Episode 47: Humanizing Your Professional Brand with Joshua B. Lee

How do you step into living in an authentic space, not just in your personal life, but in your professional life too? There is more to living authentically than just “being yourself”. Living authentically comes from hard work, appreciation and perhaps most importantly, building relationships. Entrepreneur, business owner, coach and author Joshua B. Lee shows us how he learned to live in an authentic space and how you can too. Choosing GrowthJoshua has been an entrepreneur for most of his professional career, working in the online marketing and web design world for many years. Joshua, like many business owners, was trying to find a work-life balance. He was living his life in either work mode or play mode, his relationships were mostly monetary and he had no vision of where he was going. After the birth of his children, Josh realized that things had to change. He was in an unhappy marriage and was not living true to himself. He felt like he was living for what others thought of him. After going through a divorce, Josh had to reset his life. He moved back home with only a couple thousand dollars to his name and had to start over from the ground up. Slowly but surely, Josh got back on his feet and started focusing on how to live for himself. He emphasizes on today’s podcast how easy it is for people to live based on other’s perceptions of them, influenced heavily by their online “persona”. He relates it to body dysmorphia, which is a condition that is categorized by how we perceive our bodies in a much different way than how others see us. We tend to obsess over these perceptions to the point where we almost become them. Acting this way hinders our ability to be true to ourselves. Learning to be Truly PresentWith the help of his wife and children, Josh was able to learn new ways to live truly for himself. He wholeheartedly believes in waking up every morning and giving power to himself. How many of you look at your phone when you first wake up? Do you check your email or browse social media? Josh calls these activities giving power to others. He feels that it is essential to have control over your day as much as possible since so much of our time is given to others. Josh spends his mornings with his kids, meditating or exercising before even glancing at his phone or turning on the TV. Josh also emphasizes the importance of truly appreciating what you have. In our current climate, it is so easy to only see the negative things happening in our lives. We fail to appreciate things that are right in front of us and often focus on the past or the future. Josh feels that learning how to appreciate the little things in life is crucial to living authentically. However, doing so is easier said than done, and finding ways to appreciate your life takes time. He suggests journaling and going even deeper with writing with your non-dominant hand. StandOut AuthorityJosh translates his ideas about appreciation and relationships into his professional life. He, along with his wife Rachel, started StandOut Authority as a way to humanize professional brands through Linkedin connections and engagements. Josh believes there is no B2B or B2C. There is just H2H, human-to-human connection. Many business owners forget that they are talking to a human being when promoting their business on social media. StandOut Authority aims to coach business owners on how to be human when online again. Through valuable connections and engagements, you won’t have to sell anyone on working with you. Through their methodology, create and maintain valuable relationships with potential leads, engage with your target audience and develop the best content possible. Are you ready to get started with StandOut Authority? Contact Joshua through his website.&l