The Power of Blank Space: How I Doubled My Growth by Doing Less

0:00If you've been feeling stuck in your business and wondering if you're the reason it's not growing faster, I have something for you. I'm hosting a free, no-pitch, live class called Three Money Beliefs That Made Me Millions. And I'm sharing the exact mindset shifts that helped me go from million-dollar years to million-dollar months. This isn't fluff. It is a surprising strategy that changed everything for me, and I want to share it with you. Like I said, no pitch, no fluff, just you and me talking about how we shift our beliefs around money to make you millions. Save your seat now at jasminestar.com forward slash millions.

0:32I can't wait to see you there. Can I share the best thing that I've done for my business this year? This very thing has like completely skyrocketed my growth. And guess what? It is not what you think. Welcome to the Jasmine Star Show, where we're going to be talking about a lot of things with a lot of people in a lot of ways. So one of the things that I wanted to do is to give you a front row seat to my mastermind. Now inside of my mastermind, there are seven figure founders and everybody is there with the goal and ambition to scale to eight figures in a way that feels joyful in flow, powerful, and very intentional.

1:07So last year, and I made this conversation and I had this conversation here on the podcast. This is the thing that the podcast has been able to do. It just calls me out. It holds me accountable. So if you've been listening or watching the podcast for a while, last year, I talked about how I was going to create blank space and how I was going to use that blank space for growth in 2025. I made a few podcast episodes about it. But one of the things that I wanted to do for this particular episode is instead of curating like this perfect storytelling narrative of all the benefits that I've done with my blank space, which is good, like those frameworks are good, and I'm happy to share them.

1:43What I wanted to do was to have a raw, real conversation with a real-time update. What has actually happened by me adding blank space for growth and why I want to continue to add more blank space. It has been the thing that has skyrocketed my business and I'm like, how did I wait so long to do this? So I'm going to be giving you a front row seat inside of the mastermind there on the day of the room and I want to share the results that have truly blown my mind. So what you're about to see is a private insider's look into a small piece of the mastermind and I'm going to be sharing a few personal details about what has transpired since creating this blank space for growth at the top of the year.

2:24I had prepared for this mastermind weeks ago. And then when I heard Susan talk and then Rick repeated it around creating time audits and creating blank space, I thought, well, they couldn't have, like they literally could not have prepared me for this conversation any better. So just like a, just a place of receipt. This is just an open conversation to document. I'm not learned a lot today. This is just documentation of where I am in the process and how it has been such a game changer. And if I can go back and do something differently in my business, this would be it. So I want to talk about the thing that we need the most, but our actions betray we refuse to give it to ourselves.

3:06Now we might not say I'm refusing to give it to myself, but in actuality, our actions are betraying that we are refusing to give it to ourselves. So blank space, blank space and it seems like well there's going to come a point in my career in life where I'm going to give myself the blank space when I get to that point and I just have to tell you that with every iteration of my business it was never a priority I am embarrassed to stand in front of you telling you that a cognitive blank space was not there I would take vacations I would take breaks I did not create blank space and those are all very different things so it wasn't until late 2023, early 2024, that J.D.

3:45and I started creating distinctions between the trips that we were taking. There was a recharge and there was a rest. When we were going to go on a rest vacation, this is margaritas, if we so choose. This is copious amounts of guacamole. This is books. This is we're going to sleep when we want. We're going to wake up when we want. We're going to do spas. We're going to just do nothing. And crazy enough, what happens? Ideas start flowing.

4:12Day we have recharge. Recharge means we're going to go away and we're going to relax. We're going to have fun. We'll go to Napa and sip wine, but we're going to talk. What do we need to do differently? How do we need to recalibrate? We go in with different intentions and on the back end of both, we get the results we want, but the intentionality really changes energetically how we refuel. So in the summer of 2024, I blocked three weekdays off. Ooh, she's getting crazy. I was at a point where I was like, this is so much going on right now. And I looked in my calendar and I was like, I can't take three days off.

