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Transforming Challenges into Growth with Alan Lazaros

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Life-Changing Challengers
Transforming Challenges into Growth with Alan Lazaros
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Season 2 Motivation Success Persistence Self-Improvement

Have you ever wondered what it takes to turn adversity into a pathway for growth and fulfillment? This episode features an inspiring conversation with Alan Lazaros, CEO of Next Level University, who opens up about his tumultuous childhood and the profound impact of losing his father at a young age. Alan's candid recounting of his journey through financial instability and emotional upheaval lays the foundation for understanding the transformative power of resilience and self-reflection.

Join us as Alan takes us through his remarkable transition from a high-flying top 1% global earner to a man seeking deeper meaning after a near-fatal car accident. His story underscores the significance of aligning personal goals with one's true self and the journey to find true fulfillment beyond mere material success. Learn from Alan's existential crisis and how addressing inner trauma can pave the way for a more meaningful life, filled with personal growth and authentic success.

In this episode, we also explore the themes of unfulfilled potential and the responsibility to maximize one's gifts. Alan shares compelling anecdotes, including an inspiring story of Jimmy, a dedicated podcaster with autism, contrasting it with his own experiences of coasting on natural intelligence. We navigate the complexities of overcoming fear and insecurity, feeling exceptional, and defining personal success. Alan's insights into human behavior and self-awareness provide a comprehensive guide to understanding oneself and achieving true fulfillment. Don't miss this transformative discussion that promises to leave you with valuable lessons on personal growth and societal contribution.

Contact Alan @ Next Level University
Instagram: @alazaros88
Facebook: @alan.lazaros
LinkedIn: @alanlazarosllc
YouTube: @NextLevelUniversity
NextLevelUniverse.com

Have an idea or feedback? Click here to share.

Contact Brad @ Life Changing Challengers
Instagram: @bradaminus
Facebook: @bradaminus
X(Twitter): @bradaminus
YouTube: @lifechangingchallengers
LifeChangingChallengers.com

Want to be a guest on Life-Changing Challengers? Send Brad Minus a message on PodMatch, here.

Chapters

00:00 - Life Changing Challengers With Alan Lazaros

09:11 - From Success to Fulfillment

17:22 - Unfulfilled Potential

28:16 - Overcoming Fear and Insecurity

33:16 - Navigating Fulfillment and Success Pathways

41:07 - Finding Fulfillment Through Personal Goals

44:23 - Understanding Human Behavior and Self-Perception

57:12 - Finding Fulfillment in Career Success

01:05:48 - Networking and Appreciation

Transcript
WEBVTT

00:00:00.500 --> 00:00:03.462
All right, welcome back to another episode of Life Changing Challengers.

00:00:03.462 --> 00:00:13.686
As always, I'm your host, brad Minus, and today I am extremely lucky to have Alan Lazaros on the podcast today.

00:00:13.686 --> 00:00:18.250
He is the CEO of Next Level University and we're going to let him go into that.

00:00:18.250 --> 00:00:25.314
But let me tell you something If you ever get a chance to take a look at his at the website and listen to the podcast at Next Level University, you're going to be amazed.

00:00:25.314 --> 00:00:32.337
So he's a podcaster with over 1700 episodes.

00:00:32.337 --> 00:00:33.978
So the guy's a pro.

00:00:33.978 --> 00:00:34.781
Let me tell you that.

00:00:34.781 --> 00:00:37.268
Anyway, let me I've introduced him now, alan.

00:00:37.268 --> 00:00:38.252
Hey, how you doing today.

00:00:38.960 --> 00:00:39.743
I'm very well.

00:00:39.743 --> 00:00:41.347
It's going to be number one.

00:00:41.347 --> 00:00:43.661
I do not take it lightly to be here, thank you.

00:00:43.661 --> 00:00:52.453
I started listening to podcasts nine years ago and they definitely helped me change the trajectory of my life, and now I'm one of those people who's helping people do that.

00:00:52.453 --> 00:00:54.081
So it's really a dream come true to be here.

00:00:54.081 --> 00:00:54.421
Thank you.

00:00:54.421 --> 00:00:55.223
And number two.

00:00:55.223 --> 00:00:57.871
After that intro, I hope I don't let everyone down.

00:00:57.871 --> 00:00:59.040
You know what I'm saying.

00:00:59.081 --> 00:01:00.021
Oh well, anyway.

00:01:00.021 --> 00:01:10.088
So again, same question I ask every week Alan, can you tell us a little bit about your childhood, the environment you grew up in, the complement to your family, and what it was like?

00:01:10.968 --> 00:01:11.248
OK.

00:01:11.248 --> 00:01:30.465
So the first thing that I want to make as clear as possible when I started listening to podcasts nine years ago, I would hear these eloquent speakers and they would tell their narrative and they would tell their story and it seemed like they had it all figured out and I used to think to myself, wow, I'm a mess in comparison.

00:01:30.465 --> 00:01:32.432
And now I realize I just was in my mid twenties and everyone's a mess in their mid twenties.

00:01:32.432 --> 00:01:35.322
But anyways, when I tell this story, just understand that I didn't understand this stuff at the time.

00:01:35.322 --> 00:01:36.626
It's only in reflection.

00:01:36.626 --> 00:01:37.668
I often joke.

00:01:37.668 --> 00:01:47.314
I say I'm hoping to hit puberty at 36 because I look 12, but I'm going to try to condense 35 years into this episode.

00:01:47.314 --> 00:01:50.004
So that's going to be a challenge, but just realize that it's.

00:01:50.004 --> 00:01:52.885
I didn't understand all this at the time.

00:01:53.746 --> 00:01:54.489
The really good analogy.

00:01:54.509 --> 00:01:55.572
It's funny, right it is.

00:01:55.572 --> 00:02:05.403
The good analogy is if you've ever seen a movie as a kid and then you rewatch the movie as an adult, now you get it at a different level, right, the movie didn't change, but you did.

00:02:05.403 --> 00:02:07.224
So that's really the metaphor.

00:02:07.224 --> 00:02:12.549
Okay, so started off in adversity for sure.

00:02:12.549 --> 00:02:16.412
When I was two years old, my father passed away in a car accident when he was 28.

00:02:16.412 --> 00:02:19.455
His name was John McCorkle.

00:02:19.455 --> 00:02:24.818
My real last name is actually McCorkle, not Lazarus, so Lazarus is my stepfather's last name.

00:02:24.818 --> 00:02:29.265
So when my father passed away at 28, my mom was 31.

00:02:29.265 --> 00:02:31.049
My sister was six.

00:02:31.049 --> 00:02:39.748
I was almost three, so I was raised by my mom and my older sister, but my stepdad was in the picture from age three to 14.

00:02:39.748 --> 00:02:44.531
And when we were the Lazaruses, I took his last name, I think around age seven.

00:02:44.531 --> 00:02:45.375
We were trying to be the Lazaruses.

00:02:45.375 --> 00:02:46.360
I took his last name, I think around age seven.

00:02:46.360 --> 00:02:51.561
We were trying to be the Lazaruses, so we didn't really talk or associate much with the McCorkles anymore.

00:02:53.266 --> 00:02:57.599
Now, my birth father, john McCorkle, was a part of a big Irish Catholic family.

00:02:57.599 --> 00:03:00.544
So I actually got asked yesterday on a podcast are you Greek?

00:03:00.544 --> 00:03:02.086
I get this all the time.

00:03:02.086 --> 00:03:02.647
No, are you Greek?

00:03:02.647 --> 00:03:03.229
I get this all the time.

00:03:03.229 --> 00:03:04.169
No, I don't look Greek at all.

00:03:04.169 --> 00:03:15.205
I'm Irish, polish, german, scottish, right, and people always ask her Lazarus, are you Greek?

00:03:15.205 --> 00:03:15.828
No, that's, my stepdad was Greek.

00:03:15.828 --> 00:03:18.377
My birth father came from a big Irish Catholic family and it was all Js.

00:03:18.377 --> 00:03:21.865
So my mom and pop-up, his father and mother, had six kids.

00:03:21.865 --> 00:03:23.227
He was one of six.

00:03:23.227 --> 00:03:30.324
It was Jim, joe, john, jane, joan, jeanette, all J, six kids, yep.

00:03:30.324 --> 00:03:32.609
And so my father passed away at 28.

00:03:32.609 --> 00:03:40.741
My stepfather came into the picture and when we were the Lazaruses we didn't associate much with the McCorkles and that'll make sense soon.

00:03:40.741 --> 00:03:48.110
So I often refer playfully to 3 to 14 as boats and BS.

00:03:49.413 --> 00:03:55.485
My stepfather was big into hunting, fishing, snowmobiles, motorcycles, trucks.

00:03:55.485 --> 00:03:57.068
We lived on a lake.

00:03:57.068 --> 00:04:02.307
It was late 90s, early 2000s, dot-com, bubble-ish time.

00:04:02.307 --> 00:04:06.989
He worked for a company called agfa and they did hospital computers, so we did very well financially.

00:04:06.989 --> 00:04:11.604
But he and my stepmom did not get along and that's a very polite way to put it on a public media.

00:04:13.287 --> 00:04:23.829
And so at 14 he left and I went from like xbox, dreamcast, early christmas presents, boats, ski trips, deep fishing.

00:04:23.829 --> 00:04:27.983
We literally had a yacht Modest yacht, but still a yacht.

00:04:27.983 --> 00:04:32.512
To now I get free lunch at school because our income is so low.

00:04:32.512 --> 00:04:36.725
My mom traded in her BMW for a Honda.

00:04:36.725 --> 00:04:39.031
I shop at Salvation Army now for clothing.

00:04:39.031 --> 00:04:42.226
Now we're not going to starve, but it was definitely a different life.

00:04:42.226 --> 00:04:43.971
So he leaves at 14.

00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:49.062
But it was definitely a different life.

00:04:49.062 --> 00:04:49.564
So he leaves at 14.

00:04:49.564 --> 00:05:12.435
He gets the apartment building and the yacht, we get the house and the dog, and my sister at that same time moves out with her older boyfriend, and so it's just me and my mom in that house by ourselves, kind of the man of the house by 14, right At that same time my mom gets in a fight with my aunt Sandy, her sister Sandy, and my aunt Sandy ostracizes us from her side of the family.

00:05:12.435 --> 00:05:22.908
Yeah, and again, I didn't realize any of this until my thirties when I started reflecting on my life and realizing, like whoa, so 14 was by far the hardest year of my life.

00:05:23.569 --> 00:05:25.673
I lost three families by the time I'm 14.

00:05:25.673 --> 00:05:32.288
I've never spoken to a single person on my stepfather's side, including him, except for on Facebook Messenger.

00:05:32.288 --> 00:05:34.408
I've messaged him a little bit but I've never seen him in person.

00:05:34.408 --> 00:05:36.382
The McCorkles.

00:05:36.382 --> 00:05:47.043
Fortunately, my birth father's side welcomed us back with open arms once my stepdad left, but it was like them seeing a ghost, because I looked just like my dad, but my mom's side of the family.

00:05:47.043 --> 00:05:52.762
I've never seen any of them since, except for one of my cousins, Jeff, who came back eight years later.

00:05:52.762 --> 00:05:58.141
So by the time I'm 14 years old, I lost three families in a way.

00:05:59.562 --> 00:06:02.564
It's like your whole support system just faded away.

00:06:03.105 --> 00:06:05.026
Yeah, scaffolding out from under?

00:06:05.026 --> 00:06:05.627
Yeah it was.

00:06:05.627 --> 00:06:07.649
But now here's again.

00:06:07.649 --> 00:06:17.776
In hindsight, I did the only trauma response that I knew how to do and I wasn't doing this consciously because I didn't even know what trauma responses were back then.

00:06:17.776 --> 00:06:20.682
But there's four trauma responses.

00:06:20.682 --> 00:06:22.048
There's fight, flight, freeze and fawn.

00:06:22.048 --> 00:06:23.826
Fawn was the one I didn't understand.

00:06:23.826 --> 00:06:27.168
Fawn is like don't poke the bear, do whatever the bear wants.

00:06:27.168 --> 00:06:28.851
It's appease, it's the appeaser.

