Jasmine Star (00:00:00) - Welcome back to The Jazmin Starr Show. I'm thrilled that you are here. And I'm especially excited because this episode is literally of the people. Here's why. At the end of quarter 1 in 2024, I decided I put together a podcast episode and we loosely called it Building Bricks. And I'm like, all I'm going to do is I'm going to document what I have done in quarter one in order to build the future in later 2024, 2025, and perhaps even 2026. And in that episode, I was in the middle of it and I was like, you know what? I'm making this episode. I'm not even sure you care. So if it resonates with you, send me a direct message. And so I heard from you and I heard from enough people to make it worthwhile. But here's the thing I am only doing building brick episodes if I hear from you, because these are highly personal things. This gets heavily into the strategies that I'm using to build long term, and I want to build wide, and I want to build it deep.

Jasmine Star (00:00:57) - And oftentimes in order to do that, you have to have a really strong foundation. And whenever I think about foundations, I think about bricks. This is like the story of the Three Little Pigs. Is this going to be wood? Is it going to be straw or is it going to be brick? Oink, oink y'all. We're going to be building some bricks. Okay. We're going to go back at the start of quarter two. Now, quarter two began in April. Now April 24th, I flew to Nashville and I decided to have an in-person podcast recording session. And I invited a guest co-host by the name of Amy Porterfield. If you've been listening to the show or watching the show a while, you've seen that all come to fruition. But I have to tell you, behind the scenes, Amy reached out to me and she said, Jasmine, why haven't I been one of your co-host? And I'm like, oh, because you're a big deal. Amy and I are friends. Friends, like in real life.

Jasmine Star (00:01:47) - And she is so wildly successful. She's brilliant. She's one of my favorite people. And JD even asked me, you know, if you've been watching or listening to the show for a while, we've had a few guest cohost and he said, well, why haven't you asked Amy? I said, well, because I got to build up for that. Like, I gotta practice. I gotta practice for the big deal. So when she reached out to me and said, why have I not been on your podcast? I admitted I was just nervous and it really mattered because you're a big deal to me. And she's like, we're going to do this podcast. And I said, great, I'm going to Nashville, your hometown. We're going to be having a guest co-hosting session. Now, the beautiful thing about doing these guest co-hosting sessions is I'm flying to different cities around the United States, and when I booked for a speaking event, or if I'm going to be at an event, what I want to do is I want to find local entrepreneurs who we could share stories with.

Jasmine Star (00:02:35) - Well, the thing about Amy is that she's so well connected that the people she reached out to, nobody lived in Nashville, so we had Will Guidara. He came in from New York, Ben came in from Florida, Fawn Weaver came in from Shelbyville, Tennessee. And then we had Candice Nelson and she flew in from Los Angeles. We had a day full of really great conversations and interviews. Now we also had Gary Vaynerchuk now, the reason I'm sharing these, like building brick stories is because I think that social media, I'm going to be honest, social media gives off a very nice, glorious illusion. Listen, your girl loves the illusion. Who doesn't love the illusion? I love sharing a highlight reel. Who doesn't? But the back story like the bloopers, the stuff that gets cut on the cutting room floor. A lot of people don't know now, the way that any good book author does it is they're going to find podcasts. They're going to find interviews that are really expanding their brand, expanding their marketing.

Jasmine Star (00:03:32) - Now, Gary was dropping a book a day cheating attention, and he reached out to the biggest podcasters in the space. Now, here's the moment of truth. I am not the biggest podcaster in the space yet. Oh, okay. Yeah, we're going to add the yet there because the goal is to always build until we can get bigger and better with every iteration. I wasn't asked to have Gary come on my show. Amy was asked if Gary would go on her show and so she's like, Jasmine, what do you think? Do you think that we should have Gary do our guest co-host podcasting? And I was like, oh my God, Amy Porterfield, if you do this for me, I might marry you. Move over JD, move over. Hobi I'm going to marry you if we can have an interview with Gary Vaynerchuk, because you all know on this show, Gary Bear is my homeboy. I have so much love and respect and like just really a lot of goodness towards a person who has really inspired me.

