Sara Sheehan’s guest in this episode is Alan Lazaros, Business Coach, Consultant, Trainer, and CEO of Next Level University. Alan’s approach to coaching comes from the heart, from lessons he learned through his personal life experiences, and has become an honest approach to inspiring, motivating, and educating people on what it truly takes to get to the next level in their lives and ambitions. Alan shares his story and thoughts on transformational thinking with Sara.
The revelations that came to Alan through losing his father to a fatal car accident and then surviving a terrible car accident himself brought him to the realization of his purpose; to assist people in re-tooling and reinventing themselves to achieve a greater level of success in their futures. He learned a lot about leadership through founding his business and guiding his team, and those internal lessons also enriched his coaching. He shares one of his most important principles, which is to ensure that a client’s goals are in alignment with who they really are.
Sara Sheehan and Alan Lazaros discuss Alan’s identified path to success and why self-awareness is what dictates how people will spend the three resources allotted to everyone in the human condition: time, effort, and money. Alan breaks down how our perceptions of ourselves and what we do dictate, to a large extent, who and what we become, and that it’s through habits and measurements of our progress that we achieve success. Sara learns more about Alan’s current work, his future business goals, and what he’s in the process of creating to achieve those goals. This conversation will inspire and transform the way we think about our ambitions.
About Alan Lazaros:
With a powerful combination of technical expertise and business acumen, Alan is a Business Coach, Consultant, Trainer, and Speaker specializing in helping businesses maximize their growth, impact, and profitability online. He believes in a heart-driven but NO BS approach to inspiring, motivating & educating others on what it REALLY takes to get to the next level.
At age 2, Alan’s father passed away in a car accident. At age 26, after getting into a nearly fatal car accident himself, he questioned everything he was doing in life. He questioned who he was and the choices he was making. He was at an all-time low.
Filled with regret, Alan searched for answers and found two of the brightest lights he had ever seen. The first bright light was a book by Bronnie Ware entitled, “The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying,” and the second was a Ted Talk by Tony Robbins. Both of these resources helped Alan find his way and guided him to make the choice of going ALL IN on self-improvement to design a life of meaning and purpose. On this self-improvement journey, Alan has learned he believes in a heart-driven but NO BS approach to inspiring, motivating, and educating others on what it REALLY takes to get to the Next Level.
Today, Alan is proud to say it is his mission to help others create a life full of both success and fulfillment. He learned the hard way how empty success without fulfillment is and how limiting fulfillment without success is as well. Today, he leads a global team of 21 people, and he’s quickly approaching his 10,000 hours of speaking, podcasting, training, and coaching individuals from all walks of life.
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Resources discussed in this episode:
- “Emotional Intelligence 2.0” by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves
- “Atomic Habits” by James Clear
- “Measure What Matters” by John Doerr
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Contact Sara Sheehan | Sara Sheehan Consulting:
Contact Alan Lazaros:
- Website: NextLevelUniverse.com
- Email: Alan@NextLevelUniverse.com
- Podcast: Next Level University
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Transcript
Sara Sheehan: [00:00:02] Hi there, I’m Sara Sheehan and welcome to my podcast, Transformational Thinkers with Sara Sheehan. Today I’m joined by Alan Lazaros, CEO of Next Level University. Following a career in corporate, Alan had a near death experience that made him change the trajectory of his life. He became passionate about self-improvement and peak performance. His ultimate goal was to help people improve in business, love, life, health and wealth, dedicating his knowledge and resources to becoming an entrepreneur and peak performance coach. Along with his business partner, he founded his own podcast dedicated to personal growth and peak performance and business. Alan is the founder, CEO and CFO of his podcast, and he has succeeded in bringing and building and scaling his business with over 1680 episodes, sharing his strategies to positively impact people and help them succeed in all areas of life. What a great day it is, Alan, to have time with you and to actually be able to dive in to your story. Welcome, Alan.
Alan Lazaros: [00:01:27] Thank you. It is always a very humbling and awesome experience to hear an intro like that. To see from an outside perspective look at your own accomplishments, your own life, and I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Sara Sheehan: [00:01:44] Absolutely. So, Alan, talk with me a little bit about your backstory and your near death experience.
Alan Lazaros: [00:01:52] So backstory, the context of this. And again, the important thing to understand here is that I didn’t understand any of this at the time. It’s kind of like rewatching a movie you saw as a kid, and you sort of rewatch the movie and realize, oh, got it, got it, got it. So it’s been a lot of that. So at the time I didn’t understand any of this. But now in hindsight, it’s more clear. So when I was two years old, my father passed away in a car accident when he was 28 years old. I had a mom who was 31, stay at home mom, and a sister who was 6. From age 3 to 14, I had a stepfather named Steve Lazaros. My real last name is actually McCorkle. And my dad, my birth father, his name is John McCorkle. Big Irish Catholic family, Jim, Joe, John, Jean, Joan, Jeanette, six kids. And when he passed away, we sort of stopped associating a little bit with the McCorkles, I think partially, just unconsciously, because of the pain and the trauma of that. But the other part of it was us trying to be the Lazaroses. So a lot of times people see Alan Lazaros, they see this blond haired, blue eyed, German, Irish, Scottish, Polish person. And they go, Lazaros? Because it’s a very Greek last name and I don’t have a hair on me.
