0:00:00 - Alex Shevelenko
Welcome to a very special episode of Experience-focused Leaders! Today's guest is Alan Lazaros. He's the host of the Next Level University podcast and CEO of Next Level University. He's done 1,500 podcast episodes, and he ranks among the top podcasters in self-development. But Alan's expertise lies beyond the mic. He's a peak performance business coach. He uses his background in engineering to engineer great human outcomes, and he's got a great audience across 160 countries. We're excited to have you on here, Alan, to address some of the important topics of the human condition on the show.
0:00:46 - Alan Lazaros
I am ready to rock. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate the intro, and it's been a hell of a journey. Nine years ago, I started a little company called Alan Lazaros LLC, and it was what you'll never learn in school but desperately need to know. I've learned so much since then, primarily how naive I was.
0:01:09 - Alex Shevelenko
So that's a lesson for us all. Nothing like being an entrepreneur gets us convinced that we make a lot of mistakes. Well, it’s really interesting to have you on because some of our audience comes from a world of business-to-business communications. And when we use these words, we forget that there are people on the side of both companies. We want to build authentic relationships and delight people as they could be our customers. They could be our buyers, employees who are working with our customers, and future customers. Somehow, I think the language of business sometimes gets caught up in an almost dehumanizing mode. And part of it is we're playing safe, we're not taking necessarily the risks that we need to. We're not fully human, we're not being our best selves.
I think it impacts the interactions that we have with our key audiences. You're in the business of helping people unleash their inner best selves and reach their potential. A lot of it is at work and in demanding fields. So one of the things that struck me when I was listening to some of your other podcasts is the reference to the book that influenced you was just the regrets that people have on their deathbed, so they had no one to lie to. I wonder if you could adapt some of those to our professional lives because I think in human life, we probably could guess what some of those were. But could you translate which ones of those resonate the most with people when it comes to their career and work?
0:03:07 - Alan Lazaros
OK, so first and foremost, my prior life. Prior to nine years ago, when I was 26, I actually worked in business-to-business. I worked for an industrial automation company called Cognix. It does machine vision systems. I sold manufacturing and automation equipment to manufacturing facilities all across New England. And so there's this fascinating thing that has always irked me, where we have our career and professional development, and then over here we have personal development. For some reason, there is not a lot of crossover. I can't pretend to know the exact reason why, but I'll give you an example. We have two different listeners. One of my listeners is unbelievably into personal development. This is what you'd call B2C, business-to-consumer, and I coach her. I've coached her for years. I've known her for five years, and she's very all-in on personal development, becoming a better leader, better person and focused inward.
And then there's this other listener who I got on the phone with probably about six months ago. She's in my group coaching program now. I remember when I first met her, I went to my business partner, Kevin, and I said, “This is so interesting.” She reached out to me on LinkedIn. She was a part of my alma mater, my college. And she's the most professionally developed person I've ever met. But her personal development set point is really low. She doesn't know about “High Performance Habits” by Brendon Burchard. She doesn't know about “The Four Tendencies” by Gretchen Rubin and “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey. She doesn't know about some of these fundamental books, but yet she does know a ton of skills, a ton of IT, and a ton of computer engineering. She is an engineer and she's very well polished, very professional.
So what I've found with my clients? I'm coming up on my 49-hundredth coaching session at this point, and all of them are an hour plus. I actually did some coaching earlier, so I'm not a talking head who's just saying stuff. I want to make that very clear. I coach 17 different clients right now. I've had hundreds of clients across my coaching career for the last seven years and all different countries, cultures, and backgrounds. We met tons of listeners from all over the world, so I'm not just saying this stuff.
Everyone I've ever met is either more into professional development or personal development. What I've found really fascinating is that people who are into professional development tend to be very successful in their careers and, quite frankly, wealthy. And the people into personal development are not necessarily very well off career-wise. I never fully understood it. The people who are into personal development tend to be good at relationships. Their marriages are usually pretty good. Their friendships are usually very good. They usually don't have a strange relationship with their friends and family.
