summary Episode Title: Vision Beyond Sight: How the Two Blind Brothers Turned a Diagnosis into a Mission of Hope and Impact
Host: Eugene Shotsman
Guests: Brad and Brian Manning ("Two Blind Brothers")
Release Date: June 4, 2025

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1. Introduction to the Two Blind Brothers

Eugene Shotsman opens the episode by introducing Brad and Brian Manning, known collectively as the Two Blind Brothers. Diagnosed with Stargardt's disease in their childhood, they transformed their personal challenges into a thriving business that donates all profits to blindness research.

Notable Quote:
Eugene Shotsman [00:00]: "These guys were both diagnosed with Stargardt's disease when they were kids, and years later, they launched a massive clothing brand that now donates every penny of profit to research for blindness."

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2. Personal Journeys and Early Diagnosis

Brad and Brian delve into their early experiences with Stargardt's disease. Brad recounts his initial diagnosis at five years old and the emotional impact it had on their family.

Notable Quotes:
Brad Manning [02:59]: "The doctor told my mom at that point that I had Stargardt's disease, but we didn't know what that is. He said, this is a juvenile form of macular degeneration."

Brian Manning [04:39]: "We were actually somewhat fortunate because we knew what our biggest problem was going to be. And that we were never allowed to use it as an excuse to not try."

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3. Building Resilience and Embracing Challenges

The Manning brothers emphasize the supportive environment fostered by their parents, encouraging them to engage in various activities despite their vision loss. This foundation instilled a mentality of perseverance and exploration.

Notable Quote:
Brian Manning [06:23]: "We were always encouraged to go out and join the soccer team or football team or take those harder classes... why not go out and try and see what you can succeed at rather than assuming you can't?"

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4. The Birth of Two Blind Brothers Clothing Brand

A pivotal moment occurred when Brad and Brian coincidentally purchased identical Henley shirts, sparking the idea for their clothing brand. This led to the creation of a mission-driven business that funds research for retinal diseases.

Notable Quote:
Brad Manning [12:03]: "We ended up walking out of the store 30 minutes later, and I was like, oh, what'd you get? And we had both coincidentally bought this same exact Henley shirt."

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5. Leveraging Storytelling for Brand Success

The brothers discuss the crucial role of storytelling in their business. Initially focused on factual information about their mission, they shifted to a more personal narrative that resonated emotionally with their audience, leading to a viral response and rapid growth.

Notable Quotes:
Brian Manning [22:39]: "We changed it from telling super factual informational pieces to telling the story of why we're doing this. And that shift is genuinely what we've carried through our whole brand."

Eugene Shotsman [24:49]: "An emotional connection to story... what moves you is what will move other people."

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6. Current Status and Impact (2025)

As of 2025, Two Blind Brothers have achieved significant milestones, including serving over 600,000 customers and donating $3 million to charitable partners. Their optical eyewear line is now featured in thousands of locations, further extending their impact.

Notable Quote:
Brad Manning [15:53]: "We just passed, I think, 600,000 customers. We've contributed $3 million to charitable partners."

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7. Partnership with the Optometric Community

The conversation highlights their collaboration with Lemi America to develop an optical eyewear line that donates proceeds to blindness research. This partnership not only enhances their brand but also provides optometrists with meaningful products aligned with their mission.

Notable Quote:
Brad Manning [40:09]: "Two Blind Brothers doesn't get $1 from this collection. Every dollar that we would get goes directly to the Foundation Fighting Blindness."

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8. Advice on Storytelling and Business Growth

Brad and Brian offer valuable insights for entrepreneurs and optometrists on the power of storytelling. They stress the importance of connecting emotionally with customers and leveraging personal narratives to drive engagement and support.

Notable Quote:
Brian Manning [25:17]: "What moves you is what will move other people... that's really the onus of where to start when you're thinking about what story to tell."

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9. Overcoming Business Challenges and Learning from Mistakes

The Manning brothers candidly share their business challenges, including initial missteps in sales forecasting and product quality. They emphasize the importance of passion, adaptability, and learning from errors to achieve long-term success.

Notable Quotes:
Brad Manning [49:13]: "We didn't sort of like forecast our sales and had six people in our apartment licking envelopes... ordering the wrong color buttons on these shirts."

Brad Manning [51:53]: "We loved it and we had a lot of fun with it. That was one of the cornerstones that made it work."

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10. Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks

Eugene concludes the episode by celebrating Brad and Brian's achievements and their impactful mission. He underscores the importance of their story in inspiring others within the optometric community and beyond.

Notable Quote:
Eugene Shotsman [52:26]: "You have magnetic personalities. You have an incredible story and you're building something that is truly giving back to the world in a way that very few things do."

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Conclusion

Brad and Brian Manning's journey from being diagnosed with Stargardt's disease to establishing a successful, mission-driven business exemplifies resilience, strategic storytelling, and the power of community collaboration. Their story serves as an inspiring model for entrepreneurs and optometrists aiming to create meaningful impact through their ventures.

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For more information and to explore further resources, visit www.PowerPractice.com.

