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Speaker 2[inaudible]
Speaker 1Oh, Hey there. Thank you so much for tuning into the Jasmine star show today. This podcast is the business owner's guide to life business and everything in between. I am so happy you're here. Recently I was invited to be interviewed on Travis chapel's podcast build your network, a show about how to connect with people online to grow your business. So obviously, you know, just by hearing that short sentence what this is going to be about and I actually love that he is all about networking. We cover so much ground in this interview. Everything from how to network effectively for your business to how a quote from the office deeply impact both mine and Travis , his lives. I mean, come on Michael. Scott references y'all. If that is about your life, come on in. The door's open and the water tastes just fine. Okay. Why? Why am I talking about water? I don't even, that literally just came out for me. I'm sitting here talking to him , Mike and like the water tastes fine. What are we back in like the 18 hundreds California where water came out looking like dirt. Most people say come up . Oh, the water's fine. They don't say water is finally passing you a cup of water. They see the water's fine like it's a pond or Lake or an ocean. Okay. I'm coming to these realizations now and y'all, if you are experiencing how awkward I am right now, can you just imagine me at a networking event? Oh my gosh. Yeah, I totally needed this help talking about networking. So boom, there you go. He breaks it down for me. So if you are just as awkward as me, I actually think you're really gonna enjoy this conversation. So sit back, relax and enjoy my interview with Travis.
Speaker 3Jasmine, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. Can't wait to get into a few things here. Thank you for having me. I'm just as excited.
Speaker 1Bring it on.
Speaker 3Always. Always. Okay. So for the few people out there that may not know exactly who you are, I really, really like to go back and do a little bit of context for everybody listening and this is the way that I normally do it. So stick with me. Okay. I like to take it back like way back, like throwback back to like 11 1213 year old Jasmine. Cause I think there's a lot of value in seeing like how people were brought up and what influences made them make the decisions that they made to get to the point where they're at now. Because I doubt that you were like 11 years old and told your career counselor that you wanted to be like a photographer and social media marketer. So I always find that the transition to do those things. Super interesting. So let's start there. Tell me about 1112 year old Jasmine. Like likes, dislikes, interests. Did you do well at school? Did you play sports? Like what exactly were you, were you like back then?
Speaker 1You know , when I think back to 11 year old Jasmine, I just want to crawl back in history and give her a hug. Say it's okay girl, you'll be okay. Don't let them years old. 176 pounds, five foot, nothing. I weighed more than my dad. Most girls at that time are , you know, looking in their mom's closet to see what they can kind of snack in there. I was like yo dad to , I think that I grew up really poor. I'm a daughter of an immigrant and that most of the food that we had was thank goodness like a donation from the United States government and people at our church. And as a result of that we got a lot of like processed foods. And my dad, this is a random story, I don't even know where this comes from, but I hate context , right? So we lived in the outskirts of Los Angeles, still in LA County. This place called up with it. It's really like rough and tumble and we would catch the bus into a church in a nearby area, but it was like better off. So people, you know, they had cars and they bought their clothes at target and not at thrift stores . So we were like, wow, we're moving on up. We get to go to this church and they're taking donations or us. Well, my dad got involved at church and you would take a group of people, I'm located in Southern California, which is where my family is, but my dad still had a heart for serving people in Mexico and a group of people down to Mexico, which is about two hours from where we live in LA and the U S Mexican border. So he would take a group of people down there and they were building an orphanage and there was this grocery store that had expired food and they said, we really can't sell this food, but we , it's still good. It's just like dented cans and stuff like that. And so my dad said, put all the groceries in my garage and we go every three weeks to Mexico and we'll take him down there. And the grocery store was so thankful that they said, as a result of you storing this food for us, feel free to take any of the food that you want from it. So we had expired pantry. Oh , of like the best. AKA the worst from white bread. Yeah . Peanut butter for Atkins would dry protein filled . Here's the stuff I was eating. So as a result he's like, just imagine like there I was, I didn't go to school. I was wildly overweight. I was homeschooled. I didn't want to have to read till I was 11 and then something clicked for me when I was 11 I literally went from, I don't know how to read to, I was finishing novels in a day and my mom was a total hippie and she's just like school dot, dot, dot. That is like theory. Like you'll just figure it out, you know, kid. And like lo and behold, she was right. I sat back there with like lucky charms and a loaf of bread and peanut butter and I would just eat and read all day and it ended up being okay for me. I ended up being like a normal human being. And I think it was during that time where people sometimes ask me like, Oh, so are you entrepreneurial in nature? And I was like, no, like you're from the hood, like your what blue collar job is going to be available to my dad. It's not like, so there I was selling lemonade. Hey nobody driving in our neighborhood, like don't play on the street. No , it was not that at all. It's not that at all. So did you finish
Speaker 3off high school being homeschooled? Did you end up going to a public high school or something?
Speaker 1So we moved , uh, my, the summer of my, when I was 14 years old we moved and so I was able to start freshman year. And the reason, part of the reason they were homeschooled was because we lived in an area that just was not the type of area where you would want to go to school. And my parents didn't really feel safe and so we moved, definitely did middle-class like you know, lower middleclass but metal detectors. So started high school, finished high school and for a girl who didn't know how to read, she was 11 I ended up getting I straight A's and graduated with like a 4.5 GPA and earned an academic scholarship. Awesome.