One person I mentor in particular is an unbelievably professionally well-developed, multi-millionaire, super successful, amazing career, but takes better care of his Porsche than his own marriage. And I realized there’s just no integration of personal and professional development. I think it's very similar in a sense to the B2B versus B2C thing. And then B2G (Business-to-Government) is even more put on a mask type of thing in some ways. So I think that there's gotta be a way for us to try to find authenticity in all this.
0:06:47 - Alex Shevelenko
That's really interesting. I actually tend to triangulate the feedback that I get from the co-founder of my business with the feedback from my wife, and it's very powerful.
0:07:07 - Alan Lazaros
Very good idea.
0:07:08 - Alex Shevelenko
You start seeing patterns because they are both very close long-term relationships, they both have ups and downs, naturally. Under pressure in this environment, I'm acting in this way. And I'm acting in a similar way in another environment. It's an incredible test, and I think it's sad that this is not a connected tissue like you were describing. Because to me, actually, if you create an amazing work environment where you really inspire people, you learn how to nurture people or how to help people achieve their full professional potential. You could go bring that home and inspire your kids, your surrounding environment and vice versa.
I think being a parent forces you to grow up in a way that maybe even an entrepreneur doesn't. You feel more in control over a startup, as crazy as that may be, or a high-growth company than you would be over a one-year-old, two-year-old, or 13-year-old with raging hormones. I could see that people are just the people when they need help. They don't tend to align the two quite, as it would be, I think, most impactful.
0:08:39 - Alan Lazaros
You bring up several awesome points there. Leadership is a universal craft and principle that can be applied whether you're a parent, a team leader or a CEO. But what I've found fascinating is that we have this idea of a work-life balance, which the 21st century has obviously really changed a lot. I'm just gonna speak very frankly, I think that if you believe work and life are separate, you're in trouble because they're not. And they're becoming increasingly not. I work fully remotely. We don't have a headquarters. We have a 21-person team, and no one's punching a time card, no one is going to a building. So I have to lead in this really dynamic heavy technological era of the 21st century where there is no separation of my work and my life.
My intimate partner, Emilia, my girlfriend, the love of my life, and future wife. She's my business partner in another business. We have a podcast called “The Conscious Couples Podcast” that's built underneath that. And if you wanna talk about no separation between work and life, this is a fascinating little side tangent. But I thought this was kind of intriguing. I sat down with Emilia and said, “Okay, so what are the percent chances of an American couple to succeed? The divorce rates are very high in America. The chances are very small.” And then what are the chances of a business succeeding long-term? And then what are the chances when you combine those? So I said we've taken two of the most challenging things.
We also plan on being parents as well. So, basically, take all of the biggest challenges and do them all together.
0:10:38 - Alex Shevelenko
Well, look, there are a lot of amazing stories on that. Actually, this brings me to one of your quotes that really intrigued me. You said I do not wish you to have an easy life, but I wish you to have a deeply meaningful one, and I love that. And I think that kind of relates to the sort of balance that you brought up, like the kind of the notion of some sort of life work balance.
It also, I think there's this notion of search for happiness, which is sort of the genre of a majority of the self-help you know, majority of the self-help literature and work, and I think some of the most thoughtful people that do communicate on that topic. They're not talking about a happiness in the sense of like I'm enjoying everything, leisurely, loving it. You know, having my Thanksgiving celebration on Hawaii, which you and I clearly aren't, because we're kind of we're having a chat right now on Thanksgiving, but we are pursuing things that are maybe hard, maybe challenging, but they're deeply meaningful, they're a deeply fulfilling and I think, bringing up a family, building a business, you know, tackling a challenging project of work that may have an impact for your organization's success, and so on. So let's dig into this right, because it feels like conventional wisdom that we're being served up. I actually discourages people from taking the road less traveled, the road more challenging, and looking for this kind of ethereal, you know, slightly narcissistic notion of happiness that has been propagated for media culture.
