Jasmine Star (00:00:16) - Welcome to the Jasmine Star show. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're wearing a hat, please hold it. Hold on to your socks. We are about to bring the fire because the woman who is so generously sitting at this table, curated and co-hosted by the ever amazing Lori Harter. If you are just watching as a new episode or tuning in on audio, Lori helped aggregate the most incredible, brilliant, amazing entrepreneurs and humans on the planet. Shailene Johnson is no exception. Charlene, welcome to the Jasmine Starr Show. Thank you.

Chalene Johnson (00:00:43) - Fun. I didn't know it was aggregated.

Lori Harder (00:00:46) - We aggregated this together. And this. I didn't know that your hair was going to be so on point.

Chalene Johnson (00:00:51) - I mean, it's it's called the wolf cut. I learned I did it myself after watching a TikTok.

Lori Harder (00:00:55) - Why? I was going to say I need to research, but I don't think you're going to give me the wolf cut.

Chalene Johnson (00:01:00) - I will. I love cutting hair. Okay, I'll.

Lori Harder (00:01:03) - Be careful what I say because I'll be ready for it soon.

Chalene Johnson (00:01:05) - And I always say you can always buy more.

Lori Harder (00:01:07) - This is true, this is true. I know, percent true. Okay, like I.

Jasmine Star (00:01:13) - Said, hold on to your hats. If you're wearing them, I want to start off with this. I was reading your story on your website and I wanted to read it, if that's okay. You said in fourth grade, my dad. I told my dad I wanted a pair of roller skates. He responded, fun. Let's sit down and figure out how much they cost and how you could find ways to earn money. The message was that when we wanted something, we should create a plan, follow through, and make it a reality. So number one, did you get the roller skates? I did.

Lori Harder (00:01:37) - Two.

Jasmine Star (00:01:38) - I really want I really want to tap there because that was a principle that is clearly manifested itself in your life. So let's go back to the roller skates. Like describe them. Let's go back to that version. Michelin.

Chalene Johnson (00:01:48) - Yeah I was really fortunate.

Chalene Johnson (00:01:50) - I always say I had parent privilege in that they didn't have money, but they had incredibly powerful, strong money mindsets, especially my dad. You know, he grew up in Detroit and everyone in his family worked in the factory, and he was the first entrepreneur. And so even though he was figuring out how to be an entrepreneur, he made a lot of mistakes, had a lot of bankruptcies. There was always this, we can make more. We can make more. Like if you want something, even as a kid, anything we wanted. I never heard things like money grows on trees or we can't afford that or or we're in bankruptcy. I would just hear, well, let's figure out a way. And that's kind of been my mantra. So that was the earliest I remember thinking how proud I was that I found a way to make the money to buy those skates, and that I found a way to pay my way through college. And it became to me, money is energy, you know? And so it's like, oh, I'll find a way to get more.

Lori Harder (00:02:49) - So we're both Midwest Michigan girls. Yeah. And, you know, even though that idea was there and that's such an incredible thing to have your parents like, share with you and instill that belief. I feel like especially for what you've done in your lifetime, what was a belief that you had to break that was really yeah, really deep growing up.

Chalene Johnson (00:03:09) - Love. This is super deep. Also very related. I had to break the belief that I am valuable, all because I make money for people and I can make money. Yeah, that was my value. So when my I was probably like in sixth grade. So this is just a few years later, my parents had a catastrophe in their business happen, and they had all of their assets set on fire, they believe, by a competitor, and they had no insurance, no business insurance at the time. And so I recall my dad, again, a great learning lesson. He's going to teach me about money. And he said, you sat me down in his office and he handed me a blue bank books with my.

Chalene Johnson (00:03:54) - Apparently I had a statement of how much money had my bank, and he said, I'm going to teach you today how your money can make you money, so we're going to be fine. Your mom and I are going to be okay, but we're going to borrow the money you have in your account, and when we pay you back, we're going to pay you back more. And this is called interest. So it was for him a financial lesson. But I'm in sixth grade. And it wasn't until I did therapy later that I the message I internalized was, you're in sixth grade and you're saving the family. I don't know how much money they borrowed. It could have been $50. I have no idea. Right? I still don't know, but I internalized this is your value. This makes you a hero. This makes you a savior. This is why you're important in this family. This is why you're important in the world. And it just kept snowballing. Like when I first. I started working with Beachbody.

Chalene Johnson (00:04:45) - I remember learning that they were in a really tough spot financially that they had. They had just laid off a huge group of people.

Jasmine Star (00:04:55) - Where is this? Sorry.

Lori Harder (00:04:56) - I think it was.

Chalene Johnson (00:04:57) - Probably 2000 when I was negotiating my contract with them, like 2004, 2003. Okay, probably 2004. And I remember getting that rush like, I can save them. Wow, I can do this again, you know, and eventually turned into first of all, you don't want anything to define yourself worth, in my opinion, other than I'm a child of God. Like that's what matters. And secondly, it becomes very addictive because if I'm not making you money, then I'm worthless. If I'm relaxing, I have no value. If I'm not doing something, if I'm not better, then I'm, you know, and my value goes down if I'm not making more. Oh, so that was, you know, I did I'd unravel a lot of that therapy. Okay.

Lori Harder (00:05:42) - So there's a lot there.

Jasmine Star (00:05:45) - I mean like yes and amen.

Jasmine Star (00:05:47) - You came in preaching. So we hear this version of you. And I will say that this is the first time that we're sitting down and having a long form conversation. And so a lot of what I know about you is you're hilarious. Oh, I like that. I mean, and you're okay. You're okay.

Chalene Johnson (00:06:05) - Brag to you for a second.

Jasmine Star (00:06:06) - Yeah.

Chalene Johnson (00:06:07) - I was voted.

Lori Harder (00:06:08) - Class clown in high school. You earned.

Jasmine Star (00:06:11) - Those votes. Yes. You did.

Lori Harder (00:06:14) - So good.

Jasmine Star (00:06:14) - Okay. Yeah. And so you see this in, like, you see things about how you are. Okay. Your manicure in Europe. I think that I was laughing so hard. But here's the thing. You're okay not being for everybody. You're okay not being for everybody. And so you see, it's very confident, self-assured, knows who she is, secure in a relationship, has really great kids or what we see online. And then what you come in and you just get right to it. It's this is me that is a version of me.

Jasmine Star (00:06:45) - This is a version of me. It is all of me. And so I hear this. And so I think you have this conversation in sixth grade, and then you are in 2004 negotiating this. I can do this. At what point do you start having the therapy and okay, I want to go to the therapy. And then I actually want to go to an origin story because you're like, when I go to vote with Beachbody for the 1% of people who are like, wait, where are we at? Where are we falling into? And this is the way I love I love independent films. Okay? Like when you start at the end, you start the beginning. You said at the end, at the beginning and then like, no, I need a piece. It all together started. So what we're basically creating is a masterpiece.

Lori Harder (00:07:16) - So at Sundance.

Jasmine Star (00:07:17) - Yeah. There you go, there you go. So get us to the therapy. Yeah. When does this happen?

Chalene Johnson (00:07:22) - That happened when I had an implosion in my marriage.

Chalene Johnson (00:07:27) - I was certain my husband was having an affair. He was having these very strange behaviors. Super secretive. Weird with his phone, distant, short, all the things. I knew something was going on. And so, as any good detective does, I started collecting receipts, like, ordered the phone records. And I just saw these same numbers showing up over and over and over again. I'm like, is this is this like a call line for, like, porn or something like, what is this? And I called the first one and it was a gambling hotline. And I just kept doing research. Doing research, you know, calmly. Hello, honey. You know, not say anything. And eventually discovered that we were a half $1 million in debt and it was a result of a gambling addiction. So when I confronted him, the weight of the world lifted from his shoulders because the secret was out. You think I'm alive? And finally somebody could help somebody, like, finally I knew and the secret was over.

