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Welcome to another episode of the Jasmine Star Show. I am very happy to let you know I had a pretty amazing conversation on the Shake It Up podcast with Rachel Roth. I have to tell you all, sometimes I have conversations and I call it like a fluff and fold. Sometimes there's more fluff than there's fold. Let me tell you this queen, there was like 1% fluff and 99% fold. We got into the business of running a business. She asked me questions that I wasn't anticipating. She actually thought I had this like really big house and I had to come correct and let her know our square footage. We also had amazing conversations about what it means to be passionate about what we do. So if you'd like to hear a conversation between two hustlers, two dreamers, two entrepreneurs, two mothers, two partners, two people who run a team, and everything on the in between. Oh, look out. I'm wrapping because I'm a poet and I didn't know it. Y'all pull up a cup of tea or a cup of coffee or a stronger libation depending on what time of day it is. This is the episode that was on the Shake It Up podcast and I'm very excited to share it here on the Jazz Star Show. Let's dive in. So my guest today is unlike anybody else that you will see on social media. She is polished, she's organized, she's published, she's beautiful, she's smart. She has been featured in so many noteworthy places like Forbes, MSNBC, Inc. The Huffington Post, just to name a few. There's actually more like that's noteworthy enough, but there's more. She is a wife to her high school sweetheart, jd. She's a mom to a precious little girl, Luna, and she is a truly, truly incredible woman. Jasmine starve. I am so excited to have you today. Thank you so much for being with me. I am so thankful to be here. You are way too gracious. I feel like the, like five minutes into this conversation, people are like, are you sure this is the same girl? Yes, yes. It will be the same girl. I, I'm just saying like, you know, it's like 50% holy and 50% hood and if you fall somewhere in the middle of that, I think we're having a great conversation. Oh, I love it. I love it. So, you know, I was just telling Jasmine a few minutes ago that I'm blown away by who she is as a person and she has clearly mastered her craft, but I think that I'm even more blown away by her heart, and that is, that's hard to do in a world that is, that capitalizes on the currency is really, you know, beauty and success and all these things and that can really change a person, you know, but your heart has remained so down to earth, so humble and I just absolutely love that about you. So on the outside, people could stumble onto your massive social media platforms and your website, your podcast, and think that you have something completely different than them, that they can never build something that's successful and that you have had a special advantage along the way. What do you say to that? I think that we've all been dealt a hand, and not to play on that traditional adage, but it's not the, it's not the cards you're dealt. It's how you play your hand. And I think that the word that really struck me is when you said you're polished. And I love that and I received that as a compliment, but to be very aware of the fact that a lot of times what draws people in the most is the lackluster component of who I am. If I was just only ever polished, there would create a distance between myself and a viewer. And I think that the beauty of being able to be a hundred percent myself is yeah, I could, you know, I could get some fake lashes on and I could tease my hair and I could put out a piece of content and then at the same time, an equal measure show up in an oversized sweatshirt, in a messy bun. No makeup feeding my toddler who refuses to eat and be equal, my parts myself. And so I do appreciate that. But at the same time, oftentimes what I am putting out is a hundred percent me. And if you or anybody else who's listening could have the courage and the audacity and the hutzpah and the grit and the wherewithal and beyond all else the discipline to consistently put content out, people in equal parts will be able to say it's not as if she has something different. And it's not as if she has been given anything else, it's simply that she's unafraid to be a hundred percent herself. And as much as it hurts me to say very few people have given themselves that permission. Mm man, that is so good. You know, I was listening to a podcast just a couple days ago and there's a woman named Nona Jones and her book is next up on the docket for me to read. And she said, so many people are born an original and they die a duplicate because they compare themselves to everybody around 'em and they try to duplicate everybody else versus being, she said, God doesn't make extras, he only made one of you. You know? And so I love that because you're exactly right, you are. And I think that that is the draw. So just to clarify, in case anybody is not following Jasmine on Instagram or TikTok or any of her social platforms, she has built an unbelievable Instagram. How would you describe it, Jasmine, you describe what, what it is that you offer people? Cause it's evolved over the years. It has. So a little bit, a little bit of this story is I'm a firm believer in creating a niche, a small group of people who you can distinctly solve a particular problem for. Cause if you are in a business, your job is to solve a problem. But I don't look at a, a job as like a singular transaction. You can have the job, if you're running for city council, you can have a job if you want to be, you know, volley to get other parents to have you be your son or daughter's soccer coach, right? We all have a singular transaction, regardless if it's monetary or not. So if we want somebody to do something on our behalf, it's gonna be a transaction. So what I started realizing is early on I decided, I dropped at a law school and against all odds, I decided I wanted to become a photographer and I didn't own a camera. And so again, if we go back to where we started, the conversation is that she must be given something that somebody else has not. And I will say that the pattern in my life has only ever been to make a clear, bold, and declaration an irrevocable