The Jasmine Star Show

Control Is a Myth: What I Learned From a Business Flop

• Jasmine Star

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Discipline isn’t about hustle or perfection—it’s a form of self-care. It’s believing in where you’re going, even when no one else sees it.

In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on a business moment that broke my heart—one of my most anticipated classes flopped due to a major tech fail (thank you, AWS 😅). After weeks of preparation, thousands of registrations, and a heart-driven message I couldn’t wait to share… hardly anyone could access it.

It was devastating.

But it became a powerful lesson in letting go of control and focusing on what really matters: effort over outcome.

If you’ve ever asked, “Why is this happening?”—this episode is for you.

Because yes, things will go wrong in business. And yes, you’ll still be okay.

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

[01:00] Why overthinking is really a desire for control (and why that never works)

[03:06] The origin of the class that “flopped” and why it was so personally meaningful

[04:06] Preparing like crazy for a no-pitch, heart-centered live event

[05:08] Tech goes down: the moment everything unraveled (and what I did next)

[06:30] The mindset shift that saved the day: “Everything happens for me”

[09:25] How this experience transformed how I show up—and why I’m still grateful

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Jasmine Star 00:00:00  Discipline isn't a flex, it's a form of self-care. Every time you show up, you're saying, I believe where this is going. Even if no one else sees it yet. I'm not going to lie. A few weeks ago, I woke up at 130 in the morning and I couldn't sleep. I laid in bed and I kept replaying events from the day in my mind. I am a classic overthinker. I overthink, overthinking, if we're gonna be honest, if overthinking were a competition, I would be Michael Phelps. I'd have more gold medals than two Michael Phelps combined. My sisters make so much fun of me that they sent me a meme that stated, 90% of the things I worried about never happened. This is proof that worrying works. Okay, so I'm joking a little bit. Listen, I know overthinking and worrying does more harm than it does good, but on this particular night, my overthinking literally woke me up. My brain was like, nah, girl, we gonna fix this and we're gonna fix this right now.

Jasmine Star 00:00:53  And here's the ironic part. There was nothing I could fix. Nothing. And when I say fix, what I really mean is control. As entrepreneurs, it's easy to mix those two things up. Fix is a disguised words for let me see how much control that I can use, what I can get, the result that I want. Anybody else? Is that just me? You ain't got to lie. Like, let's be real right now is you and me having conversation. Entrepreneurs are notoriously controlling, which helps us get results. But what happens when you can't control the uncontrollable? I thought about writing a perfectly poised episode on a framework of how to release control, or my Five Steps to Letting Go and Just Being. Or a dissertation on how control is a myth. I could do that, but a real, raw conversation would be a lot more helpful and honest between us. So what we're going to have here today is the real, real. Like, we really have to know that we can control one thing our effort.

Jasmine Star 00:01:52  We control the effort, but we cannot control the outcome. This episode is a look at my life and perspective on a day after a wildly disappointing day in business. This is a snippet from a business coaching session I did on the inside of our private group for Social Curator. It's imperfect, it's jagged, it's unpolished, but it's also the most candid perspective on the strongest mindset shifts that we can make as entrepreneurs. Let's get into that right about now by stating something that we all know to be true. But sometimes it's easier to think or hear about it from other people. Let me just start by saying things will go wrong and you're going to be okay. Okay, so let's break this down with a real business example because I don't know, sometimes I don't know if you ever experienced this. It's easier to look at somebody else's business and think that, gosh, it must be easier for them. Or maybe they're not going through some of the tough things that I'm going through. We could tell ourselves a bunch of stories, but I want to be very open inside of this community and talk about the build and talk about the journey and talk about what we all go through, but not always talk about.

Jasmine Star 00:03:06  So yesterday I was teaching a live class. Now, I had been planning for this live class, and here's what a lot of people don't know is when I went on a solo retreat, solo trip by myself to take some time alone and think about the business, I went away to an island called Lanai right off Hawaii, and while I was there, this idea just downloaded to me and I came back and I thought to myself, this is exactly what I should be teaching now. I wasn't going to be selling anything. I wasn't going to be pitching anything. It was just I needed to talk about this. It was like literally coming from the inside out. I felt like I needed to put this out into the world. I was so excited. So this was not an average, hey, I'm going to have a teaching marketing sales class, which no problem with that. I love those and I do them. But this one was all about the three money mindsets that I changed to help me build a business that's made tens of millions of dollars, and the team prepared for it.

Jasmine Star 00:04:06  I prepared for it. I spent the entire weekend practicing. I usually like to take the weekends off, but there I was with JD, practicing again and again. Why? Because the people who were going to be there, the thousands and thousands of people who registered, I wanted to treat their time right. I wanted to share this special message. So can you kind of see where this is going? I wake up at 4 a.m. in the morning without an alarm. I'm just so excited. I was like, I gotta go burn some energy at the gym. So I went to the gym and I came back and I was practicing and I was in a state of flow. I was in a state of flow. So much flow that I wasn't checking in before the live class because I said, I want to keep my head in mind clear. So I log in to zoom for this live class. That was like thousands and thousands of people had signed up for. And I see sweet Katie and she's like, Jasmine, we're having some issues, so I'm not going to get into the details, but Amazon has this server called AWS, and every tech company or most of all tech companies use it, ourselves included.

