Jessica Keats is a self-proclaimed healer, consultant and secret weapon—titles she finally took ownership of not that long ago. Jessica's work has evolved significantly since she first started her business, though healing has always been at the centre of her work. These days, she's using her intuition to help people get on the path of what they were meant to do. As we talk about in this episode, it's not easy to accomplish that. Human beings are resistant to change, but being your authentic self and following your intuition can help you stay in flow.

Connect with Jessica

You can learn more and connect with Jessica on her website, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram! And click here to get a copy of Jessica’s new book, Flow: The Beginning Is Upon Us.

Full episode transcript:

Karen Wilson: Hello, and welcome to Small But Mighty Biz Stories. Today, I'm here with Jessica Keats, who is someone I've known from the Women's Business Network in Ottawa for about seven or eight years. I've watched her business evolve and I wanted her to come on and tell her story because it's very fascinating and inspiring. Jessica, welcome. Thank you for joining me.

Jessica Keats: Hi, Karen. It's great to be here.

Karen: Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your business?

Jessica: Sure. I'm known as the Healer, Consultant, Secret Weapon in Ottawa and internationally. I am a Healer who works with individuals, both entrepreneurs and corporate professionals to alleviate them from limiting beliefs, and trauma, and stories that are holding them back, so that they can really be their best selves and put everything they have into their career or their business.

Karen: I can say from personal experience that working with you and being healed by you is inspiring because it's so unexpected. What got you interested in this work and how has your business evolved over the years?

Jessica: I actually would say, I've been interested in helping people heal was the interest and knowing what was really keeping them from good health or a good feeling in their body. That passion has led me down this path. I would say, it was always inside me to be able to do this work and I didn't know it fully.

A journey of going through yoga and then yoga therapy, and then a few different modalities that helped me tap into intuition without getting too out of the box, because I definitely liked the box, for sure. Yes, straight and narrow what's expected. I know I liked the box of what's expected, but it helped me get outside of that. Just a bit enough for my intuition to take the lead, and then for me to then progress into this field.

Karen: How do you think that being inside the box held you back from getting where you wanted to be or where you needed to be?

Jessica: How do I feel it held me back? I think I'd like to say though, first, that it protected me. Being inside the box is, there's a reason for it. When we start coming outside of the box, we definitely want to look back and say, "Okay, well, thank you for that rigidity because it helped." It prevented me from really being my true self is probably the honest answer. It really was filled with expectations of other—what I thought expectations were from other people, what society expects of me. It was filled with a lot of wrong right or wrong, or just like judgment. It's a narrow world viewpoint.

Karen: I think we tend to get caught up in those things because whether we realize it or not, we’re concerned about how we're viewed by others. Even if we don't hold those views ourselves, we let that perspective control our actions and influence our path. It can be hard to break away from that. How did you get there?

Jessica: How did I get there? Like it's continuous. Just recently, another level of myself, as I launched my recent book, another level of, "Am I really at heart, a mystic?” Over in that territory that a religious woman would not walk. Have I just been pretending, essentially, to using all of these gifts, but not really claiming them, what they actually are.

I think that at every level of us becoming our true selves, there's another facet of us that we need to be very honest about, that we're bringing forward that we may actually still in those moments, no matter how much healing we've done, we're like, "Ooh, will people accept me if I say this or do this?" Or, "Is this going too far?" There's always an essence of that.

Of course, it gets easier as you go along and you recognize it faster and you go, "Oh, yes, I know that that's not true. That there are people who will accept me and that if I believe people don't accept me, then that is exactly what I will get." I need to get over that hurdle as quickly as possible, but it still comes up at every evolution point, I think.

Karen: Let's go back to the beginning of your days in business. You had a business called Yoga with Jessica. Tell me about what you did. I know that that definitely kept on the theme of helping people heal. Talk about what your business was then, and walk me through how you've evolved over the years.

Jessica: Yoga with Jessica actually started when I was teaching yoga, and then I became a yoga therapist and I started to help people one-on-one. It was at that point that Yoga with Jessica didn't really fit anymore because people always thought they would be doing yoga class with me, or something very yoga like. What I did was using yoga as movement and philosophy in order to help people heal. It wasn't like a yoga class.