decision to do something that I'm wildly unqualified, uneducated, unfunded, and unconnected. I will say I will do that and then come hell or high water, I put my mind to doing that very thing. And so I said I wanted to become a photographer and I didn't own a camera. Well, a few months later, my husband went to Best Buy and bought me a camera off the shelf. And within a year I was already making six figures in that business. And so there I come building out a small niche of unfunded, uneducated, unconnected, and underperforming creatives to do something because people will say, at the time, I wasn't the best photographer if I was being honest, I don't know if you know if I was very good, but I found a way to solve a problem for a customer. I solved a personal connection in making people feel comfortable in an otherwise uncomfortable situation, aka in front of a camera. I got really good at that. And so then other photographers were saying, well, how did you do that? So then I just started teaching my methodology, sharing everything I knew when I put it out online for a while, nobody paid attention until they did. If I had stopped putting out content, nobody would paid attention. But we must become okay in every iteration of our life and career to continue putting things out because people will not pay attention for a very long time until they do. And when they do not if, because if you don't stop, it will come. Because when it happens, they're not coming across a one hit wonder with a viral video, an incredible blog post, a TikTok that went really crazy. They will be able to, that will be the inciting point that be able to go back and look at a full catalog of content that has built your credibility up into that point. And so every time I had pivoted in my career to lead me to where I am now, so I was a photographer who started teaching other photographers how to monetize their creativity. And then I started teaching other creative entrepreneurs, videographers, poets, writers, podcasters on how to monetize what they wanted to monetize. And then I started realizing that I wanted to do it at scale. So I started creating online courses, which bring another multi-million dollar revenue into the business. And then I pivoted into creating a membership with resources because it wasn't enough for people to know what to do. They needed the resources. And so I created the resources. And then I realized in this membership that people were getting the marketing resources that I was creating, like, oh, the best tools to show up to market your business, the best way to get new leads, how to create reels, how to write compelling content that gets a follower to become a customer. I was getting all these things out and people were saying, yes, but I don't have the mechanism to take your resource and put it out. And so then of course, there I go, being uneducated, unqualified, unfunded, and under connected. And I was like, you know, we need, I think we need to build a little bit of tech in our company. So my husband and I, who is my business partner and my high school sweetheart, decide to essentially pour a lot of money into becoming first time tech founders. And so what we did was we built a mechanism that connects our resources to the largest social platforms to ensure that you're showing up with consistency. Why? Because content becomes your credibility and you will not become a one hit wonder if you stop somewhere along the lines when you're not getting the very thing you want. Engagement, comments, accolades, the thing that feeds the smaller part of our ego when in all intents and purposes, what do we really want? We want to connect with a small group of people who are willing to pay us for what it is we do. If we have that mindset, then our only objective is to create content, be a hundred percent of ourselves and we will largely push away 80% of people who are never planning to buy from us begin with and focus on the 2%. That 2% will grow over time. And I'm a living testament of that very thing. Wow, that is so incredible. So how did you figure out, because you just rattled off a whole bunch of things that you do and that you have figured out along the way, starting with photography and earning six figures by the end of your first year of doing that, I mean, you didn't even own a camera. People are looking at you going, but how So every step of the way, as you take on these challenges and you're unfunded and unqualified in all of this, how do you learn how to do them? Okay, so this is a secret then I'm, I don't share it too often, but I'm gonna do it here. So if you happen to be listening and you are in a safe position, you're not driving, you're not engaged in another meeting, I want you to bring out a pin and a piece of paper, and I'm going to write this down. This is the one thing that we all need to walk away from this podcast. I'm gonna spell it G O O G L E, okay? Because we have never before in human history, we are the very first generation to have the world in the palm of our hand. Our parents, when they so desperately wanted to do something, when they wanted to become the soccer coach and they wanted to become member of the pta when they wanted to run for city mayor, when they wanted to start their business, they didn't have what we have. We have the answer to every question known to human mankind for free within 0 0 3, 3 second. So ask any question ever to ever come to your mind and you could type it it into Google or it's kissing cousin YouTube if you are a visual learner. And it will be there. I learned how to become a photographer by the University of Google. I learned how to create a lead magnet by Google. I learned how to add HTML code, HTM L code. I learned how to do that all by way of Google. Everything is out there. And I have to say, I am not the sharpest tool in the shed. I am a traditionally slow learner. I did not learn how to read until I was almost 12 years old. I have been terrible at standardized tests. I am the kind of person that I have to take notes on the pencil and paper. I have to read things a couple times over for it to settle. I have never been the person who's gonna teach myself something from a textbook. And yet the internet offers every type of learning. I will listen to podcasts to learn things. I don't know. I