Overcoming Imposter Syndrome with Josh Elledge

Have you ever wondered if you’re the “right” person to do what you do? After facing some early career failures, Josh Elledge struggled with being seen as an expert after founding SavingsAngel. If you’ve ever felt out of your depth but had to push through anyway, this episode is for you. We discuss everything from strategies for overcoming imposter syndrome to tips on building your personal brand—don’t miss out! 

Transcript

spk_1:   0:00
if you ever wondered how to get PR how to get attention, how to get on the news

spk_0:   0:03
or really, just how

spk_1:   0:04
to get seen. I think you're gonna love this interview. I talked to Josh Elledge. He's the founder of up my influence dot com, and he helped people get attention. In fact, he has been on over 2000 media outlets, and this is the kind of guy who has the experience to really talk about these things with authority. So I think you're gonna love this episode. You get a lot of insight on how to get attention, how to get influence out there in the market. So your stuff can be seen because regardless of how good your product or service is, if it's not being seen, nobody's gonna buy it. So without any further ado, here's my interview with Josh. Hey,

spk_0:   0:41
Josh, Thanks for being on the show. Hey, thank you so much for having me. So I'm really

spk_1:   0:46
excited that you're here because you've got all kind of insights that I think I'm gonna be really valuable to our audience. A lot of people are trying to figure out how do they get attention How did they get in front of people? How do they get noticed? How do they, you know, for lack of a better term up their influence? That's the name of your website, which is really cool. And I've been digging into your stuff lots of really great wisdom. But before we jump into practical strategy and tips always like for people to have a little bit of perspective of who you are and where you got to where you are today because each of us our own journey and I think that that matters because it affects how we make decisions and kind of shapes how we think about things. I left for you to sell a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey. Kind of worry you've come from and how you got where you are now.

spk_0:   1:27
Yeah, Straight out of high school, I joined the U. S. Navy and I was I was a Navy journalist. I wasn't necessarily very good at journalism, but it was an honor to serve, and I got to get my feet wet. I'd say in you know what it means to interview people tell stories that sort of thing from there studied family science in college, and my goal was to be a love doctor on the radio. But I got I got distracted with the Internet, and so I became I kind of started doing Internet development, which led to a number of businesses. Some failed, and some failed pretty spectacularly. And, you know, as a result, went through all kinds of pain financially. Lino lost homes, bankruptcy, all that stuff in the quest to learn how to become successful in business. So I've been there, and I know what it's like to not succeed in business. I know what it's like to be obscure. It's not a very good feeling. And so when I launched Savings Angel, which I launched, But over 12 years ago, I had learned quite a bit from all of my failures. And one thing that I learned was that exposure is everything. You can have the best business idea in the world, But if people don't know about you, that doesn't matter. If you make the best cookies on the planet like you, legit have devised the most successful cookies on the planet. If if nobody knows about it, you're not gonna sell any cookies. so and that would be a crime because I love a good cookie, even though he tried to peekytoe as much as possible. So in my case, I didn't have any money for advertising. Social media was still in its infancy. And so what did is I just reached out to everybody that I could that had an audience that was bloggers that waas radio stations, TV stations, newspapers, anyone I possibly could. And I said, Look, I don't have any money to advertise, but could I be of service to your audience? And this is what I'd like to d'oh! And enough of them said yes, that I started just producing a lot of content. I became a consumer expert savings angel. We help people cut their grocery bill in half, and I developed this persona of beyond my total imposter syndrome. I just got really good at saving money on DSO. But, you know, I didn't want to be super miserly. I just wanted to learn hacks like I really was into life hacks and figuring out like, is it possible to get upgrades at hotels? Is it possible to cut your grocery bill in half? And so I found out and I would research all of this stuff and then I would teach it. And it's not about. I think success in business isn't necessarily about being really good at sales. It's about Do you have a heart of a servant? Do you like serving people? And are you an okay, teacher? If you're okay, teacher and you keep showing up in serving, you're probably going to do okay in business and savings. Angel is a result. Did OK in business. We were a membership based website, the for the 1st 10 years, and we ended up doing well over $6 million in revenue. And you know, we built six. Figure. We had six figure months and we did that with less than $500 in advertising. Everything we did was just serving audience, as I've been in the media over 2000 times became a syndicated newspaper columnist, syndicated TV host Locally, here in Orlando, I've been on air over 700 times as a consumer expert. In matter of fact, right after this interview, I've got Fox 35 coming over, and I actually need to do to separate stories for them. Regarding some consumer headlines that that broke, So it's nice, like they can count on me. I love stuff in there like they know who I am. They know I'm a good guest, so they know they can count on me over and over and over again. And it's good for savings. Angel, because it's a great it's great

spk_1:   5:22
visibility. Yeah, that's awesome. I think it's so neat to hear stories like that where you're trying to figure out a path and then you find an area you want things you mentioned there that I want. You kind of mentioned it in passing, but I want to highlight on it. I think it's interesting you talked about imposter syndrome, and I think I've been hearing that kind of come up a lot lately with a lot of different entrepreneurs and going caution. I really good enough to do this thing or that thing. How did you How do you feel? Like you've kind of overcome that and work through it because I think that's a real thing for a lot of people.