Jasmine Star (00:04:29) - Well, Gary came on the show and here's the thing. I'm not going to say it was a good episode, but he did repurpose our podcast on his podcast so you could listen to Gary V's interview on The Jasmine Star Show. And you can also listen to the Gary Vee podcast on The Gary Vee Show. Hey, so what kind of brick did that lay on that show? I made sure in my notes to be very articulate and tell Gary the path that led me through watching his career, and then it also allowed me to tell him that. I had invested in their executive group coaching and leadership program called vibe. I was able to look at him and say, I am investing to go into this program. Why? I didn't want him to forget my name or my face. You're going to see it again, brother. Are you going to see it again? So here's the biggest takeaway from these types of conversations. Make sure that you tell people what you appreciate about them, the value that they bring to your life.

Jasmine Star (00:05:22) - And be sure to say your name and have a big smile every single room you step into. Building brick from quarter to an April 24th. Now on the 26th, I was in Nashville and I hosted an event called the Visibility Intensive. This was how to get more eyes and attention on your offer. So if you notice the days I filmed all day on the 24th, on the 25th, I was exhausted. But I got up, worked with one of our content creator, sage. She flew with me to Nashville. We recorded content that day. Short form content. Now I could have and maybe I should have stayed in relaxed a little, but I thought to myself, I am out on the road and when I'm on the road, I am an entrepreneur. First, I'm going to maximize the abilities and the teams that I have when I'm on the road. So we shot content that day. The next day was the 26th and that was the Visibility summit. We had Amy Porterfield, Julie Solomon, Rory Vaden.

Jasmine Star (00:06:17) - Now, the reason why I'm looking at this as a pretty significant brick is because I had originally had this visibility intensive as a bonus for a course that I launched in March. So I launched a course in March, and I said, a bonus is coming and it's going to be dropping in April. That is what we recorded in person. Now, I could have done this entirely online. I could have done everything on, say, zoom, and it would have been great, except for the fact that I feel deep down in my bones that in the future I'm going to be doing live events. Now, please don't ask me what it looks like or my ideas. I don't have it. This is me being 100 with you, but I always have learned that I'm going to start trusting my intuition, and I'm going to start depending on my self-trust to build the future that I want, starting today. So if I have an inclination that I firmly believe I'm going to be doing live events in the future, why would I not use this opportunity as training ground? And so that's what I did.

Jasmine Star (00:07:13) - I rented a studio and we had all of our students, like hundreds of people were watching live and online and again, again, what we see on social and what we see is the produced video. Right? Like the actual visibility intensive looked professional. Everyone's watching, everything's moving. And on social media, what are we posting? The highlights. All the highs. Okay, great. But behind the scenes getting to that point, I'm going to tell you it was really difficult. There were things that were happening behind the scenes that were outside of our control. Despite our best efforts. There were things that were happening and I had to go back. And my biggest takeaway from laying this brick is never assume a third party has your best interest in mind. I'm just going to leave it like that and have that be. The biggest takeaway is every time I'm going to be doing a live event, or I'm going to be renting a studio to always do due diligence and understand that the only party who has your best interest in mind is you.

Jasmine Star (00:08:11) - Okay, but the best part was that the people who watched had a great experience. They learned a lot, and I got to really connect with brilliant people like Julie, Rory and Amy, all people who I truly have so much respect for their business. And they served people who showed up so well. On May 3rd, about a week later, I decided to take a personal retreat. Now this was very last minute. I flew back from Nashville. We came home. We had a lot of family time that weekend with our extended families, and then I jumped right into work and it was Wednesday. It was Wednesday of I think it was like May, May 1st ish. And I, I turned to JD and I said, I just think that I need time and space. I need time to reflect on what I'm actually building, like, not just what I'm building right now in front of me. Like, what are we actually building far into the future? And I realized that I needed white space.

