From losing three families by the time he was 14 to seeming to have it all, Alan Lazaros discovered that his life was not as EPIC as he thought. Join Zander Sprague as he talks with Alan about how he found his calling and began an EPIC journey to success.
What part of New Hampshire?
I don’t know exactly. It’s probably near Manchester.
I’m from New England originally. I went to high school in New Hampshire. Were you in the Concord, Manchester area?
I would say Manchester, most likely. I live in Massachusetts. My cousins live in New Hampshire, but I don’t know exactly where. I’m a Millennial. I follow the GPS. You know the deal. I actually have a car that drives itself. Now I’m pumped. Anyways, typical Millennial. It’s hilarious. Millennials shut off the moment you talk about geography because we never had to know. We never used a map.
Trust me, I know. I’m older than you, but yes. I definitely know. I’d like to put a Millennial in a car with a map and go, “You got to get yourself from point A to point B. You figure it out. There’s no voice.” There’s no GPS. You need to take all that.
I was driving to TGI Fridays, not drinking up or partying. Nothing like that. The signs were covered because the snow banks were so bad. In New Hampshire, there’s a ton of snow. This is 2015, really bad winter. I was supposed to yield, I didn’t. I end up on the wrong side of the road. I look up and I see what I thought was a Mack truck. In that moment, my computer engineering brain was, “This is it. That’s the end. There’s no possibility that this isn’t the end.” Fortunately, it was not a Mack truck. Two things saved my life. Number one, it wasn’t a Mack truck. It was a lift-kitted pickup truck. There are a lot of those up in New Hampshire. They were not happy with me.
The second thing that saved my life is the 2004 Volkswagen Passat that I bought with $5,000 cash. I wanted to invest all my money. I used to not share this because I was too much of a coward. I decided very young to be very wealthy. I know that sounds cocky, but I was a math guy. Most people make that sound like, “That sounds a little too simple.” Anyways, so I invested all my capital, almost all of it. I was driving a 2004 Volkswagen Passat, thank goodness. I used to call this car the tank. German engineered steel trap of a car and it saved my life.
Yet, what do we focus on? We focus on that 3%. I demonstrated this when I was doing my internship for my license. I was doing counseling for middle school and high school students. A lot of them were having challenges with academics. I would ask them, “What’s your least favorite subject?” A lot of them said math.
To demonstrate the point to them, I said, “Alright, how would you feel if you got a 97 on your next test?” “I’d be so excited. My parents would be so proud. I’d tell everyone. I’d be so excited.” I go, “Would you complain about the three points you didn’t get?” “Are you kidding? I got a 97.” I’m like, “If 97% of your day is going well, why are you focused on the 3% that didn’t go so well?” Now, yes, given days, that 3% could be a lot larger as well because you get in a car accident.
Here’s the problem. That 3% is the part that needs improvement, so it gets more focused.
We are going to fail. Everything is not going to go perfectly. I talk about like epic begins with one step forward and it does. You started your marathon by taking one step forward.
It started long before that by stating that I was going to try to do it. It started long before that by building belief when I was a kid. Everything’s in accumulation. Here’s the problem. If you want to improve, you don’t have to look at what’s good. You have to look at what’s not. Even in intimate relationships, people like, “Why do you always bring up the things that are not good instead of being grateful for the things that are good?”
How do you hold the duality? Duality is such a powerful thing. Not everyone can hold duality. They think it’s black or white when it’s both. Duality is holding two seemingly opposing ideas in your consciousness simultaneously. How do you hold the duality of, “I’m grateful for the 97% that has gone well,” while simultaneously realizing you have to identify the 3% and improve it. Otherwise, you won’t improve your life.
That’s the most people are one or the other. You’re either overly positive and delusional and it’s called toxic positivity or you’re overly negative and stuck and mean to yourself and terrible self-talk. I try hard to stay centered. That’s why it’s so interesting I have all these different clients. Some of them are delusively positive and some of them are delusively negative. I’m trying to bring them to accurate thinking. You’re not capable of everything. You tend to be more positive than most. What’s your center five? If you had a coach who was super hard on you, you’d be better off. For some people who are so negative on themselves, you’re actually a bright, positive light that can help them tremendously because that’s what you think the world needs more of, which is positivity and constructive.
If you tell Lebron James, “Congratulations, you got ten points,” he’s going to be like, “Ten points? That’s not good for me. Don’t be positive.” We all have to be hard on ourselves to the right amount based on our goals, dreams, standards, and all that stuff. I remember I had a client one time who said, “Alan, I want you to be as hard on me as you are on yourself.” I said, “That’s not constructive,” because I’m only hard on myself to be extent that I’m ready for. I’m harder on myself now at 35 than I ever was at 7. That’s one of the last things.