spk_0:   5:49
Yeah, it is. You know, it's kind of funny because I was just listening Thio. I love listening to podcasts. I was just listening Thio, Dr Phil's podcast like Fill in the Blanks. And so you say What you want about Dr Phil had a pretty good point. You know, he's like, we build our self esteem based on our judgment of past experiences. And so I think that's kind of what it takes. It was really interesting. I do remember the moment that I considered myself. I really did. You know, when I showed up and I did my first radio segment, I was just like, Who am I? I didn't go to school for this. I mean, I don't know who goes to school for consumer studies anyway, you know, learn how to save money and become a lifehacker. But I remember totally like, man, someone's going to call me out, and they're going to say You're no expert at this. Where's your degree? And by the way, like I've been through this recently and, you know, as we kind of get into my you know what the company I launched five years ago as a result of this all of this experience. But I remember Trevor, who was one of the morning hosts. He asked me a question goes, So are you a consumer expert? And I kind of look to the left, look to the right and I'm like, Yes, I am on. That was the day I became a consumer expert, like somebody had to ask me that. Mike, I guess I am. And you know so well. Here's how you overcome Imposter syndrome. You just have to keep having little success is when you get recognized like let's say you host a little workshop. You know, maybe your people ask you questions. And Facebook groups like you will work past the impostor syndrome. I promise you. Look, there's always gonna be people that are more successful than you, but that's okay because you don't need to do exactly what they do. But if you niche in a very specific feel like, let's say, your Facebook ads manager and you only work with dentists, you know, then you can be the best dentist Facebook ad manager on the planet. And you know what with I'll tell you what. That combination right there, you're probably gonna make a ton of money as well, and that's I think, what the world wants to know. Can you solve my very, very specific problem. And if you consult my very, very specific problem, then you could do very, very well.

spk_1:   8:05
Yeah, I love that. I mean, I think a lot of it goes back. I forget who coined this originally. It's in some book, but this idea of like the curse of knowledge and it's this belief that what you know is not as valuable as you think it actually is people, and then you start to have to start unpacking it. In teaching it, though, you realize how many steps there are to get through all these things that you just take for granted because you've been doing them for however long. It's like, Well, of course I know how to do these things that other people are like, but that's revolutionary.

spk_0:   8:31
I have another decade. My wife and I both studied family science, family therapy in college and you know something as simple as reflective listening. I'm blown away that people don't know what that ISS because we know that when we get into conflict, we need to do reflective listening. Otherwise it's going to escalate, and reflective listening is just making sure that the other person is heard and most of times in arguments and disagreements like people just want to be heard. That's right. And so, you know, just the simple act of you know what? My wife says something I just say. So what you're saying is, and then I rephrase it in a way, and I try not to put my own spin on it, but I heartburn. No. Okay, I heard what you said, and you just had that simple exercise makes a huge difference. And it's funny, Like when that's come up in conversation, like how many people like, Whoa, you really like? I learned that when I was, like, 22 but yeah, so we you're absolutely right. Good teachers just give, give, give him They assume the audience knows nothing. And you know what? Chances are the kind of don't in most topics. So which, you know, surprise me like I could get pretty 101 level on, like, public relations or communications or all that kind of stuff. And I'm blown away. How little of this people truly understand. And what a huge impact you know, working on their authority would

