Lessons

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Personal + Career Reinvention with Jasmine Star

Erin. What's up? It's Chase. Welcome to another episode of the Chase Jarvis Live show here on Creativelive. Don't know the shows where I sit down with amazing humans and I do everything. I can't unpack their brains with the goal of helping you live your dreams. Whether that's in career, in hobby or in your life. My guest today is the one and on the in inimitable, which is a photographer. She's a business strategist. She's a founder of social curator dot com, and she's a dear, dear friend of mine, Miss Jasmine star in the house that you love you okay, I'm all this fanfare. I'm gonna refer just a sec. Usually it's nice to let the guest talk early on in the show, but I'm gonna just gonna hijack for, like, 30 seconds. This is full circle. So I believe you were like, Guess, number three or four. This show has now been running for 10 years. Creativelive has been running for nine years. So you're a guest three on this podcast when it was a video podcast on Apple or had to pay for every single...

person who downloaded it and in whatever 10 years ago, And then you went on Creativelive went on to your I mean, obviously lore. Famine. Fortune is a photographer and now business strategist and social curator. Full cycle. Thank you for coming back. E I am. I am just a couple times over to see how far we've come over in a decade. It's like we I walk the halls and they see people who were with us 10 years ago there were people who didn't really know what we're trying to create. Ah, a bunch of people thought we were totally crazy. I was like, probably thinking you were crazy. Goodall's like, You're just enough crazy for me to co sign on. And then we kind of broke the Internet, and that was the start of something beautiful. But for both of us, yeah, independently and together. Incredible. So I'm gonna add a little bit more color for those folks who are relatively new to me or us or creativelive or the show. And that is so, uh, Jasmine was the belief of Third creativelive Think neither third or fourth, uh, show we had class, but it was extra special because it was the first time in the history of the Internet that a wedding was live broadcast. And you, at the time, one of the world's top wedding photographers. We had been in contact. We had a couple other mates and big splashes industry starting off this live Internet learning platform. And we said, You know what? Let's do something totally crazy gonna throw a live with. And we found some people on the Internet to get married always. Yeah, but we have to back it up because you're telling. You're telling like the really strategic like guy version. And I would add, like the reality television Harmatz version. Okay, So, like a sex scene, Okay. Ah, relatively unknown photographer is sitting in Southern California with her flip phone and you get the 206 phone number. She opens it up in this crazy guy with a crazy name. Hey, I have this idea. Do you want to shoot a wedding? And I was like, Sure, you like, live on the internet and we have to say the audience with us, This is years ago. This doesn't exist, right? Like this idea of like won a free class. Ah, class in general being broadcasted on this crazy thing called the Ustream and Creativelive and like, Hey, let's see what we can dio And, um Then you said we should shoot wedding. And I said, uh, okay, well, actually, is it? I'd like for more information because you were at a barbecue. We hang up and then I Google you and I turned to my husband business partner. I was like, Oh, my God, this guy is a big deal. I'm like he's calling me. So then we get a second phone call and I agreed to do this wedding. And then just when I'm like, I have just absorbed Justin amount of your crazy time somewhat okay with you said, we want to do this in about 5. weeks And I was like, Oh, God, this guy just lost his damn mind. But this guy lost his mind and you're like, No, let's do it, Let's do it! And it was the first time in my life and career that I met somebody who is really focused on the goal and really taught me the value of looking at what other people would say. This is an impossibility. And then you said, Well, what would it take to make it a possibility? And we had people from the Seattle community rally around this idea to help you, to help creative live and to help me put together a live wedding for a real couple in a chocolate factory in Seattle. It was crazy, like her versions so much way were trending on Twitter with Barack Obama, Lindsay Lohan and then little Who is this creative live jazz and star thing going on being Keep in mind, those hashtags were above Barack Obama and Lindsay Lohan. Okay, Globally. Okay, Yeah, this is hashtag humble brag, right? 10 years later, you know we'll still rolling, and I will say that 150,000 people watch that wedding. And that was the largest class, the largest learning event Lear's class that the world has seen that when two years later, class came out on the Internet. Like the Stanford AI class is the biggest class ever. And 130,000 people. I was like, Have you like we've let out of the water years ago, 130,000 people taking a wedding photography close. Um, well, a thank you for going on that crazy ride. But you were so brave and bold. And I knew that about you just from from watching your work, knowing about it on the Internet. Um, and here we are 10 years later. But can we take you? Can take a second and like, let's bring this a little bit really great. Let's have a conversation about sure taking wrists and creativity because I think it's easy for us. You know, our mutual best friend Brandy Brown. Well, she's like your real friend, and she's my pretend friend. But she sat somewhere on this couch. We'll like things. Bernays is. We're in a good looking here. She talks about gold plated grit, which is good. You know, we can look back years ago and say, Wow, look what we did And then people watching or listening could say, Well, that was really cool. Some people like that get to do those types of things. But I will say that the course itself was four days, and, uh, Day three, the day after the wedding, my husband had to pick me up off the bathroom floor in a hotel in Seattle because I was crying and crying and crying. I said, I think I just made the biggest mistake of my career. I opened myself up to so many vulnerabilities. People saw me in the like the height at the peak peak of like working, working stress mistakes and having hundreds of thousands of people on the Internet dissect every single move and ask questions and talk to you in social media in real time. It was like this whole thing that I thought I I just meet Biggest mistake. But the lesson that I walked away with us was on Day four, when I had no other choice but to show up and finished this contract that I had, because I don't think company hold great and why I like out of finish. It was when we when we finished the outpouring of people saying Thank you for showing up in spite of the fear. Thank you for pushing through, even though you are making mistakes. You were owning up to it, and the thing I learned then is that the Internet appreciates authenticity and vulnerability and showing up as you are, and years later I have a greater appreciation for that. Somewhere in the middle. I might have lost my way a little bit, but it's always nice to go back to the core of the thing that, you know people appreciate. So people listening, thinking well, that's for a select group of people know it's for the people who will cry on the bathroom floor, think you made big mistakes, and then how you come back from is the willingness to get back up. So