Five Mindset Shifts For Business Growth

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0:40Welcome to the Jasmine Starr Show. We're at the time of this recording. I am staring outside of my window at a bright blue sky with soft breezes blowing towards the right. So I would guess that would be the West. And I can't help but think this right here, this episode was intended to be created today. And if you are listening to this when we drop the episode, or it happens to be sent to you from a friend or somebody who loves you and believes in you. Or perhaps you just somehow stumble upon this very conversation. Please know this is the right moment and you are in the right place. You know, oftentimes I think that there are things that exist inside of me and they have to come out of me almost like a dragon.

1:32I know it doesn't really make sense. I get that it sounds a little funny, a little weird, a little unexpected. But that's the vision. That's the idea that I have in my mind. It feels like this dragon, this mighty beast with a fiery mouth and wings and a long tail that will terrify you. It has to come out of me. And oftentimes when this happens, it only happens in two ways. It comes out of me by way of a very large white piece of paper. They have these like oversized post-it notes that you can get from like Office Depot. They're probably like three feet by four feet. It is a life-size post-it note or a whiteboard.

2:09Well, today it is coming to you by way of an oversized post-it note. And I had to write them all down. It was like furious. I'm like, I just need to talk about these things. And if you hear like junk in the background, that is me and my white base of paper because it is all of my thoughts. and I had to get them out. And the minute they were out, I took a deep breath. And then I said, and now we record. And the thing about this is I had written all of this and then I stepped away from it. I spent days away from these thoughts and these things that came out because I said, if I share something so personal with people on the podcast, am I okay with that being out in the ether?

2:54Whenever we create, whenever we make, anything that comes from us or as a part of our business, The minute it is out there, we never get it back. We don't own it anymore. It is of the world. And so the things I'm about to share, my personal mindset shifts for business, in fact, the top five mindset shifts that I have made in my business, they're really personal. And when I share things, I want to make sure that I am respecting my boundaries, my story, but that I don't make this podcast about me. Nobody needs to listen to another podcast around somebody pontificating about their own thoughts. What I wanna do, and what I wanna be very clear about is this podcast is a person pontificating about their thoughts in relation to you, in relation to your journey.

3:47Because I firmly believe the minute I am able to share or disseminate lessons I have learned or things that I've changed that aren't serving me or that are serving me. I can share both of those. And then if you apply them and you get similar results, then I think we're better because of it. So this is me honoring this journey and talking about the mindset shifts that I have made about my business. So without further ado, I have named each one. I know, it's like a chapter of a book, y 'all. It is a chapter of a book. Okay, so I'm gonna move my notes. So why am I bringing this up now? the reason for this podcast is understanding that we're in the business of having a business.

4:30And if you're anything like me, I wanted a business not to become popular, but to be profitable. And so oftentimes when I am required to make big changes in my life or my business, it's because I want it to directly impact my bottom line. I am in business to not just make money, but to create wealth. And so that is why I feel so passionate about sharing mindset shifts, because I believe that they could help you as much as they has helped me. And the bigger the mindset change I had, the bigger the business grew as a result. So the bigger changes and the different bigger beliefs I had to believe when I fully embraced it and it became of me, the bigger the business grew.

5:13So let's go back. We're going to be talking about the five mindset shifts that I have changed in my business to get big results. The first one, 2017, this is what I am calling the leave room for magic mindset shift. Now, I have since changed it to leave room for the miracle. Here's why. Okay. So I joined a mastermind and the person who was leading the mastermind, his name was James Wedmore. And this was in November, 2017. And he rolled out large pieces of paper. And he said, we're going to plan the year for revenue. So we were going to be planning for 2018. So we had these large pieces of paper and there was about 15 of us, I think, in the mass mine at the time.

5:58And we were staying at an Airbnb, a really large Airbnb. And we all had our own section of the lower portion of the house. And so there was this dining room and a dining room table. And I cleared everything from the dining room table. And I rolled out this large parchment paper. And then I had written out my year and I decided to write it out by quarter. It was easier for me to see three months at a time. And what I saw was a big blank area in quarter four of 2018. And so from November 2017, I could see Q1, Q2, and Q3 of 2018, but I couldn't see quarter four. Now, I had a revenue goal and I had plans, but I didn't know quite how I was going to reach it.

