Quarter One Review: You Don’t Get Invited—You Build the Table

0:00For many years, I was never invited in the room or to sit at a table. And this is your reminder, you build your own tables. You won't get invited to rooms or tables if you have not built your own. Period. The end. Welcome to the Jasmine Star Show, where we talk about building a business and doing whatever it takes to get exactly what we want from our definition of success. So every quarter, I drop what I call laying bricks because I believe that we lay bricks for the future foundation of the skyscraper we want to build. And so this particular episode is just an opportunity to talk real talk about business.

0:35What's happening behind the scenes? Because I dare, I dare a fool in 2030 to tell me I got lucky. Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. And so what I'm doing with these episodes is just documenting the messy middle. What are you doing to get ultimately what you want? And I'm here to talk about the losses. I'm here to talk about cool things. And this is now, goodness, I think this is like the sixth laying bricks episode I've done. And so I've been able to say, okay, so in quarter one or, you know, of 2025, this happened and look what happens in quarter two of 2026. So you never know like the relationships that you create.

1:14You never knew the opportunities that come your way. And so this is really important for me just to kind of document what's happening behind the scenes. And so if you've ever wanted to get a front row seat of what it looks like to build a seven and eight figure business, well then pick up a cup of tea. We're going to be getting in that today. So normally I start with like, here are a series of business things that happened and I don't talk too much about my personal life. And I think it really does behoove all of us to keep the real the real because business and life are often very intersected.

1:43So let's go back. It's December 30th, 2025. This is before we start the year. And my very first business, online business mentor, he was getting married. He was having a very small wedding in Austin, Texas, and I was invited. Cool venue. It was going to be a New Year's Eve. Like, we were so excited. So my husband and I arranged for our daughter to stay at my mother-in-law's, and we were going to ring in 2026. And I just imagined myself, it was a black tie wedding, and oh, we're going to dance. We're going to have like a great time. So on December 30th at 430 in the morning, we rouse our daughter, and we already told her.

2:21She's going to be celebrating New Year with her grandma and cousins. And she's excited. She even buys her own decor for New Year. So we arrived to my mother-in-law's house in LA at 5.15 in the morning. It is pitch black. And my daughter promptly has a panic attack. And no, not a tantrum, not a cry fest. She's like, can't breathe. And she says, you can't go. You can't go. you can't go. And so I tried to stay calm and say, we've discussed this and you're going to be okay. And then there's just something about being a mom where you know this isn't normal and it's probably not right. And so immediately I go on and I see if I could buy a ticket for her to see if she can come with us to Austin.

3:02No, kids aren't invited to the wedding, but I was like, we can just figure it out. We'll just get her there. And of course, every ticket is booked and we're flying the day before the wedding. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is not happening. So my husband and I quickly have a conversation and meeting the mind. And he said, listen, I'll drop you off at LAX and you can go by yourself and I'll stay home with her. And I sat there and I thought, that's actually the antithesis of what I want to start 2026. Because if you've been around the podcast for a while, you'll know that 2025 was like a year of ups and downs for me.

3:32And I didn't want to start 2026, especially Lunar New Year. It's year of the horse, right? It was new beginnings, fast, go. And I knew that my word of the year that I downloaded was my word of the year was to relax. And so ironically, I feel like what you step into is what you're going to be challenged to at the beginning. And I was like, am I relaxing right now? Am I relaxing with this child who's promptly having a panic attack in the back of my car at five o 'clock in the morning? Absolutely not. So OMG, welcome to 2026. You're going to practice it right now. And what I decide is that I envision myself bringing in the new year by myself.

4:03And I envision it outside of him. And I immediately knew that was my answer. I'm not going. So I turned to my daughter and I say, we are not angry and we love you, but mommy needs a second. So we drive back home. We put her back in bed. And my husband's like, okay. And I said, I feel angry. I was like, I'm not mad. All I feel is anger and I don't know what to do with it. And I'm having a logical conversation with him before 6am. And he's like, no problem. I said, I think I'm going to go to the grocery store. And he like slowly blinks him. He's like, you haven't been to the grocery store since 2001.