Transcript

[Eugene Shotsman]

Foreign. Welcome to the Power Hour. I'm your host, Eugene Shotsman. This is Optometry's biggest and longest running show, now in its 13th season. Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your shows so you don't miss any episodes. And speaking of not to miss, today's episode is a pretty special one. I am joined by Brad and Brian Manning. These guys are also known as the two two blind brothers. And their story is equal parts entertaining, inspiring, and also kind of educational for us as business owners. See, these guys were both diagnosed with Stargardt's disease when they were kids, and years later, they launched a massive clothing brand that now donates every penny of profit to research for blindness. But that is just the start. We actually talk about how they built the brand. We talk about how the power of storytelling changed the trajectory of their business, how they managed to stay mission driven through it, and also kind of their unexpected connection to the eye care industry through their optical line, which many of you probably carry in some of your practices today. So we get into the power of storytelling at the entrepreneur level, not just for them, but for you. Like, what story are you telling your patients, your staff, yourself? And this episode might just make you rethink of how you're showing up and what kind of connection you're building in the business and where there's some opportunity to do that. So with that, let's get into it. And as always, this episode sparks an idea or a question or you want to suggest a future guest, go to Eugene Shotsman.com reach out to me there. I'm happy to answer questions, be a resource for you. And now let's go to the show. All right, welcome Brad and Brian Manning, the two blind brothers, the man, the men behind the brand, and also just amazing legends in the industry. I've followed your work for a long time at a distance, guys, and I'm just so impressed with everything that you've built and your story. So. And just welcome to the show. Excited to have you on the Power Hour.

[Brad Manning]

Oh, thank you. We're so excited. We've had a lot of fun in this optometrist community for a long time, and to be able to do anything with my brother is always the world's greatest pleasure. So we're here together to be with you today.

[Brian Manning]

And I'll say we have been called a lot of things, good and bad and a lot in between, but legend has never been one of them. So I think we're starting On a great. That's a great way to start this thing. I'm more excited than I've ever been.

[Eugene Shotsman]

All right, let's. Let's go. So maybe you guys can fill in for folks who are not familiar with your story. Maybe you guys. Maybe we can start there because I do think it's a really intriguing story and what you guys have built and why you built it.

[Brad Manning]

Sure. So I'll go first since I'm the older brother. Some say smarter brother, but we'll get to that later.

[Brian Manning]

No one has said that. That's not, again, a thing. No one's ever called us.

[Brad Manning]

So Brian and I have an eye condition called Stargardt's disease. When I was five years old, I failed the kindergarten eye chart, which started this two year hunt to figure out what had happened to my eyesight. And eventually we were in this one doctor's office where they did this flangeogram where they dye your blood and look at your retina, and they saw the scar tissue. And the doctor told my mom at that point that I had Stargardt's disease, but we didn't know what that is. He said, this is a juvenile form of macular degeneration. You lose your center vision over time. But take them home, teach them braille, get them a magnifier, because there is no cure. And that was a very, very kind of tough moment for my mom. I was really too young to understand, but we were sitting in the car and I remember her staring at the steering wheel and she just said, f this, she goes, let's go to Friendly's and get some ice cream. And actually, as an aside, that's what I thought F this meant for a while. But we went to friendlies, we went to Blockbuster, got the movie Air Bud, the golden Retriever that played for the high school basketball team. And ironically, I thought it was the best day of my entire life.

[Eugene Shotsman]

And. And I mean, getting that news for your mom, I kind of, you know, as a parent, I'm sitting here and I'm picturing And, you know, I'm just getting goosebumps as thinking about it. But I mean, it's. And Brian, for you, you guys were looking out for that at that point, right?

[Brian Manning]

Yeah. So five years later, because I'm five years younger than Brad, I. I had the same, let's say, effing experience with the same effing doctor. But I actually got everybody to Golden Receiver. It's a better film, higher quality, playing football. Real, real dynamic dog, but one of the greatest Greatest things that ever happened to Brad and I is we have the most extraordinary parents in the world. You know, they. They even once we were diagnosed, my mom tells this great story of being devastated for, you know, for weeks. About one day she walked back into, you know, walked out of the room to be upset because she didn't want to show or my mom and dad didn't want to show Brad and I that this was a big problem, that this was a big, big thing because they wanted us to. To live our lives. And when she walked back into the room, Brad was still sitting there playing, you know, the same game he was, you know, a week ago. And she realized that Brad hadn't changed, her perception of him had changed just because he had gotten this diagnosis. And they made it a really strong core tenant of who we are and how we grew up, that, yes, this was a challenge, yes, this was a hurdle, but we were actually somewhat fortunate because we knew what our biggest problem was going to be be. And that we were never allowed to use it as an excuse to not try. You know, so we were always encouraged to go out and, you know, join the soccer team or the football team or take those harder classes or go get our driver's licenses here in Virginia. And the mentality was, you'll try at 10 things that you think you're going to be terrible at, you'll be bad at four of them, you'll be okay at four of them, and you'll be probably pretty good at two of them. So why not go out and try and see what you can succeed at rather than assuming you can't?

[Eugene Shotsman]

That's awesome. And that's such a valuable viewpoint for life in general. I think that's whether you have Stargardt's disease or not. Those are definitely words to live by. Now, maybe just describe for people, how is your vision today and how has it progressed over time and what's it like?

[Brad Manning]

Yeah, so Stargardt's disease, you lose center vision. So to put it really simply, recognizing faces, reading small print, and driving are sort of out of the question. You know, in an advanced case like Brian, like a mature case like Brian and I's, you, the simple mechanism is it's a problem. Metabolizing vitamin A creates this byproduct, which kills the cells in the center vision. So our vision acuity today is somewhere around 2400. You know, our peripheral vision is okay. So, you know, you wouldn't know we had a vision issue if you saw us, like, walking around a room until you saw Us, like pull out our phone or not recognize you, even though maybe we met you the day before. So that's probably the simplest way to describe it.

