We caught up with Kevin Lowe - Transformational Life & Business Coach, Podcast host and Delenta user
1. Can you start by telling us a little bit about you and what sort of coaching you do?
My name is Kevin Lowe, and I am a Transformational Business and Life Coach, plus creator and host of the podcast, “The Lowe Down with Kevin Lowe.” As a podcast host my hope is to inspire my listeners to see the world as rich and vibrant as I do, and I’m completely blind.
As a Transformational Life and Business Coach I strive to take it to the next level – turning inspiration into empowerment.
I work with female entrepreneurs, and those in the making. More specifically, I work with women who have endured some type of life-changing event, disability, illness, or diagnosis that has flipped their life upside down, and yet have reached that point where they are ready to move forward with life and ready to either advance in their career or have realised through what's happened to them that they have a greater purpose in this life.
I help them to recognize what their own unique gifts are, and even more important, I help them to see who they truly are. So many times when people ask us who we are, we all describe ourselves as what we do as a career. And the reality is, that’s what we do, not who we are.
My goal is to then help them to take these self-discoveries and match them with an aligning career or business opportunity, something that brings them joy and allows them to support themselves while hopefully making a difference in the world.
My decision to work with women is probably a product of my upbringing. I grew-up with a single mom and an older sister, watching chick flicks and hanging out with them and all their girlfriends, which I believe had to have some type of lasting impact on me. Plus, I just feel like my personality and style of coaching just works better with women.
2. Where did your move into Coaching or even starting your Podcast begin?
It began back with the pandemic in 2020. I was a travel agent and had my own home-based travel agency that I opened in January of 2013 and grew the business all those years from 2013 to 2020 booking amazing vacations for my clients. Coming into 2020 I was set to have my best year on record. But then of course the Pandemic hit and in the blink of an eye it all disappeared. I'm a firm believer that everything in this life happens for a reason, and a good reason at that, even if at the time we can't see the good. Closing the door on the travel agency allowed another door to open.
Being a travel agent served its purpose in my life – It gave me the reassurance that even though I may not be able to see, and even though my life may not look like I had dreamed, that doesn’t mean it still can’t be great. I can own my own business, I can take charge of my future, and I can do remarkable things in this life. But the truth was, I wasn’t meant to be a travel agent. I was meant to be doing something else, something that truly used my gifts, used my life’s experiences to be a benefit to others.
I had been thinking about doing a YouTube channel for a long time, so while in quarantine during the start of the pandemic I thought this is the perfect opportunity! I went on Amazon and ordered all the filming equipment and began setting up, but then quickly realize that a blind guy trying to film is probably not the best idea. So, I switched gears and discovered the world of podcasting.
I quickly realised podcasting was totally my space and started my own podcast, “The Lowe Down on Life and Travel. Starting off, it was focused on me sharing about my life as someone who is blind, but also talking about unique travel experiences as at this point, I hadn’t completely given up on my role as a travel agent and thought it would serve as a great way to attract business to my travel agency.
But as time went by and I continued to release more and more podcast episodes I realized just how much I was enjoying it. Plus the feedback I was getting from everyone was absolutely incredible and so encouraging. Eventually as we entered into 2021, I began to recognize my desire to not want to even think about booking another vacation. I honestly just wanted to keep podcasting. So, it was really just this natural progression that then led me to rebrand the podcast and form a company around it.
“The Lowe Down with Kevin Lowe” was born. This is a podcast shining light on the positive side of life through the inspiring stories of ordinary people living out anything but ordinary lives, all in the hope that I can inspire someone, somewhere in this world to never give up on life, even when it seems like life has given up on them.
Starting a podcast has opened so many amazing opportunities for me, one of which being the chance to meet people from all over the world who I would have otherwise never even known existed. And it’s through these connections, these in-depth interviews had on my podcast that has led me to enter the world of coaching. In almost every interview I do, either while we are recording or after we have finished, my guest will tell me that I asked questions no one else has ever asked them before. In one interview in particular, the lady I was interviewing cried at one point and said to me, “You see things that no one else sees.”
It was moments like this that led me to think if I can have this kind of impact by simply interviewing somebody for my podcast, in what other ways might I be able to leave a truly meaningful impact on their life? And life coaching was just the natural next step in my journey.
3. What sort of people do you attract? Where do you typically find clients?
Initially what brings people into my world is my story of becoming blind when I was 17 years old. They immediately think, wow, how inspiring that I am where I am today, that I've kept going. They always explain that there’s no way they could do it. But I tell them the truth of the matter is, they could, they would, and when faced with their own adversity they will. I explain that there’s nothing special about me. I was faced with adversity, and I had a choice. I could either fall victim to it or I could rise above it and make the most I could out of it.