Alan, this has been fascinating. We’ve gone long on this one and that’s great. It’s been fascinating. I do want to thank you. How can people get ahold of you?
I feel bad. I never answered the not yet. That’s my bad. The not yets for me are trying to have my life become an amplified version of what it already is. I want to help more people achieve their goals and dreams, align with who they truly are and most importantly, be more fulfilled. I don’t want you to be successful. I want you to be successful and fulfilled. I’ve been working so hard my whole life to figure out how to help myself be successful and fulfilled. I think that the real root underneath that is fulfilled people don’t hurt people.
I’ve been hurt a lot in my life. I dealt with bullying. Obviously, I lost three families by the time I’m fourteen in some sense. I found fulfillment through all that adversity. A lot of people see me now and they think I was born on third base when in reality I couldn’t even see the ballpark, to be completely honest. I did have some advantages, so I appreciate those. It wasn’t 97-3 for me, I’ll tell you what. That was the opposite.
You can do a lot with very little if you have the right mindset and you, you’re hardworking and humble and lock in on your strength. If anyone wants help, please reach out. In terms of reaching out, where can you find me? We have a website called NextLevelUniverse.com. We have a 21-person team. We have 21 departments. That’s actually not correlated.
We have a charity for single parents. We have monthly meetups. We do book club every week. We have a journal. We got all kinds of cool stuff. We have a group coaching program. We have one-on-one coaching. We have podcast coaching, business coaching and self-improvement. We have a podcast called Next Level University. It’s level up your health, wealth, life and love every day from anywhere on the planet in your pocket, a mentor, completely free.
That’s what Next Level University is about. If you want a bigger, better, brighter future and you are willing to put in the work and you’re willing to learn, it’s the mentor we wish we had in your pocket every day, completely free. I believe in equal opportunity. I was given financial aid and I wouldn’t have been able to go to college if I didn’t. It was because I was in a country that invested in my brain. I’m so grateful. I’m trying to do the same for other people.
You can do it. You can build a bigger, better, brighter future. No, you’re not going to be an Olympic gold medalist at something you’re not good at, but you will build a bigger, better, brighter future if you have a positive, more constructive mindset and you are consistently working toward your goals and dreams with mentors in your corner. NextLevelUniverse.com. Next Level University Podcast. Those are two different things. Thank you.
Alan, thank you so much for being here. I want to remind my audience again that epic choices lead to the epic life that you want and I will talk to you next time.
At age 2, my father passed away in a car accident. At age 26, after getting into a nearly fatal car accident myself, I questioned everything I was doing in life. I questioned who I was and the choices I was making. I was at an all-time low, and I decided to change my trajectory forever. Although I had a successful career in Corporate America, I made the hard decision to start my own business dedicated to helping others get to the Next Level in their life, love, health, and wealth.
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From The Bottom To The Top: Alan Lazaros’ EPIC Journey Of Unexpected Success
I am honored to be joined by Alan Lazaros. Alan, tell us a little about yourself and what you do. I’m going to try to condense 35 years into a couple of minutes here. The first thing I want to say is, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Years ago, I started listening to podcasts and they definitely helped me change the trajectory of my life. I do not take it lightly to be here. Thank you. I’m here to serve, number one. I’m here to practice my craft, number two, so thank you for the opportunity. As far as me, I often joke I’m hoping to hit puberty at 36 because I look very young. The other thing I want to say is back when I used to listen to podcasts, I would hear people like me now tell their stories. It seemed like they had it all figured out and it seemed like they had the narrative done well and the story arc structure and it felt like they had their whole life figured out. I’ve become one of those after many years of speaking, podcasting, training and coaching. I want to make it very clear that while it seems like I have it all figured out, I definitely don’t. I definitely didn’t back while these things were happening. I’ve since rewatched the movie of my own life. I’ve been doing a lot of therapy in my 30s and when you watch an old movie again, you realize things that you didn’t realize before. You have new distinctions. You understand jokes you never understood. Picture a movie you saw as a kid and then rewatch it now and go, “I got it.”Early Life And Loss