6:43I could fill in some of the blanks, but not all of them. And as much as I tried that weekend to think about, well, what could I do? What could go here in 2018? James looked to me and he says, can you not leave room for magic? And when I heard that, I had to tell you, it was a very James thing to say because I don't really believe in magic. I was never like that. oh, let's practice some magic tricks. I was never the person who went to magic shows. And even though at the time I had a really good friend who loved magic and he had a membership, it's very elusive, right? It's very difficult to get a membership to the Magic Castle in Hollywood.

7:24Well, he had one. And if you have a membership, you can bring guests. And so he invited JD and I, and he was just like, this friend, it wasn't James. Okay. I'm shifting gears to a side story to talk about why I just have never really understood the idea of magic. It's neither here nor there. And so our friend invites us to dinner at the Magic Castle and he is hyping this thing up. So we pull up and if you're unfamiliar with the Magic Castle in Hollywood, I want you to think so distinctly of old school Hollywood Hills. We're talking about the Magic Castle was probably built in like the 1940s and 1950s.

7:56This is where if you practice magic, if you are a magician, if you have any aspiration to do that, the Magic Castle is basically Mecca. That is where you are gonna be going. Oh, and you have to dress up. Like you have to actually dress like nice, like you're going to a very nice dinner party. And so we pull up to have LA and there's all of these fancy cars. It's Hollywood. It's very distinctly Hollywood. And they have like these big ornate doors and then there's elevators and you can go into different rooms and there's magic shows. And with each subsequent room that we would go to, he would look to us with such anticipation.

8:29Like he was like, this is it, right? Like, wait, this guy's the best. And then before the magic trick had been like ultimately like revealed, he would be looking at JD and I to like, so that our faces could really mirror the magic we saw on the stage. And so like soon enough by the end of the night, I found myself kind of sort of acting because I really, I was so thankful to be there and I really liked our friend and I wanted to like make him not feel like he wasted this invitation on us. So I found myself being like, wow, I'd raise my eyebrows and be like, blink really fast. Like, wow, oh my God.

9:04But at the end of the night, I was like, I don't really know. Like magic, I just, I'm not that interested in it. Okay, so now years later, we're here, 2017, and James says, leave room for magic. And all I think of is I better raise my eyebrows and blink my eyes really fast because magic, wow. Okay, here's what I absolutely know. When he says leave room for magic, here's what it did not mean. It didn't mean just cross my fingers and hope. for something. That's not magic. Looking back and even in that moment, I realized that it meant blocking out a runway to create something, building a timeline to build.

9:50Plan for a project, even if you aren't quite sure what that project is. At that moment, I realized I had never given myself the opportunity to just say, this is blank space. and though I might not know it now, I believe and have faith that something is coming. But if I know I'm going to be creating something from scratch, why am I not leaving blank space to do that? That, my friends, is leaving room for a magic, soon to me, a miracle. So let's go back to what happens. So in 2018, we did not launch anything else other than Social Curator. Now, prior to that, in 2017, I had launched Insta 180, an Instagram for business course.

10:45I had launched Path to Profitability. It's how to build a brand and marketing on social media. That was the year that we debuted Social Curator. So it's 2017. Y 'all, there were so many things happening in the business. I felt like I was running a thousand miles a minute. This was the first full year, the first full year. So I had retired as a professional photographer at the end of 2016. And 2017 was the first year that I had gone all in in building an online business, not just a business online. And so I felt this immense sense of pressure to have it figured out. And if I can go back to myself, I would say like, you're doing such a great job.

11:25Just continue to figure it out. But can you not release the pressure on having to feel like you have to know every answer for everything? Because you don't. And nobody ever does. So 2017, we had a ton going on. And then we made the big, bold move to really over-index and grow Social Curator. That's what was happening in 2018. So we found that a membership was the sweet spot for the business. I really liked it. It filled me up. It allowed me to still be creative in new and different ways. I liked creating the fresh content. I liked being in the community. I liked doing the coaching. And I was like, oh, the courses were recorded and then distributed.

