In this episode of Spark and Ignite Your Marketing, Beverly Cornell welcomes Paralympian, speaker, and author Kyle Coon to uncover the transformative power of communication. From climbing rock walls to competing in the Paralympic Games, Kyle shares his inspiring journey of overcoming obstacles and mastering the art of impactful conversations. Discover how curiosity, empathy, and courage can help you connect, grow, and achieve extraordinary results—whether in business or life.
Three Key Topics Covered:
- The Foundations of Impactful Communication: Kyle emphasizes the importance of curiosity and empathy in building meaningful conversations that foster trust and opportunities. He explains how these principles apply to both personal and professional success.
- From Challenge to Confidence: Kyle’s Journey: Kyle shares his remarkable story of losing his sight at age six and how adventure sports like rock climbing helped him build resilience, courage, and an unstoppable drive to succeed.
- Practical Strategies for Better Relationships and Results: Learn Kyle’s actionable insights on crafting conversations that inspire trust and drive action, including his five-step process for turning questions into opportunities.
Follow Kyle:
Kyle Coon | LinkedIn
Kyle Coon | Instagram
Kyle Coon | Youtube
Kyle Coon | Facebook
Transcript:
Beverly:
Did you know that companies with effective communication are 50 percent more likely to have lower employee turnover and enjoy a 47 percent higher return for shareholders? Clear, intentional conversations aren’t just a nice to have these days, they’re a key driver of opportunity. Success and team alignment. Welcome to the Spark and Ignite Your Marketing podcast. I’m your host, Beverly Cornell. And today we are talking all about the art of impactful communication with someone who’s mastered it. Kyle Coon. Kyle is a para Olympian, professional speaker, author, podcaster, and exactly what to say, certified guide. Kyle’s journey is nothing short of extraordinary. From losing his sight at six to representing Team USA at two, not one, two Paralympic games, he has gained a unique perspective on the power of words and their ability to drive action. Today he helps individuals and organizations transform their conversations into opportunities for connection and growth. Welcome Kyle.
Kyle:
Thank you so much for having me. Great to be here. You say I’ve mastered the art of communication and as someone who has been working at this for so long, we have to remember. We never master this. We only practice it.
Beverly:
I have a master’s in communication and I could totally agree. I think I probably have the most to learn. Cause I know how much there is out there.
Kyle:
I hear you. No I always say the more I learn, the less I know. And so therefore I must learn more. Exactly. And I practice more. Exactly. As I have gone down this rabbit hole in this journey of knowing that I’m never going to perfect my communication, but just keep elevating, practice and opening more opportunities and trying to help other people have more impact through a conversation. It really does just rear its head. And, we all recognize that, look, it’s, this is a practice. It’s gotta be messy before it’s beautiful. And it’s a, and that’s what communication is all about.
Beverly:
The thing that I love about communication and why I love the major itself was that it’s like this conglomerate of anthropology, sociology, psychology, language. My master’s is in diversity and communication. So I studied how language and culture and even religion affect the way we talk, how we talk, the things that are expected from us. It’s fascinating. I watched this show Survivor and at that particular season, there was a person who was deaf on the show and it was how she was othered so quickly by the hearing folks. And how the language they used to talk about her and what that looked like. I had to watch all the seasons and write about it and count and do some things. It was very fascinating and extremely disappointing and how people are just not nice when it comes to people who are not the same. So tell me a little bit about your experience because you’ve had it sounds like quite the ride. I always say we’re superheroes, right? And what’s your origin story? So talk about where you’ve been and how you got here. What were the sparks that got you right here?
