Action First. Confidence Later. (Here’s WHAT to do & HOW to do it)

0:00Action comes first. Confidence comes later. Every time you follow through on something difficult, you create evidence. Evidence that says, I can do hard things. I can survive discomfort. I can follow through. The conversation started simply enough. It was a consulting call with an entrepreneur who was mapping out her next steps for scaling her business. It's what I do. I asked clarifying preliminary questions and then she answered them factually and confidently. and I looked across from her like on the computer. I was like, so if you know what to do, where are you getting stuck? And then she sat like frozen on my screen.

0:34Like she was so frozen that I was like, did her internet connection drop? But she was literally lost in deep thought. And so then I said, hey, is everything cool? And she shrugged her shoulders and then she replied, now that I think about it, I have the strategy and I know what to do, but I'm actually struggling with doing it. Boom, just like that. I understood the type of conversation we were having. Like broadly speaking, when I'm consulting with an entrepreneur, I can normally bucket questions into two main categories. One, I don't know what to do. And two, I know what to do and I don't know how to do it.

1:07So it was clear to me that this entrepreneur was struggling with the question that sat in that second category, category two. She knew what to do. She didn't know how to do it. Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to break down how I approach each of these categories so that if you have a question in category one or category two, you are going to be able to work yourself through the same process that I have found wildly effective over the years. I got you. Okay, so let's start with category number one. I don't know what to do. Whenever I'm faced with a situation where I don't know what to do, I know that what I should do is ask for help.

1:42But here's the tricky part. I actually don't know what specifically to ask for help for. Have you ever experienced that? It's like you don't know what you don't know. So how do you find a question for that. I have been there a thousand times before. And what I've discovered helps me is by listing out what I do know. So basically, I create a brain dump, a long list of everything that I think needs to get done. I just get it out of my head and on a piece of paper. After listing everything that needs to get done, I'm going to try my best to put them in the order I think they go chronologically. Now, here's where I would love for you to resist the temptation to think that your chronological order must be correct.

2:21What I'm trying to do is mostly make it correct. We can't fully predict the future if we don't have a complete idea of what's in store, but you can generally get a good idea around the order of operations. You know, like the things you should do first and then do second and then so on. After I list everything that needs to get done and then I place them in the chronological order, I don't focus on anything else other than starting with the first thing on the list. And then I move to the second and then I move on to the third. if for some reason, like somewhere along the line, I get stuck or I get lost, now I know what question to ask because I have a beginning point and an end point and a very clear outcome.

2:59A lot of times we don't know the question to ask because we don't know the order of operations and we haven't actually started. The question reveals itself once I begin to do the work. A couple months ago, I was meeting with a group of entrepreneurs in Miami and it's part of an executive coaching program called Hampton. I have been a part of it now for three years. I meet with these gentlemen every month online and once or twice a year in person. Now, we were slated for our annual trip, and it kind of feels like a family reunion of overachievers and, like, obsessed entrepreneurs. Like, we talk trash, we razz each other, we help each other.

3:31So we meet to strategize with each other's businesses and then challenge each other's beliefs and find ways to scale beyond anything we thought was possible. I have learned so much from this group. Okay, having said all those nice things, I will say that during one of our conversations, I found myself in an unpredictable situation. So we were out by the pool and we were sunbathing in the glorious Miami sun and my friend JT asked, hey, is everything okay? And then I was confused and I looked at him and I said like, yeah, well, what do you mean? Like, yeah, it's okay. He went on to explain that in our monthly calls, I have not been showing up with a lot of questions.

4:04Now, to be clear, the structure of our monthly calls is largely driven by questions. We ask each other questions. And I love the questions that these guys ask because it shows me how to think in new ways or different ways. But JT was right. I hadn't been asking the same amount of questions I normally ask. So when I reflected on it, I replied that I wasn't asking questions because, to be totally honest, I wasn't sure what questions to ask. And then the minute I said it out loud, I knew that I had not done the very thing that had always proven right as I built multiple businesses over the years.