spk_1:   10:00
make Yeah. No, I think that's huge. You know, it's interesting. I was at ah a couple years ago out in California is called vid Summit, and Gary Vaynerchuk was one of the speakers there and he was talking about this very same thing. And he basically said, Look, all you're looking around this room and seeing all these uber successful YouTube stars and you're thinking off missed the boat. I don't know anything. I don't know anything compared to these people, he said. What you're forgetting is everybody that's here in this room right now. Still nose like 100 times more than 98% of the entire world population. You know, just forget about these things. So I always think that's really interesting what I'd love to do in this competition if you're okay with it, it's getting to some, like real tactical stuff for people that could be really helpful because, you know, I had a guy on the show recently who did a lot of work with offshoring virtual assistance and had some really great like Here's practically how to hire people all over the world. And here's how this works That's worked for me and it was really great advice versus just getting in history. One. Hear your story, too. But I think you've got so much wisdom and knowledge in these areas talking about getting in front of audiences, I think about like you being on 700 TV shows or whatever it is like for me. I mean, I've been in business for 20 years. I don't think I've ever been on TV by accident. I had, like, one or 21 or two little things that I was on. But I have no plan around it. You know, I have no intentionality for it. And I think sometimes people just forget about what you're talking about earlier, which is that exposure is everything and one of things that I do get a lot thankfully due to social media is people locally, especially with a man just like I see you everywhere. I'm like, Great. That means I'm doing my job. And I feel like if business owners air not hearing that, they should be because they need to find the place so that people do feel like they're seeing them everywhere because that's how you stay in front of an audience so that you could sell these.

spk_0:   11:48
Yeah. And look, you know, I'm certainly no mega mega influencer, but it's amazing because, you know, everything that we provide, you know, just kind of part two of this story with my background. Just so you know who I have the credentials to talk about This is that, you know, with my 2000 media placements, I started doing pro bono work in our local startup community, and cause I just think that when you get successful, Jay, I know you do amazing work in terms of just giving and serving audiences, and I just I think that that's what we should do as successful business leaders is do that. But it was interesting because as I started doing all this pro bono work, workshop started doing more speaking. I was getting more and more. People are like, Man, this is really great. You know, I appreciate all this advice, but, you know, can I hire you? I was like, Well, I guess you know, So I could certainly solve that problem for you, So yeah, up my influence is what grew from that. And so now we've got over 20 people on the team without my influence and, you know, it's simply because I think and we'll talk about this. Consumer trends are moving toward. You know, what you just referenced Jay was being seen everywhere is one of those indicators of authority and consumers arm or resistant to engaging with brands than ever before because there's just so much noise and we've always the time with things and we put were protective of our time. We're just constantly bombarded with messages and brands. American Marketing Association estimates the average consumers exposed over 10,000 brand messages a day, So it's just it's all over us. And so to rise above the noise, you got to build up your note like and trust And and that really revolves around authority. Today, people are gonna check you out. Guarantee J. Before you and I engaged, you know, we probably checked out each other's website like, Who's this Josh College guy? And you know, so you kind of looked into that. I object out, you know, your social media, and every time people do that, they're making judgments, and those judgments are going to impact whether or not they engage. Yeah, absolutely. So what are

spk_1:   13:57
some ideas for people. Maybe there have been in business for a little while, but they're there. They have no idea how to get influence or howto be seen that are barely even figured out. The whole social media thing. Where should somebody even start when it comes to things like that?

spk_0:   14:11
Well, look, I think the easiest thing that somebody can do is start branding themselves personally. This is not hard to do. And so what am I talking about? Well, look, you may or may not. The reality is you may or may not be at the helm of your current business 10 years from now, but you will always be you. And so your brand goes, your personal brand goes with you wherever you go. And if you have a strong personal brand and you've taken this very seriously and you've invested in your own personal authority, it's kind of like having really good inner core strength. Like everything you do physically is just going to be easier. So you know, when your business may evolve, it may pit that you may pivot, you know, that sort of thing. So, what does that look like? Well, today, uh, you know you look at, where, where the water coolers, that people are engaging, like, How are people bumping into you today so largely today? That's of course, on social media. So your Facebook instagram, maybe Twitter, maybe YouTube. You know, these are all big watering holes, like there's lots of people there, so everybody is showing up with an identity. And so it's kind of like online dating. Now if you put let's say you set up a tinder profile and you put your profile image in your profile and you just completely half ass it like it's just like your picture is just like some dumb selfie looking up. If I did that, you know, maybe looking upon my double chin or something like that and it's all blurry and like, you know, what is pretty much everyone I don't need. I've been married 24 years, so I'm gonna have another. But I would imagine that is not true, either. Yes, so if I were dio, if I were in a position where I have to do that, you better believe I would invest in good photography. Why? Well, psychology and science agree. People make like a 1,000,000 judgments in a snout like it's quickly. I snap my finger. People build this whole they like. It's like they could tell a story about you just based on seeing your picture for a split second. And it's really interest. Psychological phenomenon. Really interesting. We all pride ourselves on being an amazing judge of character, and everyone believes that they're somehow more skilled at judging people than other people. Like we all think we just have this like X Men mutant ability, Delay, read people. And so we see this like on TV shows, movies like We like some characters and we don't like other characters. Why do you do that? How do you do that? Were already looking for You're looking for poker tells you know, So someone is either listening to sound of my voice for seeing me and video. They're making judgments. You know, the fact that I've got an apple watch, I'm wearing a black wedding band or like they're looking at the quality of my camera. They're looking at, Well, what's going on in the background there, always wearing a black shirt with open collar, you know that it's like all of that stuff like you said. You didn't like their brain is going nuts in there like building this idea of who I am there, listening to the confidence in the sound of my voice, my energy. And they're deciding whether or not this is someone that is earning their respect, earning their time. And so all of us lead with our digital profiles. Most commerce is not done personal person like I mean it. And in our in our audience or someone who's likely listening, chances are you're you're doing this is online and so what we have now is a digital barrier, and so our job it up my influence, and what we encourage people to do is you have to be aware of what those digital Berries are, and you need to lead with an amazing dating profile so people aren't swiping left on you right away. They are intrigued, and you want to keep. They don't need to swipe right right away, but they at least need to spend a little bit more time check out your profile, get to know you a little bit even before they make a decision. And then they might make a small swipe to the right, And that small swiped might mean response back to an email or a click on your ad or whatever. But people are judging everybody on all this stuff. It really, really, really matters. So getting a photographer isn't worth the money? Absolutely. 102 103 $100. Get headshots done. I promise you, that's gonna be about the best money you're gonna spend early on in business. You could take cell phone pictures. Those aren't bad. But I believe in investing in personal Brand. Just because I've seen amazing things that have come from

