October 7, 2025 • 36 mins
How do you balance external achievement with internal fulfillment? Can you truly have both? Alan Lazarus takes us through his extraordinary journey from childhood adversity to remarkable success—and the unexpected emptiness that followed.
After losing his father at age two and his stepfather at fourteen, Alan channeled his pain into fierce determination. By his mid-twenties, he'd become a 1% earner in tech, paid off $84,000 in college debt in just one year, and built substantial investments. He had everything he thought he wanted, but something vital was missing.
Then came the head-on collision that changed everything. This near-death experience forced Alan to confront the hollow nature of his achievements and sent him on a quest for meaning that initially swung too far in the opposite direction. "I went from externally successful and internally unfulfilled to super fulfilled internally—but broke. Both extremes suck in different ways," he reveals with disarming honesty.
What makes this conversation so valuable is Alan's hard-won wisdom about integrating success and fulfillment rather than treating them as opposing forces. As a business coach who's built a million-dollar company and leads an 18-person team, he shares practical insights about recognizing "inaccurate data" that keeps us stuck, the surprising power of gratitude in maintaining perspective, and how to apply the Pareto principle to identify the vital few activities that create most of your results.
Whether you're struggling with unfulfilling success or fulfilling poverty, Alan's framework for building a life that honors both achievement and meaning offers a refreshing alternative to the either/or thinking that dominates personal development. His story reminds us that the most meaningful success comes from integrating our human needs with our highest aspirations.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello there and welcome back to the next episode
of Overcome Yourself, thepodcast.
As you know, my name is Nicoleand I'm so excited to be here
today with Alan.
Alan has quite the story ofovercoming and making it out,
and look at all his amazingcertificates behind him.
So we cannot wait to hear hisamazing journey.
So, alan, take it away.
Please introduce yourself.
(00:22):
Tell us a little bit about youand who you help.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Nicole, first and foremost, thank you so much for
having me.
You mentioned in the pre-chatabout gratitude being
foundational for you and for me.
I started listening to podcasts10 years ago after a tough car
accident I had.
That we can get into, butpodcasts and podcasters really
helped me sort of reorient mylife in a much more positive
(00:47):
direction, and now I get to dothat, too, for a living, so it's
really cool.
Thank you so much for having me, first and foremost.
As for the certificates andawards behind me, I was
reluctant to have this as mybackdrop, but the truth of the
matter is I look 15, and oldermen don't like being coached by
(01:07):
someone who looks 12.
And so I needed to build somecredibility there.
But I think more than that.
Rather than just coming off aspretentious with all my books
and awards, I think what itcomes down to more than anything
is that I just believe inachievement so much.
I believe in overcomingadversity as well as you do, and
to me, I think there's twotypes of adversity.
There's the adversity that lifethrows at you, which you and I
(01:29):
had a lot of early on.
You lost your mom when you wereone, and I lost my dad when I
was two, and that's theadversity life throws at you
that is out of your control.
But there's another type ofadversity that's good for growth
, which is the adversity thatcomes from setting big goals and
working toward achievements.
So I think there's, you know,we grow from both, both the
(01:50):
things we don't want and thethings that we do want.
So, in terms of telling alittle bit about myself, the
very, very, very short versionis I lost my father when I was
two.
He was 28, in a car accident.
I had a stepfather from agethree to 14.
He left my family at 14, took90% of the income with him.
So we went from pretty well offduring the dot-com bubble in
Massachusetts, new England, topretty much broke.
(02:14):
And how are we going to keepthe house and the family?
How am I going to affordcollege?
Mom trades in her BMW for alittle Honda Civic.
I get free lunch at school nowbecause our income is so low.
He took his entire extendedfamily with him.
Same year hardest year of mylife my mom gets in a fight with
my aunt Sandy, her sister, andwe get kind of ostracized from
that side of the family too.
So I'm 14.
(02:36):
People are telling me these arethe best years of my life.
And I'm sitting there thinking,god, I hope not, because this
is just atrocious.
And you think I look young now.
Imagine me at 14, right,because this is just atrocious.
And you think I look young now.
Imagine me at 14, right,overlooked by every girl,
literally and figuratively,because I was, you know, five
feet tall.
But ultimately that was thehardest year of my life and I
had two trauma responses to that, unconsciously, none of this
(02:57):
was conscious at the time Fight,flight, freeze and fawn are the
four trauma responses Mostpeople know.
Fight and flight, fight, flight, freeze and fawn are the four
trauma responses Most peopleknow.
Fight and flight Fawn was theone that I didn't become aware
of until my late 20s, early 30s.
I'm 36 now and fawn was my bigone.
So socially I became this sortof social coward chameleon
(03:17):
please don't abandon me type ofguy.
But behind the scenes, when noone was watching, I became this
super achiever dude Because Ilooked into the future and I saw
, okay, no dad, no stepdad, noincome.
Really, mom and sister, youknow, aren't doing super well in
the economy, kind of the man ofthe house by 14.
(03:37):
And there's no generationalwealth.
There's no trust fund Likewe're in some trouble here and I
went from I hope I get into mydream college, wpi, worcester
Polytechnic Institute.
It's a engineering college andit was 50 grand a year back then
.
So I went from I hope I get into when my stepdad left.
Even if I do get in, I don'tknow how I'm going to go.
So I bootstrapped and I gotstraight A's in high school, got
(03:58):
all the scholarships andfinancial aid I could, the
awards behind me PresidentGeorge W Bush has a letter
that's signed by him behind mecalled the President's Award and
basically it means you getstraight A's through all of high
school.
So I became this sort of socialchameleon, coward, but behind
the scenes just so much driveit's not even funny.
So fortunately I gotscholarships in financial aid,
(04:19):
computer engineering degree,master's in business.
Off to the races, succeed,succeed, succeed.
Corporate became a 1% earner inmy early 20s.
All different tech companies,computer engineer 21st century
it makes sense, especially after08 when things are coming back.
Now I'm in my early 20s.
(04:39):
I paid off 84 grand worth ofcollege debt in a single year.
That was my dream to bedebt-free and had $150,000 in a
Vanguard account with all techcompanies and I was used to
going without.
So I drove a $5,000 car.
I bought cash.
My rent was $500 a month.
I was broke in high school andcollege so I didn't know what it
was like to have money, so Ijust banked it all and invested
(05:03):
it all.
Then I get in my car accident.
So I'm 26 at the time.
That was 10 years ago.
I'm 36 now, even though I look12.
And that was my sort of quarterlife existential crisis my
fault, head-on collision.
Thank you, volkswagen Passat.
Thank you, thank you Car.
The tank Totally saved my life,both airbags deployed.
(05:25):
We were okay, my little cousinand I.
So that for me was the turningpoint of okay.
I've achieved a lot of my dreams.
I know my boss's boss's boss.
I work for industrialautomation.
I'm a sales engineer forVermont, connecticut, western
Massachusetts, for a companycalled Cognex.
(05:46):
I make almost $200,000 a yearand that's increasing rapidly.
But I'm unfulfilled and thetruth of the matter is it's
really important to besuccessful and fulfilled and I
so I flipped the script and Idid this wrong and I'll explain.
But I went all in after that onfulfillment.
(06:06):
That's when I found personaldevelopment, personal growth,
self-improvement.
Personal fulfillment.
That's when I worked on myselfmental health.
So I went inward, started alittle company called Alan
Lazarus LLC what you'll neverlearn in school but desperately
need to know Went broke,liquidated all my assets, went
past zero, into debt again.
Llc what you'll never learn inschool but desperately need to
(06:28):
know went broke, liquidated allmy assets, went past zero, into
debt again and went broke.
And then we started a podcastthat was called the
Hyperconscious Podcast and it'snow called Next Level University
175 countries, you know,million plus listens, million
plus dollars as a business 18person team now which is is wild
.
But the point that I'm making isfor a while there I went from
externally successful andinternally unfulfilled to I
(06:50):
flipped the script and I gotfulfilled, happy, healthy,
productive, fitness model,fitness competitor, fitness
coach I've got the bodybuildingtrophies behind me, fell in love
with working on myself, but Iwent broke.
So I went from externallysuccessful and internally
unfulfilled to super fulfilledinternally.
But now I can't sustain itbecause I ran out of money,
which also kind of sucks.
(07:11):
Right, it's better, but itstill sucks.
And the point and I'll get offthe soap box here in a second
the point here that I've come torealize after coaching.