12:12And they were for a short amount of time. The membership was ongoing. So in 2017, we had launched all three of those programs and it was a lot. And during that year, it was the best year that I had done up into the business at that point. But when I look back at it, I'm going to quote something that Rory Vaden often says, and he even said it here on my podcast. He said, diluted focus gets diluted results. And even though the business had done really great, I was saying a lot of messages. I was using a lot of words online, so much so that people knew I was creating and people knew that I was selling, but I don't know if anybody could really clearly say, oh, that's the thing that she does.

12:55That specific thing is what she's known for. And so we said, what if we just focus on one thing for a year? And that year, the business more than tripled with just one offer. So I think by leaving that gap in 2018, so as I'm forecasting from 2017 into 2018, leaving that gap allowed me to breathe, to focus, to say I had latitude. And it took a lot of confidence to say, only in retrospect, only in retrospect, I would say you needed that quarter to build, create, and have a foundation for the thing that would end up tripling the business. Now, I did now, years later, change it from magic to miracle.

13:56Because when I think of the word magic, I think, oh, there's got to be a trick. You know how magicians say it's like, the eyes don't always see anything. Magic is not what the eye truly sees. And I didn't like that. I didn't like that. It didn't feel like it was real to me. And a miracle makes me feel like it's part of a bigger plan, that something is bigger than just me. And it's going to require a level of behavior and faith that for me in the business was active, not a trick that only some people can see. I believe it's capable and open for everyone. So now the mindset shift that I look back and I ask myself from 2017 and then 2018, and I'm asking myself today, can I create space for a miracle?

14:46And I want you to answer that question as well. So the second mindset shift, this also happened in 2017. Y 'all, 2017, that was like a banger of a year. I'll tell you, that mindset shift has been called, choose your opponent carefully. So like I had mentioned, I was part of a mastermind and the mastermind would be taking places in different states and cities around the world. And so the one where we had done the planning that was done in Charleston. And we had another one in New York City. And I will tell you that this particular in-person meetup for the Mastermind was extraordinarily difficult for me.

15:30Because when I was there, I got word from somebody on our team that word had got out about a launch. And we were keeping that particular launch very close to the chest. We were going to be launching in it in a very unique way. And I was really excited to debut it. Well, unbeknownst to me, somebody on my team. So this is 2017. The only full-time employees that the business has is JD and myself. That's it. We were working with contractors. The entire team was contractors. Most of them were all part-time. So this is me for the first time ever having a team, ever having like, and when you say team, I mean it like working with a group of people who identify as part of my team and as part of other people because they have their own business as independent contractors.

16:15And so unbeknownst to me, somebody on my team was also working on somebody else's team and ended up telling that other team the model in which we were using to launch a course. And then the other team launched the course in the same way before we did. And it sounds so petty now, like when I think back at it, it's like, ah. but at the time it wasn't that it was related to the launch it wasn't the style of the launch it wasn't even that it was said it was that we had conversations privately on our team that were shared with others and I didn't know who had actually shared it at the time I think there was like eight people eight contractors we were working with and I looked around and I thought who can I trust?

17:04I can't trust anybody. And I feel so stupid. I feel so stupid that I didn't know as independent contractors, they would be talking to other people. And the feelings that came up were betrayal. And then I felt at the deep core, I think that betrayal was just disguising my embarrassment. I was so embarrassed because I didn't know who to trust. And I was so embarrassed because I felt stupid. Like, how did I not realize that other people were not going to, how did I not realize other people were going to talk? Why would I just assume that there was some sort of allegiance? And it was at that mastermind that James pulled me aside.

17:48We're there in New York City, we're at a hotel and had this beautiful staircase. And he pulled me out of the conference room and into the staircase. And I was there with JD. And he said, what is up with you? Like, what's going on? Like you're literally emanating energy that's so not you. And I said everything I just told you, like I felt betrayed. I was embarrassed. I felt stupid. And James had said, can you imagine yourself right now? Can you do an exercise with me? And I was like, okay, fine. He says, can you picture yourself as a boxer in a ring? So you have your gloves on. You're in a ring.