4:39What are you doing? What? He said, I don't know. Nothing's open right now except for the grocery store. I just need to walk, bro. I just need to walk. And he's like, okay. So go to the grocery store. I'm just putting things in my cart. I'm like, explore these emotions. What's going on? And I said, I felt disappointed that the thing I wanted to do wasn't happening the way that I wanted. And by the time I checked out, I had decided I'm gonna choose to believe that everything is happening for me. I don't know what would happen with my flight. I don't know what happened on the commute ride in. I don't know what happened on the dance floor.

5:10Maybe I broke an angle or maybe it was just supposed to be that I was supposed to start my year fully relaxing. So I got back home, back groceries. We have coffee at home, baby girl. We have conversations about what it means around our emotions. And next time we get a try again. And then we just book a staycation. Go to Laguna Beach. We check into a hotel. Actually, how do we ring in the new year? Completely and totally relaxed. Was it how I wanted? No, but I really do think it started quarter one in the best way possible. So let's get into January 13th to the 15th. This is where I hosted my seven-figure mastermind.

5:47People come to Newport Beach. And the goal here is to gather a group of women who have a seven-figure business who are scaling to eight. And this was an opportunity for people to get together and say, what are we going to do this year? And how do we do it on our own terms? So I decided to set the intention and the focus of this particular in-person mastermind. And the word was focus. And I don't know if you've ever heard, like you have to teach the things you have to learn. And so if I decide like, oh, I need to learn patience. What will I be tested with? Everything that will try my dang patience.

6:20So it's like, I knew that I needed to speak about focus because what was I really struggling in? the ruthless prioritization of what I needed to do. And what I found myself doing and saying is like, okay, so my three focuses for the quarter are this. My four focuses for the year is this. And so it was once described to me that focus becomes more palatable and more effective. So focus is more effective by subtraction, not addition. And so if I say I'm focused on four things and I only have 100 % of my focus, well, then each of those things have a 25 % chance of my effort focusing on that. And which is fine, but I'm only going to be getting results in 25 % of the time.

7:00Now, if I only focused on one thing, well, then it would be 100 % of my attention in 100 % of the time. And how much do you think I'd be getting those results? So the intention of the mastermind was focus. And boy, oh boy, was I definitely challenged on that. So we were really focusing on why. Why do we struggle with focus? Now, number one, we like to diversify risk. You know, it's like, do I go all in in this? Because if I had three business options instead of one, well, then just in case that one doesn't work out, well, then this one's going to work. I understand that our brain is hardwired to stay safe.

7:36And as an entrepreneur, risk is not safe. So if risk is not safe, diversify risk, we're safe. But what happens with that is the dilution of results. And so our brain, if we just say, okay, brain, I know what you're trying to do, but I'm actually smart enough and I got here. I'm going to trust that my focus, my ruthless elimination of other things, this is where we're going to stay. Number two, entrepreneurs, we're creative and basic is boring. Like one, one thing you want me to eat like porridge for the rest of my life? Like this, no, no. And here's the thing. We love porridge. We eat it every morning until we're told that we can only eat porridge.

8:11And we're like, no, no, absolutely not. So why do we struggle with it is because we classify it as boring. And what we like is new beginnings. Now, seasoned entrepreneurs, they're like, this is the game. Foundations are the game. Basic is the game. Now, if we put this in like a sports analogy, some of the best athletes, like let's take Kobe Bryant. Kobe Bryant was unrivaled at doing the foundation every day. He's dribbling the ball down the court. One of the best NBA players at the time and still will be. One of the best players. And what does he do? He spends hours on the basics. He's eaten his porridge every day and more often than the other person.

8:52Why do we struggle with focus? Number three, quick money is exciting. Oh, as entrepreneurs, it's like, oh, we're hardwired to find ways to make money, which is great. But what I've realized that now is when you have a series of short ladders, you actually sure you're missing the opportunity to build the one ladder to get you to where you want to go. And so the short ladder will preclude you from building the one ladder higher. So at this mastermind, I was teaching the very thing that I needed to set this year. And then I had to step into it and tell them, these are the things I'm letting go. And you should have seen like the jaws on the floor.

