Jasmine Star, Conquering The In-Between

On this episode of She's Crafted to Thrive, I'm so excited to let you guys know that Miss Jasmine Starr, a world-known photographer and business strategist, is our guest. The show is about creative entrepreneurs being inspired and pushing through challenges, and Jasmine shares a little piece of that story that she hasn't really shared with anyone else in a podcast episode. So I hope you guys really listen to her rawness and her authenticity, of just dealing with life, right? And what that means. Then she gets down to the nitty-gritty when it comes to business, 3 ways you can pivot in your business, and lastly, what to do with all the negativity when it comes to other people. And she just dropped some gems, y'all, so stay tuned.

Welcome to She's Crafted to Thrive. I'm your host, Nikita Williams, and this show is for all the ladies who are making and creating things that they love. You will here conversations about the real everyday struggles of juggling life and business while trying to maintain passion and harmony. As women, we have the skill of getting things done, but sometimes we get in our own way. It's here where you'll see that you're not alone. You'll discover that success does not mean perfection. Fear and negative thoughts and challenges are all a part of the journey. And on this podcast, you'll find the inspiration and tools you need to have a life and business Beth thrives. Oh my gosh, guys, I'm so excited to have Miss Jasmine Starr on She's Crafted to Thrive. Like, I can't even believe I'm saying those words right now. Um, I'm just super excited. And, um, if you don't know who she is, she is to me, and I think the world knows that she's a wonderful, amazing photographer and a social media business strategist and just like awesome and generous and very sweet. So welcome, welcome, welcome.

Well, thank you. With that welcome, girl, I mean, my head, it was like a balloon. It just kept on getting bigger and bigger.

Thank you. I'm just kidding. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes. Um, I want to jump right in. Um, I have, you know, I've been following you since your CreativeLive days, like when CreativeLive just became CreativeLive, like My husband and I love CreativeLive, and I have been following you ever since then. And then Social Curator and my business kind of transitioned into what it is now. And I'm just so excited that you are doing this in your life at this point. But I'm curious if you would be open to sharing, how did you pivot to where you are today? I know that's a huge, like, jump from, from where you started as a lawyer or pursuing law to being a photographer. So you can share a little bit about that story with us. That would be awesome.

Absolutely. And just for the point of like clarity's sake, we mentioned a lot of stuff all at once. So people are hearing and they're like, creative, what? Social care, what? Okay. So for, for us to make sure that we're on the same page and let everybody know is like, clearly y'all, like you and I are creative entrepreneurs. And what is the definition of creative entrepreneur? It's somebody who's using or leveraging their creativity, whether or not they consider it to be a classical form of creativity. You might not be a painter, you might not be a crocheter, but you are somebody who uses and leverages your ideas, your thoughts, and your creativity to monetize it in a way. And so there has been this way that I started off as a creative entrepreneur as a photographer. It was my first jump into like, hey, I'm gonna start a business. I didn't own a camera, which ironically, I was like, you know what, I— there's, there's this thing I want to do. Don't have the tools, don't have education, don't have money, don't have a network. I don't need my daddy's friend. Like, my dad as an immigrant. I didn't know anybody who even actually had a business. And here I am being like, you know that thing? Yeah, I'm going to start a business. I have nothing and I don't even have a camera. I'm going to become a photographer. That's my origin story. So if anybody has a wild and crazy dream, I've kind of become a champion of them because I've walked that path. Like where you feel it in your bones and you're like, I think I can do this thing. And so the chat that we have, you had mentioned CreativeLive. Now back in like 2010, there was this new crazy idea and that was to broadcast live education on the internet. Now today we bring that up, we're like, so what, what's the big deal, right? That didn't exist. Like, you know, we're like dating ourselves. It was like back in the days of our rotary phones, kids. Uh, we wrote, uh, we wrote on stone. That's what we did. Okay, so back in the day there was this crazy new thing called Ustream. Okay, like if anybody remembers Ustream, like, like let's just clap it up. Okay, so we were able to take classes online through Ustream and put it out on the interwebs. And that was transformative. CreativeLive truly was one of the very, very, very few early companies that were doing this. And around that time I went on and I taught a class, and we didn't expect that this idea of teaching a photography class while I was shooting a live wedding of real people with hundreds of guests in the audience would actually break the internet. We broke Ustream 4 times. We trended on Creative Life on Twitter next to Barack Obama and Lindsay Lohan. Like, get out, right?

