12 - The Pursuit of Finding Fulfillment with Alan Lazaros - Revelizations

Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
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(02:15):
Hi everyone, welcome to today's episode of Revelizations.
I'm your host, Brian James, and with me today is Alan Lazaros.
Alan is an entrepreneur, CEO, and peak performance business coach who's helping businesses and
individuals around the world reach their full potential.
He's a consultant and a coach with a focus on online growth, impact, and profitability.

(02:39):
He's worked with countless individuals and organizations to help drive success.
As the leader of a global team and with nearly 10,000 hours of experience in coaching, podcasting,
and training, he brings a wealth of knowledge and a practical, results-driven approach to
everything he does.
His straightforward style and passion for helping others achieve both success and fulfillment

(03:01):
have earned him a reputation as a true expert in the field.
Whether you're looking to level up in business or life, he's here to share the insights
that can help you unlock your next big breakthrough.
Join me as I sit down with Alan Lazaros and we talk about his journey to finding fulfillment
and how he helps others do the same.
Thanks for listening.

(03:24):
Welcome to Revelizations.
I am your host, Brian James, and with me I have business coach, self-improvement expert,
CEO of Next Level University, Alan Lazaros.
Thanks for being here, Alan.
Thank you for having me.
I am very, very grateful.
I like to sandwich the things that I do that are aligned in gratitude.
I told you this in the sort of preamble that we had a little before we hit record.

(03:48):
I don't take it lightly to speak into the lives of other people.
I think that's a really big deal.
And I am grateful to be here and I am honored.
And I know that what you put your attention on dictates in very large part what you do
and what you do dictates what your future is going to be.
So I think it's a big responsibility and I'm grateful to be here.

(04:09):
I'm really happy that you're here.
And yeah, just to be intentional about where we put our focus and what we do.
And that's where like your toolhouse, that's like your expertise of where you're crafting
and improving yourself and helping other people improve as you learn stuff.
You get to extend that to the people that are in your gravitational pull.

(04:34):
So with that a little bit.
So who is Alan?
What are you?
How did you get interested in this?
Let's dive into it.
The who, what, when, where, why question.
Who am I?
I'll start with who I am now.
So you mentioned podcaster, trainer, coach, CEO of Next Level University.

(04:55):
Next Level University is a place that you go.
Next Level U pun intended.
I just turned 36 in November.
So I am Alan version 3.6 and Alan version 3.6.
I'm an engineer so I think in numbers is far more effective, far more aware, far more capable
than Alan version 3.5.
We all grow up.

(05:15):
Whether we know it or not.
And so that's who I am now and coaching, podcasting, and training are the vehicles for where I
help people get to the next level of their life.
Next Level U pun intended because we're all different.
We're all unique.
And so I don't want you to be someone different than who you are.
I want you to become the best version of what you are.
And I think in the beginning of my self-improvement journey, it was how do I be different than

(05:38):
who I am?
I think later on I realized, you know, it starts with self-acceptance and self-awareness
and then you improve from that place rather than trying to change yourself.
And I think that's a wisdom that luckily I've gotten in my 30s.
You said something very interesting and it's something that I don't know if you're aware
of it because it's your world so much, but you said like we're constantly improving.

(06:03):
We're on this journey of improvement and that's not true because this is a very intentional
thing.
Just because you're aging, just because you've been on this earth for a longer time doesn't
mean you're improving.
Like you can look at someone who's had their driver's license for 50 years compared to
someone who's had their driver's license for five years, but just because someone's been
doing it for longer doesn't mean that they're doing it correctly or doing it better.

(06:25):
So it's just, it's very interesting that you're like, yeah, we're in this journey.
We're getting better.
And it's, I don't think that's the case.
I think it's, it's very intentional to improve yourself.
I think that that's accurate.
Unfortunately, I was thinking about this earlier.
I was on with a team member.
Her name's Nicole.
I have another team member named Amy and I coached them both and I cheers to my girlfriend

(06:47):
last night for dinner.
We just cheers.
I said, here's to reaching our true potential.
And after that, I had this moment of realizing how weird I am.
And I was like, I wonder if other people actually care about that.
Because Emilia and I, my girlfriend and I, our whole world is oriented around trying
to reach our true potential.

(07:07):
I have it written on my whiteboard.
You are here to reach your own unique potential and help others do the same.
Everything else is secondary.
And that's written right there.
And next level you is a company that is built on holistic self-improvement.
And I wonder to myself how many people actually care about reaching their true potential.
And it's not a one or a zero.

(07:27):
It's not you do or you don't.
I think it's a spectrum.
Some people care at level one out of 10.
Some people care at level 10 out of 10.
And I do live in a self-improvement growth oriented world where the main paradigm, the
main belief system is how do you do all you can with all you have and how do you get better
every single day?
Health, wealth and love is kind of the level up yourself, level up your podcast, level

(07:48):
up your business, health, wealth, life and love.
That's sort of our tagline.
But ultimately, yeah, I'm very much in that world.
And the idea of not focusing intentionally on improving every day is very foreign to
me.
However, prior to a car accident I got in when I was 26, 10 years ago, I was improvement

(08:10):
oriented but more externally than self-improvement oriented.
And I think that that was sort of the before car accident version of me was not nearly
as intentional with the self-improvement piece.
It was more academic and achievement and professional development.
It wasn't as personal development oriented.
So when you look back at like that pre-car accident version of yourself, what do you

(08:36):
think of those types of goals that you had compared to now?
Because are you, it's probably going to be on a spectrum, but because you're probably
not just one and zero to being like, you're thinking, okay, this was important to my life
then and this is important to my life now.
I imagine what was important to your life then as far as being successful, however

(09:00):
you quantified that, kind of got incorporated to the Allen version 3.6, the continuing version
of yourself.
Well, I've sort of analyzed this upside down and sideways because I started doing therapy
in my 30s and even before that I've always been sort of an existentialist.

(09:21):
And for those of you who don't know what existentialist means, it means someone who constantly questions
their existence.
Like, what's the point of all this?
You're obviously an existentialist, otherwise you wouldn't have had me on your show.
And you wouldn't be, you said curiosity is your compass.
Most people don't have curiosity as their compass.
Most people don't think past, you know, why is that that way?

(09:42):
And why do I do this?
And some people really are on autopilot and they don't question the world or themselves
or other people.
They don't necessarily know the difference between virtue and vice and you know, why
am I drinking alcohol and why am I doing drugs and why?
You know, so existentialism is why am I here?
What is my uniqueness?

(10:03):
What is different about me and others and what am I uniquely suited to do in the world?
What's the point of it all anyway?
That kind of stuff.
And so to answer your question pre-26, it was achievement orientation out of fear of
abandonment without knowing it.
So father passed away when I was two years old when he was 28 in a car.

