Jenna and Travis Zigler are all about vision, in more ways than one. They’re both optometrists who are living life on a mission to end preventable blindness. In order to do so, they’ve created a massively ambitious and creative vision for how to change the world, one pair of glasses at a time.

As the founders of Eye Love, a company that sells high-quality, affordable products supporting eye health, Jenna and Travis are able to provide value to their customers while using their business to fund mission trips, distributing glasses to people in need. They also run the Eye Love Cares Foundation, which is working towards opening free eye clinics. All this, and they still run an optometry practice full time!

Needless to say, Jenna and Travis are hugely inspiring, but they also provide some highly actionable insight into social entrepreneurship. Listen to them as they chat with Alexander Star and Kuda Biza about creating a vision for the future, taking risks despite the possibility of failure, and choosing to focus on providing value rather than chasing dollars.

Here are just a few of the key takeaways Jenna and Travis talk about in their interview:

A huge turning point in Travis and Jenna’s entrepreneurship journey was writing down a “Vivid Vision” for Eye Love. This vision included long term goals (10 and 30 years down the line), as well as short-term benchmarks that translated easily into KPIs. They were inspired by the book Traction by Gino Wickman and Double Double by Cameron Herald. These books helped them take Eye Love’s mission and expand it into a robust roadmap. Their Vivid Vision has helped them stay on track towards their goals and grow their business by recruiting employees who are fully in line with their vision.

In this episode, Jenna owns up to her fear of failure in the past. After pushing herself to take more risks, though, “failing is fun.” Building Eye Love as a business has come with some spectacular moments of failure, but all of them have been teachable moments. (Listen to the podcast to hear some of the most memorable failures – maybe you can relate!) In the end, Jenna and Travis say, their biggest mistake? Not taking action sooner.

A huge mental shift that has been central to Eye Love’s success has been prioritizing providing value over earning money. When you focus on providing value for your customers, the money will follow. Not only are Travis and Jenna driven by their passion for mission work, they also completely in tune to their customers’ needs. By creating a community and then listening to it (check out their group on Facebook), Eye Love has been able to create a profitable product line that addresses pain points in their customers’ lives.

1:25: Introduction

2:00: What functional blindness is, and how a pair of eyeglasses can change someone’s life.

2:45: All about Eye Love and its mission.

4:45: Lessons learned over two and a half years of entrepreneurship.

7:00: Travis and Jenna’s journey to becoming entrepreneurs.

7:45: Why adding value is the most important thing.

8:50: What it’s like being a husband & wife entrepreneurial team.

11:00: How they use a Vivid Vision to drive their decision making.

14:10: Why Travis and Jenna are drawn to serving in Jamaica.

18:00: Lessons that they’ve learned from failure.

21:25: How customers help drive Eye Love’s product line.

26:00: How and why to start building an audience.

29:25: Why eye care is important for people with diabetes.

32:30: How Jenna and Travis are making this their era.

34:00: All about the Eye Love Cares Foundation.

36:20: The impotence of accountability.

1) Write down your vision and make it public!

When Travis and Jenna created a Vivid Vision for Eye Love, they also took the brave step of making it public. Putting a plan out into the world immediately translates into added accountability. If you haven’t already created a Vivid Vision for yourself, use Travis and Jenna’s as an inspiration for your own (or, check out the book

Double Double). Then, make it public. This could mean sharing it on your website or simply sending it to a close friend or your mastermind group. Whoever it is, make sure they will help keep you accountable to following through.

2) Do something that fear or failure has kept you from doing!

Learning from failure is key... and so is making sure that fear of failure doesn’t stop you from taking massive action.

Is there something that you haven’t done because of fear of failure? Maybe it’s something as big as starting a new project, or a simple as making an adjustment to your workflow. Identify your fear and face it. Ask yourself: Did you succeed? Did you fail? Either way, what did you learn?

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“#ThisIsMyEra because I am no longer chasing the dollar, but chasing value.” - Travis Zigler