May 6, 2025

From Darkness to Light: Laura Bratton's Journey of Grit and Gratitude

From Darkness to Light: Laura Bratton's Journey of Grit and Gratitude

Send us a text What happens when life suddenly changes course and everything you know disappears? Laura Bratton's world transformed between second and third grade when a routine eye appointment revealed she would lose her sight due to a degenerative eye disease. While the full impact didn't hit immediately, by age fourteen, Laura found herself staring at indecipherable black blobs on her classroom board instead of letters—a moment that launched her into a profound journey through grief, anxie...

Send us a text

What happens when life suddenly changes course and everything you know disappears? Laura Bratton's world transformed between second and third grade when a routine eye appointment revealed she would lose her sight due to a degenerative eye disease. While the full impact didn't hit immediately, by age fourteen, Laura found herself staring at indecipherable black blobs on her classroom board instead of letters—a moment that launched her into a profound journey through grief, anxiety, and ultimately, transformation.

The path from "I can't" to "I can" wasn't straightforward or quick. Laura shares how the steadfast support of her family, especially her brother who refused to treat her differently, created a foundation of grit that eventually became her own. Meanwhile, a mentor's challenge to write down three things she was grateful for each day—initially met with skepticism—gradually revealed the power of noticing what helps us navigate difficult transitions rather than fixating on what we've lost.

These twin principles of grit and gratitude now form the core of Laura's work through UB Global, where she helps others facing major life transitions. Her book "Harnessing Courage" (named after both the physical harness she uses with her guide dog and the emotional process of gathering strength) offers these same strategies to readers worldwide. Laura's most powerful insight? The importance of balancing grief with forward movement—giving yourself permission to acknowledge difficulty while taking life one moment at a time rather than trying to solve everything at once. For anyone facing change, challenge, or unexpected loss, Laura's message offers both compassion and a practical roadmap toward resilience.

Looking to transform your own approach to life's curveballs? Visit LauraBratton.com to explore her speaking, coaching, and writing—and discover how you might harness your own courage to move forward through whatever changes you face.


https://www.laurabratton.com/

Want to be a guest on Living the Dream with Curveball? Send Curtis Jackson a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1628631536976x919760049303001600

00:00 - Introduction to Laura Bratton

01:28 - Losing Sight: Laura's Diagnosis Story

04:38 - Grief Process and Mindset Shift

08:55 - Grit and Gratitude in Action

13:10 - Creating UB Global

17:25 - Harnessing Courage: The Book

22:40 - Final Thoughts on Navigating Change

WEBVTT

00:00:00.420 --> 00:00:08.390
Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball, if you believe you can achieve.

00:00:08.390 --> 00:00:24.242
Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire.

00:00:24.242 --> 00:00:25.984
Where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire.

00:00:25.984 --> 00:00:30.350
Today, I am joined by author and founder of UB Global, laura Bratton.

00:00:30.350 --> 00:00:47.874
Laura lost her sight due to an eye disease at the age of nine and she founded UB Global, which is an organization that provides speech to people to help them overcome obstacles with grit and gratitude.

00:00:47.874 --> 00:00:53.768
So we're going to be talking to Laura about everything that she's up to and what she's going to be up to.

00:00:53.768 --> 00:00:57.222
So, laura, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to join me.

00:00:58.406 --> 00:01:00.112
Absolutely, I'm excited.

00:01:00.941 --> 00:01:03.700
Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

00:01:04.182 --> 00:01:08.480
Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

00:01:08.480 --> 00:01:18.033
Yeah, so I faced the unique challenge.

00:01:18.033 --> 00:01:27.313
Of life was going well, life seemed to be normal, and then everything changed between the summer of second grade and third grade.

00:01:27.313 --> 00:01:32.787
So a situation that happened that encapsulates the whole experience I will still remember.

00:01:32.787 --> 00:01:35.572
I can vividly see in my mind's eye.

