197 – He’s da bomb on LinkedIn: Tom interviews Joshua Lee

Episode 197 – Joshua Lee
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey, everybody, it's Tom's here with Episode 197 of screw the Commute podcast. We've got Joshua Lee here. He's a prolific online marketer and and he believes balance is B.S. And I have been preaching that for years, but possibly from a different perspective. So I can't wait to hear his perspective on that. I'll introduce Joshua to you in a minute. So one quick announcement. Our podcast app's in the App Store. You can do lots of cool stuff conveniently from your mobile devices in the car or on the road. So check that out at screwthecommute.com/app. But we have complete instructions on how to use all the fancy features so you can take us with you on the road. Also, thank you for listening. Make sure you grab a copy of our e-book, How to Automate Your Business. And just one of the tips in this e-book has saved me over seven and a half million keystrokes and allowed me to handle up to one hundred and fifty thousand subscribers and forty thousand customers without pulling my hair out. So we sell this book for twenty seven bucks, but it's yours. Free is my thanks for listening. And while you're on the download page over there, I got a surprise whitepaper for you that some people were charging four five or six thousand bucks for the for this info. So grab it too. While you're there. You'll get that at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. And all the links we have including Joshua's stuff will be in the show notes this is episode 197. And to get to these specific episodes you go screwthecommute.com/197. All right, our sponsor's the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia Distance Learning School, which teaches legitimate techniques to make a great living, either working for someone else or starting your own online business or both. You can check it out at IMTCVA.org. We also have big scholarships for military, first responders and law enforcement. So check that all out. And of course, that would be in the show notes also. And I've got a webinar I want you to listen to. I'll tell you a little bit about that later.

[00:02:46] All right. Let's bring on the main event. Joshua B. Lee is an entrepreneur, business owner, author, coach, marketer, husband and father. In 2003, he built his career in online marketing. Listen to this. For those who can even remember this, with clients such as MySpace and Google managing over a hundred million dollars in advertising spend and controlling over thirty five trillion online impressions and you know, I think that's how many times it took me to get through to Google's help desk. Close to that anyway. He has built 16 companies from online marketing to coaching to web design and much more, but is most passionate about human connections. His current venture, StandOut Authority is about humanizing your professional and company brand on LinkedIn. And he's gonna help me with this because this has been the last thing on my list in my online endeavor. So I'm all ears here through authentic and inspirational engagement. He believes there's no B to B or B to C, only H to H, human to human connections. As the father of two and published author of Balance Is B.S. he believes there's no work life balance, but an integrated life based on vision, relationships, health and business. Joshua Are you ready to screw? The commute.

[00:04:21] Tom I am ready my friend. Let's do it.

[00:04:24] Oh man, it's so great to meet you. You came highly recommended by someone I really admire, Daryl Hill and he has been doing great work helping the people with PTSD and the mental game of a business. So he put us together and I saw all the stuff you did. I said, I got to talk to this guy. So here you are, man.

[00:04:46] Tom, I appreciate it, man. Excited to be here, kind of going through all the stuff that I've got going on these days and be able to hopefully add some value to your audience today.

[00:04:54] Well, there's no doubt about that. Tell us more about it's called stand out authority. Right. What is that all about?

[00:05:01] It's standout authority. I mean, you know, as you said, I mean, over my career, I've done a lot of online advertising traffic. But I mean, that was about it, right? I mean, I was traffic. People don't really understand the difference between traffic and actually engagement. I kind of when I reset and started going all in on standout authority, I kind of took that knowledge of all the advertising, all the traffic that driven all and ask, how do we had just this? How do we actually connect in a world where automation is so heavily used and guys like you and I. I mean, we know when we see an ad, we know for an email string and we know where we're in it. You know, a digital funnel. So how do we actually connect with other human beings like you and I when we know we're only in those things? If we choose to be in there, that's kind of where standout authority came about. And it's like, I've got to bring in this human. I've got to teach marketers how to be human online again. And it's just truly being able to go through and be able to connect, engage and inform, insight and draw in our audience and be able to do this.

[00:06:04] I mean, hey, wait a minute. Don't do that. I mean, I made a fortune because I'm willing to talk to people in that crowd. Don't ruin my gig man.

[00:06:16] Now I you know, I mean, it's I want you to talk to people.