Alan Lazaros: [00:03:04] So anyways, my real last name is McCorkle. My stepfather came in and I chose his last name around age 7. Fast forward, fast forward, fast forward. My stepfather left at 14 and he took 90% of the income with him. He worked for a company called Agfa, sort of late 90s, early 2000s, they did hospital computers. So we were upper middle class, boats and ski trips, and he had a motorcycle and we had snowmobiles, and we lived on a lake, and we did fairly well. And I was known as sort of a “rich kid” by some of my friends. Although in hindsight, I realized that’s probably not true. But we did well. And when he left, we went from boats and ski trips to, now I get free lunch at school because our income is so low. My mom trades in her BMW for a little Honda Civic, and I go from I can’t wait to go to my dream college. WPI, Worcester Polytechnic Institute. It’s kind of like a mini MIT. $50,000 a year. This is back then. I went from I can’t wait to get in to, even if I do get in, I don’t know how I’m going to go. We weren’t going to starve, but we were definitely struggling financially.
Alan Lazaros: [00:04:13] So I did the only thing I knew how to do at that same time. So 14 was the hardest year of my life. I realized this in hindsight. So stepfather leaves, takes his entire extended family with him. Haven’t seen a single one of them since. Talked to my stepdad a little bit on Facebook Messenger. Same year, sister moves out with her older boyfriend. Same year when I’m 14, mom gets in a fight with my aunt Sandy, her sister. And my aunt Sandy ostracizes us from my mom’s side of the family. To this day, I’ve only seen one person from that side of the family, so by the time I’m 14, I’ve kind of lost three families. And again, did not know this at the time. At the time it was just life. Four trauma responses: fight, flight, freeze and fawn. Fawn is sort of appease. So I became quite the social coward. But behind the scenes it was fight. The past is painful. The present is painful. What am I going to do? I don’t have a trust fund. I don’t have a father, I don’t have-there’s no future that’s bright here, and I need to do it myself. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to be me. So I did the only thing I knew how to do, which is aim higher, work harder, get smarter.
Alan Lazaros: [00:05:16] Got straight A’s through all of high school. I got what’s called the President’s Award, it’s behind me. Signed by George W Bush. And essentially you have to get straight A’s for all four report cards all four years. I was the obnoxious kid at the award ceremony that never sat down. Tons of scholarships, tons of financial aid. I get into my dream college WPI, and I go and I get my bachelor’s in computer engineering. Fast forward, I stay for my master’s degree and at this point, Computer Engineer, 21st Century, Masters in Business combination, very sought after suddenly, which was interesting. Worked for a ton of different tech companies. So I worked for a company called iRobot. I worked for a company called Sensata Technologies, which used to be Texas Instruments Lens Americas. A little software company called Oz Development. Tyco Safety Products, which eventually became SimplexGrinnell, all these different companies. Job hop, job hop, job hop, soul search, soul search, soul search, 65 to 85, 85 to 105, 105 to 125, 125 to almost 200 grand a year at a company called Cognex. Started a little inside sales engineering team. Got promoted to outside sales. My territory was Connecticut, Western Massachusetts and Vermont. I’m on the road selling industrial automation equipment into manufacturing facilities, big manufacturing facilities, particularly in Connecticut. And Cognex does machine vision equipment, it’s kind of like the eyes of a robot. Quality assurance stuff.
Alan Lazaros: [00:06:41] I’m in my early 20s, probably 24, 25. I pay off 84 grand worth of college debt in a single year. I don’t have a family. I don’t have kids. My rent is 500 bucks a month. I bought a $5,000 car. 2004 Volkswagen Passat. Paid off 84 grand worth of college debt in a single year. Started investing all my capital. Built a Vanguard account, investment portfolio all the way up to $150,000 in my early 20s. And my goal was, okay, when my stepdad left, we didn’t have enough money, I’m going to get really wealthy. That was kind of my goal. Then I get in my car accident. So I’m 26 at the time. I’m up in New Hampshire with my little cousin, the only cousin that actually came back from my mother’s side, and we’re driving to TGI Fridays. I was supposed to yield, I didn’t. The snow banks were covering the signs in the bad winter back in 2015. I was supposed to be on the right side of the road. I ended up on the wrong side of the road past the double yellow lines. Look up in front of me. I see the brightest lights I’ve ever seen.