0:12:25 - Alan Lazaros
I really appreciate this conversation and this question because this is my one of my favorite things, I will say one of my favorite things to talk about, and it's this idea that you're gonna get up and you're gonna tackle your to-do list and the day's gonna go well, and it's I call it Candyland. There's this Candyland notion portrayed on social media. I'll give you this tangible example. I have my executive admin. Her name's Jerry Ann. She's awesome, okay, amazing, best executive admin I've ever had. And just incredible. She took a family photo. Her son, who I also coach, is graduated high school. Beautiful photo husband, wife, four children. Just wonderful achievement. Love the photo. I said, jerry Ann, isn't it fascinating how that photo is picture perfect, but everything that was necessary in order to create that was nothing short of an absolute struggle. I mean, she has four little boys and a husband, so she has five boys that she lives with.
0:13:34 - Alex Shevelenko
Five little boys.
0:13:35 - Alan Lazaros
And then on top of that, she also kind of takes care of me in some ways as my executive admin, right? So yeah, five little boys in front of her. She actually says that sometimes, but anyways, it's this interesting thing on, particularly these days where there's these shiny objects that are shown of what happiness is and lifestyle and travel. And I just just here's what I'm saying. Don't fall for it. Everything that is marketed is marketed to look better than it really is, and everything worth having comes through struggle. I think it's against human nature to believe anything other than that.
And I grew up. My father passed away when I was two years old. I had a stepdad from three to 14. He left at 14. In some ways I had lost three families. That's a longer story than we have time for. In some ways I lost three families by the time I was 14 years old and I had a really tough upbringing. Some good things, but really on the high end of tough, and I've gotten confirmation from my therapist that that is on the 10 out of 10 scale of tough. But anyways, I do.
I never wanted an easy life. I never wanted an easy life because you can't get in shape from easy workouts. And what's going to matter, in my opinion and again, this is just my opinion, but I also think it's rooted in a lot of science Struggle creates growth, growth creates meaning and contribution. And if you live a life where you're looking for easy, you're just in trouble because life isn't easy, and it's never going to be, and I think there's so much virtue despite that. There's so much to be had.
Once you say you know what, listen, life isn't supposed to be easy, it's hard. But despite that inevitable truth that we all really know if we sit with it, no matter what country you're from, no matter what background, like, life is hard, I just think we kind of know that in our soul, on the soul level, life is hard but, but despite that, you can make something of yourself. You can make something of your life and have a deeply meaningful life of growth and contribution. On the other side of that, versus someone who thinks life is supposed to be easy and then you think something's wrong with your life all the time and you have the victim mentality, because when something goes up against that belief system, inevitably bad things happen.
you're just always going to feel like something's off or something's wrong, when in reality nothing's wrong. This is just the human condition, yeah.
0:16:04 - Alex Shevelenko
Well, I think the part that you're the kind of whatever you call it struggle, some people call it flow when you're engaged in activity, that's a worthwhile activity. This is where you really prosper. You lose a little bit of your sense of pleasing yourself and you're doing something. So we're empowering people to create in that B2B world that relate to, and it's fascinating to see people who didn't think of themselves as particularly creative all of a sudden are kind of discovering and playing and doing the best in our case, communications work of their life to connect with another person and they're coming back and they're saying I've created something really meaningful.
I'm not a designer, I'm not a developer, but actually build something like a mini app to engage with people that matter to. Typically it's an organizational level, but sometimes for individuals. But it's not easy. You need to be motivated to create and even if we make the software easy, the act of creation, the decisions to make, that's forcing something. It's much easier to consume, it's much easier to just be like absorbing, be passive, but it's not working. We're all overloaded with consumption. Our audience doesn't want to engage if we don't really make them part of the journey. So tell us a little bit about what are you seeing? How do you engage your audience, both digitally and in real life, through transformational journeys? How do you make it a co-journey versus like oh, here's a monologue of how smart I am and everything that I've learned, which I'm sure you could do that right, but I think you're clearly much more inclined to interact and co-create with people.
0:18:03 - Alan Lazaros
I really appreciate that. I can tell that you've done your research. I can tell that you've looked into some of the work, and that means so much to me, so thank you for that. When it comes to the analogy I use, so our whole brand is Next Level, so Next Level University. We have Next Level Universecom. The analogy that I like to use is not everyone wants to climb Mount Everest, but some people do want to get to Base Camp One or Base Camp.
0:18:32 - Alex Shevelenko
Two or Base Camp Three.
