March 31, 2025 • 46 mins
Alan Lazaros, CEO of Next Level University, joins Josh to explore the complex journey of self-acceptance and how our strengths can paradoxically create social challenges. Through personal stories and psychological insights, they uncover why success often makes life harder rather than easier.
• Understanding how other people's behavior reflects their insecurities, not your worth
• The three-step process: self-awareness, self-acceptance, then achievement
• Why success makes life more challenging, not simpler
• How our greatest strengths inevitably come with corresponding weaknesses
• Identifying what you tie your self-esteem to and accepting it as a starting point
• The paradox that being exceptional often means feeling like you don't belong
• Recognizing when you need to stop shrinking yourself to make others comfortable
Check out Next Level University podcast and website for more insights from Alan on holistic self-improvement.
Follow Playing Injured on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playinginjured/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another episode of Playing Injured.
We have an old friend here, mrAlan Lazarus, who is the CEO of
Next Level University, alsoco-host of Next Level University
, one of the top podcasts in theworld, almost at 2,000 episodes
.
You guys will be there by nextweek, right?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Also, too, a business coach, and you've coached in
other areas, right, fitnesscoaching, different things like
that.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, I started out as a fitness coach, and then it
was mindset, and then it waspeak performance, and then it
was business consulting, and soI've been through the coaching
gauntlet, so to speak.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, but at the end of the day, you're a coach,
right, and so love that.
And very smart guy, computerengineering degree, mba as well,
right.
So just a great foundation.
And, like I said before, we hitrecord.
I've followed you guys fromafar, so appreciate you jumping
(01:01):
on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Josh, thank you for having me.
I appreciate the humility, Iappreciate the gratitude, I'm
grateful to be here.
Man, I playfully told Josh offthe mics because Josh came to.
We talked about a mastermind.
We used to do a live podcastevery week and we'd have guests
come on and we had someone namedSamantha Skelly come on and she
did a live breath work where itwas.
(01:25):
She put on music and she we didthis breath work exercise
together as a group.
I think there was like 23people there and I think there
was 22 people crying, and youwere one of them, Um, and I was
one of them, Kevin.
Kevin said no, I just havesomething in both my eyes, you
know, Um, it was really cool.
That was back in 2020.
So, I, I playfully told joshbefore we hit record here.
(01:45):
I said I uh, kevin, and Ithought you hated us man.
You just you just went away anddid your thing and we're like I
wonder what we did.
And so it was so cool to hearthat you interviewed him
recently, so cool to come onhere and hear that you listened
to the show, and, um, I thinkthere are some truths too.
There are certain people frommy past that I think maybe have
an aversion to me.
I'm glad to hear that you're notone of them, and I know we can
(02:07):
go into some of that stuff,because sometimes it does have
to do with rubbing someone thewrong way.
Other times it has nothing todo with that and you were
totally inaccurate in terms ofyour thinking.
So I'm grateful I was wrongabout you, man, and I'm grateful
to be back.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, 100%.
You know your masterminds thatyou guys were having.
I met you guys at a pivotal nota pivotal, a pivotal time in my
life, actually.
So one my first time gettingfired, right.
I got laid off from the firstcompany I was working at it was
(02:42):
a tech company here in Chicagogot let go.
So then around that time I wasstarting this podcast thing,
right.
I didn't even know how to getstarted, right, but I saw you
guys.
It's kind of like a North Starfor me.
I can't remember how we got intouch, but I think either
reached out I can't remember butreached out to you guys and
(03:07):
just wanted to get around thatfire.
Also, too, it was the pandemic,right, and so we were inside a
lot, and then it was a lot ofthings going on in the world and
so it was an opportunity for meto get a part of an environment
that was positive, right, andI'm already a part of different.
(03:27):
You know masterminds andmentors in my life who kind of
put me on this journey to bemore positive and different
things like that.
But I want to get around asmany groups as possible and you
guys really fit that for me.
So the timing was perfect andthen gradually, things start to
open up.
Hey, I get a new career, new job, I move.
(03:50):
Life kind of happens right, youget into a relationship
relationship, I break up.
So a lot has happened overthese last five years where, if
I would have known, you guysthought I had a version to you,
I would have reached out and soyou know, if I could, if I could
(04:11):
ask you.
You know, and I don't know ifthis is something that you still
take, you still struggle withor not, but how do you not take
things personally, right?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, man, yeah, that's the.
So I love the name of your showplaying injured because I think
it's a metaphor for not onlyathletes that are listening and
how a lot of us have to pushthrough pain, but all of us are
injured in terms of past traumas.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
And, uh, you know two types of people.
There's people with trauma andthen liars right, I'm just
kidding.
But even if you don't have anytrauma, that's your trauma,
because now you don't fit in,because you're the only one or
whatever.
But and again, differentfrequencies, intensities,
densities and durations.
I've been doing therapy since Iwas 30.
I'm 36 now, even though I look12.
And my therapist, carol.
(05:07):
I've gotten confirmation from astatistical perspective of
someone who's been doing therapyfor decades that my trauma is
substantial and that's honestlyputting it lightly.
And I think on the soul level Ikind of knew that.
But when you say, how do younot take things personally?
To bring it back to yourquestion, I think that my past
self always felt like I don'teasily fit in.
(05:28):
And as I've gotten older andI've leaned into sort of the
engineer math modality ofthinking very much systems,
structure, principles,priorities, very calculated,
playfully, more Spock-like Ithink that I've come to
(05:48):
understand that I'm never goingto be the fun guy at the
barbecue like I used to be, andI think that in hindsight I used
to drink more frequently andmore often, because I think that
we all live in two worlds.
The first world we live in isthe social world 's the barbecue
, that's the wedding, that's theuh cafeteria in school yeah,
(06:10):
what'd you say?
the club yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,exactly the social world, and
that's where there's socialstatus, there's social hierarchy
.
There's who's the athlete,who's the nerd, who's the hot
girl, who's the who's the hotguy, who's who's the popular,
who's the nerd, who's the hotgirl, who's the hot guy, who's
the popular, girls or guys, orwhatever.
That whole social world,instagram type of world.
(06:31):
And then there's your realfucking life.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
And the best metaphor I have for the social world
versus the real world iseveryone's wedding looks
beautiful, not everyone'smarriage is, and some people's
marriage is magnificent, andthen the wedding can be a
beautiful representation of that, versus the other way around,
if some people have a weddingthat looks gorgeous but the
marriage is atrocious behind thescenes.
And so I got in a car accidentwhen I was 26.
(06:59):
That really helped meunderstand.
Okay, you know, went from youknow, middle, popular as hell,
high school, absolute loser.
Just hit puberty late.
You think I look young now.
Imagine me at 14, right Pitydances from my sister's friends.
She was a senior when I was afreshman.
Stepdad left at 14.
We go from boats and ski tripsto I'm broke.
I get free lunch at school.
(07:20):
My mom trades in her BMW for alittle Honda Civic and I don't
even know how I'm going toafford college school.
My mom trades in her BMW for alittle Honda Civic and I don't
even know how I'm going toafford college.
Straight A's nerd, get all thescholarships and financial aid.
Go to college, computerengineer, master's in business,
and then I'm in corporate andnow I'm very successful
externally and at this point Ihad hit puberty and actually
gotten some popularity and thatkind of thing.
But what I've come tounderstand now is that the
social world and the real worldare completely different and I
(07:43):
think that in the past Iunconsciously took being treated
poorly personally yes and so toanswer your original question
of how do you do you take itpersonally?
how do you not take itpersonally?
I think it's just understandingthis fundamental truth that the
way in which other people arebehaving is a response and
(08:06):
reaction to, yes, maybe you, butbut also their relationship
with themselves.
So let me give you an example.
So if I have, if I'm coming upon 2000 episodes and you
celebrate that, that shows me acouple things.
Number one either you do feelnot good enough and you have
humility to celebrate othersanyway, or you're actually
(08:27):
confident and can celebratesomeone else.
Or there's the third narcissistwho only celebrates it because
I'm on your show and I knowyou're not that one.
But when you're young you don'tknow the fucking difference.
So you just get ripped a newone repeatedly and you don't
understand boundaries and youdon't understand you know your
value.
And so in the past this was mycycle.
(08:49):
I was running unconsciously Betreated unjustly, because I'm
definitely.
I trigger other people'sinsecurity in their intelligence
.
I've always been very sort ofstraight, a student intellectual
.
Get treated unjustly because Ihave low self-worth.
No dad, stepdad left that kindof thing.
And then my trauma response tothat fight flight freezer fawn.
(09:11):
It was fawn socially, socialworld, fawn appease, don't get
abandoned.
But then, behind the scenes, itwas fight, aim higher, work
harder, get smarter.
And when you aim higher, workharder, get smarter.
Now you trigger people evenmore, so it gets even worse.
And then my response to that isaim higher, work harder, get
smarter.
Now you trigger people evenmore, so it gets even worse.
And then my response to that isaim higher, work harder, get
smarter, which gets even worse.
And then eventually you findself-improvement at 26, 10 years
(09:34):
ago for me.
And then your response toeverything becomes what can I
learn from this?
How can I get better, not justexternally, but internally?
And then it gets even freakingworse in the social world,
because now you actually arealigned, you are virtuous, you
do have clear goals, and I sentthis to my girlfriend yesterday.
Literally I looked up on chat,gpt, the top 20 indicators that
(09:58):
you're.
You have an intimidatingpersonality, top 30 indicators.
When I was reading through thislist I was going okay, clear
goals, thinking logic more thanemotion, but okay, so what's
happening is I'm, I'm someonewho apparently has all these
character traits that indicatethat you're intimidating people,
(10:21):
and being tall and having a lotof muscle mass is one of them
as well, which you obviouslyhave now.