00:06:28.851 --> 00:06:36.387
So I did a lot of fawning socially, especially when my stepdad and mom weren't getting along.

00:06:36.387 --> 00:06:41.860
But I also did fight, and by fight I don't mean fight against others.

00:06:41.860 --> 00:06:44.149
I did work harder, aim higher, get smarter.

00:06:44.149 --> 00:06:46.845
That was my trauma response.

00:06:46.884 --> 00:06:48.870
The past is painful, the present is painful.

00:06:48.870 --> 00:06:53.302
I'm going to go into the future and I'm going to build the biggest, brightest future I can think of Now.

00:06:53.302 --> 00:06:54.425
Part of that was true self.

00:06:54.425 --> 00:06:58.482
The other part of that was get attention and love from my mom or stepdad, right, that kind of thing.

00:06:58.482 --> 00:07:00.466
And again, I didn't know any of this at the time.

00:07:00.466 --> 00:07:01.949
So anyways, I bootstrapped.

00:07:01.949 --> 00:07:05.194
I mean, I went from I can't wait to go to college.

00:07:05.213 --> 00:07:09.591
I remember when I was 10 years old I was driving past WPI, worcester Polytechnic Institute.

00:07:09.591 --> 00:07:11.223
It's a technical college in Worcester.

00:07:11.223 --> 00:07:16.060
It's like a mini MIT in Massachusetts and it's one of the best tech schools in the world.

00:07:16.060 --> 00:07:17.983
And it was $50,000 a year back then.

00:07:17.983 --> 00:07:23.389
And I remember thinking I'm going to be an engineer, I love math and science and I'm going to do this thing.

00:07:23.389 --> 00:07:27.035
And when my stepdad left I remember thinking how the hell am I going to go to college?

00:07:27.035 --> 00:07:27.896
That's 50 grand a year.

00:07:27.896 --> 00:07:31.810
So even if I get into my dream school, how am I going to go right?

00:07:31.810 --> 00:07:34.747
So I ended up getting the President's Award.

00:07:34.747 --> 00:07:44.309
It's actually behind me, it's signed by George W Bush and basically it means you get straight A's on every report card, all four report cards for 16 report cards, straight all through high school.

00:07:44.309 --> 00:07:45.629
And I did.

00:07:45.629 --> 00:07:50.036
I got 189 in honors English and luckily it was weighted because it was an honors class.

00:07:50.036 --> 00:07:55.341
So I still got the award, but I'll never take honors English again, I'll tell you what, but anyways.

00:07:55.341 --> 00:07:56.726
So I got into the school and I got.

00:07:56.726 --> 00:08:01.425
I was the obnoxious kid at the award ceremony that just never sat down.

00:08:01.425 --> 00:08:05.793
Just award, award, award, just you might as well not sit down because you get all the awards.

00:08:05.793 --> 00:08:08.096
So I got straight A's through high school.

00:08:08.096 --> 00:08:11.704
I got tons of financial aid and tons of scholarships, thankfully.

00:08:11.704 --> 00:08:14.072
So I was able to go and then my mom helped me out as well.

00:08:14.072 --> 00:08:23.086
So I went to a $50,000 a year school Worcester Polytechnic Institute that was 30 minutes north and I got my computer engineering bachelor's.

00:08:23.086 --> 00:08:27.463
And then I got my master's in business and then I went off into corporate.

00:08:27.783 --> 00:08:30.529
And my dream I had two dreams.

00:08:30.529 --> 00:08:32.441
When I was a kid I had a bunch of dreams.

00:08:32.441 --> 00:08:35.268
All of us do, I used to say, all of us do.

00:08:35.268 --> 00:08:39.004
Now I realize that's actually pretty rare, but I had two main ones.

00:08:39.004 --> 00:08:45.765
So I used to not say this because I used to be too much of a coward, but genuinely I remember having these actual thought processes.

00:08:45.765 --> 00:08:58.493
I was either going to do lawyer, politician, president, or I'm going to do engineer, mba, fortune 50, ceo of a tech company, like my hero at the time, steve Jobs.

00:08:58.493 --> 00:09:09.994
Me and my friend used to argue who is smarter, bill Gates or Steve Jobs, the whole Apple, microsoft thing, right, and so I just wanted to aim as high as you can aim and so I chose, obviously, engineer, mba, fortune 50 CEO.

00:09:09.994 --> 00:09:20.134
So once I went into corporate, I went from a broke high school student to a broke college student to, basically, I'm a computer engineer in the 21st century from a top school.

00:09:20.134 --> 00:09:22.721
I passed up an interview at SpaceX.

00:09:22.721 --> 00:09:24.682
I just did really well.

00:09:24.682 --> 00:09:31.067
So I went from 65 to 85, 85 to 105, 105 to 125, 125 to almost 200 grand a year.

00:09:31.067 --> 00:09:34.789
So I'm a top 1% global earner not US earner, but global earner.

00:09:35.571 --> 00:09:37.472
I'm in my early 20s to mid 20s.

00:09:37.472 --> 00:09:41.115
I paid off 84 grand worth of college debt in a single year.

00:09:41.115 --> 00:09:49.726
I bought a 2004 Volkswagen Passat in five grand cash because I just decided to get wealthy and I was so used to being broke that I don't need nice things.

00:09:49.726 --> 00:09:59.866
And so I also had 150 grand in an investment account for Vanguard of just all tech companies, because to me, tech made perfect sense.

00:09:59.866 --> 00:10:01.374
Why wouldn't you invest in tech?

00:10:01.374 --> 00:10:06.350
So I made a bunch of money in the stock market and I'm in my mid-20s and I have a beautiful girlfriend named Courtney.

00:10:06.350 --> 00:10:09.166
I live on a lake and my rent is 500 bucks a month.

00:10:09.166 --> 00:10:09.667
We split it.

00:10:09.667 --> 00:10:11.390
It's a tiny little place, right?

00:10:11.390 --> 00:10:21.385
I don't have kids, I don't have a mortgage, I have a $5,000 car I bought in cash and I'm making tons of money at this point Again, tons relative to being a kid in his early twenties.

00:10:21.385 --> 00:10:23.707
And so I'm off to the races.

00:10:23.827 --> 00:10:27.129
But here's the thing I'm super successful.

00:10:27.129 --> 00:10:33.514
I'm very professionally developed resume, cover letter, linkedin, engineer, master's, bachelor's, of science, all this stuff.

00:10:33.514 --> 00:10:37.197
I now call it STEMBIF science, technology, engineering, mathematics, business and finance.

00:10:37.197 --> 00:10:38.496
Those always came naturally to me.

00:10:38.496 --> 00:10:48.519
But I was deeply unfulfilled.

00:10:48.519 --> 00:10:49.017
I was drinking too much and too often.

00:10:49.017 --> 00:10:50.025
I had high school friends and corporate friends and college friends.

00:10:50.025 --> 00:10:50.754
I hadn't dealt with the trauma of my past.

00:10:50.754 --> 00:10:54.631
I didn't do much inner work, I didn't have a therapist, I was mostly achievement oriented and I was improvement oriented, but I wasn't self-improvement oriented.

00:10:54.631 --> 00:10:57.796
So the car accident that I got in changed everything.

00:10:57.796 --> 00:11:02.206
So I'm in New Hampshire with my little cousin in the Volkswagen Passat.

00:11:02.206 --> 00:11:03.148
Thank you, volkswagen.

00:11:03.148 --> 00:11:04.410
I'll explain why in a minute.

00:11:05.052 --> 00:11:06.374
Oh no, I can already know that one.

00:11:11.519 --> 00:11:13.427
Right, yeah, so we're playing Call of Duty, we're not drinking or anything crazy.

00:11:13.427 --> 00:11:16.035
We're going to TGI Fridays, and this is actually the second cousin.

00:11:16.035 --> 00:11:22.409
So this is the cousin who came back from my mother's side eight years later, seven years later, and I was with him.

00:11:22.409 --> 00:11:24.493
My little cousin, second cousin, so his kid.

00:11:24.493 --> 00:11:29.980
So anyways, he's like 17.

00:11:29.980 --> 00:11:32.246
I'm in my early twenties, we're playing Call of Duty, we're going to TGI Fridays.

00:11:32.267 --> 00:11:33.932
Both in the front seat there's a three-way intersection.

00:11:33.932 --> 00:11:36.888
And this is back in 2015, when the snow banks were covering the signs.

00:11:36.888 --> 00:11:40.602
It was a really bad winter up in New Hampshire and I was supposed to yield.

00:11:40.602 --> 00:11:41.585
I didn't.

00:11:41.585 --> 00:11:42.947
I end up on the wrong side of the road.

00:11:42.947 --> 00:11:49.076
I look down from the GPS and I see what I thought was a Mack truck in front of me and right in front of our car.

00:11:49.076 --> 00:11:52.548
So I'm like this is it.

00:11:52.548 --> 00:11:53.149
This is the end.

00:11:53.210 --> 00:11:54.879
My computer engineering brain went done.

00:11:54.879 --> 00:11:57.307
No possibility we survive this.

00:11:57.307 --> 00:11:58.188
It's impossible.

00:11:58.188 --> 00:12:04.250
This is the end, and for anyone who hasn't had that moment, it's the scariest thing in the entire world.

00:12:04.250 --> 00:12:06.683
And for anyone who hasn't had that moment, it's the scariest thing in the entire world.

00:12:06.683 --> 00:12:10.229
It's inexplicable Time is it happened in a millisecond?

00:12:10.229 --> 00:12:13.934
But it also is, like, emotionally, still there.

00:12:13.934 --> 00:12:19.592
It's weird, but fortunately two things saved my life.

00:12:19.592 --> 00:12:20.259
Number one the Volkswagen Passat.

00:12:20.259 --> 00:12:23.448
I used to call this car the tank.

00:12:23.448 --> 00:12:28.023
This is a German engineered steel trap of a car that I actually called the tank.

00:12:28.023 --> 00:12:29.346
It was a heavy car.

00:12:29.346 --> 00:12:33.083
So thank you, volkswagen, seriously, because you saved my life.

00:12:33.083 --> 00:12:47.304
Now, number two thing that saved my life is it wasn't a Mack truck, it was a lift kitted pickup truck Lots of those in New Hampshire and so hood completely crumbled, but the frame didn't, the airbags deployed.

00:12:47.304 --> 00:12:49.687
My cousin hurt his knee on the airbag.

00:12:49.687 --> 00:12:51.827
I hurt my face in the airbag, but physically we were okay.

00:12:51.827 --> 00:12:56.269
He's a young 17-year-old, still invincibility complex.

00:12:56.269 --> 00:12:59.509
He was tweeting about it like right away.

00:12:59.509 --> 00:13:04.990
I'm physically okay, but remember, my dad died in a car accident when he was 28.

00:13:06.620 --> 00:13:19.647
I'm 26 at this time, questioning my entire existence because this is the second chance my dad never got, and by this point I've heard stories about John my whole life, particularly when my McCorkle family came back into my life after 14.

00:13:19.647 --> 00:13:21.431
And so I'm sitting there.

00:13:21.431 --> 00:13:23.861
This is quarter life, existential crisis.

00:13:23.861 --> 00:13:26.504
What was the point?

00:13:26.504 --> 00:13:28.326
What is the meaning of life?

00:13:28.326 --> 00:13:30.948
What is the meaning of my life, filled with regret.

00:13:30.948 --> 00:14:05.159
Now, in hindsight, I didn't make worse choices than any other kids, for the most part no-transcript.

00:14:05.159 --> 00:14:11.509
So existential crisis right and existential for those of you who don't know is just a term that refers to.

00:14:11.509 --> 00:14:12.153
What's the point of all this?

00:14:12.153 --> 00:14:12.554
Why are we here?

00:14:12.554 --> 00:14:18.421
What's your purpose, what's your meaning, what's your calling those kinds of words that I think a lot of people feel are fluffy.

00:14:18.421 --> 00:14:21.044
But if you've had a mortality moment, it's not fluffy, it's real.

00:14:21.044 --> 00:14:33.850
And so pre-26, in hindsight, this is the way I describe it, and I didn't know this at the time.

00:14:33.850 --> 00:14:35.014
It's been nine years since then.

00:14:35.014 --> 00:14:36.159
I'm almost 36.