0:18:33 - Alan Lazaros
And everyone who climbs Mount Everest needs a guide. So if you Google it, 6,228 people have climbed Mount Everest successfully and come back alive. And so if you're trying to climb Mount Everest and this is a metaphor, meaning you want to change the world or whatever really most content isn't created for you. Because if I write a book on how to climb Mount Everest, I really can only sell it to, I don't know, maybe 6,000 people, and it's not a big market. But what is a big market is everyone wanting a bigger, better, brighter future. And to me, whether you study Freud about the past or Carl Jung about the present or Adlerian psychology about the future, to me the future is the part that doesn't get enough focus. That's my truth. Some people are so focused on enjoying the moment that they aren't willing to go through the struggle Climbing Mount Everest. You don't climb Mount Everest for fun. You climb Mount Everest for meaning and because when you come back, you're different and you're someone worthwhile, someone who has self-esteem, someone who keeps promises to themselves, someone who has substance and, more importantly and most importantly, someone who can now guide others to climb their own mountains.
And so I'm only 35. I look 15. So if you're on video. You're like how is he 35? But I'm 35 now and as I get older and older and older and older my birthday was last week I start to realize that the purpose of the climb is growth and then the lessons that you learn on the climb. Particularly when you're helping people grow along the way. It just exponentially increases how much you can help people. And I'm never going to I say this to my team often I'm never, ever going to Do anything or share anything that I'm not currently doing. So I do habit tracking. We have an app that does habit tracking. Me and my team all do habit tracking. I Think your background might have just shifted, but we'll keep, keep.
0:20:38 - Alex Shevelenko
I've shifted it because I think we're getting, we're getting into the evening time here, so so, so, so you're, so you're to have it. So I'm. They have a tracking. Sorry to interrupt you.
0:20:50 - Alan Lazaros
Okay, yeah, so. So, as someone who the the through line of that was I Will never and I told this to my team, I tell this to our listeners I'm never gonna tell you to do something that I haven't already done or in currently doing. Hmm, I'll never. Leading by example is everything, it's just everything. To me, the, the people in the industry that don't lead by example, it's just been heartbreaking. I had so many heroes.
I was naive, I came into the health self-help space and I thought all these authors were amazing and I just I mean, pedestal after pedestal after pedestal, I've just been destroyed because I've met many of them and behind the scenes, they're not who they say they are and it is what it is, I think everyone you know part of that is me putting them on a pedestal. The other part of that is people are human. The other part of that is some people are, quite frankly, full of it, absolute scam artists, and that is just a fact. Now, to answer your original question about how I engage my audience, number one, leading by example. I mean, I'll give you an example. So we started a fit challenge. I'm on my 633, 33rd day of exercise and I post every single day hashtag and now you fit pick and so we don't just talk about health, wealth and love on the podcast. We have a challenge that you can join and you can share your daily posts in the gym for accountability.
Right and and so what we're optimizing for is engagement. What we're optimizing for is hey, reach out, hey, email me, hey, you know, let's get on the phone. I've met more of my listeners. I mean I've met Hundreds of my listeners on zoom 101. I mean, most of the most of my team members are Our listeners that I met years ago, so they're they're bought in, so I'm not know of Alan.
0:22:30 - Alex Shevelenko
as we're wrapping up, how can people meet you?
0:22:35 - Alan Lazaros
So to that point was perfect segue. The that wasn't Planned, by the way. So, alan at next level universe calm. If you want to know anything about me, next level universe calm is the place to go. We have a podcast called next level university and then, if you want to reach out, just say email Alan at next level universe calm. Al an at next level universe, calm, and it's spelt just like it sounds. Just make sure that when you email me, you say hey, I saw you or heard you on this show. That way, I know it's not spam and I know that it's because I get a lot of emails. I'm sure everyone does and you know some people randomly trying to say hey, you know, can we do your video clips or can we do your audios or whatever. So just just make sure you provide context when you email me, and I'm going to email you back. I can guarantee that.
0:23:22 - Alex Shevelenko
Amazing Alan, thank you so much for joining us.
0:23:24 - Alan Lazaros
You are so very welcome. Thank you for having me. I appreciate the conversation so much.