How to Live Next Level | Alan Lazaros

Alan Lazaros is the Founder and CEO of Next Level University, and a well known entrepreneur and thought leader. Alan hosts one of the Top 100 podcasts in the world with over 900K plays, 1,600 plus episodes, reaching over 170 countries.

Next Level University Website:
https://www.nextleveluniverse.com

Today we learn how to achieve what you want out of business, love, family, friendships, money, and every day life. Alan is also a computer engineer with an MBA, and a business coach helping other entrepreneurs to succeed along their journey from rags to riches.

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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.lazaros
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alazaros88/
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanlazarosllc/

We'll talk about Alan's experience and humble beginnings, coming from a modest upbringing and pulling himself up by his bootstraps to success.

We'll also discuss Alan's story of being a top 1% global earner, going on to found his own company, Next Level University, where Alan helps entrepreneurs reach the next level in their business journey via coaching and business development.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Ladies and gentlemen, today on our show we have Alan Lazaros, who is the founder and CEO of the Nets level university. He's also been one of the top 100 podcasts, with over 900,000 plays, 1600 plus episodes reaching over 170 countries. Alan is also a computer engineer with an MBA and a business coach, helping other entrepreneurs to succeed along their journey to success. Alan, thanks again for coming onto the show and tell us a little bit about yourself, man, anything that I missed.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Wow, Wow, what an awesome introduction. Okay, so when I tell my story, I think it's important to understand that I didn't understand any of this at the time, you know, because a lot of people they tell their stories and it makes it sound like this narrative of you know, you totally had it figured out along the way. No, I only had it figured out in hindsight. So I'm 35 years old now and I had a really rough start at the beginning of my life and again, I didn't really understand at the time. But now I've since sort of rewatched the movie of my own life every year, really in my 30s. I've just kind of gone back and done a lot of therapy work and that kind of thing, and so it's not just the message, it's the messenger. So I'm grateful that you started with story. So my story is I was born and when I was two years old my father passed away in a car accident.

Speaker 1: 1:14

I'm sorry.

Speaker 2: 1:16

And thank you, brother, it was not a great start. It was not a great start. And so he was 28 at the time and I had a stepfather from age three to 14 and I had an older sister and my mother. So my mom was a stay at home mom and I was kind of raised by two women, my mom and my older sister and my stepfather and I didn't get along, and when I was 14 years old he left. He left my family and he actually got the yacht in the apartment building. We got the house and the dog and we went from pretty upper middle class doing fairly well late nineties, early 2000s to I don't know how I'm going to go to college. I don't know how I'm going to afford college. I went from you know, getting Dreamcast and Xbox and ski trips and snowmobiles and that kind of thing, basically to I get free lunch at school now because we're so broke. Wow.

Speaker 1: 2:16

That's crazy.

Speaker 2: 2:17

That's a crazy story right there.

Speaker 1: 2:19

Wow.

Speaker 2: 2:20

When he, when he, when he left, he took a lot of the income with him. You know, our income was very low. My mom was actually a lunch lady for a school called Blackstone Valley Tech and so after that I bootstrapped my way through high school. I got as high grades as I possibly could and got into my dream college. And my mom told me you know, you're really good at math. You know, wpi is a really good school, worcester Polytechnic Institute. It's an engineering school and my uncle, merle, was the track and field coach at the time there and she said you should go to WPI, you should be an engineer. Engineers make a lot of money and so I was off to the races. Okay, there's my, there's my dream. I got into my dream school. I got straight A's in high school and I got enough, fortunately, scholarships and financial aid to actually be able to go, got my computer engineering degree, stayed for my masters in business and then I went off to the races in corporate.

Speaker 2: 3:19

In corporate I did a lot of job hopping. I lived in LA for a time. I worked for a bunch of different companies. I robot since that, technologies Oz development eventually landed at a company called Cognix. Cognix sells industrial automation equipment into manufacturing facilities. I was inside sales engineer, then I got promoted to outside sales engineer and then in 2015, 2016, I was up in New Hampshire with my little cousin and we weren't doing anything crazy.

