Jasmine Star (00:00:00) -  Welcome to the Jasmin Starr Show, where we talk about business and today mixing marketing with love and obsession. Oh yes, we're starting there. This is kind of like a little bit of an origin story, and I'm about to share the tea, but because it ended up favorably for me, I'm just going to dive right in. And so back. Goodness gracious. I started dating my husband, business partner, first love of my life, high school sweetheart. Like married out of my league. I say it all the time and I'm not even saying it to be nice. It's something that my family and his family has all agreed to be true, and I'm okay with it. So it didn't always start as good as it is now. I have a fantastic relationship with my in-laws. JD has four sisters and I love them all. Not like my own because they are my own and his parents are just good salt of the earth people. Now JD and I met 16 or 17 years old. We were in high school.

Jasmine Star (00:00:55) -  We hadn't even started our senior year yet. And so we met and I was smitten with him. I mean, just talking to him. And let me just go back and picture yourself when you're 16 and 17, and then you come across somebody who's like a good person. I met JD and we spoke probably, goodness gracious, at At minimum 30 minutes just he and I and I knew that there was something different about him, and so much so that the first time we ever spoke on the phone and now, gosh, I'm going to date myself. But this is where you would have a cordless phone in your house, and then I would be hiding in my closet, and then my mom would pick up a phone somewhere else in the house and be like, Jasmine, it's time for you to stop talking. Because the first time that JD and I spoke, it was close to three hours. I just liked him. We didn't run out of things to say, so we immediately hit the ground running like we were fast friends and we spoke to each other every single day.

Jasmine Star (00:01:54) -  Now, sometime after we had graduated high school, we decided that we were going to date long distance. Now, JD did break up with me. We're not even going to talk about this at this point in the story. He made a very mature adult decision and he said, well, if we're going to be going to different schools, he went to school in the Bay area. And so it was about like a 6 or 7 hour drive between us. And he says, like, maybe we should, you know, do life on our own and kind of figure out, like us as friends. And of course, I was heartbroken. I couldn't get out of bed for weeks. I mean, this guy just broke my heart. Anyway, he realized what he'd done lost. Like homeboy be calling me and no, but really he did. He did realize what a good thing was. I will tell you, the grass isn't always greener in the Bay area, honey. Anyway, we get back together.

Jasmine Star (00:02:38) -  We broke up for about 2 or 3 months and so we get back together. And that's when he and I knew, like we are all in. We dated long distance and he would call me from a payphone outside of his dorm. I know it's like people are listening. Like, what's a payphone? It is this device where you put quarters and nickels in. Except for the fact that we were so young. Like when people ask, like, how tough were those times? He would call me collect. Then he would say, hey, it's JD. And so then I would call back from my cell phone. I would call back the payphone because a payphone actually had a number. I would call him back on the payphone and he'd be sitting on his payphone. Anyway, it's neither here nor there. We build a strong friendship and we built strong lines of communication. And when J.D. came back during the holidays to visit one of those holidays, it was Christmas. And I walk into his room, and on his door there is a book.

Jasmine Star (00:03:33) -  And the title of the book was Is It Love or Obsession? Let me pick it up. And I'm like, this is a weird book. And then he had said my dad had given it to me, and I was like, wait, does your dad not think that we're in love? Like, does your dad think that we're obsessed with each other? And JD, who's just so nice, so nice? Listen, you can have him in a headlock. And he was still would not say anything disparaging to anybody at any given time. And he is like, well, you know, it's just a book. And I thought to myself, oh, I was embarrassed. I felt really misunderstood. And maybe looking back as an adult, I could see how his parents might think I was obsessed with him. Never mind the fact that I would handwrite him a letter every single week when we were in college in mail attempt. Never mind the fact that I would bake him cookies and I mailed him cookies.

Jasmine Star (00:04:31) -  Never mind the fact that I would. Yeah, call him on a payphone and yeah, spend hours of my day talking to him. He was the best thing and still remains the best thing to have ever happened to me. So do I see, like now as an adult? Like how a parent could be a little bit concerned about their child? Yeah, but I will tell you that when I saw that book, I interpreted it like it was a bad thing, like being obsessed was a bad thing, and I was immediately embarrassed about it. But I, years later, have realized that one of my greatest assets is to become obsessed with things. And so you want to know what I did? I have reclaimed that word called obsession, and I have decided to call it and make it my own. Y'all. Your girl is nothing but obsessed, and it has been an obsession that has driven me to new heights. And it has been obsession that has driven me forward. So what I'm going to do for the sake of this podcast is ask you straight out, have you ever been obsessed? Or what are you obsessed with right now? At the beginning of 2024, I was listening to a podcast called My First Million, and they were talking about this idea that whenever you get an idea or this question, or can I be good at this? The goal would be to become obsessed.