Jasmine Star (00:09:05) - I kept on saying, I think I just need white space. I just need some space. I can't, I'm just running so fast that I'm not actually, I don't know what I'm running toward. And so the goal, the goal I told JD and I told my mentor, was to act as if the future that I'm writing down is real. I'm not going to ask myself, well, do I have the money to build that? Do I have the experience? Do I have the acumen? Do I have the connections? I am not asking any of those questions. I am just writing as if the thing I want to build is real. And I think that up until that point, if I was being very honest, I kept on getting in the weeds of but but but then this, then this, then this. And I'm like, no, no, no. I was an energetic block to casting a vision. So my advice, my biggest takeaway from this break is to create the future as if it is real, as if it is done.

Jasmine Star (00:09:58) - And so I. A lot of time. I was away for three nights by myself. I went back to a place called sensei. I feel like I cannot say enough good places about the healing qualities of this amazing place, how you do breathwork, how you do yoga, how you do fitness, how you eat only clean food when you're there. There's like, I didn't take any digital devices. It was me and my Moleskine notebook and I just wrote I had no distractions. And when I was there, I started asking myself this business that I'm building who like, where do I find the right clients? And I'm not going to talk so much about the business, at least not quite yet. So I was like, where am I finding the right clients up until this point? Where have I found clients to pursue the thing? So a lot of outward facing content and a lot of the podcast is people see me as a podcast or people see me as CEO of social curator. I am all of those things.

Jasmine Star (00:10:49) - People see me as a wife, daughter, mother. I am all of those things. There's also a large piece of the business that isn't shown outside so much. Why? We don't have a formalized offer, and I'm still experimenting with what is it that I want to build? I refuse at this point in my life, in my career, I refuse to do things that aren't pointing me to the North Star. And so what I needed to do on this retreat is go back further. Define your North Star, figure out exactly what it is, and then build it as if it's done. So I started asking myself, where does our like, layered, layered levels of clients? Where is the deepest place for us to go? So I started listening. Places like executive group coaching programs was one of them. So I started listing like Tiger Ypo, Chief Hampton, and I'm like, that's where my future customers are, because what I'm building as if it already exist. And so I started doing research on organizations like Ypo.

Jasmine Star (00:11:41) - And so I just started journaling. What kind of person am I looking for in Ypo? What kind of business do they have? How big is their team? How much money do they have? Do they have outside investment? I'm writing as if all of this is done in true and I can't even make this up. So I'm journaling and I walk out of my room and I see these, you know, those really like oversized large balloons and they have letters on them. I walk out of my room and they're in the hallway up a cascading staircase. I see three letters of gold balloons, ypo. And I was like, well, that's weird. I don't do anything about it. Well, that night, the only restaurant they have on property is Nobu. And so I go to dinner by myself. I'm there by myself. I take my journal and I'm just journaling and I'm writing and I'm reading and I hear a large group of people come in and they're all talking and all this other stuff.

Jasmine Star (00:12:30) - And I walk out of the restaurant and I hear out of the corner of my ear, I heard she's from Newport, and the restaurant was empty with the exception of me. And then this like, large party of like 30 people. And I was like, they're not talking about me. Like, they're definitely not talking about me. They probably were talking about somebody else on their table. And I just happened to hear that because I'm from Newport and it was what it was. I let it go. Still, at this point, I'm not even sure if it's a ypo group now. Whitefield Group. So Ypo is a young presidents organization. They're all over the United States, and they have like regional section chapters. Okay. So the next day I'm journaling by the pool and two women come and sit in chairs next to me. Well, I get up to go and make a business call. Then I come back in and I'm journaling and a lady says, oh, so tell me more about you.

Jasmine Star (00:13:14) - Where are you from? I'm like, I'm from Newport Beach. And she's like, we're from Newport Beach. We're from the Ypo chapter where Ypo gold. And I was like, Ypo gold? Did I know what that was? No, but I wrote in my journal research, what is Ypo gold? Because maybe that's where my clients exist. I start asking them questions about Ypo. I start asking them questions about their businesses. I come to find out that their husbands run their businesses, and they were there at sensei with their husbands. And so I got the tea. I started asking, well, what does it look like? How does it sound? How big are the groups? What is the dedication? And then I come to find out that the woman sitting next to me, her husband, is the head of education for the Southern California chapter. And you want to know what I'm going to do? I am going to follow up, and I'm going to pitch myself to speak at the Ypo event.