9:28Like what? Like that is a massive revenue stream for you. To which I replied, I know, but that massive revenue stream is actually slowing me from the revenue stream I want to build and that I'm called to build. So it goes the antithesis. Going all in actually increases risk. So our brain is like, stop. Going all in means that I am going to eat porridge for the rest of my life and I'm going to love it and give me a second bowl. And then thirdly, it really does mean that there is going to be a slowing of quick money. You will have sustenance, but I don't want quick money as much as I want strong money, dependable money, consistent money.

10:09Let's go to legacy money. I'm going to share podcast from the mastermind, little tidbits of it because I've always said, I promised God, there was no reason I should have started a business. I'm the most unqualified, uneducated, unfunded, unconnected person that there ever was. So I promise God, if I ever got to a place where my opinion would matter or anybody would care, I'm going to share everything I know. So I don't charge you for the podcast. We don't run ads on the podcast and I'm not even charging you to come into the mastermind, right? I'm going to share these tidbits with you because I'm staying true to my promise.

10:36I'm staying true to my purpose of saying I'm going to fulfill on this and I want you in the room. But you and I need to agree on something. You need to agree to focus. You need to have the ruthless elimination to understand where it is you want to go. Let's get to January 20th and 21st. I hosted a class called the new rules of marketing. So I was like, I'm going to put together this free class. What's really changing marketing in 2026. Here again, I want to share everything I know. So 2026 social marketing and the concept was what to stop doing, what to start doing and what to double down on. I was like, that's the three parts to this amazing class that I just felt like it was a download.

11:10I'm like, oh, we're gonna do this thing. And the feedback was incredible and I'm still getting DMs from people because I have that out on the internet. Like check out that class. You can watch the replay at jasminestar.com forward slash new roles. So put a lot of time and attention. We got it off the ground, put it out there. Awesome, sow seeds. Now, after the webinar, I drove to LA to help my mom. This year has been really tough. You know, she's struggling with her health. She was diagnosed and went through like nine, 10 years of brain cancer and cancer of the nervous central system. She wasn't supposed to be here.

11:43The fact that she is still here is incredible, but there's a lot of complications with her health. And so I'm just adding that here because I think that what is seen online is Jasmine hosted this webinar and like it went really well and there was like a lot of buzz. And then little behind, like little known behind the scenes is like, I close my computer, get baby girl, get JD in the car. And I'm like, okay, let's make my mom dinner. Let's clean the house. Let's do these other things. And that's entrepreneurship. You know, that's balancing what is important and what is right and what is good with what is exciting, sexy, and also at the same time, extraordinarily overwhelming.

12:15But I'm fortunate that I have built a business that serves my life and not my life that serves my business. Let's go to January 22nd. I took the day off. Why? It's my daughter's birthday. I will not work on her birthday. She is too much. She is too big of a blessing. So she told me this year that she would like to go to Legoland. Now, never been. Never been. And I wasn't, you know, wasn't like busting at the seams to really be there. My daughter is my daughter. Let me just tell you. You all know, like on this podcast, we have a plan. We can't control the plan, but at least we have a plan. We're going to sit down.

12:46This girl came to me with her plan. What rides that she was going to go on, the order in which we're going on them. I was like, yes, baby girl, do that dang thing. So one thing that I watch my daughter that I'm gonna take deep pride in is I've always told her, when you have a plan, you can get what you want. And boy, did she get what she wanted. She got on all her rides. We finished the day and it was such a great day because it had rained unseasonably. It had rained in California the day before. And so we got in like that day. It was a little cloudy. It was a little chilly. Nobody was in the park.

13:16Like we went on every ride with like less than like a five minute wait. So we got through the whole park in like three hours. And then we're like, well, I guess we're going to go to lunch. It was beautiful. So we decided I like to work on my terms from wherever in the world. So we decided to stay down in San Diego. I worked from the hotel. And then on my right hand, kind of like, she is the director of Consistent 10K. She was a former president of Social Curator. I mean, the girl has been with me for a while and she's pregnant. She said, Jasmine, I know that you're a professional photographer and you haven't taken clients in, gosh, like eight years.