But we didn't start there,right?
And so everyone is respondingand reacting to who you are, but
not necessarily authenticallyand they're not even necessarily
aware of it either, right?
(10:41):
So insecure men have a reallyhard time being around me, and
they would usually react inthese sort of weird turtle up or
puff up ways, and I used totake that personally, when now I
just realize it's just aresponse to their own insecurity
.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Yeah, here's what I realized, though.
It triggers something in youthat either you can become more
self-aware of yourself, right,when you take things personally,
or you can see it as you notbeing good enough, or whatever
the case may be.
Right, in my early days, right,I used to feel you not being
good enough, or whatever thecase may be.
(11:18):
In my early days, I used tofeel, hey, not good enough, or
something is wrong with me.
Now what I start to do is like,oh, I'm feeling a little
anxious.
Why is that?
Here are some thoughts that aregoing in my mind.
Why is that?
Then it's like, oh, okay, theseare some, some wounds that I
(11:41):
have.
Right, like I'm telling myselfstories that aren't even true,
thoughts that go through my mind.
It's almost like they're goingthrough past trauma, going
through past experiences, goingthrough things that have nothing
to do with today.
Right, right, and myinterpretation on those past
situations weren't in realityeither.
(12:03):
Right, we have no idea what wasgoing on with other people and
why they treated you a certainway, and so one of the
affirmations I tell myself isthat other people's behavior is
not tied to my worth.
Right, it's something that Ihave to remind myself, right.
It's something that to this day, you know, I still kind of have
trouble with is when I come upto meet somebody.
(12:27):
Why did they turn their head?
Why did they not look me in myeye?
Why did they say you know, if Ihave a conversation with
somebody, why was that so short?
Why did I, why did they do thisright?
These are small thoughts thatI'm getting better with right,
that I try to ignore, butthey're still there and I have
to fight it.
I have to override it, right.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Well, josh, let me, let me ask you this and this is,
this is awesome already, yeah,so so I, I went from and this
was a very fascinating socialexperiment for me so I went from
160 pounds skinny fat to 220pounds in literally six months.
I gained 60 pounds in sixmonths of mostly muscle
definitely not all muscle, yeah,because I was hammering McDonks
(13:10):
, but it was mostly muscle.
I was weight training everysingle day, blah, blah, blah.
And then I ripped it up and didsome fitness competitions and
stuff.
But to see how differently theworld reacted to me with that
big of a transformation made mefirst of all, sad, but also made
me realize that the way peopleare reacting to you is a
(13:35):
byproduct of what they perceiveyou as and their own insecurity
or lack thereof.
So I don't know how tall youare, but you're, you're.
Yeah, how tall are you?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Six four.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Okay, so you're six, four, okay.
African-american male for lackof better phrasing.
Okay, and you're a bigger guy?
Yeah, right, statisticallyspeaking, depending on what room
we're in, right, but there, ifanyone is insecure on any level
about their size, they willreact to you in a way that is
(14:07):
not um their true self.
Yeah, so my business partner,kevin, he's only five, six.
He would have his old self,would have had a hard time
around you, not because there'sanything wrong with you, but
because he is insecure about hisbeing short, which now he talks
about openly and.
I have this client who, um, I, I, I've coached a lot of
(14:27):
different types of people overthe years and there's a lot of
lessons and all this.
So I'm not just flexing on this, but anywhere from, like you
know, a supermodel in dubai Toto a person famous in the
greatest boss, greater bostonarea, all the way to people that
that are not famous at all andand that kind of thing.
So it's been hundreds of peopleover the years.
But what I've learned is thatthe people that you think are
(14:51):
the most secure, like thesupermodel in dubai, so to speak
, is actually wildly insecure.
And this other person that I'mthinking of right now I'll keep
it anonymous.
I've been coaching her for fiveplus years.
She is, statistically speaking,very, very beautiful, extremely
(15:11):
in great shape, just very 10out of 10 type of person.
People won't look at her at thegym and I said you got to
understand, it's not becauseyou're not good enough, it's
actually because the guys aretrying not to be disrespectful
and the women are jealous andthey're not consciously jealous.
It's not like they'reconsciously going oh I'm jealous
, so I'm going to look away.
(15:32):
It's just their trauma responseto whatever you are, and the
trauma responses are fight,flight, freeze and fawn and
people think, okay, traumaresponse means there's a bear in
the woods, I'm going to run.
No, no, no.
Trauma responses are happening,both micro moments and macro
(15:54):
traumas.
Right, so what?
My reaction to my car accidentis a macro trauma, but when I
first meet you, josh, and Ishake your hand, if I'm on any
level insecure about my physiqueor my attractiveness or my size
, I'm gonna have trouble lookingyou in the eye and shaking your
hand and you might internalizethat as I'm not good enough,
(16:15):
when in reality it's actuallybecause you're fucking awesome
and you're huge and you'regood-looking and all these
things.
So some of the people that arethe most attractive externally
actually have the leastself-worth internally because of
this sort of human pattern thatwe have in the social world.
(16:35):
So what I try to do with myclients, I try to help them win
in the real world and figure outwhat their self-esteem is
actually tied to and then win inthose couple areas and then
allow that to ripple out intothe social world, versus trying
to get validation in the socialworld to try to fill something
in the real world, whichdefinitely doesn't work.
I've tried.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
It doesn't work doesn't work 100% and you're
talking about even just size.
This happens with a lot ofdifferent areas of life.
Right, somebody realizes thatyou are a real quality person.
Right, and they're not used todealing with somebody who is,
like you said, goal-oriented.
Right, they get involved withyou as a friend.
(17:14):
Right, let's say, me and youmeet each other and we start to
hang out and I'm realizing thatyou are man, you are on it, and
I'm like I'm not really on it asmuch as he is.
Right, and I start to kind ofnot respond to you.
Right, or I stop calling you, Istop hanging out with you,
right?
It's not that anything isnecessarily wrong with you.
(17:36):
It's that, hey with you.
Right, it's not that anythingis necessarily wrong with you.
Is that?
Speaker 2 (17:39):
hey, you're making me feel a certain way about myself
being around you isuncomfortable for me on the ego
level, and it being around youis a reminder of how outside of
alignment I actually am because,dude at 26, when I got in that
car accident and I really foundself-improvement, personal
growth, personal development.
(18:00):
That was my main sort oftransformational moment.
I started to say, okay, I'mgonna work on myself every day
and I thought when I became abetter man that I would have
more friends and people wouldlike me more and and things.
But that is, I mean, comicallynot true.
Yeah, I'm talking like it'sridiculous.
(18:21):
How untrue that is.
Like I, you know I track metricsand habits and priorities, but
it's the the better I I'vebecome as a man physically,
mentally, emotionally andspiritually the actually more
people seek you out but don'treally want to be around you.
It's, it's so interesting.
You feel more sought after interms of your uh, perception and
(18:42):
social status and value, butyou actually feel like people
don't actually like being aroundyou but that at the same time,
they're also fighting to be apart of your life.
It's such a fascinating thingand I think that anyone who's
ever dealt with any level offame, fame and ke Kevin and I
are not famous by any means, butwe have experienced enough of
it to realize that it's a lot of.
(19:04):
It is the social statusy stuff,and in sports I don't know how
high you went in it, but theseathletes, your value is so
predicated on your, yourcontribution to the team winning
and anything outside of thatlane.
You're pretty much not of valueand and that's just not only
economically true, but it's alsotrue in the social status world
(19:25):
and and we all wish that wasn'tthe case because when we our
head hits the bed at night, youneed to feel of value as a man
or as a woman or whatever youidentify as, and if you don't
have that unconditional love inyour real life, oh, you are so
fucked and and and I I didn'trealize till my 30s how much I
(19:48):
didn't actually have that.
And a past girlfriend, forexample, wanted to date the
fitness model but didn't, didn'tlove because I was a fitness
model.
43 photo shoots and fitnesscompetitions, you know, got
stomped at two of them.
Now, well, I placed every timebut I won one of the three.
But I was definitely the likefitness model, abercrombie model
(20:08):
looking, you know, definitelynot, as I was way more in shape
back then.
Let's just say that,unfortunately, the only thing.
That's gotten worse, you know.
But I remember being in arelationship with this woman and
I remember thinking like youdon't love me, like you love the
idea of me, you want to be withthe hot guy on Instagram who's
(20:31):
got 30,000 followers and who isa model and who's ripped a pack
and who who is an achiever, butyou don't actually want to date
that dude because that dude hasto get up at 5 am and go to the
gym like you want the shiny shitand but you don't want what
comes with that.
And, by the way, you don't getthe fitness model eight pack guy
(20:52):
without also the workouts, thefoam rolling, the sleep,
hydration, nutrition, mobility,breathwork supplementation, like
you have have.
You have to want everythingunderneath that iceberg too, and
if you can't fall in love withbeneath that iceberg, you don't
get to be with someone of thatcaliber.
And what I've come tounderstand is that nobody wants
to be around someone who focuseson sleep, hydration, nutrition,
(21:15):
training, mobility, breathwork,supplementation, metrics,
priorities, habits, structure,calendar, like seriously, it's
just not what most people wantto do.
Everyone wants to be aroundMichael Phelps, but no one wants
to get in the fucking pool.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And that's so hard for someone like him, who is
like why does everyone love meand also not want to be around
me?
It's such a fascinating thing.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, it's a very fascinating thing and you have
to do the inner work, innerpersonal development, to
understand human nature rightand understand that it's not
personal.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Yeah, it feels.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
It's tough.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
It does feel personal right.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
But you also mentioned something very key,
key.