Jasmine Star (00:05:52) -  Because when you're obsessed, yeah, you're working harder than you've ever worked before. But when you're obsessed, it's like you're excited to wake up in the morning and work on it. And even during the hard times, you're just like, nah, I'm going to get into this and I'm going to do this. Like when you're obsessed, you find yourself in states of flow where you pick up your head and you're like, where did the last four hours go? That, my friends, is obsession. And I think in the past, when I was asking myself at the beginning of 2024, what are you obsessed with? And I'm just going to be honest, I had a hard time just saying, oh well, golly gee, willikers, this is my obsession. Nothing was in me at the moment and in the past. When I think about when I've been obsessed, it's almost like it descended upon me. Like I couldn't help being obsessed with it. And when I started this year, having not had that, I asked myself, well, if it didn't come to me, if it hasn't descended on me, is there a possibility of me choosing an obsession? So before I tell you about the obsession that I chose and now you know, months later, I mean, like, it is possible to choose an obsession even if it doesn't come to you, but we're going to get to that in a second.

Jasmine Star (00:07:03) -  So when I look back at the five periods of my life that really derived from obsession, that then led to success, I saw it happen to me in five distinct ways. Number one was law school. So prior to me being 24 years old, I had just been an achiever. I would figure out, okay, the things that I would want and how do I get those things? And when I went to law school, I realized that I had to become and I became obsessed with getting into law school and obsessed with getting into the top 1% of law schools. The second period of my life when it kind of derived from obsession was photography. It came to me like it hit me like a mack truck. I became so obsessed with photography that it literally oozed out. The only thing I wanted to do was figure out how to become a photographer. The next period of obsession came for me in the form of content. I started realizing, goodness, this was like 2008 2009. I realized that being good at content set you apart from 98% of business owners, but being great at content just didn't set you apart.

Jasmine Star (00:08:15) -  It opened doors that you would never have access to. So I became obsessed, figuring out the nuances of how to create content in a way that got people's attention. My next obsession that hit me was the fact that I was compounding businesses. I was creating businesses, and I was using content to magnify those businesses. But my next obsession became digital marketing because up until this point, I had a business online. I didn't have an online business. Now the difference between the two is my business. Being online was people would be able to book or buy something for me from online that's having my business online. But having an online business was having a complete mechanism to grow and scale the business without a direct proportion. For me, this wasn't an input output. Is that digital marketing and having an online business was empowering me to grow a business without direct synergy, without direct hard work, without hours, for hours. I wasn't trading hours for dollars. That became the biggest difference and I became obsessed. I wanted to learn everything about digital marketing and then my next obsession came around 2021 and I became obsessed with technology, obsessed to seeing if I would be able to build a technologically based company.

Jasmine Star (00:09:32) -  Could we have our own tech stack? Could I figure out how to create a SaaS offering? I became obsessed it for years. It consumed me. And then in 2024. I'll never forget we were on vacation and kind of just using it as downtime, like my brain. And that question was asked, what are you obsessed with? And I'm just going to be honest, I wasn't really obsessed with anything. And so that leads us to now my sixth period of obsession. And that started at the beginning of 2024, and I decided I was going to become obsessed with this podcast. And y'all know for a while I have been sharing that I've been trying to do new and different things with this podcast because the podcast has always been a labor of love. It's been a form of creativity, and everything I do is very visual. All the marketing I had ever done was very visual, and so the podcast became an opportunity for me to not be visual and to only be audio. But if you're watching this on YouTube right now, and if you're not watching the podcast on YouTube and you want to check it out, YouTube, y'all.