[00:06:20] I do. That's the whole thing. I go to these events that I'm speaking and and the divas blow in like they're big shots. And then with their entourage and they get onstage, they and then they. Oh, I got to leave. Give me fifty thousand dollars. I've got to be on a plane and then I laugh because I sit and take home all the money cause I get that there and talk to people and be nice to people. It's amazing concept.

[00:06:45] I mean, yeah, I can't if I don't if I can't spend time in an event, there's no reason to go. It's the same thing with being online. If you don't have time to actually connect and engage with your audience, you're just putting out content for the sheer fact of hoping to get that one sale out of a thousand or spamming people for that one sale of a thousand. Why are you wasting your time? You're just you're just upsetting people.

[00:07:07] Yeah, you can do it and people do it. But it's. If they put the same amount of effort. Or even a tenth of the effort into making connections, they would probably do way better.

[00:07:19] That's it. And I mean, that's what we've been able to do. And I mean, it's it's been amazing rather than actually helping our clients look for more clients because that's such a one to one relationship. You know, we look at the one to many, which is I help my clients, both advocates, and allow that to be a client's to be a byproduct of that, which allows you to really be able to help and add value across the board. And you have more people that are out there talking about your name and bringing the right people into you.

[00:07:48] So is this what the standout authority does that teaches people how to do that?

[00:07:52] That's what we do. I mean, we go in and we we have a novel different level. So, I mean, it depends on how we engage, but we actually run as an agency as well to a man and blessed to be able to work with some of the guys. I used to read their books on how to be able to start my company. You know, back in the early 2000s, Joe Polish, Dan Sullivan from Coach Jay Abraham and many others that I've been with, John Maxwell been able to work with now and be able to help them really engage and connect with their audience on LinkedIn.

[00:08:23] Yeah. How long you've been doing this?

[00:08:26] We've been doing this for a couple of years now. So it's it's really been and now that everyone's kind of on our whoa LinkedIn, we should pay attention to that.

[00:08:36] Yeah. I'm all ears.

[00:08:39] Yeah. And that's the thing, right? I mean, so many people we get so many quote unquote experts out there and they're like, oh, well, I'm going to be a LinkedIn expert. I was selling cars or I was selling insurance last month or a year ago. But now I'm an expert. I'm gonna use one of these automated tools and that's going to blast and spam. Everyone and sell it as a service and it's all people want.

[00:08:59] Well, for years I've been saying you can swing a dead cat and run into a online social media expert.

[00:09:05] Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing. Right. I mean, it's these people. They don't get it. And I mean, it's it blows my mind. And I've got to be able to really change the game. I mean, I guess I used in the intro, I've got two kids, so, you know, I don't want to be that person. I mean, look, I. I'll be honest. I did a lot when I first started out. Monitise a lot. That's what I mainly worry about. How do I monetize everything? And this wasn't really changing anything for anyone. I sold a lot of stuff. Maybe who knows? But now I know actually impact, engage and educate audiences and help other entrepreneurs like you and some many other guys. Because, look, I mean, I can't change this world on my own. So I've got to be able to work and help other amazing entrepreneurs like yourself so we can all choose where together to be and make it make it better for my kids.

[00:09:52] Yeah. And talking about kids, I mean, I've been through restaurants hundreds of times where there's a table of young people and not one of them said a word. They got their nose in their cell phone. If they want if they thought that across the table. Hey, you like the chicken? They'll text it.

[00:10:11] Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, it's we've got to change that. I mean, that's recently why to I mean we just put out a call it the linkedin authority accelerator because. Yeah, I do work with some high end clients but there's too much bad information out there right now. And I was like I've got to be able to put something in that post all the time on LinkedIn. I share content on a daily basis because I want to educate my audience. But you and I both know that free advice and free free content. A lot of times is just that. There's no people don't see the value in it. So they've got to we put together this recent course because it's like, look, even if I charge when the lowest prices have ever charge of my life to be able to give this access, at least I'll take that and move forward on it rather than just reading it and being a collector of information.

[00:10:55] All right. So how would you respond to something I've been saying for years? Because, you know, there's so many things you could do online and maybe in in this. Twenty five years since the commercial Internet started, I've done a lot of. But anybody that says they've done all of them or know it all, run. You know, because it's impossible. But for years I've been saying, okay, LinkedIn is nice, we have a basic presence there, but B to C, and that's B to B. So how would you respond to somebody like me that's saying that?

