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Welcome to our first ever episode of Feminine Wealth TV! We are excited to bring you a show to educate, inspire and empower you to super-charge your own wealth.
Today’s guest is Heather Porter – Digital Strategist, Entrepreneur and all-around interesting woman, who shares with us her journey. The places she has been, the people she has worked with and her journey & the Effectiveness of Online Strategies, the lessons she has learned along the way provide great insights for all of us.
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Barbara Turley: Hi there, I’m Barbara Turley and you’re watching Feminine Wealth TV. Look, I’m really excited today to have my guest Heather Porter with me to start the first ever episode of Feminine Wealth TV. Now, if you haven’t heard of Heather, then you need to because Heather is the co-founder of an amazing business called Autopilot Your Business where she does everything digital marketing and to make your business really, really pop. Welcome! Heather to the show.
Heather Porter: Thank you. I can’t believe I’m here for the very first one. This is really exciting, Thanks for having me.
Barbara Turley: It’s fantastic and I chose Heather for today’s show because we’ve known each other now for just, I think about a year.
Heather Porter: A year.
Barbara Turley: Yeah, about a year. We met because we were both speaking on an event last year. You know when you meet somebody for the first time and you just really hit it off and you don’t really know why, but then as you get to know that person over time and their story unfolds and your friendship blossoms. For me, that’s the way it’s been with Heather. She has been an absolute inspiration to me and is in fact, not just a friend, but a mentor of mine. She’s also a member of my Energise Wealth strategy dream team. You can get to work with Heather too.
Heather, throughout your career, and I know these stories now. You’ve just had a career that can only be described as a rock star career. You’ve worked for some of the biggest names in motivation speaking, Tony Robbins, Chris Howard, to name a few, and you’ve also run a few of your own companies.
Heather Porter: Yes.
Barbara Turley: Tell me, how did it all begin?
Heather Porter: My goodness, how did it all begin? In university, when I was studying actually business, international business in San Diego, I started my own business on the side, because I’ve just always had this drive and passion to be an entrepreneur. I’m doing this while I was in school and I ran art, fashion and music events in San Diego. What’s funny is, after I graduated from school, I actually started in IT for Tony Robbins. Yeah, it really was strange, isn’t it? I was in IT with Tony Robbins and then I was running one of my big events for a fashion parade and bands, and musicians, and the whole thing going on. Some of the production team from Tony showed up at my event. They were like, “Ahh Heather, what are you doing here? What are you doing here?”
Barbara Turley: Oh Wow! Did you move for fashion lately?
Heather Porter: I’m thinking, “This could be interesting.” I looked up to these women hugely. I was the little out-of-school IT girl and these amazing glamorous production women for Tony Robbins. There was a couple of them that showed up. Then they called me aside and said, “What are you doing here?” “This is my own event, so I do it on the side.” They said, “Girl, you are clearly in the wrong department.” They got and pushed me over to events with Tony.
Barbara Turley: Isn’t that funny? Do you know what I love about that story is the fact that you actually, you were using your job, you’re working in an IT job. Obviously, that wasn’t your passion.
Heather Porter: No, no.
Barbara Turley: You took, but at the same time, you used an income from a job to do what is your passion and to fuel your own business.
Heather Porter: Yeah.
Barbara Turley: Then that led you to actually get the dream that you really wanted, which was to be in events and do promotions with one of the biggest names in the world.
Heather Porter: Absolutely. I’m just so obsessed. I would do my day job and I’d come home and I would work until 10:00 at night, sometimes midnight to do other business and trying to grow that up. Do whatever it took at that time to make it work.
Barbara Turley: What I really want the listeners to really take from this is the fact that sometimes, in the early stages, to get your dream moving, you actually do have to do that. You might have to do two jobs, but if you want something enough, I talk about money being your fuel for your passion. Where are you going to get the money from? You must do a job that maybe isn’t what you exactly want to do, but don’t give up on your dream.