Speaker 2: 3:51

We weren't partying, we were playing call of duty and we went to TGI Fridays and I plugged in TGI Fridays in the GPS and it was a really bad winter where the snow banks were covering the signs up in New Hampshire and I ended up on the wrong side of the road. I was supposed to yield and I didn't, and I'm 26 years old at the time and I saw what I thought was a Mack truck in front of us. When I looked up from the GPS, I was on the wrong side of the road and yeah, and so fortunately it was not a Mack truck, but I had that moment of this is it? There's no way we survived this. This is the end. And fortunately it wasn't a Mack truck, it was a lift kitted pickup truck.

Speaker 2: 4:37

I was driving a 2004 Volkswagen Passant and I used to call this the tank. It's a German engineer steel trap of a car German engineered steel trap of a car and I'm convinced to this day that that that car saved my life. It did. It did For me. I'm 26 at the time and I am just so unbelievably taken back by this experience. Fortunately I'm okay physically and my cousin's okay physically. He hurt his knee on the airbag, I hurt my face in the airbag. But mentally, emotionally and spiritually I was so rattled beyond belief because my father died in a car accident when he was 28 years old and I'm 26 at the time, just questioning my entire existence.

Speaker 1: 5:19

It's crazy how that works in my life.

Speaker 2: 5:20

Yeah, go through you go through a crazy experience and it just changes everything.

Speaker 1: 5:24

dude Yup.

Speaker 2: 5:26

It was my existential crisis, quarter-life crisis type of situation and the best way I can describe it now and again. None of this I really understood back then, but now I've reflected on it and I now understand that before 26, I was achievement-oriented and I was successful from the outside in. You know, I had I made almost $200,000 a year. I was a 1% global earner, not net worth earner, and I had a beautiful girlfriend. I had tons of friends college friends, corporate friends, high school friends and I partied and that kind of thing. I was successful from the outside in, for sure, but I was not fulfilled from the inside out. And after the car accident, that's when I really flipped the script.

Speaker 1: 6:13

Hey guys, just a quick interruption. Be sure to like, share, comment, subscribe. Be sure to leave a review. Also, be sure to buy my books and invest in our business, b2b Growth Today LLC, where we will grow your business to the next level using our tier marketing services. Be sure to reach out to us. Let's get you guys to the next level. Let's get you guys more book appointments. Let's get you guys some good PR. Let's get you guys the American dream that you guys are looking for. Nobody likes to do social media management on a monthly basis, so why not let somebody else take that over? My agency will do that for you.

Speaker 2: 6:42

And so I often joke I'm 36 in November and I still look 15. I'm hoping 36 is when I hit puberty. You know what I'm saying. But the point is is that now I'm here, nine years later, and I now can honestly say I'm finally successful from the inside out, and that's really kind of my message is thank you, brother.

Speaker 1: 7:02

So are you making 200 grand a year? What was that? From just engineering? Or was that from owning your own company? How are you doing that exactly?

Speaker 2: 7:11

So outside sales engineering, I was selling industrial automation equipment at that time for a company called Cognix and they also had a referral program. That's really how I made a lot of money that year. Oh, gosh. And I was bringing friends from college and I would get a bonus Like the bonus was 369. It was actually a really cool referral program. So, that added to it as well, but it was mostly commissions and selling industrial automation equipment.

Speaker 1: 7:36

Yeah, and what made you kind of wanna start your own company and go on your own and start Nets level? What was the start of that?

Speaker 2: 7:43

So, really, what it came down to and this is actually something I don't talk about often enough, in my opinion, but I'm grateful for the question I looked at the world and I now understand that my brain is very math oriented and I see trends, and so I noticed these two trends happening simultaneously. That scared the hell out of me. So one trend is and I used to be kind of bashful and scared to say this, but I'm gonna statistically say it so, statistically speaking, the less educated population tends to have more children and tends to have them younger. So my beautiful girlfriend Emilia and I, for example, we're only intending on having two children and we're waiting. I mean, I'm 35, I still don't have kids, right? So, statistically speaking, the more educated population tends to wait to have kids and also tends to have less children.

