If You Don’t Quit, You Can’t Lose

25:05If I'm standing in my purpose, I'm going to do things that are not a walk in the park. Because if we woke up and we thought that building a business should be a walk in the park, I'm going to tell you, you've been listening to the wrong dang person. It is anything but that. if it was that, this room would be 100x. It's not. You are the far and the few in between. And now the difference between me and you is I'll put it on my calendar and I will put a whole day every month to make iPhone videos. And I will do a whole day doing podcast. But there are 22 working days. And so that means that I get 20 days that I don't have to make content.

25:38Hey, I'll take that. I will take that. I will take that. So I want to come back to the limiting beliefs now that you see in other people that fell off the journey, never got on the bad wagon to start. And you go like, here's some of the things that I see in podcasters, YouTubers, whatever, content creators, or just entrepreneurs in general. And you have this whole tech world that you're kind of like now part of. What do you think are some of the most dangerous limiting beliefs that creators have today that they don't realize they have? I've always maintained that social media or creating content reveals your weakest points.

26:15And so what you allow to get in the way, because it's literally you're allowing it, you're choosing it. It's not like, oh, I don't feel like it. No, you're putting yourself on something on the in-between. And we all have like three common things. Somebody does it better. I don't look how I want to look. And I feel cringe. Hear that again and again and again. And I just, I think in such a fortuitous situation, how lucky your lives, how fortunate, how pat on the head and white picket fence, how turkey in the oven in a two-car garage, how lucky that you didn't, you got to go on family vacations. How lucky for you to say, that's not what I want to do.

26:56Optionality is a gift. But y 'all are standing in front of a buffet table with an empty plate saying, I just don't know what I want to put on it. If you have tasted hunger, if you have not had that, you will never go back. I will do whatever I need to do to get to where I want to go. If tomorrow they say that the social media is gone and you have to ride two dolphins and smoke a cigar in the water, okay, get me flipper. I will do whatever. And not everybody's like that. And that's okay. But I'm just going to say, I'm going to win by default. That's it. You're better than me and I'll win because I'll outlast.

27:35Yeah. Preach it. You know, you talk a lot about generations, your, your, your grandmother and, and that kind of thing. And you go, it's dawning on me as you're talking, like, what were the things that our grandparents hated doing that they had to do? And how much more intense was that? You know, I remember seeing this meme during COVID that was like, your grandparents lived through the depression, fought in wars, took bullets. You're being asked to sit on the couch and watch TV, like deal with it. And I was like, that's such a good, a good perspective. And it's just like, oh, I have to make cringeworthy videos.

28:16It's like, imagine how hard it was for a woman to start a business as an entrepreneur in 1950. Women couldn't buy their own house in the 80s. women couldn't buy their own house until 1986. Y 'all that's crazy. That's crazy that my grandmother couldn't start a business that my mother couldn't start a business. She was relegated to Avon. It was actually Jafra, but very few people. I mean, does anybody know Jafra? Hey, the real OGs. Okay. Okay. She went door to door. That was how my mother started her business. And so I just think what an opportunity that all of us have to do right by the people who We sacrificed so much for us to be here.

28:54And this is indiscriminate of the relationships that you have with your parents. This is indiscriminate of the relationships you have with your grandparents. They did what they had to do to survive. And so however we feel about that, thank you. But this right here, I once read that the minute you heal yourself, you're healing seven generations back and seven generations forward. I adopted. I can't even talk. We struggled with the family. and in 2020, our daughter found us after three years of just a really hard search, a really hard search. It was a hard time in my life and the career was taking off and I was like, what am I doing?

29:30I really want this. And what I realized was that the reason it had taken me three years for her to feed was because I needed to become a different person. I actually had to make the decision to heal and deal with a lot of stuff in my past that I kept on saying, I'm just going to keep on going. I'm going to keep on thriving. I'm going to keep on pushing because the thriving was knowing what it was that I wasn't naming. And so I became an addict of success. I became an addict of work so I didn't have to face things I didn't want. And then all of a sudden I realized I need to go back and I need to fix what's going on internally.

30:05And the minute I did that, I realized that this child is going to be different and I will be able to hold space because she's gonna go on her own journey because she doesn't have one mom, she has two. She doesn't have one dad, she has two. And so I just always thank myself that building a business, people think it's because we want to step into our next version. No, building a business is the greatest self-development practice we can ever get into. And so I think to myself, business brought me here. Now it's on me to go back and change things so that other generations don't have to read the same routines.

