Season 2 Episode 2: Divine Impressions: Kathy Loveless' Inspirational Path (Part 2)
Hosts Haley Hatch Freeman and Misty Smith welcome back speaker and mentor Kathy Loveless for part two, where she shares how spiritual impressions can guide people to help total strangers. Kathy recounts being prompted to approach a former Canadian professional football player at an Einstein Bagels. She then tells the “flip side” story of a stranger in a Neighborhood Watch car urgently evacuating her from a gas leak at her home after being prompted to drive up her hill and hearing gas escaping. Kathy and the hosts encourage listeners to document and share miracle stories, including difficult experiences, as she prepares to launch her book, "Cycling to Heaven."
Kathy Loveless
Contact Our Guest
Kathy Loveless email: kathy@lovelessenterprises.com
Transcript
Welcome to Latter-day Miracles, where we share true stories of angels and marvels. I'm Haley Hatch Freeman. And I'm Misty Smith. Sit back, open your heart, and prepare to be inspired
[00:00:15] Haley Feeman: Welcome to Latter-day Miracles. We are so excited to bring another awesome episode, and this time it is part two of the lovely Kathy Loveless. I know a lot of you enjoyed her first part and have been excited to hear the rest of her stories, or at least a few more. I know she has a lot of awesome stories.
We read her bio at part one, and If you wanna hear her whole bio, go back to part one. And If you haven't heard her part one yet, I highly recommend popping back to that episode so you can hear the beginning of her stories. Kathy Loveless is an incredible public speaker.
She has had clients through her life such as the CIA, US Departments of Defense and Justice, IBM, AT&T, and Dupont, we are so honored to have her here today, and I am especially honored because she is my dear relative, and I just love her dearly. So I am honored for her to be here and for you guys to hear part two.
So we'll go ahead and turn the time over to Kathy
[00:01:23] Kathy Loveless: Thank you, dear. It's so good to be back. We're gonna talk today about how if you are listening to the other side, you can be guided to help even total strangers. I've had just a lifetime of remarkable experiences, and I credit all of it to Heavenly Father and to my very early engagement in the LDS church.
As I said in part one, I, at a very young age, saw a picture of the Savior and knew him and loved him and never have departed from that knowledge. And, um, in our church, for those who aren't familiar, we get to give two-and-a-half minute talks, many decades ago, in sacrament meeting. And when everybody else is going, "No, no, not me," I'm going, "That sounds fun."
So I've always liked speaking. What I didn't know all those many years is that one could actually have a career in professional speaking. And, um, fortunately, the Lord led me to that career through debate and, um, theater at Hillcrest High School, and I was on the University of Utah debate team, and just had a wonderful set of careers with the US federal government.
Started my career in Washington, DC, and then ran a multi-state program out of Denver, and another one out of Salt Lake. So I had lots of contacts all over the country. Well, what happened when I learned about this professional speaking business is I started working it, and I started making money, lots of money.
And pretty soon, people started coming to me from the Mountain West chapter of the National Speakers Association. They said, "Kathy, you're killing it, and we're sucking wind. What are you doing?" And I said, "Come over to my house. I will share with you everything that I'm doing. I want you to be successful." 40 people rolled in my front door and out.
Wow. And I shared with 40 people all the stuff that I was doing to, to make money in this business, and nobody did anything, zero, with what I shared with them.
[00:03:47] Misty Smith: Oh, no.
[00:03:48] Kathy Loveless: And I learned two lessons. Things, two things were missing. One People don't value free advice.
[00:03:55] Misty Smith: Mm-hmm. That's interesting.
[00:03:56] Kathy Loveless: And number two, there was no accountability.
So decades ago, almost four decades ago, I started the Jumpstart Your Speaking Career Today mentoring program, and I formalized it, and I made people pay me money to come get my advice. One darling woman came, and she had come when it, there was no charge and there was no formal program. And, and of course there was nothing for her to learn at that point, but then she came back and I said, "I know you told me you had no money.
How on earth did you get enough money to pay for this course?" And she looked at me and she said, "I sold my couch."