(10:27):
And so that's why my car accident at 26 was so much more life changing because I almost
died in a car at 26.
Physically we were okay.
I was in a very safe German engineered steel trap of a car.
I say thank you Volkswagen because this car really saved my life.
And it was a head on collision.
This was not a fender bender.
This was this was intense.

(10:48):
And my second cousin, Dan, was in the car with me, but fortunately the airbags deployed
and we were we were okay.
However, physically we were okay, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually I was completely
just untangled.
And I always use the snow globe analogy of you shake up a snow globe and then it's I
don't know who I am anymore and I don't know what I am anymore and then it lands and hopefully

(11:11):
you get some clarity and move forward.
And I think that's sort of the Phoenix burned down metaphor.
And then you rise anew from those ashes type of thing.
But ultimately, pre 26, my dad died when I was two, my stepfather left when I was 14.
He took his entire extended family with him that same year, hardest year of my life didn't

(11:35):
know this at the time, by the way.
My mom gets in a fight with my aunt Sandy and my aunt Sandy sort of ostracizes us from
my mom's side and we don't really associate much with the McCorkles, which is my birth
father's side anymore.
So in some ways, I kind of lost three families by the time I'm 14 years old.
And so unconsciously, my trauma response to all of that, and this is only in hindsight

(11:56):
because at the time I didn't make any of this consciously choice, I wasn't, oh, I'm going
to fawn socially and then achieve my way to greatness like it wasn't conscious.
But that was really what it was fight, flight, freeze and fawn are the four trauma responses
that humans have to pain and adversity and survival.
And mine was fawn socially.
In other words, sort of chameleon my way into making sure that I have friends and family

(12:20):
that don't abandon me.
Didn't know I was doing that.
By the way, I just thought I can fit in everywhere.
I was friends with the nerds and the jocks and the all that high school friends to college,
college friends to corporate.
I mean, I just thought we were all going to achieve our goals and dreams together.
But behind the scenes, it was fight.
It was fight to be better, work harder, aim higher, get smarter.

(12:43):
Work harder, aim higher, get smarter.
And the two career paths I chose, and this is something I didn't have the courage to
share it till my thirties, I remember thinking I'm going to be lawyer, politician, president,
or I'm going to be engineer, MBA, CEO, like my hero at the time, Steve Jobs.
And I used to argue, you know, who's smarter, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs with my buddy Kiki.

(13:06):
We built our first computer when we were, you know, very young and this sort of weird
esoteric semi genius guy straight A's through all of high school, went to WPI.
It's called Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
It's an engineering school.
It's kind of like a mini MIT.
They always say friends don't let friends go to MIT.
That's kind of the joke at WPI.
I'm actually speaking there, speaking there next month about entrepreneurship, which is

(13:27):
really cool.
But ultimately, super achiever, abandoned a lot, tons of adversity in my childhood because
my mom and stepdad did not get along.
And that's a polite way to put it.
Holy crap.
And somehow became this social chameleon guy who Goodwill Hunting is a good metaphor for

(13:48):
for what my life was.
It's a good metaphor because I surrounded myself with people who were very loyal, but
they weren't what's best for me in terms of my career and my aspirations.
So I was trying to take everyone with me kind of thing.
And I thought everyone had big goals and dreams because I did.

(14:09):
And they were mirroring me.
And in hindsight, it's very clear that most people don't actually believe in themselves
as much as I did for whatever reason.
How much of that continues in you like now, like after 26, like that that was what was
kind of like pushing you like you said you didn't know everything is in hindsight of

(14:30):
this is why I am the way I am and this is why I'm doing what I'm doing.
So how much of that after the 26 traumatic event, how much of that is still there and
like you're using that still as a propulsion to get you there?
Or has it all just been completely reconfigured and like there's a healthier version of it

(14:51):
or like what does that look like for you now to still because it can be a little bit complicated
to like, OK, you find the reason why you're doing something and you the root of it can
be unhealthy.
But the overall reason to be successful and to to be a contributor to society is an

(15:13):
excellent thing. But if you're doing it for the wrong reasons, then it can be the wrong
thing. So have you just like reframed everything or is there still some of that in there
to who you are today?
My unconscious and now conscious goal in life was to figure out the formula.
I was in my early 20s and this is before the car accident.

(15:36):
And my mom said we had this sort of disagreement.
And she said something along the lines of why does intelligence matter so much to you?
Why can't you just why can't it be enough to just be nice and in that tone?
And I remember thinking that was a really dumb question now to her point.
Yeah, yeah. And again, that's the I always say I'm an engineer and have my business

(16:00):
partner says that gives Alan permission to be a dick.
No, I really do think in numbers and I think in formulas and I think in rationality and
I and I believe in objective truth.
And so I said this to my mom, I said, what's the difference in a smartphone and a dumb
phone? A smartphone is more capable and you can do more with it.

(16:21):
And so intelligence matters.
And for some reason, people don't think that, which makes no sense because intelligence
matters a lot. You can't make effective choice.
You don't see dogs making good choices about their future.
Right. So because dogs are less intelligent and that's that's OK.
And human beings, you know, there's 240 or whatever species of dogs.
Well, there's a bunch of different types of humans.

(16:43):
There's emotionally driven, there's engineers, there's all these different types.
And we're all wired very differently based on our core wounds and our upbringing and
our genetics. But ultimately, I was just trying to figure it out.
And so what I said to her back then, this is my early 20s ego version.
It was I'm trying to figure out the formula to not end up old and miserable like
everybody else. And those are my exact words.

(17:04):
And I used to not have the courage to share that.
But ultimately, that's what I meant, because I looked around when I was a kid.
I grew up in an environment that had no fulfilled humans.
And I mean none. So my mom and stepdad were not fulfilled.
They had a pleasure centered paradigm, which is have as much fun as possible.
And they surrounded themselves with other people like that.

(17:25):
And they didn't like their jobs and marriages scared the hell out of me.
You don't even like each other, never mind love each other.
So I was like, I'm not I'm opting out of that.
No marriage, not for me.
And now I'm madly in love and can't wait for marriage.
But now it's very different.
And so for me than it was for them, they hated their careers.
Jeff Bezos. And again, don't associate me with Jeff necessarily, because for

(17:47):
whatever reason, a lot of people hate him.
But he has a really cool saying that I believe in deeply, which is some people
have a job, some people have a career and other people have a calling.
And for me, I didn't find my calling until 26.
And my calling is to reach my own unique potential
holistically and help others do the same.

(18:08):
But back then, I was searching for it without knowing I was searching for it.
And I still am.
And the formula to not end up old and miserable for like everyone else.
That was my first way I framed it.
But I figured it out.
Finally, in my 30s, it's actually a formula of three things.
And it's about fulfillment.
Fulfillment and regret are my two best teachers.