Jasmine Star 00:05:08  She's like, AWS is down. We have not been able to send emails. We have not been able to receive emails. We haven't been able to get text messages or send text messages. Jasmine, people who had it on their calendars, they added it. That's not working out either. And we're having some difficulties with zoom. And so there's been a lot of confusion, and we think that people are frustrated because they're emailing us, telling us they can access the class, but we're not getting anybody's emails and we're not able to respond. This is hand to heaven about four minutes before we're supposed to go live. So immediately I sit there and I'm like, okay, there's going to be very, very, very few people on this call, a call that I promise. I was like, this is my download. This is what I'm supposed to be teaching. This is going to be a big thing. This is like a love letter to all people who are trying to start businesses. And very few people, if not anybody, is there.

Jasmine Star 00:06:07  And so immediately I flip back in to one of the things I know to be true. And if you've been with Social Security for a while, you are going to know that this is true to everything is happening for me. I literally had to remind myself, like, Katie was on the other side of zoom and immediately hearing all of this, like, not so great news. I was like, everything is happening for us. Everything is happening for us. Am I frustrated? Am I angry? Yeah, but what is that going to do? We did everything right and then things outside of our control were changing. I then remembered. The second main thing is that we are responsible for the effort. We're not responsible for the outcome. Like, am I going to be upset that I can't control it? Maybe I should be upset at Jeff Bezos. Who could you be upset about? Like life happens. And then after I believe that everything was happening for me and that there are some things I can't control.

Jasmine Star 00:07:12  Then I said, how can you make this a win? And immediately I told Katie, well, this is going to be a practice run. That was it. And I got to show up to that call with very few people on it, and I said, I'm going to practice. I'm going to practice how to get better. I'm going to practice how to be myself. And I told myself that I am going to practice in front of 100 people so that if the day ever arrives for me to go live in front of 100,000 people, that it was every single rep along the way. And everything is happening for me. I also thought, this is kind of this is not the stuff I really want to admit, but I thought in the back of my mind I was like, well, maybe, maybe this class isn't that great and I'm just being divinely protected, you know, like not a lot of people are going to show up. So this is a good thing. Like, don't worry, it's probably not good for the business.

Jasmine Star 00:08:08  But at the end of the day, at the end of the call, like all we got was the most positive feedback. Like, I was so humbled. I was blown away around the feedback we got, but it wasn't what I had expected. So this is my reminder to you it will not be what you expect. You can't control what you can't control, that everything is happening for you and that when you get to show up, you are putting in the rep for what your future work will be and what it could become. And so when we come in on the inside of social curator and when we are in this community, it is so important for us to normalize that it will not likely be what we expect. But our job is not to apply an opinion on things that were outside of our control, because there are things that happen that we don't control. And then there are our reactions, which we control. I can't control what happened. I can control my reaction to what happened. I recently read the founding story for the Mother Against Drunk Driving Aid, the Madd organization, and the story recounts how around at a similar time, there were two very unfortunate circumstances.

Jasmine Star 00:09:35  There were two young men who died as victims of drunk drivers. Other people were drunk. They hit these young men and both of them died. Now one of the mothers of the young man turned to alcohol herself, drank all day and night, ended up divorcing her husband and losing custody of her other three children. The other mother, whose son had also died at the hands of a drunk driver, took her passion and diligence and created an organization entitled Mothers Against Drunk Driving. There were two very similar situations, but the reactions were different. They could not control that their sons were painfully killed at the hands of drunk drivers, but their reactions to turn inward and go to alcohol. The very thing that killed her son and the other, to use her skills and talents to ensure that not another child would die needlessly at the hands of a drunk. That's a very poignant story. But when we extrapolate it out and we say we apply, what truth can we take from these stories is that I could have easily chosen a different outcome or response to this, and so could you.

Jasmine Star 00:10:57  So right now, I want you to think about the past week or even the past month when something outside of your control happened and you were frustrated. I want to tell you, it's okay for you to be frustrated. I want you to tell you it is okay for you to be angry. That's normal. But please don't confuse being a victim to the circumstance because you are never the victim when you can control your reactions and your behaviors. And so as we begin group coaching today, I want to remind all of us that while we can't control the situations, we can control our reaction to those situations. I want to talk about one of the most important parts of building a business, and that's discipline. Even when things don't go as planned. Now, I know it's not the latest strategy, the fanciest branding. You know, I know it's also not the number of followers you have that will make your business successful. It's not strategy. It's not brand. It's not number of followers. Sure, those things might help.