will watch videos or I will just listen to the audio. I'm an avid consumer of education because I am doing my immigrant grandparents and parents a disservice. If I am not maximizing every opportunity in this beautiful country to get self educated. And this is the thing that I tell people, I am not special. I am patient and I am disciplined and I am consistent. I am not special. Wow. Wow. Everybody has the same level of opportunity. I mean, I was not born, I, I was working at a very young age. I don't get the impression that somebody bestowed upon you a multimillion dollar trust fund for you to, for you to get started in your business. Did they? No, not at all. So my father is an immigrant from Mexico. My mom's from Puerto Rico, my husband's parents were born in Mexico as well. And so we are first generation Latinos. And you know, I will say though, a few weeks ago I put out a piece of content and I was citing somebody I'm really inspired by, it's the husband and wife duo, Alex and Laylo, homo and Alex had mentioned that it's the person who does the most reps wins the most reps. And I thought that was so fascinating. And in the middle of business coaching. So on the inside of Social Curator, the subscription that my husband and I have, I do business coaching, I do audits, I do things of this nature. And I will say flippantly had quoted Alex as saying, the person who does the most reps win. And there was a user who reached out to me kindly so kind, and she had said, I agree that what your intention was is to say that we must work. And the person who does the most work, the reps wins. And she's like, but Jasmine, you know, as a woman of color, and she herself was black, had said, oftentimes we don't start at the same starting point. So it's important to walk away with the principle of working and doing the reps, but to never forget that we are not all starting at the same place. And I was like, I loved that insight and I loved that caveat. I don't think that the person who works the hardest, I simply believe that the person who doesn't give up meets their terms of success on the condition that they have defined their own success. The thing I see of inside and outside of business is that people want things but they don't know why they want them. So what we see on social media is a glorified version of anybody's life doing these glorified things. And when we say, well, in order to look like that and live like that, well then I too need to be vacationing on the Greek aisles in the summer. But is that ever something you really wanted? Like did you know that about yourself? Like is the Bentley the marker of success because you made it up seeing something on somebody else? Because every time I work with a business owner, one of the very first questions, it's like, before we ever define what to do and before we ever define how to get your business right, what we need to know is what is your end point? Like when is the capital E enough? What is it that you want? And oftentimes when we boil it down, and I have to tell you, we have seen more than 35,000 business owners grow through our program. And oftentimes when you just sit down on your laptop with a sketchbook or a pen and paper and you write what it is you want, what I see distilled down is the beauty and simplicity of human nature. I want to sit with my family at dinner, then I'm a success when I do that more often than not, when I never have to miss my son's game because I'm no longer being a weekend warrior trying to si start this side hustle, then I know I'm a success. People say, if I can take three, not one, but three, two week vacations and spend it with my family and take my parents with me, then I know I'm a success. It's never been about how many comments in Zero is in a bank account. Now let me tell you, we all want that yes and amen. That's what I all want benevolent, I want abundance on everybody. But all those things don't guarantee happiness because in the process of getting the thing that you put in your mind that you want, if it comes at the cost of the people and the things you care about the most, then you're not a success. You're just rich. So we have to first define what is it that we want? And then we work from there, ask ourselves, what can I do to get that? And oftentimes, oftentimes we are deeply, deeply satisfied with something that is within our grasp. We have never taken the time to actually clearly identify what it is to begin with. Oh my gosh, so powerful. So good. I am surrounded by successful, incredible women. And I always ask them, okay, you live in this amazing beautiful house and I know you and JD went through a long process during covid of getting your house like moving ready and all of that. And so, and, and it just stretched out forever because of all the delays. But when you really think about when you and JD were young and just starting out and you decided to drop outta law school and all of that versus now this big house, right? Do you feel happier with the house? Like it's not the house. It's not the house, it's the relationship. Tell me, tell me. Well, I always wanna be like, well, I always like, I'm always about setting the record straight. Did I tell you that I went to law school, I did go to law school. I ended up dropping out, right? I dropped out my first year. My mom had a relapse of brain cancer. Thank God everything in her life brought us to where she is now. She is still with us, but at the time we were planning for her funeral. So it was like this big massive wake up call. But one of the things that when you go through law school, you really learn the way that the brain works and the way that we define and confined. So whenever I hear something that is true, but like a caveat of well might be misleading, I'm always like, oh skirt, we need to stop right there. So you said this big house. And I'm like, okay, it's not a big house, this house. And this is from our heart through it to heart. But our house, I don't even think is our house. I don't, I'm pretty darn sure our house is around 1700 square feet. So you know, but in southern California, like square footage out here is measured differently. So most what I will say is like, does the house 1700 square feet, 17,000 square feet, does it mean what I thought it would mean? Yes and no? Yes