In rewatching the movie in my own life, I now get it. Not fully, obviously, because I’m getting older and wiser as I go, but much better than I used to. My story starts in definite adversity. When I was two years old, my father passed away in a car accident when he was 28 years old. Thank you. My business partner and I both grew up without fathers, actually. We have a charity that we host called The Next Level Hope Foundation. We get together every Father’s Day with a group of kids and rent out a gym with other single parents. It’s been cool. We’ve turned tragedy into triumph a little bit there, which is good. He was 28 years old. His name is John McCorkle. My real last name is actually McCorkle. My birth father was John and he was a part of a big Irish Catholic family. My Mom Mom and Pop Pop, my grandma and grandpa, his mom and dad, had six kids. It was Jim, Joe, John, Jane, Joan, and Jeanette. There was six J’s, a big Irish Catholic family. My father passed away when I was two. I had an older sister who was six. My mother was 31 at the time. My mother was a stay-at-home mom at the time. My stepdad came into the picture. I had a stepfather named Steve Lazaros from the age of 3 to 14. I now playfully refer to this part of my life is boats and BS. We had motorcycles and snowmobiles, grew up on a small lake, and went on ski trips. It was also the late ‘90, early 2000s dot-com bubble type of thing. He worked for a company called Agfa. Agfa did hospital computers. We did very well. He did very well financially and everyone did in the ‘90s, let’s be honest, at least in the US. It was definitely a pleasure-centered, have as much fun as possible, make as much money as possible paradigm. When he left when I was fourteen years old, he took 90% of the income with him and took his entire extended family with him. I have not seen a single one of them, including him, since I was fourteen. Grandma Joan, Grandpa George, uncles, aunts, all that gone, all of them. I didn’t understand this at the time, but fourteen was the hardest year of my life. At fourteen, that same time, my mom and my Aunt Sandy, her sister, got in a fight and my aunt ostracized us from her side of the family. At that same time, my sister moves out with her older boyfriend. Understandable. I did not understand this until my 30s. I lost three families by the time I was fourteen years old. Now, fortunately, the McCorkles, my birth father’s side, welcomed us back with open arms, but while the Lazaros, while my mom and stepdad were together, we didn’t associate much with the McCorkles because we were trying to be the Lazaros, so to speak. Not only did he take his entire extended family with him, but 90% of the income, too. I went from Xbox, Dreamcast, upper middle class, can’t wait to go to my dream college, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, which was $50,000 a year to try to be an engineer to now I get free lunch at school because our income is so low. I’m shopping at the Salvation Army. My mom traded in her BMW for a little Honda Civic, and we did whatever we had to do. Fast forward, I did the only thing, in hindsight, that I now understand is actually a trauma response. It’s the only thing I knew how to do when things got rough. My trauma response was to work harder, aim higher, and get smarter. As far as trauma responses go, I now realize that’s a good one because a lot of people would not do that. Anyway, I got straight A’s through high school. I got what’s called the President’s Award. It was signed by George W. Bush. Basically, that means you get all A’s through all four report cards all of high school. I got tons of financial aid and scholarships. I got into my dream college. I became a computer engineer, which was brutal. I got my master’s in business and I went off into corporate. Now I’m in my early twenties, paid off $84,000 worth of debt in a single year. I had $150,000 in an investment account for Vanguard. I bought a 2004 Volkswagen Passat for $5,000 cash. Thank you, Volkswagen, because they ended up saving my life, which I’m getting to. I was off to the races. I went from broke all through high school and college right to $65,000 a year to $85,000. From $85,000 to $105,000, from $105,000 to $125,000 to almost $180,000. I worked for a bunch of different companies, iRobot, Sensata Technologies, which used to be Texas Instruments, Tyco Safety products, Simplex Grinnell, a company called LENZE Americas, all these different companies. I eventually landed a company called Cognex. Cognex is an industrial automation company that sells industrial automation equipment, and machine vision equipment into manufacturing facilities all across the world. At my territory, I did an inside sales engineering team and I got promoted to outside sales. I managed Vermont, Connecticut and Western Massachusetts on the road. At this point, I’m in my early twenties. I’m making more money than I could possibly need. I have a beautiful girlfriend, tons of high school friends, college friends, corporate friends, and still lots of partying and fun this time. Lots of money, but deeply unfulfilled. I was very successful but not fulfilled at all and didn’t know it. I’m in New Hampshire with my little cousin. We were not drinking or doing anything crazy. We’re playing Call of Duty. We go to TGI Fridays. It was a dark winter night in 2015. I’m driving my 2000.
What part of New Hampshire?
I don’t know exactly. It’s probably near Manchester.
I’m from New England originally. I went to high school in New Hampshire. Were you in the Concord, Manchester area?
I would say Manchester, most likely. I live in Massachusetts. My cousins live in New Hampshire, but I don’t know exactly where. I’m a Millennial. I follow the GPS. You know the deal. I actually have a car that drives itself. Now I’m pumped. Anyways, typical Millennial. It’s hilarious. Millennials shut off the moment you talk about geography because we never had to know. We never used a map.