I've been coaching for 10 yearsnow, mentoring for the first two
and then coaching for eight.
The only difference is Istarted getting paid, but
ultimately the last 10 years hasbeen behind the scenes
thousands and thousands andthousands and thousands of hours
literally 7,000 plus.
(07:32):
I track everything.
I'm an engineer, coachingsessions one-on-one with people
all over the world, so I'm notjust talking.
External success plus internalfulfillment is extremely
difficult to do, and the reasonwhy is because what the economy
pays a lot for is very rarelythe most meaningful work.
Sometimes it is, but veryrarely.
(07:53):
And if you can be bothexternally successful and
internally fulfilled, that's amountain that gets higher as you
climb it and you know you'rethere.
It took me until my 30s to getthere, but you know you're there
when you sit there and go.
Okay, I want my future to be anamplified version of what it
already is.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
That is so important, the common theme I have with so
many of my guests.
I had it all.
I had the money, I had the job,I had the house.
It was all my dream and I hatedevery second of it.
Like the house was blah, myfamily, like whatever you know,
and it was just my dream and Ihated every second of it.
Like the house was blah, myfamily, like whatever you know,
and it was just miserable andthey were miserable.
Um, but I think you bring upsuch an important point of the
(08:31):
other side of that, where therehas to be a happy medium, where
it's not all just aboutfulfillment.
Um, well, I mean it is, but wealso have to have the balance of
having income, like there'snothing wrong with that, like
it's good to make money.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
It's necessary.
It's not just good, it'snecessary because you can't
sustain fulfillment without it.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yes, so tell me about that.
Can you tell me, then, how thatjourney evolved and what tips
you have for our audience, whoare looking for that, that
fulfillment plus income, profit,having a life, not just slaving
away?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yeah, it's important.
It's very hard to do bothbecause, like I said, it's
you're either.
You're either you either workto live, and those people end up
successful but unfulfilled, oryou live to work.
No, no, let me rephrase youeither work to live, and those
people end up less successfulbecause they maybe don't grind
enough.
But there's other people wholive to work the workaholics
right and those people end upunfulfilled but super successful
(09:34):
.
It's very hard to balance thatpendulum and stay centered in
that.
I mean, it's, it's a wholething, it's a lifelong journey
that never ends.
But just to provide context.
So I started out as a fitnesscoach and then I was a mindset
coach and then I was a peakperformance coach little short
time life coach and then Ibecame a business consultant and
(09:54):
then eventually it was businesscoach.
But here's what I figured outPeople don't pay for a personal
development coach, but they dopay for a business coach.
So people come to you for whatthey think they want and then
you give them what they actuallyneed.
So people come to me becausethey want me to help them grow
their revenue and that they'llpay for that.
(10:15):
Right, if I grow your revenueby 30%, and that's an additional
$300,000, you can pay me aportion of that, not a problem,
right?
People invest in businesscoaches, especially people that
are early entrepreneurs thatdon't know what they're doing.
However, what it ends up beingis personal development.
It always so.
To me it's goals, priorities,metrics, habits, skills and
(10:37):
identity.
And then after that, after youhave the dreams, goals,
priorities, metrics, habits andskills in alignment, you realize
you're not doing it.
And the reason you're not doingit is the inner stuff, the core
wounds, the trauma, the fears,fear of success, fear of failure
, you name it judgment,judgmental relatives, social
media, all this stuff.
(10:57):
So to me, the reverseengineering piece of what to do
is easy, the how to do it iseasy I know that's a unique to
my math brain thing but thegetting someone to actually do
it, now that's.
Anyone can teach you how tolose weight.
Almost no one can get you to doit.
I've learned how to press theright buttons and I now have a
disclaimer with my clients whereI say I care about your success
(11:20):
first, your fulfillment secondand your feelings third.
And I have them give me verbaland written permission to be
sort of hard on them because Isaid listen, this is not therapy
, this is coaching.
I'm not going to tell youthings, and this is something
for your listeners too.
If you aren't more successfulright now, it's one of two
things.
Either number one you haven'tgiven it enough time for the
(11:42):
seeds to actually grow into thetree.
You haven't given it enoughtime for the seeds to actually
grow into the tree, okay.
Or number two, it's not.
I'll tell you what it's not.
It's not because you don'tbelieve enough in what you
already believe.
I think we're all a lot like aprogrammed self-driving car that
doesn't have accurate data.
So a self-driving car needsthree things to succeed, and
(12:02):
this is just a little goalachievement thing.
It needs accurateself-awareness, which is an
accurate current location.
It needs an accuratedestination location and it
needs updated data of theterrain.
If it thinks it's a road whenit's really a cliff, you're
going to keep driving off acliff and then blaming the world
or blaming yourself or blamingothers, when in reality, you
just have inaccurate data.
(12:25):
So I'm the hyper rationalengineer full disclaimer who
basically comes in and shows youwhere you're inaccurate in your
thinking, because inaccuratethinking is the root cause of
why people aren't achieving whatthey should achieve.
I'll give you an example I hada mentor early on.
He said you feel really good atthe beach, I feel really good at
(12:45):
the bank because he was areally successful
multimillionaire CEO and we usedto do fitness together and he
would teach me business and Iwould teach him fitness.
It was a whole thing.
He said, Alan, red wine doesn'thave a lot of calories.
And I said, jeff, who the helltold you that I send?
him a screenshot nine ounces ofred wine, 212 calories.
He's like oh, I've been goingoff that for three years.
(13:07):
I drink red wine all the time.
Brother, brother, wrong data.
You cannot make effectivechoices with inaccurate
understanding.
So we all come into this worldnaked, scared and ignorant and
we don't know anything.
We don't know anything and wethink our, our parents do.
How wrong were we about thatright?
(13:29):
And we think our teachers know,and they do and don't.
But they know their subjectwell and nothing else
necessarily.
So that's been alarming for meand I my childhood wasn't great.
So ultimately, to answer yourquestion is fulfillment is a
study, success is a study andyou have to study both of them,
practice both of them and teachboth of them, because that's the
learning loop Study, practice,teach, study, practice, teach,
study, practice, teach.
(13:49):
And so to me, I'm workingreally hard to integrate my life
so that I'm not just theworkaholic achiever guy but also
fulfilled along the way.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
I think that makes a lot of sense.
And, and something that Ithought of when you were saying
how we have to take care of usfor the success because we're
trying to do these things iskind of like when someone says,
oh, you have to wake up early,wake up two hours early, but if
you're in a lot of pain, ifyou're getting headaches all the
(14:21):
time, if you're not sleeping,how can you do that?
You're not going to befunctional if you do that, and
so you're trying to get up atsix in the morning and you're
trying to do all these thingsbut your body literally can't
because you're not providing thethings that it needs.
It makes a lot of sense whenyou see, well, that's why you
don't have success, it's notthat you're lazy, it's that
(14:42):
you're just fucking tired andyou're working against yourself.
So I think that makes a lot ofsense.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Well, that's why I like the overcome yourself,
because we all have a highestself and a human self, and if
you don't take care of the humanself, the highest self can't
drive.
We've all been hung over, orwhatever I have.
I've been hung over.
I quit drinking.
I tried to quit drinking 10years ago.
It took me five years.
I've now been sober for fiveyears, but I used to wake up in
(15:09):
the morning hung over, and it'slike the last thing I'm going to
do is is have a productive,fulfilling change of the world
day.
When your basic needs aren't met, you can't think about changing
the world, or your career.
Or 30 years old, you know, whenyou're 20, think of 30,.
When you're 30, think of 40,like future orientation.
I agree with you.
(15:30):
There's no one size fits allapproach to personal development
or to success or to fulfillment.
However, there are principlesthat apply to everybody, but the
way you apply them, it's like achess game.
Right, the horse always doesthat move.
However, everyone needs to playchess based on their own unique
goals, their own unique context, their own unique core values
(15:54):
and their own unique body tooright.
So a good idea for you might bea bad idea for me.
A bad idea for me might be agood idea for you, and that's
why I think it's so hard for meon podcasts, because I like
coaching better and I'm gratefulto be here, so don't take that
the wrong way.
But like the wider net isharder for me and that's why I
asked you who's your listener,because all of the advice or
(16:19):
guidance, for lack of betterphrasing, the compass, the
guidance, is going to be off ifI'm talking to someone.
I'll give you an example.
I had a client and one of myother clients is this client's
therapist, and I found outthrough the grapevine not from
the therapist, she did not breakconfidentiality that this
person's in $90,000 of debt.