spk_1:   18:48
it Yeah, I think it's huge for individuals. I had just made the same recognition to accompany earlier. We were doing a big marketing council this morning, and guy builds these beautiful kit custom kitchens but doesn't have great photos. I'm

spk_0:   18:59
like, Manu, you're building. It's a no brainer, right? You're building kids, they're they're

spk_1:   19:04
okay, but they could be amazing, right? You're building kitchens that are 2030 40 $50,000 while a couple 100 bucks and get the best photographer in your area to get those photos. But this outsized to you as well. I think a lot of people miss this. You know, it was interesting. We were looking at some websites the other day and you couldn't tell anything about the people that ran that company at all. And I thought, It just feels like a robot sitting out there. You think about first. No brands. There's so much value. Not just for like what you're doing now, but like you said, like, you don't know what you're gonna do it in five or 10 years and you gotta lay that groundwork. Now

spk_0:   19:39
listen, people don't necessarily connect with brands as particularly small brands. Large Franz. Sure, Apple in Disney, that sort of thing. That's fine. But generally for small brands, it's going to be a people to people think. And so many of us, you know, you might be shy. You might have the impostor syndrome going on. You might be. Oh, I'm an introvert like I get it like I know all those challenges. Okay? Building your computer or building your business from behind your computer screen like you can get the wheels in motion, but you're only going to get so far eventually like and you can even probably even get to six figures. But if you want to go from 6 to 7 figures, it's gonna take a whole different. Someone needs to lead the company publicly, and so you're gonna have to be the face for your company. And some people hate to say that. But you know, J I mean, that's why we exist, J. I mean, I know you do. You guys do amazing work in this as well is just tow. No kind of work on that brand, but it's really critical, and you can look. You can argue with me all day long, but at the end of the day, let's look at the results and looks like what happens? Your conversion rate. Let's take a look at what happens to your inbound leaves. Let's take a look at what happens to your sales cycles. All of those things are going to improve your word of mouth, your referrals, all this stuff like engagement speaker invites, you know, influencers, reaching out one to do business with the media, wanting to reach out and connect with you. All of these things are going to improve As you start working on your personal branding indicators of authority. It's just natural. This is the currency authority is the currency of today's digital economy.

spk_1:   21:20
Yeah, I totally am behind that. Believe in. I mean, that's why I'm That's part of what I'm doing. This podcast, you know, is the podcast and my book, our personal branding pieces. For me personally, even though I run a successful marketing and she's been here for 20 years, agency by itself is perfectly fine. But the reality is people connect to me personally. Yeah, as a brand more than they ever will, the company as a whole and the people here's who are who they connect with anyway. And I'm the figurehead for the company. So that's the same thing that we're doing. But the other thing I'll say to people that may be listening as well. I think this is important is like you're crushing it in these areas because you've got like, right now you've got great lighting. You got a great camera. You've got your name over laid with your Twitter handle and your Web address, like all those little things, are super smart and what some people, I think make the mistake and doing is going handle, have all of the things perfect. Yet so I'm not gonna launch and always some, like, look, But right now, my podcast recording room is under construction over here, in this room over here. And I'm kind of makeshift in our conference room. I could have a better audio. I could have better video. I got a better lighting. I could've rescheduled our podcast. I'm like, No, no, I'm gonna launch it. We're gonna get it done. We're gonna move forward. And next when I shoot, the next room's gonna look better. And I think that's another thing, too. Is people need to look at stuff? I think you probably with this. And look, what's the one most important thing. And you gave him great advice already. Like, start with a photographer. You don't have a great head shot. Do that

