I Learned How to Race a Rally Car: Here’s What It Taught Me About Business

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0:37Welcome to the Jasmine Starr Show, where we talk about life, business, and everything on The In-Between. I am your host, Jasmine Starr. And I know you might be a wee bit tired of hearing your girl talk about it, but I'm talking about my word of the year and how it's showing up in different ways in my life. So in the past, I have had a word that comes to embody my word of the year. In the past, it's been trust. It's been self-love. It's been patience. And this year, the year of 2023, my word is rebirth. This means that I will be doing things in a new way, becoming unattached to my former self. I began doing entirely new things in new ways like this year.

1:18Like y 'all have heard me talk about how I have started my very first mastermind. I've been a part of masterminds for a very long time, but I decided to host one entirely on my own. And we've gathered 15 amazing entrepreneurs and we've spent time meeting every month. And we had an in-person event in Newport beach and I became a different person doing something I've never done before. Also, I might've mentioned that I am in the process of rebranding jasminestar.com and I've had to do a deep dive on really figuring out who I am supposed to become and figuring out what the new brand will be. And it has been an exhausting, exhilarating, empowering experience to really look at not where I am, but where I'm going and then building a website around that.

2:03Y 'all, it is scary. I'll have a whole podcast explaining what that process has been, but it's been really amazing. I have joined multiple masterminds this year, but one of them in particular. This mastermind is called Hampton and it is a community for CEOs and founders. Now you've been listening to the podcast for a while. A few episodes ago, I interviewed a gentleman by the name of Sam Parr. I started listening to Sam's podcast, My First Million, and really became intrigued with how he thought, what he did, the way that he processed life in his business. And so on his podcast, he doesn't really talk about a lot of the new businesses that he's building.

2:40He keeps it pretty stealth and low key. And so I was like, oh, brother, you just met your match because you like to keep things in stealth mode. And I'm a professional sleuth. Like, you know, your friends are like, well, I'm not sure I can find him on the internet. I was like, let me blow into each of my fingers because your girl's about to do some searching. So I started beginning to search for this program that he was not talking about publicly on his podcast. And by a series of things on social media, I was able to connect with somebody who gave me a link to the beta program of Hampton. And so I signed up for this program, not really knowing what it was.

3:16It was a type form. It wasn't even a legit website. It was just like, put your name in. Are you a CEO or a founder? How much is your business making? And I was telling you, I'm like, I'm gonna be honest. I felt very nervous getting into this because this was the first time that I ventured into the world that is Silicon Valley, that is tech founders, that is things of that nature. Speaking of things of that nature, like Silicon Valley venture funds, raising capital for my business. I was way out of my league. So the way that it works is that this community is made up of a few thousand people, but you are paired up with eight to 10 other business owners.

3:52And I met with our first cohort for the first meeting a couple months ago and I was super intimidated. And I was the only female in the group and they were really freaking brilliant and have raised tens of millions of dollars for their business. They're doing really incredible things. And so I found myself talking, but also doing a heck of a lot more listening. And then we had our second meeting and I kind of started feeling the groove. And I think that the cohort, all of like my new founders and CEO friends, we started learning how to trust each other, engage and ask really powerful questions.

4:23And then something happened for me in our meeting number three. We do these things where we go in a deep dive into a business. And one of the gentlemen did a deep dive in his business and he had talked about how he had raised well over$56 million for his business. And the business had done extraordinarily well. And he kept on saying, we have an arsenal of funds and I'm not sure how to deploy it. And I will tell you that before I was feeling super intimidated because they all were speaking a language that I was completely unfamiliar with. And then all of a sudden I started realizing that I had an entirely different skillset.

4:58I come from scrappy bootstrapped world. And I also come with a history and a deep understanding of marketing and digital marketing. And so a lot of the guys were talking about the topic in one way. Here I was as an outlier speaking about it from an entirely different way. And instead of being embarrassed or ashamed or feeling less than, I was like, no, y 'all, like this strategy is going to work here and you're not going to have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to actually make it happen. I remember being really supported, like the guys in the group were like, hey, thanks so much for the ideas.