[00:11:25] I mean, you know, like you said, the intro man, it's I don't believe that B to B and B to C were, you know, the problem. You know, I know for a fact or made it by marketers like you and I. And it was to be able to optimize and make more money and charge fewer for different things. But in all reality, every company is run by another human being. And most of us have forgotten that.

[00:11:48] That's until the robots take over. Artificial intelligence.

[00:11:54] Look, we got. There's certain things that need to be automated. But at the same time, we're in a connected world as we live in now with all of social media, with everything else. We're actually less connected than ever before. I mean, you walk around and you get on you get on mass transportation, you go to different things and you just know one looks each other and no one talks to each other and especially online. I mean, people all the time will reach out and go get the message on linkedin Hey Joshua B And the reason why his Joshua B? Because I. I put my name is Joshua B. And then my last name is Lee so I can pick up automation really quickly. So I see. Hey, Joshua B. I personally looked at your profile and I wanted to reach out because have you thought about using linkedin for leads recently.

[00:12:39] Yeah, I guess I have actually.

[00:12:41] Yeah. No. As I of course like. Yeah. You've actually looked at my profile. You probably would, but that's the thing man. So me through the like and I reach to them and ask why do you think this works. If you looked at my profile, you would have known what I do. I'm very clear and specific on it. Like, well, I don't have time for that. No one responds to me. So I figure made the one person out of a thousand responds to me I'll take it. So probably the reason why no one responds to you is because you're just spamming. You could probably change the way that you actually connect and engage with others. So that's why I do what I do, because people to me with I don't care. So we've got to be able to make a platform like linked in the organic reach Tom on LinkedIn. It's like Facebook 2008-2009. It's amazing. If you start with value, you're not just talking about yourself and selling and pitching the entire time.

[00:13:32] All right. So how would the various programs how would people work with you if they wanted to get better?

[00:13:38] The best way to be in. There's two ways where you just want to kind of learn to get educated a little bit. Find me on LinkedIn, look for Joshua B. Lee or, you know, the best way. I mean, this is something that we're offering now that won't be around forever because, you know, we work with our great clients. But I've put together this, quote unquote, master class called the Linked-In Authority Accelerator. And you can go to soauthority.com to be able to get access to it. And I mean, I'm doing small groups because I work with guys like you one on one. I don't like them. I like to teach to the masses. I don't want to sit there and talk at 100, 200 people. We're doing these small groups of no more than 10 entrepreneurs with me once a week for six weeks to educate them on all the things they need to do to be able to make the most impact for them on LinkedIn right now.

[00:14:25] And do they they have like assignments during the week, each week to do stuff.

[00:14:31] Yeah. We've got a live webinar that we go through every every week we go through. We have an online group that we get access to and our repository of content. And we actually one thing that I threw in there, just because I wanted to make sure that we could really connect is. I like connect, you know, humans. I, as I said, don't like to talk at people. So, you know, we even threw in an hour long branding session with me directly one on one outside of the group as well. So we take them through all the different aspects from the profile, their company to branding, to posting, to engaging, linked in advertising. All the pieces just to give them enough information that they can get the most impact without, you know, having to work with us directly on our high end programs.

[00:15:16] All right. So give us the link to it again. Then we're going to take you back to see how you came up through the ranks.

[00:15:20] Yes. Soauthority.com.

[00:15:22] And that'll be in the show notes, folks. So let's take back. Were you an entrepreneurial kid?

[00:15:31] Well, my mom would tell you that, right. If you go back and I'm like, oh yeah, I remember back in the day I used to a- realize, hey, I could go to Costco and get candy and then I could sell it to my my friends. It was it was great. The funny thing was even better. I had 100 percent margin because my parents buy the candy. And they also like it. But you know, you before them among those. Now, I remember we used to love to summer school and couldn't figure out why. And then I finally talked to teachers like Josh, you were going in there and you and I look at life. I mean, everything's a numbers game and numbers have always come really easily to me. And I guess in that way, quote unquote, counting cards, I used to go back to summer school. I don't remember those moms like you would play cards with the kids and take their money. And that's why you like to go to summer school. Interesting. I don't even remember that. But yeah. Long story short, I have been doing an understanding and finding out ways to be able to connect, engage and build businesses. However I can.

[00:16:34] And so you came up. You went through school. And then did you ever actually have a job?