You said the, the internal workright, the self-esteem um.
What do you do to to grow that,to um be a little bit more in
tune with your self-esteem andhow you feel about yourself
yourself?
So the?
Speaker 2 (22:15):
oh sorry, you have powerful pauses so I didn't know
if you were.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, I'm sorry don't be sorry.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Powerful pauses are good man it's good, it's real
good.
So I used to believe I'm also soexcited, like my excitement is
sometimes come off, it comes offtoo much.
Uh, I gotta channel my passion,channel it, calm down, it's all
gonna be fine.
I've been waiting for years tobe asked this question.
No, uh, so the self-esteempiece.
(22:43):
I used to believe that youcould change.
So when I first foundself-improvement I was like,
okay, this is it all the stuffpeople hate about me.
I'm gonna change it.
And then you change it and itgets worse and people don't even
like you even more, right, uh.
And you realize, okay, I can'tchange who I am, but what I can
(23:06):
do is uncover who I actually amand then grow from that place.
So I think a lot of people likemyself start in self-improvement
and personal growth andpersonal development going okay,
well, I don't like that.
I'm tall and lanky, so I'mgonna get jacked.
And then you start working onyourself and you do fitness and
all that stuff.
And then it's well, I'm acomputer engineer and I'm a math
thinker and everything isstructure and equations for me.
(23:28):
But I'm going to try to be moresocial, I'm going to be more
extroverted, right?
And then you go out and you tryto change who you are and it's,
it's atrocious.
It's terrible, yeah, becauseyou're not fulfilled, because
you're never going to befulfilled when you're not in
alignment with who you actuallyare.
So I don't do any of thatanymore.
What I now do with clients isthey come to me and they say,
(23:50):
okay, here's where I am, I wantto try to be this person and
achieve this thing, and I usedto try to help them do that, and
then it would never workbecause they'd go on that
journey.
The process was never alignedwith who they really are.
They have to mitigate everyweakness and, basically, and
avoid any strength and everystrength comes with a weakness,
by the way, and it was liketrying to get kevin to beat
(24:10):
lebron james at basketball.
It's, it's, it's impossible.
You can't.
You're not naturally gifted inthat area.
So what we do, I think all of ushave a really negative
relationship with our weaknessesand our gifts, and every gift
comes with a weakness.
So I'll give you one of mygifts.
One of my gifts is math.
(24:31):
I adore.
I think in exponentials, Ithink in equations.
I don't think I've ever gottenbelow an A in math in my entire
life.
With minimal effort, I mean, Icould party all night still, you
know, show up just to the testsand get an A.
And I'm not saying that to brag, I'm saying this because it
comes with a massive weakness.
So when it comes to goals andmetrics and reverse engineering,
(24:54):
finish lines and helping peoplemeasure the right things and
achieve their goals very, verygood finance, easy science,
technology, engineering,mathematics, business and
finance all strengths they comenaturally.
Guess what doesn'trelationships?
That dude is not gonna be goodat relationships because he
(25:15):
doesn't understand that no onethinks like he does
statistically.
So if you're at the very farend of any statistical bell
curve, you have an opportunityto do something very unique and
very special, but it destroysyour relationships.
Why?
Because if you're naturallyawesome at football and you play
against me and we're friends,if I don't feel good enough and
(25:37):
I'm insecure, I'm going to treatyou poorly, unless you're on my
team, and that's where all thisstuff that we already talked
about comes in.
So what do we do?
We hide our strengths to fit in.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
And then we also hide our weaknesses to fit in.
And, by the way, the weaknessescome as a result of the
strengths.
So for me, high self-belief,math modality of thinking, high
levels of certainty, greatexternal achievement.
I have to hide all that,pretend I'm humble.
Now I'm not saying I'm nothumble, but I have to pretend to
be less certain than I actuallyam.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah, you got to shrink yourself.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
A hundred percent to fit in Make other people feel,
yeah, in the world of theinsecure, the truly secure
person has to shrink, otherwisethey don't belong, and they get
rocks thrown at them and allthat kind of stuff.
So we're all afraid of failureand success.
Success is if I'm toosuccessful, I'm going to get
ostracized from my peers, and orthey're going to start treating
(26:33):
me weird.
If I get to failure, I'll beostracized from the group,
because no one wants to playbasketball with the worst player
either, right, so no one wantsto be Michael Jordan, but no one
wants to be a bench playereither.
So and again, insert sportsmetaphor here sports podcast,
great.
The truth is, though, is we'reall in this little box between
(26:54):
floor and ceiling of success andfailure, so it all comes down
to who you associate with, whichis why our reference group
determines such a huge therehave been so many studies on
this.
Our reference group determinessuch a huge amount of our
success because it's almost likeall of us.
If our number one need isbelonging, social belonging,
(27:22):
need is belonging, socialbelonging, and all your peers
make 60 grand a year and youstart making 160, all of a
sudden things get weird and youdon't understand what's
happening.
They're not happy.
Some of them are, but some ofthem aren't.
Some of them are pretending tobe the whole thing,
unconsciously, because I'drather fit in and be mediocre
(27:45):
than actually be truly great.
And a good metaphor for this isto say and maybe they do, I'm
not sure, I don't know them, butwe all know the higher and this
has been really hard for me thehigher that Kevin and I climb
(28:07):
for lack of better phrasing theharder it is for us to have
meaningful relationships withpeople we went to high school
with, and that's been reallyhard for me.
It's been harder on me than himbecause I don't think he cares
as much, but his, his core woundis different than mine.
Um, but I've forgotten theoriginal question because I've
gotten off track.
Do you remember what it was?
Speaker 1 (28:28):
I can't remember.
I know you shared a lot of ohself-esteem.
We talked about self-esteem howto grow yourself awesome okay.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
So inside out versus outside in.
If you're playing outside in,you're in trouble.
Inside out versus outside in.
So the old me used to say, okay, you're here, you want to be
here, you can achieve this.
No, no, I don't do that anymore.
Everything has to start fromhigh self-awareness.
So I coach 26 individuals rightnow business coach, but I did
fitness and mindset and peakperformance a lot of stuff.
(28:58):
So now what we do first isself-awareness.
So step one is self-awareness.
Step two is self-acceptance.
Step three now it's you can goachieve.
I think one of the reasons alot of people don't achieve
their goals and you can lookthis up the statistics on who
has clear written goals thatthey actually achieve, whether
(29:19):
it's New Year's resolutions orwhatever it's very low, super
low.
Most people are stumbling uponresults and then trying to hold
on to it.
Seriously, when it comes topremeditated goals that you
write down in advance, a lot oftimes those goals are predicated
on low self-awareness.
So, legs though, I mean, I canrun like the wind so if I want,
(29:46):
but what do I care about?
I don't care about being fast,I've always already fast.
Long legs, long distancerunning, no problem.
What do I want?
To be jacked.
So we all want to be differentthan we are exactly see, that's
the problem, whereas I couldjust go all in on what I'm
already naturally gifted at andthen improve from that place.
(30:07):
But if I do that, I get all ofthe upsides of success but all
of the social downsides thatcome with that.
And if my real goal is to belong, I'm not going to amplify my
statistical advantage yeah right, and so as I've grown older and
older and older, I've had toheal and to get back to
self-esteem.
I realized this.
(30:28):
All of us myself, you, mybusiness partner Kev, my
girlfriend Amelia we just talkedabout this earlier today we tie
our self-esteem unconsciouslyto a couple things.
I did this with a clientearlier.
His name is Bradley.
I tie my self-esteem to threethings and I won't share his,
but I used it as an example andwe got clear on his.
(30:49):
Number one is fitness being afreak athlete.
So for me, I was pre-pubescent,didn't hit puberty till senior
year of high school, definitelya nerd, overlooked by every girl
, not attractive.
Didn't become a man until waylater.
(31:11):
I care so deeply about beingbig and strong because I always
felt lanky and weak and I gotbullied a lot, okay.
So number one tie myself-esteem to my athleticism.
Number two is my relationshipwith emilia.
That's where my belonging is.
I belong with her to a deep,deep, deep level.
It's the fucking best.
I met her five years ago.
It's the best relationship I'veever been in, by far Greatest
(31:32):
gift of my life and, quitefrankly, I wouldn't be here if I
didn't have that at the core,because I would be still chasing
for belonging and externalvalidation.
I get so much belonging from myrelationship that it allows me
to go flourish and sort of saygoodbye to a lot of
relationships that were holdingme back.
All right.
The third one is my body ofwork.
This is a little bit weird, butI can't stand when I do poor
(31:55):
work.
So if this episode is notsomething that I feel like I
gave my all to make it asvaluable as possible, I will be
unfulfilled afterwards.
So those are the three thingsthat I tie my self-esteem to.
Kevin wouldn't mind me sharinghis.
I think his are a lot morerelatable, quite frankly.
Number one car he drives.
(32:16):
Number two money in the bankaccount.
Number three dude wants to bejacked and he'll admit this to
all of you.
I think he's just more honestthan most people.
I think most people do tieself-esteem to those three
things, but they're not honestabout it.
And one of the ironies is whenKev was a kid, that's all he
(32:39):
really wanted.
He wanted to have enough moneyto drive his dream car.
He wanted to have money in thebank because he and his
upbringing didn't have any and,uh, he wanted to be jacked,
which he was.
He worked really hard infitness his whole life because
he felt short and insignificant.
So when he was bigger, he feltbetter about himself.
(33:01):
And what I've come to understand, the old me would have said
well, you got to be carefultying your self-esteem to those
three things.
And there's truth to that,because as you mature, you
really need to hopefully be morewholesome than just those three
things.
