Bryan McAnulty: Welcome to The Creator's Adventure, where we interview Creator's from around the world, hearing their stories about growing a business. I'm sure that you've been on LinkedIn. You get a dm, and the moment you reply, somebody's trying to pitch you something. Today's guest is not going to teach you how to do that.

Instead, he's going to teach you how to build real human connections. Hey everyone. I'm Bryan McAnulty, the founder of Heights. Platform. Let's get into,

Hey everyone. We're here today with Joshua B. Lee, also known as the Dopamine dealer of LinkedIn. He is the founder of standout Authority where he helps business owners and professionals humanize their brands. Over the last 20 plus years, Joshua has built 16 businesses, used LinkedIn to focus on building authentic relationships.

Written a book called Balance is Bullshit, and Raised a family with his wife and his two kids. Joshua, welcome to the show

Joshua B Lee: Bryan. Man, I'm excited to be here now. I appreciate it. Use this shortened version. Like sometimes, you know, I've done a podcast and like we're sitting here for like 20 minutes. I'm like, no, we don't need to go through all the different things I've.

People go, wow, okay. You're a lot older than I think you are when they start reading some of the things that we've, as we've gone through some of the life. So, man, it's, it's good. You did a great job. I'm excited to be here and talk with the audience.

Bryan McAnulty: All right, cool. Yeah. Well, I want to hear it all from you.

So , my first question is, what's the biggest thing that either you did or you are doing that has helped you achieve the freedom to do what you enjoy?

Joshua B Lee: You know, that's a big, big question for a lot of people, right? As entrepreneurs, we're always trying to be, you know, it's either. , and this is that one thing, right?

Time versus money, right? When you're trying to be able to build it up, you need, you feel like you need more money. As you get more money, you're looking for more time. And I think this is the biggest struggle that so many entrepreneurs and, you know, just business people in general struggle with going back and forth.

You know, for me, Bryan, you know, I've, I've had, you know, my ups and downs throughout my career, being able to go through, you know, when I first started, I built multiple different companies and honestly, I had the money, but I, I built a life that I didn't really. and so I actually went through a reset about eight, nine years ago and then started all over and to where I am today.

Really being able to craft that time is understanding, not only have the right team members, but on understand my own time value, and I think that's the biggest thing that we kind of go through. So, , one of the things I started doing, and honestly I have a lot of my, you know, employees do that. My team does that, and then honestly, I share whatever amount of different means is they, have you ever done the 10, 100, 1000, 10,000 kind of columns?

Bryan McAnulty: No, I don't think so. It sounds familiar, but I don't think so. All right.

Joshua B Lee: So this is great for people to understand. Cause I've been in rooms where I'll sit down with a whole bunch of freelancers and I'll be like, all right, hey, okay. If I ask you for how much for an hour of your time, how much does it cost?

What do you think The first question most people ask, I don't know. To do what? . Ah, okay. Now you and I both know I don't care to do what? As if you value your time at that specific hour. It doesn't matter what you're doing. . Right. So, and that's the biggest policy that I see most people make is they go to do what?

Well, I'm asking for out of your time. Like if you price yourself at the right amount, it doesn't matter if I'm digging ditches or writing email copy. If I'm getting paid my value, I'm good. Right? And so that's the biggest thing. I think most people have to really be able to have that mindset shift of, so for me it was doing, you take a piece of paper, turn it sideways, you do ten four columns.

One that says ten one hundred, 1010. And what you start doing is every week you look at all the different tasks that you go through, you start putting, okay, what would I pay $10 an hour for Right to be able to do then that a hundred. As entrepreneurs as business owners, we wanna make sure we stay in that thousand dollars and over task.

Are we getting paid a thousand? No. But we need to be able to value our time in that. And then that 10,000 is like time with my kids, right? Or let's say someone just loves mowing their lawn, right? I mean that they, you could, you could put that in there. So I mean, that's where we really have to be able to shift and for me to be able to get and be able to build the team.

Cuz right now my agency runs itself. I'm not in my agency more, I'm actually a client of my agency. And so that team runs and be, allows me to be able to do what I did and that was. First off, $10 an hour task. That email is that doing the dishes. And it's not just on the business side, it's personal as well, right?

What are those things that you can start offloading to be able to own your time and be able to stay in those values? So you can be that seven figure entrepreneur and hire and really be able to understand that time value. And people go, oh, well, you know, if I took this off my plate and I gave it to somebody else, Bryan, you know, well, they can't do it as well as I.