(16:40):
Now she told me she was in nodebt.
I'm her business coach.
Everything I advised is nowwrong, because if you're 90
grand in debt, we have tore-optimize everything, and I'm
not making that wrong.
I mean there's a lot of peoplein debt, but if I don't know the
data, I'm going to drive us offa cliff on accident and then
get you in some trouble, right?
(17:00):
So I now am a lot more carefuland try to notice when people
are hiding certain things thatthey're ashamed of, because I'm
going to give advice based onwhen you're putting on a show.
You're going to get the wrongadvice because people are going
to give advice to that fakeperson.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and I think you
made an important distinctionwhen you were talking about
having a therapist versus havinga coach.
You need both of them on yourteam, probably.
I have both Right right, right,and that's one of the things
about leadership, about success,is having a team that can help
(17:40):
you deal with all the differentareas of yourself, because there
are certain things, like one ofthe things I talk about.
I used to cry every day, I usedto have panic attacks every day
, come to find out I had avitamin deficiency and there was
absolutely no coach who wasgoing to coach me out of that.
Yeah, 100% nutritionist, right,so you need to.
You need to have a team ofpeople that are helping you take
(18:01):
care, and once, exactly whatyou were talking about, once, I
was able to take care of that.
Once the doctor was like, like,here, you're going to take this
vitamin.
Well, now my mind was clear.
I didn't have this overwhelmingcloud.
I didn't have the you know, thepanic attacks Like you
literally stop breathing, you'reshaking, like it's a whole
thing.
You can't function, I, I, Icouldn't function.
(18:21):
And then I was like well, why amI not doing more?
Because you're tired, becauseyou've got something going on in
your brain and you're trying,you're driving off a cliff, and
every time you make this littleturn, you're like and it's
because you're driving off acliff, right, um?
And so I think it's reallyimportant just to to say that,
yes, you need a team andeverything is very specific.
(18:42):
Um, yep, because any advicethat coaches could have given me
well, just just stop crying.
You know like, just practicegratitude.
All of that helped.
That's what I learned, but itdidn't fix what was going on,
and so I think it makes a lot ofsense.
I understand the casting, thewide net versus, you know, being
more specific.
(19:02):
So bring it back around togratitude.
Can you tell me what partgratitude up in two different?
Speaker 2 (19:09):
I'm going to over-categorize for a second,
(19:32):
and I'm doing this knowing I'mover-categorizing, so just
everyone out there watching orlistening understand that.
So I was with a mom not longago who has four children and
she said I should have been alittle more cautious of my ex
because he was an only child andthis person.
(19:53):
I'm not saying that all onlychildren are bad.
That's not what I'm saying atall.
What I am saying is that,statistically speaking, I do
think that only childs tend tobe a little more entitled.
I think there's a correlationthere and it makes sense because
they get all of the attentionright.
It makes sense and your siblingisn't beating you up and you
know telling you you're dumb, Ihad an older sister who beat me
(20:14):
at everything until I was like15.
Right, um and so, uh, we're allborn into one of two sort of
buckets.
Bucket one is the, the bucketthat I didn't, didn't choose.
That was really quite atrociousand I need to be as clear as
possible.
I had a lot of really wonderfulthings too, but right now I'm
(20:36):
going to highlight the lessideal things.
Okay, father passed away, neverknew him.
I was two years old.
Older sister who was six.
Mom was 31,.
Stay-at-home mom.
Years old, older sister who wassix, mom was 31,.
Stay at home mom.
So we were broke and my stepdadcame into the picture and he
left at 14.
Okay so, and my mom and stepdaddid not get along, and that's a
polite way to put it on apublic medium.
So for me that the whole, likestepdad leaving, going from
(21:01):
boats and ski trips, like he gotthe apartment building in the
yacht, we got the house and thedog and we didn't know how we're
going to keep the house.
And while there was somewonderful things for sure in my
childhood, ninetiescom bubbleAmerica, I mean there's some
good stuff, right, I mean thenineties were wild.
I mean especially in the U?
S, by far the largest economyin the world still, but back in
(21:23):
the nineties it was anotherlevel, it was wild, but at home
things weren't good.
From the outside, looking in,it looked great.
From the inside out not so good.
What's my point?
When you have so much strippedfrom you from such a young age,
you lose entitlement.
Any spoiled brat syndrome thatyou have is just ripped out from
under you.
Now there's good and bad newswith that.
(21:44):
The bad news is you usuallyhave low self-worth and you
usually struggle with self-worthbecause you're so used to
losing.
The good news is, if you havehigh self-belief, you will have
a positive trauma response tothat adversity.
That's a big if, though, mytrauma response to adversity
(22:07):
overcoming was aim higher, workharder, get smarter.
Aim higher, work harder, getsmarter.
Aim higher, work harder, getsmarter.
Now, as I've aged in my 30s,I've come to realize that's very
, very rare.
Most people who deal with ahigh ACE score adverse childhood
experiences usually end upearly mortality and not actually
(22:27):
believing in themselves andhaving no self-worth.
Okay, but the good news is isthey're not entitled.
They're willing to work forthings.
The problem is they're usuallywilling to work for other people
, be treated like shit, thatwhole thing Okay, so they need
to work on self-worth andself-belief.
The other bucket is the bucketthat I have a hard time working
with, which is the people whowant big rewards for minimal
(22:50):
effort, the people who were kindof handed everything, the
people who they just haveinflated self-worth.
They don't mean to, they justthink they're awesome and and
and they're so used to.
I had an ex-girlfriend who, whowas given a lot from a very,
very young age and she has thissort of air of high value and
entitlement that just didn'tvibe well with me.
(23:12):
And I think that as anentrepreneur speaking just to
entrepreneurs if you have anylevel of entitlement, you are
screwed.
Because people say, oh, I wantto start a business because I
want more free time like dumbestidea ever, because for the
first decade, it's going to benothing short of absolutely
brutal.
And this is coming from someonewho, like, has passed the
(23:32):
million-dollar mark through justbrute force sweat equity.
Kevin and I, my businesspartner, came from nothing, both
without fathers, like, he hasno entitlement, and that's why
we win, because people say, well, you're your own boss and all
this stuff.
No, no, listen, I work with 106podcasters and business owners.
They're all my boss, right.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
If they don't, if I don't, generate revenue.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
We don't pay the team .
We don't pay the team, thebusiness dies.
Like it's different than whatpeople think.
That said my point of thiswhole thing gratitude.
How does it come in?
To bring it back to gratitudeFor me, we had our heat go out
last week, the furnace and Isaid I talked to my girlfriend,
amelia, future wife.
Uh, we lived together and I said, sweetheart, that was good for
(24:13):
me.
And she said what do you mean?
I said I remember what it waslike to go to salvation army for
clothing.
I needed a little bit ofperspective.
Like it was good to not haveheat.
We had space heaters and it wasgood for me to see how good I
have it.
Because now I have a you knowbeautiful condo and I drive a
(24:34):
Tesla and you know everything'syou know 18 person team and
beautiful computers andelectricity and running water,
and I mean this was built in2005.
It's a really nice place andHOA fees and everybody does the
landscaping for me.
So I've gotten soft.
I haven't because I've not letmyself.
To me, you have to have abalance of and I don't want this
(24:55):
to come off as toxicmasculinity, because it's not
but you have to have thisduality of like listen, if you
took it all away, I can build itback because I'm I've learned
how to, how to be grateful foreven running water.
Okay, seriously, like I filledup my water earlier thinking
like, wow, filtered runningwater, like this is wonderful
(25:16):
and I'm also going to be very,very successful.
So it's like how do you knowyour value?
But also be grateful for eventhe little things and then the
big things you can strive for.
And so I'm a little weird withthis, but I'm, I'm striving,
never arriving for me, I'mtrying to reach my potential and
a lot of people, they, they do,they, they start to arrive and
(25:37):
they forget what it was like inthe beginning, when they had to
build it all from scratch.
So I try really hard to hold onto where I came from, um, which
was really adverse, reallyadverse, and I think that helps
me stay grateful along the way,even though things are obviously
wonderful.
I mean, I have nice clothes andI can afford, you know,
whatever I want within reason,it's different, it's a different
game than it used to be, but Ican't lose that like, that drive
(26:01):
and that lack of entitlement.
That's what actually built it.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Know yeah, to be able to.
