Jasmine Star 00:00:00  So he stood on a stage and in front of everybody, looked at all of us and said, this is how you get ahead of 99% of business owners. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Jazmin Starr Show. We are going to be talking about how to get in front of ahead of 99% of business owners. How's that for a hook? I've been trying to work on my YouTube hooks. Like, how are we doing? You know, people are like, you got a long way to grow a girl. That's right. But you want to know what I am better today than I was yesterday. On that note, let's go back to this thing that I heard now earlier in my career, I was making a transition away from doing branding and marketing consulting for specifically photography related businesses. Started my career as a photographer. Then I started creating content for other businesses that were related to the photography industry. And then once I decided, hey, I'm going to go back and I'm just gonna focus on my business, these businesses said, can you come in and teach our teams what you had been doing? So then I repeated back what I thought I heard.

Jasmine Star 00:01:04  Are you saying you want me to tell your team what to do? And then I come back online for a meeting just to check in to see if they're doing what we said we're going to do. To which they replied, yeah. And I was like, I'll take that job, let's take that job. And so that had been the form of three revenue streams in my business at the time, taking photography clients. I had an online store for photography, educational resources for photographers, and then I was consulting photography related businesses on how they might be able to create their marketing and branding to attract photographers. I started expanding who I was speaking to, specifically to business owners and small business owners, people outside of the creative space. Now, I was approached by an event to go and speak at their event. Now this is me just getting outside of my industry. This would not happen today, but because I didn't have a lot of experience in what events look like for digital marketing, I just assumed they would look a lot like the events that we had in the photography world.

Jasmine Star 00:02:06  Boy, was I wrong. I was asked to speak at an event, and they wanted me to go in and talk about social media marketing. What I didn't know was that this event would be very much structured to be like that quintessential. It has bad blood. A lot of what people would say snake oil salesmen in the digital world, like buy now and you'll get everything you want. I had no idea that this world existed, so my husband and I would go to the event. I'm there with the videographer, and they asked me to get to the event an hour early, just to ensure that I was miked and everything was set to go. So I walk into this hotel ballroom and there's no windows. It is freezing cold. They have, you know, those like two foot black stages. It's to be high and the length of it is probably 12ft and the width of it is probably six feet. So it's like just a tiny little stand. Like, I could essentially build this black stage with tools and resources from Home Depot.

Jasmine Star 00:03:00  Yes, that was the stage for this event. They had a bunch of chairs that were there, and the event was attracting a lot of business hopefuls like, we're going to teach you how to build a business. And so by and large, the audience there dressed casually, it was a Saturday like this is the jeans and t shirt kind of folks. And everybody who was speaking at the event or hosting an event, and they were dressed in three pieces I'm talking about. They even had the handkerchief in the pocket. Now, I grew up, or my dad would buy like three suits, which includes a tie and a shirt and handkerchief, like we would go to East LA and then there, like the fashion district, you would be able to like bundle these suits. And so he would get like three suits for like $99. But the handkerchiefs in the pocket, it came stuck in the pocket like my dad would say. I'm like, oh, this looks so tacky. And he would cut it out.

Jasmine Star 00:03:48  Well, at this event, these brothers were wearing three piece suits with a real hanky in the pocket. It was such a mismatch, right? Because it's not like we were at this hotel like the Ritz-Carlton or the Four Seasons. We were at like a right off the freeway hotel in a ballroom where people were dressed casually. They had like a pop up table in the front for registration with the typical lanyards. And they were on the stage and I'll never forget. So I get there about an hour early, and they have programming like two speakers before me, each doing 30 minutes, and whenever they would announce the speaker, there would be like the person on AV, and then they would, you know, like play the most quintessential conference song, like, you know, jump Around My House of pain or eight Mile by Eminem. And so the speakers would be walking down the aisle. Now the room is long. And so you're walking down the middle of the aisle, like, almost like it's like price is right or like a Soul Train.

Jasmine Star 00:04:46  And so, you know, the jeans and t shirt folks are sitting at the ends and then the guest speakers are going up and like, they're pumping like, well, like they're doing like that. Well, I'm up in the club type thing in their shiny shoes and like, picked heads and then they jump up on that two foot stage and then they give the speech and at the end of each 30 minute session they would say, oh, well, there's a group of us at the back of the room where you'll find us with clipboards, have your credit cards ready. We're going to. And I was like looking around it and I'm like, what is going on? What did I just agree to speak at? Now, mind you, I did not get paid to speak at this event at that time of my career. I'm moving away from events in an industry where I had established my name and brand into a space and industry where nobody knew who I was. So when you got to do that, start at the bottom.

Jasmine Star 00:05:39  So I agreed to speak at this event. I wasn't getting paid, and all of a sudden I see so much sales pressure. Let me tell you, anytime you're in a very cold room. They intentionally keep it cold so that you don't fall asleep and you're actually not thinking all that smartly. And they'll say, go in the back of the room, drop your credit cards. And so there's like a crew of people in the back where they have clipboards. They run your credit cards because they want to sell you higher and higher and higher. They were making consecutively higher pitches the hour that I was there. And I'm thinking, oh girl, what do you do right now? Like, what are you going to do right now? So then they announced Jasmine Star is going to speak about social media marketing. And I look at that center aisle and I was like, know who you is? My dad always said, know who you is and know who you isn't. And I was like, there's no way I am walking down that middle aisle and high fiving people.

