Quarter 2 Review: The Actions I Took to Build My Future

0:0010 years ago, I made the decision to build my personal brand that was elevated, yet approachable, and reflected who I was, not just what I did. I created my website with ShowIt because it's true drag-and-drop freedom, so you can easily build and update your site. Plus, their real human support team, game changer. Want to try it for yourself? Head to jasminestar.com forward slash ShowIt for a 14-day free trial and first month free when you subscribe. Welcome back to the Jasmine Star Show. I'm thrilled that you are here, and I'm especially excited because this episode is literally of the people.

0:33Here's why. At the end of quarter one in 2024, I decided, I put together a podcast episode and we loosely called it Building Bricks. And I'm like, all I'm going to do is I'm going to document what I have done in quarter one in order to build the future in later 2024, 2025, and perhaps even 2026. And in that episode, I was in the middle of it and I was like, you know what? I'm making this episode. I'm not even sure you care. So if it resonates with you, send me a direct message. And so I heard from you and I heard from enough people to make it worthwhile. But here's the thing. I am only doing building brick episodes if I hear from you because these are highly personal things.

1:15This gets heavily into the strategies that I'm using to build long term. And I want to build wide and I want to build it deep. And oftentimes in order to do that, you have to have a really strong foundation. And whenever I think about foundations, I think about bricks. This is like the story of the three little pigs. Is this going to be wood? Is it going to be straw? Or is it going to be brick? Oink, oink, y 'all. We're going to be building some bricks. Okay, we're going to go back at the start of quarter two. Now, quarter two began in April. Now, April 24th, I flew to Nashville and I decided to have an in-person podcast recording session.

1:52And I invited a guest co-host by the name of Amy Porterfield. If you've been listening to the show or watching the show a while, you've seen that all come to fruition. but I have to tell you behind the scenes, Amy reached out to me and she said, Jasmine, why haven't I been one of your co-hosts? And I'm like, oh, because you're a big deal. Amy and I are friends' friends, like in real life. And she is so wildly successful. She's brilliant. She's one of my favorite people. And JD even asked me, you know, if you've been watching or listening to the show for a while, we've had a few guest co-hosts.

2:22And he said, well, why haven't you asked Amy? I said, well, because I got to build up for that. Like I got to practice. I got to practice for the big deal. So when she reached out to me and said, why have I not been on your podcast? I admitted, I was just nervous and it really mattered because you're a big deal to me. And she's like, we're going to do this podcast. And I said, great, I'm going to Nashville, your hometown. We're going to be having a guest co-hosting session. Now, the beautiful thing about doing these guest co-hosting sessions is I'm flying to different cities around the United States.

2:52And when I'm booked for a speaking event, or if I'm going to be at an event, What I want to do is I want to find local entrepreneurs who we could share stories with. Well, the thing about Amy is that she's so well-connected that the people she reached out to, nobody lived in Nashville. So we had Will Gadara. He came in from New York. Ben came in from Florida. Fawn Weaver came in from Shelbyville, Tennessee. And then we had Candace Nelson, and she flew in from Los Angeles. We had a day full of really great conversations and interviews. Now, we also had Gary Vaynerchuk. Now, the reason I'm sharing these like building brick stories is because I think that social media, I'm going to be honest, social media gives off a very nice, glorious illusion.

3:35Listen, your girl loves the illusion. Who doesn't love the illusion? I love sharing a highlight reel. Who doesn't? But the backstory, like the bloopers, the stuff that gets cut on the cutting room floor, a lot of people don't know. Now, the way that any good book author does it is they're going to find podcasts. They're going to find interviews that are really expanding their brand, expanding their marketing. Now, Gary was dropping a book, dating attention, and he reached out to the biggest podcasters in this space. Now, here's the moment of truth. I am not the biggest podcaster in this space yet.

4:11Oh, okay. Yet. We're going to add the yet there because the goal is to always build until we can get bigger and better with every iteration. I wasn't asked to have Gary come on my show. Amy was asked if Gary would go on her show. And so she's like, Jasmine, what do you think? Do you think that we should have Gary do our guest co-host podcasting? And I was like, oh my God, Amy Porterfield, if you do this for me, I might marry you. Move over JD, move over Hobie. I'm gonna marry you if we can have an interview with Gary Vaynerchuk because y 'all know on this show, Garber is my homeboy. I have so much love and respect and like just really a lot of goodness towards a person who has really inspired me.

