E31 with Alan Lazaros. The Power of Vulnerability and Strength in Leadership

At age 26, Alan Lazaros faced a near-fatal car accident that forever changed his perspective on life. From losing his father to a car accident at just two years old to navigating the corporate world feeling unfulfilled, Alan's journey is one of resilience and profound transformation. Join us as we unpack the emotional and humorous stories that led him to launch the Next Level University podcast, focusing on achieving true fulfilment across all facets of life.

What's the real secret behind balancing a successful career and a fulfilling personal life? Inspired by Tony Robbins' landmark TED Talk, "Why We Do What We Do," Alan shares his insights on personal development and relationships. We also dig into the unique interplay between Alan and his co-host Kevin, highlighting how their partnership skillfully merges statistical analysis with human-centred approaches. Discover how using tools like Google and AI can enhance problem-solving while maintaining genuine human connection.

Leadership isn’t one-size-fits-all, and Alan, Kevin, and Christina exemplify this with their diverse styles. Explore how emotional intelligence, humility, and resilience shape their leadership approaches within their 23-person team. From the importance of persistence and engaging with the right audience to the delicate balance of humility and strategic silence, this episode offers a rich tapestry of practical advice and heartfelt reflections. Tune in to understand why embracing your vulnerabilities and strengths can lead to a deeper, more authentic sense of fulfilment and success.

Transcript

Nico: 0:00

Let me invite you to sit back, drop your jaw, tongue and shoulders, take a deep breath and, if you wish, close your eyes for a moment and feel the beat within. In a few seconds, you just jumped from your head to your heart and felt the beat within, opening up to receive even more value and fulfillment out of your business and life. And today's episode. I'm your host, nico van de Venne, confidant to successful CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs striving to achieve everlasting fulfillment. Welcome to the Everlasting Fulfillment Podcast with our next guest, alan Lazarus.

Nico: 0:41

At age two, his father passed away in a car accident. At age 26, after getting into a nearly fatal car accident himself, alan questioned everything he was doing in his life. He questioned who he was and the choices he was making. He was at an all-time low and decided to change his trajectory forever. Although he had a successful career in corporate America, he made the hard decision to start his own business, dedicated to helping others get to the next level in their life love, health and wealth. He's also the CEO of the Next Level University podcast, with his co-host, kevin Palmieri, who I interviewed a while back. A global top 100 podcast with 1,700 episodes, and I'm going to say, wow, right there, listen to in 170 plus countries. Man Alan, welcome to the show and thank you very much. To get some little time out of your schedule, man, you must be so freaking busy. Wow, thank you very much.

Alan: 1:57

Two things. One, thank you. I do not take it lightly speaking into the lives of other people. I do not take it lightly speaking into the lives of other people. I really appreciate the opening regarding the setting into your heart.

Alan: 2:10

I think that, to your point, I am very busy, but I also am grateful for that because I remember at the beginning, when it was crickets, and I always try to remind myself because supply and demand right, there was a lot of supply back in the day and no demand, and so now there's lot of demand. So thank you for having me. I don't take it lightly. Nine years ago, I started listening to podcasts and they really helped me reorient toward a more positive trajectory in my life, and now I'm.

Alan: 2:37

I used to think these people are so articulate and they had it all figured out. Now I realize and met many of them and they don't have it all figured out, and now I sound like one of those guys. So, uh, I will make it very, very clear that I don't have it all figured out, but I definitely have more figured out than I did back then and I think that that's a really cool duality. So thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. You and I have already had a blast behind the scenes and I also need to say this every time I read your name, I think of delicious broasted chicken, because my favorite chicken restaurant is called nico's.

Nico: 3:11

So I have to share that with your listeners like I said, because that's how we first met right there.

Alan: 3:21

That's how we, that's how I knew this was gonna to be great.

Nico: 3:29

Yeah, my kids always, you know, cringe when I do that. Because we have, we have this little green place in the back and there's like four or five chickens there and one of them is used to be our chicken. So she kind of migrated into the garden of one of our neighbors because, you know, we were doing some remodeling and stuff like that. And now every time we talk about the chickens, of course, what does that do? Because, and everything goes on.

Alan: 3:49

Nice, nice. That wasn't your first time, I thought that was just for me.

Nico: 3:54

No, it wasn't Sorry. You were not de-virginized from the because.

Alan: 4:01

No worries, no worries. I'm grateful that you're willing to be playful.

Nico: 4:15

Because that tells me this interview will be very authentic. Talking about inspiration, you know you're talking about nine years. Nine years, so let's, let's go back nine years if you would and and could you find the place that you were or the situation you were in that might've triggered you to to change course, except for, of course, the accident is one of the one of the things I want to talk to you about, if you're open to it. But is there anything else that triggered at the same time?

Alan: 4:54

the, the. So, to provide context, you're talking about a car accident that I got in when I was 26, which is nine years ago.

Alan: 5:00

I often joke and say I'm hoping to hit puberty at 36. So I'm 35 now. I look 12, and that very much helps me in my business coaching career. No, it definitely doesn't.

Alan: 5:13

But nine years ago I got in a car accident that physically I was okay, it was my fault, and my father passed away in a car accident when I was two years old, when he was 28 years old, and so I was 26 at the time, and that was my metaphorical quarter life crisis Phoenix, burndown, rise from the ashes moment. And the quickest way I can describe it is I was very professionally developed and achievement-oriented resume, cover letter, computer engineering degree, master's in business administration, successful in corporate one percent global earner in my early 20s. Tons of money in an investment account vanguard that kind of thing paid off all my student loans tour. I was successful and deeply unfulfilled, didn't realize it, and then, after the car accident, I really woke up to that, to your point. And then I went all the way past, broke and I became very fulfilled inside me but broke and unsuccessful. So I playfully joke I've been very successful and unfulfilled, which sucks. And then i've've been very successful and unfulfilled, which sucks.