30:33Oh, that's good. That's good. So what are some of the other things that you don't like doing that you do that you think other people in this space must learn how to do if they want to build the kind of reach and the impact that you've had? So kind of like in this vein of social media to go. I mean, that's that's that's shocking to me. I didn't even know that about you. Like, I would not have said that if someone would have asked me. So I'm going, what are the other things that you have gotten yourself to do, even though you consciously don't want to do them, but you go, these are the things that are necessary in order to have the impact that I want to have, in order to create what I want to create and what you have created?

31:20Everything. like the e-myth starts with a story about a woman who wants to bake cakes and she loves baking cakes and then the bigger her business gets she stops baking cakes so when we start a business we start with something that we're good at that we want that we want to empower people and then the more you grow the less you do the thing that you want and so i've just realized that over the scope of my career i'm going to do a lot of things i don't want to do to get a result that few people have So for me, I just always try to embody the humility of saying, I will do anything. I will do anything in the business to not slow down.

31:55And so I find myself doing a lot of things. Like we had a copywriter who didn't work out. So it's before launch. What are you going to do? Abdicate it? Turn it over 100 % to chat GPT? Absolutely not. I'm going to get back and write the dang funnels. I write my own content because it's my voice. I don't want to do those things. I write every single podcast on my own. I write every single YouTube video on my own. I go out and have 20 minute calls with our customers. These are not things I want to do, but I want a result. And if I want a result, I have to ask myself, how do I get it? And then do I have the willingness to do the work that other people don't want to do?

32:29And the answer is yes. But I will tell you, most of the days are not filled with things I want to do. And I can't wait for the day that that's not the case. But for me, 80 % of the things I'm doing right now, I don't want to do. I just happen to be good at them and I'm filling in the gap. and I'm serving a bigger purpose. But here again, I mean, if you guys came here to get like riled up, I'm sorry, because I feel like I'm rain on a parade. But to me, I just always want to speak my truth. And so that when you see, man, that looks so easy. It's because there was a lot of reps behind the scenes that a lot of people don't see.

32:59So what is the thing in your business right now that you know you need to do that you're not doing? I just want you to think about that. Is there something right now that you know this, if I did this thing, it would move me forward. But I don't really want to do that thing. Because what I'm hearing from you is wanting to do it has nothing to do with your decision-making process about whether or not you do it. The only part of the decision-making process is, is it necessary? And when you use that word humility, I think that's a really beautiful way to use that word of like, I'm never allowing myself to be too good to where I'm above doing what needs to be done.

33:51I think that's, I think that's beautiful. I think that when I walked into this building, I look at this and I think it's like purely aspirational. It's so amazing. It's so beautiful. But I immediately knew that when I came in here, like if this was my building and the bathroom wasn't clean and a teammate had to do it and they were falling through, I would a hundred percent clean the bathroom. It's got to get done. People are coming in the doors. So from - Is their bathroom dirty? Is that what you're saying? Oh, okay. Not at all. But like, it's that. And like, we all have digital, we have digital storefronts.

34:20And so, so many of us are just saying, okay, I'm just going to put that in the storage closet. I'm just not going to clean the bathroom right now. It's like, how you do one thing is how you do everything. All right. I want to hear some questions from you all. You may never get a chance like this to have access to Jasmine, this up close and personal. So who has a question? All right, Betsy. Oh, okay. We got two. So let's go to Betsy first, and then we'll come to Stephanie, and then we'll stay back in here. If it's possible, can we start with, and so this is me, just people say she's bossy. No, I'm a boss.

34:51So let's start just the question, and I will ask other following things to connect the dots. So when you said that you had this$197 course or something, and then it evolved into over a million dollars, like that's usually like we, that's the glory. Can you help us understand the story behind that glory? The story behind the glory was I needed money, like legit. So we bought a house and the estimations flew off the roof and I made a bet on a course I had hired. You guys, this is the first time I ever got into the world. I didn't no digital courses ever existed. So I was like, you know what I'm going to do?

35:29I'm going to teach everything I know about building a personal brand. I sold the tickets for$2 ,000 to an in-person event. And then I hired a video team to do it. I got sold y 'all. They saw me coming. They're like, okay, you're going to need five videographers. You're going to need a DP. You're going to need two producers. And all of a sudden I got this massive bill and I was like, oh my God, then our house budget exploded. And all of a sudden I didn't see enough revenue coming in. I completely panicked. And I was just like, okay, what can I do right now? I put together the course in less than a month.