00:14:36.159 --> 00:14:41.323
And I now understand that I was in one of these three buckets.

00:14:41.344 --> 00:14:43.567
So the first bucket, prior to 26, is what I call the successful unfulfilled.

00:14:43.567 --> 00:14:44.770
I was professionally developed.

00:14:44.770 --> 00:14:58.022
I had hard skills up the wazoo, I was extremely smart, I was academically inclined, I was well credentialed, I was an engineer and I was off to the races and I was hardworking, for the most part statistically speaking.

00:14:58.022 --> 00:15:01.148
But I was not emotionally developed.

00:15:01.148 --> 00:15:03.693
I was not personally developed.

00:15:03.693 --> 00:15:05.788
I wasn't self-improvement oriented.

00:15:05.788 --> 00:15:09.150
I was improvement oriented and achievement oriented, but I wasn't self-improvement oriented.

00:15:09.150 --> 00:15:12.087
And after so I was successful and unfulfilled.

00:15:12.087 --> 00:15:17.567
After 26, nine years ago, I flipped the script and I flipped it hard and I went.

00:15:17.567 --> 00:15:19.898
I found self-improvement and I went all in.

00:15:19.898 --> 00:15:29.304
I'm talking fitness, health, wealth, love, self-reflection, self-improvement, personal development, personal growth, every book I could get my hands on.

00:15:29.304 --> 00:15:30.308
I just went all in.

00:15:30.308 --> 00:15:35.871
And then I went all the way past, broke because I quit corporate.

00:15:35.871 --> 00:15:37.509
I started my own company.

00:15:37.912 --> 00:15:39.200
Wait, hold on, wait a second.

00:15:39.200 --> 00:15:40.686
We need to step back here a second.

00:15:40.686 --> 00:15:47.245
Okay, so I understand flipping the script, right, my clients do that consist consistently and something I'm super proud of.

00:15:47.245 --> 00:16:07.708
But you are telling me that you were making over two hundred thousand dollars a year and okay, so I get the unfulfilled part, but you basically, like, went from the accident to okay, I need to do something different and you quit just flat.

00:16:07.708 --> 00:16:13.552
That's an interesting, that's a completely interesting thing that I think is very well.

00:16:13.552 --> 00:16:17.910
It's something that we need to delve into the and what you're going to, and I didn't get that.

00:16:17.910 --> 00:16:19.200
I got to step back one more second.

00:16:19.639 --> 00:16:24.383
So when you said regret and you also mentioned we talked about hindsight 2020, right, you said regret and you also mentioned we talked about hindsight 2020, right.

00:16:24.383 --> 00:16:35.089
When you go back into where you were, your head was, in that moment where you say regret, what exactly do you think that you regretted?

00:16:35.089 --> 00:16:39.110
Besides the whole fulfillment thing, because from the outside, you're right.

00:16:39.110 --> 00:16:41.552
We all look at you, you're, you were.

00:16:41.552 --> 00:16:44.254
You made your parents proud, you made your mom proud.

00:16:44.254 --> 00:16:47.755
You are definitely, academically, the whole bit.

00:16:47.755 --> 00:16:49.356
You're doing these great projects.

00:16:49.356 --> 00:16:51.097
I'm imagining I haven't talked to you about that yet.

00:16:51.097 --> 00:16:52.018
We'll talk about that in a minute.

00:16:55.147 --> 00:16:57.019
What exactly are you regretting at that point?

00:16:57.019 --> 00:16:57.721
I want to share this.

00:16:57.721 --> 00:17:04.013
So recently I was on a podcast with a man named Jimmy and this will articulate what I regretted.

00:17:04.013 --> 00:17:20.762
Jimmy has autism and Jimmy had me on and it was a wonderful interview and he is promoting and, again, I don't know enough to talk intelligently about this, but he has a podcast and he's putting in work and he is working on himself and he's just awesome.

00:17:20.762 --> 00:17:21.265
I had a blast.

00:17:21.265 --> 00:17:41.586
I had a blast on the podcast and I had this moment when I was being interviewed by Jimmy and I saw how much effort he's putting in and I sat there and I was like I know people who have potential that are so much higher than what Jimmy was given, but they aren't.

00:17:41.586 --> 00:17:47.685
Jimmy is maximizing his potential more than half the people I know, if not, honestly, more than 95% of the people I know.

00:17:47.685 --> 00:17:51.803
We're all born with different gifts and different potential, right?

00:17:51.803 --> 00:17:54.348
Lebron James in basketball the great example.

00:17:55.432 --> 00:17:56.561
So what do I regret?

00:17:56.561 --> 00:18:03.461
I regret, yeah, I was academically inclined and yeah, I was really smart and yeah, I got straight A's, but I didn't try that hard.

00:18:03.461 --> 00:18:09.923
I'm just really smart and so I regret not maximizing.

00:18:09.923 --> 00:18:12.023
Why do I deserve these gifts.

00:18:12.023 --> 00:18:16.884
Like I was proving textbooks wrong when I was a kid.

00:18:16.884 --> 00:18:30.430
I built my first computer when I was 12, right, I drank too much and too often I did drugs, I frolicked too much, I didn't maximize my contribution to humanity and I don't know if this will resonate with anyone else.

00:18:30.430 --> 00:18:41.074
I don't think it probably will, maybe not no one, but I always knew, because everyone else said, like you're so hardworking, you're so amazing, you're so, and it's like, no, you don't understand.

00:18:41.074 --> 00:18:44.815
Like I know you think so and I'm grateful, thank you for.

00:18:44.815 --> 00:18:54.979
But you're projecting your standards onto me, like I was the kid that could party all night, not go to a single calculus class and get straight A's in all the classes.

00:18:54.979 --> 00:19:00.181
So so it's all relative right.

00:19:00.181 --> 00:19:12.944
So Jimmy was putting more on the court than I was back then and that is unacceptable, because I had this moment on the podcast and it's I'll only use first names because, of course, I want to protect everyone's privacy, but I had this moment on the interview.

00:19:12.944 --> 00:19:14.367
That was sad.

00:19:14.367 --> 00:19:35.294
It was a sad moment and I felt sad for him because he's working so hard to win in podcasting, he's working so hard to be successful and I am going to succeed more than him forever at almost everything, even with very minimal effort, and I got sad.

00:19:35.294 --> 00:19:37.684
And then, after sadness, I said you know what, alan?

00:19:37.684 --> 00:19:45.752
How dare you not make change in this world when you are given so much more than other people?

00:19:45.752 --> 00:19:48.065
Now, let me be completely transparent with you.

00:19:48.065 --> 00:19:58.743
People see me now, and I get it right Born in the biggest economy in the world, which by far the US is, like a large majority of the economy in terms of country to country.

00:19:58.903 --> 00:20:02.491
Okay, white, caucasian, american male, I get it.

00:20:02.491 --> 00:20:03.823
Okay, I do, I get it.

00:20:03.823 --> 00:20:07.037
I had two advantages in life.

00:20:07.037 --> 00:20:08.903
Most people think I was born on third base.

00:20:08.903 --> 00:20:11.669
The truth is, I couldn't even see the damn ballpark.

00:20:11.669 --> 00:20:15.263
Okay, but no one knows that, especially not now.

00:20:15.263 --> 00:20:18.150
I had two huge advantages.

00:20:19.813 --> 00:20:37.321
Number one and I never used to say this because I never used to have the courage, but I read a book called the hidden habits of genius and it's behind me and it's a yale professor who has studied geniuses throughout history who, by the way, a lot of geniuses are awful human beings when you study them, by the way, holy crap.

00:20:37.321 --> 00:20:47.034
But he studied the geniuses throughout history and he brought up the 14 character traits of a genius, quote unquote.

00:20:47.034 --> 00:21:08.815
And he did this course called the Hidden Habits of Genius for 30 years at Yale and then he wrote a book about it and I didn't find this book until my thirties, by the way and I looked at the character traits and he opened the book with this quote that I'll never and I'm paraphrasing so it's not verbatim quote, but he opened the book with geniuses don't know, they're geniuses, they're too busy doing genius shit.

00:21:08.815 --> 00:21:16.373
Only a non-genius could go and do this work, because geniuses are too busy just going and being geniuses.

00:21:16.373 --> 00:21:17.261
They don't really get it.

00:21:17.261 --> 00:21:27.163
And I had this moment of like you know the thing that you know on the soul level, but yet you need this external validation to verify it.

00:21:27.163 --> 00:21:31.290
And who's this self-proclaimed genius?

00:21:31.290 --> 00:21:35.284
Like I'm scared to even say it, but I do know it's true.

00:21:35.423 --> 00:21:39.373
Like inside of me, I've always had an advantage in pretty much everything.

00:21:39.373 --> 00:21:44.582
Now, not athletically, right, I'm not going to beat LeBron James at basketball, I wasn't born on a ski mountain.

00:21:44.582 --> 00:21:47.048
Like there are certain advantages I just don't have.

00:21:47.048 --> 00:21:52.588
I'm not strong, I'm not very strong, but intellectually it's very clear to me.

00:21:52.588 --> 00:22:00.093
I grew up and I really used to think this why is everyone so lazy and so unintelligent when in reality they're not lazy and unintelligent.

00:22:00.093 --> 00:22:01.823
I'm really intelligent and really hardworking.

00:22:01.823 --> 00:22:05.448
And if you're wrong about one thing, you're wrong about everything.

00:22:05.448 --> 00:22:07.672
And I was wrong about everything, but I didn't know it.

00:22:07.672 --> 00:22:15.732
And so the two advantages I had in life is number one I was gifted with this huge brain, like super powerful brain.

00:22:15.732 --> 00:22:22.683
Everything feels easy for me, like mathematics just made sense.

00:22:22.683 --> 00:22:23.224
It's good.

00:22:23.224 --> 00:22:32.371
Hunting is a good analogy, but yeah, and then number two I was born in a country that invests in powerful minds.

00:22:33.652 --> 00:22:35.813
I got straight A's in high school, but I didn't have to try that hard.

00:22:35.813 --> 00:22:39.635
I had a colleague of mine, a friend colleague.

00:22:39.635 --> 00:22:42.218
She's a friend, her name was Tara, and she used to get pissed off.

00:22:42.218 --> 00:22:46.921
She'd say I don't, it pisses me off, I study for 10 hours, teach it to you in 10 minutes, and then you do better than I did.

00:22:46.921 --> 00:22:51.451
And I never understood, because in my head it's we're friends, so why not, right?

00:22:51.451 --> 00:23:04.089
I now understand how frustrating that is for someone who has to work so hard for things, and so, truth be told, I regret not doing more with what I have.

00:23:04.089 --> 00:23:06.453
I have been gifted with those two gifts.

00:23:06.453 --> 00:23:17.451
Without financial aid and without scholarships, I would not have been able to go to one of the best technical colleges in the world and I wouldn't have met all the friends I met and I wouldn't have gotten out of the small town and the small-minded crap that I grew up in.

00:23:17.451 --> 00:23:34.946
And let me tell you this too, and this is the duality I had two advantages, but I'll tell you what.

00:23:34.967 --> 00:23:38.928
I only had two, and that's something most people don't know, especially if you see me now.

00:23:38.928 --> 00:23:44.871
All right, but you were able just to learn things, which is different than having a didactic memory.

00:23:44.871 --> 00:23:50.653
Didactic memory meaning that you can regurgitate, but yet you might not learn it.

00:23:50.653 --> 00:23:53.394
You actually had the ability to learn things very easily.

00:23:54.055 --> 00:24:10.413
So just to give a parallel analogy, if anybody's ever read anything, maybe you have on David Goggins when he did his first hundred miler, right, this guy could run a seven minute mile without a problem.

00:24:10.413 --> 00:24:14.226
He could do it for 20, 20, 25 miles without a, without an issue, right?

00:24:14.226 --> 00:24:17.053
So he decides to go on this hundred hundred miler.

00:24:17.053 --> 00:24:30.615
He gets to a point where he he wants to so badly he actually has to tape up his shins and his feet in duct tape in order to put them in a certain position so he can keep going.

00:24:30.615 --> 00:24:50.693
That is like that is the effort to keep going, to keep moving forward, and that's an effort level where, as a where you In the same situation, obviously say to more athletic, but saying that you had the same as that gift, you would be able to run that 100 miles without a problem and have an issue and didn't have an issue.

