My mom had brain surgeries and chemotherapy, and radiation (it was so aggressive that she spent many months in bed).

After a particularly long stretch of being bed-bound, she worked with a physical therapist to gain strength and walk for more than just a few steps at a time.

Lemme tell you: Watching my mom re-learn how to walk was a mind-flip moment.

When she was 22 years younger, she was watching me take my first step, and all these years later, it felt like I was watching her take her first steps all over again.

But here’s the tricky part: She began to sob when she couldn’t take more than a few, and felt like it was impossible for her to do what she wanted to do.

My mother–even if she didn’t say it out loud–felt like she was failing.

My dad and all my siblings were cheering her on and WE believed in her, but if she didn’t believe in herself and her first steps, nothing we said mattered.

And all these years later, here’s what I know to be true: If you don’t believe in YOU, it will never work.

• Your dreams won’t work.
• Your work won’t work.
• You’ll never get other people to believe in you.

Is that hard to hear? Does it sting? Maybe it even offends you. I get that.

But it’s still true.

In fact, if you look back at things in your life that didn’t work out the way you hoped, it’s most likely that you stopped believing.

In the project, the job, the people, the outcome, maybe yourself.

And while you can’t control things or people that aren’t you, you can control YOUR belief.

So, how? How can you control your beliefs when it feels nearly impossible at times?

I’m going to walk you through the three steps that help you rebuild unshakable belief from the inside out.

STEP ONE:  CLARITY

Most entrepreneurs get stuck because they’re still identifying as the version of themselves who struggled.

Belief doesn’t grow when you keep consulting your past…it grows when you intentionally direct your attention to who you’re becoming.

Instead of trying to become this person overnight, choose one identity shift to practice today.

Just one.

• “I’m someone who follows through.”
• “I’m someone who takes the next step even when I doubt myself.”
• “I’m someone who learns the skill instead of judging myself for not knowing it yet.”

Belief grows when your actions match the identity you want, not the identity you’re leaving behind.

STEP TWO:  PROOF

Let’s talk about evidence.  Oh how I LOVE evidence.  I went to law school so I’m obsessed with having, looking for, or finding evidence.  In a case, it’s the only thing that matters.  Not opinion, not she-said, he-said…EVIDENCE.

Belief doesn’t grow from willpower — it grows from proof.

A lot of business owners underestimate themselves because they judge their success only by the big results… instead of by the small, powerful evidence that they’re becoming the kind of person who succeeds.

So here’s what you should do: Create micro-wins.

Not giant, overwhelming promises.

Simple, doable steps.

Instead of saying  “I’ll post daily forever,” try —> “I will post three times this week.”

Instead of “I’ll change my entire offer,” try —> “I will refine one section today.”

Small wins create momentum — and momentum is how belief grows.

PART THREE:  RESILIENCE

You don’t struggle because you’re not capable.

You struggle because Success asks you to stay in discomfort…and most people were never taught how to do that.

I want you to normalize something: You are supposed to feel awkward, behind, or unqualified in the middle of your journey.

That feeling is not a sign to stop — it’s a sign that you’re in the exact place where growth happens.

If you practice these three steps, you will rebuild a level of belief that feels steady, strong, and deeply yours.

Not because you got lucky.

Not because things suddenly got easy.

But because you learned how to believe in yourself again — one aligned action, one moment of proof, and one resilient realization at a time.

Before I end, I should probably mention my mom is walking now. She turned her doubt into belief and it changed her life.

She set a powerful example for me, and I hope her story can also give you hope that you can change your future when you believe in yourself today.

Your Biggest Believer,

j*

P.S. Do you overthink overthinking? I’m basically an Olympic champion of overthinking, so I’m sharing a podcast episode of the BEST way I’ve found to lessen it and actually make it productive in my life and business. Listen to it >HERE<.

The post How To Build Unshakable Confidence appeared first on Jasmine Star.

I look forward to high-fiving you on New Year’s Eve for all the lessons you learned, how hard you tried, and who you became in the process.

Congratulations in advance,

j*

P.S. Think you’ll love this podcast, all about money, mindset, and what changed to help me make millions in business.

The post NO NEWSLETTER appeared first on Jasmine Star.

I didn’t even know who I was at the moment.

Whenever I travel for business trips, I’m up before sunrise, workout complete and coffee in hand.  I’m what you call, planned-ready-type-a-go-get-em-planner. Few people love a good routine and system more than me.

You wanna change plans last minute? There’s a detour? You wanna surprise me? NO GRACIAS AMIGO.