Right.

I'm just like, I mean, you, you made it when you're with Barry.

Okay.

Barry and Michelle, like my homies. I was like, I'm literally 6 degrees closer to Barack Obama. Okay. So anyway, anyway, like this is my claim to fame. I trended next to Barry. Anyway. Okay. So that is, so that is my inception. That's my origin story. Like I dropped out of law school because my mom was really sick and I had this coming too. Of thinking, God forbid, if I get brain cancer the way that my mom did, I don't want to look back in my life and think, what if, like, what if I had chosen differently? And I think that that's the question that so many people look back in their lives on the cusp of taking their last breath. And did I do the things I wanted to do? Did I live my purpose? Was I passionate? And that was, it was a reckoning. I was 25 years old at the time and my mom was 50. And I was like, oh God, I'm having a midlife crisis. And I knew that I didn't want to die a lawyer. And I knew that I wanted to do something bigger than what the path that had been clearly defined for me. And, um, that first jump of saying, okay, I have my— okay, so I should probably back up. In 2005, my husband— we had just been married 2 months— I tell him I have this dream of being a photographer. And instead of him saying, that's a crazy idea, he says during Christmas, surprise. And then I opened a very simple camera, and I opened the box on January 1st, 2006, because 2005 was a really hard year, very, very, very difficult from a family perspective, from from a life perspective, from a purpose perspective. And I thought, this is a new year, it's a new beginning, it's a new me. It was very cheesy. It was very like a really, really, really bad version of like Super Soul Sunday. Okay. So I have this come to Jesus moment where I'm like, this is the thing I want to do. And within 3 years I was voted one of the top photographers in the world. And I say that because when you're passionate and you're hungry and you know that you're doing the thing that you want to do and you're dedicated to taking care of your clients and customers, comes back tenfold. And that opened the doors for me to get notoriety in a photography world, which then opened the doors for me, uh, to be brought on in onto CreativeLive, which is a platform that has hosted like a lot of amazing, amazing teachers and instructors like Richard Branson and Tim Ferriss and just a lot of amazing people. And so to be on a similar stage or platform as they were, it opened me up to a lot of different industries. As a result, entrepreneurs who were not photographers were like, hey, we see you doing what you're doing with photography. Photographers, can you help our businesses? And at first I was like, no, not me, right? Like, I, I'm just a photographer, I can't help you. But business principles are business principles. Like, sure, they have to be modified slightly to whatever it is you're selling, but business is business. And so on the sly, like on the DL, I was like, okay, I'll take on a couple consulting clients. And then one led to another, to another, kind of developed like an under-the-radar reputation of helping businesses. And that transformed my confidence in teaching people. And I created an Instagram for business class and thousands of people went through this program. I was really proud, but when they went through the program, the program's called Insta 180. And when they went through Insta 180, they said, thank you for the content, but Jasmine, we don't have photos. Like, we don't know, we're not a photographer. We don't know how to take good photos for Instagram. And like, hey Jasmine, we don't know how to like write our captions. We're really overwhelmed. And like, can you just tell us what to do on Instagram? And I grappled, my husband JD and I are business partners and we grappled with How do we answer these questions? Like, how do we help business owners get confident and show up with ease? And then we came up with this idea for Social Curator, which was 30 lifestyle photos, 30 caption templates, and an easy plan to follow to market your business every single month. And so we created this membership, which is your, you're a part of. Yes, queen, go on. And that's where we are today. That was very long-winded, but now we have the whole scope. Now, now, now people get it.

I love it. Thank you for the whole scope. And you did that Fast, I tell you.

I have a little practice, Queen. I have a little practice.