Jasmine Star (00:14:00) - Why? I had a personal connection. I wrote in my journal that that's where I think future business owners for me in the future exist. So why would I not lay another brick there? Has anything transpired since that conversation? No. But oftentimes when you lay one brick at a time, you don't know what you're building. You can't see the actual finished development until you start laying a ton of bricks at a time. So this is just another brick in quarter two. Now May 9th, this was less than a week later. I was invited to give a commencement ceremony speech. I graduated from Whittier College, and I got an invite to come back and give the commencement speech. And I have to tell you that when I first got the email, I was like, no, I'm not giving the commencement speech. My legit response was, no, I was honored, but I was like, no. And I talked to JD and I said, why would they have me come and give the commencement speech? Like, that's silly.

Jasmine Star (00:14:53) - There's got to be other way more successful people or legit people to give a commencement speech. And he said something that really changed, like how I perceived the the opportunity. He had said, how many Latinas do you think are giving a commencement speech in 2024? He's like, how many Latinas are going to be in that graduating class watching somebody else? How many women, how many people of color, how many people were underrepresented? He's like, how many first time college graduates are going to see what it is you do? And he's just like, they're not inviting you back because you're the most successful person to ever graduate that college. They're inviting you back because you can speak to somebody in the audience that needs to hear from you. And so I agreed, and I have to tell you that I was really intimidated because, number one, I didn't remember my commencement speech. I don't remember who spoke at my commencement ceremony. I don't remember the commencement speech. So I went to YouTube and I started looking at commencement ceremony speeches.

Jasmine Star (00:15:45) - Now, here's the thing. Don't ever do that. It is the most intimidating thing because you see Oprah, you see Barack Obama, you see Steve Jobs, you see all these brilliant people talking about their commencement speeches. And I'm like, how am I ever going to give a commencement speech like that? Like Taylor Swift gave an amazing commencement speech and I was like, okay, Jasmine, you cannot compete with them. So if you can't compete at the game they're playing, it's time for you to play your own game. And so one of the unique value propositions that I had given this commencement ceremony speech was that I actually went and graduated from that school. I talk about my experiences when you walk into a room, or when you are in front of a group of people and you realize you cannot play the game as it currently exists, make up your own game and leverage things that are entirely unique to you. I have to say that walking out onto the field, it was held in a stadium and walking out into the field and in the corner I see JD.

Jasmine Star (00:16:41) - I see my daughter Luna, I see my mom, my dad, my mother in law and my father in law. And I have to tell you, it was just like the coolest freaking moment that their sacrifices coming into this country has empowered their daughter and daughter in law and Luna's mom to be up on that stage. And so I want to encourage anybody who's out there, like, say yes to these opportunities and take the time to celebrate. Actually, after this commencement speech, we went across the street to a restaurant called California Grill. I was a waitress at California Grill for three years throughout college, so I worked on campus and I also was a waitress. That was how I paid for school. That's how I had money to live. And so going back to California Grill and going back to the place that I had worked, I'd be like, girl, you have come a long way. Okay, that was May 9th. On May 15th, I went to New York City for the event.

Jasmine Star (00:17:38) - I invested in a leadership and training program. It's an accelerator, a growth accelerator through VaynerMedia that is Gary Vaynerchuk Company. They brought in a group of ten people and they wanted a very distinct mix of people. They wanted five CMOs from fortune 500 companies and they wanted five entrepreneurs. Now, they did not announce vibe publicly. They went through and they curated the first group of ten as an experiment. And I have to tell you, whenever there is a guinea pig experience, I'm like, sign me up. That's the thing I want to go to now. I'm going to have a separate podcast breaking down everything that I learned, because that was my commitment. When I talked about joining this program, I said, I'm going to share the nitty gritty about that. That is going to be coming up in a future podcast episode. What I will say, what I will say. Let's first start with the takeaway, the biggest takeaway from this brick building experience on May 15th and on May 16th was to listen to your intuition.