Heather Porter: One thing I say to newer clients that come to me is, “Make sure that you have money to fund what you’re going to do with your online business.” The internet is like this huge exciting opportunity and it works if you follow the structure and know what you’re doing, but it takes time to build something online. There’s a lot of people that think, “Oh, I can get rich quicker.” Right?
Barbara Turley: I know so many of those programs out there, and they don’t realize you need money to actually fuel that.
Heather Porter: Exactly. Do what it takes. Work your job and start to do your online business on the side if that makes sense for you, if you actually want to go that way.
Barbara Turley: Yeah. This is what I will say as well. You need to have the money that you earn, make sure that you’re using that money to fuel your own vision. If your vision is that you want to run your own business, then which is still in a day job. In the corporate world, for example, don’t give up just yet, but make sure that you’re using that money to actually fund your own dreams.
Heather Porter: I love that.
Barbara Turley: Yeah. I’m fascinated to hear, the years with Tony Robbins. Obviously the Wealth Mastery tour. You were on those events.
Heather Porter: Yes.
Barbara Turley: How exciting was it to work for him?
Heather Porter: Tony is an incredibly intense man. What you see on stage is what he’s like in his business. He’s an emotional, emotional being, so whatever he’s feeling is also what it’s going to be in the board room so to speak.
Barbara Turley: That could be good or bad.
Heather Porter: We always used to say, I was one of the only girls in the production team that hadn’t cried yet. The other women were saying, “Oh, you haven’t cried yet.” Because he’s emotional. He’s trying to make …
Barbara Turley: He’s going to break you also. He’s like this ‘cause of you.
Heather Porter: Amazing man. I would never trade the experience. It taught me events like top-notch marketing events and building tribes and managing teams and being under the pressure cooker. You can’t get much more pressurized than working for Tony and the big events as well.
Barbara Turley: You traveled a lot obviously with that event. You goes all over the world with that event.
Heather Porter: All over the world. That’s how I was introduced to Australia, because I lived in San Diego and whereas working for his corporate office and was introduced to Australia. Coming over here to run a couple of events. Wealth Mastery is his event where he brings in wealth speakers. I learned a great deal as well. To understand how to protect your wealth and solve losses and concepts around the fact that just growing money out there is dangerous with so many tools already that so many people don’t know about to protect it.
Barbara Turley: Even in the financial industry, I’ll be totally open with you. Even in the financial industry today, there are advisers out there that don’t even know the tools and the tricks of the trade that are there to protect your money. Really, people are losing money left, right and center, when they don’t necessarily have to and they’re taking risks that are not necessarily there.
Heather Porter: The power of an expert, though, that’s why it’s so important to find somebody that has a history track record of doing what they teach. Which is why I’m here with you because you’re on of the very few people that I know, being in the speaking industry for so long, that really walks their talk and practices what they preach. You know what you’re teaching.
Barbara Turley: I don’t think I could talk about it if I didn’t. I think there has to be a bit of integrity about what you’re doing and the years I’ve spent in the industry, I must find out I’m on this circuit trying to expose the truth especially for women. Especially for women. What would you say was the key thing, the take-away for you from those Wealth Mastery tours? Was it risk management or do you think it’s more about, like not just right at the making of money but the investing and protecting of the money?
Heather Porter: Risk management and also publicly the fact that when you get emotional, you don’t want to be around money, because your emotions are, and unfortunately, I lost a big chunk of money doing exactly that. I got so excited about this opportunity …
Barbara Turley: I hopped on that, so don’t worry.
Heather Porter: “I’ll invest thousands of dollars in it,” without doing due diligence and actually stepping away from my excitement and looking at it from a rational mind. I think that was the biggest thing I learned. It was, use the tools but also really look at your emotions when you’re around money.
Barbara Turley: Do you think that’s why? People struggle wealth mastery. Everybody, the world, always seems to struggle with this. Very few people who achieve wealth in terms of measured wealth anyway. Do you think it’s the emotional drive or the people you met on that tour, how did they feel about it or why can nobody master wealth?