4:35I needed to put things in chronological order so the right question revealed itself at the right time. And to be completely honest, at the time of this recording, I'm doing what feels like a million things every day. Now, even if that's true, what I need to do is I need to silo the sales initiative separate from the marketing initiatives, separate from the culture initiatives. And then I need to create a hierarchy. Essentially, I need to put things in chronological orders so I know what questions to ask about each department. I was so thankful for JD's question because it was a reminder to go back to the very thing I know how to do.

5:09I know how to find the right question once I follow the pattern of understanding of what needs to get done and what order it needs to get done. So now let's pause and let's make this about you. Are you struggling because you don't know what to do? Okay, let's keep it simple. List everything you think needs to get done for a project and then put everything to the best of your knowledge in chronological order. and after that, begin by accomplishing the first in the order of operations, the first thing on your to-do list and keep working until you get stuck. Once you're stuck, and hopefully you won't be, but once you're stuck, then the right question is going to come to you and it's going to help you move the ball down the field.

5:49So that's the end of the first category. I don't know what to do. Now let's move on to the second category, which is one that is very interesting to me. I know what to do. I don't know how to do it. Now, if you remember from the beginning of the show, I was talking about a client who I was consulting. She knew what to do. In fact, I was so impressed with her strategy and the way she laid out her execution, but that's where she got stuck. The execution, getting it done. Are you in a spot in your business where you don't know how to do it? Now, I mean not knowing how to do it in two distinct ways.

6:21There is the literal sense, I literally don't know how to do this, and there's the figurative sense. This is more along the lines of avoidance. Ooh, yes, I just used that terrible word. Now, we all know that feeling of dread that creeps up when we know we need to do something, but we continue to avoid it. I'm going to venture to say that this is where most entrepreneurs, this is what most of us are dealing with. I believe that as a business owner, you have what it takes to figure out how to do something. You can figure out you're really good at using AI to find answers or going to Google or finding a YouTube tutorial, chances are you could figure out the actual how.

6:59But when it comes down to doing the actual work, you might come up with a thousand things that needs to get done before that. Now, oftentimes this looks like perfection, which is really just procrastination in disguise. I can't tell you how many times people avoid getting the work done because they tell themselves that the work isn't perfect and they can't get started until it's perfect. And that is a lie from the pit of hell. It will never be perfect and it will never be done in any which way that we think. The game of business is that it will always change and it's your job to change with it.

7:32That's what makes business people successful. If you find yourself in a pattern of avoidance, well, how can you get the work done? If you're an entrepreneur, there's a good chance there's something sitting in the back of your mind right now that you know, I need to do that, but you keep avoiding it. Maybe it's launching the offer. Maybe it's making the sales call. Maybe it's having that hard conversation. Maybe it's finally posting the content that you know could change your business. And instead, I'm going to answer some emails. I'm going to reorganize my workspace. You know, time for me to tweak my website.

8:05You can do literally everything except the thing that actually moves the needle. But here's what I need you to understand. Avoidance is not laziness. Avoidance is your brain protecting you. Your brain is designed to protect you. Your brain is designed literally to get you out of discomfort, uncertainty, rejection, embarrassment, failure. So when something feels emotionally risky, even if it's good for your business, your brain interprets it like, whoa, this is danger. Stop doing it. And instead of doing the hard thing, your brain redirects you towards easier, safer tasks so you still feel productive.

8:40That's why entrepreneurs suddenly decide, oh my, now is the perfect time. I'm gonna clean my office. I'm gonna rename these folders. I'm gonna spend three hours researching. Your brain is basically telling you, let's go and do something productive so it doesn't feel emotionally dangerous. But here's the deeper truth. Most entrepreneurs are not avoiding the task itself. They're avoiding the emotional attachment to that task. What does the task make them feel? Because posting content might invite judgment. Raising your prices might invite rejection. Launching your offer might expose you to failure.

