Business Questions Answered: Roundtable Discussion with Brilliant and Successful Women

STOP: you’ll need to prepare your hearts for this one…

You’re about to experience an inside look with some of the most brilliant minds discussing business, entrepreneurship, and development.

How brilliant you ask? Well…

Jocelyn Moore: Jay Rockefeller, (the U.S senator) pulled up a seat at the table for her, literally.

Chelsea Grayson: American Apparel and True Religion recruited her to be their CEO, and she made them profitable again.

Susan Sierota: built and sold a billion-dollar business, and is now my mentor.

If you’re ready for a discussion on what it takes to truly make it in business, these women have walked the walk to turn their desires into reality and have some invaluable insights to share.

In this episode you’ll hear personal stories of the emotional aspects of entrepreneurship, practical advice on seeking mentors and sponsors, and the answers to some GREAT business questions from my Instagram community.

Click play to hear all of this and…

(00:00:01) Introductions of the BRILLIANT women in business participating in the roundtable conversation.

(00:02:09) How these three women first connected and changed lives (like mine!).

(00:03:30) The importance of sponsorship and how it differs from mentorship.

(00:07:04) Personal stories of how these women were sponsored and the impact it had on their careers.

(00:10:45) What the younger generations need to succeed.

(00:13:13) The importance of giving back and supporting other women in their careers.

(00:14:38) Advice on choosing a mentor and assessing the return on investment.

(00:16:30) Strategies for reaching out to potential mentors and building relationships with them.

(00:17:42) The importance of letting relationships with potential mentors develop naturally over time.

(00:17:46) A discussion on identifying and leveraging your current network for mentorship.

(00:18:53) Debate on paying/charging for mentorship/

(00:22:05) The importance of relationships (regardless of the person’s current status or connections).

(00:25:52) How to manage expectations and boundaries in relationships.

(00:32:29) The right time to launch a product or service.

(00:35:46) What you should know BEFORE launching a new offer.

(00:45:43) How these women balance personal life and entrepreneurship.

(00:50:28) The underlying motivations that drive entrepreneurs.

For full show notes, visit:

https://jasminestar.com/podcast/episode418

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Transcript

Jasmine Star (00:00:01) - It's a. Welcome back to the Jasmine Star Show. This is the first time ever I have had three amazing guests all at one time. Now to bring you guys back up. If we haven't been watching or listening to the preceding episodes, I have had the pleasure of interviewing each person individually. And now for our own version. Am I going to say the view or is it? No, no, no, not for you. This is the view. This is the unfocused, not the view., ladies, welcome back. If you can go around the table, I'm going to start here with Chelsea. Do a brief welcome back introduction of who you are, what you do. And then we're going to talk about the perspectives and get into business. Sure.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:00:50) - So I'm Chelsea Grayson I'm the former CEO and board member of American Apparel True Religion and most recently Spark Networks. And I also sit on a ton of public and private company boards.

Susan Sierota (00:01:02) - Hi, I am Susan Sirota. I really love to help builders tackle the huge challenges of building businesses, and I do that through being a director or advisor.

Susan Sierota (00:01:13) - Sometimes coach is and yeah, I've built a couple myself.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:01:17) - And sponsor.

Susan Sierota (00:01:18) - And sponsors.

Jasmine Star (00:01:19) - Yes.

Susan Sierota (00:01:21) - The people. Yes.

Jocelyn Moore (00:01:23) - Hi everyone. I'm Jocelyn Moore, I'm an executive strategist. I also sit on a couple of public company boards as well as a private board.

Jasmine Star (00:01:30) - Okay. So in our last conversations we have seen them in their utmost professional. But you get this group of amazing, brilliant women and they're just going a thousand miles a minute. So I was like, can we have a roundtable conversation about business? Because if I was sitting at a table next to you, I would unabashedly be eavesdropping because you guys think so differently. It's like, how can I connect you? What are you doing? How do we support each other? So can we start the conversation from that place? Start the place of how did you guys start creating these connections? What are you thinking of as you're creating these connections? And then as a listener is thinking, how do I duplicate this in my neck of the woods with my group of friends? It was.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:02:09) - Magic. When we came together.

Susan Sierota (00:02:11) - Total magic.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:02:12) - It was like it was a spark, you know? It really was. Which is why we've had such longevity in this relationship we met. Can I say it on clubhouse? Oh, yeah.

Jasmine Star (00:02:20) - Yeah, yeah, I mean yes. Yeah.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:02:21) - We met on clubhouse in the early days, you know, which was a lot of people's lifesaver during Covid. At least it was for me for sure. You know, and I think we were all up on some stage at some point, you know, and it just slowly everybody else on stage kind of receded into the background. And it was just the three of us and people were raising their hands asking us questions. And then I think, Susan, it was your idea, right? You got us on a you. Yeah.

Susan Sierota (00:02:43) - It wasn't serendipity. It was not serendipity.

Jocelyn Moore (00:02:46) - It was behind the scenes stalker. And it supports her sponsorship. I don't have, however, awareness. I wasn't even aware I had a stalker.

Jocelyn Moore (00:02:55) - She's so stealthy. She's very stealthy. So yes.

Susan Sierota (00:02:58) - We we we came together and created Magic on Clubhouse. And what had happened is I was doing a room with someone else who was amazing and awesome and was getting a lot of feedback from people that it was super helpful, but they needed help on more issues because our room was focused on sass alone, and I had happened to listen to Chelsea and thought she was just amazing. And there aren't many people that I excitingly sit on a panel with because you're endorsing what they're saying.

Jasmine Star (00:03:30) - Well, time out from a storyteller's perspective. Did you know Chelsea before you heard her?

Susan Sierota (00:03:34) - I did not know.

Jasmine Star (00:03:35) - Okay. So you're just hearing her and you're like, magical.

Susan Sierota (00:03:37) - I am like, she knows what she's talking about. Okay. And what I loved about Chelsea is I would endorse what she's saying. I could disagree, but that doesn't mean her thinking was great and she was grounded in reality. She was grounded in her own stories, and she led with heart as well.

Susan Sierota (00:03:52) - And she cared about people. And so I consciously started listening to her and said, is this going to stick? And it stuck. And then I said, okay, well, we have this powerhouse public company CEO, board director. At the time, I was spending a lot of time in the startup world, and I was like, here's some things we need to round us out. We need someone who has done broader things as well. We need someone who has touched different industries. We need someone who can keep up with us. And so I went to my network and I started seeking. I gave a list of here's all the criteria I would like to find someone and got introduced to Jocelyn. It was magic. And I said, ladies, guess what we're doing? And we thought it was serendipity. It was.

Jasmine Star (00:04:34) - How did how did you get connected like Susan did you.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:04:37) - Were we were on stage at some point together, I think, because you did a very naturally and organically because I.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:04:41) - Yeah, absolutely.

Jocelyn Moore (00:04:42) - I just learned the story about the stealthy stalking last night.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:04:46) - So yes. But then we were all up there and we had really good chemistry and it happened so organically.

Susan Sierota (00:04:51) - You're you're sort of the story did happen. It just wasn't my start.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:04:55) - Six months later.

Susan Sierota (00:04:55) - Oh, that's so funny.

Jocelyn Moore (00:04:57) - Wait, Susan, can you talk about how you endorse Chelsea and what she would say? There's a certain term that we use.