I don't want to have to lookback and be like man I had it so
good and I didn't even realizeit.
I want to live every day and belike I'm so grateful for the
seat, I'm so grateful for thephone, I'm so grateful for you,
alan, like everything around me.
I have to intentionally chooseto practice gratitude for it,
(26:28):
because we all know that life,the only thing certain, is that
things change, like everythingchanges, and so how can I enjoy
this moment where I am right now, cause it's the only thing that
really exists, is right now,right.
And so gratitude brings us backhere, and I love how you, how
you counter that.
And you're like, I remember,because it's so easy to be like,
(26:50):
oh, it's just water.
Well, what if the pipes breakone day and then you don't got
water?
Now you can't even make coffee.
And you're like oh my God.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
And so, yeah, that's real adversity If you can't make
coffee.
That's really.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Right, but yeah, like you know, it's not that you
don't pay the power, but what if, just you know, a transformer
goes out and your whole buildingloses power?
Like there's literally nothingyou can do.
Well, you know, I'm gratefulfor my hurricane supplies, Right
?
Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
When you learn how to be grateful for the little
things you, you expand yourability to work hard for the,
for the, for the greater things.
I mean I had to be grateful forfour listens a day back in the
day and it took us an entireyear, 52 weeks, not missing a
single episode, to get 1056listens, and now we get more
(27:45):
than that every day.
So I just I never want to losesight of that, because I think
that's when you get arrogant,and I've been guilty of that in
the past.
Right, I've had the humble piemoments hitting the head with a
brick metaphorically.
And then why wasn't I moregrateful?
Every time I get sick, it'slike why wasn't I more grateful,
Right?
So I just want to stay ingratitude.
But you also got to strive too,Because if you're only grateful
(28:07):
, maybe you're not as motivated.
So you got to do bothsimultaneously.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yes, and actually that's something I talk about in
my book, where I say gratefulis not about settling, right, I
don't say that specifically, butthe idea is it's not about just
being grateful and then stayingthere.
It's about being grateful whereI am but then still striving
for whatever it is that I want.
But it's a journey, right, andit's not about settling, but
it's about being here and now.
(28:33):
I don't want to be miserable.
I'm like well, my goal was amillion dollars and I don't have
a million dollars.
So like, whoa is me?
Speaker 2 (28:39):
like that no.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Well, I'm grateful for you know the amount that I
have towards the million.
Am I paying attention to howmany dollars I've made since I
said that, like, am I actuallycounting?
Or has a million dollars hit myaccount and I already spent it
and I didn't even realize, likeyou know.
So it's.
It brings us right back intothis moment.
I love that so much and I canonly imagine that gratitude help
(29:01):
you after your accident Likethat must've been so scary.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
It was all of the humble pie all at once.
And I always say we have threecircles of the ego.
I'll be brief with it, but theexternal circle is what you want
others to believe about you.
The next circle in is what youwant to believe about you, the
story you tell yourself aboutyourself.
And then the inner circle iswho you really are and what you
are when no one's watching thecar accident.
(29:29):
Yeah, I collapsed, all threecircles, and then I could build
from a place of humility,courage and vulnerability.
And my new sneaky goal behindthe scenes, when no one's
watching, is how do I keep thosecircles the same?
How do I keep those circles thesame?
Because the moment I startgetting cocky, you and we coach
couples, my girlfriend and I.
We've been doing it for fouryears and I'm telling you right
(29:59):
now, when you see the front ofthe scenes from the outside in
and then you see from the insideout, it's a two different
worlds.
There's the real world andthere's the social world.
The social world is the weddingphotos.
The real world is the marriage,which one matters more in real
life, right, despite theInstagram photos.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
So don't get me wrong .
Speaker 2 (30:15):
I'm a marketer too.
I got a market Like myInstagram looks nice too, but
I'm telling you, my real worldneeds to be the focal point and
then have that ripple into thesocial world, not the other way
around, because that's what I.
I fell victim to that for alittle while in my twenties and
I was just miserable.
I was just miserable.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, and I relate to that because
when I was 21, I went to thedoctor.
I found out that I had a backof a disabled elderly woman, and
a few months, a few years later, I found myself not being able
to walk.
I don't remember what I did,but I couldn't even go to the
bathroom, and so I learned whathumble is like needing help
(30:54):
going to the bathroom.
There's nothing that humblesyou like that you know so like
being in a situation like thatwhere you're hurt and and now
you need to depend on people andwho's there, and now you're all
alone, you have nothing todistract you, and now you got to
sit with yourself and you gotto be like well, oh, that was a
hell of a growth transformationright there Huh.
(31:16):
Right, right so like I'm justrelating to you, to what
happened to you, the caraccident and that, yeah, that's
called post-traumatic growth.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah, it's really powerful.
And the PTSD for me was theretoo.
So I want to be clear Like it'sboth, it's two sides of the
coin.
One of them is double yellowlines scared me, you know.
I couldn't get in a car for alittle while.
I kept getting pulled overbecause I was too far on my side
of the road.
I got claustrophobic ceilingfans walking in and out of
(31:45):
doorways, like PTSD is a thing.
And the car accident messed meup a little bit, but I worked
through it, worked through it,worked through it, got help.
And then the post-traumaticgrowth, though I mean whoa,
right, right, and I know youprobably feel the same way about
you know similarly, about youruh, realizing the illness in the
back and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
oh yeah, like the other day um, it's been 20 years
because it all started when Iwas like nine and I had a boat
accident and I saw a video ofthese really big waves.
They were like 40 foot waves.
Somebody was on a boat and Iwent into a full panic attack
because it triggered me and andI was like, oh my God, and I got
so nervous, um and so, yeah, so20, 25 years later, like, still
, I get triggered sometimes andso, yeah, I can relate to that.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Um, all right, Anyone who drives fast with me in a
car.
Yeah, yeah, and who drives fastin a car like I grabbed the
handle and you know, my dad diedin a car.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
So yeah, 100 and yeah , I know we're over time, yeah
good, no, no, you're fine, but,um, it's just so powerful and
it's so true, because I do talka lot about the, the recovery
and how I got strong.
And somebody was like, but didyou like get sad?
Speaker 2 (32:46):
and I was like, oh fuck, yeah, I got sad, like I
was really sad, yeah sad, italways comes before growth
that's how you know you'regrowing it's sadness, and then
you transform it into motivation, and then you transform
Actually I call it full-onDisney princess crying, you know
, like on your bed.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
I went into the depths of it.
But let us know how can we stayin touch with you, alan?
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah, so the website is nextleveluniversecom All one
word spelled just like it soundsnextleveluniversecom.
The podcast is Next LevelUniversity.
It's a place you go to learnhow to reach your own unique
potential, your own uniqueversion of success.
1% improvement in your pocket,from anywhere on the planet,
completely free, every singleday.
(33:31):
Next Level you pun intended.
Next Level University.
Next Level you pun intendedbecause it's not us but you and
you can reach out on Instagramalazarus88, a-l-a-z-a-r-o-s-8-8
on Instagram, and I also sentyou a link to book a free
breakthrough session.
If anyone wants to grow, scale,start, monetize a business
(33:53):
online.
I've been doing this for a long, long, long time.
I made a lot of mistakes and Ican definitely accelerate your
progress.
I'm not going to help you skipsteps, because I think that's
kind of fake, but I will helpyou accelerate your progress way
faster than I did.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Yes, it's like learning math, like you got to
learn how to do it the long way.
So you know how to shorten it,right, but you got to do it the
long way first.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
It's an accumulation, yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Yes.
So last tip, what's like thebiggest aha moment, the biggest
thing you tell your clients thatjust changes their whole life.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
The first one is the Pareto principle.
It's 20% of your time andeffort is responsible for 80% of
your results, and I'm going todo a little bit of math here for
a second.
But if you take 20% of 20% of20% of 20%, you get 0.04%
Meaning in life, we're alljuggling a lot of balls right
Wife, husband, pets, kids, house, career, fitness, all of it.
(34:52):
However, if you get really goodat finding the things that
matter a lot and focusing moreof your effort, more of your
time, more of your effort onthose things, you get leverage.
The world is exponential andI'm an engineer so I'm always
looking for the leverage points,like this podcast, for example.
(35:12):
Coaching, training andpodcasting are what's necessary
for my career, for my impact,for my profitability.