Jasmine Star (00:10:36) -  YouTube. We are living and we are thriving on YouTube. And for people who are watching this video, y'all can clown on my mic. This is a new mic that we're testing. The team is all about it because the audio is it's cleaner, it's crisper. You know, we're not getting a lot of it doesn't matter, right? I was like, y'all, like, y'all just must hate me. I am literally talking into I think the diameter of this thing is like 12in, like a foot. Kind of a diffuser for Mike. Anyway, the obsession became, how do we make the audio better? How do we make better content? How do we make content quicker? How do we make it more engaging? And more than anything, how do we add a visual component? Because if we add a visual component, we can now leverage the podcast as marketing on social platforms. That all came on the back of deciding I was going to approach my obsession differently. So when I think about being obsessed both times when it hit me like a mack truck, and when I had to chase obsession, like I was chasing a mack truck filled with mac and cheese, I thought to myself.

Jasmine Star (00:11:36) -  When I look back and I started dissecting what were the key factors of obsession, I noticed that there were four key factors because I said if obsession wasn't going to hit me and I was going to hit it, I had to understand those elements so I could see if I could duplicate them and replicate them. Now in my business. Yes and amen. So if you are currently obsessed, or if you are finding something to be obsessed with, here are four things that I think are going to change your perspective on your obsession. Number one is determination. Number two was reprioritization. Number three is investing in help. And then number four was the willingness to do anything. Y'all know that we build out frameworks because frameworks help me learn. And I hope that they help you learn as well. So we're now going to break these down each individually. So key factor in obsession number one determination. Now determination is simply in the most easiest terms for me to say. I am going to choose to figure it out at all costs.

Jasmine Star (00:12:33) -  So if you become obsessed with learning another language, if you become obsessed with learning digital marketing, if you become obsessed with losing weight, anything you decide to become obsessed with, then the number one thing is you have to make the decision to be determined. But what does that actually mean? In the most simplest terms, I'm going to choose to figure it out at all costs. In fact, I will not rest. I will not say I am finished, I will not say it is done. I need to say I have figured out what I need to know at all costs. There is no excuses and there is no stopping. And I'm making notes here because I'm looking over my 12 inch diameter of a microphone and I'm like trying to see my notebook. But I made a note and I put a little star by it. No matter how hard, no matter how hard. I think back to when we were building out a tech platform, and I've said it plenty of times on the podcast, I have never felt more inadequate.

Jasmine Star (00:13:24) -  I have never felt more drug underwater. I have never felt more nervous than I had doing that. But in similar ways. I look at the first iterations of my career when I was building an online store to sell educational resources to photographers, I had never understood what that was. When I was learning how to make sales, calls for high ticket items, when I was making high ticket item offers, I had never done that. I was wildly intimidated, and I look back at the things that were the hardest for me to learn, the hardest for me to figure out, and I take the most pride in those things. So I'm going to tell you, if you're in a place and you are obsessed and you're determined to figure it out and you're at a really hard spot, don't worry. If you decide not to quit, you are going to be so proud at who you become in the process and what you figure out. Now, when things got very expensive, when they got very time consuming, and when I truly lacked patience, I had to remind myself that the number one thing, the number one cost, the number one factor that I must invest in, the thing I must pay, the rent that I must pay every day for being obsessed is to be determined.

Jasmine Star (00:14:30) -  So somebody once said, as you are choosing to be determined in relation to things that we're obsessed with, is part of the reason why we feel so nervous. Trying something new is that we always make a decision. So you make a decision between the devil you know and the devil you don't know, because the devil you know is currently staying when you are. And if you're unfulfilled, well, that's the devil you know, because you got to deal with the devil of looking suffering yourself in the mirror saying, I'm actually not that happy and I'm not fulfilled. That's the devil, you know. But do you have the courage to pick the devil you don't know and say, I'm going to dance here? Instead of being safe? I'm going to do something that requires me to become a different person in the process. Friends, that is sheer and utter determination. When I look back at phases of my life where I was determined, I think to myself, well, what did that look like when I was obsessed with getting into law school? Well, I didn't know a single lawyer in my life.

Jasmine Star (00:15:26) -  I was 24 years old. I didn't have like, oh, like ask Uncle John, ask neighbor Stephanie. Like nobody was in my orbit who had ever gone to law school or was a lawyer. So I was like, how does one figure out, like, what is the mystique of law school? And so I started reading blog post. I became so obsessed. Do you guys remember back in the day where they have these blog roles where if you found one blog, they would like link out to other blogs that were similar or their friends that were writing about the same thing. Well, I became obsessed with blog rolls. I started reading and consuming people's law school blogs like it was first season of reality TV of The Real Housewives. Okay, like I was so in it and I was like, oh my gosh, is Amanda from UT law really going to be wanting to become like the student champion of her civics class. Whatever the case may be, I became obsessed, and I remember reaching out to law school administration, trying to use verbiage that I was reading in blog posts and asking questions of what might set my applications apart.