5:29And then my mentor later, you know, sent me a message and he was like, hey, continue speaking up. And that meant a lot to me to have somebody say like, you have a voice and use it. And so I have found a new place and a new group of friends and a new group of business owners. Well, I'm going to say, should I say friends? Like maybe that's, I mean, listen, nobody's calling me to braid their hair. You know, like they're not saying, Jasmine, come put cornrows in my hair. I know. Okay. We're not friends, but we're friendly and we are all pursuing something that we're wildly passionate about and we're pushing each other.

5:57Like this is less about feelings and more about what are you doing to move the ball down the field? What are you doing to move the needle? How are you growing your business? And to have that type of like support and pressure is a really great and incredible thing. And the biggest takeaway for me is surround yourself with people who will apply support and who will also apply pressure. People who won't give you Slack. They will give you support, they won't give you Slack. But speaking of Slack, this is where most of our communication takes place. It is a platform called Slack. So in the Hampton Slack, I saw an invitation for rally car racing.

6:28Like, let me just back up a little bit. Let's back up. I want to go back down and just let you know that I had no idea what a rally car was. I literally went to Google and I Googled it. It just is like fast cars. And I'm like, I love fast cars. Sign me up. But it wasn't about the car. It was really, who can I meet? AKA, what drivers can I meet? Who's going to be at this event? And how can I get really uncomfortable? I've always maintained that if I'm not a little bit uncomfortable, a lot of the time I am living a small life. I am not doing the thing that I've been put on this earth to do. So I actively seek out opportunities where I am wildly unqualified and wildly uncomfortable.

7:04I've always maintained, I want to be the dumbest girl in every room and the poorest girl on every yacht. Don't get it twisted. And I just felt like this room, or should I say this rally car race course, I knew that I was going to be the most inexperienced and aka the dumbest. And as long as I had the humility to ask the questions, then I would step in and I would walk away knowing a heck of a lot more than I did going in. That was my only ambition. Talk a little, listen lots and be unafraid to ask questions. So I booked a ticket and then I booked flights and I asked JD if Luna would be able to come along with us.

7:42Why? I want her to see her mom do things where she is living in a constant state of uncomfortability. I want to normalize what failure means. I want to normalize adventures. I want to ask her, when is the last time you took an adventure? When is the last time you failed? I want to use these words so often that they lose their power. I want her to see her mom do things that she would ultimately want to do at some point in the future. So while I was talking, learning, networking, JD and Luna were learning how to fish in Texas. They were going to the library. They were swimming. And at night, she was able to meet a lot of my newfound friends there.

8:20So let's go back to us arriving in Texas. We flew into Austin and we had booked a separate car, but for some reason, the car that we had booked, they didn't have it. So y 'all, we drove a Camaro. I don't even, y 'all, like it was like the Camaro was like preparing me to get to fast cars. And I was like, okay, Texas showing up. The only thing missing, I needed a cowgirl hat. Okay, so we drove to about Dripping Springs, Texas, and that's where this event was. And the event was like mostly a way for CEOs and founders to get together and talk shop and pinpoint strategies and talk about growth. It was very growth focused.

8:55And these conversations, I just tell you, man, they were insightful. They were intimidating. They were very challenging. And I've always maintained that, you know, like, what is this like? If I'm the smallest dog in the pen, I'm playing in the right pen. If I'm the biggest dog in that pen, like get out, baby. Like this to me was playing with the big dogs. And it made me feel like, even if I didn't feel like I belonged to the room, all I was really trying to do is keep my head above water. And how did we normalize keeping your head above water? Well, on the night of our very first night, so the night of night one, we had a bonfire and they called these F up nights.