00:24:51.020 --> 00:24:55.112
I just want to put that out there for people, because people, some people, just we just don't understand that.

00:24:55.112 --> 00:24:55.560
What do you mean?

00:24:55.560 --> 00:24:57.046
You got straight A's, you had to work hard.

00:24:57.046 --> 00:24:58.150
No, it's not true.

00:24:58.150 --> 00:24:59.903
What is what you're saying?

00:24:59.903 --> 00:25:00.886
But it was what you're saying.

00:25:00.886 --> 00:25:01.489
But it was what you're saying.

00:25:01.509 --> 00:25:02.352
That's what I'm getting from it.

00:25:02.352 --> 00:25:07.957
I had to make sacrifices that other kids didn't have to, but I'd be lying to myself and to you if I said it was hard.

00:25:07.957 --> 00:25:16.594
It was hard compared to, like hanging out all the time, but it wasn't hard compared to what it would have taken Jimmy.

00:25:16.594 --> 00:25:19.589
And that's just the reality that no one goes near anymore.

00:25:19.589 --> 00:25:24.151
Like people want to believe that we're all equal potential.

00:25:24.151 --> 00:25:26.142
It's not genetically true.

00:25:26.142 --> 00:25:26.883
It's not.

00:25:26.883 --> 00:25:27.884
It's never been true.

00:25:27.884 --> 00:25:30.205
It's not true and everyone knows that too.

00:25:30.205 --> 00:25:37.114
I struggle socially because everyone thinks I'm arrogant when in reality I'm actually dialing it down.

00:25:37.114 --> 00:25:44.028
Like if you think I'm confident, like this is me dialing it down out of social cowardice.

00:25:45.978 --> 00:25:55.020
like david goggins is extremely gritty but he's not naturally intelligent right I happen to have a lot of grit because he came up hard like I did.

00:25:55.020 --> 00:26:00.265
And again, I don't want to compare because again he definitely came up hard, but real talk, like between you and I.

00:26:00.265 --> 00:26:17.663
I asked my therapist once there's something called an ACE score Adverse Childhood Experiences and there's decades of research on this and you can take an ACE test and you can.

00:26:17.663 --> 00:26:26.788
I finally had the courage to ask my therapist after six or seven months or eight months or something like that, like I needed to know because I already knew on the soul level.

00:26:26.788 --> 00:26:29.710
I said zero to ten on a bell curve and this is how I think.

00:26:29.710 --> 00:26:31.810
I think in bell curves, I think in exponentials.

00:26:31.810 --> 00:26:35.472
Like nothing in the world is linear, even though we think linearly it's you know.

00:26:35.472 --> 00:26:36.313
Anyways, I can't get into that.

00:26:36.313 --> 00:26:38.175
But I asked her.

00:26:38.175 --> 00:26:39.458
I said you know me well enough now.

00:26:39.458 --> 00:26:42.463
You know my past, you understand what I've been through to a great extent.

00:26:42.463 --> 00:26:45.229
Where am I at?

00:26:45.229 --> 00:26:50.440
There's things called little t trauma and big t trauma and trauma overall.

00:26:50.440 --> 00:26:52.584
Where am I at on the bell curve?

00:26:52.584 --> 00:26:56.500
Like 10 is the most you've ever seen of trauma and zero is the least you've ever seen.

00:26:56.500 --> 00:27:05.666
And I already knew the answer and she had the courage to actually tell me too, and she said, alan, it's the highest I've ever seen.

00:27:05.666 --> 00:27:11.025
Due to the chronic nature of your trauma, it's the highest I've ever seen, and I know what that means.

00:27:11.025 --> 00:27:14.355
She's been a clinician for 10, 15, 20 years.

00:27:14.355 --> 00:27:17.361
So she here is the worst of the worst.

00:27:19.477 --> 00:27:23.454
And I bawled my eyes out Because I already knew eyes out, because I already knew.

00:27:23.454 --> 00:27:25.323
That's why I asked the question.

00:27:25.323 --> 00:27:32.582
I knew that, so I bawled my eyes out and I felt freer after that.

00:27:32.582 --> 00:27:37.762
It was like, okay, awesome, what am I going to do about it?

00:27:37.762 --> 00:27:51.815
I'm going to accept it for what it was and I'm going to build something great out of it and I'm going to be the male role model I never had and I'm going to lead by example.

00:27:51.934 --> 00:27:57.382
Because, quite frankly and this is so hard to say, but it's true and there's some good parts of my childhood.

00:27:57.382 --> 00:28:08.124
I need to make it clear there's some good parts, okay, but honestly, where I grew up, it was nothing but people that are completely full of shit and I hated it.

00:28:08.124 --> 00:28:22.202
I saw deeply unfulfilled people, I saw deeply unfulfilled marriages, I saw tons of drugs and alcohol and I saw what I consider the boulevard of broken dreams and I decided nope, not me.

00:28:22.202 --> 00:28:31.727
And my therapist has told me if it wasn't for your genius, you never would have made it out of that, and I think that's probably true.

00:28:31.727 --> 00:28:39.988
And so now I have more empathy than I could have before because, truth be told, everyone listening right now, watching this, you already know I don't struggle with self-doubt that much.

00:28:39.988 --> 00:28:44.305
I don't feel not good enough, I don't feel not smart enough.

00:28:44.305 --> 00:28:48.604
There's only been a handful of people that I've ever been around where I'm like oh my God, are you smarter than me?

00:28:48.604 --> 00:28:50.367
Holy crap.

00:28:50.535 --> 00:28:59.226
I remember I had that moment with someone and I told my girlfriend about it because she's brilliant as well, and I was like did you have that moment of like, is this person smarter than me?

00:28:59.226 --> 00:29:10.519
And she's like, yeah, I said I bet people have that all the time around us.

00:29:10.519 --> 00:29:12.323
I like again I'm see, even this is scary because no one's going to relate to any of this.

00:29:12.323 --> 00:29:14.828
Okay, one of my mentors is the ceo of the one of the biggest robotics companies in the world.

00:29:14.828 --> 00:29:20.846
Like, it's a different game, I'm playing a different game and I didn't know this.

00:29:20.886 --> 00:29:21.407
You met kev.

00:29:21.407 --> 00:29:23.955
Okay, kev's the one who taught me all this.

00:29:23.955 --> 00:29:25.220
He said dude, that's a youth thing.

00:29:25.220 --> 00:29:27.445
He said no one turns down an interview at SpaceX.

00:29:27.445 --> 00:29:30.259
Like what is up with this?

00:29:30.259 --> 00:29:35.869
I said for me, dude, that has always been there, so it's not.

00:29:35.869 --> 00:29:37.856
But let me share this.

00:29:37.856 --> 00:29:39.058
Okay, there's two types of courage.

00:29:39.058 --> 00:29:44.729
There's competence courage, which is apply to the job, apply to the school.

00:29:44.729 --> 00:29:52.025
Do the interview, do the speech, show up, do the resume, write the letter, write the email.

00:29:52.025 --> 00:29:52.647
Okay, that's competence courage.

00:29:52.647 --> 00:29:52.929
Can you do it?

00:29:52.929 --> 00:29:54.876
Are you good enough, smart enough, capable enough, competent enough?

00:29:54.876 --> 00:29:57.041
That is fine for me.

00:29:57.041 --> 00:29:59.288
I've never had a problem with that In athletics.

00:29:59.288 --> 00:30:29.446
I have a little bit.

00:30:29.446 --> 00:30:30.847
I'm not naturally as gifted in athletics.

00:30:30.847 --> 00:30:33.388
Okay, over here is social courage.

00:30:33.388 --> 00:30:37.490
Social courage is have the courage to be all of Facebook, amazon, like.

00:30:37.490 --> 00:30:38.750
None of them are real estate companies.

00:30:38.750 --> 00:30:41.092
They own real estate, but it's just.

00:30:41.092 --> 00:30:43.692
If that statement was ever not true, it's now.

00:30:44.413 --> 00:30:45.673
Right, absolutely.

00:30:46.134 --> 00:30:51.247
Yeah, but I didn't say anything because I'm a coward, because I know I'm smarter than him.

00:30:51.247 --> 00:30:54.603
He knows I'm smarter than him, but he's insecure about his intelligence.

00:30:54.603 --> 00:30:55.846
So what am I going to do?

00:30:55.846 --> 00:31:05.788
Do this, and every time I ever called anyone out for anything because I was more accurate than they were, because I'm more intelligent they hated me.

00:31:05.788 --> 00:31:07.289
And then I felt unlovable.

00:31:07.289 --> 00:31:08.615
So I became more of a coward.

00:31:09.657 --> 00:31:12.324
So Kevin and I give a speech and we speak together.

00:31:12.324 --> 00:31:14.367
He's afraid he's not going to add value.

00:31:14.367 --> 00:31:15.478
I don't have that fear at all.

00:31:15.478 --> 00:31:16.883
I'll get you thinking differently.

00:31:16.883 --> 00:31:18.855
I'll get you more successful, assuming you don't hate me.

00:31:18.855 --> 00:31:24.526
If you told me, alan, you have to give a speech in front of a thousand people and you have to add value, no problem, I'm your guy, let's rock.

00:31:25.788 --> 00:31:29.903
If you say you have to make everyone not hate you, I would say that is literally impossible.

00:31:29.903 --> 00:31:31.686
That's not possible.

00:31:31.686 --> 00:31:32.958
See my energy shift.

00:31:32.958 --> 00:31:34.382
It's not possible.

00:31:34.382 --> 00:31:35.986
I'm going to trigger everyone in this room.

00:31:35.986 --> 00:31:38.136
I'm going to get them believing in themselves more.

00:31:38.136 --> 00:31:39.278
I'm going to get them to aim higher.

00:31:39.278 --> 00:31:41.520
But they know I'm not like them.

00:31:41.520 --> 00:31:43.242
They know I don't struggle with self-doubt.

00:31:43.242 --> 00:31:46.647
I used to not have the courage to say it.

00:31:46.647 --> 00:31:56.875
I did a marathon on three days notice and that was the first time I had felt self-doubt in like a couple months.

00:31:56.875 --> 00:32:01.425
And I was literally three days notice, 95 degree weather, on a track, by myself with a phone in my hand.

00:32:01.425 --> 00:32:01.526
What?

00:32:01.526 --> 00:32:02.108
Yeah, I didn't run it.

00:32:02.108 --> 00:32:04.637
Some of it I had to walk because it was brutal and it was 95 degrees.

00:32:04.637 --> 00:32:05.621
But yeah, I did that.

00:32:05.621 --> 00:32:07.266
The first half marathon was actually easy.

00:32:07.266 --> 00:32:09.117
The full marathon was awful.

00:32:09.117 --> 00:32:11.923
I was actually cocky in the middle.

00:32:11.923 --> 00:32:15.362
Emilia has a video of me running backwards Stupid.

00:32:15.382 --> 00:32:16.345
You did this on a track.

00:32:17.048 --> 00:32:17.609
I did it on a track.

00:32:17.609 --> 00:32:19.455
Yeah, 95 degree weather.

00:32:19.455 --> 00:32:19.916
It was brutal.

00:32:19.916 --> 00:32:21.059
My ears will never be the same.

00:32:21.059 --> 00:32:22.083
I forgot sunblock on them.

00:32:22.663 --> 00:32:23.185
Oh, my God.

00:32:29.295 --> 00:32:37.640
Yeah, but again, the point that I want to make with all that is that I think that we all are either this is Kevin's quote, and it's the best I've ever heard you are either afraid that all of you is not enough or you are afraid that all of you is too much.

00:32:37.640 --> 00:32:43.326
We all have both to some extent, but I'm 99.9%.

00:32:43.326 --> 00:32:46.855
The second one I'm afraid that all of me is too much.

00:32:46.855 --> 00:32:49.000
I'm not afraid that I'm not enough.

00:32:49.000 --> 00:32:50.364
I don't feel not enough.

00:32:50.364 --> 00:32:51.467
That's never resonated.

00:32:51.527 --> 00:32:55.388
When I was a kid, I used to wonder like why do I feel like I'm good at everything?

