A (4:22)

Thank you so much.

B (4:23)

I'm so happy to be here. So happy to interview just a legend, a personal brand.

A (4:30)

Thank you. That feels funny to see to hear it associate with my name, but I receive it and thank you.

B (4:35)

Yeah, it is crazy because I'm sure When you were starting to build your personal brand, you were seeing this as something that, oh, this is so obvious. This is the future. And other people were like, that's a little wacky. What are you doing? Right? Like, they, you saw the vision before many others saw the. Saw the vision.

A (4:53)

Well, I want to be very like, I'm a straight shooter and I wish I could say I saw the vision because it would make me sound a lot smarter than I am. I didn't see anything, but I felt my way through something. So back when I, I didn't know about brand, I didn't grow up knowing about brand. I'm a first generation Latina immigrant family. We only knew marketing by what we saw on tv. I wasn't even aware of what was happening. But one thing I did know is that my dad would always tell us stories. He made everything into a story. And what I started realizing at a young age was that story was something that cap, like catapulted us into a scene or into a scenario and we felt immediately vested. I didn't know that that was going to play out into my business career until I dropped out of law school and I want to become a photographer and I don't own a camera. And I tell my husband I had just dropped out, my mom had brain cancer. And I was like, I, I want to live life. I don't want to live in a series of questions of like, what happens if I die when I'm 50? And I was 25 and decided to move forward. He went to Best Buy for Christmas, bought me a camera, like over the counter. And I was like, my life has just begun. Like, I officially have a camera now. When I look back, it was like so simple. It was like, no, no professional photographer would look at me and be like, there's a professional photographer. It was like, bless your heart. But that little tiny camera really set me off on like a pretty serious course as I became a professional, bona fide photographer. But at the time, I didn't have money for gear. So whatever money I had saved, I was renting gear like cameras, lenses, CF cards just to build up this career, quote, unquote, career that I had. And I didn't have money for a website, I didn't have business cards, I didn't have a portfolio. For all intents and purposes, I was not in business. I had this idea that was kind of like a hobby. And at the time I used a free blog. It was whatever was in front of me. And so I started the blog because I was Planning to go back to law school, I went to UCLA on a full ride scholarship. And I had three years to go back because I took a medical leave to be with my mom. And I was like, I'm going to go back, but I'm going to use this blog to document my failure. That way I can always look back at my life and said, you tried the thing and it didn't work out. So I just started blogging. And I think that I was pulling tools from my childhood, writing stories about how I was practicing, what I was practicing. I was working part time. I would be going on a date with my husband. I was like a newlywed. I still had started telling the story of who I was. And now, all of these years later, I know what a brand is. And it's not a business card and it's not a website and it's not the gear. And so back then I didn't have it. And so I told myself I have to use all these other things. And little did I know then what I know now that a brand is a feeling. And a brand is what somebody says about you when you're not in the room. And on that free blog, I was able to create feelings for people, for them to make an emotional decision about a purchase instead of an intellectual one. And that's brand.

B (7:40)

What I think is interesting about what you did too is, well, first you started even when you didn't have the perfect situation, you didn't have the lenses, you didn't make the website, right? And so many people listening are like, I want to start a personal brand, but where am I going to get $10,000 for a website? And how am I going to go get those professional headshots, right? And what you're saying is you don't need all that. You can actually start with what you have 100%.

A (8:06)

And there's something called the theory of constraints. And the more constraints you have, the more creative you have to be. And if you are looking at becoming a nurse or a yoga instructor or a photographer or a business owner, whatever it may be, and you look at all of your other competition and you say they have all of those things, that could be true, but it doesn't mean that you can't succeed if you don't have those things. People who really want something will find a way to get it. Now, if somebody's listening and they're like, no, I really want it, but it's just impossible, then I would say, look at your constraints and ask, even if I have these Constraints, what must be true for me to get the thing that I want. And so I don't want to say, I mean, I sound like, you know, like I'm so old, but I'm like, there's never been a better time to build a personal brand. Like, there was not any social media back at the time. As big as it is now, you have everything at your fingertips. You have the entire world in the palm of your hand. You can go and create a personal brand starting in five seconds.

B (9:05)

It's incredible. Like, we forget how blessed we are to live in. I was going to say 2025 in 2026, because anybody can write a book, anybody can make a film, anybody can create videos.

A (9:17)

Yes.

B (9:17)

Anybody can do photography. There's not this major barrier that used to be in the way, even five, 10, 15 years ago.

A (9:24)

That's right. And so to me, I'm like, I sometimes just walk around and I look at people who have so much potential, and the only thing that's stopping themselves is themselves. I just want to shake people like, you are so talented and you're so gifted. And oftentimes people will say, oh, well, I can't do this because of X or what I like, what I know or what I want to do. So many other people do it. It's not special. And I always challenge that belief. Because if something comes easy to you, let's say it's home organization, meal prep, running, and your friends are asking you about home organization, meal prep, or running, and you're like, oh, but this is not it. It's not that. The fact that you think is easy is that you assume everybody else has it and they don't. There's something special inside of you. And if you gave yourself the permission to actually see it, that's the start of the brand is that if people are asking you questions. So there's three ways of figuring out. Like, okay, well, I want to go out and I want to get something and I want to do something. And I always ask people, if I had to put you on stage right now, without notes, without preparation, what would you talk about for 15 minutes? Number one, I mean, then number two is this is what I deal with a lot with entrepreneurs. I'm like, well, I could talk about this, but I could really talk about this too. And I'm like, great, that's a wonderful, wonderful problem to have. Then I say, of the two things, which one gives you energy as you build your personal brand, it's going to require a lot of energy to create somebody to feel something requires something of you. And then the third question is, could I actually get somebody to pay me for this? And I'm not talking about a thousand dollars, I am talking about $30. Those three things will point you in the right direction of something you could build as well as you building your personal brand.

B (11:01)

I love that. I think it's a great idea to start to become conscious of what our friends are asking us for advice about. In my experience, I had so many friends asking me for career tips, career advice. And I'm like, this is so obvious. Why are they asking me this? And it happened enough times to where I started posting tiktoks about career tips. Maybe post number 200 got picked up into a six figure book deal with the biggest publisher in the entire world.