00:01:35.572 --> 00:01:47.430
I was in the doctor's office, in the pediatric ophthalmologist, and I had read all the letters, the biggie and all the letters that you know the doctor, nurses, to ask you to read on the chart.

00:01:47.540 --> 00:01:59.254
My eyes were dilated and I just seemed the appointment was going fine and as the doctor came in and looked at each of my eyes, I can still see him.

00:01:59.254 --> 00:02:22.693
He just rolled back in his chair and he just looked directly at my mom and, very serious and obviously concerned, he said there is a major problem going on with her vision and it's something that I will refer her to a specialist, to that she needs to be seen by a retina specialist.

00:02:22.693 --> 00:02:30.086
So my mom's immediate response was well, okay, you know I'm a teacher, I'm getting ready to start a new school year.

00:02:30.086 --> 00:02:33.169
Obviously she's in school getting ready to start a new academic year.

00:02:33.169 --> 00:02:38.786
We'll take care of it sometime in the fall or spring break, you know Christmas break or fall break or whatever.

00:02:38.786 --> 00:03:06.090
And he just looked back at her and, again very concerned, I'm gonna refer you and you're gonna leave my office and go directly to his office so that that one appointment started in a whole significant, life-changing experience well, walk through the walk, the listeners.

00:03:06.270 --> 00:03:15.325
You know your mindset when you first, you know, began to become blind and through the grieving process of, you know, having to deal with the loss of your sight.

00:03:15.907 --> 00:03:16.228
Yeah.

00:03:16.228 --> 00:03:32.150
So the gift of being nine was that, even though I still can remember and feel the emotion of that day, that appointment, cognitively, as a nine-year-old I couldn't understand the depth of emotion.

00:03:32.150 --> 00:03:45.569
I couldn't understand the depth of the significance of what it meant that I eventually lose my sight, that the cells in my retina were dying and they knew I would lose my sight.

00:03:45.569 --> 00:03:47.527
They just didn't know at what rate.

00:03:47.527 --> 00:03:58.230
And so that's why I say, as the gift, I couldn't really process what was going on as a nine year old, fast forward as a 14 year old.

00:03:58.230 --> 00:04:08.282
That's when I could process and that's when the intense grief process started, process, and that's when the intense grief process started.

00:04:08.282 --> 00:04:11.108
So what I mean by that is between nine and 14, my vision.

00:04:11.108 --> 00:04:13.932
It decreased some, but not significantly.

00:04:13.932 --> 00:04:17.807
So again I just thought okay, this is what my life's going to be.

00:04:17.807 --> 00:04:20.312
My vision is just not as good.

00:04:21.639 --> 00:04:33.930
Then in that end of middle school, there was one particular day I was sitting in geography class and the teacher said take out your notebooks and write down.

00:04:33.930 --> 00:04:36.880
Start copying down the notes that I'm going to put up on the board.

00:04:36.880 --> 00:04:49.636
So I just grabbed my notebook, grabbed pen, looked up at the board and all I saw were these black like blobs.

00:04:49.636 --> 00:04:53.211
It wasn't clear defined letters.

00:04:53.211 --> 00:05:04.040
So I looked back down at my notebook, looked up at the board again and still all I saw was this kind of black, just random markings.

00:05:04.040 --> 00:05:06.283
Was this kind of black, just random markings?

00:05:06.283 --> 00:05:14.795
So, very confused of why I didn't see just regular print, I leaned over my neighbor and said well, how are you copying down the notes on the board?

00:05:14.795 --> 00:05:20.103
You seem to be doing it with no problem.

00:05:20.103 --> 00:05:21.345
How are you writing down the notes?

00:05:21.345 --> 00:05:22.906
Are you just writing down words?

00:05:22.906 --> 00:05:29.194
And she just leaned back over to me and said Laura, the print is completely normal.

00:05:29.194 --> 00:05:30.555
What are you talking about?

00:05:30.555 --> 00:05:38.499
There's no issues writing down the notes on the board.