Speaker 3And what did you end up going to a college for them?
Speaker 1Aye . Went to college with the aspirations of becoming a writer. And so I was placed in like English one Oh one, you know, is your segmented freshman writing course. And it was halfway through the semester, we actually had to turn in . Oh , like thought out paper thesis, the whole nine. And I'll never forget, dr Portrero asked to see me after class and she didn't , she turned everybody's papers back to them except for mine. She's Jasmine, I'd like to see you. And I was like, Oh, okay. And uh, went into her office and I'll never forget there was a picture of a girl, roughly my age, sitting on her desk and she explained that her daughter was in college on the East coast and yada, yada yada. And she said, can I ask you a question? I said, sure. Just like , are your parents immigrants? I was like, yeah, how'd you know? She's like, is English your second language? And I'm like , no. English was my first language. But yeah, like Spanish was spoken in the home and she had said, you're writing the trees that [inaudible] aye bell . Like my insides were like sitting at the base of her desk. It was kind of like, Oh really? And it just shook the foundation and I look back and I kind of, I really do feel bad for the Jasmine 18 or 19 years old because they didn't have the hutzpah or the wherewithal to kind of say like, you're not going to determine my future. But we're a girl whose family never went to college. I was there on scholarship. I didn't know how it worked. I kind of just felt like, well, if she's telling me that my writing looks like it hails from an immigrant family, maybe I don't get the chops for this. I ended up getting an a in her rather difficult class because of my determination, not because of my skillset . So the minute she said that my writing betrayed that, I just went and I looked for free resources at school and every week I would take my papers into like students , proofreaders, and they would help explain why my writing took on the voice that it did. And so I end up getting an a, but didn't it ? I immediately changed my major to business after that.
Speaker 3Oh really? So that was enough for you to be like, you know what , maybe this isn't the path for me and then change your major. But you didn't end up finishing school though, right? You , you dropped out of college?
Speaker 1No, I finished school. I graduated with a 4.0 Magna cum laude and I earned an academic scholarship to UCLA law school. That's the school I dropped out.
Speaker 3Got it. I knew that. I had read that you dropped out of something. Okay. Finished regular school. And was it like, did you finish with the business degree as well? So business major, leverage that into law school. And then in Moscow you're like, yeah , screw this.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's exactly what happened actually. I mean I went and again, no , much of like I, you know, when I look back at this, I was thinking about this a couple of days ago , early on because I had so little dependence and knowing of the world as like a first generation, I really was looking for permission. I didn't know it then, but I spent the vast majority of my life looking for permission to do the thing that I wanted to do. And it's just like, well, I needed permission to go to college. And so in order to get the permission you have to get good grades and when you were in college, I needed the permission to pursue the thing that I wanted to do. And I had a professor who said, Hey , you don't have the chops for it. And so I didn't get her permission and what I wish I could go back and tell me in college, even in law school, is the only person who will ever give yourself permission is you. Like the minute you're waiting for permission from somebody else to do the thing you feel you've been called to do, you are going to be wildly disappointed. And that's lit for the vast majority of her life. That's the thing I wish I can go back and tell myself then tell myself now until anybody else who's listening, it's like permission comes only from you. And so I went to law school thinking I needed that to be the permission to pursue a socioeconomic advancement, to get my family, my dreams out of the body and into a different American dream. I wanted the white picket fence and I thought that that my Juris doctorate was going to get that for me. It wasn't until I realized that I was there. It was wildly unhappy. I was depressed, I was stressed, I was overwhelmed, but I just thought, I looked around and everybody else was stress , depressed and overwhelmed. It's law school. Nobody's like, Oh, this is like pink fairies and rainbows. It's like, okay, this is what I do. And then my first year of law school, my mom had a relapse of brain cancer. She was diagnosed when I was a junior in college. The doctors had said, you know, she's battled eight years at her time had come and that that just shook everything. That is my entire life.
Speaker 3Yeah, so I want to talk about that for sure. But let's go back to like that the permission thing that you were saying. Why do you think it is that we feel like we need permission in order to be able to be able to chase our dreams or accomplish our goals? Maybe in a realm that we're not already familiar with by . Why do you think that we default to asking others permission instead of giving ourselves permission?
Speaker 1I can't answer for anybody who's listening. I can only answer for myself. And it isn't until I did the deep work and the heavy lifting to understand that I was looking for permission to be absolved from responsibility so that if it didn't work out, I could say , you know what? That's because like if dr Portrero had told me, it sounds like you hail from an immigrant family and I still pursued my English degree and I put out my book and it failed, I could say, you know what? It's because I didn't listen to her. It's because like she saw it and I would be looking for somebody else to take responsibility when the only responsibility, everything is a risk, doing nothing is a risk. Absolutely. And we look for permission to mask responsibility and now I'm saying every decision I make, good, bad and ugly. It's on me. I don't need you to give me the permission cause you might give me the permission and I fail. I might give myself the permission and I fail. Either way, permission is disguised as the lack of accountability and now it feels so good to say the buck stops with me, the buck stops with me and the buck starts with me.