Alan: 6:25

And then I've also been really fulfilled and unsuccessful, which kind of also sucks, to be completely honest. And so now, nine years later, I'm very grateful to be what I would refer to as both fulfilled and successful. And now I want my life to be a more amplified version of what it already is. And if you can really say that, if you can say I want my current, current life, the way it's designed now, to I want my future to be an amplified version of what already is, I, I would say you are on the path. That's great. But to answer your question, there's a couple things that come to mind. There's actually a bunch.

Alan: 6:58

I mean tony robbins ted talk for me was the first. It's called why we Do what we Do. And, regardless of what you think of Tony, because a lot of people love him, a lot of people don't. I don't care. The point is, the TED Talk itself is magnificent and it's the most valuable TED Talk in existence, in my opinion, and it really woke me up to my calling. And my calling is why am I doing what I'm doing? Why are other people doing what they're doing? What is my motive for action? What is my explore? The inside as well as the outside Because I was the. I playfully joked with you off air. I said I was the STEMBIF guy, so I call it STEMBIF science, technology, engineering, mathematics, business and finance.

Alan: 7:48

So I think all of us fall on one end of a pendulum in pretty much everything. You can also think of it statistically as a bell curve. So for everyone watching or listening, I need to give a disclaimer. I think in numbers and statistics and mathematics and probabilities and logic and rationality. I'm hyper rational. When I was a little kid I used to think everyone was irrational and lazy. I now realize I'm hyper rational and hardworking, even though that's hard to give myself. So for everyone listening, please don't shut off just because I think in a different modality than you do. I do think that numbers, rationality, statistics, probabilities are the rarest modality of thinking. I think there's four, but for me everything's a bell curve, everything's exponential curves and mathematics. So my point of all that is I think we're all on one end of a spectrum. We're all on one end of a bell curve in everything. So if you picture all the basketball players in the world, you know there's one LeBron James and there's one person who can't even get on the court because they have some ailment, that kind of idea. And so the idea here is all of us fall on one end of this pendulum.

Alan: 9:01

In my opinion, you are either good at success or good at relationships. It's very hard to be good at both. You are either professionally developed or personally developed. It's very hard to be good at both. You are either IQ or EQ. It's very hard to be good at both. We all are righty or lefty, and it's very hard to be ambidextrous.

Alan: 9:24

And I've come to find over coaching so many people. I have 26 people on my roster. My youngest is 16. My oldest is 63. My youngest is brand new to business. The 63 year old has been in business for decades and I've got everything in between male, female, all different countries, all different backgrounds, all different ethnicities, all different cultures, all different spiritual beliefs, the the whole bag.

Alan: 9:45

And I've had hundreds of clients over the last seven years, probably a hundred plus, not hundreds, a hundred plus.

Alan: 9:51

And you just realize oh okay, so the advice for one client is actually wildly detrimental to the advice for another, because the principles remain the same, but the way you apply those principles are completely different, based on which end of the pendulum you swing on.

Alan: 10:08

If you're a righty, you need to practice with your left. If you're lefty, you need to practice with your right, and so you're either good at success and achievement or you're good at relationships. Very few people are good at both and, unfortunately, to be successful, you need to also be good at relationships, and if you're in relationships and have a wonderful family life and you're holistic and emotionally intelligent, you also need some hard skills in the in the 21st century economy, and so I try really hard to help people become ambidextrous, and tony robbins ted talk is, I think, the way to do that. This understanding of who you are first and that's really what it was. That was the awakening to me is personal development needs to be where you start. That way, the external success is a byproduct of who you actually are, not who you want to want to be or who you think you should be based on your upbringing okay, it's a, it's um.

Nico: 11:05

It's a very unique way of looking um at the world from from from my perspective as well, what you're saying here and, like you say, it's a it's. Not. Everybody looks at the world that way and I understand what you mean because I work with a lot of engineers. I used to be in IT for 15 years and I ended my highest diploma as high school and I went into the working force and at some point I have no idea how this works, but I always ended up in a leadership role, so people management was a natural given.

Nico: 11:44

On the other hand, I have a very good friend that works online and it's a system that never failed me up to this point where there's a new friend of mine, and the first friend was Google. So I was in the technical area and I had a lot of things that I had to solve. So what did I do? I found information online on how to fix stuff and I was very good at it to find stuff, to fix stuff and then explain it to other people in a human way. And then now, with ChatGPT and all the AI stuff, I have another way of finding stuff and using it as a good tool to fix people's issues, and I see where you're talking about the pendulum. I think I'm trying to go to the middle with the tools that I find.

Alan: 12:35

Yay.

Nico: 12:37

So I kind of love how you look at these things, and one of the things I wanted to mention is is I, I also listen to you, to the podcast you know, uh, your podcast with, together with kevin and um, I know it's. It's it's always so different how you two talk, um, because you do, man, you know, mentioned a lot of statistics and numbers and so on, and it's a beautiful dynamic between you two guys, because Kevin is very on the emotional side and speaks from the heart. You can hear that clearly. You also speak from the heart. I think I heard one of the last episodes was pretty emotional for you and I was like, wow, these guys are.

Nico: 13:17

You know you fill the balance in the whole story together, together, and that's something that in a relationship and that can be, you know, bros amongst bros or girls amongst girls, whatever or sisters amongst sisters let's keep it in the same trend or husband and wife, or you know partner partners together. There should be some kind of symbiosis in understanding what's going on and I find it very interesting to know how. So I think you Did. You already meet your current partner at the time when you had the accident.