Chalene Johnson (00:08:31) - But, you know, it was a relief for him. And that was very painful for me. Like, his relief became my pain, you know, because then I had to go. I had to backtrack like ten years and say, like, so where were you when you said this and when we couldn't afford that? Was it this? And when you said the business wasn't doing well, what was really going on? So when he went to therapy, we discovered we both had addictions. Mine was work and his addiction fed into my addiction. And as a society we make gambling, porn, drugs like these addictions are. We all agree that they're horrible, but we boast about having a work addiction, right? But work addictions have the same destructive qualities to a family, to children, to our relationships, to our health. And so I, you know, in order for us to grow from that implosion, we both had to figure out our roles, how we got there and how really even my addiction kind of led him to his, you know, and how mine led both of our addictions, fed into each other.

Jasmine Star (00:09:39) - What year was this?

Chalene Johnson (00:09:41) - Oh, gosh. To probably 2005. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

Jasmine Star (00:09:46) - Like, I feel like, oh, we all right. So we're at the, like a juncture in this story. But let's flash forward to your first foray in business. When do you realize that you're like, I'm different. I got the Issaquah. I got the X, I can do something big here. When is that?

Chalene Johnson (00:10:06) - High school. Oh, yeah. High school. Oh, yeah. When you ever.

Jasmine Star (00:10:09) - Voted class clown, you're like.

Lori Harder (00:10:11) - Ringling Brothers. Get this girl at contract, okay?

Chalene Johnson (00:10:14) - No. You know, I knew I wanted to go to college, and I. And my dad had the same conversation, like, so let's come up with an idea. And so before I could drive, we took what money I had in my bank account when bought a vehicle from the state of Michigan. They used to have state auctions. They would sell off state owned vehicles that were just trashed.

Chalene Johnson (00:10:32) - I bought for, I don't know, pennies or hundreds of dollars. Anyways, I bought an orange El Camino that was formerly owned by the state of Michigan and then I paid $99 and had it painted black with the real Scheib, which is a paint company, and I fixed it up cosmetically. I don't even know how to drive, and I negotiated with adults to sell this vehicle and made several hundred dollars and just kept repeating that process, flipping cars.

Lori Harder (00:10:56) - Wow. What? Well, you know, my.

Jasmine Star (00:10:59) - God, this is the truest Michigan story I ever heard.

Chalene Johnson (00:11:04) - It's like a really good at knowing car value, knowing what was hot, knowing what? What month to sell cars in detail.

Jasmine Star (00:11:11) - You go to the first one with your dad, do you? How many do you go to with your dad, if any at all?

Chalene Johnson (00:11:16) - I never went to another auction after that. Then I bought them all from private owners I kept up, I was only one at a time, so it was like whatever money I made from that one, then I would buy another vehicle.

Chalene Johnson (00:11:26) - And I was really careful and and did a lot of research to figure out, like, okay, what's the hot car? What's a great price? Where can I find it in the state? How can I negotiate for it? And oh, then I just learned all of these good about vehicles.

Jasmine Star (00:11:38) - So you're going and negotiating with a with the owner. Yeah. And you're 18.

Chalene Johnson (00:11:43) - Oh, no. This is way before them. I'm 15. 16. 17. Yeah.

Lori Harder (00:11:46) - Okay. What would they think when you would come to them. Were they just like, who are you?

Chalene Johnson (00:11:49) - What has happened? But I made my kids do that too. Yeah. My kids had to buy their own cars with their own money, even though, you know, we could have done that and they had to negotiate. I made them do that because I knew how valuable that was, you know?

Jasmine Star (00:12:01) - Okay. So then how long are you flipping cars?

Chalene Johnson (00:12:03) - I'm flipping cars through my freshman, sophomore year of college.

Chalene Johnson (00:12:07) - I'm now doing. That's how I paid for my tuition and and 50 other businesses too. But that was a big one. And now I'm buying more expensive cars. Right. And I'm driving, driving to Detroit in the snow with a purse full of cash to buy a vehicle in a sketchy neighborhood. And I walked into to buy a vehicle from someone who I thought was a woman. I walked into an apartment. There were like six guys who most of them weren't speaking English, and they're all in this scary room and I'm like in a miniskirt with like, a purse and, you know, and I looked at the title and I could tell from the title that from the Vin number that it was a salvaged vehicle. And so they had lied to me and I said, no, I'm not interested. Thanks. You know, but I was the heart racing. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to this is how I die. Yeah. And they're all yelling and their language and and telling me, no, no, no, no, you're buying this car.

Chalene Johnson (00:13:04) - And I like how I got out of there alive. I don't know. But at that moment, I realized this is dangerous. Okay? This is time consuming. There must be a better way. So I started calling other people in the newspaper who were selling their vehicles. Private owner, and I organized them to all come to one location on a Saturday. And I said, I'll handle the advertising and I'll get I will get every person who's in the market to buy a vehicle from a private owner, which people do in Michigan. They don't California, but I'll get them all in one location. And that was the inspo for my first business, which was called the All Michigan Auto Swap Meet.

Lori Harder (00:13:40) - This is this is giving me life. I am like I am.

Jasmine Star (00:13:43) - Filled with life. How many cars go to your first inaugural event?

Chalene Johnson (00:13:47) - Because listen, I understood this is newsworthy. This is I'm a like this blonde little girl, you know, who's at Michigan State, who's dating a football player.

Chalene Johnson (00:13:58) - I'm having the the players worked a lot for me. And I come up with this, like, brilliant idea. So I sent letters to the newspaper to the. I sent letters to the news station.

Jasmine Star (00:14:07) - Okay. Detail. Where does this come from? Yeah. Where is it? Like, this.

Lori Harder (00:14:12) - Is like.

Jasmine Star (00:14:13) - You're hardwired for it. Do you see a pattern in other people? Do you see other people doing it and you apply it to this industry? Is this just like I'm struck by lightning and I get it. I'm a savant.

Chalene Johnson (00:14:21) - No, I think it's just, you see problems, you know? And that was the thing that I learned from my dad was like, see problems, see patterns. So my dad is extreme ADHD. He was diagnosed at age 70. Okay. And and so I grew up with someone who had ADHD, super creative, saw patterns and problems and would say like, oh, well, we could do this. So I was always seeing those things.

Chalene Johnson (00:14:40) - And so I was just like, this is such a struggle to sell a vehicle as a private owner. There's got to be another solution. I always say I was CarMax before CarMax.

Jasmine Star (00:14:51) - Okay. You also have the Guinness World Record for most fitness classes taught to okay. So basically you're just out here being like strange all over.

Lori Harder (00:14:57) - It's not the car.

Jasmine Star (00:14:58) - It's not the Carfax. It's you know, it's Charlene. Okay. So question what was the business structure of it. So they bring the cars there. Were you taking a commission off the sale? Like I'm out like I'm here in the weeds? I know, but I'm like fascinated. No.

Chalene Johnson (00:15:10) - So my first time, I just charged them an admission to come in nice. Yes. I think it was like, you know, 20 bucks.

Jasmine Star (00:15:17) - So seller admission. Yeah.

Chalene Johnson (00:15:18) - Just to come in, the sellers had to pay me. The buyers did not. And then after that I had a percentage. And it was a business that worked on the weekends.

Chalene Johnson (00:15:29) - But in Michigan every other weekend it rains. So yeah, it was it was challenging, you know, but it was it gave me enough confidence and enough money to get through college and be able to start my first business. But I was always doing a lot of other things. So I was teaching fitness classes because I enjoyed it while I was at Michigan State. And I was doing this and I was working as a paralegal. You were going to go to law school, right? I went to.

Jasmine Star (00:15:55) - Law school, I dropped out, yeah.

Chalene Johnson (00:15:56) - So many of us.

Lori Harder (00:15:57) - I know.

Jasmine Star (00:15:58) - I know the smart ones. We escaped.

Lori Harder (00:16:00) - Right.