35:57I recorded it entirely on my own. I had no idea what a landing page was. I had no idea what a webinar was. I had no, I didn't have like a funnel. I knew none of this. I just sat down for three weeks and I was like, okay, here's a checklist, do the checklist. And here's the crazy part is we built it once and we didn't change anything for a year. So I look back at that. That was like the simplest thing I had ever done in my business to bring in a million dollars. So people talk about like the glory days. I would be like, that was the glory days. That's when like we were getting a lead for 33 cents.

36:29I was like the first time I had ever paid. I was like, Oh my gosh, I have to spend$3 ,000. Where did you get those people from? Did you already have an audience that you sold to or? No, I had never, I was a photographer, so I was selling to art directors and things of that nature. But no, this is the first time and people were like, how are you doing this on Instagram? I would just get like, how are you building on Instagram? My clients were coming to me. I had all inbound leads. I didn't do, I'd never paid a penny in marketing. And so all of a sudden people were like, how are you doing this? And I was like, how am I doing this?

36:54So I just created the course and I put it out and somebody had said, oh, there's this thing called retargeting. I was like, I don't know what retargeting is. So like put in like$3 ,000 for people who signed up and you could show them an ad. I made one graphic that's like doors are closing. And I was like,$3 ,000. Like, oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Like, should I be doing this? And that launched 255 ,000. The next time we launched, we didn't use any money and had made 300 ,000. And then the next time people are like, Jasmine, you're getting leads for nothing. Spend money. And then we had spent$13 ,000.

37:23Wait, wait, but where are you getting those leads from? I went on Instagram, on Instagram live. I went like three times a week and I was like, hi, I do this thing, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I was just like, DM me. And so I just sit in my DMs. This was like pre-mini chat. Still to this day, I will use many chat, but like, for instance, we had a job listing. It's pretty important for me. And so I said, comment this word and people thought they were getting the mini chat. And I was like, Hey, Selena, thanks so much. I appreciate it. Checked out your profile. I'm hyper personalizing it. I am in my DMs.

37:53Like the market talks to you y 'all. So market talks to you. I'm wondering if any of you have a limiting belief where you go like, Oh, that, that worked back then, but that wouldn't work now. How many of you are thinking a little bit of that right now? Okay. Karen Mayer Cunningham. How do you build your entire business right now, what would you say is the number one source of new leads and how people find out? What's the one behavior that you do every week? Every Monday, I go live on TikTok for an hour on a God-approved device called an Android. If you're going to celebrate the fall of the Garden of Eden, we can't be friends, but you can buy from me.

38:32But anyway, I go live on TikTok. I have somebody in the comments and they read the questions, questions, answer, questions, answer, questions, answer. I put out 52 pieces of content every day across seven platforms, and I answer their questions, question, answer, question, answer, question, answer. And people are so busy getting ready, you've done nothing, and you've failed the people that need what you have. And did you guys hear what Trent said this morning? How many hours does he spend a week, an hour, a day, even now, an hour a day responding to DMs. I know that Ed Milet did the same thing.

39:08He's been off social for a year. That's part of why he's been off. He would be in there an hour a day because what's amazing is you're like, where do I get the leads? It's like the person commenting in the video. It's like the person that's sitting there watching you. And I'm always sitting there going like, oh, there's only seven people here. No, it's like, Like there's seven people here. Like there's seven leads, like real humans sitting there. I know you do life coaching. We'll move to the next question. But like I would do a poll, a yes or no poll that would help qualify like a lead. So for instance, I might say, do you do over seven figures?

39:43I have a mastermind for seven figure female founders. I'm like, do you do over seven figures? Everybody who answered yes. So now Instagram updated that even if they have a private account, because before you couldn't send a message to a private account, if they respond on a poll, you can message them. And so they said yes. And I went and I messaged every single person. I just sat in the airport for two hours and everybody who said no, the vast majority of people said no. I said, hey, so nice to meet you. Here's a freebie. I just copied the link into a freebie. So I'm growing my newsletter list for free.

40:12And these people feel like they've been served. So there is a way to figure out how to build engagement if we're just paying attention. You're saying you're using the free feature of a poll inside your Instagram stories to do this. You have to take the girl out the ghetto. You can't take the ghetto out of the girl. I'm going to use everything for free. I'm going to use everything for free. And it's me. I am in there. And here's the thing. So people are like, oh, I don't know if that's the best use of my time. I'm not doing it so much so to be benevolent, although it's great. I am so clearly listening to the market and the audience.