and no because a few weeks ago, my husband and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary. Now we've been together since we were in high school. So we've been together a long time. And we were driving to dinner and we just reflecting on, I was like, oh, at this time, you know, 17 years ago we were in Hawaii and it was just like 22 of us and we were getting married. And it was so simple. And I did, if I can go back to that girl and and tell her that this is our neighborhood and that we were healthy and that our families were healthy, and this was the car we drove and this was the daughter we had, Hmm. And this is the team we had built. And this is the purpose we're serving to empower small business owners to change their life, family, and legacy by way of a strong business. I wouldn't believe it. I wouldn't believe it. And so does the house mean something in principle? Yes. Because oftentimes we shelter ourselves from dreaming very big dreams because we look around and say, well, what am I capable of? But oftentimes if you serve somebody and you do something much bigger than what you ever thought you could, the windfall of those results and that success comes by reaching higher goals and doing bigger things outside of what your limited mind can think. So does the house mean something? Yes. And very much no. Very much, no. Oh, I couldn't agree more. I think for so long I thought that there was a pinnacle of achievement and it, it was the house and the cars and all of that. And as success came and as I kind of got to all those places, I was shocked to find that none of those things were the things that brought me fulfillment, satisfaction, none of it. None of it. It was wrapped up in so many different things. The fulfillment and satisfaction I have truly came from serving other people and continues to be serving other people and not the material things that I thought were the pinnacle. I thought those were the things that were gonna make me happy. So yeah, I was actually, one of the questions that I had written down, cuz I took all these notes to ask you was, did you ever imagine being where you are now? You know, I mean, and so no, I love how you share openly about your failures and how it has not been smooth sailing the entire time. The fear, the insecurity, the doubt that you've experienced along the way. What were some of the biggest setbacks along the way for you? Where you thought this is it? Or did you ever, have you always been so resilient that you never, you never had a, a setback big enough or a failure big enough that you thought, I think this might be it. I think I'm throwing in the towel. I really appreciate this question because before I talk about the specific instances, because I do believe that we connect more and we learn more from seeing things that other people have done. But I'm gonna start the conversation with something that has been a rather recent revelation for myself and also my husband and business partner is a few weeks ago I have a podcast, the Jasmine Star Show. And every, every, every once in a while I can convince my husband to join me on the podcast. I mean it's such a, it's every blue moon. And so I had said, I really do think that we should have a conversation with the podcast because I believe that the podcast will serve as a time capsule. And oftentimes on social, it's such a microcosm of what's really going on. And the podcast to me, just for me, my experience has been like a safer space. The people who are listening to the podcast, they're just a different breed of people. They're right or dies, they pay attention in a different way. It's a deeper relationship. So I feel like because they're deeper in the relationship, I can share more in a very candid way. My husband and I were talking about where we were with the business, the difficult decisions we have to make, the very, very, very hard days. And this idea that we have to be okay in uncertainty and in the process of the conversation, my husband who just, oh my god, this man has a bleeding heart. I mean he is just all things to all people. He's just like a big spoonful of nettella. And he had said, if anybody's having a hard time, well just shoot me an email. I'll send you a personal no and recorded this podcast. I was like, do you not know son how many letters you gonna be writing? He's like, don't about it. Anyway, so people are emailing him and I thought that there's, it was such a cool thing because it was such a personal insight into a myriad of business owners. And so I asked 'em, I'm like, can we sit in your inbox and can we just start reading these and I wanna start reading them and I wanna start doing like a cluster, like a bubble, a word bubble of things that people are often kind of experiencing now, even though everybody's experiences were different, there was this red thread that connected every single email. Now JD asked specifically, if you're having a hard time, send me an email and then I'll send you a note. So it's not business owners in general, it was business owners who are having a bit of a hard time and then business ones who are willing to like email a virtual stranger and let them know he's having a hard time. So that's the segment and everything from, I don't know if this is the business relationship I should get with this partner. I don't know if I should take funding. I don't know why this course that I wanted to launch didn't work. Well, I don't know when I'll be able to leave my nine to five. And the word that kept on coming up subconsciously like this undercurrent of all of it was uncertainty. I am uncertain. And it came as like such like a wave of knowing. And I thought to myself, my goodness here we all all uncertain of the next best step. And yet so few of us are actually talking about it because what we see on the outside are very certain people who are doing things in a certain way for a certain level of success. And so for us to ever admit that we are uncertain, which is why on a subsequent podcast and in a subsequent newsletter I was like, let me just make one thing. I am certainly uncertain a hundred percent of the time. I know I could probably come across as a certain way, but make no mistake that in the process of business, if you want to grow, you will always be uncertain. We never know