Guess what? If they could do it as well as you, they would be you. And I think this is the biggest shift. So sometimes it might take 2, 3, 4 people to do that same hour of work you do. But it makes sense because if you are just paying 'em 10 to a hundred dollars an hour, you're still up because your time is valued at the thousand dollars.

Good answer.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, definitely. I like that. I mean, I, I really value my time. That's really something that is important to me. I'm, I'm actually surprised by how many entrepreneurs don't seem to put the same kind of value on their time. And for me, the way I would look at it is like, I'm happy to spend time doing.

Whatever it is, as long as it's that thing that I've put into that bucket as you're saying, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so if I put something into that bucket, I'm gonna spend time about it. I would never feel bad about spending time in that thing. Right. And in, in the same sense, like a comparison that I think is funny is when you see somebody on the road and, and they're driving, driving like crazy to save what?

A couple seconds And they end up getting stopped at the same lights that you do or whatever. Anyway. and it's, it's, to me, it's like I'm in the car now. I plan to be in the car now. Yeah. So it's gonna take the time that it's gonna take, it's roughly gonna be about this time, and that's what I plan for. And so trying to save the, the few seconds there is, is showing all the other things that are probably not organized in that person's life.

Of course there's exceptions, maybe there's an emergency, whatever. But, but in general, that's, that's how I kind of look.

Joshua B Lee: I love that man. No, it's, it's funny too. It's, it's, you, you talk about that, it makes me go back to a good friend of mine I'm not sure if you've met him here in Austin yet, or not Jesse Elder, but he's always like, people get upset at traffic and he goes, you know, like, oh man, I'm in traffic.

You are traffic. Right? And that's that whole piece is that we have to understand and own the situation that we're in and be okay with it to be able to kind of move forward. So I love that analogy. Awesome.

Bryan McAnulty: So you've built 16 businesses over the last 20 years. Can you tell us a little bit about the journey you've had as an entrepreneur?

What really inspired you to start that first business and how'd you get started with it?

Joshua B Lee: You know, what's interesting? You know, they, my, my mom would probably tell you that my first business was, you know, selling candy outta my locker years ago in elementary school. Right. Being able to go in massive margins, Bryan, because again, I had at no cost, right.

My parents bought the candy, so it was amazing. You. Things aren't as easy that as these days anymore, man. But you know, my first business I had, I had kind of gone in and I was out in California cuz I was a early on. I saw an opportunity in the mortgage business. So I got, became a broker and I was out in California and I needed to find a new opportunity.

So I got hired on by this company in the digital space. And this is that big shift from, from when I was there. The business owner tried to shift from business owner to business. And there's a huge difference in those two things as someone being in the business or working on the business and it kind of threw it off.

So it kind of threw me into a space that I got access into the online world, but only been in a short distance. And so cuz the business was, was crumbling. So I started my own company kind of going through and building on relationships, right? I saw relationships early on and I was kind of blessed and cursed, man.

One of my first clients, you know, happened to be a company. These days, most the younger generation don't even, don't even remember and most people have forgotten about, which is MySpace. So my wife always laughs at ages me. She's like, whenever you tell people one of your first clients is MySpace, I'm like, yeah, yeah.

Been doing it for a bit. And you know, we help them develop one of the first social media ads to be able to monetize their traffic that a lot of things are based off of today. And so, building those companies, Bryan, I went through and I did the things that as most entrepreneurs and especially as men, were taught, you know, to be able to do.

Do make the money, you know, don't show, you know, your weakness. Be able to go through and, you know, I built multiple different businesses, you know, monetizing over half a billion dollars in advertising, controlling over 35 trillion impressions, did all those things, and monetizing pretty much anything you could think about online.

I was the guy that people would go to, but it really built a career for me where it was all about the money. I mean, I built my business where it was, my relationships were monetary. . You know, I, my weight had gone I 40 pounds overweight. Wasn't paying attention to those aspects a lot, and I had no vision about where I was going.