Well, I want to dig into some of the things that you mentioned, um, in that, and, and that, and one of those things that you have said, and I've heard you speak about this before, is that in 2005 it was like a really hard place for you. And, you know, your story with your family and your mom going through cancer is a, is a similar path of something that's happened in my life with my own grand— my grandmother, who was like life to me, um, going through that and being in college and doing kind of dealing with some of the similar things. When you say 2005 was like just trying to find your purpose, can you kind of tell us a little bit about that? Because I feel like that part is kind of missing.

I— you know what, I have, I have literally done hundreds of podcasts and nobody has ever asked me that question. So the fact that that is question number 2, we're gonna hit this out of the freaking ballpark. Okay, I it. Thank you for giving me the opportunity because it's something that I don't— it's something I don't want to share, but I have to make sure that this— the space is safe to share. So I can say that 2005 was a really hard year, but I, I probably should back up a little bit and explain that my parents are immigrants. They're not educated. My mom homeschooled us and she herself barely graduated high school. So it was very simple. My parents just didn't have money. We were on government assistance and The church we went to took up a collection plate to make sure we had Christmas gifts. Like, that's my truth. And for a first-generation Latina to get to college on a full-ride scholarship that was for academics, that was like a really big thing in my family, in my house, in our community. And then for me to earn a scholarship, a full scholarship to multiple law schools, and I ended up choosing UCLA Law School in LA here in Los Angeles. Because it was closest to my family. When I was in college, my junior year, my mom was diagnosed with brain cancer. Uh, and it was so difficult because my family is extraordinarily close and my mom has just given her whole life to her children. I have younger siblings. At the time, I am 19, 20, and I have a brother and sister who are 9 and 11 respectively. And my mom was completely bedridden for about 3 years. And I took into this like massive responsibility to work. I can't let my grades slip. So I got straight A's in college and I was involved on campus. And I would go home once a week in the middle of the week and then drive home on the weekends to do laundry, to make meals, and then also take care of my younger brother and sister to make sure that they had somewhat of a childhood when they didn't necessarily have a fully cognizant mom, right? And like, people— and I also was a waitress and I had an on-campus job. And so people would say, how are you guys doing? Like, how are you keeping up? And I was like, we're fine, this is cool, we have this, like, we're good, we're good, lots of prayer, we're good. And I think only in retrospect that I realized I was really carp— mental— like, compartmentalizing my life. Like, I couldn't feel I didn't allow myself to feel the situation because anytime I would feel a situation, there would be a breakdown. And at the time, I was like, ain't got no time for a breakdown. Like, Jesus, take the wheel. There's no time for a breakdown. And only after I've done a lot of heavy lifting and work to understand what I was doing to my mind, my body, and my soul, I was like, I think my mom is going to die. How do I keep my life together? And she ended up being at my college graduation with my younger brother and sister. She was about 45, 50 pounds heavier because of the chemo. She was completely bald. She had an eye patch. She was in a wheelchair, but she was there. And the doctors were taking like a step back from, uh, from her chemo at the time. And we thought, okay, this is it. After she had battled for such a long time, like we felt like she was on the upswing because the doctors said, we're gonna take a step back. So I got into the corporate world for about a a year, and then I got into law school. And it was in my first year of law school that my mom had a relapse. And I wasn't— I wasn't happy in law school. I felt like it was the thing that I worked for, and I was there, and I was like, oh my God, everybody here is like overwhelmed and depressed and stressed. I'm like, this is not the place for me, but I thought this is what I worked for. And then my mom had a relapse, and everything I didn't allow myself to feel for 4 years came to a head. I was wildly unhappy. I was very alone. I'm extraordinarily introverted. I wasn't making friends at school. I lived in a studio apartment. I was waking up really early in the morning. My hair was falling out.

I was just so stressed out.