Jasmine Star (00:18:36) - Here's a backstory. The event ended on May 16th. I was slated to catch a flight on the 16th to go to Miami, because I had to be in Miami for a recording on the 17th. I'll get to that in a second. Well, on the 16th, the car picks me up and I'm like, okay, I'm going to JFK. I'm flying to Miami. Well, it was pouring rain. It took us three hours to get to the airport when it should have taken like an hour and 15 minutes. So I'm already barely, barely making it. So I'm running in the airport with my bag and I can't get through security, and I'm like, what's going on? Of course. And they look at my ticket. And they're like, ma'am, you're not flying out from JFK. You're flying out from LaGuardia. And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. I'm at the wrong airport. So I go, I try to find a new flight to Miami leaving from JFK. Nope.

Jasmine Star (00:19:24) - That was the last one of the night. Try to find another flight from LaGuardia leaving later on that night. No, that was the last flight, so I have to move my ticket to the next day. Which means I'm either going to go back into the city, like, three hours in the rain again, or I'm going to try to find a hotel nearby. So I decide to find a hotel nearby because I'm not sure if it's going to take me three hours the next morning for a 6:00 flight. And so I hop on my phone and I'm like, okay, I see that there's availability at a few hotels. There's a hotel that's located on the inside of JFK airport. I take a tram, I walk all the way to that. They said, sorry, ma'am, we're fully booked. I have to take the tram all the way back. I catch an Uber and I'm like, I need just to get to the nearest hotel. I just bring up the nearest hotel. I'm in the back of an Uber and I pull up to this hotel that's in Queens, New York.

Jasmine Star (00:20:12) - It's about like an eight minute drive from the airport. And I have to tell you that I am a girl from the hood. I know hood, and I'm not intimidated by the hood. I will tell you that at this particular area of Queens where I was, I was like, dude, I don't think this is the safest place for you. As we pull up, all of the windows of this hotel have been blocked out. I'm not going to say the name of the hotel. All of them had been blocked out and there were five cop cars in the front. And I'm sitting in the back. It wasn't an Uber, it was a cab. I'm sitting in the back of the cab. The cops are out there, and then there's an ambulance and there's people waiting in the lobby. And I turned to the cab driver and I'm like, do you think it's safe here? And he's like, yeah, you're fine, you're fine. So I get my bag out. I walk into the hotel and I come to find out that half of the hotel is closed for renovations, so they're checking.

Jasmine Star (00:20:59) - Desk isn't really a desk. It is a foldout plastic table with a laptop on it. There is a line of people, and I'm hand to heaven. There is a bird in a cage. I don't know if it's a chicken. I don't know if it's somebody's parrot. And I'm looking around and people are hungry. They're tired. There's a line of people. There's one laptop on a foldout plastic table that looks like it's probably from Walmart. And I'm like, oh my God, like you're in trouble. Like, this does not sound like the good space for you to be in. Cops are walking out because there was an attempted murder in one of the rooms. I'm like, you got to leave. At that particular point in time. I look back and the cab is driving out and I was like, okay, you don't have a cab, you're in Queens. I'm like, it's fine, Jasmine, just stay. You could just stay the night. You're just going to be sleeping a few hours in this bed.

Jasmine Star (00:21:43) - It's not a problem. So I wait in line and then I get to the front. The lady says, I'm sorry. We're fully booked. There's no rooms tonight. We've been oversold. So I'm like, okay, where can I go? She's like, well, there's a hotel a few blocks away and I'm like, okay, if I call a cab, will a cab come pick me up and take me to a few blocks? She's like, This is New York. No, they're not going to take you a few blocks. So it's pouring rain. I walk out of the hotel and I'm in Queens. It's at night with my suitcase, and I'm walking alone to another hotel and I keep on repeating to myself, this is so stupid. This is so stupid, this is so stupid. You shouldn't be doing this. You shouldn't be doing this. And all of a sudden I'm taking my freaking suitcase and I start running. I start running in the rain, and I'm like, you should have listened to your intuition.