A (11:27)

Yes.

B (11:28)

On something I thought was completely obvious and that's a big problem that I see with my clients is they struggle of saying, well everybody knows these fitness tips well, everybody knows how to code well, everybody knows blah blah, blah, blah. But oftentimes it's because your social media feeds are reflecting that back to you. Right? Like, oh my God, well everyone's a personal trainer. Well, personally I don't have any personal trainers in my feed. Right, you do, right? Oh, everybody is a chef. No, like everyone's a vegan chef. No, I've never seen a vegan chef come across my page at all. So it's also we're kind of in these, these bubbles that may make us think things are saturated and it's not saturated because most people quit after post number 5 or try number 3 or whatever.

A (12:07)

Yes and amen. Like exclamation point to that.

B (12:10)

Yeah. So I'm curious, when you started, you went the route of incorporating yourself and your face in your name, where somebody that might be a little scared of that may have made like just their company brand that was like three birds photography and they hit. Why did you choose to include your face in your personal brand rather than hiding behind a logo? Kind of. What are your thoughts between whether you're going to go the company brand or the personal brand or integrate them?

A (12:35)

I actually probably don't lean one way or the other. I will tell you why I made that decision and why I made that decision was because I wanted to become a photographer and I wasn't very good. And then I started creating content and then people started asking me, different photography companies started asking me to create content on behalf of them that this is like pre influencer and I'm just like, you're gonna pay me to write on my blog around like reviews and I'm like, great. I started getting paid for that. But I, I didn't know and I wasn't really, I didn't think I was that good at it. And then when I stopped saying like, I'm not gonna write about other companies, I just really wanna focus my business, they started paying me to become. I didn't know what a consultant was and I was like, okay. So I went to Google, I was like, what is a consultant? How much do they make? And I was like, okay, this is how much I'm charging. And then people paid me for that. I thought, oh my gosh, this is incredible. And then in 2015 I was like, I don't want to be a consultant anymore. I really want to help business owners. So I created my very first digital course. And then in the scope of just, it was like 1 97. And I was like, I think I could teach business owners $197 worth of something. And then we went on and made over a million dollars in a year off that course. We started doing other courses and they kind of created just like a series of concentric 7 figure revenue stre. And the reason why in every single one of those businesses, including us starting a SaaS company and then including us starting a holding company, the reason why I'd always used my name is because my competition and other people who do things better than I do, are better than I do, are better than who I am and the things that I am producing now. If I had used Three Birds photography, people would then be choosing between photographer and three birds photography.

B (14:10)

Mm.

A (14:11)

I wanted them to choose me versus another photographer. And the game that I know how to play is I know how to be the best version of me. I don't know how to be the best version of that photographer, but I know how to be the best version of me. And every single one of the elevations within my career has always been, listen, there's a bunch of other consultants, there's a bunch of other SaaS founders, there's a bunch of other people who have holding companies. But nobody's better at being me than me. And that's why I chose my name.

B (14:34)

Yeah, that's so powerful. I mean company brands can be great. Obviously they're essential if you're creating something outside yourself. And also it's really hard for a human to connect with a non human entity. Right. For me to connect with, I don't know, Kroger. Okay. We have, I do have an emotional connection with Kroger. But let's say this is like sparkly Sparkle Water. For me to have an emotional connection with sparkly Sparkle water that I've never seen before is going to take a lot of repetition, a lot of advertising dollars, a lot of marketing. For me, if I had just seen you, we just met on the street, for me to have a connection with you is instantaneous. A human to human connection. We're biologically wired to do so. So I think if you have the option choosing between the three birds photography or Jasmine Star, Jasmine Star is going to get traction a lot quicker because you're using the affinity of yourself and you have that human to human connection very early on.

A (15:31)

I agree. And what we recently saw in 25 was the sale of poppy see to PepsiCo. It was a over, well over a billion dollar deal. And part of what came along with that was Ellison's personal brand to Poppy. They brought her on and she is still running it as a part to insulate what that investment came. Can we say that Poppy would have been acquired without Alison as a part of it? Maybe. But the fact that she was there, put that evaluation and had her be still having power at leading the company and leading that brand for where she is right now. So even if you would like to go with Three Birds photography, amazing. Still build out your personal brand too, because it will always help in separating yourself from the competition.

B (16:14)

How do you grow in your authenticity and personal brand? I think it can be scary when you're starting a personal brand that you might subconsciously feel like you have to put on a front or put on your news anchor voice or something.

A (16:26)

Right.

B (16:27)

But we know that true trust comes from that authenticity and vulnerability. What advice would you give someone to create that authenticity and vulnerability?

A (16:35)

I mean, I kind of feel like I am giving like weak sauce answers. Like, I am just like, I think, here's one thing, I think that I am an unqualified person doing something that takes a lot of qualification. And what I hope people think and see is like, wow, she actually is making it up as she goes and wow, she doesn't have it all together and still she's doing it. So when I talk about like creating authenticity, it's like when you had said that voice, the newscaster voice. Oh, I have the newscaster voice. Like, I'm fine. I'm like, okay, yeah. Then I show my phone, hi, how are you? Like, hey, a lot of you live and asking me like, no, nobody's asking you. And your pitch goes higher and you talk faster and it's so annoying. And the only way that I was able to get through that was by actually posting it because I would stop myself looking and like, you look terrible. You look terrible. This is awful. It feels fake. You look fake. Except for the fact that until I had let it go out, I can always hide in the cave of. I'm gonna work on it. I'm gonna practice one day. It's gonna be great. Like, no, I needed to get it out into the public and then say, the more reps you do, the stronger you're going to get. And so now sometimes I still do that. And now I will stop myself. I will start a story and be like, hey, guys. I'm like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not. You go back and look at the like across the screen like you're talking to your sister. Hey, what's up? Okay, so this is where we're not too much of a change, but enough for me to feel it in my body and say, you still look awkward. And on social, like, you still look a little awkward when you podcast, but you're more comfortable. And the longer I do it, the more comfortable I become.