(18:30):
Whenever you regret something, it's typically your I think you're
your highest self saying, Alan, that wasn't an alignment.
What what what are we doing?
Stop or start.
Right. You didn't do that thing and you should have.
You didn't have the courage to reach out when you should have.
And I think regret and fulfillment are the best teachers.

(18:51):
Right. The stair master is always sucky.
No one likes the stair master, no matter who you are.
But you're always fulfilled after because it's a tough workout.
And that's just a metaphor, obviously. But.
I think your highest self.
If you are connected to whatever your calling is
and if you're not, you're going to think I'm out to lunch.
So you've already turned this off.

(19:12):
But if you are connected to your calling on any level,
you basically have regret when you are out of alignment with it
and then fulfillment when you're in alignment.
And the weird thing about fulfillment is it's usually after doing something that sucks.
Like there's a million things I could be doing right now
that would be more enjoyable than this, no offense.

(19:33):
But this is what's in alignment with my greatest level of growth and contribution.
And so fulfillment is a formula.
And I think it's growth, unique potential,
contribution, contributing to others through that growth and then quality of life.
And so hopefully me being here helps me grow as an orator,
as a coach, as a speaker, as a trainer, as a podcaster,

(19:56):
and contributes to your life and your listeners lives
in a way that eventually is profitable, that helps me create a better quality of life
so that we can all sort of trend upward.
And it's a formula.
But most people are drifting around on autopilot.
And I was too for a long time,
maybe not to the same extent, depending on who we're talking about.

(20:20):
And the people who are in alignment with
whatever that calling is and they're turning their passion into purpose and to profit.
Those are the people that are the most fulfilled, not the richest,
but the most fulfilled in their real life.
I coach, you know, a famous model from Dubai who just moved to L.A.
I've coached Patriots cheerleaders.

(20:41):
I've coached millionaires.
I was mentored by one billionaire.
I don't say that to flex.
I say that because I've coached hundreds of people at this point.
Twenty six people currently right now, two earlier today.
The behind the scenes is different than the front every time.
And if you focus on the inside out.

(21:04):
Rather than the outside in, you're going to be more fulfilled,
but probably have a lower status, particularly in the short term.
Because there's some people who are trying to look good.
More importantly, trying not to look bad, constantly trying not to look bad.
And then there's other people who actually want to get good.
I mean, how do you get good at something?
You go suck and then reflect and then improve and then suck

(21:28):
and then reflect and then improve.
You just found out that three of your podcasts earlier today were terrible audio quality.
And now you have to figure out how to how to make sure that never happens again.
And some people, unfortunately, would would say, you know what?
This podcasting thing sucks. I'm out.
And then they would go outside of alignment with their calling
and then rationalize it for 30 years and then eventually regret that.

(21:51):
And so I faced mortality early when my dad died.
And then and then at 26, it really woke me up to my own mortality
and made me realize that we're not playing the right game
and we're not focused on the right things, myself included.
I used to drink too much and too often.
And I had high school friends, college friends and corporate friends and barbecues.

(22:13):
I mean, it was just a lot of nonsense.
And I'm genuinely mad at myself
because I wasted so much of my time and effort.
And people say, well, oh, you shouldn't have regrets.
Like, listen, if you aren't facing your regrets,
you're probably not transforming all that much.
There's a lot of through lines with the first few episodes.

(22:33):
Like the first five episodes of my podcast are all about me
and my podcast journey.
It's like I wanted to do something probably starting in like 2015.
I wanted to have a podcast, but a stumbling block was myself
and wanting everything to be basically perfect and have everything set up.
And just kind of have the process be flawless, which is foolish,

(22:58):
because even though like I've prepared as much as I prepared,
like you said, my first few episodes,
my audio isn't where I wanted it to be.
And that's with a ton of overthinking and all that.
And you can just get get lost in that.
And I think it's good to be aware
and want to self improve and to do something well.

(23:22):
It can lead us to this question
or something that you keep saying fulfillment.
What it so I think about fulfillment a lot
because I'm in a in a transition period in my life.
I was basically gifted an opportunity by my wife and my dad
to kind of pursue this more so than I would have been able to otherwise.

(23:46):
I basically got to hit pause on my life as far as like my working career
and find like, OK, what I want to do, like what is fulfilling to me
as far as a career.
And I think what you said, a podcast is a calling.
I don't know if I'm necessarily going to seek fulfillment for it
because that can be I can put expectations on it
that will cause me to not follow through.

(24:08):
So if I look at in the age of of likes and subscriptions and all that,
it's very easy to to muddy the waters
and have your value get intertwined with other people
or what you think they're assigning your value.
And so I can get it can get, yeah, just overly complicated.

(24:31):
And you can you have to have a pretty good motive
to why you're doing something otherwise, like you're saying,
it's easy to to get sidetracked.
So back to the fulfillment, I think about fulfillment.
And this is a modern luxury to me, in my opinion,
because before the Industrial Revolution,

(24:51):
this who could even think like this?
Who's going to think about fulfillment?
It's it's more survival.
So, yeah, I'm in this time of like questioning fulfillment.
And where do I find fulfillment?
And what looks like a fulfilling job or fulfilling life for me?
Is it foolish to look for fulfillment in a job?

(25:11):
And there's, you know, there's degrees to this.
Like, I think the answer can be yes, but not it doesn't have to be 100 percent
because I think our generation, millennials,
we kind of ran with this.
I think a stereotype of us is like we want to do something fulfilling
with our career and just the generation before.

(25:31):
I'm actually 76. So you already gave away your 3.6.
You're getting your hand.
I did. I did. Can you imagine?
I'm actually I've been big into longevity.
I take very good care of my skin.
I'm actually 77. I'm a baby boomer.
So I had to.
No, I'm with you.

(25:52):
But it's it's interesting, like just the different.
And I just I wonder about that.
But anyways, finding fulfillment in what you do, I think it's very interesting.
So I guess with all after all my navel gazing on where can we find fulfillment?
Where should we find fulfillment?
How do you define fulfillment?
And how do you help other people find that fulfillment?

(26:15):
Well, the first thing is, what are you optimizing for?
And a lot of people, there's a there's a book called algorithms to live by.
It's a computer scientist's approach to decision making.
And I remember I first gave it to my business partner
because he always asked me for book recs.
And he and I joke he he didn't understand how to be successful.
And I didn't understand myself.

