From Crisis to Clarity: Alan's Redemptive Journey with Alan Lazarus

How do you balance external achievement with internal fulfillment? Can you truly have both? Alan Lazarus takes us through his extraordinary journey from childhood adversity to remarkable success—and the unexpected emptiness that followed.

After losing his father at age two and his stepfather at fourteen, Alan channeled his pain into fierce determination. By his mid-twenties, he'd become a 1% earner in tech, paid off $84,000 in college debt in just one year, and built substantial investments. He had everything he thought he wanted, but something vital was missing.

Then came the head-on collision that changed everything. This near-death experience forced Alan to confront the hollow nature of his achievements and sent him on a quest for meaning that initially swung too far in the opposite direction. "I went from externally successful and internally unfulfilled to super fulfilled internally—but broke. Both extremes suck in different ways," he reveals with disarming honesty.

What makes this conversation so valuable is Alan's hard-won wisdom about integrating success and fulfillment rather than treating them as opposing forces. As a business coach who's built a million-dollar company and leads an 18-person team, he shares practical insights about recognizing "inaccurate data" that keeps us stuck, the surprising power of gratitude in maintaining perspective, and how to apply the Pareto principle to identify the vital few activities that create most of your results.

Whether you're struggling with unfulfilling success or fulfilling poverty, Alan's framework for building a life that honors both achievement and meaning offers a refreshing alternative to the either/or thinking that dominates personal development. His story reminds us that the most meaningful success comes from integrating our human needs with our highest aspirations.

Chapters

• 0:00 Alan's Journey from Childhood Adversity
• 4:55 Achieving External Success but Internal Emptiness
• 8:55 The Car Accident That Changed Everything
• 12:45 Finding the Balance Between Success and Fulfillment
• 18:10 The Role of Gratitude in Personal Growth
• 29:40 Post-Traumatic Growth and Final Insights

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello there and welcome back to the next episode of Overcome Yourself, the podcast. As you know, my name is Nicole and I'm so excited to be here today with Alan. Alan has quite the story of overcoming and making it out, and look at all his amazing certificates behind him. So we cannot wait to hear his amazing journey. So, alan, take it away. Please introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about you and who you help.

Speaker 2: 0:25

Nicole, first and foremost, thank you so much for having me. You mentioned in the pre-chat about gratitude being foundational for you and for me. I started listening to podcasts 10 years ago after a tough car accident I had. That we can get into, but podcasts and podcasters really helped me sort of reorient my life in a much more positive direction, and now I get to do that, too, for a living, so it's really cool. Thank you so much for having me, first and foremost.

Speaker 2: 0:53

As for the certificates and awards behind me, I was reluctant to have this as my backdrop, but the truth of the matter is I look 15, and older men don't like being coached by someone who looks 12. And so I needed to build some credibility there. But I think more than that. Rather than just coming off as pretentious with all my books and awards, I think what it comes down to more than anything is that I just believe in achievement so much. I believe in overcoming adversity as well as you do, and to me, I think there's two types of adversity. There's the adversity that life throws at you, which you and I had a lot of early on. You lost your mom when you were one, and I lost my dad when I was two, and that's the adversity life throws at you that is out of your control. But there's another type of adversity that's good for growth, which is the adversity that comes from setting big goals and working toward achievements. So I think there's, you know, we grow from both, both the things we don't want and the things that we do want. So, in terms of telling a little bit about myself, the very, very, very short version is I lost my father when I was two. He was 28, in a car accident. I had a stepfather from age three to 14. He left my family at 14, took 90% of the income with him. So we went from pretty well off during the dot-com bubble in Massachusetts, new England, to pretty much broke. And how are we going to keep the house and the family? How am I going to afford college? Mom trades in her BMW for a little Honda Civic. I get free lunch at school now because our income is so low. He took his entire extended family with him.

Speaker 2: 2:29

Same year hardest year of my life my mom gets in a fight with my aunt Sandy, her sister, and we get kind of ostracized from that side of the family too. So I'm 14. People are telling me these are the best years of my life. And I'm sitting there thinking, god, I hope not, because this is just atrocious. And you think I look young now. Imagine me at 14, right, because this is just atrocious. And you think I look young now. Imagine me at 14, right, overlooked by every girl, literally and figuratively, because I was, you know, five feet tall.