B (18:11)

You get to show up and do it again and again and again. And I think of this like learning an instrument. Like, you're not going to go to guitar lessons for the first time and be absolutely shredding, right? You get to show up at guitar lessons at least a couple times a week for multiple years before you are fluent with the guitar, right? Before you can just jam out. And I think with personal brand, it can be hard to see, oh, I really get to do this. I have to do this. But I don't like to use the word have to. I have to do this over and over and over and over again. Really forever to continue to get the opportunities.

A (18:46)

Absolutely. 100%.

B (18:48)

It's a longevity game because most people are gonna quit after week. One month, one year, one.

A (18:53)

100%.

B (18:54)

Yeah. It's been amazing. And something I think is interesting about how you started is right now it's kind of easy to build your personal brand by like writing trends or things that are viral or whatever. When you started, there wasn't these like, trends you could just surf onto. Actually, it was probably you making the trends. So how was that different from trends now? And do. Do you do trends?

A (19:19)

If I see a trend and immediately it will come to me about how I can get into the slipstream of the trend, I might do it. But part and parcel. I think that when a lot of people are doing one thing, it becomes harder to stick out. And so in my mind, the bet the fastest way to personal brand is when everybody zigs, you zag. It's like doing something atypical in a different way. Even if it's not on a trend now, it will be easier to get noticed using a trend. Maybe, maybe. But it doesn't mean that somebody's finding you for your unique thing. And so in my mind, if I had a choice between trend and not trend, I would choose the not trend only because it's harder. And when you do something harder and when you put yourself more out in a public capacity and there's more risk associated, like risk being like, it's easy to lip sync or it's easy to do what everybody else is doing. What's much harder is to come up with a unique idea or your own unique spin on an idea.

B (20:11)

Yeah, I agree. I think it's a lot better for longevity when you're creating your own thing rather than chasing trends. Because I'm all about repurposing content and remaking the same video again and again and again. And if you just make a trend, it's gonna be really hard to take that and leverage that content for your newsletter, for a podcast, for a talk.

A (20:27)

Amen.

B (20:27)

Whatever else. Speaking of, how are you repurposing your content? Like, what does your content flow look like across all your channels?

A (20:34)

It's changed a lot over the years and it depends like, where my focus is. So right now, like, the podcast and YouTube are gonna be our focus in 26. And so that's what we start with our main content. So I will take time and I will write my podcasts. And then depending on the length of the script, I will take a short piece of that and I'll make it into a newsletter. But then I'll contextualize it for what's going on, like current events or things that I wanna talk about. And then I'll also make that into a blog post. And so then once the script for the podcast is out, then I'll record it. So the long form goes on YouTube, then the audio goes on every platform. And then a portion or maybe a couple portions of the script will go into social posts that we've made from clips from the YouTube or I'll make a carousel from that long piece of content.

B (21:16)

Yeah. For those listening that are like, okay, I want to visualize this. This is very much like Gary Vee's content pyramid.

A (21:22)

Starting with I love Gary Gar Gare Bear is My man, I mean, I just love him.

B (21:28)

Yeah. Starting with a long form piece of content that then you can chop up into smaller and smaller pieces of content till we get to the bottom of the funnel and we have short form clips from our original. For somebody that's already consistent in their personal brand, they're building it, they're posting consistently, they're seeing opportunities, and now they want to step into the place of. I'm going to scale this a little bit. I'm going to start to delegate some parts of this so I can produce more content or better content. Where would you recommend they start?

A (21:55)

Well, well, there's two schools of thought. Number one, you're going to outsource or get help with the thing that is the heaviest for you, the things that takes the most time. And then the other school of thought would be you're going to want to delegate the things that not only you could do. I'm in this, I'm in the latter group. I still do a lot of things in the business that I can't stand doing, but nobody else is me and nobody else can do that heavy lifting. So I won't go to like, what is the heaviest for me. I'll go to what can somebody else do? What system can I create that somebody literally off the street. Like, I believe that my systems for creating content have to be so dialed in that I can literally pull you in, I can put you in front of our system and everything is laid out for you with tutorials and exactly what to do and I can just step out of it.

B (22:38)

That's super helpful. So we could either start with what's taking us a lot of time. We can start with the things that we don't like to do. I think it's like energy management, right? Like, what's going to get you the best energy? And I'm curious, how do you create the conditions for you to be the most creative when you're planning those podcasts, YouTube, those blogs?

A (22:57)

Oh, I feel like I am, I feel like I am striking out. I feel like you're setting me up for like these really great answers. And I'm like, I, I don't know, I don't have those answers. Here's the thing. When you talked about energy management, all I want to do is like, good for you, good for you, good for you for knowing that at this point in your career. I think that I am a brute force person. I wasn't choosing thing on energy management. Good God have mercy. I would have loved to have done that. Early in my career, I just went all in, in all ways and all the time. And when you talk about creating optimal conditions for creativity, I'm like, what? Like what? Like, I. I love that for people. I've come to a place where I'm like, you get it in where you get it in.

B (23:43)

Yeah.

A (23:43)

Like, you will do whatever it takes. And so if I'm writing a podcast script at 4:30 in the morning, that's what I'm doing. If I'm writing it on a plane, that's what I'm doing. Like, I have deadlines and I have tasks and I have felt. Um, so there's a book by Anne Lamott called Bird by Bird, and then also on writing by Stephen King. And I'm not a writer and I read a lot of books from different disciplines because I think it really helps hone my entrepreneurial skills. And one of those, the two common themes in those books for writers is just every single day, every single day. And I think that even before I came, it was like, okay, I'm creating a keynote, but I'm creating keynote off a long form piece of podcast content. But where did we create that podcast content? Well, I created on a flight and then I came home and then I distilled it down and then I got to move it in over to a keynote and then create tasks for somebody to design the keynote. And then I come here and it's like, good Lord. People are like, it's so hard to context switch. And I'm doing a lot of things and I'm like, good for you to have that luxury to question it. I love that. I support that. I'm so happy to see that. It's not the school I came from, it's just you get it in however you can.

