In this episode of SuperPowers of the Soul, Kerry Kathleen Heaps joins Jennifer Urezzio to chat about self-help skills around promoting yourself. Kerry believes that connection, purpose, and passion are the key ingredients for self-promotion made easy. Listen now to find out what self-help skills you need to enjoy promoting yourself.

Hello everyone and welcome. This is Jennifer Urezzio, and this is SuperPowers of the Soul. I am your super power expert and I’m also the founder of Soul Language. Today we’re talking to Kerry Kathleen Heaps, and the topic is self-help skills around promoting yourself.

Welcome Kerry, how are you?

I am doing great, Jennifer. I’m so honored to be here with you and your listening audience today, and I’m just excited about this topic.

Yay. Me, too. So we always kind of start our little conversation here about, which is a burning question that I want to know about you, which is what would you consider the super power of your soul?

I think my personal super power is the power of connection. Being able to bring the right people together with the right opportunities.

That is a tough question. I think we feel like we know what are our super power is per se, but then sometimes I think life happens to us, Jennifer, and points out some other things that are probably more suited as are our super power. But I would have to say, I think my personal super power is the power of connection. Being able to bring the right people together with the right opportunities.

I love that. So often people think about their sacred purpose or their sacred mission as regards to others. And really here, our sacred purpose is really about what you’re fundamentally here to experience and then offer that experience to others. So in that terminology, what do you consider your sacred purpose?

My sacred purpose. I have to tell you, I’ve had my business for, it’ll be 15 years, I believe, in June. We’re going on 15 years, so I’ve been on my own a long time and prior to that, I worked a lot in the corporate industry. I always worked for someone else. And I really feel that my sacred purpose, why I’m here, it’s to get people on the right path for them. And when I talk about the right path, I’m actually probably talking more about the business side of their life, Jennifer, not the personal side, but business.

And the reason I feel that it’s that is that I have so many people who come to me and they ask me, “I would love to be an entrepreneur. I would love to do what you do.” And the reality is there’s, I think people see, they see the glory. They don’t know the story of how you got there and what it’s really like. And I like to give people a peek behind the curtain and say, “Hey, this is the realistic viewpoint, if…” Because being an entrepreneur, I think, isn’t for everyone. And I don’t think working in the corporate industry is for everyone.

And I really believe that when we are aligned with what we’re doing to make a living, that we’re actually making a life for ourselves, not just making a living, but how we earn our money is really tied into our overall happiness. And not everybody gets to be in alignment with that, and I think that’s really sad. So my purpose is to really help people see, “Here’s an avenue for you. It may be for you, it may not be, but I want to give you a realistic viewpoint, or a realistic picture of what that is.” Does that make sense?

Yeah, and I think part of that alignment is really aligning that big why or that purpose with their delivery systems, right? I mean, in corporate America, I was still the answer girl. I was telling people the truth, not that they wanted to hear it. I was still making connections. I was still bringing out the best in what that kind of client or that product had to offer. It was just a really sucky delivery system.

This is a better delivery system, and when I really accepted the fundamental purpose of my wife, that delivery system became easier for me. So yeah, totally makes sense what you’re saying.

Okay, good. Good.

So what is a common theme your soul has shared with you?

A common theme I would have to say is … Oh, gosh. Again, these are tough questions. They’re good questions, but they’re tough. They definitely make you think. I would say a common theme with me is I would have to go back with connection. And there’s an interesting story there because logistically, all throughout my life, even when I worked in the corporate industry when I was younger, I always seem to be able to match people up.

And I was kind of the girl in school who, I would befriend the new girl that just came in and be her friend and introduce her to other people because I knew what that was like, being new and not knowing anybody. And sometimes you don’t feel like you want to reach out. So go out and reach out to other people and make those introductions. And even though I was kind of like that person’s first friend, I would find that they’d create a stronger bond with the people that I introduced them to.

And I’ve always been okay with that. I’ve had a lot of people who have told me over the years, “Well, gosh. I introduced you to so and so and you seem closer to them.” And I’m like, “Well, that’s just how it turned out. We’re more in alignment together. We have more things in common and you shouldn’t be mad or upset about that. You should be happy that you made a good connection for two other people.” And I think there’s always kind of that push and pull with that, that people struggle with that.