Jasmine Star (00:22:25) - I get to another hotel, they're fully booked. I walk to a hotel across the street. They're fully booked. I'm sitting there and I'm like, I'm on the verge of almost crying. I get on my phone and my phone's about to die. So I ask the lady, the hotel, can I please use your computer? I use your computer and I find a hotel. There is one freaking hotel and I'm like, I book it sight unseen and I'm like, okay, I'm just going to get to the cell because I need a place to sleep. I'm so exhausted. None of this is on social media. None of this is going on with anything. So then I call an Uber. An Uber picks me up and as well we're driving like 30 minutes and I'm like, I think we're going in the wrong direction. I'm like, I'm so sorry, where are we going? And he's like, we're going to flushing, New York. And I was like, where is flushing, New York? And he's just like, it's just where your hotel is.

Jasmine Star (00:23:08) - So I pull up to this place and I'm like, I think we're in the wrong place. I'm not even lying. It looks like a strip mall that has like, I don't know, like eight stories. And I'm like, oh, this is the wrong place. This is the wrong place. And he's like, no, this is the address. And I see a small sign for this tiny little, like, I can't even remember the name of hotel. It was totally nondescript. I get into the hotel elevator and the lady looks at me. She's like, what are you doing here? She's like, why you got a suitcase? And I was like, there's a hotel here. She looks at me. She's like, there ain't no hotel here. And I was like, oh my God. And then it's like out of a movie. I get up to the fourth floor, the doors walk open, and then Madonna's Like a Virgin is playing. There is a DJ with like one mixer, a small bar, and then like a check in table with like one computer.

Jasmine Star (00:23:48) - And I was just like, I feel like this is out of a freaking movie. What am I actually doing? I walk in, I'm like, I booked a room. He's like, oh, you got our last room for the night. And I was like, great. I was like, I'm so hungry. I was like, do you guys have a restaurant? And he's like, no, we don't have a restaurant, but we have snack balls. And I was just like, at this point of the day, I don't even number one, I don't eat gluten and I don't eat meat. And so I'm eating like three pieces. Of snack bowls or Lunchables, whatever. I buy my Lunchables, I eat the cheese, I send the bed I get a hanger to like because I saw on TikTok, you get a hanger to like the doorknob and the lock. If you combine the two, it'll buy you an extra 17 seconds to make a phone call just in case you're, like, unsafe.

Jasmine Star (00:24:25) - I literally did the hanger trick and I was like, oh my God, do not move in this bed. So I'm like, showering, don't move in the bed. I, I kind of sort of slept for like 2.5 hours, called an Uber, went back to the airport. I landed in Miami on the 17th. I was supposed to get to Miami on the 16th. I was running late because I was a part of Inc magazine and the UPS Store Small Business Challenge. I was invited to be a mentor. One person was going to win a share of $35,000. My mentee was there, they were waiting for me, and of course, I was completely and totally freaking panicked. We had a live start time and I was like, from the airport, from the airport, doing my makeup in the car. We get to the venue, I walk straight in. We go immediately into interviews, into recording. I'm living off like 16 cups of coffee and we finished the event. Now I have to say that that event was really special because I was able to work with small business owners.

Jasmine Star (00:25:18) - And I have to tell you that there is varying degrees of small business owners. Technically. Technically, a small business is considered anything less than $20 million. So you are a small business owner if you're doing less than $20 million. But just imagine there is a business owner who's doing $12,000 a year and a business owner who's doing $19 million a year. They're both small business owners, but the struggles of each of them are so entirely different. And so when I had the opportunity to mentor small business owners, it really reminded me of those early grind days. And I have to say, if you were in your early grind days. Keep going. Keep going, keep going. You will never get to where you want to go if you cannot get past the the gnarliest grind moments. Being a mentor for this allowed me to share my expertise. I was able to meet the editor of Ink magazine and create relationships with the UPS store. I am forever grateful to have been a mentor. I'm forever grateful for to meet those business owners.

Jasmine Star (00:26:19) - But one of the things that I looked at this as an opportunity is to build bricks and get connections to other people who were mentors and other people who were sponsoring that grant program on May 18th. So, okay, so I land in Miami, go straight into recording. We end recording around 4 p.m., I go to the hotel, I check in, and I'm so exhausted that I'm like, I don't. I think I'm so tired I can't even eat. I just need to go to bed. Ordered room service, fell asleep, and then the next morning I was up at 5 a.m. in the morning. Why? Because my flight was leaving in the afternoon on the morning of the 18th. But I thought to myself, I can squeeze in three podcast interviews. And so when I was in California a couple weeks prior, I decided that instead of relaxing or going to South Beach or getting a massage, that what I wanted to do was maximize my time on the road. Now, here's the thing this type of decision is not for everybody.