B (24:46)

I love that. I think. And yeah, Stephen King's on writing is super great. I just finished a book and it's brutal. It's like you brutally, you brutally create content every day. Yeah. With my community, we meet on zoom every single day for an hour, first thing in the morning. And people have to come and we create content before we start anything else in the day.

A (25:06)

No matter how you eat before you consume Inconvenient.

B (25:09)

Yes, yes.

A (25:10)

So good.

B (25:11)

I created that from the One Thing book of like, before you do anything, do your one thing for at least four hours in the morning. I don't do it for four hours. One hour. But I love that. Yeah, you're saying it. There's not, there's not going to be optimal conditions.

A (25:24)

No, you Know, I mean, I mean, I, that's the goal. Like, the dream would be to build a life and a business that allows me to create optimal positions. But I don't know, maybe it's distorted, maybe it's because I'm daughter of an immigrant, but I'm like, I'm going to earn the right to have the optimal conditions by proving that I can work without the optimal conditions.

B (25:41)

You're right, because we can get into these, these thought loops that are like, when the time is perfect, when I have the time, when, whatever. But you're not, you're not going to know. You're never going to.

A (25:52)

For those people who do, like, let us know, we'd love to hear. I would love to, I would love to know how to get it.

B (25:57)

Okay, let's talk about trust. So you've built a very successful business. And in order to do that, in order to make sales, in order to have people come into your world, you need to have a lot of trust. They need to have a lot of trust in you. What are some of the ways you built trust in your personal brand?

A (26:13)

So there's two things, and I don't think it's applicable to everybody. I mean, it has to be about you. Like, a core key tenet of who I am is I'm very fair. And I'm very fair, even if it comes at a personal cost. I've always felt like if I was fair, good begets good and fair begets fair. And so I think that people will learn how to trust me because I will call myself out publicly and be like, well, I thought I said I was gonna do this, and then I didn't. So that's on me. I completely own it. And when people see that you have the humility to do that, especially on like a public place, they learn to trust you more. And then deep personalization. I'm, I'm in my DMs. I'm in my DMs. And sometimes people are like, is this really you? And I'll be like, oh, sometimes we'll send a photo or just a voice memo. And I'm like, hi, it's me. It's. Yes, it's actually me. And for some reason I could send a bunch of DMs and that one 10 second memo will do more for trust equity than anything else I could have done.

B (27:05)

That's so beautiful. So what I'm hearing is first, we are keeping ourselves accountable. And if we're sharing something that we don't do, maybe it's even like, hey guys, I'm gonna go to this meeting, I'm gonna do that and then I'm gonna go to the gym. And you're reflecting on the day, hey guys, I didn't get to the gym today. And like, this is what I'm going to do differently tomorrow. Is that kind of how you're 100% sharing of.

A (27:25)

And also I would add changing your mind maybe not like, oh, I said this and I didn't do that. It could be, you know, I used to really think this one thing and now I don't. And here's why. Changing your mind publicly after being pretty vocal about one thing, it does a lot for people's trust.

B (27:42)

A lot. Yeah. And then the second thing you said, we're getting or we're being able to change our mind and we're also getting vulnerable. Like, we're sharing who we are, we're sharing stories. I think that comes back to storytelling too, because in these stories, you're not just sharing the stories of all the amazing things that are happening in your life.

A (28:00)

Right?

B (28:00)

You're sharing stories of, here's where I completely fudged up, or here's something that did not go my way and here's what I learned from that.

A (28:07)

And then when people respond to it, sending that like a DM or responding to DMs or responding to comments, that is another thing. Point number two was to personalize responses. But when you had added the vulnerability component, it's like, yes, if you aren't getting DMs and you aren't getting comment, it's because people don't really know you. Like, right now we're in a trust recession. So then what we saw in the industry is 2020 came around and most people who had online businesses, we really thought this is the end of us, like, how will we, how will this ever survive? And then what we saw with like on the back of the of like stymie checks and people being at home more and online consumption skyrocketing, that digital businesses completely 3, 5, 8x of what they normally did. Now the people who invested in those courses, trainings, memberships, during that time, they came in, they saw a different feature and they said, hey, I can be doing this. So then they went and created it without actually counting the cost of what it would mean to fulfill, to run ads, to actually show up and be consistent. So a lot of people who bought courses from charlatans got burned, felt ripped off. And so now what we're sitting in is the aftermath of 23 and 24 and people in 2026 are like, I don't know, is this a scam? I'm not sure if I'm ready to invest. And so what happens is the gestation period, how long it takes for somebody to become a customer is getting longer because they're watching and they're paying attention. It's like, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. So we have to do more to earn that trust and we have to be more vulnerable and more personal. That's what I think 2027 and 2028 is going to be about.

B (29:33)

Oh, okay. So we're seeing prediction for 2027 and 2028. More trust, more vulnerability and more one on one conversation. So you're saying like we're talking to people in the comments 100 to people in the DM 100. Yeah.

A (29:46)

And people hear that and then the first thing they say is like, I don't have time for that. Or that's fine for her to do. That's not my jam and I totally respect it. I don't think that business is a one size fits all. I don't. But people will be like, why are you spending so much time responding to dms? Or why are you am spending so much time creating this amount of content? There are organizations that pay 6, 7 figures on R and D research and development. And what I get the opportunity to do is when people leave comments, when people vote on polls, when people comment on stories, when I ask a question and people answer, I get to do my own research and development. I get to reach out to people. When I have a new offer and I'll put out a poll and I'm asking it in a very specific way so that if they vote on one of the options, I will go to just that option and I will send them a message personally. Hey, would you, would you be able to get on a 20 minute call? I'm doing research and development for a new offer and normally there were times where I would pay people like $20, $40, sometimes $200 to get on a call. So that I can understand what are your biggest pressure points. When I'm building out a business model, I'm not like, I have an idea, I think it's going to work. Heck no. I'm going to go in, I'm gonna talk to as many people who are struggling with this thing. How am I getting that? How am I getting that data? How am I getting that database? I'm not asking people will you sign up for a 20 minute call. I'm actually asking a series of questions on social media, figuring out who's going to be the right fit, making them an offer, getting them on a call, and then I am carefully listening to their words. Because brand is how you make somebody feel. But in order for me to make you feel something, I actually need to understand you. And so then what I do is I get all of these people's words and that's what becomes our marketing content. So that at a later point in time, you might come across and be like, how does this copy, how does this video, how does this podcast feel? Like it was made just for me? Because it was. That's what research and development does. So people are like, why do you spend so much time? I'm like, well, because I want a successful business and I don't want to pay for research and development.