Alan Lazaros: [00:07:43] Two things in hindsight saved my life. Number one is the Volkswagen Passat 2004. This car, I used to call it The Tank. German engineered steel trap of a car. The whole front end was completely smashed in, but the frame stayed. Airbags deployed. So grateful that I was driving that car. If I was driving a little Honda or something, there’s no way I’d be here. So drive safe cars, everyone. Number two. I thought it was a Mack truck. So it wasn’t a Mack truck. Biggest, brightest lights I’ve ever seen, thought it was a Mack truck. Ended up being a lift kitted pickup truck. Kind of a lighter pickup truck, actually. And so that’s the only reason why I’m here. So both airbags deployed. My cousin hurt his knee on the airbag. I hurt my face on the airbag. So physically we were okay. Rattled, but okay. Whiplash. Mentally, emotionally and spiritually though, this is the second chance my dad never got. And I’ve seen pictures of his car and I’ve seen pictures of my car and they don’t look very different. And so for me, this was my existential quarter life crisis of mortality. Just completely filled with, what was it all for? Did my life really matter? Filled with regret? My poor choices? Was this the life I chose, or is this what my mom wanted for me or my family wanted for me? Like everything, just uncertainty.
Alan Lazaros: [00:09:15] Now, in hindsight, I realized this. And this is only in hindsight. At the time, I didn’t get it. Before 26, I was extremely successful and achievement oriented and goal oriented and professionally developed. Resume, cover letter, LinkedIn, degrees, bachelor’s, master’s. But I wasn’t as self-improvement oriented. I was focused on achievement rather than self. So I was very successful, but deeply unfulfilled. After the car accident, I flipped the script. I went all in on self-improvement, personal development, inner work, therapy, coaching, books on books on books. I started my own company, became really fulfilled. Healthy. Happy. Productive. Fitness model. Fitness coach. Fitness competitor. Starting my own company, but I went broke. Liquidated all my assets. So now I’m fulfilled, but I’m unsuccessful. And so now here I am, 9 years later, almost 10 years later, I’m going to be 36 in November. And now I can honestly say that I’m both successful and fulfilled. And I now want my future to be an amplified version of what it already is. Whereas back then I never could have said that. And so that’s now what I help people with. I actually think success is fairly easy. I also think fulfillment is fairly easy. I think doing them both is actually really hard.
Sara Sheehan: [00:10:27] I would agree with that, yes. Really hard, especially when the mindset gets in the way or derails you, which it often does. You got to learn to wrestle that demon down.
Alan Lazaros: [00:10:44] The ego death that I had after that car accident. The identity death. The ego death. The metaphorical phoenix burning down and then rising anew from the ashes. I mean, it really did clear me up to go to work on me. And it’s obvious now, in hindsight, how lost I was before that. But again, of course, it’s relative to where I am now, right? So we’re all lost. It’s just to what extent?
Sara Sheehan: [00:11:12] And you can choose to keep growing and have a growth mindset and everything that you do. So you can make that an upward trend for the rest of your life if you want too. Which is super exciting. And so, Alan, talk with me a little bit about what motivated you to create your business.
Alan Lazaros: [00:11:37] So that is actually something that’s super vulnerable to talk about because I don’t know if this is unique to me or not. I doubt it is. But I do think as an engineer it might be a little bit unique to me. So I’m a math thinker, and I remember when I was in corporate I saw these trends, particularly automation. I worked in industrial automation and I saw these manufacturing facilities, and think of an ice cream company that’s a really famous one. Keep it anonymous. And I’m there and I sell equipment that checks to make sure every carton is optimal, every carton quality assurance. And before I went in, there was these people at the end checking the cartons manually. That was their job. Make sure everything was good, put them in the bin. And I made a sale, and I’ll never forget this. And I remember thinking, all of their jobs are gone now, and I just made a big commission check. And big is relative. And I remember thinking, okay, so automation is going to happen whether I’m a part of it or not, like it’s coming whether we like it or not. I mean, everyone’s been to the grocery store and seen kiosks more than people at the cash register. That’s going to happen forever. It always has been happening. It’s just been kind of under our noses and now it’s exponential. But I saw this really interesting trend, and this is the vulnerable part that I’m always scared to share. The less educated population, statistically speaking, tends to have more children and tends to have them younger. The more educated population tends to have less children and tends to wait. So Emilia and I, she’s 29, I’m 35. We were going to wait. We’re waiting even longer. And she’s extremely well educated, I am too, and again, that’s not an elitism thing. It’s just the truth. I’m very grateful to be very educated. And so I looked at the stats and I got scared because I saw the uneducated, the less educated population exponentially increasing, and I saw the amount of jobs available for those people exponentially decreasing due to robotics automation.