I just knew where I was at, and I was kind of doing that whole work life balance where I was, you know, playing as hard as I was. I was making money and it just, it led me to a point where, I'm gonna be honest, I, I contemplated my own life if I should be on this planet. And it was a big shift for me to be able to kind of go in and how do I want to be able to shift what I'm doing and how I'm doing.

and that's kind of where I went through my reset went through a divorce, closed down all my companies, walked away from everything at 36, moved back with my parents to be able to save time, right? We started talking about time in the beginning for me. My lawyers had told me it was gonna take three years to go through, and I said, no, close it all.

Give it, give it to my former. And again, I wanna make sure I save time for my, my kids and for myself. And that's kind of where my book balances bullshit kind of came from. Being able to kind of share those things that we don't really talk about all the time. To the shift there I was going and then it was, I'm gonna be honest, at first I was like, I'm gonna be a life coach.

I had my man bun, my mala beads. Now I was, you know, the pendulum at swung realized really quickly too. I, life coach wasn't really what I wanted to do. And I kind of paired that again. with my marketing background. That's kind of where Standard Authority was born and kind of how we, you know, we look at being able to, how do we humanize ourselves cause we were losing that tactic and being able to see so much traffic and really how do we actually do it in a platform that actually really works.

And for me it was LinkedIn cuz so many people saw it as a B2B platform. And now, you know, we get to be able to work with a lot of men and women. I used to read their books on how to be able to start their, my own company 20 years ago. and now it's all about how do we educate, inspire and draw people in, not sell them on a platform that most people are just pitching on.

Okay. Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty: So can you go into more detail about that? So why, why do you believe it's important for business owners to be more humanized in the eyes of their customers, and what does that exactly mean?

Joshua B Lee: Yeah, man, no worries. Well, I mean, as they look at it, right, Bryan, it's. , we kind of go in and everyone goes, well, it's either B2B or b2c, business to business or business to consumer.

And I'm gonna be honest, it's neither, right? Every company is run by another human being. Most marketers forget that. So it's really all H to H human to human marketing. And I think that's the biggest shift that I kind of saw is if you're going into, and let's just say, let's, let's take three brands for example, right?

And this is where I want people to kind of think about it, is, you know, if I said, unless you're a car person, if I said Mercedes, Porsche, or Tesla, what name comes to mind? Most people are gonna say Elon Musk, right? Mm-hmm. . I mean, it's just one of the, and even though Mercedes and Porsche been around for decades longer, the average person couldn't tell you who runs those companies.

But that's why they had that shift in there, that that human brand, that personalized, and especially post covid, we want to be able to have that human connection and being able to go through, and I think that was what was lacking for that. I saw. people were going through, and especially on LinkedIn, they were spamming saying those messages out, we all get like mm-hmm.

Hey Bryan, I see you're wearing a shirt. Me too. Let's connect. Right ? Yep. And then it's like two seconds later they pitch you and it's like, okay. Everyone's like, dude, I hate LinkedIn. This what's going on? And that was that shift. And for me it was like, We keep, we're all paying attention to with the LinkedIn algorithm or the Twitter or the Facebook algorithm, whatever algorithm that continues to change and we're like, oh, what's the next trick or hack?

I realized there was a better algorithm. It was that human algorithm, right? The one that just evolves over time and once we actually understand and connect with human beings and what that algorithm is, that was the shift and that's where really being able to humanize how someone was online, allowing someone to be able to connect with the person behind the.

allowing, as human beings, we look for commonalities with other human beings. That's how we group, you know, from, from early on in school, right? You know, cliques and things like that, to even the friends we hang with now, we have these commonalities. So we do that with branding and the things we buy. Like, oh, you know, Josh is a dad.

Oh, me too. I bet we would align and if I work with him, we have more things to be able to connect on and be able to go through. He's gonna get me more. And so that's kind of where we had our shift with standard authority and being able to do that. , how do we do the things that, honestly, my mom taught me how to be able to treat other human beings.

Just doing it online on a platform that most people were using incorrectly, just to be able to spam a thousand people hoping to get the one sale, when in essence all they did was piss off 999 people .

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah. All right. Interesting. Yeah, I, I like the point that you made about how. I've realized it as well and I'm, I'm glad to hear, cuz I guess it means I'm kind of on the right track that after Covid especially, it seems that there's more of a focus on how people wanna connect to a human behind the brand, not just the brand.

Yeah. And so, When I started, kind of went all in on my business, Heights Platform. I thought like, well this is great. We're building a brand Heights. It doesn't have to be about me and like I don't have to really be involved in it. It's just the brand. Cuz the brand can be bigger than the person. And that's, that's still true I think.