Jasmine Star (00:16:24) -  And I remember that I would email relentlessly, I would ask, I kept track of what schools I was emailing. Now here's the thing. Like I graduated college with a 4.0, but my Lsat score was not great at all, so I knew I was going to have a hard time getting into the top tier schools that I wanted to, but I thought to myself, well, maybe if I'm asking people the right questions, maybe if I figure out the system, maybe if I find a way to make my application, you know, more interesting or more advantageous for admission that they would consider me. And I got a zero response rate. Okay. It was like I'm trying to use like the numbers, right? It was like 99% of everybody gave me a zero, right? Like nobody was responding. And then one day, an assistant admin who wasn't even on full time staff at UCLA responded to one email. And you guys, I sent hundreds of emails. And here was this one person who sent back a two sentence email in regards to a question.

Jasmine Star (00:17:28) -  And then I was like, game over. I'm in like I'm in. If he answered me once, he will answer me again and I don't. I had no expectation. I'm like, I don't care if this guy doesn't respond to me in two days or two weeks or two months. I got an in and if he answered one question, he'll answer another. And I will tell you that this gentleman changed my entire option pool. He was an assistant admin for UCLA admissions office, and I'm not for sure. I'm not for sure, but I would take a good guess. This kind good, good man was a black man who went to law school and decided to become on a path of law school admissions, and I think that he saw something in me that maybe, just maybe, resonated with him. He wanted to help somebody, maybe like himself, an unexpected candidate, get into law school. Not only did I get into UCLA, I got into Berkeley, I got into U of Chicago, I got to UVA, like really, really amazing schools.

Jasmine Star (00:18:29) -  And that would not have happened without his just patience and his guidance and his ability. He read my application essay. He taught me how to write application essays. I would not have gotten where I was, and that was on the back of doing hard things and not taking, you know, zero, like nobody responding to emails and then just being relentless with that. That was the cost. That was the rent of being obsessed and being determined. I saw a similar pattern when it came to photography. I didn't know how to become a photographer. I didn't have a camera. The first camera that I had ever received was a camera from BestBuy, and I didn't have any gear, like I didn't have any lenses, I didn't have memory cards, we couldn't afford them. And so I was renting gear and I would return the gear the next day. And so I was giving myself like projects to do, and I didn't know how to get better. And so I became obsessed with photography forums again. I went back to blog post and any photographer that was writing or sharing information I became obsessed with, and I was studying photography.

Jasmine Star (00:19:28) -  Like reading about it online for 4 or 5 hours a day, like it became things that I was doing before work. It became what I wanted to do on my lunch break. It became what I did on the weekends and when I came home. In fact, when people are like, well, when you are so determined, like, what really would you do? There was a photographer who I had met in a photography forum, and she was talking about how she had such like a really difficult weekend ahead because she was going to shoot three weddings over a weekend and a light bulb went on and I was just like, well, if she's like, so overwhelmed, would she deny free help? And so I sent her a message and I said, hey, like, I would love to assist you on the wedding day. Let me know. And no strings or expectations. And she was like, wait, so you would fly to Atlanta to shoot the weddings with me? And I was like, absolutely all three of them.

Jasmine Star (00:20:15) -  She agreed. And so like, I was like, man, how am I going to get money to get to Atlanta? Well, I was literally I was like 26 years old, 25, 26 years old. And I called my dad and I was like, dad, can I have some of your airline miles? And he had just enough miles to get me to ATL to shoot three weddings. I was unpaid, I slept on her couch. But you want to know what? I turned over all of my images to her and she was so cool. She was like, hey, I know you're building your portfolio if you want to use a couple of them in your portfolio, but if you blog about them because you know your girl was blogging, she's like, just make sure that you said that you were shooting with me. I was like, absolutely, that is doing what you need to do to be determined. In fact, there were times where I wanted to go to conferences and I didn't have money to go to these photography conferences, but I knew that that's where the action was.