Speaker 1: 8:38

Yeah, I've read that too.

Speaker 2: 8:40

Okay, and so I saw this trend happening where automation. I sold industrial automation equipment, so I would walk into these manufacturing facilities and I would see the pictures on the wall of the 70s and 80s and 90s and particularly the 70s and 60s too and I would see all these workers and I talked to the floor manager. Now it's all robots. The whole manufacturing is all robotics now.

Speaker 1: 9:04

I was telling my girl from the same thing. It says that's the future we're going into. Everything's gonna be automations, workflows, that's gonna be the future. Ai is just taking over, like my marketing agency. That's like all we're doing. That's all we're trying to do, is integrate any kind of AI, any kind of AI that can streamline processes, customer support, I mean, because that's like the future of business 100%, and that's the trend that I saw coming back then, which is this.

Speaker 2: 9:30

Imagine two graphs. One graph is exponential increase in the less educated population, because imagine someone has five kids by the time they're 25, and then those five kids have five kids, and those five kids have five kids, and those five kids have five kids. And then there's the people that fix the automation or create the machines, the machine vision, the industrial automation equipment, the AI. That population's getting smaller and smaller and smaller, while the other population gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And so what I don't wanna do the upper class, lower class, any of that nonsense. What I do wanna say is that, statistically speaking, the more educated population tends to have less children and do them later.

Speaker 2: 10:08

So but now imagine the. I went into a manufacturing facility one time and it's a really famous ice cream. So if you think of a famous ice cream company, it was that one, I'm just not allowed to say it and I was selling industrial automation equipment in there, and I literally made this huge commission check and I had this moment of those five people that I just witnessed checking the cartons all lost their job, and I had this moment of oh no, here I am young, hot shot, look, 15, making seven or eight grand on that deal and those people all don't have jobs now.

Speaker 1: 10:51

That's wild man.

Speaker 2: 10:53

And I sat there and I had this moment of like okay, listen, automation is coming, whether we like it or not. Ai is coming, whether we like it or not. Technology is coming whether we like it or not, and I'm a computer engineer and I'm fortunate to be very valued in the marketplace. So there's a shortage of computer engineers and every company needs engineers. So I'm very grateful.

Speaker 2: 11:09

But for the people who aren't, the people who are not educated, the people who need help, they are in trouble because we are exponentially increasing automation and those jobs are going away, while the population is also exponentially increasing in terms of the people who need those jobs. So I decided to start absolutely next level university, and it was built on this one concept that I'll share with you now, which is what you never learn in school but desperately need to know. So now, instead of taking jobs and making money doing it, I now provide opportunities for people who need to learn how to create their own jobs, and that's why I am now a business coach. I help business owners, you know, grow and scale their businesses.

Speaker 1: 11:50

I love that man. That's and that's a lot of the story that you'll typically get with entrepreneurs. You know, and that's kind of my story too, as a lot like I'm still in law enforcement but it's kind of just more a choice to be. But you know, I basically I was running companies in college and I was like I told Nick Hodgson and some of my other guests that I was driving kids around drunk kids around campus and basically being their designated driver for them. But you know, I had that entrepreneurial spirit and eventually it's crazy how, when you reach a certain point of success and when you reach a certain point of, so to speak, wealth, you start developing that mindset like wow, you know, you could actually do some powerful things with money, and not only that, but like you can influence people to, you know, innovate and not just get stuck in that nine to five machine and a lot of police officers.

Speaker 1: 12:36

I know they get caught in that and it's just. I really think it's more of a learning thing, you know, and they're just more maybe it's adaptability. But I think it's an interesting thing what you said there and how you know a lot of it's just all about evolution and AI and how we're moving into that and it's almost uncontrollable. So you have this need to kind of secure people's jobs in some way by giving them that information and that education so they can move forward and succeed in life, you know, and kind of own their own businesses and start their own businesses. It's kind of like we've done.