00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:44.651
So that's the moment I realized the reality of that doctor appointment, when I was nine.

00:05:44.651 --> 00:05:54.593
That's when I realized as a 14 year old okay, I had just lost a significant amount of vision and this is my new reality.

00:05:54.593 --> 00:06:07.175
So, just as you were asking about the grief process, that's when the grief started and my first step, my first fault, was that denial period.

00:06:07.175 --> 00:06:09.468
Oh, this isn't that bad.

00:06:09.468 --> 00:06:12.629
Oh, my vision might come back really soon.

00:06:12.629 --> 00:06:17.488
This is not permanent, it just it was denying the reality.

00:06:17.488 --> 00:06:24.129
Once I was experienced that denial the grief was.

00:06:24.129 --> 00:06:33.107
The mindset was I can't, I can't, I can't, I don't have the strength, this is too hard, I can't, I can't, I can't.

00:06:33.107 --> 00:06:38.673
So that was my initial reaction to the major vision loss.

00:06:38.800 --> 00:06:54.788
As far as the grief emotional perspective is, this is too hard, I can't do this what talk to the listeners about how you use grit and gratitude to be able to move forward yeah.

00:06:54.928 --> 00:07:18.156
So, as I was saying the whole time, so through high school, as I continued to lose a significant more amount of sites and I still was in that mindset, that intense grief of I can't which led to anxiety, to depression the whole time, that I am thinking I can't do this, this is too hard.

00:07:18.156 --> 00:07:29.036
Where the grit and gratitude comes in is not first the grit and gratitude of myself, it's that of the support and those around me.

00:07:29.036 --> 00:07:33.279
So I'll break it down into both parts.

00:07:33.279 --> 00:07:44.956
So the grit, what I mean by that is it was the grit of my parents who would tell me every day we don't know the future, we don't know how this is all going to work out.

00:07:44.956 --> 00:07:58.817
We're going to take it day by day as a family and figure this out, figure out what resources are out there, how to live this new, this new life, this new normal.

00:07:59.908 --> 00:08:01.884
It was my brother, who's five years older.

00:08:01.884 --> 00:08:07.637
It was his grit of he didn't treat me any different all of a sudden.

00:08:07.637 --> 00:08:13.216
He didn't start babying me or pitying me or feeling sorry for me.

00:08:13.216 --> 00:08:17.456
He treated me no different than he'd always treated me.

00:08:17.456 --> 00:08:24.069
It's just like his annoying little younger baby sister that her job was to drive her big brother crazy.

00:08:24.069 --> 00:08:26.391
He didn't treat me any different.

00:08:27.725 --> 00:08:33.105
My friends continue to be my friends, treat me any different.

00:08:33.105 --> 00:08:34.187
My friends continue to be my friends.

00:08:34.187 --> 00:08:36.994
They again, they didn't treat me any different just because I couldn't see as well.

00:08:36.994 --> 00:08:56.131
So, being surrounded by a community, by teachers, by parents, by a brother that continued to move forward and continued to just take it literally day by day, by day, that's what I mean by the grit.

00:08:56.131 --> 00:08:59.727
It was as they held that grit for me.

00:08:59.727 --> 00:09:23.419
My mindset slowly began to shift from I can't do this to oh OK, maybe I can do this for the next hour, maybe I can get through English class today and then Spanish class at the end of the day and then lunch during the day.

00:09:23.419 --> 00:09:34.961
So it was that mindset of slowly changing from I can't to accepting and believing that grit within myself.

00:09:36.405 --> 00:09:37.950
And and I it was again, it was a.

00:09:38.029 --> 00:09:39.273
It was a slow process.

00:09:39.273 --> 00:09:46.912
It wasn't just I woke up one day and said, okay, now I have grit, now I believe in myself, now I have the strength, let's go forward.

00:09:46.912 --> 00:10:05.128
But it was a very slow process of just all these moments building up to finally accepting that grit for myself, and I can give countless examples of how that grit finally came to be.