Heather Porter: Because, I think it’s people’s beliefs around money and the fact that they don’t deserve it. It’s dirty or that they can’t have it for whatever reason. They think, “My next door neighbor can be rich, or my sister, or my father, or my friends, but not me.” There’s some underlined issue there. A big part of that event was actually mindset. The entire emcee’s job was to actually weave in mindset because you will never be able to do or admit what you learn, should you not really believe in your heart that you’re worth it.
Barbara Turley: Yeah, it’s one of the reasons I suppose that I’m bringing quite a lot of the mindset more into my work now. It’s just not about the tools and strategies and tactics and knowledge. It’s actually about mindset is key. It’s really, really important.
Heather Porter: It is and do you know what? It seems that being around Tony and other personal development speakers, I have to admit, I’m like, get sick of my mouth a little bit. I think I’ve got another mindset training, but you know what? It’s funny because I’ve been around it so much, but without it, you have no foundation to build on. You’ve got to master your mindset before taking anything.
Barbara Turley: Before taking any more steps, yeah.
Heather Porter: Absolutely.
Barbara Turley: What do you think of in the power of having mentors around you? Is that one of the steps that you …
Heather Porter: That’s where your mindset comes in, because you’re your own worst blind spot.
Barbara Turley: You can’t see your own mistakes. Yeah.
Heather Porter: Yeah. You’ve got to have that mentor there that, he’s in the space that you want to excel at, to look at what’s going on your head. They’ve got to be good at also, seeing that, seeing when you’re doing self talk is bad, or you’re doubting yourself.
Barbara Turley: Yeah, absolutely. We all know that building wealth, it doesn’t automatically lead to fulfillment. I will say, money is job. Its only responsibility is to fuel your journey to the summit of the mountain that you choose. It’s not its job to change the view. You have to choose wisely. Have you seen entrepreneurs make wealth and then go the wrong path? Make lots of money but actually reaching no fulfillment?
Heather Porter: Yes. A lot of people actually. So many people that I’ve worked with, not only from my past event life, but what I’m doing now is, I actually know some of them that have reached a huge amount of wealth and are exhausted and unfulfilled, and want to get out of their own self-created rat race just at a higher level. Yeah, it’s really strange, and again it comes back to that, I guess, mindset or something around self-beliefs around money like, “Okay, now that I have the money, I have to work harder.” I don’t know what it is. That’s why, I listen to you as well. I think happiness, obviously money doesn’t bring happiness. It’s the person and the mind and what else you do.
Barbara Turley: Yeah, because I think about this money can’t buy you happiness. We’ve all heard that expression said and I was thinking aloud last night and such crying the Mercedes and the wife’s little but. I really feel that once we decide what happiness is for ourselves and what it means for us to be happy, then money can be a great enabler. It’s the great enabler. My mother used to always say that. It’s the great enabler.
Heather Porter: Well it is, isn’t it? I mean, if you think about it. It allows you to start businesses, fly your family across the world to see you, in both of our cases.
Barbara Turley: Family to Australia.
Heather Porter: Apply to them, and it allows you to fuel dreams. It allows you to help organizations. I think it is so helpful if you use it the right way.
Barbara Turley: That leads me onto another topic that I really want to touch on with you. The Billionaire Adventure Club. I mean how amazing does that sound? First, tell us a little bit about what is the Billionaire Adventure Club and what were your mission behind that?
Heather Porter: I was actually the crew director for guiding Christopher Howard, a really well-known speaker. What I did for a couple of years is build up his volunteer program where, in all the events around the world, I would bring in the volunteers, train them on the site to run the event. Did that for two years and I got bored because I needed to be challenged at that time. After a couple of years, I approached Chris and his promoters and his backers and I said to them, Everything I know in marketing or business is, if you have a client onboard, you always want to give them the next step. Always continue to give them that next step. Do you?
Barbara Turley: That’s a good business tip. Business tip number one.
Heather Porter: At that point, he was selling a university of six different courses and didn’t have anything to that next step. I approached and I said, “Could we not give a next step that is higher level, higher tuition price, but being that it’s that next step, can we do a bigger picture for the world as well?”