Speaker 3Exactly. That right there is the key. I think Jasmine, because a lot of people want to take responsibility when things are going well, but then when they're going poorly they want to blame it on everything else and it's like, look, you do one or the other, either anything good that happens in your life, blame it on other people. Anything bad happens. You're like blaming other people, but if you're going to, you can't just like pick and choose which things you're going to take responsibility for it. You just have to like own everything in life and there's such control and power that comes along with that. Even taking responsibility for things that are seemingly legitimately out of your control and taking responsibility and taking ownership behind those things. And um, I've just has always given me such a huge sense of control over like what's going on in my life. And if you're always just a victim of circumstances, then there's literally nothing that you can ever do to make your circumstances any better. So may as well just take radical responsibility and take control so that you can actually fix and change some things and move forward.
Speaker 1100. Are you going to drop your podcasting Mike right now?
Speaker 3Yeah. Yeah. If it weren't on this awesome boom arm. Yeah. Okay. So we're on the same page. They're taking responsibility I think is like top two or three things that every, every person really should do. But every entrepreneur specifically, because there's so many pitfalls and there's so many obstacles and things that come along the path along the way that it would be so easy to blame on other things and blame on circumstances and just say, Oh, you know, it was just a tough time in my life. I had some personal issues going on, so that was the reason why
Speaker 1I'll have issues. Tell me somebody who doesn't have disappointment, tell me someone who doesn't have failures on a daily basis and I'm telling you there's somebody who's not successful. That's just how it goes.
Speaker 3Exactly, exactly. That's 100% something that I've been telling people a lot lately is like, show me somebody who's never shown me someone who's never failed and I'll show you someone who's never succeeded. You know? It's just like, yeah , it's just part of the process. And I think, I think it stems from the fact that people fear the wrong thing. I think people fear failure and embarrassment more than they fear, regret and more than they fear accomplishing more than they fear not accomplishing their dreams and goals for their life. Cause that to me is the ultimate form of fear,
Speaker 1right ? How would even take it one step further is the fact that many of us, which is why here's this is where , where it was a block from me for so long, is that like, yeah, I had this nebulous idea, affiliate , you're a failure. But it wasn't like I held onto it and it said, this is the thing that stopped me . What it was was the fear of failure and having people see me in that way. I was unafraid to fall off a bike, but I was more afraid to fall of the bike in front of the neighborhood. Bullies. All of a sudden we start our businesses in the same thing. We're not afraid to do the thing we want to do. We're not afraid to test it. We're afraid to have other people see it, have an opinion and judges on it. The minute I let it go, the minute I let judgment from other people who ain't paying my bills, I don't know personally and who are sitting in sweatpants on an overstuffed couch in the middle of nowhere have an opinion on my business by you're not stopping.
Speaker 3So was there a catalyst, like a certain point in your business where you were like, buck stops here? I can't keep listening to what people think about me? Or was it a gradual, slow process that happened over time? Because it's super easy to say it right. But then the first time because a lot of times it's not even just the person's sitting on the couch in their sweatpants who has no bearing on your life. A lot of times it's the people that are closest to us that just don't understand what we're up to. Right. Like family, close friends, you know, parents, people who just want to hang out or go to the bar and they're just, Oh, you're always working, you're always doing this and it doesn't seem to be working out for you. You should get a real job. Like all those, the people in your life that are the most, the people that you would think would support you in everything that you are. Oftentimes the people that are nagging you to stop and I don't think necessarily it's from like a point of jealousy or like I wish I were doing what you're doing, but a lot of times it's from that genuine caring of like, I want the best for you and I don't feel like what you're doing is best for you. How do you move past a lot of those things?
Speaker 1I will say, I will say that I feel very fortunate to have parents who really, who loved us more then their opinions weighed . Having said that, they never said, why are you doing this? They never said you should stop. But I will say that when you hail as immigrants and then you have like a daughter who's just like, Oh Hey, I want to drop at a law school and I want to become a photographer. I don't have a camera, but trust me, you know, like anybody would be like me , huh ? Are you sure this is the thing you should be doing? Okay. Kind of like reiteration of the business was like, Oh, how are paying your bills go and we'll do this day being a decade as an entrepreneur, my beautiful, sweet, amazing brother who's about to be 30 comes to a house just last week. And my husband's like, yeah. I'm like, let's go out. Let's, let's hang out, we'll take the movies, we'll go to dinner. And he's like, Oh, I know that you guys closed the photography studio a couple of years ago . Your money must be tight for you. So I got it. I got you. And we're like, we look around and we're like, there's never been this ever homie understand like internet, you know the back of their mind. They're just like, they always feel like they're one step away from losing their house because here's another thing. I as a child watched my father lose our house three times books . That stuff is no joke, right ? That slough will beat the core of your belief. So when you have a child who's not out there like focusing on like dad, I have my retirement plan, my 401k, which I do, but like outside of the context of it coming from like a County job, really scary. So I take their opinions and like my inlaws art elementary school teachers, they are all about like their longterm plan. They're about, their stipends are about like safety and fortitude. So I know that their questions come always from a really good place, but wildly misunderstanding. It is not my objective to educate you. It is not my objective to get you on my side. My success will silence your doubts and you see baby Jesus a decade has miss islands , so y'all can have opinions, but they can't stop me from doing what I do because I see a future that nobody else sees. That's what makes me a visionary. If you're a visionary and you see it, just shut your mouth and do the work.