4:53Well, Gary came on the show and here's the thing. I'm not going to say it was a good episode, but he did repurpose our podcast on his podcast. So you could listen to Gary Vee's interview on the Jasmine Starr Show and you could also listen to the Gary Vee podcast on the Gary Vee Show. So what kind of brick did that lay? on that show, I made sure in my notes to be very articulate and tell Gary the path that led me through watching his career. And then it also allowed me to tell him that I had invested in their executive group coaching and leadership program called Vive. I was able to look at him and say, I am investing to go into this program.

5:33Why? I didn't want him to forget my name or my face. You're going to see it again, brother. You're going to see it again. So here's the biggest take away from these types of conversations. Make sure that you tell people what you appreciate about them, the value that they bring to your life, and be sure to say your name and have a big smile every single room you step into. Building brick from quarter two in April 24th. Now, on the 26th, I was in Nashville and I hosted an event called the Visibility Intensive. This was how to get more eyes and attention on your offer. So if you notice the days I filmed all day on the 24th.

6:09On the 25th, I was exhausted, but I got up, worked with one of our content creators, Sage. She flew with me to Nashville. We recorded content that day, short form content. Now I could have, and maybe I should have stayed in, relaxed a little, but I thought to myself, I am out on the road. And when I'm on the road, I am an entrepreneur first. I'm going to maximize the abilities and the teams that I have when I'm on the road. So we shot content that day. The next day was the 26th, and that was the Visibility Summit. We had Amy Porterfield, Julie Solomon, Rory Vaden. Now, the reason why I'm looking at this as a pretty significant brick is because I had originally had this Visibility Intensive as a bonus for a course that I launched in March.

6:52So I launched a course in March, and I said, a bonus is coming, and it's gonna be dropping in April. That is what we recorded in person. Now, I could have done this entirely online. I could have done everything on, say, Zoom, and it would have been great, except for the fact that I feel deep down in my bones that in the future, I'm gonna be doing live events. Now, please don't ask me what it looks like or my ideas, I don't have it. This is me being 100 with you. But I always have learned that I'm gonna start trusting my intuition and I'm gonna start depending on my self-trust to build the future that I want starting today.

7:26So if I have an inclination that I firmly believe I'm going to be doing live events in the future, Why would I not use this opportunity as training ground? And so that's what I did. Rented a studio and we had all of our students, like hundreds of people were watching live and online. And again, again, what we see on social and what we see as the produced video, right? Like the actual visibility intensive looked professional. Everyone's watching, everything's moving. And on social media, what are we posting? The highlights, all the highs, okay, great. But behind the scenes, getting to that point, I'm going to tell you, it was really difficult.

8:05There were things that were happening behind the scenes that were outside of our control. Despite our best efforts, there were things that were happening and I had to go back. And my biggest takeaway from laying this brick is never assume a third party has your best interest in mind. I'm just going to leave it like that and have that be the biggest takeaway is every time I'm going to be doing a live event or I'm going to be renting a studio to always do due diligence and understand that the only party who has your best interest in mind is you. Okay. But the best part was that the people who watched had a great experience.

8:40They learned a lot and I got to really connect with brilliant people like Julie, Rory and Amy, all people who I truly have so much respect for their business and they served people who showed up so well. On May 3rd, about a week later, I decided to take a personal retreat. Now this was very last minute. I flew back from Nashville. We came home. We had a lot of family time that weekend with our extended families. And then I jumped right into work and it was Wednesday. It was Wednesday of, I think it was like May 1st-ish. And I turned to JD and I said, I just think that I need time and space. I need time to reflect on what I'm actually building.

9:21Not just what I'm building right now in front of me, What are we actually building far into the future? And I realized that I needed a white space. I kept saying, I think I just need white space. I just need some space. I can't, I'm just running so fast that I'm not actually, I don't know what I'm running toward. And so the goal, the goal, I told JD and I told my mentor was to act as if the future that I'm writing down is real. I'm not gonna ask myself, well, do I have the money to build that? Do I have the experience? Do I have the acumen? Do I have the connections? I am not asking any of those questions.