Susan Sierota (00:05:02) - Oh, yes. So we were reminiscing last night about our favorite term, which is we get on to things and there's so much greatness in this room. And we she beat one another. And that was coined by. It was brilliant because, you know, you get in a room with a lot of men and they happen to mansplain often and instead of like really elevating what you've said, they tend to be listened to and take the credit for what you said. We do it differently around here. We sheepy. Yeah. Yes. Okay.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:05:30) - And Susan has her own personal twist on it.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:05:32) - It's the.

Susan Sierota (00:05:33) - Yeah the. Yeah. Okay.

Jasmine Star (00:05:36) - And so the premise and the framework of that show on clubhouse was people asking business questions. And so one of the things that we talked about was creating those networks and supporting each other. And, you know, off camera, as we're resetting up this table, what I hear you guys just say is, oh, that's beautiful. Yes. Okay. Let me know. We'll follow up. I'm going to make an introduction. I'm going to do this. So when you talk about this and this level of closeness and accessibility, talk about the people who went before you, like what was modeled for you to say, okay, I want that, and I'm going to do this. And so I'm going to start. Yeah, Jocelyn I'm going to start here because I know we're going to get into the business questions, but I actually just want to lay the framework and figure out how do we how do we pay it forward, how do we continue doing this.

Jocelyn Moore (00:06:18) - So how was it modeled for me and what I do now? So I have always had very strong women sponsors and men sponsors. And so I'll just give a couple of stories. When I worked in the Senate, there was a woman, her name is Ellen. She was my boss. And Senator Rockefeller's office where I served the longest. Ellen would put me in any room, seat me at any table, make sure that everyone knew that I was fully supported by the senator. And so that allowed me to kind of see what real sponsorship look like and do what I needed to do in my job. But Jay Rockefeller himself, the senator, and this is a story I'll tell, and this is modeling behavior of sponsorship. Susan, we were negotiating health care reform. We were in the speaker's office. The majority leader. Excuse me. Office. We're all sitting around the table. Senators around the table, staffs in the back. Rockefeller calls me up, and he's asking you. Ask me a question.

Jocelyn Moore (00:07:04) - I answer the question. I'm going to go stand with the staff. Well, Senator Rockefeller takes it one step further. He pulls up a chair table with all the senators like Kennedy names you'll know all seated around the table. It's a circular table in the US Capitol. Only senators. And he's like, Pat, sit for me to sit down. And I was like, oh, no, Senator, I'm gonna go sit back here with a staff. He's like, no, you're not. You're going to sit right here at the table where you should be so that I can talk to you. And if I have any questions, I'll just ask you. I just got up, so I sat right down at that table. No senator batted an eye. But when we think about sponsorship, that is modeling the behavior. When you are really for someone, you show up for them. You make it clear to other people, this is your person, and this person is completely qualified to do all the things.

Jocelyn Moore (00:07:50) - And so I've had a lot of great models. Those are just a couple of examples and more importantly, great sponsors.

Susan Sierota (00:07:57) - I love that, Susan.

Susan Sierota (00:07:59) - My story.

Susan Sierota (00:08:00) - Starts opposite. I didn't have any sponsors. I know, hold on.

Jasmine Star (00:08:04) - I want to be careful of the vernacular. So, sponsors, how are you defining a sponsor? Because we've adopted that and be like, oh yeah, you're not a mentor, you're a sponsor.

Susan Sierota (00:08:13) - The problem with the word mentorship to us, because we've talked about this, is that women tend to get over mentored, women tend to get mentored, men tend to get money. And so men connect one another. Naturally. It's just been the way of it. Networks help networks. And so when we talk about sponsoring, it means that that person's name is going to come out of your mouth when they're not in the room. You put them in the room when they're not there because you believe in everything that they can do and they are the right person for it.

Susan Sierota (00:08:41) - And so I proactively look for opportunities to put all three of you in the room. And I know you do the exact same thing. Absolutely. And that's sponsorship..

Jasmine Star (00:08:50) - Okay. So you didn't have sponsorship I.

Susan Sierota (00:08:53) - Didn't I left my family home very early as a straight kid, high school dropout I actually have a master's now. But I went through that path and it was very lonely. And I was very fortunate to get myself into Procter and Gamble, where sponsorship was a thing, and it was such a big deal for me to see it. And it was I up until that time, I was so lonely. And then when I started getting it, I felt like I didn't deserve it. And that was the moment when I figured out that actually, I do deserve this, and I have a right to be in this room, that I made a promise to myself that I am going to spend my life finding magical people and sponsoring them, because I never want someone to feel that alone and lonely if they do the work.

Susan Sierota (00:09:42) - . Thank you.

Jasmine Star (00:09:44) - Thank you.

Jocelyn Moore (00:09:45) - Susan I gave me chills.

Jasmine Star (00:09:46) - I was like I feel like we're doing I feel like we're doing that skit from SNL.

Susan Sierota (00:09:51) - How are you.

Jasmine Star (00:09:52) - Why can't you get help. You just took it to church right. Yeah that's right, that's right., Chelsea. Chelsea, tell us about somebody who sponsored you.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:10:01) - Yeah, I love that we're having this conversation because it's,, actually a whole thing right now. I feel like Gen Z, Gen A, even they are not experiencing whether it's mentorship and or sponsorship. So, so at all, and for sure not the way that we all experienced it in our generation. That's just it's a lost art. And I don't know if it's because, you know, I think Covid accelerated, you know, the, you know, kind of loss of the mentor and the sponsorship model. Or maybe it's because these generations weren't receiving it in the same way we were, because we all felt just so grateful to be meeting people that might be willing to train and develop us.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:10:45) - You know, I don't know about you're scrappy, you're scrappy. I mean, I'm like, we all had to sort of make our own way in the world, you know? And we were just so grateful to be there that we accepted all of that, you know, help. And I think that people aren't willing to give help that they don't feel like is being received without some air of entitlement, you know? So anyway, so I'll just say it's a lost art for sure. And, you know, I really hope that it starts to come back again, especially with Jen, because selfishly, my kids are in Jen, you know. But I do think I do agree there's a difference between mentorship and sponsorship. You know, I think mentorship is about training and development. And here's what you say when you go to this cocktail function. Here's how you have to act on the golf course. Here's how you here's how you would go and present this particular memo to this partner or, you know, here's and then sponsorship you're absolutely right is about opening the doors, you know, spreading reputation.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:11:33) - And you know, around in other rooms where that person isn't, you know, and I think that to your point, Jocelyn, you take sponsors and mentors that look like you and kind of argue that you'd model yourself after a woman, for example, but you also have to take them from out of left field completely, totally not you. That's right. Because those like like I said earlier, the pale males in sales or whatever, those are the guys, you know, or whoever that are going to open doors for you that you didn't even know existed completely. It's the people that look like us that opens doors were like, I want to go through that door. Can you help me get a key to it? It's the people that don't look like us at all that'll get you in places you didn't even know were there. And. But you should be in there, you know? Right?

Susan Sierota (00:12:16) - Yeah. Like, here's a door you didn't know existed. Yeah.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:12:18) - I love solutely you know. And so and I've had them all different kind of ways over the years.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:12:22) - And then the cool part about it is, you know, once you get some 52, I think you're like in my marathon bracket, right? You're a little young baby.