13:48Can you shoot my maternity session? I was like, absolutely. absolutely. No side note, have I ever done a maternity shoot? Never in my dang life. Does it intimidate me to work with a woman's body that's growing another human on the inside of it after eight months? And I'm like, yeah, absolutely. So this was not me like literally driving to the shoot like JD, husband, driving me to the shoot. I'm looking on Pinterest, pregnant photos of women, how to make women look beautiful. So we went to the beach. We had a really, really great time. JD and I went to dinner. We reflected. And the next morning was Katie's baby shower.

14:17Now, I have to tell you that the ability to work with people who you just genuinely like. They invited me into their home. I met their family. And people would say, oh, you're Katie's boss. And I'm like, technically, but like, Katie and I build. I don't look at her as my boss. I look her as a co-builder. What an honor and what a privilege. January 29th, I was a keynote speaker in San Diego. Now, here's one of those things we talk about laying bricks. I wasn't doing the laying bricks.

14:47I wasn't I met a CEO in a mastermind in 2020. Now, we just met online. She came in as the guest speaker, and then I sent her an Instagram message, and I just thanked her for her time, and we have since stayed connected. Now, she hired me back in 2021 to speak at a digital conference. Now, remember back in the days of the pandemic where nobody was going out and doing anything? They hosted a virtual conference. They hired me as their keynote speaker, and since then, we had still stayed in contact. Now, I was invited back for their in-person event in 2026, which was an honor. Really, really, really great.

15:17What the biggest takeaway, like what you can apply to your business is to cultivate long-term relationships. I was invited as a keynote speaker. And what do people see online? Oh, Jasmine's doing more keynote speaking. Yes, but that started six years of cultivating a relationship. So understand that it is the long game. And so how do you cultivate long-term relationships? That sounds like pretty nebulous and high level. No, it's leaving comments on their post, showing them that you care, sending DMs about like, oh, I'm like, Costa Rica looks amazing. It's a Christmas card. I send Christmas cards.

15:45I do. And people are like, ah, plus a surprise. Exactly. And whenever I see something happening to somebody else, I've trained my brain to celebrate it so that I can welcome the space and abundance for it to happen to me. So when she's doing really incredible things, I'm sending her text messages being like, so proud of you. Job well done. This is incredible. That's how you can also cultivate long-term relationships. All right. We're at the end of the month, January 30th to February 2nd. And so We head to Las Vegas. We head to Las Vegas. This is what we do every single year because February 2nd is a massive day for us.

16:16But since this is a business podcast and nobody really cares about my personal life, let's turn to the question, what is a brand? A brand is a series and a set of expectations of stories, memories, endorsements that empower a consumer to choose one brand over another. It's why you choose to wear Asics instead of Nike. Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf versus Starbucks. Nordstrom versus Neiman Max. It's a brand. And so the simplest way that I've learned to describe it is the brand is what you make somebody feel. That's it. How did you make that person feel? And that's why we're going to choose to go back to that business, to that entrepreneur.

16:57And so I have to tell you that when I think of the brand Four Seasons, I used to think fancy hotel, lovely. And now what I think about the four seasons is it will be unrivaled, untouched, as the highest class of any experience I've ever had around the world. Why? We were placed for adoption with less than 24-hour notice, and we had to find a place on the Las Vegas Strip to meet and welcome our daughter. I just get a little tear in my eye. It was the hardest time of my life. We had waited three years for the adoption. And I'm like, I'm in Las Vegas and I'm gonna be ushering my daughter. And do I really wanna do it like in a smoky casino, like at the base level and be like, welcome to the world.

17:40Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching. Yeah, I was like, this is energetically not in alignment. So I found a hotel that didn't have smoking and it didn't have a casino and it happened to be in Four Seasons. Was I expecting that? Absolutely not. So we go in, we book like on Las Vegas Boulevard. I'm talking to somebody like, is there a room available? And she's like, yes, are you celebrating anything? And to which I replied, I'm going to become a mom tomorrow. And so I explained and she's like, great, well, we look forward to welcome you. We get in there and they check in and we're so excited. We've upgraded you to the presidential suite.