But the point is that more and more people want to hear from the person. And you gave Elon Musk such a great example because like look at. The, the amount of attention that he's kind of commanded and gotten from being that, that single person. But it, it's not only about the attention or, or how they, how people can relate to somebody, but but it's the, the connection that they can make that's deeper than that and how they can say, oh, well, well this person has these values, has these interests, and, and seeing that human behind it, that's really.

Makes such a difference and I, I've realized that now that I have to be more in front with the brand, not just doing this podcast, but, but doing more things because that's really how people will connect to us.

Joshua B Lee: A hundred percent. Bryan, I mean, we, you and I can create more change being in front of the curtain, right?

I mean, I had the opportunity many years ago when I first started, early in the two thousands to be able to be in front of the curtain and I could have probably stepped in on some of the things that I saw. Companies like Google were. You know, with fraudulent cliques and traffic and things like that, and I was like, no, I'm good.

I'm gonna make my money back here. But I didn't create enough impact. You know? Now as a dad having kids, stuff like that, I want to be able to create positive change in this planet and allow the byproduct to be money, right when we make money that that main focus. It's an ever thing that we're always constantly chasing and it's exhausting for everyone.

And so, you know, that's where, you know, we need everyone, especially coaches, entrepreneurs, and like that, to be able to stand up and understand like your brand is bigger than you. Yes. But that you're, you will follow with the different things that you go through. And if you take time to be able to build that personal brand and be able to resonate.

As human beings, we make decisions. based on some degree of love or hate. We do not make decisions based on being indifferent to something. And so when we understand that, especially with people, that's, that's how we gravitate and be able to go through and will be, especially as coaches. Cause I know there's a lot of coaches on your platform.

Like if I'm gonna work with someone, I wanna make sure there's alignment. That program might be great. I mean, cuz look, there's a thousand programs for, I guarantee you there's a thousand if not more programs on linked. But if I resonate with the person that actually is doing it and I'm like, wow, I have commonalities, I'm gonna probably gravitate to that person more and be able to be willing to, you know, take in that information and find commonality.

And also a lot of times pay more for it. Yeah,

Bryan McAnulty: yeah, definitely. And I, I think it's, it's important to bring up, I've brought it up before, but I think it's important to bring up again that. I, I think you were almost kind of hinting at it of how you were like that maybe earlier in your career that like, I didn't wanna really be the face of anything.

I didn't have like that desire. I'm, I'm kind of an intro introverted personality, I feel like, and I've realized that now I have to be, and I want to be, not because of the money, like you said, but because of the impact. And I would. , I would be doing a disservice and I would be uncomfortable with myself and, and not being able to create that impact if I wasn't doing this.

So that's become my reason for, for doing it. And I think it can become a lot of other entrepreneurs reasons as well if they're thinking to themselves like, oh, well I don't wanna be like person on camera, or, that's not really me. And, and the reason doesn't have to be because you, you wanna show off and, and talk about yourself on camera.

It, it can be because that's the way that's gonna help you make the biggest impact.

Joshua B Lee: Hundred percent. And I mean, realize too, I mean like the bigger thing we want to do is you can look at brands like Apple and things like that too, right? I mean they started with a person, you know? Yes, apple is where they are.

But those people created advocates. Advocates are so much more powerful than just one client. I will push everyone every day, and this is why you want to treat other human beings. I'd rather have one advocate compared to one client, cuz one advocate can bring me a hundred clients. , and that's that big piece that I want everyone to pay attention to an advocate.

Until they know the person, they're not gonna become an advocate, right? We don't become advocate for brands anymore until we know the people behind them anymore because again, , we've seen too many brands and all of a sudden that that owner pops up and they're like, wow, that dude is, I mean, let's talk about some crypto stuff, right?

I mean, like, there's certain things that kind of go through you and I have seen, so this is where that, that whole piece, and that's what I want everyone to push. As a human being, being able to stand out and really be in our show, that's where advocacy happens, and this is where the magic really will grow your business so much more.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, definitely. And I think the way we've tried to apply that is like with our customer service, like we look at every ticket or whatever, not just as like, okay, did, did we help this person? How fast did we help them? But also like, how can we take this, this probably a problem or issue that they're having and not only turn it around to give them a solution.

but make them so happy in the process that they want to go tell everybody about us. Hell yeah. I love that. And yes, it takes more time to do, but it's so worth it. And the, the part that I'm realizing that we have to improve is not only not to wait until that happens, so we can give the person that experience, but let them know that that experience is possible earlier.