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely agree with that. So just kind of out of the blue here to ask a question, just on the personal story again, going back to when you were in college or when you were in law school and you decide to drop out to pursue photography, why photography? Like what was that? Was it an attraction to the art form? Did you see the potential to make money? Was it a combination of the two or was it just like, I need to do something that feeds my soul because the law school is just sucking everything out of me.
Speaker 1If there was a box that said all of the above, that's the one I would, I went to a small private private liberal arts college and so they didn't have a formal photography department but every other semester offered one photography class and I happened to enroll in it and it was sociology through photography and man, I loved it. It was just like I just was lit up about it. I was developing my own photos. I was just like, this is amazing. But like for a girl from the hood, having fun developing photos is not a career. Like that's not what you do. That was so far out of my imagination. I dropped out of law school. My mom was really sick. The doctors give her a few months to live and I should actually come out and say that my mom is still with us today, which was a total miracle. She's the North star as to like the wake up call in my life I believe in. Everything happens for a reason and she had to go through what she did to like have lights taught me, slap me in the face and say you're going in the wrong direction. So indebted the fact that she had sacrificed her life for me to have a wake up call but it was at that time. So I leave law school and I moved back home cause I'm on full scholarship. I have no money, I can't pay my rent in LA cause I ain't got a job and I , my mom get better. So I move home and I had been dating my boyfriend for about nine and a half years at this time and in my plan, let me finish school, then we'll get married. Like when we were in high school, we were just kids [inaudible] then I had a conversation and I was just like, listen, you and I had been wanting to get married. I want my mom to see us get married. And so we quickly made the decision to get married at 20 people in Hawaii. We planned it in less than three months and she against all odds, walk me down the aisle to wedding. I saw this guy who we flew from Santa Barbara, California to Hawaii to shoot our wedding. And I was like, that guy has my dream wife, he has my dream life. And so then in the time span of us getting married in September, I got a letter from UCLA to say, Hey, it's time for you to come back and enroll to pick up your second semester where you left off, get your scholarship money, blah blah blah. I had like months to be like, that's a business. Like people make money with their camera. And then I was just like
Speaker 3traveling to Hawaii. I
Speaker 1absolutely. And I'm like, and his, and he had a lucrative career and so I talked to my husband and said , like, he asked me one question, if you could do one thing for the rest of your life and be happy, what would it be? And I said, I want to be a photographer. And when he said like , you don't have a camera. I was like, I know. But I think if I got one, it could work. The greatest gift any life partner or business partner could ever give you is the ability to believe in something that is so stupidly farfetched and say , Hey , let's try it. And he said, well , she writes for a year and then if it fails you can go back to law school. And I was like, okay, that's a pretty good plan B. Awesome. And then a business in to like business took off in 2007 and then by 2009 we were voted one of the top wedding photographers in the world. And then iterations we started shooting different types of photography, taking on different types of clients, shooting for magazines. And then by 2010 one of the most influential photographers. And then it doesn't 12 Huffington post. Most socially influential photographers like the business just took off as a result. And I think it's when you're in alignment to your purpose and your passion, the universe can't help but help you.
Speaker 3So during that time, were you doing something like when you're trying to get the business off off the ground, were you doing something for fulltime income while trying to work that on the side? Was your husband working? How did that, how did that happen?
Speaker 1It's another, Oh man. Okay now we're getting into the hot mess and it's like, you know, some people have their life together. I imagined us together and like had their life plan on an Excel spreadsheet cause that was my life and everything happened. My mom, it was like let's just burn the Excel spreadsheet. So he was with a startup company at the time and I mean legitimately we were getting paid in like a bag of oranges and pesos. It was just like you are not making like some came like every third year on leap year. You know? It's like,
Speaker 3yeah. Let me ask you this, let me interject real quick. How awesome were those times though?
Speaker 1Oh, the fricking bass , there was this one Chinese takeout place by our house that it was like, they call it the $1 combo meal. Like whatever you have on this line of Chinese best food was $1. So we would go in and within $4 we would share this combo meal and we would have to share our fortune cookie.