Trust me, I know. I’m older than you, but yes. I definitely know. I’d like to put a Millennial in a car with a map and go, “You got to get yourself from point A to point B. You figure it out. There’s no voice.” There’s no GPS. You need to take all that.
I was driving to TGI Fridays, not drinking up or partying. Nothing like that. The signs were covered because the snow banks were so bad. In New Hampshire, there’s a ton of snow. This is 2015, really bad winter. I was supposed to yield, I didn’t. I end up on the wrong side of the road. I look up and I see what I thought was a Mack truck. In that moment, my computer engineering brain was, “This is it. That’s the end. There’s no possibility that this isn’t the end.” Fortunately, it was not a Mack truck. Two things saved my life. Number one, it wasn’t a Mack truck. It was a lift-kitted pickup truck. There are a lot of those up in New Hampshire. They were not happy with me.
The second thing that saved my life is the 2004 Volkswagen Passat that I bought with $5,000 cash. I wanted to invest all my money. I used to not share this because I was too much of a coward. I decided very young to be very wealthy. I know that sounds cocky, but I was a math guy. Most people make that sound like, “That sounds a little too simple.” Anyways, so I invested all my capital, almost all of it. I was driving a 2004 Volkswagen Passat, thank goodness. I used to call this car the tank. German engineered steel trap of a car and it saved my life.
Quarter-Life Crisis And Realization
Both airbags deployed. My little cousin hurt his knee on the airbag. I hurt my face in the airbag. Physically we are okay. Now, my dad died in a car accident when he was 28. Seeing pictures of his car, my car doesn’t look very different. Physically, I’m okay, but this was my quarter-life existential crisis. I was like, “What was the point?” I was filled with regret, reflecting on my entire life, all my choices. I drink too much, too often. What it all mean? Am I proud of who I’ve come? You name it. What is the point? What is the meaning? The truth is, and this is the way I describe it now again, in hindsight and I’ll wrap up here in a second, this is the people that come to me now for business coaching. Bucket one is where I was. Very successful, but deeply unfulfilled and didn’t know it. After the car accident, I became acutely aware that I was wildly unfulfilled. I am not necessarily less fulfilled than anyone else, which is sad to say, but way less fulfilled than I am now and definitely not in alignment as much as I thought. The second bucket is deeply fulfilled but unsuccessful. I went all the way past broke. After that, I started my own company. I was super aligned. I went all in on self-improvement and personal development but I went broke. Now here I am years later and now I’m both successful and fulfilled. Successful is relative. I’ve finally surpassed my old best in terms of success. I found out that success without fulfillment is definitely something that sucks. It turns out fulfillment without success also does suck. That’s my truth because you don’t have the income to sustain any quality of life. I want to help people now and this is what I do. I help people go from bucket 1 to bucket 2 and bucket 2 to bucket 3. Bucket three is successful and fulfilled. Very last thing is, prior to the car accident at 26, I was professionally developed, resume, cover letter. I had competence and courage. I shot for the moon. I was achievement-oriented and I was improvement-oriented but I wasn’t self-improvement oriented.Balancing professional and personal development is key. Don’t neglect self-improvement.I wasn’t personal development-oriented. I didn’t look at self. I expanded in every outward direction. I had external results to the wind, but I didn’t self-improve as much as I do now. Now I flip the script and I do both. I think it’s important to be both professionally developed and personally developed. I, quite frankly, see very few people who are doing both. I understand why because I wasn’t either Thank you for your honesty and sharing all of that, Alan. Certainly, a lot. One of the themes in my book is what I call the epic unexpected. Certainly, losing your dad at such a young age, very traumatic. I guess, for lack of a better term, losing a person who you most likely saw as a father figure, Mr. Lazaros, very traumatic. Obviously, having a big car accident, absolutely. Funny thing is I’m originally from Boston. I live in California now, but I was living back in Boston. I, too, was driving a Passat. I did not hit someone head-on, but I was rear-ended at a high rate of speed. Aside from a few scrapes and some sore muscles, I walked away fine. Way to go, Volkswagen. I’m telling you. You’re right. The Passat is a rolling tank. It was. Thank you, Volkswagen. I always felt safe in that car. Had I been in a little Honda or something, this is nothing against Honda, I know it wouldn’t have been the same. We have a Tesla now that I adore because it’s such a heavy vehicle. It’s a safe, heavy vehicle. Speaking of the epic unexpected and how it changes your trajectory there, I’m going to guess that although you may not have had much physical from that, there was a fair amount of mental trauma.
