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Speaker 2Welcome back to another episode of the Jasmine star show. This is a business podcast with slight detours about things like life and adoption stories and because Hey, we are here at keeping it real and sometimes life in business always intersect. Today's episode is a little break from the longer interviews and trainings that I've been doing and instead of short and sweet Q and a I hosted recently on Facebook live. I love my weekly ask me anything's episode and in this one you're about to hear productivity hacks, how to get personal and social tips for creating a solid morning routine and more friends. I am including this audio from a Facebook live because I've tried it once before and the feedback was really amazing. So if you like this format, please let me know because we really only want to produce podcasts episodes for you and with you in mind. Okay? I won't make you wait any longer. Here is an episode of ask me anything. Mike said. When you're bogged down with so much to do, how do you prioritize which tasks are more essential than others without feeling overwhelmed or pushed for time? So I want to make sure that we take a second to step back and say, Mike and anybody else who feels overwhelmed or pressured for time, I want you to not tell yourself the story that this is exclusive to you. Because if you're watching right now, can you co-sign with me and can you co-sign with Mike? Anybody who's watching right now, can you just leave a comment and write yes. And when you write yes, it's indication. It's indicating to Mike and myself that you too feel pressed for time, feel overwhelmed and would like more hours in your day. Yo, Mike, I'm right here and I'm seeing these yeses pop in because what happens is sometimes we wish that we , I want us to resist the temptation to feel like I am the only person who's going through this. Nobody understands how I feel because Mike, what I want to do is I first want to say thank you for being honest and thank you for addressing the feelings of being bogged down, but I also want us to be like very honest and real. We're starting businesses like if anybody told you start a business so that you have more time on your hands. Start a business so you're not stressed. Start a business because life will just get easier. No, it's quite the opposite. Like do you want to get more stressed out? Do you want to have more things to do than you have time for start up business? Then we can have real talk. Now, something that has been super grounding for me when it comes to really identifying the things that I need to get done a particular time is asking myself, is this important or is this urgent? Because what , what I discovered was happening was that in my business, you wear so many hats, right? Like you do marketing, you do advertising, you do content creation, you do creation, you do product fulfillment, you do emails, you do admin. You're doing all these things and oftentimes I was letting the stuff that was urgent like, Oh, it has to do me nothing now get in the way of getting what with important done the minute I said I must finish everything important first before I get to what's urgent. My business changed because oftentimes people say, I need this done now a client emails and says, I need this done now, and all of a sudden we're like, Oh, we need to do that. So we put the urgent on top of the important, but in order to grow a business over a long period, you need to make sure that you're doing what is important above the urgent. I actually get into this quite heavily. Paige is going to leave a link right here now it's called how to create a productivity roadmap. I created a whole podcast, Jasmine star, podcast.com I created a wool podcast around that particular topic because when it comes back down to understanding what productivity actually looks like, then we could start saying, Oh, that's how she's getting all that stuff done. And I have to say I do have a very small team now, but for 11 years I did everything in my business on my own so I know that struggle and people like how does it seem like you get more done than the average person and the answer is I keep what's important above the urgent. I set parameters and I have a productivity roadmap that keeps me on track. Let's get into another question from Nadia. I'm a wedding photographer. The social curator prompts and photos have been a huge help for me, but I am finding it hard to balance portfolio work, recent shoots and making sure my potential clients get to know me. How do you balance it? All? Any tips would be appreciated. Love social curator all the way from South Africa. Nadia, thank you so much. The main question now I want you to ask yourself and anybody else who's watching. If you are a service provider, I want you to ask yourself the person you dream of working with, the person who you're like, you see an email from this person, you're like, Oh, I'm so excited. I get to work with this person. Think of that person and then I want you to ask yourself, does this person want a more personal look into your professional life? The answer isn't always yes, but statistically on social media, personal post perform much better than really stodgy professional ones and what I could tell you from first case experience in my own business, but also at the same time coaching thousands of business owners, many who have service based businesses is brides are hiring photographers, not just buying photographs and people are hiring realtors, not just buying a house and peop people are hiring bakers. They're not just buying a cake. If we can say that we agree yet people are buying our services, but they're also investing in who we are to deploy the services, then I'm going to say posting personal aspects of your professional life is going to be a good thing. So when Nadia, when you ask me how do I balance it all, you just choose. You choose to say, and now, I don't know how much of your personal life you're posting now, but let's just say you're posting one personal post a week and that one does really well. Hmm . Well then try posting two personal posts that week and see if it does really well. Now these personal posts I not saying that you should say, Oh, here's a picture of my baby eating her cereal and here's a picture of my cat eating the baby's leftover cereal. And here's a picture of me cleaning up this cereal leftover by my baby and my cat. Like that's like TMI, too much information. But Nadia, could you post a behind the scenes photo of you working editing photos with like maybe your baby in a bassinet or a carrier next to you or your five-year-old on the floor