9:56I am just writing as if the thing I want to build is real. And I think that up until that point, if I was being very honest, I kept on getting in the weeds of, but, but, but, then this, then this, then this. And I'm like, no, no, no. I was an energetic block to casting a vision. So my advice, my biggest takeaway from this brick is to create the future as if it is real, as if it is done. And so I spent a lot of time. I was away for three nights by myself. I went back to a place called Sensei. I feel like I cannot say enough good places about the healing qualities of this amazing place, how you do breath work, how you do yoga, how you do fitness, how you eat only clean food when you're there.

10:42I didn't take any digital devices. It was me and my Moleskine notebook, and I just wrote. I had no distractions. And when I was there, I started asking myself, this business that I'm building? Who, like, where do I find the right clients? And I'm not gonna talk so much about the business, at least not quite yet. So I was like, where am I finding the right clients? Up until this point, where have I found clients to pursue the thing? So a lot of outward facing content in a lot of the podcast is people see me as a podcaster, people see me as CEO of Social Curator, I am all of those things. People see me as a wife, daughter, mother, I am all of those things.

11:17There's also a large piece of the business that isn't shown outside so much. Why? We don't have a formalized offer and I'm still experimenting with what is it that I want to build? I refuse at this point in my life, in my career, I refuse to do things that aren't pointing me to the North Star. And so what I needed to do on this retreat is go back, further define your North Star, figure out exactly what it is, and then build it as if it's done. So I started asking myself, where does our like layered, layered levels of clients, where's the deepest place for us to go? So I started listing places like executive group coaching programs was one of them.

11:52So I started listing like Tiger, YPO, Chief, Hampton. And I'm like, that's where my future customers are because what I'm building as if it already exists. And so I started doing research on organizations like YPO. And so I just started journaling. What kind of person am I looking for in YPO? What kind of business do they have? How big is their team? How much money do they have? Do they have outside investment? I'm writing as if all of this is done and true. And I can't even make this up. So I'm journaling and I walk out of my room and I see these, you know, those really like oversized large balloons and they have letters on them.

12:28I walk out of my room and they're in a hallway up a cascading staircase. I see three letters of gold balloons. YPO. And I was like, well, that's weird. I don't do anything about it. Well, that night, the only restaurant they have on property is Nobu. And so I go to dinner by myself. I'm there by myself. I take my journal and I'm just journaling and I'm writing and I'm reading. And I hear a large group of people come in and they're all talking and all this other stuff. And I walk out of the restaurant and I hear out of the corner of my ear, I heard she's from Newport. And the restaurant was empty with the exception of me.

13:04And then this like large party of like 30 people. And I was like, they're not talking about me. Like they're definitely not talking about me. They're probably were talking about somebody else on their table. And I just happened to hear that because I'm from Newport and it was what it was. I let it go. Still at this point, I'm not even sure if it's a YPO group. Now, YPO group, so YPO is a young president's organization. They're all over the United States and they have like regional section chapters. Okay, so the next day I'm journaling by the pool and two women come and sit in chairs next to me.

13:32Well, I get up to go and make a business call. Then I come back in and I'm journaling and a lady says, oh, so tell me more about you. Where are you from? I'm like, I'm from Newport Beach. and she's like, we're from Newport Beach. We're from the YPO chapter. We're YPO gold. And I was like, YPO gold. Did I know what that was? No, but I wrote in my journal, research, what is YPO gold? Because maybe that's where my clients exist. I start asking them questions about YPO. I start asking them questions about their businesses. I come to find out that their husbands run their businesses and they were there at Sensei with their husbands.

14:05And so I got the tea. I started asking, well, what does it look like? How does it sound? How big are the groups? What is the dedication? And then I come to find out that the woman sitting next to me, her husband, is the head of education for the Southern California chapter. You want to know what I'm going to do? I am going to follow up and I'm going to pitch myself to speak at the YPO event. Why? I had a personal connection. I wrote in my journal that that's where I think future business owners for me in the future exist. So why would I not lay another brick there? Has anything transpired since that conversation?