B (31:30)

Yeah, yeah. And you're meeting people where they're at. Right. Like, especially when you're a couple steps or many steps further than somebody is in their process of whatever that thing may be, whether that's fitness or business or content or photography or whatever, you can kind of lose sight of exactly where they're at in time, 100% and the languaging. So what I'm hearing our audience can do is if they want to create an offer, if they want to help people solve a problem, accomplish a goal, they're going to post an Instagram story of, is this something you're interested in? Or can I help you with this?

A (32:01)

Right, well, that's, that's a great start. That's a great start. But now people online like they're, they're very smart.

B (32:07)

Yeah.

A (32:08)

Okay, let's break this in the simplest way possible. Do you prefer X or Y?

B (32:12)

Okay.

A (32:13)

And that would be a nice way to segment your audience. And for anybody who, who answers X, you go to Instagram, you bring up your analytics from that poll, and it'll show you just the people who voted on X. Now, there used to be a point in time where you would not be able to send somebody a message if they weren't following you and they had a private account. Well, now the way that I've been able to get around it is if they vote on a poll, I am able to send them a message, even if they have a private account. So from the poll feature, I'll send them the message. And that's where I ask for something specific. And so if they voted on X and it'd be like, what are this, like the three things that you struggle with the most for x1, 2, or 3. And it make it. I make it super easy for them to answer because they just have to put a number, 1, 2, or 3. And based on how they answer 1, 2, or 3, then that's what I'm like. That's crazy. I'm thinking about doing this fitness program for women in their 30s who just had a baby and want more energy. Could I talk to you for 15 minutes? I'd love for your insights, because I want to make this program really great.

B (33:15)

Mm.

A (33:16)

You're not saying, I want to get you in the program. I want to ask you questions about it. Then if they get on that call, my gosh, you listen to them and you don't pitch them. Then you just have eight more of those calls. And based on those eight calls, you now have your messaging dialed in. You have your offer dialed in. You have a good idea of how much somebody would spend. And then all of a sudden, you go back and you're like, hey, thank you so much. Like, that call we had, like, two months ago, I want to let you know, I created this if there's ever an interest for you. She's not going to say no.

B (33:41)

Right?

A (33:41)

Because you made it for her. That's the start.

B (33:44)

That's so powerful. And I think a lot of people, as they're building their personal brand and putting out their first few offers, can feel like they're shouting into the void. And this is such a good way to speak directly to an audience. Have that lead list already super warm and super enrolled and excited and convert them. Beautiful.

A (34:04)

Thank you.

B (34:04)

I love that. Thanks. That's incredible. Back to the trust thing. Like, that is building so much trust because it is you, because you are asking them, because you are genuinely caring. Right? Like, when we can bring this from a mindset, how can I solve someone's problem? Not just how am I monetizing this one skill I have? Right. Like, you're putting the people first.

A (34:25)

Yes. Okay, podcaster, bring us back to the trust. Yes, Bring us back to the trust. I go into a thousand different directions. You're like, yeah, but this is where we started. Absolutely. 100%.

B (34:32)

Yeah. I mean, it's so important. And you're so right. About 2020, everyone's like, like, here's my car and my mansion, whatever. And that's just not working anymore. It's not working anymore. And a lot of. A lot of people come to me being like, well, Courtney, I don't. I don't have that I don't have this flashy car. I. I don't know how to do these aesthetic videos. I'm like, your audience doesn't want that.

A (34:52)

They don't want that.

B (34:53)

They want you.

A (34:54)

There's never been any. There's never been a better time. Now, I'm not saying that there wasn't a time where that, like, mattered or people who did that had disproportionate attention. And then people quickly realized that you can rent the shell of a private jet and look like in a private jet, you can rent a Ferrari. Yeah. You can have a subscription to Fancy Bags. Like, nobody really cares because we realize, like, the inner workings of falsity. Who cares?

B (35:18)

Yeah. And it's just, It's. Our brains are pattern recognition machines. And if you got burned, you're going to be. It's gonna be a red flag away from that. If you had to start from scratch right now, what were your, what would your first three steps be?

A (35:34)

Probably the same three steps that I did when I first started, and that was to create content documenting the journey. I think that what happens is there's a temptation if, like, oh, I want to build a personal brand as a therapist or as a fitness professional, you want to posture like you've already done the thing when you haven't done the thing and people smell it. We're now in a very advanced, mature audience consumption to where people can smell fake. So nobody can come sideways for you when you just say, well, I'm starting my journey to become a therapist, and this is kind of awkward, but here are the three questions that I went and through this program, and this is the three questions that I'm asking. No one's gonna be like, that's dumb. You don't know what you're doing. Right. You've already called yourself out. And so first thing I would do would be create content documenting the journey. Now, at the time, I did it on a blog, you know, if you wanna do that unsubstacked, or LinkedIn or Instagram, wherever, but you're documenting it. And then the second thing that I would do would be commit to consistency. I think that it's easy to say, well, I just don't have time to post today. But what was your commitment? If your commitment was to post three times a week, five times a week, 18 times a week, whatever that was, you have to walk integrity to yourself before you would ever expect anybody to expect that or trust that you would actually follow up with them. If you're not actually following up for Yourself, we energetically emit our integrity. And then the third thing, after documenting and creating consistency, it would a hundred percent be willing to take the lowest amount of money for anything. When I first started my career as a photographer, I said that I would shoot, I think it was like a 10 or 11 hour wedding and I would include all of the digital images. And I did it for a thousand dollars. And people were like, what? I was like, yes. Because at the time, I just think to myself, this is the path of getting to where I want to go. Somebody's going to take a risk on me. Am I going to charge what the other photographers are charging when they have albums and portfolios and websites? No. But the thing I told myself was I'm going to raise my prices 300 for every three weddings I book. That way I was quickly moving out and not getting stuck in like the. The spiral of never getting out of like the bargain barrel. And within a year, I was charging $5,000 for a wedding I shot a lot. And then by the end of my career, I was getting anywhere from $25,000 to shoot a wedding. And that simply happens by raising your price, investing in yourself, being consistent, creating and documenting the journey. It like, works in one direction and it works the complete opposite direction, too.