Speaker 2: 13:07

Exactly, and, and maybe they do them in tandem with their nine to five. I think that's all fine too, but I think, if it is, it's the mindset of you, you can reinvent yourself, and if you don't, you might be in trouble. And that's what I saw coming, you know, long, long, long time ago, and I finally did something about it because I had that whisper back in 2012,. You know, back in 2012, I started a company called campus Libre and I knew that, you know, the future was social media. I remember I said the four next biggest industries this is way back. I said the four next biggest industries are social media, esports, consumer robotics and smartware, and I was right about three out of four of those. I should have mentioned AI, but I didn't.

Speaker 2: 13:50

And I remember I had a bet with one of my buddies. I said eSports will be larger, a larger industry than the NFL by 2018. And he's like no chance. And I said I'm telling you that will happen. And so he bet me 60 bucks. He's a very ego driven man and I never ended up collecting, but the point is is that I just I realize now in hindsight that not everyone can see numbers and not everyone can see trends and, at the end of the day, I just hope that people reinvent themselves, because if you don't, I mean even the trucking industry, when they're self driving trucks, which is coming no matter what that's how long?

Speaker 1: 14:27

yeah, they're already creating them.

Speaker 2: 14:28

Yeah, exactly, and if you're a truck driver, you know you will lose your job and that sucks, but it is what happens. It is how, how we progress as a, as a species. So you know, if you can plan for that and retool now, I think the future can be very bright for you and I want everyone to hopefully have a bigger, better, brighter future.

Speaker 1: 14:47

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. Gary Vaynerchuk was talking about that, how the tractor, for example, was one of those basic, little you know pieces of evolution and technology that saved us all this time but took you know man labor out of the equation. What's funny is that we're having this conversation and just yesterday my girlfriend and I were talking about AI and I'm just like you know, one day everything's going to be automated, everything is going to just be streamlined and that's going to be the future of business. It's just everybody's going to have a podcast, because human connection is going to be one of the last things that we really have before AI starts basically taking all of our jobs and whatnot. So somebody who is still in the nine to five and maybe they haven't, you know they're, maybe they're kind of on the fence what advice would you give them to kind of develop that mindset to move forward and to expand their horizons and their visions?

Speaker 2: 15:36

So you can do what I did, which was I used to be on the road and I used to, like I said, sell industrial automation equipment, and I would. I would travel all over western New England. So my territory was Connecticut, vermont and western mass, and while I was in the car I was just feeding personal development into my mind constantly. So I was doing my nine to five. It technically wasn't nine to five because I managed my own territory, but it might as well be called a nine to five corporate job. And for the longest time after my car accident I still worked there and I was just downloading all the books I could possibly get my hands on. And now, you know, at this point I've probably read I don't know 700 plus or so, but at the end of the day feels that way it's, it's, and now you can kind of tell which ones are good and which ones aren't.

Speaker 2: 16:27

At the beginning it was just like, oh my God, these are all so amazing. And now it's, you know, I've got my top 10 and certain ones I would never recommend and certain ones that I would, and some of them are old and, you know, sexist and racist and all that kind of stuff. So I didn't realize it at the time like thinking, grow rich. I did that in my book club and I was like what a mistake this was. You know, this was written in the early 1900s and I've got a lot of amazing women in my in my book club and I was just like what a mistake that was.

Speaker 2: 16:52

But the point is is that that's what I would recommend to anyone who's in a nine to five right now, which is, you have ready and lefty, on the left hand, you got a row the now. You got to pay the bills, you got to keep the lights on, you got to pay the mortgage, you got to take care of your kids, you got to take care of your team, you got to whatever it is. And then on the right arm, you need to be thinking about 10 years out. And and the 10 years out for me at one point was just listening to business books in the car while working at Cognix, and so on the left hand, that's the grind.