true, I was. That was a very honest, humble riel take and I'm gonna put a little scoop ice cream on there, too. Which is that was a thing that I think that time in the Internet basically unlocked publicly. Yeah, and I don't think that it was from a popular culture perspective. I wasn't really in touch with that part of being a creator. Being an entrepreneur wasn't really being talked about. And that's, I think, a benefit of social when I want to get your take on this. Is that early on it was so new, that new no, don't. No one really knew how to use it. And for those of us who just sort of just jumped in, made mistakes very, very publicly in front of a large pile of people. I think that there's something there is a learning event that happened at that time. I'm curious what you think about that and now how it's gone. It got really shiny for a while. I think social did was only Bentleys and, uh, you know, basically faking it until you make it kind of deal. And I feel like we're kind of coming back to Earth, and I'm wondering what you think. I could not agree more. I have a feeling that I will tell my future Children and great Children that I lived through an era of humanity that will forever change. The way we function is humans is there was a time with the early people who hit the gold rush. I had to go through and figure out the system and the system for most people paid in dividends for the people who took the biggest risks on people who were unrelenting isn't undaunted to find the golden. And with the roaring forties and the peaks of the eighties, something was shifting inhumanity and then and only looked now and back and say that was if it happened, what we were going through was like a social revolution, and to be at the far end of that was so, so powerful. And then what we see are different iterations of people who think that they have to catch up. And I'm no exaggeration, like back with a win like these Internet celebrities air having pool parties with, like 1000 girls in length string bikinis, Ah, baby giraffe and a line of Ferrari's in the front like I'm not making it up like that. Like legitimately exist on the Internet. And I read an article about a Russian jet company. They have photo shoots where they have their jet and people pay for 30 minute time slots to have voters them getting in their jet and sitting in the jets so they can post them on Instagram like that was the farce. The Internet like celebrity, dumb and like Social Media's become. And a year ago I started telling people on social media like it's the boomerang effect, the boomerangs coming back to Hey, we got like we get the I'm at Coachella in front of of the fairest Well, I'm eating like a baguette at a cafe. I'm reading a book by a window. Oh, hey, I'm on vacation. My feet are in the sand. How many times have we seen those photos? How much has to be seen? Feet in like the doorway of a pitched tents in the forest, like we know every instagram photo. And what does that say? We duplicate what we think will make the successful. But the very thing that makes this a successful is us being ourselves are true, authentic Selves and most creative way possible Truth. What do you think about the timing? That's really is now the time. And because it doesn't seem like the whole Ferrari jet thing was not all that long ago. You know our way out of it yet? Um, we're on our way out of it, and that is so promising. And for people who are listening like, listen to it carefully. The sooner you get to that point and the sooner that you become the translator for the next generation, I actually just read an article in the Atlantic about how we have generations like younger kids who are looking at the perfectly like styled in curated feeds of everything's perfect all the time. and they're running in the opposite direction. They're picking up followers with so much frequency because they're like, Oh, people identify with the girl sitting in front of her cute computer doing homework in baggy sweatpants and a greasy bond. Yeah, Gracie Bun E. I've read that same article I thought was brilliant. Like out of focus photos. Some? Yeah. Thought that was pretty interesting, too. So I'm gonna keep us in the little 10 years ago, but well, for just a minute longer. Um, also, 10 years ago, you were focused, uh, predominately and photographing weddings. And I would like to know how you got there, first of all, and then I would argue more important for this conversation because I want Oh, really? This is to me that Ah, huge thing that I want the folks at home were listening. Watching to take away is you were able to transition into something different than your initial identity. And I believe you know what is it? If our parents had one job, we will have five. And the next generation will have five at the same time. Then it's our job to understand, to bring our party with us. wherever we want to go in the world. And I think you've done a masterful job, hardly arguably the best I've seen on the Internet, of being renowned for wedding photography for a long time and then evolving that vision. Still have a toe and photography, but as a photographer and a business strategist, and now I'm gonna call you the founder of Social Curator, which we'll get into that a little bit. But, you know, that's basically you've got sort of technology chops now. So you've done a masterful job of moving both yourself and the people that pay attention to you on this ride. So take me back 10 years to a Hagatna wedding photography in the first part, but then spend a little more time talking about the second arc. We'll leave the front part a little light loaded because people can go back and watch takes Jarvis Love running number 34 You can get the whole detailed story there, but in short I dropped out of law school. My mom had brain cancer, and I had intentions to go back, but I knew that he needed to get married to my high school sweetheart because We had been together nine years of that time, and I wanted my mom to see us get married. And we got married in about 2.5 months and I had a mid life crisis. My mom was 50 out of 25. It's kind of like I don't want to die a lawyer. And so my brand new husband, we've been home from our honeymoon less than a week, and I had to make the decoration to go back to law school. And he has to be a very generous question. And he said, If you could do one thing for the rest of your life and be happy, what would it be? And they said, I want to be a photographer And he said, OK, you don't have a camera E No So that minor detail like we could figure out we figured out so that Christmas Christmas 2005 he gave me a camera and I opened on January 1st, 2006 and I spent more than here just sucking. I was terrible. I was really terrible photographer, but thank goodness, YouTube and Google and just a lot of practice on unwilling and willing subjects. And then by 2007 we started picking up momentum in the photography business and then, by 2009 voted one of the top 10 photographer wedding photographers in the world. And that just goes to show a testament of building a brand delivering service and getting your customers to talk about you. And that was the start of things. A lot of other accolades and awards and all this other stuff can happen. And around the same time Creativelive comes and for so long I knew that I lack legitimacy from a technical perspective. And when you invited me to not just be uncreative live but took a one chase Jarvis life, it really shifted the weight people's perceptions of me within the industry. It was almost that I got a co sign from somebody who was really well respected, and it was a big momentum, shifted my crew, not just because you're here, but it's