40:41It's their words that are informing our messaging. It's their words that are informing our copy. It's those people who I said, do you want to hop on a Zoom for 20 minutes? So what happens is I look at this is the best use of my time for research and development. And I am like, you're responding, but you are giving me goals. Screenshot, screenshot, screenshot, put them into Slack. And I just look over them. What's going on? What are the common themes? I'm going to use these words and serve them up something they want. How many hours a week are you in your direct messages today? Oh, I'm in my DMs probably 45 minutes a day.

41:13Every day? Oh yeah. Seven days a week. That's where you get the leads. That's where you get the leads. That's amazing. Okay. I think That was absolutely amazing. So obviously part of your whole essence is the chip on your shoulder and the toughness that you've had to overcome. So what advice would you give your grandchildren that haven't had that same chip because you provided such a better life for them to become successful and not come from that chip concept? But what advice would you give them to maintain and become successful? Yeah, I have a very similar question, which is when you come from nothing and then you have a lot, how do you make sure you're two, six and eight?

42:06Don't grow up to be entitled little turds. I will say, I'm going to give myself a lot of grace and say I will do it wrong. But what I hope to say is that my daughter doesn't hear advice that she hasn't seen manifested in front of her and that my daughter will raise her children the same way. So if I want my daughter to be benevolent, then she must see benevolence. And if I want my daughter to be kind, she must see kindness. And so if I go to her and I say, it is better to give than it is to receive. If she has not seen me giving, she will do nothing with it. And so in my mind, I hope that the advice I give is just an extension of everything she's seen.

42:41Thank you. That's good. Okay, Stephanie, and then we'll come to MJ. So you've obviously gone through a lot of periods of time when you're uncomfortable, when you're stepping into something that you've never done before. I'm probably in the most uncomfortable space I've ever been. and I come from a place of always like knowing what I'm doing and where I'm going and how I'm going to get there. And I've dotted my I's, I've crossed my T's, I've done all the math, super nerd, maybe like some other people here. And I'm in a space that's super, super challenging. How do you find the will, the way, or the mantra to refocus yourself, to be like, it's good to be uncomfortable.

43:17You're going to really like this. I'm not that evolved yet. I'm just going to be honest with you. So there were times during my darkest days that I just said, you have to be thankful because you now understand people in a way you've never been able to understand them before. Because I went from one thing to another, it doesn't mean that it was easy. It was very, very difficult, but there was always the next thing. And so if somebody said, yeah, but I just feel so stuck. I was like, get unstuck, let's go. I had to be so broken into a thousand pieces that there's this Japanese art form. They break a bowl and they put it back together with gold and it's stronger.

43:49I'm stronger. And so I just want to say, I see you. I don't have any words of wisdom other than every single day. Do something that gets you closer to clarity. And it's not going to be clear and it's not going to feel clear. And it's only in retrospect that you look back and be like, that conversation on October 13th, 2024 was the light that I didn't see. And I had to see it 18 other times. Continue taking action because action is the antidote to the uncertainty. And until you do more actions, is the clear the idea or the next thing will become, have the humility to do the quick tests, have an identity that will start something and then immediately kill it if you know it's not where it is that you want to go.

44:25That's hard and that's scary because they're safe or we can do a cash infusion and be like, this is amazing, but there's a cost to everything that we decide. And I'm like, that's not the cost I want to pay. I would rather run further into a financial runway than to spend money just to get a quick infusion. And then I've lost time in building to the thing that's going to get me to where I'm going to go. I'm tired of short ladders. All right, MJ. Can you talk to us about balance? Because you're so on all the time. And I feel like my life lesson is like, calm down. Because it's caused problems in my marriage and my health.

44:58And that's why my business even exists is helping entrepreneurs find that balance. So how do you stay on? How do you build the reps and the resilience to not burn out? So this is not for everybody. I just live and die by my calendar. And so I'm gracious with myself in my calendar in that if it's not in my calendar, I'm not doing it. So my workday is from nine to five. I naturally, it's disgusting. I wake up around four or 4.30 every morning. I will pray, meditate. I will work out. I will do all of my self stuff early in the morning because I wanna be home to wake up my daughter, do breakfast, do the mom thing.

