The Year I Operationalized My Business and Felt Lost

What happens after you build the business of your dreams… but have no idea what comes next?

In this vulnerable solo episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on what it really looked like to step away from the day-to-day at Social Curator, operationalize the company, and wait for “the next big thing” to arrive.

Spoiler alert: It didn’t.

I share how I found myself on a remote island in Hawaii with no social media, no laptop, just a journal—and a lot of questions. Despite outward success, I felt stuck, unsure, and disconnected from my purpose. This is the behind-the-scenes of navigating a personal and professional identity shift, facing silence after momentum, and learning to sit in the unknown.

If you’ve ever hit a wall in your business and thought, “What now?”... you’re not alone.

Let’s talk about what happens in the in-between.

Because friend… if you don’t quit, you can’t lose.

Click >>PLAY<< to hear all of this and:

[00:00] Why I Flew to a Remote Island with No Social Media or Laptop (What happens when you strip away all distractions to grow yourself?)

[01:04] Building a Business Can Look Glamorous—But Let’s Get Real (The truth about struggle, loneliness, and grit behind the scenes)

[02:52] When Success Feels Like a Slugfest (How I stayed in the game when quitting looked easier)

[03:51] Operationalizing My Business: Why I Replaced Myself (The decision to step away from daily operations at Social Curator)

[04:44] The Idea That Never Came (What happens when you expect inspiration… and get crickets?)

[05:31] From Rebirth to Real Talk (Why 2023 didn’t go as planned—and what that taught me about timing)

[06:25] Independence Isn’t About Doing It Alone (Shifting from external expectations to internal alignment)

To learn more about the Consistent $10K, join the waitlist >>HERE<<

For full show notes, visit jasminestar.com/podcast/episode592

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If you’re ready to build a website that works FOR you—and not against you—head to JasmineStar.com/showit for a 14-day free trial + first month free when you subscribe!

Transcript

Jasmine Star 00:00:00  If you don't quit, you can't lose. If you don't leave the ring and you submit to it, one day it will come to you. I booked a flight with just a few days notice, and I found myself on a small island off Hawaii called Lanai. No social media, no laptop, just my journal and an old school pen. Like what you're looking at right here, right now. And I knew that I was going there because I wanted to grow myself before I grew my next business. Welcome to the Jasmine Star Show, where I empower entrepreneurs to scale from 7 to 8 figures and find themselves in new and exciting opportunities and adventures along the way. So in the future, I'm going to do a full recap of how things look and how what I learned and the changes that manifested for me while I was there. But today, I want to share a little bit about personal development and its intersection with business. So before I do, I want like always on this show is just to share the real, real.

Jasmine Star 00:01:04  I have interviews, I share my personal stories because I think that on social media, building a business can look a certain way, and I really wanted to mystify the process. It is hard and it is dark and it is ugly. And yet, because of the love of the game, we continue to do it. So I've always felt if I share more stories, it makes people feel less alone. And that's the goal with this particular episode. Now, speaking of the real, real, the last two years have been difficult. They have been very, very difficult. And the irony is that the business has still been successful. And on the outside it still looks very successful and that's all wonderful. But it has been so hard. I often call it. It's like it's been like a two year slugfest. Like, I once saw this clip on social media where you can go and in Las Vegas they have like the face slapping competition, like where two people just stand across from each other and then open palms like boom.

Jasmine Star 00:02:00  And then they. Like, will sit there and buck it up. And then the other person will swing their arm and hit the person across from them, like, and I don't get it. And yet I couldn't stop watching it because I was like, who submits themselves to this? And let me tell you, probably the reason I couldn't look away from that social media clip was because I felt like I was in a face slapping competition with life. Things on a personal front have been so difficult in my family, and then there were things in the business that have been so difficult. And yet through it all, I just reminded myself, if I don't quit, I can't lose. There were so many days I wanted to quit, and then I was like, you quit and you're a freaking loser. I don't want to be a loser. So every day I would get up when it was very, very hard. So one of the things that I did was I quickly realized that I wasn't in my zone of genius.

Jasmine Star 00:02:52  I wasn't doing things. I was lighting me up. And I had worked and built a business that was great and wonderful, but I was completely chained to it. It's like the opposite. It's the complete antithesis of how I wanted to build my businesses. I wanted to build my businesses so other people could run them. It's called operationalization. I can't say that word. I'm trying to do it, and I can't even say the freaking word. I wanted to operationalize the business. And so in 2023, I made a big, bold step to say, okay, I'm going to replace myself in the business. I couldn't do it immediately. I actually had to work myself out of the things that I was doing with it. And so I wanted the business to be operationally driven and sustained. That meant that the business was running without me being the driver in all of those things. And we put a president on top of social curator so that she was running that multi seven figure revenue stream for us. It was at that time that I thought like, I don't know, I'd be like walking through fields of wheat and I would be sitting in lotus position like meditating and then like life would just be so amazing.