They’re thinking about how it’s affecting them, not thinking about how it’s affecting the world and everyone around them that you’re making this a better place. There’s also an interesting story with that with my business and if we have time, I’d love to share that with everyone.

Sure.

Okay. Well, two things. Clearly, with making connections, that’s something that I’ve really powered my business with. Now, when I first started my business back in 2005, I actually started out to do image consulting, to do my pageant stuff, all the different things that I do right now. And my business kind of segue, the universe had different plans for me.

And I wound up, I started doing because I was a good connector and prior to that I was a recruiter. I worked in the corporate industry and my job primarily was to go out and find the job openings and get the contracts and the recruiters, and the office would fill those positions, and then I got to do some of that, too. But I primarily was going out and finding those job orders.

So part of my job is, I had to do a lot of networking. I’d have to attend trade shows, I was part of all sorts of different networking organizations, BNI, just different. The chamber, all the different avenues of making connections. And again, I was very good at it. I was able to bring people together. They were always thankful for that, making connections for their business.

And when I first went out on my own, I thought, because a lot of these companies were saying, “Hey, we’re looking at starting a new chapter in this area in Orlando, will you help us?” A lot of time and energy goes into building a good networking organization, and I help people do this. And I thought, when I went out on my own, I thought, “Well, if I’m going to do this I should just do it for myself and earn some extra money until my image consulting takes off.”

I started doing that and everything I really wanted to do took a backseat for quite a long time actually. And I started getting people together at Borders Books, which is kind of like a Barnes and Noble, in the cafe in the morning for coffee and I would charge $5 to come in and network. Then that turned into doing lunch events and then that turned into doing trade shows, and then it turned into a membership model. And before I knew it, I was focusing mostly on women business owners.

And I had locations in Florida, Alabama and North Carolina, Washington, DC. And it was just growing very quickly, and it grew quicker than what I could have handled on my own. I had to bring in extra help, and I had something that happened to my business where I actually had someone who came in and not only copied what I was doing but took many of my members with them. And this was something that kept me up at night, Jennifer. I mean, it drove crazy for probably two years.

Sometimes when things are not flowing the way we want, we have to ask ourselves, is this where we are supposed to be?

I remember one day I had lunch with a friend of mine, a colleague and a friend, and as soon as I sat down, that’s all I was talking about was how this isn’t right. This person shouldn’t be doing this. I can’t believe these people betrayed me this way. And finally, he said, “Let me ask you a question.” He said, “If you won the lottery tomorrow, would you still be worrying about this? Is this something you’d still want to do?” And it stopped me dead in my tracks.

I had to really answer the question truthfully and say, “No, it isn’t.” And he said, “I thought you wanted to do modeling …” He’s one of those people, he brings the truth forward in us all. And he does it in a crude way, but he really basically shoved my face into the mirror and said, “What are you doing?” And he said, “I thought you wanted to do modeling and help young women and do pageant stuff.” And he said, “You’re not doing any of that. What’s wrong with you?” And I was like, “You’re absolutely right.”

And at that point I had to move on and let it go, and here it is many years later, and I have to tell you, it was probably one of the best things that could’ve happened to me because I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I was doing something, even though I was very good at it, it’s not where I was supposed to be taking my talents and utilizing them.

In a way, I look at it as, “Gosh, I wasted two years sulking about that,” but I think I needed to because I needed to have a wake-up call. I needed to realize this is not where I’m supposed to be. And sometimes it takes people longer to kind of, the universe takes longer to rope us in of where we need to be, and we will wind up beating our head against a rock until we realize, “Hey, this is not where we’re supposed to be.”

So you fast forward many years later, I’m a speaker, I even speak on this topic. I share it on my platform. I spoke a couple of years ago to a group of women in business and I shared that story and I said, “Sometimes when things are not flowing the way we want, we have to ask ourselves, is this where we are supposed to be?“

And on that note, we’re going to break for a moment and we’re going to come back and we’re going to hear the rest of the conclusion of that story because it was wonderful sharing. And we’re also going to talk about the skills around promoting yourself. But before we go to the break, Kerry, how do people get in touch with you?

Well, they can get in touch with me on our website at BookSpeakRepeat.com.

Beautiful. Okay, everyone, stick around because I and Kerry are going to be talking about self-help skills around promoting yourself.