[00:04:39] Misty Smith: Oh.
[00:04:39] Kathy Loveless: Did she now have skin in the game? Absolutely. She became phenomenally successful. So I started mentoring people, and what I realized is that my love to share this business for the people with whom I was sharing it just brought so much joy.
It was absolutely delightful. So time goes on. I'm still speaking myself as well as mentoring. And, um, people in this business, you know, it looks really fancy. You're up on stage and you're speaking and you... People hear about these big, fat salaries you g- or not salaries, but fees you get, and that's all true.
But they also need to hear about the downsides and how you're unemployed after every speaking engagement. Think about that. And you're constantly marketing, constantly needing to find the next client in many instances. So it's a very difficult business, and it's also extremely susceptible to the waves and craziness of what's going on in society.
For example, I was speaking in Washington, DC on 9/11. My client was the Central Intelligence Agency. Wow. And you can probably imagine what 9/11 did to the professional speaking business. Shut us down completely. Well, you already know I have lung cancer. You can imagine what lung cancer did to a speaker.
[00:06:12] Misty Smith: Yeah.
[00:06:13] Kathy Loveless: Boice.
[00:06:14] Misty Smith: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:15] Kathy Loveless: My business was shut down once again in 2009 because of lung cancer. Then we get this thing called COVID. No. And COVID shuts us down. And, um, at this point in my career, I had reached what is called the million dollar speaker group in the National Speakers Association. This group was wonderful because even though none of us could work, 'cause we couldn't go anywhere, we all got together every week on a Zoom call and shared ideas.
It was just absolutely supportive and beautiful. It was a wonderful organization. I love that. Well, then things started opening up again, and I opened up my mentoring program again, and now we're starting to rev up. Now, I take a computer everywhere I go for one reason: my brain won't turn off. And I always wanna capture the ideas that, that are coming to me.
So I decided one day I was going to go to the local Einstein Bagel shop and get a bagel, and of course, I took my computer. I went, set up my computer, got a lovely bagel and a soda pop, and I'm sitting there working away and munching, and working away. Then out of the corner of my eye, I notice this 6'4" big dude with muscles like this.
But I didn't notice. Right. He, he walks past me, goes up, orders a bagel, and then I watch him go over and get his soda pop. Then I watch him go over and sit right over there, and I'm going, "Where does a person get muscles like that?"
so I continued working, continued working. Now I'm finished. Now it's time to go back to my office. I get the strongest impression I'm supposed to go talk to this guy.
[00:08:12] Misty Smith: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:12] Kathy Loveless: Now, I've been a widow at this point for many years, and I promise I am not hitting on men. And I have no idea what I'm supposed to say to him or why I'm supposed to talk to him, but when I get these impressions, I know I'm supposed to act.
So I'm thinking, "I have three Mississippis to figure out what I'm gonna say when I get to this guy." Oh. So I go over. One Mississippi, "I don't know." Two Mississippi, I still don't know what to say to him.
[00:08:44] Haley Feeman: Oh my.
[00:08:45] Kathy Loveless: Three Mississippi, now I'm standing in front of this big dude, and he looks up at me, and the following words just roll out of my mouth, "Hi, you look interesting.
What do you do?"
And he paused, and he looked up at me and he said, "I'm a former professional football player in the Canadian Professional Football League. I've just lost my job. My girlfriend and I have just broken up. I've pretty much lost everything, so I borrowed a bicycle to bicycle here to this Einstein's to just get a snack."
Then he looked at me and he said, "In my perfect world, I would find somebody who could help mentor me to be a speaker."
[00:09:39] Misty Smith: No way.
[00:09:42] Kathy Loveless: And even better, it would be wonderful if I could find somebody who could help me write a book about my story.
[00:09:49] Misty Smith: Wow. Wow.
[00:09:52] Kathy Loveless: I pulled out my business card and I said, "I'm Kathy Loveless.
I run a program called Jumpstart Your Speaking Career Today. I help people become better speakers and write books about their stories. Call me if I can be of any service to you."
[00:10:10] Misty Smith: Wow.