Kyle:
Oh, goodness gracious. Children gather around the fire. It is story time. I am totally blind. I lost my sight when I was six years old. Due to a rare form of eye cancer called retinoblastoma. And as you could probably imagine a little six year old kid was not too thrilled about going totally blind growing up with the cancer, I had always just said, Hey doc, can you make me better so I can go outside and play with my friends? And then after a short time, I was just like, ah, man, like I can’t see like how do I play with my friends and very fortunately I was connected with an adult blind adventure athlete named Eric Weinmayer who gave me a verbal slap upside the head as a 7 or 8 year old at that point and was like, hey, just because you’re blind doesn’t mean you can’t live the life you want to live. So I’m going to challenge you to go try rock climbing. And so I did I went in got very into into rock climbing, which spiraled off into all kinds of outdoor pursuits and activities and just bounced around the world, climbing and hiking and doing all these different adventurous sports throughout my teens and throughout high school and got into college, went to the University of Central Florida graduated with my bachelor’s in communication and in three years and, rolled into the working world. And, back in 2013, it was the age of the young, hotshot entrepreneur CEOs who were college dropouts or, just, all that kind of stuff. So I was convinced that I was going to be the next CEO. So I started applying for every job CEO and above and basically climbed my way down the corporate ladder until I fell off the bottom rung. A year later looked up and was, in over my head and in debt. And it was in a really bad spot. And I was like, Oh man, what am I gonna do here? So I found my way out of that hole by finding my way into running triathlon and eventually learn to apply my communication skills and all that to communicate more confidently, overcome all the challenges that I was having in life and ultimately build an incredible team around me that helped me elevate and succeed beyond what I ever thought was possible. And, that, that included going on to compete and see Paralympic games and launch a professional speaking career become an author and guest and, host podcasts. And now just continuing to grow and, working on and helping others learn to communicate with more confidence and, elevate, their, Conversational excellence through the intentional use of language so that they can also overcome the challenges that we all face in life and build the right teams around us so that we can reach our desired levels of success.
Beverly:
You went really big, like rock climbing. I’m a seeing person and I would not do rock climbing. So I feel like you’re so brave, right? You have to have so much courage to trust the other senses that you have. When I was in college, I read for the blind as my my student job. So I read the textbooks for them, I helped practice some of their exams and different things. And the challenges that they had were very unique and they were really brave and courageous people in a world that can be a little scary for most of us. So what changed, what flipped inside of you? Do you think they went from, how do I play with my friends to I’m going to go do this really scary thing of rock climbing?
Kyle:
I think we have to also remember that I was seven or eight years old and kids are way braver than we give them credit for. So just imagine like your nine year old boy is going to go out and he’s going to jump out of a tree, no problem. And that was me. It was like, oh, okay, I’m struggling playing basketball in the driveway with my friends, but go climb up a rock wall that no problem I can do that. It was a scary thing. But I think being able to tackle and work on those big challenges helped me later on face the social fears or all of the fears that we all have in life. Growing up what was more scary to me? Was it appearing a fool, or being 30 ft up on a rock wall. And for much of my life, I would say that being 30 40 50 ft up on a rock wall, I was way more comfortable doing that than I was in social interactions. I was not intentionally putting, practice into my communication, into my dealings with people, I was not being curious. So when we talk about having the courage to do something, before we can have courage we first have to come from a position of curiosity so that we can then, reach a position of empathy so that we then have the courage to make a big ask and whether that is, making a big ask of ourselves or making a big ask of our clients or a family member, a spouse. It all starts from a position of curiosity and, for me, I was curious as to what is this rock climbing thing and I explored that, I found a great community of outdoor enthusiasts, of people that were willing to teach and mentor me and push me to reach higher limits. That gave me the courage to go out and try those. And, I eventually was able to translate all of that into other sports like, wrestling, running and triathlon. Then I Was able to turn around to apply that to business.
Beverly:
It’s so inspiring. I just want to honor that because I think it could have gone the other way really easily. I think it could have been a very different conversation. I think we have moments in our life where we can decide to have the courage, the empathy. Which all those things make you resilient, or we can let that define who we are, whatever that thing is, we all have struggles. Obviously the struggle that you’ve encountered is unique to you, but we all have struggles and I think that resiliency makes you stronger. And I have a visual I’m going to describe it to you, essentially it’s a circle. You’re in a circle and you’re in your comfort zone, right? Just hanging out just being you. And then all of a sudden now you have to go outside your comfort zone. There’s a little bump in the circle now and you can never go back to the small circle. Now the circle has to go around the bump and you keep making those bumps and keep making the circle bigger and bigger and your life is bigger and bigger by doing that, going outside your comfort zone. And I just feel like, As entrepreneurs, we are built to go outside our comfort zone more and more. It’s hard sometimes for us. We have moments where it’s hard, but that’s how we’re built. So talk a little bit about for me, like the impact on performance and relationships, like how some of that correlates with this communication aspect. So how does that all connect for you?