I—hand-to-heaven—would never, ever expect for someone to challenge my plannery-planner-plan self.

That is, of course, until I found myself on a sunrise hike in Santa Fe, New Mexico a couple of weeks ago, and an 82-year-old cowboy/nature guru/man of the Pueblo people called me out.

We began our hike on a chilly morning and just before we began our ascent, Cowboy Lee took off his socks and boots and began walking barefoot.

I was in Santa Fe as part of a Leadership Accelerator…a BUSINESS Leadership Accelerator and I was not expecting campfires, sound baths, and sunrise hikes.

Mostly, I wasn’t expecting barefoot cowboys. But I was intrigued.

I stared at his toes in the red clay dirt and wondered what it would feel like to be so free.

THEN I SHRUGGED AND DOUBLED KNOTTED MY SHOE LACES BECAUSE PLANNERY-PLANNERS DO NOT DO DIRT. Amen.

Ten minutes into the walk, I heard Cowboy Lee holler my name from 30 feet behind me.

I turned around and waited until he repeated what he’d just yelled, “JASMINE TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES AND LET THE EARTH SPEAK TO YOU.”

This. Was. Not. Going. According. To. Plan.

I went to this retreat with the promise that I was going to commit to getting uncomfortable so that I could learn how to embrace uncomfortability in all aspects of my life. Including business.

Walking barefoot at 6 a.m. on a mountain trail in Santa Fe? THAT was uncomfortable. So I did it.

Picture yourself reading an entire encyclopedia while sprinting on a treadmill in stilettos trying to avoid Mario Kart prickly tortoise shells thrown in your path while calculating the amount of gasoline required to get to the moon.  THAT is what a barefoot business hike feels like.

Joining 10 brilliant entrepreneurs in New Mexico as part of a Mastermind, we spent three days brainstorming ideas, charting our personal development, and creating fresh strategies toward professional development.  While it sounds pleasant, it mostly felt like my brain was trying to get through an American Ninja Warrior obstacle course.

Or a barefoot cowboy walk at sunrise.

I’ve been committed to sharing my messy-middle business journey with you, so here’s my top 3 takeaways from the trip so–hopefully–it feels like you were there with us in spirit.

(No toe exposure needed!)

1. Ask. Do. Think. I used to ask a question, think about the responses I received, then decide what to do. But when you’re around smart people you trust, DOING is the most important thing. It’s only when I do that I can think about my actions, and results.
2. If you’re the smartest person in the room, find a new room. It’s not easy hearing everything you need to do to get better, or being surrounded by people who are wiser, richer, and/or more successful than you but I learn the MOST when I’m the dumbest person in the room and I’m willing to ask questions that betray my inexperience. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.
3. You’re responsible for the effort, not the outcome. It’s agonizing to not get the results I wanted, or hit the goals I projected, but that’s normal. It’s easy to think that I’m the only person who has a feature/project/promotion go sideways, but the strongest entrepreneurs understand it’s all part of the process. So get up, and keep moving forward.

Can you see how these lessons made the barefoot hike seem like the easiest part of the trip?!

Regardless of how I felt, what I know is that I’m truly thankful, and I hope we continue to grow together. And—oh, hey, LOOK—I turned into a cowgirl in the process!

Thank you for allowing me to share my journey, thank you for your replies, thank you for your messages on social media, thank you for allowing me to share in your journey as well.

To the (barefoot) entrepreneurial journey,

j*

The post A Barefoot Mountain Hike??! appeared first on Jasmine Star.

(Was that a not-so-subtle name drop? Yes, but I’ll deny it.)

As I spoke with my friend, I said it felt like the end of an exciting challenge in my life. Goodbye curated narratives that looked like Instagram circa 2018 (don’t tell me you didn’t post a photo of your feet in the sand!), and HELLO GRIT.

I actually want to show the behind-the-scenes of a new build in my business.

A few minutes later, he corrected me and insisted this couldn’t possibly be the end…that at the culmination of 13 years of creating YouTube videos (for example), I wasn’t ending. I was starting again.

But I’ll be honest.  What I’m saying here–now–is the shiny.  The retrospective.  The icing on the cake.  This is the pretty stuff I want you to see and experience, but getting here?  Documenting in the mire has been extremely difficult.

In full disclosure, there are moments during filming when I just want to quit.  I am nervous, I am embarrassed, I am terrified of sharing so much of my personal business publicly.

As painstaking as these experiences were, (and are) I wouldn’t change them for the world.  I didn’t know how strong I was until I was desperate to survive.

We don’t know what we’re capable of until life thrusts us where we should be.