Chalene Johnson (00:16:00) - So I was working as a paralegal and and also I was a student, and I was also doing a little bit of network. I think it was network marketing. I didn't know it was network marketing at the time. I was selling knives door to door.

Jasmine Star (00:16:12) - Oh, okay. Yeah.

Chalene Johnson (00:16:13) - Okay. What were they call?

Lori Harder (00:16:15) - Was that from combat experience?

Chalene Johnson (00:16:16) - Yeah, exactly.

Chalene Johnson (00:16:17) - Cutco.

Lori Harder (00:16:18) - If I'm going to go door to door, I'm going to knives and knives from.

Chalene Johnson (00:16:20) - Now, not cash. Yeah. So I was doing all those things. And then once I graduated from Michigan State, I married the quarterback and we moved to California. Why? Why what?

Jasmine Star (00:16:31) - Why California?

Chalene Johnson (00:16:31) - Why Michigan?

Jasmine Star (00:16:32) - Okay. Well, I mean, well, you're born there, like genetic predisposition, but like, you're you just say like California. Yeah.

Chalene Johnson (00:16:38) - Yes.

Lori Harder (00:16:39) - Hello. I'm born and.

Jasmine Star (00:16:40) - Raised in California. I don't get it. Don't get it, I don't get.

Lori Harder (00:16:43) - Just watch it on TV and be like, what?

Chalene Johnson (00:16:45) - Everyone's famous and beautiful.

Lori Harder (00:16:46) - I would watch Baywatch and be like, oh, are these people just everything?

Chalene Johnson (00:16:50) - Everything? Everything? Everything. So what.

Jasmine Star (00:16:51) - Part of California do.

Chalene Johnson (00:16:52) - Is we landed in Orange County. Okay. Yeah, that's where he grew up. Yeah. And I continued doing all the things. So I started going to I started taking the Lsat over and over and over again because my score was so low.

Chalene Johnson (00:17:06) - I kept popping. I was going to get better, kept going down and like, maybe I shouldn't do this and I was still working as a paralegal and I was doing all my different businesses. So I'm flipping cars, working as.

Jasmine Star (00:17:17) - A paralegal in California. Oh yeah. Oh, wow.

Chalene Johnson (00:17:20) - Not with a lot. Okay. At that point I'm just like, buying and selling. Okay. So I'm working as a paralegal, flipping cars. I am working as a personal trainer, and I'm also teaching fitness classes. Okay. And I'm coming up with other ways to make money. Like anything I can do to make money. I started putting together fliers to teach other women how to start, come up with a creative idea and start a business. And I was selling trying to sell seminar attendance, but like six people would show up. Okay. And so I'm doing like 19 different things. I'm new, okay, married. I now have a baby and a mentor basically just said to me, you're just working and working and nothing's working and it's not going to work until you pick one thing you need to pick one thing.

Chalene Johnson (00:18:07) - I was like, oh, that's scary. Yeah.

Jasmine Star (00:18:10) - And so.

Lori Harder (00:18:11) - So.

Chalene Johnson (00:18:12) - The thing and the additional advice I received was to pick the thing where there's the right opportunity, like pick the one that you're it doesn't have to be the thing that you are like, oh, I was born to do this. But pick the one where you see there's a really a good opportunity, the same way I did with the cars. And in that moment I'm like, it's fitness for me. For me, it's fitness because everyone was coming to me. So many people were saying to me, like, this workout that you're doing in the way you're mixing the music, like, can I buy that from you? It takes me so long to create these classes. And I thought about, wait.

Jasmine Star (00:18:44) - Hold on, hold on. You're mixing your own music.

Chalene Johnson (00:18:47) - Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm mixing my music. Okay. I'm creating the workouts to match the music. Okay.

Jasmine Star (00:18:52) - And what is this.

Chalene Johnson (00:18:54) - A little 1995 67K, you know, so I'm okay all these years.

Chalene Johnson (00:19:01) - Right. Okay. But it's like around 90 probably seven, 98 that I get that advice to just focus on one thing. So I decided. To focus just on fitness based on seeing my mother teach Jazzercise, which for those people aren't familiar, was this workout in the 80s? Her name was, I think, Judi Sheppard Missett or something like that. And she, my mom would get 45 records, and then she would watch a VHS tape of the routine that went to that music. And so I'm like, that's what I'm doing. This is a business. I'm going to basically franchises. I'm going to get other instructors, and I'm going to get them hooked on. I'm going to create the music and the choreography. So you can just plug in your personality. Your students will fall in love with you. They never need to know who I am. Let's just let this will let you shine. And so I created this, that that format kind of based on the Jazzercise model.

Lori Harder (00:19:56) - How did you understand like that hero's journey.

Lori Harder (00:19:58) - Like the. Yes. The hero.

Chalene Johnson (00:20:01) - I didn't I just you just.

Lori Harder (00:20:03) - Thought it was a great idea and you were like, this would be a great business. The problem, I.

Chalene Johnson (00:20:06) - Wish I had this, and that's the through line of everything that I've done, is like, I wish there was a yeah, I wish there was someone who. And then I just go, oh, if I wish, then I should probably try to figure out how to be that.

Lori Harder (00:20:18) - Yeah. From the beginning, though, you didn't necessarily want the credit for that. You were like, no, you're going to be the star.

Chalene Johnson (00:20:23) - Absolutely. And that had a lot to do with my imposter syndrome when it came to fitness, because I was always like, I'm your by accident. Yeah. My degree is justice, morality and constitutional democracy. Don't ask me about the the insertion location of a hamstring. You know, like I'm just here to let people have fun. And I know music, like, I really, really knew music.

Chalene Johnson (00:20:43) - I, you know.

Lori Harder (00:20:44) - And but her stuff.

Chalene Johnson (00:20:47) - And, you know, music is everything, right? So for me, it was I didn't care so much about the biomechanics. I was just like, I know how to make people have a frickin experience with music, as you know, because used to take those classes I did.

Jasmine Star (00:20:58) - I did 24 Hour Fitness. Maybe it was all about the music and then the ringing of the bell.

Chalene Johnson (00:21:04) - The sound of.

Jasmine Star (00:21:05) - The sound effects.

Chalene Johnson (00:21:06) - I mean, you know, where I got the idea for the sound effects is I used to watch ESPN cheer competitions. You just.

Lori Harder (00:21:12) - Tell you.

Jasmine Star (00:21:13) - It just spoke to my spoke.

Chalene Johnson (00:21:15) - When you do an air jack sound effect.

Jasmine Star (00:21:17) - Yes. Oh, there we go. Yeah. Every time you play. Yes. I mean, the sound effect made it stronger. Every time you hit you're like, oh my. Try it. There it is. My triceps coming. Okay, so I'm picturing this as a movie. And so we start off 2004 five.

Jasmine Star (00:21:33) - And then we flashed back yes okay.

Chalene Johnson (00:21:35) - Go ahead.

Jasmine Star (00:21:36) - Remember we're starting we're starting in the middle. Starting the middle like we're looking at the end. Love it. Go to the middle. Then we go to the inception point 16 years old, 18 years old. You figure out you're an entrepreneur. Then you come out to California at 1985, 96, 87. These are all the rolling credits of the years that are happening. And then you realize that you have a business by empowering others to be the heroes of their own journey, and you're monetizing on the front end. But let's go back to actually, they're buying a CD from you. Yeah, right. And so what is the business there? Where do you start? I mean, how does one just make hey, you 15 people buy this CD and then the pricing of it, like, I want somebody who's listening to this to say, I see a problem there. Shailene burning CDs, right? What is that? Yeah.

Chalene Johnson (00:22:17) - So what that looked like is me mixing the music, making something really unique that no one else could have.