[Brian Manning]

And the progression of the disease is over kind of a very quick, quick loss early on and then kind of a slower progression for about, for the, for a ten year period. So your, your first few years is a pretty rapid loss and then you steadily decline for about 10 years and then you hit a fairly stable state in most cases. Right. There can be, you know, people on either side of the normal curve, but after about 10 years, you, you stabilize and that's the vision that you, you typically hold, give or take, for a little while.

[Eugene Shotsman]

Okay. So I mean, you've been living with this and also you guys started building a business together because of your vision issues. So talk about how all that came to be.

[Brad Manning]

Yeah. So, you know, Brian and I were always close to the research at the foundation Fighting Blindness. So we were in New York one day, we were talking about a medical miracle which is the story of a kid named Janek Due, who was treated with a clinical stage therapy, which became Luxturna. It's a gene therapy to treat Leber's congenital amaurosis. And this individual, as an early clinical trial patient, went from reading braille to reading print. And it just blew our minds, you know, and the foundation was involved because they had funded a lot of the research to identify the gene back in the mid-90s. And you know, these things take a long, long time. But we were shopping on this day in New York City and we walk into this Bloomingdale store and you know, Brian and I, we, we don't have great vision, so we lose each other everywhere we go. Although he does have a very, let's just call it a visually impaired, impaired friendly head. You can spot it even if you don't have the best eyesight.

[Brian Manning]

It's not a trick of your iPhone. It is that big. I mean, if you were on a real monitor right now, it would be, it would be almost intimidating.

[Eugene Shotsman]

Large. This is a great shout out for our YouTube channel because we get a lot of people listening to the podcast. But now you gotta, you gotta go on YouTube and watch it, you know, just for Brian's head.

[Brian Manning]

I can promise you, you don't have a pair of frames in the shop that fits this thing. Okay. Like when this client comes in and says the biggest pair you got, you know, you go to that drawer down three on the left hand side, he's.

[Brad Manning]

He'S actually sitting 50ft back from the Camera. Even though that's what makes his head look like it fits in the frame.

[Brian Manning]

But, Brad, it's funny when I say it's hurtful when you. Okay, go ahead. Keep going. Sorry.

[Brad Manning]

So we lose each other in this store. And, you know, when you're shopping and you don't have the best eyesight, you know, before you can read the sizes, the prices, the labels that, well, you grab, we grab the item and figure out if we just love the way it feels. And on this, like, you know, just fateful day, we ended up walking out of the store 30 minutes later, and I was like, oh, what'd you get? And we had both coincidentally bought this same exact Henley shirt. And we were just. Because it was so. The material just felt so good. And of course, we played rock, paper, scissors to return the shirt. Can't we just. I wasn't willing for both of us to walk around in the same exact shirt, even though now we have our clothing brand. We wear the same stuff all the time. But he lost. He had to return the shirt. But when he came out, we thought we had a little epiphany. We thought, what if there's something to this? What if. We started a project, a clothing brand, with two simple missions. One, apply that vigilance to touch to make the softest clothing in the world. And two, use this as our vehicle to fund the next cure for an inherited retinal eye disease by giving 100% of the profits back to preclinical retinal research. And that's when we had our light bulb moment for two blind brothers.

[Eugene Shotsman]

That's amazing. And, you know, what a. What a story. What an inspiration. And then you guys built this into a pretty massive business. So talk about that. Yeah, maybe talk about the early days before it was a massive business. Like, okay, so you got this idea. How do you move forward with this idea?

[Brian Manning]

About 650 mistakes a day. Thank God none of them were crippling. But we had some friends that live, you know, New York City. A lot of people work and live in fashion. So we had some great friends in the fashion industry, and we solicited fabric books from all over the world because, you know, we're. This vigilance to touch was what's critical. But Brad and I have no background in fashion. Apparel, garment manufacturing, marketing, branding, sales, website development. Basically anything related to what we wanted to do, we had no expertise in. And so we just brute forced it. So we got fabric books about 5ft tall from all over the world, and we'd sit in this coffee shop in the west village in Manhattan and just go through one by one, once or twice a week. And, you know, we had a yes pile and a no pile, and then a smaller yes pile and a bigger no pile. And then eventually we get down to that last final one, and Brad pulls it out, and he's feeling it, and he's looking at Brian. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, this is the one, buddy. And he's so over the top, excited.

[Brad Manning]

And.

[Brian Manning]

And then he's like, okay, all we got to figure out now is just a quick question. Do you know how to sew, Brian? And I was like, yeah, I've been a seamstress for. For 30 years now. Check out my Etsy page. Have you never been to my sewing room at my. My 500 square foot apartment? And so we. So we found this garment manufacturer up on 36 street and in the garment district. And then we had a friend who was a Starbucks barista by day and a videographer by night. We were going to go out and sell our, you know, 200 T shirts on the Internet, and something really miraculous happened. We made this video that really just talked about our story, Talking about being brothers, talked about our lived experience, talked about our mission to cure blindness. Actually really didn't even bring up the shirts in any meaningful way. And we posted it on Facebook. And to give you some context here, for anybody out there who doesn't feel like they have a big Facebook or Instagram or social following at that time, when I posted something, I would get, like, two likes. It would be one for my grandmother and one for my grandmother's second account. She has two different on her computer. She's just. She's not great at the tool. But I'll take the likes. Right. Like, don't. The number's good. And then this video just happened to catch fire. And it went. It went very, very viral. You know, tens of millions of views and shared around the Internet. And that kind of started this. Started this cascade of experiences and coverage that really catapulted the brand from kind of obscurity to the spotlight.