Mental And Emotional Healing
Definitely. Mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. Those are the four modalities. Physically, I was okay, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually, not even a little bit. Talk about the metaphorical phoenix burning down from the ashes. Every part of my ego, which is your identity, completely burns down. You’re faced with all the truth at once. The epic unexpected thing that you’re referring to, a lot of times, those are the humble pie moments that transform us. They wake us up. That was my wake-up call. I’m glad I got it young because I know a lot of people now that didn’t get it until way later. I’m grateful that I was okay because some people don’t get a second chance. I got the second chance my dad never got to change his life. Mentally, emotionally and spiritually, there was a lot of reflection. There was a lot of pain. I was claustrophobic. Double yellow lines scared the hell out of me. It took me a while to get back in cars. It was a lot of growth. It was a lot of what I call post-traumatic growth or what is called post-traumatic growth, but there was also a lot of PTSD stuff with cars and stuff like that as well. I’m also a licensed professional clinical counselor, so I’m a mental health professional. I do talk a lot about grief loss, trauma, stuff like that. If it makes you feel any better, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this, all of that, being scared of being in the car, being that you live in a wintery place when it snows, when you see snowbanks. I absolutely get that. After I was rear-ended, I, too, was like, “Is that car going to hit me?” I always say that that part of what gets you through that is that exposure. The way you get over it is you have to get in the car. You have to go down the road. Exposure therapy. Part of that post-traumatic growth is to say, “Yes, this does scare me. I acknowledge it. I feel that. However, in order for me to have a sense of normalcy, I need to keep exposing myself to this so that I then have enough proof that I am okay to drive down the road.” That in vivo exposure of keep getting repeatedly exposed until not only your brain, but your somatic system. Your body goes, “I don’t need to have that fight or flight response all the time.” It’s not easy. I absolutely get it. In October of 2022, I had a wonderful crash on my mountain bike, shattered my shoulder, broke my humerus and fractured my pelvis, but I’m back on my road bike. I haven’t gotten on the mountain bike. Not because I’m scared. I just haven’t gotten back on it yet. I don’t feel that I’m afraid to get back on it. I prefer not to do that right now. I will get on it soon because I want to prove to myself that yes, I can get on the bike, I can ride it down a hill and I will be okay. There’s the philosophical question of life has risks and what are we going to do, huddle in a corner and stay stuck for the rest of our life? Fear is valid and fear sometimes is connected to actual danger and actual risk, but most of the time, it’s not. This is a simple example. I’m hyperrational. I’m a computer engineer. There are four modalities of thinking. I want to give your readers this because otherwise, they might not resonate with a lot of things I say and I understand why. I used to think I was a strong communicator. Now, I understand I’m a strong communicator to other engineers.Life has risks. Are we going to huddle in a corner or face our fears and live fully?Anyways, the four modalities of thinking are rationality, logic, mathematics, and numbers. That’s number one. It’s the rarest. Most people don’t think in that. The second one is pictures. Images. The third is words and concepts. That’s the most common by far, words and concepts. When I say dog, you either see a dog or have conversations in your head about dogs. The fourth one is energy. That’s also pretty rare. That’s more intuition, energetic, somatic expression, that stuff. I’m math first by far. We all have all four, obviously, but we all have a big one. Mine is math. From a hyper-rational standpoint, this is an example that I think will land. When you’re in the ocean, everyone is somewhat scared a little bit of sharks. Yet when you look it up, three 38 million people in the US, only one shark death per year. Yet you get in your car every day, 40,000 deaths per year. I think it’s 38,000 now. The point is that before a trip on an airplane, they’re like, “Safe travels.” Airplanes, statistically speaking, are like 10,000 times safer than cars.