Jocelyn Moore (00:12:29) - I'm not saying.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:12:29) - Anything about. Yeah, but but once you get to this point, you know, you still have those people in your life, but they become colleagues, you know, and you can still learn from them because they're still a little bit ahead of you. But now you're sitting shoulder to shoulder. They might even be asking you questions along the way because they want that new state of the art perspective. So then it just develops into your wonderful personal board of directors that you can go back to as a trusted advisory group when you are at a loss with your own people, you know.

Jocelyn Moore (00:12:56) - And also that ties.

Susan Sierota (00:12:57) - Back to how. We all came together and why it was magical. Because we're sitting here talking about sponsoring folks and the importance of it, and all three of us genuinely wanted to continue to find new ways to give back, especially in the hardest times of the pandemic.

Susan Sierota (00:13:13) - And that's why we were doing it. There was not anything in it for us. And outside of that joy of being able to find new avenues, to find the people that we want to lift up. Yeah.

Jocelyn Moore (00:13:21) - And I want to interject a little bit of hope for the Z-ers and the Xers and all the in the eight years for out there. I do think covet was a great democratization. I think when we look at clubhouse, we look at and I know I keep shouting out LinkedIn, I'm not a paid advertising for that will be maybe.

Jasmine Star (00:13:36) - Yeah.

Susan Sierota (00:13:37) - LinkedIn. Put her on your board. You'd be lucky to have her.

Jocelyn Moore (00:13:40) - But the point being, you can't. I feel like the Gen Zers, the heirs, everybody, you have that access in a different way. And so maybe it's more one on one. But to your point, Chelsea, the, you know, big groups of, you know, whether it's the baby boomers or others really taking on that mentorship mantle, I just think that the way that work has transformed, I can say a whole lot more about that.

Jocelyn Moore (00:13:59) - But I'm just going to interject. I think the hope and why we came together and the workforce as it changes, more women are becoming entrepreneurs, more folks are out in the world and don't necessarily have an infrastructure. So I'm hopeful that the democratization that happened in Covid will continue. And a lot more of that one on one sponsorship mentoring is happening and that people are really connecting around the money, around building generational wealth and around just whatever they want to, you know, have happen in there.

Jasmine Star (00:14:25) - I love this, I'm going to pop in. So just before we started recording, I want an Instagram to source questions from people who wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to.

Jasmine Star (00:14:36) - Ask these questions. Yes.

Jasmine Star (00:14:38) - But so but here's this. Here's a question that was like right in alignment. Now I'm going to serve it up and it's be lovely. Be you. She asked how do you choose a mentor and assess the ROI when it seems intangible but of high value? Yeah, you.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:14:50) - Can make a mistake. You could just fail fast and realize this isn't the right person for you, you know?, but but.

Jasmine Star (00:14:56) - But yes.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:14:58) - Yeah, it's okay, but I'm.

Jasmine Star (00:14:59) - Going to break this down because somebody's listening to you, just like SS. It's not right. Okay, but how? When? Why? What's too long? What's too soon?

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:15:04) - I mean, the first one is always the most interesting one, right? And then I feel like it opens the gate to, you know, the floodgates to the rest of them. But, you know, you have to have some sense of purpose, right? You've got to set out for yourself a strat plan, whether it's a year out, three years out, five years out, whatever. So you have to have some shape around where you want your career to go, and you pick somebody who's 20 years ahead of you. And I think, like we were talking about this earlier, in addition to what we talked about during our chat about, you know, say yes to everything. Also ask everything. Ask for everything. You were talking about how you got your first house a while ago, you know, and you wrote a letter to the seller and you know, oh my gosh, you know, like the gumption to be able to do something like that and then get that house.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:15:48) - You can reach out to somebody on LinkedIn now, I'll be a paid advisor, too. I did yeah.

Susan Sierota (00:15:53) - We should all be paid advisors.

Jocelyn Moore (00:15:55) - You can DM.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:15:56) - Somebody. I've gotten some crazy DMs from people where I was like, you're a MDR MBA student. Wait, what? You're. Exactly. But then you can forge a connection, you know? And how else are they going to reach out and get me? Unless you're at an organization together, in which case, make a meeting, make a 15 minute meeting, it could even be over zoom and say, look, I admire where you are. You're 20 years ahead of where I am, but in 20 years, you're who I want to be. Here's the reasons. Would you take me under your wing? Would you walk me into those rooms so I can see what the dynamic is like? You know, would you talk to me about, you know, the five steps to you know, how X, Y, and Z gets done.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:16:30) - And the worst that can happen is you get to know, you know, but you'll probably still get a LinkedIn connection out of it. And then who knows where that goes.

Susan Sierota (00:16:36) - I want to build on that because I think that can work half the time. I think the other half, you don't want to ask anyone to be your mentor. And so it really is reading it. What I think you do is you do exactly what Chelsea just said is you do your research, you know what you want, and you find someone who's been there, done that, and you reach out and you get asked them for something very specific to help you with that. And then what you do there. It's easier for that person who isn't committed to you yet to do one thing that makes them feel good, because it's leveraging their experience. They give you that piece of advice. Then what you do next is you follow back up and you let them know how you applied their advice and what happened. Go to orbit.

Susan Sierota (00:17:19) - It's how our relationship started and why I was so wildly attracted to you, Jasmine, because you followed up and you said, this is what I did. Thank you for taking your time. This mattered. And then that person now has some buy in into what you're doing. They have some ownership into your results, and you can start letting that relationship develop more naturally. You're not asking for that huge commitment upfront.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:17:42) - These people are in your daily life all over.

Jocelyn Moore (00:17:44) - This is what I was going to say. Sit in the office next year.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:17:46) - You're you're an advisor on something you're working on. Yeah. They're good. They're all over the place. Just look for them and make the ask. And I would say.

Jocelyn Moore (00:17:53) - To be lovely, I would say to be lovely. It goes back to what I was saying earlier. How are you leveraging your current network? If you look up and you're, you know, you look around, your mentors are often already there, they're already in place and they've already been mentoring you.

Jocelyn Moore (00:18:06) - You may not identify them as such. And I take a more amorphous approach to things. I don't necessarily do all the planning. I'm a little bit more serendipitous., and so my mentors were always there. You know, we've talked about it. They were always there all the time, like guiding me gently, advising me gently. And so calling them sometimes I may not have ever said you were a mentor, but when I look back, hindsight, oh my goodness, this person opened all these doors and maybe they were a mentor and sponsor. So I would say to our listener, you know, this person is probably already within your network, and that makes the connection in the bond that much more easy because they are already invested in your success. And it could be a friend, it could be a colleague, it could be a family member. Like there are lots of ways to leverage people in our lives to help with our journey.

Jasmine Star (00:18:53) - Okay, as a point.

Jasmine Star (00:18:54) - Can I say that we all come.

Susan Sierota (00:18:56) - Out of things differently and it's awesome.

Jasmine Star (00:18:57) - And I love it. Yes, yes. And it it should be, but be lovely be. You had said to assess the ROI so I yeah you guys let's bring this back down like there. Yeah there is like people who are like I want to pay for a mentor. Do you guys agree with me?

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:19:09) - No no no no no no.

Jocelyn Moore (00:19:11) - I'm adamantly.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:19:12) - Opposed. God, no.

