Meet Jessica Rector of jessICAREctor International

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Rector.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I never planned on being a keynote speaker. In fact, I had great big plans for my life, and at the core of it, I knew I wanted to find a career I loved and not just a J.O.B.

During graduate school, we had to give an oral group presentation. My part was about two minutes; and I hated every bit of it. My legs were shaking, my palms were sweating. I counted down the time until I had to go, and then couldn’t wait for my part to end. A few years after college, I set out to find my dream career and moved to Los Angeles.

When I was in LA, my friend suggested I host a TV talk show. Not really knowing what it entailed or what I’d talk about, I agreed to it. I loved it and thought I’d be doing that for the rest of my career. Then I went back to college for the third degree in broadcast journalism. I wanted to know all the different facets of having a talk show. I continued my talk show for a number of years, continuing to pitch it executives in LA. As I soon found out, it’s the hardest format to sell to stations.

So then, I decided I’d focus on getting a job as a reporter and try that avenue to lead me to a talk show. During this process, I started writing my first book. A friend asked how I would spread the message. I had no idea as I had never thought about that. I had lived a really great life, had done some incredible things, and wanted to help others learn from my experiences.

My friend suggested I start speaking about this message, and that’s how I became a keynote speaker. Companies hire me to consult with their organizations and speak at their events or conference meeting planners hire me to speak at their conferences, events, and meetings.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Being a business owner, there have been struggles. When I got started, it was finding groups or events who would bring me in just so I could get the experience. Then it was finding who would hire me.

With speaking, it’s not just about knowing what you do well; it’s also about honing your message and marketing it in a way, that people will buy it. At first, I marketed myself as someone who spoke about shame. Well, no one wants to hire someone to speak about shame, but I didn’t know that.

For me, everything changed when I got a mentor. Someone who has been in the business 25 years and who was willing to walk me through everything… having a conversation with a meeting planner, what to include in a keynote, what my message really was, and how to leverage an engagement.

Then there is also plenty of self-doubts, second-guessing, and questioning your worth in this business, that you have to continually work through. Luckily, that’s what I specialize in (inner communication), so when it comes up, I can usually walk through it quickly.

We’d love to hear more about what you do.
I am a keynote speaker, #1 best-selling author, and Inner Communication Expert. I’ve written eight books. I specialize in our inner communication–what we say to ourselves about ourselves. People often confuse it with our thoughts. Thoughts are fleeting. We have 60,000 thoughts a day and most of them we don’t remember.

The ones that resonate with us, we remember, and those are the thoughts that turn into our inner communication–the dialogue by which we navigate the rest of our lives. These negative inner conversations are so habitual in us that often times we don’t recognize we even have them and they hold us back. I help people turn them into positive action.

There are some speakers that speak on mindset; however, there aren’t any that market themselves as speaking on inner communication.

Again, mindset is more about thoughts. I take it a step further and talk about how your negative thought, turn into inner dialogue, and that’s the fundamental foundation of everything you do and everything you don’t do. Often times it’s the last thing you think about if you think about it at all.

I’m most proud that I’ve generated great success in such a short period of time.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I would’ve gotten more focused on speaking faster. I was trying to do too many things at once when I first started, and I wasn’t doing any of them that well. Once I started focusing on one thing, speaking, my business skyrocketed.

I also would’ve gotten a mentor a lot faster. That’s been a game changer.

Contact Info:

• Website: jessicarector.com
• Phone: 817 523 1529
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: jessicarectorspeaker
• Facebook: jessicarectorspeaker
• Twitter: jessicarector
• Other: Linkedin.com/in/jessicarector

Image Credit:
Martin Allred

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