00:10:05.128 --> 00:10:13.880
But before I give those examples, just balance with that grit, what I experienced was the gratitude.

00:10:13.880 --> 00:10:31.899
And again, the gratitude was not me waking up and saying, oh, wow, I am just so grateful to now be blind, I am so grateful to be a teenager this different than I used to be.

00:10:31.899 --> 00:10:46.378
Rather, it was just the gratitude of what helped me navigate through each day, and the way I got there was again just like the grit.

00:10:46.378 --> 00:10:50.996
It was that support around me that taught me the gratitude.

00:10:50.996 --> 00:11:14.719
So one day in high school, a mentor of mine said to me after school one day Laura, I want you to start writing down three things that you're grateful for, and every day, at the end of each day, I want you to reflect back on the day and just think about what are those three people or situations or events that you're thankful for.

00:11:14.719 --> 00:11:23.910
And immediately, as she told me this, thankfully I just kind of didn't, I just didn't really react.

00:11:23.910 --> 00:11:28.653
But in my mind I'm thinking I'm not sure you're a good mentor.

00:11:28.653 --> 00:11:36.874
Here I am with extreme depression, panic attacks, I have just lost most of my vision.

00:11:36.874 --> 00:11:39.458
I have nothing to be grateful for.

00:11:39.458 --> 00:11:43.395
And you're telling me, you're asking me, you're inviting me to be grateful.

00:11:43.395 --> 00:11:46.126
I don't think that's a good idea.

00:11:46.126 --> 00:11:58.409
So in my stubbornness, in my determination to prove her wrong, that's why I started the gratitude journal.

00:11:58.409 --> 00:12:07.110
So, as I sort of write down, one night became three nights, three nights became a week, a week became two weeks.

00:12:08.131 --> 00:12:12.178
And I slowly realized the value of that mentor.

00:12:12.178 --> 00:12:19.379
She wasn't teaching me and saying wake up and be grateful for the blindness.

00:12:19.379 --> 00:12:41.556
What she was teaching me is notice throughout the day what you're grateful for that helps you navigate through the intense change, what helps you navigate through the adjustment period, what helped you adapt every moment and every day.

00:12:41.556 --> 00:12:45.956
So again, it's not being grateful, positive, happy, happy.

00:12:45.956 --> 00:12:53.849
Rather, it's being deeply grateful and appreciative for what helps me get through every day.

00:12:53.849 --> 00:12:56.673
So that's how the grit and gratitude started.

00:12:56.673 --> 00:13:00.525
It didn't first start by me choosing to have that.

00:13:00.525 --> 00:13:08.126
It started by me realizing I had this around me, so then I can choose to have it for myself.

00:13:10.032 --> 00:13:11.616
Well, talk about UB Global.

00:13:11.616 --> 00:13:17.216
Tell us what your organization does and why you decided to found it, and how it's helping people.

00:13:18.378 --> 00:13:18.778
Yeah.

00:13:18.945 --> 00:13:41.038
So what it does is it helps people as they're navigating through change and they're going through that grief process and the loss process of just the difficulty of change, the overwhelm of change, to use these same two principles of grit and gratitude to help them move forward in change.

00:13:42.245 --> 00:13:52.841
Often, when we experience transition, change and diversity, we're overwhelmed by the intensity and then the magnitude of the change.

00:13:52.841 --> 00:13:59.778
So we just shut down, like in my situation I just got so overwhelmed with the anxiety and the depression.

00:13:59.778 --> 00:14:29.635
So, rather than people just being stuck and locked in that overwhelm and locked in that fear of the future, what I do, through both speaking and coaching, is help people and provide people the resources to acknowledge the difficulty of the change and then, at the exact same time, choose to move forward through the grit and the gratitude.

00:14:29.635 --> 00:14:43.033
And the reason that I do that, the reason that I founded the organization and have so much passion, is because of my lived experience, because of what I just shared about.