That if you figure out whatyour big three are not one but
three and then focus most ofyour intentional effort there,
that brings a far greater returnlong term, because we all in
the 21st century get verydistracted very easily and
(35:36):
unfortunately, that basicallymeans you're going to wander
around and drift around, like Idid, and you'll end up a
wandering generality instead ofa meaningful, specific who's
both fulfilled and successful,like the world will only know
you for a couple things.
You got to make sure that youyou pigeonhole yourself, but in
a way that it's meaningful, uh,progress for you, that you
pigeonhole yourself, but in away that it's meaningful
(35:56):
progress for you.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Phenomenal.
That is amazing, thank you.
Thank you, alan.
This has been wonderful.
I really appreciate you,everything you've shared with us
and your amazing knowledge, andwe will catch you guys next
time on the next episode ofOvercome Yourself.
Bye, thank you.
Hello there and welcome back to the next episode
of Overcome Yourself, thepodcast.
As you know, my name is Nicoleand I'm so excited to be here
today with Alan.
Alan has quite the story ofovercoming and making it out,
and look at all his amazingcertificates behind him.
So we cannot wait to hear hisamazing journey.
So, alan, take it away.
Please introduce yourself.
(00:22):
Tell us a little bit about youand who you help.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Nicole, first and foremost, thank you so much for
having me.
You mentioned in the pre-chatabout gratitude being
foundational for you and for me.
I started listening to podcasts10 years ago after a tough car
accident I had.
That we can get into, butpodcasts and podcasters really
helped me sort of reorient mylife in a much more positive
(00:47):
direction, and now I get to dothat, too, for a living, so it's
really cool.
Thank you so much for having me, first and foremost.
As for the certificates andawards behind me, I was
reluctant to have this as mybackdrop, but the truth of the
matter is I look 15, and oldermen don't like being coached by
(01:07):
someone who looks 12.
And so I needed to build somecredibility there.
But I think more than that.
Rather than just coming off aspretentious with all my books
and awards, I think what itcomes down to more than anything
is that I just believe inachievement so much.
I believe in overcomingadversity as well as you do, and
to me, I think there's twotypes of adversity.
There's the adversity that lifethrows at you, which you and I
(01:29):
had a lot of early on.
You lost your mom when you wereone, and I lost my dad when I
was two, and that's theadversity life throws at you
that is out of your control.
But there's another type ofadversity that's good for growth
, which is the adversity thatcomes from setting big goals and
working toward achievements.
So I think there's, you know,we grow from both, both the
(01:50):
things we don't want and thethings that we do want.
So, in terms of telling alittle bit about myself, the
very, very, very short versionis I lost my father when I was
two.
He was 28, in a car accident.
I had a stepfather from agethree to 14.
He left my family at 14, took90% of the income with him.
So we went from pretty well offduring the dot-com bubble in
Massachusetts, new England, topretty much broke.
(02:14):
And how are we going to keepthe house and the family?
How am I going to affordcollege?
Mom trades in her BMW for alittle Honda Civic.
I get free lunch at school nowbecause our income is so low.
He took his entire extendedfamily with him.
Same year hardest year of mylife my mom gets in a fight with
my aunt Sandy, her sister, andwe get kind of ostracized from
that side of the family too.
So I'm 14.
(02:36):
People are telling me these arethe best years of my life.
And I'm sitting there thinking,god, I hope not, because this
is just atrocious.
And you think I look young now.
Imagine me at 14, right,because this is just atrocious.
And you think I look young now.
Imagine me at 14, right,overlooked by every girl,
literally and figuratively,because I was, you know, five
feet tall.
But ultimately that was thehardest year of my life and I
had two trauma responses to that, unconsciously, none of this
(02:57):
was conscious at the time Fight,flight, freeze and fawn are the
four trauma responses Mostpeople know.
Fight and flight, fight, flight, freeze and fawn are the four
trauma responses Most peopleknow.
Fight and flight Fawn was theone that I didn't become aware
of until my late 20s, early 30s.
I'm 36 now and fawn was my bigone.
So socially I became this sortof social coward chameleon
(03:17):
please don't abandon me type ofguy.
But behind the scenes, when noone was watching, I became this
super achiever dude Because Ilooked into the future and I saw
, okay, no dad, no stepdad, noincome.
Really, mom and sister, youknow, aren't doing super well in
the economy, kind of the man ofthe house by 14.
(03:37):
And there's no generationalwealth.
There's no trust fund Likewe're in some trouble here and I
went from I hope I get into mydream college, wpi, worcester
Polytechnic Institute.
It's a engineering college andit was 50 grand a year back then
.
So I went from I hope I get into when my stepdad left.
Even if I do get in, I don'tknow how I'm going to go.
So I bootstrapped and I gotstraight A's in high school, got
(03:58):
all the scholarships andfinancial aid I could, the
awards behind me PresidentGeorge W Bush has a letter
that's signed by him behind mecalled the President's Award and
basically it means you getstraight A's through all of high
school.
So I became this sort of socialchameleon, coward, but behind
the scenes just so much driveit's not even funny.
So fortunately I gotscholarships in financial aid,
(04:19):
computer engineering degree,master's in business.
Off to the races, succeed,succeed, succeed.
Corporate became a 1% earner inmy early 20s.
All different tech companies,computer engineer 21st century
it makes sense, especially after08 when things are coming back.
Now I'm in my early 20s.
(04:39):
I paid off 84 grand worth ofcollege debt in a single year.
That was my dream to bedebt-free and had $150,000 in a
Vanguard account with all techcompanies and I was used to
going without.
So I drove a $5,000 car.
I bought cash.
My rent was $500 a month.
I was broke in high school andcollege so I didn't know what it
was like to have money, so Ijust banked it all and invested
(05:03):
it all.
Then I get in my car accident.
So I'm 26 at the time.
That was 10 years ago.
I'm 36 now, even though I look12.
And that was my sort of quarterlife existential crisis my
fault, head-on collision.
Thank you, volkswagen Passat.
Thank you, thank you Car.
The tank Totally saved my life,both airbags deployed.
(05:25):
We were okay, my little cousinand I.
So that for me was the turningpoint of okay.
I've achieved a lot of my dreams.
I know my boss's boss's boss.
I work for industrialautomation.
I'm a sales engineer forVermont, connecticut, western
Massachusetts, for a companycalled Cognex.
(05:46):
I make almost $200,000 a yearand that's increasing rapidly.
But I'm unfulfilled and thetruth of the matter is it's
really important to besuccessful and fulfilled and I
so I flipped the script and Idid this wrong and I'll explain.
But I went all in after that onfulfillment.
(06:06):
That's when I found personaldevelopment, personal growth,
self-improvement.
Personal fulfillment.
That's when I worked on myselfmental health.
So I went inward, started alittle company called Alan
Lazarus LLC what you'll neverlearn in school but desperately
need to know Went broke,liquidated all my assets, went
past zero, into debt again.
Llc what you'll never learn inschool but desperately need to
(06:28):
know went broke, liquidated allmy assets, went past zero, into
debt again and went broke.
And then we started a podcastthat was called the
Hyperconscious Podcast and it'snow called Next Level University
175 countries, you know,million plus listens, million
plus dollars as a business 18person team now which is is wild
.
But the point that I'm making isfor a while there I went from
externally successful andinternally unfulfilled to I
(06:50):
flipped the script and I gotfulfilled, happy, healthy,
productive, fitness model,fitness competitor, fitness
coach I've got the bodybuildingtrophies behind me, fell in love
with working on myself, but Iwent broke.
So I went from externallysuccessful and internally
unfulfilled to super fulfilledinternally.
But now I can't sustain itbecause I ran out of money,
which also kind of sucks.
(07:11):
Right, it's better, but itstill sucks.
And the point and I'll get offthe soap box here in a second
the point here that I've come torealize after coaching.
I've been coaching for 10 yearsnow, mentoring for the first two
and then coaching for eight.
The only difference is Istarted getting paid, but
ultimately the last 10 years hasbeen behind the scenes
thousands and thousands andthousands and thousands of hours
literally 7,000 plus.
(07:32):
I track everything.
I'm an engineer, coachingsessions one-on-one with people
all over the world, so I'm notjust talking.
External success plus internalfulfillment is extremely
difficult to do, and the reasonwhy is because what the economy
pays a lot for is very rarelythe most meaningful work.
Sometimes it is, but veryrarely.
(07:53):
And if you can be bothexternally successful and
internally fulfilled, that's amountain that gets higher as you
climb it and you know you'rethere.