9:15And as long as you don't fully try, you never have to figure out what happens. Because if you never launch it, you could still believe it could have worked. But action? Action creates evidence. And evidence can feel terrifying because maybe it works. Maybe it doesn't. You now have evidence. Not just an idea or not hope. Sometimes getting proof is downright scary. And I get that. Sometimes I like living in my imagination more than I like having proof, but it will also keep you exactly stuck where you are right now. Now, here's the practical side of this. Sometimes you're not avoiding the task because you're scared.

9:54Sometimes you're avoiding it because the task is too big or too vague or too overwhelming. Now, when this happens, the brain easily goes into overdrive when things are not clear. Like if I wrote on my to-do list or my post-it note, grow the business, right? I write that on my to-do list and then my brain immediately fritzes and frags like, what does that actually mean? It's big. It's overwhelming. It's broad. Instead of wondering what it means, if you literally wrote down how you would grow your business, your brain can see specificity and then get into action. So if your brain saw email three leads, or if your brain saw record five minutes or write the first paragraph, no, those feel doable because the brain understands it.

10:34A smaller starting point, that's the thing that builds momentum, not motivation. So let me get you three ways to move from avoidance and into action. So we're gonna stop avoiding and we're gonna start doing. Number one, you wanna shrink the task until your brain stops resisting or fighting against it. So I don't want you focusing on completing the whole thing. Focus on starting, not create the video sales letter. Instead, open the slides, avoidance not record the podcast instead write the first sentence i know it sounds simple but literally that's what gets us into action now let's get into number two how we move from avoidance and into action number two name the fear underneath the avoidance ask yourself what am i actually afraid will happen if i do this because usually the answer has nothing to do with the task okay so let's get real this is what i don't want to talk about right now last year i created a podcast documenting how I pitched myself on another podcast to create content.

11:36So I got a videographer, I interviewed another business owner, and then I made a 90 second piece of content, you know, as my skills as a content creator. And then, okay, this story gets a little embarrassing. I put it together in a package, like a physical package. And then I mailed the package to the podcaster's house. Listen, okay. I know it sounds creepy. I know it sounds over the top and maybe it was. I mean, I always think to myself, if I got a package from a random stranger on the internet and they're going to send me and they know my address is totally creepy. I wasn't thinking about that all the time.

12:07What I was trying to demonstrate was the journalistic endeavors I would go to get information. Okay. At the time I thought I was doing it right. I looked back and I was like, it was totally silly, but I created that. I wanted to show the length I would go to create a relationship and create synergy between podcasts. Okay. Now the truth of it was that I wanted to create a project and then I didn't want to share it publicly. I wanted to create that piece of content and then put it out and say, nobody else has to see it. It's just me. But then I asked myself, what am I actually afraid will happen if I share it publicly?

12:42And that question revealed what I was avoiding. The real question that I was asking and what I was trying to avoid was, I didn't want to share it online. It was basically that I didn't want people to see if I got rejected. Now, the real, real. I'm sitting in front of you a year later and I'm telling you I wasn't rejected. I was flat out ghosted. Like I'm a homie with one of the podcast hosts and like nothing, didn't get a period in a text message. And the crazy thing is I am not embarrassed. I shot my shot and I missed. But my business is still growing. My content is still thriving. My husband and daughter still think I'm cool.

13:23So what did my avoidance reveal? I was afraid of somebody else's opinion. But then I decided that documenting my journey meant more to me than somebody else's opinion. If it encourages other people to take their shot publicly, no matter what happens, that's always a good thing. I would not have gotten to that point if I didn't actually know what was I afraid of, what was I avoiding. Now, I want you to ask yourself the same question so you can identify what's actually stopping you on an emotional level. Now, in case you want to see that episode, I'm going to link it in the show notes because I don't want to avoid it anymore.