Jasmine Star 00:03:51  And what I quickly realized is that every time in my career, every time I operationalized a business and worked myself out of it and kept that revenue going. I had the next thing to focus on, and what was happening for me in 2023 was that I was like, well, the idea is going to come. Like once I operationalize, then I'm going to focus on the next thing. And it was always true to me. There was always a next thing in my life. There was always a next thing in my career. And all of a sudden I felt like, had I been tricked because I operationalized social curator, and then I couldn't figure out what to do next. And so on the outside, everything's going as usual. And it was. Except I didn't know what to do next. All I know is that I'm a builder, I'm made to build, and I didn't have my next idea, so I didn't have a clear picture. And if you don't have a clear picture, you don't have a clear plan.

Jasmine Star 00:04:44  And so I always have trusted myself to create something new. I've always believed that I can take messy action. And so we continue to take messy action. And then nothing was really finding grit like nothing was finding. I couldn't find my feet underneath me. And so you've heard, if you've been on the podcast for a while, that my word of the year in 2023 was rebirth. And I was like, oh, how amazing this is going to be. Like, I'm going to operationalize. I had a president and we're going to continue running this and it's going to be great. And then my next idea is I'm going to be like a caterpillar into a metamorphosis. I'm gonna go into the chrysalis and I'm gonna come out the butterfly. And so by in my mind, December 2023, something new would have been birthed and nothing came. And I was like, well, obviously 2024, like 2024 is my year. Like, here we go. My word of the year was independent and not independent.

Jasmine Star 00:05:31  Doing it on my own. It was independence. Like focus on doing things your own way. Other people can do it one way. Do it your own way. So nothing January to November of 2024. So keep speaking on stages. I'm still doing podcasts. I'm still creating content and behind the scenes I am banging my head trying to come up with the next thing, and I had tried other things and nothing was landing. Tried possibilities. We did market research. So during this time market research, I'm literally getting on calls with entrepreneurs and I'm like, where's the gap in the market? What do you need? What are you looking for? What's not there? I had discovery calls. So first I was like I went into industries, segments, people, demographics. Once I kind of figured out, hey, I'm kind of noticing some patterns here. I set up discovery calls, 20, 30 minute calls with people to be like, what's going on? What do you need? What's missing, what's not there? Then we had these things called seed launches where I'm just like, I'm going to try this idea in a really small capacity, and I'm going to see what's working and what's not working.

Jasmine Star 00:06:28  And nothing had the traction that I thought had the potential to scale. And I just knew that in my next venture I was like, okay, I'm not doing things how I did before. I am literally building something to scale. So if it didn't show scale potential in the beginning, I was like, I'm out. So what comes up for me was being wildly tired, really frustrated, and I doubted if I had something left in me. I literally like there were days where I'm like, I think you're dried up. Like, I think I think the spark is gone. I think that you've given all that you can. And so it turned into this whole, like, are you going to rebuild? And if you're going to rebuild and you don't have an idea, what are you doing? And I decided that even on the days that I'm like asking myself, what am I doing? I said, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm not quitting that if I just stay in the ring long enough, if I submit myself to getting slapped in the face every day and still coming back the next day and doing it again, that one day I was going to find something.

Jasmine Star 00:07:24  In December 2024, I sat with two other teammates, so myself and JD flew with Luna and we invited two other teammates and we met at Montage Deer Valley in Utah. It was over the Christmas season. It was snowing, and I just felt like it had been a season of complete, like shut down. And where I looked outside, everything's covered in white and there are no leaves on the trees. And we built snowmen. And I thought to myself, this is really apropos. I feel like I'm in a season of like, desolation. I know it sounds very dramatic, and maybe when I'm down I could be dramatic, but I'm like, there's no leaves on the trees. Just like my life, I'm so cold. I'm cold all the time. I'm cold in my business, too. I mean, really, I'm a I'm a joy to go on vacation. Just everybody wants to go on vacation with me. And so anyway, we sat down in a beautiful room there at Montage Deer Valley and we said, we're going to put something together based on not our feelings.

Jasmine Star 00:08:17  We're going to go back and look at creating something off market research, discovery calls and seed launches, what was going to work for us. So we went all in. And in August of 2025, we debuted a program called consistent 10-K, and we did it to a small waitlist. If you've been listening and watching to the podcast for a while, you will know I've shared every step of what was happening behind the scenes. I was talking about what we were doing before this offer was even made public. And so thank you for being on that journey. So about five weeks into the program. Now, this is a small waitlist. It's a beta program. You know, people didn't know about this. There was a small group of people who had raised their hand and said that they were interested. So with this small group of people, we were about five weeks into the program and I had just gotten back from Lanai. Hey, do you see how I'm tying these two things together? I started off by saying I was going to Lanai.

Jasmine Star 00:09:08  Then I went into my words of the year and how like a desolate forest in cold Utah, and now I'm back at Warm Lanai. It was flourishing. There were flowers everywhere. It was warm and it was stunning, and it was beautiful and it was right where I needed to be. And so I came back from Lanai and I landed and I did a coaching session, business coaching, business Q&A on the inside of the program, consistent 10-K. Now I'm going to share with you a tiny bit of that session. Since we're sitting here and we're talking about the real reel, I'm going to show that right about now in our.