Jasmine Star (00:21:02) -  And so in these photography forums, there would be like sponsors or people who had products to sell, and they'd be in the photography group and I volunteered. I said, hey, if I go and sell on the trade show floor, like if I sell your camera bags, if I sell your albums, if I sell whatever it was, could I get a pass? And they were like, sure, you know, as vendors they were giving comped passes. And so they gave me a comp pass. I would go and sell on the trade show floor for like 2 or 3 hours. And then I got to go to these events and hear other photographers and meet other photographers. That is just being determined. That is just saying, I don't know how I'm going to make it, but I'm going to make it into that room. The second key factor of obsession is reprioritization. Now I feel like this is just a fancy way of saying I'm cutting away, and I know that this right here is where it ruffles a lot of people's feathers.

Jasmine Star (00:21:53) -  In fact, I know people are going to send me emails and DMs being like, but what about your priorities? And what about your sleep? All of those are prioritized. Other things were not okay. I'm going to get into that in a second. So I think that any time I look back when I became obsessed, it's not as if I got extra hours in my day. It's not as if I had extra money in my bank account. So if I didn't have more of one thing I would have to cut back of currently what was there. And when people say, oh, I don't have time, I don't have money, I'm deeply empathetic to that. That could be a fact. A fact could be you don't have money and it could be that your time is super limited. Those are facts. But I also think that when you're obsessed with something and you don't have money and you don't have time, you find a way. And oftentimes it requires cutting things back. I don't have judgment when people say like, I don't have time or money.

Jasmine Star (00:22:49) -  I have been there like so many times. In fact, there will always be a part of that narrative that I think I repeat to myself again and again that I don't have that. But one thing I know is that when you're obsessed, you're like, if I don't have that, is there something I could cut away that gives me time, opportunity, bandwidth, expansiveness to do that next thing? So I ruthlessly cut away, and I've learned to accept it. And I've learned that when I talk about this and share some of these stories, that many people are going to have an opinion and that's okay. I've already come to grips and accepted that this is my path. I don't propose it to anybody else, but I will say the more I ruthlessly cut away, the faster I got the result that I wanted. So I had mentioned before, like having an online business versus a business online. And when I got in to studying digital marketing, it became an obsession. And people were using words in language that I had no idea about, like EPL, CPM, kak, a pixel retargeting funnels and I was like, I have no.

Jasmine Star (00:23:50) -  This was literally learning a different language. And so I would be sitting, I'd be watching videos or I'd be hearing people having conversations, and I would just be writing notes to figure out things that I needed to research when I got back home. Google and me during this time were best friends. I just started reading what did I do? I went back to forums. I went to blog post, people that were actually talking about this stuff and breaking it down. Your goal is simple. I am not smart. I'm just undaunted when it comes to learning how to figure it out. So I just started reading a bunch. Now, there was this realization that I had in 20 1415, and that realization was there were levels to the game of entrepreneurship. And the more I learned about the levels, the more I realized that I was proud of the business that I had built, but it didn't tap at all when I could build. And that's what I realized when I became obsessed, and when I became obsessed with cutting things away, I realized that the less time I spent with anything that wasn't taking me to the next level was not the time I wanted to spend doing that.

Jasmine Star (00:24:56) -  And so there was a big shift in my personal life. I'm not proud, and I don't think it's like the cost of entry. But what I will say was at the time, I didn't have any balance and there was no such thing as like work life balance or like, what is your balance day look like? There was just none of it and I was okay with it. I accepted that cause I chose that. Nobody did it to me. I just said, oh, I'm seeing fragments of the game with a different set of players and how big things could be. There's not going to be balance. I wasn't going out on like girls nights. I wasn't going out on girls trips, I wasn't networking. What was the point of being at a networking event? If I realized that that networking event was at the lowest rung of the game, I wanted to do different things. And so if it wasn't about learning how to build an online business, I wasn't doing it. I ruthlessly cut away anything Television, books.

Jasmine Star (00:25:49) -  I was like, I am only reading and consuming things that are going to be helping me build an online business. And I was so obsessed that, like the results I saw, not. I hate when I say like, I've been trying so hard. Part of me being obsessed with the podcast is not to use the word like, unless I am trying to create like an analogy, right? It was like a stream of water was floating. No, no no. When I say like it is not my brain moving fast enough. So this is me choosing not to say like without using it. And as an analogy, my growth wasn't like a hard right on a graph. It was a sharp up and to the right on a graph. That was the first time when I cut away, when I absolutely reprioritize where my my time went, my growth moved up in the other direction. So that year, when I started realizing what digital marketing was, we built a new revenue stream in the business.