45:33And then I go into work. So my workdays are my workdays. and at five o 'clock, my husband sends our daughter and is like, you're done. That's difficult for me because I wanna be like just one more little thing, but I just realized that life is too short. So my balance is five o 'clock and on and I do breakfast with her and then JD and Luna come home for lunch. So we do breakfast, lunch and dinner most days together. And I wanna be very clear. I am not a mom who's an entrepreneur. I'm an entrepreneur who's a mom. There's not a right or wrong, but we understand the balance in our home that I am not expected to be the primary caretaker.

46:06We've divided and conquered in very different ways. That is not for everybody. I do not advocate it, but it works for us. And this is how I've found balance, even though I work quite a bit. Are you still working a lot of nights and weekends at this point? When necessary. So with this new offer, okay. So built out a sales team and a coaching team in about 32 days, not recommended. We were going to go in and start this sales process. And I was like, I can figure out sales. I've done sales. And then I just realized that when you get into the world of high ticket sales, there's a whole different beast.

46:37So decided to invest$25 ,000 into a consultant. I was like, okay. They're like, here's everything you need to do. I was like, pull, pull. And this is on top of the things that you're doing. So then you have to go to my business partner and my husband. And I say, okay, we need to renegotiate a few terms. I'm going to be starting at eight. I will be ending at six. I'm going to be meeting Saturdays. I will be batching these things out. I will be watching these trainings while I'm at the gym. I will find a way to get it done in 30 days. Are you with me? And he's just like, absolutely. Because we know that we have to make short-term sacrifices for long-term benefits.

47:10This is not an in-perpetuity thing. So recently, probably a little bit more than normal, but I can already see, I see. I've not worked weekends in over a month, which is great, but I can now see like, it's not on me. The business is going beyond that and that feels really, really good. We got time for one more quick one. Jasmine, thank you so much. Love how you're segmenting your audience because I am one of your potential consistent 10Ks. So thank you. My question is, we talked earlier about serving two avatars with messaging. What's it like to serve two teams from the holding company and the SaaS company?

47:42How has your leadership changed? What's new? What's surprising? So our executive team is part. So one piece of advice my mentor had told me, who's your Mars team? If you had to go and start your life on Mars and you need to start a business there, who do you take? It's savage. But immediately it was like, got it. So they sat on our executive team and we're incentivizing them just like Rory with a portion of performance-based profit. I don't call it profit sharing. That's a very specific word, but performance-based revenue growth sharing. And every company in the holding company sits with its own leadership team.

48:18And so when I sit as an advisor, I am not on that team. And so for me, I've always realized, can you repeat the question again? I want to make sure that I'm answering just the question. I just want to know what your leadership style has changed. How has your leadership style changed, evolved? What surprised you in showing up in both worlds? Oh, this was like a big coming to when I got really quiet. It's I have to let people in. I have to trust that people will do a job better than I will. And the minute I did, everything opened. So now I just find operators. I clock operators. I'm like, where are you at?

48:51Who are you? What are you about? And then I had to make the decision to cognitively say, I trust you. and the minute that trust is betrayed, then we're out. But as long as you and I know that and there's clear KPIs, key performance indicators. Are you hitting your metrics? Here's an SOP. Can you follow that? Can you ideate? Can you solve your own problem? Can you come up with revenues of growth? I look for two things in a team player. Can you make money? Can you operate? We do that. Then my job as a personal brand is to float all visibility across all the brands. So in the future, when I'm talking about, so we built out a program that's leveraged into a company that I have advisory equity in.

49:25So I'm promoting them within my program. So we're going to start finding ways to serve the same demographic across all companies in the holding company. So the bigger the personal brand gets, the more benefits that the companies get to have as well. Thank you. Jasmine, I think when I think about the theme of like everything you've talked about, which is I think the theme of your life and what you're going out to speak on, you know, you started us off with, I cannot lose if I do not quit. And this has been nothing but an edifying look back on your life and your journey and your generational journey all the way back to your grandparents.

50:02And I just want to acknowledge you and thank you for never giving up because you inspire your audience and you inspire all of us on that same journey. So thank you for your resilience and thank you for keeping going, for always getting back up. And thanks for being with us here today. Before we end the show, I want to remind you of three things. Number one, you are the reason I make this show. If this has positively impacted you, I'm honored. Together, we're doing hard things and we're going to continue to grow. Number two, please share this episode with somebody you think would benefit from it.

50:36Remember, doing hard things together makes it a bit easier. And number three, I'd love to get an Instagram DM from you. No, I'm being honest. I read and I answer my own DMs. Send me a chat because I would be honored to know what resonated most with you from this episode. I'm gonna say it again. Thank you for watching and listening to The Jasmine Starr Show.