something that I look back on and I'm like, Oh, well, that's when I finally started getting accepted and we could talk. What about that means like, however it looked like in a career, Um, and he parked it there for a while, we were able to travel the world, do what we love to work with. Editors. You started getting a little bit more to look editorial work and art directors when it came specifically to like the wedding female driven consumer and it's type stuff. So that was great. And then started helping for talker. First build their businesses by way of creative live by waves of the content was created on my own. And then business owner started asking, Hey, can you help us do what you're doing with photographers? And my first thought was like, No, I yeah, like, who am I? Imposter syndrome like Level 12 expert level imposter syndrome. And, uh, this started to happen around 2014 2015 and started consulting clients one on one and saying, Like Is this working for them? And it didn't just work well, it worked really, really well for them. But then I realized that I was building another business that didn't have scale. I was building another one toe, one business. So with photography, it's photographer to client, photographer to client, photographer to art director. It's one on one and one and Then I realized when it came to consulting, it was one toe one once one and I thought to myself, OK, how can we start pivoting like, What does it actually look like for me? And so chase you give a very generous, generous Really Oh, you've pivoted so well. I think that when people look back and they think I had pivoted, Well, I can only attribute to one thing. Not street smart, not savvy, not witty, not brains. It was to house slow it. Waas People think that Glenn Jasmine pivoted in the year and I was like, Oh, no, sweetheart, it took me like, 3.5 years to pivot. Nobody saw it. I was like I was basically like turning. I don't want to say turning the Titanic is the Titanic sank. So, like, I'm assuming that I am attorney yacht. I was just turning a yacht really, really slowly and looking back, I'm super thankful. When I was in it, all I felt like was this is this is moving too slow, like this sucks. This is slow. But little did I realize that that the rate at which we moved in pity it was the best thing for the Plains. Okay, So normally in business, speed is what everyone advocates for. And if I get this correct, you're advocating for slowness. So help me reconcile those two things. I also advocate for speed, but I only advocate for speed after you spent a slow period of figuring out Is this the direction I want to go on? I've always been okay. Not knowing the introductory. It's OK. Do not know exactly where I want to end up. If I'm OK taking the first step slowly, the seconds up a little slowly. And then once I know that I have a little bit attraction, then it's like full steam ahead. That's where ah, 100% find the advocating. So let's revisit this slow turn. What did you turn from? And then what did you turn to? So you feel like you use the words that used up in the market because I think that's the folks at home. We're listening there like I'm that too, right? I think the language is actually really important. So if I can back up a tiny you drive it, Okay? You drive that? Yeah. It was really important specifically when it comes to social media, because this idea that people think, Oh, you have to be a social media influencer or you're nothing and I kind of feel like it's quite the opposite. It's a finding out where the gap in the market is and then speaking your true voice and you will find a tribe of people who want to listen to you. So if you subscribe to that, the goal is to not worry about the numbers. So I need the decision knowing that I had so somewhat built like a social need falling, though I do not identify at all being a social media influencer I had, I had a little small segment of of people who followed me. For one thing, it could be 1000 people. It could be 100,000 people. The idea is saying I have a group of people who are following me, for one thing and that's photography. I had to make the decision far before I started pivoting to say I am going to be OK, losing ah significant Kinte amount of people because my account is no longer serving them the conversation with myself because of course, nobody likes to lose followers. You feel like less relevant. You feel like. Am I not doing enough? But I understood that people follow instagram accounts on Facebook pages for specific reasons. If I change my trajectory, I cannot expect people to say, Oh, I'm gonna follow you Some do and some don't. And I feel like if people pivot, that's going to mean thing. And once you understand, I'm not gonna be for everybody any more in this particular market segment. Then you could speak your truth in my truth, which had always been very similar, which drove a lot of photographers crazy was, You've got to build a business. You gotta have a brand if you want to be a successful working photographer. Sometimes photographers, you know, like I I'm good enough. My work will sell itself. And the fact matters. No, it's 80% business and 20% of the work we produced, so it was still the terminology. But instead of making marketing specific content of four photographers, I started kind of making marketing specific content for business owners because you run a business, you run a business period and what was happening. So let's just, like, actually break this down, integrating away. If I'm posting on interim, we'll just focus on Instagram for this conversation. Please know that I'm on YouTube and Twitter and Facebook the whole night. So on Instagram, if I'm posting every single day, I'm posting about six or seven times a week. And if at a time every single one of those posts are related to photography, then what I started to do for a month was to lessen one post. So instead of seven post being about photography, a wedding photography Oh, just six of them were. And then I'd wait another two or three months, and then five posts would be about photography. And it took us about a year before I fully transitioned from posting specific photography to the thing I was trying to sell. Obviously, I'm a photographer. I was a photographer before he had a camera I believe in, you know, found super like Hallmark Card. Ask your Christmas School Special school Christmas special. Like I believed I was. I saw the world in photos. So even though I didn't have a camera, I could look at something and say, like, click in my mind because he was so beautiful. I don't wanna forget actually, on the way here or has my husband were traveling to Seattle is like, Ah, that's the perfect photo. And I just moved on because I had taken the photo. It was mine. And I feel like whatever people now people say, Oh, she's not a photographer or I shoot now a more now than I did when I was getting paid for clients. But people want to put me in a box and guess what? I'm here to break boxes at the end of the day, preaching over here. No, At the end of the day, it was a strategy to say slowly. Take the audience where I want them to go, understanding that everyone's gonna dance at my new problem. You know, I think how methodical that you took a year to do that. That's there's wisdom in there. So you also started speaking about it again. I want to really clean anger and on this, because I think this is a huge thing that I've personally struggled with. We can talk about that in a second, like as a photographer and then, you know, hey, pretty soon creativelive is, you know, much bigger. That was the goal of making It was that it was going to be bigger than any one person. And then it happened. I'm