My Blue Skies Journey: #BlindTok E:14

n Episode 14 of #BlindTok, Murray Elbourne and Tammy Jackson welcome Mark Slavin, the relentlessly upbeat creator behind BlindTok's Mr. Blue Skies. Mark's eyesight started slipping at twelve, but a tidy nearsightedness label sent everyone home happy and kept the real story buried for years. He caught footballs by sound, played every sport his school had, and trusted his body to quietly cover for him, right up until it couldn't. When the real diagnosis finally arrived, delivered with roughly the warmth of a parking ticket, he made a call plenty of us would understand: nobody was ever going to know. What follows is a long stretch of denial, a cure hunt that carried him much further than he ever expected, and a wake-up call you don't get to ignore twice.
From there it becomes a story about clawing back up, about the one thing that can haul you out of the dark at your lowest point, and about building a life out of music, mentorship, and good vibes shared a minute at a time. But the three of them go where most positivity accounts won't: the bad days, the grief that keeps no schedule, and the small wounds that sneak in from even the people who love you most. Expect a refreshingly honest take on faith, a neighbor who had no idea canes work indoors, and one disarmingly simple answer for anyone offering to fix Mark's eyes. It is funny, it is real, and it lands on something worth hearing more than once: you are never in this alone.

You can also stream this podcast on other platforms:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7I70Od8DprNx5nZXpJTyNM
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-blue-skies-journey-blindtok-e-14/id1896888033?i=1000773461316

Other Resources
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/murrayaelbourn/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@murrayamerability?_r=1&_t=ZP-97LlF79lgCN
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/murray-elbourn-69576543?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
Amerability Website: https: https://www.amerability.com/
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Amerability

About Amerability: 
Amerability was born from a simple but powerful idea: that blind and low vision individuals deserve more than support — they deserve the tools, mentorship, and real-world experiences to build lives on their own terms. Founded by CEO Murray Elbourn, a legally blind leader with more than 25 years of executive experience in disability sports and workforce development across two continents, Amerability combines lived experience with professional expertise to create programs that don't just prepare participants for the world — they prove the world is already theirs to conquer. Murray's journey from captaining Australia's national goalball team and leading Disability Sports Australia as CEO to founding Amerability in the United States gave him a firsthand understanding of what blind and low vision individuals truly need to succeed: not sympathy, but strategy, structure, and someone who has walked the path before them. That philosophy is woven into everything Amerability does, from the way programs are designed to the mentors who deliver them, ensuring that every participant is met with high expectations, practical guidance, and the unwavering belief that their goals are within reach.

What is #BlindTok Podcasts?

#BlindTok is the weekly podcast where the vision loss community finally gets to have the conversations that matter without having to explain the basics first. Hosted by Murray Elbourne, CEO of Amerability, and co-host Tammy Jackson, a healthcare professional navigating life with retinitis pigmentosa, this show brings together real stories, real struggles, and real laughs from people across the entire blindness spectrum. Every week tackles topics the community actually cares about, from social isolation and career reinvention to dating disasters, cane anxiety, family dynamics, accessible tech that actually works, and everything in between. Guests from all walks of life share the messy, unscripted truth about adjusting to vision loss, the kind of honesty that never makes it into awareness campaigns but absolutely needs to be heard.

Whether you're newly diagnosed and trying to figure out what comes next, years into your journey and navigating a rough patch, or someone who loves a person with vision loss and wants to truly understand their world, this podcast meets you where you are. Born out of the thriving #BlindTok community on TikTok, where thousands have already found connection through shared experience, this show gives those conversations the space and depth they deserve. Expect candid storytelling, practical insights, community questions, the occasional embarrassing moment that every person with vision loss will immediately relate to, and two hosts who live this life every single day and aren't afraid to talk about all of it. New episodes drop weekly because this community waited long enough for a seat at the table, and now the table is ours.