Jasmine Star 00:06:34  There's just no way. So like the event producer was, I know you think people are going to hear this and they're gonna be like, who does she think she is? Like, you're going to hear this. And if you want to have an event, you probably are not gonna want to book me. To which I say, okay, because I know what I cannot do. I cannot walk down a middle of an aisle where I'm in a room where I'm very unfamiliar. I'm not even sure of what is being sold, and I'm not even sure of the sales mechanisms that are happening. So I was like, listen, nobody's going to protect your brand. You better walk in integrity to what you can control. And so the producer had put me in the back of the room and they're like, we're going to keep your song, which by and large, you know, I'll give you one guess for what song you think they played for the only female speaker at this event. What do we think it is? Could be Girl on Fire by Alicia Keys or it could be Raw by Katy Perry.

Jasmine Star 00:07:19  It seems like when you go to a digital marketing event and there's a female speaker, girl on fire, raw, it's raw. No other songs are going to do. Those are the girl mantras. Ladies and gentlemen, for anybody who's working in TV, please ask me for a list of songs that are not gender specific. And maybe, just maybe, you know, can pull from like different areas of genres. Okay, so instead of sitting in the back of the room, waiting in the back of the room for me to be called up at high five and do like a little two bit jingle or whatever till they don't happen down the aisle like me. I was playing in the back, then I went all the way to the right side. I walked all the way down. So this is like the warmup, like I'm, you know, jazz and stars located, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm down the right side of the aisle walking to about the second row, they're like, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome from the back of the room, Jasmine Star.

Jasmine Star 00:08:13  I come up from row two on the right side. Get up on the stage. They thank you so much for having me and I jump right into it. And again, what am I doing? I'm trying to do things my own way because what the gentleman on this stage had said, giving a presentation before, was that he stood on the stage and he said this, this like capital T, this is how you get ahead of 99% of business owners. And so his suggestions how to get ahead. Here's a couple examples. Decimate your competition. He literally said, when you wake up in the morning, you want to think about taking them down. You want to put all your energy into showing them who's the new kid on the block. You want them to stop ever doubting what it is you can do. So how do you do that? You decimate your competition, you wake up and you eat your competition for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, okay, so everything I've done and like how I approach things is like I focus on the quality of the experience that I am providing for a consumer.

Jasmine Star 00:09:16  I am deeply dedicated to creating a customer success journey. And so to do that, I'm empowering my Customer Success team to always try their best to make it right, to do right by our customer, our user, or our client. And the way that I've gotten ahead has been through transformation. Now, if you notice the difference, he was saying, decimate your competition, which in my mind puts all of the time and energy on other people, other people and things I cannot control. And so in my mind, how I was able at that point to get ahead of competition has simply been, well, there are things that I can control. I can control the experience that a customer has. I can control what the customer journey looks like and I can focus on the transformation. Another thing he had said was an acronym, you know, got to be ABC, always be closing, always be closing every time. Just like I want you to be when you're in the grocery mart grocery market thinking of yourself like, how am I going to close this? When you're talking, you know, you're taking your kids to soccer.

Jasmine Star 00:10:13  When you're at the PTA. I want you doing the ABC, ABC always be closing. Who can I be closing? And I thought to myself, ABC always be closing. How many friends you got, bro? Like, who wants to be around the guy who's got another opportunity to make money in less time? Double your income. Let's go bro. I thought, can I make another acronym? So I decided I'm going to take what he's saying on how to get ahead. I'm gonna make my own instead of ABC. Always be closing. I decided ABC always be creating. Creating value. Creating time. Creating wins for other people. Maybe you don't like always be creating. How about ABC? Always be consistent. Show up. Control what you can show up. You don't like creating or consistent? How about ABC always be converting into what conversation into what a conversion ABC. Yeah, we could talk about closing, sure. But when you talk about the difference between ABC always be closing versus ABC, always be converting.

Jasmine Star 00:11:12  When somebody converts, they're making up their own mind. They get to say what they want instead of closing is I'm going to answer every single question. Oh, and I have a script. So whatever 87 excuses you have for me, I'm going to know what to say right over. I'm going to out talk to you so that you feel like, whoa, whoa, whoa, okay. Every fear has been demolished. Yeah, but by what? By force? Talking by brute force. Listen, I am not saying that that doesn't work. In fact, I want to be very clear here. His approach worked because it was a bunch of people who got up, walked to the back of the room and handed over their credit cards to the mafia with the clipboards. It works. It works. I just don't think it works for me. And so when we talk about how to get ahead of 99% of your competition, how about we decide that there's different ways that work for every single person, and there's not just one single way.

Jasmine Star 00:12:01  And so I'm sure you can tell I didn't follow his advice. And then against his advice, I decided to create my own path. And then I ABC remained consistent and I AVC remained creating. And on the back of the content I was creating and teaching other people, it made me realize that there's not a right or wrong. But for the sake of this conversation, how about we talk about my journey of getting ahead of 99% of business owners who are at the same point I was? Now, to be clear, I'm not I'm not ahead of 99% of business owners, period. Not at all. But, you know, if I'm ahead of 99% of the people who are swimming in a pool at any given time, I'm ahead of the people who are in the pool. I'm not ahead of the 99% of all swimmers, which includes professional athletes. Right? So in the terms of this conversation, how do you get ahead of 99% of the people who, all things considered, are roughly around where you are in your business? So this episode, I'm just going to be sharing 3 or 4 things that help me get ahead.