00:32:55.388 --> 00:32:56.934
I didn't understand.

00:32:56.934 --> 00:32:57.856
I just didn't get it.

00:32:57.856 --> 00:33:03.977
And so the truth of the matter is it's more scary for me to talk about my strengths than it is my weaknesses.

00:33:03.977 --> 00:33:05.384
I'll tell you every weakness under the sun.

00:33:05.384 --> 00:33:09.846
But remember, it's not socially acceptable to be better than other people, especially as kids.

00:33:09.846 --> 00:33:15.105
You know how, when you're a kid and you're playing a board game and your friends don't even want to win, they want to make sure you lose.

00:33:15.105 --> 00:33:21.018
Yeah, that's been my experience, and so most people are deeply insecure and feel like they're not enough.

00:33:21.018 --> 00:33:27.843
So when they get around someone who doesn't have that issue, a lot of times they lash out and I dealt with a lot of bullying and that kind of thing.

00:33:27.843 --> 00:33:41.071
And also, truth be told, when I say I'm going to be lawyer, politician, president or engineer, MBA CEO, people are like, oh, another blowhard, Like meh.

00:33:41.593 --> 00:33:50.436
Yeah like oh, another blow hard, like nah, yeah, the truth is they think I'm full of shit and, honestly, as I've gotten older, they've realized that I'm not as full of shit as they thought, because I'm actually doing it right.

00:33:50.896 --> 00:34:05.143
So no, it sounds like yeah, it's definitely a whole different mindset and it's a mindset that is it's as much as we want to, as much as you're successful in everything that's going on.

00:34:05.143 --> 00:34:17.407
It is a negative mindset as far as your social competence, and that's where people don't they tend to not realize that.

00:34:17.994 --> 00:34:22.101
Well, it's a smaller percentage of the population, so the books aren't written for me.

00:34:22.101 --> 00:34:24.096
That's the other problem too.

00:34:24.096 --> 00:34:29.556
Like I remember himelia because she's brilliant too and and she's her own level of genius.

00:34:29.556 --> 00:34:30.416
It's unbelievable.

00:34:30.416 --> 00:34:37.559
My beautiful girlfriend been together for five years and I nothing's built for her.

00:34:37.559 --> 00:34:39.126
Like these books aren't written for her.

00:34:40.010 --> 00:34:45.478
Like the books that teach you how to be more confident, like Like, I don't need more self-belief, I need more humility.

00:34:45.478 --> 00:34:50.188
I don't need to like, oh, get outside your comfort zone.

00:34:50.188 --> 00:34:53.987
For me, doing a speech is not outside my comfort zone.

00:34:53.987 --> 00:34:56.856
What is outside my comfort zone is telling the truth in a speech.

00:34:56.856 --> 00:34:59.581
You see what I mean.

00:34:59.581 --> 00:35:00.563
There's no book on that.

00:35:00.563 --> 00:35:15.121
There's no book on hey, you need to own that.

00:35:15.121 --> 00:35:16.141
You don't struggle with self-doubt.

00:35:16.141 --> 00:35:16.902
That book wouldn't sell.

00:35:16.902 --> 00:35:17.902
No one struggles with that.

00:35:17.943 --> 00:35:19.405
Statistically not competent enough.

00:35:19.405 --> 00:35:21.586
You've always felt like you struggle to achieve things.

00:35:21.586 --> 00:35:24.990
Maybe you have a sibling who's more capable than you and you know it like that.

00:35:24.990 --> 00:35:31.436
Then you're most likely afraid that all of you is not enough and if you accept that and own that, ironically, paradoxically, you'll become enough.

00:35:31.436 --> 00:35:40.981
If you're not in that camp, I would say that's probably 97 of the population is more on that side if you're in this other percentile.

00:35:42.244 --> 00:35:43.186
That doesn't resonate at all.

00:35:43.186 --> 00:35:44.992
None of that resonates, but you hide it.

00:35:44.992 --> 00:35:46.335
By the way, you don't tell anyone.

00:35:46.335 --> 00:35:49.523
Oh yeah, no, I struggle, like yeah, it's not real.

00:35:49.523 --> 00:35:53.641
Okay, the other side is you don't feel like you naturally fit in.

00:35:53.641 --> 00:35:55.626
You feel like you have the chameleon everywhere you go.

00:35:55.626 --> 00:35:57.963
You don't feel relatable or likable at all.

00:35:57.963 --> 00:36:02.143
You feel like you get lashed out at for what seems like no reason all the time.

00:36:02.143 --> 00:36:04.349
You feel like no one wants to see you win.

00:36:04.349 --> 00:36:08.465
If that resonated, you are unbelievably amazing.

00:36:08.465 --> 00:36:17.260
You're amazing and you're scared to be amazing, because socially being amazing isn't awesome unless you're on their sports team Like their sports team, right.

00:36:19.596 --> 00:36:24.139
Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things, that life, that don't really matter.

00:36:25.882 --> 00:36:27.626
Yeah, Great Set on that.

00:36:27.626 --> 00:36:33.019
You've ever heard the by the quote of it is not our darkness but our light that most frightens us.

00:36:33.019 --> 00:36:35.161
Right, that quote resonates with me.

00:36:35.161 --> 00:36:36.878
That doesn't resonate with Kevin at all.

00:36:36.878 --> 00:36:39.726
Kevin's afraid of failure, right, he's not.

00:36:39.726 --> 00:37:11.355
My greatness doesn't frighten me, no-transcript.

00:37:11.355 --> 00:37:18.242
And this is the first time in my life, in my 30s, where I can say I'm putting it on the court, man, I'm actually stretching right.

00:37:18.242 --> 00:37:27.581
And if you can't say that, if you can't say you're doing all you can with all you have, with a straight face and I'm talking by yourself in the mirror then you're not going to be fulfilled.

00:37:27.581 --> 00:37:31.565
And that's my thesis, and so far I've coached hundreds of people.

00:37:31.565 --> 00:37:35.230
I believe that to be true, but that looks different for everyone.

00:37:35.250 --> 00:37:50.400
That's why it gets confusing when I say to people that, hey, when you listen to my episodes about listening to the interviews that I give and I say I want you to take one nugget away, if you just take one nugget, then I feel like we've succeeded.

00:37:50.400 --> 00:37:57.936
That's the one right there is that if you are not maximizing your potential, using everything that you possibly can, then there's no way that you're going to feel fulfilled.

00:37:57.936 --> 00:38:02.880
And if you feel like you're doing that, most likely you don't know what being fulfilled feels like.

00:38:02.880 --> 00:38:11.751
So there's my question to you what was the first time you felt fulfilled?

00:38:14.614 --> 00:38:15.840
I think it's more of a spectrum than a one or a zero.

00:38:15.840 --> 00:38:17.907
So I would say it's like a staircase, but it's all relative.

00:38:17.907 --> 00:38:24.958
And Einstein wrote the theory of relativity and Kevin told me no one cares, but I've read some of it and it's really good.

00:38:24.958 --> 00:38:31.099
But anyways, the point is that if you've never felt fulfilled, you don't really know what you're missing until you're fulfilled.

00:38:31.099 --> 00:38:43.483
So it's this weird thing where you climb this staircase and now you're level six fulfilled, and you realize, oh, maybe I'm actually a two because there's so much more to go, but I'm definitely a six compared to where I was before.

00:38:43.483 --> 00:38:52.597
And so, to answer your question, I always ask my clients this, and this is the goal with my coaching, it's business coaching, but it's really how do I make you more successful and fulfilled?

00:38:52.597 --> 00:39:03.264
And not, but not or, and I'm a computer engineer, so I think in logic, the idea here is the question that I ask them is zero to 10.

00:39:03.264 --> 00:39:04.447
How fulfilled are you right now?

00:39:04.447 --> 00:39:06.780
10 means the most fulfilled you've ever been.

00:39:06.780 --> 00:39:11.800
Zero means the least fulfilled you've ever been, because everything's experiential.

00:39:11.800 --> 00:39:18.541
If you've never been fulfilled but you're the most fulfilled you've ever been, maybe it's my one, but for you that's a 10.

00:39:18.541 --> 00:39:21.876
And usually they say around an eight usually.

00:39:21.876 --> 00:39:22.273
And I know why.

00:39:22.273 --> 00:39:23.161
I say okay, when were you a level 10?

00:39:23.161 --> 00:39:24.170
And then they go and usually they say around an eight usually.

00:39:24.170 --> 00:39:24.307
And I know why.

00:39:24.307 --> 00:39:25.161
I say okay, when were you a level 10?

00:39:25.161 --> 00:39:28.166
And then they go and I said when were you dialed in?

00:39:28.166 --> 00:39:32.643
You were on point, you were living, you were challenged, but you were contributing, you were growing, you were doing it.

00:39:32.985 --> 00:39:37.099
And they said one of my buddies, he said back when I was playing D1, d2 college football.

00:39:37.099 --> 00:39:39.583
And I said let's analyze what was different.

00:39:39.583 --> 00:39:46.922
Okay, offensive coach, defensive coach, head coach, peers, common goals, you had belonging from the crowd.

00:39:46.922 --> 00:39:47.865
You were celebrated.

00:39:47.865 --> 00:39:51.105
You also had the chip on your shoulder because your grandfather said you're too small to play in the NFL.

00:39:51.105 --> 00:39:59.322
You have a dream that you're chasing, like there's certain principles that create fulfillment and people say it's the journey, not the destination.

00:39:59.322 --> 00:40:00.237
It's both.

00:40:00.237 --> 00:40:06.081
If I drive 30 minutes south, that's very different than driving from Boston to LA, which I did in my early 20s.

00:40:06.081 --> 00:40:12.503
So the destination matters, but the journey is the climb, is what's fulfilling.

00:40:12.503 --> 00:40:17.304
So it's this, everything's like these dualities, and if you can't think in duality, you're in so much trouble.

00:40:17.304 --> 00:40:18.527
What is duality.

00:40:18.914 --> 00:40:22.322
There's a book called the Self-Made Billionaire Effect and this is back when there was only 1200 billionaires.

00:40:22.322 --> 00:40:28.469
There's like 3300 now, and they said the number one quality of a self-made billionaire um, so there's only 1200 self-made billionaires.

00:40:28.469 --> 00:40:32.445
This is back in 2012, didn't inherit it, like that kind of thing.

00:40:32.445 --> 00:40:39.795
And he said the number one quality of self-made billionaires is that they can hold two seemingly opposing ideas in their consciousness simultaneously.

00:40:39.795 --> 00:40:42.121
And I see that all the time.

00:40:42.262 --> 00:40:46.360
It's you work too hard compared to what?

00:40:46.360 --> 00:40:52.317
And, by the way, for my goals, I'm actually not hardworking enough, believe it or not.

00:40:52.317 --> 00:40:59.733
So, yeah, you think I'm disciplined, you think I'm structured, you think I'm systems, you think I'm too rational and I should need to live a little right.

00:40:59.733 --> 00:41:06.409
You ever hear that and it's you're projecting onto me your own standard, like, in order to achieve my goals, I'm actually not dialed in enough.

00:41:06.409 --> 00:41:08.481
And it's back to the fulfillment piece.

00:41:08.601 --> 00:41:14.282
Fulfillment looks different for everyone, but the principles are the same, and even that's a duality.

00:41:14.282 --> 00:41:15.865
Let me give you an example.

00:41:15.865 --> 00:41:16.996
Virtue is a principle.

00:41:16.996 --> 00:41:21.282
If you show compassion and I show compassion, we're going to be more fulfilled than if we don't.

00:41:21.282 --> 00:41:24.766
If you show greed and I show greed, we're going to be less fulfilled.

00:41:24.766 --> 00:41:31.065
But what that greed looks like, the amount, all of that changes based on the individual, the context, the goals, your upbringing.

00:41:31.106 --> 00:41:33.378
Right Axe can build a house or kill someone.

00:41:33.378 --> 00:41:36.586
It's not the axe that's the problem, it's the wielder.

00:41:36.586 --> 00:41:40.579
And so, for all of us, people come to me and they say how do I be more successful?

00:41:40.579 --> 00:41:46.250
It's like listen, the reason you're not successful is because you've set goals based on a version of you that isn't real.