coloring. Could you post a picture of a behind the scenes of you on a wedding day? What do you wear? How are you working? W R do you work with an assistant? What kind of gear do you have? Those are very personal looks, but into your professional life. Oftentimes what I'm sharing on social really is a personal look at my relationship with my husband or my family, but it is parlayed into what I do professionally, so is there a right answer? No, but your audience will dictate if you post a personal picture of yourself and it does really, really, really well. That's your audience saying, Nadia, we want to see more of you and I want you to step into that without feeling the worry or the temptation that it's going to be too much. Listen to your audience. They will let you know. I'm okay. Alyssa said, I started private women's Facebook group two and half years ago. It was passion project that I dreamed about doing. I would love to go live, do live interviews and have books of the month challenges, et cetera . I wanted it to be a place of community where I could bring people in the world and share hard things and bring to light and empowerment. Fast forward now we have a podcasts . We have done meetups. We're getting ready to our next event and retreat, which I'm super excited about. I'm struggling with saying what it is I do. Does that make sense? People ask us what is my organization at ? And I generally stuttered through that conversation because I don't know how to get it out. Just need some guidance on how to nail this down because I feel stuck and I'm not sure how to turn this passion project into a successful business. Okay. So anybody who is doing something, I always believe I am a big proponent. This will not be the first time you'll hear me say this. I call it your elevator pitch. Like right now I'm staying in Las Vegas. In order for me to get from the 40th floor down to the lobby, that takes me about 45 seconds. Can you explain what you do in 45 seconds? If you can't, you're going to have a very hard time having somebody buy or invest in what it is that you're selling. When we first started social curator, I was just like that. I could, I'm like, well, social curator is uh, uh, I couldn't figure out how to describe it in 45 seconds. And the only way I figured it out was number one practice. I actually had to look at myself in the mirror and say it again and again and again. And now I can say that social curator is a monthly social media membership, empowering small and medium sized business owners to build their brand and market it on social media. So they build a life that they love and a business they're proud of. That's what it's turned into. But it took me a very long time to get to there. So let's, let's break down what we did for the elevator pitch. We want to lead with who it's for and we want to lead with the value or the benefits in a way that people understand. I always want to make sure that your elevator pitch is easy enough for like a 10 year old to understand. So social curator who it's for small and medium sized business owners, what are the value and the benefits? They learn how to build a brand and they learned how to market it on social media. What's the true value? They build a life they love and a business they're proud of. That's the anatomy of an elevator pitch and I encourage you to do that. So we're going to say who it's for, what are the benefits and what are the intrinsic value to it am. And then you just got to sit in your mirror, put on a timer and do it again and again and again. And remember friends, I really only ever ask you to do things that I have done myself. Like I know this works. I believe it in my bones because I've done it again and again. I had to sit in the suck of practicing how to do this, but now it becomes such a vital piece of my business and I'm proud to say , and I want you to say the same thing . Okay, let's get into a another question from McKenna. She says, just listened to your daily schedule podcast. So good. I've been trying to streamline my morning routine and it found that the actual getting ready part is a hangup for me. I noticed that you don't specify in your morning routine when this happens for you yet you always look stellar in your presentations. Have you come up with a good system for that? And also related to morning routine, any tips on how to work around a spouse who has a different wakeup time and morning routine ? So for those of you who are interested, the podcast is entitled how do establish a daily routine that will profoundly change your life. Y'all, it's one of our most downloaded podcasts. So that's a great thing, a big ox on that because I literally break down how my morning routine affects my business and what I do hour by hour. Now in that , um , in that I also included a free download so that you can actually see my, my getting ready routine and I should, I should just come out and say something. The very get go. I've become very strategic with when I go live and when I'm being visual, a visual representation of my business and y'all real talk. I get ready three days a week. That's it. And on those three days I will line up my Instagram lies my Facebook lives. I will line up days that I'm recording videos. I will line up podcast interviews on my calendar, a calendar that a few people on my team have access to when people are setting up meetings for me. I block out on my calendar, no meeting days, no meetings, no meetings, no meetings . And on those days I do not do my hair and makeup. My poor husband, you know, poor guy, he married me. And then most days I look like a cave woman, like matted hair, baggy clothes, like you know, like dark circles, but a a God. Be strategic and pick that time. Now I know gotta be strategic and make that time work. That's what I was going to say. I talk so fast that I don't finish my thoughts and I'm working on it in 2020. That's my big goal. So , um, I know that many people have a morning routine because they take their kids to school and they want to have hair and makeup done and that's fine. You're going to create that in alignment. But I will tell you that when Luna goes to school, I am not going to be one of those moms that is always looking put together like I'm going to be doing drop off and like yoga pants and a messy bun. Like that's who I am for real talk. So I want to make sure that when I create my daily schedule, I put in, it takes me , um , from shower to makeup, it takes me about 30 minutes. Like I do my hair and makeup really fast and that 30 minutes is part of my morning routine. This morning it's spent, I took 30 minutes getting ready today I did my hair and makeup on the floor of