Kyle:
I guess we have to start with what are relationships, how are relationships built How do we get opportunities, how do we ask or take action? We have what we call this five step dance. Everyone always says I want more opportunities. And that’s actually the wrong place to start, and then some people are like, Oh, I want more relationships. We actually have to back it up a little bit further than that. Because questions create conversations. Conversations lead to relationships. Harbor opportunities and then we have opportunities and, with intentional action that allows us to make the ask, take the action, drive the sale. So questions, conversations, relationships, opportunities, all of that begets action and the performance aspect of it. So the gap between the top five athletes in the world. In any given sport and, the athlete that is ranked, let’s just say 100th or 1000th what we do is not all that different from each other, but the athletes that are in the top five are far more curious and intentional, and they put the basics into practice. So what I like to say is the athletes at the very top, they admire simplicity. We do the simple things really well. Then we take those simple things that we’ve done really well and just do them better. We do that consistently day in day out, decade over decade. And when we bring it up back to the relationship, the conversations and the questions If we’re more curious with our questions, we create better, deeper, more meaningful conversations, have those deeper, more meaningful, impactful conversations. We have much deeper, improved relationships. And those then opportunities are everywhere. But it all starts with having curiosity, to be able to ask questions, have conversations to develop those relationships so that we can get to the point where we ask.
Beverly:
So we use the word trust bank. Like you have to fill the trust bank first.
Kyle:
Yep.
Beverly:
Before you can make an ask. It sounds like what you’re saying. I was just talking to one of my team yesterday about how communication builds the trust bank. When there is an error or mistake, there’s a withdrawal taken, but you’ve already built up the bank. So they trust you more and know it was just a human error. And they’re not going to be as upset because they know that you are a good communicator and you’re there for them. So when the client would say to us hey I’m looking at this sale or something. Can you put together a flyer or some kind of campaign for it? And you need to maybe get clarification on something, at least let them know you received it. Hey, got this. Working on it with Beverly, get back to you tomorrow so that it doesn’t wait 24 hours for some kind of reply.
Yep.
Beverly:
And that kind of jumping ahead of it builds so much more trust before you come back around and present something. Those trust bank deposits matter in the world of all relationships. Building that is, it’s like honoring the person, honoring the relationship, but you talk about in such a really high level that I think builds the ultimate amount of trust when you do that. Everybody has their own unique communication styles. So when and how do we vary our communication to make the most impact?
Kyle:
I think it comes to like we have said before curiosity to empathy to courage. So we ask curious questions to create conversations. Empathy is this big buzzword out there right now. But not everybody knows what it means. One of the best definitions that I’ve ever heard, I heard it from a business mentor of mine, Phil M. Jones. He borrowed it from a speaker, author, friend of his John Acuff. And John Acuff says that empathy is caring with the people that you care about. care
Beverly:
Yes.
Kyle:
So it’s caring with the people that you care about Sometimes we have to slow that process down by asking questions, by getting deeper into things so that we can figure out what the person, what our prospect, what our client, what our team member, what they care about
Beverly:
In the marketing world, we call that their pain points, the things that keep them up at night. What are the things that the target audience, whatever that is for you in a business world, what keeps them up at night? What are they the most worried about? Is it their budget? Is it looking like a fool? Is it having it all organized and together? Is it that one tool that’s going to make the difference? What is it? I mostly work with small business owners who are in service based businesses and most of them are purpose driven. So what’s important to them is the impact they make on the world. And some of their fears are I’m not Connecting with the right audience. I’m not being able to get to enough people. I’m not able to get my message. They’re worried that they’re not magnifying their impact enough. That’s one of their many worries, right? But if you don’t understand that part of it, you can never create a message that will connect and resonate with that customer. I don’t think a business can be successful truly if they don’t really ask those questions first before putting out a product or a service.
Kyle:
I think there’s two very important questions that we all should be asking ourselves Ultimately we’re never gonna fully answer them and we’re always going to be refining them. But the two questions that we all ask are who do I serve and what problem or challenge do I help them solve? And the more crystal clear we can get on that helps us to actually ask the questions, to create the conversations, to build those relationships so that the opportunities are abundant. And then, as we ask more curious questions, as we ask more empathetic questions, we reach deeper positions of empathy. And then we can have that courage to to make an ask.