00:41:46.250 --> 00:41:50.583
Most people would look at my life and say, screw that.

00:41:50.684 --> 00:41:56.661
I work 12 hour days every day, for six days a week, and Sunday is my only day off, and even that's not off.

00:41:56.661 --> 00:42:08.465
But that's what fulfills me, trust me, I tried taking time off and stuff that wasn't fulfilling for me, and so I podcast, coach, speak, train and write and I do events.

00:42:08.465 --> 00:42:10.019
Those are my six.

00:42:10.019 --> 00:42:14.905
Those are my things I do and they fulfill me and they're my purpose, my calling, my passion.

00:42:14.905 --> 00:42:16.280
They're profitable.

00:42:16.280 --> 00:42:19.664
Someone else looks at my life and goes, oh my God.

00:42:19.664 --> 00:42:21.623
But then they look at my results and go, that would be nice.

00:42:21.623 --> 00:42:23.715
No, my life.

00:42:23.715 --> 00:42:24.096
And goes, oh my God.

00:42:24.096 --> 00:42:26.239
But then they look at my results and go, that would be nice.

00:42:26.239 --> 00:42:27.382
No, you don't understand what.

00:42:27.382 --> 00:42:33.422
You can't get those results without the process, without the systems, without the tools, without the beliefs, without the.

00:42:34.527 --> 00:42:37.257
You know you, maybe you want to spend more time with your friends than I do.

00:42:37.257 --> 00:42:41.067
I had to give up a lot of friendships in order to get to where I am.

00:42:41.067 --> 00:42:42.577
1700 episodes.

00:42:42.577 --> 00:42:43.059
You mentioned that.

00:42:43.059 --> 00:42:47.193
I appreciate it and that sounds really cool, but the truth is we do an episode every day.

00:42:47.193 --> 00:42:48.197
You have no idea.

00:42:48.197 --> 00:42:55.922
These are not like three minute clips, these are full 30 minute, anywhere from 20 to 40 minute episodes every single day.

00:42:55.922 --> 00:42:56.846
It's like how do you do that?

00:42:56.846 --> 00:43:02.521
Kevin and I have decided to climb this mountain, and this is a fulfilling mountain for us.

00:43:02.521 --> 00:43:10.423
It's meaningful progress toward meaningful goals for a meaningful purpose, and it's our passion, it's our purpose and it's our profit, and in that order.

00:43:10.423 --> 00:43:24.764
And you can't design your life based on what I've designed mine to be and I can't design my life based on what you've designed yours to be, because neither one of us will be fulfilled or successful, or maybe you'll be successful and unfulfilled, which is what I did prior to my car accident.

00:43:26.746 --> 00:43:39.277
Interesting that you mentioned and this like blew me away is that you said a lot of people have goals based upon a version of themselves that's not set in reality.

00:43:39.277 --> 00:43:41.199
That's huge.

00:43:41.199 --> 00:43:45.728
Like people to understand that in your coaching.

00:43:45.728 --> 00:43:51.164
How do you get someone to understand that without tearing them down?

00:43:51.824 --> 00:43:54.958
Yeah, so so that's actually been one of my greatest challenges.

00:43:54.958 --> 00:43:56.322
I what a great question, brad.

00:43:56.322 --> 00:43:56.804
I appreciate it.

00:43:56.804 --> 00:43:59.735
So I have this framework.

00:43:59.735 --> 00:44:00.757
Everything's a framework to me.

00:44:02.137 --> 00:44:03.719
There's four modalities of thinking, by the way.

00:44:03.719 --> 00:44:05.501
The first one's math and numbers.

00:44:05.501 --> 00:44:10.125
The second is words and concepts, the third is energy and the fourth is images and pictures.

00:44:10.125 --> 00:44:13.927
I'm math first, so anyone who's math first is like I, like this guy.

00:44:13.927 --> 00:44:14.748
Everyone who's not is like.

00:44:14.748 --> 00:44:15.449
He doesn't make any sense.

00:44:15.449 --> 00:44:17.530
I used to think I was a strong communicator.

00:44:17.530 --> 00:44:25.378
Now I know I'm a strong communicator to engineers, communicator to engineers, but anyways.

00:44:25.378 --> 00:44:27.588
So Kevin is words and concepts first, so he's more emotional and we don't have to get into that.

00:44:27.588 --> 00:44:28.512
But the rarest is math, I think.

00:44:28.512 --> 00:44:35.800
Statistically, the next rarest is energy Words is by far the most common as words and concepts, and then images and pictures is next, but anyway.

00:44:35.800 --> 00:44:38.476
So to answer your original question, everything's a framework.

00:44:38.476 --> 00:44:46.367
So I have this framework that I use to try to understand human beings and I have to close my eyes to look at it on a whiteboard, all right.

00:44:46.367 --> 00:44:47.730
So imagine a target.

00:44:47.730 --> 00:44:57.434
The outer ring is what you want others to believe about you.

00:44:57.434 --> 00:45:09.833
The next ring in is what you want to believe about you, and then the inner ring is what you really are Interesting.

00:45:09.833 --> 00:45:12.958
My goal in life is to make all three of those rings the same.

00:45:12.958 --> 00:45:18.206
That means I'm, in reality, right, because the GPS is a great analogy.

00:45:18.206 --> 00:45:20.110
The GPS needs three things.

00:45:25.034 --> 00:45:26.487
I have a Tesla that they've actually updated it to now it's not as good self-driving.

00:45:26.487 --> 00:45:27.387
It still drives itself, but it's called supervisor mode.

00:45:27.387 --> 00:45:37.329
But emily and I went on a road trip from massachusetts to south carolina to visit her fan bam, and we drove through eight states and I'm not kidding, I let this thing drive us there.

00:45:37.329 --> 00:45:38.635
It was the coolest thing ever.

00:45:38.635 --> 00:45:44.367
I've been waiting for this for a decade because I was robotics companies and computer engineering right, so I know this is coming.

00:45:44.367 --> 00:45:45.429
A lot of people get freaked out.

00:45:45.429 --> 00:45:48.260
Listen, it's coming, whether you like it or not.

00:45:48.260 --> 00:45:49.402
I'm sorry, don't hate me.

00:45:49.402 --> 00:45:50.905
It was awesome.

00:45:50.905 --> 00:45:55.284
So, anyways, the point is the Tesla has eight, nine cameras.

00:45:55.284 --> 00:46:05.057
So it has three in the front, one for the right, one for the left, one for the center, it has one in the rear and then it has one in each door four doors.

00:46:05.057 --> 00:46:10.380
And then there's one in the inside because if it sees you on your phone or whatever it says, hey, pay attention Right Now.

00:46:10.380 --> 00:46:15.900
I'm not talking about the privacy issues, I'm not talking about data, I'm not talking about Elon no, don't associate me with any of this please.

00:46:17.585 --> 00:46:23.405
Now, in the metaphor, in order for the Tesla to drive me somewhere, it needs three things.

00:46:23.405 --> 00:46:28.126
Number one it needs a current location, an accurate current location.

00:46:28.126 --> 00:46:34.228
It needs to know where it is in relative to other persons, places, things and ideas.

00:46:34.228 --> 00:46:34.467
Okay.

00:46:34.467 --> 00:46:38.103
Then it needs a destination address Okay.

00:46:38.103 --> 00:46:40.764
So in this metaphor, current location is self-awareness.

00:46:40.764 --> 00:46:48.445
Destination address is where you're headed Goal, dream result, objective, whatever you want to call it.

00:46:48.445 --> 00:46:53.786
And it also needs number three it needs to know the data of the terrain.

00:46:53.994 --> 00:47:00.724
Remember, back in the day, the Garmin and it would like not update, and you're trying to take a right and it's like that's not even a road, that's a lake.

00:47:00.724 --> 00:47:02.978
I feel like that's what people do in life.

00:47:02.978 --> 00:47:13.583
They set these goals and then they drive into the lake over and over again, and then they have low self-worth and low self-belief and they think something's wrong with them, when in reality they're just inaccurate in their thinking.

00:47:13.583 --> 00:47:19.800
And then I come along trying to update their software and help them think accurately and they hate me.

00:47:19.800 --> 00:47:30.083
And then I decide to bottle it all up, take all the answers, keep them to myself, just like all the other engineers that have low self-worth, that have all the answers and tell no one, right, because it's not safe.

00:47:30.083 --> 00:47:38.076
And now we get all our goals and dreams, but we're these emotionally stunted children and again, I'm being playful because I know a lot of engineers.

00:47:38.135 --> 00:47:40.059
But that's the problem, right?

00:47:40.059 --> 00:47:48.456
The people with the actual truth, the actual answers aren't emotional, and so they don't learn how to communicate effectively with emotionally driven people.

00:47:48.456 --> 00:47:51.925
Because when someone says, hey, alan, how do I look in this dress?

00:47:51.925 --> 00:48:00.315
And my brain says you're level six fat, you can't say that it's not safe to say that, even though that is the truth.

00:48:00.315 --> 00:48:04.184
Fat people are fat, skinny people are skinny.

00:48:04.184 --> 00:48:07.219
Some houses are shacks and some are mansions Like.

00:48:07.260 --> 00:48:10.619
You have to look at the world accurately and you get villainized for it.

00:48:10.619 --> 00:48:14.695
But if you don't call a spade, you can't make good decisions without accurate data.

00:48:14.695 --> 00:48:23.018
And so here I live in this objective world in my head and I can only share certain parts of it in the world without people hating me.

00:48:23.018 --> 00:48:25.442
Even on this podcast, I have to be careful, right?

00:48:25.442 --> 00:48:30.427
So, to answer your original question, when someone comes to me in coaching.

00:48:30.427 --> 00:48:39.275
My job is threefold no-transcript.

00:48:39.275 --> 00:48:41.753
And how do you do that without tearing them down?

00:48:41.753 --> 00:48:44.505
This is why I tend to coach people who are under, not over.

00:48:44.505 --> 00:48:45.086
Let me explain.

00:48:45.086 --> 00:48:47.052
I'll use Jesse.

00:48:47.052 --> 00:48:49.597
Jesse's a past team member of mine, used to be a client.

00:48:49.597 --> 00:48:56.829
Love Jesse, wonderful human being, smarter than she thinks, better looking than she thinks, more competent than she thinks.

00:48:56.829 --> 00:48:57.992
That's easy for me.

00:48:57.992 --> 00:49:00.527
It's not hard for me to say you're better than you think.

00:49:01.347 --> 00:49:01.527
Right.

00:49:02.730 --> 00:49:05.856
It's the ego-driven ding-dongs that think they're smart.

00:49:05.856 --> 00:49:08.099
That it's hard for me to say.

00:49:08.099 --> 00:49:13.557
I know you think you're accurate, like the real estate thing but, you can't make good decisions.

00:49:13.605 --> 00:49:16.532
If that's the case, go invest in real estate while I invest in tech.

00:49:16.532 --> 00:49:22.456
See how that goes, especially commercial real estate when no one needs headquarter buildings anymore.

00:49:22.456 --> 00:49:24.570
So here I am.

00:49:24.570 --> 00:49:26.034
I keep the answers for myself.

00:49:26.034 --> 00:49:27.217
I go be successful.

00:49:27.217 --> 00:49:31.108
He goes, makes poor decisions because I never update his data.

00:49:31.108 --> 00:49:35.708
And then he what likes me more or hates me more, unconsciously, right.

00:49:35.708 --> 00:49:37.693
And then what does that do to my unlovable part?

00:49:37.693 --> 00:49:38.293
Right?

00:49:38.293 --> 00:49:43.114
And so at the end of the day, I try to coach people who are under meaning.

00:49:43.114 --> 00:49:51.355
They are More competent than they think, they're smarter than they think, they've been conditioned to think they're less than they are, and I'm really good at coaching those people.

00:49:51.496 --> 00:49:56.313
I have trouble with the ego-driven Narcissists who, like, think they're awesome when they're just not.

00:49:56.313 --> 00:49:57.275
You're just not.

00:49:57.275 --> 00:49:59.208
You need to go Humble yourself.

00:49:59.208 --> 00:50:00.653
You need to go do some hard stuff.

00:50:00.653 --> 00:50:05.766
I did a timed mile recently and I thought I'd get a six.