Speaker 3Yes . Yeah . Nothing worse than sharing a fortune cookie cause it's like whose fortune is this? We'll never know. I guess like I don't know how that works. We are one, so yeah, exactly. That's so funny. Yeah. My wife and I up my wife neurosis high school sweethearts. We started dating the summer before our senior year of high school. So yeah. Oh really? Awesome. Yeah. So when he was saying that, cause we got married when I was 21 and bought a house immediately. So it was like all of a sudden going from like living with mom and dad, just kind of school too married with a mortgage to pay and like all of a sudden I have to support somebody and stuff. And , and I did , I was in door to door sales for like five or six years during like that first initial like transition period, 100% commissions, door to door sales. So it was very interesting transitional times where like we lived in an extended stay waiting for a house to close escrow for like four months or excuse me for like four weeks , uh , a little bit over a month actually with like a six month old puppy. And uh , just like we look back on those times now and it's just like, man, that's crazy. That that's like , that's what we were willing to do to live life. That's what we were willing to do in order to build the life that we really wanted to live. And looking back on those times, like some of our best times where it was just like me and her and a little puppy, like just chasing after dreams even though at 21 years old. And uh , those are some of the best times. Looking back on it, like everybody has it confused, I think. And they linked the external to happiness and fulfillment instead of the internal to happiness and fulfillment and always leads to a path of chasing after what other people think happiness and Philip means for you instead of chasing after what you know, happiness and fulfillment means to you. And just so confusing
Speaker 1just along the same line. And that was, if you are perpetually chasing after happiness, you're letting the moments that are currently existing drips to the floor like an expensive oil. I was just like, that is so true that in the process of chasing an illusion of happiness, we miss the memories that happened today. So there's okay at the very, I don't know, did you watch the office? Oh yeah. Okay. The last episode, one of the key lines that years later after watching the last episode of the office, they'd said, I wish we had known we were living in the good old days.
Speaker 3Yeah. Andy says that, yeah, you're talking to a huge office fanatic . So , uh, I can definitely picture exactly what you're talking about. It makes me choke up every freaking time when create a sitting there playing the guitar as with the giant beard before he goes to jail. Yeah. No, I totally agree. Like I , I wish he's , he said something like that. Yeah. Like I wish there was a way to know that you were in the good old days when you're actually in them because he's the guy in the show that's always living in his college days, always talking about Cornell and how amazing it was. And then, and then he leaves the office and he's like, man, I wish I would've remembered that these were the good old days. And the, and the point being that like all the days are the good old days if you can be in them and be present. Like you'll always, always, always come away with like a greater amount of fulfillment and happiness than you would if you're always constantly looking and living in the future. That hasn't happened yet.
Speaker 1And to have to think that like the office would have a profound effect on my business is like on really hard days because there are very Berry punch in the gut days when you run a business. And I remind myself, it's like I'm going to look back at them . Remember these were the good old days and it's just a total reframe. It's a total reframe. Like I'm look back at this and be like, dang girl, you are having your $4 combo meal.
Speaker 3Yeah, right. Well and and because I think comes with like a profound understanding that there are no times in your life that will always be 100% easy. So having that and knowing that like there's never going to come a time, no matter how successful, no matter how rich, no matter how famous, no matter how many relationships or how abundant my life is, there will never be a time where there are zero bad times. So if you're always waiting for this like manifestation of this life that has zero obstacles and zero problems and you will be waiting for the rest of your life. So you may as well figure out a way to reframe it , enjoy those times just as much as the good times because they're never going to go away.
Speaker 1Hi . Just cause biggie smalls said more money, more problems haven't gotten easier. The more money I've made, in fact it's gotten infinitely more complicated and more difficult. And you want to know what I've loved it in the same , right ?
Speaker 3Yeah . I was thinking that the other day I was, I was getting super stressed. We're throwing our first live event at the beginning of November and uh , we , we have like two or three other things that are going on. I was just like, Oh my gosh, what did I get myself into? Like, I could, I could make a cool six-figures at some sales job being like a solo preneur like come home actually be focused on like just having fun, relaxing. I was like, what am I doing this for ? And uh, it was just one of those times, it was just a total reframe of like, you know what? This is what I signed up for. This is part of the process and I have to learn how to enjoy these times just as much as like the high of putting on an event or like having a successful month or something like that. I'm just all part of the process. You have to learn to love the process or you're never going to make it through to the, to the final destination. Okay . So we got a little off track there but it was all good stuff. So I like to make sure that we can squeeze that for all its worth. So coming back a little bit into your story, let's talk a little bit in networking here because the show is called build your network. And I have to assume, cause I , I D we have a few overlapping parts in our story or the high school sweetheart thing. And then I actually, one of my first entrepreneurial ventures wasn't photography, shooting weddings, different things like that as well. And so I'm , I know that there are a lot of obstacles when you're first getting started in terms of your like skills as a photographer but also in your ability to book business and create relationships with customers and clients. So I'm curious to know, first of all, this is the question I ask everybody about the networking situation. Every guest that's ever come on the show shows had to answer this question. So I'm going to ask this first, then we'll get into a little bit more tactical, practical things. Okay?
Speaker 1Yeah. I'm literally sitting behind my me and I'm laughing cause I'm scared of what the questions are gonna add makes me skirt all the hours . It doesn't make me cringe. It just makes me be like, Oh Jesus, take the wheel. Okay.
Speaker 3Okay, so question is more philosophical, high level approach. Okay. Who you know versus what, you know, which one is more important and why do you think that?