Jasmine Star 00:13:00  And again, just my experience, just my advice if you want to do the complete opposite, I totally applaud you. All I want you to do is win. And if winning requires you to do something that is totally opposite what I'm saying, I'll clap you up. I absolutely love that. So here are the four things that I did to get ahead of 99% of business owners at the same place I was 12 years ago. Number one, don't expect a ten point checklist. So what do I mean by this is as I consecutively continue to expand as I upload, and as I scaled, I was understanding that the version of who I was could no longer be the version that I was in that moment. Essentially, what got me to that point will require something else of me to get to the next level. And so early in my career, I started realizing that I didn't know what I didn't know, and so I wanted to be around other people who thought bigger and and did different things. And so my first exposure into this world of personal development and business development, and specifically digital marketing, was by joining a mastermind.

Jasmine Star 00:14:01  Now, to be clear, I am not saying that the mastermind is the only way of doing it. I am just saying that that is what happened for me. And I literally found a mastermind by reading a blog post that I had come after a Google search. I don't remember the exact Google search like the exact phrasing of it, but it was late one night and I was asking, how can I grow my business online? And so I went through a litany of article. I ended up on some of these blog. I don't remember whose blog it was, but they did an interview of a gentleman who was talking about scaling with a group of people. And I was like, oh, that's what I need. And the word that I used was mastermind. I had never heard of that word before. And so I joined a live class, and I watched him pitch around this thing called a mastermind. So I signed up for it. I had no idea what I was doing. And so whenever I go into a new situation, I follow the same thing I've always done since childhood.

Jasmine Star 00:14:53  Now, I'm sure there's probably some, like, licensed therapist who's going to hear what I'm going to have to say and say, we need to dissect this. We're going to get Freudian or Jungian. We're going to go back to my childhood to unravel it. Listen, it just who I am. I have done this in childhood. Whenever I'm in a new situation, I immediately clam up and all I do is watch. I have a twin sister, and when we were in college, we decided to backpack through Europe for 4 or 5 weeks and my sister is the complete opposite. Like the yin and yang, the sun and the moon like a positive and a negative force that is my sister. We look very much alike, but we are so different. Whereas in social situations or new things, my sister jumps in like she was frickin born there. So it's just like she doesn't speak French and she doesn't speak Italian. But whenever we would be backpacking, it would be and she and she would act and she would say things like, with just enough accent for somebody to think like, maybe she's been studying French.

Jasmine Star 00:15:49  So they would, you know, extend beyond the preliminary, like, Bonjour, we are talking. I can't even pretend to say the things that she would say because she would just, like, memorize a few catch phrases or like a few salutations in French. And then people would think that that maybe she knew French and they would just go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and speak back to her. And she's just like, Holy moly, I am like, what are you doing? Like, we would be in these crowded train stations and my sister would just jump in. And if you've never been to like Italian train stations, now we're not talking about the major cities like Rome and Florence. We're talking about, like, train stations that put you out in the middle of, like, towns that you can't even pronounce. And like, people were clamoring over each other trying to get tickets on a train. And immediately what I did is I threw my backpack on the floor and I just looked and I watched and I'm like, okay, who's going in what line and why? And I'm trying to count who's going where.

Jasmine Star 00:16:36  Where are they going after this? Where do they get the ticket? Who's. I'm trying to map the whole thing out. My sister big backpack. It all just jumps in at schools. In schools, they. Buy Italiano. Like I'm like, what are you doing? She jumps right in. Those experiences have stayed with me from childhood into adulthood. So I get into this mastermind, and I am not saying, you know, like I am literally, I don't speak any language. I'm just going to shut myself and I'm just going to be real quiet. What I was really doing, what I have always done, is simply analyze. I'm analyzing what's going on in the situation. And so I realize that in every situation, there's always a pattern. You might have to wait longer before the pattern reveals itself, but there's always a pattern. I was in the very first national meeting in person, were in San Francisco, and all of these people seemed to be following a flow or speaking the same language, or this is not their first rodeo.

Jasmine Star 00:17:33  And all I'm thinking is just like, follow the flow, follow the pattern, it's going to reveal itself. Just analyze, analyze, analyze. And so what you want to do is repeat the pattern with other people until you understand the pattern. And then you could break the pattern. I am not saying this is right, I am just saying that this is what I've always done. Like if I understood where to buy the ticket, then I should just repeat buying the ticket, standing in line and doing it that way until I understood ways that I can get around it. In the mastermind, my first reaction is clam up. Follow the pattern, analyze. Go with the pattern until you can break the pattern. So adhere to the system without as many changes as possible until you feel confident to do that. So when I was going into mastermind, how I was able to really maximize my opportunity, how was I using this this idea of like climbing up this idea of watching. How could I use it to my advantage? Well, this was what I started noticing.