[00:10:10] Kathy Loveless: And I walked out the door, got in my car, and drove just a short ways up a high, high steep hill to my home. I got to my home, opened the door, and within 15 minutes my phone rings and it's this guy.
And he says, "Kathy, we just met at the Einstein Bagel. May I come up and talk to you?" And I said, "Sure." I hung up the phone and then I said, the smart me comes out, "You idiot. You have just invited a 6'4" total stranger with biceps like this into your house, and you're a widow and you live alone."
[00:10:53] Misty Smith: Oh.
[00:10:55] Kathy Loveless: But the spiritual side of me said, "You're gonna be all right."
But just to be sure, I called my friend down the street and I said, "Will you call my phone in 30 minutes, and if nobody answers, call the police?"
[00:11:07] Misty Smith: Oh my gosh. I love that, I love that you were watching out for yourself too.
[00:11:12] Kathy Loveless: I'm not quite as good as some people wish I would be. Within a few minutes, there's a knock at my front door.
I go open the door, and here is this great big bicep guy, and I invite him in, and he sits down and he tells me his story, and it's a, it's a sad story. But here's what I'm learning. Everybody's got a sad story. I'm still waiting to meet the person who didn't have any problems and everything's wonderful and rosy and it's all easy.
That isn't what it's about here. So as he's ending, I said, "If you would like to come and just experience our mentoring program, please feel free to join us on Monday night." He said, "I will do that." And then I thought, "How on earth did he get up that big hill? He doesn't have a car." And I went and looked out front and there was his bicycle.
I don't know how on earth he got up my big hill in that bicycle, but he did. This was before there were e-bikes. So the Monday rolls around, and sure enough, here he is on his bicycle and he joins our group. Now, one of the things that we have as a culture in our business is it's open arms. We welcome people.
We wanna help people. We want others to grow. We wanna love them in, and that's exactly what every person in that mentoring group did to this man. Everyone knew he didn't have money. He, he was not gonna be able to pay for the class. That was... We could figure that one out. And he came for several weeks, and then all of a sudden we did not see him at all ever again.
[00:12:58] Misty Smith: Hmm.
[00:12:59] Kathy Loveless: About a couple of months later, I went out to my mailbox and here was a letter, and it was addressed from the woman who was his mother. And the letter to me said, "I wanna thank you for being so kind to my son. I need to tell you that unfortunately, he had to live the consequences of his decisions and he's now in jail."
[00:13:26] Haley Feeman: Oh, wow. Oh.
[00:13:29] Kathy Loveless: Here's my point with this story
Our dear, beautiful, sweet, wonderful Heavenly Father is giving us impressions on ways that we can serve and help others. It's not our role to, um, judge, decide whether or not we can help. It's our role to listen and try the best we can. I don't know what's happened to him. I haven't heard from him since.
But I thought if that isn't an indicator of how if we're listening, we can connect with people who we can help, even total strangers.
[00:14:07] Misty Smith: Absolutely, Kathy. Seriously, I feel, I feel just the, you talking about the spirit guiding you, I'm sure his side of the story, when he tells that story, um, the promptings of having a stranger walk up to him, and him probably even opening up.
Th- that prompting to open up the way that he did to you. He could have said anything about his life, and that's what he chose to say. And so honestly, I, I just f- find that, incredible, the, the blessings of being able to speak and hear yourself, and being able to speak to each other at a spiritual level.
[00:14:46] Kathy Loveless: Yes.
Yes ... and
[00:14:48] Misty Smith: being brave enough to act on it, absolutely.
[00:14:51] Kathy Loveless: Yes. Oh, yes. The second story is the flip side of that kind of story. It's how a total stranger came and did something for me.
[00:15:03] Haley Feeman: Hmm.
[00:15:04] Kathy Loveless: So I grew up in a wonderful family in that I had loving parents Who?
My darling dad had his own company. But when daddy's clients didn't pay him, he paid his employees and there often wasn't money to come home to us. So we had, sometimes didn't have food. Sometimes we didn't have, oh, well, I had never had a store-boughten item of clothing until I went to the Miss America pageant.