(26:36):
And that's we've kind of helped each other sort of drive to five and.
Figure that out, because if you do understand how to be successful,
but you don't understand yourself,
you're going to end up successful and unfulfilled.
That was what I did.
And if you if you don't understand, if you are fulfilled and understand yourself,
but you might not be able to sustain it because you don't know how to succeed.
And everybody needs to generate

(27:00):
income in order to sustain a high quality of life that you can actually flourish.
And that's just true. Right.
So money shouldn't be number one, but it definitely shouldn't be number 15
on your list, so to speak, especially not as a business owner.
But to answer your question, it's what are you optimizing for?
And in the book algorithms to live by, they talked about

(27:22):
what what's called an optimal stopping problem.
And the best example I have for an optimal stopping problem, it's
it's kind of funny, but you put the nachos in for a minute
and a half and they burn, you put them in for 30 seconds, the cheese is melted.
So the optimal amount of time for these nachos is one minute.
And the example they use in the book is you're heading to a concert.

(27:43):
When do you park?
The closer you get to the venue, the less likely there is a spot available.
But you have to park sometime.
And when do you choose to park when there could be another spot
open closer to the venue? Right.
And they found out the mathematical optimal stopping problem in the book.
But ultimately, all of us people say, well, I did the right thing.

(28:04):
It's the right thing is contextual.
There is no right thing.
And Aristotle talked about who can do the right thing at the right time,
in the right way, in the right amount, with the right people for the right reason.
Right. And even that is right.
Right and wrong. What are we doing here?
And it's all contextual.
Murder is wrong, except for if someone's trying to kill your child.
And so everything's contextual.

(28:26):
And so some people walk around thinking they have the right answers
about everything, particularly young people.
Or ignorant old people.
But the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know.
However, you realize how much more you know than other people.
This is like this weird thing that I'm in right now, because I'm only 36.

(28:48):
And I've been studying my whole life, other people, myself, the world,
like seriously studying.
I'm talking Einstein's theory of relativity on Thursday night
because I'm curious, Stephen Hawking, whatever.
I'm a weirdo.
And when you say curiosity is your compass, you and I, I knew we'd get along great.
I might be the most curious person in the entire world.
I need to I need to know now.

(29:08):
Not everything. I don't care about the weather.
I know I don't care about what Kim Kardashian is doing,
but I do care about the universe and I do care about the human condition.
And I do care about understanding myself, others in the world.
Otherwise, I'm a Tesla driving off a cliff thinking it's a road.
Self-driving cars without the right data can't get you anywhere.
And so ultimately, my whole point of that is the optimal optimal stopping problem.

(29:31):
There is no right answer, but there is a more optimal answer.
And it's an asymptote.
You get closer and closer and closer, but you never get there.
So I'm making the you ask me, how long do we have?
Well, is this a good use of my time?
I think so. You think so. Great.
OK, what's the what is optimal?
It should be a 30 minute episode.

(29:52):
Should it be a 90 minute episode?
It depends on the goal.
It depends on our core values.
It depends on how you and I are resonating.
It depends on who your listener is.
Do they get distracted easy or are they existentialists who like to go deep?
It all depends. Everything depends.
That's why I like coaching better than podcasting,
because I can't cast wide nets and give specific advice.
The medicine that cures one patient will kill another.

(30:12):
And that's why we get all these fortune cookie quotes on social media
that are meaningless because, oh, believe in yourself.
OK, well, I know some people who believe in themselves too much
and they desperately need humility and realize that it's not just going to work out.
And they're actually delusional.
So everything's an and and not an or.
You have to be self-belief and humble.
You have to be hardworking and get enough R&R.

(30:34):
And so what's the optimal amount of R&R for some people?
It's two hours a night for other people.
I remember one time I was on a podcast, a woman named Debra
and I actually enjoyed Debra, but she she'll bump me once
because I said something along the lines of I coach business owners
and the ones that come to me and they want to achieve more with less effort.
It's very hard for me to help them.
Because this idea of achieving more with less effort is actually

(30:57):
quite alarmingly inaccurate, particularly in the beginning when no one knows you.
But the people with the credibility like Oprah say, well, if I could go back,
I wouldn't have worried so much.
It's like, well, the reason you became Oprah is because you were concerned about
not becoming Oprah. Right.
So at the end of the day, my whole point of all this is what are you optimizing for?
And all of our all of us are optimizing for something unconsciously.

(31:22):
I was optimizing to not be abandoned.
I was optimizing for that.
I didn't know it.
Now that I know it
to your original question about, am I different now?
I can understand that now I have a choice.
See, if it's unconscious, it's not a choice.
You're just autopilot.

(31:43):
Your subconscious brain, your unconscious mind is so much more powerful
than your conscious. I always say 4K TV.
One pixel is your conscious brain.
The other three thousand nine hundred ninety nine pixels are the unconscious brain.
But that one pixel is the commander.
Of the ship or the fleet or whatever metaphor you want to do.
So you can consciously realize, oh, OK, so unconsciously

(32:07):
I'm optimizing for not being abandoned.
I need to override that consciously and program on reprogram myself.
That's why the matrix is such a cool metaphor, because you can.
Oh, now I know Kung Fu.
You can reprogram yourself.
You can just like you go into a computer program.
I'm a computer engineer and you can fix the bugs.

(32:27):
We all have bugs from trauma and pain and suffering and childhood
and limiting beliefs and nonsense that our parents said, even though it was nonsense
and the world's different now, industrial revolution.
You all talked about it.
So here's what I do in coaching goals, metrics, habits, skills, identity work.
But the identity work is let me reprogram you
in alignment with who you really are and who you really aspire to be.

(32:51):
Because most of us don't succeed at achieving our goals.
You can look at the research, 96 percent, 94 percent.
I watched a TED talk two days ago.
She said she gave a thousand surveys.
She studied a thousand people January 1st, 2024.
Only 94 percent of them, only six percent of them

(33:13):
actually stuck with it past February.
So something's wrong.
And I when I read this research, I'm sitting there going, I'm a weirdo.
Only four percent of human beings have written goals and only eight percent
of them, according to the latest research, ever achieve them.
I'm sitting there going, what the hell am I?
Because I've never not had written goals and I've never not eventually achieved them.

(33:36):
Unless I decided in advance, I didn't want to.
So what's different about me?
I don't get it. One of them is self-belief, for sure.
The other one is the engineering reverse engineering brain.
I can calculate it.
No one questions whether or not they can get subway for dinner tonight.
If they live near a subway, have a credit card, know how to drive
and that kind of thing.
What if the same thing is true for building a million dollar business?

(33:57):
What if you already know how it's just a matter of time?
So, yeah, you can't get subway for dinner in five minutes from now.
Just like you can't build a business in two years.
Right. So it's all an equation.
It's all a formula. And here's the problem.
We don't live in a world where people think mathematically.
And that's why I trigger people who don't have math as a modality of thinking.

(34:17):
So we're optimizing for things unconsciously that we don't know about.
We're not aware of it.
So we can't change it because you can't change something you're not aware of,
at least not intentionally.
And fortunately, I had a humble pie moment of the car accident
that got me to realize, like, OK,
so I've been living on autopilot a lot more than I thought.