9:30So what you did is you sat around a bonfire with s'mores and everybody got really real. We led into having conversations about the biggest mistakes we made in business. And I have to tell you, this is not normal business conversations. Like you're not sitting there talking about your highlights or the things you wanna do next, because the thing is, it's much easier to talk about where you're going or what you want to do. It is really hard to talk about your biggest F-ups and they literally called it F-up night. And I was like, okay, I'm here for this. So to sit around with a group of entrepreneurs talking about their biggest mistakes, it really normalized that there are so many more mistakes than there are successes.

10:09And what this did is it broke down barriers for us to have real conversations around finding business partners, about legal woes, about being oversubscribed, about raising too much money and having too high of a valuation, about letting go of team members, about HR, about life business balance. It was amazing. So at the end of that night, everybody just felt like in addition to a surplus of sugar and a lot of vulnerability, we were like, everybody is ready for bed. So the next morning we went to a town called Dale, Texas to drive rally cars. Now I didn't even know where like Dale, Texas was. And I didn't know that until I arrived at the rally car racing track, like they said, you have to know how to drive stick.

10:50I do not know how to drive stick. Like I should also mention that I was only one of two women on this entire retreat. And we both had to be taught how to drive stick on a rally car racetrack. So not only am I learning how to drive stick, I need to do it in a rally car. So I want to let you know what it actually looked like. So we sit and we get trained on how to drive stick. So we're at the rally school and they're giving us training on what we need to do before we get into the car. And everybody goes through the same training. If you know how to drive stick or even if you don't know how to drive stick.

11:27So let me just set the scene though, because when I thought about rally cars, I thought of like dusty red clay roads. Unfortunately, Texas has its own weather personality And it was pouring rain And so I just thought, oh, they're going to cancel it No, no, we were going to drive in the pouring rain And the problem was that the cars are like completely souped up And it was completely foggy windows on the inside And I was like, okay, this is pretty disastrous So I am learning how to drive sick by one of the best rally drivers in the world. Like, I want to pause here for a second because this is not like your uncle or your dad teaching you how to drive stick.

12:08I get in the car and he assumed I knew how to drive stick. And I was like, oh no, I don't know how to drive stick. Like, this is really embarrassing. I'm so sorry. And he's like, no, I'll be really patient. And here's the thing. I am sure, his name was Fielding. Okay, I am sure Fielding has nightmares of me, you guys. Like, it was a very difficult thing. And I just kept on saying, you want to be uncomfortable. don't worry that you keep on stalling the car. And so I started off and we started doing well. I started going around the track. And now I know that like you have to push the clutch in and then release the clutch and press the accelerator at equal proportions.

12:40All of this is new to me, but I'm learning and I'm doing really great. So then I say, hey Fielding, can you take a video of me learning how to drive sick? And he's like, sure. The minute the brother turns on the camera, I stall. Not once, not twice, not thrice, not four times, not five, six times, I stall. And I'm like, okay, just turn off the camera. I can't. Like, I am not doing this well anymore. We're literally stuck so far out in the track that I have to drive to get us back, period. I want to get out of the car and just say feeling, drive us back. And he wouldn't let me. And so I thought to myself, well, ain't this the dangest thing?

13:16It feels like sometimes when I'm in business, like somebody just get in the car and drive. Like I've given it my all. And he turned to me and he said, you got too confident. Thought that was interesting. I was doing well. I was accelerating. I was pushing the clutch. I was downshifting. And he said, you got too confident. And I thought that that was a really good business lesson because oftentimes when I look at whenever I start stalling in business, it's because I got too confident. I stopped paying attention. But as a side note, I wanna just get away from that for a second. JD, if you're listening to this podcast, can you please teach our daughter how to drive stick?