[Brad Manning]

Yeah.

[Eugene Shotsman]

Now, I mean, there's a lot of. There's a lot to unpack there from a storytelling standpoint. And I want to maybe come back to that point in a moment. I just. I want to hear more about how you guys built the business and really what the business is doing today, so people can kind of take that. And when was this, Brian, you just told the story.

[Brian Manning]

2016. Mid, like, May 20 was it May 24th of 2016. Yeah.

[Eugene Shotsman]

Okay, so we're filming this around the same time of year in 2015. Or, sorry, 2025. Sorry, backwards in a moment. So we're now in 2025. So nine years later, talk about the size of the business and what it's doing. And then we're going to go back through a couple steps. And I actually really want to go back to your storytelling point.

[Brad Manning]

Well, we're. I mean, we can't believe the adventure and the pace of what this has done. It's really a testament, frankly, to people like, who have lifted up the story, you know, including things like this. We just passed, I think, 600,000 customers. We've contributed $3 million to charitable partners. About half of that is a direct donation. Half of it is through our supply chain paying like 501 C3s that employ blind workers to do some of the supply chain and manufacturing or assembly. For us, we are. We have it. We have an optical eyewear line that's in thousands of locations now. It's our unbelievable. We have a. We have a full collection. We have guide dog plush stuffed animals. We have all the clothing in the world that could make you super cozy. We've had the chance to meet heroes of ours. We've had great endorsements from people like Richard Branson, Ellen DeGeneres, Lester Holt said we have a hot clothing line and famous fans, which was remarkable when we heard him say that for the first time. So we've just had a great adventure with it. But I have to say that the most important thing that happened for us since the start was even though we started this to have fun and to help the foundation fighting blindness, it's really. Now it's really about the community. When Brian and I had this personal story, we hadn't really met that many people with retinal eye disease. Because of this attention, we ended up hearing from a lot of people and it's their stories that changed our purpose behind this. It was originally about fun and to do something good for ffbe. Then it became a sense of responsibility to try to honor this community that we see ourselves in. And so. And that was a big shift for us as well.

[Eugene Shotsman]

Yeah, I mean, kind of incredible what you've built over nine years. But I think you're absolutely right. It's the. It's kind of this. It's. It's the viral nature of this story. It's two guys with an eye condition decide to go into business and to help solve this problem for other. For other people in the world and to do that with, with a clothing company. But by the way, I, I will say, although you guys paid me to do this, I will say softest pair of socks that I own.

[Brian Manning]

So it is, it is true, can't be wrong, is how I like to bring it. 10 million toes are, are very happy because of us. And so we, we. And we love each and every one of them.

[Eugene Shotsman]

Yeah, well, my actually might be wearing, wearing the socks right now. So it's really, it really is. I think that there's a differentiating factor in the business, but it's driven by the story. So I kind of want to go back to that and this role of storytelling in business. Obviously it's been the thing that's built your business. But how did you, how did you nail it? Obviously over time the story had to evolve in some way. In some cases you're like, oh man, that's not what the market wants to hear. And that's not really the right story. So talk a little bit about finding the story.

[Brian Manning]

Yeah, I mean, when we first got going, we actually had really, fortunately for us, two big things or two big things that happened to us. One is because we didn't have expertise in the fashion industry. The thing that, the only thing we could talk about was the story was who we are, was the brand as a voice of Brad and I with this eye disease in this world. So that is what we genuinely leaned into because it was. Because that's what we had. And it was something that we really focused on because it became tremendously important to us. And when this really got codified in our minds was we had built a terrible, I mean, terrible squarespace website. Right? Like a website that you go to and you're pretty confident they've stolen your credit card information. Like the type of website, I mean, a dumpster fire. And I want to give Brad a ton of credit for building it. It was entirely dense. And so we had this awful website, but we were trying to sell our shirts on it and we had this kind of about and story section on it where we were, we were very, very fact forward. It was, you know, two blind brothers, mission is to cure blindness by donating 100% of our profits to preclinical retinal researchers through partners like the Foundation Fighting Blindness and the Gun Harrington foundation to promote early stage optimal, you know, eye research so that eventually they can get into clinics and find and go to commercialization ultimately through partners so that we can help find cures for the future. And it was really boring. And again, I want to repeat this. Brad wrote it. It was awful and it was all Brad. I'm really proud of him for at least putting himself out there.

[Eugene Shotsman]

But you memorized it, so I got to give you some credit for that.

[Brian Manning]

I have a shockingly good memory for terrible things. And so we, but so we had this and you know, it was really interesting. It was all factual, it was all true and it was all informative and it was all helpful. But everyone kept asking us a bunch of questions about it. Why do you work with this researcher? Why this foundation versus this, how do, how are the funds actually donated? Where do they work? And they go. Everybody had question questions but no one really wanted to do more than that. And then when we changed it to something we talked about earlier, about two 7 year old boys that were diagnosed with the retinal eye disease in a doctor's office and told they're going blind. And we've made it our life's mission to change that conversation into that doctor's office to there is hope. Something miraculous happened. We had a gentleman reach out literally like a week after we made the adjustment and said, hey, I don't know anything about retinal eye disease, but I love what you're doing. I've been in the fashion industry for 30 years. Let me help you guys out. What can we do? And that little shift that going from telling super factual informational pieces to telling the story of why we're doing this changed it from questions to how can I help? And that shift is genuinely what we've carried through our whole brand. And it's, it's, we believe it's one of the largest contributors to why we're successful.