But I had a darling, Miss Dansey, in seventh grade at junior high, who was the home ec teacher, and she taught me how to sew, and I had her for a number of years. And so I loved sewing 'cause I could make clothes. And, um, Haley knows our Aunt Charlotte. We had an Aunt Charlotte who lived in New York City and she bought things from the fancy Lord & Taylor.
When Aunt Charlotte's clothes, she grew tired of them, she'd send them to my mother, and my mom didn't know what to do with fancy clothes, so she'd k- kind of throw them over there and I'd go, "Look at the fabric. I can cut this up and stitch this around here and do this." So when I built the home that I'm in now, I of course had to have a not one, but two bedroom sewing room.
Wow. So one day I'm walking into my sewing room and I noticed on the television that there was a story about a massive gas explosion in San Bruno, California. It had been a terrible gas explosion. It had killed maybe eight people and injured another 52 people. And I followed the news and so forth. And then as I was walking over to the corner window of my sewing room, I looked down to the street and there was a car that I had never seen before, nor have I, I seen it since, and it read Neighborhood Watch.
And it had these funny eyeballs on the side of the s- s- side of the car. I thought, "Neighborhood watch? I've never seen that car here." All of a sudden, there is a massive pounding at my front door. I run down the stairs, I open the door, and here is a total stranger standing at f- my front door. He says, "Quick, there's a gas leak in your house.
You've gotta evacuate immediately."
[00:17:39] Haley Feeman: Mm.
[00:17:40] Kathy Loveless: So Kathy, trusting Kathy, shuts my door, runs out with him, jumps in his car, and we speed off. Now- Oh. ... when I told my two daughters this story, they yelled at me. They said- ... "Mom, what if he'd been a kidnapper?"
[00:17:56] Misty Smith: Yeah. Absolutely.
[00:17:58] Kathy Loveless: Okay. I, I confess, sometimes I'm a little too trusting maybe.
So we, we rolled down the s- the road a ways and he said, "I've already called Dominion Energy and people are coming to take care of the problem." Just then, Dominion Energy's big truck rolled up at my house. Two guys in great big white hazmat suits get out. They go over to the side of my house, do some work, everything, and then they got in their truck and went away.
This total stranger, in whose car I'm still sitting, turns to me and he says "You know, I have never been up here in your neighborhood before. I usually drive around down in the lower part of Salt Lake City. Something prompted me to come up the hill, park right at the side of your house, roll down my window, and when I rolled down the window, I heard sss,
[00:19:04] Haley Feeman: sss."
Oh, wow.
[00:19:06] Kathy Loveless: He said, "I knew immediately it was gas escaping from your system." He said, "I have no idea why I felt the im- impromptu come and do that." So that is an, an example of where a total stranger has come and saved me. Just, you know, I, I shared that I'm going to launch my book, Cycling to Heaven, and, uh, this is why I'm encouraging all of your listeners, please write your stories.
Please get them documented. Because when I started writing my book, I just thought I had a couple of stories. Mm. But what begins to unfold is you go, "Oh, wait a minute, that reminds me of something else that happened. Oh, oh, now I remember something else that happened." And when you start unfolding the miracles of your own life, you begin to realize how just truly amazing our Father in Heaven's hand has been in each of our lives.
I've got so many more stories and maybe I'll share with you, with you again at another time.
[00:20:15] Haley Feeman: Yeah. Oh, love that. They're so good. Mm-hmm. I was thinking of, I heard this quote on another podcast, I was just pondering about it. Um, sometimes when we're going through really, really hard times and really hard challenges, you think There's nothing that can save me here.
Like, th- it's too hard. But when there's things that we're going through that we need to write them down. Even the hard times and the challenging times that you're facing. Oh,
[00:20:44] Misty Smith: yes.
[00:20:45] Haley Feeman: You're not seeing the miracle. You're not seeing what's happening, but keep writing it, what's happening down, because the quote was, "Sometimes
God needs to make it so messy and so hard, because when you do get on the other side, when it does resolve, it's proof that it was a miracle, and only God's hands could have fixed it."