It took me until my 30s to getthere, but you know you're there
when you sit there and go.
Okay, I want my future to be anamplified version of what it
already is.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
That is so important, the common theme I have with so
many of my guests.
I had it all.
I had the money, I had the job,I had the house.
It was all my dream and I hatedevery second of it.
Like the house was blah, myfamily, like whatever you know,
and it was just my dream and Ihated every second of it.
Like the house was blah, myfamily, like whatever you know,
and it was just miserable andthey were miserable.
Um, but I think you bring upsuch an important point of the
(08:31):
other side of that, where therehas to be a happy medium, where
it's not all just aboutfulfillment.
Um, well, I mean it is, but wealso have to have the balance of
having income, like there'snothing wrong with that, like
it's good to make money.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
It's necessary.
It's not just good, it'snecessary because you can't
sustain fulfillment without it.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yes, so tell me about that.
Can you tell me, then, how thatjourney evolved and what tips
you have for our audience, whoare looking for that, that
fulfillment plus income, profit,having a life, not just slaving
away?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yeah, it's important.
It's very hard to do bothbecause, like I said, it's
you're either.
You're either you either workto live, and those people end up
successful but unfulfilled, oryou live to work.
No, no, let me rephrase youeither work to live, and those
people end up less successfulbecause they maybe don't grind
enough.
But there's other people wholive to work the workaholics
right and those people end upunfulfilled but super successful
(09:34):
.
It's very hard to balance thatpendulum and stay centered in
that.
I mean, it's, it's a wholething, it's a lifelong journey
that never ends.
But just to provide context.
So I started out as a fitnesscoach and then I was a mindset
coach and then I was a peakperformance coach little short
time life coach and then Ibecame a business consultant and
(09:54):
then eventually it was businesscoach.
But here's what I figured outPeople don't pay for a personal
development coach, but they dopay for a business coach.
So people come to you for whatthey think they want and then
you give them what they actuallyneed.
So people come to me becausethey want me to help them grow
their revenue and that they'llpay for that.
(10:15):
Right, if I grow your revenueby 30%, and that's an additional
$300,000, you can pay me aportion of that, not a problem,
right?
People invest in businesscoaches, especially people that
are early entrepreneurs thatdon't know what they're doing.
However, what it ends up beingis personal development.
It always so.
To me it's goals, priorities,metrics, habits, skills and
(10:37):
identity.
And then after that, after youhave the dreams, goals,
priorities, metrics, habits andskills in alignment, you realize
you're not doing it.
And the reason you're not doingit is the inner stuff, the core
wounds, the trauma, the fears,fear of success, fear of failure
, you name it judgment,judgmental relatives, social
media, all this stuff.
(10:57):
So to me, the reverseengineering piece of what to do
is easy, the how to do it iseasy I know that's a unique to
my math brain thing but thegetting someone to actually do
it, now that's.
Anyone can teach you how tolose weight.
Almost no one can get you to doit.
I've learned how to press theright buttons and I now have a
disclaimer with my clients whereI say I care about your success
(11:20):
first, your fulfillment secondand your feelings third.
And I have them give me verbaland written permission to be
sort of hard on them because Isaid listen, this is not therapy
, this is coaching.
I'm not going to tell youthings, and this is something
for your listeners too.
If you aren't more successfulright now, it's one of two
things.
Either number one you haven'tgiven it enough time for the
(11:42):
seeds to actually grow into thetree.
You haven't given it enoughtime for the seeds to actually
grow into the tree, okay.
Or number two, it's not.
I'll tell you what it's not.
It's not because you don'tbelieve enough in what you
already believe.
I think we're all a lot like aprogrammed self-driving car that
doesn't have accurate data.
So a self-driving car needsthree things to succeed, and
(12:02):
this is just a little goalachievement thing.
It needs accurateself-awareness, which is an
accurate current location.
It needs an accuratedestination location and it
needs updated data of theterrain.
If it thinks it's a road whenit's really a cliff, you're
going to keep driving off acliff and then blaming the world
or blaming yourself or blamingothers, when in reality, you
just have inaccurate data.
(12:25):
So I'm the hyper rationalengineer full disclaimer who
basically comes in and shows youwhere you're inaccurate in your
thinking, because inaccuratethinking is the root cause of
why people aren't achieving whatthey should achieve.
I'll give you an example I hada mentor early on.
He said you feel really good atthe beach, I feel really good at
(12:45):
the bank because he was areally successful
multimillionaire CEO and we usedto do fitness together and he
would teach me business and Iwould teach him fitness.
It was a whole thing.
He said, Alan, red wine doesn'thave a lot of calories.
And I said, jeff, who the helltold you that I send?
him a screenshot nine ounces ofred wine, 212 calories.
He's like oh, I've been goingoff that for three years.
(13:07):
I drink red wine all the time.
Brother, brother, wrong data.
You cannot make effectivechoices with inaccurate
understanding.
So we all come into this worldnaked, scared and ignorant and
we don't know anything.
We don't know anything and wethink our, our parents do.
How wrong were we about thatright?
(13:29):
And we think our teachers know,and they do and don't.
But they know their subjectwell and nothing else
necessarily.
So that's been alarming for meand I my childhood wasn't great.
So ultimately, to answer yourquestion is fulfillment is a
study, success is a study andyou have to study both of them,
practice both of them and teachboth of them, because that's the
learning loop Study, practice,teach, study, practice, teach,
study, practice, teach.
(13:49):
And so to me, I'm workingreally hard to integrate my life
so that I'm not just theworkaholic achiever guy but also
fulfilled along the way.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
I think that makes a lot of sense.
And, and something that Ithought of when you were saying
how we have to take care of usfor the success because we're
trying to do these things iskind of like when someone says,
oh, you have to wake up early,wake up two hours early, but if
you're in a lot of pain, ifyou're getting headaches all the
(14:21):
time, if you're not sleeping,how can you do that?
You're not going to befunctional if you do that, and
so you're trying to get up atsix in the morning and you're
trying to do all these thingsbut your body literally can't
because you're not providing thethings that it needs.
It makes a lot of sense whenyou see, well, that's why you
don't have success, it's notthat you're lazy, it's that
(14:42):
you're just fucking tired andyou're working against yourself.
So I think that makes a lot ofsense.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Well, that's why I like the overcome yourself,
because we all have a highestself and a human self, and if
you don't take care of the humanself, the highest self can't
drive.
We've all been hung over, orwhatever I have.
I've been hung over.
I quit drinking.
I tried to quit drinking 10years ago.
It took me five years.
I've now been sober for fiveyears, but I used to wake up in
(15:09):
the morning hung over, and it'slike the last thing I'm going to
do is is have a productive,fulfilling change of the world
day.
When your basic needs aren't met, you can't think about changing
the world, or your career.
Or 30 years old, you know, whenyou're 20, think of 30,.
When you're 30, think of 40,like future orientation.
I agree with you.
(15:30):
There's no one size fits allapproach to personal development
or to success or to fulfillment.
However, there are principlesthat apply to everybody, but the
way you apply them, it's like achess game.
Right, the horse always doesthat move.
However, everyone needs to playchess based on their own unique
goals, their own unique context, their own unique core values
(15:54):
and their own unique body tooright.
So a good idea for you might bea bad idea for me.
A bad idea for me might be agood idea for you, and that's
why I think it's so hard for meon podcasts, because I like
coaching better and I'm gratefulto be here, so don't take that
the wrong way.
But like the wider net isharder for me and that's why I
asked you who's your listener,because all of the advice or
(16:19):
guidance, for lack of betterphrasing, the compass, the
guidance, is going to be off ifI'm talking to someone.
I'll give you an example.
I had a client and one of myother clients is this client's
therapist, and I found outthrough the grapevine not from
the therapist, she did not breakconfidentiality that this
person's in $90,000 of debt.
(16:40):
Now she told me she was in nodebt.
I'm her business coach.
Everything I advised is nowwrong, because if you're 90
grand in debt, we have tore-optimize everything, and I'm
not making that wrong.
I mean there's a lot of peoplein debt, but if I don't know the
data, I'm going to drive us offa cliff on accident and then
get you in some trouble, right?
(17:00):
So I now am a lot more carefuland try to notice when people
are hiding certain things thatthey're ashamed of, because I'm
going to give advice based onwhen you're putting on a show.
You're going to get the wrongadvice because people are going
to give advice to that fakeperson.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and I think you
made an important distinctionwhen you were talking about
having a therapist versus havinga coach.