Speaker 1: 17:27

You've got to do it, you know and I use the shift what was your first business book that you ended up reading? Well, what were you giving me like your top three? I'm always curious to see what people say, because I feel like it'll usually be the same answers pretty often, so I'm very curious.

Speaker 2: 17:40

So I'm the first ones is a different answer than my favorite ones. Which which which you prefer?

Speaker 1: 17:48

But your favorite business book and basically, what was that? We'll just go with your first book. What was that book that just changed everything Like? For me it was a poor day and that typically tends to be a good one for everybody, but you know I'm always curious about everybody else's answer.

Speaker 2: 18:02

The compound effect. It's behind me.

Speaker 1: 18:05

Actually, that's good. I haven't even read that, so the compound.

Speaker 2: 18:10

You will adore it. Yeah, you'll adore it. So I believe it's the most valuable book ever written, not necessarily because Darren is so awesome or because it's so well written. It's just the most powerful concept the idea of small, seemingly insignificant choices compounding over time and staying on track and consistency being the most important thing for success. Even the 1600 episodes that we have at NLU. We were so unsuccessful in the beginning. You know, if you're 1600 episodes in and you're not successful, you really should change. You should change your approach, and so the compound effect is just this idea of playing the long game, and so that's my favorite book.

Speaker 2: 18:54

But in terms of the business books, if anyone wants a business book, recommendation without question Jim Collins series. I have them all over here on my right built to last good to great, great by choice. Entrepreneurship 2.0, and then how the mighty fall, and then there's one called the flywheel. It's like a mini book, but if you look up Jim Collins, this is a lot of Jim, okay, you do, awesome, great, yeah. So those books are, in my opinion, just the real deal.

Speaker 2: 19:23

There's some books are just between you and me, full of it. They're fluffy, they're not, they're not accurate. You know the four hour work week, for example. No, okay, no one gets rich on four hours a week. That's the biggest crap ever of all time. There's a joke the only person who got rich off the four hour work week is Tim Ferriss. But the point and, by the way, tim Ferriss, nothing against him.

Speaker 2: 19:45

I like some of his work, I do, but the dude never worked four hours a week in his life. That dude's grinds Okay. He's been working 80 hour weeks his entire existence. You know, don't let him, don't let him fool you. But it's a marketing title, I get it. Here's my point. A lot of the books are full of it. I just want to give everyone this right now If you're going to start a company and actually grow and scale a real company with real people, and you want to build a great company, a great team and a great community, that's real and it's not fake. It's actually true. It takes a ton of work and it's going to take decades of work, and I just think that there's too many quick tick, quick fixes out there that are just not real, when most people that I coach, you know, just are so sick and tired of being sold this idea that you can have big, successful businesses with very little effort.

Speaker 2: 20:33

It's just not real and most of the people that you think are super successful are either inheriting their money or maybe there's someone behind the scenes, like a wife or a husband that's actually fronting it. Maybe you know that kind of thing and so, or maybe they grinded for a decade prior to quitting. You know, I had one client who was an orthodontist and then she went in on a podcast and she's a multimillionaire, very successful, but the podcast is not what produced that. You know she grinded for two decades and then started a podcast right. So it's just important to look at the whole journey, not just the sort of top of the iceberg 100%, man, I totally, I totally agree with that.

Speaker 1: 21:08

That's kind of been my experience too. It is definitely a long game, I think. And man, social media will just definitely, if you let that get to you, if you consume too much, that will stop you. And again, the reason I say that is cause I do some consulting too with people and a lot of business owners who, like, just start. They're like, why am I not successful right away? I'm like, oh, it's going to be a long road, takes work and it takes time, it takes hustle, it takes losses, like just three weeks ago, my ad spend.

Speaker 1: 21:38

I didn't, I didn't realize, I didn't set the Facebook threshold, so I had like just thousands of dollars coming out on one day. You know an ad spend, but you have to be able to take those risks a little bit, you know, and you got to be able to learn from those mistakes so they don't happen again and you can, you know, become a master of that one thing. So, anyways, I just wanted to yeah, I definitely agree there. What do you think are, what do you think, a lot of entrepreneurs that are going today? What do you think is the biggest thing stopping them beside? You know, mindset or anything like that. What is tactfully the one thing that they're missing?