Speaker 1Here's the thing, you're going to be very hard pressed to find somebody who is like worse at networking than me. So giving these two options, I say what you know contingent on if you share it, because even I have discovered is for all of my inability to walk in it network or my inability to ask for what I want from my inability to come in and not like be wildly awkward in front of a group of people, for my inability to feel confident as the story and my past as a precursor of my future. That what I knew the little I knew the nothing I knew and in my ability to openly shared on the internet that created tribe and you share that you put it out to tribe comes to you so you don't have to network anymore. And I feel like that's been the foundation of my business though . Given those two options, I would take the letter contingent on it.
Speaker 3So I'll say this, the networking that you just described is the networking that I teach. So the show is called build your network because I'm trying to show people how to do it the 2019 way and not the 1983 way. I think that most people are really, really stuck in the 1980s version of networking where they think it's all about connecting with people on a similar level, exchanging contact information and booking business from your cocktail mixer that had a hundred people at it. And you have 3000 business cards just in case type thing. Right? So like I'm trying to move people away from that old style of like exchange contact information into to this new style of exactly what you just said. Creating and sharing valuable things to add value to other people's lives, thereby like creating influence for yourself to come in and add more and more value to other people's lives, which also helps you to be able to network on a higher level. So my biggest problem with people like in traditional forms of quote unquote networking is that a , it's all about networking out, meaning that you're going to go network with a bunch of people who are on the same level that you are on. And I think that that's a fundamental flaw in your foundation of your network. Because if you're not constantly reaching up on to people who are on higher levels than you are, then you're always going to be operating at the same level. You might be able to get like incrementally better at what you do by hanging out with people who are just as good as you are or on that same level. But you're never going to experience that exponential growth because you're always only hanging out with people who are on the same level as you are and they're not going to be able to help you jump and skip levels like the people who are up here. And so what you're talking about is networking on a whole new level. It's giving you the ability now to build relationships with all the amazing influential people that you now know and the people that are in your network now that you would have not been able to before. Had you just been like the, let's go to the next cocktail mixer and here's my business card type person, if that makes sense. So I would argue that you are a very good networker and that you are not a bad networker . You're just doing it the right way in the new way instead of trying to do it the old way.
Speaker 1And you know, here's the thing, no tea , no shade. If your skillset is to be the person who can work the room, because here's the thing, now that I've got to this point in my career, I go to networking events. Like when I have to, I'll go to them and I see people and I'm like, you're freaking unicorn. You're in your place of power, you're doing it right. So you probably would not be good at what I do in the class city . I'm good at it. Just the same way. I'm not in good as you are. And then when it came to like that second tier, like if you're only networking with people, if your similar statute , you only stay in that area. I would kind of say the approach that I took to that, cause that's what I did as I grew the business is I realized that the people, the halves in the industry did not to associate what to have not. And so I kinda took like this anarchies like troop , you know like what does that troop Beverly Hills bad news bears. I'm like, Hey, if we do what we have, we're independently not as good as they are, but collectively we can do something. I realized that I was actually kind of good at reaching out to the bad news bears, pooling our resources to do something different. That's the only way the halves look at the haves nots with interest is if the have nots are doing more with less, do more with less, then you have a seat at the table. And I've always realized that if you shut your mouth, keep your head down, do the work and you do more with less, you will eventually make it to the table with halves . And guess what? You will remember the times that they didn't speak to you. You will remember when they didn't take your call, you will remember when they ignored your email and all of a sudden they ask you to come and say, okay, I see you, boo . I'm still playing my own game.
Speaker 3Oh , what ? What's that like? I've never, never been ignored before. Jasmine. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1Worse .
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah. No, there's like three people right now that have been ignoring me for like three months, but I still reach out.
Speaker 1Oh , are they? Let's go and do something right now. Let's do something now to be like grow . Oh Mo. Oh Mo. You should be feeling like you're missing out on this party. Just say
Speaker 3that is definitely, by the way, I love that attitude that has gotten me more like interviews and relationships than most of the things that I do, which is the, I'm not going places because of you connecting with me. I'm going places regardless of you connecting with me and you might want to be one of the people that said that you had a hand in where I went
Speaker 1when I get there,
Speaker 3so let's do this. Anyway,
Speaker 1clap that up. She goes in the back.
Speaker 3Okay. So photography, business networking, did that have anything to do with it or was, was it just like you, were you focus so much on the skillset that you , um , that you started really attracting a ton of your new clients in?
Speaker 1No, it was terrible and I was terrible. Like I was so bad. I don't know if I mentioned, but my dad is a pastor of a church in East LA long live nepotism. But at least I thought, I thought that finally years of being a pastor's kid would pay off because people would be guilted into letting me take photos of them because I mean for free and I want to have their photo taken for free. And people just said, no, no, no. And I was like, dude, that is not godly , godly. So yeah, I was bad, so bad that people were saying no to free photos. And so to offset that, I just started to share the process. And whenever you share your process, photography, baking cakes, walking dogs, making jewelry. Whenever you share the process, the trays , a level of authenticity and vulnerability that people identify with unsexy , a deep level that is willing to pay you even though you're not the best. I maintain that to this day that the more I show up in, the more I give in , the more I, you can't help but see a bit of yourself even if you're not even doing the thing that I want to do. Because internal human struggle and vulnerability translates across industry, cultures, genres, sexes, and I think that that was the linchpin to the success of my career I just shared and people hired me not because I was good or smart or cute or witty or funny or talented, none of that. They hired me because I was meat and the more that we can share exactly what makes us special and guess what? It ain't your camera. It ain't the leashes. That ain't your jewelry. It's you. You share that you're in business.