Jocelyn Moore (00:19:13) - Vehemently. No. Absolutely not. This goes back to what Susan was saying, coach. Yeah, but also.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:19:19) - What a mentor. You can pay for a coach. Okay. That's fine. But also that's a whole other ball of wax we won't get into. Okay. But that is no a mentor is doing this because it's generational fall forward. They want to have someone to pay into their Social Security or whatever. Right. Like we're doing this to bring up the next generation. Yeah. It's like a pay forward. You know? I mean, we should we're not doing this for money.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:19:39) - We're doing this to help, you know, the next folks coming up. But the ROI thing is also, I love that she's asking that. But this is not a thing where you can measure ROI necessarily by okay, well this one thing worked. And so now I'm going to go back to that same person. I'm going to keep going back to this. Well, until it doesn't generate anything. It could be 20 years until that thing develops into something. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't take you much more than 15 minutes a month, you know, to stay in touch with somebody and stay in their orbit. You never know what room that person is going to be in. You never know, right? You never know when you guys might be around the same age at some point, and now you're sitting shoulder to shoulder and you've just developed a professional relationship along the way. We don't need to cast people aside, because next month I didn't make more money or get that promotion from talking to you.

Jocelyn Moore (00:20:27) - Yeah, the ROI part, the mentorship. So no, don't pay for mentorship. This goes to Susan's point about, you know, women, people of color frequently over mentored. And it is not necessary. In all cases, people should be educated and put in the work. But it's not the over mentoring and over education. Not necessary. But when you think about ROI, it goes back to something you and I talked about previously. The ROI is the relationship itself. We'll stop. Right? The fact that you have this relationship, you don't know when that relationship is going to pay dividends. You don't know what those dividends are going to be like. You know, you don't know what moment in your life you're going to be in, which is why mentors and sponsors show up in all kinds of ways, shapes and sizes. Right? It may be a personal issue, it could be a professional issue, but your ROI is the relationship itself. And I'm going to just keep underlining that, holding all of it, because that is the return on investment.

Jocelyn Moore (00:21:19) - The fact that you.

Susan Sierota (00:21:20) - Play long term games with long term people.

Jasmine Star (00:21:22) - Yeah. So what do you guys say to the person who okay, I'm just going to call it for what it is. Okay. You guys are very strong and promising. And in a room full of people, you would stand out for nothing other than your sheer will to succeed. Now there's somebody who's listening, who says nobody's ever brought up. Senator Rockefeller. Never has pulled up a chair for me. But we're not even saying we're. We're not even saying that that case, there's their version of the senator, and nobody's ever opened a door or held an elevator, and they can't get a break. And so is this a you thing? You got to do something to be remarkable enough to sit at the table, or where.

Susan Sierota (00:22:05) - Everyone's remarkable enough to sit at the table. It's just one table you sit at.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:22:08) - And everyone's remarkable in your own network. That person might not be Rockefeller in your network, but you don't know what that person is going to be in ten, five, ten years.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:22:16) - That person could just be remarkable in the organization you're in right now. Maybe they've never been on the front page of the paper or testified in front of Congress, but they can, you know, they can help you within your organization. And now you join. We were talking earlier about joining trade organizations or attending, you know, panels or, you know, conferences or events. You're going to meet people there. And slowly but surely, everybody can get everyone six degrees away from Rockefeller or trust me, or a Rockefeller like, or whoever it was you were talking about, I can't remember, but yeah, I mean, everybody is six degrees away from whoever it is that you really aspire to meet. But don't discount anybody in your network. They're all important.

Jocelyn Moore (00:22:52) - And we're not. We weren't always fully formed. And I'm not suggesting I'm fully formed now. But, you know, when we think about the moments of clay and. We were being molded and, you know, early days it was people like my friends who I went to a college with or friends from high school.

Jocelyn Moore (00:23:05) - It was, you know, those are folks still in my network. And, you know, it might be a connection point for something that I need for my family in Atlanta. It might be, you know, hey, you're the concert promoter for so-and-so, and I want to go to this concert like, it doesn't have to be a Rockefeller level. Every relationship is valuable, and we have to think about not just those big moments. Maybe when we were fully formed or still in the process of being formed. But it's a small moments at the beginning and throughout life that really matter. Those relationships matter. And again, I'm going to go back the relationship itself ROI enough.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:23:36) - But don't your people who are going to naturally mentor you also don't want to feel like it's transactional. That's why I hate it. I not hate it, I that's why I want to steer your person away from using that ROI. Yeah. Concept. You know,, or from even the idea of, well, there's nobody as important in my network as Rockefeller.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:23:54) - So what have we really doing here? I want to pay somebody to. It's that nobody wants to feel like they're in a transactional relationship. They want to feel good about what they're doing for you, and you want to feel good for having received it. So I think you just kind of flip that concept a little bit.

Jocelyn Moore (00:24:09) - Can I just say the most important people in my network are the cheerleaders, my friends like you, right? Yes, we're all at business, but I have folks who. And this May, this is my kitchen cabinet. Partly, but it's like my lifelong friends who, you know, there's nothing other than being my friend. That relationship delivers. And I know we don't want to use the term ROI, but it delivers every day because they tell me, Jocelyn, like, you should be thinking about this or, you know, you're overreacting here, or, you know, why don't you go take a vacation? Like, those are the things that really matter. And we when we have those people in our lives, they are mentoring us along the way.

Jocelyn Moore (00:24:45) - They're giving us what we need in a different way.

Susan Sierota (00:24:48) - Yeah.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:24:48) - What's that phrase that you are the sum of the top five people you hang out with?

Jocelyn Moore (00:24:52) - That's exactly right.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:24:53) - Surround yourself by. And yes, look at those. Look at that list. Yeah, yeah.

Susan Sierota (00:24:57) - And I just adding to that, we were talking before we started taping about one of the things that we found interesting is that all four of us here didn't start with the leg up. None of us came from here. Is our family money here? I Ivy League schools, any of that we all figured out at the beginning. I think the common thing was do good and it comes back like you're it's not. It's what you're saying about not being transactional. It's about what you're saying about the relationship itself. It's like, put yourself in rooms and be a good person, help other people and then ask for help back. Have the courage to do it. And that's what it really takes to get started.

Jasmine Star (00:25:42) - I think it's like a perfect segway.

Jasmine Star (00:25:44) - I have another question. If you guys would allow oh, of course,, the Annie method, she asked, how do you manage close relationships, seeking more from you as your success guru?

Susan Sierota (00:25:52) - . That's a great question. That's an excellent. You have to go first.

Jocelyn Moore (00:25:56) - You know, I the people who are meant to be in your orbit so you can talk about the folks that you mentor or sponsor. And I have a lot, you know, I think people want to see you succeed so they understand the ebbs and flows, right? They understand that at certain moments, as long as I'm authentic and I show up authentically for people, sometimes that doesn't mean I'm consistent. It doesn't mean you're gonna reach me at all times of day and night. But I am. You know that I'm there for you when you need me. And so I think the folks who. The way that those relationships work best is that you understand I'm human too. Like you again, not fully formed, not perfect.

Jocelyn Moore (00:26:38) - I make mistakes and fail every single day. But that's part of the journey, right? I want when I think of the folks who are my mentors and sponsors, they fail. Sometimes I can't reach them. You know, they have human experiences like the rest of us, and that is what attracts me to them more because I was like, you know what I've gone through?