Jasmine Star (00:27:17) - I don't even advocate for this type of decision making, but I'm saying I'm in a state of my place in business where I'm in build and go mode. I'm going to be laying bricks, so if I have four hours in an afternoon, I could apply it towards business or I could apply it to be on the beach. Both of them are right for whatever you want to choose, but podcasting was going to be the right decision because I wanted to lay bricks. Now, if you remember, in January I was in Miami. I had met a beautiful, brilliant, amazing woman by the name of Kim Perel. Well, what? I went to Miami and said, I want to start building out my network on the East Coast in a different way. Well, I met Kim and she's an investor. When I was flying back to Miami, I said, Kim, I'm going to be creating interviews. I know you were a guest on my podcast. If you really liked the podcast interview, like your experience, can you make an introduction to guest in Miami area who would come on my podcast? That Queen handled it.

Jasmine Star (00:28:07) - She connected me with amazing, amazing guests. Now I recorded that and the biggest takeaway for me was like, what did I learn by laying this brick? Is there is a time for maximization and there is a time for time management. Right now I'm in time maximization. How can I get the most out of every minute that I am on the road now? There are going to be other times, perhaps in the near future, that I really want to be present and grounded with my husband, my daughter, my family, my friends. This trip and this time was not for that. And as I am laying bricks, I am just looking at says this brick represents what and the Miami brick laid laid from quarter one meeting Kim into quarter two, proving that I had built a network in Miami to maximizing that time and understanding that there is a time for maximization in management, I hopped on my afternoon flight from Miami back to LA, and I spent Friday night, Saturday and Sunday completely unplugged and with my family.

Jasmine Star (00:29:10) - Okay, so now we're in June. A quarter is three months. I walked you through what we did in April. I walked you through what we did in May, and now we are here at June. Now, June 3rd to June 21st was completely blocked out because we were launching Social Curator. And, you know, we haven't launched social curator since June of last year. So this is such a cool opportunity. Now, one of the things that I've been really working on is building out a team of full on, high functioning operators, building out a team who I can cast a vision and they go through and deploy. So there were things new about this social curator launch that happened internally and new things that happened externally. So new things that happened internally was 99% of the launch was handled by the team. For the first time in my career, 99% of the launch was handled by the team. That meant that I was only showing up to teach classes, and my responsibility was to create marketing content.

Jasmine Star (00:30:12) - That's it. The team handled everything else, and I have to say that it was so sweet. It was such a good experience. Like they launched a new sales page. They added a new funnel flow. We have customer success set up differently. The team is hosting this like Welcome Week with a list of classes and networking and collaboration, post and AI and challenges. And I was like, all of this happened without me. That is how I know that I am changing as a CEO instead of being in the business. I'm working on the business, and that felt so good. Now, in the past, since we've launched, another thing that was different internally for this launch is in the past when we've launched or secured, or what we did is we took an aggregate of every ad that we've ever created, and then we took the best performing ads and we just reverse engineered. We work backwards. We asked ourselves, well, what made this ad work? Why did it work? Can we recreate it and duplicate it? And so it was really great way to get old ads that had proven to work, test them in a new way, reverse engineer and use data to guide the type of marketing that we're creating.

Jasmine Star (00:31:12) - That felt freaking awesome. I love that I can do that all day, every day now. We also created a new webinar for this launch, which was really exciting because the value added proposition is going to be community led and driven. And what was new for this launch externally is that we have a big focus on community. That messaging is going to be because here's one thing that I noticed as a business owner. I thought, well, if you give people the tools, they'll use them. And that wasn't the case. And so then I thought, okay, well, if you give people the tools to use them and you provide some motivation or momentum, then then they'll get to it, right? They're inspired to do the work and that works, but only for a short amount of time. You have to give disproportionate amounts of motivation to actually get people to use the tools. So then what I realized was we took a diagnostic of the people who were getting the most use out of social care and getting the best results.