And then I just realized I am having an emotional break. Like, I went into a deep depression. And that was like my first foray in understanding, like, mental illness and like understanding that it runs in my family. And this like opened up a lot of conversations about the path I should be choosing and the health and the decisions that I have to make. And so when I say I had a really hard year, it was—

yeah, it was a really hard—

it was really hard year. And I think that when you are desperate, you make desperate decisions. And at the time, I was on a full-ride scholarship. I didn't talk to anybody about the decisions that I was going to make. So UCLA, because the parking is bachelor situation in LA. They— UCLA has these, uh, buses, and I lived in a beautiful campus housing for medical and law students. And this bus would pick you up and they would drop you off in front of the school, in front of your— for the law school. And I, I had a roller bag, okay? I'm real cool, a roller backpack. So I'm just like, I'm just fly, right? So I have my roller backpack because those books were literally like 87 pounds. I'm not putting them on my back. So I have my roller bag, I'm walking to class, and I just realized I hate it here. I hate myself. I hate where I am. I hate my situation. What am I doing? I walked into the dean's office. I sat in a blue pleather chair and I just waited. And they're like, I'm sorry, you don't have appointment. I'm like, I'm waiting to speak to the dean. I walked in and I just said, I need to leave law school. I have a medical emergency. I am not well. My mom is sick. I need to be with her. And they gave me generously— shout out to UCLA— they gave me 3 years to go back and claim my scholarships. Full scholarships, I can go back in. I was like, great, I'll be back. I get back on that bus, I call my boyfriend at the time, and I'm like, I just left school. And he's like, wow, great, do you want to get dinner tonight? And I was like, no, I left school. And he's like, did you talk to your parents? And I was like, no, I'm so unhappy, I just need to be with them. But I didn't think it through. This is classic Jasmine move. I just make a decision and then I have to find a way to make it work, except for the fact that my scholarship included my housing. My housing was at UCLA. If I was no longer a student, uh, I ain't got a house. So I do what any Latina woman does when she's 25— she moved back home. And I packed up my stuff, I moved it back home in my boyfriend's beater of a truck. He wore— he drove like this 1982 Ford Ranger with a camper on it, okay? The back of the truck, the back of the truck had carpet. What kind of—

what?

Okay, See, now you— and I married that man gladly. Yes, I am down for him. I was just like, I will marry you with this carpeted truck that you have. Um, so he drove me home, we unloaded that camper truck with carpet, and, um, I just— I felt like in the singular moment I walked upstairs to my mom and she was in bed and I pressed my nose to the back of her neck and she smelled like eucalyptus and Pond's facial cream, and I said, I just made I made the best decision of my life. And then the next morning, I'm sleeping in my bedroom and the sunlight is coming into the slatted curtains, and I'm like, oh God, I just made the worst decision of my life. So, um, I think when people ask like, how was 2005? I was like, well, I got a full-ride scholarship, I dropped out of law school, I moved back home, I promptly had a midlife crisis, I had no money, I had no prospects. My boyfriend of 9 and a half years proposed to me, we plan a wedding in 3 months, I get I get married, a miracle of miracles. My mom and dad walk me down the aisle. I come back to my newly minted husband and I get a letter from UCLA saying it's time to come back. And I'm like, I don't want to go back, which he asks me, what do you want to do? And I said, I want to be a photographer. All of that happened in 2005. So that is why I refused to open my camera in 2005. I was like, no, no, no, I need a new year. I need a new chance. And 2006 came and Wow.

I'm so glad you shared that because I have heard, you know, you talk about it and I'm like, I really wonder what was like, how was the timeline between, you know, leaving school and family? And I've always wondered, and I so appreciate you sharing that because I think so many of us, um, we do exactly the same thing. Like we like are getting through the hard stuff and then we get through it. And years later we look back and we're like, yeah, we got through the hard stuff. But what actually happened during the hard stuff is like sometimes really hard to like really think about and share with other people because, you know, we feel like, hey, we got through it. Let's go on. Let's move on. So thank you.

And you know, Brené Brown talks about this and I think it's— she talked about this far before the advent of social media was really at its apex, but she calls this gold-plated grit where we have the ability, but even specifically it shows up so much, so, so much more so on social media where we talk about this hard thing we went through and like, yeah, we went I went through this hard thing and I feel great. But when you actually can talk about where you are in the process, which I did, which was extraordinarily cathartic for me. I started a blog when I first started my business and I was just like, I don't know if my mom is going to survive. I'm trying to get this thing off the ground. And I brought people on the journey. And there's something really beautiful about being authentic and real on the internet and how it unexpectedly— I didn't know it then. I was not a savant. I wasn't even cool. I was just doing what I did. And it ended up being the thing that really catapulted my business.