Chalene Johnson (00:22:24) - Like, it would cost you so much money to have a DJ mix, the way that I would mix and add in the sound you were mixing. Yes, I learned how to do that all on computer. Okay, so I learned I learned ProTools. I don't even know what it is today, but I learned how to do all of that and I could. My musicality, yes, helps me to figure out, like, take that part out. That's a low. Here's the energy. And I can picture what the music will tell people what to do. It's like paint by numbers. And so I mixed all the music. But then when they purchased from me, they needed the music and they need the choreography. And I really didn't come up with this myself. It was really looking at the Jazzercise.

Jasmine Star (00:23:00) - Model, okay.

Chalene Johnson (00:23:01) - And making it my own. Like using.

Jasmine Star (00:23:03) - Her. You're doing this on your own. You're in Pro Tools. Yes. You're mixing the music and then. And then I.

Chalene Johnson (00:23:09) - Bought a GI and this is my husband and I, we've got, you know, a little baby. And we would take terms back that this cassettes.

Jasmine Star (00:23:16) - Okay.

Chalene Johnson (00:23:16) - It's not even CDs.

Jasmine Star (00:23:17) - Okay.

Chalene Johnson (00:23:18) - So we bought this giant machine. We took all the money that we had invested in this giant machine where you would actually put the cassette tapes and record one from the other. Okay. And in the middle of the night, we would set the alarm so that every 60 minutes I would wake up every 60 minutes and go in that bedroom, okay, flip all the cassettes over and make hundreds of cassettes. And then for the VHS, as we found a company that would just duplicate the VHS for us, we'd pack up the boxes ourself in that.

Jasmine Star (00:23:44) - You're going to a studio and you're recording the choreography.

Chalene Johnson (00:23:48) - I would do it at local gyms, and I would just ask if I could use their gym in the off hours to work on choreography. Most of them didn't even know I was recording videos.

Jasmine Star (00:23:57) - Okay, I.

Chalene Johnson (00:23:57) - Never, I never.

Jasmine Star (00:23:58) - Paid. How were you recording the videos?

Chalene Johnson (00:24:00) - I hired someone's husband who owned a camera.

Lori Harder (00:24:03) - Okay, they did it. Sit on the the shoulder or a stand?

Chalene Johnson (00:24:07) - It was on a stand at first. There's. And I have, like, the original footage. Oh, my God, I'm a meme. I'm like, literally a meme. Blackmail me? It's all horrible. Everything.

Jasmine Star (00:24:18) - Your friend's husband is with his VHS on a tripod, and you're in a a gym. Gym. You're in a gym. They don't really know what you're doing, but they're like, sure, sure. And so you are burning. You're not even burning. You're duplicating your cassettes, dubbing.

Lori Harder (00:24:33) - Debbie.

Jasmine Star (00:24:33) - Debbie, Debbie. Okay.

Chalene Johnson (00:24:34) - Yeah. Dubbing the cassettes were having the VHS replicated. Where is.

Jasmine Star (00:24:39) - Your market? How is this starting? People are like she had that.

Chalene Johnson (00:24:41) - So there's there isn't even social media.

Jasmine Star (00:24:43) - That's right. That's what I'm.

Chalene Johnson (00:24:44) - Saying. It's word of mouth.

Jasmine Star (00:24:45) - So I'm an instructor and I'm like, got this hot CD or email cassette, okay. There was emails, emails.

Chalene Johnson (00:24:52) - Call me back to me now. Yeah. So there were emails and I would get on these message boards of fitness instructors and people would, you know, talk about this workout that they did. Also, timing wise, it was right on the cusp of Tebow. So what worked beautifully is everyone wanted to teach kickboxing, and there was no way to teach it or learn at the proper way. So everyone was looking for that. So it was so easy. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. I mean, my certifications without doing any social media marketing, which sounds so crazy to me now. Just word of mouth. I would have like 300 people who are instructors and they're.

Jasmine Star (00:25:30) - Meeting you and they're saying, hey, I heard you have this thing with music. And then when do you come up with your offer? Like, how do you price it? Or are you pretty quickly.

Chalene Johnson (00:25:39) - Because I was a certified fitness instructor, so I knew, okay, I can tell people, you can't buy this unless you're certified with me. So they would have to go through the certification process, which is like under dollars. And then you got on a continuity program. So there was, you know, you you had to get a new round every I think we did every other month. What was your.

Jasmine Star (00:25:57) - Retention? I mean, I'm asking really I'm asking these crazy I'm fascinated. I had no idea this is the backstory. Well, you're going to ask.

Chalene Johnson (00:26:04) - Me what my retention was. The woman who doesn't know she's a half $1 million in Dow. You think I care about numbers?

Lori Harder (00:26:10) - She's just like, I'm like.

Chalene Johnson (00:26:13) - Let me just make it.

Lori Harder (00:26:14) - That's why I that's like, one thing I love about you, though, because I struggle with some things like that. Like, no, no, she's done it. You can do this. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Jasmine Star (00:26:22) - So we're on this.

Jasmine Star (00:26:24) - It was very odd. Certification. Yeah. We're on a continuity program. We're guessing retention is pretty high, because if people's classes are filling, then it makes them the hero. Their own journey.

Chalene Johnson (00:26:32) - The gyms and the the health clubs freaking loved me because new members were coming in saying, do you have this thing I'm watching on TV called Tai Bo specific? Okay. And so then I could call the gyms and say, like, hey, I'm going to come and do a training at your gym. You get all the instructors there in the area, all of them. I'm going to do this for for you, for free. And at the time, Body Pump was licensing their programs. And I would say, I'm not going to charge you the gym, anything. I'm going to charge the instructors. So I would charge the instructors. The gyms loved me though. Like can you can you come back? And so it was wait a minute.

Jasmine Star (00:27:05) - So when I was doing Tcby, it wasn't licensed to 24 hour.

Jasmine Star (00:27:08) - It was correct.

Lori Harder (00:27:09) - Really.

Chalene Johnson (00:27:10) - That's right. Yeah.

Jasmine Star (00:27:12) - And did you also incorporate Pio, were.

Chalene Johnson (00:27:14) - You and hip hop hustle and hip.

Jasmine Star (00:27:16) - Hop and and and that was all instructor based. Yeah.

Lori Harder (00:27:19) - Yeah. No.

Chalene Johnson (00:27:20) - Yeah. All instructor base.

Jasmine Star (00:27:21) - Yeah. Now in hindsight would you have done it different.

Chalene Johnson (00:27:25) - I don't know I probably not. You know, I'm all about like what is the least. What is the easiest way, the least resistance, the least amount of pancake. So okay I don't I don't know if I would have done it differently. You know, I look at other companies who did and how they struggled and how they had. I also don't like to play games. Like if this doesn't work for you, then walk, you know, and I just I feel that way about almost all things. So it's like I don't need to sign a contract at most. If this works for you, great. If it doesn't, then we should both go our separate ways. And that's how it was with the gyms and and even for the instructors, they they were paying for the continuity.

Chalene Johnson (00:28:01) - I didn't have to worry about pleasing the gyms. The proof is in the pudding. If people were showing up, that's so good. And that's what they want.

Jasmine Star (00:28:07) - That's so swag. That's so swag. Okay, so then what year is this when you are doing the certifications I'm going to gyms I we're.

Chalene Johnson (00:28:14) - From we're this is like 1997 9899 around. And then I created a fitness apparel line so that there was a look when you, you oh.

Jasmine Star (00:28:24) - There was a tribe. No, there was a look. Look.

Lori Harder (00:28:26) - No. This look.

Jasmine Star (00:28:27) - Pretty. You know, I don't even know if you guys remember, like, the Zumba had a look, but this predates it. Oh, this is the stories. Okay.

Chalene Johnson (00:28:35) - Yeah, we met with them and help them, like, come up with we. We were first at creating that culture where you wanted to belong. One of the outfit. If you were going to the classes the trucker hats like signature. It was so, oh my God, like Paris Hilton.

Chalene Johnson (00:28:48) - But there were belts. So you would wear belts and these cargo pants.