(34:38):
And I need to face some of my past
to try to understand what's motivating these things.
And now I can choose to be the way that is actually fulfilling
rather than basically being wired in a way that guarantees
I'm never going to be fulfilled.
And I was well on my way to a Fortune 50 CEO, but not fulfilled.

(35:00):
And I wasn't taking care of my health, just like Steve wasn't either.
Basically, identifying like what you're optimizing for.
So you help other people realize, OK, these are your patterns
of what you're doing, and this is what you say, and this is what you do.
And so there's what there's conflict here because there's
there's not always unity in that.

(35:21):
So you help people identify or see maybe a painting that they're trying to create,
but they don't know what they're trying to create.
So you help them identify that and then kind of label it as more like fulfillment
or help them find that fulfillment in like what they're saying.
Well, what I've found is a fulfillment is actually a byproduct of alignment.

(35:44):
And alignment is a byproduct of understanding your goals,
core values and core beliefs.
What I have found is that there's two metaphors that I think are really powerful.
One of them is the self-driving car metaphor.
The other one is a kiosk at the mall.
You go into a mall
and you look at the kiosk and you think you want to go

(36:09):
to the Microsoft store.
And there's a little arrow that says you are here and the Microsoft store is three levels up
and on the other side of the building.
Three things need to happen.
In my experience coaching, people come to me and they tell me what they want.

(36:30):
But usually what they really want deep down, which is fulfillment.
What you really want deep down is high self-worth and high self-belief.
You want to feel good about you.
That's what everyone really wants.
And how do you get that cars and homes and comparison?
And, you know, that's why people do steroids.
That's why people do things that are bad for them, because they make you feel good in the moment.

(36:54):
But they long term are detrimental.
And so what people really want is high self-worth and high self-belief.
That's my theory. That's my thesis.
And what they really want underneath that is fulfillment, which comes from those two things.
But anyways, so back to the mall, you come to me.
You say you want to go to the Microsoft store and the kiosk says you are here.

(37:14):
And then you take the stairs or the elevator or the escalator.
The problem is you don't really want to go to Microsoft.
You want to go to Apple.
You aren't really here.
You're actually over here.
Self-awareness.
And you don't know how to take the stairs because you're not capable of it yet.
And you have to take the elevator, but the elevator leads to the wrong place or whatever.

(37:36):
It's a metaphor of you have to know who, what, when, where, why.
Who are you? Why do you want to get there?
What do you want to achieve?
When do you want to achieve it by?
Where is the place you're really trying to get to?
And then how are you actually going to get there?
And most people don't know how.
How how do you have social courage?
OK, how do you have more courage?

(37:56):
Basically, you just have to.
Here's what I really think. OK, I'm going to.
Here's what I want to say, because it's more comfortable.
And here's what I really think.
I'm going to say this, see how it goes.
Exposure therapy.
But we don't we're not educated enough to really know
the how, and you can Google it, but you're going to get a bunch of answers
that may or may not be actually accurate. Right.

(38:17):
So fitness, you want to lose weight.
You exercise more, eat less.
It's a formula and take a Zempik.
What does that mean?
Oh, Zempik is a weight loss drug.
It was just a stupid joke.
Oh, is there some formula I don't know about?
Oh, it's a diabetes medication.
It's basically everyone is on Zempik now and everyone's losing a ton of weight.

(38:41):
But it's it's your steroid metaphor.
OK, got you. The quick fix, right?
Well, this is the thing, too.
The other problem with quick fixes is they never actually work.
We've got people who are preaching self-love
who have more plastic surgery than you can imagine.
And it's that's not actually self-love.
That's you trying to be different than you really are.

(39:02):
Self-love is keeping the promises you make to yourself.
Self-love is accepting the parts of you that you can't change
and then improving the parts that you can.
Self-compassion, self-love, self-efficacy, self-belief, self-discipline.
You can't have self-love without self-discipline.
But no one's talking about that.
And there's these people over here on the toxic negative side

(39:24):
that are saying, if you don't grind your face off 24-7, you suck
and you're going to be broke.
And then on the toxic positive side, it's all going to work out.
No, it is not.
No, it is absolutely not.
If I had it's all going to work out mentality when I was a kid,
I would have been screwed.
And so at the end of the day, underneath all of this,
you've got to figure out where you're great and where you're not.

(39:45):
You have to own them both.
And then you have to have the courage to.
I think there's two types of courage.
I think there's competence courage, which is apply to the job.
Do the thing. Try the podcast.
It's it's doing stuff. It's it's self-efficacy.
You feel effective in the external world.
That was no problem. I have a lot of that.
I'll I'll do the thing.

(40:05):
I'll write the letter.
I'll cover letter, resume, LinkedIn.
That's all fine.
The social courage piece was hard for me.
Social courage is tell people what you actually think.
I'll never forget when someone said to me,
well, you know, Alan, these days, the only way to make money is real estate.
Literally in my brain, my brain went,

(40:27):
that's got to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Tech companies.
All the most successful companies in the world right now,
if that was ever not true, it would be right now.
In the past, real estate was a great way to make money, and it still is.
But that's not the only way.
Have you heard of the Internet, sir?
But I didn't have the courage to say it.

(40:48):
I just was like, you know what? Whatever.
He leaves the conversation thinking he's smarter than me.
And people think, well, who cares? It doesn't matter.
Is he going to coach with me? Ever.
And everyone who listened to that conversation also isn't going to coach
with me either, because they don't see that you have the courage
to actually say that's not actually true.

(41:08):
Now, do I say, hey, you're an idiot?
No, because that's called being a dick and being a bully.
And then you become the very thing you don't like.
But you can be honest and say, well, to be honest, sir,
there's a lot of ways to make money outside of real estate.
As a matter of fact, I would argue that online with five point
eight billion people on the Internet and that's increasing exponentially

(41:28):
with Starlink is probably a better avenue than real estate was in the past.
That's social courage.
And then the other person gets insecure because they realize
they're not that smart and never thought of that.
And you have to sit in that energy.
And that's the part that I sucked at.
So I was really good at the competence courage,
but I wasn't good at the social courage.
And everyone is one or the other.

(41:49):
Very few of us have both of those.
And I certainly didn't until my 30s.
I think you get like tunnel vision.
And that person was probably like a like a victim of that tunnel vision
or a certain way of thinking like, OK, I understand real estate.
I understand the markets.
This is something that I really know.
I don't understand these other avenues to make money.