Barbara Turley: I love that because one of the things that I’ve been talking about a lot recently, I have my seven steps to Energise Wealth and then I’ve come out with an eighth step. The eighth step is all about higher purpose wealth and some spiritual wealth. What can you give back and the contribution back to the world?
Heather Porter: That’s exactly what it was. The concept started out as a group of entrepreneurs or business people that were financially secure at that point to a point, and also additionally, power of investment, networking and being around mentors and constantly learning, but also wanting to go into a developing country and actually give back. In social entrepreneurialism which is the whole concept of basically, what’s it called? Teach a man to fish or something? Or give the man a fish?
Barbara Turley: Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life.
Heather Porter: That was the underlying mission about that. We went to Peru and we built a school and we went to Cambodia and we worked with an organization from a high level of mentoring and networking perspective, and brought them in. PR specialist and interns and within our own networks.
Barbara Turley: I personally, I would love to do something like that. To actually feel like you can … to be financially secure, to the point where you can use your time and energy to give back like that. It’s an amazing thing. Not to say that you have to be wealthy. Do you have to be wealthy to do something like that?
Heather Porter: No.
Barbara Turley: Or is it more just financial security, sufficient cash, like that?
Heather Porter: Enough money where, what I always said when I started it is, “I don’t want anybody that’s going to mortgage their house to come into the club. They’ve got to have a business where the finances do not only invest in the tuition of the club, but also go and travel and be able to spend money in those countries and also spend money, give back to the organizations we chose to help.”
Barbara Turley: That worrying about what’s going on.
Heather Porter: Out-worry and I could tell those that were always stretched when they came on the trip, because they were the ones in the corner. They get angry, they’d complain as well about the trip. There’d be a car crash in Egypt, I mean God forbid, but a car crash in here, and they would have this whole thing about, “Oh, this is horrible. It’s dirty.” I know it was those people that weren’t in the space to actually come and then play that higher level.
Barbara Turley: It’s funny because so many people think about money as like an ugly way. They think, “I’m not into money. I’m not into this. I’m not into that.” Like it’s a spiritual way of being, but actually having financial pressure, we’ve all had financial pressure and I know everybody watching today, everybody’s experienced that. It actually eats a way up your soul. Financial strain, it drains you. It drains your energy and it means that you actually are not fully present in something like that to be able to, as a resources to give back. I definitely feel that as women anyway, that we all need to really step up and embrace money so that we can actually contribute to the world on such an amazing level like that. For me, it’s just a fabulous thing to be able to do.
Heather Porter: It reminds me actually of some of the powerhouse women that came on these trips. We went to, I think, eight in total before we moved on from that. The powerhouse women were the ones that, every man wanted to be with and every woman wanted to be. Do you know what I mean by that? They were so vibrant and so alive and just attracting resources and people, you could tell, No.
Barbara Turley: I mean, on average do you..
Heather Porter: In my head right now, I’m literally thinking of about three and I probably worked for three years with, 300 members. I’m thinking just on top of my head three, really standout, that’s like that vibrant woman.
Barbara Turley: Yeah, that’s the thing. I think being, for a woman to be secure, to be financially secure, does create freedom. It brings out her energy and her vibrancy and her wish to change and give back and actually do some great things. Speaking of women, I mean, on some of these projects, you went to places like Peru, where one of the areas …
Heather Porter: Mongolia, Cambodia, Egypt, South Africa.
Barbara Turley: What about, you would’ve, in some of the projects, did you meet some women and girls from those areas?
Heather Porter: One of the most amazing things ever was going to Richard Branson’s Soul of Entrepreneurship in Dover. We ran an event for students at the school, that it was actually breakthrough to success. One of Christopher Howard’s weekend events. We ran a two-day event. We brought in catering and the members were the mentors. There were tears. They had the choir that came in and sang for all of us. To sit down with some of these girls that were raped, whose parents died from HIV and to give them hope like we did through our words and through just our connections. I will never forget it.
Barbara Turley: You guys also taught them, so I did read a bit about that particular event, and you guys had taught them. It was a mentorship program, wasn’t it? It wasn’t just going and inspiring them or being there for them, it was actually, you taught them some seriously good life skills.