Jasmine Star (00:26:45) -  We built a new one in the business that in less than 12 months generated $1 million. And that's when I started realizing, okay, by reprioritizing my time, I saw a direct ROI on that. So the thing that I learned from Reprioritization was the more that I cut away to learn a specific thing, the faster I got those results. Now, the third key factor of obsession in this obsession framework is investing in help. And this, again, is where a lot of people who I love, who I trust, who have built businesses my size even bigger, they have a tendency to disagree with this, but I'm like, I think it's been a key factor in my growth and obsession. And I did a lot of research learning on my own. I did, and I firmly believe that. I firmly believe that you can and should do as much, wring out the internet for all you can. And when I did that, I realized that I grew and expanded, but then I plateaued. There was only so much more.

Jasmine Star (00:27:38) -  The nuances was when I realized that it was time for me to invest. And I want to be very clear, I don't believe in just like, oh, I'm just going to like, I want to learn how to play basketball. Well, I'm going to hire LeBron James. as coach. Not at all. Right. Like I'm going to try to do a lot on my own and then gradually work up to that. But I when I got to a certain place in my business, I was unafraid to invest in the proverbial like LeBron James coach for the thing I wanted to learn that was always been like, okay, for nuances, I'm going to pay a premium. So when I look at making an investment to get help around something very specific, I don't look at it as like, oh, I'm getting a coach. No, I look at his I'm buying time and I'm buying their knowledge. If it took them five years to learn something that I am facing and working through now, why would I not pay them for that knowledge and for the time it took for them to learn it, so that it takes me what, half the time? What if it takes me one fifth of the time? That is well worth that investment.

Jasmine Star (00:28:37) -  So in the beginning, like what I said, I was like becoming obsessed with photography. I started paying to go to photography workshops. In the beginning I couldn't afford them, so I just started pitching myself. I'm like, do you need an assistant? Do you need somebody to document the event? At the time, blogs like this is like 2007. Blogs were still a thing and I was like, I could write blog posts for you and I can anchor them for SEO. I was like, basically pitching myself to be in the room When I realized that that worked for the photographers, I started pitching myself to do the same thing for summits and for events, and I'd be like, hey, I have a skill for writing, and I can create content online that starts indexing your event to sell tickets or to do like post reviews on it. And people started giving me access to the event on the condition that I would create content for them. When I was learning tech, I invested in a program called a SAS Academy.

Jasmine Star (00:29:27) -  Like I realized, oh, I don't know how to start a tech company. I don't know what. It's time for me to learn how to build a tech company. And so it was not a course. So what happened was I saw that there's this opportunity. People had said, hey, if you want to build a SAS company, there's this program that you should be doing. And I was like, okay. And so when I filled out the paperwork, they had said, okay, well, do you have any experience? And I'm like, no. So they send me to a salesperson who was trying to pitch me on a $3,000 course, and they're like, you see, what you need is a $3,000 course on how to build like a SaaS company. And I was like, okay, but this is how much my company is doing an annual revenue and in profitability. And they're like, oh, so what you need? They're like, let me and this is a hand to heaven.

Jasmine Star (00:30:10) -  They sent me to a different salesperson to sell me and close me on the program, but I was like, listen, we don't need to waste my time. If I'm accepted, I'm willing to pay. Like, I don't need to be sold. I needed to be like, can you imagine your life? Like, I don't need the sales pitch like I'm in. So if I'm in, I'm in. Do you let me in? That was the total conversation. And so I invested in that program. And, you know, in the past what I started doing was realizing the value of masterminds. And people always raise their eyebrows, scoff like, oh my God, you're gonna pay some hack 25,000, 40,000, 100,000, you know, to put you in a room with other people. And the answer was, hell yes, I am. Hell. Yes, I am. Every single mastermind I have ever invested in. I got a positive ROI in the minute I started seeing that. I'm just like, I can't even blink.

Jasmine Star (00:30:56) -  You can't even blink before I handed over my credit card. That's how valuable they are to me, not to everybody, But in my journey, that has been how valuable they've been to me in my journey. Now I want to review the key factors of obsession, determination, reprioritization and investing in help. And now the last factor is the willingness to do anything. When I think about examples of when I was obsessed with photography, man, it's like I was driving three hours to shoot a six hour wedding, like for free. Like there was another photographer who was like, oh, I'm living in Central California. And I'm like, okay, I'll help you shoot the wedding. And then she's like, well, I don't have money to pay you. And I'm like, that's okay. Drove three hours, shot a six hour wedding, and drove three hours home. I wanted to do that because I'm willing to do anything to build a portfolio, to get experience. When I think about the things I would do for digital marketing, I really wanted to learn meta ads.