Jasmine Star 00:18:29  And the mastermind, somebody asks a question or they share a challenge. This was generally the nature of it. And then people ask clarifying questions like, do I understand this the right way? Have you considered this? I just want to make sure that all of these things have been done before we start ideating or offering feedback. And once that happens, then people offer insights. They're not saying, hey, this is what you should do. They'll say, have you considered this? What about making it look this way? Or this happened to me once, and while it's a little bit different, I think in this situation you could draw a parallel. Now the person who asks the question, right. So I have a challenge where I'm asking a question. They first clarify the questions, then people ask, have you considered this? Have you done this? And they're just asking what they've done up until that point. It's at that point that the person who asked the question shuts their mouth, and then that's it.

Jasmine Star 00:19:19  Nothing else is needed. This person is not in front of the mastermind asking, okay, but if I do that, what are the ten steps to do that in a mastermind? The pattern that I saw was present a problem, an opportunity or a challenge. Get clarity around it. People simply ask questions or give ideas, and then the person who asks their question shuts their mouth and gets to work. They go and they create a ten point checklist for themselves. If they do not expect it from the mastermind host or anybody else in the mastermind, all they got was a bunch of questions and new perspectives of the same scenario. Then they go and create an action item for themselves. So I started learning how winners behave. You guys, this is like 2016. And for the first time in my career, I'm actually understanding how do winners behave? What do they do? Well, they ask a question, they get feedback. They create their plan. They do the work. They amend the plan.

Jasmine Star 00:20:25  That's how winners win. That's it. And I once heard a conversation where they said, if somebody asks a question, you should be able, if you're good to answer it in less than 30s. And the answer in and of itself should be so simple that 99% of people won't do it. So if you want to know how winners win and how they behave, they ask a question. They get feedback. They create the plan. They do the work. They amend the plan because, like, I don't want to spill the tea, but the plan that you start with hardly ever works the first time. You're always amending the plan. So winners don't need answers. Winners need insights. When I understood that I could win simply by getting insights and making a plan. I started getting ahead of my competition. Second way that I was really understanding how to leverage the things that I was learning how to get ahead of the competition was learning from others and other fields, other industries. I'm telling you, this is like the best kept secret.

Jasmine Star 00:21:34  That was one probably never a secret. I just never knew about it. And now I want to share it with everybody. So early in my career, I went to an event called Old Summit. I can't even explain why or what. Hold me there. I just thought, you know, I need to be in Salt Lake City in February in the dead of cold, where everything in the city is white because it's covered in slope and it's like negative degrees, not like negative degrees. It is negative degrees. Why I needed to go at that time, I don't know. All I just knew was I need to go out and meet different people now. This event attracted a wide array of people. So this was very much early in like my blogging days. And so I was going there and a large part of the attendees were fashion bloggers. They were bloggers who were into sewing or not printmaking. But like when they come up with their designs, like you come up with a design and then you follow the design.

Jasmine Star 00:22:24  I don't know the exact words of it, so you can just see, like, I'm at this event and a lot of the content and a lot of the networking and mixers and things that they're talking about doesn't have to do with my business. But I just wanted to see the way that different industries and different businesses are run, because I could get that information and start distilling it. How could I use it in my industry, or how could I do what they're doing in my own way? It was simply seeing a different industry in the way it's done to break your frame of what's currently happening and what's currently possible for yours. A few years later went to an event called Woo and Wellness. Now, I wouldn't necessarily consider myself to be like Very Wu. I'm probably moderately wu. I'm very much into wellness. And so I went to this one day then, and we did things that were so far out of my comfort zone. Okay, like we had a two hour silent tea ceremony in the middle of a vegetable garden and we're sitting on the dirt.

Jasmine Star 00:23:16  It's completely silent. And they have like a like, this big, like, flower circle. I think it's like a mandala. I think there's a design of these flowers. And then you sit there and they do a very traditional tea ceremony, and everybody's silent, and you're just sitting in this vegetable garden and you drink nine cups of tea. And I was like, okay, I've never done this. Being alone with my thoughts for two hours was crazy and powerful and life changing. We did sound baths. Have you ever done a sound bath? Like you basically take a nap and like the music vibrates at a certain frequency. That's supposed to be when you're at your calmest state. And they had laid out these, like, knit blankets, like, I don't know, in Spanish. We call them a sit up. It I don't know, I don't know what else to call it in English. I literally I'm just like, this is a blanket. Anyway, they had these sit ups laid on the floor and then they had like these bean like pillows.

Jasmine Star 00:24:04  And then you just lay there and like, they have these instruments and they just play and there's like gongs and you're like, this is so weird. And then you're like, kind of like, meditate and fall asleep. It was crazy. We also had a session. You guys, all of this is in one day, if you can believe it or not. We also had this session where we're standing in like, not like a dirt field, but like kind of there's not a lot of plants, there's trees, but it's mostly just dirt. And so then they have like this DJ who sets up this like pop up speaker area. And so then we have this guy who comes in from LA and he has these big flowy, almost like hippie MC hammer pants, and he has these dreads and he takes off his shirt. He's built like like his six pack has a 12 pack, you know. And so then he's just like, we're gonna fall into our bodies. He's like, we're going to let every preconceived notion go.