Beverly:
So who do you serve and what problem do you solve, Kyle?
Kyle:
It’s a very good question. What I do is I work with professionals or, people who are looking to elevate to a high performance mindset. Taking those elements of working toward becoming high performers and I work with them on their communication so that they can communicate with more confidence and they’re more effective in opening more opportunities building those relationships, overcoming those challenges and ultimately building the team around them. That helps them achieve their desired level of success.
Beverly:
Share a story of when you’ve done this, like when you know you’ve made impact. Share a story, like a testimonial, of the situation where you’ve helped somebody overcome and become more confident.
Kyle:
I’ll go ahead and talk a little bit about a business that I’m working with currently, and that is a business out of Victoria, British Columbia called True North Canine discriminant scent trailing. They train and work with dogs to basically find missing people. Specific missing people. You present the scent of a specific human to a dog and that dog will trail a person and then the discriminant part is the dog selects the exact person that they are looking for. Even if you have two identical twins, each of those identical twins smells different to the dog. The dog is going to pop their little furry butt down on the correct person’s feet. And you know, it’s an amazing service. But the business owner was struggling a bit with getting the right messages out there, trying to communicate the value of the services. So what I did was I just, stepped in and helped her reframe some thinking. I introduced the business owner of True North Canine How to get rejection free openings, how to get conversations started how to Help people see things from a different perspective. True North canine has gone from, struggling to get, clients and get the word about scent trailing out, to now they’re looking to do some pretty amazing stuff here in 2025. It’s super exciting and I’m thrilled to be working with them and partnering with them, but that’s definitely the most recent example. Just to see the confidence in True North Canine, their messaging and everything that is coming out now and that’s going to be coming out in the future, I’m extremely proud.
Beverly:
The idea of confidence is, I think, irrelevatly because when someone doesn’t have it versus when someone has it, the possibilities are amazing for that person and to see them come into their own. Is like watching a baby be born in some ways. We’re all about clarity and focus and confidence and all of that with our clients. Having them see it and watching the transformation is an honor. It really is the biggest honor of my career is to be able to do that. I really enjoy the stories about confidence and the amazing possibilities. I’m excited about 2025 for them too, because that’s going to be amazing. What an interesting business. There’s always businesses exist, but like when you talk about them, what an interesting business to have. We’re dog lovers slash you can hear on the podcast. I work with a lot of animal businesses, and I hadn’t even thought about that particular aspect of the business. So that’s very cool.
Kyle:
True north canine it’s a fascinating little business, not only do, do they have the human scent trailing, but they’re actually working to train a dog on doing cork taint detection for wineries now as well. Also I get to help in crafting some messaging and helping the business owner be able to walk into a winery and have more confidence in delivering, getting those relationships.
Beverly:
So this is Spark and Ignite Your Marketing. We’ve talked a little bit about sparks, but I want to talk a little bit about marketing.
Kyle:
Yes.
Beverly:
Tell me what’s been the most successful marketing thing you’ve ever done. And then I want you to tell me about the biggest marketing mistake you’ve ever made.
Kyle:
I’ll go ahead and I’ll tell you the mistake first. The biggest marketing Mistake that I have ever made was paying a bunch of money for, for leads and advertising. Here’s the thing about that is, paying for, leads and advertising, it’s not a bad thing It’s a very effective means of marketing. If you know what to do with that if you actually follow through with the prospects, if you craft the right messaging, if you target the right audiences, all of that. The best thing I have ever done in terms of marketing was, I’ll just go ahead and say it was becoming a Paralympian. That took a lot of time, effort, sweat, equity, blood, tears, the whole thing. Because what it did was it gave my personal brand an oomph authority. Especially as I look to work with high performance people and developing, elevating people’s communication. Look, there, there is a certain amount of, trust that, Hey, like you’re a high performance athlete. You must know what high performance looks like. So that is a big thing. But then the other big, I would say, marketing victory that I had was becoming an exactly what to say, certified guide because it’s a community of people who are business owners, real estate professionals working across all different industries. Whether that be in the professional speaking realm, the real estate industry, mortgage lending. And we’re all working toward communication, building our businesses, and it’s all community based. And to me, investing in building relationships Ultimately has been the best piece of marketing that I could ever do. Don’t get me wrong. I love my email newsletter. I love my social media platforms. I’ll post it all the time. But at the end of the day we have to remember the first piece of marketing, which is the social, the communication, we do it to build relationships. And when we build those relationships, that is when we find success from our marketing efforts Successful marketing is not, throwing up an advertisement or having a fancy graphic. It’s building the relationship between you and your customer.