Yeah, I think people just want to know the, the real. I mean, we— it's— I was reading a book recently and it's like the idea of the false legends, like as if people just all of a sudden become successful with no, no struggle, no, no discovery of themselves. It's like one of those things that it really just takes time to open our own selves up and then be willing to share it with others. And that, like, makes us— makes it so much easier for other people to connect to you when you connect to yourself.

1,000%. 1,000%.

Well, so I asked— yes, I went to the group and I asked if they had any questions. That was my one question that I really wanted to ask you. And I asked the group to ask.

Okay.

Okay.

We have to bring everybody on. We have to bring everybody onto this train. Because when you say the group, what group are you referring to?

I'm talking about social curators and I'm also talking about my She Thrives tribe. So cool. I'm super excited because they, they gave me tons of awesome questions. So one of the questions is kind of taking our conversation completely different direction, which is if you were to give us like steps of how you changed your business, like from being solely a photographer to being a photographer as a business strategist, this? Like, what were those steps that you took? You kind of mentioned it earlier, like, you, you know, slowly started taking on consulting clients, but what were the steps if you could name them?

I mean, that is like trying to take a sip from a New York City fire hose. No, I just— you know what, I think that I can give— I can give an overview and a synopsis that would make people feel like it's digestible. But I actually— I get asked this question so often because for listeners who are not familiar, I had a wildly successful photography career in business. And for what it is, I know it's the truth. I was part of the 1% in the industry. And specifically being a female, specifically not having any formal photography training experience or any sort of business training experience, I think that it gave people a lot of hope. Like, a lot of hope that, like, a girl from the hood can actually rise to a to the top of a very competitive industry. And so I understand that the luxury of being in that space is also to understand that you have arrived in that space and you realize, where or how can I grow from here? And I felt like, and perhaps it's true or not true, but I felt like I had reached the pinnacle of my career and I could have stayed there for a while, but I can't stay and not grow. It's just not my personality. And when people ask about like, well, how did you pivot? On the outside, I think people saw a pivot that took about a year. Behind closed doors, that pivot took about 2 and a half years. And there's like this, this time and period of really, really, really— so I, uh, I journal every day. And before this, things like I'm some hippie that has like 3 hours to journal, it is literally like a 5-minute— just I document what am I feeling, what am I doing. I try to leave something positive, but I also try to leave like the real stuff. And in this journal, I'm just— you could see back in like 2016, 2015, just, I don't know what I'm doing. Where am I going? What is my purpose? Who am I serving? Like, it was this whole reckoning of what, what you did in a previous industry has very little to do what you want to do in your next industry. And I think that behind the scenes, the greatest thing that I did was I wasn't going to move until I knew who I wanted to serve.

Gotcha.

And when I was a photographer, it, I made it very clear early on that I wanted to be in a niche, and that niche was to service brides and, or the wedding world. So at a I was working with editors, I was working with art directors, I was working with brides. I knew that that was my market for a while. And as a result, I was able to quickly catapult myself and then as a result, get commissioned for different types of genres of photography. I knew that I needed to understand as I went into this new market who I needed to serve. And if people are looking to pivot, understanding who you want to serve and then showcasing your unique, your unique value proposition, like I don't care if you're training horses, walking dogs, or selling skincare, you have something different. We all do. And even if you say, Jasmine, I'm a painter and I use the same paintbrushes and the same paint and I use the same studio and the same canvases. Yeah, but we see things differently. We feel things differently and we connect with people differently. That alone, that alone is what sets us apart as entrepreneurs. And so I knew immediately that the thing that I had to offer differently than other people using social media was that I was using successfully using social media, specifically Instagram, to grow my business. And so I thought to myself, like, after consulting, which was amazing and I loved it, I just realized, oh, I got myself into another position that I got into photography. I can only take on so many clients. And even if I was charging a premium, there was a glass ceiling to how much I could make. And I thought to myself, okay, this is great, everything I've learned. And the number one thing that people kept on asking me was, Jasmine, you've built up a personal brand. From nothing. And I was like, yes. And they're like, and you've built up hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, hundreds of thousands on Facebook, uh, YouTube at the time, Snapchat, Twitter. They're like, what are you doing? And everybody kept coming back about my social. And I was like, how can I teach what I know about Instagram to more people? And that was my first foray into a new industry. But all of that time and synthesis and consulting and getting to know know, like, who I'm serving took about 2 years. And it wasn't until, like, probably 6 months when I kind of started saying, like, hey guys, I have, like, this online class. Like, that was when people like, oh, she pivoted. I was like, no, boo-boo, I've been pivoting for 2 and a half years behind closed doors, right? Um, and like, I guess the main steps would be know who you want to serve, know your unique value proposition, and then lean heavily. So when I started promoting— listen, I know that there are literally thousands of people who talk about Instagram and sell courses, but none of them of them, or very few of them, to the best of my, to the best of my knowledge at the time, were top photographers who had successfully launched photography campaigns that have 100%, at the time, organic traffic and have engagement rates that are great. So that's immediately where I went in.