14:39No. but oftentimes when you lay one brick at a time, you don't know what you're building. You can't see the actual finished development until you start laying a ton of bricks at a time. So this is just another brick in quarter two. Now, May 9th, this was less than a week later, I was invited to give a commencement ceremony speech. I graduated from Whittier College and I got an invite to come back and give the commencement speech. And I have to tell you that when I first got the email, I was like, no, I'm not giving the commencement speech. my legit response was no I was honored but I was like no and I talked to JD and I said why would they have me come and give the commencement speech like that's silly there's got to be other way more successful people or legit people to give a commencement speech and he said something that really changed like how I perceived the the opportunity he had said how many Latinas do you think are giving a commencement speech in 2024 he's like how many Latinas are going to be in that graduating class watching somebody else?

15:37How many women? How many people of color? How many people were underrepresented? He's like, how many first time college graduates are going to see what it is you do? And he's just like, they're not inviting you back because you're the most successful person to ever graduate that college. They're inviting you back because you can speak to somebody in the audience that needs to hear from you. And so I agreed. And I have to tell you that I was really intimidated because number one, I didn't remember my commencement speech. I don't remember who spoke at my commencement ceremony. I don't remember the commencement speech.

16:06So I went to YouTube and I started looking at commencement ceremony speeches. Now, here's the thing. Don't ever do that. It is the most intimidating thing because you see Oprah, you see Barack Obama, you see Steve Jobs, you see all these brilliant people talking about their commencement speeches. And I'm like, how am I ever going to give a commencement speech like that? Like Taylor Swift gave an amazing commencement speech. And I was like, okay, Jasmine, you cannot compete with them. So if you can't compete at the game they're playing, it's time for you to play your own game. And so one of the unique value propositions that I had given this commencement ceremony speech was that I actually went and graduated from that school.

16:42I talk about my experiences. When you walk into a room or when you are in front of a group of people and you realize you cannot play the game as it currently exists, make up your own game and leverage things that are entirely unique to you. I have to say that walking out onto the field, it was held in a stadium. I'm walking out into the field and in the corner, I see JD, I see my daughter, Luna, I see my mom, my dad, my mother-in-law and my father-in-law. And I have to tell you, it was just like the coolest freaking moment that their sacrifices coming into this country has empowered their daughter and daughter-in-law and Luna's mom to be up on that stage.

17:25And so I want to encourage anybody who's out there, like say yes to these opportunities and take the time to celebrate. Actually, after the commencement speech, we went across the street to a restaurant called California Grill. I was a waitress at California Grill for three years throughout college. So I worked on campus and I also was a waitress. That was how I paid for school. That's how I had money to live. And so going back to California Grill and going back to the place that I had worked and be like, girl, you have come a long way. Okay, that was May 9th. On May 15th, I went to New York City for the Vibe event.

18:02I invested in a leadership and training program. It's an accelerator, a growth accelerator through VaynerMedia. That is Gary Vaynerchuk's company. They brought in a group of 10 people. Now, they wanted a very distinct mix of people. They wanted five CMOs from Fortune 500 companies, and they wanted five entrepreneurs. Now they did not announce Vive publicly. They went through and they curated the first group of 10 as an experiment. And I have to tell you, whenever there is a guinea pig experience, I'm like, sign me up. That's the thing I wanna go to. Now I'm gonna have a separate podcast breaking down everything that I learned because that was my commitment.

18:39When I talked about joining this program, I said, I'm gonna share the nitty gritty about that. That is gonna be coming up in a future podcast episode. What I will say, what I will say, let's first start with the takeaway the biggest takeaway from this brick building experience on may 15th and on may 16th was to listen to your intuition here's a backstory the event ended on may 16th i was slated to catch a flight on the 16th to go to miami because i had to be in miami for a recording on the 17th i'll get to that in a second well on the 16th the car picks me up and I'm like, okay, I'm going to JFK.

19:18I'm flying to Miami. Well, it was pouring rain. It took us three hours to get to the airport when it should have taken like an hour and 15 minutes. So I'm already barely, barely making it. So I'm running in the airport with my bag and I can't get through security. And I'm like, what's going on? Of course. And they look at my ticket and they're like, ma 'am, you're not flying out from JFK. You're flying out from LaGuardia. And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. I'm at the wrong airport. So I go, I try to find a new flight to Miami leaving from JFK. Nope, that was the last one of the night. Try to find another flight from LaGuardia leaving later on that night.