the next best step. Our only objective is to take a step and assess was this the best step or not? And if it was not, then we take another step, another uncertain step, and then we assess. Now if somebody says, well this was the best step, this did amazing for me, great, well you could stay there in a place of stasis and not grow. And if you're not growing, you are dying. So you have to take another step. And then what do you do? Again, us assess if that was the right step or not. We are always certainly uncertain. So the minute that we just embrace, just embrace we were always going to be uncertain. It is the cost, it is the rent of being able to build a dream and a business to be uncertain. If you are not okay with uncertainty, you're not willing to pay the rent, then you will never buy the building. And that's ok. Join a team of a leader in a visionary who wants to buy the building, who's the building you wanna live in? Go there, be happy. That is so amazing to work alongside a team in a person like that. But if you are saying I wanna buy my own building, then baby girl, it's time to pay some rent. So having said that, every failure and there have been so many, like we could be here till next week, I'll give you detailed reports on all the massive mistakes I've made. Every single time I thought we overextended. So here's an example, it was around 2015. So my husband and I were on our way to breakfast and we're LA born, we're, you know, we're Angelinos like we bleed dodger blue. Okay, well this is where we were. This is how I went to school at UCLA law school. I did the whole line there. This is 2015. My husband and I are on our way to breakfast now we to move to Orange County because he was with the startup at the time and it just kinda facilitated, but we were just like, no, no, no, LA is where we're gonna buy. We're going to breakfast. We happened to see an open house signed. We had 20 minutes before our reservation. So we tore this tiny little like original build home and I was like, oh this is so cute. It's way over our budget. Well the house sat in the market for a little bit and so then I decided to write a letter to the owner and I said, I know this is absolutely crazy and I know that you're living in Texas right now cuz you had a job replacement. The house is that empty, this is what we've been pre-qualified for. I would love to start a family in this home. So she agrees and she takes the offer. So I mean we're talking about hundreds of thousands below asking. And so it was like a big blessing. We're like, oh my gosh. So we have this money to like rebuild a part of the house since it was so old. And so we invested in this. And then it's around that time that I decide that I'm going to formally retire from my photography career spanning like, I don't know, 12 or 13 years at this time. This is, this is multi seven figure revenue stream that I'm like, I've come, if I don't, there's this like term like burn the ships. If I don't burn the ship, I will be still tied to this. So we make this big sweeping decision and at that time I do a live event that is a massive upfront cost. Okay, so this is the tsunami that I truly, truly thought had done this over because I cut off a revenue stream, we got into a build project that it was our first time ever doing this. And then what they always say is it will cost double and take twice as long. I had no idea. And guess what? They're right. And so we had a budget and we just kept on seeing this budget over and over extend. So then all of a sudden it's not, you could say, no, no, I don't need flooring or a roof on my house. You have to finish it. And so then we pay all these upfront costs for a live event that I was planning to record. I was so strung out, I could not sleep. I said, I think I, I put a imperial, I made some big financial decisions and I took this unnecessary weight because my husband is my equal business partner. And we had assessed, and perhaps still we were just a little young and naive about the timing and budgets of everything. I thought I was never gonna come back from them. I will never forget sitting in front of a website called Cabbage, but K with K. And this is like I just saw literally I saw a commercial or I heard a commercial, it's like small business loans. I was like, I'm gonna go to cabbage. Your girl is so thirsty. I might go to cabbage and my husband's watching me and he's just like, we're just gonna buckle up. That's it. Do you believe in this project? Do you think that this everything will happen when it's supposed to? And I said yes. And then we just buckled up. I literally thought that that was the end of our business beyond any shadow of a doubt. And it wasn't. And that is just one of 1,977 massive epically, massive scary, scary perceived failures that really shaped me into being financially, fiscal and a very different person I am now. So it wasn't a failure, it was the best lesson. Just like everything else that I thought was a failure in my life. Big, massive, humiliating, embarrassing, let down. I just wanna like punch myself in the face a few times over. Lessons, lessons, lessons, lessons, lessons. Wow. You have the life experience and wisdom of somebody so more advanced in years than you are. I mean the fact that you have experienced all the things that you have at still such a young age with so much more to go the the amount of lives that you're gonna impact the rest of your life. I just can't even imagine. So I, I wanna know, I've got two questions. The fear, the uncertainty, the doubt, the insecurity. I listened to your podcast at the episode that you had yesterday or released yesterday, I don't know when you recorded it and you were talking about being at the beach and the crippling insecurity that can take over sometimes. And it's everything you were describing is everything I have felt before and everything that most women I know if we really got real that they have also experienced. So what is it not just body image, not just all of that, just the absolute paralysis that could take over because of insecurity, fear of failure, all of this. How do you overcome that paralysis and say, I'm not given in, I'm not stopping, I'm not throwing in the towel. How do you do it? What do you do? What do you feed yourself? What do you do to overcome it? You