Speaker 2: 2:52

But ultimately that was the hardest year of my life and I had two trauma responses to that, unconsciously, none of this was conscious at the time Fight, flight, freeze and fawn are the four trauma responses Most people know. Fight and flight, fight, flight, freeze and fawn are the four trauma responses Most people know. Fight and flight Fawn was the one that I didn't become aware of until my late 20s, early 30s. I'm 36 now and fawn was my big one. So socially I became this sort of social coward chameleon please don't abandon me type of guy.

Speaker 2: 3:23

But behind the scenes, when no one was watching, I became this super achiever dude Because I looked into the future and I saw, okay, no dad, no stepdad, no income. Really, mom and sister, you know, aren't doing super well in the economy, kind of the man of the house by 14. And there's no generational wealth. There's no trust fund Like we're in some trouble here and I went from I hope I get into my dream college, wpi, worcester Polytechnic Institute. It's a engineering college and it was 50 grand a year back then. So I went from I hope I get in to when my stepdad left. Even if I do get in, I don't know how I'm going to go. So I bootstrapped and I got straight A's in high school, got all the scholarships and financial aid I could, the awards behind me President George W Bush has a letter that's signed by him behind me called the President's Award and basically it means you get straight A's through all of high school. So I became this sort of social chameleon, coward, but behind the scenes just so much drive it's not even funny. So fortunately I got scholarships in financial aid, computer engineering degree, master's in business.

Speaker 2: 4:22

Off to the races, succeed, succeed, succeed. Corporate became a 1% earner in my early 20s. All different tech companies, computer engineer 21st century it makes sense, especially after 08 when things are coming back. Now I'm in my early 20s. I paid off 84 grand worth of college debt in a single year. That was my dream to be debt-free and had $150,000 in a Vanguard account with all tech companies and I was used to going without. So I drove a $5,000 car. I bought cash. My rent was $500 a month. I was broke in high school and college so I didn't know what it was like to have money, so I just banked it all and invested it all.

Speaker 2: 5:03

Then I get in my car accident. So I'm 26 at the time. That was 10 years ago. I'm 36 now, even though I look 12. And that was my sort of quarter life existential crisis my fault, head-on collision. Thank you, volkswagen Passat. Thank you, thank you Car. The tank Totally saved my life, both airbags deployed. We were okay, my little cousin and I. So that for me was the turning point of okay.

Speaker 2: 5:35

I've achieved a lot of my dreams. I know my boss's boss's boss. I work for industrial automation. I'm a sales engineer for Vermont, connecticut, western Massachusetts, for a company called Cognex. I make almost $200,000 a year and that's increasing rapidly.

Speaker 2: 5:51

But I'm unfulfilled and the truth of the matter is it's really important to be successful and fulfilled and I so I flipped the script and I did this wrong and I'll explain. But I went all in after that on fulfillment. That's when I found personal development, personal growth, self-improvement. Personal fulfillment. That's when I worked on myself mental health. So I went inward, started a little company called Alan Lazarus LLC what you'll never learn in school but desperately need to know Went broke, liquidated all my assets, went past zero, into debt again. Llc what you'll never learn in school but desperately need to know went broke, liquidated all my assets, went past zero, into debt again and went broke. And then we started a podcast that was called the Hyperconscious Podcast and it's now called Next Level University 175 countries, you know, million plus listens, million plus dollars as a business 18 person team now which is is wild.

Speaker 2: 6:43

But the point that I'm making is for a while there I went from externally successful and internally unfulfilled to I flipped the script and I got fulfilled, happy, healthy, productive, fitness model, fitness competitor, fitness coach I've got the bodybuilding trophies behind me, fell in love with working on myself, but I went broke. So I went from externally successful and internally unfulfilled to super fulfilled internally. But now I can't sustain it because I ran out of money, which also kind of sucks. Right, it's better, but it still sucks. And the point and I'll get off the soap box here in a second the point here that I've come to realize after coaching.