So instead of waiting for them to have a problem, then they find out, oh wow, your support's great. , we gotta kind of reach out to them and get in touch and actually something we've done that I think more companies should do. is, even when we've had busy periods of support, we will actually reach out to the customers and just check in with them.

Hey, is there anything you need? Or anything like that. And I think that's backwards to a lot of people that say like, well, I'm busy. I already have a lot. Why would I go and give myself more work? But that's exactly the time when you should do it. And that's what, in my opinion, that creates the advocates for you.

Joshua B Lee: Yeah. Well, I mean, people forgot about this brand, but I mean, they were one of the best doing this. What you're talking about, zappos.com, right? I mean like, mm. They were an amazing brand that did that specifically. It wasn't, the shoe was the byproduct of what they did. They were there to be, you could call them up at any point in time and just have a talk to 'em about your problems and be like, cool, what's up?

What's going on? They'd reach out and have these conversations and that's what caused the amazingness of what that company wants. So yeah, man. I love that. Cool.

Bryan McAnulty: All right, so you talked a little bit about your thoughts on LinkedIn and how like, yeah. This time there's been so much of that spam and everything that I feel like people are almost concerned when they'd hear you're, you're doing something about LinkedIn.

Like, oh no, he's, he's gonna teach me how to spam or whatever, . And like, obviously not right? Not the guy. So, but how, how'd the nickname the dopamine dealer of LinkedIn, how'd that come about? .

Joshua B Lee: You know, it's funny, I was on a podcast and I was just explaining what we did and it, when the podcast launched, it was like, Joshua, be Lee, the dopamine dealer of LinkedIn, and then all of a sudden it kind of stuck and it was, it's one of those pieces because this is that whole piece, right?

I mean, if we go in and I, I, I touched on this earlier, right? Like, you know, I do the same things that my mother taught me, how to be able to treat other human beings. I'm just doing it online. Bryan, the biggest question I always ask everyone is like, why do people post online, right? First and foremost to bubble outs.

Why do people post online? And I mean, I'll get answers from for branding to get clients, you know, for blah, blah, blah, you know, million other business things. And I go, yes, but. , right? Because before that, over the last 20 years, these social media companies have been conditioning us. They've been conditioning us to look for those little hits of dopamine.

We all get when someone likes their comments on our posts, because we put it out there and we go, all right, are we gonna be validated? Right? Are we gonna get that first, like right. And then it's everything else, right to be able to kind of come through. So that's where it kind of goes through. At LinkedIn, at, you know, on LinkedIn through standard authority.

First and foremost, I hate cold calls and I hate cold emos. So we look for trigger points, right? Did someone take an action? Did someone look at our profile? Did someone engage on my content or did someone post a great post? That's my ideal client. Cause I can be able to find them on LinkedIn, right? And being able to go through 'em.

So we have to become dopamine dealer. , right? That's what we wanna be able to do, to be able to get someone's attention. Cuz the human algorithm of being online is currently for most people, like, comment, share posts, like comment, share posts, like comment, share posts. That's all they're doing all day long.

Right? And if we wanna get someone's attention as a marketer, we've gotta create stop gaps in their pattern. So for me, what I figured out was appreciation as a massive stop gap to appreciate someone for something they've never been appreciated for, that they take for granted in life. Very similar, like we went through covid, right?

Most of us took for granted, not wearing masks all the time. Being able to go out, right? Being able to do all these things. And when they got taken away, we're like, damn man, I didn't appreciate what I had. And so that's that same thing with online, and it's not just with LinkedIn. For me, like I said, I hate cold call call emails.

Like for me, Bryan, if you look at my profile, I'm gonna reach out and say, Hey, Bryan, I, I noticed you LinkedIn specifically, right? No other platform can show you who looks at your profile. Bryan, I saw you looked at my profile. I just wanna reach out and just say thank you. You know, too often don't appreciate this.

Love you to connect with you and find out what pushed you to, to look me up. Bryan wanted to reach out and say thank you for engaging my, my recent post or, Hey, Bryan. I saw one of your recent posts. Man, I just wanna take two seconds out and say thanks, man. I really love the value added because of X, Y, and Z.