18:31You're ready to fight. And that fighter is you. You are that fighter. And so there I am with my eyes closed in the stairwell, picturing myself in like those red satin shorts. My hands are in red boxer gloves. And he asked me, who is your opponent? He said, are you a fighter, Jasmine? And I said, yes, I'm a fighter. He asked me that question because that's how I self-identified for so long. I'm a fighter. And so he used my description back to me and he said, are you a fighter? And I said, yes. And he says, who's your opponent? Who is in the ring with you. And I stood there with my eyes closed and I couldn't think.

19:22I couldn't think of anybody. I couldn't imagine my opponent. And I had my eyes closed and I was like, I don't know. He says, Jasmine, who is your opponent? I said, I don't know. He said, it's you. You're your opponent. It's you against you in the ring. When you are calling yourself stupid and when you're embarrassed and when you're talking to yourself so negatively, the person you are pummeling with those red gloves is you. It's you against you. And he asked me, how could you ever win if all you did was beat yourself up? On that day, my entire life changed. I identified as a fighter because my whole life, I felt like I had to fight to get everything I ever had.

20:23And maybe that was true. Maybe it is true. But if I identify with myself as a fighter, I need to clearly identify my opponent. Because if I don't know who or what I am fighting. I am only beating myself up. It is me against me. And that day sparked a question. What would it look like if I didn't beat myself up? Like, could you just imagine? I couldn't. I couldn't imagine a reality where I didn't beat myself up. Because the struggle for me was up until that point, I actually didn't believe nice things about me. It's like so embarrassing to me. This is very honest. This is very honest. Up until that point, I just never believed nice things about me.

21:19I didn't believe them from anybody else. And I sure as heck did not believe them from me. I didn't believe I was smart. I didn't believe that I was a standout. I didn't believe that I had some sense or ability that anybody else had or did not have. I just didn't. I didn't believe any single nice thing about me. And I falsely use that as fodder. I use my negative thoughts. I use my negative narrative as fodder, as a thing to push me on. Be like, I told myself, I believed that the meaner I spoke to myself, like that drill sergeant in my head, the better I would perform, the extra rep that I would do, the extra commas and zeros I would add to my bank account because I'm whipping my arse into shape.

22:06But years of that, years of that was a beating to my soul. And so since then, I've done a lot of work around the way that I speak to myself. I worked with a therapist and he sat across from me and he explained this idea of having a neutral thought. And he had said, Jasmine, if you can't believe nice things or good things about you, could you not have a neutral thought about it? Like, okay, so for instance, I've been pretty, I've been pretty open. I've always struggled with my weight. My weight has been an issue, a journey, I should say, a journey for my whole life. I grew up obese. I weighed more than my dad when I was 11 years old.

22:49I gained a lot of weight in my senior year of high school. I lost a lot of weight my freshman year of college. I gained some weight back in my senior year of college. I literally have gone up and down, up and down in my life and in my journey. And he explained it this way. He says, let's just say that you're on a weight loss journey. And a nice thought would be like, I look great and I feel great. And he says, but you wouldn't believe that. You wouldn't believe that thought. Like, I look great. I'm feeling great. Like, no, you don't. That is not your truth. So instead you default to, you don't feel great about yourself.

23:28You're not working hard enough. You're making bad decisions. Why is it taking so long? He's like, but a neutral thought is somewhere in the in-between. It's not the positive thought, like I love myself despite however I look, but it's also not the thought that beats me into oblivion. It's a neutral thought. And that neutral thought could be, I've come a long way and I'm continuing to try every single day to make better decisions. And I'm doing a long path in history of eating terribly and eating to punish myself and eating to reward myself and eating to chain myself. The neutral thought is I'm doing better every single day.