Alan Lazaros: [00:13:43] And so I decided, you know what? Listen, if you’re not a part of the solution, you’re a part of the problem. And I knew I was part of the problem. I’m a computer engineer. I know that I’ll have a job. The 21st century, every company needs people who understand tech. And that’s just the truth. And if you don’t understand tech, you are a little bit in trouble and you know it. So please come up in that. And I’m not saying that because I’m being mean. I’m saying that because the future is tech. That said, that was really what inherently got me to start my business, is just realizing that I was out of alignment with the solution. Now the solution is not give everyone a handout. The solution is not save everybody. But the solution is, instead of selling equipment that takes jobs, I’m going to create a company that helps people retool and helps people reinvent themselves so that they are relevant in the 21st century marketplace. And so now I help entrepreneurs and I help individuals grow and scale their small businesses, which creates jobs, but also just helping people realize that, listen, technology is exponentially increasing. The world has changed more in the last 20 years than the previous 200. So you have got to come up and retool and reinvent yourself if you want to be relevant. I mean, I have friends from college. I went to a tech school that are all multi-millionaires, and there’s no shortage of job offers for them. But if you don’t know tech and you don’t have an engineering degree or technology in your background, it’s going to be a lot harder for you, potentially. Now my whole company is built on this idea of retool, reinvent yourself, and then you’ll have a bigger, better, brighter future. Because I saw a lot of people’s future and I got scared.
Sara Sheehan: [00:15:31] That is a fascinating story, Alan, and the fact that you are part of the solution is an even more exciting facet to the story. You have chosen a path to make a difference and help multiply not only your impact, but the people that you work with and help to grow. So that’s a wonderful story that I love sharing. Alan, can you talk with me about what lessons you’ve learned from building and scaling your business?
Alan Lazaros: [00:16:08] The first lesson I learned from growing and scaling my business is that leadership is the hardest thing in the entire world.
Sara Sheehan: [00:16:14] It’s definitely not easy, that’s for sure.
Alan Lazaros: [00:16:19] So we have a 22 person team, and we talked offline, you and I, and we playfully joked about how I didn’t start at 22. So it was 5 and then it was 3 and then it was 7, and then it was 5, and then it was 9. So it’s been a lot of challenges. So the first lesson I learned is leadership is the hardest thing in the entire world. The amount that you have to be both professionally developed and personally developed in order to be a 21st century leader is wild. I mean, you need the hard skills because you need to be able to use these softwares. You need to be able to use Zoom. You need to be able to type fast. These hard skills you need. Not all of them, but you need a lot of them. And then you also need the soft skills. You need the emotional intelligence. You need to understand the human condition. You need to understand what motivates people, what inspires people. You need to understand org structure and how to harmonize a team of multicultural, multi-country individuals all toward common goals. And then you also have to have a systems thinking engineering brain that says, okay, these are the things that matter. These are the results we’re going for. And if we focus on these inputs, we’ll actually get this output.
Alan Lazaros: [00:17:32] It’s almost like you’re making chocolate cake. But the chocolate cake is an infinite game and you are making it with 50 people, and it’s a cake that you are consistently making and then taste testing and then improving and then taste testing and then improving. If you have the right recipe, you can make chocolate cake. But what about in a world where that recipe changes every day, and the people that you’re working with evolve and grow and change every day, and then the roles and responsibilities of each of those people change every day. And so the biggest lesson that I learned is leadership is the hardest thing in the entire world. It’s a ton of responsibility. In a way, you’re kind of responsible for the success of other people. The best vehicle that I’ve found for leadership has been coaching. Coaching and training, really. And coaching is 1 to 1. Training is 1 to many. So I have training on Saturday with my team. But ultimately you have to be both hard skills, mathematical, systems thinking, structure, self-discipline, lead by example. But you also have to be able to communicate really effectively and understand and be empathetic and vulnerable and humble and courageous and use communication. So you need both professional development and personal development in order to be a great leader, I think, and I can’t imagine a great leader who doesn’t have both of those.
Sara Sheehan: [00:18:55] I know from all of the leaders that I’ve worked with in my long career, there are some that are good at both sides and there are many that aren’t. I would love for it to become a norm in business that the office bullies and the people that actually are very negatively impacting their teams, that those people would literally be put in a corner. I would love that, over time, because we need more multi-dimensional, effective leaders everywhere, without question. One of the things that you hit on in that answer, Alan, is the need for emotional intelligence, which I think is more now than ever. I don’t know if you’ve read Emotional Intelligence 2.0, but I do highly recommend it if you haven’t. Because it actually does document that if you improve on emotional intelligence, you’ll actually change your income. It will actually have a numerical impact on what you bring in. So I definitely recommend that book not only to you, but anyone that’s listening.
Alan Lazaros: [00:20:30] I just wrote it down. It’s on the list.
Sara Sheehan: [00:20:34] Excellent. And so talk with me, Alan, about the context around your business’ habit tracking tool and your perspective on metrics.