Jasmine Star 00:24:50  We're just going to be ourselves. We're going to find ourselves in movement and the DJ's playing music. And I'm telling you, the guy is like the frosting is hips and moving his shoulders and like, arms above you, and they're swinging and you're just swaying side to side, and then you're like, concave and then you're convex and your hips are rolling from side to side and you feel Stupid. You feel dumb. And then all of a sudden, you get to a point where you're doing it for 15 or 20 minutes. You're like, well, doing it halfway. You're missing the whole point. And so then I just decided, listen, everybody else here is doing the same stupid thing. And so I'm just going to concave and convex and I'm going to be moving. And the minute I stopped caring I just started having fun. I let my body do whatever my body wanted to do. I went to an event of mixed business owners, eight and nine figure business owners, and the goal was to mix and mingle with people who are outside of what it is you do.

Jasmine Star 00:25:47  And I happen to be sitting at a table with a gentleman who ran a CRM, but specifically for dentists, and he had explained to me what this whole idea was, was that, sure, there's a lot of CRMs out there. I mean, you have like HubSpot or you have Dr. Sato, or you have a honey book. There's a bunch of CRMs. And what he was seeing was that dentist wanted a CRM that was very specific to their industry, and essentially the dentist just wanted to be a dentist. And what the dentist really wanted was a business in a box. Just a solution that would get from like front end to back end and fulfillment and let the dentist be the dentist. It was essentially a done for you system, in my eyes, were opened to the power of creating a service that's not unique, but that's highly specific to an industry. So what did I learn? I learned that winners can quickly connect disparate dots to find a solution in their own business. What I saw with these bloggers, what I saw with these pattern makers, what I saw with people who were building birdhouses, what I saw by people who were creating a sound bath, hosting woo, and wellness events that's traditionally an underserved market.

Jasmine Star 00:27:00  And they had hundreds of people there paying hundreds of dollars for a one day event to sit in a vegetable garden. Like there's just so many opportunities to see a dentist have a CRM with so many other huge, amazing, powerful CRMs out there that you actually don't need to be the best in the world. You actually just need to be best for a very specific group of people. So winners are able to connect disparate dots and create a solution. The third thing that I learned when it comes to getting ahead of my competition was not to discredit others. And I think this is a very, very important one. So I remember how I mentioned alt summit. There was one night I didn't want to go out and very much an introvert, but I said, I'm committed to being at summit for three days. I'm going to be expanding, I'm going to be going to dinners. So we went to dinner and then at the end, like after dinner, there was like a little bit of networking mixers. So I went to that and I found myself just like up against a wall.

Jasmine Star 00:27:59  I didn't go with anybody. I knew I was buying myself. And then there was another person standing next to me who was holding up the wall alongside me. And as we got into conversations, I figured out that he creates custom checkers and custom chess boards, and I was like, oh, that's interesting. And what he didn't say I'm going to later on share was when I was talking to him, the thing I always tell myself at any event I go to, I'm here to learn one thing, I'm here to learn one thing. And I didn't know that the one thing that I was supposed to learn that year from alt was going to be from a guy who was standing next to me on a wall, not really participating. And as I asked him questions about his business, he had an Etsy store. And then he was really there to learn. How does he get his Etsy store and then build like a Shopify front end for it so that he can do fulfillment in Etsy, not take a piece of whatever they were getting from him, is that he knew how to listen to what customers want, and then he knew how to listen that of what they would pay a premium for.

Jasmine Star 00:29:04  And so he was teaching me the questions he was asking me. He was asking of people. He was teaching me how he was creating his listings. And he had standard listings. And the difference between a standard listing and a premium listing was more than a ten x difference. And I'm like, who in the world is paying that for customized checkers? Oh, he knew I was at a mastermind and there was a woman there, and she was so sweet. You know, she's just like, so nice, definitely quiet. And she was not in any way, shape or form the type of person that would get a lot of attention. In fact, if I was being kind of honest, she's the kind of person that you might be familiar with at face. But if somebody were to say like, oh, hey, do you remember her from these events? There was a large chance the first and second mastermind that I went to in this group of 35, I probably would have said no, and I'm embarrassed of that.

Jasmine Star 00:29:51  Here's why. One of the things that I so desperately want that doesn't come natural to me is to be okay in my own skin and march to the beat of my own Trump, and her marching to the beat of her own drum really just looked like she just didn't give a rip what anybody said. She was just there to play her own game, and if people spoke to her, that was great. And if nobody spoke to her, that was great. She didn't feel at all pressured to go to the group dinners. She did not feel at all pressured to do the happy hours where I felt like, okay, well, I'm here and I got to do these things because of why I was telling myself a story. She was the kind of person who just didn't tell herself stories. And let me give you a brief description of how, for the first couple of sessions in this mastermind, I was just watching from a distance. So in the mastermind we would break up and we would have small group hot seats.

Jasmine Star 00:30:41  It'd be anywhere from like 3 to 4 people. And so here we are, about a group of 35 or 40. And then we broke into much smaller groups. And so there's about ten groups of 3 or 4. And we happen to be sitting in a group. And there was another person sitting next to us, and they're going through their hot seat. And then she reaches into her canvas bag and she brings out a head of lettuce, not in a bag just from her tote. Where her notebook is and her laptop. She just brings out a head of lettuce. So the third person is talking, talking about their hot seat, and then she brings out this head of lettuce and I'm like, okay, well, pay attention to the person who's talking. But I'm like, I'm fascinated. What do we do with the head of lettuce right now? She doesn't do any. She doesn't peel back the head of lettuce. She just takes a bite of the lettuce like it's an apple. And I am trying my hardest to, like, look at this person and nod intently about, like, what? This hot seat and I can't.