know, I feel like I wish I had a very clean cut answer and I really, really, really wish that I could sell a vitamin because girl, I probably may. I may, I'm well, well on my way to billions I will say, I will say it has come on the back of coming out on the other side of things that were crippling. Like that story I just shared, like when you could look back and say, if it didn't kill me, it made me stronger. And so now I've become wisen to seeing similar patterns, similar patterns of crippling fear, similar patterns of the stories I tell myself. And one thing that I have learned that is something I do every single day is I must choose to tell myself a story and then I must choose to believe that story because it takes equal amounts of energy for me to tell myself a story that I am not good enough and it's going to fail. And it takes just as much energy for me to say, I am trying my best and I will figure it out. Now, I'm not one of those like believe it, like I'm so amazing, it's always gonna work, right? I don't say that. I wouldn't believe it. So I tell myself something I can believe I am trying my best, I am doing the best with what I have and now I'll figure it out. I can believe that. So I could tell myself I'm not good enough, it's gonna fail, or I'm doing the best I can and I can figure it out. Now when I make the decision of what story I'm going to believe. And if you are ever going to pursue a business or get into deep personal development, you must choose to tell yourself the kinder story and then you must behave as if that is the case. You must behave as if you were trying your best. And if you are not, then it's a serious reckoning. If you're saying, I'm going to train for the marathon. If you're gonna say, I'm going to save money to get to my trip to Europe. If you're gonna say, I'm going to build my business, it's going to be like, I am going to do this. I believe I have the capacity to do this. But then your actions must map your aspirations. Because if you want to change for the marathon, but you're only running about 10 minutes a day and you're snacking late at night, that doesn't put you in a good mood to run the next morning, then you're not listening to your utmost potential. If you say you wanna save to go to Europe, but what you find yourself doing is like, I can never say no happy hour. It's like that's keeping you from Europe. So your instant desires getting satiated are keeping you from the higher calling. And if you want to start a business, then your actions must map your aspirations. If you say, I really want customers, then you must what? Go out and find customers. Well, how do you find customers? Well then you have to create content which becomes your credibility. And then people find you. You must be willing to do that every single day. You must be willing to train for the marathon, save your money, and put out content in all different scenarios. Your actions was map your aspirations. So you must tell yourself a better story, choose to believe the better story, and then have your actions map your aspirations. All three of those things are the very things that will get somebody from crippling fear to doing something that they themselves and everybody around them thought was seemingly impossible. Wow. So do you read, I know you wake up about four 30 every morning, that is no joke, girlfriend, I mean four 30, are you kidding me? I'm an early riser, but it's not in the fours, it's in the fives. I am blown away by that. So you get up at four 30 and you spend some time by yourself alone. I do the exact same thing is it is an absolute essential to my day. And so I love that you do that. What do you consume for your mental, spiritual, personal growth? Is it podcasts, is it books, is it all of the above? What is your, what is, what is your favorite thing to consume? So the thing that serves as like a grounding, you know, I, I don't know, like there are gonna be people of faith who listen to the podcast and then people who don't. For me, the thing that gets me grounded is I just spend a little bit of time every day in the word like, but that's just like a personal thing. And so then I write down just like five or 10 minutes, like what I'm thinking and feeling, getting out the, the ickiness, like the worries out, just put it on a piece of paper and then I can close it. But then I also say a few things that I'm thankful for because what happens is that this, I, I go through a 365 day devotional. It acts almost as like a time capsule of sorts. So the one that I'm currently in right now is all the way back from 2019. I am currently writing in 2022, and I could see where I was in 2019 and what can I see? I could see Providence, I could see benevolence, I could see faith in the time of turmoil. I could see trust, I could see that the worst times that I thought was like, oh, I'm done. I'm broken. This is the worst thing. And I come back and I'm like still here. So honestly wasn't as bad as I thought I was gonna be. So it kind of just like, it's like a testify. And then what I'll do is I will do a meditation for about 10 minutes, 50 minutes. Now this stuff is not like, I'm never gonna be like my self-care routine. Every morning is an hour and 30 minutes, although if you have that time, take the time, God bless you. I'm just not of that. I, so, you know, my alone grounded time is around 25 to 30 minutes every day. And that's super sacred, super sacred for me. And then I get to choose, am I gonna start my day with work? Am I gonna have to start my day with a workout? So I workout six days a week. It is top priority to me because it's like mind body is actually empowering me to do those things that I wanna do in the future. So those are the top two things that are prioritized all the time. But the workout, I start the day always like in the word of meditation and then the workout comes whenever I can squeeze it in. So sometimes very early in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon, it just depends on the schedule of the day. Wow. Yeah. You know, if we compared, and I have no doubt you would agree with this, if we went and interviewed a hundred or a thousand successful entrepreneurs who are driven men and women alike, I think those two things are always a top priority. My life changed when waking up early.

