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Speaker 2Hello there, and welcome to a special episode of the Jasmine star show. I actually don't know where to start this particular episode, but I should probably just start it by stating that this past week has been nothing short of crazier, right? I know. I'm totally not alone feeling that way. Uh, but things got even crazier for us who live here in California and other States around the U S where they are basically shutting down the entire state. So how it looks for us out here is that every restaurant, bar church, any gathering more than 10 people is banned at the moment and it's banned because government officials are really trying to stop this spread of the coronavirus or COBIT 19 I look out my window and the streets are empty and really quiet, but I've decided to keep moving forward because that's what I do. I just take a tiny step at a time and I try to make sense of things by way of action. I mean this literally like by actually doing work, that's what brings clarity and a lot more clarity than stress or fear or doubt. I'm actually recording in my closet because I can't leave my home. I'm also recording from a closet because I moved into an apartment. Surprise, surprise. I mean, I don't know if it should be surprised with a question Mark or a surprise with an exclamation point before I chat more about how we can continue to build our businesses during uncertain times. I should probably take a second and bring you up to speed. Many of you know that we record podcasts in advance, but I didn't feel like putting out an normal average podcast during these times would show you the honor and respect that I have for you as a friend and as a listener. So this is me recording virtually in real time and posting it right before it goes live to bring you up to speed. So less than two months ago I became a mother, JD, my husband and my business partner, we were placed for adoption and this little girl has just lit up our world with the brightest light. And as you know, I even recorded a podcast about that journey. If you're new here, you could check back to episode 35 just in case you're interested. But what I didn't mention in that episode was major news that it happened just two days before we got placed for the adoption. And don't worry, this adoptions journey and coronavirus and why I'm recording from a closet and how we can continue build our business. It's all going to weave together. Hang on one sec. It's , so we had been in the adoption journey for years. I mean it , it was so long that we actually just stopped hoping that things would happen because it hurt too much to hope. And then we just tried our best to continue with our daily life. And then in late January, 2020 I got a call from a friend and she said, Hey Jasmine, do you remember talking to my neighbor back in may? So in May, 2018 I spoke to her elderly neighbor who was so sweet. I happen to be visiting a friend and she was talking about how she would one day like to sell her home. And let me just tell you friends, her home is so sweet. It was built early in the 1950s and it is untouched. The house literally looks like it's in the 1950s and back in may we gave her an offer and she said, that's so kind of you. But no, I'm not planning on sailing right now. In late January, 2020 I got a call from a friend who said, Jasmine, my neighbor's wedding to sell that night. We sent her an offer for her home and around 10:30 PM she signed the offer and we said, you know, it's contingent on us selling our home because we can't afford your home until we sell our home. So let's just see how it goes. We will put our house on the market. And in 24 hours the house was sold and we were signing papers. And two days after that we got placed for adoption. So in January we finished a launch in the business and we bought a house and then we sold the house and then we adopted a child and we unexpectedly had to live in Las Vegas for two weeks throughout this adoption process. So we were there signing our mortgage papers with a notary, trying to make sure that things didn't fall between our 30 day close contract with the new buyer. So all of these things were going on. And when we returned from the adoption process in Las Vegas, we had less than two weeks to move from our house. And then we had even less time to discuss like the construction options for this fixer-upper. Around this time, the coronavirus was getting really serious and people became diagnosed in orange County and this threw things into a major frenzy. Malls began to close, restaurants stop serving grocery store shelves were completely empty. So it was totally no surprise that all construction projects halted too . And that's when we decided it'd be best to move it into apartment as we try to figure out how long it's going to be before we get back to normal. So yeah, like my life has been flipped completely upside down and then it got flipped upside down once more for good measure because that's life. So in full candor, I still have not impacted my boxes and the apartment still doesn't necessarily like home, but when I'm on the verge of getting really frustrated or overwhelmed, I look into my daughter's eyes and I ask myself, how does she need me to show up for her future? Like what kind