But what I've come to realizeis that once those three things
(33:22):
are actually winning, fromKevin's own internal perspective
, that's when he's a betterhusband, that's when he's a
better business partner.
When we don't have money in thebank, dude, he is like, so
scarce.
I'm not Whether we have five or25 or 55 cash on hand.
I'm the same-ish person.
(33:45):
But ifelia and I aren't good.
I would have canned thispodcast.
Yeah, yeah, I can't go servewhen we're not good.
So, and the reason why isbecause my core wound is
unlovable and for him it'sdefective, not good enough.
He never thought he'd besuccessful.
I never thought I'd besuccessful in a relationship, so
so of course, we tie ourwell-being to the thing that we
(34:06):
thought we'd never have.
Success for me comes fairlyeasy in terms of external
success, even though you're notallowed to say that, but
relationships never came easy.
So for me I tie a lot ofself-esteem and it's all linked
to survival from an evolutionaryperspective.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Talk about that so needs, right.
It sounds like you're sayingthat first of all, you need to
be self-aware.
Like what makes you feel good,right, even if it is external
right, accept it.
Don't try to be somebody else.
Don't try to be somebody else.
Don't try to be like others.
(34:44):
Right, accept yourself of whoyou are.
Right.
But also, too, when you said,like these needs that we have,
um, that's when I start to feelout of whack.
Is, wait, I don't have food inthe fridge.
It's like when I under, when Istart to feel a little bit out
(35:04):
of whack, when I start to feellike I don't have things
together, it's telltale signsthat I'm kind of neglecting the
small needs that I have.
Right.
But also, too, that bleeds intothe needs of, like you said, of
belonging belonging, love, um,you know, fitness, all of these
(35:27):
areas that help me thrive, right?
Um, is that similar foreverybody, right?
Or what's your thoughts there?
Speaker 2 (35:38):
I think that when, when kevin, for example, just
using him as an example, mybusiness partner, when he and
some of your listeners will knowhim too, cause he's been on the
show and he doesn't mind me,the reason I'm using him is
because your listeners know him,you know him and he doesn't
mind me sharing these thingsRight, so you always got to be
careful, as a public figure,what you talk about.
(35:59):
Um, but I have permission inadvance to talk about all this,
so it's good.
But Kevin, for example, hisneed for he wants to be in great
shape, he wants to have moneyin the bank account and he wants
to drive a nice car.
As long as those three thingsare good, he feels like he can
be his best self.
What's deeper than that are theneeds you're talking about.
It's not actually about the caror the money or the body it's
(36:21):
about what his unconscious mindhas connected.
Those two and those are the baseneeds.
The base needs that I thinkwe're all going for are growth
contra growth, impactfulfillment, really money,
because, um, in the past itwould be bartering, it would be,
(36:41):
you know, assets, things likethat, but now it really.
I mean it really is money,currency, whatever your currency
is, um, and then belonging.
Belonging those are the ones wereally need.
Yeah, and kevin's always feltlike he belongs and and I'm at
the fear of sounding like apretentious person I'm going to
(37:05):
share this because I do believeit will help people and that is
my sincere goal.
If you are average in something, it's easy to belong, because
most people are average.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Right Anything that you are not like.
If you're way above average orway below average, you usually
don't feel like you belong,because you actually don't.
You actually don't and that'swhy you have to go.
So, for example, the percentageof people that are in the NFL
is extremely, extremely,extremely low, okay.
And then the percentage ofpeople that actually play
(37:39):
consistently and start very,very low, okay.
So if you play in the NFL, youbelong with other people who
play in the NFL and understandwhat that's like and you have
similar challenges.
Your life isn't easy, by theway, because people think
biggest lie of all time, in myhonest opinion, is that success
makes life easier.
No, no, no.
(38:00):
Success makes life harder.
You don't get to the NFL and gooh, nice, easier your life.
No, no, no.
Now you have to play againstthe best in the world.
And if you get injured, you'regone right or whatever it is.
And now you're competing at alevel that requires more of you,
not less of you, understanding,I think, ever.
(38:25):
Unless it's generational wealth.
That's a snowball that wasbuilt and created by someone
prior to you and your family.
When you reach a new level ofsuccess, it means life is harder
.
So it's great, right?
2000 episodes, 16 person team,175 countries, 1.17 million
listens.
That all sounds awesome, and itand it is, and that's the goal.
But my life is not easier.
Kevin and I's life is actuallyharder now.
(38:48):
We have more responsibility,more to lose, more to sustain,
more to grow right.
How do you grow from that place, right?
So I think that that's a bigbreakthrough as well.
But ultimately, it's all theseneeds that are unconscious, and
I think we're all wired in acertain way to value our needs
in a different syntax.
So my need for belonging ishigher than Kevin's, because I
(39:12):
didn't belong more than Kevin.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
His need for money is higher than mine because I feel
like making money comesnaturally to me.
So, of course, right, andthat's why you have to sort of
heal.
But also understand this aboutyourself.
And the paradox is, if you tryto change what you tie your
self-esteem to without actuallymeeting it first, you probably
(39:36):
won't be able to have theabundance to actually change it.
So, yes, me at 36 understandsall this intellectually, but
that doesn't mean I'm suddenlylike oh yeah, it doesn't bother
me at all that my friends talkto Kev more than me and comment
on his stuff but don't like mystuff.
The truth is it bothers me andI use it to motivate me with the
chip on my shoulder a littlebit, but I also know that I
(39:59):
can't let it run me.
But I also have to know that itit definitely affects me.
Um cause, that's a need.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Yeah, yeah, and I think that's so deep because I,
I obviously for me it's verysimilar fitness, uh, money, and
I think belonging is very hugefor me.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Um sounds like that's the most important for you.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Yes, it is right.
Belonging and also being seenas somebody that people admire,
right, admiration, right, whichis something that is out of my
control, right, even though Ifeel like I can control it.
So that's where the fitnesscomes in.
(40:46):
That's where making sureeverything is in order and
polished comes in right.
That's when I you know, youknow when I read a lot of books
and be and make sure the way Ithink and express myself and I
communicate is polished, isbecause it is a admiration piece
.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Do you think that it felt disrespected when you were
younger and you feel like peoplemaybe don't respect you so
you're.
So kevin and I had thisdiscussion a while back.
He, he, I.
I think that I I had a bigbreakthrough when I realized
that I was actually jealous ofKevin.
I didn't know this consciously,but I was like everybody loves
that dude, like everybody likeshim.
(41:31):
We would give a speech and I'mconvinced my speech was more
valuable and everyone would hateme and love him and he.
So we realized something he isjealous of how much I'm
respected and sometimes how muchI'm admired.
(41:52):
Yeah, I'm jealous of how mucheveryone just likes this dude.
Everyone likes him.
I don't feel like a easilylikable, the regular, relatable
guy that's humble, thateverybody can relate to, and
you're trying to be more like meto get admiration for people to
(42:16):
look up to you.
And here I am trying to benormal when I'm not, to try to
be relatable.
When I'm not to try to berelatable when I'm not, it's
like dude.
What if we just leaned into whowe actually are Because I'm not
naturally relatable?
Right, no one does.
No one tracks 13 metrics and 19habits a day.
(42:37):
Right, I mean, that's not anormal thing.
Everyone in my team does.
Everyone in my coaching programdoes Not that many, but tracks
metrics and habits.
So that's what I whatever youare be a good one, I think is
the place to end here, which isagain goes back to
self-awareness first,self-acceptance.
That's the hard part.
(42:57):
You got to accept that you'renot naturally gifted.
If you're not, you got toaccept that you are gifted.
If you are, you're not allowedto say it.
By the way, I'm riskingostracization by saying these
things, but I'm trying to help.
But, like I was the guy who waskind of gifted intellectually,
not athletically- notathletically, intellectually for
(43:19):
sure, and while you're notallowed to say that out loud, it
is the truth.
And the goals that I have arenot going to work for everybody,
and I think that everyone needsto understand their own
giftedness, or lack thereof, andthen work from that honest
place.
And if you do, I mean that'swhen you create fulfillment 100%
(43:41):
, 100%.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Well, Alan man, a lot of great value that we share in
this combo.
We could keep going, butdefinitely want to be conscious
of time.
Where can people find you?
Where can people continue tofollow your journey?
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Thank you so much for having me, josh.
Seriously, this was awesome.
It's cool to do this again fiveyears later.
I guess now, or four or fiveyears later.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
And keep doing what you're doing.
For sure, thank you for havingme and thank you for doing what
you're doing in the world.
Seriously, I think the worldneeds more of this.
I do, and of course I'm biased,but I mean, if we all work on
self-improvement, self-awareness, self-acceptance, the world
(44:29):
becomes a better place becausewe stop hurting each other
constantly.
Right, we all sweep our ownporch, the whole world will be
clean, kind of thing.
So, yeah, I'm a naive optimist,although the naive is being
ripped out of me for sure.
Okay, where can people find me?
Next level universe calm.
We have a podcast called NextLevel University.
Next Level you, not Next LevelMe.
Next Level you pun intendedunique version of yourself.
(44:50):
It's a place you go to helpreach your potential 1%
improvement every single day,from anywhere on the planet,
completely free in your pocket.
Holistic self-improvement,heart-driven, but no BS.
Holistic self-improvement fordream chasers, and it really is
for anyone who sincerely wantsto chase their dreams.
Maybe your dream is to have avilla on the beach.
(45:10):
Maybe your dream is to have agreat relationship.
Maybe your dream is to be ingreat shape.
Maybe your dream is to build abillion dollar business.
Whatever it is, whatever thatdream is whatever that vision is
.
Next Level University is thereto help you become the version
of yourself that actually canattract and sustain and earn.
Earn that success.