I remember even the early days when I first met you at the Women's Business Network, that even then I was like, "I don't know. It needs to change, but I don't know what the name is and I don't know where it's going." I definitely was not settled into where I was at the time. I knew I was misaligned, the word yoga was not aligned with what I was doing at the time. Yet, it wasn't time to change because even the next place wasn't even the landing place.

Karen: How long ago was it? About five years ago you changed to Inflow Therapeutics?

Jessica: I don't think, maybe not five years ago. If I go back, so Inflow occurred maybe three, four years ago. It was again after New Year’s situation. Intuitively I heard this word like "Inflow Therapeutics," these words. I was like, "What is this? I want to know?" I started googling and there was nothing there. I was like, "Oh, maybe it's for me. Maybe it's my business. At the time I was like, "Oh, yes, it's a perfect fit."

Then I was able to get out of this space of yoga, which was a great timing because I was really actually starting getting into this energetic space. It needed to happen at that point of me changing the name. I rebranded myself as Inflow Therapeutics. I open the net very wide because I wasn't really sure what my skill set was at that point.

Jessica: I didn't know at the time, but it would look back now, it was a great umbrella, period. Right. It was a catch all. It was like, "Yes, all of these things under one name, it exists." If I look back now, Inflow Therapeutics is a great name for a clinic.

Karen: True.

Jessica: That is what I became. It was the Jack of all trades clinic, all these different services. That was still me evolving in terms of recognizing myself as a healer, which I still hadn't done yet.

Karen: Right. That's interesting. You went from the yoga therapy to Inflow Therapeutics where you expanded on that, but you didn't have that connection of your core purpose, which is to heal people?

Jessica: Yes.

Karen: Fascinating.

Jessica: No, not yet. I know I didn't accept it yet. I knew I was healing people, but I would not tell people that that's what I was doing because I didn't accept that—or I didn't align with, or for some reason plugging the word healer and Jessica together, did not mix for me. I didn't feel worthy of it. You could see then even at that time period that I was using words in front of a healer.

At first it was intuitive body healer because I had come from the body and movement. Then eventually, I dropped the body and it was intuitive healer, so still not quite ready to say. Then the last and where we are right now, the 2019 iteration was Jessica saying, "I am the healer. I'm the consultant. I'm the secret weapon." Branding myself as me, which was actually very big at the time, in terms of, it was really me owning who I am and also leaving so much room for who I will become.

Karen: That's an interesting take because with the evolution that you've had I can understand where you wanted to leave room because you are so open to what comes your way. You're open to what feels right and where you're being directed. It's been quite exciting to watch the change in your business, in you personally over the years.

Karen: Do you have anything to say about that?

Jessica: I was like, "Where are we going with this Karen?"

Jessica: Essentially, I don't know why it's making my throat like a little catchy. Unlike, obviously, there's something here. Do I have anything to say about that? I think that, yes, I am very open. I would classify myself as being in flow or listening to my intuition all the time, which means that I can't box or corner myself in. I hear that a lot. Especially in business when it sounds like or we get a lot of messaging that we have to do things a certain way or to be in business looks like this or that. If you want clients, you should do this.

When we get a lot of messaging like that, sometimes even I can still get caught up in it. The other day when I launched my book recently, Flow: The Beginning Is Upon Us, we did this really great evening event. We recorded it and then I was like, "Oh, yes, need to put this out into the world." Then all of a sudden the human me was like, "Oh maybe like a podcast." All this stuff and then I just heard it was like, "Don't corner yourself in."

Like, "Yes, it needs to go live. Yes, it needs to be out there. Yes, you may do other recordings, but if you create this big thing that then, it's not as movable. There's an easier way to do what we're asking you to do, which is put this message out and put it out in your voice and in your tone and let's find that easier way. I think that even at this point, there's still like a reminder that comes in of like, "There's a different way, let's find it." When we only know of all the ways we're told we think it has to fit in a certain channel. It has to look like this and I'm continuously reminded, "No."

Karen: I think that's so important too because there is all this advice that we take in as business owners. There's a lot of people that they go out there and they present their ideas with a one-size-fits-all approach. We, as business owners have to be very cognizant that there is no such thing. That there is no pressure for us to operate on a level that other businesses even similar to ours are operating. We have to be authentically us.

Jessica: We do and that's the number one reason why people will find us and be our clients. We at all times need to be authentically us. If it doesn't suit-- Like I don't know how many times I heard in the beginning, "You should write a blog." I was like if I sat there and try to write a blog it would exhaust me. It would take me hours. All I needed was to write the thing I needed to say, which goes very well on a social media post. It doesn't need to have a whole thing around it.