Speaker 2: 7:19

I've been coaching for 10 years now, mentoring for the first two and then coaching for eight. The only difference is I started getting paid, but ultimately the last 10 years has been behind the scenes thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of hours literally 7,000 plus. I track everything. I'm an engineer, coaching sessions one-on-one with people all over the world, so I'm not just talking. External success plus internal fulfillment is extremely difficult to do, and the reason why is because what the economy pays a lot for is very rarely the most meaningful work. Sometimes it is, but very rarely. And if you can be both externally successful and internally fulfilled, that's a mountain that gets higher as you climb it and you know you're there. It took me until my 30s to get there, but you know you're there when you sit there and go. Okay, I want my future to be an amplified version of what it already is.

Speaker 1: 8:10

That is so important, the common theme I have with so many of my guests. I had it all. I had the money, I had the job, I had the house. It was all my dream and I hated every second of it. Like the house was blah, my family, like whatever you know, and it was just my dream and I hated every second of it. Like the house was blah, my family, like whatever you know, and it was just miserable and they were miserable. Um, but I think you bring up such an important point of the other side of that, where there has to be a happy medium, where it's not all just about fulfillment. Um, well, I mean it is, but we also have to have the balance of having income, like there's nothing wrong with that, like it's good to make money.

Speaker 2: 8:49

It's necessary. It's not just good, it's necessary because you can't sustain fulfillment without it. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:55

Yes, so tell me about that. Can you tell me, then, how that journey evolved and what tips you have for our audience, who are looking for that, that fulfillment plus income, profit, having a life, not just slaving away?

Speaker 2: 9:11

Yeah, it's important. It's very hard to do both because, like I said, it's you're either. You're either you either work to live, and those people end up successful but unfulfilled, or you live to work. No, no, let me rephrase you either work to live, and those people end up less successful because they maybe don't grind enough. But there's other people who live to work the workaholics right and those people end up unfulfilled but super successful. It's very hard to balance that pendulum and stay centered in that. I mean, it's, it's a whole thing, it's a lifelong journey that never ends. But just to provide context.

Speaker 2: 9:43

So I started out as a fitness coach and then I was a mindset coach and then I was a peak performance coach little short time life coach and then I became a business consultant and then eventually it was business coach. But here's what I figured out People don't pay for a personal development coach, but they do pay for a business coach. So people come to you for what they think they want and then you give them what they actually need. So people come to me because they want me to help them grow their revenue and that they'll pay for that. Right, if I grow your revenue by 30%, and that's an additional $300,000, you can pay me a portion of that, not a problem, right? People invest in business coaches, especially people that are early entrepreneurs that don't know what they're doing.

Speaker 2: 10:29

However, what it ends up being is personal development. It always so. To me it's goals, priorities, metrics, habits, skills and identity. And then after that, after you have the dreams, goals, priorities, metrics, habits and skills in alignment, you realize you're not doing it. And the reason you're not doing it is the inner stuff, the core wounds, the trauma, the fears, fear of success, fear of failure, you name it judgment, judgmental relatives, social media, all this stuff. So to me, the reverse engineering piece of what to do is easy, the how to do it is easy I know that's a unique to my math brain thing but the getting someone to actually do it, now that's. Anyone can teach you how to lose weight. Almost no one can get you to do it.

Speaker 2: 11:14

I've learned how to press the right buttons and I now have a disclaimer with my clients where I say I care about your success first, your fulfillment second and your feelings third. And I have them give me verbal and written permission to be sort of hard on them because I said listen, this is not therapy, this is coaching. I'm not going to tell you things, and this is something for your listeners too. If you aren't more successful right now, it's one of two things. Either number one you haven't given it enough time for the seeds to actually grow into the tree. You haven't given it enough time for the seeds to actually grow into the tree, okay. Or number two, it's not. I'll tell you what it's not. It's not because you don't believe enough in what you already believe.