[00:16:41] I did so mean one of my first jobs I worked for G.T. Wireless that became Cingular Wireless and I was the youngest corporate account executive for Cingular Wireless before. Whatever company they are now, I think it's AT&T now. But, you know, I did that. I mean, I enjoyed it. And why I did that was in college is my first company before that, I was at Chili's. I worked at Chili's as a server. I got fired by giving away free soup to my friend. So, yeah, I did have a couple of different, you know, different jobs in there. But, you know, early age, my early 20s, I saw an opportunity in the in the real estate market and I got my broker's license. And that's kind of what took me out of Texas and then to California for a little bit. And I realized that, man, I just a lot of people there, they were buying their homes for for let's say two, three hundred thousand. They owed a hundred thousand now. Yeah. And they're going the wrong way. This is like 2002 and I'm like this is the wrong people are real real estate agents aren't helping people at all. I mean, these, you know, loan agents aren't helping. And it's like and something's going to happen, which was in 2008. Right. This is not good. They're making more money on their refinance than they are actually on their own jobs. So I had the opportunity. That's when I got in to get the digital space. And friend brought me in and the owner ended up coming in very shortly after I started to be able to be from a business owner to a business operator. And there's a huge difference in that. Most people don't get that. You try to operate the business and ran it in the ground very quickly. And that's kind of where I got my first opportunity to connect and ended up working with one of my first clients, which was MySpace.

[00:18:24] MySpace. So tell everybody what that is in case they don't know.

[00:18:26] If you if you've forgotten about this Myspace was one of the first social media companies out there to be able to connect you and me with it, with your friends and allow you to, I mean, really change your profile. It's always funny people go back in there like that. And I don't have one myself, so I always mess with it all the time.

[00:18:44] Yeah. What happened? Well, from a bird's eye view, why do you think it went under?

[00:18:50] I mean, in the long run, it was probably one of the best business deals I've ever seen. But I think it and that started the demise of where it went. You know, MySpace started off and they were doing really well and they sold the company to Rupert Murdoch. And within that same year, Rupert Murdoch turned around and sold all advertising rights, which in that in that time and age, they didn't make any money on advertising because they were selling to people. So they sold the advertising rights from I think it was Yahoo! At the time to Google for almost double what he bought the entire company for just the advertising right. Beautiful. I mean, to be able to turn around and be able to do that. But that's they you know, they're trying to monetize something. And it kind of went a way people forgot about it once The Facebook came out.

[00:19:40] So where did you go from there?

[00:19:44] From there. I mean, I had different, different companies monetizing all the different acronyms from CPA, CPC, CPL. You know, we work with Google and Yahoo! And all the different companies.

[00:19:56] And so you were working as as an agency.

[00:19:59] So, yeah, we worked as they did so well. So we would actually work with them directly and be able to take their ads and syndicate those ads out through what we called XML feeds and be able to monetize traffic. I mean, I used to go through the Alexa list, not like the Alexa in your home today. And I would literally when I first started out my career, I would send out. That was that guy. You know, we're talking about that. I don't do now. But I would say that if I could make you know, we reach out to blogs, we go to all the different blog posts and Web sites. If I could monetize your traffic that's going on your site now and make you $1 more than you're making now. I would either show you that I can make you more money or that you're in the best position possible. And I mean, that would just be the. We would go on to go to find an e-mail, send it out and go through all day. Thousand e-mails a day got blocked many times. But it started out my career in that space. It allowed me to begin. We got there and get a lot of different layers of Web sites and with advertisers. And we were the middleman for many years of that. And we started taking on our own direct advertisers.

[00:21:04] When the actual you said stand out authority. What's the time frame been doing that?

[00:21:11] Yes. Standout authority started about four and five years ago. As you know, I built many different companies, webs and a lot of the online space. And this is kind of where my book came out, balance is B.S. as well. Outside looking in, you know, I look successful. I mean based on what most people see success as, what is monetary? And, you know, I had the cars, the house, the. I did didn't worry about money. I had the family, the kids, everything. But internally, because I was making everything about business or, you know, pretty much business or have as much fun as I am. As I'm doing a business, the life that I was building was I didn't care about the companies. They were just there. They were just a money making opportunity. They didn't really add value for me anymore. So I kind of had to take a hard look and I ended up getting divorced. I said, look, this is I need to release my wife. We weren't happy because I was sitting in a place where I was 40 pounds heavier than I'd ever been my life. My all my friends were monetary. And, you know, I know vision about where I was going in this new era was that everything was just business.