Jasmine Star 00:31:29  I keep on peeling my eyes like she's eating ahead of lettuce, like it's a fruit. And she was just there, munching away. We would have guest speakers coming to the mastermind, and then she would bring out knitting needles and yarn. And while this person is talking about ad strategy, Google Analytics, whatever the case may be, she was knitting. Now, here's the thing, you guys. Nothing is wrong with eating ahead of lettuce straight from a canvas bag. Nothing is wrong. Is knitting while you're learning that Google Analytics? Nothing. I, as a grown adult, wish that I had the chutzpah to be like, you want to know what, I'm not sure I care about this. Or maybe knitting helps me think about. I wish I had that in me. And I started looking at her, and I started becoming so fascinated by her own determination, by her own grit and doing things her own way. Now, our masterminds at the time, there would be like four day events and every day we started at eight, but around like 855 she would disappear and then she would come back during her 1015 break.

Jasmine Star 00:32:27  This was a regular thing and she'd be gone for a pretty considerable amount of time. Well, this is what I learned is that she was doing the powerful yet simple yet hard thing of consistency, so I didn't know. But she had an $8 million business, and she traveled around the world with her husband and children, and why she was disappearing every day at 855 was because at 9 a.m. she would be giving a live webinar every day, five days a week, Monday through Friday. She was running continuous ads for a live class. And whenever somebody said, oh, why aren't you on evergreen? Why don't you demand? Or a lot of people were saying, you know, you're so good at converting people because people just fall in love with you, like, why don't you just pretend it's live? There are softwares that you can make it look like it's live. And she probably, if she could have, would have stabbed them with her knitting needles and said, I am not a liar, but you didn't.

Jasmine Star 00:33:32  You just kept on doing her dang thing and her finding the ability for her to be okay with who she was, to take what she wanted to take, to do things on her own terms, was allowing her maybe not to have $100 million business, but her $8 million dollar business was such a lifestyle business for her. She had very few employees. She built a compound. I don't remember the state. It might have been Idaho or Iowa, something along those lines where she had literally bought acres and acres and built a compound for her and her husband's family, and she was doing this entirely on her own. This whole episode is talking about how to get ahead of 99% of your competitors. And then the caveat was, listen, I am just sharing with you what I have done and what I have known. And number one was to never expect a ten point checklist. And number two was to learn from others. And then number three, where we're talking about right now is don't discredit others. And at a two day mastermind retreat, there was like a bunch of new people.

Jasmine Star 00:34:35  And I met an older guy and he was wanting to build his YouTube channel. And this was not a mastermind that you would go to all year. It was just more of like a mastermind event where you pay a high ticket. You get to be in the room with other founders. Now. He was very much on the quiet side and he's like his only focus is like, listen, I'm only here because I want to learn how to build a YouTube channel. And it's all foreign to me and to the best of my memory. What he sold were hand-carved bird colors. Now, here's the thing. I'm born and raised in Los Angeles. I am a city girl through and through. I didn't even know that there were tools to kill birds, much less there's like a whole subculture of people and bird calling, like tools that are expensive. And he was a hand carved, apparently best of the best bird calling tools. I'm sure people are going to send me a DM with, like, what the actual name is.

Jasmine Star 00:35:26  Now, when we were in this mastermind, you would have opportunities to ask questions, and his questions were always around YouTube. He came in with a singular focus. I'm here to learn one thing, and so we would ask anybody who is speaking on that topic, or he would ask a follow up question and be like, well, how might you might make this work on YouTube? That was his whole focus. He was completely unapologetic. He went in laser, laser focus. And if we were not talking about YouTube or video strategy, he was just really, really, really quiet. So I sat next to him at lunch and I just kind of wanted to know him. I guess maybe I'm attracted to the people who are beguiling to me, people who maybe like, identify or embody the things that I have, which have a tendency to be like, I'm laser focused and then really quiet if it just doesn't really pertain to the thing that I am there to focus on. And I found out when I was there that he had sold an e-commerce business for $50 million, and so he didn't need to start another business.

Jasmine Star 00:36:25  But he was really passionate about making these bird collars. He dove headfirst into making them, and he had started a really successful business for his bird colors. Here's the thing. Was he making millions in the business? No, but he didn't need to. He had already done the thing he set out to do. He already sold his $50 million business that was bootstrapped. And so now what he's doing is he's building a business because, number one, he loves to build a business. And number two, he likes to be challenged. He wanted to build a business that was so different from how he had done it in the past. So here is what I learned and then apply to help me get ahead of 99% of the competition. I learned that you can never judge a book or an entrepreneur by their cover. Not all business gangsters drive Ferraris. You know, like the two spectrums of these people. You know, these Etsy store creators who sell custom goods for checkers and chess pieces and are literally living the rest life.