like, Oh, man, how do I talk about it? What's my identity? I freaked out, and that's one of reasons, because I experienced it. I think a lot of other people experience it. Then you're mastering it. So I just want to keep framing the conversation. But when you felt like you, it's having some intentional, like, seven and then six and then five. Are you, like, literally right in this on the calendar? Like Okay. This week I had five winning posted next week. I have five. In the week after that, I'm gonna have for after that, I'm gonna have for them. I have three. Is that regularly? You're thinking about it? Absolutely. And if we want it, I mean it just how my brain works. So I was strategically posting. I didn't know. Ah, when I was going to take my last wedding. So I needed to build a business functioning on and most of times, wedding photographers. You're looking about a year in advance, so I had to really thrust and throttle. If I'm like the minute you commit to a year, I said, I'm committing to the year. And when I wanted to pick up steam to put clients for the year, I started doubling down. I was kind of trickling down. And then I thrusted again posting Mawr that I would get attention in Hashtags, But my clients for the year peel it on back. I'd book my year. Now I'm going to start building a site like my my side hustles. I had a side, a two year side hustle under the radar a little bit above the radar. And was it as strategic as it sounds? It has to be. Yeah, yeah, I think that is gold because I believe that must be in the same way that when we look at someone social feel like, oh, man, 0 100 miles an hour. You know, 10 year overnight success is really how it happened yet and that anyone who has achieved that didn't do it accidentally. There was very, very methodical. Some people have a method that they write down some people who send their brain. But I think you're what you just described is there's none of this. This stuff happens accidentally. No. So let's talk about your intention setting just for a second. Yeah, so, mood board, write it on your forehead. Tattoo it like, what's How do you set your intentions? Do you go out on some pilgrimage in the desert E That was so incredible. Like, let's be really like I would love to stay here and say like, I went to India and practice yoga Ashram and I just found myself and like, No, it's not that I'm not afforded that luxury. I don't know how many people are. If they are, I applaud it. That's amazing. I do. At the end of every year, we try to take about a week and 1/2 that we can have between Christmas and New Year, just like check out, you know, So, uh, and that's after, like traditional Latino families, like we celebrate big, so you can't really have one time before Christmas. It's after Christmas, so kind of get away. This an opportunity to lay out what we did the previous year and what I want to do the next year, and then I list the things that I want to do the next year, and then they break him. If into quarters, what can I do in 1/4? And then that becomes our main focus. And as the team grows for social curator, we can start adding more things that plate. But right now we're still on one big project 1/4 and we build up momentum. But again, it's slow down. Speed up towards the launch of that project in the quarter. Slowdown builds speed up the launch that project in the quarter. And I think when it comes to intentionality, I focused specifically around that I've had opportunities to come on creative life, to speak on very large stages and travel the world speaking about photography. And I was able to get a little small payments to get paid about travel paid and speaking in front of thousands people. You know that right then, I said, I don't want to be speaking on those stages because I'm only ever seen as one thing. So how do I even though I have street credibility, even though I'm I've done the dang thing I'm nobody's giving me a stage to speak about business. So when we think about intentions, if I blocked out and say one day I want to speak on stage is one day I want to go back to Creativelive and speak on a different channel. One day I want to be standing next to a stage of somebody that I look at in a different discipline and industry. Who's doing the dang things so well. I had that intention and then you just work backwards. What do I need to do to get on that stage? Well started speaking at women planning social media groups in Orange County where I live. So you go from speaking to 3 4000 people. I'm here 25 people on a Thursday night at the library, sharpening my teeth. Uh, in 2000 in the middle of 2017 to the middle of 2018 I decided to call. What I'm going to go on is a podcast tour. I said Yes to every pockets. I don't care if you had 10 downloads on security of 10,000 again and again and again and again and again I was sharpening my teeth. I was finding a message and I was teaching people how to talk about me in a new way. It wasn't just that she's an award winning wedding photographer. It's like she knows her stuff. And she knows how to empower small business owners to show up on social media every single day. And because of that, they did the work that I couldn't do by myself. Awesome. Was it strategically captured in a single document that became your small business? Jasmine Transition Bible? No. Is it on a whiteboard in your Yeah, it's on a white board. It's on post it notes. It's on the back of a napkin. It's on airplane barf bag. It's if we keep this in a small little book. If this is us, like ripping out pages from Alaska Airlines like, you know next to the drink menu. Oh, here's a few goals for the quarter, like we're not fancy, but we save it and it works. Melon isn't work. It's clearly to a lot of success. So let's talk a little bit more now about this current chapter we've we've traversed the landscape. Having personally been along for the ride is your friend and co conspirator in a lot of different stuff. Uh, at some point you realized that I would say not dissimilar to me like you put yourself on a treadmill and you like another client getting our client in the client. And that is awesome because you don't ever want to not be grateful for having a thriving business where clients are lined up. But if you're gonna make this transition, it's hard. So you talked about that transition, and at some point you're like, Wait a minute. I'm just talking to another single person because I'm consulting on social media strategy and consulting on business and helping them, you know, small business owners. But at some point, you realize, Wait a minute. This is just a different hamster wheel. And so this is where I think it gets overblown a little bit. The concept of scale Silicon Valley is all about scale, skills gusta you do one thing and Zelda Brazilian. I get it, I get it. Okay, that's right. That's a great way to create leverage. There's also a way to overdo it, but I think you have nailed the ability to scale a business and do it in a honest, authentic, still very very, very powerful way. What was the click and what was the change for you? You forgot one additive. Awesome. Thank you, but slow slow were I would still say we're doing it in the slow way. Everything in me Every morning I wake up and I'm like, Why aren't we moving fast enough? But it's what we know And I feel us getting this momentum. It's like people looking like Wow, look what you've done. Look what you've done in less than two years and I'm like, Oh, wait, do you see what we do in two years? So I feel it building up. So, um, I believe what you're referring to is this kind of like tenuous balance between one on one to quote unquote scale. I don't mean Silicon Valley scale scale for a