of leader must I be today to empower her to do the same thing one day in her future? Now I know that sounds totally crazy and probably very mushy, but it's the best thing I got. And this is the stuff that's phishing me through. So last Monday in response to tons of questions and concerns from business owners, I took to social media to give advice and encouragement. We also hosted an Instagram challenge for members on the inside of social curator with daily coaching sessions because people just didn't know how to show up in moments of crisis. Like people were saying like, should I sell well ? People think it's tacky. If I'm still promoting my business, like Jasmine, what happens when clients are canceling on me? Jasmine, my partner lost his job in this as a side hustle. Can I even make it work? All of these questions and more are what I addressed last week, but I wanted to share it here as well on the podcast because I think like you, I'm just trying to figure this out and they want to be very clear. I do not have the answers. I'm just a girl with a Mike in a closet sitting in a pile of missed met shoes and cardboard boxes trying to share what I know. Over the past week, I have recorded multiple videos on my Facebook page and in my paid Facebook group for social curator members about how to cope and how to continue growing with what's going on in the world right now and how it affects our mindset. Because if something is affecting your mindset, it's also gonna affect our business and my friend that needs to change and I want to give you a sneak peek in Alyson in how I am approaching this exact same situation. So let's listen in.
Speaker 3Hi friends, how are you? Welcome, welcome. Welcome to this week's edition of asking me anything. I'm here chatting it up every week the way that they do on Facebook and YouTube answering your questions and let's just be real. The question that everybody is talking about is what the heck is going on with Kovac 1980 a coronavirus and I am going to be the first person to say that it is a really weird time to have a business, but the thing that has kept me tethered and what I say again and again, I don't want you to let two, four or six weeks ruin what took you two, four, six years to build is I know that right now is a very interesting time to have a business, but what I have seen are two types of entrepreneurs. I have seen some entrepreneurs realize that this is their perfect time to innovate. This is the perfect time to adapt. This is the perfect time to diversify. And then I see another entrepreneur who's completely frozen in fear frozen with the next thing to do. Both of those emotions are okay, but our responses to what it is, now I know people are saying, Jasmine, my husband lost his job, or Jasmine, my wife just got her business off the ground and now it's stunted . Those are all real pressure points and my heart breaks for the reality of so many people who are hurting right now. But then we also have to deal with the reality that if is then that is the case, what do we do now? If you feel like you're in the precipice of losing your business, if you've lost your business, if you're like Jasmine, I can only hang on another two months. Like, okay, that's facts. What then do we do with what we have now to get to where we want to go? And all I could say is I'm going to continue to show up and serve people well. I have seen on the inside of social curator, thousands of business owners responding differently. So what can I do as a business owner to serve my people? Well, literally the team and I were like, how do we help people? How do we get small businesses off the ground? We have a social curator Instagram challenge that's going on right now. So this is a reminder. If you're a curator, go into the group. We have a challenge on how we could show up to talk about our business and not sell our business during this time, but because the enrollment is closed, no, that's not a pitch. That's just where we are right now. I want to get into your questions and also give a place of service. Elisha says, Jasmine, you're giving me hope that I can make it through as a small business owner during this insane time, I am not saying you can. I am seeing you will. I don't know if you're , if the business you have tomorrow will look like the business, you have to say what if you're an entrepreneur. You just don't stick your heels in the mud and say, I can't go anywhere. My life is over. No. If you're an entrepreneur, you take the reality of the situation and say, okay, what of my current business can I keep and what needs to change due to the changing demographic of where I am. Listen, hustler, listen, dreamer, listen, entrepreneur. We are the crazy ones. We are the people that were everybody else. People are fading and crumbling. We say, where's the opportunity and how then do I serve? It was Mr. Rogers. He said his mom during times of peril and fear and doubt, he said that we should be looking to people who are helping. If you are a business owner and you're frozen and you aren't helping people, no one's going to notice you. Jennifer asks , this was up voted nine times. What's your thoughts on small businesses moving forward and recovering with the current epidemic? I'm afraid people won't be spending first and quite some time . So she says, I want, here's here's one thing that I want to pay special attention to because our conscious mind makes the subconscious decisions. So I'm going to go back and I'm going to read a line that Jennifer wrote because it actually plays into my answer. She says, what are your thoughts on small businesses moving forward and recovering with the current epidemic moving forward? What are your thoughts about businesses moving forward during this time? Listen, booboo, if you don't move forward, you won't recover. Like people are so afraid right now to do anything because they're like, Oh, what if I don't remember what the only way we recovered as individuals, as members of families, as entrepreneurs, as Americans, as humans, is if we move forward, if we stay in a state of this , if we say static or if we become so scared that we start pulling money out, we start moving backwards. We're done. So how do we recover? We move forward. Show ass . I don't know if anyone already asked, but what do you do about people that ask you to lower your rate at a time like this? Guess what? You can't choose wrong. Some people will lower their price because they have to because they want to because they think it makes sense during these times and other people won't. There is not a right or wrong. If , if you are struggling to pay your bills, if you're struggling to put food on your table and somebody says, will you give me a discount? I am not going to judge you. If you give somebody a discount, I don't do you do you, but if you have squirreled away enough money, if you've made wise investments, if you feel confident and safe about your decisions that you're just like, you know what? I'm not lowering my prices. Good for you. You as a business owner can make decisions that only will reflect you and empower you. Jen Lynn asked, I am showing up daily for teachers with what I have to offer them as needed and each day is different within these circumstances. The social curator challenge has been so beneficial. I'm finding teachers just needing empowering encouragement and hearing them out. I don't have much financially, but I want to write notes to the teachers. Should I throw in a gift? What are your insights, Jen ? Lynn , I love your heart. I'm going to be going in and doing group coaching on the inside of social curator is specific to this challenge right after this call, so be sure to pop in over to the group now, but the thing that we want to do more than anything is when we are focusing on serving others is that sometimes, especially in this place of being of hurt, do you know that Oh , smile is priceless. Do you know that? Like I had been getting text messages from old friends just saying, Hey Jasmine, I'm checking in to see how you're doing with the baby. I even talked to them in years and I saw that and I was so moved. It meant so much to be seen by somebody and we all have the power to speak that into somebody's life. Do you need a throw in a gift? Not. If you don't have a lot of money, you could send them a postcard that would be effective or you could just send them a DM. You could just send them an email. You can just tweet at them. You can give them a shout out on Instagram stories. You can leave a review. You can leave a testimonial. You can, you can barter services. I am not saying that you need to spend money to make some of these day be thoughtful, be kind. That is the stuff that transforms where we are living and what we are doing now as we go into social media and we want to use it as a division of our business, but also who we are. The thing I will ask you is if you want others to look empathetically at us, we must look empathetically at others during this time. We want people buying from our small businesses. I know you as a course creator. I know you as a photographer. I know you as an events planner. We want people to buy from us because we are feeling the pressure from it. So if we want people to empathetically say, you know what, I'm going to show up for your girl. I'm going to buy a gift certificate, I'm going to shout you out on social. I'm going to do something small for you. In order for them to look empathetic and us, we have to look empathetically at others. Now, it just doesn't happen in a business capacity. In fact, I would say it happens in a real life capacity. True example is JD did the quad method, right? The social curator method at the grocery store. Now, if you guys have ever been a group coaching before, the qualm method is question, underlying question, action and accountability. So every time you are in a social situation, in part of your life or your business, I want to walk you through quad . So JD was at the grocery store and he asked himself a question, why is everybody buying stacks and stacks of toilet paper? But that really wasn't the question because the underlying question that he came to realize that he was asking is how do people cope when they are scared? He didn't look around a grocery store and say, everybody's crazy. He looked around the grocery store and said, people are afraid and they're buying things to make them feel safe. His perspective changed from, this is weird to how can I show up differently for you? So the action became empathy. How can I put myself in your shoes? We're all feeling scared, we're