It's more human and those things. Most people don't get messages like that. Remember, they get the, Hey Bryan, I see you're wearing a shirt. Me too. Let's connect. Or what I get, I love them. Hey, Joshua, B. You ever thought about using LinkedIn to get leads? I mean, dude, I get those all the all the time, right?

I'm like, you didn't even look at my. Yeah, and so that's that whole piece when we start going through to be able to do these things, Bryan, is, you know, how do we actually get attention, be able to create a stock gap in someone's pattern, because I don't just wanna get leads, right? People jump from connect to try and sell.

They forget that you have to be able to have a conversation. Conversations lead to relationships. Relationships open up opportunities. That's high ticket selling. That's really what people want to be able to do. That creates the advocates and the byproduct of opportunity. . And so that's that piece that I want when we start doing that.

So that's what we start doing, that dopamine, right? We're giving that dopamine at the beginning. And I mean, I can go through the whole process. I, you know, we need a whole, you know, hour or two to be able to share with the whole audience. But I mean, it's, it's little drips, man from saying thank you.

Starting with appreciation, giving someone a compliment, easy compliment on LinkedIn is an endorsement. When they respond, asking them a question about themselves and then providing value. Each one is giving someone a dopamine cause it's making it about them. Dopamine doesn't heighten us, it puts us in a relaxed state of calm so two people can actually build a relationship and you know, create opportunity.

And so that's kind of long story short, that's where it came from. I described that and they're like, dude, you're just a dopamine dealer. And I was like, all right, and kinda stuck.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah. Well that's great. I think that's that's a really useful point and I like the point that how you mentioned about relationships, cuz the people out there are spamming on LinkedIn.

are completely missing that, where they're thinking like, okay, well if I message the leads, their goal is to get the response, but the response is not gonna help them get the sale. You need the relationship to get the sale. So if you can get the relationship, that's, that's what you wanted, right? So the, the response doesn't guarantee anything.

And if, if you're getting responses, probably some of the responses people are getting are saying like, oh, like shut up. You're just spamming me. Right? . And so yeah, if you focus on the relationship, , then you start to realize how that is. That's the kind of goal that you're after, I guess.

Joshua B Lee: Yeah. Well, and, and two, I mean like Bryan, let's be honest, like if people don't know the stats that are listening right now, the average person on on LinkedIn has a college degree or higher.

50% or more people have that. You know, the four to five people on LinkedIn are business decision makers. An average income compared to other platforms is around $120,000 a year. So you're telling me I have an educated. That has the money and can make the decision to be able to buy my product or service.

That's a, that's a triple threat. That's a win. So you think they're gonna be able to go, like they're, most people on there are gonna know when they're in a funnel. And if you're trying to sell a high-end product or service. Most of my clients have products or services that range anywhere from three to 5,000 all the way up to $50,000.

That's not gonna happen from a quick just, you know, cut, copy, paste, spam, spam, spam. , it's gonna come from a relationship and like we've seen this, like you can have a quick relationship if you make it the right way and you're always adding value, right? And being able to make it about that person rather than just hoping to be able to spam and, and hoping for that one sale.

And I mean, that's the shift. Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty: And that, that pattern interrupt from showing the appreciation is even greater now where some, that same person is probably getting so many spam message. . So they finally see something and they say, wow, this is somebody real, really a dark tunnel.

Joshua B Lee: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, man.

And that's that whole piece. I mean like when we have that, we see, you know, our average connect to relationship, I mean, is almost like 90%. When we kind of go in with not only our myself, but with our clients. I mean, we're kind of going in there, we see a 90% acceptance rates and being able to go through and even if someone knows they're in a funnel, because you're treating 'em like another human being, they appreciate it.

And if they're not ready now, , they become an advocate because, like most people too, Bryan, like I always say like, oh, you always gotta lead with value. I, I push to be able to say, you need to leave every conversation with value, right? The opposite side. Because most people, as soon as when they, you ask the question, they give you the response.

That's not the one that you want to hear. You hear this crickets, right? Nothing, you know, they disappear, they're gone. This is when, this is the biggest opportunity for everyone listening. If they ask a question, not going. How can you add value? Like how can you give 'em a pdf, a download, a white paper, something, give 'em a free webinar, you know, give 'em a free plus shipping book, right?