Alan: 13:55

No, no, no, no, no. As a matter of fact, emilia is the greatest gift of my life. She I say that because Kev will ask me on the podcast and thank you for all those kind words about the show. I really appreciate it because I do think that's. The value of the show is there's we had, we had. We didn't know this at the time, but seven years ago, kevin and I had common core aspirations, we had common core values and we also had a common core wound. We both didn't have fathers, we both had low self-worth, we both were definitely exposed to toxic masculinity from a very young age, and so we, we didn't want to be toxic. We, I want to be truthful and I I think that being hardcore and truthful is different than being toxic, and I think it's an energy thing. And I'm grateful that you feel like I speak from the heart, because I think a lot of people would maybe disagree with that, since I'm a computer engineer I don't know, maybe I've just evolved, but ultimately, I think the value of the show, but really the lesson underneath this, is what we call drive to five. You share your perspective. I share my perspective. I share why I see things the way I see them, you share why you see things the way you see them. And if we want to see the 360 degrees of this phone, I can only see the front, you can only see the back. And if you share what you see and I share what I see now we all see better, and when you see better, you have an opportunity to make better choices. And I think you know I worked in engineering, I worked in global product management, I worked in QA, I was, I was on the road, I was inside sales, I did all the different.

Alan: 15:30

I was also a global product manager for a company called iRobot and another company called Sensata Technologies. And I often joke, if anyone's in product management, you have all the responsibility and none of the authority. So you basically have to kind of keep chameleon your way. I, you know, talk to manufacturing in Mexico and I talked to QA, and you talk to the marketing department and the branding, and then you've got the sales team and then you also have to, like, talk to the engineers, and so I was always this massive chameleon transcoder and I realized later on that that was actually.

Alan: 15:59

I kind of lost myself. It's cool to be ambidextrous. It's cool to be able to speak all those languages, so to speak. They're all in english in this case, but metaphorically. But I lost myself. I was everything for everyone and nothing for me. And so now I try really hard to sort of plant my flag, so to speak, on who I am and then and then still expand who I am, and by by learning from other people.

Alan: 16:24

And another thing that I'll share as well is when you do ask other people questions, if they are on the whole scarcity mindset of dominance hierarchies, a lot of times you leave looking like the student. That took me a long time to realize, because ultimately it's the student who becomes the master, and I've always been a curious student. But what I realize now is that when I leave a room having asked all the questions, yeah, I leave smarter, but everyone in that room thinks that other person is ahead of me. That was really hard for me to overcome in my 30s in particular, because I would realize I'd far surpassed many of my coaches and mentors in many regards just holistic development. And I'd realize later on why isn't this working? I don't get it. And now I understand that I'm very unique in the massive curiosity, like I want to learn more from you than you want to learn from me on your show. You're here to interview me and I'm going to ask you questions.

Alan: 17:20

I have to like, shut some of that down to ever be seen as an authority, because a lot of people who are aware of this will fall for that dominance hierarchy stuff. So I don't know if I answered any questions there, but that's what came up for me.

Nico: 17:35

Yeah, but this is good stuff. It's good stuff, yeah.

Alan: 17:38

I think it's it's.

Nico: 17:41

There's always a kind of dynamic in an organization where what you're saying, you're kind of the middleman somewhere and in some parts of the organization you're one kind of middleman and the other part you're not a kind of middleman, and there's either people that are on the floor doing the nitty gritty, turning the keys and stuff like that, and then you have people that, out of a natural position or a natural attitude, become the more dominant because they are maybe a little bit stronger in their energy or in their understanding of the environment or all the pieces that fix together.

Nico: 18:19

Because if you're, I understand that and that this is coming from from 25 years of enjoying the company of all kinds of people is that from an engineering point of perspective, you see all the blocks in the environment fit together and where they don't fit you fix, you know.

Nico: 18:38

And then the other side, when you have leadership, they see all the numbers of turnover and finances and stuff and they see an error, they see a loss and they fix. I look around in an environment and I see leaders that I see who are managing great, and I met somebody yesterday who's a great leader but he's not always like a persona non grata sometimes because he's very direct, and sometimes he's very direct because he has a reason for it and he gets stuff done and some people understand and other people don't. And then he comes to me and he asks what am I doing wrong? And you're not doing anything wrong. You're just taking on a lot of personality that other people are not used to try to. You know, change your perspective and step into their shoes and have the conversations from their point of view in your head before you actually talk to them and I I give them these kind of other. That's how I fix what I see.

Alan: 19:36

But don't lose yourself in the process, yeah.

Nico: 19:39

That's right.

Alan: 19:40

So what's the difference between? So there's four trauma responses. There's fight, flight, freeze and fawn. What's the difference between fawning to try to appease someone else and their insecurity versus being a great leader? That's because and we can talk leadership all day there's six leadership styles and again, there's a lot of different modalities of leadership. So the six that I use are you've got transactional leader, you've got. Servant leader, you've got dictator, assertive leader, you've got. So I playfully joke on our team. We have a 23-person team. We've got three chief officers me, kevin and Christina and I call us the three cowards Because no one ever wants to be the bad guy, you know.

Alan: 20:26

So I'm bad cop. It sucks, it really kind of sucks, but it is what it is right be. There has to be someone who's like listen, if we keep this up, we're going to go out of business. So yeah so anyways.

Alan: 20:36

So there's servant leader, there's participatory leader, there's transactional leader, there's assertive leader, there's transformational leader and there's one more delegative. Delegative leader, kevin, is more participatory, transactional and and servant leader, christina is all servant leader. She's just does, does things for everyone, does everything for everyone. She's amazing and for me I'm trying really hard to be a transformational leader and the only way to be a transformational leader is to deploy the proper leadership style with the proper person at the proper time, in the proper amount, like so the whole aristotle thing of we'll do the right thing. Thank you so much for that breakthrough insight. Who can do the right thing at the right time, in the right way, for the right reason, with the right people in the right amount? And the truth is right, what does that even mean optimal? Optimal is what you're going for and optimal change is based on context, based on circumstances, based on the individuals, based on the goal. It's like, how do you even know you're effective? What does that even mean? If you're not reverse engineering a goal? You don't know if something's effective or not right. So yeah, these things are very it's very challenging to people always say, well, how did you guys do it? And it's so hard to answer that question? Because the analogy you can use is chess. How did you get good at chess? You just lost at chess more than everyone else and then re-figured out why you lost and then played better next time and then you elevated who you played over time. If you want to be better at chess, you can't just play beginners, but you can't only play grandmasters either. So you kind of have to incrementally level up over time. And a lot of that is emotional, because deep down, if you feel not good enough, you're most likely going to quit early. If you feel like you're amazing, you're not going to have the humility to learn. And so we're all kind of on these pendulums and we have to figure out where we're at, and it really is I. And we have to figure out where we're at and it really is. I get it, I do. Most people don't achieve their goals and dreams. Most people are not fulfilled. Most people do end up divorced. Most people do end up failing in business. I understand why I do. It's really complex and it's simple. Everything's a duality. You have to make life simple.