Lori Harder (00:28:53) - What kind of belts out? Oh, okay. See you. Because.

Jasmine Star (00:28:56) - Was so swag. It was. It was a look like you walked in and you're like, hey, hey guys. Bench pressing. Yes. Look at it.

Lori Harder (00:29:04) - I'm about to work out. And yeah.

Chalene Johnson (00:29:06) - Like the little skirts that now Lululemon like, you know 20 years. Yeah. So I'll give you some B-roll because it's some pretty funny stuff. Like I'm like, oh my God, this is so embarrassing. Like it loved. But it was.

Jasmine Star (00:29:16) - Like a self identification. If you go back to like very basic marketing principles, it was self identification of a tribe. I am belong. And what happens specifically for women when you go into like a gym, you're kind of like, where do I fit in? And all of a sudden you look at something and you say, I could belong to that, I could buy that, and I could belong to that.

Jasmine Star (00:29:34) - And it was just, it just it just fed into it. It was it worked well, really well into each other. So all of this is happening during this time. Yeah. And then you sign a contract where at 99 you sign the contract in 2004. Correct. What is happening in that five year period?

Chalene Johnson (00:29:47) - The business is blowing up. You know, we're we're we've got like 60 people around the country. It's almost like their own little franchise, like they're selling. They're doing their certifications in their state. So we called them area promotion directors. Got it. And so in each state we had 1 or 2 fitness professionals who would host certifications. So I didn't have to fly anywhere. I'd stop doing the certification. So we had a team of people who did the certifications and, you know, they were sold. They sold the merchandise, they sold the continuity program, they sold the clothing, they sold the idea. They sold the they sold the community, you know. And so every everyone you wanted to belong to this community and that just exploded.

Chalene Johnson (00:30:28) - Then we, you know, went international. Then we started getting phone calls from all the infomercial companies because fitness infomercials really popular. Yeah. You know, so I got an agent and he basically took me to all those meetings and let me I got to pick, you know, like who we wanted to go with based on the offer. And all the offers were different and the field was different. And we decided to go with Beachbody for a commercial. So what I did is I sold directly to fitness instructors, and this was to take my workouts and make them a consumer workout with me in the videos. Got it. So until this point, no one really knows me. You know your turbo kick instructor, but you don't know me, right?

Jasmine Star (00:31:12) - Although I kind of knew you because she was like big time fan, big time fan. So I knew your name.

Chalene Johnson (00:31:17) - Because we're local.

Jasmine Star (00:31:17) - Like, maybe.

Chalene Johnson (00:31:18) - Like in other parts of the country, other parts of the world. People don't know them, you know?

Jasmine Star (00:31:22) - Yes, yes, yes.

Chalene Johnson (00:31:22) - Okay. Like Zumba, most people don't know who created Zumba. True. And so now they want me to be the face of it. And they want to make consumer videos. But we negotiated where we could continue to own our own business and continue to market to instructors. Really cool. So we ran these two parallel businesses, and I negotiated even the names to be similar so that the names would never change. So my the business I owned was called Turbo Kick and the consumer workout was called Turbo Jam and Turbo Fire. Yeah.

Lori Harder (00:31:54) - Oh, were you did you have any mentors at this time? Did you ever get nervous when you were negotiating, or is that like a yeah. Tell me. Yeah.

Chalene Johnson (00:32:03) - One piece of advice I give everyone is pay for the most badass attorney you can afford. The one that you're like, this is not even fair here. We have to pay them. Don't call them. Yeah, be 50 minutes.

Lori Harder (00:32:14) - You know.

Chalene Johnson (00:32:15) - Like. And that's what we did. We just hired, like, the best agent and the best attorney that we could find and carved out an incredible deal that later came back to haunt me because my deal was the highest they'd ever created.

Chalene Johnson (00:32:30) - And then eventually, they start realizing everybody wants to be a famous fitness instructor. And they what they negotiated with me was because I brought them the programs. Right. But eventually, fitness company is not just Beachbody realized. We can create workouts. You have somebody create the workout, and then we can hire someone who's good on camera and fit right. And everybody and their brother will do that for like, peanut. Exactly. And so free. Right. And so then it just it was more difficult to get. Partnerships and to get my programs on TV. So at that point, they were just an infomercial company. There was no network marketing.

Lori Harder (00:33:09) - Yeah.

Jasmine Star (00:33:09) - So then what year is this happening? When you feel like, okay, thousand and five.

Chalene Johnson (00:33:13) - It was the number one fitness infomercial. I remember going to the mailbox and getting my my first commission check, and I opened it, and my husband was so ecstatic and I felt like I was going to vomit. And I felt sick.

Lori Harder (00:33:28) - Because it was so much.

Chalene Johnson (00:33:30) - Because it was so much awe and because of the in my mind, this is already the addiction. All I can do from here is be less valuable. There's no way I'll ever make more money than this.

Lori Harder (00:33:41) - Wow.

Chalene Johnson (00:33:42) - So this is. This is the height. And now I'm going down, or I'm going to have to kill myself.

Jasmine Star (00:33:47) - To do this again.

Lori Harder (00:33:48) - You already asked it. Were you.

Chalene Johnson (00:33:50) - Already? Because I'm running a full time business. Yeah, and now I'm the face of this infomercial company that had been failing. And I'm now I'm also have all these these consumer demands, and I have to make consumer workouts. And I'm still doing the mixing the music and making the workouts for our own company and designing the clothes and overseeing, you know, 70 plus staff members.

Lori Harder (00:34:12) - So what's happening? Is this where the value thing starts coming in and you're like, I'm not. What was the story you were telling yourself at that point?

Chalene Johnson (00:34:18) - Oh, all all those things like, don't stop, can't breathe, don't, don't watch a movie.

Chalene Johnson (00:34:22) - Like if you sit down and rest for a second, you are worthless. Like, this is all going away. And you know, it was challenging those first couple of years because even though I'd done the therapy, it's still there, right? And I was already in this place where we've, I say, I built this golden prison and my husband and I, because we'd done so much therapy and were really communicating well with each other. We just made a decision that this has to go like we have to sell, we have to sell our company. And that took five years to do. We decided from that.

Lori Harder (00:34:58) - Moment, yeah. What year?

Jasmine Star (00:34:59) - What year do you make the decision? This is in our best interest to sell.

Chalene Johnson (00:35:02) - I want to say 2005 or 6. I'm not.

Jasmine Star (00:35:04) - Sure. Okay.

Chalene Johnson (00:35:05) - And but we knew and it was very difficult to undo what I had done. I didn't build the business to sell it. Today I build a business very differently so that if I ever want to exit, I can exit, you know? And then I was I was all of the most important pieces, right? I was the designer, I was.

Chalene Johnson (00:35:25) - So what we had to do is I had to replace myself in each one of those, including on video. Because the instructors came to trust me and know me and like me, even though their students might not know me. Right. I had I had to trust that there were other people who couldn't do all the things that I thought only I could do. And so we had to build that. And then we had to build up our revenue and position ourself in such a way that we could sell and sell our, you know, our IP, my ideas and step out of that role and stay in fitness and the consumer role for a little while longer.

Jasmine Star (00:36:05) - So when you sell, how much of your this time like identity is, is in that like when you ink that like, what does that feel?

Chalene Johnson (00:36:13) - You know that question? How do you know to ask that question?

Jasmine Star (00:36:17) - Um, I think one of the things that draws me so much to you is the the worth, the addiction. Yeah.

Jasmine Star (00:36:24) - I have to grind to get this again. And so I hear it and I'm like, I see that in myself. I see this. And so I ask it because I'm like, well, what can I what can I learn?