all feeling uncertain. But how we choose to show up in the world is differently because there will be business owners who will close their doors and then there will be business owners who are just barely getting by. And to those people who refuse to give up, I want to say there is no better time than to build your business than online right now because desperation breeds ingenuity, desperation breeds innovation. Desperation is going to radically change your business if you decide to look at it that way. So what is the last a Q U a right? His accountability is to speak up. There was a woman who was standing next to him who turned to him and was like, can you believe this is happening? And instead of JD saying, sh yeah, PB people are going crazy. He said, this is how people feel safe and that has changed things dramatically. So if we want to look at other business owners who have other people empathetic greed , because we want people to empathetically look at our business and our struggles, that the way we behave in a personal way also comes into our business. So this is a loving kick in the pants to let you know that there will never be in human history, more people who are on their mobile devices. Then the next six weeks there will be another no other time in human history where more eyes will be on your online business. There will never be another time in human history up until this point, who knows in the future. But up until this point, people are staying home and working from home and other devices never before ever more than they have in human history. Now my question comes to you. What will you do with all this new found opportunity? Will you sit in fear and be afraid or will you choose four to two ? Will you say, I am going to feel the pressure and I'm going to learn how to pivot my business. I'm going to learn how to continue showing up on social media so people can ask me for the thing that they need. My encouragement to you is to not give up now. It's going to get worse before it's going to get better. Do not give up today. Shelly said also wrong to put things out that we charge for right now. Thoughts on that? Time-table back or what? Listen, cellie . Let me tell you something, baby boo . At the Dawn of time in all of human history, people in dark times and in good times have still wanted to fulfill basic human needs. We want to clothe ourselves. We want to enjoy ourselves. We want to entertain ourselves. We want to be fed and we want safety for our family. None of that goes away even in really dark times. I am still shopping online. I'm supporting small business owners , small business boutiques like Luna needs clothes. Just because we're going through a hard time. My daughter's growing and she ain't got no clothes. I still got to buy her clothes. So I'm going to buy from a small business owner. So the fact of the matter is I have never, and y'all know if you guys have been in social media for a while , you have no , I'm not coming out here saying sell, sell, sell. I'm saying serve, serve, serve and your business is a service to others who need it. So I am not saying it's that you shouldn't sell. It's that how you sell matters most. If you're like up here being like I'm selling toilet paper, I'm charging $22 a roll . Shame on you. But if you're out here and you're saying my business, my online course, if you're at home and you're looking for a way to pivot, my online course will help you. If you're out here saying, you know, I'm a fitness professional and my gym closed and you're doing an Instagram live to teach people how to workout at home, good for you. You must do things. And then you have these like freak like workout classes and then you say, Hey, if you want to do a workout, let's set up a zoom call and they pay you $49 for a 45 minute workout. Good for you. You, you with your business are serving people and if you are selling something that people want to be served by, you're doing them a service. Don't you ever back away from building your business because people still need to buy? Why not have it be from you? Real talk. Uh, let's see. Mark Bates said, this is not a rejection. This is a redirection. Yes, yes, yes. Say it again for the people in the back. Mark Nicola said, piggybacking on Shelly's question, what are your thoughts versus selling, selling versus contributing to offering freebies for people? Right now, as an interior designer, photographer, I'm trying to think of ways to offset the loss of finances from all the clients that are rescheduling your shoots by creating some educational materials, but not sure how to pivot the right way. Now. Guess what Nicole and anybody else, what you just asked right now is what I'm doing. We have not pulled back from creating free resources for entrepreneurs right now. Social curator is closed, enrollment is closed. I have had so many people being Jasmine, can you just let me into social security? I want to do the Instagram Johns . Jasmine, can you let me into social security . I need to learn how to show up on social media and I right now as a business person, I want to be like, heck yes. People like want to come in and I could sell them. And I'm like, no, we have a plan and I am here to serve the people who are here extraordinarily well and I'm going to focus on you now