You need both of them on yourteam, probably.
I have both Right right, right,and that's one of the things
about leadership, about success,is having a team that can help
(17:40):
you deal with all the differentareas of yourself, because there
are certain things, like one ofthe things I talk about.
I used to cry every day, I usedto have panic attacks every day
, come to find out I had avitamin deficiency and there was
absolutely no coach who wasgoing to coach me out of that.
Yeah, 100% nutritionist, right,so you need to.
You need to have a team ofpeople that are helping you take
(18:01):
care, and once, exactly whatyou were talking about, once, I
was able to take care of that.
Once the doctor was like, like,here, you're going to take this
vitamin.
Well, now my mind was clear.
I didn't have this overwhelmingcloud.
I didn't have the you know, thepanic attacks Like you
literally stop breathing, you'reshaking, like it's a whole
thing.
You can't function, I, I, Icouldn't function.
(18:21):
And then I was like well, why amI not doing more?
Because you're tired, becauseyou've got something going on in
your brain and you're trying,you're driving off a cliff, and
every time you make this littleturn, you're like and it's
because you're driving off acliff, right, um?
And so I think it's reallyimportant just to to say that,
yes, you need a team andeverything is very specific.
(18:42):
Um, yep, because any advicethat coaches could have given me
well, just just stop crying.
You know like, just practicegratitude.
All of that helped.
That's what I learned, but itdidn't fix what was going on,
and so I think it makes a lot ofsense.
I understand the casting, thewide net versus, you know, being
more specific.
(19:02):
So bring it back around togratitude.
Can you tell me what partgratitude up in two different?
Speaker 2 (19:09):
I'm going to over-categorize for a second,
(19:32):
and I'm doing this knowing I'mover-categorizing, so just
everyone out there watching orlistening understand that.
So I was with a mom not longago who has four children and
she said I should have been alittle more cautious of my ex
because he was an only child andthis person.
(19:53):
I'm not saying that all onlychildren are bad.
That's not what I'm saying atall.
What I am saying is that,statistically speaking, I do
think that only childs tend tobe a little more entitled.
I think there's a correlationthere and it makes sense because
they get all of the attentionright.
It makes sense and your siblingisn't beating you up and you
know telling you you're dumb, Ihad an older sister who beat me
(20:14):
at everything until I was like15.
Right, um and so, uh, we're allborn into one of two sort of
buckets.
Bucket one is the, the bucketthat I didn't, didn't choose.
That was really quite atrociousand I need to be as clear as
possible.
I had a lot of really wonderfulthings too, but right now I'm
(20:36):
going to highlight the lessideal things.
Okay, father passed away, neverknew him.
I was two years old.
Older sister who was six.
Mom was 31,.
Stay-at-home mom.
Years old, older sister who wassix, mom was 31,.
Stay at home mom.
So we were broke and my stepdadcame into the picture and he
left at 14.
Okay so, and my mom and stepdaddid not get along, and that's a
polite way to put it on apublic medium.
So for me that the whole, likestepdad leaving, going from
(21:01):
boats and ski trips, like he gotthe apartment building in the
yacht, we got the house and thedog and we didn't know how we're
going to keep the house.
And while there was somewonderful things for sure in my
childhood, ninetiescom bubbleAmerica, I mean there's some
good stuff, right, I mean thenineties were wild.
I mean especially in the U?
S, by far the largest economyin the world still, but back in
(21:23):
the nineties it was anotherlevel, it was wild, but at home
things weren't good.
From the outside, looking in,it looked great.
From the inside out not so good.
What's my point?
When you have so much strippedfrom you from such a young age,
you lose entitlement.
Any spoiled brat syndrome thatyou have is just ripped out from
under you.
Now there's good and bad newswith that.
(21:44):
The bad news is you usuallyhave low self-worth and you
usually struggle with self-worthbecause you're so used to
losing.
The good news is, if you havehigh self-belief, you will have
a positive trauma response tothat adversity.
That's a big if, though, mytrauma response to adversity
(22:07):
overcoming was aim higher, workharder, get smarter.
Aim higher, work harder, getsmarter.
Aim higher, work harder, getsmarter.
Now, as I've aged in my 30s,I've come to realize that's very
, very rare.
Most people who deal with ahigh ACE score adverse childhood
experiences usually end upearly mortality and not actually
(22:27):
believing in themselves andhaving no self-worth.
Okay, but the good news is isthey're not entitled.
They're willing to work forthings.
The problem is they're usuallywilling to work for other people
, be treated like shit, thatwhole thing Okay, so they need
to work on self-worth andself-belief.
The other bucket is the bucketthat I have a hard time working
with, which is the people whowant big rewards for minimal
(22:50):
effort, the people who were kindof handed everything, the
people who they just haveinflated self-worth.
They don't mean to, they justthink they're awesome and and
and they're so used to.
I had an ex-girlfriend who, whowas given a lot from a very,
very young age and she has thissort of air of high value and
entitlement that just didn'tvibe well with me.
(23:12):
And I think that as anentrepreneur speaking just to
entrepreneurs if you have anylevel of entitlement, you are
screwed.
Because people say, oh, I wantto start a business because I
want more free time like dumbestidea ever, because for the
first decade, it's going to benothing short of absolutely
brutal.
And this is coming from someonewho, like, has passed the
(23:32):
million-dollar mark through justbrute force sweat equity.
Kevin and I, my businesspartner, came from nothing, both
without fathers, like, he hasno entitlement, and that's why
we win, because people say, well, you're your own boss and all
this stuff.
No, no, listen, I work with 106podcasters and business owners.
They're all my boss, right.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
If they don't, if I don't, generate revenue.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
We don't pay the team .
We don't pay the team, thebusiness dies.
Like it's different than whatpeople think.
That said my point of thiswhole thing gratitude.
How does it come in?
To bring it back to gratitudeFor me, we had our heat go out
last week, the furnace and Isaid I talked to my girlfriend,
amelia, future wife.
Uh, we lived together and I said, sweetheart, that was good for
(24:13):
me.
And she said what do you mean?
I said I remember what it waslike to go to salvation army for
clothing.
I needed a little bit ofperspective.
Like it was good to not haveheat.
We had space heaters and it wasgood for me to see how good I
have it.
Because now I have a you knowbeautiful condo and I drive a
(24:34):
Tesla and you know everything'syou know 18 person team and
beautiful computers andelectricity and running water,
and I mean this was built in2005.
It's a really nice place andHOA fees and everybody does the
landscaping for me.
So I've gotten soft.
I haven't because I've not letmyself.
To me, you have to have abalance of and I don't want this
(24:55):
to come off as toxicmasculinity, because it's not
but you have to have thisduality of like listen, if you
took it all away, I can build itback because I'm I've learned
how to, how to be grateful foreven running water.
Okay, seriously, like I filledup my water earlier thinking
like, wow, filtered runningwater, like this is wonderful
(25:16):
and I'm also going to be very,very successful.
So it's like how do you knowyour value?
But also be grateful for eventhe little things and then the
big things you can strive for.
And so I'm a little weird withthis, but I'm, I'm striving,
never arriving for me, I'mtrying to reach my potential and
a lot of people, they, they do,they, they start to arrive and
(25:37):
they forget what it was like inthe beginning, when they had to
build it all from scratch.
So I try really hard to hold onto where I came from, um, which
was really adverse, reallyadverse, and I think that helps
me stay grateful along the way,even though things are obviously
wonderful.
I mean, I have nice clothes andI can afford, you know,
whatever I want within reason,it's different, it's a different
game than it used to be, but Ican't lose that like, that drive
(26:01):
and that lack of entitlement.
That's what actually built it.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Know yeah, to be able to.
I don't want to have to lookback and be like man I had it so
good and I didn't even realizeit.
I want to live every day and belike I'm so grateful for the
seat, I'm so grateful for thephone, I'm so grateful for you,
alan, like everything around me.
I have to intentionally chooseto practice gratitude for it,
(26:28):
because we all know that life,the only thing certain, is that
things change, like everythingchanges, and so how can I enjoy
this moment where I am right now, cause it's the only thing that
really exists, is right now,right.
And so gratitude brings us backhere, and I love how you, how
you counter that.
And you're like, I remember,because it's so easy to be like,
(26:50):
oh, it's just water.
Well, what if the pipes breakone day and then you don't got
water?
Now you can't even make coffee.
And you're like oh my God.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
And so, yeah, that's real adversity If you can't make
coffee.