spk_0:   22:41
first. I'd love to

spk_1:   22:42
hear from you. Like you. Obviously. You have savings into it. You gotta buy influence. You have a lot of different things going on. You got people that work with you and for you, and and you got a lot of different connections along the way. I'm sure you've had some instances where things have maybe not bonus planned.

spk_0:   22:57
Yeah. So you know, I'm assuming. Yes, of course. I mean, that's the thing. You know, It's, you know, double your rate of failure and fail fast. You know, it's interesting. So we do a lot of influence or outreach it up my influence. You know, it's Ah, it's a huge industry, you know, influence or marketing was it was about two billion and volume in 2017. It's expected to be 10 billion in the year 2020. So obviously you know, we've been doing a lot of this work, but we're not perfect at it yet. Like we're still like. We want to be the best in the world at this. And you know, we've sent out thousands and thousands and thousands of invites to influencers and, like, we're not happy with her, our conversion rate, But what's really nice now? And I just had a conversation with one of my directors on this who's responsible for this? As I said, you know, you know, we're like Thomas Addison, like we've figured out, you know, thousands of ways not to reach how todo inserts like we're getting like, we're getting good at it, but we still feel like how come on, You know, we should be able to do better than this. And so, you know, we now have the hindsight, and that hindsight is so valuable, like we don't have to go through that anymore. And, you know, we're learning like these little tweaks and language make a huge difference. And so we have been experimenting for over a year. And so now, in terms of like, if you want influences to work with you, you know we're going to save you a year's worth of making mistakes and to a company that need it doesn't have a whole lot of time to waste. That's what makes sense to hire an agent here. Tire. Ah, professional. Who's already been testing this out for quite some time? Let's talk about

spk_1:   24:40
that a little bit, actually. The idea of finding areas rego okay, this is not something that I'm really strong and I'm gonna hand this off to somebody else. Maybe it's something as simple as an accountant. I mean, I did my own books for years and then eventually said, Okay, I need to have a professional take care of this, right? You're talking about influences, but just in general like, where have you found over the years that you've kind of gone? Hey, these are areas that are not strength from me. I'm gonna hand these off these areas that are I need to double down on my time here.

spk_0:   25:04
Yeah, Yeah, I'm pretty much a Dave Oh Tae of Michael Gerber e myth philosophy. And you know, pretty much again we're kind of used the example of, you know, you make great cookies and let's say someone says, You know, you really need to make these amazing Kato cookies and sell them to the world. Well, if you spend all your time baking cookies, who's growing the company? And you know, I hate this mythology out there that all you have to do is just produce good stuff and you'll get discovered and you'll be wildly successful. Sorry to say, that's not how it works. We deal with this. What we have clients that are creatives pretty frequently, and it's kind of it's It's interesting, like we see this a lot more in America than we do in a lot of other countries, some international clients. Americans are the worst office they think that, you know, and it's because we just love this rags to riches story. It's It's an every minute since just every movie, every TV show like We love that and you know where someone gets discovered getting discovered again. It's kind of like that Jim Carey. So you're saying there's a chance it really is like a one could happen, but I wouldn't waste. I wouldn't put my livelihood and my You know whether or not I'm gonna be successful in business on being discovered because it just doesn't happen that are you have to make discovery happened. And how you make discovery happen is that you take your brand seriously and then you start connecting with other people. You start networking. Don't go after the big dogs. Leave him alone if you're early stage in your business, but just go, you know, and try to find ways to collaborate with other business owners and just completely get rid of the notion that there's any competition competition. I think it's for losers were all completely unique. There's no clones that I know of. A few you know, there's no human clones where two people are doing the exact same thing your clients may choose someone else in your industry over you because it's a better fit or they resonated with that person. But that's okay. You don't have to serve every single person in your industry. You know, you have to serve the people that you want to serve your avatar better than anybody else and and you'll win. So yeah, and answer your question. You know what do what do I do? The only thing I try to do is get on stage is serve. Audiences be the face for the company, you know, be the face on social media, you know, be the one that's in front of the camera for our YouTube videos, podcasts. And and it's just whatever it like the front facing stuff, the one too many stuff. And, you know, if I'm spending all my time in operations, then I am doing the world a disservice because the world needs to learn about us. I like I have a mission. And if I don't introduce our solution to the world, I know that business owners are going to fail. They're going to stagnate, and they're gonna be so frustrated. It's because I did not do my job well enough to work hard to introduce some concepts and ideas to them.