small business owner like myself. Like how do I reach more people doing the same amount of work? And we started testing the waters. I had an interview with USA Today in 2016 and that kind of open the floodgates one of guards when it comes to positioning me as an authority in the instagram realm. And so as a result of that. I got a flood of questions. I got a flood of emails and I couldn't respond to it all. So then I had created an instagram for business Course. It was really small. It was light lifting and we decided to put that out. Those me first, testing the waters of something at scale. But I don't know if it it was wildly successful. It remains wildly successful. It was my first kind of pivot pivot in the online space, which is great learning, online learning, kind of figuring it out on my own. And it was wonderful, and it was great, but I don't think that it was servicing people in a way that was different than what people could be getting by a good, honest to God couple our Google search. Right? So I was saving people time by doing the work for them and symptoms and the information they go and do. But then it resulted. What I realized it resulted in was people having three main questions. I don't know what to say. Even if I know what to do. I don't know what to say. I don't have anything. The Post and I don't know if I'm doing it right. And so then all of a sudden it opened up this big gap for Jasmine. Can you take me as a consulting clients? And the answer was like I wish, but I am but one person and we decided we're walking the dog. My husband says, You know, I really think what you need to do is you just need to find a way to tell people like what to say, what to pose and if they're doing wrong. What if we were to create like this, like site where people can get the stuff that they need? And in over a month, we renew it? I was like, That's a dumb idea. That sounds like a nightmare. Every month I have to come up and I have to shoot a bunch of photos, and how am I going to do that's dumb. That was legitimately Oh, ye of little brilliance. Couple weeks later, walking your dog and I was you really think we should dio we should have this thing that answers these people's questions. What hasn't like yo Sherlock Way Dr Out this last week, But that's a sign of a good business partner. We just kind of nods and like a great idea. Haven't heard that before. Eso, after a lot of trial and error rebated tested this idea. So business owners like I don't have I dont to say I don't talk about my business without being like smart Me like UBC like I'm just by myself by myself, by myself and then people like I'm not a photographer, I don't have good stuff and like, am I really doing the work on instagram that I should be doing? So we decide to beta test social curator, and we have this idea. Oh, well, you get lifestyle stock photos to empower you to show up and talk about your business and get caption templates. And you get this. This action plan is what we call it, and we launched it, and it was met with wild success. It was like blew our socks off. And in the next month, our membership cut in half to subscribers. Welcome to subscriber churn. And that's always like, Oh, yeah, like we to fix this. And it was really beautiful because just a Q and said You go slow go facts go slow you go fat. So we went really slow in building out and then we hit the ground running. We're like, we're off the races. Here we go. And then we had to re calibrate not once, not twice, but three times big times in the first year. And every time we slow down so, like ramp back up again. We learned another lesson and we learned another lesson and we had to keep on adding things the membership, I kind of feel. And we we have had conversations. Social curator as of today is not even two years old. So over the past two years, you and I have had the opportunity and I'm coming to you like I have to grow team. Oh, my God. I have to get help. I can't do it all on my own. Talk to me about attrition like all this stuff is happening. And what people see on the outside is like when I'm fast. I'm a really fast and I'm making a lot of noise. And when I'm slow, shut the heck up, put your head down and do the work. And so I think that when we hit the chair mark I just want to take a second. It'll be after we do a live class here, a creative life which is going up which is coming out. So our two year is in mid July and in mid July. I just want to take a second and appreciate how far we've come at a really calibrate where do we want to go? All right, so let's talk a little bit more in depth. About what? You just You talked a lot about the transition. I want to try and put it in my words, please. And then you correct me because I think I'm gonna I'm gonna play what the audience is hearing. So you mean this is a site where I pay some monthly fee, which is $37.37 dollars a month. And for 37 bucks, I get a bunch of pictures that are beautifully shot and I get a bunch of a bunch of captions where I could insert my own information to customize and personalize. And then you tell me some strategic aspect of posting on instagram and other social media. Absolutely. So when we talk back, remember we talked about the boomerang effect. So you live by the sword. Die by the sword. It is my job to see things as the visionary four social curator. I need to see the trends. What? I know that there's other copycat companies coming into the market peace and have to put my blinders on because I have, ah, thing that is really rare. I could see into the future. That is what a visionary is. I'm a spat up hot earn spatter. I'm very smart, spoke. I am a pattern spotter, and this happens to getting in social. So if I know the boomerang effect is coming, that is my objective. To coach myself as a photographer and my photographers beneath me on my team to say we need to have imagery that looks and feels like real lights. So we're creating lifestyle stock images for for top, for business owners to show up on social media. And to be clear, this is not like a picture of you that they would post it. No, no, no, no. Like so, here's my keys and and travel map and whatnot for the week. Absolutely. Like we'll take pictures of champagne. We'll take a picture of somebody holding like a newspaper. And then we have teach people had inter. First step, a big announcement. News coming. We have coffee like so people, multiple people enjoying a cup of coffee. So lifestyle photos that could look like Hey, I just nap this with my IPhone, so that's gonna be the objective. And then we teach people with the specific caption templates. So I follow what I call hick. It's gonna be hook What insights? Okay and called action. So hook as you got to stop somebody on Instagram So that first sentence on Instagram is so wildly important because that's what's going to encourage them to read. It's cooked on the click more, and then they read 2 to 3 insights about you about your business You're not selling. You're just creating conversations, which drives engagement and then see is the call to action. Do you want them liking leaving a comment, tagging a friend standing up for the newsletter, visiting your website. So having a very strategic approach every time we come on social media And so that's what we teach people in social curator to give them a new incentive inspiration and some people are newbies, which is great. Fill in the blanks, put your own words, talk about your business, will run. And then we have, like a 55 step program for our cure. It is to go through when your top five. You're looking at this, you're reading it. That it right, my own thing. We're saving people time and that is the most valuable currency on social