Speaker 2: 11:53

I think we're all a lot like a programmed self-driving car that doesn't have accurate data. So a self-driving car needs three things to succeed, and this is just a little goal achievement thing. It needs accurate self-awareness, which is an accurate current location. It needs an accurate destination location and it needs updated data of the terrain. If it thinks it's a road when it's really a cliff, you're going to keep driving off a cliff and then blaming the world or blaming yourself or blaming others, when in reality, you just have inaccurate data. So I'm the hyper rational engineer full disclaimer who basically comes in and shows you where you're inaccurate in your thinking, because inaccurate thinking is the root cause of why people aren't achieving what they should achieve. I'll give you an example I had a mentor early on.

Speaker 2: 12:42

He said you feel really good at the beach, I feel really good at the bank because he was a really successful multimillionaire CEO and we used to do fitness together and he would teach me business and I would teach him fitness. It was a whole thing. He said, Alan, red wine doesn't have a lot of calories. And I said, jeff, who the hell told you that I send?

Speaker 2: 13:01

him a screenshot nine ounces of red wine, 212 calories. He's like oh, I've been going off that for three years. I drink red wine all the time. Brother, brother, wrong data. You cannot make effective choices with inaccurate understanding. So we all come into this world naked, scared and ignorant and we don't know anything. We don't know anything and we think our, our parents do. How wrong were we about that right? And we think our teachers know, and they do and don't. But they know their subject well and nothing else necessarily. So that's been alarming for me and I my childhood wasn't great. So ultimately, to answer your question is fulfillment is a study, success is a study and you have to study both of them, practice both of them and teach both of them, because that's the learning loop Study, practice, teach, study, practice, teach, study, practice, teach. And so to me, I'm working really hard to integrate my life so that I'm not just the workaholic achiever guy but also fulfilled along the way.

Speaker 1: 13:59

I think that makes a lot of sense. And, and something that I thought of when you were saying how we have to take care of us for the success because we're trying to do these things is kind of like when someone says, oh, you have to wake up early, wake up two hours early, but if you're in a lot of pain, if you're getting headaches all the time, if you're not sleeping, how can you do that? You're not going to be functional if you do that, and so you're trying to get up at six in the morning and you're trying to do all these things but your body literally can't because you're not providing the things that it needs. It makes a lot of sense when you see, well, that's why you don't have success, it's not that you're lazy, it's that you're just fucking tired and you're working against yourself. So I think that makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 2: 14:49

Well, that's why I like the overcome yourself, because we all have a highest self and a human self, and if you don't take care of the human self, the highest self can't drive. We've all been hung over, or whatever I have. I've been hung over. I quit drinking. I tried to quit drinking 10 years ago. It took me five years. I've now been sober for five years, but I used to wake up in the morning hung over, and it's like the last thing I'm going to do is is have a productive, fulfilling change of the world day.

Speaker 2: 15:15

When your basic needs aren't met, you can't think about changing the world, or your career. Or 30 years old, you know, when you're 20, think of 30,. When you're 30, think of 40, like future orientation. I agree with you. There's no one size fits all approach to personal development or to success or to fulfillment. However, there are principles that apply to everybody, but the way you apply them, it's like a chess game. Right, the horse always does that move. However, everyone needs to play chess based on their own unique goals, their own unique context, their own unique core values and their own unique body too right. So a good idea for you might be a bad idea for me. A bad idea for me might be a good idea for you, and that's why I think it's so hard for me on podcasts, because I like coaching better and I'm grateful to be here, so don't take that the wrong way. But like the wider net is harder for me and that's why I asked you who's your listener, because all of the advice or guidance, for lack of better phrasing, the compass, the guidance, is going to be off if I'm talking to someone.

Speaker 2: 16:26

I'll give you an example. I had a client and one of my other clients is this client's therapist, and I found out through the grapevine not from the therapist, she did not break confidentiality that this person's in $90,000 of debt. Now she told me she was in no debt. I'm her business coach. Everything I advised is now wrong, because if you're 90 grand in debt, we have to re-optimize everything, and I'm not making that wrong. I mean there's a lot of people in debt, but if I don't know the data, I'm going to drive us off a cliff on accident and then get you in some trouble, right? So I now am a lot more careful and try to notice when people are hiding certain things that they're ashamed of, because I'm going to give advice based on when you're putting on a show. You're going to get the wrong advice because people are going to give advice to that fake person.