[00:22:23] You just had to release my wife.

[00:22:25] My wife said I didn't set to release my wife. I wanted to give her the opportunity and I might have individually to give her. We just weren't connecting. And we connect on different plane. When we first got together and I wanted her the opportunity be able to have happiness in just like with everyone. Right. I mean, we go through, we say, oh, we're going to keep on doing this for the kids. It just wasn't. I didn't see it adding value to my children's life either. And I wanted to give everyone the opportunity to be able to move forward because we were just in different places at this point. And so I kind of walked away from everything. And recently, I liquidate all my companies. And at 36, I move back in with my parents with a little bit under a thousand dollars my name, because I just I didn't want to go through whole trying to go the whole litigation of divorce. But my my lawyers have told me it's going to take three years to get get final. And now I value my time over money. I can always make more money. I can't get back more time. So after all this time, I was sitting there and I go, how can I take what I did and not be happy about what I was doing, there's gonna be a better way. And that's where the you know, I start. I was already messed around with LinkedIn a little bit prior to that because I had access to so much traffic. We would go in and we would quote unquote, boost people's posts. We would take our traffic and be able to put it on a LinkedIn blog and be able to help someone get fifty thousand views on their blog. But that was vanity metrics. I was like, there's gotta be a better way. And so that's when we started kind of playing around him. I started doing my own profile and working with other people. And that's where we are today. Being able to work with the clients is just I figured out that you didn't have to worry about algorithms or tools or tricks that you had to change every six months based on how they change. I needed to change human nature. I want to be able to can change and adjust with the human condition of being online. And that's kind of what we do. That's why I say we teach marketers how to be human online. We've forgotten them and allows us to be a bit cut the noise and really connect with the other individual that needs and is educated enough to make the decision to work with us. Or who are our clients.

[00:24:34] Yeah. Yeah. They sure have forgotten about the human connection. That's for sure. You know, though, my take on balance, okay. Is that I don't think it's too far off for yours, but the mind doesn't center on the consequences so much as the reality that most people that are super high achievers aren't balanced. I really like an Olympic athlete. You think they're balanced? Probably as far off from being balanced as you can. And so when people tell me, well, I'm not making as much money as I want, you know, I'm going to really concentrate this after we going to take a month vacation. Okay. You're kind of making your own bed. All right? You know, you're not going to concentrate on your business. You're not going to make as much money. But if you're happy, that's OK, as long as you realize the consequences of your actions. It's okay with me. But if you complain on one hand that I'm not achieving the success that I want and you're not doing anything extraordinary to make that success, then well, you know, you take what you get. So so. But you were you were getting success and you gained weight and lost your family over it.

[00:25:43] So, yeah, I mean, that's as far as it was too far. Yeah. I mean, I think so many entrepreneurs we we find ourselves in these situations and I think the whole work life balance is what really messes up more, more people. Right. I mean, it's there's balance is unachievable. Tom, I look at it this way. If I'm if I'm perfectly balanced, I'm not moving. I'm not moving. I'm dead. That's exactly right. We have to really have growth. I mean, it's kind of you're working out things like that. You have to be imbalanced to be able to have gains, to be able to grow. So this is kind of where I believe more of find the things in your life that make you you and integrate those within your life on a daily basis, then they won't be equal like it. If you want help to be pretty life, do one push up. That's OK. But at least integrated it. You added it in, you know, go in and be able to do these if you want relationships to be powerful because I want people to be a high five me when I have success, but also be able to catch me when I fall. And it's it's those things personally and professionally. So reach out. Someone crosses your mind. Send out a message. Hey, what's up? I thought about you today. It's little things of that nature that I think a lot of us don't. There were like, why didn't do enough? And that that perception of enough is what really hurts so many individuals these days. And that's why I wrote the book, because I wanted to share all the things as a as an entrepreneur and as a man, because we were categorized so way to be these rocks, to be these strong individuals that never break. I made a lot of mistakes. And I was always too scared to show that share them before. So that's what I use the book for. It was really for me to be able to share these mistakes that I had made my life and personal and business. And what I did to turn my life around and what someone else could do as well.