[Eugene Shotsman]

Yeah. And you know, I can't, as a, as a marketer, I really can't understate the value of what you just said. I want everybody to pause for a second and just think about what Brian just said. And if you need to go rewind and say it, the reality is that what you said connected. And like I heard it and it kind of gave me goosebumps to think about two seven year old boys in a doctor's office being told that they're going blind. Like that is a, that, that's a. I have an emotional connection to that as a human. I don't have an emotional connection to, you know percent of profits go to this and whatever. I'm what I. To facts. Right. I have an emotional connection to story. And I think any business in any, in any. And I'm Thinking about this for my business, I'm thinking about it for my clients and immediately I'm kind of thinking about it for all the listeners. It's like any business can tell a story, right? There's a, there's a reasonable why behind some of the things that you're doing, Whether it's the patient that you helped, that you were able to, who was able to inspire you to come to work the next day, or whether it's the fact that, you know, you had some sort of, some sort of family, something in your family that, that you really wanted to see happen better in the future or, or just, you know, for me, if I were to become a doctor, I'd become a doctor because every doctor that, that it's really fricking hard to find a doctor who seems like they care in, at least in my part of the world. And I live in Cleveland and there's some big hospitals around here who shall rename mostly nameless, but it might be obvious. But so there's, you know, and many of the providers are unfortunately bound by the rules of these large, large hospitals. And so even if they want to care, they're all they can do is care in seven and a half minutes that their ehr allows them to be in the room. Right? And so my, my thinking is, you know, what, what's the experience? What's the story that shaped you if you're the listener of this, of this podcast. But you guys got any more tips on that? You know, as I'm, as I'm thinking.

[Brian Manning]

About it, I got one more and I'm going to cut Brad off because I love this more than he does. I'm just gonna tell you that right now, it's my favorite child. Like I'm our parents favorite child is, is, you know, and that you, you brought up what, what is always the inevitable next question. Okay, Brian, I think this is awesome, but I wasn't born with a retinal eye disease. I didn't start a clothing company. I don't have a brother with a suspicious amount of gray hair. I don't have any of these things.

[Brad Manning]

He's on fire today.

[Brian Manning]

You know, it's starting early, early and often. But, but the thing that is all but the thing that is so especially for this audience, especially for this group, is you see people every single day and you improve their lives. If it's something as simple as changing a prescription so that they can continue, so that that person can continue driving or getting a kid the right pair of glasses so they don't fall behind in school or it's, it's, it's, it's getting, getting them, get it in the, in the right frame so they feel confident about themselves, so they actually wear those glasses. Those moments that make you feel something in what you're doing is the story that your customers, your consumers and your employees need to hear. Because that, because if, if you can all be bound by this story of purpose that, hey, you know, yesterday we really helped that kid and I got a note back from his mom that his grades have gone up. That's world shaking. And that's what every parent wants to care about. So what moves you is what will move other people, not everybody, but it will move the people that are going to matter to you most. And I think that's really the onus of where to start when you're thinking about what story to tell.

[Eugene Shotsman]

Yeah. And Brad, what you told the. You started by talking a little bit about the experience that you had in the optometrist's office that then, you know, at the time you thought it was one of the better days of your life, going to Friendly's and watching earbud. But what role, I mean, think, maybe elaborate a little bit on what Brian's talking about with the. What role do you frontline caregivers, especially optometrists, play in the world for people with, you know, with something that is going to ultimately be a really scary diagnosis, and then also for people who are just like. And now you have to wear glasses.

[Brad Manning]

Yeah. You know, it's remarkable for Brian and I, I mean, just given the, Given the work we've been recently doing in this space, we've gotten a chance to meet a lot of, you know, eye health professionals, a lot of optometrists. And, you know, one thing that's true is that when somebody is scared about their eyes, an optometrist office is the first door that they walk into and that. That is the first that sets them on their journey of taking that next step. So, you know, as Brian said, sometimes it's simple, but one thing we've come to appreciate is everyone is terrified about their eyes. I mean, Brian and I have this experience all the time. We'll be like talking to some friend and they're like, oh, my gosh, you won't believe it. The other day I found out I've got this macular pucker and they say my vision could get as bad as 2060. And I'm just. We're very empathetic, but I'm like We're not the right audience for this. You know, I'm thinking of my. My buddy David. I'll send him this clip. But. But, you know, but the fact of the matter is that fear is real. And, you know, we had special moments with, you know, many optometrists. We, because we got state services, like, we learned to read braille and things like that. We would go see our optometrist for our evaluation each year, you know, when Brian and I were trying to get our licenses for a short period of time. So, like doctor, you know, Brian Record, who was in our town when we were growing up. I mean, these are very special relationships, and it meant a lot to us.

[Eugene Shotsman]

Yeah. And, you know, I think there's this other component of when people are delivering care. They can use that story component. It's not just about getting people in the door reminding people why they should come see, you know, but they can also use that story during the process of delivering care. Right. If you guys think about some of the more impactful conversations that you've had with caregivers or some of the. What advice would you give to people from that vantage point?