(45:33):
And the keyword is earn there,because kevin and I are tryhards
who came from very little andwe don't believe in the big
rewards for minimal effort shityeah, it doesn't, doesn't happen
though it doesn't happen, yougot to earn it.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
I've tried the shortcuts.
I've tried it.
It doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
So let me be the example.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Let me be the example , alan.
We appreciate you and man can'twait to see the continued
success.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Thank you so much, Josh.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Love it.
Welcome to another episode of Playing Injured.
We have an old friend here, mrAlan Lazarus, who is the CEO of
Next Level University, alsoco-host of Next Level University
, one of the top podcasts in theworld, almost at 2,000 episodes
.
You guys will be there by nextweek, right?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Also, too, a business coach, and you've coached in
other areas, right, fitnesscoaching, different things like
that.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, I started out as a fitness coach, and then it
was mindset, and then it waspeak performance, and then it
was business consulting, and soI've been through the coaching
gauntlet, so to speak.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, but at the end of the day, you're a coach,
right, and so love that.
And very smart guy, computerengineering degree, mba as well,
right.
So just a great foundation.
And, like I said before, we hitrecord.
I've followed you guys fromafar, so appreciate you jumping
(01:01):
on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Josh, thank you for having me.
I appreciate the humility, Iappreciate the gratitude, I'm
grateful to be here.
Man, I playfully told Josh offthe mics because Josh came to.
We talked about a mastermind.
We used to do a live podcastevery week and we'd have guests
come on and we had someone namedSamantha Skelly come on and she
did a live breath work where itwas.
(01:25):
She put on music and she we didthis breath work exercise
together as a group.
I think there was like 23people there and I think there
was 22 people crying, and youwere one of them, Um, and I was
one of them, Kevin.
Kevin said no, I just havesomething in both my eyes, you
know, Um, it was really cool.
That was back in 2020.
So, I, I playfully told joshbefore we hit record here.
(01:45):
I said I uh, kevin, and Ithought you hated us man.
You just you just went away anddid your thing and we're like I
wonder what we did.
And so it was so cool to hearthat you interviewed him
recently, so cool to come onhere and hear that you listened
to the show, and, um, I thinkthere are some truths too.
There are certain people frommy past that I think maybe have
an aversion to me.
I'm glad to hear that you're notone of them, and I know we can
(02:07):
go into some of that stuff,because sometimes it does have
to do with rubbing someone thewrong way.
Other times it has nothing todo with that and you were
totally inaccurate in terms ofyour thinking.
So I'm grateful I was wrongabout you, man, and I'm grateful
to be back.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, 100%.
You know your masterminds thatyou guys were having.
I met you guys at a pivotal nota pivotal, a pivotal time in my
life, actually.
So one my first time gettingfired, right.
I got laid off from the firstcompany I was working at it was
(02:42):
a tech company here in Chicagogot let go.
So then around that time I wasstarting this podcast thing,
right.
I didn't even know how to getstarted, right, but I saw you
guys.
It's kind of like a North Starfor me.
I can't remember how we got intouch, but I think either
reached out I can't remember butreached out to you guys and
(03:07):
just wanted to get around thatfire.
Also, too, it was the pandemic,right, and so we were inside a
lot, and then it was a lot ofthings going on in the world and
so it was an opportunity for meto get a part of an environment
that was positive, right, andI'm already a part of different.
(03:27):
You know masterminds andmentors in my life who kind of
put me on this journey to bemore positive and different
things like that.
But I want to get around asmany groups as possible and you
guys really fit that for me.
So the timing was perfect andthen gradually, things start to
open up.
Hey, I get a new career, new job, I move.
(03:50):
Life kind of happens right, youget into a relationship
relationship, I break up.
So a lot has happened overthese last five years where, if
I would have known, you guysthought I had a version to you,
I would have reached out and soyou know, if I could, if I could
(04:11):
ask you.
You know, and I don't know ifthis is something that you still
take, you still struggle withor not, but how do you not take
things personally, right?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, man, yeah, that's the.
So I love the name of your showplaying injured because I think
it's a metaphor for not onlyathletes that are listening and
how a lot of us have to pushthrough pain, but all of us are
injured in terms of past traumas.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
And, uh, you know two types of people.
There's people with trauma andthen liars right, I'm just
kidding.
But even if you don't have anytrauma, that's your trauma,
because now you don't fit in,because you're the only one or
whatever.
But and again, differentfrequencies, intensities,
densities and durations.
I've been doing therapy since Iwas 30.
I'm 36 now, even though I look12.
And my therapist, carol.
(05:07):
I've gotten confirmation from astatistical perspective of
someone who's been doing therapyfor decades that my trauma is
substantial and that's honestlyputting it lightly.
And I think on the soul level Ikind of knew that.
But when you say, how do younot take things personally?
To bring it back to yourquestion, I think that my past
self always felt like I don'teasily fit in.
(05:28):
And as I've gotten older andI've leaned into sort of the
engineer math modality ofthinking very much systems,
structure, principles,priorities, very calculated,
playfully, more Spock-like Ithink that I've come to
(05:48):
understand that I'm never goingto be the fun guy at the
barbecue like I used to be, andI think that in hindsight I used
to drink more frequently andmore often, because I think that
we all live in two worlds.
The first world we live in isthe social world 's the barbecue
, that's the wedding, that's theuh cafeteria in school yeah,
(06:10):
what'd you say?
the club yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,exactly the social world, and
that's where there's socialstatus, there's social hierarchy
.
There's who's the athlete,who's the nerd, who's the hot
girl, who's the who's the hotguy, who's who's the popular,
who's the nerd, who's the hotgirl, who's the hot guy, who's
the popular, girls or guys, orwhatever.
That whole social world,instagram type of world.
(06:31):
And then there's your realfucking life.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
And the best metaphor I have for the social world
versus the real world iseveryone's wedding looks
beautiful, not everyone'smarriage is, and some people's
marriage is magnificent, andthen the wedding can be a
beautiful representation of that, versus the other way around,
if some people have a weddingthat looks gorgeous but the
marriage is atrocious behind thescenes.
And so I got in a car accidentwhen I was 26.
(06:59):
That really helped meunderstand.
Okay, you know, went from youknow, middle, popular as hell,
high school, absolute loser.
Just hit puberty late.
You think I look young now.
Imagine me at 14, right Pitydances from my sister's friends.
She was a senior when I was afreshman.
Stepdad left at 14.
We go from boats and ski tripsto I'm broke.
I get free lunch at school.
(07:20):
My mom trades in her BMW for alittle Honda Civic and I don't
even know how I'm going toafford college school.
My mom trades in her BMW for alittle Honda Civic and I don't
even know how I'm going toafford college.
Straight A's nerd, get all thescholarships and financial aid.
Go to college, computerengineer, master's in business,
and then I'm in corporate andnow I'm very successful
externally and at this point Ihad hit puberty and actually
gotten some popularity and thatkind of thing.
But what I've come tounderstand now is that the
social world and the real worldare completely different and I
(07:43):
think that in the past Iunconsciously took being treated
poorly personally yes and so toanswer your original question
of how do you do you take itpersonally?
how do you not take itpersonally?
I think it's just understandingthis fundamental truth that the
way in which other people arebehaving is a response and
(08:06):
reaction to, yes, maybe you, butbut also their relationship
with themselves.
So let me give you an example.
So if I have, if I'm coming upon 2000 episodes and you
celebrate that, that shows me acouple things.
Number one either you do feelnot good enough and you have
humility to celebrate othersanyway, or you're actually
(08:27):
confident and can celebratesomeone else.
Or there's the third narcissistwho only celebrates it because
I'm on your show and I knowyou're not that one.
But when you're young you don'tknow the fucking difference.
So you just get ripped a newone repeatedly and you don't
understand boundaries and youdon't understand you know your
value.
And so in the past this was mycycle.
(08:49):
I was running unconsciously Betreated unjustly, because I'm
definitely.
I trigger other people'sinsecurity in their intelligence
.
I've always been very sort ofstraight, a student intellectual
.
Get treated unjustly because Ihave low self-worth.
No dad, stepdad left that kindof thing.
And then my trauma response tothat fight flight freezer fawn.
(09:11):
It was fawn socially, socialworld, fawn appease, don't get
abandoned.
But then, behind the scenes, itwas fight, aim higher, work
harder, get smarter.
And when you aim higher, workharder, get smarter.
Now you trigger people evenmore, so it gets even worse.
And then my response to that isaim higher, work harder, get
smarter.
Now you trigger people evenmore, so it gets even worse.
And then my response to that isaim higher, work harder, get
smarter, which gets even worse.
And then eventually you findself-improvement at 26, 10 years
(09:34):
ago for me.
And then your response toeverything becomes what can I
learn from this?
How can I get better, not justexternally, but internally?
And then it gets even freakingworse in the social world,
because now you actually arealigned, you are virtuous, you
do have clear goals, and I sentthis to my girlfriend yesterday.
Literally I looked up on chat,gpt, the top 20 indicators that
(09:58):
you're.
You have an intimidatingpersonality, top 30 indicators.
When I was reading through thislist I was going okay, clear
goals, thinking logic more thanemotion, but okay, so what's
happening is I'm, I'm someonewho apparently has all these
character traits that indicatethat you're intimidating people,
(10:21):
and being tall and having a lotof muscle mass is one of them
as well, which you obviouslyhave now.
But we didn't start there,right?
And so everyone is respondingand reacting to who you are, but
not necessarily authenticallyand they're not even necessarily
aware of it either, right?
(10:41):
So insecure men have a reallyhard time being around me, and
they would usually react inthese sort of weird turtle up or
puff up ways, and I used totake that personally, when now I
just realize it's just aresponse to their own insecurity
.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Yeah, here's what I realized, though.