Alan Lazaros: [00:20:48] So the first thing about the habit tracking tool you’re referring to. I’ve been trying to figure out how to help people be, it’s ultimately underneath all of it. It’s how to be more successful and how to be more fulfilled. Because yeah, it’s business coaching. I have 28 people as of today, actually, on my roster. Everywhere from, hey, I’m 16, I want to start a YouTube channel to I’m 63, I’ve been in business for decades, I’m already a multi-millionaire. So all different walks of life, all different backgrounds, all different cultures, all different sexes, all different countries. And I’ve learned more from my clients than anything I’ve ever done. It’s just been amazing because you learn all these different industries, all these different people. But there’s certain common traits with every single client, and the first common trait is everyone wants to be more successful and more fulfilled. Everyone. Now the path to that is completely different for every single client, but there’s principles that apply to every client. One of the principles that you asked about is metrics. So what I’ve figured out, and again this is going to sound a little bit overly simple fortune cookie like, but here’s what I do with my clients ultimately. And it’s so interesting because I can tell you what I do and then it’s so complex to actually do it. So here’s the deal. A client comes to you and says, I want this goal. The first step is making sure that that goal is actually in alignment with who they really are. I think one of the reasons most people don’t achieve their goals, and statistically only 4% of people, I’ve just researched this, achieve their resolutions, their goals. The reason why I think is, number one, they’re outside of alignment. The goals are outside of alignment with who they really are.
Sara Sheehan: [00:22:27] And so they didn’t actually set a goal that is something that they could actually do is what you’re saying?
Alan Lazaros: [00:22:34] Either it’s outside of alignment with their strengths and weaknesses, or it’s outside of alignment with their core values.
Sara Sheehan: [00:22:40] That’s a serious problem.
Alan Lazaros: [00:22:40] If you have a core value of being present with your family, and then you set a goal to be a billionaire, you’re in some serious trouble. Because those are incongruent for the most part. So, number one is figure out who you really are, not the facade. Who you think you are is different than who you really are. So we’ve got to get to the core. And this is what my car accident did for me. It burnt down the phoenix, my ego. And it got me to face the truth of who I really am. And so that has to be done as a first step. So let’s assume that you know 10 out of 10 who you are, self-awareness, which no one is 10 out of 10. And if you think you’re 10 out of 10, trust me, you’re definitely not. Which is funny. But anyways, so let’s get closer to who you really are. Your real strengths, your real weaknesses, your real blind spots, your real core values, what you actually value versus what you tell yourself you value, that kind of thing. Number two is setting a goal based on that. Now once you have the goal, in order to achieve it, you have to reverse engineer it. And that means, and I’m closing my eyes right now because I have to think about this. So if you say, I want to gross a half million dollars in my business this year, okay, how do you do that? To me, there’s only three resources in the human condition that all of us have: time, effort and money. It really boils down to those three. Where you put your time, your effort, and your money is going to determine your success.
Sara Sheehan: [00:24:01] That’s correct.
Alan Lazaros: [00:24:03] Awesome. And there’s only four things you can invest in: persons, places, things and ideas. So where you are going to put your time, effort and money, into which persons, places, things and ideas is going to dictate the results that you get in life. So how do I, as your coach, get you to invest your time, effort and money into the proper or optimal persons, places, things and ideas based on your goal, assuming it’s based on who you really are? I figured out, to answer your original question, metrics. If I can get you to measure the right metrics and track the right habits and behaviors, you can get your goal.
Sara Sheehan: [00:24:40] Absolutely. This is something I do all the time in helping clients manage and adopt change. One of the things that they need to do is they really need to think about what their business outcome is. First, they need to identify behaviors that they would like to see in the future, and what measures they will use to track whether or not those behaviors are getting embedded.
Alan Lazaros: [00:25:09] Exactly. And then the behaviors won’t happen unless the identity is there first. So you got to go into the identity work. I said this to my client recently. I said, you have all these achievements you want, but you don’t identify as an achiever. If you don’t identify as an achiever, you’re not going to do what achievers do.
Sara Sheehan: [00:25:30] That’s a huge problem.
Alan Lazaros: [00:25:31] You’re an achiever. I’m an achiever. We identify as achievers. So therefore we’re going to act like achievers. And therefore we’re going to statistically achieve more than people. I told this to my business partner. I said, Kev, do you identify as an achiever? He said, no, not really. I said, that’s holding us back. He says, well, I do identify as a peak performer. Okay, awesome. So what do peak performers do? Every label has a meaning, and that meaning dictates what we do and don’t do. And so if you identify as an athlete, you’re going to do athletic things more than someone who doesn’t. Back to the metrics and habits though. This is a James clear quote from Atomic Habits, it’s very valuable. He says every behavior you do is a vote for the type of person you want to become. And so if you podcast consistently, you consider yourself a podcaster, which then gets you to podcast more consistently. It’s this positive identity feedback loop.
Sara Sheehan: [00:26:26] We become what we do.