Speaker 3Absolutely love that message out to everybody who is sitting there listening to this, struggling with that, that horrible, horrible case of imposter syndrome, which is something that we've all had to go through because I didn't share my story for a long time. Jasmine, when I started my show, I had that internal belief that like, who's going to listen to me? Who's going to pay attention to me? You know, I'm just some 24 year old door to door salesman that why isn't anybody going to listen? So there's so many of the people they can listen to and it took me like literally a year of creating my show. I only did interviews because I was like, nobody wants to hear from me, and it took me a year to understand that like people don't listen and to consume my content because of how amazing it is. They consume the content because they resonate with me. There's something about my story that resonates with them more than somebody else's story, regardless of how successful or unsuccessful the other person might be. Because you compare yourself to a ton of other people and there's so many people in this space that it's like, man, why would somebody listen to my show instead of like Gary V or Tom bill, you or Jordan harbinger or some of these other people? And the answer is that because I'm me, because I'm me, somebody is going to listen to me rather than somebody else just because of my story and the things that I have to share. And a lot of times you're even more relatable when you're at the beginning part of the process. When you're trying to make something happen out of nothing, your story is insanely relatable because that's where everybody's listening. Like that's where they're at. At the same time, like they're trying to make stuff happen.
Speaker 1We'll just take like a little side set button, a time out because there is a segment of people who are listening and be like, dude, this is so real . Like this is too like afterschool special hallmark Christmas television revival. Okay, listen, if you are of that following, guess what? You still ain't got an answer because it's not, or it's [inaudible] . And when we're sitting here and Travis is saying, Oh well they could be listening to Gary, they could be listening to Tom bill . You right, but it's not, it's not that they're just picking one podcast. Even if you don't buy into the fact that your story matters, buy into the fact that it's not, or it's an they could listen to your podcast, they could listen to 87 others. It's not an or. It's an an and if that becomes your mantra, the Hey, I suck. I'm not good. Guess what baby boo. You ain't competition. Gary V you , I could listen to your podcast. 8,700 podcasts, do [inaudible] and
Speaker 3yeah, that changing from the scarcity mindset to the abundance mindset. Man , so much amazing things here. Jasmine, I'm sure we could chat for a really, really long time, but since we're coming up kind of towards the end here, give me your top like one or two things now that you are somebody who has built a lot of influence in a prominent [inaudible] crowded industry.
Speaker 1Talk to me about like the top one or two things that you do now to focus on building really good quality relationships with other people that helped sharpen you. I encourage people to do the dumb , the slow, the unscalable, the sexy, the unsexy, boring and the hard. Like people talk about influence and I'm like, I don't give a rip. I don't give a rip how many numbers I have because the same behavior that grew my audience to this point is the exact same behavior that I have deployed year after year. After year. You DM me, I'm responding, I ask questions in my stories and I freaking respond to them. I respond to my comments, I respond to my email, I respond to my tweets, I respond to comments on YouTube. I respond . I'm putting out content on Dick talk or at least trying to, cause that's a scary platform to me . Comments on Facebook , I respond to comments on LinkedIn. Aye care about the one. And the beauty about that message is if you have 10 followers or 10 million followers, when you care about the one that has a transformative effect on your social influence, a hundred percent you show somebody you care, you have a follower friend and fan for life.
Speaker 3Oh man, that's such an amazing point. I actually just put out a video on that literally like four or five days ago on my YouTube channel. That's just about that cause that Gary V was the first one that I heard that concept from and he had a wallpaper at the time. This is when I first started my show and it was just simply a one a greater than sign and a zero and the whole premise is like if you have somebody that's paying attention, you have to treat that somebody , yeah , you have a million people because that's the [inaudible] . That's the thing is that people are like, well I don't have to be consistent or the show doesn't have to be as good quality. I don't have to worry about getting good guests. I don't have to worry about my content production as much because you know there's only three people that are listening anyway, so once I get to like ten thousand twenty thousand people like then I'll , I'll pay more attention then I won't miss a Friday, then then I'll bring on good quality guests and it's like, no, because you're never going to get to those 20,000 people. You're taking those people's time for granted. You have to be willing to like sit there and truly get in this like thankful and appreciative state that like, you know what, out of the 750,000 podcasts, out of the half a billion YouTube channels that exist, this person is taking the time, their quality time out of their day to sit there and listen to something that I have to say. And that is an amazing thing, especially because like the only way that was possible 1520 years ago, even 10 years ago was getting like syndicated on a radio network or television network and the fact that I can sit here in my home and record into a freaking little microphone like this and like somebody in Singapore can pull it up and get value and reach out to me and say thanks. Like that's a mind blowing amazing concept. And people don't take the time to sit there and be thankful for each and every little like each and every step of the process. And so they'll never get to that 20,000 not 25,000 a hundred thousand person Mark because they don't even appreciate the two or three that are paying attention right now and the amount , it's such an amazing point. If you tell, I get fired up about