[Brian Manning]

You know, I think it's. We talk about this a lot when we. We. When we interact with families who are recently diagnosed because we. Because when people Google retinal eye disease, two blind brothers pops up, and we get customer service messages every day. And we. Brad and I, try and take time. We set aside time every week to have those calls and talk to those families, because that's just an important part of the mission for us. You know, the one best piece of advice that we always find is you have to meet people where. Where they are. And, you know, you can't say you can't. Like, I feel that. I think that having Stargardt has actually been more of a blessing than a curse for me. It's given me a lot of opportunities. It's given me a lot of strength. It's given me a lot of abilities. It's given. It's allowed me to do so many amazing things. But that's not the thing to tell somebody on the first day of diagnosis. Right. Because they're not ready to hear that kind of news at that time. But the big, you know, kind of allowing them to understand that this isn't, you know, a death sentence, that there's so much opportunity, that there is so much space to. For growth, that I actually think my vision, because of technology, I'm more productive than I was 15 years ago. Even. Even with worse eyesight it all because of the simple fact that technology has come to a place where my eyes don't have to see everything anymore. That, you know, that my phone can read it, I can take a picture, I can see it however I want. And so kind of understanding where the person is in their, in their kind of acceptance of the diagnosis and just being really kind of thoughtful and empathetic to their experience. And as you mentioned, telling them a story that they can hold on to. Telling them a story about two blind brothers of these guys who were diagnosed with something really similar who had to go on and live that way, or Gordon Gund or, or Steve Wynn or any of these kind of amazing blind folks who are out there doing incredible things to say there is opportunity, there is chance, and that you can really achieve whatever you need to as long as you're willing to kind of fight through this one big challenge.

[Eugene Shotsman]

Great insights on that. And I actually want to come back to the concept of how you're more productive because you're, because you're, because you understand some of the things that you do well at and also some of the things that you don't necessarily do well at. And really maybe just some of your advice as a pair of business owners on running a successful business. We'll do that right after the break. Stay tuned everybody. And we'll be right back.

[Lemi America]

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[Eugene Shotsman]

All right, we're back in the power hour. I've got Brad and Brian Manning, the guys, the geniuses behind the Two Blind Brothers brand. And I think there's at least two or three things that I really want to talk to you guys about before. Before we finish the show today. And one of them is as both business owners and members of a community and parents, you know, let's talk about finding strengths and finding weaknesses. And I want to build off of a comment that Brian made a little while ago about the fact that, you know, he. As. As he's embraced. As he's embraced this. This kind of concept of the way that you guys operate, it's turned into a way to be more productive and more effective. So let's unpack that a little bit.

[Brad Manning]

Yeah, sure. I can. I can start. You know, I think one of the things that became apparent for Brian and I is, like, you know, the typical sort of mainstream, prescripted way of developing a career or, you know, handling a job or being, you know, entrepreneurs. Two Blind Brothers. We had to kind of, like, figure out a lot for ourselves because there are certain things we couldn't do and couldn't be competitive at at all, and certain things where we had strengths and we needed to kind of create that environment where we could actually do well. With Two Blind Brothers, it's a lot easier because we have control over that space. And so we hired a team that can handle all the visual work, you know, for us. They've got great ways of, you know, working with us and taking off some of the. A lot of the visual details and, you know, things like, you know, fine tuning edits on a website. You know, that's something that, as Brian mentioned earlier, given my Dumpster Fire original Squarespace website, we weren't great at. And so, you know, kind of leaning into those things has always been like an exercise and strategy for us.

[Eugene Shotsman]

Yeah. And one of the questions that I think probably most people are thinking about is, okay, well, like, look, let's. Let's get realistic here. So if. If I'm a business owner and I don't have star guards, and I'm thinking about how I find my strengths. Okay. You know, so let's. Let's start there. But then also, if I have. If I've identified things that I'm not so good at, you know, I've identified my weaknesses that I want to delegate. If you're not really great at that, how do you know if somebody else is doing a great job at it? The next guy you hired to build a website, it might be marginally better than yours, but is it really good one? And how do you tell if you don't necessarily have the strength in that particular area.

[Brad Manning]

I've got an answer.

[E]

Go ahead, buddy.

[Brad Manning]

You know, we learned this just through the entrepreneur's journey of like, hiring and working with a lot of people. At the end of the day, you know, there's a lot of good resumes and there's a lot of people that interview well. Ultimately, you really want to. 90% of the time you just want to go with somebody who has done it and done it well before. You know, just there's too, too many mistakes. You know, kind of thinking you're going to bring somebody on or hire somebody and the project's going to be a little different than their skill set. You know, I think we've learned as entrepreneurs, it's just, just go with the, with the solid choice. Somebody who has the experience, has the references, is the expert in the exact thing that you're trying to develop. You know, that can give you a lot of assurance.

[Eugene Shotsman]

Yeah. And then, you know, you get into the point where you necessarily don't need to micromanage and train that person. If they have the expertise, ideally they're the ones teaching you. You're not the one teaching them. Right. Brian, you want to add anything there?

[E]

The only thing I'll add is that, you know, one thing that we've had to learn running this business is that there's a million challenges, problems, thing, decisions that have to get made every single day. And you have to, if you have to put faith and trust in these people, once they've demonstrated an ability, you have to just say, great. I believe in Angela's ability to take over and do this thing, because if you try and focus on all of it, the business doesn't get the opportunity to grow. It doesn't get the opportunity to move forward because you get too busy focusing on each and every tiny detail. And so, and so, and frankly, you're not going to make the right choice 100% of the time or you'll make a almost optimal choice. And sometimes that has to be good enough. You know, just getting the thing done so you can keep moving the business forward has to be a priority on, on the smaller scale stuff.