00:14:43.033 --> 00:14:47.996
I was surrounded by such an incredible community and support.

00:14:47.996 --> 00:15:14.707
I am passionate and want to spend my life work giving that support to other people who are also going through change, not just, specifically, vision loss, but any type of major changes, overwhelming and fearful, and anxiety producing, helping them and supporting them and being that grit and gratitude for them as they move forward.

00:15:18.053 --> 00:15:19.716
Okay, well, tell us about your book.

00:15:19.716 --> 00:15:23.008
Tell us you know what we can expect when we read it.

00:15:23.067 --> 00:15:24.051
Yeah, okay.

00:15:24.051 --> 00:15:25.474
So Harnessing Courage.

00:15:25.474 --> 00:15:34.158
There were two driving again the passion, the two driving forces of why I wrote that book.

00:15:34.158 --> 00:16:03.187
The first was, for me, it was incredibly healing and was so intense and that in those initial years of the vision loss were so difficult and still living every day as a person without sight in a sighted world.

00:16:03.187 --> 00:16:05.269
It was incredibly healing and a source of strength.

00:16:05.269 --> 00:16:17.341
Just to get to write out my story, just to get to write out my story and through that process is where I realized the grit and gratitude that was surrounding me.

00:16:17.341 --> 00:16:40.770
So, again, I wrote the book from the perspective of yes, this was the major change I experienced and through this change, here's how I continue to move forward, here's how I live a full productive life and, rather than being depressed and anxious, here's how I move forward with joy and strength, with those two resources.

00:16:40.770 --> 00:17:02.926
So the first reason I wrote the book is just, it was incredibly healing, just to write out my story and to reflect on the grit and gratitude that I had received, received Again.

00:17:02.926 --> 00:17:05.711
The second major passion was the exact same passion for why I founded the organization for speaking coaching.

00:17:05.711 --> 00:17:20.161
So I was deeply passionate and wanted to write a book that people could pick up and read, to know and have that resource of yes, I'm going through this major change and here's how I can move forward.

00:17:20.161 --> 00:17:37.650
Yes, I'm going through this major loss in my life, whether it be job, relational, death of a loved one, whatever it might be, there's still strength to move forward and using my story as a source of strength.

00:17:37.650 --> 00:17:45.133
That was my passion for writing the book and the reason for the title Harnessing Courage.

00:17:45.374 --> 00:17:47.838
That was a very deliberate decision.

00:17:47.838 --> 00:17:54.396
So the harness is the handle, that.

00:17:54.396 --> 00:18:01.990
So what goes around the dog and then what the person who's flying holds on a guide dog, that is called a harness.

00:18:01.990 --> 00:18:07.590
So what's strapped around the dog and then the end of the strap is the handle, is the harness.

00:18:07.590 --> 00:18:25.294
So the reason I named it Harnessing Courage is because, literally that first guide dog that I've had, and then my second guide dog as well, both of those dogs empower me to have the courage to physically move forward and feel safe in this world.

00:18:25.294 --> 00:18:30.626
So that was one reason for the title Harness the Courage.

00:18:30.626 --> 00:18:48.378
And then the other reason was just to send the message and, through the book again and again, make the point very clear that it takes a lot of strength to harness the courage to move forward in times of change.

00:18:48.378 --> 00:18:53.971
So again, that title was very, very deliberate.

00:18:53.971 --> 00:19:04.036
I was very specific in wanting to have that title because of the strength, harness and courage, both physically and emotionally, has given me.

00:19:06.905 --> 00:19:11.665
Okay, well, tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

00:19:12.667 --> 00:19:19.000
Yeah, so what I'm working on now is just expanding the speaking and expanding the coaching.

00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:35.680
I've done a lot of speaking and coaching to different organizations, to different colleges, high schools, just to find where does this message of change connect?