Susan Sierota (00:26:56) - That's how.

Jocelyn Moore (00:26:57) - You.

Susan Sierota (00:26:58) - Listen to them, because you're in a bad, bad spot. And they're like, let me tell you what happened when I was in this awful spot. Exactly, totally. Okay.

Jasmine Star (00:27:04) - But when I think she's I mean, I'm sorry. I don't want to. I don't want.

Jasmine Star (00:27:07) - To know it.

Jasmine Star (00:27:07) - I feel like, though, because I felt like she was asking. And maybe I'm not interpreting. Right, but it's. How do you manage close relationships, seeking more from you as your success grew? Oh oh, oh yeah.

Jocelyn Moore (00:27:18) - But I but.

Jasmine Star (00:27:18) - I was saying but can I, you know, please.

Jocelyn Moore (00:27:21) - As my success grows, the expectation is that it's more time and more people. Right. And so what I'm saying is for the more time, more people like the expectations. I'll give an example. I have a mentee, and we used to meet on a pretty regular clip. Right. And so as my, you know, time gets less and less. I don't know if this is a success thing. I can't even talk. As my time gets less and less. I have had to manage that mentorship and mentoring relationship to say, I'm still here for you. And that was my point. Like, it changes to the relationship, changes to folks who are with you. They don't mind that. They're like, they're clapping for your success. Got it right. And they understand because that's something they may want to do. When they see you as a person. They don't see you as a, you know, this is person over here and, you know, not really a person, but this, you know, ideal.

Jocelyn Moore (00:28:10) - I sorry.

Susan Sierota (00:28:11) - I say no a lot. Yeah.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:28:13) - I say no a lot too. And I also convert I do convert some relationships that shouldn't be mentor mentee or sponsorship relationships that actually should be advisory relationships, consulting relationships I'll convert to. We can still have these conversations, but I'm giving you this isn't just I'm fostering along your career. I'm helping your business. Okay.

Jasmine Star (00:28:36) - Chelsea, can you please, please, please define the two. Can you please, please define the two. And then and then educate people about the difference?

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:28:44) - It's like it's like the Supreme Court said about porn. You know, when you see it. Oh, gosh.

Jasmine Star (00:28:50) - They really you're one liner. They realize that, you know, they did it. Did they really say that? Yeah.

Susan Sierota (00:28:55) - I use that line now for product market fit.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:29:01) - , you know, but you know, when you're start again, when it starts to feel transactional, where they're coming back to the well and you're like, am I running your marketing department? Am I teaching you how to run your HR? You know, you know, when it's less about I'm helping you, you know, leapfrog to the next part of your career, too.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:29:18) - I'm just telling you how to run your division now, you know, or I'm just helping. And so you can feel when that starts to happen. And I'll let them get, you know, 1 or 2, 1 or 2, you know, go come back to the well or whatever, you know. But then I'm just sort of like, gosh, you know what? This actually is? What? How I help people in my consulting. I've an advisory business, a consulting business. This is actually how I help people on the other side of the house. And I really do feel like you'd benefit, if a lot more, if we had a much more,, formal relationship, you know? And so why don't we convert this? Here's my monthly retainer. I don't do hourly, you know,, you know, and here's my monthly retainer and, you know, let me know. And then you when you make people put their money where their mouth is, they straighten up and fly right pretty easily.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:30:04) - Right. They either do convert to consulting and now you're just not a nice retainer. And hey, you generated some business for yourself. Or they get back to just the pure career stuff, which I'm happy to talk about all the live long day. You know.

Susan Sierota (00:30:15) - I'm with you and I think that it's how you say no. Right? Because what you were saying was when you are narrow being taking advantage and you are making the relationship as a mentee more transactional, I'm okay saying, okay, you want to be transactional. If I'm making you money, then don't take advantage and pay for it. I also think there if it's not the relationship that you have, it's asking for more, but you're just getting too many requests from people to serve them. Saying no, not me is really helpful. It's like being able to say, you know what, I don't have the bandwidth for this right now, but let me connect you with someone who I think could really help. So you're giving, but you're not committing.

Susan Sierota (00:30:52) - Yeah. And they get what they need. And there's something really wonderful and powerful about the. No. Not me. Yeah.

Jocelyn Moore (00:30:58) - Can I just add you're seeing some magic here with these two. So I lead with heart. And you see, part of my challenge is I may never convert some of my.

Jasmine Star (00:31:06) - Folks because I'm like, I can't possibly, but wait.

Jasmine Star (00:31:10) - Hold on. Do we understand what's happening here?

Jasmine Star (00:31:12) - They're mentoring you. I know one time.

Jocelyn Moore (00:31:15) - They do it all the time. Oh my goodness, I love it.

Jasmine Star (00:31:19) - They're so good. But I'm always.

Jocelyn Moore (00:31:20) - The well yes. You know, I will help you and I'll be. But this is why this is such a great question. And you're seeing that's the mentoring.

Jasmine Star (00:31:28) - Let me tell you I have a. Real time I might be.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:31:30) - My bandwidth might be totally taken up for these mentoring conversations, but I have all the time in the world if you want to pay me. Yeah, okay.

Jasmine Star (00:31:37) - You should think about it because you're free up dramatically if you're getting.

Jasmine Star (00:31:42) - If it's a.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:31:42) - $20,000 a month retainer on.

Jasmine Star (00:31:44) - Something. I love it. I love it. I do want.

Susan Sierota (00:31:47) - To make it. Just bring it home. On the fact that.

Jasmine Star (00:31:50) - That I.

Susan Sierota (00:31:52) - Think that there is a difference between how we react when that question sort of set us up for taking too much as you get better in your career, and that I think that what you've seen is how we all react when it starts to become transactional, to repeat and repeat. What I was saying is if someone else, a mentee, makes something more transactional and is wanting more, I back off really quickly because that's not the relationship I'm signing up for..

Jasmine Star (00:32:21) - Okay, switching gears, I agree said when is the right time for me to launch my product? I love that.

Jocelyn Moore (00:32:29) - Question. Oh well. Well we got a lot of answers to that. Who's going.

Jasmine Star (00:32:32) - First.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:32:34) - Yeah I mean.

Jasmine Star (00:32:35) - First hold on you guys. Do you guys just understand what just happened? It's like, hold my beer.

Jasmine Star (00:32:39) - Yeah.

(00:32:41) - Hold my. Yeah. Oh my god. Yes, yes. Is there a.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:32:46) - Need for your product? And you don't have to be unique. There could be 8 million other products just like this one. But is there still available Tam. Right. So is there still addressable market? Yeah. Total. Take your total addressable market. Thank you. You'll put it up on the screen. But is there still are there still people available out there. And a large enough one that it makes sense from a monetary perspective that actually want this product? Again, yours doesn't have to be the best, doesn't have to be perfect, doesn't have to be the filling in a niche that's never been filled before. None of that. That's all very daunting. So that to do you have a way to make this product that is scalable and doesn't keep you in debt for the next five years? Because I don't like this whole we're not profitable for five, ten years. Like, yeah, like, are you going to start making money off this thing pretty quick? And is it scalable so you're not doing it in your garage forever? Do you see a supply chain out there or a way to make this thing right? Three.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:33:46) - Do you understand? And then I'll shut up. Okay.