Speaker 1: 17:15

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and I think you made an important distinction when you were talking about having a therapist versus having a coach. You need both of them on your team, probably.

Speaker 1: 17:31

I have both Right right, right, and that's one of the things about leadership, about success, is having a team that can help you deal with all the different areas of yourself, because there are certain things, like one of the things I talk about. I used to cry every day, I used to have panic attacks every day, come to find out I had a vitamin deficiency and there was absolutely no coach who was going to coach me out of that.

Speaker 1: 17:55

Yeah, 100% nutritionist, right, so you need to. You need to have a team of people that are helping you take care, and once, exactly what you were talking about, once, I was able to take care of that. Once the doctor was like, like, here, you're going to take this vitamin. Well, now my mind was clear. I didn't have this overwhelming cloud. I didn't have the you know, the panic attacks Like you literally stop breathing, you're shaking, like it's a whole thing. You can't function, I, I, I couldn't function.

Speaker 1: 18:21

And then I was like well, why am I not doing more? Because you're tired, because you've got something going on in your brain and you're trying, you're driving off a cliff, and every time you make this little turn, you're like and it's because you're driving off a cliff, right, um? And so I think it's really important just to to say that, yes, you need a team and everything is very specific. Um, yep, because any advice that coaches could have given me well, just just stop crying. You know like, just practice gratitude. All of that helped. That's what I learned, but it didn't fix what was going on, and so I think it makes a lot of sense. I understand the casting, the wide net versus, you know, being more specific. So bring it back around to gratitude. Can you tell me what part gratitude up in two different?

Speaker 2: 19:09

I'm going to over-categorize for a second, and I'm doing this knowing I'm over-categorizing, so just everyone out there watching or listening understand that. So I was with a mom not long ago who has four children and she said I should have been a little more cautious of my ex because he was an only child and this person. I'm not saying that all only children are bad. That's not what I'm saying at all. What I am saying is that, statistically speaking, I do think that only childs tend to be a little more entitled. I think there's a correlation there and it makes sense because they get all of the attention right. It makes sense and your sibling isn't beating you up and you know telling you you're dumb, I had an older sister who beat me at everything until I was like 15.

Speaker 2: 20:15

Right, um and so, uh, we're all born into one of two sort of buckets. Bucket one is the, the bucket that I didn't, didn't choose. That was really quite atrocious and I need to be as clear as possible. I had a lot of really wonderful things too, but right now I'm going to highlight the less ideal things. Okay, father passed away, never knew him. I was two years old. Older sister who was six. Mom was 31,. Stay-at-home mom. Years old, older sister who was six, mom was 31,. Stay at home mom. So we were broke and my stepdad came into the picture and he left at 14. Okay so, and my mom and stepdad did not get along, and that's a polite way to put it on a public medium. So for me that the whole, like stepdad leaving, going from boats and ski trips, like he got the apartment building in the yacht, we got the house and the dog and we didn't know how we're going to keep the house.

Speaker 2: 21:08

And while there was some wonderful things for sure in my childhood, ninetiescom bubble America, I mean there's some good stuff, right, I mean the nineties were wild. I mean especially in the U? S, by far the largest economy in the world still, but back in the nineties it was another level, it was wild, but at home things weren't good. From the outside, looking in, it looked great. From the inside out not so good. What's my point? When you have so much stripped from you from such a young age, you lose entitlement. Any spoiled brat syndrome that you have is just ripped out from under you. Now there's good and bad news with that. The bad news is you usually have low self-worth and you usually struggle with self-worth because you're so used to losing. The good news is, if you have high self-belief, you will have a positive trauma response to that adversity. That's a big if, though, my trauma response to adversity overcoming was aim higher, work harder, get smarter. Aim higher, work harder, get smarter. Aim higher, work harder, get smarter.