Alan: 22:48

There's 5.33 billion people on the internet. That's increasing every day. We just surpassed 8 billion human beings on the planet. There's 195 countries. There's 3.3 million podcasts, even though most of them aren't even in progress.

Alan: 23:02

I get it, I do, and there's so much information out there. You say, well, you find the answer. Yeah, but how long did it take to find the right answer? And, by the way, how much? There's 130 million books. Most of them are garbage. In my opinion, they're just inaccurate.

Alan: 23:18

We all reason by metaphor, simile and analogy when you've got to go to first principles, and first principles are boring, super boring. I don't talk about people, places and things. That's what everyone wants to talk about, because there's all the drama. I just want to talk about ideas. All the time. I have my five favorite books. I was telling a client yesterday I said these books aren't my favorite because of the author. Some of these authors I don't even like. I just I just love the ideas. The ideas are really powerful and so. But ideas are boring, right, ideas are boring, so I get it, and so even Kevin and I, we have to sort of entertain while we inject ideas. Ultimately, the boring stuff is the most valuable. Remember that, if I can give you one thing on this episode, the most boring stuff is by far the most valuable.

Nico: 23:59

Oh, I don't know. Yeah, no, not 100%, 200% or 300%. Agree, this is double triple. It's the same thing with compounding. It's. So, yeah, I'm going to use the F word. It's. So, yeah, I'm gonna use the f word so fucking boring and it is something that nobody likes, but you have to do it to move forward.

Nico: 24:22

I've been looking at um, so I'm pretty open on on what I do with my podcast. So this is, this is my go-to marketing tool the show, who I am and what I do. And one of the things is that at the beginning I was like, okay, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do solos. No, I don't know what I need to talk about. So, all these things go through your mind and I'm going to produce, produce, produce, produce.

Nico: 24:47

And then I started talking to people. Okay, who's going to be the person that I'm going to talk to? Oh, I need to talk to CEOs, because they are my target audience and I love working with that level of people high achievers because basically and really simply because they know how to take action. They have proven that they take action, like yourself. And then you go on and on and on, and then at some point, I'm like, how many episodes do I need to hit to be, you know, out there? And then suddenly I start reading up on how the podcasting world is is evolving and how it is. And then, um, yeah, we met on pod match. So, uh, reading the the, they have this, this wonderful monthly or quarterly report that they make pod matchesmatch is awesome.

Nico: 25:32

Yeah, and one of the things in there is like only X amount of podcast go past episode 21. That should be easy. It's not, by the way, but anyway, the first 10 are like.

Alan: 25:50

You find a couple of people. Yeah, everything's harder than you think.

Nico: 25:55

Every you go further it's harder than it, but you learn. You learn every time, and that's the compounding effect, because you have to. Like you said, how can you become better at chess is by doing it, doing it, doing it, doing not winning. Actually losing is the better way, and failing is the better way. Now, there's one little caveat there If you lose a lot, you lose your business, so don't go the extreme side of losing all the time.

Alan: 26:23

I almost did Kevin. I argue he's like brother. Some people need more Ws. They can't just fail forward forever. I say that's fair, because if you have low self-belief you actually need to win. Yeah, yeah, you need, you need quick wins. So a lot of people who have high self-belief, they can just fail until they succeed I would put myself in that category. But some people fail three times in a row and say this isn't for me. And the truth is, maybe it's not right, not everyone's going to be lebron james, but but the truth is you might just need to stick with it longer. Yeah, nothing's, nothing's supposed to come easy. I don't feel like even even now. Here's the thing. Right, I'll share this.

Alan: 27:05

I was coaching a man. I went to college with him. He was he lived in the uh apartment downstairs from me a big tech school Not big tech school, it's a famous tech school Worcester Polytechnic Institute. It's an engineering school. The undergrad engineering programs there are unreal. I mean, it was so difficult. It was so difficult, so one of the hardest things I've ever done. Quite frankly, it's kind of like a mini MIT is the best way to think of it. And we got together years later and I knew him in college so he knew a very different version of me. But he came to one of my not seminars. We do next level live. It's a live event we do every year for our company and he came to one of them and I ended up coaching him because he was starting a business and he spent a lot of time in pharmaceutical and he wanted to create an app to help with clinical trials. He spent a lot of time in pharmaceutical and he wanted to create an app to help with clinical trials. It was really quite awesome and I had this really visceral moment that was super hard for me. He said Alan, ever since college, you've always been a really good communicator, and first of all, I think, to engineers. Yeah, I used to think I was a really strong communicator. No-transcript impact points of effective communication. It's actually hilarious because I gave a training on it once and only I could bomb a speech on effective communication. Kev was there. It was brutal. It was brutal. I thought they were going to be interested. They weren't. It was a group of teachers, but whatever, it doesn't matter. The point is is that I had this real visceral moment of you.

Alan: 29:27

You have to find your strength zone. You have a genius zone, strength zone, whatever it is. You have to figure out what you're good at right. So for me, bodybuilding I adore, but I'm not good at it. I don't build muscle quickly. Kevin is he jokes, he calls himself a meatball, he's short and he's jacked and he builds muscle way quicker than I do. I'm an ectomorph. I flags, I'm going to always crush him and running he's always going to beat me in bodybuilding. So that's okay.