B (37:56)

Random side note, where is like the coolest venue or place you've ever shot a wedding?

A (38:01)

So there's two that tie up and unfortunately they're not in the United States. So one for sentimentality. We shot a wedding on New year, or actually December 30th, and we were in Costa Rica. So we said, well, we're just going to extend. We're just going to have a vacation. I shoot with my husband. My husband's my business partner. And so we shot the wedding on the 30th, and then the 31st came around. We had just hung out at the beach with this, like, beautiful Airbnb. And then we're walking down the beach holding hands. It sounds very romantic, but it was. And then the fireworks go off. And that's how we knew it was midnight. And we're looking, but there were so many fireworks that it felt like there was like a thousand suns in the sky. We were fully illuminated with red and orange and green. And it was just like. And our feet are in the water. And then we kiss. I know. To a tmi, but I'm like, we get to do this as our career. It was one of those moments. It was just one of the moments. And then the second one that just felt like Dang it feels good to be a gangster because we were flown to Italy and this couple treated us like we were royalty, chartered everything. And then they got us a house on the property in the villa that they got married in. And then at the end of the wedding, it was very long. It was three days of celebration. It was. It was really over the top. And at the end of the day, you walk from their venue back to our private estate on the property and there's no lights. It's Italy on. Like, you're in like the wine countryside. And so we're walking under the light of the moon and we're carrying our gear. And I don't want to idealize, like, it was a. It was a lot of hard work, and yet I looked at my husband and then afterwards we were going to go to Cinque Terre and I thought to myself, wow, this is what we did. Like the hard work of two kids from the ghetto doing this underneath the moonlight on the Italian countryside. Like, what is life?

B (39:43)

That's so sweet, so beautiful. When did you decide that your husband would become your business partner and how is that?

A (39:51)

I'm very convincing.

B (39:52)

Yeah.

A (39:54)

So my husband was with a startup at the time, and I was working part time at my dad's church because I wanted time. But I was able to get health insurance that covered the both of us. That was like, important. After seeing my mom struggle with cancer, it's like for me, health insurance. And now that we have, have, you know, we run a company and we have our employees, it's like, I will get you Cadillac, medical, dental. Like, we include therapy up in there. We give it to like a 401k. Not give. We contribute to a 401k. It's really important to take care. And so I learned that from my dad when I was working part time at a church. And so my husband was with the startup company and the business had gotten to such a point that I knew I had to hire somebody to come in and help with admin and then probably come along and shoot with me because by this time it happened really quickly. I started shooting locally and then people are like, well, do you travel to Scottsdale? And I'm like, sure. I was like, yes, for a fee. And it was always yes. And I was like, this is crazy. And I knew that I would have to be going with somebody. And so I sat with him and I said, listen, I've saved up enough money. I am going to quit my job. And if you want to to quit and double down on this and we tighten our belts, we could travel the world, we could build this thing together. And so he shot the very first wedding with me never thinking that we were going to actually make this into both of our full time careers for over 15 years. And he's been with me from the beginning. And we've built everything together. We're 50, 50 partners on everything.

B (41:22)

Your business and your personal brand has gone through a lot of different pivots. You really flexed with, with your passions, your interests, your audience feedback, the digital landscape changing. When did you know at each point that it was time to make a pivot?

A (41:39)

So here again, Courtney, here. I wish I had like this intuitive, this knowing. It was when I felt like what I was doing felt confining. Like I felt like it was like a bigger expression somehow. And I couldn't really put my finger on it. But here's one thing in science that I learned rather recently is that our body cells regenerate every seven years. So seven years ago from today, I'm not the same person on a cellular level. And what I noticed is in my business, every six to seven years something would happen that we had really like systematized an arm of the business and we had brought in teams to support us. And then the hunt no longer felt like the hunt. And that's when I would just start getting an inkling, like, I can, I sometimes joke with my husband and now it's just like our own vernacular. I'm like, I smell it, I smell it coming. And so it's never like one day you wake up and you're like, I'm over it. That's not a pivot, that's a quit. But when you start getting an inkling, like a knowing that this isn't satiating me the way that it was before, then you start asking yourself what needs to be true to like to substitute myself in this arm of the business so that I have time and energy to go out and hunt again to build out the next thing.

B (42:48)

I think, yeah, you're saying, oh, I don't have this answer. That is a perfect answer. It's, it's, it's listening to your intuition. It's not trying to find this perfect formula outside of yourself of, oh, this is the exact science of when to pivot. It's knowing this. I'm feeling it. I'm feeling that this is, things are changing, things are transitioning. I'm starting to see an interest here, like really tuning in with yourself instead of just outsourcing your decision making. Right. Our guiding Light is inside ourselves. So beautiful. For somebody afraid of selling too much, they're afraid that they're going to saturate. Actually, first of all, is there a thing of selling too much?

A (43:32)

It really depends on your threshold. Like, I might think that something is somebody's, like, selling too much, and they might think that it's not enough. It just. To me, I always reverse engineer who am I speaking to, and what cadence do they need to be sold to? So, no, I don't think that there's something as too much. I definitely think there's something is not enough. And that's what most people fall into.

B (43:51)

Yeah. How do you know if you're not enough? You're selling not enough?

A (43:56)

Okay, so as a general rule of thumb, there's something called Pareto's law. And Pareto's law states that 20% of something will result in 80% of something else. So 20% of drivers result in 80% of accidents. 20% of people in debt comprise 80% of the amount of debt. Okay, so then when we look at our content and we look at our selling, it would be nice if 20% of your efforts would result in 80% of what you bring in. So if I am Looking at 10 posts on Instagram, two would be a nice number to have a direct right hook, a direct mask for what it is. You have to remind your audience of what you do, and then you have to remember that Organically, only, like, 1 to 2% of your followers are seeing that post. So you're like, oh, I posted about it last week. Well, right. But if you have a thousand followers, 20 people saw it, so you can do it again. And guess What? The same 20 people might not even see it. So what feels like a lot, algorithmically is just not right.