00:19:35.680 --> 00:19:50.326
Obviously, we all go through change, but through the speaking, just to be able to connect with those people who can best connect with the message of this is how we can navigate through change.

00:19:50.326 --> 00:19:59.621
Yes, it is an intense grief process and also we can grieve while choosing to move forward.

00:19:59.621 --> 00:20:07.890
So that's what's upcoming and that's what I'm so passionate about is just that the speaking and the coaching continue to grow.

00:20:09.730 --> 00:20:13.574
But they'll add your contact info so people can keep up with everything that you're up to.

00:20:14.726 --> 00:20:16.431
So the best place is my website.

00:20:16.431 --> 00:20:25.778
Laurarattoncom has all the information about the speaking, the coaching and the book, so it's all on that one website.

00:20:27.625 --> 00:20:29.570
Okay, close us out with some final thoughts.

00:20:29.570 --> 00:20:34.556
Maybe, if that was something I forgot to talk about, that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

00:20:39.845 --> 00:20:40.707
I thought you have for the listeners.

00:20:40.707 --> 00:20:40.847
Yeah.

00:20:40.847 --> 00:21:13.388
So the one final thought and I've touched on this a little bit, but the one final thought would be to know that as we go through change, whatever that change might be it can be a loss, a difficult transition whatever the magnitude is of that loss, give yourself the space to acknowledge the difficulty, to acknowledge that is a time of change, that is a difficult situation that it's okay to grieve.

00:21:13.388 --> 00:21:24.060
And the reason I say that is from my own experience of I initially thought, ok, I just have to be strong and push forward and it'll all work out.

00:21:24.060 --> 00:21:41.922
What I didn't realize and the advice I wish I knew and that's why I'm so passionate about giving it is just letting ourselves stop and grieve and feel the magnitude and the difficulty of the transition.

00:21:43.685 --> 00:22:02.840
The purpose of that, the reason is that is, once we sit in that place of pain, once we sit in that acknowledgement of wow, this is really really hard, this is a difficult situation, that then gives us the mental power and the mindset to move forward.

00:22:03.365 --> 00:22:08.376
So I'm not it's not saying sit in the grief for the rest of your life and just stay there.

00:22:08.376 --> 00:22:19.997
Rather, it's saying just sit in the grief for a time and give yourself that space to feel the difficulty, feel the pain, feel the anxiety.

00:22:19.997 --> 00:22:37.134
And then, once you do that, my next advice is take it moment by moment, by moment, and I say that from my own lived experience of I was trying to figure out the whole future at one time in one moment.

00:22:37.134 --> 00:22:43.636
That was overwhelming, that's what created that deep anxiety, that deep, deep, deep depression.

00:22:43.636 --> 00:23:00.375
Rather, when I learned the mindset of just taking it day by day, moment by moment, hour by hour, that's when I realized I could move forward and that it wasn't so overwhelming.

00:23:00.375 --> 00:23:10.817
So my advice would be to perfectly balance that, allowing yourself to grieve while also moving forward minute by minute, moment by moment.

00:23:13.567 --> 00:23:13.827
All right.

00:23:13.827 --> 00:23:22.489
Ladies and gentlemen, laurabrattoncom, please be sure to keep up with everything that she's up, to Check out her book, follow, rate review.

00:23:22.489 --> 00:23:25.016
Share this episode to as many people as possible.

00:23:25.016 --> 00:23:27.752
Follow us on your favorite podcast app.

00:23:27.752 --> 00:23:35.900
Go to wwwcurveball337.com for more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast.

00:23:35.900 --> 00:23:42.769
Thank you for listening and supporting the show and, laura, thank you for all that you do and thank you for joining me.

00:23:43.451 --> 00:23:44.013
Absolutely.

00:23:44.013 --> 00:23:45.411
Thank you for the opportunity.

00:23:46.265 --> 00:23:54.635
For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, visit wwwcurveball337.com.

00:23:54.635 --> 00:23:58.795
Until next time, keep living the dream.