Alan: 29:52

But it's this weird thing where you have to find your strength zone and when you do, it will feel easier in comparison to the things that are hard. But you also have to know that when you're in your strength zone, you're also competing against the top 1%, who are all in their strength zone too. When you get to the NBA, it's not easier. No, it's not, it's actually harder. And I think the world's biggest lie in my honest opinion unless you're full of it and completely smoking mirrors and lying through your teeth which some people are, by the way the biggest lie is that success makes life easier. I do not agree with that at all. I think it makes certain things easier, but overall I have a 23-person team now. We are way more successful than we were in the beginning, and I'm telling you right now my life is not easier.

Alan: 30:45

It's 4th of July weekend this weekend and I'm trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to go to the lake for the weekend and not work the whole time. And so this whole CEO entrepreneur thing that has gotten really, maybe, sexy in the 21st century. It's really, really important to check in with self again and ask yourself, like, if you need certainty, you should not be an entrepreneur, you shouldn't. The amount of uncertainty that you have to handle on a daily basis emotionally, mentally, spiritually is wild, unless you're going to lie through your teeth and sell a course quick, easy steps to get fit blah, blah, blah and a lot of people are doing that, right, and then, by the way, they show them on their yacht that they bought with the course that they you know we grinded for a decade behind the scenes and then did the quick three steps for you to do it.

Alan: 31:36

To like that kind of stuff, hoodwinking people, that is a thing. Basically, what they're doing there is leveraging status and perception and envy to sell things that don't really work to people that they created in 10 years. They they try to convince you you can do it in three months, which is just wrong. It's not real. A lot of that is just smoke and mirrors, and you'll learn that the hard way if you buy these $10,000 courses. Well, it didn't work for me. Oh well, you know you didn't work hard enough.

Alan: 32:04

Well the truth is, I don't care how many life hacks you have, you're not going to have ripped eight-pack abs and run a marathon without consistently exercising right, so for a decade? Um so at the end of the day, everything's harder than you think. Everything podcasting, kevin and I we we've done 1700 episodes, and you know that when we say that to other people who aren't podcasters, it's nothing, there's no reaction, there's no oh cool, like what does that even mean? When I say it to a podcaster, they go. You did what.

Nico: 32:43

That was my first reaction with Kevin as well.

Alan: 32:46

And then they're like well, what are they all? Shorts, like three minutes? No, no, our average is 25 minutes per episode. They're like are you what you do one a day? See that you don't understand what these things are until you've experienced them. Most people don't you know. I was talking to someone at netflix and disney recently and they having me on their their show and they're great. I'm a big fan, because usually people like that I struggle with because they have huge egos. They didn't have egos at all. It was great. But people don't understand the difficulty of that. But they also think it's more than it is. So like, if you've never—so, my roommate works at Apple, my roommate in college, blah, blah, blah. There's some people who think people who work at Apple are way smarter than they really are. And then there's other people who think working at Apple is no problem and it it means nothing and all of us are just inaccurate. Just cause I work at Apple does not mean I'm a genius, seriously.

Nico: 33:49

Whoa.

Alan: 33:50

Okay, but, but it does mean something right. And seriously, whoa, okay, but, but it does mean something right. And so I think accurate thinking is the only way any of us can make effective choices. And, unfortunately, you only think accurately when you're a constant student, which requires you to lower your status in the short term in order to build something real in the long term.

Nico: 34:12

Yeah, I see where this comes from and where it's going because I'm trying to describe what I want to relate it to, but this is textbook CEO disease. I don't know if you know the terminology of CEO disease, which is a leader who is either high in ego, thinks he knows everything, doesn't ask any questions, defines strategy but does not look at where the company is or what the possibilities are. It just does whatever he wants big ego and stuff like that. That's one part of CEO disease, and the other part is, for instance, the guy with the veil, where he gets information that is really ticked off to the point where everything is nice, green and nothing of the actual issues comes up towards him and he doesn't ask any questions about it because he takes his asset, face value, in this case, veil value, and then there's a couple of other ones. But it's something that a lot of um, apparently a lot of ceos struggle with, because they've gone through the ranks and they come to a point where they're going to say I have now got the power to do something about it, while they do not, because everybody thinks like a ceo is, you know, you're a ceo as well.

Nico: 35:41

You probably have to answer to a lot of people before you take a decision, and that's where you know the image there is this is the top guy who decides everything where I'm like, sorry, I'm gonna break this decision. This, this image completely, this is is the top guy who decides everything where I'm like, sorry, I'm going to break this decision. This, this image completely. This is not the top guy. This is one of the other people that makes decisions. It's not the top guy. When you come down to a founder, that's a completely different story. I call it founderitis, which is also a disease. I'm not giving a very positive view, but anyway, no, that's okay giving the extremes.

Nico: 36:16

I'm talking really about the extremes where founder it is, is something where a founder comes to a point where the company and you're saying the 23 team, 23 size team, when you come to a point as a founder, you cannot let go of the the things that you used to do yeah, that's hard, you know, still pulling cannot let go of the things that you used to do.

Alan: 36:33

Yeah, that's hard. Still pulling the strings and taking the decision, so I've had to overcome both of those.

Nico: 36:39

That's amazing. I'm a founder. Congratulations if you did. Thank you.

Alan: 36:42

Thank you. It's been really hard. I still have to, consistently, though that's the thing, is the humility piece I think is the most important character trait for any leader. Absolutely yeah. Humility, Not self-deprecating.

Nico: 36:57

Not honesty. No, no, no, no. Just two ears, one mouth.

Alan: 37:01

Yeah, exactly Continue with what you were saying, though, but yeah, I've never heard those. But the CEO? I'm driving with my ego. I'm going to make decisions even though I don't really know the data, and or I'm not getting the real data because everyone's secretly afraid of me, yeah, right. And then the founderitis, which is I need to do this myself because that's where we started, versus the realization that you're actually the bottleneck to the company because your calendar can't stretch anymore.