Beverly:
People don’t buy from brands, they buy from people.
Kyle:
Yep. People do business with people.
Beverly:
Yeah. It’s so critical. And I would say for most of my clients, if not all of them, most of them would tell me that their number one marketing tactic that works for them is referrals.
Kyle:
Yep.
Beverly:
And if you spend the time making the customer journey amazing, and you spend the time building those relationships. It takes a lot less money to keep a client than to get a client and to really to make that investment during the customer acquisition journey process, you would be amazed at what can happen from that. So I have a lightning round, which is a little bit faster. Okay. It’s some fun questions. I just want you to have fun with it. The first question is, if your life was a movie.
Kyle:
Oh no.
Beverly:
Who would play you? And what would the ending look like?
Kyle:
I had a feeling this question was coming and I have no idea who would play me because I’m my own person. I don’t even know who could play me. And then I don’t know if I could pick what the ending would be because I’m always creating a new ending for myself because it never ends. I’m always looking for the next new adventure.
Beverly:
What’s the legacy, though, you want to leave behind?
Kyle:
The legacy that I want to leave behind is that I left no stone unturned. I gave it everything I had.
Beverly:
There’s not an actor that you admire that you think would be good at playing you?
Kyle:
I’m not, to be honest. I don’t know many actors. My brother in law does have me in his phone as Ben Affleck because Ben Affleck played daredevil in the movie. But I don’t know if I would pick that one.
Beverly:
We talk all about communication here, right? So if your business had a voice, what emotion or word would define its core?
Kyle:
Adventure.
Beverly:
Ooh. I love that word. What are the three most important ingredients in your recipe for success?
Kyle:
I would say simplicity curiosity, and in combination with being curious to reach empathy, to have courage. And do simple better. That’s the one piece. Then we have our conversational three ingredient, triangle of curiosity, empathy courage.
Beverly:
You’re very inspirational, Kyle, but who inspires you?
Kyle:
There are so many people that inspire me. I’m inspired by the people I work with by my family. Eric Weinmayer who was one of my personal mentors growing up. One of my business mentor, Phil M. Jones, our entire exactly what to say certified guide community. I can go down the list of people. My coach and my triathlon teammates are other people because all inspiration is people, it’s something that makes us think or feel differently. And when we think or feel something a little differently, we then have a reason to move and that’s what motivation is a reason to move.
Beverly:
When you started all of this, what was the thing you had to learn the most about?
Kyle:
First and foremost, I had to learn about myself. I had to learn to love myself and know, what made, and what I was passionate about, what drove me, because if I couldn’t understand myself, how could I ever learn to help and understand others?
Beverly:
Was there a moment when you realized you were successful?
Kyle:
I don’t know if there was a moment when I realized that I was successful. Because I’m always raising the bar. We do that as entrepreneurs. We’re always moving the goalposts.
Beverly:
Yeah. Yeah.
Kyle:
Every finish line is just a new start line. And I’m often moving the finish line before I get there. I recognize that I am successful but I’m always driven for more. I’m always driven to do, or to experience more.
Beverly:
If you say you recognize you’re successful, what does that look like then for you, if you are successful now?
Kyle:
I think what it means is that I’ve recognized that I have, I’ve accomplished a lot. I’ve done a lot of really amazing, cool things. My story has impacted a lot of people. I’ve helped, people, push their own limits expand their horizons. But also, success to me is knowing that no matter what I get into, whether it is, this entrepreneurial journey that I’m on, speaking on stage, speaking on a podcast, or being involved in, the Olympic and Paralympic movement or, chasing after a fast marathon timer or whatever I put my mind to, I know that I can succeed at it. If I am willing to put in the time and effort into learning about that thing that I am attempting to do and breaking it down to its simplest elements and doing the basics to a high standard consistently.