just because I am not selling something that people can buy right now. I'm still investing in creating free resources. So to Nicole and Chellie and anybody else who's questioning the resources that I'm creating, I don't know if they're the right resources. I will only know when I put them out and I test them. So what am I doing right now? Creating them to test them. So Nicole, you might have to create one, two , you might have to create six, we don't know. But the good news is that you have time to do this. If I were, if I was a business owner and I am taking a hit and I have extra time, I would go back and I would review all of my email templates, making sure they're all refreshed. If you don't have email templates, make email templates, right? So you're going to be responding to the same emails that you normally do again and again and you're going to make sure that you create a template to save you time. If you are thinking about how you need to organize your Dropbox, great. You're building your work in your business. If you're thinking that like now is the time to create an online course, good for you. You now have time. I am just saying that during this time you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. You have the opportunity to do everything you've been wanting to do in your business and you always said , I didn't have time. Is that you and I now have time. We have the time that we said, I wish I could just sit on the couch and like enjoy time with my son. I wish my husband and I can have a conversation. I really wish I can work on that project. I've been wanting to work on this . Guess what y'all, the world gave you the thing you asked for. What are you going to do with it? Are you going to freak out? Are you going to be scared? Are you going to say, you know what, I'm going to push through what ? I'm going to persevere to the very last minute because I have to tell you that fear is something you and I both feel the stress is something you and I both feel the responsibility of having a team and like looking around and being like, alright, how are we going to weather this? I feel that too , like an anvil on my chest, but every day I wake up and I say, you must choose to find the direction. You must choose to watch the signs and you must in fear in doubt, in agony and despise and frustration, choose to do the work. The only way I have ever gotten out of feeling in the darkest funk is to do the work. Now, when I say do the work, I don't mean beat myself up. There was a time I did that. I don't say I stress myself out and grinds via up to four o'clock in the morning trying to feel like the next thing. No , I've done that before and guess what? That doesn't work. Beating yourself up when you're afraid is the most unkind thing you could ever do. Your creative juices and opportunities come when you ask yourself, can I please find a different way to look at this same situation? You are not alone now the one question that I have to ask you is, let me give me one minute, one minute so that tonight you could put your head on your pillow and think I did the best I could. I am going to ask you to think time. Think back to a time when you had to adapt. Now think about this. Has there been a time in life and in business where you had to shift things? Maybe a time as a mother or as a father or as a daughter or as a son that something happened. You're like, Whoa, this is not how it was supposed to be. So think back to that moment where you had to adapt to something that was unexpected. Now when you think about it , hold it here and then I want to ask you a question. How did that moment change you? Not the moment that shocked you, but the moment that you actually need the decision to say, Whoa, I have to change. Think back to how it changed you. I want you to think about how it changed you, and I want you to express appreciation for that moment and then because you learned from it. Express appreciation for this moment, this moment in time, which is so crazy, so gnarly, and so many things are unexpected. There are so many people who are standing in their showers crying and screaming. There are so many people who are at the health front, professionals, they are nurses, they're doctors, they are emergency workers who are being exposed or potentially exposed to Corona. I express gratitude. I send them health, I send them love. I send them devotion for what they are doing to help us get better. We as business owners have to now think of ways to adapt and change because I'm not going to sit here and say that somebody losing their business isn't a reality or somebody's partner losing their job and that's going to have an impact on how you are in your business. That's facts and it's hard and it hurts and I hate even saying it, but because we don't say it doesn't make it go away. So if this present day is our reality and it is, how then can I encourage you to not give up? How can I then encourage you to say, you must take the little that you have. As scary as it feels and say, now is the time for me to adapt. Now is the time for me to be flexible. Now was the time for me to look around and say, what in my business can still mean team and what must I let go? Because the more you try to hold on to something that is going to disappear, you're wasting