[Eugene Shotsman]

Yeah. And I, I, I think that's such valuable advice because I think at some point you can't, if you're an entrepreneur and you're, or you're a practice owner and you know, you're trying to see patients and you're trying to manage every part of your business, at some point you just need good people that you can delegate to and you need to be able to hold them accountable. But maybe, you know, it's easy to hold Angela. I don't know what Angela does in your business, but maybe there are some metrics and Maybe there's some KPIs that you can hold her accountable to. And if she's within tolerance of what you're expecting and it continues to improve, then, you know, you don't necessarily need to micromanage how she does her job. Totally.

[Brad Manning]

Exactly. Hear that, Angela?

[E]

She's not going to.

[Eugene Shotsman]

She's too busy with all the problems. I'll send it to her. Personally, I don't. So, you know, I actually want to talk a little bit more about as you guys have been finding. I mean, obviously you started a clothing company, and as you started this clothing company, that the. Your world, as you've described, has expanded, and your influence on the community of people who are visually impaired has. Has expanded as well, which I think is fantastic. And then you guys got into glasses. And this is kind of interesting as well, because it sounds like. And I might have been there when you guys had first. Had first gotten introduced to the world of optometry, but you guys have become pretty influential figures in the world of optometry. And I think there's a lot of people who, again, love the story, right? They hear the story, and they're really influenced and moved by the story. And so I think the optometric community may have just wanted to get involved, but that's where, you know, your line of. A line of frames came together. So talk more about that whole experience.

[Brad Manning]

Yeah, I'll start. And I'm sure I'll forget something. Brian can correct me. You know, it's actually an incredible story. And I actually don't even know if most of the people who are even, you know, getting the frames even know the full story. But Brian and I had the chance to speak at an event with a lot of optometrists in the audience, including some vendors. And one of those vendors develops eyewear collections in partnership with brands. And that's Lami America. And so they came to us and they said, you know, I think this community, you know, these clinicians, they will. They resonate with your brand. And they actually had an incredible foresight there, because originally we were kind of thinking, you know, two blind brothers, prescription glasses, something. I don't know, is that gonna. Is that gonna work? But they. They had an incredible insight, which was that we were actually putting a whole strategy and narrative around this collection. I actually think of it as a goal As a godfather offer, you know, I'm gonna make you an offer you can't refuse. Because this collection, even though it has the brand Two Blind Brothers on it, Two Blind Brothers doesn't get $1 from this collection. So we're in, you know, thousands of stores. We do events, we don't make a dollar. Not even. Even our organization, which is 100% charitable, doesn't make a dollar. Every dollar that we would get goes directly to the foundation Fighting Blindness. So why, why does that, why is that and why does that work? Well, it's because we wanted to make that godfather offer for the optometrists and eye health professionals themselves. They now have a frame on the board with a brand on it that gets that for whatever the brand would get, is a hundred percent charitable. And it stands for what our project stands for. And you know, and then the glasses themselves are unbelievably, you know, they're just. Lamy has a, frankly, it has a 300 year history in wireframe glasses, which is amazing. Going all the way back to, you know, the invention of the wireframes with the Lamy family. So they know what they're doing. And it's been amazing because it's all part of our mission. We get to now improve people's vision today with a pair of glasses and improve people's vision tomorrow with the research that's going to fund the next advancement.

[Eugene Shotsman]

It's really cool. And what's fascinating about this is that, you know, if I'm the average optometrist and I'm thinking about the power of story in engaging my patients, I mean, your story is a pretty, is a pretty interesting one. And I'm sure that, I mean, I know as a marketer that cause related marketing obviously works, but I think having having another tool in the toolkit for the average optometrist of what a cause could be, I mean, Fighting Blindness is a pretty freaking great cause.

[E]

Yeah, we've talked to a ton of optometrists, you know, because running this project.

[Brian Manning]

And running this, this frame collection, one.

[E]

Thing that's really, really stuck out to us has been that they were talking to one, one gentleman at Vision Expo where he said, you know, I love this line because I was, I'd have to go back into the dark room. I'd have to do the. I'd have to be a doctor and, you know, help somebody and kind of be that, that, that expert for them. And then we'd have to walk out and then walk into the frame area.

[Brian Manning]

Where I had to turn into a sales guy.

[E]

And it felt like there was a disconnect between those two things. And he said he was so happy because now he can walk over and point to two blind brothers and say, hey, when, you know, this pair of glasses actually is going back to curing blindness. Like this one, this one pair on the wall is in line with everything that we. We are here for. It's here to help vision health. It's here for empowerment, and it's here for cures for the future, and it's here for hope for everybody that suffers from one of these irds. And that just made me feel unbelievable because, you know, people are putting their lives into helping people, and to have to then morph into a salesperson just doesn't feel good. And giving that opportunity just warms our hearts.

[Eugene Shotsman]

Yeah. And, you know, you guys, I think kudos to you guys and the partnerships that you guys have been able to make. But I think, again, this kind of goes back to the earlier point that we talked about on the show, which is that once you get a story out there that really resonates with as many people as possible, people just start reaching out and trying to help and trying to figure out how they can get involved. Right.