24:12So after years of practice, I'm definitely, definitely not perfect. but I now coach myself. Like I literally have learned to repeat neutral thoughts to myself. And it started off for me at the gym. Like before I would say like, oh, it's so sad. I hate saying this to you guys. I hate it. But I would look at myself in the gym and be like, you look disgusting. Like you're disgusting. There'll be times where I'll be like, how did you let yourself go like this? I will tell you that in 2020, I became a mother. The world shut down because of pandemic. I live I was living a very active lifestyle and everything in southern california like closed down all the gyms everything And so I did not at all practice self-care.

24:56I was very stressed During that time and I gained I gained a lot of weight And so getting back into the gym it was How can I start speaking to myself nicely? Like what is the neutral thought? And this is still to this day a lot of the mantras that I use You're getting stronger you're doing it. You are practicing. You made it into the room. That's it. When I'm in a class or when it's me against a barbell, all I simply say is you're getting stronger and you're doing it. You're practicing. You made it in the room. So I still consider myself a fighter, but now my opponent is doubt and my opponent is fear.

25:46It is not me. So the mindset shift to choose your opponent carefully has been for me to choose carefully who I'm fighting against and to be my own coach. And I'm inviting you to the same mindset shift. Can you carefully choose who you're fighting against? And can you be your own coach? Now let's get into the third mindset shift. This happened in 2023. And this mindset shift is called Let People In. So I've spoken up plenty of times. I grew up poor, but my family was very happy. We were poor, but happy. Now, of course, I wanted more, but I wasn't controlled by it. I wasn't controlled by the desire for more.

26:37And so, you know, for us, we were poor, but it's not like we went without. I just explained that I was obese as a child. So nobody looked at me as being like, that girl must be suffering. Not at all. I was living in the land of decadence. We grew up in this town. My parents met, fell in love, got married in East LA. That is where they started their family. And then we later moved to an area called Baldwin Park and La Puente. A little rough and tumble. Well, at the time there was, are you familiar with Hostess, like the Twinkie, Ho Ho, like that brand Hostess? Well, Hostess had a discount store in La Puente and this is where they would send like their old bread and their old pastries.

27:20And so probably like four or five blocks from where we lived, my sister and I would be able to get on our bikes. And for like 10 cents, we would buy expired goods. So it's just like nobody was looking at me and being like this poor girl is not getting what she wants It was just like no i'm just eating old It's like you know what twinkie never expires, but technically they had to put it expiration date I was like, we out here eating old ho-hos and twinkies and like these apple pies for like 10 cents So at the end of the day we were getting what we wanted just differently, you know Like it's indented cans at the grocery store and old bread from hostess.

27:55Listen, you cut off the mold and you toast it. It's fine At least that's what my parents said. Okay. I will say though at the time, I became very aware of the things I had. And I became very aware of how I took care of things. How I saved things. This impression of not having and then having. It's when I got something. I've said this story on the podcast before, but I used to iron my money. And I would hide it in different places. for those just-in-case moments. And so in 2007, I made$100 ,000 in my business. And by 2017, we were doing around$4 million in the business. And I have to tell you that in that decade, in that decade, everything in my life changed so fast, lightning fast.

28:53Like what I bought, how I bought it. I wasn't looking at prices at a restaurant anymore, which was crazy for a girl whose family went out to eat twice a month. We went out to eat on my dad's payday and we would go to this restaurant called Durango's Restaurant. And my dad would be able to order a burrito and a Coke and the rest of us, we were sharing plates and had water. But we thought that was amazing. But we looked at every price. There was no way we could order a drink on the menu because water was free. And if it's free, it's for me. That was the family motto. And so to go to a restaurant and not look at price was the richest thing I could ever do.

29:37I also began covering almost every meal when we went out to eat with family and friends. And I began shopping for groceries at stores I could never imagine shopping in. And then I started shipping groceries to friends and family if I felt like they needed help. Because for years, my family was the family that got that help. And it felt like such a great place to be in to pay it forward. And it was also at this time, I didn't know it. I only looked back at it then. I began slowly pulling away from sharing the highs and lows of my life. Now, it was completely unintentional. I love my friends. I love my family.