Understanding Fear And Courage
My beautiful girlfriend, when she travels and she’s about to go on a plane, I said, “Don’t ever take this personally, but I’m never concerned about the plane. I’m only ever concerned when you get in a car.” I always say, “Drive safe.” I never say, “Fly safe.” You’re fine. That’s the mathematics. My point of all that, rather than just talking about myself, I used to think everyone was irrational and lazy. I was young and I was naive and probably ignorant and arrogant. It turns out not everyone’s irrational and lazy. I’m hardworking and hyper rational. To your PTSD stuff and all the therapy work and exposure therapy, most of that stuff, yes, something bad happened to me, but double yellow lines are not necessarily any more or less dangerous than before the accident. You’re not any more or less likely to get rear-ended again. It feels like you’re much more likely to and so we all have to assess risk more accurately and then and then decide there’s a possibility every time you get in a car, something bad could happen. Are you never going to drive again? There are pros and cons to everything. I think most of us hold ourselves back due to fear that most of it is irrational. Not all of it’s irrational. Fear is there for a reason. It’s there to protect you. False expectations appearing real, FEAR. A lot of people are afraid of things. The last thing I’ll say about this, too, is I used to think a lot of the advice in this motivational self-improvement space is like, “You got to face your fears. You’ve got to be courageous,” and all that stuff. I didn’t understand my fear, so I didn’t understand where I needed courage. I was what I now refer to as a social coward. I was always courageous in applying to the job, applying to the school, writing the resume, doing the cover letter, doing the essay, submitting the thing, doing the marathon, whatever it was. That’s all fine for me. I don’t struggle a ton with self-doubt when it comes to competence. I know a lot of people won’t resonate with that. Where I struggled with socially, I always felt awkward. I always felt unrelatable. I always felt unlikeable. I never felt like I fit in naturally. I always felt like I had to mold myself to the room. I now realize, statistically speaking, I’m on a very far end of the bell curve. I had low self-worth because I never felt lovable and likable. For me, I had social cowardice. I didn’t have competence cowardice at all. Other people are the opposite. Most people struggle to apply to the job and apply to the school and go for the thing and that thing. They are easily likable and fit in very easily. Some people have both. There are two types of courage. There’s competence courage, which is, “I can go do this thing. I’m going to go accomplish this thing. I’m going to go get good at this thing,” and there’s social courage, which is, “I’m going to stand up for myself. I’m going to stand up for what I believe in. I’m going to stand up to the bully. I’m going to set and honor clear boundaries. I’m going to invest in myself. I’m going to keep the promises I make to myself, particularly when I’m in peer pressure moments.” I was very much a social coward, not at all a competence coward. I hope your readers can identify which one you’re more of. I’m smiling, Alan, because I dust off of what you were saying. I’m strong in both. I’ll tell you this story. Some people see as a ridiculous belief in myself that I can do anything. I’ve had jobs that I honestly had no right getting. I’m a social person. I love to talk. I’m able to woo people. I figured that part out. I also have that confidence that yes, I can do anything. The super quick story is, and I still to this day don’t understand how I got hired for this job, but I got hired to work on a UNIX help desk at Fidelity Investments. In the interview, I did not know what UNIX was. When they asked me, I said, “It’s two emasculated men from Rome, i.e., a eunuch. A plural would be eunuchs. I got hired. The thing that blows my mind now, when I look back, I’m on the help desk. That implies that not only do I know it, but I know it enough to help other people. There were about two months of fire hose learning where I literally had UNIX for Dummies. I’m like trying to figure out how to write command line code and how UNIX works and stuff. It’s, again, that belief of I could do anything. Sure, I can do that. I’ve done that throughout my career and done jobs. I majored in History and Psychology and I spent 22 years in tech. I was a software engineer. I was a quality assurance engineer is a UNIX help desk person. Now, I can tell you, as a software engineer, I worked incredibly hard to be mediocre and that’s why I don’t do it anymore because I wanted more. My brain doesn’t work like your brain does. I’m like, “I have a problem. Let me go over and talk to Alan and find out how his weekend was.” I’m dealing with lots of people. I’m not trying to pigeonhole, but conversation was not necessary. I talked to them about code and tech and math and all of that all day long. The, “What’d you do this weekend? Did you see that movie yet?” Whatever. No. They would look at me like, “What are you doing?” I get that. That does totally resonate with me. Here’s a question I love to ask all my guests. I think two of the most powerful words that we have are not yet. Not yet opens up so many possibilities and there are so many not yets. I’ve seen the background on your wall, but you also mentioned that you ran a marathon or at least one. I, too, have done that. I’m like, “Right on.” Obviously, running a marathon, there’s a lot of not yet. “Have you run your race yet? Have you done your marathon?” “Not yet.” Why? It’s because the date hasn’t come. I’m still training. My question for you is, what are one or two of your not yets? One or two? That would be hard to pick. Give me some of your not yets. I like not yet. One thing I want to share, too, that I think is important. I’m