Chalene Johnson (00:36:32) - This is a horrible, horrible, horrible analogy. But it felt like. Giving a child away to someone else who because you know you can't. Give that child what it needs. And so. But, but you've made this amazing thing. And you know, it's so valuable and so special, and it's a part of you. Yeah, but you know that you taken as far as you can. And so it was incredibly hard. And so I went to therapy again. And the therapist said, what you're experiencing is grief. And you really need to grieve this. You need to bury it. You need to let go of it, and you need to just the same way you would anything. And so I did a grieved it. And it was that's why for many years it was really weird and kind of uncomfortable when people would still love this workout that I created.

Chalene Johnson (00:37:22) - And they and I was like, and they're still doing this thing that in my mind, I had to bury.

Lori Harder (00:37:27) - Yeah, you were almost like beyond it, past it. And it's like reviving something that you've already. Yeah. Oh, it's so interesting. Were you ever worried about like that that was the peak or that you wouldn't get another idea?

Chalene Johnson (00:37:40) - No.

Lori Harder (00:37:41) - No, no, I love her brain. She's like, absolutely not.

Chalene Johnson (00:37:46) - The opposite problem. Like stop. Yeah.

Lori Harder (00:37:48) - There's too many up. Okay, so then you're grieving.

Jasmine Star (00:37:52) - And I think that grief takes phases and it takes as long as it takes. But you're having ideas. And then at what point do you realize I think of all the ideas. This is the one that I want to pursue right away.

Chalene Johnson (00:38:03) - So as I'm so now I'm doing now I'm just doing consumer fitness, but that's not really full time. And I know that I want to get into the online space because I'm already learning, like there's so many things I can teach people and and I want to be more present with my family, I want to I don't want to feel this way.

Chalene Johnson (00:38:22) - I need more passive income. Okay. So again, I looked to a model to copy and I had the I think it was I forget what it's called, the Tony Robbins 12. I think it's like something power and I had bought those in cassettes and I'm like, I know how to duplicate cassettes, I know how to record. And I've got lots of things I can teach people. So I'm going to make a something just like this. I called it Car Smart, and it was a series of 12 CDs. And there were things like confidence, belief, money, mindset. And they were like they were like 12 core beliefs that I had lived by. And there was like my advice and it was it was just a copy of what Tony Robbins, his model. But my information. And so that was my first online product, and I started selling it online and realizing like, oh, there's so much to learn about, like online marketing. And so and then social media starts like becoming a thing and I'm like, I'm going to learn all of this, I'm going to learn this, and I'm obsessed with it, and I loved it.

Jasmine Star (00:39:23) - And what year is this about 2009.

Lori Harder (00:39:27) - Wow.

Chalene Johnson (00:39:29) - So start building that before we exit.

Lori Harder (00:39:31) - Okay okay okay. Yeah. Wow.

Chalene Johnson (00:39:34) - Okay. I encourage people to do so.

Jasmine Star (00:39:36) - Here you are. Now you're fully free from the Golden Prison.

Chalene Johnson (00:39:40) - Not fully free.

Jasmine Star (00:39:41) - At the time in which you were fully free. Now, when you sold, did you have, like, a contingency and when you had to, like, vest. Okay. Okay. Good for you. Okay. How many years?

Chalene Johnson (00:39:51) - I don't remember those. Okay. Those are numbers again I know that.

Jasmine Star (00:39:56) - December mind goes. I'm like data analytics.

Chalene Johnson (00:39:58) - I remember going off to the meetings that we had to go to, you know, corporate and and oh man, what a bitch I probably was because I was like, they don't know you guys. It'd be like 12, you know, masters, you know, PhDs around the table. And I'm like pounding the table. Like, that's not how we do it. The sound effect goes here.

Lori Harder (00:40:16) - And you have any.

Chalene Johnson (00:40:17) - The hat goes this way, you know, like all these, like, dumb little things that like. But it mattered again. They're like, she's insane. And then eventually I remember the vice president calling me. I was just like, you know, like, you don't need to come to the meetings anymore. It was like. And then I had another mentor who had also sold businesses. And he said, when they buy a business for you to kind of go away. And I'm like, oh, all right, all right, well, now I've got some more free time. So but I was still working with them in so obviously getting my residuals right and still working with them. Completely separate contract as talent.

Lori Harder (00:40:51) - Oh, so.

Chalene Johnson (00:40:53) - I'm still doing consumer workouts with them. Got it.

Lori Harder (00:40:56) - Like that or.

Chalene Johnson (00:40:57) - Uh, eventually I didn't. Yeah. You know, because again, I always struggled with what am I doing in fitness. Got it. Got it long here.

Chalene Johnson (00:41:06) - And it took a real toll on my health being in the in the health industry. Yeah, it was very unhealthy for me.

Lori Harder (00:41:13) - Being super healthy all the time is really unhealthy. Yeah.

Chalene Johnson (00:41:16) - So I developed orthorexia. I never had any confidence or body issues until you are asked to come out on a set wearing micro shorts and a bra top, and you have five people kind of going, they're trying. They're just trying to figure out if this is what you should wear, right? But if you have five people just like, totally, I think she's got a yeah for you in a different top. Yes.

Lori Harder (00:41:40) - Been there. And you're like, yeah. Like that's making her armpit roll right here. I'm like, yeah. To this day I'm still like, do I have an arbitrary rule? Yeah. That's something with the skin.

Chalene Johnson (00:41:48) - You're like, yeah, it's called skin. Yeah it's.

Lori Harder (00:41:49) - Skin. It's got freckles.

Chalene Johnson (00:41:51) - And it just it took a huge toll on me. My husband on one occasion got a call from someone at corporate who said, you know, we don't want to have this conversation directly with Shailene, but, you know, her next show will do much better.

Chalene Johnson (00:42:06) - If she can be smaller. She needs to lose weight and get leaner. And my husband tried not to tell me that, but he wears his emotions on his sleeves. Eventually he was angry and kind of retelling the story, and that was that was kind of like, I mean, it just did a horrible thing to me. So then I died down. I like basically was is not eating and exercising four hours a day for that next series because I wanted to prove to them I could do that. And I was on camera speaking to the camera, and I haven't eaten in days. I've exercised for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. And I'm looking into the camera and I'm saying, and you can get results like this too, in just 30 minutes a day eating delicious food and thought, I'm not, I'm lying. And that's one thing I will never be inauthentic. I didn't say it out loud, but I made a decision that day and I cried all the way home from shooting in Glendale, driving back to Orange County like a two hour drive.

Chalene Johnson (00:43:08) - I cried the whole time because I knew I was done, but I couldn't tell anyone because I was still under contract. Yep. But I was done. How long?

Jasmine Star (00:43:16) - What was the duration? The remaining duration of the contract?

Chalene Johnson (00:43:18) - A couple of years. Oh, yeah. Okay. But but it was different because now I'm like, now it's on my terms. And so the next program I filmed were so fun because I, I knew what I needed. Like I filmed one where I said, I don't want you to hire any more fitness people. The people in my class are real people and they make me happy. And it's fun and it's real. And I don't want to pretend that I'm excited. Looking into a black lens, I want to look out into a room full of people, the people that I teach to. And so if I'm going to do this, that's what I want.

Lori Harder (00:43:51) - Okay.

Chalene Johnson (00:43:53) - And they did that. Yeah. And then so that was like my some of the Turbo Fire workouts.

Chalene Johnson (00:43:58) - And then for Pio, I just said I want to pick everybody who's in the cast. They're really going to be my friends and family. And I'm going to love this process. And they did. So my exit was really nice and they accommodated me in every way. And I don't blame the companies at all because that's just the industry, right, right, right. And we did that with even when we were filming videos with Powder Blue, I would, you know, look at what people were wearing, saying when we say like, well, she's in blue and green, just what you doing?

Lori Harder (00:44:25) - Okay.

Jasmine Star (00:44:26) - So if we go back and there's like an intersection again of the exit and an entry into something else, and you have your 12 disc series and then you, then you say to yourself, 2009. So we're going back to like early Twitter and Facebook. Instagram's not even on the scene yet.