Speaker 1it because I think that it's something that's so many people miss. They're always looking in the future like, well, once I have a million followers and it's like, well you don't even treat the three that you have right now. Well, what makes you think that they're going to tell their friends and family about it? How are you going to get to that point if you're not willing to treat them like they are a million people? Yes . You brought up a great point, so I had to expound on it a little bit with my, with my opinion. They will . My daddy said dance with the boy who's thinking of prom. Your followers . Well yeah. Are you on Instagram? Dance with them. Make them feel seen. That's it. It's not hard. It is not hard. People will never remember what you say, but they will always remember how you make them feel. Yeah. It's so true. Angelou man, that queen. Yeah. Cool. Jasmine, let's go ahead and we were kind of running out of time here. Let's head into the last segment. Something like to call the random round. Just a few quick random questions. Quick random answers. Ready? Yes. What profession other than your own, do you think that it would be fun to attempt? I always thought I would like to be a comedy writer. Seriously? Yeah, that is me too. Really ? Yeah. Yeah . That's like literally why I do everything I do now so that in the future I don't have to worry about money coming in and I can just like write comedy all day. I think it would be so rad to sit in a writers room. I know it's a lot of hard work and I know and I know it's like thankless and I know it's like your tiny, you know, name at the end and credit. It's also one of the scariest things I could think of doing is standup comedy. Oh, totally. Totally. To work on a sitcom though, like the office? Oh gosh. Mindy Kayleen is basically a walking unicorn. I just love her. I love what she said anyway. Okay , awesome. So if you could sit on a park bench with someone and talk to them for an hour, who would it be and why? Michelle Obama. I would love to hear like what it means to be a strong, powerful woman with a seemingly healthy relationship, motherhood, ambition, articulation, and succeeding against the odds. How do you like to consume content? Books, audio books, blogs, podcasts or videos? All of the above. It depends on the mood , but yeah, I consume audio when I want to be doing other things and I read when I want to turn my brain off and I want , sorry. No . Oh my gosh. Your dog is going to make my dog bark. That is one of the, you know, one of the many scourges of working from home is a dog's barking. In the background of a podcast episode, the dog barks, I had taken as a good sign. It's a sign of good luck. Yeah, and I watch videos. I watch videos when, when I one day like chill, give us a glimpse of your morning routine. Oh, I'm so predictable. I wake up at four 30. I stretch, I pray, I read, I meditate. I take a warm bath, I start working at five with a cup of tea. I do the creative work, the space that I needed in silence to be like not distracted. And then at seven, I wake up, make coffee, walk the dog with my husband, work out at eight. I'm , I'm back in the chair around nine in the morning. Uh , are there, but I do the same thing every single day. It's like clockwork.
Speaker 3What is your GoTo pump up song?
Speaker 1A little Joe all the way up and right now. Glorious Macklemore. Like a mix?
Speaker 3Yeah. What is something that you are not very good at?
Speaker 1Oh, there's so many things I can't even list. Oh, I'm not , I'm not very good at cooking.
Speaker 3There you go. That's a good one. That's another thing that we have in common.
Speaker 1Wait , so my husband is phenomenal at cooking. Thank God. Or else we'd be like starve. And so yesterday he was out, he wasn't home and I had to like make dinner and he literally left a solution on the stove and I was like, Oh , you know what? This looks too complicated. I'm going to tell you what I ate and it is absolutely so disgusting, but I was just like, I got it done and white light was spinach and then I put Marin era's awesome. I want to slap my face for that . It took me five minutes. I ate it.
Speaker 3It was health . It's nutrition. Yeah . My version of cooking is either grilled cheese sandwiches or Uber eats, so it's not much better as we get everything wrapped up. Your Jasmine, what's one place online where we can find you the most?
Speaker 1You can find me@jasminestar.com and that links out to social curator, my monthly social media membership for small business owners and social media. You can find me at Jasmine star.
Speaker 3Awesome. Awesome. Go over to Jasmine star.com and check out some of Jasmine's stuff. She is constantly putting out amazing content and if you are in the entrepreneurial space, which you'd be listening to this show, you probably are, then you're going to want to go to Jasmine star.com learn more about her, follow her on Instagram or Instagram is amazing. She does some awesome things over there. If you, especially if you're a small business owner, check out some of her stuff on a promise, I promise. I promise you will get a tremendous amount of value from anything that she puts out. Jasmine, thank you so much for coming on the show today. It's usually had a fantastic time talking with you.
Speaker 1Thank you so much. I appreciate it y'all . I loved this conversation with Travis. There is nothing I love more than connecting with other business owners, having real conversations about hard topics and of course sharing them with you. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, I would love if you subscribe to the Jasmine star show, I'm going to be unapologetic and asking you to subscribe because I love sharing this podcast with you. And the best way for you not to miss a single one of these incredible conversations is by subscribing on iTunes, Spotify, Google, play, Stitcher, Eno , or ever you are tuning in from today. So please subscribe and I will be forever grateful. Okay, so friends , that is what I have for you today. Thank you for tuning in and I will see you on the next episode.
Speaker 2[inaudible] .