But this made me ask:  What if I lived my life this way?  As if I had no other option but to move forward.

What if I stopped giving myself excuses or easy ways out to not deal with the struggle, the hurt, or the fear?

That’s what I want to focus on today.  And I’m not just going to talk about my experiences or mere suspicions as to why I think living this way is good.  I’m going to talk to you about concrete scientific studies that prove success has little to do with being the “best”, or the strongest, or the smartest.

Success goes to those who simply refuse to quit.  Every time, all the time.

A while ago, I came across a TED Talk given by Angela Lee Duckworth.  She spent years studying what makes people successful.

She was an inner-city school teacher and noticed a pattern with her students: normal predictors of success (privilege, IQ, race, etc) had little to do with actual success.

So Angela set out to discover what makes people successful.

• She studied cadets at West Point Academy and hypothesized who would last over the five years.
• She studied rookie teachers in tough neighborhoods to see if they would make it through their first year.
• She studied high-profile fortune 500 companies to see who would climb to the corporate ladder over time.

Everything she thought would be significant indicators of success–IQ, good looks, economic status, intelligence, health–didn’t really matter.  At all.

So what’s the one thing that made a person prone to success?  Grit.

What is grit?  It’s the disposition of pursuing long-term goal with perseverance and passion.  Basically, it’s sticking with things over the long-run and working hard.

Her studies showed the grittier you are, the more likely you are to succeed.

She took her ideas further by saying those who had natural abilities or were gifted in a discipline didn’t mean they’d be successful.

In fact, she argues the opposite: if you have natural abilities, you aren’t used to getting back up after failures.  If sports, or academics, or art has come easy to you most your life, when you’re finally presented with a failure, it’s as if you’re not wired to deal with such things.

When I heard this, I let out an audible sigh.

My entire life I’ve never been one to stick out.  I wasn’t the smartest, fastest, and wasn’t the first to be chosen for team play.  None of this changed into adulthood, when I realized I also I didn’t have a history with familial connections, wealth, or experience with starting a business.

For all intents and purposes, I had no reasons for anyone to think I could be successful.

Or at least that’s how it appeared on the outside.

What people didn’t know was how much grit I possessed.  Duckworth states that grit is most prevalent in people who have failed and gotten up again.  And failure?  I knew failure well…we’ve been frienemies since childhood.

I have grown accustomed to failing flat on my face and finding a way to keep going.  I didn’t have much, but I definitely had grit.

Here’s what I’ve come to believe gritty people have in common:

1. They believe the ability to learn isn’t fixed…it can change with effort.
2. They believe that if you acknowledge that failure isn’t the end, they’re more likely to persevere because they don’t believe failure is a permanent condition.
3. They believe change is possible.  Always.
4. They don’t let setbacks disappoint them…they knew they were coming.  Now they just have to workaround them.
5. They believe in finishing what they started.

This can be boiled down to one sentence:  Pushing yourself and getting up after disappointment is something you must always do to be a success.

Have you had failures with your business?  Good.  This means you’re finding your path to success if you’re willing to keep pushing forward.

Sometimes it’s easy to respond to our failures by blaming it on a lack of X…

…I didn’t have time…

…I didn’t have the money…

…I didn’t have the technology…

…I didn’t have the education…

Sometimes it’s easy to say we lacked resources to follow our dreams, but even if this true—you, in fact, lacked resources—you can still be resourceful.

The most successful entrepreneurs are those who take the little they have and make it work.

In order to survive, you must be resourceful because, if not, you will find yourself stuck on a merry-go-round of disappointment and frustration.  In order to get off that dizzy ride, you must be willing to change.

But with these changes, struggle will come.  Failures will come.  It’s simply the natural order of how new things begin.

There will be more failures than successes…but the more you fail, the more you succeed.

The most successful people are those who don’t let the past define them.  They take risks and become resourceful to follow their dreams.

Today, I hope you make the decision to succeed.

I hope you stop looking at everything you don’t have, stop comparing your work to someone else’s, stop listing your lack of resources.

Today I hope you make the decision to get gritty.

I believe we are capable of wild successes once we become desperate to survive,

j*

The post Don’t Want to Share This appeared first on Jasmine Star.

I sat with those words for a few days until I recounted them to JD over a Sunday night dinner. Luna played with her chopsticks and I mindlessly poked at steamed cabbage and tofu, as I told JD I need time and space to think about my next steps.

An hour later, he booked a few nights in the desert for me to think and dream how I want to grow.