(42:11):
And so you just say something and you paint with broad strokes.
And it's not necessarily true.
Like, it's yeah, it just seems like if you if you look at history,
like the last podcast I did was about cognitive biases,
which you know about.
But one of them is groupthink.
And it was three men make a tiger.
And the story, if you don't know, it's basically a group of people

(42:36):
keep coming and telling you something that's like ludicrous.
Like you'll you'll tend to believe it if a group of people are telling you it.
And this is something that was learned
or known about thousands of years ago.
And then we still fall prey to the same thing.
So it's we kind of think like in our lived experience, we think

(43:01):
or can think be a victim of the thought process
that we've got it more figured out than people who came before us,
even if it's like an age thing.
And it's not necessarily true.
I don't know how much because I would think
like, oh, we've got life more figured out.
But then you look at history and you see how much

(43:22):
we just keep on repeating over and over again.
We keep doing the same thing, but we do it in different ways.
So now we're doing things similarly with the Internet,
but with older technologies. And it's like we don't.
We're changing the extrinsic, but the intrinsic, our brains are still the same.
So this guy probably thought like, yeah, I've got to figure it out.

(43:45):
This is the way this is the right way.
This is the only way.
And that's just not the truth.
And there's. But you can live like that's why I was interested
in your definition of fulfillment, because you can live in this bubble
and think you have it figured out, but there's there's more out there.
So how do you help people?
How do you know that yourself and how do you help people find that fulfillment?

(44:08):
Curiosity and humility.
I every piece of learning.
Every piece of growth is.
Based on experience plus reflection,
knowledge, plus experience, plus reflection.
So we're all born in a certain country, there's 195 countries.

(44:29):
And depending on where you're born, you speak a certain language.
Why is it because you were meant and destined to speak that language?
No, it's because that's what you learned from your environment.
And we can all think of a time.
I remember when I was in a small town and then I went to college
and I went from the math and science award guy straight A's

(44:49):
financial aid and scholarships, AP Cal, all that to oh.
I'm just another math guy now.
This is all the WPI gets all the I mean, you need to basically
700 on your math SATs just to be considered.
So you're just a big fish in a small pond, but you don't know it.

(45:10):
And so back to the original thing I talked about earlier,
it's I know that I compared to what there is to know.
I know I know nothing.
What's alarming is compared to other people.
I actually have had to realize that I know a lot.
That's been really hard for me because I look this up.
Only 37.7 percent of the United States population has any higher education.

(45:31):
And I don't want to be one of those ignorant Americans
who thinks everything's about America just because we have the biggest economy.
What I'm saying is I live in America, so I was curious
because I was traveling to South Carolina and I just wanted to understand
the literacy down there versus here.
And at the end of the day, when you're really educated,
you don't actually think you're that educated because I don't wake up
in the morning going, I'm so educated.

(45:51):
I wake up in the morning going, what can I learn today?
But then you go around other people and you go, oh,
they actually think they're smart.
I know I know a 17 year old who's smarter than most humans.
His name's Cass, her name, actually.
We're all in our own little bubble.

(46:12):
Of course, you're smart compared to people who aren't. Right.
So and then we're all protecting our self-worth,
because if you are insecure about your intelligence,
the last thing you're going to do is talk to me or anyone else.
If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.
Great quote. But who actually lives that way?
And then eventually you become the smartest person in the room
and can't find anyone smarter. Now, that's a whole nother problem.

(46:33):
I have mentors and stuff that are
I try not to be this pretentious dude.
The CEO of Billion Dollar Robotics Company is a close mentor of mine.
And it got to a point where I was like, oh,
you know, like, way less than I do holistically, holistically.
He knows way more about that. Right.

(46:55):
And so I'm just trying to find the smartest people I can and download
everything, books, mentors, TED Talks.
I've watched six TED Talks in the last three days.
But I also realize that not a lot of people care about being smarter.
I don't think they connect smart to the life of their dreams.
And I'll tell you what, they're directly correlated.
I mean, that that's they're directly correlated.

(47:17):
If you were to look at
if you were to take all the wealth in the world,
I bet you 80 percent of the world's wealth is in the hands
of the people who love math.
I would put money on that.
Now, me saying that people like, oh, you're such a dick.
No, no, I'm I'm actually saying that's probably an objective truth.
If you grew up saying I hate math, you probably struggle paycheck to paycheck.

(47:39):
Or you have a financial manager or a husband or wife who's good at numbers.
You're not going to win at finance.
I coach a lot of people.
I coach a math AP calc teacher, one thirty six IQ.
He does the numbers in his family business.
Two point six million dollar net worth.
None of that. My point is.

(47:59):
Math is a modality of thinking that if you hate math, you're going to avoid it.
And if you tell yourself a story, you hate math.
You're going to not only avoid math,
you're going to also avoid people who love math.
And you're certainly not.
I remember my business partner, he said, you always talk about engineers like
I've never even met an engineer.
And I went, I have.
Fifty people that are engineers that I could probably text.

(48:21):
But echo chamber.
I'm an engineer.
I went to college with only engineers,
one of the best engineering colleges on the planet.
So we're all in this echo chamber.
None of them think they're that smart. Why?
Because they're around other brilliant people.
But then they go around their families and go, oh, my God,
am I the smartest person in the entire world?
And then they go around, you know, an interview at SpaceX

(48:42):
and they go, oh, I'm not that smart at all.
It's all relative.
And we're all in our own little echo chamber.
And we all have these opinions we throw on social media and myself included.
Right. I'm right here giving an opinion.
Some of it, I think, is actually objective truth. But
we all have these cognitive biases.
So I know I'm biased.
And the only people who aren't biased are the people who say I'm biased.
And even they're biased.

(49:04):
So how do we succeed in a world of massive misinformation?
You basically have to become a scientist
about your studying yourself, other people in the world.
And when you do, you start to play the game of chess a little better,
a little better, a little better, a little better.
I didn't understand relationships.
Success came easy, but relationships didn't.

(49:24):
I didn't understand. I didn't get it.
My beautiful girlfriend, Amelia and I, we've been coaching couples for four years.
We have a podcast called The Conscious Couples podcast.
And I started realizing through watching and coaching other people.
Oh, I'm doing that, too.
Holy crap. I'll give you one really cool.
This is true for 80 percent of couples, I believe.

(49:45):
OK, from my own data.
One partner usually lacks courage
and is very competent, but usually behind the scenes.
The other partner lacks humility
and usually the lack of courage partner usually struggles to lead
and struggle. It's called dyadic coping.
They basically protective dyadic coping means you basically shield your partner

(50:10):
from seeing the negative things about themselves.
And usually there's one inflated self-worth,
low humility, somewhat inwardly arrogant partner
who's partnered with someone who has low self-worth, but very high competence.
And they're much more aware, but they never call the other person out.
And so I always say this to my clients who are amazing.

(50:31):
I say, listen, if you let the less intelligent person lead,
you can't be mad when they drive you off a cliff.
And we've all been in a relationship where we were like,
do you think maybe I could lead in this arena since this is my thing?
But they're too arrogant to, like, let you have that
because some people can't lead no matter what, can't not lead.