Heather Porter: Yeah, we do and we actually exchanged details with some of the students that wanted to, we stayed in touch with them on email. They just email, not only myself but some of the members and just ask for advice.
Barbara Turley: You just keep that going. That’s amazing. Heather, with all of those amazing events that you went on, those experiences, the Billionaire Adventure Club, what would you say would be the key takeout in business, in life, and in wealth for you? From all of that experience.
Heather Porter: Business first was, to choose your business partners and the people you want to work with after you’ve experienced them in pressure situations. The reason why, if you could imagine that being in Egypt in the heat with cockroaches in your hotel room, where there were moments when we had full on mental breakdowns in the middle of the trips.
Barbara Turley: Yeah, you would. That’s as they say, it’s pressurized environment and [crosstalk 00:18:54] do you pick me? This is why you’re [inaudible 00:18:57].
Heather Porter: No, you’d be surprised. In those environments, you either come out as a shining star, a leader and an example, or you are the person that no one wants to be around. I chose my own business partner because we didn’t really need to work on the Billionaire Adventure Club together, but we worked in the same environment on the road, either of us. We had two hours of sleep a lot of nights for two days in a row, three days in a row. In that moment, we realized that we’ve been through the hardest, most pressurized environments together and we work well, and that’s …
Barbara Turley: That makes it work?
Heather Porter: Yeah, exactly. Life, the lessons in life would be, we all, this is a bit cliché, but every single human being on the planet just wants love.
Barbara Turley: I know yeah. One of my favorite moves is Love Actually. Do you know what the beginning of Love Actually, and he says, “Love actually is or around us.” You see it everywhere, because that’s what people want, it’s the universal language.
Heather Porter: In orphanages in Mongolia, we were watching these babies that were completely drawn off from the side of the streets. When you touch them, they light up. Yes, it is a baby.
Barbara Turley: The touch, human touch.
Heather Porter: Just want love. We all are in our western society with iPads and devices and clothing and brands and stuff, when you go to a country that does not have all that, you strip all that away and we are just all the same.
Barbara Turley: Yes, it makes us realize that if we do strip away all of the digital stuff and all the stuff that keeps us busy all day, all of us, actually a hug, people just want a hug.
Heather Porter: A hug and smile.
Barbara Turley: A hug and a smile.
Heather Porter: Pretty basic.
Barbara Turley: Yeah. Speaking of Love, how is life and what does the future hold now for Heather Porter?
Heather Porter: It’s a good question. My business now has been around for almost four years, three and a half years. In the first three years of growing a business, you have loads of growing pains. You’ve completely changed your staff. We’re in a huge simplification process, and I think you get to that point once you go through those couple of years trying to work out what you’re actually going to sell.
Barbara Turley: Yeah, the simplification thing I think a lot of women just all really need that because we tend to overwhelm ourselves. We try to do everything. We don’t systematize anything and it becomes really stressful.
Heather Porter: We’re focused on collecting shirts as well, and if I just had that, or I should do this if I have that. Or wait, it’s perfect over here, before I launch anything. Most people have that, but the thing is that, we’re never going to launch because we’re never going to be perfect. The whole thing with us right now, we’ve always just grown crazy because we just do that, do that, test this, do this. Now we’re in a really exciting place where we’re actually tagging our brand. We have an amazing team around us. I had an interview today with this unbelievable potential head of operations. To even see her and talk to and say, “We’ve gone from a team of 30 in the Philippines to now hiring a head of ops in America.” Is a pivotal point where I’m very excited about my future in the business, and we have loads of new info products that we’re launching as well.
Barbara Turley: Speaking of that, do you think the internet, everybody’s trying to do business on the internet today. There are products for everything. Is it saturated yet do you think?
Heather Porter: Yes, but no at the same time. Yes, for information, but no for quality information. Here’s the thing. I think that so many people are just putting stuff out there because they’ve been told to create content or to …
Barbara Turley: I know. News everywhere of everything.