media. No question. That's why uber successful absolutely, absolutely, um is the true, absolutely renewable resource is absolutely, absolutely, And so I want to go to different directions. Now I want to talk about the business, how it's doing, where it's going, because I think it's a really cool and then I want to talk. Just let's just save Part two. Let's go there. So talk to me a little bit more about the business because this is a new world for you, right? From being a photographer to being a consultant. When I want it now, you're kind of you said. You directing a team you're creating content. You platform? Yes. Is a technology to it? Yes, we created We decided to create a platform because what we were doing didn't exist in a template form. So we put together Oh, I do not recommend anybody to do this. It isn't freaking nightmare. And I had ah, 100% on the real. When you create something that doesn't exist when you don't know anything about tech, you hit a lot of you, let you hit a lot of bumps. And because social curator feels like a strong, distinct division of who I am, I want to give white glove service to our members. And when is not white glove service, it pains me on. And in January, I had to go in and we were having deliver ability issues, because what happens is when you renew a new year. Unbeknownst to me, we have a tagging system, the background. There was a glitch in the tagging system. Half our members didn't get it. They got really upset as they should. They invested. They're supposed to get their content on the first. If you do not get your content on the first, I didn't do my job. A lot of people really upset, and I if if I feel like I let people down, I want to hide. I wanna beat myself up I want to hate myself for not knowing what I'm getting into. And so it was rainy Saturday morning. I'm sitting here crying cause our support team is so overwhelmed and I get that you need to pull your crap together. You need to you need to come out and you need to say what happened. And you need to say I thought I was creating a social media resource company. And you know what? I'm creating a tech company. So I am asking for grace because I'm trying to figure out this crap. If you are so upset for investing in this membership and not getting it delivered on the first, you know where the door is? I'm coming out very telling you straight out. I don't know Tech. I'm hiring a team to help me do this, but for the next few months, it's gonna be a wild ride. The outpouring of people just saying you saw it, You see me? You're working on it. Good. Not only did we keep our member stepmom who were really pissed off, they ended telling their friends or pushing out on social media and we saw growth in the company and Now, as we build on a p, I like, I don't know, like I don't know. I say this doesn't like I sound really smart. So what you're telling May is and what I want to dio is I want toe abdicate that responsibility. Every day I wake up and I wish for a magical, you know, wicked witch of the West. To come in and give me a pair of red shoes and empower me to know what the heck I'm doing in tech and it doesn't happen. Everything that I need to know, I need to figure it out. No one is coming. You want you want, you want salvation, do it yourself. This is the only we got taken advantage of. A couple of times we had people who were programmers and they picked up and left us. And so there I am being like, Oh, I just paid for a system to be built. And guess what? You're walking away from me the day before delivery. What do you do? You scream, You save a few choice words, you turn to your team and you say we gotta fix this now, and it's like it has literally been our feet to the fire and we're getting callous and we're learning how to run it. And it's been a freaking amazing freaking wild ride. Is that the exception? Is that the rule? That's the frickin rule. It's a frickin rule. Like I realized that part of the reason I wanted to pivot away from an industry was because it got easy. And when it gets easy, it feels like a job. I have not been called to have a job if I'm not showing up for my clients feeling like I am the most freaking Ah, most special blessed out of this world. I'm so indebted to be able to pursue this passion for you on this day. If I stopped having that fire me, you better be working with somebody who feels so freakin lucky to do what they do for you. I feel so freaking lucky to serve at this moment. 6000 people in our membership way. Yeah, and it's low and slow. Do I want to be a 10,000? My first year? Of course. Can we run and can't let me tell you something? Why a nerd? I won't get into the numbers I will get in. I know that we can run ads and have, um, cost of customer acquisition be lower than the cost of it is for that month. But I can't grow that fast cause I don't have the foundation to keep it. So what do we do? We go slow, gross low until we get our trash together until we build our a P I. Because we get our app. Do we give White of customer service to every single person who gets that? The minute that happens, we're off watches. All right, so that's just social curia dot com Sign up for the service. It is truly astounding services. Someone who's checked it out and watched you along this ride, and it's so helpful. Get the and the materials that you published along with this. Not just the content. The strategy pieces. You're like the monthly guides. You call them guys. Yeah, action plans, action plans. They are beautiful and so, so, so helpful. So if you're a small business owner and you're overwhelmed by your own social, keep making stuff on your own. But what an amazing way to supplement and to learn. And that's just like the I mean, that's such an affordable price toe Teoh able to do that. Thank you. So that was the thing that I want to put a bow on the business part for a second. I want to shift person because I think he's in a really nice job. Just in the last 45 minutes we're talking about Let's we gotta keep it, Riel. And we started off with how scared and hard it was coming on. Creative live in front of 100 and 50, people and just let it all hang out, but also how valuable that side is. Right. So I want to talk a little bit more personal because I see you still very your You show up in such an authentic way. Do you feel like people who are falling on social and that your ace in the hole, your secret weapon, is just that you just keep showing up and I feel like I know I know your dog. I know polo. I know JD. Your husband was sitting over there. I know what the inside of your house looks like. I know. Is it really just turn your life inside out and talk to me about that kind of stuff. Um, what you will hear me say again and again, which is something I've been saying from beginning without knowing. I was saying it. It's consistency. Consistency is the thing. Consistency is the game. Andi. It sounds so easy, but very few people actually deploy instant. So the reason why I win is I just remained undaunted. That's it. I am not special. I don't have a cool life. I'm not particularly smart or funny or witty or cute or brilliant. I am not those things but consistent. And it's the little tiny drop in a bucket every single day that eventually turns people who are lurkers into Engage Er's on and I don't share too much of my life. I don't I share enough of my life. I call it the man on the airplane role. What you know about my life is the same thing. I would tell a man sitting next to an airplane. It's on my dog's name, but husband's name. What I do for a living people no 0.5% of my life. And when people have an opinion about that 0.5% of my life. It empowers me to shake it off, walk away and understand