Watching Jasmine Star in the front of a virtual classroom as she inspires other business owners, it's easy to imagine that every step of the photographer and business strategist's journey was just as confident as the woman on stage. But if you ask Jasmine, she's quick to share that her career path was filled with wrong steps that eventually led to the right steps.
The confident, inspiring woman now teaching other businesses the right — and wrong — steps that led to her photography business's success was once a law school dropout from a rough neighborhood. The daughter of immigrants from Mexico and Puerto Rico, Jasmine's path was anything but ordinary. She didn't learn how to read until age 11, but her late growth as a student allowed her creativity to flourish from a young age.
"I've never been a person to straddle a line. I choose my line and then I go 100 percent without fear of the end result."
Despite her early struggles, Jasmine graduated at the top of her class, convinced a career in law was the right path for her — and with a scholarship to prove it. But during her time at UCLA law school, she was afraid to admit how unhappy she was and disappoint everyone back in her hometown rooting for her success. The realization that law school was the wrong step came with a painful catalyst: her mother's relapse of brain cancer.
When asked what she wanted to do instead, the answer came quickly — photography. The problem? She didn't own a camera, or actually know how to use one. She started by renting everything she needed, down to the memory card, and offering to take pictures of people for free. The kicker? Jasmine says she was so bad at first that some people turned down her offer for free photos.
"I'm just one of those people that will make a decision quickly and go 100 percent. It's one thing to start moving in a direction and realize I'm on the wrong path. It's another thing to never take the first step."
Despite the early failures, Jasmine continued working on her photography skills, attending what she calls the "University of Google and YouTube," and built a wedding photography business. Four years later, Jasmine Star was a name listed among the Top 10 Wedding Photographers in the World.
While Jasmine had finally built a career around a passion, she realized that photography wasn't her only one. As she started leading other photographers — including teaching classes on CreativeLive — she realized she wanted to be the encouragement for others that had sparked her own career. She wanted to give others the courage to do crazy things, like start a photography business without a camera, and teach other businesses what she learned from her missteps.
Jasmine's story is far from perfect — and in fact, she says it's the desire for perfection that will derail many creatives. The willingness to start a journey when you can't see the destination, and the ability to recognize which steps were the wrong ones, are essential to letting creativity flourish. Striving for perfection, she warns, only makes creative drive flounder then fizzle out.
"To do big and crazy things, you have to have big and crazy dreams. You have one wild and crazy beautiful life and it's so short — what do you want to do with it? Do you want to waste every minute wondering about what could be, or do you want to ask, 'how do I get where I want to go next as fast as possible?'"
"It's one thing to start moving in one direction and realize you are on the wrong path, and another thing to never take the first step."
Find more inspiration from Jasmine on her website, Instagram, or Facebook, or start your own creative journey with one of her CreativeLive classes.