Jasmine Star 00:37:27  The type of person who will bring out a head of lettuce and just munch on it, or knit when these big, amazing business minds are there. When she understands it. I'm happy with my $8 million business, and I'm doing it my own way. And I live in a compound, and I get to travel and be with my kids and my husband, and I'm happy, and I go live every day, and this is me just doing my business. To the gentleman who bootstrapped and sold his business for over $50 million and then gets into bird calling, and he wants to grow bird calling on YouTube because he loves the game. And so I'm collecting all of these stories and saying, what was it about them? I'm not going to discredit or judge anybody else. Any time I'm in a room with an entrepreneur, I in there and can and should learn something. It is learning these small things that are empowering me to apply it to myself and whoever my perceived competition is. Now, I know that we're talking about going to events and we're talking about going to masterminds.

Jasmine Star 00:38:16  And I will not say that a mastermind is an end all, be all. What I will say was the mastermind was the first thing that really opened my eyes to what the world looked like, and put me in rooms that I would otherwise never have access to. It is why I'm so passionate about it. In fact, we are opening our registration for my own mastermind. This mastermind is for seven figure entrepreneurs. We are going to be focused highly on building brands and marketing on social, but more than anything, the whole tenant is going to be how we can focus our seven figure businesses and get them to eight. Because what I've noticed when it comes to scaling is anytime you can muscle your way, you can muscle your business to around 1.2 million. And you can do that on your own, maybe like 1 or 2 VA's. But once you start getting to like that 2 to $7 million mark, scaling comes in two ways and both need to be in existence. Number one, you're going to be scaling by way of your systems.

Jasmine Star 00:39:10  How locked in and tight are the systems that you've created? So much so that people can join your team, see this is done, follow the system and get identical or very good results. And then the second way that you're going to be scaling to eight figures is by scaling your team, attracting top talent, because you're going to start realizing that you can get your business up to like 1 or 2 million, and you can have like a manager and then the managers then report to you. But then there's just too many people who are reporting to you. So you still stay in the business and not on the business. So how do you add that layer in between your leaders and yourself? Like where are you hiring your division directors? Where are you hiring your C-suite? What does your org chart look like? And so I'm so excited to be creating a mastermind that is going to empower everybody to do just that. Scale to eight figures by way of systems and by weight of people. You can join the mastermind.

Jasmine Star 00:40:01  You can check out the application. Jasmine star.com/mastermind. Okay. We're going to get into the four things that I have done to get ahead in my business. So number one was don't expect a ten point checklist. Number two was to learn from others in different fields. Number three is don't discredit others. And the number four is don't discredit yourself. I know, I know, I think it's easy to compare yourself. And the hard thing that I've seen in myself and other business owners. The hard thing is to actually look back and appreciate how far you've come. A lot of times what I think of and I did a lot of interviews with eight figure business owners. And imposter syndrome affects eight figure business owners too. Imposter syndrome oftentimes affects six figure business owners in. Can I make this work? Who am I to do this? We're going to find out. I'm a hack. I don't know enough seven figure entrepreneurs. From the research and data that I have been digging into, this is what I'm doing so much in my time in life is I'm just digging deep and finding patterns with business owners is that when you're at the seven figures, imposter syndrome doesn't show up so much in the way of like, who am I to do this? It's more along the lines of I have reached a level of success, but I'm now doubtful.

Jasmine Star 00:41:19  Can I do it again? I am doubtful that I can become the leader I need to in order for me to scale. I'm worried about stepping out of the business, because what if the business was so dependent on me? Like, did I do enough foundational and structure work? But a unique thing, which is the most ironic, is with eight figure founders. Imposter syndrome has a tendency to show up in a form of. But what I do is not that special. Right? Well, well, yeah. It's great. I have an eight figure business, but other people have done this. Yeah, I have an eight figure business, but like, isn't it the norm? Like, isn't this like what we know when you're in the game long enough? Like, this is what you should be doing. And oftentimes it's not who am I to do this? It's just it's not that special. And when the narrative becomes it's just not that special. Eight figure business owners have a hard time getting driven back to the purpose of what it is they do, finding themselves asking questions more along the lines of okay, but what is this all for? Like we have this.

Jasmine Star 00:42:14  Like what is next? Is things ever enough? And so when we talk about imposter syndrome in three phases six figure seven, figure eight, figure I mean these are by and large wide generalities. But we should also very much know they affect everybody all the time. If you're building a Business imposter syndrome will come up. So oftentimes one of the things that I think about is how do we give ourselves credit? How do we appreciate the ways that we've been able to create value? And when I talk about not discrediting yourself to get ahead of your competition, I struggled with this deeply because I would be getting into rooms that I'm just going to be very honest. I don't believe that some people are more important than others, I really don't I don't believe that some people are special than others I don't. But I do believe that when you walk into a room based on street credibility or what they've done, or the business accolades, or how big their business is or how many businesses they sold, I don't think they're more special or different or unique, but I do think that, like street credibility and the proof is in the pudding that you've done things that very few people have ever done.

Jasmine Star 00:43:18  So for that regard. Amazing. And so when I found myself in rooms where I really distinctly felt like I am the smallest fish and I'm not even in a big pond, I'm in the wrong pond. I started equating like what my value was like, do I have something of value to give? Which is the wrong headspace to be in. And so in order for me to actually say, I'm not going to discredit myself in this room, what I decided to say is I can create value in this room, even if it's not in relation to things that they have done personally. I can create value in other ways. Then the reason why we're here in this room. Okay, so let's dive into a couple of examples. I was at a cohort like an executive cohort, and they were all talking about this one thing. And I was of course the only other woman. And so we were talking about parenting and being a CEO, and they were talking about the work life balance between being a dad and a CEO.