Jasmine Star (00:31:47) -  But at the time they were just Facebook ads, and I was like, I really want to learn from the best. And there was a gentleman whose podcast I listened to. I was reading all of his content, and he had announced that he was doing a three day event in San Diego, and it was really pricey, and I just couldn't afford it at that time. And I pitched him and I said, hey, you know, like the best ads work with a really strong content strategy. Do you think that I can pour in at the event for free with no expectation? I would love to share my advice. And he had seen my social activities and seen the business side building. He's like yes, of course. So I spoke and I taught for an hour, but I was able to go to the event in regards to tech, you know, I realized that I don't know what I don't know. And instead of trying to posture, it was always a better play for me to say, I don't, I don't this is all Japanese to me.

Jasmine Star (00:32:34) -  And so I did this program at Stanford and it's called Latino Business Action Network. And they will put you into pairings like if so, if you have a tech company, they want to marry up with other tech companies. There were so much I didn't know. Y'all. Like there's just I was the only tech founder who had no idea about tech, but I met this really cool guy. I think what he's doing is stinking amazing. Built a SaaS company for solar panels in Texas. In Arizona. It was fascinating what he was doing. Anyway, he was so smart and he just understood things in a really different way. But marketing wasn't his jam. And so then after the program had ended, he had said, hey, do you think that we can get together and talk about marketing and you could talk with my marketing team? I said, yeah, of course. Do you think you could talk with my CTO? And so it was a really great way to do anything to get access, even on your behalf or somebody on the team.

Jasmine Star (00:33:18) -  So now that I've gone through the four factors, and if obsession has hit you like a mack truck or you hit or running after your Mack truck, you have to ask yourself, does this sound like any bit in alignment, and where can I start stepping up in these areas? I'm going to tell you what I am doing now to step up in these areas. So determination for this podcast is that I'm choosing not to give up until I figure out how I make my podcast the best it can be. I have identified my metrics. I'm not saying like I need to become the number one in entrepreneurship. To be totally honest, it doesn't matter to me. I mean, what, I like it well, sure, of course, who wouldn't? But it's not like I am only doing a great job if I'm number one. Not at all. We have our own metrics for saying we know that this is the best that it could be, and I feel like it's very daunting, like very daunting, because the category that we chose in podcasting is entrepreneurship the most competitive category outside of like the mainstream? Like pop culture humor.

Jasmine Star (00:34:19) -  But like in all of the genre of marketing, life betterment, education, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship is one of the most competitive because the people who are creating entrepreneurship podcasts have such a good business acumen that they are not your average podcaster. They're a business owner with a podcaster, and they're making their podcast a business. So do I think that entrepreneurship podcasts exist and are created and are amplified differently than any other podcast genre? Abso freaking lutely. Did I decide to swim? You know, in the ocean with sharks instead of jumping into a lake with sea bass? I did, and I'm just going to say I would rather sink with sharks than swim with sea bass. Okay, I just said it, I said it. I've always said I want to be the dumbest in every room. I want to be the poorest in every yacht. I wouldn't be the smallest dog in every pen. And I want to swim with sharks. There, I said it. I make no apologies. I definitely have less resources than people in the entrepreneurship category, like people who are at the top of the entrepreneurship category.

Jasmine Star (00:35:25) -  Gary Vaynerchuk and my lad Alex Harman. Like when you're looking at all those people like, I'm just gonna call and say, your girl has much less resources, but I have a little bit of hot spot and I'm just going to bank that on that. When it comes to Reprioritisation, I think it's hard to admit I'm working a lot. I am working a lot. I am very fortunate to be having a tiny but mighty team to pour into this podcast, but it is requiring a lot more. When you become obsessed with something, it requires a lot more of you. So I am working. We are trying to add more podcasts per week without expanding the team. That means I am accepting the responsibilities. And what does this often look like? I'm working on Saturdays. I'm working on Saturday. I wake up just as early on a Saturday as I do on Monday, and I use those hours to work on the podcast. You know, do I think this will be forever? I hope not, but in the process of me being obsessed right now, it's the price and rent I'm willing to pay.