I got Luna, JD said, so please just focus on yourself. Luna raised her chopsticks and gave me a bright smile, chow mien strung through her tiny teeth.

A few days later, I found myself at Sensei, practicing yoga, meditating daily, sitting with a mindset coach, doing fascia release workouts, and practicing central nervous system relaxation techniques…

…and carrying my journal everywhere.

Before my trip began, my business mentor gave me a list of questions to answer, but I also used the time to reflect on and write about the last decade.

What was I grateful for? What was I proud of? What scared me the most? What was the biggest lesson?

I looked at myself outside of myself and expressed gratitude for what I had accomplished, but—mostly—for not quitting.

Because there were a LOT of times I wanted to quit.

Somewhere in the pages of notes, I also allowed myself to dwell in the Land of Possibility.

• What if anything could happen?
• What if everything I planned came to fruition?
• What if I got everything I wanted?

As much as I’d like to end this note with “AND THEN I CREATED MY BILLION DOLLAR BUSINESS PLAN…” you won’t find it here.

But what I did discover was the following: The last decade taught me not to dwell in triumph or despair, for the magnitude of the joy can only be found in the middle, where the dark work is done and your greatest hopes thrive.

To those of us in the middle,

j*

P.S. Looking for a 13-minute mindset shift that’ll rock your face off? I dropped a podcast quickie and it’s taken off like wildfire…listen to “How to Write a Better Story for Your Future” now!

The post Creating my Billion Dollar Biz Idea appeared first on Jasmine Star.

It was also the week where I was slated to give two keynote presentations, complete with new content I created, mostly focused on the topic of Mindset Shifts for Growth.

Oh, how ironic.

I talked to my best friend, Melanie, and I expressed how hard things have been. Personal, business, family, team building…despite my best efforts of juggling bowling pins lit on fire, I was dropping them.

Simply put, I told her, I’m disappointed. Mostly in myself.

And to make things worse, I explained, I’m supposed to stand on a stage in front of thousands of people and talk about shifting your mindset during hard times….I don’t want to feel fake, if I’m struggling to do that right now.

I heard the background sounds of honking taxi cabs and Christmas cheer as she walked the streets of New York City.

After a brief pause, she asked, What if you created the keynote for you?

Just like that, I knew she was right.

I was supposed to share the process of being IN a tough spot and still managing to push through…I wasn’t supposed to pretend that I have it together.

Last week, I stepped on two stages and began my keynote the same way: By admitting that I’m actively working through my own mindset for growth in 2024—even when times are tough—and shared my framework to foster empowering beliefs.

I wanted to share this with you in the hope that you, too, can show up as your truest self. You don’t have to know the most/ be the best/ have all the answers when it comes to your business.

Simply share what you know, how you do it, and the lessons you’re learning along the way.

This is a reminder that you’re enough.

You don’t need to feel fake or pretend to be someone you’re not. Speak your truth, stand in your power, and purposeful things will sprout.

To your growth,

j*

The post All of the Answers Are in This Post appeared first on Jasmine Star.

Do something decadent. I dare you.

Growing up, I never heard the word success.

It’s not that my parents were against the notion, but—truthfully—success was a luxurious thought, when most thoughts were reserved for scraping money together for rent and groceries.

The first time I thought of success—and realized I was capable of such a thought—I walked down Main Street in Disneyland.

My family was gifted tickets to the Happiest Place on Earth, so the first time I set foot down the trolley tracks next to The Emporium, I thought…

I HAVE OFFICIALLY MADE IT BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT SUCCESS FEELS LIKE.

It didn’t matter what I did that day forward, I logged success as walking down Disneyland’s Main Street.

When I want to mark my success as an adult, I buy tickets to Disneyland. In fact, that’s what I did today.

I didn’t buy the tickets because I was a success this year (let’s be real: material items don’t prove anything), I bought the tickets as a reminder.

No matter what happened this year—the highs, lows, successes, and painful lessons—I’m a success not for what I have, but what I’ve done.

The work behind closed doors, the silent building offline, the consistent change for progress.

Success is a feeling we can choose, regardless of our circumstances, so this is your reminder to do something that reminds you of how far you’ve come.

Wannabe Mouseketeer, j*

The post How Mickey Mouse Guaranteed My Success appeared first on Jasmine Star.

There’s no other way of saying it than the simple truth that everything in my business as I knew it, had changed. In one fell swoop, I had changed.

Looking back, I know my situation wasn’t unique. We ALL have things in life and business that punch the life out of us.

Until we choose to get back up.

I don’t know what you’re going through today, but I hope this letter finds you at the right time. Better yet, I’m sending you what I wish someone had told me 365 days ago.