It was the 5: 37:28

00 AM club for me. I read it. Did you have you read it?

Robin Sharma 5: 37:31

00 AM Club. I read it and it's like a light bulb went off in my head. And from that day forward, I started waking up making that morning routine. And same exact thing, I spend time in the word I have like this same exact thing and a devotional and all that. And then working out. And it is like, it just sets you up for the day. It gets your mind right and your heart right and everything else. So now that you're at this place, what are you reading right now? What book? Let me go back. Do you read, do you have a chance to, to read books? Do you listen to books? I I listen to books. I'm, I'm like an avid, I am a paper I bar. I buy hardcover books like drives my husband crazy, like, do you know how much money? I'm like, baby, I donate them to the library. It's called Giving to Others. But I have to be honest, right now I am going through a, a business scaling program through Stanford University and an organization called the Latino Business Action Network, l a for short. And I have to say that it has been this incredible experience, but I wildly underestimated how much extra time. So already I go into this program and I feel like I'm spread thinner than like hot butter on some fresh sourdough bread. And then we go there and they're like, okay, it's gonna be additional 10 to 12 hours of academic reading studies classes. And I have read nothing but business books. Well, yeah, so that's where I'm at right now. But come December when I graduate through this program, not if, but when come December, I, I already have a stack, I have a cachet, I have a cachet of some good literary fiction. The sad or the better, like if I am not crying by the end of the book, it just wasn't good enough. My husband's like, why do you like these books? And I'm like, baby, I get to feel in my soul in a deep way. Like the trouble and the trauma, it's like Ernest Hemingway, like give me, give me East of Eden. And I am just like, I just spent 47 hours and this book was just, it shook me baby. It just shook me. So literally fiction is where I dwell. I know I should be reading other business books. I usually consume podcasts for a business, but when it comes to reading, it is just like, I am just a voracious reader. I am just a garbage pale of good long words that I have to like search for. The best part is my dad and I love reading, so kind of swap books, but I will buy books, give 'em to my dad. Because what he does is he underlines words. He's like an immigrant, not, not like an immigrant. My father is an immigrant. And so there's a lot of words that both he and I are unfamiliar, so he'll underline them. But the thing with the difference between my dad is that he'll look it up on his phone and then he transcribes in the back flap the definition of that word. So he's done all the heavy lifting. So I go to this book and I'm like, oh, okay, so I get to flip to the back. So my dad's created our own little like, like daughter of an immigrant glossary in the back of a book. I love it. That is so special. And what a special bond. That's actually how I, I mean I was an English major, I was like, give me all the reading, all the writing, all of it. And it came from my dad because my dad has always loved to read and I always saw him reading. But here's what I'm gonna say about Luna and your morning routine. I have two boys that are just slightly ahead of her. So five and seven years old every single morning they know where to find me. I am in the same exact spot with the same exact books and the same exact layout. And we've got a routine where they come out every single morning and they, there's a little spot on the sofa that they can still sit and fit right next to me. And I know one day, Jasmine, they're gonna be too big to fit right there. Lus gonna be too big, right? No. Oh heck no. Heck no. I was like, we go squeezing here for the rest of our life, we, that's what we're gonna do. It's like meet you and your baby, all of us all the time. Yes, yes. But I love it. They come and they get under the blanket with me on the sofa and it is so special because she's watching you, she's watching everything you're doing. They are watching me. And I love that you start your day that way and that she's seeing it. It is creating a life and memories for her. That is, that's incredible. So what is next for you? What is next? I heard a rumor that there you might be working on a book. Well that was, that was definitely a rumor. Yes. You're not, there's definitely a rumor, but you know, I, I I know, but on a shadow of a doubt, there is a book in me. Oh, with beyond a shadow of a doubt, it's not, it's not excavated yet. Yeah. You know, Britney Brown says that we should often talk about life and experiences from the place of a scar and not a wound. Oh. Because a wound can still be open and the scar is a place that you look back and say, this is the thing that it left on me. And I think in my business journey, it's still, when I say a wound, of course we associate that with harm or pain, but sometimes pain is a good thing and pain shapes us. And I think the art of building a business requires a lot of cutaway. A cutaway of ego, a cutaway of assumptions, a cutaway of things that you just didn't know before. I'm definitely in the place of cutting. I think that the year 2022 has just been a massive year of pruning. And I have to believe with all of my heart that the pruning is for a greater harvest. If I don't believe that it's easy to feel overwhelmed and overcome the things like, wait, wait, wait, I had a plan. I had a plan and it's not working as I had planned. And I think that talking about writing a book now would be a wild service to the reader because it's still a place of openness. I want to be able to write a book as a testament of being able to get up even when the odds were stacked against you. And to get up after a series of perceived failures and to get up and prove that as long as you don't quit, you could win. And I'm, I'm in the process of proving that. So the book will come. Yes, the book isn't being written. So what's next for you? You're finishing up this amazing, and you can do this. You've got eight weeks until December. You can do this, I