18:09We can't wait for you to meet your daughter. So we walk into the presidential suite and I'm like, oh my God, if this is not an omen. So I started calling baby girl before we even met her. I was like, Madam President, we'll welcome you into the presidential suite. You might just ruin this country. We meet our daughter and we went with nothing. And when I say we went with nothing, our best friends had called the Nordstrom, ordered us a baby car seat, and they're like, you need this. And it didn't even occur to me. You're right. How am I going to transfer this like, you know, eight pound human back home?

18:40So we pick up the car seat in a box, and we go to Vegas, and we have nothing. And the hotel brings us a crib with freshly washed sheets. They bring us a diaper genie. Didn't even know what that thing was. Brought us a bottle warmer. Offered to wash everything. Brought her her first little stuffed teddy bear. They made her a welcome cake. And so we became a family. And what does that brand say? We care about the details. And so every year since then, we've gone back on February 2nd and we check in. You want to know what they tell us? Welcome home. That was the first time we ever had a home together.

19:14And I will tell you, oh, we, oh, we. Man, if that ain't a brand. So every year, I block off time from work. and how fortunate, and please know how fortunate, all the sacrifice and dedication to build a business that empowers me to say, these days are hers and these days are mine and I'm not gonna work. And I wish you the same as you build your business because when people ask like, what's your definition of success? I'm not necessarily pointing to a bank account, although that matters. Definitely not pointing to cars, not pointing to zip codes. I'm literally pointing to, I get to live life on my terms and I get to model for her what's actually possible.

19:52So February 3rd, I did a podcast with Leila Hermozzi. That podcast had already debuted. But what happens is we don't talk about a lot of stuff. Her and her husband are building this massive, massive business and brand. And what people don't really talk about was when she first started creating content in a very public way. It was the second podcast she had ever done. And the story I was telling myself was that I totally botched the interview. It was really bad. And this is, oh my God. Okay, so this is the team. I rented a studio in Las Vegas that was close to at the time where her office was. So I rent the studio.

20:23I walk in like sight unseen. I have no idea what's going on. And I'm like, okay, well, here we go. We're going to get this party started. And so she comes in with her video crew, even though I had a podcast studio that was recording video, but she was like letting it go. And I said, absolutely no problem. This is what we're going to do. So we record the video. And then I get an email from the podcast producer and he says, Jasmine, I don't know what happened, but I don't have the audio from the last 10 minutes of the podcast where like tears were shed and we got really personal and I was like oh oh god oh god and this podcast meant so much to me I was so nervous I don't even think that I was really myself I don't even think it was really that great of an interview but I was mortified because I looked like the most unprofessional podcaster of all time because what is a podcast audio and guess what I don't have it so then I have to eat humble pie and I reach out to her team and I said I know this sounds really bad do your videographers have like the last 10 minutes of the audio.

21:12I was so embarrassed. Like the whole thing, soup to nuts was not, it was not a highlight. I got the audio, everything was okay. It ended up working out. And I was like, I don't think she's ever going to work with me again, to be totally honest. Did that stop me from pitching her again? Absolutely not. Like I'm unafraid of no. I believe that no is just a not yet. And if I am relentless and then continue to ask that one day it's going to turn into a yes. So that was 2023. And every year we go back to Las Vegas, which is where she lives. And I was like, I'm going to ask her again. So 2024, it didn't work out.

21:43She agreed to podcast in 2025. And so at the time, she wasn't taking other podcasts, but I was watching her content. I was understanding what she was producing. I was understanding how she was working. And at the time, she was walking the streets around her office space, and they would record content, and then she would post it. So what I did is I pitched a custom pitch. And I said, I can create third-party content, ask you questions, give you insight from a viewer, but we're going to do it on your walk. You had to be doing it anyway. But I'm going to bring my videographer, and you can take your videographer, and it's going to be a win-win.

22:13She agreed. I was like, amazing. So we're in Vegas. Every year, we celebrate our daughter. And then February 3rd, I have this podcast set up. And I fly my videographer out there. And of course, it's a torrential downpour. And I'm not talking about it's like rainy springing. It's like the Nile River was just down Las Vegas Boulevard. And I was like, okay, this is not going to happen. So we canceled the shoot. And I'm just so disappointed because I thought this was like, this is my chance. This is my do-over. This is a chance to be like, hey, I'm like a regular human. I'm a business owner. I'm a podcaster.