precious time as going out and looking. What then will be your next move. I know so many of us right now have, they have this big question Mark on top of our heads asking ourselves, why is this happening to me? And every time I ask the question, why is this happening to me? I was closing myself off from the blessings I was supposed to receive because I was shortchanging myself when I said, why is this happening to me? The question I should be asking and I encourage you to ask is what am I suppose to learn? What am I supposed to learn from this situation? Because right now we have the powerful opportunity to learn from this wildly frustrating time and here it's social curator. We're giving you the ways and the tools for you to continue to show up and look for the next opportunity to innovate, to use this as an opportunity for you to do something different. Don't let go find a new way to hang on. Teresa Hato says, failing the bar made me realize that I can be a service without being a lawyer, and now my creativity is helping parents. Everything that Theresa went through by failing the bar exam to not become a lawyer has made her stand in her place of purpose to mothers and families. Hot dang. Hillary Griffin said, I feel like my heart aches for my friends that own brick and mortar businesses. My content has been geared towards that. Mostly tips for digital encouragement, but that's not necessarily what I offer as a business owner, where is the balance so I can serve my community and continue to grow my own business? Right now, Hillary , you are just going to be dividing. You're saying, listen, I'm creating content for people who are not my customers, but I doing it out of service to people who need help. Girl, the universe honors that. You're not going to be left alone. That's not a waste. Who knows? Hillary, you never know. If by you creating content for physical locations, it opens up a new Avenue and door for our customer. You never saw coming. We don't know. And even if that is not the case, the fact that you just showed up for them and did them a solid, when they're hurting, that's human to human, Rob goodness and no good deed goes unnoticed. The fact that you're showing up for them means that one day someone's going to show up for you when you got hit hard. That's all good baby. Boom , that is all good. Do I think your content will be like this for the next two years? No. Well, I think your content will be like this until we start alleviating the pressure maybe. And to that I say thank you. I am here every day. Not for you. I am with you. I will tell you that in the middle of this afternoon I put my head on my hand and you're not supposed to sit your face and here I am touching my face, but don't worry. I wash my hands like 87 times. I haven't even gone outside all day. I'm basically living in like a clean little bubble and I put my hand to my face and I said people I think are looking to me to understand them and give them advice and I wonder if the advice that I am giving them is enough. And then I had to take a step back and saying I am giving all the advice I have. I am only asking you to do what I self and the team are doing. If the advice isn't enough, I promise to commit to continue to give all I have. And if you are giving all you have in this moment, you cannot expect anything more than that.
Speaker 2Oh sweet friend. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Jasmine star show today. We can't change what's happening with the world but we can change our mindset around it. Yes, these are uncertain times and we are being forced to decide how we will approach the future. But I want to remind you that we were made for moments like this. Our character can shine bright in moments of despair by helping others, and I'm not talking vaguely. I'm not like, Oh, esoteric . Let's get deep here. No, I'm being very serious. I am talking about really showing up to help. I am incredibly thankful to the social curator team because we have put together a social curator sneak peak for you during this time. This is a no nonsense, no pitch, no expectation. Time to get access to social curator for free. We put together a sneak peek so that you can download engaging caption templates so you know how to show up and talk about your business. In times like this, we're including lifestyle stock photos just in case you can't get out of your house to create photos at this time, we still want you showing up and a social media marketing guide. This is going to show you how to plan, how to show up and market your business on social media every day with ease. This is just a small way to support your business during this time. We don't want you stopping. We don't want you giving up. We don't want you losing hope. We're here to support your dreams, so please feel free to get access to download these resources@socialcurator.com forward slash sneak peak , and you'll also find a link in the show notes. So be sure to check that out. Building a business in uncertain times has nothing to do with covert 19 every day is uncertain as an entrepreneur in. My wish for you is to continue to move forward one day at a time. Stay healthy, stay busy, and I'll see you soon on social curator.com forward slash sneak peek so I can root for you at a distance.
Speaker 1[inaudible] .