[00:27:34] Folks, just the warning out there, if you haven't been doing any of this and all of a sudden you call up somebody say, hey, is thinking about. They're like, what do you want? What do you want? You go and kind of get a little track record.

[00:27:52] Ease into it. But, hey, you know what? They're going to they're going to have a conversation with you or they're going to run run for the hills.

[00:28:00] Yeah. So give us a couple tips for everybody out there if they haven't been successful or even done Linked-In at all. What are some of the things they should do to get started besides go to soauthority.com.

[00:28:14] Yeah. So Tom, I mean, here's the best way to be started. So I'm not sure if everyone knows here or not. But about two years ago, Microsoft purchased LinkedIn for twenty four point six billion dollars cash. So they're going to be and they've actually seen a massive return on their investment

[00:28:31] That scares me because they also bought Skype. That's going downhill fast.

[00:28:35] You are right there. LinkedIn. Linkedin's a little bit different that they're allowing that management team to keep on going. But the key factor, why bring it up is that they're going to be integrating the information from LinkedIn across all their platforms, including Skype. So as I tell everyone, the tip of your spear, if you do, if you if you're posting on a regular basis and you're not selling the tip, you're spear the tip. Your funnel needs to be your your profile. A lot of people go in and they go in they go. I update my profile like five years ago today. You know, you want to make sure. So first and foremost, start off with a good picture. But, you know, you're not you're in the same picture that you would use on Instagram or Facebook or something on that measure. It is a professional platform. So let's not have you hanging out at the beach or riding a four wheeler or whatever it may be. You know, it's is you want to have a professional photo number two your title. That's the first thing that people see. So most people go in and they go. I'm a founder of a business owner, sales rep. Whatever it is, we just blend into the background. It's not customer facing forward. So I'm a huge fan and usage of I help X to achieve Y. So they can do Z. That's what the title I use for my profile. I want to stand out because I help X. That tells the person that's looking me up exactly who I help. And if it's them or not to help X to do Y. So I mean, again, this is what I do. And the reason why people buy is the outcome Z. So if you're able to put that in the title in a short phrase or it can actually make that decision that a draw them into your profile. Now they have the opportunity actually give them more information about you. So those are those are just two quick tips. And the other thing is you should always look at LinkedIn's algorithm is based around what's called an SSI score social selling index. You can go to standoutauthority.com/SSI or just look up SSI LinkedIn on Google and you can pull up when you're logged in your LinkedIn, you can pull up your SSI score and being a key factor, posting on a regular basis, engaging with others, commenting, connecting these will lie to raise your score for up. And if you get above 70 and above, this is where LinkedIn goes. This person is really using our platform correctly. Let's help them out and get them in from more people. And so that's what we really help our clients do to really fast within 30 days be able to get inside the linkedin algorithm to be able to get them to boost their posts organically and to get reached that they usually wouldn't have.

[00:31:10] Those are all great tips. I haven't heard before, so so. Check out soauthority.com, folks. So we got to take a brief sponsor break. When we come back, we're going to ask Joshua what a typical day looks like for him and how he stays motivated.

[00:31:25] So, folks, I'm down on my hands and knees begging you to check out a particular webinar or pass it on to someone who could use it. It has to do with higher education. I mean, if you're considering getting retrained because you hate what you're doing or you want a better life for yourself and your family, or if you have kids, nephews, nieces or even neighbors who are wondering if they should burn up hundreds of thousands of dollars and then end up broke with mountains of debt, no marketable skills. I mean, I've seen MBAs competing for jobs at Starbucks. All right. You just got to watch this webinar. And it's not just me hawking my vocational school. It's Internet marketing school of mine. It's high level education, people ragging on what's going on in the university and college world. That's just terrible. I mean, be prepared to be mad when you watch this webinar. You can find it at screwthecommute.com/webinars or you can just go to screwthecommute.com and click on webinars or of course, go the show notes for Episode 197, and it will help you make a more informed decision if you or your kids are thinking about higher education, because there's a lot of alternatives nowadays. And some are way better than the others. So check it out and screwthecommute.com then click on webinars.

[00:32:48] Let's get back to the main event. Joshua Lee is here with us. He's been an entrepreneur for a long, long time and has handled some super big accounts and also been down. Like most of us, up and down in the entrepreneurial world. So, Joshua, what's a typical day look like for you now and how do you stay motivated?