not a talking head, so please, I have a 10,000-hour tracker and I track these things. I track podcasting, speaking, coaching and training. Those are my big four. I do writing, but I don’t track it. I have eighteen blogs, so I guess I do track it. The 10,000-hour tracker doesn’t include writing. I have 26 people in my roster right now. Business coaching. The youngest is sixteen. Actually, I used to say eighteen. I got a sixteen-year-old, which is cool. My oldest is 63. All different countries, all different backgrounds, all different industries, all different modalities of thinking. It’s been so cool to learn from these people worldwide and to learn their businesses, currencies, processes, beliefs, awareness, and culture. It’s been cool. I have so much data up here of different types of people from all over the world that I can say some things with absolute certainty at this stage. Empirical evidence is there. One thing that I will say is that if you and I have very high self-belief, which in psychology is known as self-efficacy, the people who don’t that are reading will be triggered by us most likely because you make it sound so easy, and so do I, by the way. I did a marathon within three days’ notice without training at all. I did not do that, but congratulations. Thank you. I did it alone on a track with only my girlfriend. I carried my phone the entire 106 times around the track. It was in 95-degree weather in the middle of the day. The reason why I say that is because I searched for humble pie and I didn’t use to, so prior to 26, I didn’t understand this, but I was fairly arrogant. Here’s why. Every strength comes with a weakness. If you have high self-belief, you struggle with humility. You say, “I can do anything.” The truth is you can’t. You can’t beat LeBron James at basketball. You can’t have a bigger business than Elon Musk. That’s all the truth.Every strength comes with a weakness. High self-belief often struggles with humility.Win the Boston Marathon, right? Exactly. Certainly not tomorrow. Generally speaking, you believe in yourself more than the statistical norm and you also probably walk your talk pretty well, all things considered. Same with me. For people out there who struggle with self-doubt, you and I don’t resonate as much with them. What we might resonate with is if you have self-doubt and you struggle with self-doubt, self-belief is where you need to start. The way you build it is a formula. Its state proves self-assigned. You say, “I’m going to do a marathon,” and then you prove to yourself you can do it. After you do it, “See, I did that.” This is an unconscious process. Most people are drifting around without stating, proving and self-assigning. They end up a good baseball player, a good basketball player, or at some job, but they stumbled upon it so they don’t self-assign it.
Building self-belief is a formula: state, prove, and self-assign. Believe in yourself and achieve.
Self-Belief And Self-Worth
There are so many emotionally driven people that don’t self-assign the identity of, “I chose to do that.” Most people stumble upon success, don’t self-assign it, and think they got lucky. I wanted to give that to most people. Now, the second side of this coin that most people who do have high self-belief struggle with, and this was me, I don’t think it is you, but I think it’s me, is I had low self-worth. Self-belief is, “I believe I can build it. I believe I can build the castle. I know I can do it. Give me enough time and enough resources and I can do this. If I don’t have the resources, I can get them.” That’s self-belief. I have that 10 out of 10 and I know that and so do you, almost to the point where it’s too much. That’s interesting. Some of it’s delusion, by the way. I’m just calling it out. The second one is self-worth. Self-worth is, “I not only can build the castle, but I also deserve to live here. I’ve earned it. I’m going to honor and protect the castle.” Someone with low self-worth builds the castle, invites all their friends and family and lets them spill beer all over the carpets. They let people mistreat them. Self-belief and self-worth, those are the two. I think I’ve hit 8,000 on my way to 10,000 hours. I’m telling you, the core of your being is the amount of self-belief and self-worth you have and you can build them. No one knows that’s the root problem so we don’t go to work on it. I’m sure my readers like, “Here he goes again.” That’s okay because sometimes you have to hear things repeatedly to go, yes. “Now I hear that,” which is two things. First of all, the meanest person in our life is ourselves. I want people to stop that. We shouldn’t be so mean to ourselves. We’re so mean to ourselves in our head. The other thing is, I think, oftentimes, people, what I call the 97-3 rule, which is on most days, 97% of your day has actually gone well and up 3% doesn’t go so well.
Yet, what do we focus on? We focus on that 3%. I demonstrated this when I was doing my internship for my license. I was doing counseling for middle school and high school students. A lot of them were having challenges with academics. I would ask them, “What’s your least favorite subject?” A lot of them said math.
To demonstrate the point to them, I said, “Alright, how would you feel if you got a 97 on your next test?” “I’d be so excited. My parents would be so proud. I’d tell everyone. I’d be so excited.” I go, “Would you complain about the three points you didn’t get?” “Are you kidding? I got a 97.” I’m like, “If 97% of your day is going well, why are you focused on the 3% that didn’t go so well?” Now, yes, given days, that 3% could be a lot larger as well because you get in a car accident.
Here’s the problem. That 3% is the part that needs improvement, so it gets more focused.
We are going to fail. Everything is not going to go perfectly. I talk about like epic begins with one step forward and it does. You started your marathon by taking one step forward.