That's really.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Right, but yeah, like you know, it's not that you
don't pay the power, but what if, just you know, a transformer
goes out and your whole buildingloses power?
Like there's literally nothingyou can do.
Well, you know, I'm gratefulfor my hurricane supplies, Right
?
Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
When you learn how to be grateful for the little
things you, you expand yourability to work hard for the,
for the, for the greater things.
I mean I had to be grateful forfour listens a day back in the
day and it took us an entireyear, 52 weeks, not missing a
single episode, to get 1056listens, and now we get more
(27:45):
than that every day.
So I just I never want to losesight of that, because I think
that's when you get arrogant,and I've been guilty of that in
the past.
Right, I've had the humble piemoments hitting the head with a
brick metaphorically.
And then why wasn't I moregrateful?
Every time I get sick, it'slike why wasn't I more grateful,
Right?
So I just want to stay ingratitude.
But you also got to strive too,Because if you're only grateful
(28:07):
, maybe you're not as motivated.
So you got to do bothsimultaneously.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yes, and actually that's something I talk about in
my book, where I say gratefulis not about settling, right, I
don't say that specifically, butthe idea is it's not about just
being grateful and then stayingthere.
It's about being grateful whereI am but then still striving
for whatever it is that I want.
But it's a journey, right, andit's not about settling, but
it's about being here and now.
(28:33):
I don't want to be miserable.
I'm like well, my goal was amillion dollars and I don't have
a million dollars.
So like, whoa is me?
Speaker 2 (28:39):
like that no.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Well, I'm grateful for you know the amount that I
have towards the million.
Am I paying attention to howmany dollars I've made since I
said that, like, am I actuallycounting?
Or has a million dollars hit myaccount and I already spent it
and I didn't even realize, likeyou know.
So it's.
It brings us right back intothis moment.
I love that so much and I canonly imagine that gratitude help
(29:01):
you after your accident Likethat must've been so scary.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
It was all of the humble pie all at once.
And I always say we have threecircles of the ego.
I'll be brief with it, but theexternal circle is what you want
others to believe about you.
The next circle in is what youwant to believe about you, the
story you tell yourself aboutyourself.
And then the inner circle iswho you really are and what you
are when no one's watching thecar accident.
(29:29):
Yeah, I collapsed, all threecircles, and then I could build
from a place of humility,courage and vulnerability.
And my new sneaky goal behindthe scenes, when no one's
watching, is how do I keep thosecircles the same?
How do I keep those circles thesame?
Because the moment I startgetting cocky, you and we coach
couples, my girlfriend and I.
We've been doing it for fouryears and I'm telling you right
(29:59):
now, when you see the front ofthe scenes from the outside in
and then you see from the insideout, it's a two different
worlds.
There's the real world andthere's the social world.
The social world is the weddingphotos.
The real world is the marriage,which one matters more in real
life, right, despite theInstagram photos.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
So don't get me wrong .
Speaker 2 (30:15):
I'm a marketer too.
I got a market Like myInstagram looks nice too, but
I'm telling you, my real worldneeds to be the focal point and
then have that ripple into thesocial world, not the other way
around, because that's what I.
I fell victim to that for alittle while in my twenties and
I was just miserable.
I was just miserable.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, and I relate to that because
when I was 21, I went to thedoctor.
I found out that I had a backof a disabled elderly woman, and
a few months, a few years later, I found myself not being able
to walk.
I don't remember what I did,but I couldn't even go to the
bathroom, and so I learned whathumble is like needing help
(30:54):
going to the bathroom.
There's nothing that humblesyou like that you know so like
being in a situation like thatwhere you're hurt and and now
you need to depend on people andwho's there, and now you're all
alone, you have nothing todistract you, and now you got to
sit with yourself and you gotto be like well, oh, that was a
hell of a growth transformationright there Huh.
(31:16):
Right, right so like I'm justrelating to you, to what
happened to you, the caraccident and that, yeah, that's
called post-traumatic growth.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah, it's really powerful.
And the PTSD for me was theretoo.
So I want to be clear Like it'sboth, it's two sides of the
coin.
One of them is double yellowlines scared me, you know.
I couldn't get in a car for alittle while.
I kept getting pulled overbecause I was too far on my side
of the road.
I got claustrophobic ceilingfans walking in and out of
(31:45):
doorways, like PTSD is a thing.
And the car accident messed meup a little bit, but I worked
through it, worked through it,worked through it, got help.
And then the post-traumaticgrowth, though I mean whoa,
right, right, and I know youprobably feel the same way about
you know similarly, about youruh, realizing the illness in the
back and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
oh yeah, like the other day um, it's been 20 years
because it all started when Iwas like nine and I had a boat
accident and I saw a video ofthese really big waves.
They were like 40 foot waves.
Somebody was on a boat and Iwent into a full panic attack
because it triggered me and andI was like, oh my God, and I got
so nervous, um and so, yeah, so20, 25 years later, like, still
, I get triggered sometimes andso, yeah, I can relate to that.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Um, all right, Anyone who drives fast with me in a
car.
Yeah, yeah, and who drives fastin a car like I grabbed the
handle and you know, my dad diedin a car.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
So yeah, 100 and yeah , I know we're over time, yeah
good, no, no, you're fine, but,um, it's just so powerful and
it's so true, because I do talka lot about the, the recovery
and how I got strong.
And somebody was like, but didyou like get sad?
Speaker 2 (32:46):
and I was like, oh fuck, yeah, I got sad, like I
was really sad, yeah sad, italways comes before growth
that's how you know you'regrowing it's sadness, and then
you transform it into motivation, and then you transform
Actually I call it full-onDisney princess crying, you know
, like on your bed.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
I went into the depths of it.
But let us know how can we stayin touch with you, alan?
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah, so the website is nextleveluniversecom All one
word spelled just like it soundsnextleveluniversecom.
The podcast is Next LevelUniversity.
It's a place you go to learnhow to reach your own unique
potential, your own uniqueversion of success.
1% improvement in your pocket,from anywhere on the planet,
completely free, every singleday.
(33:31):
Next Level you pun intended.
Next Level University.
Next Level you pun intendedbecause it's not us but you and
you can reach out on Instagramalazarus88, a-l-a-z-a-r-o-s-8-8
on Instagram, and I also sentyou a link to book a free
breakthrough session.
If anyone wants to grow, scale,start, monetize a business
(33:53):
online.
I've been doing this for a long, long, long time.
I made a lot of mistakes and Ican definitely accelerate your
progress.
I'm not going to help you skipsteps, because I think that's
kind of fake, but I will helpyou accelerate your progress way
faster than I did.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Yes, it's like learning math, like you got to
learn how to do it the long way.
So you know how to shorten it,right, but you got to do it the
long way first.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
It's an accumulation, yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Yes.
So last tip, what's like thebiggest aha moment, the biggest
thing you tell your clients thatjust changes their whole life.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
The first one is the Pareto principle.
It's 20% of your time andeffort is responsible for 80% of
your results, and I'm going todo a little bit of math here for
a second.
But if you take 20% of 20% of20% of 20%, you get 0.04%
Meaning in life, we're alljuggling a lot of balls right
Wife, husband, pets, kids, house, career, fitness, all of it.
(34:52):
However, if you get really goodat finding the things that
matter a lot and focusing moreof your effort, more of your
time, more of your effort onthose things, you get leverage.
The world is exponential andI'm an engineer so I'm always
looking for the leverage points,like this podcast, for example.
(35:12):
Coaching, training andpodcasting are what's necessary
for my career, for my impact,for my profitability.
That if you figure out whatyour big three are not one but
three and then focus most ofyour intentional effort there,
that brings a far greater returnlong term, because we all in
the 21st century get verydistracted very easily and
(35:36):
unfortunately, that basicallymeans you're going to wander
around and drift around, like Idid, and you'll end up a
wandering generality instead ofa meaningful, specific who's
both fulfilled and successful,like the world will only know
you for a couple things.
You got to make sure that youyou pigeonhole yourself, but in
a way that it's meaningful, uh,progress for you, that you
pigeonhole yourself, but in away that it's meaningful
(35:56):
progress for you.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Phenomenal.
That is amazing, thank you.
Thank you, alan.
This has been wonderful.
I really appreciate you,everything you've shared with us
and your amazing knowledge, andwe will catch you guys next
time on the next episode ofOvercome Yourself.
Bye, thank you.
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