4:47That's not the business I wanted to run. In the summer of 24, I couldn't take three business days off until November. I was like, that's ugly. I don't want that. But I took those three days off and I said, we're going to do something, but it's not going to be work. And what happens is I started realizing early when I created space in my calendar, they became filled with the most insane opportunities that I would not have been able to say yes to had I been committed. So in November, literally a couple weeks before, I randomly text a gentleman by the name of Brendan Burchard, somebody I have wild admiration for, literally a leader, thinks so differently.

5:27I'm very inspired. And I sent him a random text message just saying, thank you. Thank you for being you. He says, what are you doing a couple weeks? I'm gonna be in Napa. I'm having a mastermind. Come. Okay. Katie, we're going to Napa. And that was it. I would not have been able to spend that time if I didn't have that blank space that months prior I had designated as being that. So I went. And it completely changed our perspective on funnels. I even had mentioned it during one of our mastermind calls. And what we've done is we've restructured and we're re-looking at our product suite and what that looks like.

5:59And then we'll work on funnels. So we thought we'd go to funnels first and we realized, no, no, no. In December, Katie, God bless Katie, asked all the hard questions. And she's like, we're building funnels, but the suite isn't complete. Oh, she's right. So we healed back, but it radically changed how we're using funnels. A massive shift in our ICP and in our product suite. On the back of that event, it revealed big holes that we just hadn't had time to address. Also at that event, I had to ask myself, do I have the courage to make more space? Your word might not be courage. For me, it was courage because I feel safe when I'm doing.

6:36I feel safe when I'm busy. Sick, distorted, this is this normal that I accepted. And I was like, whoa, wait, wait. The courageous decision that I am saying to myself is the opposite is the antidote. When I want to do and I'm feeling unsafe, the opposite is the antidote. Stop, stop. So for me, it was a courageous decision. Yours might be fun. Yours might be incentivizing, whatever. For me, it was a courageous decision. So in early 2025, we're talking about just a few months ago, I had made the big, bold declaration that I am changing how I am approaching blank space. So I am new to this. I am one quarter in and I am like, hell yes.

7:16When do we start adding more? Here's why. I have a monthly deep work day. In the future, I would love two of these. But right now, the third Wednesday of every month is blocked out. Now, going back to what Susan said, I get to fill it with whatever I want. My first deep work day, it was more of like, whee, what do I do? Oh my God. And so all of a sudden I just took time to journal. I took some time to ask questions about where we were with the product suite. What is our gap? When can we execute? But then also at that time, I had this like extra time. I was like, well, what do I do? And I was like, you're not getting out.

7:51I went to a coworking spot. I had to get out of my energetic space because on an extra day, I got to spend time with my daughter and have a tea party. I would love it. That's not a deep work day. So I planted my butt in this chair and I was like, well, what are you gonna do? So I just started going through my phone and texting people. So I made a list and I said, people I can serve, people who maybe one day in the future I would like to ask something. I don't have anything to ask from them now, but I don't wanna reach out to them when I need something. So I'm gonna cultivate these relationships.

8:17So I just went through, I literally was just scrolling through my phone. I was like, oh, I had this person, this person on each side of the list. Then I stopped and I just sent personalized messages. In the middle of sending those personalized messages, somebody responds back and that's the thing about text messages if you text somebody they know you're on your phone yeah so i text a person who'd been on my podcast who had opened a lot of doors for some really cool guests who would never have said yes to the podcast and i said i just want to say thank you so much for seeing me where i am i really appreciate you i see his name pop on my screen i was like oh okay i was like hey how's it going and he's like great hey i'm flying to miami right now i'm working on the sales page if i send you a link can you just go through the sales page and shop for marketing?

8:55I was like, sure. Okay. So I go through this. I was like on the phone. I was like, okay, well, I would do this. I would do this. Hey, great job. I want to make an introduction to you. I was like, thanks so much. That's it. He ends up making an introduction to a woman that works. I'm not going to talk about the company. I will just say that they do$500 million in a specific financial vertical. And she had seen me speak by way of him. And he said, you need Jasmine to come speak. She comes to me and says, okay, what are your speaking fees? And I said, well, hold on, let's peel this back. What do you actually need?