It started long before that by stating that I was going to try to do it. It started long before that by building belief when I was a kid. Everything’s in accumulation. Here’s the problem. If you want to improve, you don’t have to look at what’s good. You have to look at what’s not. Even in intimate relationships, people like, “Why do you always bring up the things that are not good instead of being grateful for the things that are good?”
How do you hold the duality? Duality is such a powerful thing. Not everyone can hold duality. They think it’s black or white when it’s both. Duality is holding two seemingly opposing ideas in your consciousness simultaneously. How do you hold the duality of, “I’m grateful for the 97% that has gone well,” while simultaneously realizing you have to identify the 3% and improve it. Otherwise, you won’t improve your life.
That’s the most people are one or the other. You’re either overly positive and delusional and it’s called toxic positivity or you’re overly negative and stuck and mean to yourself and terrible self-talk. I try hard to stay centered. That’s why it’s so interesting I have all these different clients. Some of them are delusively positive and some of them are delusively negative. I’m trying to bring them to accurate thinking. You’re not capable of everything. You tend to be more positive than most. What’s your center five? If you had a coach who was super hard on you, you’d be better off. For some people who are so negative on themselves, you’re actually a bright, positive light that can help them tremendously because that’s what you think the world needs more of, which is positivity and constructive.
If you tell Lebron James, “Congratulations, you got ten points,” he’s going to be like, “Ten points? That’s not good for me. Don’t be positive.” We all have to be hard on ourselves to the right amount based on our goals, dreams, standards, and all that stuff. I remember I had a client one time who said, “Alan, I want you to be as hard on me as you are on yourself.” I said, “That’s not constructive,” because I’m only hard on myself to be extent that I’m ready for. I’m harder on myself now at 35 than I ever was at 7. That’s one of the last things.
Alan, this has been fascinating. We’ve gone long on this one and that’s great. It’s been fascinating. I do want to thank you. How can people get ahold of you?
I feel bad. I never answered the not yet. That’s my bad. The not yets for me are trying to have my life become an amplified version of what it already is. I want to help more people achieve their goals and dreams, align with who they truly are and most importantly, be more fulfilled. I don’t want you to be successful. I want you to be successful and fulfilled. I’ve been working so hard my whole life to figure out how to help myself be successful and fulfilled. I think that the real root underneath that is fulfilled people don’t hurt people.
I’ve been hurt a lot in my life. I dealt with bullying. Obviously, I lost three families by the time I’m fourteen in some sense. I found fulfillment through all that adversity. A lot of people see me now and they think I was born on third base when in reality I couldn’t even see the ballpark, to be completely honest. I did have some advantages, so I appreciate those. It wasn’t 97-3 for me, I’ll tell you what. That was the opposite.
You can do a lot with very little if you have the right mindset and you, you’re hardworking and humble and lock in on your strength. If anyone wants help, please reach out. In terms of reaching out, where can you find me? We have a website called NextLevelUniverse.com. We have a 21-person team. We have 21 departments. That’s actually not correlated.
We have a charity for single parents. We have monthly meetups. We do book club every week. We have a journal. We got all kinds of cool stuff. We have a group coaching program. We have one-on-one coaching. We have podcast coaching, business coaching and self-improvement. We have a podcast called Next Level University. It’s level up your health, wealth, life and love every day from anywhere on the planet in your pocket, a mentor, completely free.
That’s what Next Level University is about. If you want a bigger, better, brighter future and you are willing to put in the work and you’re willing to learn, it’s the mentor we wish we had in your pocket every day, completely free. I believe in equal opportunity. I was given financial aid and I wouldn’t have been able to go to college if I didn’t. It was because I was in a country that invested in my brain. I’m so grateful. I’m trying to do the same for other people.
You can do it. You can build a bigger, better, brighter future. No, you’re not going to be an Olympic gold medalist at something you’re not good at, but you will build a bigger, better, brighter future if you have a positive, more constructive mindset and you are consistently working toward your goals and dreams with mentors in your corner. NextLevelUniverse.com. Next Level University Podcast. Those are two different things. Thank you.
Alan, thank you so much for being here. I want to remind my audience again that epic choices lead to the epic life that you want and I will talk to you next time.
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About Alan Lazaros
At age 2, my father passed away in a car accident. At age 26, after getting into a nearly fatal car accident myself, I questioned everything I was doing in life. I questioned who I was and the choices I was making. I was at an all-time low, and I decided to change my trajectory forever. Although I had a successful career in Corporate America, I made the hard decision to start my own business dedicated to helping others get to the Next Level in their life, love, health, and wealth.