(50:53):
They can't be the student because they're so afraid that they're not
intelligent, so they have to always dominate all the time.
And ironically, if you always have to be the teacher
and you're never the student, what happens?
You inevitably don't know much because the only way you learn
is by actually slipping into a student role.
And then the people who are perpetual students have no status and credibility,
but basically learn way more and are way more holistically aware than everyone else.

(51:16):
And so every relationship, it's like one person lacks courage.
The other person lacks humility.
If the courage would come up, the other person would eat humble pie.
All of a sudden, the infinity symbol starts to work.
Now there's a feedback loop.
Now you're growing together, not apart.
And that solves so many couples problems.
There's always one partner who just doesn't tell the frickin whole truth

(51:36):
because they're just too scared to be abandoned or hurt or lashed out at.
Usually past traumas.
We think we've figured things out, but like we're just doing
everything over and over again.
We don't even realize the patterns that we're in sometimes.
But I wanted to get back to something that you were saying
about being an existentialist and thinking about the big problems

(52:02):
and just why you're doing what you're doing.
And which brings me to like the bigger question of.
How did humans get here?
Do you have any like religious background?
Do you are you agnostic?
Like, what what do you believe?
Like, why? Why are we here?
Why is humanity on Earth?

(52:23):
Why is there life?
The best metaphor I've ever personally read and I've I've gone through chapters
where I think I had some religion going on and chapters that are very spiritual.
And at this stage, at 36, in my growth journey,
I would say I'm not religious by any means.
I do not associate with any religion,

(52:43):
even though I was born into an Irish Catholic family.
It was as the McCorkels, it was Jim, Joe, John, Jane, Joan, Jeanette, six kids.
My dad was John.
At this stage, I would say science is my.
The scientific method of I have a hypothesis, I test that hypothesis,
I see if it's accurate.

(53:05):
I think that's really what when you said curiosity is your compass,
I think science and objective truth is mine.
And the reason why is because if you don't have accurate data,
you basically can't make the choices.
If you don't know that smoking will kill you, you're going to smoke and then die.
And so I remember I printed out this 12 page report for my mom when I was 12.

(53:25):
And I said, smoking is going to kill you.
And she's still she's still playfully think she gained weight
because she quit smoking because of me.
But ultimately, the to answer your question,
I do believe in I have this pyramid of the universe that.
Usually, I don't share because I think I'm fearful of just being

(53:47):
completely different than everyone else, but the pyramid of the universe
is is something that I have in my folder on my desktop.
And really, these are the things that I'm trying to understand at the deepest level.
And I still have a long way to go.
So, Alan, you didn't know that, but like, listen, I'm not saying I know everything.
Here's what I'm trying to study.
So the bottom of the pyramid is mathematics,

(54:08):
which I believe is the study of the universe.
Then it's physics, which is the study of the physical universe.
Then it's chemistry, which is the study of matter,
then it's biology, which is the study of living organisms.
And then it's physiology, which is the study of the human body.
Then it's neuroscience, which is the study of the human brain.
And then it's psychology, which is the study of the human mind.
And then the top would be, I think, spirituality.

(54:31):
And spirituality to me is more quantum physics, which is energy.
and I look at vibe and and you can always tell when someone has an icky vibe versus someone who's very virtuous and
I didn't learn that until way later. My girlfriend taught me vibe. She's like look look at that person's vibe and I was like, oh
Whoa, cuz you can look really good

(54:53):
Aesthetically and then still have a low icky vibe, you know
Mm-hmm, and she said this to me. She said Alan you're the highest vibe man I've ever met and I remember thinking like
Okay, I know cool. What do you mean? She said well, I can tell you're virtuous behind the scenes when no one's watching
It's like what does that mean?
It's you're just not icky. Most a lot of men are icky. That's what she said, right?

(55:15):
And I think anyone who looks around would say that's probably fairly true
But anyways, so and a lot of women feel that way by the way
They feel like men are icky and predatory not always but a lot of them and a lot of them are my clients
But anyways, so and I'm not against men by any means but just statistically speaking
But my point of that whole thing is that if I understand that pyramid

(55:36):
At the deepest levels then I can understand
Myself other people in the world at the deepest level and if I do I can make decisions
that maximize the probability of statistical success in
Whatever direction I really want and so the world is sort of my oyster
I'm not gonna win a bodybuilding competition because I'm an ectomorph

(55:58):
I'm not gonna win an Olympic gold medal in strongman competitions because I'm weak as hell
But for the most part I can achieve and manifest
Within reason whatever I set my mind to and to me that's ultimate abundance
And I also have many benefits. I'm in a free country like I get that not everyone has that but
when you understand yourself other people in the world at the deepest level you become in control of

(56:23):
Your own destiny your own future your own decisions your own life like I
Remember I used to date people and they weren't humble and I didn't know they weren't humble
Because I didn't know what humility freakin was and I didn't know what it looked like because I always everyone called me arrogant
My whole life and my girlfriend one time. She said you're the most humble man
I've ever met and I literally said I said I appreciate that sweetheart, but I've never identified as humble

(56:47):
People call me arrogant all the time. She said Alan. That's exactly what a humble man would say
And I was like, oh
Am I humble?
No, I just I I think I am now and that's hard to say out loud
Because you're not allowed to say that because now I'm immediately not humble but the point is I trigger everybody
So, of course, they think I'm arrogant especially people who don't have self-belief
And if I have level 10 self-belief and only level 8 humility, I look level 2 arrogant. Oh

(57:12):
Got it never worked on humility. Didn't know I needed it didn't understand the value of it. Totally do now
Right not to mention as you get older trust me if you're not humble you will be humbled. Holy crap
The humble pie is coming whether or not you eat it is your choice
But try to do some hard stuff and you'll get humble pie for sure or life is just gonna constantly smack you down

(57:35):
but ultimately
that's my pyramid and I do believe in spirituality meaning I do believe that there's
Energy that is beyond this for sure, but I don't believe in I do not sign up for any religion
definitely not Catholicism has a really especially Irish Catholicism has a
High rate of turning people off of of religion

(57:57):
I was curious because like you you talk about like objective truth and just kind of wondering like where
What is your foundation for that objectivity? Like what you say is objective like how can like
What is that?
Objective source that kind of like gets you to that confidence to say this is objective and there's obviously I say obvious

(58:20):
but things like smoking kills or smoking leads to diseases and you know
There's always this statistic anomalies or the people who smoke and drink and live to be a thousand years old and just outlet
So I'll never exercise a day in their life
Yeah, there's always those types of people out there so I was just yeah, I was curious with that
so because like you said we're we're trying to find fulfillment whether

(58:44):
We we realize it or not and kind of trying to wonder like what is your
Like I don't know how to like really word it because I think
How you look at the world is similar to how I look at the world
It's kind of like you had that event when you were 26 and you realized that this life isn't permanent
So you realize that one day it'll end and that day could be today

(59:07):
You just you don't know and so that kind of informs the decisions that you make the the values that you have in life
So let's say Allen's lived to the ripe old age of however old he wants to be
Like that that that golden age and he has the luxury of looking back at his life
What are you?