Chalene Johnson (00:44:40) - Yes, a little bit of YouTube.

Lori Harder (00:44:41) - Oh.

Jasmine Star (00:44:42) - Oh wow. Oh that's good. Then you say I'm going to figure this out.

Jasmine Star (00:44:46) - Yeah. Then what do you start selling after the 12 discs? What do you start selling then?

Chalene Johnson (00:44:51) - I sold a program called Smart Success, and it was $1,000 online program that taught you how to organize your life according and make all decisions based on a priority clarity statement. Wow. So it was goal setting and it was looking at the 10 to 12 most key areas of your life and figuring out like what are the boundaries, parameters and like priority statements you need in writing so that you know you're not missing your mark. And basically just taught people how to live your life according to your written priorities. Not like what you say, not what you feel, but like what you you like. Give yourself the space to figure out what that should look like, and then to create a plan to reverse engineer it and execute.

Jasmine Star (00:45:40) - Okay, so my first I'm sorry, Lori, I'm steamrolling and I'm just like like I need to close this loop. Okay. So I'm probably gonna ask a question that you're like, jasmyne, why are you asking me this question? Numbers.

Jasmine Star (00:45:51) - How much of your audience do you think is like residuals from the stuff that you did in the fitness space? Like, are you carrying your audience over at this time? Okay, so it's not like hold traffic. You're not like Harvard, like heavily leveraging. Not much.

Chalene Johnson (00:46:02) - So Facebook huge.

Lori Harder (00:46:03) - Okay.

Chalene Johnson (00:46:04) - The first thing I did was a challenge on Facebook called the 30 Day Push Challenge. I think it was called. And I just said, give me your email address. This is again like 2009. Give me your email address. And every day I will send you one video a day for 30 days that will help you create, accomplish your goals.

Jasmine Star (00:46:23) - So this is your opt in.

Chalene Johnson (00:46:25) - Yes. And this is 2009. In one month's time, I had 100,000 people on my email list, and people.

Jasmine Star (00:46:30) - Are opening their emails at this time and they want to give you their email because it's like so special going to email me.

Chalene Johnson (00:46:36) - I didn't realize what happened then is a couple of things. So first of all, when people spend time with you on video hours and hours and hours, yes, doing something they love that gives them endorphins like fitness, they become emotionally bonded and loyal to you.

Chalene Johnson (00:46:52) - Yes, they know you. You were with them as they were recovering from cancer. You got them through that breakup like fitness is for a lot of people. It's their drug. It saves them. And so I had all of these fitness instructors who, you know, they just felt like I blew up their classes. I gave them, and they felt very loyal to me. And they also were about the same age as me. So they're growing up with me. And I was trying to help them to understand, like there's you're not going to ever pay the mortgage teaching fitness classes. We need to do something more. We need to do something more. And I, me up.

Jasmine Star (00:47:25) - Give me this course.

Lori Harder (00:47:25) - This was the cause. You're good.

Chalene Johnson (00:47:28) - Fitness is the gateway drug. This is. Yeah. Once you realize with fitness, I can change my body. And I listen to someone else as their. And they told me what to do and I changed my body. If I listen to this person, I had changed my life.

Chalene Johnson (00:47:39) - Right? And then once you figure out how to change your life, you're like and could probably start a business. So it's just this evolutionary process. But that 100,000 emails was over. And then every single day, people opening up an email and spending 30 days with me on video. Back then, you know, now pretty much everything is on video. But then it was so remarkable to get a video emailed to you.

Jasmine Star (00:48:02) - Oh so good. Okay, Lori, go.

Lori Harder (00:48:04) - Well, now it's a different question, but were you falling in love with the process of business? Like what were you seeing happening to because it was mostly women that you were working with, right. Yeah. So what were you seeing happening when women would join your courses and then tell me that progression of like what was next for them?

Chalene Johnson (00:48:19) - The same thing that I saw with fitness, where people start to believe in themselves and go like, I didn't know this was possible. I loved that the people who were learning these things were as shocked as I was to learn them.

Chalene Johnson (00:48:34) - So growing up in a home with ADHD and not I didn't know how to finish anything. I didn't know how to to prioritize things. I didn't know how to organize, I didn't know how to focus. So I had to learn that after the fact, like after college, even. And so once I started studying goal setting and it just didn't work for my brain, I'm like, I'm going to kind of put a tweak on this. Not that's original, but I'm going to tweak this and I'm going to teach this to other people so they understand, like how to do this in such a way that when you reach your goal, you're actually happy, because all the goal setting I learned was like vision boards and you know, and how to set goals. But they never looked at like, what is it you want to feel?

Lori Harder (00:49:11) - So at that point, were you being really because, you know, in the beginning, like even in the fitness world, in the business world, like people were not being super authentic, were meaning they weren't sharing, like, I'm actually scared when I do this.

Lori Harder (00:49:21) - I have anxiety when this comes up. Were you weaving some of that at that point?

Chalene Johnson (00:49:25) - Always always always always. I don't know how to do anything else. Yeah. Just like just you get what you get and don't throw a fit.

Jasmine Star (00:49:31) - Okay. So now we now I have like a very clear picture of like the pivots, the iterations, the evolutions of Charlene Johnson is today I want to look you have a very unique thing that I think you inherited from your dad, which is the pattern spotting. Yeah. And so when you're like, now, everything's what you said was now everything's on video. But back then it was really unique, like interesting. What do you see today? What's the next interesting thing?

Chalene Johnson (00:49:58) - Long form. First of all, I think that we are seeing a backlash against quick quick quick quick quick 15 seconds, two seconds, seven seconds swipe, swipe, swipe. It's why reels are down so dramatically on Instagram, right? Right. And I think carousels are, I think reels.

Chalene Johnson (00:50:14) - A new study by Metropole Metro cool found that reels are down 76% over last year and carousels have replaced that. Why? Because I want to control the clicker. It's like when you sit down and somebody in the room is like changing the channel so fast you're like, stop. I didn't even get to see what that was. What was that interesting. And I think our brains want to slow down and connect. And so I think there's going to be a real resurgence of long form. I think conversations like people want to slow down, think about it, process it, read it, be able to swipe and then swipe back. We just want control over our attention. We want to consume less instead of quantity. We really want quality and we want to think about it. So I think that's a big shift. I think there's a lot of interesting changes in what's going to happen in the creator economy, in the digital course economy. I think there's going to be a lot of changes.

Jasmine Star (00:51:15) - Well, she's just saying, I think there's going to be a lot of changes.

Jasmine Star (00:51:18) - Do tell, do tell.

Chalene Johnson (00:51:19) - Well, you know, I recently did an informal survey of digital course creators and by age. Oh and success. Okay. And oh no.

Jasmine Star (00:51:28) - Hold on. Okay. Understand the metric of age, quantifiable success. How is it defined revenue? Okay. Yeah.

Chalene Johnson (00:51:36) - So all seven figure in eight figure earners okay. And then and then I looked at their ages okay. And what I looked at was their revenue roughly their age and how much they invested in online courses mentors, coaches. ET cetera. And it's shocking how the younger the entrepreneur is, the less they're spending on that and the beliefs around they want to make digital courses, but they're not buying them. So that's going to create a recession is my prediction. In the digital course economy. And with any recession, there are businesses that thrive. Right. So that means you you're going to have to be above and beyond. I think there's going to be a lot more demand for done for you. I think people are overwhelmed with like, think about it.

Chalene Johnson (00:52:26) - Like when I was when I first started teaching digital marketing, if I was teaching Instagram, it was like you post a square photo. Now. Instagram is short form video, long form videos, carousels, lives, Instagram stories, DMs. It's a beast. Just Instagram. And then there's TikTok and then there's YouTube, and then there's email funnels. And then there's some like it's a lot for someone who's wants to get who wants to create a business, a digital business. It's a lot, it's a lot. And if you have that old school entrepreneurial mindset where you're like, I'll learn this all myself, you're going to burn the f out, you can't do that. So we're going to see a lot more done for you. And we're going to the people who will succeed. The entrepreneurs who will succeed are the ones who know I need to invest in others. I need to invest in agencies. I need to invest in the teams so that I don't have to learn this stuff. I'm going to be the face of, I'm going to be the idea.