13:52Okay, like you will never know when it will come in handy. and JD, while you're at it, can you teach Luna how to drive, how to drive stick and then how to change her tire too? I never want my daughter to sit in a room full of men and say, I don't know how to drive, like change my own tire. Okay, but anyway, before we hit the track, we had to sit through safety lessons. And while our coach was telling us what to do, I was really shocked to hear his advice. And it was shocking because it just wasn't for rally cars, but I started listening to it like business advice too. So that's what we're gonna talk about today on the podcast, what learning how to race rally cars taught me about business.

14:28So breaking down into three main points. Point number one, keep your eyes on where you want to go. Resist the urge to get distracted by what is swirling around you. So let's pause. What happens is that when you're driving and you feel like things are getting out of control, you look at where the problem is. You don't look for where you want to go. So oftentimes you find yourself looking right in front of the car to see, oh my God, what am I going to hit or what is in front of me? Or you'll look at your steering wheel, which does nothing because you're literally like staying stuck. Or you'll look down at your driving stick, whatever it's called.

15:04What our coach said is look for hope. Always look for where you hope you want to be. If that ain't business advice, I don't know what is. Whenever I get distracted and whenever I feel really down, it is because I am only ever looking at what is in front of me and what I can control. And what I learned is look to where you want to go and that is how you will get there. Point number two, if you're overwhelmed, stop, breathe. Like literally what they said in rally car racing is if you are overwhelmed, just stop. Why? Because as you're learning how to drive a rally car, you're learning how to think in new ways.

15:46Here's just a very simple example. When you drive a standard car, you're using your right foot to press on the gas and on the brake. But when you drive rally cars, you're using your left foot on the clutch and your left foot on the brake. You're literally retraining years of learning how to drive in an entirely new way. So you are retraining your neural pathways to think in a new way with your feet and how you drive. But here's another thing. When it comes to business, you are also retraining your neuropathways because as an entrepreneur, you have to think differently than anybody else. Most people do not think like you and they do not feel like you.

16:27You are doing the work to retrain your neuropathways. So when you're in a moment of panic and you don't know what to do, pause and breathe. It sounds so simple, but that is truly life-changing advice when you're driving a rally car, going super fast and over potholes and unexpected things. But it's also even more true in life. Whenever you are doing a lot or it feels like it's too much, trust the process and breathe because you are retraining yourself to think in a new way. Point number three, pushing the brake will straighten your path. That sounds weird, right? Pushing the brake will straighten you.

17:08Yeah, it feels counterintuitive, but trusting the brake allows you to drift while you're taking sharp turns. So when you think about this, what we think will happen is when we brake, things will stop. But that's not true in business and when you're driving a rally car. When you stop, your car does not stop. You just stop acceleration. When you're driving a rally car, when you really press the brake, your car then slides. You're called drifting. And as you're drifting, you could take sharp turns and straighten your car out. So my biggest takeaway and reminder is it is okay to press the brakes and take sharp turns.

17:50It is okay to stop or press the brake in your business, change the course so that you straighten out your growth path. I have created this podcast for you because, well, you might never want to race a rally car, I really do hope that you apply these lessons to your life and to your business. I walked away from this event believing that I can keep my eyes on hope and I can trust in my ability to rewrite my neural pathways and confidently push the brakes without feeling like I'm slowing down. And I hope the same for you. Like always, I create these podcasts as a labor of love. We pour hours and hours into creating this content and recording and editing and uploading so you have the tools to grow.

18:35And we do this at no cost to you because we believe that there is power in this community. So because of this power, this is my very clear ask, plain as day. Can you please take 40 seconds to leave a five-star review or heck, leave any review, I'll take them all. You have no idea how much these reviews attract and help us attract amazing guests and create even better content. So I'm gonna be like just 100 % myself. This is me asking very clearly for something that might not be a big deal to you, but it is a huge deal for myself and the team. If you have found this show helpful, inspiring, or maybe you just simply feel like making my day, I would love to see your review.

19:16I personally read them all. So thank you. And thank you for listening to the Jasmine Star Podcast.

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