believe in you. And, and so what's next in the Jasmine Star journey? What is next for you? You know, I think it's been a really great opportunity. My husband and I, you just talked to me. There was like, goodness, five years ago, five, five and a half years ago, we're driving up the coast from San Diego, California back to Orange County. Newport Beach is where we reside. And we had this conversation and he said, you know, what is it that you want to do? And I thought, well, you know, it just sounds really stupid, you know, it just sounds really dumb. And he's like, well, just say what it is you wanna do. And I'm like, well, I really want to connect with people's stories and I want to tell how their histories can actually prepare them to change their lives. I've always believed that money is a mechanism. Money isn't a solution, money is a mechanism. But if we could actually teach people how to get money in their business, the way that a money has changed our lives, our legacy, the fact that we come from parents who are immigrants with nothing, and then we're able to do something like we're living proof of what is possible. I want to teach other people those things and I wanna make videos and I wanna write and I just wanna create and I wanna show. And he is just like, okay, how are we gonna do this? And my honest answer with the sun falling along the Pacific Coast was, I have no idea. And now when I, years later, we flash forward almost five years later to what we're doing is the very thing. I didn't really have words around and I thought it was like the craziest thing. One thing I have noticed in my life is that I have like about a five year cycle. Now what I know is that social curator will always be my thing. It will always be where I dwell. But what would make me a stronger business owner and a stronger leader is to also challenge myself to do new and different things. And my husband and I were in the process of defining what can we add that brings challenges that keeps us on our toes, that keeps us innovating. And I don't know the answer and I hate admitting that cuz I just love talking about. So this is my three step plan, figuring out, like right now, girl, it's just a place of, of open handedness and a lot of hope. And then figuring out, while this sounds really crazy, but every time I've always looked back, I'm like, this sounds really crazy. Then you go to Google and then you figure it out, oh, I cannot wait to watch it unfold. Because what you have just over the years watching you evolve, and I think I probably found you probably about six years ago, and watching the evolution of Jasmine Star from way back then to where you are now is astronomical. I mean, it is unbelievable. And you're never starting over. You're starting from experience. So whatever it is that you, not that you're leaving what you're doing now, but what you decide to add on next, you're adding with such incredible experience. And so you're just gonna be able to knock it out even faster and impact more lives. And oh my gosh, I, I am blown away and absolutely humbled by who you are, what you have achieved, and who you have remained in the process. So many people lose it in the middle, you know, they lose it. They lose who they are, they lose why they started, they lose why they're doing it, and they get caught up in the stuff that doesn't matter. And so, man, I don't know if it's you and your twin sister, I don't know who it is, if it's jd, if it's the Lord, I don't know. But something is keeping you in a place of humility and service of others and it radiates off of you and is absolutely evident to every single person watching you from the outside looking in. And it has just truly been amazing to get to talk to you today. Truly. Well, thank you. Thank you for giving me this space. Thank you for allowing me to synthesize, you know, over a decade's work of figuring it out and then kind of serves as a reminder, this kind of sort of like therapy for me. I was like, like saying it out loud is being like, you don't know what's next quite yet, but everything that has been put in front of you, I found a way. So thank you for giving me this space. I'm gonna send you the therapy bill. Oh, thank you. You know, one thing I will leave you with, somebody gave me this advice one time and they said, God's gonna raise the curtain one inch at a time. If he raised the curtain the whole way all at once, you would do one of two things. You'd say, I've got this, God, I don't need you, I'm gonna go do my thing. Or you would say, Nope. And you'd run for the hills and you would be like, can't do it. Nope. I'm outta here. Right? So instead what he does is raises it one inch at a time so that you are forced to rely on him, trust him in the process, and kind of stay in a place of humility, you know? And so I just, I love it and it has been a blast getting to know you better. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And we'll talk again soon when you write that book, we're gonna That's right. Wait to have you back on. I love it. I love it. I love it. Thank you so much. All right, thank you. We'll talk soon. Have a great day. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to the Jasmine Star Show. Like always, I'm blessed to have conversations where people ask different questions, to empower me, to speak my truth and connect with more people who are listening. I have to tell you that every time I receive a message on social media from people who are sharing about the podcast or leaving a review, and let me just tell you, for the people who leave a review, screenshot their review and share it on social, I'm like, do y'all know how many steps that was? Do you know how legit you are? Making yourself right about no friends? I just have to say thank you. It is those reviews. It is those kind words. And it's when people share about this podcast, because I know that this podcast has the potential of impacting somebody who really needs to know the truth about running a business and empowering people to step into their fullness and power. Like always friends, it is an honor and a privilege to host the Jasmine Star Show. When you share about it, it means the world to me. I hope you have an amazing day and be blessed. We'll chat again soon.