It triggers something in youthat either you can become more
self-aware of yourself, right,when you take things personally,
or you can see it as you notbeing good enough, or whatever
the case may be.
Right, in my early days, right,I used to feel you not being
good enough, or whatever thecase may be.
(11:18):
In my early days, I used tofeel, hey, not good enough, or
something is wrong with me.
Now what I start to do is like,oh, I'm feeling a little
anxious.
Why is that?
Here are some thoughts that aregoing in my mind.
Why is that?
Then it's like, oh, okay, theseare some, some wounds that I
(11:41):
have.
Right, like I'm telling myselfstories that aren't even true,
thoughts that go through my mind.
It's almost like they're goingthrough past trauma, going
through past experiences, goingthrough things that have nothing
to do with today.
Right, right, and myinterpretation on those past
situations weren't in realityeither.
(12:03):
Right, we have no idea what wasgoing on with other people and
why they treated you a certainway, and so one of the
affirmations I tell myself isthat other people's behavior is
not tied to my worth.
Right, it's something that Ihave to remind myself, right.
It's something that to this day, you know, I still kind of have
trouble with is when I come upto meet somebody.
(12:27):
Why did they turn their head?
Why did they not look me in myeye?
Why did they say you know, if Ihave a conversation with
somebody, why was that so short?
Why did I, why did they do thisright?
These are small thoughts thatI'm getting better with right,
that I try to ignore, butthey're still there and I have
to fight it.
I have to override it, right.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Well, josh, let me, let me ask you this and this is,
this is awesome already, yeah,so so I, I went from and this
was a very fascinating socialexperiment for me so I went from
160 pounds skinny fat to 220pounds in literally six months.
I gained 60 pounds in sixmonths of mostly muscle
definitely not all muscle, yeah,because I was hammering McDonks
(13:10):
, but it was mostly muscle.
I was weight training everysingle day, blah, blah, blah.
And then I ripped it up and didsome fitness competitions and
stuff.
But to see how differently theworld reacted to me with that
big of a transformation made mefirst of all, sad, but also made
me realize that the way peopleare reacting to you is a
(13:35):
byproduct of what they perceiveyou as and their own insecurity
or lack thereof.
So I don't know how tall youare, but you're, you're.
Yeah, how tall are you?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Six four.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Okay, so you're six, four, okay.
African-american male for lackof better phrasing.
Okay, and you're a bigger guy?
Yeah, right, statisticallyspeaking, depending on what room
we're in, right, but there, ifanyone is insecure on any level
about their size, they willreact to you in a way that is
(14:07):
not um their true self.
Yeah, so my business partner,kevin, he's only five, six.
He would have his old self,would have had a hard time
around you, not because there'sanything wrong with you, but
because he is insecure about hisbeing short, which now he talks
about openly and.
I have this client who, um, I, I, I've coached a lot of
(14:27):
different types of people overthe years and there's a lot of
lessons and all this.
So I'm not just flexing on this, but anywhere from, like you
know, a supermodel in dubai Toto a person famous in the
greatest boss, greater bostonarea, all the way to people that
that are not famous at all andand that kind of thing.
So it's been hundreds of peopleover the years.
But what I've learned is thatthe people that you think are
(14:51):
the most secure, like thesupermodel in dubai, so to speak
, is actually wildly insecure.
And this other person that I'mthinking of right now I'll keep
it anonymous.
I've been coaching her for fiveplus years.
She is, statistically speaking,very, very beautiful, extremely
(15:11):
in great shape, just very 10out of 10 type of person.
People won't look at her at thegym and I said you got to
understand, it's not becauseyou're not good enough, it's
actually because the guys aretrying not to be disrespectful
and the women are jealous andthey're not consciously jealous.
It's not like they'reconsciously going oh I'm jealous
, so I'm going to look away.
(15:32):
It's just their trauma responseto whatever you are, and the
trauma responses are fight,flight, freeze and fawn and
people think, okay, traumaresponse means there's a bear in
the woods, I'm going to run.
No, no, no.
Trauma responses are happening,both micro moments and macro
(15:54):
traumas.
Right, so what?
My reaction to my car accidentis a macro trauma, but when I
first meet you, josh, and Ishake your hand, if I'm on any
level insecure about my physiqueor my attractiveness or my size
, I'm gonna have trouble lookingyou in the eye and shaking your
hand and you might internalizethat as I'm not good enough,
(16:15):
when in reality it's actuallybecause you're fucking awesome
and you're huge and you'regood-looking and all these
things.
So some of the people that arethe most attractive externally
actually have the leastself-worth internally because of
this sort of human pattern thatwe have in the social world.
(16:35):
So what I try to do with myclients, I try to help them win
in the real world and figure outwhat their self-esteem is
actually tied to and then win inthose couple areas and then
allow that to ripple out intothe social world, versus trying
to get validation in the socialworld to try to fill something
in the real world, whichdefinitely doesn't work.
I've tried.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
It doesn't work doesn't work 100% and you're
talking about even just size.
This happens with a lot ofdifferent areas of life.
Right, somebody realizes thatyou are a real quality person.
Right, and they're not used todealing with somebody who is,
like you said, goal-oriented.
Right, they get involved withyou as a friend.
(17:14):
Right, let's say, me and youmeet each other and we start to
hang out and I'm realizing thatyou are man, you are on it, and
I'm like I'm not really on it asmuch as he is.
Right, and I start to kind ofnot respond to you.
Right, or I stop calling you, Istop hanging out with you,
right?
It's not that anything isnecessarily wrong with you.
(17:36):
It's that, hey with you.
Right, it's not that anythingis necessarily wrong with you.
Is that?
Speaker 2 (17:39):
hey, you're making me feel a certain way about myself
being around you isuncomfortable for me on the ego
level, and it being around youis a reminder of how outside of
alignment I actually am because,dude at 26, when I got in that
car accident and I really foundself-improvement, personal
growth, personal development.
(18:00):
That was my main sort oftransformational moment.
I started to say, okay, I'mgonna work on myself every day
and I thought when I became abetter man that I would have
more friends and people wouldlike me more and and things.
But that is, I mean, comicallynot true.
Yeah, I'm talking like it'sridiculous.
(18:21):
How untrue that is.
Like I, you know I track metricsand habits and priorities, but
it's the the better I I'vebecome as a man physically,
mentally, emotionally andspiritually the actually more
people seek you out but don'treally want to be around you.
It's, it's so interesting.
You feel more sought after interms of your uh, perception and
(18:42):
social status and value, butyou actually feel like people
don't actually like being aroundyou but that at the same time,
they're also fighting to be apart of your life.
It's such a fascinating thingand I think that anyone who's
ever dealt with any level offame, fame and ke Kevin and I
are not famous by any means, butwe have experienced enough of
it to realize that it's a lot of.
(19:04):
It is the social statusy stuff,and in sports I don't know how
high you went in it, but theseathletes, your value is so
predicated on your, yourcontribution to the team winning
and anything outside of thatlane.
You're pretty much not of valueand and that's just not only
economically true, but it's alsotrue in the social status world
(19:25):
and and we all wish that wasn'tthe case because when we our
head hits the bed at night, youneed to feel of value as a man
or as a woman or whatever youidentify as, and if you don't
have that unconditional love inyour real life, oh, you are so
fucked and and and I I didn'trealize till my 30s how much I
(19:48):
didn't actually have that.
And a past girlfriend, forexample, wanted to date the
fitness model but didn't, didn'tlove because I was a fitness
model.
43 photo shoots and fitnesscompetitions, you know, got
stomped at two of them.
Now, well, I placed every timebut I won one of the three.
But I was definitely the likefitness model, abercrombie model
(20:08):
looking, you know, definitelynot, as I was way more in shape
back then.
Let's just say that,unfortunately, the only thing.
That's gotten worse, you know.
But I remember being in arelationship with this woman and
I remember thinking like youdon't love me, like you love the
idea of me, you want to be withthe hot guy on Instagram who's
(20:31):
got 30,000 followers and who isa model and who's ripped a pack
and who who is an achiever, butyou don't actually want to date
that dude because that dude hasto get up at 5 am and go to the
gym like you want the shiny shitand but you don't want what
comes with that.
And, by the way, you don't getthe fitness model eight pack guy
(20:52):
without also the workouts, thefoam rolling, the sleep,
hydration, nutrition, mobility,breathwork supplementation, like
you have have.
You have to want everythingunderneath that iceberg too, and
if you can't fall in love withbeneath that iceberg, you don't
get to be with someone of thatcaliber.
And what I've come tounderstand is that nobody wants
to be around someone who focuseson sleep, hydration, nutrition,
(21:15):
training, mobility, breathwork,supplementation, metrics,
priorities, habits, structure,calendar, like seriously, it's
just not what most people wantto do.
Everyone wants to be aroundMichael Phelps, but no one wants
to get in the fucking pool.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And that's so hard for someone like him, who is
like why does everyone love meand also not want to be around
me?
It's such a fascinating thing.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, it's a very fascinating thing and you have
to do the inner work, innerpersonal development, to
understand human nature rightand understand that it's not
personal.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Yeah, it feels.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
It's tough.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
It does feel personal right.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
But you also mentioned something very key,
key.
You said the, the internal workright, the self-esteem um.
What do you do to to grow that,to um be a little bit more in
tune with your self-esteem andhow you feel about yourself
yourself?
So the?
Speaker 2 (22:15):
oh sorry, you have powerful pauses so I didn't know
if you were.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, I'm sorry don't be sorry.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Powerful pauses are good man it's good, it's real
good.
So I used to believe I'm also soexcited, like my excitement is
sometimes come off, it comes offtoo much.