B (44:58)

Nobody's looking at every single one. I mean, if they are looking at

A (45:02)

every single one they're about to buy, they either hate you or they love you.

B (45:06)

They're already in your program. Ooh, speaking of hate, how do you do with the trolls?

A (45:11)

Oh, you know, I. It used to affect me a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Like, it would give me nightmares. People would say, like, really mean things. Like, I found your address. I know. They would say, like, your dad should go back to Mexico. They would talk about, like, they would just say really mean things about my appearance, and it affected me. And then I saw this stupid video from Katt Williams. He's a comedian. It's. It's old. It's, like, on YouTube, but it's, like, vintage. Somebody had, like, probably taken it from, like, a VH VHS and then they put it, like, on YouTube. And he says that every day. His goal is to get a hater. He's like, if you don't have haters, you're doing it wrong. And if you don't have more haters every single day. Because haters just simply dwell in you doing something they want to do. It's just it. And at first I heard it and I was like, I'm not sure if I agree. And then I started realizing it might not be, oh, they want my business. They might not be like, oh, I'm married and they're not, oh, I'm a mother and they're not. I have a car and they don't. I travel and they don't. I have whatever that they. It's never one thing, and we will never know what that one thing that people are collectively, they are jealous about X. Never. You possess something in them that's a mirror to their greatest insecurity, and they want to tear you down as a result of it. And nobody, nobody better than you is talking about you.

B (46:31)

Yeah, that's the thing. It's like, the biggest podcaster in the world isn't going to be like, oh, that audio sucked on that clip. The biggest. Like, no, you're trying there.

A (46:41)

That is a hundred percent what it is. Yeah. And the people who are saying this are the people who are sitting in, like, oversized sweatpants with orange Cheeto on their fingers, watching another episode of a show on Netflix that they already watched and can quote to their friends in memes, and they're doing nothing with their life. Do you think I care about that?

B (46:59)

No. They're so scared to climb the cringe Mountain.

A (47:03)

Oh, live and die on Cringe Mountain.

B (47:05)

I love the Cringe Mountain. The cringe Mountain is. You got to be comfy with the cringe. For sure.

A (47:10)

Yeah. But here's the thing. I am not comfy with the cringe. I just believe I choose cringe. Like, you go in and you're like, I feel cringe. This is cringe. And embrace the cringe. Embrace the cringe.

B (47:24)

Do you know your top performing post of all time?

A (47:26)

I have a pretty good idea. But it was very. It was not. It was very. It was very thoughtful. I didn't think that it was gonna hit a nerve the way that it did. And it was something just about, like. Like, like, essentially the way that you do one thing is the way that you do everything. So it's like the amount of books that you Read will reflect the type of words that you use and the type of food that you eat will reflect what kind of healthy lifestyle it was.

B (47:46)

Was.

A (47:46)

It was like a progressive, and. And for some reason, it just took off. And, you know, that's, like, social. It's, like, stuff that you belabor and you're like, oh, this is my piece to resistance people. I'm gonna move people. Like, there's gonna be tears. Like, there's gonna be tissues on Instagram. I'm like, I'm gonna put this out. And then nobody cares.

B (48:01)

It gets like, too. Like.

A (48:02)

And then you're in your car without any makeup, and it's greasy, and, like, the light is splitting your face sideways, and you're just like. And then. And that's the thing that takes off. So, no, It's. It's cringe 100%.

B (48:12)

I love asking people this question because a lot of people struggle with, I need the perfect lighting, I need the perfect hook, I need the perfect. All these things. But 99% of the time, when I ask people their top firming posts, like, I just got out of the shower. I looked horrible. I was like. My camera was shaky.

A (48:28)

People crave real.

B (48:30)

Yeah, they crave real. Well, you're in the emotion. Like, when you get an idea and you're impulsively acting on it, you're in that emotion of anger or excitement or feeling more frustration. And I think that anger or that emotion really comes across.

A (48:43)

Are we gonna talk a little bit about tea? Because I want to ask you, what are your thoughts on people crying?

B (48:48)

People crying?

A (48:49)

Yeah, like, posting themselves crying.

B (48:50)

If it's authentic to you, great. It wouldn't be authentic to me because if I'm crying, I'm like. I'm so out of it that I'm not gonna.

A (48:57)

If I'm crying, the last thing, we're like, yeah.

B (48:59)

Oh, my God.

A (48:59)

Hold on.

B (49:00)

Let me bring out my phone and let me set it up.

A (49:02)

Hold on. Wait, wait here. Like, I don't. I don't get it.

B (49:06)

I don't. I.

A (49:07)

How is it. I wonder, how is it authentic to somebody?

B (49:10)

Well, if. You know, do you have those friends that cry at every movie, every commercial? It's like, cry. They cry four times a day just because they're sensitive. Okay, in that case.

A (49:18)

Okay, I have seen. I have seen people are, like, on Instagram, live, or even they're doing a story, and they get choked up and cry. Oh, I'll like. I'm like, oh, yeah, I feel that. But it's, like, out of nowhere, especially The B roll. The B roll. Crying. And then like an inspirational post, sts, like, I made the hard decision. I was like, set up the light. That's. Wow, that ring light. And the tears, like, they just. Oh, my God. Where did. Why, why did I go in this direction? I don't know. Let's go back to personal.

B (49:42)

It's a good question. My audience gets to be cringier. Okay. So maybe, maybe they get a challenge to cry on camera.

A (49:48)

Oh, my gosh. No, no. Like, watch this be the clip from the podcast. We're like, we challenge you to go and cry.

B (49:55)

No, don't cry. No, I'm joking. Don't cry. Cry on camera. No. Because there's a line between vulnerability and trauma dumping. Yes. Right? Like, yes. If you're going to share vulnerably a story or something really difficult that happened to you, have some sort of lesson, have a learning and that goes back to storytelling. Like, it is so, so important. And I think you've done that really well. Like, you share hard things that have happened in your life and you share a takeaway. You share a lesson.