13:56I want people to see, this is what happens when you try and fail. Guess what? Nothing, nothing happens. You're right where you are, babe. You're right where you are. But now let's get back to avoidance dressing up as fear because the fear is rejection, embarrassment, criticism, failure, or disappointment. And the moment you name the fear, it loses some of its power. Now what I want to do is I want to move on to the third point of moving out of avoidance and into action. And I want you to create evidence, not emotion. We'll pause. You will hear me on this show talk a lot about human psychology, how the brain works.

14:34Now I've mentioned this before, but my mom struggled for over a decade with brain cancer. It was during that time that I started reading a lot of books about behavior, about psychology, about how the brain works. And so I'm sitting here talking about avoidance and avoidance is not doing the work. Listen, you got into the business game because you can work. But what stops us from doing that is what happens in the brain. What happens in the brain is that we feel a lot of emotions and then we let those emotions stop us. And I'm sitting here, I'm tired of my life being dictated by emotion. I want to move from facts and create my future.

15:04So many people are waiting to feel motivated before they take action. But successful entrepreneurs understand something different. Action comes first. Confidence comes later. Every time you follow through on something difficult, you create evidence. Evidence that says, I can do hard things. I can survive discomfort. I can follow through. Confidence is not built through thinking. Confidence is built through proof. And that's why these tiny wins matter so much. Because every small action, it rewires your brain. You are literally brainwashing yourself into believing you are a person of action. So if you take anything away from this episode, let it be this.

15:46Avoidance is rarely a time management problem. Like, I'm just too busy. No, babe, you're not. You're not too busy. It is more likely you're afraid of something. And the entrepreneurs who grow the fastest are not the ones who feel fearless. They're the ones willing to act while feeling uncertain. Because your next level in business is probably hiding inside of the thing you keep on avoiding. Now, I'm gonna pause here, and I'm actually going to admit that this is where I wanted to stop the episode, right? Like I shared examples and I shared personal stories and I shared a framework for how to figure out what it is you wanna do.

16:22And I'm gonna be real, like that sounds wonderful and it sounds nicely packaged. The podcaster in me is satisfied. But the human side of me, the person who wants to reveal like every aspect of how I actually get things done, she needs to speak. So this is now just human. This is not Jasmine Star, the podcaster. This is Jasmine Star, the human. Okay, here we go. and I wrote this and I didn't want to write it. So I want you to know that this year things have been really difficult because there have been moments where I just didn't know what to do and I didn't know how to do it. And I simply practiced what I had just explained.

16:59I made a list, I put it in quite an allogational order, and I avoided the overwhelm by breaking the task into small, very basic pieces of evidence to prove to myself that I am a woman of action. I will also admit in full honesty that there were moments when even the best frameworks could not help me from my own analysis paralysis. In those moments, I had to dig deeper for a bigger why. I will tell you that every time I wanted to stop out of fear or anxiety or overwhelm, I immediately thought of my daughter and I began to take actions not just for myself, but for her. So that one day she will be able to do the same thing.

17:38I am not an example of perfection. I am not an example of fearlessness, but I hope I am an example of being scared and doing it anyway. An example of what it looks like to get back up after being kicked down. An example of somebody who has the odds stacked against her and yet still finds a way not just to survive, but to thrive. So I'm inviting you to think of a person or a cause that allows you to dig deep when things are not going the way you want or the way you expect. Because what I have realized is that in the game of entrepreneurship, more things will go wrong than right. You'll be walking through a graveyard of mistakes.

18:18There will be more valleys than there will be peaks. There will be more rejection and failure, way more than success. But if we do not quit, we cannot lose. And if we are not just doing it for ourselves, the stakes become higher, but the rewards become greater. I hope this podcast moves you towards action and away from avoidance. It is always an honor and a privilege to create these episodes for you. And I would love to hear from you personally if this show resonated. You can send me a direct message on Instagram. You can find me at Jasmine Star. And if you send me a note, I just want to reply and say thank you for watching and listening to The Jasmine Star Show.