9:24We come to find out that there was an opportunity not just to do an event, but to create education that's white labeled as from their organization as a, this would not be anything I have to promote on the outside. I'm leveraging my unique skillset, creating content specifically for this organization. And the more I heard from her, it wasn't just for marketing. She saw me doing something for sales. She saw me doing something for customer support. So that's what happens on a deep work day. We just create space for the stuff we can't see when our head is in the ground. That's one deep work day. And I have a feeling that I am going to, at some point in the future, go back to some of the text message that we had been tracking, that that was just not, I only did it for that one person.

10:07No, no, no. It's going to result in something in the future. So dar in Spanish is to give. And I just decided randomly, I'm going to call this a dar day for people who don't speak Spanish. So it's just like the dar day. The DAR day is a time for me to balance what I deeply feel called to, to giving back of my time, my energy, and my wherewithal. But I kept on saying no to organizations and people that I really wanted to help enough, but I was like, I'm too busy. I was like, wait, wait, who are you if you're stepping away from the thing that you've been called to do? I believe for me, for me, giving a portion of my skillset and the thing that is hardest for me to give is not money.

10:43I'm very proud that JD and I are very happy to write charitable checks at the end of the year. We freaking love it, lights us up. it's not hard. To give as a sacrifice for me is time. And if I wasn't making the time or protecting the time, I would never be able to give it. So the DAR day, DAR to give, I have one day a month where I tell my executive assistant, these are for the people who couldn't afford a consulting, but I really think they're doing amazing things in the world. It's for charitable organizations where I can sit and consult and give my time that they would not be able to afford otherwise.

11:11And so do I do other tasks that day? Absolutely. But those days are protected. And if we don't book anything a week in advance of, like I'm not doing like nine hours of DARDE calls. Normally it's about two hours on those DARDE days. And so if we don't book anything for that DARDE a week before, then my EA will go through and put other tasks on that day. I'm just leaving this space for me to walk in integrity to what is important to me. So there's two days out of the month, one full day just for me. One is a mix depending on what's the demand. The last is the quarterly four-week day break. And what I have discovered is if we leave on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, we can stay out Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

11:53And then that Monday, I'm back home, but I'm like easing in back into my work week. Catching up on things. I take no tasks on those days. But Monday, I got to go back and be like, okay, catch up day. We're either amazing. and what happens on the back of these breaks is we had anticipated we like to travel it is where our brain goes jd has this dreaded word i've mentioned it before on our calls the b word and he talks about a budget and i'm like you're cramping my style i just and he's like the long-term effects and protecting and i was like i'm dead and so my my my my response is i'm a revenue generator don't give me a budget i'll just make more and he's like well if you make more we'll invest more.

12:33And I was like, ah! So we're talking about these things and we're just deciding to make a business decision. Let's stay local. Let's do a staycation. We will still get away from our home, but we'll stay local. And I was like, okay. And I speak at an event in Austin, Texas. I am speaking at an event. I am giving the keynote. Unbeknownst to me, there is a woman in the audience who's watching this. We meet backstage. She comes up to me, tiny petite Malaysian woman, speaks like a gangster and a sailor met on the street and they didn't know which way was up. And she's just talking to me about women and money and wealth and investing in family offices.

13:07And I was just like, this is amazing. And she's like, women need to take debt. And she's like, women are afraid of debt, but debt is how we grow. And there's like logical ways. And I was like, okay, pause. You need to come on my podcast. I don't even know you and you need to come on my podcast. When you're in LA, let me know. I will make it happen. And this is how you convince people. When you're in the OC, nobody wants to come to the OC ever. And I was like, LA. And I was like, I'm 45 minutes from LA. Like, okay. So anyway, so I was like, yeah, marketing, marketing. marketing. So I was like, when you're in LA, let me know.

13:34And then she pauses and she's like, what are you doing on March 27th? I have those days blocked off. I was like, why? She says, I'm hosting an event with Gloria Steinem. I want you to be my plus one. She's like, do you know Gloria? And I was like, I don't know Gloria, but I know Gloria Steinem, leader of the feminist movement who radically changed like philanthropy and business and women's rights in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and up until today, because she was about to turn I'm 92 years old. I know Gloria Steinem. She's like, the event's at her house. Would you like to come? Yes. I leave that event.