Nico: 37:33

Yeah, indeed, I'm going to try to write a book about it, give up the symptoms and make it a little bit clearer for a lot of people, because these two roles and when it comes down to entrepreneurship, you end up somewhere between these two. It's kind of an entrepreneur could go either way, you know. Yeah, but these, true, these two people persons are, are are the ones that are not feeling fulfilled, because they've struggled the whole time with the environment and people don't listen to them. That's, that's their point of view. They don't listen to them, they don't take the actions they want. You know, they feel alone, uh, and and and all of that chisel. And then I was thinking where I was going with this. That's not good.

Alan: 38:20

No, it's okay, I appreciate you owning it.

Nico: 38:22

Yeah, well, it's something that I wanted to go towards, but I think what you mentioned earlier on all these balances that you have to find between how humiliate you I hold not humiliated, but humiliated help me here yeah, humility, is that. How humble yeah, humble, wow, I could not find the word. This is. This is going to be a very nice piece of the podcast.

Alan: 38:52

we're not perfect here, it's all good.

Nico: 38:54

Yeah, well, that's the story. So the humbleness. But don't become the lamb of the herd. You have to be kind of a wolf in sheep's skin, but also a sheep in wolf's skin. You know, it's kind of the two where you end up in those two stories and then you listen to everybody. And that's one of the first thing I try to make clear, and I do not say this literally to my clients. They're probably going to listen, hear it right now, but you really, like I said earlier, you got two ears and one mouth. Use these two more than that one, because that's the power.

Nico: 39:31

And another power, and um, it is, it is the, the power of silence. And now everybody's looking at their, their, their mobile thing. Is this off? Is something going on? No, the power of silence, you heard this, this is, you did not hear anything. But the power of silence can, can change an environment completely. The, the energy, can shift so hard in a, in a boardroom, in a conversation, wherever. I love to use those, those two things listen more than you talk, and pure silence. And that's where I find the balance of am I dominating or am I being submissive? Because with the silence you're dominating. It's kind of contradictive. But you're dominating. You're not saying anything anymore. You're really actually saying, you're dominating the gears. You're not saying anything anymore. You're really actually saying okay, we landed now let's go forward.

Alan: 40:29

This gets very complex in leadership, though, because dominating on the micro or in the macro, this is macro, I think more.

Alan: 40:39

Yes, the thing is is the person who's listening and learning is always winning in the long term, but it's the person who's talking who is perceived in the short term as the leader, and that's all unconscious. I think a lot of leadership is unconscious. So, for example, what's a good example of this? When you watch a TV show and you resonate with a character, you start saying things they say, you start mimicking and mirroring them. So house md is one of my favorite shows ever of all time. But house he's. He can be a real and I agree with his rationality. Rationality he's. He's hyper focused on rational thought. He doesn't like irrationality, and the show is magnificent, the character development. I mean, those writers are geniuses, seriously.

Alan: 41:29

But I have to be careful watching that show too much, because I'll become more of a dictator leader rather than a uh, transformational leader, and so the the question here becomes and and you mentioned the two things CEO-itis and founder-itis and all these I feel alone. People don't listen to me, all that stuff. The hard truth is you're just a poor leader, and it's a duality though. So Christina, kevin and I, this was really hard for me. One of my deepest fears is sounding arrogant, but I also I think I'm more afraid to to not be truthful. I want to be authentic and transparent more than I'm afraid to be arrogant or seen as arrogant. I don't actually think I'm arrogant, weird, but I'm. I'm often seen as arrogant. The truth is that I'm a stronger leader than Kevin and Christina. Now, what does that even mean? Okay, I've tried to throw and you guys know Kev, because Kev was the last episode and maybe you have reference to Kev.

Alan: 42:39

Kev is much better than me at a lot of things. He's warmer. He's way more relatable. He's much more likable. He's more empathetic things. He's warmer. He's way more relatable. He's much more likable. He's more empathetic. He he's good at vulnerability. He is energetically safe. He's a psychologically safe space for people. He's not super intimidating. He's a down-to-earth, awesome human being. Now, I am a lot of those things, but that's not what jumps off the page about me. So Kevin and I both give a speech. He's afraid he's not going to add value. I'm afraid everyone's going to hate me. I'm certain I'll add value. We're going to be fine. I'll get you thinking differently. I'll get you going. But you are going to probably hate me Not you, but like if you said, alan, you have to give a speech in front of a thousand people and you have to add value, I'd be like yes, I'm your guy, let's do it. If you said they all have to like you, I would say that is literally impossible. That feels impossible to me you got one here.

Nico: 43:33

Yeah, I got one nice.

Alan: 43:35

So is it a audience of engineers? No, so, kev, if you said you got to give a speech, you got to get them laughing and you got to get them to resonate, and like you, he'd'd be like, oh, no problem. But if you gave him a speak into the lives of a thousand CEOs and you said you have to help them improve their business, he would be like, no effing chance. No, way, not my audience. So we have different fears and we're cowards in different ways. I'll say cowardly in different ways. So for me, I am concerned about sounding arrogant. I'm concerned to hurt people's feelings. I'm very easily unlikable. I'm not easily relatable. I don't struggle with self-doubt a ton, and people do know that. You can sense it. Kev is super relatable, super likable. So it's we found over these years and years and years working together. I'm kind of jealous of how everyone loves Kev and he's kind of jealous about how I'm always seen as the guy who, like, has the answers, and obviously there's nuances in between. But for everyone out there listening to bring this to you, the truth is, if you feel alone and you feel like you're struggling and you feel unfulfilled and you feel like no one's listening to you and all that kind of stuff, you might just not be a very strong leader and the truth is you might have to lead by not leading. You might have to own it. Just own it.

Alan: 44:56

Kev and I have had to own who we are. I wanted him to be the guy. He wanted to be the guy. He was afraid not to be the guy. I was not to be the guy. I was afraid to be the guy because his his wife taryn. She's been with us for six years now. They met six years ago and she's like well, why is he ceo? Not from a tacky place, but from an actual curious place. And kev said I just he's, he's the ceo, he he is, it's who he is. He's the structure, discipline, visionary, self-belief, metrics guy. And Kev trying to be like me and me trying to be like Kev just didn't work. It didn't work Now. It doesn't mean we can't be well-rounded.