Jasmine Star 00:44:07  And they asked me like, what are some of the things that you have done? And I shared a little bit of my insight, and then two of the guys that were in the group, they ended up sending me messages and they said, hey, thank you so much for that. We just didn't see it that way. It's like, oh, they found that valuable. Even if we weren't talking about the merits of things that I have done professionally. Another thing is I try to create value in rooms that I'm in, even if I'm like completely on the outs is I know how to give recommendations. I know it sounds so silly, right? Like if somebody wants a recommendation, I'm going to give up a book recommendation, an accountant recommendation, a recruiter like recruiter I've worked with very well. Like, what does it actually look like? I can give a recommendation. One thing that I've done to create value and other is like, remember, we're sitting here and saying not to discredit yourself, but immediately we go to it's these people are better, they have more, they have more accolades, whatever the case may be.

Jasmine Star 00:44:59  So in order for me to say, hey, I know that maybe while the totem pole for success, I might be towards the bottom, it doesn't mean that I can't get value. And one of the things that I've been pretty good at getting value is I know I'm a connector, I know how to connect people, and so I'll be in rooms where I can think to myself, this person really needs to talk to this person in this niche industry. And so I'll go up to them after I'm like, hey, I listened to what you said. There's this person, I describe it, I said, would it be okay if I ask them if it was okay with them to make an introduction? ten out of ten times. They're like, yeah, sure, that would be amazing. And so I'll go to this other person and say, hey, I met this great person at this event. I think you really need to stay connected to them. I think they would be a value add.

Jasmine Star 00:45:37  And so then once I get approval to make the introduction from both parties, I'll make that introduction and then yeah, I'm done with it. But you want to know what. And they think that was good. And I'm not even talking about just a business deal. Even just the facilitation of the conversation itself becomes so powerful that they remember I created value for them without any expectation. The last example that I'll give, I'm actually keeping these like very general and nebulous because these are all very special, intimate. I want to protect the people's privacy who are having these conversations with. And so I was part of an event and there was a gentleman that I really respected his business. I just love what he does. He started the business with his mom, and we had a guest speaker come in, and he had asked the guest speaker for a strategy question. And the guest speaker, I'm going to be honest, I don't know if the guest speaker either understood the question or understood what was being sold, because I'm listening to the advice that the guest speaker gave.

Jasmine Star 00:46:29  And let me be very clear, the advice itself was freaking amazing. But the advice in relation to his business structure, I was like, I don't know if that's right. I mean, I'm not gonna say it's wrong, but like, do you understand? And then and then he had tried clarifying what the guest speaker was like. Well, no, because this is how it works in this industry. And I know that industry. And so we were on zoom and I sent him a private message on zoom during. And I was just like, hey, this guy, the guest speaker is brilliant. I am not saying that what he's saying is wrong, but I think that what is happening is there's a disconnect between. And then I explained what I thought it was and he said, yes, exactly. And I said, I don't think that having us go into that nuance for an industry he's not familiar with would be worth his time, or even the group's time to be spinning on it. I said, I would love to set up a 20 minute call because, number one, I understand B2C.

Jasmine Star 00:47:15  I understand your industry, and I actually think we can ideate around a lot of good marketing ideas for what it is you do. I was like, this is what I eat, breathe, and drink every single day, and I emailed him right when we were on zoom, I emailed his assistant. I said, hey, can I have your contact information? Give me this assistant. I looked in my assistant. I could just set up a 20 minute call for us, and literally the next day I get a $50 Amazon gift card. And he said, I'm so excited to chat with you about these ideas. Let me tell you, for all intents and purposes, I am so out waited in that room. But I created value by simply saying, I see your industry. I know it as you do. I think we could just chat and have ideas. Ideate. So my question to you is how do you not discredit yourself by finding your own way to create value? And value isn't always a very specific strategy about a very specific thing to be in a very specific room.

Jasmine Star 00:48:08  I always end these conversations with having a clear call to action, and the clear call to action is usually, I want to hear from you, I want to hear from you. But before I get there, there is a reminder. Applications are open for the seven figure mastermind. This is for people who want to scale to eight figures. I cannot wait to share who our guest speakers are. We're having two live events. These are going to be two two day events we are meeting every single month on zoom. We have our own slack channel. We have asynchronous communication. We have guest speakers. It's going to be the cat's meow. Okay, I want to know what you're doing. I want to know where you're at. I love being creepy when people tag me in stories, when they're at the gym or where they're listening like, you don't get it. It brings me so much joy. I think that social media, I know it has its ups, it has its down, and some people hate it, some people love it.

Jasmine Star 00:48:58  I get all of it. But every so often, being able to connect with people by like the clothes, the pile of clothes that they're folding or them being on this glorious vacation while they're on vacation, they have a little time to brainstorm, and they'll listen to the podcast. Or if they're out walking the dog. Y'all, I care about you. And I love seeing your life and I'm just basically a creeper. Thank you for listening to the Jasmine Stark Show. I cannot wait to connect with the online soon.