Alan Lazaros: [00:26:28] Yes, 100%. We become what we repeatedly do. I have that quote behind me from Aristotle right there. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit. So ultimately, to answer your question, though, that’s what I do, is I break down the top three metrics. Okay, so here’s your top three goals for the year, which lead to your dreams. Then let’s break that into quarterly goals. Top three quarterly goals. So for the end of Q3 we’re ending in a month and nine days. Then we break that down into inch pebbles. The inch pebbles are your daily habits. The daily habits lead to the milestones. The milestones are quarterly goals that lead to the annual goal. The annual goal leads to your goals and dreams. And the metrics are basically, if you want to lose 10 pounds in ten weeks, you have to measure your weight. There’s a book called Measure What Matters.
Sara Sheehan: [00:27:16] And maybe the calories you take in.
Alan Lazaros: [00:27:19] Yeah, that too. Perfect. So those are the three main metrics for losing weight is measure your workouts, measure your weight, and measure your calories. But a lot of people don’t want to measure. They want to wing it. And the truth is, and I’m an engineer, so I’m biased on this. If you don’t know your numbers, you’re in trouble.
Sara Sheehan: [00:27:36] There’s no source of truth there that you’re reckoning with. If you don’t measure what you’re doing, you’re not actually dealing with the fact if you need to make a change and lean in more. Or, I need to change what I’m doing so that I am practicing this habit more. Or, you know what, I may be doing that too much, and I may need to pull another lever and add something else to the mix. If you’re not looking at what you’re doing, you’ll never know.
Alan Lazaros: [00:28:12] I concur. I think one of the biggest problems in people’s lives is they’re unfulfilled, and the reason they’re unfulfilled is because they’re not actually in alignment with what they value, and one of the reasons they’re not in alignment with what they value is because they don’t measure anything. If you have a core value of family, are you measuring the amount of quality time with your family or are you just winging it. And there was this website when I was in college, it was really silly, it was called StumbleUpon back in 2007. It’s wild. But I remember thinking it was the dumbest thing ever. But anyways, it’s like webcam roulette. You basically do funny things in your webcam and you stumble across other webcams doing funny things, sometimes gross things, whatever. And I remember thinking, dumbest waste of time ever, but whatever, it’s a dorm room. But that’s how a lot of people live their life. They stumble upon persons, places, things and ideas. They didn’t design anything.
Sara Sheehan: [00:29:13] That’s an important point.
Alan Lazaros: [00:29:15] And so I’m biased because I’m an engineer. I designed all of this. I mean people say, well, how did you get here? And how did you go through all that adversity and still make it? And whatever. The truth is, it was through massive pain and failure. I designed it all in advance and then just worked really hard and iterated along the way. And I know that sounds overly simple, but the truth is, that’s exactly how I did it. And I measure every day. I have 22 habits I track every day.
Sara Sheehan: [00:29:49] That’s phenomenal.
Alan Lazaros: [00:29:51] Thank you. And that’s the only way I help my clients is, I say, if you don’t want to track metrics and habits, I cannot coach you. And in the beginning, trust me, I didn’t say that because I needed clients. Now I do, and that’s really how I help is just keep you on track. Set up the train tracks, stay on the train tracks, improve the train tracks, and then you get momentum.
Sara Sheehan: [00:30:12] It’s pretty simple.
Alan Lazaros: [00:30:13] And you start to believe in yourself. It’s really cool what happens, but it’s not overnight. It takes sometimes years.
Sara Sheehan: [00:30:19] Well, it takes a minimum of 90 days to even work on three habits becoming a habit. James Clear, I believe he says it’s 66 days to truly create a habit in your brain where the neurons connect, and there is an automatic response. And so 90 days working on three habits. Is that realistic?
Alan Lazaros: [00:30:50] Change your whole world.
Sara Sheehan: [00:30:51] Yes it is. It can change your world. Absolutely. I love what you’re doing in that space. What other big goals and aspirations, Alan, are you working on accomplishing right now?
Alan Lazaros: [00:31:07] So there’s sort of the long term visionary mission statement that I can give, and then I’ll break it down. So the mission statement, I have it on my desktop background right now. I can actually read it. It’s actually a North Star, so I wear this around my neck. It’s a little North Star to remind me of my purpose. To build the most positively impactful, holistic self-improvement company in history. So that’s the ultimate, everything gets filtered through that statement. And so if this wasn’t in alignment with that, I wouldn’t even be here.
Sara Sheehan: [00:31:42] Thank you. That’s nice.
Alan Lazaros: [00:31:44] I don’t mean that in a negative way, it filters everything. So I’m trying to have a positive impact, and you’re having a positive impact, so it’s a good thing. So you actually did take that as a compliment?
Sara Sheehan: [00:31:54] Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.