(59:27):
How do you define and say I have lived a fulfilled and happy and successful life?
When you can authentically say for me personally if I can authentically say I did all I could with all I have
Some people are born. My business partner Kevin was born with very little
he's the first person in his entire extended family to

(59:48):
To ever really succeed at high levels
Statistically and and when you set objective truth, where does it root? It's rooted in mathematics. It's rooted in statistics and
And that brings in sample size and people like well you can lie with statistics, it's yeah and
if I take a thousand random sample of individuals and I do that a hundred times and

(01:00:10):
I draw some conclusions you can bet
Scientifically, it's like poker you you
there's a statistical probability of an ace coming out I used to count cards in blackjack and
You you basically can put yourself on the high probability of success if you calculate probabilities
and I realized I never knew most people don't like

(01:00:33):
There are probably what's the probability that someone dislikes me when I talk when I talk about
Not being religious
It's it's high because statistically 90% or something 87. I don't know that I would have to look it up
That's what I love about AI and Google is you they have all the stats
I mean they have the stats. This is cool. I mean, I know

(01:00:54):
Canada has 40 million humans and it's the second largest country in the world geographically most of its snow, right?
But you you don't go to the Philippines to buy land. There's no land. There's 110 million people in very little land
So I think we we live in a world where we don't know
the truth

(01:01:15):
So we can't it's like it's like a self-driving
It's like it's like a self-driving my car my model why Tesla drives itself. It's very cool supervisor mode
You can just let it drive
but it drives itself and and I trust it more than other people do and the reason why is because I was one of the
engineers who would
Trust data over humans. I'm one of the few most people like oh dangerous

(01:01:38):
No, actually statistically less people will die if we all have self-driving cars. Look it up. It's
Mathematically accurate but people hate me for that. So here I am getting all red
The point that I'm making though is a self-driving car if it has inaccurate data, it can't make good decisions
If it it needs three things, it needs an accurate destination location. It needs an accurate current location, which is self-awareness

(01:02:03):
So you accurate current location is self-awareness accurate destination location is accurate goal
clear goal if
It thinks the house is over here and it's actually over here. It'll it'll drive to the wrong house and then blame the world
You know
Metaphorically and then it needs accurate data on the terrain if it thinks there's a road and there's actually a cliff

(01:02:25):
It's gonna keep driving off a cliff and then blaming the world and I feel like that's unfortunately what we do as human beings
we blame other people and
Sometimes it's true. Like it's not my fault. My dad died when I was two
It's not my fault. My stepdad left when I was 14. It's not my fault
They didn't get along but it's for sure my responsibility to find a way how to make a positive life out of that

(01:02:47):
and
Everything good is on the other side of personal responsibility
That's the people we look up to
Is it McDonald's fault that everyone's overweight or is it our fault for eating too much McDonald's?
Here's what I'll tell you it's both and we all know it but I'll tell you what there's only one you have control over and

(01:03:09):
So that's the one I choose to take control over it's my responsibility to be a leader
It's my responsibility to be a better person
It's my responsibility to do all I can with all I have
So if I if I can look back at my life and say Alan you did all you could with all you had I
mean that is the ultimate I think for me and

(01:03:29):
At 26, I could not say that I
Couldn't say it. I was so regretful of how much time and effort and money I wasted on useless stuff and
I'm never letting that happen again. It's it's learning you're learning your whole life and
Whether you actually learn the lesson or not is the difference between knowledge and wisdom

(01:03:53):
Knowing it and applying it, but this has been so much fun
So if people want to reach out they want to continue this conversation with you, where can they find you?
Where can they learn more about you? How can they get in contact with you? Well at this point if anyone wanted to reach out
I'd be surprised
No, but if you do have humility and courage and you're willing to be vulnerable and honest with yourself

(01:04:16):
And you want to look in the mirrors and you want to grow and you want to earn your way to success and fulfillment
You're gonna love next level University. You're gonna love me. You're gonna love kev. We have a 17 person team
It's really a place where you go to reach your potential. We have meetups
We have a book club. We got all kinds of cool stuff and most of it is free
You can reach out
Next level universe calm next level University podcast. It's we're on YouTube and all the podcast platforms and

(01:04:42):
I'm on Instagram Facebook and LinkedIn if you google my name
I'll definitely come up and then I never had the courage to say this before but I'm going to say it now because if you
Don't have humility
If you don't have work ethic if you don't have grit and you are entitled on any level and you want maximum rewards for minimal
Effort you're not gonna like me. You're not gonna like Kevin and you're not gonna like anything we do

(01:05:04):
and so just please don't reach out and
I never used to have the courage to say anything like that because I'm the ultimate try-hard and so is kev we came from nothing
We both didn't have dads
we both grew up in tough environments and we're earning our way to success and fulfillment every single day and the people who
Don't want that. I get it. Just you're not gonna vibe with us. Anyway, so just save us both some time

(01:05:28):
Yeah, it's like going to the gym wanting to improve your life and you want to have like you want to hire a personal trainer
To make you fit, but you don't want to lift any of the weights. It's just can't help you. Yeah
But I think that would be people would self discriminate and just be like well
I don't want to get better so it would work itself out. But this has been really fun

(01:05:49):
It's been great getting to know you and I appreciate all the wisdom that you imparted on this Alan
Thank you so much for being a part of this
Brian thank you for having me and thank you for doing what you're doing in the world because I believe all of us would be
Better if we contemplated more about ourselves others in the world and had more conversations like this. Thank you so much for having me
I really appreciate it. Thank you. You've been great man. Thanks

(01:06:25):
You
Hey everyone, this is usually where I get a listener of the show who uses a product by the sponsor to give a brief testimony
However, everyone that I reached out to responded with a cease-and-desist all communications letter from their lawyer
Something about them not undignifying themselves by talking to a blue-collar stooge

(01:06:50):
So I don't think that's gonna happen
Also, I got a note from today's sponsor saying it's important that any listener of the revelations podcast know that if you have to ask
Where or how much it costs to get a monocle from designs by the snooty monocle society that you?
Definitely couldn't afford it. They put definitely in all caps, too

(01:07:12):
so
Yeah, thanks again to today's sponsor
monocles from designs by the snooty monocle society
When you need to say you're better without saying it

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12 - The Pursuit of Finding Fulfillment with Alan Lazaros

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