our hotel room with Luna in a little bassinet and I was listening to a podcast. I was feeding her her bottle and I was also doing my makeup. Like I just try to find ways to create wins within that. But on the days that I do get ready, it's a 30 minute window and I use a lot of dry shampoo. I don't wash my hair every day. Is that, is that TMI? Probably, but it's also, hi babe. I could see your head peeking out. I tried, I tried. I tried to, we staying in a hotel room. I'm trying to find the right angles, right? So it was just like JD could be in the background. I'm like doing his thing. Um , but we saw his little floating head. Hey Andy . Speaking of how do you create a schedule when two people are on different schedules? Like that's the story of my life with my husband. I wake up and you can listen to this. In my daily routine podcast , I wake up everyday at four 30 in the morning. That's literally just what time my body wakes up. Even when I want to sleep in, I just wake up at four 30. That's the time JD wakes up at 7:00 AM. And so I am, I , by the time JD wakes up, I've already been awake like two and a half hours. I'm like, let's go. It's got to get this day going. And he's like, Oh my God, woman, this is too much. Um, we have built in very specific routines. Um, I'm really excited for us to go back home so that we can fall into the routine , um , with Luna. But I know this is probably, people will hear this. And I was like, yeah, Jasmine, just wait. I've gotten so many people saying, I can't wait to see how your life changes. I can't wait to see you take a break from social media. I can't wait for you to take a step back. And I get that. And I know that people are sending it in well wishes. But what I would like to do is create the time and the space and the permission for myself to determine what that looks like. And I have experienced this before on multiple occasions where people take their perspectives and then they put it on you. Like when I got married to JD, I can't tell you how many people were like, Ooh, that first year it's the hardest. Be prepared or you know, it takes a lot of time to learn how to live with somebody. And I went into my marriage being like, Oh my God, okay, I got to be so ready for this. It's going to be acrimonious and I gotta be grown. And I got and then all of a sudden when I was in it, I was like, I'm in flow. Like I'm with the person I love. And like not every day is a walk in like a strawberry field. But like we're doing it. Like it doesn't feel like as heavy as people said it was going to be. And when people say, you know, there's lots of rollercoasters and you're going to be staying up all night and give yourself grace and patients . And like I received that. But what I can say, and I've only been a mom like nine days, nine days I've been a mom nine days. But what I can say in the past nine days is that number one, Oh, I'm going to lump on my throat, get all up. Uh, my husband and my business partner has stepped up in such a huge way as a father and the con private conversations that we have about what our work life balance will be, have moved me. And he does take a lot of the evening feedings so that I can rest. And hit the ground running with the team, but then there are also times where I take the baby and I'm like you could take a nap today or you can go and work out or you can just have time and so I am not saying it's perfect but I can also say that I am going to make the terms of my life and my business work for me with number one, open communication. Number two, establishing boundaries in a personal and professional capacity and number three I won't be, you won't be hearing me talk about motherhood and entrepreneurship for a while. Like people I know are thinking that because I live so much of my life on social that I'm going to lead with Luna on social as well and that's not going at least at least for like three to six months. I just want to learn how to be a mom privately before I really kind of take the baby out and say this is how I am as a mom publicly. Most women have like 10 months to figure out how to feel like a mom and I haven't even had 10 days. So I don't want to walk out and social and act like I have answers or act like I have . Like I'm going to be doing it a specific way. Like I'm going to be the first person to say I don't know what I'm doing and because I don't know what I'm doing and because I don't feel comfortable with not knowing what I'm doing. I'm not going to be pushing out on social because I will say you wet us . JD just said he's going to watch this. He's actually in the other room. He's with the baby, but he says he's going to come back and watch this. That's, that's my boot . That's my husband right there doing the dang thing. He's with the baby feeding her in the other room, but he's popping in and out. And that right there is just like real talk of our relationship and where it is. Because what happens is when you put something out on the internet , uh, it gets to be difficult because people have an opinion about what it is that you're doing. And emotionally I'm not ready for people to have an opinion. People can have an opinion about me as a business owner. That's fine. Means nothing to me like me, love me, support me, dislike me. It doesn't matter like I know what I'm doing, I don't know what I'm doing as a mom and I have just made the decision for us to pursue building a business publicly and still maintaining drips and pieces of stuff that we've a confident on the backend . So that's that. Uh , okay. So every week we come in, we chat for on 25, 30 minutes. That's what we're doing out here today. Thank you for the time, the space and the grass and the latitude to get into what it is that we do and how we do it. There it is folks sending you much love from Las Vegas. Hope you guys have a good day. And there you have it. That Q and a was apparently a pretty good because even JD went back and tuned in later. If you enjoy these short and sweet podcast episodes, will you please let me know in the form of a podcast review? You can tell me how you're feeling by searching for the Jasmine star show on Apple podcast and clicking writer of you under the podcast page. I would be so appreciative if you took the time out of your very busy schedule to do this because I'm a hustler just like you, and I'm trying to make a bigger impact in the world and I can't do it without your help. So me and you, let's do some things. Thank you, friend , for supporting the Jasmine star show with your five star review and by tuning in every single week, it really does mean the world to me . Until next time, I hope you have a wonderful
Speaker 1[inaudible] .