Jasmine Star (00:32:03) - What was the common theme between them? Biggest thing. They were a part of the community. Biggest thing they were going to the live trainings. Biggest thing we had guest speakers and they were showing up to those classes. Biggest thing, they're going to the coaching, biggest thing, they're helping each other and they're networking with each other. So we're like, okay, that's what makes people a winner. Then we're going to be focusing on that. And that felt really good that the team, that deep dive diagnostic, we came back analytically and we said, how do we serve better? So after the launch, June 24th went to Austin, Texas, for a two day event that was hosted by Cody Sanchez. And I have to say, I have been watching Cody for a couple of years. Cody has been a guest on the podcast. I consume her content. I like the way she thinks now. She made an offer for a two day event in Austin, and I have to tell you, one of the things that was like, it made it a hell yes.

Jasmine Star (00:32:52) - I'm at a state in my life where if things aren't a hell yes, they're a hell no. If I'm like, oh, that sounds good. Yeah, that sounds like something I want to go. I'm nope. It's got to be like, hell yes, that is a clear win. My time is so, so, so limited that I have to say, time away from my family or traveling with my family is going to be worth it, because something's going to be big here on the back end. And so one of the things that I thought was really cool was this is how Cody promoted this two day live event. Now this live event is $5,000. So it's not nothing to sneer at. Right? So she goes on Instagram Stories and she's like, I'm going to be doing a two day live event. If you want more information, click here. So I clicked on it and it took me to a Google doc. And it was just an application on a Google doc. There was not a sales page, there was nothing fancy.

Jasmine Star (00:33:37) - And I was like, okay, I'll apply. So I applied to it and then I didn't hear anything and it was like 2 or 3 weeks later. And so then I sent Cody a DM on Instagram and I said, hey, I applied to the permite 2 or 3 weeks ago, like, what is the status? I'd love to go. I got an email I heard I was in now when I was in, I was taken to a sales page that broke down exactly the value proposition. Now this is what I'll say. And I say this with all humility, and I say this because I can take no credit for it. The team that we have created is so systems oriented. I am blown away that the systems the team has created on the inside, like our operating system, our systems scale, which means that I can triple the amount of podcasts that I create. We could triple the amount of launches that we do. We could triple the amount of social media content that we do.

Jasmine Star (00:34:25) - And this system works so well that it scales. Now, we'll probably need to add more people to the team to facilitate that. But the system itself is good and it's been proven. And I'm like, hell yes. So we know that we have the systems in place. Now. The value add for this two day event in Austin with Cody was that she had said, they're going to talk about infrastructure that scales, and that's where I want to be. We have the team in place. We have the systems in place, and now I want an infrastructure. And I couldn't help but think that as we get to the end of this episode, when we talk about laying bricks, what are we doing? We're building a skyscraper. But in order to build a skyscraper, you need a strong foundation, and you need the infrastructure that goes on the inside and the outside of that building. And so I'm making this investment, and I have made that investment knowing that what I learned in Austin was just another brick.

Jasmine Star (00:35:17) - But furthermore, it was the start of the infrastructure. As I build towards the future vision, you know, when we make this podcast, it feels very vulnerable. It feels very open. It feels very like things don't always work out as we had anticipated or planned. And I'll be very honest, I will only record another one of these episodes when you guys, like, send us information and let me know that this is good, because to be quite honest, it feels a lot more comfortable keeping these bricks in my journal. Not sharing them on video or on audio podcast. So if you are a part of this journey, I want to, number one, remind you that building bricks isn't for the faint of heart, but the only way you build what it is you want is by continuously laying them. And then number two, thank you for being on this journey. I think together, when we can share where we're at, we get to look back in the future and say, that was something we did and we didn't do it alone.

Jasmine Star (00:36:15) - Thank you for listening and watching The Jasmine Star Show, and I really hope to get a DM at Jasmine Star from you soon to see if this show resonated with you as you continue to build bricks.