Heather Porter: Yeah. What is lacking right now, what’s very exciting for all of us as business’ owner is, the fact that the lacking thing is people that know how to be the guide or give direction how to absorb a content. Okay so, We can all create content but what we’re lacking at is telling people what to watch and when and how long it clicks together to actually get results.
Barbara Turley: To get results, that’s exactly right, because so many people are the information overload. Because there is no shortage of information out there. This is the thing, the people still need guidance and steps and to be not just held the cash, but more their hands held a bit through the process of learning something new.
Heather Porter: I think we’re in an information era right now. We consume and buy information. We’re looking for the best information but also the best guide through the information. We also, more than ever, are aligning ourselves with culture. I mean that for example, with Steve Jobs, how he sold a design, a dream, a culture that is apple, rather than a product.
Barbara Turley: That lives on after him as well.
Heather Porter: Lives on after him. Businesses that are mastering the internet right now are those that have a culture that the products are secondary and the products are sold because people want more of the culture.
Barbara Turley: They want more of the culture, how it makes them feel.
Heather Porter: Exactly.
Barbara Turley: How it makes them feel, so a business if they want to stay ahead of the game, today on the internet, well they have to have heart and soul into it.
Heather Porter: You’ve got to be vulnerable. You’ve got to be yourself. You’ve got to be quirky, funny, whatever you are as a person, as the director of your life, or company or brand, you’ve got to be you. I think the thing is, being in the speaking industry for so long, I cannot tell you if I’d be rich by counting all these people that came up to me and said, “How does Tony just do that thing? Or Chris Howard?” They all want to copy what’s been done before. The second you copy somebody else, you look inauthentic and people can’t put their finger on why they don’t quite like you. The internet is a place to just be you. People do business with people, not businesses online. They want to see the individuality.
Barbara Turley: They want to see the personality behind it. Actually, I love that, it’s a good place to actually end our session because Feminine Wealth for me, I was thinking about what is the definition of this. It really is about passion. It’s about bringing dreams to life. It’s about having a greater purpose, a higher purpose for money and for wealth. Really, that’s what the essence of doing business on the internet is actually a spiritual thing. It’s authenticity.
Heather Porter: We are leaving an online footprint whether we like it or not, wherever online. Everything that we do, even if you are setting privacy settings in Facebook, everything that you do can be picked up and taken and used elsewhere. All that means is that, now more than ever, be yourself and don’t be scared about what you’re talking about online. Just be transparent across your entire life, because you will be figured out, the more successful you get, the more of your skeletons in your closets will be.
Barbara Turley: They will come out. Yeah, exactly. Just make sure that you have a nice shoe on that footprint.
Heather Porter: Absolutely well said.
Barbara Turley: Heather, I feel the key takeouts from today’s chat would be for our viewers, would be and charming Betty that you think we should add in here, but key takeaways for me really today. The biggest one was when you started off, you said you have this job in IT. You’re not an IT girl, you’re an events girl. You have this job in IT and you use that money to fuel your dream, that then caused the whole domino effect and amazing things happening, and you ended up on this rock star career for 10 years. Make sure that your money is being fueled towards your dreams.
Heather Porter: Yes.
Barbara Turley: The other takeout I think for our viewers today would be, wealth and money, you can really, there’s power in that. If you use it for the greater good, there’re so many things you can do with money that to reach, real fulfillment and contribution. Then of course, finally, doing business on the internet. It’s getting very real. It’s real. Just be you. Be authentic. Be yourself. Look, Heather, if people want to find out a bit more about you and about your business and what you’re doing, where can they find a venue?
Heather Porter: Offer up two websites really quickly. They want to know about me as who I am, my own blog. It is my name heatherporter.com. Want to know more about my digital agency, it’s autopilotyourbusiness.com.
Barbara Turley: Excellent. Heather, it’s been a real pleasure. I’m so excited that you were my first person on Feminine Wealth TV. To celebrate today and for everyone watching, be sure to tune in next week where I’m going to be talking about self-worth and net-worth with the amazing Debbie Spellman. See you then.
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