Speaker 2: 22:12

Yeah, leadership, emotional intelligence and leadership, particularly when you're leading a virtual team. I so I have 20 person team and we have a company with 23 departments. One of them is the charity. I think it's actually 22 now. I think we just sliced one of them. But the point is is that my you know, and we started out just Kevin and I, my co-host and I at next level university but essentially, what my biggest bottleneck is is leadership. How do you keep a team of people connected and engaged that you never actually meet in person, and maybe not never. I mean, we have events in person once a year. Twice a year, actually, we have a retreat in a next level. I've event, but I've only met some of my team members once in person. You know, we run an entirely virtual company. I don't have an office building and I'm never gonna.

Speaker 1: 23:00

Same.

Speaker 2: 23:00

I don't, yeah, I don't want, like no, what a waste of money, right, but but what I will say W twos the yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:08

Oh yeah, but what I will say is that keeping a team engaged and harmonized in the direction of goals and dreams collectively, individually and collectively, is like the hardest thing in the entire world. And so leadership and emotional intelligence within leadership, I think, is the biggest bottleneck. Because I was on the phone yesterday with the leader of the Philippines team last night and ended up going over. But we were talking deep emotional stuff about our childhood and we were connecting about our siblings and how that stuff goes. And I remember you, me and I were talking last night and she's like well, you know, it wasn't that a business meeting and I said that is that. That's how you connect on a deeper level with your team, like we are if we're gonna, if we're gonna climb on Everest together.

Speaker 2: 23:56

We better get to know each other and we better connect on a heart level, not just on metrics and I think that's the hardest thing and it takes a ton of upfront investment and it's definitely the most meaningful work, but I think it's what's missing, that human connection piece that you mentioned. In an AI, you know, automate, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah all that, the emotion. You can't take the heart. You don't rip the heart out of business. You can't rip the heart out of your business.

Speaker 1: 24:25

You need to you need to, you have to be an artist, you have to be an artist, you know, and you really are creating this thing. That wasn't there before and you know, for me that was just so life changing when I, when you, kind of realize all of this. It really is a spiritual experience and I think I guess that's the interesting that I'm kind of seeing. It seems like the future is definitely going to be as much as we're going into automations and technology. It does seem like we're almost getting the times of Pour baseball and… you know, more spiritual and we're getting more conscientious, and so that's a super cool thing to see and you can just kind of tell that we're starting to work more with our brains versus just with our hands, and that's a pretty, pretty amazing piece of evolution right there and you can definitely see that happening. I definitely, yeah, 100% man.

Speaker 2: 25:08

Hands do the work. You know heart, emotional connection, emotional engagement and then brain strategy and then spiritual, which is why, why are you doing what you're doing? So it's physical, mental, emotional and spiritual and you need all four. And if you don't have all four, I don't think the 21st century, I don't think you're going to win as much as you could, and again, that's my opinion anyways. But I've tried. It's hard to be holistic. You know it's not easy to be stern and assertive and respected, but also vulnerable and emotionally connected.

Speaker 2: 25:41

You know it's. That's a challenge. So I think a lot of people are really good at the outer work or really good at the inner work. Very few people are ambidextrous, and I used to be really good at the outer work and now I feel like I've worked a lot on the on the inner work side.

Speaker 1: 25:54

So yeah, and I did notice on your Instagram you look happy dude.

Speaker 1: 26:00

You look happy and you look like you have a really good relationship, and I think that's a super important thing for people to hear is you know, what's your advice? I, because I was listening to Alex Hormozzi. I really like his content, so I I consume some of his stuff, but he was. He was talking about how him and Layla are very much a team aspect and there's kind of two ways you can look at it. There's like the cheerleader type of relationship where you have one person who's kind of you know rooting for you and you're kind of leading the way, and then you have the other scenario where you guys are both working like 50, 50 towards that goal and I always I really found that to be interesting. I was kind of wondering your take on that, because you look like you just kind of got it figured out and I think people could really use some of your advice for sure, especially me being a cop. Some of the calls I go to oh my God, people need to hear it.