14:11I was like, JD, we're going to New York. It was two weeks later. I am in the Austin airport on my Delta app being like, we're booking these flights. We're booking these flights. I'm going. That just wouldn't, I do, just given my calendar, it would not have even existed. Sure, I could have tried to move things, but there are some things you cannot move. And I was like, what is going to be the energetic space for me to go and create blank space when I'm out on the trip? Because if I thought about this, if I had things and I said, you guys, move everything that's like not humanly possible to move and I'll take some meetings, I'll take that coaching, I'll take that and I'll find a way.

14:45And so all of a sudden I find myself doing the thing that our brain always hates to do, the flipping, the flopping, the flipping, the flopping. And so am I in a place of growth and receipt? It's possible, is it the best? These breaks, like I'm on break too. I did one in November, did one in March. and I'm like, best thing to ever freaking happen. We go to this event and I will say that energetically because your girl just does not know how to not do. I was like, well, I'm gonna be in New York. I'm gonna just set up some podcast interviews. Like literally reaching out to people like two weeks in advance.

15:11Are you available? Land, really great podcast interviews. I turned to JD before we leave. I was like, why do I always do this to myself? Like, why am I so stressed all the time? He's like, you did this. I was like, you're right, I did, I did. And at the end of it, once it was done, once it was done and we are beautiful our age in Meatpacking District, and it's the beautiful cafe, and we have a glass of champagne, I think to myself, my God, this is the life. Nobody has to see this. Those long days and nights of eating crap, the ability to bring out an app and book a flight on a moment's notice and have a team say, go, run.

15:52And I give them literally less than 24 hours to say, I need a studio. I need to book four hours in that studio. I need the green room. Make it happen. And then it's done. This is the freaking life. Nothing about the business had changed. I met people. I worked. I interviewed. Nothing about the business had changed, except for the fact that the infusion of energy was the very thing I needed to say that following Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday, when another tooth gets knocked out, This is why I'm doing it. The blank space, the blank space, the blank space. I had mentioned I did the time audit. I hated every freaking second of it.

16:36And it revealed around 33 minutes a day of available time. I was like, 33 minutes? I can do something in 33 minutes. And those are the kinds of margins that I'm running in. For many of us, it's going to be a hell of a lot more. so the results of this decision i wish i had done this sarah yes this is conversation no mike mike mike and this is an open conversation it's not a presentation y 'all it's not a presentation i just want to make sure when you said you found 33 minutes was that of unstructured time like that was the blank space on a regular day when you don't have these that you were able to identify or was i just want to make sure i understand what the 33 okay uh 33 minutes was um i was overestimating some things that was taking me time to do something versus another.

17:22So I had allocated on an Asana task. I had my EA allocate times and it's just like 10 minutes to record a promotional story for group coaching on the inside of social character. I'm doing that in like two, but I love that 10 minutes. I'm like, I love an eight minute margin. Right now, there will come a day that I am not playing an eight minute game. There will come a day. That day is not today. So every eight minutes I started picking up things. I'm like, I can do this faster. I need to get better with quoting my time? Yeah. Thank you for that question. Thank you. Wish I had done this earlier.

17:51Please do this as possible. So D4Days, I built a bridge for a pipeline to an ICP. And when I say I, please understand that this is on the back of plenty of time and conversations with the team. But anytime, recently, a couple of days ago, I met Cara for the first time in person, and we were talking about systematizing her sales. And I'm like, you got to do it first. Like do it first to turn it over to the sales team. And so now we're looking at things in our business that we're like, I just can't wait to bring this person in. If you have not done it and mastered it and know it. Now, I understand that when you think about this myopically, like do I think that a CEO of a$50 million company is doing it first?

18:30No. But when you're scaling from, let's just be real. When you're scaling past two to five, you're still doing it first. And then you're finding somebody to replace it. That's just the truth of it. And so I would just definitely say, hey, let's get in and let's do this. And so as we were thinking out a pipeline, there was too many big question marks that only the CEO could answer. I didn't need to have a team meeting. I needed to answer them and I needed time for us to do that. We are gonna be launching a program in June called the Consistent 10K. It's gonna be focusing on getting people to be making consistent$10 ,000 per month.