Jasmine Star (00:33:48) - But no, it's great. This is excellent.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:33:52) - And then, you know, three and there's obviously 8 million other things, but three. Do you or do you have somebody who understands putting aside brand marketing? Because as the founder, I would assume you know how to do brand marketing for days because it's your own thing and it's your baby. Do you have somebody who understands marketing technologies, period. End of story. Because if you are not state of the art on whatever today is, best marketing technologies are your sunk. I don't care how amazing your shit is. Okay, go.

Susan Sierota (00:34:20) - Okay, so I go the opposite route, I love that, okay., I'm I'm like, jaws was ready to go and I just jumped in.

Jasmine Star (00:34:27) - Go, go.

Susan Sierota (00:34:29) - I think it's a big old. It depends on your business. So if you are launching a product that is a physical product that you it's going to take you, you're going to have inventory.

Susan Sierota (00:34:42) - It's going to take you six months to change something on it. When you find out what people love and hate, get a little more in-market, get some real learnings first before you go. If you are doing a services business or if you are doing some tech businesses, then find a way to launch yesterday and that might not be a full launch. It might be. I'm putting up a page that asks you to enter your credit card to buy this, and then I give you a message, one that I don't have a product. I'll put you on the waitlist, like find ways before you are going all in financially to really support what Chelsea was saying, and find out if what you have is right. How do you talk about what you have? And the only real way you do that is by getting yourself out there. And so do it smart. Do it carefully. Make sure that you're not promising something that you can't deliver on. Or if you do promise something that they know it's future and you create a magical, wonderful cult from the shared problem, and they'll give you that that grace when you're figuring it out.

Susan Sierota (00:35:41) - But go in those situations. So it really does depend what.

Jocelyn Moore (00:35:46) - I'm going to show you, Pete, everything that you guys said. And I think you have to really, as you've said, do the work and make sure, you know, like you can't just say everybody wants to be a founder. It's a sexy thing and everyone wants to have a product. So you have to really know, is this product viable? What market am I talking about? What are the macroeconomics that I'm starting this business in and is it going to work from that standpoint? So I think everything that you guys have said is absolutely true. Now, the other side of that is I do want people as they're thinking about founding a business. We don't want to say, don't do it. And, you know, failure teaches us, you know, lifelong lessons, but know what you're getting into from the beginning because you don't want to. As we talk about, you know, generational wealth, there's a fast way to not have generational wealth.

Jocelyn Moore (00:36:29) - Is if you fail horribly and have spent all of your money because you didn't do the research. So I think there are lots of layers there.

Jasmine Star (00:36:35) - Okay. So I'm going to I'm going to repeat because I take notes. And this is how I learned. If you have a question when is it ready to launch my offer? Chelsea, focus on the total addressable market. Figure out the path to profitability. This is not going to be I'm going to be in debt for 510 years.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:36:52) - There's no glory.

Jasmine Star (00:36:52) - There's no glory in that. And then understand the latest marketing technologies. If not you, then somebody on your team, Susan, says it depends. If you are doing a product, it's okay to go a little slower if you're doing a service, move as fast as possible. But the goal is always can you deliver on the promise? And Jocelyn had said, number one, do the work. You have to understand what you're getting into, understand if it's viable and the macro considerations. And then she had said, lastly, know what you're getting into.

Jasmine Star (00:37:17) - And that's where I have a question. I never knew what I was getting into. Like, come on, you guys. Like, did you guys ever know what you were? I mean, this isn't like a big thing. Like, how do you know? Like what? No, no, somebody's listening and be like.

Jasmine Star (00:37:29) - What do.

Jasmine Star (00:37:29) - I need to know?

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:37:30) - I'm gonna challenge.

Jasmine Star (00:37:31) - You, okay? Yes. And I think.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:37:33) - You knew what you were getting into. There's an evil empire in you. Like, there was in, like, Jeff Bezos. It wasn't like.

Jasmine Star (00:37:39) - I'm going to sell the.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:37:39) - Most books on the internet ever. No, he was like, I'm going to world domination. I'm going to sell everything everywhere, all the time. Only Alibaba is going to challenge me and not even them something, right? I mean, like, I think every successful entrepreneur like you, you know, there's something where you might not be able to predict the future, but you know what your empire is going to be you.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:38:00) - You're thinking world domination always, right? I mean, I think so. I don't think you're ever thinking small.

Jasmine Star (00:38:06) - Okay? But I hear it as a difference, and I mean me hear the nuances. It's no way you're getting into and then know what it is you want or knowing the vision. Well.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:38:15) - So okay, getting into I think would and then I'll shut up. Sorry. No no. But like I think there's no if you.

Jasmine Star (00:38:21) - Met you if you know. If you knew what you.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:38:25) - Were getting into, you'd never do anything, you know, because the hard work, the sleepless nights, the missing, the meals, the missing everything in all the time and all the ones, right? Like so. I don't like knowing what you're getting into. Don't even put that in the back of your brain and don't think about it again because that'll be paralysis.

Jocelyn Moore (00:38:39) - So I'm going to I think there is a here's what I want to say about when you started thinking about getting into the various markets, photography, content, SAS you did have to know something about the market.

Jocelyn Moore (00:38:52) - You didn't just say, well, and maybe you did, but you I believe that you've done you did know. And if you're offering a product, you have to know something about the market. The distinction, I think, in terms of, you know, you're just going to jump out there and you don't have to know everything. I think that's a different level. I think it's on a different plane and I don't know exactly how to articulate it. So I'll just give an example for me. I said my career has been serendipitous. I've never planned this is what I'm going to do ever. Right. But in politics, I knew a little bit about politics. Like I knew the basics of politics. I had done the work. Did I know how my career was going to go? Did I plan any of that out? Absolutely not. And I went like I just jumped right into it. I think the difference is you have to know a little bit about the market that you're getting into, and that's what I mean.

Jocelyn Moore (00:39:39) - Got it. But that does not order your steps. You can just like I jump off a cliff, like in the political realm having no parachute, but I knew I would land about it.

Susan Sierota (00:39:48) - And okay, there is a difference to a slight difference of knowing what you're getting into in a smart, know your market, know your customer, the things you're saying. And knowing what I'm getting into as the emotional journey, I'm about ready to go through hell. And there it is. Your ahead of your skis. You're building a business. You. You can't define that. You can't listen to that. You can't. People have, I'm told, go through horrible childbirth and then have another baby because they don't remember that pain. But the pain is real, right? The pain in building is real. And I think that you can't really know until you know how bad and how hard and how lonely it's going to be at moments. But you also don't know how great, how much you're going to learn, how much you're going to grow, the people you're going to be along the way and the human become because of it.

Susan Sierota (00:40:33) - You don't know that, but you will experience both.

Jasmine Star (00:40:36) - So before I went to law school, I read a book called one L by Scott Turow.

Jasmine Star (00:40:40) - Oh yeah, I know, and.

Jasmine Star (00:40:41) - I mean, this is like, this is the book that.

Jasmine Star (00:40:43) - You read.

Jasmine Star (00:40:44) - Before you go to law school. And he literally on page one is saying, don't go to law school. Yeah. Like if you're going for all of these reasons, don't go, don't go. And then he gets into explicit details telling you the horror stories. Yeah. And so.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:40:57) - And they're all true.