that what I am putting out means absolutely, and has no bearing on what the true part of me is. So do I feel like you have to bare it all? No, I have never been an advocate. I'm an advocate for showing up every single day, speaking your truth and being comfortable with what you share and what I'm comfortable sharing is really different than what other people are comfortable sharing. So you determine what you're comfortable with, and then you move from there. That's just clear. Align as you could ever put it right there. That's amazing. Um, so that being said, can we go a little bit beyond your dog's name? Yes. Well, you're not a man on the airplane, so Yeah. Yeah, your home is OK. And, um, it sent me how to make tortillas. Wait, It's what I think is funny. But this I I love Mexican food. If I could choose one cuisine to have every day for the rest, my hand is it would be Mexico. So, um, these guys were over at our place and the We were grilling up some Carney asada and you break out. You like to make homemade homemade tortillas. And to me, it sounds like we're gonna need to land a rock. A rocket on the moon here. Yeah. And you all whip out two ingredients. Yeah, put him together and then in, like, five minutes we're having home HRT. And yeah, So, um a thank you for that, cause I still have replay that, like making tortillas have, like, a tortilla Coke off. Now, I was like, This gringo beats us on freakin tortillas. I have a little bit of an issue. That's it On, um, what you're passionate about outside of the business stuff we've been talking about cooking food, travel. Talk to me a little bit about the jazz that you might have a hint about. But you don't actually know all that much about social. You know, it's funny, because it I think about the tortilla. I think it means more than that. I think it means letting people into a cultural component. I'm like, a real deep like simplicity. So I've been pretty open. Ah group. Really Poor government assisted the government assistance. We got food on our porch and church donations made on our behalf. So I know what simplicity looks like. And I think that's why I have a detachment to what people perceive a success or wealth. And I know what Wolf is. And it's not the money in the bank a hunt. And it's not social media followers. And it's not the car that I drive. I literally have no attachment to that stuff. And when we share how to make a tortilla with a friend and not only like you have to like Okay, so that was that was the Chase Georgia's guy version. Let's go back to reality television Javan version. So that way maintain this person of these. Yeah, that's that Later on, I feel like I'm Teoh telenovela. Better chase. I have to make a super dramatic. So we pack what we call Masa, right? It's like it's what you make it quick. Yes, yes. So we packed masa and we go to we go on, we're hanging out and we realized we don't have a tortilla press, and what we dio is we go back to who we truly are for their making the balls rolling them up and we get a saucer and we turn it upside down. My husband places a piece of of plastic paper like a grocery, like, you know what you put the fruit and vegetables in. He cuts it in half and he placed the plastics down and he gets the rolled piece of masa moist from our hands and warm places. Another piece of plastic. And then we get another saucer and we use the sauce in the bottom of the users also talking. We press it down to the securities and then we're there and you're sitting watching us like we're making magic. And I'm thinking, if he only knew that this is how our family survived and to share that peace is like cultural. It's familial, it's raw open. You're not eating Artesia. You're having a piece of our history, and I know that sounds very dramatic, but what? I'm passionate food because we had so little of it growing up. But what we had was amazing. Let me tell you, the United States government issues fantastic dry pinto beans. Okay, My dad could make magic with the government issued pinto beans, So homemade tortilla and beans with a little bit of cotija cheese. You're just living your best life for real and that cost, like maybe nine cents. So I'm passionate food. I'm passionate about breaking bread with friends. I'm passion about what simplicity means. I'm passionate about having the freaking option to eat a 19 cent taco and have the option to eat a $19 taco in Seattle. That is life. So family, friends, food, travel and freedom hundreds. This I've enjoyed seeing you guys travel a lot more. I don't know if that's part of the social curator world. Talk to me about having a sort of, uh, do you talk about your two years and your husband JD's families as I mean. You're both Lati necks. Yes, but he's got more Mexican heritage. You've got more. Look at this. I know changes represent the camera. About one shot because Bolding gua will be here is looking at your sharp eye. Those were listening. Where sure? What a Puerto Rican flag? Yes, represent, represent. I'm sorry. Is it like multicultural? Coming? It is multicultural. Coming, coming together. So my mom is Puerto Rican and my dad is Mexican. So my dad emigrated to United States when he was around 12 years old. And my mom was born in Puerto Rico and then came to Mainland when she was about four. And then they met in East Los Angeles, California, which is where our families started. JD. My husband, his father is Mexican again from Mexico, and his mom is Chinese. So a little like Mexi Rican, and then we haven't about Mexican. Sounds much cuter than Lake China, Riggan or Mexi ease next season. But yeah, definitely multi. Definitely multicultural. But his mom is Chinese but was raised in Mexico. So her Chinese Mexican cooking, like she basically invented fusion before fusion was like a cool thing. California. Ah, she tears up the kitchen. It's amazing. And my father is a fantastic cook. So, yeah, that's worth that's work. Comes. Yeah, um, speaking of family, yes. We're gonna keep going on that. Um, is it fair? I guess I asked you before. Insulting pleasure. If I could share that Y'all er on the adoption. We are trained. We are incredible. What's that been like? It's been long. Its been really long. I think that you like life and like business, you make plans and they go slow and they got so and then we'll talk about that. Like, was so smart and slowly like we would really like. Yeah, tomorrow. Yeah, yeah, We're definitely tired of being on like this Mail Express. We would much rather be like on the Tesla, but we're not there. So we've gone through different iterations. You know, we started off with an agency, Then we debated about international. And then we felt like we went through the foster to adopt process. And then once we got into it, it was pretty heartbreaking because I don't think we realized towards and that what we needed and what we wanted wasn't able to be facilitated. But we met Amazing foster foster family care chart of organizations that we've become really connected with. And I feel like everything in life happens for a reason that even though that processing work out for us, we met these amazing people who were dedicated to helping support Children in the foster care system. And ah, A month and half ago we signed with a brand new adoption lawyer who was recommended by a friend, and, uh, this adventure is for us again. It feels like we're starting all over and again. This is gold plated grit. But I should just, like, bring it all down. No, I love this where this is a recurring theme and you're telling I feel like I'm giving, like, really like That's so great, like it's so awesome. So this is a long time. But when we ended the foster to adopt process, I just beat myself up. I