[00:21:07] Kathy Loveless: Beautiful. Yes.
[00:21:08] Haley Feeman: And, and I have seen that so many times in my life. I remember a couple times, um, praying for a certain thing.
One was when, the mountain right behind us was on fire, and, um, we were evacuated, and we couldn't live at home for a little while. But I remember very distinctly when we prayed, I remember feeling, God saying "I'm gonna show my hand in this miracle. I'm gonna show the power of my hand in this."
And there's a lot to that story, but that was one time I remember very specific, the answer was, "Watch what I can do." You know? And so- Oh, I
[00:21:44] Kathy Loveless: love it.
[00:21:45] Haley Feeman: Yeah. So there's some times that that's what the answer is. And so, but yeah, we need to write down those miracles. Yes. And for those that might be new to our podcast, I explain why I felt prompted to do this podcast, and that was the, what I was receiving, was God saying, "You need to share what I am, have done for my children, what I am doing for my children, and what I can do for my children."
And so it is important to document and to share these stories, so I do add my testimony to that.
[00:22:21] Misty Smith: I, I have a thought with that too, Haley, when you were talking about, um, honestly just writing everything down, you as well, Kathy. , I was thinking about, um, maybe two years ago or so at home, I remember documenting, or I usually document my stories.
Um, but, uh, so many miracles have happened in my household and with my kids, and with the fire that happened here has been one of them that has touched my family's life. And I remember feeling very prompted to get a journal for my family. And so for family home evening or on Sundays, we would discuss what happened throughout that week, and
Uh, the other day, literally just the other day, I was looking through my journals 'cause they kinda got set aside for a while, and I found it, and I started reading my kids miracles and things that happened to them, and I, I realized it was a witness to me and to my household that God was working in my house, and we were able to see the fire story.
That fire story really prompted a lot of, um, good, I think, in our community and within our households because I read that story and I see the miracles that happened through my kids' eyes. Mm. And that mattered so much to me, and so amen to that. Mm-hmm.
[00:23:46] Kathy Loveless: Beautiful. Beautiful. Thank you. Yeah.
[00:23:51] Haley Feeman: So do you have one last thought?
I mean, I guess you kind of already did about writing in the journals, but is there anything else you would wanna add?
[00:24:00] Kathy Loveless: I want to remind everyone that this goes on. Um, I'll, I'll show you the man- manuscript. Oh my gosh
[00:24:10] Misty Smith: I
[00:24:10] Kathy Loveless: love it. These are the stories. How many stories can one person have? And I finished this manuscript, and I've got more stories.
[00:24:19] Misty Smith: Wow.
[00:24:20] Kathy Loveless: So I've already created a file for book two.
[00:24:23] Misty Smith: I love it.
[00:24:24] Kathy Loveless: So, so that my advice is, it ain't gonna get done by itself, kids. Mm-hmm. We gotta do it. We gotta write this down and, um, follow through with the stories. And oh, another piece of advice, it does not have to be perfect the first time, or maybe the second time, maybe the third time.
It's okay to rewrite. Mm. But get the stories down. It'll be revelatory for you.
[00:24:54] Haley Feeman: Love that. Yeah. And I think the more we write it down, it shows Heavenly Father that we're seeing Him. Mm-hmm. We are seeing what He is doing. We are appreciating it. We recognize it, and so He's gonna do more for us.
[00:25:07] Kathy Loveless: That's right. Agreed. That's absolutely right. It's wonderful. It's so great.
[00:25:12] Haley Feeman: Well, thank you. Another beautiful, interview where we felt the spirit, and we look forward to having you back another time.
[00:25:21] Kathy Loveless: Okay. Thank you. Take care. We'll see you. Take
[00:25:23] Haley Feeman: care. Bye.
[00:25:25] Kathy Loveless: Bye-bye.
Thank you for joining us on Latter-day Miracles. If you have a miracle story that you feel inspired to share, we'd love to hear from you. Contact us on our website at latterdaymiracles.net or message us on social media. Until next time, keep your heart open to the miraculous, and may you feel the presence of angels in your everyday life