Jasmine Star (00:40:58) - And they're all.

Jasmine Star (00:40:59) - True. All of them.

Jasmine Star (00:41:00) - He's not reading them all.

Jasmine Star (00:41:02) - The reason why that book is still in print and still doing extraordinarily well is because it fits the truth. Yeah. So if somebody had told you all the painstaking experiences, would you have even listened?

Jasmine Star (00:41:14) - No, I mean.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:41:15) - You know what? You're billable hours are. Your minimum is when you go to a big law firm like I started out with, you know.

Jasmine Star (00:41:21) - But in business.

Jasmine Star (00:41:22) - If you will.

Jasmine Star (00:41:22) - If you wrote the one l for business owners, do you think that anybody would even adhere to your advice?

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:41:29) - What do you mean? So, like, if I.

Jasmine Star (00:41:31) - Oh, yeah.

Jasmine Star (00:41:31) - Like, don't start a business if, if.

Jasmine Star (00:41:33) - You're an entrepreneur.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:41:34) - If you're a small business founder, you have something in you that is a burning compulsion to make that product, to develop that service, to provide whatever it is to build this business around this. If you don't, you shouldn't be doing it at all. Like Scott Turow said about law school, okay, if you don't have that, you shouldn't be doing that.

Jasmine Star (00:41:51) - Can you say that again a little bit slower if you don't have what like this is.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:41:56) - If you're not compelled to do this thing, notwithstanding what everyone's telling you about, you know, the the hours, the things you're going to miss, the meals you're going to miss, the relationships that you might burn a bridge in or whatever. You know, the debt, the debt or whatever it is.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:42:11) - The sleepless nights, the stress, the anxiety difference between the two, of course, is stressing about something that exists already. Anxiety is worrying about something that has not yet come to pass, you know, and you have both when you're when you're an entrepreneur, if any of that deters you and you don't have a compulsion to move forward with your thing and you shouldn't be doing that thing, oh.

Jocelyn Moore (00:42:31) - I'm going to take a different view, because I do think some of life has to just be the journey, whether or not you have a compulsion or not. Right. There are things that I would tell you I've done that I haven't been completely like. I'm like, oh, the NFL was an example, right? When I said I didn't want to go, had work life balance, but it turned out to be amazing. I didn't have a compulsion around it. I know that's slightly different. Yeah, but that was my career at that point in time. Yeah. And I think when you you talked about American Apparel, right? That wasn't completely like, I am so committed to doing this and this.

Jocelyn Moore (00:43:06) - This was my path. This is what I wanted to do. So I think there is some it's a it's both and.

Jasmine Star (00:43:11) - Yeah, right. It's the intersection.

Susan Sierota (00:43:13) - Of what you're saying because it is fine. I think that it's some people have a compulsion. Some people won't. It's what you both are saying, which I man, I believe is find a purpose bigger than yourself in that business and that money or you won't get up the 75th time someone kicks you.

Jasmine Star (00:43:31) - Because you know, that's right.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:43:32) - You have you. But the same thing that I am, right? You want to set success?

Jasmine Star (00:43:37) - Yes. That's right.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:43:37) - You want to be successful? That's right. You want to be taken seriously in your lane, whatever that is. Absolutely. So that's it, right. And this person that wrote in this question is compelled by their they want to release this product or I can't remember.

Jasmine Star (00:43:50) - What was.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:43:51) - In this way.

Jasmine Star (00:43:51) - And I do think it's I think there is a difference between compelled and purpose.

Jasmine Star (00:43:55) - Yeah. Define what compelling I think.

Susan Sierota (00:43:56) - Yes, I think a purpose. So like I look at when you ask that question, the first thing that went through my mind is I would do. The businesses I've done, I'd make the choices because I would never want to give back learnings. But maybe I wouldn't do hardware ever again. Maybe I would. Going back, I wouldn't have done hardware.

Jasmine Star (00:44:13) - And so.

Susan Sierota (00:44:14) - What? And what went through my brain while I was processing real quick was hardware is hard. They say that because it takes you 18 months to change anything, because you are so dependent on other people's errors. When we had widget, the best supplier in the world put the wrong product module in 80% of our units and we couldn't even figure out why. So for five months I had to wake up not knowing what the problem was. Tell me a problem. I'll go solve it. I nearly lost my mind in that process and then think, gosh, we had a community that was a cult and gave us grace because it took another year and a half to get the product out in millions of dollars, because it's so capital intensive to fix that.

Susan Sierota (00:44:55) - And even if someone else's fault, you have to wait for the parts. You have to do all that. Right? So it's like there's something so hard about it. And I was sitting there going, I don't think I would. But then I was like, you know what? If I go back in the time machine and wouldn't have done that, I would have lost the opportunity to save animals lives. Period. And there are animals that would not have had the life as long as they could have, as healthy as they could have been. And I wasn't willing to give that up. I think it's a purpose. I think it's not.

Jocelyn Moore (00:45:22) - A compulsion, but a purpose.

Jasmine Star (00:45:24) - Yeah.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:45:24) - Nobody could have told you anything when you went into that business. What if they could have said to you, you're going to have all these issues and you're going to say, I'm equipped, I can handle this. I can solve those problems as they come down the pike. In retrospect, now you're like.

Jasmine Star (00:45:36) - That's awesome, right? You know.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:45:38) - But nobody could have told you nothing. You stormed through walls. Yeah.

Susan Sierota (00:45:42) - That's true. Okay.

Jasmine Star (00:45:43) - Speaking of storming through walls, right? Yeah. And a nutritious and a nutritious notebook. Asked. Working on weekends when you are starting a business, how do you balance? Do you. Yes or no?

Jasmine Star (00:45:56) - No balance.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:45:57) - There's no balance. You just gotta listen. There's some. A friend of mine in law school read a piece about, like, how do you stop sleeping? Like, how can you, like, cut sleep out of your day or whatever? Like that? Obviously impossible. But still, that's the mentality. I mean, you just have to learn how to get up. You just go dark to dark and you put stuff around the margins that normally would fit into a person's actual day, and you just put it in the margins. And people have to learn to understand that about you, because you're an entrepreneur and you're starting a business.

Jasmine Star (00:46:23) - Are you okay? Give me a personal example.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:46:25) - Yeah. I mean, the year I made partner my law firm, that's just one example. I mean, I build 28,056 hours that year built. So that's not all the admin stuff that had to go around it. And that's I had two kids already and I was divorced. So like I moved my parents into my house and I set up, I had two offices in my house, my actual office and my dining room table, because I had two different piles of things that I was accomplishing, you know, and I just was like around. I mean, I just you just my kids were there, but they were just being the other room and they might touch base with me once in a while. But mostly, you know, I mean, when I was at American Apparel, I think I said this in our talk earlier, there was a couch in my office, and for the first several weeks on that job, I slept on that couch and I would just go downstairs to our store, which was in our big sewing headquarters, and I would just buy new clothes that day to wear, which wasn't super appropriate.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:47:18) - But whatever it was, I mean, it was like leggings and a.

