Jump and the Net Will Appear: The Mindset That Changed My Life

0:00It doesn't mean that when you decide to jump, things will get easy. No way. I can promise you it will be the opposite. It will be harder than anything else you've ever done before. But I can also promise you that it's so much better than staying stuck in the same place, doing the same thing. I walked around in the studio and I was picking up coffee coasters and I threw them away in the trash when I heard him say something that changed my entire life. Jump and the net will appear. Jump and the net will appear. And I stopped cleaning and I stood frozen and I realized I had never heard anything more audacious in my life.

0:37Like ever. But it ricocheted through me like a lightning bolt and I borrowed his words like it was pure salvation. The man who was speaking was a famous photographer, and he was hosting a private high-ticket experience for photographers. And at the time, I had this dream of being a photographer, but I didn't own any camera lenses or memory cards. I only had desire. And I wanted to travel the world, and I wanted to make a living with a camera. I could not afford his workshop. But I offered to help him as an assistant to help clean, pick up food, and create content for him. So I worked for free, but I was able to listen to his presentations while I was cleaning.

1:15When he said, jump and the net will appear, I knew my life changed in that moment because up until that point, I lived in fear. Like undistilled, hundred-proof fear. Like I would take a shot every morning and be like, all right, your girl's wired with some fear. I wanted to be a photographer. But what if it didn't work out? What if I wasn't good? What if nobody hired me? What would people say? What if I fail? Like all those questions were rooted in fear. and fear. Well, for the majority of my life, I let fear drive my decisions. I was afraid of being a statistic as the daughter of an immigrant.

1:50So I got straight A's in high school so I can get a full ride scholarship to college. And then I was afraid I wouldn't have the same options as other kids who came from educated families who had resources and opportunities that I didn't have. So I got straight A's in college so I can go to law school. I wasn't even sure I wanted to be a lawyer, but I was afraid of being poor and struggling. So I told myself that the safe and predictable path of being a lawyer was what I should pursue. And while I was in law school, my mom had a relapse of brain cancer and I was afraid she was going to die. And then that made me afraid that I was going to die a lawyer, which is the last thing I wanted.

2:25So I dropped out of law school and then I was afraid of being stuck. I didn't have a job. I wasn't in school and I didn't have direction. But I had this nagging desire. Like maybe if I was courageous enough, I would say I had this hope. I wanted to be a photographer, but I didn't even own a camera. And so that's how I ended up in that photographer's studio on that sunny afternoon. I was cleaning his studio and I realized that I had never, not once, jumped into the unknown. So my fear kept me trapped. And for the first time, I decided I wanted to try something new, despite my fear. Like the fear didn't go away.

3:03In fact, if I'm being honest with you, the fear got even bigger. But I was more afraid of staying in the same place for another year and then having nothing change. There is the fear of staying the same, and then there's the fear of the unknown. So both of them scared me, but one of them held the chance of unlimited upside. So since that day, I have used his mantra, Trump and the net will appear every time my business expanded. I became one of the most internationally recognized photographers in the world. And I traveled internationally to shoot as well as to speak on stages around the world. And then I created digital resources that created millions of dollars.

3:42And a membership that created millions of dollars. And a tech company that created millions of dollars. And a business coaching program that created millions of dollars. And all of that happened because one day I decided to just jump. I decided I didn't want to choose fear anymore. Now, it doesn't mean that when you decide to jump, things will get easy. No way. I can promise you it will be the opposite. It will be harder than anything else you've ever done before. But I can also promise you that it's so much better than staying stuck in the same place, doing the same thing. One time, I decided to jump and hope that the net would appear when I invested$100 ,000 in a four-month executive and leadership development program with Gary Vaynerchuk.

4:29And no, I didn't stutter. It was$100 ,000 for four months. And that was like literally hands down the biggest investment I had ever made in myself. But getting access to Gary, his team, and his executive coaches changed me from the inside out. I thought I was totally crazy to make that investment. But I knew without a doubt that it was going to work. That I was going to work. I was going to do everything they told me to do. I was going to get a result because I had skin in the game. A lot of skin. I was ready to step into the new level of my life. So looking back, I became a stronger leader. I made more incredible connections.

5:12And being able to see Gary work up close, that was incredible. I ended that program with a clear idea of how to structure my business for more growth, and I walked away cultivating my leadership team. Now, let's talk about another situation where I decided to jump and it didn't turn out the way I had hoped or expected. Okay, so then on the other hand, one time I decided to jump into hiring a famous consultant. Now, he was known for his amazing ideas. The promise, like his shtick, like what he was most known for, was coming up with massively scalable ideas. Now, at the time, I was working with my development team, and I wanted to expand our feature set.

5:47So I decided to invest in his one-day consultancy to give me the right roadmap for developing our tech. So halfway through our six-hour call, so I booked him for a six-hour call, I was totally and completely panicked because I was terrified that I thought it was a$25 ,000 mistake in one day. Yes, I paid him$25 ,000 for a six-hour strategy session. So three hours into the call, he killed every single one of my ideas. I am talking about like demolished them. Like probably looked across and was like, poor, this poor girl, bless her heart. She ain't going nowhere. So there I was like halfway through the call.

6:31And he's like, okay, it's time for us to take a 10-minute break. And then I was like, okay, great. Thank you so much. I stopped my camera on Zoom. And then I walked away. I walked into the bathroom and he started dry heaving. Not only did he squash all of my ideas, and y 'all, I had a lot of ideas. He didn't have any new ideas for me. So there I was. I'd convinced my team to invest in him because I promised, oh, we'd easily make this money back by developing just one of his approved ideas, obviously. I was certain this investment was a sure bet. no biggie. Of course, we got this. And let's just go back to seeing me dry heave into my bathroom sink.

7:14Getting back onto the call, I was humiliated. I had to look at my team and being like, oh my gosh, was this a mistake? And I felt like I'd wasted so much money. At the end of the call, my COO and I chatted and she said what I thought. Well, that was an epic waste of money. And at that moment, I wanted to say, yeah, it was. I agree. But, and here's where I swear to you, me saying yeah, right, or I agree, that didn't feel right. The minute I heard her say, hey, that was a waste of money, I immediately disagreed. Like I felt it in my bones, but like, was I tripping? Like where did, wait, what she said I thought was true, but it didn't feel right.

7:54So how could I agree that a few hours earlier, but then now I think she was wrong. And then the next day it hit me. we did not waste$25 ,000. We saved hundreds of thousands of dollars. No, that's not girl math, okay? Let me explain. If he approved of those ideas or gave me one of his new ideas, we would have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars paying our developers to build something that actually would not have had a positive impact in the business. I wasn't just paying him to tell me how to grow, but here's the crazy part. I was paying him to tell me order to redirect our efforts. Now, looking back at this, it was the best experience because it was the best advice, even if it was painful to hear in the moment.

8:40And because we didn't build those features, we set our sights on improving our offer, which help us make more money without spending money on more development. So in both of these examples, with Gary and with this very fancy consultant, I jumped and then the net appeared, even in ways that I didn't quite expect. So in both of those examples, and then you all, I could tell you countless of others, what I didn't want was to sit in fear. If I stayed in the same place, I could literally predict where I would be one year later, doing the same thing, feeling the same way, living that same stuck life.

9:17So the truth that I know now is that the fear never goes away. The fear is part of our life. But instead of choosing fear and staying the same, I choose the fear of the unknown because it has never, and I mean never, ever let me down. The net always appears. Always. So now my question for you is, are you willing to jump? That's the question. I want to say thank you for watching and listening to The Jasmine Starr Show and having the courage to jump and trust that the net will always appear.