Jasmine Star 00:09:39  Last five minutes together. I want to take a second, because this is the beauty about us showing up in this community in real time. I took a week off to be by myself. I have never done that before. And I flew to an island called Lanai right off Hawaii. I went to a health and wellness center and I just spent some time with no computer, no social media, and I did all of the woo woo things that I needed to do to step into the version of myself.

Jasmine Star 00:10:07  I believe that what is in store for me is big, and I've always realized that when I expanded, the business expanded, and if I'm being very honest with you, the last two years, while they have been successful, have been very, very much like a series of punches to the face. And these are not the things that we talk about on the outside. But I'm very proud that we have somebody on my team here to attest that she has been at my side with every face punch. These are not the things that we openly talk about, but this is running a business if I have ever get the impression that running a business is a walk in the park or not, a series of very difficult days and very difficult decisions, and us admitting I actually don't know the answer or I don't know what I am doing. What I have come back with is a deep and profound understanding that the greatest gift to expansion is compassion. Now, compassion isn't weak. Compassion requires courage because with compassion, we have to be able to look at our situations on the outside of us.

Jasmine Star 00:11:20  That if we were looking at ourselves in our house, in our apartment at Disney World, and we were looking at ourselves outside of ourselves saying, look at what you have done and look at what you are trying. And oftentimes what we want to do is we want to hide ourselves from putting something out because failure feels like us not getting a response when we're asking people to meet. Failure feels like doing a seed launch and nobody says yes. Failure feels like like week after week. Not finding a niche. Failure feels like by putting something out and feeling like it's not the right thing. And I have to tell you, the only way you get to success is by understanding that failure is the cost we pay again and again, that when I look at what we can do with consistent 10-K, it is only on the back of two years of making offers that never saw the light of day. It is on the back of having these conversations where people are like, well, that's what I want, Jasmine, I want you to do my social media.

Jasmine Star 00:12:24  And I'm like, oh, never, never. Jasmine, we want you to build an agency. I said, no, that's not the thing that I want. I had to do this work to deeply understand, and I will tell you, it tasted like failure and it felt like failure, and it felt like uncertainty. And it felt like rejection. And it felt like the hardest thing that a person can do. And all I am telling you that I have earned the right to sit in front of you with all humility to say, you all are seeing this at the smallest this thing will ever stinking be. And I want to say thank you. But it wasn't until this past week that I can actually see. Man, I'm so proud of myself for those two years. I'm proud. And I didn't think that I was going to say that. So what I want to say to you is that this is the cost, friends. This is the cost. It is the cost of saying I feel behind it is the cost of saying, I'm not sure this is going to work.

Jasmine Star 00:13:27  And guess what? I have been there, I have said it and I'm standing in front of you now saying this is the smallest this thing will ever be, and that feels so good. And I want to remind you, it took me two years and plenty of face punches to get here. So if you're there, I deeply feel you. And if you're there, I deeply see you. But I'm just going to ask you to do the very thing that I have done. We're not going to give up. Not this time. Not this round. We're going to do something different. And there was a Tibetan proverb that I'll leave you with. Is it a beautiful life? Is a two winged bird, on one wing is wisdom, and on one wing is compassion. And the thing that I have done for years have built in wisdom. Doing more, doing more, doing more. And I never allowed myself to say, job well done. You didn't give up. And so on the start of this venture for consistent 10-K, I am going to say to us at this point, and we have a long way to go, and you guys are going to be giving us feedback and we want that feedback.

Jasmine Star 00:14:41  Help us make this better. Help us show up for you. But a good life is compassion and wisdom, and I hope that you guys approach that same way as you go through this course. We're so proud and we're so thankful you guys are here. We'll see you guys in the community. Thank you. Much love.

Jasmine Star 00:14:58  If you're watching and listening right now, and do you feel like you have been consistently getting punched in the face? I see you and I feel you, but I am going to tell you the same thing I told myself for two years, if you don't quit, you can't lose. If you don't leave the ring and you submit to it, one day it will come to you. I hope that for today, at least for today, you make the decision to not quit. I stand as a testament to tell you that the thing that we had birthed, and all of the hard work of understanding where the app and the market was, who are we serving? What do people actually want? How do we get people? Big freaking results.

Jasmine Star 00:15:39  I can now say that the traction we feel from this program has blown our minds, and it took two years for me to become the person I needed to be in order to sustain this thing that we're building as big as it becomes. I could not have built it two years ago. I wasn't ready. I couldn't hold the space or the dreams or the expectations. And now I step into this and I'm like, I'm so thankful that I went through everything I did in a place of stasis, in a place of barren winter, to step into the luscious, flourishing lands that Lanai represented. So the juxtaposition between cold Utah and warm Lanai, it really manifested itself. And I'm really happy that you had a sneak peek of what it looks like to be on the inside of our program. If you found this at all helpful, pass it. Share it with somebody who might find it helpful as well. Like always, it is an honor and privilege to build with you and alongside of you. Thank you for watching and listening to the Jasmine Star Show.