Jasmine Star (00:47:20) - Bodysuit, but.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:47:20) - Like, yeah, but you know, I mean, I just when you are wrapped up on something, that is the thing you need to be wrapped up on. And yes, there are things, obviously if your kid is sick or if you have to go to a parent teacher conference, you've got to figure out a way to fit those things in. But you work 80, 90% of the time throughout your whole life. I mean, that is, you know, if you're not going to succeed in that, what are we doing here? You know.

Jasmine Star (00:47:43) - I have.

Susan Sierota (00:47:43) - Two things to add. I love what you're saying, because what you're saying is what I've heard, Jasmin, you say on your podcast, which is before you start something to find the price you're willing to pay for it because it's going to require sacrifice of something. Yeah. And you're sitting there, Chelsea, giving a really great example of what you've shared with your audience in the past, which is define that price up front.

Susan Sierota (00:48:03) - And then I will add that I think the balance thing is ridiculous, because if you really peel back, what does balance mean? It means you're 24 seven every second in a minute, working really hard to keep the pressure really equal across everything. And you're working so hard at it. And that is going to give. And it's not what we should be striving for. There's this idea of integration, of defining, as you put it, what price you're willing to pay. And then how do you integrate your life in a way that sometimes you're going to be all in on work, sometimes you're all going to be all in on kids, sometimes you're all going to be in on yourself.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:48:37) - Is a timeline along your whole life. Yeah. Because later on I was able to pay all kinds like the during. So during Covid, I moved my daughter and her boyfriend into the house so they could be part of the bubble. And then my ex was there, and then my son was living there, and we had the cat and we were all just really pulling around the house.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:48:53) - And I just was like the most delightful thing in the world. And I was actually why I decided not until spark landed on my lap. I had decided not. We didn't even go into this. I decided not to take a third CEO gig. Because I was like, I want to see my kids through up and out of high school, into college, because that's a really critical period, you know? And so then I had, you know, I was sitting on some boards. I was definitely not working full time, not, you know, on the weekends or anything. I'm not management. I'm, you know, head in, fingers out. You know, that's what they say about board.

Jasmine Star (00:49:23) - Members and, and.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:49:24) - Figures out. And so I captured what I felt was even a more critical period of time in my kids lives, you know, getting them prepared and into the schools that they desperately wanted to go to and then getting them packed and then moving them in and reconnecting with my ex-husband, their dad, to do that as a family unit.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:49:43) - And I experienced all of that, you know, so all that hard work at the beginning allowed me to completely swing the pendulum, to use your word and be balanced later on in the timeline, you know?

Jocelyn Moore (00:49:53) - Totally. Yeah. And as I've said, I don't believe in work life balance for all the reasons that you guys have talked about. And it's you have to define balance for your own life and career and, you know, it changes as time goes on.

Jasmine Star (00:50:03) - So, yeah.

Jasmine Star (00:50:04) - So speaking of the swing of the pendulum, we covered a lot of topics. But just before the camera started rolling, Susan, you reminded, I'm not going to say us, at least not yet. And I'm working toward it. But you said why we do what it is we do. And there was a founder who had sent you a message, and we don't have to get into the message unless you think it's appropriate if we leave people out or leave, like any sort of identities. But there was this thing.

Jasmine Star (00:50:25) - What is the overall theme of why you do it?

Susan Sierota (00:50:28) - Yeah. So right before we started, I won't give details outside of Sam. Your text me made me say, hey guys, pause. This is why we do what we do, which was you took some advice to that you had to do on the people side, and you had a hard discussion that ended up firing someone. And, you know, it's better for the whole machine and you did it. And I am so proud of you and being able to watch you grow and be able to do that hard thing, because I know how big your heart is, but do it for the good of the system. And to know that was incredible to watch and it was the example of why the four of us do what we do, because we really can see the impact in the hope that we make. Yeah.

Jasmine Star (00:51:12) - Chelsea, why do you do what you do?

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:51:14) - Well, anything I do ever at this point is for the benefit of my family.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:51:18) - If you really want to get down to the fundamental, that's fine. I know that's not the answer. You were.

Jasmine Star (00:51:22) - Looking. No, I wasn't looking for an answer.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:51:24) - Reason?

Jasmine Star (00:51:24) - No, no, I was looking for the truest thing. Because I think that what comes up as truth is inspiring and empowering to other people. It is okay. I do what I do for my family.

Jasmine Star (00:51:35) - I really.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:51:36) - Do. I was raised by these incredible parents who did every. They maximize the hell out of very little. It was like that book Stone soup that we read to our kids where, you know, yeah, I don't have to get into it. Look it up. Stone soup. Ding!

Jasmine Star (00:51:50) - .

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:51:51) - But, you know, and that came from generations of generations of generations of people before them that had taught them how to create a net, whether it's economic or love or whatever it is for the next generation coming. And it's a small family, but it's a strong family. It's strong DNA that comes from both sides.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:52:13) - And so I just feel like it's my obligation. And I love this obligation to hand that tradition down to my kids and to make them feel like they've got a net, you know? So everything I do at this point, the examples that I set, my core values, the money that I make, you know, the house I provide is for my family.

Jasmine Star (00:52:34) - And if I may, from an outsider's perspective, when you say is to create a net for people who are listening, you're helping them build their own net, too.

Jasmine Star (00:52:42) - So yeah, and I'm trying.

Chelsea A. Grayson (00:52:43) - To teach them how to fish instead of giving them the.

Jasmine Star (00:52:45) - Fish. Yes. And amen. Yeah. Jocelyn. Yeah. Why do you do what you do?

Jocelyn Moore (00:52:49) - It's very simple just to leave the world better than I found it. And,, you know, highlight, underscore, bold.

Jasmine Star (00:52:56) - Yes.

Jocelyn Moore (00:52:56) - I really people have poured into me. So it is incumbent upon me to do the same. And I don't have kids, but I've nieces and nephews, and they they will inherit a very different world than I inherited and was born into.

Jocelyn Moore (00:53:11) - And so I feel like when we think about generational mentorship or generational sponsorship, we have to be the ones we have to be. The change we want to see.

Jasmine Star (00:53:22) - Jasmine are.

Susan Sierota (00:53:23) - Jasmine. Why do you do what you do?

Jasmine Star (00:53:26) - I do what I do.

Jasmine Star (00:53:28) - To give more than I took. If I can give 51% to the 49 that I have taken or have been generously given, I will know that I did the thing that I set out to do. So thank you. Thank you for asking. Ladies and gentlemen, watching and listening the Jasmine Story Show. We've always maintained it's just one piece of action. And so today we're going to uplevel it because we've never had three guests on the show. So we're going to ask for two things. We're going to ask for two things. Two pieces of action. Number one, what table can you add a chair to and invite a person to? There is somebody who wants to sit at your table. Even if you think you're sitting at the cafeteria table, that all the nerds and like the sit at, somebody wants to sit there, add a chair to that table.

Jasmine Star (00:54:11) - I'm a.

Jasmine Star (00:54:11) - Nerd. And number two, can you ask somebody for something as uncomfortable as it may make you feel? Those are the two action items, because the women seated at this table have done those things tenfold, and they've set a proof in a framework that they have been told no more than they have been told yes. And they have open doors for other people who have expressed appreciation and expressed in gratitude, and they continue to do that. So they have proven that they are better on the other side of it. And we all hope that that is the same for you. Thank you. And thank you for watching and listening to The Jasmine Star Show. It is an honor and a privilege. I.