So, really following my intuition here has really helped me because even as we're talking about it, I'm hearing it. It's the evolution of being a business owner. We put it like these milestones that are very similar to the milestones that we do as human beings. It's like grow up, go to school, get a job, get married, have kids, retire. Start a business, start networking, do a blog, create a mailing list. There is our own unique way and so what is that? How does our particular message want to be seen, or heard, or felt?

Karen: I think that we're getting into the whole marketing side of things, which you know I love. That whole idea of doing what's right for you is huge. I've worked with clients who they're overwhelmed with the amount of options out there. I give them permission to pick and choose because within the parameters of, "Let's make it make sense for your business." I think that you've done that really effectively because you're such a people person, you go and you make these connections with people so quickly a lot of the time. Doing networking in person, are you missing that these days? It's something that you're very good at and I know that you've grown your business effectively that way.

Jessica: I have grown my business effectively that way. I also am very good at social networking, which is also part of networking. In fact, it's like the networking when you're not face-to-face. I realized that probably a year ago and so this time period has been just as joyous. In terms of making connections, I'm involved with many international networking groups right now, where COVID has really brought communities together. There's more networking happening and it's not even charging you anything.

It's like such a prime time to network. Cost savings so you can get anywhere right now. You can go anywhere in the world. It's been actually really cool to network during this time period and expand my reach. Even then it's like, remembering even the simplistic thing of, "Why don't we just have a coffee?" Why don't we take this a little step further which is like the next thing of networking. It's not just the meeting a person. It's the getting to know them and remembering that even in a social media context, social networking context.

Karen: That's true and it's so important. It's interesting because there's so many correlations between the in-person relationship building and the online relationship building, because it's not just those superficial touch points. You've really got to dig deeper. If you're not totally sure how it's a test try, and test and try, and test and figure out what works best for you.

Jessica: I was going to say that also too sometimes something that you're putting out into the world, is only meant for a couple of years or a couple of eyes. It just is what it is, and so we shouldn't beat ourselves up that our marketing is not working. Sometimes when I follow my intuition, it doesn't seem like anything's originated from it.

Yet, a few months down the road, somebody emailing me and they're like, "Man, every time you talk about water, I just feel the same." Then they want to work with me and it's like, "You're one of the people who that was for." I do it. I follow my intuition all the time. I post what is meant to go out into the world for whomever it's meant to. I really trust that whomever is meant to work with me and awaken and shed whatever they need to shed, they will find me.

Karen: Well, talk to me about what some of the reasons are that you have clients come to see you?

Jessica: Lately, which I actually really love, you may see some changes in my marketing soon, like not in terms of my social media but in terms of my website, it needs to evolve. I've been feeling it, but I haven't done it. I haven't been called to do it yet, so I know it's coming though. Because who sees me now are people who are really clear that they are being called forward to something.

They are feeling like they are meant for more and they don't know how to get there or something's just in their way. Or they are feeling like they've always had this calling, but they don't know how to answer it and it's getting more intense right now. They're putting their evolution first. That's a big theme with my clients right now. They're ready for any sort of change. They're like, "I don't [laughs] change at all. Let's go." It's really amazing because—proof is in the pudding, right?

If I even in one place I'm posting the things that those people need to hear, they will find me and they are finding me. That's the beautiful thing that I trust in all the time. Rather than me sitting there worrying about, "My website doesn't really speak to that type of person exactly." I know it might not [laughs] but I'm not-- My energy is being used for other projects and other things right now and I can't waste sleep on this thinking it's blocking me because it isn't at this moment. Those people are finding me.

Karen: Well, one of the things that I've always loved since you started it, it's not that long ago, is I remember when you changed your headline on LinkedIn and added Secret Weapon. It's almost like you manifested that in the universe because now you have these people who are seeking out the secret weapon to help them move on to this next big thing, which is pretty cool.

Jessica: It's like I aligned myself with the truth inside of me and exactly what the universe needed me to be called in order to attract the people on all levels. It's really interesting because when I started out, I think as most business owners, we don't know who our target market is, and essentially it continues to drill itself down [laughs] and re-correlates.