Speaker 2: 22:14

Now, as I've aged in my 30s, I've come to realize that's very, very rare. Most people who deal with a high ACE score adverse childhood experiences usually end up early mortality and not actually believing in themselves and having no self-worth. Okay, but the good news is is they're not entitled. They're willing to work for things. The problem is they're usually willing to work for other people, be treated like shit, that whole thing Okay, so they need to work on self-worth and self-belief. The other bucket is the bucket that I have a hard time working with, which is the people who want big rewards for minimal effort, the people who were kind of handed everything, the people who they just have inflated self-worth. They don't mean to, they just think they're awesome and and and they're so used to.

Speaker 2: 23:01

I had an ex-girlfriend who, who was given a lot from a very, very young age and she has this sort of air of high value and entitlement that just didn't vibe well with me. And I think that as an entrepreneur speaking just to entrepreneurs if you have any level of entitlement, you are screwed. Because people say, oh, I want to start a business because I want more free time like dumbest idea ever, because for the first decade, it's going to be nothing short of absolutely brutal. And this is coming from someone who, like, has passed the million-dollar mark through just brute force sweat equity. Kevin and I, my business partner, came from nothing, both without fathers, like, he has no entitlement, and that's why we win, because people say, well, you're your own boss and all this stuff. No, no, listen, I work with 106 podcasters and business owners. They're all my boss, right.

Speaker 1: 23:51

If they don't, if I don't, generate revenue.

Speaker 2: 23:52

We don't pay the team. We don't pay the team, the business dies. Like it's different than what people think. That said my point of this whole thing gratitude. How does it come in? To bring it back to gratitude For me, we had our heat go out last week, the furnace and I said I talked to my girlfriend, amelia, future wife.

Speaker 2: 24:11

Uh, we lived together and I said, sweetheart, that was good for me. And she said what do you mean? I said I remember what it was like to go to salvation army for clothing. I needed a little bit of perspective. Like it was good to not have heat. We had space heaters and it was good for me to see how good I have it.

Speaker 2: 24:31

Because now I have a you know beautiful condo and I drive a Tesla and you know everything's you know 18 person team and beautiful computers and electricity and running water, and I mean this was built in 2005. It's a really nice place and HOA fees and everybody does the landscaping for me. So I've gotten soft. I haven't because I've not let myself. To me, you have to have a balance of and I don't want this to come off as toxic masculinity, because it's not but you have to have this duality of like listen, if you took it all away, I can build it back because I'm I've learned how to, how to be grateful for even running water.

Speaker 2: 25:09

Okay, seriously, like I filled up my water earlier thinking like, wow, filtered running water, like this is wonderful and I'm also going to be very, very successful. So it's like how do you know your value? But also be grateful for even the little things and then the big things you can strive for. And so I'm a little weird with this, but I'm, I'm striving, never arriving for me, I'm trying to reach my potential and a lot of people, they, they do, they, they start to arrive and they forget what it was like in the beginning, when they had to build it all from scratch. So I try really hard to hold on to where I came from, um, which was really adverse, really adverse, and I think that helps me stay grateful along the way, even though things are obviously wonderful. I mean, I have nice clothes and I can afford, you know, whatever I want within reason, it's different, it's a different game than it used to be, but I can't lose that like, that drive and that lack of entitlement. That's what actually built it.

Speaker 1: 26:04

Know yeah, to be able to. I don't want to have to look back and be like man I had it so good and I didn't even realize it. I want to live every day and be like I'm so grateful for the seat, I'm so grateful for the phone, I'm so grateful for you, alan, like everything around me. I have to intentionally choose to practice gratitude for it, because we all know that life, the only thing certain, is that things change, like everything changes, and so how can I enjoy this moment where I am right now, cause it's the only thing that really exists, is right now, right. And so gratitude brings us back here, and I love how you, how you counter that. And you're like, I remember, because it's so easy to be like, oh, it's just water. Well, what if the pipes break one day and then you don't got water? Now you can't even make coffee. And you're like oh my God.

Speaker 2: 26:58

And so, yeah, that's real adversity If you can't make coffee. That's really.