Beverly:
What is the one tool or app that has become your secret weapon?
Kyle:
My iPhone is my secret weapon. It is basically tethered to my hand. And if there was an app on there that has really become my secret weapon, it’s the app be my eyes. Their AI image capture is incredible there. I can take a photo or I can put a photo up on my camera roll and have be my eyes AI describe it. And then what I can do is I can then copy that text and I can put that in the alt text of my social media. And that’s one thing that I encourage everyone to do is start using your, alt texts. Go download be my eyes and, you can have, be my eyes write your alt text for you, and then you just copy and paste and now I, as someone who’s totally blind can interact with your posts More in a more in depth way.
Beverly:
That’s a great tip. I love that. Last question in the lightning round. If your business was an animal, what creature would it be?
Kyle:
Dog. A hundred percent.
Beverly:
Why?
Kyle:
Number one, dogs are, lovable and fun and adventurous, and they’re always up for just about anything. But the other reason is that dogs love the work they do. All dogs love a job. I am on my third seeing eye dog. I’ve been a seeing eye dog handler for 15 years. And my dog guides me around obstacles in, in life. And, helps me overcome challenges that, pop up in, in my path that I’m not able to see. And that’s what I do. Help people navigate the world more confidently just through communication.
Beverly:
Yes. Have you read Donald Miller’s the story brand?
Kyle:
I have.
Beverly:
You’re speaking my language here. We position all of our clients as the guide and the customers, the hero and all of that. If you have not read that listeners, you have to read the story brand by Donald Miller. It will totally change how you view your journey. I think that ultimately why we all start our business because of that. We want to be a guide and help other people. It just really reframes that in a way that I think is super powerful. I have a wand in my hand, a magical wand. It is purple. It’s shiny. It has glitter. It does make sound, but it’s really loud and it doesn’t stop for a minute. And I have the wand because I’m going to wave my wand and I’m going to take you back in time to when you were around college.
Kyle:
Okay.
Beverly:
And I want you to tell that Kyle a piece of advice that would save him some heartache, headache then.
Kyle:
Don’t chase the dollar, build relationships.
Beverly:
Good piece of advice. Okay, so now I’m going to take you forward. With my magical wand, I’m waving it again.
Kyle:
Perfect.
Beverly:
And we are going to go to your eulogy. And what are they going to say is your most significant impact?
Kyle:
He helped people navigate the world, become more confident so that they could effectively overcome the challenges that they saw in life. He helped people live without limits and help them expand beyond what they thought was possible.
Beverly:
I am so honored to be on the journey at some little point in that timeline. I’m going to bring you back to today. We have our listeners who are amazing entrepreneurs who are working every day to do the dream, to help people just like we are. What is one thing that you think that they could do to elevate their communication skills today? What’s one small shift they can make today to create those big impact in their conversations going forward?
Kyle:
Be more curious, so that you can reach that position of empathy, so that you can have more confidence to be courageous and ask the big ask. Start with curiosity, ask questions, create those conversations, build those relationships.
Beverly:
I love that. Great advice. So Kyle, where can people find you and learn about what you’re up to? Cause it sounds like you’re always up to some grand adventure. Where can they find you?
Kyle:
I’m most active on Instagram. I’m@eyeronkyle. That’s me. E Y E R O N K Y L E then I’m also pretty active over on LinkedIn so you can hit me up there, if you wanna keep the conversation going, I’m always available, just drop me a direct message on Instagram or just send me an email, kyle kylecoon. com. I would love to keep the conversation going.
Beverly:
Awesome. Thank you so much for joining me today, Kyle.
Kyle:
Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.
Beverly:
For our listeners, I hope you enjoyed this deep dive with Kyle Coon and I hope you’ve got some little nuggets of information that can help you along your way and possibly communicate a little bit better. We all can communicate better. Gosh, I know even I can communicate better. Literally, I feel like sometimes I’m the hardest on myself because I know what I should be doing. But until next time. On the Spark Ignite Your Marketing Podcast, keep sparking and igniting.