Awesome. Yeah, totally. I love those steps. Thanks for, um, clearing those 3 steps really for us down, uh, One more question for you. As a photographer, and I, I'm not going to lie, I've been listening to different shows and I don't know if it's a pet peeve of yours, but it's a pet peeve of mine because people will be like, yeah, so now that you're a business strategist, they kind of almost discontinue that you are a photographer still, which I find funny because Social Curator is based on photography and social media. How do you what do you say or how do you feel to those that misjudge how you're doing your thing? Like, how are you doing? Like, you know, the naysayers, how do you— what do you reply to them?

I can't control anybody else's opinion of me, and anybody else's opinion of me is of none opinion of my own. I honestly, I think that the blessing of being raised by a fantastic immigrant dad is like he would always tell his kids, If you don't want anybody to say anything about you, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. But if you believe that you've been called to leave an imprint on the world, you better speak up and you better speak up loud. And I feel like that has always been my thing. No matter what I do, if I say I like yellow, if I say I like blue, somebody else hates yellow, somebody else loves blue. If I say that I'm too old, people like, she's too young, she's too old. I mean, I can't be everything to all the people. Do I think that there's going to be naysayers? Of course, because people often project their doubt on when somebody else is doing the thing that they want to do. I cannot control what you say about me. I must control. I must do one of two things. I must attract people into my orbit and I must repel people. The thing that we so often see on social media, which is what stunts growth, is that everybody wants to serve everybody and be everything to everybody at all the same time. But how many times do you hear anybody walking into 31 Flavors and say, I want vanilla of all the ice cream in the store. I want vanilla. Nobody orders vanilla, right? Because it's like, it's just there. And we know it exists, but like, it's— you're not standing out. People go in and they know what they want. And I might hate bubblegum ice cream, blue ice cream, get the heck out of here, but somebody else might love it. My objective is to be the most annoying, amazing, palatable, disgusting, awful, delicious flavor of ice cream to somebody. And for those people who have an opinion, listen, Listen, spell my name right and give me a link when you do, because when you're talking about me and you have an opinion, you're going to send somebody my way and that person might be my people. So I welcome it all.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. That was like drop the mic right there.

You set me up for it though. You literally set me up for it. You handed me the mic and you took away the stand and you're like, drop it in 3, 2, 1. Well, let everyone know where they can find you.

You online and how they can be a part of your tribe.

Thank you, babe. You can find me on all social platforms @jasminestar and at jasminestar.com, where people can download free Instagram guides, branding guides, and also find links to Social Curator.

Thank you for joining me and Jasmine on this episode of She's Crafted to Thrive. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you were inspired by it, and I hope you take the things that Jasmine has shared with this to heart and put it in your business. Please be sure to like, subscribe, and review us on iTunes and share with your friends all the wonderful things that She's Crafted to Thrive is doing. And if you would like to continue the conversation, please visit me on my website at craftedtothrive.com in the podcast section. In the meantime, I can't wait to hear from you guys, and remember, you are crafted to thrive.