Alan Lazaros: [00:31:56] Of course. Thank you for having me. And then I’ll break it down. So in terms of what else we want to achieve, ultimately the podcast is kind of the main thing. I break everything into two trains. I think there’s a short term train and there’s a long term train. One of them is short term profitability. So right now my focus is business coaching. So my current milestone for this quarter is 30 clients. My goal that rolls up to for 2024 is 35 business coaching clients. And then that’s the short term profitable train that actually pays for the long term brand and business builder, which is the podcast called Next Level University. And Kev does the same thing, but he’s a podcast coach and then has his own other podcast called Podcast Growth University. Ultimately what we’re trying to accomplish is, we call it listeners, longers and business owners. So we have Next Level University, which is the main podcast. He has Podcast Growth University, and I’m starting Business Growth University. So there’s listeners, longers and business owners. And I’m an engineer, so this is-I have to close my eyes to think about this. So next level University is about self-improvement, success and fulfillment. Life, love, health and wealth. Holistic self-improvement. Podcast Growth University is how to start, grow, scale and monetize a podcast. Business Growth University is going to be, it’s not done yet, is going to be about how to start, grow, scale and monetize a business in the 21st century.
Sara Sheehan: [00:33:22] That’s so needed.
Alan Lazaros: [00:33:24] Listeners, longers and business owners.
Sara Sheehan: [00:33:25] So needed, that last part of your pyramid there. Very needed, Business Growth University.
Alan Lazaros: [00:33:37] That is my next main thing.
Sara Sheehan: [00:33:39] Excellent. When can we expect to see context around Business Growth University?
Alan Lazaros: [00:33:48] So right now I have something called The Next Level Audio Blog. I’m rebranding it to Business Growth University hopefully by the end of the year, but honestly I’m a little overwhelmed, so we’ll see. Hopefully by the end of the year, definitely in 2025 though.
Sara Sheehan: [00:34:01] You have enough time to get it done. I understand when you have too many priorities, sometimes you need to take a look at it and move it out.
Alan Lazaros: [00:34:12] We currently have too many priorities, I would say. But the listeners, longers business owners thing. So listeners are people who want to learn from us. Longers are people who want to build their own podcasts and build their own communities. And then business owners are people who want to start and scale an actual business with skin in the game. And a lot of listeners turn into longers, longers turn into business owners. There’s some business owners who want to start a podcast, and they go to Kev, and there’s some podcasters who want to start a business, and they come to me. We actually have several clients we’re both working with, and he’s helping them scale their podcast, I’m helping them scale their business. But ultimately, we’re just helping people do what we’ve done. And so it’s this really cool metaphorical mountain that we’re all climbing together and we’re learning together along the way. And it’s a mountain that gets higher as you climb it.
Sara Sheehan: [00:35:00] And your impact increases as well which is super exciting. And so, Alan, what does being a transformational thinker mean to you.
Alan Lazaros: [00:35:11] So when I saw the title of your podcast, I got very excited. There are six leadership styles and there’s a bunch of different modalities of leadership. So the six that I use are: there’s servant leader, there’s participatory leader, there’s delegative leader, there’s transactional leader, there’s dictator or assertive leader, and then there’s transformational leader. I think I got them all. Servant, delegative, transactional, assertive, participatory and then transformational. And to answer your question, transformational thinker, I think, is a transformational leader. And the difference between a transformational leader and all the other leadership styles is that a transformational leader deploys whichever leadership style is necessary in the moment. So we joke, we have three chief officers, me, Kevin and Christina, and she’s the COO and really the backbone of the company and I’m the CEO and Kevin’s the chief sales officer. He was the CFO and then we transitioned that to me because I’m the numbers guy. So that didn’t make any sense. Whoops. (Good lesson learned) Yeah, it was. We playfully refer to ourselves as the three cowards. And the reason why is because no one wants to be bad cop. And so it ends up having to be me. And I think a transformational leader is someone who is willing to fight for what’s the best win win win scenario. There’s a book called High Road Leadership that I actually think is garbage, but the concept of high road leadership is amazing and garbage is probably too harsh. I mean, it wasn’t terrible. I was just so excited and it ended up letting me down.
Alan Lazaros: [00:36:52] But anyways, high road leadership is, in my opinion, what it means to be a transformational thinker. You don’t think about just the now. You don’t really care about the now, actually. I don’t care that much about the now to be completely honest. I care about the future. I care about the greater good, and sometimes the greater good means that an individual needs to stop craving such significance in the moment. I’m just going to give an example, and I think I’ll get a little villainized for this, but whatever. Anyone who says, oh, it’s my birthday week. It’s like, listen, the world doesn’t revolve around you. And you don’t get a week. I don’t care about my birthday. There are there are bigger problems in the world. Have you ever heard someone who’s like, oh, well, you didn’t wish me a happy birthday. I don’t want to be mean. But the truth is, who cares? You need to find some perspective. You need to go work on problems that are real. I’m sorry, but your birthday doesn’t matter to me. My own birthday doesn’t matter to me. You think yours does? That’s what a transformational thinker is. Someone who doesn’t care about trivial, mundane things that just don’t really matter that much. It’s someone who orients their life around meaning and purpose and the greater good, and usually gets wildly villainized for that.