[Brad Manning]

That part has been the most unbelievable part because, I mean, you know, some of the partners that we've gotten a chance to work with on this, they have their own proprietary brands and their own proprietary channels. You know, and the fact that they've been willing to, you know, different organizations and just have been willing to open up to support this, you know, I call it an honest signal. You know, when. So Brian mentioned, you know, very early this morning to me, that he's moving, and, you know, I can call him up and say, hey, man, I would love to help you, but I'm in New York City right now. That's easy to do. But if I were to actually show up at his house and actually help him move, that would be an honest signal that I'm there to support him. So the fact that these. The fact that some of these organizations that have their own brands, have their own network of optometrists have invited us as a new brand that they don't have a financial interest in. It tells us a lot about the strength of this community and how collaborative it is.

[Eugene Shotsman]

Yeah, really cool, guys. And I think that it's absolutely, again, goes back to the power of having a compelling reason why somebody would be able to offer that honest help. We're going to wrap with this, and I'm Going to kind of put you guys on the spot here. But you're obviously very successful business owners. You're very influential in the communities that you serve. I want to hear a little bit about some mistakes that you guys have made either in business or on your journey to being successful in business. And I think it would be fun to have you guys tell one or two stories of things where things just kind of went differently than you expected.

[Brad Manning]

Oh, man, this could be another three hours.

[E]

Yeah. When I was. When I was in my college years, I thought, you know, Brad went up to New York and was working in finance. I thought, you know, I should do the same thing. So I got an internship at a big, giant, reputable bank to be an investment banker, thinking, great, this will be the life. And I remember day one, I show up and there were 12 kids sitting in the room, and they go, hey, two of you are going to get the job and 10 of you aren't. I was like, oh, shoot. Probably not going to end up with it. But I was like, I'm going to put in all the work. I can now compete on day two. They gave us Excel spreadsheets to go through. And I'm sitting there, zoomed in, face half an inch from the screen. They gave me all the accessibility tools, and sitting there thinking, this is going to be a really, really tough summer for the old bride guy. I was the worst kid they ever offered that to. It was unequivocally terrible for them.

[Brian Manning]

I just. And every.

[E]

And they were. They felt so bad for me. I think they gave me more pity than. Than productivity. But. But, yeah, you know, it was a great lesson because I realized that, you know, banking in Excel was probably not for me. And I ended up going and leaving there and then ended sales at a giant tech company and went from the worst kid they ever hired to the. The number one rep they had hired. And it was one of those crazy understandings that you're. You really in life. Can you. Playing into your strengths in life is the only way to actually move forward. Because trying to do. Trying to sit there and grind out Excel spreadsheets, I was going to be the worst in the world. But interacting with people, associating with people, building relationships I could be the best.

[Brian Manning]

At in the world.

[E]

So, you know, big lesson there. But, man, I will tell you, terrible. Three months of just letting people down every single day.

[Eugene Shotsman]

But what a great lesson. And I love how you summarize that. Brad, you got one.

[Brad Manning]

We have a lot of stories. We, you know, there was a There was a time where we didn't sort of like forecast our, our sales.

[Eugene Shotsman]

Right.

[Brad Manning]

And we had six people in our apartment licking envelopes and, you know, putting thousands of boxes together and just, you know, hating each other every minute. You know, we had. We've ordered the wrong color buttons on these shirts, and all of a sudden we have to, like, remake everything. We. You know, one thing that sort of happened for us that's like, you know, people who are interested in brands or there's a brand aspect to their. To their, you know, business, is that what you typically want is you want to make sure you have a fantastic product, you have some infrastructure that has the ability to scale, and then you want the sizzle. So if you don't have a product or you don't have, you know, your infrastructure, you don't want to pay, you know, you don't want to pay Tom Brady to endorse what you're doing, because you don't have the ability to capture the audience and the customers that well. We were the complete opposite of that. We came up with this idea. We ended up getting a lot of media early on, and then we had to spend the next two years figuring out how to actually put this business together, make the right products and all that kind of stuff. So that was another sort of. And there was a lot of problems because of that.

[Eugene Shotsman]

Yeah, I mean, really, as you're building the business, there's lots and lots of things that happen and go wrong and just nobody's really immune from that. It's more of how you recover and how you learn, right?

[Brian Manning]

Yeah, totally.

[Brad Manning]

Yeah. But I'll tell you what the other thing is. You have to love the thing you're doing so much that you would almost do it regardless of like the. Any major success, because that's the only way you'll stick through it, through the hard times. You know that. That's another. That's actually one of the big secrets, I think, how this worked for Brian and I, because if you think about it, starting a clothing brand is not a good prospective business plan. You know, starting one with such a nuanced mission around curing blindness is not necessarily like a great scaling business plan, but we loved it and we had a lot of fun with it. So that was one of the cornerstones that made it work.

[Eugene Shotsman]

Yeah, that's awesome. And I think fantastic advice across the board. And just here sitting and rooting for your success is such an easy thing to do because you guys are. You have magnetic personalities. You have an incredible story and you're building something that is truly giving back to the world in a way that very few things do. So congratulations on all your success, guys. Thank you so much for being in the Power Hour and many, many, many more years of health and success to you guys.

[Brad Manning]

Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. We appreciate it.

[Eugene Shotsman]

Thanks for listening to today's Power Hour episode. The Power Hour is actually owned by the Power Practice. Power Practice is a premier consulting group who helps practices achieve freedom of time, confidently solve practice issues and grow their practices. They do this by having coaches and OD consultants, people who have actually done it, been there, and they're ready to help. You want to learn more, go to powerpractice.com there's a bunch of free tools there. You can also get a whole bunch of information and decide whether it's right for your practice. Again, if you're looking for more time, you're looking to solve complex practice issues or grow the Power Practice might be right for you. Go to powerpractice.com to find out more.