spk_1:   28:05
I love that one of my favorite lines that you said that maybe one of my favorite Pakistan never were just competition is for losers. Really, because I think that's so true when I see people they're, like, totally obsessed with, like what their other people around them are doing. I'm like, if you're so worried about what they're doing, you're like a year behind, because you're only seeing what they planned a year ago, and and for me, I'm like people. What about Cos Mike? I

spk_0:   28:28
don't have any competition

spk_1:   28:30
like other people that do similar things to what we do

spk_0:   28:32
not come to the

spk_1:   28:32
people. I can learn from people that can learn from me. That's great. I mean, there's plenty efficiency.

spk_0:   28:37
Yeah, we promote other people that are very similar to what we do it all the time. And, you know, here's audiences who see that you are kind of above the fray. They trust you now because you are giving them You know what feels like the honest, unbiased like, Hey, let me introduce you to this or that. Like, you know, I had someone to ask me about press releases and I said, Well, we do them And here's the advantage to working with us or, you know, if you only need this, you just go do that yourself. You don't need us for that. And here's how to do it. Matter of fact, I'll give you some shortcuts because we've tested everybody. And I'll tell you exactly who not to waste your money on and who's pretty legit in the space. So you know now he's like, Man, that was, like, really awesome of you. Thank you so much. So the more people you can legitimately, authentically serve with your truth like then the more people are, they're gonna trust you. They're gonna come back to you, and they're gonna refer business to you. Jay, I know you doe a ton of word amount businesslike, and people love you. Your clients love you and they talk about you to everybody. That's that's kind of what our goal is. You know, we are. We just had our house painted and it was about the same Price is the other painters. But he's the service was way better, and he said, Look, here's our model. We spend much more time, much more labor, you know much Maur like we do a lot of stuff that the competition doesn't do. But the thing is, is we now don't have to invest in advertising. Those guys do a crap your job. They have higher margins, but they don't get the word of mouth, so they have to advertise it if to constantly advertise, get new business Now. The downside of the higher margins more advertising model is when they stop advertising, they have to keep advertising. Otherwise they don't get new business where his word of mouth he's invested his reputation's relationships. He's good for life.

spk_1:   30:40
Yeah, and a lot to comes down to, like knowing what an ideal client is for you as well. I think that's really important for people to think about him and know if they don't think it outlined that really clearly in a few sentences, they put you to work on that because like the example that you gave of the guy I helped with the press press release, she probably maybe wasn't yet an ideal client for you and all the things that you guys do. But it could be in the future. And so it's everybody's benefit. Just okay, let me give you a little tip. There are 1000 times there's probably more times that I'll do something like that with somebody that I would actually even charge them for anything. That's something like, Look, it doesn't make sense. I mean, give you some advice. Just go do this. Try this. Try this. Oh, my gosh. Thanks so much. Didn't cost me anything. And the same time, period. I'm basically building my own reputation of my own brand, you know, intentionally, like tryingto use that to leverage against people. But it's just the nature of like being a good person. And you think that you're talking about telling is so important is this idea of, like, building relationships? And this is for people mess. Social media up so much is that social media is no different than like I don't know any other like old networking environment in that you never want to walk into a networking room and just start handing out your business cards. I take my car, take my car, take my car to take

spk_0:   31:49
my car. Yeah, that's how people treat social media

spk_1:   31:51
and you're, like, stop telling people to buy from you and just be a person that you'd actually want to be around,

spk_0:   31:56
right? Yeah. Yeah, because we've all been in that social situation where we get that motor mount that comes up to you and just starts going into robo pitch mode. And you kind of like looking you, like, Are you even Can you see me like I like, I like a script, like all of a sudden you just started going into your pitch. I'm like, you know, let's talk person to person here, but yeah, I think people feel a little cheated when you just kind of you talk at them as opposed to truly, like trying to find ways that you can bring value. And I don't mean to overuse that phrase, but, you know, at least ask and answer questions.