Nico: 45:41

No, that's not the point, that's not the point.

Alan: 45:43

I still need to learn from Kev. I still need to you know.

Nico: 45:48

It works both ways.

Alan: 45:50

Yeah, I have to. I'm sharp around the edges. I have to work on myself. You can't.

Alan: 45:55

But here's the difference. If you're a natural-born leader, you know it. Because you're scared of it, it is our greatness, not our darkness, that most frightens us. If it is our greatness, not our darkness, that most frightens us, if that quote resonates you are afraid of success. You're not afraid of failure. I'm not afraid of failure, not at all. That's so triggering for someone who's afraid of failure. By the way. Okay, I'm sorry if I triggered anyone. You might be afraid of failure. I get it honestly. I'm not afraid of failure, I'm afraid of shining.

Alan: 46:26

Now, here's why when you shine and you trigger everyone else's insecurities, they lash out. So a lot of us have these two different core wounds. One of them is defective, which means you feel not good enough, you feel not smart enough, you feel not capable enough. I don't have that very much. I think we all have both, but a much smaller percentage of me has that. Okay. So maybe 1% of me has that probably not even, to be honest, okay. The other one is I'm unlovable, I'm unlikable. Who I am is too much for people. My intensity is going to trigger everybody who I am, and what I am is going to trigger everyone else's insecurities. So here's the problem the unlovables, who are super competent, who behind the scenes are rock stars, who believe in themselves a ton. In social situations, they're very low self-worth and they trigger everyone. But the defectives trigger the unlovable because they're so insecure that we can't be honest with you and just say, hey, you kind of suck as a leader, honestly. What if it's true? What if you're just not a strong leader? You need to know that so that you don't try to be ceo and fail forever. It's very important that everyone understands your strengths and weaknesses. Yes, you can mitigate your weaknesses, but if you build a career on something you're weak at, you are in so much trouble you're not going to be fulfilled. You're certainly not going to be successful. You're going to think something's wrong with you or the world for the rest of your life. You're certainly not going to be successful. You're going to think something's wrong with you or the world for the rest of your life.

Alan: 47:47

Christina is a massive amazing. She's the best support player in the game. She's the most supportive team member on planet Earth. She's on the bench, ready for any time. Anyone's injured that is who she is. She'll do more for others than she'll ever do for herself, and that's great. But as a CEO she would be in serious trouble because she'd end up a martyr. She'd burn herself to the ground and the company to the ground, trying to save everybody. And I've almost done that too.

Alan: 48:25

And Kev is really good with starting things. He has started most of the departments in our company, but he cannot scale it. He can't sustain it and scale it to save his damn life. That dude will run a system every day and he will never improve it. It's, I said, our company have been me being like can this button? I basically have to poke him and say, dude, like that's branding from three years ago, Can you update your profile picture please? And so we're all supposed to be ourselves.

Alan: 48:55

And, unfortunately, the most courageous thing you can do is to own your weaknesses, own your strengths, own all of what you are, because every weakness has a strength and every strength has a weakness of what you are. Because every weakness has a strength and every strength has a weakness, and you're just deeply insecure about who you really are. Half of us don't even want to share what our favorite movie is, because we were made fun of when we did. My favorite movie is the lion king. You think I'm not afraid to share that. You know how many dudes are like the lion king.

Alan: 49:18

Great movie, thank you. It's a great thing really. So we in high school we all got picked on anytime we showed even a fraction of who we really are, and I think I'm a back to the future guy Okay nice, all right, okay cool.

Alan: 49:31

So if I disagree, now I lash out. It's this whole thing. The point is we've all been bullied, we've all been ridiculed for who we really are. And it's when it's who we really are we're so afraid, like Kev's afraid to be found out. Like he was working at a gas station, didn't go to college. You know he was not seen as intelligent or reputable. He didn't have a resume cover letter. He struggles.

Alan: 49:55

He was on a podcast with a NASA doctor this is a space doctor and he told me about it. He's like dude, I struggled so much. I was interviewed by someone who was a doctor in space and I didn't even go to college and I'm sitting there going. That's awesome man, I'm proud of you. But I'm sitting there going. I would be interviewed by that, no problem, as arrogant as that sounds, I might even be afraid to trigger that doctor by my self-belief. And so again, some of us, good at success, not great at relationships, other people and those are the unlovables of the world. You feel unlovable or unlikable. And then other people, not good at success, not super competent. Things don't come naturally to you in terms of achievement, but you're really good with people and you're relatable and likable and vulnerable and empathetic and we all have to work on both but really own who we are, and that's a hell of a duality.

Nico: 50:47

That's beautiful. That's beautiful. I don't know where you get the idea that you're unlikable. Honestly, this has been an amazing conversation. I think we could go on for hours on all these topics because we resonate on so many things, and I want to add one thing that I really wanted to tell you and that is out of the conversation from Kevin and his story.

Nico: 51:15

I want to thank you for what you did for that guy. You know, the night he was in that motel room, you, you talk to him and you, you know, broke through to his his dark side to make the light shine again, and that's amazing. I want to thank you for that. And it's completely contradictory to what you're saying about being a purely engineering-minded person, where that might be something that might scare some people or might give them an idea of no, I'm not going to talk to that guy. It gives a clear view of how your way of being can help somebody who is in a desperate place, and that is more than worth just my gratitude. That's just more and more worth than that, and it's something that I have noticed that you need to find people that contradict everything that you feel that you want to have. You need the. You know, I love looking at it as dark side and light side, because you need the dark side to understand what the light can bring you. And one of the things that I've heard and I love that quote is you light a candle in the darkness and the light will shine brightly, the darkness will go away, and that's something I think that's something that you did for him.