19:03It is our system. It is our approach. We've co-created it with MemberUp. I sit as an advisor to MemberUp. And so we're creating pipelines where we have a business that wins and they have a business that wins. And it's using Instagram DM to land and cultivate clients. This is just the backend. We teach you the methodology. You show it consistently. I will be doing a training twice a month. We're doing all of the curriculum up front. I only do coaching twice a month. Katie will be doing coaching twice a month. The first million framework. So when we went back to December and realized that the pipeline was missing, we had a$59 offer.

19:37And then we had a$2 ,000 offer. And then we had a$25 ,000 offer. The gaping holes between that, I was like, okay, if my goal is to create female millionaires, and it is, I got to build the pipeline. So what you'll see is a$59 offer. You will see YBLE as the possibility of being evergreen, but we're not sure if that's in direct alignment. But then what we're really going to push to is the consistent 10K. We want to get them past the six-figure line. The first million framework will be for people who are doing over 500 ,000 trying to scale to a million. We have the frameworks. We know the patterns.

20:11And what they'll be doing is going through a curriculum on the front end. I will be doing once a month programming in that. Katie will be doing once a month programming within that. So the quarterly break. I talked about, I went out of order. I got very corded away. This is all, oh, let's talk about Olivella. So Olivella was the organization that co-hosted with Gloria Steinem. What is Olivella? I had no idea what they were. They are a marketplace for female fashion. So let's say you're a fashion designer, you're a fashion designer, and you're a fashion designer. I am Olavella and I come to you and say, I would like to sell a few of your pieces on my marketplace, where when people buy from my marketplace, 20 % of the proceeds will be going to female funded businesses and or female run philanthropy.

20:56So what they have built was a tech stack that facilitates this. And so I got into the room with women who are writing checks, multimillion dollar checks to organizations and people who are running family offices, Just as a complete side note, a family office gets money from wealthy families and invests it on their behalf. Multiple family offices means that they're aggregating a group of wealthy families saying, we're going to take your money and we're going to act like a micro venture capital firm. We want to scale your returns and we do that by aggregating money. Now, by 2030, there will be a two-thirds shift of finances from men to women.

21:34In 2030, a two-third shift of finances from men to women because of the decline of boomers. Boomers had a tendency of marrying women who are about five years younger. Men are passing. Their wealth is moving to the women, which most women would say, hooray, except for the fact that women are getting money. They're not managing money. So it's really important for women to be sitting in family offices because it's not like men are like the she-woman hater club. They just don't actually understand how women would use an offer. So what they started realizing was that women who were sitting in family offices could see the use case and say, this is really incredible.

22:12But what wasn't happening was the women who were sitting in family offices were creating a network effect of other women in family offices. They're very rare. Finding a woman leading a family office is like finding a unicorn. You find a unicorn. So what they did for Olivella, Gloria Steinem, and the Billionaire Network came together and they said, we're connecting family offices. I was not supposed to be in that room. Like, I'm not even like pretending like, oh, I'm not supposed to be in that room. I was like, factually, I wasn't. And then all I knew was I was sitting there and I was like, I'm supposed to be in this room.

22:43I don't know why. The answer will come to me. The answer will come to me. I was supposed to be in that room. And so it's like, if I'm like, if I play like the dream case scenario, which never works. But dream case scenario is I get to sit as an advisor and equity holder for tech, SaaS components for female-run businesses, and I have networks of family offices that I can call and say, can you put me in contact with this person? Let me go here. Because once the deal flow starts between family offices, you get the momentum. And I thought to myself, I'm supposed to be in this room. So if we know that blank space is what we want and what we need, The question is, why don't we carve space right on our calendars?

23:26And so that's the only conversation I wanted to have. I'm not coming from a place of authority. I am not coming from a place of an expert. I am simply saying, I've done this, and it is freaking life-changing for me and my family. So I was listening to a podcast of a behavioral scientist, and he had said, if we wanted to do something, we would. Dang, that's the shortest clip that just stabbed me in the heart. and I had just simply said, if I wanted to, I would. So not to get like super psychological, but why do we not want to stop? For me, not for you. For me, stopping felt unsafe. Stopping felt irresponsible.