spk_1:   32:34
One thing I want to tie back to ask you a little bit more to dig in on because you seem to be passionate about. It is when you talked about your mission for why you do what you do. Think one thing, a lot of people, kind of Maybe you just haven't thought about a lot of depth, so love to hear from you, like why your mission matters and whites, you know, I always say to our team, We don't just put pixels on the screen like we're not just writing words to put on paper like we're helping other people grow their business to change their lives like that's significant. It's not just like the stuff that we do. So tell me about your mission. Why that how you kind of came about that and why you think I might be important for other people to really understand in their business

spk_0:   33:12
is so again, you know, with savings. Angel and I started getting these invites, and I really wasn't in the market to start a new business. But I started looking at my background, and I personally had some bad experiences with some investments in terms of public relations. I blew 25 grand hiring PR, and I got one good introduction to a reporter, and I got to speak it a lawn and garden show, and that was my $25,000. And I heard story after story of other people with similar experiences. And then I said, Well, you know. I mean, while like, I've gotten in the media over 2000 times, like I know how to do this. And it's one of those things. I guess that, you know, most business owners don't know how to do this. And so it's like, Well, all right, let me look at who I am on the planet. So Ben, in the media over 2000 times, made a lot of money doing it. I love teaching. I love serving How many other people have those credentials on the planet? And so I started thinking, You know, that's probably not more than I don't know, a couple. A couple dozen, I don't know. And so I kind of started to realize, Look, I have to do this and, you know, it's like, God, are you know, however you will explain it. You know, you get these experiences and I think there for a reason. And so it's understanding that and and you ask yourself the question, What is the consequence? Or is there what consequences might happen if your clients or your customers don't find out about you? What happens in their life? What happens if they choose someone else or if they try to solve the problem that you solve and they try to solve it a different, ineffective way, maybe it's another service provider. Maybe if they try and do it themselves, what did they lose as a result? So how much heartbreak? How much time can you save them? You know, how can you make their life better? And so you know, you start thinking about you got to think about the customer, and you got to think about who you serve. And as you start to reflect on that, you eventually probably get to a point where you're like, Oh my gosh, I gotta move quickly because my inaction is leading to pain. And I need to do what I can to solve to stop paying from happening.

spk_1:   35:43
Yeah, I think that's really valuable stuff. People gotta think through, Ah, mission. And why Why you do what you do eyes just absolutely critical running. At times, there's three final things I'd love to wrap up with. One is I love to talk about work, life, balance and what that even means to you. The second will be how do you continue to learn and grow yourself? when you're so busy pouring into others and 1/3 just kind of any final thoughts on where people can find you. So it started the 1st 1 work life balance. What does it even mean to you? It means something different. Everybody else and And how is that kind of morphed and changed in your life for different seasons and you've got a wife and kids and all that kind of

spk_0:   36:17
stuff. I'm always always out of balance, And I remember when I was under stress about, Oh, gosh, there's a big push because of business. And I'm not spending enough time with my kids during this season, you know, I'd start hearing Cat's in the cradle in the back of my head and, you know, and I start feeling guilty that I'm a lousy dad. And but the reality is like, Wait a minute. You know, I'm not like this during the week like because, like, so right now we're in the middle of a huge product launch, you know, developing that. And so I'm working 12 16 hour days and you know, so I'm not spending a whole lot of time with I've got three amazing kids They're a little bit older, so you know, I don't have toe, baby sit them. They're happy. They're content doing their thing. But, you know, you better believe that I'm gonna block off time, and I'm gonna do one on one stuff with them. You know, I may not be spending three hours a day with with each of them, but I make it up on a Saturday or Sunday. No, I block off. Hey, Wednesday night, I'm cutting it down right now and I'm in. I work in bursts. So when I'm with my family, I don't Look, I don't constantly look at my phone. I'm not that guy. I'm just I feel like, you know, I can live my life in dare with the compartments. And so yeah, you live, you compartmentalize, you learn to compartmentalize better. And I found that the case that most successful people there constantly really focused on whatever it is that they're doing, whether that's relax ation. I mean, look, I watch game of Thrones. I'm a total marvel G. Huh? I've probably watched, you know, good side. Say, 30 hours of YouTube videos about ah, Avengers endgame coming out as we're recording this right now, which you know is actually lesson is 72 hours away is when I look forward to it. Like a game I like. I do all that stuff. But, you know, in terms of my productivity, I don't know anybody in my immediate circle that cannot work

spk_1:   38:21
me. Yeah, I love that. I think that one of the chapters of my book is ignore the system, but have a system. And the idea behind it is basically like what works for you might not work for me. And I works for my marriage Might not work for your marriage. What works for me and my kids might work for you and your kids in my business and your business. And I think one of the big mistakes lot they will make us a go. Well, so and so does this. This this I'm like, Look, maybe there's something you can learn from that. And maybe there's something helpful you can draw from it. Like, for example, One thing you said, which is it's kind of the idea of where I am is where I am, like from watching movie. I'm watching a movie with my kids. I'm with my kids from working. I'm working and I'll out hustle anybody. But you are intentional about going hame, choosing to spend time on this thing right now because it is my priority, right? I think that that's what people have to go in There goes that this is my priority right now.