Let’s start with the basics…

This is a terrible time, but you’ll get through it. You’ve gotten through every terrible thing in your life until now, so you’ll do it again.

I’m proud of the hard decisions you’ve made and time will prove that they were the best decisions, even though the most agonizing.

I know it feels impossible now, but I need you to trust that—much to your surprise—you won’t just survive, but you’ll thrive. Blossoms will appear on empty branches when you least expect it.

But now isn’t the time to give up. Now is the time to show yourself and those around you what lies deep within you. Now is the time when you prove your willingness to fight for everything you want in life.

Keep moving forward, even with tiny steps each day, because everything you want is on the other side of not giving up.

Stay the course,

j*

If you could go back one year and tell yourself something, what would it be?

The post I wish someone told me this 365 days ago… appeared first on Jasmine Star.

When my parents hosted dinner parties, I sat at the table and shared my opinion without missing a beat. When my parents had discussions about our family, I sat like a third partner and weighed in. I was once kicked out of Sunday school because I openly told the teacher that I knew more about the subject matter (to this day, I maintain that I did!).

So, yeah, I acted like an adult and cared about adult things, often times at odds with my parents.

One major place of contention was our front yard. My dad worked three or four jobs at a time, and my mother homeschooled five children, so a manicured lawn was the least of their concerns.

But not mine. I hated that our house was one of the shabbiest on the block.

We couldn’t afford a lawn mower, but my dad bought a push mower from a garage sale that he occasionally used. When it started collecting rust, I pulled it to the front yard and heaved my preteen body against the handle to get it to move. Four hours later, we’d have a trim lawn.

When I think back to this experience, I sum up my weird childhood decision to mow the lawn as the following: **I CARED HOW THINGS LOOK. I still do.

So imagine my cringe when I look at my current YouTube channel…all these years later and I think to myself, Do I have the shabbiest house on YouTube street?!?

I’ve been taking time to rethink and strategize my video creation approach (aka your girl is busting out her video hand mower), and wanted to share insights into a conversation I had with my friend and YouTube guru, Evan Carmichael.

I recently asked him two questions:

1. Should I start a new YouTube channel from scratch? (I started the channel years ago as a photographer, so a lot of my subscribers might not be interested in my new content.); and
2. Should I focus on a specific length of video? (I currently post three YouTube shorts, one video about 12 minutes in length, and one video 45-60 minutes in length per week).

If you click on the most popular videos on my channel, you’ll see they have NOTHING to do with what I am doing today…I also took a two year break from creating YouTube videos which stands as one of my biggest business regrets. Ever. I shouldn’t have stopped creating and, instead, shifted the momentum to my new business endeavors.

I mean, Y’ALL, this header needs a makeover…

And, lastly, I’ll be honest and admit that seeing these stats compared to my old stats are deflating to say the least (hundreds of thousands vs. hundreds). We’re pouring SO much time and resources into creating videos and it sometimes feels frustrating to see so little traction.

But I refuse to repeat the same mistake I made in the past: I will not stop making videos (even if the results aren’t favorable right now),…but—this time—I’ll be regularly assessing my efforts.

Here’s notes from my call with Evan…I shared them with my content team, and I’m sharing with them you so we can learn together.

• Don’t start a new channel…showing the journey about my pivots can be powerful overtime.
• He said that I should be documenting the struggle of creating high quality content just for a few hundred views…then once the account blows up (his words) we can show proof of consistency.
• He said our thumbnails are disastrous (LOL). Maybe we can use AI to make them more engaging?
• Our first benchmark when it comes to assessing our efforts: What percentage of people are watching past one minute. An editor KPI should be to focus on increasing that number each month.
• We NEED to have a trailer/bumper/preview before all our long form content in order to convince people to keep watching.
• Our YT content should be made assuming every viewer is a new viewer…we must sell people on why to watch and immediately offer a power punch benefit/promise within the first minute.
• Our goal should be to post at least one hour video per week. And BE CONSISTENT. That should be our bare minimum. We can/should create short videos and while they won’t move the needle too much for us now, it could be amazing for layering to create long videos around a theme later…BUT that needs to be our commitment.

I’m sharing this for two reasons: 1. I’m documenting the journey; and 2. To encourage you to keep creating…if not for immediate results, then for our future success.

To hand-mowing our lawns,

j*

P.S. I’m posting my podcast videos on YouTube, so if you prefer watching, to listening, you can do so >>HERE<<.

The post My biggest business regret (avoid this!) appeared first on Jasmine Star.