To be able to say, man, that's amazing where you're at right now. Hey, let me just shoot you over this. I hope you have an amazing day and hope this adds value to the cause. I know it's a added value for me. Right. And if they're not ready now, they might be ready later. Or they might go tell five of their friends.

Dude, I talked to this guy Bryan, he's freaking awesome, man. He hooked me up with this. Check this out. Yeah, exactly. Opportunity.

Bryan McAnulty: That, that's the big one. That, that's a great tip, I think. All right. So you're all about creating these human connections. Now there's everybody's, everybody's talking about AI and these AI power tools.

So what do you think about the future of artificial intelligence especially in how it's gonna work with marketing? How do you affect, how do you think that's gonna affect online business? .

Joshua B Lee: I mean, it is, if you're not paying attention to it you know, look, everyone's like, oh, you know, AI's gonna be here, but it's, I don't think it's going to take away businesses because again, what it did was it dis, it just raised the bar of what is good enough, right?

Because before like content messaging, stuff like that, it was here. Now ai, is that good enough? Right? And people will use that, but how do we actually rise above? I didn't build a business. I'm not here on this planet to create change at good enough, right? I want to excel. I want to be better than the rest.

This is why most of us became entrepreneurs cuz we wanted to, to create something new in this world. And so just being able to cut, copy, paste what you're getting from ai, it's good enough, but you've gotta be able to have that human. How can you leverage these tools if we do that at Standing Authority Two, like, look, I've got a slew of writers.

That's great. But I mean, I also use AI because someone, the other day, it was Bryan, I'm trying to remember like, they were like, oh, well, you know, AI has more knowledge than us as human beings. I was like, dude, that's wrong. AI has the knowledge, exact knowledge that we gave it. Now that might have access faster to that knowledge, but it doesn't have more knowledge than us, right?

It just can access that knowledge and process it at a faster. So this is that biggest thing, like we can't, AI can't be it without the humans that created the content that's out there. So that's the biggest thing. How can we leverage it and understand to be able to kind of go, okay, here's this, but a computer, I don't care how much information you share it.

I talked about it before, Bryan because I said, look, people make decisions based on some degree of love or hate, right? We are emotional beings, and if you can't create emotion tonality within a topic or conversation, you're gonna miss that on every single person in your copy, on your website, in your messaging, in your post, whatever it is, and that's what we want to be able to do.

We have to evoke an emotion. and as human beings, we are the only ones that can do that. I can get the baseline from ai, from tools, being able to leverage these things and 10 x the way I do things, but we've gotta be able to make sure that we don't lose that human side of it, or, I mean, it's gonna become just a whole bunch of, just let's leave it at this.

Right? Like, I'll stop here. I know I keep on giving analogies, but I mean, it just, the way my mind works, I'm, I'm a very visual being like so many of us on a Friday night, were. Oh, dude. You know, it's like it's Netflix. You know? I'm gonna go watch something. You're like, man, there's nothing to watch. I call bs.

There's too much to watch, right? Content isn't king anymore, especially with ai. Content's not king. There's so much out there. We get overwhelmed. Quality is queen, and that's what I want everyone to understand. The only way to get to quality, true quality and connection is that human element, leveraging it with the AI to be able to excel.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, I like that. Yeah. You can use the AI as a tool to be able to help you do certain things faster, to research things faster, things like that. But as you said, you have to keep in mind that the new ideas aren't coming from the ai. It can only come from you. So if you wanna create content and you have the AI do it, it's going to be exactly the same as what everybody else is.

But yeah, if you wanna evoke an emotion, then it's gotta come from you. And so the AI is a tool that can help you in your research, but ultimately, you, yourself still have the power really to rise above all of that.

Joshua B Lee: Yeah. And it's not a new, new, new concept, Bryan. Cause I mean, this is that same thing when we talk about, we wanna go to the, the biggest thing of All right, money, right?

people put human emotions on money, but it, it doesn't have those things, right? It's a tool for us to be able to build and be able to use to be able to go through, but we have to have the humans in there, and I want people to understand that same type of concept and thinking needs to be used on AI as well, too.

Awesome.

Bryan McAnulty: All right, so what advice would you give to the aspiring entrepreneurs out there, business owners? What do you believe is essential for success in business in.

Joshua B Lee: First and foremost, man, the, one of the biggest things that I really had a shift was be a hundred percent you a hundred percent of the time, on and offline, right?