People find it interesting that my target market is business professionals, and it is entrepreneurs, and corporate professionals, and in leadership positions, getting up into that C suite and they're like, "Why exactly?" Because that's where I meant to go. Because of my skill set, because of who I am as a person, because of the relationships that I can build and what I'm bringing. It falls into alignment. When things fall into alignment and they're not forced, it's very easy. I do the same amount of work in less amount of time and effort.

Karen: Well, that's the interesting thing is, I think, so far the person I know who's seen you the longest had four sessions. I know I went to you for three sessions and really it made an enormous difference that after a period of time that was rather traumatic and stressful for an extended period of time. You were able to help me rebalance and calm all that inner turmoil so much faster than anything else I was doing. Which I'm still really grateful for.

Jessica: I'm also very grateful to be able to do that for you, for others. I still do that to some extent. Because even with people who are feeling awakened or pulled to something, they oftentimes are also experiencing situations that are not working and that don't feel good. I'm very happy to be able to help with all of those situations.

Karen: What is some of the impact you've had that you're most proud of when you look at the general things that have happened with your clients after going to see you?

Jessica: I'm most proud when they are confident and they follow their intuition and they don't need me anymore. I'm most proud of that because I'm like, "Yes, I am turning out a well-connected, able to trust themselves, confidently being who they truly are human being. The world changes, it like elevates because of that. That's my greatest work. For some people, that happens very quickly and for others, it takes a bit of time. Because the universe is very generous, it will give you the time you need in order to be some places that some of my clients go or a journey home to self.

Sometimes that's a couple of months or sometimes that's a couple of years. You need the time that you need in order to journey home to yourself and remember who you truly were, so that the work between us becomes elevated because both parties are showing up knowing what's possible. That's some of the stuff that I'm really proud of.

Karen: That's awesome. Let's see here. We've been talking a lot about marketing already. Is there anything else over the years you've been in business that has been an epiphany or an evolution in your marketing that you want to share? Do you have advice for other business owners?

Jessica: Yes, the least amount of time you can spend in the, "I don't know what to do," or, "I should do everything," or, "Why isn't this working?" The least amount of time you can spend there, the better and also start. Start something. If you feel called to something, just start. Don't plan it all out. Don't think about like this latest example where I thought I needed to do a podcast, I was like, "Oh, but what happens in a year?" I was like, augh, that's…. Just don't. In a year you could change and in a year, you could be doing live interviews all the time and you have no time for a podcast."

Don't plan things out forever because when you make a plan for that length of time, it doesn't leave room for shifting and it doesn't leave room for intuition to take over, to pull you in a different direction. It's like you're saying, "This is where I want to go and everything else should just fit into that." And it's actually the exact opposite. It's like, "This is where the universe wants you to go and everything about you should be open to that."

Karen: Well, and especially with small businesses, getting too in the weeds with planning and shiny object syndrome because there's all kinds of shiny objects out there that can be distracting. Being able to actually pull back and set a course, and you can be agile and shift is important because you do have to do that testing and figuring out what fits you because sometimes you just you don't know. Like you say, maybe the right thing today is to start a podcast, but in a year from now it isn't, that's okay.

Jessica: That's okay.

Karen: It's totally fine.

Jessica: Maybe today I started doing this certain series of posts and then it ends because that's how long it was meant for.

Karen: Exactly.

Jessica: I think the more we can be open to that, the more we are open to what's possible, and we are we're adaptable to changing. Which is I think we can all see that having that skill set after the last three months is probably the most sought out skill set right now, right? Because you either stopped or you thought, "Hey, I need to move but I don't know how to, so maybe I need to get that skill set."

Karen: It's been an interesting time because as you know for myself, I just went back to full time consulting back in January and so awkward timing for the world to shut down. Fortunately, things have worked out and in really good ways. I think that we're going to have things as business owners come at us and we have to just be creative about how we manage it. How can you shift, pivot, whatever you have to do to make it work? Because the unexpected is always going to come up. It's not always pandemic unexpected, but there are so many things that can come up every single day that threw us off course.

Jessica: 100%. I think that if we really look at the broader picture here, as a society, we've been crying for change for a long time, but was it going to change overnight without us noticing? No. If we've been crying for change, and we expect change, and we want big societal systems to change, then we ourselves have to pre-prepare to be agile enough to change. Whether that's as business owners or as wherever we are in life, we're going to have to be agile enough to be able to change with the rolling times of great immense change. I don't think this is where it stops, right? I think this is where it's starting.

