How to Build Success on Your Own Terms — Not Someone Else's Playbook | Joshua Lee

In this episode of Unconventional Wisdom About Conventional Wisdom, Kim Miller-Hershon sits down with Joshua Lee, founder of First Light Studios, an Amazon and ecommerce growth agency that helps legacy brand owners bring their products online with integrity and impact. Josh works with business owners who have built trusted brands over decades and earned their place on retail shelves at REI, Walgreens, and CVS, but haven't yet cracked the code for Amazon, Walmart.com, or social shopping. His team helps those businesses protect their legacy while expanding online the right way. A self-described deep thinker still in his mid-30s, Josh is so locked in on leadership that when Kim asks for an irrational hill he'd die on, he keeps accidentally answering with rational leadership wisdom instead. In this conversation, Josh challenges a piece of conventional wisdom handed to him at 18 by a Fortune-company CEO who mentored him for a year: work for big companies early, climb the ladder, get taken under the right wings. He followed it, and now wishes he'd started the entrepreneurship he always wanted sooner. Given how scrappy, frugal, and creative he'd learned to be growing up, he'd have figured it out anyway, and the corporate processes that once required an insider seat can now be learned online or by shadowing people for free. What he wishes the CEO had said instead was to find a great leader and emulate them up close, because watching how someone spends a 24-hour day, meeting to meeting, in their actual energy, is a return no book or documentary can match. Josh is candid that what people mistake for having it all figured out is really just the season he's in. Life ebbs and flows through milestones, he says, and how someone looks tells you nothing about whether their life is all good, because struggle is the actual design of life, the way you prove to yourself you can do hard things so you can go on to do harder ones. He and Kim dig into happiness as a false end game (you couldn't recognize it without hardship to compare it to) and land on the philosophy at the foundation of Kim's whole coaching practice: you're responsible for yourself. You can't control what happens to you, but you get to decide whether you're a victim or a survivor, and what story you tell yourself about it. On his most unconventional growth habit, Josh points to slowing down and spending time alone, which he's found more productive than doing the work. Every morning before 6, he meditates, reads scripture and a devotional, works a science-based plan for rewiring his unconscious, and hits what he calls the mental gym, then unwinds and documents what he learned at night. The point is to quiet the noise of endless Zoom calls and social comparison so he can actually hear what he wants and remind himself who he's becoming, because you have to be still to know your purpose, and you have to protect it. It circles back to the quote he'd read that morning, from Jim Rohn: for things to change, you must change; for things to get better, you must get better. This episode explores: Why guarding your finite energy can beat pursuing "justice" you're owed Wishing you'd started sooner instead of climbing someone else's ladder Emulating a great leader up close as the real return on your time Unlearning the "if I miss a step I've failed" sequencing anxiety Why conventional rules can put guardrails on creative problem-solving Why a mentor's roadmap is theirs, and you have to build your own Reading success as a season, not a permanent state Why you can't grow without struggle, and happiness needs contrast "You're responsible for yourself": victim or survivor is a choice Overriding the subconscious 85% with intentional action Catching the story you tell yourself and owning your own part Not dying on hills that aren't even yours Writing down expectations instead of assuming people just know Why you can spark motivation but can't hand someone their hunger Slowing down and going still to hear your own purpose Josh's perspective is a powerful reminder that so much of growth is unlearning: the borrowed roadmaps, the sequencing anxiety, the belief that how things look is how they are. His journey from an 18-year-old following a CEO's advice to a founder who builds businesses and himself on his own terms shows that stillness, self-responsibility, and the humility to keep learning will take you further than anyone else's definitive answer. If you're a founder, leader, or anyone wrestling with someone else's blueprint for success, this conversation offers practical insight, genuine depth, and a refreshing case that for things to get better, you get to be the one who changes. Connect with me here: Website: https://www.kimmillerhershon.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kmillerhershon Newsletter: https://link.kimmillerhershon.com/widget/form/aEdmdA1W5MhoMCMfy5O8 Webinar: https://webinar.kimmillerhershon.com/?utm_source=Podcast Guest Details: Guest: Joshua Lee, Founder, First Light Studios Focus: Amazon and ecommerce growth agency helping legacy brand owners expand online (Amazon, Walmart.com, social shopping) while protecting their brand Website: https://flstudios.website LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/onejoshualee/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.