Nico: 52:43

So I want to thank you for that and I want to thank you that, and I want to thank you, alan, for for bringing us all this wisdom from your point of view. You guys balance out each other so beautifully. I I'm gonna kind of switch in my my I think I'm gonna switch in my uh scheduling and I'm gonna, you know, put you guys not too far apart, because I think it's very interesting to see how I talk to kevin and talk to you on all these topics, because it's so amazing and now I get it how you guys got to 1700 episodes. Really, it's, um, it's not only tenacity and and grit and all that beautiful and entrepreneur stuff or leadership stuff. No, this is just a combination of you two guys, and then the added uh, third, third, amazing person that I haven't spoken to yet maybe not yet I don't know christina christina, indeed yeah, she.

Alan: 53:40

She said to me recently. She said I know one day I'm gonna have to go on these shows and I don't want to. So it's funny how it happens not long after that. But she's I mean talk about empowered female minority she's Filipino, she is awesome and she's the obvious choice. And you want to know why? When we had someone move on who was the previous COo, she was the obvious next. I mean obvious. To me it's like, yeah, christina, hands down. Kev was like yep, green light, let's go. And she was like honestly, I don't know if I'm qualified.

Alan: 54:17

That's why it needs to be you yeah that's exactly why, because if you came in like the other person saying I, I'm the obvious choice and all that, you don't have the humility to last and so she's been the best decision. I mean, that has been the best decision and so thank you so much. I really appreciate it, I think. Thank you for having me, thank you for letting me share my perspective, thank you for thanking me about the Kev stuff, and the truth be told, is the common wound that we both share of not having dads and really wanting to do this whole male role model thing differently, I think has been a through line throughout that we didn't realize were.

Alan: 54:54

Maybe it started out as some trauma bonding Right and it's become so much more than that and so it's been awesome and I'm really grateful, and it's been challenging in ways I couldn't have anticipated, and I'm really grateful and it's been challenging in ways I couldn't have anticipated, and I think the success side and the overwhelm of the logistics is hardest for him. For me it's the hard stuff that's always been the hardest, but we've definitely both benefited tremendously from each other's strengths and weaknesses and from being the last thing I'll share with everybody. I'm big on frameworks and the engineering mind always has triads and pyramids and all stuff, but my mental framework that I think will change everyone's life is is a simple triad. I call it the triad of transformation and I use the analogy. I took a fire protection course back in my engineering school and you need oxygen, heat and fuel to create fire, and I think fire is a great metaphor for transformation. Phoenix burned down rise anew.

Alan: 55:48

And so humility, courage and vulnerability. I think humility, courage and vulnerability is the triad of transformation. I don't think real transformation can happen without those three. Even you mentioning some of the challenges that your wife went through with her dark time and you being there for her, I know that she rose anew from that and a lot of these CEOs and people that are really successful millionaires, billionaires that I've met mentors, coaches I've had dozens Some of them are successful through smoke and mirrors and not real courage, humility and vulnerability Like why is it that you are so 10 out of 10 confident but yet you've never exercised?

Alan: 56:31

Why is it that you are so 10 out of 10 confident but yet your wife divorced you because you seem to never listen to her at all? You want to know the truth about a great leader? Ask their wife or their husband. Me saying I'm great means nothing.

Alan: 56:47

Kevin saying it, emilia saying it, the closest people to me, my team, my team has 23 people and the majority of them are amazing women. There's no way they would be on my team if I was toxic, and so I look at stuff like that because it's easy to smoke in mirrors and show up on a podcast and be buttoned up, but I think intuitively, people can tell when you're a good, virtuous person who wants to see positive impact in leadership versus manipulative. And so my goal is to be the role male role model, the best male role model I can and I'm only 35 and I got a lot to learn and it's been brutal, quite frankly, but it's been super meaningful and it's it's been very fulfilling. I'm very fulfilled. My life's really hard but it's really fulfilling and I hope that for everybody. Yeah.

Nico: 57:40

Thank you, wow, again, again, absolutely, alan. This is amazing stuff and I hope that the listeners really find a couple of triggers in what you were saying to them in our conversation. So thank you again very much. I think we went a little bit over time on our schedule here.

Alan: 58:03

That was my fault. I think I'm in trouble. Hold on, I think I gotta go.

Nico: 58:11

But I think it's well worth it to have this conversation with you and I would love to invite you in the future again when the time arises, on the show. So I also want to thank the listeners to again listen to our podcast and remind you to jump from head to heart and feel the beat within. Have a good one, everybody. Bye-bye.

Alan: 58:39

Wow. That was amazing, dude, that was magnificent. Thank you so much. I'm not going to keep you too long. I think you were. You got your alarm going off. So yeah, dude, that was amazing, thank you so much.

Nico: 58:45

I'm not going to keep you too long. I think you got your alarm going off, so probably. I just wanted to ask you one question, if you are still okay for one more minute, yeah, could you? I want to ask you, joe I'm going to spotlight you for a second here Just if you could tell somebody who might listen to you in the future about how you experienced the podcast. Um, you know, just give him, give him the 5.0 on on the the experience you my experience coming on this show yeah awesome.

Alan: 59:21

Yeah, I I you were breaking up so I didn't hear you oh, sorry, let sorry. Let's do it, absolutely Okay.

Nico: 59:27

So go right ahead, thank you.

Alan: 59:29

All right, nico had me on and I adore the concept of fulfillment. I think that when we understand ourselves at the deepest level and we get some of the mud out of our glass, I think we all become more fulfilled and then we can hopefully build a life of success on top of that. I had a great experience today. Nico created a very safe and playful space where it wasn't any ego bonking or trying to get energetic dominant high ground. It was a healthy, positive, authentic, vulnerable conversation about the real struggles that ceos and founders have, and I enjoy every second of it, to the point where I actually my alarm went off and I have to go.

Nico: 1:00:12

so, yeah, it's been awesome, thank you so much thank you very much for that, alan. I'll leave you too, and I will send you some more info once we get launched, so I'll look at my schedule and how that's.