Speaker 1: 27:05

Right, but yeah, like you know, it's not that you don't pay the power, but what if, just you know, a transformer goes out and your whole building loses power? Like there's literally nothing you can do. Well, you know, I'm grateful for my hurricane supplies, Right? Well, that's the thing.

Speaker 2: 27:22

When you learn how to be grateful for the little things you, you expand your ability to work hard for the, for the, for the greater things. I mean I had to be grateful for four listens a day back in the day and it took us an entire year, 52 weeks, not missing a single episode, to get 1056 listens, and now we get more than that every day. So I just I never want to lose sight of that, because I think that's when you get arrogant, and I've been guilty of that in the past. Right, I've had the humble pie moments hitting the head with a brick metaphorically.

Speaker 2: 27:55

And then why wasn't I more grateful? Every time I get sick, it's like why wasn't I more grateful, Right? So I just want to stay in gratitude. But you also got to strive too, Because if you're only grateful, maybe you're not as motivated. So you got to do both simultaneously.

Speaker 1: 28:12

Yes, and actually that's something I talk about in my book, where I say grateful is not about settling, right, I don't say that specifically, but the idea is it's not about just being grateful and then staying there. It's about being grateful where I am but then still striving for whatever it is that I want. But it's a journey, right, and it's not about settling, but it's about being here and now. I don't want to be miserable. I'm like well, my goal was a million dollars and I don't have a million dollars. So like, whoa is me?

Speaker 2: 28:39

like that no.

Speaker 1: 28:40

Well, I'm grateful for you know the amount that I have towards the million. Am I paying attention to how many dollars I've made since I said that, like, am I actually counting? Or has a million dollars hit my account and I already spent it and I didn't even realize, like you know. So it's. It brings us right back into this moment. I love that so much and I can only imagine that gratitude help you after your accident Like that must've been so scary.

Speaker 2: 29:05

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 29:06

Thank you.

Speaker 2: 29:07

It was all of the humble pie all at once. And I always say we have three circles of the ego. I'll be brief with it, but the external circle is what you want others to believe about you. The next circle in is what you want to believe about you, the story you tell yourself about yourself. And then the inner circle is who you really are and what you are when no one's watching the car accident.

Speaker 2: 29:29

Yeah, I collapsed, all three circles, and then I could build from a place of humility, courage and vulnerability. And my new sneaky goal behind the scenes, when no one's watching, is how do I keep those circles the same? How do I keep those circles the same? Because the moment I start getting cocky, you and we coach couples, my girlfriend and I. We've been doing it for four years and I'm telling you right now, when you see the front of the scenes from the outside in and then you see from the inside out, it's a two different worlds. There's the real world and there's the social world. The social world is the wedding photos. The real world is the marriage, which one matters more in real life, right, despite the Instagram photos.

Speaker 1: 30:14

So don't get me wrong.

Speaker 2: 30:15

I'm a marketer too. I got a market Like my Instagram looks nice too, but I'm telling you, my real world needs to be the focal point and then have that ripple into the social world, not the other way around, because that's what I. I fell victim to that for a little while in my twenties and I was just miserable. I was just miserable.

Speaker 1: 30:33

Yes, yes, yes, yes, and I relate to that because when I was 21, I went to the doctor. I found out that I had a back of a disabled elderly woman, and a few months, a few years later, I found myself not being able to walk. I don't remember what I did, but I couldn't even go to the bathroom, and so I learned what humble is like needing help going to the bathroom. There's nothing that humbles you like that you know so like being in a situation like that where you're hurt and and now you need to depend on people and who's there, and now you're all alone, you have nothing to distract you, and now you got to sit with yourself and you got to be like well, oh, that was a hell of a growth transformation right there Huh.

Speaker 1: 31:16

Right, right so like I'm just relating to you, to what happened to you, the car accident and that, yeah, that's called post-traumatic growth.