00:50:05.766 --> 00:50:12.088
I ended up with a 709 and I was trucking and I'm 35 and I was like, oh my God, talk about humble pie.

00:50:12.088 --> 00:50:15.175
But I need the humble pie because otherwise I do.

00:50:15.235 --> 00:50:15.836
I get arrogant.

00:50:15.836 --> 00:50:18.028
A lot of people do.

00:50:18.028 --> 00:50:19.331
They get really arrogant.

00:50:19.331 --> 00:50:25.846
They haven't challenged themselves at the core level enough, especially successful people Like listen.

00:50:25.865 --> 00:50:41.284
When you have 50 grand a month coming in and all your friends are not successful like you, it's very easy to become very arrogant, but that's how you end up not humble and not courageous and not vulnerable and not honest, and that's how you end up delusional.

00:50:41.284 --> 00:50:44.757
We all are victim of being delusional in one direction or the other.

00:50:44.757 --> 00:50:47.065
You either are better than you think or you're worse than you think.

00:50:47.065 --> 00:50:48.250
No one's fully accurate.

00:50:48.250 --> 00:50:50.135
Everyone thinks they are, which is why no one is.

00:50:50.135 --> 00:51:03.875
It's this whole thing, and so my job is to see them as accurately as possible, as objectively as possible, knowing there's a percent error and that I'm not all-knowing, and then help them see that so that they can set goals based on that are actually in alignment with who they really are.

00:51:03.875 --> 00:51:05.115
That's how you win.

00:51:05.896 --> 00:51:11.550
And if you think you're super smart and then you go to SpaceX, you're in some serious trouble.

00:51:11.550 --> 00:51:17.851
I thought I was smart before I went to college and I was smart, but like whoa, I was like holy crap.

00:51:17.851 --> 00:51:19.094
I was like the math guy.

00:51:19.094 --> 00:51:21.626
Now I'm like the guy, just regular guy.

00:51:21.626 --> 00:51:23.251
I'm just regular guy Now.

00:51:23.251 --> 00:51:26.731
You just have to keep on getting feedback.

00:51:26.731 --> 00:51:28.916
But most people avoid feedback because they're deeply insecure.

00:51:29.784 --> 00:51:30.547
And that's an interesting.

00:51:30.547 --> 00:51:33.646
That's an interesting subject within itself and we could probably go on for hours about that.

00:51:33.646 --> 00:51:37.998
The sensitivity that's going on in our environment today is ridiculous.

00:51:37.998 --> 00:51:41.411
It's far upscale than we need to talk about I.

00:51:41.411 --> 00:51:46.929
I'm one of those guys that I guess I have empathy for other people, but I don't have empathy for myself.

00:51:46.929 --> 00:51:59.547
So I want you, like if you were coaching me and I'm probably an under or I'm, I don't know what I am but if you were coaching me, I want you to sit there and look at me in the face and go.

00:52:00.751 --> 00:52:10.070
You are so far below what you think you're going to be able to do that we need to come up with something that's going to put you in the success factor, in the person that you are.

00:52:10.070 --> 00:52:11.735
I need to see that.

00:52:11.735 --> 00:52:12.436
I need to hear that.

00:52:12.436 --> 00:52:14.451
I tell my bosses all the time.

00:52:14.451 --> 00:52:14.873
I'm listening.

00:52:14.873 --> 00:52:15.494
You know what?

00:52:15.494 --> 00:52:28.634
If I effed up, you need to come in my office, look at me in the face and said you face and said you effed up, now fix it.

00:52:28.634 --> 00:52:31.365
I don't need you to sit there and say this didn't really work out and we need to push back on this a little bit and blah, blah, blah.

00:52:31.365 --> 00:52:31.766
No, I need you to come in there.

00:52:31.766 --> 00:52:31.905
Tell me.

00:52:31.905 --> 00:52:32.195
You effed up.

00:52:32.195 --> 00:52:34.117
If you need help, let me know, but you need to fix it and you need to do it now and walk out the door.

00:52:34.456 --> 00:52:36.500
But, brad, that's because you have high self-belief.

00:52:36.500 --> 00:52:52.130
This is the problem with fixed and growth mindset and I see you trust me same.

00:52:52.130 --> 00:52:52.833
Just tell me I don't want you to.

00:52:52.833 --> 00:52:54.358
Kevin called me fat once and people in our community don't understand why.

00:52:54.358 --> 00:52:54.858
He knew I was delusional.

00:52:54.858 --> 00:52:55.601
They're like you're in great shape.

00:52:55.601 --> 00:52:56.063
Compared to who, though?

00:52:56.063 --> 00:52:58.746
Right, kev remembers when I was in way better shape than this Like.

00:52:58.746 --> 00:53:04.710
Kev was there when we were doing fitness competitions and I would eat me right now.

00:53:04.710 --> 00:53:05.670
Right.

00:53:05.670 --> 00:53:08.972
So he's not calling me fat to be mean.

00:53:08.972 --> 00:53:15.378
He knows I'm delusional and he knows that I'm underperforming, but he would never say that to someone who's actually fat.

00:53:15.438 --> 00:53:22.702
That's the duality yes, to someone who doesn't have the belief that I have and the competence I have.

00:53:22.702 --> 00:53:22.846
Like.

00:53:22.846 --> 00:53:30.313
I had a client once who came to me and said I want you to be as hard on me as you are on yourself and Emilia, my beautiful girlfriend, who has the most self-belief of anyone I've ever met.

00:53:30.313 --> 00:53:33.012
I told her that and she said oh, she would die.

00:53:33.012 --> 00:53:36.009
You can't give.

00:53:36.009 --> 00:53:37.644
You can only give the level of like.

00:53:37.644 --> 00:53:40.791
You don't treat a seven-year-old year old the same as a 70 year old.

00:53:40.791 --> 00:53:49.612
You like if I'm brand new at chess, are you gonna berate me that I didn't do the bishop to king, perfect setup.

00:53:49.612 --> 00:53:51.536
No, of course not.

00:53:51.536 --> 00:54:00.753
The fact that I even know what the pieces do is a win, but if I've been playing chess for 10 years and I'm losing to 10 year olds, it's come on man.

00:54:00.753 --> 00:54:02.197
What are we doing here, right?

00:54:02.197 --> 00:54:02.378
So?

00:54:02.378 --> 00:54:07.940
And then so there's toxic positivity, which is it's all going to work out, no worries.

00:54:07.940 --> 00:54:10.186
Regardless of your effort, everybody gets a trophy.

00:54:10.186 --> 00:54:14.536
And there's toxic negativity, which is you're the worst you know.

00:54:14.536 --> 00:54:16.059
Grind every day.

00:54:16.059 --> 00:54:16.907
How dare you?

00:54:16.907 --> 00:54:24.253
No compassion, the optimal solution is always in the middle, and so you have high self-belief, so you can take direct feedback.

00:54:24.764 --> 00:54:33.275
People who have low self-belief and fixed mindsets have trouble with that, because they already beat themselves up so much and they actually need more affirmation.

00:54:33.275 --> 00:54:34.097
Not all of them.

00:54:34.097 --> 00:54:37.434
Some people need to be told like listen, I know you think you're hot shit.

00:54:37.434 --> 00:54:39.090
Come on man, what are we doing?

00:54:39.090 --> 00:54:44.664
Like you need to go run with someone who's an actual runner, okay.

00:54:44.664 --> 00:54:46.269
What are we doing Like you need to go run with someone who's an actual runner?

00:54:46.269 --> 00:54:46.670
Okay, get humble pie.

00:54:46.670 --> 00:54:49.298
Everyone needs and this is the problem the medicine that cures one patient kills another.

00:54:49.298 --> 00:54:53.695
That's why I love one-on-one coaching and this is why podcasting is so hard for me.

00:54:54.166 --> 00:54:59.268
If you're a computer engineer out there listening and you have high self-belief, you love this episode.

00:54:59.268 --> 00:55:15.291
And most likely if you have low self-belief and low self-worth and you struggle to think accurately and you feel like you're not smart enough, you have a really hard time with me and Brad right now, and this is why like attracts like.

00:55:15.291 --> 00:55:19.407
But the problem is that we all end up in these echo chambers.

00:55:19.407 --> 00:55:35.351
Kevin and I have really broken each other's echo chamber because we've combined these two worlds of the computer engineers and the heart-driven people who were blue collar right, and so we've learned the opposite bell curve, the opposite side of the bell curve, and we've become holistic because of it.

00:55:35.351 --> 00:55:38.545
And so I've learned so much from Kev, just because Kev's so different than me.

00:55:38.545 --> 00:55:47.608
But we have similar core values and similar core aspirations and we respect each other and we both didn't have fathers and we also had a common core wound of wanting male role models, never having them.

00:55:47.608 --> 00:55:48.934
So there's a lot underneath that.

00:55:49.376 --> 00:55:56.036
But at the end of the day, you want direct feedback because you have high self-belief but no one knows how they built their self-belief.

00:55:56.036 --> 00:55:57.186
There's an actual formula.

00:55:57.186 --> 00:55:59.250
It's state-proof self-assign.

00:55:59.250 --> 00:56:03.677
So, brad, you say I'm going to do a marathon, and then you prove to yourself you can do it.

00:56:03.677 --> 00:56:04.800
And then, after you're done, you go.

00:56:04.800 --> 00:56:07.384
I told you I could do it, and so you build belief.

00:56:07.384 --> 00:56:09.909
Other people aren't stating and they're not self-assigning.

00:56:12.855 --> 00:56:14.699
And that's something I'm oblivious to.

00:56:15.364 --> 00:56:21.353
Yes, because you have self-belief and you don't know that you have it, and all the people around you are pretending they have it too.

00:56:28.570 --> 00:56:32.364
And only the people around you are pretending they have it too, and only the fact that you're not insecure around me means you have very high self-belief.

00:56:39.364 --> 00:56:39.666
You know what I?

00:56:39.686 --> 00:56:41.849
get it, because I believe, I know that I can't do 37 half marathons, 17 full marathon, like you.

00:56:41.849 --> 00:56:47.369
Need self-belief for that, yeah, but I accept the fact that you are a very smart person and you're probably much, much smarter than I am, and I accept the fact.

00:56:47.369 --> 00:56:53.333
And when I hire people, let me just give you just a little bit I am actually in IT myself.

00:56:53.333 --> 00:56:58.184
I work for a surgery center right now, but I've worked for JP Morgan.

00:56:58.184 --> 00:57:05.039
I've worked for some of the biggest Fortune 100 companies as a project IT, project program manager, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:57:05.039 --> 00:57:12.264
When I hire people, I know that I want to hire people that are smarter than me, much smarter than me.

00:57:12.264 --> 00:57:12.704
Got it.

00:57:12.704 --> 00:57:17.998
I need that knowledge in order to get the project moving into a point that I can be successful and I can take it.

00:57:17.998 --> 00:57:20.112
Let me take care of the budgeting, the scheduling and all that stuff.

00:57:20.112 --> 00:57:23.650
You take your knowledge and build me my freaking application.

00:57:23.992 --> 00:57:25.054
As long as they're humble.

00:57:25.054 --> 00:57:32.766
As long as they're humble, because a lot of times the people smarter than you sometimes aren't humble and therefore not coachable and they can't be led.

00:57:32.766 --> 00:57:41.112
I've come to realize as a leader if you're not humble, I can't work with you at all, because if you're not humble you're not coachable, and if you're not coachable we're in trouble.

00:57:41.112 --> 00:57:43.737
Right, and again, that's another layer.

00:57:43.737 --> 00:57:45.693
Sorry to interrupt you, but I don't know.

00:57:45.693 --> 00:57:50.733
I talking about are probably brilliant, but they're also low self-worth and they have a lot of humble, a lot of humility, probably.

00:57:52.425 --> 00:58:04.326
That's super interesting because that's because even in the, even in my interviews, when I'm getting somebody across the table to bring out to my teams, I'm like no, I am in this, I am in this business to hire people that are smarter than me.

00:58:04.326 --> 00:58:09.206
As far as your resume goes and what you've accomplished, it looks like you fit that bill.

00:58:09.206 --> 00:58:12.574
Now let's talk about what it was, and a lot of times you're absolutely right.