Uh, I gotta channel my passion,channel it, calm down, it's all
gonna be fine.
I've been waiting for years tobe asked this question.
No, uh, so the self-esteempiece.
(22:43):
I used to believe that youcould change.
So when I first foundself-improvement I was like,
okay, this is it all the stuffpeople hate about me.
I'm gonna change it.
And then you change it and itgets worse and people don't even
like you even more, right, uh.
And you realize, okay, I can'tchange who I am, but what I can
(23:06):
do is uncover who I actually amand then grow from that place.
So I think a lot of people likemyself start in self-improvement
and personal growth andpersonal development going okay,
well, I don't like that.
I'm tall and lanky, so I'mgonna get jacked.
And then you start working onyourself and you do fitness and
all that stuff.
And then it's well, I'm acomputer engineer and I'm a math
thinker and everything isstructure and equations for me.
(23:28):
But I'm going to try to be moresocial, I'm going to be more
extroverted, right?
And then you go out and you tryto change who you are and it's,
it's atrocious.
It's terrible, yeah, becauseyou're not fulfilled, because
you're never going to befulfilled when you're not in
alignment with who you actuallyare.
So I don't do any of thatanymore.
What I now do with clients isthey come to me and they say,
(23:50):
okay, here's where I am, I wantto try to be this person and
achieve this thing, and I usedto try to help them do that, and
then it would never workbecause they'd go on that
journey.
The process was never alignedwith who they really are.
They have to mitigate everyweakness and, basically, and
avoid any strength and everystrength comes with a weakness,
by the way, and it was liketrying to get kevin to beat
(24:10):
lebron james at basketball.
It's, it's, it's impossible.
You can't.
You're not naturally gifted inthat area.
So what we do, I think all of ushave a really negative
relationship with our weaknessesand our gifts, and every gift
comes with a weakness.
So I'll give you one of mygifts.
One of my gifts is math.
(24:31):
I adore.
I think in exponentials, Ithink in equations.
I don't think I've ever gottenbelow an A in math in my entire
life.
With minimal effort, I mean, Icould party all night still, you
know, show up just to the testsand get an A.
And I'm not saying that to brag, I'm saying this because it
comes with a massive weakness.
So when it comes to goals andmetrics and reverse engineering,
(24:54):
finish lines and helping peoplemeasure the right things and
achieve their goals very, verygood finance, easy science,
technology, engineering,mathematics, business and
finance all strengths they comenaturally.
Guess what doesn'trelationships?
That dude is not gonna be goodat relationships because he
(25:15):
doesn't understand that no onethinks like he does
statistically.
So if you're at the very farend of any statistical bell
curve, you have an opportunityto do something very unique and
very special, but it destroysyour relationships.
Why?
Because if you're naturallyawesome at football and you play
against me and we're friends,if I don't feel good enough and
(25:37):
I'm insecure, I'm going to treatyou poorly, unless you're on my
team, and that's where all thisstuff that we already talked
about comes in.
So what do we do?
We hide our strengths to fit in.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
And then we also hide our weaknesses to fit in.
And, by the way, the weaknessescome as a result of the
strengths.
So for me, high self-belief,math modality of thinking, high
levels of certainty, greatexternal achievement.
I have to hide all that,pretend I'm humble.
Now I'm not saying I'm nothumble, but I have to pretend to
be less certain than I actuallyam.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah, you got to shrink yourself.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
A hundred percent to fit in Make other people feel,
yeah, in the world of theinsecure, the truly secure
person has to shrink, otherwisethey don't belong, and they get
rocks thrown at them and allthat kind of stuff.
So we're all afraid of failureand success.
Success is if I'm toosuccessful, I'm going to get
ostracized from my peers, and orthey're going to start treating
(26:33):
me weird.
If I get to failure, I'll beostracized from the group,
because no one wants to playbasketball with the worst player
either, right, so no one wantsto be Michael Jordan, but no one
wants to be a bench playereither.
So and again, insert sportsmetaphor here sports podcast,
great.
The truth is, though, is we'reall in this little box between
(26:54):
floor and ceiling of success andfailure, so it all comes down
to who you associate with, whichis why our reference group
determines such a huge therehave been so many studies on
this.
Our reference group determinessuch a huge amount of our
success because it's almost likeall of us.
If our number one need isbelonging, social belonging,
(27:22):
need is belonging, socialbelonging, and all your peers
make 60 grand a year and youstart making 160, all of a
sudden things get weird and youdon't understand what's
happening.
They're not happy.
Some of them are, but some ofthem aren't.
Some of them are pretending tobe the whole thing,
unconsciously, because I'drather fit in and be mediocre
(27:45):
than actually be truly great.
And a good metaphor for this isto say and maybe they do, I'm
not sure, I don't know them, butwe all know the higher and this
has been really hard for me thehigher that Kevin and I climb
(28:07):
for lack of better phrasing theharder it is for us to have
meaningful relationships withpeople we went to high school
with, and that's been reallyhard for me.
It's been harder on me than himbecause I don't think he cares
as much, but his, his core woundis different than mine.
Um, but I've forgotten theoriginal question because I've
gotten off track.
Do you remember what it was?
Speaker 1 (28:28):
I can't remember.
I know you shared a lot of ohself-esteem.
We talked about self-esteem howto grow yourself awesome okay.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
So inside out versus outside in.
If you're playing outside in,you're in trouble.
Inside out versus outside in.
So the old me used to say, okay, you're here, you want to be
here, you can achieve this.
No, no, I don't do that anymore.
Everything has to start fromhigh self-awareness.
So I coach 26 individuals rightnow business coach, but I did
fitness and mindset and peakperformance a lot of stuff.
(28:58):
So now what we do first isself-awareness.
So step one is self-awareness.
Step two is self-acceptance.
Step three now it's you can goachieve.
I think one of the reasons alot of people don't achieve
their goals and you can lookthis up the statistics on who
has clear written goals thatthey actually achieve, whether
(29:19):
it's New Year's resolutions orwhatever it's very low, super
low.
Most people are stumbling uponresults and then trying to hold
on to it.
Seriously, when it comes topremeditated goals that you
write down in advance, a lot oftimes those goals are predicated
on low self-awareness.
So, legs though, I mean, I canrun like the wind so if I want,
(29:46):
but what do I care about?
I don't care about being fast,I've always already fast.
Long legs, long distancerunning, no problem.
What do I want?
To be jacked.
So we all want to be differentthan we are exactly see, that's
the problem, whereas I couldjust go all in on what I'm
already naturally gifted at andthen improve from that place.
(30:07):
But if I do that, I get all ofthe upsides of success but all
of the social downsides thatcome with that.
And if my real goal is to belong, I'm not going to amplify my
statistical advantage yeah right, and so as I've grown older and
older and older, I've had toheal and to get back to
self-esteem.
I realized this.
(30:28):
All of us myself, you, mybusiness partner Kev, my
girlfriend Amelia we just talkedabout this earlier today we tie
our self-esteem unconsciouslyto a couple things.
I did this with a clientearlier.
His name is Bradley.
I tie my self-esteem to threethings and I won't share his,
but I used it as an example andwe got clear on his.
(30:49):
Number one is fitness being afreak athlete.
So for me, I was pre-pubescent,didn't hit puberty till senior
year of high school, definitelya nerd, overlooked by every girl
, not attractive.
Didn't become a man until waylater.
(31:11):
I care so deeply about beingbig and strong because I always
felt lanky and weak and I gotbullied a lot, okay.
So number one tie myself-esteem to my athleticism.
Number two is my relationshipwith emilia.
That's where my belonging is.
I belong with her to a deep,deep, deep level.
It's the fucking best.
I met her five years ago.
It's the best relationship I'veever been in, by far Greatest
(31:32):
gift of my life and, quitefrankly, I wouldn't be here if I
didn't have that at the core,because I would be still chasing
for belonging and externalvalidation.
I get so much belonging from myrelationship that it allows me
to go flourish and sort of saygoodbye to a lot of
relationships that were holdingme back.
All right.
The third one is my body ofwork.
This is a little bit weird, butI can't stand when I do poor
(31:55):
work.
So if this episode is notsomething that I feel like I
gave my all to make it asvaluable as possible, I will be
unfulfilled afterwards.
So those are the three thingsthat I tie my self-esteem to.
Kevin wouldn't mind me sharinghis.
I think his are a lot morerelatable, quite frankly.
Number one car he drives.
(32:16):
Number two money in the bankaccount.
Number three dude wants to bejacked and he'll admit this to
all of you.
I think he's just more honestthan most people.
I think most people do tieself-esteem to those three
things, but they're not honestabout it.
And one of the ironies is whenKev was a kid, that's all he
(32:39):
really wanted.
He wanted to have enough moneyto drive his dream car.
He wanted to have money in thebank because he and his
upbringing didn't have any and,uh, he wanted to be jacked,
which he was.
He worked really hard infitness his whole life because
he felt short and insignificant.
So when he was bigger, he feltbetter about himself.
(33:01):
And what I've come to understand, the old me would have said
well, you got to be carefultying your self-esteem to those
three things.
And there's truth to that,because as you mature, you
really need to hopefully be morewholesome than just those three
things.
But what I've come to realizeis that once those three things
(33:22):
are actually winning, fromKevin's own internal perspective
, that's when he's a betterhusband, that's when he's a
better business partner.
When we don't have money in thebank, dude, he is like, so
scarce.
I'm not Whether we have five or25 or 55 cash on hand.
I'm the same-ish person.
(33:45):
But ifelia and I aren't good.
I would have canned thispodcast.
Yeah, yeah, I can't go servewhen we're not good.