Speaker 2: 26:47

I appreciate you, brother, I really do Thank you for that, and I I did not always look happy, so I'm very, I'm very fulfilled now again from the inside out, which is what I keep preaching but my relationship with Emilia. So her and I have a podcast called the conscious couples podcast and we help people with their intimate relationships that was mostly her genius zone. You know, when we first got together it was Yin and Yang and it was kind of like okay, I understand business, how it works, why it works that way. I call it STEMBIF science, technology, engineering, mathematics, business and finance. That stuff for me was always natural. It just always came easy For me. What didn't come easy was emotional intelligence and emotional maturity and spirituality and staying connected and energy and those kinds of things. Healing from my trauma therapy. I always say if you think you, if you want to coach, you probably need a therapist, if you want a therapist, you probably need a coach. That's that's sort of my play. I wanted a coach. You know what I'm saying that's good.

Speaker 2: 27:47

So, anyways, emilia and I if it appears like we have it figured out, I would say it's mostly because I heard to be honest with you. But but the second piece of this is the 50, 50 or the sort of cheerleader and and entrepreneur. Her and I happen to be co-entrepreneurs. Prior to meeting Emilia, I really had this honest moment with myself. I had been very successful in the economy, but not very successful in my personal life, and what I meant by that is my intimate relationships did not seem to come easy to me. They just never did, and I now understand why that is.

Speaker 2: 28:24

The way that I look at relationships is you need three things to really work. The first one is core aspirations in common, meaning you have to have similar goals, and you don't have to have all three of these, but you need to have a couple of these, okay, so when I say you have to have similar goals, that's one third of the equation. So prior to meeting Emilia, I had said to my business partner, kev, I said whoever I'm going to end up with has to have bigger goals and dreams than me. Prior to meeting me, and he's like who has bigger goals and dreams than you? And I was like it's gotta, I don't know, but it's gotta, it's gotta be out there. And so, luckily, I had faith and believed that. And I don't mean faith in the religious sense, I mean I believed in something in advance.

Speaker 1: 29:08

And are you religious? Are you religious?

Speaker 2: 29:11

No, no no, I would say spiritual, not not religious, I'm not.

Speaker 2: 29:18

But I would definitely say spiritual for sure, absolutely. So prior to meeting her, I wanted someone who was on a similar mission, similar purpose, similar calling, if you want to call it that. That's core aspirations. Okay, so if you, the analogy that I use is if you and I are going to drive across the country together. Let's say we're driving from Boston to LA, you and me All right.

Speaker 2: 29:44

If I'm going to LA and you're going to Vegas, we have to get out of the car at Vegas. We have to take different cars once we get to Vegas. Okay, that's an analogy for core aspirations in conflict. Okay, well, now let's imagine we're both going to LA, but you love hard heavy metal, rock and I'm like into country and you hate country and I hate rock. That's a core value in conflict in this metaphor. Third thing there's three routes. I drove across the country in my early twenties from Boston, la and there's the southern route, there's the middle route and there's no northern route. And let's say you want to go through the Rockies and see the Rockies and I don't like the cold weather and I want to go the southern route. Now we have to take separate cars. That's the analogy for relationships that I use.

Speaker 1: 30:32

I like that.

Speaker 2: 30:33

A lot of us. A lot of us are in relationships with people that are very incompatible, and myself included. So I was guilty of this for 30 goddamn years. Pardon my French, but the point is is that I I now am finally in a place where Emilia and I have very similar core aspirations, we have very similar core values and we have very similar core beliefs, but we have different skill sets. Complimentary skill sets. That's a match made in heaven.