spk_0:   39:09
And it's so helpful when you love what you d'oh. Honestly, it's, you know, my productivity when I'm at work. I mean, I really I don't get distracted with social media, you know, or whatever. Like, I'm at work because I feel like so much joy in creating and doing what I'm doing. So I'm okay with that.

spk_1:   39:28
Yeah, No, I get it. It's the same thing like today. I really have, like, you know, I had a four hour marketing workshop this morning that I taught. I got this podcast. I got a two hour, and after that, I'm teaching a group. When? Tonight for three hours. That's a full day. Like there's no question about it. But I'm excited about it. I got it. It's not like, Oh, my gosh, I

spk_0:   39:44
have a full day of work, but I'm not gonna D'oh! Right, Right. Like It's great, you know? Yeah, but one thing I don't like on social media just annoys the heck out of me is like, You know, I'm not watching game of Thrones because I'm too busy Hustle in. I know. I rather you, you you you I thought this is a

spk_1:   40:00
perfect example because Gary Boner trucks like this alive cycle. I don't watch TV. I don't play the video games. Yeah, but you love the Jets. Like he loves the New York Jets and miss a single game football's this thing. He's at the draft like I don't care that much about that, but I do like netflix him a life. So

spk_0:   40:16
where I'm like, I don't need any judgment, but I'm doing you good. I know what's going to be. And I'm pretty happy with how you know my life. So, yeah, it's I think it's the self righteousness that especially don't care for

spk_1:   40:29
me too. All right, Cool. So, uh, two last things. One is where you kind of continued to grow and learn yourself. And the last is where people can find you. So the 1st 1 where do you continue to grow and learn? Was there a particular place. We just kind of all over the place.

spk_0:   40:41
I am obsessively learning. I mean, that's one of that's one of the core values. My my biggest core value is growth. And I would feel, Oh, you know, I have to like I'm an obsessive audio listener. So I listen to a lot of audio books, lot of podcasts. I listen to it. Oh, in a podcast. I listen to a lot of YouTube videos, so you know, I got you to bread so that I can turn off the video and just listen to it in the car. I think YouTube videos tend to be pretty punchy in terms of content, so I'll just I'll just put together like I know I'm gonna be driving bend a bit, But I'll put together a playlist of YouTube videos of things I want to learn, and then I'm just like, constantly bring it all. And you know, I'm a big, big audio consumer. Love, music, love listening. And I love it because I can do other things, like drive or walk my dog by the I take my daughter doggy on a 30 minute walk or something like I'm out, you know, quite a bit as well. That's my me time,

spk_1:   41:39
right? That's awesome. Al Abadi is stuff is, well, audiobooks that really have just kind of trained. I'm a very slow reader, But audio books were great for me cause I got to put the book on, And then if I really like it, I'll buy the physical book. Yeah, then take notes on and all that kind of stuff. So, Josh, I just really appreciate your insight. It's been great. I'm really excited to see ah, how the audience uses this. I know. I'm probably gonna be stealing some ideas and get some insight. Maybe even a consultant with you as well. I think you can probably if it what? I am doing myself a lot. So I'm excited about that. But in the meantime, where is the best place for people to find? You don't learn more about you, what you do. Where should they go?

spk_0:   42:13
Yeah, you know, Well, I mean, it's great. I mean, you can learn about me if you want to, but you know, one thing that we put together that I think would be really, really helpful in personalizing the information that I was talking about is we put together a quiz and it'll give you your authority scores so it will go through and kind of give you a self assessment. And that's it. Up my influence dot com slash quiz take free quiz. And at the end, I recorded a bunch of different videos based on what your score is, and I'm going to give you some advice on what to do based on wherever you score. And we're just gonna go through all of your indicators of authority and try and figure out where you are right now and where you go from here,

spk_1:   42:52
that's all. Something that'll be really cool. I'm gonna go check that out myself. Everybody make sure you go try that Quiz up my influence dot com slash quiz. Josh, thank you so much for being on the show today. It really has been a pleasure. Jay's awesome. Thank you so much. I hope this episode has given you some ideas or inspiration that will help you grow your business. If you found it helpful and you know somebody else who might benefit from it as well. I would greatly appreciate it if you would take the time to share this with him, maybe on Facebook or Twitter, or linked in, or even shoot an email over to a friend with a link to this podcast in it. And if you haven't already, make sure you sign up for email list at building a business that lasts dot com.