So, and the reason why isbecause my core wound is
unlovable and for him it'sdefective, not good enough.
He never thought he'd besuccessful.
I never thought I'd besuccessful in a relationship, so
so of course, we tie ourwell-being to the thing that we
(34:06):
thought we'd never have.
Success for me comes fairlyeasy in terms of external
success, even though you're notallowed to say that, but
relationships never came easy.
So for me I tie a lot ofself-esteem and it's all linked
to survival from an evolutionaryperspective.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Talk about that so needs, right.
It sounds like you're sayingthat first of all, you need to
be self-aware.
Like what makes you feel good,right, even if it is external
right, accept it.
Don't try to be somebody else.
Don't try to be somebody else.
Don't try to be like others.
(34:44):
Right, accept yourself of whoyou are.
Right.
But also, too, when you said,like these needs that we have,
um, that's when I start to feelout of whack.
Is, wait, I don't have food inthe fridge.
It's like when I under, when Istart to feel a little bit out
(35:04):
of whack, when I start to feellike I don't have things
together, it's telltale signsthat I'm kind of neglecting the
small needs that I have.
Right.
But also, too, that bleeds intothe needs of, like you said, of
belonging belonging, love, um,you know, fitness, all of these
(35:27):
areas that help me thrive, right?
Um, is that similar foreverybody, right?
Or what's your thoughts there?
Speaker 2 (35:38):
I think that when, when kevin, for example, just
using him as an example, mybusiness partner, when he and
some of your listeners will knowhim too, cause he's been on the
show and he doesn't mind me,the reason I'm using him is
because your listeners know him,you know him and he doesn't
mind me sharing these thingsRight, so you always got to be
careful, as a public figure,what you talk about.
(35:59):
Um, but I have permission inadvance to talk about all this,
so it's good.
But Kevin, for example, hisneed for he wants to be in great
shape, he wants to have moneyin the bank account and he wants
to drive a nice car.
As long as those three thingsare good, he feels like he can
be his best self.
What's deeper than that are theneeds you're talking about.
It's not actually about the caror the money or the body it's
(36:21):
about what his unconscious mindhas connected.
Those two and those are the baseneeds.
The base needs that I thinkwe're all going for are growth
contra growth, impactfulfillment, really money,
because, um, in the past itwould be bartering, it would be,
(36:41):
you know, assets, things likethat, but now it really.
I mean it really is money,currency, whatever your currency
is, um, and then belonging.
Belonging those are the ones wereally need.
Yeah, and kevin's always feltlike he belongs and and I'm at
the fear of sounding like apretentious person I'm going to
(37:05):
share this because I do believeit will help people and that is
my sincere goal.
If you are average in something, it's easy to belong, because
most people are average.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Right Anything that you are not like.
If you're way above average orway below average, you usually
don't feel like you belong,because you actually don't.
You actually don't and that'swhy you have to go.
So, for example, the percentageof people that are in the NFL
is extremely, extremely,extremely low, okay.
And then the percentage ofpeople that actually play
(37:39):
consistently and start very,very low, okay.
So if you play in the NFL, youbelong with other people who
play in the NFL and understandwhat that's like and you have
similar challenges.
Your life isn't easy, by theway, because people think
biggest lie of all time, in myhonest opinion, is that success
makes life easier.
No, no, no.
(38:00):
Success makes life harder.
You don't get to the NFL and gooh, nice, easier your life.
No, no, no.
Now you have to play againstthe best in the world.
And if you get injured, you'regone right or whatever it is.
And now you're competing at alevel that requires more of you,
not less of you, understanding,I think, ever.
(38:25):
Unless it's generational wealth.
That's a snowball that wasbuilt and created by someone
prior to you and your family.
When you reach a new level ofsuccess, it means life is harder
.
So it's great, right?
2000 episodes, 16 person team,175 countries, 1.17 million
listens.
That all sounds awesome, and itand it is, and that's the goal.
But my life is not easier.
Kevin and I's life is actuallyharder now.
(38:48):
We have more responsibility,more to lose, more to sustain,
more to grow right.
How do you grow from that place, right?
So I think that that's a bigbreakthrough as well.
But ultimately, it's all theseneeds that are unconscious, and
I think we're all wired in acertain way to value our needs
in a different syntax.
So my need for belonging ishigher than Kevin's, because I
(39:12):
didn't belong more than Kevin.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
His need for money is higher than mine because I feel
like making money comesnaturally to me.
So, of course, right, andthat's why you have to sort of
heal.
But also understand this aboutyourself.
And the paradox is, if you tryto change what you tie your
self-esteem to without actuallymeeting it first, you probably
(39:36):
won't be able to have theabundance to actually change it.
So, yes, me at 36 understandsall this intellectually, but
that doesn't mean I'm suddenlylike oh yeah, it doesn't bother
me at all that my friends talkto Kev more than me and comment
on his stuff but don't like mystuff.
The truth is it bothers me andI use it to motivate me with the
chip on my shoulder a littlebit, but I also know that I
(39:59):
can't let it run me.
But I also have to know that itit definitely affects me.
Um cause, that's a need.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Yeah, yeah, and I think that's so deep because I,
I obviously for me it's verysimilar fitness, uh, money, and
I think belonging is very hugefor me.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Um sounds like that's the most important for you.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Yes, it is right.
Belonging and also being seenas somebody that people admire,
right, admiration, right, whichis something that is out of my
control, right, even though Ifeel like I can control it.
So that's where the fitnesscomes in.
(40:46):
That's where making sureeverything is in order and
polished comes in right.
That's when I you know, youknow when I read a lot of books
and be and make sure the way Ithink and express myself and I
communicate is polished, isbecause it is a admiration piece
.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Do you think that it felt disrespected when you were
younger and you feel like peoplemaybe don't respect you so
you're.
So kevin and I had thisdiscussion a while back.
He, he, I.
I think that I I had a bigbreakthrough when I realized
that I was actually jealous ofKevin.
I didn't know this consciously,but I was like everybody loves
that dude, like everybody likeshim.
(41:31):
We would give a speech and I'mconvinced my speech was more
valuable and everyone would hateme and love him and he.
So we realized something he isjealous of how much I'm
respected and sometimes how muchI'm admired.
(41:52):
Yeah, I'm jealous of how mucheveryone just likes this dude.
Everyone likes him.
I don't feel like a easilylikable, the regular, relatable
guy that's humble, thateverybody can relate to, and
you're trying to be more like meto get admiration for people to
(42:16):
look up to you.
And here I am trying to benormal when I'm not, to try to
be relatable.
When I'm not to try to berelatable when I'm not, it's
like dude.
What if we just leaned into whowe actually are Because I'm not
naturally relatable?
Right, no one does.
No one tracks 13 metrics and 19habits a day.
(42:37):
Right, I mean, that's not anormal thing.
Everyone in my team does.
Everyone in my coaching programdoes Not that many, but tracks
metrics and habits.
So that's what I whatever youare be a good one, I think is
the place to end here, which isagain goes back to
self-awareness first,self-acceptance.
That's the hard part.
(42:57):
You got to accept that you'renot naturally gifted.
If you're not, you got toaccept that you are gifted.
If you are, you're not allowedto say it.
By the way, I'm riskingostracization by saying these
things, but I'm trying to help.
But, like I was the guy who waskind of gifted intellectually,
not athletically- notathletically, intellectually for
(43:19):
sure, and while you're notallowed to say that out loud, it
is the truth.
And the goals that I have arenot going to work for everybody,
and I think that everyone needsto understand their own
giftedness, or lack thereof, andthen work from that honest
place.
And if you do, I mean that'swhen you create fulfillment 100%
(43:41):
, 100%.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Well, Alan man, a lot of great value that we share in
this combo.
We could keep going, butdefinitely want to be conscious
of time.
Where can people find you?
Where can people continue tofollow your journey?
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Thank you so much for having me, josh.
Seriously, this was awesome.
It's cool to do this again fiveyears later.
I guess now, or four or fiveyears later.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
And keep doing what you're doing.
For sure, thank you for havingme and thank you for doing what
you're doing in the world.
Seriously, I think the worldneeds more of this.
I do, and of course I'm biased,but I mean, if we all work on
self-improvement, self-awareness, self-acceptance, the world
(44:29):
becomes a better place becausewe stop hurting each other
constantly.
Right, we all sweep our ownporch, the whole world will be
clean, kind of thing.
So, yeah, I'm a naive optimist,although the naive is being
ripped out of me for sure.
Okay, where can people find me?
Next level universe calm.
We have a podcast called NextLevel University.
Next Level you, not Next LevelMe.
Next Level you pun intendedunique version of yourself.
(44:50):
It's a place you go to helpreach your potential 1%
improvement every single day,from anywhere on the planet,
completely free in your pocket.
Holistic self-improvement,heart-driven, but no BS.
Holistic self-improvement fordream chasers, and it really is
for anyone who sincerely wantsto chase their dreams.
Maybe your dream is to have avilla on the beach.
(45:10):
Maybe your dream is to have agreat relationship.
Maybe your dream is to be ingreat shape.
Maybe your dream is to build abillion dollar business.
Whatever it is, whatever thatdream is whatever that vision is
.
Next Level University is thereto help you become the version
of yourself that actually canattract and sustain and earn.
Earn that success.
(45:33):
And the keyword is earn there,because kevin and I are tryhards
who came from very little andwe don't believe in the big
rewards for minimal effort shityeah, it doesn't, doesn't happen
though it doesn't happen, yougot to earn it.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
I've tried the shortcuts.
I've tried it.
It doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
So let me be the example.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Let me be the example , alan.
We appreciate you and man can'twait to see the continued
success.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Thank you so much, Josh.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Love it.
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