Speaker 2: 31:24

Yeah, it's really powerful. And the PTSD for me was there too. So I want to be clear Like it's both, it's two sides of the coin. One of them is double yellow lines scared me, you know. I couldn't get in a car for a little while. I kept getting pulled over because I was too far on my side of the road. I got claustrophobic ceiling fans walking in and out of doorways, like PTSD is a thing. And the car accident messed me up a little bit, but I worked through it, worked through it, worked through it, got help. And then the post-traumatic growth, though I mean whoa, right, right, and I know you probably feel the same way about you know similarly, about your uh, realizing the illness in the back and that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1: 32:00

oh yeah, like the other day um, it's been 20 years because it all started when I was like nine and I had a boat accident and I saw a video of these really big waves. They were like 40 foot waves. Somebody was on a boat and I went into a full panic attack because it triggered me and and I was like, oh my God, and I got so nervous, um and so, yeah, so 20, 25 years later, like, still, I get triggered sometimes and so, yeah, I can relate to that.

Speaker 2: 32:24

Um, all right, Anyone who drives fast with me in a car. Yeah, yeah, and who drives fast in a car like I grabbed the handle and you know, my dad died in a car.

Speaker 1: 32:33

So yeah, 100 and yeah, I know we're over time, yeah good, no, no, you're fine, but, um, it's just so powerful and it's so true, because I do talk a lot about the, the recovery and how I got strong. And somebody was like, but did you like get sad?

Speaker 2: 32:46

and I was like, oh fuck, yeah, I got sad, like I was really sad, yeah sad, it always comes before growth that's how you know you're growing it's sadness, and then you transform it into motivation, and then you transform Actually I call it full-on Disney princess crying, you know, like on your bed.

Speaker 1: 33:05

I went into the depths of it. But let us know how can we stay in touch with you, alan?

Speaker 2: 33:10

Yeah, so the website is nextleveluniversecom All one word spelled just like it sounds nextleveluniversecom. The podcast is Next Level University. It's a place you go to learn how to reach your own unique potential, your own unique version of success. 1% improvement in your pocket, from anywhere on the planet, completely free, every single day. Next Level you pun intended. Next Level University. Next Level you pun intended because it's not us but you and you can reach out on Instagram alazarus88, a-l-a-z-a-r-o-s-8-8 on Instagram, and I also sent you a link to book a free breakthrough session. If anyone wants to grow, scale, start, monetize a business online. I've been doing this for a long, long, long time. I made a lot of mistakes and I can definitely accelerate your progress. I'm not going to help you skip steps, because I think that's kind of fake, but I will help you accelerate your progress way faster than I did.

Speaker 1: 34:09

Yes, it's like learning math, like you got to learn how to do it the long way. So you know how to shorten it, right, but you got to do it the long way first.

Speaker 2: 34:16

It's an accumulation, yeah.

Speaker 1: 34:18

Yes. So last tip, what's like the biggest aha moment, the biggest thing you tell your clients that just changes their whole life.

Speaker 2: 34:26

The first one is the Pareto principle. It's 20% of your time and effort is responsible for 80% of your results, and I'm going to do a little bit of math here for a second. But if you take 20% of 20% of 20% of 20%, you get 0.04% Meaning in life, we're all juggling a lot of balls right Wife, husband, pets, kids, house, career, fitness, all of it. However, if you get really good at finding the things that matter a lot and focusing more of your effort, more of your time, more of your effort on those things, you get leverage. The world is exponential and I'm an engineer so I'm always looking for the leverage points, like this podcast, for example.

Speaker 2: 35:12

Coaching, training and podcasting are what's necessary for my career, for my impact, for my profitability. That if you figure out what your big three are not one but three and then focus most of your intentional effort there, that brings a far greater return long term, because we all in the 21st century get very distracted very easily and unfortunately, that basically means you're going to wander around and drift around, like I did, and you'll end up a wandering generality instead of a meaningful, specific who's both fulfilled and successful, like the world will only know you for a couple things. You got to make sure that you you pigeonhole yourself, but in a way that it's meaningful, uh, progress for you, that you pigeonhole yourself, but in a way that it's meaningful progress for you.

Speaker 1: 35:57

Phenomenal. That is amazing, thank you. Thank you, alan. This has been wonderful. I really appreciate you, everything you've shared with us and your amazing knowledge, and we will catch you guys next time on the next episode of Overcome Yourself. Bye, thank you.