Meeting people whether through my podcast, through coaching, or just through everyday life has let me realize that no matter how different we may seem from one another, the truth is that we actually have much more in common than we may realize. And one of the biggest bonds I have found is that it doesn’t matter who it is, everyone is going through stuff. Whether stuff with work, relationships, health, or just simply life itself, we all have our challenges. And to be honest, it’s really such a gift that I’m able to use my own experience of overcoming the loss of my eyesight to now be a help to someone else.
4. What was your tool? How did you come to the realisation that you could either be a victim or use this as an advantage and come out of it?
It was a long transition. For the first few years after I lost my eyesight, I was in nothing more than survivor mode, just going through the motions. But at the same point, I had a goal, a driving force, a reason to keep pushing forward. I wanted to graduate with my class.
At 17 years old and in my junior year of high school I became blind following an extensive surgery to remove a recently discovered brain tumor. The tumor was large, compared to the size of a plum and was positioned right in the cross hairs of my optic nerve.
As traumatic as the discovery of this tumor was, I was assured that everything would be okay. I would have surgery, the tumor would be removed, and my life would return to normal in a few weeks.
Instead, nothing would go as planned. I would awake to discover a world gone dark. I awoke from surgery to be left completely blind.
In addition I would also discover that I could no longer smell plus would deal with short-term memory loss for 6 months following surgery combined with many other medical issues that I had no idea would be my new reality.
And yet, even through all that, all the emotional struggles, the physical disabilities, and the complex medical issues I never gave up.
Walking across the stage with my class at our high school graduation would prove to myself that even in this new life, I am still capable of doing great things. It wouldn’t be until years down the line though that my life would really enter its next chapter. I kept living life with the underlying dream that I would see again. In this world everything is fixable. There’s a new medicine or procedure coming out all the time, so I wouldn’t be blind for long. And this mindset had me killing time until that day came, until I would awake in the morning, awake from a surgery, and have my sight restored.
And then finally one day, many years after becoming blind I read a book, or in my situation, listened to an audio book, and there was something that one of the characters said at the end that changed my entire life.
“I'll be back some day, but right now I've got more life to live.”
I felt like that quote was written specifically for me. I must have re-listened to that quote a dozen times until I was sure I had it memorized as that was now my quote, my motto, my reminder that it was okay to move forward. It gave me the piece I needed to move forward. I didn’t have to give up on my hope and faith that I would see again someday. But I also didn’t have to stop living either. It was okay for me to learn to love this life just as much as I had loved it before.
That moment set me free. And only then would I begin to see this world as rich and vibrant as I do today.
5. How did you find out about Delenta coaching platform?
I am somebody who is very organized, everything has a place. It’s one of those qualities that I was given as a child. As someone who can’t see, being organized is key. Everything has a place. I treat the operation of my business the same way. For my travel agency I had a full CRM system, one database where all my notes went, all my clients’ contact information was stored, and where all of the information related to their various vacations was kept. So, when I got into coaching, I searched all the different Facebook groups to see how everyone was operating their business. What I discovered is that you have a lot of people who are bootstrapping their business, who have all of their different spreadsheets that they're using to keep track of this and that. And that’s great, but I felt like there had to be a better way of doing things. That's when I started looking for platforms similar to what I had used for my travel business, but build specifically for coaches, and I ultimately discovered Delenta coaching tools, and I just fell in love with it.
Delenta immediately appealed to me because of just how easy it was to use and the fact that everything to do with my coaching business is in one place.
If I can figure out a way to streamline something where it makes it easier for me, easier for my clients. That's what I want to use.
6.Did you look at any other systems when you were considering a solution like Delenta?
I don’t know if I tried them all, but I tested out all the top contenders I could find information on. I signed up for all the free trials and even went ahead and paid for a month on some to give me a chance to try them all out. And to be honest, there are a lot of really amazing options available, but what just blew me away about Delenta is that it has this very classy, professional feel to the overall design. And I mean, this is coming from a guy who can’t see! My only interaction with Delenta is through the talking software program I have installed on my laptop that makes using the computer completely accessible to someone who is completely blind.
Its Delenta’s overall brand, the whole feel of it is really good. When most people think about branding, they think about the colors and the font choices, but there’s so much more to branding than that.
7. What is next for you? Where do you see your business going in the next 12-24 months
I feel like I’ve been in this initial building-phase of my coaching business for so long that I’m honestly just excited to actually start coaching! The podcast is continuing to do amazing, continuing to grow, and now with my coaching business I’m discovering new innovative ways that I can use the two to complement one another.
And other than that, I’m just going with the flow. Where this life takes me, I don’t know, but for right now I am really loving where I’m at and am going to keep enjoying it until life takes me somewhere else.
8. Do you have any advice you want to leave us with?
Never stop trying, never stop figuring things out. Keep going until you find something that fits and when something feels like it fits, go with it. And if it doesn’t fit, don’t force it. This life is way too short to waste time trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
Do what you love, do what brings you joy. And never give up on this life, it’s worth fighting for.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience with us.