19:53No, that was the last flight. So I have to move my ticket to the next day, which means I'm either gonna go back into the city like three hours in the rain again, or I'm gonna try to find a hotel nearby. So I decide to find a hotel nearby because I'm not sure if it's going to take me three hours the next morning for a six o 'clock flight. And so I hop on my phone and I'm like, okay, I see that there's availability at a few hotels. There's a hotel that's located on the inside of JFK airport. I take a tram. I walk all the way to that. They said, sorry, ma 'am, we're fully booked. I have to take the tram all the way back.

20:26I catch an Uber and I'm like, I need just to get to the nearest hotel. I just bring up the nearest hotel. I'm in the back of an Uber and I pull up to this hotel that's in Queens, New York. It's about like an eight minute drive from the airport. And I have to tell you that I am a girl from the hood. I know hood and I'm not intimidated by the hood. I will tell you that at this particular area of Queens where I was, I was like, dude, I don't think this is the safest place for you. As we pull up, all of the windows of this hotel have been blocked out. I'm not going to say the name of the hotel. All of them had been blocked out and there were five cop cars in the front and I'm sitting in the back.

21:04It wasn't an Uber. It was a cab. I'm sitting in the back of the cab. The cops are out there and then there's an ambulance and there's people waiting in the lobby. And I turned to the cab driver and I'm like, do you think it's safe here? And he's like, yeah, you're fine. You're fine. So I get my bag out. I walk into the hotel and I come to find out that half of the hotel is closed for renovations. So their check-in desk isn't really a desk. It is a fold-out plastic table with a laptop on it. There is a line of people and I'm hand to heaven. There is a bird in a cage. I don't know if it's a chicken.

21:35I don't know if it's somebody's parrot. And I'm looking around and people are hungry. They're tired. There's a line of people. There's one laptop on a fold-out plastic table that looks like it's probably from Walmart. And I'm like, oh my God, you're in trouble. This does not sound like the good space for you to be in. Cops are walking out because there was an attempted murder in one of the rooms. I'm like, you got to leave. At that particular point in time, I look back and the cab is driving out. And I was like, okay, you don't have a cab. You're in Queens. I'm like, it's fine, Jasmine, just stay.

22:05You could just stay the night. You're just going to be sleeping a few hours in this bed. It's not a problem. So I wait in line and then I get to the front. The lady says, I'm sorry, we're fully booked. There's no rooms tonight. We've been oversold. So I'm like, okay, where can I go? She's like, well, there's a hotel a few blocks away. And I'm like, okay, if I call a cab, will a cab come pick me up and take me the few blocks? She's like, this is New York. No, they're not going to take you a few blocks. So it's pouring rain. I walk out of the hotel and i'm in queens. It's at night with my suitcase and i'm walking alone to another hotel And I keep on repeating to myself.

22:38This is so stupid. This is so stupid This is so stupid. You shouldn't be doing this. You shouldn't be doing this And all of a sudden i'm taking my freaking suitcase and I start running I start running in the rain and i'm like You should have listened to your intuition. I get to another hotel. They're fully booked. I walk to hotel across the street they're fully booked. I'm sitting there and I'm like, I'm on the verge of almost crying. I get on my phone and my phone's about to die. So I asked the lady at the hotel, can I please use your computer? I use her computer and I find a hotel. There is one freaking hotel.

23:07And I'm like, I book it sight unseen. And I'm like, okay, I'm just going to get to the hotel because I need a place to sleep. I'm so exhausted. None of this is on social media. None of this is going on with anything. So then I call an Uber, an Uber picks me up and it's up. We're driving like 30 minutes. And I'm like, I think we're going in the wrong direction. I'm like, I'm so sorry. Where are we going? And he's like, we're going to Flushing, New York. And I was like, where is Flushing, New York? And he's just like, it's just where your hotel is. So I pull up to this place and I'm like, I think we're in the wrong place.

23:37I'm not even lying. It looks like a strip mall that has like, I don't know, like eight stories. And I'm like, oh, this is the wrong place. This is the wrong place. And he's like, no, this is the address. And I see a small sign for this tiny little, like, I can't even remember the Nemo Hotel. It was totally nondescript. I get into the hotel elevator and the lady looks at me. She's like, what are you doing here? She's like, why you got a suitcase? And I was like, there's a hotel here. She looks at me. She's like, there ain't no hotel here. And I was like, oh my God. And then it's like out of a movie.