Jasmine Star (00:36:26) -  Thirdly, investing in help for the podcast. I feel very fortunate I was able to barter a podcast mentor. I'm going to be helping him and his team and his SaaS company with marketing. But what he decided to do first was he's like, we're not going to mix it. I'm going to pour into your podcast. I'm going to share everything. I know we're going to have a very focused growth path for you. And when we get there, he's like, then we're going to talk about marketing in regards to my business. And so I said, okay, I'm all in. Fourth is the willingness to do anything. What you see right now is, you know, I call it my at home studio. It sounds really fancy. Like, look at my at home studio. I'm sitting in my office. I'm just shutting the doors. My four and a half year old is on the other side. There's a lot of noise going on, but it's just me and a couple Sony cameras, a couple of ring lights, and we're doing the dang thing.

Jasmine Star (00:37:13) -  I'm committed to up leveling in all ways. I am hosting podcast in new cities. I realize that not everybody will come to Newport Beach for a podcast interview one day. They will. Oh, one day, one day. I hope that my podcast is so big and so strong. It's so mighty that people are like, I get to fly to Newport Beach to be on that podcast. So I'm saying these things and is it making you cringe that I'm coming out and saying my dream? So on, distilled and pure and uncut, maybe. Does it make me feel uncomfortable saying it? I hope not, because when that day happens, I hope you say that she called her shot and she did what it took to get to that. And nobody looks at my story and says she just got lucky. No, I think many of us could be prepared so that when luck happens, it's like catching lightning in a bottle. I am maximizing time in cities, so oftentimes if I am a part of an event, if I'm consulting or if I'm speaking, I will be flown to an event.

Jasmine Star (00:38:13) -  And so they absorb the travel costs and the hotel costs. And so during those times, I'm trying to squeeze in as many podcasts in that city. So in closing, why am I doing this? I want to choose to build my business on my own terms. I'm choosing to be obsessed with this, because I believe that this will empower me to choose what I want to do on my own terms, and to be honest. Number two, I like a challenge. It took me forever to realize that. JD says, like, if you're not challenged, you're not happy. I was like, but why can't it just be easy? And he's like, if it was easy, you wouldn't do it. And then thirdly, I like to prove the stats wrong. If there are stats to be proven wrong, those are the stats that I want. So here's a few. 32% of all podcasts ever created only have more than ten episodes. So 68% of podcasts never make it past episode ten. 7% of all podcasts have been updated once in the last 30 days, and there is only one person of color at the time of this recording in the top ten Entrepreneur podcast.

Jasmine Star (00:39:25) -  I was like, man, okay, we made it past episode ten. We've updated multiple times in the last 30 days. So now we just work, and we work to get us closer to where we want to go. When I look back at this podcast, my gosh, we've done over 400 episodes. So we got 10 million downloads in four years. And I said to myself, if you become obsessed, can you double this in half the time? So can we get 20 million downloads in two years? That was just a goal. Just to prove that I want to do it. That must be my mind to it. So now I want to focus on you. What are you obsessed with this year? Like, I would love to know. Like, if you don't want to leave a comment on YouTube because it's like, oh, I don't want my business out there, that's really fine. You can send me a DM on LinkedIn or Instagram. Jasmine star. Now I want you to choose something if something hasn't chosen you.

Jasmine Star (00:40:22) -  I want to see how your life changes. I want to see how you step up. I want to see how you sharpen your teeth. I want to see the pride on your shoulders when you hold your head high. So you're going to pick something and then you're going to choose determination, and then you're going to choose what and how you're going to reprioritize. That's the cost of it. And then number three you're going to invest in help only after you've done your own research, right. You're going to you're going to get greedy. You're going to get what you can get for free. And if you realize you've plateaued in getting help, then that's when it's time for you to invest. And then number four, be willing to do anything. So you win. I want to say thank you for listening to The Jasmine Star Show. Thank you for allowing me to share my obsession. And the next time you see me and my husband be walking the streets of Newport Beach, I want you to look at them and say, ooh, there goes love and obsession.

Jasmine Star (00:41:11) -  That shout out this episode is dedicated to my father in law. Lest anybody doubt, when your girl sets her mind to something is coming to fruition. Y'all. Thank you for listening to The Jasmine Starr Show. For those of you who leave reviews and send me DMs, thank you. I see you and I appreciate you. Have a beautiful day.