Jasmine Star 00:12:11  That's great. They might help. But it's all about your willingness to show up. I was listening to this professor talk about a research project he did with his colleges. He taught at the University of Michigan, and he was talking about how the track coach said that he was so amazed that when he started tracking the progress of his athletes, how he became completely and totally mind blown around this concept that some of his athletes would come in and he would have them test on the team reps, races, timings. And he had said that his mind consistently was blown over and over again because the people who were often at the lowest, they came into college for the track team and ranked at the bottom of the team. The slowest, the weakest, the most unlikely to win is that they surpassed their teammates on one component, and that was by being consistent that it wasn't the number of races that they won or how much weight they began lifting. It was the people who would show up every single day. And here's another fascinating thing.

Jasmine Star 00:13:28  I was listening to a conversation with Professor Angela Duckworth. She teaches out of Penn University and Harvard, and she is the famous writer for, like, the mega bestseller called grit. And she talks about how grit is a very important thing for entrepreneurs, for athletes, for anybody at the top of their game. And she interviewed Michael Phelps, coach, and Michael Phelps, his coach, said it is not a matter if Michael Phelps came into practice and he gave a one out of ten or a ten out of ten. He's like most people cannot come in and give a ten out of ten every single day. He's like, that's atypical. And he was even talking specifically about Michael Phelps, undisputed swimming champ of the world and the human history. And he's saying even Michael wasn't giving a ten out of ten. There were some days that Michael would give a 3 or 2, but Michael never stopped. And so I thought that was really powerful for us as entrepreneurs. I want to ask you today, maybe you're a ten out of ten, which would be amazing.

Jasmine Star 00:14:25  I hope you're a ten out of ten today. But just in case or not. Please don't feel bad for putting in a level two out of ten today. That's what this whole conversation about. It's the best thing that you could ever do for your business is the willingness to show up. Your discipline is proof you believe the vision. Discipline isn't a flex. It's a form of self-care. Every time you show up, you're saying, I believe where this is going, even if no one else sees it yet. My question to you is today. I mean, let's just be real friends. The fact that you're watching this live or a replay, it's very clear to me that you making time to do that for yourself. You're not showing up at a one today. Maybe you're not showing up at ten, but it's not a one. And so I want to like go back and really get grounded around the two things we've spoken about today. There are things that we can't control, but we can control our reaction to it.

Jasmine Star 00:15:28  And if we control our reaction to it, We can also control how we show up. Am I a level ten today? Absolutely not. But am I here? Am I doing the work? Am I doing the reps? Am I posting on social media? Am I responding to DMs? Am I coaching and helping people who are investing in the business? Yes, and I believe you could do the same thing. So I want to make sure that we are flipping the script on discipline. Discipline is one thing you can control. You can't control anybody else's discipline. As the mother of a five year old, I cannot control my daughter's discipline. Today was picture day at her school, and most days she can't stand. When I tried putting bows or combing her hair, she can't stand it. She's like a little crazy child who refuses to let me brush her hair. But today I said, there will be a prize for you waiting at home. If mom can brush your hair, she let me brush her hair.

Jasmine Star 00:16:26  This is like the first time I brushed her hair to go to school in about a month. I mean, she bathes in, I wash it, but I'm not doing any hair, so I cannot control her discipline. But what can I control my own? And what can you control? Your own? So today we flip the script undisciplined. I don't want us telling ourselves a lie. It's not drudgery. Discipline is a gift. We get to choose if we're going to be disciplined today. Now, it might not be easy, but it's not drudgery. Discipline is self-care. I care about the future version of myself. I care about the future version of my family. I care about the future version of my business, and I care about the future team I am building. So discipline is self-care because I care about a future that very few people can see, and I believe that discipline is the absolute foundation of anything you want to build. Discipline is the foundation, and that's also where most people quit is when it becomes hard to be disciplined, doing the things we don't want to do, even if it's in self care of a future self.

Jasmine Star 00:17:50  Most people are like, I don't see the results. I can't be this disciplined because I'm not seeing the immediate gratification of it. And I'm here to tell you that discipline is the long game, but so is building a successful business. If you want to build a business that lasts, the practice of discipline is one thing we absolutely have to embrace. And now you can't be the same person that you were at the start of this conversation. Now you know too much. Now you know that discipline isn't drudgery. Discipline is self-care for a future. Very few people can see. So if that is true and you believe that is true, then. Discipline is something we embrace and discipline is a gift. So as we begin group coaching today, I want to encourage you to share one thing you're going to commit to doing for your business regardless of how you feel. Because to be totally honest, I don't feel the best today. And you want to know what I am going to show up and give it my best.

Jasmine Star 00:18:59  Even if I'm not feeling the best, I'm going to give it my best. And that's all I want to ask from you. I hope that wherever or however you're seeing this show, you can repeat this after me. I control the effort. I don't control the outcome. And I hate to ruin the best part, but like, spoiler alert, everything is happening for you. Thank you for watching and listening to the Jasmine Star Show.