Karen: Yes, absolutely. It's actually really exciting. In a lot of ways, it's exciting to think about it with hope for what's possible and on a societal level, that's exciting, and you can take it right down to your business. As a person too, as individuals, just being open to change, which I think, generally, as humans, I've said to someone recently, it's amazing how much change we go through in life, and yet, we are still so resistant to change.

Jessica: Yes. It's why that resistance is so much bigger, right? Is because we are literally changing on a cellular level every day. If you actually think of that concept, how are we mentally slowing that process down because we are so unsure of the unknown and afraid of the unknown, that we would literally do all sorts of weird behavior. No…the world is not ready for that analogy yet. We really do a lot of things to prevent change.

Karen: We do, we really do. As much as I support change in a lot of ways I know that I also resist it in certain ways myself, but I try to mentally check myself and figure out how I can see it in a different way. I'm not always good at it, I don't think anybody is, but, yeah, it's a really challenging shift in thinking.

Jessica: Yes. I think too, if we can look at, when change comes up, what are our go to behaviors, right? Is that where we start eating a lot? Or, "Is that where everything's annoying us?" Or, "Is that where--" All of those things or we cry, or we're like, "We really need to watch that sad movie to really pull out a bunch of tears in us." What is our go to behavior when change comes?

By watching that, you'll see just how far you will go to resist change first of all, and you'll be able to catch yourself all the time because sometimes people don't know that change is coming on a cognitive level, but they do on unconscious level, so already, they're like power doing some sort of behavior. They might be like, all of a sudden, they need to run the treadmill, for hours or they're, "Today I'm doing the 20 kilometer run instead of five." [laughs]

Something's happening among those time periods, so if we can see what that behavior is, then we will know every time we see that grouping of behavior, "Changes coming." Right? When we see that, then we can actually look at, "Okay, so what is triggering this behavior?" Then when we find that answer, getting help from somebody like me, or someone like me. That you feel drawn to, that's going to help move you forward, because you're really just stuck in a pattern of behavior. You're just circling it and the world is pulling you forward and you're [laughs] just going around in a circle, and eventually you do get pulled forward so why not make it a bit easier of a journey?

Karen: Absolutely. Well, Jessica, thank you for coming on. Would you like to tell everyone about your book really quickly?

Jessica: Sure, I would love to. Karen, my book was actually a channeled message from 2019 around the same time period, so June into July. Then that channeled message was edited a few times intuitively, so I would go through a big evolutional period and then it would get edited again just so that my lens was clearer or cleared of certain biases, let's say. I really felt that it needed to come out this year.

It could have came out at any point in time this year, but by this point, it came out June the 16th. It was like, I was cutting it close. I could feel it needed to get out and I really felt that inside myself too. It was like I couldn't move on until this message was launched. It was launched June the 16th. It's launched in an eBook version, is the first way that you can purchase the book. It's a short but powerful read.

So far, those who have read it and told me their experience have talked about the feeling of it being a healing to read it, a healing in several ways or even triggering a release of sorts. It's very much a look at what essentially is keeping us from being in flow and ease and following. Being our true selves and being on purpose and just having the abundance that we deserve.

Karen: Yes. It is short and I've started reading it, but it's not a quick read necessarily. You could read it quickly, but it's not a difficult read at all, except in the sense of how it impacts you as you read it.

Jessica: Yes. Following your intuition, even to read it a good idea, sometimes you'll be called to just swallow the whole thing up and sometimes you're taking it in pieces because your digesting that information. Right and you're processing it. I think it will go both ways. Lately what's been happening is, sometimes I'm like, "What is happening right now?" It's like, "Oh, chapter 22." I'm like, "Oh, okay." It's actually like, "Oh, this. Oh, yes. That is what's happening." [laughs] I haven't been, I'm not the only one is used it like that actually. Other people have reported that, all of a sudden they'd pick the book up and the exact place of what they were feeling would be the next thing that they'd be reading.

Karen: That's interesting. It's like having you in the room with them. The name of your book is?

Jessica: Flow; The Beginning Is Upon Us.

Karen: All right. We will make sure that I'll link those into the show notes so that everyone can go and get a copy. Thank you for joining me today. It was great to have you on and hear all about your journey as a business owner. I look forward to seeing all of your upcoming adventures.

Jessica: Thanks, Karen. I also look forward to seeing your upcoming adventures as well.