Speaker 2: 31:00

Now, does that mean you have to have the exact same goals, the exact? No right. She loves adventure and nature, I love fitness and the gym, and, and I can sit in this dark office all day, every day, and she needs to go outside, like I. We are not a hundred percent yeah, we are not a hundred percent like the exact same core aspirations, core values and core beliefs, but it's enough to where we can yin and yang and make it work, and I think that that's the advice that I would give to anyone is, intuitively, you probably know, am I doing a lot of things that feel unnatural? Am I, do I feel like I can't be myself? And if the answer is yes, you got to identify and rectify that. Otherwise you'll end up really settling for less than what? What is possible?

Speaker 1: 31:45

Yep, yeah, I definitely prefer, I think it's the best relationships are those where you guys are both pushing each other and you guys are both challenging each other, taking each other to that next level, and you can, like you said, that yin and that yang. That's like the perfect balance, cause if you're too alike, then it doesn't work. If you're too different, then it definitely doesn't work. Like, oh my Lord, there's some things like what? Like politics probably would be a big one. I guess religion would be a big one, right? But oh man, again, you just see that every day, people just choose the wrong mates. You know, and you got to. I think that's an important thing, though you got to be selective. Those are going to be. You know, it's one of the most important decisions you can make an entire lifetime, as the person you're going to spend the rest of your life with and who you're going to, you know, have your offspring with.

Speaker 2: 32:30

So yeah, most important, I would say Most important decision you can possibly make.

Speaker 1: 32:35

Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 2: 32:36

Yeah, and if you get that right, I mean, other things are still going to be really, really, really challenging, because life is inherently really really really challenging, especially if you have huge goals. But if you get that one right, when I got that one right, everything else was so much better. Oh man, it was so much better. Yeah, yeah, the first I told her. I told her, I said it took me 30 years to figure this out. You know so people always say like you guys are so happy and I appreciate it. We are very, very in love head over heels. But but I mean, I was messing this up for 30 years. I was not successful in relationships, for I mean, granted, I didn't have like terrible relationships or anything, but I wasn't this in love in my 20s.

Speaker 1: 33:21

Yeah, man, honestly. Well, it's been real and unfortunately I got to cut the interview a little bit short, because I do have some clients I got to work with. You know how it goes, however, I do. However, dude, I totally want to have you back for another interview, 100%. Like I said, I tell all my other guests too, I'm going to be building a studio out here in the next few years long term, so I'm super excited, definitely heavy out, I'll fly out whatever. So that'll be cool, man, really excited. Is there anything that you'd like to promote? Any books that you're writing? Any programs you're running right now that you want to tell people about?

Speaker 2: 33:57

I appreciate you. What would I say? I mean, we got a lot going on at next level university. There's nothing in particular, necessarily We've got a live event coming up. The best place to go would be the website next level universecom spelt just like it sounds. The person who has next level university is asking for way too much money, so we just decided next level universe, so it's not next level university.

Speaker 1: 34:21

You don't want to do the Alex from Ozy and pay $300,000.

Speaker 2: 34:24

No, no, I don't Next level universecom spelt just like it sounds. You can also email me alanallan at next level universecom and the podcast is next level university. We do an episode every day and it's all about holistic self improvement, health, wealth, life and love and he's got a podcast. Kev, my business partner, has a podcast about podcasting. I've got a podcast called the next level audio blog, which is the how to formulas to grow and scale your life and your business. So, yeah, if you Google my name, everything will come up and I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 34:59

Yeah, thank you, awesome, awesome.

Speaker 2: 35:02

And then, um, yeah, instagram handle at a Lazarus 88, alaz aros 88 at no, not it, I was going to say emailcom you know, yeah, yeah. And, by the way, if you do email me, if anyone does email me, please provide context, because, like all of us, I do get a lot of spam email.

Speaker 1: 35:21

So, awesome man. Thank you so much. Like I said, can't wait to have you back on the show Definitely going to happen soon. We're working at it, and, girl, have a great rest of your day, you as well, thank you, brother, I appreciate it. Yep, you too. Thank you everybody.