felt like I had failed. I felt really embarrassed because we kept pretty private, because when you put me on social media, it doesn't belong to you anymore. Jer on. We had been really quiet about her journey, the ups and downs. And then on Thanksgiving, I said I was thankful for my family. My husband was thankful for us. Start a family with this amazing, beautiful outpouring of support, and we talked about our foster to a doctor prizes, and when we ended it, I felt really embarrassed. I didn't know how to come out on social and say, Hey, guys, there's kids who are really struggling in the foster care system, and I'm not participating anymore. I felt like embarrassed. I felt like I couldn't share the store anymore. And my husband reminds me that that is the story is speaking your truth because there are people online who feel the same way that they feel like they can't talk about things, that they feeling better. They feel like failure. Felix made a decision. Or maybe they said something they should enough. And he says, As long as you speak your truth, you maintain your power. Your power is the version of your story when something else calls you out on something that you've tried to keep it and you lose your power. Andi, this is me sending my power saying it's really hard and we don't know what's happening on. We just have to keep on taking one step forward and one step forward. But what I do know is every morning I wake up and I think to myself, uh, our child could be in the world right now. Um, it we want a daughter. So I'm just people saying she, uh, she could be in somebody's Billy. She could be a thought, but I wake up for her and I pray every morning like this girl is going to change the world. I'm gonna keep on saying it. I think that we're gonna I think I Everyone wake up, I'm gonna raise, you know, the next female. Yeah, the next female president. Like we're gonna But we're gonna We're gonna raise ah, game changer. A world's changer. What do you want? All the world is your oyster, for I go before you to break every glass ceiling so that you never have to realize that those exists and vision for a daughter. You know about pressure. I'm also already sticking up for her therapy fund. OK, College fund therapy fund. Yeah, we got those. We got those in investing in them already. You've also been, uh, very open in this conversation and others about your mother having brain cancer. Yes, as someone, both my parents have gone through cancer bouts. I was hoping you could characterize that for me. I know it's a really huge role in your life and maybe could replace some of that. I think eso what happens. There are certain instances in your life that change your complete directory and the way that you see the world. And I think being the eldest of five Children and being a first generation and being like, I'm just programmed to be really responsible and a lot of the responsibility for familial care really fell on my shoulders, have a twin sister. We shared responsibilities, but I think she would also agree that I took on a lot of it. And I think that when you are helping somebody who's been sick for 8.5 years, it really calibrates you to what matters and health is the only thing that matters and help is the only thing that you almost are at the mercy to of faith and what her What her journey taught me was that I have to make decisions for my health that will empower me. Teoh run at the highest capacity and serve others at the highest capacity and also measure every decision against time. Every decision gets time. I am just not one to vassal eight. I am not one to sit in a corner and wonder what if I am one to jump. And I wasn't like this until I was years old when I literally got married and I saw this and then the minute I just said, screw the safe path screw the law school. That the predictability. The the highest office in downtown L. A and the pointy shoes and the expense. Of course. Screw all of that. I'm going to jump in because I don't know how much time I have left in my life. And her journey with cancer, Yes. Made me stronger. Yes. Want me to make smarter decisions about my health? But what it taught me the most was time. Like you have one wild and crazy life. What are you going to do with? Are you going to sit in the corner at your predictable job in your cubicle? Seeing all these other people doing these things and think that that's not the world for you? Dear God, get off that and say, What do I want? What do I need to do? Make it happen? Can I sleep in our less? Can I wake up in our morgue earlier? Can I not watch game of Thrones? Can I not playing the basketball league? Can I watch YouTube for an hour every night? Did you learn the thing that I need to learn? The world is yours for the taking. Stop making excuses and start reasons why you can do what you want to do. Time is not on your side. It is not in my side. If I die today, Dana and I will die. So freaking happy because I said yes, I jumped in even when he didn't have the answers. Sorry. So I did some things. I just want to get people and shake him by the shoulders and say, God almighty, the world is yours. Why don't you take it with me? I really I can't think of a better way to and you die like I don't know. It's I'm sure there was, like, five things we didn't talk about that were supposed to. But that's just that's just too powerful. Looks quick. Recap on social career Back on What's the best place for people to find you? Because I think you'll you'll, uh, you're changing lives out there for those folks. The handful of folks who don't know your work yet. Tell us where to get you on the Internet on the Internet, jasmine star dot com jazz and start all social platforms. And there you can find links to social curator dot com. Amazing, and I'm super excited We're actually appear creativelive in Seattle right now, recording a new game. January. Remember, this is the woman who the largest class ever in the history of classes on the planet, not just school or like this is larger class ever in the world is sitting right here with this. So she brought you that class on photography almost 10 years ago. Nine years ago now, And, uh, what's your next last one? Next last call your social media boot camp. What we're doing is for three days we are meeting. We're gonna broadcast it, live for free, and we're going to show business owners the changes they can make in the business in just 30 days by having a vision by having a plan and showing up consistently on social media. So the best part of this thank you. And the amazing team has empowered me to do this. We're taking to businesses, and we're completely making them over. We just at the time of our recording now have just finished three days of working with business owners. I sent them back home with a 30 day plan and they're coming back to Creative live. And they're going to show what changes have occurred in 30 days. Because often times people say, Well, that works for him, and that works for her. But it won't work for me. This is going to work for anybody who is willing to do the work. So that's what we're going to show. I so excited. I think great stuff. I think we're gonna make magic. I feel it. Congratulations. Uh, I have nothing to say other than just thank you for bringing your whole self here showing up with your energy. Um, were cheering from you. Thank you for you. We have for you. Definitely. For where I'm from You, um And now we're gonna go out to a really yummy dinner. Do that. All right, everybody. Thanks for joining in. Check out Jasmine on all the stuff and thanks again for being a guest. You know, 10 years is the bullet was in full cycle. Alright. Signing up. See? Again? Probably. Hopefully, maybe