00:58:12.574 --> 00:58:20.815
They all of a sudden their eyes go down and they tuck their head in and blah, blah, blah, like they can't take that compliment or they actually don't believe it.

00:58:21.335 --> 00:58:28.635
Yes, yep, and ironically, that's why they're so smart, because if they did think they were smart, they wouldn't work on getting smarter.

00:58:28.635 --> 00:58:30.728
Everything's a paradox.

00:58:32.914 --> 00:58:34.358
That's super interesting too.

00:58:34.358 --> 00:58:38.286
If you know you're smart, you're not going to work on becoming smarter.

00:58:38.286 --> 00:58:46.090
There's a lot of great takeaways here, ladies and gentlemen, and we can probably go on forever about this.

00:58:46.090 --> 00:59:04.262
As far as there was something that you were talking about earlier, we'll go on to that later, but just as far as chronology goes, before we start to wrap this up, you got out of corporate and you started to really delve into personal development.

00:59:04.262 --> 00:59:13.793
How long was it before, when you quit your job, started moving into this personal development stuff after the accident, that you started next level?

00:59:13.793 --> 00:59:17.807
Or was that the next step in your journey here, or was there something in the middle?

00:59:18.532 --> 00:59:21.385
No, there was a couple of things that I do think are critical for anyone listening.

00:59:21.385 --> 00:59:22.710
One was back in 2012,.

00:59:22.710 --> 00:59:25.036
I started a little company called Campus Libre.

00:59:25.036 --> 00:59:27.764
It was going to be a campus specific Craigslist for textbooks.

00:59:27.764 --> 00:59:36.096
It started off as a little business competition at school and we actually won a couple of awards, but it was me and the three smartest engineers that I knew at the time.

00:59:36.096 --> 00:59:37.690
It was a four person team.

00:59:37.690 --> 00:59:40.974
We were profitable out of the gate and me and the CEO had a falling out.

00:59:44.105 --> 00:59:44.967
I was the cmo chief marketing officer.

00:59:44.987 --> 00:59:45.949
Okay mark zuckerberg.

00:59:45.949 --> 00:59:47.172
Yeah, yeah, honestly.

00:59:47.172 --> 00:59:53.954
It's funny that you say that, because the movie that came out I was watching it back then, thinking this could be a big deal there was a competitor called uloop.

00:59:53.954 --> 01:00:05.253
It was a campus specific craigslist for textbooks and then it was eventually going to be like a uh, not just textbooks, and then we were going to go from the east coast to the west Coast and then fill in the gaps and then we were going to move beyond US.

01:00:05.253 --> 01:00:10.293
But anyways, me and the CEO had a falling out and it was one of the hardest conversations I've ever had.

01:00:10.293 --> 01:00:13.351
I was crying for freaking four hours because I poured my heart and soul into this.

01:00:13.431 --> 01:00:16.945
And now I realize too, by the way, that I'm a naturally born entrepreneur.

01:00:16.945 --> 01:00:21.829
I am obsessive, I'm extremely organized.

01:00:21.829 --> 01:00:39.021
There's a personality test called Hexaco that tests you on 26 facets of your personality and one of them is called conscientiousness, and I'm very high in conscientiousness, which is the most correlated with business success, not the most correlated with relational success, by the way, felt easy.

01:00:39.021 --> 01:00:41.561
Most people are on the other end of that, statistically speaking.

01:00:41.561 --> 01:00:41.922
Blah, blah, blah.

01:00:41.922 --> 01:00:46.889
But the point is, I started a little company.

01:00:46.889 --> 01:00:49.784
It ended up failing and it didn't go anywhere after that, which in some ways was like the ego part of me was like, yeah, I told you.

01:00:49.784 --> 01:00:53.414
And then the other part of me was, ah, that's sad, but anyways.

01:00:53.534 --> 01:00:56.951
Then I went into corporate, did the whole corporate thing car accident at 26.

01:00:56.951 --> 01:01:00.057
After that I reinvented myself completely.

01:01:00.057 --> 01:01:06.827
I went all in on self-improvement.

01:01:06.827 --> 01:01:10.742
It wasn't long after that I started listening to books while on the road, going into all these manufacturing facilities, because Cognex, the company I was working for, I was on the road.

01:01:10.742 --> 01:01:14.936
I managed Connecticut, vermont and Western Massachusetts, so I was on the road all the time just listening to audiobooks.

01:01:14.936 --> 01:01:20.510
And then I quit Cognex, probably within six months, maybe even sooner.

01:01:20.510 --> 01:01:26.599
And then I started my own little company called Alan Lazarus LLC, and it was what you'll never learn in school but desperately need to know.

01:01:26.599 --> 01:01:36.215
And so instead of taking jobs through industrial automation which again is what it is I decided to help people retool for a bigger, better, brighter future, and that's really where it was born.

01:01:36.215 --> 01:01:38.246
That was eight and a half years ago.

01:01:39.007 --> 01:01:40.668
And then eventually I teamed up with Kev.

01:01:40.668 --> 01:01:46.773
So Kev had a podcast called the Hyperconscious Podcast change the way you think, change the way you act, change the way you live.

01:01:46.773 --> 01:01:55.362
I had a podcast called Conversations Change Lives, which was meaningful conversations like this being a fly on the wall will change your life, type of thing.

01:01:55.362 --> 01:02:05.237
As his first guest and after that we just started teaming up and we had the worst named podcast ever.

01:02:05.237 --> 01:02:07.003
It was the Hyperconscious Podcast Meets Conversations Change Lives Podcast.

01:02:07.003 --> 01:02:08.228
It was awful.

01:02:08.228 --> 01:02:10.934
So eventually we went all in on the Hyperconscious Podcast.

01:02:10.934 --> 01:02:18.692
We were one a week, then we were two a week, then we were three a week, eventually we were five a week and then seven a week 1% improvement in your pocket every day now.

01:02:18.692 --> 01:02:22.119
And then we rebranded from Hyperconscious to Next Level University.

01:02:22.119 --> 01:02:27.331
So Next Level University was born, probably if it's been nine years.

01:02:27.331 --> 01:02:34.021
Next Level University was born probably four years ago, and before that it was three years of the Hyperconscious podcast.

01:02:34.021 --> 01:02:36.769
So technically, kevin and I are still a toddler in business.

01:02:36.769 --> 01:02:37.851
We're only seven years old.

01:02:37.851 --> 01:02:39.996
We have a 21 person team now.

01:02:39.996 --> 01:02:41.445
We've got 21 departments.

01:02:41.445 --> 01:02:45.487
We've got our own charity about to be 22 people actually as of yesterday.

01:02:45.487 --> 01:02:51.068
We've got a big community, now heard in 170 countries, and we're still, in my opinion, in our very infancy.

01:02:51.068 --> 01:03:02.092
But we've got a is aligned with who we are now.

01:03:03.492 --> 01:03:13.695
My career wasn't as aligned with who I was as I thought, because it wasn't the passion and the purpose and it was profit.

01:03:13.695 --> 01:03:14.655
Most people are profit.

01:03:14.655 --> 01:03:31.260
First, I wrote this blog recently about how to have a magnificent career that you adore, and it's a simple Venn diagram and the bottom left circle of the Venn diagram is there's three circles is what fulfills you.

01:03:31.260 --> 01:03:37.762
Then number two is what you're really good at statistically speaking, like I don't mean good at in your own head.

01:03:37.762 --> 01:03:39.023
Line up 100 people in a room.

01:03:39.023 --> 01:03:39.923
Are you the best in the room?

01:03:39.923 --> 01:03:49.936
And then number three is what makes great money, and I often joke.

01:03:49.884 --> 01:03:51.675
I say how much money would Michael Jordan make to play basketball a hundred years ago?

01:03:51.675 --> 01:03:52.239
And the answer is $0.

01:03:52.239 --> 01:03:53.878
The NBA is only 74 years old and even in the beginning there was very little money.

01:03:53.878 --> 01:03:56.061
There was no market, just no market right.

01:03:56.061 --> 01:04:00.190
So I don't care how good you are at something that there's no market for, it doesn't actually pay the bills.

01:04:00.190 --> 01:04:03.858
But unfortunately, most of us go for money first.

01:04:03.858 --> 01:04:09.056
Particularly in the older generations, it was always money first and then we try to be fulfilled.

01:04:09.056 --> 01:04:10.750
It's like good luck with that right.

01:04:10.750 --> 01:04:11.753
So that's what I did.

01:04:11.873 --> 01:04:12.896
Engineers make a lot of money.

01:04:12.896 --> 01:04:18.326
Let's go be an engineer and then I'm sitting behind a desk all summer designing circuits going.

01:04:18.326 --> 01:04:24.295
I made a mistake and obviously not a macro mistake, because computer engineering has been very lucrative and I'm grateful for it.

01:04:24.295 --> 01:04:36.074
But I had to reinvent myself and so that's what I do for people now is you're either fulfilled and unsuccessful, which happens all the time, by the way or you're successful and unfulfilled also happens all the time.

01:04:36.074 --> 01:04:36.936
Both of those suck.

01:04:36.936 --> 01:04:37.445
I've been there.

01:04:38.086 --> 01:04:42.835
Or you're like my client, yvette, who came to me and she said listen, I love what I do.

01:04:42.835 --> 01:04:43.958
I'm really good at it.

01:04:43.958 --> 01:04:51.117
I want my life to be an amplified version of what it already is, but I don't want to work 12 hour days, six days a week, like you do.

01:04:51.117 --> 01:04:52.021
I was like okay, let's rock and roll.

01:04:52.021 --> 01:04:56.528
So I'm just helping her amplify what already is super successful in most people's eyes.

01:04:56.528 --> 01:04:57.710
Is she going to be a billionaire?

01:04:57.710 --> 01:05:01.155
No, but she's definitely going to be a multimillionaire and she loves what she does.

01:05:01.155 --> 01:05:04.257
So at the end of the day, I've got 26 people on my roster.

01:05:04.257 --> 01:05:05.659
The youngest is 16.

01:05:05.659 --> 01:05:07.322
I'm actually on with him in two minutes.

01:05:07.322 --> 01:05:17.197
My oldest is 63 and it's been so awesome because it's people all over the world, from all different backgrounds and I'm coming up on my 10,000 hours, so I'm pumped about that and thank you so much.

01:05:23.585 --> 01:05:24.106
Brad, this was awesome.

01:05:24.106 --> 01:05:24.449
This was great.

01:05:24.449 --> 01:05:25.974
I really appreciate it and if anyone wants to reach out, they can.

01:05:25.974 --> 01:05:27.179
I appreciate that and I'll link your socials.

01:05:27.179 --> 01:05:31.554
I'm going to link nextleveluniversitycom If you could send me the link to that blog.

01:05:31.554 --> 01:05:32.275
Is that blog?

01:05:32.925 --> 01:05:33.929
Yeah, it's on my LinkedIn.

01:05:33.929 --> 01:05:34.713
Is it public?

01:05:34.713 --> 01:05:36.030
It's blog number 18.

01:05:36.030 --> 01:05:38.751
Okay, so I have 18 blogs on my LinkedIn.

01:05:38.992 --> 01:05:39.172
Yeah.

01:05:39.253 --> 01:05:41.271
Okay, it's the latest and greatest one, yeah.

01:05:48.545 --> 01:05:50.512
All right, so I will find that I'm going to link that Um and we'll have that all.

01:05:50.512 --> 01:05:52.119
And then don't forget the to check out next level university podcast.

01:05:52.119 --> 01:05:56.902
I'm assuming, according to everything on your website, it looks like it's everywhere you can find in your podcast, so you won't have a problem.

01:05:56.902 --> 01:05:57.925
You won't have a problem with that.

01:05:57.925 --> 01:06:00.465
But yes, no, this has been amazing, alan.

01:06:00.465 --> 01:06:01.706
I really appreciate it.

01:06:01.706 --> 01:06:09.530
Please say hello to Kevin for me, I will, and remind him that I was the guy sitting next to him for like three and a half hours the very first day of PodFest.

01:06:09.530 --> 01:06:13.172
And for the rest of you, we will see you in the next one.

01:06:13.172 --> 01:06:16.972
It's been an honor, brad, thank you, appreciate it.

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