Sara Sheehan: [00:38:13] The only thing I’d add to what you just said is some of what you said earlier, which is that the part of now that I think that you are concerned about is the, what people are doing now. Because you know that what people do now is what creates the future. And so you are concerned about those behaviors, habits and metrics. You are concerned about that.
Alan Lazaros: [00:38:46] Fulfillment, virtue, growth, contribution, maximizing your potential, that I care about. I do not care about your birthday.
Sara Sheehan: [00:38:55] I understand. You can know, I think, in developing more emotional intelligence, which we all can stand to do. Because it means that we’ll have deeper connections with people that we interact with and have more impact, not only on the individual that we’re interacting with, but in others around them, because they will have more impact on others. When you get into a situation where you are caring about the people that are on your team, you’re going to see them be more engaged. And when they’re more engaged, you’re going to see business performance increase as well.
Alan Lazaros: [00:39:43] I didn’t plan on this, but a little side tangent. You asked me, what’s the best lesson that I’ve learned in growing Next Level University. If I could go back and tell this to my younger self, this is what it would be: humility is the most important character trait in the world. And it’s sneaky because inward humility is different than outward modesty. Inward humility is someone who reads the books behind the scenes when no one’s watching. Inward humility is someone who is still working on themselves and has a therapist, and has mentors and coaches and learns and is a student mindset. Leading people without humility is almost impossible. I have a new rule, and the new rule is, and this is to your point too, when you say that pouring into your team, caring about your team, that’s going to lead to more engagement, which will lead to more success. That’s absolutely true, but not if there’s not humility, because then you’re going to keep pouring into someone who’s deeply significance driven, and it’s going to go to their head and you’re going to create delusion. And that’s always ended up a mistake. So someone with high humility who checks themselves constantly. Because leaders want to pour into people and build them up. What happens when you’re building someone up passed into delusion.
Sara Sheehan: [00:41:06] That’s not good. Not only is it not good, it’s not healthy. It’s not. It’s going to breed a toxic environment.
Alan Lazaros: [00:41:16] Agreed. And then you create entitlement, delusion, and then it’s all about status and perception and smoke and mirrors and it becomes this whole thing. I basically will never, ever bring a team member on who doesn’t have high humility ever again.
Sara Sheehan: [00:41:31] Very insightful, Alan. And so is there anything else that you’re working on that you would like to share?
Alan Lazaros: [00:41:37] No, I think that’s it. We have a website called nextleveluniverse.com, spelled just like it sounds. And the podcast is Next Level University. 1% improvement. Health, wealth, life and love in your pocket every day from anywhere on the planet, completely free. And that’s it. Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.
Sara Sheehan: [00:41:59] That’s phenomenal. And so, Alan, are there any other ways for our listeners to find you?
Alan Lazaros: [00:42:04] Those are the two best ways. You can also email me, alan@nextleveluniverse.com. Please just provide context. Because, like all of us, I get a lot of spam.
Sara Sheehan: [00:42:19] Absolutely. Well, the personal touch always makes a difference. So when someone can actually reach out to you and ask their question, they might be more likely to engage you in the future. I definitely am a proponent of actually sharing how people can reach you because it does make a difference. Thank you so much for your time today, Alan, and for sharing your personal lessons learned as you have pivoted not only your life, but your professional world, and you are absolutely creating a ripple effect that is going to be a great thing for people that really want to increase their performance. So I applaud you.
Alan Lazaros: [00:43:12] Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. This is an honor. I do not take it lightly to speak into the lives of others and for that opportunity. So I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me.
Sara Sheehan: [00:43:21] Excellent. Thank you so much for your time today.
Sara Sheehan: [00:43:22] Thank you so much for joining today’s session of Transformational Thinkers with Sara Sheehan. My conversation with Alan Lazaros is just full of insights. Alan’s remarkable journey from overcoming a near-death experience through a car accident to creating a transformational self-improvement platform offers invaluable lessons for leaders and entrepreneurs alike. Here are three big takeaways from our insightful conversation. The power of emotional intelligence. Developing deeper connections through emotional intelligence can significantly impact both personal relationships and business performance. The importance of humility in leadership. Maintaining humility is crucial in leadership roles. It helps prevent the pitfalls of entitlement and delusion, fostering a healthier, more productive team environment. Metric driven success. Identifying and measuring the right metrics can make or break your goals. Every behavior is a vote for the person that you want to become, so align your daily habits with your long term vision. Alan is not only revolutionizing personal growth through Next Level University, but also sharing his expertise on how to scale and monetize businesses in the 21st century. This conversation is just full of actionable insights that I’m so glad to share with you today. Don’t forget to subscribe to Transformational Thinkers with Sara Sheehan and never miss an episode.