People are gonna love or hate you. I mean, again, that we talked about that. It's how they make decisions. We have to be able to understand that you, for people to have advocates and people that are gonna extremely name, you're gonna have haters, and that's okay, right? If you don't have haters, you're not being.

You know, you're not being enough of yourself out there. You're not really putting yourself out there enough and you're not being polarizing to how you want to be able to draw. Cause we want to re repel the people that are not our ideal audience and attract the people that are. And so I think that's the biggest thing cuz most of us are so scared of the perception that someone else is gonna have of us.

And the biggest thing I see, Bryan, that really, you know, screws of most people's minds is our perception of someone else's perception of us. Guess what? We have no clue what their perception is unless they tell us. And most times if it's online, they, it still doesn't really have that much of grace into it and kind of going through.

So that's that big thing, man. I mean, if you were with a great change, really be able to put yourself out there. Stand up, stand out, be you, and be okay with it. Cuz you're gonna draw your tribe in and you're gonna find the right people. And that's the only way we can't change this world alone. I tried to change the world on my by.

dude, as I said, I, I almost put myself in a, in a, in a very early life, right? In a grave very early because again, I had so much weight on me of what I was trying to be able to do. The only way we can truly change this world and make it better and create massive opportunity is together with everyone listening, me and you, Bryan, all the different people in the world working together.

And all of us being ourselves.

Bryan McAnulty: Awesome. I like that. All right. Awesome. Well, I got one more question for you. If you could ask anything to our audience, this is something that we like to do in the show, so if you could ask anything to the audience, whether it's like an introspective question you want people to think about or something that you're just genuinely curious about, what would that be?

Yeah.

Joshua B Lee: You know, it's a, it's an interesting, I, I love the question cause I don't think I've ever been asked this, right? To be able to think of a question I need to ask your audience. And since you have an audience of, you know, a lot of people are building programs, being able to go through. That's the thing, right?

I mean, I would love, there's a lot of, you know, programs that are out there, right? Like what are the best features that, what really makes you choose to be able to program? Like if there was a program out there around LinkedIn, right? What would be like, wow, I need this because, right. Like, what's the reason why someone wanna choose something to be able to start using that platform?

Because yeah, I've got a lot of high end stuff out there, right? We, again, blessed to work with people that are very well known in this world. , but that's only gonna allow me to create that much change, Bryan. So like I need to understand what's the best way that I can be able to support your community, the people that are out there that are building things, to be able to help them not only get their programs out there more on LinkedIn, but to be able to create one that actually resonates with them.

Does that make sense? Or that just jam, I ramble on too much. Yeah, no, no.

Bryan McAnulty: I got. That sounds good. All right, great.

Joshua B Lee: Sometimes as entrepreneurs we ask a question that goes around like this and then we actually never actually ask the real question. Oh, I know. I

Bryan McAnulty: do that all the time. . So. All right, great. Well, Joshua, thanks so much for being on the show.

Before we get going, where else can people find you online?

Joshua B Lee: Surprise, surprise, find me on LinkedIn. Right? You guys can look me up as Joshua be. But I mean, look, I want everyone to understand like I'm not playing Pokemon on LinkedIn, right? I'm not trying to collect them all. So do not, and this is the biggest thing that most people miss out on, is they just hit the connect button or they hit the send button.

Mm-hmm. , if you're gonna send a connection request to me, I need a personalized message, man. Tell me why you love the Heights. Platform. Tell me why you love Bryan, why you listened the podcast. We're going cuz. . Not only is that gonna let me understand who you are and what's going on, but it's gonna allow me to be able to build a better relationship with Bryan too, going, dude, here's all the cool things that people said about your platform, or Here's the cool things they said about you, or I mean, or what, what you want Bryan to be doing differently, right?

Whatever it might be. Right? I mean, again, this allows me to go in, so send me a cool message and that's the best way for people to connect. If you just wanna find out the company, of course you can go to stand out authority.com, but I'd rather have that personal message on.

Bryan McAnulty: Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Joshua.

Joshua B Lee: No worries. Bye everyone.

Bryan McAnulty: If you enjoyed this interview and won the chance to ask questions to our guests live, tune in on Tuesdays when new episodes premiere on the Heights Platform Facebook page. To learn more about the show and get notified when new episodes released, check out The Creator's Adventure dot com.

Until then, keep learning and I'll see you in the next episode.