A (50:22)

So here's a general rule of thumb. General thumb is. I call it the person on the airplane rule is that I will share something on social media if somebody was sitting next to me on an airplane, had asked me. So I do share that my mom had cancer because I would say that to somebody sitting next to me on the airplane. But I don't talk about a lot of the difficulties and a lot of personal decisions that we had to make and a lot of personal things she's still struggling with. That's trauma dumping. I do say that I adopted my daughter. That's something that I would tell somebody on the airplane. But there are no other details about what was coming up or what led or how that actually had happened, because is that's her story to tell. So when we talk about trauma dumping, it's like, you should share the difficult things in your life. And even if you don't have, like, a happy ending or a lesson you had learned, I want you to walk away from social media saying, I only revealed there what I would have told somebody sitting next to me on the airplane.

B (51:09)

I think that's really helpful, too, for our listeners that are a little afraid of being vulnerable because they're afraid, oh, I have to share every detail. Don't have to share me. I love that. I love the person on the airplane.

A (51:20)

And you don't have to share your kids. You don't have to share your spouse. You don't have to share where you live. Like, there are a lot of personal parameters. And I'm like, that's great. Now what you've done is just added more constraints. So the theory of constraints means the more constraints you have, the more creative you're going to have to be in creating your content. It's not impossible. Now you just have to rise to the challenge.

B (51:37)

That's so beautiful. Okay, I have one last question. What are you most excited about in 2026?

A (51:43)

Focus.

B (51:44)

Focus, tell me.

A (51:45)

So focus is the unrelentless discipline on doing one thing. I think that I had fallen for many years into. Like, I'm focusing on a few things at once. And even though we have surrounded our seams ourselves with a highly capable team, and in each of our companies in the. In the holding company, each of the LLCs have a great operating team within it. If I was focusing on three things, they are getting about 33% of my time and energy. And so in 2026, I made a decision to cut myself out of a lot of things. And like, if it is not building, if it is not fixing, if it is not sustaining, if it is not scaling my one focus of 2026, then it's a no. And I don't know, my. My husband is half Chinese, and so his mom started explaining to me, like, the lunar New year, and each new lunar New year is represented by an animal. And 2025 was year of the Snake, and Year of the Snake was shedding of things that no longer served you. And in 2026, in February, it's Year of the Horse, and Year of the Horse is new beginnings. It's fast, it's powerful, but you can't be Year of the Horse without letting go the year of the Snake. And I didn't realize what was happening on a deep and profound level. And even when I was talking to jd, my husband and business partner, I'm like, hey, I really think I'm going to stop this and stop this. And he's just like, like, whoa. And for him to say whoa, because he is definitely like, he's our brother Flow. Like, all the team is like, oh, he's a CEO of Vibes. Like, he's just like life balance. Like, he's just like an inner granola hippie and nothing ever. The guy is cool as a cucumber at all times, and he's always the one that's like, bring it down. Let's be present. Find your time. And so when I'm going to him saying, I Think I'm gonna be present. I think I'm gonna find my time. And he's like, whoa, this. Where is this coming from? And what is really going on? What's underneath it? Because there is a difference between us wanting to quit out of exhaustion and us wanting to quit out of strategy. And he's just like, I want to know you. And it wasn't like a one day decision. This was like over three or four months. When I said, okay, going into 2026, these are all the things that are changing. And what I'm most excited for this year is where your attention goes, energy flows. And I can just tell you, like, it literally feels like an energetic shedding and more attention, more attention, more attention. And I want every single piece of what I'm focused on to be so dialed in that this becomes like a legacy. Like, great. This is what we built.

B (54:15)

So powerful. What's one way that our audience can have more focus in 2025? Is there like a book, a resource, maybe something, Maybe a podcast episode you've done that you can refer back to?

A (54:25)

I heard this so many years and so many times, and I didn't listen. Okay, so I'm just gonna say the thing. I'm not gonna tell you to buy a book or listen to one of my podcasts. Although if you do, bonus points, it really is. The true definition is singularity. It's addition by subtraction. What do you want more of? And what do you cut away to get that thing? So we want. We want, like, this book and we want this podcast, but it's also, it's al. A lot of times consumption that keeps us further from actually doing. So here's the whole truth. Every podcast, every book, every TED Talk is going to tell you less is more. So here we go, ladies and gentlemen. Choose less.

B (55:05)

Love it. Beautiful. Well, Jasmine, how can everyone work with you, connect with you, find you? Let's.

A (55:13)

Let's practice. Let's practice the real, real. Send me a DM on Instagram. Yeah, Jasmine Star. Well, let's just have a real conversation. Text test me for what it is. And like, let's build trust. I'm gonna try to sell you something. Like, let's figure out who you are and what you're doing and then how. How our journeys run alongside each other.

B (55:27)

I love that. I've never had a guest say that. That's so beautiful. Send Jasmine a DM and you can chat, have a conversation.

A (55:35)

Have a conversation, check out some content. And if you like what you've experienced, then you're most likely gonna go into different directions with my content, but until then, like, let me earn your trust. Give me the opportunity to earn your trust.

B (55:45)

Love it. Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for coming on.

A (55:48)

You're awesome. You are so good. Dang, girl.

B (55:50)

Yes. I do have an ask for you guys before we go. If this podcast has benefited you in any way, if you have gotten a tip that you've really loved and you've implemented it, if it's given you some sort of inspiration, if it's given you some sort of motivation or clarity, my ask is that you leave a five star review. I would appreciate it so much. It helps spread the message. It really helps the show grow, and it helps more people get access to this information. My deepest desire is un gatekeeping shit. I want to un gatekeep information. So anybody that desires to build a personal brand, to build a business, to create this success in their life and to live their dream, I want them to have all of the information. And I don't hold shit back on this show. Okay? We are not holding shit back. So in order to get this message to more people, in order to get these resources and tips to more people, your reviews go a long way. I appreciate you so much. Thank you.