Chalene Johnson (00:53:23) - And so I think that's where we're headed.

Jasmine Star (00:53:26) - So when you look at your product suite, based on your prediction, does anything change?

Chalene Johnson (00:53:31) - Oh yeah, we are changing a lot of things. Wow. Interesting things. And that's hard because, you know, we have eight really different business centers. You know, some that aren't consumer based or consumer facing. But you know, I'm always assessing like where do I spend my time and what's my return on the investment. And it's hard sometimes to go like so I have to let go of that. I really like that and sometimes still feels like a failure. You know, it's like, I don't want I don't want to let that sunset. I don't want to sell that company, you know, but it doesn't make sense to keep it. And and you just have to be nimble.

Jasmine Star (00:54:10) - So when you look into the future and you've seen the pivots that have happened, is there a common thread like if you can go back to Charlene at 16, 26, 36, which is basically last year, what would you say? What would you say to her? Is there a common thread?

Chalene Johnson (00:54:26) - Yeah, there are two.

Chalene Johnson (00:54:28) - One is I'm going to solve a problem. And the number two is I am really at heart a teacher. I love to take really complicated things and go. I can make this easier for people, and I can explain it to you so that you can explain it to someone else. Because if you can explain to someone else what I've helped you to understand now, it's it's like guerrilla marketing, like I've done my job like that's how basic it needs to be. And with all of our businesses, if someone else can't explain how it's helped them and what it does, then we've missed the mark. And we've done that many times, you know? So it's always there's lots of failures, right? And there's lots of restarts and reiterations. And it's hard because sometimes you want to hold so tightly to like, this wasn't my original plan for this, but it boy, it looks different now. And if you're not willing to let it evolve and you let your ego get in the way, it's just deadly and there's going to be consequences.

Chalene Johnson (00:55:25) - It's going to be expensive. A lot of fallout.

Jasmine Star (00:55:27) - So every ten years, you remind yourself that you are solving a problem in the heart of it. You're a teacher who knows how to explain things and really help way. Yeah, now there are somebody who's listening and they have been hitting their head against the wall for like many things. And so if you would go back and say one thing to that person, looking back at your career, what would you tell that person who's listening?

Chalene Johnson (00:55:50) - The first thing is, don't try to do it yourself. Like, you know, that's what I'm seeing today. And it's the biggest mistakes I made early in my career that impacted my at times, my marriage. At times, my health was thinking I was saving money or time by figuring it out myself. Also thinking not just the time and money, but I wanted the credit. I mixed that music. I did not want to let go. I did not want to let somebody else mix that music because I wanted people to have your reaction.

Chalene Johnson (00:56:20) - Jasmine. People are you mix the music. I wanted that, and I had to like, let go of my ego and say, like, I don't need credit. I need us to be at a certain place. And if I stop caring about who gets the credit, we're going to go a lot further. So I think it's and I think, you know, this younger generation of entrepreneurs, they really need to embrace that. You save yourself so many headaches, so much trial and tribulation by investing in that person who's done it. You know, it's just it's invaluable.

Jasmine Star (00:56:53) - Okay. So clearly there's a bunch of people right now who are smitten newly and or buttressed by it. How do people go deeper with all the things that you do? What do they get to know? You as the entrepreneur, the person, the mother, the wife? Like social? Where do people find you?

Chalene Johnson (00:57:10) - Those are all different places. And so all different departments. So our business podcast is called Build Your Tribe.

Chalene Johnson (00:57:16) - I co-host that with my son Brock. And the personal fun, you know, health, healthy stuff is all on the show. I think we have like. A lot of downloads there. We've been doing it like for a million years. It feels like, and and those are probably the best places to get like the personal and then the business if you really want like want to know like deep, deep what's going on in my life, that's Patreon. But that's, that's another.

Lori Harder (00:57:42) - Story we're going to.

Jasmine Star (00:57:44) - So we're, we're slowly going to build up to the Patreon level. So there's two podcasts. But recently I saw that you really want to go deeper with your YouTube channel. You got to give a shout out to your YouTube channel.

Chalene Johnson (00:57:54) - Yeah, yeah. So what I'm doing now is the podcast on video. Yeah. So it's the I just why am I recording this? Why no why. It means hair and lashes.

Lori Harder (00:58:05) - And.

Chalene Johnson (00:58:05) - An outfit change. Are you used to be able to, like, go sit in my room and like, record a like think.

Jasmine Star (00:58:10) - Those are the days, Charlene. I mean the commitment to do video on podcast and I love it and I sometimes I'm like.

Chalene Johnson (00:58:15) - Why do I do?

Lori Harder (00:58:16) - I just could let it go. I now start oh, but I'm like, oh it's a thing. Yeah, clothes are a thing I know.

Chalene Johnson (00:58:24) - And for guys like my son when we do a podcast together, he like showers and water hits his head and then he stands in front of a mic. I'm like, it's not a whole thing. I have to have, like, professionals come in. It's smoke and mirrors and tape and pulling in.

Lori Harder (00:58:38) - There's people literally holding.

Chalene Johnson (00:58:40) - Literally, right.

Lori Harder (00:58:41) - I'm like.

Jasmine Star (00:58:43) - You also have to follow Charlene on Instagram. Give your give a plug to your account. And what can people expect?

Lori Harder (00:58:48) - Oh, I want you to describe it. It's interesting.

Chalene Johnson (00:58:52) - Don't do what I do.

Lori Harder (00:58:53) - Do what I tell you to do.

Chalene Johnson (00:58:54) - So it's actually Johnson and you're just going to get a nice little taste of my life.

Chalene Johnson (00:58:59) - I like to help people who are easily distracted, get focused and understand that they can create a business of their own.

Lori Harder (00:59:06) - Yes.

Chalene Johnson (00:59:06) - And it can be really messy and really fun.

Jasmine Star (00:59:08) - Emphasis on fun. And just as a side note, seeing the way that you build a business with your husband, the relationship you have with your children and how supportive you are, and like you're passing on the lessons that you learned from your dad. It's so inspiring to me. And so I've already said, for those of you who don't know, Shailene and her daughter Sierra have a journal, a journaling company together. Yeah.

Chalene Johnson (00:59:27) - For sure.

Jasmine Star (00:59:27) - Yeah. So the purse.

Chalene Johnson (00:59:28) - Journal and she has her own beauty.

Jasmine Star (00:59:30) - Yes, she has a beauty line. I mean, like her kids. It's like they all just have, like, this magical Michigan fairy dust on their heads. And this is like.

Lori Harder (00:59:36) - We're just going to make.

Jasmine Star (00:59:37) - Money. And so I look at this and I'm like, okay, Luna, we're going to do something.

Jasmine Star (00:59:40) - You know, I'm just like calling it over her life. I'm like, if I see it done, then I get to do it my own way. Very similar to what you do with Tony Robbins. I'm like, baby girl, we're going to come out with 12 discs, but in the future it's like some like, automatic downloads anyway, right?

Chalene Johnson (00:59:52) - Automatic downloads.

Jasmine Star (00:59:53) - Y'all. Okay. Charlene Johnson on Instagram. Listen to her podcast, watch her YouTube. And I have to say, Lori, thank you for bringing this magical, mythical creature into part.

Lori Harder (01:00:01) - I mean.

Jasmine Star (01:00:02) - And then co-hosting the show with Lori has been an honor and a blessing. So, uh, when you guys are watching or listening to the Jasmine Star show, can you please tag one or all three of us? While you're at it, let us know where you're watching and how you are doing it. Like always, it's honor and a pleasure. Thank you for listening to The Jasmine Star Show.