[00:33:07] Yeah, no worries, Tom. I mean, so one of the biggest things that's really change on how I start my day is by one of the biggest things that everyone does in them where we live in when they first wake up. Right. I mean, if I ask you, Tom, and like, what do you think the first thing someone does or looks at when they wake up?

[00:33:24] Their cell phone.

[00:33:26] There you go. And I mean, that's such a huge factor because you're setting precedents that the outside world is more important than you by looking at because the world didn't stop turning, your business didn't blow up. If someone died, they were calling you. So why do we need to go in and look at a social media, look at the e-mail, go and look at TV, see what's fun news. You would be notified. So that's a biggest thing that I start my day off is because the outside world doesn't make me successful. I make myself successful. So I make sure I don't touch my phone for the first two hours when I start my day. I allow it myself from through meditation. You're working out spending time with my family. All of those things first before I ever touch any digital lives. And that's really changed the way that I'm able to be able to achieve the success and be able to have the things that I want in my life and be able to start my day off right now.

[00:34:21] You do have kids, right?

[00:34:22] I do.

[00:34:24] What ages do they?

[00:34:26] My daughter's seven and my son is 10.

[00:34:28] So are they all into digital stuff now like every other kid on earth?

[00:34:32] Of course they are.

[00:34:34] Does that same rule apply to them.

[00:34:36] It does. And I mean, that's the whole piece. I mean, we we really make sure they want to go in the morning. They've got to wake up. You know, if it's not a school day, we've got to read first. We need to go in and be able to read and be able to, you know, you know, really work our minds or let's go have some fun. Let's go for a run or something of that nature, because it says peace. We have to not it's not the whole. Do as I say, not as I do. Right. I mean, kids get that. They're too smart. So, yeah, our house right now and my phone turns on, you know that the whole do not disturb. I have that on till 9:00 a.m. every morning and then it kicks off at 8:00 p.m. that night to be able to kind of make sure that I'm present and, you know, in the moment appreciating what we have. So that's hard. You know, you go through it. I witness that. I tell everyone I go. You start doing this. Just do it for 10 minutes. Get up get your coffee. Start your day.

[00:35:31] People will start sweating shaking.

[00:35:36] Stretch. You know, give yourself 10 minutes. You know, go in and work into it because we've gotten so dependent on it. I mean, it's that's a friend of mine.

[00:35:44] You know what I'll do? They'll pick their phone up to check how many minutes have gone by.

[00:35:49] Yeah. I hope we have clocks here.

[00:35:52] These kids can't read them any more unless they're digital.

[00:35:57] You know, and that's that's the whole piece. So, you know, that's that's where I start my day. Listen to audiobooks read as well. Personally, all that kind of stuff. It's just being able to start the day off right. Has really allowed me to be able to make sure that I appreciate the things that I have on my life and appreciate the power that I have on myself.

[00:36:16] All right, so what keeps you motivated?

[00:36:18] Motivated. My wife, my kids get divorced, but I just got married here last October and I got a partner in all aspects of life. As I tell people and this is, you know, I'd say this in the book to. We had this work life balance, so many people try and live two separate lives, have a different personality, different life, they haven't worked in their personal life. And how can you do that? You don't have two different personalities because if you did, you'd be locked up in an insane asylum. We have one life and we have to live it that way. So, I mean, that's what allows me. I mean, look, I mean, 100 percent of the time, all the time, I want you to love me or hate me, because, again, that's why people make decisions. I don't want to be in different. You're just I'm just wasting your time and my time. Right. So it's being able live that one life online off line. It just it drives me, allows me to be able to not only be amazing with my family, but also to be able to connect with amazing individuals in this world.

[00:37:17] So I see that a lot in the speaking world. You know, somebody is a piece of crap off off stage than on stage. They're the best family person. And, you know, they're going to do everything on earth for you. Then they get off stage and then screw you and I'm outta here.

[00:37:35] I mean, look, I tried to live that life, Tom. I mean, and I tell you, it almost put me in a shallow grave. I'm not doing that anymore. I want to be me. I want to be in love. If you don't like me, it is what it is. That's your perception. And that's fine. But that's only going to help me attract the right people that need to be within my tribe. You know, propel away the people that I don't want my life that are just they're takers.

[00:38:01] Yeah. On a rare, rare occasion, I run into that because we get very few refunds because I really try to have high quality products and services and stuff and somebody'll, you know, just be totally unreasonable and right. And I'm thinking, great. Go tell all your unreasonable friends and then I won't have to deal with them either.

[00:38:22] Well, that's that's the piece, right? Me and I I hope that you say that to me will cause people to try and go especially online and business. They try and be this like they want to ride the fence. Right. They want to go through and they want to not offend anyone or go through it online.

[00:38:38] Boy, is that hard nowadays.

[00:38:39] That's hard to do. And that takes a lot of time and effort. As I said, I value my time over everything. So not only do I want to not waste my time, that's likely anyone's reaction, but I don't waste anyone else's time. They don't want to read that. I need them to leave or hate me, because that's why people either make decisions in life in business as well, to be able to make buying decisions because they love or hate something. They don't make it because they're indifferent towards.

[00:39:03] That's for sure. Your company is that. Is it just you or do you have employees or contractors or how you operate your.

[00:39:11] Oh, yeah. No, we've got quite a few employees, as I said. It's human. Human to human connections that we do is so mean. Not only, you know, we're work and we're working with someone's account to work with our people. You're always going to talk to a human whenever. Doing messaging for our clients know that there's always a human behind it. I am based out of Austin, Texas. I'm a Texas boy, born and raised. Moved out to California for a couple of years, but came back in 08. I am here.

[00:39:41] All right. Well, thanks so much for taking the time has been great insights. And the those just those couple tips on linkedin were worth the price of admission and which was free. But I'm not trying to rag on you. But now those are really excellent. I'd never heard. You know, I hear all kinds of stuff and I never heard those words, especially about the SSI score.

[00:40:03] Well, Tom, that's the funny thing, right? I mean, I hear that, too. So feel like all the higher lending I have, I've had so many things linkedin. I've never heard these things. This is the problem. This is why I'm trying to do what I do, being on shows like yours, because if these are things that people aren't telling, then the people that are teaching them have no right to teach.

[00:40:20] Exactly. They do not know. That's why even in our school, we don't touch certain topics that we're not expert or have, you know, have reached high levels in because, you couldn't have an Internet marketing school that covered everything to the high. Yeah, it was responsible would be 100 years, you know, before you got first semester done.

[00:40:43] And we're always constantly learning. It's life, right? Life is always carsey evolving. So you're evolving with it. You know, you can't be like on the best. Everything is normal. I say if you're not moving your dead. Yeah. If you're the best at everything you're dead do is I'm like, I want people tell me I'm a 9. At 10 I've already reached the echelon of I can reach it. I'm done. So how good am I. Nine. Awesome. That still allows me to grow.

[00:41:06] Exactly. And things change. I think. I believe we're one of the only schools on earth that can update our curriculum daily. Yeah. I mean, not that we do, but we could. And if something happens that I find out today, I will call Marc up. I say, Marc, this is no longer the way it is. We can't be teaching this anymore. Fix it. And then we make this. We've got hundreds of updates on a spreadsheet of over the time because things change. Something I thought last week can be obsolete next week. So. So that's what moving. That's what keeps me moving forward. That's for sure.

[00:41:46] I love that, Tom. And I mean, that's exciting. I hope everyone listening is part of that because it's you you're not going to get that everywhere. And I mean, luckily, you and I are doing that to be able to offer, you know, really help the world, not just go cool. I put out a product. It's evergreen at last forever. Yes.

[00:42:02] Well. Yeah. I mean, I do have some product like that that are public speaking related, but not in this field.

[00:42:09] Yeah. I mean speaking certain things like that. Yeah. Human nature doesn't change. And but when you're talking about online in this world Internet market space, it evolves.

[00:42:19] Yeah, that's for sure. And and part of what we do is teach people how to keep up because if they graduated and then something changes. Well, now what? You know, you can't go back to school again. So they have to learn how to learn on the job and and learn from people like you. Credible high level sources. So so thanks so much for coming on, man. We really appreciate it.

[00:42:42] Really enjoyed it today. Tom, thank you so much.

[00:42:44] Okeydoke, folks. So make sure you check out soauthority.com. And if you want to take your linkedin to a higher level and turn that into a vehicle that you can engage with people and you can make money off of it, too. But just don't put that is the first thing because you just don't want to be the kind of person that we've talked about here that just just spews things out and crosses their fingers. So Josh will help you. All right. Thanks, everybody. We'll see y'all of the next episode.

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